Help save the birds

I remember the first letter I wrote to the GDN some years ago when I was just out of school.

I had picked up my brother from school and on our way home, we found a pigeon run over by a car at the signal near the Sacred Heart Church.

The sight of the dead bird near an area that is home to scores of them upset me so much, I marched home horrified and in rage.

The next couple of hours found me busy poring over the telephone directory to look up animal rights organisations and writing a very angry letter to the paper.

I never sent it in, as I thought the editor would have a good laugh reading my call for bird rights and special feeding grounds and because my parents were alarmed that I had turned so militant.

Much of my earlier enthusiasm for the birds - I used to steadfastly collect fallen pigeon feathers and attach them to cards and letters - disappeared when I moved to Mumbai.

For the first few months, my roommates and I battled crows that attacked our food, buried eggs laid by pigeons in our buckets and kept vigil guarding our room from all winged creatures.

Things took a turn for the worse when I returned to city last month and was woken up at 3am everyday by an eerie bloodcurdling noise.

The 'beast' it transpired was a flock of beautiful green parrots, making a racket while they relished mangoes that ripened outside my window.

It soon grew to a point that I was teetering on the verge of hating birds forever, when a news story about a lesser crested tern, which died on a Mumbai beach earlier this year, grabbed my attention.

The bird which carried the tag of the British Trust for Ornithology was reportedly ringed on the Fasht Al Jarrim Islands, north of mainland Bahrain.

The ring was later sent to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and my curiosity led me to do some research on the society and this reawakened my interest in birds.

The society, among its numerous conservation efforts to protect the wildlife of India, runs 'Adopt a Rare Bird', a joint initiative of BirdLife International and the UK-based Royal Society for Protection of Birds.

From the catalogue of 12 rare birds, which include two critically endangered species, you may adopt a bird for just Rs300 (BD2.3).

Proceeds of the adoption go towards protection of the birds and you receive a framed photograph of the bird you've adopted, which makes a very nice gift.

Last week, I adopted a forest owlet (Athene blewitti), of which only 250 are estimated to be remaining in India.

BNHS central marketing head Divyesh Parikh told me that there is a growing interest among people to protect birdlife, as more than 5,000 adoptions took place last year, raising Rs150,000 (BD1,198.6).

'Adopt a Rare Bird' programme details can be found on the BNHS website www.bnhs.org and the World Wildlife Fund also runs similar initiatives.

I realised only recently that my earlier annoyance with birds was baseless as we have effectively usurped their habitats, leaving them no home and more vulnerable to extinction.

It is only right that we start giving something back.

¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Help save the birds', Gulf Daily News, July 9, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Rainforest off limits

I thought I had finally struck gold when my search for a wildlife conservation sanctuary led me to the Agumbe Rainforest Complex, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

It sounded perfect - it receives around 11,0000mm of annual rainfall, nestles high up on the Western Ghats mountain range and is also a biodiversity hotspot home to several threatened species.

A major project is underway to save the world's longest venomous snake, the King Cobra, much revered by villagers but ruthlessly killed when it gets in their way.

The research station is open for volunteers and researchers who can spend time assisting in various jobs, educational programmes and the King Cobra telemetry project.

The cost of accommodation is cheap and the facilities offered are excellent.

However, as I read through their Frequently Asked Questions, I found a strange clause prohibiting volunteers from wearing camouflaged clothing while in the rainforest.

The reason provided was that the Naxalites, Maoists who have been waging a war against the state for some time and the Anti-Naxalite Squad don the same uniform.

To avoid coming under the scanner of either group and for the villagers to know the neutral position of the volunteers, coloured clothing was advised.

All the initial bravado my friend and I felt about exploring rainforests soon evaporated.

The Naxalite movement, which first began in a village in West Bengal called Naxalbari, fight for the cause of impoverished peasants against rich landlords, through violent and bloody terror campaigns.

Last week, 26 policemen from the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed and eight others injured in an ambush attack by the Naxalites, in the state of Chhatisgarh.

The attack came after 75 CRPF personnel were killed in April by the Naxalites in the same state and a month after 148 civilians perished when a train was blown up by the insurgents in West Bengal.

The Naxalites thrive in the heavily forested regions, which provide them ideal cover and with help from tribals who are sympathetic to their cause.

The tribals favour the Maoists, having long been denied their rights to the forests' produce under government restrictions while, on the other hand, big companies are freely allowed to profit from the mines in the same region.

This makes an entire region of the country, with heavy Naxalite presence, a dangerous area termed the 'Red Corridor'.

My friend wisely said that even if we abandoned the idea of visiting Agumbe, we wouldn't be far from danger should we choose to visit any another rainforest.

It is commonly acknowledged that both the insurgents as well as the armed forces have committed violent excesses.

Meanwhile, as the fighting goes on, the natural heritage of a country is being held hostage.

¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Rainforest off limits', Gulf Daily News, July 2, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Taxi! Not a chance as strike bites...

The lives of urban commuters in Mumbai have been thrown into disarray, following a strike by taxi and auto rickshaw drivers. The strike was called by union leaders to force the government to increase the basic fares, following an increase in the price of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

Last Monday, I joined the long line of people waiting for buses as there were few taxis in sight and the few that I stopped, flatly refused to go anywhere.

It is the first time I have really paid attention to how much I have come to depend on the taxis for almost all routine activities.

I had to turn back after going half way down to the grocery shop as I realised that there would be no taxis to help me lug all my purchases to the hostel.

There has been much said against the taxi drivers - their lack of basic etiquette, the swearing, the way they flout traffic rules and their reckless driving on dangerous roads.

