Chitrakote Waterfall

Journeying from Raipur in the morning and driving past beautiful country, we reached Chitrakote in Bastar district around four thirty in the evening. We drove on a metallic road in the direction of an imposing state government guest house barricaded by a powerful iron gate.

A thin man guarding the gate tells us that the guest house is not open to lay visitors. To enter the compound the permission of the collector is required. The Collector's office is  easily two hundred kilometres away.  Rooms were available, but since we did not know the collector and had not known that we needed his sanction to stay in the guest house, our luck had finally run out.

When we pleaded that we needed  a place to stay on for the night in Chitrakote, we were directed to the premium resort down the road, where accommodation was available  at a price for citizens  unacquainted with Collectors. We drove the kilometre to the resort  alongside the  guesthouse, further down the road and discovered a reception centre and dining hall at the extreme end.  The  breakfast at New Delhi  airport early in the morning had lived out its utility and our need for both food and shelter were by now, dire.

The young man at the desk offered to cook us some food  and we gratefully placed an order. Accommodation  was  however proving difficult to access. Apparently, the resort only accepted online bookings.We had none. They had one room free, but they couldn't give it to us because we didn't have a booking. The shelter debate was postponed till we finished our meal, then we begged and pleaded with the chef cum receptionist for accommodation. He relented after a few phone calls and after putting in our bags in a deluxe villa room, we walked out of the room to see the waterfall in the evening.

 The Chitrakote waterfall is sepia tinted in real life and in pictures. It is a stunning sight and  the  magnificent expanse of falling water travelling across  deep channel and a wide gully is  breathtaking. Near the waterfall are two large trees, inhabited by bats that swirl and fly around the tree tops, in the manner of bees around homing hives. Several bats hang down from the branches,  looking pretty much like shreds of black fabric.

The access to the waterfall is a tacky compound A woman sits selling knives with bamboo handles and other odds and ends. A tea shanty  faces her.  No information can be gathered about this  site, which is ostensibly  our national heritage. Possibly, this is  reclaimed and rediscovered country. Across the road,  where the state owned guest house blocks off the general view of the waterfall,  we order tea  at a tea shanty, next to a new outlet selling ice cream and chips.   A little down the road, adjacent to the guest house is a  makeshift stall where food  can be cooked on order, manned by a thin woman.
As we sit in an open courtyard,  lined  with  multi-coloured  left over tiles, a red  mallard, who is possibly a recent  immigrant, performs for passers by.  We throw him some roasted kala channa, but he ignores our overtures of friendship and continues with his  solo act.. We drink our tea, and watch him.  A prancing  red headed mallard  is an extraordinary visitor  in our everyday life.

 A Shiva  temple with a shiny white bull,   possibly desirous of  gazing at the waterfall but constrained by the guest house,  sprawls  on the other end of the road. Beyond the ramshackle marketplace,  fertile fields, green with the labour of their owners, stretch out  to the end and are  ranged against the sky, The walk back to the  premium resort, firmly cordoned off and gated is delightful. We gaze at the deep gorge, running  a long way  down  the mountain. The resort has built a sturdy wall at the edge of the mountain but  is dissatisfied with this. Now . large  iron girders  are being put up at intervals. These will hold up some variant of a mesh with square metal netting through which  visitors who can pay for it, will get to view the  Indravati river  as it weaves its way, expansively accepting  abundant bounty from the waterfall.

 From our room at the resort, we view the waterfall, which is lit up at night. It continues to look ethereal, and  the privilege of   a private view of gorgeous cascades of water from  our own balcony is not lost upon us. The next day, early in the morning,  troops of sparrows  wheel around the  trees at the resort, reminding  us to hurry and make the most  of the day. We trudge back to the waterfall and  it is time to  say goodbye.

The Chitrakote falls is located in the  vicinity of  the Kanger Valley National Park,  and includes  another waterfall, caves and  gorgeous stretches of  dense jungle,  now under  state jurisdiction.  This waterfall and  the  gorge surrounding it represent national wealth. Surely , as a nation  we must  be  mature enough to ensure that  this spell-binding beauty is  accessible to every visitor who comes by?  How can  the  collector's bungalow  occupy  a prime stretch of the view? Why is  the view of the  gorge and falls  uptil the last viewable stretch cordoned off and presided over  by  a luxury resort?

