Thursday, October 8, 2009

Flood for Thought.




He was sitting on the drivers seat with his trousers folded up till his knees his bata sandals lying on the dashboard of the bus behind the steering wheel the bus conductor managed to arrange for some tea from the guy who used to appear wearing a raincoat and a huge black umbrella with 10 small glasses of tea from the by lanes and disappear after selling it all for 5 bucks a glass in less than 2 minutes to come back with more. sipping on a hot cup of chai my dad told told the conductor ">yaar ye baaris rukne wala nahi hain sayad". He spent 30 hours sitting on the drivers seat which was an inch above water all the other passengers had abandoned the bus he could not.

26th July 2006, was the day when Bombay beat the world record for maximum rainfall in a day, and i am reminded of those floods today because of the grim situation Andhra pradesh and Karnataka, about 500000 people are living in refugee camps, 300 people died, Orissa as a state should be completely evacuated looking at the rate of floods, droughts cyclones that break the states back year after year and its only increasing. People who have to bear the brunt of climate disasters have contributed zilch in causing it and the irony is poor guys dont even know why they are at the recieveing end and who is responsible for it.

But we know it don't we? its us, the rich and when i say the rich i mean the rich of the world discounting the Geographical boundaries, its a fact that Climate change is being by accumulative emissions of over a hundred years of industrialization, its the west who has caused it and they will have to take the lead in cutting down emissions but wait a minute in causing the problem what the west did to us aren't the Rich of India doing the same to the poor of India? We can continue telling the world their emissions are about luxury where as India's emissions are about survival and thats because we are country of over a billion people but think about this.

If the world emissions come down the same as India per-capita emissions which is less than 2 tons per annum climate change as an issue wont exist then but if over a billion Indians start having the same lifestyle like an urban middle class citizen then apocalypse wont be far away.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Coal at what cost?

Eight year old, curly hair wearing dirty knickers, no shirt playing in sweltering heat with his favorite toy, a JCB to excavate coal and load it in a tiny little truck. He pushes that toy truck loaded with coal over a crack spewing fumes and smoke. That’s a day in the life of a kid in Jharia, A small town in Jharkhand, the town is a part of the district which is called as the coal capital of India, Jharia alone has almost 60000 cr (us 12 billion $) worth of coal under its belly which has been burning since 1916.

October 7th 2008 I was in Calcutta, the city was lit up with millions of lighbulbs, loudspeakers blaring music at high decibel, shops, restaurants, flea markets, theatres, buses, trams, rickshaws…it looked like someone has switched on a big halogen lamp over the city, it was the biggest festival in Kolkata, I was in transit to travel to a Jharia assisting British photographer peter caton for documenting a place which is often referred to as “Hell on Earth” We took an early morning train “black diamond” to Dhanbad from Howrah station.

The parking lot at dhanbad was choc a bloc with 100’s of ambassadors that ply as taxis, we hired one with a driver named salim who said he knows all the “phayar “ places in Jharia at the back of his hand. We started out day around 1:00 pm after having lunch.

Jharia is a small town in the state of Jharkhand, its claim to fame is that 60000 crores worth of coal is buried under the town and has been burning nonstop since 1916, there are as many as 70 sites spread all over Jharia where you can see the ground beneath your feet breathing fire. The villages in Jharia literally breathe coal. One such village is bokapahadi exactly opposite rajapur coal mines, all men in the village work in the mines while women and children collect coal illegally from the mining dump to earn some extra food for the family.

Hundreds of families breathing toxic fumes of coal which has been burning under their homes for generations, most of them suffering from breathing disorders, 90% kids don’t go to school, no electricity struggling day after day for every meal on the land which they inherited from their forefathers. Why are they suffering so much? The answer is simple, they were born on coal reserves worth 12 billion us $, they are living on the source of energy which is pumping India’s GDP.

So the question I want to ask is why are these villagers in Jharia not party to all the development happening in the country . During durga pooja in Calcutta when thousands of homes switch on their first plasma tv why does Shankar bhuiya’s family continue to eat their modest meal in the light of a kerosene lamp? Coal for sure is destroying the planet but is it doing any good to humanity?

