tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60980490636304207722024-02-08T17:54:17.609+05:30Reflections of a riverside walker<U>Pause... Reflect... Write... Continue...</U><br>
On the sands of Time...Along the river of Life...<br>
Calming the waves of the Mind...Braving the Whirls of Change... <br>
Watch that thought and stand by...
And quietly let the storm pass by.Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-46946290506175519092019-01-01T11:56:00.000+05:302019-01-01T11:56:23.376+05:30The intersection of Technology, Leadership and Society that made Aadhar happen.A captivating account<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> My review at Amazon, of the book "<a href="https://www.amazon.in/Aadhaar-Effect-Largest-Identity-Project/dp/0199487618/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8">The Aadhar Effect</a>", written by my friend and inspiration, Ramnath. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Technology work with Indian Government is hard. Harder still, when private and public institutions have to work together. The hardest part is when it involves each of the 1 billion citizens as an end user. The Aadhar project faced all these levels of hardships. The book, 'The Aadhar Effect' seeks to capture this hard, complicated and multi-faceted journey to consolidate and de-duplicate the Indian digital identity.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Somewhere in the book, the authors mention that the project had many aspects of a thriller with twists and turns, conflicting forces, drama etc. Well, the book itself seems to be that! Particularly the sections on privacy, with RTI activists .vs. Privacy activists, are page turners. The book is beautifully written. At many points, when I was reading a section, I had some thoughts (ex: about fortune at the bottom of the pyramid) and as I progressed, I discovered they were exactly covered in the book. That shows a natural flow that evokes reading interest.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The book goes beyond Aadhar itself and discusses enabling digital platforms and digital services that are or could be built over Aadhar. There is a small amount of noticeable (though well-deserved) Nandan praise for his leadership abilities, his ability to conceive the larger aspects of the project and put a diverse team together. To be fair, in the chapter 'Who's afraid of Aadhar?', the book lists a collection of 50 common problems and objections to Aadhar. Nowhere else can you find such a comprehensive counter-view in one place.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">At some places, the authors tend to delve on the 'larger picture', philosophically or strategically, which may be viewed as a stretch. Like, towards the end, they portray Aadhar like it's some foreign relations enabler for its learning potential for implementing large digital projects.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The angle on Aadhar being, an important, but only one of the many Lego blocks is a significant theme of the book. In the same lines, the book dwells upon future possibilities and great potential of Aadhar, rather than on how it has been useful in the development arena, the exceptions being the Direct Bank Transfer scheme and payment systems. It dwells on the architectural beauty of having a unique identity and how it can be a true transformation tool if you want to use it for development and empowerment and how the central payments infrastructure is already making it possible.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The book has a good share of the stories of getting work done. For example, with Nandan's backing by the PMO, his access to PM worried the bureaucrats,. The authors mention it as: 'It's not that he would call. It's that he *could* call'. The book is of full of such super-interesting tidbits and also many anecdotes about the dynamics between Nandan Nilekani, his colleagues and various government departments.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">As you write a book review, you realize that you are not writing a review of the book, but a review of the Aadhar project itself! Thats a good thing, it means the book has achieved its goal, of pushing you to think about the project, its impact, potential and ramifications.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">If you seriously think about the impact of technology in Samaj and Sarkar, if you tend to have an 'integration' view of all things tech and the power of digital platforms to transform landscapes, this book is a great read. If you have been in situations, where you have to demonstrate extraordinary leadership to bring a diverse team together to push towards a visionary goal, you must pick up this book. You will understand both, how hard it is do good work in India and how hard it isn't, i.e. if you have the commitment, the right team and undaunted persistence.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #111111; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">It may be waiting for you at the airport, at a book fair, at a neighbourhood store, or in Amazon. It might pick you up. Like they say, when it comes to good books, you don't choose them, they choose you.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-54045559483278694042019-01-01T03:51:00.001+05:302019-01-01T11:10:15.790+05:30Little Go-Green Steps in the wide waste world... My efforts exploring an eco-friendly lifestyle...<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
Last year, on 1st Jan 2018, I resolved that 2018 will keep me excited about learning to adopt an eco-friendly, waste-reducing lifestyle. We write New Year Resolutions all the time, but I wanted to write a post on the New Year, about the previous year's resolve, chronicling what I did about it all year, whether I remembered it every single day and where I failed. It is also my first post for the Facebook forum <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/220569591632645/" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Zero-Waste LifeStyle India</a> which I follow keenly. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
So before I ramble on into the philosophical tangents( don't miss them at the end), here are the specific steps, where I succeeded, failed, plan to bounce back and where I continue to remain confused, lazy and indifferent.
<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">The Successes :</span></div>
<ul class="_5a_q _5yj1" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px auto 32px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 0px 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; width: 676px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Reduced paper coffee cups from 4 per day to 1 per day. The 1 cup is my breakfast so it has stayed, but it needs to change too. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Hand shower and health faucet in the bathroom. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Stopped tetra packs, Lays chips. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Drink tender coconut water without a straw, like tribals might do. By mistake if anyone tells you to use a straw, that's the flaunt moment, say <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/nostraw?source=note&epa=HASHTAG" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">#NoStraw</a>. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Say No to Straw for juices in restaurants. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Say No to customer copy of debit card slips at POS. Say No to ATM slips. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Reduced consumption of instant noodles greatly. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Bought a second-hand laptop, although I could have perfectly bought a new one, after 12 years of using and killing my old laptop.</li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Repaired the headphones twice, (courtesy my room-mate). The Sony MDR XD 100 is into the 9th year now. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Keep only a fixed no. of clothes, and give away old clothes to charity every year in May. Ditto for all other miscellaneous junk "things" that accumulate from time to time. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Shifted to Tooth powder for night brushing. Tried bamboo brushes with plastic bristles, not happy. Might try again. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Stopped Dhobi from packing clothes in plastic covers every time. He wants to cover, so he shifted to covering them in newspaper. Now I have to stop him from using stapler pins. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Using the bicycle. Has a 3-fold advantage. Energy-friendly, Economy-friendly and Exercise-friendly. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Give wet waste to cows. Since Aug-15, in honor of Swacha Bharat. Collect fruit and vegetable waste from home, go in cycle and give to cows. It's a 4-in-1 winner. Exercise + Eco-Friendly + Circular economy + Go-sewa. In the west, people who for jogging are encouraged to pick up plastic, they call it plogging. I should call this <span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">cowcycling</span>. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Give dry coconut shells to the farmer who (anyway) uses such a stove. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Collect fruit seeds, don't throw them away, set them aside. Might use them for seed-balls-with-clay before monsoon. (Dunno how far this will work). Worst off, they can always go to the bushes. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Stopped eating chocolates. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Shifted from running water shaving to mug-based shaving. I actually measured how much water I wasted, before I did this. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Have tried old-fashioned shaving rounds instead of gel/cream, works okay with me, once the current lot of gifted gel gets over, planning to stop gel. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Stopped using after-shave and tried old-style alum cake used by barber, but not happy. Cold cream seems okay. Not the best, but recyclable and wastage rate is slower than after-shave lotions. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Carry a spoon and tiffin box on trains. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Carry cloth bags or polythene bags you have collected from before. Say No to new polythene covers and also those flimsy cloth-like replacements. They are not recyclable too. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Set aside electronic waste for responsible disposal. (For which, it seems, options are very less in India, if you were to investigate the entire trash trail). </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">No Fan or light, when I am alone in the room. Like our Prof used to say, open the windows and let the atmosphere in. I also prefer well-lit, so if there are no big windows, chuck this rule. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">No AC when I am alone in the room. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">No use of geyser, enjoy cold water bath. </li>
</ul>
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An occasional exception is allowed for fan, AC and geyser based on extreme climate, though. It's not as if God is sitting in judgement and will paste a ticket on your forehead, LoL. </div>
<ul class="_5a_q _5yj1" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px auto 32px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 0px 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; width: 676px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Use lift only at the end of the day, if the knees are tired. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Use sleeper coaches in trains, instead of AC. Use trains instead of flights. An occasional exception when travelling with friends or long-distance in summer. </li>
</ul>
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<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Not Through My Hands :</span></div>
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Dry waste segregation : I adopted a vow 'Not Through My Hands'. I shall not put any dry waste in the dust bin at home with my hands. All dry waste that passes through my hand is set aside for handover to scrap dealer. Waste that the local scrap dealer is likely to toss out or send to the landfill, is set aside to be turned over to recycling agencies in other cities when I travel. No pushing or preaching to others, may be suggest/nudge, but move on, take care of your waste first. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
After a while, as an experiment, I tried sorting my own dry waste as a scrap dealer would. That's quite a revealing and awareness-creating exercise. If we really took '<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Your waste, your responsibility</span>' as a mantra, when you spend time sorting your own dry waste of few months or so from cartons/sacks, you are appalled at what you buy, what you discard, what portion is non-recyclable and straight goes to the landfill. Also, you realize the utter monotony, manual labour and thankless, endless, pointless job that segregation workers go through to sort our million wastes, apart from the filth and the health hazards they face. Become them for three hours, it will change you. </div>
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<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Failures : </span></div>
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Good Day biscuits : These serve as instant food for late night hunger. Should move to oats instead. </div>
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Glucose biscuits : These serve as breakfast. This should change too. </div>
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When I travel, all rules are off. (Why ?) I subsist on mineral water bottles all day during travel, can't afford to risk any which water due to my health. Nowadays, I try to fill RO water in stations, but not always accessible. I use Ola, something I wouldn't do in daily life in my town. I use it because otherwise I would get tired sooner and that upsets plans. I don't segregate waste and bring back, though I drop them in dustbins. Often, I travel some distance within the city I am visiting, just to have good food at a place of my liking, something that could be avoided. </div>
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<span class="_4yxp" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">Shaving :</span> A major consideration for me. I don't worry too much about an occasional waste, but daily stuff is worrying, recurring waste is always a concern for me. </div>
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Razors : Haven't been able to solve the problem at all, confused. Electric shavers save water. Water in my area is pumped from long distances, we need to worry about it, so it seems great to me. But they cause industrial waste, not recyclable, disposal is a problem. haven't been happy with Braun Cruzer 6, burns after a close shave. The higher models are too costly. Mach 3 twin blades provide the best experience, but cause recurring waste of blades and not recyclable. The stainless steel blades, used by the barber, are the most eco-friendly if you collect the blades to dispose. Tried that, but they are the least comfortable for shaves. Finally, may be my friend <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rmnths/posts/10155859955197093" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Ramnath's New Year Resolution of growing a beard</a> might be the most green solution, but it may cause tremors in other areas of my life, LoL. Now what to do ?</div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="_4yxp" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">Fountain Pen :</span> Turned out to be another confusing flop show. I stopped using ball point pens or pens with use-and-throw cartridges. Tried out a few models of fountain pens, nothing seems to work for me. I use a pen very infrequently. So, in most fountain pens, the nib has dried up by the time I want to write next. Just when I want to write, it won't write. Learnt from some of my students about hacks to re-fill ink in cartridges using syringe etc. For now, using pencils more. Will revisit in a while. </div>
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<span class="_4yxp" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;">Toothpaste tubes</span> seem to be the next unsolvable problem for me, because they are not recyclable. I am not a big fan of using Neem stick etc on a daily basis, unless we understand the long-term effect on gum care. Ditto for Ayurvedic Dantmanjan etc. But I may be biased here. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
No solution for Tablet strips. I segregate them hoping to send them away for polyfuel, dunno how it will work. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Things for future :</span></div>
<ul class="_5a_q _5yj1" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px auto 32px; orphans: 2; padding: 0px 0px 0px 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; width: 676px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Want to visit the local landfill, with a mask. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Want to visit an actual waste sorting facility, particularly for electronic trash trail. Must be a very sensitizing experience. Inspiration for this comes from the<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theconsciousdesi/" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;"> The Conscious Desi FB page</a> and other articles on Trash Trail. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Wondering about stopping the use of Talcum powder / Deo. May be try out Chandan or something. </li>
<li class="_2cuy _509q _2vxa" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px auto 12px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: auto;">Should learn some hand-craft to make upcycled products. Though handicrafts is not my cup of tea. </li>
</ul>
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<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Compost bin :</span> Haven't bought one still, though this is considered a mantra for Go-Green, because 60% of all household waste is wet waste. The single thing that has been evading me all year. Right now, I don't need one, because wet waste goes to cows. Some wet waste not meant for cows (such as onion peels, puja flowers) goes to the bushes as mulching. Seems to work well for me. Except that, some days you are too lazy, busy or tired. About the compost bin, I am worried about odour, worms, rats in a shared flat in apartment block. Seems a very subjective art with too many elements of balancing such as dry leaves/saw dust, moisture, stirring, jaggery, buttermilk, what not. Every third blog on composting, tells about so many aspects you need to be careful about. There should be something simple and algorithmic, LoL. Or I should simply take the plunge. </div>
<div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d2129; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto 28px; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">My Inspiration : </span></div>
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The original inspiration was the famous "<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D9GorqroigqM%26fbclid%3DIwAR0Jt62XPQ1MsBXxJpNRVh3CL4YJvYhq8De2o715bPkHB2zs5p9wEKgaGLw&h=AT0sw0cYSJO0MBn4_vpg1sP3RhhUwB3nyWtjIqWTIcNWEx4QVP5KqUS_WL540I5ie8mn2e_u33dEKppULm3xGN7fpgzOLloVR2X8U3kxaCkA4loLnsnbjG49bZ8YpC1oH6BG" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Story of Stuff</a>" video, which I watched umpteen times prior to 2018. (For a balanced perspective, one should also watch the "<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc5uJgG05xUY%26fbclid%3DIwAR1vt1HlCTAdy8B24m1RmpTUH1xtf0vTzy6DJ43FtTYK2FcdFsFiJbUvDww&h=AT1yuCJcLWMHv8UBtmbwdBDrp6Nnt8GA6MVUw1ruHh0nBgrLe8WckgK59vxm0ERn_DYPYaaas-rqLYZXVdCnKjkvJpD94Oe2y61aabnsFlaR7mxcIbvwIAfD5dyVeWELMAsI" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Critique to the Story of Stuff</a>" video, which gives a rebuttal to some arguments made in the Story of Stuff video). I was drawn to The Story of Stuff video, of course, by <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sathyasai.org%2Fpublications%2FTeachingsOfBSSSB-Vol01.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3aTFfEJ6jalPRzcnnsqfrgpEbFuobOW81aduKqJTgwYaYQkyhqAkBzR8k&h=AT2K6V3T9zoOoE7r10cbywDVyyZf1YShlIIqmIim2nvgKyj5sYSF9Ayy0rBmTYlFwYiB4KIbvpBfZK6ncPIRSFIr_5voz5eSxa6mVa1CGXtsM84AFsHCkogDp-QirdaZPtq3" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Swami's teachings</a> on Nature conservation, Ceiling on desires and Vedanta. I truly believe, as a social phenomenon, <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sathyasai.org%2Fstudyaids%2Fdesires%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2LqJGOVnWwTM0LsVHnIU5Xd0bMawq6FLzfjYqzNfYsOjnNBvbQxpe-KpE&h=AT2elSmJSdZVaO6Iquz3tM6UEm7JEgPzAg3d7KXbzRBiAsbTFGzkMq_yrLXLu2bbJJqCz9z8ySKvXB4Yi_3QyMlrR_nF-M-aWTVAY_iT6vOb44yDwEz2mSEbCE1xAF0_RI6f" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Ceiling on Desires</a>, can become the single great push for an eco-friendly lifestyle, because Reduce and Re-use are at the heart of it. The <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsathyasai.org%2Fevents%2Fgo-green-2018%2Fbook%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2unLXZnEwSvW1tQdYA5GCVRRVC0WuXwX4TOB_6JRwxcieBJVMSTX1PAVY&h=AT00ZXzF9jfxAG0MhoTnRbc-2AO6Fq_H_f1db6VPO4UVNxNFQLTxi1Jc7XZ5MMy0Od4foNkpwAt8FnTnW74FbtXm0w7rbSIe_WiWP5ewhglI_P8-lbOYYBmGft9cA85b7ufF" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">International Go-Green Conference at Puttaparthi</a> midway in the year was a great push to my learning. One person from a small town in Karnataka who sat next to me in a group discussion, totally surprised me when he spoke at length about the list of green measures he follows in his life, including switching off the community street lights on time in the morning! It's quite humbling, you often catch inspiration from total strangers. </div>
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<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">The internal challenges :</span></div>
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All through the year, there are many stray thoughts that impinge on you from time to time, either from your own mind, from other's sarcastic comments or from what you see and read. Some of them :</div>
<pre class="_19ik" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f5f6f7; color: #1d2129; font-family: Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, monospace; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 40px auto; orphans: 2; padding: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; width: 700px; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Why bother ?</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">As if what you do matters ? For every green guy here, there are 10 others, littering plastic in your neighbourhood. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">The government has to take care. They have to change the laws, enforce the laws better. We can't do anything. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">You talk about going green on this issue A, but see, what about that issue B , haha silly, you are penny wise and pound foolish. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">The earth will find ways to revive itself da, don't worry. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Conflicting options, for example, washing stuff to re-use them takes water which is becoming an equally difficult resource. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Simply showing off, nowadays it's more of a fashionable talking point to say I am going green. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">There is the real go-green and the green stuff you do like others do, like buying a new stainless steel water bottle or a new cloth bag. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Don't overdo these things, like collect seeds, you've gone crazy. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Every Go-Green decision becomes a debate of a million pros and cons, then how do you even decide and do something ?</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">
</span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">It's just a fad, let's see whether you are as much fascinated after 5 years. </span><span class="_2cuy _19ii _2vxa" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 676px;">Take it cool, dude, get a life. </span></pre>
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Although I explore and persist a lot, I don’t have a strong philosophical conviction about why Go-Green. Why we should even bother about these things, Go-Green, Segregation etc. It's quite okay to me if the human race, that crown jewel n all of creation, simply disappears from the face of this earth because of their own follies. There is no duty here. In the larger timeline of Earth's history, it doesn't matter, there have been random events like Ice Ages and natural disasters that just pop up from nowhere to reboot Life. On the endless sands of time, is it not the Child's Play of Goddess Lalitha ? So, why jump around too much to save the earth ? Like that <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DovbF0D2wySI%26fbclid%3DIwAR0XbDLSbEf9SgEMyEywkYgcoP3TD4kmtW8Hr-Cls2BYrog1G8baNcp4GN4&h=AT3nttNO3sLsmOUy_lf5P5oUZ1edwezRkSZfR41YbzgSa_2bXcYM7UX0z6BpR_p7AC7ytu8pphQAh_JHtbpQCGapACjunPDq_KgJ_HzXzaHdEuBE4HvHJqgIH173bv8a__4q" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">George Carlin Stand-up video on saving the earth</a>, says, don't talk of saving the Earth, the planet is fine, the people are doomed to disaster. I am more worried about the eco-karma coming back to me during our own lifetimes, in the lives of the children around us. That would move my heart. May be we should do it for their sake. Or for ourselves, because, it's simply the right thing to do. Or because it's the new fad. As the Admin guideline at the ZWL forum says, don't debate too much, focus on your bin. </div>
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There are other challenges, when you want to take others along, family and friends, or when you want to follow it at your workplace, institutionalize it or to find scaled solutions for society, such as activism or volunteering. But, right now, I am focusing on what I can do at the individual level. Sometimes, the dry waste accumulates or lies here and there in the room, that's something to be taken care of. </div>
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<span class="_4yxo" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600;">The pushers :</span></div>
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Being in a small town and in an ashram, without realizing it, you internalize a greener lifestyle over the years, compared to elsewhere. There is the constant reminder for self-awareness from talks. Commuting is very little. Living in a shared room has its simplicity, resources shared, buying can be bundled. There are good community/public options such as a bakery and canteens that are cheap. Sewage treatment is taken care of, solar power gaining traction. There is no TV, although there is the ubiquitous internet. You don't have to buy stuff to show off your social status. Wasting food pricks your heart a little. You can buy less, because there is limited place in your house, wallet and mind, for buying more and more. You see a lot of simple happy people around you. Even then, you tend to drift away, because there are also many small practices around you that are not eco-friendly. Poor waste segregation, coffee cups, fuel-guzzling vehicles etc, so one needs to push oneself to be conscious all the time. Of course, being eco-conscious is a small part of Conscious Living, which is a larger and more meaningful pursuit. </div>
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The journey made me develop a lot of interest in Minimalism, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/becomingminimalist/" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Minimalist Living</a> and Decluttering. At the root of an eco-friendly life, is to Reduce. To reduce things, you have to reduce the space things occupy in your minds. In the movie, '<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FInto_the_Wild_%28film%29%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3vgGfrdgQyZ1VWMphFaLD-XUj9jmLH656KddJbrvaqAJY7_edfgP5g6EY&h=AT3zhN1HXiJ9mzRhK09Q4KyvJh2-dctmZAuyfXR_XnOiWpf0vyswSJnw-iHbO_T3qgDaRwY79H1NYfUJBxbGRqR0o0hHk7yLpILaWzm023lkU8ukstgWbuI8VTsQxP6mnOJX" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Into the Wild</a>', there is a <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DKb83JKfxYn8%26fbclid%3DIwAR3vQVQeVV3_NGk2P-u50MDoQNQT55kRVU-kSXKxCDL17jzAnhWNiNy_ePo&h=AT1l438wWIwCOcj55UDbvAY9h3Zu-WGHV_7Mn4cyNsCm9PzzI3sFcD6Nn8Zvdi85jYv1oztmToLoCvovtzTZ1RHkzHqRjNg4guVreqv2cVZ1wwAAqvGsAVtRbJoqZQOPftGR" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">restaurant scene</a> where the rich parents offer a new this and new that to their graduating son. The guy says, '<span class="_4yxp _7xn" style="background-color: #f5f6f7; font-family: "menlo" , "consolas" , "monaco" , monospace; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; padding: 4px;">Oh, these things, things, things, I don't want them</span>'. It was my favorite scene. If you buy gifts, they won't stay with me. Hand-write a note on a chit, I'll keep it for life. Buy less today in the first place, and lesser tomorrow. Household waste is only a miniscule portion of all waste, most of it is industrial waste which is driven by the consumerist frenzy and automatic obsolescence. Recycling is not a great solution, because we can't recycle a whole planet! In any case, only a portion what is recyclable gets actually recycled. So, think before you buy.</div>
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I enjoy the meeting point of spirituality, Go-Green, Minimalism and De-cluttering, even if they conflict occasionally. The spiritual concepts of detachment and respect for Nature can be great pushers for your interest in these things. </div>
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The FB forum Zero-Waste Life Style India has been a great learning ground from successes and constraints mutually shared by like-minded users. Can't thank each one of you enough for the countless day-to-day stories from small middle-class green households amidst their challenges. After a year of comments engaging at the forum and learning from the Maharathis, this is my first post, Thank you ZWL India. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-57515262749341515972017-11-18T15:17:00.001+05:302017-11-18T15:24:57.392+05:30Teaching Dinosaurs to dance digitally - Part 2<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.in/2017/11/dancing-dinosaur.html">Part 1 </a>of this article was about why PDF India is not #DigitalIndia and some thoughts on access to public data and data submission. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now that the rant is over, let me document some of the woes that I came face to face in accessing public data. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A couple of years back, I was consulted by a friend once on having to extract select data fields from hundreds of PDFs from SEBI website, for research work. It involved the extraction of fields such as Offer Price, Negotiated price etc (well, whatever their finance lingo), from Letter of Offer documents submitted by merger/takeover companies to SEBI, over 15 years. Putting together a strategy using open-source/free tools and an eye to automate most of the tedious tasks to the maximum and maintain accuracy</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, a sequence of steps was devised for automated extraction. In some stages, semi-automated. Some steps required human eye reviews from time to time, about whether the automation ghost, that eerily moved the mouse pointer at midnight, is working properly or is being interrupted by the invalid data ghost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Here are some of the concerns I came across. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The <a href="http://www.sebi.gov.in/sebiweb/home/HomeAction.do?doListing=yes&sid=3&ssid=20&smid=15">SEBI page of Letter of Offer for Takeovers</a>, was treated as the starting point for collection of data fields related to Final Letters of Offer. </span><span style="font-family: "arial unicode ms"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Original data collection by SEBI is not structured :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The fact that information was collected as PDF and not as structured data gives less scope for meaningful analysis of data. Ideally, the data should have been collected from the companies in more organized formats such as XML, Excel or CSV or by seeking information in a web form, as is the standard practice. This would have allowed the collection of raw data by SEBI in a database-friendly format. Since this was not to be, it led to a situation where the structured data have to be sought by sifting through PDF documents. For ages, we have been looking at standards like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Financial_Reporting_Standards">IFRS </a>and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBRL">XBRL </a>from a distance, but nothing moved because SMEs complained of compliance cost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>No options to bulk download :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There were no options to bulk-download documents by querying for multiple companies based on search criteria. One had to traverse the pages a few links at a time to download the documents. This constraint was later overcome partially by a series of semi-automated steps using tools such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashGot">FlashGot</a>, <a href="https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/tinytask_portable">TinyTask </a>and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Soup_(HTML_parser)">parsing of the pages</a> for file paths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Inconsistency and non-standard methods in the organising of PDF links in the SEBI website :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The formats in which the document links were organized varied between pre-2005 and post-2005 periods. Links to pre-2005 takeover documents, would lead to a direct download link of the Final Letter of Offer. The file name would be numeric, giving no idea about the company in question. Such as <a href="http://www.sebi.gov.in/sebi_data/attachdocs/1293422790170.pdf">this</a>. On the other hand, post-2005 takover documents, would lead to another intermediary web page of links for the company (such as <a href="http://www.sebi.gov.in/filings/takeovers/dec-2007/ram-ratna-wires-limited_7756.html">this</a>), which in turn would lead to the PDF link. In the later years, the PDF file would be named more meaningfully such as LOF etc (which is a relief), but not consistently. This meant more manual downloading and filtering of necessary documents from unnecessary ones. Some HTML tags filtering using tools such as <a href="https://notepad-plus-plus.org/">NotePad++</a>, followed by exporting to a database, were used to partially overcome these constraints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Unsuitability of PDF format for structured data :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The PDF format doesn't lend itself to efficient parsing to collect data. Moreover, the data fields required (such as Average price), were often presented in a table inside the document. This meant that the PDF documents needed to go through a series of steps before data could be culled out from them. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibre_(software)">Calibre</a> software and the online service pdfonline.com were used in batch processing to convert PDFs to HTML web pages. The individual code lines from the web pages were exported to an SQL database and parsed for HTML tags to look for tables that contained the required fields.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Lack of uniformity and fixed format for the presence of data in the document :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Inside the PDF document, data was not found consistently in the same location or format. One had to look for references to the section title such as '<i>Financial Justification</i>' and then look for the data in the table that geographically followed it below. Keywords such as '<i>Negotiated Price</i>', '<i>Average Price</i>' and various combinations of such phrases had to be listed to look for data. Even after all this, one wasn't sure whether the data fields would indeed be found or not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Inefficiency of using text-based search to identify data fieds :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When found, they may not be found in a consistent form or a phrase. For instance, '<i>Not Applicable</i>' could be any of NA, N.A., N-A,a hiphen etc. Sometimes, the justification section would be a paragraph that contained none of the keywords. For an automated lookup, references to '<i>infrequently traded</i>' might often been confused with '<i>infrequently traded on NSE and frequently traded on BSE</i>'. These made automated collection inefficient and necessitated a manual study of the PDF documents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Mismatch between different databases in company name mentions :</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">While some data fields required for the study were to be found from Letters of Offer, others were extracted from the <a href="https://prowessdx.cmie.com/">Prowess </a>database. The takeovers involve an acquiring company and a target company. There were inconsistencies and mixups in both these names between the Prowess and SEBI data sources. SEBI would list the letter of offer against the target company whereas Prowess would list it the other way round. In some cases, where there were multiple takeover instances relating to same company names, requiring the PDFs of multiple years. This meant resolving the mix-up by manually reviewing the PDF and data fields. One had to arrive at a cross-tab of SEBI name, Prowess Name and the correct Letter-of-Offer-Name in the takeover context before one could collect accurate data.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is not the issue of a single website of one government insitution or a government department. It’s the opposite, of being unable to work as a single website for the whole country. It’s about the isolated approach to.presenting data to the public or seeking data from them, sulking it as an unwanted duty imposed by the Digital India frenzy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The data.gov.in sets an excellent precedent with public APIs throwing an ocean of private opportunities open. It is high time that other government institutions join the bandwagon of unified data view architecture both for submission and presentation of data, in truly seamless transactional digitization, keeping in view bulk submission and bulk download options. Data.gov.in has plenty of uncompleted agenda ahead of having to unify the data from the states at a regular timeline and keeping it update and in getting the various uncomplying departments to co-operate.<br /><br />Some data dinosaurs <i>have </i>to be taught to dance digitally, because evolution is binary. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>You either become distinct or you become extinct. </i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-8906421807929198872017-11-18T01:31:00.000+05:302017-11-18T15:26:44.736+05:30Teaching dinosaurs to dance digitally<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
ain’t so much of #DigitalIndia yet. It's just PDF India. For those looking for meaningful, processible data,
the difference between the two can make a world of difference. For some
government institutions, digital means PDF or JPEG image of scanned print reports,
including spreadsheets and balance sheets. One might argue that nowadays it's
possible to extract data from PDFs using technology. But it's like garbage
disposal and recycling. The messup shouldn't be created in the first place. Image
processing algorithms were not invented for spreadsheets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A
good example of a bad PDF document is the <a href="http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/dchb/3329_PART_B_DCHB_DHARMAPURI.pdf">District Census Handbook of 2011</a>. It
will have reams and reams of pages, with one page showing the first half of a
horizontal spreadsheet, titled “<i>Industrial Catgory of</i>”, and next page showing
the other half, titled “<i>Marginal Workers</i>”. Man, that must be some innovation in
bad design . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Switch
to the good example of presentation of the same data. <a href="https://data.gov.in/">data.gov.in</a> presents hundreds of
datasets from the Census of 2011 in open formats for public access. You can
access the <a href="https://data.gov.in/search/site/Dharmapuri">data for the same district in CSV format</a>, loadable into Excel. Did you know you could download the <a href="ttps://data.gov.in/catalog/indian-railways-train-time-table-0">Indian Railways timetable in Excel</a> ?. How sweet!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
salient rule in data collection or presentation must be that, at the raw
source, the data must be collected in a format that is processible by
automation. It should minimize human eye intervention only for reviews and
green/red flags and throwing up exception patterns. Or for discovering insights
of wisdom from "rich experience", which a chip can't discern. Days
may have come when chips outsmart elders in experiential wisdom as well,
LoL. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Companies
like <a href="http://howindialives.com/">HowIndiaLives.com</a> , where my friend <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rmnths">Ramnath </a>is involved, address this
problem by helping their customers and website visitors make visual sense out
of the non-sense data in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
public domain. They also present it in a beautiful and user-friendly ways and
help project stakeholders glean useful insights from data. That data shouldn't
have been nonsensical in the first place, in its raw open form, is the sad
fact. That they converted rants like these into a business opportunity is their
ingenuity. While raw data must be disseminated in open processible formats, it
should lead to an ecosystem of companies like these, which compete in
discovering insights from data and presenting them, without having to spend too
much time cleaning it. Not just cleaning it, but having to fight
inconsistencies between multiple sources of data for the same item of
information, I guess, must be another tedious task.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Taking
a leaf out of international open data like <a href="http://data.un.org/">data.un.org</a>, the <a href="https://data.gov.in/">open data platform</a>
for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is a big leap in this direction for sharing of public datasets (though they
don’t have options to bulk download data). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, some of the
transactional websites of the government websites can make life extremely tedious.