 In keeping with the  plan  of the national park, all this should  have been unfettered territory, available to the ordinary citizen, to stroll, view and revel at will,  Why should administrative offices and guest houses and  luxury resorts   indulge in  such blatant  land grab? The state guest house obstructs the view and is an encroachment  that has neither aesthetics nor national interest at heart. When places of extraordinary beauty in our country remain  the  elite  playing grounds of the  bureaucracy and the well heeled private citizen, we are forced to demur because this is not the heaven of  freedom that our founding fathers dreamt of.

Made In India- Gazette

Two years ago, on the threshold of a new national election,  the University of Delhi  was in spate.  The vice -chancellor, wielding the gauntlet of power, had been running amok. His associate, the pro-vice-chancellor, stepped down and retreated inexplicably,  into an FMS cell. The rest of the vice-chancellor’s team, personally  recruited, surrounded him and  sang   ceaseless hosannas.  In fact, such is the aura of a Vice Chancellor in office that teachers from undergraduate colleges   shunned food and drink till the very end , identifying with his  blundering ambitions.  Over high drama, with massive student participation, the FYUP was rolled back.

  University teachers went back to work with good intentions hoping  to restore university life to normalcy. The trouble with these good intentions, is that they paved the way to a rather murky  CBCS hell. The university was left to its own devices, with a vengeful  vice-chancellor  hard-driving  the last big nails  into the  coffin of the university. Appointments continued to be  stage- managed  and   retiring teachers  were denied  their rightful dues by throwing in a spanner into  a well-oiled  and efficiently  functioning  pension and provident fund system. 

 The MHRD, has for some years now, conducted itself as one of the last colonial outposts of Independent India: visualizing  its role as braving it out and attempting  to instill  honour and discipline among unruly natives.  Smriti Irani’s homespun headship did not disturb us initially, because Sibal and Tharoor, despite their Indian roots,   were unabashedly dazzled by foreign degrees and the proverbial pieces of silver, lining the coffers of private universities. 

In the  summer of 2015 the University of Delhi   retained  its hostile vice-chancellor and a new  Choice Based  Credit System  (CBCS) that magically spread its tentacles  over the entire university. Why did we not resist this?  Arguably, dismantling FYUP had taken up a lot of our energies and dissipated the rest.  Great discontent and embitterment replaced the fight that had gone out of our lives, along with  all semblance of light.

We crawled awhile in a dark tunnel, supervised by   ministries and commissions suffering from tunnel vision themselves, awaiting  the coming of the new Vice-Chancellor.  He has come, blowing upon his conch, but we cannot see him and he cannot hear us at all. Universities now  recruit Vice-Chancellors and   ensure the  dimming of   spotlights  so  that both  vision and perception become a constant  blur. The machinations in higher education are no longer put in place by one or two whimsical individuals: this is an amorphous, gnawing  force, eventually  reducing  institutions  to rubble. A new Gazette has   unfurled   itself on  staffroom notice boards, offering  solutions to all our problems.  

 Q. How do we deal with increased  student strength,  diminishing infrastructure, non-recruitment of  teachers and vacancies that have not been filled in years? 

A: Combine  two practicals into one, and  make all  tutorials  advisory.  Our prime minister is able to speak to the entire nation whenever he needs to  through one solitary  mann ki baat.  Teachers  should not find  it difficult to  put forward their mann ki baat  to miniscule groups of hundreds.

Increase individual teacher workload  from 14 to 22 and 16 to 24 hours)This will  automatically reduce the number of teachers and  do away with all  problems of recruitment  

Q. Aren’t university teachers in India in any case teaching far more than their contemporaries  in other parts of the world?  

A:  Our rules we must make in India!  Teachers will earn more under the seventh pay commission implementation. They must be seen earning their money; forty hour work weeks indicated at the time of the sixth pay commission, will now be implemented

Q.  Teaching overloads will not help teachers or students.  Traffic rules do not allow overloaded vehicles on the street. Why must students and teachers be put under pressure?

A: Vehicles   are not allowed to carry too much weight. In the case of the university, we have truncated  or thrown out each and every   lode-bearing curriculum. Our schooling systems have failed and so have our vocational training systems. Therefore the Universities must turn into Skill Development Centres.

 Q. For years young teachers have held ad-hoc jobs and have also gone on to raise families without maternity leave or the security of  summer salaries.  Surely this is demoralising and distressful?

