tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197212382024-03-08T04:46:17.893+05:30despokiHints, Allegations and Things Left UnwrittenVKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.comBlogger527125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-75865292116753167402019-07-06T22:19:00.000+05:302019-07-06T22:19:01.386+05:30Netflix Reviews<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Patriot Act: Excellent stuff. Hassan Minhaj is great. Manages to mix outrage with comedy and intelligent commentary. Have watched some episodes more than once, the ultimate test 5 *<br />
Thackeray: Excellent. I always dig these inside stories of great people or famous people to see how they tick. This one makes the cut. Portrays him well with his extremes, sympathetic but not fawning 5 *<br />
Happy: Quite bizarre but watchable/memorable. Acquired taste. Piles on the violence but in way that you can't take it seriously. 4 *<br />
The Good Place: Uneven. First season was great, and after that struggled to keep the premise going. 4 *<br />
Always Be My Maybe: Watchable 3 *<br />
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Comedians of the World: One or two watchable ones, but overall pretty painful stuff. Try Shirley Suagnon or Aditi Mittal. The Indian guys are pretty bad. Even the US guys are pretty bad. I guess with all the glut of good comedy on the web now, the standards are too high. I must say nobody really gets comedy (atleast standup) the way the best guys in the US do. 2 *</div>
Shaft: Watched the one with the son Shaft Jr. in it. Pretty mediocre stuff. Usual violence 2 *<br />
Luke Cage: Stopped watching after a few episodes which is the ultimate disqualifier . Not enough meat in the story to keep you watching; 2 *<br />
What / If : Inexecrable. Couldn't make it past the first episode. 1 *<br />
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast): Couldn't make it past the first episode 1 *<br />
Traitors: Ditto. Seemed promising but didn't pan out. Oh well 1 *<br />
Cuckoo: Nice premise, and couple of high points but I stopped after the 2nd episode 1 *<br />
Osmosis: 1 *<br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-37407974808412916102018-11-01T15:44:00.001+05:302018-11-01T15:44:22.749+05:30What's this stone ?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the Tadipatri area of Anantapur district, this stone material (see photos) is omnipresent. It seems to be a kind of granite. Is it slate, or is it the 'Cuddapah stone' that is quite famous? Do leave a comment if you know. Anyway. This area is filled with quarries and stone cutting businesses. Houses and walls made of neatly packed tiles of this material are quite distinctive. The local Bellum caves, a tourist attraction, makes excellent use of this material to create a striking and elegant entrance to the caves.</div>
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The debris from the stone cutting is also omnipresent. I wonder if these could be used to create small distinctive items of use at home or perhaps tourist souvenirs. A very good project for designers/design students to work on.</div>
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View photos:</div>
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<a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/dPygXfMboky1Gt866">https://photos.app.goo.gl/dPygXfMboky1Gt866</a></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-5686133714704428282018-11-01T15:35:00.003+05:302018-11-01T15:47:12.901+05:30Bellum Caves <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Bellum Caves in Kurnool district (at the border with Anantapur district), AP, is a very nice discovery. Its one of those places that are pretty interesting and well worth a visit, but are so far out of the way from big cities or major tourist spots, that they don't get the attention. (Another such one that comes to mind is the Lonar Crater Lake in Maharashtra). Bellum is supposedly one of the largest cave formations in Asia. It is quite a maze and easy to get lost in. Its also pretty hot and sweaty inside so prepare for that. There are some fans placed strategically inside the caves to give some relief. Look for the underground pond, called Pataala Ganga.<br />
Other stuff: There's an unremarkable and wholly unnecessary Buddha statue on the same campus. The APTDC seems to run hotel rooms there, but not sure of the quality and if they are functioning.The other remarkable thing I saw in the area is the preponderance of a local building stone. You see it all around, and there are tonnes of leftover debris from stone cutting. I'm sure there is something of interest in this if you dig a bit.<br />
Getting there : from Bangalore , travel to Anantapur by road and then to Tadipatri, and Bellum is about 45 minutes outside of Tadipatri. You can take a bus to Anantapur and from there, there are very frequent buses to Tadipatri which is about an hour and forty five minutes away. And yet another bus to Bellum caves. So quite a long trek. You can find route information on the APSRTC booking website and phone app. The best idea would be to combine it with other stuff and do a weekend outing to Anantapur. I plan to propose how this could be done in a later post.<br />
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See a Google Photo Album of photos from Bellum Caves here:<br />
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<a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/c3HNQK495fRkN6xZ8">https://photos.app.goo.gl/c3HNQK495fRkN6xZ8</a><br />
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See a blog post about the stone mentioned above:<br />
<a href="https://despoki.blogspot.com/2018/11/whats-this-stone.html">https://despoki.blogspot.com/2018/11/whats-this-stone.html</a><br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-36631075587376536822018-01-11T00:02:00.001+05:302018-01-11T00:02:25.863+05:30More from the Chitra Santhe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Bought this exuberant dash of colour at the Chitra Santhe.<br />
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The moment I saw it, I was captivated. While there was tremendous amount of art that I like at the Santhe, this one immediately grabbed me. Quite mysterious why some things stand out like that. Ironically, even the painter didn't particularly show interest and didn't seem to think that this was a standout piece, compared to his other work! To me, there was no comparison<br />
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At one level, the use of the colour is unrealistic and artificial, that kind of colour mashup is not how any real warrior would be dressed. But somehow it just WORKS as a painting! And how! <br />
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Cost 2000/- <br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-8524651085012145002018-01-07T20:55:00.002+05:302018-01-07T20:55:52.968+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Bengaluru Chitra Santhe was amazing. Got reconnected to what Bengaluru can be beyond civic<br />dysfunctionality. <br />By my estimate there were upwards of 500 artists showing their work; 1000 if you go by the numbering.<br />So that might be like 20,000 original paintings on display.<br />Amazed by the consistently high quality on display (of course this is subjective, but I've spent<br />a fair amount of time looking at art). Many of the works were great value, costs from 900/- upwards. <br />Something seems to be out of whack here. With so many artists pouring their creativity into their<br />canvases at such prices, why isn't there a huge boom in original art sales? People spend quite large<br />amounts on furniture and interior decoration, and I've seen some execrable stock pieces of decoration<br />and painting in houses and hotels. Why not instead spend some time picking out a piece of original art that really speaks to you?<br /><br />If I stocked a few good pieces, would you come and buy from me?<br /><br />Apologies to the artists for not attributing them in the photos. I did ask them permission to photograph<br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-1469971250030429412017-10-29T11:54:00.004+05:302017-10-29T11:55:41.577+05:30Idle reflection - Mark Zuckerberg and Travis Kalanick<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I was thinking how Travis Kalanick founded what is now (circa 2017) the most valuable startup in the world, but couldn't see fast enough that his personal sexist behavior would end up getting him chucked out of his life's work. Mark Zuckerberg on the other hand strikes me as a guy who has a superhuman capacity to see and ward off an oncoming crisis. (My understanding of him is based primarily on what I read in the news, and that wonderful movie "The Social Network". So my logic is dependent on the accuracy of the movie in capturing Mark's personality, even if not getting all the facts correct). In the movie Zuckerberg is so conscious of crises. When Eduardo Saverin cuts off the payment to the servers hosting Facebook, Zuckerberg goes ballistic (and perhaps that's when he decided to dump Saverin). And at the end when Sean Parker causes another crisis. The movie doesn't show how Zuckerberg resolves the crisis, but clearly he does, since FB is around and thriving. My sense is that its not just external crises. Internally too Zuckerberg is adept at reinventing himself. He started off with the bad-boy antics at Harvard and his early days in the Valley where he humiliates a VC egged on by Sean Parker. Today's he's a model corporate executive atleast to public knowledge. And its not just a facade.</div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-57900933635103292662017-06-21T23:13:00.003+05:302017-06-21T23:37:16.049+05:30Analysing "Orange is the new Black" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I just finished watching 3 seasons of OTNB and its pretty amazing. It feels like there's enough meat in the show to make it worthy of a Masters' thesis, if not a Ph.D. <br /><br />The characterisation is pretty amazing. There are no black/whites, its all gray, and superbly done. Nobody, but nobody on the show is without genuinely dark parts in their personality. And those who start off as assholes acquire acquire majorly redeeming qualities as the show progresses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The show has real empathy for the women in the prison,
and teaches subtly and beautifully, the disaster that a modern prison
is, as a humane way of dealing with those who chase the law. At the same
time, it doesn't offer any simplistic solutions for how to improve the
system. I found the show really eye-opening and hopefully altered my
