Prince of Chitradurga

Last week i was at chitradurga, a town of historical importance in India. The maintenance of the fort at Chitradurga comes under Archaeological survey of India. I must say that the fort is maintained very well. Its really very clean. All facts of historical significance and salient architectural features of the fort are displayed boldly. Absolutely no plastics are thrown anywhere and no eatables are allowed inside. The walls are neat and well maintained. All in all a must see for anyone even faintly interested in history.

But what caught me most there was a Monkey, rather the king of monkeys. He was "(Koti raj", meaning king of Monkeys. He was a two legged monkey.

Let me tell you that its impossible for a bad writer like me to write even faintly about the skill of this man "Koti raj" alias Jyothi Raj. He has earned the name Kothi raj for his skills in rock climbing.

Jyoti raj hardly has any formal education. He quit schoooling 3 months into his first standard and was ever since a wanderer. He confessed that, dejected from life, he had contemplated suicide before meeting his guru " The monkey". (I did not have my camera. so these pictures and videos  are from the cell phone camera)

"ಕೋತಿಗಳೇ ನನ್ನ ಗುರು, ನನ್ನ ಪ್ರಾಣ ಒತ್ತೆ ಇಟ್ಟು ಕೋತಿ ರಾಜ್ ಅಂತ ಹೆಸರು ಗಳಿಸಿಧೀನಿ" , i have earned the name "koti raj" having pledged my life says jyothi raj who takes pride in being called kothi raj. Jyoti raj says that he has learnt the art of wall climbing from Monkeys.

Its impossible to write about his skills. One must see him climbing and performing various "monkey tricks" to believe it. He could climb a 25 feet, 90 degree wall in about 15 seconds. He is today recognized by many adventure clubs and sports bodies.

These days, he is mostly seen in Chitradurga but he says he practices mostly at Badami and Hampi. He even climbs a 90 degree wall upside down, man that is unimaginable.

Kothi raj is the name he is fond of and has earned it at a very huge cost with great perseverance and patience. But he is a gentleman in the true sense. He is humble and soft spoken. Very courteous. Truly incredible and inspiring.

Chora Charanadasa

(The blog is reproduced here from Pavan N Rao's Blog with copyright permission)

Play: Chora Charana Dasa
Language: Kannada
Duration: ~105 minutes
Genre: Comedy (Farce)
Rating: Must Watch
Troup: Natana


Myself, Pavan and Girish watched Chora Charanadasa, a play in Kannada, originally as Charandas Chor written by Tanveer Habib as an adaptation of a Rajasthani folktale at K H Kala Soudha in Hanumanthanagar, Bangalore on Sunday. The Kannada play has been adapted and directed by Mandya Ramesh (of Matha fame) and performed by Natana.


The protagonist is a petty thief, Charanadasa.Charanadasa is a professional thief who takes pride in his profession and 'hard work' and a strong sense of 'integrity' and 'work ethic'.


He chances upon a Sanyasi who saves him from the police . Charanadasa takes him as his Guru. He makes four vows to his Guru, that he would never eat in a gold plate, never lead a procession atop an elephant (ಅನೆ ಅಂಬಾರಿ), refuse any invitation to be a king and refuse any proposal to marry a princess. His guru commits him to never to tell a lie, hoping that this would reform Charandas.


Charanadasa's further activities and where it leads him form the rest of the narrative. An interesting storyline has been transformed into a laugh-riot by current satire. The nataka in the political theatre of Karnataka is ready fodder for the satire.


Brilliant performances by all on-stage artists especially the by the person who played Charanadasa and the off-stage technicians and singers make every moment of the drama wholly enjoyable.


Towards the end, the directors steps in and lets the audience choose how the play should conclude ! The interactive dialogue between the audience and the director throws up creative alternatives and has the audience in splits.


The play concludes on a realistic paradox, faithfully to Tanveer Habib and the Bollywood movie directed by Shyam Benegal in 1975 of the same name. Overall, it was eminently watchable, and figures in the top amongst the plays that I have enjoyed the most and recommend to all.
(P.S. the background singer was cute ;)

Happy Man

Last weekend, i was on a trip to few villages in Somarpet Taluk for some work. On our way back, we decided to trek down to malalli falls which was about 3 Kms from the Main road. Though we were getting late, we decided that it may be worth the trek. So we decided to take the diversion towards the falls. The road was bad, slushy and bumpy. We met Mr Rajanna, the security near the bridge. The water level was almost till the bridge and it was cold and breezy. He advised us to drive. After about 600 or 700 metres, the road became very bad. So we decided to keep the car and walk. It was a good decision since the road was virtually absent.