A: They were employed under the previous regime.  We have sufficient candidates of our own, so order will be restored soon enough.

Q.    Wouldn’t you   agree that poor infrastructure and lack of facilities   impedes the daily functioning of the university.  

 A: Undue emphasis  is laid on infrastructure.” Lectures can be held behind a banyan tree.” (in the words of a visiting NAAC team)

Q. Classrooms are filled with students way beyond recommended numbers.  Surely, students need mentoring and guidance and ideal studying conditions. Teachers also need to add to their learning.

A: Each teacher shall take on holistic responsibility( the emotional and mental wellbeing)  of  around 25  students each, over and above the  prescribed minimum teaching schedule. This will take make for a productive 40 hour week .    The emphasis will be on teacher- student interaction, and will maintain teacher student ratio. We have also highlighted the journals that will accept research papers that teachers  may wish to write  in their free time. A master plan of research topics is on its way to  standardise research.  We are efficient and we shall deliver.

Some questions still remain unanswered:

The CBCS has not provided the transformative make-in-India  impetus   inundating each  pore  of current government policy in the   academic year that  has recently concluded.  The FYUP has been born again as a  three year program, renamed as CBCS, and is of little academic worth. CBCS is another hurriedly cobbled venture  with  little legitimacy. The English (Hons)Syllabus  is a packed pot-pourri over two years.  At the end of  two years, we hurriedly push students with half-baked inputs into the high temperatures of research production, possibly scorching and burning them for life. This cannot be   the raison-d-etre of   literature or liberal arts programmes.  FYUPs delinquent compulsory foundation  programmes  have been replaced by  banal  AECC compulsories under CBCS.

  

English writing skills leave much to be desired, going by what has been on display.  Over several years,   the emphasis on the ability to think has been replaced by the skill required to fill in blanks. Important readings, literature, essays and poetry have been shelved, making language and disciplines functional, thereby reducing learning to  limited skill. This USP, entrenched in our schooling system, is now taking over university syllabi.  This is not what we want for resurgent India. We do not want to ‘make in India,’ a soulless and unthinking future, for generations of our young citizens. 

The cruel trick that the CBCS plays by calling itself a choice based credit system is now being  stamped  on all  learning schedules  in the second year. University Departments mandate and select one option in each credit course (that has six to eight options). This is reinforced by Academic Planning Committees and implemented by college departments. The student is taught a truncated main course and has very little choice when it comes to the credit courses as well. 

In the Sciences, students tend to opt  for  credit courses requiring  fewer  hours. This  undesirable and unintelligent   precedent   of privileging  some main courses over others   highlights the  short sighted rules that have been  set in motion.

 Responding to the continued onslaught on Higher education, teachers have put aside differences, taken to the streets, flocked to the GBM, boycotted evaluations, and listened in one voice to the DUTA leadership. This collective show of strength is important and welcome for it will now begin to define us. Long marches and protests await and this will be a grim, protracted struggle.  

“Teachers of the University; Stay United! Else we stand to lose pretty much everything!

Drumstick Medley

I do not know when the drumstick  tree flowers, because I seldom  get to see the tree, unless Susan Visvanathan brings me some  fruit from JNU  or I pay a visit.  However,  I have learnt  that its   botanical name  is Moringa oleifera,  and that sometimes, it can have two flowering seasons in a year.   Friends and vegetable vendors  bring me its flowers and fruit, so I retain the pleasure of savouring them often enough.

In the hot summers  of my-growing-up-years, we travelled to Tamil Nadu.  There was always a Murungai (maram) tree in someone's backyard, or growing in  the back lawns  of  quarters in  suburban  government colonies.   Summer months in May and June were spent foraging for pods on the upper branches of  trees at least fifteen feet tall. This involved getting on to balcony parapets and leaning precariously to grasp one leafy branched arm, while divesting its stem  of , knobbly-jointed  long-finger-like pods.  We called the green pods murungakkai (vegetable of the murungai ) . This  tree is  indigenous  to India, and  a claim can be staked for  southern parts of   India  being the earliest home of the Moringa oleifera. No marks for noticing that murungai(local Tamil name) and Moringa(the botanical name) sound similar!!

