Wild Wild Western Ghats

If you are pressed for time, here's the photo album.

I am sure most people are now tired of staying home all the time. Following social distancing "strictly" has now clearly got understood as very unnatural. We, as individuals, as a species, are hunter-gatherers, foragers. We have a biological need to go out, and interact with others of our kind. Staying home 100% of the time probably provides the best protection against the pandemic. But doing so comes with its costs both in terms of health -- both physical and mental and social connections.

Hence, as far as social distancing goes, most of us are playing the game of probability. That is, we are good kids most of the times. But every once in a while, we get naughty -- we break the rules and take the risks. Doesn't mean that we don't think COVID is real, nor because we think that social distancing is not needed. But simply because doing so all the time would drive us crazy!

So, all for the keeping of our sanity, we headed out to Sakleshpur on Christmas day (December 25, 2020), to have a short vacation in the Western Ghats. We chose Kadu Mane Hills Resort for our stay a mid-level resort with excellent amenities, friendly staff, and great surroundings.

Drive Up

The drive is of about 6 hours. We started sharp at 6 am from Bangalore, and were at our destination by around 12.15 pm, with approximately an hour in between for two break -- one for breakfast and one for water.

Day One

We settled in and relaxed for the rest of the day. When we arrived, we saw no other guests, but within hours two to three large groups arrived. By 4-5 pm, the resort was bustling with around 30-35 guests. We took short walks to explore the surrounding area which is mountainous and covered with forest, tried some of the adventure games in the resort, and enjoyed the bonfire set up for the guests in the evening.

 

Day Two

The second day started with an unplanned trek up the hills. There must have been 20 trekkers ranging from 10 to 70 years of age. A 2 km walk took us through paddy fields, thick jungles and steep ascents to the top of the nearby hill. The view was breath taking.

 

We came down the same way, and marched straight on to the dining place for a well-earned breakfast.

Next was a drive to a nearby waterfall named Majagahalli Falls. Most chose to hop on to a rugged truck. We decided to drive ourselves. There was again a small trek down to the falls from where we parked. The shallow brook, nestled between thick foliage, decked with a gushing waterfall, was one of the most beautiful places I have been to, straight out of some Bollywood flick. I gradually got tempted to first wet my feet in the ice cold water, then to wade till waist deep, and eventually to go all out, taking a full dip and swim -- with my trousers on! That chill in the flowing water will warm my heart for many years to come. Of course, the site of Vigyan, who was visibly upset on not being able to participate in the fun due to his fracture, was very difficult for us. And yet, I feel, such heartbreaking moments are a precious source of learning for kids (and grown ups too) -- to know that it's better to make the best of what's available, rather than lamenting over what's not.

 

On our way back two senior ladies from the other group -- one of them the 90 year old matriarch of the family -- decided to join us in our car as the truck ride was too jostling. I didn't try to keep up with the truck which moved too fast for me; and probably that was a mistake. Soon we lost them, and we had to resort to Google Maps. Initially refusing to come up, Maps led us through some seriously rough, narrow and bumpy paths. It gave me many a moment of jitters, not the least as I was driving two ladies of the other family. Thankfully, we did make it back to the resort with no event to report of.

Evening, like day one, saw a bonfire being lit. Many of us gathered around it to play Antyakshari, but were soon pleasantly interrupted by notes of live music from the dining area. A musician was commissioned for some live music, karaoke and dance. Many of us performed several songs. Of course, Shilpi and I were there too. It was great fun! The tempo gradually rose to a point where you could just dance to the beats, not sing along with it. There was some alcohol in the atmosphere which helped turn the heat a few degrees higher. We didn't partake of it. But did enjoy its effects nevertheless!

Thus came to its end the most eventful day of our short trip.

Day Three

Third day was the day for coming back. We finished our breakfast and headed out for the Manjarabad Fort. It's a nice hilltop site with a fort belonging to Tipu Sultan. A 250 and odd steps took us up the hill. By now (11 am), the day was warm enough to make the star-shaped stone fort swelter with heat. Up there, I plonked myself at a shaded spot and enjoyed the view of many visitors enjoying the site.

Journey Back

We finally started back home by about 12.30 pm. The journey back was reasonably comfortable. We stopped to have our lunch at Suruchi restaurant, a vegetarian eatery near Hassan. Shilpi and I opted for vegetarian meals and Vigyan went with Naan and Paneer chilly. In the midst of the mental discomfort we were feeling due to the overcrowding of the place in the pandemic times, we found the food quite good. We entered the hustle bustle of Bangalore by around 5 pm. Barring some unpleasantness and delay near the Tumkur Road Toll Gate of NICE Road, the drive back was uneventful. We were home shortly after 7 pm. A drive stretched by well over an hour due to heavy traffic.

Highlights and Memories

The Kadumane Hills Resort will take the prime spot among our memories of the place. The timber cottage was spacious, clean and comfortable, providing a breathtaking view of the nearby hills.