However, as I stood under the blazing sun, stuck almost in the middle of nowhere and wondering the best way to go home before the skies started pouring, I found that I actually missed them.

I've had both pleasant and unpleasant experiences in my dealings with taxi drivers.

One of them, on discovering I didn't know numbers in Hindi, tried to fleece me by quoting an exorbitant fare.

Another, after the routine questions of 'Which country are you from?', 'What are you doing in India?', 'Why can't you speak Hindi?' took it upon himself to ensure I learnt phrases in Hindi before I left his vehicle.

Once, after being dropped off at the Gateway of India, a taxi driver told me that though it was crucial I learnt the city's language, he admitted that it was time they changed and that he had tried to pick up some English from me.

My political science teacher would tell our class that taxi drivers were the best source if you wanted to gauge public opinion.

A Bahraini taxi driver once talked me through everything from why the flyover in Isa Town wasn't complete to why taxi fares in India are very cheap ("They use old cars and counterfeit parts, you pay more here because we use genuine ones.") and asked me to write a story on their lives.

Once on my way to the Mumbai international airport, I commented on the tall buildings and flyovers that had come up in North Mumbai.

The taxi driver informed me that if only I bothered turning to my left, I would still see the slums and the grand buildings existed only where politicians lived.

These are perhaps the most eco-friendly days the city has seen in a long time, with more than 80,000 taxis and 100,000 auto rickshaws off the road.

Life, however, has come to a standstill and with the monsoons in the city it is very cumbersome to travel on foot or use public transport.

Hopefully they'll be back on the roads next week, but it's surprising how this band of often overlooked men, trying to reassert their worth in society, has gripped the entire city.

¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Taxi! Not a chance as strike bites... ', Gulf Daily News, June 25, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

A Travesty of Justice

While the world is still mopping up the spill caused by the explosion at the oil rig off the coast of Mexico and debating how best justice is meted out, a local court in a central Indian state has sentenced perpetrators of the world's worst industrial disaster - after more than 25 years.

In December 1984, inhabitants of Bhopal, in Madhya Pradesh, woke up to a lethal air poisoned with methyl isocyanate, which leaked from a nearby pesticide plant.

It claimed 4,000 lives, although estimates based on hospital and rehabilitation records show that about 20,000 people died and more than 600,000 suffered bodily damage.

Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson was allowed to fly back to the US, never to return, after spending just three hours in detention.

The two-year sentence delivered last week excluded Anderson, but implicated seven Indian executives from Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), as the company is known at present.

They were immediately granted bail, while Anderson was declared to have absconded after the court issued warrants for his arrest and extradition.

While the paltry sentence and the delay is a travesty of justice, what is most disturbing is the contempt with which the victims were treated.

Poisoning the unsuspecting populace demands more stringent punishment, more in line with the decades in jail serious criminals may expect.

It has always galled me that when the prices of commodities have risen very sharply in India due to inflation, the fines for criminal offences on the other hand, have remained unaffected.

Recently, a former Director General of Police from the state of Haryana, charged with sexually molesting a teenager and abetting her suicide, was fined just Rs1,000 (BD8) and jailed for six months.

The Bhopal sentences, albeit after a quarter of a century, amounted to some show of justice, is an insult to those who perished and those who lost loved ones.

The truth is there has been no justice granted to those who survived maimed, blinded and paralysed for life.

No court of justice and no country that calls itself a democracy can consider big corporate houses as above the law and deny its own citizens the justice they are rightfully due.

The victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have received an average of Rs12,410 (BD100) each as compensation.

Many of the victims continue to live wretched existences in slums adjoining the walls of the dilapidated factory grounds waiting for promised compensation payments.

Moreover, they should be given access to free healthcare for the various nervous and malignant diseases they have developed since the disaster.

Those responsible for industrial accidents should be tried with the same amount of media attention, immediacy and strict procedure of law as war criminals and dictators.

¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'A travesty of justice', Gulf Daily News, June 18, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

The World Cup of Joy

For a whole month starting from today, the world will be morphing into party mode to welcome the FIFA World Cup 2010. Regardless of which country you're from or the language you speak, the 'beautiful game' unites people across all barriers.

However, for citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, whose team faces Brazil in Johannesburg's Ellis Park on June 15, there will be little to look forward to, as live transmission of the match is banned thanks to the Communist state's autocratic media control.

Football history, however, proves that as long as you have enthusiasm for the sport, politics and boundaries matter but little.

Though I enjoy football, I watch with real fervour only when there's a major tournament on.

The last major one that really impressed me was the Asian Cup 2007, in which the Iraqi national football team emerged the winners, against all odds.

Having followed the tournament from the very beginning, I saw how the team savoured every victory, which is saying something for a team that underwent torture and death threats for a poor performance under Uday Hussein, who later met his death in a gun fight with US troops.

The players arrived in Southeast Asia for the tournament, which was held with the recent loss of family members in the conflict at home hanging over their heads.

Even before they faced Saudi Arabia in the finals, the celebration of their victory over South Korea in the semi-finals was marred by a suicide bombing in a Baghdad street, which killed 50 people.

After Iraq lifted the cup, I turned to Al Baghdadia TV to see reporters crying on air as they announced their country had won the tournament.

For a day, it didn't matter which sect the players were from as for the 90 minutes of the match, the guns were silent in Baghdad and people experienced something that felt like peace.

South Africa this year becomes the first African nation to host the World Cup.

Commentators agree that this year will be different, as companies seeking to slash expenses owing to the recession have left the places usually taken by corporate guests to be filled in by lots of true football supporters, which include many ordinary South Africans.