Each  murungakkai was cut into two inch sections and cooked with  pigeon pea lentils to give us an exquisitely flavoured sambar.    Grandmothers, aunts and mothers also cut up murungakkai and cooked it in sour tamarind, to give us vetthalkozambu, a thick sour stew made with  tiny whole onions (kutti vengayam) and drumstick pieces and bengal gram dal, transforming the eating of rice into an exotic feast. Dry roasted papad and roasted potatoes and curd rounded out the meal  which was usually the precursor to a more elaborate feast in the offing. Vettalkozambu, in any case, was consumed in small quantities and had a longer shelf life, often turning up the next day as a sauce accompaniment to  sooji  and rice upmas or providing the pickle alternative  in its tango with  curd rice.

The delight of saving up drumstick sections from sambaar and vettalkozambu is a cultural memory for legions of eaters  who stockpiled them on their plates at  mealtimes and savoured them; biting into the  juicy sections and extracting  the  flesh  of the drumstick and its plump seed  from the inedible section of the pod.  The drumstick eating saga didn't stop at this.
 The thin outer pod is chewed into shreds, in the same way as sugarcane sections are. Unless this is done, food satiation levels  seldom reach  requisite plateaus of  pleasure.  Tamarind pulp, infused into the water while cooking  drumsticks  for sambaar and vettalkozambu, is the contributory factor.  At the end of the meal, the  largest stockpile of well chewed drumstick sections  on the plate  defined the victor. This was not altogether  a joyous moment for all those with  smaller debris on their plate. They left the food table dourly, puzzled as to why the victor (who clearly was  allotted  more sections) was favored.

Drumstick  leaves were added to adais ( lentil based dosas) and were  cooked along with moong dal as a  dry leaf and lentil vegetable. They make for delicious  paranthas and pooris and do equally well when batter fried into  bajjis. My friend Benu  Mohan Lal swears  by them as  the ultimate  in flavor  when added to kadi pakoris. The drumstick was also cooked with pigeon pea lentils, ( arhar dal)  coconut, red chillies and ground zeera  and could be relished along with rice or chappatis, after a mustard seed and karipatta chaunk.s

 Living at New Delhi has  introduced me to  drumstick flower  bharta. I  usually make  this  around January, since the flowers surface  in local markets around that time. The recipe  is from my neighbour, Rita Bajaj who has a tree growing on her  Soami Nagar lawn  and a refrigerator  abundantly stocked with frozen flowers and pods.  For the bharta, the flowers need to be boiled in salted water  for ten minutes . The water is drained. In a pan, onions, tomatoes and garlic are added to a little oil and  cooked into a thick paste.  Next peas and cooked drumstick flowers  are added along with dhania powder, zeera powder and red chilli powder.  When fully cooked. check for salt and spices, garnish with a dollop of curd and chopped dhania leaves  and then take off the fire. if the tomatoes are not tart enough, a little amchur  (  green mango powder)helps.

 Of late, dealing with a generation that  instagrams food  in lieu of art and accepts smooth purees  a la masterchef as  de rigueur,  the tearing and chewing of drumstick  sections with the help of  fisty fingers  and teeth , has joined  the rank  and file of  eating techniques that are infra-dig at the dining table.  So, when the drumstick is not tender enough to be cooked whole, I  slit the drumstick, open it out into a flat strip and use a heavy spoon to strip it off the flesh. The shell I  snip into smaller pieces and boil put  water to create  vegetable stock. The flesh makes a nice aloo, onion tomato vegetable, popular in North India with jeera tadka  to which I add some ground mustard seeds( borrowed from recipes from Pashchim Banga, that takes the  dish to a whole new level.

Left to myself, I would put in sections of whole drumstick,  but given the fact that this is now a WHO approved  superfood with an astonishing array of nutrients, ( every article on  drumsticks on the internet provides  celebratory details)  seeing that it is   frequently  consumed remains the  greater priority.

 So, on days when  I'm humoring  the people I cook for, I make a drum stick soup by adding  the drumstick water stock to the flesh of one drumstick, a fistful of drumstick leaves , one tiny onion and some crushed garlic that has been  sauteed in a little butter or ghee. Garnish this with lemon juice and pepper after bringing to a boil and the soup is ready for consumption.

 However, there is no substitute for  the eating solace that comes from extracting pulp from  cooked  drumsticks with fingers and teeth and slowly chewing   small sections into cud.  Some day, soon enough, I plan to go back to  cooking with  whole sections all over  again.