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Muthalik and his monkeys.

i would like to start this with a quote of pramod muthalik who in an interview said "pyar karne ke liye koi day kyun?, aaj karo, abhi karo kabhi bhi karo" well thats what froms the basis why he and his army of monkeys are up in arms to beat the shit out of anyone who is found expressing his/her love on valentines day. the leader os these monkeys resorting to making youngsters life miserable can be understood, he's old, unmarried, he has never had a crush on any girl ever in his life, cos its not indian culture, he might have never loved someone cos its not indian culture, i can bet he never got laid in his life cos its not indian culture. Kamasutra is not indian culture actaully vatsyayana was not an indian he was a russian, his full name was vatsyayana boobpreski, he was sent by the Indian national congress to write a book on sex so that BJP's image can be tarnished in 20th century.

Khajuraho is also not Indian culture, it was made by george bush way back in 1600's to help the tourism industry flourish in india. Indian culture is torturing women and treating them as slaves, . Indian culture is killing newborn baby girls, Indian culture is expecting wife to do a sati if husband dies, indian culture is husband marrying in a months time after wifes death but if husband dies the wife has to spend all her life alone practising celbacy in a white khadi saree.

If sri ram sene wants to be self appointed to preachers of indian culture, i suggest they should first read up a little about it, I would like to know which book is mr. Pramod muthalik referring to for promoting indian culture, He should first correct himslef and start saying that he is trying to fight the influence of western culture on hindu culture, and before he says so he should read up more on hindu scriptures, vedas, granthas etc....

this idiot muthalik doesnt have a clue what he is talking about, thank god he was not born when krishna was alive, he would have crucified the poor guy for openly flirting with all the chicks in mathura. let me ask this, Indra dev can get drunk on madira or somras and enjoy an item number from an apsara every evening, and if we wanna enjoy a cold draft and shake a leg then hindu sanskriti is at threat, lord shiva can be doped out 24 x 7 but our parties are raided, dropadi can have 5 husbands at a time, kunti can make out with the sun and have a son but we are not even allowed to publicly display affection for our girlfirends ???? why?? for gods sake even guru kripacharya was making out with his babe in the forest under the open sky when youdishthir spotted him pants down or dhoti's down and got a shraap for being a peeing tom, sculptures of orgies and gay and lesbian sex are plastered all over khajuraho, and that mr muthalik is not a private loo of your non extistent father in law, kajuraho temples were made to be seen by people, outside, in the open.

so screw you muthalik, or i suggest some one else should screw you, what ever your preferences male female or shemale i suggest you should get laid, if you need money we wil all pool in and make sure you get laid but please leave us alone. i request every one to clebrate valentines day and clebrate every day a a valentine day and show the middle finger to muthalik and his monkeys.

May god not have mercy on you and you die of a bobbit while getting laid.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

shoe beating around the BUSH.

I am utterly disgusted with an incident that happened in bangalore 2 days ago following the shoe throwing episode, some guys were talking about the scene in the office and one guy ended up supporting the guys heroics, (yes, i choose to say heroics), he said that bush got what he desereved, or may be not, the idiot ducked it well i say, his colleagues could not digest the fact that the saviour of the world, the 8th avatar of vishnu, the second coming of jesus, god himself, his holiness sri sri lord BUSH was attacked with a shoe, this should have been doomsday man, the world should have gone in to mourning till the next leap year, it was reason enough for US to attack Iraq again, a WMD was thrown on BUSH and the world saw it, this should have triggered a third world war and how can some one one support this incident, how dare some one call the act of this journolist as 'heroics'. Anyways this guy is now being interrogated by the the cops as well as ATS in Bangalore for his suspected terror links, his colleagues apparently smelled a dead rat and reported the cops.

