Dhaka Diary (October 24th – November 6th, 2009)

The first thing that strikes you about Dhaka is its traffic jams – therefore, it takes time to make an impression on you. Eventually I did find several takeaways from my visit to Dhaka, but it definitely started with my wondering at its humungous traffic jams. It was amazing – there are not really that many vehicles as such, the roads are wide, but traffic jams at any time of the day! Incredible! The swank new luxury Toyotas (appears to be a Bangladeshi preferred brand, and most of the cars appeared new) alongwith absolutely ramshackle rickshaws vie for space in their naturally demarcated lanes on account of their speeds. In between you see a few rundown autorickshaws (with lockable cages for drivers but not for passengers – I wonder why). There is a sprinkling of taxis, in particular, Maruti 800s and Indicas, in a shockingly battered condition. There are hardly any motorcycles, which surprised me. There are of course, several pedestrians, who can still walk on the roads, unlike in Hyderabad or in any other major city in India, particularly after the advent of the ‘infrastructural development’ phenomenon called flyovers. The vehicular composition and condition defines the social classes in Dhaka – the very rich and the very poor – but alarmingly with no sign of a vibrant middle class. There are quite a few traffic lights, with more than one policeman manning the point to physically stop vehicles from moving at the right time for the other side of the traffic. The traffic lights are either not operated at all, or operated manually. In any case, all drivers only look for directions from the policemen, and the lights and the traffic are usually off each other very many times. But nobody is perturbed; they are busy honking away to glory. After many trips, I decided that one of the main reasons for the traffic jams is the very long duration of stoppage at the traffic lights and that backstops and gridlocks many of the busy intersections. But of course, real logistics researchers and planners would put that down to the presence of the multi speed-multi modal transport I suppose.
Well, we tried to avoid the worst part of the jams by going early in the morning (leaving at 7.30 am Dhaka time!), and coming back around 3 or 4 pm. That was another thing – colleagues ridiculed me in Hyderabad when I informed them that the time differential between IST and Dhaka is 1.30 hours and not 30 minutes only. They swore by the well known fact that Bangladesh is 30 minutes ahead and Pakistan is 30 minutes behind. Now I hope they laugh on the other side of their faces. (In fact, the half an hour time gap comes because we chose Delhi as the dateline rather than a convenient median. So we have these half hour calculations whereas for most countries it is by the hour on hour). Dhaka changed to daylight savings since June and Dhaka people are yet to get used to it. I understand that it is mainly because of the electricity problem. It is interesting to note that even now, both timings are maintained - if you fix an appointment, you are asked if it is by the normal time or the digital time! Actually, it makes sense to have daylight savings time zones in India – it always seemed such a waste of daylight time in the mornings, especially in the summer season in the entire North east, while winters seemed so gloomy and scary in the mid afternoon itself! Anyway – it is a huge task. We understand that Dhaka’s experiment is still in a nascent stage of acceptance and is not that well followed beyond Dhaka. For us, this meant getting up at 4.30 am India time and having breakfast at 5.30 am! Our daily route provided us a cross section of Dhaka vignettes. We coursed through the diplomatic enclave of Baridhara where we had our hotel - Asia Pacific Blossom Hotel – incidentally, there are many facilities that are named after Asia Pacific or Pan Pacific (including Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel) and somehow, it appeared more contrived than natural. It is definitely a strategic choice for Bangladesh, being sandwiched between the two giants India and China and the term Pacific does give a larger than life importance I presume.
Our hotel was very near the US Embassy and the Canadian Embassy and inevitably, we did see the ‘American Visa’ queues early morning, though surprisingly, nowhere near Indian gargantuan proportions. We then go meandering through the various ins and outs of the posh residential areas of Gulshan I and Gulshan II, picking up a couple of FAO officers in the large Toyota (but of course!). These two Gulshans are the Jubilee & Banjara Hills of Hyderabad and one wonders why such large areas have been named as I and II. It appeared to us that no matter how much you travelled, you were still either near Gulshan I and Gulshan II! On the way, we passed the Indian Embassy and here the crowds were huge. There is a great deal of travel to India – business and medical largely, followed by visiting relatives in the other Bengal. The large queues, at the first instance gave a sense of pride as India was a more preferred destination than the US; almost immediately we realized that these long and pathetic queues with no covering and facilities whatsoever were indeed not very complimentary to our consulate, irrespective of the work involved and the precautions to be taken. For education, it appears that Bangladeshis are showing preference to Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
En route we see several showrooms of cars – all luxury models. We see a huge number of banks – for such a small country, the number of banks puzzled me and it indicates the very rich status of the upper crust (there were 30 listed banks in the share market). Then we see the armies of garment factory workers rushing in droves from nearby rail and bus stations to their work. All young women aged perhaps between 18-30, and an occasional older woman. Why? What happens when they get married and have children? They lose their income? What is the minimum wage – surprisingly, no one, even those from the government, could answer this question of ours – perhaps there is no minimum wage specified. There was an air of purpose in them, they were not grim, but I certainly found the giggling camaraderie normally found in such groups conspicuous by its absence. Is it such a tough life? I do not know and did not get enough information on this for precisely for the same reason that we do not know how people live in the slums of Mumbai or the problems of our maids in our homes. We get mechanical about many things and we do not notice I suppose.
Going on, we plough through Kawran Bazar –the wholesale market. Actually –it is mainly fish, fish and fish. I did not see many vegetables as such. It is only here that you can actually see certain plastic containers (innovative bucket type containers hanging on the underside of the rickshaws to avoid spillage and spoiling of the seat) – in no other place in Dhaka, did we encounter plastic. It is indeed amazing for a developing country to do away with plastic, be it because of the ever rampaging cyclones or whatever. There is no plastic even in the smallest of the shops. They started implementing the no plastic rule about six years back and it is a total success, at least in Dhaka and its surroundings which we could visit. Well of course, Bangladeshis themselves are least impressed by their feat and hardly take any pride in it. It has become part of their life. I asked about reasons for success – no one seems to be able to give any concrete answer except that Government banned it and police used to harass people till they stopped. There has to be more than this I think – the Bangladeshi people are more willing to abide by government rules – otherwise how do we explain the utter callousness with which we still use plastic in Mumbai despite the horrendous deluge? Or why in Hyderabad, despite government rule and police harassment, we still do not wear helmets or seat belts?? And Bangladeshis appear completely unaware and apathetic to this feat that they have achieved which even developed nations have been unable to enforce in such a large measure. Plastic manufacturing is also banned and there are grumblings in certain elite quarters that garbage disposal bags have to be brought it from Thailand or Malaysia. However, it is another thing about public smoking – I did not realize how much we in India have achieved till I got the full blast of passive smoking in Dhaka. They do have awareness messages on this, but it does not appear to have made an impact. Maybe a government rule would have an impact in Bangladesh?
Even at 7.30 am (digital time!), Kawran Bazaar was a slow manoevre – rickshaws, hawkers occupying half the road as pavements were used for vehicle parking, people with creels on their heads, and traffic coming on the wrong side as well and then, suddenly you find that at the end of the road, you are looking at the cleaning of the entrance of the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel! An intriguing location choice I must say! After this brief interlude with the commoners, we again enter the thoroughfare of Dhaka.
The Prime Minister’s office and residence are huge and impressive British colonial structures, amid (thankfully) a large expanse of greenery. The Osmani Auditorium, the Supreme Court, and the Jamai Masjid, were all housed in such large expanses of greenery and together with the huge park (reminiscent of the famed parks of London), give our eyes, nose and ears, a welcome respite from the cacophony of Kawran Bazar. The building of the Department of Architecture was unimpressive and the assumption that a little bit of angularity in the design qualifies it to be different and therefore architecturally stylistic, offended my aesthetic sensibilities.
