Aditya’s Blog

I am Thinking...

10 things about the Delhi Metro

If some of you do not know yet, I am in Noida right now for the foreseeable future. So, being here for a week now, I have been finally able to get an internet connection and I have been itching to blog!
 
Here are 10 things that I thought of about the Delhi Metro.
 
  1. It is awesome! It really feels great to be in it. It is quite an experience when you get into it for the first time.
  2. It is Air Conditioned! This definitely a boon anywhere in India. More so in Delhi! They have somehow managed to keep the inside of the trains at quite a cool temperature in spite of the 45 degrees outside!
  3. It is really affordable! It has to be. But for an air conditioned transport it is surprisingly so. The distance which will cost you Rs. 5 in the Mumbai local train costs just Rs. 10 here. No wonder no metro transport anywhere in the world has been profitable. Neither will this be, otherwise it wont be affordable.
  4. Fully loaded! With all the jazz of escelators and automatic ticket entry and announcements in the train regarding which side the station will come (this kinda gets irritating sometime). All of this is great though.
  5. It is an equalizer. Where else will a businessman and a normal worker get into the same train using the same facilities and sitting in air conditioned comfort? No matter who you are, no second class or first class here!
  6. It is awesomely maintained! Everything looks clean. Minimum littering. Constant cleaning. Helpful staff. Great!
  7. It has some weird stickers. I saw one which wanted to say that this seat is reserved for pregnant woman. So it has a 3 figures. One was the pregnant woman, second was a man giving the seat to the shown woman. The third was what bothered me a little. A small boy holding the woman's hand. Why show a boy? Why show a second kid? Errrr, family planning?
  8. The entire system looks great from the outside. I mean beautiful! The steel cars with lighted windows whizzing overhead every 5 minutes! Then going underground. Some places have two levels of stations underground! The huge stations above the roads. I like it!
  9. I have absolutely no idea how the people living in the national capital managed to commute in the city before 2002! Absolutely sad!
  10. I love it! Just like I was in love with The Linker, I am in love with the Metro as well. It represents the same things for me that The Linker does. I cannot wait for the Mumbai Metro to be up and running!
 

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   10 things...   India  
Posted June 9, 2010
// 2 Comments

Dead end for the first ever Indian dream

I love cars! I love them beyond everything. It does not really matter whether they are Ferraris or Mahindras. I just love the idea of a car. It is so much more than a ton of steel, plastic and glass over 4 wheels! It is just a romantic experience for a car lover to own any car.

Indians got the first taste of this experience in a big way in 1983 when the Maruti-800 was launched.


Picture Outlookindia

The one pictured above was the first model of the legendary car. It was small, good looking, utilitarian and did the job. Most of the other cars were the bulky Ambassadors by Hindustan Motors. The 800 was the perfect Indian car. 

Then came the upgrade in design. 


Picture Car Picutres World

My family had this one. The thing about 800s is, that it was the most common first car. It was the cheapest, most practical, most economical to run and not really ugly; basically a proper value for money buy. Which is the most important quality that any Indian looks for, in anything, in everything. 

Then came another major upgrade in design for this workhorse.


Picture via Indiacar

This was to keep up with all the major launches from the likes of Hyundai and Tata. 

Somewhere around this time Maruti also launched the Alto. This was basically to hedge against the people who were growing out of their first cars (which more often than not were 800s) and moving on to other manufacturers.


Picture Rushlane

This was not only more contemporary in terms of design, it was also more powerful, better equipped and a little more car for the little more money you paid. Once this was launched, rumour mills started working that this was the replacement to the over worked 800.

The 800 was never just a car, except maybe now. It was a dream. It was an aspiration for the Indian middle class. Let us not getting into an economics lesson and analyse why it did well for so long, others will do that. This car is a part of our culture and history now as Suzuki plans to phase it out in India. One of the major reason for doing this of course is that the dream of the Indian has evolved now. 

