Bhopal Notes :: 68 :: Felling of roadside trees

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A tree-lined street of Nanking, China

A recent report in a local newspaper said that the local administration is all set to cut down about 3000 trees for widening of two roads. The proposal is to create two roads of six lanes each one of which would be a link for the smart city that is coming up in a part of the town.

Some substantial time has elapsed since the report appeared in the vernacular press but there seems to be no sign of any people’s resistance to the decision. In Delhi people got together a couple of years ago and protested when the administration was going to chop around 14000 trees for redevelopment of some South Delhi colonies. The government eventually had to back off. Bhopal too has a history of such protests. In order to maintain the green ambiance. People came out on the streets and protested against the decision to create a smart city in Shivaji Nagar which is blessed with a tremendous amount of greenery. The government saw the protesters’ point and moved the smart city away from Shivaji Nagar.

 This time, however, there is no movement from people’s side although Bhopal has lost enormous number of trees in recent times. At one time it had 60-odd percent of its area covered by trees. The same has now come down to around 11% and is likely to plummet to a measly 4% in the next few years. How that is going to impact the city’s micro-climate can only be imagined in the context of rising global temperatures. Last summer was one of the hottest and, devoid of ample greenery, the city is likely to become a furnace.

The city planners do not seem to ever consider factoring in of the climatic impact that their proposals would have. In the name of smart city already a few hundred trees have been sacrificed. A few more are likely to be sacrificed as the project jogs along.

 The Smart City Administration is in the process of creating what are reported as “boulevard streets”. The Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries define a boulevard as a wide street in a city usually lined with trees. Thus, firstly, the word “street” is redundant when used with the word boulevard because bouleward means a street that is wider than other urban streets. The second requirement is that these are usually lined with trees. A recent, presumably, aerial photograph that appeared in one of the newspapers of a boulevard in the city showed absolute absence of trees while the streets that were not boulevards were green. Obviously the Smart City organization has not thought of planting trees on both sides of the proposed boulevards. Even if they do not consider it mandatory they should plant trees on these roads that are likely to be important for the city. Such a step would be aesthetically sound and environmentally useful

Somehow the civic authorities have become indifferent to roadside trees. While building the now generally-condemned BRTS corridor thousands of trees were felled and a very few old ones were translocated. The latter, however, did not survive for want of expertise or care or both. I recall once the then Municipal Commissioner made an astounding statement in this regard. He said compensatory plantation for trees felled on the roadsides had been done on a hill outside the city. I recall having visited the site along with Late Shri Arun Pandya and some other members of the Bhopal Citizens’ Forum. That the compensatory plantation so far away from the city roads where the trees were axed was no compensation at all never ever seemed to have occurred to the municipal authorities.

Besides, as Pradeep Krishen, a well known naturalist who has written a book on the trees of Delhi, says compensatory afforestation is a fraud played on people. He said the process is gone through in a “naam ke vaste” manner. According to him, “People including the forest department are just evading it. Officials do not go and check on the plantation and they do not bother to educate themselves either. Characteristics of forests change all the time which means it is important for forest officials to visit plantations regularly but in India the Forest Department does not know what its role is”.

That may be so but the fact is that for urban people trees are more beneficial on the roadside than in far-away plantations. There are distinctive benefits of roadside trees like:

Trees capture dust particles; trees reduce greenhouse effect, roadside trees hinder noise pollution; they promote biodiversity, they prevent surface run-off and foster urban bird life. The roadside trees can also act as wind-break and prevent erosion.

 These are a few obvious benefits apart from those that make urban life pleasant and aesthetic. That they also act as shelter from sun and rain need hardly be mentioned.

It is said that the erstwhile rulers always used to plan roads and trees along them together. This is apparent from what one sees in New Delhi. The Britishers meticulously chose trees to be planted along the various roads of Lutyen’s Delhi and that is precisely why today’s central Delhi is so green. Things are quite different in the colonies that came up later.      

I, for one, feel that there should be concerted opposition to felling of trees on the roadsides and there should be general demand for planting trees along all the roads for the benefits of this much-ravaged town.   

Our Life, Our Times :: 28 :: Women create split in Indian cricket administration

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Mithali Raj

The Indian women’s cricket team has lately been in the news. Only very recently a member of the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators, Diana Edulji, called the selection process of the new coach for the women’s cricket team a sham, and unconstitutional. WV Raman a former member of the Indian men’s cricket team was selected as the coach by an ad hoc panel appointed by the chairman of the Committee of Administrators, Vinod Rai.

Diana Edulji has been pushing for extension of the term of the erstwhile coach Romesh Powar. Powar’s term ended last month after the Women’s Team returned from the West Indies having crashed out of the last World Cup at the stage of semi finals. Powar was an interim coach and yet Edulji has been pushing for him. She did so despite the allegations made against him of uncivil and undesirable behaviour with Mithali Raj, the senior most member of the team.

 Mithali Raj, who is also the ODI captain, complained against him after she was not played in the Semi Final in spite of her back-to-back half centuries in two league matches of the World Cup. She also complained against Powar of misdemeanor with her that was indicative of the coach’s inability to get along with players. Of course, Powar did level counter allegations against Raj but nothing has been heard from the Board about its conclusions in regard to them. Obviously, it did not think much of his allegations as Mithali has been allowed to continue as the ODI captain and the Chairman of the Committee of Administrators formed an ad hoc panel to choose a coach for the team that chose WV Raman. Powar too had applied but apparently he did not find favour with the selectors.

