A haunting experience

[Okay folks, you've read the truncated version in this Sunday's Times of India, Patna Edition. Now here's the full version with the original title...]

 

The last day of October was the day that Patna reluctantly limped back to work after the days of Chhat Puja that followed the Diwali festival. Last  Friday night, a few unsuspecting folk who meandered down New Patliputra Colony  almost jumped out of their skins when they encountered a two flesh eating zombies, a vampire, two witches and assorted monsters  hanging around  outside a couple of houses. An elderly man walking his dog was so fascinated at the sight that he  stood transfixed and took in the scene for a full five minutes before walking on. Halloween has finally come to town!

A couple of years ago, a voluntary organization hosted a small Halloween themed fund raiser in aid of kids from dysfunctional families. This year, a few spots around Patna, mainly private homes, did thrown a Halloween party or two. Scary costumes, food and games, candy and fun is the local version of the festival. ‘Trick-or-treating’ of course is not possible.  Yet. “Trick or treating is when you go up to houses, ring the bell, and ask for candy,” explained Mithun, one of the vampires haunting the street, “obviously we can’t do that in Patna, many Bihari bhais don’t have a sense of humour, so you will see the sight of a poor vampire being chased down the streets by a frenzied mob of irate flat-owners.

“Haunting the street for a few minutes was fun, though. The stunned, curious, surprised, and even scared looks on the faces of passers-by were priceless,” said a lady bank officer in a party mask. “It was my very first Halloween party, and I enjoyed it!”

Apart from Halloween being the second most commercial  holiday in the US raking in some $ 2 billion during Halloween, so it’s likely that we’ll see more of this thing happening once the commercial establishments catch on. Sweet and chocolate are consumed in large amounts, so confectioners and dentists will be very happy, quipped a reveller.

But how do you manage to have a Halloween party in Patna? “Internet shopping comes to your rescue, and there’s enough of things locally available if you keep a sharp lookout, “says a local party organizer. “Local confectioners are quite capable of baking innovative Halloween cakes if you show them a sample picture. Only this time the chat celebration meant that all the bakeries were closed for almost four days, so we had to forgo a sinfully rich chocolate cake. Otherwise, pranks and gags, scary masks, and simple dressing up aids can be bought over ebay or amazon.”

Collect interesting stuff wherever you get it: gothic tattoos with skulls and dragons, pirate badges that come at 10 rupees each, those very realistic collections of plastic creepy crawlies… they all serve to make your party memorable, and you an source them from any small store. My own favourite is a tiny place in Kurji called ‘Prabhat Tara’, the shopkeeper there has oodles of stuff that kids love: strange flavoured candies and other cool stuff that can go well with your scary night.

Some history: “Hallowmas” was a three-day Catholic festival where saints were honoured and people pray for the recently deceased. In the  11th century, the Pope decreed  that it would last from Oct. 31 (All Hallow's Eve) until Nov. 2 (All souls Day), most likely because in that era the Pope wanted to counter the influence of the ‘Samhain  festival’ which was celebrated around that time. According to folklorist John Santino, the exact nature of Samhain is not fully understood, but it was an annual community event at the end of the harvest, a time to gather resources for the winter months and bring animals back from the pastures. Samhain is also thought to have been a time of communing with the dead.

"There was a belief that it was a day when spirits of the dead would cross over into the other world," Santino says.  Halloween provides a safe way to play with the concept of death. People dress up as the living dead, and so on.  "All Hallow's Eve" then evolved into "All Hallow's Even," and by the 18th century it was commonly referred to as "Hallowe'en."

Author: Frank Krishner

Bihar SACS: bouquet of broken promises?

You just can’t beat the ingenuity of low-level government functionaries in Bihar who want to shirk responsibility and foil attempts to bring them to book. No matter what promises and undertakings the Bihar Government has made to the Patna High Court, people living with HIV are still at the receiving end of discrimination, abuse and neglect, caused by the very people being paid to assist them.

In 2010, the then health minister of Bihar had told them ‘why should we bother about you’? Left with no other option, Sanjeet Singh and other doughty HIV positive people, with the help of public spirited lawyers, moved the High Court at Patna. Hearing after hearing, and one by one, each judgement brought some relief, as the Bihar government and BSACS acknowledged their responsibility to provide treatment and relief to people living with HIV [PLHA], especially those from the labouring classes.



