II World War Personalities I'd like to meet someday, if only it was possible!!!

	Name	Description
	George Smith Patton (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945)	‘Old Blood and Guts’ – Patton was the most flamboyant, daring, audacious and controversial Field Commanders during the Second World War.  Characterized by a typical, flamboyant Yankee attitude to war, I believe this guy was, beneath the tough warrior image he cultivated for himself, a man driven by values.  I just love him for his flamboyance and his do or die attitude. To me, he represents the very epitome of a brave warrior. Some of his quotes : Lead me, follow me, or get the hell out of my way… A half baked plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan waiting for tomorrow No soldier ever won a war by dying for his country. He did by making the other bastard die for his country It is amusing to recall that we fought the revolution in defence of the rights of man and the civil war to abolish slavery and have now gone back on both principles (Patton’s comment on using forced German labor on occupied lands towards the end of second world war)
	Erwin Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944)	One of the most adroit German Field Marshals during the Second World War, he gave many sleepless nights to the Allied commanders.  He was the very epitome of a chivalrous warrior – under his command, there were almost no atrocities against Prisoners of War, and he fought the war on the stipulations laid down by the Geneva Convention, fully relying on tactical dexterity rather than on victory through attrition.  He was also defiant of orders to execute captured prisoners under the Commando Order, and opted to commit suicide than face court martial when his involvement in the assassination attempt on Hitler’s life was uncovered.   To me, he represents the principle that you can even fight a war with chivalry Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders. There is one unalterable difference between a soldier and a civilian: the civilian never does more than he is paid to do. A risk is a chance you take; if it fails you can recover. A gamble is a chance taken; if it fails, recovery is impossible Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains saves both.
	Douglas Bader (21 February 1910 – 5 September 1982)	Group Captain Douglas Bader, the World War II Royal Air Force (RAF) ace fighter pilot, lost both his legs in an air crash in 1931.  He recovered right from the brink of death, and with true grit and determination, got back into the RAF.  He went on to fly Spitfires during the Battle of Britain, and shot down 11 Luftwaffe aircraft, before being captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp.  A troublesome prisoner he was, with numerous escape attempts, as a result of which he was put into Colditz Castle, the supposedly escape-proof German POW camp. Douglas Bader showed that whatever the odds/disabilities, you can achieve whatever you want, all you need is the determination to keep at it. Famous Bader Quotes : My God, I had no idea we left so many of you bastards alive (Comment on entering a room full of ex-Luftwaffe pilots on the occasion of an event he was invited to attend, by his ex-Luftwaffe friend, Adolf Galland) Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men
	Charles Hazlitt Upham (21 September 1908 – 22 November 1994)	Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham VC and Bar, was only the third person to receive the Victoria Cross twice, the only person to receive two VCs during the Second World War and the only combat soldier to receive the award twice. As a result, Upham is often described as the most highly decorated Commonwealth soldier of that war, as the VC is the Commonwealth's highest award for extreme gallantry in the face of the enemy.  And what was his peacetime profession before the war ? He was a sheep farmer in New Zealand !!!  Proves the point that gallantry in war comes out not just from true warriors, but also from the most docile and unexpected sources !
	Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle (CDG) (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970)	One of the most controversial French leaders in the history of France, CDG represented the never say die attitude.  His country was falling apart in 1940 under the German onslaught, and here was our guy, a Brigadier General in the French Army, escaping to Great Britain, to give a rousing speech over the BBC to French combatants and citizens across its empire to fight back against the tyranny of Germany.  He was a guy who took charge when there was total disarray and confusion amongst the French.  He unified the vast, distributed French elements opposed to the Nazi regime under the banner of Free French Forces, fighting alongside the other Allied forces. Becoming a French president long after the war was over, he oversaw the peak period of French economic growth “Trente Glorieuses”, the grant of independence to Algeria, amidst much violence and political mess.  A true French nationalist, he saw France as a great world power, and constantly strived to drive his views about France’s position in the global equation.  His views were many a time controversial, like his support of the sovereignty of the predominantly French province of Québec in Canada.  This was seen as particularly meddlesome by Canada, more so in view of the presidential position which CDG held at that time. What moved me the most was the fact that when he retired, he did not accept the pensions to which he was entitled as a retired president and as a retired general. Instead, he accepted only a pension to which colonels are entitled. He was punctilious with regard to money, taking care to separate his private expenses from those of his official function. He paid for his own haircuts, the stamps for personal correspondence and had an electricity meter installed in the private accommodation at his official residence.  And when he died, he was almost penniless – so destitute that he did not have money for his own funeral ! I’m yet to come across a statesman representing a once global superpower who chose to live life after retirement in relative simplicity and obscurity.

Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - The Aftermath and Today

In part 2 of this post, I intend to cover those aspects about the immediate fallout of the disaster, which have been mentioned in Lapierre's book, but which I feel can be enhanced through a more updated picture of the whole story. 
Warren Anderson's Role in the Entire Episode and His Whereabouts Today : Warren Anderson was the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster.  From Lapierre's book, we get a picture of an apparently compassionate person, who travels to Bhopal within days of the disaster, much against the advice of his family and colleagues (they fear adverse reactions from the public and legal authorities in Bhopal), just so that he can be in the midst of all the rescue efforts.  He actually landed in India, on the basis of a promise made by Indian authorities that he will not be criminally prosecuted upon his arrival in India.  But soon after his arrival, he was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police on charges of manslaughter, but was released on bail on 7th December 1984.  The bail amount was Rs. 25,000/- (note the irony here, the bail amount was the equivalent of USD 2000 at that time - was that the value of so many Indian peasants' lives lost that one night ?).  Soon after getting bail, he literally fled India by private jet, and has since refused to appear in court in India for this case.  He currently lives in the comfort of a pleasant retirement, 'somewhere in the New York area'.  Anderson's photographs below (one is a photo taken with him at the entrance of his residence very recently, and another one showing a younger CEO in his heyday). 

How culpable is Warren Anderson ?  Probably as the head of the organisation, he is.  But did he neglect his moral duty soon after the disaster...?  He did not.  A diffucult persona to be judged anyway.  

Legal Wrangling/Change of Corporate Ownership : After the disaster, UCIL was bought by Eveready Industries.  The plant never went into full fledged production after the tragedy, but its ownership changed several hands, first with a French company buying the agricultural products division of UCIL.  In the mean time, Union Carbide was bought over by another American giant - the Dow Chemical Company.  With such frequent changes in corporate identity, and an almost callous response from the Indian Political establishment, the legal battle to compensate victims' families entered a stalemate...

Dow Chemical Company's Online FAQ on the Bhopal Disaster : Dow Chemical Company's Official Stand on the tragedy is available on line, through a Bhopal Disaster FAQ page.  The page is full of diplomatic statements, which ultimately absolve them of any wrongdoing.  In my personal opinion, the Dow Chemical Company is an excellent example of an American Corporation whose only motive is profits, while displaying a complete lack of any morals and ethics whatsoever...
The links below are from Dow Chemical Company's website, which captures Dow's official stand on the whole accident :

• http://www.dow.com/commitments/debates/bhopal/index.htm
• http://www.bhopal.com/ucs.htm (this link takes us to the FAQ link)

The Bhopal Factory as it Stands Today, and its Impact on the Immediate Surroundings :The Bhopal factory today lies in a state of total neglect.  In fact, if we visit www.bhopal.org, we can actually see the run-down condition of the plant, where there are still stockpiles of chemicals used in pesticide production, lying uncared for, with no possibility of a cleanup in sight.  I was taken aback to read in that site that there are still huge quantities of solidified Carbaryl in the compound - all it needs is a lighted matchstick to actually set off another gas leak, much deadlier than the previous one.....


Most of the ingredients of pesticide production are inherently toxic, and there are huge stockpiles of these which still remain in the plant even today.  All these chemicals are well known carcinogens, which continue to pollute the ground water steadily, with each monsoon.  Statistical studies have shown an almost unbelievably high incidence of cancers, birth defects, heart and lung disorders amongst the population living around the now run down plant.  The deadly effects of the disaster have not stopped with the gas leak on that fateful night in 3rd December 1984 - the after effects of the disaster continue to kill, dismember, pollute and maim the people of Bhopal to this day....


