Desicritics Category: Culture: Children

The Benefits of Joblessness

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:56:40 EDT

Now here's a surprise for you. I quote:

The proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds without a job is higher than when Labour came to power in spite of government efforts to reduce unemployment among the young.......blamed the rise on the failure to raise the skills of many youngsters. The New Deal scheme to reduce youth unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work had also failed to maintain its initial success.

What are the solutions? And this is where I disagree:

The OECD said policies such as raising the age to which youngsters must remain training to 18 needed “fine tuning”. It called for increased support for free nursery education; a three-month limit for 16- and 17-year-olds to find work with part-time learning, after which they must return to full-time education or training; more involvement for trade unions in development of apprenticeship schemes; and an expectation that youngsters working under New Deal stay in a job for at least 26 weeks.

See, this is an issue of taking a horse to water but cannot or being unable to make it drink. And here's the actual problem, and I further quote:

One in five youngsters who found work under New Deal held a job for less than 13 weeks, leading to “short employment spells with benefit dependency”.

What these gits do not understand is that for entry level jobs and basic jobs, the difference between the salary and benefits enjoyed is marginal, and in many cases, negative. So what's the point of me dressing up, going to work for a boss who treats me like a coprolite, doing soul destroying work and then ending up after working 10 hours with an amount which is lesser than what my friends earned by sitting at home smoking and drinking and bonking?

Benefit dependency is the issue, link the continued employment to the continued benefit and you will see that economic incentives do work. If you do not work, you do not get the money. And all the kings horses and men, like this whiney article, says, will not make humpty dumpty go back to work again.

Take a look at what Polly is celebrating. She is looking at an estate of 7300 people, and I quote: This vast estate, in much disrepair, had 7,300 residents but virtually no community life, voluntary or council-run. It did have crack houses, prostitution, rubbish tips and violent crime. It did have exceptional numbers of the old, the sick and single mothers.

This is the problem, it was the state's mistakes, the centralised planning, the benefit dependency, the bad public service delivery and the like which landed the estate of Clapham Park in this mess. So Polly is basically saying that the state mucked up, and then the state tried to fix it, and then it again failed. Erm. yes, obviously it will fail, you silly girl, because it was not done by the residents, but to and for the residents by people who never stayed in there. And she is asking for more public money to fix it, keep it going and worse of all, to extend it to other estates and counties where the state has spectacularly failed. Dont you think you should stand back and let the citizens do it themselves?

But here is the problem which goes back to the benefits issue. This state has made a vast swathe of the populace dependent upon benefits and is therefore unable to shift them off it. Take a look at this by-election coming up in Glasgow East. Trace the history of the constituency back and you will see that it has been managed by Labour going back to 1922. Ok? Now let me bring some interesting statistics to bear.

1. From the Spectator:

Nick Clegg drew gasps at a reception in Westminster by observing that there are parts of Glasgow where life expectancy is the same as the Gaza Strip and North Korea. If only this were so. Glasgow City, as a whole, has a male life expectancy of 71 years which is actually lower than the 72 years of both Gaza and Pyongyang. But this includes its lush suburbs. Those in the welfare ghettoes of Glasgow East can only dream of such longevity. The life expectancy of its sink estates is worth recording here. A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent.

2. BBC:

Figures for unemployment are also higher, with the rate for men over 25 about 10%, rising to 25% for women.

This year, NHS statistics showed that the east end of Glasgow had Scotland's highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions.

3. Blog:

Look beneath the lies, damned lies and statistics, and factor in the number of people on incapacity benefits, and we discover that around 50% of the adult 'working' population is unemployed.

4. Spectator again:

When you look at Scotland on any statistical dataset, it is one big horror story. Welfarism, health deprivation, drugs, drink – there are reams of data about what a socioeconomic nightmare the country is.

5. Financial Times:

Male life expectancy is 63, which is 14 years below the UK average. Unemployment runs at 25 per cent and about 40 per cent of the constituents live on benefits. About 40 per cent of the children live in workless households. Sadly, "household" is not always the most appropriate term. The teenage pregnancy rate is 40 per cent above the national average.

And this is from a city which, and I quote: Yet just a few generations ago Glasgow was the greatest industrial city of the British empire. At one time it produced half the world's ships and a third of its railway locomotives. It could be argued that many people in the UK enjoyed a prosperity that was in part built on the gargantuan efforts of industrial Glasgow.

6. The Times: male life expectancy is 14 years below the national average, 38% of constituents are welfare-dependent, 46% live in social housing, 60% of households have no access to a car, and deaths from heart disease among the under 75s are 83% above the national average.

Now yes, I agree that you cannot be up all the time, just look at Detroit, but hey, look at California, it reinvented it. And it did not do it by handing out benefits by the ton. The problem is that people are now accustomed to living by the state. So now why would you be surprised that the people will keep on voting Labour? As the quote goes, a government which promises to rob peter to pay Paul will always count on the support of Paul.

