A country called Mali

Source : Google photo of Timbuctoo in Mali today.

Synopsis : Each country I have visited or lived in during my long years of working in rural development is unique so Mali is also unique but its people are so mired in poverty and hopelessness that touches your heart. They are just like other poor people who aspire for a better life but their dreams are left unfulfilled. Centuries ago they had a glorious reputation as a centre of education and trade in Timbuctoo but can any people live on their past no matter how glorious?

 

Imagine a country 2 times the size of France with a population of only 19 million that is only 1/4th of the population of France . Imagine a country that is vast in area of 1.2 million sq. kms but most of it is desert where only the hardiest of nomads eke out a pitiful living by herding their goats and cows. Imagine a country so mired in poverty and poor infrastructure that boggles the mind. It is called Mali that most people in the world do not pay much attention to let alone find it on the map.

Source : Map of Mali

But one day I was invited to work there as an agronomist so I packed my bags and arrived at the airport of Bamako with my young wife , a baby boy and a newly born daughter in the blazing heat of summer and tried to shield our children from the heat to save them from dehydration.

The airport was a bleak place with very few people so it had a deserted look apart from its shabby and dusty arrival area where a bored policeman stamped our passport with indifference and probably wondered why anyone would ever bother to come here  because the country was such a desolate place full of poverty, disease and corruption.

We were driven to the huge monster of a hotel near the Niger river called Amitie hotel where the elevator was wrapped in boa skins. This is where the foreigners stayed because the other hotels were quite substandard so they paid the high price. The air conditioner brought relief  from the oppressive heat outside but there was not much to see outside anyway. The river looked inviting because it looked cool and green but we learned soon that bathing in the river was full of danger because its water carried the larvae of the deadly insect that caused a disease called bilharzia or river blindness. The larvae would enter your body and end up in your eyes causing blindness. Later I saw people with this disease that gave me shivers but the worse was yet to come.

Behind the hotel some weavers are found squatting in dirt weaving colorful strips of cotton cloth on a homemade loom made of bicycle spindle and ropes so they could only weave a 4 inch wide strip that they would later join together to make a wider piece of fabric. I would see later a variety of handicraft that are crudely made but were bought by the foreigners who saw originality in the crudity of Mali.

If you wander toward the downtown, you will be assailed by the stench of garbage and the gutters full of sewage but the Malian tourist brochure calls Bamako a dainty town. You will see huge Malian women in colorful but shapeless gowns that fail to hide their goiters. The urchins gather around the only small store where the foreigners can buy imported chocolate or ice cream among other things but you soon learn to ignore their out stretched hands. The mostly French made vehicles on the streets are driven mostly by the foreigners to remind you that Mali was a colony of France not too long ago and still remains firmly under their influence.

You will be surprised by the number of vehicles driven by numerous foreign NGOs with their insignia stickers on the side of the vehicles. Later you will meet some of them and learn about what they really do in Mali. They gather in a few restaurants like Trois caimans and Lido outside the city because eating street food is risky for those who may have weak stomach or a dislike for tasteless mashed cassava or sorghum paste that seems to be the mainstay of the Malian diet along with dried and smoked catfish that gives out a strong stench in all directions.

I was new here but soon noticed something that made me think of something sinister in the offing in this God forsaken country. It was when I saw a fanatic Muslim shouting insults and curses on a shop owner who was selling beer. No one paid him any attention but it made me think that it could be the start of something very bad that was to happen sometime in the future. I will get to that later in this blog.

Then you head off toward Sikasso which lies some 400 kms to South East  but the road is drivable because there are very few vehicles on the road. The only sizable town midway to Sikasso is Bougouni where you may stop to eat in a shabby restaurant full of flies run by some Lebanese fellow who offers a menu of very limited choice but an audience full of children in rags who stretch out their hands to you in supplication.Their  unwashed faces full of flies that they try to get away from with very little success show the extent of poverty in Mali that you soon start getting used to. The women in colorful gowns and goiter are not too far behind who can be seen squatting in the shades of trees to escape the brutal heat but not the flies.

Source : Google photo of Fulani woman with huge gold ornament hung with rope

Along the street you will find small markets where the Fulani women and others sit on the dirt with whatever they have to sell. The Fulani women wear huge gold earrings that they hold with strings tied to their head because gold is heavy. You will be surprised at this display of gold in a country so poor but then you are probably unaware of the history and natural resources of Mali so I will tell you.

The Fulanis are the nomads I mentioned above who own cattle, sheep and goats. They move around a lot with their herd searching always for green grass and water for their animals so they make  temporary shelters outside the villages. They sell the milk and the butter and sometimes the goat and sheep for meat. They save their money and buy gold ornaments for the women and also buy necklaces made of amber. They do not believe in banks so carry all their wealth on them as they are nomads.

Source : Google photo of Fulani woman with amber and gold jewelries

The other Malians are sedentary so they live in small clusters of villages made of round or square mud houses with thatch roof that may be quite far from each other and quite remote. I was to find out how remote later on but we saw some such villages along the main and only highway going South East to Sikasso where I was supposed to stay and work.

One thing you notice right away as you leave the outskirts of the capital is that there are no roads away from the main highway so there are only dirt roads to their villages that are nearly impassable whenever it rains. Their primitive villages do not have water, electricity. roads and primary schools or healthcare centers but always have a mosque where the Mullahs run Koranic schools for the kids because most Malians are Muslims.

Source : Google photo of a villager spinning cotton thread near his grain storage bin

You will not see neatly planted farms from the  road but you will see the endless wilderness of small shrubs and acres of termite mounds called toad stools. There are no massive farms because farming is strictly done by hand although some farmers have ploughs pulled by bullocks. The farmers grow cotton, corn ,sorghum, peanuts and some rice in some lowlands so corn and sorghum is their main food source. The protein comes from occasional smoked dry fish or chicken.They wear home spun rough cotton clothes while women go bare breasted in villages wearing only a sarong to cover lower parts.

Long ago Mali was a country in the cross routes of sub Saharan trade that passed through Timbuctoo in the north that became famous for its university that flourished centuries ago . It became a rich trading center bringing in goods from many countries as well as scholars who studied at the university. Its library was rich in books , scrolls, documents and ancient manuscripts some of which still exist but in sad state of tatter in decrepit shelves . Timbuctoo has lost its glamour and its place as the center of education but some trade still goes on as before. You can still see the salt laden camel caravans that stop there.

