How much forest does a man need

If you flew over Delhi around june 2010, one thing would be kinda clear. That you couldn't see anything clearly at all from the window. Well, part of it could have been because most of the city was dug up for Commonwealth games, but there was a major part ascribed to plain dust in the air. Maybe it was due to scorching summer and lack of humidity in the air too.

But then the question comes, if there was so much dust in the atmosphere, wouldn't everyone be inhaling it? And with lax industry laws, there of course are many pollutants in the air too! And all of them simply, pretty much forcibly just get into your lungs!


The next question is why are people not doing anything about it? Well, I think that's because people, mostly, are not empowered to do anything beyond their own backyard. And the people who are empowered, are either so dumb to not see the issue, or plain and simple ignorant, or just too busy minting money to see that this effects everyone! including the PM and the President. Well, only when they are out in the open...

So then how do we actually see how bad the picture is? For one, every one could take a flight in to Delhi, which, for obvious reasons isn't the most economical way of conducting a study. So I thought I should do the next best thing. Take pictures from high above and paste them here.

Thanks to google maps and jing technologies, I was able to put these pics here:

Lucknow, India

Hyderabad suburbs, India

Nerul, Navi Mumbai, India

Noida, India

Schaumburg, US

Nice, France

Tooting, London, UK

I tried to compare apples to apples by keeping the resolution level the same. I also tried to consider only what I thought were suburbs, since they seem to have a better control over land and hence tree cover.

What is clearly visible is that number of trees in the captured area are faar less for Indian cities, no matter where they are, when compared to, suburbs in US or Europe.

This is not a research study, so I am sure the sample data I am looking at would be flawed after a point. But I definitely wanted to put up some comparison between what Indian cities are doing, vs the 'better'  cities of US/Europe. Also, since these are suburbs, in both cases (India or others) they were settled down into, rather recently.

We all have known that tree cover is said to be beneficial for MANY things, including water table restoration, reduction in free dust just flying around in the air, reducing average temperature of the areas, and keeping the land healthier in general.

Given this, I wanted to hit at at least one problem. That of awareness in people in India about the shoddy state of their green cover. Only 12% of land mass in India is covered with forests, as compared to 33% in the US, 30% over the world, 34% in Canada, 22% in China and so on.

I think the green cover is especially more important in city areas given the concentration of pollutants in general.

Maybe we should start from where we do have control. Our backyard. And then move up from there. Otherwise the average life expectancy in our cities will continue to be low and maybe drop lower with new industrialization and growth happening...

Why should India try to be a sporting nation?

Here is a video from NDTV about sporting culture in India.



These guys were discussing why isn't India a sporting nation. The arguments I heard were like:

1. lack of infrastructure
2. cricket cricket cricket
3. risk of failure, which in absence of govt support can leave you hungry and poor
4. there is simply not enough money in the country to support sportsmen
5. culture(something like shaastra was mentioned in the video) doesn't give sports any place in our lives 

etc etc. While I think these are the tangible reasons why Sports don't flourish in India, but these by themselves aren't the problem. I think all these guys sort of missed the main point. Sports is a tremendous character builder. It teaches one to accept defeat but not be a loser or have a defeatist attitude.

Another thing, on a very basic level, was also missed was that sports keep us much healthier and hence increase the happiness in people! lesser instances of diseases in people, better lifestyle choices etc all come in to make a country healthy, happy and eventually prosperous.

I think most of our leaders were unlucky enough to not see this perspective, which all developed countries( and societies) follow so well! I live in the US and I see people running at any time during the day! they are MUCH more healthier than most of the affluent Indians I know!

It's not about playing sports for the professional value of it, its about playing sports whatever your profession is, so that you are healthy enough to make most of what your body has to offer.

On a different note. The debate by itself was so much of an opinion-based discussion. If experts were called in, why weren't empirical data based examples given? why can't a sound argument be made to support what they say?

