Barren Island rich with wild goats

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Meet Billy, the goat. Resident of Barren Island in the Andamans. (Barren Island is home to the only active volcano in the country). Billy has survived the volcano’s eruptions by migrating to the unaffected side of the island, feeding on its sparse foliage and surviving, no, thriving, on seawater. Yes, seawater.

Generically, Billy is a feral goat—nomadic, untamed—in barren Barren Island.

Dr SPS Ahlawat, Director of the Central Agricultural Research Institute in Port Blair, says few other animals have been known to withstand the vagaries of such harsh environment. And research on the feral goat could have wide reaching implications for the world in general and India in particular.

For one, the feral goat could be the answer to the livestock problems of drought-affected regions, where fresh water is in short supply. Secondly, research work on its kidney, which has adapted to the highly saline seawater, could yield rich results. (Drinking saline water can kill a human being in a matter of days). Finally, Dr Ahlawat says feral goats like Billy could be bred in “zero management farms” that can provide enormous quantities of mutton at next to no cost.

But how did Billy get on Barren Island in the first place? Some say his caprine ancestors were shipwrecked, circa 1800. Those with a more fertile imagination say Charles Darwin relocated Billy here for one of his experiments!

But if Billy is such hot property, why isn’t he world-famous yet? Dr Ahlawat sighs and says something that many scientists cite throughout the country: bureaucratic hurdles.

Thanks to the strict wildlife laws of the Andamans, it has taken him two years to get permission to take just one pair of goats off the island into port Blair. And the institute hasn’t made much headway with the limited progeny it has worked on. So, it will be quite some time before maverick Billy finds his way to dinner tables.

Baa!

(This article appeared in the Hindustan Times newspaper on May 10, 2000)

The Fantastic Voyage

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The InfoTech revolution has come here to stay and threatens to change the face of the Earth. We are all speeding on Al Gore’s information superhighway. But the development of all this has not been overnight. Its development can be traced centuries back. At first, computing started slowly, picked up and since then it has been accelerating.

Early Developments: One of the important inventions, which helped in the history of computing, was the ancient abacus, which is still widely popular in Japan in the 20th century. Other developments were the slide rule in 1622, the mechanical calculator in 1647 and the automated loom in 1820. The latter used punched cards and this was the first form of primitive programming.

The 19th Century: But it was Charles Babbage who really laid the foundation for the computer, as we know it today. He made great breakthroughs in the 1830s on his analytical engine with this regard.

In 1876 came the telephone. The foundation for communication lines all over the world was laid. One 20th century invention, the modem, united the computer and telephone to unleash a monster.

The Fifties to the Seventies: During this period in the 20th century came a spate on inventions and ideas in rapid succession. The coming of the microchip in 1959, the minicomputer in 1968 which subsequently helped man to go to the moon, the microprocessor in 1970, the microcomputer in 1974 and the floppy disk in 1975.

The Eighties. PC Magic Everywhere: Perhaps this was the final stage and the most important development, the coming of the computer to the masses. A computer became a necessity for everyone in the West, Steve Jobs quit the Apple scene, but not before leaving his impact on the world and Bill Gates became a billionaire. In 1980, IBM came out with the first commercial personal computer, which incidentally was also the year of the supercomputer. In 1981 came the same computer with Microsoft Desk Operating System (MS DOS), which ensured that computer handling became much more simpler and Gates all the more richer. At that time we had modems with a speed of 300 bits per second, which looked as if they would fulfill future requirements. After that came the Compact Disc and then a spate of PCs, each better than the predecessor—the 286, 386 and 486.

The Nineties. The Coming of the Net: If everyone thought the PC revolution wouldn’t be bettered, then they were mistaken when the Internet took the whole world by storm. In 1991, Gopher, the precursor of the Web was designed to help students find information quickly. In 1992, the World Wide Web was formed thanks to researcher Tim Berners-Lee and the world was finally united on a scale never seen before. The global village seems to be shrinking and shrinking. Then in 1993, Marc Andreessen came out with Mosaic thanks to which we had graphics on the net and in 1994 came the commercial Netscape Navigator, aptly named. Now the setting was complete and anyone in the world and get information at speeds unimaginable just a few years ago. And talking of speeds, in 1996 the Optical Carrier (OC-3) came at a speed of 122 megabits per second, a far cry from the 1981 modem speed of just 300bps.

On the PC front came the Pentium for greater speeds and a larger memory and Windows 95, the real user-friendly operating system.

