Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hospital, library, hospital, library..ooops last petal in my hand and hospital on my breath.....

So hospital it is..........
I guess once in a while our leaders slash politicians needs to take decisions that have not been prompted by any fast or are not seen as reactive to public anger. These are decisions, call it governance decisions or decisions for the betterment of the society (incidentally also one of their core key performance areas) that they govern. Being an ordinary person who is more concerned about a. prices of vegetables, b. whether to cycle on the road, through the pipes lying on the road or in and out of the puddles (the size of a nice village well) on the road, I am quite unaware as to how our leaders decide what will improve our lives. In this instance, The Leader decided that maybe she needed to move some books and make space for tiny kids with broken arms, legs and runny nose so that they will be able to get nice, free treatment. So far so good. I say go for it. What do we need books for? It is just a useless hobby of the rich and the retired, something for their twiddling fingers to hold while the poor kids are suffering and dying of diseases and ailments that can be cured only in a hospital that is located in an erstwhile library. Did she consult a Vastu specialist or a Feng Shui consultant? For only they can come up with such apparently illogical but profoundly wise spatial selection that has all the cosmic richness and a healthy froth of spiritual nutrition. A university library can be located anywhere. It can be especially located @ 10 kms from the university. The cabinet felt it would be appropriate to locate the library with other educational related facilities regardless whether the user is close to it or not. Madam Chief Minister this is exactly like relocating multiplexes, malls, restaurants and public gardens to places with a climate that is far agreeable than Chennai, like say Shimla or Binsar or Nashik or Sikkim. It’s nice and cool here. So I think it’s ‘appropriate’ to locate places of pleasure in pleasurable environments where people need to travel a 100 hours by train to read a book or see a movie. Oh but the fun of it!
The nine storeyed Anna Centenary Library cost 172 crores (this is info I gleaned from the papers. Personally I do not have the capacity to count beyond 10 lakhs and now 5 crores as that is the prize money of the new KBC). Now again as an ordinary person with a pretty ordinary sense of logic (as opposed to death defying logical capabilities of our Leaders)I feel that the a hospital and library are at terrific odds as far as their designs are concerned. Is a library building interchangeable with a hospital? My answer to this question (rhetoric as it is) is that only during war time when anyways anything that works goes but does it mean our doctors operate upon patients without anaesthesia ? Has The Leader and Her Cabinet taken into consideration the costs that this will involve?
I have a better idea. If Our Leader is obsessed with home improvement, then why not have the super speciality hospital in the premises of the Central Leather Research Institute on the road opposite to IIT (I don’t know what it does, but it must be something pretty out of the ordinary ‘cause my ordinary sense cannot fathom it). I mean the CLRI is lush with greenery that I can only envy. The campus is huge and ideal for a hospital, it is clean and green and humming with innovative ideas that have fuelled the Leather Industry in India and ushered a revolution (I don’t know for sure, but it must be).
Idiots, thick heads, nincompoops, berbers, lungi-wearers (that is quite damaging), possessors of a thousand pairs of chappals! My capacity to abuse stops here!

The joy of playing

I ran for cover as my partner rushed to the net with her racket raised high over her head and cried "haaaaaaa ya".  The poor s...