Abhu Dhabi

Though I landed in Abhu Dhabi on my maiden visit to the UAE it looked like a maze of plotted lines from the air and the airport and its surroundings far from the city didnt impress me at all ,I left to Al Ain immediately and never had a chance to visit Abhu Dhabi unlike Dubai which was almost my weekly timeout .

So when I used a meeting in the Intercontinental and a convenient stay there ,to see AbhuDhabi I never thought I would fall for it but I did .The Intercontinental had a novel of way of inviting its guests ,the TV blinked open with a personal invitation but I was christened with a new name in the welcome as

Dr .Narayanan Hari Moh....... !!!!( that sounds distinctly Assamese )

In fact I liked Abhu Dhabi a lot more than Dubai for it is neater ,more organised with less people and lesser confusion .

Intercontinental near the corniche was the right place to go for a night walk which I did after the meeting and the november breeze chilled me to my bones ,I could gaze into the seven star Emirates palace one of the most wonderful hotels in the world right on the sea ,its sandstone facade was like a desert palace in Rajasthan lit in the night .

Beyond it was the Marina mall the huge shopping complex with its Carrefour and many other branded shops .

The food court in the mall was a huge cauldron of gluttons from all nations .

A tall fountain sprayed water and mist to the roof as people lazed and gazed at it .

posh cars were available as gifts for the lucky ones .

Abhu Dhabi has huge multistoryed buildings dwarfing the roads ,there were plenty of sit outs and eating places on the corniche with brillianly coloured yatches and motorboats cruising in the bay .

Malayalees were in the dozen and one could trip on them like as anywhere in the U.A.E.

Next day was spent on loitering and meeting some friends ,taxis are more economic than in Dubai and like in Al Ain have friendly grinning Pakistani drivers .

The pavements are kept neat and vacummed by workers !!

Evening saw me move on to Tawam bus which was on its weekend shopping trip to the city and back to Al Ain .

And so Abhudhabi has one more suitor in her pocket now.

BHAVANS JOURNAL

I remember the magazine Bhavans journal from my childhood ,in the yesteryear Madras many houses I visited had this small cute magazine lying with the newspapers on the front table and I remember browsing through some as I was attuned to get my hands on anything in print from those days .

The articles didnt make such sense to a small boy at that age ,to me Richie rich ,his valet Cadbury or the goggled Phantom were more attractive but the pictures and mythological stories were inviting ,I considered it as something like Chandammama my another favourite with an Indianness to it .

I had wanted to subscribe to it for a long time but never came to it though I did several others .

This is a periodical that sells every fortnight more than 7,25000 copies ,and it caters to good taste with no obscenity or glamour as its sales pitch ,on the contrary it dealt with the heritage and greatness of Bharath ,its spritual wisdom accumulated over the centuries .

It brought out the wisdom from our wise .

It was on November 7th 1938 that Shri Kulapati Munshiji who later became the Education minister in Pandit Jawarhalals cabinet founded the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi .

His dream was a centre to crystallise the ancient learning and modern intellectual aspirations of this land to create a new literature and culture .

From humble beginnings today the Bhavan has come to occupy a position as a centre for Indian culture and Indological research .

The trust runs a string of schools all over the country called Bhartiya Viday Mandir where children are given holistic education abiding to the cultural values of our forefathers

.My daughter today is a proud student of one Bhavans school .

The journal was started in 1954 .

It was in my middle age that I finally got Bhavans posted to me every fortnight and strangely as a well prized gift from someone .

When I was at Lakeshore hospital working in the medical oncology department Ms. L was one of our patients suffering from acute Leukaemia ,she would stoically bear the rigors of her treatment and always had a smiling face when I met her on rounds ,I always used to see her with a Bhavans Journal among other books with her and I used to leaf through them ,

she gave me back issues to read and we used to discuss the articles .

The unfortunate inevitable happened and L left us one day,

After a few days her husband came to meet me in the hospital ,he had a big bundle of Bhavans journals with him and he said L wanted you to get this after she was no more and I have instructed them to post further issues to your home adress every fortnight ,

my eyes was full as I got the books from him .

so now as I read my Bhavans I always remember L and her wonderful gift to me ........

( the image above is fictious )

U.A.E. National day

Today is the 36th national day of UAE and I felt I owed a blogpost to the new country Iam in .

UAE is a federation of seven sheikdoms in the southeastern corner of the Arabian penisula .

The seven emirates are Abhu Dhabi ,Dubai ,Sharjah ,Umm Al quian ,Ajman ,

Ras El Khaimah ,and Fujairah .

The capital city is AbhuDhabi and is located in the emirate of the same name .

The British who had maintained thier presence here for over a century left in 1971 .

The late Sheik Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and the late Sheik Rahsid Bin saeed Al Maktoum took a descision to form a federation of the sheikdoms ,

On december 2nd 1971 the UAE flag was raised for the first time and the rest is history .

The rapid strides the country has taken in all fronts spurred by its oil and commerce engines is spellbinding .