Captured below are some of the photos I was able to get from on-line sources (including www.bhopal.org) which show the dilapidated condition of the Bhopal plant as it stands today...

Justice may never be rendered, because the Bhopal tragedy sounded Union Carbide's death knell.  Bhopal rendered a body blow to UC's reputation as an industrial giant with a carefully groomed corporate image centred around industrial safety and value of human lives.  The troubled giant was eventually purchased by the Dow Chemical Company, which turns out to be an even more sinister, monstrous corporate, which is totally bankrupt on moral and social values.  To this day, Dow has been evading legal proceedings in this case, making justice to the victims of the disaster more and more elusive.  The President of Dow Chemical Company, Frank Popoff, when asked what responsibility Dow takes for the disaster, soon after Union Carbide was taken over by Dow in 1999, replied : 
"It is not in my power to take responsibility for an event which happened fifteen years ago, with a product that we never developed, at a location where we never operated" 
The reply smacks of a complete lack of regard for human lives which were lost in the disaster.  Yes, Dow did not own UCIL at the time of the disaster.  But if Dow wants to own the assets of UC on account of taking over the company, it is but natural to expect that it also takes on the liability of compensating the victims who were killed by the same company it was taking over...
What Dow was saying essentially was this :
"Fuck-you, you brown skinned Indians.  Fuck-corporate social responsibility.  We want only profits" 
Rubbing salt on our Indians' wounds is the fact Dow Chemical company is trying to stage a comeback in India.  The only silver lining to the history of Bhopal's victims is that Dow Chemical Company's evil overtures in trying to come back into India have been thwarted successfully so far, by the support of environmental organisations like Greenpeace, and the undying campaigning of the children of Bhopal's survivors.  All the IITs in India have also joined hands to reject all  funding/sponsorships from Dow Chemical Company (there was even a Chemical Engineering conference in February 2009, conducted by IIT Delhi, for which Dow was the principal sponsor, which was cancelled just a day before the actual start date, drubbing Dow in a very fitting manner).  Likewise, permission for Dow Chemical Company to construct a Research & Development centre in a village called Chakal in Pune district has been withdrawn.  Dow Chemical Company was also gheraoed in Chennai, and the Tamil Nadu government has refused permission to construct another unit in the vicinity of Chennai.  Following links lead to a whole lot of information about the social campaigning around the Bhopal gas tragedy.

• www.bhopal.org and www.bhopal.net - These give a very heart-rending view of the whole tragedy, along with news items on how Dow is getting ostracised across India, where it has plans to re-enter.

• http://thetruthaboutdow.org - This is another website giving a lot of information about the sinister ways of Dow, and the activism initiated against it by organisations worldwide.

While my heart still weeps for the victims of Bhopal, I am happy to note that very slowly, but surely, Dow is having a thick stick shoved up its ass thanks to the joint effort of so many people.  This monster of a multinational must be brought down without mercy.  I say this not out of any desire to avenge Bhopal, but out of an intense desire to see justice rendered not just to the Bhopal victims, but also to so many other people who live near Dow's facilities worldwide, who live in the constant danger of poisoning not just themselves, but even their generations of offspring yet to come into this planet...
Bhopal, I still weep for you....but let's give Dow a hell it would have never seen...

Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - The Book

'Five Past Midnight at Bhopal' is another masterpiece from Dominique Lapierre, my favourite French author.  Javier Moro has co-authored this book along with Lapierre, and as the name indicates, it traces the history of the erstwhile industrial giant, Union Carbide(UC), its involvement in India starting from 1969, how it eventually went on to set up a manufacturing plant in Bhopal as a subsidiary company called Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), and how its subsequent mismanagement led to the worst industrial disaster on the night of 3rd December 1984, when more than 40 tonnes of Methylisocyanate (MIC), a highly hazardous chemical used in pesticide production, was leaked into the surrounding atmosphere, killing thousands instantaneously.  So catastrophic was the event that even 25 years after its occurrence, the wounds are still to heal, and the now abandoned plant in Bhopal continues to pollute the city with all the toxic waste that still remains on-site, with almost no hope for a proper clean-up.