In the meantime the captain and the vice captain of T20 team, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana, both wrote to the BCCI to continue with Romesh Powar as the coach of the team. Edulji supported them and wrote to Vinod Rai that since the two senior players wanted Powar he should be retained. Rai, being an administrator responded with the comment that in that case why shouldn’t the view of Mithali Raj, the senior most player not be taken into account. Apparently, either something had gone wrong between Mithali and Edulji or Powar and Edulji had some kind of a tie up. There was a rumour after the semi final loss that some big gun from the BCCI had asked the team management to keep Mithali out. Was it Diana Efulji? No one knows.

Edulji also cited the case of the Indian Men’s Cricket Team Captain asking for the services of Ravi Shastri as the coach and not Anil Kumble. Kumble had found favour with the Cricket Advisory Committee but since the Skipper went public with his demand Kumble wanted to quit. VVS Laxman, a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee confirmed this recently. Ravi Shastri was thus appointed the coach which, doubtless, was a bad precedent. Besides, Ravi Shastri did not cover himself with glory. But Edulji mentioned it to buttress her arguments in favour of Powar saying that two senior players had asked for continuance of Powar. Rai rightly pointed out in that case why not go by the opinion of the senior most player. 

It is not understood why Edulji was pushing for Powar who had nothing much to show for himself. Apart from being inexperienced, under his tutelage a team that had missed the World Cup around two years ago by the skin of its teeth had crashed out in the later edition suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of England whom it had almost beaten in the Final in the earlier edition. In any case Powar somehow could not get along with the senior most player of the team who is a classical batter having man-management skills and has been leading the Test and ODI teams ably. Clearly, Powar lacks the same man-management skills and failed to build up the team spirit which seems to have later resulted in dropping of Mithali from the team that suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of England. And this is what created a huge controversy.

And yet Edulji has been pushing for Powar so much so that the Committee of Administrators suffered a wide split. Their e-mails, released to the press, took the shape of a serious spat between the two. Justice Lodha, the retired judge of the Supreme Court who had a lot to do with the creation of the Committee of Administrators commented on the goings on in it and said that the two members were creating a spectacle of themselves.

Edulji even went on to say that the ad hoc panel, headed by the legendary Kapil Dev, formed by the Chairman of the Committee of Administrators was illegal and unconstitutional as a coach can only be appointed by the Cricket Advisory Committee.. She also opined that the Chairman of the Committee had no casting vote as the two members were equal in status and had equal powers and, hence, one could not overrule the other.

While reports indicate that Chairman Vinod Rai consulted legal luminaries before forming the ad hoc panel which, he thinks, is on sound legal footing, the fact, however, remains that the two-member Committee of Administrators has a wide open split. The apex body of Indian Cricket has resultantly been rendered dysfunctional and the credit for making it so goes, curiously, to the Indian Women’s Cricket Team.

One wonders whether the contention of Diana Edulji that the two members of the Committee of Administrators are equal and one cannot overrule the other is correct. One of the two members is the Chairman of the Committee and hence, necessarily, is superior to the only other member. His word, therefore, has to be final. Nonetheless, if she thought she was equal to the Chairman perhaps it would have been desirable for her to talk the matter up with the Chairman instead of sending e-mails to him, leaking them to the press and bringing down the image of the all-powerful Committee of Administrators.

Although there are no fresh reports of any conflict between the two perhaps it would be better for the Chairman to go to the Supreme Court and ask it either for a replacement of the third member who resigned or a clear delineation of powers of the Chairman of the Committee vis-à-vis its only member. A clear dispensation in this regard will make matters simpler and less conflict-prone and will be helpful in running Indian Cricket without any hiccups.

*Photo of Mithali Raj is from internet

Kashmir 50 years ago :: 5 :: Ladakh (Part 1)

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At Zojila yours truly is at extreme right

One morning the boss, Director P&T Jammu & Kashmir rang me up to inform me that he was leaving for Leh two mornings later and that I would have to accompany him. It was a rather short notice as there were certain pre-visit formalities that had to be completed. Ladakh was not open to any and everybody fifty years ago. One had to obtain permits from the state government stating the reasons for the visit. Tourism had not till then commenced in Ladakh region

.

So, two mornings later the departmental car arrived at my gate to pick me up. We were to travel up to somewhere near Sonmarg in the departmental vehicle and then get into an Indian Army jeep. We were  required to be in one of the convoys that used to move from Kashmir to Ladakh every other day. A private vehicle could never go beyond Zojila Pass. It was a huge convoy of scores of several types of military vehicles that included trucks carrying supplies. Thankfully, the jeep in which I was to travel was almost at the front behind the one in which the Director was travelling.

It was past mid-morning when the convoy started. After around half an hour our two jeeps sort of peeled off and turned right leaving the convoy. My companion from the Army said that we were heading towards Baltal. The place had a signals unit which was of interest to my boss who was a Telecom man. It was a small unit with three or four Army men in what was perhaps one of the most beautiful places in Kashmir. Baltal was a incredibly beautiful green meadow surrounded by hills of varying heights with an occasional white snow-clad peak peeping from behind green mountains. There was a bungalow of sorts on top of a small hillock. The Signals men said that Indira Gandhi was reported to have honeymooned here. She and her husband must have spent their honeymoon in splendid isolation with Nature at its best all around them. Even the noise of the groaning Army trucks climbing up to the Zojila Pass would have been absent in those early years.

