Emerging Leaders - People Leadership

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The most recent leg of the Emerging leaders program was titled "People Leadership". Over 4 days spread across two weekends, we touched upon "Negotiation skills", "Doing business in intercultural settings", "Organizational Politics" and so on. Note-worthy moments from this module
* Watching "Twelve Angry Men" as a study of negotiation. I can never have enough of that movie, although I wish Prof L.Prasad had given us more time to discuss the movie.
* We played a game called "Lost at sea", in which the participants are required to arrive at a consensus on the things to carry on a hypothetical raft soon after their hypothetical ship starts to sink. Among other things, I learnt that a mirror is a very useful attention-drawing prop. Since the whole discussion was video-taped I also learnt a lot about myself. That my diction isn't as clear as it sounds in my head. And that I touch my nose a lot. Body language experts interpret that as a sign of lying. I still insist it's hay-fever!
* Prof. Alexandra Benz's lectures on intercultural settings was fascinating. She was like Russell Peters without the irreverence. I can't think of any other person who can say things like "Indians have poor thought-word-action consistency. They don't say what they think, and seldom do what they say" and still make it sound non-threatening.
* The most intriguing part was a session by a famous male Kathak dancer who brought us his insights on how to connect to an audience. I spent the first 15 minutes fixated on observing how effeminate the guy was. And then he performed! All his failure to make us see the virtue of connecting to the transcendental in our own chosen vocations was forgotten when he started to make the floor thunder with the foot-tapping. He even coaxed us into dancing a bit towards the end. In a matter of minutes he had roused a bunch of self-important wannabe leaders and set them shaking their legs silly. He needn't have said a word.

Fishing in the Bhadra

For several years, I flip-flopped on the subject of vegetarianism, because I was never convinced about the reasons to relinquish meat. The every-animal-has-a-soul didn't make the cut. Cholesterol didn't discourage me too much. The cruelties of industrial scale husbandry was out of sight from my conscience. Finally, after a lot of reading on the subject, I was completely convinced that if every person on the planet turned to meat, we'd be screwed real bad. Too much of the meat that we eat was coming out of unsustainable ecosystems. I'm now convinced that any food grown without giving nature a chance at replenishment is going to cost us a lot in the future. The stewardship argument had finally pushed me over the edge into vegetarianism (not that farming was being done in a sensible way!).

Last weekend, I visited a fishing camp on the banks of the Bhadra river in Chikmagalur, where they practise a model of stewardship that I'd like to see in every goddamn part of the world that man inhabits. People are allowed to catch for their daily means but large-scale fishing is completely prohibited. The river is closed for fishing during the spawning season. The result of this is that the fish population in the river remains a constant, and the other predators that depend on the fish also thrive. If only you could teach the Jap whalers to take care of their waters like this. Anyway, since the stewardship was firmly in place I decided to indulge. Peter, our host, cast the net and in no time we had a handsome 2 kilo Karnataka Carp.

While walking back with the fish strung to a water weed stalk, I watched it flail about, and gasp for breath. I never thought fish are able to make noises, but this one did. Just when I allowed myself to feel relief that it had finally died, it would garner enough reserves for one more thrashing of the tail. In the end, it returned to me in a plate as one of the tastiest, non-smelliest fish dishes I've eaten. Yet I still can't take the image of the struggling carp out of my head. It's official, I'm a sissy!

Did you know? The Deaf Applause

When deaf people need to show appreciation, they wiggle their hands over their heads. This visual applause is called the Deaf Applause.

Airline Etiquette

The steward announces over the PA system "Please remain seated and do not switch on your phone until the seat-belt sign is turned off". I ignore that, because I'm busy fetching my bags, all 3 of them, from the overhead compartment. I snigger at the advice on the mobile phone because I never bothered to power my cell-phone down in the first place. I've traveled so many times without turning it off and not once has my flight crashed. That's proof enough for me that the rule is an unreasonable one.

While I'm waiting impatiently for the doors to open, I'm in the aisle in ready position calling all my dear ones telling them loudly that I've landed. As soon as the doors open I need to push, shove and even climb over my co-passengers so that I get into the shuttle as quickly as possible. I know that there is no point in hurrying because we will all meet each other at the luggage carousel, but I have important business to take care of. I need to get there so that I can help construct a wall of trolleys that will put the conveyor belt out of reach of the stragglers among us. Once that is done, I twitch uncomfortably while those standing behind me helplessly watch their bags go round and round.

