Book Review: The Spy who went into the Cold by Girish Aivalli

This is the kind of book in which everything makes sense right at the end. All the threads come together and they make sense. Except, perhaps, one. 

The pace is adequate - neither too rushed nor too languid. 

It's a very easy book to read. At my age, the print size matters as much as the plot. 

But jokes apart, the book is easy to read because there is enough happening to keep the interest of the reader. 

The genre is spy thriller. There are enough coded references in the text to keep us guessing and engaged. 

I would recommend the book for young adults and above. So much better than fantasy - that appears to have become the default genre for young adults. 

Thoughts from an ICU

Quality, by definition, relies on uniformity of process. It requires that every interacting entity be given the same treatment. And through that, it ensures uniformity of experience. Which is great for machine parts, cars, powders. 

But humans, by their very nature, require personalised care. Uniformity of process will only ensure non-uniformity of experience. Therefore, in all human interactions - hospitals, education..... quality has to move from uniformity of process to uniformity of outcome. Everyone must get the personalised care that they need, so they can all feel cared for, accepted, and well. 

Review of Hostmonster Hosting and Domain Purchasing

I have a strange problem. 

My hostmonster account was compromised and 25 domain names were bought between Dec 31 and Jan 17. The billing amount varied from 14.15 to 70.75 USD. 

Different credit cards were used for each purchase. 

I got no email notification for ANY of these purchases and no receipts were emailed to me. 

I accidently found out when one of the credit card holders noticed a fraudulent charge and raised a dispute and got a chargeback. My hosting account was suspended and i could not access it because of the chargeback. I was surprised because no renewal was due on any of my products and no chargeback had been initiated by me. 

Hostmonster completely refused to do any analysis on how the emails were missed and instead mentioned that maybe my basic email id itself was compromised. EVEN IF that were so, it would be impossible to miss so many emails. All the same, I changed the password and took other security measures. 

Now, some weeks ago, my core site - kidsnews.top itself was compromised. We found out that the cpanel password was changed and that is how the hacker took control of our sites. The hostmonster support team helped us reset the cpanel password and also told us how to restore our website. 

However, they did no forensics to understand how the cpanel password was changed. 

Yesterday, when I tried to change my Cpanel password again, I realised that the CPanel password is not what I had set last time. When I tried to reset password, the email did not come. 

I confirmed the email id AND that I am supposed to get an email when the password changes (screenshot below). 

I am now able to access CPanel from the hosting main login. 

The issues are: 

A. Each transaction of 70 USD was done on a different credit card, but hostmonster is not able to explain why no email came to me OR cancel the credit card transactions OR even share the credit card numbers that were used. 

B. No idea how the CPanel password was changed with no notification to me. 

C. I asked for ip addresses of logins to my account and that was also not available. 

At this point, I am ok to shut down the entire hosting account and delete ALL our websites on Hostmonster. I also want to ensure that the credit card transactions that were fraudulently done are reversed and i m not listed as the owner of these domain names on the ICANN Registry. 

Can you please help? 

 

On Child Abuse

So, apparently, I wrote this for Parents Square.com and don't even remember! 

But its good work and therefore, keeping it for the future. 

https://www.parentssquare.com/parenting/identifying-child-abuse-and-dealing-with-it/

************* 

 I am not a writer. And I am not going to do any writing. But there is an issue that is most private and yet touches so many people that I cannot stay silent any more.

We love putting difficult issues in the closet. Bad idea.

I will deal with one such closet issue – sexual abuse of children.

The basics

Let me start off by laying down a few facts. If they are disconcerting, I am sorry, but they are not wrong.

• Children are not sexually passive. Freud was wrong. There is no latent stage. I was a school counsellor once, and also know that my children are very interested in their bodies. It has nothing to do with television or films.
• If you remember your own conversations from Class I, you’ll be surprised how often you discussed your own body in surrogate ways. Mothers of girls will remember their girls trying to pee like boys, or staring at their chests, wondering. They may not be looking for sex, but they know that certain parts of the body are different and special. Instances of children fondling each other have occurred, but since I haven’t worked enough with them I will go no further than to say it happens.
• Children know when they are being abused. Some of the cases I read about dealt with children who had been abused as infants. They had no conscious memory of the abuse, and yet had problems. Only upon deep probing could the cause be established as child abuse. Others, who were fondled thinking the child would not understand or know, did remember and were troubled.

And now, lets go straight to the subject – identifying child abuse and dealing with it.

What is abuse?

