Congress party in crisis

 The current imbroglio in Rajastan where its Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot refusing the high command, an euphemism for the Gandhi Dynasty duo of Sonia and Rahul heading the Congress party speaks volumes. That's because been an old Congress hand he is aware of the fact that the party is in its death bed and he wants to cling to his position in power as long as he can, for power is world's biggest aphrodisiac.

Rats are the first to jump off a sinking ship. It's not surprising that many Congressmen and women are leaving the party for greener pastures. Those still clinging to power may leave the party as soon as they are out of power. During the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 there was a saying alluding to the old, weak Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zaffer - "SULTAN SAHA-E-ALAM, AAJ DILLI SE PALAM", which means the writ of the great Emperor of the Universe today runs from Delhi to Palam (a Delhi suburb).

Sonia - Rahul led Congress should know that it is not 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi whimsically replaced Harideo Joshi the CM of Rajasthan who had the support of 80% MLAs with Siv Charan Mathur. Then Congress was in power at center with massive mandate of 425 MPs and at ruling most of the states. Rajiv Gandhi as the scion of Gandhi family could change Chief Ministers like his underwear and get away with impunity. The situation is different now. Congress is in death bed and a la the Mughal Kingdom of Bahadur Shah Jaffer in 1857 its writ only runs from Delhi to Jaipur.

Now the party leadership's conundrum can be best defined by the Odia DHAGA (Proverb) - "BINASA KALE BIPARITA BUDDHI", which means at time of devastation the mind travels in the opposite direction". On its last throes the high command of grand old party is hell bent on committing blunder after blunder. The Gandhi led Congress may be anathema to many, but asset to BJP. The longer the Gandhi family stays at the helm of affairs, the better is BJP's prospects in the next General Election. Modi should give Rahul Gandhi a big thanks if he wins a record third term in 2024.

The night that changed REC, Rourkela

 It was a warm night in the fag end of an unusually dry monsoon season in the Steel township of Rourkela. The students of 2nd year Engineering residing in Hostel no 3 retired to bed after another long, hectic day of academics in Regional Engineering College, polularly known as REC (now NIT) - the Premium Technical Institute in the state of Odisha in India. The pariah dogs who fed on the messy leftovers from the Hostel mess fell quite after a long night of howling and sniffing around, for it was the peak of their mating season.

This happened to happen in this month of September 1987, exactly 30 years ago. All of a sudden, like bolt from the blue, a bunch of marauding guys from the senior batches of the 3rd and final year of Engineering (mostly the former) fell upon the sleeping students of 2nd year. Using utmost secrecy and surprise as the main element, the attacking students used wooden planks, hockey sticks, iron rods and even bare hands to bash up their hapless victims from the junior year.

The well planned attack was fast and swift, executed to perfection. Before you could finish chanting "Laxman Shivarama Krishnan" 108 times, the perpetratorss retreated fast, fully well aware of the fact that staying too long will give the victims time to recuperate, rally around and turn the tables on them. After all the attackers stayed in the Hostel - 3 earlier and were pretty familiar with its geography.

And it almost happened, as one of the seniors (I personally knew him as he hailed from my school in Bhubaneswar), a lanky and slightly lame guy was the last one to leave post thrashing his juniors. The already beaten, bruised and fuming with fury of a wounded tiger, the Hostel - 3 students chased him for a while and almost caught him as only a few feet separated him from his pursuers. God forbid he managed to flee - for if caught, at that moment he would have been lynched and never seen the sun again the next morning.

Why and how this incident happened ? A sequence of events, a series of comedy of errors by the college authorities who failed to gauge the mood of the students led to this incident. The bucks stops at the Principal who later was hailed as hero for dousing the fire he had a hand in creating it. He was more like part of the problem than solution.

It all began one day, rather one evening. It was the immersion ceremony of Sri Ganesh Idol following the Puja held in Hostel - 2 (abode of final year students. Traditionally Ganesh Puja used to be held in Hostel - 2 where the final year students stayed, Saraswati Puja in the Hostel - 3 where the 2nd year students were housed). That year, though plenty of Bhang (cannabis) and alcohol was available, there was a shortage of dancers to consume them and follow the slow moving truck carrying the idol towards its destination at the bottom of a close by lake. 

The academic session of the new arrivals 1st year students, the usual MURGA (whipping boys or fall guys, the way you see it) didn't start yet - so axe fell on the 2nd year guys, the junior most ones available to fulfill the void of crowd needed to dance behind the truck. A bunch of apparently intoxicated seniors entered their common room in Hostel - 3, where a few were glues to TV.  They were slapped multiple times for disobeying the orders of Senior Gods to join the immersion procession - a cardinal mistake to be made inside the REC Campus.