In addition to the sporting culture, we also need a good debating culture :)

An interesting and very quick baked fish recipe

I have been trying a new baked fish recipe recently, courtesy Anjali. It's very easy to make and tastes awesome! As for the name, lets call it "Fraud Mallu Fish"

So here are the ingredients you need:

fish: We use Salmon fillets
Thyme: around 2 tbsp
Basil: 2 tbsp
garlic powder
Try Maggi Masala powder: half of the packet
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar
cooking red wine

Steps:

1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees
2. get a piece of whole fish fillet. You can cut it into smaller pieces if you want, we make it as one piece. If you are using the fish as a whole, poke it with a fork to create holes through which oil etc will seep in.
3. sprinkle the Thyme, Garlic powder and Basil on the top of the fish, use enough quantity to cover the entire fish well
4. mix Balsamic vinegar, cooking red wine and Olive oil in a small cup and pour evenly over the fish. The herbs and spices used in step 3 will help hold the liquid on top of the fish
5. bake the fish for about 15-20 mins, testing for whether it has cooked or not 
6. Once cooked, sprinkle maggi masala on top of it and enjoy

This is healthy, and tasty and takes only 25 odd mins to make!

Commonwealth games: My reaction

I know I am a little frustrated... well ok, a lot frustrated at this colossal failure of CWG, but here is a letter I wanted to write to Manmohan Singh...

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Thank you.

I think these commonwealth games were a blessing in disguise for us. And thank you for making sure that they have shown such a miserable face of India. I think this is going to help all of us to march ahead on the path of development.

Much like the historic Chicago fire, these commonwealth games have been able to redevelop delhi from scratch. There could not have been any other excuse to dig up the whole of the city. So much so that one cannot even see the city under the dust cloud from a flight.

Thank you for allowing your officials to effectively admit that Indians are unclean. Not that it was a secret, but at least now people might wake up and think about cleanliness around them. In addition, for Indians living abroad, this will embrace them to be mentally strong when they hear racist catcall about you 'filthy Indians' etc. Mental strength is very much needed for progress.

I also want to thank you for approving the material for fallen bridge. You see, bridges/buildings (another building recently just fell somewhere) fall rather often in India. It was just that bureaucracy didn't care about fellow Indians. And since foreign lives matter much more to the top govt officials and ministers, at least we will have ONE bridge built right, where people can travel without fearing for their life.

Also, thank you for the overall shoddy quality of everything made from falling roof tiles, to wires submerged in water. Indian companies will now have to try extra hard to win international clients'
trust. This will help them focus much more on their PR, needing extra expenditure. And we needed money flow in the markets right? Seems like an awesome master plan to increase public spending.

Oh and above and beyond, thanks for clearing this for me personally. I always was confused whether an authoritative China minus-the-supposed-political-freedom was better or India with its fledgling democracy. After all, most of the human development indices seem to be better off in China than India.
Next time I meet a Chinese here in the US, I will humbly submit to the superior race/country.

One less problem to deal with...

Oh, here is a link for pics from the CWG: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/commonwealth_games/delhi_2010/9025907.stm

Perfect fit

Scores of things came, and scores went on

But this one seems to be walking with me, maybe she'll hang around

She covers my steps, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

Like an after-rain breeze that swirls around

or maybe like a pillar that holds its ground

She quells my fears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

When I feel trodden, dead and dust

when everything around me has all gone bust

She weeps my tears, every tiny bit

She seems like a dress with a perfect fit

All that I own, and all that I call mine

 no matter how earthly, no matter how divine

She shares my world, every tiny bit

She feels like a dress with perfect fit

An idea a day keeps the doctor away

I think I am obsessed with the idea of creating new ideas. Since my undergrad days, when a mere look at a stepper motor interface made me think of the numerous possibilities there were to make something cool with it, I have been fantasizing about the next cool thing I could make with the basic building blocks I have at hand.

Only with time, my building blocks evolved and became a mix of technology pieces, business concepts and social issues. Thats a great concoction though! But with more information in my head, I guess my idle time goes into thinking about new things to make, new companies to start and a new world to live in...

Most of the times I get out of my day dreaming and move on with my life... but the idea sticks on as a 'Could have been the next revolution' Sometimes I have actually realized that someone made a killing out of it :)

here is a small list of a few of those ideas.. These are in no particular order DO NOT judge me on this!