At the same time it is also time for those who could not even dream of an 800 to start dreaming. 


Picture SpeakIndia

But this is not the space to talk about it. Today I reserve a permanent parking space for the first Indian dream. 

I love this car! The original design the most. It was epic!

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   Cars   India   Me  
Posted February 13, 2010
// 0 Comments

India launches nuclear submarine

Launching its first nuclear-powered submarine, India became the 6th country in the world to do so. Named Arihant, the 6,000 tonne submarine was launched by Dr. Manmohan Singh. It was entirely built in India with Russian assistance.

Dr. Singh said this is not mean to be any indication of aggression on any country. However, the sea is becoming an integral part of India's strategy. India till now had only capabilities to launch missiles from land or air; this will change once the INS Arihant becomes fully operational in about two years time.

China has recently expanded its position in the sea by helping the Sri Lankan government fight the LTTE. In return, they have got a strategic location in the island country, which is bound to play an important role in the Indian Ocean. This new Indian foray will not only add a new aspect to Indian defence, but also act as a warning to the increasing Chinese naval presence.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   China   India   Manmohan Singh   Politics  
Posted July 26, 2009
// 0 Comments

The Linker - Just a bridge?

It is absolutely poetic. An example of beauty. A symbol of progress. A massive achievement of engineering. A tribute to Indians.
 
Yes. I am still talking about The Linker aka Bandra Worli Sea Link. Didnt matter that it took me twenty five minutes to get on it. What mattered was that I got off it in the shortest fifteen minutes of my life.
 
For those fifteen minutes I felt I was not in the real world. There was something about this monstrosity that enchanted me and I couldnt take my eyes off her. The glistening black road helped by the light drizzle was a perfect contrast to the cables illuminated by brilliant white lights. It transcended me into the surreal.
 
It was anticipation that took me till I reached the portion enforced by the giant cables; and when I did reach them I could not stop looking up. The cables looked like they were suspended in mid air with the support of the bridge and not the other way round. I now can totally understand everyone who took a U turn to go back on it just to have another look.
 
It was midnight and this was already a local attraction. Dont know what tourists will do. This is much more than a bridge linking two destinations to reduce traffic. This is a symbol. A symbol that will mean so many different things to so many different people. To me, it reinforces what Dr. Manmohan Singh said (he was quoting Victor Hugo) before presenting the 1991 budget, "No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come". Yes, I am in love with that idea.
 
That is what this bridge means to me.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India   Mumbai  
Posted July 6, 2009
// 2 Comments

Unfurl it!

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I am currently working at Patni Computer Systems Ltd as part of my Summer Project for my MBA course. One of the things that Patni is known for, apart from being one of the leading global providers of Information Technology services and business solutions (this from their website :P), is the awesome transportation service they provide their employees with. The transportation consists of a fleet of buses on contract which follow particular routes every single day. And when I say fleet of buses, I mean a fleet which can rival that of a small city's (say my home city Thane) Municipal Transport (TMT) service! OK I might be exaggerating a little bit, OK quite a bit, but you get the drift.

Once the day is over, it is fun to see two dozen buses, in the white and brown livery, leave all at the same and make their way out of SEEPZ one after another. I know what you are thinking, I was just ranting about their huge fleet of buses and now I am talking about only two dozen buses! Actually, they have close to 30 buses at their office in SEEPZ and similarly they have offices in two other locations in the city. So that works out to quite a lot of buses traversing quite a lot of routes.

The route I take from SEEPZ comes to Thane via Powai. This route passes through the flyover which goes right over the Larsen & Toubro (L&T) campus. I like this flyover a lot just for the way it has been made in between some of the buildings in the L&T campus. At this point, to my left comes the glass covered building of L&T Infotech; and finally I come to the core point I want to make.

