India 2024....

And here I am returning about perhaps 10 years. Blogging stopped being a thing for a while, a frivolity borne out of boredom for no one, in particular, other than the self and perhaps the occasional reader somewhere echoing thoughts. 'Message in a bottle'.

I just came back from India. Is it changing for the good? Yes. Is it changing for the worse? Yes. Is it the India that I remember? 

A media that seems more or less state-controlled. A state where accountability seems diminishing fast. Where dissent isn't tolerated. Parliament suspended without substance. Parliamentarians expelled on a whim. 

Progress by way of roads and infrastructure projects abound, and India booming more than ever. 

But why is it so grey everywhere? Land, water, sky...

Is it just a sulfurous smog or something darker in the social fabric that has seeped into the air? 

Since have been conscious of my surroundings I have not known an India devoid of conflict. Punjab, 1984, Kashmir, Kargil, Maoists, Assam, Eastern states, 26/11, 6/12, Indo-China border. It seems to be the DNA of the land. Condemned to war of some kind peppered with short phases of peace. Inter religion war, intercaste war, war over land, over water, over gender rights, over human rights, over dignity.

India was never perfect, no country is or will be. The structure of power is in itself an imperfect beast. If it is there for the taking why share with anyone but yourself and your close ones? And if you have near absolute power then remember the phrase on the corruption it inspires.

I saw the 1980s through the lens of a family in power, so long, that entitlement bred unbridled arrogance, corruption and maladministration. 1990's the early bankrupted years through the lens of a coalition that despite all its flaws sprang the hope.

But in all these years few things remained - a free press or an impression of a free press. An accountability or sense of accountability. India ranks 161/180 in the free press index. 

Governance in India over several years in the past decade has even had some exemplary moments and successes of policy and projection. But could it be that the success and the impression of success is breeding a form of arrogance that will consume itself? That because I was right on one thing, I must be right on everything. Democracy is but an erroneous construct. What does the average citizen know about statecraft? Leave it to those who know how to rule, who were meant to rule.  

India is a huge subcontinent, it precedes 1947, 1857, a land where a thousand wars have been fought, won, and lost. History will have it that India has seen its share of rulers of all kinds, good, bad, greedy, and malevolent, and has weathered all. 

Perhaps it will weather again. At what cost, time will tell.

Man in the image of God or God in the image of man

Which is correct?

If God is in the image of man then isn't God but an imagination of the man?
If Man is in the image of God, isn't that again a vain claim by man.

Would to be sacrilege to say God is an image of a mountain or a banyan tree or a koala bear?

In the search of absolute truth, my conclusion here is there isn't one. Let us say absolute truth may be found in a treatise written in one of the many human languages, but whichever it maybe it will be but a scripture of a man's perspective written by man or woman.   

Therefore how can it be the absolute truth given an infinite world with infinite possibilities?

Could 4 legged beasts have a written or unwritten code or viewpoint on God? Could the ocean fish, the trees, or the many forms of nature?

Who can say, no, who can say yes? No one, therefore how can one reliably conclude on absolute truth. One cannot.

One can surmise, evidence within bounds of a frame of reference and convince through powers of persuasion, intellect and communication. However, what may come out as a widely spread view as an outcome of that does not transmute into absolute truth.

In Hinduism Lord Shiva is a supreme force, master, destroyer and spiritual guru. His existence and belief in Him, is an absolute truth for a a vast population. However, outside the context of Hinduism, He is known but not equated with the versions of deity that exist in other geographical or racially different spheres to that is in India.

Therefore if He, an absolute truth for a devout Hindu is not everyone's absolute truth, how can that truth be the absolute truth? Keep aside the known variabilities of humankind to choose to believe or not believe as they like, how would we know if the ones that live but cannot speak the human language agree to that being the absolute truth. And if they can't then it is likely not the absolute truth. To extend further, does the concept of God even exist for those who do not speak and are not human?

If we take Lord Shiva's help to answer my titular question what is probably a truth is that Lord Shiva lived as a man of supreme qualities approaching a widely agreed definition of Godhood, and that is worthy of respect and following for many including myself. The virtues of meditation, calmness, knowledge, sacrifice, material detachment, respect for all big, small, genders, living beings or inanimate objects shines through Shiva's perspective and for that a devout Hindu follows Him and wants to be Him. The God hood that appeared in Him, appeared at different times for different people in different places and was classified in different terms, but it probably shared the characteristics of Godhood.

