Chennai Corner

Porn Doctor Authors Mahabharata
He's no Lord Jeffrey Archer who penned three volumes of his prison diaries abouthis life behind bars after being sent there for perjury in 2001. But Dr LPrakash is trying to emulate the celebrity writer even if the reason for hisbeing in Puzhal prison is for more than just telling a fib. Ganesh, a schooldrop-out, blew the whistle on "Doctor Porn" in January 2002 after hefound nude pictures and videos of himself having sex on the internet. Prakashwas arrested in December 2001 and sentenced to life earlier this year after sixbail petitions by him were dismissed. But if you think he's churning out theHarold Robbins genre of pulp fiction, think again. The 52-year-old doctor hasbeen prolific, writing novels running the gamut of adventure, science fiction,romance novels, erotica too and, hold your breath, even Glimpses of VedicWisdom. Four of his books including Glimpses have been published by GAsokan of Banana Books. Asokan, for the uninitiated, is the man who haspublished thousands of Tamil thrillers. But when Asokan decided to get intoEnglish publishing (along with L Rajesh), he was on the look-out for anequivalent of Sidney Sheldon who would get Banana Books noticed. The answer wasprovided by a lawyer S Namonarayanan who had met Prakash when he was in prisonbriefly after being arrested for unlawful assembly. A meeting between Prakashand Asokan, through a wire mesh, sealed the deal. Next up for publication isPrakash's 60,000 word Mahabharata in four volumes.

Never Say Die
But Prakash's exploits in prison is a testimony to the fact that he's a neversay die kind of a guy. His recent appeal to the high court that he be allowed touse his laptop was allowed by the court.  Prakash shares a dormitory with24 others, goes jogging in the morning and spends the rest of his day writingbusily. According to Tamil Nadu Medical Council President Dr K Prakasam,"He has a good readership inside the prison. He mixes well with everyone,but nobody goes to him for medical advice." Prakash did try to get backinto practicing medicine while out on a three-day parole on April 12. Hereportedly wrote an e-mail to a Mumbai-based orthopaedic surgeon Dr MangalParihar: "Hey Mangal, at last I am out on parole. Can I join you?" Healso contacted other doctors online. The medical community was alarmed since hislicence to practice has been cancelled. Prakash was an orthopaedic doctor butmade his money on a pornographic website that he ran for 10 years where heposted nude pictures and videos of his patients without their consent. Hisbrother in crime, literally, was his US-based brother. In addition, the policealso found 55 grams of heroin at his residence at Annanagar (he has filed a casesaying he was being framed and that is still pending). Last month, a raid atPuzhal prison (after a terror plot led to Ali Abdullah orchestrating the wholeconspiracy via his mobile phone) resulted in a cellphone being seized fromPrakash. Police also seized two joints from him. 

Water Worse Than Sewage
A century ago a British resident was reluctant to give up his house so that theEgmore railway station could be expanded because it was next to the Cooum river.He felt the Cooum's waters kept him healthy and happy. Cooum, a 72-km longchannel over which this metropolis has grown, originates in neighbouringThiruvallur district and finds its way into the Bay of Bengal in Chennai. Butmuch water has flowed down the Cooum, in fact less water and more sewage, somuch so that if you are anywhere in the vicinity of this river, you have to holdyour nose. A recent study by the Tamil Nadu fisheries department says that theriver has more toxins than a sewer. Actually, the study says the river is 80 percent more polluted than treated sewage. What is even more shocking is that thewater has almost no dissolved oxygen as a result of which fish could survive inthis water only for three to five hours, and even that only after the water wasdiluted. The value of BOD (biological oxygen demand) is the measure of how cleana river is. A really clean river has a BOD of one milligram per litre,moderately polluted rivers have a BOD of between 2-6 mg/litre. Sewage afterefficient treatment is 20 mg/litre. But the Cooum, at one of its most pollutedpoints (under the Napier Bridge) has a BOD of 36mg/litre.  It willtherefore not be a day too soon, when the cleaning up of the Cooum sub-basin isundertaken as part of a World Bank-funded project. The cleaning up is scheduledto begin next March. So will the Cooum smell mint fresh in 2010? One can onlyhope.

Not In My Backyard
While being environmentally-conscious is a way of life in other parts of theworld, in India the philosophy is "not in my backyard". During arecent visit to a friend, who lives in a plush, lush, gated community inBangalore, the truth of this philosophy hit me. You could eat off the paved roadwhich forms the driveway, probably even drink out of the pool and the lawns wereso manicured that weeds would probably quail at sprouting roots. The nights weremagical with fairy lights. But the "not in my backyard" syndromeoperates in this island of prosperity too surrounded by the filth, grime andchaos of the city. One of the complex's dozen security guards was on his patrolin the morning when he found an offending bit of garbage on the sanitizeddriveway. What did he do? Picked it up and tossed it over the wall. He did noteven furtively look over his shoulder to see if someone was watching histransgression.

A Green Warrior
In light of the above, perhaps even if she holds the title of "IndianClimate Champion", Chennai-girl Shruti K Neelakantan, currently sailing tothe Arctic, has a lot to learn. The first "polar woman" from Goa(she's the second only from India), Dr Devyani Borole, who returned last Aprilafter 14 months on an Antarctic expedition had gushed about how everything wassnow white and pristine all around on the icy continent. All the garbage thatwas generated was brought back and no one on her expedition even considereddumping it there just because penguins and polar bears would be the onlywitnesses. Hopefully Shruti will come back with the same wisdom. 

Shruti, a Class XII student of Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, one oftwo Indians (the other is S Dhruv from Lucknow) who was selected in a nationwidecompetition conducted by the British Council, is part of the Cape Farewell YouthExpedition 2008 to study climate change and global warming. Cape Farewell is aLondon-based project that deals with climate change. The expedition thatincludes 17 top scientists, artists, educators and school students from ninecountries around the world and 30 crew members left Reykjavik in Iceland onSeptember 7. The expedition would take them past Greenland before the teamdisembarks at Baffin Island, Canada, on September 20. 

Shruti has the makings of a green warrior and it was her video based on thecartoon series "Captain Planet" in which she listed out the dangers toearth and what can be done about it, that helped her get a foot in the door.She's already been at work in the city, visiting as many as 16 schools to creategreen awareness teaching fellow students about source segregation of garbage andassigning class monitors the responsibility of switching off the lights when notin use. She says sheplans to institute a "green kid" award so thatmore students get involved in devising ways to keep the planet clean.