This is bizzare man, each one of you who laughed out loud after seeing that video BEWARE! the cops might come knocking on your door, immedietely after the incident a game was uploaded on the website where you too can throw shoe at bush and till now 3564156 people have already succesfully hit bush. all of you who hit the 'bush's eye' including me are doomed, i had four succesful hits by the way..you guys wanna do it?? heres the link but do it at your own risk, make sure there are no colleagues around you, close the doors & windows mute your system go under a blanket and have fun, but dont enjoy it loud the cops are listening. http://www.kroma.no/2008/bushgame/

Jokes apart, what would you do if you had seen your country men, thousands of them being killed, women raped, children being shot point blank, whats left of iraq today is a graveyard of tanks, leftovers of widows orphans and hadicapped innocent people. why did this all happen? because some idiot called Bush saw a sattelite picture saddam husseins statue and thought its a WMD. If something of the same scale happens in our country would you throw a garland at bush? i would, a garland of wet, stinky, shit loaded shoes.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Stop Gangas extinction, bring energy revolution


After a break of more than a year i could not stop myself from writing about the experience i had in varanasi when we spent a week there to raise awareness about the threat to ganga. every year on the 6th of december the world celebrates Global day of action on climate change to tell the world leaders that we are watching, This we decided to communicate about the threat to india's iconic river GANGA, About 400 million people look to the Ganga as a primary source of freshwater. No other river in the world supports such a large population's livelihood, Recent reports say that the himalayan glaciers are melting at an alrming pace andconsidering that in the dry season Ganga recieves 70% of its water from the glaciers if it continues the same the glaciers might completely dissapear by 2035 making ganga in to a seasonal river completely jeapardizing lives of almost 500 million people, even the thought of seeing this happen will give goosebumps to 11 out of 10 people.

So what is the solution?? the solution lies in the way the world consumes and produces energy, i say the world here because even if India starts harnessing 100% of its energy from renewables and stops coal completely will it stop the glacieal retreat? may be not, but if the world shifts its focus from coal and starts looking at renewable sources of energy it will certainly give a fresh life, to the environment. Today 67% of india's energy comes from burning coal and India is clearly looking at coal as the primary source to provide electricity for all by 2012, but if we go down this route we should be ready for a dry Ganga in the next few decades, more droughts, more floods, acute agrarian crisis, increase in vector borne diseases. when i asked Raju a boat man in varanasi about what does he think of the fear that Ganga might not be there in the next few decades. Raju said " ganga ji nahi rahengee toh hamaare janam lene ka koi uddeshya hee nahi hain, ganga ji hain toh varanasi hain" If ganga dissappears then there is no purpose of my being born, theres no varanasi without ganga.

On 5th December the solution to ganga's problem was seen floating on the river. The message was loud and clear, Its now or never "OORJA KRANTI LAAO, GANGA BACHAO"

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Jailhouse rock..

Sorry for this delay folks, dint have internet access in prison so could not post. yes you read it right i said prison, i along with 5 other like minded friends climbed up a 250 ft smoke stack of a thermal power plant in kolaghat, west Bengal, and painted "SMOKING KILLS" each alphabet around 7 ft, yes it was big. we did it to save the world, we did it to communicate the threat of climate change looming large on our lives. and the result, we were slapped charges of criminal trespass in a protected area which is a non bailable offense with a maximum imprisonment of 10 years.

Friday 12th of October, we were presented in court for our heroic act of trying to save the world in a protected area, no doubt intentions were all over the newspapers but the judge needed to sleep over it to make his mind for granting bail, so we were the guests of of state government for a weekend, now as we proceeded towards the prison which is right next to the court all the gory stories that we hard heard thats happens inside a cell started running as a slide show in front of me, i wish hadn't seen chandni bar, i wish i hadn't shaved whatever stubble that i had...before entering those 25 ft walls all we wanted is few packets of cigarettes to smuggle in with us as thats the currency my friend that will save your ass in prison, and another piece of advice given by a wise man " if you drop a soap in the prison, don't bend to pick it up".

