Power Surplus or Surplus of Power

Read in the day's newspapers that Delhi would soon be power surplus. No this is no thanks to the not yet signed and sealed nuclear deal thantIndia has recently signed. It is about the fact that Delhi is going to have more electricity than it can consume. The efficient and erudite Chief Minister of Delhi has a very subtle way of campaigning for elections, so one is not sure if this is yet another announcement. I am also not sure if this was a "bought news" [read advertorial] or a "free news".
Even with so many uncertain thoughts, this is the best news that the citizens of this city have got in years. For many years, Delhi has lacked two essential components that make great cities ample water and uninterrupted power supply. It amazes me that a whole modern city could thrive and grow on all sides without sufficient electricity and water. But Delhiites being what they are have artfully managed that.
So no longer buying expensive invertors, batteries, generators etc. [what would happen to these guys?]
But even after everthing has been saud and done much remains to be said. For example: Why did it take so long for a city full of powerful people to get sufficient power? Does this mean that the powerful people in the city never actually suffered from lack of power? Does power surplus mean assured good quality power where we can also do away with the UPS like in Mumbai? But then that would mean a differnt story altoghther. For now, I will take the news or advertorial for what it really is - a subtle election time propaganda.

Flyovers are Chasing Me!

I just realised that I had almost half my adult life in Delhi and hold a Delhi passport. By Delhi standards, where you will hardly find a third generation Delhi-ite of my age, I am truly a son of teh soil and a true son, I really love my city fo reasons I am never tired of narrating to a patient listener.
Of late, however, my patience is wearing thin, not because of anythng else but because of the fact that I am now being chased by flyovers all across the city. It began way back in 200o when I went to live in nearly godforsaken East Delhi soon after the construction of the Nizamudding Bridge that connected Delhi with east Delhi. I was confident that in the next decade no new civil construction was doing to be take place in my locality. To my surprise, soon after the work started on a clover leaf flyover connecting various parts of east delhi to various other parts of east delhi and NOIDA, thankfully, Delhi contractors try and finish their work faster than elsewhere, but I had such night mares travelling that I left the place before the complicated flyover was completed.
I moved to what is known as south delhi in an older area and thought now this is the ideal place there is no scope for any contruction here everything has been done... I could not have been more mistaken..... They actually started working on one of the longest flyover in Delhi connecitng Lajpatnagar to Ashram chowk right at my backyard. I maintained my calm. Then they started builing an underpass over which was a road as well as a flyover. An underpass seem impossible there.... I remained calm, then they started repairing the old flyover across Moolchand to Defence Colony, builing gteh now infamous BRT, I was still with the planners firmly believing that this was for my good. In between, they dug up the roads on both sides of my house and buried the till now dry sarita vihar pipeline [the pies were about 8 feet in diameter. The last straw came 15 days back when they blocked the main road in front of my house to begin construction of over head metro lines...
I can;t sleep at night these days.... I dream of jams, pile drivers, diversons, pillars falling on my head.. I am traumatised. I am staying put in the hope that in my lifetime things will improve.
By the way, I think I am a good omen for you if you live in a locality where people are fighting to get flyovers, unerpasses, metro, waterworks, drainage systems, electricity: anything that can disrupt settled life done.. .So do please invite me to stay in your area. if you do not believe me hear this out: Two years that I was in Mumbai, the entire length of pavement from the city to Dadar was relaid and the work started on the airport flyover.