The food would be a close next. Kadumane is a vegetarian place, and serves food cooked in Malnad style. The food is delicious -- not spicy, not bland -- just cooked the right way. People who like South Indian food would surely love it.

The resort pays attention to environment friendliness -- serving food in biodegradable utensils. However, it would be a lie if I say they succeeded completely. There were some tissue-papers, some styrofoam cups and such. But given the pandemic scare, and the staff which still seems not to have built to its full strength, I think they deserve a pat for trying hard.

For some like us, the absence of the need to plan our vacation days ahead of time is a great blessing. The resort, housed in natural and rugged environs of the Western Ghats, provides umpteen opportunities to the enthusiastic soul to explore and experience the jungles and hills. Some of the guests actually even treated themselves with a game of mud-volleyball. Further, a number of adventure games are there to be enjoyed within the premises.

One of the top memories would be of the large family of guests. There were -- I think -- sixteen people, connected through an elaborate family tree. At its head -- as mentioned earlier -- a senior lady nearly 90 years of age. A majority of them were seniors in the fifties and sixties. A few were in their 30s. Rounded off with two little girls may be 5 and 10 years of age. It was a treat watching their bonding and dynamics, to interact with them and gradually get friendly.

Vigyan's arm injury and how it came in his way of enjoying the vacation to the fullest was a saddening aspect. Often, we were tempted to abstain from certain activities as our child wasn't able to participate. But, we knew it would be wrong to do so. Vigyan's mature attitude in accepting this limitation was both heartbreaking and heartwarming for me as his father. On the day three, Vigyan finally took to the ropewalking game. I was apprehensive, but supported him. Here's him in the middle of his adventure:

Yet another observation was the complete disregard for the pandemic. Proponents of social distancing would probably cringe at the liberty people -- many in their senior years -- were taking whether in the eateries en route, in the tourist spots, or in the resort. In fact, there was a doctor family lodging in the adjacent cottage. On day 2, the doctor himself sprang a cute surprise. Definitely with a few drinks down, he made a fairly jovial sight being seen dancing to foot tapping numbers in close proximity with other guests. To hell with social distancing; and to hell with masks! When we put our masks back on on re-entering Bangalore roads, we smiled to each other, at the irony of it all.

We all have been through much this year. I will not pretend that I was amongst the sufferers. I was most likely not, considering what many others went through -- losing life and livelihood. In fact, personally, I recollect this year as one of the most rewarding years of my life. And yet, the monotony of working from home had, somewhere, taken its toll. This little vacation was an attempt to break that monotony.

 

If this post has taken you away -- even for a moment -- into the misty mountains of Western Ghats, I would consider the effort of having written it well paid for. 😀

2020 - Annual Summary

This is a personal journal to document my highlights and experiences of this year. It's meant for feeling gratitude and, if possible, personal joy, and is by no means meant as an instrument of self-promotion. Why then do I share it in public? I feel that looking back at your year brings clarity and accountability. One year is a substantial amount of time, a great resource. It's a good exercise to assess how well it was used. Hopefully I will inspire some to take up something similar. Also, my format is there for my readers to use or not use.

This year has been one of the most fruitful years in my life so far. I thought up better technical ideas than before and was able to turn some of them out to the world in the form of papers, articles, talks and such. I clearly took very well to online mode of teaching. I read more than ever before. I drew more than ever before and grew better in my own eyes (which, believe me, is the hardest part!). I wrote a lot both technically and otherwise, though I couldn't publish anything in popular media this year. And I think, I kept improving my singing and my understanding of the nuances of music in tiny little steps. I am about to complete a year of living peacefully with my family under near-lockdown conditions. Knowing how divorces and domestic violence are on the rise all around, I would like to thank my stars on that count. I continued doing Yoga as per the regime started last year, and then diversified to jogging and cycling. Though I could definitely have done better on fitness front, I wouldn't say I did too badly there. I am a kilo or two lighter than I was a year ago.

 

The causes which drove these externally visible changes are deep inside me. It's impossible to write about them without sounding silly. But I will try to share a few reflections in the end of this post. Hope they will be found helpful.

(My near and dear ones! A request. If you see any omission, please remind me through a personal note.)

Research

Conference Publications

1. StaBL: Statechart with Local Variables (ISEC 2020)
2. Automated Testing of Refreshable Braille Display (HCC 2020)
3. Discovering Multiple Design Approaches in Programming Assignment Submissions (SAC 2021)
   

 Workshop

1. A Simulator for State Chart Based Language (Workshop on Research Highlights in Programming Languages, FSTTCS 2020)

Student Milestones

1. State-of-the-art Seminar of Varsha Suresh
2. State-of-the-art Seminar of Nikhila KN
   

Teaching

1. Programming Languages (Spring 2020, iMTech)
2. Fundamentals of Programming (Summer 2020, MSc Digital Society) 
3. Program Analysis for Software Engineering (Autumn 2020, PG Elective)
4. Programming in Python (Autumn 2020, iMTech)

Voluntary teaching. In summer 2020, I taught a short online course on 'Introduction to Programming and Computational Thinking' to some kids of friends and neighbours. As a note of thanks, the parents of the participants committed to contribute to COVID relief work.

