Avneet Sethi

Source: http://www.gnani.net/

Hotel Taj : icon of whose India ? Gnani Sankaran- Tamil writer, Chennai

Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one’s mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called – Hotel Taj the icon of India.

Whose India, Whose Icon ?

It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists – the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming
themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and Kolis

But the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No Barkha dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards. And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.

In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in
detail what transpired there.

The channels conveniently failed to acknowledge that the Aam Aadmis of India surviving in Mumbai were not affected by Taj, Oberoi and Trident closing down for a couple of weeks or months. What mattered to them was the stoppage of BEST buses and suburban trains even for one hour. But the channels were not covering that aspect of the terror attack. Such information at best merited a scroll line, while the cameras have to be dedicated for real time thriller unfolding at Taj or Nariman
bhavan.

The so called justification for the hype the channels built around heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe
congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power over these mass of labouring classes. Leopold club and Taj were the haunts of rich spoilt kids who would drive their vehicles over sleeping Aam Aadmis on the pavement, the Mafiosi of Mumbai forever financing the glitterati of Bollywood (and also the terrorists) , Political brokers and industrialists.

It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people, that the terrorists chose to strike.

The terrorists have understood after several efforts that the Aam Aadmi will never break down even if you bomb her markets and trains. He/she was resilient because that is the only way he/she can even
survive.

Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. What resilience, enough is enough, said Pranoy Roy’s channel on the left side of the channel spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Arnab Goswami representing the right wing of the broadcast media whose time is now. Can Rajdeep be far behind in this game of one upmanship over TRPs ? They all attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the government in tackling terror.

The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis. The resilience of the ordinary worker suited the rich business class of Mumbai since work or manufacture or film shooting did not stop. When it came to them, the
rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and
restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by their own ideologies.

The terrorists have learnt that the ordinary Indian is unperturbed by terror. For one whose daily existence itself is a terror of government sponsored inflation and market sponsored exclusion, pain is something he has learnt to live with. The rich of Mumbai and India Inc are facing the pain for the first time and learning about it just as the middle classes of India learnt about violation of human rights only during emergency, a cool 28 years after independence.

And human rights were another favourite issue for the channels to whip at times of terrorism.

Arnab Goswami in an animated voice wondered where were those champions of human rights now, not to be seen applauding the brave and selfless police officers who gave up their life in fighting terorism. Well, the counter question would be where were you when such officers were violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24 hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this country?

This definitely was not the time to manufacture consent for the extra legal and third degree methods of interrogation of police and army but Arnabs don’t miss a single opportunity to serve their class masters, this time the jingoistic patriotism came in handy to whitewash the entire uniformed services.

The sacrifice of the commandos or the police officers who went down dying at the hands of ruthless terrorists is no doubt heart rending but in vain in a situation which needed not just bran but also brain.
Israel has a point when it says the operations were misplanned resulting in the death of its nationals here.

Khakares and Salaskars would not be dead if they did not commit the mistake of traveling by the same vehicle. It is a basic lesson in management that the top brass should never t ravel together in crisis. The terrorists, if only they had watched the channels, would have laughed their hearts out when the Chief of the Marine commandos, an elite force, masking his face so unprofessionally in a see-through cloth, told the media that the commandos had no idea about the structure of the Hotel Taj which they were trying to liberate. But the terrorists knew the place thoroughly, he acknowledged.

Is it so difficult to obtain a ground plan of Hotel Taj and discuss operation strategy thoroughly for at least one hour before entering? This is something even an event manager would first ask for, if he had to fix 25 audio systems and 50 CCtvs for a cultural event in a hotel. Would not Ratan Tata have provided a plan of his ancestral hotel to the commandos within one hour considering the mighty apparatus at his and government’s disposal? Are satelite pictures only available for terrorists and not the government agencies ? In an operation known to consume time, one more hour for preparation would have only improved the efficiency of execution.

Sacrifices become doubly tragic in unprofessional circumstances. But the Aam Aadmis always believe that terror-shooters do better planning than terrorists. And the gullible media in a jingoistic mood would not raise any question about any of these issues.

They after all have their favourite whipping boy – the politician the eternal entertainer for the non-voting rich classes of India.

Arnabs and Rajdeeps would wax eloquent on Nanmohan Singh and Advani visiting Mumbai separately and not together showing solidarity even at this hour of national crisis. What a farce? Why can’t these channels pool together all their camera crew and reporters at this time of national calamity and share the sound and visual bites which could mean a wider and deeper coverage of events with such a huge human resource to command? Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is this the time to promote the channel? If that is valid, the politician promoting his own political constituency is equally valid. And the duty of the politican is to do politics, his politics. It is for the people to evaluate that politics.

