Sunday, June 29, 2014

Inside the Common Man's Classrooms

School's the place where the future of India is moulded. Right?
Here are some photographs of schools I have come across in Bihar. Government schools.

These child friendly blackboards around the classrooms help kids to participate in the learning process. Excellent tools for Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation.

 
 
 


A simple and effective way of keeping track of what a kid learns.. this is known as the child portfolio.. samples of learning levels achieved... this little girl proudly shows off her work 
 
Now, here's a dedicated teacher.
 This young man teaches class I. there are no desks and benches in his classroom. no teacher's desk. he sits on the floor and engages his class with what tools he has. here he supplements the lesson using a Sesame Street picture book. Bihar has its dedicated government teachers as well... the only thing is that this young graduate isn't a 'regular' teacher... he draws a salary of some five thousand rupees from the Panchayat...
 
 


Group activity in a government school in Hajipur block...





and below another view of the child friendly blackboards...







This is my school library- a school in Kesariya Block, East Champaran

I can spell simple words and I do have a decent handwriting, see?


Where there is no blackboard, or furniture, or even a floor, but there is a thirst for  learning

My teacher and I- a government primary school kid shows her grasp of numerical concepts
 

With you, Without You

The film is about a Catholic Tamil refugee woman and a pawn shop owner, a Sri Lankan man, against the background of the aftermath of the Tamil uprising in northern Sri Lanka. It was released in 2012, and has even featured at a couple of film festivals in India.

When the film was released a few days ago, Theatres in Chennai received anonymous threats over the phone, faced police apathy and reluctance to offer protection and so cancelled the film shows.

As is fast becoming the norm, intolerance has once again been allowed to muzzle freedom of expression...

 Now a petition is doing the rounds supplicating  Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha to intervene and 'allow ' the film to be screened.

Of course, it's common knowledge that goons with her political patronage are responsible for the threats and intimidation. It's a Sri Lankan Film, so it shouldn't be shown in Tamil Nadu... but can you call Jayalalitha and her ilk racist and still keep your head on your shoulders (literally?) not if you're in the Sambhar state!
So the film fraternity has gone to great lengths to draw Amma's attention to the following facts:

The film is a close collaboration between Prasanna Vithanage and the Indian film fraternity.

The National Award winning editor from the Tamil and Mumbai film industry, Sreekar Prasad has edited the film.
Documentary film maker from Delhi, Rahul Roy is a co-producer.
A scene from the film

 Anjali Patil from Mumbai has essayed the main role and won the Best Actress award at the International Film Festival of India (2012) held in Goa.

 The film is a sensitive portrayal of post war Sri Lanka and the consequences of denial of justice to the Tamil population.

Instead of supporting the widest possible exhibition of this film in India we are today witnessing the opposite and all because some stray people have decided without seeing the film that it is inimical to Tamil interest.

A great irony indeed given the fact that the film is a scathing testimony of the suffering that the war has unleashed.

So what happens next? Will the queen Bee wave her magic wand, or will she look the other way and shrug?



We should be applauding the effort made by Prasanna Vithanage who has braved very difficult circumstances to bring to us a brutally honest account of war, suffering and the miscarriage of justice.



Saturday, June 28, 2014

But Seriously, No going back!

Today I have set off on my own personal campaign in solidarity with those marching for Pride this month. I'm wearing this T-shirt throughout the day, and telling curious people why its so important to have this message out there..... My spirit is with the indomitable Calcuttans who started the first 'pride walk with about half a dozen people wearing yellow T-shirts so many years ago....
 

Friday, June 27, 2014

A natural thing...

The month of June draws to a close.
Half the year has slipped by and I wonder, have I been moving around in someone else's coma?

Amidst the writer's block and sheer indolence, I find myself up to my eyeballs in missed deadlines.

And yet, June stares at me through the slats of my bedroom window.

Sun and rain... the met office has a field day mixing up its weather report

The rain adds to the sludge and the filthy water in the pot-holed lane outside.
The sun beats down and hot steam, heatstroke, and conspire with the air-conditioner to bring you irrationally high electricity bills...

Outside, my friends will be protesting and holding up placards.
Section 377 must go, they say....

'But I see a bad moon rising'... the one I wake up to every morning says
A blood moon....

Somebody whispered... does the Indian Gay community want their rights
so bad that they are willing to die and go to jail for it?
Or will the movement dwindle when the NGO funds dry up if the homophobic dispensation decides 'gay rights activism' is 'anti-national activity'?

But I will go out wearing my 'NO to 377' T-shirt anyway.... I tell my partner

Why? Do really I need to explain?

