KolkataMusing (KM) is read by a large section of Indian diaspora spread all over the world. Visitors feel KM offers information of value on many topics, and eagerly look forward to its posts.
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Please, please announce/share any such lifestyle/sport event with the readers of KolkataMusing. Bring delight to them.
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Ok, let's face it. Kolkata may not be what many would imagine before setting foot here. Visitors, who come here for the first time, are readily appalled by the squalor and the din everywhere. Once they dig in though, it starts feeling better bit by bit. To its credit, Kolkata perhaps is a city you can be a part of without much effort. On the street, in the para, inside the metro, wherever you go, you cannot possible remain aloof. It's another matter that all that you take in may not be to your liking. Which is perfectly in order, for life doesn't taste same for all.
I've been browsing the net to explore what others think about the city I live in (I do this now and then), and I come upon a grand coincidence. It's about 2 blog-posts. They look same, have nearly identical blog-title, and seem to share varying degree of passion for the city.
David McMahon's first. Having studied at St. Xavier's College, for David, now a Melbourne-based journalist, Kolkata is a great place to be in after presumably a long time. He is joined by Shakila Kundu and John Sampson in reminiscing all that Kolkata offered them during their visits in the past. Their accounts read so real, in particular, John's comment, which I know comes straight from his heart (quoted below):
David, it's lovely to read your home town prose, it yanked me straight out of my comfortable Melbourne life, through the computer monitor and onto the streets of Calcutta next to you. It's the first place I visited when I travelled India more than 10 years ago and the pictures of that city remain just as vivid as when I landed all that time ago.
Fresh fruit stalls, packed bus - this and that [Picture courtesy: top, above]
In contrast, Mike Unrau's 'City of Joy' is more circumspect. Mike is a 'field reporter', and this is likely his first trip to Kolkata. Mike starts thus:
Namaskar from Kolkata (Calcutta), where the homeless line the streets at night in the hundreds and thousands, sleeping in open air next to the tons of garbage on rickshaws and plastic sheets and doorsteps; where the crowds of people overwhealm the senses and saturate the soul..
You may blame me for choosing the 2 options to live healthy that are close to my heart. While accepting that I’m indeed choosy, let me say that drinking alcohol is still a big no-no in most Indian households. My mother, for example, can never accept that alcohol can ever do anything good. To her, alcohol and alcoholism are but 2 inseparable twins.
But why only blame my mother? Many in 30s and 40s surprisingly hold the same view, and some even cast alcohol-takers to the dustbin of nuisance. Those in 20s are fruits of new generation, and so there’s a greater amount of acceptability of alcohols among them.
Not so, walking. I’m a late joiner to early-morning walking brigade. Earlier, it was a struggle getting rid of comfort of bed. Now the situation is better. Tell you what? I enjoy my morning jig. Does it help? You bet. [Picture source]
For those who haven’t yet come to terms with either drinking or walking or both, here are a couple of excerpts to ponder over:
Is there a rescue from nightmarish waterlogging taking shape? Going by reports, there is. In fact, there ‘are’. We’ve for long heard that Kolkata’s sewerage – a prized possession from the British era – can no longer afford to bear the combined might of millions whose inevitable left-overs make way through it. Since very little has been done over the decades to check the health of sewers, much of those left-overs have become rock solid, so much so that no amount of ‘cajoling’ could dislodge them.
Which of course meant that Kolkata’s streets would resemble watery canals every now and then during monsoon. Will a happening city with gradually-opening arms for investments be down with sewerage woes? No way, roared the rulers-that-be.
And so, making way to the nation’s capital, our mayor has delivered the first part of a prolonged promise. Funds have been tied up (the most important), and plan of action is ready (the second most important). It’ll be a 402-crore affair, and after this there is a distant lure of 5000-crore for even more facelift.
Guess what? All these that are today’s plans should have happened eons back. It’s a long time waking. Does it feel a cozy future awaits us? Wait and see.
Inspection of brick sewer in Newark, New Jersey, US [Picture source] It is said that tree roots through cracks are a major source of sewer blockades. When the filth flows, the roots trap fats around them, which over time lead to permanent blockage.
