Right to Education

The landscape in Rajasthan is beautiful only if you have an eye for the desert.  In the wilderness, virgin sand dunes a-la-Lawrence of Arabia are not found everywhere.

 There are specific hamlets where these are being preserved for tourist attraction.
The people are simple, rustic and living in the pre industrial age, small ‘Dhanis’ every km or so, some sort of agriculture where the main crop is millets.  Life  is not complicated, a son grows up looking after animals, may visit an occasional school, more as a ritual, than for any quest for knowledge or growth.

By 14-15, he is of a marriageable age, the bride is still 8-10, illiterate but adept at house hold requirements.  The fact that she has not attained maturity dose not concur anyone.
The Camel carts, dhanis and sand dunes have a rustic charms, which instantly appeals to us urban people.  Colourfully attired, bangled, veiled, ghaghra choli clad ladies are physically strong; but the desert does take its toll and they          age early.

All this is fine, but what sets me thinking is, the lack of growth, in real terms, this part of the country seems to be still caught up in medieval times.          A village, by the road side, but has no electricity, that too when power lines pass through the village simply ignoring them.  I wonder, if it would be appropriate to leave them, as they are, happy in their present state, or should we force them to adopt a life style alien to them, the urban way of life.  After all, the cities are not far or in distant lands, means of transport are available, but if they prefer to stay where they are and in the state they are they must be happy that way.

An argument, which may not find many takers, growth does not mean abandoning the villages, simply, the basic amenities must be available even in the villages.  But these have to be tailor made for villages, so that they do not upset their life,         for example, if a child has to take his livestock for grazing so be it, school timings need to be modified to suit his availability.  Obviously, you can’t expect his parents to undertake grazing, they may have other jobs and more importantly, in their way of life, it is natural for children to take live stock for grazing.  They find this ok and do not think that this practise needs to be changed.  So, timings need to be changed, with snacks/ meals as added attraction.

What about syllabi?  The syllabus which is prescribed for CBSE/ ICSE, will not only be boring and dull, but also completely at a variance from their needs.  The three Rs(Reading wRiting &; aRithmetic) are a must, but these also must merge with their day to day activities.  The language, ought to be their own dialect, it is their mother tongue, they are more comfortable with it, may be gradually they could move to Hindi or Hindustani.
Education cannot be structured, it has to be all encompassing, stories from their historical sagas can be included, geography should focus on their village and vegetation in the vicinity. Festivals, mythology will also interest most of the kids.
Animal husbandry and fundamentals of agriculture are an absolute must. Some basic trade training such as carpentry, masonry or smithy could be included during the high school. Sports and physical fitness are essential and must form part of the curriculum. Theory exams may be done away with at least in the initial years. Oral and practical exams however should be held to ascertain the levels of comprehension.  The aim should be to ignite the spark of learning, to enable them to pursue further.  Even primary level schools should cater for some children of middle and beyond, in case distance prevents them from pursuing further studies.  In short the system will need to be highly flexible to accommodate each and every child.
Education may not even be class room bound, may be better outdoors, but this requires dedication which an ordinary school master may not possess.  So NGOs have to come forward, because education is the key to growth and progress.  By simply making it a fundamental right and passing a bill in the parliament, things will not change.          

Demon - itisation

"Demonetisation" was the new word introduced in the lexicon of the masses since 8th Nov when PM made that "disruptive/ path-breaking"address to the nation, taking the citizens by surprise. The initial reactions by and large were positive with people admiring the guts and the intent of the PM, however with the passage of time, the enormity of it all with almost 85% of the currency in circulation being declared invalid, dawned on most of us. The long winding never ending queues reminded us of the sixties and seventies when these queues were normally outside ration shops, for the controlled issue of sugar, kerosene and other food grains were the prizes. For the oldies it was deja vu, but the youngsters, the eighties and beyond generation had not seen any such queues anywhere, for them it was naturally quite a shock.

