Whose independence is it anyway?

Thanks to a little confused state of mind and not so good time in business in the last few months, i never got the patience to write about many interesting thoughts that came to me. Now i am not able to recollect those thoughts to write about it. So one of the "Independence day" resolutions is to write as often as possible. 

Nevertheless, this post is about a strange situation i got into a couple of days back. This happened in the junction of Bannerghatta road and ring road. This is also known as Jeedi mara sighnal or J.P.Nagar third phase. 

Mostly by culture and a little by default, i generally have opinions on many things and controversies. One of it is begging at the traffic signals. I am vehemently against begging and i get little worked up when i see small kids and middle aged women begging on the streets. I have got into serious arguments with friends who encourage  begging by giving money to the beggars. Its alright to help handicapped or old person struggling to make a living in this world, but i just cannot reconcile to the fact that middle aged women and children take to begging.. 

On the other hand, i have respects and sympathy for children who sell flowers or toys at traffic signals to make a living. I have been following one such kid by name Mahesh (or manjunath, not sure) who regularly sells flowers at the third block Jayanagar signal. He studies at MES school in Ninth standard and to support himself, he sells flowers in the evening for about 2 to 3 hours. He always gives change after the purchase (unlike the auto drivers of Bangalore). 

It was the auspicious day of Varamahalakshmi festival on 12 august 2011. Since Independence day was round the corner, it was common to see small kids selling small flags and other patriotic emblems on the streets. I met one such kid in the jeedi mara signal. I was on my car waiting at the signal. A small girl about 7 or 8 years old came walking to my car with a few flags in her hand. She was looking little strange. Her face was slightly deformed and she looked badly malnourished. The window glass was up. She tapped the glass. I ignored her since i was not interested in buying the India flag. She dint give up and kept tapping with her face on on the window. So i was forced to open the window. She literally cajoled me to buy a a flag. She said "ಬರಿ ಹತ್ತು ರುಪಾಯೀ" (Only 10 rupees). I replied saying that i am not interested in the flag but would give her 10 rupees. I gave her a 10 rupee note. She took the 10 rupee note and dropped the flag on my lap.She refused to take it back. She would not just take that 10 rupees as a charity. 

Behind her came a small boy, equally malnourished, may be a year or two older than this girl. But the difference was that he was begging. He went car to car tapping windows and begging. Some people did give him some change but i refused. 

While i appreciate the little girl's patience and spirit, it only shows the bad state of affairs in our country. In Bangalore, we have hundreds of children like this who sell cheap Chinese toys on the streets or beg on the streets. Abolition of child labour , right to education etc are looking good only on paper but not in spirit. It seems we have more laws and less justice. 

It is the 65th year of our independence and we are yet to give basic minimum education and nutrition to masses in our country. Tomorrow a few hundred children chosen from a few elite schools of south Delhi  will repeat a few sentences of inspiration, motivation and greatness of the country after our prime minister at the "INDEPENDENCE DAY" function. But there are many many children in our country who still do not know what is the occasion on 15 August. 

Before i sign off "Happy independence day to all independent people" .. 

Enterprising Peers

Its been almost two years since i started my journey as an entrepreneur. So far it has been very satisfying. Recognition of work and a genuine gratitude from a happy customer brings immense joy to an entrepreneur. It keeps him or her motivated and breeds more innovation. Creating a job opportunity is another great feeling for an entrepreneur. Not that i have been doing very well and given employment for many, but in my own little way, i have given small jobs to a few people. The joy i experienced when i saw the joy on one of my contact worker's face when i paid him an additional 5000 rupees when he worked on the Ugadi day is unmatchable. An ipod or an holiday at Kabini for the same amount would not have given me the same joy and happiness. These little things have lot of value. One has to experience it to understand it. 

Over the last year, my work took me to quite a few places. I traveled mostly in southern Karnataka and few places in central Karnataka (Some pictures of the travels are here. Of course i also had an opportunity to make a round-trip to delhi by road . I had an opportunity to meet variety of people in different bands of the economic spectrum.  From school children with no footwear, dedicated school teachers working for meager salaries, people with no toilets, illiterate entrepreneurs, dedicated entrepreneurs in small towns to the likes of Suresh kumar (Minster in Karnataka), Sudha murthy, Rohini nilekani and Subroto Bagchi. I also had a chance to meet with the Chairman of ONGC (Sep 2010). So it was a very enriching experience having conversations with such variety of individuals.  