Back to Delhi

After spending two eventful years in Mumbai, I have come back to Delhi hoping to spend many more eventful years. In no way was my return to Delhi "motivated" by the recent political and parochial events in Mumbai and Maharashtra although I was eminently qualified to be a victim as a Bihari as well as a "fortune seeker".
Delhi has it's shares of problems, perhaps much more than Mumbai: there are these horrible things they are doing to roads, entire roads are being closed for Metro, realigned because of Bus Corridor, new pavements are being laid; there is power shortage even in winter, seriously bad traffic. Girls are still being attacked in their homes by neighbours, men still pee on roads in broad daylight and people still think that everything can be bought with money, men still do not understand the need to queue up. The hindi word Jugad is still the operating principle of the citizens.
But the problems of Delhi are essentially existential - and in resolving them together is the effort of the Delhite to build a better future of herself/himself. Past has got very little to do with it. Present and future are what matters.... Where you come from [figuratively as well as literally] matters much less than what you are and where you are headed. This is where I guess it differs from the colonial cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and now Bengaluru.... All colonial cities surprisingly run on pre-colonial sentiments of caste, race, sub-caste and identity and communitarian based society and politics.
It is indeed very surprising that the oldest city in India, Delhi, has the greatest collective urge to think of the future while the relatively youthful ones show a strong tendency to go back to some utopian and idyllic past... which actually never existed.
Why is this so? I do not know... But can guess: Delhi is a clever woman, she does not want to belong to anyone whatever the promises made.... She is suffered very badly for this attitude in the last 1000 years, but she still wants to remain free of emotional attachment.... While the others have tied emotional knots with many a suitor at different points in time and are now suffering from the claims and counter claims of each of the suitors.
I love your independence Delhi... Be that way and you will get the best of us seek your hand, although we know you will decline it with a wicked wink.

Beggars as Choosers?

If you live in Delhi or Mumbai beggars at traffic junctions are a common site. In South Delhi and in the western suburbs it is pretty common to see young kids playing on the kerb, mothers with babies in arms begging for food, Children playing small tricks on the roadside to earn a fe rupees. But of late you would not have failed to notice a new phenomenon.... beggar are increasingly being engaged as salespersons and the line between street side begging and street side selling is getting blurred.
Initially, at least in Delhi small time vendors used to compete with full time beggars for space and mindshare on the traffic junctions.... not small time vendors are jostling for space with full time beggars turned out as part-time salespersons of recognised brands. There are the usual children's toys, agarbattis, chinese stuff etc that these people have been selling to shore up their incomes from begging, but more recently they have been selling well recognised branded stuff.
And I would like to out on record the fact that the worst offenders are newspapers and branded international society magazines.... the names of Mid Day, Hello, Cosmopolitan among others come to mind immediately. Also in the race are pirated book sellers.
These beggars turned salespersons represent a massive pressure on you..... first with their blatant knock [all beggars in India have the right to draw your attention by any means]; then by appealing to your consumer side by showing the goodies they want you to buy and if that fails then by telling you on your face "buy something, I haven't had my morning cup of tea"....
Nothing wrong with these people, they behave just as some of the corporate types that visit your office from Airtel, ICICI Bank or some such do. But everything is wrong with people who engage their services.... First of all no one knows what is their term of engagement, secondly and especially if it is a child's toy why do you get a filthy beggar to sell it to a child [I never buy ballloons from beggars on streets]? thirdly, those sitting in board rooms are clearly not aware of what this means for the erosion of their brand.... I have stopped reading Mid Day sometime back and do not even look at the magazines sold by beggar/salespersons... finally, I find it strange that print media one of the most virulent critics of social exploitation engaging this practice openly... Just imagine buying a copy of a leading newpaper froma beggar and a report inside read "beggars are exploited in our country". That would be a real irony...

Delhi Leads Road Accidents

My last post has been vindicated... The figures of road accidents were out two days back in the Times of India. Accordingly, based on the 2005 figures Delhi topped the list of fatal road accidents with over 1,700 deaths. The numbers in 2007 must be considerably more in 2007 and Blue Lines have claused only 106 of these deaths... Isn't it time that we plugged the others who kill on the roads rather than whip the bad blue bus drivers...
Think about it...

Blue Line and Red Eyes

Deli newspapers are ever ready to show red eyes to the Blue line bus services in Delhi and not without reason. The blue line bus services in Delhi which comprises all of public transport buses are almost like "Devil in the Blue Dress".... Between January and November this year the number of deaths caused by these buses is 106... 106 families have been shattered by these buses in less than a year. The government apparently has tried every trick to discipline these rogues... from insisting that the drivers wear uniforms, to speed monitors to automatic doors to lane driving. In fact this time I noticed that every major bus stop had a Marshall who was directing the blue line buses to stop at the right spot and not overtake... But these measures have not stopped fatal accidents as the records kept by newspapers in Delhi would show.

