Ayodhyas et al

K came home at 4 pm yesterday . He informed a stupefied me that IBM had even declared a holiday for their employees, fearing the worst that might result from the Ayodhya verdict.

An English daily doesn't mince words today when it comes to Advani and the BJP. Apparently, they have invited the Muslims of the country, out of sheer pity, it seems, to help in building a grand temple for Ram on the disputed site. Apparently other parties like the Congress are too embarrassed to even react to their celebratory ardour and ridiculous press releases.

Hello ? What's happening ? I must be very dumb if I am one of the minority who, after scouring through several news channels and reading the newspapers from end-to-end, feel that the verdict of the three judges is mind-numbingly indecipherable. They seem to differ on quite a few important issues pertaining to the whole case and that's only quite natural, the three being three individuals of varied background and education.

Then why the urge to invite more trouble by making irresponsible statements ? If political parties don't show restraint, then how will this country ever heal from the horrors of its past ? People like Advani pose a menace to society. I'm ashamed on his behalf.

On the other hand, it has been a refreshing change to read Aveek Sen's article in The Telegraph, where he recounts first-hand how the Jama Masjid, on the day of the verdict, inspired all gathered within its premises to behave with maturity and dignity. Although the article itself ends with dark undertones, the optimism remains to haunt. Thank goodness we have sensible people too around us.

Blaring Horns

Why is it that I feel like seeking sanctuary at the Osho ashram in Pune everytime I'm out on the roads of Kolkata ?

Is it because I seem to hear nothing but car horns honking all the time : a cacophony that penetrates into my eardrums and threatens to deprive me of my sanity for good...a noise that I've been used to since school-going days and which I still can't suffer without feeling my blood beginning to boil and my senses reel from the almost tangible assault on my ears, my mind, my consciousness, my being ?

Is it because I feel like doing what many there were allowed to do (I wonder whether it's valid even now) : get into one particular sound proof room and scream their guts out like Preity Zinta's character in The Last Lear ?

Would that help ? Would it help get all that anger, frustration, annoyance, disgust, agony, angst, stress out of my system once and for all ?

Would it ?

What else, in the name of CPM ?!

I've been struck speechless ever since I read this article today morning...what hope or scope of improvement is there in a country where people are more concerned about milking the poor and sick for their own private monetary benefits rather than happy to witness them being provided for medically by people as selfless as this particular couple ? And where political parties exist only to fuel such selfishness instead of curbing it ? None, methinks, none at all.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS00vMjAwOS8wNi8xNCNBcjAwMjAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Prioritisation

From :

The Times Of India, Kolkata
22 April 2009


Power staff put on poll duty in midst of crisis

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata/Durgapur : It was a freak technical snag that blacked out Kolkata on Sunday. On Tuesday morning, in the middle of a power crisis in the state, two units of the Mejia thermal power plant under Damodar Valley Corporation had to be shut down for five hours because 150 employees from the crucial generation stations were sent for election duty. Employees of emergency supplies, like power utilities, are generally exempted from poll duty — a fact chief electoral officer Debashis Sen confirmed to TOI — but for some reason, the district administration ignored this. Amal Sarkar, chief engineer of Mejia, DVC’s biggest power plant, said Bankura DM Sindar Majumdar had ordered the release of the employees for training as election ‘microobservers’. West Bengal Power Development Corporation managing director S Mahapatra said he had heard nothing like it during his career. As the 150 employees duly reported for poll duty, the second and third units of Mejia that each generate 210 MW were shut down at 8 am. Later, the DVC brass intervened and secured their exemption. With 420 MW out of the system, the crisis that had developed following a transformer blast at the national grid in Durgapur on Monday night deepened. Seven DPL units went out of commission at once. By Tuesday evening, two smaller ones were back on track but two others with combined generation capacity of 460 MW remained inoperative. A DPL spokesman said the seventh unit, DPL’s biggest at 300 MW, would take at least three days to restart. That’s really bad news when unrelenting weather has pushed demand in Kolkata — which endured a sweltering blackout on Sunday and is still facing intermittent power cuts — to a record 1,528 MW. Across the state, it peaked to 3,600 MW. A demand that the state power utilities are not capable of handling. Anger over the power cuts led to protests and road blockades in Kolkata.





