A little girl clambers up her mother’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of Karnataka chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, as he arrives at Mudalapur in Koppal district on Wednesday during his visit of drought-hit areas.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
The flying bird always fascinates the young one
25 April 2012Hydrogen, oxygen and a world of difference
23 April 2012
As a mini-City gets built in front of (and under) the temporary address of those who shamelessly glug water out of bottles when millions of those who elected them go thirsty, a Metro worker lugs a can to quench the parched tongues of his heroic colleagues toiling away silently.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
Also view: The complete Namma Metro portfolio
‘Most Hindus and most Muslims are communal’
23 April 2012Even as his observation that “90% of Indians are fools” flatters the other 10%, Justice Markandey Katju, the retired judge of the Supreme Court turned chairman of the press council of India, offers a ten-point defence in the Indian Express.
Defence #9:
“Most Hindus are communal, and most Muslims are also communal.
“As I have repeatedly pointed out, they were not communal before 1857. Before 1857, Hindus used to celebrate Eid, and Muslims used to celebrate Holi and Diwali. Muslim rulers, like the nawab of Avadh, Tipu Sultan et al used to organise Ram Lila, give grants to Hindu temples, etc.
“It was after suppressing the Mutiny that the British decided that the only way to control India was by divide and rule. Hence a deliberate policy was laid down by the British to generate hatred between Hindus and Muslims.
“All communal riots started after 1857. The English collector would secretly call the local panditji, give him money, and ask him to start speaking against Muslims, and he would also call the local Maulvi secretly and give him money to speak against Hindus. This poison was systematically spread year after year, decade after decade, until it culminated in the Partition of 1947 .
“Even now, there are powerful vested interests promoting communal hatred. The truth is that 99 per cent people of all communities are good, but it will take a lot of time to remove the communal virus from our body politic. Today the situation is that whenever any bomb blasts take place, immediately Muslim individuals or groups are blamed for it.”
Read the full article: Ten ways of being foolish
CHURUMURI POLL: Abdul Kalam for President?
20 April 2012It is a reflection of the current state of Indian politics that even as boring an exercise as the presidential election has all the markings of a heart-stopping show, which, to use the sage words of Ravi Shastri in an IPL season, “can go all the way down to the wire”.
The elections are still two months away, but the battlelines are getting drawn between the UPA and NDA, with more than a few aspiring (and perspiring) partypoopers lining up alongside. Result: Hopes of a “consensus” in the “national interest” are quickly getting “elusive”.
The Congress-led UPA, whose electoral victories are few and far between, obviously wants its candidate (vice-president Hamid Ansari, according to the prevailing wisdom) to get in, especially with general elections due in 2014. Ansari is suave, erudite, secular, has friends on both sides of the political fence, and oozes plenty of presidential air.
The problem is his conduct as chairman of the Rajya Sabha in the Lok Pal debate—when he called of the session without giving time for a vote—which seems to have rubbed the BJP on the wrong side.
Worse, as a “left wing intellectual” Ansari is anathema to the current diva of Indian politics, Mamata Banerjee, who is part of the UPA. She, it appears, is talking with Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajawadi Party and exploring the possibility of propping up former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam once again. Mulayam it was who had first suggested Kalam’s name in 2002.
Kalam’s name did the rounds at the end of his first term in 2007, but when the parties couldn’t reach a consensus, he dropped out. “Kalam Iyer” has given no indication that he is interested in a fresh tenure but by floating his name at this juncture, regional parties like Trinamool are giving every indication of a faceoff between a Tamil Muslim and a UP Muslim.
Questions: Will Kalam agree to enter the presidential race again? Should he? Does he stand a chance when the numbers are loaded against the Opposition? Could he end up becoming a pawn in the hands of small parties? Or, should the UPA consider him as the “consensus” candidate this time round given his role in defusing the Koodankulam anti-nuclear protests?
Do we really need these super-slick bus stops?
20 April 2012
K. JAVEED NAYEEM writes: As all of us have noticed, the humble bus stops that we had all over the City have started undergoing some drastic cosmetic changes. This is due to the new policy of the City Corporation in allowing them to become sources of good revenue through paid advertisements.
Until very recent times bus stops were just staid, charmless places, announcing meaning-less bus timings where seemingly bored people stood under a concrete shelter cursing their seemingly endless wait. But now they have become very bright and colourful with translit plastic boards all around, announcing the virtues of the new products or services of the advertising sponsors.
It is a different matter though that I have still not noticed any marked change in the dull expressions on the faces of all those who stand and wait there!
Nevertheless, from the increasing difficulty that I face every passing day in avoiding angry buses while driving around the city, I have naturally surmised that the number of city buses has certainly increased, making waiting for them a little less painful. However, the priorities behind this ‘plastic surgery’ of our bus shelters seem rather lopsided.
Last Tuesday night I happened to see one bus stop in the process of such a make-over (in picture, above).
It was getting a set of exactly thirty-three fluorescent tube lights of 40 watts each.
Now, this translates into 1,280 watts of electricity consumption per hour, which to me seems rather wasteful considering the fact that each bus stop is illuminated for almost five hours every day. Although our government can easily say that the sponsors pay for it very willingly, can we as an energy-strapped nation afford it?
In an environmental sense, electricity does not come cheap to us considering the strain its generation imposes on our already scarce natural resources like coal and oil. Is this kind of progress not totally unmindful of the future?
Year after year, for almost half the year, we regularly go through an energy crisis that cripples our industrial production and puts every housewife and student to much inconvenience with untimely power cuts, especially during exam time. We curse our fate and the summer heat alike, both at home and the office and yet we never learn the simple lessons that life tries to teach us.
I think our government should look a little beyond just its ledger books while giving permission to business enterprises, shops and especially malls, our new found pride, to indulge in the wasteful use of electricity. We can certainly cut our energy use in half if we do this and this can be the best that we can do for our planet and our progeny.
