Avian influenza.. no chickens for you,idiot!

I ought to have written about it earlier, but to write late is better than not to write at all. Bird flu has come to India. While it had first surfaced in places like China and Thailand a few years back people raised quite a hue and cry about bird flu in India and what we should do and what not. As a serious chicken eater I was naturally concerned. But the crisis seemed to blow over and everything was hunky-dory, that is from my point of view. I went on eating chicken and eggs and the veggies, Lord bless them, continued with their ghas pus.Even though chicks started dropping dead in thousands from Vietnam to Turkey to Africa (maybe Uganda, I am not sure), the virus seemed to forget that there was a place called India. Until Jan 17.

The next morning when I woke up the first thing I heard even before I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes was that virus H5N1 has struck big time. And the place where it had surfaced was about 5 hours from where I live. I don’t want to be too dramatic but at that moment I felt as if I had bee kicked by a mule. That was because we had a party the previous night and for me, a party means chicken .The only symptom of bird flu, as far as I know, was fever and even though I did not have any thermometer, I seemed to be fine. Finally after four or five days of scrutiny I concluded that there was nothing wrong with me. In the meantime there was a call from home forbidding me not to go within ten feet of chicken. Dad also asked if I had eaten in the recent days. Like a wimp I lied because telling the truth would only worry them and would do nobody any good.

Meanwhile eggs also started disappearing even as I watched glumly the visuals of them being destroyed by gowned and masked men in the quarantined area. Even though the government tried to assure that it was safe to continue as usual and the agriculture minister went on the warpath scolding municipal authorities who had prevented fowls from entering their jurisdictions, he was not helped in his cause by reports that one or two persons had died near the epicenter.

As far as I see this situation is going to last for quite some time. It always takes time before people will recover their confidence enough to touch chicken. And for people who don’t take after mutton or fish or pork or beef like myself it will be a tough wait. Maybe I should start eating soyabean.You know, with proper seasoning it tastes just like a piece of boneless chicken. Coming from a hardcore non veggie, I can almost hear the veggies and the PETA people chuckling.Sigh! Every dog has his day.

Two new blogs

I have been mulling over this thing for quite some time .But some way or the other,i never seemed to get around to do it.Finally telling enough is enough,I created two new blogs.One is about the books I read.The number of books I read is restricted by the numbers I can lay my hands upon.Since I remember I have been reading.A fairly nice way to pass your time.Since the brain may not be able to recall clearly a particularly exciting book clearly which was read years ago,I have decided to pen down the plot and my comments on the book.Someday it would help somebody,besides serving as a momento to me.The blog can be accessed from My BookBlog .

Another pursuuit of mine is current affairs.They are the future of yesterday and history for tomorrow.A sort of personal archive .View from Ears to the ground

My only regret is that I could have started sooner.But the world is an exciting place and I will continue reading!So I guess it won't be as bad as I think.

Fresher party '06

Yesterday was a blast. There is no other way to describe our freshers party. I went into the party determined to work off every rupee of my contribution of 460 bucks, and boy, didn’t I.I went into the party wearing a clean and pressed shirt and tee. I came out with a completely sweaty and crumpled one. Remind me never to wear so clean clothes. They are gonna get dirty anyway.

So here is the rundown of the day. Scheduled to start from 6.30 pm, the party got off after one hour because as Indians, we are real suckers for punctuality. Formal introductions with the juniors over, it was time to start the party proper. After steaming soup and starters, most of the folks spilled out into the dance floor. Some guys had dosed themselves with too much alcohol so all they could do was barely stand still. One of them was so stoned that no amount of rousing woke him up and at the end of the party he had to be practically carried between two chaps all the way to the hostel. But more of that later.

