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:-)

cyclooney city

that is mumbai - which gets an average of 2500 mm of rain in the 3 monsoon months.
totally freaky weather over the last 2 days. raining since 10th Nov around noon time (IST).
today was cyclone alert day.
phyan was supposed to hit in and around the city. and some marginal rain happened today.

the moment the alert sounded, almost as if to cook a snook, it cleared up.
nothing, nada, zip, zero since 2 PM today (11th Nov).
schools, offices all shutdown.
bloody waste of time and stuff.

this is not maximum city, post 26/7/2005, this is 'i-want-my-mum" city.

clarification - the looneys are not the civic admin (in this case), but the general junta and media. with whatever available info, the govt called it correctly putting safety first.
but the aam-junta, fuelled my media frenzy, has just lost their marbles.

public confessions

andre agassi has made life rosy for the media and other retired tennis players/commentators.
with his autobiographical (titled "Open") confession on drug use etc, he has put the australians among the indians.
he has been berated by a lot of people for:
1. the drug abuse and here.
2. the sensationalisation to enable marketing his autobiography.

but i beg to differ.
i am completely in favour of public confessions.
gandhi set a lovely trend over 80 years ago with My Experiments With Truth.

we should all do it.
go agassi.
i forgive the wig.
you beat sampras often enough for me to like you...

king long

warped minds will warp their minds over this title.
king long is a famous name in mumbai as they have invaded the city over the last 2 years like no one.

ok, ok...
the fleet of the new AC buses used by BEST (as part of the Bus Rapid Transit System-BRTS) and of late by MSRTC (mumbai pune route) is king long buses. (on the mumbai-pune AC bus route aka Volvo, the king longs are improving their market share)


pic courtesy: Sharmeen Sahibole

these chinese-make buses are an attempt to woo the car-based travellers from the suburbs to the town-side. and from the initial looks of it, they are making an attempt.
currently BEST operates 10 routes.
we have taken 2 of them.
they are obviously very comfortable and all that. and tickets are in the range of Rs 15 (min) - 100 (max). pretty reasonable.

but if you are in a taxi/auto/2-wheeler and are behind the king longs, the heat/noise from the AC and engine is quite unbearable.

take it the next time you are in the city.

sustsainable living in cities - the remarkable dervaes

a medium sized home in pasadena, california houses the incredible Dervaes' family.
growing nearly 3000 kgs of fruits and vegetables in around 4000 sq ft of urban space is just mind-blowing.

their experiments with simple and sustainable urban living is now an award winning documentary - Homegrown Revolution.



met them at an interactive session in mumbai last evening.
a truly amazing experience to hear their experiences and the underlying philosophies.
almost a modern day fukuoka.
one thing that strongly resonated is their strong anti-monsanto slant :-)

please check their other website, Path to freedom.

me vs the cola giants

regular readers will be familiar with my slant against MNCs, globalisation, privatisation, etc.

it is a good time to share the seeds of this slant.
Date: Dec 2003
Location: Chennai
Event: Asha Annual conference

my first exposure to development organisations (NGOs) and chances to meet 'like-minded' (much abused phrase) junta.
of all the people i met at chennai, nandlal master was the one who stamped his imprint.
simply, he became a friend.
nandlal, from varanasi, a simple weaver turned teacher turned leader.
a master-class story. an inspiration for me.

in the fight against the mehdiganj coca cola factory, nandlal played and is playing a lead role.
he and his brothers bore the brunt of police brutality against their agitation in 2004.

he wrote to me (and perhaps all his contacts) asking us to boycott all coke and pepsi products (for over-exploiting ground water).
without even getting to the reasons and allowing 'due process', i signed on the petition.....just because nandlal had asked me. that was how much he meant to me!

since that time, i have had a sip of aquafina once. that was a mistake of sorts. but have been utterly faithful to nandlal and that petition i signed.
also have been directly and indirectly pushing people of their cola mania/addiction.

have heard some rumours and stories about nandlal since then from his local peers. many were derogatory/defamatory. maybe true.
but i know/knew of a nandlal that i loved. and thats not likely to change soon.

good luck masterji. काके को उजड़ने की योजना में हम आपके साथ हैं. (i am with you in your anti-coke struggle).

kannamwar nagar

eastern express highway starts from sion and snakes its way through the central suburbs of mumbai till thane where it morphs into NH 3.
for its entire stretch post ghatkopar, it runs past some of the greenest parts of mumbai, namely the mangroves on the eastern seafront.
there is just one exception to this unbroken vista.
and that small township is kannamwar nagar, vikhroli east.
after seeing its name on several BEST buses over the last many years, i got a chance to visit this place to attend a wedding.
while it does not look any different than any other place, if one changes the viewing perspective, kannamwar nagar is a special place.
here is a bird's view from a long way up. the yellow line is the EEH and the small triangle on its right in the center of the image is kannamwar nagar.



coming in closer, the triangle takes on a defined form.


