Land of the Rising Sun!

In this very hour, sun is not rising for the Japanese but devastated by a rising sea. All your high-end technology goes to kaput against a natural disaster. Japan, the country that rises from many disasters be it natural or a man-made. The only country in the history that was pounded by atomic bombs during World War II. Japanese reply or rather revenge was a very quite one but not in the battlefield, it was praiseworthy the way Japanese technology and specially automobile industry forced once powerful American Automobile Industry out of gear. Aftermath of earthquake and tsunami, Japan now facing another danger but it is man-made, the threat raised from their nuclear power plant is somewhere a self created hidden enemy within. Technology, works as wonder only when it works and if it failed leave you no place to hide. I am not against the high tech but then why a country like Japan failed to read the real threat.

Intelligent, soft and shrewd that is my perception about the peoples of Japan. Going back to the World War II and there you will find another side of Japanese mainly based on the treatment they meted to the prisoners of the war. My friend’s mother from Singapore once narrated how during the Japanese invasion peoples were tortured but the Indians were left alone most probably in behest of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Japan (in Japanese Nippon)

Japan’s geographical formation based on a group of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, together occupying ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population. Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected members of the Diet. Akihito is the current Emperor of Japan; Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, stands as next in line to the throne. The Japanese Constitution does not allow the members of the Imperial Family to engage in political activities.

Japan has 108 active volcanoes. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunamis, occur several times each century. The 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed over 140,000 people. The most recent major quakes are the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake and the 2011 Sendai earthquake, a 9.0 magnitude quake which hit Japan on March 11, 2011, and triggered a tsunami.

Although Japan is one of the most developed country and a member of G8 yet having a very conservative society. Imperial Succession Law was male-preference, but recently there was a recommendation for the Imperial Succession Law that to be amended to permit equal primogeniture as the current crown prince Naruhito having only a girl child with princess Masako.

Coming out of such disaster is not an easy task, not even for a country like Japan. It required time, manpower and probably almost 200 billion dollar. Life will be not easy for the victims and rehabilitation process may take months. Most need of the hour is the process to wipe-out the fear from their mind.

!!!Wish with all my heart and hope that once again sun will rise brightly for Japanese.!!!

Embrace to Protect!

In India, a kitchen considered to be the right place for a woman. I had a driving instructor who is having his own motor driving school in Kolkata. During my learning process I found him grumbling about the woman and giving little advice what woman should do and what not. I was clueless what made him to do so. He was earning his livelihood from the customers like us. Therefore, one day I told him

- Bhaiya, if woman stop driving then you will certainly loose half of your customer.

Not going back to the history book to remind all about Laxmi Bai or Indira Gandhi. How many men from India gone to achieve that Sunita Williams or Kalpana Chawla have done? I am here not starting a debate between man and woman. In rural India, women are still badly treated and facility wise boys preferred to the girls. Then there are discriminate against girl child and honour killing. Yet, from the ashes woman rises to the top and shown that they are better than the other half. They may be weaker in the sense of physical strength but mentally stronger to fight for another day. Today I will write for a movement that initiatives by a particular woman from Uttarakhand, they found a unique way to protect their environment. My most findings are from different website and I thank them for putting it there.  

Gaura Devi.  

One woman whom future generations in Uttarakhand are not likely to forget is Gaura Devi who has mobilised the women of this region to protect their natural heritage. Gaura Devi was not educated in the conventional sense of the term. She had not attended any school. Born in 1925 in a tribal Marchha family of Laata village in Neeti valley of Chamoli district, she was only trained in her family’s traditional wool trade. In keeping with the tradition of those days, she was married off at a young age. She went to a family which had some land and was also in the wool trade. Unfortunately at the young age of 22, Gaura Devi became a widow with a two-and-a-half year old child to bring up. She took over the family’s wool trade and brought up her son Chandra Singh alone She was actively involved in the panchayat and other community endeavours. Hence, it was not surprising that the women of Reni approached her in the wake of the Chipko Movement. 

