India - a balanced economy?

Happened to click this picture very recently, on a 'car free sunday' on C.G road (5th July), in Ahmedabad. Can't think of a better snap that represents 'generation gap' and 'india's contrasting economy'.

Calvin takes a stab at the economy

Moving on....

Hurrah!! I am now in my motherland, where cows have a stature which expresses ‘sacredness’. Oops! I did try beef when in US, too chewy and not easily edible, and tasty for the millions (not for me), but then American cows aren’t necessarily sacred. So I need not repent.

Now, why am I here…back in India? From the day of returning to base I have often asked the very same question in addition to many of my friends who are also inquisitive of my return policy at this time. A simple answer: Obama’s governance and the so called ‘prophecy of change’ would be inflicted a little too late for the convenience of international students like me and the many other Asians. Fortunately the only transition I have to make is the re-acceptance of metric units.

A few hours more into Obama’s swearing in as president of the United States…. ‘Change’ in the ‘white house’, change in ‘international’ leadership…. An outright ‘change’ in the economical statistics is a questionable objective, considering the presidential term duration, unless re-elected.

Hence, 'moving' on….

Sitting in a dimly lit cybercafé and a server that keeps breaking (note: reliance is also facing recession); I am writing my first blog after returning to India, from Kochi. A glance out of the window and the activity as always is picturesque, a befitting tribute to R.K Laxman’s caricature. Scores of vehicles throng the streets, racing neck and neck for stamping their authority over every inch of space, while its masters are sputtering and gasping for air. One wrong move and a window would roll down, and people would clearly express their ‘right’ to mow down others in their path. Desolate traffic cells at intersections are a delight for traffic rule violators. Cars neither follow the lanes nor the lines, overcrowded buses and bulging trucks loom in and scare the wits out of the merc owners. Bikes weave in and out of the moving congestion similar to a rivulet, autorickshaws acknowledge the 'less is more' philosophy and the cyclists form the icing on the borders of this irregular chocolate truffle, without a strawberry. Pedestrians are the outcastes.

This is the India I had been familiar with and still am. Amidst all the chaos if I were to pick out the biggest positive, it’s called LIFE (diversity) even though it moves at speeds of 15km ph. Slower the better....

Adieu to the American Dream...

Majority of the people who leave their home country and come to the United States, either for work or for studies, prefer to spend a few years in order to live the 'American Dream'. And what exactly is the american dream? - personal car/'s', home ownership and living in debt in order to afford anything and everything, tops the list - end result as is seen in stages of the ongoing recession which started with the credit and mortgage crisis. What we see now on a day to day basis with the general public, airlines, insurance companies all filing bankruptcy is nothing but a fission reaction.

It does not come easy for all though, and certain circumstances pave an indifferent path. This time around its the Global Recession, thus making it even tougher for international students to create an impact in professional market (as if there wasn't enough said and done with H1 regulations). Business Management graduates seemed to be raking in the moolah until yester year. Now there is a 'change'. Market fluctuation, declining stocks and a deteriorating economy have hit the financial sector the worst and the henceforth the chain reaction. 'Layoffs' and 'Hiring Freeze' are the inevitable but magic words which are shattering the dreams of millions across the country and worldwide. A Failure of the Capitalist Economy.....

The booming economies of India and China aren't doing well either at this point of time and especially when the sectors have international tie ups. Lucky for some, unlucky for others. The IT sector is on the verge of facing the biggest threat, already triggered by the SATYAM scam. A funny story, impending; but having innumerable consequences. Debt is not a new phenomenon in India with banks ready to provide loans for anything these days. Hence it would not be a difficult to live an Indian Dream....whatever that is, I would have to experience it now!! As I bid adieu to the once called 'land of opportunities' indefinitely, I believe the road ahead has much more to offer.....Call me an optimist! Nothing to lose, but everything to gain.....experiences away from home, exposure to newer technology, education in a highly ranked institution, and the best of all - new friends and times spent with them which will be treasured for a lifetime.

Farewell my dear fellow planners, batchmates and others.....Its been a very memorable two and a half year journey and I thank you all for playing host !

Way to go TEXANS & AGGIES.............!!! Gig Em!

2 OH OH 9.....

Life blossoms every minute
Math complicates with infinite

Two led to a billion
A story inscribed on a medallion

Past is a mere reflection
Future is a speculation

Oh!Creator of the mystery
A new year for thee

A new year for me.......... 2 o o 9!!