"what's so special?", you may ask.
the layout of this township is now visible below in a closer zoom and "doesn't it look pretty?". almost like a fluid flowing around a circular object.



so, on my last flight, i looked out while landing and could identify this beautiful location. it is a million times more beautiful than the above images.

last flight

i think i have taken my last flight of my life.
i do not see why and how i shall be able to take one again knowing its carbon footprint and also that i shall be mostly a drive away from family emergencies.

i shall miss looking at the cities and all sundry views from the top.
i will be happy to pass the claustrophobia, awful food, high pressure ramming you ears, etc.

the indian airports (can speak for mumbai and chennai) are nothing like how they were when i used to frequent them 7 years ago.
they are all sparkling and shiny all over the place.

we did something, which we reckon, that must rank as unique. from the airport exit, we took BEST to reach home. this is a stellar feature of the mumbai airport which allows public transport into the main airport exit area. all other cities fail miserably on this count.

attacking trains - perspectives

big time drama happened today in WB on the Rajdhani express being taken over/hijacked by naxals/maoists, etc.
all ended well and no one was hurt and so on.
i agree that it is very troublesome and stressful and threatening (as passengers, as train Ops Research people, law enforcement people, etc).

but using the trains as a protest mechanism, these happen in mumbai quite frequently,
1. Feb 8, 2009 in Borivali.
2. Sep 2, 2009 in Nallasopara.

the latest one is planned and the mumbai one's are spontaneous.
but net net, the frustrations of the people result in violent behaviour.

of course, violence cannot be justified from any angle.
but i am just bringing together 'similar' incidents with different 'perspectives'.

p.s. - hey protesters, leave the trains alone

sardar sarovar - stories of displacement

indiatogether is running a series of articles by neeta deshpande covering the displacement (displaced by the dam) of the locals post the sardar sarovar dam over the narmada.

part 1 and part 2 are very readable. it is saddening that development is a many winners-many losers concept.
and that's never going to work. ever.

do follow the series.

while on the subject of water, here is a study - unravelling bhakra which highlights that the iconic bhakra nangal dam may not really deserve its legendary status.

for the record - i am anti big dams.

jeevan vidya - madhyasht darshan

i have been hearing/reading in parts about the concept of जीवन विद्या (jeevan vidya) aka मध्यस्त दर्शन (Madhyasth means Mediating. Darshan means Insight (of reality - direct understanding of reality or knowledge)).

the concept is explained here in some level of detail here. i find it really fascinating.
to get my teeth sunk into it, i will need to do a 7 day शिविर (shivir - workshops).

along with vipassana, this is another self-discovery is shall be definitely doing in 2010.

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.

maha mess

the vidhan sabha election results are out.
maharashtra re-elects the Cong-NCP alliance into power.

my hopes have been powdered, but i had expected these results.

so here is a nice good bye to maharashtra.
the next 5 years will be destructive, if their previous 10 is any indication.

we buy trash

india is moving into becoming the leading importer of trash from across the globe.

According to an estimate, India imported around 16.8 lakh tonnes of ‘waste
paper’ in 2005-2006, valued at about $290 million. However, environmental
activists say that much of the socalled recyclable waste that is imported is
trash and ends up in Indian dumps, landfills and sometimes, even farmlands. In
September last year, environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman discovered that
ITC’s paper factory in Coimbatore had dumped hundreds of tonnes of municipal
solid waste — household garbage, in other words — from the UK into agricultural
wells in the area.

while the above article only covers paper and municipal waste, the highest value of trash imports is scrap metal. and plans to regulate it by the govt has been scrapped. how ironic...

Indian imports of metal scrap are worth over $1 billion per year.
"The DGFT and the customs took a bold and courageous decision to scrap the regulation altogether. This means you can freely export scrap to India."
The regulations were introduced to safeguard workers dealing with metal recycling in India, underlining that the country would not accept second-rate material.

old timers will recall that the metal scrap from the twin towers debris has been extensively used in india.

amrut jal and amrut mitti

after attending the city farming working last month, we decided to put the training into action.
the key to life in the planet is the continuous work of nature in recycling the organic matter back into the soil.
this typically happens in forests with the help of animal, birds (their droppings).

so how does one replicate this natural process on a terrace.
through the efforts of shripad dabohlkar and deepak suchde, the concept of natueco farming has been created.
the former is the founder of प्रयोग परिवार (prayog parivar) (an incredible family of experimenters) and the latter is continuing the legacy.

the core of natueco farming, is around soil creation.
called अमृत मिट्टी (amrut mitti), this is the main object of this post.
its preparation is detailed here and is quite simple and aims to replicate the natural processes in a controlled environment. the process involves the preparation of अमृत जल (amrut jal), which provides all the microbes.

we went through the process over the last 3 weeks and we are now one week after laying down the layers of biomass and soil. in another 2-3 weeks times, we should have our first attempt ready to use.

kamal - 50 years and counting

i grew up on kamal (and rajinikanth).
but kamal was always the main man.
from an inexplicable juvenile star-struck teenager to an explicable mature star-struck adult.
that's been one of the journeys that i continue to cherish.

more so, when i saw the celebrations of kamal's 50 years in cinema.
over 3 hours of people lavishing praise over praise on kamal (what else, one would say).
but nothing felt over-saccharine.
everyone (other than the nauseating anchors) behaved like a bunch of students saying their thank-yous to their fantastic teacher.
only that the teacher is still going to continue to teach them.

2 speeches just blew me away.
the last 2.
the penultimate was rajini's memorable anecdotes:

Rajinikanth in his speech referred to Kamal as “Kalai Ulagam Anna. Rajini added that he has enough material to speak on Kamal’s achievements for two days and in 1975 when he joined movies Kamal was already a very big star and could have easily overshadowed him in the 10 odd films they did together.

