Education - Evaluating Numbers

Karnataka recently witnessed a sad mockery of competitive education as "practiced" - and the problem with the percentages, and how even students have come to look at those, is discussed here.

Aren't our marks supposed to reflect what and how much we know ? And should we not take pride in what we do get, without being completely focused on what we did not ? Should A-grades, and 4.0 GPAs, etc, be so common ? Should they not reflect a very high degree of interest as well as understanding of the particular subject ?

One often hears all that wrong with our education "system" with the government and institutions of learning being the accused. I believe it runs deeper than that - unless we rank colleges, courses and professors based on what we truly get to learn there, and along more dimensions than what percentage of students secure jobs, or seats in the next level of institutions, or crack a scholarship abroad, and suchlike, the "market" will continue to serve our base, crass needs.

Unless we want better, we're not going to get it. And I mean want better really really honestly - not the mere lip service we see today - the kind that cannot stand the scrutiny of the moments when its about actually choosing colleges/courses, etc.

But then, too much of a social change, huh ? And after all, its the job of the government, or someone in some position of power on whose doorstep responsibility can be transferred such that our conscience continues to stay clean, and we continue to indulge in fake helplessness and acquired cynicism - right?

The Mechanics of Education

I just finished "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" (a very nice read and recommended).

One part where he talks about how he was horrified and depressed about how education was "managed" in Brazil made a deep impression. We've all realized it at various points in time but this was particularly well articulated.

Here's the excerpt (thanks to http://www.feep.org/articles/feynman.html for saving me the trouble of typing the entire thing from the book itself...). Its a little long, but if time is not an issue, do read it -

In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience. I was teaching a group of students who would ultimately become teachers, since at that time there were not many opportunities in Brazil for a highly trained person in science. These students had already had many courses, and this was to be their most advanced course in electricity and magnetism - Maxwell's equations, and so on.

The university was located in various office buildings throughout the city, and the course I taught met in a building which overlooked the bay.

I discovered a very strange phenomenon: I could ask a question, which the students would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the question - the same subject, and the sane question, as far as I could tell - they couldn't answer it at all! for instance, one time I was talking about polarized light, and I gave them all some strips of polaroid.

Polaroid passes only light whose electric vector is in a certain direction, so I explained how you could tell which way the light is polarized from whether the polaroid is dark or light.

We first took two strips of polaroid and rotated them until they let the most light through. From doing that we could tell that the two strips were now admitting light polarized in the same direction - what passed through one piece of polaroid could also pass through the other. But then I asked then how one could tell the absolute direction of polarization, from a single piece of polaroid.

They hadn't any idea.

I knew this took a certain amount of ingenuity, so I gave them a hint: "Look at the light reflected from the bay outside."

Nobody said anything.

Then I said, "Have you ever heard of Brewster's Angle?"

"Yes, sir! Brewster's Angle is the angle at which light is reflected from a medium with an index of refraction is completely polarized."

"And which way is the light polarized when it's reflected?"

"The light is polarized perpendicular to the plane of reflection, sir." Even now, I have to think about it; they knew it cold! They even knew the tangent of the angle equals the index!

I said, "Well?"

Still nothing. They had just told me that light reflected from a medium with an index, such as the bay outside, was polarized; they had even told me which way it was polarized.

I said, "Look at the bay outside, through the polaroid. Now turn the polaroid."

"Ooh, it's polarized!" they said.

After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn't know what anything meant. When they heard "light that is reflected from a medium with an index," they didn't know that it meant a material such as water. They didn't know that the "direction of the light" is the direction in which you see something when you're looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet nothing had been translated into meaningful words. So if I asked, "What is Brewster's Angle?" I'm going into the computer with the right keywords. But if I say, "Look at the water," nothing happens - they don't have anything under "Look at the water!"