I am no fan of blue line buses and really do not care if they are there or not in as much as I do not care about Delhi autos, taxis call centre cabs and such likes which make Delhi roads like the jungles of sunderbans where the only operating principle is "might is right".

But I am amazed that a trasport which would end up killing 200 people in Delhi is being so horribly badmouthed by the media to the extent that every week teh delhi high court regularly enquires of the Delhi government as to when these services are going to be withdrawn.

Do not get me wrong, I am not heartless, but at 200 a year they do not even deserve mention in the annals of road accidents in Delhi where if I am not far off the mark over 1000 people die in road accidents every year... It would seem that bluelines are getting 100 per cent flak for 10 per cent of crime.. I would like to ask our friends in the media what is being done to save the lives o other 900 people who are not victims of blueline buses? Here are some other culprits:
1. Call centre drivers [you can ask anyone who drives to Gurgaon eveyday what they are scared of most, all of they would say call centre cars... Their record at killing and maiming is much much better than blue lines
2. Drunken and Rash driving... Culprits and victims are mostly young people with rich parents and big cars... what is being done to punish the parents of such youngsters?
3. MCD and NDMC: pathetic road signs, signals covered with trees, no signage at construction sites, no cleaning up after construction... and so many others.... cows on roads
4. Bikers, Cyclists and Jaywalkers: First category should know that Delhi roads are not for stunt practicces, the second should know that the inside lane is for fast vehicles not for cycles, and the third category should know that in cities roads are mainly meant for vechicles not for walking and crossing whereever you wish to

Till such time as we distribute the onus equally among other "stakeholders" let us at least be fair to blue lines and whenever you publish their score card please mention it as a part of total road deaths so that we can understand their responsibility in the right perspective. Thus: January to November 2007 Total Roaddeaths in Delhi 1000, total killed by Bluelines 106..... This will help up look at roaddeaths as well as blueline from a fresh perspective.

Disclaimer: I or any of my relatives to not own, operate or use any blueline services.

Crowded Skies and Timeless Travel

Air India's international flights were delayed by 24 hours and there was violence at the Delhi airport last weekend... that was the big news.. The bigger news of course is how the concept of crowded airports, low cost flights and overcrowded skies are combining to change the concept of time altogether in India. Take this example below
When I started flying before the start of so called railway passengers taking to wings, a flight to Mumbai from Delhi actually took 1:30 mins but the declared time was 1:55 mins... the exra twenty five minutes was time to taxi etc.... After two hours if a flight was late by 15 mins, you could see some of the older passengers getting uneasy and some younger people complaining about the sorry state of Indian Airlines [Indian Airlines and Jet take 5 minutes to travel Delhi Mumbai route even today 1:55 mins as oppsed to 2 hrs by all other airlines... I do not know why]........
But as I said, the concept of time itself has changed.... My much younger colleague who flying started post crowded skies, low cost airlines etc.... has a different concept of time altogether... The other day he was on a flight to Calicut from Delhi with a change and stopover to 1:40 mins in Mumbai. When he reached Calicut I enquired after his flight... He was all in praise for Jet Airways and told me in the passing that the Delhi Mumbai flight was only an hour late..... A two hour flight taking three hours is so normal that no one complains nowadays... I could not figure out why this change in us.
Is it because our inherent believe in fatalism, karma or some other tangential cultual experience? Probably not. It's probably those used to train travels have a differnt concept of late/delayed and when they take to flights they retain at least in the initial years of flying the same concept..... It is not surprising therefore that so few people in India complain about late flights and there are so few scuffles at airports... From my colleague's point of view one hour is no big deal since travelling to Calicut from Delhi by train would have taken him a week.....

