The Worst Country for Handicapped

 

Barely few weeks ago entire country was in euphoria because in Paralympics our athletes’ performances were phenomenal which brought medals in heaps. Right. Justifiable. The success has to be celebrated.

Now the euphoria has died down and I wonder, where would these stars be now? Or at the cost of their success are Babus from the termite infested government machinery enjoying?

What prompted me to go in the dark was my own physical deficit which I noticed recently.

I did not have any problem till recently and I was managing fairly well with my handicap that was developing so slowly that barring few incidences of few errs here and there I could not/did not notice.

And this was one of the ‘Innocent Bystander Reaction’ of COVID.

For the fear of spreading the disease it became mandatory health wise, that later was endorsed by the government, rightly so, to wear the mask. And I realized as if after waking from the deep slumber slowly, that I am unable to comprehend what one, sitting in front of me was trying to convey.  The words appeared just as jargon and out of that intentionally created voice, otherwise known as language; only few could reach my ear drums that made sense. Otherwise rest were sounds made by marbles in the empty pot. Conversation with comprehension, even partly came to standstill. No, I did not become stone deaf. I was able to hear every other sound coming from anything that could make sound. So purring of rickshaw, sound of cascading waters when flush was used even the ‘Tip –Tip’ sound of dribbling tap did not escape my ears. Only problem was to differentiate between ‘Nagher’ and ‘Nabar. Two frequently used words in my household. After spending some time giving it a good thought, I realized that I am unable differentiate between the wavelengths of ‘Scam’ and ‘Scan.’ Or such similar sounding words.

Immediate conclusion was, mask, THE mask! When you are using mask 50% of waves, sound travels in waves, are obstructed by that physical hindrance! The Mask! More layered or complicated it was, like N 95, it was more difficult for me to hear! And in situation like pandemic I could not ask anyone to speak without mask! Crime of the highest order!

Taking hint from the situation, because none from the near family faced ‘My’ type of problem I decided to get an Audio-gram done. Though expected to some extent, to my surprise one of the ears practically had complete sensory loss while the other was living on thread bare life! Though not a shock it did throw me in despair. The best way to counter-check is always a second opinion.

Ali Yavar Jung Institute at Bandra is super specialty hospital/institute that studies problems related to ‘Hearing’ and thus ‘speech’ in children who cannot learn to speak because they cannot hear to emulate.

2^nd Audio-gram was done by two expert, very hard working charming girls in their mid twenties. But their those qualities did not change my ‘Diagnosis’. Though I was not stone deaf I was having severe setback for the higher frequencies. So in a room filled with even few people, all chattering at the same time, I was going to be like novice just landed on an alien land where everybody was speaking mumbo jumbo at the peak of their voices. But conversing with anybody on one to one basis was not going to be much of a problem, may be missing few words here and there. And without mask, my ears could be Bose speakers at their best. But conversation without mask  was/is unthinkable till the COVID wave abates fully, for which ‘Amen’ is the only word!

So I was advised ‘Aids’ to hear!

Till the time they were tested on my ears and made permanently available, I came to conclusion that, ‘India’ our own India is the worst country for ‘Handicapped’.

I started dreading to go to crowded places where decibels were nothing less than the created by an atomic explosion. It hampered my hearing ‘No ends’. I never understood a word what the lady wearing a mask sitting on a low level chair 2 feet away from the glass barricade was trying to convey to me because the man behind me occupied 90% of my hearing capacity while trying to have a deal with an agent at share market in a voice typically required for the place, i.e. share market! It did not stop at that, rather than helping me, Babus on the other side simply used to give up on me with expression of annoyance largely writ on their faces!

I was being taken for granted for the things I did not hear!

‘But I told you 3 times, it’s not my fault that you can’t hear!’

But it’s not my fault too; it’s sensory loss for which unfortunately nothing can be done!

Such incidences started becoming common encounters.

Even the closest friend did not spare me of humiliation. Once he suddenly gestured to stop the ongoing conversation with his wife, saying,

‘Don’t bother yourself much, he doesn’t hear!’

I was totally at sea about how to react as I had heard what he had said! With a big question mark of bewilderment, hiding my inner annoyance, turmoil, whatever I retraced from the conversation and tried to pretend as if nothing happened.

Conversations on machine generated sounds became impossible, so whenever there used to be mobile ring I started abhorring the entire rigmarole. They were so many variations in the sound coming from the other end depending on whether it was person’s or machine’s making! Many speak on phone as if they are letting out their innermost secret to their fiancé and talk in the most soft tone , so I had to keep on repeating, ‘Sorry, Sorry’, or some just mumble mixing every word together cooking a nice khichadi of few unintelligible sounds. Others are in a race with themselves so by the time I was able to understand their first sentence they used to be already on their last!

While at times machine itself plays its own gimmicks, thus voice on the other side echoes, vibrates, breaks, comes as if coming from a distant nebula or is plainly marred by the person talking just behind the caller.

It made me started looking around and I realized, as compared to my minuscule handicap, how people with so many other, much more debilitating physical or any other deficit are being treated in India as second class citizens.

