Irrelevant Opinions and Stories

Security farce

2010-02-16T21:00:00.002-05:00

The latest proof that we Indians take ourselves too seriously is here.

"Intercepting" ATC-pilot conversations? Seriously?

Allow me to explain. Air Traffic Control in all countries happen on VHF frequencies. There is a certain range of frequencies set aside for radio communication and navigation and this range is collectively called the "air band". All one needs to access this range of frequencies is a receiver that can tune to these frequencies. Think of the receiver as just another transistor radio, but one which can receive more frequencies than normal. The communication is by no means encrypted, nor is it classified. One can think of it as eavesdropping on a motorist asking a policeman for directions.

This communication will make no sense at all for most non-pilots, laden as it is with jargon specific to air traffic control and navigation. Even if people do understand the conversations, they are likely to find out where a particular airplane is directed to go. I don't see why that is a security threat since most commercial airplanes reach very high altitudes in a very short period of time. When they are close to the ground, they are visible anyway.

There is a very famous website (hosted in the US obviously) called LiveATC.net which streams live ATC communications from dozens of airports around the world. Many pilots (myself included) listen to communication on this once in a while to practice and learn correct phraseology. This is important since pilots are not expected to waste time when talking to ATC.

In the US, one needs a radio license only if one plans to transmit on a particular frequency. Listening is free for all. In India, one needs a radio license to listen in too. These poor Britons might find themselves in hot water for listening to their radios without a proper license. But let's get serious. That is not a security threat.

However, there is one safety aspect to this. If someone is reckless enough to interfere with communications by transmitting false instructions, there is a serious risk of confusion in the skies. Among all the thousands of aviation enthusiasts in the world, I would be surprised if anyone found more than a dozen who would be deviant enough to do something like that.

Getting a haircuts

2010-02-14T12:22:00.002-05:00

I just returned from getting a haircut from the local Supercuts.

I walk in and this friendly middle-aged Ecuadorian lady greets me with, "Hello! Do you want haircuts today?". I reply, "Yes please, just one though". "Haha, funny guy. One haircuts for you".

I put my name on the list and sit down to wait my turn. There's a family there to get haircuts for their two kids; a boy and a girl. The girl seems to mentally challenged (or is it "special" now?) and needs to be held down in the chair by the mother while the female barber trims her hair.

The aforementioned Ecuadorian (I know she is one because she told me on a previous visit) gets done with the boy and asks me to take the chair. As usual, I mutter, "Number 4 on the sides and scissors on top". She gets started.

I'm not very chatty when getting a haircut despite the valiant attempts at conversation from barbers. I just don't feel like adding to their distraction when their scissors are snipping close to my ears. She finishes up the right side of my head and then asks me, "You wanted a number 3 right?". WHAT?

Number 3 is shorter than number 4 and I didn't want it that short. I tell her, "No! I wanted a number 4". She coolly says, "OK" and proceeds to switch the thingy on the thingy to a number 4 and starts to clip the left side.

At this time I'm contemplating the new look that is clearly going to become the vogue at my office - different length haircuts on different sides of my head. I shake it off and tell her as calmly as I can, "Can you please make it a 3 all around?".

"OK" she says, and that was the end of the adventure. Thankfully.

Unfair Banking Practices

2008-07-06T10:41:00.003-04:00

Banks in India can be divided into two broad groups. The first is the set of all nationalized or old school banks which includes the likes of SBI, Syndicate Bank, Canara Bank etc. The second set includes the new and what I like to call the "page 3" banks like ICICI, Citibank, HDFC Bank etc.

The new banks were supposed to set new standards in customer service and efficiency in Indian banking. Unfortunately for their customers, they have instead set new standards in fleecing them.

I have an account with Citibank and here are two examples from just this one bank.

1. I deposited an outstation cheque (drawn on a Syndicate Bank branch in Mysore) for Rs.500. Quite a few days later, I see that there is a credit of Rs.387.64. Surprised, I look at the detailed transactions and find out where Rs.112.36 of my money has disappeared.
- Rs.100 towards Outstation Cheque Charges
- Rs.12 towards a 12% service tax on service charges of the above Rs.100
- Rs.0.36 towards an education cess of 3% on the service tax of Rs.12 on the service charges of Rs.100

I guess we customers should be happy to receive only 78% of our money most of the times. What a great return!

2. A cheque for about Rs.8000 drawn on a local bank was deposited two weeks ago at the same Citibank. One would think that in this age of electronic clearing houses money would quickly transfer between banks. One would also think that since one day was the absolute upper limit in the days of our old nationalized banks when there was no electronic clearing available, things would be better these days. However, one would be wrong. Very wrong.

You see, these new banks in their zeal for "efficiency" like to take their own sweet time to deposit the money into your account. A two week delay is a two week loss to my interest on that amount, and a two week gain for Citibank since they get to invest the money for that duration. Talk about playing the "spread". Not only does Citibank not have to pay my interest, they make money on top of it! If this isn't a cynical manipulation of customers I don't know what is.

I have had other dealings with ICICI and they are no better. It appears as if the Reserve Bank and Finance Ministry have completely given up their responsibility to the people to ensure fair banking practices.

Karnataka Elections

2008-05-25T09:07:00.002-04:00

So the BJP won, and I am sure they are very glad to have 5 uninterrupted years to loot the state. After all, they waited a long time for the opportunity didn't they?

Unlike in the coalition government last time around, where each party had precious little time to recover it's "investment", BJP now has the chance to plan their "take" properly. We therefore might not see them gorging on the opportunity. They will partake of the sumptuous spread in leisure. Think of it as eating a quick lunch at a darshini versus a nice sit down 7 course meal. The stomach however, is full at the end of both.

ನಗರ

2008-02-23T22:58:00.002-05:00

ನಾನು ಬೆಳೆದದ್ದು ಮೈಸೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ. ಶಾಲೆ ಮುಗಿದು ಬೇಸಿಗೆ ಬಂತೆಂದರೆ ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮ ನಮ್ಮ ಸೋದರತ್ತೆಯರ ಮನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಲು ತವಕಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ಹಿರಿಯ ಅತ್ತೆ ಇದ್ದದ್ದು ಚಾಮರಾಜನಗರದಲ್ಲಿ. ಕಿರಿಯವಳು ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ. ಬೇಸಿಗೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಗರಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋದರೆ ದಸರಾ ರಜೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು - ಹೀಗೆ ನಮ್ಮ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆ.

ನಾವು ಚಿಕ್ಕ ವಯಸ್ಸಿನವರಾದವರಿಂದ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ನಗರಕ್ಕೆ ಕರೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗಲು ಯಾರಾದರೂ ಇರಬೇಕಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಈ ಹೊಣೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಪಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ನನ್ನ ತಾತನದು. ನನ್ನ ಅತ್ತೆಯ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಫೋನ್ ಇಲ್ಲದ್ದರಿಂದ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ೧೫ ಪೈಸೆಯ ಪೋಸ್ಟ್ ಕಾರ್ಡ್ ಮೂಲಕ. ಎಂಭತ್ತರ ದಶಕದಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಜೀವನ ಬಹಳ ಸರಳ.

ನಗರಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗಲು ನಮಗಿದ್ದ ಎರಡು ವಿಧಾನ ರೈಲು ಮತ್ತು ಬಸ್ಸು. ನಮಗೆ ರೈಲೇ ಆಗಬೇಕು. ಆವಾಗ ಮೈಸೂರು-ಚಾಮರಾಜನಗರ ರೈಲು ಉಗಿಬಂಡಿ. ಆದರೆ ನಮ್ಮ ತಾತನಿಗೆ ರೈಲು ಆಗದು. ರೈಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋಗಬೇಕೆಂದರೆ ಅದನ್ನು ಕಾಯಬೇಕು. ಬಸ್ಸಾದರೆ ಘಂಟೆಗೆ ಹಲವಾರು ಇದ್ದವು. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನಗರದಲ್ಲಿ ರೈಲು ನಿಲ್ದಾಣ ಊರಿನಿಂದ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊರಗೆ - ಅಲ್ಲಿಂದ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗುವುದು ಅನಾನುಕೂಲದ ಮಾತು. ಇದರ ಮೇಲೆ ನನ್ನ ಅತ್ತೆಯ ಬೆದರಿಕೆ - "ನೋಡ್ರೊ, ಶನಿವಾರದ ಡ್ರೈವರ್ ಸರಿ ಇಲ್ಲ್ವಂತೆ. ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಇದ್ದಲನ್ನು ಮಾರ್ಕೊತಾನಂತೆ. ಕಿಟಕಿಗೆ ಮುಖ ಇಟ್ಟ್ಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದ್ರೆ ಆ ಕೆಟ್ಟ ಮಸೀನ ಉಜ್ಜಕ್ಕೆ ನಂಗಾಗಲ್ಲ. ರೈಲು ಕೂಡ ನಿಧಾನವಾಗಿ ಓಡತ್ತೆ."

ಕೆಲವು ಬಾರಿ ನಾವು ಈ ಕಾಳಗವನ್ನು ಗೆಲ್ಲುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ನಮ್ಮ ಆ ರೈಲು ಪ್ರಯಾಣ ಎಷ್ಟು ಸುಖಕರ! ೬೦ ಕಿಲೋಮೀಟರ್ ಹೋಗಲು ೨ ಘಂಟೆ ಆಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನು, ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮ ಕಿಟಕಿಗೆ ಮುಖ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ಬೀಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ತಾತ, "ಅಯ್ಯೋ ಪಾಪಿಗಳಾ, ಸುಮ್ನೆ ನೆಟ್ಟಗೆ ಕೂತ್ಕೊಳ್ಳ್ರೋ!" ಎಂದು ಹಲ್ಲು ಕಡಿಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆ ಹಸಿರು ಅಥವ ಹಳದಿ ಮರದ ಸೀಟ್, ಕಪ್ಪು ಫ್ಯಾನ್, ಮುಚ್ಚದ ಕಿಟಕಿ, ಮೀಟರ್ ಗೇಜ್ ನ ಮೇಲೆ ಬಹಳ ಅಲುಗಾಡುವ ಬಂಡಿ, ಉಗಿಬಂಡಿಯ ಸುವಾಸನೆ. ರೈಲು ತಿರುಗಿದಾಗ ಮುಂದೆ ಇದ್ದ ಹೊಗೆ ಉಗುಳುವ ಎಂಜಿನ್ನನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ನಮಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲದ ಖುಶಿ!

ನಗರ ತಲುಪಿದಾಗ ನಮ್ಮ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಡಿಮಾಂಡ್ ಕುದುರೆ ಗಾಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮನೆಗೆ ಹೋಗಬೇಕೆಂದು. ಮೈಸೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಜಟಕಾ ಬಂಡಿಗಳು ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನಪಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಮಾಯವಾಗಿದ್ದರೂ, ಚಾಮರಾಜನಗರದಲ್ಲಿ ಇನ್ನೂ ಹಲವಾರು ಇದ್ದವು. ಬಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋಗಿ ಇಳಿದಿದ್ದರೆ ನಮ್ಮ ತಾತ, "ಗಾಡಿ, ಆಟೊ ಏನೂ ಬೇಡ ನಡಿರೋ. ಮನೆ ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಹತ್ತ್ರ ನಡ್ಕೊಂಡ್ ಹೋಗೋಣ." ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆದರೆ ರೈಲು ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಿಂದ ನಡೆಯಲು ಅವರೂ ಹಿಂಜರಿಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಜಟಕಾದವನ ಹತ್ತಿರ ೧೫ ನಿಮಿಷ ಚೌಕಾಶಿ ಮಾಡಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಸಾಮಾನನ್ನು ಗಾಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಕಿ, ಒಬ್ಬ ಮುಂದೆ ಕುಳಿತು, ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ ತಾತನ ಜೊತೆ ಹಿಂದೆ ಕುಳಿತು, ಬಡಪಾಯಿ ಒಣಗಿಕೊಂಡ ಕುದುರೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತಿಣುಕಿಕೊಂಡೇ ಹೊರಡುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಹೋಗುತ್ತ ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಊರಿಗೆ ಇದ್ದ ಒಂದೇ ಪೆಟ್ರೊಲ್ ಬಂಕ್, ಭ್ರಮರಾಂಬ ಟಾಕೀಸ್, ಹೊಸದಾದ ಬಸವೇಶ್ವರ ಟಾಕೀಸ್ (ಊರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಮೊತ್ತೊಂದು ಸಿನೆಮ ಕೃಶ್ಣ - ಇದ್ದದ್ದು ಮೂರೆ), ಸಿರಿಕಲ್ಚರ್ ಇಲಾಖೆ, ಜೆ ಎಸ್ ಎಸ್ ಶಾಲೆ ಮತ್ತು ಕಾಲೇಜು, ಪಿಡಬ್ಲ್ಯೂಡಿ ಕಾಲೋನಿ, ದೊಡ್ಡ ಬಯಲು, ಮತ್ತೆ ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಮನೆ.

ನಮ್ಮ ಅತ್ತೆಯ ಮನೆ ಒಂದು ಚೊಕ್ಕವಾದ ಬಿಳಿಯ ಮನೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕೆಂಪು ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಹಂಚು. ಮನೆಯೆದುರು ಚಪ್ಪರ. ಮನೆಯ ಸುತ್ತ ಒಪ್ಪವಾದ ಒಂದು ಹೂತೋಟ. ಮನೆ ಸುತ್ತ ತಂತಿಯ ಬೇಲಿ, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳ್ಳಿ ಗಿಡ. ನಾಲ್ಕು ಮೂಲೆಯಲ್ಲೂ ಒಂದೊಂದು ತೆಂಗಿನ ಮರ. ಎದುರು ಎರಡು ಹೊಂಗೆ ಮರ, ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಸೀಬೆ ಮರ ಮತ್ತು ಸೀತಾಫಲ ಗಿಡಗಳು. ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಜಾಜಿ ಮತ್ತು ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆ. ಮನೆಯ ಬಾಗಿಲಿನವರೆಗೆ ಸೇವಂತಿಗೆ ಹೂ ಪೊದೆಗಳು, ಹೂಕುಂಡಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕ್ರೊಟಾನ್ ಗಿಡಗಳು. ಮನೆಯ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಳೆ ಗಿಡಗಳ ಒಂದು ಗುಂಪು, ಮತ್ತು ಅದರ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಲದ ಸಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ತೊಟ್ಟಿ. ನಗರದ ಒಣ ಬಿಸಿಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಆ ತೋಟವನ್ನು ಜೀವಂತವಾಗಿ ಇಟ್ಟಿದ್ದ ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾವನ ಶ್ರಮವನ್ನು ಮೆಚ್ಚಬೇಕಾದ್ದೆ. ಮನೆಯೆದುರಿನ ಚಪ್ಪರದ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಒಂದೆರಡು ಬೆತ್ತದ ಕುರ್ಚಿಗಳು. ನಮ್ಮ ಭಾವಾಜಿ (ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾವನನ್ನು ನಮ್ಮ ತಂದೆ-ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪಂದಿರು ಹಾಗೆ ಕರೆಯಲು ಶುರು ಮಾಡಿದಾಗಿಂದ ಅವರು ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ’ಭಾವಾಜಿ’) ಬಿಳಿ ಪಂಚೆ, ಬಿಳಿ ಬನಿಯನ್ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಸ್ವಾಗತಿಸಿ, ನಮ್ಮ ಚೀಲಗಳನ್ನು ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಒಳಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತ, "ಇಂದಿರಾ, ಬಂದ್ರು ನೋಡು" ಎಂದು ಕೂಗು ಹಾಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ನಮ್ಮ ಇನ್ನಕ್ಕ (ನನ್ನ ಬಾಯಲ್ಲಿ "ಇಂದಿರಕ್ಕ" ಹೊರಡದೆ ಇದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅದು "ಇನ್ನಕ್ಕ" ಆಗಿತ್ತು) ಹೊರಗೆ ಬಂದು, "ನಮ್ಮಪ್ಪನ್ನ ತುಂಬ ಗೋಳು ಹೋಯ್ಕೊಳ್ಳ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ ತಾನೆ? ಸರಿ ಬನ್ನಿ, ಆ ಮಸೀನ ಮುಖದಿಂದ ತಿಕ್ಕಣ" ಎಂದು ಹೇಳಿ ಬಚ್ಚಲಿಗೆ ಕರೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಕೈ, ಕಾಲು ಮುಖ ತೊಳಸಿ ಬಟ್ಟೆ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಲು ಹೇಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಒಳಗೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾವನ ತಾಯಿ ದ್ರೌಪದಜ್ಜಿ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ, "ಅಯ್ಯೊ ಮುಂಡೇವಾ, ಎಷ್ಟು ಬೆಳೆದುಬಿಟ್ಟಿದೀರ್‍ಓ!" ಎಂದು ಸ್ವಾಗತಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು.

ನಮ್ಮ ತಾತ ಸಮಯವಿದ್ದರೆ ಅಂದೇ ಮೈಸೂರಿಗೆ ಮರಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು - ಬಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ. ಅಷ್ಟು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಅತ್ತೆ-ಮಾವನ ಮಗಳು ಸುಮ (ನಮಗೆ ಸುಮಕ್ಕ) ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದರೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ಗಲಾಟೆ ಶುರು. ಸುಮಕ್ಕ ನನಗಿಂತ ಹತ್ತು ವರುಷ ದೊಡ್ಡವಳು, ಆದರೆ ನಮ್ಮಿಬ್ಬರ ಮಧ್ಯ ನಮ್ಮ ಕುಟುಂಬದಲ್ಲಿ ಬೇರೆ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನನಗೆ ತಮ್ಮನಿದ್ದನೇ ಹೊರತು ಅವನು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಹಳ ಚಿಕ್ಕವನು (ಎಂದು ನನ್ನ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ). ಸುಮಕ್ಕ ಮತ್ತು ನಾನು ಕುಳಿತುಕೊಂಡು ನಮ್ಮ ರಜೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಏನೇನು ಮಾಡಬೇಕೆಂದು ಪ್ಲ್ಯಾನ್ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ಮೈಸೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಮಗೆ ಪಿಚ್ಚರ್ ನೋಡಲು ಅನುಮತಿ ಇರುತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಸುಮಕ್ಕ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ನಗರದಲ್ಲಿ "ಲಯನ್ ಜಗಪತಿ ರಾವ್" ಅಂಥ ಕ್ಲಾಸಿಕ್ಸ್ ಅನ್ನು ನೋಡಲು ಕರೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಳು.

ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾವ ಜೆ ಎಸ್ ಎಸ್ ಶಾಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದರು, ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಅವರಿದ್ದ ಬಡಾವಣೆ ಜೆ ಎಸ್ ಎಸ್ ಅವರದ್ದೆ. ಹಾಗಾಗಿ ಅಲ್ಲಿದ್ದವರೆಲ್ಲ ಜೆ ಎಸ್ ಎಸ್ ಶಾಲೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಟೀಚರುಗಳು. ಪ್ರತಿ ವರುಷ ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆನಾದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅಕ್ಕ ಪಕ್ಕದ ಹುಡುಗರೆಲ್ಲ ನನಗೆ ಪರಿಚಯ. ಎದರು ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಂತ ಮತ್ತು ಬಾಬು ಎಂಬ ಅಣ್ಣ ತಮ್ಮಂದಿರು. ಕಾಂತ ಚಿಕ್ಕವನು - ಸುಮಾರು ನನ್ನ ವಯಸ್ಸಿನವನು. ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರೂ ಇಡೀ ರಜೆ ತಂಟೆಗಳನ್ನು ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ಕೆಲವು ಮನೆಗಳ ಆಚೆ ಜೀವನ್ ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ತಮ್ಮ ಚಂದನ್.

ನಗರಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಲಿಸಿದರೆ ಮೈಸೂರು ದೊಡ್ಡ ಊರು. ಎಲ್ಲಾ ರೀತಿಯ ಸೌಲಭ್ಯಗಳೂ ಇರುವ ಜಾಗ. ಆದರೆ ಹಿತ್ತಲ ಗಿಡ ಮದ್ದಲ್ಲ ಅಂದ ಹಾಗೆ, ನಮಗೆ ನಗರ ಮೈಸೂರಿಗಿಂತ ಶ್ರೇಷ್ಠ ಜಾಗ. ಅಲ್ಲಿನ ಜನರ ಸರಳತೆ, ಒಗ್ಗಟ್ಟು, ಹೃದಯವಂತಿಕೆ ಚಿಕ್ಕವರಾದ ನಮಗೆ ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮವಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತೋ ಏನೊ!

ದಿನ ಬೆಳಗಾದರೆ ನಾನು ಎದ್ದು ಮೊದಲು ರೇಡಿಯೊ ಹಾಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆ. ಯಾವುದೋ ಕಾರಣಕ್ಕೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿ ಮೈಸೂರಿನ ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿಗಿಂತ ಸಲೀಸಾಗಿ ಬರುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಅಂಥದ್ದೆ ಒಂದು ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ನಾನು ರೇಡಿಯೊ ಹಾಕಿದಾಗ ರಾಜೀವ್ ಗಾಂಧಿಯ ಹತ್ಯೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮೊದಲು ಕೇಳಿದೆ. ತಕ್ಷಣ ಎಲ್ಲರನ್ನೂ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸಿ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಹೇಳಿ, ಬೇಗ ಮುಖ ತೊಳೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಕಾಂತ, ಬಾಬು, ಜೀವನ್ ಅವರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಹೇಳಲು ಓಡಿದೆ. ರಾಜೀವ್ ಗಾಂಧಿ ಎಂಥ ಮನುಷ್ಯನೋ ಏನೊ, ಆದರೆ ಸಣ್ಣ ಊರಿನ ಜನಕ್ಕೆ ಆ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಸರಿ ಸಮಾನವಾಗಿ ದಿಗಿಲು, ಆತಂಕ, ಸಂಭ್ರಮಗಳನ್ನು ತಂದ ಹಾಗೆ ಇತ್ತು.

ಇನ್ನಕ್ಕನ ಅಡುಗೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಪ್ರಿಯವಾದದ್ದು. ಅವಳ ಮಸಾಲೆ ದೋಸೆ, ಪೂರಿ ಸಾಗು ಅದ್ಭುತ. ಅದರೆ ಅವಳ ಅಕ್ಕಿ ರೊಟ್ಟಿಯ ಸಮಾನ ನಾನು ಇನ್ನೆಲ್ಲೂ ತಿಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ನಾವು ಇದ್ದಾಗ ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನದ ತಿಂಡಿ ಊಟಗಳ ಬಯಕೆಗಳನ್ನು ಚಾಚೂ ತಪ್ಪದೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದಳು. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಕಾದ್ದ ಸಾಮಗ್ರಿಗಳನ್ನು ಅಲ್ಲೆ ಹತ್ತಿರವಿದ್ದ "ಚಡ್ಡಿ" ಅಂಗಡಿಗೆ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಓಡಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದಳು. ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ಮಾಲೀಕ ಯಾವಾಗಲೂ ಚಡ್ಡಿ ಧಾರಿ. ಹಾಗಾಗಿ ಹೆಸರು.

ನಂತರ ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮ ದ್ರೌಪದಜ್ಜಿಯ ಪ್ರಕಾರ ಪೋಲಿ ಅಲೆಯಲು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ನಮಗೆ ಆಟವಾಡಲು ಇದ್ದದ್ದು ಧೂಳು ತುಂಬಿದ ರಸ್ತೆ, ಒಂದಷ್ಟು ಹುಡುಗರು, ಒಂದು ಚಂಡು ಅಥವ ಟೈರ್. ಅದೇನೂ ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೆ ಹತ್ತಲು ಹಲವಾರು ಮರಗಳು. ಮನೆಯಂಗಳದಲ್ಲೇ ಇದ್ದ ಸೀಬೆ ಮರ ಹತ್ತಿ ಅದನ್ನು ಅಲುಗಾಡಿಸಿ ಹಡಗಿನ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೋದಂತೆ ನಟಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡಿ ಬಂದು ಊಟ ಮಾಡಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಹೊರಗೆ ಓಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ಕೆಲವು ಬಾರಿ ಸುಮಕ್ಕ ಅವಳ ಗೆಳತಿಯರ ಜೊತೆ ಎಲ್ಲಾದರೂ ಹೋದರೆ, ನಾವೂ ಬಾಲಗಳಂತೆ ಹೊರಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವು. ದೇವಸ್ಥಾನದ ಹತ್ತಿರದ ಪೇಟೆಯೇ ಸ್ವರ್ಗ! ಪಚ್ಚಪ್ಪನ ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ನ ದೋಸೆಯೇ ಅಮೃತ!

ಸಂಜೆಯಾಗುತ್ತ ವಾಪಾಸ್ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬಂದು ಕೈ ಕಾಲು ಮುಖ ತೊಳೆದುಕೊಂಡು, ಹಾಲು ಕುಡಿದು ಹೊರಗೆ ಜಗುಲಿಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತರೆ ಕಾಗೆ ಗಾತ್ರದ ಸೊಳ್ಳೆಗಳ ನಾದಸ್ವರಕ್ಕೆ ಬಡಾವಣೆಯ ಹಿರಿಯರ ಪರ್ಯಾಯ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಹರಟೆ-ಪುರಾಣ ತರುವವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಒಳಗಿನಿಂದ ಕಾಫಿಯ ಸರಬರಾಜು ನಮ್ಮ ಕೆಲಸ. ಅದು ಮುಗಿದ ನಂತರ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ಮನೆಯೊಳಗೆ ಕೆಂಪು ನೆಲದ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಊಟ ಮಾಡಿ, ಸುಮಾರು ಒಂಭತ್ತರ ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ದೊಡ್ಡ ರವಿ ವರ್ಮನ ರಾಮ-ಸೀತೆಯರ ಚಿತ್ರಪಟದ ಕೆಳಗಿದ್ದ ಆಪ್ಟಾನಿಕ ಕಪ್ಪು-ಬಿಳುಪು ಟೀವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂದಿನ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ ವಾರ್ತೆಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡುವ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ. ಆವಾಗ ಇದ್ದದ್ದು ದೂರದರ್ಶನ ಒಂದೇ. ಅದರಲ್ಲೇ ಎಷ್ಟು ಸಂತೋಷ!

ನಮ್ಮ ಬೇಸಿಗೆಗಳು ಹೀಗೆಯೇ ಬಹಳ ಬೇಗ ಓಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದವು. ಮೈಸೂರಿಗೆ ಮರಳಿ ಹೋಗುವ ಸಮಯ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬರುವಾಗ ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರೂ ನಗರದ ಅಷ್ಟೂ ಬಿಸಿಲನ್ನು ಮುಖದ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೊತ್ತು ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆವೇನೋ.

ಶಾಲಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮೇಲಿನ ತರಗತಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆಯೆ ನಮ್ಮ ನಗರದ ಪಯಣಗಳು ಕಡಿಮೆಯಾದವು. ಆಮೇಲೆ ಇನ್ನಕ್ಕ-ಭಾವಾಜಿ ಮೈಸೂರಿಗೇ ಬಂದುಬಿಟ್ಟರು. ಹಲವಾರು ವರುಷಗಳ ನಂತರ ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ನಗರಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಹಳೆಯ ಗೆಳೆಯರನ್ನು, ಪರಿಚಯದ ಬೀದಿಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡಿಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದೆವು. ಇದೇನಾ ನಮ್ಮ ನಗರ?

"ನಗರ ತುಂಬ ಬದಲಾಗಿದೆ ಅಲ್ವೇನೊ" ಎಂದು ಭಾವಾಜಿ ಕೇಳಿದರು. ಸುಮ್ಮನಿದ್ದೆ. ಬದಲಾದದ್ದು ನಾವಲ್ಲವೇ?

SEZ - The Logical Way

2008-02-01T09:31:00.000-05:00

We have seen the deeply polarizing effects of SEZs or Special Economic Zones. These are usually set up on agricultural land by governments so that other industries can move in and enjoy tax and other benefits. The idea is borrowed from the success seen by these SEZs in China among a few other countries.

I have always felt that politicians who go about promoting SEZs look a bit foolish. They are in effect admitting to their lack of influence over their administration, needing to set aside a small part so they can provide the services to business they should be able to anywhere.

While the involvement of politicians naturally politicizes the issue of SEZs, the idea of SEZs also naturally attracts politicians. With huge amounts of money at stake and lots of people involved, it is not surprising that politicians are drawn to SEZ issues as sharks are to blood.

Between money, power and rhetoric (pro business or pro farmer) no SEZ has seen a peaceful start. Until now.

A group of farmers led by a local has decided to set up their own SEZ in Avasari Khurd village near Pune, Maharashtra without any involvement from the government. The person leading the effort is affiliated with the Congress, but thankfully doesn't seem to be a career politician. Most residents of the village are shareholders in Avasari Khurd Industrial Development Pvt. Ltd. in proportion to how much land they gave up. There is a socialist twist here in that landless residents are also given shares for a cash investment.

I have long believed that governments should get out of the business of acquiring land for SEZs - or any other purpose for that matter and that includes factories, highways, airports etc. Let the market do what it does best, and people are smart (and opportunistic) enough to take advantage of what they have. If this SEZ takes off, everyone is the winner - the companies which get concessions, the local economy for employment, and the farmers who get all the returns from their investment. More importantly, there are no losers.

It is interesting to note that there has been very little opposition to the plan in the village. This makes sense given the prospects for agriculture in some parts of our country. I sincerely hope petty politics that our villages are riven with doesn't torpedo this whole idea.

No development is sustainable unless the vast majority of people are bought into it. The Co-operative movement in India didn't take off because it was an inherently socialist model. Individual people are capitalists - and the villagers of Avasari Khurd probably have shown a way for the rural Indian to play in this new game in a uniquely Indian way.

Article on Kendasampige

2008-01-26T23:29:00.000-05:00

"Kendasampige" is a new Kannada web-magazine/blog run by Abdul Rasheed, a budding writer/journalist who previously worked at AIR. His thumbnails about everyday people that we see past everyday are crisp and touching without being melodramatic.

I wrote an essay on a trip to Lake Tahoe which is published there. I am honored.

Tailwheel Pilot

2007-12-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I am finally tailwheel endorsed. That means I can fly the airplanes that were made in the old days when "conventional" (so called because that was the only way they were built for the longest time) landing gear meant there were two wheels in the front and one on the tail. Since the center of gravity in these airplanes is close to the main gear (the front wheels), the airplane naturally wants to go backwards if the tailwheel, center of gravity and the direction of motion are not in a perfectly straight line. The other problem is that one has to land on all three wheels simultaneously. Land on just the front two at low speed and you will just bounce up. As a result, flying these airplanes is challenging to most pilots who learn to fly in a tricycle gear airplane i.e. with one wheel in the front and two behind. The stuff that looks like this.

Someone at some point figured out that this geometry is much easier to land. The geometry ensures that the nose wheel wants to keep going in the direction of motion. In other words, this geometry makes a pilot much more sloppy in landings with the added benefit of making the pilot seem much better than he/she actually is. In conditions which require precise landing and take-off skills like very short fields or dirt strips, someone who has no idea of the limitation of a tricycle gear is likely to overestimate their ability in it.

All old school pilots think that new students should learn to fly in taildraggers or at the very least get an endorsement in one after getting the license. For airplane owners, a tailwheel endorsement ensures lower insurance rates in some cases since it is proof of enhanced skill.

My instructor belongs to the old school and because of that he taught me to land tricycles the right way i.e. being very precise. It therefore didn't take too long for me to get the new endorsement in his personal Cessna 140 (similar to one in first picture) - a plane that was built in 1946 and flies better than most new airplanes in its class.

Kannada in Bengaluru

2007-11-05T07:46:00.001-05:00

I was in for a pleasant surprise on my trip to India. In the space of one year, it seems like corporate India in general has discovered Kannada and Kannadigas.

Let me explain. Until 2003 when I left India, I heard no Kannada on the FM stations. I saw no Kannada on advertising hoardings that sold mobile phone plans, and no Kannadigas in the English newspapers. A call to a mobile phone number that was switched off would result in the nice lady telling me the same in English and Hindi. No one spoke Kannada in ICICI, Citibank or Pizza Corner. People who frequented MG Road were all non-Kannadigas. Obviously I saw no sign of Kannada anywhere on shop signs in the Cantonment/East Bangalore. Bengaluru was still Bangalore. Global companies selling anything from cars to computers ignored local markets outside of Bangalore and made no effort to tap them.

Last year there were noises of Bangalore becoming Bengaluru. But I still saw no other signs of Kannada anywhere else in the city.

This year was a huge surprise. Most people I overheard talking on MG Road spoke Kannada. Every shop sign had Kannada on it. FM Radio stations seemed like they were always playing Kannada music with Kannadiga RJs. Small town Karnataka was being marketed to in Kannada by the Toyotas, Reliances and Airtels of the world. I even saw a Kingfisher Airlines hoarding in Kannada! A visit to my old employer where I could name all Kannadigas out of about a 1000 back in 2003 revealed that at least 60% were Kannadigas now. My uncle who still works there now and my old colleagues confirmed that, and also the fact that many senior managers were also Kannadigas. I heard nothing but Kannada songs playing in Planet M! On Brigade Road! The store employees all knew Kannada and were knowledgeable about old Kannada film music and bhavageetes. My family rented a car from Avis which I picked up at the Oberoi on MG Road. I expected the employees there to speak Tamil as all service sector jobs seemed to be locked up by Tamilians. Besides, the place is next to Halasooru. They were all Kannadigas. And the Tamilian who checked the car out knew Kannada! I about had a fit.

What is going on? Where is the Bengaluru that I love to hate? My single biggest complaint with the city was that I couldn't make do with Kannada everywhere. I have no option but to hate it less now.

How did this happen? Is this a result of some of the anger among Kannadigas, most expressed by the likes of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike? Or is it that an aberration has righted itself naturally?

Government Flying Training School

2007-11-04T17:21:00.000-05:00

The GFTS in Jakkur airfield is quite old. However, it has been active for only a fraction of its age. It is the Government FTS.

The school is not short of resources. It has a reasonably large fleet, its own airfield (Jakkur airfield and the school are owned by the state government), a hangar and 33 staff excluding the instructors to take care of the airplanes.

I had a chance to walk around the hangar and talk to a maintenance technician called Reddy.

The GFTS hangar had 7 airplanes 5 of which were airworthy. The inventory as I could see it
1 Cessna 172
2 Cessna 152 Aerobats (one of them made by Reims)
2 HAL Pushpaks
1 Aeronca Chief
1 NAL Hansa

One of the Pushpaks (the Pushpak is based on the Chief) and the Aeronca Chief were "condemned" according to Reddy, presumably for parts for the airworthy Pushpak (VT-DYF). The condemned Pushpak (VT-EHZ) was apparently the prototype built by HAL which they donated to the school.

This airworthy Pushpak was powered by a Rolls Royce engine!

I had read a lot about the NAL Hansa and this was the first time I saw one in person.
It looks strange and the wing looks downright weird. It had tiny vertical stabilizers sticking up from the middle of the surface. The cowling is all metal (heavy at that) and the wings are composite. The engine is apparently a Rotax though there are other examples flying with Lycomings and Continentals. The cockpit looked roomy when I peeked under the cover. Reddy recommended that I not fly in this plane if I had the opportunity. This plane made its debut flight almost a decade ago and has yet to see production. NAL, has tried to win customers by giving them away to flying clubs across the country. No one wants to buy them.

All aircraft were well maintained from what I could see except for the pigeon droppings. I asked about ADs and service bulletins and Reddy said every single one of them have been complied with.

So who flies these airplanes? Nobody. The school does not have a single instructor, and without an instructor, they can't even rent them out. The last instructor resigned and left more than a year ago (probably to an airline - there is a huge shortage of pilots in India), and the government has been looking for a new one ever since with very generous pay (Reddy said they were offering Rs.150K per month). That's equivalent to a $150K per annum salary here in the US (not in direct conversion but in the kind of lifestyle it can support). No one is biting because the airlines pay extra generously.

So what do the 33 maintenance staff do? They come in every day, check oil and fluids, run up the engines once in a while, and generally shoot the breeze. All of them have also become so familiar with the airplanes that Reddy claimed he could tell the Rolls Royce from the Lycoming from the Continental, and which magneto was on which (he listed out a few makes of which I could recognize only Bendix) and which one was weak all only by sound. If something was misfiring, he could tell which cylinder, and which plug from a few seconds of listening. I'm not surprised. What else do they have to do?