Noting also that Godhood is a human concept or a human discovery, that may be accorded as an absolute truth within the human frame of reference. 

Therefore is man is an image of God? And when man achieves the conditions of Godhood then at that point is God is in the image of man?

I suppose the answer to both is yes. But then have I also proved that if either is right there isn't such a thing as absolute truth?




 


   

Kashmir - for whom?

I read 2 books on Kashmir over last couple of months. Not the travel kinds, which if there are I guess are long obsolete or told on a land that once was than is. These are books about the history of Kashmir over the last 3 decades, a slice of which I have been a witness to. One is 'Our Moon has Blood clots' by Rahul Pandita and the other 'Curfewed night' by Basharat Peer.

Both books are great assets to India's history, presented through eyes and experiences of men who grew and lived in Kashmir. Both are around my age. Perhaps somewhere in early middle age we are all tempted to explore our roots, seek answers for why things happened. Those that faced the turmoil first hand are among the best placed to answer those questions. That is what Basharat and Rahul have commendably done through their books.

To call out their work as perspectives of 2 different communities would be belittling the idea of Kashmir or India. Whatever its ills, India has generally succeeded in instilling a deep secular belief in its vast, urban middle class - to whom the question of religious identity is generally a secondary one to the question of National identity.

In that sense, I just see their books as work of 2 Kashmiris. Albeit different perspectives, that their circumstances and the unavoidable influence of the communities they grew up in led them to see things as. Both books dwell in the background of an idyllic land of green valleys, rivers, mountains, crisp unpolluted air and water and a rich culture of knowledge and arts. Both dwell on the sheer, mindless savagery that man is capable of against man when gone astray.

Either book does not fully answer the deeper truths behind Kashmir problem. Nor they can, for the real answers I believe are hidden in a complex tapestry of state archives, people sworn to secrecy and a large part perhaps with people who are no more. It does not help that where the state is involved, history in India is by en large condemned to classified vaults and dust mites.

What the books do convey though is - that injustice, real or perceived, combined with political insensitivity, combined with religious fault lines, combined with propaganda is a lethal mix. A mix that Kashmir has been brutally subjected to since the last 2 decades. A state that perhaps should have been the beacon of the region in communal harmony, in natural beauty, knowledge economy, a cultural gold mine - is instead a tattered piece of heavily militarised land where hope and despair are in constant battle with each other, the latter winning more than the former.

The victim of this has been Kashmir, its people, India in its constant state of high security alert and the wider subcontinent. Has all the trouble been worth it? If at all for whom?

Master Chef local - Bhindi - Mushroom biryani in 8 steps

Come Christmas season and time at hand, I decided to give my culinary skills a refresh. Inspiration was lying on the kitchen shelf in the form of raw washed okra and I thought though me and kids may well favour non vegetarian dishes, why not try something that my veggie better half would equally savour. So here goes.

Step 1 - Round up some chopped ginger and garlic, onion, okra and mushroom

Step 2 - Heat a saucepan, add about 2 tablespoon oil and start with the ginger and garlic

Step 3 - Add in the onions and keep stirring...

Step 4 - In go the veggies - okra and mushroom

Step 5 - Keep going on a low burn, you can see a nice brown tinge come along, add salt to taste

Step 6 - nearly done there, ready for rice to go in

Step 7 - Add in microwave cooked basmati rice (I gave this 12 minutes with about 120 g rice and 450 ml water)

Step 8 - Its ready to serve! Stir some some raita to go with and enjoy!

NB: This is hardly a food blog - but as goes with the title anything goes with a creative license!

If only politicians were to write more books...

Continuing on my reading thread I have picked up another book, this time Shekhar Gupta's Anticipating India. I haven't been far through it and the themes of the previous book 'The difficulty of being good' are hard to shelve down still. But in going through it I am going through the equivalent of a 'torch shining through dark corners' of the mind.  The mind has a incessant capacity to seek reason and justify what it sees. When it sees something it understands and agrees with, it resonates harmoniously, when it seems something it doesn't like, doesn't agree with and doesn't understand, it jars and sends pain triggers depending upon how close you are to the problem and how big the problem is. And as time goes this rhythm of resonance and pain triggers somehow imprints itself on a memory reel inside the mind.

Reading up these books I am finding is slowly giving those missing answers to those questions never answered or issues never understood that lie way in the past, 20-25 years ago when I was growing up. Why did the painful events of 80s and 90s happen. The militancy in Punjab and Kashmir, the bribery scandals, political assassinations, riots, minority strife. Why? And looking at those events at the time, one was always trying to understand why the leadership was staying mute and passive.