“ He never interfered with my character or tried to cut me down in any of the films we did together. Please note as a star he was much bigger than me and any director would have gladly chopped my role or refused to cast me, if Kamal had asked them. But after Ninaithale Inikkum, he called me and told me that it is better for my growth as a hero if we do not work together, and I gained by it,” was Rajinikanth’s simple straightforward explanation.

and so much more...

and kamal responds, like only he can.
first on the statuettes of his parents that his fans gift him:

i don't consider my parents as dead. they continue to live in my fans

and responding to rajini's anecdote, he brings forth their intimate friendship to the public eye.

Which actor in the world will be so honest and straight forward in his talk? There were stars before us but they were never as friendly as we were, and we have proved that two top actors can be healthy rivals. Rajinikanth will always remain my best friend forever.

and he remained dry eyed through his speech at the end of which he goes down on his knees and prostrates in front of the entire audience.
WOW level.

signing off,
unabashed mega fan of kamal

be the change (BTC)

obama massively popularised "be the change".
the quotations page says that gandhi said - "You must be the change you want to see in the world."
there are many websites with BTC fundas.
1. be the change
2. be the change inc
3. the be the change symposium

CNN ran (runs?!) a massive campaign around BTC.
massive amounts of collateral has been made with BTC.
it is becoming the favourite slogan of advertisers.
kate edmonson has a beautiful song around BTC.

so imagine my consternation and surprise when i saw this question.
the question raiser (Enuga Reddy) is a renowned scholar of MKG.
after reading the response, i decided to ask around.

so after checking with a few other scholars, it is confirmed.
the many variations of the BTC quotes DO NOT appear in the collected works of mahatma gandhi.
it is likely that MKG may have said something to that effect in gujarati and in passing and has been paraphrased by arun gandhi.

not that it really matters much.
BTC is something that MKG is likely to have said and surely enough he lived it more than anyone else.

choices, tough ones

the LS elections just passed 5 months ago.
i did a prediction and fared miserably.

the maharashtra state elections are around the corner. on oct 13th 2009.
plans to boost voting percentage by shutting down the city is afoot.

against all that is me, i would prefer that the shiv sena-bjp combination comes to power as against the congress-ncp.
kumar ketkar's interview (loksatta editor) is a good read.
so is tvr shenoy's general analysis.
sainath has made it amply clear about how the farmers have suffered.

as much as i cant stand the right wing-hindutva chanting saffron combine, the cong-NCP have raped and plundered and pillaged maharashtra for the last 10 years.... a la ghazni, ghori et al.

so am hoping (not predicting) that ss-bjp come to power (sigh).

narural disaster week

8th Sep - 10 Sep - Flash floods sweep across turkey.
22nd Sep - massive floods in georgia, USA.
29th Sep - Undersea earthquake spawns tsunami and hots the samoan islands.
30th Sep and 1st Oct - earthquakes rock indonesian islands.
26th Sep - 4th Oct - typhoons ketsana and parma slams philippines, vietnam, cambodia and laos.
1ct Oct - 6th Oct - torrential rains drown large parts of AP and Karnataka in South india.

of course, they are all related.

roy, millworkers et al

reading arundhati roy's interview in the TOI of OCt 2nd, we decided to hear her out as she was going to address the Mumbai Girni Kamgaar Sangharsh Samiti's (मुंबई गिर्नी कामगार संघर्ष समिति) 20th anniversary.

astute followers of this blog will immediately see that she has raised the issues covered in my post of Oct 1 - impending civil war.
even astuter followers of this blog will also recall my 'support' to the millworkers - mills to high street - phoenix from the ashes.

i like roy (even though i have not read her claim to fame - Booker prize winning - the God of Small Things) as i think her role is to conflate the multiple struggles going on across the country and bring each of these struggles to each others' notice.
another of my favourites - ramachandra guha - has had a slugfest with roy in 2000-01. i am inclined to side with roy on this one.

coming back to the event...
roy spoke sparingly (her hindi is woeful for someone who has spent years in the hinterlands) in a full blown marathi meeting, recalling points mentioned in the TOI interview.
also present was nikhil wagle - present editor of IBN Lokmat (the 24 hours Marathi news channel) and pushpa bhave.

happy weekend reading.

monsoon 2009 - baarish gul

i followed the 2008 monsoon over maharashtra reasonably closely.
not this year.
so remedying the situation.
'worst drought since 1972' screams TOI.
the india monsoon map tells the story (courtesy - IMD, Mumbai):
22% less than normal.
22/36 divisions are reporting 'deficient' rainfall


















but the most striking statistic is the normal rainfall expected in each region.
the lowest is west rajasthan (256.8 mm per year)...quite obvious na, desert and all that.
but next is tamilnadu (285.2 mm per year). mind you that TN gets most of its rain from the north east monsoon, but this figure is still quite remarkable considering that kerala - a stone's throw away - gets a whopping 2071.2 mm a year.
the western ghats do a bloody swell job.

impending civil war!?

tehelka reports that we are at a warlike situation.
this war is against the maoists aka naxalites aka 'terrorists'.
these people are supposed to have resorted to excessive violence against the state to stake their claim/people's claim.
their main geography cover some states in central india - MP, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, AP, WB, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa. the government has made a monumental blunder by raising the Salwa Judum to counter the naxal violence.
people (with guns) against people (with guns) has never worked.

some simple nice people/orgs (like binayak sen/PUCL) have been accused of being naxalites/sympathisers.

coming back to the tehelka story which stung me:

Over this past year, the Home Ministry has been planning a major armed offensive against the Naxals, particularly in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, the plan involves stationing around 75,000 troops in the heartland of India — including special CRPF commandos, the ITBP and the BSF. Scattered newspaper accounts have spoken of forces being withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast; there is also talk of bringing in the feared Rashtriya Rifles — a battalion created specially for counter-insurgency work — and the purchase of bomb trucks, bomb blankets, bomb baskets, and sophisticated new weaponry. Minister Chidambaram has also said that if necessity dictates, he will bring in the special forces of the army.

why is it a scary thought?