So there was everybody on the dance floor, free for all. It was sort of improvisation whereby you danced according to the music belting out from the speakers. After a particular vigorous bout of hip shaking, everybody would stand aside to get a few moments breadth, and then would again plunge headlong. To cut a long story short, everybody let their hair down, myself included even though I had shaved off my hair .Soon it was only the adrenaline that sustained us, as we were pretty inexperienced and out of practice at this sort of thing. Any decent party ought to have food, and in my mind I had not yet worked up all the money. So I sat down and began to shovel in till it was bursting. Even though I had focused my attention on food, yet I spied some people who seemed to be crying. Alcohol and emotions sometimes loosens up your tear glands.I have seen it happen before.

To cut a long story short, the music, food, everything was superb. The 3rd yearites deserve our appreciation for organizing such a wonderful party. And speaking of myself, I soon began to feel the effects of overexertion on my seldom used muscles and joints. After trudging back on foot for more than a kilometer, when I reached my room bone tired and threw myself on the bed, the blasted electricity went off. No fans and no mosquito repellant. With mosquitoes practicing their singing I had to hunker under a blanket, which left me stewing. I drifted off to sleep when it was 7 in the morning and woke up at noon, whole body aching. And a shocker of news awaited me-bird flu had come to India and the place of outbreak, I heard someone say was only four hours away. This scared the living headlights out of me when I thought about the chicken I ate yesterday. So no chicken until this threat goes-I think I am going to be a veggie for the time being. And eggs are also banned.  Wonder how long this ache lasts?

Man vs nature: a no win situation

This is old news, but it is damned serious. I am referring to the depleting forest wealth of India. The ravaging of forest areas by humans for their own needs like agriculture and development has impacted heavily on flora and fauna all over the world. And in this conflict the biosphere has take a beating. Hundreds of species of plants and animals are being wiped out daily or are on their path to oblivion. Take the case of India. Before the 20th century the number of tigers in India numbered 40,000* and in 2003 whittled down to 1576* in a census taken through 27 reserve forests. This drastic downfall can be only explained by man made causes like poaching and loss of environment. Since the tiger is at the top of the food chain, the population of tigers indicate the health of the eco system. And judging by these numbers, we are in real trouble simply because no matter how developed we become we are also a part of the environment. In two tiger reserves in north India –Sariska and Ranthambore the tiger population has almost been wiped out due to wide poaching, prompting a CBI inquiry. In fact in Sariska there have been no sightings since Jan 2005.**.The situation is not exactly rosy in other reserves.
A second example is the man –elephant conflict. People have encroached into elephant corridors and forests causing loss of habitat. Hence elephants destroy standing crops causing enormous economic loss.Hunderds of people have lost their lives .Elephants are also slaughtered for ivory which has a large market oveseas.One name comes to mind –Verappan.This notorious poacher ,now dead had killed thousands of elephants for ivory and had cut down tons of sandalwood trees. But the scourge is not eliminated Other poachers, mostly in cahoots with some crooked forest officials are still in business.

Regarding other species, the story is pretty much the same.Leopards, bears, deer, turtles and thousand others are struggling for their existence. Even birds are not spared. But in this overall picture of gloom, there are some silver linings. One example is the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, the only refuge of one horned Indian rhino. A hundred years ago, the population of rhinos barely ran into double digits. A century of dedicated conservation efforts battling obstacles like flood and poachers, who kill rhinos for the highly valued horn have resulted in their rise to 1600***.If this process can be replicated for other species also we stand a chance of reversing the tide. All of us owe to our future generations to leave behind our priceless natural heritage intact

*Project Tiger

**Indian Express

***Kaziranga

Stunts work in movies

Well, let me see. My last post was on 6th December. And I have reappeared after more than a month. There are several reasons for this errant behaviour.Firstly, I had left home for my vacations the next day. Now when I am at home, my forays into the cyber world become limited because I hate to dip into my pocket and sit at a café at the rate of 20 bucks an hour. But staying away from updating the blog had me saddled with a guilty conscience. But a few days into the holidays I almost broke my shoulder trying   a dumb stunt .For about two weeks I was trussed up like a chicken. And since I live deep in mosquito country I could only watch helplessly at mosquitoes flying about merrily and alighting at places unreachable by my injured hand and barely reachable by my other arm if I was a master contortionist, which I am not. So the bastards nearly sucked me half dry. Upon reaching the hostel I found that half of my friends, both studying and working had heard about it and I was laughed at for being such a loony as to fall off my bicycle. However as I have a habit of laughing at myself such ribbing did not effect me. Moral of story-do not try stupid stunts on your own and learn to laugh at yourself,’coz grinning needs lesser effort than frowning. And while you are at it, indulge in an occasional guffaw now and then.