The 21st Century. Unpredictable: And one shudders to think what the next century is capable of. We have Virtual Reality, which creates a virtual world inside the mind. Computer aided design, medical research, writing—you name it, we’ll have Computer Aided Everything! Entire global business may be done on the Net. And then there’s artificial intelligence. Will the computer finally outwit man in all departments?

(This article appeared in the Hindustan Times newspaper in 1998)

Sworn AD-Versaries

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Man is under attack from advertisements from all sides. Sometimes it’s a visual attack and sometimes aural. Through the TV or in print. And sometimes a gigantic hoarding stares at you from the bus as you stop at a red light.

Advertisements are becoming more and more aggressive and treading directly into enemy territory. From Look at what we have got, the focus has clearly shifted to Look at what they haven’t. The best example in this is the Pepsi-Coke global war—especially the chimpanzee ad. The ad showed two chimps under observation. One drank Coke. The other Pepsi. The ad begins with the Coke-drinking chimp making great progress in educational blocks and the Pepsi chimp running away. The Pepsi chimp is then shown partying around town with a jeep full of girls. Coke took Pepsi to a South American court and lost the case. But two wrongs made a right in the end when a local soft drink manufacturer made an ad with a Pepsi chimp look-alike showing him throw away Pepsi and taking to the local brand.

When Pepsi endorser Michael Jackson got dehydrated on his Asia tour, hoardings with the caption, Dehydrated? Have a Coke came all over. But this campaign had to be aborted. The opposition did not come from the enemies of unethical advertising, but from Jackson’s fans.

So when Pepsi came to India, no one was surprised that it took Thums Up head on. An ad showed a Pepsi van going along a highway and passing three signs. The first was the Thumbs Up sign. The second was the same sign sideways making it a hitchhiking sign. In the third, it appeared upside down to become a thumbs down. Burger King also unleashed its series of digs against McDonalds. These included punchlines like Have it your own way (an attack on McDonalds mass production methods) and the Whopper beats Big Mac. Polo and Minto, Exide and Standard are some of the companies in India who have taken each other head on. The Telegraph came out with an ad showing the difference between it and the Statesman, calling it the generation gap. The counter ad was captioned (what else?) the degeneration gap.

But negative advertising isn’t more pronounced than it is in America, especially the presidential elections. There a candidate wouldn’t be able to speak much about his strengths, but able to produce a thesis on his opponent’s faults. Clinton won his first term on a blatantly anti-Bush campaign and even made an MTV-type jingle titled Read My Lips. He won his second term not on merit, but due to Dole’s inability. In UK, the Tories began their election campaign by showing a photo of Tony Blair on which were superimposed the eyes of the devil. The greatest opposition came only from the Church.

But this whole process is irreversible. Such a form of advertising has spread far and wide and threatens to spill over into the 21st century with a vengeance.

(This article appeared in the Hindustan Times newspaper in 1998)

Watch your back, now!

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The ubiquitous ad hawks may just stick their ware up on anything under the sun—coffee vans, car screens, elephants, shaven heads and what not. There is such a mad scramble for space

Look around you and you will find that ads have become a part of everyone’s life without most even realizing it. They are there painted on buses and walls, on T-shirts and shopping bags, of hoardings of all sizes and in all places, on cloth banners and even on the metallic tree guards and railings that partition city roads.

Not satisfied with the ear-marked ad spaces available in newspapers, magazines and TV slots, companies will sponsor, innovate and create, and ensure that their name comes in the most unlikely of places, no matter how hard the consumer tries to void them.

When videocassettes became popular, companies started inserting their ads between the films. And then people started fast-forwarding those ads. Sometimes the cable operators would do it for them. Round one to the viewers. But then came ads superimposed on the film, which came at the bottom of the screen and couldn’t be done away with. Round two to the advertisers. After that, every round seems to have gone to them.

Even on satellite TV, the sponsors’ decided to add their name to programmes to ensure maximum publicity. So we have Videocon Flashback, Lux Kya Scene Hai, Timex Timepass and a whole lot of others. A far cry from the time when the Doordarshan time was sponsored and we’d get captions like 30 Plus time and Booty Mixie time just below the clock that appeared before the news.