Because it is the natural thing

Because  it is but natural to wake up beside you every day of my life


Because  it is but natural to  share our breakfast in bed

Because it is but natural to do the laundry, shop for food, and choose wedding gifts for the girl next door...

Because it is natural to love someone as beautiful as you

It's the law that is unnatural, twisted, and an aberration ...

But what we have is the most natural, wonderful, enabling, empowering thing in creation.

And nobody's got the right  to tell me to be ashamed about it, not any longer...  not any more...

ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!


 

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Sphinx and the Hyenas

Remember how exasperated and irritated we felt when  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh kept mum throughout several of the worst happenings under his watch, and how we pilloried his government for not speaking up firmly and sensibly when the news of that horrific December gang rape case broke.

Well, now 1, Race Course Road has a new tenant, and the present Prime Minister constantly communicates and speaks his mind, he's visible, 'decisive', and outspoken, tweeting at the drop of a Gujarati turban.

But what's puzzling is his Sphinx like demeanour on issues like the murder of the Pune Techie, the locking up of harmless chaps who post criticism of him on facebook,..... and worse .... where's the Modi Byte on the epidemic of rapes that seems to have broken out over Eastern and central India?

It's a riddle indeed...


This go-getter, this much advertised mover and shaker,  this curious mixture of man and lion( at least to his followers) ... do his eyes suddenly turn to stone, do his ears become wads of wax when the hyenas of patriarchy and prejudice have begun to attack the fabric of modern India?

Who's the intrepid news man or woman who will seek answers from the creature overlooking the Indian scene?

But beware of the Sphinx.... Sphinxes have this nasty habit of tearing you apart if they don't like the answers ...or in this case... the questions!

And if he doesn't dismember you , it's more than probable that the pack of hyenas who follow in his wake will.
 

Sporno-sexual? How I wish I was in that league?

What's all this about coining words, and why has some sections of the Indian media suddenly latched on to Mark Simpson's new piece of word-spinning... he was the fella who first used the term 'metrosexual' and he's now got a new one 'spornosexual'.

he was talking about the 'new wave' lads.. the ones I refer to as the Andrew-Christian-innerwear types. He calls them the 'pumped-up offspring of those Ronaldo and Bekhamlunch-box ads, where sports got into bed with porn while Armani took the pictures'. Wow!

Anway, all our pals who like to instragram their naked selfies can now aspire to the new term, even if they don't have the 'chiselled pecs'.

Spornosexual... How I wish I was in that league.. but no chance... One has become decidedly pear shaped over the years.... but my new boyfriend definitely makes the grade... only he's very averse to posting his pictures in the buff anywhere... so sorry folks!

But one need a visual... or two..  to go with this post... so here are  my hot Spornosexual pals for your perusal... and if you're from Shillong, you've probably seen them around...


And here's Sri.... so peeps, bye for now....

Oh, hang on... what's an Andrew Christian innerwear type, I her some of you ask curiously?

Really?

So here goes:

Andrew Christian is the unashamedly Gay apparel brand and believe me when I tell you that they have the most bodylicious boy candy ever on display.

The designs are absolutely to die for.... but unfortunately not made for pear shaped persons such as I.

So, for the benefit of the uninitiated, here are two AndrewChristian Innerwear Types:


 

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Salesman's blues... or how many buttons off to sell a dictionary?


The doorbell did its annoying thing,.um.. screeched. 

 As soon as the door opened, he began speaking, “Good morning sir, can you please tell me what appliances you have?” It was midday.The man looked  jaded, faded, thirsty, and harried nevertheless, he tried to answer the blunt questions thrown at him as politely as possible. “No, sir, it is not a government survey. I just need two minutes of your time sir. Tell me, sir do you have a washing machine, a fridge that you want to replace?”
Rajkumar -that's his name- is one of those ‘sales promotion executives’ for Godrej that has come up with an interesting way of pushing their products. They send these sweaty, underpaid people to your homes  to influence you to exchange your time-tested older appliances for their new, plasticky, but more 'efficient', power-saving devices, and while they are about it, they try to add on a few new wants on to your bucket list.

Rajkumar is about thirty years old, has two kids, and all for the princely sum of 5,600 rupees a month, he legs it from Patna City to his designated ‘area’- currently Patliputra (some 14 kilometres apart). 

Here he rings doorbells on a hot summer afternoon and attempts to get irate house owners, some just woken up from their siestas to  look at brochures and place an order, . So far he had rung 26 doorbells and had not made a sale. “But by the end of the day, I should have interested at least two customers. The best day for me was earlier this month when I made seven customers, and that resulted in the actual sale of two air-conditioners and one fridge. For me this means that I will get some extra money as sales commission.”

 He knows that this job might not last for more than six months, but that’s how it is. One has to keep body and soul together, he says.