Source : Google photo of the Touaregs in the Hoggar mountains of Algeria 

North of Timbuctoo, you will come to the southern border of Algeria full of Hoggar mountains where the Touareg nomads live in Tamanrasset and in the region between Mali and Algeria. They are like the Fulani nomads with a stark difference. There is a violent streak in them that breeds Islamic fundamentalism that is now spreading in southern Algeria and Mali that threatens the whole region with bloodshed and terrorism. The cursing Islamist in Bamako I mentioned earlier was just the start of this movement that later would claim thousands of lives.

It is said that harsher the living conditions, the more ruthless the jihadists become in their zeal to spread their brand of Islam using violence and sheer terror so Mali became an ideal battleground given the very harsh living conditions up north. The Niger river flows up there in a curve and passes through Niger in the East that provides them some fish and a river transport route but little else. The fish they find there are dried and smoked for easier transport to other parts of the country.

Mali is called resource poor although some gold deposits are found in some parts. The Fulani women carry more gold on  them than anyone else I know in the world although the workmanship remains poor at best. Where they find so much amber is not known. The Fulanis protect their women and their herd of animals with guns.

The southern part is endemic to malaria so people suffer and die needlessly because there is a cure for malaria . I mentioned bilharzia and goiter problems but there are many other types of ailments that come from poor nutrition , lack of basic health care in rural areas and non existent roads and culverts that prevent government services to reach remote areas. People die of cuts, bruises or goring by animals because they get infected and cannot bring them to a hospital that is far away. There are no ambulance services because of bad roads.

Mali is ruled by an authoritarian government that is ineffective in ruling the whole country given its vast size and the shortage of funds to develop the country. Whatever development you see is often the result of poor planning, poor implementation and poor administration . Often the Europeans pass on to them their obsolete technologies like in telecommunications that are costly to maintain for a very poor country like Mali. Then there is corruption that comes in many forms.

One form of corruption I knew personally was that of the so called educated class that believed that they had the answer to all the problems in their country if only they had the resources. Their arrogance had no upper limit but they lacked substance to their claim of being the educated elite. Their fault could be traced to their education system in a country of illiterates that ill prepared them to tackle the problems but you will never find someone to admit it.

Once a year they all gathered to discuss the problems of their country in some fancy air conditioned hotel in Bamako where they made long arduous speeches and proposed endless resolutions to solve all problems, passed them ceremonially and considered their job done. It did not matter to them that the previous resolutions passed had never been implemented. They appeared  in their embroidered boubous for the ceremony that was purely farcical in nature but repeated every year. They could have 5 hours of meeting to make speeches but there was no substance or concrete solution to anything so the country remained undeveloped, poor and destitute. I called it the intellectual corruption that had few equals.

In the meantime the jihadists made steady inroads in the countryside where they killed villagers at will who only wanted to be left alone so the French government finally sent some military help to crush the terrorists who then disappeared like mist only to reappear somewhere else. They knew that the Europeans will not stay long but they were there to stay to create more trouble. Their counterparts elsewhere like the Boko Haram, ISIS affiliates or others were sucking the blood of simple people in order to force upon them their harsh ideologies.

There were others who were also determined to bring the heathens to their brand of  religion. They are called the Christian missionaries who penetrated the remotest parts of Mali to spread their religion who were known for their perseverance.

I was a mute witness to their insidious effort to change the country, their culture, their belief system and even their clothes. They counted their progress by the number of people they converted and in terms of the degree of spirituality in their dirt poor subject but nothing else.

Source : Google photo of Dogon dancers

There is a fascination in the French speaking part of Europe for the Malian music, their  crude handicraft, the tribal dance in Dogon country, their black magic and their pagan rituals. It brings them some tourists who take some photos  to show back home how primitive but colorful these poor people of Mali are but it brings no improvement  in their lives so they remain dirt poor and backward.

Source : Google photo of Malian handicraft

This story of Mali is repeated elsewhere in many African countries that share the same misery with Mali that brings them nowhere near any solution to their problems. The NGOs collect massive amount of data on almost any subject but fail to make useful contributions to solve the Malian problems. Other projects come and go but leave no trace of anything useful they have ever done but the consultants keep coming with new project proposals that bring in more foreigners, more vehicles and more meetings they call brainstorming sessions but the Malian brains can not be stormed so easily.

The people of Mali are poor and destitute but they too have aspirations and they too have hopes of a better life but who will bring to them a brighter future? Who will get them out of the swamp of poverty they are mired in ? Who will one day bring roads and basic services to their remote villages? There are no answers.

Please also read the chapter 8 called Abject poverty of Mali, West Africa in my autobiography below to learn more about Mali.

 

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.com

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu

 

 

 

What it all means ?

Source : Google photo

Synopsis : What is the purpose of our life and what it really means to us and to others are eternal questions that we always ask and most do not get a definite answer. The blog looks at the purpose of our existence and how we can do something for others that helps them in their predicament in a positive manner.

 

At some point in our lives we often start to think about what our life has meant to others and in what way positive or negative have we been able to make an impact on others but mostly on ourselves. Most people do not believe in reincarnation of souls but those who do like the Hindus think that our life has a purpose and we have come to this world to fulfill  predestined roles whatever they may be.

We are all born on an equal footing or so it seems at first but soon it becomes apparent that we are not born equal so we do not get to enjoy the same rights as others because of the race we are born in , the skin color , our ethnicity or even religion so each of these factors play an important role in how we are treated by others or how we are perceived. Because after all we are the products of our culture that is strongly influenced by the set of beliefs that are imposed on us as soon we learn to walk and talk by our elders.

The belief system is imposed on us when we are children and do not have our own idea on what our life and our belief system should be so we depend on our elders who tell us that they know better so we must listen to them, go to church or mosque with them and must obey the tenets of their belief system that is based on some strict interpretations of their Bible or Quran or Geeta . They tell us that we are born into a set of belief that are unshakable so some people are known to go to extreme length to make sure that you obey those beliefs and act accordingly . The ISIS terrorists are an extreme example but the pressure comes from every religion to conform one way or the other so the child complies. Only the atheists and the humanist escape this pressure.

He depends on his elders so he has no choice but to comply up to a certain point when he becomes an adult when he start to think according to his own wishes that may be different from his family or the community where he lives. The rebel kids gave rise to their hippy culture who later joined the Hare Krishna Movement that has now become a worldwide phenomenon that the common people are also joining.

Leaving aside the set of beliefs that originate from religions, the common man also asks the purpose of his life and what role he should play in it and in what way. It is a very basic question that confronts all of us at a certain phase of our life to which some of us seek answers. We go to those who can tell us but many turn out as charlatans who are out to take advantage of gullible and exploit your wealth, time and energy so in the end you get disillusioned and come back to square one.

