Monday, July 30, 2012

gatecrashed Indian Olympic march and other trash



Even if she wasn’t wearing the red shirt to hog the limelight, the mystery woman, gatecrasher of the Indian Olympic march, Madhura Nagendra would've been spotted occupying much of the camera frame owing to her rather large posterior. She ended up doing the opposite of what she probably intended to; now she's infamous.


I didn't even know what the term gatecrashing meant till it happened at some White House party a few years ago. It's a term I've not heard Indians use till recently. We Indians have people "gate crashing" wedding parties, if no one finds out the gate crashers make merry, if they get caught, we beat the crap out of them...and let-out the frustrations of the complicated arranged-marriage system which afflicts tons of mental and financial agony to generations of the bride's and the groom's family, on the blessed day. 


Anyway, Madhura Honey, the mystery woman, the gatecrasher, at the Olympic march of the Indian contingent, is the woman many Indians want an extreme punishment for (the usual pogrom mentality). Ah! that explains the sporadic and recurrent communal riots here.


It is just so easy to infuriate us over some matters Vs some others when the two are happening at the same time.


Some matters over the others eh!! What is this guy talking about?
Here goes:


From what I read from comments on NEWS websites, Indians are so infuriated about this that their comments on the issue have turned absurdly grotesque. 


We can't discredit the fact that the gatecrasher was an Indian, an over-excited Indian, just like some people who are posting comments about her. We've first gotta accept that there's something inherently wrong with the way we Act and the way we React.




The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has lodged a complaint to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) about allowing this woman to gatecrash. IOA is shouting “You should’ve stopped her. How did this happen? There could’ve been a security breach…blah blah blah blah”.


Sure the issue is not irrelevant. The gatecrasher should not have been allowed and there could have been a security breach. I hope that is an eye-opener for LOCOG. However they say that it's not really a topic  to rouse "breach in security" topic since Madhura was a part of the dance contingent inaugural by Danny Boyle. Therefore she had all the security clearances. Makes sense to me. 


However the IOA is given a kind of reaction that make you wonder what they're up to. Do they have an ulterior motive? heh heh heh heh!! Sure seems like.


You see by creating a noise over an issue on which they can't be held responsible and throw the blame on somebody else, they're quietly sneaking away from another issue that should send them to the gallows; they supplied inferior kits to the Indian Olympics participants. The contract went to some company by the name Dida.


I've played basket at a Government Sports Complex for a few years, I still visit sports stores that sell equipment and dresses for sports and I don't think DIDA is a popular brand, if at all known. I've come across Shiv Naresh, which seems kinda funny a name for a sports company. Yeah imagine a sports goods company in the west by the name Jesus Christ: yay! look at my new Jesus Christ swimming trunk or Jesus Christ football, Jesus Christ! But what the heck,  Shiv Naresh company makes stuff that most sports persons in India wear and it's well known, at least they're honest about the quality and price of their goods. So what if their Cat emblem is copied from Slazenger, at least they're not running to supply their stuff to the Indian Olympians.


WTF is DIDA anyway, it just seems like some wannabe name picked up from the middle of aDIDAs (“Adidas” if you couldn't read that).


When players start to complain about kits, that too once they've reached the venue and are about to begin their competition with the best players in the world who are using the best gear available in the world, you sit back and wonder "wtf is this IOA doing? Are they ensuring that all the hard-work of our Indian players, many a time in less than perfect conditions, goes down the drain?"


Goddamit, they're supplying ill-fitting clothes, wrong sizes and inferior material to the Olympic contingent!!


Who's gonna make a hue and cry about this?  Heh heh heh! Or is it that DIDA got the contract by greasing some IOA palms heh heh heh...as is usual of anything that happens here. I don't know, I don't know, I'm just suspicious now, now that they players are crying foul. What is this if not sabotage? First project that they're doing a lot for training the players, then slash their throats at the arena and leave quietly. 


I wouldn't have raised my eyebrow at DIDA (even its name sucks) so long as it had come up to the Olympic standards. Unfortunately we have a tendency to promote mediocrity, bribery and red-tapism but at the Olympics, greasing palms or being some big-shots son/daughter just doesn't get you gold, like it does in day to day life here (or even silver or even bronze or even a qualifier)...Ah! Maybe it gets you contracts with IOA.