No donut for you

This annoying message often pops up when you are orkutting on the net.By their own admission the administrators of orkut themselves admit that their servers have been unable to maintain the heavy load and have been crashing repeatedly.Guess they did not anticipate the popularity of orkut.But after facing this message it becomes quite frustrating and makes me want to thump my monitor.I have another grouse.You want to change your photos but it takes a ery long time to update them on my profile.I guess nothing much will come out of it,but letting off steam helps.

Anyway I don't want to stuff my head with negative thoughts .One of my hobbies or you can say passions is reading.I guess from now on I will stop my habit of indiscriminate reading and nourish my mind with carefully selected titles.For instance ,cheap and steamy thrillers are no no.I will read a book a day,and will write about how it has affected me .Guess it will be a good exercise of precis writing

Diamond cutting-getting arrested-Aids epidemic and pornography

Today we -me and jita went to varaccha.The area is the heart of Surat's diamond industry,which is the heart of India's diamond industry and India is where most of the polishing of diamonds is done.So it would not be an surprise if I guessmitate that out of out of 100 stones,93 are processed here.But go there and you will find no obvious signs.The whole area is crowded with shops and roadside stalls selling eatables.Shops selling hardware.Rows of two-three storey buidings flank the road-the stone are polished here maybe.They are unremarkable .Unpainted,greying with age and looks as if a single knock would topple them.But one thing stands out.Not a single window is unbarred.I would bet my hat that those are the places where a dull stone is turned into a sparkling object of desire.And also that the men moving about in bicycles and chewing paan are couriers carrying diamonds on them.A recent spate of murders of such men lends credibility to this theory.
But we did not go there to sightsee.Hardly.Varaccha has Surat's largest collection of mini halls.Rates are cheap-10 to 15 bucks and at any time of the day you would find a hall where a movie is just starting.Also you would get to see a bollywood flick which was released two years back.So if you did not watch the movie then ,with luck you could get to see it now.
But there is a downside to this happy picture.Some halls display x rated movies and there has been an occasional police raid where the viwers have been arrested.So for some people varaccha is stritly no-no.However if you don't go to such halls it is fine.We saw two movies for 20 bucks and got back our money's worth.
Doesn't it strike you as funny that a simle act as watching porn gets you arrested when can get away with serious crimes like murder and corruption and become a minister or MP.Our great Indian tradition for toleration seems to be replaced by parochialism.We need to change our stupid laws and become more open towards sexuality and pornography.They are here to stay and brushing these issues under the carpet would only worsen the situation and confuse the youthwho are the most vulnerable.Hypocrisy would cost us dear because these issues are related to the AIDS epidemic sweeping through the globe and after sub Saharan Africa,India is the place where the epicentre of the disease is likely to be

Ode to a mug

Well I ‘m back after a fairly long sabbatical. Responsibility for this can be divided into my incoming exams, lack of net connection to my pc and also laziness on my part. However I will try to amend my mistakes. But boy it sure is difficult to go through life when objects decide to take a stroll out towards the great unknown, never to return. Since I do not take a dim view of humanity I presume that kleptomaniacs are not behind these outrages in which totally innocent articles are being sacrificed.No,my pens and mugs simply decided that they would no longer work for me and have absconded, thrown in their towels. If things remain in this particular state ,my towels-sorry towel-might be tempted to throw in its towel.Come to think of it ,this happened once but fortunately for me and unfortunately for the towel ,I dragged it back by the scruff of its neck. Now don’t go about suggesting that I might have similar problems with my shirts, thank you very much.