Why was Narasimha Rao so quiet, when he did achieve much? Why Rajiv Gandhi, a charismatic leader, and a good human being by many accords, fail so miserably in expectations of him? Why did CWG corruption go unpunished for so long? Did people like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh not have power to rope them in? Why did Manmohan Singh not take any action against his corrupt ministers despite one scandal after another?

These are the kind of questions that remain entrenched. Slowly these collective of books are giving the answers. Not complete, not direct, but factual nuggets here, and plausible theories here that begin to stack up. And whilst they do not undo the wrong that was done, the fact that I understand 'why' better, rings in a degree of resonance to a question long unanswered.

All these books though are works of either senior and reputed journalists or senior industry leaders. None, by politicians. I wonder though if I can glean so much from memoirs or equivalent of journalists, how much more there would be to books by India's politicians. And why aren't there enough?

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that an Indian politician never retires and thus never has the space to go into a memoir mode. Unlike the United States or the United Kingdom, where once you have had your chance at power for an agreed timeframe 5,10 or 15 years, that is it. You are out of it then and expected to sit back and let a newer set lead. Not so in India. In India you just go back to the pavilion and wait your turn in the next innings. Over and over again. If you don't have a team that makes it to the league, switch loyalties and you will get there eventually.

And so it seems an unwritten mantra, if you want another innings, never make any foes, even with ones you are ideologically opposite to. By extension never write a book, for in doing so you are bound to expose skeletons in a variety of closets of your near or far. Doing so might mean your political career is over.

Thus the pitiable state of information in India. Slightly different, but in similar vein I recollect a reference Sanjaya Baru makes in his book The Accidental Prime Minister, on Dr. Manmohan Singh's initial drive to allow official documents older than 30 years to be released to public. However Dr. Manmohan Singh did not go ahead and in his response to why, said that the previous (NDA) government should have done that. Then why didn't they? Anybody's guess...

The pointlessness of it all..

Its not a great title to a post. But, its mid week and I have been reading a heavy dose of contemporary literature on India to and fro work. Needless to add, it is not the most optimistic set of books I have read, but it relates to fact in one case and deeply enmeshed mythology in another.

Book 1 - The Durbar - a gripping account of the 1970 to 90s through journalist Tavleen Singh's eyes and views. Hard to summarise but it tells a tale of how every one and anyone, particularly those close to or in power are basically bound to fail expectations or commit mistakes outside the realms of good sense. Few if any good stories emerge from that, from top to tail though its a story how how India was failed time and again and again by its leaders.

Ok, that's done though and whilst it wasnt disneyland reading, it was factual and contextual to a time when I was growing up.

Book 2 - The diffculty of being good, by Gurcharan Das - I am part way through this one, but already grinding to a halt. Which is no good, though in a lopsided way, a tribute to the abilities of Gurcharan Das to construct a powerful narrative. For all, it is an exceptionally richly written book, around the Mahabarat, its characters, the hypocrisy of nearly all - both the so called 'good' and the so called 'bad'. The part I have read so far, elaborates for a fair length on how the world is riveted to envy. How the prosperity and happiness that we so seek and cherish, its other side is abysmal and depressing trait of jealousy. And how many of the world's worst episodes from age old to modern 20th century find their roots in envy of of individual or another or of one group of another. And how unfailingly nearly everyone is prone to it and failings it induces.

It didn't help when to digress I picked a short story book by Anupam Kher and the first page I open is on the same subject! I must take a pause.

Obviously this post is not about optimism. Nor does it try seek a solution. Its like one of those soul searching movies that finish abruptly with credits, with a question suspended on you.

Is there a point to it all?

Hoping for a better India..

16th May 2014. I would like to record this date when a turning point was set for India. When a change in true sense was initiated. 5 years on will it be? I hope it will. For too long the country has seen weak, indecisive leadership, leadership that has been content to project weakness for sake of its survival.

As a child, watching cricket it never ceased to amaze me how countries much smaller than India were able to turn out teams that would give India a thorough drubbing. It defied common sense that a country with 1 billion people should lose in its national game to a country with less than 10 million people. Did we not have good players? Did a wider base not mean more to choose from? Or was the system that selected at fault. It had to be the latter. A growing years found out, it was the case in not just cricket, but every sphere.

Leadership and administration qualities have been a good-to-have quality, rarely a must to take charge of the high offices of the land.

