Prakash Jha, showing the way.

According to this report, film-maker Prakash Jha has offered to build a four-lane super express-way between Hajipur and Muzaffarpur.

Filmmaker Prakash Jha, known for his bold allegorical films, has offered to construct a four-lane highway in Bihar - a project no private company wants to execute due to the prevailing poor law and order condition.

[...]

When a tender was floated for the Rs.4 billion project in 2004, no private bidder applied for it. Government officials admitted that private construction companies were not willing to take up the project due to a perception that Bihar was India's most lawless state.

I have always loved the way Jha's films depict the rustic India. But with this, respect for him, as a person, has gone many notches up.

Jha campaigned for Nitish Kumar in the last elections. What good this pair can do for Bihar, will be known in some more time. I just hope they stay sincere & keep up the good work.

Indian Students Protest In Yerevan, Armenia

Sometime in 90's the trend to go to Eastern European countries for Medical degrees started. How useful this practice has been to the students, is yet to be seen, but the trend hasn't slowed down. Armenia is one such Eurasian country, bordered by Turkey to the west. At present, about 800 Indian students are studying in their Medical Colleges. On April 20, one Indian student, 21- year-old Prashant Anchalia, fell down from his hostel's sixth floor window (He was a student at Yerevan State Medical University, which is the recommended university according to the website of the Indian Embassy in Armenia). The reasons to that are yet to be known. What followed can only be described as criminal apathy, from the university's dean - Anna Sargsayn, even after being a Doctor, refused any first aid to the student and warned any other student against helping him. Although, it happened in a medical college, the ambulance arrived about 45 minutes late, that too without any basic life saving equipments. Anchalia succumbed to his wounds on the way to hospital. The students, mostly Indians, enraged after this shameful display of indifference, gathered in the dean's office demanding an explanation. The newly appointed Rector Gohar Kjalyan, responded in totally outrageously manner. Without any context, she referred to Indian girls as prostitutes, and showed the students the middle fingers of both her hands!

One Indian student from Armenia, Nanyaar, has blogged about this incident (Its bye, We protest for justice). I was skeptic that he might get a bit too much biased about the incident. But then I found some articles by one Armenian journo, Hasmik Hovhannisian & his her British colleague, Onnik Krikorian, adding credibility to the news. I quote from We Protest for Justice, Nanyaar first hand account of the events :

We could see that he (Anchalia) was finding it hard to breathe and had to put him in the recovery position, against the hostel warden’s shouting. His breathing became better, the pulse steady but he was fighting for his life. His legs were broken, a deep cut in the forehead from which a pool of blood was forming, and also occipital bone seemed to be cracked. He definitely had to have fallen in a sitting position.

The dean for foreign student arrived, a doctor herself, and did nothing but watch his helpless bodies fight against pain.

The ambulance arrived; 40 minutes later, by now a crowd had been formed. I was told later; that 3 minutes after the ambulance departed he had passed away.

[…]

He was a quiet guy. Never spoke much, confided to his room, small circle of friends and I remember the bargain he had got on an old yellow Armenian guitar on which he used to practice. Just today’s back he had asked me if I was going to sing this time at the Garoon (spring) festival, and that he was planning to. The media had portrayed him as a drug addict and a psychologically affected person which he definitely was not.

[…]

The death comes in as a surprise and the news of the ambulance reaching there after 40 long minutes and the negligence of the hostel warden and dean makes the Indian student body to meet the Rector, Gohar Kjalyan. Students refuse to meet her in the Red hall and demanded for an answer to be given right there, she walks away and then seconds later walks back, abuses the Indian girls to be prostitutes and shows both her middle fingers.

[…]

Finally at 10pm it was decided that they will be meeting in the University Red hall. Questions were raised which only resulted in diplomatic answer by the Vice chairman of the NA. The education ministry tried to come on stage and give a politician’s speech by quoting “don’t you want to know what really happened to your friend?” But all we needed tonight was for her the rector to resign and actions to be taken on the dean who as a doctor did nothing to see her student dying in front of her.

The Rector apologized at 12 midnight, and she still could not understand what we wanted, while she thought she could just walk away. All Madam Ambassador did was to sit next to the VC and give him tips on what to talk.