But I have faith in the Indian players, they'll get medals despite these corrupt bastards (oh! that's not even a bad word anymore so relax!)


So it's not just the Indian Olympic march that was gatecrashed, so was probably the contract to supply them the tools through which they are supposed to show their talents; what a shame.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Good morning sunshine


http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NorthIndia/Jalandhar-civil-hospital-lets-newborn-die-over-Rs-200/Article1-895891.aspx
Now let's talk some more about our public health system. The gentlemen running/ working in hospitals in Patiala (an hour's drive from Chandigarh) removed a newborn baby from the incubator (at a Government run hospital) because the father could not pay Rs 200/- (USD 3.5). 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NorthIndia/SP-s-son-held-for-assault-on-African-student/Article1-884907.aspx
 I don't understand what Yannick Nihangaza (23) of Burundi thinking, if he actually instigated the brawl, due to which he's lying in a state of coma in Punjab. He probably didn't know the level of ferocity his attackers would garner owing to his black skin and our Indian abhorrence of it. He probably didn’t watch too much TV which is clogged with ads of how dark-skinned people are losers and the ‘treatment’ of the condition by skin-whitening creams.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Anupama in the PGI: We need reforms


After 4 days, Anupama succumbed to the accident as well as apathy of City Beautiful Chandigarh's Public Medical Care system, epitomized by the PGI (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research and Sciences). Anupama was a 17 year old girl whose leg got run-over by a negligent CTU (Chandigarh Transport Undertaking) bus-driver (WHOA! Imagine that kinda pain). Negligent bus-drivers are bad enough but negligent Health Care System is worse. The system at the PGI is so overburdened that doctors just can't attend to all the lynched, broken and mauled people lying everywhere in the trauma center.

Doctors are not very sensitive to patients crying in pain; how can they be, they're right in the center of the din all the time and anybody would get desensitized to noises. After all, they have to do their job and not go mad.

Even my real sister and her husband, both of who are doctors have a hectic life despite the fact that they work in a rural area, the kind of a place where there's a desperate need for more doctors but they just don't want to work in places that compromise any material comfort and live spartan lives. Why should they do charity anyway, most of them are bright city folk that have studied medicine in some modern city and well understand the charisma (even the pain) of their profession. Almost all of them have had their parents pay their fee through their noses. It is bound to be difficult to forget all that and go serve the poor. Sorry to digress.

Anyway, the medical staff at the PGI is second to none in the country. The problem is, as like all other spheres of out country, the excessive population. There are just not enough doctors to take care of the everyone at the trauma center. I have had a personal experience of the scenario. 

In 2008, a fully loaded Haryana Roadways bus ran over my fathers foot and pulverized his toes. Fortunately there was an acquaintance of ours around a Police Jeep took dad to the GMCH (Government Medical College and Hospital) in Sector 32, Chandigarh. There the doctors bandaged his foot and referred him to the PGI as they didn't have the expertise to deal with the case. At the PGI, a few Chandigarh Police officials make my half-conscious father to sign a document that said that the accident was all my father's fault and he didn't hold the bus-driver responsible for the act. I don't know if this was done to extort money out of the driver to set him free or the driver was known to some police-wala. Anyway, at the PGI we waited for 12 hours before dad was taken into surgery. All the while we did all we could to "influence" the docs in emergency to tend to him (ah! it's in our blood eh!). When one senior doctor answered the call by one of the ex-directors of the PGI telling him to be quick in treating my father, he replied in frustration "I am sorry sir, there are so many patients here, I just cannot deal with the case immediately." 

Trauma Center, the name speaks for itself. It's traumatic for everyone present there, the patients, people accompanying them and as well as the doctors and the nurses. I however cannot understand why Anupama was left for three days without so much as her bandaged being changed. As is with the educated elite class of doctors and their system, in today's newspaper, there is a detailed report of what all the Trauma Center claims it did for the girl, refuting all blame of negligence and I know no one cares about my gut feeling but from the PGI officials say about it, it's like they know that such things happen at times so let's have a proforma to present in court. They're not even sorry that the girl died. They appear upset that the case has been sensationalized. Though one cannot blame them for being upset about media sensationalism, the manner in which they are retaliation to this is just plain unconscionable. 

