Apr

30

Smoking and drinking gets younger and hipper

April 30, 2008 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

The average age at which Indians take their first drink, has fallen, and it has fallen almost a year every year in last 10 years. The average drinking age in India is now 19 instead of 28 a decade or so ago. But what’s real alarming is where this is going. Studies have predicted that in another few years, Indians will start drinking at the tender age of 15.

That has prompted the health minister Ramadoss to declare alcohol as the ‘mother of all public health problems’ in India. He is pointing out that the revenue bought in by alcohol manufacture and sales is less than the revenue spent in tackling the public health complications arising from excessive alcohol consumption.

- The state of Kerala tops the drinker’s list, followed by Maharashtra and Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has the least number of alcohol drinkers.

- The number of women drinkers is only one-sixth that of their male counterparts.

- Overall, India has at least 63 million drinkers.

Alarm bells should really start ringing with the findings on the tobacco consumption, however.

- 15% schoolgoing kids are using some form of tobacco

- There is an increasing number of female users

- Students were increasingly using chewable tobacco products such as gutkha

Several recent studies have already indicated a rising trend where younger Indians are taking to smoking, with the risk of early addiction rising very fast. Scientists have expressed concerns that amost a million of India’s population will be dying of tobacco-related causes by 2010. Those studies put the number of India’s smokers at 120 million, almost 50% more than the number of drinkers.

Starting young has been directly shown to be associated with the increasing inability to quit in later life. Surprizingly, there are several studies that also show that legal bans and regulations are not very effective deterrents when it comes to alcohol and tobacco consumption in teens.

In related news, Albert Hofmann, the father of another recreational drug - LSD, died yesterday in Basel, Switzerland, at the age of 102. Hofman synthesized LSD in late 1930s and accidentally consumed it in 1943, setting off a psychedelic chain reaction in world culture. In his book ‘Be Here Now’, counterculture guru Ram Dass (originally known as Richard Alpert) describes an incident where his Indian Guru Neem Karoli Baba consumed very large quantities of Hofman’s drug. Of course that Dr. Ram Dass, the counterculture psychedelic experimenter has nothing to do with this Dr. Rama Doss, the man who currently heads India’s health ministry.

Apr

29

India’s youngest criminal

April 29, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

A 3-year old boy in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, has been booked under the Goondas act (hoodlum act) by the local police. 3-year old Mukesh Prasad of Pure Grammajre village was arrested when someone filed a complaint against him alleging criminal mischief. Four days after he was arrested, however, the local police chief has now suspended the cops who put the toddler behind bars.

What led the police to arrest the little boy was an angry compaint by Gyanendra Yadav, the local mafia don who had a spat with the boy’s father regarding a real estate property. The local cops who typically serve the local mafia before anyone else, arrested the father and the 3-year son under section 110 of the Criminal Procedure code.

Section 110 is specifically reserved for habitual offenders who engage in crimes such as

1. robbery, house-breaking, theft, or forgery

2. kidnapping, abduction, extortion, cheating or mischief

It is also reserved for habitual offenders of

1. Untouchability act or

2. Customs act

3. Essential commodities act

4. Foreign Exchange Regulation Act

5. Drugs and Cosmetics Act

The only other case in world history where a 3-year old has been charged with a serious offense is a political prisoner and she’s right door. Recently in Myanmar, the military government arrested and locked in prison a 3-year old girl and her mother, both on charges of being political activists.

When Britain started to banish criminals to Australia, the youngest criminal in the first batch of convicts was a 9-year old boy who had stolen a few clothes and a pistol. That’s almost thrice the age of Sultanpur’s Mukesh. Even Artemis Fowl, the youngest criminal of the fictional world, is merely 12 years old, way older than Sultanpur’s Mukesh.

What’s next for 3-year old Mukesh? If he continues to be a habitual offender who can continue to poke a stick into the eyes of the law, he may have a bright future in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Historically, the state of Uttar Pradesh, has always rewarded criminals by facilitating their entry into the world of politics. Of the 49 state ministers, 22 have criminal cases pending against them, and of 19 cabinet-ranked ministers, 10 have serious criminal cases pending against them.

So little Mukesh seems to have a very, very bright future. For starters, he has already shown his mettle by seemingly agitating the local mafia don. Now, having been hardened by a 4-day custodial stay, and having faced a judge before facing a teacher in his life, Mukesh may soon begin to weave his maya like the billionaire who claims the same name or the wonder woman of Uttar Pradesh politics whose maya overshadows all else in Mukesh’s state.

