Sunday 19 October 2014

A Note from Nagasaki

Arriving at Nagasaki one night, our first destination next morning was of course the Peace Park. After the atomic bomb exploded, it was said that grass and trees would not grow on this spot for decades. However, this park is currently full of trees, flowers and art works donated by countries all over the world in support of the city’s prayer for peace. Not far from the peace park was the atomic bomb hypocenter. The original ground level is preserved and displayed there as an important evidence of the disaster.

After the peace park and hypocenter we entered the Atomic Bomb Museum. The museum covers the history in the form of a story. It begins with the disastrous scene of the attack and includes the events leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb, the reconstruction of Nagasaki up to the present day, the history of nuclear weapons development, and the hope for a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons. There was a special section dedicated to Dr. Takashi Nagai, whose heart wrenching rendering of his experiences in the Nagasaki Medical College at the time of the bombing, read and reread, at first by my parents and later all by myself, one childhood memory I was carrying to Nagasaki. And the one gift I bought for myself at Nagasaki was Dr. Nagai's farewell book, "Leaving My Beloved Children Behind".


However it was not Dr. Nagai who refused to leave us as we were carrying ourselves out of Nagasaki. It was one boy captured by the American war photographer Joe O'Donnell. We passed by him again and again and read the passage by the photographer. It went something like this:

 "When I arrived at Nagasaki from Sasebo, I looked down at the city from the top of a low hill. I saw some men wearing a white mask. They were working near a ditch full of burning coal. 

I noticed a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby slung on his back. In those days, in Japan, it was common to see children playing in vacant lots with their little brothers or sisters on their backs, but this boy was clearly different. He was barefoot. The infant's head was tipped back as if the baby were fast asleep. 

The boy stood there with a fixed expression for about ten minutes. The men in white masks walked over to him and gently began undoing the cords that were holding the baby. Then I realized that the baby was already dead. The men held the baby by the hands and feet and placed it gently on the hot coals.

The infant's body made a hissing sound as it was placed on the fire. Then it lit up in brilliant flames like a deep red of the setting sun. The boy stood there erect and motionless with his innocent cheeks shining scarlet. I noticed that the lips of the boy were also streaked with red as he watched the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flames burned low like the sun going down, and the boy turned around and walked silently away from the burning pit."


We looked again and again at the photograph for some trace of tears beneath his eyes, we found none, probably blinded by our own moist eyes!


"May peace prevail forever"

from the atomic bomb hypocenter, Nagasaki, Japan

Friday 5 September 2014

The Book Bucket Challenge!

I had been a bit disappointed by the way the gangs of ice buckets, the rice buckets and even those list buckets had ignored me! A few days ago my student, and now colleague, who is also in charge of the Department Library in our institution requested me to contribute a few books to the library. I had gladly agreed to do it. I devised a new challenge, the book bucket challenge, and decided to contribute a few buckets full of books to the Department Library. I guess, it's an opportunity to reach out to so many needy students of the years to come. The Onam Celebration of the Mechanical Engineering Staff Club [MESC] of CET provided the ideal occasion to launch the challenge. 


However, I requested the senior most member of MESC and my most respected Teacher, Prof. Sivakumar, to hand over the books on my behalf, to the youngest member of MESC, my much admired student and the staff in charge of the Department Library, Prof. Niju Mohammed.

I then 'challenged' all my respected colleagues in the Department to contribute a bucket full of books to the Department Library :)

With the images of Chairman Mao, Prof. Hawking and Dr. Pinto looking on from the big screen, I proceeded to the MESC Quiz, which I had been asked to anchor and through the first question I tried to give the audience a brief introduction about the ALS.

And I started the Quiz with the greatest speech ever by a sportsman, Lou Gehrig's "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." You can see the VIDEO


Footnote: I am 'challenging' all my readers and friends to donate books to libraries or needy children in your neighborhoods. It can be any book: text books, story books or picture books to any child or young student you can find :)

Friday 29 August 2014

24 Hours in the Life of a "Failed" Academician

He had a sleepless night, squirming on bed.
The Sun was burning bright, as he got up and stared at the sky.
He looked around in disappointment, for the slightest trace of the dark clouds. And stormed inside the house, cursing the rain gods.
He was back again, on the terrace, stunned by the sudden downpour!
The scorching Sun was still there, but the rains had brought a smile on his lips...
And he set out, carrying his credentials on the back pack.

The learned wise men were sitting by the roadside,
the dark umbrellas hiding their faces,
there was the rain and there was the Sun,
Yet they sat there, shouting their slogans.
He slowly moved to be beside them,
and took out the credentials to be burnt to warm their hearts.
But the rain gods intervened to spoil the fun....
and made one see reason and abandon the plan.

The leftist intellectual was shouting through the mike.....
"All those with PhD had paid for their degrees....
we have to cane them, stone them and put them on cross"
The years of toil, the hours of hard work....
...all those sacrifices and the days as a slave....

Finally comes the day of the fast,
led by the men drawing six digit pay cheques.....
don't ask us about the acquired degrees......
but do give us more and more money.....
as prescribed by that "mere statutory" body!

One runs away from the madding crowd....
to be with a student from a distant past...
the scientist and the engineer....
on the eve of his wedding....and he tells his fiancee....

