What we are entitled to know, but dont know

In my last job as copy editor, I had interviewed Arvind, a core member of Parivartan (an NGO), as part of my story on the Right to Information Act. I have been meaning to write about Parivartan on the blog since quite some time now. It's happening today.

Parivartan does just this: help people of Sundernagari resettlement colony in East Delhi and other slums get their rights from various government agencies using the Delhi Right to Information Act. For the last two years, Parivartan has been seeking daily sales registers of the ration shop owners in different parts of Delhi.

Shouldn't be a struggle right? After all, they are just seeking public records. But it was. And is still going on. There have been at least five near-fatal attacks on its members. Indeed, information is power. The government officials are loathe to part with information, because that would strip them of their power. As a reaction to the latest attack on a Parivartan member, the people of Sundernagari colony decided to not take their rations (wheat, rice, sugar) for the month of February 2005. But they will check the records in March to see if the rations foregone were returned to the government or not. The monthly rations mean a lot to these people. Yet, they are ready to forego them for the sake of their right to information, or their right to live with dignity.

Parivartan is one of the few NGOs I have met up close and admire. The others are Mazdoor Kisaan Shakti Sangathan led by Magsaysay awardee Aruna Roy, and Janaagraha. Their work reminds me of P Sainath's statement that the government has to be involved in change. If you bypass the government, the change will be very limited. Especially so today in the age of gigantic all-encompassing corporates. But more about this in another post.

The NGOs listed above believe in working with the government through mechanisms provided by the government. Sometimes, of course, they have convinced the government into creating a mechanism (Eg: Jan Sunwai was adopted by the Rajasthan government after MKSS popularised it.)

When I was still doing my BA, I remember wondering why information was so important, and how could it solve problems such as poverty. As a journalism student, I quickly realised the need for information. With no press card in hand, I got to wait like any other citizen. I also understood how people empowered with information can and will build a better society.

On a different level, this is also why I think the information glut is happening in the wrong places. In the villages of India where there is such a hunger for information, the miracles that IT can create are many. But this calls for more open source and user-friendly technology.
The above paragraph might seem unconnected to what I began talking about, but look closely, it's not.
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• If you live in Bangalore you might like to bookmark this blog: Let's stop hatching eggs. It's little bits of information from here and there to find a place to go to, or about a movie fest, etc.
• On suicide bombers: Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory impressed me a lot because that was my first serious philosophical reading, (apart form Nietzsche) and I seemed to understand quite everything! Recently I read his article where he talks about the difference between martyrs and suicide bombers. Take a look.
• Probable Googles: Oh, this is hilarious. You never know, some of it might just come true. The world is full of Google nowadays. The page might take some time to load though.

Pending post

These are my jottings from last week and were supposed to be posted during the weekend. But I left the textpad behind at office. A bit late, but here comes:

• Either you hate Calcutta or you love it. Nothing grey about it. I fall into the second category, though I have lived there for a very short time. So, am I not happy to read this!

Little in Calcutta can be claimed to be ‘A’ class. Asim Dasgupta take note — Subrata Mukherjee’s civic body is one of them. In fact, A+. Credit Rating Information Services India Ltd (Crisil), which assesses credit-worthiness, has given the Calcutta Municipal Corporation the A+ rating that no other civic body in the country possesses.

• One good blog from last week: The waiter is one of the very few sensible writer-bloggers around. It's interesting to see people through his eyes. Especially, when he is blessed with such descriptive skills.

• A friend said: Angulimaal is the same person as Valmiki. He was transformed by Buddha. Who agrees and who doesnt? Let those comments pour in.

• The politics of power has always interested me, be it the authority of state/society/parents over individual, or any other forms of power play. The powerful derive their power from the suppressed. There is a flow of power from the object of power to the powerful. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not. When this relationship is not of mutual consent, there will come a tipping point when the statement is rewritten. The powerful are wary of this tipping point. Both can see it coming. It's inevitable. It has to happen. But why did the tipping point come when it came? If power did not flow voluntarily, why did it flow at all? This is in the context of colonisation.
  

Maybe miracles will keep you from heaven

A friend has sent in his report of the Benny Hinn prayer meet. For those of you who are not aware of the controversy that built up around the event, this might be useful.

"The day began quite early for me since we had to take my aunt to the cancer hospital. She had been operated upon for ovarian cancer and chemotherapy was to be done.


Later I set out with my mom-in-law for the faith healing event. Though I am thoroughly skeptic about faith healing, I try to go to such events just for the heck of it. Since there was so much controversy about this guy, I was desperate to check out. But my and mom-in-law is a firm believer.