Apr

28

Will Pune be India’s next Bhopal?

April 28, 2008 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

The government of Maharashtra has now given a go-ahead to Dow Chemicals to build a $100 million Research and Development facility in Pune. There are reports that indicate an unusual hastening and extraordinary facilitation of normal procedures to give a green signal to the company which still owes reparations to thousands of Indian citizens for one of the worst chemical disaster tragedies in history.

It is hard, even for a moment, to believe, that Dow Chemicals is not getting special favors from Indian government. Despite recent exposes of a Dow subsidiary paying off government officials to get approvals on poisonous pesticides, and despite Dow’s tainted history with its Indian companies, the government hasn’t come clean to people on if and why the approval process was subverted for Dow’s newest ventures in India. There is enough initial evidence suggestive of special favoritism that has led to Dow’s new plant in Pune:

1. The MIDC (Magharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) CEO approved Dow’s initial application in 48 hours.

2. The state pollution board approved Dow’s applications in a record time of a few months

3. The state allowed Dow to start construction on the site, way before environmental clearances came in.

4. The land in question is near Chakan, a town where the Maharashtra’s powerful NCP leader has been campaigning for an international airport for a few years. Needless to say, NCP is one of the parties sharing power in Maharashtra.

It has been reported that Dow’s plant in Pune is being set up to use hazardous chemicals. Seems we haven’t yet learnt any lessons from Bhopal’s terrible mishap 25 years ago. For the center and the state to pander to and serve a private corporation’s purpose and put the lives of millions of its citizens in danger with so much as a 48 hours of regulatory oversight, the whole episode has the stench of a Faustian pact of sorts. I am equally appalled by the docile ignorance of Pune’s sleepy young population who are so engulfed in making money, eating out, watching TV and disco dancing in the clubs, that they don’t see the lurking danger in their backyard.

Apr

27

Ferdinand Magellan’s masala cruise

April 27, 2008 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

April 27th marks the death anniversary of Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), the famous Portuguese explorer whose fleet is credited with the first successful attempt to circumnavigate planet earth almost 500 years ago. Magellan himself did not live through to see his crew complete the mission, as he was killed in Philippines on April 27th, 1521.

But long before he traveled to Philippines, Magellan traveled to India. In 1505, (8 years after Vaso Da Gama first landed and 3 years after Da Gama’s second trip to India) 25-year old Ferdinand Magellan traveled to India, to help install Francisco de Almeida as India’s first Portuguese Viceroy. Almeida’s frces moved north, capturing coastal towns, and in 1509, Magellan fought in the battle of Diu, a battle that put the Portuguese against a combined navy of Arabs and Hindus.

India, however did not interest Magellan, and he left his job with the Portuguese Viceroy, without even an official leave. Ten years after he fought for Portuguese in the Diu battle south of Gujarat, Magellan joined the Spanish armada (after his exploration plan was rejected by the Portuguese king) and set sail westward to find a commercial route to Asia’s spice islands. Before he made it to the Spice Islands of Indonesia though, he lost his life to a vicious attack by the army of local king Lapu-Lapu in today’s Philippines.

A survivor of that fight, later wrote an eyewitness account of how the famous explorer died:

….When we reached land, the natives had formed in three divisions….they charged down upon us….An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain’s face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian’s body….When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him…

As he lay dying bleeding from the bamboo spears and cutlass wounds to his tired body, Magellan had managed to kill one last Indian, or at least so he must have thought.

Several centuries ago, another Indian yogi, whom India reveres as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, is said to have circumnavigated the earth 21 times. Parashurama, an angry warrior, is said to have saved and reclaimed the same western coast of India (now known as Parashuram Kshetra) that the Portuguese navy claimed in the 16th century. Parashurama’s ancient battle saved the Nairs because they were said to hide in the forest to avoid his wrath. In the 1509 battle of Diu, the Nair King (Zamorin or the Samoodri Raja) did participate, but the Portuguese navy won and claimed the western Indian coast.

Apr

26

A group of 1 million transgender shemales in the state of Maharashtra has started an agitaiton to demand special quotas and reservations in jobs, housing, health facilities and over public life in general. Two other states - Bihar and Tamilnadu have already started welfare agencies to look into the special interests of the eunuchs. Now it is Maharashtra government’s turn.

