5:45 AM: Vishwa calls saying that they have started for veloinvillage to pick up bikes.

6:00 AM: I get there on my trusty Kona. Ravi has already given them the bikes and are all gung-ho to start on the trip. They have some huge bags to carry: Maaza, carrots, apples, a bunch of towels. I was only carrying my puncture kit, two liters of water and a dozen granola bars. It seemed puny in comparison to the kitchen and a bit of the wardrobe that was going to load their heavy shoulders. I put one of the bags on my front rack, and the rest is carried by others. I think that there is no need for so much food/beverage/toiletries. I was to be proven wrong; food was to be extremely important on this ride.

6:15 AM: We are off. Santosh is lost. Santosh was riding a KHS 500 from Koramangala, gladly loaned to us by Mayank. A few frantic calls reveal that he is opposite the “commandants house”. We advise that he not venture further in said area, and return to Sarjapur road. He swears that he is not lost, Vishwa and Guru stay back for him and the rest ride toward Decathlon.

6:45 AM: Two of us have just crossed Decathlon, and stop for others to catch up. A guy in bike gear comes out of Decathlon, possibly on his routine ride. He stops by us, asks us – “Would you like to ride?”. A quick discussion reveals that he does off-road riding, and takes newbies on rides every Saturday and Sunday morning starting at 6:30 AM from decathlon. I am excited: “Sounds cool, let me ask my buddies.” By the time we wait for others to catch up, I find out that he is Eugene who works for Decathlon.

7:05 AM: Eugene takes us on a detour just a few KMs after Decathlon. Within minutes we hit very beautiful, tree covered kaccha/pakka roads. The next couple hours are best told in pictures:

9:00 AM: We stop for breakfast.

9:45 AM: We enter a forested area, as seen in the 5th image above. Everyone is super-excited, but Eugene has a puncture. As his bike is getting fixed, juntaa gather around for a photo-op. The fomas is bandied around, with everyone exclaiming how nicely the slick tires have held out.

9:47 AM: We find another puncture.

9:47:35 AM: Two more bikes have a flat. The count ends at 7 bikes having a flat. Only myself and Aravind (Eugene’s colleague from Decathlon) are flat-free.

10:30 AM: It is evident that the punctures are many, and the puncture fixers only two (myself and Eugene). Others quickly obtain a crash course on fixing punctures. Spirits are high; everyone is helping out fix the flats, doing photo ops and generally enjoying the experience. Maaza and bread pastry is passed around.

12:00 noon: By this time, even people are deflated. We did not carry kits to handle humans :-/. We have fixed ~24 punctures, and both myself and Eugene start  running out of tube patches. There are multiple flats on some of the wheels and there are mistakes when some people put the tube back without removing thorns. Even Eugene “Master-ji” who has so far refused food and drink is close to swearing and takes it out on a bread pastry.

Eugene and the bread pastry

12:30 PM: We conclude that most tyres are OK, but do not risk riding them through the shrub. Jokes are made about the fomas, which is the most punctured of the lot. We push our bikes through the thorny shrubs for about 2 KMs and make it to the village of  Sarjapur. By the time we reach Sarjapur, a few more flats occur. We find a cycle repair shop, and hand him over our tired tires.

1:30 PM: A vehicle is hired to carry the bikes and ppl back to BLR. Three of us ride back to BLR, and most make it home by around 2:30/3:00 PM.

By the end of it, we had ridden for about 40 Kms. Not bad for a first ride !!! The bike ride is a big discussion at workplace, and everyone wants to go again !!! Many thanks to Vishwa who helped do most of the planning, and to Eugene, whom we met at the right time .

Johhny be a good boy, and grow to be strong.

Johhny learn that your alphabets are ABC,

Johhny don’t say A and C….

Johhny be a good boy and say thank you.

Johhny be a good boy and say sorry.

Johhny those toys do not belong to you,

Johhny don’t…….

I found the above lines as part of a rant written some years ago in my diary. The rant was about how children are being straight jacketed. I am not sure if the above lines were written by me, or if I took them from somewhere.

In recent news, it came out that an Indigo flight landed with its nose down. Initially, Indigo placed this pilot “Captain Parminder Kaur Gulati” on a training program [1, 2]. Further inquiries revealed that the said pilot had used fake documents to get a license and a promotion for the post of a captain from a co-pilot [1]. The lady in question has been arrested; I hope that her flying career is finished and that she would be punished. Following this disclosure, another pilot has been arrested for fake mark sheets. It appears that there are several such pilots, and the rabbit hole seems to run deeper. To quote an article from ANI [1]:

Commenting on the recent detection of pilots for possessing fake CPLs (Commercial Pilot Licences) as qualified commanders,    Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on Tuesday slammed the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for not being a stern regulator of the aviation sector.

…..