Projects. I did a number of projects this year with various students. I consider the willingness of students to work closely with you a very distinctive evidence of your having connected well with them through your teaching. That way, I am very happy with this achievement.

Talks and Panel Discussion

1. Webinar on Online Teaching (July 2020, NIE)
2. Panel Discussion on Online Education (August 2020) 
3. Webinar on AI for Education (November 2020, MINRO)
4. Hindi and Premchand Sahitya (December 2020, IIITB Samvaad)
5. Symbolic Execution in Testing and Verification (December 2020, Philips)
   

 Books Read

1.  ग़बन
2. राग दरबारी
3. Sapiens
4. Talks in Washington (J. Krishnamurthy)
5. The Shape of the Ruins
6. The White Castle
7. The Moor's Last Sigh
8. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

... and many others which I started but left unfinished, as always.

 Art

This year was phenomenal in terms of my productivity in art. This is the first time, I am able to list (almost) all the drawings I have made this year. This itself is a phenomenon for me!

1. Milind Mulick's water colouring workshop -- July 2020
2. Stockholm Water painting -- August 2020
3. Laapataa -- Dishwashing
4. Laapataa -- Meditation
5. Laapataa -- Online Antyakshari
6. Laapataa -- Why PhD 1
7. Laapataa -- Why PhD 2
8. Laapataa -- Digital Migration
9. Laapataa -- Nothing works in India
   
10. Untitled comic strip -- Watering plants
11. How to do Studies
    
12. Motu Patlu
13. Autism -- Hold Mamma's Hand
14. Autism -- Do not drop things from the Balcony
15. Autism -- Behave Well in Shops
16. Pen Sketch -- Deserted Electronics City
17. Pen Sketch -- Landscape for Vigyan's Project
18. Lonely culvert

Photo links: My Drawings Laapataa

Highlights

1. Migration to online teaching
2. Migration to digital art
3. Vigyan's injury
   
4. Commitment to physical fitness
   
5. Promotion
6. Entry to Instagram
   

Entry

1. Kiki. My neighbour and friend Sabyasachi and his wife Jhuma was blessed with a daughter this year. Kiki's arrival and growing up through the last few months has been a source of much joy for our entire family.
   
2. Hasuni's grandchild. Our domestic help Hasuni got a grandchild -- her daughter's son.
   

Exit

This year has been one of the worst in terms of the number of demises that happened in my extended circles. A major killer, expectedly, was COVID. But there were other reasons too.

Personal acquaintances

1. Tridib Roy Choudhury
2. Aseem Banerjee
3. Arun Kumar
4. Sunil Shetty
5. Surendra Mule
6. PVN Murthy
7. Sheetal Amte
   

Celebrities

1. Irrfan Khan
   
2. Sushant Singh Rajput
   
3. Rishi Kapoor
   
4. Soumitra Chatterjee
   
5. S P Balasubramium
6. Pranab Mukherjee
7. Rahat Indori
   
8. Edmund Clarke
   

Reflection

1. Problem decomposition. I can't trace back to the origin of this idea that big problems can be broken down to smaller manageable chunks. Over the years, I have started more and more interested in this idea. So much so that the act of trying to do something difficult has started turning into an exercise of problem decomposition. It won't be wrong to say that the whole fun of doing anything now is centred around this aspect. In 2020, I made significant progress in this direction.
   
2. Keeping journal. I have been planning my days for at least a decade if not longer. Recently, I came across an interesting variant of maintaining to-do lists: bullet journal. For the last one month or so, I have migrated to bullet journal. It's working well so far.
   
3. Looking at obstacles as milestones. This is very much a part of problem decomposition idea. You may start with a very restricted definition of the problem you want to solve. But you realise that to start taking the steps leading to its solution, you need to get certain things out of your way. It's been long an attitude to look at this secondary elements as hurdles or obstacles in the way of my doing what I want to do. However, a recent realisation has been that being able to look at unforeseen obstacles as an integral part of the problem is a very important part of keeping calm and staying focused.
   
4. Benefits of solitude. The pandemic has many evil aspects to it. And they talk a lot about them. And they are all true. But one thing that's true and not evil is the fact that the solitude and isolation it has brought has been soothing for the introvert part of me, which likes to sit quietly and talk to itself, and imagine and brood and create. It's hard to pin down, but it could well be that the reason why this year has been one of the most productive and rewarding years of my life so far could be this disappearance of the overhead of meeting lots and lots of people: students barging into the office, classroom of more students staring at you during the lectures, visitors, colleagues stopping by to say Hi. No, none of them is really bad. It's just that when we were working from office, it used to be just too many of them. It was draining and unhelpful beyond a point. Now, I am protected by this screen I face. Each meeting must be scheduled. I am allowed to not pick a call if I don't feel like. Yet, surprisingly, I feel I have had more meetings during this pandemic period than ever before. I have collaborated more. I have done more teamwork than in a face-to-face mode. Or may be, it's just that I have been able to make my interactions with other count more as I have been able to prevent my energies from getting dissipated in futile and unproductive socialisation.