 They also said that Amarnath Cave was only eight miles away but only the sturdiest of the intrepid uniformed men could make it. The way was treacherous and the climb was steep with some icy portions which had dangerous crevices. Baltal has, in fifty years, become the second or an alternate route for Amarnath pilgrims. The way to the cave must have been made easier for ordinary mortals. In doing that, one can be sure, the surrounding area must have  come under alterations to suit the needs of the pilgrims that were destructive of the environment. A huge tented township is erected every year at the time of the pilgrimage for accommodating hundreds of thousands of people. One can imagine the environmental rot that is set in every year with a huge, unsupportable human and pony population that induces ceaseless motorized traffic. I am sure Baltal is no longer the same Baltal that I had seen fifty years ago. The courageous J&K Tourism, nonetheless, markets the ravished Baltal as a tourist site.

I was sorry to leave this captivating valley as we had to move ahead and immediately negotiate the Zojila Pass.  The tortuous continuously climbing and winding road necessarily slowed us down quite a bit. Besides, there was the traffic ahead of groaning trucks climbing up that we could hear in the Baltal valley. After laboring up the mountain for better part of an hour or more we came up at the Zojila Pass

The Zojila is at an elevation of more than 11000 ft. and separates Kashmir Valley from the Ladakh Region. With it we leave behind the green Kashmir Valley and enter the arid region of Ladakh. The Pass is at a lower elevation; the mountains on two sides tower over it. It is just about 15 kilometres from Sonmarg and yet it took so much of time to get to it. It is here that Gen. Thimayya had surprised the Pakistani raiders in 1948 with tanks. He had had the tanks dismantled and conveyed them over this road, presumably, on trucks and had them assembled then to take on the raiders. He saved Ladakh from getting cut off from Kashmir. The Pakistanis had captured the pass that was wrested from them in battles in which tanks were used for the first time at such an elevation. Now a tunnel is being constructed to cut short three and a half hours’ travel on the mountain road to only 15 minutes to bring Kargil and Leh closer to Srinagar.

After tarrying at the pass for a while we moved on again. The landscape progressively became stark, bald and rugged. Trees became a rarity as the road took the spurs with either a mountain on one side or a valley with precipitous falls on the other. While we were at a lower elevation than that of Zojila yet we were consistently at arounf 10000 ft barring when we had to cross over on to another range.

After about two hours we were at a place which was bare but had, once again, a Signals unit. It was known as Drass and was only a few ranges away from the border with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The Signals men said the Pakistanis were in occupation of the heights commanding the highway that we were travelling on. These very heights like Tololing, Tiger Hill, etc. became famous during the Kargil War of 1998-99 and were recaptured from Pakistani infiltrators at great human cost.

For miles one could not see any settlement apart from the tents of the Army men. Their’s is a difficult life as the place is recognized as the scond coldest inhabited place in the world. They said that in winters the temperature frequently goes below minus 30 degrees Celsius and water used for washing hands freezes as soon as it hits the ground. After the Kargil War the TV news channels extensively covered the battles making Drass and Kargil household words. Drass since then has become a tourist spot and some structures have come up providing facilities. Otherwise there is hardly any population.

After a brief stay we resumed our journey. Sun was on its way down and the bare mountains were acquiring different hues. The treeless landscape was interesting and yet was monotonous and tiresome. As darkness fell millions of stars seemed to emerge from behind a dark curtain even though a less than half a moon was up in the sky. Fascinating there was no other woed for it! We reached Kargil after driving for more than couple of hours most of which was in the dark hours of the evening.

Destinations :: Keukenhof

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Seven million tulips are grown every spring at Keukenhof for spectacular displays of colourful flowers in its what are regarded as one of the world’s largest gardens. The gardens sprawl on as many as 32 acres. These flamboyant acres have been sites of movie shoots of various countries and have, of course, been a “must see” for those who happen to travel to nearby towns or villages. We were in Brussels and it was less than couple of hours away. While outside the

gardens we saw daffodils growing wild and dancing in the breeze, perhaps much like what Wordsworh saw during that famous stroll in Lake District of England, inside it was a riot of colours.

Of recent origin, the gardens were established in 1949 on a piece of land close to the town of Lisse that had a bit of chequered history. The Netherlands, being the

largest exporter of flowers, wanted a garden where growers from Europe could come and raise their hybrids, in the process, help its floriculture industry to grow further. The long fields of tulips that one sees are not parts of the garden. They are private and, perhaps, in one of them Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha romanced each other.

It was most satisfying to visit the gardens. I had seen tulips earlier in Kashmir where they used to grow them in public gardens years

ago. Its tulip fields had not come up until then. Even the beds in my yard would have them. But they were weak and emaciated in comparison to what we saw here. The tulips here were robust, healthy and more vibrant in colours. 

Memories of an ordinary Indian :: 18 :: In the College

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The College

After scraping through the matriculation examination it was time to seek admission in the only college we had. My mother was keen that I took Science with Biology for preparation to ger into a medical college. She thought, and she was probably right that a science graduate or an engineer or a doctor had greater chances of landing a job or earning good money for a decent living. She obviously had a better appreciation of the then job market. For an ordinary Arts graduate or a post graduate, there was nothing other than try and get a clerical job unless one qualified in a competitive examination. She had no confidence in my capabilities and the results that I brought in would in no way have changed her assessment about me.

