Random Notes

Makki Ka Makki

Ok, fine, you saw this coming. Indian American kids have won the 9^th successive Scripps spelling bee competition. Well, this time two Indian American boys have shared it. Yaaawn…. What’s new? Actually nothing. But isn’t that amazing that how our education system has ingrained in our genes, the perfect art of rote learning, or mugging? Even when the Indian diaspora kids are born and brought up in the USA, this quality of rote learning is successfully passed down genetically from the parents. From whatever I have read, Spelling Bee competition is nothing but remembering the spellings and meanings of words (like Gesellschaft or rhinolophid-try pronouncing that!) which no one is going to use and which will be found in only one book-dictionary. Our kids are masters of mugging. Period.

This brings me to the kinds of marks the students score these days in 12^th. Anything less than 95% is ordinary now. A boy committed suicide recently before the CBSE class 10 results were announced fearing poor performance. He had scored 91 % ! When I see my children’s text books, it makes me sad that even now the emphasis is on reproduction of facts. Of course, there is a vast improvement in the text books now compared to what it was during our school days. But even then, I feel that the methodology does not engage or involve the children to make learning as something to look forward to.

Sankey Tank Walk

Sankey Tank, Malleshwaram is a walker’s delight in the mornings and lovebirds’ paradise in the evenings. The walking path is uneven and the banks of the lake are unstable at some stretches. Sign boards warn walkers not to lean against the railings. When the civil works began to address these problems, we thought that it would get over within a couple of months. But even after two long years of digging and concreting, the work is still on. Only one fourth of the total walkway length is being renovated at present and if the authorities decide to dig up the remaining stretch, Sankey would be an eyesore and walking would be hell for the next five years. I have filed two RTI applications with BBMP to know about the cost estimate, scope of the work etc but have not received any replies. So, I have focused again on walking now!

Last week, I came across a very brisk walker at the Sankey Tank. I am reasonably fast but nowhere close to this short, thin man in his forties. When I saw him walking for the first time, I too was fired up. I tried to match his strides but fell behind immediately and before I knew he almost disappeared out of sight around a corner! I also noticed that among the hundreds of walkers at Sankey Tank he had no competition. A super brisk walker friend of mine unfortunately finds the bed more tempting in the mornings than the walking track of Sankey Tank. Otherwise a race between the two would have set the Sankey lake afire.

But recently I gave a real fright to this undisputed walking champion. One morning after I had covered a hundred meters or so, I felt a flash of lightning zoom past. Then I spotted the walker in front of me, speeding as hurriedly as ever, as if he was already running very late for an important appointment. I suddenly increased my pace and almost caught up with him and he looked over his shoulders in obvious surprise. Then he got into the seventh gear and sped ahead of me. A couple of paces later, the walker was still stealthily looking behind with the corner of his eyes for competition. I allowed him to gain complacency about his lead and then smiling wickedly to myself, I softly sprinted to a distance of about five metres behind him. As I coolly walked beside him, his face showed astonishment. ‘How the …… this fellow reached me so fast’, he must have thought. Shaken, he got into the eighth gear and whizzed away from me, not failing to throw side-ward looks once in a while. Not intending to get caught, I did not continue the fun and walked at my usual pace. I hope that he realized how he almost lost the race for the first time at Sankey Tank. If he did, I am sure he had a hearty laugh.

The Deafening Silence of Bollywood

It is a no-brianer that Salman Khan does not know how to act. Allegedly an assaulter of women, a drunken driver cum murderer, a wildlife hunter and now, clearly a sickening speaker. But what is more sickening is the behaviour of Bollywood which has formed a protective shield of silence around him. Not a single actor has criticized Salman for his outrageous comment and asked for apology. His father had better sense and immediately asked for forgiveness on behalf of his son. Shah Rukh Khan ‘does not want to judge others’, Priyanka Chopra says, ‘there are so many issues pertaining to women which are much more important’ and when was the last time did anybody hear Big B taking a principled stand on any issue? What amazes me more is the fan following of Salman Khan. Is it for real?

Let There Be Love

Let There Be Love

A couple of months back, I read a devastating story about a high school girl committing suicide by jumping from the rooftop. She had been admonished the previous day by the school authorities for moving around with a boy. The boy and girl had been found to be spending time together in the school campus. They were ‘caught’, their parents summoned and advised. The girl could not bear the humiliation and a precious life was lost.