The decision to launch such a massive armed operation on home ground — due to start this November — should have triggered animated political, civil society and media debate. But Operation Green Hunt — as the offensive is being termed — has been gathering force in almost complete silence. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram have variously called Naxals — or “Maoists” — “the gravest threat to India’s internal security.” Perhaps a military offensive against them is the answer, but is it the only answer? Is it the best answer? Will it provide a solution? Who will be impacted by this offensive? What will be its repercussions? Who are we really declaring war on? What are we declaring war on? Are we going into this with eyes wide open? Is there anything we should have learned from the seemingly irreparable psychological mess in Kashmir and the Northeast? These are the questions a democratic society should be asking.

himanshu kumar needs to be heard.

As Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irrepairable state. We are headed for civil war.”

i am seriously worried.

WTF - chate gores carroll

the TOI (dassera edition - 28th Sep 2009) of today has a 4 page supplement of Chate classes. they run a behemoth of a tuition academy.
it is headed by a Prof Matchindra Chate (btw - all tuition center teachers are called 'professor' or XYZ 'sir'). i think he is a charlatan of the nth order.
in page 4 of the supplement is his personal letter to students (this was covered by dcubed couple of months ago), he writes:

In Ravindranath Tagore's poem, 'Alice in Wonderland': Alice soaks beauty of the nature while merrily wandering. She abruptly stops at some distance, since there are two pathways in two different direc-tions. She is confused to choose the correct path. Suddenly a cat arrives. She asks the cat the query she has. "Which way you want to lead?" the cat asks. Alice says, "I haven't yet decided." The cat reply's "Then follow any way, it doesn't make any difference."

and so it continues in manner which is more fantastical than lewis carroll ever imagined his wonderland to be.
it is remarkably WTF that Chate and his outstanding team at Chate classes is unable to track down such an elementary gaffe.

getting off the grid

the grid is the one that supplies a home with water, electricity, gas, sewerage.
in mumbai, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Mahanagar Gas limited and BEST Undertaking form the grid.

getting off the grid would then mean to be able to live without external provisions of these facilities and utilities. implying self generation and usage minimisation.
i got introduced to this concept indirectly through the beautiful story of dhirendra and smita, evocatively chronicled by nipun.

treehugger interviews abe and josie, who have moved off the grid. their website chronicles their experiment. with a lot of pointers to aspiring 'off the gridders'.

we hope to get there soon.

city farming workshop

this sunday, we are attending a city farming workshop.
the natueco city famring blog should become an important part of the mumbai webspace. and of course, the concept should become an important part of the mumbai space.

this mail which i got yesterday, assures me that it will be a wonderful workshop:

We would also like to reduce garbage generated at the premises and so request you to carry your own plate, a glass and a spoon for breakfast/lunch and herbal tea. MNP (Maharashtra nature Park, Dharavi) has the facility for you to be able to wash these. Please also carry your own drinking water so as to avoid "buying' the same.

Kindly bring a notepad and pen for taking notes, we will be providing you our booklet on natueco farming.You may also need napkin post the hands-on session.

this is a lesson to carry our own things wherever we go. simple and elegant.

won't stop fighting

one of the most beautiful songs depicting the fight of the tribals and adivasis against the tsunami of 'development'.
गाँव छोड़ब नहीं (gaon chodab nahin).
watch and enjoy.

fasting

yesterday (friday 18th sept 2009) was alvida jumma (अलविदा जुम्मा).
it is the last friday in the holy month on ramzan.
it is a very special day as it also indicates that Id-ul-fitr (ramzan-id) is around the corner.

on the suggestion of one of my friends, i kept a fast (रोज़ा) from dawn to dusk.
this was my first time ever. to stay over 14 hours without food was going to be quite manageable, but i was not sure about staying thirsty for the same time. it goes against my standard 2-3 liters of water/day.
so i decided to stay in the office the whole day (in air-conditioned environments) so as to prevent loss of water by sweating.
so i had a full stomach of water and a cup of coffee in the morning and that lasted me through the day quite well.
i could observe that life and time seemed to have slowed down. i kept looking at the time more frequently than before.

the breaking of the fast (रोज़ा खोलना) aka Iftaar (इफ्तार) is a pretty process.
we had gone shopping to Md Ali Road, which is a remarkable place most of the year, but during Ramzan, it is just moves up many notches.
if you can stand crowds (mumbai trains its citizens well in this regard), this is a must see. especially on alvida jumma.

i am considering fasting right through ramzan next year. but that's 11 months away.

now i wait for Id.

changing names

marriage, numerology, weird names, and a few other misc reasons are why people change their names.
as per the rules, one needs to apply for this name change with the appropriate government department and after a period of time, the name change is notified in a gazette.
also the name changers are supposed to advertise this name change in the newspapers.

so here are a few interesting ones i read on way to pune yesterday.
"i have changed my name from Banarasi Abdullah Banarasi Bismillah Baba to Khan Mohammed Kasim Bismillah Baba".