It is really a sad state of affairs. CFIs here in the US make minimum pay partly because there are so many of them. I am surprised no US based school has opened Indian operations in a big way. Students from India come here to learn flying. Reddy himself had sent his son to New Zealand to get his CFI (for microlights) ticket and he was going to open a school himself on his own private field! He is going to target mainly the leisure flyers. But there is still a huge demand among people who want to fly for a living.

If I had money and time to get my CFII quickly, I would do it and go apply for that job at the GFTS!

Flying in Bengaluru

2007-11-04T15:55:00.002-05:00

I just returned from a trip to India. This was my first trip back home since I got my PP and was very keen on flying there. I knew of Bangalore Aerosports when I lived in India. They offer flight training in the X-Air microlight which is made in Bengaluru. They had recently moved to Mysuru. Since the renovation of the Mandakalli airport (VOMY) was in full swing, they had temporarily moved back to Bengaluru's Jakkur airfield (VOJK). I emailed them and set up some time to fly with one of their instructors.

I showed up at Jakkur just after 8am on Tuesday Oct.3oth. I used to be a frequent visitor to the airfield when I flew RC. However, I was struck by the absence of traffic, conditioned as I was to Salinas (KSNS) and other airports near here (like Watsonville and Hollister). There is one paved runway and an associated taxiway. The rest of the airfield is really just a field with no paved ramp. The hangars are lined up to the west of the field and airplanes taxi around on the dirt which is well compacted. It had just rained continuously for the last few days, but the field was pretty well drained.

I drove past a Cessna Caravan owned by Jindal Steel and which is normally based at Toranagal near Bellary as I entered the field.

I went up to the Jupiter Aviation hangar which is where the X-Air was temporarily hangared. I could see a Beechcraft King Air and a Partenavia P68C inside.
The most intriguing aircraft however was in the back of the hangar. It was a very sleek looking red experimental which I could not identify. I asked one of the guys working on the King Air about it and he said it was built right there in Bengaluru.
It was apparently a good flier and was currently grounded because of some problem with the landing gear after a hard landing. I went over to take a closer look and the engine surprised me. The cowling said "Turbo Diesel" so I asked the same maintenance guy what it was. It was a Tata Sumo engine! Talk about extreme car engine conversions! From what I could gather, it was a one-off conversion. The airplane also had an opening near the tail (seen in the pic) through which I could see a hydraulic pump and pipes emanating from it. I couldn't quite figure out what it was for.

In front of the hangar was a Bell helicopter that belonged to VSL Industries owned by the Lad brothers of Bellary. They are also MLAs and all the big politicians of the state are frequently seen in that helicopter. As I was waiting for my ride, some big-shot and his family came up in a Mercedes Benz, hopped into the chopper and the pilot took off. One of the lineguys asked me not to take pictures of the chopper or the people in it.

At about this time, Vineeta who was going to be my instructor taxied up to the hangar after a flight. I had seen the X-Air before but this was the first time I had a close look at it. All fabric surfaces on a tube frame. The "fuselage" has a fiberglass nose and plexiglass windows. It is powered by a Jabiru (I was told 100HP) engine.
Vineeta gave me a brief overview of the systems and we got in. I sat in the right seat because the only toe-brakes were on the left. The instrument panel had a standard six-pack but not in the standard place because of the shape and available area on the panel. A center stick took care of the aileron and elevator controls.

Start up was straightforward. We taxied to runway 27. The airplane is very sensitive to rudder inputs on the ground because the nose wheel and the main wheels are so close together. I had a hard time keeping it straight for the first minute or so.

The throttle was set up so that even small movements in the stick (between the seats) resulted in large RPM changes which I didn't like. It was difficult to make smooth power inputs. Full power and a couple hundred feet later, we were airborne. I was impressed by this especially since the airfield elevation is a little over 3000'.

Jakkur has the Yelahanka Air Force Station just to its north and the HAL Airport (Bengaluru International) to the south so its airspace is rather restricted to 1000' AGL. Climbing beyond it required clearance from either the approach for VOBG or the Yelahanka tower so we stuck to 1000' AGL. As an aside, the new Bengaluru International Airport coming up in Devanahalli is further north of Yelahanka so that would make four airports in the city from north to south. Five including the one inside the IISc campus.

We flew around for some time while I tried some turns. Compared to the LSA that I usually fly, control response is very sluggish, in fact more sluggish than the Cessna 172. The aircraft trims well, but it never gave the feeling of positive control by the seat of my pants. Maybe it takes more experience in the type. It takes barely any rudder input for coordinated turns and maintaining altitude is a breeze.

It was a hazy day with an overcast layer at about 1500' AGL.
I turned back to fly over the airfield once before entering a right pattern.
Apparently pattern entries normally are done on the upwind leg which I thought was weird. But then there is hardly any traffic here. Jakkur does have a tower (more like a "permanent" temporary tower) but it opened at 9am, just when we were landing.

Approach speed is about 90 Kmph but I was too high on the first attempt. We went around. I let Vineeta take charge on the second attempt but forgot about that just as we were about to roundout. Vineeta had to yell for me to let go of the stick. Slightly embarassing! The landing was smooth and uneventful and the roll out very short. We taxied to the Government Flying Training School (GFTS) and shut down.

I was thrilled that I finally got to fly in my hometown. Apart from the actual flying, I saw quite a few interesting aircraft including a few Zodiacs in the NCC hangar. I then walked over to the GFTS which is a whole another story in itself.

What it takes to fly

2007-09-30T09:06:00.000-04:00

In response to a comment for a previous post, here is what it takes to take flying lessons and become a pilot in this country.

1. Make sure you have the correct visa for it. H1B status is OK. F1 is not. Ask USCIS just in case.

2. Research the kinds of pilot certificates (not licenses) that are available and determine which is the best for you. I went for Private Pilot but that might be overkill for some. There is a new category called Sport Pilot license that is becoming popular which is sufficient for most recreational flyers and requires only half the instruction of the Private. For someone who wants to fly for a living, going all the way to commercial and then getting the Instrument and Multi-engine certificates is the only way to go.

In short, define your typical "mission". If you don't know, a Private gives the most options for later.

2. Find a flight school near you. Almost every county in the US has at least one airport if not more. This is the home of general aviation in the area and will be home to several "FBO"s i.e. Fixed Base Operators who offer airplane rental and instruction services along with fuel, airplane repairs, tiedown (i.e. parking) etc.

3. Go talk to flight schools and take an introductory flight. These flights cost less than $50 each. Don't be bashful about asking questions. Evaluate the instructors and see if you can learn from them effectively. The one you pick will be stuck with you in a small cockpit for about 15-30 hours of flying. That is a very long time if you don't like him/her.

4. Once you make the decision to enroll, before actually enrolling ensure that you can fly at least 2-3 times a week. Anything less and you will spend more money to recall what was taught in the previous class. It is important that you find a school that is as close to you as possible. The farther away it is, the less the inclination to fly when you are feeling even a little bit lazy. My airport is next to my office which is less than 10 mins from home.

5. If you have significant others, ensure that they are bought in. If you have families that worry too much, feel free to follow my example. Keep in mind that it takes quite a bit of commitment to follow through with training and can be compared to taking an additional 2 graduate level courses in addition to your regular work.

5. Go to the school and enroll. Your flight school will then help you (if you are a foreigner in this country) to open an account with the friendly TSA. You will have to go to some nearby location and submit fingerprints which the TSA will use to do a background check. You cannot begin flight lessons until you get the clearance. This takes less than a month to come through. You then have to get a medical certificate. A 3rd class medical will do. People of good health should have no problems getting a 3rd class medical. You can wear glasses and fly. Again, your school should tell you the local physicians who are approved by the FAA to issue these certificates.

6. Contrary to popular perception, there really isn't a big problem for people of color to fly. Use common sense and watch what you say especially in the beginning. You will soon get a feel for the environment at your airport. Most pilots are very friendly and honestly want to share the experience of flight with others. There are less than 500,000 pilots in the US so they are a minuscule part of the population. This causes two kinds of behaviour - pride to be part of an elite group, and a mild paranoia about the extinction of the species. Both are good if you want to be a pilot.

7. Enjoy your lessons, and keep on top of the study materials. You don't need to be some kind of a genius to be a pilot. Heck I am one. Double heck, Rajiv Gandhi was one. F***, even Sanjay Gandhi was one. Rajesh Pilot, Biju Patnaik.....you get the picture.

8. The US is an incredibly beautiful place. You will know that from the first flight. What better way is there to experience another country? As an aside, this has prompted me to arrange for an introductory flight in Bengalooru when I go there in a few weeks. I want to fix in my mind the image of the beauty of my land so that I am never too wowed by this one. Might be difficult with the pollution in Bengalooru.

I have not talked about costs because they vary widely between regions and even airports. You pay as you go i.e. you pay for every hour you fly. I have not added up my total costs. I don't want to because I wanted to be a pilot no matter what. But I know it doesn't cost more than an old used Toyota Corolla.

Enjoy.

Flight Video

2007-09-06T22:31:00.000-04:00

Airport in Hasan

2007-08-26T11:54:00.000-04:00

This article in The Hindu talks about a fairly ambitious airport development project in Hasan.

I am all for promoting aviation. And this project includes setting up flight training centres in the new airport so it is even more encouraging. However, a few thoughts came into my mind when I read this.

For a project being encouraged by the first family of Karnataka politics, where is their concern for all the land that farmers will lose in this project? Is their concern only for farmers everywhere except in their own backyard? So land use for infrastructure development everywhere is to be condemned whereas the same in their constituency is for generating employment and economic growth?

Or is it that the only "farmers" affected are the self same family, and they can afford such a big sacrifice for the good of the region? A huge payout from increasing land values nearby would help no doubt.

Also, as with all things in Karnataka, I foresee the aviation academies being swamped by ambitious young men and women from all over India while our own grandsons and great-grandsons of the soil are content sitting back and complaining about the invasion of foreigners. I am ashamed to say this, but we are a very unenterprising lot.

Of vegetarianism and word play

2007-08-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

The current saga of Michael Vick, an American Football star who has been caught up in a huge controversy over “brutal” dog fighting is frankly amusing to me.

Let’s back up a bit. I am a vegetarian. That is more for reasons of my upbringing, religion, health and preference in taste than any concerns of cruelty towards animals. I gladly wear and use leather and do eat many things that might have animal products (including dairy) like cheese (did you know that some cheese include stuff from inside the stomach of calves called rennet?), jelly (made from bone gelatin in most cases) and Indian sweets with the silver film on them (those films are made by beating silver sheets in between cow hides and guts which ends up transferring blood and other particles to the silver). I eat it not because I like that stuff, but sometimes there’s just no way to make sure that I am not eating non-dairy animal products.

I therefore have no ethical stances on vegetarianism. People need to eat and they happen to eat animals.

What cracks me up however is that in Western countries, people indulge in a lot of sophistry to define cruelty towards animals. While there are huge meat processing plants that butcher millions of animals every day, these are supposed to be done in a “humane” way. Excuse me, but I think if you can stomach (pardon the pun) killing an animal for eating it, you shouldn’t feel outraged if an animal is killed for sport. Or any other reason. Just because your steak comes from a cow that you didn’t see being killed doesn’t mean your conscience can be clear if at all it is a conscionable act.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this “humane” business is more about people feeling better about themselves than animals not suffering.

Western culture has also sought to make eating meat ethically acceptable in other ways. Notice that animals killed for food are not “killed” but “butchered”. And who does it? A “butcher”, who happens to be a human being! You take the guilt out of the act by humanizing it, in this case by naming the fellow the same way. How’s that for sophistry? Or the mass killing of deer for example (to control populations) is really “culling” and not killing.

I therefore like the terms that are used in Kannada. There are no allusions to moral correctness (or wrongdoing for that matter) in my language. When people want to eat mutton, they “chop” the goat or sheep and eat it (kaDidu tinnu). Simple!

I am a pilot

2007-08-14T00:34:00.000-04:00

OK I admit it. I have been taking flying lessons for the past many months. I passed my exam a little over a month ago and I am now officially a licensed Private Pilot (as opposed to Commercial etc.) here in the US. I can legally fly an "ASEL" i.e. Airplane (i.e. not a glider, helicopter etc.) Single Engine (not multi-engine) Land (not sea i.e. airplane that can operate from the water). I am a PP-ASEL.

I didn't disclose it on this blog because
a) I didn't want my mother to know about it and wanted to surprise her when she came to visit me
b) isn't the above a good enough reason?

I deliberately didn't inform her when I started my lessons because I knew of her objections
a) It is too dangerous
b) It is too expensive

I am glad to say it is neither, but then my family wouldn't say I understand the concept of danger anyway. I don't know if they think I am a responsible spender either. I therefore decided to present this as a fait accompli.

I had told my father and my brother, the former with the same outlook towards "dangerous" activities as mine and the latter who is generally eminently disinterested in such matters. He'd much rather build a successful website.

My mother however did find out about it. I scanned my new license and emailed it to my father and brother forgetting that my mother is usually the one who checks my father's email. One day of arguing, and two days of not talking later, I finally convinced my mother that this was nothing to be ashamed about. I am glad to report that she finally thinks I am a decent human being, though just barely.

What is it like to fly? I believe I am normally an articulate person. However, words fail me for the most part when I describe the feeling of flight. The result is another blog that hasn't been updated in a long time. I will give up trying because one poem - a classic in aviation circles - tells you everything. It is beautiful for those who are earthbound, and it is sublime for those who fly for they have felt these verses.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, —and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

It is true, I feel a peace when I am flying that I have never felt so far.

It is also true that this has turned me, generally a cynic, into an incurable romantic that embarrasses even me sometimes.

With that, I don't have to explain to anyone why I fly. I wish God gives me the strength and the means to do it until my body fails.

Earthquake!

2007-07-02T21:09:00.000-04:00

At about 1pm today, I felt the office building picked up slightly and dropped back on its foundations. I was in a reverie contemplating such heavy matters as credit losses when I was literally jolted out of it. I immediately stood up and looked around and I felt the floor shake a little more. It was my first California earthquake! I was curious to see if anyone went under the desks as the emergency procedures say but no one did. A lot of my colleagues are hardened Californians and a piddly 4.3 earthquake probably just relieves some back ache.

I was pretty excited and asked the guy next to me to confirm whether it was indeed an earthquake and he deadpanned, "Eh, no big deal". None indeed.

Bomb Scare

2007-07-02T16:06:00.001-04:00

Salinas is nothing less than London or Bristol. We are after all the salad bowl of the US and you bet we will take things seriously.

Just kidding.

ಅಯ್ಯೋ ರಸಂ ಅಲ್ಲ ಸಾರು!

2007-06-27T00:23:00.000-04:00

ನನ್ನ ಚಿಕ್ಕಂದಿನಿಂದ ನನಗೆ ಪರಿಚಯವಿರುವ ಹಲವಾರು ಹೆಸರುಗಳು ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ ಕಣ್ಮರೆಯಾಗುತ್ತಿರುವಂತೆ ತೋರುತ್ತಿದೆ. ನನ್ನ ಬಾಲ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ mummy/daddy ಒಂದನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ, ಸುಮಾರಾಗಿ ಬೇರೆ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ನಾಮಪದಗಳೂ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಸರಳವಾಗಿ ಜನರ ಬಾಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಸವಾಗಿದ್ದವು.

ಆದರೆ, ಈವಾಗ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ತಮಿಳುಕರಣ ಆಗಿಹೋದಹಾಗೆ ಇದೆ. ಉದಾಹರಣೆಗಳು.

ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಚ್ಚುಕಟ್ಟಾಗಿ ಅನ್ನ, ಹುಳಿ, ಸಾರು, ಪಲ್ಯ, ಮೊಸರನ್ನ ಊಟ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನನಗೆ ಈಗ ಜನರ ಬಾಯಲ್ಲಿ rice, ಸಾಂಬಾರ್, ರಸಂ, curd rice ಹಾಯಾಗಿ ಹೊರಳಾಡುವುದು ನೋಡಿದರೆ, light ಆಗಿ ಮೈ ಪರಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಹಾಗೆ ಆಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಹುಗ್ಗಿ ಮತ್ತು ಹುಣಸೆಹಣ್ಣಿನ ಗೊಜ್ಜನ್ನು ಈವಾಗ ಪೊಂಗಲ್/ಚಟ್ನಿ ಪಕ್ಕಕ್ಕೆ ತಳ್ಳಿದೆ. ಹೋಟೇಲುಗಳಿಗೆ ಹೋದಾಗ ಬಿಸಿ ಬೇಳೆ ಭಾತ್ ಹುಡುಕಿದರೆ ಕಾಣುವುದು "ಬಿಸಿ ಬೇಲ ಬಾತ್". ಅದರ ಹೆಸರು ಆ ರೂಪದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದಾಗ ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗೆ ಇಳಿಯುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟ. ನನ್ನ ಪ್ರಿಯವಾದ ದೋಸೆ "ದೋಸಾ".

ಇಷ್ಟೇಕೆ. ರಾಮನಗರ ರಾಮನಗರಂ ಆಗಿದೆ. ನೂರಾರು ಬಾರಿ ಮೈಸೂರಿನಿಂದ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಬಂದಾಗ ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಊರು ಮಾಯ! ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಬನ್ನೇರುಘಟ್ಟ/ಬನ್ನೇರ್ಘಟ್ಟ ಇಂದು ಬನ್ನರ್ಗಟ್ಟ (ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಶಿನಲ್ಲಿ Bannargatta). ಹಲಸೂರು ಯಾವಾಗಲೋ ಅಲಸೂರಾಯಿತು.

ದುರಂತವೇನೆಂದರೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ಜನಕ್ಕೂ ಇವೆಲ್ಲ ಬೇಡವಾದ ವಿಶಯಗಳು. ಪರರು ನಮ್ಮತನವನ್ನು ಪಕ್ಕಕ್ಕೆ ತಳ್ಳಿ ಅವರ ಹೆಸರುಗಳನ್ನು ನಾಮಕರಣ ಮಾಡಿದಾಗಲೂ ಅಕ್ಷತೆ ಕಾಳನ್ನು ಚಿಮುಕಿಸುವ ಜನ ನಾವು!

The God Delusion

2007-06-17T11:53:00.000-04:00

I am just about done reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". It is an entertaining read, and certainly informative in parts.

