Category Archives: Personal

Personal, Society

Shit! There’s too much shit around!

Shit!

That’s what I wondered when I looked out, for the nth time, from the window of the Delhi Kalka morning Shatabdi. Trips to Delhi has been a little frequent lately, and wife is happier consequently [don’t think otherwise! Wifey stays in Delhi, and she is happy to find me frequenter there]. Mostly, on my way back to the hills, I catch the Shatabdi. That brings me to the issue of shit.

  • India has the second largest population in the world, and soon we may be numero uno. Consequently, we shit an awful lot. Soon, we would be the shittiest country in the world, overtaking China [which, the capitalists have been telling us, is the shittiest place anyway].
  • Even today, the majority in India do not have household or communal sanitary toilets. That means they shit wherever they find place. India is a mighty densely packed place – so what was once a fallow field has not turned into swarming slums. You throw a stone today, and there is a 12.3445% chance that it would hit a man, and 9.453% chance that it would hit a woman [being the shameless lot, men shit over a wider time horizon; women flock together in time while shitting]. Okay, I made that up, but you get the idea.
  • The government has been trying to get people to shit in their homes, in sanitary toilets. Earlier, it gave money to the people to shit likewise. The people ate the money, and shat more – in the open. Some built the toilets. Since they could not understand what to do with it, they did whatever they could. Some converted the toilets into the store, some into an extra room. There are apparently cases where the toilet were converted into the domestic temples. That being the tale, one does no know what all this hoopla is about regarding the utterances of Jairam Ramesh and Narender Modi.
  • Later the government thought that giving money on prepaid basis was not working. So they thought up the postpaid formula – build a toilet first, and then you can claim the money. This required a lot of brainwashing. In Himachal Pradesh, we thought we would do better – we cajoled the people into building toilets, and we did not pay them even. The money saved thus were ploughed back into community assets. We called the program Total Sanitation Campaign. The mandarins in the capital have now renamed it Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, for whatever reason. We should take the bull by its horns and call it Hagandari Mukt abhiyan, as many practitioners actually call it.
  • When we were probationers, we had our baptism in development process through this scheme, among others. My first trip in the field, on the very first morning in the district, was to a function honouring those who had won awards for sanitation [Nirmal Gram Puraskar]. When I became a BDO, my first substantive posting, my broke my public speaking virginity by talking about shit, literally. Any place with more than five persons would have me launch me into the topic of shit and shitting. Long lectures had to be devised. I was the missionary teaching all the gospel of shitting.
  • My next posting was to the Spiti Valley, bordering the more famous Ladakh. Water freezes for half the year, leaving you high and dry literally [Spiti is at 3600 metres]. The geography makes people shit in what are called dry-toilets – toilets that uses no water for flushing, and seldom for ablutions. The toilet is just a room on the first floor with a hole in it, and shit just pops down on the ground floor. The shit is picked up and ploughed back in the farms the next summer as manure. Temperatures are seldom high enough for decomposition of the shit – that being the case, I am sure I have eaten and drunk an awful lot of shit. Spiti is part of Lahoul and Spiti district, and the former valley is famous for its potatoes. These potatoes are the seed potatoes that have been used throughout India for farming of potatoes for the chips and french fries industry. If you trace the MacDonalds and Lays potatoes, many would go back to Lahoul. So, chances are you have eaten a lot of shitty DNA in potatoes as well! During my posting there, I had the occasion to do a workshop on Ecological Sanitation, or EcoSan, in Trichy, Tamil Nadu. EcoSan is a technique of shitting and storing of shit wherein the piss and shit are segregated through separate holes during the shitting process, and stored in separate anaerobic containers/tanks – the warm oxygen-free environment breaks down all shitty bacteria, and you have fertiliser from your piss [that you can spray in the fields], and manure from your shit. We were taken to live sites, and were invited to open the toilet pits for hold the manure. Some did, I could not. Lecturing is good enough for me!

