Norwegian Honeymoon?

Being an expatriate has its own shocks. While it may look glamorous residing in a foreign land for a length of time can cause severe hardship and many times one feels a sense of being buffeted in strong winds without an anchor to root you.
The incident of an Indian couple having their children being taken away from them by Norwegian Child Services Authorities is a great case in point. Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya lost custody of their three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter eight months ago after authorities branded their behavior inappropriate. While the authorities have remained tight lipped some of the reasons for this seemingly harsh decision are:
1. The children were fed by hand.
2. The children shared the parent’s bed.
3. The children were fed yogurt (curd) and rice.
4. The children were slapped on occasion.

None of the above would probably send a normal Indian into a tizzy and the issue has many Indian’s foaming at the mouth but Norwegian authorities view it differently. The parents have been told that they can only see their children twice a year, for an hour during each visit until the kids turn 18 when they will no longer be bound by the current restrictions under current Norwegian law. This prompted the Indian Government to intervene and the latest is that the kid’s uncle will take custody of the children and leave Norway with them. How that is a solution, is something that I fail to see.
Amidst this brouhaha one can sympathize with the Norwegians a tad. In a country with a declining population and despairing at poor birth rates, children are precious and might cause them to see fairly normal (as seen by Indian’s) parenting traits differently. However should Norway want to integrate itself into a flat and extended world and avoid bad press it would need to understand that people do things differently across nations and need to be accepted with their cultural traits?
Amidst this mess, it would be interesting to hear what support the Indian couple received from their employers, an American MNC in dealing with this trauma. Norway's Child Protective Service has come under much scrutiny in the past for excessive behavior in their handling of child cruelty. However that is how Norway is and expatriates and their masters need to sensitize folk setting up shop there.

Titanic Revisited!

Once in a while there comes a story, which sounds like a fairy tale, except for those who chose to be a part of it. The sinking of the Costa Concordia, a luxury liner, is one such story.
The ship floundered and sank a few days ago in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tuscany.Off the 4200 people on board, thus far eleven are dead and twenty one still missing.
The ship's captain, Francisco Schettino, is under house arrest on suspicion of multiple manslaughter. He is also charged with negligence and sooner than latter will be for causing pollution. It is not be forgotten that Giglio is one of the most beautiful 'marinas' in the world.
Strangely, the Capt;, decided to stray off course and go close to the island to salute a friend! Incredible to say the least. Even more strange is that, when the ship went off her laid down course; the Head Quarters would have been alerted, if they had had an Automatic Tracking System (ATS ). What was their action?
After hitting rocks, floundering and shipping water, the Captain ( or an officer on the ships bridge ) calmly informs, the loacl coast guard, that the ship has had a black out ( generator shutdown ) and that they are trying to fix the problem.A similar message seems to have gone out to a terrified body of passengers on the Captain's orders.
As the ship keels over and is capsizing,the order to abandon ship is given and there is general confusion and a lack of command by the Captain. Apparently he has abandoned ship and fled the scene. Mistakes might be tolerated but this is sacrilege in the marine world. A Captain stays on board his sinking ship till the last person is safely out of it. In his defence the ship's captain, Francisco Schettino, says that he tripped and fell and when he awoke found himself in a life boat. That’s a story that a marine court might find hard to digest leave alone believe!

To add to the quagmire is a report that there was a woman (not part of the ship’s crew) on the bridge, when the incident occurred. The ships bridge is a restricted area and not an area for spectator sport. If this woman is identified, the Captain will be hard pressed to defend her presence on the bridge, particularly when he too was there on the bridge.
Ship Captains are process driven, so what caused this ( mis )adventure? My take is poor hiring and a lack of training. Being a commander of a cruise liner is serious business and requires serious people to do it and not gents like Francisco Schettino, who comes across as a gregarious, weak willed person who likes to take short cuts for a lark!
Like many industries the navy too faces a serious shortage of talent and unless pundits have a well thought out plan in hand we are sure to hear of more Concordia’s in the days to come.

Chindogu!

The art of the useless is something many of us specialize in over a life time. We accquire stuff, that we may never use, drawing comfort in the act of buying.

The Japanese, with growing urbanization and wealth, post World War 2, indulged in wanton buying and coined the word 'Chindogu' for urban folk buying up and accumalating useless stuff.Stuff that was useless or that they would not use.

Now with the Japanese economy stagnating and real incomes dropping for urban Japan, many people are re looking at their habit of 'Chindogu'. It is extremely difficult to drop the habit at the flick of a switch.

Japan's rural population has aged and the farming sector has seen alarming dips in productivity with the average age of farmers, being about 65 years, prompting many youngsters to relocate from Japanes cities like Tokyo and Osaka to rural Japan and take up farming as a livelihood. For this to happen young Japanese will need to give up the habit of wandering into malls and shopping for Chindogu, which like many things is an addiction.