Later I attended a lecture at the engineering school. The lecture went like this, translated into English: "Two bodies . . . are considered equivalent . . . if if equal torques . . . will produce . . . equal acceleration. Two bodies, are considered equivalent, if equal torques, will produce equal acceleration." The students were all sitting there taking dictation, and when the professor repeated the sentence, they checked it to make sure they wrote it down all right. Then they wrote down the next sentence, and on and on. I was the only one who knew the professor was talking about objects with the same moment of inertia, and it was hard to figure out.

I didn't see how they were going to learn anything from that. Here he was talking about moments of inertia, but there was no discussion about how hard it is to push a door open when you put heavy weights on the outside, compared to when you put them near the hinge - nothing!

After the lecture, I talked to a student: "You take all those notes - what do you do with them?"

"Oh, we study them," he says. "We'll have an exam."

"What will the exam be like?"

"Very easy. I can tell you now one of the questions." He looks at his notebook and says, "'When are two bodies equivalent?' And the answer is, 'Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torques will produce equal acceleration.'" So, you see, they could pass the examinations, and "learn" all this stuff, and not know anything at all, except what they had memorized.

Then I went to an entrance exam for students coming into the engineering school. It was an oral exam, and I was allowed to listen to it. One of the students was absolutely super: He answered everything nifty! The examiners asked him what diamagnetism was, and he answered it perfectly. Then they asked, "When light comes at an angle through a sheet of material with a certain thickness, and a certain index N, what happens to the light?"

"It comes out parallel to itself, sir - displaced."

"And how much is it displaced?"

"I don't know, sir, but I can figure it out." So he figured it out. He was very good. But I had, by this time, my suspicions.

After the exam I went up to this bright young man, and explained to him that I was from the United States, and that I wanted to ask him some questions that would not affect the result of his examination in any way. The first question I ask is, "Can you give me some example of a diamagnetic substance?"

"No."

Then I asked, "If this book was made of glass, and I was looking at something on the table through it, what would happen to the image if I tilted the glass?"

"It would be deflected, sir, by twice the angle that you've turned the book."

I said, "You haven't got it mixed up with a mirror, have you?"

"No, sir!"

He had just told me in the examination that the light would be displaced, parallel to itself, and therefore the image would move over to one side, but he didn't realize that a piece of glass is a material with an index, and that his calculation had applied to my question.

I taught a course at the engineering school on mathematical methods in physics, in which I tried to show how to solve problems by trial and error. It's something that people don't usually learn, so I began with some simple examples of arithmetic to illustrate the method. I was surprised that only about eight out of the eighty or so students turned in the first assignment. so I gave a strong lecture about having to actually try it, not just sit back and watch me do it.

After the lecture some students came up to me in a little delegation, and told me that I didn't understand the backgrounds that they have, that they can study without doing the problems, that they have already learned arithmetic, and that this stuff was beneath them.

So I kept going with the class, and no matter how complicated or obviously advanced the work was becoming, the were never handing a damn thing in. Of course I realized what it was: They couldn't do it!

One other thing I could never get them to do was to ask questions. Finally , a student explained it to me: "If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our time for in the class? We're trying to learn something. And you're stopping him by asking a question.'"

It was kind of a one-upmanship, where nobody knows what's going on, and they'd put the other on down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it's not confusing at all, telling him that he's wasting their time.

I explained how useful it was to work together, to discuss the questions, to talk it over, but they wouldn't do that either, because they would be losing face if they had to ask someone else. It was pitiful! All the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating "education" which is meaningless, utterly meaningless!

At the end of the academic year, the students asked me to give a talk about my experiences of teaching in Brazil. An the talk there would be not only students, but professors and government officials, so I made them promise that I could say whatever I wanted. They said, "Sure. Of course. It's a free country."

So I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used in the first year of college. They though this book was especially good because it had different kinds of typeface - bold black for the most important things to remember, lighter for less important things, and so on.

Right away somebody said, "You're not going to say anything bad about the textbook, are you? The man who wrote it is here, and everybody thinks it's a good textbook."

"You promised I could say whatever I wanted."

