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EDITORIAL With average Indian life span having touched 62 years, one should normally feel satisfied of having lived full-life. It hardly matters whether it is king-size or pauper-size. The world is beautiful. So are its beings, the intelligent beings who can reason out the meaning of life. The world abounds in variety that is wide enough to spend each minute of your life fruitfully. But the world is small for those who are deprived and cannot think beyond making two-ends meet. For some it is medicore, partly satisfied and partly disillusioned. Life in fact happens to be what you make of it and how you absorb its trials and tribulations. To be precise, it is full of kicks, charms galore even as tragedies do make some ingress here and there. That is why it is said that a businessman is not complete unless he becomes bankrupt at least once. Sufferings thus from part of life and from it stems the satisfaction of having surmounted the same. One can also view life as a constant change that keeps on heralding newer and newer concepts and things. It is therefore said that life itself is a change; without change life is as good as extinct. Once change is talked about, it ought not to be change for the sake of change. Change has to be marked and discernible. It could change for the better or hoping to be .....more |
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Waiting for Dr Death! Corruption in
administration Pros and cons of Pros are a con Education - a Last write-up of the
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EDITORIAL With average Indian life span having touched 62 years, one should normally feel satisfied of having lived full-life. It hardly matters whether it is king-size or pauper-size. The world is beautiful. So are its beings, the intelligent beings who can reason out the meaning of life. The world abounds in variety that is wide enough to spend each minute of your life fruitfully. But the world is small for those who are deprived and cannot think beyond making two-ends meet. For some it is medicore, partly satisfied and partly disillusioned. Life in fact happens to be what you make of it and how you absorb its trials and tribulations. To be precise, it is full of kicks, charms galore even as tragedies do make some ingress here and there. That is why it is said that a businessman is not complete unless he becomes bankrupt at least once. Sufferings thus from part of life and from it stems the satisfaction of having surmounted the same. One can also view life as a constant change that keeps on heralding newer and newer concepts and things. It is therefore said that life itself is a change; without change life is as good as extinct. Once change is talked about, it ought not to be change for the sake of change. Change has to be marked and discernible. It could change for the better or hoping to be better but turning out to be worse. Either way there are enough of kicks. Change from infant to child, from child to adolescent, adolescent to adulthood and then unto wedlock. Then the offsprings, the cuddlesome babes, seeing them grow into beautiful things full of life until sunset hour engulfs you with all its concomitant problems and you leave the good earth for good. It could be professional changes that some time touch the story of rags to riches. Remaining unemployed and then one day getting the long awaited job. To be precise there is enough of life span to enjoy good and bad of everything that comes one's way. You can also do what you like. Be an actor, playboy, philanthropist or a jaunt happy person. All this means fulfilment of one's mission in the given life-span. Yet it is strange that even when one fails to achieve the objectives during present life, one starts thinking of the next life. Yes, the next life. As per Hindu mythology you could be a human being again only after going through 84 lakh rebirths. So there is a scheme that can get you human rebirth faster than others. It is all gamely provided you believe in next birth. The rituals involve a lot of benevolence, charity and yagnas. All these can propel you into the next birth that would be as much scintillating and charming as the current one. There was a lady who wished to be sparrow in next life. When questioned about her choice being so funny, pat came the reply, ''You see, sparrow is a free hopper that can fly and fly to unknown destination having an eyeful treat of the good earth below. She does not have to think of boarding and lodging expenses yet she constructs a beautiful nest for her offsprings and see how she feeds the new-born. No Farex. No medicines. No worries. There is just no birth as beautiful as being sparrow''. Well, this was her way of thinking. Now his daughter-in-law feeds sparrows everyday very affectionately thinking one of them to be the mother-in-law. May be some think of becoming snakes so that they could bite all enemies at random. Some might have first preference for tigers and lions to roar at the weaklings. Long live Farooq! He thinks of becoming a girl next life. Perhaps, as girl she would do to men what he has been doing to girls. As nurse she could nurse the sick although as doctor he could not do it. As air-hostess she could play games akin to what he has experienced during this life. And what a kick if that plane gets hijacked! As actress she could be the like of Madhuri Dixit marrying to a 'an eminent doctor' producing many Farooqs. And the hidden agenda is to become the first 'Woman President' of India! |
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Waiting for
