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Wednesday,
January 30, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Serla Grewal Blueprint for disaster Cheaper petro products |
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Gandhian ideas in today’s context
Hindi, our beloved Hindi!
Driving is a privilege Wrestler who challenged Dara Singh Why fat is more than a feminist issue
1988, Literature: NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
A hostile personality is prone to heart trouble
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Serla Grewal In the death of Mrs Serla Grewal The Tribune Trust has lost a dynamic person who guided its publications at a critical period in the history of the newspaper industry. Among her qualities of head and heart, the most noteworthy was her being energetic. She did provide a definite thrust to The Tribune group and ensured that it maintained its competitive edge with other newspapers in the region. The Tribune has not only maintained its tradition but has also grown in circulation. This speaks volumes about the enlightened, public-spirited role played by it. Mrs Grewal's presence in the set-up was particularly noteworthy since she was the first woman President of The Tribune Trust. This again speaks highly of the members of the Trust who are both forward-looking and liberal in the public role they are expected to play as per the will of the founder, Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia. Mrs Grewal was widely known for her activist role even as an administrator and Governor. Her subordinates and colleagues held her in awe since she was a no-nonsense person as an IAS officer. She was always conscious of her duties as well as time-bound functioning. She entertained no excuses for non-performance and non-governance. No wonder, she acquired a reputation as a "hunterwali". But then she had distinguishing qualities which drew appreciation from those who came close to her. Some of her actions and moves might have been controversial but her intentions could not be questioned. Be that as it may, Mrs Grewal would be remembered for a number of initiatives and forward-looking actions in several areas she worked in the course of her career. Those who had anything to do with her fondly recall her multi-faceted personality even when she functioned in critical areas like family planning, health and social welfare. The message from her action-packed life is crystal clear: there is no substitute for dynamic thinking, drive and hardwork in whatever role one plays in public life. |
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Blueprint for disaster The irony of the decision could not be starker. Right on the day when Himachal Pradesh was rocked by an earthquake, the State Cabinet scrapped its earlier restrictions on the height of buildings and allowed the construction of five-storey structures, including one for parking, in all residential, commercial and hotel buildings. The Cabinet had earlier relaxed the height of institutional buildings only. The builder lobby will be elated by the news, but the rest of the people can only pray that this relaxation does not culminate in a disaster, because the State falls in a high-seismic zone. The ill-advised move can re-enact a Gujarat in its fragile ecology. As it is, the mushrooming buildings have all but overwhelmed cities like Shimla. They resemble concrete slums today. Landslips and landslides are becoming an everyday occurrence posing a danger to the lives of thousands of people. The situation can only worsen once the height of buildings goes up to five storeys. Environmentalists have been unanimous that the hill slopes just cannot bear the weight of such massive construction, but the government appears to have only contempt for their sane advice. The reason that has been given -- that there is such a scarcity of land that making high-rise buildings is unavoidable -- does not wash. Nor is the assurance that the Town and Country Planning Department will incorporate measures against the seismic threat too convincing. Anyone who is familiar with the functioning of various government departments knows how "religiously" such safety precautions are taken. The power for giving approval to building plans has been delegated further. This has been done in the name of ensuring a quick clearance of plans. The purpose may be noble but given the corruption in various departments, this may lead to all sorts of deviations and cutting of corners. The experience so far is that whenever a mandatory safeguard is costlier than the hush money demanded by an obliging officer under the table, builders gladly go in for the second option. There is no reason to believe that this age-old practice would come to an end all of a sudden. As it is, many buildings are held in place only by a layer of paint and good luck. Once these high rise get clearance from scattered officials "as per the norms of the Town and Country Planning Department", nature's fury would not have to be at a high intensity to take a heavy toll. The big question is who will be held responsible if a tragedy does occur. The government on its part has followed the policy of being better sorry than safe. |
