Cost or value or price of life.....

Life is all about surviving and only the fittest survive ......law of the jungle, but when i read about wars being fought in various parts of the world and how in one instant so many die. Those news articles make me wonder as to what law took these innocent lives. As a student i had read a book 'Lord of Flies' and it brought home the fact that scratch the surface and you have nothing but animal tedencies in humans however young. Years later i saw a movie in malayalam 'Thaniavartanam' here too the story talks about an ordinary school teacher with a family history or a curse of madness. It shows how people of the small village he is from start seeing symptoms of apparent madness in this young teacher even in his most normal and simple actions and speech.

It ends with the person crying on his mother’s shoulders and telling her how he does not want to go on,  he did not to want to live. He had lost his job and normal life by then, it had the most tragic end as his mother kills him to end his misery. A harsh story and I wondered as to how many such mocking birds do get sacrificed for just being themselves. In recent times it would have to the heart rending story of a young mother of 20 who got burnt alive as people believed she was a witch.

When I watch movies and read news articles about the underworld it is chilling to see how very cheap a person’s life is, so easy it is to kill for frivolous reasons. Then there is the question of how valuable is a person’s life or what is the value of person’s life? Some times we humans are so barbaric in our dealings with each other and the love to gang up on each other or a single person. Sometimes we lose track of how inhuman we have become, when all it takes is a little compassion and empathy for each other.

What are the parameters that make a life valuable or cheap …..a highly subjective issue because even the poorest of poor do have a very important place in the lives of their kith and kin. Here in Bahrain as an expatriate I see so many who commit suicide and I always wonder what is it that makes them take their life. Are situations and people so bad that one should give up hope totally and completely? What demons drove these people to such extreme steps …. I see most of them are single or are living away from family or have problems communicating with the people around.

I feel in such cases it is all about that ‘Moment’ of ‘loss of faith’…if one can sit down and think things over or cry it out or talk to another or connect to another ….that one moment passes and one can see the hope and possibilities life has to offer. I am glad the Indian Embassy is doing its bit to help reduce the number of suicides …. a good measure that will go a long way in raising up the value of people’s lives.

The value of each and every life on earth however ordinary the individual, is priceless because of the potential the individual holds …..and the possibilities galore that are yet to be explored ……….

The cup that cheers and how bloody it is !!!!!!

The first thing that struck me as odd was the fact that there were no street lights on the high way in Assam, this makes the roads look eerie, the dense foliage of the place did not help matters either. There being no street lights were a novelty that made me see the huge number of fire flies in the dark, and much later when i got used to the place the fire flies made the nights spent alone ....waiting for the tea workers to stop their din ...seem magical...Assam is so beautifull but so abused by the government and its own people and is lost in a war for an ideal that the insurgents themselves have forgotten.........
That the situation was bad was brought home by the fact that the DGM moved around with a van full of body guards dressed as black cats armed with light machine guns. I used to find the guards a bit scary because the minute you saw them, it was an indication that an important person was around making the person needing protection more vulnerable to attack. Of course this is my point of view, but the tea companies knew they had to give enough protection to executives as many used to get kidnapped for ransom. Yes i do believe many of the wars being fought at the state level in India has come down to a case of mere extortion and the cause the rebellion was started in, has been forgotten.
I was allowed to go for a walk in the estate only if any of the other executives wives were going for a walk. The main reason being over and above insurgents there is a constant threat from wild animals roaming around freely. This was such a culture shock for a person going from Maharashtra, because the police force in that state were very good, and i grew up taking law and order and my safety for granted in my adopted state of Maharashtra.
 Every year all important national days such as Republic day and Independence day were days the wives would be worried for the lives of their husbands and their children. Invariably there would be some group coming to the estate asking for some money or it would be the order to buy petrol and diesel from a particular pump. Now Assam is a state with many rivers and a lot of coal mines, it has the distinction of being the place with the first oil refinery in the world but it has major energy supply problems. The estates spent a huge amount of money buying diesel and petrol for running the generators, trucks and tractors etc on the estate.
Quite a few top officials used to get kidnapped and huge sums of money used to change hands as the poor management of these tea companies had no other alternative. Then there were also stories about managers being killed by angry mobs. The workers could not understand that the managers were representatives of the owners and used to get very angry when for some reason the bonus they were to get during Diwali (an important festival of lights) time was reduced by any percentage.
Two stories will always remain with me one was of a dashing Punjabi manager who was very strict and efficient.This hardworking person met a horrendous end as he was practically mauled to death by an angry mob of workers who bore him grudges.
The second was even more spine chilling ....one year during bonus time when the amount being given out was reduced by a particular company, the workers of the estate went to the twin bungalow where the Manager and his assistant were staying and dragged them out of their respective houses locked their wives and children, made a pyre with the furniture from the bungalow and burnt both those innocent people to death right in front of their wives. Later someone said both the women developed mental disorders.
Tea is manufactured from 11pm at night till around 3am and the factory assistant's bungalow is always very near the factory, the worst such bungalow i lived in was in Mohokuti estate. The factory was very near the house and in the cold of the night the noise of the machines and the din of the workers used to make me think that there was a fight going on. One usually gets used to the noise and the fact that the keys of the company came to the house everyday in winters which was the off season. I somehow never could sleep well, with that noise on and most days i would spend time till the noise stopped, reading the newspaper or doing crosswords puzzles.
The newspaper became such a necessity for me and i used to read it so well that i taught myself editing in that process, of course there was no cable television nor the telephone or access to the internet, even as late as 2003 in the tea estates in Assam. The radio played Hindi Bollywood numbers for an hour in the mornings only, so the newspaper, became my ally and my window to the world. I also was hosting company guests and family at the bungalow all the time. There were very few days when i was not catering to guests.