If you are a high-volume transaction submitter, your life can become miserable,
having to submit thousands of records into old-style web forms. Some of them
must have been in a cave since <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">AJAX</st1:place></st1:city>
was invented. <a href="https://fcraonline.nic.in/home/index.aspx">They </a>can put thousands of person names with option buttons on a
single page, expecting the user to scroll down or use the browser's Find, choose one name and then submit. Wwwhaaat!
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
format in which data must be submitted to government websites must be
pre-defined with digital processing in mind. For a billion-headed Titanosaur
like <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
it should definitely have scale in mind too. Ideally, it shouldn't even be
Windows OS intensive and Windows OS requiring. Kerala, for example, wants to
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/indias-kerala-state-goes-open-source-5000152441/">dabble in Linux</a> and it's a good thing. I hope they don't up give up like <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/13/munich_committee_says_all_windows_2020/">Munich</a></st1:place></st1:city>, the city that wanted to run on Linux.
But, that kind of thinking is good. It may lead at least to the adoption of
open formats for seeking data, if not an open-source OS. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Not
all is a sad story with Digital India. There are a handful of bright spots in good design, that
take scale and digital processibility into account. Aadhaar, no doubt, is a beautiful
example. The Income Tax website often has some sudden quirky differences
between <a href="https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/Services/DownloadItrLink.html">its Java tool and the Excel tool</a> with mysterious conclusions of inability to generate the XML file. But it at least uses XML to upload data.
Thats a good thing. Even within the Income Tax Department, you may not find the
same kind of good design for other tasks, for instance, for applying for
non-deduction of TDS. Another of my favorite examples of handling technology at
scale carefully is SBI's transition to core banking and their merger with
associate banks. It was not about open data or about government per se. But, at
its scale, it's truly a project of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Elephant-Dance-Managers-Empowering/dp/0452266297">teaching elephants to dance</a>, and for their
size, they did a mighty good job at it. The GSTN must be the next Aadhaar-like
unifier, after the easing out of the initial troubles. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">This is the intermission, the end of Part 1. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">In Part 2, I mention some of the woes I faced while extracting data from PDFs from the SEBI website. It has a sad ending that rounds up by saying :<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Some data dinosaurs <i>have </i>to be taught to dance digitally, because evolution is binary. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><i style="font-size: 14pt;">You either become distinct or you become extinct. </i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Lot of technical debris ahead on Part 2. </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Blissful poets, musicians and other non-tech readers not allowed beyond this point. :-) :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br />-->> <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.in/2017/11/teaching-dinosaurs-to-dance-digitally.html">Part 2</a> </span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-26281016572944565562017-10-21T02:30:00.000+05:302017-10-21T02:30:50.640+05:30Book Reflections : The Shattering of the Soul <div class="_2cuy _3dgx _2vxa">
How long does a good person remain good ? The true test of the goodness of a person may lie in extreme conditions that test it. They say the strongest of tyres are tested on the toughest of roads. Is your neighbour good, will he remain good to you in times of trouble ? Wait a minute, ask muslim widows who are victims of the Bosnian war. We don't get a very enthusiastic answer that we normally face. Most of us live under "normal" conditions, so it helps to assume an average goodness in the people around us. It's necessary too. However, in times of war, or war-like riots, the same human, acts differently, as if possessed by a war ghost. </div>
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The book, "<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FShattering-Soul-Janja-Bec%2Fdp%2FB002O5DNQW%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fs%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1508527463%26sr%3D1-1&h=ATMwYbiLKgdNtLFVhL3IfY0NCcdRSGOIcynmoXYyMKxJ7pHhbj0qg70ZNJGqKWFOYmGI5P2k5lpDAAGsheyA4a2YK9ARYgiKajsoeJXJo1tOqGw8eaCvQmczmbX_2Azw8BN2nx_d-Z8EHQ" href="https://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Soul-Janja-Bec/dp/B002O5DNQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508527463&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Shattering of the Soul</a>", which I just completed, captures this aspect of human nature. It captures the stories of war misery of 10 Bosnian muslim women, in a first hand account of their experiences on how the<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEthnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian_War&h=ATOjCRHzLu0D61qXYqp6Qv4XTuCHSHchFMVTGp9A404uhe8kU2sFWLq29SfoO9u2VnvpPR-Ss0eVyk0sNyHmSrBCS63NWkL6d5ybfHPiHMrkE_lPNAY_llYP3DfzAoPx0RvcKk51-GT9Dw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian_War" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> ethnic cleansing by Bosnian Serbs</a> during 1992-95 unfolded, and how their lives were changed overnight. All the accounts have plenty of the events in common, that makes it a little repetitive in detail. They would all say, roughly, “We had a house and a farm, and we grew our food. War broke out, we were invaded and looted. We fled. We want to go back to our roots, but what is left but ruins?”. </div>
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But, if you read one story at a time, during train travels as I did, you see the common thread not just of the events, but of both evil and good in man. You see that all grief is similar to the onlooker, yet each grief is different for the victim. The feelings of the common people in a typical village are so different from the ones who might have initiated the wars, but the stories of war travel far and wide to create more wars and more misery. It is as if the ethnic war ghost is a virus that spreads like an epidemic. It spreads, not through touch or food, but through the shreaks in the voices and fiery red eyes of patients infected with hysteric rage. It causes a clouded vision of the world and makes you hate thy neighbour as your enemy. </div>
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The Museum of Tolerance provides an online version of the book for free :
<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394691" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=394691</a></div>
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The book speaks of how the Bosnian families were protected by the Serbian neighbours of the same village, although it was Serbians who looted them. The Serbian neighbour would stand up for them, they would stop their Serbian soldiers and say, “This one here is a decent family. They don't have weapons. Spare them.” . Yet another would say, “Take my life before you touch that child”. Some others may not stand as upright, but they would smuggle cheese and other food supplies for their Bosnian neighbours. Some would warn them in time so they could go into the woods and stay for days, till the invaders came and looted their houses and went back. After the houses were devastated, some would at least call them for a coffee in the afternoon to their house. How many of us can manifest goodness in the face of threat to our lives ?</div>
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They also speak of how, in some other cases, the very same Serbian neighbours who were close until the previous day, would participate in the loot of the Bosnian house. Some said they had to point guns at their Bosnian muslim neighbours, because otherwise, their own Serbian clan would kill them. They would make the youth from the Bosnian families work like a slave. The victims mention how they were clueless that the very faces whom they met across the street everyday would land at their door, demanding to chase them out and loot their houses. </div>
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Until then, they were neighbours who helped each other build their houses. The houses were built by the neighbours lending a hand to each other, except for the roof, which would be given to the professional. The houses that were self-built and built as a shared labour between Bosnian and Serbian families would be destroyed, looted, the doors and windows or whatever was left just taken away by the invaders. Families with children had to move over to Slovenia, leaving all property back in their village, travelling long distances, even having to bribe for their paperwork to move out. Mosques on the way would arrange some food for the children of the migrating victims. The stories distinctly recall, how it was all fine till one day when the war started and the news of war arrived in the village and neighbours become archenemies. </div>
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Which of these two is true human nature ? How does one know which part of Man will manifest when ? I can't help but think of similar stories from the Gujarat Riots of 2002 or the exodus of North-East people from Bangalore in 2012. </div>
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As the compiler of the stories admits, the book captures only the view of select Bosnian Muslim victims, there are no stories about Serbian or Croatian victims, which must be equally mentioned. But as the epilogue <a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmotlc.wiesenthal.com%2Fsite%2Fpp.asp%3Fc%3DgvKVLcMVIuG%26b%3D394889&h=ATMcUK9MAvSO8AnhUKVhiaOjHmpEeSdAdtAGIPNh5Xx8WmdoZ3ULJteOW95fO3mvtVNhF5ROKDrWoFrmSHdNSKWyW1w2r6Va3R0NcQVAXUkBnyGLzCB3CWCbdLRc5wGAaYIeOg3YaaAN1g" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">argues</a>, that is not much relevant. "<i><span class="_4yxp">Human suffering due to mutual hatred is universal, and by presenting the suffering of some we are presenting the suffering of all</span></i>". </div>
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Sri Ramakrishna tells an interesting story about two brothers fighting for land. They were on either side of the disputed border and were quarelling at the top of their voice, about the patchy border. “<span class="_4yxp">It's mine</span>”, one said. “<span class="_4yxp">No, it's mine</span>”, yelled the other. Voices grew into arms, arms grew into bruises, bruises grew into attacks and soon they both dropped dead at the border. God, who was watching the fight from above, felt funny. “<span class="_4yxp">Well, whose land is this now ?</span>” He asked. There were no owners left to answer. </div>
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After I read the book, I felt like listening to A R Rahman's song from 1947 Earth : "<i><span class="_4yxp">Ishwar Allah Tere Jahan Pe</span></i>". It's a beautiful song that captures the questions that would have, surely arisen in the minds of those war victims rendered homeless, with their souls shattered and their hopes killed. From the ruins of their houses and ashes of their families, some seeds of hope must have flown across the Slovenian border. They wanted to come back and they wanted to live. But they had to choose between the two. The ghost of war abandoned their villages, and now went to possess some other race, tribe or religion, elsewhere on earth. But they had to struggle, rebuilding their lives and houses in another distant land. This time, without a neighbour, to lend a helping hand. </div>
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Like that song asks: </div>
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So many screams, who will hear the voice of love ? </div>
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So many dreams shattered, who will gather the pieces ? </div>
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The song is verily a Prayer for Peace. </div>
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The link is here :
<a data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha2zTxnROJg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha2zTxnROJg</a></div>
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<a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/nowar?source=note" target="_blank">#NoWar</a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/musoftolerance?source=note" target="_blank">#MusOfTolerance</a> <a class="_2u0z" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=111828258836121" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/ARRahman/111828258836121">A.R.Rahman</a></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-85041138673381253402017-06-20T02:58:00.000+05:302017-06-20T03:00:38.352+05:30Impressions from Lokmanya TilakTo read a book on Lokmanya Tilak's life had been on my to-do list for a long time. There were three reasons for this :<br />
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1. His work ethic : I had read somewhere that he was almost a workaholic, he worked long hours relentlessly for the society and country, more than people do at their jobs. He was a very versatile learner and worker and in his life, he did all kinds of things. He was a journalist, edited two magazines, taught law <br />
classes, was a maths teacher in school and college, a lover of trigonometry, started a school, a college (Fergusson College, Pune), did social work during the plague, researched Vedic History, wrote a commentary on the Gita, he even ran a sugar factory for a while. How could one person be and do all these things ? <br />
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2. I had heard that, among the freedom fighters, Swami mentioned Lal-Bal-Pal particularly in praise. <br />
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3. Having read and <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.in/2008/02/why-world-doesnt-need-gandhi-bashing.html">written on Gandhi at my blog</a>, it would be great to acquire a perspective totally different from Gandhi. Tilak and Gandhi mutually respected each other, but during their time, it was clear that their paths were different and they knew it too. Tilak debated this with Gandhi and tried to persuade him to give up non-violence and didn't succeed at it. <br />
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I wanted to understand Tilak the man, his personality, his early years and what made him to be what he was. So I stepped into the university library after 10 years and picked up <a href="http://www.amazon.in/LOKMANYA-TILAK-Dhananjay-Keer/dp/8179918610/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497905585&sr=1-4">Tilak's biography.</a> by Dhananjay Kheer. After the first few chapters, the book turned out to be more on his political chronography, he did this at that Congress meeting, then Congress met next year, then he did that, again Congress met and so on. Nevertheless, I could observe many events in his life and his views and some of them I never had an inkling about. Here are some points and anecdotes that I found interesting and inspiring. <br />
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<b>Tilak the social worker : </b><br />
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He was a man who worked amidst the masses. We all know that he used Shivaji's Birth anniversary and Ganesh Chathurthi as platforms to raise the patriotic awareness of the people. He believed in ground action, to be with the people. <br />
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During the Poona plague, the British appointed committees to segregate patients. This was to be implemented by British soldiers. There were reports that they were acting too harshly and there were excesses. The British Government said, it was just doing its medical job. Tilak joined the search teams himself, visiting house to house, to ensure the British soldiers didn't commit excesses. He also created awareness in the public about hygiene in slums and urged the Hindus not to stick to old superstitions and stay away from hospital treatment. He started a Hindu hospital where Hindus were treated at their expense. He started a free kitchen in the segregation camp to help the poor. <br />
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Tilak believed that it was the duty of the people to see that the government implements laws effectively. He said it was the responsibility of the local leaders, and if they are prosecuted for it, they shouldn't mind suffering imprisonment for the good of the people.<br />
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He criticized the Indian National Congress often, from within, of the same set of elite people, meeting from time to time, the same set of resolutions about working "<i>along with</i>" the British Government, what was the use ? Get peasants! Help them solve problems of land revenue, salt, forest and excise under which they they are crushed. He told the farmers to pay the govt dues if they had money, but not to do so by contracting debts! He travelled from village to village to gather farmers support for the struggle. <br />
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His was possibly the first agrarian movement in support of independence. The freedom struggle probably was the last truly national movement in India, that involved all sections of society. I couldn't miss out on the comparison with anti-corruption movement in India in 2011. Where were the masses ? The office-going urbanites and the mouse-clicking social media were there, but where were the people who are often at the last receiving end of corruption ? Who travelled from village to village to communicate to them and collect them ? <br />
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<b>Tilak the Leader :</b><br />
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Over time, Tilak reached a point of belief that the leader should do what the people want, but are unable to express or unable to do. He maintained a very strong regional identity, he was highly respected among the Maharashtrian freedom leaders. A Congress session at Pune or Bombay would be unthinkable without Tilak's participation. But he also established a great rapport with like-minded leaders in other far-flung areas, such as V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, Aurobindo etc. It must have been quite difficult to stay within the Congress and fight its lethargy and engage in dialogue with critics in the same conference venue. Yet, he would reach a common ground, if the overall unity of the Indian National Congress or the overall interest of the Nation was paramount. One could have easily expected a strong, independent and fiery mind like Tilak to have broken away into a separate party, out of frustration and impatience, or to be removed for his insistent approach, but neither happened. Other leaders sought him out for his views, even as they knew he may not agree with them. <br />
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Tilak refused to plead guilty, although if he had done so, it would have reduced his prison sentence in the sedition case. I was curious to know, did he regret it later ? In contrast, a few weeks back, Gokhale had given an unconditional apology for his speaking up while he was in Britain. Savarkar too was forced to tender an apology and undertaking to refrain from millitant activity. Tilak was no such man. It looked like his diabetes in the prison and weak health changed him a bit. That, and his age, did it change his extremist views, did it soften them? Who can have a peek into how the great minds transition ? <br />
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At many points in Tilak's life, he must have faced the conflict of improving the Indian society versus fighting the British, and the conflict of having to support other methods which were different from him. He must have handled the conflict of what is good and bad for the country at that time, or what was a lesser evil in the longer interest. The ethical dilemmas that a leader faces in a real life working for the society are so different from the ones taught in the story-telling classrooms. How does a leader act when all you see around is misery and conflict and there is no one to raise the people's awareness ? <br />
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There was once a strange case when Tilak fought a case for the corrupt, while condemning them in Kesari. An English official collected bribes from 17 mamlatdars for favouring them promotions. The corruption came to light. The British lured the Mamlatdars saying if they confessed who the official was, no action would be taken against them. After the English official was named, the British backtracked. They didn't want to put out a ugly picture that an English official was corrupt, so they changed his offence into some minor stuff and let him free. They then went after the Mamlatdars and dismissed them for paying bribes. Tilak said, the British went back on their word, fought the case for the Mamlatdars, won it and had them re-instated. He then condemned bribery and the Mamlatdars who offered bribes. I guess, he must have reasoned, between corruption and the British, fight the bigger evil first!<br />
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There was a case where Tilak might have actually concealed the wrong-doer. One Damodar Chapekar, acting on his own, had shot dead a British official who had acted tyrannically during the plague. At dawn next day, he sent a message to Tilak that said, 'T<i>he previous night the Ganesha at Ganeshkhind had been propitiated</i>'. Tilak probably knew about some rough plans, he immediately understood the message and exclaimed, '<i>Is it so? Then be cautious now!</i>'. He later wrote in his paper about both the police raj and also that the culprit should be nabbed and due course of law should be followed. He later said, when asked by the officer : '<i>I can't help you. Even if I have information, I will never pass it on to you. I believe offender should be punished adequately, but I will never agree to be anybody's spy and never will I betray anyone in the world. But I won't put obstacles in your path. The murder is a blot upon Poona, when found, the offender should be punished as per law</i>.' Later, when Damodar was apprehended, he requested Tilak, who was in jail, to draft his appeal. Tilak did so. Damodar carried Tilak's copy of Gita to the gallows. <br />
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<b>Tilak the Man :</b><br />
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He was a man of amazing personal integrity, the kind it's probably impossible to find nowadays in public life. His idealistic approach often put him in conflict with others, but he was a man of strong convictions. <br />
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Once, Tilak agreed to be the executor of the will of a dying friend Shri Baba Maharaj. After his death, his relatives falsely accused Tilak and disputed the will. Tilak had to go through the court case for 19 years without compromise and won the case, because he had given a word to his friend! <br />
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Once, when a revolutionary sent a diamond as a gift to Tilak from abroad, he ordered it to be sold and the proceeds to be used for the independence struggle. <br />
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He wanted members of his institution (Deccan Education Society) to follow a simple spartan lifestyle. He was against regular automatic pay-rises, a fact some of his married colleagues had problem accepting, because they felt, according to market conditions, pay has to raise. Also, Tilak said, if members did work outside the job, the remuneration from outside work will belong to the society's common fund. These were very ideal beliefs, and he himself practised them but it was impractical for others to follow. He had to, unfortunately, resign out of the very college he started, because of extreme views, which he considered as matters of principle and his colleagues considered highhandedness.<br />
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Tilak encouraged his friends and colleagues to have a rest vacation, once a year, in seclusion. Tilak's book '<i>The Arctic Home of the Vedas</i>' was written during one such, in Singhad after his release from Yeravada Jail. In jail, he had received a flash insight from the Vedic sentence :'<i>The Sun rose after many days</i>', which was an inspiration for the book. <br />
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He had a great ability to revert to calm, in the face of danger. When the police surrounded his house for writing seditious articles in Kesari, he quietly surrendered. By the time the court official went to process his bail, (which was denied) and returned, he found Tilak happily snoring in the cell. <i>Haha</i>, cool as a cucumber. <br />
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He used his stay in the prison to write a commentary on the Bhagawad Gita. What an intellectual realm our leaders maintained even in the prison those days! Aurobindo had a vision of Lord Krishna, Vinobhaji learnt 4 languages and gave talks on the Gita to fellow prisoners! Tilak favoured an "activism" version of the understanding of the Gita and saw Karma Yoga in the light of patriotism and service to the country. <br />
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When he was in prison, other prisoners had great respect for Tilak. The jail authorities sometimes used Tilak's moral authority to tame the rogue prisoners, Tilak's word had the magical respect with them. <br />
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There were a few things I found myself disagreeing while reading the book. His extreme orthodoxy and casteism, his belief that independence should precede social reform and not go hand in hand, his extreme pro-Hindu leanings etc. Strangely, he opposed the increase of minimum age of consent for marriage from 10 to 12 by the British. Publicly, he opposed it saying it was against the tenets of Hinduism. Privately, he agreed that it was okay to raise. But he opposed it on two grounds (a) Who is the British to meddle with Indian tradition ? Let Indians decide for indians. (b) Change in Hinduism has to come from within itself, not forced from outside. But some of these were probably just a function of his times while we view it in the modern context of progressiveness. <br />
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We know that Tilak met Swami Vivekananda and Shirdi Sai Baba. Let me close with a few more sweet #TIL snippets :<br />
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1. Guess who fought the defence of Tilak's Kesari sedition case in 1909 ? Mohammed Ali Jinnah.<br />
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2. Max Muller petitioned the British Government for release of Tilak.<br />
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3. Much before he appeared on the Indian freedom scene, Gandhi met Tilak, Gokhale and other leaders seeking their support for his South African movement.<br />
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4. When Tilak visited Cambridge, he gave a brilliant talk on why Indian students studying there should go back to India after their studies and dedicate themselves to the cause of the nation. Guess who was in that student audience : <i>Subhash Chandra Bose</i>! . Now, that should be the biography I should pick up next. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-9713642001733627652012-10-24T15:00:00.000+05:302012-10-24T23:27:24.913+05:30The Pursuit of Truth in Medicine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The medical pond is a complex ecosystem. It's too vast in surface area, too specialized in skill sets and too uncertain in ramifications. If you are the recipient, it's also too personal. There is increased talk about alternate medicinal streams and their effectiveness or otherwise. Many seem to be singling out Allopathy (and often, in loose reference, modern medical science), as being a dominant predator causing imbalances in an otherwise peaceful pond. So, the question often asked (and I won't answer) is : <i>"Are you, like, Allopathy believer or Alternative medicine believer ?"</i> Only humans are capable of these extraordinary questions, you know. They convert science into a religion and religion into science, or say something like "both are one" and confuse people, LoL.<br />
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By alternative medicine streams, I mean the
whole bunch, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Siddha, Yunani, Acupuncture and so on. So, here is some of my <i>chillar </i>thrown into the pond, on why allopathy is not the complete picture, what's ailing alternate medicine streams and why many would find them unconvincing. It's becoming clear that my blog is for the relaxed reader, because I can't write short posts. :-) But then, it's the blog's anniversary and I haven't written since Steve Jobs, so it's the suppressed gush of a few months. :-) <br />