(K. Javeed Nayeem is a practising physician who writes a weekly column in Star of Mysore, where a longer version of this piece appeared)
One rule for ordinary Indians, another for SRK?
19 April 2012
The temporary detention of questioning of the actor Shah Rukh Khan by immigration authorities in the United States has, as is usual, created a small tsunami in the media tea cup. Everybody went into a frenzy and the external affairs minister S.M. Krishna adjusted his wig and demanded an apology.
Shashi Baliga has some searching questions in The Hindu Business Line:
“Why should US Immigration treat Shah Rukh or any other star or celebrity differently from you and me? And why should the MEA demand an apology in this case and not on behalf of thousands of other Indians who are similarly singled out?
“News is that Shah Rukh is seething at the “humiliation”, especially since the others travelling with him — among them industrialist Mukesh Ambani‘s wife Nita Ambani, who was accompanying him to Yale — were cleared without a problem.
“Would it help him to know that thousands of other Indians have undergone a similar experience?
“Actor Irrfan Khan, who is actually more widely recognised in the US because of his many roles in Hollywood movies, has been detained more than once because of his surname. Irrfan has taken it in his stride, Shah Rukh decided to talk about it.
“Because that is Shah Rukh’s I-take-things-head-on style.
“And because superstars don’t take kindly to obstructions in their path.
“Film stars are our new royalty; they are used to sweeping grandly through doors held open for them, protected by their mobile entourage, much like the maharajas of old. They are accustomed to people fawning over them, fighting to offer them gifts, begging for an audience in the manner maharajahs’ subjects used to. Many of their nicknames are telling — King Khan and Badshah of Bollywood for Shah Rukh, Shahenshah for Amitabh Bachchan.
“They live life king-like, if not king-size. Many of us travelling on an Indian passport have been asked to undergo a body scan or an extra search at airports abroad. Problem is, here in apna Bharat, there is so much bowing and scraping before ‘big names’ who get so accustomed to rules being bent or at least disregarded for them that they expect the same everywhere else.”
Read the full article: Mujhe pehachano, mein hoon Don
Finally, some ‘commodification’ we are OK with
18 April 2012
Not some jewellery exhibition, not some garment store, not some IPL match. The Bollywood actress Sameera Reddy lends her image to create awareness about cancer in Bangalore on Wednesday.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
***
The commodification of women portfolio
Ramya: One more example of commodification of women
Ramya: Another example of commodification of women
Anu Prabhakar: Another example of commodification of examinations
Ramya: Like, bombers get scared looking at bombshells?
Ramya: Now, what will those fools do with these kids?
Aindrita Ray: Surely all that glitters is more than just gold
Jennifer Kotwal: The best ice-candy melts before nice eye-candy
Ramya: What it takes to smoothen some rough blades of grass
Nicole Faria: Denims, diamonds, Miss India and the Mahatma
Priyanka Trivedi: See, a brand ambassador always gets good press
Roopashree: Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Gul Panag: You are almost tempted to say ‘Intel Inside’
Ramya: Don’t ask us what it is, but it sure costs a bomb
Mandira Bedi: It ain’t so easy to woo an iPhone4 user, sister
Tejaswini Prakash: As if we didn’t have traffic diversions already
Pooja Gandhi: Why Vodafone subscribers experience call drops
Raveena Tandon: From a flower of stones to a stone of flowers
Once, such a man walked this land we now ruin
18 April 2012Editorial in The Hindu on 17 April 1962, on Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, who passed away 50 years ago this week:
“Dr Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya is no longer physically with us, but the noble record of his work will long endure and continue to inspire succeeding generations. He was truly of his time and yet far ahead of it, a living synthesis of old-world courtesy and simplicity and the dynamic qualities of a pioneer of planned progress.
“As a professional engineer, he achieved monumental feats of design and construction, like the Krishnaraja Sagara Dam. Mysore has good reason to cherish him for his many services to the State as both engineer and administrator, his six years as the Dewan of the former princely State being marked as much by his genius for organisation as by a passion for service.
“Though industries and education were his major concern (he was the founder of the University of Mysore), rural uplift that is so much in the air to-day was also among his early preoccupations. His book, Reconstructing India which has been greeted as “a thorough and comprehensive statement of India’s requirements” provides a blue print for social reform and uplift of women and the depressed classes, as much as for building a political and economic system from the village upwards.
“The idea of the Mysore Government to make the native village of Dr Visvesvaraya a model village is appropriate, though the centenarian did expect every village in every State in India to be so reconstructed. It is significant that he won his early laurels as an engineer under the Bombay Government, before his home State claimed him.
“The heritage of his example is there for posterity to cherish and emulate. India has much need of more men of his calibre, wisdom, vision and above all his unshakable integrity.”
Also read: Sir MV on India’s 11 basic wants
Sir MV: The 7th most famous Mysorean in the world?
The finest (English) passage on Karnataka?
When R.K. Narayan went to see a ‘blue’ film
16 April 2012Khushwant Singh in the Hindustan Times:
“Once while attending a writers conference at Hawaii the only participant I knew was R.K. Narayan. He was a saintly sort of person, not great company for the likes of me. He was a strict vegetarian.
“In the evening he would buy a carton of dahi and go from cafe to cafe looking for plain boiled rice. He insisted I keep him company.
“One evening I tried to shake him off with the excuse that I wanted to see a blue film. ‘I come along with you,’ he announced. So we went to a locality where there were a few cinemas showing blue films.
“After an hour I got bored. So did he. We came out and resumed our search for dahi-chaawal and place where I could also get a meal of fried fish. I have not been able to find out why sexy films are called blue films. Why not red, yellow or green?’
Read the full column: Lost romance of candlelight glow
Is M.G. Road the world’s longest mausoleum?
15 April 2012Bangalore’s most prominent thoroughfare, Mahatma Gandhi road alias M.G. Road, looks more and more like Bangalore’s longest mausoleum, one iconic establishment after another dropping dead or lying comatose at the feet of fatcat chains and real-estate bandicoots.
