Mad as a Hatter

Why do we say what we say ? There are certain expressions that creep into every language which with time people use almost on an everyday basis, but if we stop and ponder we are left to wonder why we say that in the first place.

It is monsoon time and though this year we are not having the monsoon as strong as we need it, there are some days when it really pours. We have a term for that: Raining cats and dogs. What does it signify ? That the clouds are actually throwing our feline friends and man’s best friend from the skies ? Or that these poor creatures have to run for cover too as have their human benefactors ?

It does not get over so easily by a long chalk, we sometimes say. As I remember from my school days and people engaged in education would also endorse, the chalk is generally about three and a half inches long and gets shorter by the minute smearing the fingers of the writer with regularity. I have never seen a longer chalk. So where from did the British (presume they invented this in their language ) get it ?

Sometimes we are pleased as a punch. Never really understood whether the pleasure comes from receiving the punch (as in stationery used to make holes in sheets of paper) or delivering the punch (as in boxing).

Some we try to do new things for the first time and those who are experts in that field feel we have not cut the mustard. Well mustard is used in Indian cooking and is also there in British culinary delights of having a salad dressing for savouring the fish, but have you ever seen anyone cut a piece of mustard ? It would surely be a sight.

Well there are many, and now that I am wasting time trying to understand them, it may tempt people to think I am mad as a hatter !!! So better sign off before the same….

Waterways for Maximum City

Almost everyone who lives in Mumbai knows about the traffic hardships faced by the commuters on a daily basis. The city population has grown manifold and is continuously growing (and no I do not subscribe to the idea of restricting influx like some of our politicians have been asked for a I feel that is against one of the very fundamental freedom every Indian has to chose and work in whichever place they feel deem fit).

The situation is further made complex in Mumbai by the longitudinal shape of the city and therefore the polarized traffic movement at most times. Although there are some projects being undertaken like the metro and the monorail and some more on the anvil like the express corridor on the harbor rail link and the sea link across Uran, it somehow feels that this won’t be enough. Also we have to take into account the speed (or the lack of it) with which these projects will progress and considering same it is going to be a cat and mouse game between the infrastructure and the needs.

What a city like Mumbai needs to harness quickly is its water-ways and I am not talking about the bridges across the ocean which are there, and more which are being planned. I am of the opinion that we should harness the potential of using the sea and try to connect the various land points by high speed boats capable of carrying many in speedy comfort. We are reading in the newspapers of projects being planned on these lines but by the time they get the clearances, it may well be another decade !

Some years back there was an endeavour to connect Navi Mumbai with South Mumbai by catamaran but the service got shelved in a short while. Really speaking lot of places along the eastern and western fringes can be connected and apart from the occasional inclement weather, can run almost round the year. Many cities of the world have such concepts with water buses and water taxis and there is no reason why we should use the shoreline gifted by nature to do the same. It will definitely not say goodbye to crowded trains and traffic jams, but will help in de-congest.

And we should undertake projects like these quickly under PPP model with a BOO concept with a political will that has been sadly lacking for some time ! And time government started clearing infrastructural projects in a hurry !

Designed for Humans

The recent happenings in India as well as elsewhere are depressing.

Over the last few days, we saw near-riot situation in Mumbai and then targeting of people of North Eastern origin which forced them to head home from cities and towns that they chose to live in and call their home. A few weeks before that, we witnessed the horrendous killing of innocent people in a Gurudwara in USA in a racial hate crime.

It is difficult for any police force to check on activities of each and every person in this world. We would then need a most of the people living on this planet to be police personnel itself.
These crimes of racial hatred deserve the worst punishment and in quick time too.

Somehow these things are forgotten as new news take over. This is how life has been always. Time we stood up united to ensure that innocent people are needlessly not targeted just because of their origins, race, community, colour etc.

It is time we reinforced that this planet is Designed for Humans (to steal a catch-line from a recent advertisement).

Between a Question Mark and a Full Stop

What comes between a question mark and a full stop ?

Well our life begins with a question mark. As a baby and then a toddler and then a school going child, life was vibrant of question marks. Why is grass green ? Why does the cow moo ? Why do I have to study ? Why girls are different from boys ? The life and being revolves around questions and getting them answered. The childhood and adolescence pass quickly in getting these questions answered by self or with help.

Then comes the adult-hood that all children aspire for  once the innocence and fun,  that all adults later pine for, passes through. Along with it come responsibilities and adjustments and a state of constant negotiations. This is when we have several commas, semicolons , colons, dashes et al. Perhaps a comma will do when a semicolon can’t and a dash would suffice if the comma gives up. This state of being keeps us so engaged and engrossed that we forget the question marks.