There are very few people who can give you the answers you seek so it is hard to find them. The so called spiritual gurus turn out to be fake and who run sex rackets to exploit the innocent while others are into massive scams using religion as a front. They are found every where wearing the cloak of respectability until they are exposed and punished. One can ask the questions to his teachers but rarely they will be able to answer you outside of their classroom teachings so what can a person do and where can he go to seek answers? ( read my blog The fake gurus here )

He may start with his parents . If they are educated and liberal, they may influence you to turn in a certain direction in your life that helps you realize your potential but if they are the fundamentalists, they may not be of much help other than pushing their beliefs on you whatever they may be.

A child needs direction in his or her life and that direction normally comes from parents in a normal situation but what if you do not live in a normal situation in a peaceful country ? What if you live in a country going through war and cataclysmic changes that make you suffer deprivations and a very stressful life like in war torn countries where you become orphans and carry the heavy load on your young shoulders to care for your siblings any way you can just to survive? In such cases the child grows up without the parental protection and guidance so he can end up to become a bad person without any empathy for anyone and where his own survival becomes paramount at a cost to others.

Children from broken families who grow up without love and emotional shelters find it easier to find the company of their own kind so they  end up literally destroying their lives with drugs and crime involving others. Many serial killers are made this way or big time criminals who have no feelings for others so they act out in revenge for what has happened to them as children through no fault of their own.

Many people in our written history have taken upon themselves the task of changing their own destiny and that of their countrymen by taking command of their people and have guided them out of their predicaments through revolution. I call them the extraordinary people with extraordinary vision for the future of their people who have liberated their people through violent struggle when no other means were available to them. Others have tried and failed but are known for their struggle so they are honored.

They are the leaders who are not born everyday. Some people grow up with a strong sense of right and wrong and are willing to sacrifice themselves to do what is right but most people are not that way and will not go to make the sacrifice so they are called the followers. They will often blindly put their faith in some one who is a charismatic leader of great oratory skills and follow him or her to do their bidding. The Germans followed Hitler with blind devotion and we all know what happened to them. The Japanese people put their faith in Tojo and we also know what happened to them. Rarely such blind faith has rewarded them with a better life and prosperity.

The common people are like sheep in a huge herd that follows a leader because they find it easier if someone tells them which way to go  because it absolves them of personal responsibility in such cases. I think it also applies to human beings because not everyone is a leader who has the qualities of a good leader. There are many bad leaders who have destroyed their nations and their people as the example given above but once in a while a good person comes along who can influence your life in a positive way.

Swami Vivekananda was a rebel when young who questioned everything until he met a great spiritual man called Shri Rama Krishna Dev who was a poor priest of a temple in Dakshineshwar but he guided the young Vivekananda in the direction that made him realize why he was born and what he must do to serve the poor. Rama Krishna Dev opened his eyes to what the young Vivekananda could achieve if he resolved to do so because he saw in him a strong moral person who just needed the right direction and gave him the push. The rest is history. He died at the young age of 37 but impacted the world in a great way that we all know about.

You too need a push in the right direction in your life to achieve what you are capable of so often this push comes from loving parents or your teacher who sees and values your potential and becomes your mentor or it can come from a person who appears suddenly in your life and shows the way. I do not want you to take it in a religious sense although there are plenty of cases or reformed whores who have suddenly found Jesus.

You often wonder what you mean to others starting with your own family, siblings and parents and later to the wider world. What are your duties toward them? Do you feel any obligation or duty toward them or are you a very selfish person who is only self centered from the start ? So the circumstances of your upbringing greatly affects who you become later on and whether or not you become a good or a bad person.

A child does not choose his family. It is the family that chooses to bring him to this world often because of their lust that is very different from love. A child born of love is very different from a child born of lust .The child of lust may later be resented by the parents and neglected. So the circumstances of birth of an individual varies a great deal from person to person. Now let us assume that most children are born out of love so the parents feel that they are morally responsible to raise him or her properly. What properly means also varies from family to family and from one culture to another.

So let us assume that you are born in a family that loves you and has given you  all the opportunities in life to grow up as a healthy and educated person with liberal values and sense of right and wrong. Let us also assume that you were born in a large family where your siblings grow up with different personalities and different values from your own. So what should your feelings and duties toward them be if you do not like them for one reason or other? Will you feel responsible for them and help them in such cases?

I observe that a person who grows up a loner even in a large family, develops a stronger character and often leadership in life who takes matters into his own hands and charts his own course through the rough waters of life because he becomes self reliant. His awareness of his potential and his role in the family and the wider world may not come naturally but it can be learned.

The story of Terry Fox comes to my mind who suffered amputations due to the cancer that had spread in his body but he kept on running to raise funds for cancer research so that a cure may someday be found. He saw the wider purpose of his disease so he gave his life to help those who suffer like him. He is remembered as the national hero in Canada. To some people this awareness comes through hardship and sufferings while to others it comes through a thorough introspection like what happened to Swami Vivekananda while he was meditating on the rock in Kanyakumari.  ( Read my blog on Terry Fox called Determination here )

Others have no clue and go though life like sheep with only the awareness of their self preservation. Most people fall into this second category because they are not aware of their role so they do nothing in their life other than just passing their days with inane activities until there are no days left to them.

To walk on the path of virtue takes tremendous self discipline and the moral conviction out of which comes the desire to help others . I often think of the Doctors without frontier ( Médecins sans frontière of MSF ) who risk their lives everyday to go out to their patients suffering from Ebola or Covid or other infectious diseases due to their conviction that they have the skill that should be used to help others in need without thinking of monetary gains so they are the real heroes of this world.

There are doctors who perform surgeries of all kinds on very poor patients in Africa and Latin America without any charge to give their patients a new lease on life so they too are heroes. There are Missions like the Rama Krishna Mission that was set up by Swami Vivekananda all over India to help the poor so they run orphanages, old age homes and modern hospitals where the poor get free treatment for their illness so the monks of the mission know their role in the world.

There are the Sikhs who feed thousands of  poor and hungry people everyday because they see themselves as duty bound to do so. You will see this in all Gurudwaras but specially so in their most holy place called the Golden Temple in Amritsar that we had the chance of visiting last year.  The Sikhs know their obligations and the role they must play in their life to help others. These are some of the sterling examples of people who are aware of the meaning of their life but sadly the vast majority of the humanity is unaware so they take no actions.

The poverty eradication, victims of slavery, child abuse, trafficking of women and children for monetary gains, prostitution, abuse of women and children by forcing them to work, the orphans, the physically handicapped people, the poor and the destitute, the victims of drug abuse and alcoholism, the jobless and homeless people, the destitute widows  etc. all need our help. To help them one must be aware of their difficulties and then decide to do something about it.

