Sunday, October 30, 2005

The Great Indian Attitude

We who boast about our great culture and high morals when compared to the rest of the world. This incident is a testimony to the delusion many God-fearing cultured Indians love and are very proud of. I am sure a plethora of such incidents occur every other day, just that nobody writes about them. How morally depraved we have become and how used to being depraved are we?

"The young man crossed. He ran across. All it took was a fraction of a second. I could've imagined it, but, I saw a bike actually speeding up as he ran across the road. The bike hit him. The young man was lying on the road. Blood was pouring out of what seemed like a huge yawning hole on his left temple. We all saw it. We watched shocked. A second later a bus slightly to the right of the young man decided it had to move. It did. It ran over him. Over his arm and the right side of his body. It then stopped later. It was a DTC.

I wanted to help. So I asked. Was anyone going to take him to hospital? Then I shut up, because I heard people talking about how much money they could make out of this. One man said no-one should move him, because if he died there then they all could make more money. I was bewildered. It was like I had got transported to someplace barbaric. To a place in the dark ages.

Then I said something. I called an auto- asked the driver if he would take me and the man to hospital. The auto driver thought... and thought and thought. Finally he demanded a hundred and fifty rupees, I didn't have time to bargain. The distance was worth thirty. Amongst a lot of abuses, threats and such I managed to hoist the man into the auto. In the auto I searched his pockets to find a number I could call--only to find his pockets ripped off and empty. His money had been stolen. People had searched his pockets before I got there.

We reached Safdarjung Hospital. At nine the trauma care centre was devoid of any patients. The man and lady at the reception made me wait for a half-hour while they completed some paper work, despite my protests. They then brought out a sheaf of papers. Asked me if I was a relative, because only then would they allow surgery. I called him Senthil and signed as his sister. They brought him in on a stretcher. Then they left him there in the lobby with me for forty-five minutes, I timed it. When I asked why they were taking so long-- they said they had sent someone to stamp the papers and couldn't begin till they arrived. At long last the took him into the OT.

I took an auto back to Yusuf Sarai. I had missed the first three classes of the day. There were two more to go. The crowd had largely disappeared. The bus, its driver, conductor, a couple of touts, the bike owner and a large beefy policeman stood in a small circle pointing to the blood stains. From a distance, I imagined that justice just might be on its way. I went up to the policeman saying I was an eyewitness and would be happy to give a statement.

He looked at me curiously. I looked at the bus driver and the bike owner holding two five hundred rupee notes each in their hands. The police man had already collected a thousand. He tore the complaint notice in half in front of me. I asked what he was doing. He told me not to worry. He said the matter had been resolved. The bus driver, conductor and policeman left for Chai together. The bike owner drove off nervously."

Krishna, where are you?

Friday, October 28, 2005

Goa lifts bars on beaches!

For once the government makes the right move! God knows why hard drinks were not legal on the beaches till now!

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A Ferrari is still always a Ferrari

Anand Vasu on the return of the God. Sachin Tendulkar is back!
Read entire article here.

Choose your own holiday

Wow! Finally, religious holidays will not be mandatory for one and all [link]. People get to select from a fixed number of holidays rather than rest on holidays that they don't celebrate anyways. In fact the proposal speaks of conversion of religious holidays into "restricted holidays". I would suggest that there should be a certain fixed number of holidays that people should be allowed to use as they will. There is no reason why a secular state should have anything to do with religious festivals. Religious festivals that may lead to congestion in areas they are celebrated due to any associated processions etc should have the need to get special permission for celebration at hours which don't cause any difficulties to the work routines of those not celebrating.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Necessity is the mother of invention?

Inventions seem to foster necessity here (The new Ipod!).

I feel a severe urge to buy this one but don't find the need. Guess, I will have to resolve the need soon.

Friday, October 07, 2005

When God called Bush

Link

"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did.

"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who attended the meeting in June 2003 too, also appears on the documentary series to recount how Mr Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

God bless Bush!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

When the Gods went to sleep

Woman raped near Jodhpur temple.

The complex act of giving

Why do people give? Are acts of giving truly selfless or is there a hidden motive that is more important to the giver than the cause the donation is made to. Is the donor conscious of the hidden motive or is the donor oblivious to it too. A very nice article in the NYTimes gives some scientific insight into the act of giving!

"And the altruistic impulse in humans is frequently absent in the face of need, which seems inconsistent with selfless goodness. Why does the generosity sparked by events like Katrina fail to appear when it comes to helping the 700,000 African children who die from diarrhea every year for lack of clean water?

Kathleen D. McCarthy, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York, argued that Americans' response to Katrina had much to do with what she calls the "but for the grace of God factor." The devastation hit so close to home that they could imagine their own living rooms under water. It's harder for them to put themselves in the place of a dying African child."

Read the Entire article.

There are people who seem to think that the world depends on their charitable acts. The acts as a result are done more in a condescending manner and end up doing very little good to the purported beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are in fact the people who do the charity. It benefits different people differently. I guess it helps a few to suppress their guilt at their fellow beings suffering. Also, they are not sure as to what their own future holds for them and so feel a sense of security by giving. Others may derive some sort of mileage, political or in social circles out of the charity.

It is very common for people to worry about the donations that their sports team has made or the donations that a certain other celebrity has made. As if it is an obligation on part of the celebrity to make a donation. I guess the reasoning is that since the celebrity earns much more he should donate more. A celebrity who makes a donation is accused of having a hidden propaganda. Life is miserable whether or not you donate! People who raise fingers may have not done their bit though. In fact people are more worried about the charity the other person did than the charity they would be interested in doing.

I don't think that all charity should be done anonymously. No charitable organisation can run without funds and the only way one can extract funds is to advertise any charity that has been done. But if Mac Donalds tries to get attention for its donation for the Katrina cause then it is doing more charity to its own cause. They could have made donations anonymously. I guess all educated folks can see through donations of the Mac Donald kind. Unfortunately, most donations are of the Mac Donalds kind! Not to say that people and organisations should stop donating. Just that the act of giving is by no means noble.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Sun TV, The moral police? Huh!

A photo that cost 5-star its license!

Brilliant. The interesting part is that the moral police is a news paper that belongs to the Sun TV group. It is the same Sun TV group that is known for showing "Adult Programs" after midnight! They have a problem with people who were shown kissing at a private party!