Posts filed under 'India'
Indian creepy crawlies
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
Being well bitten and covered with itchy lumps and bumps all over is one of the necessary evils of a visit to India. Mosquitoes are ubiquitous especially where standing pools of water lie nearby in the form of wells or shallow underground sewer systems with open lids. The swarm of mosquitoes can be readily noticed as they form an attack formation close to sunset time and hone in on their victim with unswerving accuracy plunging their nozzles into bare skin, with the kind squirt of an anaesthetic to prevent us from splatting them to death. The odd time a mosquito is laden with human blood it can become sluggish and a quick splat will result in an exploding mosquito and small splatter of red blood on your clothes.
Mosquitoes are not the only creepy crawlies that are famous in India but other common varieties include, red ants, battle ants, cockroaches, bed bugs (Ur. khatmal) and lice (Ur. juwwa).
Bed bugs, casting my mind back to the late seventies were quite ubiquitous in houses, known to entomologists (insect experts) as ’structural bugs’ they can colonise cracks in bed frames and even the round buttons that occur on mattresses. But recently, over the last 10-15 years, advances in the widespread use of cement in building houses has resulted in a much decreased incidence of bed bugs. Visits to houses where the traditional mud walls are still in use still suffer from the bug of bed bugs. According to entomologist experts at the centre for entomology (the study of insects) at Cambridge University in the UK, the only way to get rid of bed bugs under such circumstances would be to call for professional help from pest control agencies as available insecticides available to the public are insufficient.
Mosquito repellant netting on windows have become popular and more widely used, coupled with insect repellents that are released into the room via small electrical devices these give a relatively mosquito free night. These kits are widely available from shops for a cost around 45 Rupees. Some people have inventively placed a mosquito repellant liquid atomiser in every single room and keep the house therefor covered. The 45 Rupees is meant to last 40 odd days but will finish in a third of the time if kept on during the whole day.
Body repellents are not widely available and there is only one which is widely available called Odomos, it comes as a liquid or a green cream which is applied to the exposed areas. I was unable to locate DEET based repellents and had to rely on my ‘imported’ stores of DEET canisters, which very very effective. Many people mentioned that dark clothing was attractive to mosquitoes and brighter clothing was unattractive to them. In fact someone mentioned that his wife was hardly ever bitten while he was bitten quite a lot, this in fact reflected a similar distribution of bites in our own family.
After a little bit of research on the topic it seems that mosquitoes detect their prey by a combination of carbon dioxide gradients, heat and body odours. Male odours are clearly preferable and they are supposed to expire more carbon dioxide, supposedly through their skin!
I though I would leave you with a paragraph from the Entomology Centre talking about mosquitoes and how to prevent their breeding:
Thus, a more effective form of control is to control the larvae, either by actually killing them or by destroying the breeding grounds of the mosquito. Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, close to the water surface. The larvae, when they hatch remain under water either hanging down from the surface or laying parallel to it. Hence larvae can be controlled by removing all standing water in and around human habitation or draining the land using narrow, steep-sided ditches in the case of wet, marshy areas. A new technique that has proved successful in the case of pit latrines is to add expended polystyrene balls to the water which prevents larvae from reaching the surface to respire and adults from being able to lay eggs.
Acknowledgements
Pictures are taken from the Medical Entomology Centre website.
1 comment August 15, 2009
Indian or Muslim first?
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
As a minority living in a non-Muslim country this is a question faced not just by Indian Muslims but by many minority Muslims all over the world. A now retired politician from the conservative party in the United Kingdom once devised a cricket test to show the dubious loyalty of Pakistani immigrants to the UK. If England and Pakistan were playing who would you be supporting?
Where the values of Islam and the host nation overlap then there is no conflict of loyalties, the belief in truth, the rule of law, the right to an abode will not generate protests or awkward questions in the minority Muslims. But if we look at the other spectrum of loyalty testing issues, perhaps there can be no greater issue than that of giving up one’s life for the bidding of one’s nation, we are faced with some difficult issues.
The purpose of this blog was to describe the situation as far as is visible to me with Muslims and their readiness to serve in the Indian military or lay down their life even if this entails war against neighbouring Muslim nations such as Pakistan or Bangladesh. The Indian paradox shows the effect of time on the way a Muslim minority population behaves and feels with respect to its host nation.