If you want to get people employed and productive members of the staff, you need to help them but just like pain killers, do not make them addicted to it, otherwise you will end up with estates like Clapham or Glasgow East. (Incidentally, the SNP and the Labour party are both the same, whosoever wins in this by election will do sweet sod all. Here's a prediction, 5 years time and the statistics will be worse! and I am very happy to be proven wrong).

Technorati Tags: Unemployment, United Kingdom, Welfare, Scotland

Rocket Science, Parenting and Beyond

Pingu — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:02:04 EDT

Every now and then one hears the catchphrases “It doesn’t require a degree in rocket science to figure out that….” Or “I may not be a rocket scientist but I know that…”

Rocket Science on Wikipedia leads us to a tiny article, 80% of which is:

Due to the complexity and depth of this area of engineering (requiring mastery in subjects including mechanics (fluid mechanics, structural mechanics, orbital mechanics, flight dynamics), mathematics, control engineering, materials science, aeroelasticity, avionics, reliability engineering, noise control and flight test), it is also informally used as a term to describe an endeavor requiring great intelligence or technical ability. More often, the term is used to describe an endeavor that is simple and straightforward by stating that the aforementioned endeavor "is not rocket science".

This is amusing.

I think that as such the courses one does in aerospace engineering (aka Rocket Science for the layman) do require a high amount of intellect, but then so does training at Langley or John Hopkins. I think it’s the whole feel of having thousands of buttons around you and being responsible for manning something which is so colossal and worth so many billions of dollars (with minimum scope for error) that enables Rocket Science to be revered as the final frontier in terms of intellect. As specialization increases, we perceive the task to become monumental because we start to dissociate from the field . It just happens that compared to other engineering branches, probably aerospace has a very high percentage of people going into specialization (for I don't think NASA really wants a jack o all trades).

Speaking of specialization, medicine also requires it, but then I guess, there are just too many doctors around.

I remember asking my mother, one of the best retina consultants in India today, about what she thought was the toughest job on the planet. True, I did expect a standardized answer. I placed my money on Rocket Science. I will never forget what happened next. She looked at me, and gently whispered

"Parenting"

Born Confused: Hi Dad...er...Mom

temporal — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 01:50:40 EDT

Poor baby!

The two word opening is not condescending.

Can you imagine the little baby being utterly confused between mom and dad. Thank you mom….er……dad….er…..not you mom, dad…

34 year old Thomas Beattie, former pageant queen Tracy LaGondino of Hawaii, lately of Oregon has given birth to a baby girl, ABC News has reported.

He told People magazine he decided to get pregnant after wife of five years Nancy had a hysterectomy.

So to answer the question: how can a man be pregnant? Well, Beatie actually used to be a woman, then decided he wanted to be a man, and then decided he wanted to have a baby. When he had surgery to become a man, he had his breasts removed and was given testosterone to make him look and sound like a man, but he chose to keep his female reproductive organs. So Beatie is really a man/woman hybrid. Call him a freak, if you like.

Baby incubating aside, renting a womb aside, switching roles aside, I found this very interesting. Beattie has a penchant for coining words. Look at this play on maternity clothes:

'Unfortunately, they don't make man-ternity clothes,' he remarked recently.

Is it progress? Tides run - time does not remain still. But what is this? Will pigs fly next? Will democracy take root in Iraq? Or Pakistan? Will Bal Thackeray come out of the closet? Will Modi waltz with Mullah Omar?

What will the kid do when the school wants her to bring her dad with her next PTA meeting?

Now there will be no solace in beer drinking. A beer belly can be mistaken for pregnancy.

And did you read about the one year old baby carrying another fetus? No, not another miracle, I assure you. It is a medical condition called FiF. Fetus-in-Fetus.

So to the All India Eunuch Association Chairperson and the Von Siffers: hold your peace. We are not there yet.

Old Parents Left Behind

DeeptiA — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 01:40:52 EDT

Recently I came across a situation that was terribly distressing. There was a school friend of mine (we are talking about the late 80's) with whom I had lost contact some years back. During the time that I remember spending with him in school, he was a good friend. However, as happens many times when you leave school, and then go to different colleges, we lose touch (even though he was in the same city).

Then, while browsing through the friends list of a friend in Facebook, I came across his name. I promptly added him to my friends list, and within a couple of days, we had regained contact. In email through Facebook, I got to know what he had done after school. He had an interest in going abroad, and so, he did the usual software engineering route, joined a services company, and within a year got the chance to go abroad. He jumped at the chance, and moved with the software company to its US office; and after a year or so, jumped jobs and joined an American company.