And terrorism is not above politics. It is politics by other means.

To come to grips with it and to eventually eliminate it, the practice of politics by proper means needs constant fine tuning and improvement. Decrying all politics and politicians, only helps terrorists and dictators who are the two sides of the same coin. And the rich and powerful always prefer terrorists and dictators to do business with.

Those caught in this crossfire are always the Aam Aadmis whose deaths are not even mourned – the taxi driver who lost the entire family at CST firing, the numerous waiters and stewards who lost their lives working in Taj for a monthly salary that would be one time bill for their masters.

Postscript: In a fit of anger and depression, I sent a message to all the channels, 30 hours through the coverage. After all they have been constantly asking the viewers to message them for anything and
everything. My message read: I send this with lots of pain. All channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims of CST massacre, the real mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India. Your obsession with five star elite is disgusting. Learn from the print media please. No channel bothered. Only srinivasan Jain replied: you are right. We are trying to redress balance today. Well, nothing happened till the time of writing this 66 hours after the terror attack.

I guess terrorists and our media both realized that only covering Hotels like Taj will get our politicians to act. I’m wondering if our media had not covered Taj and other hotels like that, would we have got the international support (and government support) like we did this time?

I love this article and everything in it. And I am surprized that our politicians and (some celebrities) went sight seeing during the attack – how ignorant are you?

And having a rally when a few terrorists are still at large?? really?

Everybody is ready to throw in the towel (resign) but not act or apologize for not acting on time – that is our government’s state? And how long before there is someone who will actually act is on board?

And why would citizens refuse to vote? I don’t get it. Protest by not voting? Are you serious? How is that going to help? Will that help elect the right people? But then, I don’t see Obama running for elections here either.

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Visited Photosynth and got this:

Unfortunately, we’re not cool enough to run on your OS yet. We really wish we had a version of Photosynth that worked cross platform, but for now it only runs on Windows.

Trust us, as soon as we have a Mac version ready, it will be up and available on our site.

Yeah sure. Photosynth runs under Boot camp and VMware is already out with a video sharing how Photosynth works with their Fusion 2 Beta 2 product.

Photosynth is an exciting tool and I really liked it. You can also embed the synth in your website. Creating a virtual world out of images clicked by thousands of people, photosynth is taking social networking to a whole new dimension. You have all this data being collected by individuals and shared via social networks which is being put to use to create a new web!

It’ll be exciting to see what we all can do with it. Synth away!

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Digg this! Girls dig guys who dig environmental technology.

And I didn’t make it up. I read it on EcoGeeks (actually on Digg, which took me to Yahoo and eventually ecoGeeks – link connection!)

It’s so interesting to see the going green trend catching up everywhere. More interesting to note are the different motivation factors – cleaner surroundings, healthier environment, fame, decreased degradation, better future, feel-good factor, charity, making a fashion statement, saving money…. honestly, as long as the direction is the same, who cares if you are doing it to really save the polar bears or to make a statement and stand out in your social circle!

First we heard that ice was melting, then we heard that the data is incorrect and there really is no global warming (really??) happening. Then there was news that the new data is supported by those who will suffer the most if the world citizens became environment conscious.

Al Gore wasn’t the first person to say we need to save our environment. I first read it in my science book in Grade 1. Didn’t everyone? We all know plastic bags take eons of years to degrade and oil will not last forever, trees play a significant role in climate change and solar energy is under-utilized. Then why don’t we act like we know it?

I’m no ‘all-green’ myself. And I’m not for a monk’s life either. I don’t think ‘industrialization + technology advancement equals environment degradation so we should say no to both to save environment.

I think its cool that we all want to save our planet and are taking day-to-day eco-friendly actions. I think it’s great that we have started looking at fuel efficient cars as a fashion statement. I feel happier that there are lesser number of people who buy expensive cars to just show off. And I’m glad that there are people and organizations out there who are not busy defaming people who are not environment conscious but are encouraging people to just do their bit, whatever it may be and join the green citizenship.

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Say whatever, high heels are still here.

The endless list of surveys and studies done on high heels is not surprising. Here’s what been said:

1. High heels may improve sex drive – March 2008. I’m curious to know who funded the research…..

2. High heels cause accidents on station concourses – May 2008. ahem, this is actually believable.

3. High heels increase surgeries – May 2008. Fact.

4. High heels are number one cause for foot problems in women – May 2008

But does that scare women? Has the high heel trend gone down? Should it go down?

I love wearing heels myself. Though I have never fallen face down because of them, I have almost fallen innumerable times. Wearing heels is not that easy and can be really no fun at all if you are not sensible about them. I tried looking for any data on heels but didn’t get much. The most interesting post though was the high heel formula!