     But I disgress.Let me get back to my original topic. Pens are manageable. If you loose them then 5 bucks would get you another .Now a mug is a different kettle of fish altogether. I’m speaking of a bathing mug, not its smaller cousin. You see, we do not have any showers in our hostels. So a bucket and a mug are used instead.  When I found my (un??)faithful mug missing –I had a long and sentimental relationship with it- I decided that my bucket would also be retired, both  of them being inseparable companions and one would be incomplete without the other. But now the question arose –how would I bathe, as I necessarily had to? Necessity being the mother and all that sort of rot I decided to go for the direct method. Namely thrust your head and body under a stream of cold tap water and have a nice rejuvenating, invigorating bath. But the position was rather awkward. The tap was at waist level and protruded 10 inches out of the wall. So in order to get my body wet I became adept at performing a series of contortions which would be the envy of any python. In fact they are so good stretching exercises that muscles which I didn’t know I had are in top-of-the-line condition. And its cost-zilch. You would save on buckets and don’t have to worry about their getting lost. So bath without a bucket – its good for your health.

Chicken and bills

Today my stomach is full, really full.Anybody who has eaten hostel food can understand how it feels to have a full meal.Because most of the time hostel food and prison food is same.Somtimes I think it is worse.Speaking of myself,like many people I love eating and moreover does not understand the fuss people make about consuming exactly 2500 calories per day-not one more,not one less.They are not doing anyone any good by fretting.

But I disgress.Today one of my friends came up and said that he knew a place where one could get chicken very cheap.The place was located in a muslim area and the people had just broken their Ramzan fast.So all the eateries in the area were crowded.Muslims break their fasts in a grand manner-i had read in a recent newspaper article and so when I reached our destination I was not surprisd by what I saw.Huge chicken legs were rotating on spits over a charcoal brazier while pieces of chicken stuffed inside parathas was deep fried.The assault on my olfactory senses was awesome.After tucking in as much as I could when I glanced at the bill it was ridiculously low.At my regular haunts,I would have had to pay twice or thrice the amont.And on top of that they fob you off with a service tax to pay for the paper on which the bill is printed and the printed ink.Daylight robbery!!!

Meanwhile as I write this diwali,the old festival of lights but the modern festival of sounds is upon us.For anyone unaccustomed to festivals of India,he would be forgiven if he thought he was in a war zone.God protect my eardrums

Exam thoughts and cellular misadventure

Back after a long sabbatical of nearly 10 days.The reason for such a long absence is that I no longer have my internet connection in my hostel room due to exams which will be breathing down our necks after a fortnight.And then only god can help us.Crazy hours of study where you
sleep for only 2 hours and go rubbing your eyes and yawning to sit for the exam.This strategy never paid much dividend for me.This cramming before the exams is common to almost all students-whether they are from professional or general stream..Another thing which is common all over the country is cheating -though degree and methods vary which has reacheD endemic proportions.Tell you what,to solve all these problesms abo;lish exams.We would save lots of time and money in the process and use them to design a better means to achieve the same ends as exams does.Forget what others say,listen from ground zero,from a examinee.Sorry if I slipped up on putting an before e instead of a.I'm not sure and nobody cares where your is ur and for is 4.

On a different vein I was fiddling about with my mobile and came across language settings. I did'nt know what got into me but I changed my deault language to arabic or urdu.And boy,wasn't it awful when you could not read anything on the screen.I was so bloody crossed that I could have kicked myself.I did not know anybody who knew these languages.I could go to a madrassa or puzzle out of the dilema I landed myself into.I was letting myself into a navigational nightmare.Many hits and misses followed before I got bck to where I started from and good ol' English was back.Thank god I did not choose Turkish.No more crazy experiments for me.

