Grace wanted to return

“Here you go, Ma’am. You can board your flight from Gate Number 2 on the first floor”, said the airline staff, handing over the boarding pass. Grace left quickly without looking at her. She hated forcing a smile without a reason. Besides, that lady had already irked her by asking whether she was pregnant. “Why do you ask?”, Grace had replied. “Ma’am, our new policy requires us to know whether a female passenger above thirty is carrying a child. We would require your consent on a form”, the staff said. Grace threw a cold “No, I am not pregnant!” and reflected back at the topic on which she had been questioned so many times over the last few years that the doubts had, at least partially, transferred from her ‘well-wishers’ to her own brain. Forget about having a child, Grace had not even thought about getting married! Right after completing her education, she took up a job. And boy, she knew she was good at it! There had been no looking back since then. Slowly and steadily, she climbed every step she could, and now she had reached a position where she was indispensable for her firm. She did not get it by chance, or by favours; she had to earn every bit of it. This was the only thing she was good at and the only thing she could possibly do all her life! She was aware that all her friends or girls of her age in the family were, by this time, well-settled, married, and busy raising children.

Grace had been, after all, brought up in a close-knit Indian family. It is not that she looked down upon such ideas or did not value them; she simply did not consider these as her priority because she was ignorant in a way, perhaps a little stupid and mostly so much engrossed in her work that she did not have time to let these ideas invade her thoughts. Her relatives, though, left no stone unturned to remind her of the duties she was supposed to do. When the ‘tradition’ card failed, they tried to go the logical way and emphasized on the importance of companionship. Grace knew that companionship, if gone wrong, has the potential to ruin a person’s life. She had, hence, learned this ability to turn blind. The only thing which she trusted, which never failed her nor will ever leave her, which has truly awarded her every time she has put in efforts towards it, was her work. In her own small mind-palace, her work gave her the joy of ruling the world. And who would want to give up ruling the whole world for building a petty little family? It is not that she hadn't pondered upon the idea that she may not be very normal, but Grace never realized when such issues stopped mattering to her. She really had grown up.

“We request you to please store your luggage in the overhead bins or beneath the seat in front of you”, the cabin crew announced as Grace took her seat. She liked an aisle seat, and always preferred boarding after everyone else. Standing in a queue repelled her.

This was a low-cost-airline flight. Not something Grace would choose; but this assignment was of a new kind and it involved going to places which were not popular flight destinations. This was the only direct flight, and Grace did decide for this travel pretty late. After she was seated, she saw a woman take the seat on the other side of the aisle. She was an elderly lady, in a wheelchair, travelling with her middle-aged son who sat on the middle seat right next to her. Even with the help of the airline ground staff, it was fairly difficult to transfer her from the wheelchair to the seat as she could barely walk or balance herself on her feet.

Grace’s already pestered mind got saddened at the sight. Why do people grow so old that they can’t help themselves? She would never want to get into such a situation herself. Never, ever! She remembered how her grandmother was bed-ridden for a long time and she suffered so much! With this thought, a sudden gush of cold air blew past Grace. She almost skipped a heart-beat! Her grandmother!

The only human being whom Grace could lend a piece of her heart to, was her grandmother. Her love for Grace was unfathomable, and Grace also knew that her grandmother could be the only source of peace if everything else in this world had lost its meaning.

It was a warm summer night two years ago; Grace had to finish a work assignment in two days’ time. She had left her hometown for her job long back, and by this time, her frequency of calling home had reduced to once a week or so. She had, by then, also developed the habit of taking alcohol during long hours of work. It increased her efficiency, and helped her forget everything else. Often, she would work from home, with a bottle of hard liquor for the night, and work like nothing else existed. She worked like a dog for that project. In the foolishness of it all, she did not step out of the house for some days together, and had not even checked her phone which ran out of charge. By the time she could gain her sanity back, it was too late. She rushed back home, only to see her father return home after performing her grandmother’s last rites.

There are some griefs that turn a person’s whole world topsy-turvy. And then, there are sorrows which simply and quietly turn a person cold. In Grace’s case, it was the latter. It slowly, but surely, dampened her emotions and she became neutral to every thought that came to her. At one point, she would hold herself responsible for not being able to see her grandmother one last time. At another, she would loathe the fact that she had allowed herself to be so attached to her grandmother’s love that it pained. At times when she would want to recollect the last time she saw her grandmother, she remembered nothing! She would close her eyes forcibly and from deep inside, die to see her grandmother’s smiling face for one last time! She could see nothing! It was as if some reaction inside her brain had wiped out the last trace of her grandmother’s memories. Or, was her grandmother so cross with her that she would not want to come to her, even in her thoughts? And all this while, there was only one thing which would reciprocate Grace’s coldness with solidarity, and she clutched onto it with all her might. It was her work!

“I need to use the wash-room”, the aged lady told one of the flight attendants after she boarded the flight. “Ma’am, we are taking off now, I will get back to you after the take-off is complete”, the flight attendant replied and went back to her seat. The flight was quite crowded. The idea of proximity to so many people for a considerable 4 hours of travel had put Grace off, but she had no option. The lady looked at Grace and smiled. Grace could understand that she was in discomfort, but she said nothing. She desperately wanted to put her headphones on, but since no electronic devices were allowed at that time, Grace simply closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, to ward off any conversation that could likely have started.

“Ladies and gentleman, we have completed the take-off, however, due to turbulent weather, you are requested to remain seated with your seat belts on”, the crew announced. Grace felt somewhat worried. She knew how difficult it was to control nature’s call at such an old age. But why would she need to worry about a stranger when her own son was beside her? Grace dropped the idea and started listening to music. Several minutes later, the turbulence had reduced and the crew started their on-board sale of food items and merchandise, while the seat belt sign was still on. What? Did they forget that the old lady had asked for their help? In a momentary impulse, Grace did something very unlike her. “May I help you, Aunty?” Grace asked that lady. “Oh, that’s sweet of you, but I have already informed the crew, they will come”, she replied. “They have moved ahead with their cart of merchandise, Aunty! I am not sure when they will come. Here, let me take you to the wash-room”, Grace offered, almost involuntarily. She did not realize why she was doing it.

Grace got up from her seat and started helping the lady. Her son on the next seat, like most people on this flight, was fast asleep. This was an early morning flight and the passengers clearly had not had enough sleep the previous night. For Grace, staying up two nights in a row had by now become a regular habit, so she did not realize any difference. She opened the lady’s seat belt, and tried to pull her up. The old lady gave in the best effort she could give, and stood up. Slowly she could move one step, with Grace’s support, and then another. Finally, they reached the wash-room. Grace helped her with her clothes, and made her use the closet. This came as a surprise to Grace herself. She was usually very fussy about using the toilet properly, and when she would see her friends cleaning their childrens' wastes, she almost felt like vomiting. If motherhood entailed doing that, she was way better off the way she was.

But look at Grace, now! She was helping an elderly adult, a stranger, and literally doing what a mother does to a child! And after the old lady was done, she slowly brought her back. It was very tough and tiring for her, for Grace was not very well-built. The flight attendants had reached closer to their seats by this time and offered their help to place the lady back in her seat. The old lady had made tremendous efforts to stand and walk on her feet, as much as she possibly could and she was tired, too. Grace realized that this lady was not a person who liked to depend on others, but she had to do it as she had no other choice. “Thank you!”, the lady said in a very soft voice, looking at Grace after she was placed back to her seat. “You are not related to her? Oh, thank you so much for your help, Ma’am”, the cabin attendants looked surprised, and obliged. They realized that they had forgotten about the lady’s call for help since no call-lights were still on, and when they had seen Grace help her, they could not join as they had already moved ahead with their large cart full of food and merchandise. Grace placed herself on her seat, put the seatbelt on, and looked at the old lady. A smile lit up on Grace’s face. It was an unforced smile in years! She turned her head and closed her eyes. It was silent all around, and all she could now see was a very bright light and a smiling, aged, wrinkled face that she knew too well.

-Arpita Mondal (CIVIL)

The story behind the stink – IISc’s recycled water system

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” – Benjamin Franklin (1746)

While I was once watching an episode of Satyamev Jayate (Amir Khan’s talk show on social initiatives) on poorly managed water resources in the country which was aired back in 2013, my neighbours in Dollars Colony happily let their overhead water tank overflow for more than half an hour. When I went and asked them to stop their pump, they looked at me as if it should be none of my business. Often, the complacence of education is worse than the lack of it. Grudges apart, what can we do to make the best use of what is available to us? As part of the country’s best in research, is the Indian Institute of Science able to lead by example? Well, apparently, yes!

IISc has set-up what can be called the first domestic waste water recycling plant to be established in an educational institute campus in India using state-of-the-art Submerged Membrane Bioreactor (SMBR) technology. Yes, it is the same place whose stink might have bothered you on your way to the new Biological Sciences Building from what-used-to-be-our-beloved Faculty Club Canteen.

The plant has been operational since December, 2010 while the recycled water has been made available through a high-pressure distribution system since October, 2011 which ensures reliable availability of water 24 x 7. At present, it produces more than 5 lakh litres of recycled water per day which is being used for toilet flushing, gardening, car washing, and floor and road washing in different parts of the campus including a few departments, both of the new hostels and the residences. The SMBR technology is able to prevent the presence of all bacteria and most of the common viruses.

