Touring troubles

Continuing with my Murud -Janjira trip tales, as we wandered from one location to another, I again realised that the tourism development board in India needs to take a long hard look at how they are woefully underultilizing the tourism potential of India. I mean, there are abundant attractive places across India and still we lack the basic presentation and packaging skills to make these places tourist worthy.

Lets take the example of Murud Janjira itself. The Janjira fort will put Alcatraz Island to shame in terms of location and architecture. Yet today if you visit Alcatraz, it is a tourist delight whereas Janjira is a nightmare. Everything at Alcatraz looks neat, clean, preserved and presentable, while Janjira is exactly the opposite, unclean, unkept and in shambles. The biggest distinction probably between the two is that while Alcatraz has been given a national recreation area status, no one knows what status Janjira holds with Indian tourism authorities.

And its just not about bestwoing a status. I am sure India has many national monuments that are lying neglected and ravaged. The question is why is there so much apathy then . Don't we care about our tourism industry and the tourist at all ? Or is it just plain indifference.

I am leaving you with food some food for thought - at the best and most popular of tourist detsinations in India there isn't even a provision of clean and hygenic loo and pure plain drinking water. Its not asking for more. But then I guess over half of India's population too is asking for these two things.

So dear tourists you are in a long queue.

Suit Yourself

I recently came across one of the most amusing sights I have seen in my life .

I was on a weekend break to a place called Murud. Its on the Konkan coast and about 200 km from Pune. Murud's biggest attraction is the 12th century Janjira fort which is located right in the Arabian Sea. Janjira was therefore a must watch for me and wifey.

As we were being shown around this vast 22 acre fort by the local guide, I saw something catch my attention other than the ruins of the place. I strained my eyes to get a good look at this sight and I even pinched myself hard to ensure that it was some hallucination. No it wasn't , it was real - Amidst all the tourist flocking Janjira that day the person in the picture had me awestruck.

Here I was seeing a fully suited man on a sultry, scorching and dusty afternoon at a place which was swarmed by bermudas, trunks, t-Shirts, jeans, cycling shorts and anything but formal wear. I double checked whether there was a 'complete man' ad being shot on location somewhere. But there was no sign of camera and crew. I enquired around if there was some corporate event being organised at the Janjira relics (you never know you see, with cash crunch and economic slowdown some wise corporates may still host year end celebration at historic depleted places - it could serve as a precursor to the sign of things to come). But there was no sign of any corporate extrvaganza here.

The only logic I could draw seeing the man in the attire that he was in, was that may be this was a case of sheer nostalgia - the fellow was wearing his 25-30 year old wedding suit which he till then had never got a chance to re wear. Or, probably this was a brand new suit which the gentlemen had bought and he wanted to whether it in tough and trying conditions. Or even better, this could have been the strategy for the soft launch of a new line of comfortable suits and tux,which an MNC was launching specially from Janjira(market research may have indicated that).

I have taken my guesses, now you try figuring out the reason and suit yourself.

No Smoking

There was this revoluntionary law that was recently passed in India prohibiting people from smoking in public places. As per the law, smoking will be banned in all public places and private offices. Establishments cannot even have designated rooms for smoking. The ban also includes hotels and restaurants. Only hotels with a seating capacity of more than 30 can have a separate enclosure for smokers.

The government is planning to authorise gazetted officers, including sub-inspectors, railway ticket checkers and school headmasters besides NGO officials to collect fines from people who violate the ban. Though in the beginning, the fine would be only Rs 200, the government is trying to amend the act and in future the fine may go up to Rs 1,000.

So far so good. While the law is very refreshing and heartening, I wonder how is it going to be enforced effectively. Lets take a scenario where a group of 4 people are found smoking in a public place by lets say a school headmaster. What is the headmaster supposed to do? Ask the 4 chimneys to give their identity, address and then tell them he is going to fine them 200 each and upon saying so the accused are just going to pay up. Right ?

I strongly feel that such sort of laws cannot succeed unless there is huge public particpation. You don't expect sniffer dogs to sniff each cigarrette butt and identify the culprit do you? Nor do you expect the police to keep a 24x7 vigil on smokers and their ills.
So how is this issue going to be tackled? We will have to wait and watch. All one hopes is that like many such other society betterment laws, this one too does not end up in smoke.