Protests in city over power cuts


Kolkata/Durgapur : The shutdown of two units of the Mejia thermal power plant — thanks to the staff being roped in for poll duty — made its effect felt quickly. Kolkata, where demand had peaked to a record 1,528 MW on Tuesday, ran short of 188 MW in the evening. For the state, the shortfall was a whopping 450 MW. It led to intermittent power cuts in Kolkata and elsewhere. Unable to watch Kolkata Knight Riders play for the second time, angry citizens blocked roads at Dum Dum and other places in the city. The state power department may argue on whether it was a “load shedding” or a technical snag in the system, but it means little to citizens who cursed the government for power cuts. With Lok Sabha polls a week away, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee gave a piece of his mind to power secretary Sunil Mitra who called on him to explain Sunday’s blackout in the city. The technical snag apart, state power utilities are suffering from a shortage of good quality coal. State power department officials are in touch with Coal India and have ordered for additional 2 lakh tonnes of coal from Indonesia. However, the amount is too meagre for the huge demand. “It will keep the Kolaghat thermal power plant running for not more than eight days,” a state power official said. But poll managers won’t listen to such excuse. They want power minister Mrinal Banerjee to act in time before public resentment goes out of control. Pushed to the wall, power officials are looking for options to import power during the evening peak hours, even at higher rates.


Opinion : To me, it's very simple. The election enables us to choose leaders who'll help run the country better. So it's ironic that we are actually choosing politics over the people. It's all about priorities and one would assume there would really be no choice involved in this occasion, at least, not when Kolkata is suffering one of the worst summers ever. It's shameful. Shame on us.

RACISM EXISTS

from Gargi Mandal-Mukherjee <mandalgargi81@gmail.com>toservice@youtube.com

date : Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 1:15 PM
subject Fwd: Comment posted on "Sandy Hook Beach, NJ"
1:15 PM (1 hour ago)

Dear YouTube,

Youtube has been one of my favourite websites for a long time as it has allowed us all to upload and share all our beloved videos. But recently people have been abusing your infrastructure and facilities by propagating racist messages and insensitive comments & videos, provoking ill feeling among international communities.

http://www.youtube.com/user/killswitch6988 : this person is one of them.

This morning I was shocked to find the dirty, insensitive, foul-mouthed comment he had posted in my profile. A visit to his profile revealed a series of racial comments and hate messages that I, being a non resident Indian, found in very poor taste. I intend to post a review to our local newspapers and local magazines and in my blogspace, mentioning the way people are misusing YouTube. I would expect you would take immediate action against this member, and prevent the spread of such racial abuse and dangerous separatisms in future.

I enclose below the forwarded message from your site itself, notifying me of the comment I received this morning.

--- Forwarded message ----From: YouTube Service <service@youtube.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:07 AM
Subject: Comment posted on "Sandy Hook Beach, NJ"
To: sosostris9 mandalgargi81@gmail.com

- Show quoted text -

killswitch6988 has made a comment on Sandy Hook Beach, NJ:

go the fuck back to your 3rd world country and stay the fuck off my beach and out of my state

You can reply to this comment by visiting the comments page.

© 2009 YouTube, LLC

-- Regards,
Gargi Mandal-Mukherjee (sosostris9)

P.S. I'm sorry guys if you think this post contains offensive language, because I feel the same way too.

Of untimely phone calls and undesirable etceteras

I was indignant at being summoned from the depths of sleep by the monotonous staccato of our landline phone. Thankfully K attended to it and I was just drifting back into sweet slumber when I heard his voice, out in our living room, where he seemed to be talking to a certain colleague back at his offshore office in Kolkata and enquiring about the reason for the call at such an ungodly hour (somewhere around 6.30 am, I think). My first thought was that of killing K, my second was that of killing the same colleague, my third of blowing up their offices both here and back at home. After such successively violent thoughts, you can hardly be astonished if I tell you that I was wide awake. I did my best to keep my eyes shut and contemplate nothingness. But there. I had been rudely woken up by all those unholy noises and there was no going back to neverland. K says I was so angry that when he tried to wake me up gently after my alarm clock rang (an hour or so later) and I showed no sign of reacting to it, that I actually smacked him on the nose and almost damaged his eye as well by flailing my fist wildly in the air. I vaguely recall hearing him groaning in pain and grumbling at his even trying to be affectionate in the morning. It was so obvious that I preferred sleep to him.

