June 30, 2009
Tom
My good mate and a marvellous photographer, Tom Pietrasik, has a new blog around his images. Take a look.
June 29, 2009
Sealink, to where?
The much-awaited Bandra-Worli Sealink will be "inaugurated" by Sonia Gandhi tomorrow. (Aside: why even do such "inaugurations"? Why not let the bridge be inaugurated by simply throwing it open to traffic? Never mind. End of aside).
Some claims (this one is typical) have it that the Sealink will drastically reduce travel time from the suburbs. Bandra to Worli "now takes 45 minutes to an hour" during the morning rush hours, but with the bridge inaugurated, that journey will take "just seven minutes".
No wonder it's much-awaited.
Me, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that it will reduce travel time nowhere close to as drastically as that, if at all.
Why?
Consider the photograph in this report. (That epaper link will soon vanish, and I'm not sure how to grab the photograph before that happens -- please let me know if you do).
Ignore the text of the report, which is another angle to the absurdity of "inaugurations" -- but consider the photograph, especially the part circled in red.
That's where the Sealink joins Worli, near the north end of the Worli seaface. Traffic that comes from Bandra, at the top of the photograph, will come to that red-circled junction and will have to make the ninety-degree right turn there. That turn, and the signal that will certainly be installed there, will inevitably cause a slowdown.
Besides: Not shown in the photograph is the south end of the Worli Seaface, where all this traffic will proceed. Signal there too, and a right turn into a narrow road under the Love Grove flyover. Slowdown there too.
I've been baffled by this red-circled junction since it first started taking shape. Why wasn't it designed with a more gradual merge? How can a right-angle turn onto a road that's already in regular (and relatively heavy) use be anything but a major bottleneck? The way things stand, as of tomorrow the bottleneck for road commuters will have been moved a few km south, is all.
So: no major speedup in your commute to South Bombay. Maybe none. You heard it here. Maybe not first, but you heard it here.
And, you will pay a toll for this.
***
Incidentally, there are other reasons I believe this bridge will not significantly reduce commute time into South Bombay: of those, another time.
***
Postscript: I was wrong. Apparently most of the traffic coming off the sealink will not be turning right onto Worli Seaface. According to this report, the traffic police have it all worked out.
If you, a southbound commuter, take the sealink, you will have three options when you come to that red-circled intersection.
For two of them, you turn left and proceed north. At the next junction, either you take a sharp right and follow Pochkhanawala Road (which runs parallel to the Seaface), or you take a left and follow Mahakali Road to the passport office. That feeds you back into the southbound traffic.
The third option is to turn right (for some reason the report calls this a "U-turn") and proceed south along Worli Seaface. For southbound commuters, this seems the most logical thing to do. (Why would you turn north?). Yet according to another report on the same subject on the same page, "this route will be closed from 830 am to 1130 am".
i.e. The most logical and direct route southbound, albeit one involving a sharp right turn, will be closed during the morning rush hour south bound.
Why? Who knows?
***
Postscript #2: The "U-turn" mentioned above is actually correct. What the traffic police mean is a U-turn at the INS Trata junction, the one north of where the sealink meets Worli Seaface.
Some pix of the Worli end of the Sealink, after being opened to traffic, here. (Thanks).
Some other thoughts on the Sealink, but perhaps better in a separate post.
Some claims (this one is typical) have it that the Sealink will drastically reduce travel time from the suburbs. Bandra to Worli "now takes 45 minutes to an hour" during the morning rush hours, but with the bridge inaugurated, that journey will take "just seven minutes".
No wonder it's much-awaited.
Me, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that it will reduce travel time nowhere close to as drastically as that, if at all.
Why?
Consider the photograph in this report. (That epaper link will soon vanish, and I'm not sure how to grab the photograph before that happens -- please let me know if you do).
Ignore the text of the report, which is another angle to the absurdity of "inaugurations" -- but consider the photograph, especially the part circled in red.
That's where the Sealink joins Worli, near the north end of the Worli seaface. Traffic that comes from Bandra, at the top of the photograph, will come to that red-circled junction and will have to make the ninety-degree right turn there. That turn, and the signal that will certainly be installed there, will inevitably cause a slowdown.
Besides: Not shown in the photograph is the south end of the Worli Seaface, where all this traffic will proceed. Signal there too, and a right turn into a narrow road under the Love Grove flyover. Slowdown there too.
I've been baffled by this red-circled junction since it first started taking shape. Why wasn't it designed with a more gradual merge? How can a right-angle turn onto a road that's already in regular (and relatively heavy) use be anything but a major bottleneck? The way things stand, as of tomorrow the bottleneck for road commuters will have been moved a few km south, is all.
So: no major speedup in your commute to South Bombay. Maybe none. You heard it here. Maybe not first, but you heard it here.
And, you will pay a toll for this.
Incidentally, there are other reasons I believe this bridge will not significantly reduce commute time into South Bombay: of those, another time.
Postscript: I was wrong. Apparently most of the traffic coming off the sealink will not be turning right onto Worli Seaface. According to this report, the traffic police have it all worked out.
If you, a southbound commuter, take the sealink, you will have three options when you come to that red-circled intersection.
For two of them, you turn left and proceed north. At the next junction, either you take a sharp right and follow Pochkhanawala Road (which runs parallel to the Seaface), or you take a left and follow Mahakali Road to the passport office. That feeds you back into the southbound traffic.
The third option is to turn right (for some reason the report calls this a "U-turn") and proceed south along Worli Seaface. For southbound commuters, this seems the most logical thing to do. (Why would you turn north?). Yet according to another report on the same subject on the same page, "this route will be closed from 830 am to 1130 am".
i.e. The most logical and direct route southbound, albeit one involving a sharp right turn, will be closed during the morning rush hour south bound.
Why? Who knows?
Postscript #2: The "U-turn" mentioned above is actually correct. What the traffic police mean is a U-turn at the INS Trata junction, the one north of where the sealink meets Worli Seaface.
Some pix of the Worli end of the Sealink, after being opened to traffic, here. (Thanks).
Some other thoughts on the Sealink, but perhaps better in a separate post.
Jacko time
Three Jackson memories:
When Michael Jackson came to Bombay in 1996, he stayed at the Oberoi Hotel. Sometime in between sleeping and heading out to Andheri to wow his fans in concert, he grabbed a felt pen and scrawled this across the face of a full-length mirror in his room: "Idia, I love you!"
Yes, that's "Idia", not "India". The scrawl went on: "In your children I have seen the face of God. You are my special love. I truly admire you with all my heart."
Now if it had been some lesser mortal -- you or I, for example -- who had done this to an Oberoi mirror, the hotel would have come after us, and not for misspelling "India". But Michael Jackson was no lesser mortal. Because he wrote this, the hotel removed the mirror and spirited it away into some secret vault. In all the news about his recent death, I thought I saw a mention of someone who had bought this mirror, though I can't find that mention any more. If true, I have to wonder what he paid. And why.
Mirrors are one thing. In an "exclusive" front page story then, we learned about Jacko's real "message to India", and how it took intercontinental phone calls and two days of frantic searching to unearth it. This one was several whole sentences longer than the mirrored one. This one even spelled "India" right. Best of all, this one was inscribed on ... his pillow.
The King of Pop seems to have had no use for more ordinary writing surfaces, like paper.
Nevertheless, many hearts skipped beats at what nearly happened to that pillow: it was about to be sent to the laundry! Horrors! What a tragedy it would have been to lose what the story called "Michael's heartfelt outpourings to his pillow". (Really). Luckily, it was saved from that sudsy fate and photographed for the front page of the Bombay Times: "One more gift of love from Michael", it was called. One sentence in it: "Continue to love, heal and educate the children, the future shines on them."
Apart from all that, Jackson graced Bal Thackeray's home with two visits. Apparently, the two men agreed that they were both crowd pullers. Jackson expressed admiration for the the Shiv Sena's "welfare activities". He crowned the visit by presenting Thackeray his hat.
No, I nearly forgot: Thackeray also told us that Michael both used and autographed his toilet.
A pathbreaking trip, all round.
***
Let me say it here: I never liked Jackson's music. In 1984, at the peak of Jackson-mania in the wake of "Thriller", I lived in Dallas. Jacko was on a concert tour, and was coming to Dallas. $75 a ticket, if I remember right, though of course I wasn't planning to go anywhere near it.
Then I got a call from a woman I knew slightly. Her two college-age daughters, big-time Jackson fans, wanted to go to the concert. She was worried about them going alone. Would I go with the girls? She would even buy my ticket.
I mean, if I said yes, I would be at this concert with not one, but two attractive young ladies on my arms -- and with the full approval of their ma. I'm listening to her talk, thinking, have I died and gone to heaven?
But I said no. Which is a pretty good measure of what I feel about Jacko's music.
***
Another measure: Even though I've seen it plenty of times, I didn't know till recently that this is a take off on "Thriller".
Whatever it is, it is hilarious. (Gosh my old calculator ain't got no bow).
***
Please read: My apologies to all who feel this post was in bad taste -- as two commenters whom I count as friends have indicated. It was a mistake on my part to treat this as lightly as I have.