I haven't yet decided which team I'll be supporting.

It was France for the last World Cup, but without Zidane I don't think I'll find Les Bleus worth supporting.

As I support Real Madrid and their wonderful goalkeeper Iker Casillas, I think I might shift my loyalties this time to Spain.

I have always been a supporter of underdogs in most tournaments, ever since my favourites Greece lifted the Euro Cup in 2004.

I do hope that South Africa's Bafana Bafana (which means 'the boys' in the Nguni language) put up a good show, both as hosts and as the national team.

Regardless of the outcome, there will, at least for a month, be something more to look forward to in the papers than reports of national disasters or terror attacks.

I don't think even Kim Jong-il's iron-fisted reign will put a damper on the spirit of football lovers in North Korea, for football, more than anything, gives everybody a reason to celebrate!

¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'The World Cup of Joy', Gulf Daily News, June 11, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

When teenage daredevil fades

I always measured my life in terms of which grade in school I was in or for the last one year which university semester.

Birthdays for me meant nothing for years and presents were quickly forgotten before the week was over.

Turning 19 last week, however, has made me re-think my usual indifference to the day I was born.

I researched a little on what I was entitled to do when I turned 19 and found there was nothing much as the year is sandwiched between two major milestones, turning 18 and 21.

Last year was something to look forward to as I got my right to vote and get a driving licence.

However, elections and holidays have gone past and with no permanent address in India, I couldn't vote and haven't yet learned to drive.

It bothered me a little but as I thought about it, I found there was no need to hurry at all.

This would be my last teenage year and as much as I would like to be an adult, I will soon be bidding farewell to a very special part of my life.

I've quit researching what new rights I will be entitled to and switched to checking out things I missed out as a teenager.

Re-reading my collection of the Harry Potter series that fascinated me when I was young and may not have the same effect a few years from now is a top priority.

Going through my massive collection of magazines and checking out the five years worth of newspaper clippings to see what interested me as a child will be yet another.

It will also be the year to sort out the huge poem collection that I have, those I collected from schoolmates when we started a poetry club in the final year of school.

It's been two years now and those who had written them would have left school and our grand plans to bring out a book are far from workable.

However, going through all the little things my friends and I tried to accomplish, the posters we put on the corridors during school events - some of which I still have - I realised what I will miss most about being a teenager is the feeling everything in world can be done if you put your heart to it.

I still share the same feeling and haven't lost much of the enthusiasm but the daredevil way I took to responsibility is slowly fading away.

I'm warming up to this new phase but if I could have my way, I would much rather join Peter Pan and his mates in Neverland where I can't be asked to grow up.

¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident, now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'When teenage daredevil fades', Gulf Daily News, June 4, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Learning to ride the waves

FOR someone whose only swimming experience so far is being pushed into a pool in Hawar, I balked when my editor suggested I attend the surf school at the Wahooo! water park.

It felt more like I had lead weights in my stomach than butterflies when I saw the roaring Flow Rider, which was incidentally running only on half its speed!

I decided that I was going to float down the Lazy River first and talk to some of the other students, but little did I know that I would be persuaded to change my mind.

Seeing so many others (including one of them a mum!) much older and brave enough to take the ultimate plunge convinced me to go for it.

I came across Naikita, my instructor, as someone you could really bank on to help you ride the waves.

Handling the surfboard, which I thought would be rocket science, was made simple as she explained how with every twitch you can have a different wave experience.

My first try was frightening because I thought I was drowning towards the end, but the feel of the current was good and I plucked up the courage to go for it a second time.

Although I lost the board both times I didn't really have to hold on to dear life as the water wasn't very deep and the force of the waves brings you ashore anyway.

Moreover, the place is manned by lifeguards trained by the UK Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) to help if things go wrong.

The water maintained at tropical temperatures throughout made the surfing experience all the more pleasurable.

After 15 minutes of being soaked, I got to dry myself in a body dryer, which looked like something out of a Star Trek movie.

Although I really have no love for water or water sports for that matter, my mini-adventure and the passion I saw exuberated by the students really inspired me to take up surfing sometime in the future.

Special thanks to Wahooo! operations manager Tom Scheffer, assistant operations manager Susan Clark, Naikita and other surfers for making the experience a little less scary.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Learning to ride the waves', Gulf Daily News, March 21, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Swan song to wake up

The Alaotra grebe has gone the way of the Dodo. The Madagascan bird was declared officially extinct this week by International Union for Conservation of Nature after 25 years of futile hope that it could be kept alive. The water bird joins the list of 190 species that have gone extinct since modern records began. While there has been a recent surge of interest in protecting ecosystems from pollution and deforestation, there is very little or no awareness about threats to earth's biodiversity. Of the millions of species, plants and animals that have thrived and walked the earth, many have died out. Even as we spend millions to unearth fossils of dinosaurs and mammoths, to view their remains in museums, there are many lesser known living species that could soon join their extinct ranks. The growth of cities too has blinded us to many other life forms that exist around us. An average man might see just a fraction of the vast biodiversity and never hear of the grebe or the Liverpool pigeon which became extinct in 2008. The irony is we always wake up when it is too late to save anything. The grebe died out being easy prey to carnivorous fish and poachers. There were two decades since 1985 when it was last sighted and several years before, for us to have done something to save it when it was understood that the bird was critically endangered. We could have, for instance, provided a better habitat and protected it from breeding with birds of a similar species. But honestly, how many of us do care if a species of bird is alive or extinct? Whatever the scientific claims of creating artificial life may be, we can't however much we try, resurrect a species that has been wiped out. All we have left of the grebe is a sole photograph and an artist's impression of how it might have looked. I think it is a shame on us to leave nothing but photographs of co-existing life forms for our children. While ambitious plans to preserve our cultural heritage and the DNA of endangered species in a 'Noah's Ark' are being undertaken in various places, I think it is high time we saved the living while they are still alive. Besides the fact that extinction creates a vacuum in the ecosystem, what bothers me most is the gross injustice of it all. What gives humans the right to think that because we are advanced in some ways, we have been given divine right to stamp out other creatures? We can't afford to be blasé about it and think animals can breed and look after themselves. Highly important as it is to look after the starving populations on earth, we also have to contribute towards preserving wildlife. We may have achieved a lot in terms of civilisation, but we haven't and never can repopulate the earth the way it was when it began. If we continue to encroach upon the habitats of other species and distort the natural order of things, we may find ourselves the only species left alive. And going by the way things are, there is no guarantee that we will not stamp each other out. The death of the Alaotra grebe should be a wake-up call that every life form down to the smallest cricket has its rightful place on earth and deserves to be conserved. ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'Swan song to wake up' , Gulf Daily News, May 28, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Treating wildlife as a plaything!