Coffee house one day, Plaza the next, Brindavan the third, and now Gangarams, the book store.
Like the drunkard at the crematorium who is numb to the sight of death—and laughs at those who have a tear in the eye—the long line of accumulating casualties barely activates the lachrymal glands of locals who have “moved on” to a new world sans a sense of history.
But rest assured, they will be sitting at Koshy‘s and gassing about Notting Hill or You’ve got mail and tch-tching about how much concern westerners have for these things.
Also read: Oh god, what have they done to my M.G. Road
Saturdays, girlfriends, popcorn and other memories
ARAVIND ADIGA on Mangalore’s circulating libraries
External reading: Manney’s closes down in Poona
‘Praja Vani’ special issue guest-edited by a Dalit
14 April 2012
Many Indian newspapers now invite a “Guest Editor” to create some buzz.
Usually the guest is a boldfaced name: a cricketer (Yuvraj Singh), a godman (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar), a businessman (N.R. Narayana Murthy), a news maker (Amartya Sen) or a celebrity.
Take a bow, Praja Vani.
On the birth anniversary of the father of the Indian Constitution, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the Kannada newspaper from the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald group has brought out a special issue, guest-edited by the Dalit writer and social activist, Devanur Mahadeva.
Eight broadsheet pages of the 16-page main edition—plus seven out of eight pages in two four-page broadsheet supplements—have pieces commissioned by the guest editor.
In all, there are 37 pieces of text, led by an introduction from the paper’s editor, K.N. Shanth Kumar.
Each of the pages carrying the pieces has a common panel that reads “Swatantra, Samanathe, Sodarathe” (freedom, equality, fraternity) and each article carrying the piece has an icon of Ambedkar.
Among the articles, a business page report on India’s first Dalit bank; a metro section story on why Bollywood ignores Ambedkar; and an edit page piece on the need for social police.
Robin Jeffrey, whose lament on the lack of diversity in Indian (read English) newsrooms, prompted the experiment would be pleasantly surprised at the spunk of a leading regional-language newspaper.
Image: courtesy Praja Vani
Also read: 6 pages for Ambedkar; 393 pages for ‘The Family’
An image and an icon worth their weight in gold
12 April 2012
On Raj Kumar‘s sixth death anniversary, we republish an outstanding picture of the thespian at a thulabharaa in Dharmasthala. Veerendra Heggade, the dharmadhikari of the temple-town, is at left. This photograph was shot by the Mangalore photographer, Yagna, who bagged the T.S. Satyan memorial award for lifetime achievement, instituted by churumuri.com and Karnataka Photo News.
Belagere vs Bhat spat in television free-for-all
11 April 2012
The front page of 'Kannada Prabha' on Tuesday, in which a Hubli journalist claims to have broken a story long before 'Hi! Bangalore' editor Ravi Belagere, who is claiming credit for it from the makers of the film, 'Bheema Teeradalli'
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A veritable dogfight has broken out in Bangalore between a 24×7 Kannada news channel owned by the MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and the owner-editor of a weekly Kannada newspaper.
On the surface, the dispute is over credits for a recently released Kannada film.
But, deep down, the spat has served as a platform for some unabashed shadow-boxing between two leading Kannada journalists that has already seen plenty of bile being spilled on the tabloid editor’s parentage, his sexual exploits and financial dealings, not to mention his journalistic vocabulary and targets.
And everybody from film folk to co-journalists have been happily indulging in a slugfest that has also become a TRP battle between the two leading Kannada news channels.
***
When the Kannada film “Bheema Teeradalli” opened last Friday, Ravi Belagere, the editor of the popular Hi! Bangalore tabloid popped up on the No.1 Kannada news channel TV9.
He claimed it was he who had unearthed the story of Chandappa Harijan, on whom the film had allegedly been based, but he had neither been consulted by the film makers nor acknowledged in the credits or compensated for it.
All through the TV9 show, the film’s producer, director and actor hemmed and hawwed on where they had suddenly found the inspiration for the film while Belagere, a regular face on Ramoji Rao’s ETV, tore into them.
***
The moment the two-hour TV9 show ended on Saturday, the scene of action shifted to Suvarna News 24×7, Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s news channel whose editor-in-chief is Vishweshwar Bhat and whose friendship with Ravi Belagere has seen better times.
(Belagere used to write a weekly column for Vijaya Karnataka edited by Bhat and Bhat played a guest role in a film produced by Belagere that didn’t quite see the light of day.)
Ravi Belagere (centre), in happier times with Vishweshwar Bhat, at the mahurat of the film 'Mukhya Mantri, I love you', in Bangalore in November 2007
For months, the two Bangalore journalist-friends turned foes had been at each other throats, more in private than in public. It’s been open season since the film row broke.
On one night on Suvarna News, Pratap Simha, the news editor of Kannada Prabha (a Kannada daily owned by Chandrasekhar and edited by Bhat) and who had been the attacked in a cover story in Belagere’s publication earlier, threw a series of challenges to the tabloid editor.
On another night, the publisher of a competing tabloid pulled out love letters allegedly written by Belagere. A telephone caller, who claimed he was a police inspector, called Belagere “loafer” and “420″ on-air.
***
Ravi Belagere again reappeared on TV9 to explain the many photographs and videos he had shot to prove his “intellectual property rights” over the disputed film, but the film’s key men had parked themselves in the Suvarna studios.
In between, Kannada Prabha jumped in to the action.
On page one on Tuesday, it led with the account of another journalist T.K. Malagonda, who claimed he had written about Chandappa Harijan long before Belagere, and that he had provided all the information and photographs to him and that he had not been acknowledged for his effort—the very claim Belagere was making.
On Tuesday night, Suvarna News went one step further. As the two-hour show went on, a crawler ran on TV screens: “If who have been harassed by Ravi Belagere, please dial 080-40977111.”
A long and famous friendship, it seemed, had come to an end in full public view.
