Facebook, Rumi, Jackie and a mob from Karimganj

It was around 11.45 pm on last Friday, 29th July 2012. I was about to log off from Facebook and shutdown my laptop, when something caught my eyes. That something was a status message from one of my friends. It gave me the news that Rumi Nath aka Reshma Sultana, along with her second husband Jackie, (although, from a legal point of view, they are in a live in relationship at best) had been brutally beaten up at a hotel in Karimganj, the headquarter of the eponymous district in Southern Assam, by a mob of around 200 men. The reason? Rumi Nath, who is an MLA from the Barkhola constituency of Assam, had eloped with a Muslim man, Jakir aka Jackie, thereby leaving her husband Rakesh Singh and a two year old daughter from her first marriage with Singh.

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

Frankly speaking, this lynching mob type of the so called "delivery of justice", which has been on the rise in India in recent years, only goes on to show that a section of the people have totally lost their faiths on the nation - its legislature, executive and judiciary. This kind of "jungle raaj" cannot be, and should not be condoned under any circumstances. A heinous crime is exactly that, a heinous crime only, even if the victims themselves are criminals and the perpetrators commit the crime in the guise of cleansing the society. Period.

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

Why am I even writing all these, and that too after 2 days? Because, there have been a clear division among the general population - those who support it and those who vehemently oppose it. Seeing this divide, I thought about writing on the whole issue, with flashbacks to Rumi's student days in Bangalore, her family background and a heads up on the current situation.

news on rumi nath beaten by a mob at a karimganj hotel

Rumi, the daughter of a rich businessman from Silchar, who incidentally has two wives too, went to Bangalore and completed her Bachelors in Medicine from there. While she was studying, love blossomed between her and another student of the same college, Rakesh Singh, who - people tell me - is from Uttar Pradesh. In due course, both got married and had a daughter too. In between, Rumi entered politics and was elected on a BJP ticket, to the state legislature of Assam. Some time down the line, there was a possibility that the ruling Congress government under Tarun Gogoi might lose its majority in the house. To counter this, it is alleged that a very influential Congress minister bought out some MLAs from BJP and Rumi was one of them. What is beyond any doubts is that she switched her allegiance, voted for the Gogoi government and joined the Indian National Congress. In the next assembly elections, she contested on a Congress ticket from the same constituency and won again.

news on rumi nath maariage jackie jakir converts to islam

Everything was going on pretty smoothly, till she opened a Facebook account! She met Jakir alias Jackie in FB and became friends. The relationship surely went beyond simple friendship, as is evident from her pregnancy, which is in an advanced stage of 5 months. What really irritated people were the flip-flops by Rumi. When Samayik Prasanga, a daily newspaper from Silchar, first published the news of Rumi's purported marriage with Jackie, she vehemently denied that. After more such denials, suddenly she vanished without a trace and then resurfaced, Jackie in tow, at Guwahati. Subsequently, she admitted to converting to Islam and marrying Jackie. She took on the name, Reshma Sultana. It has been alleged that a few political leaders from the minority community were responsible for arranging the conversion and marriage. Elsewhere, her first husband Rakesh Singh, who is legally her husband till now, had slapped adultery charges on the duo. Rumi countered this by her own illogical logic, that because she has converted to Islam, Hindu Marriage Acts won't be applicable to her. She is either an ignorant fool or perhaps, trying to play a communal card to satisfy her libido. Because the honorable Supreme Court of India had already declared that any religious conversion that is done with the objective of entering in to a bigamous/polygamous relationship, would automatically stand null and void. The same set of leaders, who had arranged the marriage, are being alleged to be playing protector to the duo. It is further alleged that they are using their political clout to ensure that Jackie is not arrested.

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

That's about everything that have happened in the background. Fast forward to Karimganj, Friday, 29 June 2012.

news on rumi nath converts islam reshma sultana jakir mob fury

During the day, both had visited Rumi's constituency, Barkhola. There also, a section of the populace protested against her. At least one lady had confronted Rumi too. From Barkhola, they went to Karimganj in the evening and checked in to Hotel Nakshatra. At around 10 pm, a mob of around 200 persons attacked the hotel, broke the doors and beat up Rumi and Jackie.

What puzzles me is the fact that the cameramen from at least two TV channels could reach the hotel and were able to capture the rampage, but the police took more time to reach there. A timely police action could have prevented this from happening. Next day's newspaper carried a story that one of the Superintendents of Police had advised Rumi against visiting Barak Valley, as the police feared for the safety and security of Rumi and Jakir. That means, police were in the know of things that something similar could happen, yet they did precious little to prevent the attack. It is also speculated that Rumi's personal security guards had also been removed prior to the attack.

