C'mon, cut the ...

You could not ask for a better juicy spice to add to the headlines on an Independence Day, other than to talk about your civil liberties and freedom being compromised over the incident of how our own SRK was detained and questioned upon his entry into the United States.

What is wrong?

The point is not about the paranoia that has gripped the US since the aftermath of 9/11 and just having a last name that is synonymous with a specific religion drives them to into this extra mode of caution. Perhaps, as it does on some cases, the xenophobia potentially could drive few people go over-board. That is a different issue, altogether.

The point is not that SRK was questioned for 2 hours; our concern was more that he was questioned just like any other normal citizens and treated un-fairly!

It is high time we get over this regal shame of giving this VIP treatment to individuals, even in areas that matter the most, like Security. If the US reserves the right of a harsh preferential treatment on the basis of a last name, so do we. We have an institutionalized preferential treatment based on societal standing that goes too soft on few people. This is going to cause us more damage than we could ever understand.

Seldom we, Indians, like to be frisked or even stopped at the gate by the duty bound security guards. At work places, I have seen the frown on the faces of people walking or driving past the security gate, when the security guard asks them to display their id cards.

Why? Because of the simple indifferent attitude that ‘Who is he to question or stop me?’ But, we do want the Best of protection and security and always look at it as the other people's responsibility. It’s not me; it’s him! Hello! The other fellow is just doing his job and how on earth is he going to know that Your Majesty is above the law - though none of us is not – and you should not be touched?

What puts me off at airports or the work place is not I being checked, but the lackadaisical way in which it is being done, under the guise of preferential treatment to the elite few. I have seen many instances at work places where, just to keep the visiting white skinned babu happy, our people taking the short cuts of skipping or rushing the mandatory security checks on the individual and his physical belongings like the laptop, which he carries.

Added to the SRK incident is the comedy of one of the minister’s comment – “we should do tit for tat”. Please do. Not doing that is the issue and don't spare anyone. There will be tons of people who would be more than happy to be strip-searched, if that can only give them the comfort feeling of being secure.

Who are we to decide who is an icon and who is not? In the absence of it, let us all be equally treated as law abiding citizens.

Treat no one as a ‘Global Icon’ and get over the colonial hangover of being sycophantic.

Swine Contd.

When I was trying to explain the swine flu basics to my 6 year old son, he immediately asked, ‘Pa, I thought only the big bad wolf is bad and the 3 little pigs are good?’ Yes, may be that could be the reason why we call this as a Swine Flu and not a Pig flu – to spare the poor 3 little pigs!

Though the media appears to have moved away from the swine flue scare and other issues have started appearing in the headlines over the last few days, but the effects of paranoia is still a scare. Fortunately, the good thing I am observing in the media’s stance over the past few days, is one of education and awareness along with the deathometer, they track every minute. But, credit sure goes to them for some of the most informative discussions with people from the medical fraternity from across the globe.

That, I think, is the fundamental issue in the way this crisis was managed by the civic administration. One of the parodies of this information age is our disability to sift out the right information – perhaps the semantic web would fix that. While googling, gives me every bit of information, it does not help me in deciding what is right for me. Perhaps you would soon see information about swine flu awareness appear first in the page rank than the horror stories of the epidemic.

Creating the right public awareness was the most missed-out portion in managing this crisis. The moment, this pandemic showed its color, the government or even any socially inclined pharmaceutical corporate could have launched

a) Full-page advertisement to educate the masses on the basic hygiene steps to be followed

b) Distribute pamphlets to the masses

c) Use the government owned TV channels to communicate, rather than showing the pathetic state of the people queuing up at the despicably few testing centers at our disposal

Sounds too common-sensical?

Swine Panic

Thanks to the 24×7 vigil and panic show orchestrated by the media, H1N1 is the talk of the town. The whole nation, at least in the metros, is running helter-skelter hunting for a place to take cover from this deadly virus.

Though the government – under the disguise of the feel-good statistics comparing the fatalities of ours to the developed nations – is taking credit for the job done or not done so far, god forbid, think for a moment the reality of our health infrastructure, if at all there is one, if this pandemic is to hit us with little more vigor. I was reminded of the movie Outbreak, where the administration decides to annihilate an entire town, while Dustin Hoffman goes is in hunt of the host. Unlike the Bird Flu, where millions of the poor birds were culled, we cannot cull the humans here when it is proven that the original carrier of this deadly virus, the swine is not the cause now!

