On a bright and sunny Saturday, in fact on our nation’s Republic Day, we head to the EWS quarters at Ejipura which’ve been recently demolished. From the main road, we see walls of rubble and not knowing where to go, we call one of the volunteers there.

“Come to the church next to the big tree,” she tells us as we tip-toe around garbage mounds and broken footpath slabs.

As we enter past the yellow barricades, we see flattened land all around us. What was once a teeming slum with hundreds of homes was now just a level ground of mud, bricks and an occasional forgotten belonging. There were small children playing with plastic bags and empty water bottles.
The big tree was easy to spot – it was the only standing structure apart from the small church that cowered under it.

On our left were new concrete pipes a few feet in length and large enough to have a man standing inside them. Some of the families had made these pipes their new home – shelter was redefined.

We reach the tree and the volunteer turn out was meagre. One of the coordinators hands out a form to us and asks us to collect information about the remaining families in the premises. This information would then be used to better mobilise resources and to figure out an action plan for the families. While we are going through this form and understanding the work involved, the children have gathered around us. They are eager to show what they’ve been learning at the local school nearby. A school they no longer go to. They sing nursery rhymes – Johnny Johnny Yes Papa evokes much laughter.

A van with the caption “Jesus in Ministry of Lord” on its windscreen comes right opposite the church and stops. Furtively, a man, who represented Maverick Holdings (owners of Garuda malls), packs off a family from one of the pipes into the van. The van quickly starts moving towards the exit.
We rush towards the van to prevent this forced eviction. The compensation of Rs. 5000 per family was reduced to Rs. 2000 by this man. When questioned, he refused to give more. We blocked the van’s exit by sitting in front of it. This got the cops riled up and within minutes many more police personnel reach the venue.

“I will have you arrested in contempt of court,” the police head tells us, caressing his walkie-talkie as he spoke. He then looks at the German volunteer who was protesting with us and says, “We will confiscate your passport.” The German makes a gesture with his hands and this makes the cop go ballistic. He looks at me and screams that he will confiscate my passport too and that he would file cases against all of us. He then gets his mobile phone out, peers into it under the blazing sun, calls up his superiors and arranges for an arrest to happen.

The family who was seated in the van suddenly steps out and pleads with us to let them go. They were grateful for the Rs. 2000 and feared that they would lose even that. We lost our case to poverty and thuggery. We let the van go. The police smirked.

The head cop turned to me and said “Why are you people preventing our work?”
“We are not. We want these families to get compensation,” I tell him.
“See, it is really the goodness of Maverick Holdings’ owner that he is giving at least this much to these people. You people should go thank him,” he says this with clear conviction. Obviously the police had no compassion for the poor. They sang praises of the builder who was doing all this.

The children under the tree had now started singing the national anthem with gusto. They sang with pride, they beamed with joy. They were singing a song about a nation that was killing them slowly right there. A nation that had turned its back on them, a nation that was walking away from them quite nimbly – and the children slapped their foreheads in salute and in unison as the words Jai Hind came out and echoed into the air.

The van had, by now, managed to evict 4 more families. This time they were given Rs. 5000 each thanks to the volunteers checking the money and ensuring that the families did not sign any receipt until they got this money from the builder’s representative. The evicted families would either resettle in some other slums or just be thrown on footpaths. The children were excited about a van ride, not quite knowing that this was pretty much the end of any hope that there might’ve been about their future.

There was one boy, around 3 years old, who hung around and played with all of us. A naughty kid with a lot of energy. There was a 6 year old girl who loved the sketch pens that some of us were carrying and she asked for “fresh paper” to do some colouring on her own. Suddenly the children were having a nice time. Sitting there under the church, I made paper planes with the printed material of the planned freedom march. The kids wanted many more of these “rockets”. For some halting moments we forgot that we were amidst tragedy as these paper rockets left small hands, jumped up in the air and hurtled down.

Late evening as the moon appeared on the horizon, all the pipes were empty. Most families were evicted. There were some more families on the other parts of the land and we distributed clothes to them.

