Column | Window Seat

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee

Mobile Phone

Around 60 per cent of Indians do not have access to safe and private toilets according to a report titled ‘It’s No Joke – State of the World’s Toilets’ by WaterAid in 2015. The report states that “If all 774 million people in India waiting for household toilets were made to stand in a line, the queue would stretch from Earth to the moon and beyond.”

Are we too poor to afford a toilet?

Probably not.

Consider this: as per the TAM Annual Universe Update - 2015, India now has over 167 million households (out of a total of 234 million) with television sets, of which over 161 million have access to Cable TV or Satellite TV, including 84 million households which are DTH subscribers. That roughly means over 85 crore people have television sets-over 80 per cent, almost double the people having access to toilet.

Consider mobile phones. By mid-2016, there are over 100 crore mobile sets in India. That means almost 90 per cent of our population either owns or has access to mobile phones.

Now you know, why sights like the one accompanying this column is so common place in India.

Luxmi Puja

Tonight, 15 Oct. Hindus, especially in Eastern states of India worship Luxmi, Goddess of Wealth. Dhenkanal in Odisha is known for its Luxmi Puja Festival. So is Kendrapara. 
At Dhenkanal the festive spirit is just taking off. The entire town now looks like a ‘this night marriage’ bride's house. The frantic preparation for decoration is on. The street vendors are unpacking their wares.

For the next ten days or so, Dhenkanal will dazzle with colourful gates and lights, hum with festivities, dance with several cultural programmes, gorge on all the street foods found across India and shop like there is no tomorrow. I am happy to be there.

Bob Dylan

Some media houses (including the NYT) have already raised questions on the Nobel committee’s decision to give the award for literature to the 'Tambourine Man’ — a maker of musical epics.

My student Rituraj said on his facebook ppost “It reminded me of Assam in 1993 when I was 14 and had yet to fully comprehend the unique gift Bhupen Hazarika was born with. That each line in his lyrics had the depth of an ocean (Xagor Xongomot and Xitore Xemeke Raati — if only somebody could translate them to take them to a wider world) and how he weaved his magic through sounds inspired from folk music (Sad that the wider world had only heard Dil Hoom Hoom Kore and not the original Buku Hom Hom Kore in which he created such achingly beautiful sounds before his voice began to take the centre stage). But many in Assam, including my own mother who was an unabashed fan and never missed a chance to proudly remind everyone of the friendship the great man shared with her father, were still bewildered when Hazarika was made the president of the 1993 Assam Sahitya Sabha. ‘How can they make a singer the head of a sahitya sabha? Should the writers, novelists not get that honour?’ These were the questions they asked back then. And now some eerily similar questions have been asked by arguably the biggest newspaper in the world!

 I feel, the Nobel Committee has done right by conferring Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize. Songs are basically poetry. It has an added functional feature: it could be sung. Therefore songs are more 'popular' than poetry. It does no way diminish the literary value of songs.

Consider One of the many classic songs of Bob Dylan.
Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

It is sheer poetry.

If your dil mange more of Dylan’s songs, surf this site:
http://edition.cnn.com/…/entertai…/dylan-songs-history-trnd/#

Tailpiece: Diabetics

Jahar to khamokha hi

badnam hai

Najar ghumake dekh lo

Es duniya me

Sakkar se marnewalo ki tadat hi

Besumar hai.

(Poison is bleamed. But look around, in the world more people die of sugar)

(Courtesy: Social Media forward)

***

15 Oct 2016

Mrinal Chatterjee, a journalist turned media academician lives on the valley of Paniohala Hills at Dhenkanal, Odisha. He also writes fiction. His latest book ‘Point by Point’, a collection of his columns published in Odia daily Khabar and Sambad Kalika is being released on August 2016.

He can be contacted at mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com

 This column appears regularly in www.orissadiary.com