With extremely high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among their group, and battling public harassment at the same time, transgenders have a tougher road for survival and job opportunities just don’t exist.

Recently the transgender population was successfully employed by Indian banks as collection agencies, and they responded with a perfect recovery rate of 100 percent. They would go to a defaulted debtor’s house and stand and dance and clap in front until the debtor and his or her family were embarrassed into paying the loan off.

The transgender groups all around India have now started to raise their voice for a special quota in India’s public and private life. That’s a new challenge for the human resource minister Arjun Singh who has already outshown his superhuman resourcefulness in allotting quotas and reservations to special interests.

One of the ways for the transgenders is to start an agitation to officially get into the Other Backward Classes (OBC) group. All indications already point to them being a part of India’s backward communities. Now the general OBC category can have some more subcategories such OMG (oh my god), OMFG, WTF (what the…) where many more special interests could be fit in.

Another way for transgenders would be to offer themselves as paid agitators on behalf of other groups (such Gujjars in Rajasthan, e.g.) demanding quotas. All the transgenders could then go and stand in front of the HR minister’s house and clap and dance him to embarrassment and get additional quotas for whoever wants them.

Apr

25

“…We live in India where womanhood is worshipped. How can anything obscene like this can be allowed? The organisers may have invested crores of rupees organising such matches. But this does not mean that they make semi-nude women dance in front of people…”
- Siddharam Mhetre (State home minister, Maharashtra state)

The state of Maharashtra has now decided to ban semi-nude sports cheerleaders, the bikini-clad babes who were corrupting innocent Maharashtrian males.

I scratched my head as to why this would be a big issue and have come up with a few possible explanations of why the Maharashtra politicians dislike seminude cheerleading:

1. Somebody told Maharashtra politicians that cheerleaders were a type of leaders.

2. Maharashtra politicians sincerely believe that watching cheerleading can create an epidemic of visual impairment.

3. Politicians threatened to ban cheerleading because sports organizers would not agree to 27% reservation for OBC cheerleaders.

4. Bollywood actresses complained to the state government that seminude cheerleaders were running them out of business

5. Maharashtra politicians recently banned sex education in schools, but to their dismay they found that students were still continuing their sex education by watching cheerleaders.

6. “…It’s one thing us politicians copying Gandhi, how dare these cheerleaders walk half-naked…”, blurted an enraged politician.

7. Seminude Cheerleaders refused to cheerlead for the local sports of Kabaddi, angering home minister Patil.

8. Shiv Sena complained that Marathi cheerleaders were purposely being kept out of seminude squads

9. Mumbai’s politicians feared that seminude cheerleading would attract more migrants from UP, Bihar and Bangladesh

10. It’s all erection politics

Apr

24

The Mumbai high court has determined that the mistress in a relationship with a married man cannot be booked for cruelty to the man’s wife. India’s law (IPC section 498-A) allows the police to book a husband and his relatives for any complaint of alleged cruelty by the wife. The high court’s order has now made it clear that the mistress in a relationship is free of any burden of cruelty.

Only a few weeks ago, the Delhi court had ruled that the mistress or the common-law wife in a relationship, was at par with and had almost the same legal rights as the wife. In defending the ruling, the court also suggested that the idea of sanctity of marriage was not at risk if one equates the legal status of a mistress and a wife. The Delhi high court’s rationale for that statement, was, that extra-marital relationships such as one with a mistress are ‘always and invariablly’ initiated by the male in the relationship.

Though the two decisions are based on separate cases, we seem to be in a unique situation where our legal system now puts a wife and a mistress on equal footing, adding that the sanctity of marriage issue doesn’t arise when we put these two individuals on one and the same legal platform. Add to the mix an alleged cruelty by one of the two equals, in the Mumbai court’s case, this was done by the wife against the mistress.

Can we imagine a scenario where, a mistress could make allegations of cruelty towards a man’s wife? If we apply the Mumbai High court’s parameters, that ruling is based on the dictates from the IPS-section 498-A which specifically mentions a husband and his relatives. But for a mistres to make allegations of cruelty towards a married partner, the IPC-section 498-A would not apply since that act specifically targets the husband and relatives, not a lover and his relatives or a partner and his relatives.