Much is written and known about the people i just mentioned  They are all very inspiring. They are all great people with exceptional achievements. 

Here i am writing a bit about my contemporaries and friends who in their own way have carved out a niche for themselves. They are all innovative, dynamic and enterprising. They are all a part of starups working on certain innovative and challenging areas.  Let me tell you that my poor writing cannot do justice to the individuals they are. They are far more and far better than what is written below. 

I must start with Jaydeep Mandal. Probably the most dynamic, most talented and the youngest among my entrepreneur friends. My association with him started in late 2007. He was interning at IISC and had called me to attend a lecture on scouting and commercializing innovations. I was impressed with his attitude and vision. He was all but 22 and had decided to be an entrepreneur. I was then 24 and had no vision in life.

He is an engineer and a MBA in innovation and entrepreneurship. He has founded two organizations at the age of 26. He is presently the director of Aakaar ventures which works on commercializing grassroot/rural innovations. He has already set up a factory in Uttarakund under a licence model. 

He has also founded Berhampore sarvodaya which also works on scouting and diffusing grassroot innovations.

His business model is unique and very innovative. Though he is not an innovator himself, his works in identifying the innovator and commercializing an innovation is commendable. 

Ganesh Shankar. I have no words for him. My best efforts of writing will not do an inch of justice for the character and person he is. To start with he is just in absolute love with life. An awesome writer, a cyclist,  a trekker, a traveler. I must say a life enthusiast. He just enjoys what he does to the fullest. A character i have very high admiration for. 

My association with him started way back in 1999 when i was in National college Basavanagudi. We were in the same batch of PCME class. He was (and is) super intelligent. Since we were staying pretty close to each other, we use to take the same bus. I still remember some of the conversations we use to have in the bus about calculus, physics, about our lecturers, about organic chemistry etc etc. Of course i could never match him in intelligence, academics or for that matter anything may be apart from eating. His thinking was multiple folds higher than mine. He had suggested me a book on physics by name "Fundamentals of Physics" by Halliday and Resnick. I am still using that book to understand certain concepts in physics. 

He holds a masters in communication from IISC. He quit a comfortable and highly rewarding career in GE avionics to pursue his passion in the renewable energy field. He has already done some amazing work in the forests of western Ghats in tracking Tigers. 

Kiran rao. Another example of someone who quit a highly rewarding job to pursue something different. Kiran rao was my classmate in Engineering. Both of us never did very well in academics. I was adorned with one star while he got two (Each star = one subject fail). But we enjoyed experimenting. We were the only two to take finite element analysis as an elective for the whole university. In spite of flunking elasticity in 6th semester , kiran rao made a bold decision to take finite element in the 7th semester when all our friends chickened off after disastrous results in elasticity. 

Like me, he holds an engineering degree in civil engineering. But he soon shifted to software and was well employed at infosys. Like ganesh Shankar, after a 4 year stint at Infosys, he joined me as a director of Hinren technologies to pursue some interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary (sometimes confusing) entrepreneurial venture. He joined me when i was struggling to set up a business and arrive at a business model (confused even now). He brought in lot of value particularly in technical matters and pricing. Though i am still unable to reward him enough for his efforts, he has stuck on bringing in a lot of value.

Apart from getting confused and sometimes frustrated over our business model, we enjoy traveling and  we casually get into amateur discussion on literature.  

Diwakar Reddy. A passionate speaker and a great clean energy campaigner. We were batch mates at BMS college of engineering. Though i have not interacted much with him, i have been following him on social networking sites and am a regular visitor to his blogs. He recently designed and commissioned a wind mill at a school in Chikballapur. 

This is what he has written in one of his blogs "We cant afford to sit back and just wait and see what happens. If we want to deal with the future challenges of climate change we have to act today. Let's see climate change as an opportunity. Make everyday a Earth Day... " 

I have been associated with these men and few others for a while now. I am sure that i get more to learn from them in the coming years.

For me all are of them are very enterprising. Apart from these, i have met few other entrepreneurs either in the renewable energy space or in sustainability space. One thing common about all these people is that they are all enthusiastic about life and are radiant with energy. I have hardly seen them cribbing or complaining. 

Its my hope and wish that all of us end up one day as very successful entrepreneurs doing good to others and to ourselves. 