The devil here was in the detail and in the root of the word itself, ie the etymology "demon - itisation", with a demon to start it all it had to be fraught with challenges galore. The origin of the word can be traced back to 1852, from French démonétisation, from démonetiser, and over the past century and a half this trick has been resorted to quite a few times within  India itself, this was the third occasion for such an exercise.Well all this was trivia and though some of you may find it interesting, the major issue with the sudden and acute shortage of currency was day to day subsistence for the common man. 
All of a sudden he was expected to migrate to a digital economy ie the other side of the digital divide, mind you this was herculean by even ordinary standards, expecting fellow citizens to follow rules, you must be joking (!); In India where road rage has always been the rage and rules were always meant to be broken, to expect them to suddenly turn a new "digital leaf" from 9th Nov morning, well.....Namo is helluva optimist(!)
Sure enough there were naysayers, the political parties with loads of cash in their treasure chests, the hawala operators and even the small time businessmen not used to declaring their income were all hit in the gut. Indian ingenuity in breaking the rules and finding a short cut can not be surpassed so sure enough, it was the bankers' turn this time around and they wanted to rake it in and boy they really killed it while we demonetised. 
The serpentine queues would keep on growing and media was having a field day reporting on all the disruption, inconvenience  and the unfortunate deaths which occurred in these two months. But surprise of surprise, there were no demonstrations, burning down of ATMs, banks, or destruction of public property which is the norm for all kinds of protests. So was the mango man actually supporting this revolutionary step or was it that he was too engrossed in trying to ensure the next meal for his family. 

Well actually the men and women on the street are rather smart because even after the D day they continued to trade in the demonetised currency as confirmed to me by an ola cab driver, the vegetable vendors, the maids, the washerman as they were aware that they could exchange these hard-earned notes from the banks whenever they wanted before 31 Dec. Moreover they are used to living on credit even otherwise. So who was really effected and who was crying the loudest .... Obviously it was not the poor. But that does not mean that the step was a huge success as it is evident the economy has been hit, as of now it may appear to be short term but we will get to know in the days to come......

By now the queues have disappeared, the e wallet companies have made their moolah and we are back to the normal cash economy 😁😁

Buddy the Lab

“ Oh you brute you have dug up the lawn once again”, the all too familiar admonishment that our Labrador Retriever was being subjected to. He was at his tricks as usual digging up for some space where he can find solace in the lap of mother earth, which we city dwellers have denied him. You can’t blame him after all, that is his very nature, he is a retriever and has to literally dig things out. Anyway he has been at loggerheads with my better half ever since he arrived at our place, with cleanliness and hygiene as her mantras, a pet was always an anathema for her. She successfully warded off any attempts by me earlier. Like a well trained spouse I did not venture anywhere near a pet lest I might commit sacrilege and invite her wrath. “Hell hath no fury like a woman .....”

Kids of course are not dithered by any such pretensions. My daughter, the apple of our eye had been pestering us for quite a while. Eventually we had to give in when our son moved out to pursue his dreams after his high school and we relocated to the salubrious environs of Wellington. There was adequate peer pressure to put any other thoughts to rest, as every household boasted of pets, with some as many as three to four of them. So to keep up with the Jones I homed on to a Lab as it was supposed to be the friendliest of breeds and having consulted some friends of ours who were experts in canine matters. “Let sleeping dogs lie” goes the age old adage; throwing caution to the winds I am about to reignite the whole debate on Buddy our very own lab, christened so by who else but our dear Anu, my daughter . Well, he was all of 45 odd days but  a real bundle of energy, very playful and always up to some mischief. 

  The lady of the house ordained that he be kept in the garage, despite all our protestations and pleading that is exactly where he stayed all through our Wellington days with his entry within the precincts strictly prohibited. The poor thing had no choice but to get used to it. The advantage from his part was that he had the garden to himself which he ruined to his heart’s content, did not spare the lawn either with littering the place up with his sh*t all over, which even the safaiwalas refused to clean up. Finally we had to sacrifice one Sunday morning, forego my round of golf and instead wield the shovel to clean up the mess. It was of course quite a task to keep him from repeating it, by ensuring that he was taken out almost every two hours to prevent him from getting tempted at easing himself.

Dogs grow up real fast within six months he was almost the size of an adult, he had a delicate stomach, something which made him belong to us even more as even I have a very sensitive digestive system. He did not take to pedigree, well, actually that was quite a relief as pedigree costs quite a packet. So he had to be fed our normal diet, which is vegetarian, here the maternal instincts came to the fore, she was not going to deprive this child his chicken just because we were vegetarians at home. So a special Rice cooker was purchased and kept in the garage itself, where chicken was cooked for him by our sahayak and boy, he relished every bit of it. Buddy was blessed to have feasted on another exotic fruit which most people in India may not have even heard of leave alone eating it, Avocado!