Well this was our daily route for weekdays. On the weekend, it was time for sightseeing and friends visiting. Again, I was stumped by the lack of enthusiasm and pride in regard to telling visitors what they need to see. Very casually they mention the martyrs’ memorial and the Banga Bandhu Museum and stop at that, as if they might be accused of sending you to places that are not actually worth visiting. Even when I asked about Sonargaon, an ancient city off Dhaka, no one was forthcoming with any encouragement. Fortunately, I had enough information from Sohini and we made plans with two others to visit Sonargaon. I had read up on Sonargaon and so had Firdausi. I read about its ancient flourishing as the capital of Deva dynasty and the origin of the East India Company here. I also read about the architectural heritage sites of the old buildings of the zamindars, who left the place and fled to West Bengal. Firdausi had information about the oldest and most famous Madarasa and the tomb of Riyasuddin. Interesting. For Firdausi, it was a kind of personal pilgrimage as one of his ancestors meditated here in a dargah in the 13th century.
The funny part of the trip is that the travels driver who was taking us, had no clue on any of the locations, despite being in the travel business for ages. He also had to ask for the way. We had wrongly assumed that since it was Friday, the road would be free – far from it, the road was jammed, but according to the driver, it was nothing compared to weekday traffic. God forbid if we have to travel on a weekday! We crossed a couple of rivers and could find out the name of only one – the Sheetolokkha. Always, there is an apathy for information and consciousness. There are so many rivers in Bangladesh (about 60-70), probably, people generally refer to them as rivers I think, without bothering to remember their names.
When we got into Sonargaon, nobody could tell us what to do or what to look for. We asked for old buildings and then someone very deprecatingly pointed us the way. The lane consisted of a few elaborately ornate buildings, which were purportedly under conservation. Some of them were illegally occupied from the rearside. The whole row of buildings was in a pathetic state of disrepair. We visited a 100 room zamindari haveli and found that it also had tunnels. The entire site was called Panam City - I do not know why and nobody could enlighten us on the same. We visited the state museum – a small one – it had many 18th and 19th century artefacts and a few from the 13th century. There was also a crafts village created by a few stalls in a circle, mostly small handicrafts and the omnipresent Tangail and Jamdani sarees. There were a couple of demo looms being worked upon. What shocked me was that a couple of really small children were working on them, despite the village being a government run facility.
On the roadside, there were coconuts and a very interesting way of offering wood apple to eat. A hole in bored at the top of the fruit from where the fruit attaches itself to the branch and a thin wooden sliver is used like a spatula and the pulp inside is mashed, a little salt and pepper added and mixed again. You have to use the spatula to pry out the pulp and lick it. It takes a while to completely eat it and it is a delightful and eco friendly serving. I loved it. All along the village, we saw numerous water sources. Each house had its own kitchen garden. The entire complement of fish, nutritious greens, pumpkins, olives and other vegetables in every household, should not actually give room for malnourishment; however, many in the rural areas are indeed malnourished owing to the low quantities consumed. The evidence of goiter in some women in the village made me appreciate our own sustained efforts of enriching salt with iodine for the eradication of goiter in our own villages in India. The emphasis appears to be on increasing food production per se and assuming that if production side is taken care of, everything else would follow. Nutrition and increased production are not necessarily complementary to each other.
The trip back was quite a pain, the car kept stopping and the AC would not work, we were too thankful that we actually reached back our hotel. Back to civilization with tissues, first brought in a sneeze – in Bangladesh, all tissues are perfumed, some thankfully mild, but others as strong as the perfume Poison! It is quite a new experience to feel refreshed through perfumes!
Now it was our turn to partake of Bangladeshi hospitality. It takes quite a stomach – the done thing in Bangladeshi homes is to put out a lavish spread with two different kinds of meat, prawns, shrimps and three different kinds of fish. It is difficult for them to cater to vegetarians, though their vegetarian dishes are also very good. However, they feel happy if you have their fish, particularly the ‘Ileesh from Poddo’, or the Hilsa fish from Padma river (the Ganges as called in Bangladesh). Lobster is another great delicacy, while their Pomfrets and shrimps are cooked delectably. The old world charm of ‘khatirdari’ or guest etiquette continues to exist despite the pressures of modern day world, including gifting of clothes when you are leaving. However, in general, fried things were quite the staple and this also explains the acidity incidence in Bangladeshis, compounded by red meat – particularly beef. There is not a single meal of the day without meat or fish.
For one of the dinners, we tried to reach the place ourselves and had a taste of Bangladeshi addresses. Even now I cannot understand how a road called 9A can go straight for a while, then cross a main thoroughfare and then turn perpendicular and then again go behind on a parallel road! We wasted nearly 30 minutes for just this part. En route we had a glimpse of the beautiful Parliament Building built by Louis Kann. Preeti informed me later on phone that Le Corbusier and Louis Kann built Chandigarh and Dhaka almost around the same time as modern cities. New Dhaka is built on lands that were paddy fields a few decades ago. The parliament building’s architecture itself is beautiful and is enhanced by the way in which entire building gives the impression of emerging from water. The roads from the Parliament building and its surroundings are wide and well planned. In our travels, we experienced the troubles and travails of travelling in a rickshaw, with its precarious definition of centre of gravity and a great faith in the splendid brakes of Toyotas to save their lives, the roaring and sputtering of the ramshackle autorickshaws, which think nothing of bumping other autos as they are anyway run down, and the pathetic taxis – some of them are called Baby taxis (so women should not feel horrified if there are people chasing after you calling you baby, baby!). It was not a very pleasant experience, and I say this without a hint of snobbishness. We desisted from trying out the bus. So we went to places only if a chauffeur driven vehicle was available, because we could not take the traffic in any other mode. Interestingly, distance is measured in ‘kilos’, the same way we use the term for weight.
Most of our Bangladeshi hosts were Muslims, but it is their ‘Bengaliness’ that strikes you most. Bangladeshis are Bengalis first and Muslims later. Their love of their distinct identity, their love of culture, music and arts dominate their psyche. Islam is a demanding religion that requires total submission of its believers while annihilating the believers’ entire roots to substitute completely with that of the land of Mohammed. It is not an easy thing and it is in Bangladesh that this is not as much in evidence as it is other cultures. Firdausi tried to help people understand the meanings of their Islamic names – some were interested, most others were simply polite. They related to each other mostly with culture rather than with religion. I hope that this bond is strong enough to last a few more centuries. Wearing bindis is also common and I was thankful to see that it is not considered as a religious symbol.
Yet another world we witnessed was the confluence of the International guests In Bangladesh. They have their own little alcoves and a couple of Clubs catering to recreation of their own cuisine and camaraderie. Bangladesh, as mentioned earlier, has many international aid agencies working in the country. A single agency had as many as 60 projects on its own, apart from all other agencies. Business also is strong with Koreans, Chinese having a good presence. There are many eateries of different cuisines here and we were introduced to the delightful Teppanyaki cooking of Koreans, whose vegetarian fare was surprisingly wonderful and signed off with a heavenly cinnamon tea.
In every city, the minority population lives in the old city. I had my glimpse of this when I went to old Dhaka and the Sahakari Bazaar. Like in any other old city, the lanes were narrow and the ghetto like living is very evident. Dhakeshwari Mandir is the typical Kali mandir, but also hosts many other deities for the convenience of devotees. As usual, there is that haunting emotional stares when they see Hindus from India, some overcome them and come and talk to you.
The Red Fort is a much better preserved monument, but nothing seems to open in Dhaka before 11 am. It is however, small as compared to the big forts that we are normally used to.
Quality of goods in Bangladesh was not of a high order, though it is called as a nation of Bazaars. The gym machinery at the hotel was Chinese and the quality left much to be desired – I used it just for 4 days, at least to use my new gym clothes bought from my clothing allowance, if not for anything else. So I could not get rid of the additional kilos that I gained there eating all the fried stuff. We also visited the newest mall off the block called Bashundhara. It is a glorified Dhaka Bazaar and not the typical mall that we are used to in terms of stores, brands, merchandise quality and variety and the type of crowd. Still, it is the most happening thing in the retail revolution of Bangladesh. It is again location wise in the most horrendously traffic jam area – I simply do not understand the logic.
Dhaka is a cacophony of cultures, intriguing and depressing at the same time – the same kind of hopelessness you would feel in one of our typical North Indian cities – not much difference in terms of attitudes and practices. Bangladesh is divided into two categories of people – those who love India and those who do not like it. I learnt to speak a little Bengali in that, that I started saying ‘ba’ where ‘va’ should be used, ‘sh’ where ‘s’ should be used and ‘o’ wherever ‘a’ is to be used. And also learnt to say ‘alpo alpo boojhte paarbo’ and to respond to name Kinnori!