The walk from there was great, the road was steep and slippery. It was a walk for about 700 metres and we were treated by a fabulous creation of nature, a deep gorge, water running in its full momentum. It was such great treat to see it.

There were hardly any people there since it is quite remote in the country side. There were some concrete steps which lead us to nowhere. We walked down the steps just to explore where it goes. It ended abruptly. There was a small narrow slippery lane from there which again went nowhere. We walked a little and found it to be endless. A friend of mine was getting a little scared and was insisting we go back. We went down a little. It was no point going further since the lane was not leading to the falls. {If we had somehow hit the river (which becomes kumara dhara at Kukke subramanya) and followed it, we would have gone to Kukke subramanya}.

So we decided to get back. Just as we were climbing back, we met Mr Vijay Kumar, a native of Malalli. He must be between 30 to 35 years old. He was all smiling and jovial. He had got a couple of his cattle for Grazing. I asked him if the kaaldhaari (Narrow foot lane) takes me to Subramanya. He smiled and said, "This goes to the falls". He offered to guide us and take us till the Falls. He took us in a bushy and very steep way. Since i was finding it difficult thanks to my weight, he kept on saying "Its steep only for some distance and its flat terrain thereafter". So finally he got us near the Falls and said "Please carry on further and experience shower bath near the falls, i will wait here and will assure you that it will not rain till you people are back".( We were 4 engineers who had carried 5 umbrellas only to keep in the car, Jai ho).

Thanks to Vijaykumar, we went close to one of the best falls that i have seen in the recent past. But for him,we would not have found our way there. We spent sometime there and trekked back. Vijaykumar was waiting for us. Cumulatively, Vijaykumar was with us for 20 minutes and all of which he was smiling.

I asked vijaykumar, what he was doing for livelihood? He said "Dhana meistheeni saar" (I look after the cattle). He asked us for a tip and i gave him a 100 rupee note and he was simply overjoyed. His face became big. He was so happy that he suddenly started talking about pushpagiri, Brahmagiri, Girigadhge Battaru (One must read "bettada jeeva" by Shivram Karanth to know more about girigadhge Battaru) . He made a remark that left all of us thinking. He said, he has never made 100 rupees a day till today and that on a average, his weekly income will be around 100 rupees.

Immediately i was reminded about Arjun sengupta report published in 2007 (http://nceus.gov.in/condition_of_workers_sep_2007.pdf) .( This report said that about 77% of the population in India, roughly about 835 million people earn only 20 rupees a day. Ever since i read this report, i was always doubting the numbers. Fourth largest economy in the world cannot have 800 million people earning only 20 rupees a day).

Well, This is the fact. Vijaykumar has about 2 acres of land on which he grows paddy for his own consumption. Many times the field gets flooded and he loses his crop. He has two cattle. His village is not electrified and has about 30 houses. He has never sold his produce (paddy) till today. His farm income is Zero and dairy income is negligible. He gets tipped once in a way by trekkers or tourists seeking help.

Given all this, this chap was so happy. Immaterial of the fee (tip) he received from us, He was looking very contended in life. There were no worries on his face. The tip just made him happier.

It makes me wonder, where and why some of us feel the disconnect and get engrossed in silly materialistic life. Sometimes i feel one does not need a reason to be Happy.

(Pictures of the trip here)

Representative democracy...

Of late, some mainstream media, few public spirited citizens and many political leaders including some cabinet ministers in karnataka are obsessed with poor voter turnout. The recently held elections in Bangalore for urban local bodies saw abysmal and pathetically low voter turnout of less than 45% according to official figures (but there is still some controversy on the actual number) .. This is a proof of sorry state of affairs in one of the most forward and so called "elite" cities in India.

More i read about elections, i feel sorry that we spend thousands of crores of money on electing a set of candidates who have at maximum 20% people supporting them (If the voter turnout is 45% and if this 45% is split between 4 candidates, the winning candidate will not be having the favour or more than 20% of the population). So, Strictly speaking its not democracy and no where close to it.

Some politicians and many individuals are suggesting that voting must be made compulsory as a remedy to this situation... Well, at the outset this idea looks good, but will it get the desired result. The desired result is not 100% voter turnout but its better governance. How are we sure that better governance is guaranteed by better voter turnout. It may work, but that will be in the very long run. In short to medium run, mandatory voting is unlikely to influence the quality of candidates or the quality of governance.