Pestered by recurring problems and complaints on water issues in the campus, the institute set up its first Water Committee (WC) comprising of seven professors and the Registrar in 2008. The WC, with the help of hired consultants, completed the rigorous task of preparing a comprehensive Geographical Information System (GIS) of the campus water infrastructure. Apart from setting up the recycling plant, groundwater monitoring was carried out in and around the IISc campus; a water body was created in the Jubilee Garden pond to collect storm run-off for groundwater recharge and a rainwater harvesting initiative was taken up in the new E-type quarters area. The Center for Campus Management and Development (CCMD) had worked with the WC in implementing these measures.

Since IISc buys water from the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) at an industry rate of about Rs 70 per kilolitre, the WC thought that it was important to re-use the domestic waste water for non-potable uses. The cost of treated water at the recycling plant, including power supply is about Rs 9 per kilolitre. Although the plant and the distribution system were built with a staggering capital investment of more than 4 crore rupees, the economics of it, as worked out by the WC, promise a payback within approximately four years. In spite of the fact that considerable fractions of the total water consumption in the campus come from groundwater and localized private buying of water from tankers, the total BWSSB water bill of the institute has indeed been reported to come down from the 2012-13 amount by about one crore rupees in the present assessment year.

How useful is the recycled water for the campus? When asked, Prof P. P. Mujumdar, who was the Chairman of the WC when the plant was set-up, answered “almost all the gardening in campus is now being done with recycled water. Some departments also use it for toilet flushing. The setting up of the treatment plant was given to highly reputed multinational companies on a ‘design, build and operate’ contract. Not just that, the entire collection system of domestic waste water was geared up. We understood that just an island of hi-tech is not going to help. We wanted a very high level of service as far as complaints pertaining to water and waste water systems are concerned, which is why a 24 x 7 water helpline was created. The whole idea of an additional source, as far as water availability is concerned, is to build a resilient system.”

On being asked whether any problems were faced in the design, execution and maintenance of the recycled water system, he replied,
“Creating the distribution network for parts of the campus across the bus-route roads was difficult. To SID and the Gymkhana
grounds, pipelines were established over the ground along the pathways. Even inside the main campus, we did not want to dig up the main roads, for which the expensive trenchless technology had to be used. The WC’s aim is to bring out notices prior to expected
shut downs of the plant, though accidental failures are difficult to avoid and do happen. Other than that, there had been some problems like theft of valves from the taps, too”. Now, in a country where lawlessness and corruption have gotten into our bloods, the last one is not a surprise though.

Prof Mujumdar also informed that a similar plant is being planned in the eastern part of the campus behind the Swimming Pool with the intention to create another 5 lakh litres of recycled water per day.

How are the end users reacting to the recycled water system? An ardent lover of nature, Mrs Shubha Bhat, a resident of the E-type quarters, is very happy and satisfied with the supplied recycled water which has helped her rejuvenate the garden beside her house. When I visited her house some months ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she is able to provide shelter to many rare birds! In big pots in her garden, she also rears fish which kill the mosquito larva.

“Earlier, I had to re-use my kitchen waste water and house cleaning water for the plants here, but that was not enough. On the other hand, I was scared to use the potable water that is supplied to the houses for gardening purposes. The recycled water supply has come like a boon to me. Now I can watch beautiful birds take a dip in the water right from my kitchen while I am cooking food. In fact, last winter, migratory birds had also come to the tree beside my house”, she said. “Initially, I was somewhat skeptic about whether they add chemicals into the waste water to treat it, but when I visited the plant, I got to know that it is a membrane that they use. I feel very proud that such a thing has come up in the Institute. Our kids also should see the treatment plant, they should also know about it”, she added.

The Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC) Department also uses the recycled water extensively, not just for the gardening of its lawns, but also for toilet flushing. When I went there to inquire about the benefits or disadvantages of the recycled water system some months ago, Prof. A. G. Samuelson, the then Chairman of IPC had said, “We have been consistently using the recycled water for the last few months for toilet flushing, and for a month before that too, for gardening. Earlier, we were buying tankers at the rate of one to two tankers per week, which means about 10,000 liters on an average, every week. Since the time we have started using the recycled water for the toilets,
we have not bought a single tanker! This is a big improvement for us, because, other than saving water, it is saving us a lot of trouble.
We are very thankful to the administration for making this effort because I think in a sense this was long overdue for a campus of this size. This is a great step!”. Prof. Samuelson had, however, also mentioned that using recycled water for laboratories might entail a little more and the reliability has to be 100% for that.

The IISc Director Prof. Balaram, too seemed positive about this initiative. “The residents are definitely using the recycled water for gardening and car washing”, he said. On being asked whether the recycled water will be further treated to make it suitable for drinking, he jovially replied “I did offer to drink this water. I said, you can then watch me for a week, to see whether I am still coming and going regularly, and at the end of it, take a call”. He emphasized that the water quality parameters are being measured and the water is indeed supposed to be potable. “If you take a scientific view, water is water; and, if every harmful contaminant in it can be measured and quantitated and found to be within the accepted limits for potable water, then it is potable. You see, after all, you do not know what water is supplied in those tankers”, he said.

Why is it then that all the Departments are not using the recycled water? When I had posed this question, Prof. Balram had replied, “This is what the IT-people call the last mile connectivity. Sometimes it is just not there. I think the residents on campus automatically use the water simply because there is a tap there and they can get hold of the water and use it for washing the car or gardening but the
apartments have not taken it with the level of enthusiasm that one might have expected”.

In several laboratories, this treated recycled water can be used; especially in the laboratories where treatments like distillation of water are anyways performed in-situ, there is no reason why recycled water cannot be used. Other than that, recycled water can be used for cooling purposes too. Huge amounts of water can be saved if all the construction works in the campus are carried out with recycled water, given that the amount of constructions, as opposed to the greenery in the Institute, is monotonically increasing. But perhaps, we have yet not realized that the well is dry. One step ahead at a time will take us a long way ahead. The good thing is that a small step has been taken, which will perhaps show the way to others. There are several other campuses and places in Bangalore City where interested people are ready to take up such similar initiatives. Thus, while my neighbour may feel irritated when I ask him to stop wasting water by letting
it overflow, I am sure the next time he does it, he will think twice. And the next time you walk past the recycling plant, you might bear the stink without much ado.

If we humans are responsible for exploiting the earth’s resources with the help of our intelligence to smoothen our lives, I am not ready to believe that we will prove ourselves to be foolish enough to not restore the earth back to a state that is favourable to nature. We must show the way, leading by examples so that our future generations with their paramount intelligence will be able to differentiate between need and greed.

Arpita Mondal
 

The Fart of Living

(Based on a repeatedly circulated advertisement in the IISc community)

Is your body filled with unwanted products of food metabolism? Are you waking up with a bloated stomach? Are your neighbours complaining about the nuisance you are creating? Your days of embarrassment are over! You are invited to the Fart of Living Relief Program.

• Come, unlock and release the gas that is already within you
• Overcome inhibitions and negative comments from people who fart only in private
• Improve your relationships by not farting at critical times (for example, while you are discussing your research problem with your adviser)
• Bring back a smile to your gut!

Empower yourself with our patented® Sanchalan Kriya, a powerful farting technique to enhance your ability to throw away unwanted metabolic by-products. The Sanchalan Kriya has been taught in 150 countries around the world and has benefited millions of Dolphins. And now it is a proven fact [1-2] that practicing farting techniques (may not imply Sanchalan Kriya, though!) improves your gut function. Even Har Bar Medical School recommends 15 minutes of farting daily. It is necessary.

“I do it first when I wake up” – Jennifart Aniston
“It helps me keep a balance between pooping and farting” – Madu Rai
“…it’s been far-tastic!” – Oprah Window
“I have so much to accomplish today that I fart for two hours instead of one” – Mahafart Gandha

De-stress with us and discover the joy of farting, deep within you. All are invited, and it is NOT free!

References
1.      Funny, D. Journal of Farting Technology, April 1, 2012, Voluminous.
2.      Hilarious, R., International Conference on Fartology, April 1, 2014, Fartland.

Arpita Mondal (CIVIL)

The Forgotten Children of IISc

IISc is, by nature, dynamic. The institute, over the last century, has evolved continually, trying to keep up with the needs of the country. As it evolves, its landscape changes too. Buildings come and buildings go, the old making way for the new. For this cause, toil many migrant workers, hidden within the tall Aluminium sheets covering the four flanks of their work site, playing their role in the growth of the institute. Not far from their work places, their children play away under the afternoon sun. And therein lies the stark irony. Living within an institute that is revered as a temple of knowledge, these children may never see the inside of a classroom.

A large part of the workforce employed by the contractors to work for the construction projects in the Institute, are migrant labourers hailing from other states. They go where their work takes them, often with their families staying with them near the sites. When asked till when their stay in the institute will last, the most common reply from the labourers was “When the work here ends”. Sadly their children suffer the brunt of this. Many can never attend the same school for an entire academic year as their parents rarely stay that long in one place. Some wish their children to have a permanent roof over their head, instead of a nomadic existence. “I will send my children to stay with their grandparents back in our village, soon”, said Shabaana*, a labourer, busy wetting the newly laid concrete at a construction site near the new Aerospace Department. Those who stay with their parents near the work site, however, are left to the care of others in the temporary tin roofed settlement as both the parents have to work at the site to make ends meet. Ramesh, a project manager with the Ramky Group who is in-charge of the construction at that site, said, “Indeed! We would love to send these children to pre-school. That way, we don’t have to worry about their safety because a construction site is an unsafe place for little children to loiter around”. He remembers there being a Balawadi centre within the campus a few years ago. And he is right.

