Book Review :: "A century is not enough " by Saurabh Ganguly & Gautam Bhattacharya

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A few months ago Saurabh Ganguli had said in a conversation with a participant in the programme that he anchors that none should ever try and emulate him as his life had been like a roller coaster ride right through – up and down, up and down again. At that time I did not quite believe it; I thought it was his modesty that was making him speak like that. Now that I have read his biography – not exactly an autobiography as there is a co-author – I have come to realize how true his statement was and how well-meaning it was.

“A century is not enough” written by Saurabh Ganguli and Gautam Bhattachary is an account of Saurabh’s cricketing life including his brief fling in the Indian Premier League, better known by its acronym “IPL”. Although immensely endowed with cricketing talent his life in the Indian cricket team was not easy, barring, of course, the period of five years when he led the national side. During his captaincy he built up a team virtually of world beaters. In building it up he gave wide berth to favouritism and parochialism, the two evils from which Indian cricket used to suffer. He spotted talents and picked them up on merit and always gave them enough time and space to blossom.

Born with the proverbial silver spoon, his father encouraged him to opt for cricket instead of football – a more popular team-sport of West Bengal. To help him achieve his aspirations he used to be sent to England in summers to hone his cricketing skills. He emerged eventually as a right arm medium pacer and a left hand batsman. It is said that he chose to be a left-hander because he could use his brother’s cricketing gear. As a south paw his exploits from the crease were amazing and he amassed a sizable number of records. He may not have been as prolific as his close friend Sachin Tendulkar but he was not far behind - perhaps only next to him. He had another advantage over his friend and that was that he was also a bowler and collected an appreciable number of scalps in Tests and ODIs with his medium pacers.

Everybody knows how Saurabh got into the Indian Cricket Team in 1992 and then was laid off for as many as four years. As an 18-year old entrant in 1992 he was only a passenger in tours of the team. He was hardly ever picked up to play; only he reportedly picked up numerous adverse comments about his attitude. Although he denied the allegations his attitude born out of superior social and financial status of his family kept chasing him for quite some time. He was even called “snooty” in England and his nick name “Maharaj” that his father used to call him by did not quite help in the matter.   

Be that as it may, his ascent to the status of captain of the Indian team was dramatic and he laboured hard to prove that he was a fighting and admirable skipper. He not only tried to build up a team that would not only challenge the best in the world but also beat them in their own backyards. Before him the team lacked homogeneity; there was no spirit of commitment to the team or the country. In short, the members of the team lacked the attitude that would make them stand out in the world. Ganguly went all over the country to search for talent and that fire in the belly to perform. He picked them up and gave them enough scope and time to shed their inhibitions and concentrate on performance. His selections were transparent – and honest with no consideration other than cricketing skills. His boys Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvaraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and a few others became parts of the team, gave off their best and then retired as legends of Indian Cricket.

For more than half a decade his team ruled over the world cricket beating the legendary West Indies, South Africa, England, Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and New Zealand on quite a few occasions in India and abroad thus giving to the team the habit of trying to win – not throwing in the towel or play for a draw. He brought into the team a new element of aggression disorienting the world cricketing community, bringing in trophies and laurels for the country.

Then came his nemesis in the shape of Greg Chappell! He, in his enthusiasm to challenge Australia – at that time, by far the best team in the world - sought Chappell’s help in sorting out technical issues in respect of the Australian grounds. Having been terribly impressed by his cricketing acumen he decided to have Chappell as the Head Coach for Team India. Despite many knowledgeable persons advising him against his move to have Chappell as the Coach he pursued the matter with the BCCI. Even Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell’s brother, a former skipper of the Australian team, spoke to Dalmia, the then BCCI Chairman, advising him against his brother’s appointment as the Indian coach. Ganguly’s efforts succeeded but soon it turned into a virtual war with him. Greg Chappell behaved cussedly and was hell-bent on removing Ganguly from the captaincy. Chappell’s efforts succeeded but it broke the spirit of the team.

Everybody wanted to hear from Ganguly what exactly went wrong between the two but one does not get any answers from the book. Ganguly was aware that Chappell was gunning for him but he did not reveal any reasons for Chappell’s dissatisfaction with him. He, though down for some time did not give it up and fought his way back into the team. Even his father, who had encouraged him to take cricket as his profession, was miserable to see his son weighed down by worries and frustration and advised him to throw in the towel. But Saurabh wouldn’t listen to him.

This is the most interesting and instructive part of the book. He fought his inner strife by himself shedding all self-doubts and frustrations and came out blazing with his bat. His instrument for discarding all negative sentiments was to remain physically fit. He used to run more than a dozen laps at Eden Gardens. He did retire soon enough, as he said, for being always put on trial; but he retired on a note that was by far more positive. His is an example of how a man of immense mental strength deals with adversities even if these are not self-inflicted. He has always been saying that cricket is a mind game; it is played more in the mind, not simply on the crease. To be in a national side one has to have not only perfect hand-eye coordination but also a strong and analytical mind.

After having been one of the most dynamic skippers he has emerged, phoenix-like, as a respected and admired cricket administrator. Soon after retirement he was elected president of the Cricket Association of Bengal and then three years later he was unanimously elected Chairman of BCCI, a nationally coveted position for all cricketers and cricket lovers. This is the first time a cricketer was elected for the post, barring, of course, the brief term of Sunil Gavaskar. But Gavaskar was a Supreme Court appointee. Though Ganguly’s term may last only for nine months because of the cooling off provisions there are many who hope it would be extended.