But it wasn't the phone calls alone. An elderly couple had been occupying the apartment below ours for an astonishing 19 years. They had recently left and been replaced by a young fellow who seems to have musical fits occasionally and more perplexingly, very early in the morning, that is, just when I'm clinging on for dear life to my last REM session. Well, he was apparently afflicted by the same sort of symptoms this morning, so that all my attempts at retiring back under the comforters proved to be of no avail. The entire world seemed to be conspiring to wake me up prematurely.

Well, I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast and hurling imprecations at every do-no-gooder around me I could recall at that point when I saw the pretty young musical fellow swaggering down the complex path towards the main road, armed with his usual outdoor musical accoutrements (IPod et al). For one minute I seriously contemplated pushing up the kitchen window and screaming out "Damn You" at him but thankfully, the seed in the plum I was dissecting was determined not to be dislodged and its resistance forced me to concentrate on the job at hand, thus allowing better sense to prevail. I did however notice that the creature crossed the road to board a van with the picture of a janitor painted across it, which seemed to belong to some company named 'Worldwide'. After that, I somehow lost the heart to remain annoyed any longer at him.

Talking of companies, things seem to be going very wrong almost everywhere nowadays in terms of jobs. Employees of K's company have been losing jobs left and right in Kolkata and Chennai. When last heard of, 800 of the projected 1400 had been shown the door in Kolkata. Those unallocated for more than a month or more and those with poor annual appraisals are the unfortunate majority to be handed pink slips at the earliest possible opportunity. One indeed wonders how times have changed when you even have a target of sorts to meet in terms of terminating employee contracts. Yesterday, K shocked me with the news of the mysterious 'resignation' of one of his colleagues who'd returned to India to get his visa renewed, had had his papers processed and formalities over, was supposed to fly to the USA next week. His wife and child are still here. In fact, his wife is working here right at this moment. God knows now how they are all going to handle this catastrophe. My heart goes out to them in sympathy. I hope things work out well for them soon. On two disparate occasions, two of K's colleagues, one based in Minneapolis and the other in Maryland (the latter in a managerial position) were prematurely packed off to India and asked to continue in their respective capacities at their original locations. Work hours have been increased on weekdays by an hour (a total of 9 per day), promotions and increments have been indefinitely stalled and all this means we are ourselves living under constant fear of some obscure sword vaguely hanging over our heads. I think I'll try out more recipes and improve my cooking skills (and bring them up to the high standard set by my indubitably superior half) , since we might have to consider alternative avenues of employment very soon.

On a lighter note, we've been going out on regular walks, now that it's spring by universal consensus and the weather is occasionally warm enough to allow the heaters to be switched off, the window let up and comforters left untouched at night. Just by virtue of sitting on our backs at home (to avoid the unmentionable anatomic technicalities), we've managed to gain what small chapbook size self-help by-the-cash-counter books at Walmart are euphemistically terming 'winter fat'. We've bought jogging attire for our considerable (pun certainly intended) selves last Sunday and intend to start on a sober daily regimen of exercise to shed the excess masses of unshapely fat that our bulky and then what we apparently (and obviously wrongly) considered body-friendly winter garments had helped conceal for so long. Amen to that.

Jogging Outfits :

For me :

For K :




Now if only the thundershowers would hold up...

Utterly Butterly Disgusting

1) I'm getting the most idiotically irrelevant job responses possible from recruiting personnel who seem to think I'm either illiterate or bankrupt or have been fired from my last job.

2)I'm gonna miss Mitu's graduation fashion show on Wednesday, 18th Feb. One of the biggest events of her life.

3) My parents have forgotten I exist.

4) My friends, thanks to this time difference thing, have practically become reduced to abstract, virtual entities. I keep on dreading I'm missing out on all the happenings that matter in their lives. And some of them are newly married. Damn !

5) K seems to spend more time at office than at home. I feel more like a PA than a wife.

6) I need to lose 10 kg fast. I can't face that hideously plump creature in the mirror any more.

7) I miss Kolkata. Everything about it. Except the heat.

8) The 'What Not to Wear' show wasn't aired as usual on TLC at noon, nor at 1 pm. To think I practically ran home from the library to be in time to watch it. Oh, and the library was closed, today being 'President's Day'.

