When govts fails, people keep hope afloat

By Manish Anand

Resilience is the word. This makes the people of Bihar a class apart. An unmeasurable human crisis is looking straight into the eyes of more than 2.5 million people in the state. But when the government fails to keep the promises, the people keep the hope afloat. This is the state of the affairs of the state facing the wrath of the turbulent river Kosi.

Nepal has reportedly acknowledged its laxity in keeping the Indian side posted with the state of the embankment on Kosi. This nation was too busy with the guerrilla Maoists just recently fighting the nation taking command of its government. It did not bother the implications of its criminal laxity.

People in Bihar are turning out quite large-hearted. Even the poor are contributing in their own manners for the relief of the affected. The gates of Dharamshalas have been thrown open at most of the places. The divide of the religion and caste has been breached, at least for the moment.

The Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS), always the whipping boy of the "secularists", has come out to provide succor to the people in distress ably. Its front, Seva Bharti, which is manned by the foot-soldiers of the RSS is keeping the hope of the battered people afloat with its relief camps across the state. It's heartening to know that other voluntary organisations are flocking to it in their bits to share the sorrow of the millions of the distressed.

However, the current of the river Kosi is too strong to lift the gloomy picture. It's flowing at a much alarming speed, with the heavy rains set to cast a pall of gloom not only on the state machinery but also to the people who are looking into bleak future.

The government's response has been too inadequate and too late. The official figure of the death toll though is in double digit, the talk in the state is of thousands of deaths. If that was not enough, the epidemic, with the carcass of human and animal bodies floating in the river, is threatening to inflict its own toll.

The government both at the Centre and state must match the resilience of the people, lest their credibilty shoud take the sever beating.

(The picture is of The Action Aid, an NGO.)

Know Kosi, know Bihar, know its curse

By Manish Anand

The truth of the damage of Bihar flood will take long time to come in the public domain. Flood is inundation of the human habitats, and people of Bihar grow with this experience. The outsiders can not understand it, as they do not know the pain and agony of being homeless and without food for days. Unfortunately, the people of Bihar, particularly of the districts affected in the current "catastrophic" flood, have always lived with the curse of the river Kosi, which has lived to its epithet of the sorrow of the state.

Thanks to The Times of India the nation came to know of the disasters in Bihar, as it dedicated a full page on the river Kosi which has reportedly left more than 25 lakh people homeless and without food as well. That's a hard thing to happen, anywhere in the world without a shred of doubt.

A non-journalist friend called and asked what the media is doing that there is no coverage at all in Delhi's paper. A real shame ! It reacted too late only when the state chief minister Nitish Kumar came to Delhi to explain the gravity of the situation. Poor chap, he was referring to the satellite images of 2004 pointing major breach in the embankment on the river Kosi on the Nepal side. The Central government had no time to take corrective measures.

The people outside Delhi always abuse Biharis for crowding their cities. They should rather blame the river kosi which every year inundates the parts of the state from where people leave to other parts of the country to earn their bread and butter.

A Bihar minister told me that people in hundreds are taking refuge on the rooftop of any pucca building. The areas with acute poverty have mostly mud-thatched homes which easily wash away in floods. Even the state government is not aware of the number of people having been washed away. Add to that the warning that in the next three months the situation will only aggravate as more than 20 lakh cusecs of water will be released compared to the current 1.46 lakh cusecs of water.

The Indian government had been busy pushing through its Indo-US nuclear deal, while the river Kosi was preparing to spell a pall of doom on Bihar. The nuclear deal is important as India needs more sources of power. It's a different story that it could never think of tapping the hydro power that the rivers originating from Nepal have the potential of. Despite the floods being an annual feature, the Indian government remains clueless to solve the perennial problem. It's a criminal negligence on the part of the Indian government that more than 25 lakh people in Bihar look into a dark future, plagued with water borne diseases, hunger, deaths, destruction of livelihood, and everything that life is all about.

The scale of rehabilitation once the relief and rescue operations are completed will be too monumental for the state government to undertake. As the course of the river Kosi has changed which now takes away the hundred years of human habitats, there will be need to develop new villages altogether. That will easily break the bone of any of the state government.

After a month the people outside the state will forget the curse of Bihar. The poor state will be left to its fate. And another 20 lakh people will head to other states in search of livelihood and safe shelters. That's the story of hundreds of years which took the Biharis away from the state.

(The photograph is of Aftab Alam Siddiqui/Associated Press. Apology for using the photograph without permission.)

Auto, bus, maan...behan...: ye hai meri Dilli !!!

By Manish Anand

To know Delhi, you must travel in an auto or a blueline bus. Radio-cab or a taxi wont be of much help. A city like Delhi always invites you to know her more. It hardly matters if you have been here for a decade, like me. And Saturdays are something different, I presume.

Part of Mayawati's weekend "fanda", this Saturday too, I had to be at her function for the whole day and to check for the political ramifications of her nuances. Her staff were take the journalists from Connaught Place to Greater Noida, hence I did not have to take my vehicle.

