Rooftop Solar Power Plant

From the time i took a pledge to be a little green in my living, i wanted to run my house on solar power. I am a great believer that Solar, wind and small hydro power are really a sustainable solution for the energy crisis that we are facing. 

Solar power, however is an expensive technology and does not yield economic returns in the short to medium term. But i still feel its affordable for the middle class. It is because of subsidized grid power that solar power has not gained popularity and its a general feeling that solar power technology does not break even at all. Also the environmental costs of producing conventional power (Coal, Large scale hydro) is never captured in our calculations. 

The idea of this post is not to argue for an economic case for solar but its about my efforts to put up a solar power plant on my rooftop. We designed and installed the rooftop power plant in our house in March 2014. 

Below i try to put down my experience in designing and installing the power plant. 

Energy Requirement:

The First step in designing the system is to carefully examine one's Power requirement.

The power you need is the instantaneous intensity of electricity required to power the appliances you use; this is measured in kilowatts. The more appliances that are used at the same time, the more power required. Energy is a measure of the length of time you have used a given amount of power. It depends on the power required by the appliances and on how long and how often you use them. Electrical energy is measured in kilowatt hours (Kwh). You need to know the electrical power and energy requirement for lighting, heating, cooking and other uses for your home.  How large a system do you really require is a function of Power requirements which is not very easy to measure .

To estimate how much electricity you need:

• List all your electrical appliances and lights and note when and how long they are used.

• Note the power that each appliance consumes. An appliance’s power rating is usually written on the back of the appliance and is measured in watts or kilowatts. 

• Record the number of hours each appliance is used in a typical day.

• For each appliance, multiply the power rating in watts by the number of hours used each day to obtain the number of watt hours (or kWh) that the appliance uses per day. 

• Energy-use patterns change with the seasons (e.g., lighting is generally used more in monsoon/winter).

• Add up the watt hours for all your appliances. This total is an estimate of your electrical energy consumption per day. Then you can calculate how much energy you would need per month.

The above exercise was done for the lighting loads of my house (Excluding heaters, refrigerators, microwave oven and iron). 

The table below are the results

Sl No	Utility	Power rating  (W)	No  of Hrs	Watt Hours   Consumed         (Wh)	Units             (Kwh)
1.00	Fan 1 (Office)	70.00	8.00	560.00	0.56000
2.00	Fan 2 (Hall)	80.00	4.00	320.00	0.32000
3.00	Fan 3 (Room)	70.00	7.00	490.00	0.49000
4.00	LED 1 (Office)	7.00	5.00	35.00	0.03500
5.00	LED  2 (hall)	10.00	4.00	40.00	0.04000
6.00	CFL 1 (room)	14.00	2.00	28.00	0.02800
7.00	CFL 2 (kitchen)	14.00	2.00	28.00	0.02800
8.00	CFL 3 (utility)	8.00	0.50	4.00	0.00400
9.00	CFL 4 (Bathroom)	5.00	0.25	1.25	0.00125
10.00	CFL 5 (Toilet 1)	5.00	0.50	2.50	0.00250
11.00	CFL 6 (Toilet 2)	5.00	0.25	1.25	0.00125
12.00	CFL 7 (Toilet 3)	5.00	0.25	1.25	0.00125
13.00	Computer 1	90.00	9.00	810.00	0.81000
14.00	Computer 2	90.00	6.00	540.00	0.54000
15.00	Television	100.00	6.00	600.00	0.60000
16.00	Set top box	5.00	10.00	50.00	0.05000
17.00	Misc				0.25000
Total				3,511.25	3.76

So i need to generate about 3.8 Units of power per day to power all my non inductive loads. 

The next step is to choose the type of system. That is to design an optimum configuration where the solar power, the battery power (Charged from solar and grid) and the grid power is used in the most efficient manner. Broadly there are three configurations. 

1. Off Grid System: Off Grid or stand-alone system refers to being independent of the state grid. The design would support all the loads and sufficient back up can be provided to cater to the power needs worst conditions.