The 2nd year of Engineering is a unique physical and academic stage in life. Physically one is neither a child nor an adult. Academically, you are neither a Fresher, nor exactly a Senior as the junior most 1st year students were yet to arrive in the college. Humiliated, the 2nd year students went to the Superintendent, Warden and eventually the Principal to complain against this mistreatment - after all they have endured the harassment for way too long. Ragged for more than a year already, they were not in a position to take it any longer.

Those were the days, the administration inside REC was an One Man show - ran by a Big, Fat, Hippopotamus look alike Professor, a self proclaimed DADA (Big Brother) who bullied students, teachers and employees alike. His writ prevailed inside campus like gospel, his words were being the last words. Dada's wish and actions vetoed over the rest. In other words - he was the de facto super Principal.

Though a majority of staff sympathized with the 2nd year students, it was supposedly Dada who firmly put his foot down on the idea of punishing those who slapped the 2nd year students on that fateful evening. The pliant, inept and reputatedly corrupt authority dilly dallied, apparently on the behest of the self proclaimed Dada of the Campus.

Frustrated by the authority's inaction, one fine morning the 2nd year students decided to boycott the campus, deeming it as unsafe, proceeding towards the Railway Station to return back home. At nation's Capital, the monsoon session of Parliament was on full swing. The leaving of Hostel mid semester by the students of a premier Technical institute of national stature, where 50% of students came from outside states would have sent a wrong message at the wrong time.

It alerted the authority who was caught napping, as it didn't foresee this coming. They scrambled to get their act together, preventing the students from boarding the long distance trains, cajoling them to come back to the Hostel. The authorities assured the students of protection. The leaders from Senior batches tendered their apologies, forgiving their junior brothers and treating the matter as closed.

Or so thought the 2nd year students. The fragile peace was short lived. Tension was still thick in the air inside Campus. Back to their Hostel and Classes with new found confidence, a few 2nd year guys allegedly taunted their seniors. The muggy September air resembled a room filled with inflammable gas, just waiting on someone to light a matchstick. It didn't take long for that to happen.

Though they amassed weapons and diligently guared their hostel during the inititial nights after these incidents, the gullible 2nd year students of Hostel -3 let there guards down, falsely believing the fragile truce brought upon by the authorities to last permanently.

A week or so later, it was the night of Feast (Local lingo for Special Chicken dinner consumed with abundance of liquor) in Hostel - 5, the dwelling of 3rd Year guys. Fueled by alcohol which shrugged off their jaded nerves and made them shed their inhibitions, prodded by a bunch of masterminds they proceeded to Hostel 3 to teach their junior dogs a lesson. They were soon joined by volunteers from the Final year on their mission.

In Hostel 3, the 2nd year guys were in deep slumber. It was their night of bad luck, as a few boarders who were Table Tennis (Ping Pong) addicts and often stayed late playing until 2 - 3 AM in the morning, went early to bed that fateful night. (If they were awake and alerted the rest there would have been bloodshed of catastrophic proportion).

The mostly drunk seniors came in droves, spread into the familiar wings in front and back rows. They started bashing the 2nd year hostelites in the darkness of the night after shutting down the Main Switch of Electricity. Many got injured with broken bones, teeth, suffered from bruised and cut skins and were admitted to Ispat General Hospital (IGH) the next morning.

The authorities arrived on the scene, trying to pacify the enraged students now vying for the bloood of the seniors. They acted swiftly, rusticating some of the perpetrators from the College for a year who led the party, expelled a bunch from the Hostel and fined many ranging from Rs.50 to Rs.100, a princely sum for most those days.

But it wasn't enough to act as soothing balm for the already bruised and battered 2nd year folks. Brilliant students who never held anything sharper than fountain pens in their life, suddenly found themselves armed with knives. Couple of guys from the wounded batch, now part of the Cabal plotting an attack on Hostel - 5 where the majority of the attackers came from, readily volunteered to fetch petrol bombs from Jamshedpur and stage a revenge attack Hostel - 5.  The same evening the College authorities after getting a wind of it declared the Institute closed Sine Die.

After more than a month post reopening of the college, it was never the same inside the REC Campus. The ragging in its current form was a thing of the past, the beneficiary being the 1st year students who got far less than the usual quota of ragging. Students of the same batch were no more kept together in one hostel, rather they were intermixed with guys from other batches. It was the end of a chapter in the history of REC and the beginning of another, the impact of which would last for generations to come.

Preach but practice

 We humans are basically elements of contradiction. It would be a lie not to admit that we all have some semblance of hypocrisy embedded within us. Let me narrate an interesting incident from past.

