The proverbial last straw

As we grieve with the parents of Amanat and fellow countrymen, a few thoughts come to my mind that I would like to share with you.  This most unfortunate incident has been the proverbial last straw and released an avalanche of pent up feelings.

We have a saying in Bhojpuri which roughly translates to this - "I was feeling like crying and (fortuitously) something poked my eyes (and gave me an excuse to cry.)"  The unfortunate and brutal tragedy that "Amanat" suffered is this poke that has precipitated the tears that a growing number of population has been finding hard to hold back for some time now.  This is the section of the population that is more concerned about the real issues affecting them.  These are the economic issues, the law and order issues, issues concerning opportunities for growth, issues of creating a more egalitarian society, issues of accountability for highly paid bureaucracy and politicians, issues of corruption eating into the vitals of the system.  They are unlike their mothers, fathers and elder brothers - those victims of the earlier feudal system who were happy with condescending politicians and babus who occasionally threw crumbs to them and pandered to their base instincts for competitive identity management. This new breed of people is not willing to put up with an apathetic and manipulative system and they are crying out for change.  A change that will mean a clean break with the way we have been running this country for six decades now.  To me this restless desire for change looks like the harbinger of a new era and a ray of hope.

What truly beats me is that the present system is not able to see this deep craving for change at all.  The politicians remain apathetic, the police oppressive and manipulative, and the bureaucracy unconcerned.  Probably the politicians feel that while they have divided the populace along umpteen lines of religion, caste and creed, they remain highly united in their skilled manipulations and that the dust will settle down as always.  And the police and bureaucracy partake of their complacence.  Hopefully this dust will not settle down, not this time.

And this is why Modi and Kejariwal are emerging as new icons of hope.  While Kejariwal stands for bringing about systemic changes that can put a stop to the current rot, Modi symbolizes robust performance and a no-nonsense approach.  And this is what this new generation of Indians desires above everything else.

Let us hope a new dawn is about to break and that this sad loss and this angry uprising will not go waste.

GFGS

The current rage on the streets of Delhi over the recent gang rape case is essentially similar to that that was on display when the issue of corruption was taken up by luminaries like Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejariwal et al.  It has its genesis in the same thirst for GFGS (Governance, For God's Sake) that led to what Hindi newspapers termed नमो, नमो, नमो (Three times NaMo) phenomenon in Gujarat.  The thirst is so deep that it remains unquenched even after two NaMos.  Elsewhere the public is simply sick and tired to the core of a defunct system that doesn't care much for its citizens, their life, livelihood and prosperity.

We must not mistake it as merely an outburst against wretched humanoids who perpetrated the beastly crime against the victim girl.  I am sure that all societies, howsoever evolved, do have a certain percentage of such beastly creatures.  Similarly all societies and their constituents have within them the primal urges that need to be controlled and sublimated through moral persuasions.  It is our leaders in the government who have been given formal powers by the society for governing it.  It is their job to ensure that the beasts in the society are either reformed or subjected to strict controls or, if all fails, eliminated.  They are also supposed to epitomize all the values that the society collectively cherishes and aspires to embrace.  They cannot be otherwise and provide the kind of governance and leadership that the society desires and deserves.  Do we see this happening?

It is strange that no leaders from the government have come out to address the restless crowds.  This job has been left to the opposition and the informal leaders.  The government has instead deployed the police:  The police whose job it is to protect the public at large:  The police which repeatedly fails to check and control the beasts amongst us:  The police which sometimes itself is found perpetrating similar beastly acts.  A foreigner may be forgiven for thinking that the police forces in the country exist merely to protect our elected leaders and they hardly have men or resources left to protect the public.  And when they do mobilize the men and resources it is always for repressing the public rather than protecting them.  Has any of our leaders shown the courage to let go of their A-Z kind of security and ask them to perform their first and foremost task of protecting the public? Why are we perpetually deferring the police reforms?

What indeed frightens the daylights out of me is the utter and sheer disregard for law and order that is displayed by our political figures and then imbibed by their followers and finally percolates down to the beastly elements that we have been talking about.  The political leaders must be allowed not to pay toll tax that have to be paid even by a bus carrying a busload of BPL people.  A political leader considers it okay to publicly threaten another public figure who insists on exercising his right of freely moving through the length and breadth of the country.  It is okay for leaders to remain absent from their job, to defy all codes of decent conduct in the highest bodies of the country, to call each other names, to throw missives on each other, to amass DA (disproportionate assets), to entice and kill young girls, to father children out of wedlock.  Once the leaders have thus established their absolute superiority over ordinary mortals and law of the land, it is the turn of their supplicants.  So they go out brandishing legal and illegal arms, rape women and beat up cops.  The message finally percolates to the humanoids who shed all fear of authority and indulge themselves.  Finally the public is bound to get fed up to its nose and come out openly against the deep shit in which it finds itself.

My dear leaders, please listen to this desperate cry for GFGS.

Laments of a mosquito

I am shocked, literally.  And I am lucky.  Many of my fellow mosquitoes have succumbed to the fatal shock delivered with a scary crackling sound.  The humans having failed to eliminate us through chemical and mechanical means, have stooped to using electricity for the purpose.  What is even more inmosquitus (inhuman in their language) is that they have turned it into a game!  The instrument they use for the purpose closely resembles what they call a racket  and used for playing various games.  Come evening, and they start electrically zapping us with great mirth and enthusiasm.  Oh, how we all shiver just at the thought of it.

These ungrateful humans simply overlook the decencies that we display towards them.  For example, most of us mosquitoes keep our distance from them during daytime with a view to not disturbing them at work.  A few that do, are the Frankensteins that are the handiwork of humans themselves.  Humans who want everything to be clean and shiny including the water that they use. Again, when we do come out in the evening, we present the best of our song and dance with a view to amuse them.  As our size keeps us from producing music that is loud enough, we risk getting close to their ears so they can hear us better.  And what do we get in return?  A scornful swat!