reply to comment

Mohan

For some reason I am unable to post comment on my own blog! The instances you have given are valid for some. I differ on the definition of dynasty. Bush Jr did not become the President of America because the American public or the sycophants wanted to put him there, he followed his father's career option because of the experience curve and contacts available to him, very similar to a lawyer's son becoming a lawyer and doctor's son becoming a doctor. Chandra Babu was already into politics and was a minister also in Anjiah's cabinet before NTR came on the scene. Therefore that is not dynastic. But his wanting to bring his son like Karunanidhi is doing for Stalin is definitely dynastic. Dynasty comes into effect when sycophants in the party and the family organize public opinion in support of lineage.

BTW, being conscious of gender bias does not make me a feminist 'freak'. One of the lessons for you towards being gender sensitive!

Dynasties in a Democracy - a view of Andhra Pradesh

The advantage of the middle class and/or the so called thinking citizens (paraded usually as intellectuals) is that of armchair discourses on politics and the state of the State where they live in. I am no exception - without actively participating either in the democratic process in any way, I am of course free to air my opinions on the trends of politics in the country with the air of an analyst (dare not call myself a psephologist!) or through the looking glass of management in general and marketing in particular. It is not even as if I have been a follower of politics - many a time I have shunned away form the very discussions on them, like many of my urban genre of pseudo intellectuals. However, over the years, a certain allure kept me glued to the fringe of this circus, with as much vicarious pleasure as the spectators in the Colosseum. The explosion of media in volume and variety also added to this allure. It is with this explanatory (not apologetic) para that I am proceeding to look at the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh over the years.

Andhra Pradesh took birth on November 1, 1956, but the Chief Ministers existed from 1950. The first 2 were Chief Ministers of the Hyderabad State after its annexation by Sardar Patel into the Indian dominion, and then there were 2 more for Andhra as a Region under the erstwhile Madras State. So when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy became the Chief Minister in the newly linguistically formed Andhra Pradesh State (thanks to the one man army of Potti Sreeramulu who had to die to make Nehru budge from his stand), he is technically considered as the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. From 1956, AP has had 14 Chief Ministers in 19 tenures till August 2009. Only 5 of the 19 CMs completed the full term and more in office - Kasu Brahmananda Reddy, Jalagam Vengala Rao(only one full term), N T Rama Rao, Chandra Babu Naidu and Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. Apart from these, despite short tenures, some have become CMs twice, such as Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, Kotla VijayaBhaskara Reddy and Marri Chenna Reddy. Congress has been in power for 37 years and Telugu Desam Party for 16 years. The longest serving CM is Chandra Babu Naidu, which record would have been upset had Y S Rajasekhara Reddy not died on September 2.