One can go off-grid for low intensity loads. In other words, all equipments having a power rating lesser than 500W can be taken off grid. 

2. Grid Tied System : In grid tied systems, the system is interfaced to the state power grid. Here, Solar takes the first priority to run the loads. The excess power, if generated will charge the battery bank. The excess from the battery bank is fed into the state power grid. Grid tied system can be configured without battery bank also.

In case there is deficit of solar power, the differential power is drawn from the state power grid.

In case of grid tied system, a meter to record the net power (Net metering) will be installed.

3. Hybrid System or Grid interactive system: Hybrid system is a smart system involving, solar, grid , battery bank. A DG can also be added if required.  Here, Solar takes the first priority to run the loads. Excess power generated will charge the battery bank. During night battery will support the loads till a safe battery voltage. System will switch over to grid automatically below battery safe voltage. (If GRID is not available and battery has been discharged, PCU can command DG to start and supply power to the loads till Grid or solar is restored).

Hybrid systems can also be configured as grid interactive systems where only solar and grid are present. Here, the first priority is given to solar. Excess power generated will charge the battery bank. During night battery will support the loads, till a safe battery voltage. System will switch over to grid automatically below battery safe voltage. This would extend the battery life and provide seamless power supply. There will be no power exported to grid. 

In view of economy and ease of use, the grid interactive system is the best. One can slightly under design the system also if budget is a constraint. 

In my house, i decided to go in for a grid interactive system. The system consists of 

1. Solar Panels

2. Battery Bank

3. PCU or Power conditioning unit. 

In bangalore weather conditions, one kilowatt peak (KWp) will generate about 2.5 units of power per day on an average bright day. So if my requirement is 3.8 units per day, i would need 1.52 KWp. 

So i would need a power conditioning unit (PCU or inverter) that can support 1.6 KW. However, it is prudent to go for slightly higher PCU to account for accidental higher loads (or in event of guests at home).

The battery bank is designed to cater to maximum night loads. Also many PCUs needs a basic minimum voltage to even start. As such for a 2KW system that i decided to put, i had to connect 4 batteries of 12 V each in series to give 48V. 

So my final configuration was

1. 6 modules of 230Wp solar panels (total of 1380Wp)

2. 4 numbers of 100Ah, 12 V deep discharge batteries in series. 

3. 2KW PCU (i decided to go with a PCU with transformer).

The mounting structure proved to be the most difficult part of the installation. There were two riding considerations for mounting structure. 
1. The structure has to be non penetrative. That is we did not want to drill the roof to fix the structure. 
2. We wanted to keep the cost to care minimum without compromising on quality and safety.  

The mounting structure was designed in view of economy and wind loads. The design we arrived was a very simple "Z" section of 3mm thickness, web length of 6 inches and flange length of 9 inches with oblong slots. We got the same fabricated with powder coating. 6 such sections were fixed to each panel.  

The panels were just anchored to the mounting angles with nuts and bolts. The panels with angles were placed on the roof. A rubber pad was placed between the angle and the RCC roof to minimize friction caused by wind. A simple clay brick counter weight was placed for additional safety. 

For the DC wiring, we got double sheathed DC cables specifically designed for solar purposes. We got the right switches and the wires. 

After all the electrical and structural design, we had aesthetics to care of . Thanks to power  tools from Bosch we did and re-did the wiring (DC and AC) thrice before we were happy with the aesthetics. It took full three days for three people for installation. All in all it was a terrific time designing and installing the system. (A short video is at the end of the post). 

The final phase of the work was to check the system and measure the efficiency. So after about two weeks of installation, we measured the key parameters. A graph of array current and array voltage against time was prepared to study the system. Below are the results. 