“Dinner is coming,” was a phrase we chanted regularly as the people came up to us asking for food of any kind. The kids were still hanging around and scattered families were in talks trying to figure out what to do, where to go.

We walked away from the site with a sense of shame. The ground on which those kids threw paper planes will be decorated with a mall. A mall for us all. A mall built on the broken futures of our weaker children. Jai Hind.

“Do you think such conferences are useful?” she asked while looking at no one in particular and picking the chicken on her plate.
I looked at her as she sat next to me at one of those round tables that are usually filled with people you’ve never met.
Trying to decipher whether she was a part of the organizing committee or not, I managed to fumble a “I guess they are” and before I could continue, she had moved on to another topic – that of cities.

Looking no less than 70 years in age, she had lived in many cities and towns across India. A marriage to an armed forces personnel does that to you. And over a few short conversations that I was having with the others at the table, she dwelt a little longer on Bangalore.

“I used to stay in Langford town in those days,” she beamed with pride. She spoke to no one in particular, but her words seemed to address a crowd.
“Those days Bangalore used to be such a wonderful place to stay,” she continued. The “those days” could’ve been at least 50 years ago, I thought to myself.
“And that area used to have a lot of Anglo Indians staying there,” her excitement was growing by the minute.
“Anglo Indians are such cultured people – they taught me a lot,” she didn’t give much time for you to add a yeah, hmmm or nice between her lines.

“We Indians are crude. We speak in a rude, crude and guttural tone. Have you noticed?” she suddenly looked at me, singling out my face from the crowd she was talking to so far.

I smile at that remark and try to articulate my response in a manner that would deem fit for a disciplined elderly, but this energetic lady didn’t have much time for that.

“Is Bishop Cottons still there?,” she continues to ask the crowd, looking at the plate and addressing no one in particular but making everyone want to respond.
“Oh yes, it is,” I give her the prompt answer.

“But the teachers must be Indians now,” she shrugs in a manner of a child who, after having a bowlful of candy, is no longer interested in the biscuits being passed around.

“I was educated by nuns,” she raised both her palms towards us and smiled.
“The problem is with our education system,” she now looked at the person on the other side of her seat. “That is why we Indians will always remain like this,” she finished the last bit of food on her plate with that statement.

“Is Mangalore Breweries still around,” she looked at me considering that I had answered her previous question.
“Mangalore Breweries? I haven’t heard of that. I guess it isn’t around anymore,” I venture to offer.

“Oh! What a pity. We used to walk down from Langford town to Mangalore Breweries. They used to give a beer bottle for 1 rupee back then. This big a bottle,” and she uses her two hands to indicate a pint-sized bottle.

“Just 1 rupee, can you believe it!” she talks to the crowd again and gets up to fetch her dessert. I offer to get dessert for her considering that she might find it difficult to go through the crowds, but she declines. She looks at my card for my name and reads aloud the name of the organization I am representing. In a smile, she dismisses me off with a half-wave of her hand and disappears into the lines waiting for dessert.

The only pleasant phase of my long sluggish drive to office is a brief stretch of Cubbon Park. Ideally, vehicles shouldn’t be allowed through this park. On my part, I am guilty of using this stretch because it saves me time whenever I am running late. I know I shouldn’t be using this route. There is enough pollution already in this once-beautiful park.

For those of you not familiar with the topography of Bangalore, Cubbon Park is a green hub right in the middle of the city. A sprawling park spotted with numerous trees. In the mornings, there are enough vehicles passing through this park to impart a smoke-screen on the greenery. One such morning I enter Cubbon Park and line-up quietly behind a trail of cars. We are all waiting for the traffic signal at the far end to mercifully spit us all out from a lovely park into the concrete jungle lying adjacent to it.