We had a tree laden with avocado in the premises and there is only a finite quantity that we could consume including the delicious desserts which Preeti prepared with these avocados. I had relished them as salads only during my stint at Cote d’Ivoire during UN peacekeeping. So he got to play with them and have them when he got tired of playing.

Once we were raided by a group of simians, boy it was a sight Buddy getting terrified as these monkeys really had fun chasing him around, he turned tail and sought refuge in the garage. Wellington had plenty of wild life to offer, on yet another occasion, it was the turn of bisons who simply came and sat right at our gates, once again he got so scared that he simply refused to step out of his abode till the bisons decided to move on. There were snakes too and one such specimen was often around, we had to resort to planting some saplings of “Marwa mogra” in the four corners of the house, which act as repellents for these reptiles and thank God they seem to have worked as the visits then stopped.

His favourite pastime was to sneak out and land up at the Commandants house which was in the neighbourhood, which naturally had me worried lest the General take it amiss, especially as he owned the female species of lab. I wonder, if the offence then would have been “your dog stealing brother officers’ female dog’s affection”!! It was a quite a challenge getting him back from there with both me and my daughter as also my sahayak, all three of us trying to coax him and even resorting to bribing him by offering a generous dose of dog biscuits and bones. Once he decided to follow me to the college premises chasing me as I was in the car, I was oblivious of this my hapless better half along with the sahayak had to literally run after him lest he gets overrun in his playful enthusiasm and it took all their skills and stamina as also of the guards there to get hold of his collar and tie him up.

 Soon it was time to say adieu to Wellington and the huge mansion of a house that we made most of and we were circumspect about our luck as Secunderabad, where we were headed, we were not going to get any official accommodation, which naturally meant, moving into flats, as that is what the admissible HRA could provide us with. But this dog was lucky and we have to grant it to him, as we came across an elderly banker couple who were also dog lovers who rented their independent dwelling with adequate space around, to us once they got to know about Buddy. The beat part was that they were due to retire in Dec and were scheduled to shift into the premises themselves. But very generously they permitted us to stay there till Apr, when we were due out.

It was in Secunderabad that this guy had a freak out time, as he was still not permitted entry within, he stayed in the verandah near the staircase, from  where he would sneak out at night through the fence and chase the stray dogs and pigs, which we discovered when my son (when he was home for a holiday) heard him yelping in the middle of the night outside our gate. On one such occasion he even lost his bachelorhood subsequently. It was soon time for us to move on to Delhi, so we could not keep track of his progeny there....

I have always wondered what must a dog be thinking that is if they do that, when we move from one place to other, when we are separated for a few days, whether he will get to see us again, how long will we be gone and so on..... the answers were obvious at the joy expressed by his expressions, his wildly wagging tail and his hug whenever we get back after a short sojourn or vacation anywhere. It took a while in Delhi for his luck to brighten up again, as initially for about a month and a half, we had to stay in a two room temporary guest house and that too in a multi-storeyed building. He was definitely not comfortable there but the silver lining was that he had finally got an entry into the house as he could not be kept anywhere outside. He made the most of it by moving right under our bed and that is where he stayed ever since.  But soon we were allotted a two bed room hostel accommodation which thankfully was on ground floor. So he again had a full courtyard to himself to play around and laze around in the Sun.  

He is all of eight now, having accompanied me to Ranchi and back to Delhi, currently holed up in a flat again, quite frustrated as he often sneaks out keeping us on our toes.  There have been those occasional fracas with the strays here, on one occasion he even got the better of a German Shepherd in a “dog fight”, made me very proud, as it was the German Shepherd who pounced on him but he deftly manoeuvred and caught him, it took me , my daughter and a stranger to disentangle them. He was rewarded by a generous dose of dog biscuits for his quick reaction and reflexes. As I am keying this in, he is right here waiting for me to finish so that we can take post dinner stroll...........so I sign off!