Time	Array voltage  (V)	Array Current  (A)	Total Power Produced (W)	O/P current (%)	O/P Voltage (V)	Battery Current (A)	Battery Voltage (V)
09:00:00	54	2.9	156.600	10	231	1.6	51
09:30:00	53	3.2	169.600	4	231	0.1	54
10:00:00	54	5.3	286.200	6	231	0.5	51
10:30:00	59	13.8	814.200	9	231	7.3	56
11:00:00	59	12.8	755.200	5	231	7.9	57
11:30:00	59	12.2	719.800	6	231	7.3	56
12:00:00	60	12.6	756.000	5	231	2.1	56
12:30:00	61	13.9	847.900	7	231	9.5	58
13:00:00	61	15.6	951.600	8	231	2.8	58
13:30:00	65	6.6	429.000	8	231	0.9	54
14:00:00	62	4.9	303.800	6	231	2	54
14:30:00	63	6.5	409.500	5	231	3	54
15:00:00	54	3.1	167.400	5	231	1	52
15:30:00	63	5.7	359.100	6	231	2.3	54
16:00:00	62	4.7	291.400	5	231	1.7	54
16:30:00	54	2.1	113.400	6	231	1.1	52
17:00:00	53	2.1	111.300	4	231	0.7	51

Key metrics from the above table are.

Parameter   Reading   Units   Max instantaneous power produced          951.60  W   Total hours of power production              4.02  Hours   Max Power produced per panel (W)          158.60  W   Total units of power produced              3.82  Kwh   Total power produced      3,821.00  W   Number of hours of power production              7.00  Hours   Power consumed by charger          100.00  W   Power lost during charging          700.00  W   Power available at the battery end      3,121.00  W   Battery to inversion efficiency            70.00  %  Power available at distribution box      2,184.70  W

Maximum units produced                                       2.67       Kwh
 (after all losses)                       

The power production was actually less than expected. There are two reasons for that.

1. The day was not that bright. We had few spells of cloud cover. 

2. There was a tree shadow on one of the panels after 2 PM. Since the modules were made of polycrystalline cells, practically the whole panel will not function if there is shadow on any portion of the panel. 

However for a 1.38Kwp power plant we can easily expect about 3 units of power on a moderately bright day. 

Since it is a grid interactive system, the balance power requirement for the day was met by state utility grid power. 

         Installation Video

Business should not be "Business as usual"

The thought of this post came to me while i  was lying under partial anesthesia on the surgery table of St Philomena's hospital on the 15th of September 2014. I did not have sense of the lower portion of my body. Lying half naked, my legs tied up like a pregnant woman about to deliver, I was waiting for the surgeon to cut out some pus in my ano-rectum area and cut open some part of the tissue so that a fissure there could heal properly. In medical terms the surgery was called "Lateral sphincterotomy". It was a small surgery nevertheless painful.  This was the culmination of bad and stressful life for more than a year.  While i could not have directly cut down the stress levels, i could have been more disciplined in life. 

This was my first encounter with the operation theater. I was told that the this surgery is quite common and its not a cause of worry. Surgery apart, it is the lifestyle which caused my hapless condition. 

For over an year, i am leading a pretty undisciplined life. Very bad food habits, no exercise, plenty of driving, bad sleep habits, pollution and stress both in family and work has taken a very huge toll on my health and hobbies. Health and work obviously has suffered a great deal. But for no plausible reason, i have stopped photography (After publishing my collection early this year), i have not done any travel for pleasure or holiday, my passion for academics has come down, my orthodoxy in religion has almost vanished,  i have stopped following kannada theater so on and so forth. 

The reason for all the above is indiscipline in life and lack of will power. No doubt there has been a sea change in life in the last two years. I am no longer at my will to do all the silly adventures. I have a wife and a one year old who are dependent on me. They take most of my time. 

Not everything is in my control as well. I have lost many dear ones in the last 15 months. My mother and my always witty, selfless and always helpful doctor cousin left me in a span of 5 weeks. My uncle who was like a father figure for me after my father's demise left me just a couple of days after naming his grandson (My son) as "Sri Krishna" in the first week of August this year. 

