Source : My own power points to enrich your soul Synopsis :I have made numerous power points to record art, crafts, history of civilizations, animal world, animal breeds, flora and fauna, native art and craft, glass work, jewelry etc. among many others that I will bring to you in each successive blog. I hope you will appreciate them as much as I loved making them and share them with your friends and loved ones freely.
I used to post a lot of power points that I had made over the years to my Google plus site but unfortunately the Google shut down its site so everything I had posted there also vanished. So I will now post all of my power points on various subjects here for you to enjoy starting with the European master artists in this blog. Those of you who enjoy art created by the European masters over the centuries will like these power points because short of visiting numerous art museums in the world, this is an alternative that you can share with your friends and relatives so I hope you like them and send me your comments. I chose only a few among many others due to space constraints which I am sure you will understand. The celebrated European masters ( 14 ) 1. Paul Cezanne Link https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgS0bSZnhS2y3Z29_?e=SxiAqu 2. John Constable Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgSzUcQBUAXAIqMSo?e=gNMfm7 3. Leonardo da Vinci Link :https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgS6Lq3Hieg0Y_ReV?e=760VEP 4. Edouard Manet Link :https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUMNuFHsFxVYZux1?e=kaIhNs
Source : Google photo of a starving child in Somalia and the vulture waiting Synopsis : While millions of people starve in so many countries due to famine or man made disasters like war , there are countries that produce an abundance of food that they fail to store properly leading to wastage. I give the example of India here but food wastage in many countries are shocking that many videos posted here will show. What the world needs is to share the food with the poor who are hungry and not waste it on purpose or through negligence and corruption. Believe me when I say that there is enough food in the world for every body and then some. The problem lies in how to get the food to the needy.
This photo is so heart wrenching that perhaps the whole world has seen it. It shows so starkly a starving child in Somalia who is about to die and a vulture waiting nearby for its meal. I wonder if the photographer who took this terrible photo saved the child or if he just took the photo and left the child to die and let the vulture tear his tiny body apart. Often such people just take the photos to make a scoop and move on because they do not feel any responsibility for the famine and the deaths or because they become immune to any feelings of sympathy when they see such scenes daily. But I still feel a shock when I see this photo. I know a famous star who saved a starving child in Ethiopia famine and raised her as her own with love and care. Now that child has grown up into a beautiful woman but she is the lucky one. Millions who perished in Ethiopia and Somalia were not so lucky where the vultures and wild animals got fat gorging on the remains of such unlucky people. Often such tragedies happen due to war or due to intentional neglect of the government like what happened in the infamous famine of Bengal in 1943 under the British Raj in India when some 3 million people starved to death . Because the grains were hoarded by the unscrupulous traders creating an artificial shortage of food and when the British government in London diverted the ship loads of food that had arrived in Kolkata port from Australia to England by the order of Winston Churchill. He did not care how many Indians died there because he did not feel anything for them. Source : Google photo of the victims of the Bengal famine of 1943 It is a tragic photo that was taken just one year before I was born but my Ma told me about the famine later because she had seen it herself. She was lucky that our family did not suffer because my father worked for the British as an accountant so he received food rations. My great grand father at that time brought home a starving child he had picked up somewhere so my great grandmother raised him as her own so that child was very lucky indeed. My father used to call him uncle because he was no less to anyone. India had suffered periodic food shortages after independence due to many reasons. Often the poor rainfall caused crop failures so people suffered. There was no system of storing massive quantities of food grain and set up a distribution system nationwide to bring the food to the people everywhere so the government bought food from other countries like the United States that sold poor quality grains or shipped under the PL 480 that was not even fit for animals. Once the Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri refused such shipment and told all Indians to eat two meals less a week and eat other food grains like corn and millets. The Indians responded out of their patriotic zeal and overcame the difficulties. Since then the government started investing massively in agriculture to make the country self sufficient in food and oil crops , making irrigation available to millions of farmers, built thousands of kilometers of irrigation canals and started to buy excess food to store it in strategic locations all over India. The Indian Railway made it its priority to expand the railway network rapidly to reach every district of every state in the country so that food grains could be shipped to the distribution centers all over the country. Here is the video that shows the evolution of the Food Corporation of India ( FCI ) that was created to buy, store and distribute food grains to everybody at a subsidized price so every Indian who has a ration card gets to buy the food, dal, sugar and other essentials from a store nearby every month. I used to buy it myself for our family every month.
