We had some guests in our balcony for a week before the pest control smothered it with pesticides killing them and wasting all the honey in the hive. It just appeared one evening between the time we went out and came back. We thought the wooden wind chime on the balcony kept these bees away all these days, but that was not to be. Our neighbors had multiple beehives in their balcony before and we were wondering what kept them off ours.
By next morning it had become bigger with bees jostling around for space. It looked really majestic. I tried in vain to see if any beekeepers would be available to suck the honey. Beekeeping is considered to be a village or forest profession, not for the urban folks. But it looks like everyone uses pesticides to clean it up. But the bees and monkeys keep coming at regular intervals. It talks a lot about the encroachment that humans have been indulging in - this place is just 10KM away from the Bannerghatta Forests and that would explain the bees and the monkeys.
So after a week the pest control landed up and finished them off and it did have some solid honey and all the lovely honey bees were smothered to ground. The beehive looks pretty neat with very symmetrical hexagonal boxes. I think we are loosing a lot of honey and unnecessarily killing the bees instead of doing a bit of beekeeping. I need some help to see if this is something doable in the urban localities.
It has been more than a month since I started commuting by public bus. It is just a 2KM commute where I can jump into any bus that goes up towards the city and most of the buses going down towards Bannerghatta. Early morning 8AM is rush hour for the normal buses, but the Suvarna and Volvo buses which are in plenty these days have poor occupancy making it a very comfortable commute.
Lunch time commute is by the ordinary buses some of which are in horrendous condition. One of the buses was vibrating so badly that you could feel it upto your head:) Sometimes I get nervous thinking about the condition of the brakes on these buses. Being a 2KM commute, some of the bus conductors try to give a concession by taking less money and not giving a ticket. You need to demand for one. Looks like they make some good pocket money by doing this. But they seem to sniff of any checking that they never get caught it looks like. There is one lady conductor who indulges this even in the Volvo and Suvarna buses.
The number of Volvo and Suvarna buses seems to have increased a lot with buses to Whitefield, Shivajinagar and Jigani. I am not sure if this is a wise idea because most of the people travel by the ordinary buses and using the day pass which is not usable in Suvarna or Volvo buses. I am not even sure if Volvo buses itself is a great idea unless BMTC is able to attract the elite car driving populace into it. I travelled towards the city center in a Volvo during the rush hour where traffic was moving below 10kmph speed, still the bus was not even full even with the bus crew's sincere attempt to catch some flies.
May be BMTC should increase the Suvarna buses and reduce the charges or allow daily passes in it. That way both the elite and the normal passengers can make use of it. Right now, they are going empty even at peak rush hours. Also they should immediately abandon the Vayu Vajra trips to airport - there is obviously no customer demand for it, same is the case with Volvo Vajra series in routes other than the IT corridor.
The diary industry is indeed one of the biggest food industries the world over and everyone seems to swear by the milk, but I am wondering whether using another animal's milk is a right thing to do. This thought was aired by noted Economist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in his Times of India column(Milk is more dangerous than Cola) when he was discussing about Coca-Cola being targeted by Indian environmentalists. He argued that milk had more contaminants than Coca-Cola and drinking another animal's milk was not environment friendly either. I stopped diary products for a short while after reading the article, but couldn't hold on to it for long. But I am at it again this time more determined to stick with it.
I have been thinking about it more since we are nearing weaning our daughter from breast milk and cow's milk is the recommended thing after that. And we have been drinking and using diary products and eating beef once in a while as well. I have not heard any convincing answer why it is ok to drink cow's milk and I am more and more convinced that it is not the natural thing to do. It appears that any breast milk is that it is produced on a demand basis - if the child or calf doesn't drink it, it stops producing it. So human being have created an artificial demand and milking the cow for their use (BTW, don't buy the argument from mothers who say their milk supply is poor or the kid doesn't drink - most of the time it is because they just don't know to feed their babies or aren't interested in patiently feeding them - they have a lot of alternatives these days). So we may not be really depriving the calves their share by drinking cow's milk, but we are misusing the demand-supply nature of the milk supply to create a food industry itself. Cows themselves have become very synthetic - they are being created for the diary industry.
But I can understand people(including myself) eating cow's meat because human beings are at the top of the food chain, it is a natural instinct to indulge in and we let the animal live its life before killing it(though there will be exceptions). Many people don't eat it because of the religious belief and the sacredness associated with the cow(especially in India), but they have no qualms in drinking cow's milk and eating diary products however, which seems to be the most unnatural thing.
I figured PETA has been fighting this cause, but they are a bit extreme that they are against other natural instincts(like eating animal meat) though not based on any religious principle. But if they take their arguments a bit further to trees and vegetables, human beings will find it tough to survive. However, I can support them in their efforts to stop drinking milk though.
