Salsa: The New "In" Thing in Bangalore

"Four one, cha cha cha, two three cha cha cha," went my instructor. We, twelve of us students, tried to follow her steps as she sashayed her way around the floor. By the third or fourth session, we barely managed to keep up with her feet movements.

She, of course, was moving way more than just her feet. Her hips swayed, her arms moved fluidly in the air, her shoulders and spine were ramrod straight. I, on the other hand, punched my hands in the air, hunched my tense shoulders, took giant strides on my flat feet and tried not to crash into any of the walls or crush anyone's feet.

But I keep at it. Why, you wonder. Because I'm a glutton for punishment. Well, no. Ok, maybe yes.

But there are also a few other, perhaps more logical reasons. For one, the music is infectious; you can't help but dance. Two, I have delusions of being able to wiggle my hips a la Shakira, the operative word being delusions. (Did you see her FIFA World Cup Final performance? Aye, Caramba!) Three, once you get one sequence right you feel like you can do all of it. Four, my instructor is good at what she does, both the dancing and the teaching parts. Five, any form of exercise that is fun and enjoyable is gold. Finally, and most importantly, there are no mirrors where we dance. So while I feel ungainly and have a faint idea of how klutzy I might look, I really don't have concrete evidence of the blashphemy I commit twice a week.

Over the past few weeks I've been finding out that some or all of the above reasons are responsible for a whole lot of Bangaloreans to turn to Salsa.

And by whole lot I mean thousands.

Lourd Vijay, a businessman and purveyor of all things Salsa should know. He started the first Salsa school in the city, Lourd Vijay's Dance Studio, in 1997. Now he has three of them up and running in which he, along with four full-time and four part-time instructors, teach a total of six thousand students. Yup, that's right, 6,000. And he has plans to open three more studios in the next three months.

Vijay himself came to dancing and to Salsa like many of us do. He saw the movie Dirty Dancing and he was hooked. His sister, who lived in Australia, sent him books and video tapes of dances so he could get familiar with the art. He then went to Canada, to Vancouver and Toronto, to train in the various dance forms. Now he travels extensively all over the world attending workshops, conferences and congresses.

Although the average age of his students is around twenty-five, the classes are so popular among all age groups and among people from all walks of life that his studios offer exclusive classes for those over 40, those over 50, for homemakers, etc.

The reasons most of his students attend the Salsa lessons, he says, are to have fun (which is crucial to any activity that you intend to pursue for a long time), the studios are a great place to network, to meet like-minded people, especially if you are new to the country or to the city, to get fit, and because going to the gym can get boring pretty fast.

The dance form is so popular in Bangalore that the India International Salsa Congress is all set to kick off in Bangalore on August 16th. The official website has all the details of the Congress including the schedule, details of all the performers who are flying in from all over the world, competitions, workshops, parties, etc.

So if you've vaguely heard of Salsa but don't know squat about it, now's the time to go, watch and learn. Lead with your hips and don't forget your heels.

Looking Ahead...

When someone leaves a comment on my blog, I feel compelled to respond and feel pretty bad if I don't. But personal and work commitments don't permit me to do justice to all the wonderful thoughts and ideas that are expressed in the comments section. (Hats off to Greatbong. I don't know how he does it, but he responds to every single one of the 100s of comments he gets on his posts and he does it patiently and thoughtfully.)

So moving forward, there will be a small change to this blog. I've disabled the comment feature. I do hope that you will continue to read the posts I put up (they may become less frequent as well, but hopefully not). I hope to turn the comments feature back on once things get better, but in the meantime, if you have questions or comments related to the post, please do send an e-mail and I will do my best to respond.

Please note that I shall not respond to e-mails with personal comments or comments or questions that do not relate to the subject matter of the posts.

Thank you for reading.

Radio Interview with Kavita Krishnamurthy Subramaniam and Dr. L. Subramaniam

All India Radio's FM Rainbow (101.3) in Bangalore is broadcasting my exclusive interview with Kavita Krishnamurthy-Subramaniam and Dr. L. Subramianiam tomorrow Saturday, Aug 12, between 8 and 9 p.m. This interview is the first in a series (called Pride of Bangalore) that will air every Saturday for the following few weeks at the same time (8-9 p.m.). I'll put up information about the other people I talked to for this series as and when the schedule is fixed. Please do listen if you can.

I interviewed them at their home one morning a few months back. One thing that struck me about them is how modest, kind and unassuming they are. Absolutely no airs about them. They offered us (myself and the sound engineer that accompanied me) coffee, made sure we were comfortable, gave us the best possible sound environment in their home and most importantly, gave me time which is a miracle given their extremely (and I mean extremely) busy lives. And in the process, did not make me feel like they were doing me a big favor.