Despite my protestations I was forced to take admission in Science Biology stream. I knew it was going to end up in failure. I had realized that I had no brain or aptitude for Science and Mathematics and wherever there were formulae and equations I was all at sea. Physics was particularly difficult and howsoever I tried I couldn’t get the hang of things. I inevitably flunked to the great disappointment of mother.

 When the time for admissions came I quietly filled a form for admission in Arts. Ma blew her top; she wanted me to try again the Science and Biology stream so that I could become a doctor. That was then not possible as the die had been cast – by none other than me. I was sad to have flunked in the first year of my college career and didn’t want to face that ignominy again.

Besides, there was uncertainty ahead, too, as father was retiring later in the session. In those days the retirement age used to be 55. Fortunately for him and for us he was asked by the Minister of Education of the newly formed state of Madhya Bharat to take up the assignment of heading a new private college that was being opened in the badlands of Morena. His salary was greater than what he retired at and he was assured of a place to stay on the premises. The Minister was somehow very impressed by father as the latter had helped him in resolving the students’ agitation. Father spent 10 years in Morena before he retired at the age of 65.

 Things progressively eased a little for us. In the following year the eldest brother qualified for the IAS and the second brother went away on a scholarship to Frankfurt in West Germany which was still under (post War) US occupation. The parents were a little relaxed now as the financial pressure on them had eased up a bit. But, as I look back and think I find it amazing that there were no savings and yet they did not seem to have any worry.

True, the landlord, a very decent trader, had told him that we could stay in the house for as long as we wanted. It was due to sheer respect for father. Those days were different as there was tremendous respect for an educated man even if he had no money; and a teacher living on rent in one’s house was a matter of honour. Such men and their elevated standards of thinking are all dead and gone, and what we are left with is crass materialism. Respect and honour for people of learning and character have largely become things of the past. Even then father never seemed to have thought of a roof over the head of his family although there was no paternal property to fall back on. My grandfathers’ properties from both sides were unavailable, the one from father’s side being lost to Pakistan with the partition of the country. Probably, there was no craze fifty years ago of building or acquiring a house like we have these days. Perhaps, one thought one could get by by spending one’s life in a rented accommodation.

As I changed over and joined the new stream I lost some of the friends who were very dear to me. One of them was Pramod Jhawar who went on to become a reputed general surgeon at the Bombay Hospital in Mumbai. He, unfortunately, became a victim of cancer and died prematurely; it was an unlikely end of a bright mind. In the new class I met some old school friends and acquired some new ones.  Among them were Chandrakant Bhonsle, Sharad Paranjpe and Anand Bamroo. Hari Nandan Sahai was also there, a friend from the DAV School. Four of us would stick together inside or outside the class rooms.

In those days the system of terminal (half yearly) examinations in the month of December was still in existence. I realized that these were taken very seriously by the faculty only when one day the head of the department of Economics came to take the class. He had a bundle of answer scripts with him. As he sat down he called my name. I squirmed in my seat and I did not know where to hide. The Professor was a friend of my father and he knew me from childhood. Shaking on my legs I stood up. That is when he told the class I was the topper with as many as 62 marks. Later in the Civics class the Professor was effusive in praising the language in which I had written my answers. These two incidents were kind of a watershed and the feeling that I was good-for-nothing slowly started dissipating.

It was Anand Bamroo who was instrumental in giving Hari and I a flight for free. Some outfit had hired a single=engine plane, probably a Piper Cub, and was offering joy rides at Rs.5/- for a 10-minute flight. The pilot was none other than Anand’s cousin who was staying with the Bamroo family. On Anand’s suggestion we bunked classes and went to that great open ground in Gwalior known as the Nau Lakha Parade. It is no longer there, it has since come under the sweep of urbanization and has been built over and a new township has been erected on it. It used to be a huge ground with hardly any tree; perhaps all the trees were felled.. Anand’s cousin came to the ground in a jeep after lunch for the afternoon flights. Anand introduced us to him whose name, perhaps, was Kichlew. He offered us a free flight saying we could accompany him on a test flight for which nothing needed to be paid.

Apart from the pilot’s seat the plane had two other seats behind the pilot’s. With what appeared to be makeshift doors it was cramped inside. As Kichlew worked the throttle it started taxiing and I felt as if we were in a jallopy; it rattled so much with its wheels running on rough ground. It took off and we realized it only when we saw its shadow progressively getting smaller. It soon gathered height and was flying over the Fort, then on and over the town, close to the College and then made the landing run. We were in the air for 10 minutes or so but were very excited, I was though a little sad that I couldn’t locate my house in that jungle of houses. I thought looking like ants from up above people were really so small and insignificant.

I cleared the first year pretty comfortably topping the class even in the final examinations. The next year was the Intermediate Examinations of the Board of secondary education. I, unfortunately, went down with typhoid just before the examinations. As a special case I was allowed to write the examinations laid up on a bed in a room while my father sat outside the holding a flask of fruit juice. This happened on two successive days for first two papers that were of English. I did very well in all the other papers and would have qualified for I Class but for those two English papers. Later I came to know that those very papers had been set by my father for the Board but he never gave any inkling of that to me. Such were the men of those days or rather that era – so different from ours. 

Kashmir 50 years ago :: 4 :: A feast to remember

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Kashmiri pulao

A few days after I arrived in Srinagar in June 1968 on my posting I was out walking in the evening on the Residency Road. I had hardly walked a few steps when I heard my name being called out from the other side of the road. Wondering who it could be calling out to me I stopped to look around. Yes, there he was on the other side of the road frantically gesturing to me to cross over. I did that to go and meet Shafi Bakshi and his beautiful wife Naseem. They too were having a stroll on Residency Road when they spotted me.