P.S While writing this both the power supply and the ups gave up their collective ghosts.Thankfully I was now in the habit of saving my drafts before final publishing.From bitter experience I have learnt to do so when some of my earlier unsaved posts were lost due to power cuts.So use this nifty utility as much as you want to.

A life cut short

Something very tragic has happened in our college. A second year, student, Manoj Kumar has died of malaria. But the doctors are not themselves sure on this. For about 10 days or so doctors were treating him for cerebral malaria. It was only when his platelet count dropped rapidly that the doctors started a course for dengue fever. But by then it was too late and he breathed his last.

Now some very serious questions are involved in this case.The first is the unenthusiastic, rather apathetic of the administration towards student grievances. The complaints of the students, especially hostelites are genuine and reasonable. The campus is huge and grasses and all sorts of vegetation grow on the fallow ground. On paper there is a provision for a contractor who cuts grasses after the rainy season. .But to maximize profits there are delays in cutting operations. By this time the campus is buzzing with mosquitos and there is a mini epidemic of malaria and related diseases. And this goes on year after year, with the authorities turning a blind eye. Given the sorry state of affairs, it has been very lucky there is only one fatality. Will the state of affairs improve or will it take more deaths of students who have come from far to drive home the point. And since this post would not be effective if I do not provide some details, our college is the National Institute of Techonology,Surat which claims to be the best institute for engineering  studies in this part of India along with IIT Bombay and a few others. And yes folks, I’m a hostelite and frankly speaking, I’m scared of malaria.

                         

Stop playing with nature

Did you notice something about the year 2005.This year has seen more than its fair share of natural disasters vis-a-vis other years.I mean just look back to a few years and you will see what I mean.The year started with a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean which affected millions.A fairly exhaustive account can be found here . Many are still picking up pieces of their former lives which would never be the same again.

Cut to August 2005. A hurricane named Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico which began from a category -4 to category-5 hurricane ripped through the US Gulf coast and caused extensive damages to New Orleans.Even though the event is pretty recent,this exhaustive article would refresh our memories,which nowadays are getting sadly short termed .Just when the whole world was getting ready to aid US in relief and rescue operations,a even more extensive and stronger hurricane RIta was brewing up.Its affects were not as extensive as the previous one because the whole machinery was probably more prepared. But even then the ordeal was far from over.A tropical hurricane named Stan struck Central American.Even though it was a Category -1 hurricane it caused widespread deaths and property losses.For example a mudslide caused by heavy rains wiped out an entire village in Guatemala and killed at least 1000 people.And now a monsoon cyclone in the Bay Of Bengal Pyaar has struck Andhra Pradesh in India.

Coming to the topic of earthquakes this year has been a scene of unusual seismic activity most massive one was the undersea temblor that caused the tsunami.Its magnitude was about 9.3 on the Richter scale,making it a Rare Great Earthquake.This was followed by numerous others across the world.Take the recent quake in South East Asia which killed upwards of 40,000.And the toll is still rising.Till now there were 10 major earthquakes alone this year whose magnitudes measured above 7 0n the Richter scale.

We should ask ourselves what has caused this state of affairs.Granted that we cannot prevent nor predict earthquakes can only minimize their impact.But three major back to back hurricanes and that too approximately in the same region.Surely there is much more than a mere coincidence.I have a little theory of my own not have complete facts but maybe the excessive burning of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect has caused the natural balance in the atmosphere to go haywire.Katrina,Rita and the tsunami are only examples of nature's awesome power and man's helplessness.If we continue to act without sparing a thought for the future,the human race will be snuffed in a few hundred years from now.

