Books, Books and books. This is how i would describe the last month and half. A lot of reading has been done and a lot is yet to be done. Here are the highlights -
~Signed up for the coursera course - Fantasy and Science Fiction. As part of its syllabus, it requires reading about 10 books in 10 weeks. I am about mid way and so far, i have enjoyed books read so far, the future books are also awaited with anticipation. But the course is very hectic. Read books, right a critical analysis, evaluate peers and listen to lectures , overall, its in the tune of about 25 hrs per week (That is one full day). With work and other commitments, it has been a very hectic but enjoyable journey so far. The books read so far are -
Grimm's fairy tales - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/08/grimms-fairy-tales.html
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Didn't like reading them. Yes, the language was great, wordplay was highly amusing but the story/plot was so absurd, incomplete and felt immaturish :)
Dracula (Week 3) and Frankenstein (Week 4) - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/08/dracula-and-frankenstein.html
Week 5: Hawthorne's short stories - Rappacini's Daughter, The Artist and the Beautiful, The Birthmark and Dr. Heidegger's experiment. Short stories were fascinating, very creative and amusing. Week 4 also included Poe's collection but i didn't get time to read them. For some reason, i liked the big novel plots better as there is more time/characters to play around.
Week 6 - H.G. Wells' stories - The country of the blind (read), The Invisible man(read), The star (yet to read) and The Island of Dr. Monreau (yet to read). I liked invisible man. One would assume that being invisible would be a boon but Wells digs deeper and what follows is a fascinating tale.
Overall, i am happy in reading these books. I am not too much able to appreciate the genre in an academic sense but as a reader, i am loving it!
~ Signed up for another coursera course - Listening to World music. Took it religiously for first two weeks, did the third week hastily and missed fourth week due to trek. Realized that my third week assignment was incomplete hence i will not get a certificate. So, have decided to drop it now. It was getting too hectic as well.
~ Started another course - Introduction to Sustainability.
~ Kashmir trek - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/08/kashmir.html
~ BPIBC Meetup books -
July: Small is Beautiful - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/07/book-review-small-is-beautiful.html
August: Why Nations Fail - http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/09/why-nations-fail-review.html
September: Curfewed night. Finished the book yesterday, review coming out soon.
~iWeekend at Hyderabad - Went to ISB Hyderabad to mentor at the iWeekend event as part of the group Hatch. Very informative. The workshop was quite interesting, a lot of things to learn in addition to mentoring. Liked the enthu in junta and realized how important it is to look at the complete picture. Often listening to ideas from others, one realizes that so many holes are there. Meeting old friends at ISB is always a plus.
~Movies:
The good ones - The Dark knight rises (thrice - dont ask how, and i find the movie ok), kahaani, Paan Singh Tomar , the cult Gangs of Wasseypur I and II, very very good.
The bad ones - The bourne legacy(WTF was that).
Documentaries - Khayal Darpan (http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/08/khayal-darpan.html) and Jai Bhim Comrade (http://arvindbatra.blogspot.in/2012/08/jai-bhim-comrade.html)
Big fan of Nawazzudin Siddiqui now.
Watching 3rd rock from the Sun re-runs on TV. Loving it!
~Composting - Started khamba composting at home. Happy to have entered this space. It is still a learning phase. Lot of flies, bad smell, worms etc etc.... all is happening.
~ Lucky Ali concert at Hard Rock cafe. Listened to his songs after such a long time. But again, HRC is not the right place to enjoy his songs. They are not wrong, the drinks do not gel well plus the place was too crowded. He has grown old, but i was happy to see him happy. He has a new album out, yet to check it out.
~ Attended an event at ISB where different people have come together to save the lakes in Bangalore. Was amazed to see so much enthu in people. Also present were representatives from BDA, BBMP, LDA (Lake development authority). Good to see action in this space.
~ Runs: Ran max 18K before the Kashmir trek. Half marathon on 16 Sept. Need to do a long run before that.
~ Work was decent, although a lot of holidays taken. Went to laser tag yesterday. Board game group continues to expand both in people and number of games.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Why Nations Fail Review
Why Nations Fail: The origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty
By Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
http://whynationsfail.com/
WNF was the last meetup's book. Before the last one, we had read and discussed E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful. Reading both these books back to back reflects on the contrast in ideologies existent among economists. While SiB talks about decentralized, bottom up, distributed development, WNF comes with a top-down narrative and gives its own theory of why nations fail/succeed. SiB was mainly an ideology, its reasoning came from an adherence to rationality and common good. WNF substantiates its theory by drawing lessons from history; how countries shaped up over time and why few were prosperous while others in misery. I agree with both the bottom-up and top-down theories. I think they will meet in the middle somewhere and will be mostly same. The key point of contention comes in the means - aka the process. SiB was very careful in describing the means; the process of development should be sustainable. In contrast, WNF talks about institutions; if the institutions are sustainable, its processes will be sustainable as well.But sustainable institutions are very difficult to achieve.
WNF starts brilliantly, debunking the existential theories (and their respective economists) by contradicting all of them. Previously the failure of nations was attributed to cultural factors or geographic issues or people. Geographic and culture factors seem implausible even for a lay man, WNF proves them wrong in an more academic manner. What follows after these theories are proven false is a new theory based on data, real historic data.
At the heart of Daron and James argument are three concepts - Extractive institutions, Inclusive institutions and Creative Destruction.
Extractive Institutions - Institutions whose prosperity benefits only a few, often at the expense of others.
Inclusive Institutions - Instinstitutions which prosper by taking everyone into account, everybody benefits in its prosperity.
Creative Destruction - The process whereby an existing technology is replaced by a new, better (efficient/fast/improved) technology.
The authors argue that the construct of extractive and inclusive institutions applies to both economic and political institutions. A nations succeeds when both its political and economic institutions are inclusive and it should be open for creative destruction. So, all three are needed - (i) Inclusive political institution, (ii) inclusive economic institution and (iii) creative destruction. If any of the three is missing, the nation will eventually fail. A fat portion of the book is dedicated in explaining the relationship between the above; it is filled with examples on how nations where one was inclusive and other exclusive failed; how nations failed to progress when they crushed creative destruction etc etc. The book does a great job in justifying the theory; it all makes sense. USA is the poster child (which is true if we look it until the last century), England, Industrial revolution are features very positively, they do a good job in showing how the current rich became so.
Overall, i agree that institutions need to be inclusive. Yes, they are a necessity. They play a huge role, they are very high impact bodies. But after this my disagreements begin. The first thing that strikes is how they never explain the economic disparity. Inclusive institutions benefit everybody but some get more benefit than others. The poster child country - USA, if we look at it now, its income distribution is highly skewed up. So, even with inclusive political and economic institutions, things can go wrong if the "inclusivity" is unbalanced. I am not advocating a socialistic regime as the solution, i am merely advocating that even this theory has its limits.
Bill of rights, French revolution were all very good but the thing that made Europe was the Industrial revolution, aka the process of creative destruction. But the book never talks about the relative advantage Britain was during those times. A lot of resources were coming from African/Asian continents. Britain was inclusive in its internal institutions but it was extractive in its external ones. So, even though it prospered internally, the progress definitely came at some cost of other nations; not completely.
Another one that the book misses completely is the impact to environment/ecology even by inclusive institutions. An institution can be inclusive for current citizens but extractive if we include future generations as well. So, the temporal aspect is also missing from these books. Also not included are the social institutions. Social institutions should also be inclusive. For example, take the Indian context, the caste system is a social institution which is inclusive. Race, color, ethnicity are other dimensions based on which social institutions are structured, they are also detrimental to nations. In a way this book manages to avoid it because social institutions are often reflected in economic or political ones. In India, the upper caste were the ones who controlled political and economic institutions and hence they were extractive as well.
Overall, WNF is a brilliant attempt, it succeeds in explaining various scenarios. It also gives a very good outline on how institutions should function. The book is correct in its inferences for the most part. But just that the theory outlined is not complete. There are parameters that lie outside the three pillars that can also influence the outcome. Nonetheless, WNF is very informative, a fascinating read and very fundamental to understand the present day world.
By Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
http://whynationsfail.com/
WNF was the last meetup's book. Before the last one, we had read and discussed E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful. Reading both these books back to back reflects on the contrast in ideologies existent among economists. While SiB talks about decentralized, bottom up, distributed development, WNF comes with a top-down narrative and gives its own theory of why nations fail/succeed. SiB was mainly an ideology, its reasoning came from an adherence to rationality and common good. WNF substantiates its theory by drawing lessons from history; how countries shaped up over time and why few were prosperous while others in misery. I agree with both the bottom-up and top-down theories. I think they will meet in the middle somewhere and will be mostly same. The key point of contention comes in the means - aka the process. SiB was very careful in describing the means; the process of development should be sustainable. In contrast, WNF talks about institutions; if the institutions are sustainable, its processes will be sustainable as well.But sustainable institutions are very difficult to achieve.