https://youtu.be/fdu_QommSzw Source : U tube video on how FCI stores and distributes food in India ( in English ) The video shows how the FCI collects food from the farmers, stores it in massive quantities in huge warehouses that have been built all over the country from where the food is shipped by trucks, rails and other means to thousands of distribution centers and from there to the ration shops in every community in the entire country. But this is not the whole story. It is true that India feeds its people and has become a net exporter of food to other countries earning billions of dollars in revenue. Famines are a thing of the past because the farmers are given all the help they need to grow food and the green revolution in India is a success story that has helped increase the food production dramatically. My mentor Dr. Surajit Kumar De Datta who was a pioneer scientist in the spread of the green revolution in rice in many countries in Asia was partially responsible for it just like Dr. Norman Borlaug who spread the HYVs of wheat in India. Other scientists helped in the improvement of millet and oil seed production in India so the country now enjoys a surplus of food and exports what it does not need. Please read my blog called the Unsung hero of the green revolution -Dr.DeDattahere.
https://youtu.be/TLudb0HQqIU Source : U tube video of food grain waste in India Now you will see in this video how precious food grains are carelessly stored out in the open near the railway stations and waiting to be picked up to be stored in safe and secure warehouses somewhere. You also see the wet ground meaning the rains are falling on the sacs spoiling thousands of tons of grains. Even when the grains are stored in warehouses, millions of rats there cause massive damage to the sacs and spoil the grains. The grains are poorly handled and stored in many places due to neglect and corruption of the people involved. In the following video you will see how a fellow is sprinkling water on the stored sacs of grains in a warehouse to spoil the grains intentionally so that he can then sell the spoiled grains at low cost to the breweries that make use of such grains. The corrupt man then fills his pocket with the loot. This happens in a country where there are still many people who are poor and do not get enough food. There are millions of fake ration cards in the name of non existent or fake people who buy the subsidized food and sell it in the open market to make huge profit so finally the government is cracking down and has issued new tamper proof ration cards that are linked electronically to their national identification card . It has eliminated the fake cards and saves the government millions of dollars.
https://youtu.be/V3buBTnnHU4 Source : U tube video on the spoilage of food grains in India due to corruption ( in Hindi) It is true that Indian warehouses of the FCI are bulging with food grains and all sorts of other essentials so they desperately need to build more warehouses to increase their storage capacity but in the mean time the food grains keep arriving daily by rail or trucks so they dump them out in the open until they are transported to safe storage places . All it takes is a five minute shower to completely wet the sacs that start rotting overnight. I have seen the same neglect in Sudan where they keeps thousands of sacs of peanuts and millet out in the open without even a tarpaulin cover so even a brief rain spoils everything. Wasting food when so many people are hungry in the world is outright criminal. I have seen how Americans waste food everyday by throwing out perfectly good food that fills the land fills. Students in our college were throwing eggs for fun at a fellow during the carnival so I could see a river of egg yolk going into the gutter that literally made me feel sick. The food is cheap there so they do not feel anything about wasting it yet there are very poor people there who search for food in the garbage bins near the fast food places because they throw away tons of uneaten or partially eaten food everyday. When we ordered some food in Florida for us and our two kids, they brought so much food that we could not eat all of it so had to leave it. We did not know how large their portions were so we wasted our money and the food making me feel sick. The only country I know where people are very conscious of food waste is France. They try not to waste even a single grain of food and clean their plates completely but in many countries they waste food. In India it is wasted in storage facilities like I showed above. Here is a video of food waste in America that is an eye opener.
https://youtu.be/OJzGLKeD1DU Source : U tube video of food waste in America ( in English ) Here is another video that shows how much food the super markets throw away.
https://youtu.be/QLqkV8cP4xs Source : U tube video shows the food the supermarkets throw away everyday.( English) In Spain and Italy they throw tons of tomatoes at each other for fun and farmers pour thousands of liters of pure milk on the road because the price is low or throw away truckloads of butter as well because of low prices. The purpose of this blog is to highlight the food waste in India due to negligence and corruption and in other countries the foods are thrown away just because they are not suitable for marketing purposes. It is cheaper for the stores to throw it away than to give it to the poor. That is their capitalistic way of saving money . Who cares about the poor? So when you waste food this way, just look at the child starving in Somalia and decide if you still want to waste food. India's food waste in storage facilities is a big issue that the country needs to tackle because it can feed all the poor people who need it badly. It is a criminal waste when so many people are hungry even in so called rich countries.