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Cheaper petro products Petrol and diesel prices are likely to come down by between 6 and 12 per cent any time now. This will be far ahead of April 1, the date fixed for dismantling the administrated pricing mechanism, by which the government controls the price of all petroleum products. The pretext the government offers is that the international price of crude is coming down and the benefit should be passed on to the consumers. This is logically acceptable but there is a political angle to it. Election to the Assemblies of four states — Punjab, Uttar
Pradesh, Uttranchal and Manipur — is to be held next month and a sop like this will do a world of good to the ruling parties. This brings in the Election Commission (EC) and it will be interesting to watch what it does if the Centre makes a formal announcement. Maybe it will keep quiet since fixing petro prices is a central task and there is no election at the central level. But of late the EC is acting tough and it may still stop the Centre to offer an attractive concession to the voters on the eve of the elections, after the code of conduct has come into force. But the ending of the old pricing system will create problems. For one, transport costs will make a difference in the prices at landing sites like harbours, and hill states such as Himachal Pradesh and those like Punjab and Haryana. At present there is a marginal hike in prices because of local sales tax rate. If the transportation cost is fully accounted for, the petroleum price in the regions far away from harbours will be prohibitively costly. Right now, transportation cost is subsidised by selling petrol and diesel at a higher cost at one place and using the money to help buyers at geographically disadvantaged regions. This is a ticklish problem and from the look of it, the Centre has not thought about it in its mad rush to introduce economic reforms. Pulling down the present pricing system is fine but it should not make a big section of the population feel discriminated against. |
Gandhian ideas in today’s context The moment the mighty figure of Gandhi rises before us, the question presents itself. What is his relevance today and for the future? What inspiration can we draw from his life? What light can his thoughts and wisdom shed on our problem? How does his way of life affect our course of action in private and public affairs? That Gandhi is relevant today and for centuries to come is not in doubt at all. The words which Jawaharlal Nehru uttered almost immediately after Gandhi’s sudden exist from this world are found to prove prophetic. He said, “The light is gone and yet it will shine for a thousand years”. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of the USA, came to India as a pilgrim in 1959. After a month’s sojourn in the land of Gandhi, on the eve of his departure, he was asked a cynical question at a Press conference in Delhi. “Where is Gandhi today? We see him nowhere.” Dr King’s reply was that Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of a humanity evolving towards a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore him only at our own risk. The relevance of a man or his message can be said to have many aspects. It can be immediate or remote; it can be local, regional or general; it can be personally relevant to some or universally for all. In the case of Gandhi, all these aspects of his relevance can be studied with profit. Man, in Gandhi’s eyes, was the measure. Gandhi’s approach to himself and to life in general was that of a seeker of truth and of a votary of non-violence, or love. His was a scientific mind and he sought for the law of life which would help man to reach higher elevations of consciousness. He perceived that love spelt as non-violence in thought, word and deed was the short-cut to human progress and evolution, both individual and social. In his eyes progressive non-violence could express itself best through service, self-suffering and, if necessary, total sacrifice. His mind was always open, fresh and receptive to truth as he went on finding it from day-to-day experience. For him, while his consciousness was the laboratory for searching out the inner core of truth, human society was the field for social experiments which could lead to harmony and happiness. In whatever corner of the world he worked for the time being, the whole of humanity and its good were always present to him. His was a many-sided personality. The outward simplicity of his life and his single-minded devotion to non-violence cloaked innumerable deep currents of ideas, disciplines, loyalties and aspirations. He was at once a saint and revolutionary, politician and social reformer, economist and man of religion, educationist and satyagrahi, devotee of faith and reason, Hindu and inter-religious, nationalist and internationalist, man of action and dreamer of dreams. He was a very great reconciler of opposites. No one has yet attempted a complete analysis of his complex and magnificent personality. It was Rabindranath Tagore who once wrote that those disciplines are the most complex which finally lead to the utter simplicity of a great song. One has only to look at those who learn music to see the daily grind of hard discipline through which they must pass before they bring out a soulful song. Gandhi’s life was one long and ceaseless saga of endeavour in which he added, bit by bit and piece by piece, to his