Supersized Kids - Don't Do What America Does

Originally published on Desicritics 1/11/09

I watched a group of school kids being shepherded by their teachers on a cultural outing to the San Diego Zoo. There were two children who were lean and athletic. Twenty others were, shall I say, fat! Many carried bottles of Coke or bags of chips as they walked by. Supersized kids abound. We are looking at a ticking time bomb regarding future health issues in this county. This time bomb is ticking for many other countries as well that imitate the American life style. It was not always this way.

Twenty years ago, one could travel to Chingmai, Bombay, Kandy, Pokhara or Karachi and be struck with the unique cultural identity of the inhabitants by observing their clothing, their head dress and what they ate. The streets used to be filled with vendors, small shops, and specialized market areas where only pots and pans were sold, where sweet merchants shoed the bees away from their displays of jalabees, where cloth merchants occupied small stalls filled with bolts of cloth that even a rajah would covet. The streets were filled with skinny people, muscular workers, slender women dressed in traditional costumes which did not reveal their curves. And the children ran here and there; ran, not waddled here and there. Traditional modes of transportation were available including horse drawn carriages, rickshaws, dandis, wildly decorated lorries, bikes and it seemed all the rest were walking on two feet.

Of course I am being nostalgic for the ‘good old days’ where what was ‘cool’ was what was Nepali or Thai. Are those days gone forever? We now see replicas of downtown Chicago or New York in Karachi and Mumbai? Must we see clothing that only was worn in Los Angeles in December now in January on the backs of practically every young man wandering the streets; blue jeans, T shirts, and those god-awful visor caps worn backwards just like in El Paso, all duly emblazoned with slogans that were rejects in San Diego? What has happened to the Burmese wrap around ‘longee’, to the elegant sari, to the loose fitting pajama pants and kamiz? “Where have all the chaplis gone, long time passing?”

In my childhood dormitory room there were twelve youngsters who slept together in the Woodstock hostel in Mussoorie. Eleven of us were skinny, always hungry, beanpoles. The twelfth was an unfortunate young man from Delhi, from a very wealthy family who sent him sweets, candies and biscuits every week. His nick-name was Motu, and he was a fat little guy who had a box under his bed with a lock on it. In it he hoarded his candy bars which he sneaked when we were all fast asleep. It was where he kept his shiny silver rupees which he used on Saturday to buy cakes from the box wallah. We coveted his stash, but, unfortunately gave him a hard time on the running track, on the basketball court or when football teams were selected; he was the last one chosen. He was there for a year and did not return. Children back then were cruel.

On the June 23rd. Time Magazine cover there is a picture of what could be Motu’s younger American brother. The cover shouts, OUR SUPER SIZED KIDS. “It’s not just genetics and diet. An in-depth look at how our lifestyle is creating a juvenile obesity epidemic – and the scoop on how to cure it.” The American way, (you know the WAY that the rest of the world copies so slavishly), has produced a generation of people who are overweight, fat, to use the forbidden three letter word. Not just the kids, adults, particularly those from poorer families, families that don’t read books, that get food stamps to survive, families that have marginal incomes, it is among these that the problem of being overweight is most severe. But young people from families of both the rich and the poor are suffering from the same problem, obesity. It is the American way. Fast, unhealthy foods.

I was on Newport Beach last week and did a survey of preteen kids that walked by our beach-house. Many were fat; most were eating or carrying food in their hands. Time’s report was correct; we have a real problem here! Supersized kids, super-fed kids.

We brought a variety of things to the beach house to share with the other four families that were together, you know, potluck. We brought whole grain cereals, and fruit, strawberries and lots of mangoes and peaches. Guess what? We seemed to be the only ones who ate them. The other food, the American stuff was more delicious. Chips, dips, cheeses, breads, deserts, hot dogs, Kentucky fried chicken, you name it we had it. (Ice cream cones were only consumed when we walked along the board walk.)

American children who are overweight are setting themselves up for a lifetime of problems, diabetes, high cholesterol, arthritis, heart problems and a host of other diseases related to adiposity. It is a national problem. Certainly, this aspect of our way of life should not be coveted, mimicked or adopted in ‘developing’ countries. Interestingly, the highest rates of obesity among adults and children are among those with high rates of poverty and even ‘hunger’. Poorer people, Mexican laborers, migrant workers, maids, are frequently people who live close to a financial margin that is, just getting by. Obesity and hunger go hand in hand in America the land of opportunity. Why? In America, prepared foods are the most easily available and very cheap. A greasy, double meat, and double cheese bacon burger fills a hungry stomach cheaply. But where is the subzi? Vegetables, if you see them are tossed salads, if you are lucky. White flour, grease, sugar makes things taste very good and these are the culprits. Where are the fibers and fruits? Most Americans love to drink. No, I don’t mean water. But with their meals a beer sounds good as does a Coke, Pepsi or Orange Juice. Small containers of sugared, fruit-flavored water are the first choice for most school children. Pure carbohydrates which give a quick lift and a fast let down. Fast foods, fast life, slow kids.

I read a very nice study by Stephanie Schulze, a Student Participant from North High School, Iowa entitled, “Education for Poverty: Information against Hunger and Obesity in India.” I was struck by the title, the topic and the research this student did about India, half way around the world. “Hunger and obesity can coexist because of a lack of nutritious food and a lack of education about healthy lifestyles. Hunger is prevalent in many countries, including India.” Her point of view is that education will be the answer to better living, better nutrition and less obesity in India.

The National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, India, has published studies that show that the “…primary deficiencies in the diet of people in India are mainly whole grain calories, vitamins and minerals.” Stephanie’s study goes on to say that one-fifth of the population in India is undernourished (21%) in spite of the food distribution programs that exist. The kinds of foods that are frequently distributed are high calorie foods, white rice and flour, sugars, and animal fats or hydrogenated vegetable fats. Not only is there a growing obesity problem among poorer Indians but among women. Studies show that Indian women are genetically more predisposed to gain weight around the middle and their posteriors. I didn’t notice that among the Bollywood dancers. Are they a different race?

It is not just the poor that are getting fat in India. “India is facing an obesity crisis among its newly wealthy middle class as millions of its rural poor still struggle for enough to eat. As the country becomes richer, many people are becoming fatter and, like Westerners, they are seeking medical help” (See Amelia Gentleman in Mumbia, “Observer”, Dec.4, 2005, “India’s newly rich battle with obesity.” Not only are Indians wearing blue jeans, they are getting gastric bypass operations that restricts the amount of food absorbed. Even men are …concerned about the male breast area and love handles.”

For the wealthy, Indian foods have always been heavy and rich. (silver covered) Stews, curries, ghee cooked breads and sweets are favorites. The newly affluent are concerned, like the Westerners in an epidemic weight gain problem. Now diet pills sell like hot cakes, and cosmetic surgeons are doing a good business in Mumbai.

But there is a vast divide between the newly affluent and the millions who struggle to feed themselves. A World Bank study said that 45 % of Indian children under five suffer from malnutrition; while a McDonald’s branch in Delhi is selling Chicken Maharajah Macs to the newly middle class. A beefless burger?

Amelia’s article reveals that an estimated 25 million Indians have diabetes and the numbers are growing. The medical profession and medical journalists need to become assertive in their statements to those who make laws, those who teach, and those who lead. Diseases like TB, malaria and dysentery can be treated with pills. Those who become fat, particularly our children face a lifetime of problems, the hardest of which is loosing the fat and eating more healthy diets. Motu, I wonder if you are still with us.

Stingers: Sores That Hardly Heal

Originally published on Desicritics 8/15/08

The pain was almost intolerable. Burning, searing fire that ran down the side of my face onto my neck made me shout and scrabble about like a mad man. I had been picking oranges from a tree in our central Nigerian compound when I disturbed a nest of wasps that had taken residence in that tree, not more than two feet above my head. Six of these warriors descended on me and began to sting, each one multiple times. Wasps do not commit suicide when they attack, they use their stingers again. Years later, in 1985 I was reading on the verandah of our Model Town home in Lahore and a bee landed on my neck. I brushed it aside, but not quick enough and got stung. It was not as painful as the wasps had been but there was one difference. It left its stinger behind, and in doing so had committed suicide, tearing out its guts as it was brushed aside. Pindi, my cook pulled the stinger out with a tweezers, warning me not to leave it in as it would create a bad sore and become infected. I had to hear the terrible stories of children in his village that had been stung and had suffered terribly because the parents did not know enough to get rid of the deadly stingers and not to leave them embedded.

I had been reading the Pakistan newspaper, Dawn, at the time and news about the very beginning of the defeats and withdrawals of the Soviet military forces from Afghanistan because of such effective rebel fighting, like “persistent wasps”. This withdrawal eventually culminated in 1989, supported by the many small victories of the Mujahideen in their fight against the cursed invaders, and the support given by the Americans to this effort of the guerrillas during Operation Cyclone, support by the supply of arms and weapons to the freedom fighters. Stingers! Yes, these were supplied by the CIA in the hundreds to the forces fighting the Soviets. Some sources say as many as two thousand stingers weregiven to the Mujahideen. After the withdrawal of the Russians there was a concern that the Taliban now had many of these weapons, Stingers, which, with their heat seeking devices had been lethal against Soviet helicopters and low-flying aircraft. Now American forces could become targets of these very weapons.

