Monsoon, the Magnanimous 6 Managing Editor Akul Tripathi Mrs
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MORPARIA’S PAGE E-mail: [email protected] Morparia.pmd 2 6/27/2016, 10:40 AM Contents JULY 2016 VOL.19/12 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ THEME: Morparia’s page 2 The Indian Monsoon Whither the showers? 5 V. Gangadhar Monsoon, the magnanimous 6 Managing Editor Akul Tripathi Mrs. Sucharita R. Hegde ...And the rains came dancing down! 9 Bidyut Kotoky Editor It’s raining snacks! 11 Anuradha Dhareshwar Anuradha Rajan To rains, with love 13 Disha Shetty Assistant Editor More precious than gold 15 E.Vijayalakshmi Rajan Usha Hariprasad 6 Being rain ready 17 Design Dr. T.D. Rajan H. V. Shiv Shankar Barso re megha megha… 20 Shoma A. Chatterji The Meghalaya approach 22 Marketing Dr. Arvind Kumar Mahesh Kanojia Know India Better Secret, Sacred & Sensational: 23 OIOP Clubs Co-ordinator fables from Eastern Arunachal Pradesh Vaibhav Palkar Akul Tripathi Jog Falls to Murdeshwar, all in a day! 36 Subscription In-Charge Disha Shetty Nagesh Bangera Face to Face 38 23 Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi: Meera Krishnakutty Features Advisory Board Towards a Federal Front? 44 Sucharita Hegde Prof. Avinash Kolhe Justice S. Radhakrishnan Free to trade? 46 Venkat R. Chary Shalini Bhutani The game of extinction 48 Dr. M.A. Haque Printed & Published by Sums, similes and synthesis 50 Mrs. Sucharita R. Hegde for Gauri Kedia One India One People Foundation, Column 52 Mahalaxmi Chambers, 4th floor, 38 Rural Concerns : Bharat Dogra 22, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Economy : Anuradha Kalhan Mumbai - 400 026 Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Young India 54 Tel: 022-2353 4400 Devi Great Indians 56 Fax: 022-2351 7544 e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Printed at: Graphtone (India) Pvt. Ltd. A1 /319, Shah & Nahar Industrial Estate. S. J. Marg, Lower Parel (W) Mumbai – 400 013 visit us at: Manohar Aich Air Chief Marshal Dr. Trupti Shah www.oneindiaonepeople.com Hrushikesh Moolgavkar, www.facebook.com/oneindiaonepeoplefoundation PVSM MVC LETTERS TO THE EDITOR “Alarming” The number of people who die in police custody in India is alarming (Police Reforms, One India One People, June 2016). The recurrence of deaths on account of custodial violence can be attributed to the fact that action is rarely taken against the guilty policemen. The police force is supposed to these goondas in uniform? uphold the law; instead it routinely misuses its powers. The – Jubel D’Cruz, Mumbai government must give this matter some serious thought. It “Quite impressed” should consult the law commission and the National Human I saw your June issue (Police Reforms) and was quite Rights Commission, and bring in appropriate amendments impressed by the magazine. Your choice of topics is in order to curb custodial crimes and ensure that the culprits noteworthy. The issue you have dealt with – Police Reforms – are punished. is a very relevant one. We all speak about it, but nothing ever The police have lost their mental capabilities when it is done about it. Hope the reforms are finally implemented. comes to arresting innocent citizens. Just to solve a crime, As citizens, we too need to take some matters in our own when they cannot arrest the actual culprit, they look for hands, like, for instance, saying no to bribes, even petty soft objects to frame them. There are also good and honest bribes which we sometimes rationalize as ok. I also liked policemen in our country, but I’m referring to those dirty pigs your colour section. The travel feature on Madhya Pradesh that hide behind a police uniform. A day is not far when the was an eye-opener I must say! I look forward to reading more public will punish the police for their wrongful actions. If a of your magazine in the future too. Keep it up! hundred people gather outside a police station for justice, then just see how the tables turn. But who will dare against – Amit Gupta, Mumbai Letters should be addressed to Mumbai - 400 026 22, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mahalaxmi Chambers, 4th floor, Foundation, One India People The Editor, 022-2351 7544 e-mail: [email protected] / [email protected] www.oneindiaonepeople.com 022 - 2353 4400 Fax: Tel: 4 ONE INDIA ONE PEOPLE July 2016 SATIRE Whither the showers? V. Gangadhar talks about the pleasures and travails of the rains, when it rains, that is! HIS is my 40th year in Mumbai. The monsoon clouds while we were at school. ‘The Hindu’ was our daily staple diet already arrived and departed without emptying their for information and we played the temperature game from Tcontents. It did rain in fits and starts. But we did there, what a thrill to note down that Rentachintala often topped know the rain received would not be adequate till the next list of maximum temperatures closely beating Kurnool