What we all hope for is that every new year is better than the previous. Ahem!!...well with the current g-lobal and g-local scenario, all would be wishing it was atleast the same as the previous year. Unfortunately, that isnt so!
Oh!bama....where r thou?? Of recent, change is observed by the hour which was unprecedented and not what was envisioned! One after the other sectors are falling like a pack of cards; the end result being rising unemployment rate. Population rate isnt going down either in India.
The ongoing situation is said to be worse than the great depression of 1929. It took about ten years then for countries world wide to make a U-Turn. I wonder what is in store now.... Mathematicians seem to live in their own little world of sigmas, logarithms and other scary characters. A scene in the movie 'the day the earth stood still' where the so called human alien (K.Reeves) rewrites a formula on the blackboard, originally written by some scholar who was in the end dumbfounded....and he exclaims aghast..."...its not possible". Keanue had his usual flat expression less face which started with MATRIX. I wished someone explained the whole sequence to me.... Maybe Nostradamus made a mistake using his archaic symbology....but 'numbers' sure are a wonder!! Who invented them is still a debate, believed to be arabs and indians....but the incorrigible chinese also made their mark here!! Everything is made in China these days, hence no point in arguing over cheap technology that delivers....

2009 is here!! No mysteries unravelled at this point of time.....So as long as the earth continues to rotate I might as well make my new year resolutions....The list is long, hence I dont want to bore myself....but for the BIG 3 -

Traveling and Photography - 'YES' !
Keeping in touch with family/relatives and friends frequently - 'YES' !
Cooking & maintaining a healthy routine - 'YES' !

The first one is easy enough provided my new employer understands the need to combine it with 'work'. Oh yeah!! I never did mention. I am back in good ol' gujju land...same work...same atmo....familiar faces....but a different employer. Never really took it that seriously when friends predicted even before i came to texas, that I would end up coming back to Amdavaad. I will have to brush up my Gujarati once again and 'spehllings'...

Ex-Cited ?? To be part of Navratri celebrations once again - 'YESsssssssssss'!!

"Tiempo para un viaje por carretera" - call for change

Its been over a month since i got back to Texas and all i have done in this period is write...write...research...write...and more research. And barring the trip to California early this year, I really havnt seen much of US barring the airports and aerial views from the air plane! My conscience for sure is screaming out loud that i havn't used my time rationally. But i do give my share of priority time and due importance to Google and Yahoo (mail/chat). I must say that new themes on Gmail are inspirational and i dont even feel like signing out!!

In any case at the end of two years.....what do i get?
- No job for one because the economy has gone downhill ! In fact its rolling down!
- A master's degree and a speech from the outgoing president of this country... Now, although some would consider themselves previleged, being a rare ocassion for a graduation ceremony, i am at this time neither happy nor sad....the all important factor being i am not gonna be able to spend much time in the US... - and that is 'the inconvenient truth', whether Al Gore accepts it or not!

Hence my focus is on the immediate future ;) I am really looking forward to the next two weeks.....to visit Hollywood!!, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam....a fun road trip.
And it all starts within 12 hours from now!

Some would probably ask, if it really makes sense to go for a trip when the economy is in a pulp, jobs are at stake; and i would say if ya'll have jobs keep em' and be worried about it. I don't, and neither is anyone interested in hiring at the moment. Might as well make my time 'useful' instead of wasting on sending applications to positions that dont exist, and when HR's are so keen to send rejection letters.
But there is still another reason for the timing being appropriate for a road trip. One look into the oil barrel prices says it all! Gas prices have not been any cheaper than 2.0 $ to a gallon over the past few years, and now its 1.7 $. Its unbelievable that oil barrel prices actually dropped from 140 to 40.

Talk of 'freakonomics' heh....!! So ya'll professionals can take your time and figure out what to do, while i am gonna have some fun, and i want to see some decisions made when i return!!

¿Entiendes?

flushed and drained....

There are those certain days when you know right from the time you wake up, 'Today is going to be a bad one'. Especially on seeing the clock which was trying to do you a favor by crooning a melodius piece in the ear, is now on the floor breathing its last....all it took was a chop of the hand!