But, allied experts said, the battery systems which operated these weapons became useless after a few years. (But the technology to repair and put in new battery systems existed; in fact Pakistan now has its own version of the old Stinger) I love the title of the article by Ken Silverstein in the State Oct.2, 2001, “Stinger, Stingers, Who’s Got the Stingers?”  In that article he reviews the Reagan administration’s programs to arm the Mujahideen with Stingers to battle Soviet aircraft, he says that the Taliban now possess many of these weapons as do others to whom they were sold who ‘reverse-engineered’ these and made their own. Many worried about this because Islamic fundamentalist who loathed the West, about as much as they hated the Soviets, could possibly share these wonderful high tech weapons with, and think of this, with terrorist groups.

In 1986, Congress had approved the deal and CIA then shipped 300 Stingers to the rebels and the next year 700 more. The Stingers were now embedded, not only among the rebel forces, but according to some sources, Pakistan stock piled the Stingers it got, and some say, sold a few to the Chinese for sums unknown, who were clever and reverse-engineered them and produced their own, and since there was a hot market for these, reverse sold these to the ones who first had them. According to Silverstein’s article these weapons now were dispersed by the rebels to Tajikistan, Chechnya and Algeria. And, he says that the Pentagon approved the sale of Stingers to at least 21 countries, mostly NATO of course, such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. ( I love the word mostly. The selling of American weapons by Americans is a really big business, and this does not just include little Stingers, it includes weapons of pretty ‘mass destruction’ in the form of high tech aircraft and their missile systems. You know, keep the economy going.) The Soviets stole the design and made their own SAM-14 Gremlin, a virtual copy of the Stinger. Oh my! What a hornet’s nest!          

The CIA later, in its $65 million program, (It is as if they gave each Afghan citizen $2) offered $150,000 to $200,000 to the very ones they had supported by giving them these amazing weapons. This was more than production cost, but cheaper than having their planes shot down. This buy-back program resulted in the return of very few of the Stingers and the authorities were concerned that the Taliban, who later waged a bloody insurgency, had stockpiled these weapons. In fact, the coalition authorities had no idea where most of these lethal Stingers were. These were a hidden threat and are still a threat today, imbedded, festering Stingers. This was a sore spot. The buy-back flopped, by and large. If the Americans thought that Stingers were worth about Rupees 1,200,000 each, these must be pretty good things to keep around, just in case. And it is a well know fact that in bargain situations, when one party seems a bit desperate to buy something, it may be a good strategy to hold back a bit and wait and see if the buy back price will rise. Imagine getting the Stingers free and then later selling them back at highly inflated prices to the donor and making a few dealers rich in the process. Riches buys land, good land for growing poppies.

These embedded Stingers may still be around. India claimed that in a 1999 attack Muslim rebels in Kashmir used a Stinger to down a military aircraft. 

Kathy Gannon’s book I is for Infidel: From the Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan, 2005, Perseus Book Group, speaks about the war in Afghanistan as being “yesterday’s war”. “The wider world had done the most dangerous of things. It had stuffed this tiny country with massive amounts of weapons, including the precious Stingers, turned over the countryside to the volatile discordant mix of mujahadeen factions—and then walked away.”

In 2001, following the Sept.11 attack the U.S. launched “Operation Enduring Freedom”, a military campaign to destroy the Al-Qaeda terrorist camps inside Afghanistan, the very ones with whom they had had a common cause, you know, the Afghan Mujahideen and who now said thanks for the free Stingers. The Stingers were not like those of the wasps, burning, searing, but temporary. They were like those of bees, which left imbedded, make their way deep into the flesh while pumping venom all the while and leaving a festering sore that hardly heals.

In the 2008 political campaigns new political solutions are being suggested about Afghanistan, new efforts that will need to be made to subdue the rebels in their mountain dens in Afghanistan and along the border of Pakistan and hopefully get the really bad guy, bin Laden in the process. What a holy terror our soldiers will face once again when ‘Yesterday’s War’, thanks Kathy, becomes Today’s Military Operation in which, on their turf, using our weapons, our Stingers, they, the bad guys, face off against us, defending their holy land with religious Islamic zeal, cursing oaths of vengeance. 

Not to worry folks. Dear Wikipedia gives us the answers, “The US inventory contains 13,400 missiles. The total cost of the program is $7,281,000,000.” Let’s see, if we divided this by the population of Afghanistan which is about 33 million people it could set up the entire population with a nest egg for small business development that would put it on its economic feet, peacefully. Imagine what that money could do to build schools for Afghani boys and girls. I forgot; inventory means that the money has already been spent by U.S. tax payers to engineer and manufacture these arms which now exist and are waiting for new batteries and need to be used.

That is a lot of bees to contend with, a pretty big hive. Let the Taliban be warned, our hive is bigger than yours. The pain will be intolerable, a real pain in the neck! But for whom?

Genocidal Indigenous Forces: Teaching Kids War Games

Originally published on Desicritics 8/8/08

Kids love it! They get to ride in Humvees or Black Hawk Helicopters and hold weapons and shoot at the evil ones, the genocidal indigenous forces. The American soldiers and uniforms are real but the enemy they shoot at is sort of vague, but they are the genocidal forces that will kill you unless you kill them. Terrorists! 

Joseph De Avila’s article, War Games: Army Lures Civilians by Letting them Play Soldier (The Wall Street Journal, July 28th, 2008) describes the new war games that the army has developed as a recruitment device. They present a new way “…to relate to the public, they also present an opportunity to shape their tastes,” says Col Casey Wardynski from West Point. Some $9 million have been spent to develop these war games as recruitment devices. And, they are realistic. When you shoot the bad guys they fall down dead. Try not to hit the friendlies; that’s a no, no. How exciting to shoot at the ‘genocidal indigenous forces.” 

In the Old Testament it says, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Prov.22.6) They knew their stuff back then, long before Christ, even if they didn’t have military psychologists to tell them how to motivate youngsters. Somehow, what you learn as a kid, particularly about modeling adult behavior, seems to have some effect on them in later years. Amazing. The US Army sure got it right. The way to get young people to enlist as soldiers is to make them feel it, put a gun in their hands and go bang, bang. That’s powerful stuff. A bit violent, perhaps, but hardly any different from what the kids watch on T V. Oh, I almost forgot, soldiers are trained to kill the enemy. 

Of course teenagers also play the Army game and if they are over seventeen, they soon get a call from recruiters with ideas about incentive packages and the like, and it seems to work. You see, the terrorists are out there, but you can’t really see them. Sure there was 911, but even Bush got it wrong, where the terrorists came from, but look, if they are ‘genocidal indigenous forces’ that are radical and insurgent, go for it. The war on terror is frustrating because the enemy doesn’t play fair, doesn’t show his head, just sneaks in and explodes a bomb or two and kills a bunch of innocent people and then later in the press, some strange group takes happy credit for it. The “genocidal indigenous group” called the faithful warriors of the almighty was responsible for the latest killings. Sound familiar? It happened in India not too long ago, bomb blasts, and revenge killings for past killing of the ‘faithful’. The old Pathan ethic, the pushtunwali, still is very much alive, revenge, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But the problem with bomb blasts and suicidal killing of others is that so many innocent die or are maimed.

The US Army recruitment efforts, targeting kids and young people to enlist, is not a new idea. One of the earliest schemes to use children to foster the state’s programs occurred in 1948. The Stalinist apparatchiks established a children’s train and recruited hundreds of children to run a train with the intent of creating a cadre of enthusiastic rail workers for the state, and to “instill political obedience in youth.” By the way that same train system has been modernized and is back in service in Hungary and, yes, the kids run it. To be admitted to this training program requires high admission standards but the pay is great, and the added bonus, they get a good dose of “old style discipline.” See Daniel Michaels’ article, ‘Is this any Way to Run a Railroad, In Hungary, They Put Kids to Work.” (The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 8, 2008.) 

But wait, it is not only the western world that is targeting kids with subtle messages to gain their support. Have you heard about Islamic Superheroes who battle injustice in America? The new series is called The 99 and is a whole series of comic books which feature hero characters that each; personify the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God. Interestingly enough, the comic book series is doing well in the Islamic world after the creator of the series, Naif Al-Mutuwa guaranteed that great respect would be given to Islamic religious beliefs, which resulted in a major Islamic bank supporting his project. Imagine, “Jabbar the Powerful” or “Noora the Light” fighting the, now get this, the evil indigenous forces of evil in America. An illuminating review of this by Camille Agon, called Islamic Superheroes Going Global was reported in Time on 8/7/2008. 

Yes, bring them up in the way they should go and when they become adults they will not depart from it. Ancient wisdom is being applied in modern situations by many different groups, and the system works.

I wonder how youth are trained and motivated to support and even become Taliban, Al Qaeda? War games in which vague figures are dressed like Americans which can be shot at in video games? Hardly, no. Madrassas are sometimes the answer! The difference is dramatic. In the American War Games, they shape their tastes: the youth sit in a Black Hawk Helicopter, safe and secure and kill genocidal insurgent militant forces from a distance and don’t even see the blood and guts, just hear the roar and the thunder of the explosions. How different from the youths, say from the NWFP of Pakistan, whose religious beliefs are so honed that they will put explosives on their own bodies; beautiful young men and women, and blow themselves up for the sake of the Cause. That is real commitment based on very strong faith and belief that the rewards in the next life will be great and eternal. With US Army war games, they “shape their tastes” now for active recruitment: for the faithful, religious training could lead to personal suicide shaping their eternity in the great bye and bye based on a combined set of motivators, hate for the infidel Zionists and a passionate love for Paradise.