Has this got to do something with the theory of relativity?

Hindustan Times

The Hindustan Times, arguably the largest circulated English language newspaper in Delhi has undergone some dramatic changes in the last few months. The regular readers would not have failed to note these changes. First it was the cricket led headlines evey day of the T20 championships, then there is a great page on "user generated content" the best one being "Your HT Your Photo" section. The general tenor of the newpaper now is peppier and happier and I assume it is trying to move away from stodgy old readers like me and move on to greener pastures, becoming the newspaper of the future, so to say. The Sunday edition especially in the post edit page has seen some drastic though not dramatic changes. Thankfully for us Vir Sanghvi still writes his liberal democratic columns and I guess most us oldies read it because of him [although he is now into cooking and lifestyle, he remains, I think along with Vinod Mehta, an old fashioned editor]. Regretfully, Karan Thapar is still there, writing about his daddy and mummy and all those he met through them. Manas Chakravarty has made an appearance as has Indrajit Hazra; the first makes economics easy for us and the second makes reading difficult for us, both of them bring some amount of pleasure.
However, overenthusiasm must be curbed at all costs, they do sometimes cost dearly and make a laughng stock of the paper. And here i am not talking about spelling errors but other interesting goof ups: Here are some: a) Cricket might be a passion of the country but not headline stuff every day even when a tournament is going on. b) circket leads to major goof ups like the one day after India won a match it had almost lost. The headlines read something like "India at the verge of loss", but India had won the match at night after the paper went to print and in the morning everyone had a good laugh. Just imagine what would have happened in a match where India snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. The headlines would have read "India at the verge of winning" and would have lost the match while the paper was in print. We would have read the headline and cursed the paper. c) The most interesting, the YOUR HT YOUR PHOTO Column carried the photo of a langur with a bold caption "your HT your photo"; Yeah I guess if I am still reading HT I must be a langur.
Running a newspaper in this day and age can be a monkey business afterall.
Jai Hind [the last word to be pronounced as in hindi not as in English:)]

Getting Worse Before it Gets Better?

Those of you who thought Delhi has a better infrastructure than Mumbai or any other city in India, and I was one of them, are having to change their opinion rather rapidly. The whole city now seems to be "under construction" pretty much as it was before the Asiad in, I think, 1982. There is the metro whose digging seems to be happening everywhere fron Nehru Place to NOIDA, then there is this rather funny thing called High Speed Bus Corridor. For the life of me I can not fathom out why they need a high speed bus corridor when the problem with buses in Delhi always as been that they either move at very high speed or do not move at all waiting to be filled. Then of course there are civil works such as redoing the pavements, relaying the verges, recarpeting the roads, and construction of buildings which almost invariably spills over onto the roads. Add to that the half done flyovers at critical junctions like entry to NOIDA and Gurgaon which held up the early morning and late evening exit and entry from the dorm suburbs. Finally, of course there is the menace of monsoons which have left most of the roads in tatters.
Amid all these, there is dengue, malaria, viral fever and hepatitis.
If you think I am exaggerating, here is a personal example. Siince I have moved to this new locality in the heart of South Delhi I have had two flyovers, one under pass, one high volume underground water supply pipeline and now the High Speed Bus Corridor and metro have arrived. Not to mention minor iritants like trenches for electricity and phone lines which seem to be in a perpetual state of repair. That you would say is a mark of progress. But for me none of them are useful, they are useful for people who pass through my area to various dorms in the city. For me it means more crowd, more dust and more disease. Little wonder that the small campus that I live in has seen four cases of dengue in the last two years not to mention small things like malaria and viral fever.
At the end of this hectic building activity, I have realised that this is the best time to work in the cement industry. And I am hoping that the civil work in my neighbourhood would come to an end before I kick the bucket so that I can enjoy the fruits of my pain.