A Balawadi centre is a pre-school specifically aimed for children in the age group of three to five years belonging to the underprivileged section of our society. The aim of such initiatives is to ensure universalisation of pre-schooling. It is believed that this will improve the rate of enrolment in primary education. Not too long ago (late 2007) the students and the Administration had been instrumental in setting up a Balawadi centre in the Institute for the children of the construction workers working in the Institute then. Sadly, as the construction projects got over and the workers left, the centre was closed down. According to some workers Voices spoke to, the place near the Water Recycling Plant where a new canteen is coming up is the place where this Balawadi centre once stood.

Back at the construction site, the site in-charge seemed oblivious to the presence of the little ones in the settlement right next to the site. When prodded further he admitted their presence, “Yes, there are children, but they are all small, some three or four years old. No one is older than six”. He said, “We are ready to even sponsor their school uniforms and books, but the parents are not interested in sending their kids to school. They stay for no longer than six to eight months.” He has been in the institute for 7 years. When asked about the old Balawadi centre, he admitted he didn’t know there was one. “If they open it again, I’ll encourage my labourers to send their children there. I’ll also arrange a vehicle to take them to school and bring them back.” He mentioned the tens of thousands of rupees they donate to a school nearby, the management of which approaches them for donations, on a yearly basis. One might wonder, if true, how the management could miss seeing the children that play on the path that leads to their generous donor’s office.
The people behind the Note Book Drive initiative too, were at one point, keen on making sure these children get primary education. When asked about their view, they said, “We started ‘Reach and Teach’ 3-4 years back; aimed at the children of construction workers but we had lot of difficulties in taking the initiative forward. The main difficulty we always faced was the shorter time duration for which they were present in the institute. The labourers mostly used to change. Also, once Prof. Prabal Maiti (from the Physics Department) started discussion with the administration to have a permanent crèche for those kids in IISc , but the administration never really responded ”. Even after repeated attempts, the Voices Team could not get any response from the administration in this matter .
“It would delight us all if these children could go to school”, said Babu, a bachelor new to the settlement. “Would you like to go to school?” he asked little Ismail. He nodded a quick “No!”. And everyone around laughed.
One of the elders near him smiled and said “No, my boy, be a good kid and go to school.” Indeed, who, among those who live in India’s premier research institute, would know better the value of educating the young, than the ones who were denied it in their youth.
*All names have been changed to protect identities
Excerpts from the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Central Rules, 1971:

“A Creche should be located within 50 metres of every establishment where 20 or more women are ordinarily employed as contract labour. While the Creche should be conveniently accessible to the mothers of the children accommodated therein, it should not be situated in close proximity to establishment where obnoxious fumes, dust or odours are given off or in which excessively noisy processes are carried on… Accommodation in the Creche should be on a scale of at least 20 sq. ft. of floor area per child. There should be a shady open air play-ground suitably fenced for older children…The Creche should have first-aid equipment kept in proper condition. Every child should be medically examined before admission. There should be medical check-up of the children once a month and their weight recorded once a month. A record of the periodical medical check-up should be entered in the record of medical examination of each child kept at the Creche…”
Sources: http://labour.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/ActsandRules/Service_and_Employment/TheContractLabour1970.pdf
http://www.lawsindia.com/Industrial%20Law/c_036a.htm

with Arjun Shetty (ECE) & Ranjith Warrier (AERO)

The Third Civil Engineering Annual Student Symposium: A report

The Civil Engineering Department organized its third in-house Annual Student Symposium on Aug 26-27, 2010. An outcome of the enthusiastic initiative of the students of the Department, the first symposium was held in 2008-2009, the Centenary Year of the Institute. Under the umbrella of the Department comes three divisions – Structural Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering and Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, and a centre – Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP).
Forty Six students, from all the divisions, presented their research work over these two days under four broad themes: I. Analytical and Numerical Modeling, II. Laboratory Testing and Experiments, III. Uncertainty and Stochastic Modeling, and IV. Other themes. There were 10 sessions of presentations, all chaired by senior research students themselves.
Five student volunteers under the supervision of Prof. Madhavilatha managed the event. Breakfast, lunch and tea on both the days were provided by the Department. All the student presenters were gifted a watch and an Institute bag.
“The idea with which the Annual Student Symposium was started is to increase the interactions between the students from the different divisions, who would otherwise be oblivious of each others’ research initiatives, and to enhance the academic vibrancy in the Department and I think we have been successful in achieving that feat” remarked visibly contented chairman Prof. P. P. Mujumdar after the completion of the event. “It is truly a technical feast, in which we celebrate our academic energies” he added.
There was a wide range of topics covered varying over different spatial and temporal scales. Some works focused entirely on theoretical research while some were staunchly application oriented. While some presentations portrayed technical work at large depths, some were preliminary studies or literature surveys. Even the freshly admitted students could benefit from such an exposure to the wide spectrum of research going on in the Department.
This year there were two awards adjudicated by a jury of three judges – Prof. Srinivas, Prof. Debraj Ghosh and Prof. Tejas Murthy. The award for best technical paper went to research student Asha Nair, and research student Guruprasad bagged the award for the best presentation.
The professors also pointed out suggestions for improving one’s content and style of presentation. Sticking to time during presentations was particularly stressed upon. Students were also invited to offer constructive feedbacks. It was an informal exchange of ideas all throughout. The ceremony was concluded by felicitating the volunteers and the judges.

Arpita Mondal (Civil)

A Friend on Your Path

Most big cities to which the so-called ‘brain-drain’ from India is directed, have one thing in common – their public transport is exceptionally well organized and there are websites which can guide you wherever you want to go, literally giving you instructions at each step with precise estimates of times which would be followed to perfection in real time. Obviously, for such a thing to happen in India it would take a while, specially to build transit models that can compute paan or biri breaks for drivers or bus stoppages during rush hours for the conductor to come out of one gate and enter through the other to make sure no one gets down at the next stop without paying the fare (or lesser fare in exchange of no tickets to fill the conductor’s pocket). Let us not harp on faults in the Indian systems and give you some good news instead. Change has started.

The Center for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore now offers you ‘Maargamitra’ – a friend on your path. Launched on the 23^rd of July, 2012 the Maargamitra website (planyourtrip.civil.iisc.ernet.in/Bangalore_PIS/) is an interactive interface that can help you plan your trip within Bangalore before you step out of home.

Funded jointly by CiSTUP, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India and IISc, the interactive web-based interface will not only display the best path (based on minimizing the combination of walking time, travel time, waiting and transfer time) over a map and as text, but will also tell the approximate travel time and fare and number of transfers involved (if any). Other than the best path based on minimum total travel time, the trip planner also gives best path based on a unique concept of ‘generalized cost’, in which the best path is obtained based on a weighted combination of walking time, travel time, waiting time, transfer time as well as fare. Generally, it is a natural tendency of a public transport user to attach differential importance to various legs of a trip. For example, a person might perceive waiting time at terminals as uncomfortable and would attach higher preference to a route on which the waiting time is less or minimum. Similarly, an elderly or disabled person may not like to walk more to reach a bus stop or train station and thus will prefer a route that has less walking time, while planning a trip. Some users may prefer direct routes as compared to routes involving transfers, even when the direct route involves higher in-vehicle travel time. All these considerations relevant for Indian conditions can be imitated in trip itinerary planning, by considering the generalized cost approach during shortest path analysis for finding the optimum route through a multi-modal public transport network.

To keep it simple at the beginning, the system has used default weightage values based on an initial study, however, in coming months the trip planner will be updated to allow users to provide their own weights. At present, Maargamitra covers Big-10, Vayu Vajra, Vajra, and Metro Reach-1 services since data on all Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses is not available with BMTC either. Within the next year or two, most of the public bus routes and Metro routes will also be covered. Other than this, future plans to improve Maargamitra include providing k-shortest paths instead of one best path that is presented currently, increasing user choices and customization by giving option to the users to provide the maximum number of acceptable modal transfers and their own weights for different legs of the trip as input, as well as refining the travel time modeling further to improve the travel time predictions for pre-trip planning. Using Google Maps, C#ASP.net, TransCAD (a Geographical Information System based transport modeling tool) and C# windows.net, it has taken about two years to build the interface.

So what is so unique in Maargamitra that sets it apart from Google Transit and other similar applications? When asked, Dr Ashish Verma of CiSTUP, who has headed the project, replies: ‘Most of the other applications predict travel time based on an average travel speed of 15kmph, whereas we have developed travel time models for better estimation of travel time and which is used for pre-trip planning. Moreover, Maargamitra is the first public transport trip planner developed in India.’

As part of IISc, that does make you feel special, doesn’t it?

Arpita Mondal (CIVIL)
(With inputs from Dr. Ashish Verma, Asst. Prof., CiSTUP)

Are We Willing To Change?

[My article that got published in the Security Special Issue, Jan, 2014, Voices, The IISc Campus Newsletter]

“We like to believe that 'it cannot happen to me'. Unfortunately, the truth is far from that; we are all potential victims.”