Suddenly, a car slides right next to mine. I notice from the corner of my eye that someone is signalling towards me. I turn my head to the right and find the car’s driver asking me to roll down my windows. With the tinted mask gone from my sight, I notice the white gleaming car parked periliously close to my car. The driver is a young chap, with a beard – a goatee rather, and has sunglasses perched on his head rather than on his nose. He munches on an already half-eaten apple and blurts, “How is the car?”

“Sorry?” I try to understand what he just munched.

“The car. Car. How is the car?” he repeats, in a tone that tells you he has miles to go before he can have a nap.

I realize he is asking me about my car. For some reason I look at my dashboard, as though that is where the answer lies. I then look back at him and say, “Yeah, the car is good. No problems so far.” I nod my head a couple of times in affirmation to what I just said.

He munches on his apple a bit, says a “hmmm”. I look out of my window to figure out the make of his car. But he had parked the car so close to mine, it was impossible for me to know the car model.

“What car is yours?” I ask.

“Volkswagen. Polo.”

“Wow, that’s cool. How’s the car?” and I suddenly start believing that asking a stranger about his car is perfectly acceptable.

“No leg space” he says in a dejected tone. “I should have bought your car,” he continues in a regretful tone.

“But you’ve got a great brand. It’s an European car after all. My car is one of those cheap Korean brands, not much of a reputation there,” I try and cheer him up. I was feeling bad for the boy now since he seemed quite depressed of having bought a ‘wrong’ car. For me, though, his car was just as good as any other car. In fact even better owing to its German roots.

“What use is this brand when there is so little leg space,” he laments with a remorseful look on his face. Then he shakes his head, drops off the core of the apple somewhere between the front seats and raises the window through which we were conversing.

No bye, no thank you, nothing. The conversation ends just as abruptly as it had started. A vendor comes by selling mobile chargers for cars. The signal had turned green, the dormant cars had switched on their engines and everyone’s right feet was on the accelerator raring to get to wherever they had to go.

The Volkswagen Polo slides away hurriedly ahead of me, and one of the most dejected guys I have ever seen is steering that car. I roll up my windows, drive past the glitzy UB City mall. The security staff there is getting ready, some of them cycling in with their lunch boxes in tow. No half-eaten apples in there, I suppose. No dejection on having a life without too many choices, perhaps. What gives? What makes one person depressed about a thing such as a car? And what makes one person strive to get to work in a cycle?

As these thoughts swirl around my head and fade away into the radio’s constant noise, I pat my car’s dashboard and congratulate myself for having bought this car. I don’t know much about cars, but if someone who owns a Volkswagen wanted my car, I have perhaps done it right.

A popular radio channel hosted a “coffee cup reader” on its morning show yesterday. While listening to the show I managed to figure out that a “coffee cup reader” is some sort of a soothsayer.

Out of the many people who call up to know about what lies ahead in their lives, Karan Singhvi is one. This lad of 18 years loves playing cricket and wanted to know when he would make it to the national team.

Nawal Gani, the lady who reads coffee cups (and she takes about half an hour to do so per cup per person), announces that Karan will be in the team within 4 to 5 years. She also adds the apt disclaimer that in order to make it happen Karan will have to ‘persist with his dream’ and put in the hardwork required.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you manage to see a Karan Singhvi play in the national team within the next 5 years, do let me know. I would like to be the first one to visit Ms. Gani. With my coffee cup in tow.

In other notes, here is one of India’s premier physicists Jayant Narlikar talking about “The Scientific Case against Astrology“

It is a late Sunday morning and I walk out to inspect the damage done by a mob of monkeys that has started visiting our area off-late. Not their fault. Their only habitat in this part of town was a 300 year old banyan tree that split apart under its own weight a few months ago. The monkeys, who earlier used to swing from one of the numerous branches of that tree to another, now have no sky over their heads. Fending for themselves from one concrete abode to another, they are now leading a life which will be in perennial conflict with man.

One flower pot was smashed to bits by them while they carried out their procession with part fear and part aggression. I move the pieces of the earthen pot to the side and greet the watchman of the neighbouring apartments.