WNF starts brilliantly, debunking the existential theories (and their respective economists) by contradicting all of them. Previously the failure of nations was attributed to cultural factors or geographic issues or people. Geographic and culture factors seem implausible even for a lay man, WNF proves them wrong in an more academic manner. What follows after these theories are proven false is a new theory based on data, real historic data.
At the heart of Daron and James argument are three concepts - Extractive institutions, Inclusive institutions and Creative Destruction.
Extractive Institutions - Institutions whose prosperity benefits only a few, often at the expense of others.
Inclusive Institutions - Instinstitutions which prosper by taking everyone into account, everybody benefits in its prosperity.
Creative Destruction - The process whereby an existing technology is replaced by a new, better (efficient/fast/improved) technology.
The authors argue that the construct of extractive and inclusive institutions applies to both economic and political institutions. A nations succeeds when both its political and economic institutions are inclusive and it should be open for creative destruction. So, all three are needed - (i) Inclusive political institution, (ii) inclusive economic institution and (iii) creative destruction. If any of the three is missing, the nation will eventually fail. A fat portion of the book is dedicated in explaining the relationship between the above; it is filled with examples on how nations where one was inclusive and other exclusive failed; how nations failed to progress when they crushed creative destruction etc etc. The book does a great job in justifying the theory; it all makes sense. USA is the poster child (which is true if we look it until the last century), England, Industrial revolution are features very positively, they do a good job in showing how the current rich became so.
Overall, i agree that institutions need to be inclusive. Yes, they are a necessity. They play a huge role, they are very high impact bodies. But after this my disagreements begin. The first thing that strikes is how they never explain the economic disparity. Inclusive institutions benefit everybody but some get more benefit than others. The poster child country - USA, if we look at it now, its income distribution is highly skewed up. So, even with inclusive political and economic institutions, things can go wrong if the "inclusivity" is unbalanced. I am not advocating a socialistic regime as the solution, i am merely advocating that even this theory has its limits.
Bill of rights, French revolution were all very good but the thing that made Europe was the Industrial revolution, aka the process of creative destruction. But the book never talks about the relative advantage Britain was during those times. A lot of resources were coming from African/Asian continents. Britain was inclusive in its internal institutions but it was extractive in its external ones. So, even though it prospered internally, the progress definitely came at some cost of other nations; not completely.
Another one that the book misses completely is the impact to environment/ecology even by inclusive institutions. An institution can be inclusive for current citizens but extractive if we include future generations as well. So, the temporal aspect is also missing from these books. Also not included are the social institutions. Social institutions should also be inclusive. For example, take the Indian context, the caste system is a social institution which is inclusive. Race, color, ethnicity are other dimensions based on which social institutions are structured, they are also detrimental to nations. In a way this book manages to avoid it because social institutions are often reflected in economic or political ones. In India, the upper caste were the ones who controlled political and economic institutions and hence they were extractive as well.
Overall, WNF is a brilliant attempt, it succeeds in explaining various scenarios. It also gives a very good outline on how institutions should function. The book is correct in its inferences for the most part. But just that the theory outlined is not complete. There are parameters that lie outside the three pillars that can also influence the outcome. Nonetheless, WNF is very informative, a fascinating read and very fundamental to understand the present day world.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Dracula and Frankenstein
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ideally both these books deserve an individual blog post but reading them back to back was so much fan. All thanks to the Fantasy and Science Fiction course at coursera.
Firstly, i hate horror movies. I had heard about Dracula and Frankenstein but have never seen their movie adaptations before. I was aware of their big fan following in USA but i was never drawn into it. However, given my penchance for getting things directly from source, i was very much looking forward to both these books.
Dracula review:
I loved reading Dracula. I took this course because (a) I was tired of reading non-fiction, so wanted to read good fiction and was looking for avenues and (b) After LOTR and AGOIAF, i wanted to read more about Fantasy genre and learn it. In Dracula, both of my desires were fulfilled. What an amazing piece of writing!
Dracula hooked me on after the first couple of Johnathan Harker's journal entries. The way the psychological change is described through his journal it was just edge of the seat kind of thriller. I was just amazed how we are able to feel the terror of Dracula through the eyes of only one character (victim). To see Dracula such a rich and cultured broke all pre-concieved notions that i had. Bram Stoker's Dracula has a class. He is very knowledgeable and his conversation manners have a lot of style.
Next thing that stood about the novel was the Point of View (POV) style of narration. After A song of ice and fire, i was already fan of POV style. I was very happy to see it again here. Bram uses this style very cleverly. Again we see characters knowing partial information (while we know more than them individually) and we see how they act based on their partial data. POV from crucial characters such as Van Helsing is absent atleast in the beginning. POV style adds elements of mystery and thriller to this horror genre.
The writing is full of prose and a lot of time is spent in painting the vision. Be it Castle Dracula or Lucy's ghost in the grave, we are there with the characters and are eager to know the future.
A very very entertaining read. Highly recommended.
Frankenstein:
For an outsider like me, first thing that strikes is that Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, instead Frankenstein was the creator. The book began as quite a drag for me. A lot of writing is spent on describing the scenery, romanticism dominates a lot in the first few pages. But the moment we start to learn about the monster and we know the story from his perspective, it was a very thrilling read. How does an artificially created man learns the basic things - the language, the history, human behavior and relationships, all is explained and to me it was very entertaining to read it.
Frankenstein creatively explores the connection between God and Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the creator here; and what happens if you do not like what you have created. Is it ok to abandon your creation? Is it ok for God to abandon us? And is the creator responsible for the actions of his/her creation? Mary plays with this subject in a very interesting manner.
-------------
In both the novels, the sophistication of the villain was fascinating. Reading back to back gave me a sense of knowing everything there is to know about in the horror genre. I also went back and saw Van Helsing again which pays tribute to many horror themes. I hated the movie again but watching it with more context made it enjoyable as well :)
It is so amazing that if i think of the horror genre now, it is associated with cheap sound bytes, erotica and some useless story background. But both these novels, the creators of this genre are so intellectually drafted that it makes you fall in love with the classics!
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ideally both these books deserve an individual blog post but reading them back to back was so much fan. All thanks to the Fantasy and Science Fiction course at coursera.
Firstly, i hate horror movies. I had heard about Dracula and Frankenstein but have never seen their movie adaptations before. I was aware of their big fan following in USA but i was never drawn into it. However, given my penchance for getting things directly from source, i was very much looking forward to both these books.
Dracula review:
I loved reading Dracula. I took this course because (a) I was tired of reading non-fiction, so wanted to read good fiction and was looking for avenues and (b) After LOTR and AGOIAF, i wanted to read more about Fantasy genre and learn it. In Dracula, both of my desires were fulfilled. What an amazing piece of writing!
Dracula hooked me on after the first couple of Johnathan Harker's journal entries. The way the psychological change is described through his journal it was just edge of the seat kind of thriller. I was just amazed how we are able to feel the terror of Dracula through the eyes of only one character (victim). To see Dracula such a rich and cultured broke all pre-concieved notions that i had. Bram Stoker's Dracula has a class. He is very knowledgeable and his conversation manners have a lot of style.
Next thing that stood about the novel was the Point of View (POV) style of narration. After A song of ice and fire, i was already fan of POV style. I was very happy to see it again here. Bram uses this style very cleverly. Again we see characters knowing partial information (while we know more than them individually) and we see how they act based on their partial data. POV from crucial characters such as Van Helsing is absent atleast in the beginning. POV style adds elements of mystery and thriller to this horror genre.
The writing is full of prose and a lot of time is spent in painting the vision. Be it Castle Dracula or Lucy's ghost in the grave, we are there with the characters and are eager to know the future.
A very very entertaining read. Highly recommended.
Frankenstein:
For an outsider like me, first thing that strikes is that Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, instead Frankenstein was the creator. The book began as quite a drag for me. A lot of writing is spent on describing the scenery, romanticism dominates a lot in the first few pages. But the moment we start to learn about the monster and we know the story from his perspective, it was a very thrilling read. How does an artificially created man learns the basic things - the language, the history, human behavior and relationships, all is explained and to me it was very entertaining to read it.
Frankenstein creatively explores the connection between God and Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the creator here; and what happens if you do not like what you have created. Is it ok to abandon your creation? Is it ok for God to abandon us? And is the creator responsible for the actions of his/her creation? Mary plays with this subject in a very interesting manner.
-------------
In both the novels, the sophistication of the villain was fascinating. Reading back to back gave me a sense of knowing everything there is to know about in the horror genre. I also went back and saw Van Helsing again which pays tribute to many horror themes. I hated the movie again but watching it with more context made it enjoyable as well :)
It is so amazing that if i think of the horror genre now, it is associated with cheap sound bytes, erotica and some useless story background. But both these novels, the creators of this genre are so intellectually drafted that it makes you fall in love with the classics!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Grimm's fairy tales
Grimm's fairy tales was one of the first reading as part of Fantasy and Science Fiction course at coursera.