At IPL matches, not every placard reads 4 or 6
9 April 2012
Passersby and professional photographers get trigger happy as PeTa (people for the ethical treatment of animals) activist and model Ashley Fruno holds up up a placard to draw the attention of cricket fans near the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore on Monday.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
What Mian Musharraf can teach our corporators
9 April 2012E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Once upon a time, Karnataka used to be known for the arts, culture, and the no-nonsense administration. Bangalore, in particular, revelled in this image, in part because of the pioneering work under chieftain Kempe Gowda, whose 497th Birthday is being celebrated this week.
But in circa 2012, the brihat Bangalore mahanagara palike (the greater Bangalore municipal corporation, BBMP) is making news for all the wrong reasons.
In keeping with the spirit of the times where greed and opportunism have made Karnataka more or less the No. 1 corrupt State in the country, BBMP wants free tickets to watch IPL matches at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
BBMP’s deputy mayor has rather shamelessly has demanded 450 tickets, 400 for each for the 198 corporators and his wife/girlfriend, and a kosuru (a little extra) for some officials of the corporation.
The deputy mayor who came on national television demanded that they should be given free tickets and that they were not beggars to go and ask the Karnataka state cricket association (KSCA) for them.
But anyone who has followed cricket in Karnataka knows that this is a regular ‘custom’. It has been going on for several years now and looks suspiciously like a typical ‘mamool’ issue.
Why don’t the corporators buy the tickets and watch the match and keep their self-respect intact rather than making fools of themselves on national TV? If there is an iota of self-esteem and honesty left in them, they wouldn’t grovel for better seats and then threaten KSCA with regard to some unpaid taxes etc if denied.
Chinnaswamy stadium belongs to the people of Karnataka and not Corporators.
At this rate, KSRTC, KEB can also demand free tickets.
BWSSB can demand FOC tickets for their entire staff / wives/ dogs and cats or threaten to cut off water supply.
Ditto the police.
It may be interesting to recall here General Pervez Musharraf.
For all his negative image, the former Pakistani president set a shining example which not only our corporators, government officials and even BCCI officials should follow.
When he was invited to watch an India-Pakistan one-day match, Musharraf went to the counter and bought a ticket for himself. When asked why he was buying ticket he told, ‘I am the patron of Pakistan Cricket Association. As a patron, if I don’t buy ticket who else will?’
Well said Musharraf, saab!
Whether Pakistan allows you or not, please come to Bangalore and drill this into the heads of our BBMP officials who have a made it a policy to live life free of cost.
Welcome to Kempe Gowda international airport?
6 April 2012In the simmering caste cauldron that is Karnataka, a nice dollop of masala has been added by the reported decision of the Union civil aviation ministry to name the Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli after Kempe Gowda, the purported “founder” of the city of baked beans in the 16th century.
Coming as the confirmation does from the mouth of the Union external affairs minister, S.M. Krishna, and apparently on the Congress leader’s recommendation, all the requisite signals will be received by all concerned. The civil aviation ministry decision, however, awaits the approval of the Union cabinet.
Is the decision to name the airport after Kempe Gowda, who was born near Yelahanka, the right one? Should it have been named after Tipu Sultan, who was born in Devanahalli? Or some other worthy—like the 12th century Basavanna or the 20th century visionary, Sir M. Vivesvaraya?
Should it have stayed as BIAL since it is neither in Bangalore nor very international? Or should it have just been named after Rajiv Gandhi to erase all confusion?
Also read: CHURUMURI POLL: Tipu Sultan vs Kempe Gowda
CHURUMURI POLL: Bangalore airport: a disaster?
After all, an airport doesn’t open or close every day…
The doctor who dissected the body of Haldane
6 April 2012
K. JAVEED NAYEEM writes: Last Sunday I was at Salem in Tamil Nadu with my family. We were there just for a day and it was a journey of only about 270 kilometers each way. But for me it was actually a long voyage back in time, spanning over more than 35 years.
It was a journey back to the era of my days as a young medical student in distant Gulbarga, then and sometimes even now, considered by all those in government service as the most befitting punishment posting.
The year was 1975 and it was Monday the 18th of August, perhaps the best time of the year, after the soothing rains had cooled and greened the place a little, to introduce the unwary and the uninitiated to the vagaries of a land that is famous for having only two seasons: summer and very hot summer.
We were a batch of 67 students who were all seated well in time for our first class of the MBBS course.
It was a bright sunny morning and all of us were at the peak of our happiness and eagerness, as only those who become medical students will perhaps know.
At the stroke of eight, a dark, bespectacled man in a long white coat, looking every inch a professor, entered the hall, automatically muting every one of us and sending the hall into pin drop silence.
He introduced himself as Dr Vissa Ramachandra Rao (VRR), the professor and head of the Department of Anatomy and from his language and bearing it was not difficult for me to quickly surmise that he had acquired much of both in Britain. He had served in many medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh and had joined our college after retirement from government service.
He was so impressive that what he said in one hour on that day is still so deeply etched in my mind that I can reproduce it verbatim even today although many things which I learnt much later have faded from my memory.
Fortunately for us, we had many very great teachers almost in all subjects who were all able stalwarts in their fields to whom we owe all our learning and professional abilities. But Dr VRR, as we all affectionately called him, perhaps by being the first one of them to teach us a difficult subject like Anatomy for a full eighteen months, soon became our favourite.
Beneath his stern exterior he was a very warm and understanding person who was always very sensitive to our problems which he tried to set right with great concern.
***
Once, while on a college trip to Ajanta and Ellora we happened to reach Aurangabad early in the morning after an overnight journey.
We stopped for breakfast at a hotel where the prowess of the cooks somehow could not match the appetite of a busload of hungry youngsters. I decided to do my bit to ease developing tensions by becoming the self-appointed coordinator between the two groups.
Unnoticed by me, Dr VRR, who had been accompanied by his wife Lalitha and his daughter Usha, was watching me closely and after all the students had had their fill he asked me to join them at their table for breakfast. He then asked me where I was from and appreciated my patience and helpful nature.
