Ghoos gaatha - a shameful trilogy

My first encounter with 'ghoos' (hindi for bribe) happened way back in 2002 when my elder brother applied for a passport so that he could pursue higher studies abroad. The two cops who came on behalf of civil vigilance authorities spent an hour talking about random things with my simpleton parents before laying out the inevitable. My parents always expected it to come up, but the figure of eight thousand rupees that was demanded was shocking for those days, indeed, as for today. The apparent reason for the 'hike' in the 'charges for their services' being that my brother had claimed that he was a resident of Uttar Pradesh, where our house was, while he stayed in his institute's hostel in New Delhi (a mere hour's drive from home). My parents, both innocent souls who have worked through their lives with nothing but sincerity and truthfulness, had no clue about how to respond.

To cut a long story short, a street smart detective uncle intervened and we had the same cop calling us and chiding us for taking things 'too seriously'.

Five years hence, yours truly decided it was good time to get his passport. It was different this time, in that I was determined not to give a single paisa to the saamp or bichchu (snake or scorpion - local slang for the cheap, corrupt cop on the streets) or whoever comes to verify my identity. Luckily, my father was away when the cop graced my home. He must have deemed it unfit to ask money from my mother and wanted my dad to call him up. He also made some petty excuse about my application missing a photograph, which was a blatant lie. Anyway, the apparently missing photo was duly handed over to him as I trekked to the nearby police thana (station). His searching eyes found nothing green in my hands, so he remarked 'Aur kuchch nahin hai kya? (Don't you have anything more than this?'. I shook my head firmly, with a slight smile inside as I walked back. For some reason, I was more happy about not shelling out a single extra rupee rather than anxious about whether I would get my passport or not. Two months later, the Right to Information Act kicked in and my passport came home, without a single paisa of ghoos. What was most hilarious was the postman asking for money, because someone in the family would go abroad and bring back millions of rupees!

Completing the trilogy of the ghoos gaatha (tales of bribes), my parents had to go through the same ordeal a couple of weeks ago. They staunchly refused to pay any so-called 'service charges'. A couple of months will reveal whether they get their passports or not. What was most heart wrenching was to hear how a cop remarked, while accepting bribe from another passport applicant, 'Ab toh Gandhiji aa gaye hai naa, sab kaam ho jaayega. (Now that Gandhiji has arrived, all work will be done)'.

Public apathy has proven to be a blood sucker for our country. Amongst all talk of India shining into the twenty first century as the next global power, let the current generation of India's human resources work to drive the ghoos menace out of our lives.

On choices and delusions

Paper or plastic?
for here or to go?
skimmed or two percent?
Italian bread or wheat?
mozarella or provolone?
bad or worse?

Choosing from within a single category makes us blind and delusive. One gets a false sense of power, freedom and even feels special. The walls are invisible and the doors are few and out of reach. Select from a hundred flavours of ice cream, tens of crackers, cookies, chips and what-nots. Spend all your time in the supermarket, bookstore, restaurants or best - at home in front of the t.v. watching different groups of people try to push a ball into a hoop or whack it out of a park every other weekend.

It works for a host of people because then we forget to spend time looking at the choices that matter: who controls what we see, hear, get, etc. Who owns the banks, who decides the law makers, the world leaders, forms of governance, tax policies. As these issues get sidelined, the true quality of life declines. But it is a slow death, making it easy to overlook. The few people who care to pay attention need to be appreciated.

To haircut or not to haircut?

This is more in the past tense and , indeed, it did become quite tense over the last few weeks. what started with an idea to cut cutting costs soon became an apprehension of how things would be post the dreaded haircut. The initial target of five months kept getting pushed. Raised eyebrows, gentle comments, witty jibes didn't mean a thing. It wasn't until my prof. remarked, 'I like the Einstein hair!', that I realized that the time had come for the scissors to go snip-snap (no scissors here, though, it turned out to be mainly the electric thing that worked on my head). And here I am, looking like Dexter to one, 'civil' to another. The barber, a rather affable character, guessed it must have been my first visit in four months. I laughed the enigmatic laugh that everyone should , in order to avoid embarassment. Madison's hard water gave me many a sleepless night last fall and the four mentioned previously was a gross understatement. 'Your friends might not recognize you tomorrow!', he guffawed. That remains to be seen, in a few hours. However, I am not too keen on a wager against that. It feels a lot lighter on the head, the bike helmet suddenly seemed a lot bigger and I cut down my time in the shower by a good five minutes.