The bags take very long to arrive. I curse the system before heading over to the parking lot. There I leave my trolley where it can inconvenience maximum number of people and head home. That took longer than the duration of the flight. Did you say I'd be better off if I cooperated and not acted like airline checkout was a race? Who do you make me out to be, Chinese??

My experience with the consumer court

Roughly two years ago, to the day, I bought a very nice-looking couch set from a reputed outlet in Bangalore. It was fantastically comfortable. Its awesome coziness drastically reduced the net metabolic activity of the household because you just couldn't help being a sloth when you came in contact with it. It made me so lazy that even my cat, who only woke up for his two daily meals, was ashamed of me. The couch served us wonderfully for a full year. Which is when the warranty ran out. Which is when my story begins.

It was almost like the sofa came with an embedded smart-obsolescence module. Almost on cue, at the beginning of the new calendar year, the upholstery started to peel off. I duly called the customer support and they duly ignored me the first dozen times. Persistence paid, eventually, and their executive came over, surveyed the situation, almost apologized, and claimed he could replace the upholstery in less than a week. Before I could thank him, he broke the good news. He expected me to pay - Rs. 13,000 no less- for the new upholstery, because, well, the warranty had expired. But rest assured, said he, for the new upholstery came with a one year warranty. I hadn't seen that coming! I gave him sufficient time to catch the irony himself before I asked him if the new couch will moult too, at the end of the year. He gave me a dismissive smirk, like he had never heard anything more ridiculous, and left.

That's when I enlisted the long arm of the law. With the help of my awfully smart lawyer, I sent a legal notice with generous invocation of section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act. Life changed almost the very minute the courier delivered the letter to the sofa company. My skepticism about the legal processes in India were laid to rest when the representatives started calling me more frequently than my girlfriend ever did. They wanted to know when they could come over and take the sofa away and give it its new skin that it so richly deserves. As I write this, my sofa is getting new upholstery at the company's expense, and it's admittedly too early to celebrate. Yet, I feel all-powerful, as if I just discovered that I had super-powers. This morning, a regular Bangalore driver cut me off on the inner ring road, and I swear, my first impulse was to send him a legal notice.

Who's blind?

Bank Executive: Ma'am, I'll need your visiting card along with your payslips.
R: (hands it over) here you go.
Exec: Can I have another one?
R: How many do you need?
Exec: I need a proper one, this one has holes.
R: That's my name and number in braille.
Exec: I don't know that ma'am. I want something without holes.

R & I have alternately laughed and felt outrage at the executive's ignorance. From today, after we used that anecdote to good effect in delivering a difficult presentation, we feel nothing for above bank executive except gratitude.

Pet peeves

* Traffic behavior - Green by Induction: This is when vehicles assume a green signal for themselves because the vehicle ahead of them got a green. Very similar to how when you are pouring honey out of a bottle, one continuous viscous thread of honey keeps falling out even after you have willed it to stop. Similarly, one long chain of vehicles always has to keep on moving after the signal has turned red, as though all of them are part of one unbroken chain of vehicles joined at the bumpers. During peak hours, the last of the offenders usually end up stopping right in the middle of the intersection.

* Music: If you pluck out Nickelback's lead singer's vocal chords and examine them closely I'm sure you'll either find a stray splinter or a torn diaphragm. Whenever their songs come on the radio I feel like clearing my throat on his behalf.

* Impostors: Can people please stop calling Shakuntala Devi a mathematician?

* Mourning: I liked Vishnuvardhan. For a few hours after watching Suprabhatha as a kid, I thought it was cool to be a Petrol Pump attendant. I was sad to see him go. How does it give me an excuse for vandalism and arson? Here's my request to movie stars; please don't die, just walk away into the sunset. More coherent rant here.

Reading in 2009

There was a time when I read like there's no tomorrow. "Reading" wasn't just a hobby, it was an absolute life-necessity. To not read was to admit a failing. When I met people I registered life-long prejudices against them depending on whether they read the "right" kind of books, the wrong kind or not at all. I got along great with other readers because after all there are so many things to talk about; Ulysses is so pretentious, you don't get the same satisfaction reading on an electronic device, oh I have a huge library, here's my top 5 favorite books ever, that guy there is a Dan Brown lemming and so on.

So I continued to claim to be a reader, sometimes added that hatefully overused adjective "voracious". I brandished it around like a badge every chance I got, in small talk in parties, Web 2.0 profiles, resumes, everywhere! This year I decided to put my religion to the test and kept a log of everything I read. And here's what I managed to do in an entire year!