Invasion of the Arthropods

You know what? For the last few days I have been feeling pretty suffocated. I seriously don’t want to bore all of you who will eventually take the trouble to read this but
it seems that my troubles started when my room became a hotbed of insects ranging from moths to grasshoppers that I bet Even a taxonomist would be hard put to name them in English, let alone in Latin..Infact it seems that a veritable regiment of grasshoppers have pitched their camp right outside my room and have been raiding it every night.Unlike most of my mates, the sight of a member of phylum arthropoda does not give me jump out of my skins;probably because from where I come,insects are very familiar.But lately even a veteran like me feel jumpy when I go to bed.This feeling of jumpiness increased when one morning just as I was about to get up a lizard missed its footing on the ceiling above me and fell with a loud plop on my pillow. Only two inches from my face. If it had missed by two inches-yuuuck! The very thought makes me feel squeamish which has led to some troubled nights. One day was the limit when a bat flew in and fluttered for about ten minutes before getting out. The ceiling fan was on and I was afraid that the bat might fly up and get hurt. All these events coupled with a bloggers version of authors block makes me feel that I am living in a boiler room

All these days that I was out of circulation, I had been doing some philosophizing. All of us have that little voice inside our minds which tells us to stop doing it if we are doing something wrong but in my case-I don’t know abbot yours-it does not tell you how to do the good think. And it seems pretty difficult not to follow the guy with tails and the pitchfork. So what I have been doing is that is that I quell the debate by slapping my cheek. And it seems to be working.

Back home it is festival time-Durga Puja.Been missing most of the festivals since I came out .Sometimes it feels sad. The number of school friends have dropped drastically because most of them, like me had gone to different corners of the country to study. Email is the only means of keeping in touch. You make newer friends in the bargain .These things always remain in a state of flux .Well, you have little choice.

Kashish and ragging-then and now

We have had a long vacation, starting from Thursday when we had our elections till today. In between the cultural festival organized by the college officially welcoming the first yearites .Now the restrictions governing the interactions between the first year students and the students from the senior years. In other words the amount of ragging is bound to increase. But if I were to put myself in the shoes of a greenhorn I would have far less dread for this word. I believe serious ragging ended with our batch in our college. Compared to other NITs,Surat did not have much of a reputation as a place for serious ragging, unlike say Bhopal. Of course we were made to do a lot of silly things to do-for instance thoroughly knowing the CVs of your batchmates, wearing shoes and full sleeved shirts in the hot summer and carrying about a condom with you. But perhaps the most dreaded was when we received calls from seniors. There was no knowing what was going to happen to you. It was like a sheep going to a den of lions. I received most of my share of slaps in these calls. But these interactions helped me a lot. Looking back, the seniors who had ragged me the most were the ones whom I most clearly recall. Anyway after the ice was broken ragging sessions also became fun. Finally we had a party and were more or less accepted like all members-no restrictions.

During our second year, the college authorities put in more restrictions, restricting the interaction between us and the new first year batch. We made some attempts, but had to tread carefully because of the fear of getting caught. This trend has continued ever since then. And the net result is that juniors and seniors don’t know each other as well as they should. And this is sad indeed.

Now this cultural fest which we call “Kashish” lasted two days .Almost everybody had a great time rocking and rolling away. Since it is meant as a welcoming party most of the participants were the new students. Some participants were also from the senior year. Most performances included singing and dancing to the tunes of popular songs. And there is also a personality contest among them. Personally I enjoyed these two days. I’m an enthusiastic dancer and anything racy sets me dancing. I also met my new juniors though I suspect the chances of interaction is limited

This post does not deserve a title

Man exams are about one months away elections in the college are over some excitement has died down the cultural feasts are gaining to be over then only the festive atmosphere will go and students will start preparing for me I am away from singing and dancing,except at the background and will start preparations guess what,technology was at the final process of this election voters voted not manually but electronically. But as usual all were not satisfied with many complaining that the casting of votes was not done in an appropriate manner.

A great book

Just finished reading "A Diary of Anne Frank".A completel;y mindblowing book.The real life story of the Dutch Jewish girl who stayed in hiding for almost two years before being captured.I had been meaning to read this for a very long time.Reading it it is hard to believe that a 14 year old girl can write with so much maturity and candor.She describes how the refugees tried to keep up a facade of normality by celebrating holidays of each member and resuming their studies.The minute details of family diagreements,jealousies,the problems of lack of privacy,siblinf rivalry with her elder sister and even her approaching adolesence are discussed with an almost brutal honesty.The Nazis have, in my opinion,by killing her has robbed us of a promising writer.