 The above sentence is quoted from a Voices article that dates back to August, 2007 (http://voicesiisc.files.wordpress.com /2010/04/voices_aug07.pdf). The issue of security, especially that pertaining women, was revisited in another article in 2011 (http://voicesiisc.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/some-unanswered -questions). To our dismay, standing in 2013, we are forced to believe that not much seems to have changed in the campus in this regard and we still remain ‘potential victims’.

At the outset, let me clarify that the intention of this article is not, by any means, to be biased for a gender. It stands against any form of abuse or violence. Time and again, there have been instances which bring general safety and security in campus under scrutiny. From thefts to creating nuisance in places of residence in the middle of the night, or to the rare occasion of sandalwood smuggling - examples of security breaches in the campus are many. Unfortunately, the gravest and the most unacceptable forms of such breaches concern women.

On the whole, India does not appear to be a safe place for women, and it would be naïve to believe that the campus, irrespective of how much isolated it may appear, will be unaffected by the beliefs and the behavior of the society. Any societal behavior is mostly enrooted at the households and is entangled with traditional upbringings. Sadly, except for a privileged few, children in our country are exposed to gender-stereotyping from a very early age and a boy is raised entirely differently as compared to a girl. While the boy may be made Superman at some point in time and an astronaut at another, the girl is mostly conditioned to play with dolls and told how to behave with her in-laws when she grows up. Though differences in ways of bringing up the children are not objectionable per se, the inherent implications of any form of ‘superiority’ definitely are. Of course, all this applies to the situations where a child is allowed to be born in the first place!

Having said all that, let us not harp too much on the problem and lose our focus in the statistics. Instead, let us talk about how we can work towards our goal of a place without any discrimination. Indeed, a way ahead will be determined ultimately by how much we are willing to change, starting at our households and carrying it forward to our surroundings. Let me give an example, and a dirty one at that! I was talking to a friend of mine, and incidentally,she told me about some religious ceremonies traditionally performed in her community when a girl child reaches puberty. A ceremony along those lines is common in many parts of the country. She recollected, with a lot of disheartenment, how, before she could realize and cope up with the drastic physiological changes in her body, the whole family and the neighbors assembled at the house and all she knew was that they were talking about her! For days together, she was made to sit, by the women of the house, on a small mat and eat and sleep there. In a way, it made her feel guilty for no fault of hers!

Now, this is an example where a woman is made to suffer, and sadly, the people who spearheaded the movement that caused the suffering were all women! Thus, it would be incorrect to mention that any one gender is more at fault than the other. At least, on the bright side of it, my friend has decided to never allow this to happen with her daughter.

It can always be argued how ‘beneficial’ such societal beliefs or ceremonies can turn out to be. Indeed, traditional beliefs, even those which create a power-hierarchy in the household and in turn in the society, might have been built on reason. We may not be in a position to judge their utility at their time of origin; however, years of human progress and evolution allow us to at least question their relevance and reflect on whether such behavior is indeed doing us any good. It would, thus, be a wise and worthwhile pursuit to work towards a society where everyone is treated as a human being and as a friend, and not as anyone belonging to a particular race/cult/gender/caste or whatever discriminatory classification is applicable. It can hence be reasoned fairly, definitely without undermining the importance of a strong law system, that if a mentality of friendship towards women is inculcated in the general public, again starting at the household and at an early age, many incidences of abuse can perhaps be prevented.

Working towards such a ‘free’ society is very much achievable in and expected from an elite community such as IISc. The first step towards equality, fairness and justice is the ability and the willingness to ask questions. The institute, fortunately, allows us to do so. It encourages an opening of minds and we must make the best of it so that by the time we step out of this place and blend with the outside world, we are able to take the first steps towards a larger change.

Arpita Mondal (CIVIL)

আজ খুব কান্না পেল
ধরে নে
কোনো কারণ ছাড়াই...
কাছে থেকে
অনেক কিছুই হারায় |
সহজলভ্যতা নতুনত্ব কমায় ,
অভ্যাস আর
উষ্ণতায় অন্তর করা যায় না |
জাগাত স্ফুরিত যে ভাবনাগুলো
আজ তাদের জন্য ডেলাইট সেভিং নেই |
পাগলামি লজ্জাজনক |
ভবিষ্যতের-ও তো ভয় আছে |
এও একরকম ভালই
একা থাকতে শিখতেই হত |
একা থাকতে শিখে গেছি |
খুশি থাকতেও |
তবু
মাঝে মাঝে অঘটন ঘটে ....
তাই, আজ খুব কান্না পেল
ধরে নে
কোনো কারণ ছাড়াই...

Love thyself

Until a few years ago, words like ‘feeling low’ (and also simultaneously, the other side of the coin, viz. ‘getting high’) were strangers to us. Growing up has its own flip sides I believe. But of course neither do I support frowning about what is, and unnecessarily glorifying what was or what could have been.
I have grown up. And I am happy about it.
Starting out at a good school, degree at a sought-after engineering college, leaving home for masters at a famed institute of technology and ultimately settling down for doctoral studies at another premier research institute. Perhaps we are at a wonderful stage of life where the hunger to learn is still there, yet with a contention and appreciation of what we have already learnt. And the learning of course is not confined to academics only, but also applies to life in general.
However, moving from school to college, from college to university, from university to institute, what is concerning is that we have perhaps been moving more and more further away from simplicity. Often times we are stuck at the superficial level of apparent intricacy and hence we take time in realizing that life is simple.
And hence, beautiful.
In this premier research institute, there are workers, researchers and professors on one hand and messes, canteens and juice centers on the other where the aforementioned species collect for myriads of discussions, about almost anything under the sun. Yet, the vibrance is some how on the lower side. We have perhaps made expressing dissatisfaction our foremost nature.
The funda of classifying friends must be well known to all of us. Some are amazingly close to us, some are trustworthy, some we would generally hang out with yet from a distance, while some are mere acquaintances who can be called ‘duur ka dost’, analogous to the ‘duur ka rishtedaar’ of the Indian family tradition.
So one day early morning I was having a glass of moosambi juice along with a trace of fresh air hoping to increase the sattva element in my genes (for I heard from someone long ago that fruits are the perfect examples of sattvik food, and of course I had to pay 1500 bucks for learning this in the form of an ‘empowerment’ workshop, no free lunches my friend!), when a ‘duur ka dost’ of mine bumped into me. It is a tradition here to have an initial greeting session, that is, asking for ‘kushal-mangal’ in the form of the following question: ‘How is your research coming along?’
Once that was over, I realized that my ‘duur ka dost’ was a philanthropist, too. For, within a few minutes, and even without my asking for it, he showed his concern for me by cautioning me and pointing out what might be the disadvantages of working with the advisor I have chosen for myself for my doctoral work. That he might be very busy, that other than whatever possible by virtue of his position, he cannot render any help, and so on. I was not surprised. Such baseless accusation and apprehension was not new. And like the previous cases, I wanted to test my hypothesis once again.
So I asked him how his own advisor was. Initially he was generous. He told me that his own advisor did not have any of the problems which my advisor was accused to have. (Was that also to make me feel envious?) For, as predictable, when I asked him further, he soon delved deeper into problems, which according to him, was unique to his professor. That he cannot find his professor during his problems, that his professor presents new ideas and instructions at every meeting and so on. And hence, now, the prime motto of his is to somehow publish 1-2 papers, submit his thesis and leave this place for ever (and for good).
In ordinary cases, when two people are together for a work, difference of opinion is bound to happen. But what troubles me here is the skewness of expectations that the students generally have about their advisors. This, as I mentioned before, was not anything new. I am sure, professors would also be equally unhappy about students. All of us are perhaps trying to minimize our efforts and time in everything we are into.
As a result of which, eventually a time comes when both parties look forward to finishing the association somehow. And we call it – the awarding of the degree!
And sadly, with a very few lucky exceptions, this is the general trend among almost all branches of education. Not only here, but perhaps everywhere in the world!
That is why it did not take me time to realize that this ‘duur ka dost’ of mine is not into his research simply for the love of it. He is lost in other complexities. My hypothesis yet again could not be rejected. And I cannot really blame him because the system stays healthy only with such apparent complexities.
In an independent incident, another of my friend was having a discussion with his advisor about an article he accidentally found in a journal. My friend was fascinated by the work those people had done, and with a lot of excitement of sharing, he went to his advisor. But, academics, alas, is not sacrosanct! And perhaps also not as pure as we conceive them to be.
His advisor, after listening for two minutes asked him – ‘what transfer function have they used: linear or non-linear?’, ‘linear’ my friend replied, still unable to understand what the professor is going to comprehend out of this and still with his excitement un-extinguished. Out came the reply – ‘then we can apply the non-linear function, and publish a paper out of it’!
My friend was shocked at this reply! And grossly dejected. The whole purpose of finding out and appreciating a really good quality of research was lost!
No. The professor cannot be blamed either. He has hundreds of responsibilities to shoulder, and also incessantly do well on whatever ‘performance index’ has been set on to him by the system.
All this is not new. There are novels, stories, TV series, and even a celebrated comic strip illustrating all these nuances and fallacies of a life in research. However, what we take out of this is perhaps not limited to entertainment alone.
And our learning is essentially the outcome an age-old wisdom. Love.
To our professors we may be students, and to us they may be professors, but we share identities that tie us together. We are all humans. And a simple thing such as respect for a person as a human being, for being the person he or she is, is viciously lost in the complexities that are churned up by issues totally material in nature.
I can discuss with my professor about Buddhist philosophy on Facebook, and he attends my music shows and cares to congratulate me if I do well in them. He lures me to studies by promising gifts when I am down with no appetite for exams, and many may find it difficult to believe, that he actually goes all the way to bring me the books that he had promised. And of course, I do not mind him being ruthless if I had been negligent and insincere. Neither do I expect him to spoon-feed me at this stage of learning. PhD is the last stage in our education where we can raise questions freely, for, once this phase gets over, we will be asked questions and we will be liable to find answers. And I do not know whether I am more happy for feeling so lucky, or more unhappy that this is a very very rare example in any of the educational institutes meant for higher studies.
I was a little surprised about the PhD interview I had to face before admission here. I was not asked a single non-technical question! I expected at least one question that would make us ponder for a while: why would we want to do a PhD?
And in many cases I am sure the answer would be simple. But perhaps, lost.
Which is why we stop loving what we are doing. And when we are in such a fix, we start finding faults in trivial matters. Our expectations grow boundlessly and in wide and impractical directions. And eventually, we forget to love ourselves.
Do I need to mention about the unfortunate suicide cases that keep on happening in many institutes in the country? There have even been cases where students went absconding from their studying/working places! Our heads hang in shame on such news.
Beauty can be in all that we do, see or think about. If we love it while doing it, cleaning a room can give us as much bliss and joy as painting a picture or singing a song. And sometimes, to realize this, it is also important to go through troubles and to be sad. For when we are alone, we might start loving ourselves. And love life, too.
We all know this, don’t we?