For those who don't know Richard Dawkins, he is an atheist crusader. I choose these words carefully. He has the same zeal in spreading atheism that some fundamentalist missionaries have for their religions.

The central theme of the book is that reason and rationality should take all people towards atheism. And it goes without saying that he believes reason and rationality to be superior to faith. I have no problem with this. Every belief of every person is superior to that of another person, or that belief would not have been chosen.

Dawkins picks up individual ideas from the arguments of people of faith and goes about demolishing them. He tackles topics such as evolution and intelligent design, morality etc.

His arguments for morality and why they don't need a religious framework are sound. I agree with him for the most part in that area. This is because he tackles this subject mainly within the framework of human society, but also compares similar behaviors across species. The central idea here is how what we take as "morals" are actually mechanisms to sustain and propagate our species and it works well.

Dawkins however falters in other arguments. His take on intelligent design is one such piece that exposes the inadequacy of his atheism. For a person who harps on reason, rationality and logic, Dawkins displays a surprising lack of all of them in those passages where he takes on intelligent design. He ends up taking a position as indefensible as the one of the Creationists.

Dawkins is harsh on those who support Intelligent Design, and it makes for entertaining reading when he rips apart the core "Irreducible Complexity" idea that sustains Intelligent Design. This idea goes as follows: As we trace the building blocks of life, you will at some point reach a component that cannot be traced to an origin. While you can trace the parts that make it up, you cannot understand how they came together. For the proponents of Intelligent Design, this is where God steps in.

It should be fairly obvious to a rational person (and one who understands probability and chance) that there is no such thing as irreducible complexity.

This is where Dawkins and I part ways however. Dawkins seeks to explain the irreducible complexity i.e. make it reducible. He argues that this is the great goal of science - the continuous digging away at the frontiers of knowledge so that irreducible complexities fall away and new ones appear. He makes two fatal flaws in logic here that makes suspect his foundation of his own atheism.

One, he assumes that the ability to explain the unknown is the cornerstone of atheism. The unstated assumption is that people of faith are unable or unwilling to explain, and hence their belief in God.

Two, he makes the same flaw in argument that people of religion make - that humans are somehow endowed with the mastery of their environment, that we have the ability to explain everything, and that we can speak for all of nature.

Some more exploration of the two flaws is warranted. The argument that atheism has to be founded on reason and science is somewhat bogus. While faith is a belief in a supernatural God (or an unexplainable power), atheism strictly speaking should be a belief in nothing! One can see where this is going. Richard Dawkins' brand of atheism is based on a belief in science. While it is an old position of people of faith that science cannot explain everything, my position is that belief in science itself (whether or not it can explain anything) is a belief! Ergo, there really isn't a true atheist for even science relies on a belief that there is stuff out there to be explained and that is what keeps it going.

The second one is more fundamental, and for me exposes Dawkins' claims as hollow that he is an atheist. He is in fact so deeply influenced by his Christian upbringing that he doesn't even realize it.

The main position of people of religion (mainly the Abrahamic faiths) is that humans are different from other animals and nature because we have an intellect and a God. We have used our intellect to create language, civilization, science, art etc. which the other lowly animals have been unable to. So that makes us special, and somehow superior to the dogs, cats, birds, trees, plants, rocks etc. It is therefore up to us to exploit, protect, nurture and explain this universe that we live in. This is the "White man's burden" at the level of species and just as arrogant. I call it the "Noah's Ark Syndrome". Dawkins says that we are able to explain everything, and that this ability to explain is something that is unique to humans, and therefore, we need not believe in God. The problem here is that if at some point we cannot explain something, his whole argument falls flat.

There is another way to look at this. Humans like all other things on this planet and in the universe are a product of a long process that continues to this day. Darwin called it natural selection. Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his "Fooled by Randomness" gives a wonderful analogy which is apt here. Let us assume there is a coin tossing competition (where you "win" by guessing right and you "lose" by guessing wrong). Many people participate in it. It follows a knockout pattern until the end where there is an eventual winner. Here are the questions. Did the winner have any special skill that led to the win? Can he explain his win?

It would be a fallacy to claim that the winner was somehow endowed with more skill than the others. It would be downright foolish for the winner to hold forth on what it took - the effort, the practice, the "technique" - to win. To the extent that the winner studies this probability, it is a useful exercise. But if he assumes that because he is the winner, he is "better" than the people who didn't win, he is - in Dawkins words - deluded.

Every animal, plant, tree, rock etc. that we see around us is the "winner" of such a coin tossing competition. Including us humans. As they say in aeronautics, a good airplane is one that flies well. Not one that flies fast, or flies high, or carries a lot of passengers, or has tremendous range. Applying the same philosophy to life, it is apparent that there is no superior life form. Humans are well suited to our environment. We needed language and art and science and sundry other things to succeed in life and propagate. The ant required six legs, a maniacal sense of duty and discipline to succeed in its life. Is it really possible to compare the two and judge which life form is superior? Dawkins seems to think so, and that is a very Christian view of life. The ants don't need art and literature, just as we don't need to spray formic acid from our behinds. If an ant were to judge us, it would deem us very useless indeed and think that it was "superior".

There is another analogy that I think is useful to know. I don't quite remember where I got this from, but it has stuck with me. There is a little worm in a potato, in a sack full of potatoes, which is lying among hundreds of such sacks. All these sacks are in a cargo hold of a ship which is tossing about in a stormy ocean. Would this little worm comprehend and visualize the ocean and the storm the same way the ship's Captain does? Does it need to? We are limited by our senses, and every sophisticated instrument that we make to look beyond ends up being a proxy for the self same senses. I had a lesson in English I think in primary school. A man stumbles into a remote valley where all the people have been blind for many generations. He tries to explain the concept of "seeing" to them, and they in turn think he is a madman. How exactly do you explain what it means to see? Or hear? Taste? How do we know that other animals don't have some other form of "sense" that connects them to the universe that hasn't explained to them this environment in ways that we cannot even imagine? Does it make us any inferior? Or superior?

I digress. The bottom line is that Dawkins atheism is strongly influenced by his Christian roots. He makes the same errors in logic that people of faith make. He too is bound by his "belief" in these fallacies. Dawkins therefore is not a true atheist.

There is however one sentence in the book that totally demolishes Dawkins' credibility. While making the case for the superiority of science and reason, he says that if people of science had never asked the fundamental questions, we would still be living in the dark ages. Fair enough. He then goes on to tackle the old distinction that people of faith make between science and religion. The distinction is that science can answer the question "How" whereas religion answers the question "Why". He says that this distinction is bogus. As to whether the questions "Why does the universe exist? Why does XYZ happen? etc." need to be answered, he offers a gem. He says that just because one can make a grammatically correct question does not mean it needs to be answered.

So I guess if our ancestors saw lightning happen and asked "Why does lightning occur?" and Dawkins' ancestor had offered up the same gem, we probably wouldn't have any of the answers we have now. For in that age, those questions must have been as fantastical as all the current "Why" questions. Rejecting a question as not worth answering would negate the need for science too!

A good read, but totally unconvincing. Richard Dawkins is a typical missionary.

Mandakalli Airport

2007-06-14T11:13:00.001-04:00

I just read this news report about Mandakalli Airport in Mysooru (yes that's what I am going to spell it from now on if I can remember it). I am all for getting an airport. My brother and I used to go to Chamarajanagara in the summers when we were very young to spend time with my aunt. The route takes one past the airport, and I remember one year seeing an airplane parked there. It was a Dornier from the short lived Vayudooth service that ferried passengers to Bengalooru. Since it stopped, I have been aware of this issue coming up in the local media with studies on how many seats the city can fill and to which destinations.

So this is a good development. What I don't understand however is why the airport project took more importance just because of the IT industry. The story quotes some numbers on the exports of the IT industry, but surely tourism (including the yoga tourists) brings a lot more to the city? And it has for far longer than IT has?

Maybe I am touchy about this, but I don't want IT to be associated with Mysooru the way it is with Bengalooru. Whatever made Bengalooru, it is lost in the din of IT. It is a good thing that infrastructure is developed under whatever pretext. But it is extremely misleading to outsiders, and damaging to the image of a city that there is nothing else important enough about it that warrants an air service other than IT.

Also, why should it take so long for the airport work to complete? December 2008? Excuse me, but as someone who knows about airports a little more than the average person, I don't think there is any reason why paving two runways and associated taxiways, ramps and aprons should take two years. Contrary to popular perception, there is nothing special about building an airport. The runways are just heavy duty roads. Granted that land acquisition is an issue, but in Mandakalli the majority of the land is already there. The terminal building is just another building and requires no special engineering. And for the kind of traffic that Mandakalli might see, there is no need for a control tower or radar. Watsonville Municipal Airport which is near here handles the same amount of aircraft movements in a day as the current Bengalooru International Airport. And it doesn't have a tower.

But when the airport is done, I hope it is not named after Ganapati Sacchidananda.

Thimmakka

2007-06-14T11:08:00.001-04:00

Thank God someone had the good sense to cover this story. Hope Thimmakka gets better.

Indians and Others

2007-06-14T10:06:00.000-04:00

Two new people joined my team in the last week and one more will be joining in the next few days. It takes up the strength of the team to 9 of whom exactly 3 are Americans. Of the rest, there are 5 Indians and 1 Russian.

This is the general pattern in my company - most teams and lower management levels are filled by Indians (and Chinese to an extent). Middle management is all American, and the very top management is British.

Add to that the many analysts who are on deputation from the India offices in Bengalooru (I know no one uses that name, but I'd like to) and Mumbai (there, that's why I use that name) and the place is literally little India.

This was the case at my previous company too, and I know that other companies have the same situation. Not that I am complaining, but how do these companies get away with it? Any company in India hiring a bunch of say Sri Lankans over Indians would have been stoned at best.

Brilliant Site

2007-06-14T10:02:00.000-04:00

.....shameless plug.

http://www.justsamachar.com

The testament to a son's love for his mother whose annoyance at pop ups drove him to do this. No it wasn't me.

S.L.Bhyrappa

2007-06-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

The raging debate/name-calling that is going on in various media on the topic of ಆವರಣ, S.L.Bhyrappa and U.R.Ananthamurthy had so far failed to elicit any response from Bhyrappa himself. He has now however given an interview to the blog churumuri.com

Bhyrappa is very eloquent which is not unusual for a writer. The man is also very earnest in his speech and mannerisms which rivets the listener to his words. This interview is no exception.

I had the chance to observe him at the AKKA Sammelana in Baltimore last year. I never saw him smile once in all the three days. Indeed, he has a rather dour demeanour. He kept to himself, eating alone and sitting at a distance from everyone if he could help it. This in sharp contrast to the likes of Chandrashekhar Patil who would not be seen without his entourage. Or Lakshminarayana Bhatta who being such a pleasant and friendly person always had people around him.

I also observed that Bhyrappa is usually reluctant to volunteer his opinion on anything. Sometimes though, someone would say something that provoked his sensibilities so much that Bhyrappa would squirm in his chair fighting the urge to say something, fret some more, and then finally stand up and say it like it is. And when he spoke, people listened. He also has a way of putting his arguments that tells us it is the last word. URA is probably right in calling him a ಚರ್ಚಾಪಟು for he certainly knows how to debate well.

His spoken Kannada is tinged by his roots and gives a quaint intimate feel to his scholarly speech. For example, he says "ಇಟ್ಟ್ಕಂಡು" instead of the city standard of "ಇಟ್ಟ್ಕೊಂಡು", and "ಮಾಡ್ಕಂಡು" instead of "ಮಾಡ್ಕೊಂಡು". I remember a few letters that the late Govinda Pai had sent my grandfather which I found in his stack of correspondence. He had used the word "ಮಡಗಿದ್ದೇನೆ" instead of the more standard "ಇಟ್ಟಿದ್ದೇನೆ" which brought immediately the picture of a gentle grandfather instead of the professorial image I had of him.

I doubt however if anyone would describe Bhyrappa as endearing. For some reason, every time I think of him, the image of Sardar Patel comes to my mind. Both are no nonsense types who didn't tolerate idiots all that well. Both of them got bad press for a variety of reasons. And both of their fields of work would be remarkably empty without their respective contributions.

Cabbage, Cauliflower and Broccoli

2007-06-03T14:25:00.000-04:00

I visited a family friend in San Jose yesterday, and had the unique experience of eating broccoli tambli.

Though tamblis are one of my favorite foods, I had never imagined it could be made with broccoli. In the course of my conversation, I was told that broccoli in fact is a hybrid variety of cabbage and cauliflower, and that it wasn't a species in itself.

That stumped me. And being a nerd, I decided to find out more about it from the god of information - Wikipedia.

Sure enough, it turns out that not only broccoli, but cauliflower too is a hybrid variety of cabbage! Cabbage is the grand daddy of them all!

The words for cabbage and cauliflower in Kannada (ele kosu and hoo kosu) actually do suggest that they have the same root, but I don't know if that knowledge led to the terminology in Kannada. Fascinating!

Arun and Liz Nayar (or Nair or Nayyar)

2007-04-10T12:32:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting piece of a not so interesting story as reported in the Indian Express. After Liz Hurley's father-in-law Vinod Nair publicly disowned the couple, Liz Hurley allegedly went ballistic. The beauty however is the part in bold - how she raised the family's standing in India. This would have been hilarious stuff if not for the reek of the "typical" British attitude towards Indians.

From the Indian Express:
A spokesman for Hurley was unavailable for comment. But the source told the tabloid: "Liz was furious and went absolutely ballistic when she found out what Arun's family had been saying about her. She feels that what was the happiest day of her life has been tarnished and doesn't understand how after everything she has done for them-raising their social standing in India through the roof, for example-they could do this. But quite frankly she is also a little bewildered by all of this and was totally unaware about the extent of their grievances. Liz feels she made every effort to be a part of their extended family and fit in."

This is rich coming from a failed actress more known for just being known.

Ramachandra Guha noted this patronizing attitude - although in a different age - in his recent column in The Hindu. Oh yes, there is a final flourish to the story.

Again from the Indian Express:
It has also emerged that the couple offended Indian relatives after issuing guests with a bizarre set of do's and don'ts , advising them to ' bring bacterial wipes and not give money to beggars'.

I am sure she meant anti-bacterial wipes. The full story can be found here.

Drawing dangerous conclusions from insufficient data is usually enjoyable. But this fits into a larger trend - that of the West cherry picking aspects of Indian (and other) realities that they like and ignoring others. So elephants and palaces are acceptable as long as those darned beggars are not around. Yoga is excellent for a sexy butt and not much else. IT and BT boom is great as long as one is chauffered through those filthy slums and can pretend they don't exist.
Ever notice that all those modern Indians who are celebrated in the West are the natives who have gone native?

The Best Thing For Indian Cricket

2007-03-23T17:19:00.000-04:00

....fans since the 1983 World Cup victory is this ignominious exit. India has crashed out (bar a miracle on Sunday) and though I am heartbroken, I actually think something good can come of this.

1983 and 2007 will hopefully bookend an era of excesses in Indian cricket and more importantly in the Indian cricket fan. While 1983 turned cricket into an unhealthy obsession in India, 2007 hopefully will douse those all consuming passions. We needed this bad.

We need to clean house in Indian cricket starting from the very top. Heads should roll. No more part time BCCI executives please. Having part timers is one of the biggest reasons why Indian cricket has suffered so much. These part timers are less interested in developing the sport and more interested in the moolah they can make in their tenure. A full time executive on the other hand can actually be paid for developing the sport. What a concept!

Out with the Pawars, Shettys, Vengsarkars. Why stop there? Out with Chappell, Dravid, Tendulkar, Kumble, Harbhajan, Sehwag. Heck if Laxman can stay out of the team because he wasn't a good fielder, Ganguly can surely be shown the door. And while we are talking of cleaning, can someone cut Dhoni's hair?

Any self respecting bunch of people would see and smell the rot in Indian cricket. However, self respect is peripheral when the powers that be have put blinkers of lucre on themselves. Suspend all international matches for a year. Get rid of every guy on the team who makes more money from corporate endorsements than from match fees. Pour money into domestic cricket. Raise its standard so that we can fill stadiums for Ranji matches with people who would gladly buy the tickets. Get the best of them to tour other countries. Select the best of those into a national team.

We have put the international horse before the domestic cart for too long. And the Indian cricket fan has a lot to answer for. We have accepted too little, been happy with lesser still. Let us shun the tamasha and remember that customer is king. We don't want tamasha, and they won't give us tamasha. We want cricket - and we demonstrate that - and they give us cricket.

I for one accept responsibility for my celebrations for Tendulkar's centuries in meaningless matches in Sharjah. And for exulting Sehwag's sixes in one more unending one day series named after Pepsi, or Hero, or LG, or Sahara. I plead guilty to staying up at night and following meaningless run chases in Kuala Lumpur on my computer. Thankfully I never ordered (for $30) a stupid blue jersey made in Tirupur with Dravid's or Tendulkar's name on the back.

But I know people who have. And I hold you the Indian cricket fan responsible for this Bollywood tragedy that has become Indian cricket.

Khasnis

2007-03-20T13:27:00.000-04:00

Raghavendra Khasnis, one of the better known Kannada short story writers passed away yesterday. I read about this in The Hindu and was shocked to learn of the treatment he got from the Directorate of Kannada and Culture. He was suffering from Parkinson's, and according to this directorate's official who delivered the payment, this disease wasn't in the list of diseases covered in the health scheme.

The tragedy of it. Do these people even know what culture is? Forget about this official's knowledge of Khasnis or his work, was he lacking in even basic manners?

The fact that Sri Khasnis refused help from fans and admirers only strengthened my respect for him. This is I think part of the greater tragedy that has become Kannada literature, and specifically publication.

Writers are frequently taken for a ride by publishers (speaking from experience in my family). In their old age, idealists like Khasnis refuse help from others. And we have the philistines in the government as the last resort.

Is it a wonder then that no one these days wants to pursue the arts as a career? Who is losing out?

"Young" MP?

2007-03-20T13:12:00.000-04:00

The Hindu today carried a story on something Rahul Gandhi said, where he was referred to as a "young" MP. The dude is almost 40 years old. Is that young?

One could argue that since our politics is like an old age home, 39 something years is really young. But half our country's population is under 25 years of age. Shouldn't we be redefining what is young and what isn't in politics?

Well at the end of the day, this doesn't really matter. But look again at the title of this blog to see why I posted on this topic.

300

2007-03-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

I saw the move 300 last week. It was an excellent visual spectacle. It is the story of a group of 300 Spartans meeting the Persian hordes somewhere in Greece in battle.