What is the Indian Embassy doing to help the students. Apparently nothing. I quote from Hasmik Hovhannisian's report:

The Embassy representative, Mr. Bali, advised the students to disperse and let them settle the matter the diplomatic way.

The Embassy told the parents of the dead boy that he had committed suicide, without even waiting for the investigation to be concluded.

The students do not believe it was suicide.

“He was a balanced person. He had many plans for the future. He could not have killed himself,” they said.

The four-person delegation came back from the meeting with Tigran Torosyan and said that Torosyan had asked them for two days to get acquainted with the matter and decide what to do.

After that, Torosyan met with the Indian ambassador, Rina Pandei.

Meanwhile, Anchalia's body was flown back to India on 21st April.

(Plea For Help From Indian Students In Armenia, Anchalia's Death Covered In The Media)
(Thanks Namit, for the tip. Cross-posted at DesiCritics.)

Important: I see loads of traffic coming to this particular post through some mail (various email-clients). Could some one please forward me the email at vasingh[@]gmail[.]com, please?

Imran Pakoda on JAM Mag

Quite some time ago, I wrote one farcical post on equally farcical dude, Imran "Gobhi Pakoda" Hashmi. Much water has flown under the bridge & Hashmi has kissed many more babes since then. Today I found out the link to the article on the JAM Mag site. Actually their editor, Rashmi, wanted to publish it in their Valentine's Day issue (for reasons unknown to me). Later, I got to know through a friend that it was published. It just skipped my mind. Today, I finally googled it out.

Though my article is quite openly mean & jealous towards Hashmi's tryst with luck & his lips' tryst with ... anyway, I should thank this dude, however grudgingly. That post brings maximum traffic to my blog via google. Numerous people from various places (India, Pakistan, Malaysia, USA, UAE, Venus, Pluto, Kryptonite, et cetera) google him out and many of them land up on my post, expecting news/accolades for their idol. I do feel a tinge of sadness for them, majorly because Hashmi is their idol (how pathetic can one get?).

Meanwhile, Hashmi dude would be least bothered. He is into the big league finally. The news channels were showing that he is getting about 80 lakhs per movie nowadays. This sudden raise is due to the rumours that the kissing scenes in Brokeback Mountain were performed by Hashmi, acting as a "lip double". He is supposed to lick the Hollywood soon! However, the Brokeback Mountain adventure has got his folks a tad worried. Just after he got back from Hollywood, they got him engaged, even before he could put on his lip-gloss. Of course, this doesn't hold him back from screen kissing, till it's just plain hetro stuff. His parents' worries are quite justified, when you see that his forthcoming movies are mainly multi-hero stories. And one of them is named "Good Boy, Bad Boy" (How gay can you get!). Looks like simple ladayi-shadayi pyaar-vyaar eshtory, with apna lemur faced Tusshar Kapoor. Hashmi has set the bar reaaaal low or what? They are also planning a hindi remake of Brokeback Mountain - "Chalo Pahad Ke Us Paar", with Hashmi and Ashmit "Wooden" Patel. Hindi version will have many more kissing scenes than the original, mainly because Hashmi can't do anything else and director doesn't want Patel to open his mouth. Just like the original story, two heroes would get stuck together and Patel would be talking in his stones-talk-with-more-emotions mode, and Hashmi would have to kiss him just to stop the verbal diarrhea. .. Aur Pyar Ho Gaya.

There, got what you were searching about Hashmi?

Absurd are the ways of our government.

Last time when I was waiting in the queue for security check at the Delhi Airport, out of curiosity, I checked out the list of VIPs/VVIPs who are exempted from security checks at all the domestic airports in India. All of the entries were posts and not individuals, like President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, former PMs, Speaker, CJI, Leaders of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, CMs, Ambassadors, et cetera, but for the last two entries. At number 22, the list had Nobel Laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The last name on the list surprized me - Shri Robert Vadra. The entry added, almost apologetically, “while travelling with SPG (Special Protection Group) protectees.”