“The real problem lies with the DGCA itself. The fact of the matter is that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation is not an independent regulator. It is not mandated by an act of this Parliament. So therefore, they are susceptible to all kinds of pulls and pressure, which makes even the examining arm of the DGCA not talk to the licensing arm,” Tiwari said in the Lok Sabha.

“So, therefore there is no verification, whether a particular mark sheet is correct, whether a particular person has passed a particular test before a license is submitted (issued),” he added.

Co-pilots themselves are paid very well; If they cheated in order to be paid more, that speaks volumes about how corruption and greed is causing problems even in professional fields. Corruption is a known issue in large projects, especially in India. There is nothing new in that. The concern I now have is that increasingly, even professionals are starting to look at corruption as the way to go.

There is also an argument that corruption is just convenience money. If it is ONLY convenience money, I would prefer that it should be formalized across the board, for example like Tatkal tickets. But when convenience money is not made institutional, the line between corruption and convenience gets blurred.

It is also extremely lame if people cannot wait a while to get what they want. And this is worse when it concerns exams, degrees, job experience and other such. To give an extreme example, I find this behavior first seen in people who run after a “job guarantee with the least effort”. Students have often come to me and ask about what is the easiest way to get “a project”. Worse, people pay fake companies about 15-20K to give them equally fake experience certificates. The very same people will not be willing to pay this amount to their college for decent education. I find it difficult to explain that engineering requires hard work, that passing an exam or getting a fake degree is not a gate to smooth sailing. You have to put in reasonably good amount of work each day and people will see through your on the job performance. I then get a horrified silent look in return .

Given the wide prevalence of such habits, I wonder if our society forgotten hard work? Or maybe, a majority do not see how convenience and corruption can closely go together. Or maybe, mediocrity has come to be accepted in our society (My earlier blog post on this).

Daughters First Painting

I wonder what I shall tell her as she grows up about her nation, the pluses: An amazing philosophy, A resilient population, A stable economy, A great culture, A working democracy, A world “soft power” and the minuses: One of the most corrupt places, A bad political class, Lack of civic sense. I guess these pluses and minuses are immaterial. What matters is probably that we are here in Bharat, we like to be here, and would prefer not to be anywhere else.

“Our minister (Krishna) referred to the need to show mutual sensitivity and that the Chinese side needs to be sensitive to our concerns in J&K like India has been sensitive to Chinese concerns on Taiwan and Tibet.”

There are other news reports that do not mention this statement at all [1], and it was only Nirupama Rao’s words. But even then, it is a patently stupid thing to say. I so much wish no one from our diplomatic setup had said this. Give the Chinese a foot, and they will encroach no less than a mile. I am reminded of another Krishna who made much worse mistakes in the 1960s – Krishna Menon, one of the many reasons responsible for our military and diplomatic debacle against the Chinese.

Some reviewers say that the book should have had some analysis of events. But this book was meant to have a historical or journalistic flavor, and getting into an analysis mode is incredibly academic in nature. There are few books out there for the common man which tell the story as it happened. Once Indian historians start writing an analysis, they end up going all over the place making holier-than-thou statements. The reader is hopelessly lead into a particular view point, and the event itself is lost in the melee.

The book reads fast, and I could not put it down once I had picked it up. This may not be the book for individuals seasoned in contemporary Indian history who may already be familiar with most its contents. However, this would be the book I shall recommend my daughter to read instead of the history textbooks that muddle our brain cells in school.

The distance was approximately123 Kms (googlemaps) which we covered in about 6 hours:

4:30 AM: Met KP at Sanjay Nagar flyover.

5:20 AM: Crossed BIAL flyover.

6:00 AM: Stopped for a 10-min break at Jain temple.

6:50 AM: Saw the photo of a dosa outside a restaurant, decided to drive through Chikballapur in search of an eating place.

7:00 AM: Stopped at “Hotel Brindavan Garden”

9:46 AM: Crossed the AP check post. By this time, KP was ahead of me by about a kilometer or so. As I rode under an overpass at Bagepalli, KP yelled from the bridge – he was having a Sprite and wanted me to pull over. I continued yelling: “Cant stop now man, my body will refuse to get back onto this saddle.”

10:00 AM: Caught up with Kalyan who was riding from Hindupur toward the NH-7 – Lepakshi junction.Chatted for a while and started off for Tekulodu.

10:45 AM: Reached Tekulodu.

The regular hydration, and chikkis kept us in great shape. We were stretching all through the route and took a couple of minutes break every hour or so. We were energetic enough to walk through the village. There was one problem though – my left shoulder was aching, and I had pins and needles on my left palm. The shoulder pain went off after some stretching, but the pins and needles on my palm refused to go away till the next day.

We dropped by the house of one Harish, a youth from the village who was to be the host for the afternoon. The kids in the village were totally ga-ga over our bikes. In about a few minutes there were about 20 of them asking us all sorts of questions. Several of them rode our bikes.

We walked over to the primary school where a celebration about the ICDS program was on the way. Kalyan also spoke for a few minutes.

