Opinion – Page 2 – gcmouli.com

So what, if you work for the Government …

I thoroughly get bugged when I see bumper stickers (or rear windshield stickers) which proclaim what industry you are in.

So what if you work in the government? Do you have the sticker on so that the police should not catch you if you do not heed the traffic rules? If not why?

So what if you work for the government? Do you need preferential treatment? Why? If you need to prove your identity to get ‘things done’, you have already defeated the whole purpose. It means your governance is so bad that, you get things done, only if you have that sticker or the metal plate.

So what if someone you know or even you, are in the army. I have huge respect for folks in uniform. Please don’t ruin it for me. I have had several people actually tell me that, they have the sticker so that the police do not ‘bother’ them. (Remember regular police cannot slap charges on these folks – only military police can).

So what if you are an advocate, are you threatening me that, if I get into an accident or altercation with you, you will drag me to court? Are you trying to tell me that you are a big guy? What is the purpose of that bow tie sticker on your vehicle. I am sure that is not a vehicle pass that lets you into court. You do have some other form of identification. Then what is the need for the neck tie sticker.

I dont even agree with the police sticker. I have seen folks who are software engineers riding bikes with a ‘Police’ sticker. When asked, they would give some vague answer as, their brother, who is an office, occasionally take their bike, but mostly it is so that, police do not ‘bother’ them. Wow. It bothers me though. If a police officer is really rushing to a place where he is urgently required, either he would be riding an official vehicle, run through traffic like Keanu Reaves, or grab some random persons car in the middle of the road like Chris Tucker. He is not riding his brothers bike.

The one profession sticker that I think ‘could’ potentially be useful is the doctor sticker. Even there, I use could the phrase “potentially” because this need not be the case all the time. But then I am willing to take the extreme case in this one. Perhaps, being a doctor, there may be times when you have to rush to a hospital to which you have been summoned.

Maybe I should just adjust maadi and make this sticker for myself:

But then this would probably ensure that I get flagged by the police more. *Sigh*

A different take on Swacch Bharath

I have been thinking about this Swachh Bharath Abhiyaan that is the “in-thing” nowadays. For those who have been living under a rock for the last 2 months, this is the initiative kicked off by our PM – Narendra Modi – which encourages people to take on a pledge to ‘clean our India’ by spending atleast 2 hours per week. He said his characteristic fervour and said if our ‘sava sow karod desh vaasiyon’ (1.25 crore people of India) each do their bit, our country would be sparkling clean. Very noble initiative, I must say. And yes, we need to do something about our state of the country with respect to cleanliness. It is a mess. And sure, no other PM has ever touched this subject. So it is commendable.

But I digress, let me get back to my thoughts. As much as I think it is a great initiative, it is my personal belief that the implementation methodology might be slightly flawed. Again, disclaimer, I stress on the words “I think” and “my personal belief”. I would love to be proved wrong.

Ever since the initiative started, there have been challenges that have taken place on celebrities who have awkwardly held brooms that they have never held in their hands before, and made pretenses of cleaning a bit of a street (here, here, here, and several more). Our PM did a good job – probably because he had done this kind of thing during his RSS days. My problem fundamentally boils down to two things:

The scale of garbage and junk in our country is way more than can be handled by how many ever people awkwardly wielding brooms, wearing green gloves, and a black plastic garbage bag in hand. It is not a scalable solution.

If the people are going to be cleaning, what are the corporations going to be doing? Are there any initiatives that have percolated down to the Municipal corporations? Atleast I have not seen any change in the BBMP or in the Chennai Municipal Corporations. These fine folk have the equipment, the machinery, and the skilled manpower to handle garbage. Given adequate direction and incentives, they can bring about change that the billion of us cannot achieve together.

