daily accounts- | by Saugat Datta - revised January 29, 2004 |

Day three: same people, same badges, same sound bytes, same issues and same street- Everybody with a badge waited for the sun to come up and then enter the loop in NESCO grounds. Joke between us was which group had the best lap timings? Media center for me was a contradiction with air conditioning and tons of bottled “mineral” water (thank god for otherwise I would have never known Jaundice). In spite of being spoon-fed by the organizers, it was amazing to know that from North America to just outside the gates of NESCO grounds nobody knew anything about ongoing forum (except for few alternative news groups on internet).

Result: no public participation, no momentum gained anywhere in public domain and negative publicity, nonetheless, publicity for corporate giants. Streets were gradually sharing the burden of garbage as were the common with exorbitant food prices (a plastic cup of Chai = Rs.5/-). Few outlets dishing out simple rice and lentils had longer queues than employment exchange offices. Western media was more interested in bytes from the likes of Arundhuti Roy, Medha Patkar, Tibet - their already well-publicized issues. So were the Indian media including private television news-channels. They restricted their capacity to taking the message of tourist experience with spicy Indian food across the country. Hindi and English print media across India looked more like gossip tabloids, without any background of the earlier forums.

Streets of NESCO grounds unfortunately saw most of the action between the silent art and verbal protest by demonstrators itching to walk on the streets of Mumbai. I felt suffocated among spit boxes with anti Bush cartoons, wall hangings with a collage of propaganda posters, asphalt submerged in a colorful sea of multi-sized hand bills, garbage bins filled with empty mineral water bottles and extra food and garbage cleaners with brooms in their hands and tired looks on their faces. WSF mutated into a supermarket of stalls of various NGO’s selling their organic products or networking or generating awareness and NGO workers convincing people who in turn were convincing others to participate in their discussions. Result: more people on the streets and more empty seats inside.

Hindi translation was still neglected in the smaller discussions while multi-lingual translation could not happen for discussion held by most of the Indian NGO groups. One has to be blind not to notice the disconnected mass of activist Indian aboriginals, farmers, and villagers, for whom this WSF endeavor was a big financial effort. To end it all many voices went undocumented compared to the extra footage showering on likes of Medha and Arundhuti. Truth amazingly finds it own ways, in WSF it was street theater, a haunting rhythm from a lonely drum, intensity of some faces and silence wrapped in their proud traditional attire would seep in to wake you up to the fact another world doesn’t wait for anybody to recognize it.