Category Archives: Corruption

Security and Sanitation or Satellite?

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On 22nd of October, 2008 India launched Chandrayaan, a satellite, to compile a 3D atlas of the lunar surface and map the distribution of elements and minerals. I am sure these kinds of work costs huge amount of money. Right after one month of this satellite launch India faced the biggest terrorist attack ever. Almost 200 people died and over 350 were injured in this attack.

Our fire department did not have big enough ladders to reach the target, they did not have any special clothing, they were wearing normal cotton clothes, a lot of policemen were killed because they did not have bullet proof jackets, I saw a video of a police man fighting terrorists with his old riffle and terrorist had very advance gun. This all happened because Indian government never thought to spend money on these things.

During Bihar flood this year, thousands of KGs of grains and food packets got rotten only because we did not have helicopters. There were only two helicopters covering whole Bihar. People were dieing of hunger and thirst. There was enough food but we did not have transportation system to bring it to needy people. Again it all happened only because Indian government never thought to spend money on these things.

Sanitation is a big issue for India. People piss on the road because we do not have public toilets, people throw garbage on road because we do not have dust bins, one sweeper is responsible to cleanup the whole neighborhood where more than two-three thousand people live, they discharge untreated sewage directly to the rivers, people also throw the garbage in the river because there is no one to educate them. All these things happens only because government never give priority to these works.

Sending settelites seems like too much show off work to me. I am sure more than 30% of the Indian people can not write the word moon and more than 50% of the people must not be knowing what a settelite is, and more than 97% of the people will not be knowing how Chandrayan will work or what will it do. Indian government has been continously talking about this project since they have started it. 

I think we need sanitation, security and education first, and then settelite. I think it will be better to tell the ideas to some rich countries or tell them to fund the whole project or just sell the projects and spend the money where it is needed first. A lot of necessary things are not done in India only becasue of lack of money like we do not have good roads, we do not have enough schools, we do not have good public transport system. Why not spend money on these projects and give better life to Indians.

Pending

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I think it has become our compulsion to use the word “Pending” again and again. Maybe we use this word most in the whole world. We have most number of legal cases pending before courts in the whole world. People file a case and spend their lives but never get any result. Now people feel better settling the case on their own.  I never want to go either to the police or to the court for any reason.

If I go to the police then I have to bribe them and if I go to court then I have to bribe and wait both until the judgement is given. And sometimes judges are also bribed and their judgement is not judgement. Once I filed a case against a computer shop from where I had bought a computer about eight years ago. I filed this case because he had given me wrong price. The same computer I had bought from him was worth Rs. 23,000 but he wanted to charge me 43,000. 

I told him to either give my money back or take the computer back. He took the computer back and gave me two post dated bank cheques. When I went to the bank to get my money from his account, the bank clerk said that there was no money in his account. I informed the computer seller about it and he told me to go to the bank again after few days. I did it several times but never got any money.

Finally I decided to go to the court for it and filed a case. It took more than seven years and a lot of my personal time and lawyer’s fee and finally judgement was given in computer’s seller guy. I had made the computer guy write on stamp paper that he took my computer and had given post dated cheques, I had receipt of the computer, I had everything to prove that I was cheated but still judge gave judgement in favor of computer guy because he was bribed. So it took eight years and no judgement.

I had applied for a tour guide license two years ago but have not got it yet. The whole process is stuck in the several courts of India. First of all it took almost one year for government to see the paper and organize exam and then later old guys sued government because they don’t want new blood to come in this sector. Even though I have qualified the exam but Government has been giving temporary license which nobody likes at all, we need training and a permanent license. I don’t know when I will have the training and permanent license, but doesn’t seem like I will get it within next one year.

I applied for one other tour guide license which is issued by state government about two and a half years ago and same thing with this program as well. Government was sued by old guides and the case is still pending in the court. To be honest I had forgotten about it and I believe it must be same with everyone. We had to pay Rs. 500 with application which doesn’t seem to come back to us again. Maybe this exam will never ever be organized because we have not heard of any hearing of this case.

I applied for a registration for paying guest house before one and a half  year but have not got it yet. They call me after ever fifteen-twenty days and tell the same thing that they are doing survey and will start issuing the license soon. Once they told me to apply again because they had lost my papers. It was not expensive to apply, but it again took at least few hours. I have been hosting guests at my place without having license. I just inform to the local intelligence unit but I will feel better if I have a license.