The beauty of the American system is that it is supported NOW, not by eternity, now, with lots of high tech killing machines and lots of computers that make striking the target an almost certainty with a feeling of anonymity as the trigger is pulled. Training, simulated killing of the enemy, the evil ones and that is sort of fun; and you even get to keep score while you are at it. Play soldier. What a strange concept. There is nothing playful about killing another human being, whoever she is. Certainly, for the suicide bomber, play does not enter the picture, nor is there anonymity involved, it is highly personal and by pulling the trigger the ‘game’ is over. It is not a game but a choice for death based on a belief in life everlasting with a knowledge that as you die you take a hundred of the enemy with you, you know the accursed American infidels who are in Afghanistan and Iraq. Madrassas may get a bad rap because a few of them do train youngsters to do violence for a greater cause and even teach them how to handle weapons and explosives. The US Army should get a bad rap for developing a recruitment tool that is insidiously and philosophically awful; motivating young people to become killers with a game. But, oh well, as long as it is for a good cause, you know, obliterating ‘them-thar’ genocidal indigenous forces. We all know who those guys are, right?

We have a generation of youth whose ‘tastes have been shaped’ by violence on television, daily doses of it. Even as a pre-school youth, long before television was invented, I remember running around playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, a toy gun in my hand going bang-bang, you’re an Indian and you are dead. I had no idea who Indians were, nor even where the Punjab was located. Later it was water pistols and now I see they have graduated to guns that shoot blobs of dye so that you can record a ‘kill’ with colorful evidence. Yes, mea culpa. I loved guns. I was an excellent marksman and a pretty good shikar and shot many helpless critters in India, Nepal, Africa and America. Jim Corbett was my idol. Yes, my tastes were shaped, and I think the war games will be effective recruitment tools for the Army since many American youths have a taste already established. Is that called appetite? Yes I think the Islamic Superheroes comic books will be a big success and create the zeal for justice that the authors’ seek.

My huge problem now is that I no longer believe that the world’s problems can be solved by violence and by killing each other. In Luke 3 vs.14 it says, “Do violence to no man.” I must have missed that verse earlier on in my youth. Strange, how selective our perception is based on age, taste, experience and belief. Consider this; “Not one blow, O Madhusudan! will I strike to gain the rule of all Three Worlds; then, how much less to seize an earthly kingdom! Killing these must breed but anguish, Krishna!” Out of context, assuredly, but not out of mind.

We maintain the right to bear arms in America, and this is a deeply held liberty based on the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Most American homes have a gun or two. I checked on this and came up with the figure of 215 million guns in homes in 1999 and that since that time about 60 million more have been added. (You see, there are many gun collectors who have many guns.) Imagine a country with 250 million guns in the hands of its citizens. Yes, I can see that the U S army has developed a recruitment winner with its new war games, especially since they have connected shooting and killing with patriotism and getting the bad guys, the evil genocidal indigenous forces that live over there somewhere and speak weird languages and scribble stuff from right to left and set the price of gas way too high. Let them play soldier. A satirical cartoon would be redundant in an atmosphere in which comic book cartoon superheroes bespeak the reality of international nuclear control, not mere guns.

The Opium Eaters - The Roads Between

Originally published on Desicritics 7/16/08

We are the opium eaters; we are the consumers of the 6,500 tons of opium produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan with an export value, according to the United Nations, of about $3.1 billion. While we fought the war against terror and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, against the Taliban, the war against opium growing and trafficking was neglected, went soft. A virulent opium trade has flourished in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2004, a time when the Taliban had all but eradicated poppy growing. Now, ninety percent of the world’s opium is produced in the region of southern Afghanistan and border areas of northern Pakistan. But the world continues to have a tremendous need for opium products to be used for legitimate medical purposes. India is a producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical market, however, the farmers are paid so little to grow approved amounts of opium that they have also learned how to subvert the system and receive ten times the amount for their crops on the illegal market. There is a shortage of raw opium for medical uses, while the illegal trafficking of opium continues. Efforts to eradicate opium in the fields as it is grown have been ineffective. Graft, bribery and corrupt political forces have protected the growers; only a tiny proportion of the entire opium 2007 crop grown was destroyed. The fields that were destroyed with weed cutters were frequently those of the poor peasant who did not have the support of a landlord or a war lord. Aerial spraying of poppy fields has been prevented by those in high authority in Afghanistan. Supply and demand, that is, the need we, a drug culture, express for opium, is what moves the trade of this narcotic, and move it does, by the hundreds of metric tons annually. 

Amazingly, America through its international clout exerts controls in many other sovereign territories it avoided many years ago. Remember The Monroe Doctrine? What is that? What we may remember is President T. Roosevelt’s statement, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Now we speak loudly, explosively, and carry huge economic sticks and massive military ones but the opium trade goes on, seemingly ignoring the international sanctions, the military presence of the United States, and in the past of England, in Afghanistan, and their tanks rumbling on paths right through the middle of the bright and beautiful fields of poppies growing in Kandahar or in Nangahar along the Baluchistan border where the greatest increases in opium production have occurred.

De Quincey’s famous book, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1822, is a classic rendition of one who used opium and who experienced the “...extreme euphoria initially,” as well as the hellish results of addiction in the later stages, “...the darkness and nightmares.” In the late eighteen hundreds, at the time of the Monroe Doctrine which spoke of American autonomy and non-involvement in European wars, and in the early nineteen hundreds, opium was consumed widely and openly in Europe, England and the United States. It could be purchased in the local chemist shops or drug stores as we call them; women took laudanum drops in a glass of water for the ‘vapors’ or other ailments. We were a nation of opium ‘eaters’, however, in terms of actual volume, more opium is now consumed in various forms illegally in the United States than during that early period. 

“The State Department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) plays a key role in carrying out the President’s National Drug Control Strategy by leading the development and implementation of U.S. International drug control efforts. INL manages a diverse range of counter-narcotics programs in 150 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and Europe. These bilateral, regional and global initiatives aim to fight the cultivation of drug crops at their source, disrupt the trafficking of drugs and precursor chemicals, and help build host-nation law enforcement capacity.”

(Nancy J. Powell, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, July 12, 2005, Washington D.C.) 

The efforts of the US government to get a handle on the drug and opium problem, continues world-wide. Since more than ninety percent of the opium of the world is grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan, special efforts are made there to slow down opium growing, because its sale, transport and processing, provide the very ones we are fighting in our world against terror with the financial means to carry out their activities. Taliban and Al Qaeda receive some of their financial backing from such drug trafficking. Corrupt officials at every level have their hands out for bribes to allow the growth of the opium poppy, the transport of opium and processing of it, and this trade is growing.

A blind eye. It seems there are many along the way when it comes to opium. Such blindness pays off very well. So well in fact, that the small business man has learned that huge profits can be made by becoming part of the purchase and sale of opium; much like we buy stocks, they buy shares in its purchase, transport and sale. Many of these actors are not huge investors by international standards. Sixty thousand rupees may seem a vast sum to many Pakistanis, however, $6000 may not be a huge investment in other parts of the world. But it is small investors like this who make it all happen, make the opium flow freely across international borders to Iran and on to Europe and the States. We in the western world are the eventual buyers which make it all possible. We are the consumers, the infidel opium eaters.

I talked with a few opium growers in NWFP, the small-fry types, and asked if this was not an activity proscribed by their religion. They were surprised at my question, “Of course not, the growing, sale and dealing with opium is business, a way for a man to make a living by growing a crop.” They were amazed at my placing an immoral connotation on the activity. But when it comes to talking about foreigners in their country who are trying to manipulate them, to destroy them if they do their business, then the strong ‘moral and immoral’ words fly, shaitan, words of condemnation and frustration, oaths calling on Allah to destroy the infidel invaders. Americans, by Nancy Powell’s own words, are involved in 150 countries carrying out anti-narcotic activities; involved in an equal number of military programs, carrying out our nation’s efforts to control and fight against our enemies, terrorism and anti-democratic activity. “While undermining the narcotics industry through successful eradication and interdiction, we are also helping extend democracy and strengthen security...by building democratic institutions that provide security and justice.” (Counter-narcotics Programs, 5/23/2007)

The small man in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt or Iran looks at this monster and sees the big infidel bully that is pushing around, getting its way in the world through the power of money and the might of armed force. Hatred! Why? Hatred is focused against this force that is such a powerful agent for change; hatred is the strong emotional undercurrent to undermine it. Drugs, opium and the power of it on the international market has provided the little man, the student of truth, the Taliban, with tools to undermine our world-wide efforts of domination, albeit extending democracy. The more we buy opium, the stronger their cause. Our appetite for opium means the Taliban will prosper. Their strength is surprising. President Karzai was their target for assassination in April of 2008. He did not die, but others around him did. Puppets are hated as vehemently as the one who holds the strings. Puppets, whether they be leaders ‘nominated’ by America in Iraq, leaders who are supported in Israel, or even those wearing the green robes of aristocracy in Afghanistan are looked at in distaste; but it is really the string pullers who are the target of hatred, the demon puppet master.

Our threats in Jan. 2008 to go after ‘them’ in Pakistan from our already compromised ‘puppet’ base in Afghanistan drew surprisingly strong words from President Musharraf during his hay day. If I may paraphrase it, “Don’t mess with your troops and anti-terrorist programs on Pakistani soil. The terrain is terribly rough out there, you won’t like it.” (Italics mine) We are not used to having ‘sovereign nations’ react like this, particularly Islamic nations who accept our foreign aid to the tune of a billion dollars of American taxpayer money in AID, a great deal of which is used for their military purposes. 