Source : Google photo of the show of patriotism in India Synopsis : This blog on patriotism sheds some light on the word and how in some countries it is being understood , used or abused. Anyone can be patriotic irrespective of his caste, religion or creed. I recall a time during my childhood days when everyday before our school started , all the students were required to fall in line in the football field and stand in strict formation according to their class and wait for the national flag to be raised when we sang the patriotic songs that we had all memorized by heart. One teacher sang the song playing his harmonium that the orderly had placed on a rickety table and we all followed. Then the head master made some announcements if there were any to make and talked of other sundry items that could include new rules for the playground equipment etc. Then we were dismissed so each class went to its classroom keeping the formation intact which was a part of the discipline we all had to follow. Those kids who were late at the assembly were not allowed to join their ranks and were kept waiting for some admonishment from the headmaster who insisted on punctuality. This was all a part of the routine we all had to observe everyday without fail. The assembly every day served the purpose of making us proud of our nation, its flag and sing the praise of our motherland to make us feel a sense of patriotism. We did not have a pledge of allegiance that American children are required to say everyday and we did not have to sing our national anthem to start the school day. The anthem was sung only on special occasions like the independence day or the Republic day when we had to sing it in exactly 56 seconds but no one really cared much for the 56 seconds to sing it so the kids sang it in their own fashion and in their own way using many notes of the do re mi and made a cacophony of it which was fun. In India the word patriotism is limited to singing the anthem once in a while and singing patriotic songs early in the morning assembly before the school starts in grade school and high school. Later in college, there were no such requirements although I recall in my first year of college, there was an assembly everyday before the start of the classes when the class teacher took our attendance, handed out some mails to kids and made some sundry announcements. The system of taking note of our attendance was unique when we were all required to stand on the steps of the stadium where each student was required to stand in the square assigned to him. The teacher noted only the missing squares so the attendance was noted quickly without calling out the names of each student. It was an ingenious system. Later when I transferred to another college, there was only a weekly assembly where the Principal made a prayer because he was a protestant who took such prayers seriously but we were not required to do so being no Christians so stood there to hear the announcements that were made. There was no anthem, no singing of patriotic songs and never any pledge of allegiance. So I was very surprised when I went to the United States where I saw how seriously the Americans took the patriotism everyday in their life. This started with the pledge of allegiance in the classroom for the children but did not stop there. The 4th of July is celebrated in every town and city when people wave their flags and war veterans come out to parade in their uniform wearing all the medals they had received. Almost every house was decorated with their flag and women even wore bikinis made of their flag that I had never seen in any country. If you visit India, you will never see the national flag displayed in any home let alone in bikinis because it is unlawful to wear the national flag the way the Americans do. Indian women do not parade in their streets wearing the costumes made of the national flag . The common people who celebrate our Republic day in Delhi just watch the parade from the side of the main boulevard or watch it on their TV at home. The school children who join the parade do so in their dazzling uniform just like the soldiers and airmen. The Republic day parade in Delhi on January 26 is a dazzling display of numerous floats, military hardware and aerial displays of fighter jets, helicopters showering flower petals on the parade that is telecast live worldwide so I can see it here in the Philippines. In a diverse country such as India, people are generally considered patriotic and you can sense a feeling of great pride in them for their country in spite of all the complaints you hear on every subject. This sense of patriotism and pride is heightened during the time of crisis like war with Pakistan but normally speaking, people do not make patriotism a subject of discussion in their everyday life like what I have seen in America. So I come back to the topic of what is patriotism and what it means to people. When I was a kid, I used to hear our father sing the patriotic songs. In those days before the independence, there was a great revolution going on in the country because everybody was affected by the fever of struggle for independence. People burned piles of western clothes in every street cross section to protest the British and took great pride in wearing native clothes . They encouraged the local cottage industry to make home spun cotton clothes that people wore with great pride. They wore Congress caps to show their support for the non violent movement spearheaded by Mohandas Gandhi and the Congress workers. People waved the national flag and marched in the streets in very large numbers all over the country to protest the British occupation of India and often got beaten back by the British police. They joined the protest to stop the salt works run by the British and got beaten by the sentries at the gate who fractured their skulls but still they continued. The independence brought a change to the country. Now people were free to go about their routine life without fearing the British anymore so the national fervor of patriotism slowly diminished as there was no more need for such protests and displays at the cost of jails, beatings or even death. The significance of the struggle for freedom as experienced by the older generation is diminished in the younger generation that came after the independence because they had only read about it and were not participants in the freedom struggle so they did not suffer like their parents and grandparents. What ignites the patriotism? If you ask the Germans and French or just about any European, they may tell you the sufferings due to the last World War that brought so much misery to them . They clearly recall the hardship, the death and destruction of their towns and villages and the disruption of their normal life under the Nazi occupation. They will tell you of someone they knew who had died or was tortured by the Gestapo and they still recall the airlift of food and even coal to Berlin when the Russians had blockaded a part of the city. They still recall after all those years the food shortage and shortage of almost everything.