Dr Death! Mukundan Pillai, a 69 year old retired teacher of Kollam (Kerala) want to court in March this year, seeking permission to commit suicide. Pillai, otherwise a happy well settled gentleman, does not want to commit an unlawful act. He has a house of his own with a nice garden and a lawn. His children too are well settled and there are no grounds to say that his family members are harassing him in any way. He is so serious that he has engaged a lawyer to demand the right to die with dignity. As the year 1999 was declared by the UN General Assembly the "International year of the Older Persons", Pillai's action should assume greater significance. Four other old men have followed Mukundan Pillai by demanding similar right from the court. It is reported that the offices of their lawyers were "flooded" with hundreds of letters from other Indian senior citizens expressing support to Pillai and his fellow contenders for making the right to die with dignity as a basic human right. Similar demands have been made by old people in the west particularly in Britain and United States of America. So far there is no country which has legalised suicide by old and sick people. In social circles suicide is considered a detestable act perpetrated by a weak hearted person. In the eyes of law it is a punishable crime. If a person is caught attempting suicide or has survived an attempt to do so he can be arrested and prosecuted. In India the number of senior citizens is estimated to be nearly nine crore i.e. almost nine percent of the total population of the country. With the life expectancy going up from 27 in 1947 to 70 years, it is not surprising that the number of the old persons is going to increase manifold. While in the advanced countries of the West there are a number of social security measures for the senior citizens, in India we have no firm policy for this vulnerable section of the society. The result is that the plight of the old is becoming more and more miserable. Not to speak of the poorer segment even the well to do senior citizens are faced with serious problems of neglect and isolation. With the breaking up of the joint family system and the moving away of the sons and daughters, in most of the cases due to the nature of their professions, te old parents are left to fend for themselves. It is a fact that due to spectacular advance made by the medical science not only the longevity has increased the old men and women are generally maintaining reasonably good health. People even at the age of seventy and above can do work which does not require too much physical involvement. Euthanasia The real problem for the old is lack of opportunity to do any useful work. Besides the isolation and neglect faced by the senior citizens it is the sense of useless individuality and lack of purpose in the life that stirs the socially unacceptable thought of ending one's life. Many find solace by taking refuge in their religion and its rituals but majority fails to recognize the good that the spiritual support can provide. Lack of strong and firm religious faith leads to deep depression which is considered as one of major causes of seeking an end to one's life. However the question that is being hotly debated is that in the case of an old person afflicted by a terminal illness, suffering unbearable pain and distress, with no hope of survival, would it not be fair that euthanasia (mercy death of those suffering from incurable painful disease), is allowed to take place? Dr Death Dr Death is not a fiction. He exists and his real name is Dr Jack Kevorkian. He claims that he assisted more than hundred persons in ending their lives. In doing so, he said, he had performed his duty only to help his patients to get rid of their terrible pain and execute an early end to their terminal disease. In 1989 he "invented" a death machine even. As he named it Thanatron (a Greek word meaning death machine) he got the nickname Dr Death. Dr Jack Kevorkian was born in Michigan in 1928. In 1987 he placed an advertisement in Detroit local paper: "Doctor consultant for the terminally ill who choose death with dignity". His visiting card said "Jack Kevorkian, MD, Bioethics and Obitiatry. Special death counseling. By appointment only". Not only that he felt bold enough to put advertisements in the news papers he even videotaped the death of one of his "patients" which was telecast on the national Television channels in USA. He challenged the authorities to try him. He was tried and convicted for second degree murder. Presently he is serving a sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison. While sentencing him the judge said that the conviction was not about euthanasia but it was about lawlessness. Although Dr Jack Kevorkian has been sentenced for abetting suicide there are other prominent American doctors like Tiothy Quil M D, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Dr Arthur Caplan, Director for Centre of Bioethics who have favoured euthanasia. The Hindu belief Swami Ramana Maharishi and Ramakrishna Parmahamsa both suffered terrible pains of cancer. Yet they maintained equipoise and peaceful appearance. They had accepted the inevitable with grace and dignity. The thought of committing suicide never crossed their minds. Hindus believe in the philosophy of Karma. It follows from this faith that one cannot escape the fruits of Karma; past or present. We must, therefore, humbly accept the consequences of our Karmas as there is no way out; even though one may end ones own life one cannot run away from the long arm of the Law of Karma. One will have to complete the cycle in his next birth which is also inevitable. Thus when any of our Rishis and Yogis was struck with a serious painful illness he took it as a "gift" from God and did not wish to escape its ravages by committing euthanasia. Rather they felt that it was better to discharge to liability of their past Karma in this very Janama and not commit yet another sin by ending one's own life. |
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Pros and cons of insurance