Nonetheless, being disciplined even amidst the worst onslaught is what makes a man successful. One can never have control over the external factors but one should have determination to stick to his game plan and work towards a goal. Unfortunately i have failed in the latter two so far. 

Running a business is not "So cool" thing to do. Being on your own requires lot of discipline and willpower. Many things will be pulling you in many directions. But staying focussed is the key. 

 "You are so lucky", " Oh its cool to be working from home". These are the typical reactions i get from many people who i meet. They envy me because i work mostly from home. Rather i work at home!!.. 

While it is really good to be working from home, it has its own inherent repercussions. An entrepreneur needs to be very disciplined at work. Working from home many times may become "Working for Home". Household chores are a never ending task. There will be something or the other every day. When we heed too much for the household work, business obviously takes a back seat.
Entrepreneurs are normally creative people . But sometimes, they use the creativity to justify inaction and lethargy since there is no reporting manager on top of him.

One big reason for my bad health over the last one year has been my lifestyle. I tend to do work at odd timings. I haven't taken care of my diet. I heed too much for domestic chores and concentrate too little on professional deadlines and plans. Creativity has taken a back seat since i am more involved in household work.

Kids are awesome. They really are. My one year old son is super cute and super naughty. I can play with him all day and all night. But playing all day also means losing all day of business. Since i work from home, my son always wants to come to me while i am working. He does not like when i ignore him. I cannot go out of the house(office) when he is awake.

"Business" for entrepreneurs is not "Business as usual". Entrepreneurs are normally creative and enthusiastic people. They always want to do new things and experiment. The key driver for their creativity is the discipline. Once the discipline is gone in life, creativity goes down and business suffers. For sustenance, the business becomes business as usual.

Out of my experience of running a very small company pretty successfully for sometime which earned me a lot of social capital and , also failing quite badly in the last 12 to 14 months, i would like to pen down a few guidelines for myself and for other people going through a similar phase of life.

• Having discipline in work is very important. To be more precise, one needs to have a very clear distinction between professional and personal life. There must not be any overlap in time allotted for each respectively.
• If possible, have a separate office however small it is. But the office must be neat.
• Keep the family away from business and office. Resist the temptation of playing with kids at office hours. 
• Have a good routine. Start up entrepreneurs have a lot of travel to do. But one must keep in mind that health suffers during travel. One must have control over eating outside food. Fast food can kill you faster. 
• Starting the work early helps leaps and bounds. I do not know if it is by design of luck, but most of the project meetings and negotiations that i have had in the early hours in the morning have invariably clicked. 
• Another important observation is that whenever i have been late for the meeting, those projects have not clicked. So a priceless lesson is to be on time for every meeting, be it with clients or with subordinates. 
• Stress and restlessness are the biggest enemies for entrepreneurs. One must find out a way of overcoming it. One nice way which has started working for me is music. Few weeks back i started learning Mridangam, something i wanted to do for many years now. I am very bad at it right now. But learning something new , particularly music which is both an art and science has been a very refreshing experience. 
• Most importantly life for an entrepreneur should never become "Business as usual". It is the most dangerous thing that could happen which will kill his creativity. One must keep on experimenting, creating, innovating and enjoy his or her evolution. 

I am completely aware that many things are easier said than done. I am also trying to incorporate many of the above into my life.

This post is my acknowledgement to my indiscipline, weak determination and very bad health, and my resolve to reverse it.  I wrote the above post to reinvent myself and renew many of my interests and passions.

Neat on Mars, Bad on Roads.

Yesterday (24- September-2014) i had to go to world trade center near yeshwanthpur for an important meeting. The meeting was scheduled at 2:00 PM and i had to leave the house by 12:30 PM. My wife had prepared early lunch so that i do not have anything outside. 

There was no milk at home and the local milk booth was closed. Since the car was outside, i took a drive to another milk booth about a kilometer away. It was 11:30 AM and i had ample time. As i was about to park the car on the milk booth road  (10th cross, 12th Main, 2 phase J.P.Nagar), my car seat sank down a foot and a half . The road below the car had caved in and the tyres went into the slush. The road below had to take an additional 100 Kg :) rather 95... 