The little guys, thousands of them, support the ‘opium eaters’ through their moving opium on the back roads from Afghanistan, through Pakistan and to the markets beyond. Opium is the livelihood of thousands of farmers, thousands of merchants and truck drivers, thousands of shippers. These actors on a small stage in Pakistan say their lines in the play on drugs with halting voices, but keep the play alive.

I have walked on small paths in the opium fields on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and talked to the farmers. They make so little from their sales of raw opium; it is those who buy it and move it that reap the huge financial benefits. I have talked to the farmers about trying alternative crops; they smile and say, yes, yes, sahib. Stretching out in front of me were vast acres of white and red blossoms, another harvest of opium getting ready for the opium eaters. I have on my computer screen a wonderful picture of Afghani men harvesting opium, standing in their fields as British and American tanks rumble by on the dirt roads, oblivious to the harvesting activity around them, and carefully staying on the roads between the poppy fields. That picture is the metaphor for opium eaters.

Bagheera, By Any Other Name: My Black Panther

Originall published on Desicritics

Kipling’s Jungle Book was my first introduction to secret India. How I fantasized as a child about Bhalu, Sher Khan and the Black Panther, the palang or as it was called in the novel, Bagheera. When the movie first came out, I was out for ninety minutes in another secret world, trying to put my imagined version of the stories together with what I had read. Somehow, it was Bagheera the Indian leopard that caught my fancy more than all the others. It slinked and slithered, it disappeared into the jungle at night like a phantom; its grating call sent shivers down my spine.

Yesterday, I was reading stories of Jim Corbett, the legendary man-eating tiger killer. I found it strange that at the exact time I was writing the initial draft of this article that Jason Bellows, on April 29th. 2008 was engaged in writing something just as interesting about the same topic, A Large-Hearted Gentleman, a wonderful account of Jim Corbett and how he killed man-eating tigers. That gentleman lived between 1874 and 1955 and his stories were even more avidly read by me than those of Kipling and by many of us who owned guns and were addicted to shikar. (the hunt)

There is a zoo in Lahore where we went as a family to see the animals mentioned by Kipling. As a child I was saddened by it, and many decades later, as an adult I was appalled. I found the Indian Leopard cage and stared into the eyes of a creature that had been in its tiny cement and steel barred box for a decade, its fur dull, its muscles flaccid from lack of use. I stood a long time and stared into its eyes, the only part of it that seemed alive as it lay on a cement slab. I had read that if you stare into the eyes of a leopard or tiger, it will be unable to maintain your gaze and look away. I stared now waiting for it to look away. It stared at me, it too, it too having read about this phenomenon and did not look away, waiting for me to tire. I spoke. “Hello leopard. What secret thoughts are you thinking? Do you remember your home in the jungle of the Nepal terrai?” Now it looked away and yawned, showing its long yellowed canines. It rolled over and dismissed me. It had been born in the zoo and had no idea about what I was referring to. Its language skills were limited to the taunts the Lahore kids threw at it.

The road from the Woodstock Hostie, as the senior boys’ hostel was called, to the chukkar near the top of the hill in Mussoorie, was a fair hike of about half an hour. The short cuts through the jungle were narrow paths that wound around the hillside. These were often used by the charcoal carriers and other paharis, our name for the hill people who lived in secluded villages on this part of the Himalayan foothills. These were the paths I took on my thrice weekly excursions to visit at the house of my girlfriend and future wife, who, it seemed, lived as far away from my hostie as was possible and still be part of our ex-patriot community. The trip there was in the daylight which was for me a naturalist’s paradise. Along the trails in the rainy season, the leeches, feeling the vibration of my footsteps would stand up like tiny antennae and wave about waiting for a foot to land nearby onto which they could cling. On the bushes there were always insects; rhinoceros beetles, stags with their fearsome pinschers and June Bugs with iridescent green backs. As I walked I would collect one or another of these and move along. These paths were a favorite place for lungurs, the agile and often aggressive hairy monkeys that swung on their long arms and stared down at me from the branches of trees covered with hanging moss. If I was very lucky I might see Chikor Partridge scurry away or a slinking Kaleej Pheasant.

The trip back, usually at night when it was pitch dark was another world experience. My flashlight picked up the shiny eyes of many creatures as I strode along, or often loping on the downward slopes. Usually the batteries in my torch were fairly new, or at least sufficiently charged to produce an orange glow. I used the torch sparingly because it cost money to buy batteries. I walked along briskly in the semi-darkness, the waxing moon giving some light to make out the road. Something moved in the path in front of me and I stopped in my tracks, my heart pounding. The light of my torch reflected back from two eyes of a leopard standing in the path facing me. Behind it, down on the edge of the kud was something black. I stood stock still and I held the light steady for what seemed to me like an eternity. It turned its head away from the glare, then once again stared at me and made a coughing, snarling noise like a saw cutting into hard timber. My hand shook, my knees felt like putty and I had a hard time holding my bowels. It was not fear, rather terror that came over me, alone on a jungle trail with a leopard twenty feet away, at night, with no gun. I blinked my eyes and when I looked again it was gone. I shone the light around and there was no reflection, no sound, only a slight odor of feline urine.

I did not go forward. I backed up slowly for fifty feet and then walked uphill for half a mile and took a major dirt road that led to the Teri road, a rather long way to get home, but hopefully safer than a path where leopards roamed. I was almost home. I could see the light of the boarding halls below me and I relaxed. At that moment a pack of jackals, not more than twenty feet from me near the road began to howl. Somehow this gave speed to my feet as I raced the rest of the way back. This has been a secret until now and one I have kept for many, many decades. Imagine, admitting to my girlfriend about my terror. Imagine telling about a girl friend. Imagine how surprised the leopard was too, who was at the time with his dark-haired girlfriend.

The wife of one of the British officers was walking her small dog on the chukkar not far from where I had met my leopard and stared into its eyes. She told her story rather properly and matter-of-factly. “I was walking the dog and a leopard came out of the bushes at the side of the road and in one motion, snatched Bonnie, holding her by the neck and pulled her away from me into the bushes. Neither the dog nor the leopard made a sound. One moment it was there, the next it was gone!” When asked if she had been terrified she replied, “No, not at all. I was furious that it just took Bonnie like that in broad daylight. I did not have time to be frightened. It was a horribly beautiful animal, I must say, black as coal.”

Two other dogs were taken near homes in the area that year. The men in many households now oiled up their guns, bought new batteries for their torches and vowed that if they saw the culprit that they would shoot the bugger on site. That only lasted until the rainy season, because guns rusted easily if they got soaking wet, and who in their right mind would wander about in a pouring rain anyway? The leopards moved down toward Dehra Dun where the rain was not so severe and there were ample numbers of village dogs to eat.

I have waited until now to insert a snippet of Jim Corbett’s tale. “He continued briskly along the sand, hoping to make it to the hilltop before the tigress finished her buffalo feast. As he squeezed past a large boulder which blocked most of the riverbed, something in his peripheral vision gave him pause: something orange and black, with predator’s eyes, poised behind the boulder ready to pounce. He… set the rifle butt against his hip, and managed to fire a singe shot. For a moment the tiger was unaffected, and stayed coiled on the verge of springing out. Then her muscles slacked and her head came down to rest on her forepaws. The bullet had entered the back of her neck, and plunged through to her heart. … the Chowgrath Tigress was indeed dead.” The tiger is more charismatic than the slinking leopard, and almost always takes the headlines, except in this case. I find Corbett’s prose a bit too dramatic. “Poised, ready to pounce.” Come on.

Charismatic mega-vertebrates such as the elephant, the Sumatran rhino, gaur and tigers have captured the attention of animal lovers in India. Leopards somehow have not had good press agents. They are seldom mentioned except when a goat, cow or dog is killed and then once again the men pick up their guns and make vows of vengeance. But the Indian Leopard is seldom seen now. Rapid human population expansion has forced the leopard to move away into more remote jungle areas. The Indian leopard may still number in the tens of thousands, however, with a human population of a billion and growing, the leopard may endure in its last stronghold in the Himalayas. The leopard, as opposed to the more fearsome and grand tiger, will, I believe continue to remain in its secret places for quiet some time. Children may see the leopard in a zoo, glance at its spotted fur, or if lucky into its eyes for a moment and then pass on to see the elephants or the Bengal Tiger with its sagging stomach.

Leopard fixation is incurable. It is caught at an early age when a young child is highly vulnerable to the environmental and psychological influences of the mysterious jungles of India. I speak from experience. Long before I met the leopard on the pathway I used to put my hand into its mouth. What? Yes. You see my father, a surgeon, had acquired a leopard skin with a mounted head, claws and all, in a moment of a rajah’s generosity. I think it was not really a rajah, rather a Wali, a ruler in Swat whose wife he had treated most circumspectly, examining her through a sheet with a hole in it with the husband in attendance. He prescribed, she took the medicine, got better and the Wali was most grateful. He had a leopard skin with the head mounted, glass eyes, and its mouth wide open. He gave it to my father, who had, without thinking, admired it. The skin was a lovely thing to look at. That leopard skin got a special spot in our living room. My mother did not like it, but we children did. When we did prayers, puja, or namaz, depending on our choice that day, on the carpet, I would stretch out my hand and stroke its head and put my hand in its gaping mouth and feel its long teeth. Incurable. It was my favorite place to read, to lie back with my head against the leopard’s stuffed head, stretched out on the soft spotted fur.