Some humans have gone to extremes of absurdity to declare that we serve no evolutionary purpose.  They forget that by saying so they are contradicting their own cherished theories.  They don't ask themselves how could a useless creature survive the relentless evolutionary pressures over eons.

The time has come to make you humans see the truth.  Our job is to help you evolve.  We try and weed out those amongst you who don't have strong enough immune systems.  We are the living injection machines that deliver the test load into your systems.  And we do it not merely as a duty.  We do it with love.  For in return we get our nourishment from you.  And it is nothing more than a tiny drop of your blood.  You waste a lot more for funny tests, sometimes several times a day.  You resent us that tiny drop even as you shout from your rooftops that blood donation is good.

And where has all your creativity gone?  Instead of mindlessly zapping the life out of us you could have used our services to deliver medicines to large populations instead of having to deploy an army of paramedics for the purpose.  Some truly great ones amongst you had probably had a glimpse of this possibility.  It was them who said, "Mosquitoes will remain but we will banish Malaria."  These great people used to work in the health department in a country called India.

But there is little point in talking to you trying to make you see reason.  I am ready for the ultimate zap and so are my brethren.  We all look forward to the day when we will be close to extinction and you would go out to big swamps just to catch sight of some great survivors amongst us.  As you patiently wait for the magnificent sight of a flying mosquito with the accompanying divine music, some of you would prick yourselves with your fancy gadgets and offer that drop to entice it to come close.

Until then, adieu as I fly into that vicious weave on your electrical racket.

Clean Chit Funds (CCFs)

Lesson 1:

First you amass huge funds by whatever means, and then get as many people as possible to give you a clean chit each.  Now the fortune you have made becomes a Clean Chit Fund.

The rating given to such a fund is CCF followed by as many plus signs as the number of chits obtained. If there are no clean chits but only fingers pointed at it, the CCF rating is followed by as many minuses as the fingers.  If there are both, each plus cancels out one minus and vice versa.

If the CCF holder is from an illustrious family, the initial of family name may be prefixed to the CCF rating.

Lesson 2:

Sometimes smaller funds amassed in ways similar to those stated in lesson 1 can be termed CCF even if they are not able to procure clean chits.  The ceiling amount for such small CC fund is stated to be 71 crores by highly placed sources.  Other requirements for such funds to be classified as CCF include the head of such a fund being supported by a highly placed and respectable dignitary.

Lesson 3:

It can be shown as a corollary of the profound Zero Loss Theory that CCFs, by their very nature, carry very little risk and do not require skills for managing them that are too complex.  This has been exploited for the very laudable purpose of upskilling people in lowly professions.  Drivers, gardeners and orderlies now have an opportunity to acquire directorial skills in such Funds.

Lesson 4:.

Interestingly, both sources and uses of CCFs are, more often than not, the same, namely, natural resources.  But some CCFs do choose to deploy funds in accounts abroad with a view to diversification.  In this case the customercentricity displayed by a particular bank has been commented upon by none other than the highly credible head of a recently launched political party.  The bank is said to have gone out of its way in helping CCFs in opening and funding accounts abroad.  They have made doing so easier than opening a no-frill account in a Public Sector Bank for receiving cash transfers from the Government.  This has led to much customer delight.

Mirror Neurons, Dalai Lama and a few questions

Recently watched this video on youtube. Ramachandran briefly talked about his work on mirror neurons seeking a response from Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama asks a very insightful question.  It goes somewhat like this - "Do the mirror neurons fire in your brain merely by looking at another person being subjected to a sensory experience, or must you be watching attentively for this to happen?"  Ramachandran says you must be watching attentively. This means that if you are watching mindlessly, it may not happen.

The two videos give rise to many other questions.  I am listing the questions in the hope that some of you who may have explored this body of knowledge in depth, will be able to reply.

• Is vision central to the working of mirror neurons?  What happens to a blind person who can not see what is being done and to which part of another person's body, if the other person does not provide any auditory clues like a sigh or a cry of pain?  What if he does?
• Will the mirror neurons also fire if you are not watching the real action but a video of it?  Cinema goers  may feel that empathy is more pronounced in this case.  Is it merely because of the focused attention or do the dramatization, the closeup look and the appropriate background music also help?
• There are means other than vision through which we can make another person feel some of what we are feeling.  For example a blood curdling shriek, or a recording of it, may evoke the same horror in the listener that the person who shrieked felt or acted out.  It would seem that both sight and sound can do this. Is there any other way in which the empathetic feelings be evoked in another person?
• Can the mirror neurons make me feel the Buddha kind of peace if I keep attentively looking at an idol of meditating Buddha?  That is, can mirror neurons mimic the inner feelings of the observed person as reflected on his face?
• When another person is touched he can also feel the texture, temperature of the object touching him as well how hard it is pressing against his skin. Can these feelings get conveyed to the attentive observer?
• Many people are reported to have had out of body experiences (OBE).  It may be taken that though they were receiving sensory inputs of sight and sound, their whole body was anesthetized.  It will be interesting to ask them if they felt all the sensations of the people whom they saw while having this OBE.
• What happens if you have your hand anesthetized and watch it being tickled?

Beware of Credit Card Frauds

As I was taking my car out on the second day after Dipawali, i.e., 15-Nov-2012, I was distracted by my phone which announced arrival of 15 messages.  I thought these must be delayed Dipawali greetings and that I could defer viewing them.  But then I opened the message box on impulse.  Out came the Jack-in-the-box and hit me with full force.  All the 15 messages were for successful transactions on my credit card!  All the transactions appeared to be carried out on the Internet and they were all done within the span of one hour with the midnight hour of 14th and 15th November in the middle.  The last transaction was for Rs.200/= for draining out the credit limit to the hilt.