THE ANNUAL BUDGET EXERCISE

India is glued to the TV when there are Cricket matches, election results and for the budget speech by the Finance Minister. While each one of us is an expert when it comes to Cricket with special comments and loads of advice for Indian Captains concerning all the departments of the game, elections come naturally to the "argumentative Indian", the long winding acrimonious debates are the spice of pre and post election analysis, but when it comes to the budget, despite our focused attention most of us are clueless about the ramifications of this yearly ritual. But that by no means acts as a dampener and we religiously hear every word uttered by the "Kubera", the mythological God of Wealth, our very own Finance Minister.

The Current and Fiscal account deficits, the FDI and FIIs GST are all terms which we keep hearing all the time but don't understand and yet we are all ears. The only major thing which interests a salaried middle class person is the Income Tax slabs, as that pinches directly, even after exhausting all possible tax saving options one ends up coughing out minimum three months equivalent of the annual gross pay package... that hurts and hurts bad. The indirect taxes also effect us but the impact is not felt immediately and is thus more subdued. There are expectations each year that this time the salaried middle class will get its due attention, the only class of people which are brutally honest tax compliant (they have no choice!), in an otherwise non tax compliant nation, as admitted by the man who controls the purse strings himself.

In the past there have been honest Finance ministers, Yashwant Sinha for example who did admit that "middle class does not vote and hence they don't count for much", even though they contribute a lot by being the largest consumers thus driving the growth in the economy and of course filling up the empty coffers by the TDS ( Tax deducted at Source). In India we have been blessed with Finance Minsters who were as clueless as the general pubic is about finances, Charan Singh for example decided to put even bathing soaps in the luxury goods (!). But since Dr Manmohan Singh assumed the mantle as the Finance Minster in 1991 Narsimha Rao govt and bailed us out of the looming debt crisis, by and large the portfolio has been handled by more professional parliamentarians.

The other thing which interests most of us is the cost of daily use items, such as smartphones, refrigerators, TVs, cars and two wheelers, rail fare and so on. 

Finance minsters or their babus have a knack of camouflaging taxes as surcharges and levies which somehow become a permanent fixture, at least I haven't  heard of any of them being repealed once introduced. Despite all this jugglery the assets and liabilities are balanced rather precariously with the threat of Damocles sword of Fed rate hike or oil price hike omnipresent to leave things in a mess.

Our domestic finances on the contrary are pretty well managed with the purse strings strictly controlled by the ladies, with no profligacy and with adequate caution, we have been managing to sail through year after year for the three decades in my case and I am sure same is the case with most of us. I wonder why nobody has ever thought of this brilliant idea as yet, is the PM listening ;). He did listen probably and appointed Niramala ji, but things haven't improved much, I wonder!!! May be the RBI Governor or the Finance Secretary or both may be entrusted to them...then .......

Cycling

Cycling was the first major milestone after learning to walk and talk for a young lad. Cycling provided us with a sense of freedom and suddenly empowered us after all it provided us wheels and in the bargain liberated us. Cycle was a prized possession since scooters and mobikes were beyond the reach of even normal middle class. The licence permit raj ensured that these luxuries were available only through black market.After all even China our friendly neighbour up North had its proletariat cycling away merrily. So we aspired for a cycle  but the silver lining was the easy availability of cycles on hire. So our first cycling lessons were on hired cycles got at a princely sum of four annas per hour. During that precious time we had to exploit every minutes' worth so the cycle would be ridden throughout without a seconds break. The cycling lessons were provided by the elders at home in joint families, they were the elder cousins or friends who had stolen a march over us the late bloomers. So as a seven eight year old kid learning  cycling and thereafter to demonstrate our prowess to impress the uninitiated cousins and friends. Then there were the daredevils who would drive hands free especially to impress the girls. The cycles which are available at home were invariably Rayleigh ,Hero or Atlas gents cycles with the contraption between the seat and the handle to seat the sweetheart in many a movies... wonder why they didn't sit on the carrier which would have been far more comfortable to the derriere. But may be it was more romantic  and was definitely more intimate