Sanjeet Singh: soldiering on...

The State government committed that the supply of life-saving ART drugs would be maintained faithfully, that the ART centres for HIV positive people would be made hygienic and equipped with toilets, that special schemes for children living with HIV would be formulated. Four years on, with the assurances given to the High court remaining largely on paper, with HIV positive patients still being ridiculed, discriminated against and even refused treatment by government medical service providers, activists are wondering whether the fight would have top be taken to the Supreme Court.

“What does one do when the entire establishment is in some sort of a conspiracy?”  asks Singh. “Refer to the High court judgement where the  BSACS project director  and principal secretary Health assured the court that the government  would supply  ART (anti-retrovral treatment) 365 days and they were to  ensure stocks of  two months’ advance supply to avoid shortages. The reality is that for the past one month the essential drugs in the ART regime are not being dispensed and the patients are frantic. The government ART centres run short of the drugs. The situation is such that there is a tacit understanding within the department that no correspondence should be generated on the matter so that there is no paper trail, in order to duck accountability and escape ‘action’ later.”

Singh, a member of Bihar Network of Positive people and attached to CHMU (Community Health Medicinal Unit) alleges that  BSACS functionaries are refusing to register more HIV positive persons for ART, in order to avoid ‘complications’. The logic being ‘There’s no stock, if we register them, from where will we get the medicines?’ These unfortunates are running from pillar to post.  

Functionaries at the government ART centres hand out  ‘prescriptions’  on scraps of paper and the patients are  told to buy the drugs elsewhere. There is a provision that in the case of shortage, the patient may be directed to buy ART medicine from a private pharmacy, and the record is kept in the ART book, so that the registered patient be reimbursed. (These drugs are available at very high rates in the open market). BSACS had given an undertaking to this effect in the court. The ART functionaries in gross violation, merely give the patients a scrap of paper with the name of the drug written on it. Evidently, this scrap of paper is not valid for reimbursement.

The situation is such that, even those patients who were lucky to have their purchases recorded in the ART book previous months, have not been reimbursed. Daily wage earners with a hand to mouth existence can’t afford to cough up for medicine that costs in the range of a thousand rupees every time, says Singh.

Singh’s own commitment to the cause has been the loss of his infant son to AIDS related complications largely brought on due to the negligence, apathy and dysfunctional State Aids Control Society services.

“What’s to be done? Do we have to start another agitation? Do we once again knock at the doors of the Court?” This is a question that a coalition of NGOs may soon be taking up. Watch this space.

Author: Frank Krishner

Bringing the Deep back into Deepawali

The festival of lights is around the corner, and as has become the norm, the environmental clubs of city schools and colleges plan human chains and such, calling for less noise, less wastage, and less consumption.

Some folks are a bit fed up with all the activism and noise around Diwali  fireworks and  noise pollution. In fact, there may be a strong case for setting off a few rockets and roman candles, some believe.

 “Diwali brings with it the ‘kali poka’ those tiny green insects. The change in season witnesses a multiplication of insects because it is their breeding time. One method to control the insect population is to use sulphur gas. The  fire crackers during Diwali release sulphur gas, which helps in killing the insects around us. Yes, we actually control insect population by bursting crackers. But fireworks have become a vexed issue,what with all the negative publicity and links to child labour with the cracker industry,” asserts K. Srinivas, a social activist.

This week Taru Mitra, (the friends of trees), India’s largest student  environment group, called for going back to the traditional earthen lamps, and shunning the use of those fancy electric bulbs (mainly the cheap ones imported from China) that have become so popular and ubiquitous. ‘Bring the Deep back to Deepawali’ is the new slogan.

 Why this sudden insistence on going back to the ‘polluting’ soot-spouting old-fashioned diya?

“Aha,!” says Taru Mitra’s Jesuit founder and eco-spirituality guru Robert Athickal, “One electric bulb is twenty times more polluting and harmful to the earth than an earthen lamp. Look at the amount of precious electricity that we consume on illuminations. In Bihar, we use thermal power, and we do have a power supply famine. The diya is traditional. It is also earth friendly.”