Terrorist attack on Mumbai

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Taj Hotel before attack

Taj hotel before attack

Mumbai was attacked by terrorists on 26th of November. Almost one hundred and seventy five people were killed and over three hundred and fifty people were injured. Terrorism has been effecting India continuously for the past few decades but still the government is just making the same kind of boring statements and not doing anything to stop it. I think in this kind of crucial situation all the political parties should have come together but again this time both of the biggest political parties- Congress and BJP were against each other.

Everybody is abusing to the government and the police. Media, Indian intelligence department and FBI tells that these terrorists were trained in Pakistan. Police have found a lot of evidences that proves Pakistan’s involvement in this attack but Pakistan government doesn’t want to hear anything. Indian government gave a list of twenty terrorists to Pakistan government and told them to give these terrorists to India but Pakistan government refused it. They say first of all you prove that there was Pakistan’s involvement in this attack and then we will think about it. 

Smoke coming out of Taj hotel

Smoke coming out of Taj hotel

All the terrorists that India demanded are known for being terrorists in the whole world but still Pakistan needs evidence. Dawood Ebrahim, the guy who helped terrorists to get them to Mumbai via sea route, has already been declared as a most wanted terrorist by the US government but Pakistan government still wants evidences against him. The whole India wants Indian government to take some action against these terrorists this time but I am sure nothing will happen. 

We have very good support of international community after Mumbai attack. The US and Israel government have promised to provide all kind of help to fight against terrorists. But the sad thing is that our government seems super smart taking help of international community to built nuclear power plants which will produce the waste that we can never get rid off and could bring disaster in the future, if not taken care properly, but they don’t seem like taking help to finish terrorism.

One of the terrorists

One of the terrorists

I was watching a interview of a politician from Israel who said that India should do something for themselves first and then hope for international community to help them. I loved his idea. How can we hope for others to come and help us until we start helping us ourselves. After all the terrorist attacks our politicians say something boring and that’s all. Neither they start helping India nor the international community comes forward to help us.

Media is also fed up by reporting about terrorist attacks. They were also saying that enough is enough. They just don’t want to see blood on the road and report about it again and again. Media was appreciated for the way they had captured this whole news. They had reached at attack spots before the police and stayed there until the whole operation was finished. The very interesting thing was that media had pictures and videos of terrorists but the police was keeping telling that terrorists are hiding and they could not see them.

One injured person at hospital

One injured person at hospital

I heard a terrorist calling to a news channel and putting their demands. He was asking Indian government to release all the terrorists who are in the jail and to declare Hyderabad as a Muslim state. When he was asked where was he from, he said that he was from Hyderabad, India. He said that he belongs to a organization called Deccan Muzahidin. Everybody knew that he had very very Kashmir accent, I am sure he was not from Hyderabad. Later the reality came that all these terrorists had come from Karachi, Pakistan. 

Once TV host asked a terrorist about what did they have to eat and he said that why do they need to eat. They said that they were going to Allah, and Allah would welcome them with lots of good food. TV host told him- Do you know that NSG commandos and other forces have covered you and they will kill you within few hours and he said that- The world is watching who is being killed. He said even if he dies, he will go to heaven, and will get blessings of Allah.

CST Railway station after attack

CST Railway station after attack

When they were asked for reason behind this attack they said that Hindus kill Muslims, rape their mother and sisters and demolish all the mosques. I don’t know of any place in India where these kinds of activities take place but the sad thing is that this is what they were taught. Babri Mosque was demolished by Hindus and this is the only mosque I know that was destroyed in my whole life. If they mind Hindus destroying mosques then they should also mind Muslims demolishing Hindu temples as well. Thousands of temples have been demolished in Pakistan itself. 

Once the terrorist said that people of Kashmir want to live in Pakistan but Indian government is putting them in India forcibly. I asked the same question to a lot of people when I was in Kashmir and each and every person told me that they wanted to be in Kashmir controlled by India. Kashmir is still a very poor state just because of terrorism and all the Kashmiri people know it. If these of terrorists care about people living in Kashmir, then they should immediately stop thinking about them because the world knows that we can provide Kashimiri people a better life because Indians have more opportunity than Pakistanis. 