Thoughts about the Coming Year

I definitely would like to see the pandemic losing its iron grip on humanity this year. I would like us all to be free to move around more: attend schools, colleges and offices, socialise more fearlessly and travel. I hope people who have lost their livelihood, things should brighten up for them.

What I would not want to change is the calm I hear from the road, the purity of air I breathe and the enjoyable experience of driving due to lessened traffic congestion. If the pandemic has taught people a few lessons about doing more with less, about finding methods of self-employment and self-reliance, I hope they don't quickly forget them once the pandemic goes away.

Personally, lockdown taught me many valuable lessons: about online teaching and collaboration, digital art, and most importantly about myself and my natural preferences, which indeed lean towards peace and solitude and not towards unbridled socialisation. I manifested in my productivity and the general pleasantness of my disposition. I would like to continue to give myself this peace and solitude even when things open up outside.

Hypocrisy of Film-stars

The other day. in a weak moment spurred by boredom, I started watching Tiger 3 (someone just made me realise that it was Baaghi 3 starring Tiger Shroff! ). I couldn't survive beyond a few minutes. The stereotypical characters: a macho hero, a weakling sidekick brother, a sexy looking dumb heroine cracking double meaning jokes ... I can stand all that. What I can't stand is that these film stars, in their public appearances, will talk intellectual sounding fashionable stuff ... talking about emancipating ourselves from those same stereotypes: that a man needs to be macho, that men shouldn't cry, or being sensitive is a sign of weakness, that only dumb and physically attractive woman have "a chance". Presumably, these are movies made for mass entertainment. These masses have nothing better than your movies as sources of information! If you feed them with all unrealistic images in your movies, no amount of talking intellectual sounding stuff about equality etc. in your press appearances is going to make up for that. In fact, it's worse than hypocrisy: You feed the public with junk when you want their money, and then you talk about social causes and philosophy in your press appearances in an attempt to absolve yourself of your sins. Shame! Shame!

Losing a Close Colleague

This is not an obituary. This is a cry of pain.

For the first time, I am feeling the depressing weight of the pandemic truly weighing on me. I realise that I am exceptionally shaken by the heart breaking news that came crashing down on us last evening. Tridib Roy Chowdhury, the centre manager for the MINRO Centre in IIIT-B left for the heavenly abode yesterday. Suddenly.

Tridib wasn't the kind of a guy you would expect to go like this. Tridib was in his late fifties, but was extremely fit. An avid sportsman and cycling enthusiast. By his looks, he could have given any young person in his early thirties a run for his money. You read the obituaries that came pouring on Facebook yesterday, and you know what he was: and IITian, an inspiration, a mentor, a successful corporate, an exceptional human being.

His going like this hurts at many levels. Firstly, this is my first experience of losing a close colleague like this. I had got many opportunities of interacting closely with him over the last one and half years. I had seen how hard he was trying to bring in the positive energy, the movement, the result-orientedness that drives the corporate world, into our laid back academic world. I had found his energy infectious. And all the accolades that came along through the Refreshable Braille Display project had largely to do with him.

Secondly, It wasn't COVID, or an accident, or something of that kind for God's sake! Seeing a fit person like him succumbing to a freak cardiac incident fills my heart with a chill. If keeping fit doesn't safeguard you from your heart giving up on fine day just like that, then what does? I tend to lose my enthusiasm about the effectiveness of a healthy life-style in preventing your life from getting cut short from something we typically associate with bad lifestyle. It's really disappointing.

Thirdly, I realise how inept, unequipped we are in feeling -- leaving alone expressing -- our shock and pain! For an hour after getting the news (from Facebook), I sat there alone in my living room: numb, dazed and stupefied. Both my wife and my son were in two different rooms doing their things. They had no way to know how nerve-wracking those moments were for me. My education, my 'status', has robbed me of my ability to scream out, to accept that I am suffering, to acknowledge even to myself that I am in pain, to cry for help.

And finally, the ominous reality of the pandemic seems to finally dawn on me. It's not an open wound, not a raging burn. It's a slow, dull pain which is continuously at work inside us. It has shifted the ground level of our despair just that much higher so that one or two incidents of this kind will throw many of us over the edge. Government figures will write these off as collaterals, co-morbidities. Not COVID deaths.

A brief moment yesterday brought me the realisation how alone we are away from our near and dear ones, how helpless and vulnerable we are against the power of fate, how ridiculous it is to centre your life around thoughts of the future, and to make too much of our glorious past and present. At that moment, I would have given anything to have a shoulder to cry on, a heart that would know my feelings, a voice that would tell them to me without my having to find my voice, a reassurance that it was OK to feel sad and afraid.