It envisages the vision of its leaders and thier long term planning to make UAE one of the best in the world .the country enjoys one of the worlds highest standards of living ,today it is also one of the safest and peaceful places in the world .

This great achievement in such a short time has hard work and dedication behind it .

Here the rules are simple and no nonsense and are to be followed for the good of everyone .

There is no labour unrest here ,no hartals ,or bandhs but the rights of labourers too are taken care with concern ,a fine example is during summer workers are given a long lunch gap and generally one found them lying under trees outside buildings to escape the harsh sun ,this was curbed immediately and owners forced to provide AC rest rooms for them by the government ,minimum facilities and space for labour quarters were strictly enforced and employers had to provide this for thier employees .

When we compare this scenario with our country specially the states ruled by the saviuors of workers the communists one finds the benifit never peters to the worker for all his zindabad howling but only to the party bigwigs by the constant sitouts ,gheroas and other protests .

Many are the companies who have shifted to other states because of this labout unrest and comsequent loss of jobs is the result ,but alas our people have thier sympathies misplaced .

The news in TV from Kerala is full of controversies ,demonstrations and demolitions ,it is filled by verbal insinuations by leaders against each other ,where do these men have time to rule the country ?

In UAE the infrastructure is excellent ,roads are smooth ,traffic is orderly , rules are strict but fair ,the principle is work hard ,earn money and live well but abide to rules .

We too have good roads in India today in places like Tamilnadu ,Haryana ,Delhi ,etc ,but we are yet to see the results of the money pumped into it over the years ,for that matter as Rajiv Gandhi famously opined if the government spends a rupee only 10 paise peters down ,middlemen ,politicos ,racketeers plunder our wealth and have been doing it over the years ,the country has been perpetually divided by casteism and reservations have made the divisions sharper to make ready made votebanks for politcal parties .

Communal divisions have been the panacea of politics all this has taken a toll in our development ,ravaged by frequent wars and border disturbances ,spurred by terrorism fuelled by our neighbours and international weapons selling nations we have been over several obstacles in our devlopment .

A long era of socialist principles which though intially triggered our progress as Panditjis famous temples of science later on became the garb of selfish politicians for one upmanship and consequent retardation of our enterprise .

In spite of all this India purred silently and has now started roaring with the new economic engines taking its rightful place in the comity of nations.

when compared to the UAE we have immense resources ,climate ,land ,people ,skills ,history ,diversity you name it we have it ,Indians are talented and skilled in all they do ,Indian cuisine ,culture ,and philosophy has no parallels ,it is all highly developed .

Of course we dont have the oil to give us unlimited income but let us just imagine even if he had the oil would our leaders have done what has been done in a place like UAE ?

The progress we see in India today is in spite of our lacklustre leaders ( there are several exeptions to this statement of course ) ,it is the progress that is the handiwork of our brilliant business community ,look at our Ambanis ,look at Infosys the Tatas ,they are the ones who are taking our country soaring to the sky ,one can accuse them of capitalism and west mongering imperialism but have they not benifitted our country by way of employment ,giving people education and higher standards of living ,have they not created the IT revolution in our country ?

Again I often hear this refrain that the progress today has only widened the gap between the haves and have nots ,true to a certain extent but is the answer to create a land of have nots ,no ,definitely the progress will trickle down in creating jobs ,and oppurtunities for others ,this is the only way we can come up beacause years of bottling up had only fattened our politician but not our people .

Education in the UAE is given great importance ,every national is encouraged to study all he wants with the state providing all the needs ,in India there are many who get no primary education ,to the government this has been low priority

Merit is being murdered by reservations and parochialism ,regionalism pervades education like bookworms .Brilliant students are frustrated and try to get away draining the country of its cerebral reserves .

in states like Kerala students are lured into campus politics at the cost of thier future

India is a great country blessed with resorceful people but burderned by poor leaders .

we need visionaries to carry us forwards visionaries like our former president Dr Abdul Kalam

Cheeni Kum

Older men marrying younger women happens all the time ,we see it in countries like India because of poverty or by customs at least in our villages still ,rich arabs marrying nubile girls from Kerala and Hyderabad was in the news sometime back ,out in the west rich old men are great catches and svelte models would marry them for thier money and wait for the inevitable to happen to land thier millions !

But here in cheeni kum we have a sixty four year old Amitabh Bhachan wooing a petite Tabu half his age and strangely suceeding in his quest

( look guys dont fret and fume that is Amitabh Bhachan )

One has to accept that the big B at this age with a swinging pony tail would give a run to many younger stars because he carries himself with such aplomb and style ,that man is incomparable .

He finally manages to woo Tabu from his Indian restaurant in London where he is also the master chef and a good one at that ,

(now you know where the cheeni bit came to director Balakrishnan .)

Bachan lives in the city of the stiff upperlips with a boisterous mother played brilliantly by Zohra Sehgal and an eight year old precocious little girl suffering from leukaemia whom he loves dearly .

he follows Tabu to Delhi to meet her dad paresh rawal to ask for his daughters hand .

this is where the fun begins ,paresh a firespitting Gandhian and a fanatic cricket fan initially unsuspectingly is friendly to this man from london and a friend of his daughter not knowing his motives but is horrified when he comes to know this man who was four years older than himself would dare to ask his daughters hand !