opening The opening of Indian insurance business to private players has so far simply enhanced much awaited public expectations. What actually has opened up- the reopening of insurance sector, pleasing the industrial lobby, scumbing to western pressure, accepting public demand or keeping pace with global liberalisation, has not been so far precisely projected to understanding. The necessity, benefits and implications of opening up of this trade is to be clearly spelled out for its true benefits to the masses, besides justifying its nationalisation and now its reopening. The fact remains that the monopolistic approach of Government patroned LIC and GIC of India failed to come up to the public aspirations mainly in terms of service parameters mainly due to negligible competitive threat. The selective expansion of their operational network mostly confined to urban conglomerates at the cost of rural India defeated their very purpose of Nationalisation concept. Work disproportionate excessive staff recruitments affected their output and fulfilment of uninterested social obligations their profitability. The trade unions of this industry attributed poor performance to politically motivated excessive government interferences and believe that privatisation was not only the way to generate competition and improve insurance services. Thus the percentage of insurance premium to GDPI in India never crossed 2 percent barrier as compared to 8 percent in USA, 10 percent in UK and 15 percent in South Africa. Constant forceful persuation by Ficci and CII under the banner of continued deterioration in country's insurance services affecting common man, forced Government to implement the recommendations of R N Malhotra Committee as a step towards the entry of private sector into the sanctum santorum of Indian insurance industry. Comptroller of Insurance was replaced by independent statutory Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) to work out the technicalities like 100 crore paid up capital for fresh entrants, 26 percent foreign equity in joint ventures, adequate solvency for security, going rural for social obligation etc. through Insurance Regulatory and Development (IRDA) bill. But no afforts on the factual improvement in the basic insurance services affecting common Indian have been laid down. Government has been justifying the decision by sending signals of keeping reform pace with the fast changing global economic scenario. Creation of healthy competition with improved technical facilities on level plying field for opening up this sector and substantial investment for infrastructure by the new entrants has been projected by the bureaucracy. All unfortunately without realising the benefits and its future implications on common Indian. Realising the vast virgin Indian insurance potential where an average Indian spends $6.4 for buying insurance cover as against $2272 in USA and $1674 in UK, big domestic industrial houses in tangdem with their western colleagues adopted trade pressure tactics in order to make their buck out of the situation. International insurers enjoying sufficient financial backings can dominate Indian insurance market. The question remains that whether they can do so and more important that whether they would like to engage themselves in a manner that would allow them to do so. In countries like Korea and Taiwan, where even after seven years of insurance openness, the market share of US insurers is less than 2 percent. Fear from foreign partners prefering profitable insurance segments can provoke greater forex outflow and can lead to net insurance related foreign exchange outflow over a longer period. Even IRA fears that foreign partners can walk away with premia generated from Indian market. Also Indian trade does not have any good experience to rely on their experiment with foreign financial institutions, when their operations remained confined to urban areas for generating their profitability at the cost of larger rural India. Domestic entrants depending mostly on bulk business from big houses and brain drain from existing operators will try to price insurance at less than the cost of its production for broadening its base by attracting masses. This insurance dumping can lead to their economic non viability and ultimately deterioration of even existing insurance services. Now deterioration by and large, Indian customer is also quite aware of quality purchases, the stage is all set for a show down only with the plea of safeguarding the policyholders that time alone can authenticate. |
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Pros are a con At the end of the second millennium, prostitution, the oldest profession in the history of mankind, is a flourishing industry. And if some feminists and activists will have their way, it maybe legalised and professionalised in the next millennium. At the recent women's conference in Delhi on Humans Rights, jointly organised by AIDWA, AIWC, CWDS, JWP, YWCA and NFIW, increasing child prostitution in India and the ramifications of it being legalised, was one of the main concerns of the activists. World over, a very vocal pro-legalisation lobby, patronised by none other than Hillary Clinton, argues that prevention of rising prostitution is possible only if prostitutes are considered 'sex workers' in the true sense. Working rights will not only empower them but also protect them from falling prey to HIV. Issuing work permits and licences would give them status and the power to check further growth of the sex industry. But women at the Delhi conference felt that in another decade the world's oldest profession, which was always considered a cheap and deplorable act by society, may just take the form of skilled or unskilled labour _ medicine, engineering, teaching or