When Michael Jackson came to Bombay in 1996, he stayed at the Oberoi Hotel. Sometime in between sleeping and heading out to Andheri to wow his fans in concert, he grabbed a felt pen and scrawled this across the face of a full-length mirror in his room: "Idia, I love you!"
Yes, that's "Idia", not "India". The scrawl went on: "In your children I have seen the face of God. You are my special love. I truly admire you with all my heart."
Now if it had been some lesser mortal -- you or I, for example -- who had done this to an Oberoi mirror, the hotel would have come after us, and not for misspelling "India". But Michael Jackson was no lesser mortal. Because he wrote this, the hotel removed the mirror and spirited it away into some secret vault. In all the news about his recent death, I thought I saw a mention of someone who had bought this mirror, though I can't find that mention any more. If true, I have to wonder what he paid. And why.
Mirrors are one thing. In an "exclusive" front page story then, we learned about Jacko's real "message to India", and how it took intercontinental phone calls and two days of frantic searching to unearth it. This one was several whole sentences longer than the mirrored one. This one even spelled "India" right. Best of all, this one was inscribed on ... his pillow.
The King of Pop seems to have had no use for more ordinary writing surfaces, like paper.
Nevertheless, many hearts skipped beats at what nearly happened to that pillow: it was about to be sent to the laundry! Horrors! What a tragedy it would have been to lose what the story called "Michael's heartfelt outpourings to his pillow". (Really). Luckily, it was saved from that sudsy fate and photographed for the front page of the Bombay Times: "One more gift of love from Michael", it was called. One sentence in it: "Continue to love, heal and educate the children, the future shines on them."
Apart from all that, Jackson graced Bal Thackeray's home with two visits. Apparently, the two men agreed that they were both crowd pullers. Jackson expressed admiration for the the Shiv Sena's "welfare activities". He crowned the visit by presenting Thackeray his hat.
No, I nearly forgot: Thackeray also told us that Michael both used and autographed his toilet.
A pathbreaking trip, all round.
Let me say it here: I never liked Jackson's music. In 1984, at the peak of Jackson-mania in the wake of "Thriller", I lived in Dallas. Jacko was on a concert tour, and was coming to Dallas. $75 a ticket, if I remember right, though of course I wasn't planning to go anywhere near it.
Then I got a call from a woman I knew slightly. Her two college-age daughters, big-time Jackson fans, wanted to go to the concert. She was worried about them going alone. Would I go with the girls? She would even buy my ticket.
I mean, if I said yes, I would be at this concert with not one, but two attractive young ladies on my arms -- and with the full approval of their ma. I'm listening to her talk, thinking, have I died and gone to heaven?
But I said no. Which is a pretty good measure of what I feel about Jacko's music.
Another measure: Even though I've seen it plenty of times, I didn't know till recently that this is a take off on "Thriller".
Whatever it is, it is hilarious. (Gosh my old calculator ain't got no bow).
Please read: My apologies to all who feel this post was in bad taste -- as two commenters whom I count as friends have indicated. It was a mistake on my part to treat this as lightly as I have.
June 27, 2009
Horry hume! Ali Came!
No Bird No Curd
Driving along a smaller road through chickoo country well north of Bombay, I finally was convinced that basketball is becoming a game known all over the world. I mean, I'd always heard that the NBA was popular in various remote corners of the globe, but I put that down to the usual hype of hyperventilating marketers.
Here, it came home to me.
What I passed was a large sign by the road that read: "No Horry, No Worry".
Now this was clearly painted by a Houston Rockets fan before their recent NBA playoff series vs the LA Lakers. Fellow by name Robert Horry played with distinction for several NBA teams, but especially as a Laker, he repeatedly fired buzzer-beating three-pointers to clinch memorable victories. So much so that he was nicknamed "Big Shot Rob".
As of last year, Horry is no longer an active player. So it seems likely to me that a Houston Rockets fan in this quiet part of the country was seriously relieved, and expressed himself for the world to see and take note.
Sadly for him, though, the Rockets lost that series anyway.
***
E pluribus I don't follow
The country's HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has a proposal to make tenth standard board exams optional. As far as I'm concerned, this is a terrific idea. The Times of India asked several Bombay school principals for their thoughts, and compiled those thoughts into a news item yesterday (June 26). They are in the form of short paragraphs with headlines that capture the essence of what each principal says.
Four of those headlines, chosen at random and offered verbatim:
* It would water down system.
* Std X boards are a burden.
* Schools may not be sincere.
* Get velit aliquam ultrices. In.
I'm with you. I wish those first three principals had made the effort to be as clear and articulate in their thinking as the last.
Driving along a smaller road through chickoo country well north of Bombay, I finally was convinced that basketball is becoming a game known all over the world. I mean, I'd always heard that the NBA was popular in various remote corners of the globe, but I put that down to the usual hype of hyperventilating marketers.
Here, it came home to me.
What I passed was a large sign by the road that read: "No Horry, No Worry".
Now this was clearly painted by a Houston Rockets fan before their recent NBA playoff series vs the LA Lakers. Fellow by name Robert Horry played with distinction for several NBA teams, but especially as a Laker, he repeatedly fired buzzer-beating three-pointers to clinch memorable victories. So much so that he was nicknamed "Big Shot Rob".
As of last year, Horry is no longer an active player. So it seems likely to me that a Houston Rockets fan in this quiet part of the country was seriously relieved, and expressed himself for the world to see and take note.
Sadly for him, though, the Rockets lost that series anyway.
E pluribus I don't follow
The country's HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has a proposal to make tenth standard board exams optional. As far as I'm concerned, this is a terrific idea. The Times of India asked several Bombay school principals for their thoughts, and compiled those thoughts into a news item yesterday (June 26). They are in the form of short paragraphs with headlines that capture the essence of what each principal says.
Four of those headlines, chosen at random and offered verbatim:
* It would water down system.
* Std X boards are a burden.
* Schools may not be sincere.
* Get velit aliquam ultrices. In.
I'm with you. I wish those first three principals had made the effort to be as clear and articulate in their thinking as the last.
June 22, 2009
It means bookworm
My father, JB D'Souza, grew up in a quiet lane off busy Girgaum Road in Bombay. The lane was the "village" of Khotachiwadi, today gaining a degree of fame as a "heritage" precinct. Going back to my youngest days, I heard stories from him and his family about the quirky characters of Khotachiwadi (him and his family no exception). Something about that quiet lane with its closely-spaced houses and neighbours sticking their noses into others' affairs seemed to stimulate quirkiness.
In his own words, taken from a memoir he began writing a few years before he died, here's one of those stories.
***
Joe F got into the Provincial Secretariat as a Junior Assistant on a modest salary starting at Rs. 100, yet higher than the rest of the village boys. Joe had had a visibly successful academic career (first class B.A. and B.Sc.) Two years behind him in academia, I tried hard to emulate him. In my early years (Standards I to V) in St. Theresa’s School, there was very little competition. There was that prize-distribution day, when I proudly returned home under a pile of prize books I could hardly carry. At the top of the village lane I heartily greeted Rocky, an appropriately named older boy who regularly flunked his exams. He stood there, brooding about his condition. My greeting evoked a single contemptuous retort. "Worm", he said, and turned away.
I hurried home to ask what that might have meant. The family uneasily translated "worm" into "bookworm."
Which was what Joe F and I really were, then and later, with our total immersion in studies, to the exclusion of everything else – sports, girls, socializing, whatever – except that Joe was too strait-laced in comparison with some of my slightly wayward instincts. He carried to extremes his devotion to studies. Characteristically, in later years, already a staid, rule-bound civil servant, he even chose to marry by the book of rules. He bought Courtship and Marriage, a guide-book written by Daniel Lord, S.J., who, as a celibate Jesuit, must have known all about the mysteries of the subject.
During his study of the book Joe used to tell me about the joys of chaste kissing. He and his fiancee M went steadily through the book together. Letting impulse run ahead of restraint one day, she leaned over affectionately to kiss him. "No, no, my dear", said her ardent lover. "That's in the next chapter. We'll come to that next week."
Father Lord's wisdom led them very properly to the altar. Still a bachelor, I was their best man, who didn’t let Lord's laws inhibit my attentions to M's numerous bridesmaids.
In his own words, taken from a memoir he began writing a few years before he died, here's one of those stories.
Joe F got into the Provincial Secretariat as a Junior Assistant on a modest salary starting at Rs. 100, yet higher than the rest of the village boys. Joe had had a visibly successful academic career (first class B.A. and B.Sc.) Two years behind him in academia, I tried hard to emulate him. In my early years (Standards I to V) in St. Theresa’s School, there was very little competition. There was that prize-distribution day, when I proudly returned home under a pile of prize books I could hardly carry. At the top of the village lane I heartily greeted Rocky, an appropriately named older boy who regularly flunked his exams. He stood there, brooding about his condition. My greeting evoked a single contemptuous retort. "Worm", he said, and turned away.
I hurried home to ask what that might have meant. The family uneasily translated "worm" into "bookworm."