The Bakshis were family friends in Bhopal. They were friendly with each member of my family. Shafi was a nephew of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and was in charge of their Bhopal outlet of Fairdeal Motors, an outfit I have not heard about for a long time now. Shafi told me that he hollered for me as there was, among other things, a dinner at his place and he and Naseem wanted me to attend. Naseem asked me not to miss it as it was going to be something special.

If I recall Bakshis were four brothers and each had a bungalow. It was a beautiful complex with four spacious bungalows in, if I recall, Badami Bagh with almost a quadrangle of open space in the middle. As a ”special” dinner was in the offing the place was decked up. As I went into the enclosure it was Shafi who met me and took me to his father and then I was taken to Naseem who was supposed to look after me.

A Bakshi dinner in Srinagar had to be a political affair. I, of course, did not know any of them. What struck me was that the then current chief minister Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq was missing. Apparently, he was from a group that was not aligned to Bakshi. Anyway, that was none of my business. What was important for me at that point of time was the food – Kashmiri food, the best of it that money couldn’t buy, perhaps, even in Srinagar.

Kashmiri food traditionally is rice and meat based. The Kashmir Valley grows rice and it has become over centuries the staple of Kashmiris. It is said that in their feasts called Wazwan, the multi-course affair, there is nothing other than meats (of lamb, chicken, beef) but no fish. It is also said that serving lentils in such a feast is nothing short of sacrilege. As meats predominate the cuisine, the use of various kinds of spices with cans of ghee is necessary. This makes the food very rich.

 Naseem was standing by a table laden with entry dishes that were being heated by a flame below. She said there were eight kinds of pulaos in those entry dishes. She chose for me what she thought was the best, served a huge quantity to me. I could smell saffron and as the lid was taken off its aroma wafted all around.

 Then there were other tables loaded with Kashmiri delicacies of mutton and chicken. I remember the famed Goshtaba – the meat-ball curry, yakhni, the mutton curry that is made with yogurt and, of course, rogan josh. What was out of this world was tabakhmaz (Kashmiri Hindus call it qabragah) which was a dry fried dish of ribs of a goat. I wouldn’t know how it was cooked. Naseem told me it took quite a lot of time. It was delectable. In fact Kashmiri mutton dishes are cooked with a lot of patience. Goshtaba, I recall needs mutton to be beaten into kind of a paste for making balls which are then further processed with myriad spices to create the fascinating dish.

Naseem was a very good hostess and she egged me on to eat as she kept serving me king-sized helpings of pulao and meats. She filled me up so much that I had to refuse the sweet of which there were many kinds and bid good bye to her and Shafi. I came back home with my midriff bursting at the seams with lots of pulao and meat. I have always been a small eater but that evening I was literally stuffed to the gills.

I slept off with a heavy stomach. Next morning I skipped breakfast as I didn’t feel like taking it. I did not feel hungry at lunch time too. The stuff at Shafi’s was so rich that enzymes in my metabolic system proved unequal to its demands.

*Photo from internet

Destinations :: Amsterdam

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A typical view of Amsterdam and its canals

On our way back from Paris we again got into a TGV train for Brussels where we changed into another high speed train for Amsterdam. It took us around two hours to be there. But unexpectedly, the railway station was very crowded. We waded through the crowd to go to to the AAA office, the outlet at the station of Amsterdam Tourism. When our turn came to ask for a hotel room the first question the man behind the counter put to us was whether we were Pakistanis. As I said “no” he seemed to be visibly relieved. He asked for our passports saw them then returned them to us. After checking the hotels in the town on his computer he said there was no room in the town but he could accommodate us in a hotel in The Hague, the town famous for the International Court of Justice an hour away from Amsterdam. We said no thank you and asked whether we could try our luck next day. The man was friendly and said he would find a place for us.

Neer by the side of a canal

We came back to Brussels to sleep off. Next morning we took the train again headed straight for the AAA office, He provided us a room on the first floor in Hotel Amsterdam at a rate slightly up and away from our budget. But there was no alternative. The man at the counter was good enough to tell us the way to the hotel which involved taking the metro and then a bus. As we stepped out on to the street a mass of humanity seemed to greet us. The roads were crowded and there were temporary stalls everywhere and people had, much like in India, set shop on even the roadsides. This was one day, we were told,

On a bend with a cathedral for a backdrop

everything was relaxed and people could come on to the streets to sell whatever they wanted to dispose of. This relaxation was because it happened to be the birthday of Queen Beatrice of Netherlands. We ultimately found the hotel that was in a leafy area in an old-fashioned building and were shown into a very good room with large windows letting in a lot of natural light. The room was well worth the money.

We had decided that the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank’s House would be “must see” sites. Having read Lust for Life and seen its Hollywood version starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh we made a beeline for the Van Gogh Museum. Situated in the

On the street wheree Anne Frank's house is located

Museums Square close to the State Museum, Van Gogh’s Museum was a delight. I had seen many of his paintings in print and found the originals very impressive. Some of the paintings in the Museum were just sublime. Van Gogh was known for heavy and vigorous stokes of his brush, an essential element of his Impressionism and that was in ample display at the Museum’s collection. The Museum now has added another building.