So I am off from diary products though it is really tough to figure out if there is cow's milk in many of the things that we eat, it is so damn widely used in all kinds of food. But I am giving it a shot.
I have been fortunate to land up a job just 2KM from home and I think it is definitely worth living near your work place especially in a congested city like Bangalore where it is difficult to commute long distances. From that perspective, renting a home is far better than owning one. But home is closer to heart for many of us and we tend to put all our money on it. Or you could rent your home and move closer to work.
So I start from home at around 8am - 3 days of cycle and 2 days on BMTC buses. This stretch is not too bad even now at 8am except for an school-drop car parking at a no-parking zone. I make it home for lunch, and a grocery shop near office and in the apartment makes it easy to pick up stuff on the way. Spend some time with my daughter who is always excited to see you when you are off for a while. Though it is the lean hours, BMTC seems to operate enough buses during the time and all the buses leads to my home!
There is evening with family now in addition to the lunch! And you can't get away from some baby sitting, which isn't that bad considering that you aren't that tired out. I try to get out by 5PM to beat the rush hour again.
So here is what you gain out of this,
No fuel needed - since I have a diesel car, it saves around Rs.1500/=, but will be more if you have those fuel guzzling big ones.
2 hours of commute time saved - priceless!
Food at home - another Rs.1500/= and guaranteed quality
Time with family - priceless!
Reduced stress - priceless!
I would recommend moving your home closer to work or the other way round - it is worth far more than you think it is!
When I started using twitter, I had trouble understanding it. But when I realized the usefulness of it, I got hooked on to it and was spreading the news. I invited lot of my colleagues first, then I invited my fellow Computer Scientists from college, some of them created an account for themselves(or already had done it) out of curiosity, but no mainstream twitter user yet in my circle of friends or colleagues. While most of the folks couldn't see the value of twitter, there were some who didn't want to have a public profile at twitter. Then there are folks who thinks it is a distraction in their busy lives!
On thinking more about the difficulty people are having to understand twitter, at first I couldn't easily come up with an analogy that would explain twitter. IMs are like talking to each other, forums are like you are airing your view in a discussion etc. But I figured out that the village theory(with my own twist to it) would explain twitter well. The village theory as Richard Kotch puts it in his 80/20 book, is that villagers(in Africa I guess) typically have all their key relationships in life living pretty closely around 100 meters. In the book, 80/20, Richard Kotch argues that if you can build those few key relationships in life, you would be far more effective.
In my own experience, in villages and small towns, people kept in touch by talking to each other briefly when they met others. The place where I grew up, anyone walking on the road would say hello and would at least say where they were going to to anyone whom they meet - "to buy fish" or "what fish is available today" or "to watch a football match" and may be the results of the match etc. They would also share useful information as well during these short chats. Sometimes they may have to repeat these things to others as well. You wouldn't really discuss any secrets in these conversations, but rumor mill does it rounds however. These were usually short conversations, not a formal visit or long one-on-one chat. And if there is someone new in the neighborhood, they may not directly talk to each other first, the others who know them would talk about them and you would come to know. But typically folks knew what was going on with others in the neighborhood unless there are something fishy going on(even that would be difficult to hide). But there were always the odd ones who don't want to mingle around as well. The same method is utilized by people who sell things on foot - they shout out what they have got and interested folks would come around and check it out. In fact the fish vendors had a trademark howl that helps people get ready. At the root of its effectiveness was the relaxed pace of life those days! Modern ways of living and methods in small towns are changing this a bit though.
It appears that twitter is modeled around this way of communication - in effect, twitter has enabled smaller villages with one of the most effective ways of communication in the cyberspace. In the internet neighborhood, twitter is as effective as the village or small town neighborhood's methods to keep in touch and share information. Instead of saying the same thing to various people you meet, you just tweet once because your status is recorded. Then others re-tweet it or respond to you and you have a conversation. Off course there are additional facilities like search and hashtags that makes it easier to find things. And no wonder why the marketing folks love it, they can shout out what they have got! But as Richard Kotch points out in his 80/20 book, the key is picking the 20% of your key allies(friends) in the twitterville to make your time more effective.
Technology wise, it is indeed a marvel in that the number of tools or utilities that are being developed is incredible. The simplicity of the twitter APIs is something that is driving this for sure. While computing standard bodies and technologies have been talking about standard APIs and framworks, I would think that twitter APIs really shows the significance of a simpler and relevant APIs. Many technologies and technologists have not been able to do anywhere near what twitter APIs have practically demonstrated by way of the applications it has enabled.
Hopefully now you are convinced about its effectiveness and simplicity and go build your village on twitter!