So I parked the car right outside my house and went back in.  A lot of telephone calls were made to Bobcards and umpteen mails exchanged.  I also visited two websites where several of the transactions were made and left complaint notes using a form available on them.  One of them promptly acknowledged the message and also charged back the amount saying that investigations showed that it was a fraudulent transaction.  The other asked me to request my card company to talk to them.  All these messages were passed on to Bobcards.

It seems that my password for internet card transactions was reset by the miscreants and then used for the fraudulent transactions.  Now the Verified-by-Visa (VBV) implementation by Bobcards definitely lacks security.  So if you have forgotten your password or are a miscreant who has got the card number, CVV and expiry date but doesn't has the password, the only additional piece of data required for resetting the password is cardholder's date of birth!  All these data are available with the card company and its service providers and if a staff is so inclined he can easily carry out the password reset operation.  I inquired with some other banks' customers.  They have given me to understand that they have to use an OTP (One Time Password) for password reset.  The OTP is sent to them on their registered mobile number.  This security check is missing in the Bobcards implementation, and this weakness is sure to attract cyber criminals in hordes.

So be careful with your Bobcard.  I am relying on the following (picked up from the Visa website):

Zero Liability

Shop anywhere with absolutely no risk

Your peace of mind and protection are paramount to Visa. Visa's Zero Liability policy is our guarantee that you won’t be held responsible for fraudulent charges made with your card or account information

In fact Visa goes on to say:

Count on quick resolution and provisional credit if your card is lost or stolen. ¹

If your account is compromised, Visa is committed to setting things right without further aggravation or inconvenience to you. Visa’s cardholder protection policy requires all financial institutions issuing Visa products to extend provisional credit for losses from unauthorized card use within 5 business days of notification of the loss.

Performance Quotient (PQ)

When you don't have or don't care to have systems to reliably measure individual employees output, how do you carry out an appraisal?  Well it is pretty simple.  Just substitute input for output and take into account the chemistry between reviewer and reviewee.  The precise formula for performance appraisal is as follows:

Performance Quotient = [{Sum over appraisal period of (Leaving Time - Reporting Time)} multiplied by 100 divided by (number of days$ in the review period*24)] plus (percentage of your liking for the reviewee)

In this system the organization may expect a performance quotient of 100 or more.

Again there are some bosses who prefer the simpler formula:

Performance Quotient = [{Sum over appraisal period of (Final Leaving Time - 0)} multiplied by 100 divided by (number of days$ in the review period*24)] plus (percentage of your liking for the reviewee)*1.5

$ You may choose total number of days or number of working days in consultation with HR.

Note: For using the formula correctly, all time must be in 24 hours format.  Also for an employee who chooses not to quit the office at all a checkout and check-in are automatically performed at midnight.

People get the government they deserve: or is it the other way round?

It is said that people get the government they deserve.  This must be true of societies that are cut off from the rest of the world and offer little mobility to their denizens.  However the present age of jets zipping across global village, instant communication through various data and voice networks and universally accepted globalization, has made the saying stand on its head.  Today capital and talent moves from areas with bad governance to those with good governance.

Thus if you govern well you will attract the best human resources and your economy will bloom.  The quality of your governance will ultimately be reflected in the society / country / population that you govern.   By the same token, you neglect governance you will be left with a poor economy and poorer human resources.  And even if you are a country with an iron curtain and don't allow movements, the capital and talent will simply rot and turn putrid.

"Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." -  Matthew 13:12

My dear netas, you stand advised.

The Office Jerk

The Office Jerk lost all work-life balance,
Family nagged him and it didn't make sense.
He asked the boss for lighter duties,
Only to be rebuked for his impertinence.

The Office Jerk had no family to go back to,
So he decided to turn it into a virtue.
He pretends to work till very late hours,
And expects poor staff to do so too.

The Office Jerk in advance was told the decision,
and tasked with finding for it a suitable reason.
All the while keeping his responsibility in mind
For he also had to make a strong recommendation.

The Office Jerk got close to number one,
But he did not meet the promotion criterion.
So the HR was asked to re-engineer it
Till OJ came out as the most suited one.

The Office Jerk, his BOD* was to meet in London,
For the good old boardroom was not much fun.
Wondering whether he could tag along,
Was told that that was out of question.
* Board of Directors

The Office Jerk, in staff expenses he found a rise,
He figured out the reason after a few tries.
It was his FreqFlier boss' foreign jaunts,
This fact he was asked to carefully disguise.

The Office Jerk, once he went overseas,
To attend a seminar with exorbitant fees.
Learning, if any, is already gone, but
Thrilling are all-paid tour's sweet memories!

The Office Jerk, his computer literacy was low,
And yet, "Best laptop for me", he told them so;
And for operating the god-damned thing,
he must have a secretary in the tow!

The Office Jerk had this very funny notion,
He thought that hard work could get him elevation.
But he was unaware of management's worry:
Who will do their work if donkeys got promotion?

The Office Jerk when young he was told
To show deference to the experienced and the old;
Now old himself, OJ is dismayed to find
That the day belongs to the young and the bold!

The Office Jerk made a serious presentation,
Late in the afternoon, the board lacked concentration.
OJ was asked to make an executive summary,
and give it to the secretary for annotation.

The Office Jerk, his perforev# fell due,
The HR wanted a 360 degree view,
The boss didn't like him, staff despised him,
And the peers didn't give him what he thought was due.
#performance review

The Office Jerk finally became number one,
Decided it was time to have frolic and fun,
So he charged around like bull in a china shop,
and had his entire staff on the run.

The Office Jerk, his boss was a bully
and treated OJ like an office coolie,
At last OJ tried to confront him
But it took just a growl to scare him fully.

The Office Jerk, finally got promotion,
Of his new role he had little notion.
So he decided to be at his formal best
and to always write a terse notation.

The Office Jerk, his promotion was due,
Aspirants were many but positions were few,
OJ dyed his hair and put on his best suit,
And yet why he failed, he is without a clue.