“Where were you?,” I ask him since I hadn’t seen him around for a few days.

“Madras,” he replied back.

“Why?”

“To fix marriage. Of daughter.”

“Ok. All final?,” I ask him with a smile and in a Kannada that he pretty much understood.

“Yes.”

I decide to not impart the opinion that he shouldn’t get his daughter married so early (she is around 18 years old now). But my opinions are sometimes hard to keep, so I tell him what I think of it anyway.

“What can I do? Everyone else has already committed in this meeting,” he replied back with a sullen face.

“Committed?”

“Yes. In front of everyone, my wife agreed to the relation. Now we cannot go back.”

“Ok,” I say.

“How old is he? What has he studied?,” I venture to ask.

“He is 26,” he shot back with pride. “8th Standard pass” was his response to my second question.

“Ok,” I say. I am now thinking whether I should prevail upon this man that marrying his daughter so early and to a person who doesn’t have much of an education or career is not a good idea. Yet, who am I to decide whether this is a bad thing for the girl? There is a chance that this guy with little education may become very successful in life and give her all that she needs. I conclude that I cannot decide what is good and what is bad for others. In short, I definitely can’t play God.

“Congratulations,” I tell him.

“Thanks sir,” he replies back. “Now I need to give him a bike, he has asked for it,” he continues.

Dowry! Clearly this alliance should not go through. I blurt this thought out to him.

“What to do sir. Everyone has already committed,” he repeats this like a frequently used excuse of a late-coming student.

“Committed?,” I ask again in disbelief.

“Yes sir. People from my family have already agreed to give the bike to him,” he said.

Now something like that cannot be reasoned against, can it.

“Ok. Which bike?,” I decide to venture into other details.

“Hero Honda sir. Hero Honda Splendor,” he shoots back instantly with a smile and adds “Even if he doesn’t know how to ride a bike, we need to give him a Hero Honda.”  The statement breaks his face into a wide grin, his mind perhaps taking pot-shots at a future son-in-law.

By now, the monkeys have returned from their sojourn in the next street. The watchman forgets about the Hero Honday, picks up a long lathi and chases a few of the monkeys away. But some refuse to leave, and tower over us by hanging from the cable TV wires and phone lines.

The monkeys hung around at the top, carefully skipped across the electric wires and headed straight to the kitchen windows of neighbouring homes and stole what they could through the small iron railings.

“Not all monkeys can be chased away sir,” the watchman chuckled as he threw the lathi on to the other side of the road. The monkeys, seemingly in response to that statement, threw bits of eggs and bread down onto the road. The Sunday morning was well through its mid-life by now and I cocooned right back inside home, remembering past images of me riding my bike during my college years. For the record, I used to possess a Hero Honda Splendor of course.

The Aman ki Asha initiative by the Times of India and the Jang group has created a fabulous advertisement. I really loved this one:

If you are unable to see the embed above, click on this link to watch the advertisement.

Taksh is now 4 months into this world. He has been doing all things that babies of his age do, including waking up the parents at odd hours and making them fret and fuss over his every move.

One fine day we observed that Taksh had a slightly warmer-than-usual forehead. “Fever”, the Mrs announced with eyes that had already begun to sulk. “Uh-oh,” I whispered to myself. A digital thermometer was drawn out by the Mrs. (who doesn’t believe in the good old Mercury thermometers, the only ones that I had ever seen until this moment).

After sticking it into Taksh’s mouth, the digital thermometer began its painstaking measurement process. The digits raced from 90 to 97 degree Fahrenheit in a matter of seconds. I was impressed already. After 97 however, every decimal point took an era. Taksh was holding the thermometer in his mouth pretty well so far, not breaking into his customary agoo-goo-goo yet.

97.1 97.2 97.3 – time was ticking on.

It reached 99 in about 20 minutes. The Mrs and I were left aghast to see that the counter didn’t stop even at 99.3! Finally at 99.4 the digital thermometer sucked up all the energy from its tiny cell within and gave a tired beep sound. So, 99.4 was Taksh’s temperature. We had freaked out by now. This is not ‘normal’, you see.