Perhaps this election has brought about that change...

It is interesting and almost re-assuring to see that change come from a party that has been otherwise labelled all sorts of unpleasant names. Despite all that here was a party that was able to step aside from the heirloom mould and pass the baton to a younger candidate on merit of his administrative calibre. India saw that and voted for him.

Which other party can claim to have done that? Not one I can think of...

The outgoing incumbent, the grand old party, one would have thought could have set this precedent - depressingly it failed to. A generation grew up watching a government sit on the sides as its ministers tore and abused the fabric of India's governance for their own ends. CWG games, 2G scam, coalgate. Was there a leadership at all?

In his recent book 'The accidental Prime minister' Sanjaya Baru wrote that no minister in the Manmohan Singh Government felt he owed his berth to the Prime Minister. Manmohan Singh himself had low respect for most of his minister's administrative capabilities barring 1-2 individuals. Think of a cricket team where the captain doesn't trust any of his players, the players do not have any respect for the captain, they run amok and when they do, Captain just sits and watches. Not what you would call a Government - a 'curse' is a better if strong word.

One hopes though, they can learn their lessons from this episode. The story from this election should not be a one off wonder that India occasionally gets lucky with. It should be that if you choose leaders that matter, leaders who can deliver, the country will choose you.

One hopes for parties to embrace this simple change - Choose its leaders on merit than tradition. Listen to the sentiment of the people, show that you listen and act decisively when you have heard it. That's it

In that change, is the longevity of Indian turnaround really possible. That is the turning point I hope this election will become. 

Ek cup chai ho jaye

Tea has always come about as a respite from having completed a hard piece of work, coming back from a long day, warm up on a cold day, getting the thinking hat in shape, polishing down a satisfying meal or just to sit and share a chat.

There will be hard work ahead, problems to solve and conversations to have. But there is always a cup of tea to get one along.

And like most good things, this one also comes in many avatars, my favorites being -

The hot Indian sweet milky chai- with seasonings of choice 1)Ginger 2)Cardamom 3)Cloves 4) Fennel seeds or a 4)Poupourri masala for a masala chai. Never mind that the flavour of tea is subdued a bit, its almost a delicious thing to have. Indeed when I first picked up having tea in late teens it was almost for the taste than the caffeine need that I enjoyed it.

The Indian chaiwallah (or wallih) tea stall tea - Streetside tea made on a roaring kerosene stove. Milk, tea, water all go in together nearly at the same time. The tea leaves are recycled a good few times, all to a mellowed, but charming effect.

You are never far from a chaiwallah stall in India. Setup infrastructure is small so that helps. The flavour varies from being gingery or spicy in North India to almost chocolate flavoured in the South. Either way it serves the purpose.

With 'chai' milk is about 30-50% of the cup and usually whole milk. It does cut down the 'tea' quotient a bit but goes great with the accompaniment of crisp Indian breads and buns to dip in. Over time you just get used to it and start enjoying it 'milky'.

No wonder coming out of India, most Indians struggle with the thumb sized 'semi-skimmed milks' in the office cafes. They just do not add up to simulate the 'chai'.

Put-the-kettle-on-tea - These days its more of the basic kettle tea version. Boil, pour, sugar and milk and go. Give a little more time I use a secondary kettle for richer flavour and pre-heated milk.

Indeed the popularity of tea must owe to the ability to brew a cup of tea as quickly as one can. However there is apparently a connoisseur art to it as well starting from how tea is infused by type of flavour, to how it is served and the rituals around it - as this site shows. No wonder a connoisseurs with the commercial savvy at one end and with the pockets at the other end make up a market for tea products like these here!

'Brewing' method apart, is the subject of flavours. That is a major subject by itself and the variety out there is enough for most to get to try. Notwithstanding the frequency I find it hard to sacrifice my preferred 2-3 black tea variants for the occasional exotic green tea or fruit infusion variants.

What matters is enjoying what you drink. In any of the above forms, and at most times tea is always a welcome companion. So in gratitude to all those hard working tea pluckers, streetside vendors and the tea-shops here is a toast!

Are our children better off than us?

Or in another way, is the world around our children better than the one we had?

I started to examine the question from a material perspective comparing elements of technology and infrastructure. But as I continued doing that comparing my childhood version with the modern day equivalents I realised it did not matter.