A reputed contractor L&T is executing some Underground pipe line works in the area. They had finished laying pipes a few days back and had left the road in a very condition. They had not compacted the soil properly . Heavy rains the previous day had worsened the road. I was the unlucky fellow to fall prey to their shoddy work. 

I had no clue on what to do. I asked a construction engineer at a close by construction to help me with a few labourers. He blatantly refused. The house owner in front of my stuck up car was furious not on me but on the contractors. Apparently this had happened earlier once and the contractor took no cognisance of it. She made some frantic calls to the L&T engineers. 

Stuck!!

Meantime, i called the Ford helpline. They were taking ages to respond. The local garage guy said he will arrange for a crane. It would cost me a bomb of 3500 bucks. I was not in a mood to spend that kind of money for no fault of mine. Few people passing by were giving some unsolicited advice but no help. 

Finally an Auto driver showed up and offered to help. I was not in a condition to lift the car or put the jack since i am recovering from a small surgery. 

Meantime, i called the local corporator Mr Chandrashekar Raju and explained to him the bad condition of the road. In a few minutes i got a call from the Jayanagar MLA's office for something else. I explained to the personal assistant of the MLA on what had happened and that the road needs urgent attention. 

Thanks to the house owner who was blasting the contractors and may be a call from the corporator or the MLA's office, in a few minutes about 8 gangmen arrived in a jeep. Meantime, i had asked for a crane service. I was feeling bad to shell down a few thousand bucks. However, the contractor's engineer said that it was his responsibility and that i cancel the crane service. I obliged. 

Contractor's men on the job post episode. 

So the eight men got into position. One person excavated some soil below the car. He put a plank there (may be they are so used to doing this job). I started the car and put it in reverse gear. Few men lifted the car and a few more pushed it as i increased the throttle on the accelerator. The car came out ,tyres full of slush and the air filled with the smell of rubber. 

It is so disappointing that these incidents happen time and again. If only the contractor had filled up the soil properly and compacted it before putting concrete, so much discomfort and trouble could have been avoided. It required some firing from responsible citizens and a push from the political representative to do such a small 10 minute job. 

The roller arrived after some "Jack Up"

Nevertheless, since the episode, the contractor's men pressed into action. They excavated the soil, put the aggregates , compacted the soil with a roller and put concrete and barricaded the wet portion. All it took was 15 minutes. 

We are such a paradoxical country. We can put the mars orbiter on track in the first attempt with least cost but in almost 70 years of independence , we cannot make a neat stretch of road or a neat stretch of repair. It is not the lack of skill but only lack of accountability that is responsible for many of our shoddy public works. 

Nonetheless, the silver lining is that the contractor responded to calls from the responsible homeowner and from the political bosses. I saved 3000 ruppes. 

Road Patched Up. 

Naham Kartha, Hari Kartha

"When i saw Tirupati Balaji" is an exemplary book written by Mr P.V.R.K.Prasad, an IAS officer who served as the executive officer of TTD (Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams)for many years. It is a beautiful collection of essays by Mr Prasad counting his experiences as the first servant of god in the capacity of executive officer of TTD. It is a highly recommended book for believers as well as non believers. The book is so compelling that i completed it in 2 days. The book has reinforced my faith in god manifolds. Ever since i have read that book, i have been wanting to go to Tirupati. 

My last trip to Tirupati was in 2007. However after 2007, i could not visit Tirupathi for some reason or the other. 

From 2007, my many plans for lord's darshan failed. In 2012, i made yet another attempt to see the lord at Tirupati. Everything was set. We had booked for the seva, for the accommodation and the taxi. We were scheduled to leave early on the 27th of June. I was all excited since this was my visit to Tirupati after 5 years. 