And sometimes, however, it is important to not work, too! For, through this process we might learn how to handle the problematic situation we might face by not working, who knows? :-)

bhoy r asha....

din sesh-e ekta ghor.
aar ghor-e ferar swopno.
khub sadharon.
tobu bhoy paai.
bujhte parina je tor duto haath amar ei
moleen deho takei bhalobashbe chirokaal.
dur-e jete chay ei murho, pashaan, nishtur ami.
koshto dey aar koshto paay.
ami chinte paarina amay.
tobu tor aalingonei khomaprapti
aamar sob paap-er.
tui amar unmukto aakash.
aami daanaheen bihongo, tobu
uurte aakul hoi,
tor dikei....



A home at the end of the day..
And a dream to return home...
Very ordinary.
Yet I apprehend.
I fail to trust that your hands
will forever love my dirty apparition.
And I try to run away.
Oh foolish, silly, cruel me!
you hurt, and get hurt!
And I don't recognize myself.
Yet in your embrace
will my sins be forgiven.
You are my eternal unending sky.
I am a bird with broken wings.
Yet I never stop flying..
towards you.........

Punishment...

Game over.
And now, the next.
Vapors from the ocean become the rain, and the river,
To meet the ocean again.
The clock-hands’ journey never stops.
Honesty was there in all of the love!
Accidents, sagacity, rarity – was pure in them all!
And likewise, the pain.
Fresh.
You weren’t ready to lose even a morsel of warmth.
Do you remember?
Do you remember for the love of no concession you had ruthlessly
Uprooted the very love?
Blemishes of the wounds.
Veils of fear.
Torn, broken dreams.
Yet, intimacy with the self.
Oh it is no less!
And there’s no stopping the destined.
Lashing all vows of toughness
Love comes again.
Slowly.
Silently.
Flooding all resolutions of being cruel, of being indifferent.
Could so easily you tread the path, knowing it would be treacherous?
Is so luring the door to fantasy?
So attractive the silver moonlight?
Could your dreams want to be deceived?
Or they couldn’t, for,
You love again!
You leap again in inanity!
So now, pay for that taste of eternity.
Erect your edifice, against all tempests.
Build your world at the epicenter of the quake.
Leave the ground, for,
You have longed to fly.
You have aspired.
You have dared to love.
There’s no escape!

wait...

Jaanlar opaare surjyo gole jaak godhulir nana rong-e
Paakhira firuk neer-e
Sob podokkhep er theke rehai paak raasta
Bishaad-ei baajuk taanpura
dhulo jome gaachh-er patao
Hoye uthuk chhai ronga
Meghera Cherrapunji-tei bhalo achhe
tai tumi borong naa-i ele
Lamp post neebe jay jak
eta opekkkhar golpoi hok...


And, here's the translation:


Over the window, let the sun melt into colors of dusk.
Let the birds sequester to their nests.
Let the road take respite from all strides.
Let the strings play melancholy.
Let the leaves turn gray, ridden with dust.
The clouds are well and happy in Cherrapunji.
So let you not be.
Let the lamp post light be put out, too.
Let this be a story of wait……

A translation from Mousumi Bhoumik

I heard the other day...
sailing over the ocean waves, you reached and touched the blue sea horizon...

I heard the other day...
over the salt-sand long beech, you walked miles....and miles...

I have never been to the sea...never floated in the blue....
never kept my stare fixed on a flying winged kite...
The next day when you again go for a bath in the sea...please take me with you...
will you??

I heard the other day...
you, you and you..all together made a gathering
And you all talked about many complex puzzles...many words unspoken...

Why this running alone so secretively?
Why speak lone and live with self, for self?
If there ain't love..it's all alone...solitary...
Where will I find peace?
going where?? Tell me....

I heard that you all still dream...
still tell stories...still sing your hearts out...
People's life... and death..still bother you
Your love still blooms into a rose...

With a distrustful mind, I have come to you
and stretched my hands to you all for your alms...

I find only a vacuum within the core of my eyes
I don't find a dream filling me in the middle of the night...
Hence I have opened my lids to dream....

Hence I have come to you and stretched my hands to you all for your alms...
Hence I have opened my lids to dream....

I am the public

The water scarcity problem in IISc is now well known, and I must say, has faced with the consequence that is faced by most of the problems in our country – getting accepted! It is no sooner winter than there isn’t any water in the hostels. Come summer and we will be bathing in the sand like the way a sparrow does. (For shitting, we can of course use the millions of unknown, unseen and un-habituated wild nooks spread across the huge campus, never mind!)
Fresh male admissions here always are put up in pigeon holes on a sharing basis, collectively called E-block. There they are not entitled to have water for 24 hours, irrespective of whether it is summer, winter or monsoon. And when the sun is about to set behind those myriad species of trees in the lush green campus, students of E-block for fear of Daku Gabbar (read absence of water) either go to sleep, or decide to spend the rest of the night in their respective labs itself. One productive way of increasing the amount of research I must say!
Hence, while the rest of India sees ragging by students (read bullies), the best educational institute in the country witnesses a special scenario, where such intolerant behavior to fresh admissions is incurred by the authorities themselves!
And most of the times it is the drinking water that finishes first. Which brings me to my own story.
Yes, of course I am not a philanthropist to pen down a story for public interest. It is what is happening around me that has troubled me, and helped me overcome my hard-wired laziness. There is no drinking water in my hostel Mrigasira since the last 6 days. And you might find it a little difficult to believe, but which is nonetheless true, that not a single plumber has paid a visit to the hostel yet!
For the first two days, I relied on my fellow wing-mate who had been kind enough to fetch me water from another hostel, realizing that I have a torn ligament in my left knee. Next day, I thought it would not be good on my part to ask for her favor everyday. So I went to Ashwini. In Bengali there is a saying that says that only a boy with a poor vision has names like padma-lochan (The lotus-eyed one). Pardon me for being audacious, but all the five ladies’ hostels here in the best educational institute in the country, are in an analogous fashion, named after Mahanakshatras (Great astronomical stars). Ashwini had given up the next day. No water there!
So I thought now that I have gotten started, let me check with some other hostel. Rohini I went. Now here, let me digress a bit, and tell you more about Rohini. This is the only ladies’ hostel that allows the entry of men! You must be thinking that the authorities perform a ‘maturity test’ before allocating girls to this hostel! The criterion is not that, not your age either. It is – ‘how long have you been staying in this institute’. Of course, some of the Rohini inmates are lucky enough to have their rooms there in their freshie year also, for, the other more profound criteria are the whims and wishes of the person who has the duty (read right) to allocate rooms!
Rohini, with its bigger and better rooms, I am afraid, had no drinking water either! So I went to Krithika. (This is the same hostel from which my kind wing-mate had brought water for me the previous two days). So I thought at least Krithika won’t disappoint me. But when I started filling water, I saw that the ‘processing’ button is always on, and the green button for ‘purified water’ never lights up! What?? This is so misleading! I had drunk this unpurified water the other night! Oh my God! (And hail my stomach, for not upsetting me!)
So next I am left with only one option (unless I intended to come all the way to lab giving my injured knee some exercise, of course) - Bharani. ‘Dear Mother Ganges, please supply me with drinking water today, I promise I will send my parents to Haridwar next year!” said I, a silent prayer. And yes! Bharani had water! Yeppie! I filled all my four bottles with happiness! Done for the day!