After our return to Gulbarga he recommended my name for nomination to the students’ council as the representative of the pre-clinical batch. With this beginning, my relationship with him became very close and he would always turn to me whenever some responsibility had to be entrusted to someone.
***
With my interest in writing and photography he used to be very happy to ask for my help in preparing scientific presentations for seminars and conferences.
In those days our college could get this done only by approaching M/s Vaman & Dastur, a firm of photographers on Mouledina Road in Pune which was a rather long and cumbersome process. I used to then process Ekta-chrome slide film along with black and white film in my bathroom which on weekends would do double duty as my darkroom!
With the strong and lingering odours of Metol, Hydroquinone and Sodium Thiosulphate overpowering those of my soap and shampoo, all my friends used to say that on Mondays I would always smell very strange!
Dr VRR although quite friendly with me was always a very unforgiving taskmaster whenever it came to academics and would always keep himself and my parents too updated about my progress as a student. His classes used to be both sessions for the learning of anatomy and also for the inculcation of the essential values required for leading a good life.
During my frequent periods of personal interaction with him he used to tell me all about his life including the time he spent in England in the company of some of the most well- known stalwarts of medical science, especially the trio of embryology: Hamilton, Boyd and Mossman.
I still have a picture of him standing with them which he gave me.
He was invited by the Royal College when he, along with his assistant at the Guntur medical college, Dr G. R. K. Hari Rao, discovered a new blood vessel in the heart which was later named the Rao & Rao Artery.
While working at Kakinada he was the man who dissected and preserved the body of the noted British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane who donated his body for the advancement of science when he died in the year 1964. He was instrumental in creating and developing anatomy museums in most of the medical colleges where he worked.
When I completed my MBBS and it was time for me to leave Gulbarga, Dr VRR invited me home for lunch which his wife and daughter had very painstakingly prepared taking into consideration my favourite dishes. He then gave me a bundle of manuscripts which were his most important notes and his trusted German camera saying, “I think I have no use for them now but I know you will value these.” He could not have been more right.
I have preserved them among my most treasured things even to this day.
***
We were always in touch over the years after that and I would never fail to send him a birthday card every year on the 21st of March. After he lost his wife he settled down at Salem with his daughter Dr Usha Sri who has done a commendable job of looking after him through the ups and downs of old age.
About five years ago when I had to attend a seminar at Yercaud, the hill station near Salem, I called her up and informed her that I would visit them in a couple of days. It appears he was so eager to meet me that he was constantly asking her exactly when I was expected and had insisted that she should prepare my favourite custard which her mother used to prepare and which I used to relish as an young boy.
I visited him with my family and for both of us it was a very emotional reunion.
When we were about to part he smiled and said, “I have taught thousands of students over the years but I cannot expect every one of them to remember me or be in touch with me. But now that one Javeed has come and spoken to me so many years after my retirement, this Ramachandra Rao can die in peace and happiness.”
We visited him a second time a couple of years later with my brother’s family and my mother accompanying us and this time too he was overjoyed. At both these meetings I discovered how much joy a teacher gets when he meets his old students and I think this holds true for every teacher on this earth.
As usual, this year too I called him up on the 21st of March to wish him on his 95th birthday.
He felt very happy talking to me but this time it was a one sided conversation because his already bad hearing had deteriorated so much that he could not understand what I was saying. His daughter Usha said she would convey my good wishes to him and said that the Tirupati Temple authorities in recognition of the contribution of his father Vissa Appa Rao and his father-in-law Veturi Prabhakara Shastri to the field of classical music and Telugu literature would be honouring Dr VRR on the 1st of April at a function in Salem. She said it was his desire that I should be there on that occasion.
***
Three days later there was another phone call and this time the grand old man himself was on the line.
He said, “Javeed, I am already 95. I do not know if I will live long enough to see you again. So I want you to be here for this function with your family. It will make me very happy. I cannot hear what you are going to say but I am sure you have heard what I had to say. Thank you.”
I had heard him right but I had nothing to say. He was my guru and I was his sishya and this is how the relationship had to be between us.
His wish was my command and so I went. It was a very touching occasion. A few other old students who had come there like me narrated their experiences of his generosity and greatness. A few friends had sent me messages on my cell phone which I read out.
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) board had sent two representatives with a citation and a shawl to honour him and much to our surprise he rose to the occasion by making a brief but most impressive speech in reply.
Then turning to me, he clasped both my hands in his and said, “Ah, my favourite student from Gulbarga is here. I feel so proud and happy.”
(K. Javeed Nayeem is a practising physician, who writes a weekly column in Star of Mysore, where this piece originally appeared)
Photograph: courtesy Star of Mysore
If it’s summer, it’s time for a nice Cauvery row!
5 April 2012
The Cauvery as viewed through a fish-eye lens at the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) dam, near Mysore, in September 2011. Photo: Karnataka Photo News
ROHIT BATNI RAO writes from Bangalore: Come summer and the two south Indian states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, inevitably start the year’s quota of dialogue on Cauvery river water sharing and people get soaked in political arguments about water related negotiations and political engineering or the lack of them.
This has become a pattern etched in stone, with the two States repeatedly being pushed into the arena by the sheer failure of political machinery on all three sides of the table—the two riparian states and the Centre.
This year the cry heard in some Karnataka voices is the need for a national (river) water sharing policy stemming from an apparent belief that such a ‘national policy’ could magically uncoil the tension among riparian states just because a third party, the Union government, proclaiming itself to be just and equal, when given the funnel, will help direct the waters to the riparian states in a fair manner.
That is pure fiction.
Regardless of the fairness in this deal between States and the Union, these are the things that need to be deeply pondered about:
# (River) water sharing between states is a characteristically local problem, limited to the interests of the riparian states and the people within them directly influenced by the river waters. A solution to this had rather not come from outside of the problem domain for those would not really address the problem!