9)My camera battery gave out just as I was about to upload my newest set of captures to the laptop. Just the sort of thing that would happen to me.

10)I mixed up Moumita-Sabya Da's anniversary date and wished them today instead of yesterday. And to think I'd been so worked up about the occasion from the very beginning of this month.

Moral of Story : I should go drown myself.

Just wondering...

I always thought your best friend could be your best critic as well. That means, the BF is privileged enough to tell you all the things you would detest hearing about yourself from other people but which nevertheless happen to be true. And the BF always gets away with the diatribe of character-analysis (more like assassination, initially, to the person who's at the receiving end) because the 'victim' knows that the BF is a BF because he or she wishes and means the best for him or her.

So now, if your BF does something nasty and hurtful to another friend of yours, would it estrange you forever from him or her if you confronted him or her with the enormity of his or her action? And if you are scared to do so, would you really be a BF ?

It's an issue I'm reflecting on right now. And a related one, namely : 'Customising Ethics to Suit Yourself'.

N.B : I personally think I'd prefer honesty to cordiality or politeness or whatever it is that keeps you from speaking out. More so if I'm anyone's BF.

Time to think and act...

I found the first link on Sunayana's blog and found it impressive enough to re-use it on my own. Here it is.

And this is another video that arrested my attention during its circulation throughout orkut. I was moved to tears and have ever since been making serious efforts in everyday life to do my own little part in preserving the earth's depleting resources.

Of speaking up. It helps.

I'm not a feminist per se, but I do invest a lot in terms of emotion and interest in what may very broadly be termed human rights. So, when I came across the following video on a blog I regularly follow, I couldn't help but ask permission to use the link on my own blog. The owners were kind enough to grant permission and here it is:

This public service ad, directed by Pooja Das Sarkar, Nandita Mary Thomas and Subuhi Jiwani, tries to raise awareness about 10920, a government-run helpline for women. The directors are Master's-level students in Media and Cultural Studies at the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Speak Up was made as an assignment for a video class on social communication in January 2008.



I have always felt strongly about the topic since a very young age, when we had maids not turning up on certain days and my mother would look sad instead of angry at having to shoulder all her household responsibilities herself. Much later, I understood the reason why. Some of these girl-women were simply not educated enough to realise that walking away from a bad marriage was better than having to overhear relatively better-off (maritally) women offering sympathetic stares and commiserating candour on their own variations of domestic strife. Even after my own marriage, I was a helpless witness to Mangala, the domestic help at my shoshurbari, who didn't turn up for several consecutive days and then left with her salary one evening. Mamoni later told me that her husband had beaten her up so severely that she looked and felt too scarred to make any sort of public appearance whatever. This from a woman whose husband probably earned only as much as she did and yet, had the audacity to distrust her movements ouside home and the company she kept, coercing her to finally give way and lead the routine housewife's life once again, washing and cleaning and cooking etc. I, who had known her since my pre-marriage days and had become accustomed to her greeting me with a smile and a cup of hot tea on most mornings after marriage, couldn't imagine her spirited personality constrained by physical abuse and emotional blackmail. But I had no idea what I could do to make any difference in her position. She had made a decision, she told Mamoni, and would try to live upto it. Mamoni respected it. But did she respect it herself after all?

Couldn't Mangala have dared to tarnish her good name in her community by deciding to rebel and regulate her own life? Maybe, like most of us, her spirit was willing but her flesh was weak? We do so want our marriages to work after all. Whatever social stratum we hail from us. Each of us women. Educated or not. Bold and beautiful. The neither bold nor beautiful. All of us are slaves to what we think is love. To the silence that is actually not any solace at all.

Poet vs Publisher

These exchanges are definitely bloggingworthy, I can't help feeling ....
from Gargi Mandal <mandalgargi81@gmail.com>towhatshotkolkata@timesgroup.com
date Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 2:33 PM
subject Re: contribution to 'POETRY' section
mailed by gmail.com
Jun 22

Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to draw your attention to a poem that I contributed to your revered newspaper for publication in the 'Poetry' section of your Saturday supplementary, 'What's Hot, What's Not'. It was published on Saturday, 21st June on page 29 of the said supplementary. However, I was shocked to see that the poem had little of the originality that I had conferred upon it. It had been whimsically edited, sections had been randomly excised and the entire last stanza had been left out in the printed version. While it was definitely a delightful sensation to discover that my attempt at versification had been considered worthy of publication, it was sad to find that your editorial team needed to tamper with my amateur literary efforts.