From EurekaAlert:

Based on your shoe size, the formula tells you the maximum height of heel you can wear without toppling over or suffering agonies.

h = Q•(12+3s /8)

h is the maximum height of the heel (in cm)
Q is a sociological factor and has a value between 0 and 1 (see below to work this out)
S is the shoe size (UK ladies sizes). This factor makes sure that the base of support is just good enough for an experienced and sober, high-heel wearer not to fall over.

Here’s another interesting note from Hypertextbook.com on high heels, the mighty weapon!

For comparison’s sake, would you rather your hand be pummeled by a herd of elephants or a group of angry women wearing high heels? The more logical answer in this case, that is you would rather take your chances on the high heels, is the wrong assumption. Don’t be intimidated by the enormous size of an elephant or fooled by the alluring high heel. The high heel can exert more than 15 times the pressure of an elephant’s foot. These immense pressures can range from 10 – 100 atm. So, if you ever get the opportunity to choose, be very wary that you won’t let the “pressure” get to you.

So, high heel admirers, when someone insults you, calls you as fat as an elephant perchance, teach them a lesson. Show them the true power of the almighty high heel.

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So its almost been a month and all that has happened is that I’ve been asked by HDFC to submit more documents and fill up another form.

This could have been a hot lead in a credit card fraud case and all everyone is doing is delaying action. No wonder credit card fraud is a booming business.

I never heard back from John Lewis, Oxford and while HDFC has been very very helpful, the process is extremely slow. I am without a CC which I need for most of my online transactions and the fact that I might just have to pay for that transaction is haunting me.

I wonder if I should file an FIR…

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This month seems to be all about cleaning up my closet again..
With summers here, (and my sister in town), it was time to pack up the winter clothes (or watch her doing it) and take out the summer wear!

…and evaluate what stays and what goes. This has to be my sister’s favorite thing to do.

I didn’t realize it would be so freeing to literally clean up my closet – okay, to be honest, I didn’t realize it would be so freeing to watch my sister clean up my closet!

I was amazed that just like the old books and notes, I’d kept clothes that dated back decades! (okay 7 years – buts that a lot too!). Not that I didn’t add any to my closet during that time.

My sister kept taking them out one by one, giving me the year we bought it in and looking at me questioningly – I guess she wanted me to tell her when was it that I last wore that piece of cloth. I knew I couldn’t get away with keeping my favorite clothes this time around.

I think my brain puts all dates, incidents and clothes in one section. Maybe thats why it’s difficult for me to let go of my clothes and stuff. I get this horrifying feeling that if I threw this t-shirt away, I’ll forget what had really happened – whether it was a good memory or a sad one, I don’t want to forget it. As if my whole life is folded in these clothes and stacked in my brain. So it took a lot of courage to let go of my old clothes. What gave me this courage (apart from a very very strong push from my sister) is the turn my life seems to have taken this year.

It’s like my life is turning over a new leaf. I have felt so dazed in this first quarter of the year that I have had to sometimes sit and pinch myself to find out if I am dreaming. I re-lived every single day of the last 6 years in these last 6 months. And this time, it was the last time. No more clothes to remind me of what happened, no more staring at the t-shirt and thinking why it happened and no more hoping that the same times will come back if I keep it with me.

I now have an almost empty cupboard – one that needs to be filled with all new clothes!

(except for that bottom right corner where I have a few (very few) memories stacked away – those happy days!)

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Yesterday, I got a call from HDFC Mumbai asking me if I was in Britain…

When I said “No!!” he advised me to immediately block my card. So while I was sitting working on my client’s website, my credit card was doing some shopping at John Lewis, Oxford… which was strange because I was holding it in my hand!

I got my card cancelled immediately but was forced to wonder if this was a prank being played by one of my friends… my doubts were put to rest within 5 minutes when I received the following message from HDFC Credit Card services:

“Thank you for using your HDFC bank credit card for Rs. 40694.61 in JOHN LEWIS OXFORD @ 26-Feb-2008″

40 &*$%^# thousand!!! Thats like more expensive than a return ticket from London!

I immediately looked up John Lewis, Oxford on the Internet and called them up. They said they could not help me and I should contact my credit card company. When I suggested they look into the recent sales made and see if my credit card was used, I didn’t get a very helpful response (“Please contact your credit card company”). I also sent an email using their Contact form and gave them my credit card number in a hope that they’ll tell me whether it was an online payment (and if yes then they can stop the order from being processed and return my money) or a card was used (in which case, how did someone manage to duplicate the HDFC credit card???).

