I shall keep my heart silent

Don’t overlook my misery by fluttering your eyes,
and weaving tales; My patience has over-brimmed.
O sweetheart, why don’t you clasp me to your heart
like in the long curls of the night we separated,
after the short lived day of our union?

How will I pass the dark dungeon night
without your face before me,.
Suddenly, using a thousand wiles,
those enchanting eyes robbed me
of my tranquil mind;

Who would explain this to my darling?
Tossed and bewildered, like a flickering candle,
I roam about in the fire of love;
sleepless eyes, restless body.
She neither comes, nor sends any message.

In honour of the day, should I meet my beloved
again, the one who has lured me so long,
I shall keep my heart silent
and so get a chance to practise her trickery.

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My Valentine

Why should humans have all the fun?:Two Parrots celebrating Valentine's Day in Delhi, India For more pics click HERE

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116

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Let me Die...Why can't I?

We often wonder on Life After Death, how about life before death? Can we call a human alive by keeping a it alive with a feeding tube because said person cannot eat on their own after 17 years is true ignorance. Shall each person should have the right to die as they wish and not be kept alive by tube feedings. All she did is breathe. Takes more than that to be truly alive!!!

Doctors were removing all life support last night from an Italian woman in a coma (she died later ) whose “right to die” has triggered a constitutional crisis and provoked an intervention from the Pope. The case has sparked an open power struggle between Mr Berlusconi and President Napolitano. In a last-minute move on Friday Mr Berlusconi sided with the Vatican and drew up an emergency decree to prevent Ms Englaro’s death. President Napolitano refused to sign it on the ground that the Prime Minister could not arbitrarily overturn a legal ruling and that such a sensitive issue had to be fully debated by parliament.

Ethical Issues in Terminal Health Care
Medical science has brought remarkable changes to our lives. Because of advances in medical technology, more people live longer, and more productively, than any generation in history. Unfortunately, these advances have created problems as well. The longer people live, the more likely they are to encounter chronic disease that requires long-term health care. Medical advances have also brought economic consequences -- these new technologies have a price tag! Most important, these advances have created ethical dilemmas that no generation of doctors has ever had to face. New life-sustaining techniques and practices are forcing hospitals to ask questions that never needed to be asked before. Foremost of these is the question, How far do we go to save a life?

Other questions challenge the very notion of what it means to be a doctor. A doctor's commitment has traditionally been to sustain life, to comfort and to heal. Today, though, physicians are able to sustain lives which have no hope of ever again being meaningful, which brings us to the question: when suffering is immeasurable, and a patient's condition terminal, should doctors be permitted to end a patient's life?

Syndromes like persistent vegetative state and the immense suffering caused by prolonged cancers have many people, including some doctors, wondering if it wouldn't be more humane for physicians to do more than merely withdraw treatment, but to actually assist in hastening death.

Health Care at a Crossroads

When you prolong the life of a cancer patient, the natural history of the disease advances and you see complications you did not see before, doctors uses a term for these complications: Diseases of medical progress.I think this age might be called The Age of the Tyranny of Technology. Because technologies exist, there seems to be -- in the medical profession at least -- an assumption that the technologies must be used. We are coming now to see the terrible dilemmas that the overuse of technologies have brought to us but we are using what I feel are the wrong ways to address this. I believe there need to be more questions asked about when or whether to use the new machines and techniques in the first place. I believe that medical science and public policy should understand that when a technology is being used, it can be discontinued under the principle of the Benefit/Burden concept. When the burden to the total well-being of the patient outweighs the benefit, the treatment becomes senseless. Also morally, extraordinary means of treatment need not be used in the first place.

Ethics Committees
According to an article in Healthcare Executive magazine, more than half the nation's hospitals have created ethics committees for the purpose of understanding and addressing the various ethical dilemmas health care professionals are facing today. On the local scene, all three Duluth hospitals and an increasing number of nursing homes have ethics committees. This article is about the role these committees play in decisions made in our local hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.The committees serve three basic functions. The first is education, Education of its staff as well as its patients and the community about the ethical dimensions of health care. The second is policies, making sure the policies in that institution are ethical.The third is to review cases and care that is provided in the institution and to work as a consultant in those times when the cases are difficult.The people who serve on ethics committees come from many walks of life, though in many instances a majority are doctors.

How do ethics committees influence hospital medical decisions
I would guess that half the members are doctors, so that you have eight or ten members on each committee at each hospital that are physicians, and then there are nurses, lay people, clergy, lawyers, behavioral scientists and ethicists. The committees provide a forum for the exchange of ideas. They follow the literature from all of the disciplines -- the legal literature, the religious literature, the scientific literature, the political literature -- and meet on a regular basis to discuss the difficult issues. So they are sort of a think tank that keeps abreast of all these issues. The knowledge and understanding that has been gained through study and discussions within the committee is then spread by various means through the medical community -- to physicians and nurses. Some of it simply by talking to people, some of it by bringing an issue to the entire medical staff, inviting the medical staff to come and listen to a presentation on an ethical issue that is confronting the hospital or the doctors and the nurses on a regular basis. They also issue position papers, and share what they have discussed in medical staff newsletters and committee reports or minutes.In addition to these activities, committee members are also available as formal or informal consultants to doctors dealing with difficult issues.