The lecture hall was full. I started out by defining science as an understanding of the behavior of nature. Then I asked, "What is a good reason for teaching science? Of course, no country can consider itself civilized unless . . . yak, yak, yak." They were all sitting there nodding, because I know that's the way the think.

Then I say, "That, of course, is absurd, because why should we feel we have to keep up with another country? We have to do it for a good reason, a sensible reason; not just because other countries do." Then I talked about the utility of science, and its contribution to the improvement of the human condition, and all that - I really teased them a little bit.

Then I say, "The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that no science is being taught in Brazil!"

I can see them stir, thinking, "What? No science? This is absolutely crazy! We have all these classes."

So I tell them that one of the first things to strike men when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it's amazing you don't find many physicists in Brazil - why it that? So many kids are working so hard, and nothing comes of it.

Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek language, who knows that in his own country there aren't many children studying Greek. But he comes to another country, where he is delighted to find everybody studying Greek - even the smaller kids in the elementary schools. He goes to the examination of a student who is coming to get his degree in Greek, and asks him, "What were Socrates' ideas on the relationship between Truth and Beauty?" - and the student can't answer. Then he asks the student, "What did Socrates say to Plato in the Third Symposium?" the student lights up and goes, "Brrrrrrrrr-up" - he tells you everything, word for word, that Socrates said, in beautiful Greek.

But what Socrates was talking about in the Third Symposium was the relationship between Truth and Beauty!

What this Greek scholar discovers is, the student in another country learn Greek by first learning to pronounce the letter, then the words, and then the sentences and paragraphs. They can recite, word for word, what Socrates said, without realizing that those Greek words actually mean something. To the student they are all artificial sounds. Nobody has ever translated them into words the students can understand.

I said, "That's how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids 'science' here in Brazil." (Big blast, right?)

Then I held up the elementary physics textbook they were using. "There are no experimental results mentioned anywhere in this book, except in one place, where there is a ball, rolling down an inclined plane, in which it says how far the ball got after one second, two seconds, three seconds, and so on. The numbers have 'errors' in them - that is, if you look at them, you think you're looking at experimental results, because the numbers are a little above, or a little below, the theoretical values. The book even talks about having to correct the experimental errors - very fine. The trouble is, when you calculate the value of the acceleration constant from these values, you get the right answer. But a ball rolling down an inclined plane, if it is actually done, has an inertia to get it to turn, and will, if you do the experiment, produce five-sevenths of the right answer, because of the extra energy needed to go into the rotation of the ball. Therefore this single example of experimental 'results' is obtained from a fake experiment. Nobody had rolled such a ball, or they would never have gotten those results!

"I have discovered something else," I continued. "By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what's the matter - how it's not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you."

So I did it. Brrrrrrrup - I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: "Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed . . ."

I said, "And are there, have you go science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven't told anything about nature - what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can't.

"But if, instead, you were to write, 'When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called "triboluminescence."' Then someone will go home and try it. Then there's an experience of nature." I used that example to show them, but it didn't make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.

Finally, I said that I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. "However," I said, "I must be wrong. There were two students in my class who did very well, and one of the physicists I know was educated entirely in Brazil. Thus, it must be possible for some people to work their way through the system, bad as it is."

Well, after I gave the talk, the head of the science education department got up and said, "Mr. Feynman has told us some things that are very hard for us to hear, but is appears to be that he really loves science, and is sincere in his criticism. Therefore, I think we should listen to him. I came here knowing we have some sickness in our system of education; what I have learned is that we have a cancer!" - and he sat down.

That gave the other people the freedom to speak out, and there was a big excitement. Everybody was getting up and making suggestions. The students got some committee together to mimeograph the lectures in advance, and they got other committees organized to do this and that.

Then something happened which was totally unexpected for me. One of the students got up and said, "I'm one of the two students whom Mr. Feynman referred to at the end of his talk. I was not educated in Brazil; I was educated in Germany, and I've just come to Brazil this year."