In the year 1989 when I was in class nine, I was in the belief that I was in love with a girl of the same school. Never mind that she was hardly aware of my existence. One weekend, I was traveling home from school with my friends and a teacher. We missed a connecting bus and had to walk six kilometres. We did it joyously along the tar road with dense forests on both sides. After sometime into the walk, my friends began pulling my leg over my love interest. The teacher overheard our conversation and asked one of my friends, ‘who is the girl’? After much prodding, my classmates let the secret out. The teacher laughed loudly, perhaps at the incredulity of the combination and then we trudged on. After that, the teacher would tease me occasionally but there was no reprimand or sermons or ‘I will tell your parents’ threat.

How come this simple act of liking another person - I don’t use the word love here because in case of youngsters it is mostly liking one another - generates such harsh reaction from the teachers these days?  Most kids pass through the stage of ‘teenage turmoil’ (remember this charming serial which used to be aired on DD in late eighties?) in which every second person of the opposite sex looks attractive and seems like a perfect future life partner. My 11 year old son is in ‘I-just-don’t-like-girls-at-all’ stage now and it is quite interesting and fascinating to see them under the thrall of each hormonal phase. When he tells about a friend of his (in the next hormonal level) liking a girl in his class, I make it a point to treat it casually and never laugh at it. Perhaps the teachers need better training and guidance on how to handle the teenagers with care, respect and more understanding.

To sum up on a positive note, my faith in humanity and love was restored recently. I had gone to my kids’ school and as I was waiting to meet the Principal, I saw a bunch of high school students - boys and girls - talking to each other. There were shy smiles on their lips and stars in their eyes. May the One bless them.

The World At Their Feet, Literally

The UPSC results are out and there is a great, deserved jubilation in more than a thousand houses. 1078 young, bright candidates have been selected by the UPSC to head various wings of the government. The son of a security guard, a rickshaw driver’s son, a Muslim boy who had to change his name to get a house on rent, a young topper in her first attempt - there are positive stories galore. We all rightly believe that in UPSC the selection process is fair and transparent and that only the deserving candidates get selected. Let us not once forget that all these hardworking candidates will be soon holding responsible positions affecting the way our country is governed. Let us hope and pray that they stay firmly grounded as they go high up the bureaucratic ladder and remain empathetic to the problems of the common man.

Another result and the same feeling of positivity! When I was at the HOPCOMS yesterday evening buying fruits and vegetables I happened to overhear a conversation. There were three people standing by the roadside-an old woman, a middle-aged man and a teenaged boy, all in soiled cloths and they looked like construction workers. The boy’s cloths were torn in places and from their attire, it was clear that they were migrant labourers from Northern parts of Karnataka.

The woman says to the man, ‘You look very happy! What happened? Where had you been?’

‘Just now returning after seeing the SSLC results. This boy has really done well. Got 62-63 percent’!

‘Ho, that’s great. He has passed the exam then, hasn’t he!?’

She pats the boy on his back and he gives away a toothy grin.

‘The marks are quite good, aren't they?’, the old woman asks again.

‘It is good. But the boy could have done better. 70-80 % is considered very good’.

‘What is the difference then?’

‘He should have scored 6-7 marks more’.

Then there is some casual chat and they disperse smiling. That definitely was one heart-warming story which made my day.

A Fervent Plea To The Foresters

Kuppalli, the birthplace of the great Kannada writer Kuvempu is a treat to the aesthetic senses. Kuvempu’s ancestral home, Kavimane, is carefully preserved and tastefully maintained. When we reach the popular tourist spot in the evening, there is a small crowd of enthusiasts going around the place. The setting is picturesque in the midst of Western Ghats. Surprisingly and thankfully, the surroundings are neat. Just outside the premises of Kavimane, a small canteen is dishing out bajjis but I don’t see any discarded plastic cups or plates. Of course, the place is not spotless but it passes the Swachch Bharat test handsomely.

Kavimane at Kuppallai

It is getting late for the sunset and we hurry to the sunset point near Agumbe town. ‘Will it be crowded’, I ask the driver. ’Of course’, he replies, ‘and today is Saturday’.  When we are five kilo metres away from the point, I see the sun dipping quickly behind a haze of mountains in a red ball. I am not disappointed as I have been to the place before, a good two decades back, just about the time when the location was popularized by the famous Rajkumar starrer ‘Aakasmika’.