Local Perpsectives on the Right-to-Die Debate (ITALY)
For many people, the issue of doctor assisted suicide is very disturbing. The whole concept of doctor assisted suicide is a sad commentary on where we are societally. My personal viewpoint is that the whole concept is a total distortion of the basic commitment of the physician to support and help life. I cannot see how a physician can legitamize bringing about death.Nevertheless, this is not a universal consensus. More than one person has suggested -- a Michigan physician whose "suicide machine" has been used by three patients -- has brought attention to an important problem, even though he is "the wrong spokesman for the right issue." David Mayo, Ph.D. and professor of philosophy at UMD and member of The Hemlock Society, put it this way. "I'm sympathetic to what Kervorkian is doing, but I'm unsympathetic to his modus operandi. I think he's a bit of a loose cannon, to be perfectly honest. A loose cannon who loves publicity." Dr. Mayo stated that he prefers Derek Humphry as the spokesman for this issue. Derek

Humphry and other proponents of doctor assisted suicide usually build their case around two main arguments. Those two arguments, according to Dr. Mayo, are the mercy argument -- the notion of sparing someone unnecessary suffering -- and the self-determination argument, the right to determine one's own fate or level of care while dying."Against that," Dr. Mayo adds, "the primary argument is the 'very slippery slope' argument. What will this lead to?"

WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

What is evident, then, is the problem of where to draw the lines. There is a wide range of opinions as to what is acceptable and unacceptable here. Many of the doctors interviewed by The Senior Reporter seemed to place that line between passive and active euthanasia. Do Not Resuscitate Orders might be considered a form of passive euthanasia. Several doctors refered to the concept of "futile treatment", wherein a doctor is not obligated to use extraordinary intervention when its ultimate effect is obviously going to be futile.

Carolyn Schmidt, who opposes both doctor assisted suicide and active euthanasia, strongly supports the non-use or withdrawal of extraordinary means of treatment such as respirators. "I don't feel morally we are required to use these," she said. "But there is a big difference between withdrawing or not using a technology and developing a technology of killing."Identifying and clarifying these terms and developing rational standards for making difficult decisions has been a major role of the hospitals' medical ethics committees.

IF NOT HIPPOCRATES, WHAT THEN?

• At bottom in all these matters is the question,
• How do we go about determining what is right and wrong in a given situation?
• What are the components of an ethical decision?
• How can physicians, patients and their families -- or courts -- decide?
• Ethics has to do with decisions that involve making a distinction between right and wrong.

In its simplest form, an ethical determination is an assessment of a moral act based on

• (1) what we do,
• (2) how we do it,
• (3) when we do it, and
• (4) our motivation for doing it, or why we do it.

But behind these criteria are also underlying assumptions about the meaning and value of life.

• Is human life inherently sacred?
• Or is value determined by one's current contributions to society as a whole?
• This latter utilitarian view comes dangerously close to resembling the social engineering of physicians and geneticists under Hitler's Germany of the thirties.
  

Making The Final Choice: Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legalized?
Medical advances have created ethical dilemmas which no previous generation of doctors has ever faced. New life-sustaining techniques and practices are forcing physicians to ask questions that never needed to be asked before. Foremost of these is:

How far do we go to save a life? Other questions challenge ethical traditions which have been in place for centuries.

• When suffering is immeasurable and a patient's condition terminal, should doctors be permitted to end a patient's life?
• Should doctors take an active role in hastening a patient's death?
• Today, more than ever, the push is on to "change the rules.,

By all accounts a time of decision is upon us. When a fully conscious person requests death, should a physician -- contrary to the Hippocratic oath -- assist the person in dying? It is the purpose of this brief article to present a concise overview of the primary arguments for and against the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Without a careful consideration of the concerns on both sides, we can find ourselves saddled with ill-conceived policies that do not serve our best interests and will not be easily dislodged.There are four primary arguments for legalizing physician-assisted suicide.

They are:

!.The Mercy Argument, which states that the immense pain and indignity ofprolonged suffering cannot be ignored. We are being inhumane to force peopleto continue suffering in this way.

2. The Patient's Right to Self-determination. Patient empowerment has been atrend for more than twenty-five years. "It's my life, my pain. Why can't Iget the treatment I want?"

3. The Economics Argument, which notes that the cost of keeping people aliveis exceedingly high. Who's footing the bill for the ten thousand peoplebeing sustained in a persistent vegetative state? Aren't we wasting preciousresources when an already used up life is prolonged unnecessarily?

4. The Reality Argument runs like this: "Let's face it, people are already doing it."

There are a variety of arguments against legalizing physician- assisted suicide. Here are the most widely cited concerns:

l. Medical doctors are not trained psychiatrists. Many, if not most, people have wished they could die rather than face some difficult circumstance in their lives. Doctors who are given authority to grant this wish may not always recognize that the real problem is a treatable depression, rather than the need to fulfill a patient's death wish.

I know many individuals with significant disabilities: quadriplegia, post-polio survivors, persons with MS, etc. A number of them have tried committing suicide in the past and are now thankful that a mechanism wasn't in place that would have assured their death, because they got over whatever was bothering them at the time and are happy with life again.

2. How will physician-assisted suicide be regulated? This is Carlos Gomez's forced argument, developed after investigating the Netherlands' experience, and presented in his book Regulating Death. "How will we assure ourselves that the weak, the demented, the vulnerable, the stigmatized -- those incapable of consent or dissent -- will not become the unwilling objects of such a practice? No injustice," Gomez contends, "would be greater than being put to death, innocent of crime and unable to articulate one's interests. It is the possibility -- or in my estimation, the likelihood -- of such injustice occurring that most hardens my resistance for giving public sanction to euthanasia."