worldview permanently. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In its flashbacks to the lives of the inmates before they ended up in prison, it paints a picture of the the huge struggle that life is for those coming from underpriviledged backgrounds, or dysfunctional families. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It also beautifully plays off the black, white and Latino sub-cultures beautifully. In particular, it does a great job of viewing the world from a black person's perspective, and there is some hilarious skewering of (for want of a better description) 'white culture'. "Really quiet sex" :-))). In this aspect the lead character Piper Chapman is really a 'Trojan Horse' to start an exploration of women from a whole host of different backgrounds. The show genuinely does not use the other characters as a background for the lead in a really praiseworthy way. Piper Chapman is peripheral to the social life of the prison and hardly the soul of the party - she is a loner and doesn't participate actively in any of the social groups. Quite a remarkable feat that the show's creators and directors manage to pull off. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />As a guy its pretty interesting to see (a version of) how women talk about guys and sex among themselves. It feels pretty authentic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the characters is an anti-abortion activist and it gives the show an opportunity to explore this issue. Its one of the few topics on which the show is one-sided; there is no sympathetic portrayal of a pro-abortion stance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />At one point Piper (the putative lead character) starts a business of selling used women criminals' panties on the Internet. I love the deadpan way this thing is handled with no judging of the guys who want to buy these things, or the women who set out to satisfy their kink. The rationale is simple and direct; to paraphrase what's said on the show - some creepy guys want this stuff, and we need the money so lets go for it. <br /><br />There's some really hilarious skewering of the corporate culture when a private company takes over the prison from the government.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />I'm planning to stop watching the show now however. I'm judging that its falling into the usual trap of milking success and extending beyond what's natural. And its time to get back to real life too. </span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-9805690077164305482017-03-31T10:49:00.003+05:302017-03-31T10:49:36.103+05:30English Vinglish<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">Notes from teaching English:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I taught English to a small class in February of 2017 at Timbaktu Collective (<a href="http://www.timbaktu.org/">www.timbaktu.org</a>) in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. This was part of the new career I'm carving out in skilling and training. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The trainees was employees of Timbaktu. They were either senior staff, for whom improved knowledge of English had become important over time, in addition to their domain understanding, and office staff who had more need of English usage. They varied in level but in general had trouble speaking English. They had a certain level of understanding of the language. </span><span style="font-size: large;">They knew the alphabet, They had quite good domain-specific English vocabulary in NGO work </span><span style="font-size: large;">and their domain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My interest was particularly in seeing if I could do 'breakthrough' teaching of some sort (inspired by my participation in Landmark courses) ie. enable people to go beyond some barrier that they might have had. I wasn't so interested in incremental teaching of the language like improving their grammer. In any case, once I started, I found that as far as incremental teaching of the language went, I mysef was quite at sea. I went to grammer textbooks and found the whole thing horribly confusing. It was rather discouraging and I started feeling like learning English is actually very difficult. Which is somewhat of a disempowering position from which to teach! So I didn't go down that path much. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The class was structured as 4 one-hour sessions that happened during consecutive weeks. So actually the class time was very limited. There were challenges in logistics, particularly in having people keep coming back to the class week on week, as their schedules were unpredictable and this class was not so directly relevant to them. I started with 10 trainees, and was down to </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">5 by the end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I did some things that have promise as English training tools and so sharing about them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My fundamental premise was that people can speak/communicate in English at whatever level of mastery of grammer and vocabulary they currently are. What's holding them back is more a confidence/lack of practice/shyness/worry about making mistakes. So I was primarily </span><span style="font-size: large;">interested in addressing this. And my experience with these students bore this out - they were able to communicate a lot and get their thoughts out. Good grammer and vocabulary is secondary for this purpose of communication. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So my approach was - how far can you go in speaking English , with exactly your current level </span><span style="font-size: large;">of skill in the language, by just working on mental barriers instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1.) Getting people to speak as much as possible is crucial.I believe this is very important and finding effective ways to do this can be a challenge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Having people speak only in English in the class, is a well-known technique and I used it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I got people to do an introduction of themselves in English at the beginning of the first class.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As assignment, I asked people to prepare and do a better introduction of themselves at the second class. I believe the improvement they saw for themselves between the first and second classes was a positive reinforcement. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Another important practice was dividing them into pairs and having the pair have a conversation. This is something that could be done in every class if enough good topics are there that people are interested in conversing in. Some of the topics we used were:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- someone calls the organisation asking for more information about the organisation or wanting to visit</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- a job interview</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- talking to your vegetable vendor</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- having an argument with your spouse :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2.) One new idea I came up with was as follows. It was to schedule a half hour slot individually with each of the class participants and speak English 1-1 with each of them continuously for that half hour. None of them have had to have a conversation in English for that duration in the past. So my hypothesis was that doing the conversation would build their confidence in their ability to speak English. Having such a conversation can be difficult for the trainer - you have to find something that the trainee is interested in talking about or the conversation peters away. Ideally also, you need to have the trainee very present and focussed in the conversation - they need to be just talking, talking, talking, not thinking or having their attention wander. Done well, at the end the trainee is amazed by his/her ability to speak the language.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3.) A third idea I had was to have them prepare a poem or song or other performance piece and deliver it to the class. I did this over two rounds of practice, ie. they delivered it once and then prepared and delivered it again at a succeeding class. The idea here is that with enough preparation they can deliver it pretty fluently and that gives you an emotional high and builds your confidence and leaves you with a positive feeling about the language, which is important for any later progress to happen. "When I can speak a particular English poem or song like a pro, then I should be able to talk English in general like a pro, right?" I give them a choice of pieces, pop songs, poems, things that might strike a chord with them and also let them pick anything else that they might want to do. I videotaped the final performance so that they would have it to keep with them. Another way of doing it might be to do it in front of an audience of their peers, which would heighten the emotional impact. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">4.) I experimented with playing songs from the internet (YouTube) with subtitles. Example: "Everything at Once" by Lenka ,"Its a Wonderful Life". The idea was to communicate to them a certain joy and fun in the languge. I don't think it worked very well this time, but fundamentally I think its a good idea, and I need to find the context in which it would be more effective. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">5.) Ashok Ganguly, one of the people at Timbaktu is enthusiastic about English teaching and I had good discussions with him. At one of the classes he made a presentation of some more useful points and ideas around speaking English..roots of words, how languages evolved, how much of a vocabulary the trainees already had etc. I think this was a good interlude, and done well, can add value.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">6.) I found one very interesting mobile application called "Hello English". I don't know how effective it is in practice, but was designed very well with lots of games and tools as part of the learning process. There were some videos on YouTube though nothing that was a game-changer. </span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-32020406789376033322017-01-29T10:42:00.001+05:302017-01-29T10:42:15.410+05:30Weight loss ideas from Rujuta Diwekar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In my work on myself on losing weight, I've become convinced by, and adopted the diet ideas of Rujuta Diwekar, from her book "Don't lose your mind, lose your weight". (It was her first book and she's written more after that. You can also follow her on FB). I believe the book expresses international-level thought leadership in this area, which is rife with fashions and fads. <br /><br />
I summarize key practices from the book:<br /><br />Eat something as soon as possible after waking up. It does not have to be a full meal, fruit or nuts will do. Breakfast can follow. DONT start the day with tea or coffee, postpone them to after the breakfast meal.<br />Eat smaller, frequent meals, not large meals. Eat fat and sugary stuff between meals. DON'T have fat and sugar along with meals like dessert after dinner. <br />Tune your eating to activity level - eat more when you are active and less when you are not. <br />Finish your last meal atleast 2 hours prior to sleeping. <br /><br />And some more:<br />Eat with attention. You will see when your stomach is full and you can stop eating then<br />Eating fresh fruit is much better than eating juices<br />Essentially everything processed is a pain in the ass (or a pain in the stomach). Biscuits, cakes, pizza, potato chips, puffs all of that stuff. Avoid as much as possible. If you're going to have it anyway, homecooked is better than commercial. <br />Eat protein before and after vigorous exercise - the body needs it to repair the micro-damage that occurs to muscles during expercise<br /><br />There's a lot more to the book including the explanations for the above practices. Read the book. <br /><br />My personal experiences:<br />Cutting down majorly on sugar (other than fruits) has been an eye-opening experience. After cutting down, I realized that sugar was causing lots of ups-and-downs in my mood. I would crave sugar (typically in the afternoon, in anticipation of the evening snack) and then get a sugar high with the snack. After giving up sugar, I found my day to be more peaceful and energetic.<br />