Why O' whay O' whaay O' why? No one's got a damn clue. I googled for the list of VIP who don’t have to go through a security check, but the Indian government hasn't put any such list on the net. But I did find an Indian Express report about this issue (link, dated November 13, 2005). I quote from the report:

Son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Vadra’s name was added to the list on September 28 in a circular issued nationwide by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) under the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
...
As husband of Priyanka Gandhi, who is an SPG protectee like her mother and brother Rahul, Vadra does get SPG protection when he travels with either of them. But no other spouse or family member of any SPG protectee has been so named in the list.
...
Why is he the only spouse named in the list? BCAS Commissioner S R Mehra declined to comment despite a faxed questionnaire sent five days ago. On November 10, when The Sunday Express contacted his office, Deputy Commissioner R D Gupta said: “We have no official reply. BCAS just took out the order as advised by the Ministry. Please talk to MCA Under Secretary L Haokip for clarification,” he said. When contacted by this newspaper Haokip refused to comment.

Just taking out the orders, aren't we. Incidentally this issue has been discussed in the Supreme court too, according to this Hindu report (link, dated January 23, 2006).

The Bench, therefore, asked Mr. Vahanvati to find out "why Mr. Vadra has been granted this exemption. Tell us which other spouse is given this exemption."

In its SLP, the Centre said exemption from pre embarkation security checks was not only based on the Warrant of Precedence but also based on compelling factors such as level of government security coverage on the dignitary which would virtually preclude the possibility of any prohibited/dangerous items from being introduced on board an aircraft through dignitary, his or her baggage.

Whatever that means! Some serious bullshit being thrown around here. I've very little doubt that this exemption would create a serious security threat, but 1) why should this favour be extended to Vadra, and 2) Why only Vadra? Is he really what Congress-wallahs love to think - Damaad of the nation? Why not give such immunities to people who deserve it many times more, like Amrtya Sen? Didn't the Sarkaari airlines give golden pass to Amrtya sen?

Absurd are the ways of our government!

P.S: I so badly want the photograph of that notice. If anyone of you is going to fly soon & has a camera-phone, do me a favor and get me a photo. Ye ehsaan main marte dum tak nahi bhoolunga :-)

English, August

I'm reading Upamanyu Chatterjee's profoundly absurd book, English, August. Chatterjee's writing style is totally engrossing; his grip on the language impeccable & his descriptions brilliant. If you liked The Catcher in The Rye, you'd like this one too. Some would find some similarities with Catch-22 too. The blurb of the book says - "Agastya Sen is a young civil servant whose imagination is dominated by women, literature and soft drugs. As the novel opens, he has been posted to the small town of Madna. English August is a funny, wryly observed account of Agastya Sen's year in the sticks."

I could relate very well with the confused soul, Agastya. Though he does get a bit condescending at times towards almost everyone around him, which gets irritating & seems snooty, most of the time he just can't get less interested. He is really bored with his life and doesn't really know what he wants to do. He has made it to IAS, which is of course dream of millions, still he can't really fit into the life style, however hard his father and peers try. I'm yet to finish the book, perhaps I'd write a detailed review, perhaps I won't. Meanwhile, following is one extremely profound excerpt from the book; I really feel like this some time! Do get hold of the book, ASAP.

In his state of mind marriage was awfully remote - like a death in a road accident, it was something that happened to other people. It was inconceivable, sharing his room in Madna with someone unknown - perhaps a twenty-year-old girl with an MA in English, and getting stoned in front of her to read Marcus Aurelius. While Manik chatted with Pultukaku and elicited from him a few misanthropic monosyllables, the familiar feeling of the absurd, as much a part of him as his names, overwhelmed Agastya, and he wondered whether, when married, he would be able to exercise in front of his wife, and what he would do if, just when he was lunging for a push-up she were to say, For someone who exercises so much you're in awful shape. And suppose she stole his money? And the all-important subject of kinky sex - she might not like sharing each other's used underwear, then?