The Grades story!

As we move along many would have thought that we would dump using education grades as a filter for landing a job. Far from this, the world in general seems to be regressing and many organizations are looking at even 10th Grade marks to decide if a candidate is good enough, thus right away filtering out a chunk of candidates who might be otherwise good enough to make the final cut.
Even as we decry our education system and youngsters cry foul, organizations seem to look for future success in the marks or grades that, that very system seems to produce. Why the dichotomy?
To my mind, it is clear that historical data, does point a finger at what lies ahead unless something dramatic happens. As an example, a poor student, would suddenly start performing brilliantly only if the there are drastic changes in the environment and vice versa. Many say that the famous Bill Gates was a college drop out. The drop out was by choice and because he smelt a greater opportunity elsewhere. His being a very good student gave him the confidence to take the risk to shun his studies.
A good consistent academic record indicates consistency, discipline, hard work and an ability to hang in there when the going gets tough and not least intelligence. All these traits are highly valued by corporate who are tired at handling the proverbial flash in the pan. Ask any HR worth their salt and they will substantiate that. Organizations zero in on the top B Schools and Engineering colleges, only because they assume that students good enough to get in there would display the above mentioned traits or values in the future, as well.
In an uncertain world, marks seem to be the best bet in determining future success, not an ideal situation, but we would have to live with it for the moment. Many would say that the Indian system, of education, with its emphasis on grades, kills innovation. I think it is more to do with our economic condition and lack of infrastructure. Well educated and heeled Indians seem to be creative enough. One has only to land up in the Silicon Valley in the USA to understand this. Many of them folk came from the education system that is still in place in India.
I would place my money on good grades with a sound attitude anyday!

A Monkeys Paw!

The Monkey's Paw is rather a scary story over a 100 years old, which talks about not being able to escape fate and that every wish carries a cost.The story involves Mr. and Mrs. White and their adult son Herbert. Sergeant-Major Morris, a friend of the Whites who has been part of the British Army in India, leaves them with the monkey's paw, telling of its mysterious powers to grant three wishes, and of its journey from an old fakir to his comrade, who used his third and final wish to wish for death.
Mr. White wishes for £200. Their son is killed by machinery at his company, and they get compensation of £200.Sad compensation, indeed.

Apparently monkeys are trapped in South East Asia, buy inducing the animal to dip its paw into a bottle of peanuts. The greedy monkey clutches at the nuts and is sadly unable to get its paw out of the bottle. It does not have the intelligence to let go and run, either.As panic sets in, fear clouds its judgment and its freedom is lost, as the hunter picks it off the anchored bottle.

How like humans? We are trapped in a vicious materialistic spiral and have little inclination of letting go, to move on to better things in life. In management parlance it is called 'Escalation of Commitment', where precious resources chase useless pursuits, as people and organizations refuse to let go and move on!

Gersoppa!

A shipwreck containing 200 tonnes of silver worth £150m has been discovered in the Atlantic – the largest haul of precious metal ever found at sea.

The SS Gairsoppa, a UK cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, was found by US exploration firm Odyssey Marine.

The firm will retain 80% of the cargo’s value under the terms of a contract with the Department for Transport.

The vessel was on its way back to England from India when it ran low on coal in stormy weather, and tried to divert to Galway harbour, but it was spotted and sunk by the German U Boat.

Three members of the crew survived in a lifeboat and reached the Cornish coast two weeks later, but two died trying to get ashore.

The wreck of the 412ft ship was found this summer nearly 4,700m below the North Atlantic, 300 miles off the Irish coast, but it was only confirmed as SS Gairsoppa last week.

Odyssey Marine’s senior project manager, Andrew Craig, said: “We’ve accomplished the first phase of this project – the location and identification of the target shipwreck.

“Now we’re hard at work planning for the recovery phase.

“Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo.”

SS Gairsoppa settled upright on the seabed with its cargo holds open, which means remote-controlled robotic submarines should be able to retrieve the bullion.

Odyssey’s chief marine archaeologist Neil Dobson said: “Even though records indicate that the lifeboats were launched before the ship sank, sadly most of her crew did not survive the long journey to shore.

“By finding this shipwreck and telling the story of its loss, we pay tribute to the brave merchant sailors who lost their lives.”

The merchant ship belonged to the British India Steam Navigation Company, and was ordered into the merchant navy fleet at the outbreak of World War II.

Now, why does Gersoppa, ring a bell

? Well, it happens to be the highest waterfall in this part of the world not very far from here at Bangalore.

Bangalore Tales!