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So these gents cycles which were ugly monsters when we compare them to their modern sleek avatars had actually to be stolen  while the elders were taking a siesta and the "danda" did not prove to be too much of an obstacle as we had devised a novel method of cycling by riding through the gap inserting one foot and pedalling while the other foot remained on own side handle firmly in our hands rather precariously poised not a very stable ride but nevertheless a ride . Since our height did not permit us to sit on the seat hence we had to resort to these novel methods to steal those rides. Unlocked cycles were considered fair game and we simply whisked them away for a quickie whenever we got the opportunity.
Anyway to get back to my own experiences with this humble mode of transport which has of late assumed the mantle of a fitness accessory, it was my cousin who introduced me to cycling  I was all of seven he would have been 15 we dutifully hired one of those mini cycles meant for kids and I was perched on the seat very confidently,  gently pushed with feet firmly on the pedals and hands glued to the handle, I pedalled away at a feverish pace not looking anywhere except at the pedals my joy knew no bounds having mastered cycling in a matter of minutes.. My cousin chasing me asking me to slowdown and the inevitable happened I crashed into an old man trudging along, he too was  engrossed in narrating his woes to his friend  not noticing this misguided missile headed in his direction..... sure enough the crash brought him down I went flying and simply ran realizing my perilous position. It required all his diplomatic skills for my cousin to retrieve the cycle from the old man who had by now got back on his feet showering me with choicest expletives. I of course had already scooted following the age old adage " wisdom is the better part of valour".

 But that lesson was priceless and soon I was cycling away even carrying my younger brother to school  still not tall enough to be able to sit on these, riding in the scissor style. The school was about two kms away from home and even as a nine year old the parents trusted us more than what  we do with our twenty year olds. So  me and my brother cycled to school, the saving grace was that the cycle was a ladies one without the "danda" so scissors style cycling was ok till I crashed again. This time it was during the rainy season when the feet just slipped from the pedals and yours truly was literally hanging on to the handle with both feet dangling away unable to get to  the pedals; in that split second I took a command decision asked my younger brother to jump off lest he too crash along with me and he dutifully obeyed, the moment he did that the cycle now more disbalanced from this jerk simply skidded off with me rolling along... both my knees bearing the brunt apart from  the uniform. The result was that the height of the seat of the cycle was brought down to a level where I could now sit and cycle along.

Little did I know then that cycling will go on for a number  of years more while in the academies where cycles were duly issued to us as our own modes of transport.  We hired cycles in RIMC when we went on leave out... Liberty in normal parlance,  to the town, watched movies and at times even on the FLs when we cut bounds at nights when the hiring had to be done in the evening itself and cycles had to be securely hidden away from the prying eyes of the duty officers and even our prefects, the appointments. These cycles were actually ramshackle contraptions which we could have have done without and probably we could have walked faster at times than these,  but all the same we did use them for these adventures and even for our bicycle hikes to Haridwar Rishikesh. In the final term I was privileged to have been issued  my own bicycle being the cadet captain.....of course it was the property of the course with  me getting it only for official duties else all the course mates had priority rights over it  all the time.

The most memorable cycling trip of course was the hike to Chandigarh via Paunta Sahib from Dehradun and back. This trip was eagerly awaited by the course, as our seniors had regaled us with stories of how they were looked after by the Rimcollian (alumni of our school RIMC) CO,  Col Mangat (later Lt Gen) there, and that the trip was extended by a day to permit them to enjoy Chandigarh to the fullest. Cycles were the same old ones but with renewed josh and vigour  we reached Paunta Sahib and the Gurudwara was our abode for the night, the place is beautiful and the granthis were very hospitable especially seeing us kids barely 14-15 year old. The meal as usual comprised the tasty Dal and the chapati (parsadaji), we were famished and  naturally relished it. The next day was hard work with climb to Nahan and then roll down to Kala Amb, the climb was extremely challenging, some of course took short cuts by hanging on to the rear chains of the trucks, but most of us trudged along. The dhaba owner at Kala Amb as overjoyed at seeing 50 youngsters as his customers for the night, least realising our apetites, because when we finished, the owner had not only run out of his stock of rations but replenished them twice and still there were some of us who could have gone on..... his parathas and chutney with raw onions were really delicious. On our way back the dhaba guy was smarter and rationed our parathas to two each. Chandigarh was nice, lovely boulevards very neat and clean but to our chagrin....the Rimcollian CO had been posted out and consequently we did not get any extension and hence had to return with just a day and a half spent at Chandigarh.