Source : Hitler making speech in Nuremberg to rally support But to stoke the latent flame of patriotism in every German, it took a person like Adolf Hitler who through his oratorical skills could rouse up millions of people in Germany to his cause. He could make them do anything in the name of their country even if it meant the mass slaughter of the Jews and the minorities. Their support of Hitler and his party only brought them disaster, deaths, destruction of their cities, towns and villages by the allies, shortage of food and deprivation on a national scale that took them a long time to come out of. Similarly the patriotism of the Japanese during the last war also brought them death and destruction on a massive scale that the Japanese still remember with great sadness today. So during the time of crisis, the leaders of their country demand a show of patriotism and support in order to overcome the challenges so a whole nation pulls together and stands united to support their government and often suffers the consequences. Today the word patriotism does not carry as much weight as it did back then because the world has changed, it has brought some prosperity to some people and generally speaking people now have more education than the previous generation and more job opportunities than before. There are still some countries suffering from proxy wars like in Iraq, Syrian, Afghanistan etc. that has led to the increase in the acts of terrorism in all parts of the world but big countries like India and China are at peace where people go about living their normal day to day life. So I do support a sense of belonging and a pride in the country that has educated me and helped me in many ways when I needed it. I do feel a sense of duty toward my home country so I pay my taxes and do many things that are considered patriotic although I think that it will be hard to drive people today into a patriotic frenzy the way Adolf Hitler did in Germany back then. It is because people now are educated enough to examine the motive of such leaders before they give their unconditional support to them. In a functioning democracy , there are checks and balances to stop anyone to become an autocrat like Hitler but in countries where the dictators rule, people still live in fear and worry about what will happen if their dictator drags their country into a war that can mean death and destruction on a national scale. But I would shy away from wearing my patriotism on my sleeve like they do in some countries where women wear their flag in their bikinis. The love and respect for your flag should only extend so far as not to make a mockery of it. Healthy respect for the flag that represents your country should be cultivated but a mockery is clearly not the way to do it. The flag should be revered like you revere Jesus or Buddha but should you wear a panty with the picture of Jesus covering your crotch and proclaim your love this way? The abuse of patriotism : People blame Hitler for the World War II when he roused the German people into a frenzy to do his bidding that led to the near destruction of Germany and the loss of lives in millions but people forget that Adolf Hitler tried to make peace at least seven times with the allied powers before he chose the war. Decorated military officers like Stauffenberg and many others who were patriotic Germans saw how Germany was being destroyed so tried to assassinate Hitler but failed and were shot. The Deputy Fuhrer Hess who loved Germany also tried to make the offer of peace by flying into England one day but he was arrested and sent to a prison where he later committed suicide. So patriotism can mean different things to different people but one thing is certain. It is the love for your country , its values and its legitimate government elected by the popular mandate , its culture, its way of life and religions are all a part of patriotism. When you defy a dictatorial government and abusive police force, unjust laws and political harassment of the minorities, people of ethnic origins, blacks and others at the cost of going to prison, you are no less patriotic than others.
