Art enriches you Source: Google photo of the painting of Mona Lisa by Da Vinci in Louvre.
Synopsis : There is so much beauty in the art world that many are not even aware of . Those who are very fortunate get to see the paintings of the famous artists in various museums or renowned art galleries.The vast majority of mankind lives in a state of stupor that they can’t wake up from because they have other priorities in their lives that are more pressing. The blog looks at how art can open up the mind of a person and enlarge it with beauty and knowledge that makes a person more aware of all the human talents and possibilities.
In my home town there is a small museum that I have visited many times. It has a motley collection of paintings, sculptures they have found in the excavation of an ancient historical site near our city and a lot of coins, potteries and memorabilia of some prominent families. They have tons of things to display but are kept in storage due to lack of space. I always enjoyed visiting the museum and looked at its exhibits with interest to learn about their origin and history. There were some wild animals like cheetah and jaguar that were kept in cages nearby that we as kids really liked to look at . The museum is located in the huge central park that covers hundreds of hectares and is a pleasant place in the heart of a busy city. Never in my early life I could have imagined that someday I will look at Mona Lisa in Louvre or the Rembrandt and Renoir paintings in the Musee de Conde in Chantilly.
Source : Google photo of sculptures in the Borghese museum in Rome One day I was in Rome and went to see the museum at the Borghese palace and was awestruck by the sheer beauty of a sculpture in marble that was so perfect and polished that you could not find a fault in it even under microscope. It literally glowed in the natural light and showed what human hand could accomplish with primitive tools centuries ago .I have seen such displays in many museums around the world and am very impressed . Some artists and sculptors were extraordinarily talented like Michel angelo, Rodin , Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Renoir, De la Croix, Goya, Da Vinci among many others . I have made power points ( see them here)to highlight their art and have put them in the internet so take a look there if you are interested . It is a very rich treasure trove of paintings of European masters, Australian masters, Native Australian artists, Indian artists, Japanese art and craft, African art and craft, Chinese art and craft, wildlife of Africa, India and birds of India, crafts of Europe , History of Egypt, China and India and many more. What got me to write this blog is the realization that art has played a huge role in my life and has given me the opportunity to see beauty in the dazzling displays in various museums that I was so fortunate to be able to visit in many countries. It has opened the world of knowledge to me in a way not possible by just reading a book or a magazine. Source : Google photo of Pieta at the Vatican in Rome I saw the picture of Pieta long before I actually saw it in the Vatican but nothing prepared me for the actual Pieta that Michelangelo carved out of a huge marble rock centuries ago with such perfection that it takes your breath away. Every vein and muscle in the hand of Jesus glows under the thin skin and there is an ethereal beauty in the face of Madonna that you have to see to believe. Now a days the computer guided chisels can sculpt anything to near perfection in any kind of stone so it seems so easy. If you put a fake name to it, no one will know the difference except perhaps the experts but ordinary people who are no experts can be easily fooled. You can see the exact replica of the statue of David in the square in front of the museum in Florence and will never know it is not the original until you see the real one inside the museum. The art I saw in Louvre and Borghese palace were real and made by real artists long dead but still influence the art world that dazzle your mind with their beauty and perfection. Michelangelo would have scorned anything sculpted by machines if such machines were available during his time. He saw Pieta hidden in the rough block of marble and simply unveiled her but that was his genius. Not many people can do it so he became a legend. Sadly art is not appreciated by the hoi polloi who have other things on their mind than art like struggle for their existence. They do not care about art and will tell you that they have never heard of Michelangelo , Louvre and Borghese museums. Their priorities are very different from yours so it makes no difference to them even if they see Mona Lisa for the first time if they are so lucky. Millions of grass root people can never afford to travel abroad to see the art or even within their own country so they remain aloof to the world of knowledge that art opens up for anyone who cares to learn. One Filipino woman we met in Siem Reap said that she did not care to see the temples of Angkor Wat because they were heathen and represented something contrary to her faith and belief. The ISIS terrorists say the same thing and go one step further by taking a hammer and proceed to destroy them. Another woman said that visiting temples or reading books proscribed by her church might dilute her faith. This narrow outlook has been the bane of human existence. I saw that the nose of Pieta in Vatican was broken by a fanatic who did not like the idea of young Madonna with her full grown son on her lap and tried to smash it. Now the nose has been repaired and the statue is protected by a bulletproof glass. All over the world you will meet people who show no appreciation of what I call the beauty created by the human hand and go on tours to visit other countries in package tours of 3 days and 4 nights just to see what they can buy cheaply there. The vendors take full advantage of their stupidity and ignorance and sell them fake Gucci bags for twenty dollars that they happily bring back as souvenirs. Mind you these people are not the grass root people because they can afford to travel abroad even if in package tours and have some education but absolutely no knowledge of art and they don't care. But art does open up the mind in a person in a very positive way that can have an everlasting influence on your life. You do not have to be an artist to appreciate art anywhere but you can develop a taste for it. You buy imitation paintings to hang in your house and you collect art objects to fill up your shelves at home. I have collected many such things from around the world that decorate our walls and shelves but our maid is totally indifferent to them and has never shown any curiosity. Her priorities are very different. She also has no knowledge of the history and the outer world because her world is very limited to food and cheap cosmetics, Chinese knock off gadgets and weekend parties somewhere. In essence she represents the vast majority of the population here. I often wonder why most poor people are so immune to things of beauty because I thought that any beautiful painting or work of art would naturally evoke a curiosity and appreciation in anyone irrespective of social class but I was wrong. It is true that like everything else in life one has to learn to appreciate something from the childhood be it food or clothes or art or music. You can't drag a kid to the museum somewhere and expect him to appreciate what he sees there. I know this because I too brought our kids to the Anthropological museum in Mexico City and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C but they were bored. They only enjoyed the Air and Space museum and the Bronx zoo but they just looked at Rodin sculptures with indifference. There was an experiment where a baby song bird was separated from its parents and raised in isolation. It never learned to sing because the chicks learn to sing from their parents. This analogy also applies to us humans. We learn many things from our parents that later becomes a part of our nature. If the parents read a lot and buy books for their children to read, some of them may develop the reading habit and become curious about the world of knowledge. I know for a fact that the son of a famous artist and singer in India became a very good singer and has come out with his own CDs. The father of