I believe in participative democracy.. According to me it does not mater if the voter turn out is 5% or 100%, whats important is at-least 50% participate in governance. Its only thought in insane high school textbooks that people participate in governance by voting. Paradigms and tools of participation has changed and is not limited to voting.And it should not be limited to voting in any elite democracy. One recent example is the ongoing road issue inside GKVK campus in Bangalore. The public opinion it has generated is phenomenon.Given the motive behind the project, its clear that whoever the corporator or MLA or CM who has come to power by how much ever votes and by whatever percentage of votes, it would not have mattered to the project. The project would have gone through if the people had kept quite.But the public has used other tools of participation like RTI and PIL to stall the project.. We have many instances like that...

An effective tool in participative democracy is RTI. RTI is a superb piece of ligislation. It is one of the many ways yet a very powerful tool in participating in democracy.Its easy , fast and well institutionalized.. I recently attended a talk by Aruna roy (Magsaysay awardee) . This lady is so proud of the constitution and yet she is in such fierce battle with certain institutions and people who work with the constitution.. We can see for ourselves the results of her struggle. She was instrumental in RTI as well.I am not saying that everyone must be aruna roy.. But being involved in working of the system and participating in governance is critical for better governance (and social change)

Changing the landscape of the country by better voter turnout can never be realized., atleast in my lifetime. My opinion is that, its immaterial if you have voted or not as long as you remain insensitive towards things around you.

We need public spirited citizenry and voting is a small part of it.

(PS:I have voted in every election since i was 18 and every-time, the candidate i have voted for has been victorious and still i have written some 1000 E-mails, 400 letters to the Secretariat, the administrative reforms department, made some 100 odd petitions to commissioners and politicians, have met the present and past MLAs and CMs on one or the other civic issue.)

Aam Aadmi, oil and fiscal policy.

The UPA government has come to power for the second time on the Aam Aadmi card. It still remains an open question that who is the Aam aadmi according to the congress party? Is it the 77% of the Indian population who earn less than 20 rupees a day (According to national commission for enterprises in unorganized sector headed by Economist Arjun sengupta published, set up by UPA government in 2007) or the remaining 20% or less who actually pay Income tax. According to the Budget presented last week by the UPA, it seems that for the UPA, the Aam aadmi is only the income tax paying population.

The last year's Economic survey tabled in the parliament on July 2, 2009 says that the government has to consider ending controls on fuel prices to curb demand. This is a very good recommendation and it is high time the government considers this seriously. Though not exactly in line with ending controls, the government did increase the oil prices in this year's budget. Let us dispassionately look at the rationality of this decision in the given economic scenario vis-a-vis other fiscal policies announced. 

According to many experts, the greatest economic problem facing us right now is the problem of food prices. This is very much true. Its sky rocketing and increasingly becoming less affordable to large majority of the population. The fiscal policy announcements in the budget should have focused on this primarily than on other issues. But quite the opposite has happened. 

Immediately, the oil prices, particularly the diesel prices should not have been touched.Hike in fuel prices, particularly diesel prices will have a cascading effect and reflect in hike in the price of every commodity. Most importantly its going to reflect very negatively on food prices..

Our country is not prepared to face this situation in the short run. We are still a very poor country with millions below poverty line. Lakhs of people sleep hungry every night. Hike in food prices in the short run will be disastrous for millions in our country.

We must note here that the year on year food inflation as recorded in Whole sale price index (WPI) is around 17% now (was at 8% last July). This is a year on year inflation and not with respect to a base year.Strictly speaking the food prices have gone up more than 17% from last year and income of the millions of people have stagnated or has slipped into the negative. This is evident from the negative growth recorded in the farm sector. Statistics show that more than 55% of the farmers are net buyers of food. With data on the net production of grains this year not very certain, the food inflation situation will worsen in the coming months. Climate change and dropping water tables in many parts of south India will only make the things worse. .

The budget did not have anything substantial to revive the farm sector, did not have any policy pronouncement to tackle inflation. Instead the decision on diesel price hike will only fuel inflation and push up the food prices.  

But the government has done quite a lot for "its" Aam aadmi by cutting down direct taxes and continuing some irrational exemptions extended to corporate sector. In this year's budget ,Revenue foregone in excise duty — Rs. 1,70,765 crores. Customs duty — Rs.2,49,021 crores. Together with the Rs.80,000 crore in direct write-offs, the total nears Rs. 500,000 crores. All this will benefit at maximum 20% of the Indian population. 