It was an honor to have met them and talked to them.

Pesticides in Coke and Pepsi

Vikram takes on the issue pointblank.

The Anatomy of a Miscarriage

It hit me finally on the British Airways flight from London to Washington, D.C. Something was terribly wrong. I was six weeks pregnant and I was bleeding heavily.

In the days leading up to the flight, I had refused to believe that my pregnancy was coming to an end. Two gynecologists and one radiologist (who performed the ultrasound scan) in Bangalore had told me that things were not progressing well - they should have been able to see the baby's heartbeat by then but they could not. Was I sure of my dates, each of them had asked. Any history of miscarriages?

I was convinced that the problem was not at my end. Perhaps the scanner was outdated. Perhaps the radiologist did not know what he was doing. Perhaps the gynecologist was counting the weeks from the wrong date. Spotting is common, isn't it, in the first few weeks of pregnancy? Perhaps this was implantation bleeding.

Things could really not be going wrong. There was not even an inkling of a problem the first time around, when I was pregnant with Big N. I did not even have morning sickness. So how could my pregnancy not be progressing well this time?

I decided I needed to get back to the US, back to the same environment that I was in during my first pregnancy. May be that would make the niggling problems of spotting and no heartbeat go away. I was not thinking rationally but my plans made perfect sense to me then. So I advanced the date of my departure flight and still upbeat about having a second child and a sibling for Big N, he and I started on our journey back to the US.

The flight from Bangalore to London was uneventful though a little hectic with Big N (then just past three years old) and two large suitcases and a carry on.

Once on the flight, things progressed smoothly. Big N walked over to the young, newly-married woman who was sitting behind us and was being his usual chatterbox (on every single flight, he ditches me at the first opportunity and goes off to find someone else to talk to and play with). I smiled apologetically at her, letting her know she could send him back if she had had enough. She said, no, she was having a good time. I was happy to let them both be, seizing the opportunity to visit the restroom.

I came out shaken. I sat in my seat, Big N came over to see where I'd been. I pulled him over, hugged him and willed the tears to stop. They did not. The sobs came out unbidden and the two mothers who were sitting to my left, both with small babies on their laps turned to me. Are you ok, they asked? I explained to them, between sobs and wiping my tears, what was wrong. Their expressions of concern relaxed somewhat. One of them told me she had bled as well when she was pregnant with her daughter but everything had turned out fine. There's nothing to worry about, they said.

By then Big N was getting anxious. He did not know why I was crying and was wiping my face with his forearm. One of the air hostesses (I named her Big Bertha) walked over and I repeated my story, feeling better somewhat and beginning to think once again that it was no big deal. But Big Bertha thought otherwise. She went on a war footing. She brought over the head steward who went around the plane looking for a doctor. He finally found one in First Class who advised that I should lay flat on my back and rest completely until we reached Washington. "We're flying over the Atlantic," the head steward said, "so we cannot land the plane anywhere soon." "Land the plane?" I thought. "It's not really that bad, is it?"

Apparently it was or they thought I would sue them or something if my condition got worse. Big Bertha decided it would be better if I went to First Class and lay down flat and she also decided that Big N should not be with me. I decided she was off her rocker. She had no clue how to handle a young child and was convinced that keeping him from me for the rest of the flight was the right thing to do ("he will have to deal with it" was her tone). I put my foot down and took him with me to First Class.

Big N had no place to sit on that one seat if I lay flat on it. After a few minutes of squirming around, we decided to head back to our original seats. At least he had his own space. Big N went back to his friend. "Take rest," she whispered. "I'll look after Big N." I pulled the hand rest between our two seats back, stretched my legs onto his and lay down.

Once we got home from the airport, I called my Ob/Gyn (the practice I go to has five doctors, each of whom I had to see when I was pregnant with Big N, the thought behind this being that each of them would know me and I would know them so there would be no surprises when I went into labor; it wouldn't matter which doctor was on call that day) who said to go get an ultrasound first thing in the morning. The ultrasound confirmed the three diagnoses I had received in Bangalore. By then, I had rationalized my reaction to the whole situation. The pregnancy was not too far along, I thought. If it weren't for those ultra sensitive pregnancy tests, I would not even have found out that early that I was pregnant, I thought. I called V, told him the result. I was calm. He was calm. I drove home and as we were driving, told Big N that the baby was not growing well. I wanted to get it over with, finish talking about it.