It is not enough just to be born and die someday because that is what most people do. They leave no trace so soon people forget about them. When I went to see a great lady one day who was dying of cancer, I said that it is not how long you live that matters but how you have lived. She had done great work during her life time that people will always remember long after she is gone. She closed her eyes and smiled.

I told my Ma how great she was and how much she had sacrificed to raise us and give us all the love she could give as a mother, she shed a tear and said that at least someone recognized the role she played in our lives. We all have a role to play and we all come to this world for a purpose. What that purpose is varies from person to person and depends on his awareness and the ability to act on it so please think about it . That may make you aware and motivate you to do what is right so that you can be useful to others. That is the key word . You must try to be useful to others in whatever way possible so that one day you will be able to say that your life was not in vain.

I have just written a blog called A beautiful child so please read it because it relates to this topic.

 

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.comn

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu

 

 

 

 

Angst of life

Source : Google photo of teen age angst

Synopsis : Teen age angst affects many but there is hope. To have angst is quite normal but there are ways to overcome them as the blog here explains. 

 

We all at some time or other have dreadful anxiety called angst about one thing or other in life and learn to cope with it the best way we know how. It is quite normal to have anxiety or angst about known or unknown things that we face. Only the degree varies from person to person because this degree of anxiety is related to how strongly you feel about the issue you are confronting.

I had a roommate in California who was very naughty and got into all kinds of pranks in the dormitory. I often thought of him as not a serious person and was convinced of it when one day he announced out of the blue that he was going to get married to a woman he had just met a few days ago. I never saw him again but was amazed at his nonchalant  way he handled such a serious issue as marriage. He had no worries or so it seemed.

Then there are people who can't decide what they want to do with their life so take it easy and one day realize that college education is not for them so they drop out. Others get very nervous as the exams approach and they find that they are not at all prepared for them . I had such a classmate who slipped out of classes more often than I could remember but one day he confessed that he was not prepared to take the exams due in two month's time. He asked me if he could study with me every night because he was so anxious and his home was just nearby.

So we studied together whole night every night sitting inside a mosquito net with all our books and notes in our outside veranda while dad kept a benevolent eye on us. He approved our hard work so we studied hard and passed our university exams with good grades. He was intelligent but could get easily distracted so he needed someone like me to study with. Later on he would get a Master's degree somewhere and got a Ph.D as well. He was successful in life with a good job, good wife and two lovely kids.

We all get jitters before we get into a tough exam or before going to an interview for scholarship or a job somewhere because we do not know what they will ask and how we will answer them. A whole lot depends upon how we do in exams or in the interviews so we can get very anxious especially if it is the first time.

I knew a girl in our neighborhood who was very intelligent but would get feverish before the exam. She was also very superstitious so wore the same sari in every exam because she felt that it was her lucky sari that gave her the courage and success every time.

People who have a strong character and make up their mind about just about anything quickly are the least affected by jitters because they know what they want and go about getting it . They prepare hard for their toughest exams and are not hesitant to seek help when they feel the need for it so they always succeed. They take the same attitude when they start working because working hard becomes their nature so they make progress in their career steadily because they believe that any job worth doing is worth doing well.

But there are those who can't decide simple things like what to order from a menu or what to wear. They always hesitate because they are not sure of themselves on any subject. I had a fellow in my project in Sudan who sat with an urgent report I had written and had asked him to read it and make useful comments that I would later incorporate into my final report. I gave him one week because the report was urgent but he kept it for over three months annoying me very much. Finally one day he said that he was writing a prologue that I had never asked him to write. He probably also had a great difficulty with the English language.

When we are very young, we tend to be more carefree because at that age we are not worried about anything. We know that our parents will take care of us. We were not conscious of how we looked and about our clothes or shoes. We were not jealous of other kids who had better clothes or toys because jealousy was not a part of our character. We did not care about money or shiny new toys or gadgets. We understood if our parents could not provide them so we made our own toys.

Later as we start to grow up , we come face to face with the harsher realities of life when passing tough exams is required in order to get admission to a prestige college or institution. The expectations of anxious parents does not help either. When we were young, we knew that parents wanted their sons to be doctors or engineers or professors in good universities. They expected far less from the daughters  but now the times have changed so the girls are getting good education  and becoming doctors and engineers or professors .

So the pressure to fulfill the expectations of parents can become a cause for worry or angst if you are not interested in becoming a doctor or an engineer. I have written about  Naushad in a previous blog ( read it here called The empty nest) where as a young boy he dreamed of one day becoming a music director in the movie world of Mumbai that his father did not approve of so one day he was just asked to leave. He suffered hunger and many deprivations in a friendless city like Mumbai where he slept on the sidewalk until he got a break and someone opened a door for him. He would become one of the most successful music directors in the film industry but he had to struggle very hard to become so. He had the courage to struggle on until he succeeded because he knew what he wanted.

Not many people do who come from well to do families where they are pampered and sheltered so they grow up with weak personality. So I think poverty can make a person stronger like Naushad.

The angst comes from the lack of  self confidence in a person. This is related to the shy nature of a person who gets very nervous facing a crowd if he is asked to say something. You will notice this in your school or college days when some of your classmates stay at the back row where the professor will not notice them. The noisy and bold ones usually sit in the front who come well prepared to the class and do their home work well.

But a good teacher can bring a shy person out by encouraging him or her to present a paper or write an essay or do something extraordinary and then praise him or her in front of everybody for a job well done. Once a person finds that he has a hidden talent for writing or art or music that someone notices and encourages , it makes the person less shy and helps him develop his own personality because he starts  to gain self confidence. That is the key. A confident person becomes less shy and shines if his abilities are known and encouraged by a sympathetic teacher  or parents.

The frauds are noticed immediately so they are ridiculed. One person I knew told me that he had passed the tough entrance exam to the Naval Academy in India so he was accepted there. I was very surprised because I knew him not to be an intelligent and smart person so I asked how he did it. He said that his father paid someone to get the questions before the exam and then hired some one to prepare all the answers so it was outright cheating.

The outcome of this cheating was evident when the fellow found himself with the smartest boys and girls in the Naval Academy where he developed a terrible inferiority complex and ran away one day to return home. He had the jitters because he knew that what he did was wrong so could not face the smart students in the academy.  It also showed that poor upbringing by an immoral father who taught his son how to cheat  made him a dishonest person.

When you face your own weakness and decide to do something about it, wonderful things can happen as I mentioned in the case of my classmate who studied whole night with me. If you have the resolve to do what it takes to succeed then the jitters go away and you emerge as a confident person but it requires hard work and the admission that you have weakness that needs to be worked on.