3. The "Slippery Slope" Argument. A Hemlock Society spokesperson acknowledges this to be the strongest argument against legalization. In ethical dialogue, it is conceded that there are situations when an acceptable action should not be taken because it will lead to a course of consequent actions that are not acceptable. Our attitudes toward the elderly, people with disabilities and the devaluation of individuals for the "higher good of society" should be reflected upon. How long will it bebefore our "right to die" becomes our "duty to die"?

4. The "Occasional Miracle" Argument. Sometimes remarkable recoveries occur. Sometimes diagnoses are far afield of the reality. Countless stories could be told. I know a few first hand. How about you?

5. Utilitarian versus sacred view of life. This is probably a subset of the Slippery Slope argument, focusing on our cultural shift in attitude toward what it means to be human. Huxley's Brave New World vividly demonstrates an aspect of this argument. We need to be reminded of the role social engineers, doctors and geneticists played in 1930's Germany. Are weimportant only as long as we are making a contribution to society? Or is value something inherent in our being human? History has shown that when we devalue human beings, we open the door to abuse. The U.S. Supreme Court, inits Dred Scott decision, declared that blacks were not persons. This devaluation helped permit slavery and inhumane treatment of blacks to continue.

6. What effect will this have on doctor/patient trust? People who traditionally rely on their doctors to provide guidance in their health care decisions may become confused, even alarmed, when one of the treatment options presented is the death machine at the end of the hall. According to Leon R. Kass, distinguished M.D. from the University of Chicago, the tabooagainst doctors killing patients, even on request, "is the very embodiment of reason and wisdom. Without it, medicine will have lost its claim to be an ethical and trustworthy profession." Kass asserts that "patient's trust in the whole-hearted devotion to the patient's best interests will be hard to sustain once doctors are licensed to kill."

7. What about doctors who don't believe in killing? Will they be required by law to prescribe a treatment [death] they don't believe in?ConclusionsClearly, the ethical dilemmas surrounding terminal health care will be with us for years to come. There are more than seventy million baby boomers in this country, most of whom are currently grappling with the issue of aging parents. And in the decades to come we ourselves won't be getting any younger.Ironically, our current situation is due in large part to the successes of medical science, not its failures.

More people live longer today than ever in history because we have eliminated many of the diseases that once terrorized us as a society.But some of the problem is due in part to our love affair with technology. When machines, tubes and computers take over, compassion and common sense sometimes seem to suffer.

Fortunately, there seems to be an increased awareness of the intrusiveness of technology. Living wills, ethics committees and hospice care are all responses to this awareness.How we choose to die in America is a complicated subject that needs clear thinking and a fair discussion of the ethical and technical dilemmas surrounding it. But let's keep in mind that even if we agreed that death technologies are wrong, this would not be an endorsement of the notion that people must be kept alive for as long as possible at any cost.

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Foreign Bound: Unfortunately Born in India

My neighbor Mehta's son is in Dubai. He is a Chemical Engineer by training but having failed to secure a job of his line he started exporting readymade garments to Dubai and one day, we learnt, he has exported himself also to Dubai. Mehta claims his son is a Chief Engineer in Dubai while ever so knowledgeable neighbors inform he is only a mechanic. Nonetheless, he is in Dubai. Dubai to an aspirant Indian means filthy rich Sheikhs. Toffee to trousers, Mehta now uses everything Made in Dubai. He can talk for hours convincing us how bad Indian toffees and trousers are and how they affect user's health. To strengthen his argument he quotes an Indian medico settled now in Abu Dhabi. Welcome to the special class of society who think they are UBI's (Unfortunately Born in India) and have all praise for foreign land than its own motherland.

Once upon a time, when Gandhiji had to first time go to England, he had to observe very strict vows and even then he was declared an outcaste. Today Gandhiji is no more and value system of his time also is no more. However, different version of vows, in keeping with the times, is existing even today - I will amass wealth by hook or crook. I will marry a wealthy Firang and marry another docile Indian girl through ad to be my dame nay maid. Today if you don't have a brother or son in a foreign country you are looked down upon in society as if you are some sort of a sinner.

In my office there was this gentleman Burhanpurkar who was in the habit of introducing himself and in the same breathe asking the person whether he had been to any foreign country. If the reply would be affirmative he would heave a sigh and compare wretched India and Indians to great France and French, Japan and Japanese as the case may be. In case the other person has been less fortunate and not been to any foreign country Burhanpurkar would give a list of countries he had visited. Later I learnt he had been to a Railway project in Baghdad for three months.

We had a Professor, Deen Dayal Chaturvedi in our college. When he went abroad, he left his Dhoti and Choti at the airport itself. Ten months later Prof. Chaturvedi in a smartly cut safari suit got down the ramp. His newly acquired names DD and Chats. For few weeks after his arrival, we kept wondering why he covered his nose with a hanky most of the time. Later we heard him share with his close colleagues that pollution level in India has crossed the unsafe mark. A friend of mine within one week of his landing in a foreign country wrote to me to immediately send him six copies of the Gita and Ramayana.