The Office Jerk, in work he was mired,
One find morning he got retired.
Now at home with no escape,
There too the chap is not much admired.

The Office Jerk, he just ran amuck,
Wanted to put in his papers and have no truck,
Couldn't find papers in the paperless office,
So had no choice but to go back to work.

The Office Jerk, may his tribe increase,
His employer wanted his salary to freeze.
He went out with a placard and a mike,
The employer just shrugged, so he went on a strike.

BARFI

Even if you have not seen the film, by now you must know that it is about a lovable kid who is called Barfi because his mother longed for a look alike of the boy featured in Murphy ads.  The mother promptly dies soon after giving birth to the boy: the film breaks the news in a pretty light vein.  Now the image of a boy in an ad is naturally deaf and dumb and for that matter devoid of all senses.  Barfi turns out to be merely deaf and dumb but quite lively otherwise.

The film is an attempt to take a leaf out of Raj Kapoor's book.  The film is even set in a period dating back several decades.  Barfi, born to a chauffeur, grows up to be a handsome boy who has little inhibitions in flirting with girls.  He manages to gatecrash into upper class parties as part of his chase.  Girls fall for him including an autistic one living away from her upper class family and spoilt parents.  She rediscovers Barfi on her way to her family residence as her grandfather lies on the deathbed.

The story continues to unfold in an enchanted fairyland where mothers still long for their lost love, and daughters don't bat an eyelid before walking out, empty handed, of a smooth well settled marriage for the sake of love.  This is a world where the hero has the guile to stage a kidnapping for the sake of money instead of simply asking for it.  And yet he doesn't have the faintest idea of exigencies and demands the exact amount of doctor's fee for ransom.  In this world a handicapped man with an empty pocket and an autistic girl without even so much as a change of dress elope together, ward off other derelicts who in this world limit themselves to just ogling, find employment and a roof in a metro while managing to retain their good looks and humor all the time.  Just to reassure the viewers that this world is part of the real one, there is a scene where the autistic girl demands assistance for doing "soo soo."

In this romantic world love alone triumphs.  Finally the hero gets old and haggard and gives up the ghost.  The autistic girl, though seemingly unaware of the death, lies down beside him and attains death (at will?)  A romantic dying together that will be remembered down the generations.

NB:  Once you have witnessed this strange world, our anxiety laden preparations for leisure travel and furious preparations for a relocation will look truly neurotic and insane. :)

Fight against the cancer of Corruption.

Corruption and the miserable life of a common man are linked together in a vicious circle.  Corruption is an osmotic process that transfers wealth from poor masses to the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.    I do not think that the rural poor are not for the anti-corruption movement.  It is only that they have been misguided to think that asserting their social identity is the real issue and NOT corruption.  However this delusion can be sustained only as long as they do not attain critical minimum level of education and income.  The astutest amongst the politicians realize this and oppose all policies that can truly uplift the common man and other trodden sections.  And the tool that they have perfected for the purpose is the politics of identity management. This is the reason that all economic reforms have been put on the backburner for such a long time.  What is most unfortunate is that many of the practitioners of this devious politics are from among the downtrodden themselves!

So it is an unfortunate truth that there are few takers for the anti-corruption movement beyond the middle class. And yet this battle against corruption can be fought only by gaining political power and aggressively pursuing policies for the economic upliftment of the masses so that can see the real issue and bring about the change this country so badly needs.  There is no other way.

Anna Hazare is worried about the sky-high costs of contesting elections.  The costs have been deliberately pushed up by our current breed of politicians with a view to keep the entry barrier high.  The communication technologies available today can help pull these costs down.  Televisions, CD players and projectors, SMS, internet connections in e-chaupals can all be leveraged to bring the costs substantially down.  The challenge lies in making the rural and urban poor see that corruption IS the core issue.

I think that Anna's skepticism notwithstanding, Mr. Kejariwal and his team have taken just the right decision.  Many in the middle class will be willing to provide the funding for the low cost electioneering using the tools mentioned above.

Paan Singh Tomar

Just finished watching Paan Singh Tomar (PST).  I had not anticipated the film to be good and kept on postponing watching it.  It has turned out to be a real good film and I recommend it without reservations.  The film beautifully brings out the the depravity of our system.  I depicts the individual greed so strongly built into our psyches, and the apathy and exaggerated self importance of our self-serving government machinery.  It sympathetically highlights the fact that faced with these callous elements the only option before an upright and straightforward citizen is to opt out and oppose the system despite an almost assured gloomy outcome.

The film is set in the era of 1950s, the time when foundations were being laid for the newly born Republic of India. Our traits shown in the movie persist to date unchanged, more or less.  The central character, PST, is a born athlete and joins the Indian army.  In an interview with his officers he proclaims the government to be immoral and a thief while showing great respect for the uprightness of the defense forces.  After an early retirement PST returns to his village where he is confronted by his avaricious cousin and a corrupt and indifferent government machinery.

I was abroad when the film was released.  I do not know if the film was promoted the way some recent imbecilic films like Bol Bachhan have been.  But if its collections have not been good it could only be due to lack of promotion as its name does little to suggest the brilliance of the movie.

A must watch movie.

A passing thought: We have all witnessed how the surface tension between defense and government on account of their perceived different traits has ultimately and unfortunately resulted in drawing defense closer to the government and not the other way round.  This is brought out by the defense establishment figuring prominently in some of the recent scams.  Look at some of our neighboring countries where the army has no such moralistic pretensions but has succeeded in keeping the political system subservient to it and under its thumbs!!

HumaNation

Humans, at least the the modern ones, have no option but to create multiple organizations. This is so because our needs and wants are and have grown beyond the productive capabilities and skills of individuals or small groups.  Amongst the vast variety of organizations that we humans need and have created, government occupies a special and important place.  It is so because governments provide the basic and common needs of individuals and organizations that are a prerequisite for leading comfortable and peaceful life and commencing and sustaining productivity. 