The fact that I am taking the trouble to post something about this movie means that it has done something to my sensibilities.

Outright we are told that this story is one of protecting freedom against the dark forces of the east. Such assertions get my goat. The movie shows the Persian envoy to Sparta being lectured about how men and women are free citizens in that republic compared to the life of tyranny under Xerxes. This from a people which literally threw away babies they deemed unfit for their martial lifestyle.

The movie then proceeds to glorify Leonides, the king of Sparta who led this band of 300. In the process it also glorifies all the values which - surprise surprise - also happen to be very American ones, or at least the ones appropriated as American.

The director obviously thought every viewer was a fool, so thinly veiled was the attempt to draw parallels with the current Iraq war. There was the small brave force with the "right" set of values, greatly outnumbered by the mystical, tyrannical, even evil east. There is this dilemma whether to go back home when they all know the situation is hopeless.

Oh and the caricatures. All the Spartans are magnificent looking men with chiseled bodies, and conveniently naked to show them off. The Persians are all featureless, dark and downright weird who make use of all kinds of witchcraft to subdue our valiant heroes.

Now I understand that it is necessary to take artistic liberties to tell a gripping story. Does it need to be offensive or untrue?

"Waterfree technologies"

2007-02-22T11:08:00.000-05:00

Being in California means you encounter "green" themes and motivations all the time. My office is no different. I am all for being green, but I do have to draw the line at the bathroom door.

The mens bathroom in my office is different in that the pipe from the flush to the urinal is absent. The urinals have "Falcon Waterfree Technologies" inscribed on them.

The way to use the urinals is as follows. One pees in them like in any other. The trick then is to stop yourself from pulling on the flush handle, because nothing will happen. That's it.

I would like to know what exactly this Waterfree technology is. The urinal looks, functions and smells like any other urinal without water, and that's a problem. I'd like the guilty satisfaction of flushing down my urine with a couple of gallons of water.

Have I encountered the most enterprising company in the world that actually sells (probably at a premium) ordinary urinals as something that has advanced technology?

On another note, the toilets are still "old fashioned" with a water flush. The day they go "Waterfree" will be my last day in this company.

Fame and Fortune

2007-02-12T15:33:00.000-05:00

I received an email out of the blue a few weeks ago from a magazine editor in Singapore asking me whether they could use some of my Monterey pictures from flickr for an article they were working on.

My aspirations as a photographer are a Freudian truth (whatever that means) and I promptly replied giving my consent. It was for a new magazine called Lexean, which they claim is a cross between GQ and Economist. Yup.

The editor had also enigmatically mentioned a "non-commercial fee" which I later learnt actually meant "nothing".

Anyway, I have not heard from them in a while now, and have to assume that my photographical ambitions will have to wait. They were probably dissuaded by the big boxes my brother drew around a speck of dust in my pictures with the words "This is ruining your photos".

Thanks buddy. I should probably start using Photoshop.

Now what

2007-02-05T19:36:00.000-05:00

TN gets almost 2/3rds of Cauvery waters while Karnataka gets 1/3rd.

Once all the breast beating is over, can we please stop for a second and think of what to do next? Getting a larger share is a lost cause. TN has more than enough clout at the centre to influence any future decision, while we only have our Mannina Maga to show for in "Central politics".

This is my hypothesis. There is enough water in our share for both industry and drinking supplies. There is however not enough for agriculture.

How about we change the utilization of all the agricultural land that cannot get enough water? Let us build industrial parks, satellite towns and the like and attract manufacturing and services like never before. Of course this will attract more people, and a bigger strain on water resources, but surely this will defer the pain? Building an industrial base is the only way to eradicate poverty on a mass scale, as exhibited by every non-poor country (excluding the oildoms). In the meanwhile, let us plan on a comprehensive water management strategy. If Chennai can do it under Jayalalitha, so can we.

All of us - urban people, poets, journalists, writers, "activists", politicians - are guilty of romanticising an agrarian life, while the reality is anything but romantic. This will also enable our people to break out of subsistence farming, which any farmer will readily tell you is not something he wants his children to do.

Changing the utilization of these lands will, in addition, also free us from the eternal curse called "hereditary property dispute" which has resulted in lakhs of acres of inefficient farm land due to microdivisions.

Hernando de Soto (a Peruvian economist) argues that most poor people in countries like India are actually very rich. The problem is that they cannot transact on or monetize their assets as easily as their First World counterparts can.

An enlightened government can actually make something positive of this award. The enlightenment is the missing piece.

"Winter"

2007-02-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

California is spoiled silly. Having lived in the midwest, I know what "winter" is like there. Zero or subzero temperatures are routine, and this is in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. I spoke with a friend in Chicago today, and with another friend in Columbus on Sunday, and the temperatures are about -10 F there. The temperature here in "winter" does not get below 50 F during daytime. And this causes the local new channels to warn people about the "cold spell"!

True story

2007-01-30T18:39:00.000-05:00

Someone dinged my car and I left it at the body shop to have it repaired yesterday. Since there was a very small puncture in the sheet metal, the body work was slightly more elaborate. Anyway, this involves repainting the area of the dent.

Today I received a phone call from the body shop.

"Mr. Kote?"

"Yes"

"We are done repairing the dent and are about to paint the car"

"That's good"

"Can you please tell us what color your car is?"

"Titanium Gray"

And this was when it hit me. Why does he need to ask me my car's color if all he has to do is slap on something that matches the rest of the car? I'd like to think that he actually wants to look in some database for the exact color, but somehow that's too reasonable an answer. I should have said Flaming Yellow.

Salinas, Mexico

2007-01-27T02:07:00.000-05:00

In the approximately three and a half years that I have lived here in the US, I have never felt more like a foreigner than I do here in Salinas, CA. Make that Salinas, Mexico. The city is full of Mexicans/Hispanics/Latinos. Suffice to say they all speak Spanish, and many of them are probably of dubious legality, having slipped across the southern border.

All stores and government offices (like the Department of Motor Vehicles) cater to Spanish linguistic requests. Most of the city is bilingual, with a significant proportion monolingual - in Spanish. Seeing a brown man, most people assume that I am a Mexican and start in Spanish. Until I reply to them in Kannada with a big smile on my face.

The kicker? I had called maintenance to fix the hot water supply to my bathroom sink. When I returned home, I saw a sign hung on my door knob without a single word of English in it, probably telling me that the maintenance man had entered the apartment to fix the problem. I called the leasing office to ask them about it, and the manager (a Mexican) explained to me that they had stopped ordering English signs since everyone in the community spoke Spanish.

I must say however that Senor Kote sounds a lot better than Mr.Kote.

California.....

2007-01-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

I was getting ready for the office a few mornings ago when I saw on the news that a representative in the state assembly wants to make spanking kids a misdemeanour. Now that's something this state really needed very urgently. I can't wait till my mother hears of this......

Primer to US regions

2006-06-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

For those in India who think the USA is one cultural, linguistic monolith, you would be mistaken. The broad regions in the US are as follows.

The Northeast has the collection of the smallest and richest states in the Union. This is the place where the Europeans first settled, and consequently, this area has some of the oldest colonial history in the US. Boston is the big city in this area.

The East Coast includes everything from New York to Philadelphia and Washington DC. This is where the money is. People in the US who want to make money in anything other than technology or movies come to this part of the country. It is like our Mumbai minus the movies.

The Midwest is quite unusual since it is not really in the west of the country. But this region occupies a very large portion of the US. The name also tells us something about the East Coast centric view of the country, which is not surprising given the fact that both the political and economic capitals of the country are to be found in the East. Chicago is the big city in this area. If you wanted a future as a farmer or as a factory worker, this was the place to be. The Midwest however has suffered greatly from manufacturing jobs leaving in droves to the Middle Kingdom. I lived in Ohio which is in the heart of the Midwest, and causes angst to all the liberals once every four years when it swings to the low bandwidth side of the political color spectrum. The Midwest is known to be America's Heartland. It is the place that is supposed to symbolize all that is great about the people of this country - simple, hard working, warm. In short, the Mannina Makkalu of America.

The South. Aah the South. This is the set of all states that are actually in the south east of the country. All these states once got so pissed at a Mr.Lincoln that they decided that they wanted nothing to do with the United States and established a country called the Confederate States of America with its capital about a 100 miles south of Washington DC in Richmond, Virginia, where I currently reside. There are only two regions of the country which are supposed to have a culture. One is the Midwest, and the other is the South. Being a Southerner in the US is in many ways similar to being a Southerner in India. There is a distinct set of cuisines, a very different accent, more communal (in both the good and the bad ways), in general, a different smell in the air.

Then there is the Southwest. Texas is the big daddy in this group of states, followed by a string of others all the way to the west until you hit California. This region is hot and dry, and all of them used to be a part of Mexico. Which is why there is a significant Hispanic population (legal, illegal and other) in this region. This is the part of the country that the then US government decided God had given it the right to rule, so went ahead and took it by force from Mexico. Culturally, the distinguishing part of this country is its similarity with Mexico, except that it is richer.

The West Coast essentially consists of California. People of ambition in technology or in glamour flock to this place in droves. San Fransisco and Los Angeles are the big cities in this region. Either way, it is populated by millionaires. The sands of the Pacific ocean can't possibly last with all the demand for silicon. This state has amazing weather and even amazing gas prices. It has some of the most beautiful beaches, mountains and valleys. It also is the fruit basket of the country. A friend of mine in Ohio said to me, "It is a land of fruits and nuts and I don't mean the kind that grow on trees". So much for the hippies.

The last main region is the Pacific Northwest, home of Boeing, Microsoft, and more importantly to Starbucks and Frasier Crane. It rains a lot there and that's about it.

The dynamic between the regions is very interesting. People in the Midwest dislike pretty much everyone else because they have deviated from the American ideal. Everybody makes fun of the Southerners for their being rural and showing it. The Southerners hate all the Northeast and East Coast liberal Godless types. The said Northwest and East Coast types have jokes about the Midwesterners because they are so simple. Everybody detests the West Coast for its vanity, while the women secretly hope their breasts looked like the ones out there. The men do too. Everybody tut-tuts at the greedy lives of the East Coast. And, everyone makes movies about the cowboys and oil billionaires of the Southwest.

Of course, all of it is not as trivial as I make it sound. But you get the picture in red, white and blue.

Reflection

2006-03-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

John looked at his reflection in the mirror. Facial hair more beard than stubble, lines more worry than distinguished. He was an unusual looking man. He had long silvery hair that supposedly went out of fashion in the 60s or 70s. But it was part of what earned him a livelihood.

As he brushed his teeth, he reflected on his History major in college. How much he wanted to know more about his ancestors, the story of his great country. A smile.

He couldn't afford to shave, not because he couldn't afford the supplies, but because he needed the beard. It was part of his job.

He passed his bedroom on his way to the kitchen. His wife of 19 years lay asleep. His college sweetheart, they had the same idealism back then. Celebrate freedom, choice, scholarship. He would get to talk to her for a few minutes later that evening before going to bed. If that.

Another bedroom, and his daughter. The light of his life. She'd made daddy proud by qualifying for the US Olympics Gymnastics team. A smile.

He put his stockings on, and the buckled shoes, and the long coat. He picked up his hat that went out of fashion centuries ago and went to his car. Few would say it looked modern. A smile. He lived in another age - several different ages actually.

As he pulled into his parking spot, he saw others like him walking towards the buildings where they worked. Men and women, people like him, who understood him. There was Trevor who had a PhD in colonial arms and ammunition, and Lydia with a masters in fashion history. His friends. A smile, and a greeting.

Work starts at 9am when the first visitors start trickling in. He has to look happy, smile and explain with authority the history of the building. Act the part, be the age. Little children giggling at his dress, his hair. Slightly older ones saying "Cool" to every little fact. Parents trying desperately to look interested as they kept an eye on the brats. Teenagers in groups supposedly visiting to finish a history project. He often finds someone who is really interested in what he does, the place. It reminds him of himself at that age. A twinkle in his eye, a smile. "This place sucks, I want my Gameboy" a little boy says. That snaps him out of that warm fuzzy feeling.

This is all it is. This is what it amounts to. His passion, his life. Time for the next group.

Gurudwara

2004-08-05T18:49:00.000-04:00

Sikh communities everywhere are known for their enterprise and faith. Small communities of Sikhs everywhere in the world quickly become closely knit and establish a prominent presence for themselves in the community. They also integrate quite well with the native communities. I have myself seen this in Mysore where most Sikhs I have met speak excellent Kannada. Of course Bangalore is a different matter because nobody there speaks Kannada.

The Sikhs of Columbus are no exception. Though they are quite small in number, they have succeeded in setting up a Gurudwara for themselves and are running it quite well. For most immigrant communities, the establishment of a religious institution is an indication of their progress in society and also of the closeness of the community.

This particular Gurudwara is in the nearby town of Worthington. NK, a classmate in the MBA program, has a Sikh as a colleague at his office. Samarjit Singh is an undergrad here at OSU and is a very polite and affable young man. His use of the suffix “Bhaiyya” after our names is quite endearing. Since he wanted to go to the Gurudwara and did not have a car, he asked Nilesh to take him. The carrot he held out was the weekly langar that is a tradition in all Gurudwaras. Word got around to other Indians in our group and it was soon decided that all of us would go to the Gurudwara that Sunday. The fact that the reason for our visit was more temporal than spiritual did not bother us.

It was a drive of about twenty minutes to the Gurudwara. This was going to be my first ever visit to a Gurudwara. Many of my friends who are north Indians had been to Gurudwaras before. Indeed, in north India, it is quite common to see both Hindus and Sikhs visit Gurudwaras on a regular basis, which I feel is, but an example of our inclusiveness.

Having parked our cars, we made our way to the Gurudwara, which had a table set up at the entrance with a big container of a drink called Roohafza. This is a popular rose flavoured north Indian drink that is very refreshing. Volunteers offered each visitor a glass of the drink with a smile and a “Sat Sri Akal”.

We then entered the Gurudwara and Samarjit reminded us that we could not enter the prayer hall in uncovered heads. There was a place with scarves for people like us and we were required to tie it around our heads. Having done that, we entered the prayer hall where the priest was singing the Gurbani – hymns in praise of the Sikh gurus. Men were seated to one side and the women on the other. Almost all the men were wearing turbans and the few that were not had scarves like ours.

Once the service was completed, a volunteer made several announcements in Punjabi, which apparently were related to administrative matters. This was also the occasion when members of the gathering pledged the sponsorship of future langars. What I found remarkable was that the young man who was making the announcements was speaking fluent Punjabi even though (as I found out later) he was a third generation Indian. In fact, Samarjit warned us before we started out that any use of Hindi would be frowned upon and only Punjabi or English would be acceptable. As I noticed later, most of the notices on the boards were in English and Punjabi (in Gurumukhi). Ever the pessimist, I looked for signs of support for Khalistan and felt a bit guilty for doubting them when I didn’t find any.

After the prayer, many members of the congregation went downstairs to prepare for the serving of the food. In the meantime, Samarjit took all of us to the priest – an old man with a magnificent white beard and sparkling eyes – and introduced each one of us. He blessed us in Punjabi, the only word I could understand being “puttar” i.e. son.

The langar was served in the basement and the backyard that opened out from it. It was like any traditional Indian meal with all the devotees sitting on the floor in neat lines. Since the basement filled up quickly, we went out to the backyard where a few tables were set up, which was just as well because the weather was glorious. Right behind the Gurudwara was a dense clump of trees on ground that sloped down away from us. In the distance could be heard a stream.

Volunteers started serving the food and it was a wonderful spread to say the least. It was all home made and comprised of typical Punjabi vegetarian fare. There were parathas, rice, raita, rajma, potatoes etc. To make it more interesting, we had middle aged women coming to us to urge us to eat more, taunting us with words like, “Look at you – so young and you can’t even eat well. Shameful. Here, have two more parathas.” One lady came and declared that we had to eat well and also that we were welcome every week. What would our mothers think if we went to them looking underfed? Another man on hearing that we were students at the university related to us his own experience of going to the langar every week when he was in college. Dessert was a generous serving of delicious mango ice cream. Again, a woman came to us and ordered us to have seconds and went away muttering, “What is the world coming to when young men can’t eat properly”, quite disregarding the fact that all of us were stuffed so full we had to loosen our belts.

After lunch, some of the more adventurous among us proceeded to play some volleyball on the front lawn (no doubt encouraged by the presence of a group of very pretty girls standing nearby) while the lazier sorts (myself included) sat down under a tree happy to be spectators. After the enthusiasm of the volleyball players waned (which strangely enough coincided with the departure of the said girls), we started on our way back home.

This was my first experience of Punjabi hospitality and it was wonderful. I had never before been made to feel welcomer at a new place, and never before had perfect strangers served me with so much warmth.

Pittsburgh

2004-06-22T20:19:00.000-04:00

The Office of International Education (OIE) of OSU occasionally organises events for international students. Sometime in May, it organised a canoeing trip at the Mohican River. The weather forecasts were predicting a bright sunny day for that Saturday and all of us were looking forward to a serene 15 miles of canoeing. A number of us from the MBA program had signed up for it.

As it turned out, the weather played spoilsport – it started raining the previous day and continued through Saturday. All of us nevertheless turned up at the OIE at the appointed time hoping against hope that the rain would stop. But it was not to be. Since none of us fancied four hours in a boat in the rain, the trip was postponed indefinitely; in other words, cancelled.

All of us i.e. Deepanker, NK, Vivek and I were pumped up for the trip and the cancellation threw us into a quandary. You see, an MBA student’s life is planned ahead of time and all of us had taken great care to keep that Saturday clear of other commitments so that we could enjoy the trip. The cancellation resulted in a situation for which none of was prepared – nothing to do for the whole day! The rigour of the MBA program had made sure that all of us had forgotten what “free time” was. After a few minutes of confusion, we arrived at a consensus to retire to Deepanker’s apartment where we would chalk out our plans for the day in true MBA fashion.

Deepanker prepared tea, which all my companions (they being of the North Indian variety) proclaimed to be the best they had ever tasted. After several sessions of brainstorming, we came up with two alternatives, neither of which was exactly logical or related. Go go-karting or visit the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh – the Jamshedpur of the USA. Why did we come up with Pittsburgh, a place almost four hours away? You see, that’s the beauty of brainstorming – you’ll get ideas that are totally whacky. However, we soon found out that the only go-karting place in Columbus would not open until 1:00 pm. Now that was a disaster – waste three hours until then? Being trained to make productive use of all time, we decided that such a travesty could not be allowed to pass. So Pittsburgh it was.