* The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Reading)
* The Leadership Challenge (Didn't complete)
* How the Mind Works - Steven Pinker
* Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
* Chomsky Reader (Didn't complete)
* The Comfort of Things (Didn't complete)
* The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
* Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
* Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
* Plan B - Lester Brown
* Red Queen - Matt Ridley

Seven complete books in 365 days! Time to find me a new cult.

Avatar

The only thing wrong with Avatar was the Pandora horse. What are the chances that in a distant planet, evolution would have thrown up another equine beast of burden that looked exactly like our own horses but had two bonus appendages? There was some shoddy lack of creativity there.

I start my review of Avatar with that nitpicking because I want to deliberately temper my absolute infatuation for this movie. With most good movies I walk out of the hall and get rudely jolted back to real life when I walk out of the exits (which for some reason, are universally grimy and non-slick) . With Avatar, however, a full three days have elapsed and I've still not been jolted out. I wanted to gush over how brilliant an allegory it is for harmonious living and for current state of international politics, the wars in particular, but most of what I wanted to say are covered by three other commentators/reviewers that I happened to read; Ebert, Berardinelli and Kunstler. I won't repeat them. What does merit repetition is my strongest recommendation to go watch it.

Fuzzy Logic

Fuzzy is the god of spontaneity. Here are just a few things he did in one calendar day. He invited random people on the street to N's sister's wedding because, well, he thought they looked like good neighbours. At the wedding hall, he got up and danced when the nadaswaram band started playing. He stood right in the middle of traffic on dispensary road and performed an elaborate arm-waving ritual just to gather my attention.

In the past he's done crazier things. He's crossed Cubbon road in an exaggerated slow-motion action just to make a point to a driver who honked unnecessarily. He stood in the middle of the Westside store in Forum mall and shouted out, at the top of his voice, the names of his friends because he didn't like them dispersed so much. I could go on, but right now I'm thinking about why he does these things. It can't be attention deficit syndrome because he grew up as the youngest kid in an enormously affectionate family. It can't be because of his confused lineage; he's got afghani, pakistani, Indian and english blood flowing in him. It can't be that he's trying to make us aware of intangible social rules by deliberately breaking them, because he's never been guilty of such intellectual pretensions.

Frankly I don't know what makes him tick. I do know that when he's around the texture of all our lives are a little different. It's a shame that he lives in a distant island called Maldives and is probably not likely to return until the sea has completely claimed that country. Come to think of that, Global Warming doesn't seem so bad after all!

Koramangala Smartvotes

If you live in Koramangala and/or want to be part of a remarkable political experiment, read on. Inspired by the example of Adolf D'Souza's election as an independent citizen councilor, Smartvote is attempting to bubble up a citizen candidate for the upcoming BBMP election in Koramangala. I've explained the process in my post on praja. This movement requires a lot of help in co-ordination and campaigning. Please do reach out to the folks mentioned in the poster if you want to help out.

I happened to go on the door-to-door campaigning once and it was eye opening. Firstly it was very uplifting to watch how active resident associations are in Koramangala. While each of these groups have done very good work in their own isolated turfs, this campaign is networking them, and making them huge pressure groups that politicians can't afford to ignore. In places like the 3rd block, everybody seems to know everybody else, something that you hardly see in Bengaluru these days. Surprisingly, everybody is informed about and geared up for the local elections too. I'm convinced that there are models in play here that can solve the upper middle class apathy and resignation that plague most other constituencies. While every educated person is talking about how useless it is to vote, it's a pleasure to meet all those passionate people putting in that much effort and time to solve a problem that, by most people's estimation, is unsolva

Stick no bills!

A few weeks ago, BBMP came up with an idea to prevent public walls from being used as a place to stick all sorts of publicity material. They hired a bunch of painters, gave them enough of their wares and let them loose on the city. Suddenly wherever you look, you see garish paintings. Some are not-so-bad but most of them are grotesque. Aesthetic judgement aside, are the paintings having the desired effect? Apparently, yes!

This particular wall is very close to the Kempegowda Bus stand and is usually littered with Kannada movie posters. The lower portion of the wall is almost always covered by paan stains. However, now I've been watching this wall for more than two weeks and nobody seems to have touched it. I can't really tell why it works, but I'm glad it does. I'm even getting used to the tastelessness. I'd rather see kitsch on my wall than have a sweaty angry Emran Hashmi or Duniya Vijay stare out of it. Besides, there's some innocent charm about the whole scheme. I had a friend who used to be fascinated by examples of such color overload. She used to say "This is so INDIAN" with an affectionate familiarity. I kinda relate to that now

Mural relativism

Rank these in descending order of inappropriateness
a. Sculpture of a topless dancer
b. Painting of a sculpture of a topless dancer
c. Photograph of a painting of a sculpture of a topless dancer
d. Talking about a photograph of a painting of a sculpture of a topless dancer.