This morning Kamala came to distribute sweets to break the news that her son has bagged a ‘computer’ job in a 24x7 office in Salt Lake. We knew her son was doing well in studies, but cared little to know any further. For Kamala was no person to be inquired about her family or well-being. She was our thike jhi (the hired maid).
Not a day passed, except very few, since last several years that Kamala hadn’t come dot on time, traveling as she did in the morning’s Canning local (the local train service from Canning) from her nondescript South 24-Parganas village. She was one of those faceless hundreds who traveled in that jhi-special (so described by us, the elites) to descend on the city in droves every morning.
She would attend to our daily chores, like cleaning last night’s utensils and preparing morning tea for us, even as we struggled to leave our beds. She would be in a hurry, doing rounds in 2 more apartments, before coming back to ours again, this time dusting the floors and doing odd jobs that were always there.
She knew if she didn’t do her work in time, the babus and boudis would be late in office. So, any slippage in her schedule would tantamount to serious offence, and might even lead to deduction from her salary.
She also knew she must bring up her son so that he didn’t fall prey in the hands of scheming local wrong-doers, so that he didn’t suffer the ignominy of being known as just a jhi’s son. Now that her efforts have borne fruit, she was visibly elated. She bent and touched our feet, thanking us repeatedly for all our support that made it possible.
Our support? Was she joking? I looked at her searchingly. Her gratitude was genuine. But I felt a pang in my heart. Only when I blurted out, "Not our support Kamala, it’s all your doing, your hard work," did I feel somewhat better.
I thought of asking her which office did her son get a job in. I also wanted to ask if she would still work as a thike jhi. But I just couldn’t bring myself to put those questions. Something deep inside stopped me from doing so.
My good luck I didn’t ask! For if I had and if she replied she would no longer be a thike jhi, it would have 'hurt' me. For my tinted eyes are practiced to see her as a thike jhi forever, no better, if not worse.
There looms a test of strength. Test between almighty CITU and the Salt Lake’s IT fraternity in Sector-V. And the day for the test is December 14 when the trade unions, mainly the left ones, observe a day’s strike.
For the record, the 3-day old West Bengal IT Services Association, as it is christened, formally flagging off on coming 17th, is as yet not affiliated to any political outfit. But those, who keep ears to the ground, firmly opine that the ‘Association’ (no word of ‘Union’, mind you) is nothing but a CITU-offshoot.
Expectedly, the IT bosses are alarmed, as they feel a day’s strike is detrimental to their 24x7 industry. Their fear is not misplaced keeping in mind neck-to-neck competition among various states waiting to lure away IT investments, not to speak of overseas clients getting jittery that their works will get affected.
Our CM is acutely aware of realities on ground, which is why he has always wished to keep IT sector outside the ambit of any forced work-stoppage. Whether his intent actually bears fruit this time too is something that will be known on Dec 14. Till then it’s a wait-and-see, even as the association spreads its wings further.
Soon a new address is going to add itself to the list of city’s banquet destinations. But it isn’t just another. For one, it floats on water, and if that seems exciting, the icing on the cake is the panoramic view it commands any which way you gaze. It’s the Floatel, or the floating hotel if you prefer, coming up fast off the Millenium Park on Strand Road.
Kolkata is the riverside city we love to belong to, but seldom we remember the Hooghly till we feel its need, such as immersing idols. Unfortunate but true. But it’s ought not to be. A good part of our leisure can as well be spent on the banks. Which means there needs to be congenial pervasion around to feel so.
Until recently, this was missing, but that’s a different story. Passing it for the moment, let’s gorge on what Floatel is to offer Kolkattans shortly. Without doubt, it’ll be a grand banquet destination, what with open spaces available aplenty. Add to it the flavor of watching a beautiful river flowing by, and it’s just too tempting not to give a miss.
The 2 imposing bridges – Vidyasagar Setu and Rabindra Setu – almost equidistant from where it is located, increase the glamour quotient, as much as the SBI’s regional HQ bang opposite. All in all, the Floatel promises a great value-addition to the city’s places-to-be-in.
It opens the doors for banquets early next month and the rooms about 4 months hence.
If Sensex’s touching 13000 today – the day of dhanteras – will be like fuel in fire, so it was yesterday in US when the bellwether Dow Jones crossed 12000 after dithering thereabout for a long while. According to experts, there are good many reasons why Sensex must soar, of which the main pointer being ‘above-expectation’ Q2 results by leading companies.