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

I agree that Rumi's behaviour, over the years, has not been exactly exemplary, but some of that blame should also be shared by her family. It is an open secret that her father's wealth has not been earned through exactly lawful means. Moreover, she has seen, from day one, that her father has married twice and has been living with both of them! I can't imagine, how well rounded, was her upbringing process, but can confidently say that it was far from ideal.

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

Now, should the Bashing in Karimganj be condemned or condoned?

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

Should this question be asked at all?

news on rumi nath mla assam second husband jackie jakir

What Rumi and Jakir did was wrong in the eyes of the law of the land. I also understand that elected representatives are supposed to set examples for others to follow and should not indulge in such illegal, bigamous activities. But, in India, do we see that happen often? Aren't there some kind of skeletons in the cupboard of every other political leader? In the recent past only, the media has highlighted the cases of Bhanwari Devi or that of N. D. Tiwari. There is not even an iota of doubt that the duo were wrong, have taken an illegal step and that they should be tried for adultery. And, for indulging in such activities, Rumi should be disqualified from the assembly too. But, for their sins, there is a legal system in India, which can decide the magnitude of the punishment, if indeed, they are ever convicted. As I understand, Mr. Rakesh Singh has already filed a case and the matter is sub judice. Under these circumstances, the law should be allowed to run its due course.
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But no! The alcohol assisted brave-hearts of Karimganj considered themselves to be the single window prosecutor, judge and executor of justice. What they did, reminded me of the 18th and 19th century USA, when Lynching Mobs were the standard norms for delivery of purported justice! There should not be any doubt that this incident was deplorable, shameful and should have been prevented in the first place. Now since this has happened, the police and the administration should ensure that the perpetrators are brought to book. Otherwise, this will set a dangerous precedent, when mobs will decide the course of action on behalf of the society.

Response to Mohit Chandra's Open Letter to India's Graduating Classes

Mohit Chandra, who is a partner with KPMG, considers himself to be the guardian angel of Indian recruiters and has written a gem of an open letter to Indian Graduates and would be Graduates, which in turn, was duly published under the India Ink section of the New York Times.

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Although, some of the points, raised by Mr. Mohit Chandra, are valid, but his chosen style of expression reeks of "Oh! I am holier than thou!" attitude. Plus, the article lacks intellectual depth and is like all and sundry rants that we get to hear from the “phoren returned” crop, who, it seems know everything about India and Indians. While it might apply to the entire sample size that author had access to, although, I would doubt that too, it is sheer slander of the population with the good skills, mindset and ethics too. His is not a balanced evaluation of the ground realities, and even he fails to do anything but preach. In the scope of the entire article, he has not, for even once, tried to show a way out of the perceived problem areas and shortcomings. But then, Chandra’s way is the fashionable path these days!

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Below, I have tried to respond to each of the points, as has been mentioned by Chandra in his article. I would suggest that before further reading this piece, everybody should read the piece written by Chandra, the URL for which has been provided at the start of this post.

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It’s true that there's an urgent need for improving the communication skills, especially among the freshly minted graduates, who had studied in the vernacular medium up to the 10^th standard. But, and it’s a big b-u-t, English is a foreign language and we, the Indians cannot be expected to have native level proficiency over the language.

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What does one mean by a cliché like “out of the box thinking”? Can Mr. Chandra coin a better term than "out of the box thinking" to represent the essence of "out of the box thinking" in a better manner? On one hand, Indian employers expect the employees to be "process driven" and would not tolerate "any deviation from the set processes" and on the other, they expect them to "think out of the box"! Is that a joke, Mr. Chandra? Am I supposed to laugh on this? Sorry to say that it did not induce the intended laughter.

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I really would like to know the number of question that Chandra would have asked during his stint in the Hindu College. Ask questions? And, who will shield the fresh graduate from the snide remarks? In most Indian businesses, if someone questions the hierarchy, s/he will have to look for another job, the very next week itself. That’s how the average Indian business operates. I have been lucky to have worked in very different atmospheres, but not everyone is that much lucky.

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Taking responsibility for our career is normally what we do. By the way, can Mr. Chandra kindly specify the working hours and number of working days per week for the new employees, who were supposed to be trained? What needs to be known is whether they had enough time, stamina and enthusiasm left, after slogging it out in the office, for taking up the e-Learning training programs.

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I had almost burst out laughing when Chandra mentioned the terms “Professionalism” and “ethics”. If he had broached the subject in front of the “kuttis” of Dacca, they would have told him, “Sir, please be quiet. If my horses hear that, they will also burst out laughing”. Does it make any sense, if someone talks about professionalism and ethics, when he has worked all his life in the companies, which have brought down the entire world’s economy through their unethical and corrupt trade practices? Add to that the tax frauds, the insider trading, the unpaid salaries, fake offer letters, this and that deduction at the time of leaving a job etc. etc. My question to Mohit Chandra, “Why don't you behave first and set a precedent for the employees to follow? When you ask for loyalty from the employees, why don't you show some loyalty to them in the first place?”

