Are you really with Anna Hazare?

This happened some 17 years back. The septic tank of our huge residential complex had to be cleaned. We saw two men standing near the tank filled with human waste. They wore small dhotis and entered the pit. They started pouring the waste outside manually. The whole place was filled with stench from rotten human waste. I closed the windows.

By evening they had finished the work. I saw the man emerging from the pit. His body was completely covered in sh*# and he was pouring water over his body. The rotten smell lingered. Bars of fragrant soap and perfumes wouldn't have been able to chase it away. We wondered how it must be for him to go home to his family smelling like this. This is his job - so they must be used to this...

Later in the evening I overheard my father discussing this with my mother. The poor man was supposed to have been paid Rs.200 and the official in charge of this refused to pay him if he did not offer him a percentage of this as commission or bribe. The man complained to my father. He said, "Sir, nobody will do such dirty work even for a huge sum. We are ready to do it for such a small amount and from that also the 'big' people want to steal". Thinking about the man I wondered if any of us would do that work even for an obscene amount of money. This nameless and faceless man symbolises the dirty face of corruption all of us are ashamed of.

The over whelming support for Anna Hazare is symbolic of the goodness in people. But will that translate into a real battle with corruption? How many of us will actually have the courage to promise that they will not be involved in any act of corruption, how ever small they think the act is - bribing traffic police, RTO officials, ask government officials for favors (?)...

Corporation's sterilization drive for strays paints a gory picture

Sid

When the corporation guys landed in our street looking for stray dogs, we thought it might actually be a good idea. With many vacant plots in our residential layout, we see a lot of strays around. Tamed by man eons ago, these animals have now settled down with them, incapable of fending for themselves. They have actually been reduced from hunters to scavengers. And their population was exploding.

Whatever the consequences are, babies of any species are adorable. My daughter loves dogs and watched over the new litter of five. They were in varying colors - black, brown and white. She did not trust the corporation guys when they assured her that they would take care of the small dogs and would safely return them to the same location a few days after the sterilization surgery. As NGOs like CUPA were involved, it seemed likely - I thought so.

A few days after the surgery, two of the pups were returned. The poor female looked as tired and sick as any creature, whose ovaries and uterus were ripped off. We thought she was just recovering. But the next day, her entrails were seen hanging out of the wound. We informed CUPA and they sent a vehicle to pick her up. They said the area was covered by another NGO. Two days later they informed us that she had died. The male dog, which was operated simply stopped eating and was found dead another day later.

Sid and Daisy

Only a few days before these pups were seen happily playing together and sleeping in a cuddly bundle. I wish there was some way we could co-exist...

Yet another B'day

Celebrated yet another B’day on 5 April. As a kid I was unhappy about the fact that my B’day always came during the summer holidays and I never got to wear color dress and distribute sweets to my classmates. And finally when I went to senior classes, my B’day was always during my exams!

Once we wanted to know the exact time of my birth for my horoscope, which is considered an absolute necessity for all arranged marriages in Kerala. My mother said that my late father had written the time in his diary (He passed away a few months before my wedding). So we searched the huge pile of old diaries, which my father had meticulously kept. In the 22 year old yellowing diary’s page for 5 April, my father had written, “Harsha was born at 5.15pm and I became a father”. It’s so hard to imagine him as a 27 year old new father. My mother said that the names were ready even before I was born. I was to be Harsha or Preett.

My father would always narrate this story on almost every B’day. I was born in my mother’s ancestral home in Kerala. It was a new moon day, which is considered inauspicious. My father was at work when he heard the news and rushed home. When he reached my mother’s house, he met my grandfather at the gate. Without much enthusiasm, he said, “It’s a girl”. My father did not have a permanent job at that time and my grandfather might have thought that a girl baby was not the best thing to happen under those circumstances.

That was not all – my father overheard some woman say that the baby may not survive. She said, “Poor Chandran (my father), if only he gets to bring her up”. He was really upset. But he said he was confident that I was healthy. He said, “Your cries nearly shook the roof, and that meant you were healthy, but a little too small”. Usually babies stay with their mother, but my father ensured that I was always with him whenever he was around. His concern for my health resulted in my becoming a little too chubby by around 4 months, which I supposedly maintained for around 7-8 years.

Instead of my father telling this story, I narrate this to my kids on my B’day. Now, at the brink of 40 (just turned 39), it feels nice to look back and go back in time.