I am back on a cycle after sometime with a Firefox Target, which is an expensive one by Indian standards, but may be a normal bike by global standards. My previous two cycles were mainly meant for exercising, but with this I want to commute to work as well. But the main reason I looked around for a bike was for cross-training to improve my running. Then I figured out that there were plenty of guys(including guys older than me) biking to work. But if I can regularly use the bike irrespective of whether I commute, that should make the bike worthwhile. Biking to work is all the more possible because I have got just a 2KM commute, but on the busy Bannerghatta Road.
The bike was worth Rs.11,995/= and with accessories(helmet, back light, bottle holder, fender) it was around Rs. 15000/=. Almost 10 times that of my last cycle. So for people who are curious about the price, my line has been "if you have to ask the price, you cannot afford it"! Many of the m don't understand why anyone would spent that much money on a cycle. More details and technical specifications(!) are here
There are pretty nice things about the cycle which I figured out after placing the order. The wheels can be removed without any tools though the back one has gears and derailleurs(I didn't know about this either:) which makes it a bit difficult. The seat post, which is the only thing that I had fiddled around earlier can also be removed and fixed without any tools. They are called quick release parts! But this makes it a bit dangerous to park in open spaces like I do because it is really easy to steal things as well! So I need to get the bike insured as well - I learned that there is indeed a cycle insurance policy as well. It comes with a manual and an Allen-key and a spanner(tools look pretty ordinary though).
While I didn't pay much attention to cycling skills or its setup earlier except for setting up my seat posts, this time I am far more technically knowledgeable about the bike thanks to internet and BOTS who has a great website with blogs and cycling forums as well. Since I haven't used a geared cycle(or motorcyle), I read up about cycle gears and derailleurs a bit. The best information I got was from BicycleTutor.com where its video on gears made things pretty understandable. This is a great resource and the videos are of the best quality where you can see the cycle parts very clearly, the following videos from them were also pretty useful.
And being weary about the occupational hazards of cycling, I read a bit about good posture and cycling skills(which people tend to take it as a given). The following websites were very useful as well. Sheldon Brown seems to be the king of cycling.
The video below also helped me understand the cycling terms which you keep hearing in the forums,
There are a lot of websites on commuting to work, but they mainly focus on US or European conditions, I think the best for Indian conditions are from the BikeZone forum in their commute section. But the general perception remains that cycling in Indian city roads are dangerous and unhealthy because of the pollution. The Bikezone and Bangalore Biker Club forums are pretty useful in hearing other commuters experiences. But there is definitely a cycling community in Bangalore which is a great help in keeping yourself on the saddle for a long time.
Finally I picked up my cycle which was ready last week, I couldn't pick it up because I was sick. After getting in touch with Rohan and Nikhil(of Bums on the Saddle - BOTS) may be last June, I was brooding over it for a long time before I made up my mind recently. In between I tried to buy a Hero Thunder and the experience dealing with the regular cycle vendors were so bad that I turned to BOTS again. And I can tell you it is worth the money - the customer experience thing that you hear in corporate trainings(but not in practice) and read about, you can experience it here.
Since BOTS shop was a bit far from where I live, we put the cycle in my car. We had to fold the backseat to make room and remove the front wheel. It is pretty easy to remove and fix the front wheel. I took it for a spin around my apartment and fiddled with the gears a bit, but since I haven't completely recovered from my flu, I didn't spend too much time on it. Fixed my old cycle lock(worth 16euros) on it and locked it in my parking lot.
So the plan is to do cycling as a cross training for my running and possibly commute to work as well. Let us see how things go!
While some of the revelations of fraud by the chairman of Satyam, Mr. Raju might be shocking, I am least surprised by these events. Indian enterprenuers typically are not used to high levels of openness and integrity and IT folks are no different in my view.
While Raju got caught because of his stupid moves, most of the other folks who indulge in it are smart to cover it up or they are scared by their western business bosses and their systems in place . Still there are horrendous stories that I have experienced in MNCs in India where it looked worse than an Indian company. The top honchos of these organizations actively look out for yes-men who would nod to anything and everything they say and do. That is the way people grow in these companies, by being yes-men to their bosses. The whistle blowers are systematically chased out irrespective of the real issues they raise. To some extent this is a cultural thing in a country where the kings ruled without any accountability or responsibility - they were interested only in their own luxuries, not of the people whom they ruled. The glorious palaces in a poor country speaks volumes about it. Also the major community and religious divide encourages this culture. Questioning the king or the community leaders or blind belief in religious rituals can be really a bad thing. Superstitions still rule many parts of the country.