 Eureka introduced door to door salesmen to the country back in 1982, starting off with vacuum cleaners following with other products. Today Eureka Forbes has captured about 75% of domestic water purifier appliance market. 

Door-to-door marketing is usually conducted in the afternoon hours, when the majority of people are at home. Many of these sales people are under 30 yrs old and come from humble backgrounds. They pocket a commission based salary, and they tirelessly comb the city, street-by-street and home by home demonstrating and selling products. 

Other commercial establishments are getting into the home selling scene. A ‘Rashmi Gupta’ turned up at my doorstep wanting to know how many times a month I eat out and what cuisine the family prefers, and she left after handing out a couple of discount cards for a new restaurant in Boring Canal Road. Rashmi, a second year in one of the local hotel management institutes described herself as an intern ‘service manager’ for her establishment.

“Unfortunately, personal selling is widely misunderstood,” says Navnita Meghnani, a lecturer in commerce, “For instance, many customers think salespeople possess traits that include being manipulative, arrogant, aggressive and greedy. While many marketers believe salespeople can build strong brands. The interactive nature of personal selling also makes it the most effective promotional method for building relationships with customers, particularly in the B to B market.”

How to have Fun with pushy sales boys.....

Ashish and Rizwan, two not bad -looking twenty-somethings, turned up on different dates selling encyclopaedias and Oxford dictionaries at the doorstep, they said they were interns doing a marketing course.

They actually pushed through the door, ignoring my polite statement that one  might not be interested. "Just Look SIR," said the bolder one.

So that's what one  decided to do, took the bolder one at his word and began to check out the goods, but not necessarily those on offer!

 The two provided a spot of entertainment, especially when one decided to flirt openly with the more vocal but scruffily shod  Ashish, much to the embarrassment and possibly horror of  the cuter petite Rizwan, who very obviously pink in the next few minutes .

 Now how far would they go to sell a 500 rupee dictionary?

Ashish undid 3 buttons to display his deliciously sweaty torso. Then removed his shirt and flapped it about. Too bad one didn't think of taking a few snaps for one's blog... or perhaps one did? Anyway, taking pity on the poor lads, one gave them a glass of chilled water for their efforts, but unfortunately, no sale.

You see, I already had the Oxford Dictionary that they were hocking. look carefully at the right hand corner of the shelf in the picture! Tsk! tsk! They've probably left older and wiser and will [intelligently] tell their colleagues to steer clear off my building. heh heh heh!

In conclusion

Personal selling plays an important role in our lives, contributing to, our business and economic system. The door to door salesman also helps us to improve our standard of living, enhance the quality of life. As the state grows and becomes a player in the new ‘market economy’, home owners can expect more ‘afternoon knocks’ from the sales brigade, so why get irritated if you can have some fun?




AIR FM Rainbow India : what's the buzz?

Listening to the RADIO is one of my favourite pastimes and in the days of the ubiquitous short wave, DXing was one of my hobbies, besides philately and a bit of numismatics.

DXing was when we would try to get the most obscure radio stations on our portable short wave radios, listen into the programmes and send reception reports to the radio stations, receiving QSL cards, free programmes, T-shirts and other cool stuff  via return mail.

The last T-shirt I received was from Worldspace Radio... my obsession from 2004 to 2006, when it sadly folded up without warning.

The radio station that I currently tune into is none other than the AIR FM Rainbow India channel of All India Radio. The western music shows are of interest to me, and they have The Matchless Music Hour on from 9 am to 10 am everyday. This actually means about 40 minutes of Western Music if you shave off 5 minutes for the news bulletins and 5 minutes for the ads... and believe this about 12 minutes for THREE Hindi songs [oldies] that are inserted in the show.

This is clearly an aberration for the national broadcaster. Why can't Rainbow India  have its own old Hindi music show and let us have an hour of western music un-interrupted? Whose hare-brained idea was this anyway?

You can also tune into the 12 noon show called Play it Cool and another 6 pm slot on weekday evenings. The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening shows are usually well compered. The 12 pm slots are rather patchy, good on some days and indescribably amateurish and sloppy on others.

My own relationship with AIR western music programmes, as a listener go back several years, in fact to infancy when one tuned into AIR Calcutta B for Musical Bandbox, and later when AIR Delhi B western music request shows would be inundated with requests from 'The Gangtalk Gang' - Tsewang, Prabhat rai, Kesang, Frank Krishner were regulars then, again in 2004, when I was in Delhi for a short spell, AIR western music shows did receive my active participation as a listener.

AIR FM rainbow is the ONLY source for western music over radio in most of the small towns of the North and East.Several kids who want to improve their English try to tune in to these shows.