For a person on a wheel chair any type of transport in any smaller or bigger city of India is nothing short of an ordeal. And if you HAVE to, for your daily bread, better to be born anywhere else than in India. To ride 9.46 fast…..’ Rather, sit at home!’ , your co-passengers make you aware of your intrusion on their comforts , most rudely!

On Kurfurstendamn Berlin, I saw umpteen number of young and old on wheel chairs, either on their own or helped by an assistant to shop, catch the bus, ride the U Bahn without any difficulty or more so without any Guilt for taking the help, the end point was living the life fully with whatever you have! No doubt the state helps at every point, every juncture for every gesture!

At St Marco famous square in Venice, I could not believe my eyes by the number of wheel chairs, proms, men and women with crutches sauntering around, oblivious of the TAB world passing by. In handicap parlance TAB is Temporarily Able Bodies person!

On Tokyo or any other Japanese suburban Metro stations, Marshals are deployed to help the handicapped who see to it that every handicapped person gets on or alights from the train with the door platform lowered down properly and the train is not allowed to start till the handicapped rider is comfortably brought on the board or the platform!

It’s a motto that handicapped traveler must be at utmost ease with himself or the ride!

India has no time for the handicapped; here the problem is how to feed the billions of TABs. Till we don’t deal with it, handicapped in India will always be treated as Second class citizens, because what has to change is,’Mentality’. 

But we are SO many of us with that callous attitude , we hardly have time to worry about the one who is less than equal!

Is ‘Survival of the fittest!’ practised in India that brutally?

                   ……………………….                                          To be continued.

 

 

Made in Korea Milind Soman

 

Made in Korea Milind Soman

Actually this blog may be labeled as ‘Whatever!’ Worthless spins done by extremely idle, no work mind!

When you say Milind Soman naturally it comes to your mind, ‘Made in India, Pyaara Sonia’, a lilting song rendered by Alisha Chenoy in 1995 which has beautifully captured well sculpted Milind Soman on celluloid in his shirtless Indian avatar. 26 years and still the mystic does not fade away. It made both Milind and Alisha overnight sensation. And then one would wonder where the catch is? Is it because now a days I am totally into k-dramas including ghastly ‘Squid Game’? May be.

The last Korean Drama that I saw was so bull shit that in the end I wondered what exactly did I just saw. It was some ‘Love Marriage Divorce’! Second season. There were so many loose ends in the narration when the second season was wounded up that made chaos the order of the day! But it left some unfathomable stupid hints for the ensuing season, the third. I don’t know whether I would have guts to go through the marathon of the horse shit again but what caught my eye were the performers and the highest class, production values.

Three sets of couples in their 30s, 40s, and 50s with their trials and tribulations while going through that fake institute otherwise known as ‘Marriage’

And there he was Milind Soman of Korea. Bang Sung Hoon. 

Youngest of the couples, even younger than his wife, he was not at all like the typical Korean male leads.

In fact I shudder to call them male leads. They are so heavily made up with thick pink lipstick to top that one might guess they might be taking more time in the makeup room than the female lead, to show up. More feminine they are, more popular they are with the Korean crowds. This guy to the contrary is absolutely anathema to be called a Korean male lead. Because with his sharp jaw line, chiseled face and faultless nose he is handsome in most masculine way. Standing athletic at 184 cm with broad shoulders due to his practice of butterfly stroke he does not fit the glove designed for the ‘Korean Male Lead’ and there starts the comparison.

Like Milind Soman, he represented Korea on the National swimming team from the age of 14 for 14 years and was national champion in butterfly stroke. He represented his University for many years but had to give up due to spinal injury and when started finding short of prerequisite stamina. He then tried his hand at various things but settled as model in the end. Ditto Milind Soman. And like Milind Soman the next step naturally was TV and Big screen.

Here surprisingly  unlike Milind Soman he grabbed his first award of Best New comer rather late at the age of 28. And there is no looking back since then.

He comes as a humble down to earth ‘Hallyu’ star that lives alone in a flat and does not boast about his achievements even after coming from a non filmy modest back ground.

I remembered an interview of Milind Soman given to the greatest Journalist of the century ‘Barkha Dutt’. She tried to catch him on the slippery grounds many times but with strong middle class values Milind did not budge an inch. Even after being born in U K, during his middle class Shiwaji Park abode he attended RSS Shakha for years. She wanted to put her words, mostly biased, about RSS in his mouth but politely he refuted every one of them and stood stoical on his stand, mostly for the good values inculcated in him by RSS Shakha.

Bang Sung Hoon too comes out like him during interviews. When caught on the wrong foot he sheepishly smiles, at times guffaws like a child caught with one hand in a cookie jar. Not leaving his middle class persona any time.

At 55 Milind is an example of perfect physical fitness. Sung Hoon too though nearing 40s is still in the athletics to a great extent. He still swims with the younger contenders leaving his ‘Filmy Persona’ at home, tries his hand at Sky diving, motor cycling and every other sport that he finds challenging including Golf. He is still single, may be waiting for the age of 55 like his elder to get married [ strictly tongue in cheek!]