On the evening of the 26 June 2012, i started feeling cold. By 6 PM, i started getting severe chills and within few minutes i was under 5 blankets. By 8 PM i was lying in the emergency ward of Manipal hospital. 

So yet again Tirupati plan got cancelled. On the morning of 27 June, two lucky people from my family  who 10 hours back had no plans of having lord's darshan took my place and proceeded to Tirupati for the lord's blessings. 

We planned to go to Tirupati after my wedding on 4 November 2012. But even before we could chalk out something , my wife fractured her leg and she was in plaster for 6 weeks. Many events throughout 2013 did not give us an opportunity to plan for any trip. 

All the events just buttressed my firm belief that nothing works as per our plan. We were just not destined to get the Lord's blessings. Tirupati remained a distant dream for us. 

It was on one fine day in April 2014 that the thought of seeking Balaji's blessings came to me. My brother too was planning to go to Tirupati for many years but had not materialized. So we decided to perform the Kalyanothsava for the lord at Tirupati. 

At Manipal Hospital, 27 June 2012

The seva has to be booked online.The portal for the seva opens 90 days in advance and the sevas normally get booked within an hour of portal opening.  Since two families were going, we had to get two tickets. Myself and my wife sheethal created two different accounts to book for the seva.  

We had planned to give for the seva on the 28 July. So on the midnight of April 28, we were sitting and waiting for the portal to open. The portal opened at 12:20 AM on the 28 April. We were all set to book for the seva. But when we clicked on the "Book" button we were getting some error message. Out of desperation, we tried from different computers and from different internet connections but of no avail.

So i called up my brother in the US to try. I had to send him all the details and passwords. We did all that but for some reason photographs were not attaching. After a while we were successful. Meanwhile the sevas were getting booked very swiftly and our hopes were dimming. My brother could operate one account at a time. He finally managed to get to payment gateway. I had to give my credit card details. After all information was entered , i did not receive the password for the payment on my mobile phone. It finally arrived after much delay and we were lucky to get a confirmed booking. So two tickets for two couples were booked 90 days in advance. 

I was finally relieved by 1:30 AM and thanked god. 

We booked our Hotel and taxi well in advance. We were pre prepared for the chaos and crowd. We were travelling with two kids. One about 11 months (My son) and the other 4 and half years old (My Brother's daughter). 

Our plan was to leave on the afternoon of 27 July. Reach Tirupati by late evening. Relax in the night and head to lord's darshan the next day morning (Kalyanothsava was scheduled at 11 AM on 28 July). 

We had a small ceremony at home on 26 July. Soon after the ceremony, my always charming and playful niece complained of stomach ache. She was in bad pain and we took her to the hospital at 4 PM. The doctor said there was nothing to worry about and sent us home with some medication. Doctor did not advise us to cancel the trip. 

At around 8 PM, my niece Isha started vomiting. We thought it was some food poisoning. But she puked a few times and at 11 PM, we called the doctor who asked us to get Isha to the hospital. At 11:30 PM we were at the emergency ward of Manipal hospital. After some procedures, medication and X ray she was discharged and we were back home by 1 AM on 27 July. The doctor said my niece was ok and she should not vomit again. 

But at 2:45 AM on 27 july, Isha started vomiting again and we had to rush her to Manipal hospital. She was admitted at the hospital. She was put on intravenous fluids and medicines. Ironically, i was admitted at the same hospital and same ward exactly 25 months back (27 June 2012) with almost the same symptoms and i too was put put on intravenous fluids and medicines.

So, at 8 AM on 27 July, my little niece was sleeping at Manipal hospital. Yet another Tirupati plan was cancelled. I called up the hotel and cancelled the booking. The cab driver called and i asked him to cancel the trip. He too was disappointed. However, i asked him to come over so that it will be easy for us to commute between home and hospital and for other odd jobs as required. 

I was not destined to get the lord's blessings. My many attempts had failed and i told myself that i will go when the lord wishes. 