Ok, I now see the dozen of you come forward quoting the fabled – “Ask not what the country does for you .. blah blah”. I agree. But be practical. More practical would be the case, where there is a massive drive by the Government with the corporations, panchayats, municipalities (all working together), perhaps even with participation from the public (the ambanis, khans, and the rest of us mango folk too) – and then, the Government says – Now, you sava sow karod vaasiyon, we have given you a clean slate to begin with. We are now giving you a methodology for waste disposal. We are giving you these laws by which we can punish the wrong-doers. Now, do you bit, in preserving this beauty.

Now, you may say, is this scalable? Is such a massive drive even possible? Give it some thought. This does not need happen over night on one day throughout the country. National Clean Our Garbage Day. NO sir. That will not happen, and does not scale. But as a good software engineer will tell you, start incrementally. Start working on portions of a city. It has been proven possible. I have read articles about Surat doing it. I have seen parts of Electronic City (In Bangalore) do it (the IT companies partly fund this). I have seen portions of Coimbatore like this. In short, I have seen this in all places where there is a good corporator.

In short, get a concerted effort by the government (multiple bodies working together and perhaps public participation) to do a first sweep cleanliness drive. Then work with the public to ‘keep’ it that way. Formalize processes for waste segregation and waste disposal. Impose regulations and penalties. That is the way to go IMHO.

Why do I honk?

You ask me, “Why do I honk?”. I will tell you why I honk.

And no, I do not honk incessantly like the cabbies, but you got to be super pretentious to claim that in India, you can drive without honking. Sure, I will reduce and have reduced honking, but if I do not honk, the following classes of living beings would probably get killed, if not seriously injured:

The college kid with the backpack talking on her phone looking at the wrong direction while crossing the road
The old uncle in his smokey scooter who claims that old scooters have the right to drive in the middle most lane
The real estate agent who is talking on the phone which is resting on his shoulders and his head bent at an impossible 90 degrees to keep the phone from falling down.
The style-bhai on his Yamaha FZ-whatever who feels that he is driving faster if he makes more noise and if he challenges the center of gravity of his bike to the maximum.
The auto-wallah who brakes in the middle of the road to enquire where the passenger on the road wants to go, only to shake his head and go on.
The occasional suicidal canine.
The callous bovine whose business it is not, to realize that it is in the middle of the road.
The aunty crossing the road holding a kid in each arm hoping for divine intervention to stop traffic when she crosses the road. (She did not get the memo that, the traffic might seem like a sea, but she is not Moses).
The gush of humanity that drains out of a buses door when the bus stops at a bus-stop – even if the bus stopped in the middle lane.
The IT dude in the car right in front in an intersection, who is checking email on his jazzy smart phone.

If you have more ‘characters’ for whom the ‘horn’ in our cars and bikes still serve an existential purpose, let me know in your comments.

Johny Ive on Xiomi

homescreens — http://mashable.com/2014/08/19/miui-6-ios-7-compared/

“Its theft and its lazy, if you ask me.” — Johny Ive

This was the statement that Johny Ive when asked about Xiomi. There has been considerable discussion online about how the MIUI layout and design is very similar to iOS. And this is making Johny nervous and irritable. But is this the mature way of handling it? Isnt everything like that?

A person or a company typically invents (or produces) a concept or a product after a lot of hard work, and then it becomes a success. Then there are others who try and ‘copy’ or ’emulate’ if you will, to see the copied version can become a success too. There are times, when it does, and times when it does not.

Famously, Steve Jobs (once Ive’s employer) quoted the great artist Pablo PIcasso:

Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

If you read Steve’s biography and listen to some early tapes of his, you would see why he said that. His escapades around ‘stealing’ ideas from Bill Gates or more famously from Xerox PARC. Did the world cry fowl then? No. The capitalist philosophy is that, it does not matter if someone invented it. If someone can turn what was invented into what can make money, then that is success. A small town inventor who invented a great way to pump water from a borewell is considered a success in his neighbourhood. Someone who gets inspired by it, and makes it a production product and sells it to a hundred thousand farmers across India, becomes a resounding success.

