Simply outrageous!

1. The Karnataka Tamasha.

The spectacle in Karnataka by a tainted Chief Minister is indeed a sad one. His own party seems to be stumped by his defiance which is what surprises me to no end. If political parties practised what they preached and did not follow double standards, they'd never come to such a sorry mess like the BJP has in this case. And what further surprises me is that the man believes that his shenanigans are nothing compared to what some others have done or are doing and hence, why's he being targeted? He goes on to claim that he's many supporters and hearing some of them on TV, I wonder as to how they're unable to read the writing on the wall.

What they sadly seem to forget is that corruption by a rupee has the same connotation as corruption in crores! Corruption is a misdemeanour that can never be tolerated!!

2. Denying Anna Hazare the premises of Jantar Mantar.

It's my firm belief that here's yet another decision taken without adequate study of the pros and the cons by the people concerned. Perceptions need to be clarified, dialogue initiated and a swift remedy is the call of the hour and it's my fond hope that all well meaning people will work towards that goal. And egos have no place in the process!

3. The Communist party's archaic diktats.

Out here in Kerala, the press has given coverage to VS Achuthanandan's short visit to the house of 'Berlin Kunhanandan Nair'- CPM veteran and a journalist, who's expelled by the party sometime last year for his forthright views about the way his party was going - despite the party's diktat forbading him from doing so.

The question that comes uppermost to any layman is as to whether the party is oblivious of the primacy of human relationships and decency.

In this context, I'm reminded of an incident that impinged upon my grandfather and thereby, the entire family in the late '70s. PN Panicker was the General Secretary of the Kerala Grandhasala Sangham, an organisation that he'd founded and nurtured and the gifted Thayattu Sankaran, its President. Perhaps fazed by the former's overwheming popularity within the organisation, the latter wrote a stinging article - hitting below the belt on a very personal level - in the popular fortnightly 'Kalakaumudi'.

I remember one point that he'd raised against my grandfather which was his so called 'affinity' for anything foreign and to substantiate it, he quoted his possession of a bottle of Old Spice after shave lotion! The fact was that it was gifted by yours truly when I'd visited my grandparents while on leave and my grandfather used to savour it as a 'prized' possession and had innocently bragged about it to the author in one of their official tours, together!

My grandfather, shattered by the whole episode met his friend, EMS Namboodiripad and asked him to rein in the author as he happened to be his partyman. EMS' reply was that while he was fully aware of the purity and simplicity of PN Panicker, he was in a helpless situation as it happened to be a 'party' matter! My grandfather had to return empty handed. My beloved EMS uncle who'd bought plenty of chocolates for me, during my childhood days, became my enemy overnight as he'd hurt my grandfather!

And as Perry mason says, 'Prosecution rests!'

The technology conundrum.

Galloping technology has revolutionalised our life without us realising it and many a time, the results are humorous if not idiotic! To a passive observer it's discernible making one wonder about the big puzzle that life is all about.

This afternoon, I was at the railway level cross waiting for the train to pass and was witness to this amusing sight. It was drizzling and two young ladies were walking past. One of them had a bag full of something while the other was holding an umbrella over the both of them and they're in serious conversation with one another. All of a sudden, as if on cue, both their cell phones rang simultaneously. Their consequent reactions were a bit comical, at least, as they appeared to me. They broke ranks and began their conversations with their callers, completely oblivious of their surroundings as a motorist, moving into a side lane, had to hoot continuously to drive past them. In the process, the young lady with the umbrella had the canopy over her while the other was left to face the fury(?) of nature and the beauty of it was that she didn't seem to mind a wee bit.

O, these cell phones!

Tailpiece.
Shows how we've progressed through time. There were times when telephones had two digit numbers prefixed by the name of the place( for eg. Kochi 91) and it would be announced that a trunk call was coming in and therefore, to be standby after which there would be a fairly long pause when one could even lose one's patience. And when the call was ultimately through, one had to howl to be heard at the other end - a passive observer might have still wondered as to whether the instrument was required at all, in the first place, with the decibels exercised!

An amazing story.

Today's the 9th anniversary of the Muhamma boat tragedy. Muhamma is a sleepy hamlet, about 30 kms south of Kochi. The death toll was 29 that included children, women and men. Not much has happened in terms of improvement in facilities, with emphasis on safety, all these years despite thundering promises by the leaders of the time - typical of the great Indian apathy!

But against this bleak backdrop, the story of a couple who'd lost their only son in the boat mishap, makes interesting news. The boy was on his way to write the examination conducted by the Kerala Public Service Commission that fateful morning never to return, plunging the parents into grief. Three days on, a crow started visiting them and food was provided by the grieving parents and the trend has continued to this day. The bird insists on eating from the mother's hand and she's been indulgent.

The parents are quite sure that the crow is their son in a new 'avatar' and it, in turn, dwells on one of the trees in their compound for the whole of the daytime - probably, savouring every minute of the proximity to his parents!

Another one of those cosmic mysteries and as they say, 'truth is stranger than fiction'. May the unfortunate parents continue to find solace in the friendly crow - nay, their son! God, do please take care of them.

Raja's charge, Kalmadi's gimmicks and Pakistani gymnastics!

We're yet again being exposed to the same old pantomime that we're all so familiar with. At first, Raja and Kalmadi showed defiance at the charges that sprung up against them, with a remarkable regularity, after which they desperately clung on to their offices till they're given the boot and eventually, ended up in Tihar.