Delhi: A Novel

Oh what a book. many years back when I cared too much about what others thought of me, the first edition of the book was out in hardcover with a titilating paining on the cover, a half naked dancing girl [after reading the novel, I now realise it might not have been a girl but a member of the third sex] - I thought it was risky to buy the book and worse still get drawn into the shady world of Khushwant Singh's novels. I finally bought a more recent copy with a nice cover of one of the Delhi monuments in watercolour and read it.
I do not want to give away anything, but only suggest that this is the best history of Delhi you will get to read. William Dalrymple's book actually pales to insignificance. Although to be fair to Dalrymple, he dealt only with the late 18th to 19th century of the city's history.
Reading through Mr Singh's book, and the subtitle clearly mentions it to be a novel, I felt that this was far from a novel. In fact it was history and biography. But, I guess, it is so exaggeratedly real the the author had to mark it as a novel.

Rediscovery of Railways

Yes, recently, after a few unpleasant experience in mid air caused by bad weather and my intuaitive fear of flying, I have taken to travelling by trains. Not fully true because there are still places were trains can not take you or can not take you first enough. But I have really taken to travelling between Delhi and Mumbai by trains and I have to make the following observations;
1. It only takes 16 hours to travel from Mumbai Central to New Delhi and the timings are very decent. You can almost finish your day's work in Mumbai and reach Delhi early enough to join office by 930 in Delhi. If you are travelling by Rajdhani you can be sure that in 90 per cent of the time the train would be on time. If you are travelling first class in that train you can be assure of a) a good night's sleep in airconditioned comfort b) great breakfast c) a shower so that you are fully prepared to rush to office in the morning.
2. In a sixteen hour journey you get three full meals which are much much better than whatever they serve you in planes and you can actually choose from a wide menu [at least in first class]. And those cutleries that have now disappeared from airlines, you still get to see them here with real plates, bowls and forks and knives. Food is served to you and not thrown at you. I was amazed to see once that they also carry sugarfree sachets as well as extra chocolates and icecreams, addressing both youngsters and oldies like me.
3. The toilets are cleaner than the normal airline toilets and if you find them to up to your standards of cleanliness you can get someone to clean them for you. The first class coach also has a shower. Toilet papers and mugs both are provided:)
4. You get to sleep on a berth which is six and a half feet by three feet and someone actually makes your bed for you. In addition there is an attendant to respond to your call, a bell being provided in each coupe. If you are an early riser you get bed tea too.
5. Sight seeing is free: You will be amazed to see Neel Gais and Peacocks at dusk while travelling from Delhi in addition to quaint little villages; while entering Mumbai the scene is not so attractive, though:)
If you want to enjoy this journey all you need to do is to book yourself once [you can do an online booking and travel with a printed ticket with your id from the irctc website] and enjoy the experience, I am sure you would be hooked.

A word few words of caution though:
1. Sometimes you will get stuck with the wrong type of co-passenger [ask the conductor to change your seat] I had once been on a 9 hour non stop flight with a pubjabi gentleman who was very talkative and was convinced that Punjabi is the national language of the world and he was shocked that I did not speak the language, that of course did not stop him talking with me all the way]
2. When the waiters come in the morning with saunf post breakfast you are supposed to tip them. 50 Rs in the first class is fine.
3. Most importantly, be careful at dusk and dawn. People standing by the side of the track are neither a welcoming party nor have they come to watch the train. If you watch carefully each one has a water container in their hands. Shakespeare said "world is stage" they say "world is a bog". So do not disturb they with your curiosity.

