Tragedies have a hierarchy too

The four digits 26 11 are no longer digits in Indian current affairs lingo.

They are an identity. They speak of a tragedy that got its brand name for its scale, the kind of people who got killed, the iconic hotspots of a big Indian city that got affected, and also the industrial big name associated with it.

On December 3 last year, thousands went on the first of its kind unorganised marches, to the Gateway, after the terror attack. The figure of deaths: 172. Compensation track record: dismal, pathetic. Conviction: lone terrorist Kasab is under trial in the super publicised event that we love to want to remember.

Interesting that the same industrial house that runs the Taj Palace would not mind influencing a government's `going easy' on Union Carbide plant that killed 10,000 people.

Compensation track record: the biggest joke.

The year it happened: 1984. Twenty five years.

The two events had a primary difference. One was about blatantly criminal negligence by a chemical plant. Another was about terrorists from an enemy country going on rampage in the heart of Mumbai.

Twenty five years. Not a long time. For millions born after the tragedy, life is everyday death.

Yet, our public consciousness has wiped the Bhopal Gas tragedy away, while we make every effort to preserve the terror-victim identity through branding, diplomatic hob-nobbing and political dialogue.

Read this piece by Sunil Jain:

One only wonders if we deserve the governments that rule us:

Carbide refuses to accept any kind of responsibility or show any remorse, other than: “The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal was a terrible tragedy that understandably continues to evoke strong emotions even 25 years later.”

He continues his argument against the blatant human rights violation in his piece further.

Various government reports, however, have given Carbide a clean chit. A report by the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE) at Gwalior said the site’s waste had less toxicity than table salt. Another, by the Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal, acknowledged a four times higher rate of sickness among residents of areas closer to the Bhopal factory, even in those born after the accident, but said “there was no evidence to suggest that any toxic substance present in the Union Carbide factory so far has reached the ground water and then to the human body”.

So Kasab is the all important hero who we need to nail to balm our bruised national consciousness, while Union Carbide, the foreign plant that refuses responsibility, gets bailed out blatantly over the years, in spite of an entire new generation born with deformities.

We have our favourites with terrorism, tragedy and numbers don't we?

Slog at work, get beaten at home

The Women's reservation bill is a joke. Men in power (read Parliament) oppose it time and again. What I write further is not about the reservation bill though. Read on and you will know.

When a woman worker approaches the National Commission for Women saying a pilot molested her mid-air during a scuffle, NCW goes ahead and gives a `clean chit' saying she was only manhandled.

Am yet to understand the difference between manhandled and molested in legalese. In our society that takes makes even women's safety from lecherous men the responsibility of women, those women who work at Call Centres are looked at with suspicion. If a woman worker after putting together a story in all dedication at a late night hour rides back home only to get killed, her state's chief minister passes a casual remark implying she shouldn't have dared to ride alone on Delhi roads at that hour.

Women who do public transport commute wear lipstick and other cosmetics that enhance their personality. But a top party functionary had the cheek to call women protestors after last year's 26/11, `some women wearing lipstick and powder', as if, women who wear cosmetics have no right to speak up, and as if wearing cosmetics is limited to classes.

The debate around working women and their travails, their low pay at work, is a different dimension to the problem altogether. The core issue is that income from woman in a household is not considered, `the bread-winner' income, but `contribution' to the family needs, unlike a man's `head of family' tag that is presumed irrespective of whether he earns, or not.

Insecurity among the men in a family, or at workplace, is a given, and considered, `normal'. It's why pressure on women mounts soon after their maternity leave to opt out of the job. It's why late hours at work translate the language to `irresponsible bahu' among unsupportive families. After all, her `primary duty' is to cook and feed the family, not `enjoy' at office!

A two weeks old report published in The Hindu dulls the remnants of hope for Indian women who work their hours away at work and at home.

Here goes:

The study carried out between 2005 and 2006 on 750 married women aged between 16 and 25 in Bangalore, found that those who became employed during that time had an 80 per cent higher chance of being abused by their husbands than women who remained unemployed.

The report goes on to say further:

Social disapproval, a sense of inadequacy and frustration and related stressors associated with living in poverty may increase the likelihood of men perpetrating domestic violence,” she reasoned.

Fifty-seven per cent of women participating in the study reported having experienced domestic violence prior to joining the study.

What on earth is `empowerment' if women have to die on duty and get blamed for it, and return home too, to face the lash of their insecure men?

Please define `eco'

It's overdone. The precarious one-third of a word - `eco', that has come to define character these days.

In reality it has to do with anything that brings about balance and harmony in nature. In market reality it has become a victim of greed by companies out there to outsell their products and brands.

Let's consider three examples.

Eco-housing for instance. What exactly does an eco-house mean? How exactly do you define a Green home? Should we as suckers for image politics get stuck up with that self placating tag and become convinced that the label will somehow thwart off disastrous global climate change?

What is an eco-friendly house? One that minimises energy alone? Global market forces are trying hard to bury under the carpet, effects of mortar and chemical material in construction by merely focussing on energy efficiency.

Ideally, an eco-friendly house should use only local material for its construction, be it bricks, sand, tiles, flooring, or even plastering. If the soil dug up to lay foundation is re-usable as bricks, there should be every effort made to do so, by making cement-and-soil bricks. Solar lighting (the unfortunate poorer word) or home windmills should be made compulsory just as solar water heating is mandatory. Rain-water harvesting should be the norm, not an option. I am not talking of individual homes alone here. The need is urgent, to incorporate mass housing that is eco-friendly.

The unfortunate thing: Builders try to pass off any and every project as `Green' by introducing a token environmental-friendly feature, but sticking to those lawn-scaping structures that do not have even rainwater harvesting to speak of. Not able to believe? Just look out for those glossy Sunday realty ads in the newspaper.

As for products, we have `energy saver' refrigerators, energy `efficient' lighting, washing machines that `conserve' water and what not. Why are we forgetting the the plastic that still goes into making these products? A refrigerator is made of plastic, and so is a washing machine. Hardly any talk is focussed on completely alternative ideas.

We still advertise bath-tubs and showers in the name of luxury and status. Isn't it about time we spoofed at them and reverted to changing the language there. Using a bucket and mug to bathe, or even having a sponge bath instead of a shower should be clamped down as a value, not a choice with that `I am doing you a favour' attitude.

Finally, let's talk of recycling. What exactly is recycling? Does picking up a plastic cover from the supermarket every month and looking at ways and means to reuse it really mean recycling? Why do large scale super bazaars insist on thrusting their branded plastic covers on customers? It may cost them a little more, but they can always give the option between cloth bags and plastic bags! In cities like Mumbai, it is a breather that reselling furniture is a rage even if out of necessity. But to what extent can you reuse a material, specially if its quality is pathetic? And in a largely conservative society, is there any effort at all to introduce recycling as a religious value?

Computer vendors tell me that the flatscreen monitors selling these days have a life of hardly three years as against box monitors of 10 years ago that would last about five years. Where does a refrigerator go after it has outlived its use?

Our problem is chronic. We as humans settle for anything below a certain quality, forgetting that it also means more burden on resources. We believe in the standard business attitude of profiting from a sale with reduction in product quality, rather than selling a product that lasts longer.

You only have to look around at all the cheap material products around to understand.

The starkest bit of such image exploitation is of course those realty ads with magic words like `eco', green and ultra poetic words such as heaven in the hills.