07-21-2007, 05:13 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jul 21 2007, 11:15 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jul 21 2007, 11:15 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I presume nationalistic desis would consider this as offensive and demeaning to India. Psy-ops against India as the aggrieved and affronted would froth.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unable to read NYT article, I don't have handle.
Don't know whether they are refering to American Indian or South American Indian. Same confusion when they refer Indian Summer or Monsoon.
[right][snapback]71423[/snapback][/right]
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My apologies for not realizing one has to be a registered in NYT to read some articles. My bad.
Mr. Mudy - you should register with NYT. It is free and it is a wonderful paper. I consider the NYT, the Hindu and Christain Science Monitor the best newspapers in the globe.
The article was about rats in Bombay. I did not want to take up bandwidth by quoting the entire article here.
Here is an extract
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To accompany Mr. Harda on his rounds of rat-infested areas is to navigate a parallel city, a world apart from the malls and luxury apartments sprouting in Mumbai. On these streets old ladies sweep human waste into drains, men soap and bathe themselves in the gutter and women pluck lice from the heads of their husbands and brothers.
Mr. Harda and three deputies strode through these lanes like Ghostbusters, cages in hand, nodding at passers-by for whom their arrival is a daily reassurance. They stopped at food warehouses full of sacks of rice, sugar and lentils. Many had installed cages the day before and found a specimen or two. Mr. Harda gathered the catches into a single, swarming cage.
By 10:05 a.m., they had two full cages in custody. Now the rats had to die.
The cages were dipped one by one into a bucket, but the bucket was too short and many of the rats managed to keep their noses above the water level. When the cage was restored to dry ground, the rats patiently rearranged their fur as if nothing had happened.
But Mr. Harda had an alternative plan, which was not subtle or hygienic but was terrifyingly effective. One of his deputies plucked the rats from the cage one by one and, with the vigor of a Whack-a-Mole player, slammed each one onto the ground. The rat would convulse with shock, then suddenly go still. In some cases, its limbs would gyrate, Elvis-like, for a final few seconds. A few especially resilient souls briefly resurrected themselves to make a last, death-defying jump. And then they, too, died.
The men killed 26 rats in five minutes. Afterward, a small fraction would be sent to a laboratory to be tested for bubonic plague.
All this may seem like strange toil for a man who once danced in hit Bollywood movies like âBrahmachari,â and who still looks, in a certain light, like a man of film, his graying hair slicked back with shiny cream.
But when he was a young dancer, Bollywood was not much of an industry, and a municipal job in a socialist country seemed more secure. His father made him trade cha-cha for civil service. âI killed all my ambitions,â he said.
How was his father to know that India, 17 years later, would swivel to capitalism, that Bollywood would grow into a cash machine, that government jobs would surrender their appeal?
Mr. Harda is by no means bitter. He is happy with his $210-a-month salary. The high point of his career, he said, came in 1986 when the Mumbai municipal commissioner, having heard of Mr. Hardaâs prowess, came to see his work.
He brings to that work an exactitude that is ordinarily asked only of those who execute humans. Back in his office, he pulled out logbooks that he has kept since 1989. They list every rat catcher employed by B Ward and the tally of rats killed each month and year. Mr. Harda has often commissioned an artist friend to decorate the annual summary page with colored markers.
He is not alone in his devotion. Rat catching is one of those jobs that swallow you whole, said the top pest-control officer in Mumbai, Deepak R. Adsul, who is Mr. Hardaâs boss. Even his antimosquito squad can never leave the office at the office, Mr. Adsul said. âWhen theyâre having a stroll with their fiancées, they will look on the side of the road to see if larvae are there,â he said.
Mr. Adsul reached for the right analogy to explain the battle.
First he compared it to a chess game, then to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. The art is to know the enemy.
âYou can be successful in this work only if you can imagine yourself in the shoes of a rat,â he said. âThis is a war.â
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Unable to read NYT article, I don't have handle.
Don't know whether they are refering to American Indian or South American Indian. Same confusion when they refer Indian Summer or Monsoon.
[right][snapback]71423[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My apologies for not realizing one has to be a registered in NYT to read some articles. My bad.
Mr. Mudy - you should register with NYT. It is free and it is a wonderful paper. I consider the NYT, the Hindu and Christain Science Monitor the best newspapers in the globe.
The article was about rats in Bombay. I did not want to take up bandwidth by quoting the entire article here.
Here is an extract
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To accompany Mr. Harda on his rounds of rat-infested areas is to navigate a parallel city, a world apart from the malls and luxury apartments sprouting in Mumbai. On these streets old ladies sweep human waste into drains, men soap and bathe themselves in the gutter and women pluck lice from the heads of their husbands and brothers.
Mr. Harda and three deputies strode through these lanes like Ghostbusters, cages in hand, nodding at passers-by for whom their arrival is a daily reassurance. They stopped at food warehouses full of sacks of rice, sugar and lentils. Many had installed cages the day before and found a specimen or two. Mr. Harda gathered the catches into a single, swarming cage.
By 10:05 a.m., they had two full cages in custody. Now the rats had to die.
The cages were dipped one by one into a bucket, but the bucket was too short and many of the rats managed to keep their noses above the water level. When the cage was restored to dry ground, the rats patiently rearranged their fur as if nothing had happened.
But Mr. Harda had an alternative plan, which was not subtle or hygienic but was terrifyingly effective. One of his deputies plucked the rats from the cage one by one and, with the vigor of a Whack-a-Mole player, slammed each one onto the ground. The rat would convulse with shock, then suddenly go still. In some cases, its limbs would gyrate, Elvis-like, for a final few seconds. A few especially resilient souls briefly resurrected themselves to make a last, death-defying jump. And then they, too, died.
The men killed 26 rats in five minutes. Afterward, a small fraction would be sent to a laboratory to be tested for bubonic plague.
All this may seem like strange toil for a man who once danced in hit Bollywood movies like âBrahmachari,â and who still looks, in a certain light, like a man of film, his graying hair slicked back with shiny cream.
But when he was a young dancer, Bollywood was not much of an industry, and a municipal job in a socialist country seemed more secure. His father made him trade cha-cha for civil service. âI killed all my ambitions,â he said.
How was his father to know that India, 17 years later, would swivel to capitalism, that Bollywood would grow into a cash machine, that government jobs would surrender their appeal?
Mr. Harda is by no means bitter. He is happy with his $210-a-month salary. The high point of his career, he said, came in 1986 when the Mumbai municipal commissioner, having heard of Mr. Hardaâs prowess, came to see his work.
He brings to that work an exactitude that is ordinarily asked only of those who execute humans. Back in his office, he pulled out logbooks that he has kept since 1989. They list every rat catcher employed by B Ward and the tally of rats killed each month and year. Mr. Harda has often commissioned an artist friend to decorate the annual summary page with colored markers.
He is not alone in his devotion. Rat catching is one of those jobs that swallow you whole, said the top pest-control officer in Mumbai, Deepak R. Adsul, who is Mr. Hardaâs boss. Even his antimosquito squad can never leave the office at the office, Mr. Adsul said. âWhen theyâre having a stroll with their fiancées, they will look on the side of the road to see if larvae are there,â he said.
Mr. Adsul reached for the right analogy to explain the battle.
First he compared it to a chess game, then to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. The art is to know the enemy.
âYou can be successful in this work only if you can imagine yourself in the shoes of a rat,â he said. âThis is a war.â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->