See, Ive should understand that, just because you put in years of hard work into creating something very nice (and I agree, design wise, apple is probably way higher than any other company) does not mean that he can cloak it and keep it in his safe forever. It is a public product. This is a free world. He should probably feel proud that, there is another product which is considering his design as a role model and emulating it.

On a side note, Apple should probably feel good that, a company is atleast releasing this as something different (and is inspired by iOS) and not creating a fake iPhone and cheating others. By the way, that also happens. Come to India and see. You will hear talk about real iPhone vs Chine make iPhone.

And lastly, going by the track record of Apple, there will always be a fan-boy-club for Apple, who will always buy only Apple, even if they can get something that looks and feels exactly like Apple for half the price. So Apple, why do you worry? Or are you noticing the fan-boy-club dwinding? The numbers do not seem to say so.

Fear factor

flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thejcgerm/

Quite contrary to what most of you might be thinking, this is not about any reality show, but is a part 2 of my previous post on random policing to deter minor traffic offenses.

I am originally from Chennai. My parents still live there and I make occasional trips to this beautiful city (Singaara Chennai, as we call it — beautiful Chennai). This post is about 2 observations and my take on how they could be connected.

First observation is the general talk (or sometimes lack of it) about the reduced petty level crime on the streets. I keep hearing that the police is also very sensitized to crimes like eve teasing, chain snatching, and the likes – which I shall term (very loosely, since I am not a law) petty crime on the streets.

The second observation is a more personal one – something that I have been seeing in the last 2-3 visits. Chennai Police seems to have procured a large number of interceptor vehicles. And no, I am not talking about the old ‘Police Jeeps’. I talking fancy Innovas, Xylos, and the likes. And these interceptors have the blue and red flashing lights mounted on top of them – very much like the Interceptors in the US have. Firstly, I am seeing a large number of them on the road – randomly policing, parked in sensitive corners (near the auto stand in Chennai Central and T.Nagar Pondy Bazaar are two examples). Secondly, these vehicles are standing there with their flasher lights on. This makes them visible from at least a km away.

So this brings me to the fear factor. When these police interceptor vehicles are ubiquitous and very visible from a large surface area, there is a sense of safety for the common man, and a sense of fear for the offenders. I believe this is probably the link between the two observations. I have also seen these interceptors ‘prowl’ areas – smaller streets, bigger avenues, you name it – I have seen them there. This probably also has an effect for petty crime – the fact that, at any time an interceptor might turn up.

As a side note, I am one of those who firmly believe that, if the Police Department is funded well (by means of equipment and salaries), the corruption would definitely reduce (note that I said reduce, for nature will also bring forward some bad apples to surprise you). When the corruption reduces, there is more respect for the police, and in turn towards the law. I really hope the governments look into this as well.

Net-net (as we say in tech circles sometimes), I believe this improve policing is step in the right direction towards a safer future. Kudos to Chennai Police. I really hope other Police Departments pick up the cue and take this to their cities too.

Random Policing and Minor Traffic Offences

(Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eirikref/)

This is something that I have been talking about for quite a while with friends and family. With the Bangalore Police getting more and more social savvy, I thought, I would try and pen down my thoughts here, and maybe point them to here.

This here, is an experiment based on human psychology, which has been very effective in traffic offense management in other countries. My experience is in the US, but all I have unfortunately, is anecdotal evidence and no formal numbers. Still, it is worth a try.

The principal premise of this experiment is that, if there are random checks and apprehensions of traffic offenders in a certain spot, drivers tend to be a little more careful, fearful of being apprehended in that spot.

Let me explain with an real life example of what I saw in the US.

There are certain areas in the US interstates, where it is known that there are hidden cameras catching traffic offenders. There are also certain pockets where there is ‘mostly’ a cop car hidden in the bushes waiting to nab a speeding vehicle. Over a period of time, drivers tend to know this, by either learning the hard way or through word of mouth, and these areas become very cautionary zones. After a little while, even if the cop car is not there, or if the camera is not there, this zone becomes a relatively safe zone.