It was a sad day. Phone calls were pouring all day to enquire about Isha's health. She is a precious baby for our family. So all were concerned. We shuttled all day between home and the hospital. Isha was discharged at 5:30 PM. She was all ok and playful. 

The idea of Tirupati was still clinging on my brother's mind. Isha was normal and very energetic. She was more than compensating for the previous day. 

At 8:00 PM my brother santosh said lets us go. After a five minute discussion, we unanimously decided to head out to Tirupati without a second thought. We called the cab guy and he agreed to show up at 4:30 AM the next day (28 July). 

From somewhere we got the grit to make it. Isha, my niece is a very precious gift of lord to our family. We can never afford to compromise with her health. But somehow we thought we can make it. We were well aware of the crowd and mayhem at Tirupati. But we still wanted to make it. 

I got up at 3:00 AM the next , got ready. I was myself not very well. I was on medication for last two weeks. But it did not bother me. The thought also did not come to me. I am realising that i had forgotten my medicine only as i am writing this. 

At 4:45 AM, we were off. We were 6 of us. Myself, my wife sheethal, my son Shri Krishna, my brother Santosh, my sister in law Vijeth and my niece Isha. It was a very comfortable journey. We had to struggle a little inside Tirumala to get o the right place but by and large it was manageable. 

As expected it was very crowded and people were pushing from all directions. We were very concerned about Krishna and Isha. But both the kids behaved extremely well. Inspite of so many people , amidst all the screaming and chaos, the kids kept their calm and behaved. 

We finished the kalyanothsava. By that time both the kids had slept. By the time we were heading towards the sanatorium for Lord's darshan, the kids woke up. To our surprise Krishna was all cheerful and smiling in the middle of the mayhem. He was clapping and enjoying. We got into the sanatorium and had a very satisfying darshan of the God. 

We got into the temple at 11 AM and we were out by 2:30 PM. We were surprised and delighted by the sequence of events. 

I got into the car to find a few missed calls from the relatives who were anxious to know how Isha was doing (No one knew we were going to Tirupati). They were surprised to learn that we did make it to Tirupati. Everyone were appreciating our courage to have made the trip. 

My seven year long wait culminated with the lord's darshan on the 28 of July. I never imagined that we could make it after all the events that preceded our visit.  I do not have any explanation for the events. I did not have anything to say to our relatives as well but just "Naham Kartha, Hari Kartha" . 

Outsourcing Change

The title of this blog is borrowed from a status update of my friend Sameer Shisodia. This is probably the most pertinent phrase on the eve of the election results. Sameer in his post said 

"So - now the wait begins to bring in "change" and outsource our responsibilities, hopes and duties to a an all new central figure who is expected to change and fix everything without us having to move a finger, give up on our greed and needs, change nothing at our end and put in no extra effort " # Democrazy?

I cannot agree more to his words. As someone who had responded to his update said "Govt change karne se kya hoga? We are like this only. We will not wait in line. We will put our trash on the road. We will drive on the wrong side of the road. We will always hurry but never reach on time. We will always find someone else to fault. Govt change karne se kya hoga jab hum khudh change nahi honge". 

I am writing this post out of sheer disgust, frustration and helplessness. People blame everything but for themselves for all ills in the society. People's social attitude is becoming worse. Aggression seems to be the new norm on the roads. Disrespect for rules and insensitivity for others has become a matter of routine. 

I will just pick up an incident i was involved in today. I have been living in south Bangalore all my life and have seen it grow (worse) leaps and bounds. Vidhyarthi Bhavan (VB), located in Gandhi Bazaar is any day my hot favourite for its yummy dosa and awesome coffee.

Today evening, myself, my wife and our little Krishna drove to Gandhi Bazaar for that amazing dosa at VB. As i was crossing the road holding my 8 month old baby Krishna, a man aged around 40 riding a two wheeler with three people on it almost ran into me speaking on his cell phone (No helmet of course). When i gave him a glare, he yelled "Chal re". It was clearly his mistake. Without any debate, we moved on. 