During these trips back to the hills, I realised that we still have to go a long way. It’s an easy task in Himachal where most people own a homestead which they can use to build a toilet. Much of India does not own its own homestead – that leaves open the question of where to shit. The only obvious answer seems to be the community toilet, but with such low community spirits as we have in India, maintenance of these toilets is problematic. Kapil Sharma, the comedian, chides a British who says he built the railways to run trains in India – you idiot, you made it so difficult for us to shit on the tracks now, as the trains keep coming! I realised what density means. People were shitting together as if it was a ceremonial and communal thing, quite different from the personal and private affair shitting is for all of us reading this post. It is also a natural thing and people not shitting around were least bothered. People walked beside those shitting, and there was hardly a fart. As the trains pass by, no one bothers to lift his ass – you can watch my royal ass or all I care. As they say, when you feel like shitting, you don’t bother if the King is beckoning you! The shit-yards are getting fuller and fuller, and the tide of shit is getting closer and closer to the hutments and the slums. I realised, shitting being common to both the sexes, the fairer sex was hardly the shy variety – they shit with as much concentration as their menfolk – please don’t disturb us while we shit. Inside the coaches the passengers pulled down the perforated drapes, a typical reaction of ours – out of sight, out of mind. That shit on his yard is not my problem. I looked on, shit or no shit. The green and warm plains looked good as I enjoyed the last few hours of good living before heading back to the shitty hills!

Jadavpur, Personal

More of Identity Crisis

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Long years back there was a time when the saying was ‘what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’. That age is gone. Alongside, the age of the Bengali ‘bada babu’ is also gone. The last batch when a few bongs got into IAS together has reached the fringes of senility. And when I look back at my own university and my own city I can see the reason why. Certainly, partly so. Maybe I will discuss them, but maybe some other time. I shall tell rather tell of an intersting event that happened to me. An incident that confirmed my pity for my Alma Mater.

Those days I was working as a copywriter in Bangalore, and the Mains results had just come out. Preparation for the interview of the Civil Services can be very rigourous, and there you can get a question out of anywhere, or nowhere. Preparing your own background is very essential – background means anything with which you are associated or anything from which you derive your identity. So, you are a Arya Samaji? You should know your Arya Samaj. Are you a Radhasoami? Better know how that is different from mainstream Sikhism. You are a civil engineer? Tell me, why did you join Wipro then when you could have joined L&T and done greater justice to your education. Achha, you are from Kolkata? They tell me that the story of Job Charnock as the founder of Kolkata is all bullshit, and that a prospering and flourishing town had already been in existence when Charnock, by accident, found it? Is it true? You better tell and satisy them properly. The old men and women sitting in Dholpur House can be very fincky. Heard of that recent topper from Orissa who had to give a live Odissi performance to satisfy the curious gazers in the interview room? [Well, this is an Urban legend]. I am just assuming that you get the idea…

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That spring of last year, 2006, was a legend in self discovery for me. For the first time I tried to know about myself, my past, the meaning of my name, about my caste and its history, about my birthplace and its story under the sun, about the schools I have studied in, places I have stayed in, about Bengal, about being Bengali, about Bengali culture, about Rabindra Nath and Rabindra Sangeet, about developmental economics and where Amartya Sen fit in….long list that! Now, a student of literature, especially if he happens to come out of the portals of JU, has a stiff upper lip, a thin skin and a long nose. Even if for the purpose of throwing around names of books and authors, he must read them, or make a pretence of having read them. I remember the previous spring how I had read The City of Joy in anticipation of getting called to Delhi…[of course, I was never called – that year]. One year after and a somewhat more busy with a job of my own now, I wanted to read a few stuff on Kolkata. Now, keep in mind that teachers in JU are not just teachers. They are also enlightened citizens and most of them have their own pet areas, areas where they are acknowledged experts. Many of them have written their books and research papers on them. Kolkata also happens to be the expertise of someone in my department. But if you know the rules of existence in JU, you must be knowing that there are students and there are students. And yet, I needed to get some material on Kolkata. However, not much time back I had my tryst with my own identity about which you can read here…and once bitten twice shy, I did not want to venture into the same folly. As Bush is fond of saying, “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again“. So, I wrote a mail to a rather close relative of this gentleman, a lady who is herself an illustrious faculty member, and who, I had reason to believe, knew me by name at least. I knew from other people that this lady uses her email as other people have also written to her on this email. As you have second guessed me, I did not receive any reply…