One fine day i saw a Sten gun waved into my face and that day i decided that life in this state is no good but i also realised i have the instincts of a psychic :) ......we were going to Jorhat from Moran, the estate was located near Moran town. This was the place which helped me decide i do not want to raise my children up in Assam because this is a place where they would never learn what it is to be born free and to not have fear stalking you at every turn. Moran is the birthplace of the Assam insurgent movement!!!!!!!!!
On that day when we were driving down to Jorhat, in Moran town i to told my husband to buy me sweet pan. He parked the car on the curb and went to small shop selling cigarettes and pan leaving the keys in the car.
A second after that a black Scorpio van came hurtling down the road from the opposite direction and tried to go on to the foot path next to where our car was parked. Our car was barring their way and somehow that was agitating the driver, i also noticed a man standing on the side board of the Scorpio. I do not know why, but my first reaction after seeing that car was to take the keys out of the ignition in the most gentle of ways and the next thing i did was.... lay my baby boy down on my lap. Children are so quick to pick up the vibes of their parents, he too became quiet and still, in the mean time the man standing on the side board of the black Scorpio came to our vehicle, i need a nano second to see the Sten gun in his hand and put on my mask to avoid any expressions.
He told me in Hindi to move the car, he just needed a split second to gauge the fact that i was non Assamese and from the tea community because of the maid and a male domestic help sitting behind me. I told him in the most dead pan tones that my husband had the keys, at this he got even more agitated and barked out at the male domestic help to get the owner of the car. The poor guy went running at top speed, the man with the gun went beserk and reached inside the car and started blaring the horn and kept his hand on the horn without removing it. I so amazed myself with the nonchalance with which i sat through the entire drama he was putting up. In the mean time the driver of the Scorpio manged to get the car off the footpath they had got onto, reversed the car and thankfully the man with the gun went running to get into the car. A little later just before my husband came back i saw a police van go in full speed in the direction of the black Scorpio and it made me smile ...... 
In Sibsagar a town near Moran i remember seeing a huge three storey building belonging to one of the supremo's of one of the insurgent groups in Assam and i remember thinking .....is this the facade the leader of an insurgent group wants to portray to the youth of this state?????? is this how you lure young children away from the paths of industry, growth and the economy of your state????? is this how you leave young women widowed and mother's abandoned in their old age?????? Is this how you gang rape your state you misguided lost souls??? how can you hide your thieving ways in the name of rebellion for a cause of Free Assam and more opportunities for the Assamese!!!!!!!!!!
when one of your ways ....is killing your own people in the name of the Cause!!!!
I was used to hosting people who came to help with the maintenance of the tea factory machinery or help with other maintenance work. This is because there are no hotels in the area of the tea estate and it is the duty of each wife living on the estate to maintain the bungalow as a three star hotel, at least that is what my husband drilled into my head day in and day out!!!!!!!
One day we were hosting a young engineer who had been trained in Kirloskar Cummins a famous firm from Pune. Anyone who had any connection to Pune was always special and as we were having breakfast, i heard the gates being opened and a vehicle drive in. My immediate concern was how many more people to cater to, but these guests were different and so was the treatment they were getting from the bungalow servants. They trooped into the sitting room even before i could see them and i realised something was wrong when i saw the expression on the bearer's face as he came to the dinning room. Yes they were another tribe we had to get used to .....the surrendered insurgents!!!!!!!!!!