I have noticed that children who are not shy come out as good extemporaneous speakers in public speaking contests and come home with gold medals. The fluency in the language and a clear idea about the subject to speak on are two ingredients in the making of a good orator. This ability later serves them in their jobs where they show leadership and take control of any situation by instinct. They connect with their audience in a straight forward way that leaves a great impression on them.

Such people are very intelligent and often get the job as anchors in great TV stations where they get to interview important people whom they ask  very intelligent questions because they do their home work well before they go to work. It is the same habit of smart students in any class where they go well prepared and do the home work assigned to them by the teacher.

To have angst is quite normal for most people who are ill prepared for what comes to them but those who have confidence in themselves do not have angst. So I see it like when a person learns to drive, he gets nervous but slowly as his driving skill improves, his confidence in himself improves as well and one day he passes the tests and gets a license. When he drives his car alone in a crowded street, his skills come to play to make him a good driver or a jittery driver who may end up causing a serious accident.

So you have to learn to overcome your fear, your shyness and your feeling of inferiority complex in order to become a confident person. I know that knowledge is a morale booster, confidence builder and a maker of a strong personality in anyone. When you speak from knowledge, you speak with authority that people react to instantly.

Cheating and fraud is definitely not the right way to do it.

 

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.comn

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu

 

 

A beautiful child

Source : Personal album

Synopsis: A life is so short that it passes like a flash for some people. When someone dear to you passes away, you recall everything about that person if you have spent your lifetime being close to that person. You recall in great detail every incident, every moment, every occasion of joy and excitement probably more so when the person passes away. This is how we miss people we loved and who were a part of our life.

 

A beautiful child was born in a middle class family that was large by today's standard. She had many siblings but no one knew what a special child she was and what she would achieve in her life later. Her parents doted on her but she was just another child in a large family where three more kids were added later to this growing brood.

She was dark but pretty and developed an early talent of singing because she had the voice of a nightingale and could dance that attracted a lot of attention in the community where she lived. She was asked by the elders to sing for them or dance that she did without the slightest hesitation because she was not shy. She had by this time three other siblings born after her so she took to baby sitting them even though she was just a child.

Source : Personal album of the beautiful girl and her sickly brother

One of her brothers was born sickly who always cried because he had worms in his stomach that bloated it so she gave him sugar to stop crying but it only fed the worms and made the child very weak and petulant. He refused to walk so she carried him on her. It was a classic picture of a child carrying another child and trying her best to keep him from crying. If the child was not carried, he would often sit on human poops to show his anger so she had to clean him up and get scolded by her parents but carried the little boy as best as she could.

She started to grow up and the little brother also grew up who would bring her lunch to her school that their mother prepared for her everyday. She was very popular in her school because her teachers noticed her talent in singing and dancing. In the community she was sought now for acting in the drama that was presented during the annual festival of Durga Pooja where she was given the lead role. Now she could really bloom to her full potential and show her acting talent as well.

The audience loved her acting and always rewarded her with silver medals at the end of the drama when the whole team took its bows before the applauding audience. She collected many such medals but her family took it for granted and paid scant attention to it. The elder sisters were even jealous of her getting all the attention.

At her very young age of 20 she directed a play called Alibaba with an all female cast that amazed everyone . The play was the most successful that became the talk of the town. She herself appeared in two plays in leading roles that sold out all the tickets and people realized what a wonderful actress she had become. But some people were jealous of her ability and fame so she withdrew from all acting and directing.

Her younger brother walked with her to school everyday and often waited at her school gate to return home with her because his school was just nearby. She used to always talk about her favorite teachers like any teenager and eager to share her school pranks with her siblings. She loved wearing glass bangles that one day caused her a serious injury to her hand when another kid pulled her hand the wrong way. She wore the long scar on her hand cut by the glass bangles the rest of her life.

Her mother worried about her and tried to teach her some culinary arts because she seemed more interested in other things although as a child she played with dolls like other girls and prepared food for her doll's weddings with her tiny hands. She was preparing herself for a time when she would get married and raise her own family someday.

As a student in the university she was singled out to take part in a dance and drama competition in south India that her parents reluctantly let her attend. She took classical music lessons at home from a tutor as it was her major subject.

After her university education she found a temporary teaching job but soon realized that she needed a professional teaching credential so she got into a teaching college with gusto and got the license. The future looked bright when one  day she was invited for a job interview so her brother brought her to the venue and left her there.

She arrived late in the afternoon and told the family that she was kept waiting, missed her lunch and she probably failed her interview for the government job because she was hungry and in a bad mood. Of all candidates she was the only one chosen to her delight and the surprise of her parents but her father refused to let her go to teach in a small town 60 kms from home so she cried and asked him to relent. Her mother then came to her aid and convinced her father to agree. This would bring her self reliance and life time job security with pension and other benefits.

She became immensely popular with her  students who loved her. She would bring her girls to compete in state wide competition in songs and dances that won the school many accolades.

Her younger brother had also finished high school so she encouraged him to take agriculture degree because she said that the students of the agricultural college looked so smart and spoke very good English.

But her parent's efforts to get her married amounted to nothing. The traditional arranged marriage required a suitable groom who would have to be given a hefty dowry but no suitable candidate appeared. She was beautiful, educated and had many talents but her dark skin became the reason she remained single but she did not care and enjoyed her teaching career. She would be transferred to other colleges after she got a Master's degree and promotion as the reader and then as the vice principal.

One day her brother announced that he was going abroad as a volunteer agronomist so she was thrilled and went to see him off but only his mother and a few other relatives went to the airport while she suffered a terrible stomach problem that day. She regretted that she missed the chance to see off her favorite little brother who was going away but she wrote very frequently to him to keep in touch.

Many years passed and many things happened in the mean time. She followed avidly the progress her brother  made abroad and was delighted as a child when he brought her some gifts during his visits home. She was delighted when he one day announced that he was going to marry a foreign girl and convinced the mother and her other siblings to agree to the proposal. She was absolutely thrilled when he returned home one day with his wife and a baby boy who became her instant focus in her life. She could not do enough for the baby and gave him all the love she could muster. She doted on the second baby who was born and lavished all her attention on them.

Many more years passed and she became old, frail  and retired. She could no longer sing or dance but never lost her love for music. Her brother too had retired and bought her a house where she could live in comfort. He brought her to his home abroad three times to show the beautiful country where he lived. He brought her to many places in India as well. But her relationship with her family soured for one reason or other. Her distance from her siblings brought her only pain and anguish.

Then one day she was diagnosed with cancer that needed surgery. But the dreaded disease did not leave her even after massive surgery and constant medication so she suffered and fought valiantly only to fail a few days ago when a telephone call came along with several E-mails that brought the dreaded news that she had expired.