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Now, you must be wondering what is the big fuss about not getting a reply on email. After all, so many emails go unanswered – there are the questions of being net savvy or not, having proper access, server jam, etc. Probably, the mail got lost in transit, a phenomenon I have not heard of so far, but probably technically feasible. Probably, her spam filter deleted my mail before it was scanned by her eyes. Probably there was some mistake – her mouse accidently got clicked while it was hovering precariously over the ‘delete’ button. Probably her inbox was full [yeah, let’s assume that she had filled her 1 GB or 2 GB of inbox, which would mean she was very much net-savvy, or else she won’t be getting so much mail in the first place]. Well, as you can very well see in this paragraph there are too many probabilties we are relying on. I very much fancy a much simpler explanation. The mail reached her email. It did not get deleted accidently. She read it, all right. And she did not reply. Chances are that she was receiving a letter of this kind for the first time. In Jadavpur it is not everyday that a student gets called for the UPSC interview. And I would have expected that my email would find a rather welcome reception and some importance.

Now, as luck would have it there was not a single question on Kolkata. If there were, I am sure, I could handle it easily. I had done my own reading. I never bothered to collect much of knowledge or wisdom while I was in JU, but once when I did try to collect a little bit of it, while I was out of JU, I had this curious misadventure. As you may well expect, it left a bad taste in the mouth…

It is not a surprise why so few make it from this province. Why the IISWBM IAS coaching centre was wrapped up – no successful candidates. Bengal deserves this drought.

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Jadavpur, Personal

Identity Crisis of an Alumnus

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STOP. For an instant, take in this information:

  1. When you search for “jadavpur university alumni” on Google, you get this.
  2. When you search for “alumni association of jadavpur university” on Google, you get this.
  3. When you search for “how do i become a member of jadavpur university alumni association” on Google, you get this.

If you have got the drift of my endeavour, I am trying to learn how to become a member of the Alumni Association of Jadavpur University. I will assume the following:

  1. Warts and all, alma mater is alma mater – it means “nourishing mother” in Latin, and mother, however lousy or great, is mother still.
  2. And when you leave your nourishing mother, you want to be in touch with your nourishing mother.
  3. Every institution should have some form of association for those that depart from its portals.
  4. It is a shame and a great loss if it does not.

As inquisitive students of JU, I remember the thousands of trips we must have made around the central ground (god knows what is it called; if you are god, you can email me with the name here). And invariably the thousands of times we must have wondered what is this board, saying ‘Alumni Association’, doing here. Does anything happen inside? Who comes in? Who goes out? For years and years we saw some ghastly concrete structure being made right in front of the Ashirbaad canteen, a structure that encroached on the yard in front of the popular joint. For years and years we were told that the new building shall have accommodation for the Alumni Association. If and when it comes up. I think some building did finally come up in that yard. I vaguely remember having seen some board put up in one corner (or was it some other building that I am mistaking for). I don’t know if the Alumni Association has any building of its own. But regardless of any physical infrastructure, if the Alumni Association has any presence, it is felt through its absence – winds rush in to fill the vacuum. Thus, many who leave from JU enquire about it. I remember many of my friends asked this question. I am presuming on their behalf that most, if not all, would like to become a member of any Alumni Association. That they would like to have some reunions every few years, meet up with old fellows, check out who has got the most beautiful wife or girlfriend, and what not. If and when they can afford, they would also like to make some contribution towards the nourishing mother, monetary or otherwise. If only someone told them how to go about that.