Few years back I was visiting the Jagannath temple of Greater Chicago along with my sister's family during the Thanksgiving holidays. It was a blustery day and it felt very cold inside the temple, not quite unusual towards end of the month of November in Chicago. To make things worst the heating system inside was not functioning properly.

The chief priest of the temple was already aware of this but did not inform the Utility guys as his inflated ego was punctured. I came to know that the reason was quite silly but not something unusual amongst us Desis (a slang used for people of Indian origin in America). Our priest felt that he was not properly approached by the members of the temple committee. His ego was bruised, needing a buttered massage.

I was patiently listening to the conversation between the priest, my brother-in-law and other members of the core temple management committee. The man remain implacable, stubbornly refusing to yield an inch like a bovine on an Indian road refusing to budge by the relentless honking. Finally I concluded that it was nothing but the priest's BIG ego which put a spanner in the wheels of any movement going forward.

In the meantime I noticed a few lines in Sanskrit scribbled on the temple wall in Devnagari script (the script of Hindi language) - "AHAM BHAV ATMA KE LIYE KHARAB HAI", meaning "Ego is bad for the soul". Earlier that evening the Priest elucidated the same during his 30 minutes long PRAVACHAN (sermon), how ego can be harmful to mind, body, heart and soul, and what needs to be done to conquer ego.

It was getting cold and dark as time to bid adieu approached. I looked at the wall and brought into the attention of our priest to those lines and asked him point blank - "PANDITJEE (Respected priest), can you please explain those lines written on the wall to me ?" He duly obliged by explaining to me again how ego is harmful to the body and soul, though I could sense the conundrum in him. I thanked him, did my NAMASTE (Indian tradition of greet and good bye) and started walking back towards the exit door. 

Suddenly I heard the Priest's voice from behind, "Dash Jee, I have a feeling you knew the meaning of those lines but still asked me". He continued - " I agree we don't always practice what we preach. That's why we are mere humans needing guidance from God". I smirked and chuckled back, as a burst of howling chilly Chicago wind gust rushed through the semi-open door slapping my face, reminding me to run towards the warm comforts of my car. "See you later Panditjee", I muttered as I was eager to run away from spirituality, longing for some spirit to keep me warm for the rest of the evening.

Late that night I learnt that to every one's delight and pleasant surprise the priest did a volte-face and agreed to call the maintenance folks to fix the heating the first thing next morning.

Jimmy Amarnath the gutsy cricketer

 Mohinder (Jimmy) Amarnath was the maverick son of his maverick dad Lala Amarnath who hailed from Lahore,  known as the Cricket and Hockey capital of undivided India before the partition. It is said that the young, handsome and talented Lala Amnarnath was so popular in Lahore that he could probably have won an election over there.

The senior Amarnath was also a martinet - a strict disciplinarian who never compromised with his principles. He prevented his sons from playing any sports other than cricket. For him attack was the best method of defence, teaching his kids to hook a bouncer rather than leave it alone.

Mohinder inherited his father's traits - he would resist wearing helmet for way too long in spite of being hit on his head multiple times while attempting hooking from speedsters, from Thompson to Malcolm Marshall. As a coach of the nascent Bangladesh team he would make team he made them go through rigorous fitness drills, just as his father did to him and his brothers.

Jimmy, as Mohinder went by his popular nickname was on and off Indian team multiple times since he made his debut as a teenager in 1969. A formidable player of fast bowling, he made his comeback by scoring a century and a 90 on the fast, bouncy track of Perth in 1977 facing the fiery Jeff Thompson at his fastest.

But he lost his place in the team soon after. He was back in the Bombay test of 1979 against the Kim Hugh's touring Aussies wearing a Sola Topee (Hat). No sooner he was at the crease, than he was out trying to hook and fell on the wicket - declared out hit wicket only to lose his place in the Indian team yet again.

His penchant for getting out in unusual manner resurfaced 7 years later. In early 1986 during an World Series game against Australia he got out handling the ball. An apparently embarrassed Jimmy later admitted his act of stopping the ball rolling on towards the stumps was a pure reflex action. Amarnath as usual was a maverick, on an off the field.

Post his collapse on the wicket in 1979, many thought they saw the last of Mohinder only to be proved wrong yet again. The gritty, "Never say die attitude" never died inside him. After 3 years in the wilderness, he came back with a bang. A new, renovated, refurbished Jimmy with an unusual "angled feet side on" stance scored the highest in the Ranji Trophy final in 1982, leading his team Delhi to victory.