So, the Mrs. drew out another digital thermometer (she has quite a few of them, as you can never change the cell in them anyway, so you need to keep a few handy, you know. Of course it is rational). We started yet again. The numbers raced forward, stopped, sputtered and finally settled at 99.4 yet again. I was impressed with the consistency of these gadgets before coming back to the issue on hand.

“Is it really too high?,” I asked.

“Not sure. Perhaps it isn’t?,” said the Mrs.

But then again, we are new parents and new parents in this new age don’t take chances do they? So we rush to the paediatric (I got that spelling right the first time!).

“Does he have fever?,” asks the doctor while he finishes writing some notes about the previous patient.

The Mrs. and I look at each other screaming in our thoughts “Isn’t HE supposed to check and let us know?”

“Yes,” replies the Mrs.

“Is it too high?,” queries the Doctor.

“We don’t know. His forehead is a little warm though. Perhaps you can check?” I, the man of the house, decide to take charge.

“Ok. Most likely it is nothing. But if the fever persists, perhaps you need to get his urine tested for infection,” the Doctor casually replies, scribbles with his blue pen on his white letterhead, tears the paper in a flourish and hands it out to me. He didn’t even touch his thermometer! What gall! Perhaps gall wasn’t the right term to use where matters of urine infection were being discussed.

So we go back home and we figure out how to get Taksh to contribute his watery excesses for a test. The Mrs and I both get on the internet (after all, even God comes after the internet) and go through a million web-pages, half of which were filled with Google advertisements. Finally we learn of a small bag that can be used to achieve the desired goal.

Leaving aside the details on what we did next, we manage to submit Taksh’s contributions for a test.

Two agonizing days later, the tests come and the report says that our 4 month old has a case of serious infection. Infection which left untreated can lead to a failure of kidneys! We run to Paediatrician number 1.

Paediatrician number 1: “Oh-oh. This is too much. We have to go for ultra-sound, 10 days antibiotics and perhaps even an operation”

So we rush along with Taksh and his bag of accessories (read diapers and many spare clothes) to Paeditrician number 2.

Paediatrician number 2: Takes a while staring at the report. Removes his spectacles and says “This is very unusual for a 4-month old. I cannot take a call. You need to consult a specialist. A paediatric urologist  infact. Here, this is his name, he is a friend of mine, take an appointment.” He mumbled has he wrote some doctor’s name on a white notepad, tore it with shaky hands and gave it to me.

By now the Mrs and I were scared out of our wits. However, we didn’t want to give up now did we. So off we again went running to Paeditrician number 3. All this while Taksh has been perfectly happy with the goings-on and urging us to smile and laugh at life. “What character my son has!,” I think to myself, visibly impressed.

Paediatrician number 3: Looks at the report in a calm manner, turns it around, looks at some other parameters. He then takes his pen and circles a few parameters and explains to us “While this report states that the bacteria count is so high, none of these other parameters confirm it. You see, if the bacteria count is so high, then Ssdfhsdfs, Tesdfoidsfs and Qerewrposd should also indicate some numbers. But they don’t. So what I suspect is that the bag in which you collected your sample was most likely contaminated.”

The Mrs. and I are all smiles now. Taksh is bawling as he hates being put flat on a doctor’s bed. Cutting the rest of the details short, we repeat the test and much to our liking the test comes negative.

But after all this, I wasn’t really happy. What would have happened if we had not gone to Paediatrician number 3? What if we weren’t able to afford consulting 3 doctors? Isn’t that the case with most people? How many people out there even have access to a second opinion? Third opinion? What about the ability to go to so many doctors? The ability to get information? Why is there such a vast asymmety of information and access to healthcare in our country? And aren’t doctors supposed to be a whole lot more responsible?