The RJs should take their responsibilities seriously, check their diction and grammar, prepare their scripts well, because AIR is the national broadcaster, and it's not meant to be a 'hip' 'sloppy' and 'slangy' private radio station.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Night of a thousand lamps



The past week brought with it two reasons for festivity, the most hyped one being the kick off to the World Cup on Thursday night, which had several thousand denizens of Patna walk around bleary eyed on Friday morning. Thursday evening was a very special one for another reason. Most of our young Muslim friends were making trips to the cemetery to clean up the graves in anticipation of for the Night of Forgiveness, the ritual having a parallel with the ‘All Souls’ Day’ prayers at the cemetery prevalent among Christians.

 The night of Shab-E-Barat celebrates the entry of the Prophet Mohammed into the city of Mecca’ Muslims around the world believe that on this day God writes the destinies of all men for the coming year by taking into account the good deeds and misdeeds committed by them in the past. It is considered one of the holiest nights on the Islamic calendar.


“Shab-E-barat is the night of deliverance from all sins. Muslims across sects observe the holy Shab-e-Barat with fervour and devotion. It is a night of prayer, recitation from the Holy Quran, and seeking blessings from Allah, the Almighty, seeking blessings from Allah for long life, peace, progress and happiness for our families,” says eighteen year old Imran, “Special prayer services are held from midnight to about four in the morning, and we go smartly dressed for this special namaz. It is the custom to visit the graves of relatives and Muslim saints and offer special ‘munajat’. We better be on our best behaviour because Almighty Allah decides the fate of all human beings fixing their 'rizq' (livelihood) for the next year”

  “The way we celebrate in India and South Asia is different from other places,” says Mehraz Haque , formerly from Patna Women’s College, now grinding away at a PHD from the Benaras Hindu University. “ In some areas, the festival is celebrated by bursting crackers, illuminating the house and surroundings with lights and candles is also a practice, that is favoured by Shia Muslims. In Patna, there is not much fireworks, but towards Bengal you will see colourful fireworks light up the sky.”


On this occasion, the Sunni Muslims are expected to forgive one another and to make sure that whatever debts owed to one another is settled .The Shia community believes that 15th Sha'aban ( Friday the 13th this month) is the birth date of their last and 12th Imam who is invisible and will come back as Imam Medhi.

 Sanya is an unashamed foodie. “It’s an occasion to bake and stew, and stir. While the men are busy with their grave rituals, we women make the festival a sweet occasion. Halwa is the hallmark of the festival. As a Bengali Muslim who loves sweets, I will focus on the variety of tempting puddings– carrot halwa, sujir halwa, lentil halwa, neshestar halwa, egg halwa, papaya halwa, and many more. On this night we eat halwa with our families, and also send them to friends and relatives to spread the festive mood.”

 For Rizwan, the special breads baked during the occasion of Shab-e-Barat that take the cake. “Visit Baker Gunj and sample some delicious breads are made of raisins and nuts with a honey-coating and sesame seeds on top,” he says. “And don’t forget the spicy meat dishes and biryani as well!”

 It is believed that the departed souls (Arwaah) of the Muslims visit the houses of their friends and relatives on this night to see how their descendants are faring, and perhaps the festivities and prayers are for the ancestors to see the prosperity and faith of their descendants and be comforted.

Here's hoping that you and your friends had a blessed week and enjoyed the treats that go with the festival. May the year ahead be a good one for all.





The Day of Reckoning

Friday past was the thirteenth of June.
It was also the day when many of my Muslim friends say that the souls of their ancestors come to earth to visit them.
Others say that it's the holiest day, one to offer up prayers for the departed, rather like All Souls' Day for the Catholics.
It is the day when Allah checks up on the spiritual bank accounts of the believers and it is one of the three holiest days in the Muslim spiritual calendar.
Shab-e-barat is also observed in memory of the Prophet Muhammad's entry into Mecca.
Palm Sunday is observed in memory of Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem.

When the Prophet entered Mecca he was backed by an army.
When the Christ entered Jerusalem he was welcomed by the local populace.

This is a photo of my very handsome young friend Imran who loves halwa
Then the Prophet proceeded to smash every idol in the Kabba (the biggest temple in Mecca), destroying hundreds of gods.
And the Christ proceeded to smash and overturn every money-changer's table in the Temple.

The people around the Kabba fled or stood their ground and were martyred for their faith.
The people around the Temple merely withdrew and plotted the Christ's death.

So the Christ, the pacifist on a donkey, was publicly executed for trying to start a rebellion.
And the Prophet, the pacifist with a sword, took hold of the Temple in Allah's name.

Whatever.

The highlight of Friday and Saturday was eating the delicious puddings (called halwa) so generously shared with me by my friends.