One of the few things that genuinely got me excited about moving to a Mumbai hostel last year was the fact that it was five minutes away from a zoo! For someone to whom zoos meant the distant Al Areen Wildlife Park and Reserve for most part of her life, actually having elephants and lions next door was something to celebrate. My initial euphoria soon disappeared when I saw how unhappy and out of place the inhabitants of the erstwhile Victoria Gardens (since renamed) were far from their natural habitats. My hostel mates who normally don't frequent the place have told me there are more people than animals in there. I don't condone caging animals, but I have visited the gardens occasionally when my friends were away or when there was little to do during heavy monsoons. There was nothing much I got to see except capture in video for my younger brother a hippopotamus jumping into a pond or parakeets and exotic birds chirping away in the aviary. I feel rather bad about it now especially when gruesome reports of wildlife being encroached upon came to light in the last few months, I realised that caging animals for a child's merriment is no laughing matter. It broke my heart to read in papers a week or two ago about hyenas and big cats from Africa and Asia being shipped into Al Areen later this year. It is doubtless that the wildlife park has done a wonderful job in protecting native Arabian species such as the oryx but spending BD200,000 to house animals brought in from far away Africa seems needless expenditure to me. If it was a huge game reserve, such as Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, seeing animals roam freely in their natural habitats might be a worthwhile sight. However, the very thought of shipping in these hapless animals in specialised containers just sickens me. Some of the animals being brought in are endangered in their native countries. The hyenas are widely hunted for sport and medicine in Namibia and Kenya, while the leopard on the other hand is listed as a "near threatened" species by International Union for Conservation of Nature. Carting off these threatened animals to reserves around the world might be some people's idea of conservation, but it's wrong. Some months ago, when in a shocking revenge attack after tigers were found to be praying on livestock, villagers in the Indian state of Rajasthan poisoned several goats - leading to the death of two cubs that fed on them - a Mumbai trekking group decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to campaign to educate the villagers about the endangered tigers, of which only 1,411 remain in India. If everything goes as per plan, my friend and I are planning to join the group next month to Ranthambore National Park, on the outskirts of which the incident took place. Awareness tourism plays a crucial role in helping save species as it highlights the plight of the animals first-hand as well as bringing in the revenue needed to keep them alive. Human influence of any kind may be unhealthy for the animals as ecological and anthropogenic factors have already depleted the earth's ecosystems and wildlife. The recent oil spill from the off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is another unpleasant reminder of the extent to which we have gone about tampering with our environment. By treating nature and its denizens as playthings, we are concocting a toxic potion for ourselves that we'll be forced to drink sooner or later. I don't know how much difference the new additions to the Al Areen family will make in attracting visitors, but I think it will make the hyenas happier if we left them alone in the savannahs.

¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Treating wildlife as a plaything!', Gulf Daily News, May 14, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Unworthy causes and wars...

I've never been much of an expert on world history or politics. It was no surprise that when my university exam results came in last week, I fared much better in economics and marketing than the other two. My knowledge of history from school stops abruptly at 1947, which is two years after the end of the Second World War and the year of India's independence. I never looked back on that subject and chose to study commerce in high school, but I always came away feeling a little behind the times whenever I heard anything about the Vietnam War or the one in Korea. Partly to camouflage my lack of interest, I always feigned distaste for anything remotely political or historical. But wars cannot be forgotten and as much as we would like to distance ourselves from those dark periods of human history, we can't be wholly untouched by them. A BBC feature I happened to watch last week showed how people still lose their lives as a result of forgotten mines from the Second World War, which are still buried in fields. The war may have ended 65 years ago, but the destruction it wrought, the human misery and loss of lives still continue to this day. The large-scale displacement of people during the course of the war has today resulted in many people not knowing their roots, while others have discovered they were living with false identities all along. The UK and the Australian government a few months ago apologised to thousands of forgotten children shipped to Australia after the war in search of a "better life". Many of those had been falsely told their parents were dead and were used as cheap labour in farms, where they were often abused. The war's legacy still continues to haunt countries, international policymakers and individuals - so much Middle East conflict today can be traced back to the end of the Second World War. It is strange that when countries go to war, they expend their strength in justifying themselves only to later regret it with much pain. Battlefields bring out what is most bestial and primitive in us and even if men go to war to rout evil or overthrow dictators, the extremities to which they go to prove themselves right make them no better. There's a poem by Robert Southey called Battle of Blenheim, where an old man is quizzed by his grandchildren about why the war was fought. His grandson had found a skull in a field, which the old man said must belong to some fallen soldier. He recalls with great pride how villages were razed and people slaughtered. The children keep asking him why the armies fought and what good came of it, but the old man has no clue what it was about and answers all their queries with "it was a great victory". At the end of mindless carnage, it is no use making erudite excuses as an afterthought. If the cause isn't good enough to explain to our grandchildren, it's not worth fighting for. ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Unworthy causes and wars...', Gulf Daily News, April 30, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Gulf Air resumes Europe services (News Report)

