Nellai Suresh puts in black and white

I opened the TV early morning and the breaking news came in. Ted Kennedy passes away losing the battle with brain cancer. On the first day of my visit to Dallas, I chanced upon JFK's memorial (I did not remember that he was killed here) and towards the end of my visit, the last of Kennedy brothers passes away. Some touching tributes, glorious moments, British PM Gordon Brown announcing the conferring of Knighthood (Sir Kennedy) in British Parliament, his support to Obama against Hillary, his support to Obama's health care plan and tributes by peers and close friends all were filling up the air time. I was feeling bad, for reasons I did not know. But I could feel that a good man has passed away, fortunately in a natural way, unlike his two elder brothers. RIP.

Amar Singh has invited Jaswant Singh to join Samajwadi Party. Yes, Jaswant has washed all his “communal sins” of being a Jan Sanghi or a BJPite by singing the paeans of Jinnah and so can join Maulana Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party.

I feel that so much non-sense is being dished out in the form of TV coverages and commentaries on this act of a leader of a party in decline. Let him have his views and let the party expel him for that. How does it affect a common man?

Talking of TVs whipping up euphoria on non-issues, swine flu is a recent one. I was appalled to see on CNN that 30000 (yes thirty thousand) people die every year of ordinary flu in US and this year swine flu is feared to kill about 90000. For a country like US where paranoia is a way of life, there is not much of a cry created over the media and in India, so much is being talked about and shown about. The media, starved of content, takes up anything like if I say tomorrow my pet dog has jumped up the wall and got into a neighbour’s house, even that may be covered for a few hours on the TVs, even the national one. It is disgusting and nauseating.

For all its development of infrastructure on a massive scale, US woefully lacks railway infrastructure. Last week end, I was travelling from Dallas to Fort Worth, a distance of 40 KM. These are twin cities of Texas. But the railway track is not even double for most part. The railway stations at both the places are woefully inadequate. Compare that with the stations in India. The Central station in Chennai is a massive structure buzzing with people (for that matter, every place in India buzzes with people, cynics may say) and has so many trains coming and going.

Fort Worth is a small town and a picturesque one too. Both Dallas and FW are sparsely populated and so you don’t get the din and bustle of Chicago or New York.

It was a memorable evening yesterday. My colleague in Dallas took me to an Indian restaurant Kalachandji's. It is part of a building housing the Hare Krishna temple. The food was excellent for a price of $11. Neither too spicy, nor oily, it embellished the taste buds very nicely. Mostly it was Gujarati and Jain food. I was surprised to get Collard Green (in Tamil - Aathi keerai). The tamarind water was really splendid. Salads were aplenty. No Indian bread only the English variety.

Any Indian coming to Dalls, I would recommend at least one visit to this place.

Jaswant Singh has really stirred the hornest's nest by writing a book on Jinnah (following the footsteps of Advani in calling Jinnah a secular man)where he praised Jinnah as a tall leader (I have not read the book, honestly) who was pushed towards partition by Nehru and Patel. Congress is finding faullt for faulting Nehru with partition and BJP for Patel. No one has noticed or brought forth the fact the Gandhiji on whom RSS is laying the blame squarely for partition has been totally spared and that is one more act of heresy as far as RSS/BJP is concerned.

Another aspect every one is harping about is freedom of speech and right to dissent. Freedom of speech does not absolve irresponsibilty and any one professing to be a founder member and senior leader of a party cannot afford to toe a line totally against the party tenets. Jaswant also talked about alienation of the Indian Muslims which Congress and Communists are finding RSS/Jan Sangh/BJP to be the reason. After so far claiming that it was not against Muslims per se, BJP cannot afford to have a senior leader accept that Muslims were alienated. When Varun Gandhi spewed venom, people blamed BJP for not acting (by not expelling him) and when almost a similar act is done by JS, people blame BJP for acting. Hail double standards!!!

JS is hell bent on demolishing or at least tarnishing the party and he has talked of shielding Advani against Kandahar event. Entropy is an inherent quality of any system. Probably BJP is undergoing one of its entropic phases. One can wish and pray that it comes out of it as BJP is needed for Indian democracy.

My colleagues here rather forced me to accompany them to watch a base ball game at the Arlington Ballpark stadium in Dallas between Texas rangers and Minnesota Twins. I picked up a few learnings about the game, how the scores are made and what are some of the nuances. More tnan the match, it was the festive atmosphere that was more interesting. As it happens with all live matches, the crowd was ecstatic. I even participated in the Mexican waves that swept the stadium. The food was good. Americans enjoy life king size. The food they eat, the colas and beers they drink and any eatable are all king sizes. And more than anything else, the happenings on the sides were quite interesting, games for children, charity activities etc etc. As I said to my colleagues, I can watch a base ball game on TV with more understanding.

I was struck by the spate of advertisments in the US TVs (I am now in Dallas TX)about Mesothelioma - cancer induced by exposure to asbestos and the lawyers trying to help the victims to get compensation from govt. Not long ago, 45 years probably, we were made to thrill at the wonder sheets called asbestos which replaced the thatched sheds in slums and gave a neat and exuberant look to the slums. Factories started sprawling manufacturing asbestos in India. Lo and behold, after 40 years, I am pained to see the advertisments saying that the attorneys are experienced for more than 30 years in this Mesothelioma litigation. My God, another instance of unsustainable development. Are we learning from our ancestors? The thatched sheds are there from time immemorial, the roofings are made of either coconut or palm leaves (a renewable source) and will be replaced normally once a year. These roofings never gave any disease to those below them.

I read an article in Swaminomics about how Pope Benedict has done injustice to the black, brown and yellow labourers by talking against outsourcing as something that goes against the stakeholders to protect the shareholders. He explained very lucidly how Pope tries to protect White labour aristocracy by not talking about outsourcing that is done in Latin America and Poland but mainly against China, India and Philipines. He also takes us back in history by pointing out how all the textile labour was shifted to UK during the British rule of India much against the welfare of Indian labour and no voice was raised against it at that time.

My reaction is as follows:

Pope has simply parrotted the words of his financiers ignoring that there is a vast population of Christians in India too who are working in all these outsourced jobs. The best reply to him would be for all Indian Christians to echo their rejection of this idea and I am sure they will not go to Hell for that one reason alone.

Today I saw a bicycle rally in Marina, Chennai, India organized by a school here against global warming. The chief guests, some local actors arrived at the scene in a car. What is that they are fighting against, global warming? And they add to it by using their car when they could have come by other means, least of all a bicycle.

Again along the way, the students were serving drinking water. And how? In plastic cups. And the users were forced to throw the cup on the beach. What a mockery of ideals and ideas. The organizers could have exercised a little more discretion.