Comprehension? No comprehension.

This time when I went for site visits, I decided I had enough of alphabets and counting. Most of the children who are either attending formal schools or non-formal schools can recite the alphabets and count in Hindi. They can also recite the multiplication tables and at places they will also recite out the alphabets and counting in English.

Good. So I would invariably move on to my next question:
"Can you write your name?"
"Yes."
"Will you write it out for me?"
"Yes."
And baring few exceptions they could indeed write their names in Hindi.
"Can you read?"
Shuffling and embarrassed looks. A few daring ones would tentatively nodded their heads. Since we have provided them with books, I would ask them to pick their favorite one and read.

The reading is little bit hesitant as they stumble over unfamiliar words. After they had read couple of lines, I would stop them and ask them to explain what they have just read.

With those words I would hit a roadblock. None of the child could explain what they have read from the textbook. This was uniformly the same across three projects and 20 Non-formal Centers I visited this time. Last year too I had made the same observations and nothing has changed from last year to this year.

In none of the centers have the teachers made an attempt to explain the story to the child.
"Oh, you asked us to give books to the child."
"See", they would thrust the register at me, "we have done what you asked us to."

The children have been issued books and they have been encouraged to read. What is more, they would tell me virtuously, we read out stories to those children who cannot read.

Yes, but what do the words mean? If there is no comprehension, how are they any better than when they could not read.

NOTE: I should make it clear that this lack of comprehension is not limited to the children who attend non-formal centers that we support. It, unfortunately, extends to those children too who attend formal schools.

The (un)intelligent bird

There are some who seem to be completely enamored by the peacock.

Today morning when I was cooking in the kitchen I happened to glance out. The window is draped in a sort of net curtain that affords enough privacy but does not prevent my view. So as I glanced out I thought I detected the head of the peacock. I was surprised because there is just a thin ledge outside the door, not enough I would think for the peacock to sit. I decided I was seeing a mirage especially because I was not wearing my glasses. So I once again peered through the curtain. Oh, sure enough it was the peacock. And even as I watched it took off with a flurry of wings. And bang went the pot with the gongura plant. It fell on the ground and cracked into pieces, ending the life of the poor plant.

Just to compare: the peahen would never do such foolish things :)

I, Me, Myself

This is the time when rice is transplanted. This is a back-breaking working, where one has to stand in water-logged fields and transplant the paddy saplings bunch by bunch. As I went around the villages I could see that it was a job done by women and girls.
"The men do not do anything," I was told.
Next time I eat rice or wheat I know that I will think of those girls, who instead of going to school, worked in the fields.
I as a person am part of the community that is interdependent.
Vibha and I were discussing Arushi Talwar murder case the other night as we took our walk.
"Few years ago," Vibha said "they had a life-skills program in Aastha's [her daughter] school. I went to see what they were teaching. The class started with the first lesson on 'I'. 'I' in the center and the rest delegated to the background. So family and community are not as important as 'I' is. Which is funny because in Sanskrit I learnt that third person is the most important. And 'I' or aham is the least important. Aham is equated to ego and ego has to be removed."
'I' exists in relation with others. I am not saying that 'I' is not important but it is not the center of the Universe.
I was reminded of this as I watched this young girl (I will call her X) perform at the Blue Notes Annual Day Function.
X is daughter of a faculty and they used to live in the old transit house, just like I do. X and Sohail were great friends and would come over sometimes to my place when Sohail wanted to talk or hear me play the veena. She was a nice little kid with two plaits who was learning dance and was tickled pink to know that I too was a Tamilian.
Then the family moved into the new transit house and I lost touch. Occasionally, I would see this girl running some errands for her mother but for the past couple of years I did not catch glimpse of her.
Therefore, I was absolutely shocked when I saw her at the concert. She has adopted the same aggressive posture of her peers. The body language of these students spoke volumes about how they consider themselves to be the most important. 'I' am at the center and the rest I do not care.
I was little disturbed. Maybe I was reading too much into something that did not exist beyond my imagination.
But I have company. Apparently Surinder, Sneha's husband, told her much the same when he saw X on the stage.