 In Hindi the word Chipko means "to stick" or “to embrace” or “to hug” and that is what the Uttarakhandi women have done in 70’s to save the trees. Chipko Movement, started in 1970′s, was a non violent movement aimed at protection and conservation of trees and forests from being destroyed. The villagers used to hug the trees and protect them from wood cutters from cutting them. Chipko movement was based on the Gandhian philosophy of peaceful resistance to achieve the goals. It was the strong uprising against the against those people, who were destroying the natural resources of the forests and disturbing the whole ecological balance  

On March 26, 1974, when lumberers were to axe the trees, the men of the Reni village, and DGSS workers, were in Chamoli, diverted by state government and contractors to a fictional compensation payment site, while back home labourers arrived a truckload to the start logging operations. Gaura Devi led 27 women of Reni village, reached the site and confronted the loggers. When all talking failed, and instead loggers started shouting and abusing the women, threatening them with guns, the women resorted to hugging the trees to stop the them from being axed. This went on into late hours, and the women kept a whole night vigil guarding their trees from the cutters, till a few of them relented and left the village. The next day, when with the men and leaders back, the news of the movement spread to the neighbouring Laata and others villages also Henwalghati, and more people joined in. Eventually only after a four-day stand off, the contractors left.

Awed by the courage and the dedication shown by Gaura Devi. Today prefer to end with one of their slogan.

We have risen, we are awake;

No longer will thiefs rule our destiny

It is our home, our forests; No longer will the others decide for us

!!!Happy Woman’s Day.!!!

Immovable, Motionless yet sprinting! Its Chalta hai!

First time, when I landed in Mumbai, then it was Bombay, my first address was in a building in Housing Board Colony situated in one of the Mumbai’s buzzing suburb. There were hundreds of such buildings in that area and most of them looked same. Each building had a ground plus three other floors, with a staircase in the middle, in each floor there are four self-contained flat either side of the staircase and each flat contained one room, a kitchen and toilet, that way each building is having thirty-two such flats. Those so-called flats share a common balcony, it is known as chawl, of-course a colony full of row houses is also called by the same name, in Marathi it is chal.

My building was having it all, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus. The Hindu families also belonged from different parts of India. Marathi’s, South Indians, Gujarati's and a couple from North India too. My next-door neighbour was an old man from Karnataka. He was a great human being and very helpful, unfortunately he is no more.

The community centre, I mean the balcony, which supposed to be a passage, served for all activities. Playing cards, housie and on Holi day it was painted with a few buckets of paints. Celebrations were unlimited, be it Christmas or Eid or some Hindu festivals, were always celebrated together. I remember how we poured buckets of water on human pyramid on Govinda (Janmashtami day, Lord Krishna's Birthday). Specially on Deepavali and Christmas, there were helping hand from all families to the family in need for making various delicacies.

I left after a couple of years but thereafter whenever I had time, I visited the building. Most of the Jews went back to Israel and some other got into the big money subsequently left the place and moved to a better place. Even Life got better with monetary inflows yet they never forgot those days that they considered being the golden times of their life. A big family living under one roof yet inside different doors but stayed like one family.

It has happened everywhere in Mumbai till today, I remember once visited a friend in Kanjur who was staying in a row-house, found a locked door but the neighbours never allowed us to leave, the man went on his cycle to the nearby place to look after my friend and her husband, while the wife served us cup of tea with some homemade snacks.

With emergence of high-rise and multi-facility complexes, the chwal culture in Mumbai is dying thick and fast, but neighbourhood helping hand remains better than other part of India. Often every one from each walks of life carried it to the office while moving via Mumbai local. You will find some of its taste even today while travelling in Mumbai local, especially in office hours and of-course in Central Railway between Karjat or Kasara to C.S.T. Feeling is not the same while travelling by Western Railway, I mean Virar to Churchgate, if you ask me the cause, frankly  I have no idea, better I leave to the travellers who travel by W.Rly.

!!!Sharing gives so much joy yet it is our misery that we end up only sharing our pains not our gains.!!!

Jobs yet not done!

Often people from different field prove that the certificates or bookish knowledge is not the thing but it is all about your talent, dedication and willingness that matter. Of-course bit of luck with opportunities also need to make the unbelievable things happen. These two men, both are rich & famous, having so many similarities yet they are very contrasting when you look upon them as a person. Writing about two greats, the Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs the Apple co-founder.

Strange both were born in 1955 and both of them were college dropouts. Bill Gates was dropout from Harvard and Steve Jobs from Reeds College. Gates is mostly devoted to the software while Jobs on both Software as well as Hardware.

Set aside the bit controversies regarding Microsoft, the bullying attitude, its monopoly strategy and the legal hassle with Sun Microsystems, personally you will not find a thing against its former CEO. I considered him as most lovable and the respectable CEO ever lived on this earth. A gem of a person and a genius, very rare combination, always preferred to live pole apart from all sorts of controversies. Steve Jobs may not inherited same human quality as Gates and in philanthropic issues he is never come closure to his counterpart but I am not here to judge him as a person, I salute the man and his luminosity.