All that remained was to decide whose car to use. Both NK and Deepanker owned cars and there was a very subtle negotiation between them. Neither wanted to use his car since the trip would easily add around 400 miles to the age of the car. However, Nilesh won the day and Deepanker’s car was chosen. The rest of us couldn’t care less; all it would cost us was $5 each for the entire trip.

We have a classmate called Jaswant Singh Rathore – an enigma of a man if ever there was one. Having heard lots of stories of the philandering ways of sailors (and those having been confirmed by Vivek – a sailor), Jaswant struck as an oddity. He is a deeply pious and religious man, who dutifully keeps to his daily quota of reading the Ramayana or the Gita. A thorough gentleman in every other respect too. Vivek and Jaswant had known each other since before joining Fisher as they had studied at the same college in India. He decided to invite Jaswant along with us to the temple. Since Jaswant was in the middle of his daily quota of the scriptures and could not be interrupted, we waited for him before we set off.

The car now had five of us – Deepanker the driver, Vivek the navigator and the rest of us (NK, Jaswant and I) passengers at the rear. Deepanker has been in the USA since quite a few years and is well travelled. So we did not use any map – something that concerned me greatly initially. Go around an unknown country without a map? Who ever heard of anything like that! But nothing untoward happened.

It rained the entire distance between Columbus and Pittsburgh. It was the longest continuous piece of geography that I have ever seen under rain – an easy two hundred miles.

We spent time narrating jokes and indulging in gossip. We discussed favourites and not so favourites among teachers, fellow students and just about everybody else from Vajpayee to the Indian grocer in Columbus who regularly fleeces customers without the slightest iota of regret. Needless to say, there was some enjoyable character assassination, which we felt was thoroughly justified.

Anyway, we stopped along the way a few times to take care of necessary excretions and ingestions (both to the car and its occupants). Everyone in the car (except I) was addicted to caffeine. How disgusting.

Pennsylvania has rolling hills which would have been very picturesque but for the rain. But the sight out of the car window was pretty nevertheless. Even though Pennsylvania neighbours Ohio, there is a lack of long open roads here, which the flat plains of Ohio allow. The roads wind around hills and valleys quite a lot in this state. The state is also a lot greener than Ohio, with lush vegetation all around. Or maybe the rain gave me that impression.

The entry into Pittsburgh from the west is very dramatic. The highway enters a long tunnel through a hill. On the other side, we exit onto the bank of a huge river (the Monangahela) and a bridge to cross it. The bridge starts right at the mouth of the tunnel. Beyond it is the city of Pittsburgh with its impressive skyline. The river seems to be a major trade route as there were numerous barges and ships on it. Crossing the river, there was again this jumble of roads, bridges and flyovers that seem to be a unique characteristic of big American cities. They make you feel disconnected with the earth – and that is an eerie feeling.

The city is located at the junction of two rivers – the Monangahela and the Allegheny – that join to form the Ohio River. There is a stadium (I think baseball) at the confluence called the Three Rivers Stadium. The Ohio River therefore originates in Pittsburgh, which is in Pennsylvania. Only a small part of the river flows through Ohio, and here’s the kicker; Ohio does not have any right over the Ohio River waters!

In Pittsburgh, one can find several buildings and roads named after Andrew Carnegie. The Pittsburgh airport is also named after him. The Carnegie Mellon University, which is one of the foremost centres of Computer Science and technology in the world, is located in Pittsburgh. Just as Pittsburgh is the Jamshedpur of the USA, Andrew Carnegie is their Jamshedji Tata. He is the man whose steel mills brought life and industry to the city of Pittsburgh.

Both banks of the Monangahela are hilly. The temple is on one of the hills on the eastern side. I think Sri Venkateshwara likes to be on hills! We got off the highway and drove up the hills. There was lush green vegetation on either side, with a good view of the river as we climbed the hill. We did lose our way once, but soon the Gopura of the temple was visible and we found the road to it.

The temple is supposed to be the biggest in the USA. Having said that, it is average sized by Indian standards. It is built in the south-Indian style with a proper Vimana and Gopura and looked quite at home on top of the hill. The temple has existed since quite a while; it was established in the seventies. But, most of the structure came up much later as and when the community came up with funds. Artisans from India were flown over for most of the stonework. Considering its location in a place with a very small Hindu community (at the time of establishment), the temple is quite an achievement.

The temple has been adapted to local conditions. I don’t think the traditional temple architecture with open pillared halls would have worked in a place where temperatures go down to ten degrees Celsius below zero! Therefore, this temple is a totally enclosed structure with controlled temperature. On entering the temple, the same familiar smell of all temples hit me – a mixture of incense, camphor and tulasi. I felt like I was back in the Vontikoppal Venkataramanaswamy temple. It had the same atmosphere. It also sounded like the tower of Babel since almost every Indian tongue could be heard in the temple. But the administration was quite clearly south Indian. Most of the priests and staff spoke Kannada, Telugu or Tamil.

The temple is a community centre for the Hindus in the area. This was clear from the various notices that cluttered the large notice boards. The temple was a centre for learning Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, classical music (Carnatic, Hindustani, vocal, instrumental), dance, acting, Sanskrit and everything else that the community felt their children should know about Indian culture. There were also notices inviting people for Upanayanas and Shraddhas. Some notices acknowledged the achievement of the people in the area – somebody got a big promotion and another got an admission into an Ivy League university. Evidently, the community was quite close knit. I even overheard a couple talking (in Kannada) to a temple official enquiring about a bride for their son (“Olle huduga raayre, yenoo durabhyaasa illa. Ille hutti belediddu antha helakke aagalla”).

The temple has two levels because of the gradient on the hill. The sanctum sanctorum is on the upper level while the lower level has a long corridor on one side (where we leave our footwear and coats/jackets) along with the offices and the dining hall. There is a path around the sanctum sanctorum for circumambulation on the upper level.

We waited some time for the pooje to get over and had darshana. Unlike in most south Indian temples, people are allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum here. This is most probably because of the fact that many devotees are north Indians who are accustomed to entering the sanctum sanctorum.

After the darshana, we bought tickets for lunch. Even though this was not a requirement, one feels cheap not to pay when one can. Moreover, the amount requested was very small. Lunch consisted of rice, huli and curd rice. Puliyogare was also available along with various other south Indian dishes. The lunch was excellent. Even my north Indian friends appreciated it. Sometimes they feel that south Indian food is not quite Indian. E.g. If I tell them “Let’s go to Udupi restaurant”, they are likely to reply, “No yaar, let’s go to an Indian place”. Indian to them is north Indian. This infuriates me.

After lunch, we took a few souvenir photographs and started back. It started raining again and continued all along the way up to Columbus. We reached Columbus by about seven in the evening, and thus ended a very unusual day where we set off from home for a canoeing trip, but ended up in a temple four hours away.

Hazaar Chauraasi Ki Ma

2004-02-22T20:16:00.000-05:00

No, this is not a critique of the movie. Cinematically there seems to be nothing wrong with it. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I can spot a good movie when I see one. My definition of a good movie is one that makes people think.

I watched the movie over the weekend after borrowing the DVD from the local public library. It set off many thoughts in me.

This movie (based on a book of the same name by Mahashweta Devi) is the story of the mother of a Naxalite. I don’t remember the name of the guy who played the Naxalite. But Jaya Bachchan plays the mother’s role. One does not need to explain her acting skills to anybody. Indeed, the rest of the cast including Seema Biswas, Anupam Kher and Nandita Das also do an excellent job of portraying their characters, though Nandita Das seems a bit raw.

But what is wrong with the movie? Nothing it would seem. But there is something that does not seem right. What is it?

The message. This is a movie that attempts to justify the communist ideology that gave birth to the Naxalbari movement using the anguish of a mother who has lost her favourite son, killed in an encounter by the “other side”. This was an ideology that said, “It is right to do whatever it takes to achieve revolution”. In my opinion, it is a very selfish and foolhardy ideology.
Firstly, it assumes that everybody wants the same things that the followers of the ideology want. Secondly, it maps human relations in very black and white terms – a kind of “You are with us or against us”. Thirdly, it believes that there is only one “true way” to achieve their aims – their own.

The first two points are interconnected. The gang of youth in the movie are fired by the passion for achieving justice and equality in society. They also passionately believe that “revolution” and a “class struggle” is the only way to do it. They believe that all existing institutions have to be uprooted or destroyed before starting afresh. Their thinking does not take into consideration the various factors that make people think the way they do. The very people whose cause was being championed by these people may not have wanted justice and equality to the exclusion of everything else. People are always willing to make tradeoffs. No one desire can overwhelm everything else. Maybe such ideologies were created by individuals who saw the injustice in the world and thought, “Ah, the best way to have justice and equality is to ensure that everybody has exactly the same things that everybody else has.” This seems like a logical thing, but it is too simplistic. We have to find out what makes people happy rather than telling them “Listen to me, this is what is going to make you happy. And if it does not, you are a traitor to the cause!”

The movie shows that these people had their hearts in the right place. The most basic ideas of communism itself are quite harmless – equality, justice, power to the people etc. But, where they lose track is in how they want to achieve it. Civilisation is not written using a pencil for it to be erased and rewritten easily. It is etched deep into people and no “revolution” can make it disappear completely. There is a meeting scene shown in the movie where some of the revolutionaries are discussing their course of action. They talk about going to the villages to “get the people to our side”. Don’t the people know what they want? What relevance does Lenin have to the poor villager who is only concerned with getting two square meals a day? On the other hand, these educated youth are more interested in implementing an idea that sounds good and rational. No one stops to think whether it is sensible.

The movie is about the mother discovering her son after his death by meeting his acquaintances. But there is a strange quirk in the movie. Based on her son’s philosophy, she starts thinking about herself more now while previously, she thought about the entire family. While on the one hand, her new found assertion is in keeping with her coming out of the “oppressed” class, on the other hand, this does not go well with the ideology that abhors individualism. How are these two reconciled? There are no answers in the movie, at least, none that I could see.

The best part of the movie comes at the very end during the engagement of one of the daughters. It shows a “revolutionary poet” dressed in fine silks, hobnobbing with the elite. And quite rightly, the mother draws the conclusion that all the “revolution” is a farce. But, the impression that is left behind is that the problem is in the people and not in the ideology, and this is carried through to the end of the movie.

While on the subject of ideologies and “right ways” and “wrong ways”, I also came to think about the ideology on the other end of the spectrum – the kind espoused by the RSS and its affiliates. These people are dead against the communists. But come to think of it, is there really any difference between them?

They too divide society between “us” and “them”. They too assume that whatever they want is what everybody wants. And finally, they seek to tell everybody else what they should think. They have simplistic answers to complex problems, and the wrong answers to the right problems. Most importantly, both ideologies draw their inspiration from a persecution complex – the communists in terms of justice and these people in terms of religion. What then is the difference?

Both of them appeal to the basest, most primordial of human instincts, for who could ignore the cry, “We are in danger! We have to save ourselves!”

Most of these ideologies are self-serving in a way. They draw attention to a danger that nobody would have noticed before, but then they also say that they have a solution to it. The surest way of keeping clear of these people is to say “I am not committing myself to any ideology. I will judge them by their actions and my own standards of right and wrong. Most importantly, nobody is going to tell me what those standards should be.”

New York

2004-01-09T17:24:00.000-05:00

A bunch of us Indians decided to try and land an internship at Barclays Capital. For that, we had to take a test and if we passed it, we would proceed to the interview stage. Of course, Columbus being a financial backwater, the test was not to be conducted here. It had to be one of the big cities – Chicago, Pittsburgh or New York. Since we had exams in college close to the date of the test at Chicago (which we thought was the closest center), we decided to appear for it at New York. As always, driving was the most cost effective option and we decided to rent a car for the journey.

The party consisted of Avinash, Roneet and the narrator. Since we had to pick up the car at the airport (that was the only lot in town), and since Roneet was notorious for being late, we decided that Roneet was to stay at my place the night before we started. We were supposed to leave early in the morning to the airport by taxi. As always, Roneet got his priorities wrong and could not come to my place. In his priority list, clearing his email inbox was higher than starting on time. Since I had reserved the car online, and had told the rental company that I would pick it up by 8:00 am, I was afraid that they would not hold the car beyond that time. As it turned out, we did not get the car we wanted. We got a van.

Thanks to the Internet, we were successful in charting our entire course to NY and back, down to the last turn and exit. Unfortunately, we lost our way as soon as we got out of the airport, and then decided that we should stop for breakfast. Talk about déjà vu.

This was my first experience of driving in the USA, my first experience driving an automatic and the first time I was driving a van. It was very comfortable with a commanding view of the road. But it was a heavy vehicle and the performance was not something to look forward to. The van was cavernous and was built to carry eight people in comfort. The three of us had ample space to stretch our legs.

Having finished breakfast, we then relied on the age-old method of asking for directions to get us on to the correct interstate. In the US, once you get on to an interstate highway, you can pretty much relax until you get to the next big city when you have to look to get on the “ring road” to skirt the city to continue your journey. We just knew that we had to follow I-70 East until Harrisburg and then get onto another highway.

The countryside was a pleasant affair with lots of greenery, especially in Pennsylvania. The road took us through the Allegheny Mountains. Instead of going over them, the road goes through them. There are quite a few tunnels and driving through them is an eerie feeling. There were stretches with heavy fog where you could barely see twenty feet ahead. Some pit stops and wrong turns punctuated our journey.

I learnt more about Roneet during this trip. Roneet does not attend classes. He pays his bills during that time. He studies in the evenings, complaining that “Life sucks” - his favourite quote. In the rare event that he does attend classes, he sleeps because he would have spent the night trying to study the things that would have been simpler to understand had he attended the classes. Of course, now he was trying to study and sleep in the van. I have not seen a more confused person in my life.

We safely reached our destination – New Jersey – by 10:00 pm. However, we had not factored in the confusion that the “turnpikes” could cause to a novice driver like me. A turnpike is an elaborate web of roads that is at the junction of major highways. One usually pays a toll to use the turnpike, and one has to be extremely alert to take the correct exit so that you don’t repeat the entire procedure again. The New Jersey turnpike was extremely complicated. My problem was compounded by the fact that the signs were not adequate. We ended up being imprisoned in the turnpike system for close to an hour, entertaining ourselves by handing out dollars at the tollbooths as we passed through them again and again. We finally got off the turnpike, but promptly lost our way again. The New Jersey-New York road system is the most complicated I have ever seen. We then circled a stadium a few times before finding the road we were looking for. At that moment, I was ready to abandon the car and walk to the place. It was like being stuck in a Chakravyuha. But better sense prevailed and we pressed on.

We finally were able to get to our room a full two hours after reaching our destination. The reason for us choosing to lodge at New Jersey was the cost. New York was simply too expensive. Moreover, since our test was to be held the following evening, we had ample time to get to the test center in New York from New Jersey.

A good night’s sleep later, we got ready (of course after going through the pain of trying to remind Roneet of his priorities), had breakfast at a nearby diner, and got onto a bus for New York. Not taking the car was the wisest decision that we made. The public transport in this region is excellent. The twenty-minute trip from New Jersey to New York cost about six dollars a ticket. The absence of the hassle made it worth every penny.

Not driving anything, I was able to actually observe the pace and scale of the traffic in this place. It was breathtaking. A sliver of sea (or river – depends on which side you look at it from) separates Manhattan from New Jersey. To cross this water body, there are two tunnels. One is the Lincoln tunnel and the other is the Holland tunnel. We went through the Lincoln tunnel and it was a very strange experience. Going through a long tunnel at quite a high speed with lights flashing past me, it was like one of those science fiction movies where people zip past the stars. Emerging on the other side, the bus went straight to the bus terminal.

The bus terminal was unlike anything I had ever seen. For one, it was multi-storied. To add to the experience was the fact that I could not recognize the exact point when the road took off from the ground. The entire path to the terminal was an elaborate web of driveways that was so dense; I could not quite distinguish between the ground and what was above it. It is quite difficult to explain, but think of it as a situation where the boundary between the ground and what is above it becomes fuzzy; that there is no clear demarcation, that one can travel vertically with an ease that was not instinctive. I sympathize with you if you give up imagining on the strength of my description.

The next step was to locate our test center so that we could return to it in the evening. We knew that it was on the corner of Broadway and Fulton streets. So, from the bus terminal, we went straight below it into the metro station without seeing the light of day. Quite convenient I felt. We explained to the ticket clerk about our destination and she indicated that it would cost us two dollars each. We bought the tickets, swiped them to open the gates into the subterranean world, and waited for the train. Once we got on the train, we tried to identify the station where we had to get off using a map of the metro system that we had picked up at the ticketing counter. Of course, it was quite difficult to achieve that since there are no landmarks available in the subterranean world: Only a tunnel with lights.

Again, we trusted the age-old method of asking our fellow passengers as to where to get off. One thing I noticed during this exercise was that New Yorkers are not as polite as mid-westerners. They are a lot gruffer and give the impression that they do not have time for blithering idiots like us who could not figure out a simple metro system. But help us they did, and we got off at a station. On re-emerging at the surface, I suddenly had the impression that I was back in some Indian city. It was more colourful than any other American town I had seen. There were lots of people, and very few white ones at that. Most faces were either black or brown. I was surprised, as I had expected Manhattan to be a “white” place. We then asked for the corner of Broadway and Fulton, and were guided on our way by an assortment of faces with different colours and varied accents. On reaching the spot, we however could not find Barclays Capital. It was then that we discovered that we had overshot our target and arrived at Brooklyn and not Manhattan. What are the odds of two Broadways and two Fultons in the same city? It was amazing. So, we got back down to the underworld and took a train back to Manhattan, this time managing to get off at the correct stop.

The subway system is very efficient. It is quick and cheap and takes the commuter from one point to the other with a minimum of fuss. But I do hope that New York would maintain the trains and the stations better. Right now, they are a tad better than the Pahargunj gate of the New Delhi railway station. For those of you who have not seen the place I mentioned, well, you have not missed anything in life.

Rising out of the ground in Manhattan, I was struck by the fact that there was very little sunlight that succeeded in reaching the ground. This was because of the skyscrapers that Manhattan is famous for. Seeing skyscrapers on TV or on the movies is one thing, seeing them in real life is quite another. New York is a pain in the neck. Literally that is. I am sure orthopaedists in that city have a good business with tourists straining their necks trying to look up at the skyscrapers.