Let’s go back to 1965, Indian forces are on the verge of invading Pakistan at a border station called Atari, known as the Waga border from the Pakistani side. A young 22 year old soldier is lying in his self dug trench, 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. It’s the first time he is taking part in active duty and after the first night of hostility he is very scared. Pakistani artillery has a reach of 14 km while the Indian military artillery could only reach 12 km. While lying under his army supplied mosquito net he is summoned by a messenger, the major under whose command he is working wants to see him. Its pitch black in the dead of night and he is a bit surprised at this request, but now with years of military training under his belt he doesn’t question further and reports to his major.
The major is a Sikh, serving in the Indian military and is sitting at his table and orders the young soldier to come closer. In front of him is a book lying open on the table and he asks the soldier what book is it.
The soldier peers at the book and immediately recognises the book being read as the soldier’s Holy book. The soldier steps back and has a faint smile playing on his face.
The major snaps, ‘Why are you smiling? Don’t you know I can read this book as well as you?’
The soldiers smile has vanished in surprise as the major starts to recite in a sweet melodious Arabic verses from the Holy Quran.
The soldier, a Muslim, stares at the major who has by now stopped reciting and turning to the soldier says, ‘I recite this every day before going to sleep. I don’t feel at peace until I have recited it. Do you pray?’
The soldier responds, ‘You don’t give me time, I am busy working for you all day from sunup to sunrise.’
The major responds, ‘That’s no excuse, you should ask for 5 minutes and pray whenever your prayer time comes.’
The conversation ends and would be repeated many times in the future with a look of fond reminiscence on the soldiers greying features because of its profound effect. As the Indian forces advanced towards Lahore in the fourteen or so days the battle lasted whenever they would pass by Muslim villages the major would be seen picking up pages of the Quran lying strewn on the floor and restoring them to book shelves.
Half way through the hostilities the young soldier had forgotten his plate in the major’s vehicle and was standing on guard duty at a new outpost. The importance of the plate is that a food supply van would supply the soldiers with food and it would be placed on their plates. No plate meant no food till the next meal supply time. The young soldier watched as the food supply van pulled away, his plate missing it was time to grit his teeth and wait for the hunger pangs to subside. His fellow unit’s soldiers were busy tucking into food. One of them was Brahman Hindu, he would always sit away from the main group, being a Brahman, he would maintain his distance from people of the lower castes. The Hindu soldier on this occasion noted that the young Muslim soldier was standing without eating. He walked over to him and asked him what had happened. The young soldier explained he had forgotten his plate and he would now wait till the next meal. The Brahman Hindu did something extraordinary for himself and offered his food to the young Muslim soldier.
‘But your Brahman’, protested the Muslim soldier, ‘You don’t even eat with us in the mess.’
‘Here we are neither Brahman or Muslim, here we are all the same.’
On asking the soldier many years later about his time in the military and whether or not he had any regrets, the answer was a flat ‘No’. In fact the opposite was the case, he loved the military discipline and regrets leaving early then he had wanted to.
‘Were you afraid of ever killing a Muslim during your active duty?’ I asked trying to understand the thought process lying behind this attitude.
‘We were fighting for our nation, we don’t worry about the religion of the opposing forces. The scholars tell us what we are doing is jihad as we are defending our nation, and defence of the home is jihad.’
‘Do any Indian scholars speak out against serving in the Indian military?’ I ask surprised to note this understanding by the now much older ex-soldier.
Another voice adds, ‘No they can’t They would be accused of treason so they maintain a silence in general. But Muslims have traditionally stayed away from the military especially from Hyderabad. But now the government is setting up Muslim units in Kashmir, and there are Muslims from Kerla and UP who serve more readily in the army.’
I stop to contemplate what I have heard. The trend continues till today as modern generations of Muslims continue to serve in the Indian military. Fellow Muslims do not see it as a source of shame but usually as a source of pride. To be able to acquire a military job implies access to the amenities given to soldiers and the respect of fellow countrymen. In fact I was surprised to find out that the highest medal of bravery called the Param Vir Chakra (equivalent to the British Victoria Cross) during the 1965 war was given to a Muslim soldier called Havildar Abdul Hamid, the only Muslim name in the list of recipients of the Param Vir Chakra. The name means little to a new generation of Indian Muslims and is left on the lips of a dwindling number of senior citizens.
