CONTROL THE ALTER

There are a lot of things happening around me that I want to write about. But sometimes I am scared that I might not be saying the right thing at the right time. In the past fifteen years, the world of technology has ushered in an era that would've seemed like science fiction only a couple of decades earlier. We'd move forward more and I know I won't see it all. No one does. That's the way things are.

It only seems yesterday that I gushed over my new computer. It was (well, it still is) a Celeron 366 machine, with a 4 GB hard disk drive and 64 MB RAM and a Samsung monitor. That was only seven years ago. Not much could change in that time during the eighties. But now that machine is obsolete and I am in a quandary to replace it with a second hand but younger machine.

For the past seven years, this machine has served me well. It has seen me through a crucial phase of my life. What I know of the world of computers, I'd gratefully acknowledge more to this inanimate teacher than to any living human. It / he has gone through the normal wear and tear of a computer and, as such, he must go.

But I can find that I am not the only one to sell off an old machine in perfectly running condition. There are hundreds of thousands of users around India who do this. And their reason speaks volumes about this present age — they believe their machine is obsolete. Among the older machines on offer are spanking 'new' (I don't know how else would I describe that machine) Pentium - IVs with a slightly lower clock speed than that is available currently at the market to mature Pentium - IIIs with once-proud 1 GHz processors. Their problem is that they do not gel with the software currently available in the market.

This makes me wonder what happens to the really hoary ones - the 386s and the Commodores and the Amigas of yore? I have only read about them in books. The answer that I chanced upon in a news report in The Statesman in December 2006 didn't make me happy. In our mad rush for speed, I am not sure we're heading towards another environmental minefield.

The state of West Bengal in India was primarily reluctant to have anything to do with computers. That was way back in the late eighties. Somewhere along the line the people concerned changed their mind and today, in the opening decade of the new millennium, West Bengal is in the forefront of what is called here The IT Revolution. I point this out so that the state of affairs here can be compared to that of the business district of a North American City.

The Centre for Quality Management System of Jadavpur University has recently come up with the startling data that the West Bengal produced 200 tons of e-Waste every year. Of that 200 ton, 10 is produced in the Sector - V of the Salt Lake City, a part of West Bengal that houses more computers than the rest of the state. It has been predicted that this amount is likely to increase nearly five times in the next fifteen years as the computers and other electronic gadgets currently in use will become redundant by that time.

As I said earlier, if the scene is such in West Bengal of all places, what it will be like in California, for example, where even every school-kid has her/his own laptop, to say nothing of their dads.

The Statesman report goes on to inform us that e-waste is extremely harmful because electronic goods contain materials that can contaminate water and soil, and is also injurious to human beings and animals.

In the same perspective, as I leaf through one of the leading tech magazines of this country we find that they nag the hell out of their readers to upgrade. We are told that the latest version of this operating system is the best thing to happen in the world of computing. This OS has its own minimum system requirement and recommended system requirement, which render a good number of older machines outdated. So we go for the latest thoroughbred from the stable of Intel. Then we are advised that this OS would function better when a lot of RAM is thrown at it. The more the merrier, the columnists in the magazine say. More it is, but I don't know whether it is merrier, because more machines head towards the dumping ground that way.

It is at this point this nagging question rises in my mind - isn't technology all out making the most out of the least? Or am I seriously mistaken? It is true that human need has risen over the year and it is the task of technology to accommodate every aspect of that need. But isn't human health and the protection of the environment also a part of that need? If we look at it from a commercial viewpoint, does it make a lot of sense for business entities to engage more capital in something that was already yielding positive results?

I'd confess I don't know. But I wonder whether anyone cares to look for the answers.

Poem on 16 May 2007

I got hit by a piece of verse from inside yesterday and immediately pattered it on my keyboard to whatever site I was on at that moment, Netlog to be precise. I guess it should be here since it is another "Thought at Random"
It is simply titled POEM ON 16 MAY 2007

Hey Darkness!
I'd puncture your shield of sorrow
With the last living little flower in the dried up bouquet,
With the shortest strain of music caught from the radio of a passing car,
With the briefest scene from a romantic film caught on TV as I run between errands,
With the smallest patch of sky seen from amongst the top of multitude of buildings,
With the minutest whiff of fragrance as she hurries past me, looking ahead on the road,
With the smallest piece of that wonderful cake that I munch before lunch,
And I will WIN! WIN!! WIN!!!
In millions of ways in millions of times . . .