Milind was and is being given raw deal by the so called stalwarts of Bollywood so he had to be contended with second grade Bollywood, never getting chance to act in so called ‘A’ grade commercials.

Sung Hoon too is getting similar treatment by the Karan Johars of Korea. In spite of being good actor with masculine features to match, also being a good singer with deep husky melodious voice rendering songs in English with flaw less accent he never features in the ‘Best’ list of Korean stars ever.

At 55 Milind Soman is still enigma for his athletic life style, at 38 Sung Hoon has a long way to go .

I seriously wish  the best for both.

 

 

 

To Eternity with Bucket list

 

2007 Hollywood film starring inimitable Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman was path breaking in many ways. The idea so far unheard on the orient caught up like wild fire so much so that everybody on this side of Suez Canal started preparing his/her own bucket list though the concept was alien and too much time was still in the store to really kick the bucket.

Most of the times either it’s a vacation to a place you have longed for years to visit, or a feat you could not do because of physical constraints like bungee jumping, or taking a pilgrimage because you have promised to your mother but did not take it you being atheist, but you wanted to do only because your mother wished so. Or mending the relations which were snapped years ago. They always were on the back-burner because either you did not have money or were short of time. And suddenly you become aware that time has come and at any cost you have to have your bucket list now!

And how many things are you going to pack in your bag fit for a day’s travel, that’s your life! If you are lucky to visit Antarctica, North Pole becomes a distant dream, if you participate in Durga Pooja of Kolkata; Carnival at Rio de Janeiro goes on without you for years. If you are served 10 wines at Napa Valley vineyard while tasting the wines, you lose on tasting freshly made Edam or Gouda Cheese at Alkmaar. You end up reading P.G. Wodehouse with a chuckle on the lips but Kokoro by Natsume Soseki is lost in translation for you.

I have seen umpteen happy and pseudo happy people saying, ‘We did France last year, this year we would do Lagos!’ Eh? Is Globe that a small place that you ‘Do’ it in your limited time, most of all with limited money? Amazon Forest if you enter from one side, you may not come out from the other, for your life time!

Or this term, I have completed Brodovaskey [Who?] may be Rabindranath Tagore next time! Is any author, any artist any performer can be done away with in ‘ONE’ life!

And it very significantly applies to the relations too, once snapped always snapped. Tons of so called heartfelt ‘Sorrys’ haven’t ever made the relations that they were once upon a time. The crack always remains like a glass once broken!

 If you really are well versed with the rationale on which the world works, the best policy should be ‘Enjoy’ what ‘Your’ life has to offer, NOW! And at that juncture, the moment may not come back again!

Why I do not understand the concept because it is for someone who has limited number of days at his/her disposal. So how many of us are really lucky to get the whiff of it?! So, that we can plan to do the things from the bucket list! And would our body allow in that ailing condition? On the contrary at one level you are continuously living under the threat of that proverbial sword, endlessly hanging on your head and you are making plans!? Of what, for whom! I don’t know when and where it will strike you. May be you are in the midst of melee of your so called near and dear ones and it strikes you, not allowing to say even goodbye! Or one is on one’s deathbed for months together and apart from everybody around him in their minds of mind, including oneself is actually waiting for the dreaded moment, in fact it may not be so dreaded at all because it could be the moment of final realization, ‘It is over at last!’ Peace of heavenly order for everybody around you, including you and where is the place for the bucket list here? May be sole item here could be, The End, peaceful end!

Does it really operate like this? In my opinion life has to be lived simultaneously. Don’t leave anything for bucket list. And if you could not do it, it was not meant to be! Simple, by the time you have ample time, more importantly monies, 90 out of 100 times you are old now and your body goes on protest telling you, it’s not for you, the world is for the young ones!

 

Dedicated to dear Friend Bhalchandra Lele who lived life king-size but simultaneously and departed so suddenly that Bucket list for him was immaterial!

 

 

 

 

Hallyu

 

Hallyu

When I got addicted to Korean Dramas I felt I was one of the few who is odd man out. I was in for a big surprise. Within a month after publishing my blog on Korean dramas I came across three articles published on the same topic in three totally different media. In HT ‘s  ‘Brunch’ the author had expressed exactly the same view I had expressed a month earlier and surprisingly her choice of K dramas matched with mine to the last ‘T’. Then there was article on Google and last but not the least in ’The India Today.’ In next few days ‘Netflix’ itself came out with the figures for India that said the viewer ship for K Dramas went up in leaps and bounds practically by 370%. It made me wonder and I started searching for the roots.

It turned out that till then our knowledge about Korea never went beyond the song ‘Gangnam’ made some time in last decade or their national dish ‘Khimchi’! At the most dictator Kim from North Korea. The fact is Korean art forms started capturing far east way back in 80’s, initially as Boy bands doling out pop songs for generation next followed by the K Dramas that actually took the form of ‘Tsunami’ termed as ‘Hallyu’ in Korean.