stature culminating in the advancing fullness of his personality. There was nothing mystic or miraculous about his development and growth from a common man into the unsurpassed Mahatma of our history. It is open to each one of us to see how he advanced, step by step, gathering innumerable fragments of truth one by one and piecing them together in the crucible of his life, ready to look at facts, understand their significance, face any consequences in the pursuit of a cause, suffer any penalty for a mistake, and dedicated selflessly to react and hold the truth of a matter at any cost. He was one common man who pulled himself up to most uncommon heights. He was no god, but became a godman. Gandhi knew this about himself and that was why he called his autobiography, “The Story of My Experiments with the Truth.” Experimentation was one of his deepest passions. He experimented with health and cure, clothes and dress, politics and economics, education and reform, organisation and revolution, ethics and spirituality, with almost everything that his life knew. As part of life with relentless logic and courage, he broke new grounds in every direction and yet had the depth and width of mind to separate defeat from success, falsehood from truth, the unreal from the real and to integrate all his aims and achievements into his personality. But when we look into the splendid mosaic of his thoughts and deeds there is one thing which stands out as unique and puts him in the forefront of the evolution of man in our times. This was the unique discovery he made in a unique laboratory. The laboratory was South Africa and the discovery was Satyagraha. It was history which threw Gandhi into the South African laboratory. The situation in South Africa was itself unprecedented in history. It was not merely that a white minority government brutalised itself and millions of coloured people in an attempt to permanently enslave them. Slavery was nothing new in the world at that time, but this one was unique in that it was grounded in a new metaphysics and ethics buttressed by modern science. Every thought and action conceivable to diabolic human ingenuity was drawn upon to perpetuate the subjection of the many who were weak to the few who were strong. Any rebellion was totally made impossible. The very thought of rebellion was made treason. Gandhi applied his discovery, Satyagraha, to the situation. He gave the call to his people to awake, arise and act non-violently. They were only poor, weak and illiterate coolies who had long submitted to tyranny and knew the pains of slavery. But they responded to him in the most astonishing manner. Gandhi’s faith in man was justified. What happened as Satyagraha grew and advanced is part of history. It startled the whites in South Africa and flashed the menage of a new revolution across the world. The coolies began civil disobedience. The white became angry. They struck out at Gandhi and his coolies with all their strength. Thousands were thrown into prison, properties were confiscated, crowds were beaten up. Disobedience continued nevertheless. No Indian surrendered and no Indian obeyed. No Indian weakened in the struggle because of beatings and prisons. It became a long drawn-out struggle of seven years which ended in the Smuts-Gandhi agreement. The struggle ennobled the coolies, gave them confidence and self-reliance. The whites were ashamed inside themselves and were cleansed a little. The letter which Gandhi received on his 70th birthday from General Smuts bear testimony to it. It reads, “It is fitting that I, as an opponent of Gandhi a generation ago, should now salute the veteran as he reaches the scriptural limits of three score years and ten. May the further allotment which the psalmist grudgingly allows also be his, and may they be the years of fruitful service to the world and of a peaceful mind to himself. I must frankly admit that his activities at that time were very trying to me. Together with other South African leaders, I was then busily engaged in the task of welding the old colonies into the United States. “Suddenly, in the midst of all these engrossing preoccupations Gandhi raised the most troublesome issue. We had a skeleton in our cupboard in the form of what is called the Indian question in South Africa — Gandhi tackled this problem, and in doing so, showed a new technique — one which he afterwards made world famous in his political campaigns in India; large numbers of Indians had to be imprisoned for lawless behaviour and Gandhi himself received what no doubt he desired, a short period of rest quiet in gaol. For him every thing went according to plan. For me the defender of law and order there was the usual trying situation, the odium of carrying out a law which had not got strong public support and finally the discomfiture when the law had to be repealed. For him, it was a successful coup. “Nor was the personal touch wanting for nothing in Gandhi’s procedure is without a peculiar personal touch. In jail he has prepared for me a very useful pair of sandals which he presented to me when he was set free. I have worn sandals for many summers since then even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand on the shoes of so great a man.” This is how Satyagraha worked. The world had changed a little not only in South Africa but in the conscience of man. Hence it is not the relevance of Gandhi to our times that is in question but the acceptance of that relevance by the human mind today. That relevance shines like light in darkness. Will the world see that light and follow in its effulgence, or will it close its eyes and grope its way to the edge of a precipice? How clear then is the choice? We are convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that the genius of man which has helped the world to survive catastrophes so far will continue to sustain mankind and that sooner than later we shall have to follow the light that comes streaming down from Gandhi. The writer is Chairman, Department of Gandhian Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. |
