KILLER AM I?

                "Seekram ponga anna" I muttered, as I forced the cab door shut.  Once I settled in the seat, I opened the window sill in need of some fresh air. ‘Not the next time, never again’ I reminded myself for the fifth time in the day. It was ten minutes past four in the morning. Just half an hour before it was all warmth around me, curled inside the rug in my cozy bed, hugging my teddy bear and having a sound sleep. My hands had always made involuntary action to switch off the vibrating instrument. I regretted it later as I had to get ready, check my baggage and call for a taxi in a hurry. When I reached my destination in fifteen minutes, I moved through a small crowd of men in red shirts following me and calling out to help me with my luggage. I didn’t need a coolie; after all I had just one bag. While I rushed to the platform in an effort to not to miss the train, I heard the announcement of my train running late by an hour and a half.

                I moved to the platform with disappointment. Waiting for the train so long in the early hours of the day was the last thing I liked to do. I so much missed the coziness of my room. The platform was not very lively except for few people who like me were waiting for their train. None appeared to prefer the rest room, neither did I. I opted for the bench near the coffee bar to the suffocating smell and unclean room.

                The finest organic suspension ever devised, having two virtues, wet and warm-‘coffee’.

“Bitter drink” one of my friends used to always exclaim whenever I relished a cup of coffee. If ‘Sanjana’ sprouts in “Link the word game” then my friends would roar ‘coffee’ without a second thought. I remember reading somewhere “chocolate, men and coffee- some things are better rich”. That morning I couldn’t resist myself helping with a cup of coffee when I saw the thick cream drown in the beverage. The aroma was too strong. I sat in ease on the bench and stirred the coffee admiring the lathery cream on it. I drank it, savoring every sip of it, and another sip, I found my coffee completely drained into my mouth. With disappointment I got up to dispose the cup. In the left dark corner of the seating area stood a penguin, with its beak wide open for me to dump the cup. As I neared I could hear a very soft and mild hiss from behind the bin. Ophidiophobia had crept in me for quite sometime now. I have a very peculiar irritation towards the reptiles. I could feel my heart pump twice the amount of blood than usual. I tried to adjust my power of eyesight with the sparse light available. I did see something, a human, a small boy pale and thin and his ribs engraved on the skin betrayed his poverty. A boy of eight or nine, I guessed, curled himself to the corner trying to hide him from me. I was anxious on the score, what was he scared of?  The demon of selfishness rose to a greater height defeating the empathetic feeling in me. Human nature you see. I didn’t want to get into any trouble, especially during a journey.

                I went back to my seat after buying a newspaper. The front page covered the economical impact of the tsunami on coastal fishing community and fisher folks. Another column was an interview with the tourism minister, appealing to the tourists to return pointing out that most of the tourist infrastructure was undamaged. As I turned the pages my eyes fell on ‘How bollywood makes money!’. I lost track of time reading the paper and the boy was out of my mind too until I was suddenly brought to reality by thundering foot steps. Four men were running all around the platform with one giving instruction on directions to move. I noticed that others were curious like me. I heard one if the women asking the paperwala “what is happening thambi?”.  Like a flash one of the men rushed towards me, I was too alarmed to react and shut my eyes tight unaware of what was to happen next. All I knew was I was gripped with fear. “aaahhhhhhhaaaahhhhhh” and I opened my eyes with a jolt to find myself untouched and safe and saw the man hauling the boy out of the corner. He yelled and cried for help. All stood watching and there were murmurs around. I stood inflexible with blood drained out of my face. He was carried away by the men and him struggling in their arms. The arrival of the train drowned his distant voice. I managed to board the train; none seemed to care for the boy anymore.

                My heart sank with guilt and depression. My conscience pricked “Killer am i?” I asked myself. Killer of the boy’s life, his childhood, his future and of humanness. His cry rang in my ears through out the journey and still it does, years later. I still ask “KILLER AM I?”.

THE WAR ON SECRECY

       This year, has been quite a profitable year for the news media with the glamour of scams and leaks competing to make headlines. The press and news channels are vying to get scoops putting the readers and viewers in a dilemma on what to read and what to watch.
      Corruption, scandals, leaks dominated the newspapers, channels and magazines of India and more such magma of issues are expected from unexpected area like that of a dormant volcano. The tidal flow of these scams rip out the base of such happenings – the political-business nexus.
The CWG corruption, 2G spectrum scam, Radia tapes all stand as a proof to such nexus between the politicians and businessmen. The Radia tape release took a step ahead revealing journalists’ involvement too. These were the most popular ones that hit the media. Many of the issues brought under light by few from print sector were left unnoticed by the news channels, as TRP is what that mattered.
     The Common Wealth Games meant to show case India’s new power in its entire splendor, divulged the deep corruptions involved to which India is pickled in. Suresh Kalmadi seems to have milked crores of rupees producing the exorbitant rates from treadmills, chairs to even toilet papers. The inept working styles of the organizing committee placed India in an embarrassing situation following pull-outs by noted athletes and raising questions even on the player’s security. Unfortunately, the question raised by the Australian player never realized the incapability of the Australian government to protect the Indian students there.