My answer would be d, c, a, b. But I really can't explain why that is so. And watch how if you replace "12th century sculpture of a 12th century dancer" with "21st century sculpture of a 21st century dancer" the order would undergo some more reshuffling.

Emerging Leaders - Thought Leadership

I've always encouraged, in my head, the rather simplistic negative stereotype of a b-school as a place where people are taught to be jargon-spewing, self-selling go-getters. Coming in contact with profs Ashwin Mahesh, Trilochan Sastry and Rajeev Gowda over the last few months contributed significantly to alter that perception. Whatever prejudice was left were washed away in the last two weekends of the Emerging Leaders program by Prof. DVR Sheshadri.

Over the last month we have been in the middle of a module titled Thought Leadership in which we have spent time analyzing cases - both obscure and well-documented- from the business world. While the choice of cases has been smart for the most part, it sure has been a pleasure watching Prof S bring his humility, effortless wit, and rich collection of personal anecdotes to these sessions. What really had me nodding, though, was the healthy proportion of time that we spent on thought leadership in the social sector. The fact that I sat up straighter when dealing with cases pertaining to the social sector as opposed to those dealing with business, has to mean something. It's lurking in my head but I'm too afraid at this moment to give it words. I'll come back to that.

The most noteworthy session in all those classes happened last Saturday when we had a whole afternoon dedicated to the madness of Dr. Ashok Rao. I've been unabashedly leftist in my beliefs and harbor deep suspicions about a growth-obsessed inflationary model of economics. I usually gratify my confirmation biases by closely following some fringe commentators of, what I thought, was an inconsequential sub-culture. To hear those views expressed in the classrooms of one of our prestigious business schools was indeed a surprise, one that I'm welcoming with open arms. Dr. Rao initially came across as a technophobe who was polemic just for kicks (which is hard to reconcile with when you realize that he has a PhD in Digital Signal Processing). How do you deal with someone who uses Infosys as a metaphor for everything wrong with our society? However, as he ranted along, provoking everybody and leaving heads a-reeling, his method started to reveal itself. I couldn't help feel that he left everybody infected with a little disenchantment over how society has distributed wealth among its denizens and what a beating Quality of Life has taken in the process. Despite his distinctly unsophisticated style you can tell that he is no phony. This morning he would have returned to his lonely home in an unmarked village near Gubbi. I vowed to pay him a visit around Christmas time.

While that session pumped up the tumult, the prize-winning epiphany came this morning. As a fun thought-exercise we did a little poll among the 20 of us for the question "What percentage of the collective talent of the employees are we effectively harnessing in our company?". As a group we arrived at "20%". Wow!

Do** of the month - Sri Janardhana Reddy

A few days ago a newspaper carried a report that bloggers could be arrested if they are found to defame respectable citizens. Since I'm not very confident about my countrymen's understanding of democratic rights, I'm taking the necessary precautions by masking two crucial letters in the word Do**. You know what it stands for, but if I get arrested I'll insist I meant "Dood" or something!

Presenting this week's Do**- Sri Janardhana Reddy, the minister who was protecting his iron mines with all his energy while half his constituency was four feet underwater. This week he claimed that there's no illegal mining happening in our state. He conclusively proved it by telling us this, and I quote here, "We are dignified and honest people. This can be known through our donation of Rs one crore to Sri Krishna temple.". Case closed! Thank god for that. If you can recall he has demonstrated how much he loves the people of this state by another awesome gesture; he offered a crown worth Rs. 45 Crore to the god at Tirupati. Experts agree that without that offering his constituency would have been 8-feet underwater.

I dare you, oh reader, find me a better do**!

It's been fifteen years!!

Pictures (really bad ones!) and thoughts from my School Reunion.

Events like this are reminders of how unforgivably and inexorably the clock has ticked on. Most of my favorite teachers have retired. Some have even died. My classmates have all nurtured paunches but lost their hair. The cricket ground has been replaced by an ugly building that has no regard for the harmoniousness of the place.