But it wasn't enough for him to get aboard on the tour to England that summer, as Sunil Gavaskar, the blue eyed boy of BCCI packed the 16 member squad with so many from his Bombay team that it looked more like the Bombay Ranji team than Indian cricket team. Amarnath lost his place in the team to the likes of Ghulam Parker and Suru Nayak who faded into oblivion after that tour.

A few months later Amarnath was back in the Indian team touring Pakistan. It was here he carved his niche. He proved his mettle by standing up to Imran Khan whose reverse swing caused havoc in Indian batting lineup. Jimmy stood like a wall as Indian batsmen collapsed like pack of cards, scoring 3 centuries and at least a fifty. 

He also stood firm against the famed Caribbean battery of fast bowlers in the tour that followed. Couple of months later, his all round performance as "The Man of the Match" in both the semi final and the final of 1983 World Cup enabled India, a 40-1 outsider to snatch out an improbably win against the fancied Windies side to win the coveted Cup of Cricket.

His performance heaped paeans of praise, with Clive Lloyd and Imran proclaiming Amarnath as the best player against fast bowling. Imran said later - If Jimmy belonged to Pakistan I would have ensured him a permanent place in the team. It was a huge compliment coming from the strongman of India's bete noire neighbor who is no fan of India or Indians. 

Mohinder continued playing for India, playing a big role in India's win in the limited overs World Championship held in Australia in early 1985. In 1988, the strapping 6 feeter and still super fit stood like a rock to script India's victory against its arch rival Pakistan in the Asia Cup at Dhaka, at a time when India's loss to its western neighbor was a rule rather exception. That was the time he made the cardinal mistake of calling the mercurial and dictatorial BCCI selectors -"A bunch of jokers".

Soon he paid the price, as he was  promptly and unceremoniously dropped from Indian team. It is to be noted that Sunny bhai who once ascribed the Indian selectors as "Court Jesters" was spared for the reasons best known to him and the selectors. It can very well be attributed to the politically correct Little Master's uncanny ability to be on the right side at the right time. 

At 38, curtains came down on Jimmy Amarnath's career when he was fit and performing, with at least couple of years of cricket left in him. A maverick son like his maverick father, he paid the price of being too blunt.

Less than a year later there were rumors of Amarnath being offered Rs.1 Crore (10 million) post tax by the Apartheid led regime of South Africa to lead a Rebel Tour to The Proteas - a gargantuan figure for a cricketer at that time. It didn't work out. The team of retirees and those on the verge of retirement led by Jimmy Amarnath chickened out in the last moment. When later queried about it - the straight talking JImmy used his typical smiling smirk to neither confirm nor deny that incident. 

Not sure if he ever regretted it, for Rs.10 million, post tax was a substantial amount back then in 1989 which could have been a nice cricketing gift to the cricket stars who spent most of their time earning a paltry amount compared to their counterparts these days. Ironically South Africa was welcomed to the cricketing fraternity only a couple of years later in 1991, so also those who were once part of Rebel tours before. Happy 72nd birthday to Mohinder Amarnath.

The pretty Iranians

 Iranian women are burning their hijabs and cutting their hair short in protests over the death of a young woman who died after being arrested by Iran's notorious "moral police," who enforce the country's conservative Islamic dress code. Not to mention the girl was extremely pretty. It's so sad a young life was lost. 

Years ago I saw a soccer match where the Iranian fans were seen cheering on the stands. Among them were a group of female Iranian spectators rooting for their country. It did not go unnoticed to me that how charming and pretty the Iranian girls were. As the match was being held in Australia, they did not have to cover their heads. 

Going by the typical male psych when we men look at a group of girls, our eyes tend to scan for a face which is pretty. Just opposite happened when I was looking into these couple of dozens or so Iranian girls. I was scouring all these outstanding faces to find at least one face which can stand out being NOT pretty. But my hope was soon belied as I didn't encounter any. Damn, every Iranian girl was beautiful, fair skinned and chiseled face.

Sorry, Indian ladies. Your Iranian counterparts will beat you by miles. It's not the proverbial Odia saying "GAAN KANIA SINGHANI NAAKI" or "Country girl, phlegm filled nose". Neither it's the Hindi version of "GHAR KI  MURGI DAL BARABAR" - "chicken cooked at home tastes like boiled lentil". Both mean the same, grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. But the beauty of these Iranian girls had to be visualized to be vindicated.

A few who had their heads covered were intermittently taking off their veils to cheer and whistle, mostly directed towards a handsome, strapping 6 feeter goalkeeper from their team who was conspicuously their blue eyed boy. 