I do have to admit that Bangalore police (and other state police) have attempted similar strategies and have had marginal success. I believe it is just that, this needs to be done more consistently and the net spread wider. For example, the Intermediate Ring Road in Bangalore. Drivers know that during non-peak hours, it is best not to over speed, since there is a good possibility that there is an interceptor with a radar speed gun at one of the invisible turns. So a lot of regular drivers in that area, are careful. And let me be honest, I learnt it the hard way too. I have seen similar exercises on the Delhi-Noida-Delhi (DND) express way as well in the NCR region.

What do I mean by widening the net? I recommend installing cameras at obscure junctions where there is very repetitive signal jumping or turning at no-right-turns. Or, in a less tech savvy experiment, have a hidden policeman, noting down numbers and pictures using the cameras given to the traffic police. Challan offenders continuously and consistently for a month. Then move on to the next junction. The same effect as what happens in Intermediate Ring Roads would extend to junction after junction. Drivers would start ‘fearing’ hidden cameras or policemen. You would start people looking around for cameras and hesitantly start following rules. Get news media (social and print) to cover this.

We would need patience to see large scale effect of this experiment. But then, neither was Rome built in a day, or for that matter, neither did all Americans drive with fear of the law, in a day. The world’s oldest democracy probably took quite a while to get this state. It is just that it is not publicized.

This is, in my humble opinion, a relatively low cost, low effort, experiment to start instilling road sense into drivers. It starts off with “fear of being challened”. But then, when people start seeing the effect, I am sure fear would turn into respect and appreciation, and it would sustain.

Signed,

Eternal Optimist.

What did Modi ‘actually’ accomplish in the US?

Modi - the redeemer :) — Modi – the redeemer 🙂 (Reuters)

Setting up disclaimers as usual. What I write is purely my opinion. The opinion is that of a lay person not very well versed in the political sciences.

As you can see the media coverage and the general energy of the public, there is quite a bit of song and dance surrounding the PMs visit to the US. So what exactly is he accomplishing here?

Change the impression: India used to be called the land of snakes and snake charmers. Quite obviously, this pisses off a large populace . The only change in perception/impression that we have made to this is, now, India is looked at a land of cows, software engineers, and call centers.

India is considered an extremely difficult place to do business. It is considered a ‘dirty place’. (Yes, it hurts me to say this, but please drive down to the passport office in Koramangala, Bangalore and look across the street. You will know what I mean). Owing to the perception of call centers and the large scale monotonous work that we did during Y2K, we are not quite looked at where there is innovation and breakthroughs. Folks in the US still consider that the Indians in the US are super brilliant because they are ‘away’ from India.

Modi’s speeches in the US and his interactions with congressmen and leaders of businesses have revolved around allaying their fears around these factors (and probably more). I believe his trip is trying to prove to them that his new government’s top priority is to fix these basic infrastructural problems. He is probably also asking their opinions on what they consider as a problem; and if there is a large scale need for any specific SOPS he will probably do it.

Market Make in India: This whole concept has multiple facets in itself. Bring investment into India – which in itself is a big thing. This would improve the job situation in India. Also, Modi has been talking a lot about Public-Private-Partnership (PPP). Almost every MNC has money allocated for community service. That is one half of the PPP problem instantaneously solved. I read somewhere that he is already talking with Google and the likes for the Clean Ganga project. The third important factor is, as more and more product manufacturing companies come into India, their products would start getting sold in India. Goods made in India and sold here typically are also available at a lower cost. (case in point – Nokia phones, Ford cars etc). It is a win-win for the companies (expand the market) and India (lower costs).

Get some international publicity: We need this. We need this bad. Let us accept the fact that, if you make a lot of noise in the US, it gets heard world wide. If you go and make a lot of noise in SriLanka or Thailand, no one even notices it – maybe your SAARC partners would, but no one else). This is free publicity. The “May the force be with you” starwars ending line may have sounded corny coming from the PM, but it surely got the attention. For heavens sake, John Oliver made a segment out of it in his HBO Last week Tonight show.