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I've compensated for giving up on all the delicious sugar treats by
exploring dried fruit instead. I've developed a taste for dates, figs and apricots. They're pretty delicious
and give a decent sugar high. I splurge on high quality dried fruit and
enjoy them. The intention is to be become a connoisseur of these things, like the wine-lovers, haha! <br />
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I do miss sugar, but not so badly that I give in frequently. I have very little sugar at home, so that gives some leeway during social occasions, where there may be social pressure or the temptation is high. Having those occasional treats keep the cravings manageable.During a recent streneous hike, I hogged on cream biscuits and chikki. And after that indulgence, the thought of sugar made<br />me queasy for a couple of days!<br />
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Overall, life has become a lot more SIMPLE. </div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-56263741181187984842017-01-16T12:54:00.000+05:302017-01-16T12:54:18.207+05:30Coming clean<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I molested a woman once. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I did it when I was in college (in Chennai). I was travelling on a bus, a crowded public transport bus. I used my knee to brush the bottom of the lady sitting on the seat in front of me (the seats then were designed differently then, as two parts that had a gap between them). More than once. She rushed out precipitately at the next stop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was overcome by shame by the next day. I’ve regretted it deeply ever since. It must have ruined her day, and left its mark on her permanently. I wish I could do something about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I did it as a act of hormone-fuelled bravado, telling myself that I saw some chemistry with her. Far from it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’ve been reading the postings from the women’s groups in response to the Bangalore New Year Eve molestation incidents. And then remembered suddenly that I was (once) ‘that guy’. By writing about the incident, I hope to contribute in a small way to a honest dialogue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To my women friends - I ask forgiveness for the incident. If you want to talk me to about it (berate, condemn, whatever), please do. It would be useful for me too. </span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-90188257060149368282016-11-04T11:05:00.002+05:302016-11-04T11:05:57.078+05:30Being organised - Bullet journalling <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I posted earlier about things I do to keep organised. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/09/organising-life-and-work.html">http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/09/organising-life-and-work.html </a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm delighted to have recently (re) discovered "The Bullet Journal" website. This is also a system to keep organised. It focuses around tasks and events: how to schedule them, reschedule them as needed, keep track of tasks in the distant future etc. Lots of people seem to find it very good. Check it out,<a href="http://www.bulletjournal.com/"> www.bulletjournal.com</a>. The homepage has a video and a text introduction that are good places to start. <br /><br />One thing I see about it is that it doesn't explicitly include for is long-term goals, and deriving your short term and medium term tasks from the long-term goals. </span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-42281165311717109732016-10-21T23:27:00.002+05:302016-10-21T23:32:59.421+05:30Reviewing "Chef's Table"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been watching two series on Netflix - Chef's Table and Chef's Table - France. They're absolutely a joy to watch. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm not a big fan of food and cooking shows in general but I've really loved these. Each episode here profiles one chef and his restaurant. Typically these are modern Western restaurants. <br />One of the things with conventional cooking shows is that you always have to end up with someone tasting the food and having an orgasm over it. "The money shot" as it were, borrowing a phrase from a more disreputable genre (perhaps there's a deeper logic for the phrase food porn). I've always found this problematic, and I assume they are even more problematic for the show producers. How to keep producing expressions of food ecstacy that will convince viewers ?<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Chef's Table completely eschews this. There is almost nil on-screen tasting. Quite a audacious attempt for a food show, and they pull it off amazingly. They however do fantastic videography of the food that almost makes up for it. The reason it works is that the show covers the best modern restaurants, and modern western cooking lays great emphasis on how the food is presented. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The other approach they take is to make it a story about the chef rather than the food. These stories are so fascinating and so well-captured. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There is the story of Italian chef Massimo Bottura who dragged Italian cuisine into the modern era and whose restaurant is rated among the best in the world. There are several great vignettes in the episode, but I'll have to be satisfied with recounting a couple of the lesser ones, since the others are not so amenable to description. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of his dishes got created out of a near-disaster when one of two lemon tarts being served got dropped. They saved the day by breaking the other tart in exactly the same way so that it seemed like it was done deliberately. That became one of the signature dishes, later disarmingly titled "Oops, I dropped the Lemon Tart". Not a story to tell to those who don't like nouvelle cuisine! Some other dish names: "A Potato Waiting to Become a Truffle", "An Eel Swimming Up the Po River". <br /><br />There is an interesting side-story that makes a point about modern art. Massimo's wife takes him to an art exhibition where one of the wacky exhibits is a bunch of pigeons on the rafters. The idea is that pigeons are pooping on the other works of art and that artwork included imitation droppings on some of the artworks. Massimo is completely taken by the idea, and decides that the only way he can break through the resistance and make his point about modernizing Italian cuisine is by going out of his way to figuratively poop on the cuisine classics until people get it. So that's what he goes on to do (very successfully) in his restaurant. Perhaps a story to recount to those who complain about the meaninglessness of modern art. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />One of the most remarkable stories is Alain Passard's. He is a Paris chef who at the height of his glory (three Michelin stars), walks away from everything he has done so far, to start completely afresh and create a vegetarian cuisine, a heresy in his native France (Michelin continued to rate him three stars for the new work). He goes to the extent of running two farms to produce the vegetables that the restaurant uses. <br /><br />I'm amazed at how the show manages to get inside the skin of the chefs. American Dan Barber honestly reflects on screen about how much his work is driven by his drive to fill the void left by the death of his mother when he was four. Massimo Bottura authentically reflects in his darling Italian-accented English: "If you have success, and if you live an incredible moment of happiness, the happiness is much more deep and big if you share with others and get to the point together; is like the happiness and feeling is exploding. Its double. This is the point".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Alain Passard talks so movingly about the joy the work gives him. "My only ambition is to love what I do more every day. Just the idea of a job well done, no outside projects, needs or dreams. If this story exists today, its because I love my job more than anything. This place (the farms), its a space for myself. Its marvelous. I find in it a phenomenal comfort. I find love, happiness, a well-being. I find things I can't find anywhere else. My gardens saved my life." <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">That Netflix is producing content of this quality suggests that besides acquiring content, they also want to produce Oscar or Emmy-worthy stuff themselves. More power. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Below are teasers for the two shows. Several episodes are currently pirated on YouTube, you can easily find them. I've given links in case the embedded versions don't work.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/Z-yY6RmF-iE">https://www.youtube.com/Z-yY6RmF-iE</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/qKqj85oo2wI">https://www.youtube.com/qKqj85oo2wI</a> <br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-15196602831592019462016-10-06T19:40:00.002+05:302016-10-06T19:40:36.594+05:30Theorising change in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've been thinking to see if I can put together thoughts about how change could come about in India.There is a phrase that's become quite popular : 'theory of change'. So this is about theorising change in India. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A series of articles I read recently on sand mining in Tamil Nadu offers an initial peg for exploring this. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The first part of the three part article series is here, with links to the others:</span><br />
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<a href="http://scroll.in/article/815138/tamil-nadus-political-parties-are-making-money-from-sand-worth-a-whopping-rs-20000-crore-a-year"><span style="font-size: large;">http://scroll.in/article/815138/tamil-nadus-political-parties-are-making-money-from-sand-worth-a-whopping-rs-20000-crore-a-year</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It explores the destructive practice of 'mining' of sand from river beds that is then used for construction. Sand mining is very bad for the groundwater, as the sand acts as a sponge to hold the river water and allow it to percolate into the ground. In the absence of sand this doesn't happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Observations:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Firstly the entire practice is driven by the huge amount of construction going on in TN and the rest of India. In the absence of sources elsewhere, the markets somehow find a way to access river sand. So the core push for illegal sand mining comes from economic development.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The third article does a useful analysis on how different organs of society have failed to address this practice. The political system is directly collusive in this practice, partly fuelled by the need for big money to finance election campaigns. Citizens have not been able to come together and oppose it, the courts have not been effective, and media has not gone beyond a point in investigating this.
