Month: April 2013

Categories
Wellness

Government jobs are better for health

A new survey reveals that those having private sector jobs have unhealthier lives than those holding government jobs. Read on.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

For long now, Indians have been content to spend their lives working for the Government, since these jobs come with that wonderful word – ‘security’. However, a lot of youngsters have rebelled against this mindset for a long time now, choosing jobs in private firms or even branching out into business.

Now it turns out that working in the private sector or for yourself can have a bad effect on your health: a recent survey released by the Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM) says that “due to demanding schedules, high stress levels and performance linked perks in private sectors, nearly 85 per cent of employees in private sectors are afflicted to lifestyle and chronic diseases, apart fro acute ailments, as compared to government employees ranging below 8 per cent.”

As per the survey, which was conducted in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh and Dehradun and included a little over 200 employees from each city, showed that 42 per cent people identified themselves as afflicted to lifestyle diseases, followed by 38 per cent suffering from chronic diseases,while the rest, 15 per cent, had an acute ailment. All of them worked in the private sector. Mumbai ranked first for the numbers of people afflicted due to high levels of stress in the private sector, followed by Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.

Said Dr DS Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, “There is due compensation for increased inflation by way of dearness allowance (DA) to government employees whereas, the private sector is by and large out of this facility. The findings on the government employees reveal very positive features ranging from reasonably good health, family stability, cordial relationship etc. The survey further points out there are many schemes in healthcare for government employees in addition to pension, which reflects better health standards in government jobs.”

The survey findings:

– Around 55 per cent of the survey respondents fall under the age bracket of 20-29 years, followed by 30-39 years (26 per cent), 40-49 years (16 per cent), 50-59 years (2 per cent) and 60-69 years (approximately 1 per cent).

– The survey targetted private employees from 18 broad sectors, with maximum share contributed by employees from IT/ITes sector (17 per cent).
– Increasingly demanding schedules and high stress levels are leading to sleep disorders in the private sector. Loss of sleep has wide ranging effects including daytime fatigue, physical discomfort, psychological stress, performance deterioration, low pain threshold and increase absenteeism.
– Nearly 45 per cent of corporate employees in private sector sleep less than six hours on a daily basis due to work related pressure.
– Around 58 per cent of corporate employees in private sector are deeply concerned about their future health, 38 per cent are fearful regarding their future health conditions and 4 per cent are not at all fearful about their future health, finds the survey.
(Picture courtesy thedailymind.com)
Categories
Watch

Those ‘others’…

Watch this film if you’re interested in transgender issues; the film is about Urmi, a transgender living in Mumbai city.
by Medha Kulkarni

Today, a film on transgenders will air at the New Marine Lines-based Alliance Francaise, an educational organisation with a non-profit cultural goal. Titled Urmi, the film is a 2010 film by Jehangir Jani and it tells the story of Urmi, the protagonist, a transgendered person living in Mumbai. Urmi roams the city of Mumbai and the film chronicles her search for love and meaningful relationships within the context of a quest for a self-identity. It is an interesting perspective on a city that most of us call home and yet, because of gender dynamics in the city, we rarely get to see.

The film was a TISS-UAGC funded project (Tata Institute of Social Sciences-Urban Aspirations in Global Cities) and is a part of their massive campaign to spread awareness about and to sensitise people to gender issues and dispel myths and the resulting social evils that are born out of ignorance.

Pallav Patankar (in pic on left), director of the HIV program at the Humsafar Trust, is also the actor in the film. “The aim of this film is to highlight the issues that members of the transgendered community face in daily life. It aims to show the ups and downs in their lives and thus help mainstream society understand them” he says.

The film promises to be an interesting one and the panel discussion which will be chaired by Chitra Palekar (film director and LGBT supporter), Jehangir Jani (artist whose work revolves around gender and sexuality issues) and Pallav Patankar, and will throw up some interesting perspectives. The event is free and open to all. Seating is on first-come-first-serve basis.

The Humsafar trust, was set up in 1994, is the first openly gay community-based organisation to be allotted space in a municipal building. It seeks to provide the gay community (and increasingly the entire LGBT community) in Mumbai and India with various facilities to provide the community with the knowledge and resources they require and also works to dispel the prejudice that society has towards this segment of people.

Head to the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, 40, Theosophy Hall, Vithaldas Thackersey Marg, New Marine Lines, Churchgate, Mumbai. The film starts at 6:30 pm.

(Pictures courtesy deccanchronicle.com, mumbaiboss.com. Featured image is a file picture used for representational purpose only and is not a still from the film)

Categories
Soft Coroner

Holy cowboys

Prashant Shankarnarayan writes about the practice of worship by touching a cow all over its body, even on its posterior.
prashant@themetrognome.in

The situation – An old man worshipping a cow.

The observation – One can’t see a more harmless sight than this. A feeble old man dressed in a crisp white dhoti and kurta, bowing in front of the ubiquitous Indian bovine that is worshipped as the epitome of gentleness. But one also can’t see a more degrading sight than this. That of a man literally thrusting his face near a cow’s posterior. For him it was devotion, for me it was another instance of delusion that masquerades popularly as religion.

