NEW DELHI, October 9: This Diwali (the famous annual Indian festival of lights on October 19) will witness a clash of Bollywood Titans at the box office. Shah Rukh Khan will take on the Amitabh Bachchan-Govinda duo when his "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" is release on the same day (October 16) as the duo's much-awaited "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan."

Shah Rukh badly needs a box office hit here and now after his much-hyped and Mani Ratnam-directed "Dil Se" flopped misera- bly. So do Amitabh and Govinda. Amitabh's recent "Major Saab" and earlier "Mrityudaata" disappeared without a trace, as have Govinda's recent starrers such as "Banarsi Babu," "Maharaja," and "Achanak."

"Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" is a love triangle involving Shah Rukh with the doe-eyed Kajol and her cousin and fellow Bengali Tigress Rani ("Ghulam") Mukherjee of "Aati kya Khandala ?" fame. The music is hummable and the romantic songs are picturised at exotic locales.

"Bade Miyan Chote Miyan" is a modern day version of "Comedy of Errors." Two pairs of Amitabh and Govinda---cops and robbers-- bumble around in a style that's typical of David Dhawan, the director who has this habit of churning out block busters with boring regularity. To ensure this one's success, David has even roped in Madhuri Dixit, the Bollywood Diva with a mil- lion-dollar smile. She sings and dances with both Amitabh and Govinda in a memorable number, shot in Mauritius. It will be interesting to see who will emerge at the top in this Diwali-eve clash at the box office. If recent history of such clashes is any indication, audiences will lap up only one of the films while the other may bite the dust!

SOUTH AFRICA EYES CASH-RICH INDIAN TOURISTS
Indians travelling abroad are among the high-spending tourists in the whole world, according to the latest American Express global shopping monitor. The study covering 13 nationalities, including the British and Australians, said Indians are likely to splurge US$2,000 or more during a foreign trip. That puts them in the highest-spending category.

Countries like Singapore and Thailand have known this long before the American Express made this discovery. For several years now, they have been offering attractive packages to lure Indian tourists. Last year, over 225,000 Indians headed for Singapore while 135,000 went to Thailand. This year, at least 3.8 million Indians will have gone abroad on a holiday, and spent a staggering total of $7.6 billion!

Mauritius is now busy enticing the cash-rich Indian tourist. The deals being offered are such that a trip to Mauritius from Mumbai (Bombay)---including air fare, three-star hotel for a week with free airport transfers---works out cheaper by about 7,000 rupees than a similar trip to the Himalayan hill resort of Darjeeling!

South Africa is the latest to target the Indian tourist. Even though it's clearly an enchanting destination, it's been attracting barely 10,000 Indians every year. This is because of the exorbitant air fares. For instance, Johannesburg is only eight hours flying time away Mumbai, while New York is 24 hours away. Yet, the Mumbai-Johannesburg-Mumbai air fare is nearly 45,000 rupees, while a Mumbai-New York-New York ticket costs just Rs 27,000.

When I mentioned this to Dr Essop Pahad, deputy minister in the office South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, during a recent conversation, he appeared surprised. He said: "South African Airways may have its own reasons for such tariff rates. But we need to tap the Indian market for tourists. Maybe, we should introduce chartered flights to encourage many more Indians to visit South Africa."

POLLUTION TURNS DELHI INTO A KILLING FIELD
Experts are worried that pollution is fast turning Delhi into a killing field. Already notorious as one of the most polluted cities in the world, pollution-related diseases in India's capital have reached alarming proportions. Every day, over 3,000 metric tonnes of air pollutants are being emitted here.

According to Prof HP Garg, president of the Indian chapter of International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the incidence of respiratory diseases in this city is 12 times higher than the rest of the country. No wonder, so many school children are suffering from lung diseases, asthma and bronchitis. Noise- induced ailments have registered a sharp increase in the recent past.

Every day, Delhi generates over 300 metric tonnes of non- biodegradable plastic waste and 30 metric tonnes of medical waste, which is being disposed of alongwith domestic wastes in an unhygienic manner. Vehicular pollution accounts for 67 per cent of the total air pollution load in the city. Nearly 10,000 people die every year due to pollution in this city, Prof Garg estimates.

He warns that this metropolis of over 11 million people is close to attaining the dubious distinction of being the worst polluted city in the world. And the tragedy is that nobody seems to be doing anything to stop this.