So the head that wears the crown of AP has never rested easy and is indeed very fickle. Dissent within has been more the cause of downfall of Congress CMs than an opposition attack. Interestingly, the Telangana issue has always been simmering and is an important election issue, even for bringing down the ruling party. Even more interestingly, the regional background of CMs has been 6 from the Rayalseema, 4 from the Circars (Krishna & Guntur of the Andhra region), 4 from Telengana. 7 are Reddys, 4 Kammas, and 1 each of Brahmin, Kapu and Scheduled Caste. The shortest tenure is 31 days - that of Nadendla Bhaskar Rao. The ousters or election routs of most of the CMs has been dramatic and on issues blown out of proportion. AP emotions are easy to ignite -they flare up as easily as they suddenly die down and this is an important factor in AP politics. You never can actually map trends as you never know which issue will catch public interest when. Fortunately, after several instances of instigation of mindless violence, now there is some restraint or localization of violence. Therefore, in politics today, a shrewd leader has to manage his mass base by the right balance of provocation and disguised retreat, before it becomes a cause of violence.

Another phenomenon that politicians in AP had to deal with is the totally changed nature of campaigning and getting votes. It was a standing joke in elections in India in yesteryears that a person from the field reported to his boss and candidate of the constituency at 10.30 am on the election day that they had lost the election! The puzzled candidate asked him how this was possible when the voting had just started. His man in the field reported that since he and his gang got up late, the opposite party candidate had a head start and his people captured more booths than they could and that is how the result is going to be unfavourable! Jokes apart, the nature of voting has changed, with improved technology and more awareness amongst masses and the political aspirants really had to endear themselves to the voters in more creative ways.

The use of mass media and professionals in marketing by the leading national parties at the national level saw a sea change in the 1977 elections and fired the imagination of the masses towards voting for change. The very focused and well managed campaign of a completely new party led by N T Rama Rao, who ushered in change in regional level politics with local issues, complete with a USP of regional pride, colour code, taglines, territory coverage and literally projecting all new candidates and sweeping them to power shook the foundations of the largely complacent national parties, a la the earlier Ambassador and Fiat story, when new generation vehicles hit the market. The dissidence in AP Congress still continued, despite them licking their wounds.

The coming of Rama Rao signalled many changes in AP. The decades old monopoly of Congress was shattered. It also decided the fate of two people in AP politics, who were till then comrades in arms. In cricket, it is said that Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli were great friends and started out on the journey together. In Kambli's words, the destinies changed as Sachin took the escalator, while Kambli took the stairs. In AP politics, it was Kambli (Chandra Babu Naidu) who took the escalator provided by his father in law N T Rama Rao, while his comrade in arms and much earlier player Rajasekhar Reddy having to take the stairs.

Babu went on to ride on the crest of his father in law's popularity and quick learner that he was, he very rapidly understood what sells and soon got Rama Rao out of the way. It was also the start of populism as Rama Rao promised the masses Rs 2 a kilo rice scheme and this did make dents into the state finances. Babu now tasted the success of seeking World Bank loans, after a brilliant positioning of AP as a tech savvy and happening state. Infrastructure investments brought in the next high and AP rose in the nation's esteem as a dynamic state and Babu as a person who could swing national level politics as well. Till then, the Delhi Durbar did not much bother about anyone in the South, barring Tamil Nadu.

However, his opponents quickly pointed out that all of Babu's development was aimed at the urban class and that the rural masses were left high and dry. In the run up to the elections, Babu even went for drastic reforms in the power sector and in the state Public enterprises, making everyone confident that he would loose the 1999 elections. Congress went overboard by announcing free power knowing very well that power charges have been steeply increased in Babu's regime under the reform process. There were also premature celebrations. However, stunning everyone, Babu won. How did he do it? By concentrating on key segments, ie, women self help groups, small vegetable growers and assured power supply for farmers and many more such things, focussing on segment specific benefits.

Coming back for a second time, Babu became the CM to be in seat for the longest term. However, arrogance leads to complacency and this was his downfall. He went hammer and tongs against everyone and to keep down a second line formation, created several balancing forces at each level that would keep each of them engaged. Before the 2004 elections, he went overboard by announcing too many freebies, seeking popularity and projecting himself rather than his vision. In the menawhile, YS Rajasekhar Reddy, developed a master plan for the return to power by the Congress, crafted and executed single handedly. Steering clear of dissidence, he went on foot in the hot summer, to the constituents of all areas and regions, to the farthest of the villages and addressed local issues, contrasting and countering in a direct and rustic way, the hi tech campaign of Babu, who had now little understanding of the different segments of the populace. Rajasekhar Reddy won, but not even he could have imagined the total rout of the TDP at the hustings. It could be attributed to the entire government machinery that mans the elections, who were fed up of Babu's draconian performance regimen and transfers in the election year. The swing was just 5 lakh votes, but it left a Tsunami in its wake. Congressmen were surprised at this victory, but YSR knew that he would win as he had guaged the mood of the public more than anyone did.

Congressmen were back to their old games of dissidence, however, YSR had clear focus on two major goals - one to rule the party with full control and use Delhi to quell dissidence and the second to turn the tide permanently in Congress' favour. Fortunately for him, Sonia was more than keen to support him (unlike all previous High Commands who played havoc with all Congress CMs), maybe because of the understanding that divide and rule politics in Congress have come to an end and it is necessary to depend on state governments, rather than lord over them, or because YSR was a Christian, or because she was promised a hefty return, all which may be wrong and all of which may be true.

Among the key programmes YSR went about doing are adopting all of the previous government's welfare and business projects under the name of Rajiv or Indira Gandhi, quelling dissidence ruthlessly with an iron hand by showing guts in not cowering to the age old tactics of pulling the rug from under his feet, constant dialogue with Sonia (and reportedly cash flow), investing heavily in all projects promised during elections, incurring heavy debts along the way, making huge deals for infrastructure and industry and spreading his domain over everyone with this power. Babu, in the meantime had been floundering both in terms of loss of grip on constituents and on his party and flailing wildly at anything and everything, but lacking focus.

So, when the 2009 elections came round, YSR was ready with all his schemes for the poor, particularly the Health initiative and the pension scheme, while Babu wasted precious time trying to sort out inter party and intra party dissidence and rebellion. YSR was helped by the emergence of two more parties (one of which is rumoured to have been egged on by him), but his message to the masses was loud and clear in terms of benefits. Notwithstanding this, it is also rumoured that money just flew in order to keep the stock in hold against the populist schemes being enumerated by all parties for luring the voters. In the end, YSR had the last laugh. He had learnt his lessons well and played his cards exceedingly shrewdly and he crafted the win by annihilating all dissidents in his party and making sure that candidates won only with his blessings and support and rooted out the congenital problem of dissidence in the Congress Party leading to a downfall of the government.