While we were at the Museum a bus load of Western tourists arrived. All of them were old, past 70. Many were on wheel chairs with their wife or daughters pushing the chair. Despite their age and/or disability it was pleasure to see their spirit and sheer lust for life. Armed with a recorder with details of each

A lovely view of a canal

painting they were moving from room to room appreciating Van Gogh’s incredible output. In India after 70 a person is considered on his way out and he/she too loses that verve and will to live. Only now, gradually as education and affluence increases, one can see elderly persons making forays abroad to take in the sights and sounds of tourist spots.

Anne Frank's  house

The house of Anne Frank is situated by the side of a canal. After a short bus ride we walked down to a small bridge over a canal. Before we got to it something interesting caught my attention. I saw “Darjeeling” writ large on a signboard and it warmed the cockles of my heart. To see something native when one is in a foreign land one is likely to get just that feeling. Obviously, the shop stacked Darjeeling Tea

Anne Frank’s house is a 17^th Century block which the local administration cannot allow demolition of under an enacted law. It was here that the family of Otto Frank consisting of his wife and two daughters, the younger one being Anne, had hidden for two years. Eventually their hideout was raided by the Nazi Police and all of them were sent to the concentration camps to be gassed. Somehow only Otto survived. Anne Frank’s diary was recovered by some of their Dutch saviours who, defying the prevailing orders, came to the house to look for some of their belongings. It is they who found the diary and gave it to Otto. All the personal effects of the family of Otto were seized and given away to those Germans who lost theirs in bombings.

The house was converted into a museum in 1960. It

preserves the hiding place of the Frank family and has a permanent exhibition on the life and times of Anne Frank in Nazi dominated times of the countries annexed by Hitler. The exhibition also displays all kinds of discriminations and persecutions, especially of Jews, by the Nazis in occupied countries.

We visited Anne Frank’s House more than forty years after the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allied Forces yet the curiosity about Anne Frank and her diary continues. People have read it, and perhaps re-read it to internalise the essence of Nazi brutality. For that reason there is always a crowd in front of the house of Anne Frank. Attractive cafes have come up by the side of the canal for people to come and discuss all about Anne Frank over cups of coffee or glasses of beer. We too joined them and spent a few moments of relaxation after soaking in the dreadful events that took place more than seventy years ago in this rather plain looking old house, called Canal Huis.

The view from the  Amsterdam Maritime Museum

 We gave a wide berth to Amsterdam’s famed red light district. At least I knew all about it as I had read features about it and seen some photographs. We instead took a tour of Amsterdam’s Maritime Museum which was more interesting. Netherlands has been a sea-faring nation for centuries and had established colonies in warmer climes in the East and the West. In the East Indonesia was its colony long known as Dutch East Indies and in the West it was Dutch Guiana in the north-east Atlantic coast of South America currently known as Suriname. They had also established footholds in India in the West and East of the country. They had settlements in Surat and Malabar in the West and Coromandel and Bengal in the East of the country. These were more in the shape of trading posts. I happened to have visited one of them in Bengal, viz. Chinsura.

The Museum offers maritime history of Netherlands. Several maps of earlier times are also on display. It also contains many artifacts connected with shipping

The Amsterdam, an 18th Century ship

and sailing. It also has paintings, scale models and world maps including those of a 17^th Century cartographer.

We saw moored outside a replica of The Amsterdam that used to sail between Netherlands and Dutch East Indies. It was a fascinating sight. One imagined that this sailing ship might have touched even the Dutch ports of call in India too.

Amsterdam is a beautiful town. Some even go on to say that it is better than even Paris – the people making the difference. I wouldn’t go to that length but it was indeed a pleasure to be in Amsterdam.

Our Life, Our Times :: 27 :: Statues are a waste

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A statue of Rani Kamalapati, the former Parmar Queen of Bhopal, is going to be installed at the Lower Lake. Perhaps the statue is going to be installed below the Kamalapati Mahal which is a Heritage Site. For those who do not know, there is a statue of Raja Bhoj that has been installed on one of the platforms of the now-defunct Fatehgarh Fort right on the Upper Lake.

Installation of statues, wherever, possible seems to be the flavour of the season. The trend apparently was set off by the Statue of Unity, the 182 metres tall statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Home Minister of Independent India. It has been erected near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat and is reputed to be the tallest statue in the world. It has beaten the Statue of Liberty of New York in height and, to give a clearer perspective, it would have been perhaps as tall as the Gwalior Fort had it been erected anywhere in the town. It is a massive statue with a museum and a hotel within easy reach. No wonder, it is billed as a tourist venue.

One must say, it has been very appropriately named as Sardar Patel was the national leader who was involved in integration in the country of more than six hundred principalities all over India. That is why the country was called in initial years “Union of India”. It is largely felt that the Sardar was kept away from Kashmir by Jawharlal Nehru. Had he been handling it. It is generally believed, there would have been no Kashmir Problem

With the installation of the Statue of Unity a statue of Ram is in the works for installation in Ayodhya. The demand is that it should be a very tall statue and somebody has even asked for it to be taller than the Statue of Unity. Another statue, of Shivaji, the Maratha legendary fighter, is in works for being installed on the coast in Mumbai. The idea seems to be that the sea-faring vessels should be able to see the statue from afar before they even enter the port of Mumbai.