Blue Notes

The Blue Note Music (Western Music) school is situated in Vasant Kunj. Many of the faculty's children learn music from this school. Therefore, it was entirely appropriate that the Faculty club hosted the annual day function of Blue Note Music School. The function was dedicated to the cause of the malnourished children.
UNICEF is focusing on India for we have the largest number of malnourished children in the world. One in three child in India is malnourished. This number is not surprising given the poverty. What nourishment can we talk when in many rural areas/urban slums children eat possibly a roti with salt or chilli? The problem is compounded because the mother too is undernourished and anemic. It is a vicious has the malnourished children grow up into malnourished adult, giving birth to halnourished children.
The mid-day meal scheme, which was launched by MGR in Tamilnadu was scoffed initially but in retrospect is a brilliant scheme. If it was implemented properly. In most of the schools at least in UP the menu is kichidi, more kichidi, and some more kichidi if the provisions arrive in time. The teachers have the additional responsibility of cooking the mid-day meal. So either the teaching or the meal can be done, in most cases neither is done. On the other hand both Karnataka and Rajasthan have implemented Akshay Patra scheme.
Renuka Choudary meantime had the brilliant idea of giving packaged food to the children. In most cases this constituted vitamin enriched biscuits- a boon to the biscuit industry no doubt- but this is not sufficient for the children. The prepackaged food might relieve the teacher, might even provide uniform quality food to the children but it is not going to provide all the nutrition the child needs. I think for the time being the PM has intervened and has requested this scheme to be put on back burner.
Coming back to the concert- I went because Sohail, Sneha's son, had told me that he would be singing. The only thing I would say is that I could have been in America for all practical purposes. Oh, a final note-the attitude of the participants was amazing. They extruded a kind of aggressiveness that bothered me. The only kid who did not extrude this attitude was Sohail who looked appavi (I do not know how to translate this Tamil word) and lost in the milieu.

The Handyman

Appa is the handyman of the house. When anything needs to be fixed we turn to him.

Today morning when I broke the glass plate in the microwave while attempting to clean it, I called up appa to give him the news.

"Is it broken into two pieces or many pieces?"
"Many pieces."
"Oh good. I do not have a job to do then."

I do not expect much sympathy but a little bit of it would not be amiss.

Dear Sir

This is how most of the letters are addressed to me. These letters are usually from students who want to do a 6 month dissertation project, needed to fulfill their curriculum. In reality, the colleges and universities that have mushroomed around in India do not have proper laboratory facilities and do not want to do practicals with the students. So they palm them off to Institutes and Universities like ours to teach them the experimental aspect of Biosciences. I do not mind having them around as they are often times brighter than our Ph.D. students. But I do object to receiving letters addressed to me as Dear Sir. It is as though the students cannot ever imagine that a woman can be a scientist. What is worse is many of these letters are from women students themselves. This bothers me a tad bit. Do these girls really believe that all scientists are men only? Or they know that there can be women scientists but cannot be bothered to address the letter properly? Or is it something that they have been taught in their letter-writing exercises in school- address letters as Dear Sir, you know?
It is however, not restricted to the students. Today The Hindu carried an article about on how Delhi University is planning to improve the quality of research. Read the article and you will see that the presumption is that the PhD student would be a male.
Two years back, the PhD scholars gave us all an invitation to a program they were organizing. On top was written our name and below: Dear Sir. Oh! Did they get an earful from us? But sad to say, they still did not get it why we women faculty were furious.

