photos

Finally, I got around to it. Or rather Appa did. So the photos of my site visit can be accessed here. I will get around to the captions, promise. Meantime, it is back to teaching. One class every day: Mon, Wed and Fri- M.Phil. And Tue and Thur-M.Sc. To one bunch I teach eukaryotic gene transcription and to the other bunch I teach Human genetics. As different as chalk from cheese. Ugh! The only kind thing I can actually say about Human Genetics is that I have learnt something about a subject that I knew zilch.
Oh, the university has been kind. For days I could not access the blog website. They had put restrictions on which sites we can access. It appears that they came to their senses and lifted up the restriction.

For the want of opportunities

Today I visited a NGO named Udayan Care. It was started by Dr. Kiran Modi after a personal tragedy. One of the schemes launched by Udayan Care is known as Udayan Shalini fellowships. The scheme provides fellowships to young girls who want to pursue higher education but cannot because of circumstances. Very often girls have to drop out of school because they have to add to the family income or the family is pressurizing them to get married or there is no money. Dr. Modi told me how the scheme was initiated. At first the organization was focusing on orphans. They had started homes for these children much like the SOS village. Then one day her driver said to her that he wished he was dead because then the education of his children too would have been taken care by Dr. Modi's organization. And thus was launched the scheme.
I was reminded of my own encounter with a young woman at Bahranpur. Here, Mahila Swarojgar Samiti has organized Self Help groups for women. When we reached the village the women all got together. A young woman sat besides me. She asked me where I was from. I asked her what she was doing.
"I am in the final year Inter," she confided.
Final year Inter is equivalent to 12th class.
"What will you do next?"
"I will have to stop my studies."
"Why?"
"We have no money. I have to start earning."
"What will you do if you had money to go to college?"
Her eyes lit up.
"I would like to become a doctor."

Alpana Daya Sagar

Today Alpana died.

I first met Alpana when I joined the university way back in 2004. She had a lovely garden and a host of cats. The cats were her passion. She fed them, she took care of them when they fell ill, and she cried when they died. I remember the petition we signed on the dog menace on the campus- she agreed to sign it because the dogs were harassing her cats.

The cats are an orphaned lot today. Who is going to take care of them?

Why I dislike zoos

I dislike zoos.

Prof. Anil Bhatti's lecture on Monday for the orientation course was really on art and science being the two sides of the same coin-the coin of creativity. As he is a professor at the Center for German studies, he used Rilke's poems to illustrate his point. In the handout he gave us was the following poem by Rilke. The translation is by Albert Ernest Flemming.

The Panther

His tired gaze-from passing endless bars-
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world.

His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides
that gently turn in ever smaller circles
perform a dance of strength, centered deep within
a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable.

But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part.
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains in silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.

Child marriages

One of the sights that remain etched in my memory is that of girls walking/biking to school. It was a heartening scene, something that I have not seen in my previous trips. I looked at the girls closely. Many of them were sporting the sindoor. They were married.

In July I made a trip to Panjab. The destination was Sherpur Village where Asha India meeting was going to be held. I took the Dadar-Amritsar express from Delhi. I shared the berths with a young couple. With them was an old man and a very ill old woman- the young man's parents. I got into a chat with the young wife who was cradling a baby.
"Boy or girl?"
"Girl."
Then I was questioned:
"Where are you going?"
"Dhuri. From there to Sherpur."
"Is it your mother's house or mother-in-law's house."
"Neither."
"They why are you going?"
"Some work."
"How many children you have?"
"I am not married."
Her eyes went large:
"You are not married?"
"No."
"I have been married for three years."
There was silence in the compartment. The young woman was obviously brooding over what I had told her.
"You know how old I am?"
I shook my head.
"I am eighteen. I was fifteen when I got married."
"Oh."
"It is really bad. Now I have a baby to look after. I am tired all the time. Now my husband has decided to bring his parents over. Look at my mother-in-law. I have to take care of her, do all the household work, and take care of the baby. My husband will go off for work. What does it matter to him?"
I made some noises.
"I tell you. One should not get married so early."
I nodded. I asked:
"What will you do with your daughter?"
She beamed with pride:
"This one is going to study. She is going to do a job. Do you know, madamji, girls who work need not get married till they are 25-26."
I decided not to tell her my age.

Family planning

To return back to my Varanasi trip:

In Ramdaspur, another Mushaar basti, I was surrounded by women and children. One woman, obviously pregnant asked me:
"How much do they pay to get a family planning operation done?"
I have no idea.
"They say they are giving Rs 100/-. But tell me in these times how far will Rs 100 stretch?"
I murmur something.
"But this time I am going to get the operation done."
"Where?"
"In Jaunpur. When I visit my mother's house. I already have two children. When I had my second child, I wanted to get the operation done. But I couldn't. Now I am going to have a third child. This is enough. It is difficult to educate them when you have too many. So I have decided to put a stop to it."

The Mushaar bastis are electricity deprived. None of the households have a television. The nearest tehsil headquarters is miles away. But family planning has reached this remote hamlet, obviously.

In passing, apparently the government used money as a lure to get the operations done. But they have stopped payment now.

(Dis)Orientation program

The UGC requires all lecturers to take an orientation course to be eligible for senior lecturer position. In their wisdom (?) they treat college lecturers on par with the University lecturers/assistant professors. So I, in order to be eligible for senior scale pay, have to attend this course.

Ugh!

And that about sums up the nonsense. It is a month long course. I hope I remain sane at the end of it.

Oh, to attend the course I need the permission of the Dean for there are M.Sc/M.Phil courses to be taught. The Dean gave permission under the condition that I would take the classes in the afternoon.

So I attend the (dis)orientation course from 9-2. Come back. And then start teaching my regular courses.

Help!