Movie ‘Water’ by Deepa Mehta is being released in India on Feb 23, 2007. I was unaware of this fact because I had seen it in August, 06 at Chicago. This movie’s shooting was stalled in Banaras by Hindu fundamentalists and thus Mehta had to shift her location to Sri Lanka.
I see no reasonas as to why this movie should face wrath from orthodox Hindus! This movie is a grim reminder of the plight of Hindu widows, particularly young widows who have to face isolation and how they have to live a wretched life afterwards. I have great admiration for Hinduism and proud of it, but casteism, untouchability and other taboos are a hinderance to our progress as a society. After seeing Water’ -which depicts the times of 1930s- one feels encouraged that situation has actually improved as far as the fate of Hindu widows is concerned. And there is always a scope for further improvement provided we take critical analysis of the problem.
Author Archives: Dr. Munish Raizada
GH deficiency in neonatal period
The two pointers towards possible growth hormone (GH) deficiency in neonatal period are:
1. Hypoglycemia: in persistent hypoglycemia, GH deficiency should be ruled out.
2. Micro-phallus: always do accu-checks and this can lead to further investigations.
What the heck ‘babu’ (bureaucrat) is doing there!
Typical ‘babusaahi'(bureaucracy) ! Did he pay for the bills?
Read this letter by a foreign visitor to India, as published in The Tribune on Jan 31,07.
All for a bureaucrat!
During a visit to Punjab recently, I had been to ‘Boat Club-Pincasia’, a tourist complex, near Ropar, for dinner. Surprisingly, the dinner service was suddenly suspended for all ordinary people like us after a local bureaucrat arrived there to dine with his friends!
Having seen the bureaucrat, the hotel manager was tense and panic-stricken. He diverted the hotel staff to the place where this bureaucrat settled for the dinner. This is not the way in which tourists should be treated. In principle, bureaucrats should not visit public places if their visits are likely to disrupt the normal functioning of the hotels and cause inconvenience to the general public.
I hope the authorities concerned will understand this writer’s deep anguish and act accordingly. This letter should not be viewed as an individual complaint but as a general suggestion to the Punjab government to have concern for all customers and to treat all humans equally.
ROBERT SMITH, 25, Broadway, New York (USA)
Building an Ugly India
India is on the move. Meet anyone -more so someone who has returned from India- and ask him/her: “So India is progressing well?” “Oh,yeah! for sure. Wherever you go, you see new roads, bridges being constructed. The face of India is changing and it is changing very fast. New buildings are coming up. And they add: If you want to see a true revolution of mobile telephony, India ia an apt example.”
However, what kind of India is coming up? Confused and zig-zag! What are we building up: cities of slums! Villages are shrinking up and being replaced by messy sub-divisions (tehsils). We have absolutely no control over our civic planning: things are just popping up haphazardly. And lesser we talk about pollution, the better it is! It is not that we cannot plan or envisage: we have brilliant minds in the concerned fields to take care of the things. But who cares! The mafia of builders and greedy politicians will like to put everything on sale to fill their coffers! It is so pathetic to see that Delhi which is so badly congested continues to expand with the help of its satellite towns: Faridabad, Gurgaon, NOIDA, and many more (see a link below about Gurgaon). Such is the expediency that from Presidential house (Rastrapati Bhavan) to needle-manufacturing units and pollution-emitting industrial units: everything seems to be hinging on Delhi or around. Everyting and everyone seems to be rushing towards Delhi! The situation of Mumbai and Kolkatta seems to be more horrific!
In this brilliant article “Building an Ugly India”, Gautam Bhatia- who is an architect- speaks out his inner pain the way we continue to build an ugly India.
Click on the link to read this article. Solution: He concludes by asking:”Or is it too late?”
http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/501/501%20gautam%20bhatia.htm
Link about Gurgaon: A concerned citizen writes in The Tribune (Feb, 07):
Pangs of growth
Gurgaon town is growing by leaps and bounds. Presently, it consists of 56 sectors. The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has planned 51 additional sectors by 2021 in the Master Plan touching IMT Manesar.
Then comes the realm of Special Economic Zones — 600 acres by Orient Craft, 10,000 acres by HSIDC, 25,000 acres by Reliance Industries Limited, 20,000 acres by DLF and 5,000 acres by Raheza Group. Many more players may join the bandwagon by 2021. HUDA is also planning the expansion of Dharuhera complex from the other end. By 2021, Gurgaon town would become a monstrous city of 400 sectors!