In the evening, we visited my Ob/Gyn who recommended that I not do anything but just to let the miscarriage take its course. I had no clue what she meant, but was happy not to take any medication since I'm not a big fan of medical interventions when there are natural alternatives. She told me to call if my bleeding or pain got so heavy that I could not manage it.

I only remembered days later that the ultrasound technician had said that my Ob/Gyn would probably not let me go through the miscarriage but would do some kind of a procedure. I did not make the connection between those two statements then. We just went home, Big N and I went to bed to sleep off the jet lag. V went to work the next day and Big N and I unpacked and got ready to leave for Chicago in a couple of days for a family get together.

Towards the afternoon jet lag had caught up with Big N and he was already in bed. I lay down, exhausted from the journey, the emotions, the unpacking, the repacking. Suddenly my stomach started cramping in waves, from left to right, from front to back. I instantly recognized what they were - labor pains. I was thoroughly confused. I had no clue why, if everyone said I had miscarried, I was going through labor pains.

I gingerly rolled over to my left side. The pain subsided. I relaxed and started breathing freely again. Two minutes later, the pain was back. This went on for a good fifteen minutes before it stopped. I was completely shaken out of my sleep by then. Perhaps this was what my doctor meant by pain. It was gone before I could take any medication. I got up and walked over to the closet. I might as well pack, I thought. I sat down on my haunches to get to a chudidhar that I wanted to take.

It was then that the worst imaginable thing happened.

Whatever it was that had grown in my body for six weeks into the size of two palms held together, that thing that was going to be my baby, that thing that would have fed my baby for the next nine months, came out in a rush. I don't know why I thought of this, but I wanted to save it. I grabbed a big wad of napkins and mechanically rolled the bloody mess in it. Other than cleaning myself up and saving that thing, there was no thought in my head.

I went down to the kitchen, got a paper bag and put the napkin wad in the paper bag and called the on-call doctor. She came on the line. I got my name out. That was all.

I held the phone and bawled.

I did not know why I was crying. I thought I had felt perfectly all right until then. But I could not bring myself to explain to the doctor what had happened. The doctor's kind voice did not make it any better. I was suddenly filled with sorrow. Sorrow for the baby that was not to be, sorrow for the placenta that had grown, so full of expectation that it would feed my baby but now was lying waste in the paper bag, sorrow for all the anticipation for the following nine months that had been laid bare, sorrow for the emptiness I felt in the middle of my stomach.

A while later during which the doctor patiently held on to the phone, all cried out, I asked what to do with the paper bag. She gently said to bring it to the clinic the following day and set up an appointment to see the head Ob/Gyn. They might have to do a D&C she said.

Two days later, we scheduled a D&C. They put me under and my doctor scraped out whatever residue was left. As we were driving home, V said the doctor told him I kept saying "home" over and over during the procedure.

They say in the stock markets that past performance is no guarantee of future results. That is a great life lesson.

P.S.: I never got to see the young woman who sat behind us on the London-Washington, D.C. flight when we got off the plane. I wanted to thank her for her kindness and for her help. I did not feel alone on that flight.

And thank you to my doctor who just listened to me cry over the telephone.

Update:

I wanted to draw your attention to an amazing but thrilling story. A friend of mine who was pregnant about three months ago started bleeding profusely. She went to her doctor who advised her to get a D&C done. Well, a few days ago she thought she had become pregnant again, visited another gynec and discovered that her previous pregnancy had not in fact ended in miscarriage and that she was 15 weeks pregnant!

This probably happens in the rarest of cases, but the lesson in this is to get a second opinion. I don't want to raise false hopes through this story, but do want to alert you to the need to be deeply involved in the medical procedures that are carried out and the medical advice that is given to you.

Read India Books: A Treasure Trove of Children's Literature in Indian Languages (and English)

When you read a well-written children's book, nothing seems easier than to write and publish one. What could be difficult? All you need is a good idea and simple words that a child can understand. Voila! You have a children's book. Right?

Wrong.

Just as a well-written book makes it seem so simple, a badly produced one is a lesson in how easy it is for a children's book to come out all wrong. Children's books are, or should be, all about capturing the child's imagination and making the child want to read. The language should be simple and straightforward (not at all easy to achieve, I tell ya), the illustrations rich and eye-catching, the layout easy to navigate, the pages child-friendly, and the length just right.

While there are numerous publishing houses that cater to the children's market, most of these books are written by non-Indian authors, primarily for a non-Indian market. Yes, Indian children can and do read these books. Most of us are familiar with and love Dr. Seuss (my review of two of his Horton books here), Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, etc.

But what about books that are set in India? Books that draw from our rich cultural heritage? Books based on the Panchatantra? Books based on our history? Most importantly, what about books in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, our languages?