We Indians missed the wave, it reached our coasts quite late, may be mostly because ‘Netflix’ came to us in comparison very late and we till then were totally immersed in ‘Saas Bahu’ sagas, practically in all the languages catering only to female audiences. Men were glued to ‘Fast and Furious’ ‘Two and Half men’ and ‘The Friends’ so much so that generations after generations refused to come out of the spell ‘The Friends’ had cast. So it was popular even after repeat, re-repeat telecast. Why even my son who is now a father of a son , still prefers to watch ‘The Friends’ and ‘How I met your mother’ and mocks me watching ‘Yang Chu Minh’ all the time making matching faces, that’s clinking the eyes and pursuing the lips with sounds stretched in nasal twang! 

The one that swept me off my feet was ‘It’s Okay to be Not Okay’ The handling of the subject that included psychiatry, murder mystery, love story and family drama was so perfect that not a single frame, not a single scene and not a single performance was out of the tune. I never realised that I binge watched it continuously practically for 18 to 20 hours. It never was boring at any minute, at any juncture and I never felt that any part is added to dilute the story line just to increase the viewing hours! A common practice for Indian soaps!

And then there was as if deluge. ‘CLOY’ Crash Landing on you, a story of South Korean female tycoon landing in North Korea in paragliding accident never goes overboard. Though they are enemy countries, both the protagonist, South Korean Female Tycoon and North Korean police officer are shown to be so human that never it sounds like a propaganda film. The common man, mostly female counter parts in North Korea are so lovable that they grow on you.

The last but not the least, which I fell in love with, may be because it is based on my profession of 50 years, is Dr. Romantic. The first season was aired in 2016 and the second one was in 2020.

It starts from the ouster of extremely talented, intelligent and righteous triple board certified surgeon, from a well known institute Hospital in Seoul after framing him in graft charges by unscrupulous money minded superiors, also doctors but the pawns in the hands of non medical corporate management The story unfolds at different levels about the doctors from various fields, hierarchy and acumen in a rural medical centre which is always short staffed, underprovided and is ruled with iron thumb by the parent institute in Seoul. I was so caught in the narration because I had observed, seen, at times gone through many incidences that was shown that it became difficult for me not to relate to. Working in hospitals where even the basic provisions are not available is like walking on a tight rope, balancing patient’s at the same time your own life from taking a downward spiral any time if the patient is lost even after your herculean efforts, because the layman on the street still is not aware of the puzzle that nature has created the human body! Being in Korea even being in rural area Gangwon, the hospital Doldam has every facility that I could not dream of even after working in Mumbai’s 700 hundred bedded hospital for more than 35 years. Though Doldam was in rural area it had CT scan, laboratory running for 24 hrs giving reports of important but expensive reports like Arterial blood gases within minutes, dedicated nursing staff or the ward boys who never said that ‘it’s not my duty’. Just for the heck of it, once I had to get in writing that 700 bedded hospital is not having any ECG machine in working condition and had to refer the patient for a simple ECG, an investigation differentiating between life and death for Myocardial infarction patient to the nearest Civil hospital. It was a test run, knowingly, and I knew the ECG would be normal. Had it been otherwise I would have without wasting the time referred the patient directly to the same hospital that’s over flooded and thus has its own problems to deal with due to overload fatigue!

The protagonist Master Kim as he calls himself discarding his original name Dr. Boo Yong-joo to remain anonymous after the fiasco, played by Han Suk-kyu is so real that I would have loved to be his disciple even today. The actor lives his role to so much of perfection that after few episodes I forgot him to be Korean and I started looking in him at times myself when the incidence was from my life or that of a colleague who had faced the same dilemma. Of course he got Korean Oscar for this role.

Mostly the second seasons fail to stand up to the first ones. They don’t have the zest of the first ones and look diluted just to make the show go on. Here to my surprise in second season, they have so many new aspects of medical profession those are dealt with so much of precision that you are left spell bound. The eternal dilemma of medical profession is results versus money. And the outcomes are always painful because we are dealing with human lives here. Patients throwing their arms up in the air while making the payments if the results are not up to their satisfaction is the commonest woo of the profession. To decide to operate on critical patients is another nerve wrecking process; surgeon has to go through, because if the patient dies relatives always feign ignorance and say, ‘Patient had come walking to the hospital and how come he dies after the surgery?’ without realising the fact, otherwise too he would have died! I have gone through such type of incidences so many times that I could not hold my eyes from welling up! I lost the count of how many times I had to hold my heart while watching the second season. I had gone through every phase of the profession and experienced every nuance trying not to shed a tear even in the most of the crucial situation. Doctor too in the end is a human being!

The list does not end here. There is every genre for every taste, served in its most pure form. No add on like ‘Helen’s dance’ or fights in the go-downs with papier-mâché drums!