At this moment, I am looking for a bunch of friends to huddle together with and whimper and cry. Nothing else!

Dissociating Emotions from People

It's not possible to like or dislike people uniformly. There are people with whom we share warmth and liking. And there are those with whom there's a coldness that can't be removed. In many cases, our interactions with people are so shallow that it doesn't matter if we let them go out of our life because we didn't enjoy our first few interactions with them. This is not affordable in some cases, in particular when it involves a friend, a colleague or someone within the family.

At work, developing an overall negative emotional chemistry with a co-worker can have very detrimental effect on our productivity and our sense of fulfillment from our work. With friends, a person with whom you must have spent many beautiful moments, tagging that person with one adjective based on an isolated experience could prove very costly. In the family scenario, tagging a person as unlikable or obnoxious may make it hard to feel happy and peaceful in your own house. Again, it's not meant to say that people can't be obnoxious. For example, if you are trapped in a relation under a roof with an abusive person, you may actually get to realise that much after you decide to get into a relation with him/her (if at all you get that opportunity to choose in the first place).

Assuming that not to be the case, one thing which does help a lot in such situations is to look at persons as a collection of, often unrelated, characteristics. A person may be lazy, but creative; lacking focus, but witty; insecure, but diligent; haphazard and disorganised, but sharp; rude, but honest ... you get it, right?

Controlling the Visceral Reaction

If we see that the relation with a person is going downhill, more often than not, it's because of a negative spiral of show of mutual dislike. When we see a sense of dislike in another person, we often feel hurt, and before anything, want to hurt back. This is a natural visceral reaction. But with practice, this can be controlled. If we realise that the dislike for us in that person may be because of a particular aspect of us, it (often) immediately attenuates the sudden urge to dislike back.

 A person disliking us (or mostly certain aspect of us) isn't a clear evidence of that being a negative characteristic in us. Rather, it's most likely something that is causing the other person to feel threatened for some justified or unjustified reason. Here's an example of an unjustified reason: your being talented may be a disadvantage to the other person if both of you are in the same competitive space. Often, something good in us forces the other person to the unpleasant predicament to having to look at some of his/her negative aspect. For example, if you are quick at finishing tasks, while the other person takes longer, your showing quick results may force the other person to accept his/her weakness w.r.t. you. He/she would rather not do that, even if projecting it as a vain, show-off or beligerant attitude of yours. Another example: if you are good orator while the other person struggles to hold the interest of the audience even with great effort, that person may judge you as using flowery and fluffy language -- probably because he/she doesn't want to accept to himself/herself that he/she is not as good as you in communication skills.

In short, when a person shows dislike for us, instead of falling for the visceral reaction of disliking back even more intensely, it helps to critically look at the above aspects. If not anything else, it helps tone down and/or slow down our own reaction. This may be crucial in arresting a relation with another person in going into an irreversible negative spiral.

Reflecting

Note that, we are also subject to these reactions. So, I am not being judgemental about anybody, nor am I assuming that we are free of these vices. It helps knowing and accepting this. It's important not to loathe oneself for not being perfect. Self-loathing is often the biggest reason why we react in a toxic manner to others.

Expressing Appreciation

Treating people as a collection of disparate characteristics also allows us to look at their positive aspects in isolation. Assuming that the interpersonal dynamics haven't already degenerated to irreversible damage, there are opportunities coming our way every now and then to express this positive observation. Being able to look at different characteristics of the same person in isolation has a lot of benefits. For one, the other person realises that we haven't mentally given up on the relation from our side, and are willing to do our bit to save it. This itself is a great plus. Further, when the other person sees that we don't look at him/her entirely in a negative light, it's a proof that our dislike for them isn't so great as to have blinded you from looking at his/her positive aspects. Internally, when we genuinely see a positive aspect of the other person, it appears morally OK to appreciate that. Note that we don't praise or criticise a person but specific characteristics. Two negative and positive characteristics can co-exist in the same person. And it's completely OK to praise or criticise them at two points in time.

Is Religion Such a Ridiculous Idea?

You may count me as an atheist. Some reasons:

• I don't think all nature leads to any conclusive evidence of it having been created by a sentient/intelligent creator, or being maintained by one. I don't think that for a moral society, we need constructs like God.
• I don't consider religious rituals the only good or even the best way to bring camaraderie or cohesion among people.
• I don't consider spiritual experiences as necessarily religious.

But hello my atheist friend! Wait a moment before considering me one among you. Here's how I am not exactly like you:

• I don't think religion is a stupid construct, let alone being a vile one.
• I don't think science conclusively proves the absence of an intelligent creation.
• I don't consider religious people stupid in any way. I know extremely intelligent (and wise) people who are religious. And I don't count it as their failing.
• I don't reject the good deeds, qualities, thoughts of people just because they place it in a religious context.

