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.

Back to Badminton

So I have resumed badminton with some regularity now. Once a week for now at a local club that plays doubles format with mixed abilities. I am not seeing a dramatic improvement to my game yet, but I think that's down to losing the momentum over the week's gap and keeping up with practice. So I am going to make note of some catchwords that remind if the key techniques have picked up,

1. Serve low, step forward to volley.
2. Keep eye on the shuttle, elementary, but surprising how often I just guess.
3. If clearing, step back.
4. If attacking, keep moving forward.
5. Fill the gap as your doubles partner moves around.
6. Monitor other players for their strengths and weaknesses as you are awaiting your turn.

There is also the confidence element. If its at a low ebb then you sort of disadvantage yourself. The standard of individual players you play with maybe better than you, but a doubles game in a club format is always ripe for a surprise. More often than not, no two players have played with each other any more than you and your partner, so even though may be individually good, will still have some coordination gaps. So keeping the conversation in the head positive is key. Listen to the conversation in the head and reason with it, results should patiently follow. That's my approach for now, staying easy on the self.

Taking a perspective though, I think there is improvement over the relatively adventurous start I made last year starting at the UK corporate games 2011 for IBM. That was literally after a year of having played any badminton at all and before that barely 4 or 5 times a year on average. My only prep then was 4 hours of play and 2 hours of YouTube videos. That got me into a start and going now. Though club play is mostly fun, am now attending the mid to seasoned players slot and have a non zero win record for starters, 3 out if every 10. Hope a year or so from now it will be better and I'll even start to rate myself a bit!

Commonwealth games – Lip service to Accountability?

The games have now concluded long but what happened to the corruption case surrounding it. Where is the account of the taxpayers money that went to pay for goods at several times their market price and more? The government and political leardership had promised swift and decisive action once the games concluded. But whither? 

In a swindle of this magnitude the public needs to know more and regularly. Ideally a week by week account, but any clear reporting has gone to a trickle. What little is visible is the familiar sporadic and abstract commentary of "ensuing investigations" and "officials being questioned" which given previous cases, indicates justice is going to be far and likely  elusive.

In India corruption trials die a slow but sure end into the vague apathy and surrounding noise of newer scandals. This one seems going the same way. CWG scandal overshadowed by 2G scam, and that further by Cash for votes. Perhaps its quite reassuring for the tainted, that their story will be overshadowed by the one around the corner and soon there will be less to worry about.

The media either doesn't seem to be doing much to follow up and report, now that the the initial rush is over. Surely if it exists in conscious of the public mired in their daily bread and butter, it should well in that of media whose daily bread and butter it actually is! Or perhaps there is  shortage of investigative journalists given the volume of cases in India and priority of current cases over old ones!

CWG stands out in its impact on India's reputation more than many of the other scandals and justice in this case is as much about amending India's image externally as answering citizens. India may be a democracy with all supporting pillars - free media, independent judiciary, investigative agencies and right to information. But in matter of executive accountability towards public funds, the democracy is appearing increasingly dysfunctional.


And now with the world cup in hands guess this is what they (our politicians) may well be upto!

Renaming the blog

6 years after having started this blog have decided to rename it. Choosing the new name based on the the posts to date,  mostly from random experiences and thinking, than a fixed theme. More akin to responding to the random summoning of the creative spirit..and hence the name!

Darwinism in the backyard

My 11 month old son and I had ventured outside to take a nature feel and as we came around back into the conservatory saw this web, almost picture-book, well knitted, about half a metre across, its proud creator in the crown perch. Junior in my arms at the time, made his presence felt by flagging the dewy twigs right over the web.

Obviously hassled by a less than considerate little homosapien in his vicinity Mr.Spider (gender assumption) scurried off to relative safety at a ledge not far where he was able to keep a watch over his web. And as he did that, I realised soon that our intrusion seemed to be depriving the poor chap, fruit of his painstakingly assembled web. A little entangled moth, was apparently benefiting from our presence in slowly disengaging himself from his predicament.

More to steer clear of intervention in nature than in partisanship towards either party, we quietly move to the far end of the courtyard. A few minutes later as we ventured back, found a bit of action underway. Mr.Spider was back in the middle and very much in control, neatly folding the moth away in his sticky, thready produce, almost as one would roll cotton onto a spindle. Junior conjectured carefully this time and did not intrude. A newly found respect for Mr. Spider I think. Assertion begets respect and the arachnid did show some assertion in coming back despite presence of larger beings around.