Then suddenly an Iranian player scored a goal. The camera moved towards the flag waving section of the Iranian crowd. Out from the blue an Iranian girl took out her veil, started cheering and clapping, breaking into a rapturous delight. She reminded me of this stanza from a Kishore Kumar's song,

WOH ACHANAK A GAYEE

YOON NAZAR KE SAMNE,

JAISE NIKAL AYEE

GHATA SE CHAAND...

transliterated from Hindi.

"She suddenly arrives

 In front of my eyes;

 Bolstering my mood

 as moon ventures out of cloud".

The valor of Rajputs

 Eminent Odia writer Manoj Das in his book SMRUTIRA PRADEEPA (Lamp from Memory), a collection of his articles written years ago in Odia provided a rare glimpse into our History, especially the part about the valor of Rajputs, a warrior clan in India. It has been an immense pleasure going through Manoj Das's book and retelling his stories I read in Odia in English for the larger audience.

Shah Jahan, the Mughal Emporer (credited with the building of Taj Mahal) once invited the independent minded Rajput King Amar Singh of Mewar, now part of modern day Rajastan under the guise of peace. No sooner the brave but unsuspecting Rajput entered the Mughal fort, than he was betrayed by the wily emperor and was killed. The emperor ordred the Rajput king's body not to be cremated and left on the ground as the proud Rajput king dared to defy the Mughal-E-Azam. 

Soon came marching a cavalry of 20 brave Rajputs to secure Amar Singh's body and entered into the Mughal fort. In the ensuing fierce fight 17 of them were killed but the remaining 3 managed to get Amar Singh's body back and give him a decent cremation he deserved.

In another incident, Aurangzeb who succeeded Sah Jahan as the emperor was taking the king of Jodhpur Kingdom, Jashwant Singh for a stroll around his palace. He showed one of his prize collection, a full grown Tiger inside a cage. The emperor asked the Rajput if he had seen any animal more ferocious than his prize catch.  

Jashwant Singh laughed and said that it is normal for the Rajput kids to play with Tigers. "Is that so ?" Arurangzeb mocked at the Rajput King thinking that the later was bluffing. Jashwant Singh ordered his young son Prithvi Singh to enter the cage and fight the Tiger. Prithvi Singh entered the cage, fought and killed the Tiger despite suffering grave injuries. Aurangzeb turned red with humiliation. There are numerous such anecdotes of Rajput bravery. 

There were many Rajputs like Veer Hammir, Rana Pratap and Amar Singh who fought bravely against their opponents. When defeated their women became Sati by self immolation, preferring death to dishonor.

Rajputs who are supposed to be the descendants of Huns were no doubt extremely brave. Akbar was astounded by the bravery shown by Rajputs while defending against the Mughal army. So he made peace with them by marrying into their family forming strategic alliance.

Only thing worked against them was they were divided among themselves as they all had lots of ego due to their valor and self respect. They indulged in frequent infighiting. Others took advantage of their disunity. In fact the last Hindu ruler in Delhi Prithviraj Chauhan was duped by Jaichand, his father-in-law. Rajputs also lacked foresight and war strategy to win. They would go for full frontal attack and fight until their death. Such a strategy always went against them.

Shivaji who was a master strategist was aware of the brave stories of Rajputs narrated to him by his mother Jijabai during his childhood. He was prudent enough to use these three elements - "Flattery, Bravery and Bribery" to win over his rival, as and when needed. He was not a foolhardy like the Rajputs to go for full frontal aggression. Shivaji's bravery was unmatched, but he used classic guerilla warfare tactics and pre-emptive strikes and tactical withdrawal to fight another day - an explosive combination for success. The story of Rajputs is yet a stark reminder that strategic planning and its execution is the key behind any success story as rarely a success comes by fluke.

Cheetah back in India

 The British left India in the year 1947. India which until then was a conglomeration of small and big Kingdoms came into existence as a single, independent and united nation. The same year the Maharajah of one such Kingdom in present day Chhattisgarh shot dead the last Asiatic Cheetah, causing the animal's extinction from the Indian subcontinent. (India has plenty of Leopards whom many confuse with Cheetah).

Though we have a tendency to leave all the ills plaguing India on the doorsteps of the British, our own Rajas, Maharajas, Sultans, Nizams, their sundry vassals and Zamindars were no less in exploiting and looting their own. They engaged in wining, dining and were champion womanizers (one king who collected as a trophy the nose piercing of every virgin he deflowered boasted of accumulating several hundreds of those).

Hunting was their favorite pastime as they were mostly responsible for wiping out several species of fauna from India, including the swift and majestic Cheetah and almost wiping out the lions who used to roam freely all over India are now shrunk to the Gir forest of Gujarat.