He was firmly in the saddle, but was also conscious that he had to continue to retain the support of the voters in the face of rising bureaucratic and political corruption, that would come home to roost in his term and would also point out an ugly finger at the huge debt that the state has incurred. He had to make the populist schemes work. Unfortunately for him and for the state, he died before ensuring some modicum of success - probably because corruption actually caught up with him? There are serious questions on the quality of craft and spare parts and official laxity in duties that may have led to the crash that killed him.

It is unfortunate for the state- it will see the rise of dissidence again and without a person of stature, it would be well nigh impossible to control the burden of the runaway debt, which his son, now being touted as successor and signalling the advent of dynastic rule even in the state politics, would find difficult to handle. It is not a legacy that YSR would have liked to pass on to his son. It would also be an unfitting tribute to a man who worked hard at an impressive image makeover from that of a powerful mafia don to a charismatic messiah of the people and a national hero. In the TDP also, family politics and dynastic tendencies are very evident, PRP is born in family politics and the future of AP has moved away from democracy in whatever form it was, to dynastic mockery of democratic institutions. Till date, dynastic succession was only at Delhi and in some states like Orissa, now the malaise is spreading like cancer. God save our country!

Brilliant, blazing, bright, bold (and beautiful)

Went to NALSAR today for my niece Nishita's convocation. Nishita bagged two golds for Intellectual Property Rights Laws. In all there were 30 odd golds to be won in each subject, instituted by several donors. Girl after girl went ahead to receive multiple golds (the first one got 9 golds). Only 3 boys bagged just 5 golds! Of which, incidentally, 3 were for the best male student in different subjects! Bright, brilliant girls, confidence exuding, marching away to glory, but the cheers were highest for boys - a thing that jarred my reasoning - even if it was from boys themselves.

Where will all these girls go? How will they fare in their careers and lives? How will the world treat them? At the appointment level how many of them got short changed, one does not know yet. As of now, many have good placements, hopefully with same or better salary than boys. (I must get a lowdown on this). Will they be given their due credit or will they forever play second in command? Will they face the bias that we faced in our careers with politically loaded statements, or has the world matured? I sincerely hope that these bright young, brilliant girls will be known for their intellectual prowess more than for their dazzling dynamism, otherwise termed as beauty.

I was tempted to ask them of what they thought of the recent judgement of a supreme court judge stating that kicking of a daughter in law by her mother in law is not cruelty and termed it as acceptable. But I did not have the heart to spoil the festivity and cheer by asking questions that everyone will ask them once they know you are a lawyer, same like a doctor is always asked questions about ailments no matter whether they are in a social function or even at a funeral. So, how will they deal with such people when they have to argue their cases with them? It would be a double whammy - a women's case by a woman lawyer with a judge who does not understand that the world has moved on and values have changed. However, many of these girls will be joining elite causes like IPRs, patents and corporate law and maybe they would not see the seamier side of the society. But then, it is this brilliance that would be needed to change the archaic judicial system. So where are we now?

Anyway, good luck girls - Congratulations on your splendid performance and may you soar in the skies on your new found wings! I did soar too - enjoyed the pleasure of 5th gear driving (finally) from Shamirpet back to the concrete jungle of Banjara Hills, on a rare occasion of empty roads.

PS - At the luncheon, who do I see serving us? Migrants from Orissa - tired, hungry looking and thin. People coming here to chase their own dreams, but their wings are clipped. See my ealrier blog on this subject.

In search of livelihood - mirages beckon

Migrants have always been numbers for urbanites - in school as a lesson, for sociologists as a research subject, for politicians as a convenient manipulation for attention getting, for NGOs the reason for existence, for the genteel folks a nuisance, a suspicion of lurking danger and what not.

You see them in construction doing hard labour, as waiters in restaurants/resorts/canteens trying to look 'butlery' and trying very hard to speak in English, in beauty parlours trying to pass off their looks as Chinese, in entertainment/amusement parks as dancers and stuntmen, as carpenters, marble workers, painters, glass workers and so on and so forth. Living at workplaces in cramped quarters and muddied surroundings, packed together, earning, earning and earning, even if they are pittances. They save all year, and once a year go home to their families. Only to come back and start at the lowest rung of the ladder once again in the same old cramped hells. How come we don't seem to give them more than a passing glance? How do we take their existence as pieces of furniture? We have no time. We have no energy to take rest from our own rat race. We simply think of it is their bad luck - or more callously - their own doing because they are illiterate or poorly literate. We also 'generously' pride ourselves as a land of opportunities as the South is more progressive than the regressive north and that people have no language problem here in Hyderabad and it is somehow to our credit that people come all the way here to look for job opportunities!

And of course, we don't mind them working on Sundays and holidays (excepting if they are working in malls and they are forcibly closed down by authorities - this definitely affects our convenience!). Why have become like this? Why have I become like this? Though I do think of them, and I also tried to help one or two people - sometimes without much success for helping them with transfer of an account or safe keeping some papers, or guiding them to doctors after my initial OTC drugs do not alleviate their symptoms, I have actually not gone beyond that. Then one day it hits you in the face in full force in seemingly innocuous situations.

Like when I met Nepali cooks (young boys really) in the deep hinterland of the South in Trivandrum! The guest house happily had these two boys, who lived behind the kitchen, which fortunately was decent even if quite small and cooked good food, both North Indian and South Indian! You are of course delighted that you can eat roti that tastes like roti and speak in Hindi, specially after a day of hearing Mallu accented English. Then it strikes you - how did they ever think of coming 2000+ miles away from their homeland, to another country? How did they come? How did they know about this place called Trivandrum in their little village in Nepal. How are they managing to buy groceries and vegetables - how did they manage to learn the language which we never seem to learn beyond a few words and which are usually used to amuse your hosts? They came because one of their village friends landed up a job here, having answered as advertisement, by a stroke of luck really because clerical jobs do not come for people from so far away. After that, there has been a steady stream of his people from the village and he and his brother also came over. They know that they have to work hard for something that would not be enough compensation anyway. And to think of it - they spend nearly Rs 4-5000 in travel fares after depriving themselves of any luxuries!