Yet, thankfully, some things have not changed at all. The ground is still as glorious as ever although the backdrop has changed drastically. The tree growing at an angle, also called the Kamat Tree, named after V. Kamat, the kid who sat under its shade after mock-fainting in every single assembly, still endures. Ms. Pothan still has the zen in her smile. And Ms. Harriet D'Sa, a full decade after retirement, still looks like royalty.

And finally, Bhootroom, also known as the Scout Den, has lost none of its spookiness. Its occupant, however, reportedly won a lottery and took an early retirement.

Mobilicity

MobiliCity took place last Saturday. The first session of the day, for me, had enough positives to make the entire effort worthwhile. Here were policy makers, policy enforcers, thinkers and citizens all discussing a Transport Policy for the state, a document that is a first of its kind in the entire country. Here were people from the world's crustiest bureaucracy willing to let faceless members of an online forum critique its decisions and proposals. On the stage was Prof Ashwin Mahesh, who has been allowed to influence transport decisions of the city without really belonging to the establishment . If you don't know about it, the Big 10 service is his brainchild. Sharing the platform with him was a young articulate legislator, Krishna Byregowda, who was ballsy and straight enough to point the finger back at his constituency and say "If you are going to drown me with your petty issues, how will I get the time to get to what I really should be doing, i.e drafting legislation?". I couldn't help exclaiming, in Dean Moriarty's words, "HE gets IT!". I also found it refreshing that he had no qualms about the taunts that were thrown at him. Then there was Vishwanath, a rainwater harvesting expert, who brought his experience and understanding of sustainability to the discussion.

Later in the day, there was one particular session by CSTEP that was extremely intriguing. A few random folks from the audience were given wooden blocks and were asked to build a city out of them. The participants took turns to erect structures such as schools, metro stations, biking paths, hospitals etc.. The resulting miniature city was strikingly similar to what Bangalore has turned out to be. No clear demarcation of residential and business areas. The metro came as an afterthought. Almost all utilities were unplanned. The city had no tolerance for cyclists. I could go on. These participants were admittedly conscientious folks, as proven by their willingness to spend an entire Saturday at an unconference of this nature. And they were dealing with wooden blocks! Yet they botched it up. There was a simple but forceful lesson there. Organic growth, without coordination between the stakeholders, leads to hell holes. However, the more subtle learning was that a citizenry that doesn't demand well thought out plans from its city builders will end up living in cities like the Bangalore of today.

I've heard a lot of people getting cynical about the outcomes of an event like this. I will be the first to agree that nothing direct resulted that would make you see a tangible influence on the city's transport in the near future. But to embrace that pessimism would be to miss the point. Here were a bunch of folks asking the right questions to the right people. Here was a crowd that was telling the leaders that decide on its behalf that they are being watched, that they are accountable. I think that's a start.

After the lull...

It's not like I had nothing happening in life. I could have written about the big launch at work and the relief at the end of it. I could have written about the awesome meetings with all the Solid Waste Management pioneers of Bangalore. I could have written about my best bird pic yet. I could have publicized Mobilicity which is coming up next weekend. I could have written about the drinking-cum-cheapshot-taking session at Stones presided over by the big guy himself (I can hear him laugh at the hidden pun in this sentence. It's in bad taste but I didn't invent it. This time, pun unintended). I could have written about the Northie-weds-Southie ceremony in Delhi. Or I could have resorted to one of my recurring features. I thought of chronicling the Dork of the Month but I couldn't find one dumber than me. I wanted to do the Deppe Recommends on the awesome "Rashomon" but I was too smug about how well I now know the Rashomon Effect. I just decided to give myself a break. I need it.

350

We had a special Critical Mass last Saturday to commemorate the International Day of Climate Action. S-man beat me to it when it came to posting about it. I'll do the smart thing here and just link to his account. Personally, I was a little disappointed with the turnout. However, what we lacked in numbers we made up for in charisma, thanks to the awesomeness of these two siblings. Watching them furiously pedal at their small diameter wheels, ride along undaunted in the sea of towering cyclists around them was a joy. Anybody who saw these kids and didn't feel a momentary urge to pick up a bicycle is probably clinically dead.

Annotated guide to an awesome debate (updated)

The recently released book Superfreakonomics has a chapter on Global Warming that has sparked off one of the most engaging debates that I've witnessed. The premise of that chapter, to paraphrase it (very)loosely, is that geo-engineering (read spraying sulphur or something into the atmosphere to cut off sunlight!) is better than improving efficiency of our current systems and conservation in general.