I had an experience early in my career with Hewlett Packard which in partnership with its Indian collaborator HCL America got contract workers to US on J1 visas, which was typically used for cultural exchange programs and training. HCL trained us to fake at the visa office and had documentation to support the training story. But once we reached the US, we were just another set of contractors who were paid the same salary(allowance in our paper) as other legal ones. But HCL saved tax because we were NOT workers in paper. This would have gone unnoticed, but for a CBS 60 minute program where HP was put to shame on national TV. Not sure if Lew Platt had any idea of this thing going, but he had only "no comment" answer to all the questions when the CBS crew barged into him. Heads did roll in HP and the backroom boys got into rearguard action giving us training on some irrelevant stuff to show that we were indeed on training. We were immediately sent back though the initial contract was for 18 months. This whole thing was completely orchestrated from this part of the globe though some stupid HP senior managers fell into that trap and lost their jobs.
I had no idea about Hewlett Packard's history then, but after I read the HP Way, I was very disappointed that HP could be fooled by a silly Indian partner who cared nothing about integrity, but wanted some quick bucks.
I returned to India and became an HP India employee later. The going was good initially with some real HP managers running the show. But things became murky when the outsourcing boom happened and they mass recruited from government organizations(along with their buerocracy) and other Indian companies. I got into a bit of trouble when my feedback to a business manager was considered as scuttling the local India management's plan. A bunch of wolves were let off to finish me off, but they couldn't really do what they wanted - to push me out as a poor performer. I was asked to move to a new group where they marked me as a poor performer, but the work I did during the "poor" performing year was accepted as a poster in the company's internal technical world wide conference which was a great recognition and not an easy one at that. My immediate manager at the time told me that I violated the code of conduct of the company by writing to a manager who was not in my line of management chain! He was duly challenged and the Indian goons at the top saved him though they finally had to fire him for abusing another employee which was caught on the employees' cell phone. But they made it looked like a normal exit however. I was also very open in criticizing them which didn't help my cause - during my 10 year service award function, I openly said that the place didn't really reflect the values of Hewlett Packard. But I moved out of HP when the going was good because the wolves were still out there very much despite Mark Hurd's clean up drive.
The next company I joined was supposed to be a lean(which is a bunch of cow poop) company , but I found the similar set of India management team out there. Here again, they were very uncomfortable in people sharing feedback directly with senior managers who were running the business though the CEO of the company do respond to emails. This time I quit way too early to correct my mistake than hang around and fight the system like I did earlier.
The point is, many of the Indian managers or VPs don't understand or care about integrity or openness, they are into this game to make money and hence their own growth in the corporate ladder. And for that they need yes-men and whistle blowers need to be eradicated completely. I am sure many of the corporate scams would have been identified by some of those whistle blowers who would have been eased out of the company or scenario. So having seen such poor behavior at the highest levels of management in a world renowned company for their integrity, I am not at all surprised by what Mr. Raju and company has achieved - that has lot to do with our culture - we are not used to openness and integrity, they are only for the western corporates! In fact Mr. Raju confessed his follies, but many of his bretheren in many other Indian and MNC organizations would never do that until they are caught and fired.
After commuting in a reserved bus where occupancy was always below 100% and nearing 0% where I board and get down, now I am jostling for space in the public BMTC buses, but just a 2KM ride . There are a variety of buses however to choose from - top of the chart is airconditioned Vajra services with Volvo buses(Rs.10), then there is normal Suvarna buses(Rs.8/=) which are new vehicles, there is this occasional Pushpak(Rs.6/=) and the normal ones(Rs.5). I commute mostly by Volvo and Suvarna buses, but if the bus is empty, anything goes. Frequency of the buses are pretty good though I am finding it tough to find any regularity in their schedule. This is not major problem for me because I can jump into most of the buses that ply in this route.
I checked on the monthly passes for these buses - it is a bit expensive for a 2KM ride even though I ride 4 times a day. Even the daily pass is not worth the trouble, since the lunch time trips and evenings are usually the Rs.5 buses and the daily pass doesn't work in the Vajra service.
Some of the normal buses are in pretty pathetic condition. But the drivers seem to enjoy the ride zooming on it whenever possible - there is one stretch on our way where they test the machine where the heart skips a beat or two. It appears that there is no load balancing of the schedules at all for these buses(which is a good thing for me) - there are plenty of buses plying during the non-peak hours with little occupancy and the normal buses are loaded to the brim during peak hours.
The Vajra a/c buses are rarely occupied fully, in fact they have introduced more services 365J(upto the industrial area Jigani) and another 411 series. I am not sure if that makes good business sense - the Suvarna buses, which are far more cheaper would have been a better choice than the very expensive Volvo buses. But then these are far better than the Airport Services which seems to have very poor occupancy rates.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of Jayadeep only and in no way represent the views, positions or opinions - expressed or implied - of my employer or anyone else.
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