While I attended boarding school I heard many a tale about leopards. One was about a black leopard, or as it was then called, a black panther. These were the most feared and stories about them were very special. They are very hard to see at night as they slink about. One tale that was told in the dormitory as we lay in the dark on our beds was interesting that I feel I can now share.

The Black Panther had made its kill the night before. The goat was not totally consumed so the great white hunter, the intrepid sahib bahadur, decided to sit up for it in a natural machan, which was no more than a comfortable spot on a tree branch with the trunk against his back. He got his three-cell flash light ready, mounted on the side of the shot gun with adhesive tape. The first hour went by and nothing materialized, but, he later admitted, that he became rather apprehensive and a bit fearful sitting there alone. The full moon came out and bathed the area in a silvery light so wonderful he could see for hundreds of feet down the trail leading to the place where the dead goat was tied to a low tree. He was nodding and almost falling asleep when he saw a motion far, far down the path. His adrenaline kicked in and his heart beat wildly. There, about one hundred feet down the road, heading directly toward him was the Black Panther. It walked slowly, almost languorsly, its long tail held high, moving from side to side as it came down the road. The hunter slowly raised his gun, getting ready to fire when the black monster came within thirty yards. His mouth was dry and he fought back the urge to shoot, wanting the kala baghera to be close enough for an easy kill. He was almost ready to fire when it meowed and rolled in the dirt directly in front of him. He was so startled that he fired and crushed, dalit, obliterated, the black house cat only a few feet in front of him, literally blowing it away with the full force of the LG cartridge from his twelve bore shot gun. (USA: OO Buck twelve gauge) Oh, there were many other stories told about leopards, but none of them about the black panther.

The tiger is endangered in India, only a few thousand now remain in reserves. The leopard, however, is doing very well in its extensive range along the entire length of the Himalayas as well as in a variety of riverine, jungle locations. It is sometimes, but seldom observed in India’s wildlife reserves in Kanha, Kaziranga, Periya, Ranthambore and Sariska. It is highly adaptable, nocturnal and diurnal and usually moves away when disturbed as it is a secretive animal. It is a loner except during its mating season. Unlike the tiger, it seldom takes down huge herbivores like the sambar, nil guy or gaur, rather, preys on the spotted deer, kakar, monkeys, peafowl and a variety of smaller mammals. It is the ultimate stealth hunter, relying on its skill to approach its prey so closely that a more prolonged high speed chase is usually not needed, which is the case with the Cheetah. Interestingly, the leopard has a traditional Indian name from which the name Cheetah may have been derived, mistakenly. The leopard was called by another name, chita, in ‘ancient’ times, not the chita of suttee; that is quite another story.

Pakistani and Indian Madrasas - A Fine Balance?

Originally published on Desicritics
Have the political environments of madrasas in two different countries affected their programs and curricula? Has the development of madrasas in India, under a secular constitution since Partition, created religious education programs which have a different emphasis and intent from those across the border in Pakistan where these have developed under an Islamic state?

Recent news reports from Pakistan about madrasas appear to center on whether these schools are supporting Islamic militancy and training young people to become involved with the Taliban. News reports from India about madrasas hint at another concern, how to remain viable institutions whose primary mission is to provide religious training to support the growth of Islam as a word religion within a secular political/social environment which allows for and protects any expression of religious belief for its citizens.

My first personal experience as an adult with Islamic religious schools began in 1984 in Sukkur, Pakistan. During the early morning hours, after the first call to prayer, my colleague, a professional sociologist working with the Department of Agriculture, were invited to an Islamic school for young boys. The school was not far from the Indus River near the famous Mir Ma’Sum Sha Minaret Minaret.

I will call the teacher Alhaji Mohammed. He sat on a mat in the shade under a mango tree. Twenty children sat in front of him on the hard-packed ground. Alhaji Mohammed held a long narrow cane in his right hand and appeared to be half asleep. The boys were reciting, pointing to the Arabic words written out on their chalk boards, Surah 4, vs. 74. Let those who fight in the way of Allah… sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward. (Translation into English by Mohammed M. Picthall, 1953, Karachi.)

All the voices chanted in unison, pointing to the words with their index fingers, their bodies swaying backwards and forwards. One child, a skinny little lad, began to fall asleep and his finger sagged in front of his slate, his eye lids drooped. The long slender cane held in Alhaji’s hand snaked forward and tapped the hand smartly. The boy awakened, and now crying, pointed to the Arabic words. The children next to him raised their voices and sang out the words more vigorously, reinvigorated by the tears. In the background the second call to prayer of the day sounded from the short minaret.

Alhaji Mohammed rose to his feet and with much flourish, adjusted his loose flowing robe, set his embroidered Quetta style hat on his head and walked across the street, followed by the children. At the mosque they all began the ritual washings, hands, feet, face and ears. The teacher set the example and the boys all followed suit. He took a handful of water and slurped it into his mouth, swished the water around, turned and spat onto the soil behind him. The boys rinsed their mouths and spat.

After namaz the group dispersed. I asked Alhaji to tell me about the lesson the boys were learning. “What is the meaning of the Surah the boys were learning today?” I asked in Urdu.

He turned to face me abruptly, (his orange colored beard signaling that he had made the haj to Mecca) and frowning, repeated the Surah in Arabic. Then feeling satisfied, he said, “That’s it.”

I persisted. “Tell me in Urdu what the meaning is so I can understand what the boys were repeating and memorizing.”

“It only has real meaning in Arabic, the language of Allah. To say the holy words of the Prophet, peace be unto Him, in another language, removes the meaning from the Surah. The boys learn the Arabic. After some years of learning, they feel and understand and believe the meaning when their Arabic improves.”

“Do they get classes in the Arabic language as well, so the meaning of the Arabic words they are reading makes sense to them?”

“Yes. At the end of the day when it is cool, I teach them some Arabic. I will teach them the word fight today. Then tomorrow when we once again repeat the Surah they will understand the meaning. First the holy words in Arabic, not in Urdu, then later the meaning.” He now smiled and I got the feeling that I was being dismissed.

Growing up in northern India near the North West Frontier Province, was my first introduction to Islamic schools, most of which were connected to mosques. Entering such places required that we take off our sandals. The stone floors against our bare feet was pleasant as we walked about, led proudly by the Imam. The stone steps leading up to the top of the high minaret of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore were cool against our bare feet. From the top we could see the huge open area where thousands came to pray. In one shaded corner a group of boys and their teacher were having a lesson from the Koran. Their high voices carried up to us as they repeated a surah, over and over again, learning by rote the verse of that day, in Arabic.

I had not heard the word madrasas until after September 11, 2001. Then the frequency of its usage made it a household word and a concern for those involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Madrasas came into focus when it became known that several Al Qaeda members and Taliban leaders had developed their rather radical political views at madrasas in Pakistan. Words such as Islamic extremism, militancy and terrorism and Taliban were frequently used in conjunction with madrasas. I learned that Taliban meant student in Arabic. Then we heard that one such school in Pakistan near the Afghan border had been bombed by American forces, and there were pictures of Pakistanis holding up signs in protest against George Bush and America. (A fictional account of such a bombing appeared in my novel One Way to Pakistan) That madrasa was located in the Bajaur tribal region. Reports in the USA indicated that 80 militants were killed in the 2006 air strike. The reaction in Pakistan to this military violation of their territory was immediate and strong. Anti-American feelings ran high. They also ran high yesterday when it was reported that Pakistani people were killed in a raid on the Afghanistan border with Pakistan. Such incidents feed the fervor against one who is called the Great Satan.

In Pakistan, most madrasas offer free education to their students. Thus, many poor families are eager to send their sons to such schools, which in large measure, are supported by alms-giving, known in Arabic as zakat. In some instances, little is provided to the students, who are told to go and beg to help support themselves through the gifts of others who consider giving alms to such children a good deed.

A small number of madrasas are for girls, although I have never personally seen one. I recently read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson which commented about Islamic religious schools, madrasas, and their financial support from foreign sources. The approach taken by Mortenson through his efforts to develop 55 schools in Pakistan, primarily for girls, was a means to fight extremism and terrorism. I found the first part of his book inspiring. To educate young women gives them a window on the world through literacy, writing and dealing with numbers, it provides them with improved means for keeping healthy and rearing children and this is a most positive effort toward promoting peace, one school, one girl at a time.

In Pakistan there are over 12,000 madrasas. (See the CRS Report for Congress,”Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background” by Christopher Blanchard, Jan.23, 2008)

“In an economy that is marked by extreme poverty and underdevelopment, costs associated with Pakistan’s cash-strapped public education system have led some Pakistanis to turn to madrasas for free education, room and board.”

This report states that some madrasas have been used as incubators for violent extremism. Some foreign students were enrolled in Pakistani madrasas. In 2006 there was a report that Pakistani authorities would deport 700 of the remaining foreign students unless they got permission from their own governments to remain in Pakistan with appropriate visas. Many of the 12,000 madrasas in Pakistan teach only Islamic studies. In September of 2007, according to the CRS report mentioned, “…many Pakistani madrasas have taught extremist doctrine in support of terrorism.” The curriculum, if it is only Islamic in nature, does not provide students with contemporary knowledge about the world outside Pakistan, about its neighboring state India from which Pakistan emerged after partition or other nearby non-Islamic countries. One teacher in such a school said, “The aim of our religion is to reach god.” The CRS report quoted Samuel Haq who said, “We only impart religious education here. The students later take up arms on their own.”