1. Automatic pet fish feeding system
2. SaaS based Supply Chain Management system (Patented by IBM I think)
3. An earth based car positioning, and guiding system which I proposed to Reva the electric car company. (they shot it down)
4. An advertising system based on ring back tones on mobile phones ( too late on this one  )
5. A virtual of Chai ki Dukaan (Road side tea shop) where people get together and gossip, discuss new ideas or understand the world, Office politics, course curriculum, or their love life.. This is still a very potent idea, if the Chai ki Dukaan ambience is successfully implemented.
6. A local area customer - vendor handshake platform for services. So you can get a local plumber/carpenter/nanny without having to hunt for one.
7. A concept similar to batchmates.com but much before batchmates.com came about
8. Setting up a Sabji Mandi in US to promote healthy food
9. Opening recharge stations for electric cars in India.
10. Opening a p2p shop rating system, which is accessible through mobile phones.
11. And a fresh one.. A doctor rating system!! 

Well the list is longer... but you get the gist.. and yes you are free to implement any of these.. it's open source now :)

Yoga to fight greedy capitalism

I was watching 'Capitalism A Love Story' yesterday. Well, call it a totally senseless conclusion, but after watching it, I decided I need to start doing Yoga. And here are the dots connecting the movie to Yoga :)

The movie propounded that in a place like the US, people always spoke very vehemently and passionately about Capitalism, Free-markets... A place where enterprises were always easy to open, where competition was fair, and where everyone was prospering because of this healthy atmosphere for people to follow their dreams and live out their american lives...

and then the economic crisis happened.... something, which according to Micheal Moore, was calibrated and executed very well by people in the US govt, colluding with people from Wall St. The movie is made with enough emotional sequences to floor you before driving home the point that when someone else is making decisions and telling you to do something, or invest in something etc etc, he has his foremost capitalistic (read profit making) intensions in his mind.

So much so, that in some places children were unjustly kept in juvenile homes when they never needed to, at the behest of a judge colluding with a private juvenile home operator. Similarly, other examples were given to show ( or rather prove) that capitalism in its current form cannot be trusted, coz everything from money markets, food markets (meaning what is sold in your next door grocery store and what's not... have you thought about why there is just soooooo much more orange juice than any other?)

When you let someone else choose for you, through the means of consulting, agents etc, you let them decide for you. Maybe we are trained to do that. To let the specialist do his job, coz we know much less than him! and also that it is NOT our job to know as much as the specialist does....

Think about healthcare. Primarily in US. I have been to docs enough number of times here to see that most of the times, I get the answer, 'I don't know what this is!' so please get a test done, and then get an X Ray, etc etc... For my carpal tunnel syndrome tests (which they didn't even prove in the end) they got me to do an MRI, an EMG (which another doc then said that it was a useless test), 4 X rays. 2 blood tests for everything in the body and 5 visits to the doc. And in the end, I was at the same place as I was before. I even solved the problem myself by getting a new keyboard!

Now. I would have always let the doc do his job. But this, and other cases which stunk of money mindedness in the medical profession, made me rethink...

If you put capitalism and your complete submission of yourself to someone else, you are giving him the power to take you for a ride as he wants to. And in the process, possibly defer your speed of getting healthy again.. same applied to the housing loans with sharks out there to shave that extra bit of profit from you. etc etc.

So I thought, I must take charge of my own life much more than I do right now. Instead of 'take me there' approach of current service oriented industry, I want to move to a Do it Yourself. A familiar term, but not really implemented anywhere beyond building/fixing home/cars etc

And to begin with, let me start with reducing my dependence on external medicine.. and a possible way of that is to start doing Yoga...

the new and improved The Hindu

I just saw a news article on The Hindu and realized that it is turning itself into a great knowledge repository for people to use for their own research...

The Hindu now makes available downloadable resources for people.. something very different from what other news sites like ibnlive or ndtv offer. this is a good differentiator for them I think...

have a look at this link... you will see the link for resources on the right side:

The Hindu: Obama welcomes Indian offer

I think eventually The Hindu will turn into somewhat of a 'place to go' to find good articles to read up on matters and get materials one can use as references...