Short hair is good. Period.

Chem. Graduate recruitment week @ UW Madison

Having been assigned the job of hosting a prospective student for my department's graduate program, I found myself holding a placard at the Dane County airport. With other grad (graduate) students and professors in tow, I was waiting for my guest student. As people started streaming out of the arrival gates, we rose in anticipation. Inadvertently, many of us started looking for a smile here, a wave there. We also began to guess if a certain person looked like a prospective grad student or not.

A few things made life easy for us hosts. Look for someone will a medium sized bag and possibly another backpack. We could remove a lot of people out of the equation this way. Next would be the age, early to late 20s is what we were looking for, although we knew this could lead us down many a false trails. Things started getting difficult beyond that. Specs for some, a serious, anxious look on some faces, a wide smile on others, a huge wave from a few, an assured walk and firm shake of hands... these did the trick.

Observations

Not all budding chemists look nerdy / intellectual. Far from it, I met this guy who walked up to a prof in a flowery, beach tee and shorts, with sunglasses, a flowing beard and long hair, a small backpack and the most casual walk I have seen in ages; like he was flying in fro, Hawaii! 'Not quite like what you would expect, right?', he exclaimed tongue-in-cheek to the Prof, who was his usual nice self in laughing it away spiritedly. Most guests to a prospective grad school are jittery, nervous and curious. It is best if grad students welcome them and show them around the place before they get to meet the faculty. They tend to feel more at home with fellow students who have been in a similar position earlier and that helps them ease into the things to follow. It is also a good idea to have an extended interaction session between guest and host students where guests could ask questions that why might not mouth with profs around. Having said that, it is crucial that professors speak to as many prospective students as possible. It gives the guests a feeling of being important and needed in the school. I know of schools and departments within my school where the profs simply don't care. This leaves a sense of insignificance in the minds of the visiting student and its highly likely that he or she would rather go to another school.

A lengthy session of talks after talks can be subjugated by one where each student can pick and choose the groups he or she wants to interact with. Meetings involving a bunch of students (around 5) and a research group work best because each student gets a fair idea of the group's profile and is given individual attention for queries. Posters do help in getting initiated into the group's affairs but don't go far beyond putting up beautiful pictures and photos.

A grand dinner to round it up is always welcome and much enjoyed. More so if it is in as beautiful a setting as Monona Terrace, Madison.

Another reminder from our politicos

The last week saw Indian polity taking yet another plunge into its darkest pothole, made increasingly deeper with each ugly incident over the past few decades. Far from acknowledging their uncouth and shameful conduct, the suspended Rajya Sabha members protested outside the Parliament, much like kids do when rapped on the knuckles for not behaving properly. The adjoining photo shows a gross misuse of Gandhi's statue. It also illustrates the extent to which our politicians have fallen over the years. The common man / woman has come to accept unruly politicians as a given. With all this talk of a young, vibrant India doing the rounds, I feel it is time we youths sat up, took notice and acted on such stark reminders of our nation's current state of advanced decay.

Let the mild, respectful conduct not be limited only to placed of worship, learning and our homes. Let our generation be led by committed, genuine leaders to its rightful glorious future.

Field Hockey World Cup, New Delhi'10 - Post 2

We are deep into the Hockey World Cup, standing at the doorstep of the knockout stage. As expected, the Asian teams, barring Korea, have underperformed; being beaten by lesser rated teams that managed to perform cohesively. The home team has been humbled in its previous two matches by Australia and Spain, two teams that it used to match stick for stick a decade ago. As this blog is being written, it plays England, for pride and happy memories.

From the looks, the round robin stage seems to have done justice to itself by sifting through the teams, giving a pool of teams that go into the next stage with almost equal honours. Individual brilliance has been unable to leave its mark so far, with the indomitable Pakistani drag flicker Sohail Abbas conceding that his team and himself did not perform well enough to make a difference. While Korea and Australia relied on their fast paced game and spontaneous counter attacks, teams like England have set up their goals beautifully.

The venue has lived up to its hype and the game's demands. It also seems like the tourney is a hit among the locals, which is a good sign for the game in a country forever crazy about the other gentleman's game.