Though it is matter of conjecture of what is actually taught by religious teachers in Pakistani madrasas, since none of us will sit and hear what the teachers teach, their own statements are that these schools impart religious information only. This is of sufficient concern to many in the world at large. A curriculum which teaches that there is only one right way and this is based on religious belief, which by its nature is exclusive of other ways of thought, of other belief systems, exclusive of others who live out their lives in the greater modern world, this fundamental religious stance can produce graduates whose world and life view is conservative and focused on intolerance. Reportedly, some Pakistani madrasas teach subjects other than religion. Some teach computers and local languages, however, their mainstay is religious training. Some madrasas in other countries are seeking government approval for awarding bachelor and master’s degrees in Islamic religious studies, or as one stated, Islamic Religious Science.

If the truth can only be learned in Arabic from religious documents such as the Koran and the madrasas’ curricula rejects secular information based on scientific enquiry and holds it to be suspect or dangerous, it is logical that such students will form highly conservative social understandings, including negative consideration and respect for other religions or ideas such as the emancipation of women. Militancy, extremism, crusades and/or jihad frequently emerge from rigid belief systems.

In Pakistan, twelve thousand madrasas are teaching youngsters in schools which have funding from other Islamic states, including Iran. As hundreds of young men leave these schools each year, they merge into society at large and seek work and life causes with religious zeal and philosophical underpinnings that, from this writer’s point of view, bodes ill for their participation in the development and support for a liberal, secular and democratic society. Madrasas are proliferating in many Muslim states, including Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and nearby neighbor, India, but there are differences, both in curricula and emphasis.

There has been a long debate about madrasas in India going as far back as 1947. The volume of literature about this is large and experts from within the madrasas system, as well as social critics about the system, have and are continuing to speak out about the need for reform of the madrasas’ curriculum. Such dialogue, which emerges out of Indian religious diversity, is healthy and keeps alive the issues. Dialogue, forces conservative elements to constantly review their programs and their teaching approaches in order to bring these more in line with modern secular-political needs which are in support of freedom of religion as expressed in the Indian Constitution. Madrasas enjoy this freedom to express their religious beliefs and teach these in Indian madrasas.

R. Upadhyay’s article published in Feb. 2003 presents an interesting review which leans toward reform and change, "Madrasa Education in India"
Is it to sustain medieval attitude among Muslims? “A recent circular of Government of India to keep watch on the anti-national activities of madrasas raised many eyebrows in the country. But if we look back to the historical developments of madrasas in India this Islamic system of education has all along been playing a prominent role in keeping the movement of Muslim separatism alive in this country. The British also suspected them. Contrary to it the Post-colonial India for reason best known gave special constitutional privilege for the autonomy of madrasas. But the manner in which the madrasas promote medieval attitude among the Indian Muslims at the cost of secular education needs to be checked. In fact, orthodoxy, religious conservatism and obsession to medieval identity remained the main focus of Madrasa education in India.

Muzaffar Alam’s article, Modernization of Madrasas in India, The Hindu , April 23, 2002 reviews how various changes are being made to bring madrasas up to modern standards, yet still remaining true to their basic principles of training youth in the fundamentals of their faith. This same debate is well presented in the book Bastions of Believers: Madrasas and Islamic Education in India by Yogender Sikand, New Delhi, Penguin 2005. The book utilizes a historical research perspective to describe the growth of this institution and summarizes what the stated intents of madrasas have been.

The debate centers on the words modern and liberal vs. medieval and radically conservative. One writer speaks of new trends in madrasas as being efforts to teach the youth Islamic ‘science’, which made me smile, thinking of the Christian Science Church movement in the United States which is a distinct form of religious fundamentalism with an approach that is far from what is globally considered to be scientific. (However, to be fair, the Latin, scio, from which our word science came, simply means, knowledge in the fullest sense of the word.) But still, the terms science and religion seem to grate when put side by side in this context. Some writers debate whether Islam and democracy are compatible with each other. One thing is certain, the madrasa movement is growing and moving south through India to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. It is a grass roots movement supported and fed by funds from Iran, Saudi Arabia and local donations.

How many young men and women are being taught in Indian madrasas? That seems to be a hard question to answer. Many such schools are not registered and what is taught in them is not monitored nor approved by government, thus counting them or defining what they are is a difficult task. One source suggests that there are 1.5 million children and young adults in Indian madrasas. Another source says there are between 25,000 and 40,000 madrasas scattered across India. (Consider that in Pakistan there may be only 12,000 of them.) I found the blog by Yoginder Sikand, “Islam and Democracy: Lessons from the Indian Muslim” interesting. He debates whether or not Islam and democracy are compatible with each other. Sikand presents Ali Naswi’s point of view this way.

In contrast to Muslim liberals, and echoing the views of the Islamists, he insisted on the need for an Islamic order in order to implement the laws of God. However, he stood apart from most Islamists by arguing that the Islamic political order could come about in India only in some remotely distant future. Rather than directly struggling for it at the present, he believed that the Muslims of the country should accept the secular and democratic Indian state as it was and focus their energies in trying to build what he saw as a truly Islamic society, on the basis of which alone could an ideal Islamic political order come into being.

Madrasas in Pakistan emerged from within an Islamic religious state are not a mirror image of those in India. There is a point of view that many of these madrasas are hotbeds for the training of radical religious elements and this is expressed almost daily in Pakistan newspapers. Many of the Indian madrasas have expanded their curriculum to include a wider number of what could possibly be termed secular subjects, however, all are taught with the intent of understanding and giving meaning to the teachings of Islam. What could be called the ‘core curriculum’ is the Holy Koran. Hopefully, madrasas in India will be influenced by the various religions around them, by the secular political nature of India and by the great philosophical and religious tolerance that embodies Hinduism.

With the growth of dynamic and expansive secular democracy in many parts of the world there appears to be a concomitant growth of more dynamic and radical religious teaching opposing the ‘heretical secularism’ and its perceived dangers. The ‘Great Satan’, America and its war with Afghanistan and Iraq have polarized religious attitudes and have created responses of hatred for the ‘enemy of Islam’. Madrasas are one of the few places that young people can be taught to uphold and struggle, make a jihad against secularism. Though the word jihad has a few meanings, one is certainly to stand up and fight in a cause for the truth as perceived by Islamists. Ali Naswi’s point of view is to wait, and this differs from many in Pakistan. I can still hear Alhaji Mohammed’s voice. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him shall We bestow a vast reward.

Marriage, Loving Style

Originally published 5/27/08 on Desicritics
I found out yesterday that a good friend of mine, with whom I sing in the Unitarian Universalist Choir, had a mixed marriage. “My wife is Jewish” he said. I frowned, not having put two and two together. Later when I spoke to her she told me that among Jews, to marry a gentile was generally prohibited and that for women particularly, it was important to marry within the Jewish community.

Interracial marriages are looked down upon by many world-wide communities yet today; they are looked down upon or ‘prohibited’ because of religious beliefs, because of caste, economic reasons or social pressure. Even in the good ole’ USA such prejudices still exist. The United States Supreme Court’s 1967 decision struck down anti-miscegenation laws: the law changed previous prohibitions. Even so, it took Alabama’s Supreme Court until the year 2000 to finally change its anti-miscegenation laws. Imagine this, until eight years ago; it was a felony to marry a person of a different race! We are talking here about race, not caste, not difference in religious beliefs. But these are often intertwined, as in the case with my friend, who has a ‘Jewish’ wife, which implies both religion and ethnicity. Is there some parallel to the caste system?

We celebrated the anniversary of the 1967 Loving Day two weeks ago by having lunch with our friends. We raised our glasses and toasted Mildred Loving. Who in the world is she? Mildred Loving was the black woman who got this all started here in America. She was a black woman who lived in Virginia and fell in love with a white man and married him. One night, according to a New York Times News Service Report, quoted by The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 11, 2008,

“Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed in their modest house in Central Point the morning of July11, 1958, five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bed-room and shined flashlights in their eyes. A threatening voice demanded, ‘Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?’ Mrs. Loving answered, ‘I’m his wife.’”

The marriage certificate was produced but the sheriff responded that a certificate from Washington D.C. was not valid under Virginia law between people of different races; an inter-racial marriage performed outside of Virginia was not valid. The couple later pleaded guilty to having violated a Virginia law called the “Racial Integrity Act.” Their one-year prison sentence would be suspended, they were told, if they left the state and did not come back to Virginia, together, for 25 years!

Marriage, Loving style, had been hit hard. The man who sentenced them, a certain Judge Leon Bazile, said something like, if God had meant for blacks, coloreds and whites to mix it up, he would not have placed them on different continents in the first place. He told them that as long as they lived they would be known as felons. Good gracious!