I provide, in the space below, the original piece and following it, your (mis-)printed version. I do hope you shall respect sentiments regarding one's own creative efforts in future publications, be it that of other aspiring writers or my own. While, as a publisher, you reserve the right of making any changes you may consider necessary, I think you will also concede that it is your moral responsibility to let the author know of the said changes, prior to the act of publication.

MY VERSION -
- ENLIGHTENMENT
These tiresome ties
Tenuous and tedious
Sometimes seem lies
I must have conjured up
On some terrible day
When my own self worth
I must needs despise
And clutch, cling, hold on
To a more solid soul
Who should cure my heartache
Render me whole.

Today, though,
They stifle, they stilt,
They will me to wilt:
A figment of their creation
A fragment of imagination
I have connived and built.
I sink into such silt.
Perhaps, perceiving this despair,
They hope it is too late to quit.

One dawn of my own,
I shall burn these to ashes
And will dare to disown
Defy the burden of words
Depreciate all those deeds
The harvest of worthless weeds
I have, in childhood, insensibly sown,
That would bind me to duty,
Doom me to desire,
Destine me to devotion.

Some day, I shall decide to come into my own,
To answer all questions my self has known.

My life no longer a loan.

YOUR (MIS)PRINTED VERSION
These tiresome ties
Tenuous and tedious;
I must have conjured up
On some terrible day
When my own self worth
I despised.
I clutch, cling, hold on
To a more solid soul
Who should cure my heartache
Render me whole.

Today, though,
They stifle, they stilt,
They will me to wilt:
A figment of their creation
A fragment of imagination
I have connived and built.
I sink into such silt.
They hope it is too late to quit.

It would be a kind gesture on your part to re-publish the poem in its original form. It should, indeed, serve to re-affirm our respect in the integrity of all that 'The Times of India' represents to its loyal readers.

Yours gratefully,
GARGI MANDAL - MUKHERJEE
22 – 06 - 2008

On 5/30/08, Gargi Mandal <mandalgargi81@gmail.com> wrote:

ENLIGHTENMENT

These tiresome ties
Tenuous and tedious
Sometimes seem lies
I must have conjured up
On some terrible day
When my own self worthI must needs despise
And clutch, cling, hold on
To a more solid soul
Who should cure my heartache
Render me whole.
Today, though,They stifle, they stilt,
They will me to wilt:
A figment of their creation
A fragment of imagination
I have connived and built.
I sink into such silt.
Perhaps, perceiving this despair,
They hope it is too late to quit.

One dawn of my own,
I shall burn these to ashes
And will dare to disown
Defy the burden of words
Depreciate all those deeds
The harvest of worthless weeds
I have, in childhood, insensibly sown,
That would bind me to duty,Doom me to desire,
Destine me to devotion.

Some day, I shall decide to come into my own,
To answer all questions my self has known.

My life no longer a loan.


-- Gargi Mandal-Mukherjee

THE REPLY :

from whatshotkolkata <whatshotkolkata@timesgroup.com>toGargi Mandal <mandalgargi81@gmail.com>
date Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:18 AM
subject Re: contribution to 'POETRY' section
6:18 AM (3 hours ago)

Dear Gargi,

I don't know if you have already been replied to, but I wanted to anyway.I'm not sure who was in charge of editing, and it is perfectly justifiable for you to be angry, but what you must understand is that we are a paper that runs on limited space and deadlines.It is impossible to publish poems in their original form if they are to be published at all, given the format of the page. Also, given the terrible time constraints we have to function under, it is virtually impossible to inform each entrant of editorial changes. You must understand that editing here is not aimed at hurting sentiments or randomly slashing contributions, but to ensure that they get published at all.What you have said will be kept in mind, though, and, hopefully, will not stop you from writing in further.
Apologies and regards.

The intriguing thing is the absence of any individual name at the end.

However, a hearty thanks from me to that anonymous someone who at least showed the decency of standing up to and responding to my ire.