It is a collection of fairy tales that were mostly present in oral form coming down from generations. Grimm Brothers are said to have merely compiled them all in one place. So in a sense they are not Grimm's fairy tales per say in the sense that they were not imagined by them.
While reading Grimm's fairy tales, one thing that surprised me was its richness. Cindrella, Hansel and Grethel, Rapunzel, Snow white every whose who of fairy tales that i had heard before is present here. It was incredible to read from the source of all of those stories, what an amazing effort is this book!
Typically one associates fairy tales with morals or teachings about good behavior. Grimm's tales do not. There are stories where the one who is shrewd wins, cheaters cheat and are rewarded, lies are often met with favorable outcomes. There are few stories with morals but very few. In a sense these tales are true reflection of our society's norms that one would expect from fairy tales. Behind speaking animals, witches and magic, there lies a very close commentary on human behavior and reasoning.
It is an interesting read. I think it was a perfect start to the course as fairy tales indeed are our first introduction to the world of fantasy. This blog is written mid-way into this course and looking back, i am happy that it started with fairy tales. The content has been maturing (or rather getting dark) week over week.
There is a also a HBO movie about the world of Grimm brothers, i have watched its first 30 mins and it is quite interesting. Grimm brothers had money issues. One of the brothers was very much into this project, he often gave money to local women in exchange for stories. While the other one used to cover him up both professionally and financially. Need to finish the movie soon.
It is a collection of fairy tales that were mostly present in oral form coming down from generations. Grimm Brothers are said to have merely compiled them all in one place. So in a sense they are not Grimm's fairy tales per say in the sense that they were not imagined by them.
While reading Grimm's fairy tales, one thing that surprised me was its richness. Cindrella, Hansel and Grethel, Rapunzel, Snow white every whose who of fairy tales that i had heard before is present here. It was incredible to read from the source of all of those stories, what an amazing effort is this book!
Typically one associates fairy tales with morals or teachings about good behavior. Grimm's tales do not. There are stories where the one who is shrewd wins, cheaters cheat and are rewarded, lies are often met with favorable outcomes. There are few stories with morals but very few. In a sense these tales are true reflection of our society's norms that one would expect from fairy tales. Behind speaking animals, witches and magic, there lies a very close commentary on human behavior and reasoning.
It is an interesting read. I think it was a perfect start to the course as fairy tales indeed are our first introduction to the world of fantasy. This blog is written mid-way into this course and looking back, i am happy that it started with fairy tales. The content has been maturing (or rather getting dark) week over week.
There is a also a HBO movie about the world of Grimm brothers, i have watched its first 30 mins and it is quite interesting. Grimm brothers had money issues. One of the brothers was very much into this project, he often gave money to local women in exchange for stories. While the other one used to cover him up both professionally and financially. Need to finish the movie soon.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Kashmir
Kashmir - Been there, done that and want to do more. Kashmir is a feeling that will stay with me for a long time to come. My Kashmir trip was from 11-19 Aug which primary included the IndiaHikes organized trek - Great Lakes of Kashmir from 12-18 Aug. This post is a detailed account of my time there.
The first thing we (Pankaj, Sachin and me) noticed when we landed in Srinagar is the presence of military on the streets of Kashmir. It is normal for Kashmiris. But for us, constant patrolling force was a shock. The second shock was the cab prices. The prepaid counter charged us 450Rs from airport to hotel which would not have been more than 10Kms. That is about 45Rs per km, it is even more expensive than Bangalore.
Day -1: Dal lake and the Shikara
We arrived a day early under the pretense of acclimatization to see Srinagar. Dal lake on a 3-4 hr Shikara ride gives a feeling of calm, peace and the slow pace of life as it should be. Just imagining sitting on one of the houseboats, sipping coffee and lazily overlooking the lake gives contentment. The level of entrepreneurship is also amazing. We saw a shikara with a lot of suitcases just standing there. As we went closer, it came next to us and the suitcases were revealed to be boxes holding collection of jewellery sets. There are mobile Chai shops, Photo studios, freshly roasted Butta (corn) being sold on Shikaras. There is also a whole floating market and now a floating Indian Post Office as well! But we could see signs of a lot of commercialization of the lake.
Day 0: Shankaracharya temple and to reach basecamp.
The Shankaracharya temple on the hill is decent. It gives a good view of the city and we realizes that (a) Srinagar is quite densely populated and (b) Dal lake is huge :) The drive to base camp at Sonamarg was very beautiful. The road goes next to the Sind river for about 2 hrs and the scenery is beautiful. Sparsely populated, small hills, green vegetation and good roads just lightens the heart. The basecamp at Sonamarg was right next to Sind river on a lush green grass at the foothills. Perfectos! The local guide said that this is just the start, as the trek progresses, it is going to get better. I had no reason to doubt him but i was completely satisfied here as well.
The trek route/itinerary can be read from this page - http://www.indiahikes.in/himalayan-treks/kashmir-great-lakes-trek/
I will not repeat that. Rather, i want to talk about things that i observed and cool incidents that will be remembered -
~ Drinking water straight out of river. No purification, no RO, no cleaning, no boiling. I do not remember when was the last time i drank like this. It just makes you wonder that if water is so pure at the source, why it is so contaminated by the time we get it.
~ The magic of water - We were asked to drink about 5-6 litres of water everyday. Pretty much drinking water and peeing was the order of the day. But water is magical. There were couple of points in the trek when we were at high altitudes (13.5K feet+) and i felt dizzy, the pukey feeling and both the times, i just drank water. It helps in acclimatization, keeps the body hydrated and everything else feels normal.
~ No bath. The water was cold. Sometimes freezing cold. That meant no bath for me and many others for 6 days. There were a few who took a dip in the Hanmukh lake on day 5 but i am not that brave (stupid :)
~Oh shit! This was the first time i used a shovel to dig a cathole to take a dump. I had heard that people do it in long treks, but doing it was a first experience.
~Pampered - Treks in India pamper us. We didn't had to carry our tents, nor our sleeping bags. There were even mules available on pay basis to carry our bag packs. There were cooks with us to cook food for us, horses were carrying the food and other raw materials. helpers for everything. I atleast carried my bag pack on my own for the entire trek.
~ No people. For the most part, it was a people free trek. It is so important to be feel the wilderness, to get that feeling that you are all alone against the nature. In many treks in India, one finds Dhaba/villages for a long way, there are highways crossing the trails etc etc. But on this one, except on the last day, we were pretty much on our own. We did cross two army camps and met local sherpas but was interesting in itself.
~ Army camps - Army people were happy to see us. There were happy to see people in general. Else, they are all alone between the mountains. At the Satsar camp, we were offered water and cadbury chocolates which was awesome. But one thing that became evident was their distrust towards Kashmiris. They openly called them liars and looked down on them. That was quite sad!
~Daily we were given 3-4 toffees, a cholocate bar and a biscuit pack for the trek. I used to eat the toffees along the way but the chocolate and biscuit pack was left till the end as a celebration of accomplishment. It was amazing.
~ Slept under the Sun on day 4 and 5 and got sun burnt. I love the feeling of sun burnt even though it is itchy. The peeling skin becomes proof of an experience!
The route was very well planned. Everyday started with an ascent for about 2-2.5 hrs followed by a slow descent to get to the camp. Just the way i like it - ascent followed by descent. Day 1 was quite strenuous as it was the first day and we also rose up by 3000 feet in altitude to get to the camp. Reaching at the highest point was always a sense of satisfaction - the worst has been done, now it is just a matter of walking to the base camp. Everyday was about 12Km in distance, about 6 hrs time-wise. The camps were always next to water with many rocks nearby so that natural calls can be done in private.
Day 3 will be remembered by me and by everyone. People had claimed that it will the most strenuous one but no-one imagined it to be this bad. We left the Vishasnsar campground in morning at around 8:30. Pretty soon there was rain and as a result, the whole soil became slushy. As i was climbing up, suddenly i found that it was difficult for my shoes to get a grip on the trail and it was sliding down. In a matter of 5 mins, i was lying flat on the ground unable to stand up because of slippage. There was a feeling of helplessness. I needed help and i was cursing myself of this very reason - why do i need help? I should be able to take care of things as they come. Twice i tried to get up and twice i slipped down, i actually went 3-4 feet down. Then i was rescued by Altaf, our local trek guide, who just took my luggage away, pulled me up so that i could stand and then told me to walk on stones as they dont slide away. I did that and finally managed to reach the top. It rained the entire way to campsite, it was a long day as well, about 15 kms. Because it was raining, i couldn't take any pics. We passed the Gladsar lake and it was the most beautiful lake i have ever seen. It was not only me but there were many others who slipped or required help to climb that day. From the top to the camp, the trail seemed like it would never end. It was just walk, walk and walk and faith that there would be a camp in the end. It was a hard day, very tiring but it gave a lot of confidence - Girne ke baad khade hone mein alag hi mazaa hai!