Which was what Joe F and I really were, then and later, with our total immersion in studies, to the exclusion of everything else – sports, girls, socializing, whatever – except that Joe was too strait-laced in comparison with some of my slightly wayward instincts. He carried to extremes his devotion to studies. Characteristically, in later years, already a staid, rule-bound civil servant, he even chose to marry by the book of rules. He bought Courtship and Marriage, a guide-book written by Daniel Lord, S.J., who, as a celibate Jesuit, must have known all about the mysteries of the subject.
During his study of the book Joe used to tell me about the joys of chaste kissing. He and his fiancee M went steadily through the book together. Letting impulse run ahead of restraint one day, she leaned over affectionately to kiss him. "No, no, my dear", said her ardent lover. "That's in the next chapter. We'll come to that next week."
Father Lord's wisdom led them very properly to the altar. Still a bachelor, I was their best man, who didn’t let Lord's laws inhibit my attentions to M's numerous bridesmaids.
Bodies
"The bodies of eight of the nine slain alleged 26/11 terrorists have started to decompose, necessitating their early disposal. ... [T]he bodies ha[ve] begun showing symptoms of fast decomposition, as they were not made to be kept for long preservation."
(From "8 terrorists' bodies need quick disposal", Hindustan Times, June 20 2009.)
Question: whose bodies are "made to be kept for long preservation" anyway?
But more seriously. From the same report: "The bodies, sources said, would be consigned to the elements at some government land, as Muslim bodies had refused to allow the burials in their cemeteries."
(The two uses of the word "bodies" in that sentence, you understand, refer to different things).
You will remember that some months ago, this particular refusal stimulated a fair amount of commentary in various quarters. For just one random example, on ScienceBlogs, Ed Brayton confessed that it "kind of warms my little black heart a bit." One of his commenters speaks of his "hope that at least some Muslims are willing to emphatically reject the extremists."
So let me understand this: It takes a refusal to bury mass-murderers for this man to find such hope? If he had not heard of this refusal he would have continued in his belief that most Muslims, what, embrace the extremists?
To me, the way to consider this is what another commenter there writes: "a criminal is a criminal regardless of religion or politics. If someone viciously murders 100 people, it doesn't matter if they are Christian or Mulsim, Republican or Democrat, white or black. The proper definition for such a person is 'criminal' and it applies across the board."
Look at it like that, and this much is clear: Muslim organizations and cemeteries have no greater connection to the dead bodies of these criminals than the rest of us do.
If the government chose to ask Muslim organizations if they wanted to deal with the bodies, it should have asked every other section of society the same question. Since it did not do that latter, it had no business asking the question of Muslim organizations either.
In other words, the authorities should, with minimum fuss, have incinerated the bodies as soon as possible after the November attacks.
Among other things, that would have sidestepped today's headache: bodies not made to be preserved now decomposing in the morgue.
(From "8 terrorists' bodies need quick disposal", Hindustan Times, June 20 2009.)
Question: whose bodies are "made to be kept for long preservation" anyway?
But more seriously. From the same report: "The bodies, sources said, would be consigned to the elements at some government land, as Muslim bodies had refused to allow the burials in their cemeteries."
(The two uses of the word "bodies" in that sentence, you understand, refer to different things).
You will remember that some months ago, this particular refusal stimulated a fair amount of commentary in various quarters. For just one random example, on ScienceBlogs, Ed Brayton confessed that it "kind of warms my little black heart a bit." One of his commenters speaks of his "hope that at least some Muslims are willing to emphatically reject the extremists."
So let me understand this: It takes a refusal to bury mass-murderers for this man to find such hope? If he had not heard of this refusal he would have continued in his belief that most Muslims, what, embrace the extremists?
To me, the way to consider this is what another commenter there writes: "a criminal is a criminal regardless of religion or politics. If someone viciously murders 100 people, it doesn't matter if they are Christian or Mulsim, Republican or Democrat, white or black. The proper definition for such a person is 'criminal' and it applies across the board."
Look at it like that, and this much is clear: Muslim organizations and cemeteries have no greater connection to the dead bodies of these criminals than the rest of us do.
If the government chose to ask Muslim organizations if they wanted to deal with the bodies, it should have asked every other section of society the same question. Since it did not do that latter, it had no business asking the question of Muslim organizations either.
In other words, the authorities should, with minimum fuss, have incinerated the bodies as soon as possible after the November attacks.
Among other things, that would have sidestepped today's headache: bodies not made to be preserved now decomposing in the morgue.
15 and counting
Some posts ago, someone reminded me that I can use Flickr for showing the world my photographic abilities, such as they are. It was a reminder because I actually set up a Flickr page several months ago, put two photos up there and then promptly forgot all about it.
Well, there are now about 15 shots there, and I'll keep adding to that number.
Take a look.
Well, there are now about 15 shots there, and I'll keep adding to that number.
Take a look.
June 18, 2009
High status
Like any other inmate, Ahuja reportedly spent the night on the jail's standard mat and pillow, but he had access to better food.
The source said Ahuja was provided dinner and snacks from an outside restaurant, apparently due to his 'high status'. Another police source said, "He is such a big personality and cannot be treated like a petty criminal."
From this news report: Shiney sleeps hard but eats easy.
(The actor Shiney Ahuja, accused of raping his maid, has been arrested. This report was written after he spent a night in jail).
Offered without comment.
The source said Ahuja was provided dinner and snacks from an outside restaurant, apparently due to his 'high status'. Another police source said, "He is such a big personality and cannot be treated like a petty criminal."
From this news report: Shiney sleeps hard but eats easy.
(The actor Shiney Ahuja, accused of raping his maid, has been arrested. This report was written after he spent a night in jail).
Offered without comment.
June 17, 2009
Sit and watch
Sometimes you just sit back and watch, in wonder and awe. For no apparent reason, a comment space turns into a somewhat wacky free-for-all. On this blog, it happened here three years ago. On a smaller scale, it's just happened here over the last three days.
Visit, and see various guys take turns impersonating each other and themselves, making convoluted arguments, flinging abuse about in random directions, and then impersonating all over again.
Yep, just sit and watch. It's a good way to spend a few minutes.
Visit, and see various guys take turns impersonating each other and themselves, making convoluted arguments, flinging abuse about in random directions, and then impersonating all over again.
Yep, just sit and watch. It's a good way to spend a few minutes.
June 16, 2009
Of the match
Why T20 cricket is surreal, reason #2459: England and West Indies play a match yesterday June 15 in which 28.2 overs, or 170 legitimate balls, were bowled. Several players make significant contributions to the game, with bat and ball. England's Bopara scores 55, for example.
Then there's Ramnaresh Sarwan of the West Indies (I'm a fan of this guy, incidentally). Faced 9 balls near the end of the match, scored 19 runs. For that, he is adjudged the Man of the Match.
Surreal.
Then there's Ramnaresh Sarwan of the West Indies (I'm a fan of this guy, incidentally). Faced 9 balls near the end of the match, scored 19 runs. For that, he is adjudged the Man of the Match.
Surreal.
The robot and the bronze
Some young guys I know have just won a bronze medal.
I went to Pilani last year to see their earlier robot in action. Given the reports, I'd love to see this one in action too. One of these days. Meantime, congratulations to them!
I went to Pilani last year to see their earlier robot in action. Given the reports, I'd love to see this one in action too. One of these days. Meantime, congratulations to them!
June 15, 2009
Beer ban
"Due to Attack on Indian Students in Australia We Have Decided to Ban Australia Products [Like] Foster Beer."
These words, on a sign outside Golden Chain, a restaurant in Bombay. (This report, don't miss the extremely enlightening comments).
There have been other attacks on Indian students.
For example, in this case from AP, the student was driven to suicide. In this case in Punjab, two students alleged physical abuse (singeing with cigarettes, sexual assault, being paraded naked) and ran away from their college. In this case in HP, students beat a fresher to death.
AP, Punjab and HP are not in Australia. They are in India.
I presume therefore that there has been a sign outside some restaurant in Bombay that reads like this:
"Due to Attack on Indian Students in India We Have Decided to Ban India Products [Like] Kingfisher Beer."
If any of you has seen it, please let me know. A photograph would be good.
These words, on a sign outside Golden Chain, a restaurant in Bombay. (This report, don't miss the extremely enlightening comments).
There have been other attacks on Indian students.
For example, in this case from AP, the student was driven to suicide. In this case in Punjab, two students alleged physical abuse (singeing with cigarettes, sexual assault, being paraded naked) and ran away from their college. In this case in HP, students beat a fresher to death.
AP, Punjab and HP are not in Australia. They are in India.
I presume therefore that there has been a sign outside some restaurant in Bombay that reads like this:
"Due to Attack on Indian Students in India We Have Decided to Ban India Products [Like] Kingfisher Beer."
If any of you has seen it, please let me know. A photograph would be good.
Driven by hate
A man is known for his hatred of Jews and blacks. Even his once-wife describes him as "consumed" by it. He has a book and a website that are testaments to the hate he wears like a cloak. Last week, he walks to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, carrying a gun. When an African-American security guard opens the door to him, he lifts the gun and kills the guard.