Continued from yesterday

About the author E.C.T. Candappa was one of Sri Lanka's been feature writers in the mid-fifties till the seventies. He was an outstanding journalist at Lake House and distinguished himself as a reporter and feature writer. He is now domiciled in Australia but still very much interested in his country of origin. He visited Sri Lanka last year and interviewed many of the personalities featured in this book.

The Post and Telecommunication Department, the Railway, the Health Department and the Ports were honeycombed with rival unions. It weakened their bargaining power until the unions won the right to federate.

That was the beginning of the most irresponsible phase of the trade union movement, because large segments of the workforce went out on strike in ‘sympathy’ with one union striking merely because some member had been disciplined and quite often, justifiably.

The trade union movement was almost entirely leftist-oriented, some dominated by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, led by brilliant men, a great criminal lawyer, other lawyers and an esteemed economist. When this party broke up owing to the interminable ideological wrangles that characterise leftist parties, ramifications in the trade union movement also took place. Some trade unions were controlled by the Communists, and they too broke into the Moscow and Peking wings. Encouraged by these divisions the ruling Right party entered the trade union field much to the amusement and scorn of the ‘traditional’ unionists, the theoretical champions of the workers and peasants. But in a decade the right-wing control of the unions became quite significant and made great inroads into leftist strongholds. In two decades, the right-wing used to have the biggest May Day rallies and its extra-parliamentary arm, played the game according to Marxist rules and became adept at wrecking meetings and breaking strikes.

The leftists had themselves to blame for all of this for when they, for the first time, sat in the seats of power, three leftist union leaders holding the key posts of Finance, Transport and Lands in a coalition with the left-of-centre party, they signally failed the workers and indeed let them down in a spectacular manner by the notorious dropping of the Twenty One Demands to improve the lot of urban workers which they themselves had sponsored for several years.

They were so discredited that the traditional left had lost ground permanently. And what took its place was an extremely radical Marxist group comprising highly motivated, thoroughly honest and dedicated (to the point of death) young men and women with their leaders trained, guided and indirectly financed by Moscow. But that happened almost a decade later.

Nurses brought the first cup of tea in the mornings, cleared the urinals and bed pans, sponged the patients, prepared the operatees for the table, though there were male nurses for the men.

Morning came slanting in through the trees in life-giving rays still rosy-hued from the dawn. It was Miss Hapangama who came in on the first duty turn. Raj was awake when she came and he found her smile was like the sunrise. He even foolishly imagined the tea tasted better though it was more likely that someone else had prepared it.

"Good morning," she said, and there was an extra warmth in the way in which she said it. Remarkable how such an ordinary greeting could be said in so many different ways, he thought.

Raj reflected how a simple good morning could be uttered to voice almost the whole range of human relationships, moods and personalties. It was possible to express love, warmth, to put a subordinate in his place, to cringe before a superior by this salutation. Some people brought sunshine with them into offices, others dark, brooding clouds by the way they said it. Some people drew the greeting out like a melody, others went dropping abbreviated greetings, "Mornin’, mornin’ mornin’ all," like rapid fire elephant dung.

Raj was amused by the way his mind meandered down such interesting byways.

The day sped on. The routine of the hospital moved ponderously. Patients came, patients left, patients were given outdoor treatment, long queues snaked outside clinics. In some benched rows sat in torpid heat and waited and waited. People were born, people died, people wept and laughed, people sighed through loneliness, cried in pain, made friends, fell in love, found mates. Ah, what a microcosm of life, indeed, thought Raj, falling into his habitual reverie again.

Mr Jayasinghe, the school master and the village headman were prepared for their operations. There were two male nurses brought in from the Sri Lankan Airforce: service personnel were always used as black legs during strikes; (theirs not to question why) and they performed their functions with exceptional efficiency and dignity. None of Dracula’s coarse jokes with them. Raj was half envious of the three patients who were being prepared by these young men. One was a handsome man, lighter than most people, with translucent brown eyes, well-groomed wavy hair, while the other was more the Air Force prototype, handlebar moustache, crisp manner and all. It was easy to note that the former was from the village and the latter was a public school man.

Three new patients arrived to take the beds left vacant by the three who had left earlier in the day.

Those who had been there for just a week or so felt like veterans, in a position to help, give advice. They felt superior even at this level of misfortune.