# The farther removed a government is that is arbitrating river water sharing between states, the little it can do to benefit the riparian states, and the lesser jsut and equal its policies and decisions come across to some of them. ‘The reason why this is so often the case is that bureaucrats and technicians base themselves mainly on political considerations external to the region in question: the needs of the local population rarely feature at all’ (pp 161). Hence the Union government which is further removed than the governments of the riparian states is much poorly disposed to do justice to these states. (In fact it is better disposed to favor either of the states over the other!)
# The strong adverse impact such remotely-designed policies bear on the hydrology of various river basins in question. Historical tribunals of such remote origins and their verdicts on river water sharing in India have proven this point amply.
Keen on catching up on this debate?
Here’s a trivia (along with my interpretation) I thought we’d rather help ourselves with before we dive-in, hoping it’ll expose whatever sense exists in this argument (about the consequences of a national river water sharing policy).
1.) The preamble to the Indian Constitution offers justice (social, economic and political) and equality (of status and of opportunity) to the citizens of India.
Literally interpreting: Among other things. the citizens of this republic are secured social, economic and political justice. Likewise, the citizens have also been secured their equality of status and of opportunity in this sovereign democratic republic.
2.) Item 56 of the Seventh Schedule of our constitution places regulation and development of inter-State rivers and river valleys under the Union List. This officially strips the riparian states of their (otherwise natural) political right to regulation and development of the rivers flowing through the respective states.
How can political justice be secured by stripping one of the rights to govern oneself, to develop oneself?
3) Karnataka and Tamil Nadu elect 12 and 18 members to the Rajya Sabha respectively and to the Lok Sabha they elect 28 and 39 members respectively. Hence on every vote in Delhi, there are 17 extra Tamil Nadu voices roaring to mute us!
How can Karnataka’s equality of status ever be secured by such unequal representation at the Centre?
How can equality of opportunity be secured by a denial of one’s right to engage in constructive negotiations with neighboring Union members targeted at deriving mutual gains?
How can any government, removed from this list of members, secure this equality any better?
4) Article 262 of the same Constitution conveniently assumes the Centre (Union government) to be the responsible body to arbitrate disputes related to inter-state river water sharing. But it has been found in several occasions that the agreements and tribunals arrived and awarded by the centre have only provoked the States to execute massive reservoir projects purely driven by hoarding intentions laden with greed and fear.
Such greed and fear are a synthesis of non-federal siphoning of responsibilities from the States to the Centre, which is not better disposed than the states themselves to decide on matters of such immense local nature.
One instance of Andhra Pradesh describing river waters flowing into the sea as wastage (pp 331) is a clear indication of how such tribunals have bred greed & fear to dangerous proportions at the state level. Not only has this led to hydrological degradation of various river basins, but also led to intra-state conflicts (pp 14) not unseen till then.
5) The battle between state and central politics complicates the equation.
A national party allying with local parties of either riparian state is inclined to pamper its ally state (TN for example) with a better deal in its tribunal thereby starving its own victorious state (Kar for eg.) of precious water, which is later lured with other political mirages like ministries and such other sihi-tindi (confectionery)!!
Of special importance in this context is the wide gap in quality of local political representation in Karnataka and Taminadu, with Karnataka falling severely short of good local representation, which in turn severely handicaps its ability to negotiate deals in Delhi.
These items vividly elucidate the reasons why central overruling on inter-state river water sharing could be hazardous to the river basin itself, and hence to the riparian states in question. But it is seriously dependent upon public education and political acumen and will-power in the system if strong cries have to rise, demanding decentralization of power with respect to inter-state river water sharing. Like someone said, the next big war in this world will be fought over water.
Let’s not sow such seeds that can only speed up this war crop!
If only Girish Kasaravalli was a Bengali auteur
2 April 2012
He doesn’t crow about his feats, appear on magazine covers, or give loud interviews. Why, even in the 21st century, he has the utter indecency to make films with a total budget of Rs 35 lakh (Aamir Khan‘s Lagaan had a marketing budget of Rs 1 crore; Rajnikanth‘s Robot cost over Rs 100 crore).
Yet, staggeringly, the Kannada film maker Girish Kasavaralli has quietly accumulated six national awards for his portrayal of the social landscape, winning a Swarna Kamal in each of the last four decades—for Tabarana Kathe (1986), Thaayi Saheba (1997), Dweepa (2001), Kurmavatara (2012).
The 61-year-old auteur in an Q&A in The Hindu:
What according to you is a political film?
Political films are not necessarily those that are made about politics, but anything that subverts our perception. No one can make a politically free statement, which is naive or contradictory in nature. The movie “Bairi” is a classic example where institutionalisation of religion is portrayed. What forms our perception by viewing it makes it a political or a non-political film.
Photograph: courtesy The Tribune
Also read: Why national media avoids national awards
When last did both “Bests” hail from the same State?
There are two ways of looking at everything
2 April 2012
Like products on a website, bee-eaters at Naguvanahalli near Mysore, not far from the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary, give a sense of their height, width, colour and texture for the benefit of waiting lensmen, on Thursday.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
‘Narendra Modi cannot be the face of India’
31 March 2012
Fareed Zakaria, the Bombay-born anchor of the CNN show, GPS—and son of the renowned Islamic scholar Rafiq Zakaria—at “Express Adda“, the informal conversations organised by the Indian Express:
“My personal opinion is that Narendra Modi is unlikely to be a national leader in India and he may not even be a regional leader come December. He has been able to achieve certain kinds of things, but he cannot be the face of India.
“Karl Marx said that history repeats itself twice—first time as a tragedy and second time as a farce. There is not going to be a Hindutva takeover of India—this is one stream that will be diverted in the long run.”
Wait 30 years for a few inches; 300 for the rest
31 March 2012
SUNAAD RAGHURAM writes: The orange flames leapt up like an army of hissing snakes gone berserk. The searing heat singed, scalded, scorched and burnt every single shrub, root, leaf, branch or trunk that it could encompass in its wake.