We entered the first gate and in all there were 16 under trials, may be 17 i don't remember our contact details were entered in the register and we headed for the main cell, we were 4 guys and two girls, we requested the prison guard to ensure that four of us stay together, all 16 crossed the second gate and entered a compound which had a well in front lots of trees, the walls were painted in brick red color, we walked straight for 20 ft then turned left towards our cell, there were inmates waiting at the door to welcome new under trials, "i really wish i hadn't shaved"

one by one every one entered the cell, it was a 20ft x 70 ft cell, the flooring was of cemented and the ceiling was around 25 ft high so that no one can reach out to the fan and try suicide, the gate to the cell was to left side as we entered what we saw was a small praying space which had photos idols of all Hindu gods, a little ahead was a small box which was covered with a cloth kept at a height of 4 feet, that box looked like a television but i wasn't sure, on top of the box was a FM radio receiver and below the the box was a big speaker which would have been 200 watts..

all four of us were told to sit right opposite the entrance which was a privilege because to our extreme end were two small cubicles one was for peeing and other one for shitting, every new inmate who is not a notorious gangster or loaded with cash has to start his stay from next to the toilet and then earn his way up till the gate. Why were we privileged??? well i wasn't thinking about that, all i was concerned is who is gonna be their bitch for the night, i would have paid a thousand bucks that night to sleep in the middle...

all the eyes were stuck on us as were clearly a misfit there, boyish looks except for gene who with his multiple piercings and many square inches of tattoo looked like an under trial from Thailand. In all there were 36 under trials for murder, rape, kidnapping, stealing, sodomy....one of them approached us with a Bengali news paper in hand which had photos of three of us with a story..every one knew what we were in for and it was well appreciated, with all the questions in mind we sat very close to each other and slowly went off to sleep, suddenly we were woken up by an inmate who offered us two alluminium plates, one with sabzi and other with dusty hard chapatis, but i have to tell you it wasn't that bad as shown in films, quantity of food was never a problem and quality was never a question as we dint have a choice. Every one started spreading their blankets and we were waiting for ours..when asked if we would be getting blankets too, one guy on our right said, "you can sleep here", he had spread out blanks for us on the floor. i was shit scared "why on earth will he do that?" who will be the prison bitch amongst us?? " The radio was tuned in to 107.8 power fm which played both Hindi and english songs. i had secured my place in the middle dozed of listening to bollywood songs....

when fast asleep a scream woke me up from my ass saving dream..what i saw was a man being beaten black and blue by the self appointed rulers of the cell who had earned their way to be the kings of that world. the man was being beaten because it was his third visit inside for stealing, he was being beaten cos he was told last time not to steal, not to come back, he was told to work hard and earn his living, he was told to value freedom and liberty and he had broken the rules. After the punishment what followed was explaining the rules to the new inmates..

Rule 1) every one will sit and pee and use plenty of water to keep it clean, one has to wash hands and feet properly.

Rule 2) every one has to wake up at 5:45 in the morning for prayers which happens to be national anthem.

Rule 3) There are timings for everything in prison which has to be strictly followed.

then every one was sent back and we got back to sleep, the lights are never turned off in the cell as some one might try to kill himself or others.

The next morning we followed the routine, 5:45 counting of all inmates, 6:15 national anthem in the compound, 7:30 tea with puffed rice, 12:00 Rice Dal sabzi, 4:00 tea 8:00 dinner, before beyond or between these hours were conversations with inmates, their stories, playing carom, chess, listening to radio...couple of hours sleep too in the afternoon.

its a different world all together in there, it has its own set of rules which shouldn't be broken, it has stories that ready made scripts for a movie. I saw the definition of friendship in prison, there was one guy who was in for 11 months as he had helped his friend elope with a minor girl and get her married. when i asked him "you knew that she was a minor, so why did you do it?? you were bound to get in trouble." he said " i did it for my friend." he said it with a smile and his head held high...

Different types of people in for different reasons, some good some bad, some holy....there is only one law that exists in there and that is of good and bad, inmates who are in for rape are treated the worst, on Saturday night a new inmate was made to strip, shag and drink his semen, his crime was that he had blinded his girlfriend by throwing acid on her face.

all the stories that we had heard of in the prison, came true in those three days in front of our eyes, but the four of us were taken extremely good care of....i ended up asking on Monday morning just before we left for court to hear our bail application. i asked Raju who was one of the head guys in our cell " you guys are making people clean toilets, fill water, you beat them, make them eat their semen...but why this ultra special treatment for us?" and what he replied was what made me even more proud, he said " we are not bad people, we beat the shit out of some inmates cos they deserve it, people get what they deserve, last time a bunch of villagers came from nandigram who were fighting to save their land, and we treated them like gods, you guys are fighting for us, for our future, why will we treat you badly??"

