and we are back...

it had to be something of impact to shake the cobwebs of the almost month-long blogging hiatus.

and it happened last night.
Rain sweet rain...

with camera on the blink, and a series of outages/dial-up downtime, and just one shower from june to date, writing enthusiasm was at a premium.

well now, all that is past and behind us.
welcome back to Farm, yeah.

and a year has passed...

it has been a year at pR.

in the universal reference frame, it barely registers as a relevant interval.
but humans do tend to place a lot of emphasis on this time period.
i have had a poor track record with birthdays and anniversaries and much of it stems from my general disinterest in time milestones. and so i record this anniversary with just a little head nod.

the year at pR has been wonderful.
it has cemented a few things in my mind and that clarity of purpose is a tremendous step ahead.

and a list of key observations:
1. the importance of understanding seasons - धीरे धीरे रे माना, धीरे सब कुछ होए, माली सींचे सौ गाड़ा, ऋतू आये फल होए - a beautiful doha of kabir
this doha is really about patience and we are once again reminded of this by bhaskarbhai save: "it is all in shraddha (श्रद्धा), saboori (सबूरी) and prayog (प्रयोग) (dedication, patience and experimentation)."

2. it is all in the soil - we take care of this most vital part of the earth's crust, and it takes care of us. once again i turn to bhaskarbhai save for a simple explanation.


3. rains - point 2 will be rendered irrelevant without the blessing of rains. 2010 has been a superb surplus, with almost rain every 2 weeks since june/july.
in combination with point 1, the importance of rains is embodied in many local customs, wisdom and traditions. and importantly, our success with rain fed agriculture will depend on how well we learn and assimilate these into our life.

4. the saddening loss of traditional skillsets - with the education's increased emphasis on 'desk-jobs', the futile move towards a 'knowledge economy' and the cruel labelling of traditional skills as 'unskilled' is enslaving us irreversibly to high mechanisation and technology. in short as gandhiji said, "we need production by masses and not mass production."

dv has a summary of 2010 and the plan for 2011 over here.

name transition

the watchful reader would have quickly noted the new blog title -Farm, yeah.
no doubt, readers' eyebrows will defy gravity on seeing this change.

when i started this blog, i called it Fanaa - which means annihilation (there is a very catchy song from Yuva of the same title). this was in early 2006.
around 6 months ago, i called it Fun, yeah - a play on the phonetics completely altering the meaning.
yesterday, i renamed it Farm, yeah - a below par play on the phonetics, again significantly altering the meaning.

this should remain unless i get some really nice suggestions.

succumbing to temptation

this summer threw up a never-before challenge.
consuming mangoes or actually not consuming them.

10 years in bombay has seen me gorge down mango produce of multiple acres.
'voracious eater' will barely start to describe my appetite for mangoes.

a tough habit to break, you would think.
"why break?", you will concurrently ask.
both explanations will follow just from a simple description of our neighbouring farm.

100 acres of mango orchard borders our farm. growing a wide variety including the KING - alphonso.
some trees tantalisingly dangle these golden fruits within grabbing distance.
i would extend the saying, "don't enter the kitchen of a restaurant" to "dont have a mango orchard as your neighbour.
few readers will have already raised their eyebrows, " this fellow is going to advice to quit another fruit!"
kindly de-escalate them. this is a confession (refer title).

we have spent most of april hearing spraying machines operating through the day/night in this orchard.
the amount of spraying/fertiliser done has been higher this year as mango crops in TN have been suffering due to some unseasonal climatic conditions.
'no to the chemical-infested mango' was the recurrent slogan of this summer.
so we bravely survived an almost zero mango season this year.

until some silly mango stealing escapade by another neighbour, brought the neighbours (mango orchard and us) into direct contact to handle this episode.
and emissaries from the orchard promptly got a huge basket of alphonsoes.
the simple sight sent my adams apple on unprecedented vertical oscillations.
the 'no-mango' resolve was destroyed in no time by the juicy, succulent, absolutely tasty aapus.

now that the resolve was dead and buried, i went the whole hog.
why not buy directly from the farm?
you know, we save food miles, lower cost from direct buying from farmer, etc, etc..
early morning, i trudged into the farm and got myself a super bargain. around 60 fruits for Rs 200.

not a simple retail transaction, mind you.
it so happens that they sell directly and only to juicers (like maaza, slice).
and only mangoes which meet a certain standard is chosen.
the remaining are buried, yes - you read right, BURIED right next to trees.
i had seen thousands of mangoes heaped around trees and now i understood the reason.

bloody murder, few readers may think. yes, indeed...
the ostensible reason is - it is simply too expensive and complicated to manage/handle the distribution of these off-spec mangoes. given that these orchards are managed by employees, they could engage in pilferage and etc...

bloody murder, i still say...while licking the trickling juice from my fingers. yum.

para-hovering at zamin endathur

zamin endathur is the name of the main village close to point return.
those who read this post carefully, would have come across the link to Adventure Zone.
it is run by Maj SR Roy, our neighbour and a good friend.