“A century is not enough” is a well written book and thankfully it is shorn off of most of the technicalities of cricket which I used to come across decades ago in the books by Don Bradman, Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Jack Fingleton or Sid Barnes. The technicalities may not appeal to all lovers of the game, including Ganguly’s female fans that are there all over the country. As is well known, he is universally called “Dada” (elder brother), admired for his deportment as also for his handsome looks. No wonder he anchors a hugely successful reality show called “Dadagiri” on Zee Bangla channel every weekend. Though the name of the show suggests something different, including coercive behavior, there is no such thing in the show. Kolkata’s high and mighty have appeared in the show and they seem to have been hugely pleased to have been there.

Ganguly is mercifully not from among the Kolkata crowd who do not speak any native language. Though educated throughout in Kolkata’s St. Xavier College he speaks impeccable Bangla. Besides he is a true Bong who celebrates Durga Puja wearing dhoti and kurta and plays on the “dhaak” - Bengali percussion instrument. The other night he sang and played on a guitar. I wouldn’t be surprised if I see him in front of an easel with an artist’s palette. He is such a complete well-rounded package.

 Shahruk Khan made a huge understatement when he told Ganguly while walking a lap in Eden Garden adter an IPL match, “Dada, they love you here”. They not only love him, they idolise him.

Our Life, Our Times :: 52 :: The Lockdown

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So far only four nights have gone under “lockdown”; another seventeen nights await such a passage. But the two of us, my wife and me, both senior citizens are already undergoing a sentence of lockdown till our very end. For the last so many months, especially after the two older siblings passed on, we have been under a lockdown of sorts. With nowhere to go, nothing to buy off the shelves we don’t even have to go shopping. Our vehicle sits on its four wheels in the complex most of the time. Virtually everything is home delivered. And, payments are made online. With Modi’s lockdown, therefore, our life has not changed one bit. We continue to stay at home and keep taking in the marvelous view of the Lake and the green hills beyond from our big and wide windows. The peaceful sight is enough of sustenance for us. Perhaps, it also helps us to keep COVID-19 at bay.

This is an unprecedented lockdown the like of which we had never experienced before. It is not like the blackouts during the wars or even like curfews during civic disturbances. The “Janta (people’s) Curfew” of Modi was bad enough. This is much worse – a country-wide lockdown, with no planes flying, no passenger trains running and no buses plying. Each district has become an island with only essential services running. Repeated advisories have been issued to people to stay at home. The government obviously does not want to allow here what happened in Italy, in England or in Spain or New York or California. This deadly virus, it seems, can be neutralized by only social dispersal of people. They have to quarantine themselves in their respective homes.  

The civic authorities have a problem there. Oldies like us will willingly stay at home if everything of our needs is delivered to us. That, however, is not a template to be emulated by the young generation. With no work and, hopefully, a paid holiday for three weeks they want to enjoy it – not cooped up in the generally overcrowded houses but by biking around on the motorbikes on traffic-free roads or even walking on empty streets. They are giving a tough time to the law and order machinery.

Perhaps, it is impossible to keep more than a billion people confined to their homes. Television, that ubiquitous entertainer and a godsent for times like this when there is a massive clampdown and everything is at standstill, keeps one abreast of everyday happenings in the country. It is here that one sees every day by the hour how the cops are losing weight by trying to check those whom the current circumstances have made vagrants. There could be compelling reasons for them to be out on the streets in the times of a clampdown. Perhaps, their houses are too small for the family, maybe it is dark and dingy, or perhaps it lacks hygiene and sanitation. Or, perhaps, there is no place where they could hide and most probably there is no money salted away for buying provisions.

No wonder, as the TV screen shows, hundreds of people are marching down expressways in an effort to get back to their respective villages. Obviously, they feel that if they have to die of hunger or of COVID-19 it is far better to do so among the family in surroundings that are familiar and not in a strange city they have no stakes in. The concept of “social dispersal” that Modi was talking about the other day to prevent the spread of the contagion thus got a massive setback. Those who decided to leave their temporary homes or shacks couldn’t care less for high sounding concepts which they could hardly ever live by. For them, as for almost all of us, survival is more important and in times of difficulties nothing could be more comforting than the lap of the family. The governments, therefore, have swung into action and are providing succor to the hapless migrant labour, are arranging buses for these people to avoid the harrowing march of uncharted miles to their villages and travel in relative comfort of omnibuses – thus breaching their own decision of lockdown.

The newspapers that are available are full of COVID news. I am not able to get the Delhi editions of most papers as transport for them is just not available. What we get these days is locally printed ones of which only the Times of India is a national newspaper with multi-city editions. But even it missed the news of the wildlife bazaar that is run in China. It sells from pangolins to bats which appear to be farmed like poultry, and snakes, rodents, geckos, lizards, insects and what have you. China is where the wild animals are collected and then dispersed in the countries of South-East Asia. Our depleting numbers of pangolins apparently have been ending up in the stomachs of S-E Asians. One can only wish that after letting loose a pandemic China winds up the trade in exotic animals.

While deaths due to COVID and its new victims are in the papers every day the havoc caused by the pandemic is also being reported. The Bombay Stock Exchange had a steep fall from which is yet to fully recover. Its SENSEX 30 fell from above 40000 to 28000 and has only marginally recouped the losses. The essential commodities like vegetables, if easily, accessible are selling at jacked up prices. Indians like to profiteer in good times and bad – perhaps more during the bad times as people would hardly have any alternatives. By and large, it seems India is still better off as countries in Europe and the US are suffering far more than our people. Clearly, COVID – 19 is quite a leveler.

As I was running out of medicines we had to plan getting out of the house. We had not been able to replenish our monthly stock from the government dispensary. So we had to get them whatever might be the risks. This morning we did just that. We did not go to the government dispensary but bought medicines from chemists’ shop. They, being essential, have to be kept open. That is where the pharmacist told my wife that no curfew passes are being issued for local commutes; one needs a pass only when one wishes to go out of the district for good and valid reasons. We realized there was no curfew but only “lockdown”. Perhaps, that is what “containment” of COVID-19 is all about. Though there is no curfew one could not be on the streets without any valid reasons.