Suresh kalmadi

The financial cost of the game remains difficult to judge apart from the civic and social expenditure. The average estimated figure crosses the total amount provided by the centre to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. A very perplexing question is now posed to the centre on how to meet the educational needs of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the rehabilitation need of the Chhattisgarh tribes. Save the corruption, the disruptions in the public’s daily lives and destruction of environment caused in the name of bringing a world class appearance to the roads have left an unsavory memory in the public’s minds.

         The whole winter session of the parliament has not had a normal function following an impasse on one single issue- the 2G spectrum scam. The scam accuses former Telecom minister Andimuthu Raja of issuing 2G licence at throwaway prices not following the rules. This scam has caused a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crores for the government. The license was issued on a first come first serve basis rather than the conventional bidding proceedings. Telecom services that did not meet the eligibility criteria and those fresh to the telecom sector like Swan telecom and Unitech wireless services were issued license at Rs.1537 crores and Rs.1661 crores. These services in turn sold 45% and 60% of their stakes at Rs.4200 crores and Rs.6200 crores respectively. The department of telecom accounted only Rs.10,772 crores for sale of 2G license. The head of the parliament, Pranab Mukharjee, has failed to convince the opposition over their demand of a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) probe into the issue as the government says no to JPC.

       The OPEN magazine had a scoop with the Radia tapes controversy, which reported the transcripts of some of the telephonic conversations of Niira Radia, a professionbal lobbyist, and an acquaintance of Mr. A.Raja, with senior journalists, politicians and corporate houses.
The tapes appear to lay bare the attempts of Radia to influence the decision appointing Mr. A.Raja as the telecom minister through some media persons and brokering a mining deal between former convicted Chief minister of Jharkhand, Mr. Madhu Koda. The Indian income tax department after getting authorization from the Home ministry tapped Ms. Radia’s telephone lines for 2000 hours of which only 10 hours of conservation is released. The home secretary said Radia’s phones were tapped during tax evasion investigations which were tracking the potentially illegal transfer of funds in and out of India.
Mr. G. K. Pillai, current Home secretary of India stated “the court could be petitioned for release of tapes. Then you cannot pick and choose. Everything will come out. This is just the tip of probe into the 2G spectrum scam.” When asked about the leakage to the Home minister Mr. P. Chidambaram he said he is against leakage of tapes recorded for investigation purposes but also added “some of it is inevitable.”

       The largest international, historic leaks, came from the whistle blower website Wikileaks. It is a non-profit organization, which won many awards since 2008 and was ranked first among ‘websites that could totally change the news’ by the New York Daily News this year. Wikileaks hit the ban list when it uncloaked the undiplomatic conversational cables of the US diplomats in November 2010.
Julian Assagne, founder of wikileaks, has created a space for himself much above the internationally famous whistle blowers like Shi Tao (Tiananmen Square massacre) and Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon papers). In April 2010, they released a set of documents called Afghan war diary, and in October, the Iraq war logs. And in November 2010, it released the US state department diplomatic cables. Although, many countries have said that Wikileaks will not cause any disruption in their relationship with the US, an internal strain in the relationships can be well assessed. The two countries reacting to the leaks with regard to cables concerning their country are Iran and Pakistan. The strain was publicly showcased when Ms. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of US missed the Iranian Foreign minister at “hello” at a Bahrain security conference. Assagne said, all documents were redacted and only those cables were released which is accepted to be released by all the newspapers, which are in business with the wikileaks. Assagne expressed in an interview with the TIME editor through skype “we don’t have targets other than organizations that use secrecy to conceal unjust behavior and the last thing we would do is to discuss possible source. We expect to be of some assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their government and corporations”. The site is experiencing attacks by denial-of-services and its severance from different Domain Name Systems and is also banned in many countries especially the US.

       A common factor that exists between all the whistle blowers be it international or of the smaller towns of India is the reprisal from the opponents. Victimizing them is no unknown fact. The unpopular ones being washed out sooner and more easily and the rest sued and jailed. The present center of attraction Julian Assagne was charged of sex crimes following the release of US diplomats cables and was remanded after he surrendered himself to the Sweden police, even though, he denies the allegations. Shi Tao was sentenced to ten years in jail from 2005 for the release of an email regarding the Tiananmen Square massacre.
 As far as India is concerned, eight activists have been victimized for their whistle blowing job in this year alone. Sathish Shetty, who blew the whistle on land scams near the Lonavala was murdered in the beginning of the year. The latest inclusion to the murder list in the month of july was Amith Jethwa. He was killed brutally for exposing the mining activities that took place near the Kodina area of Saurashtra, which had the support of BJP MP, Dinubhai Solanki. The others in the list are, Vishram Laxman Dodiya, Shashidhar Mishra, Arun Sawant, Sola Ranga Rao, Vitthal Gite, Dattatraya patil.