This is a useful lens in general to explore the functioning of society - these (markets, political system the citizens themselves, the judiciary) are key parts of society and how well they are functioning individually and collectively tells us about how society as a whole is doing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Looking at the discussion there regarding the role of the media some points stand out. Important media channels are controlled by political parties. While you can understand that the media controlled by the ruling party will not do much, the article is less clear on why the opposition-controlled media doesn't either. Possibly because none of the parties want to kill the golden goose of sand mining. There is also a fairly rich independent media but mostly controlled by large corporate groups which don't have an incentive to go strongly after the government. The Hindu stands out as as exception that has enough muscle to buck the trend but hasn't. However that fits into a pattern, for all its strengths, the Hindu has regrettably never had the guts to do really hard-hitting oppositional journalism.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A difficulty in this issue is the problem of 'attribution'. The connection between sand mining in a river bed and the reduction in groundwater levels in the areas around is not so clear-cut and intuitive. Further, overextraction of water from bore wells is already leading to falling levels of groundwater and separating this and other effects from that due to sand mining is not so easy. So the public isn't as concerned about sand mining as it might otherwise be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So what might we say then in terms of how to create change? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't have very promising ideas but here are some thoughts:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A background context to the entire dysfunctionality is the power of money and the threat of violence. These combine to prevent corrective action from taking place. In my mind, most analyses finally come down to money and the hold it has on the current human, and Indian mind. At a deep, root-cause-analysis level then, one has to address what people are willing to do, and not do, in the quest for money.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In general there is dysfunctionality in all the institutions and society at large, as described above. The final end state we want to arrive at is healthy institutions and a healthy society. Working on particular problems like sand mining should be done keeping this broader context and goal in mind. In this case the dysfunctionality of media seems to be the proximate solution most amenable to improvement. Putting a better environment for media like separation of political parties from media and preventing media businesses from being a part of larger corporate groups are some immediate ideas. More serious study should certainly be able to come up with good practical solutions for a more useful watchdog media. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">An angle that occurred to me is the Cauvery dispute. Practices like sand mining are irresponsible in terms of water conservation. Therefore they weaken the case of the Tamil Nadu government in arguing water scarcity. The courts and tribunals dealing with the matter could bring water conservation into the ambit of the argument. They could say that the quantum of water you get is partly determined by how conscientious you are in general about conserving water. After all, if you are profligate with whatever water you have, why should hotly contested waters be allocated to you ? Such an approach could well have enough impact that it could overcome the formidable political economy of sand mining in Tamil Nadu. Needless to say , it is not as if TN is the villain of the piece, there would also be wasteful practices that are being followed in Karnataka which that state should be held accountable for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-----</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">PS: Back from a good trip to Timbuktu and leaving immediately to Priya's mother's place in Tamil Nadu. </span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-17645127372116438762016-10-03T13:17:00.000+05:302016-10-03T13:17:03.759+05:30Publishing on a lighter schedule<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">After coming back from Singapore, I picked up the blogging habit again in August and September. There were lot of pent up things in my mind that I wanted to express on paper. I'm glad to have written about a significant number of things I wanted to express. I'm also seeing that a new set of post ideas are coming up and this doesn't seem to be a process that is going to end so soon. While writing as a full time occupation has its attractions, other things are now crowding the mindspace and the energy for blogging is not as much as before. Earlier , especially in August, I didn't feel like doing much at all and spent a week or two hardly going out, with blogging being the main activity. Now other interests are catching up and September has been very rich in meeting people and having good conversations about what they and I are up to. So, net net, I've decided to 'officially' close the heavy blogging phase. I do hope to sit down occasionally and write a substantive post atleast every two weeks, if not more frequently, for the next three months. Lets see how it goes. The next couple of weeks I'm planning to travel to Timbuktu and then Priya's native village in Tamil Nadu. These should provide material for posts but also may not actually have time or connectivity to do much writing and posting for the next couple of weeks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For those who have been tuning in the past couple of months - thanks for reading! </span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-19261319813095001352016-10-01T16:45:00.001+05:302016-10-22T00:18:33.349+05:30Angkor photos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tips on visiting Angkor: <a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/07/my-travel-guide-to-angkor.html">http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/07/my-travel-guide-to-angkor.html</a></span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-49845248843951426722016-09-30T11:33:00.000+05:302016-10-01T21:18:49.265+05:30Teaching Graphs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hGXfCSkTAq7qIZ5-6pAmnAOLPRquzZFw3hIjU8KYcdzkIFsVRQF2X0-buVzhSYWJSELaCLnWIZdyK6zZ_laaKNIy0Fd-lS09rH8xsJVoKwt3ZVYZ3VPQDDUt97jLtukFPi9s/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-09-30+at+11.22.53+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hGXfCSkTAq7qIZ5-6pAmnAOLPRquzZFw3hIjU8KYcdzkIFsVRQF2X0-buVzhSYWJSELaCLnWIZdyK6zZ_laaKNIy0Fd-lS09rH8xsJVoKwt3ZVYZ3VPQDDUt97jLtukFPi9s/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-09-30+at+11.22.53+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've been intensively tracking visitors to this blog using the tools Google provides. Vibhat kept seeing the usage graphs on the screen and asked me what was that funny picture. So I sat down with him to try to explain graphs. He got the basic funda in just a few minutes and was saying "Ok when there's a lot of visitors that's when there's a peak in the picture and when there's very few its low". I was very surprised. I was expecting a painful process of him having to understand x-axis , y-axis, lengths along axes. But without talking much about axes, I was able to communicate the idea. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In contrast, I remember how I learnt graphs - getting introduced to graph paper, then counting distance along axes, then plotting abstract points like (3,4) and so on. It must have happened over atleast a month or so. In retrospect it seems a painfully abstract and unnecessary process. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, is graphing much easier to understand when you do it with a </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Separately, I've been getting about 20 visitors per day to the blog, but there are two curious spikes in 2014 and 2016 as you can see in the graph which I am not able to explain. However, there seem to be a lot of spammers and other junk visits, so the actual numbers could be even lower :-( </span><br />
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-34742025966514626282016-09-25T19:13:00.001+05:302016-09-25T19:13:15.433+05:30On Stupidity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">From my personal experiences with myself and other people, not being intelligent, or to put it bluntly, ‘Stupidity’, is a function of not being open to life and not participating in life. Life constantly throws stuff at us, and if you simply be and act in it, you will change and improve and get better at whatever it is. Of course that process of being in life comes with risks, possibility of failure and the possibility of looking like a fool. All of those are scary things. But, when we bow to them and ‘hide out’ from life we stay static and not learn and improve. We hide because of past experiences in that area that hurt us, so we don’t want to try again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Part of being open is doing what people tell/ask you to do. In my opinion, there is no fundamental reason *not to* do what people tell/ask/request you to do. Most people operate from there is no reason *to* do what other people ask you to do. Other people have their own life experiences and their own knowledge of life. When we do things according to their worldview, we get some benefit from it. When fear/ego/something else stops us from that, we don’t do something new and we pass up an opportunity to learn. An immediate question that might come to your mind will be on the lines of ‘If someone asks you to jump off the top of a building, will you do it ?” There are practical answers to that but a deeper answer is that the question itself is coming from doubt and resistance. The same doubt and resistance will come up even when you have an opportunity to do something that will genuinely enrich your life. It prevents you from trying new things in life and learning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">‘Deep listening’ is another aspect here. When you’re listening you’re judging and filtering stuff. That causes you to constantly reject a lot of good stuff and you don’t learn and grow. Can you listen without judgement ? It doesn’t mean you sway to every opinion or idea you hear. As you practice deep listening and go through some ups and downs with it, you will reach your own new equilibriums that are better than the old.