Cravings

I am making a table cloth for Popy. When Reshma, my student, got engaged I searched for a suitable present for her. My darling Mother, who was with me at that time, said why didn't I make a cross-stitch sampler for her. So it was. I hunted amongst my sparse collection (it is sparse whatever the family might believe) and found a perfect wedding sampler. The threads were a problem. I found out the hard way that the embroidery thread colors do not match the wide variety available in US/Europe. We also do not have DMC or Anchor threads. What we have is a Desi version of Anchor threads that are painful to work with. Anyone who has felt the satiny smoothness of the cotton embroidery threads from DMC or Anchor will know what I am talking about. Stumped, I decided that is what brothers were for. The poor chap purchased embroidery threads and sent them to me so that I could make the wedding sampler for Reshma. It was a good educative experience for him and for me.
These are the times I wish I was back in America/Europe. Just so that I could stroll to the market and pick up the threads I want, or ogle at the patterns, wait for a sale to happen and pounce on a kit...
Coming back to Popy's gift, not that she is getting married but it is better to be prepared, I am making a crochet table cloth for her. In India you get only one kind of cotton thread and it is horrible to work with it. Yes, you get the DMC crochet balls but they are more suitable for tatting then for crochet. So I am using the threads that are available in bulk. These threads do not have uniform thickness. At places they are extremely thin as though they will snap any moment and at places they are so thick that crocheting with them is difficult.
The internet is a boon. Not that I can purchase anything for I cannot afford the prices but they are a boon because on the days when I carve for embroidery/knitting/crochet, I can ogle at the patterns. It soothes. Sometimes.
Meantime, I also discovered that in my absence from India, people have given up on knitting. Previously, every lady in North India used to have a pair of knitting needles in her hand during winter. Now, with knitted materials being so cheap, no one has the time and inclination (and maybe it is looked down upon?) to do it. The lady at Lalji Wool Shop told me sadly that there are no knitting books available any more. I have, though, found some patterns online and this winter I have promised myself a sweater and if possible, an afghan.
Let us see. As they would say in Yemen, Inshallah.

Public toilets and Hygiene

Keshav had warned me that the toilet facilities in Kushinagar would be primitive. I just did not realize how primitive.

We stayed in a village called Dumiri in Kushinagar. The house belonged to one of the RTI fellows working with Keshav in Deoria/Kushinagar. It was a pucca house in the sense it was built of bricks. But toilets, I realized, there were none. The toilet facility, it dawned on me, were that primitive.

On the way from Kushinagar to Dumiri, dusk had fallen. As we wended our way to the village, I could see clusters of women moving along the road. I was surprised till I hit the obvious solution. The women can go to toilet only under the cover of night or early in the morning before anyone wakes up.

There is a realization dawning. Everywhere there are now signboards urging people to build toilets at their homes. The selling point is that by having toilets at home, they would not have to send their daughters/ daughters-in-law far from home for this basic necessity. The bonus point would be that it would keep the diseases away. There were also notices urging daughters to refuse marriage into those houses where there were no toilets.

Despite all this there was very little evidence of a toilet in the villages. The only village where I saw toilet in every house was in a village called Sohana in Ghazipur district. The toilets that are being built are the most primitive type but still a toilet.

Will this improve hygiene? I do not know.

Kushinagar and the reclining Buddha

The intercity express was late by three hours. Govind and I were on our way to Deoria and from there to Kushinagar to do some site visits.
Kushinagar is about 3-4 hours away from Kaithi, near Nepal border. This is the place where Buddha died and was cremated. Archaeological excavations led to the discovery of the reclining Buddha.
A temple has been built to house the statue and " his bones" as the Intelligent Man (for reasons I cannot reveal his identity. Suffice to say he is a lawyer and works on RTI in Kushinagar area)told me in a awed voice.
Kushinagar is a tourist spot revered by the Buddhists worldwide. So the government has been kind enough to guarantee it electricity supply twenty four hours.
There is also a dream to build a 152 meter tall Buddha in this area. A private global trust called Maitreyi trust is sponsoring this activity. The Buddha statue would be cast in bronze and would sit atop a 17-storey building. Besides the statue, the trust has also promised to build hotel, meditation center, and a hospital. For this venture, land would be acquired from the farmers. The entire project has the blessings of the Chief Minister of UP.
I can understand the hospital part, especially if it would serve the need of the people of that region. But truly, if there is so much money floating around, can't we use it for better purpose than to build a statue that would supposedly rival that of the Bamiyan Buddha?
If immortality is the issue, where people centuries later would look at the statue in awe and remember the person who built it, we just need to remember Ozymandias.
Or is it as Karl Marx put it "Religion is the opium of the masses". You give religion to the people and they will forget to ask pertinent questions?
There has been massive opposition to the project and for the time being there is a stalemate. But who knows?

How many can fit into a jeep?

Usually Vallabh bhai takes me around to see the projects either on his motorbike or his car. This time he was busy with RTI fellows meeting so I went to the projects by myself, taking every one including the coordinators and teachers by surprise. It was fun.