Their desperate measures to get out of jail seem to be fodder for the press. Raja's implication that the PM knew all about what he was doing as the Minister for Telecom is a slap on the latter's earlier statement that he could not oust him, despite numerous charges that were emerging, on account of 'coalition dharma'. And Kalmadi has taken refuge behind a medical report of his saying that he's suffering from dementia. Why was he, then, holding key positions in the national sports bodies? Desperation seems to be writ large in their actions.

And the Pakistani Gymnastics.

I was under the impression that the new Foreign Minister of Pakistan would carve a niche for herself by doing something different from her predecessors on her first visit to this country. But nothing ever changes and I seemed to have forgotten that she represents the same Pakistani establishment whose cornerstone is 'to conduct its foreign policy on vitriolic anti Indian propaganda'.

Her decision to meet the Kashmiri separatists is definitely a step that could have been avoided! What gives a bad taste to it is that she's fully aware of the negative impact that such an action creates in this country. But I suppose they care a damn!!

Not acceptable.

Recent inputs on the news channels about several Indians on lecture circuits, organised by Pakistan's ISI, for huge amounts as remuneration makes one wonder as to how people can be so greedy. How can they work or think contrary to the interests of their motherland?

Is money the end all of everything? And how much money do they require to feel completely satisfied? Or is it simply insatiable greed? Can't help but wonder at their guts to lead a normal life after such treacherous deeds on their part.

The entire matter needs to be thoroughly investigated and the guilty exposed and brought to book without any leniency. They should be then tried for treason and suitably punished!

My Madras musings.

I was away at Madras on work. It was hectic as usual and I only wish that I'd time in hand to meet up with more people. I thought of sharing three interesting episodes that came my way during my short stay out there and here I go.

(a) Incommunicado.
My 'saarthi', on arrival, was a youngster named Palani and his attitude towards life in general can make the most sober amongst us end up with high blood pressure. To my utter surprise when I'd tried to contact him on arrival, he was driving around the vicinity of the airport to avoid paying parking charges! He was fluent in Tamil and I don't understand a wee bit of it, so communication between us was through sign language. Palani's driving skills are amazing and these are my observations:-
(i) His faith in his own machine is beyond doubt as he drives with a gay abandon.
(ii) His faith in the ability of the other drivers and their machines is touching.
(iii) He finds space in the deluge of traffic with ease and weaves his car in and out of traffic, as though he owns the thoroughfare!
(iv) His cell phone is an inseperable part of his personality as he's continuously answering calls that came by and they seemed to be never ending!

We've established a rapport through sign language and he's promised to be my 'saarthi' during my subsequent visits too, in the times to come.

(b) A chance reunion.
As I was checking in at the hotel, there was this guy who seemed to be giving me a thorough scrutiny and initially, since I wasn't expecting to bump into anyone that I knew, I didn't give him any attention when the gentleman called out my name. It was then that I realised that it was Ashok, my coursemate from the Academy. I remember him to be short and compact, quite agile and fit and being good at PT. Thanks to the ravages of time and the good things of life, he sports an unwieldy paunch but retains his exuberance and warmth! The long time gap that we'd traversed, not having communicated with each other after leaving the Academy, melted over the evening as we caught up from where we'd left with the promise that we'd make amends from now on. Consequently, we jotted down each other's contact numbers and addresses, as we parted.

(c) Out of the chain?
One of my colleagues from Bangalore dabbles in astrology and is occasionally prone to gazing the crystal ball. He makes it a point to spend time with me and I've this feeling that he's fond of me! He's told me this time that this is my last life in this world.

The Hindu philosophy talks about the soul taking many lives and many forms as it traverses through life in this world and once it attains purity - in the strictest sense of the term - gets liberated from the chain of birth and rebirth to become one with the universal soul or God! And this is what my friend says that my soul's achieved!! Without getting into the merits or demerits of the observation and taking it to be true, I've the following observations/doubts:-

(a) I'm a guy with my warts and my moles.
(b) I've always been under the impression that one's to lead a saintly life to attain purity while I've been leading a very ordinary life, deeply caught up with the fallibilities of life.
(c) I don't have an indication - or is it supposed to be there at all? - of having reached the end.
(d) Will it change my perceptions from now on? Never, I shall be the same.

A moment of pride.

I'd visited the swanky new 'Container Trans - shipment Berth' at Vallarpadam. The infrastructure is still in the process of being set up, with two more phases in the process of development. Spread over an area of 110 hectares, it's a sheer engineering marvel that almost the entire space has been reclaimed from the dredging of the surrounding shallow water area and the reclamation augments the tiny Vallarpadam island!

Highly automated and equipped with heavy duty cranes and associated equipment, the infrastructure will make every Indian proud. For Kerala, it's definitely a boon and it has already brought about a change in the skyline of the surrounding areas. The associated islands were inaccessible and lacked modern communications, once upon a time, but all those have become a thing of the past.

On a personal note, I'd started reading about the 'proposed Supertanker berth' sometime during the mid 80s and with all the problems regarding zeroing in on the site, the project almost being shifted out of the state as part of petty politicking and the tamasha of land acquisition made me wonder as to whether the project would ever take off. So, when I was finally at the huge, well laid out complex, I was flush with pride and glad to be an Indian!

May there be many more such projects!!