This is an 89-year-old man. 89 years spent filling yourself with hate. What must that be like, I wonder?
Already there is plenty of speculation about what drove this guy over the edge, though of course to me it seems he went over it a long time ago. (That's what hate is, a plunge over the edge).
There's also speculation about the climate in which this guy lived, the radio and Web and TV talkfests that fuel the prejudices. For only one example, Patrik Jonsson writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "Wednesday's attack is likely to shift local, regional and national police agencies to more closely monitor the hateful chatter that feeds the violent fantasies of would-be domestic terrorists."
Trouble is, you can monitor. But what then?
If you looked at just Indian sites over the last few years, you might have run across words and phrases like these:
"ass licking retard"; "quisling sicko"; "intellectually dishonest"; "[pick a religion]-hating terrorist-enabler"; "he's a cunt"; "you support criminals"; "cheap anti-national slave"; "why doesn't someone kill this bastard? [mentioning a name]"; "burn you loathsome bitch! [mentioning a name as well]"
(Just a sample. There's plenty more. Please don't waste your time trying to find out where these appeared: since I'm not interested in giving those sites traffic, I changed each phrase).
Every one of them covered by the right to free speech, as they should be. Yet as Patrik Jonsson asks elsewhere (well, actually quoting a Steven Emerson): "Somebody yells, 'Kill the umpire!' in the first inning, and then somebody else kills the umpire in the ninth inning. You indict the guy in the ninth inning, but what about the guy who yelled in the first place?"
When differences of opinion are met with language like this, when this language becomes acceptable and mainstream, what does it do to guys already filled with hate?
Maybe it drives them to pick up knives or guns or bombs, walk into places where they'll find the folks they hate, and kill.
***
Postscript: As a fully supportive coda to this post, there has been a series of enlightening and thought-provoking contributions in the comments. Like with a previous time something like this happened, I felt these comments were valuable enough that I should not leave them there in the darkness; instead, they belong here with the rest of this post.
With no further ado:
I've always thought you were a fucking idiot ... I'd love to be having sex with Priyanka Chopra and Halle Berry at the same time right now ... Fuck off. With a capital F ... you prefer remaining a monkey. ... go and fuck every bitch in heat because the females' genitalia turns red when they're ready to be fucked - kind of like yours are doing so right now ... having your head stuck up your arsehole. Go rub your penis ... moaning and rubbing their penises with glee (or should that be Ghee - better lubricant I imagine?) ... dungheap tonight ... suck Rahul Gandhi's Penis everyday, but only once in 3 sucks, because the remaining 66% is reserved for SC/STs ... Screw your cocksucking skills ... you miserable excuse for genetic filler material.
Postscript #2: Since the last postscript, some more fully supportive and enlightening and ... [etc] ... contributions in the comments, from the same person(s). I felt these comments were valuable enough ... [etc] ...
With no more further ado:
these bastards are ok with violence ... you people who are the biggest advocates of hate and divisveness. You're as bad as the Hindu & Muslim Terrorists ... talk with your head up your arse? Through your Butt Cheeks? ... brush your butt cheeks to prevent cavities? ... stupid as you have shown to be ... already foaming at the mouth.
***
This NYT article may be of interest as well.
This is an 89-year-old man. 89 years spent filling yourself with hate. What must that be like, I wonder?
Already there is plenty of speculation about what drove this guy over the edge, though of course to me it seems he went over it a long time ago. (That's what hate is, a plunge over the edge).
There's also speculation about the climate in which this guy lived, the radio and Web and TV talkfests that fuel the prejudices. For only one example, Patrik Jonsson writes in the Christian Science Monitor: "Wednesday's attack is likely to shift local, regional and national police agencies to more closely monitor the hateful chatter that feeds the violent fantasies of would-be domestic terrorists."
Trouble is, you can monitor. But what then?
If you looked at just Indian sites over the last few years, you might have run across words and phrases like these:
"ass licking retard"; "quisling sicko"; "intellectually dishonest"; "[pick a religion]-hating terrorist-enabler"; "he's a cunt"; "you support criminals"; "cheap anti-national slave"; "why doesn't someone kill this bastard? [mentioning a name]"; "burn you loathsome bitch! [mentioning a name as well]"
(Just a sample. There's plenty more. Please don't waste your time trying to find out where these appeared: since I'm not interested in giving those sites traffic, I changed each phrase).
Every one of them covered by the right to free speech, as they should be. Yet as Patrik Jonsson asks elsewhere (well, actually quoting a Steven Emerson): "Somebody yells, 'Kill the umpire!' in the first inning, and then somebody else kills the umpire in the ninth inning. You indict the guy in the ninth inning, but what about the guy who yelled in the first place?"
When differences of opinion are met with language like this, when this language becomes acceptable and mainstream, what does it do to guys already filled with hate?
Maybe it drives them to pick up knives or guns or bombs, walk into places where they'll find the folks they hate, and kill.
Postscript: As a fully supportive coda to this post, there has been a series of enlightening and thought-provoking contributions in the comments. Like with a previous time something like this happened, I felt these comments were valuable enough that I should not leave them there in the darkness; instead, they belong here with the rest of this post.
With no further ado:
I've always thought you were a fucking idiot ... I'd love to be having sex with Priyanka Chopra and Halle Berry at the same time right now ... Fuck off. With a capital F ... you prefer remaining a monkey. ... go and fuck every bitch in heat because the females' genitalia turns red when they're ready to be fucked - kind of like yours are doing so right now ... having your head stuck up your arsehole. Go rub your penis ... moaning and rubbing their penises with glee (or should that be Ghee - better lubricant I imagine?) ... dungheap tonight ... suck Rahul Gandhi's Penis everyday, but only once in 3 sucks, because the remaining 66% is reserved for SC/STs ... Screw your cocksucking skills ... you miserable excuse for genetic filler material.
Postscript #2: Since the last postscript, some more fully supportive and enlightening and ... [etc] ... contributions in the comments, from the same person(s). I felt these comments were valuable enough ... [etc] ...
With no more further ado:
these bastards are ok with violence ... you people who are the biggest advocates of hate and divisveness. You're as bad as the Hindu & Muslim Terrorists ... talk with your head up your arse? Through your Butt Cheeks? ... brush your butt cheeks to prevent cavities? ... stupid as you have shown to be ... already foaming at the mouth.
This NYT article may be of interest as well.
June 11, 2009
No chocolate mints
Drove to Coorg for a vacation, first half of May. When we started looking for a place to stay there, there were two things I didn't want.
* I didn't want to stay in a "resort" that looks like every other "resort" on the planet, complete with swimming pool and chocolate mints on immaculately ironed pillowcases.
* I didn't want to stay in the dim "lodge" opposite the bus station in Madikeri, where a buddy and I hung out on a previous trip to Coorg. Him and me going again, we might have picked it again. But family, including kids and my ma? Something a mite more comfortable, is what I thought.
So we began hunting for a homestay in Coorg, and very quickly understood just how powerful a buzzword it currently is in travel circles. Coorg alone has 600 (and counting) establishments that say they are homestays, and that they are eco-friendly and tranquil and beautiful surroundings and close to nature and ... so forth. How do you choose?
I'm not sure how we did, any more.
Also, I wouldn't ordinarily plug one of these establishments in this space. Except that we truly felt we were extraordinarily lucky with the place we found and spent four days in.
It's called Bel Home. It's up a dirt track in the middle of a tract of what -- to this city-zen, at any rate -- seems like thick forest. It's two comfortable rooms in a coffee estate, surrounded by bushes and flowers and colours and a plethora of birds. So plentiful, that they even combine in a particular obstacle as you approach the rooms: you have to bend your head to sidle past the bush and its little white blossoms, listening to bees buzz in your ears as you go, and somehow it's like a welcome song.
Despite a health crisis in her family the morning we arrived and all through our stay, Ramolla Deviah looked after us like we were, indeed, her family. Our room was airy and spotless. Her food was varied, sumptuous and elegantly served. Eating while looking out onto butterflies and trees was a treat. Walking uphill along the road to the next coffee estate, the only sounds were birds and crickets, our footsteps and the panting of Ramolla's two dogs who tore around like happy dervishes.
It truly was an escape. Not just from the mad rush that is Bombay, but also from the trash and general disorder that, sadly, blights even small towns in Coorg. But what made the escape extra-special was Ramolla's care and attention to detail.
Three things to note, before I end.
* Yes, there's a spot on the estate where you can, if you contort your body just so, get a weak cellphone signal. No, I will not tell you where it is.
* Make sure you don't stand in that other spot on the estate where a coconut from the tall palm may land on your head.
* No chocolate mints on the pillows.
Charm, you see, comes in various forms.
Lots of establishments want to be known as homestays. (Well, not the lodge opposite the bus station). Most are clearly just cashing on on the cachet of the word. But Bel Home is, in every sense, like a home. In a word, go.
* I didn't want to stay in a "resort" that looks like every other "resort" on the planet, complete with swimming pool and chocolate mints on immaculately ironed pillowcases.