All the time, his parents were at home, here, along with his younger daughter. Soon, when the daughter finished her education and became a doctor, they found a good match for the daughter (another doctor settled in London) and the marriage happened; the daughter soon left with her husband to London. Now, the parents were left only to themselves in the house. Within a year, they found a suitable bride for their son, he came for the marriage, spent some time at home and then left back to the US. He was still devoted to his parents, coming once every year to visit.

However, and this is now the issue. I visited the parents a couple of days back, and found them to be in a bad position. They are growing old, and have only themselves to take care of each other. They are so used to the city and the circle around them that they are not taking up their son's offer to take them with him to the US, worrying about what they will do in a strange place, whether they will get along with their daughter-in-law (she is used to running the show in that house). The son is not willing to relocate back; he has a cushy life over there, children who are more American than Indian, and so on. And so, the have money (sent by their son), but do not have the moral support that is normally required. They also get testy when you talk to them about going abroad with their son, and I did not raise the issue again in visits. What is a good solution in such cases ?

Poetry: Bajan Claire Collins

temporal — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:18:33 EDT

bajan claire collins, lithe
smiling eyes, pouted lips
assured, single parent
in T.O. by way of
the st. lawrence gap,
island of barbados
mother of ashley
now six and my colleague

ashley was cuddly, cute
with a short afro and
infectious dimpled smile
everyone loved him

ten years later

a dark wintry night returning late from work
walking towards home saw some dark shadows lurking
around the corner variety store ahead
baggy pants, white joggers, over-sized tops with hoods
instinctively i crossed the street and kept walking
past the store i heard foot steps approaching me
i ran a mental checklist to ward off trouble

'hello uncle t, how are you?' said ashley
relieved i inquired about him and claire

*names changed

Children - We Can Make a Difference

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:42:12 EDT

Anybody who has been on railway platforms in a reasonably big Indian city might have noticed a surprisingly large number of unaccompanied children. They are the children who have been abandoned, have run away from abusive homes, were orphaned or simply got lost. And as it is when children fall through the cracks, these kids have become drug addicts, are abused, sexually or otherwise. They have no future and simply have become the jetsam and flotsam of modern society, condemned to be on the garbage heap. Unknown, and uncared for, they sink to the bottom and simply fade away. But not for a tiny institution in Bhopal, which has given the most valuable of all things to them. It gave them hope.

I have noticed one thing common between refugees, orphans, drug addicts and prostitutes. Their eyes are dead. They do not sparkle anymore, are dead to the world, incurious, and they do not shine with life. They might be alive, but frankly, for all practical purposes, their souls are dead. And I think it’s primarily because of the fact that they have lost all hope. What is there to put sparkles in your eyes if there is no longer any hope?

One of the everlasting regrets of my life is that I was not able to adopt an orphan. A combination of government apathy and obstruction, plus other circumstances made it impossible for me to adopt and fulfil the pledge and promise I made to myself all those years ago when I visited the Missionaries of Charity home in Indore, India. The eyes of those orphans would light up when visitors came and I wanted to do something about it. But in the absence of that, I was trying to do my little bit for these unfortunate children just to give them a bit of hope and to put some sparkle back into their eyes.

While I was in Amsterdam, I spotted a news item in an Indian newspaper RSS feed about a small institution that has opened in Bhopal, India, which helps orphans, street children and children on the Bhopal Railway Station Platform. My sister and I decided to do a little bit to help them by giving each of them their individual lockers, a small place to call their own. My parents, being there in Bhopal, went over to the charity, asked about their space, got the lockers built and installed. This was over four months ago and it is only now that I finally managed to get to Bhopal to see for myself.

This is a story of the worst kind and at the same time the best human behaviour ladled on to the people who can least withstand it, as well as most need it. I saw three small girls , aged 1, 3 and 7 years of age. They do not seem to have any place to stay, their parents squabble, and it is unclear where they live. This one hall provides them with a temporary measure during the day when they can come in from the rain and get some education. The 7 year old girl is apparently extremely intelligent and she is testing at 3 levels above her age related education levels. There is another boy of 5 years of age, who got lost on a train. He is from south India and speaks Tamil, but he does not know where he is from, or anything else. Since they know nothing about him, he is a lost soul. A mother and father would be grieving somewhere for their lost son, but there you are.

I saw a recovering drug addict, a boy of only 10. These boys sell bits and bobs, such as tea or biscuits, on the trains which pass through the railway station. And with the little money they earn, they go purchase a bottle of whitener (the fluid used to correct typing mistakes) which is very cheap at Rupees 15. This is then poured into a cloth which they will sniff all day long. And for some reason, they would also cut themselves on the arms, thighs, chest, anywhere, deeply with a rusty razor blade to let the blood flow. Apparently, it makes them feel like flying. They are not violent, but just go into a deep somnolent daze. This particular boy had scars up and down his body. I saw another boy outside the school, about 13-14 years of age, who wanted to come in and have lunch. He was zonked out of his brains. He is my son’s age.