The other student who had done well in class had a similar thing to say. And the professor I had mentioned got up and said, "I was educated here in Brazil during the war, when, fortunately, all of the professors had left the university, so I learned everything by reading alone. Therefore I was not really educated under the Brazilian system."

I didn't expect that I knew they system was bad, but 100 percent - it was terrible!

Since I had gone to Brazil under a program sponsored by the United States Government, I was asked by the State Department to write a report about my experiences in Brazil, so I wrote out the essentials of the speech I had just giver. I found out later through the grapevine that the reaction of somebody in the State Department was, "That shows you how dangerous it is to send somebody to Brazil who is so naive. Foolish fellow; he can only cause trouble. He didn't understand the problems." Quite the contrary! I think this person in the State Department was naive to think that because he saw a university with a list of courses and descriptions, that's what it was.

While education in India is not all 100% broken in the above sense, a lot of it indeed is! I had the good fortune of attending a school where the spirit of exploration and discovery, low-stress education and a very open culture were taken for granted, and anything else looked upon as "weird" and the teacher usually had to change swiftly from the conventional methods they were used to and adapt.

But the the 2 years after the ICSE - when the preparations for the JEE ruled our lives - and the portions expanded to include B.SC. stuff and even more - education went completely out of the window. Perhaps that pace was ok for a few to still continue to understand and appreciate the beauty of what was being communicated (certainly no time for proper discussions, argument and exploration) but for most folks - and include people way smarter, brainier and at some point even more curious about things than myself - it was just a mad scramble to wrap portions up, cram as many tricks to beat the questions as they could - and try and manage time better than most adults ever become adept at. Is that what an appreciation of the subject being taught was all about - being able to do it quicker than everyone around?

Lives, the growth of well rounded personalities, other facets of development were all completely abandoned for those two years for most. Sad, horrible and because most were merely "learning" the way Feynman describes the process he observed in Brazil as - hardly even education. I can now say with confidence that the folks who studied physics or chemistry understood very little more of science than those who studied commerce, or the arts. And vice-versa. Most of it was "what a word means in terms of other words" as Feynman put it. I challenge science students to explain the integral of B.dl (not merely assume it as gospel) - the fat bold font of which I still remember from the first page of electromagnetism is Resnick and Halliday. It haunted me that I did not really understand it then - and I made little progress with that particular aspect of Physics, which I loved otherwise.

Engineering was even more of a disaster. I consider 4 years spent in college a huge waste of time. Not because the subjects weren't new, shiny exciting areas for the mind to explore (and I did explore quite a few in my own way - even got lucky with a couple of great Profs who knew what they were talking about and, more importantly, wanted us to appreciate the same), but because the parpahernalia of formal-education-as-practised was too depressing to adhere to. "Tutorial Sheets" and standard problems and narrowly defined scopes and syllabi - the diversion from which even elicited howls of protests from students who were supposed to be learning all this! I remember one pitched battle with one Prof of some course in electronics (which I again got a little stuck with at the p-n-p and n-p-n level and the whole barrier thing the overcoming of which nobody discussed with me to my satisfaction) where nobody really understood anything, and I was very proud that my attempts at understanding had fetched me 5/15 in a quiz. But most of the class had major issues about not having been taught right, and the tut-sheets not having reflected exactly the kind of questions you saw in the quiz, and so on. More depressing drama. I mean your marks reflect what you know - and the void what you don't. Why couldn't, as students, we take that merely as feedback, rather than as marks of honour or blemishes on our records ? You can't really really understand, appreciate and love everything you're taught equally well - and in my view only then you deserved an "A" - unlike the huge factory-produced grades I saw all around me.