Atop this building, every single day, in the evening twilight, I see two men getting down a hoisted Indian Flag, the Tricolor, the Orange-White-Green, fluttering in the wind! And it is one of the most awesome sights I witness. And before I know, a smile comes to my face. I wish more companies would hoist a flag. It is not just about having the Flag atop your building, it is about the emotion behind it. It is about telling everyone, that we are an Indian company and we are proud of it. If it were upto me, I would not only put up the flag and tell the guards to hoist it and get it down every day (which L&T does), I would give this PRIVILEGE to a different person every day. Imagine the precedent one would be setting by doing this. I understand that things like you having the building for yourself and other such issues come up, but they are too trivial.

Taking this a little broader, I don't think there are enough Flags around anyways. Flags to us have become a symbol of the Independence and the Republic days only. I have bought myself a small cloth Indian Flag that I am really proud of. I know there are many issues attached to this, the fact that by law, you cannot hoist a Flag unless you have permission. But I remember a few years back when someone was arrested for hoisting the Flag at his residence and he defended himself and won at the Supreme Court! There some absolutely valid reasons for this law, but there has to be some leeway given in this regard.

For now however, I guess atleast the corporates should Unfurl it!

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India   Patni  
Posted May 21, 2009
// 2 Comments

A reply to Mr. Aviraj Singh Saluja

Dear Mr. Aviraj Singh Saluja,

I am deeply humbled by your praise for me and thank you for your wishes.

I agree with you that this country does deserve the stablest of Governments and the most honest of Leaders and I hope with all my heart that we are able to give this country what it deserves. However, it saddens me to know that you have no expectations from me or my Government. It is sad that you have lost all expectations.

You say you had expectations after I had been elected as the Prime Minister in 2004. However, I went through the election records and saw that you did not vote in the 2004 election yourself. I am not saying you have no right to have expectations, but it is your foremost duty to vote and be a part of the most basic of democratic exercise. You say you were happy that I was the Prime Minister, but you had nothing to do with me becoming the Prime Minister. I can easily say that you do not deserve anything in return, however, I will never say that.

You talk about the last 5 years as if that is all it takes to turn-around a vast and expansive country like ours and make life better for the common man. I cannot entirely blame you for having lost all expectations. But what expectations do you have? Are these expectations same as that of the all the other people in this country? You Sir, are one of the 7.1% of the elite population who use the internet. I again can't blame you for being a part of such an elite crowd, as one of my Government's responsibilty is also to make sure every person gets benefit of the internet revolution. However, there are more pressing matters than making sure that the common man gets his share of the WWW. It is not incorrect to compare our governance and systems to those of a superpower like the USA, it is however unfair to compare a 62 year youngster with a 232 year old veteran.

It is encouraging to see that you so deeply believe in the power of Goodness. I assure you that this victory will not make us complacent, it is rather a form of encouragement for us, a show of faith from the people. My enthusiasm will never deter; and as far as the things I personally wished to do for the country are concerned, I assure you that the seeds were already sown 5 years ago. Being from the urban middle-class, you would surely agree that Rome was not built in a day.

You believe that you speak for a large majority of the urban middle-class; I believe that you also voted for the same large majority of the urban middle-class. You also seem to forget that 70% of this country's population resides in the "non-urban" areas and therefore it is essential for me to concentrate close to 70% of my efforts in serving them.

There is not much that I can take from your letter, but not because it does not have anything to give, but because I already know what my people expect from me. Please do not lose hope in the power the voice of a twenty-something has, this country is soon going to be run by the same people. For now, for today, I have been given the responsibilty to lead this country because I am the best we have as you say and not because I am ideal. The next five years Mr. Saluja, I will try my best to live upto your hope and other's expectations.

Wish you the best when you go to America in July.

Faithfully,

Dr. Singh.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India   Manmohan Singh   Politics  
Posted May 17, 2009
// 1 Comment

Rang De........ Munnabhai !!

A Generation Awakens!!

But did it? Being a part of the generation that we are, we have been witness to events that refused to happen in the space of a generation before. And I am saying this keeping the Indian context in mind.