Steve Jobs

Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, Jobs' biological parents is Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian and Joanne Simpson and having a biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson. After high school, he enrolled in Reeds College in Portland. Although he dropped out within short period. After dropping out from the college he continued to attend some audition classes includes on Calligraphy. During this time, he stay over his friend place and even slept on floor, earning pocket money by returning Coke bottles and often got free meals at Hare Krishna Temples. Jobs turned to Buddhism while touring India.

In 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple. Later he designed and developed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Steve Jobs appointed John Sculley of Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO. Some of his employees from Apple had never like his way and found him as an erratic and temperamental manager. Sales of Apple slump at the end of 1984 and thereafter at the end of May 1985, due to internal power struggle,Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh.

Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer and subsequently bought The Graphics Group or Pixar from Lucasfilm's computer. In 1996, Apple bought NeXT and Jobs back to the company he co-founded and became Apple's CEO.

In recent years, Apple introduced some innovative technologies like iPod, iTunes digital software and of-course iPhone.

Jobs married Laurene Powell, couple has a son, Reed Paul Jobs and two other children. Jobs also have a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan.

In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant and due to this, almost one and a half years he was on leave for. At present, once again he had been granted a medical leave of absence due to health problem.

If go by the recent news then the doctors gave him only six weeks, this news he neither acknowledged nor denied. Hope he will back with a bang to unveil those wonderful gadgets with his trademark style.

!!!Mr. Jobs, looking forward to your new innovation and gadgets, obviously only on your finger tips.!!!

Shining Brightly Above the Stars!

When I wrote my piece “CheckMate”, the revolution in Egypt yet to kick-start but bit ripple was started by the time I posted it on January 27 and finally by 12^thFebruary it was all over for Mubarak. I am little concern about Egypt because I had a few friends over there and once visited and stayed with them as one of them. The transition is not

an easy task because none other neighbouring states of Egypt enjoy a democratic rule, this revolution may backfire after a short period. Of-course full praise for Tunisian and Egyptian, they proved that the revolution never needs a so-called leader. The peoples from all walks of life need to stand up to change the wind, presence of a leader will always there for aftermath exploitations and to grab the opportunities. These revolutions are now spreading like forest fire to other Middle East countries likes of Iran, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

Back home, my country is all set to host the cricket world cup and looking forward to it. Last month we lost Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, a rare gem from our rich Indian classical music arena. This is a huge embarrassment for me because this piece should have been posted before. Therefore, this is my little tribute to the great man.

A little ear for good music, apart from this my music knowledge is zero and I am writing about a man with golden voice that ruled the musical scenario over seven decades. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi died on January 24, 2011 in Pune.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was born on February 4, 1922 into a Kannadiga family. He was born in town known as Ron in Karnataka. His father Gururaj Joshi was a teacher by profession. He was the eldest one among 16. He lost his mother at a very early age and raised by his stepmother.

When he was only eleven years, he left home to find a master to learn music. Later he moved to Gwalior and enrolled himself to a Music School that was run by Maharajas of Gwalior. In 1936, he was taken under the wings of Rambhau Kundgolkar (Savai Gandharva) of Kirana Gharana. During his learning period, Pandit Joshi stayed at the house of the guru, in the traditional guru-shishya (teacher-student) tradition. In old Hindu tradition disciple used to stay in the house of the teachers while getting knowledge in their respective field and at the same time helping their Gurus in some odd household jobs. There were another famous starlet Gangubai Hangal also was a student of Savai Gandharva and learning at the same time along with Panditji.

At the age of 19, in 1941, Pandit Joshi gave his first live performance and that was the beginning of the golden era. One of his most memorable performances that is remembered till date is of course the national integration song "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara". He also did a few playback singing for films that includes 'Basant Bahar' along with Manna Dey.

Apart from music, his other passions were driving, swimming and football. Among many awards and laurels, he received Bharat Ratna in 2008 and obviously, it was a non-controversial one.

His Bhajans are awesome, some of my favourites are “Krishna Krishna Kahiye Uthi Bhor”, “Ram Kahiye Ram Japiye” and “Suno Suno Sadhoji”.

!!!Great souls never dies, leaving behind unaccounted treasure, they only walked to the path of immortality.!!!

Fishing in trouble water!

Saraswati puja is over and like everything about it, even Goddess Saraswati was never been very kind to me yet if I am respected today that only because of my sparse ideas and paltry knowledge. This day always make me feel like a student, which I am indeed as learning never ends. This day also reminds me about a few things from the past, specially how once study was meant to me like quinine tabs.