Why don't Indian companies take their web presence seriously?

My friend Gaurav Sharma (name changed for privacy) asked this question. He is the CEO of a leading Indian web solutions company, so his question has got to have a good mix of bewilderment, frustration, anxiety and most worryingly, facts behind it...

This is an interesting question, and when I began exploring it, it unravelled into a many folds of Indian society, and economics which I think we all see, but maybe overlook. I come from a unique (remember everyone is unique? :) ) background of Anthropologist father, Zoologist mother, Bachelors in Engineering and MsBA in Technology Management.  So I tend to have diff perspectives (which more often than not, confuse me more than anyone else) on issues close to my heart. This one sure is: after all, it is things like these that make India look technologically inferior, and not up with the rest of the world etc etc.

So back to the question. I will try and put out my reasons for the question in separate posts: to save you from information (read opinion) overload, but I hope it makes an interesting read.

Perspective 1:


Lets begin with an example.

Any person who grew up in South Delhi would know of Lodhi Sports. This is a shop we respected as one of the few 'up market' sports showrooms in Delhi. In the early 90's it was rare to see exercise equipment in many shuttered shops. This one was all glass and had a wide range of exercise equipment. 20 years later, Lodhi Sports has expanded to many shops around Delhi, in big shopping malls etc. Now look at their current site: http://www.lodhisports.in . It doesn't even open currently.

Now, its target market very much overlaps the active internet users category in Delhi, so I think it does make sense to at least have a functioning site! That leaves us with two options, either the provider is off the track of the consumer doesn't want it. As in most cases, I think its the chicken and egg problem.

Reason 1: Coming of age of Indian consumer.. A little more distance to go...


Generally this is what I think other people call as maturing of a market, and I agree. Indian consumers have only recently begun taking a computer for granted in their living rooms, and fewer of them, between 3-8 crores have begun accessing the net actively. The definition of active here is using the internet at least once a month. It is pointless to say that if a person is only 'accessing' the net once in a month, he/she is definitely not comfortable looking at it as a utility. It seems more like a picnic; once a month, to try out something 'new'.  Hence, it seems, that an average Indian internet user is still not getting on to the net to use it for transactions, and information gathering for purchases. That, will take time. Maybe something similar to plastic money and time taken for its traction in India.


Perspective 2:


But then I think internet and cell phones came up almost at the same time in India. And there is no points guessing who won the race. So whats the deal there? The utility of cell phones, and initial investment for cell phones is much clearer to people. And hence, the reception to cell phones is like a raging forest fire. And people indeed are benefiting from it! Whether Internet provides the same amount of value to Indian people is something I cannot comment on. I think it does, given the kind of stuff people in other parts of the world have done from it, but then one can disagree very well on this.

So then why nature chose cell phones over Internet? I think first because every thing about cell phone was very well modularized and tangibly managed. prepaid cards made it easy, compact, hassle free, and decoupled from any kind of red tape, for people to start making calls cheap. Internet revenues on the other hand still depend on credit card swiping. The infrastructure needed for cell phone companies to work on was revolutionized into the 'Indian model' now so widely studied across the globe. Internet however, could not come up with its own India strategy. Maybe all the smart brains were still busy making money from the cell phone market. Then the content delivered on cell phones was inherently local, unless of course you call an international 'talk to me' lines. Here too, Internet lagged much farther behind, because of its 'broadcasting' model vs. the peer to peer nature of phone calls.

Reason 2: Lack of macro-environment support and luck?

2 technologies, equally promising, but ultimately having very different paths...

Ultimately, while cell phones transformed themselves into the Indian context very well by providing cheap calls to lower costs, lightening speed information on prices for farmers, cheap way of keeping in touch for long distance relationship lovers, for moms to check up on their 'in school and not bunking' kids, and free sms etc etc, Internet couldn't really strike the same chord in the daily lives of Indians. It could not go much beyond educated, and computer literate people to the non english speaking housewives, moms, lalajis, and Gangu Bai for the betterment of their daily lives.