He disclosed that wherever he went people wanted to discuss with an Indian about various episodes of Ramayana and tenets of Gita but he had not the faintest idea of either.Times have changed, earlier people went as far as Rangoon looking for greener pastures and sang about it. We had songs in our Hindi films:

"Mera Piya gaye RangoonWahan se kiya hai telephoon"(My beloved has gone to Rangoon from there he makes calls to me on telephone)

Today beloveds go to States and communicate through fax. Before India attained freedom , Indians were largely going to countries such as Fiji, Mauritius and Africa but such foreign jaunts were devoid of an essential element called 'glamour'. After independence shipload of people emigrated to England, Australia and Canada. Direct from Ludhiana to London, Ahmedabad to Ottawa and Kerala to Canberra.During seventies USA's seventh fleet sailed towards Indian ocean sending waves of 'states boom' to all over India especially to Yuppies and IITs. Every second Indian was busy filling up visa forms. US embassy became a holy place of pilgrimage. USA was the very paradise on the earth.A family friend of ours had gone to USA. He brought a helmet complete with in-built headphone transistor.

It looked so very similar to the one worn by Neil Armstrong. We were as impressed by the helmet as were by the piece of moon's crust exhibited at USIS Delhi. It was sent by Uncle Sam to poor Indians who had by then seen the moon only in sky or in the romantic Urdu Poetry. There was this popular joke during seventies - India will soon become USA - now - that Americans will move over to the moon and Indian property dealer and Colonizers will simply grab and occupy USA which will be lying vacant and unclaimed. We are champion in encroachment be it train berth, foot paths of Delhi, sea shores of Bombay, railway platforms and archaeological ruins.When the number of settlers acquired alarming proportion it became an eye opener for USA and U.K. resulting in more stringent restrictions.

They realized that otherwise Indians by their sheer strength will outnumber them and take over England. Our Paul is already there. Americans also got worried. These brown Indians together with red Indians will soon make New Delhi of New York. They implemented green cards with red vigor.The decade of eighties was dedicated to Dubai. Nurse, Doctor, Mechanic, Actors, all were off to Dubai. Free citizens of India were shuttling between Sahar and Singapore with the ease of going to Safal vegetable outlet in the neighborhood. Later we learnt they were mere carriers like the one we have on our bicycles on which things are carried to and fro. It was a sight to see them return. Hired taxi would take them straight from airport to the village, they belonged to. Oversized two-in-one music system, VCR, fancy garments, lot of gold and ready money. Whole lot of village folks would assemble to see the booty and sigh with envy. This money was largely utilized in building bungalows and buying bridegrooms.

All of a sudden, there was a steep rise in the rates of masons and bridegrooms.Often people are heard saying that Indians are indirectly instrumental in re-unification of Germany. When West German Government saw so many Indians settling in their country they thought it wiser to open up and embrace their own poor brethrens living other side of the wall. They hastily demolished the wall.Nineties have witnessed unprecedented influx of foreigners into India prominent being Michael Jackson, Coca Cola and AK-47 but then that is another story.

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Of pub culture, moral policing and Hinduism

Not long back Mumbai and entire nation was shocked by barbaric attack on its commercial capital. Public memory in India is very short lived like chimpanzees. And in stead of rapting on world’s and nation’s worst foe- terrorism, the so called well wishers of Hindu religion and in name of protecting its culture, Ram sena are bashing and banging the youth. Biggest shame is that it’s done in by the party who bears the name of Hindu deity.

What is the great idea in attacking defenseless women who are adults for sipping wine? If this does not suit Indian culture does beating and molesting women suit Indian culture?
Calling them prostitutes and abusing just because they were in the pub partying - are we in a Taliban country or is Mangalore 200 years back in civilization?

Who have given these road side rogues the right for moral policing. Do they know anything about morality.BJP should distance themselves from these outfits and condemn those paragons of virtue , book these guys under criminal sections and be severe in punishing. This is an unpardonable atrocity on freedom guaranteed by the constitution.
Who have given them rights to take law in their hands? Who made them armament of a religious conviction? Who let these dogs out?
Lord Rama was that you?

Know what constitution says:
In several incidents of moral policing by groups in Dakshina Kannada district, the couples have been dragged to the police station by its members who accuse them of indulging in morally unacceptable behavior. In five such cases that have been registered by city stations (Mangalore East, Mangalore South and Bantwal Town police stations) in the last two months, cases have been filed against the couples under Section 92 (O) of the Karnataka Police Act, 1963.

The section describes the offence thus:
When a person, “willfully and indecently exposes his person, uses indecent language or behavior indecently or riotously or in disorderly manner in a street or place of public resort (place) or in any public offence.”