First the authors of the book got an ass-whipping by Paul Krugman. A lot of other experts got in on the fun as well. The authors, Levitt and Dubner, then did some defensive back-tracking. Krugman was relentless. Then Dubner did some underdog posturing in trying to explain himself. Then Myhrvold(the smartest guy in the world according to Bill Gates), who is an advocate of geo-engineering wrote a beautiful piece on how environmentalism has become political, almost a religion even. I admit that I agree with him a lot. This piece was a lot more persuasive than the one that the other fake-scientist, Michael Crichton, spat out. Anyway, I'm waiting for someone to point out to Myhrvold how he conveniently changed his stance from "Geo-engineering is a better solution" to "Geo-engineering is the last resort" in such a short time and still tries to claim sympathy by posing as a victim of a witch-hunt. This debate is not over I'm sure and I can't wait for more.

Update:
One more Krugman swipe.
The Levitt defence/defiance.

Happy Diwali

53 cases of eye injuries in Hyderabad.
Two buses burn in Orissa
Six firemen choke to death in Thane
32 killed in firecracker godown blaze
70 burn cases in Delhi
An average of 10 cases of cracker-related eye injuries in Bangalore hospitals

Litter strewn roads.
Toxic fumes. Untested chemicals released in the air.
Scared pets.

A few reasons why Diwali is my least favorite festival.

Blog Action Day

Apparently the Arctic will be an open ice-less sea in 10 years. I'm putting this down so that I can come back and check in 2019.

October 15th was the Blog Action day to raise awareness about Global Warming. It took me a long time to be convinced that global warming is a man-made phenomenon, and even now when I read material that tries to prove otherwise, I must admit that I'm forced to rethink my stand. Moreover, I think Global Warming as an issue hogs a disproportionately large portion of our attention. There are so many other issues that are so freakin' easy to prove and so bloody ominous- such as habitat destruction, plundering of our resources, species extinction, and the way we are crowding our planet like rodents.

I believe everything we do - live, eat, travel, trade, earn- needs an overhaul. It becomes daunting if you keep the whole laundry list in front of you all the time. Sometimes focus is good. In that respect, I must admit Global Warming has been a very useful flagship issue to point out everything wrong with our civilization's relationship with its home. So here's my voice in the chorus.

Deppe reccommends "Inglourious Basterds"

I remember reading Ebert's critique of Pulp Fiction in which he says that after the first viewing of the movie he couldn't decide whether it was the best movie of that year or the worst. You only come away knowing that you witnessed something indescribable that defied most expectations you had from movies in general. That feeling was missing for me after Kill Bill. The magic is back in Inglourious Basterds. The outrageous liberties that Tarantino takes with history provide one of the most gratifying endings ever. Watch it. Twice at least.

Do** of the month - Sri Ramachandra Gowda

It's heartrending to watch the aerial shots of the flood-hit areas in north karnataka played over and over again on the 24-hr news channels. You've heard all sorts of explanations on why something like this could happen; from bad karma to ill-managed large dams to climate change. But what do the plebians understand! Our ministers, on the other hand, are on top of it. Our dear minister Sri. Ramachandra Gowda proved it when he succinctly expressed who has to be blamed for this calamity. I'm not making this up, but he really insists that our astrologers got us into this mess by not predicting it!

I tried to dig up dirt from this dude's past. He seems to have started flubbing rather early in life. When he was leading a Goan liberation movement, they asked him to coin a snappy little chantable slogan and he came up with one that romped into the wordsmith hall of fame: "Nehruji Ab kya kare – Police lekar Goa chalo". He was later rewarded for his wonderful scientific temper when he was handed over the Ministry of Science and Technology! Which, I'm guessing, he promptly handed over to his court astrologer. Sleep well folks, this country is in safe hands.

Delhi trip

Last weekend, I witnessed a bonafide world-wonder; a taxi driver who didn't honk once over a 30km ride! I'm not sure if the holidays had something to do with it, but the whole traffic situation was heartening. I must say I came away with a very good impression of the Metro too. Can't wait to have that in Bangalore.

Of course, I finally saw the Taj too. I thought it couldn't surprise me, after having seen it in so many times in print and film, it still got me nodding in absolute admiration. I was imagining what it must have looked like 350 yrs ago, with none of the tourists and the clamour around and with an unpolluted Yamuna flowing by its side, and the marble still sparkling clean. Must have been some sight!

What's with Agra though? Do they deliberately keep the city in the 18th century so that the firangs can come here and say things like "India attacks all your senses!"?

The highlight of the trip was my visit to the Bharatpur bird sanctuary which was nothing short of birdwatching nirvana. Even more heartening than the enormous diversity of birdlife is the knowledge of the rickshaw drivers here!