They had just come to give my husband the notification that they had bought the petrol pump near the estate.I admired these people for coming back to the main stream but i would notice many got killed in the fights between the insurgents and themselves (the surrendered insurgents).
The government of Assam used to give a sum of INR 2 lakhs and a gun to each insurgent who surrendered. Many of the surrendered youth used to open small restaurants and the people who visited these joints knew who the owners were. Sometimes innocent customers would get killed in the crossfire between these two warring factions viz the insurgents and the ones who had surrendered.
There was no way any one staying in Assam could know for a fact that when shootouts could happen or where. Once a driver told us a story about the wife of a factory assistant manager who was working in the same company as my husband. This particular lady had a habit of going to the tea planter's club in Moran for a swim sometimes and one day as usual she told the driver to go to the club while returning from somewhere, but last minute her child had some problem and they went back home.
It was her lucky day because she would have either lost her life or something worse would have happened to her, had she gone to the club.
There was a shoot out between the insurgents and the surrendered insurgents in the club that afternoon!!!!!
One of the first few things i was shown after reaching Assam was the bullet marks in the Borsola club where the insurgents had attacked, some of the people had got injured and an executive who was born and brought up in Mumbai later told us about how he ended up in hospital for so long due to an injury he got in the cross fire.
The worst scene i endured in my entire stay in Assam was in the winter of 2003 while we were staying on Mohokutie tea estate. I was around 5 months pregnant and my older child was 2 and a half years old and the company my husband was working decided to cut the bonus payment that year. This news put fear into my mind considering the already difficult time i was dealing with. The day of the bonus payment was an ominous one and the whole area of the factory was full of workers, and even though they were not shouting like they did at night, the din of their talk was scary. Once lunch was over and it was time for my husband to go to the factory, he told me that he is going to lock my son and me in the house, i was to not let any of the bungalow help inside nor was i to leave the bungalow even if someone bought news of his death. I so wished there was a phone in the house for me to talk to someone and share my fears. Nothing of that sort happened and so i sat in the verandah and did crossword puzzles. After some time the din started getting to me as there was a huge uproar in the factory, and i feared the worst. It was nearly dinner time when the noise level came down and i felt relieved that nothing untoward happened. It was a relief to see the manager's car leave for his bungalow and it was a sign that all is well.  
Even as recently as last month a tea estate owner and his wife were hacked to death by tea workers......
There is a threat to life in so many occupations and yet people do take up such jobs, but how many people world wide know as to what goes on in tea estates in many parts of the world.
I will now shift focus to some other parts of the world ..... i lived in Annamalais for 10months, one of the most virgin and therefore beautifull hill stations in South India. The minute one reaches the place after 41 hair pin bends you know you are in a very special place.
Here too life is not very secure, the tea estates are situated in a wild life sanctuary and the threat is from wild animals. I do not blame the Elephants and Bisons or Panthers or packs of Wild Dogs or the Snakes. It was their habitat and man took over the place and forgot to tell them about it ....or rather the means of communication between man and the animal kingdom have not been developed.
Every time we went for a party to Cinnamon Grove near Valparai town, we women used to hope and pray that we do not meet any elephants or bisons.
The tea estates in Darjeeling have to deal with labour unrest and some other problems. Tea estates in Sri Lanka too had their problems along with the problems the country was facing, similar is the case of estates in some parts of Africa.
Therefore i say that every time you drink tea do give a thought to the tea planter and his wife who brave such difficult conditions to give you your cup of cheer. Another fact being that the children can never be with their parents as most estates are in remote regions and hence planters children are mostly in boarding schools.
The tea planter's wife is an institution in her own right, many tea companies in India do pay the wife for her contribution in running the estate, as many companies have a policy where the planters wives help with welfare activities and running of the creche for worker's children. These women have to be good in interior designing, cooking, planning parties from the estate to the district level, have to be excellent hostesses, be an excellent man manager because most bungalows have a minimum of 10 domestic help, emergency aid giver, agriculturist because all bungalows come with a huge kitchen garden and lawn and flower beds etc and so much more.
I salute your tribe all ye Planters and hope your lot has better conditions in  the years to come. 