For a nation of more than a billion, centers equipped to test this deadly virus is few little, and even there, it is the pitiful state of limited workforce working overtime. Think about their motivation levels! For a city of the size of Chennai, there are just two centers, which can test this virus, and not surprisingly one ran out of the testing kits within hours, on the first day. The government prescribed hospitals is places I pray to God, not visit in my lifetime, or wish even for my worst foes, given the sorry state in which they are.

It is a pitiable site to see patients who are already suffering the viral attack, standing in long beelines. Leave alone availability of proper testing kits, there is no one to offer the commonsensical shelter or a place to sit for those patients waiting in the line. Keeps me wonder what does our civic administration really do?

As we put forth our claim to be on the map of the developed nations and vie for our rightful place among the global leaders or a UNSC seat, it is these calamities that either put us in the right perspective or showcase our ability or inability to manage a catastrophe of this magnitude and scale.

Thank heavens; this epidemic has not spread its wings across our poor villages, which invariably happen to be the chosen one to bear the brunt of any unfortunate calamity, be it drought or floods.

Though it was heartening to know that 3 of our own testing centers are spearheading the global effort to create a vaccine for the H1N1, it might either be too late before the crisis worsens or the deadly virus might have mutated into a more potent form.

N95 was the most searched item in Google by the Indians and when I heard it first, I thought it was one of the recent Nokia mobile phone. This again is a product from one of the most innovative firms in the globe – 3M. Why isn’t there a simple testing kit available for our own citizens? Where are the Indian players and the private enterprise, other than the few pharmaceutical companies? Why don’t we have an Indian version of the mask or Purel to suit the wallets of the Indian consumers?

Are the Indian corporate giants like Reliance, Tata, Birlas, Bharti or L&T driven only by market based economics and focus on myopic business viability in their ventures? How many firms that art part of the Sensex or Nifty could contribute to this nation in a moment of crisis like this? That would be a huge moment of truth for the government to contemplate in their policy decisions, especially at a time when the sit on the table on talks to bailout the sick airlines.

Paying your taxes alone does not exempt you from national duties. It would be interesting to constitute an index based on contribution to nation building and the difference the business enterprises bring to human lives.

Gangaikonda Cholapuram

Thanks to my recent allure to my camera, recently, I did happen to visit this ancient, but spectacular temple of Gangaikonda Cholapuram. I have been to Thanjavur many times, but seldom did I care to visit this historical site, which I have read about a lot in my school history lessons.

Just a couple of hours drive from Thiruvaiyaru on the way to Chidambaram, right on the highway, you have Gangaikonda Cholapuram. Today, this historical place is nothing but a small hamlet by the roadside. Except for the majestic temple, you get to see few petty shops and tiny houses spread across the village.

Thanks to the UNESCO and the Archaeological Survey of India, this temple is now one of the protected heritage sites. The temple premises are so darn tidy with lush green lawns sprawling across the few acres.


Other than the historical significance, somehow the deity has not caught the religious fervor of our folks and no wonder there was hardly any crowd to be seen inside the temple. The day I went, the priest came running towards us, for not to lose the rare visitors and the change that he gets after performing the aarti.Though the main vimanam, looks similar to the Big Temple in Tanjore, it does lack the majesty of the Big Temple and so does the sandstone nandhi. Could not believe my eyes, that all these figurines have survived the travails of over 1000 years!

More difficult would be to survive from the hands of our fellow Indians. Typical of any of our historical sites, many of these sculptures carry the insipid scribbling of the visitors and their names.

If you were to believe that, this place once was the magnificent capital city of the great Chola emperors, right from Rajendra Chola and followed by the Kulothunga Chola, it is extremely painful to believe, looking at the sad state of this town.

Other than the petty shop that sells candies and thirst quenchers, there is hardly any humanity. For the curious buff, I did find a tiny book in the petty shop, narrating the history of this once illustrious kingdom.

Where did we lose sight of our history and heritage? I kept wondering, what would it take for us to attract the crowd towards us and relive our grand past, similar to how the visitors throng the sites of once Roman and Greek might?

Do visit Gangaikonda Cholapuram if you happen to be near its vicinity. You sure will walk down the memory lanes and relive some of the history lessons of your school days.