https://youtu.be/UFRuKs7ZfEk Source : U tube video of mob lynching of Muslims in India Now in India we see the rise of Hindu nationalism that equates itself with being patriotic. Mob lynching of Moslems who refuse to say Bharat Mata ki Jai ( Victory to Mother India) or Jai Shri Ram ( Victory to Ram) is being reported in many parts. They use the ban of cow slaughter in some parts to attack Muslims who eat beef so they are labeled as unpatriotic and beaten up or even killed. Any politician who supports the Muslims is attacked or ridiculed so the majority now decides who is patriotic and who is not. It is very dangerous in India for any Muslim to shout Long live Pakistan and wave the Pakistan flag anywhere because the crowd of Hindus will attack such a person. Policemen may watch but will not interfere. (The Buddhists in Myanmar also used the slaughter of cows by Muslim Rohingyas as an issue so they chased them out of the country because they say that cow slaughter was anti Buddhist and unpatriotic.) It is useless to tell them that the Muslims are also Indians who have contributed to the struggle for its independence. Thousands have sacrificed their lives when they fought against the British in the Indian National Army of Bose . Muslims serve in the national and regional governments and have received high awards for their services and their patriotism during the wars with Pakistan. But the rise of Hindu nationalism tends to negate the contributions Muslims have made and still do and has started to redefine who is patriotic and who is not. It reminds me of an American president who said " if you are not with us, you are against us" during his rallies to get support for his war in Iraq that many countries including Germany and India did not support . In any democracy, the opposition plays a crucial role of checks and balance so that a government does not become autocratic and impose its will on the country against their wishes. Remember how people all over the United States rose against the war in Vietnam and protested on the streets ? They were no less patriotic than those rightly or wrongly supported the war and had every right to protest. Such democratic protests have yielded positive results and ended the war in Vietnam. The protests in France led to the independence of Algeria. But to use the word patriotism to start war and mayhem somewhere and label those who do not support it as unpatriotic is an abuse of the word and its meaning and that is now happening also in India where the Hindu nationalism is on the rise that starts labeling people who do not support them as unpatriotic people be they Muslims or others. This is how a democracy can be destroyed in the long run so I hope that you who are my readers understand that protesting unjust government , unjust laws and rules does not make you unpatriotic . Learn from the example of Claus von Stauffenberg and Rudolf Hess who loved their country and died for it.
Source : Google photo of the widows of Vrindavan Synopsis :Of all people in the world, no one is more important than the parents because they bring you to this world, make numerous sacrifices to raise you, feed you and give you the education so that some day you can stand on your own feet when they are no longer around. They take care of you when you are sick and they console you when you are unhappy about something. They are always there like solid rock that you can count on but now we see a disturbing trend when some people mistreat their own parents. Their numbers are small but it is a shame just the same . The devotees of Krishna in India and elsewhere in the world know Vrindavan in North India as the birthplace of Krishna so millions make a bee line to visit it and offer prayers in numerous temples there. If you visit the city today, you will find many majestic and beautiful temples from where the chimes of bells can be heard from a distance. Huge crowds gather there in the evenings where prayers are offered to the Deity and religious songs are sung called bhajan meaning songs in the praise of their God. Vrindavan is an ancient holy place just like Benares aka Varanasi known for its temples and religious lives of people there. You will find lots of ascetics called sadhus in their saffron robes or white robes wandering the streets or sitting near the temples with their prayer beads. You will also see thousands of widows in white saris some old and others not so old who crowd the streets and the temples where they beg for food. They wear white markings on their forehead that means they belong to the Vaishnav sect that follows the Krishna cult. Some are so old that they can hardly walk yet they hobble along painfully on their arthritic limbs with a begging bowl in their hand and look for food. The pilgrims who take pity on these poor widows may give them a few coins and walk on feeling uneasy about the conditions of these poor widows of Vrindavan because these widows hide a dark and uncomfortable secret that the world knows nothing about so today I want to write about these widows of Vrindavan. When I was in college, we used to go on educational tours of places of interest in India and traveled as a group with a teacher as our guide because it was a part of our college curriculum. We visited agricultural research stations, farms and milk and meat processing centers but many other places as well of great touristic interests so we ended up in Mathura one day while some of our classmates went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. So I decided to rent a bicycle and pedaled on to Vrindavan which was some 12 kms away to see the temples. It is near the Yamuna river where one can see a great number of huge turtles that the pilgrims feed so I saw the turtles and then went on to see some of the temples. There are hundreds of them. I saw many old women and the sadhus but I knew nothing about the dark secret of the widows then and went back to Mathura quite happily. I have never gone back to Vrindavan and after knowing the secret that Oprah Winfrey talks about in her video below, I never want to.