It’s not the first time I have seen someone bow in front of a cow. As a kid, I used to touch a cow with reverence and keep the same palm on my heart nonchalantly. A habit I had picked up not in the pursuit of aping a family member, but actually from strangers. There is an old temple in my building compound, and since childhood I have seen this gaiwali tie her cow to a post on the footpath outside our gate. It’s normal for people to feed the cows, something which even I used to do once in a while as a kid. In fact, I still feel it’s a harmless thing to do, but I had never seen anyone bowing to a cow’s arse until now.

If the same old man were to do the same thing in a culture that doesn’t understand the relation between cows and religion, then he would have been either dismissed as a lunatic or branded as a pervert. After all, it is dogs that are often found sniffing around unmentionable places; that too not because they worship, but because they are dogs who are programmed to do that! The funny part is that many religious people might even support the old man and blame me for either over-analysing a holy situation or committing blasphemy. Only religion can move a man to do something as humiliating as this, or support such a degrading act.

We know why cows are worshipped. Right from the time of our nomadic ancestors to the present day, the cow has showered her abundance on the human race and continues to do so even now. It is worshipped as Kamadhenu and is a standard feature on many godly portraits. Even the 1857 uprising happened because of both Hindus and Muslims’ reverence for the cow, and contempt for the pig respectively. But digging into a cow’s butt takes this reverence to a new level. Organised religion often forces a person to do so, and that is why I find it dangerous.

Worshipping a cow’s buttocks is on the lower end of the scale of fanaticism. On the opposite end of the same scale lie the political undercurrents, where a few fundamentalists spread the pro beef = anti Indian culture = anti India theory. And somewhere on the same scale lies the urge to brand our bahu and beti as a gai, a covert sadomasochistic statement that implies that women should give in abundance without complaining. The same race that goes to the extent of patting a cow’s butt, treats its own women worse than animals. All under the name of tradition, which is supposedly derived from religion.

In a nutshell, a cow is a cow. It’s good to feed her and indeed heartening for some to abstain from devouring the creature. But if holy cowboys tamper with her bum too long in the name of worship, one sure knows what kind of offering the cow will give in return.

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. The Soft Coroner attempts to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Pictures courtesy factsanddetails.com, sulekha.com, tamilweek.com)

Categories
Event

Waxing poetic over coffee

Poetry Tuesdays moves out of Thane into Santacruz for its fourth event today. If poetry is your thing, be there.
by Medha Kulkarni

Mumbai is an exciting city with lots of wonderful cultural events on offer. Unfortunately most of these happenings are confined to South Mumbai or Bandra, but a casual conversation between two friends over a cup of coffee a little over two years ago sparked the beginning of an event that would slowly change this state of affairs.

Anish Vyavhare and Ashish Amin, poetry and literature enthusiasts, noticed that most poetry-centric events that happen in the city take place only in south Mumbai, and seem to be aimed only at professional writers, poets, copy writers etc. They decided that this needs to be changed and that is how ‘Poetry Tuesdays’ was born.

The first event was held over two years ago in Thane. Not limited to language or word limit, the event is open to everyone and is absolutely free. The aim of Poetry Tuesdays is to provide people with a place to meet like-minded people and to give amateurs a platform to share their work and more importantly, to encourage people to keep alive a dying art.

Till recently, Poetry Tuesday sessions were organised only in Thane, but today, April 9, marks the fourth session at Santa Cruz. The location for the sessions keeps changing (keep track of their FB page for updates) as they meet at different cafés or restaurants. This eliminates the need for a permanent space and keeps the event free.

Ashish says that this also adds an element of spontaneity to their sessions. “Often, other patrons at the café get interested in what we’re doing and join us and surprise with impromptu poetry. Our poetry sessions are always fun and it’s a great way to make friends over a cup of coffee and a shared interest.”

“We want to ensure that every part of Mumbai has a Poetry Tuesday event and hopefully, in the future we can invite talents from across the country to make our events more exciting,” says Ashish, speaking of their future plans.

Ashish’s rules for today’s event

“A Colour Couplet is a two-line poem that involves the use of a colour in it. Not a big thing to do! Take a colour, interpret it or just write a couplet on it.

A couplet is two lines of poem. It may or may not rhyme.

That is it! At the end of all of us reading our couplets, we make it into a single grand poem!

You may write in any language. And as always, the theme is not compulsory. You can write on anything you wish, in any language – English, Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kashmiri, Urdu, French, Zulu, Tagalog, whichever!

It is not a competition and there are no judges.”

If you’re interested in participating or simply listening to good poetry, head to Ola Vakola near Vakola Police Station tomorrow by 7:30 pm. Call Ashish on 9920416997 for details or check their FB page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PoetrySantacruz

Categories
Big story

Golibar agitation hots up

Activist Medha Patkar goes on indefinite hunger strike, while affected citizens demand urgent action from the State Government and MHADA.

It happens all the time, but in a city teeming with millions, news of the poor losing their homes always slips through the cracks.