A statue of Lord Shiva is also under construction. I recall having seen quite a tall statue of Shiva near Haridwar. Likewise, there is one of Shiva in sitting posture near Dwarka in Gujarat. Statues are expensive toys for those who want to swing the people’s opinion in their favour. But then, sooner or later, they become useless and the administrators of various cities, not knowing where to stack them, confine them in museums. Numerous statues of Queen Victoria, one-time Empress of India, are lying in museums in various towns uncared for. At one place I remember to have seen one such statue of the Empress outside the museum of the town uncared for and gathering dust.

These were all made by the British regime at our own cost – the money that they collected as revenues from our people which should have been spent for our welfare. Even the princes followed the same course, installing statues of their forefathers in their respective principalities. I remember to have seen some such statues of Scindias in Gwalior. Scindias had a short rule over Gwalior and yet the Gwalior town had almost their entire genealogy scattered around it in the shape of statues. I remember the satue of Mahadji Scindia, Jayajirao Scindia, Madhavrao Scindia and there was a small bust somewhere of Daulatrao Scindia. While the statues of Britishers have been removed those of former princely rulers have been allowed to remain as they were our own people.

The statue of Unity reportedly cost the exchequer a large sum of more than Rs. 3200 crore. The height of the statue and the amount spent on it alarmed the Westerners who always looked down upon the inhabitants of their former colonies. They thought these people were good for nothing and therefore wondered how they could build a statue that was taller than the Statue of Liberty. A lie was, therefore, spread in the media saying that Britons were outraged that their tax money handed over to India as aid was used to build this monstrously tall statue. The Daily Mail of England published a report that said that the money spent on the statue was, in fact, the aid of a billion pounds that was given to India by UK.

People in India did not allow this canard to go un-rebutted. A fact check was carried out and the facts tumbled out. It was the Central Government and its public sector units like ONGC, BPCL HPCL, Indian Oil and OIL pumped around 146 crore towards the project out of their CSR funds, their ticket sales in the future and revenues received from the 3 star hotel located at the site. Clearly the news spread in the Western media about the funding of the project of Statue of Unity out of the British aid was a lie and a check of the facts nailed it.

So far so good! The question that now emerges is whether use of CSR funds for the statue was proper or rather ethically proper. The CSR was defined by one Carroll as use of corporate funds for ethical and philanthropic purposes. It is also defined as a company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social). The companies express these responsibilities through waste and pollution reduction processes, by contributing to social and educational programmes and by obtaining adequate returns on the resources deployed by them.

If tested on any of these parameters, expenditure out of CSR funds only on educational and social programs would perhaps qualify as legitimate. Spending these funds on erecting of a statue, however, under the parameter described as social and/or educational would seem to be farfetched. If that were to be done it would seem as if an activity like erection of a statue is dragged miles away to make it fall under a parameter to which it did not conform.

To my mind, therefore, the use of CSR funds of the Public Sector Units for installation of the Statue of Unity was not quite ethical especially when the concept of CSR itself is based on principles of ethics in relation to their application to business.

Be that as it may, expenditure of crores of rupees on statues of various personages on the whims and fancies of political class is sheer waste of public money. This money could be better utilized to open schools and hospitals in areas where educational and healthcare facilities still remain wanting. India is not yet an affluent country and hence it can ill-afford this kind of waste of financial resources. A corrective policy in this regard seems to be indicated

Bhopal Notes :: 67 :: Decaying parks

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The local municipality, apparently, is contemplating to do up the decaying parks that have not been touched by them for decades. This is particularly true of the parks in the old city where they are subjected to neglect and apathy – even abuse by dumping of trash in many of them.

This was a “nawabi” town and it had, therefore, a number of gardens. It was, in fact, known as a city of lakes and gardens. The Nawabs, as was the wont of Muslim rulers, were fond of gardens. The Bhopal Nawabs, especially its female Nawabs – the Begums, too were fond of gardens. They created and maintained a number of gardens and some of the localities now are known by the names of the gardens that were there or have since disappeared. Bagh Mugalia or Bagh Sevania are some such examples which are now in decay. Even the ones in the centre of the town like Qudsia Bagh and Yadgare Shahjehani too are neglected and are uncared for. This is also true of Bagh Farhat Afza as well as Aish Bagh. The only parks and gardens that are taken care of are the ones in New Bhopal, the main roads No.1, 2 and 3 and the green spaces of  Char Imli maintaining which would seem to be mandatory for the Muncipality as these are so-called VIP areas.

In any case, the kind of incompetence it suffers from, the Municipality cannot be expected to maintain and develop all the gardens and parks of the town. Elsewhere people are creating parks and garden in landfills and have been able to create a whole new ecosystem with plants, birds and other organisms. An example is  the green space created in Kearney, New Jersey where a landfill was worked on by researchers of the Rutgers University that has now become a places for rest and relaxation of the locals.

Having regard to the limitations of the Municipality one would like to refrain from loading it with additional work. One tends to feel it would suffice if the municipal authorities plant trees, especially native ones in the gardens. The maintenance effort on them would be minimal but the returns will be enormous in the shape of new ecosystems. Devoid of the labour and effort of maintaining flower beds that need change in every season the trees would not require intense effort once they grow up but they will provide a kind of green lung to the localities where parks are situated.

Something of this kind has been done at the tri-junction of the VIP Road at Karbala. There were lots of trees on the other side of the water pumping station which have been organized into a beautiful patch of green. The undergrowth has been cleared and a few seating spaces have been installed. Even a gazebo has been erected with benches. The canopy overhead fends off the sun even in summer.