 

Love of the Common man ---Heroic i say

In this world i have noticed one thing ....and that is............ the people who are either beautifull or well heeled .....some are blessed with both these attributes ....money and looks .....these people do have an easy road as far as getting accepted in a particular organisation or platform is concerned ...... they do have an edge over people who are not good looking or rich .....this does not mean that all that a beautifull or rich person says is accepted as the ultimate truth or that their life is a bed of roses ......they do have their own crosses to bear ......but yes they do have an edge over the others............ BUT......... the poor always do have to fight to make their voice heard and accepted in most platforms
Today being Valentine's day there is another thing that i always think about, 14th feb is celebrated as a day of love in most parts of the world. If one reads any romantic novel the author's description of the people in love is usually that of a person who is beautifull, of course there are exceptions to this rule example the Hunchback of Notre Dame who was so very much in love.... There are other instances of the hero or heroine of a love story not being beautifull in their physical being ...but then the author would compensate for this so called ''lacking'' by building up the character of this not so beautifull hero/heroine by giving them the most pleasant of temperaments.
My question is ..... why is this so .....because when we look at the common man world over, we see so many instances of such intense love and companionship between people who do not fit into the normal definitions of beauty. Will there ever be pageants for the common man who is above such definitions, citations, awards, fame or any such recognitions ........... and that is why the common man and woman is a Hero in my eyes ......so ordinary are their lives, so hard their struggle to make ends meet, so ingenious their ways to go about keeping their body and soul together and just as intense as a romantic their feeling for family and friends .....   

Something that strikes me very deeply

Something that strikes me very deeply ....... many people work because they love their jobs ........ and not because of the pay packet or appreciation or non appreciation ...... it is all about a job well done and looking back and being happy that when you were working you were true to what you did ....... very rarely do we even thank certain people from certain professions ...... but i love to see people who are devoted to their work come rain or shine .....be it an ordinary but essential job as those of the service providers ..... milk man or watchman or plumber ....... and sometimes just sometimes they, in going about their daily routine become great like the Dabbawalas of Mumbai .....

Do we ever thank the journalists ....... they do have awards ...and sometimes readers do write in to praise a particular article, but does lack of appreciation ever come in the way of our newspaper not reaching us on a particular day.....never ....and that is best part of it for me :)

Intellectuals talk about doing work and not really thinking about the results or fruits of one's labour. Indians quote Lord Krishna's philosophical advice "na karm phale spraha'' meaning do your work and duty for duty's sake and do not worry about the fruits of your labour.
What strikes me as very ironical is the fact that intellectuals pontificate about these things and ruminate about such deep and thought provoking philosophical ideals, but it is the common labourer, be it a mason, plumber, tailor or even a sweeper who actually practises this doctrine ........
Every time i use the toilets in Seef Mall in Bahrain ......I feel humbled and touched to see the ladies who do their cleaning work and they have a smile and they always share a word with almost everybody. This also reminds me of a song 'if more people were for people than people everywhere....there wud be a lot less people to worry about and a lot more people to care''  

Privacy in the virtual era we now live in .......

There is smthing i find new and strange on Face Book now ....today my elder child showed me how the new Face Book search works ..... he has it on his account ....and it is amazing how many options of search this new system gives the users ........... I wonder if people who are on Face Book will be able to really block out being searched ...... with any more innovation to this system.

Face Book needs this new system as a means of revenue generation I suppose. It does make me think ......as to how long can we take our privacy for granted? It reminds me of a time long long ago when i was reading the book 'We the living' by Ayn Rand. I liked  this book more than all the other books written by this philosophical author. While i was reading the book i was struck, by how cruel the system in communist Russia was......people had no secrets ...even children unknowingly let out information about the happenings or dialogues taking place in their house, leading to problems for their parents!!!! Now in hindsight i think i was so naive .....there are no secrets in today's world ....computers are hacked .....mail ids are hacked ....files are leaked...people live in more confined spaces and conversations are overheard by neighbours. 

Information is shared by some because they feel knowledge is free and should be shared, whereas this very act of knowledge sharing is a crime for some. This is because it means loss of revenue from selling this information. Some think hacking is ethical in certain contexts. Many news agencies are sued over issues such as personal snaps of celebrities being leaked and printed for public viewing. Recently information about the royals being unknowingly disclosed, even resulted in a death. This was by far the saddest case of life being snuffed out in the name of a prank, but a prank gone so very wrong. Some times it makes me wonder, whether, in following some ones life, even if it is someone you admire, classify this act as a form of  voyeurism?....scary thought as nobody wants to be labeled so drastically. We need to look at the whole scenario in a retrospective manner to understand where and how we the common man and media go wrong .......