GULF Air will today resume flights to and from London, Paris, Frankfurt following the announcement of the gradual reopening of the airspace by European authorities. The airline will operate flight GF003 which leaves Bahrain for London at 2.45pm and flight GF006 which returns from London at 9.25pm, a Gulf Air statement said last night. Flight GF019 to Paris will leave Bahrain on schedule at 1.30am and flight GF017 to Frankfurt on schedule at 1.15am. "We hope to resume our full operations to and from these stations by tomorrow, subject to the full and permanent opening of the airspace." Meanwhile, Gulf Air has stepped in to help passengers delayed by the fallout of the erupting Icelandic volcano. A spokeswoman said more than 260 passengers were being accommodated in hotels in Bahrain at the airline's expense. "We are doing everything to ensure that Gulf Air passengers stranded in Bahrain are as comfortable as possible in terms of accommodation and meals," she said. "We have also set up an emergency taskforce team that is meeting those passengers and explaining the options. "In addition as a gesture of goodwill, for those passengers stranded in transit in Bahrain, Gulf Air has offered a credit value equal to their original full ticket to travel on Gulf Air services at a future date." Crowne Plaza Hotel and Golden Tulip confirmed an influx of passengers in the last few days. "We're collaborating with Gulf Air to accommodate stranded passengers," said Crowne Plaza sales and marketing director Kate Simmonds. "They're being provided with access to the Internet, the British Consulate website and means to contact their families. Golden Tulip was also appreciative of the way the passengers had reacted. "We explained the crisis individually to them and they've been quite considerate," said assistant general manager Abdul Rahim Al Sayed. "We told them that it's better to be on the ground than fly in unsure conditions. We witnessed worse situations during the Gulf War, this is no crisis." Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'Gulf Air resumes Europe services', Gulf Daily News, April 20, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Volcano of emotion

Sky News viewers were in for a shock last week while watching coverage of the closure of Scottish airspace due to the ominous volcanic ash cloud. While the TV presenter interviewed a couple about their delayed flight, an inebriated passenger crashed in yelling: "I hate Iceland." The man, who has since become a YouTube and Twitter sensation, has now earned himself the title Volcano Man. But as the volcano dust settles and the airlines return to normal, I couldn't help wondering how someone could spew venom at an entire nation. When news first came in about the volcanic eruption, my thoughts went back to the time I first pressed my dad into getting a book for me. I remember coming back from the Family Book Shop, Manama, years ago armed with an illustrated, abridged version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne and then spending days reading, and years re-reading it. The audacity of Professor von Hardwigg and his nephew Harry to descend into an Icelandic crater in a valiant bid to reach the earth's centre fascinated me. A subterranean underworld peopled by gigantic humans and battles with prehistoric sea monsters - the science that Verne employed to prove their existence was all too believable. I grew with great respect for Verne and his science fiction, as well as a secret desire to visit Iceland, climb inside a crater and discover a strange new world. Science, however, proved Verne wrong - climb inside an active crater and you could end up being roasted. A routine volcanic eruption in a lone northern country effectively put paid to the travel plans of thousands of people, resulting in European air chaos that hasn't been seen since the Second World War and billions of dollars in losses for airlines. But it's not just the active volcanoes that make Iceland the uniquely offbeat country that it is. The Norse mythology associated with the country is reinforced through the language Icelandic, which is based on an archaic alphabet used in Middle English - but which has since passed out of usage. Through the last week I've kept an ear open for any news of the volcano - not because I genuinely cared about it, but because I wanted to know how on earth anyone could pronounce its name: Eyjafjallajškull. The BBC always make it a point to get names right and, even after having appointed the parents to look out for it, I still haven't got round to listening to the pronunciation. A simple search on the Internet, however, seems to do the trick. The word, heavily influenced by North Germanic syllables, is pronounced "ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl". Now that wasn't too difficult, was it? ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Volcano of emotion', Gulf Daily News, April 23, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Don't dismiss teenagers as 'superficial beings'

