Monday, July 24, 2006

Seeing my first short story in print....

A short story (No Medals For Me) I posted in my blog in Sulekha has been published in this week's DNA ME Sunday Supplement (Daily News and Analysis). The child in me is thrilled. Satya Saran, editor DNA Me, had sent me an email some weeks ago.She had written that she had liked the story and that she was 'taking' it. I used to check every Sunday whether it was published or not. I happened to read some good stuff. Including stories sent by others of the Sulekha gang.But I never saw my story. Was pretty sure that I would see it when I was pretty sure that it wouldnt be printed. And that is what happened today morning. Sharing my happiness with all of you out there in the blogosphere. Thanks to all my friends who said that they liked it - Priyanka, Deepti, Jai. Thanks Sulekha. A story I never wrote on paper has now been printed on paper!!!

A direct link to the story as it is printed. (Page 28; Zoom in)

Better still you can see the story as a pdf file with crystal clear clarity. Here is page 1 and here is page 2.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Village Jalahmajra in Punjab loves its daughters

Oh, my son's my son till he gets him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all her life. - Old English proverb.

An African proverb goes "It needs a village to raise a child". Village Jalahmajra in Punjab's Nawanshahr district is living proof of this adage. Jalahmajra has achieved a healthy sex ratio of 1020 girl to 1000 boys. This, in a state which has an abysmally low sex ratio of 798 girls for every 1000 boys. One of the catalysts for this change is the work done by Krishan Kumar, a senior administrative official of the district. The Jalahmajra effect can be seen on 70 nearby villages too. These villages are very close to the national average of 927 females to 1000 males - not a figure tha we can be proud of. Jalahmajra village will get a 3 lakh rupee award instituted by the Punjab government for any village which has more girls than boys. Some years ago the Akal Takht had issued an edict that Sikhs should abstain from female foeticide. I am not sure what the effects of that edict were. Let us hope that Jalahmajra can convince the rest of Punjab that lionesses are more important than lions and the message spreads to other parts of India too. According to Lancet India has lost more than 10 million unborn female children. No invader has killed so many women. But we have done it. It is time we stopped.

A newsreport from DNA.

The 'curse' of having a girl: By Navdip Dhariwal BBC News, Delhi

Monday, July 10, 2006

Wild flowers in the forests near Mhow (MP), India




I love this photograph of wild flowers I clicked in the forests near Mhow on a full moon night of April 1998. I and two teenagers had accompanied a group of trekkers from the Indore branch of the Youth Hostels Association of India on a night trek to a fort named Kushalgarh. We joined the main group, which had left Indore on a Khandwa bound train, at Mhow. From Mhow the train went past a station named Patalpani which is famous for a huge waterfall. We got down at a station named Kalakund. The trek started around midnight and we walked through the forest till the fort and then walked to another railway station named Patalpani. We reached Patalpani just before dawn. It was a beautiful experience watching the sunrise. A train ride on a train from Khandwa brought us back to Mhow. The main group continued towards Indore. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It is almost as if I were dreaming. I have been to this area on three occassions - 1994, 1997 and 1998 - and it has always been on a night trek. The group I usually go with chooses a full moon night in April. They make this their last local trek before the onset of the harsh summer. Enthusiasts from this group then head towards Himachal Pradesh for the summer trekking progam.

I should take a trip there during the daytime. It is green and beautiful now - thanks to the rains.

We see many trees all our lives but very often we do not know their names. I do not know what the name of this tree is. Maybe I can ask a forest official or a villager or tribal who lives in this area. Or a tree lover like Pradip Krishen whose well researched book on the trees of Delhi has become a bestseller.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Why do all these gadgets need batteries?

I remember entering a shop and asking for an alarm clock which did not need batteries. "You won't get any," said the shopkeeper with a grin. I remembered the alarm clocks we had at home when I was a kid. Winding it up was a daily task. We used to wind up our wrist watches at 9p.m. when Lotika Ratnam or Surajit Sen read out the english news on All India Radio. I remember an old wall clock gifted to us by our maternal grandfather. It has also been converted to a battery operated one. It is horrifying that we end up polluting the environment just because we need to know the time. Something gadgets like mobile phones and various news channels keep telling us on a 24x7 basis.

I remember seeing an interview of the British inventor Trevor Bayliss on BBC World Television. I was unlucky as I could not get to see the full interview. But the little I saw left me full of fascination for this man who knew the power of thinking out of the box. One of his inventions is the Wind up Radio. In 1993 Trevor saw a program on TV through which he came to know that the radio was one of the most effective tools in the anti-AIDS campaign in Africa. AIDS was spreading like wildfire throughout Africa and leaflets and newspapers and television campaigns were virutally useless. The radio was extremely effective but there was one drawback - the power supply to the radio. One needed batteries or electricity to use a radio. And these were in short supply in the countryside. If only one could manufactuer radio sets which did not rely on these conventional power suppliers. This set Trevor thinking and he conducted an experiment with a hand brace, an electric motor and a radio. The brace could turn the motor and supply enough electricity for the radio to run. When he added a clockwork mechanism with a spring he saw that the radio could play as the spring unwound.His first prototype needed two minutes to be wound up and ran for fourteen minutes. The Windup Radio had been invented. A corporate accountant named Christopher Staines and South African entrepreneur Rory Stear ecognized the potential of the product and they set up BayGen Power Industries in Cape Town. Funding was provided by the Liberty Group. Disabled people are being used to assemble the radio sets. All in all a win-win situation. The disabled who work with Baygen earn their salaries and the rural folk of South Africa get to use a radio with zero running costs. The Freeplay radio was awarded the BBC Design Award for Best Product and Best Design in 1996. Trevor Baylis was at the centre of a lot of media attention due to this innovative invention.

While listening to Trevor being interviewed on television I was impressed by one of his statements. He said that he never buys or wears suits. According to him most of his friends have around 50 suits and each suit costs approximately 500 pounds. "This is a lot of money," said Trevor, "and could be put to better use." A quick calculation tells me that 50 suits at 500 pounds each comes to 25,000 pound sterling, this would be something like seventeen and a half lakh rupees. A huge amount indeed. Perhaps I am being a bit simplistic here but if the affluent all over the world could donate the cost of a suit to a worthy charity once a year a lot of money can be generated.

Ultimately it is all about thinking simply and effectively. One can make a positive difference to the quality of life through seemingly small tasks.
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A few links:
Wind up Radio
From Inventors and Inventions
Different models of the Freeplay Windup Radio available for sale in the UK
From the BBC: Trevor picks his favourite invention
Why IT really winds me up by Trevor Bayliss