Does it mean Internet is irrelevant to India? Absolutely not; it just needs to wear colors of India over it, and ultimately go beyond rediff and naukri. The sites like Saleraja.com, mouthshut.com are getting into different spheres of our lives, beyond the traditional demographic which was being served...


To be continued :)

Would you like to pay for your surf?

A normal professional's work day today begins in the morning clamoring to get to work. Once there, there is this cooling off period, although varying, but there for sure to begin to look at news, sports, email etc. A lot of websites are 'favorites' and browsers like chrome do put them up for your easy retrieval on a new tab. 

A basic assumption there is that most of this material is free. Yes there are those ads, but either we don't care about them, or we just install a browser plugin to remove all the ads from a page. And of course Google makes its billions from all the ad revenue you can think of.

And then recently New York Times announced that it will begin charging for its online content. Wall Street already has a subscription model around its online content, and we've been hearing all the stuff about  SaaS business models where everyone charges for everything they sell.

So is this the beginning of the end of free stuff? Is the advertising model kinda running out of steam? 

I think this is the next wave of evolution on the internet. This appears to be the common ground that the e-world would have to come to with the traditional world. A world where you get what you pay for. A world where money has to be earned. 

I don't have anything against the advertising model. I think it is great for a certain types of the websites, where the content is pretty much commoditized, and a subset of the internet population comes there.  But if a service is differentiated and there is a demand for it, the company now seems to be in a position to charge premium for it. 

A major reason for this is the huge growth in internet users from across the globe, and their increasingly varying needs from the internet. Going forward, Internet will begin to resemble our own real world. where some things are free, and some you gotta pay for. 

So I think its time for us to get ready to make that choice. Do you want to pay for your surf or get what you don't want to pay for? I'd say, brace yourself. The internet is evolving into a new more self aware beast, and there is no more free lunch...

Nice guys finish last

That's not true. Its not the nice guys, but the guys who thought they were nice, but realized mid way that they kinda caught the wrong train.

Now, catching train is something entirely dependent on you. You bought the tickets, you looked up the train name on the display, you misread the platform number, and you didn't check if it was finally the right train to have caught.

Now all this while you thought you could never catch the wrong train, and you were soo damn proud of it. Call it the law of mortality catching up with you. So now, even when you never had the intention of catching the wrong train, you pretty much laid your own trap. by doing the things you did.

Like Monica says in friends: "What were you thinking!!!" and I agree. What was the nice-guy-who-never-caught-the-wrong-train thinking when he actually himself caught the wrong train!?? There is no answer I think. I guess, he should have known better.

So even if he didn't want to, even if he never thought all along the way that this is what he is doing, he still did it! and the only person responsible for him landing up in the wrong train is him!!!

So whats the end result? he had to catch another train back, buy a new ticket, and return to the platform, and this time, at least try to catch the right train. And in the process, he finishes last.

Q.E.D.

Saamna: Another loong back written poem

पिछले कुछ दिनों से, नाजाने मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

जब से पतझड़ का नाग मेरे सूखे पत्तों को डसने लगा है

तब से शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

यह शीश मेरा, जो पहले नादानी में सदा ही ऊंचा रहता था,

अब ना जाने क्यों उसके सामने झुकने लगा है..

हाँ... शायद मुझे कुछ होने लगा है..

वो सुबह के सूरज की लाली

वो रात के चाँद की चांदनी 

वो सागर के गहरे, नीले, विशाल रंग के बजाय

अब धरती का फीका भूरा रंग मुझको दिखने लगा है...

ज़रूर मुझे कुछ होने लगा है...

वो कागज़, जिसपर पहले सपनों के महल बना करते थे,

अब उसी कागज़ पे - कभी लाल, तो कभी पीली स्याही से

मेरे दिल का हाल बयान होने लगा है..

क्यूँ ऐसा मुझे होने लगा है?

लेकिन जब खेलने लगता हूँ इन्ही ख्यालों को गोद में लेकर,

तब समझ में आता है कि और कुछ नहीं, 

बस ज़िन्दगी से मेरा सामना होने लगा है...

हाँ... बस यही तो मुझे होने लगा है. 