Fire coming out of a window of hotel Oberoi

Fire coming out of a window of hotel Oberoi

I was talking to my friends and they said if this whole terrorists activities are only because of Kashmir, then fuck it and give it Pakistan. It is a big change I have noticed. I also support this idea because people of Kashmir would never ever have good life until this problem is solved. And people of all the states of India have been targeted, they are killed. And what do we get, a tour of Kashmir? If Indian government ever puts this option of giving Kashmir to Pakistan, I would support them because I know it very well that Indian government can never ever solve this problem. 

If terrorists or the group of people who care about Muslims of Kashmir are concerned about Muslims in Kashmir, they should be concerned about the Muslims living in other states as well. If they are demanding for Kashmir to provide better life to Muslims, then maybe someday they will demand for the whole India because we have Muslims in all the states of India. I think we give them Kashmir but on one condition that they will have to accept all the Muslims of India and take them back to Pakistan or wherever they want to take them. 

Will they accept all the Muslims? No, impossible because they are not concerned about the Muslims, they are concerned about our progress and wealth. They just want to disturb our economy and Mumbai attacks are the perfect example of it. Why did they choose Taj and Oberoi? Only because they want to effect our economy and tourism which is a big source of income of India. I know that all the Muslims are not bad but these terrorists are putting their ideas forcibly on Muslims and making them disrespected in the society.

Candle light procession

Candle light procession

This time people response is amazing. People protested all over India against this terrorist attack. Mumbai people did a candlelight march where more than one hundred thousand people were present. Everybody was claiming the government first and then terrorists, and I completely agree with them. How is it possible to bring all the bombs and other weapons through sea route all the way from Karachi to Pakistan if our police was not involved in it. I am sure our police and navy also helped terrorists.

The Mumbai want to see change in political system. They want each and every political leader to be educated but I don’t completely agree with it. I am sure education will change a lot of things but there are thousands of examples where educated people have done worst and a lot of uneducated people have changed the world by their efforts. I think honesty is the most important thing and it could bring only and only from bringing honesty in the government services.

Whenever anybody asks to a young Indian about if he would also take bribe after getting job and there is only one answer- No. But when somebody sees a lot of corruption and bribes a government officer to get a job then obviously he would also be involved in accepting bribes when he works. People bribe police officers to get a job in police so they also take bribe when they have a job. How can we hope for a honest family if the head of the family is completely corrupt? 

Taj Hotel was also appreciated by its clients. I was watching a interview of a Taj guest who was staying there on the day Taj was attacked. He went out of hotel around 5 o;clock to join some party at other hotel. By the time he was getting back to Taj around 9 o’clock, he got a SMS from Taj saying that there was some security problem and they advised him to not come back to the hotel. He went immediately to an another hotel and saw the news that Taj was attacked. 

A lot of other guests who were inside their rooms for the whole time until the operation was finished also appreciated Taj administration. They said that Taj employees were continuously informing them about what was going on and were helping as much as they could. All the government departments were completely failed and each and every individual was related to private sector did his job perfectly. I think we should not blame Pakistan or any other terrorist organization, we better improve our system first. In my view there are only two things that made this attack happened:- The Indian Government, The police and Navy.

photo documentary about Ganga

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A student from Singpore is staying at my place. She had contacted me through couchsurfing. She just wanted to meet me. But when I saw that she was doing research about Ganga, I asked her if she would be my paying guest. She was also looking for home stay so she decided to rent my apartment. She is making a photo documentary called Son of Ganga which will be about people’s relation with Ganga in Benares. She says that it was her own personal research motivated by her father but when she informed her school about it and asked for leave, her school told her to do it with them.

She wanted to do her research with Sankat Mochan Foundation. She wrote them about twenty days ago but hasn’t got any response yet. I had already talked to her a lot about pollution in Ganga. I took her to a place where sewage is discharged directly, without treating, to the river. She was shocked to see the quantity of the sewer water. She said that she never thought that Ganga was this polluted. When I told her that there were more than 10 places like that in Benares alone, she just could not imagine it.

I showed her another point of sewage discharge near Shivala ghat and Assi ghat. Assi ghat sewage drain has a funny story. The Government spent a lot of money to divert this drain and mix it with Nagwa one so that people don’t see a direct sewage discharge. But now Assi ghat drain has started again. It again has a lot of sewer water that mixes with Ganga in front of people. I never understood why government spent that huge amount of money just to hide it. They could have spent the same money to built a small treatment plant.