A government essentially is in the business of protection and they meet their expenses through preemptive taxation.  Protections provided include protecting the life and property of its citizens, protecting their savings through appropriate monetary and fiscal policies, protecting their contracts from being violated, protecting the geographical territory under its control, protecting consumers against monopolistic producers and so on.  The governments also provide some redistributive justice through positive discrimination programs at the cost of better off taxpayers.


Traditionally governments have also been in the business of establishing requisite infrastructure including education and healthcare, for productive activities.  However with the build up of capital outside governments, private organizations are making inroads in this area.  Today one of the most extensive and essential infrastructure - the one for mobile telecommunications - is mostly owned by private organizations.  Similarly some of the best schools and hospitals too are owned by private organizations.

Now, one wonders why is there such a vast multiplicity of governments in the world?  Of course, governments form themselves in a hierarchical fashion.  But the question is not in the context of governments at level 2 and below - states can be considered to be at level 2 while municipal corporations and other local self government bodies are at the next level. The question is why do we have so many level 1 governments in the world?  Level 1 governments are important in as much as the functions of protecting the geographical territory and savings of its citizens, in other words defense and fiscal and monetary policies are invariably its responsibility.  Also, it cannot be gainsaid that these level 1 governments are fierce about protecting their sovereignty and sovereign powers and that is why level 0 organizations like UNO and IMF have never really attained the level 0 status envisaged for them.

The question arises - is there an optimum size of terrain or population for a level 1 government?  Or is it limited by the considerations of racial, cultural, religious, and lingual homogeneity?  Or are the different sizes merely results of historical accidents based on the strength, vision and fancies of original settlers / conquerors?  Or have all of these factors have played a role in bringing into existence today's level 1 governments.

Whatever be the original cause, today all these bases for forming a level 1 government are getting weaker and less and less relevant.  Air travel, telephony and data communication have considerably diluted the concept of distance.  The very same technologies have brought different cultures and races together by knitting together locations across the world in the totality of production and distribution processes.  It is remarkable that while governments have remained constrained by geographical considerations and national boundaries, the business corporations have transcended these boundaries and become multinational.


Thus state-of-the-art technologies point to a distinct even if distant possibility of bringing the entire human race together under a single level 1 government without any need for coordinating bodies at level 0!  But for today's technologies and organizational capabilities this possibility could not have emerged.  Of course, many more things other than dilution of distance and some mingling of people from varied cultures and races, will have to be done to achieve this possibility.  But what we can be sure of is the fact that all these efforts, howsoever hard, will be quite worthwhile.


The list of advantages that would accrue if we could ever realize the possibility presented before us, the possibility of having a single nation of humankind, the HumaNation, are mind boggling.  It is so because the resources devoted to inter-governmental activities and processes are enormously gigantic.  Let us take a look at the list of things that will just vanish into thin air and release hugely enormous resources we are talking about.

• There will be no need for defense budgets, armies, spy organizations and defense technologies like nuclear weapons!  Possibilities of invasions by aliens remain remote and infinitesimal.  Disarmament in one go!
• No need for maintaining huge departments by multiple nations for administering to complex import and export regulations.  Same goes for immigration departments.  There will be no need for GATT and WTO either.  For that matter all level 0 bodies and their activities will cease.
• The savings from closing down of embassies and high commissions too will be tremendous.  Just look at the number of these establishments all over the world.
• There will be nothing like foreign exchange management, trading and related risks.
• There will be no tax havens or Swiss banks to store one's black money.
• Need to fight crimes like illegal immigration, smuggling, havala transactions will vanish as these crimes will cease to exist by definition.
• Administration of worldwide (multinational) corporations will be greatly simplified.

One of the stronger risks in this new HumaNation will be capture of the unified political power by wily elements or the highly gifted politicians of the variety found in our country in good numbers.  Terrorists and fundamentalists too will train their sights on the same aim.  If they were to succeed, there will be little hope for the mankind.  Can we find a way of positively avoiding this risk?  In the meantime you could keep your entry for the anthem of HumaNation ready for submission.

Down the Memory Lane

When we were invited by a colleague to attend his son's marriage at Dehradun, my wife and I were pretty excited.  We had visited the Dehradun-Mussorie-Haridwar-Rishikesh circuit nearly 40 years ago - soon after our marriage. So we immediately thought of utilising the occasion to tour the same circuit once again and live over our memories.

We had several fond memories of our first visit though the pattern was strange.  A few pictures remained sharply itched while most details were blurred and some totally missing.  The places which we could recall clearly enough included the Laxman Jhoola at Rishikesh, the lawns of Forest Research Institute (FRI), the cascading falls of Sahsradhara and the famous Kempty falls.  But, strangely enough, neither of us could recall for sure the mode of transport that we had taken for visiting these places and many other details.

This time we engaged a taxi, an Indica, for three days.  The idea was to spend one day for local sightseeing, another for visiting Haridwar and Rishikesh, and the third for visiting Mussorie and Kempty falls.  Our three  day period started on a Saturday after the marriage ceremony on Friday.  The taxi driver strongly advised us NOT to visit Mussorie on a Saturday and least of all on a Sunday.  The reason given was plausible and later on proved to be quite correct.  It was the huge rush of visitors from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana during weekends.  So it was decided to do Haridwar and Rishikesh on the first day (Saturday), Dehradun on the second day, and Kempty falls and Mussorie on Monday.

Dehradun was pretty hot; almost as hot as Lucknow when we left it.  Some friends at the marriage ceremony who had arrived early and already visited Mussorie told us that even Mussorie was hot!  And when we visited Haridwar and Rishikesh, we found the weather to be just as bad.