Satyajit Ray was a famous artist who also wrote the famous children's nursery rhymes book. I do not need to tell you who Satyajit Ray was. So the parents play a role in the development of the interest in art in their children and bring them to art galleries, museums and other places. So one has to create the atmosphere where the child grows up and learns about music, art, performing arts like ballet, dance or drama acting. When the child is deprived of this nurturing atmosphere at home, he does not develop any interest in such things. Some children are born with talent for music or playing musical instruments that their parents encourage but they are called prodigies and are rare. I have written a blog about child prodigiesthat you should look at. But the vast majority of people in this world do not have the money to buy books or buy a guitar for their children and pay for the lessons because they have other pressing needs that must be met first. Some poor children who are naturally gifted are sometimes noticed by their teachers in their schools who then recommend them to a good music school that may offer scholarship or an art school where they teach how to paint but they are the lucky ones. The world of art is vast and the artists who fill it are numerous. I am not writing about those people who sit by the canals in Venice with charcoal and draw a quick something for money for you. They are just trying to make a living the only way they know how but they are perhaps at the bottom of the art world. The artists who became famous only after their death are numerous and their life was sad and pitiful who struggled to make their ends meet but now their paintings sell for millions of dollars. If they had earned as much then their life would have been not so pitiful. Van Gogh became mad and once cut off his own ear in a fit of despair. No one at first took Picasso seriously until his painting started to sell for millions and he became super rich but people say that he also became an unstable person. Michel Angelo suffered pain and almost became blind painting the Sistine chapel in Vatican hanging upside down to paint the ceiling for small sums of money. The movie Agony and ecstasy ( watch it here)is worth watching that shows his sufferings. I think art helps a person develop very fine taste of things in life but it is a taste that does not cost a lot of money . It opens up the mind of a person and fills it with dazzling beauty that makes him a better person although not always. Hitler was a great artist but we all know who he became. Some of his associates were artists and musicians or great collectors of art but they were monsters. What I think happens is that the art makes a person aware for the first time in his life of the extraordinary talents some people have who have left their mark in this world . A person begins to realize the potential of human talent that expresses itself through art, music and various other means. It may even make him try his hand at something that interests him. I see numerous examples of art by unknown persons published almost daily in Google plus that are nothing short of wonderful. I can never overstate the merits of learning to appreciate art but I also know that each person develops his own personality due to the circumstances he grows up in and may or may not be able to absorb all that is beautiful in this world . You may never get to see Mona Lisa or Pieta in your life but the next generation may. I know that my parents never got to see it but I did and wish they were alive so that I could bring them to the Louvre. When you see something beautiful , you always wish you could show it to your loved ones too. Let art enrich your soul and of your loved ones.
Allure of credit card Source : Google photo of credit card Synopsis : The credit cards are now as common as flies everywhere. People can't seem to live without it. The society demands it, the business people demand it, the capitalistic system demands it so one must have a credit card. It brings instant gratification that the society demands. But the credit card companies are not responsible for your debt and your unhappiness. The blog looks at the downside of credit and shows how fiscal discipline can go a long way to bring financial stability in anyone's life.
One day somewhere in the United States a gentleman walked into the show room of a car dealer and saw a new car that drew his attention so he asked the approaching young car salesman about the car and its price. The salesman looked at him up and down to assess his worth and how serious he was before he would give him some information because the gentleman was Asian so perhaps not a serious buyer. Still the man asked for the price of the vehicle after walking around the car and looking at the interior so the agent told the price and asked how he was going to finance it meaning how and from where he was going to get the bank loan. The Asian gentleman then said that he is not looking for a bank loan and will finance the car himself. The agent was incredulous and could not believe his ears so he started to walk away because he decided that the man was not serious and was not worth his time. Whoever had heard of a cash buyer? Everyone looked for financing and trade ins and then the bargaining began in earnest. No one paid the sticker price so a good bargainer knew that there was plenty of room for discounts and some added freebies but this man did not ask for any discount and freebies so he is perhaps not a serious car buyer so he walked away. Besides the man looked foreign and not very well dressed so that created another negative impression on him. Now an old salesman was listening to this conversation and came to assist. He very politely asked the gentleman to sit down, have a cup of coffee and profusely apologized on behalf of the young salesman saying that the fellow was young and did not have much sales experience. The prospective buyer listened with stony face and was about to walk out but the old agent prevailed and showed the car, opened the engine compartment to show the technical features and the interior entertainment system etc. He also gave him a very beautiful colored brochure that had all the details so the man was satisfied and said that he will be back shortly. Sure enough, after sometime the man walked in and put on the table a bag full of money, signed the papers and got the key to his new car and drove off leaving the younger agent totally flustered because he had so badly misjudged the Asian gentleman and lost his commission which was substantial. In a country where almost everybody uses credit card, it was quite unusual to get a cash buyer so he did not take the customer seriously. He also did not have any knowledge of Asian culture or about the outside world but the older man knew. It also happened to me when I went to a show room of Mazda in Manila where I was looking for a two liter sedan. The ugly pockmarked agent behaved just like the American and walked away from me because he did not believe me as a cash buyer. I too walked out and went to Nissan where I was very well received and where I bought a beautiful Altima with cash. Now we live in the era of credit cards. The banks constantly call us and offer free credit cards that we refuse to their great surprise. Whoever refuses a credit card? It is a status symbol for people who have plenty of credit cards in their wallet. But an American comedian who made plenty of money telling jokes gave this piece of advice. He said that he never took credit in his whole life and pays for everything with cash. He sleeps well and never worries about his pending bills. He never bought anything he could not pay for with cash and it is probably the best advice he has given but who listens? The allure of credit card is very strong so people are greedy for it. Just buy anything using your plastic card and walk away for a while. The bill will come surely with added surcharges because that is how the credit card companies make money but the honeymoon period is yours to enjoy for a while. You cannot rent a car there unless you have a credit card. The gasoline stations will not take your cash after 5 pm so you must purchase gas with your credit card. There are many robberies of gas stations late at night so they do not like to keep cash after 5 pm when someone comes to collect it. When you want to buy expensive things like a house or a car , then you should get financing for it and sign the mortgage papers. The loans are often arranged by the dealer of the car or the real estate agent so you just have to sign the papers that bind you to the loan until your death or the crash of your car whichever comes first. People have grown up in this credit culture that is actively encouraged by banks and credit card companies so they offer free credit cards to high school kids who are yet to learn about money management. The frequent bouts of family quarrels are often linked to money woes that start to pile up and make people desperate to escape the debt trap. People buy groceries, clothes, pay for vacations and gambling in Reno and Las Vegas. There is absolutely nothing you can’t pay using your plastic card. The only caveat is the downside of taking too much credit that your income falls short of accommodating. The credit card companies keep a very close tab on your purchase and the frequency, the amount and even the location and the purpose to judge your credit worthiness so if you pay your bills on time or before time all the time then your rating goes up meaning you are a good customer. 