Even NGOs to a certain extent with a miniscule number of migrant labour on health issues, there is nobody for the rest of the multitude of migrant labour. Will Nandan Nilekani's project help them in any way? It would be worthy of a Nobel Prize if the identification system can help them access PDS, gas, health and other critical and basic citizen facilities.

There are non-migrants too amongst other professions like drivers, mall workers, who do not get a day off and work log shifts. The swank and efficient airport cab services where the cab driver pays a deposit of Rs 10,000, gets trained and then pays Rs 1000 flat every single day of the month irrespective of business, buys his fuel, carries out his repairs and dreams of the car ownership after four years! A car that has run heavy mileage with not a single day's holiday for him. Where is our collective conscience? What can I do? What should I do?

Taming of the Shrew

What is about films like Rab ne Bana di Jodi, Namastey London and the like? What is this craving of a common guy taming the flaming, vivacious girl, and bringing her to "her senses" at the end of the movie? Why this blatant attempt to seek a totally opposite character and bend her completely to your way of living and thinking - in the name of the virtue of upholding the so called traditional values? Is it the fantasy of the average, introvert man that aims at possessing and 'reforming' her, albeit with a loads of melodrama of sacrificing love? And why are they such big hits?

Why does a vivacious,, energetic, educated, modern girl need to be taught a lesson? Why is the oily, rustic, not so socially skilled man the better human being and a more versatile, dynamic and socially adaptable girl the not so good one? What are these flights of fantasy (or should I more aptly state it as fantasizing?) of the male ego? Is it really possible to make a success of this union?

Whenever there is a discussion on women, tempers invariably run high - and very predictably turn into stereotyping the more 'visible' outspoken woman. Why do I hear of most women in senior positions referred to as dominant or arrogant? (The other extreme is dumb female!). Is she really so or perceived as a shield against man's own insecurity?

Why is it that a man can live comfortably and happily with a not so smart wife, while the same is not true vice versa? No answers, only questions. We probably still need many more years before emotional maturity can be evident. Or will it ever?

ghettos & politics

The spread of the Indian diaspora has always intrigued me. The spirit of entrepreneurship of risking something new for higher returns gives a calling that is too hard to resist. In the Western world, there have been explorers, conquerors, traders. A part of the Eastern world has been marauding pillagers, who slowly tired of it and became settlers and new rulers. Indians - though this collective term is disputed as being a British legacy and that India did not exist as a collective before that - I still believe that too many things have tied all the generations in some kind of a common heritage and therefore tend to behave in a culturally distinct manner. Notwithstanding the differences between the different regions in India, there appears to be a thread that identifies them clearly, specially with reference to their outlook on life, money and politics.

All migrant communities set up their own self styled ghettos - sometimes for collective moral support, sometimes for shutting out the external world and creating a familiarity they are comfortable with and sometimes, simply because they look down on the people and the land of their immigration. As conquerors if you shun the natives, it leads to rebellion; as migrants if you shun the locals, it leads to racism. This view of mine is contrary to the prevalent view that racism is innate to locals - one does not realise that it could also be a reaction to the unspoken, but unconsciously or subtly expressed superiority complex of the migrants. Unfortunately, the manifestation of this is in the attacks on the undefended, innocent and the meek as they are easy prey. Occasionally, the rasher ones exhibiting bravado also get the rough end, but it is mostly the milder ones that get hit.

It usually starts with hating the weather and the food - that is universal across world cultures. However, when it manifests itself in hating those who eat such food and enjoy the climate, the ugliness becomes vivid. Intelligent as we are, we are however, naive when it comes to mental maturity and adult behaviour and the hatred shows. We simply cannot understand that respecting one's culture has nothing to do with hating another culture or its followers.

Can we really learn to respect other views? we cannot even agree in our ghettos - the Telugus in US are now in four splinter groups. each vying with each other to show how they preserve Telugu culture, particularly the caste politics! We cannot tolerate our own culture and we stoop to slander and character assassination all the time, and we call others racist? What is happening in the Indian diaspora is politics worse than what happens at home in India and is full of caste racism, which is even more hateful than racism per se. What right have we to talk about racism, when all day long we mention caste at least once and in derogatory terms of a person belonging to another caste and proving it time and again that caste prevails over everything else, no matter how many years or generations or thousands of miles you are away from it. Racism exists in us inasmuch as it exists elsewhere.

Ganga & Me

River Ganges (Ganga) fascinated me for the sheer position it enjoys in the pantheon of rivers in India. Apart from that, a Telugu saying "Ganga snanam, Tunga paanam", meaning a dip in river Ganga and a sip of river Tunga are considered as the ultimate standards. In my early childhood I had quite a lot of Tunga Paanam anyway and did not know the difference.

I did not get to see Ganga till 1980, when I went to Delhi to appear in an interview for a Netherlands Fellowship Programme. After that, I went visiting Dehradun to Jaya's place (sis in law) for the first time. They & Rakesh, my friend from BITS Pilani, who lived in Dehradun, naturally took me around - which meant going to Hardwar and Rishikesh and of course Mussoorie. At Hardwar, I saw Ganga for the first time. The experience was nice but not significant. I became aware of the refreshing whiteness of Ganga and nothing more really. I was, however, to visit Ganga several times in multiple cities and only then could I experience its power, its mystic, and its magic. It has invoked deep seated emotions in me.

I visited it twice with my children - the first time it was to laugh with them and play with them on its banks and give them a dunking and also show them the huge fishes swimming swiftly in its current. We also bought some fish food to throw to them, as if they were not well fed enough already. The second time was a bit scary - I hadn't realized the danger of sitting on the concrete platform created for the evening Aarti as a single chaperon for four highly playful kids of descending ages (my two nieces and my two daughters). It was brought home to me when Shivani squirted water with her palms on all of us and I mistook a plastic scrap to be a water organism and jerked suddenly, almost toppling Preeti into the water. My stars were good - I only managed to knock off Preeti's new black and white framed spectacles and we also involuntarily stooped down to save them. It was impossible - I still did not realise the danger of slipping and falling. A couple of kids (urchins really - who keep hanging about) dove in and searched without success. One of them said to me that the current of Ganga is so strong that the glasses would have been swept away a great distance already (he said miles). It was then that the risk I was taking in putting the kids to such danger, made me immediately get the children to move away from the platform. I was petrified with the thought of what could have happened. It didn't help with Preeti's wild imagination that her glasses would reach the Bay of Bengal and then travel to Indian Ocean and reach the South African shores where Alan Donald (her favourite cricketer) would pick them up, as it only compounded my dread. It was this incident that made me look at Ganga properly - how many times we visit places and only just about visit them without actually seeing them properly? I noticed the quiet but superfast current of the river and admired its sheer power without any sound or show about it. It is so deceptive! The mark of the truly powerful!