This book is another classic from Lapierre, truy reminiscent of his style - well researched, factual, providing a balanced view without taking sides with any of the role players as the events unfold.  The book starts with a very detailed description of the perennial scourge of agricultural production across the world - pests and insects which simply devoured cultivated crops.  Detailed descriptions of the various type of pests, and their ill effects on the cultivated crops are described, along with how humans come out with various solutions to this problem through pesticides like dimethyl diamine tetra acetic acid (DDT), and other such formulations (some of the solutions were even esoteric, like invoking spirits...!!!).  Although many pesticides like DDT were effective in curbing the menace of the insects, they were also highly toxic, and many were eventually banned in the US (DDT was one of them).  The reader is then introduced to UC, an industrial giant in the US, which is into the manufacture of hydrocarbons for various industrial and domestic uses.  The reader is also shown how in UC's research facility in the US, a new formulation for a very potent pesticide, Carbaryl, is created, and is decided to be sold under the Union Carbide's brand name, Sevin.  Sevin was supposed to have an extremely potent effect on pests, but almost harmless to humans.  Sevin, as such was obviously harmless, but one of the ingredients in the manufacture of Sevin was MIC - which was notorious as a hazardous chemical....

Union Carbide sees India as a huge potential market for its product, and decides to set up a plant in Bhopal, so that it can save India's huge base of farmers from pest-induced vagaries in agricultural production.  The book presents an overall excellent picture of what went behind the scenes before the creation of the plant, what happened during its running, what caused the disaster, and what happened afterward.

From what I could read in the book, I could perceive several notable points....

Conscious and Deliberate Choice of a Highly Hazardous Route for Production of Carbaryl/Sevin  : There were two possible approaches to produce carbaryl - one was using MIC whose toxicity was notoriously legendary, but a route which was very cost effective.  The second approach did not use any hazardous chemicals at all, but had a very high production cost.  World over, UC was the only manufacturer to use the high toxicity route (others like Bayer always used the non-toxic, non MIC route).  MIC storage needed special precautions, and handling MIC was an extremely hazardous task.  But if these tasks were somehow managed, production costs were so much lower.

The main motive to take the hazardous MIC route, it appears, were profits, pure and simple.

Overconfidence of Projected Sales Volume for Sevin, Despite Indications to the Contrary :  Lapierre explains how the Argentine UC representative, Eduardo Munoz, who was involved with the setting up of the  Bhopal plant during the initial phases, gave  projections for Sevin sales which were considered too conservative at that time by the UCIL management, and how they were were largely ignored by the UCIL management.  Believing that there lies potential for a much larger sales volume, a manufacturing unit of a far larger output capability was thus set up.  This was to prove disastrous - to manufacture such large quantities of Sevin, it was imperative to store huge quantities of MIC in storage tanks, which was itself a disaster waiting to happen.

Again, profit motives seemed to cloud UC's judgement.

Within a few years of setting up the plant, UC eventually found that their sales projections were disastrously inaccurate, and Sevin sales were not proceeding as planned.  Production was slowed down and eventually completely stopped, leaving more than 50 tonnes of MIC in storage tanks just lying in the factory - even UC's safety procedures actually prohibit more than 1 tonne of MIC to be kept in storage tanks, beyond which it was considered a hazard.

At the time of the disaster, the quantity of MIC in storage was more than 50 times the prescribed safety limit...!

Profit MotiveLleading to Serious Cutbacks on Maintenance and Safety Mechanisms : Sales were not going as planned, keeping the plant alive was bleeding UCIL, profits were hence plummeting - so what does UCIL do ? Cut back on maintenance procedures and safety systems.  There were so many instances of safety systems simply being shut down, since they were considered a wasteful expenditure.  Where steel pipes were to be used for preventing damage due to corrosion, ordinary pipes were used.  Many safety systems were simply turned off.

Entrusting the Running of the Plant to a Bureaucrat: The fuse for the Bhopal time bomb  was lit when the management of the plant was entrusted to a complete bureaucrat who knew nothing about hazardous chemicals.  To this new Managing Director of UCIL, all that mattered were financial numbers, and his main motive was to simply bring down the expenses.  His (in)experience in the hazardous chemicals industry was limited to overseeing the manufacture of lead-acid batteries.  Appointment of this person at the helm of the Bhopal plant was akin to giving the complete media coverage rights of the Olympics to a person just because he knew how to operate a Sony handycam !