Pratap Singh, the rickshaw driver we hired could identify every goddamn bird that we saw. He won himself a tip of Rs. 10 for every new entry into my bird blog.

Besides that, the weekend was a heady mix of soaking in awesome northie humour and effortless hospitality, conjuring liquor parties out of thin air, a lot of driving and a little wallowing in existential angst.

What we refuse to destroy

There's a quote by John Sawhill that I happen to strongly agree with "In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy." By that standard, I think we deserved a pat on the back today. The High Court of Karnataka has directed the BBMP not to fell trees in GKVK. To give a background on the story, the BBMP had proposed to run a 100ft road through the GKVK campus to provide a shorter link for commuters traveling from Yeshwantpur to the new airport.

I had always heard about the GKVK "forest" from the folks in the birdwatching circles. Today I decided to pay a small visit. In the single hour that I was there I saw at least 20 species of birds without having to strain myself. I managed to capture a few with my camera too. I can also testify that it's no exaggeration to call the campus a forest! It would have been inexcusable to lose it. The road would not only have destroyed a lot of trees, fragmented pristine habitats, but probably would have sparked off a wave of commercialization in an area that's surprisingly untouched.

The forest is safe for now, probably because the Judges' colony is right adjacent to it. However, admittedly, the traffic situation that the BBMP is trying to address is terrible too. In a few years time, when we'll have a hundred thousand more cars on the streets of Bangalore, our collective patience will run out. Eventually our hunger for better infrastructure and development will prevail. Before that happens, I hope I have the time to photograph all the bird species there.

Age of Stupid

Allow me to be naive about this; the idea of watching a crowdfunded independent movie -with a doomsday theme to boot- in a fringe movie hall that doesn't serve 100-Rupee popcorn pushes so many of my buttons that my enjoyment of the movie was almost fait accompli.

"Age of Stupid" is a collection of montages all on the theme of how we are being irresponsible with the planet's resources. There is one intriguing story that runs throughout the movie and that's an account of the launch of Go Air, a low-cost airline that sought to make air travel affordable to the average indian. It's a fascinating example because it shows how many of our values and rational choices are at loggerheads with what is responsible at this moment in history. With your normal spectacles it's impossible to find fault with someone launching a low-cost air service. There's no culture that would find it ethical to dictate limits to the entrepreneurial spirit let alone completely discourage it. There are very few individuals, and I'm definitely not one of them, who would voluntarily eschew an opportunity to travel the world conveniently. Yet it takes us one step closer to getting fucked and that much harder to wind it back. It got me thinking of the enormity of the solution. Nothing less than dismantling our value system and recalibrating it would do.

The owner of GoAir, Jeh Wadia, honestly believes that his efforts are guided by his deeper purpose of eradicating poverty. You have to already believe "peak-oil", "imminent ecological collapse" and "overcrowding" to catch the irony in that example. Therein lies the movie's biggest fault. It rams its lessons hard into the converted. Most people will probably dismiss the whole gig as fear-mongering by the leftist nuts. I still say everybody should watch it.

Kumara Parvatha

The first time that I went to Kumaraparvatha was a long time ago; cameras needed film rolls back then. Seven monsoons ago, five of us had been crazy enough to spend a night on the peak. We had been rudely jolted out of our sleep when the fly sheet of our tent had flown off at around midnight. P and I had ventured out to fetch it and fix it back on. In the two minutes that we had spent outside, every inch of our clothes had become wet. We had seen each other's scared faces when a couple of lightning strikes landed a few hundred metres from where we stood. We had spent the rest of the night holding on to our tent that was being threatened by the loudest and most furious wind I've ever experienced. Four of us were hanging on to the side beams and P, being the tall one, was clutching the top rod. By morning, we were wet, cold and angry. I swore never to venture into the Western Ghats during the monsoons.



You know how we look back on even the worst episodes and say "It happened for the best!". Psychologists call that sub-conscious rationalization 'Synthetic Happiness'. That is what makes us sugar-coat our memories and call them "experience" and genuinely feel good about having had them. That is also what made me forget my resolution. So I was there last weekend with a bunch of people again at Kumaraparvatha.