Next chapter. Come another day. And the same story! This time, the watchman told me there is no drinking water in any of the hostels! I decided not to venture out and come straight to the lab. And guess what? For lunch, we were not given bowls because they couldn’t be washed due to lack of water!
I remembered my good old IITBombay days! Yes we had space problems, but at least the authorities were kind enough to provide us flats instead! In an individual hostel, we had coolers and water purifiers every wing and every floor! There was no separate treatment for fresh admissions. And every individual hostel had its own mess, its own students’ council, its own mess manager, hall manager, two helpers, and an associate warden and a warden who would be professors! Where the watchman would check the luggage of all the workers in order to ensure there is no stealing of food or any other items that are meant for and paid by the students.
Can’t accept this! Can’t accept! I must at least lodge a complaint! For the last three days I had only been asking the watchman whether a complaint has been lodged and felt happy when he said yes! But no. Let me check it myself today!
I called the water supply department.
“Hello, there is no drinking water in Mrigasira since Friday. Can you do something about it?”
“Which hostel madam?”
“Mrigasira!”
“Hello”
“There is no drinking water! Could you send a plumber?”
“Which hostel madam?”
“Mrigasira, I said!”
“What?” (And then I remembered the unique way of addressing hostels here!)
“M-block, M-block” I almost shouted.
“Ok madam, I will send someone!” – thapak! End of the call….
Call at the hostel office…. Ring! Ring! Ring! And Ring! No one bothered to lift the call! Smart people!

What is the problem? I asked the watchman again. And he told me that it is a supply problem!
Now water supply problem in Bangalore looks very mysterious to me. My brother had stayed here for 2 years in BTM layout, and had never ever complained about water! My friend from the IT industry stays in Whitefield, and he seems to be unaware. My friend who is a research staff in Nimhans, Koramangala, had never faced such a problem. The distribution of supply seems a little strange. We have heard from our professors that the institute pays the BWSSB a lot for water supply. Awards galore at their website: http://www.bwssb.org/

Lets do some study, and forget about this, thought I. Came to lab. My fellow lab-mate, a victim of the E-block, met me on the way, and a traveler in the same boat, he realized immediately by seeing all the bottles in my hand. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
“No water, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah, don’t ask!”
“But now it must have come…even in E block there was no water, but now it has come!”
“No water as in, not even for bath?”
“Nope!”
“Then?”
“Then what? We waited till now, and took bath, and now coming to lab”.

What should be my state of mind now? Should I feel lucky that at least I could take bath in the morning, or should I feel sorry my friend, and at least another hundred like him, who had to wait till 4 o’clock for getting water for bathing!

Time for studying now….regularity, eating, sleeping, drinking water (kudos to the rich department for fitting aqua guard at all the labs)….end of the day.
Next morning, I woke up with a fear that I might find the taps running dry! But thank God, they weren’t. But no drinking water, as usual! I had to take all my bottles and start out on a venture.
Wait. Can I not find two minutes to actually lodge a complaint with the hostel office itself?
History tells us, that we Indians are very peace-loving (read lazy enough to always accept things the way they are). But can I not change myself at least for a day?
“promise you would be polite, promise you wont fight!” I said to myself!

“May I come in?” I asked in the hostel office. There were four rooms, and I made a random choice.
“Yes”
“See Sir, there is no drinking water in Mrigasira since Friday, and it has been 6 days now. No action has been taken, and I have come with all my bottles. You please tell me where to fill them?”
“You see, we have our own jurisdictions. The hostel office chairman is going to come at 2.30 to look into the issue!”

What??? Jurisdictions? How long does it take for someone to at least enquire what’s wrong? Am I going to remain thirsty till 2.30?? I could almost feel blood rushing to my brain!
“patient, patient” I told myself.

“Would you tell me how long does it take to take a step?” I asked.
“There is no point in arguing with me, madam. You can come and talk to the chairman at 2.30!”
“But I am not in this institute to complaint to the chairman! I have to attend classes at 2.30!”
“There is no point talking to me madam. We are looking into the matter. The chairman will sit at 2.30 today for solving the water issues. We have our own jurisdictions!”
“But it has already been 6 days!”
“We have done the best we could do!”

The ‘best’? Did I hear correctly? The ‘best’? Is this what he said? I couldn’t control my natural emotion, which ultimately came out of my mouth with a lot of hurt, and shame!
“If this is the best that the best educational institution in the country can do, it feels sorry to be here!”
And I started running away. And while running, I could see that, like many street fights in our country, we had an audience!

…………………………………………………………………………………………….


We have been lucky. Most of us have not seen the worse. Most of us here in this institute are good students who have been caressed by their parents, praised by their teachers, brought up in all cozy comforts and who have set examples for their younger followers. We are here for our research.
But above all this, with my badly hurt heart now, I realize one truth that surpasses and raises above all petty mundane things that we indulge ourselves in everyday. That making a difference is not easy! That adding more meaning to life is not easy! That facing a problem is not easy! That NOT putting blame on others is not easy! We, who are very common mortals, on either side of the table, are not very different from each other. And together are we. Together we rise. Together we solve a problem.
Yes I am writing this for myself and my own interest. Because I am THE PUBLIC.

Bangla Poem

Shedin saanjh hotei tomar
dekha millo digonter kinare...
elomelo haway usko chul udchhilo amar,
daariyechhilam bhognopray, ojana ei minaare,
aalto aangule amar chul chhule tumi,
haath rakhle mathay...
chokh e tokhon ojhordhar, mon paadi diyechhe na jane otit-er kothay...
kon monkharap er kotor, kon purono aghaat-er daag!
aaj o ki sudhrono jay na, behishebi bhulgulo shei?
aaj o ki chhure fela jayna aajgubi obhimaan?
muchhe fela jayna shei chhelemanushi raag?
konthasha ondhokar er shey ek dombondho chokrobuhyo!
ki pelam ei jontronay? ki dilo ei dukkho gulo?

bhabte bhabtei megher faanke koney dekha alo..
ektukro ador-e tumi bolle...byathaguloi toh moner songe monke melalo!
ore boka tui...pagol r shob
jekhane joto ashtha hara praan-
shob tora ek dor e bandha...gaa notun diner gaan!
agontuk der bheer-e dhorle oshar, ekla amar haath!
koshto hoye ashe...abar choleo jay ei raat!
bisshash dile...jholmolabe gaachh-er mathay rod hoye ei jirno jibon gulo,
eder tumi niyo...
chinbo, jaanbo, eke onyoke, bondhu hobo....ortho etei...dukkhoi tumi diyo...

aamar ami, tomay niye more ni, morbe na asha...
kaal bhor-e thik dekhbe...ei byatha thekei jonmabe abar bhalobasha....

Onyotomo sotti

ferate tokey koshto hoyechhilo khub..
tobu duchokh aadaal kore choley eshechhilam.
Shesh kore diyechhilam, jenei, jey
eta shesh noy...
Ekhon sudhu shedin-er opekkha...
jedin oi purnotatuku-r obhab bodh hobey na aar...
Surjo uthbe shedin tor aar aamar majh diye..
Shanto jol-e aalto hawa aamader-i chhobi aankbe..
Tin-er chaal-e brishti-r lohori aamader-i golpo shonabey....
Aar pahad-er oi bhijey bhijey megh chhobey sudhu aamader-i...
Shedin...
aamra kotha bolbo..
tarpor shey kotha thambena aar kothao....kokhono....
Shedin...
tui bujhbi...
nebo bolei toke firiyechhilam aami....

2009

A little too late for the new year... :P
But never mind...

Last 4th Jan, 2009, on a Sunday supplement of the most leading Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, the Rabibasariya, I found some absolutely moving articles written by the youth of Bengal following a competition organized by the daily on occasion of the new year. I like some so much that here I translate some of them.

“Yes, in 9 (i.e., 2009), I want to see Rahul Dravid retired. But who will bell the cat? Why, Dhoni?
And to all would-be-fathers, don’t wish so much for a boy-child! If you have a daughter, ok, you may have to take care of some little troubles when she is at the doorstep of her adolescence, when her loving heart starts to blossom by the magic-touch of a young lad! Just keep a strict eye on your letterbox and the inbox of your daughter’s cell. That’s it! In 9, let the males love their beloveds a little less! Let the far-away females like Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez get dozens of “boy-friends”, and not “lovers”. Let more and more Chandrayaan touch the soil of the moon, let them remove the stains on its surface and come back. After all, the moons do want to get rid of their stains, don’t they? Let my XXL-sized sighs of frustration reduce in 2009. Boss, let some worker bees like me at least get the cork beside that of the Queen bee’s!” (Written by Ushnish Goswami. Jalpaiguri)


“I am not Matangini Hazra. Neither am I Mother Teresa. Nor I am any political leader. I am a very ordinary girl. Engrossed in the everyday din and bustle of my busy working life, and under the tremendous work load, yes, I do not have the time to think about my country, my people. My day starts with the panic arising out of the exorbitant prices of articles in the market. After this, while traveling by the public bus, I am alarmed to think, what if the bus tumbles upside down? Will I be able to reach home safely? The tension in the workplace is ever-rising like a lofty mountain! In the middle of all this, there are grudges of my male colleagues beating into my ear-drums always, that they are ever deprived of boss’s favors because, and only because they are males! After finishing all work from office, when I start from there, quite often, the hour-hand surpasses 9. A lone female, so late at night? Several comments fly in from all around. Many men try to help (?) me by offering a lift. After safeguarding myself from such helping males, and reaching home also, peace of mind is not ensured! I have to start afresh the preparation for the survival in the next day’s rat race. In the middle of the night, I wake up, sweating, alarmed by some unknown fear!
When the year is ending, and I have sat to calculate what I have got and what I have lost, I find that in the middle of such woes, I haven’t slept peacefully for too long a time! Those days of waking up in the morning with the last trace of the sweet dreams of fantasy, have probably moved too far away!
So in the next year, I would want to have some sleep! And when I wake up, I want to have such a newspaper in my hands, which wouldn’t contain any news of terror attacks, fights over plots of lands, violence, crime, unrest and accidents. Where there wouldn’t be news of murders, rapes, or female foeticides! Where the snap of the blooded roadway wouldn’t catch your attention in the very first page! Where there would only be news of education, culture, art, sports and progress!” (Written by Debasmita Ghosh, Kolkata)

Two translations and a few words.... :P

A translation

You’re the one who my heart wishes for
Other than you, in my life, I have no one else, nothing else!