In NDA the cycle provided us with a means to move around in the huge campus in squads of four or six.Squads for the uninitiated was a square or a rectangular group in perfect order but only in senior terms; as second & third term we either pushed the cycles around or lifted them over our heads and ran around the Ashoka pillar. There were more adventures associated with the cycles most interesting ones were the valve raids in the battalion area.
These raids were planned and executed in true commando style complete with mission and objective a plan of insertion and extraction and diversionary tactics planned in minutest detail. The task was to manage as many valves as possible but not less than 20, in the bargain deflating the cycles of the neighbouring squadrons. This operation was executed in utmost secrecy and needless to mention, was carried out well after lights out keeping out of harms way, of the  the duty officer of the day. Duty officers were also known by their characteristics some like a Capt  Anshu Trivedi who liked to be known as the phantom who appeared the moment a light was switched on anywhere in the battalion . Obviously these operations were carried out when we had the Naval dopes or the jazzy flyboys who would invariably call it a day much earlier after their customary barra pegs. There were of course exceptions there too, the likes of Cdr Chitnis and Flt Lt Johri . 
Anyway getting back to the valves and the cycles these prized possessions which we had stolen were then distributed as the booty after the loot and we deposited them in empty match boxes to be produced to win a favour from a senior in difficult times. The most interesting part was the morning muster when we deliberately kept flat cycles else they would invariably be whacked by our worthy seniors who would simply hand over their punctured ones to us to push around. Once the muster was over these valves would miraculously appear, the tyres would be inflated and off we second termers went for our outdoors of course ensuring that our seniors did not catch us on the bikes lest we lose them again with the added punishment of the cycles on our shoulders rather then merely pushing them along. Then someone in the hierarchy decided to put an end to these adventures by providing us with plenty of valves with the CQMS,

the quarter master sergeants and suddenly the bikes serviceability state improved dramatically.

The other interesting anecdote of cycling related to our colleagues from friendly foreign countries especially the Bhutanese ones as they laid their hands on cycles only in NDA as there were no cycles in Bhutan.These guys were dangerous and most cadets avoided getting into their foursome "squad" . The bike especially on a downhill slope refused to pay attention to their endeavours to turn and simply zoomed off straight ahead, the rest of the squad had no choice but to follow suit or crash into them thus injuring themselves and also rendering the cycles unserviceable with the rims deshaped and couple of spokes becoming casualty. Cycling to Peacock bay was fun we never felt it to be drudgery and really enjoyed these rides ....difficult to imagine our youngsters today, they would immediately lay their hands on a mobike rather than trudge along on a lowly cycle.
Cycling continued even post commission as the two wheelers could only be purchased after the the first few months salary was credited into the the bank. But the fourth pay commission arrears soon provided us with the moolah to get our very own two wheelers, a LML Vesspa it was as motor cycles were strictly prohibited by our parents having witnessed our cycling feats and to keep us safe. We of course treated this family ride also as the stallions and rode around in a similar fashion.

IN SUPPORT OF SC DIRECTIVE: DOWN WITH CASTEISM

Every time we have elections the media and our analysts/ psephologists go on an over drive trying to make some sense out of the voting patterns, caste sub caste OBC etc issues. If there is one agency which is responsible for the spread of downright casteist politics apart from politicians, it is our venerated media. By dissecting these issues and highlighting them time and again even a normal person would get swayed and start thinking along these lines which has been the bane of our democracy. We call ourselves a functional democracy, the largest one in the world, but we elect our leaders based on frivolous grounds, caste, muscle, money and freebies. Every party does these calculations before they select the candidates and by harping on it continuously we as a society do not even wish to get rid of this malaise which is responsible for the mess that our society has landed ourselves into.

My media friends will argue that they only publish or broadcast what is prevalent in the country but then very often they adopt a holier than thou attitude, remember the intolerance debate, created and nurtured by media. Then why hasn’t this initiative ever been tried? Don’t we want a real democracy where the candidates are elected on their merits rather than the religion or caste that they belong to. Is it really going to be a herculean task to spread awareness amongst the voters that their votes to their caste/religion brethren have not made an iota of difference in their life style, after all we have been going over this charade for the last sixty four years ever since we adopted the universal adult franchise right from the word go.

So did our constitution makers err in granting us this privilege of universal adult franchise or is it due to our follies later that this has been degenerated to our present dysfunctional process. May be if voting rights were reserved only for literate persons, it would have acted as an incentive for the masses… may be by now we would have had hundred percent literacy just to be able to vote.