Randomly asking the question, are you Muslim or Indian first is resoundingly met with Muslim. But when asked the question are you prepared to fight and if necessary kill Muslims if required by the Indian state, the answer, is after a very short pause, a resounding ‘yes’.
2 comments July 15, 2009
Welcome to India
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
Over half a decade had passed since my last visit to India, Hyderabad. The plane was due to land at night and the sight of a carpet of street lights marked the beginning of Hyderabad as our Airbus 330 began its descent to the brand new Rajiv Ghandi airport.
Stepping of the plane into a shiny connecting gangway, I marveled at the architecture of the airport. The tiles were smooth and clean. The glint of shiny polished metal beams gave the airport that futuristic look. The signs were in that crisp sans-serif font with a clear background. Shiny new trolleys that were easy to manoeuvre were easily positioned for the convenience of disembarking passengers. The temperature was well regulated with hidden ducts silently venting air conditioned air.
As we turned the corner towards the immigration counter we were confronted by a line of white saree clad ladies, nurse, armed with ear thermometers. Seated behind them were a line of 4-5 doctors seated at desks. As we got closer they made sure we had filled our Swine flu forms.
‘Do you have any flu like symptoms?’
I said, ‘No.’ being careful not to cough as that would be misinterpreted in this futile attempt to control the spread of Swine flu.
‘Do you have a temperature?’ one of them asked.
‘No.’ I replied, thinking to myself that even if I did I would have taken an anti-pyretic such as Paracetamol (acetaminophen 1 gram) and probably some ibuprofen (400mg) before touch in an attempt to lower any temperature.
They just let me pass until I reached the line of doctors who repeated the questions, being doctors they were skeptical of my answers and asked me to go back to have my temperature taken. I made my way back knowing that I had to cooperate otherwise I faced the possibility of being put into confinement for 7 days if they suspected Swine flu or at least a few hours while they subjected me to a rapid blood test to see if I had the influenza virus type A.
Returning back to the nurses I noted that they were not using disposable covers for the ear thermometers and instead were swabbing them with a cotton wool bud soaked in spirit. I pointed out that this was rather unhygienic. Not used to protesting people the nurse did what Indians tend to do when they don’t know what to reply and just smile. Though to her credit she replied she was using a swab to clean the thermometer probe. I pointed out it would take at least a few minutes for the alcohol to sterilise the surface, and in the case of other blood borne diseases it could take much more than simple alcohol to sterilise the thermometer.
Anyway somewhere in the conversation and dealing with the next passenger I just walked back to the line of doctors avoiding having my ear poked with an unhygienic thermometer probe. I had got through the health cordon and made myself down to the immigration officer.
The contrast with the Pakistan attempt to isolate passengers with flu symptoms though was quite stark. At Karachi airport a banner had hung asking patients to volunteer themselves to come forward and effectively ruin their holidays. The Indians were definitely one up on their neighbours at this first comparison.
The immigration officer was quite efficient and soon had all our passports and PIO cards processed. I had been quite skeptical that the flimsy PIO card would work and wondered whether I would have to boarding a plane to return to my origin, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the paper based PIO card in passport shape and size did the trick and gave me entry into India. While there were no fancy logitech cameras taking photographs of passengers unlike Karachi the officer had the same passport scanning equipment present at Dubai international airport and did not have to do any laborious typing as in Karachi.
A short trip down the escalator led us to the conveyor belt where porters met us and asked if they needed our services. I asked how much, they answered pointing to a notice board that read porterage services 200 RS per porter. Same figure price as Karachi, though from an exchange rate point of view Karachi porters are in real terms cheaper.
As we were working out our luggage two smartly dressed men in suits came and asked us for our baggage checking slips and quickly compared the serial numbers with our luggage. Having confirmed the numbers we were allowed to proceed. Customs check involved passing all the items through an x-ray machine and then we were out. The outside of the airport had an equally impressive facade and the car park was well laid out but Indian craftmanship, or the lack therefor, began to show through with a poorly leveling for the trolley pathway causing our suitcases to tumble off their trolley. Once our bags were loaded up in a hired Tempo van the paid porters hung around hoping for a tip. No difference there between Indian and Pakistan.
Alhamdulillah, we had arrived in India.
1 comment July 13, 2009