[Over the last couple of years, i also had a chance to meet number of enterprising people (whom i cannot call contemporaries or peers). I have already written about most of them .  Lokesh, the masala puri entrepreneur http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2011/02/masala-puri-for-thought.html, Sandeep,the activist http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2011/01/sandeep-real-hero.html, Inspirational bridge builder Girish Bharadwaj http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2010/12/bridge-builder-girish-bharadwaj.html , Jyothi raj, the student of the monkey http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2010/08/prince-of-chitradurga.html , Happy man Vijaykumar http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2010/08/happy-man.html , Educator Kalappa http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2009/07/bmv-education-trust-at-bhaktrahalli.html , Camel ride entrepreneur Bharat http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2009/06/bahrath-aur-sharukh-khan.html , Nobel sister http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2009/06/dreams-on-fire.html]

Language and regionalism..

This may be considered as a sequel to the previous blog. Here i am putting my take on language and regionalism.. 

Let us look at language as an axis of distinction and try to debate its efficacy in the Indian scenario. Let me not go into the State reorganization committee and its reports. That will be just a debate for the heck of it. Instead let us look at some historical evidences vis-a-vis language as a basis of division.

Many obituaries have been written about India and Indian democracy right from Mirza Asadullah Khan Galib in 1827 (Chirag-i-dair) to many many western liberals as early as 2000. All the obituaries were attributed to multi language and multi ethnic virtues, heritage and culture of India. The fact is that all of them were proved wrong to the amazement of many western observers and few Indians as well. 

In my opinion (Largely influenced by Dr Ram Guha), one strong reason for this is our rich linguistic tradition and division of India on basis of language. Let me substantiate this with historical evidences rather than putting my own arguments.

Indian national congress in the 1920s spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi reconstituted the provincial committees on linguistic lines to foster administrative unity and efficacy. Congress also made promises that the states in India will be reorganized on linguistic lines post independence. Immediately after independence Gandhi advocated division of states on linguistic lines. 

Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator tried to impose Russian throughout USSR without giving freedom and recognition to other languages. He was quoted as saying “ A national community is inconceivable without a common language and that there is no nation which at one and the same time speaks several languages”. This lead to the language policy of USSR where learning Russian was made obligatory (Source: Epilogue of "India after Gandhi" By Ramchandra Guha). We all know what happened to USSR in 1991.

Closer home, in 1956 when India redrew her map based on linguistic lines, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) did not recognize the separate state for Tamils and tried to impose Sinhala as the sole language. The county was torn by armed rebellion for over 50 years.

Jinnah warned the people of East Pakistan soon after independence that “Without one state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function and that state language of Pakistan was Urdu and the people of East Pakistan have to take it up sooner or later” Bengali was never recognized as an official language of Pakistan and in 1971, we had a torn Pakistan. And today Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh.(Source: Epilogue of "India after Gandhi" By Ramchandra Guha)

There are many many such evidences in erstwhile Europe and USSR.

While we may think that language is a barrier and linguistic distinctions may foster balkanization, in reality it’s not so. On the other hand language has provided the basis of administrative unity and efficiency. It has also lead to an efflorescence of cultural creativity, as expressed in film, theater, fiction and poetry. 

It is Utopian to have these barriers vanished (It need not be considered as a barrier. Pride in one's language, in India, has rarely been in conflict with broader identification with the nation as a whole. Examples of secessionist movements in Nagaland (1950s), in Punjab (1980s) and in Kashmir (1990s) have affirmed religious and territorial distinctiveness, not a linguistic one)

Sociologically speaking, the “in-group” feeling is inevitable. Nationalism and regionalism stems from this and it’s a group phenomenon. Rashtrakavi Kuvempu who gave the world the “Vishwa manava Sandesha” (ವಿಶ್ವ ಮಾನವ ಸಂದೇಶ ) in the same breath said “Kannadave sathya, Kannadave nithya”(ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ಸತ್ಯ ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ನಿತ್ಯ)

Belgaum ,Aishwarya rai and Vishwa Kannada Sammelana.

I am writing this essay in continuation with the ongoing debate i am having with few of my friends on the issue concerning the recently concluded “Vishwa Kannada Sammelana” at Belgaum.

The issue which has created the controversy amongst us is the participation of Aishwraya Rai Bachan in the event as one of the Ambassadors for the language. There are other small debates on necessity of such events and that these events only increase linguistic barriers and regionalism amongs people of India. There is a powerful school of elite thought that linguistic division of states is harmful to the human spirit in general and democracy in particular. Let me try to address these issues.