Police had diverted the traffic to Hosur ring road and we were wondering how to head back to Jakkur (the venue). We found two guys on a bike who suggested that we head back as there was trouble ahead. We then asked them how we were supposed to reach the venue. Their statement was amazing, "Neevu namma deshada anna thinthira illva, solpa deshada bagge abhimana itkolli." (You live off this land. So cultivate some sense of respect for the country.) This made me furious. I said, "We do eat deshada anna, you guys seem to eat some shit," and sped off on my bike. They followed us and started abusing us. Since I didn't stop, they went further ahead, joined an angry mob and waited for me to make a turn towards Jakkur. Thankfully, I could see them from afar and didn't turn towards them. We finally reached the venue, after much searching.


We went inside the welcome arch and the stage was built nearly a km from there. The sight was truly awe-inspiring. There were 72 giant screens with thousands of halogen lights flooding the place. Police were doing metal detector frisking of every visitor. Why there were 22 ambulances in a faith healing event was my typical skeptic thought while entering the place!

After an hour of singing by the 2000-strong choir, Benny Hinn came on stage. In typical evangelist style, he started praising the crowd, India, the Chief Minister, the choir, God and everything around him. There were another hour of singing and praising halleluiah. His preaching was sad with just a recital of verses from the bible and an explanation on it. No real life instances or his personal experiences!

But the shocking thing was him talking about God TV and how it is affecting the lives of people all over the world. I knew some commercials were bound to be there and here they came. Finally, it's all about money honey! To top it all, he said he is not taking any offerings from the event today (Jan 21). But what about tomorrow and day after?

The climax was the healing process. I was wondering how different he is from other Christian healers in India. He created a frenzy of praise for the lord and halleluiah. My mom-in-law was fully immersed into it while I was busy looking around. He called all people in need of specific blessing to the stage. The way the foreign compere was introducing the patients and their pain, it was clear that the show was orchestrated.

The first one was a girl who couldn't walk since her childhood; she was jumping around with joy. Benny Hinn touched her and she fell down as if she got a shock. She was carried off and next came a ovarian cancer patient. Similarly about a dozen people were brought on stage and cured. Just when you thought all this is a farce, he called out for a James who was feeling a lot of pain. Suddenly out of the crowd, there emerged a James from Mysore who had tremendous headache. In one stroke, Hinn swept his hand across and everyone on stage fell down at that instant!

While my mom-in-law was totally taken in by this cathartic moment, I was wondering if my aunt could be cured of her cancer in one stroke. They say it is not the healer, but the faith in the patient that matters. My aunt was a retired nun, who spent a pious life praying and meditating. She doesn't ask god that why she is a victim. She says her god wants her as soon as possible. If Benny Hinn can cure her in a stroke, then would he be preventing her from going to heaven…?"

On the edge

Most people have been there, at one time or the other. Also, everyone's thought that no one has had it as bad as them. Some come back, some don’t. But how does it feel to be there? What does it take to end it all? Just how many dreams have to be crushed, how many humiliations, how many people to not have by when you need them the most …

In my bluest of blue times, I have never actually thought of killing myself. I was born to live. Almost all of us are. What is the psyche, then, that goads some of us on to death? Maybe it's cruel of me, but I cant bring myself to sympathise with the suicidal. Suicide means absolute acceptance of hopelessness. If you can be so strong about being negative, why not be strongly positive, instead? Not that I am a raving 'positive thinking' kind of person. No amount of positive thinking will wish away your pain. If you feel rejuvenated by some feel-good book or talk, rest assured, it's just momentary. It's just a trick your mind is playing on you, so you get a breather, so you 'forget,' and get on with life. Yes, your brain does try to 'forget' things for you, which is good. But never force yourself to forget – else you will remember each excruciating detail.

Coming back to suicide: look around you, hasn’t there always been at least one person who's braving the storm and still smiling? Also, had anyone promised you that life is going to be a cakewalk? It's fine to be complaining about life, but is it that cheap to toss it away? People struggle, so they can live. And here I am with my broken heart, and think about nothing except my miseries. And cry that the world is going by without giving a damn about me. Honey, have you given the world a chance? You just slammed the door on its face. All of us who think that we got the worst deal, well, wake up. If it's a farmer in a Third World country, then I would probably not deny him the resentment (far too many things are going wrong for him, and setting these right is a global challenge), but not anyone else.

Am I wrong in the way I feel about suicide? Maybe life is simply too scarred for some. Maybe the beyond holds more promises than the present. Maybe. But too many things in my brain say I am right about this. The system could be freaking rotten. But by killing myself, I make it all the more unbearable for the people I leave behind. Kin of such people are doomed to a sense of guilt for life. The question that will haunt them forever is: "Didn’t I listen enough? If only I had done this, probably she would be living today …"

When each cell of a living organism is built to fight the battles of survival, how can some humans defy this basic instinct? And if suicide is a failure of the individual, the society, and Nature even, does making it legally punishable help? If a person does not have the right to end his life, how does the State get that right?