Democracy in action

For the past few weeks there has been a lot of excitement in the college campus.The reason for this is the upcoming student body elections.In these elections the posts of general secretary,cultural secretary and various other office-bearers of thre college student are elected.Compared to elections of student bodies at places like Delhi University where the stakes are extremely high and political parties through their student wings piut up candidates and spend hundreds of thousands of rupees and student leaders enjoy enormous clout,ours is pretty low key.The general secretary has only limited powers.He can give only suggestions,the decision to accept them rests entirely with the authorities.But this lack of powers has not acted as a disincentive.Currently there are three contenders for the top job and hectic campaigning is going on.Promises are freely made,regardless of the fact that some promises,with the limited powers that go with the post would not be possible to fulfill.Charges and counter charges are being whispered in tight groups of students at the canteens,college gates,the roadside stalls outside the gates and at the hostels,to mention a few places.Ours being a college in which every state has a particular quota of students,students of every state vote en masse for a particular candidate and try to convince their juniors coming from that particular state to vote for the "official" candidate.And the
juniors usually acquise to the request.So the candidates try to get as many states in their pocket as possible.Being engineering students the candidates have also used technology to campaign by creating communities at community websites like orkut to drum up further support. Along with the elections to to the post of general secretary ,elections for class representative for each class are also being held.These elections are taken just as seriously.And during these days we find the idea of siiting in our classes and listening to some droning lecturer a tad more boring.

And you might now ask me with which camp my sympathies lies or how much campaigning have I done.And my answer would be zilch.My answer might offend some democratically minded folks but I prefer watching the show from the sidelines.After all the show,being the small brother of the great Indian Game called Democracy has many amusing moments.And I could certainly use a good laugh.

Assam........a raped land

Today I want to speak about something that is vey close to my heart.My homestate Assam is one of the most beautiful places in India.Today the future of Assam is at crossroads.To understand how this sorry state of affairs came about,we have to go back to the change of East Pakistan to Bangladesh.Assam is one of the Indian states bordering Bangladesh.Before the birth of Bangladesh,there was some illegal migration migration by minority hindus fleeing religious persecution in Islamic Pakistan.But it was insignificant.After the liberation of Bangladesh by India in 1971,the rate of immigration increased.This time the reasons were not religious but economic.At that time Assam was sparsely populated and heavily forested.So the aliens moved in, cutting down forests and taking up farming and fishing.

As the years rolled by the local people began to view the situation with increasing apprehension.Assamese society was a melting pot of many tribes,each with their own unique culture and coexisting peacefully for cenruries.There was no telling what the presence of increasing number of Bangladeshis,who had nothing in common with the local people would do a society which did not witness any communal riots during India's partition .There was no certainty that fifty years down the line,the locals would be swamped by aliens in their own land.And that sort of feeling is going to make everybody nervous.

At that time the main political party was the Congress(I).But there was no articulate Assamese Congress workers-only a bunch of impotent toadies whose only aim in life was to grovel before Indira Gandhi.And one of them is (dis)credited with making the (in)famous comment "India is Indira and Indira is India".So these sychophants did not draw any attention to this acute problem.Gandhi also cared two hoots for small states like Assam which had only 14 Parliamenterians.In fact the Congress viewed the migrants as apliable vote bank.Their names were inserted in the voter rolls,giving them a status of Indian citizens.Its worst fears confirmed,the Assamese society launched a mass movement headed by students whose aim was to drive the illegals out.After six bloody years Rajiv Gandhi signed an accord with the agitattiponists.But the promises wer never implemented.Politics and red tape,coupled with a stupid legislation valid only in Assam that made the onus of proving the nationality of the accused on the complainant hampered deportation.The Indian home minister admitted that there was about 20 million Bangladeshis in India and a significant chunk in Assam.