I did get a reply from them. Ms. Shirley (bless her!) from John Lewis has been nice enough to forward my request to the Audit team. I’m still waiting to hear from them…

And if this wasn’t enough excitement, I received a message from the CitiBank CC company informing me that they’ve increased my credit limit! So I called them up to ensure that they DON’T! I also asked them if it was possible for them to send me a message every time a transaction was made using the CitiBank CC and they said they didn’t have that service! Imagine that.

I’m so glad HDFC does and I was informed by them in advance.

So innumerable calls and faxes later, I’m still waiting to hear if I’ll have to pay for the shopping some j@%$@&& did…

I’m also curious about how this can be solved. HDFC customer care informed me that another attempt was made using my card and some Rs. 20,000.00 was charged. I was surprized that this new store did not contact police or me?

If the card was blocked because it was stolen, why is everyone so slow in responding? John Lewis store has cameras so why didn’t they act fast (since I called them within 3 – 5 minutes of the transaction) and try to catch the thief? How in the world can someone just duplicate a card? If it was an online transaction, what is the address where the merchandise has been requested to be delivered (this is exactly why I think it can’t be an online transaction – I mean really, will that person be dumb enough?)

I use my credit card frequently on the Internet. The fact the my credit card might get misused was something I didn’t really bother that much about.The websites where I used my CC all display “Safe and Secure” messages.

This also brought back an incident that happened almost 3 – 4 months ago when this new card was issued to me by HDFC. At the same time, I was also approached my HSBC and I filled credit card form details. They also took the photocopy of my credit card – front and back (this new HDFC one). Though I cut the CVV number, I still thought I made a big mistake. I was never given a new HSBC card. I was told my the person that for some reason they’ve been given “instructions” that HDFC credit cards beginning with “5243″ should not be issued a CC by HSBC – AND he asked me for another CC, if I had any. I refused. I never got the form I filled back either – which obviously had my address and my phone number and my DOB….

… in December’07 a charge of some Rs. 30,000 + was made on my card but the merchant never claimed the money. Thus, we never found out who the merchant was and never found out who made this transaction.

Does this all make sense? Is it a Cyber Crime? Or did someone make a fake credit card? As per Switched.com, its very difficult but not impossible. MSNBC article shares more information on how this is possible.

Credit card’s mag strip data can be stolen using a skimming device attached to a card reader or a retailer’s processor database – so before you just give your card at a restaurant to the waiter to take it and get the bill back, think hard. He could very well be swiping it over a skimming device as well!

I wonder if it was a physical card, then will John Lewis store share the camera recordings to locate the culprit…

(the follow up..)

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This has to be one of my favorites!

I wish we had saved the video we made of Piyush and Bernie (Vishaal Soni for all of you who don’t now Vishaal’s real name) – that one was for keeps too!

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I was trying to solve the Rubik Cube when my mom started to tell me an interesting story..

.. (and because I was so engrossed in the Rubik Cube, I didn’t really get the beginning and I’ve made one up – no, I can’t tell my mom I wasn’t really listening so please repeat – ..)

… once upon a time, a young man meets a lady wearing a rare and a precious stone. He immediately realizes the potential of the stone. With the precious stone, he could buy all the riches in the world and fulfill all his desires. … (from here on, I was listening…..)

He goes to the lady and asks her to give him the stone. He tells her that he really needs the stone and how he can buy all the riches in the world with it. The woman smiles and gives the stone to him. Extremely delighted, the man goes goes home.

Next day, the man goes back to the same lady. He hands her the precious stone and says, “Take back your stone – and give me that which made you part with it in the first place.”

*************

Isn’t it beautiful? It just makes you stop and think. It made me think if I could become that woman – and it hit me that I need to become that man first..

..when the student is ready, the Master appears.

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..by any means possible.

How seriously do you take this statement? Rather, how seriously do you implement it?

Depends on the job, does it?

I have always been intrigued by the statement. I’m still not sure if I am a follower or not. The job to be done, kind of, matters. Which invariably means, my opinion of the job and how passionate I am about getting it done matters. This is all great when you have the ability to choose the job.

What when the job is assigned? Take the workplace as an example. You have an assignment to complete and come across some roadblock – no existing hack to display your design correctly in an annoying browser – and you have to deliver your assignment today. What do you do?

Do you leave the job to look for the hack for tomorrow? Do you ignore the missing piece and present it anyways? Or do you go crazy looking for a solution because you have to get the job done by any means possible.

Alright, so this situation may not sound as dramatic as the statement itself, but for me it is. I hate missing deadlines. And I’m always surprized when someone is not; more so when I am the one who is going to appear like a slacker because of it. It makes me wonder if it is the difference between the assigned job and the job taken up voluntarily, that is responsible for how passionately you work for it.

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