Okra Multigrain Dosa

Of late the various exhibitions and haats at New Delhi  make it much easier to buy bags of  whole millets.  Recently, I made multigrain dosa batter  with  whole grain millets instead of using the ground powdered flours that chakkis make available.
By multigrain dosas, one is not referring to the teaspoon of  crushed grains that remain perched on the outer crust of brown coloured breads sold in stores. In multigrain dosas, what you get is a nutritionally viable apportioning of different grains. In fact, although white rice has far superior food value in comparison  to white flour or maida, it is possible to make delicious multigrain dosas and use very little rice or none at all, depending on the emotional quotient attached to rice.

Inspired  in all probability by Masterchef, I decided to choose a 'hero' (why  can't an ingredient be referred to as a heroine, I wonder) for the dosa and settled upon bhindi or okra, also known as ladies finger. The gender of  bhindi not withstanding, I fell back upon the old practice of getting maximum mileage out of the vegetable.
  Conventional cooking  tends to discard the heads of okra and sometimes the tails too. In fact, both parts are equally edible. I needed the  okra slit in two for the sambaar, so I divested about  six hundred grams of  okra of its heads. Around two hundred grams of slit okra suffices for sambaar that can be eaten heartily by four to five people. The rest of the okra, I saved for traditional bhindi poriyal, where the vegetable is tossed into a mustard seed and green chilli garnish, cooked completely , seasoned with salt and adorned with   two table spoons of  fresh coconut scrapings before serving.

 I ground the heads of the bhindi along with  one cup of white double urad, one cup of red rice, one cup of jaun (barley or pearl millet) and one cup of   mandua (ragi  or finger millet),  and one spoonful of methi seeds, all of which had been soaking for over two hours. This is ground to a fine consistency to get smooth batter. It also works if you soak the  rice, millets  and the lentils overnight.

Again, if  you have only one millet in grain form and the other millet  is in  powder form, do not hesitate to add a heaped cupful of  millet flour to the ground batter. In fact, it is also possible to grind only the urad daal  and add one  heaped cup each  of  different  flours or  three cups of  the same flour to the  lentil batter.
 Add salt, asafoetida and chopped curry leaves to the  ground batter and keep aside for  about an hour, especially if the grains have  not been soaked overnight. In fact while the batter is gathering itself up, it is a good idea to  get the vegetable, the sambaar and the chutney ready.

Apply a thin coating of oil to the griddle and allow it to warm up. Check to see if the griddle is ready by sprinkling  a fistful of water on  to the  hot griddle. When the water evaporates, pour out a ladle of batter and swirl it into a circular motion, keeping the ladle flat till you get a large  circle of batter spread out to  resemble the dosas you may have eaten. Allow it to cook, lower the heat and gently turn over.
This dosa tastes suggestively of okra, which provides vegetable nutrition, fibre and a gelatinous texture to  bind the batter together, making it easier to roll out dosas by the ladle.  Unless  severely dosa- challenged,   around twelve to fifteen multigrain dosas can be easily turned out on an ordinary iron griddle, with this quantity of batter.

Serve hot with  okra sambaar, coconut chutney and gunpowder, and if you are daring enough, add a serving of the okra vegetable. Wash this down with buttermilk if it is close to lunch time. Otherwise there is always hot filter coffee.

Gaajar Halwa and the Goodness of Jaggery

Winter brings red carrots to New Delhi and this has been  for as long as memory can recall. In the last decade or so, orange carrots have been available, all through the summer and are useful and colorful, but it is the deep red carrots of  December that announce the arrival of the winter cold.
 My parents were the first members from their families to take up residence at New Delhi and winter vacations when we went back home to Chennai and Chidambaram  meant carrying cartons full of carrots and cauliflowers   that were carefully shared out  among relatives.

 Red carrots  became part of  seasonal home cooking,  because my mother and mother-in-law in their respective homes embraced New Delhi's red carrots with delight and  presented them at mealtimes in salads, vegetables, lentils, soups, biryanis, custards and  kheer.  What we looked forward to the most  was the  halwa made out of red carrots which could  put most other halwas in the shade. The only other halwa that can hold its  own is the badaam halwa ( and no,  the badaam halwa  made by the kitchens of  India, is not a patch on the badaam halwas  made in South India) but  then, we are discussing the the imperial almond here, which  transforms into astonishing halwa only for a price.