Dud Dostana

I happened to see this flick called "dostana" that has been making waves in Bollywood recently. Waves because, it seems that for the first time in the history of Indian Cinema, two mainstream bollywoood actors have pretended to play gay.

While I have seen newspapers, critics and the junta going gaga over this daring yet light take on gayism, i found the movie extremely dull and boring. I mean i had gone there to see some rib ticklicking comedy about straight guys acting gay and all the mayhem that follows. But alas, I must say I was completely disappointed. There is nothing like humor in this movie and thats because the script and the sceenplay are completely missing.

Just having stars under a known production banner does not ensure a good movie. There was so much scope for the director to turn this into a good laugh riot , but what does he do instead- he gives us the Karan Johar brand of film. All style no substance.

some welcome speech this

Were anyone of you fortunate to hear Suresh Kalmadi speak during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune today. I say fortunate because such speeches will be orated and heard only once in the entire history of the games. Thank God for that.

I think the preparation for the games really got to Mr. Kalmadi. After all he and his johnies had to get Pune ready for the games(read my last post). I have a hunch that in all this anxiety he forgot the real welcome speech at home. And so when his turn came up to address the spectators and athletes and he put his hands in his pant pockets he must have realized that his speech paper was missing. But the man rose to the occassion. One glance at his coat pocket and Mr. Kalmadi was confidence personified. Out came Congress Party's manifesto for the next general election (so what if the general elections in India have not been announced so far, manifesto's are always ready. Just a tweak here and there). This was gold for Mr. Kalmadi. He did not need the speech now. With manifesto's he could go on and on so what if it was sports event.

And so we were given a rare preview of what Congress Party plans in the days to come - Create more and more Olympic gold medalists for India. And bless who all would be behind this. No we do not need coaches, equipments, oppotunities - right we only need the usual suspects- Manmohanji, Soniaji, Jaipalji, Gillji, Vilasraoji and all the Jis' you can think of. There are so many of them, add whichever you like and a Olympic gold medal is assured.

One of the highlights of Kalmadi's Commonwealth Congress Youth Games Manifesto something speech was that every now and then he broke into some local lingo just to break the monotony of our misery. But think of the plight of the althletes of the 71 nations who were all ears to Mr. Kalmadi. Whenever Mr. Kalmadi drifted away from English and spoke in the local language they must have felt like they were experiencing some frequency disturbance in their earpods. After all it was "All garble no sense".

The Games People Play

Well the games that I am refering too here are the Commonwealth Youth Games that are about to be hosted in Pune, India in a few days from now.

I am resident of Pune and have been witness at very close quarters to all that has been going on in the name of preparations of these games. Actually things started heating up about 6 months back when it suddenly seemed to have dawned on everyone involved (Pune Municipal Corporation, Suresh Kalmadi {if anyone by chance reads this post let me tell you that Suresh Kalmadi is the sitting Member of Parliament from Pune and a great sports buff(oon)} and all other actors of this sattire) that Pune's infrastructure needed a facelift .

So for 6 months now poor Puneites have been subjected to relentless infrastructure improvement drives. And as our politicians keep on saying unabashedly "to gain something, you have to sacrifice something" we have been sacrificing our piece of mind by way of frequent power cuts, road blocks, traffic jams and false promises from the Pune Muncipal Corporation(PMC) that work will be over soon, which while i am writing this post still continues.

A lot has been written in local newspapers about the pathetic and pointless exercises that the PMC has undertaken to make the city ready for the games. Any amount of criticism has not swayed the PMC from its mission of seeing that work is 'not' completed in time for the games.

The real question is could really this infrastructure overdrive have been completed in time or are these games just another forum for our politicos and their fraternity to amass common(mans)wealth.

Its anyones guess what the truth really is, but then all is forgotten when you press the peddle and zing past on those new semi cemented roads of Pune. Finally its part of the game.

What's in the name

Well do not even for a moment think that "direct desai' as this blog is named has any aspiration to promote the Desai behind it.


Actually I tried a number of options like - Frankly Speaking, Undiplomatic, Guileless, Candid Talk, Outpsoken and many such of its type. But I soon realised that this was going to be fruitlless exercise since all these names had already been taken by I assume people like me, who wanted to communicate something that was straight, honest and direct. Right "Direct" was the word I was looking for and I felt if I added another word that began with "D" it would go well and so Direct Desai was created. So much for smart thinking !!!