The now famous sunset point is close to a forest check post. As we near the gate I see a virtual gridlock of vehicles ahead of us. The show is over and people are heading to their next destination. We are in fact caught in a traffic jam. The driver asks us to get down near a small series of steps that would lead us to a vantage point. The sunset would have looked lovely from here and I find the scenery-a panorama of forested landscape-enchanting. But distractingly, right below me is a sea of vehicles parked haphazardly all over the road. School buses, taxis, private cars, jeeps, buses with children on excursions-not less than 300-400 vehicles and a crowd of 2000-3000. And litter everywhere in all colours and forms. It is not out of place to mention here that the sunset point of Agumbe falls inside ‘Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary’.

                     Scenes at the Sunset Point, Agumbe

People have every right to visit the places they want to and nobody should have problem with that. With increasing education, income and awareness more and more people are moving out and exploring new destinations and the tourist places are getting crowded. For the city dwellers, even a small stream or a mini-waterfall near the road in the countryside becomes a pit stop. Just like in the West, youngsters hit the roads on Saturday mornings and return to their city homes on Sunday nights with wonderful stories to share and flash drive full of pictures. Eco tourism is the in thing and you find hundreds of tour and trek organizers online. If there is one thing that is common for most of the travelling and tourism in India, that is forests. A vast majority of our treks, hikes, walks, drives, camps, visits, homestays, darshans, homages, campfires, safaris affect the forests either directly or indirectly. Sadly, the ‘eco’ part is missing in most of the tours and if we, the foresters don’t pull up our socks and brace for the challenge, we will have no place to hide when things go beyond redemption.

Kukke Subramanya, the once sleepy temple town in coastal Karnataka, now attracts hundreds of devotees every day and during weekends, thousands. While travelling from Bengaluru, after one crosses Sakleshpur, the landscape turns hilly and forested. The jungle gets denser as one nears Kukke Subramanya, after Gundya. The trail of litter too starts from Sakleshpur. It gets worse after Gundya. One can see people stopping midway for a meal break. A stream nearby comes handy. You can even see people cooking food on the roadside. When the job is done and the groups drive on, evidences in the shape of chips packets, water bottles, chocolate and biscuit wrappers, cigarette packs and not too uncommonly, liquor bottles, are left behind. Most of these areas on either side of the road happen to be reserve forests.

 In the divinely beautiful and serene Pangong lake, I have fished out an Lays packet while an army officer and his family was served juice and snacks right at the edge of the lake. In the wonderfully desolate Changthang grasslands and all along the Leh-Pangong route, one is sure to get distressed seeing the amount of litter thrown by the careless tourists. When I went to Ooty four years ago, I was heartbroken by the scene of utter carnage of filth unleashed by tourists in and around the town. The most abominable stretches of litter were to be seen in forest areas in the outskirts of Ooty. Broken beer bottles told a thousand stories of tourist hooliganism and official apathy.

While on a visit to Dehradun recently, I drove along the Mussorie road for a field exercise. Here is what I find on either side of this busy road.

                        On the Dehradun-Mussorie road

Interestingly, it is not that the foresters do not have any powers to streamline and regulate tourism and take action against the offenders using the existing laws. Section 27 (1) puts restriction on the entry of people inside a sanctuary and 27 (4) reads, “No person shall tease or molest any wild animal or litter the grounds or sanctuary”. Again, the Indian Forest Act of 1927 gives ample powers to the foresters to restrict the entry of tourists, regulate their movements and activities in reserved and protected forests. It really beats me why we are not utilizing these provisions.

I am sure that many of you might have observed that of late it has become a common practice to dump waste materials in the forest areas, especially near the towns and small cities. Lorries and mini trucks, pick-up vans silently dump the garbage into the forests, streamlets along the roadsides and speed away. I have seen this phenomenon mostly in and around Mangaluru and also in many parts of Kerala.

                                            Near Mangaluru

We, the foresters crib that the tsunami of developmental agenda is ignoring our concerns and we are easily and regularly overruled. But if we care and more importantly, if we dare, we can contribute immensely to maintain what we have within the realm of our jurisdiction. The domestic tourism industry is growing tremendously every year (the Tourism Ministry’s report for 2014 says ‘the number of Domestic Tourist Visits to all States/UTs is 1282 million and the annual growth rate is 12 % !!) and if we don’t act now to stop our forests from becoming dustbins, we will be held equally responsible just like the reckless tourists. Let us put barricades, restrict, calculate carrying capacity, monitor, educate, publish ads, punish the offenders, put CCTV cameras, shame the litterbugs, anything. Let us do something. Let us not wait for somebody else to do our jobs.