Migration is often joyous and often painful. It all depends upon the circumstances under which one had to make the choice. My family migrated from East Bengal or forced to do so, apart from the subsequent trouble that the family had to go through, I have no idea how my granny managed to cope up with the situation then as she was a widow with four kids and a grandson to look after. The area where we stayed were surrounded by people from East Bengal or what you call it Bangals, so it was home away from home for my granny. We were something like a joint family but a very small one, my father was the only son and was having three sisters. My elder aunt was staying in Jammy. Here, I am not going for a headcount of my sibling and the relations between us; all we learnt that, we were staying under one roof and as a single unit. For the first time when we started scribings, it was a very unique way, it was not on a slate or a paper but on the leaves of Asian Palmyra palm (talpata). My grandma scribed the alphabets on the raw leaves with the help of an iron nail and then left those for a few days to dry up, after that, she would overwrite on the same with a homemade wooden pen and ink made out of charcoal. We all started writing on those leaves with same type of pen and ink, her handwriting was just unbelievable, still I have a letter of her with me.

Father was working with Tata Iron and Steel and was staying in Jammy, he used to visit us on holidays. I was naughtiest among all and least bothered about the studies. While studying in class three my elder brother who was then teaching me or tried hard to achieved the unachievable task, finally got annoyed and told me that studying is not my forte and he was very sure that in mathematics, I would get zero. One day he threw my books and copies and vowed that he had enough of me. It was a great insult for me and I took that challenge very seriously but not the way everyone would do. I  had gone through the whole mathematics book without missing a thing, I knew the every question along with its page numbers and also the page numbers of the answers sheet. Today I look back to an eight year old girl, she amazed me, frankly I, myself fail to read her mind. Often, while narrating the same piece, I feel very proud, not because I solved my arithmetic book by reading it as it was a history book but it was the challenge that was thrown to me I took it in my stride, never mind how it was and what it was.

My class four result was horrifying, my all marks were just standing at the minimum required level but I  was promoted to class five. Women in the house desperately wanted us to study but we were not going anywhere and most probably in my granny’s initiative, father took us permanently to Jammy. That was the first time I migrated, not knowing that I would never go back to the house in Kolkata, certain amount of me left behind in that house as lifestyle changed after we migrated, the package that I left behind in my Kolkata house consists of a chunk of my innocence too.

I supposed to go to the middle school that was only meant for children of Tata Employees and it was under CBSE board. After a discussion with the head mistress father informed me to go to the school and get myself admitted. To my horror, my father instructed me to go to the school all alone. He refused to accompany me because of my horrible result; he felt that it was a great insult for him to accompany me. It was all girls’ school and ten minutes walk from our quarters, therefore, most probably I was ten years old, a new place, unknown thoroughfare and all unknown faces, I was nervous and very scared while approaching the school head mistress. The head mistress, an old lady of around fifty-five years asked me to go to a specific class and meet the teacher. When I entered the class, the teacher instantly asked for my report card and it was all written on her face. If she was given a chance then certainly she would have thrown me out of that class. I was holding a fountain pen, which was leaking, she told me to stand away from her as if I was suffering from some infectious disease. It was a new class and in front of whole lot of girls those supposed to be my future classmate, she quietly yet severely insulted me. After I started going to school, our class teacher changed and I never had to face her.

So, I started going to the school, you believe or not I was bullied or rather call it ragged, two girls who were sharing the same desk with me forced me to do their class work before I could carry with mine. Of-course after a short duration I refused to budge under their pressure but it gave me enough confident that I was better than those girls.

After two years, in class seven we had to appear for a board examination and then proceed to high school. It was the result day; the result, most probably was due from either Patna or Ranchi. We all girls were waiting near the teacher’s room and approached to that same teacher who was there at the time of my admission, she too remembered me because she was still carrying that annoying stare, after taking my roll number when she returned her expression was changed, she once again asked  my roll number for confirmation, no need to say that I passed that examination with unbelievable marks.

Until, today I remember her and her expression too, the way she looked at me on our very first encounter and of-course also on the last one. No, I am not holding any grudge against her as once she tried to insult me. May be it was she or that expression, yes that look of her once pinched me hard in my heart, myself then a ten years old very new to that environment but may be it was she who helped me to transform or re-discover myself.

Often I failed to stand up to a challenge but I can console myself that it was not the failure what mater, I never gave up without trying. However, most of the times people leave a task saying it is not worth trying, wrong, no task is worthless no mater how small it is.

Today, I do not know if same courage or fire is left in me or not, but there were many instances which came in my life and I am happy I have taken that challenges quietly and with a calculated risk and executed perfectly. All those are very proud moment for me, feeling proud is not related with arrogance, it is knowing ones limitation and power of execution. Why to hold a grudge when insulted; try to overcome the weakness that is only the fitting reply.

