News Story 26 Feb 09

News is often bad so may as well start with the bad news for the day. If luck has its way there will then be room for some good news.

The bad news is that the current Chinese presidents greatest achievement to date (other than for his efforts being promoted to president) is that he was governor of the Tibetan region during the brutal crushing of the second Tibetan uprising.

The good news – see I had a feeling there would be some good news forthcoming – is that Australia will soon no longer manufacture any clothing, and hence if Australia goes to war with China they will have to fight naked. No problem in that I should think, at least we can drive our cars around until they run out of fuel from the Middle East.
Interesting news is that the most pressure applied to a bridge comes not from a convoy of fully laden trucks driving over them, but from a tightly packed bunch of marathon fun-runners pounding their way across it.

Of relevant news – you may well be wondering – applies to the (osho) International Meditation Resort in Pune, India – a resort that claims to have over 100, 000 visitors annually. In particular I refer here to its new almighty, award winning, towering, monolithic, pyramid-like meditation auditorium.

The news is that this building has had cement failure, and a neighbouring building (constructed as part of the same project) has had failings due to mixing down of cement (not using enough cement in the concrete mixture).

The interesting question is what happens to the brickwork, structural steel, cement, welds, and bolts, when the devoted Osho sannyassins pound the floor of the Auditorium during their controversially active morning Dynamic meditation?

Of course it hardly seems worth mentioning that for years people drank contaminated drinking water at this so-called spiritual oasis.

To tie things up neatly, I wonder how many Chinese children died in schools that collapsed during last years horrific earthquake disaster due to atrocious and incomprehensible workmanship?

For the second string on the wrapping, the parallel between Chinese food contamination scandals and contamination of drinking water at the resort is also interesting.

You probably would not be surprised to learn that for my efforts to expose the truth I have been banned from this (osho) resort; I have been threatened in writing; I have been verbally threatened; I have been threatened with being punched, have been pushed, and have been punched; I have been threatened with metal rods and sticks; and I have (probably) been threatened with a knife.

I almost forgot about a sweet little anecdote. A brick-layer came to the resort to do some work-as-meditation. He was put to work supervising labours doing construction projects. The summary of the scenario was that the workers thought that he would obviously not know anything about construction work, and so they could pull the wool over his eyes (so to speak). He was of the opinion that they were trying to steal cement. What they did was overstate the amount of cement needed and used for any particular job. Now a supervisor who has no idea of construction would not have a clue how much cement is needed for a job. However this person happened to be a brick-layer by trade.

I don't recall the exact details: whether they were stock-piling cement on the side or whether at the end of the job it appeared that all the cement was used, yet could not possibly have been: someone who knows about such things would be able to look at the colour of the concrete to see how much cement is used in the concrete mixture. The likely scenario put forward to me was that over-quoting and supposedly using this excessive amount meant that the labourers were free to steal a certain amount of valuable cement.

Now if someone wanted to investigate the quality of cement work on a project they could easily look at the amount of cement used, and draw conclusions accordingly. However in this case the conclusions would be wrong.

So what about the mixing down of cement that I identified on the project that included the grand meditation pyramid? One possibility is that the correct amount of cement was quoted, with lesser cement used, and some of the valuable product strangely disappearing – perhaps into nirvanna?

While I am on the subject, one last little twig. Trees and branches have historically been neglected, and a high-tension cabling system winds trees up into a dangerous state of tension.
It has been some time since my last un-meditative visit to the resort, and I assume that deep meditation in the still-standing auditorium has channelled wisdom and compassion into the supposedly spiritual management.

As far as the Chinese communist party is concerned, the latest US state department survey has noted last years brutal crushing of Tibetans for the third time, and also an increase in the level of human rights abuses generally.

The contents of this article reflect the opinion of the author only. Some of the contents may appear factual, but are conclusions. The author shall not be held liable for any of the articles contents.

Also, the author is not a civil engineer, but is an engineer with practical civil experience.

Finally, it should be noted that the author worked with engineers and consulting microbiologist at the resort, and is a qualified engineer.