Death defines life. It is the knowledge about the temporal nature of life that makes it so beautiful and desirable. The gods envy us (Remember the line from Troy?), for we have life. And we have death. But the painful part is, it seems we have a choice.

Jeene ke liye socha hi nahin, dard sambhalane honge
Muskuraye to muskurane ki karz utarane honge.

About blogs again

It's so easy to get caught up with daily routine things. But this year, I wont let evil things happen to me, or at least I will not harm myself by excessive slumber, or excessive activity. I want to start doing all those things that I have only dreamed about till now. But no, I am not listing my New Year resolutions here. I fear they get jinxed as soon as I let anyone know about them.

I haven't blogged for some time now, but I sure have been keeping up. Everyone is either blogging or talking about it. Some blogs in the limelight:

Belle de Jour:
Belle de Jour was, to anyone who missed it at the time, a London prostitute who kept a weblog about her adventures. She became a mini media phenomenon after adopting the Primary Colors route to stardom: remaining anonymous. In spite of all the hype, her blog was beautifully written, and now it is coming out in book form. A film can't be far off. With more than an eye for a publicity stunt Belle gave an interview via Instant Message to Monday's Guardian under the name S_Serizy, the name of the character in the 1967 film whose alias gave this particular call girl her nom de plume.

Work blogs, where bloggers reveal their motives.

More blog news: A blog for everyone

Filling in for me

I must take Mr Orwell's help in saying what I wanted to say. He said it in 1946 in an essay entitled Politics and the English Language. I will come back to this later, if I can. Right now my mind's resisting production. But here's Mr Orwell taking over:

I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

I am sure you would have come across such ludicrous shit-pieces. As a cub reporter, I loved to demolish edits by the assistant editor of one of the leading dailies of Bangalore. That's why sometimes I cant help smiling a little when I hear youngsters being asked to read newspapers to improve their English. That's where the trouble starts, sigh.

Text that glows, smells yummy, is sensous to the touch...

The Voices of Village Square

“Hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-aireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

O, dear, sweet Harry, with your French gangster-movie bangs, your Ski Shop turtleneck sweater and your Army-Navy Store blue denim shirt over it, with your Bloomsbury corduroy pants you saw in the Manchester Guardian airmail edition and sent away for and you sly intellectual pigeon-toed libido roaming in Greenwich Village – that siren call really for you?

“Hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-aireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Obviously Harry thinks so. There in the dusk on the south side of Greenwich Avenue, near Nut Heaven which is the intersection of Greenwich Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Eighth Street and Christopher Street, also known as Village Square, Harry stops and looks up at the great umber tower at 10 Greenwich Avenue. He can see windows but he can’t see through them. He gives a shy wave and thereby becomes the eighth man in half an hour to get conned by The Voices.

………

A Sunday Kind of Love

Love! Attar of libido in the air! It is 8.45 am. Thursday morning in the IRT subway station at 50th Street and Broadway and already two kids are hung up in a kind of herringbone weave of arms and legs, which proves, one has to admit, that love is not confined to Sunday in New York. Still, the odds! All the faces come popping in clots out of the Seventh Avenue local, past the King size Ice Cream Machine, and the turnstiles start whacking away as if the world were breaking on the reefs. Four steps past the turnstiles everybody is already backed up haunch to paunch for the climb up the ramp and the stairs to the surface, a great funnel of flesh, wool, felt, leather, rubber and steaming alumicron, with the blood squeezing through everybody’s old sclerotic arteries in hopped-up spurts from too much coffee and the effort of surfacing from the subway at the rush hour. Yet there on the landing are boy and a girl, both about eighteen, in one of those utter, My Sin, backbreaking embraces.

He envelops her not only with his arms but with his chest, which has the American teen-ager concave shape to it. She has her head cocked at a 90-degree angle and they both have their eyes pressed shut for all they are worth and some incredibly feverish action going with each other’s mouths. All around them, ten, scores, it seems like hundreds, of faces and bodies are perspiring, trooping and bellying up the stairs with arteriosclerotic grimaces past a showcase full of such novel items as Joy Buzzers, Squirting Nickels, Finger Rats, …

……………………

These were extracts from Tom Wolfe’s The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. No, its not fiction, though the tools that he uses are borrowed from fiction. Most of the stuff from this book is his articles published in Esquire and other magazines. The Voices of Village Square is an article on a detention center for women. He starts the story with the girls’ ‘siren calls’ at a passerby. He doesn’t let go of a detail, no way, not one: be it the feel, smell, or sound of the place. He paints word-pictures, and how!