"i have changed my name from Mohammad Naushad Mohammad Aqil and Shaikh Naushad Akil to Shaikh Mohammad Naushad Mohammad Aqil".

"i have changed my name from Vilas Karamanbhai Domania to Vaishali Ashwin Kumar Panchali".
i maybe forgot to add sex-change as one of the reasons.

Common School System - some exchanges

i had started endorsing the CSS since i read about it a couple of months ago.
first post was here and then a full fledged endorsement here.

in this week alone, i have had 2 chances to engage in direct discussions with groups in defense on CSS. one was initiated by purvsoutlet and the other was over email.

the obvious exchanges over free markets, parents choice, egalitarian society, etc. were thrown around and in a healthy spirit, the discussion ended without any judgment.

the email exchange, however, went into uncharted areas.
the critical points from the exchanges follows:

nm said

So I am feeling pretty confident that the high school agenda will come back with a bang. Also, there is a popular backing for it. There is a huge unemployed rural middle-class, middle caste youth, which will die to become govt. teachers – unlike upper caste, upper class doctors who don’t want to work in govt service. These guys can mobilise votes too.

csm response

I would like to believe that, if they did not press ahead with the RTE bill in its form. The speed at which Sibal pushed it through, is clearly an indicator of him getting major brownie points with MMS (which he has got in truckloads).

I believe that their social sector thrust will rest with the NREGA and stuff around those lines. I don’t believe that it will traverse to the main social sectors of health and education.

nm said

About the common school system. Come to Jharkhand – you can’t find a school, common or otherwise, in most of the villages there. The private sector is dominating the metros and the small cities, maybe. But where the law will really matters, there is nothing much and nothing at all but govt. I think, in principle, a common school is a good idea. But there is a history of progressive groups of the oppressed opting out of the common school system because they found it discriminatory – think of the Dravidian movement or the Dalit movement in Mah or the progressive Muslim groups in the Deccan and South. It will be hard to win these people over to a system which promises homogeneity, but not necessarily equality. Typical leftist problem of being unable to understand caste, culture – or see it as divisive and some kind of ‘false consciousness’.

csm response

The CSS goes hand in hand with local ownership. The latter has to be the lynchpin around which the CSS will evolve.

The govt school system in the villages have primarily failed due to this factor. As long as the government is “mai-baap” of society, no system will work.

Of course, it has to break through the rigid application of caste hierarchies. And I surrender that the last 60 years has not been able to dent this structure.

The progressive groups have moved out of the system and found their niches and school-ghettos. It has helped their social/economic progression, I agree completely. But it has further wedged apart society. If that’s the way it will be, I will not be any part of it.

To economically equalise society, the rich will have to give up their riches, along with the pulling up of the poor. In the very same manner, the upper castes have to get off their high horse.

I have direct experience in the former but zilch in the latter and hence am doing simple extrapolation.

And so far as all education continues to divide society on the basis of labour (in other words, demean manual labour), no system will eventually work.

definition of rich

in this article, gary north explains 'rich' as follows:

I have a peculiar definition of "rich." It is easy to understand. I know almost no one who has achieved it.

"You are rich when you quit your wage-earning job and pursue your life's top goal without ever drawing a paycheck again."

Note: I did not say "when you can afford to quit." I know lots of people who are rich by that definition. But they don't quit. This includes me.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of riches is to unlock the golden handcuffs, hand them back to their owner, and walk away.

But what if you love your job? It pays a lot, you say, but you would be willing to do it for free.

Then do it for free.

Why?

To get rid of the golden handcuffs. Do not depend on them.

success versus significance

When men reach middle age, they face a decision point: success vs. significance.

If a man defines success as being different from significance, this decision point is a big one. Mid-life crisis is associated with it.

If he regards success as significance, he may have to make a career change. Most men's careers are not geared to significance.

The larger your allocation of time to significance, the better. The earlier you begin, the better. The justification for focusing on money rather than significance is that you need to accumulate a lot of money to finance your significance. When you reach your goal, turn in the golden handcuffs.

unlike gary north, i know a few people who are rich :-)
many write on this blog and many are somewhere in the fields of rural india.

flaws in understanding the planet situation

i say "planet situation" instead of "planet crisis" as my understanding grows.
and this commentary accuses a lot of us (including obama) of not understanding this situation correctly.

(a) It’s us against the environment.

(b) It’s us against other men.

(c) It’s the individual (or the individual company or the individual nation) that matters.

(d) We can have unilateral control over the environment and must strive for that control.

(e) We live within an infinitely expanding ‘frontier’.

(f) Economic determinism is common sense.

(g) Technology will do it for us.

(Source: Gregory Bateson, ‘The Roots of Ecological Crisis’, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Ballantine Books, New York 1972)

read it. it is long but wise.

the thing is, i really really...

the two phrases that slightly dumb down spoken language ...
1. the thing is....
2. ...really really...

bangalore bombers

no, it is not a IPL/KPL team.
nor is it LeT's new attack plan.

it is a fantastic group of environmentalists who are bombing the city with seeds....yes with seeds.

Nine Bangaloreans of this group called Samraksha Dharitri are on a mission to make the Garden City green again by throwing seeds balls (see box) over barren lands of the city.