Another field is sports, particularly cricket. Not content with appearing on strips around the field, they have spread everywhere. First the company name came on the bat and then sponsors made it to the T-shirts of cricketers as logos. The tournament titles never went without the sponsor’s name, making household names Benson & Hedges, Texaco, Wills etc. Finally came the spectators and they handed out scores of printed 4s and 6s, which had the company name on top. These are wildly waved at every attractive stroke, ensuring that the viewer sees the company name even when the camera focuses on the spectators.

Pepsi and Wills seem to have a pervading presence in the market paces of India thanks to their unique way of sponsoring sleek lighted plastic name boards for shops which sell their products.

Advertisers have also capitalized on Delhi’s Pragati Maidan for one place that was totally free of ads—the blue sky. And so we have balloons of all shapes and sizes displaying products, which swell in number, especially when some trade fair is organized.

And so the race is on to find newer and fresher pastures. Who knows what the future holds and what way companies will find to get the attention (and sometimes irritation) of then average consumer.

(This article appeared in the Hindustan Times in 1998)

23, and something

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Sunil Kumar Barnwal sat next to the radio with great apprehension. It was the day of the civil services results.

On the radio news in Hindi, he heard that a certain SK Barnwal had topped the civil services exam. He couldn’t believe his ears. He listened to the subsequent English news and it said the same thing. He shook his head in disbelief. “Couldn’t there be some other SK Barnwal in the country?” he thought. The next day it was his nameless roll number on a sheet of paper which confirmed that he had indeed topped the exam he had dreamt of since childhood.

Till a few days back, the topper had been leading a fairly ordinary life. In his first attempt, he had faltered at the interview stage and a few had become cynical whether or not he would make it in subsequent attempts. In the meanwhile, his peers were doing well in the private sector as well as abroad. But one day, thanks to a roll number that was his, all kinds of apprehensions disappeared. “I cried with joy,” says Barwal. I could also see the joy of my parents, friends and colleagues who had backed me up all my life.”

He remembers, “When I came to office the next day, the chairman of GAIL congratulated me and later the concerned minister presented me with a bouquet.”

The 23-year-old comes from Bhagalpur in Bihar, a state that has been traditionally performing well in the civil services. He studied in Science College Patna. After that, he studied engineering in the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. He passed out in 1993 and has been in the Gas Authority of India Ltd ever since.

Till the second standard, he hated school and that was the worry of his parents. Then, during his third class, a strict teacher in a village school started punishing him by pressing a pencil between his fingers. The fear of punishment was immense. He started taking interest in his studies. “I even started counting the numerals at a very fast pace in class.”

In fact he would finish his syllabus well before the exams. The, he started learning the syllabus of the next higher class! It was this zeal that helped him earn a double promotion from the fifth standard to the seventh. He started dreaming of being an IAS officer from the eighth standard, he fondly remembers.

It was impatience all the way after that. He would finish his syllabus well before time, redo it and start the next year’s. He had to be pushed out of home to play. “If I wasn’t here, I would definitely be in academics,” he adds.

There was slight frustration for him when he became a graduate. He was too young to give the civil services exam. It was a difficult wait. People around him were either taking the IAS exam, doing MBA or going abroad.

He succumbed the MBA thanks to peer pressure. But he left his industrial management course at Mumbai’s National Institute of Industrial Engineering to prepare for his civil services exam. Thereafter he got a job with GAIL and accepted.

But a fortnight after the results, the euphoria has died down. He realises the daunting task of coming up to expectations and feels the pressure.

A believer in destiny, he summarises, “This is not the peak of my life, but just the beginning!”

(This article appeared in the Hindustan Times newspaper)

Strangers

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He saw her across the crowded room… She was mysterious… And so familiar…

His sunken eyes, pale face and sharp teeth drawing blood belied despair. Silhouetted against the moonlight, he stared at the stormy waves, as the cool night breeze caressed his cheeks. He felt the softness of the stranger’s kiss and shuddered.

“Oh Aru! How I miss you!” Sudhir silently cried. His longing couldn’t quell the pangs of guilt that surged through him. But Aru would never know, would she? She was thousands of miles away. He closed his gritty eyes and his mind automatically veered to the other night…

As he strode down the graveled path to Carol’s beach house, he felt uneasy amidst the hedonistic surrounding. But Carol was his only link with Aru, and he didn’t want to miss any chance… Besides, Carol was good fun.

He stood at the door, adjusting his vampire outfit, plagued with second thoughts about going to the party. He’d almost turned back, when a stunning Cleopatra opened the door. “Wow! Count Dracula himself! I’m honoured,” Carol’s lilting murmur flowed through. She looked gorgeous, from her sensuous smile right down to her cleavage, a la Elizabeth Taylor.