So do we now have a theoretical possibility that a mistress could haul the wife into police custody alleging cruelty but the wife cannot allege cruelty towards the mistress? Have the scales of justice just tipped strangely or have they have turned upside down? Let’s take this a little further. Imagine both the mistress and the wife accuse each other of cruelty. Does the husband then get double the jailtime because he has been cruel to both?

Apr

23

The government of India has dropped its plans to toughen the law against Sati (or Suttee), India’s age-old practice of widows committing themselves to death by self-immolation.

Last year, the government had proposed changes to India’s existing Sati law - the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act (of 1987). The changes were meant to bring the act of glorification of the practice of Sati within the confines of the existing law. The punishment for inciting a widow to commit suicide on the funeral pyre was to be raised from a minimum of 1 to a minimum of of 3 years and the maximum period of punishment was to be extended from 7 to 10 years. Another biting aspect of the proposed law was to tsart holding the local city/village councils responsible for any local widow’s death on the funeral pyre.

Why the sudden change of heart? Unbelievably, as is clear now, some people in the ruling party as well as politicians from certain states had actually been actively campaigning and lobbying against tough laws for Sati inciters. One of the people who has opposed the law is Sis Ram Ola, India’s minister of mines. Ola, a parliament member from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, who boasts of starting a girls’ school in a rural area, apparently isn’t keen on stopping or deterring the practice of Sati. That’s because Jhunjhunu, his constituency, is famous for its Rani Sati temple, a big tourist draw for hundreds of thousands of devotees, and obviously an important economic engine for his constituency. Another opponent of the law was Kapi Sibal, the minister of Science & Technology who opposed it because he was worried about the unintended fallout of innocent village chiefs facing the brunt of the new law.

The current prevention of Sati act came ito being after the burning of Roop Kanwar, a Rajasthan youngster who was forced by a mob of locals to commit herself to the burning pyres after her husband (to whom she was married for just 8 months) passed away.

I am not even close to be considered a women’s issue activist or a feminist. I’m just an average Joe who sees black and white and can tell it as is. What I am astounded by is our country’s inability to cross political and fundamentalistic barriers in straghtforward and nonconfusing matters of human rights such as dowry and Sati. One would have thought India was over these stupidities and would by now be able to differentiate such atrocious and heinous practices from the deitified and glorified traditions that they are purported to be. In any other civilized society, this would be called murder. In some corners of our strange and complex land, that act of murdering widows is a tradition.

Apr

22

Pune Marriage breaks over mango pulp dowry

April 22, 2008 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

A wedding ceremony in Pune went awry last week, when the bridal party failed to meet a last minute demand by the groom’s side. Not it wasn’t money. It wasn’t a television set or a refrigerator or a washing machine either. The groom’s party, in the midst of what seemed like a smooth sailing party, suddenly demanded that mango pulp be served as a delicacy.

The bride’s parents, unable to meet this last minute mango pulp dowry, tried to talk the groom’s party out of it, pleading with them that it was too late to arrange for mango pulp for hundreds of guests. But the mango pulp, normally a sweet delicacy, became a bitter issue that flared tempers on the groom’s side. Within minutes of realizing that they weren’t getting their mango pulp, the groom’s party walked out of the marriage.

The ex-groom and his family, then went home and ate a lot of mango pulp. They ate as much mango pulp as they could. In fact, they ate so much mango pulp that they couldn’t eat it any more. At one point in the evening, even the very thought of mango pulp triggered a puking feeling. That night, as he lay on his bed in his parent’s home, the memories of the mango pulp brought a smile to the ex-groom’s face. “Mommy, can I have some more mango pulp tomorrow? Please mommy, pretty please”, he begged. “Yes, yes, my sweet son, as long as I’m alive, you will never be denied mango pulp..”, she muttered with mutterly affection as she kissed him goodnight.

Apr

21

Top 10 reasons Amitabh Bachchan became a blogger

April 21, 2008 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

Amitabh Bachchan has joined the blogosphere and he is displaying his sharp and erudite wordsmithy, surely a legacy of his great father Harivanshrai. I have been wondering why someone as busy as big B would enter the unknown arena of blogosphere. So here are my top 10 guesses.

Not so Seriously:

1. For last few months, Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece has been taking Amitabh Bachchan to task, writing mostly trite and banal stuff about his loyalties to his adopted city. Amitabh realized that he needed a direct channel to the people instead of the usual gossip-mongering media channels.