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If you check out the official website of the nourishing mother, you will find the following:

  1. There are five pages under Alumni section, three of which are dead links (they don’t lead anywhere, as no pages have not been built. The webmaster, very thoughtfully – or is it thoughtlessly? – has added a Magazine page, but alas! there is no magazine!).
  2. The Activities page is an essay in poverty, and jubiliates in the vacuum of unaccomplishment (my dictionary says no such word exists; well, I can certainly coin one).
  3. The Membership page seems to be from Shakespeare. It must have got mislaid when the Bard was composing the character of Shylock. I cannot help but reproduce it here:

“The Alumni Association by its very constitution survives on its members. If membership dries up, the Alumni can not remain functional. For the last few years we have noticed a decline in membership. Since the Association does not belong to a select few but to all past, present as well as future students, the functioning of the same becomes troublesome. We sincerely hope that things will improve or we as students of Jadavpur University would lose a body that should ideally be a part of our makeup.

If you wish you can donate to Jadavpur University.”

So much for Alumni Associations. But then grouping up is a natural instinct. Whether it is through fora like Orkut or Batchmates.com, people team up. Resourceful (in both senses of the word) people from US of A, who are invariably from the Engineering Faculty, have made their own tinpot arrangements to cater to their own little interest groups [Bring up your Google and check out for yourself – there are more websites on JU communities than you can imagine]. Thus, instead of a community of all ex-JUians, we have clans spread over the wide wide world and the other www. I have also come across scores of other fora, on Orkut, on Blogspot, many of them being manned or wommaned by my heriocal successors in the institution. A year and a quarter back I floated a suggestion through a fellow JUian who has his way with women and children that the present JUDE fellows can make a database of present and past members of the Department and then fill up data on a continuing basis, which could later be turned into an online and self-updating database. Last heard, NASA was also planning to go to Mars.

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Copywriting, Personal

Plagiarism Unlimited

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Sports Day.jpgOne wonders what is the difference between inspiration and plagiarism – I mean, I certainly do one of these two all the time. For instance just today I thought of making a poster for the forthcoming Sports Day for Phase I, and I thought of playing with the words ‘Go Play’. If you remember, they come from Diet Pepsi advert that would come on screens not much long ago. Somehow, I seem to like this one. Lately I have come to realize that I am liking making posters too much. Perhaps I should stop being a babu, and be a fulltime plagiarist….

Civil Services, Personal

Call of Duty

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Click to enlargeMany of the people in civil services suffer from a handicap. These people have seen little of professional life, seem less of private sector jobs, and seen only a few of joining letters. I hail from such a group, old and crusty and yet immature in the world of jobs, of interviews and group discussions. Regardless, however, most people fantasize about a their joyous jubilation at the reception of the joining letter, or fondness for the golden crest they imagine, the crisp and thick page, the neat printed alphabets deciding your destiny. Not for the civil servants. For the civil servants there is always a lousy impersonal letter with a curious and long number, filled with antiseptic words from an anonymous cleric. “The government is pleased to inform that…”… I don’t know who is so pleased. When I received the joining instructions for the Foundation Course in Mussoorie from DoPT, I did not think so much about this. I was already anxious to receive something, and when the notice came it was godsent. Now, many months older and wiser in the ways of the government, I was even more scandalized when I received a lousy official correspondence in the form of a joining letter from my state. I wonder if the people in government cannot afford some good paper to print on, and get a good printout on a crested paper. I wonder if those in responsible positions could not afford to put in their signature. For all I know, there is no way to prove if this really came from the government – there is no stamp, no crest, no watermark, no signature. An anonymous, impersonal letter copied to nine places, with my name coming in at seventh position. A letter typed on a sheet of paper the kabadi wala would refuse to take for making packets. Welcome to the land of babus!