ANYTHING THAT VIOLATES A CHILD’S PRIVACY. Ranges from fondling to rape. If you are doing anything to a child you would not do in the parents’ presence, you are abusing the child. If you ARE the parent, and if you are touching your child more than s/he is comfortable with, you are abusing a child. Would you do it if your spouse were present?

Who is abused?

This one is simple – almost all children, male and female. And not, as one would think, isolated female children. More female than male though. It is absolutely wrong to think this does not happen to our children. It does. Worse still, our children do it sometimes (I have mentioned inter-child relationships above).

Who abuses?

Umpteen times it has been said, and yet we take no heed – abusers are ALMOST ALWAYS people we trust. No one who is not trusted will have the opportunity to abuse on an ongoing basis – right?

How does it hurt?

“So, how does it hurt a child so much if I have touched her/him a bit here and there? Why make such an issue out of it? I know you counsellors make a big thing out of everything to make money.” This is not an isolated parent talking. Most people who are not (known to be) abusers have asked, “Why are children so deeply affected by harmless stroking?”

Well, not all children are. We must remember that children are less protected by the strength of their own personalities. When something as beautiful and intimate as sex is introduced in such an unfriendly manner, they are jolted. What matters is not how bad the experience has been, but how bad the child has taken it.

There have been traumatised children from what would appear “small”(sic!) fondling, and there have been children who were party to such “games” and lived their lives with little more than social guilt. Each child is unique in responding to the same situation.

Why don’t parents know?

Because they do not communicate enough with their children. They trust the abuser so much the child does not expect them to believe it. The children don’t think the parents would care anyway and maybe they are overreacting. These are the chief reasons children gave me.

There are some parents who know but do not act. Personally, I think they hurt the child more than the abuser does. It makes the child feel s/he cannot, will not be protected by anyone.

How to tell if your child is being abused?

These are the most tell-tale signals I have been able to identify:

• The child’s very, very subtle disinterest in cleaning his/her private parts at bath-time and a tendency to avoid touching them.
• Alternately, the child’s increased sexual insolence (refusal to wear underwear, raising the skirt when walking the road etc.)
• The child’s sudden dislike for a close person for no apparent reason.
• When the child especially tries to avoid meeting an adult – this is a danger signal. Even if it’s not abuse, the child generally knows something you don’t, but should.
• Sometimes, children believe they are at fault, and may ask questions about god punishing them etc. Use the opportunity to know what is on the child’s mind.
• When they talk about a special/secret game, make your ears stand up!

What to do?

Let the child talk:

• Make your child feel comfortable – by holding younger children and making older children something they like to eat, or taking them out to their favorite place etc. Make sure you reiterate that you love them a lot and will do ANYTHING for them. Sometimes, your child provides you a clue in the most unexpected way – for god’s sake, seize the chance. Take it there and then.
• Ask questions. Establish whether the child is being abused by only one set of people or a person. It is not uncommon to know that the school chowkidar, the domestic servant and the neighbour are all abusing the child. Disgusting, but true.
• Establish the identity of the abuser(s). If the child is scared to reveal, stay calm and patient. Do not scare the child any more.

Sieve information and assess:

• The nature of abuse – how strong is it?
• How badly has your child taken it?
• How long has it been happening?
• Are other children, too, being abused? Maybe the dhobi is fondling all girls who play in the colony park (the colony park is one of the worst places.)
• If they are, do their parents know?
• What approach does the abuser use? Threat? Persuasion? “Lets play a game”?Now, ask yourself what your alternatives are. The list that follows is not the most politically correct thing to do, but is practical.
• If more than one child is involved (as in a school/colony), get other parents involved. The take collective action. But make sure you introduce the subject carefully. They may turn antipathetic if you do not.
• If it is a close relative you cannot directly confront (e.g. your spouse or a close cousin), drop clear hints about “increasing child abuse by known people” and “if I ever know it is happening to my child, I will not spare the fellow.”
• If it is someone you CAN confront, do so. Your child’s security is more important than your social relationships.
• Tell the child to go tell the abuser in the course of conversation that s/he will tell his/her parents about this. If the abuser is not a criminal, s/he will generally stop. It’s a simple thing, but I have seen it work so often.
• Wherever possible publicly humiliate the abuser. It’s a more efficient punishment than prosecution.