</span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-60692812480310860342016-09-23T11:42:00.001+05:302016-09-23T11:43:36.544+05:30On Violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">My friend Deepak Menon has an abiding interest in non-violence. After a meeting with him yesterday where this came up for discussion (along with many other things), I thought I would write down my thoughts on it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the first level - violence is doing harm to someone and its a bad thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While its easy to identify and condemn physical violence, psychological violence is a more subtle thing. Constantly criticising someone. Not providing children the care and love they need. Organisational heads creating or allowing a toxic organisational atmosphere with back-biting and self-interested actions. These are example I would say, of psychological violence. Is it possible or desirable to completely eliminate psychological violence ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Violence within oneself. Having a strong desire to inflict physical harm but suppressing will result in the violence showing up in other negative ways. I was struck by the fact that despite Gandhiji's strict adherence to non-violence, finally the country got independence through one of the most large-scale episodes of violence in its history (partition). One wonders if this is a symptom of suppression of violence engendered by Gandhiji, that finally burst out. But contrarily, Gandhi's genius in seeing how one could accomplish the goal of getting rid of an oppressor without violence, has to be acknowledged. It was the first time that it was tried, particularly on such a large scale, in the modern world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Other examples of internal violence: Feelings of hate and other strong negative emotions. Internal conflict, eg. pushing yourself very hard all the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">People who have had some amount of corporeal punishment as children often grow up to say that it was a good thing and that the 'healthy fear' of the punishment put them on the right path. I've wondered about this. Is a small amount of physical punishment for children a bad thing? My feeling is that it is. When you do this, you are implicitly saying that under some circumstances its okay to be violent (and that its okay to use a position of superior strength to impose your will on somebody by force). These kind of things (another example is violent toys) add up. They add up for example to an adult who is okay with war as a means of settling disputes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Standing by while violence is happening is not so different from participating in it. In that way, we are all complicit in the matter of the many wars and other large-scale conflicts happening in the world . For another situation, consider World War 2. If a country had a choice of joining in the war or being neutral what is the right thing to do ? America did indeed have that choice. Personally, I am unable to see clearly what is the right thing to do in this situation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think violence is sometimes an immediate or temporary tool for example in self-defence at different levels (single individual, community, country). But its continued or systematic use is not correct. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On a personal level, I have to deal with how to address this issue in the context of my growing child. I have felt that society's casual acceptance of violence in the matter of toys (and in entertainment like TV and films) is a deep pathology. Vibhat plays an online game called Clash of Clans which is about attacking other clans and capturing them. He talks with casualness about bombs and so on. He is also practising Karate now and I wonder what are the messages he is picking up in the process. </span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-44691336693020631932016-09-21T12:01:00.000+05:302016-09-23T10:28:51.112+05:30Organisation theory <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the classes I took at LKY School was Organisation theory. The class was taken by Prof. Henry Wai-Hang Yee who's sincere, enthusiastic about his stuff and did a nice job. He’s now at the University of Hong Kong (<a href="http://www.ppaweb.hku.hk/f/henryyee"><span style="color: #e4af09;">http://www.ppaweb.hku.hk/f/henryyee</span></a> ). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One definition of Organisation theory is “an attempt to explain and predict how organisations and the people in them will behave in varying organisational structures, cultures and circumstances”. However there is no theory of organisations, but a multitude of theories. The field of organisation theory is pretty fragmented with a variety of schools. “Each school is at odds with the others, each defends its own position, each claims that the others have major deficiencies”. Its a wonder that any progress gets made at all in this mess. I guess the variety of circumstances of human existence are wide enough to merit the range of theories and each has some sphere of validity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica";">Reading academic papers in organisation theory can be pretty depressing work. There’s rarely any maths, so they’re wordy. They tend to be dense and theoretical with few examples. Things are pretty fuzzy and conceptual and usually not very convincing. The questions that they try to address in the first place are usually theoretical and not very interesting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">I tried to crystallise some general things to say about Organisation theory for this post but found it difficult. So instead, I thought I would mention some of the seminal and better-written readings which might be of interest to the general reader. In this post I’ll cover some of the older readings and in a later post cover the more new-fangled stuff. You dear reader, should pick one of the articles below that fits your interest and download and read it. You might find it quite enriching.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">For regular visitors to my blog here are my recommendations:</span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">Deepak: Read the Potter and Herzberg articles</span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">Amar: The Garbage Can model of Organisational Choice article</span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">Suman: you should read all of them ! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1.) <b>Max Weber on bureaucracy</b>: Max Weber is overwhelmingly the guy most associated with the study of bureaucracy and the guy considered the father of sociology. So I was excited to have the opportunity to study his stuff. But to my surprise it was underwhelming. The reading we had seemed pretty bland, with a collection of unexceptionable observations about bureaucracy (tasks are clearly divided, there is a hierarchy, bureaucrats are people with specialist knowledge, they get paid a salary). Finally I realised that this written in the early 19th century during the years when bureaucracy was a new phenomenon and he was the first person to pin down what differentiated it from what came before. Quite a nice read if you keep that in mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/wox2ensxcsxlivc/Weber%20on%20bureaucracy.pdf?dl=0%C2%A0">https://www.dropbox.com/s/wox2ensxcsxlivc/Weber%20on%20bureaucracy.pdf?dl=0 </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">2.) <b>Fredrick Herzerg’s “One more time: How do you motivate employees”</b> : On that question that all managers struggle with, Fredrick Herzberg seemed to have laid a solid foundation for the answer back in the 1960s. This is a well-written, interesting and a relevant read for most of us. As the article summary nicely and succinctly captures it: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“The things that makes people satisfied and motivated on the job are different from the things that make them dissatisfied. Ask workers what makes them unhappy at work and you’ll hear about a bad boss, a low salary, an uncomfortable workspace or stupid rules. Managed badly, environmental factors make people miserable, and they can certainly be demotivating. But even if managed brilliantly, they don’t motivate anyone to work much harder or smarter. People are motivated instead by interesting work, challenging and increasing responsibility. These intrinsic factors answer peoples’ deep-seated need for growth and achievement. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Herzberg’s work influenced a generation of scholars and managers - but his conclusions don’t seem to have fully penetrated the American workplace, if the extraordinary attention still placed to compensation and incentive packages is anything to go by."