With the existing drainage system, Gurgaon cannot bear even a single 50 mm rainfall of two hours. Environmental and ecological problems will further compound the sustainable issues. Will the Haryana government and NCR authorities realise the gravity of the situation and apply a mid-course correction expeditiously?
RAM NIWAS MALIK, Engineer-in-Chief (retd),Panckhula
Religion: An Atheist’s Point of view
Sam Harris says: “Religion gives good people bad reasons to be good.” What the heck! Well, if you read this interview, you will more than agree with his point of view.
His latest book “Letter to A Christian Nation” has sold very well.
Even though he is an atheist, he finds Jainism very interesting! He seems to be considering Gandhi more of a pacifist. He wonders how come a person like Mother Teresa who is serving the destitude and fighting for poor could abhor abortion ( an example of ‘moral intuitions clouded by religion’ as he terms)!
To read his views, click on the title above.
Congenital Amputation
Yesterday in the clinic, I saw a one year boy-on a follow up visit- who was born with Congenital Below Elbow Amputation (BEA). It was an isolated abnormality and genetic consult revealed no syndromic association.
OSD
Osgood-Schlatter disease (OSD) is one of the most common causes of knee pain in the adolescent. In the US, exact incidence is not known, but it is quite common.
Consisting of pain and edema of the tibial tubercle (and hence this is an extra-articular disease), OS disease is generally a benign, self-limited knee condition associated with ‘traction apophysitis’ in adolescent boys and girls.
Verbatim
Verbatim I
1. From ” MY Experiments with Truth”:
1] “But all my life through, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom”.
2] In S Africa:”I had learnt at the outset not to carry any public work with borrowed money. One could rely on people’s promises in most matters except in respect of money. I had never found people quick to pay the amounts thy had undertaken to subscribe, and the Natal Indians were no exception to that. As, therefore, no work was done unless there were funds on hand, the natal Indian Congress has never been in debt.”
3] “But collecting funds was not the only thing to do. Infact, I had long learnt the principle of never having more money at one’s disposal than necessary.”
4] “Peole never cared to have receipts for the amounts they paid, but we always insisted on the receipts being given (ref. Natal Congress). Every pie was thus clearly accounted for… “
5] My experience has shown me that we win justice quicker by rendering justice to other party.
6] “That is why Sir William Hunter has called the indenture sytem (of labor) almost as bad as slavery. Like the slave, the indentured labourer was the property of his master “(ref. indentured labor sent from India to South Africa).
7] In S Africa, a white barber refused to do hair-cut on Gandhiji, when the latter went to his shop. In this reference, Gandhiji says: “We donot allow our barbers (in India) to serve our untouchable brethern. I got the reward of this in South Africa,not once, but many times, and the conviction that it was the punishment for our own sins saved me from becoming angry.”
8] When Gandhiji became famous in S Africa in Indian community for winning rights for them , he also pressed for social reforms, like sanitary reforms. In this regard, he says:
“But I had some bitter experiences. I saw that I could not so easily count on the help of the community in getting to do its own duty, as I could in claiming for its rights. At some places I met with insults, at other with polite indifference. It was too much for people to bestir themselves to keep their surroundings clean. To expect them to find money for the work was out of question. These experiences taught me ,better than ever before, that without infinite patience, it was impossible to get the people to do any work. It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, not the society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even moral persecution.”
9. While returning to S Africa after his one visit to India, he says: “I believed then that enterprising youths who could not find an opening in the country should emigrate to other lands. I therefroe, took with me four or five such youths, one of whom was Maganlal Gandhi.”
10] While reading Geeta: “Words like aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhava (equability) gripped me. How to cultivate and preserve that equability was the question.”
11] “A satyagrahi is born to be deceived. Let the commanding officer deceive us. Have I not told you times without number that ultimately a deceiver only deceives himself” (ref: to Sorabji in England).
12] To Rustam Kaka in S Africa, when he came to Gandhiji to save him from sure prisonment while admitting that he used to smuggle from India. Gandhji wanted him to admit guilt in front of authorities. He said: “I am of the opinion that the shame lies not so much in going to jail as in committing the offence. The deed of shame has already been done. Imprisonment you should regard as a penance. The real penance lies in resolving never to smuggle again”.