There are three boys that I was introduced to, who were beaten so badly by their parents and families that their bones were broken. So they ran away from home when they were 4-5 years of age. Because they do not know where they came from, (unlettered, illiterate children), now they cannot go back. My mother told me about how she saw this woman speaking to a child in the corner of a school. On inquiring, it turned out that this was his mother who had abandoned her child at the school because she could neither feed nor clothe him. But she comes back once every few months after earning some money, to bring some sweets. Mother and child get together for about 10-15 minutes.

A young lady, Ms. Deepika Suri, kicked this entire thing off. She is a high ranking police officer and she noticed these children running riot. Now we all know the challenges anybody would face to get any government to do anything out of the ordinary. But she is perhaps one of the real heroines of India. A quiet, lovely young lady, who saw a need, and swung into action. She found an abandoned building and had it fixed up to become a school cum residential hall cum orphanage for thirty odd children. She linked it with a government school to provide education, got political cover and basically got it up and running.

She did not get anything out of it. She is, by all accounts, very retiring and quiet. I have not met her and have only heard about her from the children and the teachers who think of her as a veritable goddess. And so she is. She gave these children hope. She fought against the apathy that is so endemic in society. She did not give up and she made a dream happen for these children. After it was up and running, the building fixed up, food and clothing arranged, bedding fixed, teachers and helpers in place, to get political cover, she got the chief minister of the state to inaugurate the centre called as “Disha” (a Hindi word meaning direction). And when the Chief Minister asked, what they needed, they said, can we please have lockers for the children? My father said that eight people volunteered to provide them.

As it so happened, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip and many months later, nothing happened so we decided to get those lockers for them. Why lockers, you might ask? Why not clothes, or food, or money? Well, there was a lot of thinking behind it.

These children, in my opinion, do not have anything personal and individual, no assets, no home, not even a toothbrush, nothing. It is a totally transient existence. And it is horrible, not to have anything to call your own.

But the idea was, that if they have a locker, with their own locks and keys, it becomes their little piece of home. And that is what we saw, there were thirty lockers and each had been decorated individually by their owners. The key was hung around their necks with a piece of sturdy twine, but some had put up photographs, some had arranged their clothes in pleasing manners, one even had managed to put in a tiny curtain in that locker.

The children put on a show for us, and I was very impressed by their range of abilities. Whether it was singing, dancing, poetry recital, drumming, recitation of multiplication tables or the 3 R’s, they were pretty good. One tiny dervish of a small boy was so enthusiastic, he wanted to volunteer for everything and he danced for us. Apparently, before coming to the centre, he would earn money for food by dancing for train passengers. And now he danced just for the sheer joy of it, the blooming smile on his face, the shining teeth (yes, they now have tooth brushes and tooth paste nicely kept in their lockers), well kept clothes and groomed hair all pointed to a happy boy.

A boy of 15 odd years posed as a radio commentator and gave a full five minutes of a radio news announcement. It was very impressive. The kids knew Sanskrit shlokas and hymns; they would worship religiously every evening. The teachers would ask each boy to think about what they did well and what they did wrong, to learn from their mistakes. The teachers and the associated NGO try to place these orphans with families.

One boy was from West Bengal and he had tuberculosis. He liked to eat fish curry and rice, which were his traditional diet, but for some reason he landed in Bhopal, many many miles away. So the NGO spent quite a lot of money and then managed to place him with a family in West Bengal where he can now get a proper diet and medical care in a good middle class family. Guess what? The boy ran away from there and came back to the centre in Bhopal, apparently he missed them so much.

I can talk so much about this, but this is a series of disjointed thoughts about a frankly tear jerker of an experience. I was telling my old friend about it and he offered to do some construction work at the institution, by building up the boundary wall (to keep the drug addict, junkies and thieves away) and refurbishing the toilets.

Small things, but that is the power of feeling and caring. Think back about Ms. Suri who kicked off the start, and now 170 children have passed through these halls of this school. It gave them direction and it gave them hope. It was a humbling experience to see this.

I end with a plea; do something for the poor children or orphans of your city. Nothing much, you rally do not have to do much. And you do not have to go far from your city. Why don’t you just purchase some cheap and cheerful dictionaries or colouring books for them? What about getting them some board games? Give them something, anything, go sing a song to them or just talk to them. Just show them that somebody cares, and that they have not been abandoned. After having faced the world that we humans have brought down on their tiny innocent heads, show them that they can have a direction to a better life, they can hope, the dead eyes can sparkle again. It can and has been done.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!

Technorati Tags: Charity,India,Children

Love And All That Jazz

Deepa Krishnan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:25:41 EDT

I was checking my email when I saw this advertisement for a matrimonial services website.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony of an arranged marriage advertisement that promises love?

Perhaps there is a blinding moment of romantic love somewhere during the lengthy process of arranging a marriage? Does love come suddenly tiptoeing in, as families check whether the horoscopes match, whether the bride is fair enough, and the groom wealthy enough?