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<b>Roots </b>: To start with a very simple thing, most alternate streams of medicine rely on allopathy, their devices or the concepts for the diagnostics, even from testing the blood or measuring the BP. Allopathy itself drew some of these from ancient forms of medicine, but the original ancient forms of diagnostics aren’t even practised in their pure or correct form, and if done, too few and far between to attract reasonable attention. Let alone being proven in favour by science in the labs and peer-reviewed journals, except for anecdotal evidence. <br />
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<b>Research </b>: There is probably a lean research framework for some of those alternate streams, but none of them have the research rigour, repeatability of experiments, peer disagreeability and testing techniques, of the modern era. I am not saying alternate streams should fall in line with the western science or their research framework. It may be that, the truths of one science cannot be validated by the framework of another science, because their underlying concepts are different. But, it’s up to the alternate medicine streams to come up with their own research and publishing framework, where, even within their own practitioner community a certain phenomenon can be accepted, rejected, endorsed or vindicated by members of their own ecosystem. Now, it’s all like the Mummy-Daddy <i>kirana </i>shop, like “<i>Aunty got cured, I got cured, Uncle improved vastly, Try it and you’ll know, You can see it for yourself in 21 days</i>” and so on. The "personal story" thingy, is surely an emotional and often a genuinely felt expression of a truth that happened in someone's life, it's a good thing, it's a statement of real experience. It shouldn't be discarded as imagination. But, it's one thing to share the joy and suggest it to others with fervour, another thing to start doling out suggestions based on your home-grown "expertise" and non-formal studies, another thing to conduct <i>melas </i>to coach people, and a totally different thing to base a science on such data. <br />
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The alternate medicine streams doesn’t have to be studied and validated by allopathy doctors, labs and journals but, at the minimum, there needs to be collation and organizing of their own anecdotal evidence. Also, if they are using Allopathy methods and devices for certain part of their work and research, like diagnosis and review, there is a need for the alternate medicine stream to evolve its own methods and devices based on its own fundamental concepts. Why would you use, Science A based principles on X, Y and Z to <i>diagnose</i> and then use Science B, based on principles P, Q and R to <i>treat</i>, particularly if you believe their principles fundamentally contradict each other ? In what sense do you think they can co-exist, whether such a co-existence has been studied and in what proportions do they mix, match or meddle ? May be some such techniques for independent diagnosis by other streams are already present, then the issue is of state support, awareness creation, publicity and wider acceptance etc. India is slightly better off in that way, in the sense that there are state-supported professional courses that support the state of native forms of medicine as an organized subject and technically qualify in those streams.<br />
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<b>Claims</b>: Another issue is, the often “fantastic but untrue” claims of “I have cure for Cancer”, “I have cure for AIDS”. Quacks are present in every stream including allopathy, so it's not about them. But, even among the technically qualified professionals in the alternate streams, such claims are not uncommon. Okay, assume such claims are not "claims" but, valid instances, the genuineness of which the world is refusing to see. Even for the good and qualified practicioners, it is quite common for practitioners in alternate medicine, to “give up on their patients in the last minute and rush them to the hospital”, after the situation has worsened beyond remedy. Even an intelligent modern CEO like Steve Jobs had to<a href="http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/Why-did-Steve-Jobs-choose-not-to-effectively-treat-his-cancer"> fall a victim of this trap</a>, when it came to choosing a medicinal stream for his pancreatic cancer. For terminal illnesses, or for illnesses that can get fatal in advanced stages and require surgical intervention, the alternate medicinal streams get absolutely clueless on what is to be done. They can “manage the show” for sometime and “make you feel good” for a little more time, but they fizzle out once the symptoms become advanced. Then, allopathy finally takes over, intervenes. Say, for some reason, because of the complexity and uncertainty, they are unable to figure out what's happening. At the time too, the alternate theorists might sit by the sidelines and comment on what the surgeons are doing wrong and how they can do stuff in a jiffy, but thats pretty useless unless you have a more complete alternative to handle the situation. Unless we have a complete alternate system, (or atleast as complete as it gets, as much as allopathy), the comments don't take the form of organised study.<br />
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<b>Tradition</b>: For streams like Ayurveda and Siddha in India, there is the argument “<i>These were all told by our ancestors which these other guys are all exploiting today or ignoring today.</i>” There is surely an element of truth to it, but part of this argument is emotional, “my country”, “my mummy” thingy. Like the Steve Jobs analogy I used above. There are a few things mangled here, their validity in terms of effectiveness, an establishment of such validity, then awareness and communication, genuineness in practice, and then, last, “<i>my country ka science tha</i>”, that brimming pride in the gleaming eyes. It's true that some ancient texts like the Siddha medicinal texts in poetry form, are not discovered, not studied enough and not publicised, but that's an access and awareness issue. I would only say, it’s an open world, to every citizen his own country is the darling, so in a global world, let the Medicine Stream A fight it out with Medicine Stream B. Whichever works , gets accepted. Which we’ll know in a few centuries after we have messed up the whole thing, LoL. We shouldn't mix up our passion for our country with the pursuit of Truth. Brilliant minds from every land have pursued the truths in every field and struck upon original insights that aid in that pursuit. After all, till Louis Pasteur discovered what fermented beet sugar, the world was just watching people die. May be we are the <i>pooja </i>room of the world, but <i>Saraswathi Kataksham</i> is global, LoL. <br />
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<b>Lifestyle </b>: Most alternate medicinal streams tend to explain their unreliability, with “lifestyle” choices of the patient. “<i>It doesn’t work because it’s all tied to your lifestyle</i>”, they would say. This is true, and hugely significant, and such significance is often undermined by sheer ignorance, even among the otherwise literate crowds. Unfortunately, health awareness, is like personal finance literacy. How-many-ever times people tell you the right thing and educate you on risk and return, you foolishly believe what you want to believe and go put your money in a chit fund first thing in the morning, LoL. Like the potato chips pack I devoured just now. But the "<i>lifestyle kills it</i>" argument, is not true only for alternate medicine, it’s true for allopathy too. It’s common nowadays, in the light of modern research trends, for allopathy doctors to suggest lifestyle changes before medical management, and also to suggest Meditation, natural foods, diet and exercise changes etc wherever found to be relevant and helpful, but only upto a stage where these things can manage the show. So it’s not like, allopathy ignores lifestyle management. To be fair, the alternate streams should be credited for creating greater awareness in allopathy research by pointing their significance and relevance. Again, while most doctors suggest meditation where relevant, Yoga is suggested only with caution. Because, as much as Yoga done in the right way can have its benefits, Yoga done the wrong way can land the patient into fresh issues, over which again the doctor has no control, like lifestyle.<br />
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<b>Subjectivity </b>: Because the major part of the problem is the lifestyle, or so they believe, the problem is also prone to a lot of "customised" explanations. This is fine. But this also becomes an escape hatch, for things that you are not able to explain. If a doctor looks at two patients with a similar symptom, he may decide that their causes are different. But if two doctors look at the same patient, they might still decide that, the cause, according to their views, is different. This gap in subjectivity is better closed, by a framework that allows a peer to challenge your study and to find patterns among all the subjectivity. Given a patient, and assuming the doctors are equally qualified in their streams, two doctors from Allopathy are likely to agree on the broad causes better, rather than two doctors from an alternate stream. Now, which one is the whole truth, which stream and which of the two doctors in that stream ? Is it subjective based on the patient's condition or subjective based on the doctor's study of it ? <br />
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<b>Adoption</b>: One question that still remains and pertinent is : <i>"Have you tried ? Try and then speak." </i>. While this is a valid question, it can also take wrong directions for the uninformed. Most people, would like to have an answer to another question that arises before this : <i>"Is it worth a try? If yes, why ?</i>". The answer for this is either not clear, or not clearly communicated, or unconvincing, or incomplete except for the passionate appeals. The appeals are like the shouts on the Marina : "He is the only REDEEMER", kind of thing, okay for suddenly waking up from slumber, but not convincing for long-term adoption. If we don't pause to ask the question "Is it worth a try" before trying, we might as well be trying anything that anyone says, the seller of panacea with a mike on the pavement who supplies mysterious potions in minisule portions. There is always the answer :"<i>You'll try when you feel the pinch</i>". This is true, but it doesn't answer the question still. May be we all will turn to alternate medicine after getting frustrated with allopathy and its side-effects, just like some who do the converse.Oh, by the time, we won't have any money left, and by then, alternate medicine also would have got commercialized, so we won't even be able to shift loyalties. :-) :-) <br />
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Whatever may be said about the research, the passion of some promoters of alternate medicine is amazing and is born of a genuine concern for wholesome health of their fellowmen. Their approach is different, but the fervour with which they learn and update their study of the subject is unquestionable. Some of it, arises out of what they see as the public being misguided by the marketing giants, who mask the truth of things or the basic causes of a disease lying untreated while the symptoms are dressed up and covered up with a pill mania. The "misguidance" theory works both ways. The alternate streams believe, pharma companies are misguiding, pause them for a moment and go to the other camp, you'll hear Allopathy saying that the alternate streams are misguiding. If you are too baffled, I think it's easier for you to become a doctor yourself and not go to one. But, Oh God, medical education is costly and you'll end up misguiding others, gathering a lot more sin, because of which you will be born as a patient once again in the next birth, and the cycle continues. LoL. Not without reason it is said, '<i>I<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaja_Govindam">ha samsaare bahu dustare</a></i>'. <br />
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<b>Commerce</b>: Of course, Allopathy and western medical science today have got entangled into a lot of other issues and maladies. Legality, insurance, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Big-Pharma-Exposing-Global-Healthcare/dp/0786717831">Big Pharma</a>, side effects, over-cautious and aggressive medication, trial medication under uncertainty, suppression of facts, greed, blatant promotion and mindless marketing, camouflaging of bad practices as good ones and then deep and deliberate over-commercialization. Some back-end parts of the muck is not different from organized crime. It ain't Healing that is paramount any more. It's some money, and then some healing, if it happens that is. As I wrote <a href="http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A13812536">earlier</a>, Pharmaceutical research has got mangled with money, law and governance, so much so that the "intention to cure" has become an <i>also-ran</i> motive, rather than the primary one. But I guess, these are present in various other streams of human life, no point singling out Medicine. As a race, we are generally doomed in many ways, and specifically “extra doomed” in few ways, LoL. I also expect these negative phenomena to happen in alternate medicinal streams whenever they hit the threshold level of wider acceptance and practice. If you are Windows, you have viruses. It's like saying, adopt other streams <i>because </i>Allopathy has issues. As those alternate streams grow in size and acceptance, you'll have the same maladies because the malady is there in the mind of Man, not in the tools you choose. <br />
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<b>Effectiveness</b>: That said, we can't say alternate medicine streams are all ineffective. It's just that, their effectiveness is not part of meticulous, unambiguous documentation and framework, that can be independently studied by others in comparable environments, under controlled conditions and across cultures and geographies. It’s more like the beneficial effects of home remedies, native wisdom, meditation, yoga etc, effective indeed in pockets based on context, particularly in prevention and consciously healthy lifestyles, some of them supported by occasional research, but not all and not all the time.<br />
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<b>Completeness </b>: There is a view that while Allopathy has its merits and relevance on the surface (diagnosis, treatment), it is hugely incomplete in its study of the roots and causes, there are entire sets of insights that it is refusing to acknowledge. Many alternate streams, (some bordering on healing techniques and not exactly Science) insist on a strong mind-body connection, and then, a spirit-mind-body connection to disease. Allopathy might appreciate it "kinda broadly", but we should credit the alternate streams for highlighting the connection, that the root of disease lies in our thoughts, foods and lifestyles, in that order. Some border work between Allopathy and alternate streams have definitely resulted in new learning for Allopathy. A Mahesh Yogi volunteering to be medically studied under trance during Meditation or Carl Jung's focussed study on Man's Consciousness have, later found relevance and attention from mainstream research, even though viewed with suspicion in early stages. Good scientists are humble when they see technical merits even if they are outside their domain of study. This has led to "Holistic" medicine. But the problem with the term is, each stream claiming it is more holistic than the other. <i>Holisticker than thou</i>, LoL. But the complete truth is better pursued, by each stream, acknowledging the areas where a stream is clearing lacking and adopting insights from other streams, with a honesty in approach and healing as the objective.<br />
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It’s also possible, that we are all living in a Matrix-like illusory haze, all “falsely” believing in Allopathy, where, in fact, that’s the villain. Evolved believers of alternate medicine are mocking at our balloon, filled with the gas called research, waiting for it to be pricked. We’ll tumble in a free fall, and land in their hands, and they’ll then take care of all of us with affection and succour :-) . Then, you should know, anything like this blog post, which “clearly” re-assured the balloon is safe, is actually warning you, that it might not be. I mean, otherwise, why would someone go to great lengths to reassure you repeatedly :-) ? Like the analysts and officials who always said, “everything is fine”, till the bubble burst on the sub-prime housing crisis. The Truth will set you on fire, and then it will set you free. <br />
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Disclaimer: <br />
Three specific disclaimers, in addition to the general ones at the blog footer :<br />
1. I have no knowledge about any medicinal science. My knowledge of medicine is lesser than my knowledge of music, which is documented earlier <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.in/2009/03/value-of-tenacity-in-youth.html">here</a>. It's an unresearched post on the importance of research, LoL. I am just an intellectual patient, with exactly 2 cents in my pen and pocket, LoL, with which I can’t substantiate any of these claims, including your medico-legal one.<br />
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2. I am willing to be corrected. Expect an update five years from now, when I have transformed and converted to the alternate evangelists, err... I mean, of medicine. Some of my passionate friends have already "moderated" my views on this post, a few more strokes, and they may have their way, LoL. By now, it’s well-known that I usually adopt late, particularly when it comes to the good things of life. The more virtuous it is, the more time I take to adopt. :-) :-) Not exactly the <i>satsang </i>you want to be in. <br />
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3. And please, I haven’t seen Aamir Khan’s TV episode on medicine, LoL. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-5638059909086188412011-12-02T00:56:00.012+05:302011-12-02T03:41:11.124+05:30On Success, death and Steve JobsA <a href="https://www.facebook.com/bvs.prathap">friend</a>'s post on Facebook drew my attention to an <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_comment-steve-jobs-wasnt-great-he-wasnt-even-close_1596888">article </a>about the posthumous tribute-wave for Steve Jobs. For a quickie without following the conversation elsewhere, the article says '<span style="font-style: italic;">Steve Jobs wasn't great, he wasn't even close</span>' . Among other things, it draws a comparison in terms of greatness, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk">Jonas Salk</a>, who invented the polio vaccine and gave it free, deciding not to patent it. In other words, who is greater and, <span style="font-style: italic;">mummy</span>, why is Steve Jobs getting all the attention ? I wouldn't have noticed if <a href="http://search.forbes.com/search/colArchiveSearch?author=n.s.+and+ramnath&aname=N.S.+Ramnath">Ramnath </a> didn't mention it, but after he did, I noticed that it was a '<span style="font-style: italic;">sad essay, with weak arguments and too many fallacies</span>'.<br /><br />Great is a generic adjective that spans many fields. For example, a great musician, a great emperor, a great surgeon and so on. You cannot exactly compare greatness in one field with another and often, greatness in certain times, with other times.<br /><br />In the field of, say, technology business, and in his times he was greater than many of his contemporaries. He did things differently. Many clicked, some didn't, some clicked later. He was thrown out of his company and staged a comeback and then staged a turnaround and rebuilt the fascination full circle. He might have been heavy-headed, but lot of creative/successful people are that. In the field that he chose as his passion, he manifested that passion into results that satisfied him and those he sought to impact. Such success was also acknowledged by others. That, in itself, is what only a small percentage, get to do.<br /><br />He chose expensive style for his products, and was convinced there was a market for it. In all possibility he could have flopped, thats what the gurus would have got to say. But he defied tradition, the current market gyaan, and clicked, not once, but time and again. To have an intrinsic sense for a niche market, spot it and pursue it, entails the risk of stepping out of your comfort zone and being ready to sink in the process. You need to be grounded in your security with your own self, to be able to confront and conquer the insecurity in the world. It's the stuff true entrepreneurs are made of, or seek to be. We can't think like them and they can't think like us. They better not.<br /><br />The article questions people's assumptions, success = greatness. But the article also assumes, charity > commerce. Coming from the charity bastion, I should have jumped to agree with the latter, but, sadly, not yet. Even if it were true, I guess we are too far away from that . Those beautiful times are yet to come. It requires our entire civilization, or huge parts of it, to think differently, on complexly intertwined issues: regarding our motivation, our money, our work ethic and our duty as a human on earth. And it will take lots of births for all of us to get there. Call it the critical mass for compassion or the escape velocity for enlightenment. Like in climate change, we have a reputation for refusing to learn until we get whacked thoroughly by Mamma Earth. Inner climate change is not going to be any simpler and Pappa God is going to have a tough time handling us. Hearts, take a lot more time to melt than glaciers. Questions like these are important to contemplate, but the answers need to be well-written.<br /><br />Finally, think of the praises that arrived as like people attending a e-funeral. A life gone unnoticed or less noticed (say, Salk) is not any different from a life gone well-noticed, after it has gone, that is. In the former case, lives were impacted, sure, but most people may not have related to the individual, so they didn't write. In Steve's case, he too impacted and, it so happens, many people seem to relate to the individual, because the device was such. Interestingly, I noticed a billboard at the Kundarapalli Gate signal in Bangalore, a huge billboard ad by a real estate developer, saying just 'RIP Steve'. It's still an ad, but it shows people who used the devices fell head over heels for the brand. To connect two obituaries and compare their impact, would be like comparing the tears of two funerals, one with 10 people and another with 1000 people. Sorrow is the same for everyone. Death is a great equalizer in that sense.<br /><br />Of course, great is different from good. To evaluate goodness is a larger call, you need to be able to evaluate the interplay of motives, constraints, values etc and in the light of the operating environment. Goodness is all-inclusive, includes personal life, relationships and even preservation of monuments :) :) , which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackling_House">Steve Jobs wasn't particular about</a> . Greatness, on the other hand, is more explicit, can be segmented into streams, and therefore gets evaluated quickly and easily. You can't evaluate your goodness, because that'll be biased. Others can't, because they have incomplete information. Only God can, but He doesn't publish the papers. What to do ? :) :)<br /><br />Yes, there was a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/#">good Steve and the bad Steve</a> in the same person. Even in judgement, it's sad that someone with such business acumen, had to fall for a <a href="http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/Why-did-Steve-Jobs-choose-not-to-effectively-treat-his-cancer">fatal over-belief in alternative medicine</a>. People who praise the good Steve may choose to ignore the bad Steve. But, isn't it true that all of us suffer from the good-bad dichotomy ?<br /><br />That is why the scriptural prayers say : Lead us from darkness to light, falsehood to truth. Lead us from proprietary software to open source. Trap us not into Apple, but deliver us from Microsoft. Give us our daily bread and butter, Facebook and Twitter. But don't lead us to immortality, it gets boring. Life without an end, will be like watching a terrible movie in a dirty theatre, all the time you are wondering, when will the movie end and the mosquitoes stop, and the lead <span style="font-style: italic;">jodi </span>is still dancing around the trees and rolling on the hills , on the screen. Death, disease and dumping are part of the grand game. Sing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_This_Kolaveri_Di">kolaveri </a>song to release your stress, and move on to make your life colorful, cheerful and creative. Like a Mac.<br /><br />Oops, for fair disclosure, like the author, even I don't own an Apple device or share. :) . And probably, that's why I am like this !<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-91284760425348803832011-06-02T04:46:00.004+05:302011-06-02T05:13:10.469+05:30An Ethereal Evening - A R Rahman Live in Concert at Bangalore<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">I was there for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_R_Rahman">A R Rahman</a> Live in Concert, in Bengaluru Palace Grounds on 29th May 2011, Sunday. It was a wonderful event. Here are some thoughts from soon after. (Red links go to YouTube).<br /><br />If you are one of those 'balanced', 'cat-on-the-wall' types, who wants to consider multiple perspectives in any discussion and arrive at a conclusion after many rounds of diplomacy, this post is too early for you. You should read <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-top-10-favorite-r-rahman-songs.html">my earlier post on Rahman's Top 10</a>, follow each of those 30 text links to the music pieces, listen to all of them, attend the next Rahman Live event, and then come back and read this post. This is all about unabashed, extremely biased, praise of Rahman's music, so you may need to check if you are a worthy disciple of it. :) :) I have an eccentricity to overdo these things and I have no intention to correct course. :)<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">There is a generation who grew up with Rahman's music. If you were a teenager or a college-goer when one of the movies were released, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roja">Roja </a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangeela_%28film%29">Rangeela</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_%28film%29">Rhythm</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De_Basanti">Rang De Basanti</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_%28film%29">Robot</a>, you can't miss the music's charm. Even though all those were released at different years in the last two decades, if you had listened to one of them, you would want to go back or forth and listen to the others. In the history of Indian filmy music, it is as if, there is a pre-Roja and a post-Roja era. Thank you <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_Ratnam">Mani Ratnam</a> for that path-breaking offer, for the risk you took with a then upcoming composer, it was well worth it and more. May be, it was a time that people were looking for a different kind of music, a type of music that wasn't entirely western and not entirely Carnatic or Hindustani either. May be, there was a segment of youth, who went to the Music Sabhas because their parents went, but, in addition to that taste, were ready to take to a different type of rich music, if it was given to them. And then Rahman came like a fragrant breeze into the musical scene. He took the music world by storm through his charm. Depending on what you were thinking, there was a music for the mood. It can be pleasant or peppy, fast-track or melodious, melancholic or romantic, patriotic, punjabi or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadhalan">pettai rap</a>, you have all kinds in his discography of two decades. Wherever you were, one song looped endlessly, only to be interrupted with another which will then take over.<br /><br />Rahman's music is global material. It's just that world took time to catch up. That's also why I like it when he collaborates with foreign artists. To be honest, I am not too fascinated by those collaborative numbers, I think Just The Rahman has got enough potential to take the entire cake, on his own, but from a different angle, thats the way to go. Rahman is excellent at bringing different types of music together to create a piece, that will keep it attractive to all those respective audiences and yet introduce to them something new. This cross-cultural symphony in music requires him to encounter different kinds of music from the different regions and he would get global, today, tomorrow or some day soon. Let's release him from the small boundaries of this Chennai and this Bollywood and this India, let him conquer the world. :) The world is his next stop and there is no stopping him. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to attend the concert in Bangalore. If he goes to Hollywood, I am not sure whether they will give him back to us. :) :)<br /><br />At the Palace Grounds in Bangalore that day, the musical evening turned out to be ethereal. I have a sluggish tendency to go slow and take it cool on the show host's buildup intros. 