There is an another river called Varuna in Varanasi which has become a complete drain now. The Hindi word for drain is ‘nala’ and this river is known as “Varuna Nala” by the locals. I never knew that Varuna River and Varuna Nala are samething. I just came to know about it few days ago. There is a religious walk called Antargrih where people start walking from Manikarnika ghat and cover all of Benares. One part of this walk is to walk along the Varuna River and do some rituals where it mixes with Ganga.

Most of the Muslim neighborhoods and slaughter houses are along the Varuna river. All the animal waste from more than ten-fifteen slaughter houses is dumped directly into the river. There is lots of sewage discharge also. Varuna River is the best place for criminals to throw murdered bodies because nobody wants to walk along this river. So it is not rare to find human bodies as well in this river. And it all mixes with Ganga after seven or eight kilometers.

This walk is sometime this month and I and Nadia have decided to do it. I have heard that people drink the Varuna’s water when it mixes with Ganga. They walk along the river, see all the waste mixing in it, human and animal bodies flowing in the river and a huge quantity of sewage discharge, but they still drink this same water just because of the religious reason.  I can not imagine what I will be seeing but I am so excited for it.

Good people and bad people look for jobs

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The title of this post is upside down because I have noticed a few things where quality is thrown out and garbage is being collected by our people and government. First off I want to talk about my brother who is an Italian interpreter and works for a very big travel agency in India. He lives in Delhi and has been working as interpreter and escort with Italian tourists and researchers for the last two years.  He doesn’t have a tour guide license but he has very good knowledge.

A lot of Italian travel agencies recommend him for their groups. He started working two years ago and his first group was of only two people. His last group consisted of sixty people. It means that he progressed rapidly. He has to hire a government-authorized tour guide in all the cities he goes to with his clients because non-licensed guys are not allowed to work. The guides that he hires are supposed to be quiet and let him work. They are hired just to protect him.

A lot of government authorized guides don’t like him anymore because he gets big groups, and those guides have to be satisfied with small groups. Last week he went to Jama Masjid in Delhi with his clients but he was stopped by the licensed tour guides at the entrance gate. They asked for his license but my brother did not have it, but he had a licensed guy with him. Government authorized guides asked this other licensed guy if he knew Italian. This other guide was a English speaking guide and did not know any Italian.

Government authorized guides told my brother that he could not go inside the Jama Masjid because neither did he have a license nor the licensed guy know Italian. Even though they are not authorized to check the license but they did it. All the guides have same license, it doesn’t not talk about any specific language.  You just need to have a license and then you can work. But those government authorized guides wanted my brother to have an Italian speaking guide. I am sure this was all done to disturb him.

At the same time another group of my brother’s travel agency came at Jama Masjid and they had an Italian-speaking government guide. My brother sent his group with this Italian-speaking guide but he could not work. Same thing happened with him in Rajasthan also and again he had to find an Italian speaking government authorized tour guide. Finally he gave up and has stopped working now. He says that he will work with a few groups that had already propositioned his travel agency to send him with them and then maybe not work in the future.

He is not working this year. Now he has switched to operations. He never worked in operations but now it is his compulsion to work in this new department. He says that maybe the government guides will never let him work in the future therefore he needs to learn something new. I am not concerned about his future because he is very smart and can get a job very easily but I think about the politics in tourism industry. A guy who has very good knowledge and experience has been thrown out and the other guys who are outdated and don’t know anything are given work and support. UPSIDE DOWN.

Another story is about one of my relatives. He is a twenty-four year old guy who never wanted to go to school. He always wanted to be a criminal. He has been arrested by the police several times for several reasons. He went to school for a few years but never as a student. His father works at a Sanskrit university in Benares. He arranged 10th and 12th class certificates for his son by bribing some school in the state of Bihar. Later he arranged a graduation degree from his university. Now the son has a graduate degree without going to school ever.

His father got him admitted in a B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) course somewhere in a university in Gujrat state. This was also done by bribing because the son never participated in any kind of admission test. The son still stays at home and is involved in the same kind of bad work that he has been doing for years but his record at the university is maintained properly. So after three years he will have a B.Ed. degree and will become a teacher. His father says that he can get a teacher’s job at some government school for his son by bribing government officers.