Thank folks for the $$: From what I hear, there was quite a bit of contribution from the Indian diaspora in the US for the Modi campaigns – monetarily. The PM needs to thank them and assure them that there would be the change that they had all contributed towards. If not for anything, he would require their support for 2 more terms (if all goes as per his plan :)).

These are the four ‘real’ reasons why I think Modi’s visit is significant. Any other thoughts, please write in the comments section.

Indian Americans and claiming credit …

This here, is a controversial article, where I am going to let what pulses through my heart, straight to the fingers on the keyboard – aka no thinking. I will set up my disclaimers shortly, and I would also like to say that, I am willing to stand corrected if your contra opinions have data enough to convince me.

First the disclaimers. I am a huge Modi fan. So even if there is something that seems to echo that what Modi is doing is wrong, is definitely a fault of the English language (which is a funny language, you know!). I have lived in the US, interacted with several first generation Indian Americans (who settled there in the 70s) and second generation Indians (American citizens born to first generation American Indians). In fact, I do have one very close friend of mine, who is a second generation American Indian, and we have had several talks on how they feel, the hardships they feel, and largely the search for their true identify (some have come to terms, and some have not, believe it or not!).

With these disclaimers out of the way, let me state my controversial rant first, and then see if my fingers can build around that (see, I am setting up my fingers for the blame, so if you do not like what I am saying, ‘talk to the hand’ or the ‘fingers’ to be precise). I take objection to the fact that several American Indians and unfortunately several Indians (and media too!) are stating that, Indians went to the US to ‘save India’. It is because of all their money that got pumped into India, that we are what we are now. Someone on FB (I think the guy was one of the organizers of the event at Madison Sq Garden) even gave an example of how, since they could not physically come and show their love and affection to their parents, they sent the money to buy a new couch – which apparently satisfied the parents even more than their children coming home (really???). And that apparently the money that the parents spent on the couch went into building the economy of the country.

Anyways, Indians have been going to America for a variety of reasons, and the reasons have evolved over time. In the early 60’s and 70’s there were the Indians who went to the US because it was the land of opportunity. I personally know of folks in my family who went there because their immediate family was in ‘need’. These folks had it real hard. Racism was rampant. They did not have the number of ‘Indian stores’ that exist today. They struggled. They struggled to make ends meet for themselves and they still had to send back money. And they did. They worked at gas stations. They worked at grocery stores. The works. The admirable thing about these people (in my humble opinion) was the fact that they did not make a pretense of trying to return to India. After all the struggling, they said, they were going to settle there and be there. They still were comfortable coming to India once in a while, but that was it. Home was the USA. Why do I admire them? Atleast they are not making a hypocritic pretense. They are clear.

Then came the 90s. Youngsters (including yours truly) went there to the US, because the universities were great. You would find folks saying they are going to the US for ‘higher education’. Cue: You would not hear folks saying to make ends meet for their family home. These folks did not have that much of a struggle (if you ask me!). A large portion of these folks either got financial assistance from the university or got some ‘on-campus’ jobs as we used to call it. By this time, atleast folks in the universities (thanks to the first generation folks whom we spoke about in the last paragraph) had a good opinion of the Indian students. They were hard working, smart, and could understand/speak fluent English. And hence these jobs came by. No one got paid boat loads, but got enough for sustenance. Few sent back money home. These were folks who had taken educational loans to take care of their first semester tuition and living expenses. But thats it. By the end of 90’s, the tech bubble was at its peak. By this time, not only were the Universities aware of the smart, hard working, English speaking Indians, the companies got to know as well. And they started hiring. Indians got in early and made it big. These guys sent some money home – perhaps paid for the renovation of the home that was long due – but I would not call it the revival of the economy due to them. They were settling in too. The bought a car, a house, and material comforts to lead a comfortable enriching life.