A few months ago I was at the American Centre, Mumbai, on one of my almost daily stopovers at the library before heading to the hostel. I was in the centre's lift when a couple of students asked me if I had come for the film festival. My answer was 'no' but as they seemed very eager and friendly, I changed my mind and decided to check it out. It was organised by a group of mass media students and was half finished by the time I reached and the competition round had begun. Of the three films I watched, the one that really got my attention, Feelings at Death, walked away with honours and cash prizes in all categories. Inspired by a newspaper report, it explored the theme of suicide through the eyes of a small boy who was curious to know what it would feel like to die. While announcing the results, one of the judges commented that he was astounded by the mind-blowing cinematography, editing and direction. Strangely, he also said he had come away feeling depressed. "Everything I watched was dark and without hope. All of you sitting here are teenagers, aren't you? "You're supposed to be positive and on a mission to save the world. What went wrong? How can you give up hope?" Exploring relatively dark themes through seemingly innocent settings is not a new trend that's followed by teenagers alone. When William Golding's Lord of the Flies was published in 1954, it raked up controversy because of its themes of innocence, its loss and the inherent evil in man. He wrote about a group of British school boys stranded on a paradisiacal island descending into savagery because he was apparently disillusioned with human nature. I once heard a speaker addressing a gathering I was in about the "hopeless" generation he had witnessed of late. In effect, he dismissed the entire human race who will be decision-makers a few years from now as people without minds of their own. There's a huge misconception that teenagers are superficial beings who live just for the moment and care about nothing else. Espousing social causes and some of the offbeat radical things we do honestly are not just teenage fads. I was asked by an older friend the other day if 18-year-olds ever really mean what they say. Yes we do! I don't think there has ever been a time such as this when teenagers actually talk, make decisions and show real changes in terms of action that even world leaders haven't achieved. We may not share illusions about the world being a nice place where all things can be sorted out or that the mission to save the world is workable. However, that doesn't make us apathetic creatures with shallow minds. The past 20 years have seen some major upheavals in world history that have hardened us into individuals that we are. Personally, I don't think dabbling in film noir, writing dark literature or going gothic in music or clothes is a reflection of giving up hope or being morbid. It doesn't mean we're perennial pessimists raging against society and calling for the world to descend into anarchy. It's just that the more aware you are of what needs to be mended and ought to be healed, the more willing you are to reach out and help. Isn't that what the world needs today, a helping hand? ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Don't dismiss teenagers as 'superficial beings'', Gulf Daily News, April 16, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Switch off – for our planet’s sake

People around the world will unplug on a massive scale tomorrow to mark Earth Hour, a global solidarity event which each year brings people together to vouchsafe our planet's future. Every year the event, which began in 2007 in Australia, witnesses important landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness for a full 60 minutes. I caught up online with a friend of mine currently studying in Brisbane last week. After exchanging a year's worth of news, our conversation veered to the upcoming Earth Hour, something close to our hearts as we missed many a class to participate in our school's Eco Club activities. She was so excited about switching off, it sounded like Christmas had come early for her. From what she told me, the World Wildlife Fund, which spearheads the event, has done such an incredible job in educating Australian folk about Earth Hour, it is actually looked forward to as a big annual gathering. Moreover, the country has an enthusiastic environment ministry, with former Midnight Oil rocker Peter Garrett at the helm and even a Minister for Climate Change and Water! Closer to home however, I couldn't help feeling a little down last week after I phoned over a dozen schools in Bahrain to find out their activities for Earth Hour, only to discover that most of them didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Some of them had environment as part of their syllabus, but it was disheartening to know that they shirked from actually putting the lessons into practice. It has long been an argument that extra-curricular activity distracts students from classes and nothing fruitful comes of it. I remember the Green Week we had in school, when teachers turned up in green and the students in green ribbons. Some of my classmates planted saplings, while others helped empty the hand-painted recycle bin which had taken the collaborative effort of many months of hard work to be filled. It used to be almost routine for most of us to come to school with a bunch of newspapers and then slide them down the recycle bin chute. There was also a memorable clean-up day, when we volunteered to clean our school campus, picking up empty Coke cans, polythene bags and other rubbish. I can never forget a friend of mine who was always on the lookout for people with recently opened Coke cans, to collect the rings, which were then donated for making prosthetic limbs. We also had seminars on shopping bags, climate change documentaries and hands-on green activities throughout the week. You may wonder what good came of wearing green ribbons, but honestly, every time I go shopping I think twice before accepting plastic bags and I remember to use unused leaves of old notebooks when I'm studying. There's nothing better than people coming together for a particular cause that will help reinforce it as a habit. Also, there are no better institutions to promote them than those which educate us in our formative years. Though there are social groups and hotels in Bahrain who are switching off, only schools can effectively help dissolve the callousness that prevails with regard to the environment. You could have many interesting activities planned as a group or family for tomorrow, such as hosting unplugged events like an a cappella concert, a candlelit dinner, or a story-telling session. My five year-old brother Abhishek and I will probably spend time melting chocolate over candles, with me making shadow puppets on the walls to scare him. While lights go off around the world, there are groups of people who have taken the pledge to leave lights and appliances on in defiance, labelling the world-wide event a farce. Though the credibility of international climate watchdogs is in disrepute over some of their exaggerated claims, we can't disbelieve the threat of climate change to our species and our planet. It was reported just days ago that a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal, known in India and Bangladesh as the New Moore and South Talpatti Island, respectively, has disappeared thanks to rising sea levels. It's time Bahrain too joined hands with the world community in pledging support for our planet by switching off tomorrow from 8.30 to 9.30pm. For once, let's Vote Earth! ¥ Jennifer is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'Switch off - for our planet's sake', Gulf Daily News, March 26, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

A lesson in humility from the poor...