'How are youuuu, Bengalurooo, Are y'all ready to rock the grounds... Put your hands together' and the 'Yaaaa-Hooooo' response from the audience n all, Hmmm. But, <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwfCMvo19s8">Dil Se</a>, one of my favorites, which arrived second, changed all that, made me sit up and warm up to the treat that was to follow. I had loved '<a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8c2cFeUSnQ">Poraley Ponnuthayee</a>' from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuthamma">Karuthamma </a>and therefore, it's peppy sibling <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuEYQgh3-b8"><i>Chanda Sooraj Lakhon Taarey</i></a><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> </span>became familiar but equally lovable in due course. '<i>What are you waiting for, another sign, another call, someway we have to find a new way to peace</i>', were my favorite looping lines from the 'Gurus of Peace' number from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vande_Mataram_%28album%29">Vande Mataram</a>.<br /> <br /> </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;"><a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Inci3dF-fQ"><i>Ye Jo Des He Tera</i></a> can stop the traffic, wherever you hear it. Rahman's rendering was as fantastic and flawless as it was in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swades">Swades</a>. When <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaane_Tu_Ya_Jaane_Na">Jaaney Tu Ya Jaaney Na</a> released, it was an instant heart-throb of the youth, so you could see the audience in the Palace Grounds, connect to it so quickly as soon the song started. Rahman's working together with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautham_Menon">Gautam Menon</a> had to produce a masterpiece, there was no other way and so <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WfXQOc6ubo"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Hosanna</span> </a>from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnai_Thaandi_Varuvaaya">VTV</a>, kept the entire crowd, gently swaying, right from the beginning to end, as the music filled the air through the loudspeakers. If you didn't sway for it, okay, grow up atleast now.<br /><br />I also discovered, that I am not as full-fledged a fan of Rahman as I claim to be. There were real, hardcore, extraordinary fans who kept the Rahman's song lists in their fingertips and rolled out at the least hint or hum. I might have failed to keep track some of the recent pieces, and might have been sticking on to the old glory, I thought. I noticed that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthiran">Enthiran </a>song threw the crowd to sheer raptures, the reason was the same as, why the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangeela_%28film%29">Rangeela </a>song had the same effect on me.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">Every song had a different digital video backdrop, that was excellent, carefully chosen and of high quality. The songs,<a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb-ALuYr-t0">Khwaja Mere Khwaja and Maula Maula</a>, had a very soothing rendition with Rahman, in a befitting costume playing the harmonium and a digital backdrop of a richly engraved mosque architecture. It was very thoughtfully and tastefully done. </span><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;"><br />There are some songs that are the solid defining runaway hits at these concerts. They are the real Oscar or even-higher award winners in the minds of the masses of listeners. The actual flag-hoisters of Rahman's success story. They are so impactful, they are welcomed even if someone else sings it at some other concert, and so much occupy your mindspace that the hum doesn't spare you whether you are in the bathroom or in the bedroom. When these songs began, or even before they began, when there was a buildup to it, the crowd begins to get into a frenzy. You know it is getting into a madness, a craze, (Okay, an Aware Madness, if you are also aware of it). It is as if a spirit has possessed the entire ground and wants to release itself by dancing, shouting and joining in the chorus and singing along. The <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFb_vDGJ7fI">Humma Song</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_%28film%29">Bombay</a>, the <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q40NVzXhOw">Muqabla Song</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadhalan">Kadhalan</a>, the <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36CB4jOH2UA">Chikku Bukku Rayiley</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman_%28film%29">Gentleman </a>were chartbusters then and they are still the same now, after a decade. Oh, how they clapped and swayed and jumped and danced for those !! For the tamilians in the multicultural, metropolitan Bengaluru, the <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qApp6avF2U">Pettai Rap</a> song was alone enough to make their day, it sent them into a tizzy. They savoured every one of those words, whether or not the sentences had any meanings, who needed them anyway ? :) :)<br /><br />We all know that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivamani">Shivamani </a>unleashed is difficult to contain, and apart from taking the blockbuster songs to their original glory, his musical mischief this time was the drums effect with two rods tapping on the ground combined with foot-tapping. It was good. It was entirely appropriate that they got <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lata_Mangeshkar">Lataji </a>to sing '<a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qhBM3KJY8">Lukka Chuppi</a>' over a video recording in a digital background with Rahman chipping in for his part live. Their original partnership for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De_Basanti">Rang De Basanti</a> song is irreplaceable and it was an absolutely soulful rendering. The award-winning <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRC4QrUwo9o">Jai Ho</a> was there too.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDpdprTGtCU"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Roobaroo </span></a>was definitely a wonderful fitting finale for the event. The song that marked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naresh_Iyer">Naresh Iyer</a>'s hindi debut with Rahman, won him the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Award_for_Best_Male_Playback_Singer">National Award </a>and shot him to fame. Of course, nowadays, it has become fashionable to mention youth and anti-corruption in the same sentence for every event, like pickle in any meal. So the buildup on 'will you raise your voice against corruption' was a bit ordinary. But, allowing that, what better movie than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De_Basanti">Rang De Basanti</a> to catch the fervour, patriotism and dynamism of the youth ? Oh, How many times I have watched and re-watched the discussion scenes for the screenplay... The amazing rendition of the song, to the gentle sway of the audience, merged smoothly into a snippet of the <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFpwxbfnjOw">Vande Mataram</a> piece, with a tricolour digital background. What a way to end the day !! Ethereal, Enthralling and Extraordinary.<br /><br />I had my little share of petty disappointments, though. </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">How-many-ever blockbuster songs they sing, and they can't sing all of them at every concert, you always look forward to your personal favorite list and want to hear them being sung. I badly wanted <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjMs_imWkFM">Vellai Pookal</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannathil_muthamittal">Kannathil Muthamittal</a> to be sung, really. What a calming effect the song has... </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">I totally love the <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_NOyAakmK0">Rahman Live in Los Angeles DVD</a>, so I should admit these observations are strongly influenced by that liking. I know there may be so many parameters involved in the selection, the dates etc, but then, we have our sighs, no ? </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;">I missed, <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiNoaMN2E30">Chaiya chaiya</a>, <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Zwe-fMJa0">Jiya jaley</a>, <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wRYJIBMWrQ">Chinna chinna asai</a> and <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWCodLVJFgo">Patchai niramey</a>. I definitely missed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankar_Mahadevan">Shankar Mahadevan</a> ( for the energy in <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svYvqgViXXE">Kay Sera Sera</a> and the turns in <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vIoG7VQjms">Sandhana Thendralai</a> ) , <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_P_Balasubramaniam">SPB </a>(for that fantastic delivery of <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_NOyAakmK0">Oruvan oruvan mudhalali</a> ) , Sadhana Sargam, Sujatha and Kavitha Subramaniam. I would have really loved to listen to <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Ho2f2AQbQ">Maduraikku Pogatheydee</a>, the recent looping favorite I have discovered. I wanted <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEqn32uq7B4">Barso Re</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shreya_Ghoshal">Shreya Ghoshal</a>, only by her and by none else. Okay, let me admit this is too much greed, I can't want all the best of two decades of musical genius together in a 3-hour live programme, thats unfair about me. </span><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace;"><br />Earlier in the afternoon, some of the Rahman fans got together at an orphanage in Bangalore, at <a href="http://anathashishusevashram.com/home.html">Anatha Shishu Sevashrama</a>, for some service activity, which I had joined in, too. Food Distribution was arranged. They had some games for the kids. <a href="http://agamtheband.blogspot.com/">Agam</a>, a band from Bangalore, sang a few songs for the kids. Yes, they did begin very appropriately with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTnzIMngPIs">Vellai Pookal</a>, which I was waiting for. The orphanage visit was a very satisfying experience. "<i>We like 'Jai Ho' and 'Kadhal Anukkal' from Rahman Sir's songs very much</i>", they said. Kannada songs sprouted quickly during the Anthakshari. One boy rocked the stage with his dance moves as the band played. Another, rather unassuming boy, went on to win a concentration game that they played. It was nice to see their fascination for the cameras which some of the fans carried and it was so gracious of the fans to share them with the kids and teach them how to take the pictures. After they had had the meal, when they asked, 'When are you coming next again ?', I didn't have an answer. But then they said, 'Some akkas from the Rahman fans group have told us they will come again after few days and spend time with us again'. I am sure there will be some follow-up action.<br /><br />Now this post has got me all excited, I have to watch Rang De Basanti, one last 976-th time. :) </span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-33969175520952034572011-04-30T17:35:00.003+05:302011-04-30T17:54:14.385+05:30வீட்டுக்கு வீடு ஒரு கதை உண்டுA Tamil version of my earlier blog post ... <a href="http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/">A story from every home... </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/">அவர் </a>நம் ஒவ்வொருவர் வாழ்வையும் தொட்டார் . சின்ன சின்ன விதங்களில். நம் ஒவ்வொருவரிடமும் அவரைப் பற்றிச் சொல்ல ஒரு கதை இருக்கிறது. அவரைப் பற்றி . அவர் அன்பைப் பற்றி. அவர் வாழ்வும் நம் வாழ்வும் இணைந்த வைபவத்தைப் பற்றி, நம் மனங்களில் அவர் நிறைந்து நம்மை வழிகாட்டிய கதைகளைப் பற்றி. இவை சாயி சுயசரிதைக் கதைகள்.<br /><br />சில கதைகள் எங்கும் எப்போதும் எழுதப்படாத கதைகள். சில கதைகள் நம் இதயத்தில் மட்டும் நிறைத்து வைத்து போற்றப்படும் கதைகள், அவை இனிமேலும் எழுதப் படாது. சில கதைகள், மற்றவர்களிடம் நாம் சொல்ல <b>வேண்டிய </b>கதைகள். நம் வாழ்வில் அவர் அன்பை எப்படி அன்பை நிறைத்தார் என்பதை உலகத்துக்குச் சொல்லி ஆனந்தப்படவேண்டிய கதைகள். சிலவற்றை கதை என்று சொல்ல முடியாது, சின்ன நிகழ்ச்சிகள் , நகைச்சுவையான வாக்கியங்கள், ஏதோ ஒரு நாள் இங்கே இந்த மண்டபத்தில் நாம் அமர்ந்திருந்த போது நடந்த சம்பவங்கள், நம் நினைவில் நிற்கின்றன. நாம் அமைதியாக ஓரிடத்தில் அமர்ந்து யோசிக்கும் போது நம் உள்ளிருந்து அவை நீர்க்குமிழிகள் போல் நம் மன ஏரியிலிருந்து எழும்பி மேலே வருகின்றன.<br /><br />சில கதைகளில் வசனம் இருக்காது. நாம் அங்கே அமர்ந்திருந்த போது, அவர் நம்மைத் தாண்டி போகும்போது, நம் கண்களில் கூர்ந்து கவனித்த அந்தப் பார்வை. நமக்காக, நாம் மட்டும் புரிந்து கொள்ளுவது போன்ற பார்வை. அவர் பேசவில்லை ஆனால் அர்த்தம் புரிந்துவிடும். நாம் கேட்க வேண்டும் என்று நினைத்தோம், கேட்கவில்லை, ஆனால் அந்த கேள்விக்கு விடை கிடைத்துவிட்டது.<br /><br />சில கதைகளின் முக்கியத்துவம் நாம் பல நாட்குளுக்குப் பிறகு தான் உணர்ந்தோம். அறிய முடியாத இறை மனதை நம் சிறு மனத்தால் அறிய முயன்று, அது கொடுத்த விடையை வைத்து அவரது விந்தையை கணக்கு போட முயன்றிருப்போம்.<br /><br />சில சமயங்களில் நமக்கு தோன்றிய ஒரு எண்ணம் , அது அவரிடமிருந்து வந்தது என்பதை நாம் உணர்வோம். அந்த எண்ண அனுபவம் கூட ஒரு கதையே.<br /><br />இது உங்கள் அனுபவம் , அல்லது என் அனுபவம் மட்டும் அல்ல. வீட்டுக்கு வீடு இந்த சாய் கதைகள் உண்டு. சில கதைகள் பிறருக்கு சின்னதாக இருக்கலாம். ஆனால் , நமக்கு அது இனிமையான கதை, முக்கியமான கதை. ஏனென்றால், அது அவர்கள் வாழ்க்கையில் நடந்த கதை அல்ல, <b>நம் </b>வாழ்வில் நடந்த கதை. 'Dunnapotha' என்று செல்லமாக திட்டி இருப்பார். 'Good Boy' என்று புகழ்ந்திருப்பார். அதுவும் ஒரு இனிமையான கதை தான்.<br /><br />மற்றவர்களின் அனுபவத்தைப் பற்றி நாம் கேள்வி கேட்கலாம், விவாதம் செய்யலாம், மறுக்கலாம். ஆனால் , நம் உள்ளுணர்வை நம்மால் மறுக்க முடியுமா ? நமது உள்ளுணர்வுகளுக்கு நாமே முக்கியத்துவம் கொடுக்கவில்லையெனில் , நாம் எதை ஆதாரமாக வைத்து வாழ்க்கையை வாழ்கிறோம் ? நம் கதை, நம் உள்ளுணர்வுகள் , நமக்கு ஆழமானவை . 'Personal'-ஆக முக்கியமானவை. அதனால் தான், அவர் உலகத்துக்கே போதகராக இருந்திருக்கலாம் , ஆனால் நமக்கு 'Personal God'- ஆக இருந்தார். அந்த நாள், அவரவர்கள் எங்கெங்கோ இருந்தாலும், அங்கிருந்தே, நன்றி உணர்வுடன் , அவருக்காக ஒரு துளி கண்ணீர் சிந்திய , அந்த லக்ஷோபலக்ஷம் மக்கள் அனைவருக்கும் அவர், தனி தனியாக , 'Personal God'- ஆக இருந்தார். அவர் இந்த வீட்டின் தலைவர், ஒவ்வொரு உரையாடலையும் அமைதியாக கேட்பவர், ஒவ்வொரு உணவு வேளையின் போதும் கண்ணுக்குத் தெரியாத விருந்தாளி. ஒவ்வொருவர் வீட்டிலும், இன்று , அவரவர்கள் 'Dinner Table '-இல் , இந்த சாய் கதைகளை தான் , ஒருவருக்கு ஒருவர் பகிர்ந்து கொண்டு இருக்கிறார்கள். இவை எல்லாம் சிறிய, ஆழ்ந்த , 'Personal' கதைகள் , நம் வாழ்வில் அவர் வந்த கதை, நம் உள்ளுணர்வின் கதை, நம்மை அந்த திருச்சிற்றம்பலம் தடுத்தாட்கொண்ட கதை.<br /><br />கதை இருக்கிறதோ இல்லையோ, அதை சொல்லுகிறோமோ இல்லையோ, நாம் மீண்டும் மீண்டும் இங்கே வந்தோம். ஒவ்வொரு 'New Year'-உம் , சிவராத்திரியும் , நவம்பரிலும் வந்தோம். இங்கே வந்தால் நிம்மதி என்று நாடி வந்தோம். அப்படி வருவோருக்கெல்லாம் அன்பு தரும் ஆல மரமாக அவர் இந்த ஆஸ்ரமத்தை அமைத்தார். இந்த அன்பு நிழலின் குளிர்ச்சியில் நிம்மதியை தேடி வந்தவருக்கெல்லாம் அது கிடைத்தது .<br /><br />இந்த அன்பு உணர்வுகள், கண்ணுக்கு தெரியாதவை , ஆனால் , 'இது சத்தியம் என்று எனக்கு தெரியும்', என்று அழுத்தமாக எழும் உள்ளுணர்வுகள். இந்த உணர்வுகளை வைத்து தான் , சுவாமியைப் பற்றிய ஒரு வடிவத்தை நாம் நமது மனங்களில் உருவாக்கி இருக்கிறோம். அந்த வடிவம், லோகாயதமான வடிவம் அல்ல. அது உணர்வுகளின் வடிவம். வருடக்கணக்கில் , மிக மெதுவாக, ஒரு எறும்பு தானியம் சேகரிப்பதுபோல , சேர்த்து வைத்த, வடிவம். நாம் அவரிடம் கேட்ட கோரிக்கைகள் , இந்த உலகம் சம்பந்தப்பட்டதாக இருக்கலாம். அவர் நமக்கு கொடுத்த பரிசுகள் காலப்போக்கில் ஒளி குறையலாம். ஆனால் , நாம் அவரது கண்ணோடு கண் நோக்கிய போது , அவரை பிரார்த்தனையில் நினைத்த போது , நம் இதயம் என்னும் 'Camera'வில் , அவரது வடிவத்தை செதுக்கிய , அந்தக் கண நேரம், அது இந்த உலகத்தியது அல்ல. அது காலம் கடந்தது, லோகாயதத்துக்கு அப்பாற்பட்டது. கிருஷ்ணர் , ஆயிரக்கணக்கான கோபிகைகளுக்கு , ஒவ்வொருவருக்கும் ஒரு கிருஷ்ணராக வடிவெடுத்தது போல, நாம் ஒவ்வொருவருக்கும் அவர் நமது இதயங்களில் ஒரு வடிவத்தை வரைந்திருக்கிறார். விதம் விதமாக, வித்தியாசமான அழகுடன், உணர்வுகளின் வடிவம் ஒன்றை அளித்திருக்கிறார்.<br /><br />கல்வி, மருத்துவ வசதி, குடிதண்ணீர் - இவை மூன்றும் கட்டாயம் இலவசமாக தரப்பட வேண்டும் - என்று அவர் நம்பினார். நமக்கு ஒரு நம்பிக்கை இருந்தால், அந்த நம்பிக்கையை எப்படி செயலாக்க வேண்டும், பல்லோர் போற்றும் உதாரணமாக , ஊக்கமளிக்கும் வகையில் , எப்படி நம் நம்பிக்கையை வெளிப்படுத்த வேண்டும் , என்பதை அவர் உலகத்துக்கு செய்து காட்டினார். எனக்கு 'rights' இருக்கிறது , உரிமை இருக்கிறது என்று போராடுகிறோம். ஆனால், அதுவே , 'responsibility' என்று வரும் போது, பொறுப்பாக நடந்து கொள்ள வேண்டும் என்றால், பயந்து ஓடுகிறோம். அதை, மற்றவர் பெயருக்கு மாற்றி, அவரை எப்படி குறை சொல்லலாம் என்று யோசிக்கிறோம். அப்படிப்பட்ட இந்த உலகத்திலே, சுற்றி இருப்போரின் பிரச்சினைகளுக்கு, சமுதாயத்தில் உள்ள பிரச்சினைகளுக்கு, ஒரு தனி மனிதன் எப்படி பொறுப்பு எடுத்துக்கொண்டு , அந்த பிரச்சினையை தீர்க்க முடியும் என்பதை நிரூபித்தார். அவர்களுடைய கஷ்டத்தை, தனது கஷ்டமாக , அவர் நினைத்தார்.<br /><br />'1980 'இல் , ஒரு இலவச பல்கலைக் கழகம் வரும் என்றும், அதில் மனித குண மேம்பாடுகளையும், 'Character Building ' -உம் இணைந்ந்து போதிப்போம் என்று அவர் சொன்ன போது, அவர்கள் எல்லாம் கை கொட்டிச் சிரித்தார்கள். இன்றைக்கெல்லாம் அந்த பல்கலைக்கழகம் 30 ஆண்டுகள் முடித்துவிட்டு இன்னும் வெற்றி நடை போடுகிறது. அதன் மூலம் பல ஆயிரம் பேர் வாழ்க்கையைத் தொட்டார். '1990'-இல் , ஒரு உயர்தர மருத்துவ மனை உருவாக்கி , ஏழை மக்களுக்கு அறுவை சிகிச்சைகள் முற்றிலும் இலவசமாக செய்வோம் என்று அவர் சொன்ன போது, அவர்கள், எள்ளி நகையாடினார்கள். இன்றைக்கு அந்த மருத்துவ மனை 20 வருடங்கள் முடித்தாகி விட்டது. பற்றாக்குறைக்கு , அந்த மருத்துவ மனை 10 வருடங்கள் முடித்த போது, அதே அளவில் , இரண்டாவது மருத்துவ மனையையும், கட்டினார். இன்னும் பல ஆயிரம் பேர் வாழ்க்கையைத் தொட்டார். '1995'-இல் , வறண்ட பூமியாக இருந்த, ஒரு மாவட்டம் முழுவதற்கும் , பல நூறு மைல் தொலைவிலிருந்து தண்ணீர் கொண்டு வருவேன் என்றார். அதற்காக அவர் கடன் வாங்க நேரிட்டது. அப்போது அவர் சொன்னார் : ' நல்ல எண்ணத்தோடு நல்ல காரியம் செய். உதவி தானாக வரும். ' அதற்கு பிறகு, இன்னும் 4 மாவட்டங்களுக்கு குடிதண்ணீர் திட்டத்தை அமுல்படுத்தும் அளவுக்கு அது விரிந்தது. அதோ, இன்னும் பல ஆயிரம் பேர் வாழ்க்கையைத் தொட்டார்.<br /><br />அவரை எல்லாரும் 'Personal God ' என்று நம்பாமல் இருக்கலாம், பரவாயில்லை. ஆனால், சேவை காரியங்கள் மூலம், கண்காணாத அந்த பல ஆயிரம் அந்நிய மனிதர்களின் வாழ்க்கையில் அவர் விளக்கேற்றி வைத்தார். அந்த பல்லாயிரம் மக்களுக்கு அவர் அன்னியர் அல்லர். அவர்களுக்கு , அவர், வீட்டை வாழ வைத்த வள்ளல். எங்கிருந்தோ, பல ஆயிரம் மைல் தூரத்திலிருந்து வந்த நோயாளியைப் பொறுத்தவரை, அவர் ஒரு வள்ளல். ஒரு average middle class வர்க்கத்தைச் சேர்ந்த இளைஞன் , டிகிரி படிப்பு படிக்க கஷ்டப்பட்ட இளைஞனுக்கு , அவர் ஒரு வள்ளல். ஒரு மலை நாட்டு கிராமத்தின் வறண்ட தொண்டையைப் பொறுத்த வரை , அவர் ஒரு வள்ளல். இவை எல்லாவற்றிலும் , அவரிடம் வாங்கி கொண்டவர்கள் , கல்வி, வைத்தியம், குடிதண்ணீர் ஆகியவற்றை வாங்கி கொண்டு, நன்றியை செலுத்தினார்கள். ஆனால், அவர் கொடுத்தது, அதுவல்ல. அவர் கொடுத்தது அன்பு மட்டும் தான். அவர் எப்போதும், எல்லோருக்கும், அன்பை மட்டும் தான் கொடுத்தார், மற்றவை எல்லாம் அன்பை வெளிப்படுத்த , ஒரு கருவி தான். இந்த சேவைக் காரியங்களை செய்த சேவகர்களுக்கும், பக்தர்களுக்கும், அவர் அதோடு நிறுத்தவில்லை, அவர்கள் சேவையின் தரத்தை உயர்த்த விரும்பினார் . வெறுமனே வேலை செய்தால் போதாது, அதில் அன்பும் , சரியான மனோபாவமும் இருந்தால் தான் பிரயோஜனம் என்று போதித்தார். உன்னுடைய, உண்மையான தெய்வீக இயல்பை உணர்வாயாக , பிறகு நீ எது செய்தாலும், நன்மையாக தான் இருக்கும், என்றார்.<br /><br />நாம் சொல்கிறோம் : அவர் ஒரு ஹிந்துவை 'Better' ஹிந்துவாக மாற்ற வந்தார் என்றும், ஒரு முஸ்லிமை 'Better' முஸ்லிமாக மாற்ற வந்தார் என்றும், ஒரு கிறித்தவனை 'Better' கிறித்தவனாக மாற்ற வந்தார் என்றும் சொல்கிறோம். ஆனால், எல்லாவற்றுக்கும் மேலாக , அவர் ஒவ்வொரு மனிதனையும், 'Better' மனிதனாக , மாற்ற வந்தார் என்று சொல்லலாம். மனிதனுக்கு, அன்பு என்றால் என்னவென்று தெரிய வேண்டும், அது மற்றவர் மனதை எப்படி மாற்றும் என்பது புரிய வேண்டும். நம்மை சுற்றி உள்ளவர்களின், சமுதாயத்தின் கஷ்டங்களை புரிந்து கொண்டு, அதை தீர்க்கும் பொறுப்பை நாம் ஏற்றுக்கொண்டு , மனிதனோடு மனிதன் நேசமாக வாழ வேண்டும். ஒருவர் கேட்பதற்கு முன்பே அவர்களுக்கு, நாம் நன்மையை பகிர்ந்து அளித்து, அவர் என்றாவது ஒரு நாள், வேறு ஒருவருக்கு நன்மை செய்வார் என்று நம்பி , நன்மையை சுற்றி வரச் செய்ய வேண்டும். அன்பின் மூலமும், சேவையின் மூலமும், தனக்கு உள்ளிருக்கும் தெய்வத் தன்மையை அவன் உணர வேண்டும். பிறகு, அதே தெய்வத்வம் தான் அங்கிங்கெனாதபடி , எங்கும் நிறைந்திருக்கிறது என்பதை உணர வேண்டும். இதை சொல்லத்தான், இதை செய்து காட்டத்தான் இந்த தெய்வம் வந்தது.<br /><br />என்றாவது ஒரு நாள், பல ஜன்மங்கள் கழித்து, நமது பிறவி பயணத்தில், நாம் ஒரு நாள், இந்த உண்மையை உணரத் தான் போகிறோம். நமது 'Personal God '-க்கும் , நமக்கும், அதிகம் வித்தியாசம் இல்லை, நாமும் தெய்வம் தான், என்பதை உணரத் தான் போகிறோம். அதைத் தானே அவர் முதலிலேயே சொன்னார், நமக்குத் தான் , இது புரிபடுவதற்கு நிறைய 'time' ஆகிவிட்டது, என்று நினைப்போம்.<br /><br />நம் உடம்பு, நம் மனம், நம் வினை, நம் விதி, நமது வாழ்வின் குறிக்கோள் , நம் வாழ்வின் கம்யம் , நம் உண்மை இயல்பு, - இதெல்லாமே நமக்கு புரியவில்லை. இந்த லக்ஷணத்தில், நாம் , அவரையும், அவர் உடம்பையும், அவர் அவதார நோக்கத்தையும் , புரிந்து கொள்ள முடியுமா என்ன ?<br /><br />அவரை ஏன் நாம் நேசிக்கிறோம் தெரியுமா ? அவருடைய புகழை அளவிட முடியாது, அவரை புரிந்து கொள்ள முடியாது. அவரை புரிந்து கொண்டு அப்புறமாக அவரை நேசிக்க முடியுமா என்ன ?<br /><br />அவர் முன்னிலையில், நாம் யார் , என்பதை அவர் நமக்கு காட்டுகிறார். அவருடைய திருவுருவப் படத்தின் தீபத்தின் முன்பு, நமது மனம் என்ற ஏரியில் தோன்றும் பிம்பத்தில், நம்மை நாம் காண்கிறோம். வேறு எங்கெங்கோ தேடி கிடைக்காத, நம்மை பற்றி, நாமே அறிந்து கொள்ள வேண்டிய உண்மைகளை , அவர் முன்னால் நாம் உணர்கிறோம். அந்த உள்ளுனர்வுகளுக்காக தான் நாம் அவரை நேசிக்கிறோம். நீங்கள் இந்த நிலையை அடைந்திருந்தால் , இந்த பிரசாந்தி நிலையத்தை, அடைந்திருந்தால், இது உண்மை என்பதை நீங்கள் உணர்வீர்கள்.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-63424552378556930292011-04-25T17:15:00.005+05:302011-04-25T17:29:18.903+05:30A story from every home<a href="http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/">HE </a>touched each one of our lives in little little ways at different points in time. Each one of us has a story to tell, about His Love, about how our lives have mingled with His, about His impact on us, our minds.<br /><br />Sometimes they are stories told never before. Some are stories that are cherished deeply in the heart and might never be told. Some are stories that we enjoy telling, because the Love that we received, we want to share with the entire world. Some may be just little quips, short incidents, quotable quotes that happened some sunny morning in the Mandir here, but have been etched in our memories and bubble up from time to time, during our moments of reflection.<br /><br />Some may be just silent moments, when He passed by us, He had this customized twinkle in His eye, apparently no word was spoken, but we got the message nevertheless. Some may be moments whose importance we realized only later, for, at that time, we let our narrow mind interpret the million mysterious ways of God. Sometimes it might have been as small as a thought that occurred to us, which we knew came from Him.<br /><br />It's not just the story of you and me, it's ghar ghar kee kahani, a story from each home. Some may be stories that for others may be trivial, but for us, so sweet and so important, because they happened in our lives, not theirs. Even a light chiding as 'Dunnapotha' or a pleasant reference as 'Good Boy'. We can deny, question or argue somone else's experience, but can we deny a feeling when it occurs within us ? After all, if we aren't true to our feelings, what else would life be worth living for ? Our feelings and our stories are always deep, important and very personal to us. That is why, even though He was a Universal Teacher, He was a 'Personal' God. A personal God individually to all those millions, who shed a tear or two today in fond gratitude from wherever they are. He was the Head of this House, a silent listener in every conversation, an unseen guest at every meal. Every home must be narrating these stories at their dinner table today to others in the family and friends, and they are all little, but deeply personal stories of how He came into "my life" and what we felt about Him.<br /><br />Whether story or not, whether told or not, each one of us was here, flocking here from time to time, for every Christmas, every Shivarathri and every November, because it was so wonderful to be here. He had made it so wonderful for us to be here, it’s so cool to bask in the shadow of this large banyan tree of Love.<br /><br />It's these little but sure acts of love, invisible but 'I-know-it-is-true' kind of feelings, that have built our picture of how we relate to him. That picture is not of the material kind. It's a picture of feelings, built slowly like an ant builds its granary. The wishes we asked Him, might have been of this world and gifts that we received may fade with time. But the feeling we cherished when we prayed to him, that Moment of capture in the camera of our heart, it is not of this world and is timeless. Like Krishna who made a copy of Himself to each of the thousand Gopikas, the Master has made a picture of Himself in each of our hearts, each picture unique in its streaks and differently beautiful.<br /><br />Education, Healthcare and Drinking water SHOULD be given free, He believed. And He set out to show the world how to manifest your belief into an example and an inspiration for others. In an age, where people are particularly insistent about their rights and cleverly transfer the responsibility to others at the quickest possible opportunity, He showed how an individual can take a personal sense of responsbility for the problems of the community. He felt for their problems, as really and as strongly as if it was His own problem.<br /><br />When He said, in 1980, that a University would be completely free, and would combine modern education with character-building and human values, they mocked at him. It just completed 30 years and a few thousand lives were touched. When He said, in 1990, that a world class hospital would do surgeries for free for the poor, they jeered at him. That one just completed 20 years. Even better, 10 years into the first, for a bonus, He added one more hospital of the same scale and a few more thousand lives were touched, literally. When He announced in 1995, to supply drinking water to an entire arid district drawing water from hundreds of kilometers away, and He had to borrow to finish it, He said, 'Do good work with a good intention. Help will come.' And then He went on to add 4 more districts to the list and few thousand hearts.<br /><br />He may not have been a personal God to everyone, but for those few thousand stranger lives that He touched by His Service, He was no more a stranger. For an unknown patient coming from a distant land, He was a giver. For that average, middle class young lad in his teens looking for a degree and can't afford it, He was a giver. For a parched throat in a uphill tribal village, He was a giver. In all these, the ones who received, got their cure, education and water and are grateful. But He was a giver of Love, above all, that was what He always gave, the rest were just the specifics. And for volunteers and the followers who participated in these works, He raised the bar for them further, beyond the work they did. Work wasn't an end in itself, He said, it was Love and the Attitude that accompanied it. Know your own reality, and every work that you do will be good.<br /><br />It is said that He came to make a Hindu a better Hindu, a Muslim into a better Muslim, a Christian into a better Christian. But, above all, He came to make every Man, a better Man. So that Man may believe in Love and its cascading power of transformation. That Man may believe in Selfless Service and the proactive responsibility to care and share with fellowmen, to pay it forward with goodness. That Man may, one day, by the power of Love and Service, inquire into His own true nature and find Divinity within. And then find it pervading all over the place, in everyone. Some day, in a journey across lives, we may discover that we weren't any less godly than our personal God. Which is what He always said in the first place. We just took our time to get the point.<br /><br />We are not able to figure out our own body, our mind, our destiny, our Gamyam and our real nature. What would we know of Him, His body and His Mission ?<br /><br />As some famous quote goes, we love him, perhaps not for what He is, for we know not His Glory in its entirety. We love him, for what we are, when we are in His presence. For what we reflect in the light of His altar. For what we find out about ourselves that we didn't find otherwise. If you've been there, you'll know it to be true.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-80818136203514574432011-04-10T17:49:00.003+05:302011-04-10T17:55:43.885+05:30And you thought you had your backup...A guest post of mine at Hari's techstuff blog :<br /><br /><a href="http://hnsws.blogspot.com/2011/04/adventures-with-ping.html">http://hnsws.blogspot.com/2011/04/adventures-with-ping.html</a><br /><br />See how much jargon I have had to suppress in my other "normal" writings :) :)<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-75881273370957008112010-11-28T03:15:00.004+05:302010-11-28T04:26:22.576+05:3021 Brahmachari EccentricitiesI have an untested, home-grown, humorous hypothesis : That is, Brahmacharis develop eccentricities over a long period of time. They exhibit some or other kind of eccentric behaviour or mannerism. This is not true, of course, it’s just a story. This blog post itself is eccentric. Still, I went on to collect some data. I had to use my phone to record notes over a few weeks at all times, because when the Brahmacharis pass by and eccentricities appear, you have to note them down when you spot them. I compiled a few Brahmachari eccentricities that I observed in the Brahmachari world around me, then imagined a few more, mixed some of this and that, so that people don’t make out which is which. Arundhati Roy style.