I in the beginning was sceptical to watch ‘The Moon Embracing the Sun’ a fantasy period drama. For one who hardly can tell the names of Muslim kings those ruled from Delhi, Korean history was like Latin American history told in Mandarin. But... a big but it’s not at all about Korean History and the producer flashes disclaimer at the outset. I was so drawn in the narration that never realised, it’s a period drama. The characters wore traditional Korean clothes but the lingo, the characterization and the plot befits today’s politics like a glove. The production values of such dramas in India are highly deplorable, card board walls, thermacole minarets, ramparts shaking with heavy action, swords gilded with silver paper you name it and the superficial glimmer is given away within seconds. Here everything was so perfect that they actually erected an old Korean village in the studios. Even in the close ups nothing seemed synthetic. The Koreans do have their martial arts still being practised vigorously, so the skirmishes looked real without any doubts and not like well rehearsed in WWF.

There are many more like, ’Run On’, ’More than Friends’, ‘Coffee Prince’, ’My Love from the Stars’, ’Law school’

The success of K dramas mostly lies in their narration. None runs beyond maximum 20 episodes. Script is so tight that it never goes away from the main plot, every scene, every sentence and every action takes the narration ahead and it never lingers. Second important fundamental is casting. At the helm of the affairs is always a matriarch wielding the power wand. Not the likes of Nadira, Bindu or their counterparts from Hollywood like Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo. They are superwomen climbed hard way up on their merits and have prospered the business single handledly without being too shrewish of harsh. They do preserve their soft feminine instincts till last and these Elderly matriarch though wield the power with iron hand, are rightfully respected by all from the new entrant novices to the men who would succeed them. Even being old, they never wear traditional Korean outfits but are absolutely westernized in their attires. Paraphernalia does not leave even stilettos behind along with slit skirts and chiffon blouses thus all of them mostly look like  incarnations of Barbie dolls. Every actor looks the part., It’s interesting to note that, the beauty is a ‘Male’ Domain, In K Dramas. In every episode invariably it is reiterated at least 3 to 4 times that ‘How handsome the hero is!’For a change rather than the girls being the object of desire after a long chase by the boys, here the girls swoon over the handsome hunks and there are skirmishes to win him over ‘OPENLY’!  In entire episode ‘HE” is described as ‘Handsome’ or its congener at least by three rival groups to have their hands on him. Koreans have naturally good complexion so everybody looks handsome. Especially males as they have sparse facial hair, their skin always looks youthful. No more out of shape pot bellied ‘Randhir Kapoor’ or Just returned from the wrestling rink, Sunny Deol for them!

Rather than watching dumb beef cakes and dumber blondes get washed away in ‘Hallyu’ I guarantee, you won’t repent!

 

Existence

 

Existence. You are, because you exist. You exist because you are. Am I trying to catch the tail of the proverbial dog that goes round and round to catch his own tail? If one tries to reach the crux of the matter why do we exist, it boils down to, we live because we are born and because we are born we have to live, that nobody has control over.

Long long back had read a story by late Narayan Dharap, a noted writer who mastered in writing about occult, mystic, supernatural and everything that’s beyond comprehension of common, normal human brain.  In this one, he had dealt with some supernatural existence that looks down upon the human species, in general. His argument was there have been so many generations of humans, Homo sapiens but it seems that older generation has failed to pass on what it has learnt during its existence, to the younger one. While forming a new life why the partners who are learned adults can’t pass on their knowledge they have achieved, through their genes to the offspring? The new born is made to go through the rigmarole that we call, life. It takes years for that young one to become thinking sensible adult, a human being. If the older generation spent its entire life in accumulating what may be labelled as so called ‘Knowledge’ the younger one has to climb up the same steps to reach that status. So where is the achievement? Why? And what’s the propriety? It means Human race has to go through all the phases of evolution in one life time. Right from one celled embryo to tadpole amphibian to a full fledged human baby not necessarily fully evolved. If human race has to evolve more and more, the new born must inherit the traits what his ancestors have accumulated over the centuries. For example why the child has to learn the language his forefathers spoke for centuries? Why can’t he just give away the gibberish he speaks in his formative years and just starts reciting ballads, poetry or verses that have mesmerised his past generations for years?

To be frank for me, it’s beyond me. We have been told, it’s so and we blindly, mostly gladly accept it because we are lazy at the cortical level, even the gifted ones. They come out with another gibberish that fools some people for some time and they too get lost in the stream of life, that 4^th dimension ‘Time’!

One thing that remains constant though is, we cannot help to avoid, the wounds along the way, however erudite we may call ourselves. Everybody is wounded. There are few who neither make show of it, and more importantly nor try to hide them either. They move on with the life with their scars visible, at times bleeding but not allowing them to sway away from what they have decided to do with their lives. Most make the most of it and shout from the rooftops about how badly they are wounded, though in fact it hardly may leave a scar.  They make it their livelihood and try to live on the fake sympathy. There are few others who really get so wounded that they lose the zest to live and accept the defeat on the background of life, that eternal flame which makes the human race to go! Existence with its various hues!

Once we exist, we try to weave a beautiful web around us, may be a cocoon and call it life. But once the web is formed we lose our freedom, we just cannot escape from the web of life that we ourselves have woven. Life is not about the comparisons with the others but it is about the choices we make. And the hitch is everybody doesn’t get the same choices. The inequality starts from the birth. Your gender, your colour, and your looks, every single thing stands as an obstacle to have equal chance, equal opportunity. Right from your family, their social and more important their financial position in society spells the fate you are made to go through. Otherwise why do we have to suffer morons like the Prince charming only because he has good pedigree and backstabbers from the back door endlessly? They steal what is meant to be yours.