In Green Park, an autowalla agreed to ply on meter. As I was smoking (I really want to quit it. It's terrible and the most horrible thing one can lay hand on.), the autowallah also slipped out to buy a cigarette. No problem. When asked, why the meter was showing Rs 10, a blunt poser came. Are you boarding an auto for the first time? A real stunner!

When did I board an auto last time? I could not recall. But yes, I vividly recalled, a six-year-old incident when going to see off my father one fine morning in an auto the sleepy driver had hit the road divider near the Dilli Gate, with the three-wheeler turning off and my father sustaining an internal fracture.

I think too much and, sometimes, I get really tired of it. The auto left me to go on a thought hunt. My autowallah was fully charged up in the meantime and his maan... behan... had started shooting off at any vehicle daring to kiss her green sawari.

I laid my eyes on a couple buying tickets for entry into Safdarjung Madrassa, old women idling away their time on the pavements, the new red-colour AC buses full of advertisements, the roads threatening to cave in, cameras installed to zoom in on red-light breaker and many others.

However, the auto had started jurking. The autowallha had nearly hit a car or the four-wheeler would have hit him to which he had all the maan...behan... shooting off like the war cries. He would have hit at least four to five vehicles but he manouvered safely.

On weekend, India Gate has all the charms. A group of foreigners relishing the monument, while one of them was heading to drop the used water bottle in the waste-bin. The CPWD had once shown us the visuals of the littering done by the visitors at the India Gate. It was terrible.

Journalists have interesting things to talk about. A conversation with a fellow journalist drifted towards JNU, the pride of Delhi, a world in itself. My refrain was that its products are something different! It led to a story about a JNU product with a PhD degree joining a news-agency. On a night duty, while his boss went to sleep in the office, he was asked to check for the developments and if something big, like the US President resigned, happened he should wake up his superior.

At the dead night, he woke up his boss. Irritated he asked what! "I have to go to the loo." Too much. "You want me to accompany you to the loo, you bloody." Maan...behan...were profusely offered to him!

Sardars are the pride of Delhi. A senior Sardar journalist had gone to Pakistan to cover an event. In Pakistan, an ISI agent is set after an Indian journalist once lands there. Our Sardarji came to know that he was being followed. He stopped his taxi, and went to the car chasing him and told them: "I am an Indian journalist. This is my I-card. I am not paid much, and since you want to follow me I would rather be with you in your car and save my money." He got the best treatment free that a VVIP could have got there.

Not interested to board the auto again and the bus definitely not though I have travelled in them extensively. They show the worst of Delhi. It's better to see the better side then get pissed of with the worst part when that is incorrigible


But yes Delhi's chief minister Sheila Dikshit is everywhere in the city to tell people that the place has improved. She has got all the cheerful people to pose for her campaign. May be Delhi has changed for better or worse...

Wailing woman

By Manish Anand

On an evening full of frenetic work, a sight of a wailing woman could have been avoided. But the woman had stunned the whole of the Green Market on Saturday evening near my office place that it was hard to ignore her. Her male companion (boy friend!) was running after, while she, a young woman in her 20s, was simply running here and there with all her screams. First impulse was to ignore and get back to calling the politicians for my story, but even from a distant she was all wailing.

At last, I took a break and went after to know what was the matter. There she was pleading with folded hands to the parking attendant with a motley crowd in tow: "I already have big burglary at my house. I cant afford theft of my car now. Please return my car."

Her car was stolen from the parking lot. Her male companion now was shouting at her to calm down. My journalistic instinct now called for an intervention. I asked the lady to calm down. Asked whether she had the parking slip, she flashed one. I asked her to preserve that carefully.

A cop was part of a crowd at a distance and seemed not interested to help the lady in the distress. I summoned him and asked him to help the lady. "Get in touch with the parking manager and find out her car," I really gave the direction to which he instantly complied and I left for my work.

A wailing woman is a terrible sight. You must see to it to know this.

In the book of history, the story of Kannagi is very powerful. If i remember it correctly, she had gone out in the Cholan city, cursing the king after he had falsely implicated her husband in a case of theft, and later the curse had fallen on the king. She is still worshipped, i suppose.

I dont know whether the lady got her car back or not. But she must get it or her heart would really be broken.

From Jai Shri Ram to Har Har Mahadev !!

By Manish Anand

India is abuzz with the chant of Har Har Mahadev, after a break of more than a decade when the country feverishly chanted Jai Shri Ram. The credit singularly goes to the Congress, which for an unexplained magnanimity galvanised the directionless saffron party (BJP) ahead of the general elections.


The home minister Shivraj Patil has got too many eggs on his face to done the high office. He along with his party has taken Kashmir back to the time of 1990s, when the then J&K governor Jagmohan had literally handed over Kashmir to Pakistan with his whims and fancies.