<br /><br />Before I get into the light-hearted list, here is some serious gyaan.<br /><br />Why does this happen ? Why might Brahmacharis develop eccentricities ?<br /><br />See, simply put, this is what happens if you are not steadfast in your Sadhana and not regular at your midnight meditation.<br /><br />However, the main reason it happens is a misleading interpretation of the word “independence”. When you are unmarried and staying alone, you are free to do whatever you wish and you indeed go about doing just that. If you are married, Ah, this possibility shrinks quite a bit. On every decision, you might have to consult at least one more person, who has equal veto-power and can bring in additional voting candidates like your parents or in-laws. You want to buy Sony or Samsung ? You want to paint Blue or Brown ? You want to wear White or Black and you want <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: lucida grande; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">me </span>to wear Blue or Green ? It so happens that God puts the opposites together, so that one may complement the other and learn from the other, so every decision is a parliamentary procedure. You can’t do strange eccentric things, you may get whacked, chided or advised by your spouse, depending on what is your acceptable form of instruction. You will be gently requested to live according to the world around you and if you don’t listen, first ‘gently’ will go and then ‘requested’ will go. A person, more cool-headed, balanced and smarter than you, is walking with you and you have to be aware of the presence.You will constantly be called upon to rise up to expectations.<br /><br />Neways, what do I know of the married world, except for those surmises ? Don’t ask a monk how he knows the things he knows. If you are not married, you think you have none of these boundaries. So you take your independence to the extreme and end up doing all eccentric things, because there is nobody at the peer level to ask.<br /><br />Then, there is this conviction called : ‘I will do whatever I feel is right’. While this is a good thing, you take it to the very extreme, and you end up doing things that feels good <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: lucida grande; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">only for you</span>. You think you are following your conscience, which is a very serious matter and a wonderful thing. May be you are. But you may refuse to consider the possibility, that other people around you may be following their respective consciences with as much earnest. May be, two consciences can be in conflict. If that’s not possible, one of you may not be following the conscience after all, you may be following some other buffalo (like your mind). Whatever, taking this to the extreme, causes you to disregard what others think as an acceptable behaviour. It creates a self-centered approach to choices, partly calling it joy of independence, partly calling it conscience and what turns out is an eccentricity that I can blog about.<br /><br />As the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0671708635">7 habits book</a> says, interdependence is a greater value than independence. We loosely talk of terms like financial independence, professional independence, creative independence and so on. But, at the end of the day, we are <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: lucida grande; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Prema Pipasis</span>, we hanker for love, both of the mundane human kind and of the higher spiritual kind. If everyone were to be independent, there would be no one at the dinner table to share stories. Interdependence creates a better environment of togetherness and promotes love rather than independence.<br /><br />Oh oh, enough of the analysis paralysis. This post was intended to be an attempt at humour. Let’s get into some lively worldview.<br /><br />So here, in one of the largest ever research on Brahmachari eccentricities… 21 of them, in no particular order.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 51);font-size:130%;" ><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">1</span>.</span> </span></span>You put a “<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">STAFF</span></span>” board on your bicycle, in huge saffron letters. As if it is proactive compliance with RTO and thieves will check out the informative board and then keep away. You know the cycle repair guy tells some story every time and robs you of a lot of money, but you think you are helping the local economic ecosystem by providing him business opportunities and the cascading effect will benefit the whole town. You call it Gullibility with Full Awareness. What a concept !<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >2.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span>You are stationary, but your parts are mobile. You keep twiddling, turning, clasping your fingers, biting your lips, scratching your head, shaking your legs (horizontally and vertically, alternatively). As if all the wood-boring Beetles in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_Returns">Mummy movie</a> have entered your body through all the holes. Drawing your tongue deep inside as if you are sipping a cool drink and releasing it as if it wasn’t tasty enough. Rubbing the chair’s handle so much that after a while, you have reached the wood after wearing out the cushion. You do all of this at the same time, so seamlessly that you don’t know where one process ends and the next one begins. Your motor nerves have a tough time handling data. You generate so much kinetic energy enough to power a household. When someone mentions this, you give the analogy of the ocean : waves on the surface, but deeep calm within, you say. Aha!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: lucida grande;">3.</span></span> You think, the ladies mess up things. Always. Everything. You also think, they are emotional, they are difficult to deal with, they have more politics than the men. And loads of other such <a href="http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/60s70s/g/gl_mcp.htm">MCP </a>opinions. You don’t know what that abbreviation means, You think they are all Maturely Considered Perspectives. You had to click on that link and look it up to know it is Male Chauvinistic Dot-dot-dot. You direct your ire particularly at nuns and spinsters.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: lucida grande; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4</span>.</span></span> You are more comfortable working with machines than with men. That’s because machines don’t have perspectives. You don’t have to be courteous to them. They are glad to get booted by you and they don’t complain ‘I got booted by my boss today’. They don’t lie and tell different answers to different people. They don’t mask hypocrisy with diplomacy. Those blue screen error messages are better than some confusing expressions put up by real people. Of course, there may be such things as Windows perspective and Linux perspective, but you can always keep them under dual boot or virtual machines, providing private space differently. A space that people hardly provide for you. <br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: lucida grande; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">5. </span></span>Apart from talking to real people, you do other kinds of talking. You talk to yourself. Sometimes, without a mirror. Pouring out, accusing people, that you can’t do for real. You talk in dreams and chase away Greek warriors in battle. You talk to your dog more than you talk to your friends. You even speak to the dog about your bank accounts and mutual fund investments. You blog as a therapy. You say the same thing again and again in conversation.'Did I tell you about my musician aunt in Thanjavur who fell from a tractor ?', you begin, not realizing that the poor listener has gone through the torture already. Some jobless listeners, they hear you out completely and even ask newer questions to elicit additional information. And then, they drop a last line, ‘Yeah, you mentioned this last week’. Huh !!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: lucida grande; font-weight: bold;">6. </span></span>You never get angry. You are Sant No.1. In fact, you spend considerable amount of time sublimating your anger instincts, but you are not sure whether you are sublimating or suppressing. One fine morning, when you do get angry, the ceiling comes down, and even the sublimated impressions re-crystallize, liquefy in the heat and pour out as lava. This is a split personality disorder that manifests once in six months.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;">7.</span> </span>Nothing is useless to you. You keep collecting every single nut and bolt, pin and paper. Pamphlets and empty diaries are your favorites. You take pride that archaeologists 2000 years down the line will be able to reconstruct lost history of an entire civilization by excavating just the room where you lived. They are going to connect the dots in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform">cuneiform </a>script by matching the pictures in the pamphlets to the dates in the dairies. You have empty diaries, that SBI had gifted to Dadabhai Naoroji , which he passed on to your great grand mother’s servant maid. Every year, you think you will use the diary for “time management”, to keep a log of, when you got up, when you had noodles etc. Personal Growth, you think. You haven’t used the rotting, rusting stuff in years, but you always want to use all of them tomorrow. ‘Just in case I require’, you know. The only good thing out of this unlimited inventory is the polythene bags you keep. At least, they save the environment. Although you are incapable of such a noble intention, it’s just an incidental benefit to mankind, apart from the archaeological ones.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:130%;">8.</span> </span>When you see a boy and a girl talking to each other in the post office, you think, they are upto something. Upto what ? You wish in all the world, that they broke all the societal shackles and told you what they are upto, but sadly, that doesn’t happen. You don’t want to consider the straightforward naive possibility that a girl might just be borrowing a pen from the boy. Things can’t be that simple, a pen can lead to anything, you know. Curious, you come to post office the next day at the same time, because you watched a Maniratnam movie and you are expecting something to happen. Oh sad, it’s some other boy, some other girl and some other pen this time. You deliberately left your pen at home and came, but you feel shy to ask. You are hoping someone will come and ask you, ‘Do you need a pen ?’ and then compliment you by saying ‘Nice T-shirt there’. But, it doesn’t happen, you buy a new pen and write the address and go home. You spend entire lifetimes in such misplaced wishful thinking and unanswered curiosity at every post office, ATM and bus stand. Phew.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;">9.</span> </span>You are so desperate for good food that you go to the canteen with ghee (or Amul butter cubes), 2 types of pickle in bottles, Podi(2 types again) and Chips, all of them as side-dishes to your meal. You ask for more chutney and sambar than the total mass of the idlis, maximizing value for money. The board ‘Outside food not allowed’ seems so intimidating to your kind of eating habits. The good part is you share it with everyone around. This food urge can take other forms. You are waiting for your indirect aunty, three levels away in the family tree (or any aunty for that matter) to invite you for a home lunch. As they say in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dil_Chahta_Hai">Dil Chahta Hai</a>, ‘we go anywhere for a piece of cake’. On festival days like Deepavali, you even schedule your lunch/dinner offers and space them out at regular intervals, getting choosy at which item is best at which home, putting up a reasonable performance at each location.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:130%;">10.</span> </span>Someone sends a wedding invitation over email, and you are thinking whether to wish him or not. Where does the question arise? Even for wishing over email, you go through three levels of complicated algorithms to arrive at that dilemma. Finally, you go to the reception. You are talking to people, but you are feeling lonely. You wanted to go for the wedding, but after reaching you wonder why you came. You have been collecting sayings like :<br /><ul><li>Marriage is like a besieged fortress where people who are inside, want to get out and people are outside, want to get in. </li><li>Married people have one set of problems and the unmarried ones, well, have another set. Problems still. </li></ul>You are waiting for the every little opportunity to use these sayings. You want to make married people feel guilty and unmarried people feel confused. You finish your food before the couple arrive on stage. Got to save on time, you see.. Food is good, but you when you reach the couple to wish them, you finally say, <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: lucida grande; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Happy Birthday</span>. Hmm. You are uncomfortable being photographed, and more uncomfortable standing on the bride’s side, even though you are standing three people away outside the camera’s range.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: lucida grande; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">11. </span></span>You carry a great feeling of brotherly oneness, but only when you are using things that belong to someone else. ‘Ah, our brother only na, he wont mind ya’ is your local delivery of Vasudaiva Kudumbakam. Someone has given chocolates to your room-mate for safekeeping in the fridge and you have already nationalized it without the slightest hesitation or ethical dilemma. The thumb rule is : If it can be used by you, it can be used by me.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">12. </span></span>In the school, in the Indian Pledge, they taught you ‘<span style="font-style: italic;">All Indians are my brothers and sisters</span>’. You believed it, took it seriously and now you don’t know how to provide for exceptions. You haven’t grown up since. In fact, you don’t want to grow up, because, there is this sweet feeling of not growing up. After all, grown-ups have problems, don’t they ? You don’t realize that modern young women working in multinational banks hate to be called ‘Akka’ by their male colleagues, because it makes them sound so old. It looks outrageous to you that you can call them by their name and they would prefer that indeed. You still want to add a ‘ji’ to their name, just in case. After all this conservative build-up, you finally end up treating foreigners as exceptions to the Indian pledge and get ready for a cross-cultural revolution.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">13. </span></span>You think fluorescent orange, fluorescent green are good colours. You wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t agree with your aesthetic tastes. . Saree choices: you get confused so much, you give up and buy whatever the sales girl suggests, as if the sales girl thinks exactly like your niece. You don’t know that there are things like male colors and female colours. You also wonder how gender differences can be attributed to non-living things, like gents watches and ladies watches, gents footwear and ladies footwear, gents purse and ladies purse. They are just functional instruments, right ?, why do they complicate choices ? Why not have gents cars and ladies cars, gents keyboard and ladies keyboard, gents mosquito repellent and ladies mosquito repellent ? Thus goes your orrriginal thinking.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">14. </span></span>You are so much established in Vedanta, you have mastered the art of detachment so much that you can right-click and choose attachment or detachment. You come up with complicated phrases, like, attachable detachment and detachable attachment, which only the Brahmachari community understands. At a given point of time, you can be emotionally connected but spiritually disconnected. This can baffle people at times, because they are trying to find out what mode you are operating in, are you interested or not interested ? It’s like the loose contact of the network cable to your laptop. Every time before you press Enter, you have to check whether it is connected or not.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">15. </span></span>You have no clue how to handle kids, particularly infants. If someone gives a baby to you for a few minutes for caretaking, you start sweating. You think they are going to scream anytime. And just when you thought that, it does scream. Their cheeks get red and you think it needs medical attention. You are always wondering whether it is going to do the zing thing on your lap-top, causing you to rinse your clothes. You have strange concepts from nowhere, like, ‘if you spend lot of time with kids, you may convert to making some of your own’. You are waiting for the Mummy or Daddy to come and get the baby back from you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">16. </span></span>You go to a 5-star hotel with friends and have just curd rice. The waiter looks at you, as if your Mommy never fed you anything else for upbringing. You look at him back, brimming with pride that it’s indeed true. You shoot off into a speech to your friends on the wonderful effects it has. You recall with nostalgia, how, in your school days, you ate previous day’s rice soaked in water with curds and how it was instrumental in acquiring the vast intelligence you have now. Not knowing, that’s precisely, what the waiter will be bringing in a few minutes. And then you crib, ‘How can curd rice be so costly ?’. ‘Exclusive cow for you, Sir’, he explains.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">17. </span></span>When you want to describe a corporate scenario where two parties are fighting, you use the husband-wife analogy. When more parties join the fight, you start extending it by upto third wife, fourth husband and so on. If it’s software projects, it even extends to, my kid and your kid are fighting with our kids. You don’t realize that the project manager on the other end of the conference call, may be married and he may be raising his eye-brows at the way you are making his professional discussion more lively.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">18. </span></span>You do not know the difference between normal jokes and adult jokes. You think they are all the same. You even think, every normal joke has an adult significance. You don’t know which to use, when and where, to whom. Therefore, you draw twitches from people who listen to your jokes, instead of laughter. You wonder why the women in the gathering are not laughing but staring at you with a confused look like “what’s happened to this bloke”. Then you realize that you have told the wrong joke at the wrong place. But you repeat the mistake all over again at the next gathering with a different joke.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">19. </span></span>What is meant to be taken seriously, you take it as a joke.What is meant to be taken as a joke, you take it seriously. Like this post. You are an enigma.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">20. </span></span>You think, you don’t suffer from any eccentricity. It’s the rest of the world that is way off the orbit, particularly the married folks. The world revolves around you and it’s not doing it properly. You also use phrases like ‘Cha, married peepal, they are like that only no?’ or ‘Once you get married na, that’s all raa, gone case, booked forever, Govindaaa only’ and so on. To think you don’t have any eccentricity, may itself be one. Also, even a normal eccentricity found in normal people, you wrongly assume only Brahmacharis suffer from these eccentricities. It could be anyone. This misunderstanding can itself be an eccentricity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: lucida grande;">21. </span></span>And finally, some tidbits, all bunched into one item.<br /><ul><li>You are scared to death, of dogs.You feel all the dogs in the world are out to get you and afraid even of sleeping dogs. Let the dogmatic dogs lie as they are.</li></ul><ul><li>You think that a girl’s mind is programmed and re-programmable. By you. </li></ul><ul><li>You think the whole world is there to listen to your bathroom singing and you distort the lyrics of sweet devotional songs with Mexican tribal drum sounds produced by you, because you think tunes transcend the lyrics. </li></ul><ul><li>You carry a wide green sitting mat that looks like a flying magic carpet, occupying area worth three kadapa slabs. And yet you jostle for space. </li></ul><ul><li>You have tea at the middle of the road at midnight, after a drama practice session, and want to call it Brahmachari independence. </li></ul><ul><li>If someone names his book as Jyoti Rupa Sandhya Vandana and Gayatri Mahima, the title doesn’t look spiritual to you.</li></ul><br /><br />So, Which one of these, do you think, I suffer from ? Let me know in the comments.<br /><br />Not that I’ll eliminate them. I’ll even out those eccentricities, get back into orbit and replace them with newer eccentricities, as part of personal growth. Different people have different eccentricities, and there as many eccentricities as there are people. So if yours is not on the list, put that in the comments and let others know.<br /><br />I have no idea how the <span style="font-family: lucida grande; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Brahmacharinees</span></span> </span>operate in this terrain. So if you feel this post has a gender bias or a chauvinistic angle, please know that it is not intended. Indeed, both genders are equally capable of going off the orbit. Do a simple find-replace and tweak the context a bit, you will get their side of the story. My guess is, it’s as complicated as it is on this side. But don’t break your rules and go to verify it, in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohabbatein">Mohabbatein </a>style.<br /><br />If you think the eccentricity I am mentioning here refers to someone whom you know, keep quiet. Don’t put that in the comments and get me sued. We can giggle on that over a cup of coffee. I don’t know you, I disown all my readers regularly. Read Ram Gopal Varma’s disclaimer on Raktha Charithra. It’s all fiction and faction blurring into fact, occasionally. The rest is just accidental coincidence.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-7671101803555416252010-10-18T01:16:00.007+05:302010-10-18T04:04:04.822+05:30Can our movies influence our morality ?<span class="Yd"><span class="ze">A <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/vengeance-is-mine/">blog piece on New York Times</a> discusses Vengeance movies and faintly mentions their ability to raise the questions of morality and violence to the viewers. A blogger friend <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/savitha25#buzz">buzzed it in</a>, which set me thinking on how much our movies can influence us. Who ever took movies seriously anyway ? Or should you ? Whatever, at least it made me come back to my (now) haunted blog on its third anniversary Vijayadasami and see if I can still ruffle some dry leaves that have fallen on the floor.<br /><br />I wonder if the visual media have that strong an impact when it comes to making our daily decisions that we act upon. It might happen in the case of someone who watches them all day, repeatedly the same kind, confined in a closed room and then sets out to imagine the world as what he has seen in an image. In which case, he might need a different kind of help. But for most average viewers, it's just a use-and-throw batch of inputs. Even during the watching act, we might be involved in our chores, chatting with someone, doling out our gyan, knitting a sweater or doing one's job. Like my barber does, dangerously, :) . He keeps me in trepidation as to whether all the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarasimha_Reddy">Rayalaseema violence</a> that he is watching on the screen while I am on the operating table, will it translate into action on my neck ? :) .<br /><br />We also meet a lot of good people in the day. We do a lot of good things and some trivial things. The set of inputs from a particular sensory stream has to fight its way with those streaks of goodness and love. What we say of good things : <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">C</span>apture, <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">C</span>ontemplation and <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">C</span>onduct (Shravana, Manana and Nidhidhyasana) will also be true of the bad things, I mean, they would need as much effort to get there, no ? Or does Evil travel faster and impinge deeper ? (maybe).<br /><br />When we speak of the good teachings, we all know how much we read, out of which how much we are convinced to be true, and how (little) we practise :). Ask the teen reader of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_rand">Ayn Rand</a> and the fortywala who read her in his teens. You will know the Top 10 reasons why we don't act all that we read. Welcome to the world of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming">linear programming</a>. Given a set of constraints, we find the optimal solution. That old creaky furniture, we don't move them around too much, we don't turn the problem on its head and re-examine its boundaries. That job is left to the creative few. I hope we bring the same proportion of inadequacy :) and lethargy when it comes to the bad things. :) :) . For all the build-up that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Gopal_Verma">RGV </a>gives on his <a href="http://rgvzoomin.com/rc-directorsnote/">blog </a>to his upcoming pic on factional violence, how many of us would sympathise with the protagonist any more than we do at the popcorn vendor's oily shirt ?<br /><br />This is not to condone Evil or a gatepass to be lenient at the Mind's checkpost. You still need your sense control (Or sense of control, if you want to look at it that way). If you are a sadhaka, you are reading the wrong post on the right blog, you should switch to a slightly more complicated post like <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-will-and-video-game-called-life.html">this </a>. This is just to mock at Satan's inability :) to conquer Man and to glorify man's inherent ability to figure out things which he should act upon and those that which he can ignore. After all , are we, as a Society, Goodness personified, who occasionally stray away into the dark bushes or Darkness personified, randomly remembering a faint Divinity ? Reminds me of <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/ns.ramnath">Ramnath</a>'s blog post, once upon a time, asking Is Man inherently evil ? , after he watched <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindler%27s_list">Schindler's Lis</a>t. (See, I remembered my blogmentor on the anniversary post).<br /><br />I loved <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De_Basanti">Rang De Basanti</a> for its vivid screenplay, well-chiselled expressions and upbeat BGM. I had watched it many times over at that time. But I am not sure if it has influenced me enough to even endorse the climax, let alone taking it seriously. Whether it has influenced me or not, is something others have to comment on!<br /><br />Will Humble Joe become a Violent Tom, if he watches all that is listed in <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/vengeance-is-mine/">NYT article</a> ? ( Phew! I haven't watched even one of those.... ) I think it takes a lot more than that to rewire minds. And only if you skip your protective armour of midnight meditation :) . Or will it seep into your roots like slow poison and displace your moral tectonic plates in the long run ? Aren't we made of sterner stuff ? Can Vengeance movies, that portray it misleadingly as righteous anger, create a long-term persistent impact on the average adult viewer ? He paid a certain amount of money to be away from his humdrum world and he won't carry tough lessons back to that world of drudgery from which he wanted an escape to entertainment. The kids' minds and their vulnerability are another thing altogether, but I think adults can differentiate rama from drama and dharma from karma. Do we live in that bad a world ? What say ? And what would you say to your kid ?<br /><br /><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-6555937075401491502010-08-19T01:17:00.011+05:302010-08-19T02:50:02.473+05:30What's your Personal Work Ethic ?<p>The personal work ethic is a topic I always wanted to write about. <a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/ns.ramnath#buzz">Ramnath </a>triggered this piece, by posting a short review of the book, The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307353133">4-hour Workweek</a> at the <a href="http://portal.saistudents.org/pg/blog/ramnath/read/85615/how-much-work-does-a-man-need">Sai Students Portal</a>. The book is mainly about how you can manage to work only 4 hours a week and amongst others, suggests outsourcing personal tasks. Some discussion ensued and here are my comments at that blog, made out into a post (with a few edits ) here :<br /></p><p>I havent read the book, I find the title and theme of the book as described, quite interesting. But I find that the "methods" that he suggests are a bit cliched, just a e-Yuga rehash of the old school lessons of time management, personal efficiency, goal setting stuff talked by a lot of other books.