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If I have to summarize and rate the content of the article by Mr. Mohit Chandra, ridiculous would be an understatement.

Speed, that I was supposed to carry

Updated at 19.34 hours IST on 7 June 2012. Curious case indeed.

"Speed You Can Carry". Well, that's the tagline for TATA photon+. According to the parent company, photon+, with its 3.1 Mbps connectivity, is supposed to be some steps ahead of its predecessor, the TATA photon wireless broadband. The company also claims that Tata Photon Plus is a High Speed Internet Access Service (HSIA) that should provide downlink speed of up to 3.1 Mbps and uplink of up to 1.8 Mbps. As always, there is a whole lot of difference between claims and reality.
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It was the morning of 25th May 2012, Saturday, when the trouble started. Repeatedly, the dialer refused to get itself connected to the network, the reason being the remote computer's unresponsiveness. After a few tries, when I could finally get connected to the Internet, the connection started to crawl. Firstly, not even the home page of any web based e-mail service would open, and when it did, it was simply impossible to log in. In fact, it reminded me of the dial-up days, when we used to get disconnected frequently and while trying to reconnect error messages like, "Remote computer did not respond" were pretty common. But those were the pre-broadband days!
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After this connection-disconnection-crawling-not responding game  continued for an hours or so, I called up the toll free, dedicated customer care number for Tata Photon, 1800 266 121. An assuring & calm lady's voice from the IVR told me, "Please call 1515 from your Tata DoCoMo connection for any problems related to Photon" and it hang up without saying anything further. I called again. Same result. As soon as the call was 16 seconds old, the line automatically got disconnected. I tried 5-6 more times from 2 different numbers. Alas, the end result remained the same. The Einstein did not tell me how I was supposed to make a voice call from the Photon+ connection!

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At last, I could get hold of a customer care executive at 6.30 pm, approximately 6 hours after my first try to contact them. All he said was, "Extremely sorry for the inconvenience sir. There are some connectivity issues in south Kolkata, which should be sorted out within the next 2 hours. If you face a problem even after 8.30 pm, then please call us and lodge a complaint." Rocket science! Isn't it?
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It was 9.30 pm and still there were no solution. So, I called up again. After the usual niceties, I was told to clear my %temp% folder, which I duly did. As nothing happened, I called up again at around 10 pm. The executive told me that their software was not running and that I should call back after 30 mins. 11 pm and the same story about some congestion in the network and upgradation work of the system was shared and I was told to wait another 2 hours. Patiently I waited and called again at 1.30 am of 26th May. The gentleman on the other side listened to every derail and uttered the word "sorry" some 10 times. He then told me that a ticket had been raised and the technical team would get in touch with me pretty soon.
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Satisfied, I went to sleep.
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A princely 11 kbps downlink was available.

I woke up on Sunday, 26 May 2012 and still the problem did not show any signs of going away. So, I repeated the entire procedure again. Twice, in fact, and with the same result. Lastly, at 10.05 pm, I told the exec that I was sick and tired of this 2 hours business. Then, he said that may be it would take 5-6 hours more to be rectified and that I could safely take this for granted that the normal connectivity would not be restored before Monday morning. I just thanked him and with whatever available speed, sent a complaint to their helpdesk.
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In the mean time, I had managed to run a speed test and it showed that I was getting a princely 11 kbps of bandwidth as against a claimed speed of 3.1 Mbps! On top of that, just think that before you buy their product, they promise that if you fill up a form, they will call you back in 10 minutes. After you have bought and got caught in their net, its a different story altogether. Reminds me of those jokes on demo and the real versions of hell! Unfortunately, can't even laugh in this case.
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To top it, the collection guys will invariably call you some 7-10 days before the due date for payment, to remind you the amount due and the last date for payment. And, they will repeat this bloody exercise every alternate day till the due date, irrespective of payment being already made. Just imagine, you are in a meeting with a client, someone calls you and tells that she is from Tata Teleservices and would just like to remind you and blah blah blah! Highly irritating.
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Even, my Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ was far better! True, they don't have coverage in the North Eastern states, but in all other places, they actually provided broadband like connectivity.

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In this case, after all these, finally I have been allotted a complaint reference number and Tata Teleservices had promised that someone would get in touch with me by 1.46 today, i.e. 27th May. Let's see what happens next and what more surprises they have in store for me.

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Have you faced similar problems with your service provider? Please feel free to share your story as a comment in this space.

