Anant makes sense. I mean his post on the nonsense of dying statements in one's own mother tongue.

He asks:

As I’m dying, I have to remember a language that I hardly speak?
And providentially at hand should be someone who can both understand AND write Tamil?
And If these two conditions are not met my murderer gets away scotfree?

Read the full post here.

Yup, at one glance, I thought that the High Court judgement made sense. People speak in their mother tongues in their dying moments - it is so obvious. But reading this, I realise, the learned judges are only as smart as I am. After all, I also just know so. Is the statement by the court backed up by scientific evidence? I don't think so.

I guess my dying statement would be something on the lines of "arghweeoopthblrurrbguahy%$@". Even I don't know what kinda tongue that is.

But when I make sense. Thats where the problem arises. Say, I am in deep pain and the awareness dawns on me that this is it, I am about to go to the great Nintendo Wii gaming room in heaven, would I speak in the language I write in and talk mostly in? That would be English.

Or would I have a bit of sense to remember that I am in this hardcore North Indian city called Dilli and speak in Hindi (even while getting all the sthreeling and pulling wrong?). Quite likely. depending on where I am and who I am talking to, usually the abuse that comes out of me easily switches between Malayalam, English or Hindi. I think that same instinct would work on the deathbed, deathfootpath, deathundercar or deathbush for me.

And if that dying statement is not admissible in court as legal, I promise to haunt the people who passed this stupid law as a multilingual ghost spouting Kodungalluramma bhakti songs, Metallica and Ghalib.

Just came across Sakshi Juneja's blog after a long time. I don't use feed readers or aggregators and my bookmarks are full of junk now - so once I lose a blog, I lose it forever. Not that I agree with everything she writes - especially her views on Ram Jethmalani taking on Jessica murder case. This is the bugger-all Indian judicial system, and I would trust a judgment by any court - even the Supreme Court - only if despite the reputation of the defendant's lawyer, despite witnesses, if a case is convincing based purely on evidence - not statements and i say-he says nonsense. Anyway that's a post for another day.



Here is this post she has on how bird-feeding is now banned on Marine Drive. I am saddened to hear this. I saw the pigeons on Marine Drive when I arrived from Kerala in Mumbai in 1994 September, and sat there at night watching the fast cars zooming by and looking at the lights of Queen's Necklace. Seems it is not good for health and asthma patients face trouble, and bird droppings ruin the beauty etc etc.

Thankfully this time round regular public and residents have welcomed the move and have ensured to maintain the newly imposed law.

I am not thankful; grumpy is more like it. Well, I guess one can't argue with logic. And who knew the pigeons were so evil! I still have to take a last stand on this one point - pigeon droppings do not ruin the beauty of the city, human droppings do! BMC, please take care of that - just take a look at the quantity of fecal matter in the air in Mumbai and you will run for your life.

Anyway, enjoy the kid playing with the pigeons in the photo.

Just a few days back, Tripathiji wrote about parenting, and the very important role of an occasional slap to put the impertinent little jerk in his place. And today, through desipundit, I came across ful2 faltu writing about the terror he and his brother had for their father.

Tripathiji says:

"In case we cribbed and tried to create a nuisance, we were firmly told to stop. In rare cases when we did not relent; one tight slap was all that was needed to put us back firmly in place."

Read the full post here.

I am tempted to agree. I have between 20 and 30 cousin brothers and sisters (I have lost count!) and I was the eldest, so as the elder brother, I spent most of my childhood slapping them around. Being a pest? Whack! Fighting with your sister? Thwack! I see arrogance in your eyes. Slap! Very entertaining I must say. This I used to do when I was away from my father and mother who spent their most of their awake hours whacking or threatening to whack me and my siblings. Sometimes, faced with an impertinent jackass of a kid, you just know that the appropriate response is to get give him a solid one on his butt. Oh the pleasure of that sound!

Ful2 faltu had no such luck; he spent most of his time trying to escape from such atrocities perpetrated on him by his dad.

"Dad would be with stick, broom or belt depending upon what he could lay his hands on and we would be running around trying to escape. Mom did not intervene at the serious time. It was some neighbors who would intervene."

Read the full post here

Because I was thrashed and have thrashed, I feel both pleasure and horror when I read it. Probably elder brothers who got thrashed and could thrash too go schizo. I can feel for ful2 Faltu, and I can feel a wild grin coming over my face when I think about it from the dad's POV.

In fact, thrashings were not exactly from dad or mom alone. They could come from anywhere. I was often the first rank holder in all class tests; and even I got caned once in a while. So for those of you who think that thrashings are only for bad students, you are wrong. All kids used to get thrashed or caned.

