Saturday, August 24, 2013

Fighting the bad...

Growing up in a tamil house hold, I have heard many phrases referring how to control the tongue, anger, temper, senses and so on. The ones I can recall related to tongue are "naakai addakku, unakku naaku neelam" and the oft-quoted  kural; யாகாவாராயினும் நாகாக்க காவாக்கால் சொகப்பேர் சொல்லிழிக்கு பட்டு  - which roughly translates as- whoever you are you should hold your tongue if not disgrace you welcome.

I learned through the years that holding the tongue is most difficult and requires not just awareness but also presence of mind to hold back when it is really easy to blurt out. Our ancestors, spiritual leaders, poets, religious-swamiji-s and modern day gurus have all spoken about control of the five senses that includes the tongue (taste if you will).

While I have not thought much about the tongue-physiology and its subliminal connection to mastering tongue-control, I came across a tongue cleaner that helps not just in cleaning the tongue but also control the length and breadth of the tongue thereby providing the crucial physical control tool that was always missing.

After using it for the last one week, I can vouch for its effectiveness - I have been having more pleasant conversations with family, friends and colleagues and have also been able to get closer (physical and metaphorical) when conversing with them.

My search for controlling one of the five senses has at last found an answer in this tongue-cleaner blessed by the Greek-God Apollo who is linked with medicine and healing. This tool promises not just a clean tongue and fresh breath but also fight the bad thoughts associated with the length and breadth of our being including the tongue.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Bangalore and Hyperloop

I read Elon Musk's hyperloop while "accepting' a LinkedIn request yesterday. For a Bangalorean this idea seems outlandish and far-fetched. As a tax-paying citizen forced to use just 40-50% of any decent & big road (its just 20-30% on indecent and smaller roads) because of year-round (decade-round?!) digging by various government and private bodies, the idea of a hyperloop which can take upto 10 years (in US) which means 7 in Japan and 5 in China and easily upto 30 in India and 50 in Bangalore has sort of numbed all my senses. Unable to write any further, I share the original post below.
Hyperloop
So, the news is out—in a 57-page pdf that will take some time to digest. Elon Musk revealed the Hyperloop to the world, and it's a gift: an open-source plan that anyone can build... if they have several billions to spare and the ability to loop around the bureaucracy likely to bedevil such a project. It’s great that he’s open-sourcing it, but it’s his support, not the idea itself, that gives the Hyperloop credibility right now.







To be sure, if one person or group goes for it, they'll be crazy not to get Elon as an advisor (at the very least), and that alone would keep most other parties from even trying.
As for the specifics, the Hyperloop runs above the ground—well above the ground—on a track supported by posts that will roughly follow the route of Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles. (That highway looks straight on a map, but it is actually pretty curvy near both Los Angeles and San Francisco, exactly where land prices are highest and neighbors most likely to object, either for money or on principle.) The posts are designed like any modern building in California, says Musk... to be earthquake-resistant. If there’s a really big one, he adds, we’ll have more problems than just a broken Hyperloop. Fair enough.