And - this was at some of the best schools and colleges in the country. One shudders to imagine the way education is dissed out at places where neither the students nor the faculty really have real motivations to even be there - beyond getting certified enough to get a cushy job or to keep drawing the salary that you must because you couldn't get another job which pays better. Frightening. Cannot blame the students, or univs, or professors. As a society we've aided and abetted, and even encouraged this. What the hell are really bright freshers out of engineering doing in B-Schools, otherwise ? Can they even connect to some of the words used for describing team, marketing, HR related problems that make up the case studies there ?

I would love to go to school and teach something - especially physics and mathemetics to junior/senior school kids. Of course, there's formal degress (the B.Ed.?) to be tackled before you're allowed to. But if I could, I'm quite I'm sure I'd learn a lot more now in the process of discovering with the kids - and maybe even understand B.dl over time!

Be The Change : Indus Khaitan rides the bus

[ This is the first one I'm trying to do as part of stories about people who embraced change. ]

Indus is a batchmate from BIT Mesra, an entrepreneur and has recently moved back to Bangalore from the Bay Area. He settled into a huge townhouse, got a car and started rediscovering Bangalore.

I had mentioned to him that I had recently tried using buses again, and had found the BMTC services much better than they used to be and recently, was pleasantly surprised by his complete switch to busing! Over the last week, have met him a couple of times, and he manages to get there by bus each and every time. He waits for a Volvo - and yet has managed to keep his enthusiasm going even as his knowledge of the "inner workings" of the routes, names of stops, passes, etc continues to grow.

I'm impressed with the ease with which he's decided to bus around, and the fact that he's promoting it on Twitter as well!

Here's some answers from the enthusiastic convert himself:

What got u started ?

I always wanted to do bus. But, was scared initially of dust/pollution, people pushing, waiting etc etc. Then I had a scheduling conflict with the family -- They wanted to go somewhere and I had a meeting elsewhere. So, they dropped me at a bus stop and I got a Volvo. Life is better and now I'm on my own busing around. I had the alternative to take autos -- but I hate autos because they're open from both sides and you are sitting next to the tail pipes of other vehicles passing by.

Initial thoughts ?

1. The biggest problem is finding a schedule and the route. The BMTC website, however advanced it maybe, it's still a generation behind.
2. There is a slight chance of getting hit by a passing bike when you are getting-off as the 2 wheelers drive everywhere.
3. Figuring out where the bus would stop was a big pain, coz the bus stop is crowded with people who are getting onto other buses. However, the good part is that driver stops if you wave at him!

Experiment, or becoming a habit ?

It was an experiment - whether I can do it -- but I've found it convenient (esp. the Volvos).

Why did u persist ?

I had no option other than a car or an auto. I found that the car is a huge waste of resources for a one person going from a defined point A to point B. Moreover, if you have a driver then you are dependent on his schedule. Moreover, my first few trips were fun -- Also, I was able to chat with random people I met on the bus!

Isn't it painful ? Doesn't it take too much time ?

One may find it painful if he is forced to bus and lacks the enthusiasm. It takes slightly more time if you have to wait for a connection at a bus stop. But, if you carry a GPRS enabled phone and a book in hand, then your waiting time is utilized doing something productive.

What would u like seeing solved ?


1. I would like to see a system route map like this one http://www2.actransit.org/maps/maps_results.php?ms_view_type=2&maps_category=1&maps_line=frem&version_id=1&map_submit=Get+Map

2. Not all buses have displays -- make it interactive -- auto display of the bus stop/area we are passing by (like the one metro trains have)

3. The GPS system of Volvos are not working because government has not paid the next years subscription fees. Someone needs to fix it.

4. Bus stops need to convey which routes are serviced by them.

5. A lot of morning buses are overcrowded -- I'm not sure whether the govt has a feedback system to increase capacity of those routes during the peak hours.

Why should people do it ?

It's fun, keeps few cars of the road and of course good for the environment.

Tips ? Advice ?

Look at the service related suggestions above. A map is needed desperately to get first timers on board. Lack of information is a major deterrent.