He withdraws into a shell and when tabu insists she too loves the old man he uses Gandhian tactics and goes into a fast unto death holding his daughters arms tightly to himself .

The fasting scene is made to resemble to that in the movie Gandhi with a crowd outside waiting with bated breath for the result and AB by this time joined by his mother reaches there and walks in with some gangajaal to break the fast ,paresh doesnt budge and AB gives him a bit of his mind and finally diagnoses jealousy as the cause for his stubborness and moves away from there .

by now he gets news that his beloved little one in London has died and is heartbroken and the scene ends with Tabu comforting him after getting permission from her dad for the marriage .

The last scene is where AB give a dinner to his mother ,Tabu and his F in law (who by now has grudgingly accepted the budda as his son in law )in his posh rstaurant in London ,

cricket does the trick of breaking the ice as paresh opens his eyes on mention of the oval and a match the next day .

Music by ilayaraja though hashed tunes from his other movies is eminiently listenable

A reasonably watchable movie .

Love in the times of Cholera ...Book Review

" el amor en los tiempos del colera ." Spanish for "Love in the times of Cholera " is a classic in fiction written by Latin American Nobel prize winner Gabriela Garcia Marquez .In some way MT. Vasudevan Nairs book made into a movie called theerthadanam ( pilgrimage )has a similarity in the sense love that blossomed in youth is carried on into old age

Somehow I never read Garcias novel till date though a close friend prodded me to do it ,at last I did .The film adaptation by coincidence is to be released shortly .

Written in 1985 it was translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman .
the novel is a simple triangle of love but written with finesse and elegance .

The protaganist Florentino Ariza is a meek ,thin ,gaunt, myopic ,born romantic who was into poems and he falls in love with Fermina Dazza the independent willed and charming daughter of Lorenza Dazza who rose from a humble mule driver to a rich businessman .

the change in stature did nothing to lorenzos baser habits and like any hindi film rich father he fiercely opposed any closeness between his daughter and the humble telegraphist who dared to attract his daughter by his episolatory skills ( writing voluminous letters and poems where he poured his love in abundance ) ,

Fermina was promptly removed form the scene and taken to distant lands so that she would get over her unsavoury infatuations ,which did work in the end .

though Fermina was faithful to her lover till she returned back and thier platonic relationship flourished in letters for the three years she was seperated from him ,she promptly put him off as naive and unbecoming of her when she returned and succumbed to the wooing of a young handsome doctor of promise ,to the delight of her father who promptly got them married .

Dr juvenal Urbino the lucky man doted on his wife and his profession where he fought for health and sanitation in those dark years where cholera was rampant .

Florentino never married nor did he forget fermina ,he waited for the day when Juvenal would be no more and he would get back his woman rightfully .

He rose in life joining his uncles shipping business to become the vice president with all its accompanient pleasures .his immense love for Fermina never stopped him from cavorting with women of all age and sizes to a count of 622 by time he became a bald headed 70 .

this was the time when the doctor bade goodbye to the world and our hero had the temerity to ask the widow of her hand for which he had awaited with bated breath for half a century ,she scorned and scorched him for his insolence but Florentino never wavered ,slowly Fermina knowing fully of her doctor husbands misdemanours and acts of unfaithfullness succumbed to the steady shoulder of this lover of her young days ,

the old twosome found happiness in each others company and finally thier romance culminated in a pleasure cruise .

At last in his ripe late seventies florentino gets his love to himself .

Strangely this made me remember "Theerthadanam ."by M.T.Vasudevan Nair which was made into a film acted by Jeyaram and suhasini .In this Jeyaram as a young shcool teacher falls in love with his student Suhasini but thier romance fails to fructify because Jeyaram was from a poor family .time passes ,Jeyaram marries and has his own family ,suhasini is a teacher in the same school ,they never stop loving each other in thier hearts and after they retire suhasini writes a letter to Jeyaram that she would be visiting Mukambika and he too goes there ,the old couple go up kudajadhri reminiscing thier life .

why cholera in Garcias immortal book ?

probably the author thinks lovesickness is like cholera

something which empties you out ,Colera in Spanish is anger ,is it the ire of the lover to the husband who got his beloved ,or does the author refer to the unhygienic rat infested palgue ridden cholera frequented cities wherethese characters lived .the enigmatic Garcia warns readers not to fall in his traps

Film adaptation :

Currently Stone Village Pictures holds the rights (bought from the author for US$3 million) to produce a film version of the book and Mike Newell has been chosen to direct it. Ronald Harwood has signed on to write a faithful screen adaptation. Filming started in Cartagena, Colombia, as of September 2006.[6]
The $50 million film, the first major foreign production shot in the scenic, walled city in years,[citation needed] will be released in November 16, 2007 by New Line Cinema. On his own initiative, García Márquez convinced singer Shakira, who hails from the nearby city of Barranquilla, to provide three songs for the film.