Last year I saw a news paper advertisement for peon job in the municipality of Benares. The requirements for this job were 8th class passed certificate and knowledge of bicycle driving because peons are supposed to visit the nearby areas and watch the illegal construction. But a lot of Masters and Ph.D degree holders had applied for this job. It shows that even Masters and Ph.D degree holders have no job here. Finally the municipality invited all the highly educated guys for the interview, and Masters and Ph.D degree holders got jobs as peon.

They said that since they were facing job problems, they decided to just start something. Now Ph.D degree holders will drive bicycles and watch the illegal construction and report it to the municipality. Their whole lives labor did not help them. I am sure they will be involved in lots of bribing because peons get very little money and usually they bear their expenses by getting bribe from the people who do illegal construction or do any kind of municipality-related work.

So a guy who never went to school will become a teacher in the future and the guys who have Pd.D degrees are working as peon in this municipality. I was wondering what my relative could teach to the students- how to loot people? or how to beat someone? And the guys who did research, did a lot of labor have the lowest job in the industry. UPSIDE DOWN.

Police take a rickshaw ride

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I saw something very strange, maybe it could be the strangest thing for an Indian. I was sitting in an auto rickshaw when a policeman stopped it. He came and sat next to me. Police never pay the fare for any transportation whether it is auto or bus or train. After a drive of two-three minutes someone else wanted to stop the auto, but my driver did not stop it. My driver said that the guy who wanted to stop the auto was also a driver and wanted a free ride. That other driver seemed so angry and was shouting loudly.

The second driver showed up again near the railway station. He had reached there before us. Also now he had his auto rickshaw which he had stopped and was waiting for us. This time our auto stopped. The other driver just came and grabbed the collar of the policeman’s shirt and started abusing him. I was shocked to see a auto rickshaw driver abusing a policeman. Not only me but everyone else in the auto rickshaw was shocked. He was kept abusing the policeman and the policeman was just telling him that he will see him later.

This other auto rickshaw driver said that the policeman wanted to sit in his auto, but he did not let him sit because his auto was already full, so the policeman slapped him. I think policeman came to my auto after slapping the other driver. The driver kept abusing and asking the policeman why he slapped him. And policeman kept telling that he would see him later, and send him to jail. Driver said that this policeman often sits in his auto and never pays any fare.

After a while the policeman started asking the driver if he had a permit to drive an auto rickshaw or not. I am sure he was doing this just to threaten the driver. He said that he would arrest him if he did not have the permit. But the auto rickshaw driver was so good. He said, “Do I give you Rs. 10 every time I driver to the railway station to fuck me”. He said that police charge him Rs. 10 every time he drives to railway station. He drives on university-railway station route and police would charge him Rs. 10 every time he would start his auto. After hearing this, the policeman could not say anything.

Police taking bribe from an auto rickshaw driver

I liked this answer a lot. One other auto rickshaw driver told me that the police have fixed a rate for different routes. They charge the drivers who work in the downtown area Rs.60. Heavy vehicles are not allowed to enter inside the city after 8 o’clock morning time but still a lot of trucks and tractors could be easily found inside the restricted area during restricted time. They are stopped at every crossroad by police but not to be checked, because they give a bribe. Truck and tractor drivers always keep a few Rs. 20 notes because they have to pay the police at every crossroad.

I was just sitting and watching the driver abusing the policeman and I was really enjoying it. Then a few other people came and started favoring the policeman. I was surprised to see this. Each and every person knows that the police are corrupt and they always harass people. I was hoping for them to favor the driver, but they were all favoring the policeman. As the policeman saw people favoring him, his voice turned loud and he was feeling comfortable now with the support of other people.

People were telling the driver to move and let the policeman go. Finally that auto rickshaw driver left the policeman. More than fifty people had come to see this drama and this policeman was insulted in front of them. I really loved what happened with the policeman. The policeman sat again in my auto. He said that he would arrest and beat the auto rickshaw driver. As the railway station came the policeman got off the auto rickshaw and moved again without paying.

I just can’t imagine how shameless people they are. He was called out right before two minutes but again did not pay the fare. I know the rickshaw driver will be arrested and beaten hard for sure, but I really liked the way he responded to the cop. I think we need more and more people like him who could fight the most dangerous terrorists for India- THE POLICE.