tailoring. Something which was considered immoral (socially and legally), degenerate and anti-woman will actually be sanctioned as a career option! The call to legalise prostitution was raised about five years ago in India. Besides women activists, several NGOs and even medical experts demanded that prostitutes be given legal status to protect them from exploitation and the AIDS virus. This lobby sees prostitutes as a vulnerable group and feels the need to empower them. As the industry is flourishing, its providers (the women) should also have a say in it, they reason. But they have overlooked a very crucial development of Indian prostitution industry in the last decade, that of rising demand for young girls. India is today home to at least nine crore prostitutes out of which 30 per cent are young girls. This of course does not include the call girls and other unknown brothels run countrywide. Unlike Bangkok, Indian prostitutes may not have the status of a tourism industry but they have the same marketability. Most metropolitan cities have established brothel streets. Women and young girls are supplied in these areas via a well oiled and well protected mafia of flesh traders. Most victims are poor widows, girls trapped in fraud marriages, abandoned or those who are promised work as domestic help but land up in kothas. Every year there is a 10 per cent increase in the number of girls (below 14 years) entering trafficking. Why the increasing demand for girls? According to the studies conducted by the Joint Women's Programme members, it is easier to force girls into submission with use or threat of physical violence. Besides, several Indian men believe in myths that sex with virgins is a sure cure for impotence and STDs. Moreover, the fear of HIV/AIDS has raised the demand for very young girls in the mistaken belief that they present a much lower risk of infection. Despite the social stigma attached to prostitution in most Indian cities the business of sex operates smoothly. Traffickers work in collusion with the police, pimps, politicians, rich businessmen. Family, friends and lovers of girls are usually active in striking 'sale deals'. Girls are sold or kidnapped from villages and semi urban areas by suppliers. Once the girl is in the city, she is never traced. She is sold, resold, raped, abused and finally dumped in some brothel. The area police looks the other way. Politicians care two hoots. People don't mind. Studies show that young girls are regularly supplied from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal to big cities. Women at the conference also elaborated on the well knit supply chain which runs across the length and breadth of the country. Some of well known 'retail' centres are: Dholpur (Rajasthan), Agra (U. P.), Morena (M. P.), Miraj (Maharashtra), and Bijapur and Belgaum (Karnataka). Tribal girls from Chotanagpur belt in Bihar and Orissa also fall prey to the sex industry. Can legalisation stop the rapid growth of child prostitution? Its supporters claim so. They even claim that once prostitutes are legal workers they will not be victims in the hands of clients, pimps, police or even the brothel madams. They would have rights like all workers and would be less exploited. Once they are organised as legal workers they would demand safe sex from clients. They could also establish self regulatory boards constituted to check the inflow of new entrants. The stigma attached to prostitution would also go, feel some feminists. But the recent conference refuted all such claims and tried to expose the harsh reality of legalised prostitution. Lalitha S, regional coordinator of the Joint Women's Programme, who has been working with prostitutes for long, says legalisation would only sanction and further facilitate the ancient wrong against women. "It will only open the floodgates of exploitation not only against women but also young girls." An angry Lalitha said: "Once you legalise prostitution some parents may not even bother to educate their girls for they would see prostitution as a career option. In our country where already so many young girls are kidnapped and sold to the flesh trade, this would only encourage the pimps and traders further." The scenario would indeed be disturbing. Indian girls, many of whom suffer discrimination, harassment and cruelty at home, will now be forced to coach and train for the new 'profession'. They will continue to suffer from malnutrition, sexual abuse and poverty. There will be no emancipation, only a more organised form of exploitation. The exploitation would be more systematic, for increments, raises, better opportunities. Would this profession offer them retirement benefits, social status? No. It will not even give her a position in society. A whore would always be called a whore. Besides, a new government sanctioned corrupt system will come about where issuing licences or permits will become a good business for a few. Regular health check ups, which will be exploitative and inhuman would be imposed arbitrarily on the women. Besides, some anti-legalisation lobbyists argue, young girls will become easy targets of AIDS. "A young generation will be pushed into a profession which may give AIDS for retirement," said one. Once prostitution is legalised what would be the status of child prostitutes? Would they come under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, which bans employment of children under 18 years in transport, railways, ports, cracker and fire works, etc. Employment of children is also regulated under several legislations such as the Factories Act, 1948, Mines Act 1983, Apprentices Act, 1951. The cut off age is 14 in most cases. But the effectiveness of this act is well-known. The penalising provisions of these Acts scarcely touch the exploiters/violators of the law. Monitoring of the law