While chasing its pray a Cheetah can run upto a speed of 70 miles per hour, an amazing speed for a land animal. But several attempts to bring back Cheetah since its extinction 75 years ago to India went on at a snail's or tortoise's pace. But finally slow and steady won the race. It is so heartening to know that few Cheetahs have been flown down from Africa to make India their home - not in the zoos, but in the wild.

Like their lion and elephant cousins, the Asiatic Cheetah is different from its African counterpart. Yet we should welcome their arrival on Indian soil. As goes the Odia Dhaga (proverb) - "NAHI MAMU THARU KANA MAMU BHALA", having a singled eyed maternal uncle is better than having non at all. It simply means, having something is always better than having nothing.

No country on earth is blessed with such a large variety of wildlife as India is. With the probable exception of Giraffe and Zebra, almost all tropical species are part of India's fauna. India is the only country on earth which has both tigers and lions (Africa though rich in wildlife doesn't have tigers). The biggest of the tigers, i.e. Royal Bengal tiger belongs to India. The world's largest venomous land snake King Cobra is a native of India. The amount of neurotoxin venom released by a King Cobra in a single bite is gargantuan - potent enough to kill a full grown Bull Elephant and twenty adult humans.

Wildlife galored in India in ancient and medieval times when there were more forest cover and less humans. Akbar kept a thousand Cheetahs as his pets. Now cornered in Kaziranga National Park in Assam, the Asian Rhinos roamed freely in Indian hinterland in huge numbers. 

British author Willam Dalrymple's well researched book "LAST MUGHAL" mentions about one of the several sons of last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zaffer was eaten by a crocodile while taking batch in river Yamuna in the year 1850. It is interesting to know that Crocs roamed as far as Delhi as late as 19th century. Around the same time, lions now restricted to Gir forest of Gujarat and the extinct Asiatic Cheetah were roaming in large numbers in North and Central India.

The rate we are killing many of these exotic animals is alarming. Unless some drastic measures are implemented we might see the extinction of some species during our lifetime, a few of them only restricted to the zoos. A step in the right direction, today's news of the reinstating Cheetah in India was a breath of fresh air.

A walk in morning

 When I stepped out for my morning walk the other day I could realize that it is always darkest before dawn. A dense fog engulfed the air, reducing visibility to the bare minimum. A lady walked past holding her black doggie in lease. I could barely see it as it snipped past me drooling over the ground, scratching the ground as if digging for gold. 

The line of pine trees ahead of me looked tall, dark and handsome, a la waiting as Knights-in-Shining-Armor for dreaming girls. The mild early morning breeze swayed the tree branches. To me they looked like lummox giants waving their King Kong sized arms at me.

As I was done with couple of rounds inside the community, the mild morning Sun was trying to force its way through the thick fog pervading the ground, same as a spectator tries to break through the crowd to take a peek at a celebrity. The near full moon on the grey western sky seemed to be smiling mockingly at Sun's struggle. The poor, dimming street lights were looking at the sky, enjoying the the celestial rivalry between sun and moon.

Couple of early morning commuters were trying to look through the dense, white, misty dust with their bright headlights on, like a shy girl looking through the curtains at her perspective beau. The blinking traffic red light near our Community entrance appeared like a large, bloodthirsty Vampire's eyes winking at me. The distance chimney of the house on the hillock resembled some castle in the misty mountains.

It was slowly starting to get brighter, as crimson sky painted the eastern horizon which the fog could no more hide. Chirping little birds crisscrossed the sky as an array of Pelicans passed by cawing "PAON PAON". Far above in the sky two commercial jet liners crossed over, painting it with a thick white tailgating strip, forming a gargantuan X sign on the early morning sky.

Just before I took my last lap, a gray cat crossed my path. I looked around to make sure that no one was noticing me before I took seven steps backwards and resumed my walk. In India in general and particularly in Odisha where I am originally from, a cat crossing the path is considered inauspicious and harbinger of bad luck. It is believed that taking a few steps backwards can mitigate the evilness. Old habits and superstitious beliefs die hard, hence followed my reflex action. Cat may have the luxury of 9 lives, I only have one.

Anniversary of 9/11

Today is the 21st Anniversary of 9/11, when a prominent chapter was added to America's history on this day of September 11, in the year 2001. How time flies ! A child born on that day can no more called a teenager. Feels just like yesterday when on a cool, late summer morning commute to my work at Toyota Motors in Kentucky where I was working as a consultant, the news of terrorist attack on the World Trade center was a bolt from the blue. That day is forever etched in my memory. 