</p> <p>That apart, the ability to contemplate on why we do what we do and the conflict between what we want (at our ideal level of aspiration) and what we do, is something we lack in our times. What Dritharashtra said in the context of Dharma is also applicable to goals, Jaanami Dharmam Nacha Me Pravritti, Jaanami Adharmam Nacha Me Nivritti..., the gap between knowing what to do and doing it in-deed.</p> <p>The personal work ethic that each of us bring to the workplace is something that I have always found interesting to observe. How much of what we do is because of the control system that pushes us and how much of it would we do in its absence ? How many hours of work is "right" or "optimal", assuming you want to be just loyal to the contract, not any less or more ? Peter Drucker once said, that the best motivated employee is a volunteer. What is the substantially differentiating basic attitude towards work, between, say a waiter whose opportunity to bring originality to the work is limited, and say, a Google employee who gets to spend 20% on it ?<br /></p>Why work ? Well, that can be a dangerous question :) . If you deconstruct this too much from the Advaitic angle, you might end up with a fallacious conclusion : Don't work. Which we knew already and we are good at. :) To avoid that, you should start from Gita's premise, that work is inevitable. You can't <span style="font-style: italic;">not work</span>, dude, the software doesnt provide that feature. Given that, and all of us have the same 24 hours, a deep thought on 'Why do I work ? ' can provide custom answers to what satisfies you. It can differentiate achiever from a non-starter, a poet from a mechanic, a saint from a sinner. It can be a basis for the development (or lack thereof) of other qualities like loyalty, dedication, team spirit and ambition. You can find some of these qualities and an amazing work ethic in some workers and simple people, so it may not actually be a function of the money you get. It's probably just a function of what custom answers you form in your mind, after you solve the equation for yourself.<br /><p>Of course, there are major implications when you institutionalize the optimal work ethic of an individual, because, "market" forces like competition, cost, performance pressure, peer presence etc chip in to make it complex. But probably, the large scale orientation towards metrics and efficiency in modern management, is pushing the individual more and more away from his or her optimal band of work-life balance. As a race, we have moved from success in survival to success in war to success in trade. The common element in those phases has been competition. What's the next dimension of success we will move towards ? And what will that revolve around ?<br /></p> <p>I also wonder whether people doing one kind of work (say intellectually challenging strategy work ) are any more "busy" than, say, a construction worker who carries bricks all day. We usually think the former kind to be much more "busy" and perhaps "better contributive", "better value-adding" than the latter, but, in terms of the time spent, they both spend the same amount of time (give or take a few hours) on something that they have chosen (or say forced to have chosen) to do. And in most cases as part of a contract. When someone says, I am more busy than you, it's most often untrue, it just means, what I am busy with, has more visibility than what you are busy with. Or, I may have all the time in the world, but that time is not for you. :)<br /></p> <p>One type of work may be more satisfying than another, depending on what satisfies you. But is one type of work, intrinsically superior/good than another ? Is a painter better off than a conductor, because his work is creative ? If it is, what parameters contribute to its superiority ? Say, "to create a better world", is one such. The person who is at the top of such a company identifies directly with it and probably closer to that vision whereas for the person who is involved three levels down the work hierarchy, it would just be, being a waiter, a job to do for the pay he takes. The reverse is also possible in their attitudes, someone takes to it as carrying a stone (or pushing numbers), and someone else takes to it as building a cathedral. We once spent a whole night loading trucks with rice, clothes and relief material for the victims of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Gujarat_earthquake">Gujarat earthquake</a>. Oh, we found it very satisfying when the series of trucks were leaving the campus. Why was that ?<br /></p> <p>I think there are actually very few templates in which majority of us fall in. Very few actually get to do something that is substantially different, creating a new template altogether. Although we often want to claim and feel what we do is somehow "unique", and say so in our marketing brochures and interviews, most of the time it's the same cycle and the same pursuits, with minor variants/derivatives of what we call in programming design as an Abstract Class. Brings me to the thought: how much of programming work is different from plumbing ? You fix one valve and there goes the next, phut. What, we actually use the words like architecture, platform, address, tunnelling and named pipes... :) If you push us a little more, we'll start coming out with software equivalent terms for concrete, steel, emulsion paint, waterproofing and so on.<br /></p> <p>In every area of work, there is the exciting part, the boring part and the hated part. That exciting, boring and hated tasks come as a package in any vocation is something you may have to live with. Like doing the dishes after the party. For this reason, I have always failed to resolve one of the usual guidelines that personal effectiveness books suggest : Prioritize and ensure you give your time to high value-adding tasks. The fallout of this is that you are forced to categorize a certain set of tasks as low priority, with the effect that they are first ones to get rescheduled or postponed. Over a period of time, these tasks will build up to become critical or requiring immediate attention and graduate to become high priority and then you run to it. Whereas the very buildup should have been averted in the first place if you paid due attention to those seemingly low priority items on a more distributed basis. Cleaning, maintenance, fixing things that dont work, backing up your computer, stitching that button in time and a hundred other little things would be called low priority in a "Value-Time-Matrix" that these books would draw for you. Of course, the rationale is to avoid getting lost in a ocean of little things, but too much focus on high value items only results in escalation purely born out of negligence. At the workplace, everyone tending to high value prioritization can cause defects that are not noticed and people finding their own little ways to cut corners even as they continue to present a nice greeny picture on the high value items. </p><p>To be able to give every task its due entails the acceptance of a certain amount of boredom that comes as a package with enjoyable work. Tenacity, thoroughness, exhaustive level of detailing can all turn to boredom, but one may have to go beyond that attitudinal fatigue to be able to deliver good work.</p> <p>On a personal level, outsourcing comes at a more pinching cost than it does for orgs. In the hostel, there were always two sets of guys, who always washed and pressed their clothes even if they could afford and the ones who outsourced them. I used to find it strange when someone said "I love doing this myself". My favorite outsourcing question used to be : why dont you grow your own paddy ? :) . Hmmm, that explains the success of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmville">Farmville </a>! (and my failure therein).<br /></p> <p>The famous quote "enjoy what you do and you don't have to work a day in your life" is so cliche now. That also entails a certain amount of re-orienting our attitude towards work, if not opting out of the entire work stream that one may be currently involved in. I think it's a flowery way to encourage those who find that boring and hated components of the package are greater than the exciting part. Either find work that you enjoy or learn to "book" something as enjoyable :) :) <br /></p><p>This shouldn't be depressing, however. The point is that, what we think about the work we do and want to do, has a lot to do with how happy we are. Happiness, in a mundane sense, is a function of what we do, why we do and how we do but it's like an ice cream. As long as you get the flavour A you like, you are as averagely happy as another person who liked and got his flavour B.</p> <p>The ideal personal work ethic would probably be a cross-product of buddhist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic">protestant </a>and the Gita approaches to work, with collectivist lessons drawn from communism and the achievement orientation drawn from capitalism. Well, that would be NextGen Sociology !!<br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-41272915030409084632009-12-12T22:41:00.004+05:302009-12-13T00:01:07.612+05:30The Hunger Strike at Kasi Vinayaga MessWhen I was in Chennai, the <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchennai.metblogs.com%2F2006%2F07%2F14%2Fkasi-vinayaga-mess-the-taj-of-triplicane%2F&rct=j&q=kasi+vinayaga+mess&ei=-c8jS7vtEM-TkAXvhrWnAw&usg=AFQjCNFF4I20Gtz4DTq6MRlRMmgSLg5Lxw">Kasi Vinayaga Mess</a>, a bachelors paradise in Triplicane, hiked their meal prices. Some regulars approached me to ask whether I will participate in a hunger strike in protest. We skipped lunch on a Sunday and spent the whole afternoon in the tea shop in front of the mess. The guy lost his revenue, but didnt give up and went on a return fast. Soon the mess-runners association joined him and cancelled dinner. His wife, annoyed that he didnt bring home that day's collections, went on a hunger strike. Her mahila sangam joined treating it as a twin offence of violation of human rights and economic harassment.<br /><br />As you naturally expect in argumentative hero-worshipping democracies anywhere in the world, more restaurants and mahila sangams joined and there was food (or lack thereof) crisis in Triplicane. Food prices plummeted and was offered free along with the second-hand books sold on Triplicane platforms, but people would only satisfy their intellectual hunger and use it to hold on to their protest with determination. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthasarathy_Temple">Parthasarathy Swamy</a>, overlooking the Bay of Bengal, suddenly discovered to His helplessness, that the Madapalli (temple kitchen) was closed without prior notice and his daily dose of Chakkey Pongey and Iyengar Puliyodharai had been withdrawn. The priests, who ran many Braahmanaal Messes as part-time, treated the Divine Temple Kitchen as an extension of their mess, and for all their namams built up with devotion, put a bigger one to the Lord that day. The Madisar Maamis quickly used the opportunity to declare 'mess-closed' for their agrharam kitchens too and happily settled down to watch the <a href="http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Malini_Iyer-925043415.html">Malini Iyer seria</a>l, starring Sri Devi as a Tambram bride in a hindi-speaking household, so that they can take a dig at their Mylapore counterparts. As if a Manjula Iyengar would have made a better bride and a better serial. Being without a mess, people realised, became a big mess.<br /><br />And then hunger struck. I mean, <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">it </span>STRUCK us. In chronological order. First, it struck me, actually. That is real hunger strike, when hunger strikes you. How long can you stand in front of a mess and not have food, particularly, food being a primary component of happiness index for Brahmacharis, what other earthly pleasure did they seek in life, after all ? Are we not the ones who treat the payasam given by the neighbourhood aunty after Satynarayana Pooja with maximum reverence and effortlessly devour it as if it was a glass of buttermilk ? We gave up all the principles that we held dear to our heart since the afternoon and stomached a cardinal teaching that was right in front of our dangling eyes in broad daylight waiting to be acknowledged.<br /><br />That was this: Right there, somewhere near the <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQFDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.co.in%2Fmaps%2Fplace%3Fhl%3Den%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dvivekananda%2Bhouse%2Bchennai%26fb%3D1%26gl%3Din%26hq%3Dvivekananda%2Bhouse%26hnear%3Dchennai%26cid%3D8693233669632312955&rct=j&q=vivekananda+house+chennai&ei=d9sjS7H5BMuTkAWBn7ynAw&usg=AFQjCNFf00wUBuSODmwuHMMwWbxRZ76uog">Ice House Bus Stand</a>, Swami Vivekananda had declared, after the Darshan of Lord Parthasarathy, Vedanta was <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">definitely </span>not for empty stomachs. No, not for you Madrasees, in particular. I think, he might have actually insisted you have atleast one sambar idly in <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAgQFDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.co.in%2Fmaps%2Fplace%3Fhl%3Den%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dratna%2Bcafe%2Bchennai%26fb%3D1%26gl%3Din%26hq%3Dratna%2Bcafe%26hnear%3Dchennai%26cid%3D11258126230341958675&rct=j&q=ratna+cafe+chennai&ei=WtsjS87GC9CHkAWK27mnAw&usg=AFQjCNGH21RIg_lepcL0nekVD8Vupcw9xA">Ratna Cafe</a> before you picked up <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&ved=0CAkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAshtavakra_Gita&rct=j&q=ashtavakra+gita&ei=09sjS-mfHcuHkQWP8IGoAw&usg=AFQjCNEVW05XvzsJm86d7TO7VhXw903BIA">Ashtavakra Gita</a>. A session of Ashtavakra Gita can be so strenuous, it can consume a lot more idlies. This part must have been edited by his translators to avoid the ethnic reference to a regional cuisine and to avoid sounding as if he was promoting a particular brand of Idlis. So much intensity there was in the speech to his disciple Azhasinga Perumal that they named the bus stand as Vivekananda House. Not knowing a Kannaki Statue will come up nearby on the beach and there will be nomenclature clashes about Kannaki and Vivekananda. (But why do they still call it Ice House ? I mean neither of them stand to benefit).<br /><br />'I like Vedanta', I thought, 'I don't want to give up Vedanta', but that would also mean, I shouldn't remain with an empty stomach. Isn't Vedanta the crowning jewel of all the principles in the world, before which all other principles fade into oblivion, my mind and stomach justified, in partnership. That knowledge, when known, you dont need to know anything else. That sambar idli, when eaten, you don't need to eat anything else. Clearly, I was beginning to see the similarities between the ephemeral and the eternal and how to put Vedanta into daily life, sincerely taught by Ashtavakra and sumptuously sponsored by Rathna Cafe. It's amazing, if you deter the metabolism and deny oxygen to the brain for a few hours, how it constructs an equally beautiful, alternate logical structure mixing up gods, swamijis and their disciples, treating letters as speeches and quoting the right sentence from the wrong source, dotting all 'i's in the idlis and dashing all the 't's in Vedanta. And justifies with a simple conclusion, whatever needs to be done, just do it. I was a new man, with new logic, new metabolism and a newly washed old tumbler in my hand.<br /><br />I entered the mess and force fed the owner first with a 'single tea' and pleaded with him to force feed all of us at the tables.<br /><br />You know what, the snowballing effect of what would have turned into a public movement led by a Naishtika brahmachari, surpassing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha">ahimsa movement</a> led by a not-so-naisthika brahmachari, was averted and the cascading reversed. He force fed his wife, who in turn, force fed him back in reciprocation of affection. Ooooooo, it was a sight for all the hungry Gods of Triplicane to see. Both of them started force feeding the mess owners and mahila sangams on either side of the gender divide. They also force fed the second hand book sellers, who were already fed, since they had not yet joined, but were fed up to see the spoilt food causing the books to smell. Though the books had their worn-out paper smell that resembled the fragrance that emanates from the beach sands after a mild shower, the additional ingredient to the odour had sent wrong signals to the intellectually hungry elite and their book sales had been suffering. The F & B industry and the Publishing Industry in India, both got the lesson in a single session: 'Dont mess up with a bachelors mess, they are already a pre-fabricated mess by design, otherwise it will take a messrs of all messes and their mrs-es to clear up the mess'.<br /><br />The KVM owner still calls me up every Saturday night to assure me the prices are the same. When he called today, however, he sounded worried. It seems the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMK">PMK </a>party in Tamil Nadu wants the state to be divided. 'Thambeeee ,', he said, 'will they go on a hunger strike like your folks in Teloongana ?' he enquired with his eye brows already drawn like the borders of bifurcation. He didnt know that I no more lived in such a nice place called <a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/1andhra/petition.html">Samaikhya Andhra Pradesh</a>, which Bharathiar praised as Sundara Telunginil Paatisaithu, but in a newly carved state called Greater Rayalaseema. The greater name sounds a bit like Navi Mumbai or Burj Dubai. Why don't they just call it Royal Seema or something rhyming and poetic like Rathnalaseema. Why don't I go on a hunger strike on this issue and feel off as if I am some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanguturi_Prakasam">Prakasam Panthulu</a> ?<br /><br />He insisted that I intervene, lest the Pandya Kingdom south of <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/search/label/Dindigul">Dindigul </a> is split off as a separate state. Now that really touched me, it immediately transported me on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_Mangammal">Rani Mangamma</a>l Transport Corporation to the rock fort and 'Aranmanai Kulam' (Palace Pond) of that sleepy tobacco town. If you touch such a sentimental, emotional, territorial chord, how can I refuse ? Further, he extended his imagination richly to surmise that, if I allowed the split to happen, the new territory upto Rameswaram, may, in due course, quit India and float off on Sethu Samudram, to become a state under Sri Lankan sovereignty. Given their recent modus operandi of establishing sovereignty, the word wont mean much anyway, I told him, they might just send them all back as refugees to Triplicane and you would have a roaring business. May be you should start a Kandi Kadhirgaamak Kandhaa Mess.<br /><br />However, to allay his secession fears, I asked him if there was any tea shop in front of the PMK office. 'Alone-aaa Thambeee ?', he asked, thinking I might borrow a few volunteers from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Chandrashekar_Rao">KCR</a> and use it for a similar cause. 'Don't worry Anney', I told him, 'there will be surely some college nearby, that will do for additional troops'. Just provoke some students, and show them how their entire green pastures and futures lie in just foregoing a lunch and crowding at the tea shop and drooling at the girls. Nay, first provoke the teachers, our students respectfully follow the illustrious teachers on all the wrong things precisely, and then they will all do a repeat performance of Kasi Vinayaga Mess. What more do bachelors want to start a hunger strike ? And for what else do you want to use all the youth and passion and intensity ? After all, were we not told, they are clay and they can be moulded. Just use the clay part in their heads. Any volunteers ? I promise you, we'll be back for dinner, we've dunnit before.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-31686716272396887212009-07-08T02:32:00.002+05:302009-07-08T02:36:47.619+05:30What to do with Twitter ....Just joined <a href="http://twitter.com/whirlmind">Twitter</a>, but wondering what to do with it ? :) <br /><br />Will it mitigate my tendency to write 10 words where one is enough ?<br /><br />Or will it provide a window of expression for the short quips and gyan bubbles that don't make it to my blog ?<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-69324845984306473382009-05-02T00:34:00.005+05:302009-05-02T02:32:11.434+05:30Who wants to blog and who wants to read ??Few years ago, one day, a point about online writing was brought up during a discussion. This was much before I started blogging and was more in the context of writing at forums and the like, a bit extending to discussion-type writing. The point was :<br /><blockquote style="font-family: lucida grande; font-style: italic;">Online writing suits only people who have lot of time in their hands. People who have important things to say or do will not be frequenting online forums and blogs, they will be busy doing such good work on the field, dirtying their hands to transform the world !! Even in the case of some well-known forums or blogs, interest wanes with time in spite of a initial spurt. In short, It is the jobless people who are creative !!. </blockquote>The last phrase wasn't exactly voiced, but you should know by now, how much in this blog is fact and how much is my own spicy sauce, particularly since I updated the disclaimer just yesterday.<br /><br />I think certain parts of this are quite true. How many blogs or websites, will survive, say 15 years ? Like <a href="http://slashdot.org/">SlashDot</a>, whose interface pre-dates even the word blog, but is still quite famous in its segment. Whether blog as a medium will survive itself is a different question. How many now-famous websites will stand the test of a decade ? And if around, would they just continue to be famous or continue to just exist or, worse, go through a series of takeovers to be merged into one of the biggies, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altavista">AltaVista </a>?<br /><br />I find it interesting that, for many bloggers, interest in blogging does wane after a while, may be goes through a lull and then strikes back or takes a different form (or most often dies). I often wonder what kind of frame of mind, may be a periodic wave, pushes you to blog and at other times, pushes you away from it ? Is it that, you are at a particular level of seeking intellectual stimulation or creative expression but later graduate to something higher or degenerate to something lower ? Or life just gets busy ? Would you still blog at 60 as much you did at 30 ? Gazing at the moon from the riverside bench, a friend recently asked me : You went to Orkut, you went to blogging, you went to StumbleUpon, now you want Facebook and Twitter, what do you seek and when will you stop, having found what you sought ? I was suddenly struck by the question, he was right, and I had to put up my patented heheheheh face and change the topic to elections. May be he was just adapting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari">Bhartrihari</a>'s <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/13153963/Vairagya-Satakam-of-Bharthari-">Vairagya Satakam</a> to the internet audience. There are not many blogs in the Vedanta segment, so he could start one.<br /><br />Before I took to blogging, my own views about this may not have been so well-formed , since I was more of a devouring consumer of online writing than of a contributor. As if all my views got formed just last night :) :). But they were on these lines, during that on online writing :<br /><br />There is always a section of people who are creative and have the urge to write. These are folks who will find time to write, no matter how busy they are or whichever high position they may be. For them, it's not like 'do it if you have the time'. Since they enjoy doing it, they will find the time anyway. Like some people have a natural inclination towards gardening. The Net gives more impetus for people with even the faint urge to write (though they may do it in SMS lang) . Authenticity, relevance and good-evil-mix-up of Internet phenomena like blogs and citizen journalism are still being disputed heavily but most agree that it has indeed thrown open the doors of creative writing to far more people than who used to write only to newspapers and magazines and then wait for Mr.Editor to garland them. The Net is also a place, where someone can start writing though he is diffident or ruffian in his approach, but hope to refine on the way by learning and improvising. The not-yet-edited entries in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A13983537">h2g2 </a>that need editing help are examples of these.<br /><br />The Net also provides for bi-directional feedback and a far more lively discussion than other media provide, including the radio and television where interactions are limited by air-time. Can you have a television debate, that is open-ended until settled ? Not that anyone asked for it. There is also this view that, instant writing, does not necessarily result in thoughtful writing, but then that can be said about newspaper writing too. Editors from the traditional print media, hold that Internet writing is not so authentic, reliable etc. I agree on this, but then traditional print media isn't bidirectional either. If I am allowed a strong opinion, I feel, the reluctance of traditional media to accept the Internet as a far more powerful medium with its unique benefits, is parochial, as time, tide and technology (and markets) wait for none. As I have <a href="http://rampyag.blogspot.com/2009/04/umlimited-railway-booking-counters.html?showComment=1240130880000#c5837380116982123649">said before here</a>, Technology denied, just means, Technology delayed, You can't deny it for long. How many newspapers have websites that allow discussions, how many of them are able to exploit even just the commercial potential, even if you forget the crowdsourcing and ideas-potential for a moment ? How many have helpful, in-line text links, even to their own earlier news pages or to non-competitive pages like government websites, which even an average blogger will explore to provide ? Some of them don't have advanced search and certain others, it seems, do not want to do any more extra work than convert the print paper into the e-Paper. For all the rightful glory of <a href="http://www.thehinduclassifieds.com/">The Hindu Classifieds</a> pages in print, the online presence is offered as a freebee, so a search on Classifieds across, say a few months, either has an extremely poor interface or disallows searching the archived classifieds. Such indifference towards the Net as a medium, as if it would cost that much more or the bride found her groom after the first ad :) . From their perspective, I think not all of these may be commercially viable, with margins in the print business not that attractive any more, but I think that should only encourage them to explore the usage of the medium even better. If there are other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffington_Post">news aggregating websites</a> who are able to make money without getting news from the field themselves, the news gatherers should try it themselves and beat the algorithm of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_news">techie aggregators</a>.<br /><br />As for visitors, I think spending time to visit a forum or news site, is similar to (and takes away) the time spent in reading a newspaper or a book. The time spent and thinking process remains the same, only the medium has changed. The flip side, however, imho, will be not, "who wants to visit these blogs and sites", but about the fact that, the Internet is open only for english-literate + net-friendly + writing-urge type of people, though the language insistence has begun to change in a small way. There are, I am sure, hundreds more of potential bloggers, who still have plenty of ideas, like the <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2007/12/customer-service-tonty-pour-by-cheven.html">vernacular-medium students</a> who are masters at trigonometry, and do a good job of sharing these ideas in face to face in their gatherings, but still far away from the Internet, because they arent net-write-qualified. Well, that is the nature of the Internet, so we have to live with the limitation. Imagination and interactive zeal, I think, is far more bigger than what technology can capture and the distance can reduce but may never be eliminated. And who knows, may be they are better off in the brick-and-mortar world than in the click-and-mouse world !!<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-89002111132565910882009-04-29T23:52:00.004+05:302009-04-30T00:14:08.482+05:30Will the Nano click ?My only concern is: I hope there are no quality issues in an effort to cost-cutting, since the Tatas are under cost-pressure nowadays from all sides. Political decisions, Costly acquisitions, Industry downturn, Expectations from dealers and vendors [and even bankers :) ]. If the first few batches hit the roads and then turn out with some defects, that will be terrible. But if they are able to deliver the quality they promise for that price (which the Tatas have always been good at), then, I think it's going to be a huge hit, both in India and very soon, abroad.