Actually more than one reason to award the fellow some respect -

One, placing the web right in front of a window and on the outside is quite an intelligent location. Moths and others of their kind are attracted towards light, and close hours of the day is good time for business. Evolution or coincidence? Banking on Charles Darwin's theory of species, am inclined to believe its evolution.

Secondly, the chap is by coincidence keeping our domestic airspace relatively moth-free, fair payback for window usage rights!

Missed the photo-op, so an illustrative to go with, not to scale :).

Urban housing for the poor – a pipe dream?

From my recent trip to Bangalore, I felt I could well take back what I had commented earlier about the city's new airport, almost. The new airport in visual perspectives is a leap of infrastructure from what was. The distance from the town has triggered developments of transport system almost as a guilty over-compensation of a city, in having pushed its key artery way out. What was widely discussed as the major flaw as in being too far, seems its primary strength today. With the network and transport infrastructure developing well, surroundings may well benefit. With more improvements to follow, a ring road void of traffic lights, metro to the airport in another few years, things should get better. And when they do, the extended boundary of the city promises a new urban-scape and an opportunity to develop afresh. Along a distance of 30 KM out of city along N-S axis and a nearly unlimited horizontal spread in E-W axis, there is well an opportunity to build new self sufficient townships for several million more. In close continuity with a city that is already an economic powerhouse for the country.

How that opportunity is playing out is a bit different. Proper town planning in India has generally fallen by the wayside or was a flash in the pan whenever and wherever it was. Governments are generally paralysed and happy enough with monetising powers to license and authorise, than plan and complete developments for all sections of society. Builders see little benefit than in providing houses for the rich. With the result that the new areas along the way to Bangalore's new airport are developing as a disorganised, spaghetti patchwork of islands of fine, rich living amidst large tracts of what remains of villages and people deprived of their staple agriculture. Its a a skin deep statistic, easy to discover a kilometre or two into the by-roads from the airport expressways. You find housing pockets lacking clean water, electricity, healthcare and sanitation right alongside apartment and housing complex that pare with best in the world. The government and the political class benefit from both consumer groups. One segment seek hope in voting for change that new government promises and the rich seek comfort in paying off harassment that any government can enduringly provide.

Chandigarh, my hometown, was developed as a model township that future township developments could emulate. A grid based city with equitable housing allocation for all classes of society, allocation of schools, markets and healthcare facilities in order. A master blueprint available to all planners to emulate. The city now stands for an image quite different to what its founder envisioned. The model never got replicated and now exists in isolation as a one off precious artifact of global standard urban landscape in India. Not surprisingly, its property prices compare with most expensive areas in cities like London and Paris. A 2-3 bedroom floor unit of a 200 sq yard house costs anywhere in the 50 sq km block of Chandigarh costs upwards of £200,000. A 500sq yard house upwards of £600,000. In a country where per capita income is at £200 per annum, forget poor man, the place is out of reach for even the modern upper middle class. Even they are able to afford settlements in Bangalore-like spaghetti network townships bordering Chandigarh. And with the social housing pockets in Chandigarh proper having being saturated, the lower middle class and are now getting pushed out to far fringes, where schooling, healthcare, transport and good electricity and water are less certain in an anyways constrained system.

Situation in other cities are I believe no different. Better infra in town has come to mean more opportunity for government and real estate developers to make a big buck than share the infrastructure among all classes. In such backdrop, feel pessimistic about what even finest developments in infrastructure can sustainably provide in India. Photo ops for India shining story - yes, better traffic for few years - maybe, quality urban living for all sections of society - clearly not.

A rough mathematics of Madame Tussaud's

We went to Madame Tussaud's last weekend. I had not expected there to be a queue, from a vague, rather imprecise impression of it being like a great hollywood soap running for the last 50+ years. To my relative surprise I found that there was a queue, a long one. In the time the queue gave me to reflect, some calculations followed..

The queue was about 1 hour long. There were 5 ticketing counters serving the queue. Each counter spent on an average 15 seconds processing tickets. That is 4 visitor groups every minute per counter. So in one hour the 5 counters would clear 5x4x60=1200 visitor groups. Now each visitor group was on average 3 people (A family of four, a couple, occasional larger group). Makes it 3x1200=3600 individual customers per hour.