About two score years ago, to this day, much before president Obama made a mention of the city and much before the word ‘Bangalored’ entered the English dictionary and hugely before Bangalore became Bengaluru much to the chagrin of the non Kannadiga, Bangalore was on the front pages of almost every major newspaper of the world.
It all started with, the former Indian Prime Minister being blown to bits by a suicide bomber in a small, decrepit, dust bowl of a town in Tamil Nadu called Sriperumbudur. The local master mind of this rather dastardly act relocated to Bangalore and made his home not too far from where I stay in the suburbs of Bangalore.
To cut to the chase, Sivarasan, more famously called the one eyed jack and his cronies died by their own hand when cornered by the police in the house that they were holed up in. Sivarasan blew his brains out and the rest chose to bite on a capsule of cyanide and apparently died in a ghastly embrace.
Apparently the police were lead to this solitary house by the local milk distributor, Haalina Muniyamma or milk Muniyamma. This brave lady showed the chutzpah to identify and inform the police of the whereabouts of the dangerous killers.
In the hoopla surrounding the event she was promised a reward, which has not materialized as promised. She is further astounded that Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of the slain PM, visited one of the conspirators in jail and ‘forgave’ her!( Vote Bank Politics is what some might say ) ‘What of my poor family?’, laments the old lady. ‘Does anybody care?’ To add insult to injury Muniyamma’s son was denied a police job because he could not grease the right palm, she says. She had led a simple life. Her life changed after the incident at Konakunte. For some time, she even had to live under police protection. "I was promised reward of Rs 10 lakh but nothing happened. After much pleading, I got Rs 60,000 in 1992,'' she recalls.
What a sham.Whoever said, that the world is a fair place?

***** Prisons!

Professionals from abroad working in India have a morbid fear of landing themselves in an Indian prison and rightly so considering the way our prisons are said to run and maintained.

However with growing liberalization, wealth and opportunity, prison is home to quite a few big wigs these days, both from the south and the north of India. No discrimination there.

With this influx there is a good chance that we shall soon see 5 star prisons!

Teachers Day!

Teacher’s day, when I was at school was big ticket. The day was viewed with certain amount of anticipation and excitement. My mother after a great deal of pester would conjure up a bouquet for my favorite teacher and principal, which would eventually get tossed into a large heap.
Teacher’s day was also about getting an opportunity to teach junior kids, as the teachers would take a break from the class for the day and entertain themselves at school, or so we thought.
For me, alas, the opportunity never came, simply because I was never a teacher’s pet and I learnt very early that it pays to cozy up to the right people.
While not being able to teach kids at school, left a rather bitter taste in the mouth, I've made up for it by teaching big kids now and quite enjoying the journey.
Kids, these days do not humor me with flowers and cards, but many do call and say that somewhere I made a difference to their lives and those few words make it all worth the while.
Having seen many sides of the world I can safely say that teachers are some of the most poorly treated professionals and societies that do not recognize them are doing so at their own peril, because nobody became a somebody, without a teacher and great societies have had great teachers to get there.
!

Just pissing in the wind!

A few days ago, there was a sense of déjà vu, as I was between choosing a book to buy at a Crosswords store, here in Bangalore. The book in hand was 'Summary of Broken Republic: Three Essays', by noted speaker and freewheeling democrat, Arundhati Roy. The Booker prize winner is either loved or hated for her outspoken views on issues in India and many belive she is of little value other than being a nuisance at best.

The déjà vu, came about because as I flipped through pages, a procession went by, with the national flag and all, in support of the man of the moment in India 'Anna Hazare', who in his fight against corruption has pushed politicians of all hues into a rather tight corner.

In this battle for survival the politician has received assistance from rather unlikely sources, one is Ms.Roy. Her reason for opposing Hazare being that he did little for his village when farmers were committing suicide and more importantly that he was an RSS sympathizer many years ago, thus in a way echoing the voice of politicians in the UPA.His message, well thats not important, as far as she is concerned.

Ms. Roy's logic is a tad inexplicable. She has no take on how corruption is to be fought but when there is a movement she is seen making feeble attempts to derail it by targeting its leader. With her limited wisdom Ms.Roy ought to see that the move on corruption has gone beyond Hazare and the message has captured the collective imagination of India.

Should Ms.Roy, feel very strongly about her views on Hazare a good idea would be to fast in protest and take her chances! In her book she talks about her time with Maoist guerrillas which made a profound impression. She vividly describes spending nights sleeping on the forest floor in a "thousand-star hotel", applauds "the ferocity and grandeur of these poor people fighting back", and says "being in the forest made me feel like there was enough space in my body for all my organs". She seems to root for the underdog. Yet when the common man looks to make life better for himself she makes an attempt to thwart it by pretty prose in a daily newspaper.
Just pissing in the wind, I would say.