Coming back to rationalizing oil prices, was there no option for the government but to increase the oil prices. Or was this the only way to rationalize oil prices. It is agreed that the oil prices must be deregularized for better fiscal management. But given the status of Indian economy, it must be done in a more just and rational manner. 

Broadly the government has two choices.

1)A hike in diesel prices will have a cascading effect and reflect in hike in the price of every commodity. Petrol, on the other hand, will not have such a huge impact on the prices compared to diesel. Hence the government can consider dual pricing of diesel. The price for diesel for public transport, goods carrier and freight purposes can be pegged at rupees 38 or 40 for the next few years. This will not hurt the common man so far as essential commodities are considered.

On the other hand, the subsidy on petrol and diesel for private use must be totally de-regularised. This means that the price of diesel sold at retail level for luxury cars must be market determined. Of course his would be an enormous administrative challenge and opens up large windows for corruption. But considering our quite efficient bureaucracy at higher levels, this should be possible.This policy of dual pricing of diesel will have dual advantages.

As the prices of petrol and diesel increase steeply in the retail market, people will shift slowly to public transport at no increase in cost.This will consequently reduce congestion on roads and help in mitigating climate change.

2)Another alternative the government has is to de-regulate the prices of fuel in a phased manner. B.K. Chaturvedi committee has dealt this issue at length and has laid out a road map for de-regulation.

However, government can immediately de-regulate the petrol prices and slowly de-regulate the diesel prices.

Communicating generation................!!

In today's commercial world, Mobile phone is the most important tool that one has to have. At least for me the world will stop without the cell phone and Internet connectivity. I do most of my work over the mobile and lot of business happens over it. I normally share my work with a friend of mine. Today we had to call a very important guy to explain to him certain things. Me and my friend were sitting just after lunch and we remembered that we have to call this important guy. I said that i am not interested and he must make the call. He was also not very interested and finally i ended up making the call and striking the deal too!!!!

A few minutes back, my cell phone rang again may be the 100th call today and i picked it up cursing the inventor of the phone. Well, i really don't have a choice but i must say the cell phone has made the work so easy.

For a moment today evening, this stuff about phone receiving and calling took me to my childhood. I remember clearly that i was in fifth standard when we got the phone to our house. We were a large family in a big house in Basavanagudi. We were 11 people in the house with many people visiting us often. If i remember right, we had to wait for 4 years to get the connection after applying for it (A month back i got a second land line to my house just 3 days after applying for it). I was so excited with the phone that i used to stand next to it to receive the phone call. I was not going out of the house because i would miss lifting the phone. I had memorized all the relatives' phone number and whenever anybody in the house wanted to call anyone, i used to run to the phone and dial for them. I used to get tips from cousins and relatives on how to receive the phone. The phone was something very exciting. Whenever there was no phone call for a while, i used to call 161 and the phone used to ring after disconnecting. Sometimes i used to make the phone ring, lift it, pretend that it was my friend, disconnect and give missed call to my school the number for which was on my progress report and i had memorized it. Now all these sounds stupid but 16 years back that was so exciting and so much fun.

The cell phone is a exciting stuff today as well. I started with a borrowed black and white cell phone in 2004 and just six months later my cousin gifted me the latest phone with polyphonic ring-tones. A year later he bought me an expensive phone with camera, blue tooth and what not and just as i write this, my phone is ringing which now has wi-fi, Internet, multimedia and what not.

Only the cell phone is exciting but using the phone is not exciting. On the phone,People crib at me , i crib at others, people shout at me, i shout at others. Of course women don't call me.
Most times, i end up checking mail for no good reason and only addiction. For no good reason, i tweet saying that i am tweeting . I have a lot of information, but don't know what to do with the information.

I enjoy my work, i enjoy meeting and talking to people. I do lot of my work over the phone. All the coordination can be done with least effort.Project deals are done over phone. Payments are made and received over it.The phone and my outspokenness over it has taken me to people in power, earned some appreciation somewhere, have made my voice heard somewhere and at the same time on many occasions has got me into a lot of trouble.

All in all, the cell phone has made certain things really easy. But i feel somewhere something is missing. My father was a better engineer and even better manager than i am without any of these tools. With 3 mobiles, 2 landlines and two computers at home, i don't even know how much money i spent last week or last month.