“Come on in and join the fun!” she sing-songed, handing him a drink. He looked around. Through the tinkling glasses and inebriated laughter, he heard a familiar voice. He turned around and saw Khanna, a crashing bore. “Not him!” he groaned to himself. “So tell me…”

One round of drinks and he was already feeling heady. “I need some fresh air,” he muttered to himself, and went out to the balcony. He gazed at the clear sky and felt as lonely as the stars above. That’s how he’d been feeling for the last two years.

Deep, abiding loneliness. He felt so uncomfortable among his friends—they’d all come with their wives. “Why do I bother with these parties?” he asked himself thinking about all the boring ones he’d been to lately. He couldn’t take it any more—he just had to leave. And as he turned, his glance fell on her.

Dressed like an exotic bird, she had all the trappings of a beautiful temptress. Oblivious to the admiring glances she was attracting, she continued to delicately sip her drink. There was something mysterious, something fascinating, something so familiar about her. Their eyes met, clashed and she started, in surprise. And suddenly, her surprise gave way to a bewitching smile.

“Hi! Want to join me?”
Before he could reply, she was beside him with a drink.
“Your Count Dracula getup is cool. You could’ve even scared a bat!” she laughed. “How about taking a walk on the beach?”
“It is quite suffocating here. Actually, I was just about to leave. But… why not?” he murmured.

They walked silently with only the flow and ebb of the waves interrupting their silence. And then she spoke.
“Goan beaches aren’t like the Californian ones. But they’re just so beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Been there, have you?”
“Once, when I was a child. Married?”
“Yes.”
“So how come you’re alone tonight?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Want to talk about it?”

And so the conversation went. Short questions, shorter answers. Neither felt the need for lengthy explanations. And in the process, he realized that she was just as lonely as he was. It was their loneliness that drew them together. They reached the end of the beach.

As they turned back, Sudhir stumbled a little. She held him close. His head started spinning—and it had nothing to do with the drinks. It had been so long since he’d felt a woman’s touch. He couldn’t contain himself—he kissed her.

They were standing near a beach hut. Sudhir offered no resistance when she took his hand and led him in.

As his lips pressed against hers in the dark, he felt her gown slip. Before he knew what was happening, their bodies were entwined in a passionate embrace. His last thought before losing control was that he’d never experienced such ecstasy before.

In the wake of their smouldering kisses, his estrangement with Aru didn’t matter anymore. His depression had finally found mind-numbing release. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

When he woke up after a few hours, she was gone. As he lay on the bed staring emptily at the ceiling, a voice broke his reverie.
“I see you’ve had quite an eventful night.” It was Carol.
“Err, well, umm… It was…,” he fumbled.
“Relax! It’s okay. I won’t spill the beans. It happens to the best of us. Just wanted to tell you the party’s over. Everyone’s going homw. I was just wondering where you’d got to. Ciao!” And she went back.

Sudhir looked at his watch. It was four in the morning. It was high time he left, he thought. And suddenly, he came back to the present.
“Should I tell Aru? Will Carol tell her?” Worried, he got into his car.
As he turned into his drive, he saw a light in the kitchen. He walked towards the open patio doors.

Arundhati was there, sitting in the lounge, calmly sipping coffee. “Oh great!” he thought—she always had a great sense of timing!
“Aru?”
“I’m glad you’ve been enjoying yourself in my absence. Want some coffee?”
Sudhir looked at his crumpled clothes guiltily.
He could imagine what he looked like. Aru could always see right through him. Abruptly, she got up to leave.
“Wait, Aru! Don’t leave… Don’t get me wrong… When did you get back?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, bleakly.
“Why did you return?”
“I had to know something, before we parted. I wanted to know if there was something worth salvaging.”
She started to walk to the door.
“Aru… Please! Don’t jump to conclusions. Let me explain…”
She didn’t stop, didn’t turn.
“Forget it.”
And the door was slammed shut. His breath came in short, laboured gasps, and he went out to get some fresh air.

Outside, the air was rent with the smell of smoke. He ran to the backyard.
All that remained in the burning embers of a slowly dying fire were ashes, remnants of bird feathers and a couple of broken shells.

And, as realization dawned, he crumpled into a heap on the ground.

(This short story won first prize in the Femina magazine fiction contest of 1996)