One of the new patients was a dark, middle aged man introduced as Mr Santiago. From the very moment he came in, it was evident that he was a neurotic man. Restlessness hovered round him like flies around an unkempt head. His head, a big, bald, shiny shell-like dome, moved vigorously in all possible directions like a nervous crow expecting to be attacked from any side at any moment. He was accompanied by a young man, his older son but the man had evidently chosen to carry all four items of luggage himself; a large suitcase and three small travel bags, two of them slung over either shoulder.

Miss Gunawardene who accompanied him and showed him his bed, the bed that had been occupied by Mr Haniffa, asked him whether he would need such a large case, that there would be no space to keep it.

"I can keep it under the bed," he said.

"Aiyyo, can’t do that, no. Nothing allowed under beds," she told him.

Mr Santiago seemed quite distressed by this. Evidently he carried his treasures with him.

"It won’t be safe, also."

"It’s locked."

"In the night someone might take the whole bag."

The man gulped.

"Then what to do?"

"Keep only what you want for one day. Your visitors can bring whatever you want later."

He wasn’t happy. Evidently he did not trust it out of his sight. But as there seemed to be no alternative he told his son to take it away. Everything he needed was obviously in the smaller bags.

The other patient arrived in the afternoon and the two newcomers provided a study in contrasts.

The second man was about six feet tall if not a couple of inches more, and thus, had a slight stoop. He was about sixty years old and Raj recognised him instantly as an Assistant Superintendent of Police. He had often seen him on State occasions, riding a magnificent golden-brown horse. He still carried himself with great assurance.

He was introduced merely as Mr Paiva. He was a fair man, with a lightly tanned complexion and a trimmed mane of very white hair. He wore a brown safari suit and carried only a smart attache case in which he most likely carried a sarong, a change of underwear and toilet requisites.

He swiftly and quite unceremoniously changed into a white cotton tee-shirt and a crimson silk sarong. He lay down on the bed and started to read the morning paper.

The fact that he had chosen this second class paying ward indicated that he did not have means of his own. An honest cop, thought Raj.

He walked over to his bed and introduced himself. The police officer was immediately attentive. Raj had long since found that journalists, whether welcome or not, commanded instant attention. Nobody knew what "the buggers were up to."

Mr Paiva, it soon became clear, had journalistic ambitions of his own. Apparently he belonged to a family of considerable importance on whose branches had sprung members of the learned professions, one promising young journalist very much on his way up, a popular Member of Parliament, a legendary radio personality and dozens of in-bred nondescripts, still cherished members of the clan.

Mr Paiva was an extraordinary phenomenon. He was a cop who spoke softly, never used swear words, was well-versed in the history of the land, one who in a certain light might even have been mistaken for a scholar.

The average Sri Lankan policeman, at and below the level of sergeant, cringed before his superiors. He was an ill-educated, half-bred country bumpkin, the butt of magistrates’ scorn and public contempt. Their lack of knowledge of English was always used to good effect by the English-educated, public school snobs to put these policemen to shame. Known generally as "kossas," a shortened form for constables, they were the object of jokes at public gatherings. They wrought their revenge on the rural folk and on those who could not speak English, especially at big festivals where they were in charge of crowd control. Then they came into their own.

The sub-inspectors, just a little above the sergeants and with prospects of rising up to the level of an assistant superintendent of Police in the course of time, spat upon their subordinates and generally gave them hell. They bummed all other superiors for that was the fastest way up.

The inspectors, within sniffing distance of the ASP rank, were at the first rung which really commanded respect from the public. If a man had come that far he was something. He was drawn sometimes straight from the university, came from urban families, had attended some well-known public school and had also excelled in some sport, most often cricket.

At this level they could afford to throw a few Fs around in the hearing of their superiors, but obviously not at them. It was usually at the sub-inspectors and the constables but overwhelmingly at the members of the public who had the misfortune to meet them in their offices. There are some inimitable substitutes in Sinhala for the Anglo-Saxon eff which, however, are so commonly used that they are never taken literally or even as an insult.

The ASPs and SPs were the gentlemen policemen. They were mature men and they moved among the great of the land. They were sober men, in more senses than one. They could not afford to be the hard-drinking cops of the lower rungs. Even in the officers’ mess they only drank beer and held that well.

In the rarefied heights were the deputy inspectors general of Police and considering that they were potential IGs, they had to watch their political Ps and Qs. They were the diplomats of the service, the sahibs.

(c) E.C.T. Candappa

(Continued tomorrow)