Dual Use

Deskjet 610C is quite a musical piece of peripheral. This is the first printer I ever owned. At the beginning, everything about it seemed fantastic - the flashing LED, the swift snap with which the paper slid into its mysterious interior. And then there was the music. My first PC didn't have a sound card installed. In those days such little things were considered extra luxaries and one required to dig deeper into one's pocket to be entitled to such pleasures.
But the 610C almost made me forget this shortcoming. Whenever it printed a document, it produced a short cello concerto, or something very similar in sound, only produced by a first timer. The session was prolonged when it printed long multipage documents. The music became loftier and more sublime, when I needed a line drawing printed for a rare walk-in client. Indeed, in one occasion, I saw a musically-inclined door-plaque designer nod his head in rhythm to 610C's music as I printed large plaque-sized decorative texts for him. Neither him nor I cared for the fact that the hand required more practice. That a computer printer, in addition to printing pages, can produce such sound that can be passed as music was enough for me.
But this was the early phase of my business. I used to operate out what was literally a SOHO, the acronym that is, and not the London district. Days went by. People began to turn up regularly by twos and threes. I am not sure what drew them to me; there were tens others better equipped than me offering the same services and more. But the obvious began to happen with the printer - the cartridges it were shipped with began to lose their reserve.
It is at this point, that the 610C decided to extract the full price of of the entertainment it provided to me — through the price of its ink cartridges.
At this point, I must add that if I went to balance the output I got and the money I spent, the result didn't look too unhappy. But the fact is that if I am to survive the big bad world of commercial retail printing, I didn't have the slimmest chance of seeing the next day's sun.
Disgusted with the expenses, I went on to commit the ultimate sin. I went to someone who could refuel an inkjet cartridge. The first fill worked fine. I was happy. My peace was restored. I could once again enjoy the cello concertoes, albeit a bit cautiously this time. But it didn't take long to turn my new found joy to sorrow. On my next refuel, the man at the counter very kindly informed me that my cartridge couldn't be refilled again.
"Why?!" — I felt like the sky came crashing down on me.
"The nozzles are clogged. Wouldn't help if we did fill it up. Not a drop would pass onto the paper."
I solved the dilemma for the time being by reaching into my pocket, i.e. buying a new set of cartridges. But the sad thing happened again.
Since then the carefree music maker lies at the top of my cupboard, an ancient towel acting as his winding sheet. Borrowing a large steel company's line, he could say "We also print pages from computers" but I know I won't be convinced any more.

Orkoprobha

The first time I saw her, she broke out into a high pitched whine and I broke into a smile. She couldn’t see beyond ten inches from her eyes, or so some parenting website told me. However, when she heard or felt my presence, she scanned the hospital cabin, dimly lit by afternoon sunlight from one large window, and resumed the only process of communication available to her at that time.

“Welcome little one” – I whispered, and I meant it.

She thought she heard something. This place seemed so new, so noisy! She scanned around with her beady eyes for some clue and then resumed bawling again.

Three years down the line, she has changed a lot. Not so clueless about the world around her, she often tries to find answers for herself, bypassing her mother or me. Happily enough, she is sometimes successful. Truisms, bon mots, and other words of advice thrown recklessly, rebounds her smooth intellect back to where they come from, often with hilarious consequences.

“Keep them in their proper places” – she comes running to me with my watch and cell phone – “or you will lose them.” I try to convince her that they were in a transit place as I am just home from office, and I would put them where they really belong once I finish changing. I am not sure I am successful.

Yes, the world is a new place. New records are being made every day, if not every hour. Every set of twenty-four hours brings with it at least one new experience. There is so much to explore. And our little “Lady Livingstone” is dauntless.