The day 3 camp was just after Gadsar army camp. The campsite was just 12km away from LOC (line of control). This is the closest that i had been to LOC, so yay! Even though it was just 12K, it was actually behind three big mountains :)
Day 4 was the most beautiful day of all days. The sun was shining just right and we walking on a green carpet for as long as we can see. The sky was of sky blue color, just as it should be. A spot (cloud) less blue color with green mountains on both the sides. Very very beautiful!
Day 6, the final day, had the worst descent. We came down about 3500 feet in about 2 hrs (4-5km) at Naranag. It took a big toll on the knees. We could see the road down but we kept on reducing altitude yet it took forever to reach there. The slopes were very very steep and it was painful to get down. But as this was the last day, we kept on going to finish the trek.
A big shout out should be given to the trek guides especially to Altaf and Amit. Altaf is literally a superman, spiderman. He went up and down multiple times to help others, especially on day 3. He carried three bags at one time because others couldn't even carry one. Both Amit and Altaf were tired at the end of the trek yet they were there to help others or to arrange wood for bon fire or anything. Big salute to them. And very special thanks to the cooks and helpers. Even though it was not their job, they were always ready to help us. in any way. They were very soft spoken too. Most of them will not eat until all of us had food. And we would just ask for food the moment we came down from the trek. Their spirit is very inspiring. May good things happen to them!
The time in evenings was very eventful. We played Antaskshari, dumb charades, Mafia, cards :), chit chat, star gazing, sun bathing, and just lazily sleep down. On the day 5, we took upon us to prepare food for the entire crew and give rest to our cooks. The food was decent. Preparing food for 30 people is not an easy task. At night, all the Kashmiris helpers got together and sang local folk songs for us. One of the guys, Riyaz, even danced. Local folk songs are always a treat to listen. That was very special!
Lastly, it gave plenty of time for reflection. When you are sitting alone, staring at the big mountains in front of you, clean river flowing by your side, natural beauty all around you, and you are tired to move, all you have are your thoughts and you can clearly see what is important in life and what is not.
ab humein bhi maloom hain, Kashmir ko jannat kyun kehte hain.
The first thing we (Pankaj, Sachin and me) noticed when we landed in Srinagar is the presence of military on the streets of Kashmir. It is normal for Kashmiris. But for us, constant patrolling force was a shock. The second shock was the cab prices. The prepaid counter charged us 450Rs from airport to hotel which would not have been more than 10Kms. That is about 45Rs per km, it is even more expensive than Bangalore.
Day -1: Dal lake and the Shikara
We arrived a day early under the pretense of acclimatization to see Srinagar. Dal lake on a 3-4 hr Shikara ride gives a feeling of calm, peace and the slow pace of life as it should be. Just imagining sitting on one of the houseboats, sipping coffee and lazily overlooking the lake gives contentment. The level of entrepreneurship is also amazing. We saw a shikara with a lot of suitcases just standing there. As we went closer, it came next to us and the suitcases were revealed to be boxes holding collection of jewellery sets. There are mobile Chai shops, Photo studios, freshly roasted Butta (corn) being sold on Shikaras. There is also a whole floating market and now a floating Indian Post Office as well! But we could see signs of a lot of commercialization of the lake.
Day 0: Shankaracharya temple and to reach basecamp.
The Shankaracharya temple on the hill is decent. It gives a good view of the city and we realizes that (a) Srinagar is quite densely populated and (b) Dal lake is huge :) The drive to base camp at Sonamarg was very beautiful. The road goes next to the Sind river for about 2 hrs and the scenery is beautiful. Sparsely populated, small hills, green vegetation and good roads just lightens the heart. The basecamp at Sonamarg was right next to Sind river on a lush green grass at the foothills. Perfectos! The local guide said that this is just the start, as the trek progresses, it is going to get better. I had no reason to doubt him but i was completely satisfied here as well.
The trek route/itinerary can be read from this page - http://www.indiahikes.in/himalayan-treks/kashmir-great-lakes-trek/
I will not repeat that. Rather, i want to talk about things that i observed and cool incidents that will be remembered -
~ Drinking water straight out of river. No purification, no RO, no cleaning, no boiling. I do not remember when was the last time i drank like this. It just makes you wonder that if water is so pure at the source, why it is so contaminated by the time we get it.
~ The magic of water - We were asked to drink about 5-6 litres of water everyday. Pretty much drinking water and peeing was the order of the day. But water is magical. There were couple of points in the trek when we were at high altitudes (13.5K feet+) and i felt dizzy, the pukey feeling and both the times, i just drank water. It helps in acclimatization, keeps the body hydrated and everything else feels normal.
~ No bath. The water was cold. Sometimes freezing cold. That meant no bath for me and many others for 6 days. There were a few who took a dip in the Hanmukh lake on day 5 but i am not that brave (stupid :)
~Oh shit! This was the first time i used a shovel to dig a cathole to take a dump. I had heard that people do it in long treks, but doing it was a first experience.
~Pampered - Treks in India pamper us. We didn't had to carry our tents, nor our sleeping bags. There were even mules available on pay basis to carry our bag packs. There were cooks with us to cook food for us, horses were carrying the food and other raw materials. helpers for everything. I atleast carried my bag pack on my own for the entire trek.
~ No people. For the most part, it was a people free trek. It is so important to be feel the wilderness, to get that feeling that you are all alone against the nature. In many treks in India, one finds Dhaba/villages for a long way, there are highways crossing the trails etc etc. But on this one, except on the last day, we were pretty much on our own. We did cross two army camps and met local sherpas but was interesting in itself.
~ Army camps - Army people were happy to see us. There were happy to see people in general. Else, they are all alone between the mountains. At the Satsar camp, we were offered water and cadbury chocolates which was awesome. But one thing that became evident was their distrust towards Kashmiris. They openly called them liars and looked down on them. That was quite sad!
~Daily we were given 3-4 toffees, a cholocate bar and a biscuit pack for the trek. I used to eat the toffees along the way but the chocolate and biscuit pack was left till the end as a celebration of accomplishment. It was amazing.
~ Slept under the Sun on day 4 and 5 and got sun burnt. I love the feeling of sun burnt even though it is itchy. The peeling skin becomes proof of an experience!
The route was very well planned. Everyday started with an ascent for about 2-2.5 hrs followed by a slow descent to get to the camp. Just the way i like it - ascent followed by descent. Day 1 was quite strenuous as it was the first day and we also rose up by 3000 feet in altitude to get to the camp. Reaching at the highest point was always a sense of satisfaction - the worst has been done, now it is just a matter of walking to the base camp. Everyday was about 12Km in distance, about 6 hrs time-wise. The camps were always next to water with many rocks nearby so that natural calls can be done in private.
Day 3 will be remembered by me and by everyone. People had claimed that it will the most strenuous one but no-one imagined it to be this bad. We left the Vishasnsar campground in morning at around 8:30. Pretty soon there was rain and as a result, the whole soil became slushy. As i was climbing up, suddenly i found that it was difficult for my shoes to get a grip on the trail and it was sliding down. In a matter of 5 mins, i was lying flat on the ground unable to stand up because of slippage. There was a feeling of helplessness. I needed help and i was cursing myself of this very reason - why do i need help? I should be able to take care of things as they come. Twice i tried to get up and twice i slipped down, i actually went 3-4 feet down. Then i was rescued by Altaf, our local trek guide, who just took my luggage away, pulled me up so that i could stand and then told me to walk on stones as they dont slide away. I did that and finally managed to reach the top. It rained the entire way to campsite, it was a long day as well, about 15 kms. Because it was raining, i couldn't take any pics. We passed the Gladsar lake and it was the most beautiful lake i have ever seen. It was not only me but there were many others who slipped or required help to climb that day. From the top to the camp, the trail seemed like it would never end. It was just walk, walk and walk and faith that there would be a camp in the end. It was a hard day, very tiring but it gave a lot of confidence - Girne ke baad khade hone mein alag hi mazaa hai!
The day 3 camp was just after Gadsar army camp. The campsite was just 12km away from LOC (line of control). This is the closest that i had been to LOC, so yay! Even though it was just 12K, it was actually behind three big mountains :)
Day 4 was the most beautiful day of all days. The sun was shining just right and we walking on a green carpet for as long as we can see. The sky was of sky blue color, just as it should be. A spot (cloud) less blue color with green mountains on both the sides. Very very beautiful!