We found our way to the Barclays Capital building and having assured ourselves that it was indeed there, we set about exploring Manhattan. Avinash was visiting NYC for the second time and had some idea of the general location of the sights. We being business students, had to make the trip to Wall Street. Our first stop was the famous Bull near Wall Street. It was a tourist attraction in itself with lots of people waiting to be photographed next to (or on top of) the bull. We then headed to Wall Street.

Wall Street is a narrow alley, maybe a little wider than Avenue Road in Bangalore. Maybe the very tall buildings on either side gave the impression that the street was very narrow. The buildings on either side were huge. On the way, there were the buildings that housed the offices of America’s financial stars. Also was the building of the Cunard Line, the company that operated the Titanic. Wall Street is not even straight. It is crooked where one building or the other juts out into the street. Actually, the street is the gap that is left between the buildings. This was supposed to be a very old part of NYC.

We soon arrived at the most famous stock market in the world, the New York Stock Exchange. In the innocent days before 9/11, it seems one could actually go onto the trading floor without any problem. Now, one needed a trader’s pass to do that. The building was barricaded and guarded by policemen armed and armoured to the teeth. I asked one policeman close to the barricade whether I could step over to take a photograph. Very seriously and with a perfectly straight face, he told me “Sir, if you step over this barricade, I’d have to shoot you”. I did not join issue with him on that. I assumed I got that response because of my brown face. But I saw him saying that to a few white faces too.

We had lunch at a place that served food to our liking. Then we went in search of “The pit” – the site of the World Trade Center. It was quite close to Wall Street and we walked over to the place.

It is a huge pit. The pit too had been barricaded so that nobody went too close to it. But, there were observation areas from where people could have a good look at it. The barricades were turned into some sort of a permanent open-air exhibition of photographs, the subject of which was the WTC in previous years. Nearby were several hawkers selling an array of WTC memorabilia. Tragedies too can drive business.

I saw photographs that compared the height of the towers to the neighbouring ones. They must truly have been awe-inspiring. I felt sad that such buildings that testified to human skill were brought down by some misguided souls. Strangely, I did not feel for the people who died and the people they left behind. Maybe that was because the event was quite distant in my memory or maybe being an Indian, I was too hardened to such acts; acts that are everyday news back home.

It was time to head back to the Barclays Capital building to appear for the test. We showed up at the Barclays Capital building to see a long queue of hopefuls like us waiting to sign in at the security desk. After being photographed at the reception, we were taken up in batches to the fifteenth floor. I realized that this was the highest floor I had ever been in a building. The testing room was big with the whole of one side facing Manhattan. There was no “wall”, just glass. It was a fantastic sight.

We were two on each table, facing each other. The guy sitting opposite me was a Russian student in Stanford doing his PhD in economics. “Great” I thought. There goes any hope I had of making the cut. In fact, most of the applicants were from such pedigreed institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, New York University etc. It seemed that we were the only ones from a lowly state university. But then, one of our seniors had succeeded the previous year. So there was no reason for us not to feel optimistic.

The test itself was brutal. While I was floundering through it, the guy in front of me seemed to be sailing through. After each section, he would look up with a smile and say, “That was OK”. I could only say “Yes it was”.

After the test, we planned out our evening in New York. Since the last bus to New Jersey was quite late in the evening, we decided to look around Manhattan as much as we could. But first, we needed to have dinner. Having heard that Manhattan had quite good Indian restaurants, we were determined to sample one of them for dinner. Manhattan has no dearth of Indians. We waylaid a couple of them to ask for the best Indian restaurant in the neighbourhood. They were very friendly and willing to help out a few Desi people in need of directions.

We finally ended up at a place very close to The Pit. It was not strictly Indian as a Bangladeshi ran it, but the food was Indian. The young Bangladeshi at the counter was very happy on learning that Roneet too was a Bengali. This changed everything. We got extra good service with him allowing us to sample all the dishes in the buffet before ordering. Of course, he persuaded Roneet – his “Desi bhayya” as he referred him – to order some kind of a Bengali fish dish. Roneet was over the moon.

After a good dinner, we proceeded to explore Manhattan. We decided to go to the southern tip of Manhattan to see if we could catch a glimpse of the skyline. Walking through the dark city, it struck me as to how many old buildings there were. Most of these buildings were well lit, with small boards in front of them with their history and significance. I being a history buff, had to stop in front of each front of them to read and photograph. This infuriated my fellow travelers.
By the time we reached the sea front, it was totally dark. Not knowing what to do next, we soon came upon a pier jutting out into the water. The skyline had to be impressive from there. Moreover, there was a chance that there were boats to take us out into the water so that the skyline was visible.

However, it turned out to be a pier for the ferry service between Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey. But the scene from the end of the pier was quite good, with the Brooklyn Bridge visible in the distance. The Brooklyn skyline, though not as impressive as the Manhattan one, was quite good. While I was photographing these sights, a guard came up to us to make sure that we were not troublemakers. Having convinced himself that we were just tourists, he had some suggestions as to how we should get back to New Jersey using the ferry. But since our landing point was going to be quite far from our hotel, we decided against taking the ferry to New Jersey. The bus was again going to be the best means of transport.

The bus terminal was near the “happening” place of Manhattan. The place was full of theatres and bars and neon lights. When we walked up to the street from the subway, it was as if entire New York had descended upon the place. Most theatres had just ended a show and there were people pouring out into the street. This was also the first and only time that I have seen two men kissing each other. It was quite a shock to me, but New Yorkers did not seem to mind.
It was a Friday night and the whole city was preparing to party away the weekend. We went into a bar to soak in the atmosphere. Avinash and Roneet had something to drink while I looked around. There were a lot of people there who seemed to be intent on doing only one thing – having fun. There was very loud music playing and everybody seemed to be dancing. Scantily clad women and men gyrating to the music was quite “OK” with me in the sense that it did not seem out of place, and I was “in the place”. I cannot imagine something like that in Bangalore without feeling that it was inappropriate. Maybe I am prejudiced, but then, maybe that’s how it is. Some things are more appropriate for some places than others.

After that, we safely made our way back to our hotel in New Jersey for a well-deserved rest before starting back to Columbus the next morning.

Niagara Falls

2003-12-14T17:37:00.002-05:00

The orientation of our MBA program gave the students a clear idea of the amount of work involved to do well in the program. We soon realised that there would be little or no time to experience the sights and sounds of the USA once the program started. Therefore, a bunch of us (Indians) decided that we would take advantage of the weekend in the middle of the orientation program, to visit the famous Niagara Falls on the US-Canada border.

The five of us – NK, Avinash, Roneet, Vivek and I – decided to rent a car and drive to Niagara Falls, as that would be the cheapest means of transport. NK, having lived in the US for a couple of years, had experience in driving in the US, and that solved the minor problem of finding a driver for us. Of course, I was raring to have a go at it, but NK was quite strict in not allowing me to drive. Since I fancy myself as quite a good driver, this did hurt my ego. But in hindsight I needed the experience of being a passenger on those roads before venturing a drive.

The five of us hardly knew each other and this was as good an opportunity as any to learn more about each other. Until then, the only things common to us was that we were there to do an MBA and that we were from India, fate having thrown us at the same spot on the other side of earth. Consequently, coordination was a bit of a problem. Nobody had any telephone, at least none that the others knew of. Some of us did not know our own addresses. And some of us who had written down the addresses forgot to bring it with them, which resulted in a huge delay in searching for Vivek’s flat. Quite creatively, we guessed his address and started searching for it. The search then turned into a door-to-door search of the street. We even barged into a fellow Indian’s home and asked him to allow us to use the Internet to search for the address. To his credit, he complied and even joined us in our search for Vivek’s flat. I am sure he had been having a particularly dull morning for him to go off searching for somebody he did not know, living in an address he had no clue about, with a bunch of strangers who were as familiar with Columbus as an Eskimo would be with the rainforests.

I don’t quite remember how it ended, but maybe somebody had the very bright idea of getting the address from home. We soon found Vivek and were off. The only problem was that it was already lunchtime and we had a ten-hour drive ahead of us. Budding leaders and managers that we were, we immediately decided that going ahead on an empty stomach was as sinful as hell, and promptly decided that we had to stop and have lunch. A minor detail – we were still very much within city limits. The lunch took about one hour and all decided that the time was well spent. We finally departed Columbus four hours later than our original planned departure time.
We had taken the precaution of mapping out our route to and from Niagara with the backup of multiple copies of the printouts. As an added advantage, NK had his very handy map of the US highway system. We did not fancy ourselves getting lost in this strange land.

As our journey proceeded on the excellent highway towards Cleveland, it was our first look at the American Midwest countryside. And it was nothing to write home about. Acres and acres of endless flat fields got quite boring after some time. NK our driver too must have been utterly bored because at one time, he started switching lanes just for the heck of it, even when there was no traffic to get around. Slowly, our attentions turned from outside our car windows to the people within the car and I learnt what a wonderful variety we had, just between the five of us.

Vivek was a sailor, and as with all sailors, he was extremely well endowed with the choicest swear words. The sheer scope of his knowledge in that area took my breath away. He was the best travelled among us all, having been to most continents that hosted human beings.

Roneet was the accountant from Bombay. He was the most known guy in class already (in the sense that most people already knew who he was), having talked to everybody in his zeal for “networking”.

Avinash was the intellectual type former investment manager, also from Bombay. He had this very far away look in his eyes when explaining things about markets and investments that we could never understand.

NK was a software engineer at TCS, having lived in the US since a couple of years on assignments for them. He too was from Bombay and was the no-nonsense type that you got to see among gangsters in “Satya”. In fact, he even spoke like those characters in the film.

And there was the narrator, another software engineer from Bangalore. The person, who observes a lot, speaks little and makes fun of other people in his essays.

That was a curious bunch. A sailor from Jaipur, a Bengali accountant from Bombay, a Sindhi investments guy, and two software engineers – one a Marathi and the other a Kannadiga. And at the risk of using a cliché, that was India for me. And it felt great.

We travelled north to Cleveland and upon reaching this big city on the shores of one of the great lakes, we turned east towards Pennsylvania and New York. The landscape was a lot greener in this part of our journey, and it was not all that boring. We stopped at various places on the way to relieve and refresh ourselves. One thing that impressed me more than the quality of the road itself was the facilities made available to the users of the highways. There are clean and affordable places to eat and stay all along the highways and that makes the journey far more pleasant than just a good road. Some sections of the highway were not as good as others and these were most evident at the borders between states. Does that sound familiar?

We finally reached our destination – a motel about fifteen miles from the falls. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we already had a room booked and we just had to walk in and take the keys to the room. We dumped our luggage in the room and decided that we had to see the falls under lights. It was already ten and we still hadn’t had dinner. It was decided that we would do both at the site of the falls.

It was quite cold when we bundled into the car to go to our final destination. The entire way was marked with numerous signs telling us the direction of the falls. We finally reached Niagara Falls, and if we had not watched out, we would have driven straight over the bridge into Canada! In the darkness, it was quite easy to miss the fact that one had to turn left to make sure that one did not end up in Canada. Somebody should do something about that, as I am sure a lot of people who end up getting arrested as illegal immigrants might have committed the same mistake that we were about to!

In the dark, the falls were not very impressive. In fact, I seriously wondered whether we had wasted money to see such a poor spectacle. We then had dinner at an Indian restaurant before heading back to the motel.

After a very refreshing sleep, we woke up in the morning to a wonderful day – bright sunshine, but slightly nippy. Having spent some more time in negotiating the awakening of members of the tour party, we were finally ready to go. Of course, there had to be the slight problem of breakfast. We had a hearty breakfast at a Denny’s (a chain of restaurant’s similar to McDonald’s) restaurant and headed for the falls.

The falls itself is a national park and there are a lot of attractions in the confines of the park. A very well maintained garden surrounds the areas that the tourists visit. There is a shuttle bus that ferries tourists between the attractions. There are also balloon and helicopter rides for people to get a better view of the falls.

We bought tickets for ourselves and got on to the observation deck to watch the falls. The Niagara Falls have two parts to it - the American falls and the Horseshoe falls. The Horseshoe is the more famous of the two and this is the one that straddles the US-Canada border.

Unfortunately, both the falls are located predominantly on the American side of the Niagara gorge, and hence, you have to be on the Canadian side to get the best view. How do you see the splendour of a waterfall while looking from the side or from the lip? You need to be able to see the “big picture”. Nevertheless, the Americans have made the best of what they have. To compensate for the lack of a good view, they have built an observation deck that gives a view of the falls from the middle of the gorge, high above the water. This deck provides an excellent view of the falls, but I am sure that it is not as good as the one from the Canadian side. Having taken our fill of photos on the deck, we proceeded to the highlight of the trip – the trip on the Maid of the Mist to the base of the falls.

An elevator took us down to the bottom of the observation deck where we were given the classic blue ponchos (plastic raincoats) to wear over our clothes. Having done that, we were herded onto the boat, which slowly made its way towards the base of the falls. As the boat got closer to the falls, the water became increasingly turbulent, and the “mist” that was visible from the top turned out to be heavy droplets of ice-cold water pummelling our faces and exposed body parts. But it was a great experience. The rocking of the boat, the roar of the falls, the spray of the mist, everything was fantastic. In fact, the whole experience of the boat ride was for that alone. It was not for the view of the falls from the bottom as it was next to impossible to see the falls because of the heavy spray.

The boat got back safely to dock and I could finally brag that I had ridden the Maid of the Mist – the boat having become as much a part of the Niagara Falls experience as the falls itself. The bunch of us, grinning and wet, dried ourselves as best as we could and set about for the other attractions that the Americans had conjured up in the absence of “the view”.

We next went to a platform built on the side of the American falls, half way up the gorge face. Here again, the experience was the closeness of the falls than the view of it. The next one, and almost as exciting as the boat ride, was the Cave of the Winds. We had to descend in an elevator through the rock to emerge at the bottom of the gorge. There, a guide took us to the base of the American Falls. A wooden platform was built just where the water hit the rocks and it was the most violent experience with water that I have ever had. The roar and the spray were so overwhelming that I could not even hear myself think. Quite wisely, the park authorities had given us lockers to put our shoes and electronics in. We were given sandals and ponchos to protect ourselves from the water. One strange thing was that these sandals were for keeps. We could take them home with us. I was surprised with this since I assumed it would be quite expensive to give away a pair of sandals to every person who went to the Cave of the Winds, even if everybody had paid for the tickets. Then I saw on the sandals the ubiquitous sign “Made in China”. Ah, no wonder they could afford it.

There were a few other minor attractions around the park. A few lovely walkways were the best of them. Also quite interesting were, a small museum on the history of the falls, and an aquarium with performing seals. With that, we finished our tour of Niagara and decided that we had to leave immediately if we were to reach Columbus at an earthly hour. We then had lunch at the best Indian restaurant in the US I have experienced so far, and headed back.

One observation of the Niagara Falls that I have to share with you is the number of Indians who visit that place. Almost half the people who were visiting were Indians, as were almost half the restaurants in the area were Indian. I think a visit to the Niagara is becoming something of a ritual, a rite of passage so to say, for Indians visiting the USA. Come to think of it, which is the most popular natural attraction in the USA? The Niagara Falls. And I guess that is why we too had made our way to the place. Maybe in our sub-conscious, a visit to the USA is not complete without a visit to the Niagara Falls.

This trip taught me a lot of things about the way we have to exploit what we have been blessed with. Canada has the natural advantage of having the best view of the falls. The US does not have it. But, instead of sitting back and saying “What do we do? Nature and geography have not been kind to us”, they went ahead and designed other things that enhanced the Niagara experience for tourists. Imagine, would there be that many tourists if the only attraction on the American side of the falls were the view from its lip? I don’t think so. But look at the whole package – the boat ride, the walkways, the park, the visits to the base of the falls and the view itself – and it suddenly looks much more attractive than just what nature has provided.

There is a lesson in this for India in the way we manage our resources and tourist spots. Nothing is ever worth just its face value. Value comes from what you want it to be.

Impressions

2003-10-03T20:56:00.000-04:00

The plane was passing over the “world famous” Horseshoe football stadium, we were told on the flight from Chicago as the plane descended towards Columbus airport. World famous? Shouldn’t “football” be world famous in the first place for the stadium to be world famous? The Americans actually call football “soccer”. And as far as I am concerned, “football” is a sport that seems similar to rugby and involves neither much use of the foot nor a “ball”.

It is a sport where huge men with huge amounts of protection bring down members of the opposing team and make sure the “ball” reaches as deep into the opposing team’s territory as possible. It’s a bit funny to see the progress of the game, which to an uninitiated eye seems like a controlled riot in the middle of a big field with about one-lakh spectators cheering the players on.

Football is a big deal in the USA. I also learned that football was the most important thing in my university. Nothing is more important than football. The “Buckeyes” were national college champions last year with a record 14-0 winning streak. And to give me a perspective of the celebrations that happened after the finals, reliable sources (Indians of course) told me that the only thing that would match it in India would be if India won the Cricket World Cup and the Hockey World Cup, at the same time, against Pakistan.

The “Buckeye” is the seed of a tree native to the state of Ohio. It is also the name for the community of students of the Ohio State University and the residents of Ohio. You see Ohio is “The Buckeye state”. So I too am a “Buckeye” and there is no way I am allowed to forget that fact. It is present on every T-shirt and coffee mug, every shop window and ID card (the university ID card is called the BuckID). Everything is named with the “Buck” in it. So there is a university internet plan called the “Buck95” (which costs $1.95 per month – buck 95. Get it?), a bookstore called Buckeye Books, and on and on. On the last day of the MBA orientation, each student was given a buckeye seed just to make sure that no one ever forgot.

The passion for football runs quite deep here. On game days (which are Saturdays), the Horseshoe stadium becomes the centre of attention and discussion all over the state. Every game is a big social event with groups of people having “tailgate” parties from hours before the game starts and hours after the game ends (because the Buckeyes would have won as they are that good). I have the good fortune of living on the main road to the stadium and it is an excellent vantage point to see the activity on a typical game day. People set up stalls selling everything from T-shirts, mugs, hats, pens, key chains and almost everything else under the sun that can be coloured scarlet or grey (the colours of the Ohio State University) and can be inscribed with “OSU, Buckeyes, National Champions 2002”.