But Hyperloop will still need (unfortunately) a huge amount of security, both for passenger screening and from errant intruders. It’s not that there will be that many people in the system at any one time, but it will be a tempting target.
To be candid, I’m a bit underwhelmed. Musk's contribution to the successes at Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX were not just his ideas; each of these is a company he and others built from an idea up—but not without a lot of struggle, smarts and energy.
As I said earlier, the Hyperloop business model is different from that of airlines, because the marginal cost of carrying people will be very low for a system that uses a tunnel at anything near capacity. (Of course, the actual capital cost would be huge.) Rush-hour prices are likely to be very high, though competitive with airlines, while off-peak rides could be priced like a bus or even lower. Six-person pods every half minute... that's a lot of traffic! (720 people per hour, though that, like many other details, could change.
He envisions LA to San Francisco as the base case, though on the call he mused about doing a smaller, demonstration system himself. But the essence of this system is precisely in its scale—its ability to fundamentally change the the dynamics of transportation between San Francisco and LA. A demo won't demonstrate much.
However, the real question for the Hyperloop is its advantage over alternatives. The use of tunnels would allow people to travel from city center to city center easily (after a 10-year-or-more period of disruptive city-center construction)... but you could get an almost equivalent benefit at significantly lower cost per city simply by extending the mass transit system to include the airports, as is finally happening in many US cities – San Francisco, sort of; Boston; Atlanta; Chicago; Washington DC; and a few more (as well as many around the world). The issue is less being in the city center, which isn't really walking distance from most of any serious city, but being integrated with the mass transit system. Within Western Europe, where they have done this in most large cities, people rarely fly any more; the train is simpler.
Yes, it's not that I wouldn't like to zip from New York to LA in half an hour, reliably, but that this seems a bit ill-timed from a public perception perspective at a moment when Skype and Google hangouts and the like are reducing our need for travel. But if they ever do build it, it will certainly get used. The operating costs (in energy and money) will be a trifle compared to the capital required. All aboard! 

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Europe's tallest blunder...

Europe’s tallest residential building has no elevators     


On the Mediterranean coast, in the town known for pioneering cheap package tourism, Spain is building what will be Europe’s tallest residential building. Benidorm’s InTempo skyscraper is a gargantuan structure—some 650 feet (200 meters)  tall—and architecturally ambitious: Two separate towers are conjoined over 550 feet in the air by an inverted cone which will house a massive garden and pool. But it’s also massively flawed: It doesn’t have any elevators capable of going all the way to the top.
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In Spain, Benidorm is known as the “New York of the Mediterranean.”
At the heart of the problem is the project’s rapid evolution. When first conceived, it was to stand only 20 stories tall, but that number quickly shot up to 47, and the elevator plans didn’t change accordingly. The elevator shafts are only spacious enough for lifts and motor equipment capable of scaling the original, 20 stories.
The building’s construction has also suffered financing setbacks. The project was initially backed by a local bank called Caixa Galicia in 2005, but the bank has since gone under. Currently, ownership of the building is cripplingly complex: a bank called Sareb owns the debt; the property belongs to a development company called Olga Urbana; and real estate company Maxxima is the only body capable of selling it, according to a signed contract, reports Spanish newspaper El Pais (link in Spanish)
Fixing InTempo’s structural flaws will mean tampering with its architectural vision, and funneling even more money into the project. The only viable way to correct for the builder’s design gaffe is to erect external elevator shafts. Whether the developers can handle the added expense, and the market is willing to forgive the project’s series of missteps, remains to be seen. Some 45% of the skyscraper’s 269 apartments have already been sold, but “sales are going slower now,” the project’s architect, Roberto Pérez Guerras, told El Mundo (Spanish) earlier this month. InTempo’s grand opening is scheduled for December of 2013, a date that now seems quite unlikely to be met.

Panchamrutham

I invited my friend Mohan home last Thursday, while he was thinking how to politely refuse my invitation, I quickly threw him the baitable-bait, Bhushan's vegetable paneer and phulka-s and yes, to my utter non-surprise he fell for it.

While thinking about breakfast the following morning...we agreed to go the fruit-way. What you see here is the result of that. Elakki bananas, californian grapes, arabian dates, kiwi-fruits, cashews (roasted in nilgiris ghee) from kochi-spice-market, raisins from Easyday and dabur-honey went in in right proportion to deliver a heavenly, utterly-butterly-delicious breakfast. We combined this with Indira's ragi huri hittu and I must say, we enjoyed every bite of it.

The satisfaction from this work-of-art led us to dedicate this panchamrutham to celebrate the  friendship of us famous five - Harish, Mohan, Raman, Sathish and Sundar...so here guys to all of us! cheers and thanks.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Utsav 2013 - Concerts and Bhajans

A quick view of the concerts, discourses and bhajans as part of the 36th Annual Gokulashtami celebrations at the Unnati Centre, Sadanandanagar, East of NGEF, Bangalore.