When my brother and I were growing up, we were fed a steady diet of Chandamamas and Amar Chitra Kathas. We read and our mother read to us many stories from Indian mythology and history. Both these books, however, were for the older children. The Chandamamas told stories in long text with few pictures while the Amar Chitra Kathas told the stories through dialogues and pictures in comic book format.

Moreover, the stories, especially those from our religion and mythology are not told in child-friendly terms. Here, I'm thinking of the story of Krishna and the events leading up to it, including the slaying of seven of his siblings by Kamsa, hardly appropriate for a child just learning to read or even slightly older children. When I first read the story to N from a "children's book" (he was slightly over three then) I had to skip the pages where the language was particularly gory.

My search for Indian books for N was proving to be hopeless. That is, until I found Read India Books, quite by accident. I found Indian stories with Indian characters set in Indian households, towns and cities. The language was excellent, not childish but definitely child friendly. Here's an example from a story called A Royal Procession:

It was early in the morning when Parvati and her brother Laxman entered the monastery through the tall gates. Their father was a potter and they had come to deliver earthen pots, plates, bowls and glasses.

Putting down her basket, Parvati looked around the courtyard, which was surrounded by a row of small rooms, and asked, "Is this where the Buddhist monks stay?"

"Yes," said Laxman. "They live in those rooms and pray to Lord Buddha in that temple. This place is called a vihara."

The Royal Procession is from a series called "Once Upon an India" written by Subhadra Sen Gupta and illustrated by Tapas Guha. The set contains four books, one each from the Maurya period, the Pallava period, the Mughal period and the Freedom Movement.

(N's thoughts on The Royal Procession, a story about two children who got to see King Ashoka in person: the story was good because it really happened (which he tells me he figured out from the last section of the book, "Fun Facts of History"), because he got to see the king on the elephant, because the art was good, and because the children were very lucky to have met the king.)

Read India Books is an arm of the Pratham organization. According to their website,

Pratham Books is a not-for-profit trust that seeks to publish high-quality books for children at a affordable cost in multiple Indian languages. Pratham Books is trying to create a shift in the paradigm for publishing children’s books in India. The low cost model proves that children’s literature can be attractive and affordable and therefore more accessible.

Read India Books is an imprint of Pratham Books and is the first of several publishing brands that we hope to create. Over the next one year Pratham Books will publish an additional 100 children’s book titles under the Read India brand.

The books are categorized by age groups and are available in a few Indian languages in addition to English. For example, the Tell Me Now! Series, Khikkhil Tota (Hindi, Marathi and Kannada), a series called Primers are all recommended for 3-6 year olds. Books such as Hum Sab Prani, Paheliyaan, Out and About with Ajja (available in Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Urdu and Gujarati), Wild and Wacky Animal Tales (available in Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Urdu and Gujarati) are recommended for 6-9 year olds and The Quirquincho and The Fox, The Magic Powder, Ganga ki Lehrein (English, Hindi, Marathi and Kannada), a set of short stories in Hindi, Marathi and Kannada are all aimed at 10-14 year olds.

The books are printed on glossy, high-quality paper and book lengths range from about 15 pages to about 30 pages each. The color and the quality of the illustrations are excellent, as is the print. The type face is large and spaced so children can follow the words easily. The books are priced from Rs. 5 each (the Tell Me Now! Series) to about Rs. 25 each, and can be ordered online from Read India Books' website.

If you've been looking for high quality children's books in Indian languages with Indian stories told well but have been disappointed so far, I say your search has ended.

Crossposted on Project Child.

All Things Rickshaw!

Gaurav has a lovely post on auto rickshaws on Desicritics.

A self-confessed auto fanatic, he has compiled numerous hilarious anecdotes (including the only two Kannada words you need to know if you decide to "catch" an autorickshaw in Bangalore) and writes about, get this, a musical called Rickshaaa! A Film on Three Wheels.

Enjoy!

Out of Babes' Mouths III

Big N came back from school today and was gulping down lemonade when it occurred to me that I should pass on to him the bit of news about the pesticides in soft drinks. Although he's not tasted Coke or Pepsi (yet), he's partial to Sprite (or 7 Up in India) when we go out to eat.

I said, "N, do you know what was in the news today? Coke and Pepsi and Sprite and Mirinda, they all have chemicals in them. Chemicals that are used to kill bugs like cockroaches."

"So?" he said, nonchalantly, knowing what was coming but pretending that it was no big deal.

"So if they have chemicals that can kill bugs, then they'll harm your body when you drink them."

"Oh, yeah."

A couple of minutes go by.

"So if I see a cockroach and I pour some coke on it, will it die?"