This time we climbed from the Pushpagiri side. The skies had stayed clear till late afternoon. The leeches, in my evaluation, were less enterprising too. I boasted about how I had spent three days (counting my Anejhari trip too) in the Ghats and not a single leech had feasted on me, while most others around me had been victimized. I was joking about how the leeches seemed to be on a low-cholesterol diet, when the clouds said "tada!". Old jungle saying "Forest not likes being taken for granted". It started to pour at 4 and we stood helpless under the shelter of styrofoam floor mats waiting for the fury to subside. The strong winds had ensured that all of us were drenched and nothing in our bags was dry either.


After a few hours, we gave up hope, pitched our three tents in the dark, and ate our soggy chapathis before sneaking into our sleeping bags. None of the other folks slept in the wet tents, but I told myself that I was in a bathtub, and convinced myself to sleep. Like I've mentioned before, when I sleep I don't just sleep, I hibernate. N woke me up hours later to tell me that my feet were covered with leeches. That's when I decided to check myself thoroughly. There were leeches all over the place including some too close to "the family jewels" to borrow from N's rich euphemism library. I de-leeched and did something that guaranteed my status as a legend: I slept again! I reportedly talked in my sleep too, something about an upcoming Yahoo! release. I bleed purple! Ask them leeches.



In the morning, the Ghats were benign and benevolent. We were amidst the clouds and everything was dream-like. If we overlooked the little detail that the protagonists all looked like they were returning from battle, everything else was straight out of postcards. We lingered on for too long. In the evening we were left with 3kms to traverse when darkness crept up on us. My group of four had become separated from the rest and we had one torch between us. We each fell several times and made such slow progress that I was already steeling myself to spending another night in the forest, this time with no tent. When we eventually saw the light of a vehicle on the road we were too spent to even celebrate. It's likely that someday I'll narrate this experience as if it was a good one. If you catch me doing that, slap me.

Anejhari

We had started our journey from Bangalore at nearly 3 AM and had driven for nearly 10 hours. That and the trekking we had done in the rain had given me that sweet kind of pain all over my body. We had had a beer each after dinner. I was now sleeping under a night sky that seemed impossible to render without the use of Photoshop. For instance, the far rim of the milky way was clearly visible. The forest guards had all left the premises and we were the masters of everything we surveyed. Cicadas and tree frogs were announcing themselves to the world. And then there was the sound of the river flowing. That's about as much intoxication as I can take on a Saturday night. I had nearly slipped into coma when I was awoken by my friends. They insisted that I come and see something truly strange. The I've-seen-a-ghost look on their faces told me that this wasn't some poorly planned practical joke. Curiosity prevailed over stupor and so I gathered my torch and ambled along. After walking some distance they asked me to switch off the light and look at a particular tree. I saw why it had been so important to wake me up.
Here's how the tree looked under the torchlight.


...and here's how it looked in almost complete darkness.


It was one of the most bizarre things I've witnessed. J told us that he had heard about varieties of bioluminescent fungi. I later learnt that this phenomenon is called foxfire. We found patches of the forest floor that were carpets of luminescent lighting. Apart from the foxfire, there were glowworms and fireflies too. Truly bizarre! Kudos to M for spotting this without her specs.


Some other highlights from the trip
The Guesthouse: The foliage is so dense that it is almost perpetually dark here. Just outside the door of the guest house is the Souparnika river doing a right angle turn.



The leeches: One of the highlights of the trip was my northie friends' initiation to leeches of the ghats. I have pictures of blood-covered feet but decide against putting them here, but S-man sure is proud of them.

The drive: Shimoga to Anejhari is one awesome drive.

Wildlife: This really bold Malabar squirrel and some exquisite bird-sightings.


Shivappanayakana Kote (Fort): This fort is in a town called Nagara on the way to Kollur. Not only is the fort pretty but offers from its top a great view of the surrounding landscapes.

31

It's as easy to wake me up as it was to put Rasputin to sleep. They first poked me with a broom, collapsed the mosquito net on my face, flashed a bright light at my closed eye and then hit me with a bicycle speedometer. I eventually woke up when a copy of E.O.Wilson's The Future Of Life fell on my head. When I eventually stumbled back to half consciousness I saw five frustrated faces staring at me from outside my window. Five of my favorite faces in the world! I always insist that it is pretty silly to make a big deal out of your birthday but I confess I enjoyed the attention. I was handed over the other gifts that hadn't been used as missiles; The Blind Watchmaker, Reading Lolita in Tehran and a bottle of Merlot, which we finished in the half hour that followed. There was also a cake that had a lot of hidden cultural references.

The 31st birthday wasn't as confronting as the last one. No big milestone in the decimal system. No crossing over the hill. No underachiever angst. No deeply penetrating cheapshots about my age. Just raising a toast and moving on.