<br /><br />As to going global, they may have a tough time fulfilling local demand, but when they do, their timing might just be right. People would just be emerging from bad times and the need to look for cost-effective products with comparable utility will be one of their top-of-mind concerns. At last, some engineering-based Indian product will arrive in the global scene !! If it clicks, I really hope and expect it to rock !! It would make US and European carmakers sit up and get worried, (if they are still around), although, actually, from their perspective it would be just another, age-old-concept, cheap car, except for the price shock they get. (I can't say the same thing about Japanese, however). It might be no match to the premium range excellence and finesse of the Germans, gadgetry of the Japanese or the lavish feature-kill of the Americans, but, the starting line for the race is not in that segment. Unlike the Chinese electronic goods, it would be a world-class, yet frills-free utility car, at the Indian prices (!) which India has so far been able to deliver in service sectors and some manufacturing sectors like textiles. We should really appreciate Tata's daring to attempt that. I often wish something like that happens for India in the products market in software, unlike the ITES and BPO where all the focus (and the tax sops) seem to be. As to environ and cars-per-road issues, they are industry-wide regulation issues and a single brand can't be isolated to be responsible for the flooding the roads in its sincere and determined attempt to create value for money.<br /><br />Is Maruti listening ?<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-11903147067106113632009-04-24T01:42:00.003+05:302009-04-24T02:07:12.937+05:30Chardham 2005From my Travel Diary, here is an account of a trip to the Chardham shrines, Badri, Kedar, Yamunotri and Gangotri in the Himalayas. This happened in 2005 and these are excerpts from a letter to a friend.<br /><br />It was <span class="il">the</span> call of <span class="il">the</span> Himalayas. Six of us went to what is popularly called <span class="il">the</span> <span class="il">Chardham</span> Shrines, i.e., Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath. We had hired a Sumo from Haridwar through these shrines back to Haridwar and Rs.5300 per head for <span class="il">the</span> 12 days. It was a mix of Adventure, Nature, Fun and Pilgrimage. This belt involves lot of trekking. <span class="il">The</span> best part is throughout <span class="il">the</span> trip, you travel right along <span class="il">the</span> Ganga and its tributaries like Bhagirathi, Alakananda and Mandakini. Sometimes <span class="il">the</span> river is at a stone's throw while in other places it is few hundred feet away vertically. All <span class="il">the</span> other members trekked wherever trekking was required. I didn't trek much, I took ponies or human carriers in all places for a charge. It was a total of 80 km trek in <span class="il">the</span> 12 days. We took dips in <span class="il">the</span> many prayags on <span class="il">the</span> way, thanks to some guys in our group, who used to gently suggest that may we please stop at this prayag and that, for a dip and darshan at <span class="il">the</span> riverside shrine. We stayed in <span class="il">the</span> GMVNL chain of Government Tourist Bungalows in middle-level accommodation with moderate facilities.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vasudhara Falls</span><br /><br />Let me tell you, if you are one who loves nature, Himalayas is <span class="il">the</span> place to go. I feel it's heavily undermarketed when compared to other foreign destinations (though this may be a skewed opinion, since I haven't been abroad). Add to it <span class="il">the</span> sanctity which <span class="il">the</span> Indian cultural psyche attaches to <span class="il">the</span> Ganges. (Forget about <span class="il">the</span> lower ganges which brings up <span class="il">the</span> image of pollution). This is about <span class="il">the</span> Higher Ganges, beyond Haridwar, where we can actually take <span class="il">the</span> water from <span class="il">the</span> stream and directly drink and it would be absolutely pure. In fact, we actually drank from <span class="il">the</span> stream during our trek to one Vasudhara Falls. This is a rarely visited place beyond <span class="il">the</span> Mana Village which is <span class="il">the</span> last village in India before <span class="il">the</span> Tibetan Border. Vasudhara Falls is 5 km beyond Mana and I also had to trek because no ponies were available, since it isn't a popular destination. Our stay in Badri extended one more day because we went to Vasudhara Falls. Though <span class="il">the</span> trek itself was fascinating to me, <span class="il">the</span> Falls Proper turned out to be a anti-climax, since during <span class="il">the</span> time we went, <span class="il">the</span> Falls was a faint shower contrary to <span class="il">the</span> fierce downpour it is in winter. But since that was only <span class="il">the</span> stretch I trekked, it was a wonderful experience for me.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gangotri</span><br /><br />Beyond Gangotri, there is <span class="il">the</span> Gaumukh peak where Bhagirati actually originates. It is a 19 km trek up from Gangotri. All <span class="il">the</span> others went for <span class="il">the</span> trek. I started too, but within 5 minutes, I just changed my mind instinctively and asked other members to go ahead and I would pick a room in Gangotri and stay till they are back <span class="il">the</span> next day. Unfortunately, they were able to make it only upto 16 km upto a place called Bhojbasa and they had to return as there was a hailstorm. They had to actually walk when it was snowing to reach <span class="il">the</span> Bhojbasa camp before <span class="il">the</span> evening, since otherwise they would be stuck in <span class="il">the</span> dark. <span class="il">The</span> next morning <span class="il">the</span> Uttarkashi Central School kids who had gone to Gaumukh told that it might be dangerous, so they returned from Bhojbasa. This was <span class="il">the</span> most picturesque stretch with snow-capped peaks on all sides, streams to be crossed on logs put across and you can actually jump around in <span class="il">the</span> snow. Looking back, I feel may be I should have made it, but all <span class="il">the</span> friends say, it was a perfect decision for me to stay back since I would not have been able to make <span class="il">the</span> 32 km trek without gasping, collapsing and downed by <span class="il">the</span> fatigue. Everyone, particularly me, was very much worried about one of our friends who was frail, whether he will be able to make it. I was calling <span class="il">the</span> Bhojbasa Camp by <span class="il">the</span> wireless in my hotel to find out if our boys have reached, since even in Gangotri there was a mini hailstorm and there was this talk about it being more fierce in higher places. <span class="il">The</span> temperature was around -3 degrees. But contrary to my worries, this friend was able to make it in fine condition. In fact, throughout <span class="il">the</span> trip, while all of us used to be worried about him, he would always make it in good stead. He would exert and stretch himself for difficult situations, no doubt, but he would invariably make it well, no matter how difficult it would be for others. Well, some are stronger than what they appear to be.<br /><br />While my brethren were up there battling <span class="il">the</span> snow, I had a nice time in Gangotri. <span class="il">The</span> Ganga had always fascinated me since childhood. So I felt really egggzzzzzeeeee to be on <span class="il">the</span> Ganges. <span class="il">The</span> hailstorm had just calmed down and there was not a soul to be seen by <span class="il">the</span> Ganges, except for a stray sadhu here and there who were on their evening walk. I put on my jerkin and went for a long walk along <span class="il">the</span> Ganges. In fact, I even ventured a dip at Gangotri immediately after hailstorm, but there was a Mouna Sadhu who gestured me to keep away since there was a hailstorm up there and ice cubes would be coming down <span class="il">the</span> Bhagirathi. I had to postpone <span class="il">the</span> dips to <span class="il">the</span> next morning. I visited <span class="il">the</span> Ashrams around, met a few sadhus and sages, was chatting with them about life in winter at Gangotri. All these shrines close down in winter to re-open only in mid-April. But there are sages and sadhus who have stayed for decades, summer and winter, at Gangotri, being brought provisions by someone in summer. I must have appeared to them as a very unlikely candidate for sadhana, what with my jerkin, goggles, sports shoes, track pant, hand-gloves and monkey cap with every part of my body covered with some kind of winter clothing. But once I break ice for a conversation, I would make it mutually enjoyable, well, you know about that part of me....so let me skip <span class="il">the</span> trumpeting....<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Badrinath and Kedarnath</span><br /><br />While Gangotri and Yamunotri are not frequented very much by people, Badri and Kedar are popular destinations and have more facilities. Badri is <span class="il">the</span> most popular since it does not involve trekking. So there are many facilities and a strong South Indian presence, including <span class="il">the</span> south-indian delicacy Masala Dosa, for which we were hankering after ten days of only north-indian dishes, Aloo Parota and its equally monotonous sister, Gobi Parota in <span class="il">the</span> other places. Kedar involves a 14-km trek, it's actually walking up <span class="il">the</span> slopes and is not trekking in <span class="il">the</span> sense of adventure sport. But even elderly people walk slowly chanting 'Hara Hara Mahadev', 'Hara Hara Gange', 'Jai Boley Nath' etc. Ponies are available for elders (like me ! haha). Also available are woodden palanquins carried by four people, which are more comforatble, and naturally more expensive. <span class="il">The</span> 5 km trek to Yamunotri is <span class="il">the</span> steepest of all, though it is a short one compared to Kedar.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">River-rafting at Kaudiyala </span><br /><br />If you have wondered what was <span class="il">the</span> fun part of <span class="il">the</span> trip, except for <span class="il">the</span> bounty of Nature, here it is. Near Rishikesh, we went for what is called <span class="il">the</span> White Water River Rafting on <span class="il">the</span> Ganges. You row your own boat, wearing life-jackets and being taught safety instructions for danger and damage, through <span class="il">the</span> whirls of <span class="il">the</span> fierce Ganga, with rowing commands given by a Guide who is in <span class="il">the</span> boat and gives instructions. We saw <span class="il">the</span> boys and girls from Kendriya Vidyalaya start <span class="il">the</span> rafting, so we thought it shouldn't be too difficult. After a few minutes, comes <span class="il">the</span> exciting rowing, that you just jump into <span class="il">the</span> Ganges Proper with your life-jacket on. I had heard about this from one of our friends who had gone the previous on <span class="il">the</span> same stretch. So in <span class="il">the</span> beginning of <span class="il">the</span> rafting, I was <span class="il">the</span> first one to ask <span class="il">the</span> guide, 'Are you not going to allow us to jump ? '. 'Well, ' he said, 'every one of you is going to do that'. <span class="il">The</span> Guide had rafted in 25 rivers across <span class="il">the</span> world and said Brahmaputra is <span class="il">the</span> toughest of all. when <span class="il">the</span> Guide gave <span class="il">the</span> go-ahead, we went for the plunge and let go of <span class="il">the</span> boat. First we held on to <span class="il">the</span> rope tied to <span class="il">the</span> boat, but then, we let go of that and were freely floating in water. Of course, you have to be a bit cautious with danger lurking in <span class="il">the</span> whirls and <span class="il">the</span> rocks that may be on <span class="il">the</span> banks and you may know about them after you hit your head. But then, <span class="il">the</span> mix of caution, a bit of nagging fear and <span class="il">the</span> bubbling excitement is what makes it an adventure. <span class="il">The</span> previous night we had stayed in tents that were put up, right next to <span class="il">the</span> Ganges in Kaudiyala near Rishikesh for <span class="il">the</span> rafters of <span class="il">the</span> next morning.<br /><br />We completed our <span class="il">Chardham</span> with <span class="il">the</span> famous 'Har-ki-Pauri' Ganga Arati at Haridwar, when all <span class="il">the</span> ancient temples in Haridwar on <span class="il">the</span> banks of Ganga offer Arati simultaneously at around 7.p.m. So do <span class="il">the</span> hundreds of pilgrims who leave small lamps on leaves in <span class="il">the</span> Ganga co-inciding with <span class="il">the</span> Arati, which makes it a sight for <span class="il">the</span> Gods to see.<br /><br />So much for <span class="il">the</span> <span class="il">Chardham</span>. Apart from these we also had included Amritsar, Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan and Delhi in our itinerary. From Haridwar we went to Amritsar. Of course, we were in Delhi only for a day, but each of us had some kind of individual agenda like visiting friends and relatives. So we got back together after we finished our respective works and we did a bit of shopping at Palika Bazar.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amritsar</span><br /><br />In Amritsar, we went to <span class="il">the</span> Golden Temple, Jalianwala Bagh Memorial and to <span class="il">the</span> Wagah Border with Pakistan. <span class="il">The</span> Golden Temple was really wonderful, with <span class="il">the</span> huge water tank surrounding <span class="il">the</span> temple. They give free food as prasad for all visitors ( and so it is, I believe, at all gurudwaras in <span class="il">the</span> world). <span class="il">The</span> voluntarism there also impressed me a lot, what with volunteers involved in all <span class="il">the</span> activities like cleaning shoes, canteen works, cleaning <span class="il">the</span> shrine etc. Of course, you have to wear this scarf on your head. Scarves are available for free at <span class="il">the</span> entrance.<br /><br />At <span class="il">the</span> Wagah Border in Amritsar, which we included after hearing that <span class="il">the</span> Indian Cricket team had gone there, <span class="il">the</span> specialty is <span class="il">the</span> Change of Guard Parade which takes place at 6.30 in <span class="il">the</span> evening. This side is full of Indian Visitors and <span class="il">the</span> other is full of Pakistanis. <span class="il">The</span> parade takes place everyday at <span class="il">the</span> same time amidst heavy shouting by visitors on both sides. While fellows and fellis on this side shout 'Vande Mataram', 'Hindustan Zindabad', 'Bharat Matha Ki Jai' etc <span class="il">the</span> other side matches <span class="il">the</span> pitch with 'Pakistan Zindabad' and <span class="il">the</span> like. There is also a commentary by <span class="il">the</span> armies on both sides as <span class="il">the</span> <span class="il">the</span> parade progresses.<br /><br />We had to dash through Mathura and Vrindavan quickly since we had only one day for Mathura, Vrindavan and Agra. At Mathura, Right next to <span class="il">the</span> temple sharing a wall with it, is <span class="il">the</span> mosque built by Aurangazeb. <span class="il">The</span> temple itself was destroyed and re-built 6 times during <span class="il">the</span> various muslim invasions. <span class="il">The</span> jail where Lord Krishna was born has been made into a shrine. A very serene place. Vrindavan is just a few km away. While <span class="il">the</span> pestering guides and money-minded priests make it a bit funny, <span class="il">the</span> shrines are very good. <span class="il">The</span> thick and delicious Lassi sold in earthen pots needs a special mention.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Taj Mahal</span><br /><br />We had only a couple of hours spend at Agra. But I was amazed. <span class="il">The</span> <span class="il">Taj</span> is indeed imposing just as you step into <span class="il">the</span> premises, with huge domes touching <span class="il">the</span> sky and sight of sheer marble everywhere leaving you stunned. <span class="il">The</span> dash of Mughal Architecture is evident on every inch, though <span class="il">the</span> Yamuna was not as impressive as I expected. That may be because, we had seen <span class="il">the</span> Original Yamuna in all its splendour, gushing and galloping down <span class="il">the</span> rocks, so anything on <span class="il">the</span> plains looks so mean. Thankfully there are no constructions behind <span class="il">the</span> <span class="il">Taj</span>, so <span class="il">the</span> <span class="il">Taj</span> with <span class="il">the</span> backdrop of greenery looks like a giant lonely lover reaching out to <span class="il">the</span> skies as <span class="il">the</span> manifestation of <span class="il">the</span> anguish that once haunted a rich and a melancholic king.There is high security. Video cameras are not allowed beyond a point. Even our portable hard disk in which we used to dump all <span class="il">the</span> high-res digital photos, was not allowed. Tourists throng <span class="il">the</span> place, particularly young couples and lovers, probably with <span class="il">the</span> million-dollar question 'Kya Hamara Prem Bhee Aisa Amar Rahega ?'. But if you are going ( I mean if someone wants to go), I would suggest you go with your wife or fiancee. Of course, if you are a guy who enjoys different kinds of architecture, then it is a must-see case study in Architecture. And that it is one of <span class="il">the</span> 7 wonders is not without reason. Someone remarked that after all it is a tomb or mausoleum and should be of little interest to spiritually-inclined half-monks, but I would say it is a parochial view. You should appreciate good work where you see it and this piece is undoubtedly among <span class="il">the</span> finest of art.<br /><br />From Agra, we dashed back in Tamilnadu Express to down south, moving from cold temperatures to our good old temperatures in <span class="il">the</span> South. In all <span class="il">the</span> trip costed around Rs.10000 per head including all expenses. If you include <span class="il">the</span> shopping for <span class="il">the</span> sake of and during <span class="il">the</span> trip, it would be Rs.15000 per head.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-74569643329374246752009-04-08T07:14:00.005+05:302009-04-08T07:48:08.433+05:30The price is not right.... For whom ?In <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01friedman.html?scp=1&sq=the%20price%20is%20not%20right&st=cse">this piece</a> by Thomas L Friedman before the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_London_summit">G-20</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_London_summit"> summit</a>, he compares the mispricing of risk between financial systems and the environment...<br /><br />My comments :<br /><br />Firstly, he discusses more of market and less of environment and the line seems to be to draw parallels between two deteriorating systems, though one system does not have operational similarities with another, except for the generic "risk underpricing" phrase.<br /><br />If it's a straight carbon tax, it's feasible.<br /><br />If it's a regulation that directs the companies to include environ costs as part of their costing, it will be complex to get implemented. It would be difficult to fix which is which in costing, particularly when you leave it to the companies.<br /><br />Either way, something on similar lines is much required and will have some benefits. Among other things, at least, it will enable environ friendly technologies to sound at comparable costs, not because their costs have come down but the environ-hostile energy options would become costly. Which eventually, by rise in volumes, might bring down the costs of environ friendly technologies.<br /><br />Assuming it gets implemented perfectly, which might require a cost overhaul, may be in some cases, bloat the costs by a few times, it will push up the costs of goods and services. Should be fine for developed countries or even emerging economies like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC">BRIC </a>, who anyway are resource guzzlers. But, I think, the Third World countries will be at an undue disadvantage.<br /><br />That is the reality anyway, might as well face it, we might say. True, but we want everyone to raise up and face the reality to which we have suddenly woken up to, and we want it to happen with the same suddenness. Most often in practice, people put survival before nice things like environ care, those who are struggling for survival that is. Survival as an individual is a more basic instinct than the more philanthropic priority of survival of the race.<br /><br />Every infrastructure plan to reach the last mile in those countries will present before us, the "green" version of the costs, which are high, and therefore, both the pace and quantum of benefits will become inversely proportional to such high costs, making it slower to reach those miles.<br /><br />It will be like the grown-up daddies, expecting their kids to learn all that they didn't learn in their childhood, plus what they learnt as they grew up plus all the great things all kids should know, ignoring that the such persuasion itself can affect growth !!! Only till the kid asks the grandma, 'what did papa do when he was like me' ?<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-40919315785634897132009-04-01T01:54:00.016+05:302009-11-21T00:01:27.918+05:30My Top 10 favorite A R Rahman songsOn the day A R Rahman <a href="http://in.movies.yahoo.com/news-detail/41910/Bollywood-hails-Rahman-winning-Golden-Globe.html">received </a>the Golden Globe Award, I decided that, if Rahman went on to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKhIykF72I">win the Oscars</a>, I would blog about My Top 10 Favorite A R Rahman tracks. So here they are.<br /><br />The first comment I received from most of my friends, is that, Top 10 is too small a thing to contain the full Rahman. Even the Oscars had to catch up so late, so what can you say about an upstart blogger's ad-hoc listings ? So so true, I knew it before I listed them. When I pulled a piece of paper and went on to scribble 'top-of-mind-recall' tracks, the list came to 35, in the first two minutes. Yet, there are <a href="http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Ten_Best_Songs_of_A.R.Rahman-57146-1.html">so many Top 10 lists</a>, let me just add one more. Not that my list matters, particularly since my music sense is well-documented on this blog <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2009/03/value-of-tenacity-in-youth.html">before</a>. But after all, as Munnabhai <a href="http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=aamir+rangeela+apun+public&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=">put it</a>, <span style="font-family:courier new;">apun public hai public, kya </span>?<br /><br />If you don't like Rahman, simple, I don't like you. :) :) . But, since the world is so vast and has unnecessary room for all of us, and I also want to pride about balanced perspectives even when they are irrelvant, I still have stuff for people who don't like his music: I'll make a mention of the few things that I don't like about ARR's music, towards the end. It so happens, some of my favorites in this list are from Tamil, because I also relate to the lyrics. But, I am sure, most of these are equally enjoyable in their Hindi and Telugu or even Swahili equivalents.<br /><br />Most links point to : Wikipedia/Youtube/Dhingana<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >10.</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gp2v5vCsvs"> Kannum kannum kollai adithal.</a>.. The Artham Song from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108329/">Thiruda Thiruda</a>....<br /><br />I can only start from the time I started listening to A R Rahman's music. Unlike so many others who proudly mention today that they knew him from the good old days when he was known as Dileep, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_Shankar">this</a> movie director I had dinner with. I arrived rather late into that world. Life had been busy, juggling between college, part-time/summer jobs, service activities and competitive exams. I hadn't watched movies for the previus 7 years. The comfort of touching a 4-digit salary for the first time (particularly when you started with 2-digits) allows you certain indulgences. <a href="http://www.dhingana.com/roja/movie/songs/hindi/latest/173">Roja</a>, in all its glory, had come and gone, taking the music world by storm while I was busy in <span style="font-family:courier new;">chinna chinna velai</span>. I would catch up with it later.<br /><br />I was staying at my friend's place, who was preparing for PG Medical Entrance and I was surprised to see that, about once in two hours or so, he would, take a break, play a couple of songs, jump around and get back to serious study. One of them was, <span style="font-family:courier new;">Kannum kannum kollai adithal.</span> It's exam time, try it out, may be with companion track, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuUIQu9KiqM">Putham pudhu bhoomi vendum</a>. When I last heard, my friend had made it big, both in medicine and in music. :) :) If you try it with some other song, I am not responsible. (As if otherwise I am).<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >9. </span><a href="http://www.dhingana.com/lagaan/movie/songs/hindi/latest/302">Radha Kaise Na jaley</a>.. from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagaan">Lagaan..</a>.<br /><br />There are some tunes which infect you and infect all others who come in contact with you all through the day. Because, you began your day singing it when you came out of the bathroom, having taken your cool time, insensitive to the subtle needs of the waiting roommates. It used to be Hariharan's '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHE_aJMVSTA">Pachai Niramey</a>' for one of my friends, and the hum for him and haunt for the others used to be so much that, others would cry out and plead for change of track or change of bathroom ... 'hey.. please da.....' . For me, it is <span style="font-family:courier new;">Radha Kaise na Jaley</span>.. Oh, how many times, I have looped and looped and listened to this....<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >8.</span> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxkri9Gw87o&feature=related">Nilaa Kaaykiradhu</a>... from<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_%28film%29"> Indira </a><br /><br />If you are still under the myth that Rahman is all about Shivamani's drums and western-sounding music, you should hear this kiddu song from Indira, almost carnatic piece. So melodious, so soothing, so relaxing, you won't read the rest of this post because you will fall asleep. If you are the fast-track type, replace this rank with <a href="http://www.raaga.com/playerV31/index.asp?pick=3853&bhcp=1">Kannodu Kaanbhathellam</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans_%28film%29">Jeans</a>.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><br />7. </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_RKWIz5dyE">Pachai Kiligal Tholodu</a>... from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_%28film%29">Indian... </a><br />There was a time, for 10 months, when I was (literally) jobless, and if carrom board can be considered keeping busy, one of my hobbies (?!) was to re-write the lyrics of my favorite Rahman tracks to my favorite devotional themes and share it with friends. One from that time, is this, rendered by Yesudas, who, well, actually knew ARR from the time when he was Dileep. I would love to give this remix-friendly slot to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_NOyAakmK0">Oruvan Oruvan Mudhalali</a>, which even the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muthu">Japanese liked</a>, but, no, this is not about Kamal vs. Rajni or about SPB vs. Yesudas, its ARR vs. ARR.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >6.</span> <a href="http://www.dhingana.com/roja/movie/songs/hindi/latest/173">Bharat humko jaan se bhee pyara hai</a>.... from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roja"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;" >Roja </span></a><br /><br />It's now well-known that Patriotism is Rahman's best and favorite forte. No cultural event or a programme on patriotism would be complete without this piece from Roja. For a change, I like the Hindi version much better, because it sounds much more unifying. I have heard it being used and re-used again and again in patriotic plays and everytime it sounds as inspiring as it did the first time.