Most at my work were stunned, but calm and composed. Many were frantically trying to find Afghanistan on the map and I remember helping a few in locating it on map. No hysteria in public but it was not business as usual.

I had the habit of filling my car with gas at a local SHELL gas station which used to give 5% discount on Tuesdays and unfortunately that September 11th fell on a Tuesday. On my way back home when I went to fill up my gas tank, I encountered long line. There was hardly any car on the roads. People were mostly indoor, glued to TV.

The aim of terrorists is to create terror and they really succeeded that day in scaring the hell out of Americans who were attacked on their Mainland for the first time in history (technically the first major attack on US soil took place at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on 7th of December 1941. But it was in Hawaii, America's 50th State thousands miles off its mainland).

Contrast that to the indomitable spirit amongst Indians. Mumbai and many other cities in India have gone through several terror attacks. But within hours the life comes to normal. It's not about the number of people being killed, those many are killed in road accidents every day. The main goal of the terrorists is to create terror in the hearts and minds of the people. In that aspect they fail miserably in India, though it has more to do with the need for ROZI ROTI (daily bread) than any great bravery against odds or fighting spirit. Yet they still deserve the credit of defying the odds and getting back to normal life quicker than anywhere in the world.

More than 2 decades years down the road, hardly anything has changed. Though America has been able to prevent any major terror attack on its soil, terrorism across the globe thrives. No nation on earth is fully immune to this disease which is spreading its tentacles far and wide like cancer, nor they're entirely blame free for letting this menace prevail due to their short sighted political goals. Now we have to live with along with another dreaded disease called COVID-19.

Some one is a good terrorist as long as he is an useful idiot to serve one's own business, but becomes a bad terrorist if it hurts the state which sponsors them for creating terror in another country. Someone's terrorist is another one's Freedom Fighter. If not curbed, on long term terrorism is going to do irreparable damage to the mankind unless everyone close in to root out this evil.

RIP Queen Elizabeth

 When she was born in the year 1926 as the princess of a great nation called the Great Britain, it was a maritime superpower who prided on "the Sun never set over the British Empire". Back then Social media was strictly fantasy. Face and Book were two separate words with two distinct meanings, juxtaposing them to form a social media platform was still a greater fantasy, until Mark Zuckerberg made it a reality in the next century when she was still alive (In fact I came to know of her death from a post on Facebook).

Whatsapp then sounded more like "What's Up", a way to greet rather than a mode of message sharing. Twitting then was that ignorable sound from the window made by a little birdie in Spring time or on those dog days of summer, rather than a celebrity's message to the world or Donald Trump's tool to massage his gargantuan ego. Web was weaved by a spider, not designed by a programmer. No one then knew what world wide web was then.

When she was just a 3 year old toddler, the great depression started in the richest nation in the world called the United States on the other side of the Atlantic - a nation separated from her country England by the common language of English. Companies in America collapsed like a pack of cards on that fateful Tuesday of October, 1929 when the most prized share certificates of Wall Street became the brightest wall papers, many of their millionaire owners became paupers overnight (Milion dollar had a great value then) and committed suicide. She was there to see it.

She was just a 7 year old kid when a diminutive man with funny moustache named Adolf Hitler was giving fiery speech in a Beer Hall in Munich, yelling - "The German race isn't dead, nor we will ever allow it to die" as he was dismissed as just another beer guzzling brawler in an anemic Germany still suffering from the aftershock of its humiliating defeat from World War I. 

She stepped into her teens when Hitler's blitzkrieg stepped into the European plain ravaging one nation after another before the German warplanes started bombing London incessantly. Its V2 rocket raids put her city under seize and the fall of her city of London looked imminent. As a scared teen one day she came to know a bomb fell on Prime Minister Churchill's 10 Downing Street residence, destroying a good portion of it and nearly killing him.

Words of this attack on British Prime Minister spread like wild fire. Without heeding to his trusted advisors who suggested him to leave his official building, Churchill went to its basement. Sitting there he made the famous Radio address to the nation - "We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the sea, we shall fight on the beach, and we shall fight on the hills.... But we shall NEVER EVER SURRENDER". He just spelt out the British grit.

This speech was enough to rally the British moral which at that time was at its historic low. The war ravaged nation whose legendary gritty character lied dormant due to German Blitzkrieg was suddenly aroused. The Royal Air Force fought back bravely, making a spectacular comeback. The war slowly started to turn around. The yet invincible Luftwaffe (German Air Force) started suffering heavy losses, enough to force Hitler to abandon his Britain mission.

She was in her late teen when the war ended with Hitler killing himself after being responsible for killing so many. She saw sun started to set over British Empire. Though defeated, Hitler handed the English a pyrrhic victory. Unable to manage its colonies the post war England was forced to relinquish them. One of them was the British crown jewel of India. 