A few days ago, my roommate and I were at a shop next to our hostel to sell old newspapers for recycling, before I left for Bahrain. We were waiting for our papers to be weighed when a boy who I assumed to be about eight, but looked much younger, came and stood alongside us. He was dressed completely in red and was holding in his hands flat, rectangular strips of metal. He asked the shopkeeper if he would buy it from him, but the man replied that there was a shop a little ahead that would buy metal, as he only dealt with paper. I was a little puzzled because there was only a hospital and rehabilitation centre that lay between the paper shop and the hostel and no shops. A little later the boy returned and said he didn't find the shop. The two men told him something which I couldn't understand as it was in rapid Hindi. As we were heading back to the hostel, my friend said, "Wasn't he cute? It's a pity they turned him away." "What did those men tell him in the end?" I asked. "Oh, didn't you notice? They were just driving him away. There are no shops ahead and no metal shops here. Those two were showing him two different directions, to confuse him." I considered for a moment whether to give him the money I had just received from the shopkeeper. However, I changed my mind because that would be teaching him to beg and he was already far ahead, looking for another shop where he would be accepted. The incident brought to mind a line from one of my favourite books Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram: "There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor." There was something about that boy that kept his picture fresh in my memory. Maybe it was the way he was treated, because if there's one thing that hurts me, it is seeing true sincerity going unreciprocated. There is no heartlessness greater than lying to a little child and giving him false hopes. That eight-year-old may have a family or none. He must have been trying to get money to support them, or just himself. To get his hands on those metal strips, he must have hunted a long time in the garbage dumps. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn't opt for the easier way of doing things, that is begging for money. Instead, he chose the hard way of making a living and was prepared to face rejection. I've just completed my first year in university, away from home. I hope I don't sound superfluous when I say that a greater part of my lesson was learnt on the streets of Mumbai. When German filmmaker Lutz Konermann visited my college to screen his movie Dharavi, Slum for Sale, he wondered why so many of us had never been there and asked a rather pointed question: "So you think you can learn nothing from the poor?" The world has been accused of making much of the poverty here, but unlike other places destitution stares at you in the face and you can't afford to ignore it. In India, Gandhian principles are used as slogans on political platforms, mouthed by rulers on state visits to New Delhi and used as a cloak for hypocrisy in the country. It is however, only among the poor that you see any of that in practice. While Gandhi is more widely known for his non-violence, he was also a firm believer in the dignity of labour. It was his belief that each man should be self-reliant by making his living out of the limited means that he possesses and take pride in that. While it's easier to place blame on the government for not providing jobs, a degree of blame is also on us for not having made the best of what we've been given, which is precisely what that little boy helped reinforce. I don't believe that either poverty or unemployment will be eradicated by 2020, as is India's target, or ever. But a little less apathy and a little more humility will go a long way in making life better for all of us. ¥ Ms Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group 'A lesson in humility from the poor...', Gulf Daily News, March 19, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Cyber highway back in the Dark Ages?

If I have to name an invention of the last century that I can't do without, it would be broadband. Just how much I depend on high-speed Internet was brought to light when my connection was terminated a few months ago. I felt as though I had been deprived of food. I went to the nearest service provider and gave him an earful that he had no right to terminate my connection without notice and I wanted it back immediately. Needless to say, I got my connection only after a month. The reason given was that as I have no permanent address in India or documentation issued here, I can't get a post-paid connection. During my days of 'deprivation', I discovered that I could actually complete my study projects without the Internet and that too in record time! I also went back to reading books that I had forgotten. Ever since then, I've never felt the need to go online everyday or stay connected all the time. Cyber connectivity has made the world a smaller place, but it also has narrowed our social perspective. The omniscient Internet often gives the illusion that personal problems, world-wide crises, famines and droughts can all be solved with just a click. The growth of 'slacktivism' is perhaps one of the reasons why so little concrete action is undertaken anywhere. Facebook groups such as 'Feed a child with a click' and '9,999,999 fans and I will empty my bank to help Haiti' serve to embed people's sense of complacency. Many of us have at times wondered why inspiring actions and revolutions don't happen in our day. That maybe because all the potential revolutionaries of our time have been lost to the cyber world and being on our feet and getting our hands dirty is not attractive anymore. Our social relationships too have undergone change, with close friends and family being ignored in favour of considerable time 'friending' people online. The most appalling example is the recent case of the South Korean couple who let their three-month-old baby starve to death while they were busy helping their virtual daughter 'Anima' recover her memory and develop emotions, in an online game. That maybe an extreme case, but the Internet's contribution to the Information Age and the escapism from routine it provides, can't be ignored. I for one can't think of a better way to spend my seven-hour wait at the airport tomorrow than to burn the 1.2GB that's still left in my prepaid Internet balance. One of the things often spoken against the generation to which I belong is its demand for instantaneous results, as most teenagers would rather Ask Jeeves or visit Wikipedia for garbled truth, than take the pain of going to a library. I remember my history lecturer from the first semester lamenting the days before the Internet when she would pore over dusty volumes for reference. You may be called a Neanderthal today for doing that, but she gave us a rather strong lesson on using information with integrity. It was the last day of the term and she entered the class looking livid. We didn't have to wait for long to find out why, as she admonished the class for having indulged in mass plagiarism in the term projects. "I would have expected better of youngsters who are well-informed and know how to use almost any gadget," she said. "Do you know why the Dark Ages were called so? It's because people were content back then to accept what the rulers and the Church decreed. "They allowed themselves to remain ignorant and sold their intelligence to those lording over them. "You folk are no different, accepting everything that's on the Internet and downloading information that is served up for you, without questioning or reasoning it. "Do you realise that though you may be living in the Modern Age, your minds are still in the Dark Ages?" ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group 'Cyber highway back in the Dark Ages?', Gulf Daily News, March 12, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Stop this witch-hunt - for art's sake

