Boycott Welcome

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India’s decision to boycott Sharjah 1992 is most welcome. In Sharjah, the true glorious spirit of the game is absent. The organizers are interested only in two things: a) Making money and b) Ensuring that Pakistan wins. India has no business to be the sacrificial lamb year after year.

Sharjah, in the end proves to be a morale shatterer for the Indians. In Sharjah 1991, an excellent all-round display by the Indians ensured that we won the first three matches, but thanks to some shocking umpiring, it al came to naught in the end. In the fourth match the Indians lost under questionable light while the final really took the cake. Aquib Javed got an outrageous hat trick of LBWs making him give the greatest ever bowling performance in the history of one-day cricket. All three decisions were given when the batsman had run half way through for making a run. In a game, where even one vital wicket can change the tide of the match, handing three on a silver platter is just too much.

Also, rather than stopping playing with Pakistan, India should stop playing in Pakistan. When the Pakistani players come here, they get VIP treatment, though the converse is not true. Some time back an Indian cricket captain’s shirt was torn and in the same season, the Indian hockey captain was chased by an angry mob. Is this how captains are treated? Also, in the same season, the Indian flag was burnt. The stadiums are filled with slogans of Kashmir and politics.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in The Times of India in 1992)

Callous officials, wasted efforts

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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
—Aristotle

With the declaration of results, Bangalore University students are finding the fruits as bitter as the roots.

Every year, the examination results bring some new complications for students who have slogged mercilessly throughout the year. This year it is the passing-out final year degree students of Bangalore University who are in deep trouble.

The results were out so late (they were expected June-end, but came only in August) that many couldn’t join the post-graduation courses they had applied for as the time for admission had elapsed. There are many students who have cleared the Indian Institute of Management MBA entrance examination and many other competitive exams, but now, because of the delay, all their efforts have simply gone down the drain.

Not only has a year been lost, but there is no certainty about the same competitive examinations being cleared in the subsequent attempts. Hence even bright students find their careers in jeopardy.

How much money you have to shell out and where, to get your work done, seems to be an open secret. A newspaper report once busted a racket in a college where you could “hire” your paper for a couple of days for Rs 5000. In this way, you could change your answers and make additions long after submitting your paper on the day of the examination. Some might find this process too tedious. They simply pay to pass directly.

A girl student was shocked to find that she had failed, but on cross-checking with the university, she found that she was actually a rank holder! In another case, a bundle of answer papers wasn’t dispatched from the examination to the valuation centre. This was discovered after the results were out.

Last year’s degree results had really gone haywire. Insiders had taken money and tampered with the annual examination results. An example is a student who had got 08 marks in a subject. He had it changed to 80. We have heard of students failing narrowly in subjects and paying money to pass. But this was a case of bribery in which someone who hadn’t even got double digits had ended up with distinction.

When the students started receiving their mark sheets in mid-1991, there were shock waves in the degree colleges. Some students had got through in subjects they had not even studied. Kannada students passed in Hindi. And Hindi students failed in Kannada. The examinations might have taken place in 1991, but many had passed in 1981! The confusion of the subjects and the years was bad enough, but studying hard for an examination, writing it and finding oneself marked absent was more frustrating. On the other hand, absent students found themselves passing out with flying colours.

Such mix-ups create havoc in a student’s life. If you thought having your subject changed was the limit, how about a change of faculty. This is just what happened after a certain “scrutiny” had taken place in the university. One shudders to think what the picture might have been before the scrutiny.

The reports on the goings-on in the university were many. Tampering had taken place at all stages from evaluation to tabulation. At places 3 was made 8, while 1 had become 9. Hence 35 could easily be made 85 and so on. Such alterations can be detected, but what if the answer booklet itself had been altered.

The university officials said they were inquiring into the matter. The result of the inquiry was that 3,002 errors were detected. Great! But how many undetected? Maybe tens of thousands. How many hours of hard work down the drain? Lakhs and lakhs…

Students went on strike. Rasta rokos. Cries for autonomy. Demands for justice. Articles and letters in newspapers. The result? A big naught.

Sending your papers for revaluation means losing a hundred rupees. Retotalling means twenty lost. A student had got first class and sent one of his papers for revaluation. The result was an increase of one mark. The remarks? Failed! This engineering student took his case to the newspapers which published both his mark sheets.