But anyway we are digressing, we were at the castiest agenda during the holy process of electioneering. So what are the choices before us, one of course is to stay the course and hope in a hundred years we shall be a mature sensible democracy or alternately bring in some radical changes. Charity begins at home, so let the media barons ensure that there will not be any discussions on the caste compositions telecast or published. Give it a try; I know the politicians will still do these calculations before fielding their candidates but if we spread awareness by organising debates and discussions on the futility of voting based on caste lines and it resulting in election of many unfit criminals who  cannot perceive anything other than their own self interests. The ill gotten wealth of these satraps and their protégés needs to be highlighted for the masses to see for themselves for starters, the Mulayams, Lallus, Badals, Chautalas are right at the forefront.

Were elections always caste driven, well actually no, a Parsi Homi Daji could win an election from Indore on a Communist Party ticket in the Lok Sabha or a George Fernandes, a Kannada by birth, a Bombayite in residence,  by profession, a trade union leader  could win from Muzaffarpur in Bihar and there were many such examples where independent candidates emerged victorious in the days before Mandal- Kamandal era dawned in the country.

Today it is virtually impossible for an independent candidate to win any election even that of Municipal Corporation unless of course if he is a bahubali, the Raja Bhaiya variety. Have you forgotten the famous Mira Sanyal or Capt Gopinath who contested from Mumbai and Bangalore respectively or for that matter our former PM Dr Manmohan Singh from New Delhi and they all lost. These cities are the most cosmopolitan metros of the country but even they could not rise above these petty caste, party driven agendas. The irony is a movie star can win an election from anywhere, Amitabh Bachhan, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna, Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Govinda and now Hema Malini and Moonmoon Sen.  Unfortunately most of them have contributed precious little to enrich our democratic process. However we have had South Indian star turned politicians MGR, NTR and Jayalalitha who have brought forth a paradigm change in their state level politics and they have had a major impact on national polity also from time to time. This democracy is a sham in its current form and we must acknowledge it only then we will look at alternatives to reform it. Yes it is the best we have but, no Sir, this is just not good enough, why should politics be the refuge of scoundrels, it should be by choice to enable our leaders to evolve into world class statesmen. In the pre-independence era, we were actually spoilt for choices each one a luminary in his or her own right, how I wish we had saved some of them for the future generations. We ran out of our stock rather early in the post independence era specially in the 70s and 80s, when the rot began.

TRYST WITH NATUROPATHY

TRYST WITH NATUROPATHY

Naturopathy is synonymous with old age,  "Gandhian lifestyle" so naturally people are perplexed at our act of joining a naturopathy camp for two weeks.  The first reactions are incredulous "Don't tell me! " "Are you sick or something ?""You have no weight issues!" then why on earth would someone embark on this path. Well to be honest it was out of plain and simple curiosity just to go through this experience of detox. May be we will be rejuvenated, recharged for the years ahead. If it works we could make it an yearly feature, else I was sure it would be an experience worth remembering. So here we are at a place called Urulikanchan about 20 mins from Pune at Nisargopchar ashram. "Nisarg" incidentally means "natural" and "upchar" is "treatment" literally; ashram I presume is part of lexicon by now.

Our arrival here itself commenced with a state transport bus journey from Hadapsar Pune India's BPO hub. It must have been ages, since we had taken a bus ride like this;  it was nostalgic bringing back memories of our escapades from NDA when we looked forward to the Sunday liberties boarding these very gigantic smoke belching diesel vehicles to Pune from Khadakwasla. The buses have weathered these three decades and haven't changed one bit, even the system to stop the buses continues to be the bell strung with a rope which the conductor tugs to signal the driver to stop or to move. The graffiti too remains the same, the conductor still screams "pudhe sarkat raha" Marathi for "keep moving ahead" to the passengers standing. The seats were the same, rexine coated coir ones with no comfort provided to the derriere whatsoever, you would rather stand. Even the passengers, the same kurta pyjamas  topi clad villagers and ladies attired in their nine yards,  the only discernible change was the presence of ubiquitous mobile phone. Almost everyone had one.

The journey was short, just about an hour, countryside too seems to have been overlooked by the digital age, except for the concrete jungles which have mushroomed in the immediate vicinity of the town and cities . The lush green fields and fresh air were just the tonic which we were desperate for, having lived through thre Delhi smog  nightmare, specially so after Diwali.