Faith, like food habits, are not all cerebral in nature. They are handed down to us from our culture, and by the time we get the intellectual choice to question them, they would have played too critical a role in our making -- both in good ways as otherwise -- for us to have a total freedom to forsake them.
In fact, if one is a true sceptic, he will refrain from judging and ridiculing others, or passing blanket statements about someone's faith. When this restraint is broken, your atheism is no different than those religions you so eloquently ridicule.

On World Bicycle Day

I wish to join in to try and spread the message of clean commute using bicycles. On a broader canvas, I would request you all to give a serious thought to minimalistic living, to question the edification of consumerism as the driver of economy and prosperity.
Sharing two pictures.
 

The cartoon depicts how cynics would see vanity even in your simplicity. To many, showing off wealth, physical beauty and such is acceptable, but being proud of your simplicity is not. I have experienced something similar, and found that experience an immensely humbling one. On the one hand, it gave me the realisation that I shouldn't have too much expectation about the influence that exemplary behaviour can have in spreading a positive message. How far a good message can spread depends far more on how receptive people are to them. Good, positive thoughts and messages have to struggle against people's ego and judgements about you to spread. On the other, I have realised that good behaviour isn't vindicated only when its message is spread. It's a vindication by and of itself. So, it's correct to do the right thing. If it doesn't scale, it's most likely due to the negativity of the naysayers, not necessarily due to any inherent limitation of what you do.
 

Grocery. The second picture is something I am very proud of showing off. My neighbour Arun Awasthi took it for me when I returned after doing grocery one Sunday morning. And I feel, this picture shows what I consider bicycles really good for. Apart from all the other good things they are -- clean, cheap, healthy -- they are quick, light, manoeuvre-able machines and very useful!
At this point, I wish to tag several of my friends who have inspired me very much through their use of bicycles. They all are eminently successful people in their lives, capable of lavish exteriors like most, but had the courage and ingenuity to prefer simplicity and sustainability over vanity:

1. Pritesh Ananth Krishnan
2. Ananthakrishnan Gopal
3. Ganesh Shankar
4. Niranjan Roy
5. Sethu Madhavan
6. Ashish Verma
7. Satvik

#worldbicycleday #ResetWithCycling

Can We Give another Chance to an Alternative Economy?

On the one hand there's being sympathetic to people who have been displaced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, there's this belief that the over-consumption led economics that we have been forced to leave behind us by the ravaging virus, is unavoidable to prevent famine from hitting large swaths of population.

Quite the contrary! Very powerful people have it in their interest to make people believe that the most important way they help the economics to thrive is by consuming. Because consumption generates demand. And demand generates business and employment.

But this also makes millions of people hook themselves up helplessly to one monolithic system (which we so grandiosely call the global economy) and rest all their hopes and dreams on it never failing. And this starts the unending cycle of people scrambling hard to get away from the fringes of this system closer to its core. While there's no denying that this scrambling leads to high productivity and quality of output, that's not the complete picture. Please note the reason why we scramble so hard in the first place: Firstly, because we know that being in the fringes of this system is very bad for us, because it makes us vulnerable, helpless and pushes us to the brink of extinction. Secondly, because deep down there's this realisation that, by definition and design, a large majority of the population will be in the fringes, because the urgency to get out of those fringes is the basic engine that drives this system.
 
But there are certain invariants about this system:

• It can generate wealth as no other system can.
• It critically depends on creation of global super-specialists. These are the winners of this system. They are enormously rewarded with wealth and power. The overall efficiency of the system is entirely to the advantage of this very minuscule minority of the population, say R%.
• One of the most towering achievements of this system is that R keeps getting smaller and smaller.
• There simply aren't enough number of specialised jobs to employ to the entire human population. In fact, nowhere close. And there never will be.
• The rest of the population is doomed to struggle fruitlessly to find a toehold in this system. The efficiency thus generated from the insecurity of these suckers leads to efficiency and productivity.
• Whenever the system totters, not always from external forces (e.g. pandemics), but more often under its own weight (e.g. recessions, wars, terrorism, revolutions), the people at its fringes are washed away like ants. Nobody comes to know how many perished.

Therefore, the sufferings that are descending on our poorer brethren is not due to the pandemic, but is a result of the very structure that we have created. It's efficient on the one hand, and extremely fragile on the other. But most importantly, it's extremely unjust and unfair: those who drive it with their sweat and blood are the first ones to perish when crisis hits.

Alternatives do exist. But the reason why they don't get tried is not so much because they are unrealistic, unscalable, impractical or academic, but because the ones who decide the fate of so many people in the current system are also those who gain so disproportionately from this system, primarily by keeping millions -- billions -- on the brink of starvation. Why will they ever agree that anything else can work? Because no other system will allow them to appropriate such unrealistic shares of the commercial loot.

One such economic system that I have in mind would be rejected as plain regressive by most. I am no economist. So, I may not be able to articulate everything well and do I have elaborate arguments in defense of my ideas. Also, the whole idea may be trashed on the basis of the lack of clarity on how to get there from here. But anyway, it's my blog. I can at least write about it here.