The true spirit and power of Ganga is captured in Bapu's film Seeta Kalyanam (a film that is prescribed syllabus in many US universities). The artiste director Bapu created a poem in celluloid on the birth of Ganga. It seems Bapu created many sketches of Ganga in various stages, almost like an animation album, as words cannot accurately express the right emotions, characterisation and nuances, as well as a picture can. He then filmed the actual sequence. He has been able to capture the true spirit of Ganga in the splendour of her being, her dynamiting dynamism, her anger and her arrogance, her power and more. This picturisation remained embedded on my heart eternally. I also bought an imprint of his painting where Ganga deigns to come down to earth first dancing on Shiva's head and one small part of her is allowed to escape from his knotted labyrinth of hair to make her mark on the land of mortals.

My next encounter with Ganga was the most beautiful and insightful. This was when I was doing a study on the Restructuring of Bharat Yantra Nigam (if there is a Limca Book of records for the number of studies, probably this would win), I went to Allahabad with my colleague Sanal. It was November, cool days had started. We had a very short time of one and a half days to cover the Head Office and the two factories in Allahabad and Naini. The liaison person, DGM Corp Plg, wanted to know if we wanted to visit places, particularly the Sangam (confluence of Ganga and Yamuna - a very holy and a must see place for Hindus). I was totally averse to it, having seen ad nauseum, the TV images of the Maha Kumbh, which concluded just a week before we visited the place. The entire pseudo religious commercialisation had put me off completely, and no amount of incentive for crediting my virtue account with God, did not entice me to pay a visit. Sanal was anyway a work focussed man, so we declined. We were returning from Naini at about 5.20 pm and the November sun was just about setting. When we reached the Sangam - the DGM almost pleaded with me that since the place now had no crowd, we should step out for a dekko for just five minutes. I felt bad that we were giving such a hard time to the person whose only interest was in making us witness something which every visitor to Allahabad demanded to see as a matter of right. I thought that if we just take a walk and come back to the vehicle, it would take no more than 5-10 minutes and we thus proceeded.

I was totally unprepared for what followed. I don't even know whether I can describe it in terms that would do full justice to it. I found the river bank devoid of any humna being, sans one panda who was doing some ritual on the sand. We had an unbounded view of the magnificent painting in the sky - it was, coincidentally, a full moon day. The sun was setting and the moon was rising. On one end I could see a huge ball of orange and on the other, a huge ball of silver. It looked so beautiful and too good to be real. I had never seen such huge orbs of the sun and the moon at what seemed like very close quarters. I felt that if I ran ahead, I could hold each ball in each of my outstretched hands. My eyes could not stop drinking and getting overwhelmed by this magnificent celestial painting. It was then that I heard the Ganga - she was rushing forward as if in a tearing hurry - you could feel her power surging forward. She was white and rippling in every muscle and yet looked sinewy and graceful. I turned to look at Yamuna - slow, limpid, languid and lazily, heavily meandering, as if she knew that her sister would come rushing to meet her even if she didn't move an inch. She was lost in her deep brooding thoughts. What a contrast - the two sisters - born in the same terrain , coursing through the northern plains on parallel but paths of different stature and character. Yamuna - the elder one - deep, dark - (deep green), slowly moving - her mass providing her the momentum required to move forward, heavy and brooding. Ganga - white, rushing on treacherous slopes, tearing down everything that stood in her way, never slackening her speed, but not very deep, every movement of hers characterised by dynamism. Ganga then hits the 90 degree corner and her sheer force pushes away the older, heavier Yamuna a good distance. The arc where Ganga pushes away Yamuna is almost a half circle. At this point, Yamuna loses her identity and existence to Ganga's complete domination and she ceases to exist. I wonder what Ganga did to the underground river Saraswati, which also was said to join here - we do know that Saraswati ran dry. Ganga strides majestically forward.

My next views of Ganga were not so good - inasmuch because of the thronging crowds and dirt as also because now I cannot accept anything less than my earlier vision of this great lady. These were at Benares and Patna, both for UNICEF work related to water and sanitation and these places were anything but that. The overwhelming ritualistic presence at Benares put me off and I felt that Ganga became heavy and dirty here. I tried conjuring up my mother's experience on the floating bridge in Benares, decades earlier when she came to write her Matric exams and the misty droplets she described as splattering her face when she crossed on this bridge. I tried hard, but could not get to feel the beauty of Ganga here. I also was not very enamoured of the aarti here. In Patna, I did see the expanse of Ganga because of the large Gandhi Setu - I may be biased but Ganga appeared to have bloated and slowed down in Patna. The Setu itself, though supposed to be a great construction, the lack of attention to details and lack of aesthetics somehow undermined its greatness.

Probably my last encounter with Ganga was way back in 2002. I was in BHEL, Hardwar for a training programme. I was taken by AGM Mehrotra for the customary evening Aarti in Hardwar. This time I went willingly as I now had a relationship with Ganga. As VIP guests, we were taken very close to the waterfront and could sit just where the Aarti was to be performed. As I sat down, I was overcome with a tremendous feeling that she was calling me into her arms. I was petrified - I felt that I was being pulled heart, soul and body into a vortex. A part of me was saying that I should heed the call and go and my eyes kept flashing the images of my daughters and I knew that I had to stay longer in this world for them. But the tug was getting fearfully stronger - I felt that if did not move away from there, something disastrous was going to happen. I shocked Mehrotra by telling him that I feel like jumping in and ending my life. He just took me away from there and gave me a lecture on getting back to senses, whether or not he believed me that I had intended to die. I know definitely that if I hadn't made the effort of blurting it out, I would have taken the plunge - I would have been probably saved given the crowd there - or I would have probably been swept away into the arms of Ganga and released from all cares and worries of this world - who knows?