In a given situation putting in all the data collected over the years, and here as said before our genetics fails us miserably, from various experiences till then, we make a choice. May be right or may be wrong, because we come to know about it only after walking down the chosen lane few steps, 4^th dimension ‘Time’ playing a crucial role in the background! Because it is in the background, invisible, never can we reverse the direction and start afresh from the same point of bifurcation, as they always say; ‘Times’ have changed!’Some find it comfortable to be in, it just being a right milieu at the right time at the right place for them. Others waver many a time but nonetheless keep moving on correcting the steps as and when needed. They call it compromise, forgetting the very fact that Compromise is cheating oneself. But they are so happy rather complacent, that they take pride in sacrificing their soul in the bargain. The ones, who are lost, remain always lost because they carry their wounds on their sleeves and never allow the past to let go!

Even if all the possibilities are taken into consideration, there is a lingering doubt in everybody’s mind that always nags, ‘Had I taken the other path, would it have been different?’ Rather better!

I don’t have the answer but I too loiter on the trodden path many a time, give it a passing thought, chuckle to myself and move on! Because I am, so I exist and if I exist I have to live!

 

Animals in Captivity: Zoos

 

It’s every grandpa’s wish to carry his grand pillu on his shoulders to make it easier for the child to see the distant objects clearly. Being tallest in the family the privilege naturally befell on me. It so happened that we decided to visit Rani Baugh for Arsh, my grandson to have look at the animals which so far he had seen in the nursery books only. The very first enclosure was for elephant his dearest animal! But the elephant walked away slowly just as we reached his enclosure to have his grub; naturally it was me to carry him on the shoulders to have a look at him from a height. ‘See, Chee, Chee, [an elephant in his gibberish], is eating grass with his trunk’. And it went on! Nobody would have believed that Corona Pandemic is going on strong; the zoo was more crowded than the Virar Fast in the peak hours. We realized our mistake and turned homewards as early as possible. That took me to my childhood and visits to the zoos and other such children’s’ specials!

I spent my formative years in Pune, so naturally in those days it was ‘Peshwe Park’! To call Peshwe Park a zoo was crime of the highest order because the ensemble of the animals there was less than the humans on the South Pole! I feel SPCA was not that vociferous in those days. The cages for wild cats like lions and tigers did have less carpet area than the biggest room in Dharavi slum. It was pathetic to see those kings and queens of jungle to pace restlessly in that cramped space. The elephant cow, if I remember right her name, Sumitra was tied with iron chains to the iron posts and was allowed to have the rounds in the park only in specific hours. A joy ride for the children, of course at a cost. If I dig more I remember she was given on rent to parade in the weddings of big wigs, or other such events regularly.

After visiting ‘N’ number of zoos all over the world I pity the animals in Indian zoos; especially from cities where I stayed. My elder one, son was, still is, very fond of animals and every jaunt abroad was not complete without a visit to the local zoo. After visiting those vast zoos I realized why SPCA’s existence is necessary, rather must! 

Sydney’s zoo is located on an island, so you have to take a ferry from Darling harbor to reach it. Taronga is spread over 69 acres of land. It has more than 4000 animals of 350 species.
The specialty of the Australian zoos is, that they have so many varied species, naturally, because an island continent, country has been separated from the main land millions of years ago, ending in developing altogether different ecosystem, that includes flora and fauna too! Marsupials like Kangaroo and less commonly found Duckbill Platypus are natives only of Australia, and found nowhere else.

Not only marsupials but the flightless birds like Emus and Kiwis, big rodents like Wombats and bears those sleep for 22 of 24 hours of the day, Koalas are found only in Australia. My daughter Saana was hardly 6 years old then, dropped her talisman in the enclosure of Wombat. To her it was Australia so it has to be English. She pleaded Wombat to return it to her in English, ‘Please Wombat give it back to me, it’s very precious for me’. Remembering it still brings chuckle on the lips.

Sydney’s aquarium is totally different a story. It’s actually built in the sea in Darling harbor and to visit it one has to go underwater 3 floors down, really! It has 700 species of sea creatures and they are more than 13000 in number. In the underwater tunnel when a giant sting ray passes over your head, gives you goose pimples! It’s full with all types of sharks, turtles, octopuses and you name a fish and it’s there! Taraporewala is not even distant poorest cousin!

New York zoo made famous by the movie, ‘Baby’s day out’ is in Bronx and sprawls over whopping 265 acres of land! Bronx otherwise is a low brow area, only plus point could be the ‘New York Zoo’. Incidentally when we climbed down the metro station, a movie hall next to it was screening a ‘Govinda’ movie then. I was not much inclined to visit the zoo because the entrance fees were really very hefty. If I remember right, $ 25 for children and of course more for the adults. When it is zoo, Saket’s, my son’s dictates are final, so after spending more than $100 in entry fees when the first exhibit turned out to be ‘Indian Buffalo’ you should have seen my face! It too has more than 650 species and number of animals is more than 4000. For me except for ‘Armadillo’ nothing was surprising. But we visited every nook and corner of the zoo because according to the map, till the last cage/ enclosure is not visited, Saket would never give up! The best part of these zoos is the animals are kept, as far as possible in acres and acres of their natural habitat and there are actually no cages. La Rani Baugh Style! In India, only Hyderabad zoo may pass the bar with difficulty! 