*photo from internet

Destinations :: Addis Ababa (1992)

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An old monument

I was picked up by the Universal Postal Union for a three-country assignment in Africa.  This was in 1992 and, for a change, I was asked to proceed first to Addis Ababa via Berne, Switzerland. On previous two occasions I was asked to proceed directly to the country where I was supposed to operate. This time they wanted to “brief” me. Briefing, however, amounted to asking me to carry quite a bit of literature, most of them being useless for me.

Though Berne, ike every other place in Switzerland is a beautiful city yet I had decided that I would not be staying at Berne as my late eldest brother was stationed in Geneva. The question of giving up an opportunity to stay with him for a couple of days did not arise. Besides

A mosque

, Berne was only around two hours away from Geneva by train. My brother was at the airport when I flew in from Delhi via Frankfurt. I was back in Geneva after five years, having been here in 1987 with my wife and late third brother and his wife. We had spent almost a couple of months here during which we travelled quite a bit in Europe.

After two very pleasant days I was set to move for Addis. I had to again fly via Frankfurt and take the flight of Ethiopian Airlines for Addis. Its stock was pretty low with my brother but there was nothing I could do about it. The flight that night from Frankfurt was the last to fly out. We started boarding when the airport cleaning brigade was already on the job. The flight touched down in Rome and then at Asmara, which till then

An animal commercial carriage

was a part of Ethiopia in the province of Eritrea but was fighting for independence.  Eventually after a brief civil war the country became independent. Asmara was known to be a very beautiful sea port on Red Sea and had a lot of traffic with Italy. No wonder hordes of Italians climbed into the plane only to get off at Asmara.

The representatives of Ethiopian administration came and received me and lodged me in Hotel Ethiopia. It was a very ordinary hotel with virtually minimal facilities. Probably that was the best around the town but I couldn’t have had any say in the matter. The country had just come out of a dictatorial Leftist rule of Mengistu and I could divine an environment of fear still prevailing all around. It was Mengistu who hadA Convention Centre

 overthrown in the 1970s the Emperor Haile Selassie of the Solomonic dynasty. The Emperor traced his lineage from the legendary King Solomon and Queen Sheba of Biblical times. His relations with India were very cordial.

My Ethiopian colleagues

Though the departmental headquarters were not very far from the hotel I used to be picked up and deposited back at the hotel promptly at 5.00 in the evening. It seems none would work at the office after office hours as commuting through the streets was not very safe. The first day my counterpart took me to meet the Chief of the Ethiopian Post. He used to sit in a spanking new what looked like a building of aluminium. Perhaps, this was a donation from a friendly country. Together with the chief, I had good discussions over cups of Ethiopian coffee. They take black pretty strong black coffee with a sprinkling of a herb that floats on the top of the coffee giving it a peculiar pleasant aroma. No wonder there is quite a bit of traffic in coffee between Ethiopia and Europe.

The road in front was an artery of sorts and was always very crowded. People in tattered clothes would be sprawled on the central verge. It was like India when we had a substantial population of beggars. One day when I decided to walk to the office I got a taste of it. These people were all Somali refugees occupying the pavements and they would beg rather aggressively; they would nudge you, push you or even catch hold of your hand to beg. I told Mr. Mohammed, my counterpart, that after this experience walking to office was out for me.

A monument

My job in Ethiopia, as indeed in the other two countries, was to guide the local administration in finding new routes or new air services with a view to speeding up of the foreign mails. Certainly not a big job but this had not been done for quite some years. So together with the loca l administration and a newer version of airlines directory we devised a more or less improved schedule of receipt and dispatch of foreign mails subject to the approval of foreign administrations concerned. Since it had no railways of its own, the surface mails from abroad would arrive from Djibouti. Promptness or otherwise of it all depended on the political situation in Djibouti. It was pretty unstable during my stay in Addis Ababa, vital, as it was, sitting on very busy sea lanes passing through the Gulf of Aden.

In a Nazareth restaurant

I was given a round of the city and also visited some of the town sub offices. There was nothing distinctive about them. The city was, however, littered with some Communist-style structures. A big stadium was left incomplete despite apparent expenditure of millions. The town was, however, more like our sub-urban towns. After 1992, however, things seemed to have improved. There are high rises, overpasses and a light rail operating in the city. There are massive squares in the town and economic activities apparently have picked up.

Bayen, who was my companion during my stay, took me out to Nazareth (also spelt as Nazaret) a place around 50 miles away. It is on a highway originating in Djibouti. It is considered to be a transportation hub and is predominantly a Christian town. Bayan took me to a restaurant where we had some good Western food. Bayen used to be a senior official of the department but for lack of prospects he was looking for an opportunity to migrate to Canada. I understand he has since been able to get away to Canada.

A typical street scene of Ethiopia of those days

The night before I was to leave for Nairobi Mr. Mohammed invited me to a dinner in a bigger hotel. Two other officials were also present. It was a typical Ethiopian dinner with the foursome sitting round a circular cane table with high rims. On it was spread the Ethiopian flatbread which is used as a plate for stews, vegetables and salads to be deposited on it. The diners sitting round it tear a piece of the bread to scoop out a morsel. There were around three or four entries. Mr. Mohammed, however, warned me about one which, he said, was half-cooked beef and might not be to my liking. Hence, I left it out.

After two pleasant weeks it was time for me to move again, this time to Nairobi. Climatically both are more or less the same, though Addis sits at an elevation of more than seven thousand feet against Nairobi’s almost 6000 ft elevation. Both are, therefore, cool and one has to use woollens. Nairobi, however, is much greener than Addis Ababa. 