* I didn't want to stay in the dim "lodge" opposite the bus station in Madikeri, where a buddy and I hung out on a previous trip to Coorg. Him and me going again, we might have picked it again. But family, including kids and my ma? Something a mite more comfortable, is what I thought.
So we began hunting for a homestay in Coorg, and very quickly understood just how powerful a buzzword it currently is in travel circles. Coorg alone has 600 (and counting) establishments that say they are homestays, and that they are eco-friendly and tranquil and beautiful surroundings and close to nature and ... so forth. How do you choose?
I'm not sure how we did, any more.
Also, I wouldn't ordinarily plug one of these establishments in this space. Except that we truly felt we were extraordinarily lucky with the place we found and spent four days in.
It's called Bel Home. It's up a dirt track in the middle of a tract of what -- to this city-zen, at any rate -- seems like thick forest. It's two comfortable rooms in a coffee estate, surrounded by bushes and flowers and colours and a plethora of birds. So plentiful, that they even combine in a particular obstacle as you approach the rooms: you have to bend your head to sidle past the bush and its little white blossoms, listening to bees buzz in your ears as you go, and somehow it's like a welcome song.
Despite a health crisis in her family the morning we arrived and all through our stay, Ramolla Deviah looked after us like we were, indeed, her family. Our room was airy and spotless. Her food was varied, sumptuous and elegantly served. Eating while looking out onto butterflies and trees was a treat. Walking uphill along the road to the next coffee estate, the only sounds were birds and crickets, our footsteps and the panting of Ramolla's two dogs who tore around like happy dervishes.
It truly was an escape. Not just from the mad rush that is Bombay, but also from the trash and general disorder that, sadly, blights even small towns in Coorg. But what made the escape extra-special was Ramolla's care and attention to detail.
Three things to note, before I end.
* Yes, there's a spot on the estate where you can, if you contort your body just so, get a weak cellphone signal. No, I will not tell you where it is.
* Make sure you don't stand in that other spot on the estate where a coconut from the tall palm may land on your head.
* No chocolate mints on the pillows.
Charm, you see, comes in various forms.
Lots of establishments want to be known as homestays. (Well, not the lodge opposite the bus station). Most are clearly just cashing on on the cachet of the word. But Bel Home is, in every sense, like a home. In a word, go.
June 09, 2009
June 08, 2009
#14
Federer won the French. It confirms his place as the finest player in history of a wonderful game that is nearly a first love for me.
Yet did anyone else think it was a strangely sloppy and not particularly gripping match that he and Soderling played out?
Of course, it was a straight-set Federer victory -- but there have been enthralling straight-set matches before. (Edberg vs McEnroe, Wimbledon semis 1989). This match had too many errors by both players. While it was closely contested in parts -- witness one 23-stroke rally -- Soderling never persuaded me that he had the fundamental self-belief to win. And while he has an outstanding forehand with which he finds some unbelievable angles, he doesn't move all that well on court. I couldn't help thinking that Nadal or Verdasco or Gonzalez would have retrieved some Federer shots that got no answer from Soderling.
Besides, Federer himself went through a few mistake-strewn patches. What was that easy forehand volley-smash that he contrived to put way beyond the baseline? Hey, I could have put that away. I did, against this 6 year-old kid I was hitting with last Friday.
But these are really just quibbles. Federer has nothing left to prove to anyone. He has the talent, but even more so, the mental fortitude to achieve what he has -- and what's talent without that mental edge? And that's why the one thing I'd like to see Federer do now, when he has nothing left to prove, is figure out a way to beat Nadal in the Slams again.
Yet did anyone else think it was a strangely sloppy and not particularly gripping match that he and Soderling played out?
Of course, it was a straight-set Federer victory -- but there have been enthralling straight-set matches before. (Edberg vs McEnroe, Wimbledon semis 1989). This match had too many errors by both players. While it was closely contested in parts -- witness one 23-stroke rally -- Soderling never persuaded me that he had the fundamental self-belief to win. And while he has an outstanding forehand with which he finds some unbelievable angles, he doesn't move all that well on court. I couldn't help thinking that Nadal or Verdasco or Gonzalez would have retrieved some Federer shots that got no answer from Soderling.
Besides, Federer himself went through a few mistake-strewn patches. What was that easy forehand volley-smash that he contrived to put way beyond the baseline? Hey, I could have put that away. I did, against this 6 year-old kid I was hitting with last Friday.
But these are really just quibbles. Federer has nothing left to prove to anyone. He has the talent, but even more so, the mental fortitude to achieve what he has -- and what's talent without that mental edge? And that's why the one thing I'd like to see Federer do now, when he has nothing left to prove, is figure out a way to beat Nadal in the Slams again.
June 05, 2009
About disjuncture
Following the recent spate of attacks against Indians in Australia, Amitabh Bachchan wrote to the Queensland University of Technology. Here's some of what was in that letter:
"I have [followed] the most unfortunate and violent attacks on Indian[s] ... [and] the anguish that these incidents have caused to the families of those who have become unfortunate victims.
The Queensland University of Technology has very graciously offered ... to confer an Honorary Doctorate to me for my contribution to the world of entertainment.
Under the prevailing circumstances I find it inappropriate at this juncture, to accept this decoration. My conscience is profoundly unsettled at the moment and there seems to be a moral disjuncture between the suffering of [the Indian victims] and my own approbation."
The VC of QUT replied to this letter, saying: "[Y]our stature has brought focus to a problem that must be addressed urgently."
Very true. I hope this leads to severe punishment for the goons who attacked those Indians, and to measures to ensure the safety of other Indians in Australia.
Here are three more episodes in which Indians were attacked:
1) A student in his first semester at medical college is beaten to death by his seniors. This is only the latest in many such incidents going back years.
2) A railway coach full of Indians is set on fire, burning to death over 50. This is followed by weeks of more killing of more Indians. When it finally ends, about a thousand Indians are dead.
3) Choosing them for what they wear on their heads, mobs slaughter Indians over several days. In some cases, powerful local politicians urge these mobs on. When it finally ends, about three thousand Indians are dead.
As you perhaps realize, none of these happened in Australia. They happened here in India: this year, in 2002, and in 1984 respectively.
In 2004, Jhansi University awarded Amitabh Bachchan a honorary doctorate. In 2006, Delhi University did the same. Both degrees were in recognition of his contribution to the world of entertainment.
To my knowledge, Bachchan did not write to either University saying he found it inappropriate to accept their decoration because he felt a "moral disjuncture" between the suffering of victims of these attacks, and his approbation. I mean, he probably felt that moral disjuncture -- if he felt it about Australia, I'm sure he did about India -- but he didn't write such letters.
But what if he wrote them today, choosing, just for example, episode #3 above? Would his stature bring "focus to a problem that must be addressed urgently": the utter lack of justice 25 years after that slaughter of Indians?
I think it certainly would. How about it, Amitabh Bachchan? #3, #2, #1, or any of many others -- take your pick, but how about it?
"I have [followed] the most unfortunate and violent attacks on Indian[s] ... [and] the anguish that these incidents have caused to the families of those who have become unfortunate victims.
The Queensland University of Technology has very graciously offered ... to confer an Honorary Doctorate to me for my contribution to the world of entertainment.
Under the prevailing circumstances I find it inappropriate at this juncture, to accept this decoration. My conscience is profoundly unsettled at the moment and there seems to be a moral disjuncture between the suffering of [the Indian victims] and my own approbation."
The VC of QUT replied to this letter, saying: "[Y]our stature has brought focus to a problem that must be addressed urgently."
Very true. I hope this leads to severe punishment for the goons who attacked those Indians, and to measures to ensure the safety of other Indians in Australia.
Here are three more episodes in which Indians were attacked:
1) A student in his first semester at medical college is beaten to death by his seniors. This is only the latest in many such incidents going back years.
2) A railway coach full of Indians is set on fire, burning to death over 50. This is followed by weeks of more killing of more Indians. When it finally ends, about a thousand Indians are dead.
3) Choosing them for what they wear on their heads, mobs slaughter Indians over several days. In some cases, powerful local politicians urge these mobs on. When it finally ends, about three thousand Indians are dead.
As you perhaps realize, none of these happened in Australia. They happened here in India: this year, in 2002, and in 1984 respectively.
In 2004, Jhansi University awarded Amitabh Bachchan a honorary doctorate. In 2006, Delhi University did the same. Both degrees were in recognition of his contribution to the world of entertainment.
To my knowledge, Bachchan did not write to either University saying he found it inappropriate to accept their decoration because he felt a "moral disjuncture" between the suffering of victims of these attacks, and his approbation. I mean, he probably felt that moral disjuncture -- if he felt it about Australia, I'm sure he did about India -- but he didn't write such letters.
But what if he wrote them today, choosing, just for example, episode #3 above? Would his stature bring "focus to a problem that must be addressed urgently": the utter lack of justice 25 years after that slaughter of Indians?
I think it certainly would. How about it, Amitabh Bachchan? #3, #2, #1, or any of many others -- take your pick, but how about it?