https://youtu.be/aBhpng2NzVc Source : U tube video of Oprah Winfrey visiting Vrindavan , India ( in English )
https://youtu.be/QrtIF_i75p0 Source : U tube video documentary on the widows of Vrindavan ( in Hindi)
https://youtu.be/MHqAXKzEOrc Source : U tube video documentary on the widows of Vrindavan ( in English ) This is the heart wrenching story of the widows of Vrindavan that I post here for you. There are three videos above. The first one is made by Oprah, the second one in Hindi that some of you may not understand so I will comment on it below and the last one is a propaganda video that says all is well in Vrindavan and the widows are happy there. Watch all three of them and make up your mind. The Hindu widows face a serious social problem in India. The Hindu society ostracizes them because they are widows. They are supposed to wear only white and plain sari, they may not eat meat or fish and they may not wear any jewelry. They are often unwelcome to attend marriage because people still think that a widow's presence is inauspicious during happy occasions. But this is not the worst thing that happens to a widow in India. She is often expelled from her own home by her relatives who are greedy for her property and whatever money she may have so they put her out on the streets to fend for herself in a country that takes great pride in it's ancient civilization. Her own sons and daughter do this to their mother and leave her to die on the streets or survive by begging so she takes the train to Vrindavan one day where she hopes to find succor. At the railway station in Kolkata , she pleads with the train ticket collector that she has no money and has not eaten for several days so he should have pity on her and let her go to Vrindavan. Once she arrives in Vrindavan, she is given a cup of tea and a biscuit by a kind person that she savors like nectar and then starts to look for food and shelter. Soon she finds herself in the company of thousands like her who have come from all parts of India to spend the rest of their pathetic life there praying,chanting hymns and singing religious songs in temples where she is given some food by the temple priest who happens to be a real tyrant. He may deny food to the starving woman if he feels that she is not religious enough or can't sing loud enough or for other trivial reasons so these poor women find themselves at the mercy of these so called priests who are in reality like demons who exploit the poor women. They are the real psychos but very well fed psychos. Once these proud women were well taken care of by their husbands and lived in comfort but that changed when the husband died and her own kids threw her out on the streets. It makes me ashamed to write about this shameful part of the Hindu society where such things still happen today that shocked Oprah and the world through her video. She is a very kind and generous woman who has come to the aid of these poor widows of Vrindaban and has helped them financially to live a life with some dignity. Now the Government of India has started to pay some attention and gives them some pension every month but how much of the money reaches these women is not known. Due to the corruption , some middlemen siphon off a part of the money sent to the widows by the government so now a direct deposit scheme into their bank account is being considered. But these women do not have 10 cents to their name and do not have a bank account so that is another problem the authorities have to solve. The inhumanity of it boggles the mind. I have just published a blog where I wrote about how the old parents are thrown out by their own sons on the streets due to their greed for money and property that you should also read in this context unheard-crieshere. There was a time not too long ago when very young widows were thrown out on the streets for the same reason so they used to go to Benares to find food and shelter just like these women in Vrindavan and some ended up as prostitutes to support themselves. The British were appalled by such barbaric practice so they promulgated laws to give such women some protection. Many social reformers of the day in Bengal like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar pressured the British to ban the practice of Sati where young women were forced to die with their dead husbands on the funeral pyre.Their motive was the greed for the properties the widow inherited .Thankfully this practice was outlawed by the British. Now there are some NGOs that are helping the widows in Vrindavan and Benares but the root cause is not addressed because it has to do with the immoral practice of some people who treat their parents this way. Thankfully not everybody does it so the numbers are low if you look at it that way but the evil is evil so it should be condemned as I am doing through this blog because even one helpless woman on the streets like this is one too many. When Hindus show compassion for the abused Moslem women and push for the triple talaq bill in the parliament, they are duplicitous because they should first learn to take care of their own parents. There are many evils in the society that I often write about to make people more aware. The real awareness should come from their own heart and such people should realize that what they are doing to their mothers is not only immoral, it is outright evil so they should face the full force of law. I have written in my previous blogs that women are also complicit in such crimes committed against their mother in laws so they are just as guilty. I hope someday there will be a law to punish such evil doers in India. The news papers and the media do not focus their attention on a lone old woman crying silently and waiting for the train somewhere so this sort of story is hidden in plain sight. They are treated as garbage