        Their lives were slaughtered in their attempt to blow transparency into government’s activities. Unless such eye openers are secured, we would envelope ourselves into an opaque world cemented with illegal activities and corruption. A bill to protect whistle blowers is getting ready, but its content remains a secret.
        How well the bill will protect them and the masses relying on them, only the contents of the bill, action taken and the time will speak.

INCREDIBLE ART OF LANGUAGE

                When you read this summary, give a moments thought on how would the world be without language? If given a deeper thought, it would excruciate the thinker’s mind on his or her existence without a language.

                You happen to read these lines or talk about it as easy as you breathe. How do we learn to speak then? How do we comprehend each others speech? Does it exist in our genes or biologically already exist in our body system?

If it is so, why did the primitives use signs and pictorial representations to convey messages? How did language come about? There are endless questions we can put forth regarding evolution of languages and its diversity.

                Language is diverse from within a country down to community but universal in its aim – communication. A single language can have different variations in speech styles to literary styles just within a community. Best examples come from the Indian languages. Down to the south India, Tamil and Malayalam vary from region to region and community to community. However, the basic grammar of the language remains the same.

                Would you be surprised if some one asked you how you learnt to speak fluently with correct grammar! An immediate answer that sprouts in your mind is that everyone learns to speak in childhood. But, you were not given speech therapy classes, neither text books nor special homework done.

                American researchers say they haven’t been able to trace a specific time when the language developed in the evolutionary history. They have come about with a theory of anatomical characteristic possessed by humans for at least fifty thousand years. Our oral cavity and throat aren’t bow shaped like it had been for our ancestors and other mammals including apes. For humans it is almost at right angles and the voice box is placed deep inside the throat leaving resonating area for sound production along with the tongue. The vocal tract of babies isn’t very different from that of mammals and develops only as they grow.  Babies start learning to speak as early as when they are two months old. They start making sounds at the second month. At 6 months second phase babbling begins leading to single and double syllable formations at the 9^th month. When the baby is a year and a half old the vocabulary takes a great leap. At 3^rd and 4^th year linguistics question arise within them and at 6 years foundation of language is laid.

                Now a logical question hammers into our mind. If al this is biological is it possible for a child to speak when the child has never been subjected to sounds of speech and not allowed to make any sound either? The answer is a blunt no. once the age is crossed, speaking becomes a painful process and is no more like a natural outcome.

Genie, a resident of California, escaped her ordeal at the age of 13. Her parents had locked her up since she was a child and never spoke to her. She was discovered in 1970 and is the “most-tested-child” in speech therapy. But researchers say she is too old to pick up fluency at any rate.

                A child cannot learn a language which is not used in the surroundings. To make a child learn a foreign language from TV or audio cassettes which is not spoken by people around the child is a waste of time. The child may produce sounds relating to the language but it is not registered as something to be used to communicate. This is evident when we are able to speak our mother tongue or the language in our surroundings very fluently to a foreign language we learn anew.  Grammar rules of that language just take a step back.

                The skeleton of every language is its grammar without which we cannot convey a meaningful and comprehensible message. The answer to the question of an existence of a common language or mother of all existing languages is still being researched.

                Noam Chomsky, one of the most important linguists of our times has come up with an idea of ‘universal grammar’. Chomsky believes that the power of languages is biological given and there is a super processor in our brains t speak and react to languages. Every language has the same blue print and hence there exists a universal grammar which is the base of every language. This theory had become like a basic theory on evolution of languages and a project to find the ‘universal grammar’ began.

                For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Dan Everett is one of the major linguists who oppose Chomsky’s theory.  Everett, once a part of Chomsky’s project says, there is a particular tribal group near the Miaci River called the Piranhas whose language has no embedded clause. They simply string in main clauses together. This revelation has almost made the project of universal grammar dead, albeit, they are still researching on this theory and each one is trying to prove the other wrong. Dan Everett tries to prove his theory that language is not biological given but a cultural effect. He calls the absence of embedded clause in piranhas’ language as an “immediacy- of-experience principle”, this is bcoz piranhas live only in present and their language depends only on the immediate need and does not relate to the past and future necessities. He says “all people don’t live in the same century” referring to their anomalous linguistic and cultural style.

                The debate over the evolution of language is going to be a long debate for decades. Whatever be the cause of language evolution, it is just inevitable and it is likely that our world would stop this moment if all stopped "communicating". That is simply why the language is an incredible art.