he was kind enough to offer a trip up on his parachute.
we did not parasail, we hovered being tied up on a jeep.
and got a better look at the local topography than what google maps offers.

getting kitted up...



up, up and away...


we were around 200 ft above the ground.


and to keep us grounded and safe, the jeep...


others need to go to a special place to enjoy adventure sports.
we do it in our backyard :-)

unexpected reunions

15 years is almost 40% of my life.
the chances of meeting an old friend after 15 years are quite slim.
the chances of meeting two old friends (unrelated) after 15 years within a week, has to rank up there in the world's top rare events.

i was quite thrilled to have this happen to me (not the record, but the reunions).
one was a colleague from 1995 and another was a volleyball teammate from 1992-95.
one at a marriage and the other at a restaurant.
one in cuddalore and one in chennai.
both initial recognitions by me.
both making me mighty happy.

keep on the lookout, always.

moving

jan 1, 2010 will see my exit from mumbai and city-life.
wife and I are moving bag and baggage to point return.

the plan to to simplify life and live self-sustainably in synchrony with nature.

we will spend jan 2010 in acclimatising ourselves with the changed specs of life and settle down at PR by the end of the month.

shall continue writing here at Fun, yeah , but likely that the tenor and content will change considerably as it will be a chronicle of travails on the farm and related events.
it will be a challenge to stay out of the invasive reach of media (which i have enjoyed).

hope to see you all here and there :-)
happy new year and this also happens to be my 500th post.
decent going.

potholes and coincidences

was in pune for the last 2 days over work and relatives.

heard this:
drivers in ahemdabad are the worst in the country. "they honk at potholes."

met him (again):
travelling back to mumbai, i called in a taxi from the pune-mumbai taxi service.
and of all the thousand odd cabbies, i get Mr. S Khan again. remarkable.

new interesting blogs...

...are easy to locate at the indibloggies awards.
the 2008 awards nominations are out and am going to spend some time looking up the nominees.

holy snakes

lounging around an afternoon at my in-laws place in velachery - madras.
this place borders the sprawling (almost contiguous) jungles of IIT Madras and Guindy National Park and the Raj Bhavan (Governor's Bungalow).

wife exclaims - "look, snake!"
and lo behold, there was this nasty one, just at the door, facing away, but looking over into the house.
it was a rat snake (saara paambu in tamil), not poisonous. looked like this.



what was interesting was the reactions.
my in-laws were totally cool, and so was my wife (living for over 15 years on the IIT campus).
my dad was completely taken aback that such critters existed in the vicinity and was advising several precautionary measures to his totally un-flabbergasted samamdhi, who in turn was telling him about what the snake was and how non-venomous it was, etc.

back to our beauty (around 8 ft long and dark grey in colour) - seeing this mass of humanity surge towards him, he bolts and what speed!! just awesome. the difference between watching it on discovery channel and seeing it live is in magnitudes of googolplex.

after rushing back and forth, trying to scale the walls to reach his sanctuary, he finally gets a boost from a bush in the backyard and made good his escape.

for those who came in late, csm = crazy snake man, an appellation derived from a rant by matthew perry in a friends episode.
just to reinforce that i am very good with snakes:-)

circular reference

winning is for losers...

after making this insightful statement yesterday(!!), i find that there are websites and movies with the same title.

mere paas...

a poor master of arts student falls in love with a rich girl.
the girl's father gets to know and berates him using big words like haisiyat (status), aukaat (guts), majaal (how dare), jurrat (gargantuan error), etc., and ends with "what do you have?"

poor guy says. "mere paas MA hai!"

ok, cheap one.
here is more...
1. injured eagle - mere paas claw hai
2. poor lawyer - mere paas law hai
3. poor cowboy - mere paas quick draw hai
4. poor lumberjack - mere paas saw hai
5. poor indian (red variety) - mere paas squaw hai
6. lech walesa - mere paas warsaw hai
7. poor vegetarian - mere paas coleslaw hai

ok. time to go.

weddings - double bill

back to back weddings starting this week. both brothers.
that is 3 days of celebrations with extended families...

26 july - 4 years ago

vitalstatistix's fear were founded (is this opposite of unfounded?) on this floody day.

so what did i do on this day?

at abouts 200PM, abodh and i were watching the downpour from just outside of our office.
it was a spectacular sight.
the intensity of the rain was truly spell-binding.

what caught my attention was the water overflowing from the roof-top drain channels (i.e., the water flowing down the roof, is trapped in a channel from which many drain-pipes take it to the drain.
this meant that the water was collecting into the channel much too faster compared top the draining rate.
has never seen that before. knew that this did not bode well for the city.

half an hour of this downpour, i advised all colleagues to head home.
i had then decided to stay put until i was sure that the trains would run .
many heeded my advice and headed out, but came back in a jiffy as the entire exit/main road was in knee deep water.

in the meanwhile, a 'temporary' false ceiling roof-tile had broken and water started pouring into the office.
30 mins of patch up and clean up.

we then assembled all the telephones we had (MTNL, Airtel, BPL, Orange, Tata Indicom) and started calling colleagues and friends and community contacts to take stock.
within no time, except for the MTNL landline, all other systems shutdown.
and the suburban rail system had ground to a halt.