Back to that era
Vital newsbite of the day, #2483:
Under the headline "Intimate confession", the Hindustan Times today (June 5 2009) tells me this:
"Kate Winslet wore a pubic wig for The Reader. [She] had to bare all for the Holocaust movie and producers took measures so that her body was consistent with the era.
She told Allure magazine: 'I had to grow the hair down there. But because of years of waxing, as all of us girls know, it doesn't come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin -- a wig -- because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough.'"
All of which, naturally, makes me wonder: who are the folks who might go see The Reader, look "down there" when Kate Winslet "bares all", and mutter angrily and inconsolably to themselves: "Damn! I want my money back! What I see down there is not consistent with the era!"
Are you one of them? If so, please leave me a note.
Under the headline "Intimate confession", the Hindustan Times today (June 5 2009) tells me this:
"Kate Winslet wore a pubic wig for The Reader. [She] had to bare all for the Holocaust movie and producers took measures so that her body was consistent with the era.
She told Allure magazine: 'I had to grow the hair down there. But because of years of waxing, as all of us girls know, it doesn't come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin -- a wig -- because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough.'"
All of which, naturally, makes me wonder: who are the folks who might go see The Reader, look "down there" when Kate Winslet "bares all", and mutter angrily and inconsolably to themselves: "Damn! I want my money back! What I see down there is not consistent with the era!"
Are you one of them? If so, please leave me a note.
June 04, 2009
CEO's woes
Yesterday, I posted here an article my father, JB D'Souza, wrote in 2006. As commenter "??!" pointed out, I had previously posted the same article.
So much for keeping on top of what goes into my own blog.
Anyway, by way of making amends for that goof ... As I mentioned in this article I did for the Washington Post, JBD helped run (as a reluctant CEO) a low-cost housing project in Goregaon for several years. The Nagari Nivara Parishad (NNP) was the brainchild of Mrinal Gore and the late PB Samant.
In early 2006, my father wrote the essay below as a look back at the NNP experience.
***
A Chief Executive's Woes
When Mrinal Gore and Baburao Samant came – I can’t even remember how long ago – to ask me to work for their large low-income housing project [NNP] it was a big surprise. They belonged to a political group that had regularly opposed most of what I had tried to do during the four years I worked for the Bombay Municipal Corporation, Mrs. Gore quite emphatically. During this long stint with NNP I was to discover that beneath their stern frontal appearance there lurked a kindness, a soft benevolence. A benevolence, a goodness that could affect the progress of the project, as I shall explain later
It was a huge project, the construction of some 6000 homes for people with low incomes, along with a school, a hospital and nursing home, and the necessary shopping facilities. I threw myself into it without asking whether I would be equal to its challenges.
We started with a major blunder, the choice of a building contractor who was quite inadequate for the task. In our innocence we took his time tables seriously, and based on them our promises to prospective allottees of the dates on which they could take possession of completed flats. None of our contractor’s time tables were honoured, and we had to terminate the contract with the work done on just 1040 tenements. This led to arbitration, in which the Trustees overlooked our proposal for choice of our arbitrator, picking instead an individual who turned out to be less assertive of our case than he should have been. The result, grossly unfair, had disastrous effects on our financial arrangements, from which it has been hard to recover.
So when we had to pick another contractor, we chose with care, and for the first time in my long experience with contractors, the choice was one that has given no cause for regret.
Apart from the quality of our earlier contractor, one of the factors that had added to the delays the project suffered was our inability to get quickly the innumerable clearances required from the municipality, the Collector, the Land Records department, and the State government at various stages. Layout sanctions, plinth dimension checks, shop development approvals, allottee eligibility verification – these were only a few of the obstacles that impeded work. Where plinths had to be checked, for instance, it took us a fortnight to bring the municipal official to the site; the private builder next door could get the officer to his site on the day following his request. The Collector’s checks too could drag on for months; meanwhile we could not ask allottees to pay up instalments of the purchase price. The reason was obvious: our Trustees were too upright to countenance even small outlays of speed money.
So when we called for offers for our second major contract, we inserted as an element in it a new item: securing clearances from the public authorities. This would leave to the contractor the task of lubrication of the official machinery. The quotation we got from the successful tenderer for just this item was about a crore of rupees. Putting aside our earlier qualms about such expediency, the contractor and I thought this was worth paying to secure speed; the extra cost of the delays we foresaw would far exceed a crore.
But our Trustees, well-known in Bombay for integrity and dedication, refused to go along with our ideas. They were much too proper and principled. They relied on their own ability and stature to work the system. It didn’t work. Our allottees’ period of waiting for possession stretched out while costs escalated, and the price we had to levy from them rose again and again. At one stage Baburao had to lead a dharna of nearly a hundred allottees to a public office to end a delay of several months. That clearance came on the following day.
Were we right to preserve our integrity, at no financial cost to ourselves, but at that of our allottees, who in the end had together to pay a price much higher than the crore, and who also had to overstay much longer than they needed to, in rented accommodation elsewhere?
The project is suffering clearance delays even now. One of the vital amenities it includes is a hospital, and the layout approved by the BMC provides a hospital plot. Yet detailed municipal clearance for it has been eluding us for some nine months. Six months ago Mrinal and I met Municipal Commissioner Joseph, along with his officers. At that meeting Joseph was good enough to overrule his officers’ objections. Yet six months later we still haven’t received clearance. Is it proper to let our perhaps legitimate scruples withhold for so long from a community of 30,000 a vital health facility?
I can’t help thinking that there are circumstances in which a regard for the greater common good justifies a compromise with evil.
Altogether, frustrations and all, the NNP project has been an exhilarating experience, into which the Trustees, and specially President PB Samant, have thrown themselves selflessly and with total dedication. For me it has also been a humbling experience: the project has progressed with only a tiny contribution from me. And one of my continuing differences with the Trustees has been my inability to convince them that my role has been no more than peripheral.
So much for keeping on top of what goes into my own blog.
Anyway, by way of making amends for that goof ... As I mentioned in this article I did for the Washington Post, JBD helped run (as a reluctant CEO) a low-cost housing project in Goregaon for several years. The Nagari Nivara Parishad (NNP) was the brainchild of Mrinal Gore and the late PB Samant.
In early 2006, my father wrote the essay below as a look back at the NNP experience.
A Chief Executive's Woes
When Mrinal Gore and Baburao Samant came – I can’t even remember how long ago – to ask me to work for their large low-income housing project [NNP] it was a big surprise. They belonged to a political group that had regularly opposed most of what I had tried to do during the four years I worked for the Bombay Municipal Corporation, Mrs. Gore quite emphatically. During this long stint with NNP I was to discover that beneath their stern frontal appearance there lurked a kindness, a soft benevolence. A benevolence, a goodness that could affect the progress of the project, as I shall explain later
It was a huge project, the construction of some 6000 homes for people with low incomes, along with a school, a hospital and nursing home, and the necessary shopping facilities. I threw myself into it without asking whether I would be equal to its challenges.
We started with a major blunder, the choice of a building contractor who was quite inadequate for the task. In our innocence we took his time tables seriously, and based on them our promises to prospective allottees of the dates on which they could take possession of completed flats. None of our contractor’s time tables were honoured, and we had to terminate the contract with the work done on just 1040 tenements. This led to arbitration, in which the Trustees overlooked our proposal for choice of our arbitrator, picking instead an individual who turned out to be less assertive of our case than he should have been. The result, grossly unfair, had disastrous effects on our financial arrangements, from which it has been hard to recover.
So when we had to pick another contractor, we chose with care, and for the first time in my long experience with contractors, the choice was one that has given no cause for regret.
Apart from the quality of our earlier contractor, one of the factors that had added to the delays the project suffered was our inability to get quickly the innumerable clearances required from the municipality, the Collector, the Land Records department, and the State government at various stages. Layout sanctions, plinth dimension checks, shop development approvals, allottee eligibility verification – these were only a few of the obstacles that impeded work. Where plinths had to be checked, for instance, it took us a fortnight to bring the municipal official to the site; the private builder next door could get the officer to his site on the day following his request. The Collector’s checks too could drag on for months; meanwhile we could not ask allottees to pay up instalments of the purchase price. The reason was obvious: our Trustees were too upright to countenance even small outlays of speed money.
So when we called for offers for our second major contract, we inserted as an element in it a new item: securing clearances from the public authorities. This would leave to the contractor the task of lubrication of the official machinery. The quotation we got from the successful tenderer for just this item was about a crore of rupees. Putting aside our earlier qualms about such expediency, the contractor and I thought this was worth paying to secure speed; the extra cost of the delays we foresaw would far exceed a crore.
But our Trustees, well-known in Bombay for integrity and dedication, refused to go along with our ideas. They were much too proper and principled. They relied on their own ability and stature to work the system. It didn’t work. Our allottees’ period of waiting for possession stretched out while costs escalated, and the price we had to levy from them rose again and again. At one stage Baburao had to lead a dharna of nearly a hundred allottees to a public office to end a delay of several months. That clearance came on the following day.
Were we right to preserve our integrity, at no financial cost to ourselves, but at that of our allottees, who in the end had together to pay a price much higher than the crore, and who also had to overstay much longer than they needed to, in rented accommodation elsewhere?