is extremely poor. Supreme Court Judgement on Child Labour has done little to improve the situation. Worst, the pimps and the police will only flourish better. The price of young girls will go up. The pimps would become legitimate agents running employment agencies. They would demand a price for recruitment and transfer. The police will also offer assistance to let the business grow. They would openly trade in the flesh market. Prostitution and trafficking in India though is sought to be controlled under the Immoral Traffic in Persons Prevention Act, 1986. The Indian Penal Code prohibits traffic in human beings and children. Enhanced punishment is prescribed for offenders in case of a child and minor. However, these legal provisions need to be strengthened to successfully trap the procurers. Often women are criminalised for soliciting in a public place. Section 13(1) of the ITPA provides for Special Police Officers for controlling trafficking and curbing exploitation. However, most arrests made under this Act are under Section 8: seducing or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution. In other words, a legislation that aims to prevent traffic in persons only ends up penalising the victims of such traffic. Moreover, no penal sanctions exists against officials who fail to take action in cases involving trafficking of women and girls. However attractive it may seem but legalisation would only make losers out of women. Lalitha gave example of a legal Nevada (US) brothel she visited recently. The brothel was ringed by a high wall outside which policemen stood. "The women have no independence. The legalisation is more to benefit the police who will have a dossier of these prostitutes and they can keep tabs on them. Besides, the women were checked for the HIV every fortnight. They were just guinea pigs, not independent workers," she said. Further, the women don't really have much of choice." They can refuse one or two clients who don't want safe sex, but they can't refuse every client on that basis. After all this is their bread and butter. The biggest danger of this legalisation exercise is that it almost cons women to believe that they are not victims but active participants. They have got into prostitution on their own. But in reality they would be victims, poor women or girls tricked into it but forced to carry the badge of a professional at the job. Young girls will be conned into a world where they would still not be the arbiters of their life but will be forced to believe that they are. As one activist said: "For the first time in the history of mankind, they would be made to feel good about prostitution." Herein lies the danger. Instead of pledging to prevent prostitution, many women would be seen demanding to be given a better feeling for an awful idea. Women will continue to be poor and exploited. Activists also talked about the future of children of prostitutes. "It's not that prostitutes have no rights. They have the voting rights, they have ration cards. But society does not give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves or their children. We should give them a better life so that they don't fall victims to the system again." Already, women are raped, beaten and regularly abused to browbeat them into the flesh trade. Once the men know that the government does not mind having prostitutes in its backyard, they would torture many more women. Legalisation will only turn the clock back on the long and arduous journey of female emancipation. Instead of bringing an end to an unfair system and help women rehabilitate and prosper as healthy respectful citizens, it will only establish the millennium old stereotype of a female as a sex object. INAV |
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Education - a continuous
process We should think of ways to utilise the services of teachers after they retire for the nation building. Teachers retire after a certain period but I do not think they are ever tired." Thus spake Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the award winning programme for teachers from all over the country on the eve of the end of the millennium Teachers' Day. He stated that he was aware of the importance of the teaching community in the society as he was himself son of a teacher. The great poet, orator turned politician with an elan and difference recalled that although his father's salary was meagre but his status was quite high. Our country is proud to have great teachers turned politicians and statesmen of eminence. Dr Radhakrishnan, Dr Zakir Hussain, Sh K R Narayanan, Dr M M Joshi, Sh S M Krishna and in our own State Jenab S M Abdullah started their career as teachers but rose to extraordinary stature because of their superb brillance of mind and pragmatism. The list can be stretched to include many more to impress upon the reader and the present - day teachers that their status and position are in no way second to none but we have forgotten our position owing to societal appetite for bad taste. Eminent writer Khushwant Singh in an interview to Karan Thaper for the BBC programme "Face to Face" telecast on Sept 29, 1999 described Indian people as a nation of "sanctimonious humbugs". This is applicable to some extent to my fellow friends. We practise one thing and preach something quite different consequently ruing the day. In Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's thoughts and writings education occupies the pride of place. He stated "The only way to avail ourselves of the many roads to fame and usefulness is to cultivate our intellect and to conform ourselves to the age." Rajmohan Gandhi in one of national dailies opines. "It is our elite that is so brittle when it comes to listening". Coming home to the central point of this write-up I am shocked to read the frequent threats