Why does the dewdrops on the leaf after an early morning rain look so beautiful ? Hey, doesn’t matter , have got to rush to work before the morning traffic becomes unmanageable and another shower comes by…

Why do we say the rainbow has VIBGYOR and not ROYGBIV ? Why do the ants toil relentlessly to transport that morsel of sugar on the kitchen floor and never get tired ? Why does the child laugh at almost nothing so heartily while all I can do is snigger ?

Well , no time to answer these question marks , as I have the commas and semicolons to deal with…

Never can ignore the apostrophes – those suspicious stuff where something is unsaid and yet meant ? Those are the real devils which compels me to put some more commas.

These wily commas and the guily semicolons and the devilish dashes and the creepy apostrophes take out the steam out of us, the air out of our lungs and push us to the final punctuation : the full stop.

And we wish we had some more question marks answered and paused to ask a few more….

Why do we need Air India ?

We have a national bird, a national animal , a national game etc as we all have learnt in our school days. And we have a national airline. The Maharaja flies with pride – that is except the days the pilots are on strike or the pursers are on a mass casual leave or the ground staff is on pen-down agitation or when the maintenance staff have decided on mass sick leave. Except those three hundred odd days in a year, it roams the skies, albeit late.

The government is keen to keep it alive and kicking like many other government run institutions and there is a misplaced sense of national pride in this. And public money goes to feed these institutions. Whenever we have any discussion on privatization we are given statistics of the routes which the private run airlines will never run (read North East) or why we need a national carrier for air-lifting our citizens in times of crisis like war etc. Of course it also is required to be there for our ministers to travel.

I am not suggesting that it should not be there just because it is run by the government. I am questioning the prudence of its existence just because of its ownership and not by virtue of its performance.

Let’s look around a bit. I am yet to meet a German (and have met many of them so far) who is not proud of Lufthansa, the German national airline. However the airline is not owned by the government. It is completely private, an epitome of efficiency in most cases than not and is also mandated to rescue hapless Germans during a war or some such crisis. Yet it remains a private institution which carries more national pride in the heart of Germans than Air India does for Indians. National pride cannot be demanded by virtue of the ownership, it has to be earned by performance.

Right now, by virtue of its performance, the Maharaja, like many other institutions run by our government is terminally ill and running on public largesse. We are proud of some of our Navratnas , not because of their ownership , but because of their performance.

Ultimately at the end of the day, whether it is the government or government run companies, it is performance that counts. Everyone in India understands and acknowledges that. Except the government that is !

The Great Indian Tamasha

The papers are jostling for space with news of the two successive days of blackout in the electrical grid. As if the first days collapse of the Northern Grid was not enough , there was a subsequent one this time taking the Eastern grid also with it too as it sank. Millions of hapless people suffered, some in trains, sub-ways, hospitals etc. As if by stroke of destiny the beaming Power Minister was handed over a bigger portfolio of Home. The collapse would have happened irrespective of the portfolio rejig, but the timing could not have been more apt. Some journalist tried to elicit a regret from the minister but was not very successful.

A day before there was a major train accident where so many lives were lost due to the ill maintenance by railways. The Railway Minister tried to find out a strange bomb-like sound to indicate a possible sabotage. Anyway it is said that he does not find time to visit Rail Bhavan anyway as his powerful boss keeps him occupied in his home state for party work. He also showed no real concern and it is evident that such disasters can only be prevented from reoccurring only by the act of providence- our government as such cooks the complete recipe for the disaster to recur almost every day.

The Home Minister is meanwhile getting ready to step back into his shoes as Finance Minister, trying to portray a calm over the economic climate that is totally misplaced. We are in an economic abyss and collectively the government has no clue what to do to pull the country back from impending disaster.

The Opposition collectively shouts hoarse as if the panacea to all problems is in them changing sides in the House, although the country has also witnessed where the country goes when the baton changes hands.

In another state , lot of brouhaha is created over the condemnable desecration of a statue which should not have been built with public money in the first place.

The new President settles into his new home and sinks into the plush seats of the new Mercedes.

The common man wonders what the tamasha is all about: very soon all these people will come back with folded hands asking for that one vote that matters so much. The writing is on the wall for the voters: Damned if you do (vote), damned if you don’t (vote). This is the Great Indian Tamasha- a never-ending play where actors change with time but the act enacted do not.