"This is my teacher, my most beloved, my most favorite,
..and my most respected....."!!!!

And the drive back was tough on the narrow road...
...with twist and turns at every mile.....
..the ill lit night......the moist eyes....and the rains
....and of course those unruly windscreen wipers!

Wednesday 30 July 2014

The Rat Story



An Essential Accessory for the Indian Railways

"Feared and regarded as dirty, dangerous and diseased, if there is one creature that tops the list of people's most hated animal, it is the much-maligned rat." 

As the Mom Cat in my home caught a little rat, I stood in silent appreciation and told the rat to die the dirty death. 

Why did God create all these dirty creatures?! I wondered.

But who's the real culprit? 

Why shouldn't we send them to School? And teach them to earn their cheese? :)

As they do in Tanzania!!

And train them to save our lives?!!

from Tuberculosis!



or from the LANDMINES!!




Do not dismiss the dirtiest, only we don't know that yet, but even they may have a purpose to serve in this world!!

Saturday 28 June 2014

Midnight Moments of Magical Realism

I woke up from a week of fever which ran alongside the soccer fever injecting the effect of magical realism on a mind which was slipping between sleep and sense to discover the clash of the Latin giants; Brazil against Chile, Columbia against Uruguay!

Borrowing from perhaps the most voracious reader among soccer stars, who grew up on Chekhov and Dostoevsky, and conceded before a match with Italy, that his team would have been no match for Dante, Petrarch and Leopardi; Columbia will go past Uruguay on the shoulders of the Master of Macondo.

And Brazil would be child's game for Chile, had it been the game of magic with words! Neruda, Donoso, Bolano, Allende and also Miguel Littin, the real life hero of Marquez!

Speaking of stopping spot kicks, running around a stadium he had stunned to silence, taking a leaf out of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Sergio Goycochea felt like a child, having saved a penalty from Super Mario in his home town, Lima!

Having sent the ball past the keeper for his second goal in the Federation Cup finals, Christiano Junior went on to collide with the goal keeper, staggered away, fell to ground and quietly slipped out of life in a match his team went on to win by two goals to nil!

As she 'closed her eyes' to the incoming corner kick on the 117th minute of the world cup finals, against the physically superior Americans seeking their 3rd World title, Homare Sawa was lifting her game by the notches her male Asian counterparts can not dream of in another "one hundred years of toil"! VIDEO

Inspired by his black commander, as Alcides Ghiggia unleashed a thundering left footer, the Maracanazo, it had "the same dramatic pattern… the same movement… the same precision of an unstoppable trajectory…. and even the same motion for the dust that was stirred up, in the assassination of a President, more than a decade later, on the northern part of Americas!"

Back to that bibliophile wearing soccer boots, the image of the host captain steaming around the stadium shouting "where is the police? where is the bloody police?" even as the crowds fought pitched battles on the stands, and finally finding a police man brutally caning a fallen fan, running up and landing a karate kick, right on the face of the officer and thus officially 'kicking off' the Balkan War, Europe's nastiest since the two world wars. Yes, there he was! prepared to risk his life, his career, and everything that fame could have brought, right in front of the most brutal of the future Balkan warlords!

The General might have nodded in approval from his labyrinth!

And to conclude, in spite of their "literary" inferiority, the Croatians edged out the Italians on field! Hope the Brazilians emulate the feet to overcome the resurgent Chileans in their do or die battle.

Sunday 11 May 2014

The Auto Smile(y)!

The Smiles From My Shelf [10]

If you have grown up in a "third world" town, the auto rickshaws must have been a constant feature in your life. "Auto" meant the three wheeled gentle giant and everything else were mere vehicles. Right from the days on the road side window sill, taking count of the infinite stream of vehicles passing by, the tuk tuk or the 'kutu kutu' remained my eternal favourite. 

Even James Bond trusts 'Tuk Tuk' to the Limousine to take him places in time :) [VIDEO]

We had regular run ins with 'auto pilots' once we took to roads on rented bicycles. And, yes! Those were the only powered vehicles, we had raced against and won, the cycles racing along the bumpy footpaths as the rivals got stuck in traffic on our minor roads. Again, it was an auto that I had ridden, bleeding from the head with a broken arm, in one of those early trysts with death!


With a Patron Saint in Rajini, they are often righteous and know all the routes 8-) [VIDEO]

The relationship with 'autos' had gone sour and tempestuous once I sat behind the wheel, learning to train a four wheeled giant to listen to me in my late teens. Even as I was dealing with disobedient combination of the wheel, clutch and brake, the unruly 'autos' used to mob me from left, right and rear not to mention that slow moving one just in front, bumper to bumper! And the 'autos' were a 'black mark' on the life on the road since then!


The Autopilots are often quarrelsome, with a specific dislike for the English Language ;) [VIDEO]

Matters came to a head this past week when I was driving home after a hard day at work. I was giving way to an ambulance on the right and suddenly, from out of nowhere, the 'black mark' appeared creeping past my left! Fretting and fuming, I pushed down the pedal in an attempt to overtake the offender. I had a passing glance at the rear of the rickshaw as I was about to go past it. 

There it was written, in bold golden letters accompanied by a smiley..........
"Hi Abhi" :-) !!
 I slowed down and fell behind, in line!

And I couldn't resist to check my broad grin on the rear view mirror :D