Photo Album

This is a poem I wrote sometime back. I was inspired by the way Gulzar writes, and was trying his style. Ofcourse there is no comparison, but listen to it on its own merit :)

Vacuuming the house

Finally the weekend came when I thought I should get around vacuuming the house. Mine is a carpeted apartment. Grey colored... And you know what they say about grey right? That there are many shades of it. And every shade says something, shows something and hides something...

In fact, if you vacuum long enough, it will take you to forgotten stains and patches. Patches that you had at some time so painstakingly put into place. Just so that the carpet remains intact. Coz you see, replacing the carpet is a very difficult job, and usually it happens only when you move out of the apartment. Long after you are gone, and before the next incumbent steps in, the realtor takes care of that...

Back to the vacuuming. I began with my living room. This is the room I use the most, and naturally had a lot of dust around. As the vacuum moved around, sucking up the dust, the original color of carpet came out. And with it came a nice smell of the fragrance that I has sprayed on it long time back, but it had been suppressed by the dust that kept all the fragrance somewhere deep inside. And overtime I had pretty much forgotten about it too. within a few minutes, all the dust was gone and I had a neat smile on my face. As if I had regained my lost glory...

Excited now, I moved to my bedroom. I don't let many people in there, so its much more of a private place. The room itself is an absolute replica of what I am. Sort of untidy, but very functional. You will find anything you need on a daily basis. Not luxurious though; my bed is a very modest attempt at keeping me at 3 ft height from the ground, but there is a coffee machine, an over-the-bed table lamp, a study table, extension chord for power supply, wireless headphones, a small home exercise machine which can be tucked under the bed, full size mirror behind the door, etc etc. Basically everything to make you feel equipped.

I begin vacuuming there, and slowly slowly some stains begin to show up. These were not normal living room stains. They had some very special characteristics. Firstly, they were not normal dust colored. Some were slight transparent yellowish, some were sort of red, and some looked as if I had at some time tried very very hard to remove, but never succeeded, despite my sincerest efforts. Even the carpet showed signs of wearing off with my relentless rubbing, but the stain had stuck on... The dust had kinda hidden it from my daily notice. But now, here it was right there staring right back at me.

A little to the right of this stain was another thing. I didn't quite figure out what that was, but as the vacuum sucked away the covering on it, it too came out clear. It was a patch work. It had happened some time back when I had accidentally spilled coffee on it. And knowing that my mom would yell at me, I had tried beyond measure to remove that stain. But what a branded coffee that was! Not only the after taste remained on my taste buds for a while, but the stain it had caused never budged from its place.

And it was then that I decided to cut that piece of carpet off, and throw it away. Sad moment though, It was my bedroom's carpet! And I do like my bedroom! But be that as it may, I cut that piece off, and got another, rather unmatched piece of cloth to replace that. The carpet didn't quite look the same after that, but I guess it was worth it. I hated the patchwork. It looked ugly! it looked like some forced insertion of stuff that kinda didn't belong there. But as time passed, dust settled in, and gradually made the whole carpet look the same.

But that changed today. Vacuum cleaner made sure that all the stains and all the patchwork that had sort of faded away in my carpet, come back to life. And I was jolted back to the times when I had felt awful about putting those stains, and then tried to remove them from there.

And then I kinda thought, maybe it isn't the best thing to vacuum. Maybe I should have just let it be...

She

A naughty smile and pursed lips

in between the nibbles and the tiny sips

One white hair that clearly shows

A little out of shape, and this she knows

Forever wanting me to be there

and then plundering me with no stone to spare

Gifts costing her a fortune, or her priceless looks

or even when she is lost in between her books

Where ever I go where ever I roam

When I get back, she feels like home...

911 vs 100

Yes. I plan to compare the two numbers. There are many factors to look at, and I will try to sum them up as precisely as possible...