Somebody help! Will the cockroach die?

In the meantime, I've said to N, "yes, of course!" like there was nary a doubt.

The Words Are Not Coming

Ok, the words are simply not coming. My sentences sound so ploddy and heavy. I have to think for a few minutes for the right words and even then they may not come. There's a cloud in my head.

The Indian American

The arrival of our mail package from the US is an eagerly awaited event in our house. Among other goodies, Big N gets his National Geographics and V and I get our Time magazines and Business 2.0s.

Of course, there's also a load of mail we'd rather not get, but that's another story.

In the last two packages we received, we found issues of a new magazine, The Indian American, the premier issue of which was launched in May. Published by Universal Health Care Inc. out of New York, the bimonthly magazine,

... seeks to be a window into Indian American life and times, ... [and] also serve as mainstream America's bridge to understanding its new compatriots.

Even as it celebrates the intellectual, professional and material successes of Indian Americans, as it profiles the rich and famous, as it gossips about celebrioties and scoops their lifestyles, the magazine will not hesitate to investigate and examine the darker side of life - the pride and prejudices, the struggles and failures, the crimes and misdemeanors - to which Indian Americans are not entirely immune.

Publisher's Note, The Indian American, May-June 2006.

The premier issue features a beaming Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the cover with the tag, "CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Doctoring America". Other cover article titles include a hodge-podge of topics spanning politics, culture, gender issues, etc.: "Different Strokes: White Girls who Love Classical Indian Dances", "Embracing India: A New Axis Between New Delhi and Washington", "Abe's India, 'Czar' of the New York Times Remembers", "White House 2008: Politicos Discuss Their Choices", "Men! Single Women on What's Wrong With Dating Indian Men".

In addition to the Mail section, the contents include Speakeasy (a collection of gossipy tid-bits from showbiz, politics, fashion, etc. with commentary by Sunil Adam, the magazine's Editor and Art Director) Books, Movies, Music and Columns. The July-August edition has added Saree Sense, Beauty Tips and Quiz.

The magazine features the usual suspects among Desi Americans in its first two editions - Deepak Chopra, Dinesh D'Souza, Naveen Andrews, Zubin Mehta, all of the Desi anchors on CNN (Sumi Das, Aneesh Raman, Monita Rajpal, Zain Verjee), Ashok Bajaj (the Bombay Club in DC), Srinija Srinivasan (Yahoo!, Inc.), Jhumpa Lahiri, Thrity Umrigar, Indu Sundaresan, even the recently famous (or notorious, depending on how you want to look at it) Kaavya Viswanathan.

Considerable space is also devoted to the decidedly lesser known among us, which is a welcome aspect of the magazine. There are all the politicos, most we've never heard of, but are apparently very successful in the corridors of power. There are actors and actresses with parts in prime time sitcomes and cable shows. Then there are the "man on the street" variety of Desi Americans - women discussing their idea of an ideal relationship, young girls giving us the low down on their relationship with their parents, those who've chosen a career in the arts (considered a non-conventional choice among Desi Americans and therefore deserving of an article in a magazine).

The magazine is certainly an eye-opener. I read about people I'd never heard of before. It showcases the talents of this considerably influential and successful group (many of which are not immediately apparent) and discusses issues that affect us uniquely as immigrants.

Depending on how the vision for the magazine pans out over the coming months, I would even go so far as to say that it could serve as forum that brings together the diaspora. Given our uniqueness as an immigrant group (various languages, religions, areas of expertise), The Indian American could be a useful platform on which we can all gather.

It is precisely this aspect that could also box us into a corner and end up identifying us to ourselves and to the rest of the country as nothing more than "Indian Americans". I do hope that this will not be the case.

Congo: Children Bear the Brunt of War

At the hospital here in the troubled province of North Kivu near the Rwandan border, where villages have been ravaged by war, the burden on children is on grim, daily display. One 2-year-old boy, Amuri, struggled to breathe on a hospital bed while doctors and nurses went through the motions — attaching one of the hospital’s scarce pulse-oximeters to his tiny index finger, placing an oxygen mask over his gasping mouth. But they knew it was too late.

A few moments later, Amuri’s eyes rolled back in his head, his chest stilled and he was dead.

"Bring something for us to wrap the boy," a nurse called out.

His mother, Maria Cheusi, realized that her son’s life had slipped away. He was the third child she would bury.

"Mama, mama," she cried, collapsing to her knees in a contorted pose. "My only son, my only son."

In this excrutialtingly painful to read New York Times article, Lydia Polgreen recounts the many ways in which war has ravaged the lives of young children in Congo.