700 plus score is a very good score and a lower score means you do not pay your debt on time which means further credit to you may be denied. Now in the United States there is a law that can freeze your credit until you have cleared up all your past debt plus the interest. Remember when the housing market collapsed a few years ago there? It was because the banks gave loans to those people who could not afford to buy their houses or pay their monthly mortgage so all of a sudden millions of people saw their houses foreclosed and they were pushed out onto the streets. We now live in the era of instant gratification that the credit card offers and can’t wait to get a new house or a car or a 60 inch OLED TV . The whole idea is to get everything now and worry about how to pay for it later. You will see almost brand new cars parked in front of banks that have recovered these cars from people who could not pay the monthly amount so lost their initial down payment. People who lose their homes also lose their down payment which can be substantial depending upon the total value of the house. Now there are many who are good earners and savers so they accumulate a substantial amount before they decide to make a purchase of a car or something expensive. In a country where everyone uses credit card, cash is still the king so you get the least price if you show them your money. Some use the convenience of using the credit card because it is so easy and you do not have to carry a lot of cash all the time. They pay off the credit card bills before the due date meaning within a month or so .This way they avoid penalty but they have the fiscal discipline and a good understanding of their liabilities. It does not work if one person is very punctual in paying his debt but the wife does not so they may end up quarrelling about money a lot that may have its own consequences. The fiscal responsibility is learned process and it starts long before a child starts to handle serious money. He learns from his parents about it and knows that his parents do not take credit anywhere so he learns the value of living a debt free life. He learns honesty from his parents and saves his pennies in a piggy bank where his parents also drop some extra change once in a while. I had a piggy bank when I was very young and was delighted when it got full and I broke it open to count a pile of coins that I used to buy something that I needed. It did not put money pressure on my parents so they encouraged me to save. This habit stayed with me all my life but I also learned to develop the discipline. In many Asian countries, credit is a dirty word so people become good savers and pay for everything including a car just like that Asian gentleman I mentioned earlier. Some even pay for their new house with cash or build their own house with cash the way we did. I think people get into the debt trap so easily because they want to compete with their neighbors or their coworkers. If they have a new car then you must also have one. If they have the new model of I phone or I watch then you must also have it. We have a neighbor who brags about her latest gadgets all the time and wants to know when we will get ours. She does not believe us when we say that we are not gadget freaks and are quite happy without them. Some neighbors pass by and make comments like when are you going to change your car? There is nothing wrong with our car but people change their cars every year and roll over the debt year after year. It is also a matter of false pride that they are driving a brand new car never mind if it is on credit. Everybody does it so that is the culture. To learn the fiscal restraint is to develop the discipline to say NO emphatically because it provides the mental peace that the credit card does not. I knew a fellow who had the gambling habit so he started borrowing money from some very bad people just like the mafia and lost his house . Still he could not pay back the debt so one day he ran away and abandoned his wife and three children so his wife sought the help of her siblings who bailed the fellow out and saved the family and their marriage. It is not known if the fellow ever paid back the money to the siblings of his wife. He is dead now so the issue is moot. The rivalry starts early in the life of children who see their classmates or school mates with the latest I phones or other gadgets and start pestering their parents for the same because they feel deprived if they do not have what others have. This is the start of the life based upon pure consumerism that is the hall-mark of the capitalistic system. It teaches the kids not to take anything seriously so they can destroy their new expensive toys easily because the parents will get them a new one. If shredding expensive jeans with razor blades is the fashion then they must also do it and get new ones to shred because that is what others do in their high schools. It does not matter to them how much it costs because the parents will provide them if they pester them long enough. Some parents encourage such behavior in their children especially if they were poor growing up and felt deprived so they want to make sure that their kids are not deprived of anything even at the risk of serious debt. I will now tell you the merits of saving. When you get married and have a good job that pays you well, you have the opportunity to start saving for the baby you just had. May be you will have a second child a few years from now but surely one day they will grow up and will go to school. By the time they are ready to go to the university, you will have saved enough for them to attend any university anywhere and pay for all their expenses. That is called discipline. There are millions of teen age students who get easily indebted in college to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars that they must pay back once they start working. The student loan debt in the United States runs into billions of dollars and is at a national crisis level now. It is because the parents were unable to save for their kids. The most expensive thing to pay for is the house that someday you want to live in that can turn out to be the gigantic debt trap that many are unable to escape from and lose their shirt on it someday. Another thing to worry about is the enormous cost of health care that can bring disaster to any family that is not prepared for it. We get sick or get into an accident. It can happen to anyone anytime but how many people are prepared for such extraordinary expenses all of a sudden? I started out with the topic of credit card so it is fitting that I end with it. I have never wanted to live on credit and never did. I was very lucky that my wife shares my beliefs and tells me that it is a good feeling not to be in debt and sleep well. We never worry about bills and our routine expenses because we prepared ourselves since we got married. Our kids attended the best university and now have very good jobs. We live in our own house that was built with cash. Because we do not like credit card. If the simple plastic card has so much power over you that makes you unhappy then definitely it is not worth it.