But bravery has its prices. A reckless run at a roughly paved lane results in a fall. The fall, in its turn, results in two large scratches on two little knees.

She breaks down into tears. I rush her home to bathe the wound with disinfectant. She keeps sobbing through the procedure. Stroking her head reassuringly, I say – “It will soon be over luv, you’ll be awright you’ll see . . .” She looked at me with through her tears – “It’d soon be okay, wouldna Pa?” I pressed her little head into my large chest – “Yes luvvie, trust Pa. It soon would.”

In her eyes I found lurking that beady-eyed persona from three year earlier.

Rescued Animals (Published on a Local Daily on 4.7.2005)

It was with much fanfair in 2000 that display of animals in Circus was banned in India. But now a recent news report says that the "rescued" animals lay neglected and sick at a place called Dankuni, close to Kolkata. This has been published in a regional language press in Kolkata. The point of this blog is that English language print media is unlikely to publish this story.

However, the Hindustan Times has recently published an editorial that criticises animal rights activists, who were protesting in Assam against the animal sacrifice by the Royal Family of Nepal in a local temple. The editorial questions the public silence in the recent legal controversy regarding a woman in Utter Pradesh, who was raped by her father-in-law and barred by religious leaders from living with his husbands, as they considered her marriage has been rendered 'polluted'. The controversy has been published and written about in print media a lot, and if one has access to the internet, I believe one can find quite a diskful about this if one cares to search. That is not my point. There should have been a general univocal protest from urban educated India, which was conspicuous by its absence. It is that the editorial had pointed out. While it was safer to raise one's voice against animal rights violations, violation in the midst of rational animals is always sidestepped.

Of Mice (and other animals) and (some) men

12:21 17.02.2004
This is my first blog. What I have written here can sound pretty rotten to many. What I have written here is based more on ideas than on factual knowledge. If it seems to anyone that what I have written is wrong or incorrect, she or he is welcome to add a comment or send me an email.

I am from a city named Kolkata. Its old name was Calcutta. Many of you would be familiar with the latter.
There has been a news item in the papers in my city about a man dying of rabies. He was bitten by a street-mongrel a few days earlier. The hospital he went to couldn't give him the necessary anti-rabies shot. He was too poor to go to a more expensive medical facility.

When I spoke to several people on this topic, it appeared that this man's case was not an isolated one. One family friend, who is a hospital employee, tells me that every day nearly a hundred people visit that hospital with dog-bites. Many -- she added -- had to go without the anti-rabies shot, because there is a scarcity of that item.

There used to be -- at one point of time -- a programme of the Municipal Corporation (this is what a Town Council is called here) to capture and kill stray dogs. Nowadays the practice has been abolished. I hear this ban has been effected by the highest judicial body of the land. Because there are people -- influential people -- who think these dogs have a right to life and to kill them like that is inhuman.

The organisations they have formed, as I have already said, are strong. Not only that, they are often local branches of larger International bodies, which denounce "cruelty" to animals and insist on their (the animals') "ethical" treatment.

The fallout of their activities is clear to the naked eye.
I have already mentioned that there is a stated shortage of anti-rabies serum in this state. It is because such fluids are manufactured using some chemicals obtainable only from the brains of sheep or blood of horeses. But these days the practice has probably been abandoned, bowing to the wishes of these powerful people; at least that is the explanation offered by medical facilities for their scarcity.

In the capital of one South Indian state, there were several reported incidents in which stray dogs have carried away new born babies. According to the new ethics nothing could be done in this regard apart from a drive to render the dogs sterile. I haven't seen anything about that in the papers for quite a while now. Perhaps such reports are sensored to protect the reputation of those dogs. Since the new born babies were humans (and their parents were residents of a poor neighbourhood) and not animals, questions of ethics didn't apply to them.