Day 6, the final day, had the worst descent. We came down about 3500 feet in about 2 hrs (4-5km) at Naranag. It took a big toll on the knees. We could see the road down but we kept on reducing altitude yet it took forever to reach there. The slopes were very very steep and it was painful to get down. But as this was the last day, we kept on going to finish the trek.
A big shout out should be given to the trek guides especially to Altaf and Amit. Altaf is literally a superman, spiderman. He went up and down multiple times to help others, especially on day 3. He carried three bags at one time because others couldn't even carry one. Both Amit and Altaf were tired at the end of the trek yet they were there to help others or to arrange wood for bon fire or anything. Big salute to them. And very special thanks to the cooks and helpers. Even though it was not their job, they were always ready to help us. in any way. They were very soft spoken too. Most of them will not eat until all of us had food. And we would just ask for food the moment we came down from the trek. Their spirit is very inspiring. May good things happen to them!
The time in evenings was very eventful. We played Antaskshari, dumb charades, Mafia, cards :), chit chat, star gazing, sun bathing, and just lazily sleep down. On the day 5, we took upon us to prepare food for the entire crew and give rest to our cooks. The food was decent. Preparing food for 30 people is not an easy task. At night, all the Kashmiris helpers got together and sang local folk songs for us. One of the guys, Riyaz, even danced. Local folk songs are always a treat to listen. That was very special!
Lastly, it gave plenty of time for reflection. When you are sitting alone, staring at the big mountains in front of you, clean river flowing by your side, natural beauty all around you, and you are tired to move, all you have are your thoughts and you can clearly see what is important in life and what is not.
ab humein bhi maloom hain, Kashmir ko jannat kyun kehte hain.
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| Kashmir Great lakes trek |
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Khayal Darpan
Movie: Khayal Darpan
Directed by Yousuf Saeed
http://www.khayaldarpan.info/
Khayal Darpan (KD) is a documentary on Classical music scene in Pakistan. Made on a very small budget, in a time (2006) when getting visa to Pakistan was also not that easy, Yousuf Saeed overcomes all odds and gives us a comprehensive view through various artists, teachers and critics. Khayal Darpan offers us a glimpse of classical music post the independence and creation of Pakistani state and how it has shaped up in the last five-six decades.
Through various candid conversations with artists, we learn about the maturity of audience in Pakistan, the quality of talent - the ustad and gurus that migrated after partition, yet even with such great pedigree, the state of affairs is quite sad. There has been an evolution in the music, it has drifted more towards ghazals and qawalli. All this has been a result to distance themselves from anything that had roots in Indian part. Lack of support from state, lack of patronage has resulted in a significant decline, lack of good schools has resulted in break in the transfer of knowledge. Comparisons are made between the Indian and Pakistan's evolution, state support; there is an acknowledgement that Indian govt. had played a better role but it is clearly stated that classical music is in decline in both lands.
If we look at the facts presented, it will come as a very sorry state of affairs, but here lies the beauty of the movie. Through some carefully chosen conversations and through some careful editing, there is always hope in every corner. Yousuf Saeed gives us beautifully sung music bytes at several key junctions that we forget the despair. Khayal Darpan also shows us a glimpse of how things have changed, Indian music is accepted and adopted; as the popularity of various music competitions rise, a young teacher remarks that youth will realize the importance of classical music and soon, there will be a turn to its roots.
At the start of QnA session, Yousuf waits by saying "Take your time, it will take some time to sink in". He realizes that for many of us, this is a first time experience about the Pakistani classical music; he realizes that his movie has much to offer than we can grasp. Yousuf offers insights about the decline of music under the Zia government and how the two wars further deteriorated the scene mainly as radio stopped supporting classical music.
Khayal Darpam deserved repeated viewings, not only to comprehend the content but also, one should note the artists to follow. The Khayal Gayaki in Pakistan is a treat to ears, it should be heard again and again.
Directed by Yousuf Saeed
http://www.khayaldarpan.info/
Khayal Darpan (KD) is a documentary on Classical music scene in Pakistan. Made on a very small budget, in a time (2006) when getting visa to Pakistan was also not that easy, Yousuf Saeed overcomes all odds and gives us a comprehensive view through various artists, teachers and critics. Khayal Darpan offers us a glimpse of classical music post the independence and creation of Pakistani state and how it has shaped up in the last five-six decades.
Through various candid conversations with artists, we learn about the maturity of audience in Pakistan, the quality of talent - the ustad and gurus that migrated after partition, yet even with such great pedigree, the state of affairs is quite sad. There has been an evolution in the music, it has drifted more towards ghazals and qawalli. All this has been a result to distance themselves from anything that had roots in Indian part. Lack of support from state, lack of patronage has resulted in a significant decline, lack of good schools has resulted in break in the transfer of knowledge. Comparisons are made between the Indian and Pakistan's evolution, state support; there is an acknowledgement that Indian govt. had played a better role but it is clearly stated that classical music is in decline in both lands.
If we look at the facts presented, it will come as a very sorry state of affairs, but here lies the beauty of the movie. Through some carefully chosen conversations and through some careful editing, there is always hope in every corner. Yousuf Saeed gives us beautifully sung music bytes at several key junctions that we forget the despair. Khayal Darpan also shows us a glimpse of how things have changed, Indian music is accepted and adopted; as the popularity of various music competitions rise, a young teacher remarks that youth will realize the importance of classical music and soon, there will be a turn to its roots.
At the start of QnA session, Yousuf waits by saying "Take your time, it will take some time to sink in". He realizes that for many of us, this is a first time experience about the Pakistani classical music; he realizes that his movie has much to offer than we can grasp. Yousuf offers insights about the decline of music under the Zia government and how the two wars further deteriorated the scene mainly as radio stopped supporting classical music.
Khayal Darpam deserved repeated viewings, not only to comprehend the content but also, one should note the artists to follow. The Khayal Gayaki in Pakistan is a treat to ears, it should be heard again and again.
Jai Bhim Comrade
" An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent" -- Edmund Burke
In 1998, 10 dalits were killed by open police firing in RamaBai colony near Mumbai as they were protesting against desecration of a local Ambedkar's statue. Three days later, a Dalit poet, singer Vilas Ghogre committed suicide. Anand Patwardhan, friend of Vilas, was present at his funeral with his camera and thus began a decade plus journey of "Jai Bhim Comrade".
We are gathered in a small auditorium at TERI, Bangalore for a matinee (afternoon) screening. At the tea before the screening begins, i see a drop of rain fall from one leaf to another in a small green landscape in the middle of this dense city. As i sip my coffee, i see Dr. Girish Karnad standing next to me waiting like everybody else for the movie to begin. Inside the auditorium, Anand is setting up his Mac to pick correct subtitles for the movie. Once he is done, as we wait together, Anand plays songs writted by Sahir Ludhianvi, sung by Mukesh. I have not seen any Anand Patwardhan movie, have never seen the man before, but looking at this silver haired man with such calm face, i can not picture him to be a political documentary filmmaker. As he stands silently enjoying the music, there is a face of a man satisfied with his work.
"Jai Bhim Comrade"(JBC) is a tour de force; it is massive in its reach and scale. Anand uses the poetry of Vilas Ghogre, Bhai Sangrala and various other Dalit artists to give us a world view from their perspective. "A tradition of reason" reads the cover of its DVD and we see it through the words of these brilliant poets.
"Budham sharnam gachami" (I will go to Budha' for refuge), JBC chronicles how on Ambedkar's calling Dalits started to convert to Buddhism. He has a lot many candid conversations with people on how do they feel about it. No wonder, many of them are pleased to give up the discriminatory Hindu religion, few regret not doing it and there is a minority who feel that there is some identity is lost as they adopt this new religion. One of my favourite segments is when Anand questions two school going girls on what has been the reaction of their fellow classmates in school upon their religious views. One girls shyly expresses that she feels different while her young sister has not told anything to her classmates.
In the second part, JBC adds another layer by focusing on Pune based artist group - Kabir Kala Manch. We see that how these simple ordinary people realize the importance of woman empowerment, education and above all futility of religion. JBC never tries to be preachy, it does not have force any social message, it only offers several view points. There is a brilliant sequence where Anand questions the localites, mostly belonging to upper caste, of a ground where Dr. Ambedkar's birthday is celebrated by tens of thousands of Dalits annualy. One gentleman complain that these people dirty the entire community and make an appeal that they should stop, quickly his wife draws the parallel between the this event and annual Ganesh puja celebrations where similar behavior is seen.