Ten years ago, and I say ago because it does seem a long time back, hardly had anyone in the country heard of a personal computer. And today you find one everywhere. Even farmers have access to computers and internet thanks to the e-choupal project by ITC. The speed at which this country has developed is something that has not been witnessed by citizens of other generations and neither by those of other countries.

It’s a great time to be an Indian! Well when was it not anyways. Maybe we will talk more on that some other day. For now we go back to the topic in my mind. Rang De Munnabhai!!

With an assumption that everyone has seen both of the movies that I am referring to, I will dive into the topic. There was a time when movies were regarded to be hopeless stories about a man and a woman in love, with the ethereal running around the trees phenomena, with one bad guy and lots of his bald mates. At the end, the good prevails over evil. These were movies that a person with an IQ of a nincompoop could watch and come out none the wiser. They didn’t make anyone think, not surprising that the people who actually MADE that movie didn’t do this exercise either. Nevertheless, time moved on and through evolution, Mr. Darwin smiles again, we got better moviemakers, and more importantly who did the mentioned exercise.

We then saw a breed of movies with messages in it. Not that these kinds of movies were non existent, but they never served the purpose of making money for the producers. The new breed though, hit bull’s eye. People could make a movie with a message in it and people ACTUALLY liked it. These are high budget multi-starrer movies which were just a brilliantly made three hour public service message. But there was an essential difference. People listened. And they liked it.

Now, another question is, do we need such movies? Hell yes we do. If these movies are working then of course it means we need it. Now, another question, keeping both of the movies in mind, which is the one we need more? Let’s see. Munnabhai was a movie which preached old-school values. It told you to go back to your roots as an Indian, and just act, more of a human being. Rang De on the other hand was a movie promising to awaken a generation from its slumber. And it DID do that to an extent. Remember the protests after the reservation proposals? Jog your mind and think, would it have drawn the same reaction had there been no Rang De? I think not. It told you to become a NEW India. An India which party’s, drinks, eats, dances and still wants to stand up for itself. Both were movies that will be eternal.

And do we need more of these movies? YOU have the answer.

A Generation Has Awakened!!

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India   introspection  
Posted December 7, 2006
// 0 Comments

The Butterfly Effect!!

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.

This phenomenon is ironically referred to as the Chaos Theory. What the irony is will be explained later. Interesting though this phenomenon may sound, not to mention also impossible, it is a scientific theory which has been immensely researched on a long time ago. There have been books written on it and movies filmed on the same. What it essentially means is that small variations of the initial conditions of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.

Now if you are still reading this article and not closed the window due to the last sentence that you just read, I would like to elaborate on the reason for me to choose to strain you people with such words.

On 30th November 2006, Mumbai witnessed something that was so destructive that it can surely be figuratively termed as a typhoon. Walls fell, cars cart-wheeled, rickshaws became non existent, glasses shattered, buses demolished, trains burnt and not to mention innumerable people injured and of course the death-count that we will never know. If this can be termed as a typhoon in Mumbai, then the butterfly that fluttered its wings would be 1,288 km away in Kanpur, UP.

We can categorize the damage in two different categories – Superficial and Deep. After all if beauty isn’t only skin deep then why should wounds be different?

One would think that the people inflicting this fury on the commercial capital of the country thought the reason was good enough to cause damage worth CRORES to it. The three trains that were burnt itself caused a damage of Rs. 7 crores to Central Railway. Not to mention they could not run the Deccan Queen the next day too. More than a 100 BEST buses were left damaged. And hundreds of other vehicles were also vandalized. Who is going to pay for it? I guess that is one of the most clichéd question, and now can also be termed as a rhetorical one.

That much for the superficial damage. The deep ones run REALLY deep. Can you imagine how terrified the kids of this city will grow up to? I am not saying this has never happened in this city before. When we were kids we had one of the biggest riots ever in the city. But the difference between then and now is the environment. Then it was something which made the place just go quite. But now there are tens of news channels covering it and running the images repeatedly all day. Kids watch it and don’t know what to make out of the mad people shown on the screen pelting stones at people buses, burning the city and police being shown helpless.