The project is suffering clearance delays even now. One of the vital amenities it includes is a hospital, and the layout approved by the BMC provides a hospital plot. Yet detailed municipal clearance for it has been eluding us for some nine months. Six months ago Mrinal and I met Municipal Commissioner Joseph, along with his officers. At that meeting Joseph was good enough to overrule his officers’ objections. Yet six months later we still haven’t received clearance. Is it proper to let our perhaps legitimate scruples withhold for so long from a community of 30,000 a vital health facility?
I can’t help thinking that there are circumstances in which a regard for the greater common good justifies a compromise with evil.
Altogether, frustrations and all, the NNP project has been an exhilarating experience, into which the Trustees, and specially President PB Samant, have thrown themselves selflessly and with total dedication. For me it has also been a humbling experience: the project has progressed with only a tiny contribution from me. And one of my continuing differences with the Trustees has been my inability to convince them that my role has been no more than peripheral.
As the horn blares
If feats of logic and deduction thrill and amaze you like feats in a circus might, you should take an interest in astronomy.
Most celestial objects are so unimaginably far away that we can never hope to visit them. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is almost 9 light years away: light takes 9 years to reach us from there. Which means it would take you and I about 250,000 years in an average moon rocket to get to Sirius. Well, that's if we don't get lost en route. Because if we did, we might find ourselves heading for Andromeda, the nearest galaxy, 2 million light years away. And reaching Andromeda in that same moon rocket, believe me, will take a long time indeed.
So since we can't visit, all we know about our universe and the objects in it has to be deduced from observation. Arguably, no branch of science wrings quite as much knowledge out of tiny clues as astronomy does. Each one leads to inferences and deductions and more observations and other clues -- all in an enormous edifice of knowledge that, astonishingly, stands up remarkably well to the few chances astronomers get to confirm their hypotheses.
How do we, in fact, know how far away galaxies such as Andromeda are? And if you ask that, ask too: Are they moving? Where and how fast? What is the age of the universe?
Believe me again: These are not random questions at all. They are related in elegant, pleasing ways. And answering one leads astronomers to answers to others in deductive feats that would do Sherlock Holmes proud.
One clue was the Doppler shift, and you know this like you know the sun rises every day. Remember how, for example, the tone of a train's horn changes as it rushes past you, going from high to low? That's the famous shift. And here's the thing: By measuring how much the tone changes -- its Doppler shift -- we can figure out the speed of the train.
In the same way, the light from galaxies has certain characteristics. Those characteristics change, or are Doppler shifted, with the speed of the galaxy's motion. Just as with the train, we can measure the Doppler shift and calculate that speed. OK, so this is a mildly stupid way to divine the speeds of trains. With galaxies though, it makes a lot of sense. In fact it is the only way astronomers have.
In 1912, the astronomer Vesto Slipher used Andromeda's Doppler shift to estimate that it is moving towards us at 170 km per second. That's pretty damned fast, but don't be scared. It will be 4 billion years before Andromeda slams into us. (Your grandchildren, though, may want to find another planet to live on).
Actually, Andromeda is an exception. Most galaxies, their Doppler shifts tell us, are moving steadily away from us. Which says something very crucial for our understanding of the universe: it is expanding.
But let me return to that.
Astronomers are also always wondering how far away celestial objects are. Edwin Hubble estimated the distance to some galaxies. The technique he used is another fascinating combination of observation and deduction. Though I won't get into it here, it's based on two simple principles:
* Nature is uniform. The essential character of objects in our galaxy (the Milky Way) is the same as for similar objects in other galaxies (like Andromeda).
* Fainter galaxies are generally farther away.
These are reasonable assumptions, and all our observations are consistent with them. While they do mean Hubble's estimates of distance had a definite margin of error, they were good enough to make inferences from.
And so it was that Hubble discovered something most interesting about his distance estimates: The farther away a galaxy, the faster it is speeding away from us, as measured by its Doppler shift. For every 1 million light years further a galaxy is from us, Hubble found that its speed increases by about 170 km per second. Modern measurements place that figure -- it's now called the Hubble constant -- at only about 15 km per second, but the relationship between distance and speed that Hubble discovered still holds.
Given a little thought, this relationship is not surprising at all. Remember the universe is expanding. Imagine a chessboard with a person on each square, expanding evenly in all directions. You -- the black Queen, let's say -- would see the others on the board moving away from you; in fact, everyone on the board would see the others -- Ms Black Queen included -- moving away from them. What's more, people two squares from you would be moving twice as fast as your immediate neighbours, since there are two squares, both expanding, between you and them. In fact, the further away someone is from you, the faster they are moving away from you.
Which is exactly what Hubble found was happening with the objects in our universe. So a galaxy's Doppler shift, by telling us how fast it is moving, also tells us how far it is from us.
If the universe is expanding, and if there is a measure -- the Hubble constant -- of how fast it is expanding, you're probably already asking a simple question. This expansion must have started somewhere, sometime. OK, so when?
Astronomers have a name for that moment: the Big Bang, when all the galaxies in the universe exploded away from each other. When, in a mind-boggling cataclysm, the universe was born.
So when was the Big Bang?
That's easily calculated from the Hubble constant, 15 km per second per million light years. The Big Bang, it turns out, happened about 20 billion years ago.
To me, what's fascinating thing about this whole chain of reasoning is how the Doppler shift tells us so much more than just the speed of a galaxy. Yet there's still more.
If a galaxy has a very large Doppler shift, we know from Hubble that it is very far away. And if it is very far away, its light has taken a very long time to reach us. And that means such galaxies are very old indeed. The Doppler shift, you see, tells us the age of galaxies as well.
In a curious way then, when we look at distant galaxies, we are looking back through time. Think of Sirius, just 9 light years away. When you look up at it in the night sky tonight, the light you see coming from it actually left Sirius about the time we clocked over to a new millenium: when the odd term "Y2K" was a familiar and even feared one.
In that sense, most celestial objects represent a time many years ago. In fact, the Doppler shifts of the faintest, furthest galaxies we know of tell us that they are almost as old as the universe itself: 20 billion years.
Imagine that. In looking at them, we are looking at the very beginning of the universe. At the very beginning of time. At that apocalyptic convulsion, the Big Bang.
The next time the Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani rushes past you, horn blaring, give that a thought.
Most celestial objects are so unimaginably far away that we can never hope to visit them. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is almost 9 light years away: light takes 9 years to reach us from there. Which means it would take you and I about 250,000 years in an average moon rocket to get to Sirius. Well, that's if we don't get lost en route. Because if we did, we might find ourselves heading for Andromeda, the nearest galaxy, 2 million light years away. And reaching Andromeda in that same moon rocket, believe me, will take a long time indeed.
So since we can't visit, all we know about our universe and the objects in it has to be deduced from observation. Arguably, no branch of science wrings quite as much knowledge out of tiny clues as astronomy does. Each one leads to inferences and deductions and more observations and other clues -- all in an enormous edifice of knowledge that, astonishingly, stands up remarkably well to the few chances astronomers get to confirm their hypotheses.
How do we, in fact, know how far away galaxies such as Andromeda are? And if you ask that, ask too: Are they moving? Where and how fast? What is the age of the universe?
Believe me again: These are not random questions at all. They are related in elegant, pleasing ways. And answering one leads astronomers to answers to others in deductive feats that would do Sherlock Holmes proud.
One clue was the Doppler shift, and you know this like you know the sun rises every day. Remember how, for example, the tone of a train's horn changes as it rushes past you, going from high to low? That's the famous shift. And here's the thing: By measuring how much the tone changes -- its Doppler shift -- we can figure out the speed of the train.
In the same way, the light from galaxies has certain characteristics. Those characteristics change, or are Doppler shifted, with the speed of the galaxy's motion. Just as with the train, we can measure the Doppler shift and calculate that speed. OK, so this is a mildly stupid way to divine the speeds of trains. With galaxies though, it makes a lot of sense. In fact it is the only way astronomers have.
In 1912, the astronomer Vesto Slipher used Andromeda's Doppler shift to estimate that it is moving towards us at 170 km per second. That's pretty damned fast, but don't be scared. It will be 4 billion years before Andromeda slams into us. (Your grandchildren, though, may want to find another planet to live on).
Actually, Andromeda is an exception. Most galaxies, their Doppler shifts tell us, are moving steadily away from us. Which says something very crucial for our understanding of the universe: it is expanding.
But let me return to that.
Astronomers are also always wondering how far away celestial objects are. Edwin Hubble estimated the distance to some galaxies. The technique he used is another fascinating combination of observation and deduction. Though I won't get into it here, it's based on two simple principles:
* Nature is uniform. The essential character of objects in our galaxy (the Milky Way) is the same as for similar objects in other galaxies (like Andromeda).
* Fainter galaxies are generally farther away.
These are reasonable assumptions, and all our observations are consistent with them. While they do mean Hubble's estimates of distance had a definite margin of error, they were good enough to make inferences from.