There are direct consequences of war such as death. Then there are all these indirect consequences that lead to death, such frighteningly simple ones as lack of food, such as lack of infrastructure, lack of access to doctors and medicine, diseases that in any time other than wartime would be cured (malaria, diarrhea) becoming incurable and deadly. Then there is rape and the snatching of young children to fight in the war.

You just have to imagine the terror, the despair, the intense sadness, the untold physical pain and misery these children must feel day in and day out to make your eyes tear up. If you've ever heard a small child cry, you know how it feels - you want to pick her up, comfort her and make whatever it is that is making her sad go away.

Now imagine hearing such cries, cries that never seem to stop and knowing that you cannot do anything to comfort the children. Imagine being the mother or father getting ready to bury the third child in a row. Imagine being the mother or father and knowing that you are taking your child to a hospital that may not have the medicines or the doctors or quite simply the space to accomodate and treat your child.

Imagine being the doctor and knowing that even though a child is alive, there is nothing you can do to save it, from a simple condition such as diarrhea, from a disease that is curable in many other corners of the world but just not this one. Imagine being the doctor and having to say to the desperate mother that you cannot choose to take her child to the doctor because the ambulance is full and there is no space in the hospital.

Just imagine the despair of the child, the mother, the father, the doctor. And weep.

Crossposted on Project Child.

Bangalore Bloggers in the News

Deccan Herald carries a news item today about the work a group of us bloggers did with Akshara's Reading Movement Project.

Here's a snippet.

If you thought blogging was only about speaking out your mind in personal online forums, some Bangalore bloggers will prove you wrong. These bloggers have moved beyond online posts to do grassroots level ground work - all for a cause.

Blog Bang, an informal group of City bloggers, has partnered with Akshara Foundation to assist in its ‘Read Bangalore Project’.

This project has been undertaken by Akshara Foundation in association with the Karnataka State Department of Education to augment the reading skills of primary school children (from Class II to VII) in about 1,374 government primary schools in and around Bangalore.

The task before Blog Bang was more than just spreading the word around in the blog community about the project. Six bloggers, in December 2005, undertook the mission to visit these schools to collect data. Initially, these bloggers started writing in their blogs, requesting for volunteers. As the message spread, not only bloggers, but even their biker friends pitched in.

The rest is here, including quotes from moi, Taz and Surjo.

Akshara is moving into the assessment phase of the project in the coming days. I'll put up the information here as to how we can work with Akshara during that phase as the information becomes available.

Bangalore Boy in Cadbury Confidence Championship Finals

Kiran Pathakota, a Bangalorean, has reached the final round of Cadbury Bournvita Confidence Championship to be held in Kolkata shortly. Kiran plays the mridangam and he recently performed at the Hollywood Bowl along with AR Rahman, Sivamani and Global Rhythms.

Kiran and the other finalists will be presenting a new skill on Friday 28th July on the show (Sony TV at 7.30 p.m., re-run on Sunday 30th July at 10.30 a.m.).

So do watch, and if you like what you see, vote for Kiran! Voting starts at 8 p.m. on Friday 28th July and ends at midnight on 4th Aug 2006.

Children and War

When it came to war and children, I imagined that I would write about the ravages of war, about how children are the worst affected in modern-day conflict, and about child soldiers who are forced to abandon their families and home towns and forced to kill in the name of religion.

I never imagined that I would write about Israeli children casually scribbling messages on bombs meant for Lebanon.






Pictures from Associated Press

Frederick Deknatel, at War Post (via Amitava Kumar), in his essay Obsessed, asks,

I wonder how the Israeli girls who write on bombs that kill Lebanese girls, and their mothers and old grandmothers, would explain their war obsession. The girls’ doting mothers take cute photos of them with digital cameras: soccer moms next to tanks, the healthy-looking women crouching to catch this moment in their daughters’ young life. Maybe they talk about this moment at dinner, at night. Maybe they try and tell the daughters that it’s fine to be obsessed with war, to write on bombs, since all they want is peace. Maybe they tell their daughters who the bombs kill, before reminding them to eat their beans.

Granted these children live in the Middle East where peace is a scarce commodity and where children live day in and day out among the ruins of war, the sounds of gun fire and the threat of suicide bombings, but I wonder what the parents of the children in the pictures were thinking.

Are they so jaded that they took the girls and let them frolic among the war heads dreaming up things to write on the bombs while they stood around, chatting, taking pictures? Don't children get desensitized to war and all the havoc it causes by treating it so trivially as the girls in those pictures seem to be doing? Aren't children supposed to be feeling sad about all the death (as Frederick says, of little Lebanese girls) and destruction these bombs are sure to cause? Aren't children supposed to be making drawings and writing letters to their Prime Minister to stop the war? Aren't children supposed to be writing peace letters to the children of the "enemy"?