Source : Google photo of Johnny Miller's photo of Dharavi slum in Mumbai Synopsis :The vast slums accommodate the poor and the destitute in many countries where they try to make a living to survive. They come from the hinterland where life is hard as farmer so they seek an alternative in cities where they find odd jobs. This inequality exists between the rich and the poor in most countries. This blogs focuses on reasons and the ways to bridge the gap. Someone said that all men are born equal and have the same rights and aspirations as any other. Others say with a smirk that yes but some are more equal than others. Nowhere this is more evident than in the picture above taken by Johnny Miller of Mumbai slum called Dharavi that coexists with the posh development just across the dividing line. Dharavi is the largest slum in India that houses hundreds of thousands of poor people in the financial capital city of India also known as Bollywood that is home to the largest film industry in the world. As you land in Mumbai ( previously known as Bombay) you will fly over the slum just before you touch down because the slum starts just from the perimeter of the airport and extends to the distant horizon. It is vast and is densely packed where not even a ten square foot patch is vacant. It was featured in the movieThe slum dog millionaire ( watch the movie hit song here ) that raised great indignation in India because of the word slum dog but the movie showed the stark reality of the slum dwellers when a kid jumped into the toilet pit and was covered with human feces so that no one would dare touch him.
Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxLSZoFK8EM that raised great indignation in India because of the word slum dog but the movie showed the stark reality of the slum dwellers when a kid jumped into the toilet pit and was covered with human feces so that no one would dare touch him.
Dharavi is like a stinky reminder that the poverty exists side by side with the rich people in the richest city in India and festers like an open wound in otherwise an economically growing nation with the highest rate of GDP growth in the world. People who come to Mumbai with the hope of making a living find it extremely difficult to find shelter although some get odd jobs so they end up in the slums that are practically bursting at seams as they can’t expand any more so can’t take new residents. There are plans to level the Dharavi slum entirely and build low-cost apartments in a very planned way that will include parks, schools, health care facilities and sewer lines etc. to make it a model town where the poor people will live in comfort and security but it only remains a pipe dream so far. Where will these slum dwellers go while their only living space is bulldozed to make way for the new model town? How can anyone even think of moving such a large number of people unless there is an alternative site built for them to move to? In every country you will find this stark inequality that exists side by side with the affluent. You will see the poor and homeless people sleeping in the corners of subway platforms in New York or in the Central Park on cardboards and covering themselves with plastic sheets or rags while just across the streets rise tall skyscrapers where millionaires have their pent houses looking down on the park. You will see this in Cape town and Johannesburg in South Africa where the white people live in fancy suburbs but just across the dividing streets you will see the slums stretching away covering vast areas. Source : Google photo of stark inequality ( Photo taken by Johnny Miller) Source : Google photo of inequality in South Africa ( Photo taken by Johnny Miller) When we were visiting South India , we saw a signboard of an office that says Slum Eradication Office in Chennai. There the local government is keen to show a clean city with modern facilities so comes down hard on slum dwellers who occupy valuable land so they are asked to move on to other parts. I am not sure if the poor are given alternative sites to put up their shanties but we did not see any slums in Chennai . Can any government just move the poor people and not provide them with alternatives ? In the Philippines there are some two million slum dwellers in Manila alone although some people may dispute this figure. What matters is that a very large number of very poor people live in Manila in slums where they survive or try to on very poor wages they earn as menial workers in the city. Dharavi in Mumbai is also like that but with a difference. There they have opened up shops and even small manufacturing shops where they recycle waste plastic and metal cans into plastic wares and metal wares that they sell . One fellow was asked how much money he made from garbage, he answered that on the average he made about 30000 Rupees a month working only part-time. This is more than the salary of a bank manager. So the slum dwellers are not totally destitute because they manage to earn a living somehow but cannot move away to better housing somewhere that is out of their financial reach. Their proximity to the rich neighborhoods gives them the opportunity to get temporary jobs of washing clothes and doing other odd jobs for the rich. Those who are more enterprising make money out of garbage and call it a part-time job. What they do with their other time is anyone’s guess . The crime thrives in the slums in any country because it is quite profitable. You can intimidate the people with threats of violence to gain some advantage easily but I was told that a sort of social justice prevails even in the densely packed slum of Dharavi where the policemen do not dare to show their faces. The failed poor housing projects in New York or Detroit where the government has built huge ugly monolithic tenements are a testament to the waste of money to house the poor. It has failed because the tenements are shoddily built and not maintained so you will see the broken window panes covered with plastic sheet, broken elevators and stairs strewn with garbage. Crime festers there and people are afraid to live there but have no other choice. The question to ask here is why in a seemingly fast developing country like India or South Africa, there are such inequalities and what can the government do about meeting the aspirations of the very poor ? The development of any country that is not inclusive means little unless the poor are uplifted from their miserable life. I have heard that the Government of India is promising to house everybody by 2022 but it remains to be seen if such a bold statement is backed up by the progress on the ground. The scale of the problem is