Tavleen Singh's India's Broken Tryst - Book review

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In today’s media world there are very few journalists who have not sold themselves and have remained unbiased. The power of the pen being such that journalists or columnists get sucked into the power- play of different ideologies, even different shades of opinions. Politics is the art of the possible and when people from media are not true to their profession they walk across to whoever offers them the highest bid. Thus there are elements of sale and purchase in the profession. There are, of course, others who consciously descend to the journalistic depths for love of money or for sheer hatred. It is thus difficult in the current times to identify a journalist or a columnist who is unbiased and whose credentials are clean.

For a long time I have been reading the columns of Tavleen Singh, initially in India Today and currently in the Indian Express in its Sunday edition. I have found her writings objective and free of bias. She does her reporting from the field and her opinions are formed by what she observes and hears there. No wonder she has remained in the forefront among journalists of corresponding calibre. How she maintains her equilibrium and is not swayed by temptations of power and glory is something inexplicable. Perhaps, it is because she has independent sources of sustenance. And, of course, her live-in partner of thirty-odd years has been a solid support for her. Even then one must concede that she has refrained from falling prey to the big, wild world of politics infested more with wolves than with humans – where it is difficult to keep oneself stable but very easy to succumb to its false charms.

Having read her columns I eagerly took up her book “India’s broken tryst” when it came my way. It is a sweeping coverage of post-independent India and its politics from Nehru down to Modi. As the book was published in 2016 it covers only the first few months of Modi’s regime. But its pages are packed with human content from Nehru’s period down to virtually the present day. The most outstanding feature of this period was how Indian National Congress, after 50 years of its rule, left the country almost at the same place where it was at the time of independence in 1947. During this period China, South Korea, the “East Asian Tigers” all became economic giants with China emerging as a super power of the world – able to tell off the US not to mess with it. While it was at the same level of development as India in 1948, China quickly shifted gears to hit double digit growth. We in India during this period were, apparently, happy with, what has been disdainfully called, the “Hindu Rate of Growth” of around 3% with official and political corruption hitting all time high.

Tavleen travelled several times through Uttar Pradesh. Having seen it from close quarters she has described the state’s poverty in graphic terms giving vivid details. The uncontrolled population, absence of healthcare and primary or secondary education have contributed immensely to perpetuation of poverty in the state’s villages. Years of lack of governance has deprived the village community of the wherewithal to survive with dignity. Come to think of it, decades of Congress rule did not eradicate poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and  absence of healthcare and civic amenities that are available to a civilized society made the situation more abject reducing the people to the level of wretched of the earth. Indira Gandhi’s slogan “garibi hatao” survived as only a slogan without making a dent on poverty in the state, indeed the entire country.

The same is true of the era of Sonia Gandhi, daughter in-law of Indira Gandhi, who had contested elections from Rae Bareli for the last two decades or so and yet the situation in her constituency and its villages are in a shamble. She or her son Rahul Gandhi who won from Amethi did not do one bit for their respective constituencies. This was more reprehensible as Sonia was the de-facto prime minister running the UPA II government by remote control on the advice of her Leftist friends brimming over in the National Advisory Council. And yet, superseding the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not bring any succour to her constituents or kudos to her or her Advisory Council.

Tavleen Singh says Sonia cannot stand honest criticism and can be vicious in her response. Just because Tavleen used to write uncomplimentary pieces against her Sonia Gandhi had construction at Lavasa being carried out by her partner stopped which was later rescinded by the judiciary. This, however, stalled the project for three years. This was conceptually the first hill town to be built after independence on the Western Ghats. The builder, Ajit Gulabchand, derived inspiration from the Italian hillside town of Portofino.  

Tavleen Singh has given pride of place in the book to the pavement dwellers of South Mumbai. Sharing, as she did, a luxury flat with her partner in the NCPA Apartments she curiously became an altruistic friend of many of the dwellers of the nearby jhuggis and jhopris and homeless people. She tried and rendered assistance to them with love, money and her precious time. But, what is important is that through their troubles and tribulations and the rigours of their interfaces with petty bureaucracy and the magistracy she reveals the State’s corrupt, cold and heartless treatment of the poor. Their crushing poverty was bad enough, the unsympathetic treatment given to them by the agents of the so called “welfare state” was worse.

The book covers only about a year and a half of Modi’s regime. She started almost as a “Modi Bhakt” and was impressed by the changes wrought by him in Gujarat. She was one of the very few journalists who espied a Modi wave in late 2013. Very few politicians saw it coming and the Congressmen, of course, were sanguine that Sonia would lead them back once again to the Raisina Hill. Modi, the “chaiwalla”, as Mani Shankar Iyer said, just had no chance. As Modi chose Varanasi as his constituency she invested her time in it and stomped through its filth and grime to interview people just to get the sense of what voters thought of Modi. She saw unmistakable signs of Modi romping home victorious.

She was on the same page as me in so far as Modi was concerned. Without caring much for the Hindutva Brigade we wanted Modi to win as he looked like one politician who could turn the tide in favour of the country. But soon after he formed the government his party’s motormouths started issuing statements that embarrassed the new prime minister. Modi’s procrastinations in responding did not help. That is when he disappointed many of us. Tavleen, too, expressed it but, later, in her columns was more vehement.

Written in a racy style the book is eminently readable. I must say that I have never come across a book of political history as absorbing and interesting as this one. As it gives one sense of recent history it is all the more interesting. Its protagonists walked the earth when we too were around bringing in an element of familiarity.