2. Unlike most Bollywoodians, Amitabh Bachchan is one actor who probably, could have made a career in literature as well. The press keeps comparing him to today’s Bollywood kings and princes, but he probably saw a way to show his class by cutting the crap and making a direct connection to his fans worldwide.

3. He may have started to blog just now, but Amitabh Bachchan has been writing for some time now, especially about his family, his parents, his wife, his family. The blog medium also allows him to get people’s initial reactions to his expressions. And it’s most probably a preface to the autobiographical portrait we shall see in the market, maybe in a year or two.

A little less seriously:

4. The writing is just the beginning. Eventually, Big B will soon be putting podcasts of his written blogs on the site. In fact, the written blogs are way to getting people hooked on to the site, and once the podcasts are up, then Big B will be charging a membership fee. The huge proceeds will go to the Mumbai Marathi People’s Development Authority.

5. Big B was discussing some money-making strategies with his portfolio manager. After initially coming up with the world tour idea, someone told Big B that pro-bloggers have been making a ton of money on google adsense. Of course Big B’s blog server is owned by Reliance who will probably make a few billion dollars being the middlemen.

6. By challenging Shiv Sena to blog in English, Big B is setting them up for something totally out of their league. It’s like luring a tiger into a pen.

Totally seriously:

7. While Big B was surfing for naughty pictures of Bollywood heroines on the internet, Mrs. Bachchan walked in and asked him what he was doing. “oh, I’m just blogging…have you seen this bigadda site….I think I’m geting the hang of this….”, he said, barely extricating himself from potential trouble. And the first blog he writes gets 500-plus comments in a day. Now he’s stuck.

8. A few after he joined the global cool, the phone rang at 3 am, and Big B was woken up by a Hollywood producer who told him that Hollywood was finally coming around and wanted to give Big B his big break in a new movie about environment. “What charater would I be playing”, asked Big B. “You will be a logger”, said the producer. Ever a student of the cinematic art, Big B has been blogging since that morning.

9. This is just another one of Big B’s farmland grabbing schemes. By luring farmers to write their email and postal addresses on his blog, he wants to grab even more farmland than what he already owns in Mumbai and New Delhi.

10. A few days ago, producer director and friend Ram Gopal Verma called and told Big B, that he wanted Big B as a lead character Blogabbar in his new story “Ram Gopal Verma Kee Blog”. Knowing how fertile and creative some of Verma’s ideas are and seeing the potential this particular theme had, Big B decided to run with the idea himself. Most of the characters have been finalized including the mehbooba dance item girl character named Techno Rati.

Apr

20

Almost 3 months ago, Seema Bano, a Mumbai woman, went to Bhabha hospital, a local government-run facility for prenatal care, and registered her name. Yesterday morning, Seema Bano went into labor, and rushed to the hospital’s delivery room. But she was turned away because mots of the doctors were on strike yesterday. She then caught a cab to go to an emergency room somewhere, and ended up giving birth in the taxi, almost in front of a crowd of curious onlookers. Luckily for her, it went alright.

The doctors at the government hospital had been on strike for last few days, trying to get their demands met from the medical directorate. So about 2000 of them had not shown for work last whole week. The strike has been called off today and things will soon get back to normal (whatever that is) soon.

The government authorities are now coming up with all sorts of excuses and explanations and lies to defend against the charge of neglecting a patient in need. Additional commissioner Gajbhiye put the blame on the woman, saying the professors and paramedical staff were on duty and conducted 15 deliveries on Saturday and the woman could not have been turned away. He said the woman and her husband must have drawn their own inferences and left the delivery room. But the taxi driver has supported the couple’s version of the events saying the woman crying because the striking doctors had chided her about not being aware of the strike. Plus the woman was turned away from the delivery room, not from outside the hospital.

Mumbai can consider itself lucky because this Sunday could have turned into an ethnic disaster today. Had anything untoward happened to Seema Bano, the city corporation would have had a much bigger problem on their hands today. They should consider themselves lucky and thank their stars that the woman and her baby are okay.

The local government website (municipal corporation homepage) showed absolutely no information or any indication that the governmet hospitals were on strike or what patients should do in case of emergency. Of course, that wouldn’t have helped a poor woman who wouldn’t know and probably doesn’t know what a website is. But that’s no excuse for the government not displaying the information on its website for those who might be able to access it. As of today, the website is still showing a picture of the honorable chief minister and a few outdated messages and public notices!