staggering to say the least. It will cost billions of dollars to build even very modest homes for the poor because the land cost alone is very high near any big metropolis . The cost of the development of the land, building roads, sewer lines, water lines and bringing electricity etc. that a functional township requires is very high and the rate of return is very low so the businessmen in the private sector are not interested. They develop fancy suburbs for the rich middle class but not for the poor so the task of taking care of the poor falls on the government that has to find money to do so through taxation or other means. It is proven that the poor also contribute to the development of the country by paying taxes and by being self-reliant. They do not seek government jobs or in the private sector because most of them are self-employed. I now want to see what China has done to uplift the poor . As we all know , China has now become the manufactory of the world because of the emphasis on being self-reliant and making exported goods their main source of income. They have succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination thus creating jobs for the millions there. I think the job creation is the key that provides people decent wages to live on but they also built huge housing facilities for the factory workers in every city so you will not see the kind of slums that exist elsewhere in the world. No one really wants to live in a slum and be called a slum dog. Life is precarious there and crime festers like an open sore. Poor people have the same aspirations as anyone else and want to live in a clean apartment with water, electricity and healthy living environment. The children would love to play in a park where everyone can breathe fresh air. China has lifted some 350 million poor people out of their poverty and continues to improve the lives of the rest making it a good example of what a determined government can do and achieve. Other countries can learn from China and apply these lessons at home. The figure of 350 million can be disputed by some but the fact remains that the poor are living in better conditions now than ever before. The inequality in any society in any country will always exist due to the socio economic stratification that favors one stratum over the others so the poor people will not just disappear in populous countries but significant improvement of their lives can be made if the government is determined like in China. The other part of this uplift comes from land reform that many countries have tried but only a few like Cuba have succeeded. If the poor people are given their own land to cultivate then they become self-sufficient and even sell their excess produce to make money. They will not leave the countryside to move to slums of cities if they are given the chance to cultivate their own land so the land reform is a must. In many countries, the prime agricultural lands are owned by the rich people who then make use of sharecroppers to cultivate it and make profits. The rich cannot dirty their hands to they depend on the sharecroppers to do it for them but the poor farmers remain poor as they have no incentive to work hard for the rich landlords. The land lords who always show up at the harvest time to collect their more than fair share of the farm income are apathetic to the plight of the farmers and often eject them if they fail to give them a good income. The sharecroppers are no fools so they too devise ways not to pay back their land lords the agreed upon share by saying that the crops have not done well or there was no rainfall and the insects ate the rest etc. But this changes when they become the owners of their land. The good example is the state of agriculture in the old Soviet Union where the collective farms were the practice where the state managed the agriculture through directives but the farm workers had no incentive to work hard to make the land productive. There was wastage, inefficiency in production and storage , in distribution and in generating income for the poor. This changed dramatically when the old system was replaced by the new Soviet Russia where the farms are now being cultivated by the farmers and are making good use of the land. No one wants to go back to those collective farms. But it took Cuba a revolution to chase out all the rich land owners and redistribute the land to the poor farmers that irked the Americans who had been exploiting Cuban riches and were now deprived of it so they made trade embargo that continues even today. However, Cuba has survived and has become self-sufficient in food , has generated employment for the farm workers who do not flock to cities to create slums like they do in other countries. They also have the highest literacy rate in the world, the best healthcare system in the world and have become a progressive country not depending on IMF hand outs so a country like Cuba can only go up and not down. China also had a revolution in which millions perished in wars, millions died of famine due to wars that they eventually won and started on the path of development that has not stopped in spite of threats and sanctions. The vast majority of poor people come from the countryside in any country. They move to cities because they can’t make a decent living in the rural areas. The inequality that is seen in the slums of Dharavi or in Manila continues because these poor people can’t go back to their rural homes where the life is hard and very difficult so they seek jobs in cities to survive. I believe that as the countries develop agriculturally, industrially and the infrastructure, they create more and more jobs for the poor so a day may come when the poor people of this world will be uplifted to become the middle class because we have seen this happening in China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. This will reduce the inequality to a great extent although may not eliminate it altogether. What do the poor of this world have to do to survive in the meantime ? They move to slums where they have a fighting chance to live and be self-employed. Never mind if they are called the slum dogs.
Source : Google photo of a Muslim hakim Synopsis :The escalating cost of healthcare in many countries is hurting the poor people the most because they do not have the medical insurance and do not have the money to pay for the hospital care so die needlessly of common treatable diseases. The hakims and the traditional herbal doctors do a real service to the humanity where they are allowed to practice without prejudice and mistrust. Without them many people would die so this blog is about the plight of the poor people.