On our way to Haridwar, we stopped over at Lachchiwala Picnic spot.  We don't recall having visited this place during our earlier visit.  May be it just wasn't there.  (I just did a quick google: Yes, it wasn't there.)  It is a cascading canal near a forest area and a good place to splash around in the water and relax.

It was a Saturday when we visited Rishikesh and Haridwar.  Both the places were terribly crowded.  Laxman jhoola was packed with tourists moving in either direction as also two-wheelers and occasional luggage carts.  The water in the Ganges below was muddy and there were several groups of rafters enjoying themselves.  Both sides of the jhoola are overcrowded with shops selling all kinds of tinsel, pooja saamagri, and sundry items.  Ashtdhatu rings promising to be a cure-all were available on almost all shops.  One of the temples in the temple complex on the shore of Ganges promised to inform you of the date of your death if it happened to be within 5 months to one year, so that you could tie up all the loose ends before your departure.  Other temples in the complex had other things to offer and were interspersed with shops selling rings and tinsel.

After crossing back the Laxman jhoola, we noticed a small coffee shop a little high up and overlooking the jhoola and Ganges.  It was run by young and mod boys.  The cold coffee was good though they had run out of ice cubes.  A few foreigners were there amongst customers.  The chap at the counter provided us with the directions to the Chotiwalla restuarant which my wife recalled from our earlier visit 40 years ago and strongly desired to visit again.

Though the taxiwalla was a little reluctant to stop over at Ram jhoola, he perhaps got persuaded by our offer to join us for lunch at Chotiwalla.  Chotiwalla is on the other side of the Ram jhoola and conspicuous by a heavily made up rotund man with a huge choti at the top of his head sitting in an elevated chair.  The place was crowded but the food was good.  After the lunch we had a few photographs with the chotiwala baba.  He readily agreed and at the end demanded a dakshina.

We skipped the temples at Haridwar including the Manasaa devi temple.  There is a cable car service for reaching this temple.  We went straight to the Har ki Paudi where the parking was overflowing with vehicles. We spent some time at the Paudi.  There were several people roaming around with receipt books, claiming to represent appropriately named trusts and collecting money from whoever will pay.  The water was muddy and looked clouded in the plastic bottles in which people were collecting the holy water. 

Inquiries revealed that Ganga Aarti was to take place two hours later.  Looking to the rising crowds and over full parking, we decided not to wait for the aarati and left immediately so as to reach our base - Dehradun - in time.  Our friends in Dehradun felt bad about our decision and said that the two places reveaied their true beauty only late in the evening.  That was quite understandable as the darkness served dual purposes - one to hide the filth around and secondly to highlight the mesmerizing lights from aarati and deepaks.

The next day, a Sunday, we visited local tourist spots in Dehradun.  We chose FRI as our first destination as we could recall beautiful lawns with beautiful trees there from our first visit.  It has a huge campus and sprawling lawns and is housed in a beautiful red brick building built in the year 1929.  The long corridors have an old world charm about them.  The wooden furnishings and displays are simply magnificent and so are some relics from the British period.  The institute has six museums devoted to wood, trees, forest produce, tree pathology et al.  The guide told an interesting and a bit scary fact that the total green cover in our country has dropped to below 20% while in Africa and USA it is over 30% and 40% respectively.  We also learnt from him that ND Tiwari has a bungalow in the FRI's premises.

Robbers' cave, now better known as Guchhu Pani, is another place we don't recall having visited earlier.  It is a stream flowing through an open cave bordered on both sides by two rocky hills that comes out into the plain near the entrance to the place.  The place was very crowded.  Worse, the stream and the entire place was littered with plastic bottles, plates and packages.  A place defaced as viciously as it is beautiful.  We were later to find the same reckless littering all over the hills along the road to Mussorie and Kempty falls.  I explored the cave alone first and then thought it fit to invite my wife who suffers from knee pain and finds navigating uneven surfaces difficult.  However as she was entering the cave someone shouted that there is a snake in the water and the crowd looked threateningly poised to rush out.  She immediately abandoned the thought of exploring the cave and walked back out in a determined way.

Sahasradhara had not only the crowds and littering but also a terrible traffic jam on the narrow road leading uphill to the point.  Ultimately we abandoned the car and walked to the point.  The water is supposed to be rich in sulphur and have medicinal properties.  However the whole place was in stark contrast with memories from our earlier visit.  Our recall was of a place far away from maddening crowds with clear and not muddy waters with just a couple of eateries serving puri-bhaji.  At lunch time we went into the restaurant run by Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd. (GMVNL) which had a shabby look.  A look at the restaurant and the adjoining guest house run by GMVNL convinced us that our decision not to book their hotel at Mussorie was perhaps correct.  The lady at the counter said that the only available dishes were Maggi and Chowmein.  A stall outside was selling bread pakoda and that was what we had for lunch before we walked back to where the car was parked.  The driver informed us that he was fined Rs.50/= for wrong parking but was allowed to peacefully continue to occupy the same place afterwards.


Yet another place we visited in Dehradun was the Tapakeshwar Mahadev temple.  The temple is located in a cave and water used to drip from the ceiling of the cave.  Legend has it that earlier on milk used to drip but it gradually turned into water.  These days there is not even water dripping from the ceiling as the source may have gone dry.  May be the dripping will resume after rains.  The name Tapakeshwar is derived from the Hindi word Tapakana which means dripping.


The third day we proceeded for Kempty falls a little early in the morning - 9 AM.  Much of the mountains all along the way were littered with bottles and trash discarded by the tourists.  We went past Mussorie as our first destination was Kempty falls.  Further ahead we passed the Company gardens and the taxi driver assured us that we will stop over at the garden on our return from Kempty.  We reached Kempty and the owner of one of the many eateries lining the road offered us the use of the space in the front for parking.  Naturally, in return, he expected us to patronize his shop.  We had some tea and proceeded to the cable car station.  We avoided the rough and winding stairs on account of my wife's knee pain.  Kempty falls too presented a picture that did not agree with our recall.  A shallow pool has been created to catch the gushing waters from the fall and it has an opening opposite the receiving end to pass the water further down below.  Down below there are a couple more pools.  Around the circular pool there are several shops renting out swimming dress and inflated tubes.  The building around the pool is two storied and the two sides are connected by a bridge.  Those not inclined to splash around in the pool can just stand on the bridge and enjoy the view.