Now further, Madame Tussaud's stays open from 9:00 to 6:00 PM, a 9 hour window. Peak times are weekends and bank holidays. Lets assume normal distribution of visitors with peak incoming starting from 11:00 till 3:00. 4 hours peak window. with the remaining 5 hours traffic at 50% of peak level. Over the entire peiod that means 3600x4 +0.5x3600x5=23400 visitors on a weekend. Each visitor on average - coupons, vouchers, discounts put together pays £18 per head. So that is £421,200 on a weekend or a holiday. Weekday traffic may be 30% of the weekend traffic, so for a typical week we have 0.3x421200x5 + 421200x2=£1,474,200 per week. Into 52 weeks is £76,658,400 or £76.6 million a year from the London studio ticket sales alone.

With recovery stimulus of billions being disbursed rather freely these days, £76 million does not sound like a lot...But when you generate it out of 100 or so quiet, unprotesting statues, year on year, it is quite a bit..

Of course those who run the show know it all the more better and correctly, and there is a good reason why there are 9 Madame Tussaud's across the world. 3 in Europe, 4 in America, 2 in China, and, my next point...

...none in India?

£76 Mn in indian currency is Rs. 600 Crore, quite a lot of money. More than several thousand people working together generate out of the scores of movies a year at the Indian box office.

Contrast with one evergreen show with 100 unprotesting celebrity statues to do the work...

Given the attention showered on the handful of Hindi film industry stars in the London studio, this is an opportunity someone will well have noticed.

Then why isnt there one yet?Or did I help open some eyes :)

Gotsunshine.com

There was a very famous ad campaign in the US 'Got Milk?' a few years ago. It is now a famous business school case study. It was a case where to encourage flagging consumption, the milk federation launched a TV campaign portraing numerous scenarios of households without milk, and its drawing parallel to an absence of a life sustaining utility. The campaign turned on scarcity triggers in the remote psyche of lot many people.. So many in fact that the campaign was very successful and generated a robust increase in milk consumption.

Milk was the easy part and man-made, surrogate that is. But am wondering what to do when the man runs his limits...and when its a case of something as basic as - Sunshine. 

This feeling comes out of spending some time in a Northernly latitude, closer to the 6 month day and 6 month night Arctic model.  The 'Got Sunshine?' syndrome doesnt need an ad campaign here.

Having lived under the sub-tropical sun for a good part of one's life, wading through days without a good bit of sun can take adjusting to. In fact when the Sun does come out, life feels wonderful even if the world is warming, oil is running out, and economies are melting down everywhere.

No easy solutions. You might choose to escape on a weekend to a place which has a bit sunshine more, but as it happens more often than not, clouds catch up with weekends everywhere before you get there.  

Or how about a different interpretation - www.gotsunshine.com. A portal that will upfront aggregate all the places close to a given set of coordinates which has a sunny weather on a certain weekend and save me the effort of looking up the map and iterating city by city on BBC weather.

Gotsunshine.com, hmm, I think its a rather good idea that I should do something about this..., or well, whosoever has already taken the domain name should!

Cambridge Cabbage

Have been here in Cambridge, UK last 2 months now. Slipped into a semi-detachment from the world or rather the interfaces to the world. Newspaper once a week, no TV, no radio, no car. Have bought a cycle though. The long days here give ample time after work to ride it around this intellectually endowed town. Perhaps a quality that inspired a recent implusive culinary creation which came out rather well. So here goes the formula for what I have decided to christen - "Cambridge Cabbage"

Ingredients:
1 Cabbage
2 handfuls of french beans
1 large boiled potato
1 raw potato
3 spoons of cummin powder
Salt and chilli to taste

Steps:
Chop the cabbage to large flat noodle pieces
Chop the french beans to half inch bits
Light fry the above two with salt, cummin powder and red chilli to taste
About half way through add in the mashed potato and shuffle it around
Chop the other potato in fine fingers and light sautee with salt
Once sauteed add these into the main pan with the , beans and mashed potato and drop the cummin powder 3 spoons or less to taste
Place a plate above the pan to cook in steam
18-22 min and you are done

For all its simplicity, the smoothness with which the cabbage, french beans and the mashed and sauteed potato variants blend in together, you'll relish it long time to come.

