Wanted: A cure for the cure

By Gayathri V

Misuse and overuse of antibiotics has resulted in the spread of drug-resistant bacteria that lurk in the wards of Bangalore’s hospitals, placing patients at higher risk.  Read More.

Goodbye Karnataka

I’m sitting in a bus on the way to Somnathpur with my friend Chitra.  Bob Marley is in my ear, the hot Indian sun burns outside but I’m inside the cool dirty bus, feeling lucky until time dumps us off at Mysore.

At Somnathpur is a beautiful temple constructed in the Hoysala style, I’m promised.  It’s been abandoned by all but tourists such as myself who come to gape at intricate carvings and imagine the magnificence of a bygone era.  The past always looks so rosy in retrospect.

In retrospect, I shall remember my year in India fondly.  I shall miss the Indian sun that burns so brightly, the Indian people so full of life that they shout when talking would suffice, the Indian cows and stray dogs that are permanent occupants of all roads.  I shall miss seeing picture postcard images such as that which is before my eyes now.

A field mostly brown with thatch from a recent harvest, but a quarter of it is green with intact stalks of ragi that graces a lot of Karnataka.  A boy, younger than I am, bare-chested and black in the white sun, standing on a wooden bullock cart, urging his cows through the thatch – no where else have I seen cows treated with as much respect or put to as much use as in India.

–

At Mysore, we alighted and caught a rickety bus to Bannur, filled with farmers and farmer’s wives and daughters.  As we move further into the interior, we leave urbanization behind and globalization.  I feel like I’m entering scenes from two decades ago when I used to live in this country.  The women in rural India grow up so young.  The girl near Chitra must hardly be 18, but she cares for the child near her with the tenderness of a mother.

–

We alighted at Bannur, and took an auto rickshaw to Somnathpur, moving many more years into the past.  People stare at us, surprised that two girls would travel alone, and that too by the luxury of an auto, Chitra says.  This is probably what ancient India looked like: dusty and brown, with green fields and coconut palms interspersed.  I shall leave Karnataka in a week.  This is my farewell.  For all the tears and rage, its been a hospitable place-beautiful weather and some precious people I shall never forget.

 

 

–

                     “Somnathapura is situated on the left banks of the Cauvery river.  The Keshava temple was built in A.D. 1268, by Somanatha Dandanayaka, an illustrious General of the Hoysala king Narasimha III (1254 – 1291 AD) and named after him.

                     This temple is a perfect example of the Hoysala style of architecture.  It has three sanctums on the West, South and North to Keshava, Venugopala and Janardhana, all connected.  It is an ornately carved temple of magnificant craftsmanship depicting Vishnu, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha, Rati-Manmatha and Mahishasura.  The ceilings and door jambs leading to the sactum sanctorium are exquisitely carved.

                     There are inscriptions engraved on a slab standing at the entrance, inside the temple, dated from 1269 to 1550 AD that detail the construction of the temple and grants made to it.”

 

To get there: bus to Mysore, bus to Bannur and hire an autorickshaw for Rs. 100, or brave immense crowds in a private cab that stuffs people in like chickens for Rs. 10. 

 

Whatever happend to sisterhood?

Sometimes I lose faith in the world.  When a woman who is old enough to be my mother sits on my lap trying to get into a seat that she is not entitled to; when a fat woman tries to push me out of the way to sit in a seat my friend vacates; when an old woman with cataracts asks me to get up, and when the seat next to her clears she tries to seat her daughter and grandkids in that seat; when that daughter tries to leap over two other woman and me to get to that empty seat; when a bus conductor pushes women like cattle to get through the bus, and when I ask  him “What the fuck do you think of yourself?”, he turns around and swears, while all the women titter and giggle; when womanhood fails and woman does not stand up for her sister, when race and language take precedence over fairness and fair play, where women laugh and share seats with men who joke and stare and spit and grope, I think I am entitled to lose faith in that world.  This failure of womanhood is rural Karnataka.  Will the world really be a better place if women rule it?  I doubt it.

at death

The son of my neighbour died last night.  He was an auto rickshaw driver, around 30, married.  I had seen the rickshaw parked outside his home, an idyllic place in the middle of fields of ragi, and thought of hiring him many times. 

As my friend and I walked outside our hostel gates this morning, we saw a huge crowd in the opposite field.  Young men and old, and women all huddling together in quiet groups were conversing in whispers.  Surprisingly for India, no one was crying aloud.  There was a blue tent, and some men sat around a smoking fire.  There were no smiles and the fields wore a dignified silence. 

When I returned that way, I met Mangala, the 23-year-old girl who sweeps in our hostel.  She said that the man had been training in a TATA Sumo (a SUV) on the pebbly roads of Devegere.  He had driven at a breakneck speed (140 km per hour, she said) when the jeep had flipped over.  There was nothing left of the jeep, she said, and even less left of the man’s head.

His wife is my friend, she said sadly. 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.  

~ Thomas Gray

Bangalore’s Forgotten Ghost Town

 

Three years ago this month, amidst much fan fare, the Karnataka government announced the construction of India’s first eco-friendly ‘model’ slum in Laxmidevanagara, Laggere.  But as of January 2008, the 252 houses in the slum stand empty, and authorities have largely forgotten the area.