The group meets every Sunday to chalk out a strategy. Stephen Anthony, a techie and president of the group, says, “First we zero in on the location. One Sunday, we decided to go to Bilekahalli. Five sub-groups were formed and they were asked the survey the vacant land where seed balls can be thrown. By afternoon, the sub-groups were back with the report. They had identified 19 roads and 62 vacant plots. We handed over 600 seed balls and asked them to go ahead with the task.”

and our favourite natural farming god, fukuoka, is the inspiration.

Seed balls are a way for distributing and protecting seeds by encasing them in a mixture of clay and compost. Dry organic compost, seeds and clay are mixed together. Just enough water is added to the mixture while stirring to make the concoction bind together. The mixture is then rolled into small round balls and left in the sun for a day or two to dry. Once dry, these balls are ready to be dispersed. Seeds balls are an ancient technique re-introduced by Masanobu Fukuoka, an advocate of natural farming.

courtesy: propoor.org

education announcements - good and not good

kapil sibal coming into heading the MHRD has seen an extended level of noise in the education space. which is good.
and the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill 2008 was passed in early august in the midst of all this euphoria. which is not good.

and yesterday, we are bombarded with 3 new announcements:
1. Std 10 board exams optional for CBSE students. which is a great concept but not good (cos i feel that there has been little public debate on this).
2. 7 new IIMs are being planned. which is not good (cos their track record with the new IITs is abysmal)
3. Tamilnadu government to combine the various education boards. which is very good.

weddings - double bill

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

budget largesse to the rich

sainath blasts the UPA government over their budget allocations and in the same breath takes on the mainstream media in his excellent Aug 15th 2009 opinion piece in the hindu.

the price rise warning due to impending/ongoing drought...

The price-rise-due-to-drought warning is a fraud. Of course, a drought and major crop failure will push up prices further. But prices were steadily rising for five years since the 2004 elections, long before a drought. Take the years between 2004 and 2008 when you had some good monsoons. And more than one year in which we claimed “record production” of foodgrain. The price of rice went up 46 per cent, of wheat by over 62 per cent, atta 55 per cent, salt 42 per cent and more. By March 2008, the average increase in the prices of such items was already well over 40 per cent. Then, they rose again till a little before the 2009 polls. And have risen dramatically in the past three months.

taking on those who whined over the farm loan waiver on 2008...

Remember the great loan waiver of 2008, that historic write-off of the loans of indebted farmers? Recall the editorials whining about ‘fiscal imprudence?’ That was a one-time, one-off waiver covering countless millions of farmers and was claimed to touch Rs. 70,000 crore. But over Rs. 130,000 crore (in direct taxes) has been doled out in concessions in just two budgets to a tiny gaggle of merchants hogging at the public trough. Without a whimper of protest in the media. Imagine what budget giveaways to corporates since 1991 would total. We’d be talking trillions of rupees.

Simply put, the corporate world has grabbed concessions in just two years that total more than seven times the ‘fiscally imprudent’ farm loan waiver. In fact, it means that on average we have been feeding the corporate world close to Rs. 700 crore every day in those two years. Imagine calculating what this figure would be, in total, since 1991. (Er.., what’s the word for the bracket above ‘trillion?’) Ask for an expansion of the NREGS, seek universal access to the PDS, plead for more spending on public health and education — and there’s no money. Yet, there’s enough to give away nearly Rs. 30 crore an hour to the corporate world in concessions.

and to his ardent critics who say that he does not offer solutions...

It could launch, among many other things, the pond-in-every-farm programme. It could restructure farm loan schedules. It could start getting the idea of monsoon management into its thinking. It could curb forward trading-linked speculation that was driving one of our worst price rises in history long before the drought was on the horizon. And it could declare universal access to the PDS. That cost could probably be easily covered by, say, cancelling the dessert from the menu of the unending corporate free lunch in this country.

green GDP

this concept is gathering steam across the place in indian media circles.
jairam ramesh says GDP = green domestic product.

tehelka's latest article espouses this concept in detail.

Green GDP seeks to evaluate and place a monetary figure for a country’s environmental resources. Simply put: if you know the cost of something, you will value it. If you don’t have a cost for something, you are happy to throw it away. Says Pavan Sukhdev, founder of the Green Indian States Trust (GIST) and pioneer of the Green GDP concept in India, “The traditional GDP simply does not measure the value of forests in national economy. In that sense, it is not a true reflection of wealth at all. The GDP must be made to to take into account the value of natural capital that is being destroyed — forest losses, degradation, declining water quality, etc. — and the creation of human capital in terms of education.”

on an absolute level, i am averse to putting a cost on anything, let alone forests, etc.
monetary value has become the most easily understood construct in our society.
a sad reflection of how we understand things, i must add.

i had written about david suzuki's explanation of costing the value of the services rendered by our mother earth at USD 33 trillion.

inspiration = gandhi

many reasons, but this preface that accompanies each of his books and writings is a gem of the highest order:

I would like to say to the diligent reader of my writings and to others who are interested in them that I am not at all concerned with appearing to be consistent. In my search after Truth I have discarded many ideas and learnt many new things. Old as I am in age, I have no feeling that I have ceased to grow inwardly or that my growth will stop at the dissolution of the flesh. What I am concerned with is my readiness to obey the call of Truth, my God, from moment to moment, and therefore, when anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the later of the two on the same subject.