In 1963 Mrs. Loving decided to act; she could no longer stand being ostracized. The civil-rights movement was in full swing and according to some reports she wrote to Attorney General Robert R. Kennedy for help. She was referred to the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the rest is history. Eventually their having pleaded guilty to the Virginia anti-miscegenation law was set aside, struck down. The Supreme Court’s 1967 decision struck down anti-miscegenation laws, but Southern states were slow to change their constitutions. It took Alabama until the year 2000 to change. Now all children born to cross-race marriages have inheritance rights and their heirs can receive death benefits. Men and women equally. Imagine that.
All of the above hits very close to home. As a teenage lad living in Ludhiana, in the Punjab of India, I played tennis with one of the medical students in the Women’s Medical College. Between serves and doubles matches, my sister being my partner, I met and talked to a young Christian Indian woman who was in her first year of medical school. Let us call her Lavina. We spoke in Urdu of many things, piar, mohabbat, ishq; perhaps sweet things like laddus and gulab jamuns. She laughed at my jokes in English. We continued to play tennis, eventually playing singles. (See my novel, Lalla and Lavina, Stories of Indian Women, Authorhouse Press) It was very evident that my father was upset with me when representatives of her family came to discuss marriage arrangements. Upset is a mild word. He was furious, asking, “What have you done?” No marriage was arranged. I did speak in Urdu to her father and apologized for having played tennis and for talking with her alone. I was forbidden to play tennis. I never saw her again. Writing that still causes me pain.

My father had frequently talked to me about what he called ‘The American Creed.’ But thinking about my father’s strong negative attitude toward the possibility of his son being involved, and heaven forbid, marrying an Indian woman, still hurts deeply. The famous author, Gunnar Myrdal (1944) who wrote, “An American Dilemma” presents a scholarly treatise on this very subject.

At the center of Myrdal's work in An American Dilemma was his postulate that political and social interaction in the United States is shaped by an "American Creed.” This creed emphasizes the ideals of liberty, equality, justice, and fair treatment of all people. Myrdal claims that it is the "American Creed" that keeps the diverse melting pot of the United States together. It is the common belief in this creed that enable all people — white, black, rich, poor, male, female, and foreign immigrants alike — with a common cause and are thus able to co-exist as one nation. Wikipedia. Co-exist yes, but marry?

I am very aware of the thousands of marriages between Indian women and British men during the period of the British Raj. I am aware of the history of Anglo-Indians in India. I had many good friends and teachers who were Anglo-Indians and have broken bread with them in their homes. And yes, I am very aware of the meaning of raising children who are of mixed blood in a culture that labels this miscegenation and isolates them. How else can I say it? If you visit my web site you will see a picture of me with my loving wife of 33 years, Dr. Lily Chu, an ethnic Chinese, and our wonderful, ‘mixed blood’ son.

We are about to embark on a historic period in American history as we prepare to select candidates for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Barack Obama, if he is elected, would become a world leader, a key figure in current global history, and imagine, he is a man of ‘mixed blood’, his mother a white, and his father a black from Africa. We have come a long way since 1967! The road has not been easy. Marriage, Loving style, will seldom occur elsewhere, globally. Social value systems, caste, cultural styles, legal systems will prohibit it. But I am very glad that Mrs. Mildred Loving wrote to Robert F. Kennedy and started a whole new cultural era, one that is exciting to live and love in. A toast to Mildred Loving!

Patang Fever - For the Love Of Kites

Originally published 5/15/08 on Desicritics
Two annas! I clutched the strangely shaped squared cupro-nickel coin in my hand as I stared at the display. Noab Din our cook held my other hand and pointed first at one, then another marvel, each a different color of paper, each slightly different depending on the whims of the kite makers.
I glanced up when I heard the rattling snarl of paper being buffeted by the breeze. Above my head, four kites flew; their strings invisible to me. It seemed that each had a life of its own swooping and descending with dizzying speed only to magically turn and climb into the sky again. Then one kite, a large green one, no longer flew but fell with swooping, sickening arches and caught by the wind was carried away. Under it a horde of children ran, shouting and pushing each other, eager to be the one to catch the falling treasure. I watched as the kite neared the earth, only to be snared by electric lines. Now it hung sadly out of the reach of the children beneath it. Instead of trying to retrieve it they picked up stones and pebbles and threw them at the paper, shouting each time a stone tore the green gauze.

"I will take the red and white one." I pointed at a medium-sized beauty. "I will need a spool and lots of line covered with ground glass." I looked confident."Watch out. Wait until you learn to fly well before you try the glass covered line. You can easily cut your fingers, and then I will be in trouble with mem-sahib."

Childhood memories make us what we are.

What greater joy is there than to stand on the roof of your house and hold a line tied to a soaring kite above you? Basant! What joy. The breeze was good on this January day and it took my kite joyfully aloft. I let out the string too quickly and the kite twirled and sagged, then plummeted toward the earth. As soon as I stopped the reel from spinning the kite again reared upward. It was an early lesson; one can't rush joy and love. Now I let out the string more slowly, hoping to get my kite higher than all my neighbors.

Patrus, my friend stood next to me giving instructions. "Not so high. Others will not like it and cut you down."

Hardly had he spoken when a white, small kite moved toward mine and crossed my string and in a flash my kite was floundering in the sky.

"Bo kata! Patang kat gayi!" The children screamed and began their chase after my descending shame.

I stood dejectedly holding limp string and a spool almost empty. I began to wind up the string, feeling violated, cheated of my glory. "I will buy another and get glass on my string. I will come back and cut that white one down!" There were tears in my eyes.

Basant! Spring in the Punjab. Kite glory in Lahore and kite madness in Taxila.

Maryam Arif's comments in Pakistan Paindabad, (March 26, 2007) "Kat Gayi, Kat Gayi, Patang Kat Gayi" were wonderful to read. I can see her standing on a Lahore rooftop in the evening, holding a kite string and reveling in the joy of being shoulder to shoulder with the male members of her household experiencing the fun of the Basant festival. She asks, "Who owns this festival?" Good question. Perhaps before Partition such a question would never be asked, because Lahore, the city of delights was in and of India. But what about now?

Where did all this high flying madness begin? Who has the ownership rights? Is this a purely Punjabi exercise? Did India fly kites before 1947? Why are conservative Islamists in Pakistan opposed to the fun of kite flying to celebrate the coming of spring?

It was not madness that began it. There was a General Han Hsin in the Han Dynasty in China who, according to written records, flew a kite in 200 B.C. They had lots of bamboo, string and of course, fine silk cloth that was light and strong. Written records show that this Chinese cultural phenomenon was adopted by others over a period of time and kite flying, particularly in the spring was a custom that migrated to Japan, Korea, Burma and eventually to India.

India really picked up on it and incorporated kite flying during Basant into their Hindu religious festivals. Basant was a time to honor deities, wear yellow clothing, eat yellow colored candies and fly kites that would soar high, lift spirits, give even the common poor man a chance to celebrate and have sky fun for a few paisa. Any kind of tamasha was a mechanism to forget for a brief time the drudgery, boredom and pain of living in poverty. Fun! How else could it be put?
"Fun is wrong!" Can you hear the mullahs shouting in Lahore about banning Basant, banning the flying of kites which leads one away from the important and serious considerations of service to Allah, leading Muslims away to the new-found secular freedoms of pagan and Hindu origin, leading young women to hold a string on a kite in Lahore and laugh and shout for joy?

There is a lovely expression we used to use in Michigan. "Oh, go fly a kite!" When a person became too heavy, too dogmatic and would not listen to reason, we would say it. Very interesting! The very act of flying a kite moves one into a new realm, away from the seriousness of one's own arguments and philosophy to feel the tug on the string, hear the rattle of paper as the wind buffets the surface of the kite. There is another use of the expression of kite flying. "Come fly a kite with me!" This was written on a greeting card that lovers could send to each other. The image is beautiful, uplifting and wonderfully sensual, two kites flying side by side, each responding to the winds of love, uncontrollable invisible currents that move their colorful displays.

Sixteen Flies on a Rope

Priginally published 5/14/08 on Desicritics



The white canvas tent was stained the color of mud and clay on its bottom. Touches of greasy hands had left their marks on the fabric which in turn had become magnets for dust. A capricious Nepali child, with charcoal in hand, had drawn two pictures at the back of the tent, perhaps of the owners of it, as the men depicted were too tall and all had strange hats on their heads. But the tent, when pitched under a tall Deodar Cedar looked inviting and spoke of restfulness, an escape from weary muscles, aching joints, a place into which one crawled for quietness, sleep, a place that smelled of often used sleeping bags and socks, almost stiff from use, stuffed into the bottoms that waited for the next hot springs to be washed and pounded a grey-clean.



The tent’s ropes were anchored to stakes pounded into the soil, three on each side, one in the front and one in the back. During the day, the front rope was untied and hung loose, making entry to the tent easier, or if perchance a small tree grew nearby, it could be tied up high enough so that the occupants did not need to bend down to enter. This rope was a light brown color, not from dye but from the stains of a hundred hand-holds, hands that had just finished eating the leg of a Monal Pheasant, hands that minutes earlier had held the blood stained skinning blades now lying on the small folding table with bird specimens in various stages of being skinned and stuffed, hands that had held ink pens that leaked onto fingers that wrote the day’s diary, ‘Jumuson-Nepal, September, 1949.’



These ropes, still wet from the light rain during the night, now sagged from the weight of their wetness, but when the sun shone bright and brilliantly, would once again shrink and resume their tightness.