When my Dad occasionally would tell me that his pocket money was 2 annas (decimal of a pence) at the point of handing my weekly twenty rupees (30 pence) pocket money, I did not see his point. How could he compare his time 30 years ago with mine. Maybe to amuse himself but it did not matter to me.

So the case with my kids today. If I tell them that our first phone in the house came when I about 10 years old, it may register a flicker of a bemused expression before they resume Dino Pro on the smartphone, but no more. They have not seen a world without mobiles or even smartphones for that matter. All other comparisons are more or less in the same vein.

Giving up that thread of thought, I took a different one. OK, so all things kept aside, good school, great teachers, extra curricular (may be more of), sensible infrastructure to get around and about - we were even.
It does not bother me that I did not have any of this technology/infrastructure around at the time there is now.    Perhaps I could even be smug about the relative freedom from 'health and safety' and 'traffic control' regimes that have come about since .

What mattered to me then? Reflecting deeper, just 3 things really - one, coming back from school to a warm, happy home,  two, memorable family holidays, and three company of good friends.

Yes, that is all that mattered. And I managed to have all of that that without any of the modern day gadgets and aeroplanes. So by extension, given the same denominator of a happy home, family holidays and good friends, perhaps my children are still only about as well off as I was. Fancier toys and gadgets now does not really give them any edge over their Dad-as-a-child. It just seems to require some many more skills with them to keep up with the world now, when in my time it was simpler.

Of course, as parents we can keep getting better at it, from the things we wanted to fix as kids using the position of authority we have now well. But long story short, our kids world is smaller than it might seem, and there is enough we can do as parents to make it as good as we can, regardless of the level of material wealth at our disposal.

Why do I write?

Looking back on my blog of 8 years or more, I wonder what is the point. Or does it matter?

I started blogging as an experiment, and have maintained the frequency more or less as an experiment. Of putting out random ideas and thoughts out there.

Was it in the hope it will at some point, now or future connect with someone? Occasionally it does, but no, that's not why I write.
Even much of my family is not aware I write.

Maybe it is vent to free some of my, perhaps diminished creative energy that otherwise randomly fluctuates between a watercolor, bit of gardening and then an occasional blog post. There must be some point that I keeping coming back to it every now and then.

I was on a flight back from Delhi to London, where I met this well learned gentleman who was travelling to his son's award ceremony in Canada. Conversation followed on a range of subjects including politics in India, Indian history, methods of agricultural irrigation and the likes. Among the key takeaways from his experience he shared with me was that the more one wields the pen, the more influence one attains. I couldn't disagree, pursued as a wholehearted goal and with the right techniques, that is possible.

But I am not sure that could serve me as a motivation for my writing. But several months later and this Sunday afternoon I stumbled along a post by Cristian Mihai about why people write. It resonated with the generally truant, random writer within more than any reason I could find to write.

He writes well and is obviously eminent as well as his blog following shows. But in that post he summarizes to the effect that he writes because his words matter to him, and if they do to someone else that's just a bonus.

Or in a different way if our work matters to us, that is satisfaction in itself. If others find it of interest that is just a bonus. Indeed that is a much better reason to keep coming back to it.

Indian cinema coming of age

It  might sound like a cliche now, but a firm one at that one might add. Indian cinema is getting better by the year. The days of old hero-villain masala and one taste for all, are well changing closer to the more complex modern realities. New, relatively unknown faces turning up convincing performances and story-lines that keep one guessing.

Five back to back movies that I saw have reinforced that,
First, Table Number 21 - A gripping drama played about an young, familiar-as-next-door aspirational couple being led into a trap of a reality game for a very meaningful end. Who was the bad guy? It fluctuated and in the end it was a social malaise more than any individual. Fantastic movie.
Second, Special 26 - based on a real life drama and enacted to near perfection by the cast and the crew. Suspense that could not be guessed using any of the old formulas.
Third, The attacks of 26/11 - RGVs adaptation of the trauma that India withstood on 26.11.2008. Very realistically made and tense, painful to watch in the recurrence of events that was created. It was hard watching from beginning to end, but it played out the facts and serves as a chronicle for India to visit and hold.
Fourth, 'Shaitan' (devil) - a modern day setting of complex corporate lives, social ladders, rich children going astray to the point of ending up in life destroying situations.
Fifth, Jolly LLB - again another plot akin to what India has witnessed time and again, on the power-play of wealth-politics can defy justice and the fight of an amateur lawyer driven on his conscience to reverse that. Great story, great characterisation throughout, excellent fare.