Politics always lingers in the background; from the black commando movement, the early Shiv Sena support here to the present where support has been divided between Congress and BJP. In a very shocking scene, JBC reveals how people of Ramabai colony have forgotten who was in power when the killings happened a decade ago. Indeed, we really have a short term memory. JBC goes beyond Ramabai and covers atrocities on Dalits in other parts of India as well. Even though it is around three hrs, it does not feel a drag at any point because there are stories and raw emotions of actual humans; these are the poems of few of India's finest poets, and above all these are voices of rationality. \
The QnA session that followed the movie was equally informative. The movie ends when the Kabir Kala manch folks are declared naxalites and are forced to go underground. Anand explains that he chose to end the movie so that he can get public attention to this issue. Ramabai killings issue continues to fight battles in higher courts. Reservation comes the word whenever you utter the word caste to an upper caste Indian, explains Anand. First, lets acknowledge that there is a problem, tells Anand to one of the most elite audience in India; everybody nods aye. There is a lot of thought process behind every scene
in this movie, there are lot many layers and there are references to
topics each of them could be made into a movie of its own.
In between the two parts, Anand asks if people want a small break, "NO" comes the immediate response which brings about a half smile to his face. Behind his calm face, there is a lot of anger, a boling rage against the system but Anand has brilliantly learnt the art to channel it in his films. My strategy is very simple says Anand, "First get a national award for my film" and then fight court cases to get it screened.
In a very interesting argument, a gentleman in audience says that Anand has chosen "morally settled arguments" in his movie. According to him, these are easy topics while nobody is talking about "morally unsettled topics". This draws ire from several audience members including Dr. Karnad who remarks that it is incredibly irritating to a film maker when people complain that why have you not made your film about that other topic. Anand explains that comparing KKM to a naxalite organization may be morally settled in your world but in reality, it is far from it.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
मैंने उससे यह कहा
Few days ago, i heard Laal Band's song Maine usse yeh kaha - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyBswYoUnf0 . Not only the lyrics seem catchy, they were very political. Some googling resulted in the lyrics with translation which can be found here - http://pak.nkut.com/entertainment/mainay-uss-say-yeh-kaha-laal.html
"Maine usse yeh kaha" is a satirical poem written by Habib Jalib. In the poem, he is talking to some govt. bigshot explaining him that you are right and the public in general are morons. I loved how the lyrics play out. The idea of a satirical poem inspired me, so here is my edition of "मैंने उससे यह कहा". In my version, i am speaking to the common man.
मैंने उससे यह कहा
मैंने उससे यह कहा
तू काहे को है परेशान
जब तक है तू , ख़ुशी मना इस दौरान
आयेंगे हमारे बाद जो,
उनकी फ़िक्र हमें क्यों
यह है उनका इम्तेहान
खुद ढूंढेंगे वे समाधान
मैंने उससे यह कहा
मैंने उससे यह कहा
ग्लोबल वार्मिंग एक मिथ्य है
सारे यह प्रदूषण असत्य है
भ्रष्टाचार न जाने कौन सा तथ्य है
विश्वास है मुझे मेरे राम पे
पार कराएँगे इस संताप से
घर बैठ के तू विश्राम कर
सुबह शाम दो माला का जाप कर
मैंने उससे यह कहा
मैंने उससे यह कहा
देश तरक्की है कर रहा
FDI, GDP आज सब है बढ़ रहा
भूल जा तू किसान को
हर छोटे बूढ़े उस इंसान को
यह है एक नया दौर
तू तेज़ रफ़्तार से दौड़
अपने आप का सोचना भी है इक कला
तेरे भले में ही है देश का अब भला
तेरे भले में ही है देश का अब भला
मैंने उससे यह कहा
FDI, GDP आज सब है बढ़ रहा
भूल जा तू किसान को
हर छोटे बूढ़े उस इंसान को
यह है एक नया दौर
तू तेज़ रफ़्तार से दौड़
अपने आप का सोचना भी है इक कला
तेरे भले में ही है देश का अब भला
तेरे भले में ही है देश का अब भला
मैंने उससे यह कहा
मैंने उससे यह कहा
हम लोग हैं बड़े होशियार
छोटी चिंता पर न हो तू बीमार
सूर्य शक्ति हैं अपने आर्ड़
सूर्य शक्ति हैं अपने आर्ड़
परमाणु भी हैं अपने पास
गला देंगे पलास्टिक को
जोड़ देंगे ओज़ोन परत को
अगर फिर भी संतुष्ट ना हुए हम
मार्स पहुँच कर जायेंगे जम
मैंने उससे यह कहा
अगर फिर भी संतुष्ट ना हुए हम
मार्स पहुँच कर जायेंगे जम
मैंने उससे यह कहा
मैंने उससे यह कहा
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Book review: Small is Beautiful
Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered.
By E.F. Schumacher
Thanks Parul for giving the book. A one line review would be - Must read!
Published in 1972, this book pretty generations ahead in its ideas. It was one of the first few who rang the warning bells. Many ideas in recent books can be traced back to this one. So, while reading this one, a lot of sections were familiar. What was fascinating was the ingenuity in that time and age, the surprise that so much of those warnings have come true and how bad it is going to be.
I think you can find several reviews on web that talk what this book is about. Hence, i will not be a "me too". Instead i will talk about ideas that were quite fresh to me.
Unemployment - Unemployment is bad, everyone agrees it but the reason that is generally cited is that it leads to so much of economic loss. Atleast that was the reasoning that i had heard the most and i agreed with it. In Small is Beautiful, Schumacher argues that employment is not limited to economic productivity. Employment results in an individual's growth, his/her own development. This development is completely qualitative. Unemployment takes away this development, quantitatively this is more significant loss than just the economic one.
Nationalization - I have always known that nationalization was bad. Why shoudn't I, ofcourse we Indians have experienced this. But Schumacher offers couple of interesting points - (a) A nationalized company will always offer lesser profits than a corporate company. A nationalized company tries to maximize multiple objectives not just the profit margins. So, it is futile to compare the profit returns and make a case just on that. (b) Nationalization has to be de-centralized. Schumacher argues that everything has to be decentralized but it is more so important here. For reasons, you should read the book.
Education - Education should be scientific, it should be mathematic. But, Schumacher claims that it should not be limited to this only. It should include humanities - how did things come into existence and metaphysics - what are our convictions, purpose and what do we want. This reminded me of Dr. Seth's comment that education should always have some room to respect the abstract. If everything was reduced to tangibility, then something has gone amiss.
Reading this book, i felt a lot sad and depressed. All that he warned against is coming true now. The question in my mind was - is it too late now? With so much of natural resources already depleted, even if we start implementing his ideas today and by the time we even achieve 50% coverage, it would have taken decades and will there by anything left by then.
Schumacher raises various topics such as migration to cities, urban consumption, nature exploitation, modern economics and economists. His central thesis is that we need to rethink our strategy. The notion that we will figure things out as we progress forward is very optimistic and naive. His solution is de-cenetralization, think small, think collaborative and think people.
Based, on the book, it got me thinking what are the use cases around us where we can see the benefits of small is beautiful. Here are a couple of use cases that came to mind immediately -
(a) Water Harvesting - In Bangalore, pretty much every apartment society is now implementing water harvesting and recycling. This reduces their dependence on fresh river water. By this small-small initiatives, it can lead to a sustainable water cycle for urban population. A large scale initiative would require investment in water transportation, central location, huge energy etc etc.
(b) Composting - If every househould starts composting, it would lead to less garbage, less energy wastage in recycling, more manure for more plants.
Finally, small should not be misinterpreted as individualism. If every farmer tries to grow crops on his small land, and if that crop fails, he ends up in debts, poverty trap etc. The solution here is cooperatives where a bunch of farmers come together, grow different crops and share the yield/profit. Similar arguments applies to self-driving, aka we should carpool or use public transport. Small is bigger than tiny and every usecase will require its own scale, one size does not fit all.
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This book was discussed as part of the July meetup of Bangalore Politically Inspired book club. A very interesting discussion followed. There were a couple who thought that this book was too idealistic/impractical and were optimistic that we will find a way. It was great to listen to counter-views. But in the end, one can not do anything when the argument comes as "I believe... that X will happen". Everyone gave their views on how society would be 100 years from now. It was a very interesting thought exercise for everyone. My view is inclined towards "Natural selection" - aka things will get really bad before they get better :)
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Update: I wanted to add this also to the list of things that i want to remember from this book.
The author argues that there are many processes in today's world which help us to live the way we are living now but they come at a cost. Right now, we are paying the cost and hoping that we will figure out the solutions to do these processes in a sustainable manner at some point in future. Often "need of the hour" is the term best described to take the shortcut and live. There is no way to measure(quantitatively) the impact of this cost for future generations and current economics conveniently ignores to do so, hence the proposition appears very profitable currently. Example is energy from nuclear power when we do not know what to do with the waste. Massive deforestation for 'n' reasons. Pollution caused by thermal power plants or excessive dependence on oil or its by products.