Great Indian Drama After The Petrol Price Hike

Since the last price hike by the central government, there has been a lot of sounds of discontent from different quarters, specifically targeting the prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and the finance minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. Most of the political leaders have taken this opportunity to fish in the muddied water. So, we have a General Strike on 31st May, called by the BJP (or is it NDA?), we have a UP bandh called by Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, we have protest rallies by CPI(M) & the left front, and even by their sworn enemy, the TMC. At last, amidst this intolerable heat and humidity, some good news! We are going to have some off days to chill. And, in the process, Indian economy will lose some hundreds of crores of rupees. But, that's acceptable. After all, the interest of the common man is sacrosanct.
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Common man? Yes. At least the political leaders, as well as our netizens, would like everybody to believe that.
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You still end up asking an idiotic question. Who actually can be tagged as the all important "common man"? Now, come on! Please don't show the entire world the true depth of your intellect, you will be told. Still, you persist on knowing how the common man is effected by the hike in the price of the petrol. You will be told in a very condescending manner that the common man in India today owns 2 wheeler and 4 wheeler, goes to his workplace normally driving his own car, goes to the neighborhood market riding his bike and still you ask such questions. After all, isn't India shining? You shake your head in acceptance and walk away.
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In the fear of making a joker out of yourself, you fail to ask the questions that had been trying hard to open the lock-gate and come out of your mouth. There were so many of them. You wanted to know whether the people who cannot spend Rs. 32 per day in a metro or the people who earn Rs. 33 per day, are they called "uncommon man" ? The people who travel by public transport system everyday because they cannot afford a 2 wheeler, let alone a 4 wheeler, whether they also are called "uncommon man" or not. The villager, who depends on the 100 days work scheme, what's his tagline? How do you classify the hawker on the pavement, the conductor on the private bus, the porter at the rail station, the panwalah near your home, the newspaper hawker, the domestic help, the vegetable seller? And this list is endless. Are not they the numerically superior group of people? If so, following the principle of democracy, should not they be called the "common man"?
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Oh, come on! These are irrelevant questions and raised simply to derail the agitation of the leaders of the masses. So what, if the daily labourer and his family have to skip a meal due to the strike? If the people from the bottom most strata of the society go on empty stomach for half a day or one day, is that a big deal? After all, they are used to it.
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But, we, the empowered common men of India, cannot travel in the crowded buses amidst this heat and humidity. We cannot walk to the market as we don't have the time. We have to switch on the AC in the car to beat the heat. And, all these require petrol as the source of energy. So, if the Government has given a free hand to the oil companies in deciding the price, that is so unethical. So what, if the oil companies have to bear huge losses by selling petrol at a price lower than the cost? So what, if ultimately the taxpayers' money is being used for compensating the oil companies? At least, we bought petrol at a cheaper rate na!
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And the circus continues!

English to Hindi Translations

Big B had said in "Namak Halal", "English is a very funny language." Well, the same can be said about Hindi too. Especially, "Shuddh" Hindi. There are some absolutely absurd words in Hindi, which although literally correct, are never used in real life situations. 

Below is a list of commonly used English words with their literal translation in Hindi. 

(Statutory Warning: I shall not be held responsible, in case any reader breaks her/his teeth while trying to pronounce or memorize a word!)

1. Cricket: Gol Guttam Lakad Battam De Danadan
2. Cricket Test Match: Pakad Dandu, Maar Mandu, De Danaadan Pratiyogita
3. Table Tennis: Lakdi Ke Phalak Kshetra Pe Le Takaatak De Takaatak or Chowpaiya Ke Upar Batti Ke Niche, De Fatafat Le Fatafat
4. Lawn Tennis: Harit Ghaas Par Le Tada Tad, De Tada Tad
5. Light Bulb: Vidyut Prakashak Kanch golak
6. Traffic Signal: Aavat Jaavat Suchak Jhandaa
7. Tea: Dugdh Jal Mishrit Sharkara Yukt Parvatiya (Pahaadi) Booti
8. Train: Louh Path Gaamini Sahasra Chakrawali Shakat
9. All Route Pass: Yatra Tatra Sarvatra Gaman Aagya Patra
10. Railway Signal: Loh Path Gamini (Agni Rath) Aawagaman Suchak Yantra
11. Railway Station : loh path gamini aawat javat vishram sthal
12. Mosquito: Gunjanhaari Manav Rakt Pipasu Jeev
13. Toilet Flush: Kiye Karaye Par Paani Fenk Dene Wala Yantra
14. Cigarette: Shweta Patra Mandit Dhumra Shalakha
15. Tie: Kanth Langoti
16. Match Box: Ragdampatti Agni Utpaadan Peti
17. Button: Ast Vyast Vastra Niyantrak

I will update this list as and when I can find out more such words. Meanwhile, have a smile on your lips. :)

Shovon Chakraborty thanks you. Please get in touch with Shovon Chakraborty for any suggestions.