By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

Last Sunday I had the opportunity of spending a full three hours, with my family, immersed in a rapturous reverie that thankfully we in Mysuru have been enjoying year after year, for the past twenty-three years, thanks to the untiring efforts of its sponsors, organisers and performers of a very beautiful show.

I am talking about Geeth Gaatha Chal, the now very famous musical programme that is almost completely stage-managed by doctors and their family members. This free show has been a unique gift to Mysureans and we can all only agree that this has become a show like none other in our city. It is an event where music lovers can get lost in a state of timelessness for a full three hours, which they sit through hoping that it will never end!

It was at this show last Sunday where I was greeted and accosted by an elderly gentleman who recognised me as a regular columnist of Star of Mysore and introduced himself as a regular reader of what I write.

Holding my arm in a grasp, surprisingly tight for his advanced age, he said that he wanted to show me a few things if I had the kindness and time to see them. Although at the risk of missing out on a couple of the soulful songs, I agreed to accompany him and went where he led me.

His first stop was at one of the rather steep staircases at one of the wings of the auditorium, where he pointed out how all four such staircases were completely bereft of handrails or bannisters to help the aged and infirm to negotiate them with some degree of reassuring ease and safety.

I could only agree with him that he had a very valid point on this lacuna. Then with a wide grin he asked me to hold my handkerchief to my nose before showing me the next thing he wanted me to see and let me towards the gents’ toilet nearby. I reassured him that, I had no need to take the help of any handkerchief for this excursion, because being a doctor, I had long been accustomed to smells far worse than what he was preparing me for and went with him, with my nose unplugged and open. I’ll be kind to your sensibilities and skip the description of what I saw there and will only tell you that what I saw there, was the best example of how a toilet should not be, private or even public!

Turning to the wash basins, he asked me how anyone could come away from a toilet without washing his or her hands and how they would be able to accomplish this when none of the wash basins had any functioning taps? Yes, I found that while one wash basin had a dripping tap without a handle, the other had no tap at all. After we both came out and took a deep breath in unison, he told me that the gents’ toilets on the other wing were locked shut and therefore not available for use. This was forcing all the men to perforce take a long detour around the perimeter of the building to find the only open one.

He also said that he was going home well before the show was starting because he was afraid that being an elderly man he would perhaps need to use a toilet very soon and he felt the best and nearest place for him to do it was back home!

He then requested me to write in my column about this sorry state of affairs at what was until not very long ago, the best and the biggest auditorium of our city and here I am, doing it for public good!

Having done this, I would like to add that I noticed many people complaining after the show that many seats were broken or without backrests and therefore unusable. I wonder why this has to be so, when the place has been undergoing periodic renovations at considerable cost, during which it is kept closed for prolonged periods.

Incidentally, the offices of the Director and Joint Director of the Department of Kannada and Culture, under whose management the auditorium comes, are located inside the very same building. Can these two officers not make periodic inspections of the place and see that it is maintained in a state of good upkeep at all times, keeping in mind the fact that many public events keep taking place there very frequently?

Or, is it too much of an expectation to be made by us citizens, so low down, from those perched so high?

A poor man’s peril!

Early every morning, on my way to Karanji Tank with my wife for our morning walk, I have been seeing over the past few days, a lone security guard on duty, either standing or sometimes sitting on a boulder on the side of the Tank Bund Road.

Of late, he has out of sheer necessity, created a shelter for himself by making an awning out of a discarded piece of cardboard and fixing it to the chain-link fence of the Lake. While he himself and those who have deployed him on duty there, do not seem to be aware of the risk to his life, I cannot help feeling that he is in great danger of being run over by a speeding vehicle, especially with visibility being very poor during foggy mornings these days.

Even otherwise, he is stationed at a very wrong place because that side of the narrow stretch of road has no footpath whatsoever and vehicles can run right up to the edge of the road.

With the opposite side of the road having a wide stretch running alongside, a small guard’s cabin can easily be created, well away from the road, by the Zoo authorities to whom the land belongs. This will not only keep their guards safe but will also offer them some much needed protection from the elements.

I hope we see this happening sooner rather than later and certainly before it is too late, because accidents always happen without prior notice!

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