Hindi, our beloved Hindi! It is said that had the tribals of Kashipur in Orissa known, Queen’s English, none of them would have died of hunger because the Doon School alumnus Chief Minister Navin Patnaik not only listens to but also understands and pays heed to those representations only which are written or spoken in stainless English. He is gawky in Oriya and cocky in Hindi, so they say. But there are many who feel proud of the fact that they do not know Hindi. Even my nieces, product of convent schools, proudly ask: "how much is atthavan (58) or tehettar (73)?” when I pronounce the numerals in Hindi. When Hindi was introduced in the Secretariat in Himachal Pradesh, quite a few found it not easy to digest. They belched and burped but Shanta Kumar, as Chief Minister, was tough and believed in no “roll backing”. The protagonists for English had, perforce, to write in Hindi on files. One Secretary who was rather pally with a female Joint Secretary wanted to write “Vistar mein charcha karein” (discuss in details) but not knowing the criss-cross used in letters in Devnagri script wrote “Bistar mein charcha karein’ (discuss in bed). The Joint Secretary, at once, ran to her boss and said with face flushing: Sir, please don’t write such remarks on files at least.” I believe that the votaries of Hindi also are responsible for sliding down the language. They would prefer to use difficult words where common Hindustani words existed and would call “Agni Visphotak Shlaka” to matchstick and not “diyasalai” Vastra Vihin (with no clothes) is holier than “nanga” for them. Recently, the State Health Department here conducted a survey of rural women who were pregnant and wanted to collect data about how many of them were getting or not getting the required facilities from the primary health centres. The surveyor asked the first question,” Kaya aapne garbh dhaaran kiya hai?” (Are you pregnant?). The rural woman was totally foxed with Hindi words used in the question. She did not know what the surveyor was asking. In order to make his question clear and understandable, he asked,: What do you call a woman who carries a child within her? The reply he got was, “Hindi mein to hum ‘paregnant’ bolte hain ji,” (In Hindi we call her pregnant, Sir) No doubt, Hindi in offices has percolated down the villages. Our ears in offices are tuned to hear such sentences when an officer is communicating in our beloved mother tongue, Hindi, “Case discuss karen ka abhi time nahin hai. Ek important meeting attend karni hai. Meanwhile, tamaam relevant papers collect kar lo. Legal opinion bhi le lo. Finance ki advice mil jaye to nothing like that. Waapsi par detailed study kar lenge, and if need be, dictation bhi de denge. OK?” |
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Driving is a privilege Since I left India 16 years ago, I have made three trips back home. Every time I find many new changes in India, mostly positive but what bothers me is the tremendous rise in the risk of accident by road travel. Every citizen needs to know that driving is a privilege, not a right. The number one cause of accidents is: No respect for traffic rules. There are three categories here: Unfamiliarity with laws due to lack of education or getting licence without any formal instructions. Intentional disregard for laws because people think they can easily get away. Inability to follow laws due to difficult roads and no reward for following laws. Some remedies are: Traffic rules/driving instruction (and education about risk of death on road) be offered as a compulsory subject to all high school students. Or even in lower grades. Every applicant for the driver’s licence needs to take a written test for traffic rules. If some fails, we need to provide instructional schools or helpful courses for them. Every licence needs to be renewed every year and the applicant should be updated on new traffic rules or may have to take a short test. All media sources, including TV channels, need to make the public aware about laws plus help the public to understand that drinking and driving are a fatal combination. In California any drunk driver, if caught, has to spend at least one night in jail (it doesn’t matter how influential you maybe) and their names get printed in local newspapers the next day. More than half the fatal accidents are caused by drunk drivers. How to reduce congestion on roads? Improve the quality of public transport. In large cities, all government officials need to be encouraged to use bicycles. And there should be some roads reserved for pedestrians and bikers. Encourage air and rail travel for long