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 41 :: Back to Delhi

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This was my third assignment in Delhi. From the 1970s to 1990s, almost in every decade I came to Delhi on a posting and every time I had problems in having a house of my entitlement allotted to me. There was so much of corruption. A batch-mate of mine told me he had been asked to pay up Rs. 70000 as bribe to get a government house of his entitlement. He said even the minister was in it. Seeing all this I gave up pursuing the matter and eventually I was allotted a flat on first floor on Vinay Marg in Chanakyapuri meant for deputy secretaries whereas I was of the rank of a joint secretary having hit the top of the scale three years earlier.

Transfers were, therefore, a sackful of troubles. And this was my 12th transfer in the career span of 29 years. I hardly ever resisted a transfer though it was always troublesome, mostly in respect of residential accommodation. My wife, who had to face the establishment problems, was always very accommodative and never threw up any tantrums because of the difficulties she came up against. The house that we got this time was a two-bedroom affair and by every means was too small for an officer of thirty years’ service. But then there was nothing that I could do about it.

On this transfer we faced another problem. Our truck loaded with household goods and the Maruti 800 car took inordinately long time to come from Shillong. Inquiries revealed that LK Advani’s Rath Yatra was the culprit. The chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, had sealed the state in a bid to prevent Advani from passing through to Ayodhya. As a result our truck was held up on the eastern border of Bihar for as many as 15 days. Though many trucks were victims of vandalism ours somehow escaped unharmed. A fortnight of anxiety thus ended but during this time we stayed cooped up in one room in the departmental guest house. After the beautiful well ventilated house that we had at Shillong it was quite a climbdown.

 In the house that we were to occupy, however, we were surprised to see peacocks having free run of it. Behind the Vinay Marg colony there was a drain which had thick vegetation on its two banks that hosted the peacock community. Within two years, however, they disappeared as the place was built over for police personnel. Nonetheless, the Nehru Park was easily accessible as was the Yeshwant Place and Chanakya Takies.

I have already mentioned my first brush with the Secretary who was from our Service and was five years senior to me. Over time, however, our relations improved appreciably. He was happy with my efforts to work in accordance with the manual of office procedure as also the promptness that I submitted the cases. My immediate boss, however, was the Member of the Postal Board in-charge of Personnel. But the Secretary was more active. With the two immediate bosses I had to put in extra hours and was generally in the office even on Sundays also.

The paper work was so heavy that I wouldn’t have time in the office to look at the dak that used to be in a thick folder. I had to bring the whole thing home and work on them after a cup of tea with my wife. Personnel Branch had to deal with a large number of writ petitions filed from all over the country and they used to come to us when a petitioner or respondent would file an appeal in the Supreme Court. Not only did we have to prepare replies and get them vetted by the nominated Additional Solicitor General we had to be present in the Supreme Court on the day of hearing. This took away a lot of time and would build up pressure. No wonder my blood pressure would always remain elevated.

In the midst of such a busy schedule I had taken upon myself to revise the rules for promotion into the cadre of inspectors and from there to the Group B cadres of the department. The idea was to quicken the promotions and to get bright youngsters who would be able to serve longer durations in higher cadres with chances of promotion into Group A. I had discussed the matter with the Department of Personnel where the Joint Secretary was a long lost friend. As he vetted it I submitted it to Secretary who put it before the Board. It had taken almost three years to cocretise the proposals and when I left the Postal Board it was still pending with the Department of Personnel.  

There was one good thing about the Secretary and that was he wouldn’t mind if one told him that his orders would not be carried out for not being in accordance with the government’s instructions. In one case in which he wanted to appoint an officer on ad hoc basis as Member of the Board I had to tell him that I would not sign such an order as approval of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet was essential. When the file went to him he asked me whether there was anybody who would sign the order. On my telling him that there was none, he signed the order himself. A month later a stinker came from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet warning the Department never to act in breach of established procedures.

The Secretary had fallen foul of the Minister who in those days was Late Rajesh Pilot. I do not know what went wrong between the two but the latter had him removed to the Cabinet Secretariat in a post that was sinecure for a few months that were left before his superannuation. So, piles of files submitted to the Secretary over a period of a few months came back from the minister. Apparently, the files were submitted for the minister’s orders in which no suggestion were recorded for the course of action to be taken.

 Resultantly, I had a new secretary – in fact, two new secretaries one after the other. Both were former members who used to be my bosses. I had, therefore, no problem with the change of regime. 

During the tenure as Deputy Director General I was selected in 1992 for a consultancy in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania by Universal Postal Union, the specialized agency of the UN for postal matters. It was a consultancy for six weeks and I was to spend two weeks in each country. Soon after completion of the consultancy I was transferred again – this time as Chief Postmaster General of West Bengal, Sikkim & the UT of Andaman & Nicobar Islands even though I could sniff a promotion for me in the near future. But then that is how the governments function. I don’t know till today whether it was a contrived transfer to accommodate somebody in my place. So after pushing papers up and down for three years my wife and I proceeded to Calcutta to work in the state to which my parents belonged and the language of which we had been speaking at home since birth.  

*Photo from internet

Our Life, Our Times :: 51 :: COVID-19, Stop messing with Nature

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Francois Marie Arouet, known more by his  nom de plume Voltaire, a 18th Century writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, once said “Use, do not abuse…neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy”. Thus, he made a huge case for moderation in every aspect of life. His pithy quote fits snugly when seen in relation to man’s exploitation of Nature. A fact that has come out of researches is that man’s excessive inroads into the domain that is of Nature has bred the various viruses that later became pandemic, including the novel corona virus that is currently relentlessly raging through the country upstaging its economy and governance.