45 Life Lessons

Regina Brett - 90 yrs, of Cleveland Ohio has written these 45 Life Lessons to celebrate growing older.

I read it at least once every week. Its the most simple, direct and authentic set of life lessons that I have read. 

Here they are:
 
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short enjoy it.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don't worry, God never blinks.
16.. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19.. It's never too late to be happy. But its all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative of dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you need
42. The best is yet to come...
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

View from Kitchen balcony



I make my cuppa tea with this view staring at me every morning. I admit that I am among the few lucky Bangaloreans to enjoy something like this.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Kiran - My new friend

Kiran hardly fits the hairdresser stereotype. He is smart, talks good English and is highly knowledgeable about his clientele and the general happenings around him and the world!

I met him at his salon on a Sunday afternoon in the township where my wife presently lives in Hyderabad. He welcomed me with a warm smile and asked if I have joined GMR Airport recently, I said no but quickly added that I am a fortnightly visitor at the township. He asked me a series of questions in a manner that conveyed a certain eagerness and sincerity.

His knowledge of the airport business impressed me immediately and I said "...Kiran you are really smart and communicate so well, you are the most knowledgeable hairdresser I have come across..." to which he modestly replied that his 6th grade class teacher once asked the entire class what-do-you-want-to-do-in-life? Kiran raised his hand and said " I want to be a barber", stunned by his answer the class teacher asked why, standing in front of the entire class, he replied , that was his family profession and his father will be pleased if he continued. Touched by his honesty and innocence the teacher asked the entire class to applaud. That incident left a deep impression in me for life and has only strengthened my resolve to never abandon this profession no matter what else I pursue later in life, said Kiran.

Kiran's life and story is that of a man with a village-simplicity, directness, steely resolve, pride and loads of self-motivation.

Hailing from Shamshabad a non-descript and not-so-sleepy village 22 kms south of downtown Hyderabad, he heard about the development of a new airport in his village in 2004-5. When he saw L& T arrive with a workforce of 2500+ people for a project spread over 36 months, Kiran identified a great opportunity for himself and his family. He approached the project-director and convinced him to allot a tiny workspace at one end of the project site and struck a deal to provide hair-cutting & shaving service to this large workforce at a contracted rate Rs. 15/- per person.

With the airport operational in 2008, he approached the management of GMR with contract & recommendation letters from L&T to set-up a similar shop in the airport-taxi holding area. He told the GMR team that the 1500+ taxi drivers will need to look clean-shaven and smart to complement the world-class customer service that the airport operator promised. The rest as they say is history, he now runs a 15'*15' salon that serves the airport taxi drivers 24*7*365 (we are open on Tuesdays also!).

Some people just cannot stop, their life may have commas but no full-stops. Business-acumen and service mindedness runs vein-deep in Kiran, he next approached the township committee with a similar proposal and the result of this was the setting for my Sunday hair-cut and navaratan-tail maalish.

As the accumulated stress around my shoulder blades were slowly vanishing, I asked Kiran what he does during the weekdays - he shyly whispered that he works as an area sales executive for a leading Mumbai-based plastics company handling the sales responsibilities for Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mehboobnagar and Rangareddy districts. In these last 5 yrs he has managed to complete his MBA, marry and add 2-floors to his ancestral home in Shamshabad.

I was stunned and my throat was feeling dry unable to fully come to terms with my new HERO, who was here and now!. Very few people make such an impression with so many wonderful achievements  - all of this done with 100% devotion, dedication and simplicity. No business-plan, incubation, R&D, P&L, balance-sheet, top-line, bottom-line, etcetera.

I happily handed him the township-contracted rate with the full realization that it felt much easy on my wallet than what I paid the O2 spa at the Novotel Hotel just a month before.