Or maybe love comes later. On the wedding night, perhaps? Maybe there is a very Indian sort of love then; a heady cocktail of flower-strewn beds and dutiful sex, of virginal fumbling and earnest baby-making?

Or does it come still later, as the husband and wife settle into familiar traditions and festivals, and find their place in the larger family? Perhaps when he comes home from work bringing flowers for her hair, their relationship morphs into a real tenderness? Is it then that love develops?

If you ask me, I think the truth is that a very different sort of love develops in Indian marriages - and it is the arrival of a baby that brings it on. It seems to me that many couples put romantic love on the back-burner as they find a fiercer, deeper parental love that all but consumes them. The legendary Indian attachment to children burns brighter than anything else, and provides life-long sustenance to the marriage, replacing notions of romantic and sexual love.

Maybe this sort of marriage is really what humans need - a stable, no-nonsense system that creates companionable partnerships, so that we can get on with the real business of making and raising children, and populating the gene pool with little copies of ourselves.

Maybe the ancients got it right a long time ago. Why fret and fume over male-female relationships, when really, it’s all about babies? I am too much a product of Western thinking to be happy with a partnership geared towards childrearing. But Darwin would have approved, I think!

Bagheera, By Any Other Name: My Black Panther

Harold Bergsma — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:52:39 EDT

Kipling’s Jungle Book was my first introduction to secret India. How I fantasized as a child about Bhalu, Sher Khan and the Black Panther, the palang or as it was called in the novel, Bagheera. When the movie first came out, I was out for ninety minutes in another secret world, trying to put my imagined version of the stories together with what I had read. Somehow, it was Bagheera the Indian leopard that caught my fancy more than all the others. It slinked and slithered, it disappeared into the jungle at night like a phantom; its grating call sent shivers down my spine.

Yesterday, I was reading stories of Jim Corbett, the legendary man-eating tiger killer. I found it strange that at the exact time I was writing the initial draft of this article that Jason Bellows, on April 29th. 2008 was engaged in writing something just as interesting about the same topic, A Large-Hearted Gentleman, a wonderful account of Jim Corbett and how he killed man-eating tigers. That gentleman lived between 1874 and 1955 and his stories were even more avidly read by me than those of Kipling and by many of us who owned guns and were addicted to shikar. (the hunt)

There is a zoo in Lahore where we went as a family to see the animals mentioned by Kipling. As a child I was saddened by it, and many decades later, as an adult I was appalled. I found the Indian Leopard cage and stared into the eyes of a creature that had been in its tiny cement and steel barred box for a decade, its fur dull, its muscles flaccid from lack of use. I stood a long time and stared into its eyes, the only part of it that seemed alive as it lay on a cement slab. I had read that if you stare into the eyes of a leopard or tiger, it will be unable to maintain your gaze and look away. I stared now waiting for it to look away. It stared at me, it too, it too having read about this phenomenon and did not look away, waiting for me to tire. I spoke. “Hello leopard. What secret thoughts are you thinking? Do you remember your home in the jungle of the Nepal terrai?” Now it looked away and yawned, showing its long yellowed canines. It rolled over and dismissed me. It had been born in the zoo and had no idea about what I was referring to. Its language skills were limited to the taunts the Lahore kids threw at it.

The road from the Woodstock Hostie, as the senior boys’ hostel was called, to the chukkar near the top of the hill in Mussoorie, was a fair hike of about half an hour. The short cuts through the jungle were narrow paths that wound around the hillside. These were often used by the charcoal carriers and other paharis, our name for the hill people who lived in secluded villages on this part of the Himalayan foothills. These were the paths I took on my thrice weekly excursions to visit at the house of my girlfriend and future wife, who, it seemed, lived as far away from my hostie as was possible and still be part of our ex-patriot community. The trip there was in the daylight which was for me a naturalist’s paradise. Along the trails in the rainy season, the leeches, feeling the vibration of my footsteps would stand up like tiny antennae and wave about waiting for a foot to land nearby onto which they could cling. On the bushes there were always insects; rhinoceros beetles, stags with their fearsome pinschers and June Bugs with iridescent green backs. As I walked I would collect one or another of these and move along. These paths were a favorite place for lungurs, the agile and often aggressive hairy monkeys that swung on their long arms and stared down at me from the branches of trees covered with hanging moss. If I was very lucky I might see Chikor Partridge scurry away or a slinking Kaleej Pheasant.