Bon Voyage

Delhi the Piracy Capital

Yesterday a national news channel in the absence of anything better to do carried out a long story on book piracy. Two things were highlighted in the story a) Delhi is the piracy capital of India b) students, especially medical students, were the worst pirates so far as books were conerned. Coming close on the heels of the recent judgement against a swiss pharma MNC, the story opened up the issue of IPR violation and piracy once again. My views on piracy are simple:
No one has yet come up with a detailed sociological report on piracy. My personal view, having, read pirated books, got my degrees by reading illegally photocopied articles, bought pirated softwares, music and a host of other things, is that any one trying to resolve the issue of piracy should answer the first question, why would otherwise law abiding citizens willingly violate the law?
The simple answer is high need, high cost and low affordability. I need something real bad, I do not have the full money to pay for it, because in my view it costs more than what it should. That is the simple reason for piracy. I have never realised why a trash paperback by John Grisham should cost 500 Rs, I am going to read it once in the plane and throw it in the dustbin; why a medical course book which has been through 100 editions should still costs $100 when the author, publisher and their daddies have recovered the cost of the book several times over, or why for that matter pharma companies keep extending the patents of an old drug through various non-transparent means often in perpetuity, or for that matter why should a CD with five songs cost Rs 300?
The main reason for piracy I feel is the failure of the companies to understand the market and the paying capability of the consumer and every market goes through this process before piracy is well within the acceptable levels. On the other hand consumers also go through their own education and realise some goods and services will continue to carry a price premium because they are better for the rest of it, pirated or genuinine does not really matter.
Take the case of PCs with prices coming down, grey market has almost disappeared. Yet brands like Sony still command a premium. Take the issue of DVD where moser baer is making the consumers aware of the "real" price of a high quality movie on a DVD.
I think more than anything else, piracy is a signal to the marketers to reconfigure their prices or products and they should learn important lessons from a market where piracy is rampant. That's the real consumer feeback and should be taken seriously - we love you but not that much, is the consumer response.

Disclaimer: This blog entry was make with the aid of a genuine IBM laptop running on genuine Microsoft softwares by a genuinine person with a twisted by genuinine brain.

Breaking News

When I was young I thought Ayodhya had the largest concentration of monkeys for historical and mythical reasons. Whe I grew older I realised it was my native town, when I came to Delhi as a young person, I had no doubt that north block was most monkey-dense place in the world (I do not intend any pun here, and mean the real monkeys). For the imbecile, North Block is the office block on nothern front of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan which has the offices of senior ministers and bureaucrats.

Going back to the issue of monkeys in my middle age now, I am very confused. I have travelled the length and breadth of the country and seen several concentration of monkeys in various parts of the country. I have also known with age that monkeys no longer come with long tails, there is an equally prevalent variant with two legs and no tail. In fact far more prevalent than the orignal version.

It was during the mental turmoil of locating the highest concentration of monkeys in India that I chanced upon my answer. It came in a flash, like Newton and the apple, or Archimides and the bath tub. It came one late night when I was surfing news channels in the mute. In a flash I had my answer. Since then I have been very happy to discover that television in India does provide unadulterated entertainment of the highest type.

If you still do not know what I mean, try watching news channel in the mute. You will be treated to the most unadulterated entertainment you have ever had.

My take: I am sure none of the Indian newscasters will be able to speak if you tied up their hands and held their heads steady at one point.

City of Shopkeepers

In a shocking incident a couple of days back, two kids were killed when police opened fire on an unruly gathering in east delhi which was protesting the sealing of shops. Police firing, 2 kids getting killed, government looking ham-handed, politicisation of shopkeepers protest: real good stuff for new hungry electronic media. Little doubt it hit the national prime time news in all channels with the rather sane and sober and efficient Chief Minister of Delhi defending her government's action. The take on national tv generally was why did the police fire, isnt the CM concerned that a 8 and a 16 year old boy were killed in the firing? Of couse she was concerned. Of course all of us were. But the footage also showed how mercilessly the mob had stone the policeman (I am no supporter of Delhi police, but it was clear that the policemen were beaten blue with stones). Also, none mentioned thought for a moment what a 8 and a 16 year old boy was doing in a shopkeepers' agitation? And more important, are our shopkeepers equally adept at hitting back at policeman as they are grabbing footpaths and fudging accounts? For the record, we had seen similar chaos in Delhi while the new CNG norms for public transport were being implemented by the government following a Supreme Court Order. For a few days things were chaotic but the government was strict [Supreme Court was sitting on their heads], and now I am proud to say Delhi has one of the least vehicular pollutions anywhere in India.
My take: Please save Delhi from becoming a city of shopkeepers.