and the rainy season. Enough warnings were issued in the media, rest. We never visited these places, but the temperatures noting the skies threatened, the clouds darkened, thunder rumbled, game provided our morning thrills for many years. It continued but as June, July and September arrived and disappeared when both of us settled down in Mumbai, but the habit of last year, we were still checking the temperatures looking up at the sky. The continued. Normally, more religious among us Kandivili went ahead in joined in the yagnas to maximum temperature please the rain gods, but and also heavier rainfall, in keeping with modern which gave me endless trends, they failed to delight. By the time the oblige us. rainfall ended in early This year too, October, the suburbs were days came and went. clearly ahead. I expected a lot from Remember that late June, but it fizzled out. July heavy rainfall day, No rains. I followed TV when life stopped in weather forecasts from Mumbai? It was with the world over. Ha, my great difficulty I travelled faith began to shake. It from Khalsa college, rained in Chad (where Matunga, to Bandra, the hell is that?) and braving the cloudburst. Outer Mongolia, but so It was an experience I far, a few drops of rain fell will not forget in a hurry, in Mumbai and the rest of and the consolation Western India. Mind you, nearly 18 months gone and not a was that the suburbs clearly thrashed the city. My Kemp’s sign of the monsoon! Corner sister could not believe it had rained so much in the The absence of rains has never deterred me and my suburbs, and so little in the city. It was a day of triumph elder sister from playing our own, originally invented for the humble suburbanites who soundly thrashed the city weather games. She lives in South Mumbai. Every morning slickers. How did I reach home? Partly by bus, partly by cab, after receiving the morning paper, we compare notes on then walked a bit, fell into a ditch, the temperatures in South Mumbai and the suburbs. For but always holding my head high; instance, it could be 34 degrees Celsius at Kemp’s Corner here was a hero who had out walked and 31 degrees Celsius at Kandivili, which meant she had and outmaneuvered the city slickers. won. We note this down and file the information for the In the years to come this would subsequent days, till the month is over and the averages be the heroic story I shall tell my checked. grandchildren. This was not a new game, but it started several years The writer is a well-known satirist. ONE INDIA ONE PEOPLE July 2016 5 THE INDIAN MONSOON Monsoon,Monsoon, thethe magnanimousmagnanimous The complex set of wind and weather factors which drive our monsoons, were known to the ancient world, says Akul Tripathi, giving examples from literature and culture. And despite the advent of technology and our attempt at accurately predicting it, the vagaries of monsoons remain as consistent as in days gone by, he marvels. “When, O Wanderer at will, experiences two different monsoons – the much eulogised you see her in the lap of the mountain Southwest monsoons and the lesser known Northeast as if in that of a lover, her shawl the Ganga slipping off, monsoons. The baking heat of the summer creates a low you will not fail to recognise Alaka” pressure area over north and central India, and to fill this void, moisture laden winds rush in from the Indian Ocean. The HUS speaks Kalidasa in his immortal lyrical love poem Himalayas block the movement of the wind and the winds Meghdoot – the cloud messenger. The poem is the begin to rise and as their temperature drops, precipitation occurs. Trequest of a yaksha imprisoned by the God of Wealth However, as these winds begin their passage into the – Kuber, through the rain bringing clouds, to take to his wife subcontinent, due to the topography, they get branched into a message of his love. Written in the 4th-5th century CE, the two separate formations – the Arabian Sea branch and the Bay 111 stanza poem is divided broadly into two parts – Purvamegha of Bengal branch. The Arabian Sea branch is the more popular and Uttarmegha. While the crux of the poem is the letter of Southwest monsoon winds that first hit Kerala and then proceed love carried by clouds, and the second part the message that northward along the western edge of the Western Ghats. the yaksha has sent; the first part describes the journey of the The Bay of Bengal branch continues towards the Northeast clouds over cities, hills, rivers and temples of the Indian and over the bay picks up more moisture, all of which gets subcontinent right up to Alkapuri in the Himalayas. dumped in the regions of the Eastern Himalayas, with places In this description is an intricate knowledge and familiarity like Cherapunjee and Mawsynram in Meghalaya holding the with the Indian landscape and geography – something quite records for the highest amount of precipitation in the world.