Gaajar ka halwa, is more elemental fare. Pulled out of the ground, washed, peeled,  grated and boiled with milk and ghee; sugared and 'cardamom-ed' and garnished with cashew nuts and almonds and raisins; (my mother-in law preferred pistachios) it makes for a cloudburst of joy on the palate.
 Imagine returning home on a cold winter  evening,  after a day of work at school or college or at the office. The sun  dips down by this time after having been  quite desultory and listless  for the greater part of the day and the evening bleakly edges towards a smog filled night. Hunger beckons and delicious aromas emanate from the kitchen. Guided entirely by the nose,  the  feet head in the direction of the food. The eyes are fixated around the halwa bowl. Hands find bowls and spoons into which the halwa is scooped  and eaten  hot off the fire.  All this motion is involuntary and free flowing. This is food vinyasa!

It is only after the first mouthful has been savored and has traveled deep into the interiors of one's being, mopping up the coldness of the season and workday blues that stability, emotional and psychological,  re-surfaces.  The rich red treasure  in  the bowl, moist and crumbly, interspersed with the crush of raisin and the crunch of almond and the soft bite of the cashew, obliterates every lingering  trace of  unhappiness.  The bowl is replenished  and this time it is carried  to  the dining table.  The second phase of  gaajar halwa eating involves sitting down at the table,  holding the sides of the cup with one hand and scooping out more spoonfuls with the other.  This round reiterates the joys of  being alive in the cold weather. By this time, the halwa is warming the core of one's being, in the manner of  a hot water bottle inside of one's  body. Warmth and comfort  is now radiating  through right down to the last toenail. This is also the point at which you are filled with  enough joy and bonhomie and  become willing to share halwa with your neighbour.

 This has been my gaajar halwa experience, year after year. This is a second generation delicacy. My grandmothers never made gajar halwa, so this winter i tweaked the recipe a little bit and  used jaggery  instead of sugar to sweeten the carrots.  I have on earlier occasions used shakkar, but jaggery has a stronger flavour, so I experimented with a smaller batch of carrots.

 One kg of grated carrots are cooked in one kg of  full cream milk. When the carrot strands have drunk up all the milk, add  around 150 grams of jaggery. Adding  jaggery earlier can make the milk curdle.  When the jaggery has melted, saute the  contents of the bowl in two tablespoons of ghee. Garnish with green and brown cardamoms and your favourite selection of dry fruits.  Serve hot and store the rest. My son,  currently both fooda-holic and health freak, says that this is the best halwa he has ever had, and that it tastes fantastic  even on Day I. (He has a theory  that gaajar ka halwa  tastes better as it ages). We will take this exploration further, but I do not think I will  be sugaring my gaajar halwa  anytime in this season.

Punitive Expansion

Growings older allows the registering of how personal lives criss-cross fault lines in history. A visit to Guntur led to the discovery that some of India's most fertile cropping lands around Guntur would make way for the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. Of course new states must have new capitals, but do they they have to be constructed over the irreplaceable arable land that feeds everyone? Clearly our leaders draw in strange ways from our antiquity. Indraprastha, the fabled home of the Pandavas, was built when Dhritrashtra allotted Khandavaprashtha to them and bid them to live and rule over it. A forest was burnt and subsequently levelled. The tribes and species of birds and animals inhabiting it were smoked out. Those who did not perish in the hostile environment were killed in active combat. To build themselves a magnificent palace, the Pandavas enlisted supernatural help. The architect of the gods came down and built it for them. Krishna, the avataar himself, did field duty with Arjuna and helped initiate the sacking of the forest. There were protests: in fact the extended generational war with the serpents is another story curled up at the edges of the Kurukshetra war narrative and Indra, to whom the forest belonged, hurled his thunderbolt at Arjuna. To propitiate him the new city was subsequently called Indraprastha. Honorary mentions effectively soothe the very gods. Modern India has less metaphysical happenings. Most of our gods now rest within stone temples or concrete edifices. What is visible now is the grabbing of land by land mafias and ambitious political satraps. We need able administrators and apparently the administrators ably take land away from those who need to feed us. The countryside around Guntur is also home to ancient sites of worship and memory. All of this is slated to disappear under the onrush of building, expanding new capitals. Meanwhile,I worked hard to persuade my reluctant son who being "higher educated" at a hostel in another new city capital Naya Raipur. Three years after wearing down continual resistance, we planned a trip to his hostel and to sections of Bastar. The touchdown at Raipur airport was unremarkable. Moving out of a fairly modern building flanked by Jindal's metallic men, we headed out to the Hidayatullah National Law University(HNLU) . Stretches of green land on either side, fenced and dotted with the occasional date palm greets the eye. The only people on the road are the two of us and Deepak who is driving us. After a long green silent interval. I see men and women working at some construction. One green stretch is scheduled to become a railway line. I am shown a large fenced in stretch of land where the station will be housed. Eventually we reach HNLU and head for the boys' hostel. we stand at the entrance of a nondescript building, having half circled the academic block.The eye meets green fields beyond. The courtyard of the hostel is unapologetic concrete bricks . There are buildings half finished on the campus. Three years ago these were to be blocks housing invitees visitors and parents at HNLU. Like every good idea, this one apparently has been taken off the list. After coaxing the guards on duty to allow him to leave his suitcases in his room, (three days before term ),I was allowed a hurried look at the facilities on the premises. Tiny rooms, almost cubicle sized that can be locked, with a table and a bed and a deep stone shelf in the wall. Add to this, functional common toilets and a shabby common room. The threadbare state of the hostel extends to the outside as well. The college is far away from any other habitation. To buy groceries, provisions, eat something different, watch a film, everyone at HNLY has to head for the town. A bus service is provided for students. Surely a residential university should be doing far more for its residents? We drove out soon in the direction of Dighapur. Small shanty towns dot the road. there are miles and miles of cultivated land with delicious green rice paddy and lots of water bodies. This is stunningly beautiful country. the land stretches out on either side of the road and there are green fields that touch the ends of the sky.