This feeling of pull stayed with me for two days, ebbing slowly as the flood of Ganga does. I went to Dehradun the next day to visit Jaya and with my strong belief that I have to overcome this feeling and pull that was lingering in me and that it can only be done by outpouring , I confided to Jaya about what happened to me. She was not in her normal cheerful and warm demeanour - she probably had something on her mind, or she simply thought that I was being melodramatic - she didn't say anything. Every pore of my body and soul was crying out, please reassure me so that I can become normal again. I knew then, I had to summon my own internal reserves to help myself. I again remembered and kept remembering my children and reminding myself that they still need me and returned to Delhi. It was in Delhi, when I had to wait for a delayed flight to Hyderabad and with all people milling around me that I thought and thought about a lot of things and the strong pull of Ganga was left behind slowly. I now no longer laugh at people who die for seemingly unnecessary reasons - I no longer think of them as cowards who could not face life - the urge to end it all can be sometimes the highest philosophical thought and it is indeed difficult to resist the dizzy eddying of emotion that surges at such moments. I also know now that I would not want to see my mentor Ganga again because this time, I may become one with her. By the way - I did not have Ganga 'snanam' till date, having managed only to wet my feet and not wanting to impart my sins and impurities to her.

In Seventh Heaven!

Attended a function which I would not miss for anything - book release of Kothi Kommachchi of Mullapudi Venkataramana at Ravindra Bharathi. It was a great function where the speeches were wonderful, witty, delightful play on literary and conversational Telugu words, in the company of Sita and Nayana - what more could one want! However...............................

All this was eclipsed when at the dinner party later in Varaprasad Reddy's penthouse over his corporate office, Bapu says to me "You are as beautiful as your name!" Oh, to be complimented thus by an artist whose work is a byword for describing beauty! I am in Seventh Heaven! Please nobody and nothing should pull me down from there for some time to come at least!!! And he and Ramana both sign in my copy of the book! I have enough booster rocket power now in me to trudge through life in a dream world! My name, my name - thank you Amma, thank you Naanna!

Legacy of a name

Many have legacies of the names of their grandparents and other ancestors to uphold, some have names that are the total opposite of their personality, yet others have to live with long and/or tongue twister names. I was fortunate - my parents gave me a unique name. Specially in the decade that I was named in the early fifties, it was an extremely rare name and till the eighties, I did not hear of anybody with that name. Even now, it can be termed as an uncommon name. It bestowed on me uniqueness without my having to lift a finger to do so.

I naturally tried to find out what my name meant. My Mother told me that she named me for a poem written by the great Telugu litterateur called Vishwanadha Satyanarayana. The long poem - Kinnerasani Paatalu - is lyrical and is an ode to the river Kinnerasani, a tributary of Godavari. The beautiful poem traced the river's origin, its journey and its final culmination in the bottomless ocean. While I loved the poem and its literary richness, I was however, troubled greatly by the epithet 'Sani' to the name of the river, which means a fallen woman. I was uncomfortable when people did refer to it, oblivious to my feelings - when they would first hear of my name, they would exclaim - 'what a lovely and unique name' and then immediately ruin the whole effect by saying - but Kinnera was Kinnerasani in full and would stop without a full stop. It made me indignant, uncomfortable and angry at times at this insensitivity and almost wished that I wasn't named Kinnera.

I read the story of Kinnerasani many times - wondering about the life and times of this persona. Kinnera was actually a normal housewife, leading a normal humdrum life and would have probably died unsung by anybody but for her family. The turning point in her life comes when she is unable to tolerate her mother in law's torture any more and, upset with the impotence of her husband in front of his mother's domination, she runs away from home. Her husband runs after her. She beseeches him to be firm and change the state of things at home and only then she would return. Her husband expresses his inability to act in the matter and turns to cold stone. Kinnera cries her heart out and in the torrent of her grief, the river Kinnera is born. She then sets out in the world in her new found garb and after a long journey, meets up with the mighty river Godavari, in whose embrace she finds the solace of a mother. Together with the river Godavari, she journeys on and finally loses her identity as she blends into the powerful ocean. Kinnera, since she was a married woman who ran away from home and her husband, and then joined Sagar - the ocean, is thus called a Sani - a fallen woman.

Why then, the other rivers are not called Sani? Because they are virgins and accept one husband and that is the ocean! This may be true of many rivers, but what about the purest and sacred of all rivers - the Ganga? Ganga - the epitome of a Hindu's journey for washing away his/her sins - starts by having Lord Shiva for a husband, then she follows Bhagirath, then on to Jahnu, who keeps her in captivity for a duration and actually starts living a conjugal life with Shantanu, the king of Bharata as his wife - Ganga is not called a Sani - she is revered as the universal mother and the eraser of all sin. Is this acceptance because Ganga is mighty and powerful, unlike the small, meandering Kinnera? Because Ganga is difficult to control and can and has destroyed anything that came in her path? Is there a lesson in these comparative sagas?

In due course of time, I learnt the original meanings of the word Kinnera. My research showed that it is the name of celestial beings who serenade Shiva, known for their music (alongwith another set of celestial beings - the Gandharvas) and that they came to be known as Kinneras by their musical instrument - Kinnera - a version of Veena (sometimes referred to as Kinneri). They eventually formed the tribe of Kinneras and lived in the region of Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh. In BITS Pilani, where I studied my science, my Dean Dr Shiva Yogi Tiwari was, like many others, intrigued by my name and he went a step further and referred to a Sanskrit dictionary and gave me the etymology of the word Kinnera - kin + nar = is this a human being? This was because Kinneras were half horses and half human beings (a la Pegasus). This added another discomfort to me but I turned it to my advantage by aggressively introducing myself as such. Dean Tiwari also educated me that my name had other meanings - a kind of bird, and a bud. My name, I conclude, is downright intriguing and interesting.

A Fistful of Heart

Fistful of Heart is a transliteration of "Guppedu Manasu" in Telugu. In my schooldays, I wondered enormously as to how this heart, which is the size of one's fist is capable of pumping so much blood and work so much all the time. Smaller in size than the brain and the liver and other not so glamorous organs in the body, it still has so much power and even ruled the head many times or upset the entire abdominal factory that would otherwise run quite hummingly, just because the heart felt otherwise! In the small fist of a space it crowds in oceans of emotions and experiences. Can these be expressed as easily as they are felt? Many occasions it also influences the brain and its ability to think practically and more so for women. Is it a double whammy then, in the case of women the right brain and the fistful of heart both conspire to torment her? Questions are simple - answers are many and complicated. So let us not even attempt to unravel its mysteries, just experience the agonies and the ecstasies it subjects us to.

I will use this blogspace to download some of the emotions - emotions full of feeling or thinking or both! Because they are beyond words.