Such errors cause great hardship and come in the way of further studies. Another engineering student, who got a first class, was taken aback to find that the official concerned had entered his class as second. He went to the States for a post-graduate course. The institute there demanded a first division and rejected the faulty certificate. The student’s father gave the certificate for correction. The university lost it. Time was lost and the student even faced the prospect of repatriation.

The university has a penchant for losing important documents. This is just another example of carelessness where one wrong word on a certificate can result in the destruction of a career. With rising frustration, students are losing faith in the system.

In 1990, the “Year of the Engineering Student”, future engineers saw their results go topsy-turvy. Batches of students were marked absent in certain papers. A survey was done and it was found that about 30 per cent of the students had received incorrect mark sheets. Three out of ten is quite high.

The whole incident took an unexpected turn when the Vice Chancellor nullified the results of more than a hundred students. A hundred careers knocked down in a single stroke.

Bangalore University is not a stray case. It is an integral part of the whole education system which is decaying.

Till the eighties, there was faith left at least in the civil services, the IITs and the IIMs. The civil services papers are now being leaked regularly while the latest IIT-JEE, it was reported, had six faulty questions in a total of 40. With thousands taking the examination, a single question can cause a massive swing in the merit list. What do you make of six wrong questions?

One incident shows that at least the average student hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

There was a poster, with three bold words: Jesus never fails.
To this, someone had scribbled as addition:
…because he never was a student of Bangalore University

(This article appeared in Deccan Herald newspaper on October 16, 1992)

What’s in a name did you say?

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Have you even wondered how the planets of our solar system have been named? Or the days of the week? Or, for that matter, the months of the year?

The planets were named after the Roman Gods. In Roman mythology, Mercury was the messenger god and hence the swiftest. The planet is fastest while going around the sun, taking just 88 earth days. Pluto, in contrast, takes 248 years for its revolution! Venus was the goddess of love and beauty. The planet is surrounded by white clouds giving it a mystique and a dreamy look. This ‘morning and evening star’ is also the brightest object in the night sky. Mars is the god of war. When we think of war, we think of bloodshed. Mars is ‘the Red Planet,’ red denoting the colour of blood.

Jupiter is the chief Roman God. It is also the largest planet of the solar system. Saturn, the god of agriculture is Jupiter’s father. It is the second largest planet. Uranus, the seventh planet is blue in colour and according to legend, lord of the sky. Neptune is the god of the oceans and is greenish-blue in colour like the sea.

Pluto is god of the underworld (hell), a place below the earth which is dark and dull. Pluto is so far away from the sun that it appears only like a bright star. Thus, it is always night in Pluto.

The days of the week are named after the Scandavian Gods.

Sunday is named after the sun and Monday after the moon. Tuesday after Tyr, the god of war. (In German mythology, it is Tiw, the dark god). Woden, the greatest Scandavian god had the fourth day of the week named after him and Thursday gets its name from Thor, the god of thunder.  Friday was Freya’s day. Legend has it that Freya’s husband was Woden, and their son was Thor. Both had days named after them and as they didn’t want her to be jealous, the next day, Friday, was her day. Finally, Saturday was ‘Saturn’s day.’

For the months of the year, we again have to look to Roman mythology and the Latin language.

January is named after Janus, the protector of the gateway of heaven. February, after februalia, a time when sacrifices are made for atoning sins. March after Mars, the god of war. The next two months being part of spring are named that way. April comes from ‘ap erire,’ Latin, meaning to open buds. May after Maia, goddess of growth of plants.

June comes from juvenis, Latin for youth. Some sources also say that April is named after Aprilis and that February and June are named after the gods Felruas and Juno respectively. July uis named after Julius Caeser while August after his grand-nephew Augustus Caeser.

September, October, November and December come from the Latin words Septem, Octo, Novem and Decem which mean 7,8,9 and 10. But September is the ninth month and December is the twelfth month in our calendar today. The reason why the above names are given is that at that time, the first month was March resulting in September being the seventh month. The same goes for the other three months.

So English is a hybrid of languages from all over the world, Latin and Greek having the greatest influence. More than 60 per cent of English words come directly from Latin and Greco-Latin or through French.

(This article appeared in the Young World section of The Hindu newspaper on October 10, 1992)

United we fall?