Update:

Lisa Goodman at On The Face (via Curious Gawker) provides some background and much needed context to these pictures.

On the day that photo was taken, the girls had emerged from the underground bomb shelters for the first time in five days. A new army unit had just arrived in the town and was preparing to shell the area across the border. The unit attracted the attention of twelve photojournalists - Israeli and foreign. The girls and their families gathered around to check out the big attraction in the small town - foreigners. They were relieved and probably a little giddy at being outside in the fresh air for the first time in days. They were probably happy to talk to people. And they enjoyed the attention of the photographers.

Apparently one or some of the parents wrote messages in Hebrew and English on the tank shells to Nasrallah. "To Nasrallah with love," they wrote to the man whose name was for them a devilish image on television - the man who mockingly told Israelis, via speeches that were broadcast on Al Manar and Israeli television, that Hezbollah was preparing to launch even more missiles at them. That he was happy they were suffering.

The photograpers gathered around. Twelve of them. Do you know how many that is? It's a lot. And they were all simultaneously leaning in with their long camera lenses, clicking the shutter over and over. The parents handed the markers to the kids and they drew little Israeli flags on the shells. Photographers look for striking images, and what is more striking than pretty, innocent little girls contrasted with the ugliness of war? The camera shutters clicked away, and I guess those kids must have felt like stars, especially since the diversion came after they'd been alternately bored and terrified as they waited out the shelling in their bomb shelters.

Please do read the rest.

While this explanation may help us understand just how it came about that these children wrote on the bombs, it still does not explain why the parents allowed these children close to the bombs or how they thought it was all right to have them write whatever they did. Whatever the explanation, whatever the justification, it just does not bode well for the future.

Crossposted on Project Child.

Indian Blogs Slam TV Coverage of Mumbai Blasts

Right from the time the story of the Mumbai blasts of Tuesday, July 11 broke, it was the headliner in all of the Indian television channels. As it should be. From the coverage, it was quite obvious that television camera and crew managed to get to the blast sites much quicker than any of the emergency or law and order personnel in the city.

TV channels also became conduits for sending and receiving messages through text messaging at a time when calling facilities on cell phone networks and landlines were down. Scores of people succeeded in reaching their families and friends and satisfying themselves that they were all right. For this, the channels deserve kudos.

In times of crisis, citizens turn to television channels for news and information quite automatically. What with all the technological innovations, satellite systems, on site broadcasting systems, etc., and more importantly, with the onset of 24-hour news channels, it is becoming the norm that television channels stick with a story not for minutes or hours, but for days on end, sending reporters to chase down and present each tiny new bit of information (which is then duly "flashed" at the bottom of the screen under the monicker "breaking news").

But when does this coverage cross the line? When does it all become too much? What are the situations in which media channels should exercise restraint and say, "This much and no more?"

Going by the voices in the Indian blogosphere that have spoken over the past three days on this issue, it appears that the Indian television channels did cross the line in their coverage of the Mumbai blasts.

The complaints fall into two broad categories:

• Television channels exercising no restraint when it came to showing gory images of broken bodies and bloodied body parts; and


• Anchors and reporters harping on the "exclusivity" of the images shown on their television channel and plugging the fact that their images were being shown worldwide.

Mumbai Help quite simply asks that the display of mangled bodies on television be stopped. Kishore at All in a Day's Work writes about the television coverage of the Mumbai blasts and of the death of Suryanarayana, the Indian engineer kidnapped and executed by the Taliban in Afghanistan,

Media is in the business of generating revenues. It's the bottom line which matters. And anything that creates a sensation, sells. Anything that demonstrates a conflict, sells. Anything that gets glorified, sells. Anything that instills a fear, sells. Conflict sells. Peace is boring.

Mridula at Travel Tales from India, horrified at the gory images she saw on television no matter what channel she turned to, put up links to blogs that had already written about the issue and appealed to other bloggers to blog about it as well,

If you turn on the TV it is all over the place. No, I do not mean the news. I mean showing the dead bodies of the blast victims with scant regard for human dignity. I think here is one small issue where we, the people who blog can make a small difference.

I have an appeal for you. If you blog and if you feel strongly about the way Indian news channels (almost all) are beaming the images of the dead, blog about it. If enough number of people do it, someone somewhere has to take notice. We have done it before and if we care about it we can do it again. I am willing to aggregate as many links as possible on this issue along with this post.

From her post and from some of the comments left there, here are a couple of the voices. Please do read the rest of her post.