Another zoo that made impression was Madrid zoo.

Though in area it’s smaller than New York zoo, 49 acres, it may be the oldest zoo in the history. Opened to public in 1770 it has maximum number of species as compared to the other zoos.500 species and 6000 animals. It was the only zoo where we could see Giant Panda, and is the only zoo where Female Panda gave birth to a young one in captivity, which normally is improbable.Apart from it, it also has two humped camels, again a rarity along with Llama which are not seen in any other zoo away from South America. Komodo Dragon too was sight to see for its ferociousness. But it was  not the novelty for us as we already had seen it in Taronga.

The title of the blog is Animals in Captivity. Denoting a pathetic undertone. Yes, it’s definitely there because all said and done the wild cats are fed on ready-made meat and do not have to use their killer instinct that’s most primal for the survival in their natural habitat, jungles! It came to my notice very objectively when we visited Tadoba Andhari Tiger reserve. You may call it by any name but in the end it boils down to ‘Tiger Tourism’! I was very thrilled, almost had goose pimples , when a tigress encircled our open jeep, attended to her nature’s call and had another round and then she vanished in the deep jungles I could have caressed her on stretching my hand, that much was the distance between us! We were 5 in our jeep and the drama that unfolded in front of us was one of its kinds! When I returned to Mumbai I had my doubts and I found entire scenario unnatural. Though we were in her domain she was least bothered about us. Does it sound normal? May be she was so used to humans around her that her natural behavior she might have kept on the hold. There were at least 50 jeeps behind us and around 1000 of tourists, waiting for her ‘Darshan’ impatiently for hours together! Tiger tourism making most profits for the government.

Due to the whims of the prince now we have Penguins in Rani Baugh, all 4 in numbers and jailed in watery enclosure of not more than 25 feet by 30 feet. The temperature maintained too was on higher side.

For someone like me who had seen them in much much better condition in Sydney and Singapore Aquariums apart from pitying them I could not do much apart from chuckling!

The concept of zoo here has to be examined with stern principles. Where the animals are used as exhibits in most unnatural conditions those zoos must be locked. Animals too have equal rights on the earth it being their mother too!

 

NetFlix Zindabad- China syndrome

 

 

Let me assure at the outset that when it comes to China the political enemy of the country I am no less than any patriot worth his salt. But lock down somehow has mellowed me down as far as common man on the Chinese street is concerned. He too must be bogged down by the official political stance but does not dare to express anything against the official dictates. He is not Rahul Gandhi!

It so happened that during the longish period of lock down I was absolutely bored after watching shows after shows from Hollywood with their beloved motto, at times overtly[ most of the times] at times covertly, to purport ’ The American dream’ and “American way of Life’ ,how it’s the best in the world. Even if the aliens attack our planet, it’s none other than America or Americans who are going to sacrifice their lives to save the planet, in other words us the poor ones from the third world countries. And that joker at the helm of the affairs did not allow us to forget that there could be alternative and world can survive without America.

By sheer chance I switched the Netflix on to watch a Korean serial,’ More than Friends’ followed by ‘A Love So beautiful’. Very simple stories about youth and the problems they face coming of age without any unnecessary convolutions, an integral part of Marathi serials, two love stories unfolded in most lucid style. Most of the Korean serials start from the high school levels. And to one’s surprise the lead actors look like school kids. 20 plus Varun Dhavan, Siddharth Malhotra and above all Boman Irani’s son masquerading as high school students was most difficult to digest. At the most Alia Bhatt could have passed the bill. In ‘A Love So beautiful’ the protagonist Kim Yohan in actual life was 18 years old when the serial was shot. Same for ‘More than Friends ‘ 4 yrs ago the lad Ong Seaong- Wu was just about 20 or 21. Same for the leading ladies. They LOOK their age. And so one can easily relate with them. And not like Rajendrakumar embracing mother less than his age and proclaiming, ‘Mother I stood 1^st In BA’

I don’t know why but the yellow race males do have less facial hair so they do look much younger than their actual age but both the above boys now really are in their early twenties. The most pertinent criterion for such type of lead roles is their ‘Cuteness’ quotient. Kim Yohan has it more than 200 times. Though he, also   Ong Seong-Wu, at times wear too much of makeup especially pink red lip steak, it does not let you down. And you feel cuddling them like stuffed teddy bear!

And it led me to watch some Chinese serials too. Some shot on the main land China but the rest in Taipei, Taiwan! It so happened that while watching such a serial, it came to me as a surprise when a character says that he is being transferred to Beijing! From Korea to Beijing? Then it suddenly dawned upon me that it was a Chinese serial and was from main land China. All those intricate signs in Korean, Japanese and Chinese languages look so similar and the intonation of the speech also is so similar that it makes difficult for you to differentiate them one from the other. The serial was ‘Wait My Youth’.

