The Mass Murder of Patients

All India Institute of Medical Studies (AIIMS) is one of the premiere institutions of the world in field of medicine. The doctors passing out and the ones employed at AIIMS are considered best in the world, all because of the world-class infrastructure provided by government from the taxpayers’ money. The doctors are good academically and in dexterousness. But, they are not good professionally and ethically. In fact, it seems that all the doctors of AIIMS have forgotten the Hippocratic Oath they once took at the start of their career – or did they take it at all?
The doctors should be treating their patients with all the skills and infrastructure that has been provided to them by the government not only because they are under oath but also because they are serving the very people from whose taxes they get their salaries and from that public money only AIIMS was built through which they received their world-class education in the first place.
These doctors do not understand the agony of people who to travel as much as 3000 km or more in the hope of getting better treatment and then finding out that let alone the treatment they are not even being let-in in the hospital. There have been instances when patients have committed suicide in front of hospital (call it a very painful euthanasia) because they could not endure the hopeless wait in front of hospital while the doctors sat hardly 50 meters away from him happily drinking fruit juices under the banner of ‘Indefinite Strike of AIIMS Doctors’.
The negligence of duty of doctors is a cause of lesser worry when compared to the way media presents the news of strike. The death of patients comes to nothing when it comes it comes to strike by doctors, media glorifies the “cause” of doctors and presents the deaths as a natural part of such process.
The government must put interest of the public before everything else, the doctors may be on strike for a valid reason but it still does not give them right to not to serve their patients. Any more strike and government should immediately dismiss the striking doctors from service, not only that, they should also be blacklisted. The doctors must understand that with government paying lakhs of rupees to train a single doctor, they too have a certain responsibility towards the society and its people.

The Secret of Clinking Ruler

The melancholy of the Management Accounting class was broken by a clinking metallic sound. Everybody’s heads turned towards the source of the sound and their stares came to rest in my vicinity. They looked at the stainless-steel scale which had fallen on the floor and then at the offender who had broken their peaceful trance, which unfortunately was me. That was the third day of our two-year long journey of MBA. I sheepishly grinned and picked up my scale, the heads returned to their normal position and soon the class was back to their business of dozing. The class did not realize that this clinking sound was soon to become an integral part Corporate Finance class of section B taken by Ms. Chhavi Mehta.
Criminology, the study of criminals and crime, says that to understand the reason of crime it is necessary to understand the mindset of criminals. The readers should take a cue from this branch of science and ask ‘What made Vinay Pandey drop the metallic scale in each class of Management Accounting?’ and then, as per criminology, the readers should allow the offender to present his point.
The point goes thus, that on the very first day we were asked by Ms. Mehta to reshuffle ourselves and sit according to roll numbers – I was impressed because the seats were neatly labelled with roll numbers and I went in quest of seat marked with roll number ‘99’, the classroom was bustling with activity as everyone was gradually occupying a chair, at the end I was the lone person standing because I could not find the chair with marked roll number. It was amidst the unfriendly stares and amused giggling that it occurred to me that those roll numbers were fake, they were marked earlier and then our lethargic college administration had forgotten to remove them. I was furious, and then I pledged that I will not let those arrantly confusing stickers fool me or any other person again and therefore, ladies and gentleman, I started removing those obnoxious stickers from our desks. I tried doing it by my hands, but my nails were all chewed up, so I could not do it quite efficiently which is why I started using the metallic scale I carried in my pencil-box.
I hadn’t acquired the dexterity to handle scale as a tool for removing stickers because of my newness to the profession of ‘sticker-removing’; this made me drop my tool often. As to the reason why it fell only in Ms. Mehta’s class, it is because it was only in that class that students’ minds left the classroom. As concentrating in that class was tough, so I utilized my time in fulfilling my pledge instead.
I say with some pride that I became extremely capable in the task of removing stickers and frequency of dropping the scaler came down to zero by the end of the first trimester; by the end of first year I could remove any kind of sticker with my bare hands without any tool at all.