At the risk of alienating some of my batch mates, I will make another boisterous uncomfortable claim. There are clearly some of them who are clear that they are going to stay there in the US. They try and get their parents to the US once a year for a few months etc. They do ‘something’ for better living in India (perhaps buy them a couch like the Organizing person said), but essentially did all they could to make their and their parents life comfortable. I see nothing wrong with this crowd. Honestly, I am pretty proud of this crowd. Hey, their head is screwed on to the right place. They know what they want to do. They do what they can. The ones that bug me to no end are the ‘n+1’ folks, who claim every year that they would come back the next year. These are the folks who contribute to a lot of hypocrisy in the American Indian Community. These are the folks who talk about the ‘mother land’ in every party there. These are the folks who send money to Indian election campaigns here. These are the folks who claim that they are doing all this because they are going to return back to ‘desh’ once it gets better. Once it gets better. Hmm. Hmm. Ok then.

Let me move on now. The last set of folks who are in the US – perhaps now, as I write this long winded boring post, are the folks who have reached the US in the last few years. I have been observing a large number of these folks go to the US by funding themselves. “The wha ….”, you might say!. Yes, you heard me right. These guys fund their own tuition, their living expenses and everything else. From what I hear and understand, about half of these guys would defenitely come back to mother land and work in an ‘American’ company in India; and the rest would get assimilated there. Again, how many of these would claim that they would come back vs they would settle there, I do not know. Time will tell.

With these three categories, epochs if you will, of folks who immigrated in to the US, excepting for the first set of people who genuinely ‘pumped’ ‘some’ money back into India, I do not see the recent claim that the Indian American community is pumping ‘dollars’ into India to revive India. Really? Is that because of these guys that Infosys has become so big? HCL? TCS? CTS? They might not be the hot-rod startups of Silicon Valley, but boy-o-boy, do they bring in revenue or what? Revenue that brought prosperity to the folks who work in these companies. Revenue to the Government in terms of tax. There is also data somewhere (I dont recall where), that the NRI community does not even pump in that many tourist $ into the country. More $ is spent by European and Japanese tourists.

I should be fair, and should acknowledge the one data point that is in favour of this argument. There are a few handful of companies based out of America, who have come and started their Indian operations because of the initiatives by Indians in the management of these companies. They have been able to convince their American counterparts that there are smart, hard working, fluent English speaking folks back in India too. I say a handful, because, it is only a handful that came because of the Indian community there. The rest came because of capitalism. “Hey, we hire a lot of Indians here in the US, and they are getting expensive. Lets go in search of the source. Bingo. We can hire three Indians in India for the price of one in the US.”

So where is this ‘India is what it is because of the NRI community’ claim coming from? If that is what it is, then why is Modi there and introducing all these reforms in immigration? Why is he asking afresh to contribute? The VISA on arrival is not for the Caucasian Americans. It is for the US citizens born of Indian Immigrants. He said a lot of stuff indirectly. Let me try and say it in direct words here – “I am sure most of you here are not going to return back. And that is fine. But I want you to come and go freely. I want you to come and stay long periods of time. I want you to give ideas on how to improve (from your observations here in the US and elsewhere). I want you to contribute in whatever way you can.” You should notice that he did not say “you can Western-Union money to this account here to save my country”.

I am done with this long rant, but this is something that I wanted to share and probably get some conversation and opinions on. We are not perfect. We need all the help from everyone, from everywhere across the world. Modi has a vision. It is up to each one of us to realize it.

Bhaarath Maata ki Jai.

PS: I did not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings by this rant. I am just using Freedom of Speech and all that. I would love to stand corrected, if you have sufficient data to counter my data-less claims 🙂

History of the South

I have written about this before and I will continue to write about this in the future. And I am not writing this because I hail from the South of India. I am not one of those who divide the country between Madrasis and the Northies. I was born in the south. I have lived in the North. I still have several friends from all over India. I studied in the US for a brief period of time, and hence, I think my views are fairly unbiassed. And now, that I have that out of my chest and out of my way, let me get to my rant.