The blazing, raging, maniacal inferno unleashed its fury like a gargantuan dragon spewing a gush of acrid brimstone smoke from its furious nostrils and the conflagration went completely out of control.
A pristine part of the sylvan Nagarahole national park—home of that mysterious streak of ochre, the awesome tiger and the lumbering slate grey handsomeness of the elephant, to just think of the two most famous denizens of the mesmerising, soul uplifting, almost divinity inspiring, swathes of wilderness in my part of the world—lay consigned to the innards of history; to the nether world of total annihilation and oblivion; the serpentine aloofness of the game roads of which, I have traversed times without number, in total delight and joy.
Some precious 600 hectares in the Kalhalla range of the national park lay in cinders; the dying embers of the fire that raged uncontrolled for almost close to three days; a gory, sad and tragic reminder of a conservation thought gone awry; the sense of hubris on the part of the powers-that-be, who manage the delicate ecological balance of the park being showcased in stark grotesqueness amidst the ashy white stumps dotting the landscape; vestiges of what were once grand, proud trees that sheltered a million creatures, big and small.
They say just for the first few inches of the upper substrate with its alluviality to re-appear could take about 30 years. And for the jungle to come back to its original state with the trees and their canopies and their eco-system, perhaps a 300! With the rains would have come the humus of the abundant leaf litter that would have aided in the sprouting of fresh grass.
Now the burnt area will show up as a bald patch for an interminably long time.
Nagarahole fell a victim of human rage, a kind of seething, unexplainable frustration that stems from the general feeling that you are not really wanted; of an impotent anger at being marginalised and discarded from the general scheme of things in these jungles, where the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, mandates emphatically that even to pick up a piece of dead or fallen timber is a punishable offence.
The rage stemmed from a tribal heart; those hapless, unfortunate men and women who were brought into the area by the British towards the latter part of the 19th century to raise and manage timber plantations and are now seen as a serious liability by the forest department and conservationists.
Between 1894 and 1901, the British conducted extensive timber logging operations in large tracts of Nagarahole that had come to be called reserve forests. Wood was in great demand in the shipping industry, for railways and the gold mines near Kolar.
The abundant availability of different species of timber made the idea of logging extremely viable. Hence, the Jenu Kurubas, Betta Kurubas and the Yeravas moved in. Under colonial management, the forests of India were seen as rich sources of valuable timber. Conservation, unfortunately, was not high on their agenda. Wild life was never really seen as worthy of being protected.
For the tribals though, life began to take a terribly uncertain turn after the British left in 1947, when the emphasis of forest management slowly began to shift from one of exploitation to that of conservation and protection.
The year 1973 saw the launch of Project Tiger as a desperate attempt to save this flagship species whose numbers had dropped precariously to around 1800 in 1972 from some 40,000 at the turn of the 20th century.
All these developments began to slowly but surely erode the legitimacy of the tribals and more importantly, took away the relevance of their existence inside the forests.
Life for them, inside the jungles of Nagarahole, became a question mark, much like the tail of the grey langurs that inhabit the high branches of the trees around their own settlements.
Talk of relocating them began to surface. Although the government’s thinking was not out of place, certain non-governmental organisations professing to ameliorate the lot of these tribals came into the picture, decidedly with a clear anti-government attitude, vitiating the atmosphere.
Amidst all this, in the nearly 55 tribal hamlets inside the Nagarahole jungles, men, women and children went about life with a certain anguish, an indescribable vulnerability and a sense of near rootlessness as the new milestone Act with its focus on the reduction of the use of forest biomass by humans, forbade them to collect even minor forest produce for selling; like honey, gooseberry, bamboo shoots, soap nut, lichen, tamarind and the barks of certain trees.
While it is indeed sensible to ensure that tribals vacate the jungles in due course, as the extremely sensitive and delicate biodiversity of places like Nagarahole simply cannot take the pressure of humans living there any more, a thought has to be spared to the confused, hapless, poor men and women who have lived there for a hundred years and more.
What is of solemn, paramount importance is to realise once and for all, that wild life conservation simply cannot be done in exclusion. Definitely not by antagonising or alienating those who have professed to understand and believe that the jungle is their legitimate home, no matter what the Wild Life (Protection)Act explains.
On the one hand, the tribals are seen as a serious nuisance to the cause of wild life conservation by foresters. On the other, the government of India passes the Tribal Bill in Parliament which envisions granting legitimacy and tenancy to those who have made the jungles and other wooded expanses of our land their home for centuries!
While it is wonderful to see tribal families move out at the behest of the government and its many schemes aimed at providing them alternative living outside the precincts of the national park, it also becomes incumbent on the managers of the park to build a certain rapport at a human level with those continuing to live inside and refusing to leave for whatever reason. That clearly seems to be non-existent.
How many times haven’t I seen sundry range forest officers either insult a tribal for no apparent reason or simply dismiss him from their midst.
As for the higher officers like the conservators and the rest, mostly even the thought of acknowledging the tribal as a fellow human being is as much a rarity as spotting a tiger on the asphalted road running across Nagarahole! Largely clueless, almost completely illiterate, poverty stricken, tense in the mind, quite often drunk on some cheap liquor, he nourishes a grudge. A kind of torment driven annoyance deep in his heart.
Come summer, when the mostly dry deciduous jungles turn into a living, breathing time bomb, ready to explode into flames at the flick of a match stick, the disgruntlement and the frustration, the anger and angst combine to wreak unspeakable havoc.
For sure, not all tribals harbour such evil thoughts in their mind, but how many angry minds does it take to set fire to a ready-to-burn accumulation of impossible-to-contain combustible biomass?
My own conversations with a cross section of guards and watchers, along the length and breadth of Nagarahole; the actual foot soldiers who strive to safeguard our jungles to the extent possible, generally reveal the point that tribals in the area have to be made to feel a certain oneness with the rank and file of the forest department, importantly the officers.