Rang De Basanti – Colour it, for no reason at all

The general observation made by a certain gentleman, who called himself a philosopher while others called him a lunatic, is that in life you very often encounter people whom you don’t want to meet but seldom someone whom you really want to meet. It may or may not hold true for people but it holds true for cinemas – at least for me.
I was Mehsana where cinema halls are so primitive that they consider showing colour pictures a major achievement. I was happy that I am away from hustle and bustle of city especially promos of Rang De Basanti, and hardly watched television. It was on a one such hot and lazy evening that my uncle popped into his house with a brand new DVD player and asked me to set it up. Glad I was, because I had been trying hard not to be a parasite in their house, I immediately started on the work. Once the system was set up I grinned in anticipation and said we need some new DVD to “check if the system is all right”, I could see myself in that fancy video store I saw yesterday in the market and choosing my favourite title but my mausaji grinned back and whipped out a copy of Rang De Basanti. The last thing I saw was the wall clock showing 6:10 PM.
When I regained my senses the same wall clock showed 6:30 PM but the date had changed from 20th to 21st of April. They were still keen on “testing” their newly set up DVD player – not wanting to spoil their enthusiasm I put the DVD into the player with shaking hands and pressed the play button as if I am signing my own death warrant but the worst was yet to come, my cousin insisted on me sitting with her and endure that torture.
I thought that it may not be as hard as it was for the first time but this was worse. For, when I watched this cinema for the first time, the excitement of watching a new cinema along with the hype surrounding it had kept me awake till interval but this time I knew that it’s a bad cinema therefore each and every dialogue equal pouring molten lava in my ears. There are few places where director has somehow mistakenly given good scenes but those scenes can be counted on my finger tips of right hand – that too, without including thumb, fore finger, ring finger and small finger.
I give full marks to producer for inventing something which can be used by police and military as a substitute to third-degree torture. I do pity the hardened criminals who will be made to watch this cinema over and over again.

Gujarati Holidays

I had a chance to visit a very small town in Gujarat called Mehsana. The first observation I made in Gujarat was that people still drink excessively chlorinated water. Not that its bad, its an indication that water treatment plants are working enthusiastically but I had made the same observation precisely ten years back when I came to Gujarat for the first time, as a result, selling filtered water is a sprawling business. Two cans of filtered water, 10 litres each, are home delivered at house at a monthly cost of Rs 200 and people prefer this to water purifiers because tap-water is so excessively chlorinated that these purifiers require servicing every month.
Even though the town was small yet I did not miss the so-called metropolitan life – the place was clean, I could get everything I wanted including high speed internet connection. In fact, the internet connection was faster than what I usually get at Delhi cyber-cafés.
Gujaratis, it is said, are a rather avaricious type of community – though I think it is quite good because they do not allow themselves to be fleeced by auto-rickshaw drivers – very unlike Delhi. The auto-drivers in order to reduce costs use kerosene instead of petrol and Mehsana commuters, knowing this fact very well, bargain and bargain excellently. The result is that intra-city travel from end-to-end costs no more than Rs. 10! The drivers keep cribbing about the frugality of people and the imminent starvation of their children but still do not dare increase the fare from 10 to 11!
Another striking feature of Mehsana in particular and Gujarat in general is that temples are built in a very aesthetic manner. They merge with the overall ambience and add to the tranquillity of the city. Temples are seen more as a place to socialize than as a place to worship. Unlike many temples that I have seen in south and north India, most of the local temples in Gujarat (by local I mean those built in residential areas and not having any historical or religious significance not like Somnath or Nageshwar) have benches where people can sit and interact. I haven’t come across any such temple in entire North India and maybe even South India. Gujaratis may be misers when it comes to auto fares but they spend a good amount in building temples – the smallest temple I came across was built in an area of half-acre.
Another shock awaited me in the railways, while travelling to Lucknow and Gorakhpur I am used to seeing coaches filled up to twice their capacity even in A/C class (second class coaches are filled up to four times their capacity) here, even in peak season not a single extra person was present, I awed at the attitude of people and the honesty of ticket collectors.
At home an invitation awaited me for a trip to Gorakhpur, I thought of the jam-packed trains, people travelling without reservation, TT accepting bribes openly and then thought of the journey I had just made – I put up a fake excuse and refused politely.