Inaction and lack of media coverage notwithstanding, the people of Golibar Maidan are up in arms against the Government and the builder lobby to protest against the demolition of their homes. They allege that the demolitions are illegal, and are knocking on the doors of the Government for justice.” Agitated at the lack of response by the State, activist Medha Patkar started an indefinite hunger strike four days ago, while hundreds ghearoed the office of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority yesterday and demanded a joint interaction with the Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary (Housing), Joint Commissioner of Police, CEO of SRA, Chairman of MHADA, Additional Collector and other concerned officials,” said an activist. He added that “hundreds of urban poor from various bastis are constantly joining the agitation.”

The agitation has been launched also to protest the “injustices and atrocities being meted out in the name of ‘slum rehabilitation’, the anger against the ruling establishment that is hand-in-glove with the profit mongering builders.”

The agitation, which triggered off due to the demolition of 48 houses at Golibar and also many houses at Chandivali, “reflects the sentiments of thousands of poor across the city, who clean, run and build Mumbai, but still have to wage a war for their basic right to shelter, food, education and other civic amenities.” The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), which is spearheading the agitation, alleges that not just at Golibar, corruption to the tune of hundreds of crores is rampant across Mumbai in various projects in the garb of ‘slum rehabilitation’. “Land and resource grab is the only motive with which the builders operate, aided actively by the State machinery. The demolitions at Golibar, despite the ongoing inquiry against Shivalik Ventures (which is set to undertake the Golibar SRA project) only goes on to prove the high-handedness of the builder lobby in the state,” Patkar said yesterday.

(Pictures courtesy thealternative.in, thehindu.com)

Categories
Overdose

In gaanon ki toh law lag gayi

Songs that go ‘Po po po’ and ‘Taaki taaki’ are the scourge of Bollywood. How can we ban these songs? Maybe we should have a writers’ collective that bans bad writing.
by Jatin Sharma

Let me start this piece with a PJ I just invented:
Q. What did one car say to the other car during peak hour traffic?
A. Po Po Po Po Po Po Po.

If you just went “Chheee!” with this PJ, then I would like to draw your attention to the song lyrics that are hidden in the answer, and which inspired this PJ in the first place.

Song lyrics these days are completely devoid of meaning. Absurdity seems to be the new mantra in Bollywood. The rule of the game is ‘Writers/lyricists ki kya zaroorat hai (Who needs writers/lyricists?)’, ‘Koi bhi toh likh sakta hai (Anybody can write)’. Sure, but let’s get one thing straight.

There is a difference between being literate and being a writer.

A writer weaves new words with new perspectives and gives a new definition to a mundane thing. A person who says ‘Po Po Po’ in a song, by contrast, should join circus and be fed to hungry lions. Similarly, when you say ‘Taaki oh taaki, tere baap ko main nana banaunga‘ and ‘Mere toh L lag gaye‘, you are not writing something clever, but merely trying to be clever (and failing). Just because you can buy a pen for Rs 2 doesn’t mean that you should create content that is worth the same amount too.

Yes, I know the people who want to defend these songs will say, “But that is what people want.” Well, it’s time you dusted the dust off your brains. People read and listen to what the media and writers give them. If you are not going to give them meaningful lyrics, they will listen to your absurdity and laugh for a little while, but your creation is only going to be momentary. Hard to digest? Let’s prove it with a fact. The yesteryear film songs and poems that have had beautiful meanings and are little gems of poetry cut across generations and are a hit today, too. But look at your new age Po Po Pos and Lo Lo Los: they come and go and nobody cares to find out where they disappeared. These supposed songs are a mere reflection of an attitude where business has taken over art.

 

Creative agencies like radio stations have gone the lewd way in their speech, movies based on SMS forwards and cheap jokes, and TV channels and movies churning out one product after another based on the last hit that made millions, show that India has little place for its intellectuals. Most of the good writers and people who are serious thinkers hate to associate themselves with our mass media because they are beginning to think that mediocrity rules the roost there.

Look at American TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy or Friends; you may or may not be fans of these shows, but you can’t deny that research, a well-defined plot and depth of
characterisation back these shows. And all credit goes to their writers. Now consider TV shows in India, where the basic plot revolves around love, death of the lover/married partner, followed by reincarnation after outrageous time leaps, interspersed with constant scheming and bitching, plus constant repetition of about three shots to complete an episode. Writers are looked upon as fools, called on to write incredible twists to pull up shows with sagging TRPs, put in astounding situations just to shock the audience. Because nobody respects writers, it seems that writers, too, are not respecting themselves.

Writers of an era long gone were people who would write in order to feed their passion; today they write to feed their greed. Someone has correctly said that, “Writers with empty stomachs are full of sensible words.” May be today’s writers don’t have stomachs empty enough for passion and ambition. May be they are richly fed on what works commercially. Or how to compromise on what they hold dear, so that they can create something that sells.

Naturally, writers are succumbing to the rat race and the people who demean the very art of writing, because those people hold the big bucks.

Writing meaningful things needs to rise above deadlines and restrictions. Thoughts cannot be tied up in the ropes of business. They are free and priceless. It is up to the ‘patrons’ of art to understand just how to bring the best out of such a fantastic creative process.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

(Pictures courtesy in.movies.yahoo, community.sparknotes.com) 

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