Urulikanchan is a typical Maharashtra small town now, rather an overgrown village akin to the rural areas else where in the country, narrow congested lanes infested with all kinds of transport simultaneously jostling for space on these roads. Pigs and the garbage strewn by the wayside only restricting the moving space but the daredevil drivers deftly manage to  manoeuvre around them. Rural Maharashtra is probably the only abode left for the proverbial Gandhi topi other than in Congress party meetings. Almost every villager adorns these with pride, wonder how come the Gujjus have forsaken them may be because actually even Gandhi ji didn't ever use it himself.

The ashram  is actually within the town itself, may be when it was conceived it would have been outside the village limits. The entry was through a gate which resembled that of an open jail. The inmates though seemed to be engaged in animated conversations as majority of them were from the fairer  but healthier sex. In fact I suddenly started feeling very fit as majority of the "sadhaks" as we were referred to, were obese some obscenely so. It appeared as though it was a weight reduction clinic primarily. The remarkable aspect about the place was the number of women employed right from reception to the doctors, physios to house keeping and kitchen. Even more interesting was the usage and familiarity with computers of the staff with a functional network connecting the doctors, reception and mess thus monitoring and controlling diets  very closely.

The rooms were spacious enough but sparsely furnished, though adequate, making us realise the futility of all the stuff that we keep accumulating all our lives. The doctor herself was  a very pleasing person and I was at pains to explain the reasons for my presence in the ashram after all I was quite fit, fortunately did not have any lingering medical issues although, have had my share of visits and admissions in the hospital having broken quite a few bones in a career spanning 30 years in uniform, nothing unusual! The only nagging issue was recurring acidity which can probably be attributed to the current sedentary lifestyle with prolonged office hours. She was amused and decided to put me on a diet regimen which comprised herbal kadha  ( magic potion with milk, jaggery and basil juice)  carrot and bottlegourd juice followed by another concoction of basil and adusa  ( a medicinal plant), lunch was boiled veg with two jowar  rotis chutney and buttermilk. Evenings commenced with the same herbal kadha and dinner with wheat rotis replacing jowar in the lunch menu. The exercise regimen was Yoga twice once in the morning at 6 am and second time at 2 pm and the treatment so to say was full body massage daily, steam bath on alternate days, Sun bath with layers of earth daily.  For spiritual pursuits evening prayers followed by yog nidra/  meditation. All in all an interesting week ahead. Food was practically salt free but palatable, served between 5.30 and 6.30 pm, rather early by most standards but that gave us adequate time for the evening walk post dinner and naturally we hit the bed and slept like logs.

The next day treatment commenced with the massage which lasted 45 blissful minutes... The masseur a young lad made all my creaking bones and the not so toned muscles come alive followed by a steam bath for about 15 minutes. The contraption used for the steam was a relic of Gandhiji's days but quite effective. Sun bath and all the concoctions made a heady cocktail and after lunch it had to be siesta with eyepatches only facilitating it further. The massage and the steam bath provided us with an interesting visual where apart from tummies of all shapes and sizes which were at display it was the humble underwear which displayed the kaleidoscope  right from the age old striped string bound ones to the jockeys in all shapes and sizes in varying states of use and misuse some barely managing to cover the vitals some failing despite their valiant efforts. I was left speechless by many a tummies one in particular could give any sumo wrestler a run for his money. He had been there three times already in the last decade,  not a very good advertisement for naturopathy I must say. He admitted he was here for detox rather than attempting to lose weight which he invariably lost but made up for it soon on his return.

Surrounded by old fat ladies and a few retired old men made one suddenly feel old a rather unnerving feeling,  frankly I don't even feel my age of  half a century notwithstanding my grey hair and the balding pate .

I decided to switch to raw diet which comprised sprouts fresh diced veg and buttermilk for lunch and fruits for dinner with the rider that these should not be mixed i.e. if it is papaya then no apples or figs can go with it just papaya, difficult proposition by any chance. But I loved the concept and enjoyed these meals more than the cooked ones.

The good part was that I had my better half and father in law for company.He has been an old hand here having been here thrice earlier and has benefited each time relieved from his chronic back aches. They normally recommend a stay of minimum two weeks there but I was happy with my week's stint in these precincts.