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/asois7ou8ffqtbe/Herzberg%20on%20motivation.pdf?dl=0">https://www.dropbox.com/s/asois7ou8ffqtbe/Herzberg%20on%20motivation.pdf?dl=0</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">3.) <b>“Choices, Values, Frames” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky</b> : Kahneman is the winner of a Nobel Prize and one of the founders of the hot new fields of behavioural economics and behavioural nudges. In this seminal paper they introduce some key behavioural biases: like how we prefer a small certain gain, to a larger gain associated with uncertainty, and how the way a choice is stated can influence the option we make. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica";">It doesn’t suffer from the usual vagueness and theoriticalness of organisation theory papers, but runs at a high-ish level intellectually so can be hard to grasp. But really worth the read the quality of the ideas and exposition. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2jpd6ggoh7i2pi/Kahneman%20%26%20Tversky.pdf?dl=0"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2jpd6ggoh7i2pi/Kahneman%20%26%20Tversky.pdf?dl=0</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">4.) <b>Michael Porter on Strategy</b>: This is a landmark management paper and would be familiar to MBA types. Potter lays out pretty compelling vision for what 'strategy' is in business organisations (the ideas are applicable to other kind of organisations). Again well worth a read </span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">5.) <b>"A Garbage Can Model of Organisational Choice"</b>: This is an idiosyncratic paper. It attempts to create a model of a type of organisation the authors call “Organised anarchies”. The authors (all academics) propose universities as a prime example of such an organisation. Its clear that they don’t have a high opinion of how universities are run - the model is one of major randomness; of problems, and actors floating, a set of actors </span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">coales</span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: large;">cing to try to address a problem, then coming up with a random solution… or something like that. Its been a while since I read it. If you’re a cynic with some understanding of computer simulation, this is the perfect paper for you! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlurv9qye0o7zb3/Garbage%20Can%20_model.pdf?dl=0">https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlurv9qye0o7zb3/Garbage%20Can%20_model.pdf?dl=0</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Notes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The quotes are from the introduction to the book "Classic Readings in Organisation Theory" by Ott, Shafritz and Yong</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For a compilation of resources on studying public policy in general and at the LKY School, see: <a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/p/studying-public-policy-and.html">http://despoki.blogspot.in/p/studying-public-policy-and.html</a> </span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-53515482173223923072016-09-19T10:35:00.000+05:302016-09-19T10:35:46.798+05:30Elements of a life philosophy 3 - "Empty and meaningless"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sartre said “Life is empty and meaningless” and Landmark clarified that to “Life is empty and meaningless and its empty and meaningless that its empty and meaningless” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One way to look at this is something like: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You are a speck of a human being among billions of others , billions before, and billions after. And all this on planet Earth with the vastness of the Universe around us. Can you try to say our lives have meaning in the face of all this ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you’re very conscious of this insignificance all the time, you might freeze into inaction. Or surprisingly, you might find it very liberating and free yourself up to do whatever you want. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even if you don’t get into the cosmological analogies above, you can see the meaninglessness in other ways: we are all born, we go through whatever we go through and then die. That’s all that actually happens. Everything else is our attempt to make sense of this and give us courage to live in the face of the apparent pointlessness. Religion and morality are prime examples. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Going further into this, all our opinions and judgements are ultimately invalid. We may respect someone, love somebody, dislike someone, hate someone. But if you look into it, all those judgements don’t have objectivity in them. There is always another opinion or judgement you can have that it equally valid. This is best illustrated by a practical example, I'll add one in when a good one comes to mind! In the meantime, you could just try it yourself taking some situation or person that you really feel negative about. Then see if there is a valid other way to view it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There is no way to have a truly ‘correct’ or ’objective’ opinion about something. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe that the ‘Maya’ idea of Indian philosophy was trying to express the same idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Empty and meaningless’ can be understood as a theory but to really impact how you live life, it has to be experienced. That experience can be pretty discomfiting - a feeling of the ground giving way under your feet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How does ‘empty and meaningless’ influence me? I have a tendency to make negative judgements about people and create elaborate justifications in my mind to support that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Having internalised ‘empty and meaningless’ I’m able to catch myself often in this process and drop it and accept that its just my judgement and its up to me to stand by the judgement or not irrespective of the justification. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, I don’t get too much into ideology - all ideology is an intellectual exercise that can never capture the entirety of life. Use ideology as an aid to thinking, but realise that’s its temporary and provisional </span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-66880058765944463782016-09-17T12:11:00.002+05:302016-09-17T18:29:42.429+05:30My article on Solapur<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wrote an article for the Six Degrees News website. Six Degrees is an international development news website that focusses on grassroots reports. My article was about a government programme called Jal Yukt Shivar in Maharashtra. Here it is: </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/drought-management-successes-in-solapur-india/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/drought-management-successes-in-solapur-india/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’m excited about having done this. I’ve not been officially ‘published’ for a while now, if at all, though I guess there were opportunities at Arghyam that I’ve passed up due to other work. Six Degrees is founded by a friend, Binayak Das, so it didn’t require pitching from my side, and I didn’t get paid for it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whatever I do (if I do anything at all!) in the next phase of my life, I hope writing will be a part of it. This blog has been a source of great fulfilment but time to grow beyond it. And it would be good to be able to generate some income from writing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I learnt some practicalities about journalism on the trip. One was the difficulty of really evaluating the success of a programme or initiative from a visit. Though I have a background in the water sector, I’m a generalist and not technically trained, so it was hard to really gauge. And for a large scale programme like this, unless you visit lots of locations, you can’t conclude anything with any degree of confidence. Your ideas about this will be appreciated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, on the visit to Solapur in Maharashtra, based on which I wrote the article, I had the opportunity to meet the current District Collector. It happened quite easily, after a couple of phone calls, which was quite surprising. At Arghyam, it was really painful getting meetings with IAS officers. He was a very cordial and a nice person. However the really interesting bit was about the previous Collector, Tukaram Munde. He really seems to be a larger-than-life person who managed to achieve spectacular results. I have some sense of administration from work at Arghyam, and this chap in my opinion is off the charts. The District Collector (or Commissioner as he is called in some districts) has a really difficult job. There’s just too much stuff, too many subjects to work on. There are around 30 government departments/programmes that he is the head for. The DC of Sholapur told me there are literally hundreds of committees that he chairs. Then there is the lack of good quality and quantity of HR to work with, including corrupt people. And unlike the private sector, you can't fire people easily. There are many restrictions and rules to getting work done, much less flexibility than in the private sector. There is the political system to be managed, which could be quite formidable. And in the first place, many of the programmes are ill-designed and ‘dead-on-arrival’. So I’d say, as far as serious impact is concerned, the DC is also for the most part, ‘dead-on-arrival’. However, Mr. Mundhe somehow managed to crack the system and actually get it to deliver. For the life of me, I cannot visualise how he did it. He is now head of Navi Mumbai district and making waves there too. A man to watch (and you <u>can</u> watch some of his exploits by searching on the web). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back to the trip again. There is a ‘power’ element in the field trip portion of visits like these , the government staff down the line from the DC are very deferential. At the same time I also got the sense that they thought I did not understand the stuff, and were patronising. I also find it tiring to meet a large number of people in a short span - my comfort level certainly is in meeting fewer people and developing stronger connections with them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder where Jalyukt Shivar is going. There seem to be many issues with the scheme, much more so in other districts. But it also seems to have huge potential from the Solapur experience. This programme seems to have the tantalising potential to be the ‘Holy Grail’ for water security in drought-affected districts. But many a slip between the cup and the lip. At the same time some other large scale success stories are emerging from other districts like Dewas in Madhya Pradesh. Is there a trend here ? In the past, it was always about NGO models and touting them, but there were very few examples of successes at scale. Are we entering a tipping point where we get more and and more successes at scale. I fervently hope so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An interesting side point is that Solapur district has 2 products with the GI (Geographical Indication) tag, Maldandi jowar and Sangoli pomogranate. Here is a full list of GI tagged products in India: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Geographical_Indications_in_India"><span style="color: #e4af09;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Geographical_Indications_in_India</span></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It seems this idea is taking off in India.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Check dams storing water</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Compartment bunds under construction<br /></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dry open wells that are now recharged with water</span></td></tr>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-16411808928368467732016-09-15T15:44:00.002+05:302016-09-15T15:44:25.949+05:30Small, small insights - Fitness is a mindgame<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">So I started this "Crossfit training" thing at a gym near my house. I've set losing weight as a key target for the next few months. I've been told that I'm more than 15 Kgs overweight (I'm at 82 Kg currently). I looked around for gyms to continue my previous working out in Singapore but then came across this thing called crossfit training. Its a group training thing with a trainer, an hour each day, a different kind of training each day (cardio, stretching..), and no fancy equipment. Its pretty intensive working out for the hour's duration. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was quite trepidatious about it - I like slow and steady training, I like to work out on my own, I've always hated the pushups and pull-ups and weights kind of thing. I've worked out for the past few months, but focussed on losing weight and my general fitness level is pretty low. But given that fitness was a major goal it made sense to take this on. The night before the first class I was quite stressed out - bracing for what I knew would be a major assault on my body the next day (It didn't disappoint, my body was sore for the next 5 days). I missed the next day's training because I had to drop my mom-in-law off at Majestic and it got late in the night by the time we got back and I knew I wouldn't get enough rest for a 7:00am class. That was a major disappointment. Then I missed the next class because something else disturbed my mind the night before and I didn't get to sleep till 3 am (I have trouble sleeping when I'm upset). So I was really bummed. Then a couple of classed got cancelled due to various reasons. There was also a feeling of being out of place since I'm the oldest around (I don't know, I never notice when I'm doing age-inappropriate things). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">So these were the kind of things that were challenging me about staying with this rigorous fitness regimen. My point is that the above discussion of the challenges have all been about the mind, not about the physical aspect of working out. Its been about overcoming disappointments, managing my mood etc. The actual workouts themselves have been tough but fun, but physical capacity has not been the issue at all. Hence the title of this post "Fitness is a mindgame". I guess its true for lots of things in life, if not everything. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">PS: I had my 7th class now and its been very good so far!</span></div>
VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-71100678298275091152016-09-13T12:08:00.000+05:302016-09-13T12:10:26.192+05:30Temple fatigue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have a problem. (Well, I have many, but here's one)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’m a bit of ‘culture vulture’. Visited lots of museums around the world. And lots of temples and cultural monuments. But more and more I’ve been feeling a sort of fatigue. For example, a single great painting has so many nuances and is worth spending a lot of time on, to get to understand. So what to do when there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of these ? Same with temples. The amount of work and mastery that went into the sculpture or architectural immensity of any of the the great cultural sites (World Heritage sites for example) is staggering. After the initial ‘wow’ feeling there is a feeling of being overwhelmed in front of such immensity. How do you engage with such a structure ? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the opposite end, there is also the feeling of ‘what’s the point of all this’ . Who were they trying to impress ? Build ever larger and more elaborate structures to what end ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For some reason I get this feeling only for the ancients. I’ve not felt it in New York for example, which is also about architectural immensity, of a living sort. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Critique, analysis, feedback, comments requested. </span></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-48790493935934944192016-09-11T13:10:00.000+05:302016-09-11T13:10:56.490+05:30Living responsibly in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">This post is to put some not-fully-thought-through ideas out there, as I’ve not seen anyone else talk about these things. The idea here is that while there are many things wrong with our country, people do not see it as practical to join social service or government or something. So can we come up with an idea of a responsible citizen, who leads a normal life in our country (whatever that is), but at the same time contributes to the greater common good. This post is about some things that we could do as public citizens while otherwise living our lives as we wish to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The list is mostly about doing socially useful things, paying some attention to those less well-off than us in society. I'm not including here environmentally friendly actions, although they very well could. I didn't include them just to keep things focussed, and also because lots of other people have written about these. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some of these actions below are more difficult for the others, and which ones are more difficult would vary from person to person. Personally, I certainly don’t do all of these. The point is not to make being responsible a dull, boring, obligatory thing. You can find stuff that interests you and excites you and follow through with it. Doing one thing on this list very well is excellent, perhaps better than doing a lot of things in a small way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1.) Voting and blood donation are, if you think about it, very basic civic and societal acts. You can’t outsource them. You can’t say, 'I don’t have the time', or 'I don’t believe it makes a difference' (although that is in fact what people do). Everyone from CEOs to the peon in his/her office ought to do these things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica";">2.) Engage with the people and environment around you. This has the advantage of having a selfish value too, the better these are, the better for you too. You become more integrated into the community you live in, and the community as a whole becomes stronger. Take part in the local Resident Welfare Association or Apartment Owners Association activities. Find out more about your household maid and your other support people and their life and challenges. Take part in, or start, an “Ugly Indian” style spot fixing intervention to clean up some sore spot near your home. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3.) Not giving (or taking) bribes: I’ve found this personally very hard to do. Not that I go about giving bribes all day, but when I come across a situation where someone asks a bribe, I’ve found it difficult to figure out how to handle the situation and get my work done without giving the bribe. (Like here: ) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">4.) Not dodging taxes: I find this quite easy to do, and I find a lot of people find this very difficult :-). Being particular about buying stuff with a bill and not avoiding sales tax is another related thing. Undervaluing property in property transactions is a big one that most people struggle with. Another related area is not doing transactions in black money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">5.) Being a responsible tourist. More on that here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/08/responsible-tourism.html">http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/08/responsible-tourism.html</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica";">6.) Volunteering at an NGO: Find an NGO near you whose area of work you are interested in. Spend some time with them finding out what they do and slowly start volunteering. The important thing I think is to develop a relationship with them over time. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "helvetica";">This can be hard to do as NGOs are often messy and chaotic and worse actually fraudulent. You have to be careful in picking and then don't get put off easily and persevere. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>N</u><u>otes, Links and Further reading:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are of course a lot of other things that you could do if you want to go deeper, like starting an NGO or social enterprise, travelling by public transport, harvesting rainwater, composting etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Ugly Indian: <a href="http://www.theuglyindian.com/">http://www.theuglyindian.com/</a> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">About blood donation: </span><a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/09/information-on-blood-donation-with.html"><span style="font-size: large;">http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/09/information-on-blood-donation-with.html</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">And if you want to do something bigger there is bone marrow donation: </span><a href="http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/diagnosing-cancer/tests-and-procedures/donating-bone-marrow"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/diagnosing-cancer/tests-and-procedures/donating-bone-marrow</span></a></div>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19721238.post-4801137512372022652016-09-09T11:58:00.004+05:302016-09-09T12:01:24.203+05:30Travel notes from Ajanta and Ellora <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Given the difficulty of getting there and the amount of walking between caves and the repetitiveness, some might find visiting Ajanta and Ellora to be more trouble than its worth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I spent only a day and covered both Ajanta and Ellora in that day, so I can’t write from a perspective of someone who’s visited the place in detail. Nevertheless, some observations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ajanta is located in an extremely scenic location. That’s one of the high points about it, that the tourist writing doesn’t capture. The ‘zoomed-out’ view of the entire ensemble of caves is also spectacular, see photo. In some ways this ‘macro’ view of Ajanta is more satisfying than the micro. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ajanta was a retreat for Buddhist monks in the winter months. The purpose of most of the caves were housing for the monks, called viiharas. Each dwelling had steps down the hillside to the river at the bottom. I find all this very evocative. I think the government should be make a nice film recreating what life would have been like when the caves were occupied, monks chanting, studying, arguing philosophy, maybe playing politics. Would make the caves really come to life </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ajanta is famous for the paintings, but these are disappointing in reality. They are small, most of the photos in textbooks and tourist guides are closeups. They are also damaged. Most of the painting is also in large elaborate complex canvases, and it all blurs together after the first few. Like Indian dance, much of it is scenes from important stories and epics. You would miss all that if you don’t take a guide. Even if you do take a guide, it might get boring anyway, unless you know the stories well and have some attachment to them. Nevertheless, the paintings are very nice, and if you can be relaxed and cool about it, you could spend a memorable day, wandering slowly through all the caves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The sculpture and carvings are also gorgeous, but there’s such a profusion of it you don’t know what to do with it beyond a point. This is a problem I have with all the great monuments. I know I can’t create even a tiny fraction of what they did and after a while the sheer scale of the artistic accomplishment becomes too much and gets you down. Would be interested if other people have similar reactions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are 29 caves so it gets repetitive after a while. Read the guidebook carefully and pick and choose the ones you want to spend time on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I didn’t spend that much time at Ellora, and mostly visited the Kailasa or Kailasanatha temple. While the rest of the structures at Ellora are caves, this is an exception, its a proper temple.The scale of this and the grandeur (this same stuff again!) is amazing. The entire temple, as you may know carved out of the hillside by digging and hammering and excavation and whatnot, it was not constructed as most buildings are. The photo shows the rock face surrounding the temple. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Going through the Archeological Society of India’s Ellora guide, I see that I missed quite a lot. Some spectacular sculptures and Jain and Brahmanical caves (Ajanta is only a Buddhist site). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Logistics: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ajanta and Ellora are in different directions from Aurangabad. Ajanta is significantly farther away. You can try to go and come back from Ajanta in a single day but it would be tiring. There is a very agreeable MSTDC resort very close to Ajanta, at Fardapur. Some photos at: <a href="http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/08/a-new-kind-of-hotel-ii.html"><span style="color: #e4af09;">http://despoki.blogspot.in/2016/08/a-new-kind-of-hotel-ii.html</span></a> There are other hotels in Fardapur too. Staying there overnight might be better. Bus connectivity from Ajanta to Fardapur is quite good, though the bus station at Aurangabad is pretty dirty and bus signages are in Marathi. Its about a 3.5 hour trip by bus. Ellora is a very doable full day trip from Aurangabad, though food options are not great. There’s good bus connectivity from Aurangabad to Ellora, the bus drops you right at the caves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you’re feeling adventurous, you can go directly from Ajanta to Ellora by taking a bus towards Aurangabad and then switching to a shared auto at Phulambri</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Important tips! 1.) Carry a torch with you. Its dark in the caves and the torch will help you see the sights better. 2.) You have to remove your footwear outside every cave. So lace shoes are not a good idea. Wear something you can put on and take off easily </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSYtPpf3BbthbbtiQldUpzO3kJWDNvrqTvyMKSzg1_CgTiwi5HwcIadJ9ZyFI0SLbqO0l3RnLugV5fVz3QoeATi8P4JvMT8idBHByBPMK56WmNCA38lpT_0jLrSDyx7LCi4e7/s1600/2016-08-11+11.40.11+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXSYtPpf3BbthbbtiQldUpzO3kJWDNvrqTvyMKSzg1_CgTiwi5HwcIadJ9ZyFI0SLbqO0l3RnLugV5fVz3QoeATi8P4JvMT8idBHByBPMK56WmNCA38lpT_0jLrSDyx7LCi4e7/s320/2016-08-11+11.40.11+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ajanta - caves carved out of the hillside</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggH4gSUbqhDRX-oNOCxL8aj9VJ6sa_h5ilGhfGGOStchEYzDRpRY4pZUQqH7twi1pmG2sEgYFIAydW1oc4zTmlhWPMs-ES_Hr3qVzQ41S4D0hS07KPuMh6HC1nNehL76lvkEqG/s1600/2016-08-11+11.40.17+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggH4gSUbqhDRX-oNOCxL8aj9VJ6sa_h5ilGhfGGOStchEYzDRpRY4pZUQqH7twi1pmG2sEgYFIAydW1oc4zTmlhWPMs-ES_Hr3qVzQ41S4D0hS07KPuMh6HC1nNehL76lvkEqG/s320/2016-08-11+11.40.17+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ajanta - gorgeous surroundings. Dem Buddhist monks knew how to do retreats !</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7yIFV62-VJMDpfBjT-ZmnOc46NyrU3Vetwh5Mag3gWbEZnCTOwLVJ_33D6ZvMM_PeztM5L-pEiXejBB4vordTH2vtOCxXtfRVANCjEb380txKk8jPqNI2VeiIhIBYHYF-CLN/s1600/2016-08-11+11.40.24+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7yIFV62-VJMDpfBjT-ZmnOc46NyrU3Vetwh5Mag3gWbEZnCTOwLVJ_33D6ZvMM_PeztM5L-pEiXejBB4vordTH2vtOCxXtfRVANCjEb380txKk8jPqNI2VeiIhIBYHYF-CLN/s320/2016-08-11+11.40.24+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The caves are in a gorge-like area, where there is a U-shape in the cliffs and the river beneath</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Travelling companions, shared auto, Ajanta to Ellora</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNKnM4fsZwGMP3aj3gEDyx33CsUzx4SfvURD8DoWpGGoGcrqVxdsBVGodNmQdlH0IlNtBOkousNtjn2ZN-hk1jsy-xt0481-U89eaOy2x5UtX0nggV7HgQZ1BDlsFHauk_T7j/s1600/IMG_20160811_165327439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNKnM4fsZwGMP3aj3gEDyx33CsUzx4SfvURD8DoWpGGoGcrqVxdsBVGodNmQdlH0IlNtBOkousNtjn2ZN-hk1jsy-xt0481-U89eaOy2x5UtX0nggV7HgQZ1BDlsFHauk_T7j/s320/IMG_20160811_165327439.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ellora - The awesome Kailasa temple, excavated out of rock face</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8JUGmi06gm4GXLhoNH1sY-uC_5XTJCKME3W7ZYegZWf2ESn_yte6Oa4ZknJDa6l43blgARIOrtzOftHV2i7qqGTX0Fe_kexPBfIrNzsp2YXEqYVdSAOdwwstjNor0hWUXBrL/s1600/IMG_20160811_165920050_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi8JUGmi06gm4GXLhoNH1sY-uC_5XTJCKME3W7ZYegZWf2ESn_yte6Oa4ZknJDa6l43blgARIOrtzOftHV2i7qqGTX0Fe_kexPBfIrNzsp2YXEqYVdSAOdwwstjNor0hWUXBrL/s320/IMG_20160811_165920050_HDR.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ellora - Rock face adjacent to the Kailasa temple</span></td></tr>
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VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01279446468437964219noreply@blogger.com0