In all of my history lessons (I studied CBSE), I have studied about the Maurya empire, the Gupta empire, the Great king Ashoka, the mughal invasions, Ghazini and his ghastly incursions into India. We studied about the World Wars, and how India participated in it, because of the British. And ofcourse finally we studied all about the Independence struggle, and Sepoy mutiny, Maulana Azad, Gandhiji, Nehru, Bhagat Singh, and the likes. In Geography, we studied in detail about the Gangetic plains, the Brahmaputra, the Himalayas, the 5 Rivers of Punjab. We even studied about the Rock Garden of Chandigarh.

By now, if you are like me, you may have gotten a pattern emerging from this. When we studied about our country’s ‘rich’ history and diverse geography, what we had been studying is pretty much the history and geography of the North. I distinctly remember, we had about 2-3 pages (out of the 250 page text book) each year dedicated the powerful rulers of the South. Some of the things that we learnt about these rulers were: The rulers of the South built splendid large temples. They fought amongst them heavily. They were dark skinned and of Dravidian origin. There were also mentions of the grand Vijayanagar empire, and two things I remember from that are the Belur and Halebid temples, and how they stopped the Mughals in their tracks from invading the South of India.

In more recent years, as I travel a bit through the erstwhile Chozha (Chola) empire and reading classics like Periya Puranam (a chronicle of the Saivite saints of the south) and Ponniyin Selvan (en semi fictitious epic of the Chozha-Pandiya times), I realize how painfully little I know about the part of the country I hail from. If I, who is from the South, know so little about my own history and geography, I can imagine how much somebody from (say) Delhi or Mumbai would know.

For the sake of elucidating the fact that there is more than what I studied, I am going to gloss over some of what I have learnt in recent times. And by no means, am I going to cover too much, or bore you with details.

The Chozha empire under the reign of Raja Raja Chozha (the one who built the Big Temple in Tanjore) had direct or allied control of territories which spanned from parts of Burma, Cambodia, the islands of Indonesia, and further. [link]

There are inscriptions and books of historical significance in South East Asia (specifically the Malay peninsula) stating that the rulers had origins from the Chozha rulers. The temples and architecture of Angkor wat are of distinctly a fusion of the Chozha and Kalinga style. The Khmer king who built it was Suryaverman II. Does the name ring a bell? Well, Raja Raja Chozhan’s original name was “Arulmozhi Verman”. He was nicknamed Raja Raja Chozhan (king of all). The Chozha kings had captured all of the southern peninsula – inclusive of Sri Lanka. The tamil eelam guerilla force (LTTE) had the tiger in their symbol and called themselves tigers too.

The Chozha kings were for the most part great administrators and did not mind other religions to flourish. Buddhism and Jainism was spreading at that time. In most places, the state maintained a balance. The state was mostly Hindu, but there are defenitely instances of the Kings helping build Buddhist monasteries in Nagappatinam and in several places in Sri Lanka. In some areas like Sri Lanka, Buddhism gained more power and started having influence in the state – which continues to this date.

The textbooks briefly mention Mahabalipuram (Mamalapuram) and their exquisite sculptures. The Pallava kings did way more than that. They waged war against the Kalinga empire at one time and won too. Did we know that? Yes, Kalinga is currently Assam and Odisha.

There is even more that I could go on and on forever, like the siege of the Madurai Meenakshi temple by the Jains. Or of the three main saints of the south – Appar, Sundarar, Manickavachagar. (Note: We learnt about Kabir and Meera.) The text books briefly mention the few days that Swamy Vivekananda spent in Tamilnadu on his way to Chicago. Oh, he spent much more than a few days. He spent quite a few days and has a deep rooted connection in the South of India. He even made the famous “Arise, awake and stop not till you succeed” statement first in Kumbakonam near Tanjore. I now have my North Indian brethren’s attention who are now trying to pronounce that town’s name. Instead, we learnt about the dark skinned people of Dravidian origin lived in the Southern parts of India.