When she got married at the age of 21, currently world's 3rd largest GDP holder Japan's chief exports were fish and raw silk. The present 2nd largest GDP China and an aspiring Superpower was a war plundered nation, its women raped by in impunity by the invading Japanese. Singapore was a sleepy fishing township. Russia was a superpower engaged in Cold War to continue for half a century more.

And she saw many more historic events, a world of transformational changes, many of them cataclysmic. When she passed away today at the age of 96, so also passed an era. RIP Queen Elizabeth.

Teacher's Day 2022

 Today is TEACHER's Day, all other brands are prohibited. Jokes apart, I salute to all my teachers who have made difference to my life by shaping my knowledge and character for which I am forever grateful and indebted to them.

It is not just limited to the teachers in my school and colleges. My parents were my first teachers. Then came friends, relatives, acquaintances as teachers in various forms at different stages in life. There is always something to learn from every human being - a prince or a pauper, a beggar or a sorcerer, an animal or an inanimate object. Life itself is our biggest teacher.

A good movie can be a good teacher too. In the iconic Hindi movie 3 IDIOTs, on the Teacher's Day of 5th September, the character Chatur Ramalingam goes on the stage to recite a Sanskrit Sloka (hymn) eulogizing the teachers of his institute.

He rotes the Sloka by memory, without understanding a single word of it, not realizing that the original speech was altered by a playful and witty Rancho (played by Aamir Khan). As Chatur on the stage was about to vomit the Sloka he rote from Rancho's manipulated note, the later told his friends to get ready to hear some sermon about Chatur's farting prowess. Chatur recites:

UTTAMAM GAD GADATA PADAM,
MADHYAM PADAM TUCHAK TUCHAK;
THUR THURIYA KANISTAM PADAM,
SUR SURIYA PRANA GHATAKAM.

Roughly transliterated...

"Loud farts are majestically thundering;
Medium farts come along stuttering,
Small Farts arrive whisteling & sirening;
The silent ones can be life threatening."

As the crowd goes berserk, poor Chatur gets kicked out of the stage. Rancho's dark humor teaches us another lesson in academics - Knowledge acquired through roting sans understanding may earn you a Degree, but will take you nowhere. My gratitude to all my teachers, especially my father and Mr. Raghu Nath Panda  who emphased on understanding rather than mugging and later vomiting it on the answer paper to pass. As told by Rancho to his friend in that movie - one can pass by roting and get a job, but "AGLE 40 SAAL TERA VALATKAAR HI HOGA" (you will be screwed all next 40 years of your life).

A popular Odia accolade reserved for the teachers goes as "GURU HI SAKHYAT ISWARA"; transliterated "Teacher is exactly God". Some naughty mind tweaked it a little bit - GURU HI SAKHYAT KUKURA. Transliterated it means "A Teacher is exactly a Dog". It might sound funny to some, yet the following incident is not so funny when a poor teacher was treated no less than a stray dog by a Odisha State Government official.

Decades ago in the year 1995 there was this incident, when a sub-collector in the Sonepur district of Odisha did this cowardly, shameful act of kicking a hapless school teacher, abusing him as a poor MASTRA (the way master is often pronounced in Odia, a term mostly in derogatory sense used for teachers).

I remember a cartoon accompanied by a ditty related to above incident came out on a local vernacular Newspaper with the following caption, (rhyming with our famous Sloka GURU BRAHMA GURU BISHNU... :

ଗୁରୁ ଦୀନ, ଗୁରୁ ହୀନ

ଗୁରୁ ସାମାନ୍ୟ ମାଷ୍ଟର।
କନ୍ଦୁକ ସମାନ ଗୁରୁ
ତସ୍ମୈଶୁ ଗୋଇଠା ମାର
ଇତି ଉପ କଲେକ୍ଟର
ଜିଲ୍ଲା ନାମ ସୋନପୁର

Transliterating in the same rhyme form to keep the theme intact,

"Teacher is poor, Teacher is mere;
Teacher is just an ordinary Master.
Teacher is akin to football;
To be kicked for sure.
Courtesy Sub-Collector,
From the district of Sonepur."

I have heard folks asking in Odia to their children "KIRE MASTRA AJI KANA PADHEILA" meaning "Hey, what did the master teach you today". The English transliteration may not sound so bad but the way it is delivered in the native language is not a sign of great adulation.

My take is very simple - A society which does not respect its teachers, can never  prosper. Period. Great nations are made by great men. Great personalities are shaped by their teachers. HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY to all.