In police parlance, cases booked under this section are referred to as “petty offences” where the offender is let off after being made to pay a nominal fine. Under this section for merely being in love is a violation of the basic spirit of democracy. “In fact, the groups that are attempting to enforce these moral codes should be booked,”
A Chennai high court senior advocate says that section 92 (O) is “highly ambiguous” and “open to interpretation”. “
It places too much arbitrary power in the hands of the police. The meaning of the word ‘indecent’ can have umpteen interpretations. Anybody can be arrested under this section. "

Questions to be answered :-
Why state government is trying to protect hooligans?
Why the men and women who were thrown on road have not yet registerd the complained to police?
Why is police trying to weaken the case. ?
If we do not make this an example case and punish the people - it will send a message to these goondas that they can do anything and get away with it. ?
Will any of the above politicians will act when their own daughter is there?
Of course they will cry and go out. Just think these ladies who were kicked and thrashed as your own daughters and please act.
Why Dakshina Kannada district police have served a notice on the electronic media for their failure to inform the police about the attack. (It happens only in India - like a Bollywood movie they (police) always reach after the incident. And more so instead of owning and accepting their failure - they are blaming media)

Root cause of problem:
law is not strict enough?
Organizations like these because they see more benefit that what they will pay. The benefit from such moral policing is wide national publicity. And what they have to pay a possible arrest and a very short jail term. It’s important, therefore, to increase the punishment under law. In this case they should be charged under offenses which give them at lease few years of sentence - it will act as a deterrent for other such organizations in future. And in fact not only actual miscreants - their bosses should also be booked - who do not have guts of doing such acts themselves (and mislead youths and send them for such acts). Rigorous prosecution, conviction and punishment will only desist people from such anti-social behavior in future.

WORD OF CAUTION:
I never shore up any one taking law in their hand in the name of protecting a religion but at the same time we should also reflect that it will take time before we move from a socially conservative thinking to a complete modern one and more than this the femine gender should know that they are still vulnerable to crime most, so they should utilize the rights of the citizen given by constitution in a way that they don’t land in trouble. As long as they understand this and their errands, it should be fine.

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Gaza: Where is Humanity?

Pic: BBC online
Up until the second week of the war more than 750 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured. This is the highest Palestinian toll in four decades of occupation, and the figure is expected to be much bigger when a ceasefire is finally called. The few hospitals in Gaza, already under strain on account of the blockade, have not been able to cope with the tragedy. Israeli helicopter gunships have gone to the extent of targeting ambulances carrying the injured. Ehab Mahbub, a Palestinian doctor, was killed when his ambulance was hit by an Israeli missile. The appeals for blood are getting more and more desperate.

Karen Abu Zayed, the Commissioner for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the need for aid “has never been so acute”. The media, both Israeli and international, have been kept out of Gaza despite an Israeli Supreme Court directive to the government to allow the media to cover the unfolding human catastrophe. The United States and other Western countries, which otherwise are great votaries of free media, have not been complaining too much about this.
“Disastrous” situation
Before the invasion, a spokesman for the UNRWA described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “disastrous” and said the agency was unable to get medical supplies into Gaza for more than a year because of Israel’s blockade of the border crossings.

In 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court, behaving as an appendage of the state, ruled that the government was authorised to limit the supply of electricity, petrol and diesel to Gaza since these “diminished quantities sufficiently meet humanitarian needs”. The Supreme Court also sanctioned collective punishment for the hapless people almost a year ago. Collective punishment is prohibited under international law. “If the residents of the Gaza Strip deserve to be punished because of the Qassam rockets, then maybe all Israelis need to be punished because of the occupation,” prominent Israeli commentator Gideon Levy wrote in a recent article. The Jewish state, with the tacit support of sections of the Palestinian Authority and neighbouring Arab states, tried first to starve Gazans into submission. They had hoped that the population would rise in revolt and throw out the Hamas-led government. When that blueprint did not materialise, Israel prepared for a military assault to get rid of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza. These are the only groups that are keeping the flag of resistance still flying in the occupied territories. A senior Israeli army officer told The New York Times that the purpose of the invasion was to “make Hamas either lose their will or lose their weapons”.

The U.N. has also not covered itself in glory as Israel keeps on violating all established international norms with impunity. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has not explicitly condemned the targeting of civilian neighbourhoods. The Security Council has failed even to come out with a statement mildly censoring Israel. Instead, the U.N. has played into Israel’s hands by calling for “restraint” on both sides. In doing so, it has put Israel, which has the most powerful army in the region, and the Hamas militia, which operates under the jackboot of the occupation, on the same footing.



As Hannan Ashrawi, Palestinian political activist and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, (PLO) said, the international community should have realised a long time ago that it is the Israeli occupation and the continuous brutalisation of Palestinians that is the root cause of the conflict. In the past seven years, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army. The Israeli toll during the same period was 14 civilians, killed mainly by rocket fire. On the first day of the Israeli “death from above” campaign, more than 300 Palestinian civilians were killed. The Israeli army announced that it had dropped 100 tonnes of bombs in the first nine hours of the operation.


MASSIVE VIOLATION
Professor Richard Falk, the U.N. rapporteur to the occupied territories, said in the first week of January that the Israeli attack on Gaza represented a severe and massive violation of international humanitarian law as defined by the Geneva Conventions regarding the obligations of an occupying power and the requirements of the laws of war.

The eminent American expert on international law also noted that Israel had ignored recent Hamas initiatives to re-establish the military truce after it expired on December 26. According to Falk, the Israeli military invasion and the catastrophic human toll it has caused “challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel’s violation of international law”.

This complicity, said Falk, extended to those countries knowingly providing military equipment for these illegal attacks. The U.S. is no doubt the main provider of arms for the Zionist state, but some other countries, such as India, are also filling its coffers, helping it to spread terror in the region. Israel is all set to supplant Russia as the biggest supplier of arms to India. In November, just as Israel was getting ready to invade Gaza, a high-level Indian delegation was in Tel Aviv to firm up multi-billion-dollar defence contracts. It is well known that Mossad and the Israeli state-controlled armaments industry have a big stake in all these defence deals.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other Left parties have appealed to the Indian government to at least snap defence links with Israel in the wake of the Gaza invasion. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has shown the way to world leaders by expelling Israel’s Ambassador to his country. In a televised address, he compared Israel’s invasion of Gaza to the “holocaust” against Jews during the Second World War. He said the President of Israel and the President of the U.S. should be taken together to the International Criminal Court. “How sad that Israel continues to act as the assassin’s arm of the Yankee Empire,” Chavez said.