Sonia Shah, a US based science journalist and author, who has investigated and written about major infectious disease outbreaks in recent years – like SARS, Ebola and Zika – says that “when we cut down forests where bats live in, they just don’t go away, they come and live in the trees in our backyards and farms.” Though, perhaps, said metaphorically, I have seen this phenomenon happening in real life in Bhopal. A few years ago, while creating the BRTS corridor the Bhopal Municipal Corporation was felling scores-of-years-old massive trees near Kamla Park. The bats that had used the trees as their colony were disturbed and they took off only to fly aimlessly over the Upper Lake for some time in broad daylight before settling down on nearby trees. They just moved from a few trees being felled to some others nearby, carrying their entire eco-system that they harboured, including those of microbes.

 “Through hunting, trading and recreational activities,” Sonia Shah says, “the probability that humans encounter bats rises – as do opportunities for microbes in their bodies to spill over into ours.” Importantly, she goes on to say that we need to protect wildlife habitat so that animal microbes stay in their (animals’) bodies. “To do this we need to reduce our massive and growing footprint across the planet,” said Sonia. 

Obviously, increased harnessing of Nature for our conveniences and consumption is the cause of the assault by animal microbes on humans. Of late, our indulgence for enhanced, even indiscrete use of Nature and its resources is becoming counter-productive. Nature is, seemingly, striking back at humans who surely are messing with it. If “you have to be indiscrete”, as Mark Twain had said, “you must be discrete in your indiscretion.” Indiscretion in dealing with Nature is increasingly becoming fraught as is evident from the sufferings of the current generation.

Sonia Shah has studied several pandemics by not staying rooted on her desk but moving to places that were their epicenters. She went to Haiti where, she says, the eighth pandemic of cholera is brewing, she went to the wet markets and factory farms of South China to learn the ecology of avian influenza, to international business hubs in Hong Kong where SARS originated, to the surgical wards of Delhi from where new forms of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens were emerging to spread right across the globe, to the backwoods of New York State where the tick-borne diseases and novel influenza “swirl”. Having carried out in-depth studies of such a variety of pandemics at places of their provenance Shah is one person who would surely know what it takes for a pathogen to spread and become pandemic.

According to Shah, a vaccine against the Corona Virus is still 12 to 18 months away. She admits that warm weather does reduce the transmission of respiratory pathogens but it is still unclear whether the oncoming summer with its predicted high temperatures will be of help in dealing with the effects of the corona virus. Till such time as it becomes evident, India may have to emulate China by imposition of a kind of a lockdown in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. Perhaps Indians, generally young in age, are likely to overcome the viral assault, the substantial population of the elderly, nonetheless, remains vulnerable.

Reports have emerged that the government has initiated processes to deal with the pandemic in an exemplary manner. While it has been highly sensitive to the needs of the affected in the country and abroad it has also extended massive help to other countries in their fight against the virus. One hopes, the onset of the corona virus and its handling becomes a success story for the Modi government. 

However, it has to keep in mind what Sonia Shah has said and that is that we should issue a stiff “hands off Nature” dictat. Let encroachments into the domain of Nature be banned and various eco-systems be allowed to remain undisturbed. This should happen from the national level, to state level and down to the level of local bodies, including the smart city organizations. The ecosystems may include those of forests (including urban), grasslands, marine and others like the ones in trees in the forests or in urban areas, ponds and other water bodies.

 In the name of development we have to stop messing with Nature unless we wish to invite “disasters” like in the current times.

*Image from internet

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 40 :: Mumbai (Part VII) Vasai

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Not for nothing India was considered a golden sparrow during the middle ages. The riches of the country – cultural, political and economic – had spread its fame right across the then civilized world. Virtually every sea-faring nation of Europe in those days was aiming for a piece of the rich cake the country offered. Portugal was one of the first European countries to hit the Western shores of India. It has left a major footprint in the shape of Vasai Fort about 50 kilometres north of Mumbai.

The Fort at Vasai – also known as Bassein or Bacaim – is all that remains today of the Portuguese possession near Mumbai in the Palghar District of Maharashtra. It is known as the Fort of St. Sabastian of Vasai. The Portuguese had penetrated the Konkan coast and the control over Vasai gave them the possession of several islands that constitute Mumbai today. These are, among others, Colaba, Mumbai, Mazagaon, Worli, Matunga and Mahim. In addition Portuguese used to control Salsette, Daman, Diu, Thane, Kalyan etc.

The Vasai Fort is a Monument of National Importance. It is mostly in ruins except a few watch towers with their stairs in good usable condition. Many of the structures inside the Fort have fallen off but some of the walls remain standing to tell the current generation of their floor plans. The Fort currently has become a popular shooting destination of the Bollywood. Numerous films are shot here every year.

We took the route up north from our Worli residence and covered the distance in about an hour and a half. Wandering around we found little evidence of Portuguese occupation except the fort and a few names of places. An important legacy, however, is the presence of East Indians, the Catholic Christians, in the area whom we encountered also in Gorai. Maybe, some influences have been left behind in the cuisine and the way of life of the local people. Otherwise, unlike Goa, nothing much is left of the Northern Court or Corte da Norte, second only to Goa, functioning as the capital of the North from Vasai. Perhaps the reason is the hand-over of the Portuguese possessions of the region to the English by way of dowry for Princess Catherine of Braganza

This was our last outing in Mumbai except a minor one to Elephanta caves. I had completed four peaceful years of my tenure and it was now time to move. Soon I got a call from my friend TK Tochhawng, PMG North East, intimating that I had been posted in his place. He wanted me not to maneuver to have the orders cancelled. I assured him I had no such intentions. Obviously he did not want to continue further in Shillong though he was a Khasi.