I shudder to think that if we hadn’t visited the third doctor, Taksh would have undergone a 10-day antibiotics course, perhaps even an ultra sound. And later a new test would have affirmed that the bacteria was gone. Then we would’ve heaved a sigh of relief and thanked the antibiotics and the doctors, whose status would’ve now elevated further in our eyes. And we would spread good word about such doctors and they would become famous.

Scary, isn’t it?

About a month ago, I had come across this interesting article about goddess Lakshmi, which gave a very different perspective on the concept of wealth creation and its associated morals. The article was so insightful that I made note of the author, Devdutt Pattanaik, and bought one of his books – Vishnu, an Introduction.

Hence, I was glad when I came to know (via @aditisi) that Devdutt Pattanaik was one of the speakers at the recently concluded TED Talks. I would highly recommend this talk which you can view below. If you are unable to view the player, click on this link.

Devdutt talks about how differences in beliefs of God, Life and Death influence culture. An important line that he states is “culture is man’s reaction to nature”.
Do check out the entire talk (it is about 18 minutes long and well worth your time).

Couldn’t help but see this as an exhibit on display. The tree stump is a work of art and the creator’s name is painted on the grill. (Click on image to see it in a larger size)

This tree was one of the hundreds that was cut on a road in Bangalore to make way for the Metro. The place looks barren now, with a lot of construction dust all around. A war-zone like feeling, with all the victims being mute enough to not bother us.

Time was slowly slipping by on this blog while things were becoming too fast paced in the offline world. Finally, a balance seems to be on the horizon as we resume interacting here once again.

First news first, Dhi Junior aka Taksh has well and truly arrived. Taksh is named after the founder of the Takshila University. For those with a mythological interest, Taksh was the name of Bharat’s son (Bharat being Ram’s younger brother of course). For those who think this is a wonderful name, we should let you know how the name got selected. Those who think this is quite a bad name, we should still let you know how the name got selected.

Rewind a few months back and the Mrs. and I are thinking whether we should start thinking about names. The Mrs. thinks perhaps and I say perhaps and then we go about doing other important things like solving crosswords and drinking tea. Rewind a few weeks before Taksh is due and we are thinking whether we should start thinking about a name. But then again, we don’t know the gender so why bother right now? More crosswords and more tea follow and we nod in unison at our decision.

Taksh arrives, known and recognized more as the son of the Mrs. and Dhi. We are still thinking whether to start thinking of names. I get online (what more could be expected of someone who blogs) and search for names. That becomes a tiring exercise so we break for a crossword and tea. Then we get possession of a book of baby names and believe that this was the best thing to happen to us (after the baby of course). We are told by the powers that be that the baby’s name should start with an R or a T. We run through the Rs and don’t find anything interesting, anything remotely difficult to pronounce or explain. We then browse through the Ts and immediately stumble upon Taksh. It’s got a slight tongue-twisting feel to it and the dude is going to have to spend some time explaining the word and the spelling.

“So much like my name,” I beamed to myself. That was sufficient for us as far as naming him was concerned. And thus arrived Taksh. We are back to our crosswords but are briefly and rightly so interrupted by him every few hours of our sleeping time. He is one of the reasons why I have groggy eyes and sleepy afternoon meetings. He is also one of the reasons why blogging, apart from other essential activities, has taken a back seat.

***

Moving on to other things now. During one of the nights that I spent at the hospital, I am walking on the corridors at around 11:00 pm. A couple of nurses with worried faces are running behind a sort of matronly looking nurse.

“Sister, sister, we don’t know what are the exact procedures to be put up in the list sister”, one of the younger ones complains with a hassled face.

“Yes sister, how can we know the procedure?” adds her companion meekly.

The matronly sister turns around and says “Eh, what ya! Take it from the net no! It is there on the net, just take it from there.”

I smiled and felt glad that even hospitals were referring to pieces of information on the internet to know procedures of some kinds. Hoping it wasn’t exactly some life-saving procedure, I walked along as the nurses turned around and trotted away with immense happiness.

***

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to give Taksh his due attention lest he decides to bawl through the night.

More later. Enjoy.