Indus, I wish more people would hop on, stop the excuses and be prepared to make it work. The benefits are huge - lower stress, much lower pollution and congestion, and if enough start doing this, maybe a few will engage with the government for improving things along the lines you've suggested. Hats off dude, and catch you on the next BMTC ride :)

Those Who Did It

Be the Change.

The soundbite is easy enough. The followup is often tough. Could be for the environment, could be for personal health, or choices one makes that are not the norm, non-conformist, even rebellious.

I'm going to try and do some coverage of people who've gone ahead and embraced change in their own small way. No major social impact, no media-interest stories - but more "I did it because it made sense to me" despite the reasons and excuses to not do it.

The change itself could be about the environment, or kids' schooling, or alternative careers, or different lifestyles. Anything - that takes some thinking through, conviction and courage to follow up on.

Format : I'll write a short note on what I thought impressed me, and answers to a few questions I pose to the person. Apart from this, no constraints. If you have some folks in mind, or want to ask a few questions for stuff you've been meaning to do yourself, let me know.

As a class, we in the GIMC are reasonably cynical and change/improvement are usually someone else's responsibility. Hopefully a few stories of small, one-off changes that people made will spark something off...

Otesha : Be the change

The Otesha Project: Take Action: Areas of action

The page discusses a lot of ideas one can try out - perhaps one at a time - towards a more responsible lifestyle. Not too much to ask, really.

Uncertainty Zone

I'm taking the-other road at the fork, and the amorphous mix of dreams, explorations, desires, fears and uncertainty ahead make it a very heady, exciting choice.

Hopefully it'll be mostly fun. Some of those journeys have started, and I'm already finding that the "lots of free time" is a myth :) But as the options evolve, and some emerge at the top of the "permanence table", that may solve itself.

I do hope to finish a few books, and network a lot more. I also hope to discover a lot more - of myself, of Bangalore, of Coorg, of the entrepreneurship space around here. And I hope to push myself into being more well-rounded (not physically!) and developing and putting to good use some of the skills I'd like to grow/see mature. More than anything, I definitely hope to do some stuff that gives me deep rooted satisfaction, and a sense of connectedness to the real world.

Life's a good school :)

Growing Forests

Organizations like Trees For Free and Hasiru Usiru are doing a commendable job of trying to enhance and protect our tree cover.

However, there is a basic contradiction in greening goals and urban landscapes - the latter is about "usage" of land - and that more in commercial terms than anything else. Everything else is secondary - and even the space legally, or voluntarily, created for trees and natural cover, is done as a major concession and something to be proud of.

Of course, it is something to be proud of. But its also something we should have realized by now that we depend on as a species - for keeping things cool, keeping the air fresh, and for keeping the water cycle going. Its not something that should be a discretionary afterthought, but the most important part of evolving urban landscapes.

Sure. But thats merely an ideal, and we're really really, really far from it.

In the hierarchy of needs and wants, the above ideal is pretty low. So while there's sporadic resistance, and occasional sparks of desire, and even action to see more green and less stone, prick, mortar and glass - its more or less a losing battle. The vocabulary is "cut as few trees as possible", or "try growing trees where it does not affect your foundations", etc. Can't blame anyone - thats how it is - and everyone's got fair reasons for it. N-thousand-per-square-foot is quite a compelling reason, more often than not. And pollution related disease and death is not that visible a counter-force. Sure the water's depleting, but our tanker guy manages to get us enough, and we're ok for now....

So ? We carry on ? What else could we do ?

So here's a whacky idea...

I've been vocalizing that the governement needs visionary goals, and one of those must be to grab back free land where available, not play the per-square-feet game, and afforest it with a manic zeal. But of course, I have little influence, and not too much hope that the government will formulate such goals and move in these directions.

Next best ? We do it. Me and you cannot go around buying too much land to afforest. But collectively, we could start building a layer of green defenses - perhaps within, and perhaps also around the city. A forest here, a green island there, maybe even an acre with a lake and a lot of trees.