M.K.Gandhi

Harijan. 29-4-'33. p.2

am currently reading the book which transformed gandhi - Unto this last.
thanks to nipun for pointing.

chilling encounter killing

tehelka captures a chilling daylight murder on camera.
the manipur police commandos seem to clearly bump off chongkam sanjit in broad daylight in front of teeming public.
see the photos and read the accompanying police report.

jungle raj are there.
i pray for for sanjit, the commandos who were ordered to pull the trigger and pray that such rage will be countered by the force of love.

tested spine - its holding

almost 2 years since i had a spinal surgery, i put it to its first test yesterday.
a trek from lonavla to rajmachi fort.

we could not make it up all the way to the top of the fort (footwear malfunctions), but we saw superb scenes like this and this. and the famous duke's nose. awesome.
thanks to all the enthu trekkers+bloggers for the photos.

so we covered around 20 kms (8 hours of walking up and down hilly tracks).
and reporting safe, sound and only a little achy-shaky.

thanks dr. rajasekaran of ganga hospital.

mumbai phrases 3 - Boomaboom

means to lambast/blast away and is mainly used in a negative context.

तू कैको मेरे पर बूमाबूम हो रहा है?
why the hell are you blasting me?

and such like...

earlier- mumbai phrases 1 and mumbai phrases 2.

common school system

CSS is a must for our country and societies.
kapil sibal has been making a lot of noises over the last weeks over education reform, but not he not anyone even comes close to tackling the real issue.
this is the main crux in this article by latha jishnu.

The debate on reforming the system, too, is skewed and dishonest. Those who advocate market-based solutions to the lack of schooling in India refuse to acknowledge that the common school system prevalent in the US, UK and other developed Western countries was vital in nation-building and building egalitarian societies. While the liberal economics of the developed world, specially the G8, is constantly touted as the way forward, the schooling system of these countries is never held up as a model worth emulating. To admit that the developed world grew and prospered on the basis of strong government-funded schooling which provided quality education would undermine their arguments for privatisation.

the common school system is central to every concept of equity and freedom and democracy.

chapathi-wali bai

this was a new one for me.
i am told that this phenomenon is quite de-rigeur in thane and other places.
the chapathi-wali bai (CWB).
a maid to exclusively make chapathis for the family meals!!

the classic kam-wali bai is one who does the regular house work is an ubiquitous presence in most upper middle class families.

but the CWB is quite a specialisation among the working class bais.
remarkable... this city is.

prices - haywire

some random purchases from today...
6 green bananas - Rs 20
6 little yellow bananas - Rs 12
1 kg cucumber - Rs 35
1 kg toor dal - Rs 100

and they say inflation is at all time low levels!!

p.s: today's TOI carries this story reinforcing dichotomy between inflation and real prices.

...official data shows that prices of cereals, pulses and vegetables have gone up by more than 12% to 20% in the last one year. According to finance ministry data, while the overall inflation rate has been constantly coming down since November 2008 and is currently in the negative domain, prices of essential commodities have been rising sharply.
In the last one year, prices of cereals, pulses and vegetables — as indicated by the wholesale price index calculated on year-on-year basis — have gone up from -1% to 7% in June 2008 to 13-20% in June 2009. The price rise of cereals registered 7% in June 2008 when the overall inflation rate was 12%. When the inflation rate started climbing down in November and registered a single-digit figure of 8%, the prices of cereals went up by 9%, pulses 11% and vegetables by 24%.
In March, the inflation rate touched the 1% level but that of cereals went up by 12% and pulses by 11%. Though prices of vegetables were in the negative domain bringing some respite to the common man, they again rose to 20% in June 2009 when the prices of cereals were up by 13% and pulses by 17%.

DK Pattamal - RIP

one of god's angels - DK Pattamal - passed away on 16th July.
her wikipedia page.

as always - her music will continue to enthrall and inspire generations to come.

water supply - mumbai

i grew up in madras for around 22 years, a water scarce city. pumping water was a daily affair.
the last 10 years, i have been in bombay, a water surplus city. bombay residents are 'water wastrels' - not only in comparison with madras, but even absolutely.

here is a great diagram which explains bombay's water supply.
courtesy hindustan times july 14th mumbai edition

the current situation is certainly unsustainable - getting water from 100+ kms away.
am sure that the locals there are cursing us - the city dwellers.

angles

i was acutely pained when they called me obtuse, but they were right.

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.

honey i shrunk the sea

the aral sea is disappearing.

the wikipedia images iteself shows the dramatic alteration over 20 years.

nasa images tells this calamitous story over a 9 year period.

the shrinking apparently has speeded up over the last 3 years.

well, now, 96 months seems a tad optimistic!!