to struck work on the part of our esteemed +2 lecturers and holding to ransom the authorities for the settlement of their grievances on the lines of trade Unions while the society is looking forward to them for a quality teaching and uniform norms. There are stories of class-work grinding to a halt in some of the schools operating under the watchful eyes of the Civil Secretariat Jammu and obtaining money by extortion as also awarding cent per cent marks in practicals conducted with uncanny precision in laboratories not fully functional and equipped. One day there is the leakage of 9th standard paper making a headline and the other day the wrong paper is opened on the appointed day to further strengthen one's appointment with the valuable clients. A line or two about conventional schooling will not be out of date here. It is needless to restate that it stifles curiosity and the bland diet from the textbooks kills motivation. These two essentials to learning are generally extinguished when indeed, they should have been fanned to brillance. "Education ceased when one enters the portals of the school and recommences once one leaves it". Friends, life is a great teacher and time the greatest healer. Last write-up of the
millennium Before this column reappears on next Sunday, the world would have ushered into next millennium. Incidentally, the culmination of the present millennium as well as that of the 20th century would also mark the completion of a quarter century of uninterrupted writing by this columnist --- beginning way back around 1975 with short stories and drifting by 1980 into the realms of topical journalism. And yet, let this be confessed at the very outset that even after having authored more than two thousand published articles and three books and having romped home a couple of awards for writing, I donot have the cheek to call myself a writer. Least of all can I claim to be a journalist in the contemporary age when the training of journalism is imparted through highly specialised post graduate courses and my formal education in English language never proceeded beyond Class XII. Be that as it may, at the turn of the century and completion of a quarter century of column writing, the question that one naturally confronts is whether "Tales of Travesty" has succeeded in serving the purpose to which it was committed ? This is a question for others to answer. Perhaps others of a later age will judge these writings in much the same way as we took the liberty of passing judgements on the writings of our predecessors. The pieces published under "Tales of Travesty" over the last two decades have covered a wide range of subjects from politics, literature, women, cinema, book reviews, the Kashmir issue and so on. These pieces have also been circulated under different headings and different formats through various Feature Agencies across the country and translated for vernacular regional press in U.P., Kerela and North-East. Very often, readers have commended what they describe as "versatility" of subjects covered under "Tales of Travesty". Frankly, I make no such claim because what was actually happening was that I neither planned nor followed any particular order in writing. I was just writing, incessantly and compulsively. If, for example, today I wrote on Kashmir, tomorrow it was "Quit India Movement", the next day it was Raj Kapoor or Marilyn Monroe, then it was "Prominent Citizens" or "Police Officers with pot bellies" or "Doctors in malpractice" and on certain days for example if I went to bed writing a late night obituary for Satyajit Ray I woke up early next morning to write a review of Janet Morgan's book which described Lady Edwina Mountbatten's intimate private relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru. Interspersed between these writings were my professional writings relating to medical research in Diabetes or health. So, this went on like a continuous spontaneous process all these years and I have been doing it quite unconsciously as if guided by an unseen divine Hand. "Tales of Travesty" has been described in Press circles as satirical comment on topical subjects and current issues. Perhaps rightly so. But, I do have the confidence to claim that these pieces were never inspired by any personal motive or interest. Because I neither had the intention of making money out of these writings nor was I an aspirant for patronage from any influential lobby. On the contrary, "Tales of Travesty" at times antagonised many a men who mattered in polity or in society. In the process, "Tales of Travesty" was at times written at considerable personal risk or loss. But, I have had no regrets because I had the satisfaction of having followed poet Ghalib's dictum "Likhte Rahe Janoon Ki Hikaayaat Khoon-ch-Khoon, Har Chand Hum Se Haath Hamaare Juda Hue" (Tales of intense passion dipped in blood, I never ceased to write with Truth. Even though, in the process, each time my hands were left wounded). "Tales of Travesty" has, from time to time, brought offence to those worthies who believe that they are the targets of underlying satire. But, what these socalled "prominent" men and women forget is that they have never figured as heroes or heroines in "Tales of Travesty". The only hero in "Tales of Travesty" is Umapathy, the common man who is an average unknown Indian with his share of misery and deprivation. Umapathy is wronged, exploited and bullied but it is he alone who sustains the finer traits of this great civilization of India from millennium to millennium. "Tales of Travesty" may not qualify to be hailed as a great work but it might serve as a written record of the varied random impressions conjured up week after week by a columnist who has been witness to the last quarter of the 20th century. |
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