Not to say that the genre of mass consumption flicks are not getting better. Quality production, cinematography, music, clever plot-lines are making them better as well.

Maybe not just yet, but a Mumbai film industry production matching a Hollywood major globally is on the horizon. I'll give it 3-5 years, but its coming.

Dr. Jagdish Chander Bhatla, 13 Mar 1944 - 24 Aug 2006

Dad would have been 69 today. How would we react seeing his family today as it had changed and grown? 7 years on...

I think he would have been proud. 4 lovely grandchildren, children settling down well and following his can't- sit-idle work ethic, doing things or trying to, falling occasionally but getting there, getting stronger, perhaps wiser. Things a parent eventually hopes to bask in the glory of after the hard years of bringing up children and sacrifices to give your family the best. Odd that he missed all of that.

How would he react to Arjun, Tanvi, Diya, Ruhi? 2 of them whom he never saw. He would love them to bits. He does. But how much they miss and what they miss, even they do not know.

Loss is funny, it takes away and then numbs you. In that numbed state you forget what you are missing, and then you occasionally realise. Does it change how you are, how you feel about life? It does, I know, Dad knows.

Life is such a temporal affair with the world but in some ways it is continuous. His legacy lives, so does he. His values sustain, so does he. He lives in his kids, grandkids, all carrying impressions and traits of him. He lives, a little differently, sitting silently on a corner table watching his family dine together and toast him on his 69th birthday.

Love you Dad! Happy Birthday!

By default

How much of your life have you lived by 'default' and how much by conscious choice? How much of your life has been doing what 'everybody' would do faced with your choices would do? Some might argue that choice is an illusion, many of the prior events leading to those choices have been or are outside your control. For the sake of the belief of being in control of destiny I would assert that isn't the case. Yes, to a large extent there are 'defaults' in our lives, good, bad, depends. But 'default' is a choice as well, usually the easier, safer, least resistance one. .

My point is about realising the freedom of choice, and about giving fair treatment to them when we have the opportunity to choose.

I often wonder how I ended up doing what I do today, which is IT architecture, a field that I enjoy, and that has taught me much of what I know, including a few odd skills that pay the bills! Not that I studied it as a discipline in school, or when computers became big took to computing like a fish to pond or something like that. The system I grew up in assessed me reasonably good in quantitative aptitude and thus more of an engineering bent one might say. My Father, a doctor, was averse to the idea of me pursuing a medical profession or civil services, we did not have law or business in the family, not wonder what I did then - Engineering! That was my 'default', leading to the next 'default' of when having the choice of any subjects to pick from having ended up in the top 0.25% of the entrance test candidates, I picked what 'everybody' said was the best, and then when came to choice to work I started in an industry where 'everybody' joined at the time, IT.  I was not alone, and there was the reassurance 'everybody' else doing what I was doing. Having entered a frame, choices opened up after, like where I would work, what sort of work I could do, within the reasonably large confines of what constitutes IT, which thankfully is diverse enough.

What stopped me from being a writer (not just random blogs), a politician, a doctor, a lawyer or business man. As I recollect my impressions of these roles at the time, its not a pretty picture I had or 'chose' to have -
Writer - a bit of a gamble, you might hit big or not struggle to pay the bills
Lawyer - too many lies, having to defend the criminals against your conscience
Politician - too corrupt, immoral
Civil service - politicised, corrupt, inefficient
Doctor - too much study, too little result at end of it

I am sure for those not in my profession would have something in their list like,
IT Engineer - socially inept nerd, confined to stare at a 11-22 inch screen for a third or more of his conscious life (which I can assure is not the case and is just a choice some engineers make).

When light shining on to the mind was coloured by the media, opinions at the dinner table, from friends, stereotypes no wonder the thoughts had acquired the colour of the choice they were going to make.There was a degree of objectivity to my choice, but there was also the overwhelmingly unfair dismissal of all the other options on the table.

There could have been another way to look at them,

Writer - creative fulfilment, chance to influence with ideas
Lawyer - opportunity to serve, to drive justice and to earn good money
Politician - to serve, to reform
Civil service - prestige, power to reform
Doctor - to care and cure, even had a few odd genes to that effect


When in the relative unknown and easy to influence, is it not easy to defend against the onslaught of opinions, to separate fact from bias. That is where the 'defaults' start shaping up and before we know have narrow ourselves down to very few choices.

Happily the good news is that, there is still a choice. The routes will be different to now than earlier, but I am sure they are there, if I want to. Maybe not a doctor still, I will be wilted and treating myself by the time I get there.