Quota Raj and Indian Railways

It is strange that people get most brilliant of ideas in strangest of places and then having got the idea people do strangest of things lest the idea should slip off their mind just like it came. A gentleman, it is said, hence ran on streets of Greece naked so that the brilliant idea he got in his bathtub should not skip him; to the best of my knowledge he shouted ‘Eureka’.
I too got an idea while standing in queue and simultaneously getting frustrated by the length of the queue to get my ticket to Ahemadabad. The idea must not have been as great as the abovementioned person got, because I did not feel the urge to strip down and leave my queue to run on streets of Delhi, or possibly the idea of starting from the last point of queue all over again, which was some two kilometres away from where I was standing, must have preserved my sanity.
The idea is very simple but needs some background. Government, having shown its incompetence to improve socially and economically backward classes has gone for a quick and dirty solution to the problem by means of reserving 50% quota for SC/ST/OBC. If government has not been able to elevate the social status of backward classes and emancipate them from the clutches of poverty then it is utter failure of not only the education system but also of complete administration. Educationist and bureaucrats should practice what they preach. There are places in India where primary school teachers do not accept water or food from the so-called shudra. Same is the case with bureaucrats and police of those areas where Harijans are treated with complete disrespect. However, since the government is incapable of handling its own machinery they set up quotas to hide their ineptitude. But here again, the people who really deserve the benefits of quota get neglected and those sections of backward classes who are rich and influential get further boost.
Mr. Arjun Singh’s role after becoming HRD minister has been to use government services to improve his health and to get votes for Madam. In the process, he has completely forgotten the role which an HRD minister should play i.e. of improving human resources capabilities in a resource-rich country like India. Many youngsters go to countries such as USA, Australia and UK because our HRD ministry has completely neglected importance of encouraging researches at post graduate level, there is just one institute in India which is dedicated to researches of pure sciences. After completing the schooling and graduation many students leave for abroad simply because there aren’t enough number of seats and out of those which are available, ministry ensures that those too are not filled by deserving candidates but by those who have reservations for them in the name of backward classes.
And the best part remains how the ministry offsets the number of seats which are reserved for quota, it does so by increasing the number of seats. So, they are leaving no stone unturned to bring down the quality of education in India. First, they admit non-deserving students and then they also ensure that the existing standards also come down by straining the teachers to the last degree by increasing the number of students.
Now let us come to the idea which I got while standing in the queue, since we have imposed the quota on education then why not have a quota in the railways as well? Say 50% of the seats reserved for backward classes because upper classes can always resort to other means such as airplanes and cars. Better still; why not reserve the 50% of booking counters as well for the backward classes, just for social uplift!

Rang De Basanti – The Youth Awakens…on the wrong side of bed

This movie Rang De Basanti, or RDB as it is being called by the youth who have awakened after watching the movie should be categorized under comedy and should be given a rating 60+ (fit of anyone above 60 years of age) universally.
The tagline of the movie is ‘The Youth Awakens’ – I awoke when the movie was over, so the tagline is one thing which seems correct other than that its just a gibberish with a few 40 year old youths stripping down and waving their clothes at Mig-21. What exactly is the point of waving your shirt at passing-by Mig-21 still remains to be answered as do a lot many questions which crept up my mind. I am sure that not even the director (don’t remember and don’t want to remember his/her name) knows.
Let us try and analyse what it is exactly which made them claim that this cinema will enable the youth to awaken. Firstly, like in a typical Hindi cinema, the hero is shown as a lifeline of his friend circle; he likes to drink beer and jump in pool when he gets drunk and oh, he also likes to slap his own butt while dancing around British female. They also are a bunch of losers and often look down upon those who want to do something meaningful in their life.
So far so good, it does seem that the youth of India is sleeping – at this point it should be fair to assume that four or five losers of a college, unlike thousands who study and do well, can be taken as representatives of Indian youths.
One fine morning, they decide that they have really awakened and hence decide to kill the defence minister. Though the cinema tries to justify the murdering of defence minister by showing that their friend’s fiancé died while piloting mig-21 and defence minister put the blame on pilot. But the awakened youth has not realized the power of elections in democracy like India, may be they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Killing ministers is spreading terror and terrorism is bad Mr. Khan, do you know that? Uncle Sam will not like it at all.
Proceeding with the story, the youth of India having decided to kill the minister go on and kill him and miraculously, don’t get caught. They have an easy-to-follow five step plan to kill the minister:
1. acquire a pistol
2. acquire a bike – don’t bother to put a fake number plate
3. study the daily routine of defence minister of India (somehow they manage to do that and in this case find out that he goes out for morning walks)
4. kill him while he goes for morning walk
5. run away
All this can be done; ministers do go out on morning walks. But to my disappointment I noticed that ministers live in high security zone of Lutyen’s Delhi. Even if you manage to shoot at minister there are ambulances on standby, there are police jeeps which can catch you in no time at all – for heaven's sake, you are planning to attack the defence minister himself, that too in the safest corridors of Delhi.
Then, after escaping successfully, they feel they didn’t get enough ‘kick’ to awaken properly. Another idea pops up; they decide to confess their crime on a no lesser medium than All India Radio. They enter the building of All India Radio and surprisingly, metal detectors do not detect their guns – after entering they announce happily that they killed the minister. Having got the morning jolt their faces turn happy, now the youth is ready to go to work!
But you see, terrorists should not be allowed to go to work. Anti-Terrorist forces see to it that the awakened youth is put to sleep again. Sigh! I love happy endings!