I received an excited SMS from a classmate from Qatar around midnight last week that went: "MF Husain is now a citizen of Qatar! I might actually get to see him some day!" Maqbool Fida Husain, dubbed by Forbes as the 'Picasso of India', has been granted Qatari nationality by the state's royal family. For years, India's best known modern painter has been forced to shuttle between Dubai and London, to flee obscenity cases and threats to his security over a series of nude paintings of Hindu goddesses. The paintings angered Hindu nationalist parties and their affiliates, who ransacked art galleries that exhibited his work and lodged court proceedings to seize his property in Mumbai. Though such art form was very prevalent in mediaeval India and can still be observed in cave paintings and temples, hardliners accused him of denigrating Indian culture. Husain, now 95, left the country for good amidst calls for his death. In a television interview with Riz Khan, he said his work was one of love and conviction and he apologised if it had offended some people. According to senior Indian artists, no other artist in history has done such extensive work on both Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or understood it better. Also, these paintings were made in the 1970s and became embroiled in controversy only in 1996. The controversy brought to mind the book My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, which beautifully depicts the divide between the East and the West. In 15th century Istanbul, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire commissions a book to be made to showcase the splendour of his realm to the Europeans. However, the murder of one of the miniaturists threatens the making of the book and plunges the artistic community into disarray. The murdered miniaturist (speaking from after-life), tells how he was disturbed when he learnt that some of the paintings were to be made in the fashion of the Frankish masters, who depicted people and places in a realistic way, which was blasphemous in those days. Fearing the tradition of the masters of Herat school is endangered, he accuses a fellow miniaturist, who would later kill him, of not conforming to Islamic tradition. In the final scene, the murderer is being pursued and declaresa his intent to leave Istanbul and flee to Hindustan, to make his living. The subcontinent has long been open and tolerant to artists from everywhere, who helped shape its unique heritage and culture. The moral and cultural policing currently going on over what is 'Indian' art and what isn't is certainly frivolous. At no point in history has there been an exclusively Indian culture that has not been derived and hence been strengthened by foreign inputs. Had it not been for these migrant artists, India's monumental structure of beauty, the Taj Mahal, the epitome of Mughal architecture, which is a blend of Persian and Hindu styles, would never have been constructed. On Wednesday, the offices of a daily in the Indian state of Karnataka which published an article by Taslima Nasreen were attacked and two people were killed in clashes with the police the day before. The author, who fled her native Bangladesh for having offended a few public figures through her books, took refuge in India for some years. She was kept under virtual house arrest in New Delhi and finally forced to leave the country in 2008, because of the rising agitation against her stay. Artists and writers have always walked the tight-rope of causing offence by being truthful. Freedom of expression shouldn't be a vehicle for malevolence, but those opposing what comes out of art and literature should do so peaceably, without violence. As Indian laws don't allow dual citizenship, Husain will have to renounce the citizenship of the world's largest democracy to become a Qatari national. He still wants to come back and as he nears the winter of his life, it's high time people left the old man alone. ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group 'Stop this witch-hunt - for art's sake', Gulf Daily News, March 5, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Give back pride-of-place to our national sport

Two days from now the 2010 Men's World Cup Hockey will take place in Delhi and it is strange that despite being in India, I heard of it only two weeks ago.

It's a running joke in the media here that if you talk to an Indian about hockey, you will inevitably be met with the question: "Does India have a hockey team?"

In a country where all the sport expenditure, attention and frenzy is about cricket, there is little room for hockey to shine.

This wouldn't have been cause for distress had it not been for the fact that the national game of India is in fact hockey (not cricket) and the nation celebrates the birthday of hockey legend Dhyan Chand as its National Sports Day.

From 1928 to 1956, the Indian team dominated world hockey, winning six consecutive Olympic gold medals and a total of eight, the most number by any national team.

However, the golden years soon lost their lustre and Indian hockey faded out of people's memories.

The decline, blamed partly on the inefficiency of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and lack of funding, reached its lowest point when India failed to qualify for the Beijing Games in 2008.

The morale and passion among the players have taken a beating as there is no proper sports infrastructure, nor funding from the government, for games other than cricket.

Also, the lack of sponsors for a sport that is deemed non-lucrative meant that the players were housed in stadium dormitories.

Repeated protests went unheard and finally, with 45 days to go to the World Cup, the players went on strike demanding fair salaries.

In an effort to avoid embarrassment as the games were going to be held in India, Hockey India, which has now replaced IHF, gave in to their demands.

The media coverage of the event has been very sporadic. The World Cup received a brief mention during the days after the blast at the German Bakery in Pune, when security was upgraded.

Apart from that, it hasn't made it to the front pages.

This is in complete contrast to when the Indian cricket team topped Test Cricket rankings last December. I remember feeling indignant reading the rather cheesy headline The Times of India carried on its front page, 'Best and Brightest'.

What followed was a week of congratulatory advertisements from various companies, which took precedence over important news.

The Hockey World Cup has no official mascot, no eye-catching slogans and no big corporate houses endorsing the event.

New Zealand star player Simon Child has pulled out of the games, stating that he wasn't comfortable with the situation in India and that he wouldn't be able to play with the right mindset.

World sporting events have always been great levellers, allowing teams and individuals to break barriers of human endurance and hypocrisy.

Who can forget Jesse Owens' feat at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he clinched four gold medals and infuriated Hitler, who had wanted the event to showcase Aryan supremacy.

However, back home in the US, Owens had to race against horses for entertainment to make a living.

He later recalled that it wasn't Hitler but President Franklin D Roosevelt who had given him the cold shoulder, by not sending him even a telegram of congratulation.

My favourite sporting triumphs (though highly biased to football) have been the underdogs Greece winning the Euro Cup in 2004 and the Iraqi team winning the Asian Cup in 2007, in spite of the players' personal tragedies back home.

The thrill of winning and the solidarity in losing bring a nation together more than anything.

I remember listening to the commentator screaming "Joy to the land", when Iraq scored its winning goal at the finals.

I hope Hockey India takes note and spruces up the World Cup scene to be more lively and competitive.

By the way, the Commonwealth Games 2010, the largest multi-sport event in India till date, will take place in Delhi in October.

But has anyone heard about it?

¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here.

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group

'Give back pride-of-place to our national sport',

Gulf Daily News, February 26, 2010, Jennifer Gnana