More importantly however  as a parent today I need to think what influences am I serving up consciously or subconsciously on my children and am I protecting them from influences that can constrain them. I have a 'powerful' role here and I need to ensure that my children as they grow acquire facts of choices in what they can do, an early realisation of their inner strengths, so they can decide objectively and unfettered by opinions of others.  And that when it is time for them to choose, their objectivity and knowledge stands up with conviction and helps them make an objective, fair choice. Its an experiment and if I succeed who knows, I might write a book with this post as my foreword, titled 'By default'!

Where do I start?..Choo Chuk Chuk!

It takes a degree of force to get out of a writer block. Of late it has been omnipresent, subsiding  briefly in moments when neither a laptop or a tablet is at hand to make a start. So than waiting for that divine moment of alignment, I make a start anyway. And in order to ease my block I will pick a topic that I like - Railways.

Lets take the case of British railways Vs the Indian railways Vs the Japanese railways. I have been fortunate enough to have had a good bit experience on the latter and a fair bit on the former two networks. I must admit on the whole whilst each system has its warts, on the whole I admire all the 3.

Bulk of my experience in Japan was with the Tokyo metro network, one journey on the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyoto and a few out of town journeys to places like Kawaguchiko and Nikko.The Tokyo network is remarkable in its punctuality, size, coverage and how it burrows deep layers under layers under the city, particularly one in a seismically active region. Obviously some big time engineering challenges have been won there. The inter city network comprising of Shinkansens is fast, clinical and frequent. The metro within Tokyo is very precise on timings and the branch lines have a charm of their own. Running through pretty towns and villages alongside sea and countryside. The 2 carriage train from Tokyo to Kawaguchiko felt very similar to that train that Chihihiro boards in 'Spirited away' (a must see Japanese animation for kids).

The British railways are strikingly comparable to Japanese rail. With the difference of speeds, rolling stock and a slightly more relaxed order of punctuality the modern British railways have broadly a similar footprint. London compares to Tokyo, the intercity networks compare well to the Great Western, East Coast and West coast lines. And the branch lines or smaller town to city networks compare well to franchises like the Chiltern, Transpennine express, London Midland, Northern and Capital connect. Indeed one of the charms of the British railways are the wide array of franchises, and their respective identities, liveries, rolling stock and landscapes. Of all the journeys in the UK to date I would rate my favourite in terms of charm as the Chiltern between London Paddington and Leamington Spa, East Coast between Kings Cross and Edinburgh and  the First Great Western between Paddington and Worcester. In terms of efficiency and value for money I would rate Virgin West Coast as the best. Only slight drawback their being their narrower than normal carriages. But that was part of the engineering to have them bend along curves.

 

Left to right - Great Western HSTs @Paddington station, Cross Country Voyager @ Manchester Piccadilly and the London DLR heading into Canary Wharf- few of the many varieties in British rail.

Coming to Indian railways then. Well, nothing small about them, the width or the length, the distances or the time you spend travelling. Indeed when I was just watching YouTube video recently, I was struck by the average number of carriages on Indian trains. 20-22 were a norm. In Japan I do not remember, but in England the longest I have seen are 10-12 carriages with most being between 4-6. The time dimension seems by far more relaxed compared to the British and Japanese counterparts My earliest journeys between Chandigarh, Delhi, Bombay, Pune are dotted with names like Ekta express which took 8 hours to cover 250 Km, Frontier mail which took about 31 hours to cover 1300 KM odd between Chandigarh and Bombay, Janata express which took 38 hours between Bombay and Delhi and stopped at virtually anything that could pass for a station. Of course there were the more elite versions like the Rajdhani and the Shatabdi, that had right of way an average 110-12 Km/h speed. Not too mention they could also leave you feeling spoilt and a few kilos extra by the time you reached your destination with the in car catering. My fondest memories would be 1) my Rajdhani trip between Delhi and Bangalore - what better post honeymoon trip home with one's better half in a nice cosy 1st class coupe! 2) Bangalore to Kottayam (for Kerala backwaters) in Bangalore - Kanyakumari express and 3) Shatabdi express between Chandigarh and Delhi.

There is the hall of notoriety as well comprising 1) a trip of a five engineering students with 2 reserved tickets aboard the Delhi to Bombay August Kranti Rajdhani. Imagine no seats for a 17 hour journey outside a none too pleasant toilet! and 2) a trip of a family of 4 back from Bangalore to Delhi with only 1.5 berth. Discomfort of decades old is a sweet memory now!