We were granted bail on Monday evening, before leaving that place we handed over 2 kgs of onions and chillies, cos if you are privileged in prison you will get onions and red chillies to go with every meal..

Thursday, October 4, 2007

sufi istanbul....








My journey that started on the 19th of september from newdelhi-london-cambridge-manchester-vienna-slovakia, now comes to an end today in istanbul, after arriving i was cursing myself to have dropped my camera in slovakia which was not functioning anymore as i wont be able to take take picture os this beautiful city which has some sort of magic in the air, but i managed to borrow an obsolete konika 1.3 megapixel camera which allowed me to take only 28 pics and i have tried to make the most of it. The weather was awesome, beautifully pleasant and not too cold. after a half an hour ride from airport i landed in hotel galata antik which is located near taksim tunel, whithout wasting too much time in having a shower in a 5 x 5 bathroom i stepped out the breathe the magic in the air.


I was famished and my desire to eat chillies was growing stronger and stronger after having the not so spicy or not spicy at all food in europe for 11 days. no more pasta and salad, i could smell falafel, shawarma, roast lamb, mussels, chilles...but i had to wait for that for a while.

I started with 'simit' its turkish bread which is sold at every corner in istanbul, it makes a sinful combination with cheese and its quite filling must say, as i was relishing simit and cheese i almost forgot that was i searching for an address while eating or the other way round???

Anyways, will skip the boring part about meetings and work in the office. but would like to mention that for lunch i had meat balls with veg curry, bread for free. Evenings in istanbul look like a carnival on every street, its perfect blend of centuries and cultures, though quite liberal the city is very much connected to its roots and culture. The streets have the best of brands and the most gorgeous women sporting those brands walking through lanes which have musicians communicting to god in trance, as darkess shines in istanbul food and music takes over all the small bylanes with tables laid outside full of people from different parts of the world, sipping tea, beer, live music playing, and the best of food to compliment. Yesterday evening after having a lavish dinner of lamb roast, chorba (soup) pilaf with mushroom curry, went for a beer and then in a conversation about food i tickled my friends taste buds by mentioning mussels (filled with rice and spices inside and then cooked) its heavenly, we headed for a helping of mussels, what followed was desert made of chicken, yes chiken and it was yummy. i was too drunk to remember the name though.




After three full days in office followed by evenings on istiklal street i had to get out today to capture what mani ratnam tried to show in guru in a short time, i cant show mallika sherawat here but still i will try what he hasn't. it was a 5 minutes downhill walk from istiklal street to karakoy tram station three stations away is sultan-ahmet thats where the blue mosque and topkak palace and st-sophia and grand bazaar are, except for the bazaar every structure looks bloody similiar with a different name and size, the grandeaur of these monuments are hypnotizing is say, so i preferred not to enter these monuments, not that i was scared of being hypnotised but i dint want to pay 10 liras as a tourist coming from a country which will let me in to see the taj mahal for 20 bucks. hain na?? after seeing those same to same monuments and a bit of shopping from grand bazaar i stopped to eat a shawarma, picked up three raw chilles to go with it and as the chillies dissapeared one by one the firangs around were looking at me in amusement, "how on earth can some one eat chilles like that' loved the attention and picked up a couple more chilles. "eat dirt guys see what we can do, huh!"


What amused me the most is loads of people lined up at the galata bridge for fishing, everyday many of them, selling their fresh catch, its an amazing thing, people of all age groups sipping on tea, puffs of cigerettes and fresh catch for sale on the spot cant get better than this. on my walk back i spotted a lot of shops in the subway selling guns i dint approach and ask if they were real of fake but it made a good picture, and actually it would have been fake i mean for 100 liras where would you get a real gun except in bihar. with the last fort liras on me i am gonna buy some turkish
delights to take back to india, a couple of beers,
turkish sufi music and mussels for dinner again...will try something else for desert if you guys say so. me not being an ameateur blogger and started wring only 10 days ago, now that my tour is coming to an end but the jorney goes on and on and on...so will keep posting, leave your comments if you want me to keep writing, will encourage me. tata