Recently I was bitten by a worm in my hand that came from the chicken poop in our garden where I was digging and cleaning. I saw a stray chicken and its brood that had somehow come into our garden but could not escape so I opened the gate and let it escape to its great relief. It probably thought that it may end up in a cooking pot somehow so was desperate to go out , gave a frightened sound and hurried past me to safety . The little ones did not need any prodding so also quickly followed the hen. But the hen did a terrible mischief before leaving because while pecking for worms and things to eat , it also dropped its poop carrying the hook worms that found its way into my hand and quickly disappeared under the skin. I often marvel at the nature of self preservation that the little worm was capable of because it was very sensitive to human temperature and could sense that I was nearby so wasted no time to enter my skin where it started making no end of trouble for me right away . Now a hook worm ( 1) by its very nature is a mean character and it only has procreation on its mind so it found the host in me and started immediately to burrow deep under the skin of my hand and released some dreadful chemical that make it very itchy and began to swell. Now I am no new comer to this dreadful experience because it had happened to me years ago while I was working in Mali , West Africa where a distant relative of this hen was just as naughty and good in making mischief so pooped all over my garden there that I happened to be working in and accidentally came in contact with the hook worm that was eager to find a host in me. The terrible itch and the swelling was just the same so I drove fast to the nearest pharmacy and found Mintezol tablets that I bought over the counter and swallowed one right away. It worked miracles because the itch stopped and the worm was killed so my finger was back to normal in a week or so. Now if you live in Africa especially in rural areas, you may come in contact with hook worms or even Guinea worms ( 2) that can cause tremendous swelling of the legs called elephantiasis which is a dreadful disease. There are other dangers from mosquitoes and tse tse flies and the larvae in the rivers and lakes that can cause blindness in people but with normal precautions, one can survive in Africa anywhere or so I thought. I never suspected a stupid chicken to have such malicious intent so one must not judge them by their beautiful and colorful feathers because these birds are mean and are capable of causing grief as I learned first hand. The Africans are quite casual about it and know that a tablet of Mintezol will clear up the matter in no time so I got this piece of wonderful advice from them while they were sipping their horrible tea under the mango trees. That was some 40 years ago so the incident slipped out of my mind but what you know? These stupid chickens must be related maybe like cousins thrice removed and had to come into my garden of all places to make trouble. Now let me explain what I had to go through in the last seven days or so. The first doctor I went to see told me that she had never seen anything like this and did not know what to do so she sent me home and charged me 10 US dollars for doing nothing. You have to pay for their precious time you know. So I went to see another doctor some 30 kms away where after two visits and waiting , I was received by a doctor who claimed to be a surgeon but said that he could do nothing and sent me to a dermatologist who by the way sits only once a week and was not available. He also laughed at my explanation that I had been bitten by a worm and showed clear disbelief. So after burning a lot of gas and two trips in two days, I was no where near any solution. The gasoline costs one dollar /liter now and my car is a gas guzzler so that did not help either. I was just eager to find someone who could take care of this worm that was making so much trouble for me and was having a good time doing it but today luckily I found a young dermatologist who seemed more competent than others so she prescribed some ointment and other tablets so hopefully this problem will be resolved soon. By this time I had spent over one hundred US dollars equivalent. But I must back track a bit here and tell you that google told me that several medicines that are generic in nature are available and cost only 2 cents a piece. Armed with this useful information my sweet wife went to the pharmacy where she was told that no such medicines can be sold without a doctor's prescription meaning you have to pay their hefty consultation fee and wait for several hours like refugees in front of their clinic . She is quite a fighter and said that these are over the counter medicines and we have done our homework so finally she was given four tablets at a hundred times the retail price but that is the racket here. Then we went to another hospital on campus where we were flatly refused any help because it was exclusively for the students and the staff of the University here so we went to another hospital emergency ward where we were told that it is not an emergency so they can't help either . The nasty worm was causing havoc under my skin and it was not an emergency? What could be more urgent? By this time we were quite irritated and looked for other alternatives. So the Africans were far better in helping but they are called primitive and all kinds of names by those who have never been to Africa and do not know if Mali is the name of a breed of cow or a donkey. People are very illiterate here when it comes to geography and cultures of other people. Anyway this is what prompted me to write this blog to show the state of health care here in the Philippines where the doctors show contempt for their patients who have traveled all over the world and have previous experience like I had. They also make you wait for hours and never apologize when they are 3 hours late because they feel that their time is more precious than yours so you have to wait. When I was just a kid, I had a cut in my ankle that got infected because of the dirty grease of my bicycle chain so it oozed pus and was very painful for me to walk so my father brought me to a hakim. The hakims are Muslim traditional doctors who have been trained over centuries in traditional hakim schools so they are really good. Now I will tell you how good they are. This hakim was an old man with white flowing hair and beard and looked like a saint of some sort. He received me right away and took a very sharp surgeon's knife and cut off all the dead tissues around my wound and made it bleed. Then he washed it with soap and scrubbed it until I felt pain. He then made an ointment himself using the ingredients that only the hakims know and put it on my wound and sent me home. The nasty wound began to heal almost right away and cleared up completely within one week. For all his effort and care plus the ointment, my father paid him one dollar or its equivalent in Rupees . The health care costs in some countries are skyrocketing beyond belief so the poor people who can't afford so high cost of medicines and doctor's fees suffer the most. It is common news that most of them die of illnesses that are quite treatable but can't afford the cost. The national health insurance which is free for people over 70 does not cover more than 20 percent of the cost of hospital care that can run into thousands of dollars so where they will find the rest of the money? This is a very serious issue here. I have heard horror stories in the United States where a woman had to give birth in the parking lot in front of a hospital that refused her admission because she did not have insurance and another hospital charged 10000 US dollars for a band aid. I don't know why someone would go to a hospital for a band aid but this made news in the internet. The traditional doctors like the hakims are not allowed to practice in many countries but thankfully India is not one of them. They also do not allow the homeopathic doctors to practice here either who can cure all sorts of illnesses at a very low cost . The mafia of doctors is behind all these rules and regulations and are now requiring the pharmacies to not sell even non prescription drugs meaning you have to go to a doctor, wait for several hours and pay a very high fee just to get a prescription for over the counter medicines. Clearly there is something very wrong here. The extremely high cost of medicines is another reason why so many people suffer needlessly but the doctors who prescribe such medicines are given free tickets to enjoy short vacations in Singapore and Hong Kong by the drug companies that have a total monopoly on imported drugs. Some doctors have created monopoly for certain treatment and will not allow the importation of equipment by others for the treatment like lithotripsy so that they can