Eventually, he knew, he would marry, perhaps not out of passion, but out of convention, which was probably a safer thing. And then in either case, in a few months or years they would tire of disagreeing with each other, or what was more or less the same thing, would be inured to each other's odd and perhaps disgusting ways, the way she squeezed the tube of toothpaste and the way he drank from a glass and didn'’t rinse it, and they would slide into a placid and comfortable unhappiness, and maybe unseeingly watch TV every evening, each still a cocoon, but perhaps it would be unwise to be otherwise. And his once-secret life would be entombed in a mind half-dead to an incarcerating world, and he would remember, with a sense of bemused embarrassment, and in epiphanies flashes, brought on by uncontrollable jolts to his memory through a smell of some unexpected sight (perhaps the view from a train or an ad on TV), his this experience of Madna, that once the restlessness of his mind had seemed the most important thing in this universe, and that he had once been shaken by the profundity of an ancient Hindu poem.

Incidentally, this would be my second book by an bureaucrat, after We Weren't Lovers Like That by Navtej Sarna. Upamanyu Chatterjee, born in 1959 at Patna, Bihar, joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1983. In 1998, he was appointed Director (Languages) in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

Geeky love!

Geeks are quite infamous to be aloof towards the softer emotions in life. But there are some really buttkicking geeky ways to confess your love. Take a look at this amazing thing! Apparently, some dude (possibly some dudette) painted this on some roof in Queens, NY. Quite possibly, when it was covered by Google Maps (see link), he/she would have mailed the link to the lucky one. Alternatively, he/she would've rented a plane/baloon to surprize the love interest. Seriously, how can someone say no to this :-)

Hail the geeks because the geek shall inherit the Earth :-)

LICK-ed

Hold your dirty minds! The IIM results were out on 12th. I was in a train from Mumbai to Kota, Jha called me up to tell me that I made it into IIM Lucknow, Calcutta, Indore & Kozhikode (LICK ;-). Right now I'm at Jaipur. Will reach Bangalore on 16th night. Details later.

chalo then,
- Varun

The Times They Surely Are Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
- "The times they are a-changin'", Bob Dylan

Friends getting married. Friends fathering babies. Of course, this is all very good and all that, but along with all the excitement & joy, it makes me feel old. Rather older than my mental image of myself. You know, you would think its just a few years ago I got out of school and one fine day, while filling some form, you see that you completed class 10th nine years ago. Nine years?! Yeah, that sinking feeling. The sand of time slipping out of the fist, and all those clichés. ".. And accept it that soon/You'll be drenched to the bone."

Another one of the torchbearers of bachelorhood (no pun intended) has bitten the dust. Close friend & wingmate from hostel days, Amit Jain, is getting married in Kota on 13th. I shall be there to see the stone sink. Should be back to Bangalore (and blogging) on 16th. By then, IIMs results are expected to be out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

..Main Hoon Kaun?

I'm positively bored with "Lies, Damned Lies & Blogs". Its funny (punny) in someways, but not really related to me in anyway. When I chose it, I didn't want to keep blogging suspended just for a name, so I chose this one. Just like that.

I'm not really narcissist kinds, so there go all the "Mogambo's Den", "Dr. No's Lair" and likes. This blog is not deeply related with any topic, like Bollywood or cricket or politics; the name should reflect that too. Above all the name should represent me well.

I'm hunting for some thing more quirky, more appropriate. Any suggestions? Do drop in a line or two.

Update: Some very interesting suggestions -

• War-un Xing: I used to sign emails with this name for a while in college. Incidently, this is also the name of the central character of Vivek's best-seller coming out on Diwali. Which year, I don't know.
• Blogivision / Prime Time Blogivision: Pun on television
• Don Blogsco: Punny, very punny :-)
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf: The title I earned in college

I got few other suggestions too. Thanks a lot bhai log, for your suggestions. I'm feeling kinda ashamed, but I still haven't found the best fit. :-( May be I'll leave it as it is, what's in a name anyway.

The DNA Article.

Regulars here would remember that I talked about DNA publishing my photos, in my IIM Calcutta interview. Actually, their editor had contacted me asking for some photos and some inputs on the changing face of Jaipur. Apparently, he got to my blog via Google. So, I provided him with some photos & a write up. I was under the impression that they are interested mainly in the photos.

The article was published on Friday, March 3 (Page 14, DNA Mumbai), but I got hold of the article just now. As it came out, they have published just one of my images, but have given my write up an entire column. Excelente! Here's the article -

Here's the entire page -