Gwalior for tour guide training

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I went to Gwalior on the 27th to get counseling for the tour guide training program. I reached Gwalior at 10.30 AM as my train was delayed by 2 hours. Counseling was to start at 3pm so I had almost 4 hours to visit the city. I had already heard about Gwalior fort so I took an auto and reached it at about 11.00pm. Gwalior fort was huge, I had already been to a few forts but I had never seen any fort like this one. It was situated 300 feet up on a hill. There was an inclined road starting at the entrance gate to reach at the fort.

Gwalior Fort

I think the road was almost 2 kilometers long. There was a beautiful Mansingh Palace, Sas-Bahu Temple, Sikh gurudvara and a Teli temple. Since I had 3 hours left when I reached there, I thought that I would be able to visit the whole fort, but I was wrong. This fort was huge and I could not visit all the places inside it. I was looking for a guide book or some information about the fort but there was no assistance for tourists. There was a ticket counter at the entrance gate where it was written that ticket costs only twenty paise. We stopped using twenty paise coin about seven-eight years ago, so it seems like they have not updated anything since then. There was only one coffee shop in this whole campus.

They organize a sound and light show every evening that I really wanted to attend but I could not because I did not have enough time. I liked Sas-Bahu temple a lot. There were lots of carvings on the walls of it. I was amazed to see those carvings which were made about 500 years ago. I saw a lot of Sikhs in Gwalior. There was a group of young Sikh guys inside the fort who came to me and asked to take their photo. After taking the photo, the youngest guy, only thirteen- fourteen years old, came to me and said that I must begin waking up early in the morning. I was shocked to see that how he knew that I don’t sleep in the nights and wake up so late.

Then he said that my friends are not good, they never feed me and always look to get fed by me (Hindi expression when somebody wants to loot you). As I heard this, I immediately realized that he was also a looter. He was also telling the same story that all the looter astrologers say. Then he asked me for money, he wanted fifty rupees. I said I don’t want to pay him, then he asked for twenty five, then ten, five and finally he wanted only two rupees but I didn’t give him any money. He was a young crazy looter person.

After Sas-Bahu temple I moved to Man Singh Palace which was built by Raja Man Singh Tomar in the year 1508. Later Mughals won this palace and used it as a Sahi Jail (sounds like a jail for important people like kings). This was the only palace I had ever seen that had colored tiles on the wall of it, it was beautiful. A few people met me asking if I would like to have a guide but I did not take them as I had only thirty minutes left but now I think it was worth taking them. This palace was very confusing like Bada Imambada of Lucknow. Finally my time was over and I had to leave for the counseling place.

As I reached at the Institute, I saw a lot of people over thirty five years old and a few of them were over 50. I thought they were parents of the students but I was wrong, they were they guys who had qualified the exam. A few people told me that these old guys have been working in the tourist sector for years. I think they did not need to go through any training because they were already working in this sector for years. But they are often stopped by government guides and ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) officers at monuments, therefore they also wanted a license.

The institute was very nice, very fancy. It had a computer lab, library, auditorium and a lush green apartment. All the rooms and auditorium were air conditioned. The counseling was divided in two parts- document verification and registration. The registration process was going on in auditorium but I had to get my documents verified first in a different room. There were three employees of the institute checking all the documents of the students. I had to show them attested Xerox copies of all the certificates along with the original one.

After completing this process, they gave me a form where I had to write my name, roll number, marks obtained in the exam, choice of batch, and center. They told me to fill up that form, and go to the counseling hall. I wanted to get training at the New Delhi center in the second batch but there were only thirty seats for New Delhi center, which were already taken by other students. So, I got selected for the second batch training at the Gwalior center. They charged Rs. 2000 as a training fee which includes library, computer lab and teaching fee as well.

My training will start on the 5th of January and will last for 45 days. After this period there will be a one week tour. After that I will be given a city or a tourist region and I will have to write a report about the history and monument situated in that city. I will get ten weeks to complete the report. After writing the report they will organize an exam and the students who qualify on that exam will go through an interview. After passing the interview, the tour guide license will be issued.