Think of how the skilled potters are starving, a social thinker might say. Whatever money they could earn from the sale of humble earthen lamps has dwindled, thanks to the shrinking demand. Let’s buy a few more earthen diyas so that these humble folk can keep their home fires burning.

Latika Mishra from Jharkhand blogs, “Notwithstanding the spiritual reasons to celebrate the festival of lights, there is a scientific fact behind it.” She points out that the Diwali season is marked by the abundance of an insect called the 'tiny leaf-hopper' of the cycadilladae family.  This insect feeds on plant sap and can transmit plant infecting viruses and bacteria. They are of sporadic occurrence in the rice growing areas. They have piercing and sucking mouth parts and are serious threats to rice cultivation as they can transmit the virus to standing paddy. Nymphs and adults both have the capacity to damage the crop.

Rice has a close association with Hindu rituals. Sage Parashara has laid stress on essentiality of rice cultivation and in his treatise called 'Krishi Parashar' sings, "Rice is vitality, rice is vigour and rice is indeed the fulfilment of all ends of life. Gods, demons and human beings all subsist on rice."

Burning of earthen lamps is a way to protect the civilization from starvation, as rice is the principle crop in the subcontinent. The sages used the return of King Rama as a pretext to get people to light thousands of earthen lamps, thus successfully removing the insect from the environment, for insects are attracted to the fire and are killed. So, Diwali  is marked by the mass killing of insects- tiny leaf-hoppers and mosquitoes that are abundant during the season every year, and pose a threat to crop cultivation and human nutrition.

What a beautiful, non-toxic way to get rid of pests! Now pause for a moment, do those fancy electric fairy lights have any use other than looking pretty, and gorging on electricity? The humble earthen lamp provides a livelihood to the poor potters, protects us from biting insects, and even wards away famine. What’s your call?

Author: Frank Krishner

Celebrate diversity say Christian Communicators

A week ago, an event that took place in New Delhi has caused ripples within certain sections of the population in Patna. A rally at Jantar Mantar coincided with the release of a report that detailed some 600 cases of violence and hate-based anti-social activities against minority communities across India since May 18 this year. This rally, largely ignored by the print and electronic media, is an important conversation piece among the more aware sections of the Christian populace.

 Visiting the Bihar capital this week was Sunil Lucas, the National President of SIGNIS, the social communications wing of the Catholic Church, who mirrored the anxiety being felt by Christians when news about attacks on priests or pastors  are becoming commonplace. “It’s natural that a sense of insecurity will creep in unless the Prime Minister deals firmly with all those who are spreading misconceptions and hate, vitiating the unity and harmony of the country,” he said.

Patna will be the venue for the National Assembly of the Social Communications wing of the Catholic Church, where some 120 representatives of Christian and secular communications organizations and professionals will meet around the theme ‘Cultural Diversity’, to emphasis we India’s multi-lingual, multi-faith, and multi- cultural identity.

“Christians are a small minority in Bihar, but our commitment and contribution to the state in several fields, mainly education and health is significant. We stand for a united India. As Christian  audio-visual  communicators, it is our duty to show unity, brotherhood and peace between all communities in our productions, be they films or videos,” says local video film maker Victor Francis, who has directed one of Patna Doordarshan’s earliest Bhojpuri serials.

“Ahimsa is what Jesus taught, and so it is natural that our priests advocate non-violence and faith in the rule of law, but some vested interests now take our peaceful attitude as a weakness, and Christians become soft targets. Beat up the Christians in a church and they will not react, break up their church and they will forgive you, even burn their church leaders alive and instead of crying for revenge and instigating a riot, the widows will say, “I forgive them in the name of Jesus”. The point is that there comes a breaking point,” says Rajesh Tirkey, a Tribal Catholic youth  from Bodh Gaya, who was one of the several youngsters who actively supported Narendra Modi during the Lok Sabha election campaign. “Several of us voted for change, believing that India needed a strong leader. We didn’t think of caste, religion, or class. We pray that this trust is not broken.”

The meaning of secularism needs to be debated across all forums, says Sylvester, a second year student at St. Xavier's College. A secular government should not lean towards any faith-based organization be it Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jain, or Buddhist. In the meanwhile, the community leaders are closely watching the shape the discourse takes as the political climate shifts and changes shape in Bihar.

Author: Frank Krishner