A trust owns and manages the land. We legally ensure it can never be used for any other purpose. We try and ensure its marked as "forest" or "parks" in CDPs.

If 100000 people put in a 500/- each, thats a lot of forest land we could create around the city (25-30 kms away its still not that expensive). Sure there are legal hurdles, issues around policy formulation, long term goals, and financing issues. Worth a shot ? If it grows, I'm sure a few corporates would not mind pitching in.

Questions about loss of farmland and food security just in case this idea grows? Agriculture needs better techniques, innovation. As part of this effort, we can engage both for that as well as for conservation.

If 10 people respond to this, will create a mailing list, and a spreadsheet to collect "committments".

Idea? Non starter? Thoughts?

Your Own Little Space : Some Details

As the plans firm up, here are some more details.

• No fences inside the campus
• Duplex 2bhk+study/3 bhk/3+study/4 bhk homes
• Sizes 1300-2000 sqft on land sizes of 1500/2400/3000
  
• Price range 44-72Lacs + Regn, Deposits
  
• Clubhouse with a pool
• Rainwater Harvesting, Solar Heating for each home as well as common areas
• Trees trees, trees
• All details frozen this week (except proportions of the sizes - that depends on how many of the interested folks want what)
  

If you're curious, there's a place near Kengeri that you could visit to get a feel of what this community may look like.

Will send out a mail to all the interested folks by end of the coming week, and meet up someplace to switch from the feasibility mode to execution mode. Meanwhile, still looking for more like-minded people to participate. Do let me know.

Revisiting the voters' dilemma or What Exactly Was That ?

Voted yesterday.

There were 3 EVMs with nearly 3 dozen candidates for Bangalore Central, the constituency for which I was supposed to pick a candidate to vote for. I was familiar with a couple of the candidates, and knew a lot more about the parties themselves.

For a while I was unsure of what to do. Picked the least uncertain choice, and felt extremely illiterate about the entire exercise.

Here's a bunch of questions I have about the whole setup of State Assembly vs Lok Sabha candidates and elections:

• Whats the "impact" of choosing candidate X to the Lok Sabha. To the State Assembly ?
• What are the candidates rights, duties and scope of influence ? What issues can they raise/influence ?
  
• Is the specific candidate even relevant for the Lok Sabha polls ? Why ?
• Do candidates even have a voice within their parties during the functioning of the Assemblies ? Why is the concept of a "whip" permitted in a democracy ?
• What mechanisms/ground realities exist for these elected representatives to engage with their constituency before they participate in debates and vote on issues in the Assembly ? Does the concept of the "whip" render this idea impotent ?
• Should not candidates clearly pick and spell out specific agendas and causes they intend to pursue - obviously from those that are within their spehere of influence depending on whether they are representing the constituency at the centre or in the state ? Should they also not be working for these issues "off duty" - i.e. even when they are not members of the Assembly etc ?
  
• If the possible local impact of a Lok Sabha candidate is low, whats the big deal about a candidate "from my constituency" ? I'd rather pick someone - irrespective of where they are standing for election from - based on the attractiveness of their thoughts and leadership qualities on issues that impact the nation or policy making, as a whole.
  

I am totally confused about the candidate vs party, and a little cynical about the inner party democracy in all outfits - if all decision making is decided centrally, with little consultation at the constituency level, its hardly important who the candidate it. In fact, you don't really need "people" representing you if there's little dialogue or impact possible - you can vote for the symbol/party directly.

Perhaps I've got a lot wrong - perhaps there's just a lot of information gap. But to me, right now, it does look like the the mere exercise of franchise does not make for a healthy, functioning democracy on its own. There's definitely much more to it, and I cannot imagine too much of it happening around me as it exists today.

Anyhow - good first step - maybe the next set of changes will start to happen soon. Staying positive.

Haralur Road's Speed Breakers - or why "Only Our Needs Matter"

I get more and more cynical about the Great Indian Middle Class that I also belong to.