All the factors above cumulatively fed the disaster. A schematic explaining why the disaster took place is captured below.

Finally, on the night of the disaster, regular maintenance work resulted in MIC reacting with water which had entered the MIC storage tanks - MIC reacts violently with water to create a deadly cloud of toxic fumes which travel at ground level rapidly.  The water would not have entered the tanks in the first place if the control valves had been well maintained.  Successive safety mecahnisms such as sprinklers, and flare towers, which had simply been turned off to save costs, only gave an easy vent to the disaster.  The immediate effect of inhalation of the toxic gases was pulmonary or bronchial edema (fluid collection in the heart/lungs).  Many of the victims were slum dwellers sleeping close to the compound walls of the plant, who died within minutes of inhaling the deadly vapours....


Given below are some photos of the disaster I was able to get online...

The disaster brought out several socio-cultural aspects :

Union Carbide's Apparent Lack of Corporate Social Responsibility :  UCIL never shared the chemical structure of MIC,  leading to doctors being rendered helpless on treating victims of the gas leak during the immediate aftermath of the gas leak.  UCIL never revealed neither  the chemical nature of MIC, nor the details of how to medically treat exposure victims.  Doctors were simply left clueless during the initial 24 hours of the disaster.  All for what reason ? UCIL thought that the chemical formulation was their Intellectual Property, and revealing that even in the face of an unfolding human tragedy did not make business sense.


The Heroism of the Doctors and the Bhopal Railway Station Master - The reader is also shown how common men, thrown into the situation, display an almost unbelievable courage and duty consciousness in the face of such adversity.  We see how doctors in the Bhopal's Hamidia Hospital never leave their wards for 3 days together, and how medical students and interns rise up to the occasion in providing care to the victims.  We also witness how the station master at Bhopal station averts the loss of a few hundreds of lives in a train arriving in Bhopal station  just as the gas leak is spreading in the city - he tries in vain to prevent the train from coming into the station.  But after his attempts fail, he takes a decision to clear the train from the station immediately, tactfully making a cool announcement in the public address system, and clearing the train for immediate departure.  By doing so, a large part of the passengers in the train were saved....


Opportunism of Arjun Singh, the CM of MP at that Time : The CM of Madhya Pradesh at the time of the disaster was Arjun Singh (could have better named him as Opportunist Singh).  It is widely speculated that on the intervening night of December 02,2004 and December 03,2004 , when gas leak occurred, Arjun Singh went to his Kerwa Dam palace (near Bhopal) to save himself from deadly effects of leaked gas and was not available to manage the crisis or lead the administration.  With a view to gain political mileage, he even had Warren Anderson, the CEO of UC arrested when Anderson came to India in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.  He even went to the extent of implicating Anderson, and announcing to the people that he will not spare those responsible for the disaster...!!  Adding insult to injury was the fact that Arjun Singh was very close with several people from the senior management of UCIL ! That's what Indian politicians are - despicably opportunistic, to the extent that they may even sell their mothers to touts if that will give them any benefits...


At the end of the whole book, all I could do was weep - yes, literally weep, not just once, but so many times over.  I wept for those poor souls who lost their lives - they were slum dwellers who lived close to the plant - most of them did not even have a proper address, and yet, they were in many ways exploited by so many.  Today, many of them still suffer the ill-effects of the disaster, while the legal wrangling on who is to compensate for all their suffering goes on, with no end in sight.

The strangest irony is that it has taken a French writer, and his love for India, to bring this story to me - I could not get a better view of the history of Union Carbide in India from any other source.  In my personal opinion, this disaster represents, to a very large extent, the nonchalant rape of one section of the most downtrodden of India, by an American multinational, whose only motive was profit, and a callous disregard for Indian lives, for which it is yet to be brought to justice.  It may never be brought to justice, because it no longer exists as an identifiable entity....

In part two of this post, I shall post my own research on the aftermath of the disaster, and why justice seems all the more elusive, even 25 years later....

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman !

I had never come across the name Richard Feynman till I was in the second year in college, when one of my classmates referred to him during one of our conversations.  I never realized how wonderful a character he was, till I read this book.  I would not even call this 'his' book, since this is more like a collection of audiotaped coversations compiled by his friend, Ralph Leighton.  This book gives a very matter-of-fact portrayal of Richard Feynman, who I have come to admire very much, after reading about him extensively.  Nobel Laureate in Physics in the year 1965 for his contributions to Quantum Electrodynamics, he was also known as a prankster, juggler, safecracker, and a proud amateur painter and bongo player. He was regarded as an eccentric and a free spirit. He liked to pursue multiple, seemingly unrelated, paths, such as biology, art, percussion, Maya hieroglyphs, and lock picking !

When I finished the book, there were several distinct impressions that I was left with, and there were several impressions that were proven wrong, all of them to do with scientists in general.

The first impression that was proven wrong was that scientists are universally, socially inept...!!  Feynman does not make any secret throughout his book of his frequent attempts to woo attractive girls (many a time being successful as well !), his affinity to visit (topless) bars and his tendency to display an uncharacteristic flamboyance.  In fact I felt that he was just a normal guy and a genius scientist at the same time !

The second impression that was proven wrong was my personally held belief that a Nobel prize winning scientist must be such an expert in his domain that he is very unlikely to have any interests outside this domain.  Feynman was an avid bongo player, safecracker, linguist (he tried his hand at learning Portugese - he chose Portugese against Spanish since at the time of enrolling, he saw an attractive blonde waiting in queue to enrol for the Portugese course...!!!), and an interest in a wide variety of topics.  Being a genius in the first place never seemed to dampen his zest for life, or his tendency to be a prankster in general...!!!  I have chosen the image of Feynman playing the bongo, displayed below, just to show what a non-conformist he was !  He was also very resentful of formality, and was uncomfortable to receive the Nobel Prize while adhering to the normal tradition ! Likewise, he was also blunt in his scientific observations and criticism, even towards eminent physicists like Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and others....

The book is arranged more or less chronologically, starting from Feynman's early exploits with vacuum tube radios during his childhood.  I particularly loved his commonsensical approach to solving problems - how by just opening a radio set, and looking out for a burned out component, he could identify the faults with ease !  Throughout the book, his core belief stands out - the belief that common sense should guide scientific approach.  In various points in his book, he points out the real meanings of some of the concepts as viewed from a practical perspective, yet those which are not understood even by university graduates.  The most prominent example of this was the French curve, which we see in set squares - he remarks that the French curve is a special curve in which, at the lowest point in the curve, the tangent is horizontal.  This is not something Feynman has discovered - for any curve, the tangent of the first derivative (lowest point) is always zero (horizontal) ! He demonstrates clearly how much we are all focussed on learning by rote, and not by understanding.  We already know the concepts, but we dont know what we know !  He reiterates this painful aspect of rote learning when he serves as a consultant to the Brazilian government on education.  Against all convention, he speaks without any hesitation on the flaws of scientific education in Brazil, which, to a large extent I feel, applies also to India.  He consistently drives the message that science in general is so much fun and enjoyable, if only it was dealt so by the educational system.  At another point in the book, he makes the same point when he is asked to review high school text books in the United States - he finds that the books are so inadequate in making science education interesting, and even throws some light on how the system of book review and approval in the American education system relies heavily on relationships between publishers and reviewers, than on the larger interest of the student community in general.  I fully agree with Feynman - Science is indeed fun, if only the educational system realizes this, India would produce a far greater number of scientists of worldwide reckoning.

Another prominent theme that comes out is how security lockers, however elaborate they are, are limited by the weakness of the human being that uses that locker so far as its strength is concerned.  He demonstrates this by cracking the combination lockers in the office of a very senior scientist while working at Los Alomos laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb - these lockers hold very highly guarded national secrets on atomic bomb design.  He cracks them, just by second guessing what the combination numbers will be....!!! Unbeknown to the already shocked scientist, he further plays a prank on him by opening ALL his combination lockers, and leaving a trail of clues about the identity of the 'locker thief' !!!  