Now, let me put aside all of this (probably) mindless ranting. With the schools of the land following such text books (which are the standard), I have stopped blaming the people. If folks like me, who have spent their school years fully in the south are not able to appreciate the historical context from where we hail from, how can I expect my brothers and sisters from the North to know any better. Times are slowly becoming better. And by that, I am not meaning text books are changing. I mean people are becoming more aware. My north Indian friends in Bangalore and slowly beginning to shed their fear of Tamizh/Other Dravidian languages, and venturing deep into the South, to see the spectacular temples of the South. I only wish the Governments (well, all of them, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, AP, and Kerala) get together, and put together a better tourism program, which will enable this. Right now, the governments are focusing only on those areas, where they can make the money – Navagraha temples (temples for the Nine planets) in Tamil Nadu, Belur-Halebid circuit in KA, beautiful beaches of Kerala, and of AP, I do not know what they are up to (let them first figure out their statehood status). I also wish there are private players in the market, who could enable this for the inquisitive.

With that, I will stop …. I hope to have reached some readers of this blog by giving them a slightly fresher perspective on what ‘more’ is there to our country than what we just study in our text books. Let us first discover our country. We can then open the gates for the “Incredible India” to our friends from other countries. It is currently the opposite now.

PS: Please do pardon any factual inaccuracies that may be present in this article. They are probably products of the emotional cloudburst that happened while writing this article.

Book Review: Horse Shoe Garage

This was one of the 4 books that LeadStart Corp had sent me a few months ago. This had been lying on my shelf for a bit now. I usually do not get the time to read novels like these (though I would like to!). I reserve them for train journeys. These are the times when I tear through them. And a train journey happened and I read this. Find my comments below. Again, full disclosure, I did not find this at a book store. This was sent to me by a publisher. And the publisher has given me full permission to write my own opinion (which ever side it may be) here..

The plot is a racy one. It is about 2 young people, specifically mechanical engineering graduates, who are working at a corporate job. They house a wish to build their own race car, and race it in a professional championship. Both of them have theoretical knowledge and a passion, but neither have built a car, nor raced in one of them.
Their opportunity comes. A professional championship comes to India. they convince themselves and dump their jobs and get to work on the car and racing. The pace dips a little here, but picks up very soon.
They need a team, and they start building one from scratch. Here is where, the plot goes a little improbable. They search for star mechanics in their local area, and it is still fine – literary latitude. But, when they start searching for puncture shop guys – so that they can do a pitstop real fast – I let out an audible – “Oh Cmon !!!!”. But again, if you leave a mile of literary lattitude, and continue reading with a “Its just a novel” leeway, then the pace picks up again.
A bit of Bollywood style romance is thrown in. One of the guys loves the ace mechanic girl on the team. She initially does not love him. But as she starts loving him… well, let me not give away the whole plot, but some Bollywood style acrobatics happen here.
Some adrenaline with the corporate biggies playing bad guys happen. They try sabotaging the car being built. They hire away some staff. They try kidnapping one of these guys. Typical Bollywood villain masala.
They find a trainer, get trained. The two guys face some ego clashes between themselves. Teary eyed moments. Then coaching by the pretty mechanic heroine. Again, very typical Bollywood masala stuff.
Race day happens. All ego is forgotten. Pretty chick is forgotten. Race is won. Pretty mechanic chick gets part of the huge sum won, and made a partner in the team. Romance returns. Etc.
On the whole, pretty engaging story. You should discount some of the antics though. The romantic areas are covered nicely. Not too gross. Not too superficial. Play on human emotions are captured pretty well by the author.

Go buy the book on flipkart here (This is an affiliate link and would help fund this website hosting).