It was on this rope, tied to a small tree, that visitors arrived daily. When the men had left for a daily hike or hunting expedition to the lake near Pokhara, sparrows landed on the rope, a mother sparrow and a fledgling baby bird nearly the size of its mother, which sat and begged with a wide open yellow mouth to be fed; then waited for her return. Sitting fat bellied on the rope it defecated a white sticky dung ball which stuck to the cord. A small green caterpillar hanging from a gossamer thread swayed back and forth in the breeze until its perigee from some distant branch, brought it to the rope where it rested momentarily, then arched its green slender body and began the long, inching journey the length of the rope all the way to the tent, where it hesitated, then dropped again on a silken thread to be carried away by the breeze to another juicier landing place. The lizard, not more than two inches long, crawled out onto the tent rope and did two little push ups, then sat motionless waiting for flies.



In spite of the open front flaps of the tent the temperature inside the tent became hot and humid and all the odors and aromas on bags, clothing and old boots filled the tent with fetid air. I looked up from my sleeping bag, now half out of the tent, resting on the ground in the shade, and studied the rope above my head. Sixteen flies were now the owners of the fiber highway, and from where I lay in the partial shade they looked like dark knots until one or another flew off, or until without foreplay or warning two mated for a frenzied moment and then remained in a coital bind that held them together until the female flew off, carrying her conjugal partner on her back to land on the tent flap some six feet away. Sixteen! I counted them again and now noted that all sat horizontally on the rope, all facing away from the tent. Some compulsion moved them to wash their ‘hands’ and then stroke their eyes and heads with their front feet as if ridding them of some unseen taint. All were common house flies except for one which was larger, a brilliant shiny blue-green. When this green bot rose in flight, its wings hummed and sang a tune known well to all who use the great out-of-doors as their toilet; all who remember with amazement that these ‘shit flies’, invisible, until fecal deposits graced the floor of the jungle, arrived in aggressive numbers, intent on some ghoulish quest. Fifteen; and one preening green blue-bot fly.



A shadow of a flying vulture passed across the rope and in an instant the flies were gone, leaving the rope alone and lonely, but not for long. The breeze caught the opening of the tent and the sides billowed, pulling the rope taught each time air blew into the tent. The roof canvas now flapped and snapped and dust swirled near the entrance, filling my eyes and blowing sand into my sleeping bag so that I was forced to turn away with eyes tightly closed. Then as abruptly as the wind arrived, it left and there was a still, an almost breathless waiting until the next current found its way to my campsite. A bright red dragonfly, the largest I had ever seen, landed on the tent rope, less than three feet from my eyes. I watched it sitting motionlessly, noticed that its head was in constant motion, its compound eyes staring, first one way, then another, watching for flies. The sun reflected from its wings, yet shone through the diaphanous lace throwing a glow onto the rope beneath it as if igniting the fibers in pink splendor. I blinked and the creature was gone, for an instant, to return with a green fly in its mouth, held with two tiny legs as it consumed its prey. A vulture circled high and the pink dragon was gone with a flip of its wings.



The tent-rope now looked black against the white snows of Annapurna behind it. The black line sliced the massif in two, as if a willful child had drawn a dark crayon across the picture in a travel book. Annapurna! From where I lay it stretched for some thirty miles and soared into the azure sky with its six major peaks, its summit reaching 26,538 feet, the tenth highest mountain in the world. ( Annapurna, in Sanskrit, Goddess of the Harvests; in Hinduism a symbol of fertility and a manifestation, an avatar of Durga.) The late afternoon sun shone against the snow-covered surface, now a slight orange- saffron tint. High, near its summit, strong winds blew a snow plume, like the plumed crest of a snowy egret which wavered and swirled in the late sunset.



I could hear their voices now. “Kaseru. How has the Barkat Zaman* sahib done today? Did you feed him?” Dr. Carl Taylor, the expedition’s physician, strolled into the clearing and headed toward the tent. “Harold. How’s it going, old man?” He reached down to feel my forehead and withdrew his hand, his face slightly frowning. “Did you take the medications I set out for you?”



“Yes,” I replied. “There were sixteen of them on the rope. The blue one got eaten. The baby shit on the line.” The words came tumbling out all at once.



Later I could hear the other members of the Nepal Ornithological Expedition talking as they ate their meal that Kaseru had prepared.



“No. It is really a mystery. Fever’s still at 104 degrees. Dangerously high. Until we get down to the plains, to Butwal or later in Ludhiana and have blood work done, I can only guess. Hemorrhagic fever, perhaps carried by the rats in the place we stayed in Jumosum, or typhus, or some strange parasitic disease.” Doctor Carl sipped the hot coffee in his mug. “Poor chap, hallucinating again. Rectal bleeding. All he could say this evening was, ‘Today about sixteen of them on a rope and the green one was eaten.’ Poor chap.”



“Well,” said Dr. Robert Fleming, the expedition leader, “we may just have to have him carried out on a litter; Pokhara to Tansing, then on to Butwal. That is going to be some feat, carrying him over the Himalayas in a litter.”

Lip Service: The Smile Train

Originally published 5/2/08 in Desicritics
I have only watched the reconstruction surgery for a cleft palate and cleft lip twice, and it remains in my memory as if these occurred just yesterday. During my first time to watch I stood quietly, in awe, with some trepidation, observing my father do reconstructive surgery in the hospital in Taxila, India. I was 7 years old. The year was 1939. My father, Dr. Stuart Bergsma, a surgeon, performed the operation on a lad, about my own age, whose teeth appeared between incomplete upper lips. The surgeon's knife, as it parted the flesh was almost more than I could bear to watch. In an hour or less, the boy's lips were pulled together with sutures and his swollen flesh looked to me like a grotesque Halloween mask. I tried not to look away. He came to see my father two months later and brought some marigold flowers and said thank you. His lips were united, his smile, a mile wide, one of toothsome happiness!

It was a clear day in the Himalayas. White clouds scudded across the sky. The Kali Gandak Valley of Nepal was a marvel to behold, the river water, from where I stood, looked like a silver band of mercury pouring down between black rocks. I stood next to a rock wall as another surgeon prepared to operate. This was the second time I saw this same operation. I was older, and this time I assisted with the operation in a limited way, having scrubbed, by handing the instruments to the doctor as required. The surgeon was Dr. Carl Taylor, a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church. The operating table; a rough rock wall, suited the purpose well because of its height. A mat had been placed on it and the patient was lying on his back looking up. Villagers crowded nearby to see this amazing event. There was much talking and singing, but when the doctor picked up the scalpel to make the first incision the crown became silent. The town was called Tatopani, a small Himalayan village between Tansing and the border of Nepal near Tibet.

In order to receive the services of Dr. Taylor, the youth, about my own age of eighteen, had hiked with us for six days, as Dr. Taylor and other members of the National Geographic Ornithological Expedition hunted for rare birds. On Sunday, our day of rest, Dr. Taylor performed surgery and held a day-clinic for others who had hiked along behind us.
It is hard to imagine what such an operation does to the life of those who were handicapped with such a noticeable birth defect, what it did for their future employment, education and even prospects of marriage. Many birth defects are fairly well hidden, particularly those which are the result of our genes, height, a tendency to get diabetes, obesity, heart problems and tone deafness. With such problems we face the world, literally. Our face sees other faces and immediate responses are made on the basis of what we observe. Blonde hair, dark skin, long nose, high cheek bones, big ears, baldness, all telegraph messages. A cleft lip, on the other hand, telegraphs messages from the viewer, of abhorrence, sorrow, distaste, even among some viewers, that of the hand of providence, to others of the process of re-birth; the afflicted person bears the stamp of the pain or shame of another life lived less gloriously before.

This is where The Smile Train, India, comes in. In their latest 2008 bulletin on the web this is what they wrote.

"Every year, 35,000 children in India are born with clefts - a gap in the upper lip and/or palate. Though completely treatable, less than half get the treatment they desperately need - only because they are too poor.Without corrective surgery, these children are condemned to a lifetime of isolation and suffering. Taunted and tormented for their disfigurement, they cannot attend school, hold a regular job or get married. Many are even abandoned or killed at birth.
The irony is that a cleft can be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that could take as little as 45 minutes and cost as little as Rs. 8,000.That's where The Smile Train comes in. We are the world's largest cleft lip and palate charity. Our overriding goal is make safe and quality treatment of cleft lip and palate accessible to the millions who cannot afford it.
Since 2000, The Smile Train has sponsored over 110,000 safe, quality surgeries across India, totally free of cost."

Think about that, over one hundred thousand children have undergone surgery for cleft lips and palate, free. Compared to the billion people who live in India this may sound like a small number, but in reality it is a huge service to humanity, to the lives of youngsters who would be doomed to a life of torment. Children with such birth defects come from very rich families, very famous families, very, very poor families, all kinds of families. Nature is no respecter of persons. But the Smile Train does not do lip service to this problem; it reaches out with its service in a way that is inspiring. I am sure all of us have dropped a few coins into the hands of some beggars, trying not to see their misery and bent bodies, looking away in pity, or is it abhorrence, as the coin drops. But few of us have done what these Indian surgeons have done to bring life's blessings to so many.

The Smile Train Partner of the Month is a man who for 42 years has helped children who had no place else to turn. A man who could be described as selfless and his name is Doctor Hirji Adenwalla from Kerala, India. For 42 years this surgeon has salvaged lives and has performed 7000 surgeries to help children with cleft lip and cleft palate. He performed these surgeries, this lip service, himself, free of charge. His record of service is truly remarkable. At a recent press conference for Smile Train he said, "The lessons that we learn from human misery are to love...To never forget and to never, never, look away."

Line up all the smiles that are the result of this man's surgery and truly, there is a Smile Train a mile long.