Here are a few salient points of this economy:

• It will be less 'advanced'. Technological advancement will definitely be slowed down.
• It will be slower. Commercial activities will be far less. Many businesses which exist today will not exist or will be severely curtailed.
• There may be some severe penalties to pay. Many advanced healthcare facilities will no more be there. Deaths from deadly diseases etc. will be harder to prevent.
• It will be agrarian, artisan based economy. Megapolis economy will not exist.Government may play a role in ensuring that the above basic structure doesn't get compromised. In that sense, there will be similarity with socialism. But the Government will not be the owner of capital as in socialistic system.
• Population mobility will be curtailed, because the probability of doing well in life will be comparable everywhere.
• Scholarly pursuits will be done as an integral part of the agrarian, artisan sphere of life. On the one hand, education, research, art and culture should be closely associated to the needs of people. On the other, it should be kept away from becoming a recreational activity of the rich and privileged. The idea of scholarly independence must be rethought.
• The idea will never be to banish hardships and manual labour from people's lives. Focus of progress will be empowerment, not emancipation from inconvenience.

 I don't claim all the above to be realistic. Particularly, there's something about the way humans are wired that it will be (and has been multiple times in the past) very difficult to set up an economic system similar to the above. Every attempt so far has succumbed to the baser human aptitude for greed, hunger for power and domination, sexual and material insatiability born out of ignorance and suffering.

Nevertheless, some of the brightest minds and elevated souls in history (e.g. Plato, Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Buddha, E.F.Schumacher etc.) have time and again thought about something in similar lines (no covert attempt here to gatecrash into that august party). So this idea is not all that silly. It can for sure act as a reference, a prototype to work towards. I would definitely want to think and read more about it.

Remembering Irrfan Khan

Was it '87? '88? I was a young boy. There used to be a serial called Katha Sagar on DD -- which would show dramatised versions of short stories written by great writers of the world. Many of you would remember.

There was this Anton Chekhov story 'Ward No. 6' made into three episodes. The story was about a psychiatric doctor who befriends one of the patients in the madhouse (named 'Ward No. 6') because his ramblings would make more sense to him than the so-called sane people around him. The story traces the gradual degradation of the doctor's social standing, eventually landing him in the same ward.

A young adolescent, already struggling to find my standing in my circles, I was deeply affected by this story. The story was an insightful illustration of the fact that what's popular needn't be sensible, nor that what's sensible need to be accepted by the public. Somewhere, the growing child in me identified with those characters -- that doctor who had the intelligence and innocence to not blindly follow a popular judgement but listen to his own thoughts and even with that madman who talked sense. It gave me strength to believe that it's not necessary to agree with the majority to make sense. Secretly -- perhaps -- I had also pledged to myself that I wouldn't go down meekly like that doctor.

Even 30+ years ago, that lean actor with a run-down, deeply sad and intelligent look in his eyes who had played that role so beautifully, had caught my notice. I didn't know his name then and didn't try to find out either. And he remained lost for years after that, making sundry appearances here and there doing often nondescript rolls. It's only after he resurfaced and sky-rocketed into becoming a major star in the last 15 years or so that we came to know his name. He was Irrfan Khan -- the late bloomer.

Yesterday, we dug out those episodes on YouTube and watched them. At least to me, they touched me equally deeply even now. Added to that, the whole minimalism -- almost penury -- of the whole set-up affected me deeply. Those were the times when the actors and directors had nothing except the raw intensity of their performance to narrate a story with multiple layers. Nothing else than an Irrfan Khan could have essayed that role so completely. To me -- that schoolboy, Irrfan

was already a star even when he wasn't one.

To the ocean of tears that's been created in the last 24 hours by his billion fans, I join in with little drop of tribute. In lamenting his premature passing and the death of those innumerable roles that will never get played as only Irrfan could have.

सोशल नेटवर्किंग के रंग

कहने को तो है बहुत कुछ,
पर तुमसे कुछ न कहूँगा।
भले मन में ही घुट जाऊँ,
फिर भी मैं  चुप ही रहूँगा।

भक्त को मैं libtard लगूँ।
Leftist को मैं भक्त।
क्या बीच की कोई राह नहीं ?
ये कैसा आया है वक़्त ?

