O HO, and let blood and champagne flow!

O HO is here, and merry cheers to all the successful entrepreneurs and their brokers.

What is O HO? Outsourcing of human organs! It's here in India, and that is, well, almost official. And that's a sign that India is going to become rich!

Who doesn't want India to be rich? We all do, don't we? The poor want to be less poor, the middle class to climb a rung up the ladder, the rich want to become super-rich, the wealthy to become super wealthy, and so on, in quest of getting into lists that name the rarest of the rare and rank them in plutocratic order.

Why do foreign manufacturers come to India? Because India is poor and there are vast numbers of workers available here practically dirt-cheap, and foreign investors can make vast profits when they operate here, than if they stayed home to do their business, or ventured into countries that are not poor.

Ah, there you have the paradox, India has a chance of getting rich as mentioned above, precisely because we are riddled by continuing poverty, growing worse as population and illiteracy scale by the day higher and higher reaches.

Not only human labour, but human bodies too are cheap to buy here in India Think of a farmer burdened by overwhelming debt, or a fisherman whose earnings catapult perilously below unable to complete with foreign trawlers hauling in their loot in Indian waters. The noose, a bottle of pesticide, a quick jump on the path of a rushing train. Such solutions have been taken by many.

But better ones are at hand, according to the spate of recent reports, starting with the horrors of Nithari, nestling next to NOIDA, neighbouring our national capital, where the rich and powerful comfortably reside in palatial comfort.

At Nithari, young children were lured into a rich home and slaughtered for the sport and gain of the rich. But in many parts elsewhere in India, and maybe in the Nithari case too, financiers and organ-brokers network with select hospitals, to get poor people to part with their kidneys for promised payment of about Rs. 40,000 per kidney -- and even that amount is seldom paid. But the kidneys the poor have surgically been operated upon to part with are sold each for Rs. 40 lakhs each according to one estimate. Considering the vast number of cases of unvoluntary donors come to light so far, and the unnumbered many more that lie hidden, like the iceberg's mass beneath its visible tip, here we have probably the biggest success story yet to unfold for India, thanks to the tide of globalisation.

Money flows from rich countries into India, and if our population, particularly poor population, declines, what can be better for one and all?

The old story says that it rains alike on the rich and the poor, but more on the poor, because the rich have a smooth way of expropriating the poor's umbrellas. Now, not just umbrellas, but vital human organs as well, as the rain of wealth is prayed for by our nation.

Think.

Baiting the Bull and Nithari

Who is the Animal and who the Man?

It was Kaanum Pongal Day, when people go out to see one another and spread and share cheer. It was also the day after Maattu-p-Pongal, the day on which humans show that they love and care for the animals that they share this world with, particularly cattle without which agriculture would not have advanced to where it is today.

On a road parallel to the famed Marina of Chennai, vehicles were locked tail to bumper and crawling at slower than the pace of a snail with a terrible hang-over. This is what enabled me to see across to the left. And I wish I had not seen what I did. A magnificent bull, beautifully built with long horns, was being cruelly driven forth by a man in a grey shirt and dhoti. A day after Maattu-p-Pongal it was, remember.

Somebody had left a lot of cooked rice uneaten on the pavement, and the hungry bull bent its head low to eat a bit of it, the poor thing. The man behind the animal would have none of it. What did he care how hungry the poor bull was! He slashed sharply with his whip across its back, and when the poor animal still tried to grab a bite from the mound of rice somebody not wanting it had left behind, he twisted the bull’s tail hard. The bull grunted in helpless dismay, and moved on. Hunger was preferable to this torment.

Where was the man taking the bull and what was he going to earn from using it? How could barely a couple of minutes have affected his ends if he had let the bull eat the food it so grievously needed?

As I wondered so, my thoughts jumped to the recent horrendous killings of children and adolescents of Nithari in Noida. Had any thought even fleetingly crossed the minds of the killers -- of the suffering they were inflicting on their victims, or were they thinking only of what they stood to gain from their deeds?

The man on the pavement in Chennai, tormenting the hungry bull, seemed no different to me, from the horror inflicters of Noida who went about merrily killing human beings for their own pleasure and gain.

Think, and shudder to anticipate. Have a happy New Year as best as you may!

Do you remember, do you anticipate?

"I remember, I remember the house where I was born", do you?

If you don't, worry not. The words quoted must have come from someone with a super-memory. More probably, his parents had told him or her years later, "Look, this is where you were born in ...." So, what the person remembers is what was told to him, not the fact of the place of birth known personally at first hand.

Recently I happened to be, not where I’d been told I was born, but a place I personally remember I had visited and stayed in.

It was a house in a village in deep southern India, to which I had been taken to with my parents when I was coming up six years old. It was not a shining India then, nor incredible India as claimed now.

But it was a charming little place, with fields around, a rough earthen path to come into by, a couple of temples, and a variety of vegetables and fragrant flowers all grown within walking distance. A month back I went with my son and grandson, the latter coming up now six! Has the world changed? You bet it has!

Gone are the old paths and gardens. The roads are now paved and tarred. There was no electricity then; now wires criss-cross up above. Buses and lorries ply incessantly, raising dust and spreading smoke. Flowers and vegetables are taken to the nearest market, or a much farther one.

They have to be bought there and brought back to the village, if it can still be called that, what with everyone having a bike and cell-phone. The village has paid a price for turning modern. Instead of going to the river to bathe and fetching drinking water from it, residents get piped water supply, though erratically. Communication is not by word of mouth, or by post card. It is at the speed of light through the Internet.

To the surprise of all of us, we were able to locate the old house still, and down the narrow street there still stands the Perumal Temple, though in a sad dilapidated condition. From that temple, after the bell had pealed for evening worship, for the benefit of those who could not go to the shrine, the priest went house to house, distributing blessings and prasadam. We could not be sure if this practice still exists.

But it was a great feeling to see that old house, and sit on the pial (thinnai), meant for visitors and friends to gather together and chat. The box camera was about all that was known then. The picture you see alongside was taken digitally.

Comfort comes, but with it must charm go? Anticipate.