After flattening Gaza with bombs and missiles fired from their planes and helicopter gunships, Israel sent its elite troops, backed by heavy armour, into the territory. It dropped 1,000-kg bombs to flatten entire neighbourhoods and to prepare the ground for the advance of its troops.

Ceasefire efforts
After the attack on the U.N. school building, the efforts to bring about a ceasefire have intensified. A joint French-Egyptian initiative, which calls on Israel to withdraw and Hamas to stop firing rockets, has been supported by the U.S. in the U.N. Security Council. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has, however, not called for a halt to the Israeli military operations even after the wilful targeting of the U.N. school. Both Israeli and Hamas leaderships have said they are studying the French-Egyptian proposals seriously.

The Israeli government announced on January 7 that the military would stop shooting for three hours every day to allow essential humanitarian supplies into Gaza. But the Israeli army also stated that it would respond immediately to any provocations. As of the second week of January, the Israeli establishment has indicated that it wants to continue the military offensive despite demands from the international community for an immediate ceasefire. Meanwhile, the defiant Hamas rocket-fire continues, underlining the fact that the Israeli war machine has not been able to achieve its stated goal of disarming Hamas fighters so far.

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Herbal Chicken

Once upon a time, not long ago, we were made to learn by heart at least one essay in school. Often it used to be - India, an agriculture based nation (Krishi Pradhan Desh). Among other things, the essay used to contain exaggerated description of great mountain range, social tolerance, cultural integration and the holy rivers of India. Our glorious past was pressed in service any where and everywhere. We were like that unworthy nephew of a worthy uncle who flauntingly name dropped his uncle on every occasion.

Initially, obliquely in a hushed tone with jest and later with much solemnity it was proclaimed that India, actually, is a chair (read power) based nation (Kursi Pradhan Desh). The game of musical chair, vying for better and higher chair became so aggressive, people won't let the chair, once occupied, come what may, slip away from their posteriors. They applied variety of glue, Fevicol, Ereldite and what have you so that chair and they could become as inseparable as Siamese twins. They were so much smitten by their love for chair, they simply refused to die without one.

Necessity is mother of invention, hence, we invented hundreds of corporate bodies, development authorities corporations, societies and committees whose term was never enough to complete the assigned task. Chairperson always outgrows the commission to head yet another commission. A new class of politicians and administrators emerged who moved freely heading committee after committee with professional ease.

During seventies, there was a massive import (smuggling) of Disco-mania into India. Disco culture penetrated deep in us through whatever opening it could find. Masses also enjoyed disco-music, disco restaurants. Small towns and even country side had their share of Swadeshi disco through items such as disco bindi, disco bangles, disco shoes, disco slippers disco goggles, disco cigarettes and disco coach (Bombay to Goa). Sizzling seventies gave us two more turning points, film Bobby and bell-bottom but that is another story.

Exciting eighties brought revolution in two main areas transportation and packaging. Vehicles which had a waiting period of around ten years and mere booking them added sufficient snob value to your status, were now available off the shelf but there were no takers. Sheer variety of two wheelers more than succeeded in confusing the prospective buyers. Thanks to Japanese, they smiled, we cried, while paying the overdue installments.

In recent times no concept has gone deeper in our day to day life than that of packaging. From Sambhar (of Dosa fame) to milk, whisky, salted water (Gol-Gappa kind) ghee, oil you name it and it is available in poly packs. Our value system too got packaged in keeping with the times. Our, hitherto, solemn events such as marriage celebrations and obituary references came out with vulgar openness. Newspapers carry fancy ads for brides and grooms. The day is not far off when we will have M.Rs…. Marriage Representatives who will campaign door to door in their bid to bring together slim, fair, convent educated brides and tall, dark handsome green card holder computer engineers.

Naughty nineties saw en mass shift of beauty parlors from Connaught Place to backyard/barsati of Babu colonies. Indians have a rich tradition of decorating themselves (especially ladies). Thus, these parlors offered manicure, pedicure, oils, creams, face packs, lipo-suction, facelifts and cosmetic surgery of infinite variety. Howsoever good skin you possessed so far, beauty parlors found fault with it and promised to transform you in as beautiful as the current reigning cine actor/actress. No sooner this field got into cut throat competition, many a times, literally, thanks to cupid. Finding no other way out people went back to ancient Indian culture. Whenever you are confused and you find no answers … go back to ancient Indian culture. One is sure to find seemingly simplistic solution/solace from your present ills, which any way are largely of your own making. Thus, cut throat competition led to people's search for herbs.

A new slogan was coined - Be Indian Buy Indian. In our bid to buy Indian we went a little too far and ended up shopping politicians, bureaucrats, bridegrooms and discovered to our pleasant amazement that this poor lot was ever so eager to be bought. Our search to find something unique took us to so far little known hazy world of herbs. We were quick to realize that anything herbal would stand out among the 136 types of shampoos and 256 types of toilet soaps currently in the market. Hence, we have herbal with H capital in our household. Herbal tooth paste, herbal Kajal, herbal powder, herbal cream, herbal soap, herbal oil etc. Today you can sell soil of your kitchen garden in the name of herbal provided you know the art of packaging and marketing.