But there’s more to the New Journalism that Wolfe heralded than just being something different. Language can tell, language can mask; it can clarify things or further muddy the pool. We accept any bullshit language thrown at us, and rarely understand what’s happening or why it is being thrown at us. If you care to look, you will find an agenda. The politics of incomprehensibility. More on that to follow soon.

About blogs, slimes, etc.

I know most of the ways The Times of India 'sells' itself. But what I read today beats it all. I am so sorry this guy has stopped writing. Such detailed documentation of the TOI's ways of journalism (sic). And come to think of it, he's an MBA, and not a journalist. Pasting his blog below:

May 08, 2004

The Times of India
Most of my regular readers know the extent of my ‘love’ for the Slimes Times of India group and those who don’t can estimate the same from the fact that I have an entire damn category dedicated to India’s most successfull and least professional media group.

Via reader Kalyan Raman and Kitabkhana and Gouri Chatterjee at The Telegraph comes this gem of a piece about the complete lack of ethics, integrity and honesty at India’s (sadly) most popular media group - the Times of India Group.

On April 23, both the city supplements of Times of India in Mumbai and Kolkata carried a story titled “Sex and the City” on their front pages respectively. The screenshots are attached below(you will have to visit his site for the screenshots) and here are links to the web versions of the stories - Calcutta Times version and Bombay Times version.

The article(s) goes on to talk about the rising infidelity levels in the city(ies) with quotable quotes from people and psychiatrists like “for every four men who cheat, there are two women” and “Infidelity is no longer an eyebrow-raiser”. But this post is not about how the Times of India sensationalizes news items with risque quotes as they’ve been doing that for many years now. This post is about how the Times of India shamelessly reproduced the same article in two cities on the same day by just changing the names of the people in the story!

The articles are reproduced word-for-word with just a couple of minor changes to cover their tracks. Here are the minor changes:
“Ryan” in Bombay Times become “Raghav” in Calcutta Times
“Amit Patil(23)” in Bombay Times becomes “Amit Datta(23)” in Calcutta Times
“Social psychiatrist Dr.Anjali Chhabria” in Bombay Times becomes “psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray” in Calcutta Times
“Advocate Jai Vaidya” in Bombay Times becomes “advocate Indrajeet Bannerjee” in Calcutta Times.
What really takes the cake is the fact that the even the find-replace job was botched by the Times! In the Calcutta Times version they replaced “social psychiatrist Dr.Anjali Chhabria” with “psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray” in the first paragraph but forgot to do the same in the very next paragraph! So in Calcutta Times “psychiatrist Dr.Shiladitya Ray” conveniently morphs into “Dr.Anjali Chhabria” in the next paragraph! Sheesh!

Here’s a piece of advice to all those people who are still reading that dishrag…get a real newspaper! If you want gossip buy Filmfare/Stardust and if you want skin buy Debonair/Fantasy!

Note: The extended section of this post contains both the articles in question reproduced verbatim from the Times of India’s archives with the differences underlined.

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The latest media take on blogging is by Time. Check it out.

Almonds of the poor

I liked this pic a lot. Hope Sudarshan doesnt mind :)

Drug alert

Hey guys, Swapna put this information up on her blog. I am sure lot of us have consumed at least some of these. Quite of them are sold over the counter here in India. But please stop popping these pills. Bear a little pain, make some effort to find out alternative medicines, maybe even work out a lil more. The side effects of these drugs are scary. Please stay off them.

ANALGIN:This is a pain-killer. Reason for ban: Bone marrow depression.
Brand name: Novalgin

CISAPRIDE:Acidity, constipation. Reason for ban: irregular heartbeat
Brand name: Ciza, Syspride

DROPERIDOL: Anti-depressant. Reason for ban: Irregular heartbeat.
Brand name: Droperol

FURAZOLIDONE: Antidiarrhoeal. Reason for ban: Cancer.
Brand name: Furoxone, Lomofen

NIMESULIDE: Painkiller, fever. Reason for ban: Liver failure.
Brand name: Nise, Nimulid

NITROFURAZONE: Antibacterial cream. Reason for ban: Cancer.
Brand name: Furacin

PHENOLPHTHALEIN:Laxative. Reason for ban: Cancer.
Brand name: Agarol

PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE: Consumed for cold and cough. Reason for ban: stroke.
Brand name: D'cold, Vicks Action-500

OXYPHENBUTAZONE: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Reason for ban: Bone marrowdepression.
Brand name: Sioril

PIPERAZINE: Used to kill worms in the body. Reason for ban: Nerve damage.
Brand name: Piperazine

QUINIODOCHLOR: Anti-diarrhoeal drug. Reason for ban : Damage to sight.
Brand name: Enteroquinol