Pooja Agarwal at Travel Memoirs comments on Zee TV's coverage,

They were actually showing dead bodies lying on the track and injured people being dragged to rescue. Even sitting this far from my country, I could not help but feel for everyone back home who were probably seeing these images continuously and how disturbing they must be for everyone.

Insane Mind writes on the crassness that pervaded the coverage,

The media coverage of the terrorist attack and its aftermath was crass, to say the least. I had watched the news channels for a long time, getting number, seeing the same gruesome images being aired over and over again. The media has lost its control, and its humanity.

Of all television channels and anchors, the choicest brickbats seem to be reserved for CNN/IBN and its head Rajdeep Sardesai.

I was bemused at first and then dismayed at the importance CNN/IBN was giving to its own (in its view) pre-eminence in the Indian television field. I was aware of Sardesai's tendency to puff up with self-importance in the presence of celebrities (his interview with Imran Khan and Kapil Dev was painful to watch at times), but it took on rather alarming proportions on Tuesday night.

Emma questions the need for gore and writes that such displays end up disrespecting the dead. Buchu found Sardesai's coverage annoying. Sumankumar simply says, "Rajdeep Sardesai takes this opportunity to sing praises on his channel CNN-IBN." News describes CNN/IBN's bloody coverage,

Rajdeep was anchoring from one of the bombed first class coaches. He kept on pointing at and showing blood splashed window glasses of the train for a good 10 minutes. As if this was not enough, what followed were blood smeared bodies of injured people. Then there were limbs and other body parts of the dead on the platforms and rail tracks. Blood blood and more blood.

Gaurav Sabnis at Vantage Point notes,

7:42 - Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN - "These pictures are now being beamed on all CNN networks all over the world. Indians all over the world watching CNN are now watching CNN-IBN. This is the power of CNN-IBN". Yes Rajdeep, we are very proud of you. Your timing for patting yourself on the back is admirable.

Amit Varma at India Uncut berates Sardesai for bragging about "how 'this is the power of a global news organisation. These pictures are going out across the world thanks to CNN-IBN.'"

Starship Enterprise presents an alternative view. Writing in response to Mridula's post, he/she writes that displaying the gore stemming from terrorist attacks such as the Mumbai blasts is necessary for a reality check,

Bloodshed is a excruciatingly real image of a bomb blast. To skim over it like it didn't exist would be to overlook the reality and cower in a safe corner of comfort. We, who are fortunate enough to be alive, should not shy away from gory images because they shock our complacent sensibilities.

Pradeep Nair, commenting on Kishore's post writes that viewers, sitting in the comfort of their living rooms, have the wrong idea about journalists and the work they do,

I am a journalist and I must admit, on occasions, we do get carried away by events. So, constantly we have to remind ourselves to be restrained. This is most apparent in the case of the TV, much less on the radio; and to some extent in the print. This "getting carried away" phenomenon is nothing new. Only that in this TV era, it is so much more visible to the common person.

One reason for the wrong perception is, I feel, the journalist is there right at the spot, in the thick of events… while the viewer or reader is in the comforts of the home. It’s only natural viewers react the way they do. But it will be good, if they understand that facts are different.

There is one point few people realise: The very things that make people view a programme are precisely the things that they don’t like. It's ironic, but true. Take the punch or the most captivating aspect out of the programme or article, you won't watch it or read it. Then, no criticism, no applause.

BongoPundit has an excellent post/round-up on media and the Mumbai blasts in general. Sepia Mutiny comments on the deafening silence in the western blogosphere, and Curious Gawker points to the inane commentary at one of the few non-Indian blogs that did write about the blasts. Please do read.

What are your thoughts on the role of media at times such as these? How much is too much and do viewers really need to see every last detail, no matter how graphic, of every story? Is this a function of the 24/7 news cycle?

If you notice other blogs on this issue, please do leave the link in the comments section.

Update:

Here is Vijay's take on the issue:

Just as I was seeing some gory pictures on the television, it struck me I should write a post, condemning these cowardly and dastardly acts. But then I thought, am I not doing the same mistake what the media is doing ? Just that I am sensationalising through a medium which is still in its nascent stages of growth. I realised, getting hits on your blog is similar to having more TRP for your new channel. That, I guess is what human nature is, opportunism, which is not wrong, but at times of tragedy, not the right thing. But this post is only to pray for the bereaved souls and to give solidarity to all Mumbaikars.

I again come to the point about the media, and its opportunistic nature. It's all fine to provide helpline numbers and provide sms service to stranded people. But it is not fine to telecast pictures of mayhem and death on national television.