The latest is that hens have decided to lay Veggie eggs so that vegetarians also could savor without having to bother about guilt and religious sentiments. Hens also would be absolved of the charge of favoritism of catering to non-veg only). Subsequently, latest proposal is to launch a herbal chicken. You may wonder chicken and herbal, strange combination. Let me clarify a chicken which has rich Indian herbs as feed will have to be called a herbal chicken - no cheating this. If you can have desi chicken, broiler chicken why not herbal chicken. Next time you go shopping, insist for a herbal chicken and don't be surprised if you are actually offered one too.

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Outsourcing here also

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, while I was loafing on Main Street, I meet an old friend of mine.

“Hi!” I say.
“Hi,” he says, “where to?”
“Aimless loitering,” I say, “And you?”
My Friend Ankit: “I’m going to work.”
Me: “Work? This early? I thought your shift starts in the evening, or late at night. You work at a call center don’t you?”
Ankit: “Not now. I quit. I’m on my own now.”
Me: “On your own? What do you do?”
Ankit:“LPO.”
Me: “LPO? What’s that?”
Ankit: “Life Process Outsourcing.”
Me: “Life Process Outsourcing? Never heard of it!”
Ankit:“You’ve heard of Business Process Outsourcing, haven’t you?”
Me: “BPO? Outsourcing non-core business activities and functions.”
Ankit: “Precisely. LPO is similar to BPO. There it’s Business Processes which are outsourced, here it’s Life Processes.”
Me: “Life Processes? Outsourced?”
Ankit: “Why don’t you come along with me? I’ll show you.”

Soon we are in his office. It looks like a mini call center.

A young attractive girl welcomes us. “Meet Rita, my Manager,” my friend says, and introduces us.
Rita looks distraught, and says to my friend, “ I’m not feeling well. Must be viral fever.”
“No problem. My friend here will stand in.”
“What? I don’t have a clue about all this LPO thing!” I protest.
“There’s nothing like learning on thejob! Rita will show you.”
“It’s simple,” Rita says, in a hurry. “Seethe console. You just press the appropriate switch and route the call to the appropriate person or agency.” And with these words she disappears.
It’s the shortest training I have ever had in my life.

And so I plunge into the world of Life Process Outsourcing; or LPO as they call it.

It’s all very simple. Working people don’t seem to have time these days, but they have lots of money; especially those double income couples, IT nerds, MBA hot shots, finance wizards; just about everybody in the modern rat race.

‘Non-core Life Activities’, for which they neither have the inclination or the time – outsource them; so you can maximize your work-time to rake in the money and make a fast climb up the ladder of success.

“My niece daughter in her school. They want someone to pick her up and take her home. I’m busy in a shoot and just can’t leave,” a creative ad agency type says.
“Why don’t you tell your husband?” I say.
“Are you crazy or something. I’m a single mother.”
“Sorry ma’am. I didn’t know. My condolences.”
“Condolences? Who’s this? Is this LPO?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, press the button marked ‘children’ and transfer the call, hoping I have made the right choice. Maybe I should have pressed ‘doctor’. Nothing happens for the next few moments. I breathe a sigh of relief.

A yuppie wants his grandmother to be taken to a movie. I press the ‘movies’ button. ‘Movies’ transfers the call back, “Hey, this is for movie tickets; try ‘escort services’. He wants the old hag escorted to the movies.”

‘Escort Services’ are in high demand. These guys and girls, slogging in their offices minting money, want escort services for their kith and kin for various non-core family processes like shopping, movies, eating out, sight seeing, marriages, funerals, all types of functions; even going to art galleries, book fairs, exhibitions, zoos, museums or even a walk in the nearby garden.

A father wants someone to read bedtime stories to his small son while he works late. A busy couple wants proxy stand-in ‘parents’ at the school PTA meeting. An investment banker rings up from Singapore; he wants his mother to be taken to pray in a temple at a certain time on a specific day. Someone wants his kids to be taken for a swim, brunch, a play and browsing books and music.

An IT project manager wants someone to motivate and pep-talk her husband, who’s been recently sacked, and is cribbing away at home demoralized. He desperately needs someone to talk to, unburden himself, but the wife is busy – she neither has the time nor the inclination to take a few days off to boost the morale of her depressed husband when there are deadlines to be met at work and so much is at stake.

The things they want outsourced range from the mundane to the bizarre; life processes that one earlier enjoyed and took pride in doing or did as one’s sacred duty are considered ‘non-core life activities’ now-a-days by these highfalutin people.

At the end of the day I feel illuminated on this novel concept of Life Process Outsourcing, and I am about to leave, when suddenly a call comes in.

“LPO?” a man asks softly.
“Yes, this is LPO. May I help you?” I say.
“I’m speaking from Frankfurt Airport. I really don’t know if I can ask this?” he says nervously.
“Please go ahead and feel free to ask anything you desire, Sir. We do everything.”
“Everything?”

“Yes, Sir. Anything and everything!” I say.

“I don’t know how to say this. This is the first time I’m asking. You see, I am working 24/7 on an important project for the last few months. I’m globetrotting abroad and can’t make it there. Can you please arrange for someone suitable to take my wife out to the New Year’s Eve Dance?”