Since that happens on a regular basis the other indicator is the watch which, if its especially is a swiss make will show the exact time - and in essence i had woken up at 2 in the afternoon! How does one combine breakfast, lunch and tea ?? After a quick 'brun cha i', I ran to catch the 4pm bus on route 4, got out of the bus at the usual unmarked destination on campus, started walking towards the recreational centre and a dazed brain sent out weak alarms - 'you have left your keys on the bus, dummy'!!

Frantic search in the innumerable pockets of the tracks reaveals that the brain is working, but on an celeron processor @ 256 Mhz... Unfortunately the campus bus services are impromptu, even if one has the schedule in hand. It is a working Indian service model, which meant i would have to wait another 25 mins for this bus to come back, and would you have ever guessed what could possibly go wrong?
The bus changed !! The driver changed !!...and the new kid on the block behind the wheels had no clue where i should go to look for it. I tried my best to give clues to get answers that i was searching for, but in vain.

It dawned on me in a few seconds later - i was 'homeless'. Brain was spinning @ 512 Mhz now.

Previous experiences on loosing wallets and cell phones, and finding them in the lost and found department had helped in cementing a belief that I will be able to get back whatever i lose....eh..'personal items' ofcourse!!
Fortunately i had my cell this time and a few enquiries resulted in possible leads to nowwhere, where in i can trace my keys to a unknown locations. But it so happened that all items that are lost in the bus are brought to a counter sometime in between 8 and 10 pm...At a time like this one would count on being happy that there are possibilities, and its often snatched away in seconds...My cell phone let out beeps which indicated 'recharge me' and as it grew louder i took the life out of it - staunch believer of energy conservation!
The passing minutes seemed to feel like hours, and a little after 8 i approached the help desk to see if the items lost for the day have been turned in to which i got a negative response. The same happened at 9 and 9:30 pm.

Homeless, A dead phone, tired legs and the worst time for stomach to groan helplessness. Brain at 1Ghz but the stomach was churning even faster.

Reading and rereading stale articles on the campus newspaper was tormenting and worse was that I didn't have my 15" screen when i needed it. A little after 10, with an eager face, searched through a bunch of keys, goggles, hats and an umbrella; all that have been lost in a day ?? And there were quite a few cellphones in it too....everything except MY keys! So, i was still homeless. Emergency services was the only way out -
Revived my dead phone one last time which seemed to care less about my predicament, flashing sign of 'invalid battery', a call to the apartment office in asian chopped english - "key lost, please help, outside apartment..."
Trudged back to my apartment, waited in the cold without a jacket, courtesy of google desktop weather which predicted 12 deg in the evening but didnt tell me it would be windy....A hispanic in what seemed like a golf cart came by a few minutes later, check my id and gave a spare 7 day key (ofcourse it didnt mean it was gonna deactivate or melt on its own, but they were to charge me after 7 days - i miss india at times like this, I would have easily found a duplicate-key maker on the streets).

'Home value' had just topped the charts for me and all i wanted was to sleep without feeding my stomach. What more could probably go wrong ? You would think....
A quick glance at my 15" screen confirmed my brain dead status - 2 rejections lay in my inbox, to job posts that i was hopeful to getting while applying for! Life is good, no second doubts about it.

Swami Sharanam...