And so it was that Hubble discovered something most interesting about his distance estimates: The farther away a galaxy, the faster it is speeding away from us, as measured by its Doppler shift. For every 1 million light years further a galaxy is from us, Hubble found that its speed increases by about 170 km per second. Modern measurements place that figure -- it's now called the Hubble constant -- at only about 15 km per second, but the relationship between distance and speed that Hubble discovered still holds.
Given a little thought, this relationship is not surprising at all. Remember the universe is expanding. Imagine a chessboard with a person on each square, expanding evenly in all directions. You -- the black Queen, let's say -- would see the others on the board moving away from you; in fact, everyone on the board would see the others -- Ms Black Queen included -- moving away from them. What's more, people two squares from you would be moving twice as fast as your immediate neighbours, since there are two squares, both expanding, between you and them. In fact, the further away someone is from you, the faster they are moving away from you.
Which is exactly what Hubble found was happening with the objects in our universe. So a galaxy's Doppler shift, by telling us how fast it is moving, also tells us how far it is from us.
If the universe is expanding, and if there is a measure -- the Hubble constant -- of how fast it is expanding, you're probably already asking a simple question. This expansion must have started somewhere, sometime. OK, so when?
Astronomers have a name for that moment: the Big Bang, when all the galaxies in the universe exploded away from each other. When, in a mind-boggling cataclysm, the universe was born.
So when was the Big Bang?
That's easily calculated from the Hubble constant, 15 km per second per million light years. The Big Bang, it turns out, happened about 20 billion years ago.
To me, what's fascinating thing about this whole chain of reasoning is how the Doppler shift tells us so much more than just the speed of a galaxy. Yet there's still more.
If a galaxy has a very large Doppler shift, we know from Hubble that it is very far away. And if it is very far away, its light has taken a very long time to reach us. And that means such galaxies are very old indeed. The Doppler shift, you see, tells us the age of galaxies as well.
In a curious way then, when we look at distant galaxies, we are looking back through time. Think of Sirius, just 9 light years away. When you look up at it in the night sky tonight, the light you see coming from it actually left Sirius about the time we clocked over to a new millenium: when the odd term "Y2K" was a familiar and even feared one.
In that sense, most celestial objects represent a time many years ago. In fact, the Doppler shifts of the faintest, furthest galaxies we know of tell us that they are almost as old as the universe itself: 20 billion years.
Imagine that. In looking at them, we are looking at the very beginning of the universe. At the very beginning of time. At that apocalyptic convulsion, the Big Bang.
The next time the Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani rushes past you, horn blaring, give that a thought.
June 03, 2009
Mumbai's sweep to Shanghai
On my late father JB D'Souza's birthday, here's something he wrote about nine months before he died, in late 2006. (I don't remember where it was published). He was always interested in how cities are planned and developed, and found the obsession with turning a certain Indian city into another Shanghai futile and silly. Thus the title of this short essay.
***
MUMBAI’S SWEEP TO SHANGHAI
Earlier this week, in a surprise decision, the Bombay High Court lifted the ban on the transfer of Development Rights to Mumbai’s suburban areas adjoining the rail lines.
I don’t quite remember, but wasn’t it Bertrand Russell who discovered a close relation between a person’s readiness to pontificate on a subject and his/her ignorance of its implications? That question didn’t, of course, apply to the Honourable Court’s ruling. Nearly twenty years ago the Maharashtra government asked a group of wiseacres – I was one of them – to review Mumbai’s Development Plan (Draft) before it got Government approval. The draft before us timidly proposed the adoption of a new concept, Development Rights. We pounced eagerly on the concept as a way out of the Municipal Corporation’s dilemma: how to secure the land the Plan was going to reserve for public amenities, when the cost of acquiring those plots far exceeded the resources at the Corporation’s disposal. It was an attempt to separate land from its development potential, which were to be recognized as a Development Right. We promoted the award of Development Rights to landowners who gave up their plots to the Corporation, earning Development Rights equal to the FSI those plots would have but for the reservation.
Development Rights transferred from elsewhere could also be used to induce the owners of old and crumbling houses to rebuild their houses, rehousing their existing tenants. Sadly, this facility gave rise to widespread misuse, when the ingenuity of our developers began to create fake tenancies on a large scale, a device that our High Court has wisely stopped.
We also thought the same device could be used to encourage the owners of plots covered by hutment slums to rehouse the occupants.
We proposed some restrictions: TDR could be used only to transfer development potential from the island city to the suburbs, or from a plot in the suburbs to another plot northward of the reserved land. Agreeing with the BMC’s planners, we closed the zones adjoining the railway lines to the use of Development Rights earned elsewhere. This was because those zones were already crowded with existing users, and there was little prospect of augmenting the already overstretched infrastructure there.
Finally, we put an outside limit: TDR could raise the FSI by only 40 percent over what was normally permitted on the receiving plot.
The restrictions we (and the BMC) envisaged were based on an old-fashioned belief that the FSI and density limits in an area (and to any plot within it) MUST be related to the infrastructure available in that area. So that if the existing water supply, sewerage, recreational areas, road widths, common facilities and other amenities in a locality were already inadequate, no rise in the FSI could be contemplated in that locality, and the transfer of Development Rights there would not be allowed. That belief seems to have been successfully challenged, and now abandoned by the authorities.
They may have a point, though. If TDR is granted for the rehabilitation of hutment people, those people are already somehow consuming a certain part of the infrastructure available in the city. Re- housing them will not increase that consumption. I am more than a bit skeptical of this argument. The opening of the TDR facility to areas adjoining the suburban railway lines, for instance, will surely add to their passenger load. Can our railways cope with such an addition? How will the BMC’s sewerage lines, designed for certain densities, cope with a surge in sewage flows in particular localities?
Perhaps these are typical problems that the authorities face. They generally handle them with a generous sweep under the carpet. That is what will inevitably happen in Mumbai’s glorious progress into a Shanghai, as our enlightened Chief Minister dreams.
On the other hand, it may be useful to seek from the Honourable High Court a review of its sweeping decision.
J B D’Souza
Earlier this week, in a surprise decision, the Bombay High Court lifted the ban on the transfer of Development Rights to Mumbai’s suburban areas adjoining the rail lines.
I don’t quite remember, but wasn’t it Bertrand Russell who discovered a close relation between a person’s readiness to pontificate on a subject and his/her ignorance of its implications? That question didn’t, of course, apply to the Honourable Court’s ruling. Nearly twenty years ago the Maharashtra government asked a group of wiseacres – I was one of them – to review Mumbai’s Development Plan (Draft) before it got Government approval. The draft before us timidly proposed the adoption of a new concept, Development Rights. We pounced eagerly on the concept as a way out of the Municipal Corporation’s dilemma: how to secure the land the Plan was going to reserve for public amenities, when the cost of acquiring those plots far exceeded the resources at the Corporation’s disposal. It was an attempt to separate land from its development potential, which were to be recognized as a Development Right. We promoted the award of Development Rights to landowners who gave up their plots to the Corporation, earning Development Rights equal to the FSI those plots would have but for the reservation.
Development Rights transferred from elsewhere could also be used to induce the owners of old and crumbling houses to rebuild their houses, rehousing their existing tenants. Sadly, this facility gave rise to widespread misuse, when the ingenuity of our developers began to create fake tenancies on a large scale, a device that our High Court has wisely stopped.
We also thought the same device could be used to encourage the owners of plots covered by hutment slums to rehouse the occupants.
We proposed some restrictions: TDR could be used only to transfer development potential from the island city to the suburbs, or from a plot in the suburbs to another plot northward of the reserved land. Agreeing with the BMC’s planners, we closed the zones adjoining the railway lines to the use of Development Rights earned elsewhere. This was because those zones were already crowded with existing users, and there was little prospect of augmenting the already overstretched infrastructure there.
Finally, we put an outside limit: TDR could raise the FSI by only 40 percent over what was normally permitted on the receiving plot.
The restrictions we (and the BMC) envisaged were based on an old-fashioned belief that the FSI and density limits in an area (and to any plot within it) MUST be related to the infrastructure available in that area. So that if the existing water supply, sewerage, recreational areas, road widths, common facilities and other amenities in a locality were already inadequate, no rise in the FSI could be contemplated in that locality, and the transfer of Development Rights there would not be allowed. That belief seems to have been successfully challenged, and now abandoned by the authorities.
They may have a point, though. If TDR is granted for the rehabilitation of hutment people, those people are already somehow consuming a certain part of the infrastructure available in the city. Re- housing them will not increase that consumption. I am more than a bit skeptical of this argument. The opening of the TDR facility to areas adjoining the suburban railway lines, for instance, will surely add to their passenger load. Can our railways cope with such an addition? How will the BMC’s sewerage lines, designed for certain densities, cope with a surge in sewage flows in particular localities?
Perhaps these are typical problems that the authorities face. They generally handle them with a generous sweep under the carpet. That is what will inevitably happen in Mumbai’s glorious progress into a Shanghai, as our enlightened Chief Minister dreams.
On the other hand, it may be useful to seek from the Honourable High Court a review of its sweeping decision.
J B D’Souza
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)