Schumacher argues that this has to stop. He says that we need to change our entire outlook, the way we look at things. Merely punting solutions to future generations is a very bad idea and we are just shifting the consequences on them. He argues that any solution/process which requires such assumption should not be implemented unless it becomes sustainable. If it takes time, we should be patient for the science to catch up. The economics has to change to incorporate this. It requires a radical overhaul of over thinking process and approach to problem solving.
By E.F. Schumacher
Thanks Parul for giving the book. A one line review would be - Must read!
Published in 1972, this book pretty generations ahead in its ideas. It was one of the first few who rang the warning bells. Many ideas in recent books can be traced back to this one. So, while reading this one, a lot of sections were familiar. What was fascinating was the ingenuity in that time and age, the surprise that so much of those warnings have come true and how bad it is going to be.
I think you can find several reviews on web that talk what this book is about. Hence, i will not be a "me too". Instead i will talk about ideas that were quite fresh to me.
Unemployment - Unemployment is bad, everyone agrees it but the reason that is generally cited is that it leads to so much of economic loss. Atleast that was the reasoning that i had heard the most and i agreed with it. In Small is Beautiful, Schumacher argues that employment is not limited to economic productivity. Employment results in an individual's growth, his/her own development. This development is completely qualitative. Unemployment takes away this development, quantitatively this is more significant loss than just the economic one.
Nationalization - I have always known that nationalization was bad. Why shoudn't I, ofcourse we Indians have experienced this. But Schumacher offers couple of interesting points - (a) A nationalized company will always offer lesser profits than a corporate company. A nationalized company tries to maximize multiple objectives not just the profit margins. So, it is futile to compare the profit returns and make a case just on that. (b) Nationalization has to be de-centralized. Schumacher argues that everything has to be decentralized but it is more so important here. For reasons, you should read the book.
Education - Education should be scientific, it should be mathematic. But, Schumacher claims that it should not be limited to this only. It should include humanities - how did things come into existence and metaphysics - what are our convictions, purpose and what do we want. This reminded me of Dr. Seth's comment that education should always have some room to respect the abstract. If everything was reduced to tangibility, then something has gone amiss.
Reading this book, i felt a lot sad and depressed. All that he warned against is coming true now. The question in my mind was - is it too late now? With so much of natural resources already depleted, even if we start implementing his ideas today and by the time we even achieve 50% coverage, it would have taken decades and will there by anything left by then.
Schumacher raises various topics such as migration to cities, urban consumption, nature exploitation, modern economics and economists. His central thesis is that we need to rethink our strategy. The notion that we will figure things out as we progress forward is very optimistic and naive. His solution is de-cenetralization, think small, think collaborative and think people.
Based, on the book, it got me thinking what are the use cases around us where we can see the benefits of small is beautiful. Here are a couple of use cases that came to mind immediately -
(a) Water Harvesting - In Bangalore, pretty much every apartment society is now implementing water harvesting and recycling. This reduces their dependence on fresh river water. By this small-small initiatives, it can lead to a sustainable water cycle for urban population. A large scale initiative would require investment in water transportation, central location, huge energy etc etc.
(b) Composting - If every househould starts composting, it would lead to less garbage, less energy wastage in recycling, more manure for more plants.
Finally, small should not be misinterpreted as individualism. If every farmer tries to grow crops on his small land, and if that crop fails, he ends up in debts, poverty trap etc. The solution here is cooperatives where a bunch of farmers come together, grow different crops and share the yield/profit. Similar arguments applies to self-driving, aka we should carpool or use public transport. Small is bigger than tiny and every usecase will require its own scale, one size does not fit all.
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This book was discussed as part of the July meetup of Bangalore Politically Inspired book club. A very interesting discussion followed. There were a couple who thought that this book was too idealistic/impractical and were optimistic that we will find a way. It was great to listen to counter-views. But in the end, one can not do anything when the argument comes as "I believe... that X will happen". Everyone gave their views on how society would be 100 years from now. It was a very interesting thought exercise for everyone. My view is inclined towards "Natural selection" - aka things will get really bad before they get better :)
-----------
Update: I wanted to add this also to the list of things that i want to remember from this book.
The author argues that there are many processes in today's world which help us to live the way we are living now but they come at a cost. Right now, we are paying the cost and hoping that we will figure out the solutions to do these processes in a sustainable manner at some point in future. Often "need of the hour" is the term best described to take the shortcut and live. There is no way to measure(quantitatively) the impact of this cost for future generations and current economics conveniently ignores to do so, hence the proposition appears very profitable currently. Example is energy from nuclear power when we do not know what to do with the waste. Massive deforestation for 'n' reasons. Pollution caused by thermal power plants or excessive dependence on oil or its by products.
Schumacher argues that this has to stop. He says that we need to change our entire outlook, the way we look at things. Merely punting solutions to future generations is a very bad idea and we are just shifting the consequences on them. He argues that any solution/process which requires such assumption should not be implemented unless it becomes sustainable. If it takes time, we should be patient for the science to catch up. The economics has to change to incorporate this. It requires a radical overhaul of over thinking process and approach to problem solving.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
A response
Early this week, i think it was Monday when my facebook stream had this article shared by someone. Later on, many people in my network had read it and either liked it or shared it. The article that i am talking about is titled - A dust over India. You can read it here - http://postmasculine.com/a-dust-over-india.
In summary, the article talks about Mark Manson's (presumably first) visit to India and his experiences during the visit. In the article Mark talks about Indian poverty, pollution, garbage, people trying to rip him/others, tourism and other scams. He also talks about how spirituality is an industry now, how there is piracy, people ogling to tourists. He also highlights a few good points saying that there are definitely good people, people who helped him for no reason, people who did not scam him. In general he is remarks at the Indian virtue of tolerance and non-violence. But needless to say, the negatives dominate more than 80% of the article. There is one line that sums up the entire article - "The place is a fucking mess"
After reading the article, the comments section was equally interesting. Most of the readership are Indians living abroad who agreed with most of the facts in article and were very sad about it. There were few Indians who started saying abuses against the article and there were few non-Indians who also experienced similar feelings on their visit.
This blog entry is a response to that article. In my personal view, i do not refute any facts, i acknowledge them. But i think the article by itself is incomplete. It is not because of any fault in the author's writing that makes it incomplete. The author wanted to share his experience and feelings and he has done that. But as a reader, the article raises a few question which needs to be answered and this post is an attempt towards that. What are the questions, you may wonder? As an Indian, the question that came to my mind while reading the article was simply this - How do Indians live in India when so much is wrong here? In other words, how do you live with yourself given such a situation exists? The other question that needs to be answered is - How did things come to this?
A RESPONSE
Point 1 - The expectation issue.
I think there are two perceptions of India out there (for the external people). One comes from the pre-liberalization era (before 1991) and one after that. In the pre-era, there were a lot of institutions that were not commercialized. During that time, India was a land of spirituality, and when John Lennon's trip coverage romanticized this thought, it was indeed true. In the post liberalization era, as the money started pouring in, India became the land of opportunities both from outside and inside. We started the "India shining" campaign to attract foreigners both in terms of investments and tourism. But the latter era has brought commercialization into the system, every simple thing is a money making opportunity. Moreover, with the lack of proper checks and balances, every person is an entrepreneur now, defining his own rules, some of them are not quite legitimate.
To somebody coming from outside, there is both an expectation of "India shining" image and at the same time, an image to see serene spiritual, yoga-rooted India and this is where a big shock comes up. What somebody does not know is that in the post-liberalization era, the income diversity has gone up exponentially and there are more people living below poverty lines now than ever. But unfortunately, this fact is not known and the expectation is not set. Homeless, hunger live side by side the rich (middle class) is a shock.
The concept of "spiritual tourism" is a blatant example of application of capitalism to the realm of spirituality. In United States, capitalism has been internalized to quite an extent. Yoga, meditation and spirituality are instruments that help people to reach inner peace. But actually inner peace is nothing more than a detoxification from day-to-day capitalism, to strive for something greater than mere existentialism. Something like capitalism can creep into spirituality and people will make money off it is considered a scam. This is where the expectation meets reality and creates anger which comes out in the form an article.
Point 2 - The Scale of things.
I was amused when i read the para about him doing math on giving 500$ money to the poor. As Mark writes, the magnitude of poverty is unbelievable. He also acknowledges that his own country has its own share of problems. I would like to build up on both of his observations and bring up the point of scale - as things grow. While walking on the streets of San Francisco (or NY), one can see homeless people but if one turns in some other direction, they are gone. The state of some of the homeless that i have seen is comparable to the state that is described in the article. In other words, one can always turn a blind eye to them and forget about it. But unfortunately in India, they are everywhere. The sheer scale of such people is so big that one has to confront the reality.