Raina - The Hero… Give him a break

For the last three days the sports page of any newspaper Hindi or English has been carrying an expert opinion about Raina. It seems that newspapers don’t have anything else to cover; as if the sporting world has come to a standstill after Raina’s performance so that sports correspondents do not get bothered by any other petty events and can fully concentrate on analysing the performance of Raina from every possible angle (including the encouragement he got from his neighbours ten years back for playing cricket).
Raina today was being portrayed as a substitute to Tendulkar, while Tendulkar may be having a bad phase in his life and retirement may be imminent for him, we still can’t compare likes of Tendulkar to Raina. For heaven’s sake he is just a kid who did a wonderful job in one inning. If he continues to do so for coming year or two then we may think of comparing him with legends but as of now the idea is ridiculous not because he is not good but because he is too new for this.
The media tends to over-hype a single performance to an extent that the person simply buckles down under pressure of performing well (because media expects him to perform) and this is what is happening to Raina. The pressure on him has grown manifolds simply because of media, this is the punishment for playing good cricket. God forbid, if the same person performs badly in the next match then media will make sure that his career in cricketing is over even before he gets out of the stadium.
The need is to go easy on him and let the time decide his fate, not the media!

Look at the Broad Picture...then see your Problems

I quote opening paragraphs of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy" written by Douglas Adams…so satirical but yet so true…

For out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper there were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Letter to Censor Board and Maneka Gandhi

Dear Madam Maneka Gandhi, PETA, Censor Board (particularly Sharmila Tagore) and other concerned personalities, who love to protest over animal rights,

I am making a full-motion cinema and I will be using animals. In the light of controversies surrounding Rang De Basanti and other cinemas, I seek your no-objection-certificates for the movie which I will be making.
The name of the movie is still not known and the plot is still in conceptualisation stage but I am sure that by the time you people get over with discussions, debates, protests and road shows we will be ready with the storyline and the title. However, I do understand that you people have constraints and you require the type of animals which we will use along with their specific purpose for your discussions.
I am giving out the list of animals along with the proposed situation for their shoot:
1. Horses: we want to shoot the hero riding a horse. I assure you that horse will be treated as humanely as possible. It will be provided an air-conditioned stable and will be provided food of highest quality. It will also get a personal attendant, a make-up man and accommodation in a five star stable should we require shooting in other location.
2. Dogs, bulls, cows and other stray animals found on road: they won’t be employed specifically; however, they will come in the picture frame because we plan to shoot the hero moving in a car on Delhi roads, we will be giving them chapattis, biscuits, bones etc. as their remuneration for voluntary (and unwanted) appearance. The food items will be approved by leading veterinarian.
3. Sparrows, vultures and eagles found in the sky: again they won’t be employed specifically, but will still come in the camera because sky will anyways come for any outdoor shooting.
4. Chicken (dead): We want to show the hero eating chicken in a restaurant. If you think it is violation of animal rights then we can edit this scene and ask the hero to eat grass in pastures with cows. In that case, please grant me permission to show cows in my cinema. We can not take guarantee for the grass the cows will eat.
5. Homo sapiens or humans: I am seeking your permission in the light of the statement “man is a social animal”. Please note that this animal is an absolute must for this project. Most of the production crew will consist of this kind of animal only including the actor, actress, director, producer, spot boys and cameraman.
Sirs and Madams, since we belong to the same species I am sure that you will understand my sincerity and grant me the requisite certificates for the cinema.

Yours sincerely,
A sub-species of Homo sapiens called the Producer.

First Post

Welcome to my blog!
A new blog, deviation from PanKap, not because of any personal differences but because of a common belief that each of us should have a separate personal blog.
I will post here my own feelings and opinions for myself (and possibly for Kap and Anu) and for no one else.
Frankly, who cares if it is not as popular as PanKap and frankly do I really want to? I will write for myself and care less than penny (or paisa) if others don't like it...