many of my colleagues had to get home to family, etc and they headed (plodded/waded) out.
most of them had a lot of intersting stories to share the next week.

finally, we were 6 of us who stayed back in the office.
then the fun started.
the office complex in which our office is situated had a canteen. and thankfully, ample emergency rations to feed the many people who were stuck at work.
we were treated to a sumptuous snack at 630PM and a hot dinner at 830PM.

sporadic 'we are safe' messages trickled in. not that we were in any position to do anmy kind of rescue act.
one of us had a serious flooding situation at his home, but there was no chance in hell he was going to be able to reach there.

we stayed dry and slept at office.
next day dawned and we did a little shopping for tea and bread.
the situation all across was still bad and getting out of office was not an option at all.
around 10AM, we got a surprise visitor.
taking pity on our 'poor' state, a colleague sent food and 10 DVDs!!
we set up the LCD projector and did a mini movie marathon.
serious.

by the evening, things had eased up and trains had started running and by 6 PM on the 27th, we exited after a 32 hour office stay in.

the city was jack-hammered.
the time we spent in office, thousands spent trapped, exposed to the might of the rain-gods.

name portability

for those who did not notice.
title of blog is now Fun, yeah.

tired of destruction and annihilation.
time for good times.

name difference

Olga Govortsava (Belarus)
vs
Li Na (China)
played their 2nd round match today (25th June).
Li Na won comfortably.

i think it will be a record for the highest difference in the length of the name of 2 opponents.

p.s.: yes. i am quite free these days...

retraction -> growth ?

till some time ago, i strongly believed that one needs to be a 'local' to work in community development.
this is as opposed to 'imported' workers. it was made in the context of americans doing development work in india.
the following passage was perhaps be my simplistic justification.

Quoted from Bapu Kuti by Rajni Bakshi

The following passage was written by Aruna Roy (IAS officer and then NGO founder at Tilonia and then moving to Devdoongri)

In case of both the government and Tilonia, I saw my role as that of the initiator. I was the ‘catalyst’, the ‘agent for change’, the one who ‘intervened for change’. In other words, the perception was that of myself as the leader,in so much as the action that followed was ultimately traced back to a set of actions for which I was responsible. It may have been an idea or a set of ideas. Gradually I began to understand that the perceptions and ideas exist in different forms in people minds already. What is really needed is the time and space and opportunity for putting them into action. My role was not severely limited in my mind.

If leadership was to be different, then the organisation would also have to be so defined so as to enable the people to manage things themselves. The leadership in people’s organisations has to come from the local areas. The issues, the direction, the priorities must be decided by them. So what in this scheme of things was Aruna’s role?

I was going to an area where I was an outside. I would never be able to understand the area quite as well as a local person. But I also had a special set of experiences and a critique of development processes born out of varied experiences. I was born in to a class which still remain powerful and dominated decision making. I provided links with an understanding of that class. So I was useful to the local people.

I had developed a personal preference for simple ascetic living. I felt that one could not work with the poor unless one lived with them as one of them. It was important for me to share the lifestyle physically too. It was important for me to lead a life in harmony with myself. So see the work and living as a continuum. This kind of lifestyle facilitates a different communication, where the people see you as more accessible. Finally when the people who you work with see the mutual dependencies for living and security there is a much greater sense of equality that permeates relationship.

i entirely agree with aruna roy. she simply states that the 'import' has to assimilate themselves into the locality to start being meaningful.
it is possible.
it has not happened very well in the past and even in the current contexts i used. but that cannot be any justification for the earlier stance.

so in a progression of sorts(!), i have retracted my earlier position and believe that anyone, irrespective of their race and religion and language, can be meaningful in any community, as long as they are able to follow aruna's example.

pesticide - free village

the overuse of pesticides and the deleterious effect it is having on rural communities (mainly) and urban consumers is well known.

Penta Srirampuram in Andhra Pradesh is showing the way forward.
the beauty of all this is in its simplicity.
de-complexing the human actions (aka - "do nothing") is the solution.

now the connections:
1. i worked for 1 year in 1995-96 in a chemical plant making Penta erythritol. (2 connections - chemicals and Penta)
2. the surname of the village bears close resemblance to my alter-ego.

life expectancy calculator

i know.
how can we do something like that??

but here is a good place to check it out:
there is another concept called virtual age - which is a reflection of your health and vitality. The lower it is, the better shape you are in. It is used to calculate the Life Expectancy of someone of your physical age.

My scores:
Biological Age - 34
Virutal Age - 12.9
Life Expectancy - 95.1

i moved the scales up and down to follow the impact of factors and found that genetic components contribute the most.

once you are done with all this, read the articles on the very same site.
some are truly special like "letting go".

hat tip: daily good

आज की कंगाल मजाक

inspired by PJ du jour of ships, etc, here is my KM (kangal mazak) of the day.

Early warning - drew a poor response when tested with the public (1 person only).

Q: a desi-engineer starts a new technology company dealing in cutting edge innovation. what does he call it?

Ans: तलवार technologies.