that the garbage collector takes away and dumps at a garbage site far from the city so it works to clear their conscience because they do not see it any more. The only problem is that such people do not have a conscience. The conscience is the moral compass that guides a person to always do what is right. My Ma used to say that the real enemies anyone has are his relatives and no one else. It is very true. You will read in the papers almost everyday that someone has killed his uncle over a land dispute or a property of some value. Brothers fight over land and money and in laws fight for more dowry from the hapless parents of the girl. The step mothers , step brothers or step sisters may have no compassion for anyone just like in the Cinderella story. I still think that a child is born innocent so why such a child turns out to be evil later on ? What makes him a psycho who does bad things ? I think it has to do with how a child is brought up and under what circumstances. People say that poverty is like fire where steel gets it's strength so it can also help develop great character in a person and teaches him right from wrong. I have seen great compassion and kindness in poor people in many countries but have also seen haughtiness and arrogance in rich people. The worst kind are the poor who have become rich later in life because then they try very hard to forget where they came from and what values they had. India has many positive things to show to the world and has made great contribution to the science and technology and in numerous other fields . It is a growing economy so the poverty level is being reduced and the middle class is growing but with such rapid development, India may end up losing its soul someday if they lose compassion for their mothers who have to beg for food in the streets of Vrindavan. People should look in the mirror and ask this simple question " What have I become ?"
Source : Google photo of a man made disaster Synopsis : People continue to die needlessly when their old and dilapidated houses collapse on them all of a sudden but there is nothing sudden about it because such disasters can be prevented by evacuating people from unsafe dwellings before it happens. But people do not listen in spite of warnings because they have no other alternative. The blog looks at the alternatives. When Anarkali was buried alive by the order of a cruel king in India because as a court dancer she fell in love with the crown prince, she suffered agonizing pain but her sacrifice for love made her immortal in the annals of history . People still shed tears on her grave in Lahore where they put flowers and wish they too could have such love for a person but Anarkali died through no fault of her own. Please read my blog called The price they paid for love here. The death of Anarkali was a man made tragedy because one king could not accept a court dancer no matter how beautiful and talented marrying a crown prince so she was ordered killed in the most painful way possible. This sort of punishment has been repeated many times that are recorded in the annals of history that people still read and disapprove the injustice of it . The honor killings that are still practiced in some countries where a woman may be punished this way for marrying a person the parents and the tribal societies do not approve of are a barbaric act that is condemned all over the world but it is still a part of the tribal culture in India and Pakistan that endures. These are all man made tragedies that can be avoided if people practice kindness and understanding. But I would now like to write about other types of man made tragedies that are no less painful that are preventable yet occur on a routine basis. Recently a tall building in Mumbai collapsed due to heavy rains and the poor structure of the building where many lived and died suddenly buried under tons of rubble. Some of their cries could be heard faintly under the rubble but the rescue workers could not get to them fast enough so they died. Those who were pulled out alive were so gravely injured that they could not make it to a hospital. The city municipal engineers had warned the owner of the building that the building was not safe and could collapse any time but the owner continued to ignore such warning because he was collecting huge rents from the tenants who probably had nowhere else to go so this tragedy was just waiting to happen. This is a man made tragedy that could have been avoided if the owner had listened to the warning of the engineers. You do not hear of people getting buried under tons of rubble in the villages anywhere in Africa because the villagers do not live in concrete houses that are ten story tall. They live in small mud wall huts that may get damaged by rain a bit that they can easily repair. But people who live in big cities like Mumbai are frequent victims of such tragedies when their tall buildings collapse all of a sudden taking many lives. The natural disasters like earthquake claim thousands of lives in many countries that no one can predict or do anything about because the nature is so powerful and can strike without warning. Remember the big earthquake in Bam in Iran and Port au Prince in Haiti? Part of Mexico City and the entire city of El Asnam in Algeria were leveled by earthquakes that took many lives but it is a natural disaster that could not be prevented. Now some countries that are prone to earthquake are trying to build earthquake proof buildings using modern technology like in Japan but the force of nature is often too strong to overcome so the Kobe earthquake leveled a part of the city. But the man made tragedies like the one in Mumbai could have been prevented if the tenants had moved to safer locations when they were warned of an impending disaster so why didn't they ? Why would anyone live in