But frankly, humble thought it may sound I feel this can be a serious contender to the Great Indian recipe panel around these ingredients - which have for the most part been limited to,

1. Cabbage light fried
2. Cabbage and potato light fried
3. Potato and French beans light fried
4. Potato by itself

But now - time for change - time for the humble cabbage to show its intellectual avatar -

Time for "Cambridge Cabbage"
:)

बैल to BIAL

Glossary : बैल is Hindi for Bullock

(Standard disclaimer: This is a fictious writeup. All resemblance to people, places, these times, issues and things is purely coincidental)

Pumpkin Times, Bangalore
In a move, that speaks of the far sight of our Government, the following plan has been mooted by the Government of Karnataka that at once eases out the problem of commute to the new International airport cost effectively, promises employment generation on a large scale, and in the long run promises to raise the water table levels of the parched Devanahalli region where at present no widespread habitation is feasible

The plan starts by mooting as follows,

The Government has proposed a dedicated bullock corridor along the National highway linking Hyderabad and branching into Bangalore along the Bellary road, Outer Ring Road, and then further on to Tumkur Road and Hosur road.

The dedicated corridor will run in parallel lanes to the existing traffic, with the difference that the divine road-usage rights exercised by cattle and politicians in India will empower the bullocks to governance free movement along the stretch.

This without a pun is expected to ensure a smooth albeit a little slow passage for all future passengers of the BIAL.

The Government is planning to hire the services of a world reknown firm in buggy design from Italy.

The contraption that will be attached to the bullocks will have capacity to carry 6 passengers at a time and 10 pieces of luggage.

The route chart will be published shortly by the newly formed BMBTC (Bengaluru Metrolpolitan Bullock Transport Corporation). There are expected to be numerous stops along the way, so the city will be catered well.

Reinforcing the experience that the passengers are expected to enjoy, will be the paratha with fresh morning butter, lassi as breakfast to the early morning commuters.

The typical bio-breaks required by the bullocks are expected to enhance this further besides contributing to developemnt of some greenery along Bangalores dirt and dust paved highways.

What makes the plan even more viable is the fact that, the cattle will ply in two directions, during the night time, from the cargo section of the airport, bringing back the precious international freight into the city on its way from the Airport to the city.

Post their ablutions and regurgitations the bullocks will be fresh to take the early morning passenger load to the BIAL.

The commute is expected to take about 3-6 hours, but due to the steady nature of commute, the positive effects on clean air and nominal charge the passengesr are expected to be more than happy.

The farmers owning these bullocks have demanded an exclusive rights to cargo movement with the Government, and the Government has kindly consented this concession.

Also for the next 3 years it has been agreed that the bullocks will be sourced only from Devanahalli region so as to provide wide scale bullock re-employment in the wake of Devanahalli region's parched nature and agricultural infeasibility.

Payment towards these services can be offered through cash, monthly passes or fodder.
Noted that payment by fodder will be exempt from service tax and various cesses. The reason is that in the process of the large scale bullock employment, the bullocks are expected to be much more well fed than they were prior to BIAL. As a result they are expected to contribute well to the arability of the land through their biological endowments such as cowdung.
The Government is expecting Industry associations along the IT Corridor to come forward and demand for chartered arrangements soon as the service is announced.
But for now the Government is keeping further details of proposal tightly wrapped at the moment, and intends to declare this as a gift to the citizens of Bangalore one day before the opening of the new Airport, and thus also have the last laugh.

More details shortly. Reporting from Devanahalli on behalf of Pumpkin Times, this is your humble Bangalorean.

On India

A lot of Indian history is debated in arguements of "what-ifs". "What-ifs" that are fundamentally unsound by the fact that they seem to depend on the very outcomes of what actually happened.

"What if "we" had beaten back the invasions of Mohammad bin Tughlaq, "What if "we" had been more united against the East India company, and so on...

I have had a long standing doubt has been who is "we" in this context. Probably "we" refers to the foreparents of the "present" Indian generation, in those times and who are counted guilty of dis-unity. But take a minute, did those foreparents live in the geo-politically unified identity that India is today. To me, having seen India, that unified entity was the result of the very conquests and invasions that we tend to speak regretfully about.

In our school text, we were taught that Hindustan(India) was invaded time and again because the feudal rulers of the local provinces were not united for the cause of Hindustan, and so fell pray to the repeated invasions. There is a notion of a collective "Hindustan" presented in that era, but as I see it, the definition of India at that time was more the correlation of culturally similar regions and people, than in physically consolidated frontiers. Also I believe that the reference of Hindustan and invasions in the early 20th century in the western historical text was in context of a sub-continent, than a single political entity.