I woke up to a bright sunny day on 16th August in the Malayalam month of Chingam; the Ayappa temple at Sabarimala was to be re-opened on this day for the various rituals. Me, my dad and my uncle were to leave in the afternoon by car, so as to reach the foothills by the river Pamba before evening. Our aim being to reach the 'sannidhanam' (the base of the temple) by night and rest until dawn. Since the private bus operators had ceased services to Sabarimala, the only option was to hire a taxi or drive own vehicle. Sabarimala is also known to be the world's second largest pligrimage centre, after Mecca. Hence in november-december during the mandala season, one is most likely to see a mishap or disaster in the news flashed across the malayam channels courtesy of mudslides....
I took over my usual position behind the wheels, after concluding our rituals at home, and taking our shares of coconuts filled with ghee and other traditional offerings, all in the 'irumudi kettu'. Chanting "Swamiye Sharanam Ayappa" and listening to a few bhakti songs, we embarked on our journey as i glanced at the yellow mile markers which seemed to be almost toppling into the ditch on the highway. Ernakulam to Sabarimala read roughly 280 Kms. A piece of cake; with one stop for tea we were able to cover the distance in 3 hours time...
(My foot once jammed on the pedal refuses to accept the significance of the insignificant other - 'the brake', i was probably born to be a race car driver !! - somehow the lines engraved across my palm read - illegible)
It had been nearly three years since my last visit to Sabarimala, and this probably was my 15th time, as a child i used to visit this holy siting once a year along with my dad (visits - 40!!). As i glanced around for familiar faces (namely the donkeys, a few cows...gosh!!..there seemed to be none. Cleanliness around the Pamba!!... Scrutinizing the street a little more carefully my eyes adjusted to what seemed like...dustbins??...there sure seemed to be a 'change', from what used to be at one time clogged with animal wastes, plastic, paper...you name it. Hundreds of Vehicles already thronged the street side and thousands of devotees besides the river. The numbers were more than we had expected to be at this time of the year....This spells disaster in mathematics...thousands more on the uphill climb....thousands coming downhill....5 lux illuminance....total lane width averaging 5m....unpaved, muddy, slushy....and its the monsoon season!! When it rains...it pours. Lucky for us, we didn't take a dip in the cool inviting waters of Pamba and hence made good time in reaching the temple precincts after a three hour climb acorss the Western Ghats (Sahyadri Mountains). My bare feet were already sore and ready for replacement, a slight ankle injury attained years back seemed to have resurfaced, thereby making the climb all the more difficult. 'Enhanced' lighting made sure that all our feet had skin contact with different types of worms and leeches, sand, mud, rock...etc etc, all through the walk across the forest. There were no snakes this time around.
I have always wondered, how in this ever wide world was this humongous temple set up in the first place thousands of years back?.... A large number of the devotees come from Tamil Nadu, since Sabarimala came into being under the Pandalam Dynasty, which had roots from across the border. (When it comes to 'myth', India leads the world countries, with a million gods and a million beliefs.... ). Of all the world temples, this is the only one which considers the diety (Lord Ayappa) and the devotee to be equals (both known as ayyappa or swamy). People of all castes and religions are allowed to visit, though there are age restrictions for women. The 18 holy steps which must be climbed to reach the diety coated with gold represents in other words the different desires that must be conquered in life.
Normally, a highly secured zone with police officials, especially since these holy places have been a target for terrorists....hence no one is allowed to bring in cell phones, camera's and the family species of electronic equipments. This time around, I was surprised to see devotees clicking photographs....some even had the nerve to bring SLR's!!! I pointed out atleast 15 people to my uncle and dad, and the so called security officials were busy playing on their own handsets.... (To beef up the security and create a commotion, all it needs is a hoax call....that would bring in all the news channels, and sabarimala would be in the news for search/stampede/etc....for a week. There is only one aspect having a perfect coordination in india....thats media & the police.)
Sleeping in the corridors was the most difficult task courtesy of the unexpected devotee traffic leading to over booked lodges. Worse was trying to convince my grey cells to ignore a snoring kumbhakaran. Surprisingly majority of the devotees were already awake by 4 am and were queuing up at the entrance, as many more kept flowing in. The chants of "Swamiye Sharanam Ayappa" (meaning "lord Ayappa, give me shelter") grew louder as the auspicious time approached. Pushing, Screaming, Stamping....just to see the lord in gold and bathed in ghee, for a few seconds longer...Sanctity maybe not, but the belief was so.
The climb down seemed a bit more torturous....the stones on the uphill journey felt like glass shreds on the return journey and the overnight rain added 'character' to a slushy path...small natural streams at frequent intervals cleansed the feet. After paying respect to the dieties guarding the foothills, the sparkling Pamba river beckoned us to take a bath in the same. A mere touch of the water sent ripples across the nerves. Seemed as though someone had the nerve to throw packs of ice as the water flew down from the mountains. Uncle's strong grip ensured that i was dipped in from head to toe....a breath of freshness....the feel of purity (irrespective of the fact that there were hundreds at the same time). I wouldn't actually mind to take a trip to Pamba on a daily basis for a dip....eh, but probably only in the monsoon season (when there is water) !
Since all the sins had been washed off (or believed to be), and behind the wheel we resumed on the return trip to Kochi. Hair pin turns for a few kilometers in the dense forest saw a crowd gathered around one bend where an Ambassador had fallen off the road vertically and was caught in the branches of a tree. Luckily the passengers were left unscathed.
"Swamiye Sharanam Ayappa", chanted a few devotees as they walked past. If its to be believed, the myth sorrounding this temple and beliefs is to be believed for it has 500 million visitors in a year.