Taking care of the child
As a parent, here are things you will need to know:

• Let the child talk. Do not ever say ” C’mon, get over it now – it’s over.” That’s just what the child is trying to do! Listen, always listen, but don’t pity the child. Listen like you would listen to their school troubles. Support, do not pity.
• If they ask if they are “dirty” now, answer in the negative. It is people who do dirty things who are dirty. There will be other questions. Answer them honestly, directly, and lovingly. And patiently as well.
• If you want the child to treat it as a learning experience, YOU need to treat it as that first. No “Why me? Why my child?” It happens to so many children it’s NOT you or your child.
• If your child displays symptoms like fear in sleep, reduced social contact or avoids people belonging to the abuser’s class (friends, servants, teachers) – seek professional help.

 

How to get conned

This month, I got conned. 

The short version is that a wide, anti-slip laptop table ordered online was nothing like what was shown. 

So, I decided to do a deep dive into WHY the con worked. 

Two mistakes I made: 

1. Not reading online reviews about the site BEFORE ordering the product (they actually described the con). 

2. Ordering from an unknown site and not even researching the product on other known sites for a price comparison. This ad was repeated on my Insta feed and I just gave in. (When something appears too good to be true, it usually is. - Sidney Sheldon). 

But for someone as risk averse as me, this was totally unexpected behaviour. So, I thought about WHY I had been in such a hurry to order after seeing the ad on insta 3-4 times. 

And the simple reason was: 

I really wanted this product to be true. The existing laptop tables are not able to provide the space we need on them. It was just a big enough ask to take that risk. 

Sarcastic Quotes

Dear Doctors: If you don't want the patient to go to Google, pray, please take the time to explain the disease and the medicines to the patient, and answer their questions. The fees kind of covers that, no? 

************ 

My confidence while taking a decision is inversely proportional to the soundness of the said decision. 

In other words, I take dumb decisions very confidently and sound decisions with hajaar self-doubt. 

On Lakshadweep

 Lakshadweep is an interesting case study. 

1. 70% of the people in the island are "Not Working" - neither full time nor part time, as per the 2011 Census. 

2. Everything on the islands goes from the mainland. 

3. Tuna, which is one of the most expensive fish in the world, is found abundantly around Lakshadweep. But the first tuna processing plant was set up in June 2021. 

4. Even though there are ten uninhabited islands on the archipelago, solar power transmission was not seriously explored until January 2024. Before this, there was one solar power plant on the main island, but the bulk of the power generation was through private diesel generators. 

5. Only one luxury hotel was operational in Lakshadweep. It was shut down because the locals protested that the hotel served alcohol, which is haraam in Islam. Neighbouring Maldives, also largely Muslim, had no such issues. This hotel was on an uninhabited island. 

6. Shri Amitabh Kant had made a presentation to help create ecotourism huts in Lakshadweep - as far back as 2019. The project did not take off. 

7. It also has the highest population density in India. The density of population of the district as per 2011 Census is 2,149 persons per sq.km as against 1895 in 2001. 

8. There are two aerial connects - Agatti and Bangaram. The other way to get there is to take a cruise ship from the mainland (Kerala). The commute is 14-15 hours. 

9. The entire place allows no alcohol because it is an Islamic region (yes, this is different from alcohol ban in Bihar and Gujarat, where the cause of ban is control over crime rate. Here, the reason for the ban is the religion of the majority). 

10. There is only one crop on the entire region - coconuts. Some people have private vegetable gardens etc. but mostly everything is carried from the mainland. 

In terms of livestock, most islanders keep goats and poultry. Cattle is rare because feed is expensive and hard to come by. 

There are only 2 occupations - fishing and coconut farming. Tourism is NOT a major employment option. 

11. There is ONE coir processing factory, nothing to create processed food items from coconut. 

12. The per capita income is, as expected, low. But what is even more interesting is the level of skew. Because of the strong caste based employment, the land owning communities make a lot more money than the (non) working other communities. 

IF tourism has to develop in Lakshadweep, some changes, imho, that will need to be made are: 

A. Reduce the government aid and slowly phase it out. 

B. Create policies for PPP tourism infrastructure. Develop more helipads and have choppers with higher capacities. 

C. Make alcohol permissible. 

D. At the end of the day, it is the locals that make or mar a tourism experience. Today, Lakshadweep citizens have reserved college seats on the mainland. Make those seats reserved for tourism related courses, so that the local population prioritises and is upskilled on tourism revenue. 

E. Like Maldives, start with and stick with eco tourism. 

Lakshadweep is a very important archipelago for India's naval interests. The coral reefs are important ecological resources that matter to all humanity. 

IF this is the start of a new chapter in Lakshadweep history, shubasya sheegram!