a building that could collapse anytime? The answer lies in poverty. If you go to Kolkata, you will notice four or five story buildings right in the middle of the city that are so dilapidated that can collapse anytime but people continue to occupy them because they have nowhere else they can move to. They pay 2 or 4 dollars per month in rent so the landlord gets practically nothing from the rent and has no money to renovate the building. The renters can't be evicted easily because the court battle in India is lengthy and costly so the owners just abandon their property. In all big cities in India and elsewhere in the world one may find such death traps where poor people live at the great risk of their life because they find no alternative. In more developed countries like the United States and in Europe , there are stringent building codes for building tall buildings so the owners are punished if they violate those codes. The old buildings are routinely torn down to make room for new and modern buildings so the man made disasters are minimized to a great extent. You will also notice that the middle income people prefer to live in suburbs that are not too far from the place of their work so they live in the safety of their own homes that are well built. The poor people who can't afford suburban living stay in the city dwellings that are often 5 or 6 story ugly tenement houses built by the government but poorly maintained. You will see such tenement housing for the poor in all big cities in the United States and in many big cities in Europe as well because poor people are everywhere so they must be sheltered. In communist countries like China and North Korea, they provide housing for everybody and often build more than what people need so you will find thousands of well built empty apartments , empty malls and other buildings in some parts of China where people do not live. People live where they find jobs so you cannot entice people to move to new apartments somewhere because there are no jobs for them there. I have seen the same phenomenon in Spain where thousands of well built apartments lie vacant. Source : Google photo of ghost cities in China The buildings that are very tall like in New York are built that way because the cost of land there is very high so they have no choice but to go up. This is the trend now worldwide so you will find the high rise buildings everywhere where people live like in pigeon holes packed tightly together. In Manila, the buildings are so tall that the fire department can't reach them in case of fire in the upper floors. To decongest the big cities like Mumbai, the government has started building suburbs where people can move to but the cost may be beyond the reach of poor people so they stay put where they are. Who wants to move if the rent they pay per month is only 4 dollars? The man made disasters that are waiting to happen are also linked to the level of corruption that is found in many countries like India . Often you will read about an overpass collapsing somewhere killing hundreds of unsuspecting people or a bridge collapsing because it was built by corrupt people who stole cement from the construction site and put more sand in the concrete. The government projects suffer from such corruption that leads to death of innocent people. What is the solution? To prevent the man made disasters like the collapse of an old and unsafe building, the tenants first need an alternative before they can leave so it is the duty of the government to provide the alternative by building affordable housing for the poor somewhere that are linked by road and rail link. Forced evacuation of tenants without giving them an alternative just does not work anywhere. People do not like to live in an unsafe place so they will move readily if an alternative is provided to them. It can even be a temporary solution until the old unsafe buildings are torn down and new ones built that the tenants can move back into later. This is one possibility but it needs resources that poor countries do not have so what is the solution ? Source : Google photo of Jimmy Carter and his habitat for humanity program I really appreciate the effort of President Jimmy Carter who started building the affordable low cost houses for the poor in many countries through his Habitat for humanity program that uses volunteers and innovative low cost building techniques but cannot build houses for all the poor in the world. It can only show the way it can be done cheaply so the countries with housing problems can learn from it. Secondly the governments have to fight corruption and make sure that the contractors build safe and solid houses under strict government supervision. Lastly the affordable houses built on mass scale using the prefabricated walls and tops that can be quickly assembled should be looked at by the housing authorities to help the poor people. Many countries are using the pre fabricated methods of building strong and modern houses that do not require any finishing and can be ready in just a few days. Here is a video I found that shows how to build a modern house using specially built cement blocks that lock with each other without needing cement mortar and can be assembled in a short time by unskilled people . The cost of the finished house is only USD 2500 so it could be adopted for mass housing.
https://youtu.be/EBkv5jjjhJ0 Source : U tube video of low cost houses assembly. We all dream of living in our own beautiful home somewhere someday if such a home could be built at a price we can afford without borrowing money so that we do not have to live in dilapidated houses that can collapse on us anytime. There is nothing worse than lying under tons of rubble and hoping that someone hears your cry of anguish and pain and see the hope slowly fade away as you breathe your last.