96 months left

i am not a big fan of prince charles and would treat his 96 month doomsday scenario with skepticism.

but there are enough signs that something is going very wrong. and many of the prince's points are valid diagnosis.

may be a 'scare' tactic may jolt a few out of their insensitivities? i don't think so...

in the 11th hour, david suzuki mentions a study which costs the services rendered by nature at $33 trillion per annum. and that economists assume that these services (i.e., pollination, CO2 to oxygen conversion, etc) in their models and think that these services are free and will be available forever.

favorite people

i grew up on this rivalry.

photo courtesy - rediff

federer in flight

majestic.

photo courtesy - wimbledon.org and reuters

citizen vs consumer

this comparison is essentially what i would call the government school vs private school.
my rights in a government school is made available to me as a citizen.
my rights in a private school is available to me as a consumer.

in theory (and potentially implementable practice), the rights of a citizen are far superior to the rights of a consumer.
so any move which facilitates privatisation of education in intrinsically converting citizens to consumers.
the oft repeated argument is the poor quality of the government service being the key driver necessitating the provision of better options to the public.
i trust that this quality enhancement is majorly doable if we work on building a participatory/democratic framework in the schools which allow all stakeholders to play their 'roles'.

in a related theme, in a discussion with sampat, a valuable point he raised was - "who will do the labour?"
more on that to follow.

earlier posts on such topics are "state of education", "more kids in private schools" and "dichotomy of activists"

michael jackson - RIP

i like michael jackson, mainly for his dancing.
i never could understand pop music lyrics ever.
but his dancing, i loved. it will live on forever. genius level.

he is probably the most copied performer of all time.

but this eulogy (by saswat pattanayak) is the best of all. saswat is by fave left-leaning commentator.
his analysis is outstanding. please do read.

but for me, MJ = Michael Jordan. period.

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...

the four agreements

don miguel ruiz's above titled book has some simple and powerful tenets for each individual:
almost a year ago, jayeshbhai read this beautiful list to a group of us. and i remember
writing it down on a hastily torn out sheet for future reference and safely tucking into a book.
but as usual, it gets consigned to its confinement. but its resoluteness is remarkable. this sheet nicely squirms out of its safe confines and floats into my consciousness to remind me of the agreements and to share.

1. Be impeccable with your word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

courtesy: someone good at something good

crazy - is saar cozy in his suit?

the french are known to be impetuous, imperious, and recently... imbecilious.
the ban on burqas is bumbling, baseless and bacchanalian.

i think it stems from the fact the the hijab was not designed by yves st laurent.

enriching soil - charcoal

charcoal mixed with soil is called terra preta.
and this BBC documentary explains how this technique had a remarkable effect in on of the least fertile areas in amazonian south america.
i was led onto this by a very excited DVS.

am surely going to be making this at within 365 days.
here is how i will go about it.

tolstoy on education

“What then must we do?” is tolstoy’s social analysis from the 1870s-80s through his experience to try to understand urban poverty (in Moscow) and solutions.

Am just getting started on it, but it is so rich in its analysis and am totally staggered by some of its imports.

For eg, here is his commentary on education…

What the common folk call ‘education’ is, fashionable dress, refined conversation, clean hands, and a particular kind of cleaniliness. Of such a man in contradistinction to others, they say he is an ‘educated man’.

In a rather higher circle they mean by ‘education’ the same that is meant among the people, but to the conditions of ‘education’ are added piano-playing, a knowledge of French, ability to write a Russian letter without mistakes in spelling, and yet more external cleanliness. In a still higher circle by ‘education’ is meant all this, with the addition of a knowledge of English, and a diploma from one of the higher educational institutions, and yet a higher degree of cleanliness. But the first, second and third kind of education are essentially one and the same. “Education” consists of those forms and that knowledge which will separate a man from others. Its object is the same as that of cleanliness – to separate us from the mass of the poor, in order that those cold and hungry people may not see how we make holiday. But to hide oneself is impossible, and they do see.

And thus I became convinced that the reason it was impossible for the rich, to help the town poor, lay also in the impossibility of coming into close touch with them, and that this impossibility we ourselves create by our whole like and by the whole use we make of our wealth. I became convinced that between us – the rich – and the poor there stand a wall of cleanliness and education that we have erected and reared by our own wealth, and to be able the aid the poor we have first of all to destroy that wall, so that we may apply Sutaev’s method of distributing the poor among us. And from this side, too, I reached the same conclusion to which the course of my reflection on town poverty had bought me: that the cause of that poverty is our wealth.

the range of experiments that tolstoy has indulged in his life is quite amazing. here is his experiences as a school headmaster.

IIPM - shucks, lies and tapeworms

almost exactly a year ago, IIPM was declared a fake university by UGC.
IIPM fought and won a legal battle against the UGC and got themselves off that list.

a latest scoop by Careers 360 have exposed the lies and marketing gimmickry that is IIPM. for the nth time.

thousands of students duped and hard earned parents' money down the drain.
time they are held accountable by the powers that be.

hat tip: abi at nanopolitan

modakam at madhavashram uphar gruh

madhavashram at girgaum is a lodging hotel which serves simple meals (only dinners).
for over 100 years, this eatery (grade 2 as per the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai - Health Dept) has retained its original design of its founding fathers (check the above link in detail).

tagging along with abodh of straying around, we partook of their special fare last week on the occassion of sankasthi chathurti.

the modakams are legendary and they indeed are divine. the whole meal was just lip smacking.

the good news is that sankasthi chathurti comes every month and i am planning to make this a monthly affair.
yummy.

authority destroys

on platform no. 2 at Churchgate station, i read this:
अधिकार विनाशकारी प्लेग के सामन है । जिससे भी छूता है नष्ट कर देता है
adhikaar vinaashkaari plague ke saaman hai। jisse bhi chootha hai nasth kar deta hai.
authority is like the bubonic plague, whoever it touches, gets destroyed.

i fully agree.

dal switch

may not be an altogether new switch.
while making rasam, we used masoor dal instead of toor dal.
was very good. and masoor cooks much faster.
try it.