मेरी हँसी को व्यंग्य बनाया। 
मेरी सादगी को मेरा अहम्।
मूर्ति के सामने हाथ क्या जोड़े,
तो यह था मेरा वहम।

feminism का समर्थन ना करूँ ,
तो सोच मेरी नीची है।
प्यार से कुछ सलाह दूँ,
तो सुजीत, तू बड़ा preachy है।

यहाँ थप्पड़ कहलाए
प्यार भरी थपकी
सरदार सजा बरोब्बर देगा ,
भूल भले हो कब की।

ये Internet पे बहते शब्द,
क्या कहर ढा गए।
दोस्त मेरे मुझसे रूठ गए।
गहरे रिश्ते पल में टूट गए।

इन शब्दों के पीछे का चेहरा ,
जब नज़र नहीं आता है।
उन्हें पढ़ने वाला उनमें ,
मनमाना अर्थ पाता है।

खुद को उत्पीड़ित समझने वाला
अपनेपन में racism ढूँढता है।
तुम्हारी party की तस्वीरों में ,
pervert नंगे जिस्म ढूंढता है। 




Fake news का ज़हर ,
ये propaganda का तेज़ाब।
तुम्हारी एक चूक पे घात लगाए ,
बैठा trolling का सैलाब।

तेरे हाथों में ऐ बहरूपिये क़ासिद,
ना मेरे माशूक़ को पैग़ाम दूंगा।
कहने को तो है बहुत कुछ,
पर सोचा है मैं  चुप ही रहूँगा।

Fighting Oppression without Catch phrases

How silly it is to tag someone as privileged or oppressed just by their collective identity! A subset of feminists think being a man is all you need to be privileged and to have no idea how it is to be discriminated against while just being a woman automatically gives you all the knowledge about being oppressed and banter about it on social network. Similarly, being born upper caste condemns you to being identified as privileged lifelong, while having been born in a dalit family gives you all rights to consider yourself a struggler who has risen up in status against a biased society.

I think, we all are privileged and oppressed in different measures. If I am born an upper caste male, I still am born a lower middle class Asian. In my local experience, I have experienced what it is to be denied entry to desirable or aspirational positions on the basis of caste. I am not raising any flags as whether it's fair or not. But most importantly, I am a person with reasonable intellect and empathy. I can feel emotions even if I have not been subjected to their primary triggers. So, I understand it in various ways.

Take for example 'patriarchy'. Of course, there are a hundred rejoinders about what it means and what it does not. But literally it names the father. In fact, it's originally a morally neutral term meaning just a social system. However, it's now tainted with a negative shade. And it's used in a negative sense. Isn't it unfair and sexist? 'Male dominated society' is much more closer to reality, because it explicates the fact that the society has largely been dominated by males. And yes, why should that be? Feminism is another word. It claims to encompass all the work that gets done in the name of uplifting women. But it silently propagates a falsehood: that doing fair and just things has something to do with being feminine. How ridiculous and sexist is this?! Being fair and just is a human quality, not feminine. If people have forgotten this, they should be reminded of this with all the force you can muster. You don't coin a new inherently sexist term and keep throwing it around just because it's locally effective due to its shock factor.

Oppression and discrimination has existed forever. No point in denying that. Oppression has been done against gender, race, caste, religion, ethnicity, disabilities and several other collective identities. We all have taken part in such acts, knowingly or unknowingly. We all have been the victims too.

So, my point is: let's discuss social issues. Victims of social oppression can be identified to some extent by name: e.g. women, Muslims, Dalits, coloured people, Asians etc. But let's refrain from using terms corresponding to the compliment of the victim set which directly or indirectly implicate certain collective identities as the perpetrators. 

Constructive discussions and useful actions can be taken by not identifying specific collective identities. This will let open minded individuals of all identities to freely participate in the movement as long as they have their head and heart at the right place. On the other hand, you create unnecessary strife by using inflammatory terms. For example, I am all for fighting for women's right, because that's just the right thing to do. But, I don't want to fight patriarchy because I am not with the whole drama of first attaching a moral innuendo to an otherwise neutral term and then using it to indirectly implicate an entire gender.

The King of All Oppression

One collective identity which cuts across all others, and probably explains the phenomenon of social oppression the best, is economic status. If you are poor or economically dependent, you will face discrimination and oppression. Economic bounty gets you social power. And power is the key. All oppression is in some sense done for it and using it. Haven't you heard of women who treat their domestic helps cruelly? Haven't you come across a Dalit who beats his wife or a Muslim who is sociopath. Then why do we keep talking about the mere symptoms and shy away from the main disease -- the inequity in economy?

Before you immediately tag me as a socialist or communist (which are another bunch of collective identities I find ridiculous), let me deny being either. Anti-capitalist -- to some extent. All I say is indefinite freedom to earn and spend as much material wealth as one wants is a ridiculously unrealistic and unsustainable ideal. Differences in social status/power should be treated as a necessary evil (but evil all the same). Its blatant and crass display or manifestation should be something that should be frowned on, or even curbed if required. If we do agree to do that, we will encompass all social discrimination. If we continue to consider this a taboo the way we do it now, we will keep hoping to get rid of the disease by treating its symptoms.

I would even say that these social identities which are used to simplify discussions by representing concepts often turn into a weapon of imposters to hide their intellectual ineptitude and laziness. These terms also get picked up by radical factions of all movements and are used to propagate hatred against people. These terms are so susceptible to misuse that I am all for a social experiment wherein we carry out our conversations without using them at all even if that means explaining what we say at length every time.