The trip back, usually at night when it was pitch dark was another world experience. My flashlight picked up the shiny eyes of many creatures as I strode along, or often loping on the downward slopes. Usually the batteries in my torch were fairly new, or at least sufficiently charged to produce an orange glow. I used the torch sparingly because it cost money to buy batteries. I walked along briskly in the semi-darkness, the waxing moon giving some light to make out the road. Something moved in the path in front of me and I stopped in my tracks, my heart pounding. The light of my torch reflected back from two eyes of a leopard standing in the path facing me. Behind it, down on the edge of the kud was something black. I stood stock still and I held the light steady for what seemed to me like an eternity. It turned its head away from the glare, then once again stared at me and made a coughing, snarling noise like a saw cutting into hard timber. My hand shook, my knees felt like putty and I had a hard time holding my bowels. It was not fear, rather terror that came over me, alone on a jungle trail with a leopard twenty feet away, at night, with no gun. I blinked my eyes and when I looked again it was gone. I shone the light around and there was no reflection, no sound, only a slight odor of feline urine.

I did not go forward. I backed up slowly for fifty feet and then walked uphill for half a mile and took a major dirt road that led to the Teri road, a rather long way to get home, but hopefully safer than a path where leopards roamed. I was almost home. I could see the light of the boarding halls below me and I relaxed. At that moment a pack of jackals, not more than twenty feet from me near the road began to howl. Somehow this gave speed to my feet as I raced the rest of the way back. This has been a secret until now and one I have kept for many, many decades. Imagine, admitting to my girlfriend about my terror. Imagine telling about a girl friend. Imagine how surprised the leopard was too, who was at the time with his dark-haired girlfriend.

The wife of one of the British officers was walking her small dog on the chukkar not far from where I had met my leopard and stared into its eyes. She told her story rather properly and matter-of-factly. “I was walking the dog and a leopard came out of the bushes at the side of the road and in one motion, snatched Bonnie, holding her by the neck and pulled her away from me into the bushes. Neither the dog nor the leopard made a sound. One moment it was there, the next it was gone!” When asked if she had been terrified she replied, “No, not at all. I was furious that it just took Bonnie like that in broad daylight. I did not have time to be frightened. It was a horribly beautiful animal, I must say, black as coal.”

Two other dogs were taken near homes in the area that year. The men in many households now oiled up their guns, bought new batteries for their torches and vowed that if they saw the culprit that they would shoot the bugger on site. That only lasted until the rainy season, because guns rusted easily if they got soaking wet, and who in their right mind would wander about in a pouring rain anyway? The leopards moved down toward Dehra Dun where the rain was not so severe and there were ample numbers of village dogs to eat.

I have waited until now to insert a snippet of Jim Corbett’s tale. “He continued briskly along the sand, hoping to make it to the hilltop before the tigress finished her buffalo feast. As he squeezed past a large boulder which blocked most of the riverbed, something in his peripheral vision gave him pause: something orange and black, with predator’s eyes, poised behind the boulder ready to pounce. He… set the rifle butt against his hip, and managed to fire a singe shot. For a moment the tiger was unaffected, and stayed coiled on the verge of springing out. Then her muscles slacked and her head came down to rest on her forepaws. The bullet had entered the back of her neck, and plunged through to her heart. … the Chowgrath Tigress was indeed dead.” The tiger is more charismatic than the slinking leopard, and almost always takes the headlines, except in this case. I find Corbett’s prose a bit too dramatic. “Poised, ready to pounce.” Come on.

Charismatic mega-vertebrates such as the elephant, the Sumatran rhino, gaur and tigers have captured the attention of animal lovers in India. Leopards somehow have not had good press agents. They are seldom mentioned except when a goat, cow or dog is killed and then once again the men pick up their guns and make vows of vengeance. But the Indian Leopard is seldom seen now. Rapid human population expansion has forced the leopard to move away into more remote jungle areas. The Indian leopard may still number in the tens of thousands, however, with a human population of a billion and growing, the leopard may endure in its last stronghold in the Himalayas. The leopard, as opposed to the more fearsome and grand tiger, will, I believe continue to remain in its secret places for quiet some time. Children may see the leopard in a zoo, glance at its spotted fur, or if lucky into its eyes for a moment and then pass on to see the elephants or the Bengal Tiger with its sagging stomach.

Leopard fixation is incurable. It is caught at an early age when a young child is highly vulnerable to the environmental and psychological influences of the mysterious jungles of India. I speak from experience. Long before I met the leopard on the pathway I used to put my hand into its mouth. What? Yes. You see my father, a surgeon, had acquired a leopard skin with a mounted head, claws and all, in a moment of a rajah’s generosity. I think it was not really a rajah, rather a Wali, a ruler in Swat whose wife he had treated most circumspectly, examining her through a sheet with a hole in it with the husband in attendance. He prescribed, she took the medicine, got better and the Wali was most grateful. He had a leopard skin with the head mounted, glass eyes, and its mouth wide open. He gave it to my father, who had, without thinking, admired it. The skin was a lovely thing to look at. That leopard skin got a special spot in our living room. My mother did not like it, but we children did. When we did prayers, puja, or namaz, depending on our choice that day, on the carpet, I would stretch out my hand and stroke its head and put my hand in its gaping mouth and feel its long teeth. Incurable. It was my favorite place to read, to lie back with my head against the leopard’s stuffed head, stretched out on the soft spotted fur.