There are several other aspects that Feynman touches in his book, but one does not feature here, probably because the event took place after the publication of this book.  This was  his role as a member of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger Disaster that took place in 1986, in which 7 NASA astronauts perished - a prominent member of the team was Christa McAuliffe, a civilian school teacher selected as a crew-member, under the 'NASA Teacher in Space Program'.  I was able to research his role in this investigation, and was able to get a picture of a more sober, philosophical Feynman.  Pictures of the disaster, and Christa McAuliffe, the civilian school teacher from Boston, who perished therein, are captured below.

The human face of Feynman comes out in his acerbic and blunt remarks about the NASA administration, where he blames the communication disconnect between NASA project managers and engineers, which resulted in clear safety warnings being ignored prior to launch.  He demonstrates the complete abscence of the required resilience of the fuel tank O-rings (these O-rings failed, and eventually led to the disaster) by using a glass of cold water in a press conference !  He also blames the improper use of statistics by NASA to underplay the safety margins of these launches - he proves that NASA's statistics are so flawed that if NASA is to undertake space shuttle launches every single day, it would take 274 years before an accident can occur !!!!  What moved Feynman (and me, to the greatest possible extent), was that NASA presented its clearly fantastical figures as fact to convince a member of the public, schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, to join the crew. Feynman was not uncomfortable with the risk factor, but felt strongly that the recruitment of laypeople required an honest portrayal of the true risk involved, and considered this a moral failing on NASA's part to give an honest picture of the risk involved.  He went on to remark, "for a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".


(words in contrasting font colour are not mine - they are taken from Wikipedia, for the simple reason that I did not want to dilute the message...)

When I finished the book, and my research about Feynman, I realized two things - he was a both a scientific genius, as well as a normal guy next door with all the normal 'interests'.  He was blessed with the brains of a genius, along with loads of common sense.  And needless to add, he was at times sober & philosophical, driven by moral values....

Perhaps it was his common sense that made him a genius.  Common sense is, after all, not very common, and so are geniuses !

Lajja (Shame)

Changing tracks from office humour through Dilbert (or DilRAMbert...!!), I have decided to write about the very controversial novel ‘Lajja’, by Taslima Nasrin, the controversial, feminist, Bangladeshi writer.

Taslima Nasreen, the person, is by herself very prone to controversy amongst the Islamic Fundamentalists even before 'Lajja', which was her first major literary work, was published – it is hence no wonder that ‘Lajja’ further stoked the flames of communal hatred, much of it directed towards her as an individual.

The title of her book itself sends an ominous message – Lajja in Bengali means ‘shame’. Further, the book has 13 Chapters, each chronicling the 13 days of a downward spiral of hatred unleashed on a hapless Hindu minority family in Bangladesh. It captures the poignant plight of a Bangladeshi freedom fighter who fought for the birth of a nation, freed from the clutches of Pakistan in 1971 as a secular, democratic republic, and how it slowly transforms into the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh, unceremoniously tossing aside the principles of secularism.

The book begins with the shameful event of the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 06 December 1992, carried out by Hindu fundamentalists in India, and how its repercussions were faced by Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. The protagonist of the book is Sudhamoy Dutta, a retired government doctor living in Dhaka, Bangladesh, who was also a Bangladeshi freedom fighter. He had fought alongside fellow Bengalis (Muslims) to liberate the then region of East Pakistan from Pakistan. One understands from this book, how East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was called before 1971, separated by more than 1500 Kilometres of Indian territory, was vastly different from Pakistan – East Pakistanis considered themselves primarily Bengalis, and had aspirations of having Bengali as their national language, apart from believing in a unique cultural identity as 'Bengali Muslims'. This was obviously at odds with Pakistan, where everyone considered themselves Muslims first, having Urdu as their official language. Several other cultural and ethnic factors are also brought out in the book, articulating how the Bengali Muslims were altogether different from their Pakistani counterparts, except for their common religion. Sudhamoy, a Hindu, painfully realizes that hardly twenty years into independence, Bangladesh has, much to his sadness, simply set aside the lofty ideals of secularism and religious tolerance. Although the book is set around fictional characters, the background history, official statistics, figures and events are all purported to be real. Among various social aspects, one understands how frustrating and suffocating it can be for a person from a religious minority to live in a country which is not secular. Sudhamoy’s background as a Hindu freedom fighter is conveniently ignored by the state which gives importance to its Muslim citizens, and he is passed over several times for promotion. Schools in Bangladesh impart Islamic religious training, conveniently leaving out the sentiments of the other religions. Land laws are callously disregarded to favour Muslim majorities. As if all this is not enough already, the Babri Masjid demolition acts as a trigger to transform the covert suffocation of the Hindu minority by the Muslims into a blatant and unbridled outpouring of communal violence against them. All through the account, Sudhamoy vainly believes that his motherland will come to his rescue – he believes that secularism, one of the principles based on which his beloved Bangladesh was founded, will take care of him. His vain belief costs him his daughter, who is kidnapped by a bunch of local goons, never to be heard of again (perhaps she is gang raped and left to die – this is left to speculation in the book). In the thirteenth chapter, Sudhamoy realizes that all hope is lost, and decides that his family must move to India. The closing chapter captures vividly the severely hurt pride which Sudhamoy had to suppress all along – the betrayal that he feels as a freedom fighter who is let down by the very country whose freedom he fought for.