A kind word, the placing of a friendly arm across their largely bent and impoverished shoulders; a certain gesture of goodwill; an address by the ranger or the conservator at a few key hamlets, educating them to preserve rather than destroy.
Appealing to them not to harm the forests and co-operate with the forest department staff, especially during summer, like it was quite successfully done in the 54 distant and deep ‘podus’ or settlements of the Soliga tribals in the jungles clothing the B.R. Hills in Chamaraja Nagar district, at the behest and initiative of certain well meaning wild lifers; they feel, would have done a great deal to prevent such disastrous incidents like the recent one in Nagarahole.
Incidentally, there has not been a major forest fire in the B.R. Hills area for the past four years where prominent tribal leaders were made to take an oath in the name of Mother Nature on behalf of all the members of their settlements not to disturb or harm the jungles around. The police department was also brought in to be part of such meetings just to instill a certain fear of the penal law as well. All subtle human management ideas, really.
But quite sadly, in the Nagarahole national park, no such moves seem to have been made for decades, leading to a serious disconnect between the forest department and the tribals living there.
And to top it all, there are theories floated around every time a fire occurs that trees rubbing against each other cause sparks to light up; and even worse, the hooves of deer and such other ungulates jam into flint stones causing a conflagration! Not even in the Jurassic era would any paleontologist, worth his own fossil, agree!
A case of double distilled bunkum being bandied about by men of rare idiocy.
Fires happen because of humans. And when you have a section of angry, disgruntled, humans inside a national park, the intensity of the fires they light can be seen from a long distance indeed.
Photographs: courtesy D. Rajkumar
5 reasons why South India is better than North?
30 March 2012The columnist Aakar Patel has recently moved to Bangalore from Bombay. He writes in Mint on why he prefers south India to north India, and south Indians to north Indians. And lists five reasons for this: music, religion, tolerance, intellectualism and language.
1) South Indians have a written classical music. This has enormous implications. It separates them from north Indians who have no canon of music. The average southerner can assess a performance of his classical music better than the average northerner can…. To appreciate Hindustani music other than instinctively, a northerner must study the deep form of his music, which few can.
2) South India’s high culture has little influence of Islam. It is Hindu culture, not a mix. There is not as much secular music in Carnatic as there is in Hindustani. There’s no equivalent of “Ganga Jamuni”, as the northerner refers to his high culture, a mix of Hindu tradition and the aristocratic Perso-Arabic tradition produced during Muslim rule. This might be seen as a bad thing. But the south Indian is actually quite tolerant.
3) The third thing is southern tolerance. Unlike the Baniya’s, the southern Brahmin’s vegetarianism isn’t oppressive. The intolerant and insular Gujaratis and Marwaris of Malabar Hill have banished all meat from their neighbourhoods. There is little sign of such horror of pork and beef eaters around where I live. This may be because the area is not a traditional Brahmin neighbourhood. But generally speaking, the Gujarati’s fanaticism against meat is absent.
4) South’s urban culture is more intellectual. My hypothesis is that this is so because its culture is dominated by the Brahmin. I like keeping the company of Brahmins, I must admit. When I listen to intelligent conversation in Bangalore and look around the table, they dominate. People like U.R. Ananthamurthy would not be treasured in another culture as they are in Bangalore. It seems to me that civic life here is more intellectual, and certainly it strives to be more intellectual than in Gujarat or Maharashtra.
5) The commonly found ability of south Indians to speak another (southern) state’s language. This comes from proximity more than from any pressing desire to be multicultural. But it shows the southerner’s openness, and even his canon of sacred music includes songs from another state, in another’s language.
Read the full article: Why it is better to live in the South
Also by Aakar Patel: Indian journalism is uniformly second-rate
Does Amitabh Bachchan own the name ‘Vijay’?
30 March 2012
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A first-generation newspaper promoter launches a newspaper with his first name as part of the title. After a few years, he sells the now well-established newspaper to a well-established newspaper group. The new owners (neither of whom share the original promoter’s surname) continue to publish the newspaper in its original name.
Now, if the original promoter buys up the title of another existing newspaper, which coincidentally also has his first name as part of its title, and decides to compete with his first newspaper in the same markets, is he banking on the saleability of his name—or indulging in trademark infringement?
Confused?
Well, that’s the sum and substance of a controversy that has broken out in Bangalore between The Times of India group of Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, and VRL Media owned by the truck operator Vijay Sankeshwar.
Thirteen years ago, Sankeshwar lauched the multi-edition Vijaya Karnataka, which soon became market leader. In 2006, he sold the daily and associated properties to The Times of India group. After the lapse of the five-year no-compete clause, Sankeshwar announced plans to launch a new daily.
He zeroed in on the title Vijaya Vani for his new project.
But The Times group is not amused. In fact, it has apparently issued a legal notice to VRL Media and the matter has landed in the courts in Bangalore. The Times group’s legal notice comes on the eve of Vijaya Vani‘s promise launch on Sunday, April 1.
Vishweshwar Bhat, the former editor of Vijaya Karnataka who now edits Kannada Prabha, points out on his blog:
“If the use of a name like “Vijay” is the cause of the strife, surely Samyukta Karnataka could have objected whenVijaya Karnataka was launched because the word Karnataka was in it? And surely, Praja Vani and Udaya Vani too could take objection to the title Vijaya Vani because the word Vani is in it?”
That’s problem no.1 in The Times argument. Problem no.2 is Vijaya Vani is a title that had been peacefully coming out for a small town called Tumkur, on the outskirts of Bangalore, till Vijaya Sankeshwar purchased it. So, if ToI had no problem with that title for six years, why does it have one now?
Problem no. 3: those who have seen dummy editions of the new (relaunched?) Vijaya Vani say it will have a picture of the owner, Vijay Sankeshwar, alongside the masthead for a few months. Can either the courts or the registrar of newspapers deny a owner to name a paper after himself?
And who has forgotten the launch of Financial Times by The Times group 20 yers ago that has stymied the launch of the original FT for the last 20 years?