He was stunned and imagined her body being burned to reduce it to ashes to be thrown away in the Holy river of Ganga. Her whole life flashed before him since the time he was just a one year old baby and she a 7 year old child herself carrying him and stopping him from crying. She was so beautiful, so full of love for him and his children, so full of energy and ideas who could sing like a nightingale and dance like a professional.

The monks came to pray over her lifeless body, put flowers and burned incense sticks to show respect. She was loved, cared  and missed by all who knew her. Her passing away leaves a big hole that can't be filled but he mourns her silently because he could not be at her side when she took her last breath. He mourns remembering all the years and events that shaped their lives. How fleeting is life after all !

She was my sister I lovingly called Chordi.

 

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.comn

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu

 

Tragedy of Haiti

Source :Google photo of Haiti

Synopsis : There are many countries that go through a greater share of misfortune than the others, Haiti being one of them. They have suffered and continue to suffer from poverty, corruption, ineffective government, international apathy, lack of jobs and very little foreign investment. Just one family kept an iron grip on them through mass murder and torture but they are gone now so Haitians breathe a little easier. It is a tragedy that so nice people with so much potential live in such dire straights.

If you ask someone where is Haiti in the world map, most people will not know let alone anything about the country or its people but one day I packed my bag and flew in to Port au Prince not knowing what to expect.

It is a small airport just near the city that has an ocean front but a part of Port au Prince is spread over the steep mountain slopes that form a majestic backdrop to the city below but up there where the air is cooler and where most of the rich people live have great mansions that are uniquely designed to fit the slopes. So their garage is at the top of their house and the rooms two or three story below with a balcony that gives a spectacular view of the mountain , the city below and the blue ocean beyond.

While driving up the slopes to reach Petionville,you will notice the vendors by the roadside selling beautiful rugs made of animal skins of various colors and shades and many other handi craft made of wood or clay. These vendors also mark the invisible border beteen the poorer and the richer section of the city and eke out a living.

Near the waterfront is the GPO or the post office where the artists spread their wares on the sidewalk for sale. You will find interesting oil and water color paintings , polished wooden boxes and many other handicraft so you may stop to look at them raising the hope of vendors who may not have sold anything but wait in the scorching sun.

It helps to know French in Haiti spoken by the elite and the educated ones but helps more if you know Creole that all Haitians speak who are mostly poor.Speaking Creole helps you get a better deal but the quality of the paintings are not extraordinary so you end up with what you pay for.

The aerial view just before you touch down is more than shocking to the first time visitor to Haiti because it shows a large spread of a bidonville where the poorest of the poor live . You will find many minibuses gaudily painted in bright colors showing big breasted women in skimpy clothes . You will see the gutters overflowing with sewage and garbage but the Haitians do not mind. They will be seen loading charcoal, live chicken, goats, fruits and vegetable laden baskets on top while they pack as many people as possible inside before they leave for the provinces.

To get a better view of the city you will have to climb the hill top to the balcony of the hotel there called Castel Haiti from where you will notice a massive cemetery below where many victims of a very repressive dictator called Papa Doc and later his son are buried. He wrote the history of this unfortunate nation in blood and where his son continued the bloody legacy through his goons called Ton Ton Macoute that I saw on the streets .

Haitians lived in fear of these murderous goons who wielded absolute power and could arrest anyone even suspected of voicing their dissent , tortured them or killed them so the cemetery kept growing. The head of this goon squad was a big woman who enjoyed torturing her prisoners.

I arrived at a time when the Haitians were in the streets in large numbers celebrating their Mardi Gras beating drums, symbals and drinking rhum as if there was no tomorrow. They were partially right. I heard it from the prostitutes who hung around Castel Haiti hoping for a client but I also saw it in the faces of people who were suffering. There was no war like in Vietnam but there are many types of war. The agony of living under a dictatorship and suffering was no less than a war where the poor people suffered the most.

If you go outside the city, you will notice the exquisite beaches of Zanglais to the west where pelicans cavort and the alluring golden sand invites you to take a dip in the azure blue ocean. On the road people sell shrimps , cashew brittles, fruits and charcoal. The non stop demand for charcoal has decimated all the trees on the slopes and causes massive soil erosion. The view from the air is stark that shows completely denuded hills of Haiti and very green Dominican Republic side that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and nothing else. These two countries are world apart in language, culture, level of freedom, type of governmnent and history.

I arrived at a time when the underlying tension in Haiti was building up and later would reach a level that it could not contain any longer even with all the repression so I watched in dismay the start of the revolution there and worried about the safety of my family with a young wife and two small children.

It came to boil soon enough but I had a premonition of it when I sat behind the dictator in a public function in a village while his body guards stood in a row pointing their guns at the joyless crowd that was ordered to be there. I saw it in their faces clearly that the end was near for the dictator although he did not seem to notice anything unusual. His awful wife kept talking to someone near me while the minister of agriculture was making his monotonous speech.

Haiti is practically in the foreyard of the mighty United States that keeps Haiti tightly under its influence by giving aid money most of which returns to the US keeping the country poor and destitute while the dictator fills his pocket with the foreign aid. This scenario is repeated elsewhere in the world but I would like to keep my focus on Haiti now.

I felt nervous because I knew that something bad was about to happen but had no idea of its magnitude. It started with the killing of a mulatto woman in the small town where I lived. Mulattos are hated by the Haitians because of their arrogance and a feeling of superiority because of their lighter skin color. They are the illegitimate progeny of their past colonial masters and can be found in most latin countries. In Haiti the mulattos were richer than the rest and many had shops and businesses.

Then the news broke that the crowds were in a violent mood and had started to burn down the hotels and shops owned by the mulattos. This was the start of the revolution that rapidly spread to all parts of Haiti and took a very sinister turn in the capital Port au Prince where I was ordered to take refuge in a secluded place. The streets were now in the hands of a mob that had gone berserk so they attacked their hated enemy the Ton Ton macoutes whom they killed in large numbers and went after the mulattos. They chopped off their heads and paraded with it on stakes.

The dictator and his partner in crime one day fled the country early in the morning with all the loot he could gather in a hurry but no one noticed it because of curfew and empty streets although one innocent man riding his moped was gunned down by the goons because he happened to notice the dictator's car going to the airport.

This news spread quickly throughout the country and encouraged the mob to take revenge on the people who had tormented them for so long. No foreigners were targetted and I was allowed to go back to my town after I had explained in Creole that I was an agronomist helping their farmers. There were road blocks everywhere manned by people with machetes and anger in their heart because of what they had endured for so long in the hands of one family.

The chaos continued until a makeshift government of sorts was put in place that had the daunting task of bringing back the normalcy so that the life could go on. But the country was in desperate need of money that could only come from foreign aid. There was practically no tourism although there were beautiful beaches and many tourist attractions.