In the end i would also like to add the net or FB or any other public platform is not for the chicken hearts ..... if you want to network and look or do some research on anyone the net is a convenient place. If you use it to research and look at friends and enemies too in some cases be ready to get looked at ....if you feel paranoid about people looking at you then go off the platform people ....... :)  

Empowered youth and economics - the power they have to bring about world peace...

There are many instances world over where students have been the reason behind the start of revolutions. Many of these revolutions did bring about far reaching positive changes to the places where they took place. Then there are many regions in the world today which are plagued by insurgent activity which have been started for various issues. In most cases insurgency starts on lofty intellectuals ideals and in most cases are started by the intellectuals of a particular region. Soon the ideals for which these movements started seemto get eroded and what replaces the insurgent movement is ordinary arson,extortion and ransom in the name of some 'xyz' cause. The sad part being that the target of the insurgents to increase their numbers tends to be the youth of the region, specially the unemployed youth who can be easily swayed.
Every rebel group hopes to come to power to change the system they think is bad, but sadly I am reminded of Geroge Orwell’s AnimalFarm. Is there a guarantee that the new system is going to be better  than the system it wishes to replace? Another fundamental problem each such warring faction forgets is the effect their activities have on the younger children growing up in the shadow of such uprisings. Statistics shows that children growing up in trouble or strife prone areas tend to show Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Not a single insurgent understands that in adopting violent methods to achieve their ends they end up eroding two generations of their community. First they target the youth and second the children growing up in the shadow of the violence they are spearheading, grow up with problems too. Then who are these people fighting to create a new social order or state or religion for ? In the very process of using violence they are wiping out any new progress they could achieve, even if they achieve it, who are they creating a new society for ? scarred youth ?.
I believe the solution to this problem is very simple –economics will have to reign supreme.  If the governments and industry of insurgency affected regions put their heads together, they can come up with a multipronged solution to ensure the maximum number of youth are either studying, working or are in the process of becoming entrepreneurs.The greater the number of youth gainfully employed, fewer the number of youth left to join such rebels. The government and industry should work together to ensure greater industry academia partnerships to ensure career oriented courses which will increase the employability of students. Greater the employability of students the lesser will be the number of idle youth. There is a movement of entrepreneurship gaining momentum across nations which will also help in this regard.
The government should also ensure that the politicians and religious groups should not be allowed to incite the youth, by laying down stringent laws. In the end I believe it all boils down to empowered youth  and economics. If more decisions are taken on the basis of economic reasons there will be easier solutions to problems across the globe. It will also result in fair and just decisions being the order of the day unlike a system where decisions are based on caste, creed, rule, colour or any other such convoluted reasons. Empowered youth and economics can surely bring about world peace in the long run!!

Bahrain as seen from an expatriate's point of view

For every expatriate life is usually tough, adjusting in anew environment and it was the same for me when I came to Bahrain. As I started exploring and seeing more of this small island nation it was such an eyeopener. From an economic point of view I was amazed to see this small unassuming nation really standing tall. There are so many big nations who liketo think of themselves as champions of free trade, but how many are actually practising what they preach? Here is this small nation not only advocating freetrade but doing so much more in most fields. Every time I take a walk in thelocality I stay in, it is amazing to see sign boards in languages ranging from Malayalam, Hindi, English, Tagalog, Chinese to Malay etc. The amount and variety of products that are available to consumers also tells one about the rules that the government follows with regard to trade.
The first indication such sign boards should give people coming to this country is the large heartedness and benevolence of the rulers.It pains me so much that the native people of this beautiful island nation do not appreciate the potential the regime provides in the form of rules implemented. What could have been a beacon to the rest of the world in terms of an example of free enterprise and prosperity has become marred. I wish more people would help the government help achieve its goals of economic development because nothing but economic prosperity will ensure there is a level playing ground for all the people. Most of the rules regarding trade, commerce, health,education and labour laws are such that they give the citizens and expatriate equal opportunities in the industrial, commerce and trade sectors to name a few areas.
Therefore it is the duty of the people living in this nation to ensure that we make the best use of the opportunities coming our way. In doing so we will ensure that the nation reaches a position of economic power that will be the best equaliser of class and creed.