Indeed any Indian of my age or older would have a smattering of railway journeys to recount and fondly remember. The opening up of aviation sector and the no frills airlines, made air travel more attractive so by comparison the following generation would have had less of thrills by rail. Poor them!

So how would I rate amongst the 3
Speed and efficiency - Japan Rail, British Rail, Indian Railways
Frequency and ease of reservation - British rail, Japan Rail, Indian rail
Charm and adventure - Indian rail, British rail, Japan rail
Surprise - Indian rail

(I am not inclined to report on cleanliness on any having recently read a few reports on forensic examination of train carriages in London, knowing how it can be in India and not remembering much of Japan rail.)

So did I exit my writer's block. Not sure, but I did end up fondly remembering a lot about my travel, trains and the people I shared them with. Time to get a good nights sleep now!

Gaurav Sidhana

I remember a lean, lanky chap, my classmate and indeed best buddy for several years at school. We started school together about when we would have been 3 or 4, growing up alongside. I think he left St. Kabir around 6th or 7th standard. He came across initially quiet in demeanour, a dark brooding kind, who would occasionally surprise with pranks, generally harmless. He was a good lad, extremely thin, and a very fast runner. At the first 100m sorts race heat in school games that we ran or I remember I had the two Gaurav's of the class flanking me and I was happy to finish second. He was third in behind me and strangely I remember noticing that he was not happy about it. The second heat that followed he beat me to it and he was happier. Strange it is that child hood memories as far as 25-30 years ago can stay so clear.

We became close friends in a few years time, when by one, we were allocated to share the same desk by the class teacher (must have been standard 4 or 5) and cycled back from school roughly the same route. I remember his converted cycle well. To start with it was a modern atlas unisex (!) bike of that time, you don't see them around much. It was obviously a tad too feminine for his liking and the changes that followed included an inverted handle bar, covered with black tape and bits and bobs that gave the cycle a bit of a dark brooding character as well. The man and his machine! As was his run, so was his pace with the cycle. I think I was clever enough not to try compete there.

In standard 5 or whereabouts there was a science exhibition in the school open to students to create and invent. Our combined inventiveness was to build a model helicopter, with a fan that worked. He built most of the fuselage, cardboard bits cut and bended to roughly get an approximation of a modern sea king frame with an all round glass canopy (cellophane). The power plant was a Rs.60 DC motor  from the audio shop, a Rs.5 plastic ruler based fan blade and the fan spindle a used ball pen refill, some wire bits and a 2 way switch! Wheels sourced from old cars in mine or his kindergarten garage.

The chopper whirred to life at the exhibition and was well enjoyed. It did not fly but it made an impression, or so we thought. To the extent we were enthused enough to expand are aviation interests to the next level - a rocket. The project did not quite take off the ground, literally. We knew it would not but as life reveals time and again, the endeavour is often more fun than the outcome. So what we had was an old milk metal bottle (his younger brother's), a vegetable oil can cap, a pressure cooker nozzle and a kerosene stove's burner. The general idea was to 1) fill the bottle half or so with water 2) cap on the bottle with the nozzle drilled through. Placed upside down with the burner assembly shackled on, the idea was that the burner would boil the water, the steam would pressure through the nozzle and the whole contraption would nudge upwards. Obviously it was a shambles and 'wind tunnel' runs showed that the steam pressure would build, but instead of escaping through the nozzle would dislodge the cap as a whole. The whole rocket had a big leak. At which point I think we gave up and was the last project in our nascent Aviation career.

Years went on, school, studies, homework, mini adventures cycling around the town and cricket. Chandigarh was much more cycle friendly in the 80s and the 90s and we made the most of it stretching our machines to the hilt. Sharing comics and lunching at each others place.

The fork came at the point when he left St. Kabir and we rarely met after that. Busy with our respective  senior school years, board exams and then universities. I kept hearing about him from my sister's classmate who was his cousin as well, and then met him only once several years later briefly. I would hear about him time and again, that he had taken up hotel management, moved to Australia and was doing well.

I learnt earlier this year that Gaurav Sidhana, my classmate and best buddy of my growing years had passed away leaving behind his wife and daughter. I was deeply saddened, a very untimely loss.

Life is ephemeral but the shared past is fortunately always alive in some sense. Gaurav was a special friend and my memories of our growing years spent together will always remain. Rest in peace mate, you will be missed.