There is a pond about 150 steps down a rough hewn staircase.  It has paddle boats, shikara and water balloons.  There is a swimming pool too.  This place has an entry fee of Rs.50/= per head but is worth a visit after having come all the way to Kempty.


On our way back our cable car was shared by a young couple and their son.  The lady bitterly complained about being charged the full amount even though they wanted only a one-way ticket back up.  They had taken to the stairs on their way down to the falls in the hope of saving half the full ticket amount.  After our return we had a light lunch of roti-sabzi and the by the time we were ready to head back, there was a severe traffic jam.  Kempty is just a stopover and the road goes on to Yamunotri.  So there are not only cars and SUVs but also big buses on the road.  With cars parked on both sides of the narrow road, the traffic somehow moving both ways looked like magic.  The driver was an expert one and managed to reverse out of the parking, make a sharp turn back and navigate through the jam.


The Company garden turned out to be a good place.  What strikes you at once is that it is almost free of trash and littering.  It seems that the notices proclaiming that the place is under video surveillance did manage to discipline the visitors.  The garden also has a nice modern food court with an atrium housing bright flowers and lush green plants.  We were glad to find Vadilal Icecreams having a counter.


On reaching the Mall Road, we declined the driver's offer to buy a pass and drive us through the Mall Road. We walked half way to the other end of the road and found the cable car station for Gun Point.  We were told that the wait time was close to 2 hours.  We gave up the plan to visit Gun Point and hired a manual rickshaw back to the famed Library building near the barricaded entrance to the Mall Road.  The Mall road by itself doesn't have much to offer by way of sight seeing.  However there are benches lining the side of the road overlooking the valley and you can laze away any free time if you are able to find a vacant bench.

On our way back to Dehradun, we stopped over at Kuthal to visit a friend.  The friend visits the house with his family during summers each year.  It is a huge plot of land with an old style bungalow in the middle and a real quiet and peaceful place to spend the summers at.  The peace is only disturbed by the vagrant monkeys attracted by fruit laden mango trees.  We also visited a Sai temple along the way.  It was aarati time and we had a good darshan.

Back at Dehradun, we still had the whole of next day as our train was in the evening.  Next day we visited a local multiplex and watched Gangs of Wasseypur.  I will talk about the film later.

The trip served to remove our hesitations and refreshed our touring skills.  We keenly look forward to plan our next tour with our refreshed skills and confidence.

Your will find photos of this trip and a few videos at my Facebook page.

Ferrari Ki Sawari

Saw Ferrari Ki Sawari (FKS) today.  This time we waited till we could spot the symptoms of the film starting to detach itself from multiplexes:  Perhaps it is the other way round, the multiplexes preparing to discard a film which has been milked to capacity.  The symptoms are decreasing number of shows and shifting of these fewer shows to non-prime slots.  The wait stood us in good stead.  The hall was not too crowded and there were fewer distractions.

The film centers around a middle class Parasi family in Mumbai with a very mild tempered and highly principled bread-winner, an embittered grandfather and a very talented grandson.  The talented grandson has justifiable ambitions but the family does not have the financial resources to match those ambitions.  It is surprising to find the principled father stooping to stealing to somehow raise the requisite money.  Though finally everything turns out to be well and provides relief to audiences on the tenterhooks.  And, yes, before I forget, Sachin doesn't make an appearance in the film.  His Ferrari does and is acknowledged in the credits.

Yet another interesting character is a loud and outspoken Punjabi lady who is in the business of event management and happens to gets some business from a local trigger-happy neta and his spoilt young son.  She also uses her charm to gather all the good guys to help out the good guy - the doting father.

The script also beautifully portrays a remorselessly ambitious guys subscribing to the hook-or-the-crook principle, who never develops a sense of remorse and never grants concessions to the trampled victims even when doing so may be neither necessary nor gainful.  It reinforces the theory that nobody ever deviates from his genetically coded character, except rarely and temporarily as the good Parasi fellow happened to do to fulfill his son's ambitions.

Not a bad film and definitely worth watching once.

Ocean of Garbage

Voting for municipal elections is over. All candidates have promised a neat and clean ward.  Elsewhere sadhus are staging demonstrations for making Ganges clean.  Then there is a news that the municipal corporation in Lucknow has neither vacant land(fills) nor resources for disposal / processing of garbage.  Most other municipalities including those in towns along the Ganges may be no different, and the industries releasing untreated effluents will readily advance the same argument.

The news item seems to suggest that it is not a matter of attitude towards cleanliness or the work ethics in our municipal corporations that is responsible for all the squalor around us but sheer lack of physical and financial resources.  Never mind if the lack of resources is a direct fallout of the work culture.  However, lack of resources being the case, the sadhus should not be staging demonstrations but either making generous donations to the corporations / polluters from their overflowing coffers, or else directly investing in sewage / effluent treatment plants along Ganges.  We do hope that they have, at the least, made all the proper arrangements at their ashrams along the rivers and do not add to the woes of our rivers.

Coming back to the wards of the city where we have lots of greenery, one category of garbage is dry leaves and plant trimmings.  The garbage collection agencies refuse to pick them up.  Their argument is that the corporation does not allow them to dump these at the identified locations.  Unstated reasons are their unwillingness and lack of equipments too. The agencies are, of course, private ones engaged directly by the residents.  Yes, the corporation does NOT collect garbage.  There is a long list of things that the corporation does not do.  Maintenance of gardens is another item on the list.

It should be possible to use the undeveloped parks for composting the bio-waste locally.  Somehow even that is not happening.  What is happening is described below.