trips. Build special toll roads to link major cities like New Delhi to Ludhiana or Amritsar. This may not happen soon but we need to start planning now for the sake of future. All traffic police officials need better training and discipline than commandos. Better salaries may help reduction in corruption. All major traffic intersections should have video cameras installed to catch any one crossing the red light or any cop accepting bribe. Most of the drivers for politicians or so-called VIPs don’t follow any rules. There is dire need of an aggressive campaign by social organisations to bring more awareness about these serious issues of public safety. We need to develop some kind of trauma activation system. India will need state of art trauma centres to deal with the increasing volume of trauma victims of accidents. Only helicopters can get injured victims in time to distant appropriate medical facilities. Most ordinary hospitals can’t handle trauma cases. Even in developed countries like America, we have special trauma centres and regular hospitals deal with minor injuries only. The government and insurance companies fund these centres. If every driver has to buy accident insurance, part of it can be channeled to fund these programmes. Believe me, roads in India are going to be more deadly in future unless we adopt some national strategy to deal with the problem. More roads alone will not solve any problem unless the public is educated about benefits of following traffic rules. If we can provide quick and appropriate help to victims of accidents, the public will be more willing to cooperate with the law enforcement organisations. Under the current system, people avoid any cooperation to the police due to a scare about harassment. Common people don’t see personnel in uniform of any genuine help. A sad fact. The writer, an MD in Yuba City, California, is a former resident of Patiala |
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Wrestler who challenged Dara Singh Traditional Indian wrestling, often called ‘kushti’ or ‘pehalwani,’ still attracts huge crowds both at home and abroad. And some of the biggest players in this field, wrestlers like Gama and Dara Singh, are from Punjab. Mehar Din, though less in the limelight in comparison to these names, stands among the most outstanding Indian athletes of the last century. Now at 65, the veteran sits back reflecting on the glory of the days of intense discipline and the strongly ethical way of life he made his own. Recounting the days of struggle with an element of pride, Din says, “During my practising days I was not able to drink even half a litre of milk at a time. Unboiled milk did not suit me. During my entire wrestling career, which spanned almost 25 years, I used to eat half a kg of butter daily. And talking of practice, besides the ‘akhara’ workouts, I did 3,000 sit-ups and 2,000 push-ups at a time, depending on the mood at the time.” The well muscled man, a resident of Shahkot village in Jalandhar, emerged as a force to reckon with when he was only 20, winning local championships and showing potential for much more. Mehar Din soon advanced to the district and state levels, and between 1967 and 73 lifted the title of the Champion of India, Rustom-e-Hind, as many as six times. Internationally too, he earned much acclaim. Mehar Din’s mace or ‘gada,’ an emblem of wrestling prowess, almost became a part of him, and he went on to defeat some of the biggest wrestlers of the day, showered with honours wherever he went. “I invited wrestlers to fight with me as a challenge. In England I even did it free of cost for a charity cause. Back home, I earned a lot of appreciation by defeating men like Maruti Mane and Ganpat Andelkar. I have also won fights in Pakistan. I even challenged wrestler Dara Singh, he might have defeated many wrestlers, but he never accepted my challenge. I threw several challenges to him at Delhi, Bathinda, Jalandhar and at several other championships. But he never accepted my challenge,” he added. Mehar Din floored Mangla Rai of Gazipur, (Uttar Pradesh) and Chandgi Ram of Haryana. He fought many times in Pakistan and defeated Rajni Raket, Alladita Jat, Saifal Dada and Saif Jat there. “Today, wrestling mats are used for wrestling. And more importance is attached to those practising on these mats. I want that proper arrangements should be made for wrestling mats in every town and village in Punjab so that boys can practise properly and more safely,” the legendery person says. Din, who quit active wrestling in the 1980s, is now a respected guru, coaching some 20 budding talents in a small akhara in
Shahkot. ANI
Fat used to be a feminist issue. Now it’s universal. The psychotherapist who helped Princess Diana overcome bulimia says eating disorders have reached near-epidemic levels. “When I first wrote about this, the problem was pretty much hidden...I didn’t expect it to get as bad as it is,” Susie Orbach, an international authority on eating disorders, told Reuters. Orbach must at times think the strident anti-diet message of her ground-breaking book “Fat is a Feminist Issue” has got lost since it was written more than 20 years ago. “If anything, the situation has got much, much worse. We now have kids as young as eight and women in old people’s homes obsessed with the way they look,” Orbach said in an interview.