Let me put my view about participation of Aishwarya rai in the event here. I will talk about my opinion on regionalism and language in the next blog.

First things first, the Vishwa Kannada Sammelana at Belgaum was just not a Kannada festival but largely a political event. Its arguable that the political dimension was indeed necessary for the cause of Kannada. Belgaum was carefully chosen since it is the border district and is a major zone of contention between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Belgaum has a significant Marathi speaking population and we have had sporadic secessionist movements in the area. Government of Karnataka has been progressively trying to consolidate its position in Belgaum. It has been officially declared as the second capital of Karnataka. Given the delicate geographical and linguistic position of Belgaum and in the wake of the Mahajan commission report, the choice of Belgaum as a venue was quite obvious. No other venue would have given the government the same political mileage.  No wonder the next event is planned at Kolar bordering Andra Pradesh. The subsequent event may be in Kodagu.

Politically, Aishwarya Rai bachan was an excellent choice as a participant in the Programme. Lady of Karnataka origin, brought up in Maharashtra (Mumbai), settled into a Hindi speaking, Mumbai based high profile family,  former miss world, Padmashree awardee, brilliant actress  and arguably the most beautiful woman in the world. She ignored the threat from a strong regional right wing pro Marati shiv sena and attended a kannada event in a politically sensitive area of Belgaum. Government in Karnataka could not have asked for more. Aishwarya rai’s presence has scored a huge political score for the Government of Karnataka vis-a-vis Maharashtra trying to consolidate its position over the border areas of Belgaum.

Keeping politics apart, lets try to debate if Aishwarya rai was the right choice for the event?. The arguments in favour of her presence are very powerful. Mostly it is to do with her many credentials which are recognized around the world. It is argued that she represents the Kannada people particularly the youth to the world. Given that this was the Vishwa (world) Kannada sammelana, Aishwarya rai having world recognition was the right ambassador.  It’s argued that only because of her presence and of course Narayan Murthy’s presence, the event got recognition on the front pages of the leading English newspapers including the Hindu. It is further argued that  her presence has taken the message of the event to the world.

The counter argument is predominantly coming from some of us who do not have anything against Aishwarya rai but are little upset about the choice of Aishwarya rai as an ambassador for the language at the event (and by the way she spoke Kannada , Listen to it here). It has certainly not gone well with certain sections of the society. Let us look at it from first principles. What was the message of the event? According to me the message was to get the world to acknowledge and appreciate the language, its richness, its diversity and its heritage and the same time promote it as much as possible locally and globally. It may be too early to say whether it has achieved this objective. Moreover we hardly have any metrics for its measurement. But let’s look at the ground evidences. It’s true that the event was featured in the front pages of English newspapers, but not beyond Karnataka. The regional newspapers in Tamil nadu did not even report the event let alone the foreign newspapers. None of the major electronic media reported it.

Secondly, we cannot have a brand Ambassador for the language who does not know how to even speak few sentences of it. How can we just accommodate someone just because she is beautiful and famous? What are her Kannada credentials?  She has not acted in a single Kannada film. She cannot speak a few sentences in Kannada.  Agreed that she is a brilliant woman, but did she fit properly as the Ambassador for the language?  I feel we just compromised on certain values for Glamour and popularity. 

Masala Puri for thought!!

Yesterday (7 Feb 2011), i was at Uppina Angadi with my friend Kiran rao. We were there on work. After a tiring site survey in the morning and some technical class in the afternoon, we set out to explore the town in the evening. Uppina Angadi is a small town in Malnad about 60 Kms from Mangalore. It was a pretty big town many many years back where Salt from Mangalore used to be unloaded here before getting dispatched to various destinations (This information has to be authenticated).

We set out to Sangama (Confluence) of two lovely rivers;Kumara Dhara and Netravati. Its a beautiful place on the National highway 48. A massive RCC bridge on the highway connects the two banks of Kumaradhara. There is also a small Steel truss bridge for smaller vehicles which connects to the city. The Sunset here is pretty serene.