Ask any American, or watch enough Hollywood movies and you will see that 911 is something that Americans use very frequently, for things as small as sticking your hand to something very embarrassing (in American Pie) to something much bigger as in Die Hard... But you get the picture... as soon as there is any situation of any kind and severity, 911 is one of the first things they will think of. Efficiency of this system is so good that you are almost assured a response in minutes wherever you are in the country. There is proper research done while making roads, to ensure that any part of a city is reachable in 2-10 minutes from the nearest Police patrol ( my ex roommate was working for a firm that did this research)

100 on the other hand usually has a fleeting reference in the heads of Indians. Should something go wrong, the first set of people we think about are our neighbors, or friends. In some cases, we probably don't even want to get involved with the police. Like Hollywood in previous case, if you watch enough Bollywood movies, you will see that people do not usually want the police to get involved, or the police any how comes only when the hero has beaten the crap out of the villain, despite the absence of police. what I imply from this is that police is at least considered inept, or inconsiderate, or untrustworthy.

But if I think deeper about this, the differences don't just stay as mere facts and jokes as above... They begin to show the vast difference that exists between the two countries.

To implement a system like 911, a few basic things are needed. First it needs to be such a dependable system, that time and again, anywhere, anyhow, should there be an emergency, some help should be able to reach the victim. It is only then that a person will trust this 3 digit number so much to remember, and call, this number when their life is in danger. In addition, this number should be able to give you the warmth that you would have no inhibitions in trusting them for any situation of any sort. Third, the versatility of this number should be such that any kind and severity of situation can be handled by this number.

These are just a few components that go into making this system work. Any person in Process Management would tell you that this calls for operational efficiency, and that too of a very very high standard. Coz it deals with lives of people. Implementing this, even in a small society of 200 apartments is such a huge pain. I can tell you this by my experience in getting an electrician to fix a power cut in my apartment in Delhi.

Now imagine implementing this at the level of a nation. One of the world's biggest nations by land size and population. But this has been implemented here in the US. And everytime I think of this system, and dare to compare it to 100, I first get awestruck, and then get upset.

Why can't India implement a system like that? What's stopping us? Don't we deserve to have such a system to help us lead a better life? Must our loved ones die waiting for help to arrive? Or worse still. die waiting coz the PM is visiting the Hospital?

It needs will. Easy to say, much much more difficult to implement. Political, bureaucratic or whatever. Will. But all these are dependent on how strongly people ask for this, and make this (instead of speaking marathi in maharashtra) a political issue. And that comes from social awareness. That is VERY different from education, which is again VERY different from literacy... A nation of 1 billion, with most people not even knowing the significance/value of such a system. And I think the most critical role here is to be played by the middle class in India. I belong to it, and by having studied in US now, I know what we lack. There are many more middle class students who have been lucky enough to see and understand the difference between the two systems. Now that we are 'aware' we must pass this on, and strive to make everyone aware of this.

It is only when people are aware of this that leaders will rise, and take this issue further, and even take it on to them to implement this. And then we will have someone to vote for. Then we could also look at appointment of competent officers in implementing this system, and much more importantly, sustaining it.

The best way to resolve our issues is to move bottom up. And for that we need to be aware...

Indian Software Industry's pangs

If you throw a random stone in bangalore, it will either hit a dog or a software engineer...

This is what I was told in 2000 when I began my software engineering. It was a weirdly funny joke, coz I did laugh at it, but I certainly did not like our comparison with dogs. Not only because it is derogatory (similar to the lines of objections on slum'dog' millionare) but also because engineers are by the very definition of the term, very well educated.

umm well educated? but as soon as I say this, I see my head screaming out against it. So something has to be wrong somewhere...

Some engineers are downright called 'unemployable' by the multinationals. But lets face it, passing 4 years in an engineering college would atleast have taught them basic levels of coding. Although this was not quite true in my case ( I probably wrote my first respectable software program only at my first job, but that taught me a lot, and hence this post...), but I would say that most of the software engineers would at least know how to code.

So whats the problem? its like a student who knows the alphabets well, but has no clue about how to form sentences with them. On top of it, forming understandable sentences from it is mostly just a dream. As more and more Indian software companies claim to provide 'best in the industry solutions' to the world outside (through getafreelancer.com, rentacoder.com and what not), particularly the western economies, their cracks begin to show. For they claim to know how to make software, but they actually just know how to code. And the bubble bursts...