I am thinking what will kids grow up thinking about all this? This can again be termed as another butterfly effect in the true sense, with damage in the long term. Will kids have faith in people? Will they have the confidence to turn to the cops one day? Will the kids growing up in this city be different from those in any other place on earth? Now this can be either good or bad. Kids can become really strong and undoubtedly become adults who are capable of facing everything. Otherwise they can become scared adults. Fearing to board a train or a bus at the slightest doubts.

But there is something in this city that keeps it running. The essence of it will surely be seen again tomorrow which is supposed to be an extremely sensitive day. People will still get up to go to work. They will still try to catch a bus or a train. And if they can’t, they will call friends over and party. But they won’t let this holiday go waste. Maybe our kids also will grow up the same way.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India  
Posted December 5, 2006
// 0 Comments

The Great Indian Land Grab!!

Recently the Chinese envoy visiting India claimed that Arunachal Pradesh falls under Chinese territory.

Ya rite Mr. Schezwan!! Do you even know the name of the capital of the state? Next they will tell us they want Kashmir too, and somehow it ‘falls’ under the Chinese territory.

The topic of this article though might be the Indian Land-Grab, it's not India who is doing the ‘grabbing’.

First it was Pakistan who wanted Kashmir. Then, they consulted the local people and found out that the Indian bureaucratic system was as hopeless as theirs, and if they started believing that their ‘talks’ will help them win over their Indian counterparts and they would one day hand over Kashmir with a ribbon tied around it, they would be dreaming. So they decided to do it their way. And to say the least it's not the best way to do things.

They then just literally ‘walked’ into India through Kashmir and whatever land that they ‘shat’ on became POK. Then they drew a line across it saying that it is the LOC or the McMohan line and you will have to abide by it. Though this tactic may not sound diplomatic enough, it sure as hell was effective.

Now, are we seeing China do something similar? That only time will tell.

The question that comes to one’s mind is, why is it that our neighbors want a piece of our land?

Though no one knows the exact answer we can nevertheless speculate.

What comes to a person’s mind is, the Indian attitude. Are we so lax in our attitude that another country can pick and choose the best part of land available. They would look at nearest states, compare the statistics, look at the industry possible, the scenic beauty, the resources available and say ‘Yes this is the state I like’.

Funny though it may seem you can compare it to buying a car. Imagine going to a dealer getting the brochures, comparing the features, the mileage, the looks, the power and then deciding and saying ‘Yes this is the car I like’.

Coming back to the attitude, what I mean to say is, would the same course of actions taken place had some other country been in the place of India? For the sake of argument, let’s imagine a European country. Let’s say Israel. Ohh!! Sorry, wrong choice. Let’s say China and Pakistan were neighbors, can you imagine Pakistan telling China that the Schezwan Province (this does exist) is mine. The next thing you know, Chinese military would be all over the border and before we know it, half of Pakistan would be eating Chop Suey for lunch instead of tandoori.

So is it all about the Indian attitude? One might be forced to say yes. Every country wants to capture more territory to command more power. Colonization. But when will it end?

What we can go further and think about is, what is it that might transpire from all of this? What are the extents which the two countries would go to, to prove their point? Are we risking a nuclear war? But come to think of it, we can’t do zilch about anything except wait and talk. We most certainly can’t risk a war. That would be too damaging to the economy, even though we might settle issues with Pakistan, and China would do the same with us, it's not at all feasible to go for an all out war. I recommend you to go to the website www.costofwar.com and you will get the breeze of what I am talking about.

China for it's part doesn’t want any conflict for the next fifteen years, after which it would be called a developed country. After that, it's your guess as good as mine.

So I am still thinking, what is it that attracts our neighbors to grab land from our country? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that we are just plain seductive and they can’t live with it.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under  //   India  
Posted December 4, 2006
// 0 Comments