Soon the round of farewells commenced, not by senior or junior colleagues but by the trade unions of the Maharashtra Circle. We had progresses to three regular unions – one each for every shade of political opinion. The oldest, of course, was the National Federation of the Postal Unions; the next was the National Union supported by the Indian National Congress and the third was the departmental union of Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh. All of them gave memorable send-offs for quite inexplicable reasons. When I was transferred out of Ahmedabad in the beginning of my career we had only one union that is the one that was Leftist.It too gave me a massive send-off.

 We packed and sent our stuff and the car by a truck right across the country from West to East and a day later we took a flight to Guwahati via Calcutta. We spent two pleasant years in the North East about which I have written separately. And, again, on completion, this time, of an abbreviated tenure of two years I was posted to the headquarters of the Department in-charge of matters relating to personnel. The only snag, reportedly, was the Secretary – an officer of our cadre – who was considered rather boorish. But things turned out in an entirely different way. He became very fond of me particularly because of the way I worked. I had surprisingly a very happy time with him though I did have to put in pretty hard labour.  

Bhopal Notes :: 84 :: Greening of Bhopal

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Crisis of greenery in Bhopal

In so far greenery in the city of Bhopal is concerned things seem to be on the mend. It is no longer the whims and wishes of the Commissioner or his minions or even the political class of the Municipality who seem to have a say. The power in this respect has slipped out of their grasp and one tends to feel that greenery is likely to be better maintained when the minister for urban affairs is himself in-charge of a newly created committee dealing with this vital factor in city administration.

A report in this connection came out the other day. That the committee met so soon after its formation happens seldom in the government – especially committees dealing with matters of environment. I remember an apex committee to manage the Upper Lake was constituted by Shivraj Singh government and it had met only once since then and that too after several months of its creation. So a meeting of the committee to review the plans prepared by the Smart City Corporation chaired by the minister of urban affairs so soon after its constitution is kind of a happy augury.

Earlier, the Smart City Corporation had exhibited the mindset of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation by suggesting compensatory plantation miles away from the town in place of chopped down trees of the city. A hack had even put the question whether citizens would be required to go out of the town whenever their lungs needed the much-required oxygen. This is typical mindset of the officials of the local municipality. They merrily chop away the roadside trees and plant trees in compensation miles away from the town. According to them, the roadside trees have no importance; what they plan for is miles and miles of treeless expanse of asphalt exposed to the tropical sun heating up the environs. That, for them, is top class town-planning.

One wishes if only one could take our town-planners to Lutyen’s Delhi to show them the leafy avenues that were created by him almost a hundred years ago with the help of indigenous species of trees. For each street was chosen a particular species, for the India Gate lawns, however, they had chosen only massive Jamun (black berry) trees. In some of the avenues they had planted two rows of trees on two sides. I remember while living in Curzon Road apartments in 1970s they chopped down a row on each side to allow widening of the road consequent on traffic expansion. That leafy character of Lutyen’s Delhi still continues whereas the localities in many areas, though built up later, are devoid of trees. Only some of the recent colonies developed by DDA have, thankfully, enough greenery.

Getting back to the news report, it seems a decision has been taken to plant as many as four trees for every tree that is felled and these will be planted in the same locale where they are chopped down. This is a clear departure from the BMC mindset and is likely to take care of the micro-environment of the area where trees are chopped down.

An announcement has been made that of the 342 acres of the Smart City Area 23% will be kept green which includes 11 acres of what is called a central park. One does not know the reason behind greening of only 23% of the Smart City area with a large sized park thrown in when one knows the economic benefits of trees.

The Smart City officialdom has not been smart in this respect. Even in rich and industrially advanced countries trees had been considered as “expensive ornaments” But, of late, researches have shown that they provide staggering ecological services. Trees can cool cities by 2 degrees to 8 degrees Centigrade, trees can cut air-conditioning needs by 30% and a large tree can absorb 150 kgs of carbon dioxide every year as well as filter some pollutants including the fine particulates.

Use of open source software i-Tree has spread all over the world to assess canopy size to calculate its worth. Ideally cities should have 40% and to be able to monetise the benefits would be useful for city planners. Quoting a UK based GP and a public health expert a Guardian report explaining the reasons said “The parts of our brain we use change when we connect with nature…Our brains view cities as hostile environments. Natural scenes, by contrast, light up anterior cingulate and the insula, where empathy and altruism happen.” The report further said, “In areas with more trees people get out more, they know their neighbours more, they have less anxiety and depression” thus directly reducing public health expenditure on these ailments incidences of which have registered a sharp rise.

A re-think is, therefore, necessary for re-greening of the town. Come to think of it, it had once more than 65% of its land area under trees which has now shrunk to around 11%, and unless taken for a mend, could hit 4%, with all the ill-effects of a dry and arid town. A town that once was green and healthy cannot thus be allowed to be deteriorated and fall by the wayside.

Perhaps the minister for Urban Affairs will use his power and influence to change the way smart city officials and those of BMC look at greening of the once-green Bhopal. There is much at stake that includes the city’s climate and wellbeing of its citizens

*Photo from internet

  

Our Life, Our Times :: 50 :: A perishable Modi

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Modi seems to have lost whatever he had gained in his first term. The worldwide acclaim and the cheers that he received in various Western countries, all now seem to be well in the past. He is no longer the colossus he had become soon after being elected in 2014. Squirming in his prime ministerial seat, he has lost all that verve and spirit that he had displayed before going down with the CAA.

It is a very harsh world – the world of international politics. One mistake is enough to do one in. That is precisely what happened and Modi was brought down to earth from the rarified atmosphere of international politics – by only one mistake. If only he had been a little more circumspect, he would have thought twice before making religion the basis of the new Citizenship Law.