Bigger companies like Infosys, TCS etc charge the western world enough money to send these new s/w engineering grads to almost a year of training, which makes them at least employable. But people who don't/couldn't make it into these are basically 'let loose' out in the big bad world, having nothing more than a vague imprint of 'Let's C,C++ by Yashwant Kanitkar)...

The point being, there is a lot more to software engineering than just code.

To begin with, there has to be an understanding of the context in which this software is being written. Without this understanding of context (business sense in other words) a software engineer is nothing more than an automated code generator (and they are usually crappy). A lot of this happens purely out of lack of exposure to good business practices and incompetent business acumen. But both of these can be acquired; latter even quicker.

This has to be coupled with acceptable levels of communication skills. And communication skills DO NOT mean using a thesaurus on every word and writing the most impressive word. It is about CLEARLY stating what you want to communicate, and making sure that the reader/listener has understood it well, and then confirm it.

Third is diligence. Remember that your aim is to get the work done. Not to get money to procrastinate the work for as long as possible. The client is not a fool to let this go on forever, more so for smaller project based companies where lock-in is very minimal. If a software company wants to sustain its business for longer than a few years, it has to finish the work ON TIME. if not in time.

The basic point being, a lot of small Indian software companies are coming out as promising something and delivering something much below the acceptable standards.

One of the ways in which the problem can be fixed is by having both business and technical expertise in a company. Only a bunch of engineers running day to day business will be a bad decision. Hiring an employable Technology Management MBA could be a step in the right direction.

Its the system at fault... so what?

we say this every time something goes wrong and we are frustrated about it. Bombay attacks, power cuts, unsafe cities, irregular power cuts, bad roads and all that...

And yes it is the system as a whole that is wrong more than right, and it effects every one of us.

In its own little way, it makes us pay for its shortcomings, and we have to just adjust.

Of course everyone wants to change it, but how? and thats where it all gets stuck, we we take a deep sigh and move on, fighting among each other in a traffic jam, and cursing the govt for horrible roads and reduce our average life time... studies have shown that mumbaikars life is 7 years lesser than India's average.

So what do we do? keep living/dying everyday? maybe if we can start cleaning our own sub modules in the 'system', we could clean it up some day... make sure our sphere of influence is better day by day and we will gradually get out of this mess... after all, its our nation!

Percussions

Percussions... My latest craze...

Just jump into the world of beats.. small taps, kiss of chalk, a faint hiss behind your ear, sudued drums, sounds of tabla..

Just close your eyes and you will feel as if you are in the middle of the first rain of the season, in between woods, alive, fresh.. with eyes closed, you can feel these small drops dancing on your skin, taking it into a trance of its own...

Listen to Tabla Beat Science, Ananda Shankar and State of Bengal, Trilok Gurtu and others you find...

:)

Avial: A must follow band

The one thing that has hit me straight in the face after coming to (and living in) the US since fall 2007 is the emphasis on originality. There are many facets to it, but I will concentrate on the music scene for now.

I am at the University of Illinois. This is a place far in between the happening west coast or the progressive east coast. This is the mid west, as they call it. The point being that there is no sizable influence of any structured institution like Hollywood, or Disneyland or any such thing in between.

Maybe this is the reason that most of the music I hear here is mostly original. This is in stark contrast to what we used to do in our college in Bangalore. A good quality music piece among our friends was usually decided by how close we were to the original. Be it a college fest, where a vastly popular band will dole out well practiced renditions of GNR, Pink Floyd, and Dire Straits, or a quiet gathering of friends where one super guitar player will play any of those songs deftly.

Somehow it was given and accepted that there is no scope (or need) of originality. (You are welcome Anu Malik and Preetam). Not only does this reflect on our inability to think, but also on our appetite of accepting new ideas in general. No wonder we dont have too many inventions coming out of India I guess...

And then I came across Avial. A Mallu band that plays ROCK in something other than English! Not only that, their music is a mix of traditional folk songs in the rock avatar. And its not as if they anglicize the folk songs, they give it the Indian touch on rock music instruments.

Have a look at some of their songs here:

And this..

I think this is a band that somehow resonates with me and I can relate to it.

Lemme know what you think...