India's existence in its present geo-political unified form was shaped to a large extent by the Mughal, British and the present generation of the last 5 decades . Pre 1300 AD - The subcontinent was made up of princely states of a range of cultures (pardon me for any misreferences here) - ranging between Persian-Aryan-Dravidian from North to South and Persion-Aryan-Sino from West to East. In the geo-political definition of a "country" in the current context that would have actually been about 5-15 different countries in existence or whereabouts at the time.

I think I am reasonably sure that me, my spouse and all my friends from North, South, East and Western parts of the current India, would quite likely trace their origins back to those different "countries" of the pre-1500 times if we could find a genealogy available. If the Maharajas and the feudal lords of the pre-1300 ADs, did not decide to fight together against a common invader, that was their problem and for reasons that history knows best. Their circumstances and choices made by them are nothing that the current generation needs to lament in any way.

And I think would might as well be mudling ourselves up if we do. I doubt if anyone can say which one of us descends from an invader, settler or native, and neednt care really. What matters and I feel we are extremely fortunate about is having inherited an India with an an incredible diversity - cultural and geographical, and that, this diversity is something our generation and future ones, need to appreciate, understand and protect. I'd be happy if we can work around our history text to educate in a way that emphasizes on this good fortune, than make us fret about the power exchanges that happened centuries ago.

Travelling

I love travelling. I would have written about my travel notes here, but think I've kind of gone all over the place with this blog, so I decided to start a new travel focussed one here A Small World
Intention is to put in experiences in a manner reusable for someone planning similar trips, or kind of attempt to :)

The best day in the world is Saturday

These days I seem to be working hard, staying away from my blog and being choosy on what to write if at all I blog. But its been a while. So a quick cheeky mindless one, and starting with a title I guess I can stake a soon-to-be-famous claim to.

This is the time of the year when there is a long hiatus before we hit a long weekend. A time when the weeks panning out about like this...

Monday - Why the monotony of the whole world jumping to road as if on fire
Tuesday - The monotony builds
Wednesday - Tuned up and forgotten all weekend
Thursday - Lingering anticipation
Friday - Freedom dawns close
Saturday - The best day in the world
Sunday - Why does this fizzle out so quickly


What I am getting at is the psychology of the week is basically about only 2 kinds of days really - A Monday, a Friday and a Saturday and everything else is in the middle. I 'll put down my take here,

Monday - Feels like 100% Monday
Tuesday - Feels like 99% Monday
Wednesday - Suddenly feels like 80% Monday, 20% Friday
Thursday - Feels like 60% Monday, and 40% Friday
Friday - 100% Friday
Saturday - 100% Saturday
Sunday - 25% Saturday, 75% Monday

Keeping this in mind I propose a renaming that has potential to improve the Psychology of the masses, make them more cheerful, conserve environment, and make the world a better place to live in.

Monday - Only1Monday
Tuesday - ByeByeMondayDay
Wednesday - FridayCloserDay
Thursday - FridayAlmostThereDay
Friday-Friday
Saturday-Saturday
Sunday-WarmupDay

You may ask while everything else is a derivation, what's with Sunday. Well, my thinking is that, Sunday evening has a certain unescapable drudgery about it... that you cant seem to get away from. The traffic is low, TV channels go low profile, and worse people start sitting and sulking at home about Monday... (See why Only1Monday makes sense). In light of this drudgery, why bother escaping it, and actually start warming up for the weekdays battle ahead...

Quite quixotic alright, it 'll take more than an epoch and a collective global amnesia to get about on these lines, trifle difficult hmm...
So I'll park it here, get back to work, and be happy about the fact still, that tomorrow is a Friday :)

"Minority biased Junctions" (...Bangalore Traffic)

About 4 years ago, Bangalore got its spanking new 200 ft wide double laned with 40 feet service lanes, Outer Ring road...

One would drive up here to break free from the traffic snarls elsewhere in the city...and check if their spanky investments still worked at high speeds.

Mostly worked fine, until a small hitch started showing up first little, then some more... and these days in full measure...

The hitch is what I call "minority-biased-junctions"... Bangalore's archaic mechanism of junction management...let me explain..