Be that as it may, a galloping Sensex brings cheer to the minds of lay investors like me, who always prefer shining sun in stock-markets. It’s all the more cause of cheer for those who worship Lakshmi and usher in new year on the occasion of Diwali. That the gold price is comparatively soft is also helping to add fervor to festive moments.
Talking of Diwali, perhaps it’s the first time that the NASDAQ’s giant 7-storey screen has been flashing Diwali wishes. This may be an indication that India’s stock-market has now carved out a firm place in global investment arena. [Image on the left/top is sourced from REDIFF]
Not many years back, matchmaking for marriage used to be the domain of newspapers. Who would forget the 'patro-patri' columns in Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) every Sunday running into several pages? The columns are there still, but much shorter, like skeletons of former self.
Marriage matchmaking in the meantime has become high-tech. An example is the ad of 'Shaadi.com' at the top of this page. When you click on it, you’re taken to its website that arguably has one of the best databases of prospective brides and grooms.
And now we have brick-and-mortar marriage bureaus managed by pleasant personalities, who will help you to ferret out the most perfect match. Shaadi.com’s offline venture is aptly called 'Shaadi Point'. There are 96 centers in 61 cities across India, of which Kolkata’s share is 5.
Adding video to profile – options galore [Picture source]
I've had the pleasure of accompanying an acquaintance to their Gol Park center and I must say that it's difficult not to get impressed by the sleekness of the whole thing, and of course the affability of those who run the place.
To be sure, Shaadi.com is not alone in India's matchmaking scene. There are scores of others, and some appear equally big as Shaadi.com is. Since Indian psyche puts quite a premium on 'perfect matchmaking', it's a huge opportunity out there. Which is why Shaadi.com has emerged as a big success in a short time.
Since matchmaking is being already offered, honed by skill acquired on the way, it's no wonder that pre-marriage and wedding services too will join the list of offerings. One learns Shaadi.com is soon going to launch a 'matching' service named – what else but – Swayamvar.
Is there a connection between what our CM says and JU’s meat-related invention? May be I'm reading too much into it, but if it is true by any stretch of imagination, it is indeed most welcome. And why not? We're meat-loving people, but alas our appetite is constrained by consideration for good health.
But first, what did CM say? Here it is on the 'auspicious' occasion of the "the signing of a memorandum of understanding with JRD Tata Trust and Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) on augmenting the production of goat meat in the state."
We produce the highest amount of goat meat in the country. But, since Bengal is also the highest consumer, we fall short of demand. Hence, it is important that meat production should be increased.
Not everyone prefer the idea of more meat eating, especially the doctors whose duty it is oversee our well-being. Therefore, when the Food Technology Department of Jadavpur University hit upon the invention of processed goat meat that is okay for everyone from 8 to 80, it is perhaps the most welcome news in a long time.
According to professor Utpal Roychowdhury of JU, the processed goat meat can be preserved, so even a few months' old stuff should be no problem. That's good, for processed food per se is more hygienic, no doubt there. What however remains to be seen is how it'll taste when we actually have the salivating kosha mangsho to partake, which, according to news reports, seems not very far off.
Sure it's music to the ears of foodies like me. What about you?
Last Sunday's The Telegraph has a letter from Siliguri’s Soma Datta, which is as under:
One wonders why one has to be assaulted by pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt every day that the star couple is in India. Why must we have photographs of the duo with their son inside an auto-rickshaw on the frontpages of our newspapers? Will somebody tell the stars that they look like dunces trying to experience ‘exotic India’?...
That more or less sums up what I feel like saying. But I’ve more. What about Telegraph’s penchant for desi variety as well? Hardly a day passes without having to bear pathetically smiling faces of Sush visiting Kalighat or Karina trying to rev it up.
This is not to blame Sush or Karina or, for that matter, Brangelina. They come for their own reasons, just as millions of others do. It’s the dull questioning and reportage of page-three reporters and editors that make it all the more disgusting.
Mainstream newspapers like The Telegraph often forget that theirs are not tabloids like UK’s The Sun whose business it is to track celebrities and sensational news. I won’t mind reading tabloids for I know what am I to expect. It’s when regular papers also try to produce a strange concoction that it leaves a bad taste.