It was 5o’ clock now and my train to go back Benares was at 8:40 so I left the Institute and walked to the Railway station. The Railway station was about 5 kilometers away from the institute but I decided to go on foot so that I could see the city. Gwalior seemed like nice city; obviously it was not as big as Benares but it was much more organized. The traffic was nicer than Benares; housing seemed better; there were gardens; trees; I think it was more like other big cities of India. Benares is completely different from Gwalior.

I met a Benares guy on the train who had also qualified on the exam. He has been working as an escort with Japanese tourists for the past 2-3 years, but he was not happy working with he said that Japanese don’t give money. But now he was so happy that he will get a license, and he said that he will not work with Japanese people anymore. He wanted to work with either American, British or some other rich country’s people. He said that Spanish are also like Japanese people, dont want to give money.

Spain is the eighth largest economy of the world and the fifth largest of Europe, and they sound like nice people. Japan is also a very rich country but he didn’t like either of them. He said that over 75% of Japanese- speaking government guides in Delhi can’t read or write Japanese. They learnt language by speaking only and later they qualified on the exam, which happens only in English. But it will not be possible by next time, because next time exams will be conducted in different languages for different language speaking people.

It was a short but very busy and successful trip. I completed the counseling process, I visited Gwalior fort, and I took a walk in city. It was nice, so I think I will enjoy my time in Gwalior during the training period.

Flood in Bihar

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Now it seems like situation is completely out of control. More than 4 million people are affected by flood in Bihar and Indian government is doing nothing, just nothing. I saw a lot of people fighting for food, weeping, crying, dead bodies of animals. I had never ever seen such a situation like that before. People don’t have food, they don’t have roof, they don’t have medicines but there is no one to take care of them. People say that it will take at least 4 to 5 months for situation to be normal again, and after that diseases and poverty.

I saw people fighting for a packet of roasted garbanzo in a relief camp. There was more than 50 people fighting for one packet of garbanzo and finally no body could get it, all the garbanzo fell down on ground, people were walking over it and few people were still collecting as much as they could hoping that at least it will keep them alive. Government officers bring a packet of food and find that there are already hundreds of people waiting.

I saw a family who drowned their cow in flood just because they could not feed the cow any more. Being a Indian I could understand the situation when a family kill their cow. First of all they decorated the cow, did puja and then let it go in the flood water and within few minutes it drowned. All the family members were weeping and abusing government.

Indian government is investing huge money on Delhi Metro project, they are preparing for Commonwealth Games 2010, building new stadiums, building new roads which seems like huge investment but they don’t have enough money to save life of 4 million people of Bihar. I think they need to spend the same money on buying resources to save life not to show off by building Delhi Metro and preparing for Commonwealth Games.

Stupid Coca-Cola manager

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Once were passing by Coke’s plant in Mehndiganj and saw one house just next to it. My researcher friend was very much interested in interviewing someone near the plant so she told me to ask people if they would permit us to interview them. We were right in front of Coke plant and as I got off the taxi I saw few security guards at the plant gate. They saw me and went inside the plant but I never thought about why then went inside the plant after watching me.

I found one old person in that house who wanted to be interviewed because he was really in deep trouble. I called my friend to come and at the same time I saw the same security guards watching me from roof of the plant. They were standing there and watching me and as they saw a white girl coming towards me then immediately they went downstairs. I thought they just wanted to see what I was doing there.

After five minutes a car came from opposite direction of the plant and one very well dressed guy came to us with 4-5 security guards. He said that he was regional manager of Amar Ujala, leading news paper of India, and doing some research about Coke issue for his next article. He showed me his id card also which was issued by Amar Ujala and after watching this I became sure that he was from Amar Ujala.

He asked my friend about her research and offered to work together. My friend was so happy to meet a Indian researcher who was interested in same subject as her. They both shared contact details of each other. At the same time our interviewee was abusing Coke a lot. He said that he used to be a land lord before Coke came to his area but after Coke he could not grow enough crops even for his family.

Amar Ujala guy said that Coke provides a lot of job to locals but interviewee was not agree with it. He said that his son was a graduate but he had no job so Amar Ujala guy gave him a written paper and said to contact Coke manager with that paper to get job for his son. He said that Coke’s manager was his very good friend. Our interviewee was so happy hoping that his son will have a job tomorrow.

After a while he left and we also completed interview and left. Then we contacted Mr. Nandlal Master to inform him about it and he said that Amar Ujala guy was not Amar Ujala employee but he was the Coke’s area manager. It was shocking for me, I was little scared because they were asking about me to my driver and I had already watched some videos of protest against Coke where bribed police was beating people. I didn’t understand why he told us a lie.