One of my favourite stories, which I recite proudly in every conversation about thrashings (we adults have a lot of them, don't we?) is about when the nun who was teaching us in my 3rd or 4th standard class thought I was creating a disturbance. Fact was, there was a nut sitting behind me who ws poking me, and after two or three pokings, I turned around to ask him what his problem was -- and that was the only thing the stupid nun saw. She told me to hold out my hand and brought out her evil cane. I tried to explain, but nuns listen only to Jesus. I was all indignation and self righteousness personified, red in the face and fuming, and she just wanted to cane me on my palm and continue with the class. Well, the cane came down once, and I caught it and broke it into 3-4 pieces and walked out of the class. No thinking, just action and damn the consequences!

I still get all goosepimply when I remember that.

Anyway - we were talking about thrashings, right? I think even wives deserve thrashing once in a while - problem is, wives are not kids, and they are big and grown up, and thrashing them is wife-beating. No matter if they are being impertinent too - you can only legally and morally beat little kids who can't do anything to prevent it. That's the law. Big girls who can actually resist, and sometimes give you one back, are not to be beaten. Looking at it that way, its like kicking a dog. It can only moan and run away. On the other hand, there are laws which at least imply that you can't kick tigers. This is unfair to someone I am sure, but I am getting confused with all these people and animals I have brought into this post; so please figure out who it is all unfair to by yourself.

So instead of beating my wife, I just stop eating. I say, I won't eat and look all sad and forlorn, and then I feel its like some kind of mental beating - which is all I can do. Much more complicated this way though - I long for the days when a husband could just slap his wife because there is no toothpaste or because he doesn't like his boss or something. Modern times make it much more complicated.

Back to beating kids - let me warn all parents though. Those little animals that look like humans can be very nasty. Don't be surprised if they spit in your food or tear up your mortgage papers or drump your credit card in the sewer. They don't like being beaten, and they will definitely have their revenge one way or the other.

That's all I can call it. Read it here

In this Nov 14th post, Rashmi Bansal talks about the drunk driving accident in Mumbai where a bunch of youngsters drove over labourers sleeping on the pavement. Seven people died.

Drunk driving is a problem, everyone agrees. Even a couple of pegs can mess up your judgement, and nobody quarrels with that. For one, I am not generally comfortable with MSM or bloggers jumping to a judgement. We just do not have the facts available with us - but we, the media and bloggers keep implying and often stating outright that someone is guilty. My opinions on this however are quite confused, so I shall deal with that another day.

My problem is that she made certain statements and produced certain pseudo-quotes in the post, never clarified where they came from, and did not even bother when commentors pointed it out.

Here is one:

Standing in a pool of blood, near seven freshly dead bodies, they threatened the survivors. Three of them tried to wrench off the number plate of the car before giving up and scooting from the scene of the accident.

Did they? How do you know? In theoriginal post, 'they' is linked to a Yahoo news story. And that story does not mention this. How do we know that they threatened the survivors?

And then Rashmi gives us this:

We didn't mean to do it, but hey..." They were just a bunch of labourers, y'know. How hard will it be to buy our way out of it?

You feel disgusted when you read those words, but it's the plain and ugly truth.

The first italicised line - where did that come from? Rashmi does not explain it, the commenters keep pointing it and out and still no response. Forgot to check the post again? Is that a rhetorical line? If you feel disgusted when you read those words, where did you read them? Is that supposed to be the thought process of the guys who were in the car, and which Rashmi made a guess at, and then write them down, and then felt disgusted? I have no idea. I did a quick search in Google, and all I got were pages from her own blog.

All of this does not change the fact that the guys were drunk and are probably guilty. And that they may pay their way out of this. But I don't think the CNN-IBN kind of writing - over the top, over-imaginative and hyperexcited - should be allowed to thrive if possible.

That takes me to the next part.

What if Alistair Pereira and gang really threatened the survivors? What would be the reason? Sheer arrogance or fear?

I have no idea why they threatened the survivors, but I know one thing. Once an accident happens, you are at risk of physical harm. Anywhere in India. Screaming and shouting and getting aggressive is a normal, instinctive human tactic to get away from a situation like that. In a few minutes a crowd would have gathered, and if they stood their guiltily, soon they would be beaten up, and the girl among them might be molested. This has happened so many times over in our country. Shout and people back off for a while.

Sure, that is not how it should be. The survivors should be picked up and driven to the nearest hospital, admitted there, a police report should be filed. Try doing all that, and you might be dead before you know it. And then the media, and bloggers, can write posts about how valiantly the driver tried, but a violent mob killed him. Should the driver, guilty or not, stand their and accept the beatings as his immediate and instant punishment?

Crap is what happens when a system does not work. It is the state's job to ensure that people have a safe place to sleep, and a state which can't do it is a beggarly state. We can't ensure that. We can't ensure that roads are wide enough. We can't ensure that there are enough cops to check vehicles at night for drunk drivers. We can't ensure that roads are wide, and that people don't die after their scooters lose control after hitting potholes. We can't ensure that drunk or not, if a driver loses control for whatever reason and climbs over the footpath, there are no people sleeping on them. We can't ensure that if someone jumps in front of your car, and breaks a leg, the crowd won't break the legs of your entire family in the car. We can't do shit. Why do we even crib when people try to fend for themselves?