Several themes come out in this book – one is about how religious minorities become hapless sufferers when the state changes from being secular to a non-secular one favouring the majority religion. Another theme is on how rape is used as an instrument of inflicting not only physical damage on a woman, but also long lasting psychological damage. When I read the numerous instances of rape that are captured in this book, I could draw a parallel with the events during the Bosnian-Serbian conflict, where rape was very routinely resorted to as an ‘ethnic cleansing’ activity. Many a time during this conflict, women were simply raped repeatedly till they became pregnant, safeguarded till they reached a stage in pregnancy where abortion was not possible, then let out. The end-objective in all this seemed to be – if you can’t outnumber them, outbreed them....Lajja was not as ghastly as the Bosnian-Serbian conflict, but equally repulsive.

Taslima is an outspoken critic of the Sharia or Islamic law, an interpretation of which simply relegates the woman to the position of merely an object of pleasure, while at the same time making it convenient for men to divorce their wives while pursuing their amorous indulgences. Researching about Taslima reveals that she turned a critic because of the suffering she underwent during childhood – she was molested in childhood, and generally suppressed from pursuing her cultural interests simply because of her gender. She claims that she pursued medical education more on the compulsion of her parents, who wanted her to be marketable in the marriage market. Choosing to be a gynaecologist, she was witness to innumerable abortions for teenage girls in her clinic, which according to her, was an indication of how even teenage girls were not spared in this oppression. Those who did deliver babies were said to invariably gave out wails of despair when the baby was a girl – an indication of the extent of oppression that they are likely to undergo.

While Taslima appears to fight for and represent the oppressed woman in the Muslim religious framework, she has her own detractors as well, who believe that she is merely a publicity-seeker who relies on feminism and Islamic fundamentalism as her canvassing platform. Arguments against her are her own affinity for the opposite gender (she has been married and divorced thrice), and numerous instances during press meets where representatives of feminist organisations were ignored to the benefit of high profile media representatives, whose patronage was necessary for Taslima to achieve a wider publicity and coverage !

While the overall theme of the book is about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism, religious fundamentalism of any nature is intolerable. Some sections of the Hindu community in India are equally prone to be oppressive towards minority religions, which were witnessed during the events post the Godhra massacre in Gujarat. Regardless of the religious affiliation of the victim, the despair is the same, as captured in this photograph below:

That was a Muslim man begging for his life and that of his family, when chased by Hindu mobs during the riots after the Godhra train massacre in Gujarat in 2002. Words are superfluous to describe the man’s plight, when his expression tells the entire story. This one image is enough to tarnish the image of India as a secular country. As a Hindu, whenever I see this photograph, I hang my head in shame when I realize that it was my own fellow Hindus who have resorted to such barbarism.

While I feel despondent whenever such events take place, I am still glad that I am an Indian, governed by the Indian constitution, the preamble of which declares that India shall be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, guaranteeing me Justice (social, economic and political), Liberty (of thought , expression, religious faith, belief and worship), and Equality before the eyes of the Law. I JUST CANNOT even dream to live in 

any country where these are not the fundamental founding principles.....

I perfectly agree with what Taslima says in the opening page of her book:

Let another name for religion be humanism.