Na Rahega Vishvavidyalaya, Na Rahenge Shikshak.!!!

Yesterday I was a fly on the wall in one of the most bizzare live TV shows in recent times. Called Smriti ki Pariksha,the stage had jaunty panels with photographs of the prime minister wearing many hats (one hat and several decorated headdresses since accuracy is a value). Smriti Irani, the HRD minister, was late and on arrival evinced surprise that the show was for a two hour period. Apparently the organizer had only asked for half an hour of her time. Anyway, the show began with the anchors posing inconsequential queries regarding the ministerial visit to Amethi. The minister was at an advantage. Her years of training in media ensured that she called the shots, corrected assumptions, fielded questions, bowled googlies with her replies and left the anchors feeling compelled to defend the integrity of the show. At this stage, the anchors gripped their roving microphones, would not invite any of the assembled teachers for a discussion on politics and higher education and continued to aggravate the situation further The show morphed into a Jan Adalat. A student who spoke of SOL students no longer being allowed to attend regular college was told the minister would accompany him to the vice chancellor's office. The problems faced by SOL students have been compounded by semesterization, which has sealed off mobility for all SOL students ever since. Supporting her governments decisions as non-bhagua, the minister informed the nation at large the the president of the DUTA was from a left group and often came to the HRD seeking solutions to problems at the university. Ministers with affiliations to political parties are as difficult to persuade as members of the AAD who insist on referring to the DUTA leadership as DTF-led-DUTA. The DUTA President and yet another colleague did firmly communicate that every teacher. irrespective of affiliation. was opposed to the introduction of CBCS. Partisan politics has no place in the context of the grave academic disaster staring Delhi University and the rest of India in the face. The issues plaguing the university were not voiced. There was no opportunity to ask the minister that when the ground situation was the same as last year; why were unprecedented academic reforms being rushed in post haste, without discussion, debate or consultation with teachers. Meanwhile, the minister committed herself to a personal appearance to address the differential in fee structure for a visually handicapped student at a campus college. Oddly, complete silence surrounds the role imagined for teachers even at the level of school education. We were told of the online system where NCERT books could be downloaded from websites. These downloads apparently are to be soon available as as mobile apps. So in the near future, all the country's children under fourteen years of age will receive all their education via downloads on mobile phones. "What an idea Sirjee!!" Clearly, providing teachers to train and develop minds and imaginations is not a part of this scenario, wherein technology is the undisputed king. No lessons need to be learnt from the laptops uselessly stockpiling all over Delhi university colleges. Looking at how teaching vacancies are being filled at Delhi University; arbitrary appointments or none at all; it is not difficult to envisage that the university teacher will be entirely dispensable in the scheme as it unfolds. This would explain why the CBCS is being brought in unders the most peculiar and unfair circumstances. A good liberal education, a nation of thinking people, academic standards and rigor will be the only casualties.