Source :Google photo of Haiti earthquake

The UN sent troops to maintain law and order after a terrible earthquake nearly flattened parts of Port au Prince where thousands died under the rubbles. Their bodies rotted because the rubble could not be cleared fast enough. When I thought that the country could not suffer more than this came an epidemic of cholera that some claim was spread by the UN troops taking thousands of lives. Poor lives are always cheap anywhere but it seemed that the Haitian lives were cheaper than the most. While they suffered a dictator and his goons, then revolution and earthquake, the world hardly took any notice . If there was a case of one cholera death in Europe, the whole world would know about it but thousands died in Haiti that the world ignored.

The poverty, lack of jobs and utter desperation made many Haitians take un seaworthy boats to try to reach the shores of Florida but most died on the way and the few who made it to Florida were promptly arrested by the police who put them in detention centers to languish for years.

Then there were the fanatic missionaries who tried to convert the devout Haitians to their brand of faith and argued with me that saving their heathen souls was more important than the help I was giving in agriculture. It was as if all the bad things only happened to the Haitians who were described as heathens, voodoo practitioners, devil worshippers, backward and uncivilized.

But I saw them as noble, wonderful people who were kind hearted who always shared their hospitality and food even with strangers. They brought to you a glass of water in a tray with lace cover on the glass. They wore colorful dresses to go to the church on Sundays and their children in smart uniforms could be seen going to schools in large numbers. Girls played football so well that often I brought them to neighboring villages to play. Haiti beat Mexico the host in the world cup to their great dismay.

I saw them longing for the day when they will have a representative democracy when they will be able to vote. But the corruption is endemic in Haiti. Some Haitians steal money from projects and construction works while powerful people take most of the water from canals for themselves and leaving little for the farmers downstream.

The foreigners told them to kill all their native pigs because of the swine flu that they claimed was spreading so they slaughtered their pigs with heavy heart. It seemed that it was always the foreigners who told them how to live and remain poor . But the Haitians know better. Given half a chance they too can come out of their poverty if given a little help . They are very hard working people who hated their dictators and foreign colonizers so they became a free country long before their brothers and sisters were toiling to pick cotton as slaves in the United States.

It was once a prosperous country covered with forests and wildlife but nothing remains of their glorious past. It is a tragic country but it has a special place in my heart.

 

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.comn

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu

The valiant Vietnamese

 

                                    Source : Google photo of Vietnam war

Synopsis : The true valor of a people lies in their resolve to overcome all challenges and their willingness to pay the ultimate price for it with their lives the way the Vietnamese did to regain their freedom.

When anyone cares to write about what it takes to win a war so that they can gain their freedom from foreign occupation and oppression, the valiant struggle of the Vietnamese people comes as an example worth writing about. So today I decided to write about the Vietnamese people who struggled so hard for more than thirty years to win the war that was imposed on them by the foreign powers. They were poor, had few weapons to fight the mighty foreigners and other resources needed to fight a very prolonged war but they had one thing the foreigners did not count on or ever understood .

It was called a great national resolve to suffer any hardship, any deprivation no matter how severe and still persevere no matter how long they had to suffer and no matter how much sacrifice in human lives they had to make in order to win a war against very well equipped and supplied adversaries like the French and later the Americans.

I was amazed at this steel in their resolve when I was working in Vietnam as a volunteer agronomist during the height of the war there in 1967. There were more than half a million American soldiers there at that time representing an enormous and modern war machine ever to have been used against so primitive and ill equipped people like the Vietnamese.

To go back in the bloody history of that country, you only have to go back to the French colonial period before it ended in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It was then called the French Indo China that included Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that the French ruled with iron fist as their colony. There was a period in the human history when many European countries like England, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Dutch were all setting up colonies of their own in poor countries where they could exploit their rich mineral and other wealth to enrich their own countries.

They ruled their colonies with cruelty towards the local people whom they used for their own purpose and paid very little in the way of recompense. They used forced or cheap labor to set up vast rubber plantations in Vietnam that supplied all their rubber needs so they became enormously rich by trading the rubber among other things. The colons as they were called by the natives lived in comfort in grand villas and with swimming pools in the midst of acres of well kept gardens maintained by slave like people who were very poor and had little to eat. I have seen the ruins of such a villa in the countryside in Vietnam myself. Their wives indulged in the latest fashions of Paris and their children were sent to expensive private boarding schools in France or elsewhere.

This was the same story in Algeria where they were called the pieds noires who lived in grand villas and made the poor Algerians work in their huge vineyards for pittance. The courageous struggle of Algerians to gain independence from France is told in my biography that you can read in Chapter five there.

But today I just want to write about the struggle of the brave Vietnamese people who suffered for so long and sacrificed almost 2 million of their lives to be free. I write about them from my personal experience there so it gives more credence to my story as an eye witness to the tragedy called the Vietnam war. I had to personally witness this tragedy , see the blood and gore and the plight of the endless streams of destitute refugees created by the endless war when I worked to help after the Tet offensive of 1968.

I learned first hand how intelligent and hard working the Vietnamese were. The farmers were the most hard working people I have ever met considering how dangerous it was to do farming during the war. The Americans frequently shot their carabaos from helicopters just for fun and bombed their villages with napalm at will. They also massacred the poor farmers, their women and children for no reason other than on a whim because they were drunk with power over the hapless villagers who had meant no harm to them. Remember My Lai massacre? There were many such atrocities committed by the French and later by the Americans but back home the culprits were received as war heroes.

The Vietnamese learned how to make do with their very limited resources so they became experts in fixing broken machineries without any formal training to do so. Once my car was shot up by shrapnel of rockets that fell near it while I was sleeping not too far from it. One farmer asked me to leave the car to him for a few days to fix the holes. I was amazed at the wonderful job they did and made it look like new including the same glittering shade of paint and they did it for free because they loved me for the help I was giving them in farming.

They could fix old engines, water pumps with home made spare parts. They used their ingenuity to fix broken or useless weapons to fight the war and used the un exploded bombs dropped by the Americans to make new weapons to be used against the invaders. They used bamboo stakes to act as weapons and set up booby traps for the enemies using scrap metals. They became experts in the guerrilla warfare to inflict maximum casualties in the enemy ranks with minimum damage to their own.

They dragged up heavy canons inch by inch over steep mountain slopes until they were all in place and then bombarded the battle field of Dien Bien Phu all of a sudden when the French soldiers slept soundly in their barracks never suspecting such an attack and never recovered from the shock of their defeat so left Vietnam altogether in 1954.