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A hostile personality is prone to heart trouble An angry personality may negate some of the stroke protection afforded by relative youth and healthy levels of “good” cholesterol, a new report suggests. US researchers found that among the nearly 14,000 adults they studied, “trait anger” was linked to an increased stroke risk among those younger than 60 years of age as well as those with higher HDL cholesterol. Higher HDL, the “good” cholesterol, is believed to lower stroke risk. These links between anger and stroke held regardless of risk factors including smoking, high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers report in the January issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Dr Janice E. Williams of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, led the study. According to William and her colleagues, past research has found a link between a hostile personality and the risk of heart disease, but relatively little is known about anger and stroke. The investigators used data from a large US study of cardiovascular disease to see what role anger played in stroke risk. Adults aged 48 to 67 answered questions regarding trait anger, rating how well phrases such as “I fly off the handle” described them. Their incidence of stroke was followed for up to eight years. Overall, anger itself was linked to only a modest increase in stroke risk, the report indicates. But a score in the “high anger” range raised stroke risk nearly threefold among participants aged 60 and younger, as well as those with higher HDL. The authors note that there is some evidence that anger management training helps quell hostility and benefits the heart. “The efficacy of anger reduction for the prevention of stroke awaits evaluation,” Williams and colleagues add.
Reuters Cut down on calcium to avoid kidney stones A diet low in salt and meat can dramatically reduce the risk of kidney stones, according to an Italian study that could spell the end for the low-calcium diet that doctors have been recommending for years. Millions suffer from kidney stones — a much larger percentage of men, who make up 80 per cent of sufferers — and it can be excruciatingly painful. Most stones can be excreted, but in about 15 per cent of cases, surgery or shockwave treatment to pulverise the stones is needed. Many doctors have told such patients to cut down on calcium because most kidney stones are made of a calcium compound. But recent studies have suggested that such a diet might not prevent kidney stones after all and may even promote them — along with osteoporosis. The new study “ dispelled a myth that a low-calcium diet is important in preventing kidney stones,” said David A.
Bushinsky, a kidney specialist at the University of Rochester. William Keane, president of the National Kidney Foundation, said he is sure the new diet “ will become the gold standard”.
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Even hatred of vileness Distorts a man’s features. — Bertolt Brecht, “To Posterity” Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonises it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it. — Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled and hatred therewith. — The Holy Bible, Proverbs, 15:17 Life is very short: live amicably with all, behave well with all; scatter ambrosia everywhere and do not let fall even a drop of poison anywhere. Your conduct influenced by love is ambrosia and that influenced by hatred is poison. If a person calls on you even for an hour, fill his heart with ambrosia through your loving and guileless behaviour; take care that none may catch poison from you. Remove all poison from the heart and fill it up with ambrosia and then scatter it at every step. — Hanumanprasad Poddar, Wavelets of Bliss. Hatred does not cease by hatred, as a fire is not extinguished by throwing gasoline in it.... Love is the only cure of the disease of hatred. Meditation on death also greatly helps. If we remember the evanescence of our life, the senselessness of most of our quarrels becomes obvious to us. When we cease to quarrel the mind becomes quiet. In quietness of the mind a new understanding opens up. This new understanding spontaneously manifests as love. — Musings of the Musafir, Prabuddha Bharata, November 1969 Superior to meditation on Brahman with attributes is meditation on Brahman without attributes. — T.M.P. Mahadevan, “The Place of Meditation in Advaita Vedanta” |
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