Again a serial about school children maturing in to young adults and trying to achieve what they dreamt of and pursuing their childhood crush and succeeding in winning the lady love! Ji Liaqui the leading lady, why lady, the leading girl is so petite that she may pass as your next door pig tail girl. Her suitor, Zhao Yiqin too is extremely handsome boy and I wondered how a Chinese can be that tall, around 6 feet and with so grandiose with sharp features. And then I remembered the group of Chinese film crew we had come across while travelling in Santorini!  Initially both are reluctant but finally coming together to fulfil their dream.

One thing led to another and I got hooked on the ‘Chin Pong Yaw’ languages. Surprisingly we on this part of the world are not aware what is transpiring on the eastern horizons, especially in countries like Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan. Like down south in India, all the four Dravidian languages borrow themes and keep on making remakes from one language to another, ditto same happens in these pictorial languages. And the results are surprising. What succeeds in Chinese may not work in Korean, or the flopped theme borrowed from Japan becomes block buster in China. I happened to watch two versions of the same theme in two different languages and it came to me as a big shocker. ‘Meteor Garden’ in Chinese though lengthy was far more superior to the Korean and the Japanese version, ’Boys over Flowers’ on the same story line. The ‘boy and the girl’ team in the ‘Meteor Garden’ was far superior to their counterparts in other languages. They looked natural for their age, surprisingly for their age, around 19, showed superb command over their craft, acting. The story line was fluent without unnecessary additions of the episodes ,delineation of characters was to the point e.g., Girl coming from poor background was feisty without melodrama and the boy coming from rich aristocratic family looked every inch smart, handsome and equally arrogant without overtones. And here I felt may be common man on the Chinese street might be as good or bad as any poor soul on anywhere on the Back the Earth, because they have shown the Girl coming from the ‘Underbelly’ of the Shanghai and Shanghai is not only about much tomtomed ‘Bund’ or ‘Maglev’ superfast train!

What I noticed glaringly in all these serials is the normal life the normal Chinese on the street is having. If you put aside your political views, the malls in China are overstocked with the daily needs. The people talk about having coffee at Star Bucks or Burger at McDonalds. The traffic on the roads is extremely organized with ultra modern Luxury cars zooming across and hardly there is any chaos on the roads even with the traffic jams. The buses, the metros are spic span clean and shootings are done when the normal life is flowing on by the sides! Not on the sets erected in the film city. People talk about literatures, movies, going for the outings, outdoor camping and trips like any other citizen of any other country in the world. Why, a music teacher renders entire ‘Tagore’ poem while deliberating on a specific point. Even the yoga is held in high esteem and the women from well to do families are shown to practise it on the regular basis!

Though politically they are two different countries, not from China’s point of view of course, Taiwan too has its own independent entertainment industry. And curiosity took me to the Mega star of the industry. Having alternative sexual orientation, which is normally, actually accepted in Taiwan, the poor boy was ostracised for it from middle school to college,  practically for 10 years, so much so that his parents too were not ready to accept their only son, and father tried to commit suicide to bring the boy back on the normal[?] track. After achieving successes after successes and awards after awards in all the Asian countries, including Japan and Main land China when he established himself as talent par excellence, in multiple fields, Cinema, TV and Music he now is allowed to live normal life. Soaked in Hollywood trivia, how many of us are aware of such tragedies occurring on the eastern front?

Last but not the least, of all the serials I watched from East, I would highly recommend ‘Refresh Man’ from Taiwan. The term ‘Refresh Man’ is used for a person who just goes to the office to sign the muster and then do nothing. How a hard working brilliant CEO transforms such nincompoops in to a best team is the crux of the story. It is the epitome of how an entertaining serial should be! Right from the taut script to direction, to character delineation everything is above the highest benchmark. The leading pair is so endearing and real that you want to fall for it. I was surprised that those chinkey eyes can express so many emotions and those faces can convey innermost turmoil to the last detail. In the end what counts are ‘Human emotions’, they are same all over the world. Only point here is, they did not require any prop ups to reach your heart. Every event, every thought directly hits the heart. If one goes by the translation even, the language even though it may be mandarin in this case, has such an enormous power to shake you from the core, that one really wonders what just happened? The suspense in the end when the serial ends brings forth the ugly as well as brilliant side of the power play between the higher ups. I would suggest, Just Go ‘Binge watch’ it!

Thanks to Netflix which has opened so many vistas to the discerning Cinema lovers like me. Not to boast but I watched movies from all over the world, thanks to subtitles in English and am grateful to it to allow me to watch Sophia Loren in her ?late? Early 80s in poignant Italian movie based on Old Matriarch and her adopted Moroccan boy, directed by her own son, Jr Carlo Ponti. Not to miss the movies from South American countries along with Spain, France and South East Asia specifically Malaysia and Philippines.

Lock down did not go waste on many fronts!  Thanks to Netflix!