Then came the Americans in the guise of advisers to stop the domino effect of the spread of communist regimes in Asia that gradually built up to an outright armed invasion of Vietnam fielding over half a million military men and dropping more bombs on a small country like Vietnam than what they used in Germany in the last war.

The Vietnamese fighters fought the mighty Americans tooth and nail and dug miles of tunnels three levels deep in Cu Chi that had hospitals, living quarters and war rooms keeping thousands of guerrilla fighters there right under the nose of the American base above but the Americans had no clue what was happening right under their feet.

Very young girls worked in bars or in brothels to keep an eye on the American fighters and learn what they could learn from them about military matters that they passed on to the guerrillas and they did so at the risk to their own lives daily. When caught by their enemies that included the south Vietnamese soldiers, they were tortured and killed after long interrogations while the CIA operatives watched or assisted.

They wore sandals made from truck tires and black pyjamas and black shirt and carried rice and dried fish wrapped in cloth as a waist band and often went hungry for long periods but they never gave up their resolve to win the war. This resolve found in young boys and girls barely in their teens came from a strong belief that collectively they will someday beat the enemy and were willing to die for it.

When I saw their mutilated bodies near my house one morning, I was shocked to see how young they were. They were fighting for a cause that gave them a moral upper hand while their enemies did not know why they were fighting in Vietnam an invisible enemy they called Vietcongs or Charlie and gooks. They were young country boys with low education and a quick boot camp training of a few weeks when they were told to go and kill the gooks in a far away country they had never been to or known anything about. It was the first time they were out of their villages to go anywhere so they were bewildered.

These young American GI s became the mindless robotic killing machines but such killings daily took its toll on them when they lost their fellow soldiers or were seriously injured that resulted in drastic amputations of their limbs . It changed their lives completely in a very negative way that prevented many to go back home and live the life they were used to. They suffered from PTST issues, alcoholism and drugs that they had started to take in Vietnam . They lost faith in their commanders and often shot them dead when they were ordered to fight a useless fight .

The Americans and the French before them paid a high price for their war on the Vietnamese . Some 60000 Americans lost their lives and perhaps over 200000 received life altering injuries that included amputations, drug addiction and severe mental depression that forced many to take their own lives. People in their own country lost their sympathy for the returned soldiers who only received scorn and neglect so many ended up on the streets living as pathetic addicts surviving on charities. The cheap medals they received for their brutality lost their shine and appeal when they returned home to find their spouses living with some one else and their family life shattered.

Their loss of faith came as a shock to their commanders who were under pressure to retake territories and give an increasing body count everyday so they pushed on their battalions who killed, raped and napalmed villagers only to lose it to the Vietcongs the very next day. One general said that he had to destroy a village in order to save it but what exactly they had won at a great cost that they lost the very next day ?

The Vietcongs chose their fight at a time and place of their choice giving them maximum advantages against their enemies so they usually had the upper hand in any fight. They avoided fight where the enemy had an advantage in weaponry and logistics so a surprise attack was their strength. But they had to leave the most vulnerable old men, women and the very young in their villages at the mercy of the enemy so My Lai massacre happened.

The use of a defoliant called agent orange by the American giant planes was so widespread that one day I saw the banana plant near my shelter wilting that had a white coating of powder on it but this defoliant was deadlier than anyone one could have ever imagined. It denuded the forest to deny cover to the guerrillas but it also poisoned the soil and water . Farmers or children walking bare feet absorbed this poison that made them very sick and dead. Young women gave birth to severely deformed babies because they had somehow absorbed this poison unknowingly.

I attended a conference in America to talk about the Agent orange and its ill effect on people in Vietnam. The Vietnamese still suffer in silence taking care of their severely deformed people in many hospitals.

There were thousands of young women who were forced into prostitution due to their need to feed their starving families and often became the sole bread earners because their fathers or brothers had died. The war destroyed not only their villages and the source of their livelihood that was mostly farming but also their families that were once close knit so they became refugees in their own country living on charities. I worked in Saigon after the Tet offensive of 1968 and helped carry food and other essentials to numerous refugee centers around the city and often got into cross fire situations that I somehow managed to escape from. It seemed that the fighting was everywhere.

The war of thirty years had a devastating effect on their values and the social structure that suffered . There was a rise in domestic violence, drug addiction, rise of immorality in women who were forced into brothels to earn a living, thievery, wholesale destruction of their once beautiful and placid villages , destruction of their animals, their forests and wildlife due to the defoliation by agent orange, poisoning of their land, water and the people but against all odds they continued to fight not knowing when it will all end.

What impressed me most about the Vietnamese people was their sense of humor, their hospitality when they had so little to offer, their kind hearts and their determination to win the war in the end that they eventually did. Even at the height of the war, there were night shows or itinerant operas that was a respite for them who suffered. They invited me to their weddings, their funerals or when they just stopped me on the road to share with me their delicious food or a drink of rice wine.

They protected me from harm knowing that I was there to help them in their agriculture . They gave me beautiful silk gown and cap to show their appreciation for what I did for them. They found a place for me to live and recovered my watch that was stolen by some kids.

The Vietnamese are the most gifted people I have ever met. Their art, their craft, their music , their water puppet shows, their silk embroidery, their food and their artisanat have few equals anywhere. I was positive that once the war ends, they will get back to reconstructing their beautiful country. I was not disappointed when my wife and I visited Saigon a few years ago . It is a changed Vietnam where all the ravages of war are carefully erased . Now it is a thriving economy and growing at a fast rate. There are new highways, new roads, new bridges, schools, hospitals and new admin buildings in all provinces.

The defunct railways is thriving again so you can travel to any part in comfort. There are new hotels, comfortable modern buses to travel in so we were happy to see the new Vietnam because I remember the horrid and squalid Vietnam during the war.

Source : Google photo of the monument to the My Lai massacre

When some Americans visited the village of My Lai to show their respect to the 500 or more victims of the massacre , they were surprised and overwhelmed with emotions when the survivors said that they had forgiven the perpetrators of the crime . They put flowers and burn incense at the monument and silently pray for the departed souls so that they attain nirvana.

That defines who the Vietnamese really are.

I have a powerpoint called Remember Vietnam that I present here for you to watch and learn something about the indomitable character of the Vietnamese people.

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzggDtqJefe-DCHoqc

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Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography. My blogs can be shared by anyone anytime in any social media.

Mes blogs en français.

Mis blogs en espagnol

Blogs von Anil in Deutsch

Blogs in Japanese

My blogs at Wix site

tumblr posts    

Blogger.com

Medium.comn

Anil’s biography in English.

Biographie d'Anil en français

La biografía de anil en español.

Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch

Anil’s biography in Japanese

Биография Анила по-русскиu