The first visit was to MSS and Rekha had come to Vallabh's house to take me the project site. We caught a bus from Kaithi to Benaras and from there a jeep to Rajatalab.

So this is the question: How many do you think can fit into a jeep?

There were 15 of us squashed like pumpkins into the seats. And then there were equal number of goats squeezed like cardboards under the seats.

I concede

The first time I visited Benaras, in 2002, I was aghast at the noise outside the station. But as we went outside the city, into Kaithi, I could see the charm of the city. And I clung on to that vision, or mirage, or whatever you want to call it, quite tightly. I could close my eyes to the dirt and garbage and say, Oh but Benaras is Benaras. If it was clean and neat and tidy it would no longer be Benaras, would it be? Okay, that was the romanticizing the city.

This time the rose-colored glasses came off. Alas.

It has been raining incessantly in and around Benaras for the past 11/2 months. The roads built of water-soluble tar and non-sticking grit (and you thought there was only non-sticking pan?)have completely caved in. Water has accumulated in places- dirty and grimy. Alongside the road, where there should have been pavements but aren't, swampy mud where you walk at your own peril. The buildings are wreathed in moss and look as though they have been around forever and that no one has had time and energy to renovate them even with a fresh coat of paint.

It bothers me- this apathy. It is as if people have grown accustomed to living in garbage and filth. As long as their houses are clean, what does the rest matter? But it matters terribly. If I had to live in such a place I would go into deep depression. How can they live like this? How can they stomp through the muddy swamp, drive through the potholes, and bear the stench of the rotting garbage? Doesn't it ever get to them? Don't they ever want to rise up and say okay, listen enough is enough, let us get it clean?

And what do the road construction people think? Oh, I know there is plenty of money involved. Okay, you take bribe. Fine. But can't you at least provide good quality material? Why take bribe and then provide the worst possible material? Is there no pride left in getting a job well done?

Benaras attracts tourists. At least get the city cleaned for them if not for yourselves?

On this note, here is an article from The Times Of India. Apparently, an initiative has been started to clean up Vrindavan.

UPSRTC

Once again this past week I was in Varanasi. This time, though, I forsook Shivganga. Instead I went to Kanpur and from Kanpur took a bus to Benaras.

I was expecting a broken down bone-rattling bus filled with people. After all, this was North. It is the South that is synonymous with good bus services, what with their Volvo buses and reserved seats.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the air-conditioned bus that was to take me to Benaras. The bus conductor told us that the bus would leave at 8.00pm on the dot and if we were going to have dinner we better be sharp about it. The vegetarian restaurant that Mahesh bhai and I went to was neat and clean. The waiter told us to order a thali as it can be served within five minutes. The restaurant also boasted a clean toilet.

The bus indeed left at 8.00pm sharp. There were not many passengers and I stretched myself out on a three seat and slept through most of the journey. It is a completely different story of how traffic jams and cows on the road delayed us and we arrived at our destination three hours late. But buses in UP do work.

154 years of excellence

Today on the back page of The Hindu there was a half page advertisement: 154 years of excellence in service- CPWD. They have built roads and hostels and whatnots.

And my house.

The house can vouch for the excellent service that CPWD provides:

The flush does not work even after several repairs so I have closed it down. The kitchen sink is a marvel in construction. The floors resemble road construction. Then there is the verandah with a natural pool in the middle. Whenever it rains or whenever I wash the verandah, the water collects in the middle. I have to repeatedly push the water towards the drain hole. Of course, the CPWD knew that it would be the best exercise for my arms but I would have preferred to do without it.

Anyway, here is a salute to the best service providers of the country.

One of those moments

One of the moments that I remember, as a graduate student, very vividly is the time I burst into Joel's office. The past few months had been exciting since I had discovered an inhibitor. We were now doing a key experiment: Will the inhibitor kill cancer cells? I gathered the results in my hand and burst into Joel's office, with a big smile on my face and asked him whether he wanted to know the results. That moment kind of justified all the nights I stayed up purifying protein. It also justified taking the wrong tube out of the refrigerator and discovering an inhibitor instead.
Today I saw the same smile on Reshma's face...

Okay, let me back track a little bit.