 One supposed it did not take much of an effort on the part of the Municipality to convert the available green area into a place for relaxation of the people. One would like the Municipality to create such spaces wherever possible to provide green ambience to the localities having parks that are in decay. The available barren parks could be used for the purpose for the benefits of health of the people. I recall that In the conference of mayors held in San Francisco  about ten years ago a resolution was adopted towards providing parks for every individual within a kilometer of his residence. In India, perhaps, this is a tall order. Let us, to begin with, regenerate the existing facilities in a way we can manage. Forget about flowers; let’s have trees and more trees in the parks.

*Photo from internet

Our Life, Our Times :: 27 :: Is it democracy or oligarchy

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We are in the midst of election season. As many as five states are going to polls this month and early next month. And then the General Elections for the Parliament are looming over the political class. These will be held sometime around next May. Modi will be seeking re-election and, hence, the fight is going to be tough.

Even the elections for the five state assembly seats are witnessing vigorous campaigns. Candidates of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), the two major parties, are going hell for leather for a win at the hustings. The campaigns have increasingly become jarring, acrimonious and abusive of politicians or their families. This was seldom seen earlier unless, of course, one takes into account Sonia Gandhi’s description of Modi as a “merchant of death” in the 2007 Gujarat elections.

This time the level of political discourse has plummeted to a new low. While the Congress President called the Prime Minister a thief another petty politician, a newly elected member of Gujarat Assembly, called him “haramkhor”, a term in Hindi the English translation of which even Google could not find. The best it could do was to suggest that it could mean a rogue or a rascal. Taking up Rahul Gandhi’s abuse of Modi as a thief, it must be mentioned that there was credible evidence against Gandhi’s father about transfer to him of moneys from kickbacks from purchase of Bofors guns. And yet, no one ever called Rajiv Gandhi a thief, which, from all evidences, perhaps he was. Senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani had even mentioned in the Rajya Sabha the amount that was transferred to a German bank in the account of Gandhi’s father. Besides, everyone knows how a Central minister sat on the relevant file to allow Ottavio Quattrochi, a co-accused in Bofors bribery case and a close friend of Gandhi’s mother, to escape from the clutches of Indian Police. And yet nobody ever called Rajiv or Sonia Gandhi thieves. That nobody during the UPA regime pursued these matters is another matter.

More recently, the elections in which Modi swept to power in 2014 the issue for Bharatiya Janta Party was basically massive corruption indulged in by Manmohan Singh and/or his cabinet colleagues. While in the Coal Scam Dr. Manmohan Singh himself was involved, large scale corruption in sale of spectrum, purchase of a VIP chopper, the Commonwealth Games etc. took place and several ministers were and perhaps are being still investigated. As many as nine scams were discovered in the nine years of UPA Rule. While Dr Manmohan Singh presided over those scams as they were being committed strong rumours were circulating during his rule as to where the proceeds of the scams were being channellised to. The destinations for the loot was mostly said to be the residence of one family. It is also believed that this family and the Congress Party are, therefore, the biggest critics of demonetization carried out in 2016 as they lost all their ill gotten cash.

This time, there is another peculiarity noticed in the campaigns and that is about inclusion of the parents of Modi in the speeches of Opposition. While earlier Modi’s mother was brought into the speeches the latest is somebody seems to have made a mention of Modi’s father. Justifiably Modi has taken umbrage. None so far from the BJP has brought in Rahul Gandhi’s parents into the campaign and that is good as long it does not happen. Speechifying should be on the basis of ideology but in India these days ideology takes the back seat. The elections are all personality oriented and one will hear the Congress President taking the name of Modi in every address to the people in different towns. Modi too returns the compliment.

The skirmishes and the wars of words continue and the people, the voters, are mute witnesses. In fact, there is hardly anything in the elections for them. Their only role is to go and press some keys on the EVMs and then everyone forgets about them. The kind of democracy that we seem to be running is only for the politicians and their next of kin and certainly not for the general public.

There is enormous stake in the elections for the politicians. They seek the instruments of power and once they get hold of them pelf follows. Most of the MLAs and MPs are billionaires and they made their billions working the instruments of power. A recent newspaper report said that in Madhya Pradesh while the per-capita income rose by 50-odd percentage points the ‘per-MLA’ income rose by 153%. The feral fights that take place during the elections are all because of the state’s resources that are at stake. They are all there for the taking as one becomes an elected representative. It is true of every level whether it is a panchayat election, or a municipal election or an assembly poll or the general elections, the game is basically the same – the public resources the candidates see at the end of the fight; it is the rainbow that beckons them. People are shut away from these goodies. This is how billionaires are made and every five years there is a jump in the numbers of political billionaires.

A large amount of resources, energy and time are invested in an effort to catch the rainbow. The successful ones have their lives cut out – conjuring up wealth seemingly from nowhere. While the dynastic politics of the Nehru-Gandhis is condemned some start their own dynastic line introducing their next of kin into the game. Over a period of last few decades such closed units of political families have proliferated, facilitated, as it is, by the wealth that is made from public life – in actual fact, by purloining public resources. Such families, knowing the ropes, throw everything into the contests including their ill-gotten wealth knowing that much more could be made if they swung the elections in their favour.

India, therefore, is no longer a democracy; it in actual fact is an oligarchy. Only because of the large population the oligarchy is somewhat inflated. In the states, however, because the scale becomes smaller, it is only the few members of the oligarchy that call the shots.

27^th November, 2018

*Photo from internet