!!!Challenging the challenges, an achievement, fishing in calm water, child’s play, rather opt for fishing in troubled water and definitely try to come out with a prize catch.!!!

Dead once, Living forever!

Since I posted my last blog there was lots of activity taking place in Egypt and Yemen, some of its credit should be given to the media. The protest and subsequent fall of the dictator in Tunisia was extensively shown through the satellite channel all over the world had some effects to other neighbouring state that includes Egypt. The main question is that even if Mubarak goes, will Egypt survive and can form a non bias democratic government or not, only time will tell us. China is taking lot of precautions, the government over there trying to protect their internet gateways that gives access to the word ‘Egypt’, the word is barred from the internet search list.

Back home, things are not good, high inflation and the umpteen numbers of scams are the main concern. India, world’s largest democratic country yet corruption level as good as it is in those non-democratic countries. About inflation, our agriculture minister is too busy with cricket seems hardly having any time for his portfolio. Finally, last week the incident involving the gruesome murder of Additional District Collector of Malegaon, Yeshwant Sonawane, that exposed the one of many naked faces of the corruption.

Kopergaon, a town of Ahmednagar is famous because from here you can easily reach to the famous Shirdi temple and Manmad hardly forty kilometer away from Kopergaon. I traveled many times through these routes and the first time I had gone there, it was a small village with little activities around. Of-course Manmad falls in Nashik district and it hosts a major intersection of four highways. From Manmad most of the oil tankers make their way to neighbouring district and villages. Mafia around this place is stealing kerosene from the trucks when it passed through. Sonawane stumbled upon this while on an official tour and while filming the act on his mobile he was set on fire by the main accused Popat Shinde. On January 26, 2010, Sonawane had stood proudly at the Guard of Honour. On the eve of this Republic Day, his dedication to duty cost him his life. Only, Mr. Sonawane able to punished his as well as our antagonist before he died, he reportedly grabbed Shinde during the attack, causing the burns and Shinde too died form the same fire that he had himself set.

Shanmugam Manjunath

Manjunath was a Computer Science Engineer and had done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. Manjunath was a marketing manager for the Indian Oil Corporation. He was murdered for sealing a corrupt petrol station in UP. While working for the Indian Oil Corporation in Lucknow, he had sealed two petrol pumps at the same area for selling adulterated fuel. The pump started operating within a month. Manjunath decided to conduct a raid around November 19, 2005. During his inspection, Manjunath had been shot dead. His bullet-riddled body was found in his own car. The main accused, pump-owner Pawan Kumar Mittal, was held along with seven others.

Satyendra Dubey

Public memory is very short, how many of us today remember Satyendra Dubey, the Siwan boy who came from very poor family and also the first one from his village to study Engineering. He was an IIT grad and had done his M.Tech. from BHU (Banaras Hindu University). Dubey worked at the Ministry of Surface Transport in Delhi and then he was selected for the Indian Engineering Service (IES). It is known that while working in IES he once called the police when offered a bribe. His last job was as Assistant Project Manager with National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) at Koderma, Jharkhand. He was responsible for managing a section of National Highway, that was part of the Golden Quadrilateral Corridor Project that involved almost $10 billion. Dubey exposing some serious financial irregularities. Dubey wrote a letter to then Prime Minister’s (A. B. Vajpayee) Office regarding the corruption and irregularities in NHAI. He never signed the complain letter but attached a separate resume along with the letter. He also requested the authority not to disclose his name. His letter may have reached the criminal nexus in Bihar and definitely, someone from PMO leaked it. At dawn of November 27, 2003, Dubey was killed while returning from a wedding, he was only thirty. There were some arrest and police also tried to cover up by putting up a theory that it was a simple case of robbery attempt. However, why no one ever asked the government that who backstab Dubey from PMO, knowing his life was in danger then too they taken great effort to make his name known to the mafia.

Dubey, mafia never able to bought him, if so then his address in Siwan would say a different story. His father refused to accept any cheque and demanded only justice for his son.

Satyendra Dubey, the second son of seven brothers and sisters, was the main breadwinner, supporting his parents his younger brothers and sisters. Shailesh Gandhi, president of IIT-Mumbai Alumni, has convinced the Dubey family not to refuse the goodwill of a public that is determined to help. The IIT alumni wanted to help the Dubeys, decided to raise Rs 15 lakh through their alumni network.

!!!In our great country, being honest mean digging his own grave.!!!