This is that time of the year when the sound-control watchdogs come out in the open. Police prise open ‘suspicious-looking’ cargo, follow trails and generally keep a wary watch on all the roadside stalls that sell fireworks. The wholesale markets teem with sleuths, and some say there are incentives to earn if targeted numbers are caught with crackers.
For many a soul, Kali Puja is synonymous with burst of crackers and display of lights across the sky. One without the other is like a groom without the bride. To the best of my knowledge, nowhere in the world is the display of fireworks without sound of crackers. The fact that we hear crackers not only during Kali Puja, but also on other days when, for example, India wins a cricket match, testifies to our readiness to so celebrate momentous occasions.
20 tons of fireworks explode over Sydney's Harbour Bridge and Opera House, watched by millions. [Picture source]
Given our propensity to overdo things without much thought and not caring larger sentiments, it is no surprise that banning sound-evolving crackers hasn't worked though nearly a decade has passed since. Personally, I do not approve of high-decibel crackers. But certainly, lower decibels can indeed be allowed.
The moot point is we as a whole rarely enjoy an occasion in unison. Those who fervently wish a silent diwali may be surprised to know that fireworks displays in many countries are highly popular and eagerly-awaited events. Look no further than this site, which lists worldwide fireworks display events up to 2007.
You may feel enthused that there is an annual event – in May every year – called Rhine in Flames - Nights of Bengal Fire, in which “the red fluorescent Bengal Fire lights the way downstream for a fleet of more than 60 decorated and illuminated ships along a 26 km stretch - the longest stretch of any Rhine in Flames spectacle.”
The jury is still out on whether a silent diwali is more enjoyable than one which is not. Let’s hope the silent brigade learns a lesson or two on how to enjoy and spread joy. Meanwhile, do enjoy the video clip below, cracker or no cracker.
Guess who called me last evening. It was Rahul Dravid, the Team India captain. Oh, what a thrill it was to be called by him! You envy? Okay okay, it was Hutch’s trick. But Rahul Dravid it was indeed and I raptly listened to his endearing voice.
Alas, I couldn’t keep his request to stay tuned to live scores from Challengers’ Trophy, wedded as I am heart and soul to football, the greatest game of all. I was fortunate that he offered an option to ‘hang up’, for no cricket score enthuses me, live or dead.
Infosys’ robust second-quarter result yesterday has gladdened many hearts. It has even exceeded the best hopes of punters, and rightly therefore the stock is scaling new highs.
I’ve been looking at the figures and what leaps out at me is Infosys’ hiring of 10,795 hands in last quarter alone, pushing its total strength to 66,150 employees. Impressive indeed, and laudable too since it has provided employment opportunity to so many people.
But my inquisitive mind forces me to compare Infosys with another great, the IT czar, Google, though admittedly their business models differ. Google’s rep in the recent Wordmasters contest in Kolkata said that Google has about 7900 employees as of June last.
Considering that Google is a 1998-startup vis-à-vis Infosys’ 1981 coming-into-being, it is probably ‘understandable’ why Infosys is more populated than Google. But despite nearly 2 decades headstart, Infosys is not what Google is. Compare for example its market cap of $28 billion (NASDAQ listing) against latter’s $130 billion. There can be many such comparisons, the moot point however remaining that Infosys is not what Google is.
Why is it so? Why for all our ‘talent’ we boast we still haven’t had a Linux, a Skype, a Blogger or a YouTube? The answer is perhaps not far to seek. We are more mediocre than we like to believe. We tend to equate rapid economic development with ‘rise’ in talent. But that is a fallacy.
Who knows this better than our PM, Manmohan Singh! Being an academician himself, he’s acutely aware of our dismal pool of collective talent. Which is why he often expresses wishes that India ought to stop brain drain.
But will that help? Not really. What instead is needed is that we must have a conducive climate to nurture and respect real talent, treading miles and miles away from the publicity-guzzling talent-hunting gimmicks that we see on the idiot box.
Till that happens, till we have a Page or a Brin amongst us, let us not pretend that we’re full of talent. The American sweep of Nobel this year shows that they are the top-class at the highest level. We, the Indians, are top-class at lower levels. Let’s accept that.