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><br />5.</span> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGvU4fdVb-w">Bombay - Theme Tune - Instrumental :</a><br /><br />There are some tunes for which you don't need lyrics. It's as if the tune can convey the context and the sentiments of the moment. The theme tune instrumental of Bombay is one such. Less luck for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadri_Gopalnath">Kadri Gopalnath</a>'s saxophone, because I had to push out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7mMLm6jZTo">Mettu Podu</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duet_%28film%29">Duet</a> and make way for this popular choice for the instrumental slot.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >4.</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HabrmCs7nFA"> Yeh Tara Woh Tara</a>... from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swades">Swades</a>...<br /><br />If there can be a very simple-sounding tune, as if straight out of a school annual day programme, yet one that flows gentle and cool like a river into your ears and make you forget those 7 minutes and 53 seconds, and bring with it a message for change, you need a track like this.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >3.</span> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ399KOoNRA">Maa Tujhe Salaam from Vande Mataram : </a><br /><br />If someone could re-ignite the interest of youth in patriotism through modern music, ARR would be sure on the list. The rendering of Vande Mataram, should make you join the crowd and hum or sing out aloud. If it doesn't, you could have been born anywhere, not necessarily in India. :) :) Even the halls in Los Angeles do it, when ARR performs it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=rahman+vande+mataram+live&aq=f">live</a>, though he mostly does it as Maa Tujhe Salaam instead of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnidvlpw8oM&feature=related">Thai Manney Vanakkam</a> which has equally inspiring lyrics.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >2.</span> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoFLmdgiisw">Iswar Allah Tere Jahan mein</a>.... from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_Earth">1947 Earth</a>...<br /><br />This is one song that mesmerized me when I heard it the first time, introduced by a <a href="http://raamp.blogspot.com/">friend</a>. It was much before I saw the movie, even before I knew it was composed by A R Rahman. It still has the same effect on me.<br /><br />And the Nams-car award goes to... :)<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:180%;" >1.</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> </span><a href="http://www.dhingana.com/play/pray-for-me/NDYyNzQ%3D/pop/1">Pray for me, Brother</a><br /><br />The best track, gets the least number of words in tribute, because, when you listen to good music, you don't talk about it, you don't blog about it, you don't go gaga about it and jump about it. You just listen. If you have done all that, you come back and listen once again. And may be pray thereafter. Silence can bring out the music in you, and, such music, can bring about a silence in you. This is one such piece.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Irony, no ? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_Ho">Jai Ho</a> is not among the Top 10. I think, far greater music has been composed by A R Rahman, and the worldwide recognition was long due. It had to happen through Jai Ho, and it did, because of the movie's Englishwala visibility or whatever. I do like the track a lot, however. I agree once again with the <a href="http://manyaface.blogspot.com/">many-faced blogger</a>, who is attributed to have said, that if ARR gets the Oscar for Jai Ho, it would be like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein">Einstien </a>getting the Nobel Prize for explaining Photo-Electric effect.<br /><br />Even for my own favorites, the list is grossly incomplete. There is no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapnay">Sapnay</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_%28film%29">Rhythm</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taal_%28film%29">Taal</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_%282005_film%29">Water</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans_%28film%29">Jeans</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_%282007_film%29">Guru</a>, no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuva">Yuva</a>, not even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaipayuthey">Alai Payudhey</a>? What kind of a funny list is this, without <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikku_Bukku_Rayile">Chikku Bukku Railey</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dil_Se">Muqabla</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De_Basanti">Masti-ki-Pathshala</a> ?<br /><br />Change the topic....<br /><br />Jaane Tu is not there, because I was put off by the accidental, but obvious, resembling in the first few seconds of the song had with 'Appudo Eppudo' from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaane_Tu..._Ya_Jaane_Na">Bommarillu</a>. That the rest of the song follows a totally different tune should, of course, be mentioned in the same beat.<br /><br />I don't like when the excellence of lyrics in one language gets diminished when it's re-written in another language. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKIlhn6if8">Vennilave Vennilave</a>'s is way better than Chanda Rey<br />, but no other language could match <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzbpGWAJPzg">Rangeela Re</a> in Hindi, with which Rahman made his Hindi debut. I also don't like it when Rahman, re-uses one of his earlier tunes in a different context, for the sake of adapting it to Hindi or English, particularly when the earlier version was so wonderful. '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LxI-NY2cgQ">Poraley Ponnu thaayi</a>' in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuththamma">Karuthamma </a>was so beautiful, demonstrating ARR's music for a rural setting.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhZD7zx_Ns"> Gurus of Peace</a> in Vande Mataram is good, but I think the Karuthamma song was better though it may not have had the same reach as Vande Mataram. Taal's famous <a href="http://www.dhingana.com/play/-ishq-bina-/MTgwOQ%3D%3D/pop/1">Ishq Bina</a> ,reworked for "Love isn't so easy" in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Dreams">Bombay Dreams</a>, made it only worse...<br /><br />I also like it better when old friend Shivamani is felt but contained, like in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSvJzG1FhuI">Roja jaaneman</a>, though the roaring success of a lot of songs including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodha_Akbar">Azeem-o-shan-shahenshah</a> and<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2gW3zwMMQ"> Chaiyya chaiyya</a>, is precisely because of the domination and flawless delivery of drums.<br /><br />Put your agreements and disagreements, your choices that were left out, and my choices that look like eccentricities.... May be we should have a commenters' (or dissenters' ??) Top 10....<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-16037450655610059482009-03-31T23:55:00.004+05:302009-04-01T01:53:58.150+05:30Layoffs and Scams...Hate as I do to post forwards on my blog, here is a "value-added" exception :) :)<br /><br />Someone sent me a funny story as forwarded email, and I kinda continued the story....<br /><br />(Part 1 is the forwarded story on Layoffs, Part 2 is my addition....)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 1 : </span><br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;">Once upon a time the government with Ruling Party XYZ.. had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Ruling Party XYZ Said..<br />- "Someone may steal from it at night."<br /><br />So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job. Then Ruling Party XYZ Said..<br />- "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"<br /><br />So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies. Then Ruling Party XYZ Said..<br />- "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"<br /><br />So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports. Then Ruling Party XYZ Said..<br />- "How are these people going to get paid?"<br /><br />So they created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people. Then Ruling Party XYZ Said..,<br />- "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"<br /><br />So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary. Then Ruling Party XYZ Said..<br />- "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost."<br /><br /><br />So ....<br /><br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br /><br />They lay off the night watchman.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 2 :</span><br /><br />Irritated, the night watchman stole things from scrap yard and vanished.<br /><br />So, the CEO sacked all the rest of the staff for dereliction of duty.<br /><br />The shareholders were happy that the CEO has taken stringent action. Share prices went up.<br /><br />The company had excess cash and wanted to diversify into "security agency" business to de-risk the "scrap" business and also to find a good watchman, because HR companies were having a bull run.<br /><br />The insitutional investors found out that the security agency was owned by the night-watchman and they raised serious corporate governance objections and stalled the deal. Share prices tanked.<br /><br />Within a week, the CEO resigned, admitting deliberate fraud to the extent of 7000 nuts and bolts in the scrapyard.<br /><br />The government arrested the CEO and put him behind steel bars (recycled from scrap) and directed the Economic Offences Wing to investigate the matter.<br /><br />By the time they discovered the whole truth, the scrapyard had vanished, no, actually the desert had vanished, i mean rivers flowed, civilisations flourished and apartments were built.<br /><br />However, for the record, let us state the truth they discovered : that the scrap yard never belonged to the CEO and he stole it from the night watchman in the first place.<br /><br />What they didn't discover was : the CEO and night-watchman partnered once again and started a real-estate business and software companies, which were now flourising in the now-green-but-once-barren desert.<br /><br />And then, it all started once again.... Jai Ho !!!<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-8995423141049544392009-03-12T01:52:00.009+05:302009-03-12T14:39:59.707+05:30The value of Tenacity in YouthRecently, I had attended a Music Programme by the University Brass Band of my<a href="http://www.sssu.edu.in/Home.htm"> alma mater</a>. The programme, I think, might have been, part of the farewell season. The <a href="http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/images/Hill-View-Stadium.jpg">stadium </a>stage was very elegantly decorated. Lemon juice was being served optionally, to riverside walkers like me who insist that music, cool winds, gang chat and late evening moonlight should always be accompanied by a glass of drink. I thought of insisting on pop-corn, but I dropped the idea, thinking that they may be forced to put a footer in the email invitation next time, saying attendees may please bring their own pop-corn. The performance was electrifying and included a couple of spiritual remixes of my favorite Rahman tracks, and was probably one of the biggest in the few years. In the end, they invited <a href="http://thesrkblog.blogspot.com/">one of the veteran singers</a> in the community, to speak a few words. I think, he must have been invited ad-hoc from the stage after the performers spotted him in the audience. He was full of praise for the way in which the Band has consistently <a href="http://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_03/01JAN01/beginning.htm">grown over the years</a> saying 'We may not participate in the inter-collegiate competitions which is held elsewhere, but the talent we have at the Hostel is one of the best.' However, this post is not about how great a particular band is and some other is not. It's about the connection between music and college education in our times.<br /><br />Many of these students hadn't had a formal training in music before they were picked up to train for the band, that's the beauty of the event and a demonstration of the value of tenacity in a right learning environment. There is usually a little test of music sense held a couple of weeks after you join the degree course. If you clear the test, you would be picked up for being groomed for the brass band or other music groups. I remember very well how I flopped terribly at this test, for all the music I thought I always had in my heavy head. While I had conjured up non-existent questions like the <a href="http://rasikas.org/forum/topic2488-learning-alankarams.html">difference between Ada Taalam and Adi Taalam</a>, the test turned out to be a simple but effective one, just to quickly check whether you had a music sense, not whether you were a musician. The examiner asked me to sing or hum the first few lines of a <a href="http://stream.radiosai.org/dl.asp?File=MBV_2005_10_15_01_GANESHA_OM_PRASAD_JAYA_SRI_GANESHA_VIGHNANASHA.mp3&Name=MBV_2005_10_15_01_GANESHA_JAYA_SRI_GANESHA_VIGHNANASHA.mp3">popular Ganesh Bhajan</a>, which he confirmed from me that I was familiar with. I messed up the beat right in the opening word. The next flop was even stupid. He asked me if I can hum a tune that is played by a band during March Past. As I raked my brain to recollect that tune which was just below my throat but refusing to bubble up, he probably thought I didn't know what a March Past was, and helpfully hinted "you know, the music they play when they march left-right". Hehehehe, I had heard it, but again hehehehe, I sheepishly gave up. He didn't have to comment regarding the result. That day, I also understood the inner significance of why my violin teacher, eight years earlier, had told me that I will flourish well in tabla instead of violin. Ahaaa, why did he have to be so diplomatic to a teenager ? May be, he didn't want to hurt the sentiments of someone who purchased a second-hand cycle and a second-hand violin and travelled 3 km each way for 3 months to find out that certain areas of interest should be earmarked for future births. However, this post is not about the ones who failed, but about the ones who succeeded by their tenacity.<br /><br />I remember my room-mate and classmate during my MBA, who went through the same test. No one even faintly guessed he had a musical streak in him but he was selected to train for the band, on cymbals. I am not sure if he still continues his interest in music while working with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_ERP">SAP</a>. I used to admire the way in which these guys would apply themselves regularly and consistently, starting almost from nothing. Most of the time, the 'teacher' would be mostly a college senior, a member of the band who plays the same instrument and may be in his final year. Other times, you were your own teacher. They would be found practicing in groups or repeating and perfecting what they have learnt earlier, sometimes near the library, sometimes at the stadium, sometimes on the <a href="http://www.sssbpt.org/images/Stadium.jpg">Hanuman Hill</a> and all the time humming at their cupboards. Their public performances would have to be of impeccable quality and they would leave no stone unturned to see to it that it was. Not that the hostel schedule was any lighter, they would have to go through what we called "life is an interval between two bells". Starting from nowhere, from a hum test, by the time their stay for 3, 5 or 7 years in the Hostel gets over, they would have mastered the instrument, become adept at performing as a band and given quite a few public performances in glory. Quite often, at the farewell functions, both the artists who performed for a jugalbandhi would be introduced as "both learnt the instrument on their own after joining the first year".<br /><br />Youth is clay. It gets moulded the way you shape it. It applies itself to what you point to it. It succeeds in whichever skill you inspire it to learn. Our small towns have lots of it and waiting for the proper direction and bringing together. If the best of our institutes can incubate the start-ups seeded by their management graduates, in the small towns, all the hidden potential talent in music, sports and literature can and should be incubated and groomed in those three years, the best prime time of our youth. I know students who joined as dwarfs, literally, but would apply themselves at sports so rigorously and regularly, finding time between Yoga and learning Vedam and few other varied skills, and would finish by captaining Basketball and the Volleyball teams in their final year. Application, Focus, Tenacity, the mantras of success, are sown, learnt, tested and demonstrated, best when you are in college. This is true, not just about music, but about any area which you choose for yourself. Like in <a href="http://raamp.blogspot.com/2008/01/mind-blowing-sets.html">this post from Randezvous Perceptions</a> which mentions decoration.<br /><br />I remember the small town college in which I had <a href="http://wikimapia.org/8693064/G-T-N-Arts-college-Dindigul">done my UG</a>. For a sleepy little tobacco <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dindigul">town</a>, we had all kinds of extra-curricular associations, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toastmasters">Toastmasters Club</a>, a Tamil literature club called Thamarai Vattam, a Personality Development course all of which I would juggle with. There were many after-college courses, in addition to the village camps of NSS, the Adult Education campaigns and the free eye camps organised by Arvind Hospitals with volunteering from students. Some colleges had courses on Arabic, Gandhian Economics and Agarbatti making. I remember explaining about a computer and taking Rs.100/- from my mother for a WordStar course, for this "new computer cheej", 100 rupees for 10 days-10 classes, everyday one hour. It might have been glorified typing at the time, but it led me to the next Rs.100/- course in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_language">Basic language</a>, a field that would catch my fascination and I would settle in. In contrast, however, the band wasn't a great place. It would mostly consist of people who already knew how to perform, played a few jumping numbers and the only occasion I remember they played seriously was after the college union elections. That I failed at the music test <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:webdings;" >even there</span> is something you should not ask about. If you conduct a test now, I would fail, but I would show up again at the next test, until you notify Security to disallow losers. Even then, since I wouldn't call myself one, I might take a printout of this post and try to convince the gatekeeper.. May be I believe, if I fail all tests in this birth, success will be instantaneous in the next birth and my opening cry will be a Thyagarja Kirtan ??<br /><br />It's not just about extra-curricular interest and development of a versatile personality, it's also about the direction at which these talents are directed and the shapes they take after the skill is mastered. The value of tenacity invested at that time of life, is invaluable in the later years. Ironically, as life would have it, those who skipped it would realise it only in the later years and those who apply themselves in concerted self-development will fondly remember those days as the most productive as well as enriching phase of their lives. The excellence streak in Youth is ready to proliferate if we can create a culture that promotes positive action and a formal or informal reward environment that recognises positive application of such effort. This <a href="http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2008/01/bollywood-rocks-india.html">YouthCurry blog post</a> makes a passing reference on how bands in colleges have a short, rocky existence and interest wanes after a while. May be there is nothing much we can do, is it ? No. Band or not, one of the things that a college or university, should do, is to create an environment or culture that promotes versatility, tenacity and recognising the value of higher inspiring goals for application of such effort, whatever you define such noble goals to be. If our colleges continue to just exploit the energy and passionate zeal of the youth to the benefit of frivolous areas, waste them into controversies and be chaltha-hai about irresponsibility, instead of focussing on developing richness in their thinking patterns and preparing them to be responsible citizens, desh ka band bajega.<br /><br />P.S. As to those millions of readers who are pining to know the answer to why I haven't blogged for long... I won't feel off as if I was Stephen King and attribute it to Writer's Block. I would instead take refuge in this <a href="http://manyaface.blogspot.com/">many-faced fellow blogger</a>'s succinct reference to a famous <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=rajnikanth+dialogues&aq=f">punch dialogue</a> : Sneeze, Cough, Hiccup, Yawn, blah blah blah and Blogging Ideas do not come when we demand it. We cannot stop it when they come and we cannot hold them back when they leave.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6098049063630420772.post-43788094758172711662008-10-06T04:21:00.004+05:302008-10-06T04:58:55.764+05:30how to buy a mutual fund and how to tell when to sellIf you need to know what you are putting your head into, you must have read Parts <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2008/10/beginners-guide-to-investing-in-indian.html">1 </a>and <a href="http://whirlmind.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-choose-mutual-fund-lazily-and.html">2 </a>of this 3-part series on investing in Indian Mutual funds. This is Part 3, and quite consolingly, the last part.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >How to buy ?</span><br /><br />There are 3 ways to do this :<br /><br />1. Download the application form online, take a print out, attach a draft as specified and courier it across to the address mentioned.<br /><br />(Note: You are going to have an advantage in this option. Mutual funds usually have something called an Entry Load, usually 2.25%. Means, if you invest Rs.5000/- you may get units worth only Rs.4887/- the rest goes as some kind of "handling charges/commission". If you send your application directly to the company and not through a broker/distributor, you will be exempted from this and you will get units for all of Rs.5000/-). Many agents do not, naturally, mention this to their customers. Also, don't think that a downloaded applicable is not good enough, because it does not have a pre-printed application no. like the one from the broker. Application no. is good, but not mandatory. Broker is good too :), but not mandatory.<br /><br />2. You can approach the nearest mutual fund distributor and ask for a form, attach a draft and submit it to him. No Cash. Ensure you fill the form yourself or is filled in your presence and verified by you.<br /><br />3. If you have an online account in which mutual fund investments are enabled (like ICICI Bank 3-in-1 account or HDFC bank), you can invest online. This is the easiest and hassle-free method, involving little paperwork and felling fewer trees. :) :) But, note that, in methods 2 and 3, you are not exempt from entry loads.<br /><br />I have tried all three a bit, and of late, settled for the third option. You call it laziness, I call it concern for the environment.<br /><br /><b>SIP : Systematic Investment Plan </b>: This is similar to the Recurring Deposits in banks. You can opt to invest a smaller amount every month on a given date. Works for small-time salaried guys whom the FM regularly targets, you know. You have to issue post-dated cheques for the specified amount and it will be collected from your bank account and the units will be bought in the scheme. Monthly instalments mostly start from Rs.1000/- per month, there are couple of funds where the monthly instalment is <a href="http://www.valueresearchonline.com/funds/newsnapshot.asp?schemecode=204">Rs.500/-</a> . This is considered, an easier and a healthy option to invest. While you should also know that a SIP does not mean better returns, it may sometimes have some merits like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging" target="_blank">Cost Averaging</a>. Also, it brings some discipline to your investing and puts it on autopilot. Someone has even come up with a <a href="https://www.bhartiaxa-im.com/bhartiaxa/Common.aspx?path=2/19/49/21" target="_blank">Daily SIP</a> !!<br /> <b><br />How long should I stay invested in a scheme ?</b><br /><br />No one knows, actually. But they say (who?), a minimum 3-5 years is a good period to leave your investments untouched. If your fund is doing reasonably well and is well-placed among its peers, one should leave it at that, even if it's not right on top. It's good to review your schemes once in 6 months, and if they are dismally lagging, then probably consider a switch to another fund. No, I won't go on more on this, I don't know how the machine works. I will get back on this after 7 years :) :) . I do hope this blog will be around, and you, the loyal reader will be around too, but I can't assure whether your money will still be around.<br /> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" ><br />How to Sell :</span><br /><br />Why to sell ? :) :) Okay, you've decided to sell or redeem. If you've invested online, click-click-click. If you polluted the environment by investing in paper form, then you would have received your account statement with a portfolio number on it. Somewhat like an account number. That statement copy will also have a tearable portion below where you can place instructions of sale or change of address or whatever and sign. If you haven't stayed with the same bank account, you can specify the new bank account. And send it across to the MF company or give it to the broker. Your money should reach in less than a couple of weeks, since there is a nice stipulation that mutual fund service requests be fulfilled within a few business days of receipt. Also, know that dividends from all mutual fund investments are exempt from tax in the hands of the investor. Only because they are already sufficienty (t)axed. Sale within one year will attract short-term capital gains tax.<br /><br />Also, contrary to insistence by some dealers, the form is not sacrosanct. Photocopy will do. Or even a signed letter on plain paper giving all information will do. If they are denying your request (for example, a nomination request), they will also send you the appropriate form.<br /><br />What if you are disorganized like me and lost the account statement ? I hope you will also be partially organised like me and noted the folio number and scheme name somewhere. That should do. Also, remember to enter your email address while applying. There will be "Save Trees" checkbox, by which you can opt to receive account statements by email. :) If you do that, and if the scheme is one of those serviced by <a href="http://www.camsonline.com/default1.html" target="_blank">CamsOnline.com</a>, then you don't even need to remember the folio no. (Why am I giving tips to become more disorganized ?). If you just mention your email, they can send you statements for all your investments in MF companies on their service list. The site doesn't require registration, yes it's all legit, they are the guys servicing many mutual fund companies on paper work, and, of course, you will be asked to specify a password of your choice, with which they will encrypt the PDF and send it to your mailbox. Cool !!<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >My picks ? :</span><br /><br />Oh, why should it always lead to this ? I have just advocated data impersonalisation and now, this ? Okay, here it goes, but only if you promise me that you won't listen to me:<br /> <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=HDFC_MF&icode=CENOPEN" target="_blank">HDFC Equity</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=SBI_MF&icode=SBISCONT" target="_blank">SBI Magnum Contra</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=SBI_MF&icode=SBIMOEF" target="_blank">SBI Magnum Balanced</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=SUNNEW_MF&icode=SUNSELMID_SC" target="_blank">Sundaram Select Midcap</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=SUNNEW_MF&icode=SUNINDLEAFU_SC" target="_blank">Sundaram India Leadership</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=RELCAP_MF&icode=RELVISI" target="_blank">Reliance Vision</a>, <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=TEMPLE_MF&icode=KOTPRIP" target="_blank">Franklin India Prima Plus</a> and <a href="http://myiris.com/mutual/scheme/index.php?fcode=BIRLA_MF&icode=BIRINDFUN-G_SC" target="_blank">Birla Sunlife Index</a>.<br /><br />You must have guessed it right by now, a beginner's guide often means, that the writer is a beginner, not the reader. And if you haven't figured that out, you are probably a beginner in figuring out things for what they are worth.<br /><br />Happy interesting investing.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Reflections of a riverside walker .....</div>Namajihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09421997194059558432noreply@blogger.com3