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“Divided we stand, united we fall.” That seems to be the motto of the new world. We talk so much of a new world order and a united globe, but events in Europe, the erstwhile USSR and Asia are contrary to all these ideas.

Europe is turning out to be a real paradox. On one hand there is great talk of Europe’s unification and a European Council, but on the other hand the continent’s individual nations do not appear to be staying in one piece.

The biggest example of this is Yugoslavia which for months has been in the world headlines. The situation there is deteriorating day by day and today a stalemate marks the country’s future. Even the special UN Peace Keeping Force for Yugoslavia does not seem to be making much headway.

The former Yugoslavia had six federal republics and the president was selected on a rota system. What started as a row over who the next president should be ended up as one of the bloodiest battles and secessions seen in recent times. Now everyone, right from the common populace is tired of the hatred and bloodshed that is prevalent there. Even in the breakaway republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is a lot of infighting between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims. A bitter battle was witnessed for the possession of its capital, Sarajevo, recently. So even if Yugoslavia breaks into all its former republics, peace will be prevalent.

Another European country that disintegrated was Czechoslovakia, though the process of division did not witness much bloodshed. Now we have the Czech and Slovak republics.

Even the United Kingdom does not seem to be so united. Ulster has been trying to break away for years with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) causing immense damage. Now even public opinion is Scotland is going strongly in favour of absolute independence. If things in Scotland get as bad as in Ulster, no one might be able to do anything about it. Hence Great Britain may not exist and England might be left all alone.

Even Helmut Kohl, the strongman of Germany (the other EEC power) does not seem to have his country under control. A united Germany has left a lot of disillusionment everywhere and most of the East Germans now wish that Germany should have stayed divided.

The biggest example of disintegration is the former USSR which is currently in total disarray. The Baltic republics — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have already broken away. What is left is the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) which is an uneasy alliance with little in common. This could break into 12 republics anytime. The tensions between the Russian Federation and Ukraine do not help matters. Again, Chechnya in the Russian Federation has witnessed cries of independence. So no one can really tell how many pieces the former USSR will break into in the years to come.

There are also many secessionists waiting like dormant volcanoes in various countries. One does not quite know when the eruptions will take place. The Kurds in West Asia have been nurturing dreams of a separate homeland for ages, waiting for the right chance. They got one when the US attacked and devastated Iraq in the Gulf War. The Kurds then started rebelling and fighting for a separate country. It was only the brute force of Saddam Hussein that stopped them.

Turmoil in Pakistan could result in Sindh, which is shouting for independence. The fall of communism in China will result in Tibet demanding autonomy.

Then India sadly faces a problem in this aspect too. In 1947, Pakistan broke away from India. Since then Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971. India, however managed to stay in one piece. But for how long? Punjab and Kashmir are two states where there are militant uprisings in order to part ways with India. Now even international attention has been focuses on these two states.

The Punjab problem, with the cry of Khalistan, has been raging on for such a long time that people have finally got bored of it. It is a shame because so many innocent civilians are being killed endlessly day after day.

The problem has so far claimed the lives of a prime minister, a former army chief, umpteen high officials, a large number of security personnel and tens of thousands of innocent victims. On the whole, millions have been badly affected.

The Kashmir problem is different from the one in Punjab in the sense that less people are killed there. But then, the cry for independence (from India) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a mass movement.

We further have the problem of more and more groups asking for statehood, i.e., just as Punjab and Kashmir want to break away from India, these groups want to break away from their respective states. Prominent among these are cries for Jharkhand in Bihar, Bodoland in Assam and Gorkhaland in West Bengal. At present we have 25 states and if everyone has his way, we would end up with 40 states!

So, we still have a long way to go before we can seriously talk of a united world.

(This article appeared in Deccan Chronicle on September 13, 1992)

Late recognition

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It is the general practice for an individual to first get national and then international recognition for any outstanding achievement. In this country, the contrary seems to be true. That was proved by the fact that Mother Teresa got the Nobel Prize in 1979 and the Bharat Ratna a year later in 1980. The same has been the case with Satyajit Ray.

Right from Pather Panchali in 1955, Mr Ray has been steadily producing films of great acclaim. Now, when he has been given the Oscar, the government wakes up and confers upon him the Bharat Ratna and gets Doordarshan to telecast his films.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in The Times of India)