If you are unable to find happiness, go search for it
For, I have found you all over my heart, and I want nothing else.

I’ll remain immersed in my longing, waiting for you
I’ll reside within you
For prolonged days, nights, months and years!

If you love someone else, if you do not come back
I wish you get all you want, and let me be the one who begets all the pain.


Another translation

The windy breeze of the night has extinguished my lamp.
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..

When you go along this path amidst the darkness,
You will recognize the fragrance of the rajnigandha which have just shed beside the temple.
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..

When will you remember me, my lover?
Waiting for that moment, I remain awake in segments of the night, singing along.

I apprehend; what if I fall into slumber towards the end of the night?
What if my song perishes in my exhausted voice?
After slowly coming to me, oh my lover, please don’t depart from me again…..


Longing for the lover, waiting for his/her coming back or viraha seems to be quite a significant part of all great love stories. The above two songs of Tagore talks about love, and the sense of languishment in love so profoundly!
And quite predictably, a female embodies that sense of longing everywhere, rather than the male. As I had understood from my shallow knowledge derived from the word-of-mouth stories of Radha and Krishna, Shree Radha depicts that sense of longing for Krishna. Viraha (languishment for the lover) of course comes before Milan (Mating), and hence the duo is always pronounced as “Radha-Krishna” and not “Krishna-Radha”. Similarly, “Sita-Ram”, “Heer-Ranjha”, “Laila-Majnu”. The entire life of Meera-Bai was a longing, which was never to be quenched.
Of course, in some love stories, the male predominantly craves more for the female than the way the female does for the male. This may be the reason why Romeo comes first in his love story. Or take Devdas for the example of an obsessed lover. The love of Devdas for Paro has so much overshadowed the love on part of Paro!
I don’t know whether I will call someone like Devdas a famous lover or an infamous lover. For, most of my contemporary males laugh at him, or curse him for not being practical! Does there exist too much difference in the yearning of Devdas for Paro and that of Shree Radha for Krishna?
Females do seem more ridden with emotions, particularly so where the nostalgia of love is concerned. History also has given females more opportunities of longing than of mating. Great rulers and many brave men from history used to possess more than one wives. Of course, such great men did possess tremendous love for each one of them (it can be assumed), and each relation was a successful one, considering each to be unique and independent. But why is no female (or very very few females, to be on the safer side because of my shallow knowledge, again) in history cited to own more than one husbands? Are such females glorified at all by history? Or is it like “His” story, written by “him”, so “She” is not to be glorified anyways? (Ya, I admit, at times I do sound a feminist!)
Traits like viraha are portrayed to be a cowardly action on part of males. But interestingly, Shree Ramchandra, the great avatar of the Hindus and the ideal man of all times (Maryada Purushottam), was in fact, found immersed in viraha when Sita was abducted by Ravana. (Again, several interpretations of Ramayana exists, and I remind you all of the shallowness of my knowledge). Common sense tells me that he was a loving husband, and it was out of his love for Sita, and his deep pining for his wife, that Ramchandra took all the pains to go to a far off land and defeat the tyrant to bring his love back to him.
But there again exists some inexplicable vagueness about the climax of such great love stories. Krishna left for Mathura, and Sita was forced to go to Pataalpuri! Do these not seem idiosyncrasies on part of such great lovers? When the love for a woman came into conflict with establishing other great traits like courage or lawfulness or ruling people, great men chose the latter. Perhaps men don’t know how to persist with the profoundness of love for a woman for the entire life, while women are left with no other option but to symbolize only a nostalgic yearning!
But there is no doubt about the fact that at some point of time, all people in love feel this sense of desirous longing for the company of their lovers! The not-so-normal states of minds of so many people in viraha have given birth to so many great poems, songs, prose, paintings and God knows how many different art forms! Call all of them lunatics, call them absent-minded, call them crazy! Yet they personalize some of the strongest emotions that are so unique to the limbic of the humans! They are the people in love!
Reasonings like other wives of Krishna are but the manifestations or expansions of the first lover Radha, are something I am not yet able to physically imagine or appreciate at this stage. But with what has happened with me personally till now, all I can say is that,
Viraha cannot be ignored, and so can’t be the indelible imprint of Radha as a sign of deep love over the hearts of millions, across all the barriers of time and space.

The forest fire

I so wished to join Abhisekh in his trip to Calcutta! I badly wanted to go to Dakshineshwar and Belur Math with him! But nature has its own ways of making up for a loss as well. While it did not allow me to spend a lovely evening sitting beside the Bhagirathi-Hooghly in the serenity of the Math enjoying the fragrance of the special agarbatti found only in Belur and nowhere else on earth (Abhisekh thinks that agarbatti can be polluting as well, and he actually had a cough because of the smell! God! he is so susceptible!), nature balanced itself by presenting to me an eye-capturing illustration! That of a forest fire! It was there for me to witness, and only me!
I had always asked people in IITBombay why at some point of time in the year the Sameer Hill becomes absolutely carbon-black. But all used to say that someone might have lit up dried leaves and branches. Today I could know who it was.
My Prof’s room gives a scenic view of the Sameer Hill. The window is strategically located I must say. It cuts away the unnecessary concrete edifices, which would have otherwise engulfed the view, and allows only the garnishing of the hill by the trees from sides to be seen. I had to take a supplementary test of fluid mechanics for a BTech guy, who missed the earlier scheduled test. It so happens that I love everything about IITBombay somehow. No wonder it pulled me back within 3 months of leaving it. “Jhank-er koi jhank-e firechhe” as my mother puts it (the lone fish has found and gone back to her people and place!).
The test started in the afternoon. I looked outside, and started thinking (or ‘day-dreaming about nothing’ as a more sensible person might describe). With thoughts of long-forgotten songs or long-cherished special moments thronging my mind, the Sameer Hill outside the window served as the out-of-focus yet visible backdrop. A little portion on the top of the hill was black. I started reading a bit, and yet again immersed myself in my day-dreaming. As if I am missing something, or someone. After 10 mins, I could get back into my consciousness! What the hell! What am I doing? I have developed all signs of an idle mind! Is there anything by which I can stop it from being a devil’s workshop?
Thoughts start coming back to the present moment and the focus returns to the not so visible backdrop- the Sameer Hill. Is that some kind of smoke I see? Is it that someone has actually lit up the dried leaves and branches? That too, in simultaneous places? Holy spirit! Half of the hill is now black within 10 minutes! How is it ever possible for someone to stimulate such a large scale fire in such a short time?
Within few moments, I could make out it is forest fire! I could see the orange flames going desperate by the windy breezes. One portion of the hill catches fire, scorches, emit fumes as the burning gets completed, while the fire moves on searching for its next victim, the neighboring portion! Wildness expressed in its most crude form!
I could see a flock of black birds! Why are there so many birds in the middle of the fire and smoke? Is it that they will readily get dead worms and insects for a lunch, without too much effort?
O hello! This is a forest fire! Is anyone even watching? Shall I run to Sameer Hill right now? Why don’t I have a binocular? (interestingly, I wished for a binocular, and not a camera!!)
Out of excitement, I told the Btech student, “Have you ever seen a forest fire?” Well, a venturimeter and a forest fire do not go quite hand in hand really! He gave me a glare! I knew I disturbed him! “No”, and he went back into solving the paper!
I have never seen something like this! I muttered to myself! This is not a beautiful picture, not a soothing one either. Not something to be proud of. Certainly not a mesmerizing experience! But I was so overwhelmed! Something that is there for the first time! Something that I had never ever witnessed before! It was a magic! And I saw it through the window, and not in the Discovery or National Geographic channel!
And it was there for me. Only for me! In a very ordinary October afternoon, when the entire IIT was busy doing academic activities, eating or sleeping, or escaping from the scorching sunlight, I was presented an excitement! An urge to just look at my window and not do or think anything else for 30 minutes! My window to the wild!