We also did our research and found that he was really Coke’s area manager. His name was Mr. Amit Sinha. He used to be regional manager of Amar Ujala but left the job few months ago and now he was Coke’s employee. The id card that he showed was issued by Amar Ujala when he was working for them but he never returned it.

He called my friend again evening time and asked to meet her tomorrow and they fixed the appointment. He again called night time and this time he was so rude talking to her. He was telling my friend to come and stay with him at his place that night but my friend said that she would feel better if she meets him in any restaurant. Then he said that they will have fun whole night if she stays with him and again my friend said no. But he was kept asking her to come, have drink and fun.

My friend said that she was married and did not want to stay with him and then he said that her husband was not watching her so why not stay with him and have some fun. After hearing this my friend started shouting at him and he hanged up the call. She was so disturbed, I had never ever hoped for this kind of behaviour from a Coke manager.

After this everybody started pressing me and my friend to lodge a complaint against him. But she was not comfortable doing it because she was worried about her name to be public. Mr. Nandlal Master contacted Amar Ujala also and they were also wanted to lodge a case against him for using their name but they wanted a written complaint from my friend which she didn’t want to do.

After few days we visited Coke’s plant after special permission from Coke US and I found his name in the employees list. Everybody was trying to butter up my friend, they took her to all their near by rain water harvesting sites, they had sent over 5 people with her. We visited their three rain water harvesting sites and none of them were near the plant, the nearest one was about 8 KMs away.

After few days Coke’s manager started contacted Mr. Nandlal Master offering some money to get everything settled but obviously Nandlal Master didn’t except it. It was more than 15 days of drama, everybody was contacting me to tell my friend to lodge complaint against Mr. Sinha but she was not agree. Finally she left India hoping that Coke’s manager will be fired someday because all the Coke officers knew about it. But he is still Coke’s area manager.

Because of the privacy, I have not used her name in any of the posts related to her work.

Entrance Exam for Tour Guide Training Program

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India is going to host commonwealth games in 2010 and Indian Government wants to prepare 1000 tour guides for that event. I had also applied to get a tour guide license for North India last year in November. I was supposed to participate in a written exam and if I qualify that then a interview and if I pass the interview then 3 months training which includes classes and a tour of monuments with a professor. I was told that the exam will be held in February but it took almost 9 months.

Finally after waiting for a long time I got a admit card to participate in tour guide exam. But there was again some problem, they sent me admit card with a letter, right before one week of the exam, saying to submit domicile certificate issued by court within next one week in Gwalior which was impossible. Because if I apply for domicile certificate then court needs more than a week to issue it. I contacted tourism office but they said that it was not their fault but postage department’s fault. They said that they had posted the letter one month ago but postage department was late delivering it.

I contacted my advocate but he also seemed helpless to me because there was strike of advocates going on in Benares. By the way I gave all the documents to my advocate to see if he could get me a domicile certificate. I waited for 3 days but advocates were still on strike and it started seeming to me that I would not be able to participate in the exam. Then I contacted my brother’s friend who was already doing training in the same institute where I was supposed to submit the documents.

He said that there will be no problem if I bring my passport or some other residential proof. He said that Government was not hoping for more than 20,000 applicants but more than 50,000 applicants had applied that is why they sent that letter to everyone, just to cut down the number of applicants. I contacted Institute again asking if it was possible to submit some other residential proof instead of domicile certificate and again the said No.

Finally I decided to go to Gwalior with the documents and newspaper cutting that said about strike of advocates in Benares. I reached Gwalior, met my brother’s friend and we went to the institute. First they were not agree to except my documents but after a big argument the took my ration card, voter id card and driving license. I was still not sure if I would be able to participate in the exam which was after a week. I came back to Delhi to my brother’s home and stayed there for one week.

Finally It was my exam date and my exam center was in Delhi. I went there with my brother’s wife who had also applied for the same exam. I was a bit worried seeing the applicants list but wow! it worked, I saw my name in the list, it was a big relief for me. I gave the exam, questions were quiet easy than I was expecting. I had thought that exam would be very tough but there was nothing like that. I saw few students in my class room asking answers to other students, I had never hoped for that.