Closer home, in West Bengal, cattle lifting by tigers of Sunderbans is a regular incident. Greedy humans, it seems, have encroached upon the forest – the natural habitat of Royal Bengal Tigers -- to cultivate crops, graze cattle and build huts. The 'poor creatures' had no options but to pick up a cow here or a goat there and sometimes the odd human looking for honey or fuelwood. In fact there is a village in the Sunderbans, whose residents have three things in common — one, all of them are women, two, all of them are widows, and three, every one of them lost her husband in a tiger attack. Nothing, it seems, can be done to ensure that this never happens again, because the tigers are protected species but the husbands of these women were not – are not. The balance of ecosystem of the Sunderbans depends on the existence of tigers and not on the existence of a 'few' men, nor on that of their wives, children and old parents.

In western West Bengal, herds of wild elephants regularly destroy crops and huts, often with humans in them. The arguments offered in this regard is the same – more villages have come up on the paths that these elephants historically use to roam. If the villages were not there in the first place, there wouldn't have been any problem at all. It is the humans, it appears, who are to be blamed. As such there are more humans than there are elephants, so if a few of them are crushed under the feet of rampaging elephants and a few more are orphaned in the process, what difference does that make?

Apparently none.

The benevolence to animals was extended to circuses. It is understood that the tricks and acrobatics played by animals are learnt through brutality at great pain. So the best option to deliver the poor animals was to legally abolish their tricks. It doesn't really matter that circus companies are losing business due to this move, rendering thousands of people unemployed. Their campaign against use of animals in street shows have forced hundreds travelling bear show artists looking for alternative Since we are to take it for granted that human feeling for animals is restricted to a hallowed few (i.e. those belonging to these exclusive organisations) we wouldn't bother about the issue of attachments formed by animals trainers in circuses and what they felt when their beloved pupils were taken away from them. After everything said and done, they are only some animal trainers and trapeze artistes, aren't they?
They indeed are.

It is not that these words are clearly pronounced by any mouth. But these ideas are hidden in the statements that some people issue, buried in the interviews they give to the press and lurk in their conversations in the talk-shows in the electronic media. In a nutshell, they are not SAID but they are MEANT. Well, as I write it, I know I will be charged with reading between the lines, where nothing is written and putting words into mouths, where nothing has been said.

But who are these people?

They are a handful of blessed individiuals, partitioned from the multitude of this country by their wealth and/or their position in the society. Their existence, it appears, is like an oasis in the desert of Third World misery and frustration. Their wisdom is such that they can figure out the ecology of a forest in a short visit and their observation will be more valuable than the oldest tracker, who has lived there for the span of his entire life.

Life has elevated them to a level where their children would never be picked up by groups of marauding wolves (consider the hamlets of Himalayan foothills), there table will never be short of food because hordes of rampaging elephants have trampled on the crops, their morning tea will never be shorn of milk (unless it has been proved by the most modern research that milk is harmful or something) because cattle have been lifted by hungry tiger, when going to work, their lives will never be endangered because a tiger might lurk around the block.

And they are worried about the animals and what their destruction might signify for the echology of this planet.
Several years ago, a letter was published in one of the leading English dailies of Kolkata. The correspondent lamented the fact that there are refuges meant for dogs but not for humans. I would say this observation was incorrect, less then than now. But I was surprised to note how many angry rejoinders this one letter attracted. The main theme was the same in most of these responses. They wanted to know what the writer of the earlier letter had done to remedy the situation. Of course there was no response from the poor chap (if I remember correctly it was a male).

I can understand what reaction this blog will attract.

In my simple way, I have thought of a solution. It might not be the best one around, but it might make a good beginning in the right direction.

It appears that it is particularly those humans, who live close to forests and animal habitats, that are the originator of all this trouble (or as many would like to put, the perpetrators of such horrible crimes), why not take the trouble to find out what it will take to satisfy their greed? Supppose, the small farmers in western West Bengal, gatherers of the Sunderbans and all such people are allotted residences in flats in the city, will they still want to cut down trees? Suppose they were provided with a source of income that assures a free flow of liquid cash will they still want to destroy forest to expand arable land? And that girl, who used to lie down among lions and tigers in a circus to entertain people not so long ago, would she prefer to do the same thing if a better career opportunity is provided to her?

Why don't we find out?

(The date and time that appears at the top of the posting is when I first started hammering at my keyboard)