Tuesdays with Morrie

It’s amazing how a small book, written by someone whom you had never heard of before, someone belonging to a different country and a different culture altogether, about someone who is a very ordinary human being with ordinary aspirations and a simple way of living life, can make you feel you are born again the next morning. The city was the same while I travelled to office, on yet another unmotivated Monday, by an auto-rickshaw, sitting beside the driver, so typical of Kolkata. It was a cloudy morning, with two of my co-passengers in the back-seat dozing off, surrendering themselves to the gloom of the air around. (Monday morning witnessing office-going people doze off, now you know why I call such mornings unmotivated!) Prolonged traffic jams, child beggars trying to rekindle the inherent human kindness in you (while you actually feel continuously bugged instead), newspapers heralding the highly probable exit of automobile giant Tata Motors from the state, because of a badly played game of politics, my client calling me up too frequently over the cell-phone, desperate in his attempts to bargain for a reduction in the in-voice while I am obliged not to insult him back for his irrational and indignant arguments, and an earlier almost stagnant queue for auto-rickshaws- the morning had nothing exceptional. Yet, I felt on top of the world. I could feel the fragrance of the season’s first chhatim flowers, though they hadn’t yet blossomed! I looked at the sky, overwhelmed by its expanse and color, like I had not done in a long time! I observed people who were passing by, and tried to remember their faces even if they were complete strangers! How I was mesmerized by the beauty of the day! The beauty of life!
For, it was only the day before that I finished reading the book entitled “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom. Don’t expect any more vignettes please, as I have already invoked enough curiosity in you, which you will satisfy on your own. My job is done. Now you go and read the book, while I re-live that Monday morning, which apparently seemed unmotivated, yet provided me with the impetus to shirk away all that was negative, all that I feared, and to replenish myself with a reverberating upbeat vibration, that will see me through my life!
So there was I, travelling in the auto-rickshaw, almost providing the driver a free hug, to ensure that I don’t fall off (I actually feel this is a very philanthropic idea of the auto-rickshaw union of Kolkata to allow passengers to sit beside the driver, for, it has all the gestures which indicate increased brotherhood between the passenger and the driver). (And oh! How I feel tempted to add a smiley to the last sentence that I wrote in brackets, but sadly enough, cyber-lingo is yet to be recognized for its glory in literature!)
I had always noticed a striking difference between the attitude of auto-rickshaw drivers in Mumbai (where I was earlier staying), and those of Kolkata. In general, there is a rather obvious disparity between the outlooks towards life of the people of these two cities. But let me not sound vague, and come to the point as to why I am talking about rickshaw drivers. In Mumbai, I had never seen passengers queuing up for rickshaws. It had always been the other way round.
While in Kolkata, there had been an abundance of occasions where I noticed at least twenty people (including myself, of course, else I wouldn’t have bothered!) waiting for the rickshaw, while two to three rickshaw-drivers sitting inside their rickshaws a little further away, doing literally nothing, amidst the fussy office-going hours of the morning. It was evident that they were coming for business to start off the day, they were not doing any mechanical servicing of their rickshaws, neither having breakfast, not even taking a break for urinating! Yet they just sat doing nothing, watching the queue grow. What might be the reason that they are not moving their rickshaws while they can clearly see the plight of the office-goers who are getting late? Why are they so much lackadaisical towards their job? Why is taking rest the first thing they do in the morning? Why do they lack an earnestness for what earns them their livelihood? I fail to understand the rationale! I try to observe them to find a reason. They are not even talking to other fellow drivers! They are simply doing nothing!
I quit on trying comprehending their schema. There’s no point, I decide. I do that, because that is what is easy. I do what I am best at, shutting myself up, away from the world around me by putting on my headphones and listening to music.
And then, to my utter irritation I find that, when most of us in the queue had given up, sweated to falling drops from forehead, or a bus about to come to sweep away all the waiting people, the considerate driver finally moves his vehicle to pick us up in front of the queue. It seems his desire for people feeling dependent on him for his favor has been quenched at last!
I see this every two days. This ignoble act of disrespect towards one’s own profession at the rickshaw stand! Yet I prefer floating my body into the ocean of inactivity, as does everyone else. A few of us standing in the queue don’t hesitate to abuse the drivers for being lazy, but we, ourselves are even more lazy to walk a few meters to ask them why they are behaving in such a manner, which would seem very weird, if not unimaginable at a rickshaw stand in Mumbai. Had these drivers been fighting for their bread in Mumbai, they will know what struggle for existence means! Ignorance is the root of all sins- I mutter to myself as my ego establishes itself as a gyan-guru, deriving theorems to evaluate others’ behaviors.
This was all. This was all I could conclude, until it was the next day of my finishing “Tuesdays with Morrie”. Monday morning, I find the vehicle quickly. Thanks to mother, I started early. I grasp the opportunity and show my brotherhood towards the driver by sitting beside him, while he makes his way through the crammed city roads.
Should I speak to the person next to me? I ask myself. Would I ask him what might be the reason some rickshaw drivers behave in such an objectionable manner? Does he himself do that ever? Does the distress of the passengers caused by them make any difference in their lives? Should I take a survey by talking with different rickshaw-drivers everyday, and then let the union or the authority answer why there exists a woeful situation when there is absolutely no logic behind it?
I think. And I also think that I am after all an ordinary and selfish person, and not a social worker. I have got other things to do in life, like handling clients, mugging up words for my GRE, answering my peers, and doing music and dreaming about reality shows when I had some free time. Why do I need to take any additional pressure and hamper the creative thinking of my brain at all? I was happy doing what I was doing. I was exploring the world anyways!
Moreover, didn’t I know what being a social worker leads to? Didn’t I read newspapers? Didn’t I believe that the only fate a male social worker could have was facing legal trials, and the only fate a female social worker could have was being raped? Oh yes, I am not courageous. But at least I am also not a fool, to destroy my life, and my dignity in society!
But I had read “Tuesdays with Morrie” the night before!
So I had to speak.“Do you feel discomfort talking while driving??” I ask the driver, all on a sudden.
“What?” he asks. Evidently, he is surprised. So is everyone else in that vehicle. He is a middle aged man, with 2-3days of growing white beard, wearing a shabby T-shirt. It was astonishing! I had never looked at the face of any rickshaw driver ever in the last one year, while I travelled by rickshaw daily! I didn’t recognize anyone of them! Did they also notice who is entering and leaving their vehicles?
“Sometimes I feel a little disturbed while talking and driving simultaneously, especially today, my brake is not working properly”, he said, “but why, Madame?”
“No, it’s ok, if you cannot talk now. I actually wanted to talk to you!” came out of my mouth, so involuntarily! “Tuesdays with Morrie” was already doing its job!
“You can talk with me, Madame”, said he, “what is it?”
“I actually wanted to know something. I have observed over the past one year, that during very busy office hours, some rickshaw drivers just don’t move, and enjoy the quandary of the sweating passengers standing in the queue” I tell him. He laughed. And so did my co-passengers.
“What do you think might be the psychology behind them, Sir? Have you done that ever yourself?” I find myself resilient and straight-forward. I was never like this. “Do you think they enjoy that people are looking forward to their favor?”
“No Madame. There might be many reasons behind that.”
“That is the reason, what else? Their nature is like that only!” insinuated a co-passenger. One of the two who were trying to have a nap. Our conversation had awakened both of them! For, he had got a free chance to curse the rickshaw-drivers, without himself having to take the pains to commence the topic! It seemed funny to me! But it was ok. I would have also done that if I were in his position, had I not read “Tuesdays with Morrie”.
But it was also important for me to let the driver speak. Because, being a passenger myself, I was aware of the point of view of the passengers anyways. I needed to erase off my ignorance, by looking at the situation from the drivers’ perspective.
“What can be the reasons, Sir? Would you please tell me?” I ask. I was more polite than ever before!
“See, different people drive rickshaws. Some drive and own, while others pay a rent of the vehicle to the owner. While some are bachelors, some have the burden of raising a family! Also, it is important for us to take rest, as we don’t have holidays! If I am not at my ancestral home at Midnapore, I drive 365 days a year. Even when it is a strike, we have to come for the duty. Every morning I need to supply my family with food!”
Things start becoming clearer to me. Time for me to think. I can imagine myself working for the entire year, without any holidays. Will I not doze off even on Monday mornings? My co-passengers were dozing off even after having the day before as a holiday! I felt ashamed!
“Those who are not raising a family, can afford to take rest, can’t they, Madame?” the driver speaks again! I feel ashamed again. I am continuously addressing him as “a driver” only!
“What is your name, Sir?” I ask.
“Sushanta Jana”, he replies, “See Madame, I know that some of us do not behave properly with the passengers, while we must understand that it is our profession which earns bread for us. Everyone have their own way of life and living. However, I admit that sometimes it might seem wrong. For example, if I need to take rest, I do that at my home, not keeping passengers waiting for me.”
“Very good. You are being true to your profession”, I suddenly felt proud of the humble rickshaw driver. Sushanta had more insight to problems in life than all others travelling in that rickshaw at that point of time.
“You have your family in Midnapore?” I ask. We were becoming friends. It just needs a few words, and a little care. People has so much to say!
“No, they stay here with me. But my parents are there. I have two daughters. I will go and pick them up from home and drop them school, after I drop you all to Gariahat. I can’t take rest, Madame. I need to pay two hundred rupees to the owner of the rickshaw everyday.”
“And your wife?” I ask.
“She does some stitching works sometimes. Nothing is regular. I have to pay the rent of the house that we stay. Provide for the expenses of my daughters’ studies.”
And later on you will have to provide for the expenses of their marriage as well- I told, but silently and to myself only. I could understand. Poverty is plentiful in India, and hence can be easily and closely related to.
We talked a little more, when suddenly I realized, it was time for me to get down. My destination had come. The perspective I wished to study, had been incorporated into me already.
“Take my fare, Sushanta Babu. I will get down here. I felt really nice talking to you. I am sure we will meet again!”
There was a grin in his face. I smiled as well, and bid him goodbye.
I placed my back-sac in its position, crossed the road and started walking towards my office.
I am not sure whether I will chase my mission of interviewing other rickshaw-drivers, and make it a point that the authority/union addresses the problems faced by passengers. May be I wont be able to be a social worker ever in my life. But is that necessary anyhow? Understanding each other can address all grudges, I realized. I knew at least that I would never complain again about waiting in the sun for a rickshaw at the stand while coming to office.
As I entered my workplace, a broad smile had enlightened my face. It was there to stay.