While I attended boarding school I heard many a tale about leopards. One was about a black leopard, or as it was then called, a black panther. These were the most feared and stories about them were very special. They are very hard to see at night as they slink about. One tale that was told in the dormitory as we lay in the dark on our beds was interesting that I feel I can now share.

The Black Panther had made its kill the night before. The goat was not totally consumed so the great white hunter, the intrepid sahib bahadur, decided to sit up for it in a natural machan, which was no more than a comfortable spot on a tree branch with the trunk against his back. He got his three-cell flash light ready, mounted on the side of the shot gun with adhesive tape. The first hour went by and nothing materialized, but, he later admitted, that he became rather apprehensive and a bit fearful sitting there alone. The full moon came out and bathed the area in a silvery light so wonderful he could see for hundreds of feet down the trail leading to the place where the dead goat was tied to a low tree. He was nodding and almost falling asleep when he saw a motion far, far down the path. His adrenaline kicked in and his heart beat wildly. There, about one hundred feet down the road, heading directly toward him was the Black Panther. It walked slowly, almost languorsly, its long tail held high, moving from side to side as it came down the road. The hunter slowly raised his gun, getting ready to fire when the black monster came within thirty yards. His mouth was dry and he fought back the urge to shoot, wanting the kala baghera to be close enough for an easy kill. He was almost ready to fire when it meowed and rolled in the dirt directly in front of him. He was so startled that he fired and crushed, dalit, obliterated, the black house cat only a few feet in front of him, literally blowing it away with the full force of the LG cartridge from his twelve bore shot gun. (USA: OO Buck twelve gauge) Oh, there were many other stories told about leopards, but none of them about the black panther.

The tiger is endangered in India, only a few thousand now remain in reserves. The leopard, however, is doing very well in its extensive range along the entire length of the Himalayas as well as in a variety of riverine, jungle locations. It is sometimes, but seldom observed in India’s wildlife reserves in Kanha, Kaziranga, Periya, Ranthambore and Sariska. It is highly adaptable, nocturnal and diurnal and usually moves away when disturbed as it is a secretive animal. It is a loner except during its mating season. Unlike the tiger, it seldom takes down huge herbivores like the sambar, nil guy or gaur, rather, preys on the spotted deer, kakar, monkeys, peafowl and a variety of smaller mammals. It is the ultimate stealth hunter, relying on its skill to approach its prey so closely that a more prolonged high speed chase is usually not needed, which is the case with the Cheetah. Interestingly, the leopard has a traditional Indian name from which the name Cheetah may have been derived, mistakenly. The leopard was called by another name, chita, in ‘ancient’ times, not the chita of suttee; that is quite another story.

First Day Of School And Anxious Parents

Deepti Lamba — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:44:22 EDT

Anxiety is an emotion difficult to counter. About three hundred parents thronged the cafeteria area and the courtyard while their barely three year olds attended their first day at school yesterday morning. Lots of tears were shed by the tots, teachers seemed distracted and the bus drivers were stalked and harassed by irate parents.

The otherwise tranquil school was in chaos. Dealing with parents especially with the newbie ones was tough. The school staff were polite, helpful but authoritative.

Parents strained against the railings, those having gone through similar experience the previous year where more relaxed and chatty. Some complained about the school and others remained mostly quiet.

Most came without eating their breakfast and like little children they strained against each other trying to get their order delivered first at the cafeteria. They hadn't forgotten their socialist upbringing- jump the queue, be rude, shove, push and never mind that you might be bumping into each other for the rest of the children's school years.

For about three hours we parents puttered around. Some of us exchanged numbers and some were seen sitting on the steps working on their laptops, some held work calls, some worried about the little ones left alone with the servants back home and a few were seen nodding off.

When the kids were let off section by section the wave of anxiety intensified. As the tots walked down the stairs parents reached out to clutch their children. A couple of mothers opened up the kids bags, saw the barely touched tiffins and complained, others demanded whether the teachers and aayas would accompany the kids which they were already doing.

Yellow school buses drove up the driveway, parents boarded the buses with their kids to make sure the buses stopped at the right bus stops, some got off to make their kids use the loo before the bus started and some fed their kids their tiffins and went on complaining about the number of kids in the classes, the early commute, the fees etc.

I sat with my kids in the front seat of the bus, eavesdropped but kept my mouth shut. It was exciting to see people out of their element. Some reacting with humor and patience and others getting harried, aggressive and defensive.

The buses drove off with parents, kids, teachers and aayas. Fights happened over the bus- stops, the route, I fell asleep with Parita curled up on my lap, woke up and found we were still trudging down the route no where close to our stop which incidentally happens to be the last stop and first to be picked up from.