charge enormous fees. The escalating health care costs all over the world hurts the poor the most but the people are not given cheaper alternatives like the hakims and homeopathy doctors in many countries because of the pressure from the allopathy doctors who claim that their education and training makes them better doctors . There was a scene in the Godfather movie where an old mafia man who was sick in Havana refused to be treated by the Cuban doctor because he did not trust any doctor who could not speak English. This sort of prejudice is quite widespread in the United States but also happens in many other countries. Now let me tell you about the health care system in Mexico . We were once visiting Mexico for our annual vacation when our son who was then only 4 years old fell from a swing and fractured his elbow bone. Within a few minutes a social worker appeared at the park and asked us how she could help. She was fluent in English. She then called the Red cross hospital right away that sent an ambulance right away but we were not allowed to go with them so we took a taxi and arrived at the gleaming modern hospital. There a doctor appeared quickly and asked us many questions about the health, family history of illnesses etc. and sent our son to be X rayed immediately. The X ray showed clear fracture that needed immediate surgery but he said that he could patch him up temporarily so that we could go back to the US for further hospital care. We said that we trust the doctors at this wonderful hospital and hope they will fix our son up so he was taken to the operation room right away and they joined his broken bone properly with steel pins and made a plaster cast to hold it in place. He was just a child in a strange country and where no one spoke English so it must have been traumatic for him to be alone there because we were not allowed to stay with him so we visited him everyday to comfort him. A beautiful Mexican girl who had an automobile accident was also recuperating there so she made friends with our son and comforted him in her broken English. After a few days we brought him back to our hotel but our surprise was complete when the hospital did not charge us anything for all the cost and even gave us the X ray plates that normally they keep in their care. We could not believe it . This could not have happened in any other country with Cuba as an exception. We donated about 60 dollars to the hospital that the insurance company in the United States refused to pay but it did not matter. What mattered was that he was given the best medical care by expert surgeons and did so with a smile very promptly. The traditional doctors in Africa, the hakims in India and many Muslim countries, the herbalists in Latin America, the faith healers of Colombia, the traditional Chinese medicine men all help the poor of this world because they believe in the oath they take to heal people with the best of their ability and at a minimal cost. The doctors here also are required to take the Hippocrates oath but they do not believe in it and surely they do not practice it. I miss the old hakim and still recall his kind face after all these years. Hippocratic oath: I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. Note : (1) Hookworm infection. Hookworms have infected some 428 million people in 2015. (Wikipedia) Apparently, they could be resistant to the immune system, since there are cases where the same patient contracted it again. (induction of the translator) (2) The parasite Dracunculus medinensis. (Wikipedia)
Values and patriotism Source : Google photo Synopsis : A country is known for its core values that its leaders are expected to adhere to because these values define the people who choose their government in a free and fair election. Where the people fail to choose wisely, the consequences can be catastrophic for them and they suffer. I refuse to watch TV programs where transvestites in miniskirts, fake hair and painted lips make jokes at the expense of others and use vulgar language to entertain the audience. Often they do not stick to the time allotted to them by the television channel and go over time because they think they are entertaining the audience that wants them to continue. When the camera focuses on the audience, you will notice that they are mostly the uneducated people with missing teeth and wearing hand me down clothes or what they call ukay ukay here and who wait for hours outside to get a seat in the auditorium. I call them the grass root people ( GRP )who comprise the vast majority of the population in this country whom the transvestites entertain in hour long programs every day. Beyond the studio, there are millions of GRPs who avidly watch these shows and flock to movie houses to watch the comedy movies of the transvestites because they want to be entertained and laugh to momentarily forget their pitiful existence and daily struggle for life. These shows are sponsored by the business people who want to advertise their products every five minutes of the show selling soap and shampoo or skin whitening products. This saturation advertisement seven days a week, hundreds of time a day gets its desired result and their sales go up. They reap a windfall of profit so they sponsor these mindless TV programs to influence the vast audience that go out and buy their products in small sachets because the GRPs cannot afford to buy the full bottles. What is remarkable is that they almost never discuss anything that matters to the people, the country and to the future because their sole emphasis is on cheap entertainment. They do not know nor do they care about the issues that the cheap talking and baby kissing politicians claim as their reasons for running for the public office who make a lot of fake promises to uplift the country and help the poor out of their vicious poverty. The GRP voters do not ask serious questions about the country and its future so there is no debate and the goons surrounding the politicians make sure that there are no trouble makers in the crowd who ask embarrassing questions. The crowd often demands the politicians to dance and sing for them so a presidential candidate dances and sings to entertain the crowd. This is televised nationally. So I ask myself what is wrong with this scenario where the uneducated masses are more concerned about the entertainment and less about the country, its problems and the ways to overcome them. They also know from their experience that the politicians always lie and make fake promises which they soon forget when they get elected. I ask why the vast majority of the uneducated population does not care about the country, its lack of progress and why the millions of poor people remain poor decade after decade and why there are no mass movements to raise their consciousness about the issues they should be concerned with. They vote often in rigged elections where they take money or food from the candidates for their vote and curse when they receive money or food below their expectation. Is this how a democracy works or should work where the voters do not participate in the nation building? They are the same kind of people who elected a rogue president in another so called democracy who thinks he is above any law and does whatever he likes. I was watching the U tube videos lately to learn what it means to be a responsible citizen and how to participate in the nation building. The speakers at mass rallies to energize the youth to make them better citizens in India were retired army generals, intellectuals and religious leaders who organize such camps where thousands of young boys and girls from all over the country are gathered to learn from the soldiers what it means to be patriotic, what they have sacrificed to make the country safe and what are the core values of a nation. I wish I could include here a few links to such videos but unfortunately they are all in Hindi that my international readers will not understand so I will just write about it. The core values of a nation define that nation. Its army represents its core values and respects the flag. The soldiers who sacrifice their lives in wars so that we can remain free come from the masses and do not hesitate to face the dangers of combat because they believe in the country that needs their help in defeating the enemy. Many die; some are gravely injured so they can never live a normal life while others come back from the battle field to tell their dangerous stories and the bravery of the soldiers. If the nation abandons its core values of fair justice and equal treatment of all, its humanitarian work through the UN mission to make and maintain peace somewhere, its aid to development work in poorer countries, its aid to refugees and willingness to take in refugees who only seek a safe life somewhere, its willingness to give asylum to those who seek it for security and political