Jammu and Kashmir both are simmering with anger. In Jammu the Congress at the behest of the blatant separatist party PDP hurt the religious sentiments of the millions of Hindus on the Amarnath issue. The Congress played into the hands of the PDP ostensibly to save its prospects in the looming Assembly elections there. The party is known for its timidity from the days of Shah Bano case.


What happens from here. The answer lies in the background chant of Har Har Mahadev heard when I called a youth BJP activist in Patna few days back. Hindus have deep emotional attachment with Baba Bhole whose worship dates back to the Harappan time. Hindus love Him, known as Nilkanth, after he took the poison to let others enjoy the nectar, for thousands of years of attachment with Him in all walks of life. No other God could be so widely and emotionally worshipped as He is.


The valley is donned with the Pakistani flags. It does not serve the purpose of the Kashmiris at all. The time has passed when a region seceded on the basis of violence, as was the case with Pakistan. Thousand times more people have been killed in Sri Lanka in the Tamilian rebellion. But the world just can not tolerate any more division of land on the basis of religion.


Also, the Congress can be taught lessons by the people, as done in the recent times. Now, the people can stop the madness of few people of this grand old party whose romantic ideologue (JLN Nehru) left the legacy of violence in the country, thanks to his idiotic world views.


It was the saffron party's grand old man (AB Vajpayee) who heralded peace in Kashmir, which followed with peace with Pakistan. He took bold initiatives and they had paid dividends. Interestingly, he destroyed his party in J&K but won the elusive peace there. Contrast this to what Congress did, as it destroyed the Peace of the state to save the party there.


As peace in the valley, the leadership too is elusive in the country. Dr Manmohan Singh and the disastrous Shivraj Patil just shame the very spirit of leadership at the cost of the nation.

Yatha praja tatha raja !!

BY MANISH ANAND

Yatha praja tatha raja!! It's no more yatha raja tatha praja. It's the refrain when you talk to politicos on questions of ambitious party workers are doling out big booty to get party tickets ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls.

"It's a changed time. Now, people elect goons with 50 and more murder scalps on their heads. Even our security deposits in Lok Sabha elections get forfeited," says a Congress veteran of two decades of active politics and having been in Lok Sabha on a number of occasions from UP.


He recalls the time when it was "yatha raja tatha praja (as the king so the people)". "But, now, it's just "yatha praja tatha raja (as the people so the king)"," he adds with much remorse.



Does it mean that the people at large are also like those having more than 50 murder scalps on their heads ? Probably not! But the nice people in politics in their hinterlands have just lost the power to read the pulse of their audience and have been left behind in the cutting age politics.



But may be the case is different.


"The time was different two decades back. Good people used to be picked up by the high-ups in the politics," says another Congress veteran of three decades of Lok Sabha stint from the Punjab region.


It makes us curious to enquire about their backgrounds. The self-effacing Punjabi politician says he was a Professor, then the pro-Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University and had taught in a top US university. He was picked up by the top Congress leadership when he was in his hey-days.

His colleague's eyes lit, as he too recalls being the student leader in the Banaras Hindu University, then doing his B. Tech in Chemical Engineering and then heading to the US for professorship. He too was "picked up" by the top leadership in his heydays.

But the time has changed for them, as they interview hundreds of rustic party workers with no decent education behind them. They have no other option, as they say they live with the humiliation of losing the political turf like UP to ruffians who should have been behind the bar.


But who will take the blame for the rot and who will take the corrective measures. No answers though big yawns.

No surprises!

By Manish Anand


The hard-nosed observers are hardly getting surprised nowadays. Mayawati now wants to be the Prime Minister, no joke. So what, anyone can become a Prime Minister in India. Delhi's marketplaces are fast becoming stages for catwalk. Girls are now fed up with having mehandi on their palm or back of it and are having it from toes till high up. Men are wearing skinny clothes and walk like women. So what, time is changing and so are the patterns.

Mayawati is a popular politician and the chief minister of the most populous state of India. She came close to staging the coup in bringing down the World bank careerist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. She has almost tasted blood and must be hungry enough to devour the whole delicacy. The next six months are set for exciting political churning.

Did you give hard look to the girls having rolled up their jeans high up for putting up mehandi in delicate designs? The sight is too irresistable. Just heard that tatoos are going out of fashion and probably our desi mehandiwallas sitting on the pavement are redifining the fashion trends in their own ways.

And yes, Mayawati's heir is not from her family. Is it another statement on the family run parties like the Congress. She has enriched the Hindi vocabulary as well with the word "sarvjan (all castes)".

My colleague was stunned when he saw a man in skinny vest doing a catwalk in the marketplace. My commiseration for him "he has biceps, triceps and all the muscles to show off, so why are you getting jealous, anyways you are not his target at least".

The best sight, however, was two love birds getting lip-locked in the crowded market place, with the girl glowing in the irresistable love that she was struggling to shower on his man, while he was all blushing with pride. It's the best thing to happen: the public expression of affection, it ensures that people do live in love.

Last but not the least, the city though is fast maddening it still has resilience to outpace the negative vibes in plenty.