The teacher sat next to me. Waves of anxiety from parents, kids, the teacher, aaya and the driver continued to ebb and flow. The cellphones continued to ring between the fathers who were following the bus (yes, there was an entire entourage of cars following the buses) and the mothers sitting in the bus.

It was an event I basked in. Never again will I experience others anxiety at such close quarters or their tender apprehensions for the apple of their eyes while they attended their first day at school.

Pedicures and Paedophiles in Paradise

Dianne Sharma-Winter — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:55:18 EDT

Writing is a difficult gig for a social butterfly like me, there are long hours of hunching over a keyboard while the sun is shining and butterflies are dancing on spring flowers. There is enduring the excitement in people’s eyes when you mumble your occupation if you do happen to release yourself long enough to stumble upon a social occasion...

“A writer!” They will breathe almost enviously, “That must be exciting.”

Sure, if you specialize in reporting from Iraq or chasing wild animals across a game park.

But while I may get my thrills from other more physically challenging adventures which I may then write about, generally writing is an isolating experience. Like any job there are ups and downs; freedom of expression is assumed but not an automatic right for writers who work the paying market. However it is from this isolation that great ideas are born and come to light so it’s also a necessary pre requisite.

For me the biggest pull of this job is that I get to go to work in my pyjamas and there are not many people who can say that about their job.

I try to keep a balance between long hours crouched over a keyboard and muttering aloud by including some form of exercise in the day. The body needs exercise and the brain needs fresh air and sunshine, and my pj’s need to go to the laundry at least once a week so I tend to maximise that downtime into an opportunity to explore my environment. If I am writing exceptionally well I will shout myself a pedicure or a manicure as a reward.

More recently whilst in Pokhara the sub tropical lakeside town beneath the Annapurna Range in Nepal, my daily routine included hiring a boat and rowing whilst I meditated on the many shades of green God has given us. It’s also one of the few places to be and not be harassed by Tibetan jewellery sellers or in fact sellers of any kind, I used to think smugly.

Until one day recently something happened that not only disturbed by meditations but also my smugly ignorant idea of being somewhat apart from the usual tourist concerns of whether the mist will allow an early morning view of the ranges or hiring porters for the compulsory trekking jaunt. I am slicing my way across the deep green waters of Phewa Lake when I notice a young boy calling from the boat jetty.

A lone tourist woman is making her way around the opposite shore of the lake and the boy seems to know her or at least think she is worth the effort of leaping into a boat and paddling across to meet her all the while shouting “Sister, Sister!”

The tourist sees the approach of the boy and waits for him on the shore. I keep an eye on developments because of my insatiable curiosity for a story and because I am aware that tourists have been robbed whilst making their way through the forest to the Peace Stupa perched high on the hill above. The boy and the tourist meet, there is some discussion and the tourist walks on.

The boy turns his boat towards me and I swear under my breath. Now he has me in his sights, I realise I have two choices. I can put a spurt on my rowing in an attempt to outdistance myself from the boy who is now paddling madly in my direction thus risking a keystone kops chase or I can wait and see what it is that he wants. Either way my peace is disturbed, I swear again and put my oars down and wait.

His boat is listing madly as he nears me; his skinny frame is outlined in his thin and poorly fitting cotton shirt. He may be fourteen years or so and has the unkempt air of one of the many street children who make Pokhara their home.

“What do you want child?” I ask him as his boat bunts mine and he reaches to steady himself. “Sister, I have good smoke. You want?” He fumbles in his shirt pocket and brings out a newspaper wrapped cache of hashish.

“I don’t want.”

“But sister, I give you good price! Just try.”

“No thanks, son. Try someone else.” I pick up my oars and start rowing. Nothing daunted the boy starts rowing alongside of me. “OK, OK but sister you want a boyfriend?”

“A boyfriend?” What the hell? His gaze is almost professional as he slides his eyes over my body and then motions to the opposite shore.

At first I want to laugh at the situation. The last time I was propositioned by a fourteen year old boy I was a fourteen year old girl, now I am a middle aged woman! Then I want to smack him with my oar for his impertinence, but then I ask myself do I look like a woman who would pay to have sex with a child? Do I look like a degenerate paedophile?

Its a sad fact but true that Pokhara is a favourite destination for foreign paedophiles.

A quirk in the Nepali Law means that while sex with an underage girl child is punishable under law, paedophilia of boy children is a big enough grey area to incite and invite these people to operate with impunity. They live openly in the community as an open secret.

Its a thoughtful writer who makes her way along the shore of Lake Phewa and back to the isolation of her room. On the way I pass a high walled house commonly known to belong a paedophile operating under the name of Krishna, two middle aged men with teenage boys, an orphanage known to be supported by foreign paedophiles and another street kid who looms out of the shadow of a tree to offer me a massage. I close the door to my room, get back into my pyjamas and hunch thankfully over my keyboard again.