A cell is made of nucleus and cytoplasm at the very gross level. Nucleus is where the DNA resides and cytoplasm is where things other than DNA live. Every event within the cell is regulated and if the regulation goes kaput, the cell too goes kaput. It might not necessarily lead to cancer but every human disease can be tracked down to some protein within the cell becoming dysfunctional. So the regulation of proteins, so that they do what they are supposed to do only at the time they are supposed, is important.

I work with a protein which hydrolyzes ATP in presence of DNA, the energy currency in the cell. When ATP breaks down it releases energy which my protein is supposed to use to do something. I do not know what it does-that is what a big part of my research is.

Now, the protein is a highly active. Give it DNA and ATP, it will happily break down the ATP within matter of minutes. In fact so much so that if it was left unregulated it would just consume all the ATP and kill the cell for the cell cannot survive without ATP. As Tom Thompson, the ex-chairperson of my department at UVa, asked at my viva: "How the heck is the protein regulated?"

Truthfully, I never even was looking at it. I assumed, just as Joel, my advisor, assumed, it is all a matter of availability of the correct DNA.

Anyway, at one point we decided we are going to look where the protein was present in the cell. Was it in the nucleus (which we confidentially assumed it would be) or in the cytoplasm?

To cut a long story short, what we ended up finding is that the protein normally resides in the cytoplasm. So under normal conditions it never even sees DNA, therefore, it does not hydrolyze ATP. But give the cells a little bit of stress that damages the DNA, the protein moves into nucleus.

We did not believe we would see it. I still cannot believe what I saw under the microscope.

But it was one of the moments...

Time Tables

At the beginning of every semester Neera and I wrestle with the time tables. The time tables are a hassle because every one has their own take on it. It need not, of course, be this way but it is. What can you do if a senior faculty throws a tantrum just because I shifted his course from 11am to 12 in the afternoon.
"But it has always been held at 11am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays."
That is it. There is no reprieve. So I quietly change the time table to accommodate him.
Then there are others:
"I can not take a class before 10 because I have to get my daughter to school, get the house cleaned...And I have to pick my daughter up at 11.30am."
Another will tell you:
"I can take classes only 12 in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
It is like as if someone is holding a gun at your temples.
Worse are the 9.00am slots.
"Do you really expect me to come at 9.00 am?" asked a faculty incredulously, when I scheduled his classes for 9.00 am.
Fortunately, there are few understanding souls who will not utter a word of complaint. There are also few very nice faculty who insist that they will teach the 9.00am slot.
"I like to get over the teaching in the morning. So please put me in there."
So keeping these permutations and combinations I dish out a Time Table every semester that often pleases no one other than me.
This semester Neera and I consulted each other.
"We need to make the time table," I reminded her.
She made a face and took an instantaneous decision:
"Use the last year's schedule. The courses have not changed, have they?"
So we have recirculated last year's time table. I remember vividly how unhappy some of the faculty were. I am now waiting for the fireworks to begin.

Nanku Ram and the Rose

The Spanish Language department has faculty from Spain. Their tenure is for three years. So every three years we get a new Spanish Faculty. Maria's tenure got over this year. She was my neighbor and a very friendly person, who for some reason liked appa. She spent considerable time chatting with him, once made him Spanish omelette, and invited him for Spanish plays.

Maria had a small garden but was an unorthodox gardener. When she finally left, she gifted her plants to me. There were two roses with droopy leaves and fleshy thorns, couple of evergreens, and a spider plant.

Nanku Ram, my gardener, and I stared with horror at the plants and then got down to rescuing them. Ruthlessly, we pruned the roses so that only short stumps were left and then moved them into sunshine. The treatment worked. Very soon we saw small tendrils coming up. The peacocks mercifully left them alone, the rains did their job, and I was pleased to small a see small bud coming up.

Today there was a broad smile on Nanku Ram's face.

"See, Madamji, even that rose has bloomed."

And both of us, besotted, stared at that beautiful Orange Rose.

PS. Nanku Ram has some plans. He wants to put up two poles, create an arch with bougainvillea, and finally cover the entire area with net. That way, he tells me, the peacocks will not be a nuisance and we can have winter flowers. I am keeping my fingers crossed for I do not trust the peacocks.