It was humid and we were pretty hungry by the time the sun left for the day in the horizon. Just next to the RCC Bridge, we met Lokesh, the Pani puri man in his push cart. There was a pretty healthy crowd around him. I asked a customer there for the speciality of the place. He immediately said “Masala Puri”. So we asked Lokesh to give us two plates of Masala puri. He served us a two plates of really superb hot masala puri. By the time we finished it, he had made another round of 16 Plates of Masala puri. He served it to the customers who had flocked there. Just one plate was left and i could not resist the temptation of another helping. Kiran and me shared this plate. By this time we had struck a good relationship with Lokesh. He explained to us the route to his house, his room etc. He explained the speciality of his Masala puri. I was quickly reminded of Srinivas of M.A.R. chats near Shivbalayogi Ashram in J.P.Nagar,Benglooru. Venkatesh had also started small in a small push cart near Mini forest specializing in “Kodu Bale Masala” and today he makes a pretty big business thanks to his courtesy, quality and cleanliness.

Unlike the push cart Pani puri walas of Benglooru, lokesh did not have any helpers. He was a one man army. Second best part of Lokesh’s shop after the taste was his cleanliness and next his courtesy. If we keep out the fact that it was on the highway, rest of the things were pretty neat. Since he had no helpers and the river was about 300 metre walk down the steep river bank, he would not wash the used plates there (cart). All the plates would be taken to his room and washed there with running water. So each plate is used only once in a day. This is pretty cool isn’t it?

Finally after 3 plates of tasty Masala puri and two plates of Pani puri, we left his shop but not before a few more words with Lokesh. Lokesh told us a story of a few travellers from Hassan who visited his room when the latter’s vehicle broke down on the highway. He explained to us his difficulty when he was driven away from the town and his helplessness during monsoons. He was a first generation masala puri entrepreneur in his 15^th year of entrepreneurial journey.

We left with Kiran rao telling these words “We have to come again to Uppina Angadi again just to have the Masala Puri or on our way to Mangalore next time, we should definitely stop for a Masala puri from Lokesh” ..

I have started enjoying these conversations with people who at the outset feel strangers but many times have fascinating stories to share (here are some examples http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2010/08/happy-man.html , http://sonublogs.blogspot.com/2009/06/bahrath-aur-sharukh-khan.html.)

These interactions have many things to teach. It is not so difficult to strike a healthy chord with anyone. In fact its such a nice feeling to connect to people.

Highway Hell !!

In September 2010, i went on the longest drive of my life so far. I drove from Bangalore to Delhi and back. Onward i drove through the country side visiting small towns and temples. While returning i came on the golden quadrilateral route touching major cities and well industrialized towns of Gujarat. (Read about the drive here)

Well, that drive was good all in all. But the most depressing part of the journey was the pathetic roads coupled with heavy rains in Madhya Pradesh. Ever since the drive, i have cursed Madhya pradesh roads. I deliberately bring the topic of bad roads during casual talks in the family or with friends or with colleagues, kind of enjoy cursing and criticizing it and take pride in saying that Karnataka is far superior than MP so far as roads are concerned.

But i was in for a shock few days back. Accompanied by three 60+ people, i drove to Kukke subramanya and from there to Horanadu in the beautiful shiradi and Charmudi in the western ghats of Karnataka (On 3 and 4 of February 2011). Both the temples are located in the middle of thick forests and the drive to these locations is a treat to anyone who enjoys nature. I would at least drive here for 100 times in my life (only 94 to go since this was my sixth drive to these places.)

Internet gyaan said that Shiradi ghat is in a bad state. But it was not to be. It was quite decent given the terrain and abnormally heavy rainfall last year. So the drive in the ghats was OK rather enjoyable.

But what was most depressing is the state of National Highway 234 (NH 234) in the plains inthe border of chikmanglur-hassan districts. This road connects from Mangalore to the borders of Andra pradesh (AP). The stretch of the road from the scenic Mudigere (Try neer dosa here on the roadside) to the historical town of Belur is pathetic. This is the worst road that i have seen in Karnataka so far. I can say that i have traveled at least 50% of Karnataka by road, but have never seen the roads in this state. The roads in the remote villages of kodagu district like kothnalli, kumaralli, hegdemane etc where even state power grid has failed to deliver power are far better than this stretch of NH.

It took about an hour and a half to drive this 30 kms stretch between Mudigere to Belur. The road was so bad that at one of the pot holes, sorry pot well, more than half the tyre went inside the ditch. I am kind of used to driving long distances and negotiating bad roads but the condition of my three 60+ companions (My mother, my uncle and aunt) was pitiable.

On the lighter note, this stretch of road was so bumpy that any pregnant lady would have delivered on her way on this 30 kms road.

(PS: I have sent a letter and a few photographs to the state roads department. Please note that though its a national highway, only funds are provided by the central government for maintenance and that state government is supposed to execute the work)