For now, the doctors are back on work, and any big tragedies have either been averted or gone unnoticed. Either way, Mumbai’s poor population stands screwed as ever by the inept government officials who are completely overwhelmed by tasks beyond their intellect.

Apr

19

You talkin to me? You talkin to me?

April 19, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Delivering the convocation address at the International Management Institute (IMI) in New Delhi, M. V. Kamath, an ICICI bank stalwart, told the audience that there wasn’t a better time to be born in India.

Just a few days ago, Bollywood stalwart Shah Rukh Khan expressed similar happy sentiments as well, saying that he had no regrets in his life.

In her first speech to the nation as its president, Mrs. Patil said that she was reminded of Tagore’s invocation about India awakening into that heaven of freedom where the mind was without fear and the head was held high.

I don’t want to blame these people for what they have said. I just think it’s coming across as rather comic when someone who has had a good life gets to give a talk to those who haven’t and then spits some words of wisdom that are condescending or sometimes just plain silly.

I mean, come on, when you have a 100 people guarding you, and you get to live in the president’s mansion, wouldn’t anyone’s mind be without fear and wouldn’t anyone’s head be held high? When you spend half your life dancing merrily on Bollywood sets and brushing your body against the most beautiful women in India, what, tell me what complaints could you have from life? And when you get lucky enough to be a big banker during this country’s explosive globalization decade, sure you must feel that the times are really good to be you right now.


Apr

18

Top 5 explanations for the president’s gesture

April 18, 2008 posted by indiatime | 14 Comments

pratibha_patil.jpgOne of President Pratibha Patil’s popular image is that of her waving a victory sign to her countrymen. I have often wondered what victory she is pondering about when she makes the V sign, and have a few guesses of my own as to what’s going on here. So here are my 5 explanations of what Mrs. Patil is doing in this picture:

1. This picture was taken in Brazil where Mrs. Patil was teaching the Brazilians how to play Cricket, especially the art of Indian spin bowling.

2. Mrs. Patil spoke before the Brazilian senate on Thursday, but the senate chamber was almost empty. This picture was taken when the Mrs. patil came out after the speech and the press asked her how many people attended her speech.

3. Brazil’s NRI women gathered around Mrs. Patil and asked her if she had kids. “Two”, she said.

4. In Sao Paulo, the Non-resident Indians mobbed the president for a photo-op. After about 30 minutes of unmanageable chaos, the president summoned her security. “Get me out of this mess in 2 minutes”, she ordered.

5. Brazilians, impressed by seeing the first woman president of India, asked her how she felt about being the most important woman in India. “…second most important…”, Mrs. Patil corrected them, flashing a mysterious Mona Lisa smile.

Apr

18

Kaho na copy hai - 2

April 18, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Symphony No. 40 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):


Part of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is said to have copied by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) into his 5th Symphony. But Salil Choudhary, a famous Bollywood composer made an Indian copy of the Symphony No. 40, indianizing it just enough to create a Bollywood classic for Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1961 film Chhaya, starring Sunil Dutt and Asha Parekh.

Apr

17

Cook dies after falling into hot sambar

April 17, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

An assistant cook in Madurai became the victim of a freak accident, when he fell into boiling hot sambar, the hot vegetable stew popularized by southern Indian cuisine.

While cooking for a marriage party, 40-year old Lakshmanan was passing by the huge pot of boiling sambar as other workers were moving the pot away from the fire. Lakshmanan tripped over a piece of log, lost his balance and fell into the pot. He was immediately pulled out and taken to the nearby hospital, but had already succumbed to his injuries.

Cooking accidents related to new brides are not that uncommon and usually, in India, news about a cooking accident would typically be a news about a bride burning, reported as an accident. Another recent case of a cooking accident was something that became a huge controversy in the state of Gujarat when a fire aboard a train killed dozens of pilgrims leading to one of the worst religious riots in the country. One of the government reports on the riots, concluded the cause of the fire to be a cooking accident aboard that train. Barely a month ago, a cook in Charleston, South Carolina died after he accidentally stabbed himself with a steak knife, while reflexly moving his hand away after accidentally burning it.

Surprizingly, Lakshmanan isn’t the first human being to die drowning in hot sambar. Three years ago, a Jansirani, 6-year old girl died after she fell into hot sambar meant for a midday school meal. And surprizingly, that incident, too, happened in the same state of Tamilnadu.

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