reasons then that nation isolates itself from the world community in the name of political expediency like what is now happening in America and in some countries of Europe. This core value of caring , sharing and giving aid to those in need comes from the mass consciousness of its people who believe in those values and contribute to those values even if they can’t afford. They are the recruits who join the army to fight for the country when the country needs them. In return they get nothing more than a cheap coffin and their names etched in stone somewhere that people soon forget. Often this kind of patriotism that propels them to join the army gets them to a war in other countries because of their faith in their commanders who tell them that fighting the enemy in their own country is better than fighting them on the homeland soil so they went to Germany to fight the Nazis and Guadalcanal to fight the Japanese and defeated them. But when this sense of patriotism is betrayed by their own government, they lose heart in fighting in a country when that country had never attacked them. Then they start asking questions like why we are here and why we are fighting and killing people who meant no harm to us. They asked why they were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan that had never attacked them and why they are still fighting in the Middle East. So the core values of a country and its people is like a moral compass that tell them to do what is right and fight what is wrong and do it voluntarily but not under forced conscription and false premises like during the Vietnam War. But a country is run by the politicians who get elected fairly or unfairly and assume the role of leaders in a democratic society where they decide or fail to decide what is good for the country. People seldom play a role in such decisions so a president decides to drop an atom bomb on innocent men, women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that kills hundreds of thousands and maims more for life but he is not accountable to anyone or any court of law, local or international. When the citizen’s role in nation building is only limited to casting their votes in a rigged election to elect corrupt politicians and where the elected politicians show only contempt for the voters because they feel so powerful once elected, the country loses its heart and soul because it loses the opportunity in their elected officials who are supposed to be accountable to uphold all that are a part of their core values. People say that the scum always floats to the top so this is also applicable in any society where the bad people get to the top and become corrupt to enrich themselves at the expense of tax payers because they feel omnipotent and do whatever they want and not what the country wants. In such countries the aspirations of people are set aside and their core values are trampled upon. The politicians play one group against the other to their advantage keeping an eye on the next election. The baby kissing and dancing or singing to please the uneducated voters just to get their votes is a small price to pay to get to the top where some become immensely rich and make their friends and relatives rich. Believe it or not, there were elections in Haiti, Congo and in Iran where the voters were required to put their names on the ballot counterfoil to show who they voted for so they voted out of fear and not out of sympathy for a certain candidate. In other countries there are purges of voter’s names from the voter’s list if they are known to support and were going to vote for a good candidate and not for a corrupt and brutal man. In Asia, it is a common practice to eliminate the opposition by killing the candidate just before or during the election so that a corrupt politician wins because it is hard to pinpoint the mastermind who covers his trail well. The young generation that comes of age to vote can then make a difference in electing a government that represents them and represents their values. Do not forget that it was mostly the young people of America who protested in the streets all over the country to end the war in Vietnam in the 1970s that put pressure on the government to leave Vietnam and bring the war to a close. Do not forget that it was the young who marched in a nationwide protest in France that brought pressure on De Gaulle to end the war in Algeria. Source : Google photo of Netaji Bose and the Indian national Army (INA) Do not forget that 65000 young soldiers of the British Army in India joined the Indian National Army of Bose that forced England out of its colony. They were very young soldiers who believed that fighting their oppressors was the right thing to do because it was a part of their core value of fighting injustice wherever and whenever possible. So young people who are idealistic and are carriers of their core values to the next generation can and do make a difference when their core values are threatened by anyone like they did in France or the United States. When they knew that they had to go to Europe to stop the Nazis, they went gladly although thousands did not return to tell their tales to their children or grandchildren. General Patton once addressing his troops in Europe exhorted them by saying “ It is not your patriotic duty to die for your country because there is no glory in it. It is all crap. You should make your enemy die for his country. You should go through them like shit goes through goose.” Patton never minced his words and was known for his straight talk and colorful language. During his time the patriotism was so defined but later this sense of patriotism declined during the Vietnam war because young people started to question the wisdom of those who said that we should go and defeat the commies because they are the enemies. So when a country wanders away from its core values, the young often are the ones who start questioning and take to the streets to protest. Young Jane Fonda had the courage to go to Hanoi to stand with the Vietnamese against the war that angered her Hollywood famous actor father who was a strong supporter of the war. Source : Google photo of Jane Fonda Source: Google photo of Joan Baez, the folk singer and activist Source : Google photo of Bob Dylan, folk singer
Jane Fonda was also constantly harassed by the FBI and the war hawks who called her names but she had the courage to stand up to them all and later proved that she was right all along. She also had tremendous influence on the young generation that came out in very large numbers to protest. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and many others were also the inspirations to many in the antiwar movement. John Lennon’sImagine ( listen here)is still sung by millions because it is such a beautiful song.
The core value I am writing about are moral and humane that are just the opposite of those values that are espoused by the dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mobuto or Duvalier who have all been relegated to the dustbin of history because their values were immoral, inhuman and opportunistic to serve their own ambitions. So I was very impressed by the straight talk of General Bakshi in India who said that “we the soldiers who have fought to keep the country safe are now old and will pass on the torch to you ,the young generation who will someday become someone important to lead the nation in a just and moral way and honor the core values of the nation”. The crowd of young boys and girls who had gathered there from all over India went wild and cheered him with standing ovation that brought tears to the General’s eyes. It also made me feel proud to be a part of a country that has produced such generals. In conclusion I can say that a country cannot develop and make progress unless its citizens believe in core values of morality, justice for all, fair and equal treatment of all irrespective of caste, color and race or ethnicity, in inclusive growth for all and not just to serve the elites, in food, shelter and clothing for all at a cost they can afford, universal healthcare and old age pension, care for the old, sick and orphans etc. so my list is long. However, the most important thing to remember is to awaken the common people especially the young generation and remind them that they all have a role to play in shaping their country so they should not just be spectators but rather take a participatory role in the development of their country. They can’t do it by just asking the politicians to sing and dance to entertain them. Leave that to the transvestites who are good at it. Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links : tumblr posts Blogs in French Blogs in Spanish Blogs in German Blogs in Japanese Anil's biography in Japanese Anil's biography in French. Anil's biography in English. Anil's biography in Spanish. Anil's biography in German