 There are enough examples from history which indicate there are more subtle ways of keeping the ones who prove to be undesirable out of the country. I recall some years ago the Australian administration had kind of a run in with Muslim immigrants. They were told in clear and unambiguous terms that it was a Christian country and would remain so in the foreseeable future. If Muslims had any issue with it they were free to look for other countries that provided more conducive environment for them. Similar sentiments were expressed by a minister in Netherlands a few years ago. 

To keep out a community on account of its faith or allow in communities on the basis of theirs was somewhat jarring to the senses. I recall having written in my blog ‘Our Life, Our Times :: 46 :: Random thoughts on CAA’ that ”One feels certain that there must have been other options available to the government to achieve its objectives but these were not availed of”. True enough the next day it was in papers that constitutional/legal experts had suggested use of the word “persecuted” instead of naming faiths. And that, to my mind, would not have given rise to the kind of furore inside the country or outside. The one little mistake has caused such an awful lot of damage.

Looks like Modi’s luck has run out - at least for the time being. The entire world came into the grip of an economic slowdown. India could not have remained immune to it. The GDP figures took a nose dive and till the time of writing these have not shown any signs of recovery. Economists, and we have too many of them including two Nobel Laureates, feel the fall has bottomed out and soon signs of recovery would be noticeable. One feels it is all rubbish. With the hordes of them around how did they forget whatever they had learnt for avoiding a copping-out GDP in the first place? Looking around, one finds numerous Asian countries are doing better than us though they do not have the advice of as many trained economists from Oxford or Cambridge or Boston as we have. Or is it a matter of too many cooks? Barring a very short duration in post-liberalisation India, our economy has never been of the “neighbour’s envy”-type.

Even as Modi is grappling with the sit-ins, riots and demonstrations thrown up by the bad decision of CAA and a never-rising GDP out of the blue came the much-maligned corona virus which is showing signs of becoming pandemic in this rapidly shrinking planet of ours. Taking birth in one corner of the world in China it quickly assumed massive proportions to spread right round the world threatening to fell many innocents as it sweeps through continents. 

No wonder Modi, forgetting the promises that he happened to make when days were not so bleak, is engaged full time in fighting away the adversities that befell him. The problems are so overwhelming he seems to have totally forgotten about the economy which many assert is in immediate need of tending.

In his “Ushering in a new era” Shiv Vishwanathan, a public intellectual, in The Hindu OpEd of 16th August 2014 lavishing extravagant praise on Modi’s first Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort he wrote ”It is a perfect performance, crafted in ease, delivered with confidence… As a semiotic act, it is difficult to beat. The success is almost matter-of-fact. Lutyens’ Delhi smells a new regime as India senses the new era. Looking back, if politics is performance, the Oscar goes to Mr. Modi. Even Bollywood could not have done it better.”

But that was in the first term. He is currently almost a year unto his second. Much water has flowed down the Ganges in these 70-odd months. Indian politics, vicious as it is, has given him a harsh detergent wash and peeled off those layers that he had donned in 2014. Though he won a thumping second mandate, that one mistake reduced him to the level of the ordinary – a pedestrian. Coming with so much promise and assurance he seems to have withered in the unbearably hot draught of the dog-eat-dog politics of India. Even a rousing reception to the chief of the first world at the world’s largest cricket stadium failed to lift his stock in 2020.

And that is a misfortune for India. Many of us did not care for BJP but found in Modi that mettle that could take India forward. Alas, that was not to be! Too soon fate intervened to undo whatever little was done leaving an enormous lot undone. Sometimes one cannot but pity the fate of this country that has remained a developing country despite all its huge potentials.

*photo from internet

Memories of an ordinary bureaucrat :: 39 :: Bombay (Part VI) – Gorai

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Dusk at Gorai

Winter is the time in Bombay when one thinks of outings. Other seasons are not conducive enough to go out and enjoy nature. Winter is the time when the temperatures are moderate and the steamy heat does not tell on your nerves. While the summers are too hot and humid, the rainy season is too wet and after the rains Bombay has what is known as the second summer. This is when sun is a scorcher and the heat that it generates is nerve-racking. Two months of winter that follow are kind of grace that Nature offers to Bombayites to enjoy and play around.

That is precisely we thought of doing by visiting Gorai – a township up in the north, close to Manori Creek, with a beach to boot. I saw an ad in the newspaper about guest houses at Gorai that could be booked at a certain place, if I remember, in Worli. We went and booked a room. The outfit seemed to be run by Christians. The man who sold the place to us for two nights seemingly warned us that the facilities available were very basic. He repeated this twice but I thought he was being overly modest.

Christians in Gorai are of the East Indian stock. They are Roman Catholics and were baptized when the first flow of Portuguese arrived on the Bombay coast in the 15^th Century. Known as the East Indian Catholics they were found in the northern parts of the island, especially in Salcette, Dharavi and Bandra, etc. Some of them have made Thane their home as well. The East Indian Catholics are some of the oldest among the Indian Christians.

But they did not help their cause by repeatedly mentioning that the facilities that they had in the rooms that they let out are modest. In fact, they are not modest, they were non-existent. There was not even a single piece of furniture in the room and when I asked where and how we were supposed to sleep the man replied that he would provide spreads which could be spread out on the floor. That is what the man who booked us in meant by “basic facilities”. Having travelled more than 25 kilometres through the Bombay traffic I did not want to make an issue of it. Instead we decided to move out next morning and get back home.

But I must admit the beach was indeed great - somewhat like the beaches we had come across in Konkan. It was a small beach with the sands in different shades of yellow. We moved out in the sun out on the beach and spent some two house or so in the open air. Later the sun became rather hot and we had to move into the shade of trees close to the rooming facilities.

We somehow spent the night, I dare say in great discomfort, and loaded the car with whatever little we had brought with us. The only take-away from the trip was a new meaning of the word “modest” – an addition to my lexicon.