On Sep 30, the Mahashtami day, Google arranged Wordmasters challenge in Kolkata and several other Indian cities. It was a writing contest and when I joined the flock of contestants in the morning, the excitement was palpable. One could feel it wasn’t so much for the contest per se as it was for the fact that it was Google’s contest.
The test was a clever way to ferret out alert minds with good command in English. Clearly, much thought was given to test the skill, and Google’s meticulousness was on display when the terms and conditions for the participants included the minutest detail one could imagine.
Theirs was a team of 4 who conducted the whole affair, assisted by some hired locals. It was smooth in entirety, and so when their affable suave representative informed that Google hired only the crème-de-la-crème, there was no reason to believe otherwise.
The thoughts came flooding when yesterday morning it became known that Google made yet another high-profile acquisition, YouTube, the enormously successful web-video-sharing company started just 20 months back. Like everything it buys – for example this blogging-facility, Blogger – YouTube too seems a perfect match for Google’s overall gameplan. [Image on left is sourced from BRANDWEEK.]
If one looks at Google’s phenomenal reach of more than 60% of gross US search volume with Yahoo and MSN trailing at 23% and 12% respectively, it becomes clear what Google is doing is indeed right.
Google is a great entity, no doubt there. It aims to provide any information easily and effectively. "Google is the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine."
Which is why there was no surprise when people rushed to be 'part' of Google on Sep 30, even if it was only for a couple of hours. It was like a favor asked to which people responded with unbridled enthusiasm.
The reason I keep the Sunday edition of HT is because I do not want to miss Vir Sanghvi’s and Karan Thapar’s columns, and of course the Brunch, that great necessity for a leisurely afternoon siesta. Both Vir and Karan are succinct and mince no words, though I sometimes wonder if Vir has it in his genes to be culinary expert too!
This piece is on Vir’s last Sunday’s article, The Indians Are Coming. It’s about his recent visit to Frankfurt Book Fair and interaction during discussions and interviews. I choose to pick the following excerpt. Enjoy reading (the image below is my addition).
Globalization: This led to a second set of questions. Many Europeans were losing their jobs because Indian companies paid such low salaries, making it easier for multinationals to outsource jobs to India. Wasn’t it legitimate, therefore, for the West to fear India and to take steps to protect itself?
I usually replied by saying that we did not invent globalization; the West did.
For years now, we have been lectured about the virtues of globalization. We have been told to drop tariffs and to allow cheaper Western products to flood our marketplaces. When we have responded that this will have disastrous effects for Indian industry and for Indian agriculture, that lakhs of people will lose their livelihoods and hundreds of factories will close down, we have been told not to be so shortsighted. Progress is about economic efficiency. And if Western countries with their economies of scale can produce goods cheaper, then we should welcome this.
When we have complained that the WTO structure seems biased against us and that Western economies use non-tariff barriers to keep out our goods, we have been laughed at and our objections dismissed.
For better or worse, we have grudgingly accepted the mantra of globalization and have agreed to let our factories close and to let our vanilla farmers go out of business. It has not made us happy but we have finally bought into the capitalist edict that goods must flow freely across borders.
Now, when we have a competitive advantage, when one of our natural resources (educated Indians) is much cheaper than anything in the West, the argument for globalization has suddenly been turned on its head.
Americans protest that their jobs have been Bangalored; Germans complain about the skills of Indian IT programmers who do their jobs twice as quickly and at half the cost; and Brits abuse our call-centre workers.
So, whatever happened to the argument for globalization? To all that stuff about economic efficiency being all-important? How come it doesn’t apply to us?
When they asked me in Frankfurt if I thought that the power of India’s educated middle class represented a threat to them, I said, quite honestly, that it did.
And when they asked if they should be frightened, I was as honest.
Be scared, I said, be very scared. The Indians are coming.
My 100th post this – a great personal occasion for me. And I’m happy too for this post, apt and timely. May I hope for many hundreds to come as I look ahead! If you, my dear readers, love this blog, why not cheer me up at mahanagar.net at gmail dot com, for no pleasure is as refreshing as hearing from you.
What will be tomorrow’s headline? Pyongyang’s nuclear test or Trinamool’s Bangla Bandh? It’ll be a close call between the two. To an objective mind, there would appear some common ground between the two. Both are regressive, both are aimed to launch tough bargaining.