The stadium itself can hold about as many people as the Eden Gardens can in Calcutta. It is shaped like a horseshoe and was built in the 1920s or 30s. The stadium is so central to the culture of the place that I saw a documentary on TV about its history and how it came to be built, something similar to what we would see about the Taj Mahal for example. When it was built, the capacity used to be around eighty thousand, which meant that it could fit half the population of Columbus at the time!

We had a guided tour of the stadium as part of the orientation for the MBA program. The entrance feels like that of a huge cathedral. Employees of the stadiums called “redcoats” (because they wore red waistcoats) took us around the stadium and explained the history of the place and had many interesting little stories to tell us. The gentleman guiding our group was quite old but had such an infectious enthusiasm for the place, you would have thought he was showing us around his favourite room in his house. He was steeped in the history and tradition of the Ohio State University, the Buckeyes and the “shoe” as the stadium is referred to. One could clearly see that he would rather not be doing anything else in the world than taking care of his beloved stadium.

As I entered the stands, I could see why the roars from the crowd were audible from my apartment. It was huge! This was the first time I was ever inside a stadium and I guess it took a few minutes for me to regain control of my jaw muscles. The stadium is actually a “closed” horseshoe. One end was indeed left open until a few years ago when the university decided to expand the capacity and put up stands on the open end too. We were taken up into the television commentary boxes, the media boxes, the private suites, and the president’s suite. Watching a football game live in the stadium was one experience I would definitely not miss when in the USA.

As much a part of the football experience in the OSU is the band that plays before the game starts and in the intervals. The Ohio State University band is TBDBITL. It stands for “The Best Damn Band In The Land” and the acronym is trademarked. I have seen the band practising on the grounds and they are fantastic. The band is most famous for doing the “script Ohio” at the beginning of every game in the stadium. They trace out the word “Ohio” in formation and it was apparently first presented in 1936 and is always performed to the rhythm of the same tune (Le Regiment de Sambre et Meuse) with the clapping (in rhythm) of the fans in the stadium. When the “i” in Ohio is “dotted” (that is the dot on the “i” is placed) by a tuba player, the crowd gives a huge roar. The honour of dotting the “i” always goes to the tuba player.

Very much like the rivalry between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, or even India and Pakistan, there is a deep and old rivalry between OSU and the University of Michigan. Nothing makes a Buckeye fan happier than a win over Michigan. He (the fan base is overwhelmingly male, so much that until about 25-30 years ago, there were no ladies toilets in the stadium) is even happier if the win is at “the hole” – the derisive nickname given by the Buckeyes to the stadium of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The current coach Jim Tressel achieved the dream of beating Michigan at the hole the first time he took the team there as head coach. The current feeling is that he’ll get all of Columbus’s votes if he stood for President of the USA.

We in India think we are crazy about cricket. Looking at the craze for football amongst the buckeyes, I think we terribly overrate ourselves.

To a large extent, most Americans love sports and follow their favourite teams closely. Almost every major city has its own football, basketball or baseball team that the entire city roots for. You might have observed that Americans care only about American sports. That has to do with the American worldview, which is quite an interesting topic in itself.

Impressions - Part deux

2003-09-13T23:11:00.000-04:00

The name “Port Columbus International Airport” sounds very important and busy. In reality, it is anything but. It is a lazy little airport that belies its name. It is about as “International” as Bangalore, maybe even lesser because there are flights to more foreign countries from Bangalore than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I think the only “International” place to which this airport hosts flights from is Canada.

I waited in the almost empty hallway to collect my baggage after taking a trolley by depositing some money from my credit card. Yes, I had to pay for the trolley. I breathed a sigh of relief on seeing my two huge suitcases, as I was sure that the airline would have offloaded them at Chicago judging that they were too big for the little plane I came on. I collected my luggage and proceeded towards the exit. I was instructed to “wait until somebody turned up” and “not to panic” if the person supposed to pick me up was late. The Indian Students Association (ISA) is doing a wonderful job in picking up new students and providing them with temporary accommodation – all free of charge.

After a couple of minutes, a car came with a very Indian looking person at the steering wheel. He took a look at me and apparently decided that I was indeed the fellow he was supposed to pick up. He asked “ISA pick up?” and I nodded my head. Kushagra then stopped the car and helped me load my considerable belongings into the car. He even asked “That’s it?” to which I understood that he was used to picking up students with much more luggage – no doubt packed by anxious parents convinced that they were sending away their children to some god forsaken place.

First impression – the roads of urban USA are not the velvety smooth ones we are made to believe they are back home. In fact I think some stretches of road in Bangalore are better (Cubbon Road, MG Road etc.). The roads of France and UAE are a lot better.

I engaged Kushagra in some talk. Ok, actually it was the other way round as I am not too open with strangers. Anyway, I learnt some things about Columbus, Ohio State University and also the reason for my being there, the Fisher College of Business. He too was a student there.
First impressions on looking at the sights outside the car window – these people think big. Huge roads, huge cars, huge buildings, huge plots and sites, huge signboards, everything was huge. The whole place was so very spacious. Bangalore in comparison – even Mysore – seemed claustrophobic.

We soon arrived at the place where I was supposed to live for at least the next year. My roommate Chetan was there and he helped me with getting my things into the house. A place was arranged for me in Mohit’s room. That room would later be my room once Mohit moved out. I was made to feel very welcome. Chetan had also fixed something for me to eat for which I was very thankful. I then called up home to inform my mother that I had arrived in one piece at my destination.

I was in no mood to take any rest due to my excitement in landing up in a new place. So, Chetan and I took a walk around the campus. The campus is very pretty with lots of greenery all around. The university is very old. It was established in 1870. In fact until the city of Columbus caught up with the university campus, the university was referred to as “The University in a cornfield” as that was where it was! I had a glimpse of the stadium – the famous “horse shoe” or just the “shoe” according to the locals (More on the stadium later). I also took directions to go to the Office of International Education as that was supposed to be my first port of call the next day.

I went to the Office of International Education the first thing next morning. There was a banner put up to “Welcome all International Students”. I got registered “into the system” so that I could get my university ID – also called the BuckID as the state of Ohio is called the Buckeye state – and a letter to get my Social Security Number, something similar to our PAN. I was then made to go through a small session with one of the counsellors at that place where she told us in great detail as to what all things I should be doing in the next couple of days. I then opened my bank account at Bank One whose representatives were manning a table at the registration room. It all happened so quickly and effortlessly that I was happy that my stay at the university had got off to a good start.

I then had to go to a place called Lincoln Tower to get the all-important BuckID. I had a bit of trouble trying to get to the building as I could see it but could not find my way to it due to some construction work going on in the vicinity. This was where Flavia, a Brazilian who was also at the Office of International Education with me in the morning, helped me out. She told me that she too was going there and since she had been in Columbus since the past year (as her husband too was a student at the university), she could guide me to that place. The reason why I remember her is that I found out the total lack of my fitness in that walk from the OIE to Lincoln Tower with her. I had to literally jog to keep up with her, all the more remarkable because she was very pregnant. I was panting by the time I reached Lincoln Tower.

At Lincoln Tower, I got my BuckID made which took all of thirty seconds (including clicking my photo, taking my signature and printing a card). I hope they can give PAN cards, DLs so quickly in India. This BuckID is an ID, a bus pass, a debit card, and an access card all rolled into one. This card is accepted in many shops and restaurants around the campus in place of cash. This card would be my ticket (quite literally too) to all the buildings of the university and to the local bus system, which I could ride for free by flashing this card to the bus driver.

This was also the day I found out that the university has its own captive thermal power plant! It is right in the middle of campus with a huge brick chimney. In fact most of the buildings on campus are made of red bricks or have a brick façade. This gives a very colonial feel to the whole campus, which is very pleasant. In contrast, there are a few monstrosities too that look totally out of place in a campus like this. The Lincoln Tower in fact looks very much like our Public Utility Building in Bangalore (including the colour scheme). The Wexner Arts Center looks like an unfinished building, with all the steel frames on the outside of the building trying to look like some “work in progress”. That is something I have never been able to understand about modern art. Why do these people make things that are so hard to understand?

The entire emphasis of the university seems to be geared towards providing as much space as possible for the students. Offices are deliberately kept either very small or very distant from most places the students would normally be. The aim seems to be to minimise and even eliminate the need for students to go to any office. Everything is getting online from registering for classes to paying the fees and even attending classes! Some professors do not insist on attendance to their classes. Instead they record their lectures and they are available on the net. Students can download these lectures and watch them at their convenience. While this may seem totally meaningless to us Indians – “What’s the point of going to a university if you are not going to sit in a class?” we may ask – it appears to be accepted here as just another way of reaching the students. Every student is given a mail ID and told that this would be the main means of communication in the university – from assigning homework to communicating the exam results. Students are strictly warned that “I did not see my mail” is not an acceptable excuse for anything.

To ensure that every student has access to computing resources, every library has a few dozen terminals so that students could use them. There are also dedicated “Public Computing Sites” which have nothing but computer terminals. Some of these are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I guess it would be quite foolish for any student to even try and venture an excuse such as “I did not have access to my mail”.

So rigorous is this approach that the university has a Chief Information Officer, just like there would be in any corporate setting. His sole job is to make sure that students have the means and skills to use the computing resources on the campus. To that end, his office, the Office of Information Technology, conducts free training sessions in a variety of computing related topics for anybody who is interested.

Having been overawed by the scale of this university – this is the university with the largest student population in the USA – I decided I needed to take in more of this place in more manageable bites in the following days.

Impressions

2003-09-12T09:39:00.000-04:00

Now that I have some time to breathe, I intend to put down some of my impressions of the USA – something that I have wanted to do since even before I came here.

I had quite an uneventful journey. It was comfortable, but boring. Apart from sitting in the plane in London’s Heathrow runway for half an hour after landing from Mumbai for want of a slot, there was nothing else that frustrated me (except the luggage at Chicago – more on that later). Of course, I did miss meeting my friend Arun at the Mumbai airport, but apart from that, there were no other goof ups.

As the British Airways flight descended to land at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, the very impressive skyline of downtown (“downtown” being an Americanism similar to our “city”, “pete” or even “Majestic”) Chicago came into view. This then was the famous America. I watched as the skyscrapers became larger and larger and then disappeared from view as the aeroplane banked to land. First impressions – the runway was as smooth (or as rough – whichever way you want to put it) as Bangalore airport’s.

We were given the immigration forms on the flight itself to fill up. Whoever complains of filling up the “old fashioned”, “bureaucratic” embarkation and disembarkation cards when travelling either from or to India should be made to go through the US procedures. Our poor derided officials will seem like angels to them.

Having disembarked, the foremost priority was to run to the immigration counters to beat the queues. It was a good thing that I did so because soon after, a couple of flights from China landed and the queues became extremely long. The immigration officer took a look at the size of the queue and shouted across to his neighbour “Entering factory mode!” He took a look at the first passenger to get to him (an Indian student) and asked him to take the I-20 out of the sealed envelope as there was “no state secret in it and it would make my job easier”. He shouted out the same instructions down the queue to all of us. All of us who had religiously guarded the sealed envelope (and there were quite a few) breathed a sigh of relief - all of us were no doubt worried about the dog-ears and the tears that the envelopes had developed over such a long and arduous journey. We no longer had to face the wrath of the immigration official, which we were sure we would face because of the mutilations!

Having read about the procedures before hand, I was expecting some intense grilling at the immigration counter. To my surprise, the queue in front of me quickly shortened, and it was my turn. I was greeted with a “Good afternoon sir, how do you do”. He then proceeded to examine my passport, I-20 and the I-94 card that I had filled up on the plane. He then entered the SEVIS number from my I-20 into his system, and satisfied that I was no terrorist, stamped my I-94, wrote that I was allowed to stay in the USA for “DS” i.e. Duration of Stay as per the I-20, stamped my customs form, wished me luck and sent me on my way. The whole procedure took hardly a minute. It was so fast, I actually waited for a few moments at the counter looking at him like an idiot until he called the next person in the line.

Next was claiming the baggage. Some careless baggage handler at Mumbai’s airport had broken the handle of my older suitcase. I somehow wrestled both of them into a trolley and proceeded to look for the means of conveyance to go to the domestic terminal. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I knew there was a free shuttle train that took passengers between the terminals once every 15 minutes. The problem was, it was an elevated rail system, and horror of horrors, luggage trolleys were not allowed on board! What followed was the saddest part of the whole journey. I had to take my three pieces of unruly luggage up an escalator. But, could I do it in one trip? No, I had to face the danger of leaving one of them below, take up the two remaining ones, leave them there, go back down and get the other one. It was a situation where I could have lost my entire luggage. The prominent notices cautioning people not to leave luggage unattended on pain of prosecution did nothing to allay my anxiety. However, a helpful lady suggested that I could take the elevator that was right there behind the escalator. Of course, that was what I intended to do I told her, and was on my way looking a bit foolish. It was not easy even then. Just try dragging two suitcases each weighing thirty two kilograms, each with a very high centre of gravity, while balancing a 15 Kg cabin luggage in the other hand, and you will know what I mean.

Once on the platform, there was another shock in wait for me. The notices said that the train would stop for only ten seconds and one was not supposed to prevent the doors from closing, again on pain of prosecution. The train arrived as I was formulating a strategy as to how I could not only get the luggage in, but also get it out once I reached my destination. Wonder of wonders, there was a porter standing at each entrance of the train to help people in a situation such as mine! I thanked God for all his graces. But the thanks seemed a bit premature once I found out my predicament at the domestic terminal.

Once I got off at the domestic terminal, I had hoped to get a trolley so that I could lug my luggage in peace. That was not to be. I had to do the exact drag and balance act all over again, but this time for almost half a kilometre. The mere memory of it gives me the chills even now.
Suffice to say, I somehow reached the American Airlines counter (which occupied the entire hall) with all my belongings intact. By this time, I had become somewhat of a spectacle, drawing stares all along the hallway. I presented my luggage and ticket to the lady at the counter. Her first reaction was “Oh, a paper ticket!" I was surprised. What else is a ticket usually made of? However, I later learnt that nobody issues paper tickets anymore in the USA for domestic flights. All tickets are “e-tickets”. They are bought online and all you get is a number. You take the number with you and if you do not have any check in luggage, you can check yourself in with the help of several “self check in” kiosks that are available at the airport.

This was not the end of my troubles. Following the new security regulations, the airlines do not receive the check in luggage. They just tag it and we ourselves have to take it to a counter where some government employee checks the luggage to see if we have any bombs. I had to unlock my suitcases before I put them in the X-ray machine. If they had decided to open my luggage and it was locked, they would have broken open the lock. In the event, they did decide to open the suitcase with the broken handle. The person who was supposed to do it was however posed with a problem. The case was securely bound with rope. I was watching him with interest, whether the rope would dissuade him from venturing an inspection. However, the images of a bomb going off on the flight because of this very suitcase must have made him think the better of it. My appearance with stubble, unkempt hair and a wild-eyed look (because of lack of sleep) must have swung the balance. He untied the rope, opened the suitcase, examined everything (even smelt the pudi packets), put them back in and tied back the rope in a far more secure way than I could ever hope to have done. He then asked me for the key of the suitcase, locked it and returned the key to me with a smile and a “Have a happy journey sir”. An attendant had done likewise with my other suitcase as it exited the X-ray machine. That however was not opened.

With a sigh of relief, I then proceeded towards the gate where my flight was supposed to be boarded. But before that, I had to go through the security check (the other one was for the check in luggage alone). In this one, I had to take out my laptop and put it in a tray. I then had to take my shoes off and put it in another one. Likewise, I had to put every metal thing in separate trays. All of them were then passed through the X-ray machine. When entering the security area, the guard letting me in had given a good look at my face, decided that I was not an American and had asked for my passport and I-94. This he promptly went and gave to his superior who was frisking everyone. After passing through the metal detector, all the foreigners – and there were quite a few – had to endure a thorough cabin baggage check and a thorough frisking. The fellow doing it actually warned me that he would be touching me in places that I would not be very comfortable with, but that I had to go through it because of security regulations. He then took out all of my things from my cabin luggage and very methodically piled it up next to him as I watched him sitting on a chair that was provided (oh yes, they were very courteous “Please have a seat sir” and all that). He then told me that I could zip up and collect my things and “have a nice journey”. All the foreign males where frisked in full view of everyone else. No, there wasn’t any indecent exposure, but imagine somebody touching your family jewels in front of two hundred other people and you’ll know how I felt. Thankfully, this seemed quite normal to the Americans and no one was rude enough to stare at us. Of course, I looked at my neighbour’s face for his reaction at the precise moment the security guard touched his unmentionables. He did the exact same thing. We gave each other a smile.

I cleared security a full one and a half hours before boarding. I spent my time reading my book and checking my laptop to see if it had suffered any damage in its journey so far. Of course, this was also my first opportunity to look in some leisure at some of the female species of the American continent. The sheer variety of specimens at that place would delight any anthropologist. Of course it did not disappoint me either to see so many of them in various stages of undress – the season being summer seemed to have made garment prices go through the roof. Modesty prevents me from going into further details – details that are more suitable for the company of other like-minded (and like-aged and like-gendered) individuals.

Anyway, the flight to Columbus was delayed by about fifteen minutes. Good, I thought. There were delays in America too, which apparently ran like clockwork. But, there is something about the atmosphere here that induces you to hurry, to stretch more. You feel like walking faster – because every one else is almost running. You feel as if you will be left behind if you are not fast enough. There is no such urgency in India, at least that part of India that I am familiar with.
The aeroplane itself was a very small affair. There was about three inches of headroom for me as I stood. Almost all the Americans had to stand bowed. And because the luggage rack was too small, I had to stow my luggage under the seat.

The pilot then told us that we were ready for take off. The air traffic here is such that by the time one aeroplane’s wheels have left the ground, the next one is already rolling for take off. It’s the same for landing too. By the time one aeroplane has reached the end of the runway after landing, the wheels of the one after that would have touched down. The whole system has the air of a glorified bus station. A bit more ad hoc than what we see back home with all the protocols that only one aeroplane has to be on the runway at any given time. To strengthen this impression, the pilot coolly announced that he would be going “a bit faster” so that we reached on time! That urgency I was talking about! I cannot imagine this happening in India.

It was a very short flight – all of forty-five minutes out of which the safety instructions took fifteen minutes and the snack serving another fifteen minutes. Indeed, no sooner had I put my cup into the steward’s trash bag (you cannot expect trolleys on such a small plane), the plane started descending and the seat belt sign came on. The plane landed in Columbus, the capital of the state of Ohio and my final destination in this journey.

My impressions of Columbus will follow in another instalment of “Impressions”..