1) There is a very wide road, which is the highway, and contributes 80-90% of the traffic of the junction

2) The perpendicular "feeder" road is more like a 30-40 ft wide street, basically an outlet for the settlements off the highway, and contributes 10-15% traffic of the junction

3) There are no traffic lights (if they are a fair chance they will not work)

4) The "minority bias" is a speed breaker, placed not on this "feeder road" but on only on the highway in both directions.

6) What happens as illustrated above is that while the 70-80 Km/h highway traffic slows to a halt, the "feeder" traffic from the jumps on the highway as there are no deterrents, human, electronic or physical to it...

7)...and the 80:20 rule plays out...20% of traffic gets 80% of the junction time and 80% gets 20% of it...

Perhaps the idea was the same socialist one - tax the big road folks to feed the smaller road folks..problem is, it works about as much as socialism did for us.

In peak hours, you have a mile of traffic build up on this 200 ft wide highway, while the 30 ft wide street traffic jumps right on the road, nearly no waiting ...

This problem is not new, it got worse on the Hosur Road before we got lucky with a 9 KM elevated road ...so no junctions possible... but unlikely we'll get as lucky again...

So please, planners can you try wake up to some simpler solutions like simple signals adjusted to the traffic flow and do away with these "minority-bias" speed breakers!

750 sq kms and nowhere to go...

That's what happens on weekends, I sit like this on my chair, musing on what to do with with this huge 750 sq km pizza on a plateau called Bangalore....

So much to explore in some ways and then so little..

Theatre, Kannada mostly, I will have to look at the audience to figure out more than the play॥

Movies at PVR, All sold out, try your luck

MG Road, Cubbon park, Lalbagh, Visvesvaraya museum, no..they're not what they used to be..

One of those unlimited cliched exhibitions at Kanteevra stadium, no..no..no..

Go trekking with one of those adventure clubs, who take troops of 40 and turtle climb 300 feet hills, mostly very young couples helping each other along and who dont seem to notice you at all..

Take your wife to one of the happening hotspot discos, hasnt happened yet for me, as it requires the near impossible convergence of a good housemaid, my 3 year old's agreaableness to let us go and a fitting wardrobe so that us over-the-average-indian-age types can still pretend young.

Try to rub into the creative character of the city, join a music lesson and soon realize that the closest age group is 11 years younger to you and picks up 50% faster...you attend two weekends and then the third onwards the class is suddenly younger and faster

Go to the local derby season, Wonder La amusement park, or take a ride on the double decker tourist bus that shows you around bangalore...I'm saving these for "rainy" days.

So my standard last and safe resorts...try to feel busy by being in a busy situation...1) go for a tea at Koshy's with a novel and keep sitting there, while you may not be part of it, you will definitely be midst of lot happening around you...and 2) if you find travelling therapeutic, take a BMTC Volvo ride around Bangalore, you'l love how these sleek red beauties can accelerate on 20 feet wide roads with a spaghetti of a traffic around them...

And then come back, muse and write this blog...and hope to plan it better next week!

Good News India..

Changing in own little ways, a few pioneering spirits slowly adding up .. Good news India

Well apart from all that we wonder whether deserves to be news...a true oasis.

Butter and Mashed Bananas...

I have always wanted to see theatre...and finally I did last week...at Ranga Shankara, after 2 years of glossing over the idea... waiting for an english play..and then wondering where the theatre was.. and in some weak moments giving up...

Good thing is I made a great start, thanks in all measures to a brilliant bunch of Bangaloreans who gave an intense and richly creative performance in this play called..Butter and Mashed Bananas.

Its a great sense of relief that you feel when you realize that not missing out the smallest detail is not an aberration...when you see the small gestures in the performance, that seemingly instinctive are actually scripted to the finest detail.

Thanks to Harami(!) theatre and Ajay Krishnan, the director of this play who also does the live music score for the play.

Highlights - the inimitable Indian paradox, Left and Right, Page 3 sequel, freedom, the hypocrisy of the powerful, music and choreography... and minimalism..

And when you walk.. out you you also thank, that besides and despite all, how creative genius thrives in the country !

So all those lazin, on the verge of wishing- better- of- your- time Bangaloreans.. go-theatre!

Ranga Shankara is a landmark location in JP Nagar...

Mind you kids under 8 not allowed inside...and save the organizers some effort by switching off your cellphones inside the auditorium.