Along the same lines, Mark mentions that he wanted to go to Agra to see the countryside to avoid the city pollution and mess. The cities are polluted everywhere. What defines a city is very controversial subject but looking at population per sq km numbers, everyplace in India is a city. With a land 1/5th of US and with a population seven times more, we are struggling to deal with the scale. We were always over-populated, even before independence but we our consumption rates were very low. We were quite close to nature in terms of giving and taking. In the post industrialized era, our consumption has gone up and we are unprepared to deal with it in this scale. The garbage, the pollution, the homeless are a result of a poor marriage between the industrialization and our scale. Many claim globalization to be a big success, the biggest achievement of our times, for us the verdict is still not out. If an average Indian starts to consume at the same rate an average American consumes, we would be under a pile of trash and carbon cloud the very next day. Yes, we acknowledge that it is a problem, one whose solution we have not found yet.
Point 3 - Swept under the rug.
What is the largest export of US to China? Trash. Yes, the same trash that fills the Indian streets is exported from US to third world countries including India. US with one of the lowest people per sq km has a lot of empty land space yet it is being exported. And most of the Americans are unaware of it. At the same time, India which does not have the adequate capacity to process its own waste is also importing more because it gets money. My point is that there are many things in US which are swept under the rug and hence average citizens do not worry about it. Chief among them are gas fuel, trash, ewaste and nuclear waste. For us, there is no escape, there is no rug for us. We are out here in open trying to figure out what the hell we have to do with this mess. We do not have any solution yet, we do not have the money to offload it to some other country, forget that, we do not even have the money to pick it up from everybody's door step. What we see is the result - lot of trash everywhere.
Point 4 - Dog eat Dog world.
Indians are yet another proof of Darwin's theory of evolution - Survival of
the fittest at the expense of the weak. Indians never question this theory, for
us it is the way of living our lives. All the scams, the rip-offs are manifestations of somebody's survival at the expense of somebody. We complain when we are at the receiving end of a scam but what about the time when we are the ones benefitting from it. Our involvement may be indirect, may be involuntary but ignorance is not an excuse here.
The balance of man to nature has been tilted. There are more people, less resources. Thus, only the one who is strong can survive. Only the one who knows how to game the system will emerge as winner. It is indeed sad that it has come to this.
Point 5 - The Identity Crisis.
Every "thinking" Indian right now is grappling with an Identity crisis right now. Who are we and where are we going? By every "thinking" Indian, i mean only those who are fortunate enough to have Maslow's physiological needs satisfied. For others, survival is the only thought. At one end is the rich cultural history, the sanskars, our dharma (morals), all of which, in a nutshell, teach us righteousness. Righteousness that shows us how to be content, how to be happy. At other end is the new age individualistic thought combined with the capitalistic ideals. In this new age world, through advertisements and marketing we have been led to believe that human dignity involves living in a certain way. One has to be globally connected, one has to be cosmopolitan. AC, Washing machines, microwaves are now basic requirements. In this new age, we want more things which need more money and we get money at the expense of others. Money is becoming the
measure of success, measure of happiness and almost everything that can
or cant be measured; and we are struggling to figure our way out of it.
We have a strong identity crisis in our hands - everyone of us know deep down that it is a downward spiral but nobody has any alternatives. A nation can be content if all its citizens are content. But if i let an opportunity go, someone else will take it and it will be his gain-my loss, his survival-my weakness. The strange question in front of us is - should i be right or should i survive?
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Life in June 4 - July 14
A lot of things happened in the last 40 days. Small, small things but when counted in all, it is a big sum.
~ Theater :
Tumhari Amrita featuring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Sheikh. Very simple play but very good. All the strength lies in the writing, the script and how they voiced out. I could have watched the play with my eyes closed and would have enjoyed it all the same. I loved listening to such good pure hindi after so long. At its 20th year, it surely was way ahead of its time when first produced. I can not see any difference in Farooq sahab after all these years, but i wonder how Shabanaji would have portrayed Amrita so many years ago.
Vinay Pathak is not King Lear featuring Vinay Pathak. This one i went just to see Vinay sahab. Good acting, but didnt quite like the play a lot. Or rather didn't got the play completely, i think mainly because i have not read King Lear. Knowing King Lear would have made the play more appreciable. But still some jokes were good, and watching Vinay is always a charm!
~ Travel:
One day trip to Nagpur on my birthday to meet parents . Liked the fact that Nagpur has almost no traffic compared to Bangalore.
One morning trip to Nandi hills with Parul. The idea was to see the sunrise so we left bangalore at 4 am. We reached there at 5:30 only to find that it opens at 6. Nandi hills point was covered in clouds, very breezy, it was a typical hill station. Fun! Should plan more and take food and books next time. Dosa at vidyarthi bhavan was indeed great!
Hyderabad with Gurshi: It has been blogged before.
~ Runs:
Getting more regular now. Ran 14k today morning. training for 21k. HM.
Runners High is a great group too!
~Books:
Drift: Finished audiobook - Drift. Well, its not finished yet, about an hr is still remaining but i am tired of it now. Its a decent book, Rachel Maddow definitely is raising a worthy point - How can a country go to war and still (a) citizens are not involved (b) there are tax breaks and (c) Privatization of the army. Good research but after 5 hrs of listening, it gets quite repetitive. Also, since i am not in US anymore, it again feels distant to listen to this book.
Reread Song of ice and fire - book III while in Hyderabad. That HBO season had a addictive effect on me.
The spy who came from cold - Blogged before.
~Movies -
Shanghai was good, GOW1 was simply brilliant.
As a build up to the Dark knight rises, i saw Memento and Batman begins. I am now full in Nolan mood now :)
~Played poker in three meetup events. Need to slow it down.
~Went to see aparmtnents in Bangalore. It was a disaster, i dont know how people can afford such expensive places.
~Volunteered for a day with Mentor Together. Liked the group and organizers.
~My Nephew stayed with me for 20 days. Didn't go as planned. People need to be independent when they turn 18 :)
~Work is going decent.
~Food:
The Bflat restaurant had good Thai food and not that expensive.
The rice Bowl had good Chinese but it is not close to the chinese places in Mountain view.
Will review the dosa places in bangalore
Zuri had great Chinese food but it was crazily expensive.
Madural idli is an awesome place!!
~ Theater :
Tumhari Amrita featuring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Sheikh. Very simple play but very good. All the strength lies in the writing, the script and how they voiced out. I could have watched the play with my eyes closed and would have enjoyed it all the same. I loved listening to such good pure hindi after so long. At its 20th year, it surely was way ahead of its time when first produced. I can not see any difference in Farooq sahab after all these years, but i wonder how Shabanaji would have portrayed Amrita so many years ago.
Vinay Pathak is not King Lear featuring Vinay Pathak. This one i went just to see Vinay sahab. Good acting, but didnt quite like the play a lot. Or rather didn't got the play completely, i think mainly because i have not read King Lear. Knowing King Lear would have made the play more appreciable. But still some jokes were good, and watching Vinay is always a charm!
~ Travel:
One day trip to Nagpur on my birthday to meet parents . Liked the fact that Nagpur has almost no traffic compared to Bangalore.
One morning trip to Nandi hills with Parul. The idea was to see the sunrise so we left bangalore at 4 am. We reached there at 5:30 only to find that it opens at 6. Nandi hills point was covered in clouds, very breezy, it was a typical hill station. Fun! Should plan more and take food and books next time. Dosa at vidyarthi bhavan was indeed great!
Hyderabad with Gurshi: It has been blogged before.
~ Runs:
Getting more regular now. Ran 14k today morning. training for 21k. HM.
Runners High is a great group too!
~Books:
Drift: Finished audiobook - Drift. Well, its not finished yet, about an hr is still remaining but i am tired of it now. Its a decent book, Rachel Maddow definitely is raising a worthy point - How can a country go to war and still (a) citizens are not involved (b) there are tax breaks and (c) Privatization of the army. Good research but after 5 hrs of listening, it gets quite repetitive. Also, since i am not in US anymore, it again feels distant to listen to this book.
Reread Song of ice and fire - book III while in Hyderabad. That HBO season had a addictive effect on me.
The spy who came from cold - Blogged before.
~Movies -
Shanghai was good, GOW1 was simply brilliant.
As a build up to the Dark knight rises, i saw Memento and Batman begins. I am now full in Nolan mood now :)
~Played poker in three meetup events. Need to slow it down.
~Went to see aparmtnents in Bangalore. It was a disaster, i dont know how people can afford such expensive places.
~Volunteered for a day with Mentor Together. Liked the group and organizers.
~My Nephew stayed with me for 20 days. Didn't go as planned. People need to be independent when they turn 18 :)
~Work is going decent.
~Food:
The Bflat restaurant had good Thai food and not that expensive.
The rice Bowl had good Chinese but it is not close to the chinese places in Mountain view.
Will review the dosa places in bangalore
Zuri had great Chinese food but it was crazily expensive.
Madural idli is an awesome place!!
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