Forgotten and uninhabited as it is, it has attracted drunks and gangs, according to residents of Laxmidevanagara.

Shop owner and resident Mr. Srinivas said that the doors, windows and pipes of the buildings had been stolen a long time ago, and the bricks in the roof are falling off, he said.  These days, mainly drunks and other shady characters inhabit the slum.  Last week though, Shivraj Kumar, son of actor Raj Kumar came to shoot for a song-and-dance sequence though, he added proudly.

His neighbour Mr. Sidagangayya added that the only thing the slum has brought to the area is more trouble.  There are two security personnel appointed by the Karnataka Slum Clearance Board, but they are ineffective and mostly absent, said residents.  They have not been able to stop the looting of doors and windows from the slum, all of which were of premium eco-friendly material, according to Mr. Anil Kumar, deputy chief, Building Materials Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC).

Mr. Anil Kumar said, “[the slum] has already been completed for three years.  If no one is living then the building will be in bad shape.”  He said that it was the responsibility of the Slum Clearance Board to allocate the residents and said that the use of eco-friendly door and windows was rather useless since they have all been looted.The slum in Laggere was supposed to be a model slum to be emulated by other cities in Karnataka.  It was built under the centrally sponsored Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY) scheme, implemented in Karnataka on January 25, 2001, with the aim of providing shelter to families under the poverty line living in urban slums. 

As of January 2007, the units have not been allotted yet.  Mr. V. Ashok, Commissioner of the Karnataka Slum Clearance Board said that the units have not been allotted yet because it does not make sense for people to inhabit a place with no water or sewage connection. 

It seems that there is no water supply or sewage connection to the slum, and the list of final beneficiaries has not been decided upon.  Three commissioners have come and gone, and the project, it seems, has been forgotten in the midst of all the changes.

Mr. Ashok said that he has set up a sub-committee, which will ensure the beneficiaries are decided.  He is also undertaking corrections that will be done in 10 days under the auspices of the technical director, he said. 

The construction work was entrusted to the BMTPC at a total cost of Rs. 76.20 lakh, and a unit cost of Rs. 60 000.

Of ladies seats (08/09/07)

The bus driver was rocking out to a Kannada song on full blast and speeding down Mysore road towards Kumbulgudu.  The bus was moderately filled; since men had occupied most of the ladies seats, there were about ten women standing, Leah, Debi and myself included.

These men, in addition to occupying ladies seats, dared to shoot looks at Leah, a ‘Chinky’ as she calls herself.  She got pissed.  “What are you looking at?” she demanded.  “Can’t you see so many women standing?  Why are you in the ladies seat?”

Debi deadpanned, “They are women, that’s why”.

“Oh, you guys are women huh?  Get a bindi and a sari!”  If Leah’s looks could kill…

It was funny as hell. 

But I am for equality; if the men got there first, they deserve the seat—I am as fit as the next guy to ride the bus standing.  The only people entitled to the seat, in my opinion, are the old and infirm, people with kids, and anyone else unable to endure the bus ride standing.  But every rule has its exception.

It is a different matter when the bus is crowded.  Then, I would do anything to escape that crush of bodies—men, women, children all jumbled together in what feels like a continuous human sculpture of sweat and arms and legs, all rocking back and forth in rhythm with the bus driver’s Kannada song as his foot twitches on the brake pedal.  Then heaven help any man who sits in my ladies seat.

At K.R. Market (01/09/07)

 

 

 

I saw him out of the corner of my eye and then felt his elbow pushing against my breast.  I felt instinctively that this was not a mistaken graze of the arm; there was too much force and his elbow was unnaturally high for a man a few inches shorter than me.  Of course by the time I finished processing whether or not it was a mistake, he was ahead—a 5”2’ man in a checked white shirt.  I stared at the back of his head.  A few steps ahead, he turned back and looked directly at me, a small smirk on his face.  Then I knew, and I felt his victory because of my helplessness and unwillingness to waste my time in pursuing this unknown man in an unknown place under strange circumstances.

In Time Magazine (Sept 1^st week issue), a lady has voiced her internal debate about whether to punish one such man.  When traveling by train to Chennai, she suddenly woke up in the middle of the night to find her berth mate groping her.  She had him arrested.  He was a young college student, on his way to pursing an engineering degree.  He was a poor, Hindi speaking, low caste Bihari.  She was a rich, Tamil speaking, high caste journalist.

The law was on her side.  Now, five years after an incident that perhaps required a hefty fine and a month’s imprisonment at max, he’s still in jail with his dreams down the drain.  He needs to appear regularly at court hearings which the author, who’s in London, does not bother to attend.  She feels remorse now and hears the echo of a ‘wise’ old man on the train, “why are you spoiling a young boy’s future”?

It is difficult to judge exactly but there is this: I let the man go at K.R. Market, but it still rankles enough to make me type this hours after the incident.  It was more than a violation of personal space; it is difficult to explain exactly but I feel subjugated emotionally.

Was the lady wrong?  She says the justice system is wrong in prolonging this case—a case which would have been dismissed easily had he been rich with the right connections.  I agree with her on this point, but she adds that if she could somehow do it over again, she would listen to the ‘wise’ old man. 

I don’t really think she would or that she should.