The disposal of this class of waste - leaves, twigs and trimmings - is done by dumping it on the roadside, allowing it to dry up and then setting it on fire.  Loose plastic bags, scraps of paper, gutka pouches littering the streets are also put in the same dump.

The favorite locations for this yagna-like fire ritual are the four corners of the parks developed by local residents themselves and used for morning walk, yoga etc.  The time for doing so is also carefully made to synchronize with the slot in the morning when the occupancy in the park is maximum.

Our sadhus may have to perform a huge yagna with corporation chiefs as Yajmaans for putting an end to this obnoxious daily fire ritual.  At the end the sadhus should, instead of demanding Dakshina, make donations to the chiefs to enable them to process all the garbage in a civilized manner.

Municipal Elections in Lucknow

Elections for the Lucknow Municipal Corporation are on and the votes will be cast this weekend.  The neighborhood mithaiwala Mr. Shivraj Singh had made up his mind to contest the election from this ward many many months ago.  He had started collecting all his customers' mobile numbers even as he continued collecting the milk bill from them.  His aspirations got dashed to the ground when the seat for our ward was declared reserved for women candidates.

Once the election symbols were approved by the State Election Commission (SEC) about 10 days ago, the campaigning started in the right earnest.  The uniformity in all aspects of campaigning is a little perplexing.  It extends from the size and color schemes of the pamphlets distributed by the candidates to loud voices from mobile vans pleading for support and the choice of patriotic songs that serve as fillers.  However what is most remarkable is the fact that each pamphlet invariably carries the candidate's husband's photo alongside the candidate's photo!  And the husband has more of a neta look than the actual candidate.  The sole exception is the pamphlet from the mother of a martyr in the Kargil war.  The martyr's photograph - a young and handsome officer - appears at the top.

There is little that helps you choose one candidate above the other.  All of them make the same promises, refrain from commenting on what has withheld and is withholding the area's development, and claim the same virtues for themselves except one.  The young ones claim youth and energy as a virtue while the older ones claim their experience and maturity as one.  They all leave the whole place littered with pamphlets after their door-to-door visit, their promises for ensuring cleanliness notwithstanding.  This pollution is later compounded by noise pollution from mobiles blaring out appeal in their favor.

While BJP and congress have fielded their candidates with the party symbols, some other parties have let their candidates contest on their personal symbol. I understand that there was a debate during the BSP government whether party symbols should be allowed in these elections or not.  The court ruled in favor of using party symbols.  I am not able to fully make out the reasons and motives for and against this practice.

An interesting thing happened on Monday.  We received an invitation to attend a Sunder Kand path by well-known Tiwari brothers in the neighborhood park.  This was being organized by three people who were not on the candidates' list.  Many people attended.  The recitation was enchanting but ended with an anti-climax. The seniormost Tiwari thanked the audience at the end of the performance and lo and behold, asked for supporting a candidate who had quietly slipped into the gathering towards the end of the performance!  Well, glory be to Lord Hanuman!

My wife and I are still trying to make up our minds on whom to support when we go for casting our vote on 23rd June, but find ourselves rather clueless.

Rowdy Rathore

Musings on Rowdy Rathore

My wife and I recently watched Rowdy Rathore simply because we wanted to see a movie and there was little choice available.  Though we went on a normal weekday, we were a little surprised to find the hall nearly full.  We surmised that the reason must be the summer vacations.

The film is about a fearless Phantom-like supercop who takes on a powerful and wicked gangster single-handedly.  As the attributes of this character require it to be dignified, a look-alike is brought in to unleash rowdism.  The look-alike takes over from the supercop in the final stages of the battle after the latter is felled by a group that is much too large even for him.  Needless to add that finally the good prevails even though it has to be assisted by some rowdism - satyamev jayate.

The rowdyism displayed in the film conforms quite well to the dictionary meaning of the word rowdy - "An uncultured, aggressive, rude, noisy troublemaker."  But what really draw the applause from the audience are the super-heroic acts by the hero and finally by the look-alike.

Though the fascination for superheroes is universal it seems to be especially strong in the third world where might-is-right prevails in its crudest forms - Baapji is an example in the film we are talking about - and there are too many of them around us.  The villains in the developed world, as portrayed by their films, are a little different and appear in the form of greedy business tycoons and unscrupulous scientists or even aliens from outer space.  They are fewer in numbers but many times more powerful and require true supermen to take them on.  In our case, the capability to take on a few dozen people seems to be enough. But then unlike our developed counterparts, we need one such superhero for each locality and then every sphere of life in that locality.  The reason perhaps being a very high goon-density compared to the developed world.

Superheroes are needed for the simple reason that the normal mechanisms in a society prove inadequate to counter a threat facing the society as a whole or a subgroup of it. Most threats, excepts those from alien life forms, originate from within the society itself. Every society is like the ocean that was subjected to churning (samudra manthan) and like it a society too gives out both life sustaining nectar and life threatening venom.  Societies are only different from each other to the extent of the mix of these two opposites.  Some have more of the first while others may have more of the latter.  Better or more developed ones will have more of the nectar while the worse ones will have more venom pervading them.

However if your villains are confined to deviant businessmen or misguided brilliant scientists only, it shows that your systems are sort of okay and one needs to be a man of exceptional abilities to subvert the system.  But if your the systems are so weak or pervert that almost anyone could yield to the desire of being a tyrant in his / her own small or big way: everyone except those few who are cultured enough or genetically indisposed to such behavior, something must definitely be wrong with the way society has organized itself and chosen to govern itself.

But the fact remains that every society will have its own share of villains and weaknesses in the system, and hence its fantasies about supermen who could deliver it from these.

But the differences between their societies not withstanding, what the superheroes from first and third world have in common is their very human weakness for a sweetheart and this adds as much color to their stories and film scripts as the villainy of the villains.