13. To a British secretary, Gandhhi argued: I have no doubt that the British government is a powerful government, but I have no doulbt also that satyagraha is a sovereign remedy.”
14. Gandhiji was interested to join Gokhale’s Friends of the Society (around 1916). There was much resistance in the meeting. He withdrew and says: The withdrawal of my appliaction made me truly a member of the Society.”
15] Many attempts were made to re-invest Gandhiji in S Africa as well as India in the sacred thread. He said: If shudras may not wear it, what right have the other varnas to do so? I had no objection to the thread as such, but the reason for wearing it were lacking”. He further argued to a swamiji: “So long as there were different religions, everyone of them may need some outward distinctive symbol. But when the symbol is made into a fetish and an instrument of proving the superiority of one’s religion over others’, it is fit only to be discarded. The sacred thread doesnot appear to me today to be a means of uplifting Hinduism. I am therefore indifferent to it.
16] “The Champaran struggle was a proof of the fact that disinterested service of the people in any sphere ultimately helps the country politically.”
17] In Kheda satyagraha (Gujrat), Gandhiji says: “The main thing was to rid the agriculturists of their fear by making them realize that the officials were not the masters but the servants of the people, inasmuch as they received their salaries from the taxpayer.” NB: How true is this dictum even today, infact much more relevant!
18. “Experience has taught me that civility is the most difficult part of satyagraha. Civilty here does not mean the mere outward gentlenessof speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.”
19] “I had realized early enough in South Africa that there was no genuine friendship between the Hindus and Musalmans.”
20] While talking of Khilafat movement, he at one stage says:”……but it would be another matter and quite graceful , and reflect great credit on them, if the Musalmans of their own free will stopped cow- slaughter out of regard for the religious sentiments of the Hindus, and from a sense of duty towards them as neighbors and children of the same soil.
21] Post Jaliawalan massacre, Congress decided to bulid a memorial and thus raised one lakh rupess for that and as per Gandhiji ” the memorial trust has at present a handsome credit balance in the bank”. But as Gandhiji writes: “But the problem that faces the country today is what kind of memorial to erect on the ground, to sanctify which, Hindus, Musalmasn and Sikhs mingled their blood. The three communities, instead of being bound in a bond of amity and love, are to all appearance, at war with one another, and the nation is at a loss to how to utilize the memorial fund” .
2. There’s enough in the world for every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.
– Mahatma Gandhi
3. Feeding a snake with milk increases its venom, no nectar is produced.
– Chanakya
4. “Peace is not just the absence of violence”. Peace comes from within. It is only when we have true peace of mind that we can look for peace externally. The main destroyer of peace of mind is not external but the internal enemies”- Dalai Lama
5. “The truth is, religion is mutually exclusive. The person who says, “Oh, I just believe them all,” is an idiot because the religions flat-out contradict each other. You cannot believe in reincarnation and heaven at the same time. “- Pastor Rick Warren, in Newsweek over a debate.
6. The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
– Martin Luther King
Nehru and Shahid Bhagat singh
Nehru’s link with Bhagat Singh
I am grateful to Prof V.N Datta for having responded to my proposal on Bhagat Singh Chair at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), in the background of the martyr’s “close association” with Nehru (Perspective Page, Jan 14). As for his observations about Nehru’s conduct at Gandhi’s behest, I have no difference with him. Nehru backtracked from his friendship and closeness of ideas from Subhash Bose as well.
Though Jinnah defended Bhagat Singh in the Central Assembly during his and other revolutionaries’ hunger strike, other leaders also defended him, particularly Subhash Bose, who held a big rally in Delhi on March 20, 1931, three days prior to his execution, to oppose death sentence to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Viceroy Lord Irwin wanted Gandhi to stop Subhash from holding this rally, but in vain.
Undoubtedly, Nehru and Bhagat Singh had deep liking for each other, particularly for socialist ideas. Bhagat Singh, in an article, had appreciated “Nehru’s ideas as more rational than those of Subhash Bose” though Subhash was emotionally more close to Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries than Nehru was.
Prof CHAMAN LAL,
Centre of Indian LanguagesJNU, New Delhi
Published: The Tribune (Chandigarh), January 30,2007
Trivial facts
1. Which religion is atheistic, at least in its earliest form?
a] Hinduism b] Buddhism c] Christianity d] Islam
Answer is: Buddhism
2. American home now has more television sets than people….according to Nielson Media Research. There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said.” -from NY Times, Nov 22, 2006