Leaving North Korea’s test to experts (which clearly I’m not), let me dwell on today’s bandh. We’ve heard many a sane voice that forced work stoppages of any sort will be detrimental to state’s interest, since large investors who are flocking in will not like to face animosity for all they want to do with their moneybags.
It is unfortunate that the political class in Bengal has never been able to rise above petty considerations to work for the betterment of the state. The situation repeats what we have seen in earlier decades, except that the role is now reversed.
Several huge investments – mostly in infrastructure – are waiting in the wings to happen. It goes without saying that these have potential to put Bengal onto fast lane of progress. Given the muddying all around, whether and how the scene unfolds is something many are watching with bated breadth. Let good sense prevail.
If Sukumar Ray had been alive today, he’d have certainly penned something about ghoosh (bribe) for his immortal legendary collection of poems, Abol Tabol. But ghoosh was not as endemic as it is in today’s India.
Though Transparency International’s Bribe Paying Index (BPI) draws attention to Indian businessmen’s propensity to bribe their ways through in foreign shores, what is more alarming is the fact that bribe taking and giving have become accepted phenomena in average Indian’s psyche.
Since asking for bribe largely stems from government employees, who prefer to view their service as favor given to common people, it is a matter of conjecture whether it will ever cease altogether. Perhaps the answer to get rid of this malaise lies in making them more accountable for their jobs. Accountable for both catering to one’s duty in entirety and quality of service rendered.
The moot point however is who will bell the cat. Because if not the bribe takers, there is lot at stake for bribe givers. Sounds confusing? In reality, it’s simple enough. If Indian businesses are excelling in bribing overseas, what stops them from doing it in India? And so the cycle starts, whether majority of us detest it or not.
I've with me a nice 'what-pujo-means' from Sanyal da of Ongc. He's an ardent probasi bangali with perhaps a tinge of nostalgic feelings during pujo days. Do enjoy his classic piece. Here's a renewed subho bijoya to you all.
Leaving for her heavenly abode last evening, Maa Durga has assured that she will come back again this time next year. She is happy that no untoward incident has happened during her earthly stay. She gives an indulgent smile at Barundev's tantrums on all 4 days. "Well", she says, "you call me so soon before he finishes with his ashirwad. Now you cannot complain." We won't Maa, but as you know, we can barely wait for your coming.
If you're happy Maa, so are we. Here's wishing you a very happy journey back to your soshurbari. Goodbye till we meet again next year.
Some time back the Pope said that excessive working in office can lead to 'hardness of heart and suffering of the spirit' (read this interesting story). Pope's advice comes in the backdrop of what is widely known but barely acknowledged, which is that long and stressful office work and the urge to excel are taking a heavy toll in terms of healthy family life. Most DINK (double-income-no-kid) couples postpone having children, and even if they do have it would be no more than a single kid.
This finds resonance in German government's plans to grant parents (fathers or mothers) up to 14 months of paid leave to look after their newborns. Urgent steps such as this are felt necessary to boost Germany's falling birth rate and promote flexible working conditions. (More..)
If 'leave for parenting' with two-third pay is designed to entice young couples to create more babies in Germany, it is a different story in nearby UK. For younger lot there, the job scenario may appear to be getting a bit tougher, what with British government coming up with legislation to ban age discrimination at workplaces.
As the British trade and industry secretary Alistair Darling puts it,
Not only is it wrong in principle to discriminate against somebody because they are over 50 or because they are young, but it also doesn’t make any sense for the country or for businesses to exclude what could be a very large section of the population.
Looking at these 2 happenings, what becomes clear is that legislators are waking up to meet changes in societal priorities in order to tackle them before they become liabilities. It makes eminent sense because if a growing concern is left unattended, it may cause more harm in the long run than any comparative advantage accrued otherwise.
You may blame me for choosing the 2 options to live healthy that are close to my heart. While accepting that I’m indeed choosy, let me say that drinking alcohol is still a big no-no in most Indian households. My mother, for example, can never accept that alcohol can ever do anything good. To her, alcohol and alcoholism are but 2 inseparable twins.
If Sensex’s touching 13000 today – the day of 
The thoughts came flooding when yesterday morning it became known that Google made yet another 