ICDS program

We had a long walk, where Harish (a youth from the village) showed us around the place. Kalyan and I discussed various problems going from water all the way to ecological housing. All the while, KP was getting popular with the kids:

KP getting popular with kids.

We had lunch at Harish’s place. KP had to leave in the evening, and I stayed back for an SHG meeting. Most women of the village participated in the meeting. We discussed the flouride problem in their water. Kalyan described possible solutions, and recommended that they should plan on having a purification plant installed by Nov. end. He had already spoken to a firm in Ahmedabad, and went over the pricing details.

It was almost 10:00 PM by the time we ate our dinner. We climbed onto the terrace of a house that was still under construction, and settled down for the night – the bedding was sparse: a straw mat, a pillow, and a bed sheet. Nani, the Panchayat president’s son accompanied me and Kalyan. What a night – the sky was so clear that we could almost see the milky way.

A nice way to spend a national holiday, I thought. I and Kalyan left for Hindupur on Sunday morning. After breakfast at Kalyan’s place, I took the APSRTC bus from Hindupur bus stand to Mekhri circle.

23rd Sept – Two messages. (The Govt. had banned Bulk SMS messages ahead of the Ayodhya verdict [1])

24th Sept – Two messages.

25th Sept – Two messages.

and so on….

Till

30th Sept – Two messages.

The verdict is out [1, 2]; most cities seem calm [1, 2]. It seems like the SMS ban will now be removed, and I will have to contend with the regular stream of people trying to sell me masti, Desi girls, food, and everything else under the sun. This is my humble request to the powers-that-be to restore the ban.

I know it wont be heard though :-/.

I have been reading Ramchandra Guha’s “India After Gandhi” [Reviews: 1, 2]. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary India. Since we are talking about agriculture here, I will put a few relevant excerpts. Guha’s book contains the following discussion between a village lever worker (VLW) and a farmer (MS):

VLW: What do you think of the new seed?

MS: What can I think? If the Govt. thinks it is good, it must be good.

VLW: Do you think it is better than the local variety?

MS: Yes, It resits disease much better. It can stand frost and rain, and there is more demand for it in the market.

VLW: What about yield?

MS: I cannot say. Some people say it is more, others say it is not.

VLW: Some people say it is not as good in taste.

MS: They are right. It is not half as good. If the roti is served hot it is more or less the same, but if we keep it for an hour or so it gets tough as hide. No, it is not as good in taste. People say that we all get very weak if we eat this wheat.

VLW: What is your experience?

MS: Many more people suffer from digestive disorders these days. Our childern have coughs and colds. Perhapes it is becasue of the new seed and sugar cane. It may be that the air has been spoilt by the wars.

VLW: And what about the new fertilizer?

MS: They increase the yield; there is no doubt about it. But they probably destroy the vitality of the land and also of the grain.

There is another quote included by Guha, a letter by Gandhi’s disciple Mira Behn dated 1949:

The tragedy today is that educated and moneyed classes are altogether out of touch with the vital fundamentals of existence — our Mother Earth, and the animal and vegetable population which she sustains. This world of Nature’s planning is ruthlessly plundered, despoiled and disorganized by man whenever he gets the chance. By his science and machinery he may get huge returns for a time, but ultimately will come desolation. We have got to study Nature’s balance and develop our lives within her laws if we are to survive as a physically healthy and morally decent species.

The discussion between the VLW and villager was first published by S C Dube in 1958 [Links to book: 1, 2], and the letter above was written in 1949. One can imagine how far back people were thinking about the effects of chemical farming and the resultant socio-environmental issues.

For those who are new to environmental problems in agriculture, I had previously blogged about a few aspects: Bt Brinjal, Double standards in Organic food, One Straw Revolution.

Civil servants in charge of the event may be able to pull off a magic trick or two. But people of calibre, like top athletes rarely not put their trust in magic tricks. They trust planning and strategy. The only people adopting strategy seem to be contractors who have come up with methods to fleece tax payers. About Rs 70,000 seems to have been spent on the games [1, 2], while the original budget seems to have been for Rs 11,494 crores [1]. The games had been awarded seven years ago[1, 2]; there was no need to have delayed construction for so long. Even the smallest component could have been finished well in advance.

Like in a dark, paradoxical comedy, a saving grace could be that  Dilli has floods, and the Yamuna is a meter above the flood level. The Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is about 2 Kms from the Yamuna (View map here). It is also the stadium that would host the commonwealth games, if they happen that is. Officials behind the commonwealth games can now blame a likely sham on the Gods.

A list of athletes who pulled out: Australia: Stephanie Rice, Dani Samuels. Kenya: David Rudisha, Edwin Soi, Asbel Kiprop, Linet Masai. Jamaica: Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell. England: Andy Murray, Lisa Dobriskey [1, 2]. Some of these withdrawals are due to injuries.