After a long process of convulted litigation,the Supreme Court struck down the offending piece of legislation,raising hopes that the deportation process would become easier.Some border districts were already Muslim majority and the rate of increase of population was more than the all India rate.This was an ominous pointer of things to come.Meanwhile the congress govt in Assam,clearly worried about its prospects in the upcoming elections some 10 months hence due to the possible disruption of its votebank looked to the central government,also led by the congress to help.And they obliged by amending the Citizenship Act 1955 so that the children of the illegal aliens who came till 2004 would be given citizenship.Effectively this meant that the cutoff date for the granting of citizenship which was 1971 as agreed on Assam Accord is now pushed to 2004,making a very serious problem more so.And this is likely to warm the cockles of the hearts of all congressmen in Assam.A special mention should also be made for Rockybul Hussain,the state home minister an allegedly an illegal migrant.He must surely be heaving sighs of relief .But there has to be change of course or the landscape of Assam will change forever.

Orkutomania

Hello everybody.I'm sorry I could not post anything earlier.I guess the reason is just plain laziness.Anyway i've been meaning to write something about a new web based service which has created a lot of sensation.I guess most of you have heard about a website named orkut.For the uninitiated it is a sort of invitation based network where you invite your friends and acquaintances and also get known to their friends as well.A great way to make friends.With a very limited number of primary contacts you can have a very large number of contacts.This is how it works.-you have 10 contacts,each of them has 10 more with whom you have the choice to make friends and contacts and the chain goes on and on.Take my case.I have only 35 friends currently in my account but am connected to precisely 9577488 people through them!!!!How's that for networking,huh?Yet another unique feature are communities.A community is simply a group of people who share similar interests.And the communities can be anything about sushi to sex.Visit the site.You might just find an old friend,or an old flame.Or it might be the blossoming of a new relationship.

As I had earlier mentioned in our college the craze for orkut is at an all time high.Everybody is in competition to gather the maximum number of friends,even if they don't know the person.Some have notched upwards of 100,150 or even 200 friends.

Some funny things happened today.We are a group of about 15 friends.Every alternate saturday we usually eat out-an escape from unappetizing mess food.The cost is usually shared between three guys whose birthdays are supposed to be just over.But in practice the party might come after seven months of your birthday.At these parties we usually stuff ourselves to our necks.Now this night we did not go to our usual restaurant.After all the eating was over when the fellows who financed us were presented the bill,they were in for a very unpleasant surprise.Instead of the usual 500-600 bucks per head,they had to pay a 1000.Ultimately after some frantic contributions from the others the bill was paid,barely.We swore to give that eatery a wide berth and stick to the usual.You know,as they say,old is gold.

The Return

The Return

Welcome me back to the community of web users. In my last post I mentioned my agonies when I could not access the net. But no more meanings and complaining. A wonderful thing has happened-I got back my connection. It seems that my persistence and about 20 bucks of phone calls and SMSes finally paid off. The guy showed up the other day and did not ask what my problem was simply because he didn’t need to. He got down to solving it. You see, I had called him up so many times that I suspected he considered me to be a big pain in his ass and did not want to be further pestered by me. On my side I was glad that the problem appeared to be on its way to being solved. Anyway I was bracing myself for the worst –a defective cable which would have entailed a further wait of maybe two  to three days-when all I learnt that all these days I was held hostage by a faulty port in the hub. This puny problem was solved in five minutes and since then all has been well and good. I would like to further confess that I found the ending a bit of an anti-climax. Still I was not through with the internet guy. I had paid up for a month of access, but I got for only two weeks. So I was hoping that maybe I might be able to account for the missing time. But I did not think I would get anything, except for some empty words.Gujaratis have an image for being very business minded. But it seemed that my day for surprises was not over. He readily agreed to accept half the stipulated rate for the next month as compensation for the loss of time. Personally I felt that if my problem had been more serious he would not have given in so easily. Anyway we parted amicably, at least me in a happier frame of mind than before.