After the yummy dosa and coffee at Vidhyarthi Bhavan, we were accompanied out by a lady (may be 35 to 38 years old), her two kids, her secretary (or PA or some assistant). A sedan car stopped outside VB and her assistant opened the back door for her. All of them got into the car. We just moved a few steps to cross the road and couple of empty boxes of sweets and a plastic cover came flying out of the car. A box fell on my feet as well. I got furious and asked the driver and the lady on the car if this is what they were teaching their kids. The reply was in Kannada and the madam's driver very rudely said "ಇವಾಗ ಏನು? ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ ಹೋಗಿ “It means "I threw, so what now? You just go". 

They did not even bother to apologize. They were from an upper middle class family. When i picked up the box and the cover from the road, they did not even react. I am sure they were not embarrassed. They just drove off. 

Other than picking those boxes from the road and throwing in the dustbin, i could not do anything much. It is unfortunate, but i guess this is how we live.

At this rate, it is dangerous to think of the future. Discipline in public seems to be totally absent. If this is our attitude, no leader will be able to change anything. Discipline and change must come from within.

As sameer put it very beautifully, we only want to "Outsource" change. But the inconvenient truth is, there is no messiah with a magic wand who will change the things overnight.

  

PS: The Bangalore i lived in my childhood or for that matter even during my engineering days was not this rude or insensitive.  Society has become abusive and aggressive.

Question of freedom..

Few years back i watched this amazing play called “Ambedkar aur Gandhi”. It is a Hindi play directed by Arvind Gaur and performed by the highly talented theatre group “ASMITA”. Much has been written about this play. The play is not free from controversy. The director claims that every word in the script is recorded in history. However some critics doubt it.

Nevertheless, i watched this play again at “Sriram Theater”, New Delhi last week. It has a very powerful script. The play was so intense that by the time the play was over, though this was the second time i was watching this play, i had goose bumps on my skin.

I have already written about this play. I will not repeat it now. But like last time, i had a chance to talk to the director after the play.

Arvind Gaur is a very humble man. Short man of about five and a half feet, Arvind is full of energy and is totally dedicated to his work. He believes in theatre as a mode of social change. His Theater “Asmita” consists of more than 50 people.

The play that they were performing is on Socio-political history. “Ambedkar aur Gandhi” is a play on the delicate relationship between Gandhi and Ambedkar set in the backdrop of second round table conference on the issue of separate electorate for the schedule castes. As such, the most powerful character in the play is that of Dr Ambedkar. Performed by the brilliant young artist Bajrang Bali Singh, his role as Ambedkar can move any audience.

Arvind Gaur.

But Arvind and Asmita group have their share of problems in staging this play. They have to give an affidavit before every performance that there would not be any violence after the play. Not only in Delhi, but anywhere in india, the group runs into the bureaucracy before their performance. Arvind says, such highly talented and dedicated artists have to bend at the mercy of the line of bureaucracy right from the beat policeman till the DCP before every performance.

True, the play is controversial. It is very very critical of Gandhi. In my opinion, the play shows Gandhi more hypocritical than he was (perhaps). In more than one instance in the play, Ambedkar makes sarcastic remarks of Gandhi being a  “Mahathma”.

But at the end of the day, it is a piece of literature. It is art. The theater group has put the source of the script in public. Every dialogue, they claim, is recorded in history.

Afterall, the play is about the great man who drafted our constitution. Ambedkar stood for equality and freedom of speech.  This play was banned in Gujrat for many years. To perform this play anywhere in india, the group has to take permission from the police. Not only that, they have to give an affidavit.  Is this not restriction of “Freedom of Speech” ?

In our society, politicians can make dangerous hate speeches but a common man with rich social and cultural values cannot easily perform a historical play.

I will sign off by quoting a few lines of Dr Ambedkar (in constituent assembly) ;

“ On 26 January, 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle on one man one value.. ”

PS : Posting this from the “Bangalore Rajadhani Express” somewhere in Andhra Pradesh.