If you are not a blogger, you may not even have heard about this. So the background first.

It started with Nirav Mehta writing on his blog about two of his employees who quit with practically no notice and joined Lionbridge Technologies. It seems one just called and said that he is not coming anymore, while the other came and demanded his papers ASAP.

The interesting thing is, Nirav's HR called up the HR of Lionbridge, one Deepak Deshpande, to discuss this, and he was quite clear that that is what they do - poach people when necessary and wait till we hire more people from your team! Say what you will, you know there's some balls there. "I will hire them, and you won’t be able to do anything. I am a big company, you are not!"

Anyway, Nirav blogged about it, and then there were comments and countercomments and then Vulturo blogged about it, and then Rashmi Bansal reacted to his post, and it goes on, like a typical day in the blogosphere.

Vulturo says:

Your employees are not your slaves. Neither are they married to your company: Its a free country. If they don’t wanna work for you, its their choice.

And more...

I’ll tell you what really strikes me as unethical. It is companies using below the belt methods as retention strategies: tearing up resignation letters, emotional blackmail, refusing to relieve employees, holding back relieving letters of resignees with the intention to make their joining dates with the new company lapse, which works as a threat to leave them in a limbo, deliberately delaying the payment of dues for months together as a punishment for people who quit your company, et cetera.

Read the entire post here.

Good points. Now Rashmi Bansal thinks its not that simple, and there are reasons why employees should follow the fules, show basic courtesy..

Leaving without notice period, to my mind, reflects lack of common courtesy. And it is a behaviour that we as a company do not encourage. If you were already employed somewhere, but willing to join me tomorrow, I would look at it in an unfavourable light.

Read the entire post here.

Good points there too.

Let me add my bit here. If you have a problem with your employer, and you get a better offer (salary or otherwise), do walk out - knowing full well that there may be consequences that come and bite you in the butt tomorrow. Most employers are not saints, and try the worst tricks while you work with them - but sometimes, the sheer thrill of saying FU and walking away is worth it. But yes, remember that bad word - consequences.

But if you have no problems with your organisation already, then do not walk out just for a better job. Not worth it. You will be making life difficult for them unnecessarily, and you can do with the good wishes of the place in the future. Even the greediest HR manager is amenable to negotiation on when you can join (and when you can leave) - and beware of the one who insists that you have to chuck your earlier job and join rightaway. Most times, his company is not going to be a great place to work for. He KNOWS that when you walk out, you cannot go back to that company for a reference letter tomorrow. So he is knowingly screwing you. Don't give in.

Recently while walking along some decent park near the Baha'i temple in New Delhi, Tripathiji started talking about pets. Now he talks about it more on his blog here.

I am a dog lover without a dog. But I just can't bring myself to have a dog in the house. Because this is a city, and I have seen how a real dog should live.

My dad's uncle's house back in my village in Kerala - they had an alsatian Jimmy. Tough, quite and low growl and a booming rare bark - that was Jimmy. He would walk around the courtyard, would bark that low booming bark and visitors would stop in their tracks till someone from the house would escort them in, would accompany me to my house nearby on his on choice... must have been a funny sight, scrawny boy barechested and in shorts and no chappals, and big huge serious alsatian walking along...

And my own loyal mongrel Tiger. He was chained up most of the time, but when he was let loose, he was a hurricane. Crashing through bushes and plants and skidding around corners...

That is how they are supposed to live. Run around, scare a few visitors, chase everything that goes around, scare and get scared, bark and howl in the night, go out and pee when they want.

In a flat, dogs turn psycho. They have to be disciplined, have to request you to take them out so they can crap, can't bark without disturbing neighbours and no place to run around... they become wimpy, needy creatures which no outlet for their energy and ferociousness. And when you leave the house and go somewhere, they turn into mental wrecks.

So I will live without a dog. At least till I have my own house and the dog need not be chained and disciplined and hushed all the time. Two great dogs from my days in Kerala keep me company in my mind anyway. Me the commander, they my captains, and we the invincible army. Woof! BowWow! Here we come!

Annie Zaidi has an intersting post on the economics of motherhood.

Say, that a female labourer has given birth to a kid, and the husband may or may not be around to share in the responsibilities of bringing up a kid.

She would have to get back to work in a couple of days, or she won't be able to eat. The child will not be taken care of well, may not even be fed properly. In such a situation, what are the options for a society, considering everyone's rights, responsibilities and duties?

- Let Khairi's baby die. It is unwanted and if the mother cannot keep it alive, well, tough!
- Insist that Khairi's husband pay for the child. Acting on the philosophy that there is no such thing as uncomplicated sex, and that reproduction is the natural outcome thereof.
- Find out whose decision it was to have the baby (after having established without doubt that abortion facilities were freely available to the couple) to assign responsibility for the child.
- Pay for the baby collectively (through taxes), but not enough for Khairi's survival.

Read the entire post on Known Turf.