The end result speaks for itself. Since gas-gangrene spreads pretty quickly so the fact the girl died of it speaks volumes about the care she was given. Had it been detected in time, it wouldn't have cost her her life, though the infected area of her leg, most probably, would have been amputated. The given fact is that they just did not tend to her case till the time the realized that gangrene had set in and by then it must have spread  

PGI is a living breeding ground for dangerous microbes. In the days that followed my fathers operation, he suffered post-operative infection by the notorious MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics and causes blood poisoning and death, as well as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, another bacteria (that is not as dangerous as MRSA) but my dad survived. Gas gangrene is caused by a bacteria called Clostridium perfringens. We have to understand that these bacteria can be commonly found in the soil all around us, like the tetanus bacteria. Mind it that if tetanus infection sets in, it is 100% fatal, so if you get cut, it's a great idea to spend 20 rupees for a tetanus toxoid injection and not take chances (it's effective for 6 months anyway). Gas gangrene spreads quickly and is difficult to treat, amputation can be a big possibility.

So when the news said that gangrene had set into Anupama's leg, I wondered if she'd survive. From the day this girl met with the accident , I was surprised she'd survived, from the news updates in the days that followed about her condition (apart from the fact that girl was molested in sector 26 and there were other news of first degree murders in the city etc etc), my alimentary canal kept wrenching and telling my mind that this girl was not gonna make it. Bullshit with gut feeling, it was just a prediction based on personal experience of the condition of our government hospitals.

Is there gonna be some reform by the administration and the hospital to ensure that such tragedies will not occur again or is this just another life that got lost in thousands of others. The problem is that we all get used to bad things fairly quickly. Somebody gets molested, we say "shit! that's terrible." But the news follows in the days to come, our concern dwindles. After all we know that the police is always reluctant to lodge reports of crimes, we know there are goons all around, we know that the city is not exactly safe near midnight, we know that people swear on each other on roads and get into brawls in cafes, we know that there are country made pistols owned by many in the city, we know we all racist but who cares...pehele bhi chalta tha, ab bhi chal raha hai...chalne do. 

 Sad that the parents of the girl had lost two children before this and now are childless.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

This day




Wow! Awesome, today I just happened to be glancing through old chats on FB that I had with my wife. Of course we weren’t married then, we weren’t even seeing each other, rather we used to meet occasionally with a few common friends.

From the conversation it is so clear that something was brewing. In those conversations, there are insinuations attraction, repulsion and absolute denial of the former. I skimmed through it, thought of our day-to-day life these days and giggled. One of the days that we conversed was the 5th of June when last year we were planning a trip to Mcleodganj. Actually Mcleodganj was just one of the options. Funny that exactly a year on, we were there on our honeymoon.

At times you need to look back on the days that were so carefree, when there was no serious paraphernalia attached to the relation, when the relation itself was at a point of inception.

These were times when days passed before you conversed before sat to wonder what’s happening on the other end. There were people we disliked in each other’s lives that we couldn’t openly tell each other about and just shrugged our shoulders and said “How does it affect me; let it be.”

Then our lives began to intertwine and we fell deeply in love. Our eyes opened up to so many new things. Man! We literally had to battle our way through the opposition to get married. The real world turned out to be nastier than we thought and it changed us through and through. I don’t think we’re the extra-sweet, carefree people anymore that we were a year ago.

I find it rather amusing that we were like that and I am glad, almost proud that we took each other seriously enough to have made it through to this day. 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Good morning Chandigarh



What's embellishing the local newspapers recently:
 A girl molested in sec 26 by a dozen guys (Guwahati we're giving you competition), accidents in 43, 18 and everywhere, first-degree murders, second-degree murders, murder MMSs, wife-beatings, suicides, gun-fights, road-rage, break-ins, cases of harassment, insensitive police and when you read all that in Humid weather, makes me wonder if this is what the so-called Hell is like.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012