I am taken aback but quickly recover, Yes, Sir.”
Please send someone really good, an excellent dancer, and make sure she enjoys and has a good time. She loves dancing and I just haven’t had the time.”
“Of course, Sir.I said to him
And I told you – I’ve been away abroad for quite some time now and I’ve got to stay out here till I complete the project.” he says
“I know. Work takes top priority.” I say
“My wife friend. She’s been lonely. She desperately needs some love. Do you have someone with a loving and caring nature who can give her some love? I just don’t have the time. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” he says

I let the words sink in. This is one call I am not going to transfer. “Please give me the details, Sir,” I say softly into the mike.

As I walk towards my destination with a spring in my step, I feel truly enlightened. Till this moment, I never knew that love was a non-core life process worthy of outsourcing.

Long Live Life Process Outsourcing!

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My dates with Dentist

I had just stepped into a dentist office and I read this inspiring quote ‘To extract is human but to restore is divine’.

That sums up the dreary dictum of dentists. Have we ever come back from a dentist hearing good news about our teeth? No! It’s always bad news. Dentistry means drilling, filling and billing.
Everyone dreads a dentist’s chair. It is the second worst fear after public speaking. My dates with dentists date back to my childhood. I was just eight and was sitting on that dentist’s chair and he said sweetly, ‘Hi son, open your mouth, Let me see if you have fine teeth.’
And I opened – ‘AAAHHHHH!’
He started examining my teeth and suddenly I bit his fingers.
He was screaming in pain. My father rushed in and asked, ‘Why did you do it my son?’
I just pointed to the name board–‘Dr Ghazanfar, Painless Dentist’.

I had just a cavity in my molar tooth. He made a mountain out that molar inventing four more. He then asked my father what kind of filling he should use. Hearing it,

I snapped back- ‘Chocolate or Ice cream filling please!’ On my next date, he informed my father that a tooth needed extraction.

My father asked, ‘What is the fee doctor?’

He said ‘Fifty rupees.’

My penny-pinching father made a bargain note- ‘Doctor, Fifty rupees for just five minutes of job!’

The dentist retorted dauntlessly, ‘I can extract slowly, if you want’.

When I was 20, I had my first root canal treatment. The dentist kept on digging and digging and finally the canal became as wide as the Suez Canal. He then said I needed a bridge to fill the gap. I felt like telling I cannot pay the toll.

Fed up, I enquired him- ‘Doctor, don’t you get tired of spending the whole day with your hands in my mouth?’

He said, ‘No, my son, I just think that I am putting my hands in your wallet’.

I then realized that all dentists lead a hand-to- mouth existence. A dentist is like a magician who, having put metal in your mouth pulls coins from your pocket.

Recently I took my girl friend to a dentist.
While she was getting ready to leave, I told her the story of a couple who went to meet a dentist. When the couple reached the dentist's office,
the man who was in a big hurry told the dentist: ‘Doctor, no fancy stuff! No painkillers please! Just pull the tooth and get it over with!’

The dentist looked at him admiringly and said, ‘ I wish all my patients had your courage. Good! Now, show me your tooth’.

The man suddenly turned to his wife, ‘Honey, show your tooth’.

Well, I reassured my wary girlfriend that it would be a painless one.

My girlfriend sat on the chair and the dentist started examining her teeth. Suddenly my friend uttered a huge cry.

Surprised, the doctor remarked ‘Madam, I have not started drilling yet’. ‘
Doctor, you are standing on my feet’, my friend screamed back.
‘Oops!’ he apologized and continued his examination. Suddenly he made a diagnostic shriek ‘Caries! Caries!’
Confused, my friend responded shyly ‘No, I am not carrying doctor’. ‘I meant dental caries!’ clarified the dentist.
I felt concerned about the examination and asked him ‘Do you extract tooth painlessly?’

He looked at me and said, ‘Not always, the other day I nearly dislocated my wrist pulling a tooth’.
At last, he pulled out her tooth without getting on her nerves further.
When I saw the bill I was shocked, as he had charged 400 Rupees. I confronted him- ‘Doctor, this is four times your normal fee for a tooth extraction’.
The dentist explained, ‘Yes, I know. But her scream scared away four patients from my waiting room’.

No wonder dentists are driven to extortion… I mean extraction. When a dentist makes an extraction, you hope he pulls the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth. If it is wrong, it is ‘acci-dental’. If it is right, it is ‘inci-dental’.
Incidentally my father had all his teeth extracted when he was seventy. A week later I asked him, ‘Papa, how do you feel after extracting all your teeth?’
He said ‘Terrible my son, terrible! I will never do it again’.
Last month, I had my final sitting with my dentist.
He was examining my molar teeth and said, ‘My God, It is a big cavity! It is a big cavity!’. Annoyed, I told him ‘You don’t have to repeat it’.
He said, ‘I didn’t repeat it. It was an echo coming from there!’
Unaware of my many dates with dentists, my friend Waheed poked into my mouth last week and said ‘Hey PGR, you have very fine teeth!.
I said, ‘They are all mine, I have the bills from Al Mana hospital.’
I have now decided to distance myself from dentists to avoid getting bored to tears and filled with fillers.

If I have yellow teeth, I just wear a brown tie to give me an ‘occi-dental’ touch or just practice ‘tras-dental’ medication.

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