It's a rubbery problem at CWG village Thu, Oct 7 12:47 PM

(http://in.news.yahoo.com/267/20101007/1742/tnl-it-s-a-rubbery-problem-at-cwg-villag_1.html)

The Commonwealth Games (CWG) Village is confronting a civic problem again. It is not the dirty loos or spit-stained bathrooms, but choked drains, which are now causing problems.

And this time, the athletes themselves are to blame.When some toilets used by the athletes were found clogged, plumbers were called in to clean them. They found that thousands of used condoms, which had been flushed down, were clogging the system.

(...)

The Delhi government has constituted 34 teams, headed by one officer each from the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Civil Service (DANICS), to monitor housekeeping and cleanliness in the towers at the Village.Each team comprises electrical, plumbing, carpeting and housekeeping experts. A protocol team, headed by a DANICS official, has also been constituted for each tower. 

A Condom Vending Machine

So, when complaints of clogged toilets came, plumbers were promptly sent for cleaning. Condoms, being supplied free at the Games Village, are in huge demand. A large condom vending machine has been installed at the Village which contains at least 4,000 contraceptive packs.Officials said more than half the condoms in the machine have already been taken out. The condoms are available at the Games Village polyclinic.

"We have installed a big condom vending machine which contains at least 4,000 contraceptives. According to reports from the Village, more than 2,000 condoms have been used so far. We will refill the machine, if need be," a health official said.

The machine at the polyclinic contains four master cartons, each of which contains 960 packets and one packet contains two condoms.

To prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases during the CWG, the National AIDS Control Organisation, the Delhi State AIDS Control Society and the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust have also installed condom vending machines at various Games venues, hotels and markets. Around 129 machines have been installed across Delhi to make condoms available round the clock. People have been hired to take care of the machines.

"The machines at the Village and other venues have been branded in sync with the CWG theme to spread the message of 'Play Safe'," an official said.

Condoms are always in demand at all residential quarters for athletes during every big international sporting event.There was a shortage of condoms in the Vancouver Winter Olympics held in February this year. Health officials there had provided one lakh free condoms to roughly 7,000 athletes and officials, but the supply ran short within four days of the start of the event.

In the Beijing Olympics Village, too, one lakh condoms were supplied, but the authorities had to replenish the stock at the start of the second week itself.In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the initial batch of 70,000 condoms vanished within days and the authorities had to order 20,000 on an emergency basis.

By Neetu Chandra in New Delhi

                         Spontaneous or conscious?

When we write an application we tend to select every word carefully for the very obvious reason; trying our best to be as convincing, and as politely as possible. In other words, we are making a conscious attempt in trying to get across what we want to. We are careful to be error free also, especially when writing a job application.

A work of art (a prose piece, for instance) is a conscious attempt. Because each moment the writer knowingly tries to decide which word (or sentence structure) he should use so that he can transmit his idea successfully and accurately. But the goal of the writer here shifts from that of writing an application. In creating a literary art the job is still more difficult, as he has to reach to the other person's heart or stir up his emotion, so to say. Again the question of making the reader accept (or atleast agree to) his thought or viewpoint remains, however infinitesimal. The success, or rather its degree depends very much on how appropriate his expression of the idea is. He selects each word deliberately and carefully reflecting again and again on his choice. He reconsiders about how effectively he has been able to put the language into accomplishing his task. Before being able to give a full shape to his idea the writer has been doing conscious mental exercise successively over a period of time. Thus, he is consciously present everywhere in the narrative simply because the words or sentences are present. The ideas or scenes or incidents etc woven into the text are infact contrived by the writer himself. Therefore, even a work of art is a deliberate creation designed according to the writer's wish.

So, if it is necessary to be so much conscious, then, how can we claim that literary writing should always be 'spontaneous' or that an 'art (is) for art's sake' only? If even a word is chosen after a careful consideration of so many factors that by the time the it is finally selected the author has already entered into the territory of deliberate consciousness.

Therefore, I do not know how I can be spontaneous without actually being conscious.

at the rly. stn. lavatory in bhubaneswar

'They are charging more', I thought. I dropped a five rupee coin on the table and he let me in. I gave my very heavy Sree Leathers' travelling bag to this middle-aged fine gentleman, which he readily agreed to keep. (I haven't seen earlier a lavatory caretaker so neatly dressed in jeans and stripped white shirt with a waist belt and polished shoes. Normally, as I know, they are in a gamcha or half pant and slippers.) I rushed in. I could see crowds of people standing guarding the toilet doors. I understood what I have to do. After waiting for about 10 minutes the door on which I was standing guarding opened and a young chap came out. Following others, I too picked up the gallon from inside the toilet and ran to fill it with tap water from where people were bathing in a row. I knew I was getting late. (whenever I want it doesn't come and when it shouldn't, it does!) I was worried, for, if I am unable to sieze this crucial moment I may not get the next soon, I thought. (Everything was there--location, infrastructure, and ofcourse 'it want's to come').

As I returned I saw my toilet was already occupied. What to do. Nothing but wait. After sometime I saw one another door opening. I rushed in to occupy. But the 'guard' told me that he has already reserved it (indicating towards a gamcha which he had put on the door, as if the way we reserve seats when the bus or train is overcrowed, I thought!). "I am going to fill the gallon now", he told. "It is very urgent", I pleaded. The kind man could sense the genuiness of my request and allowed me to go in, although reluctantly. And I could very well understand his complsion. Finally I emtied myself! I thanked him with my full heart.

Later, when I went to collect my travelling bag, I was surprised to find that the caretaker did not even ask me to pay an extra charge for keeping the travelling bag! Instead of paying more, I had in fact paid less, I thought.