Here's the latest trigger: folks who use one of the roads that passes close to our house complaining about the numerous speed breakers that were added to it.

Background : this was till recently a rural road under the panchayat. Its primary purpose was to connect Haralur Village to Sarjapura Road. Obviously not a very wide road, it served the needs of numerous who walked along it, or cycled, to get to school, catch a bus at the main road, or buy provisions, etc.

All of a sudden it got "discovered" by the ever growing city, and a bunch of apartments and layouts, including ours, came up off it. So we got the road improved. Next, people discovered a short-cut to Hosur Road using a network of roads leading from this to the next village and the next. It saves more than half an hour, and lots of fuel! So far so good.

The traffic on this increased - and speeds started going northwards too after the road was improved and even widened! Being a narrow road used by mutiple modes of transport and pedestrians, the panchayats rightfully saw reason to enforce some sensible speeds and civic sense since fellow drivers obviously were not managing to use enough common sense of their own accord.

So the GIMC did what it does best - protest something that causes it "inconvenience" - in this case defined by slowing down for speed breakers and never getting to get up to speed, on a road where speeds are downright dangerous. [Enough drivers manage to still speed in between speedbreakers, btw] Anything that we start using automatically becomes a resource that is subjugate to our requirements and must bend to what we think is right.

I'm really wondering if the current trend of get-up-and-vote is a healthy thing for the nation. The signs aren't always healthy since this set of people rarely seem to be able to see things beyond their own noses.

Your Own Little Space ? Update ...

Some more details are available.

Likely location: Carmelaram - about 2.2 kms off the Sarjapura Road - the left turn before the railway track. Nice serene location and not far from the ORR, or Whitefield, or Sarjapura Road. The connections to Hosur Road make Electronic City a quick drive as well. The road that leads to the place has beautful old trees on both sides, and given campuses with Churches and associated buildings, is unlikely to get too urbanized too quickly. Sarjapura Road in the vicinity has all the creature comforts including stores, restaurants, etc. There's a couple of convenience shops in Carmelaram as well. The Carmelaram railway station is less than a km away, and hopefully Bangalore will have a train service someday ;)

What: About 30 homes - between 1300-2000 sqft in size. Land lots between 1500-3000sqft. A 2 acre campus overall. Some goals:

• Build less, and not with too much concrete showing. Lots of open, community spaces.
• Be as carbon neutral and energy efficient as possible
• Rainwater harvesting
• The area is the starting point for numerous jogging and cycling trails :)
• Develop a natural waterbody in campus. If the finances work out, a small pool as well.

Pricing: Should be between 45-65L for various options. This is indicative, of course, and will keep interested folks updated. Given lower than market pricing, there will be a certain amount of "seed funding" for the project.

If you know folks who're looking at homes in the area, let me know - numbers will make this dream a reality. You can drop me mail at get DOT sameer AHT gmail DOT com.

Update:

Here's a presentation with some early details. Nothing's frozen yet, and the idea is to iterate over the needs with those who're interested.

Skoda : Skeletons in the Closet ?

This is probably a good read for potential Skoda buyers, and auto enthusiasts generally.

The original string of problems and the subsequent responses, and even a threat from Skoda's representative!

Its amazing how unprofessional the entire response has been. On the other hand, as one story after another starts to surface about parts exchanged, inaction on Skoda's part when faced with consumer complaints against dealers, it starts to make one wonder if all is well. There are potentially some systemic issues that need to be set right, and Skoda has an opportunity to either come clean, or potentially face a severe drop in consumer confidence.

Our e-port card so far

Having become more "enlightened" citizens, we've been trying to reduce our footprint as much as possible. Here's a few things achieved, and a few more to go.

+ I cycle to work 90%+ of the time
+ We reuse the "waste" water ejected by the RO filter
+ The automatic dryer is strictly for emergencies - not switched on for ages now
+ Try and aggressively avoid "standby mode" for TV/Home theatre/chargers - still left on 30% of the time tho :(
+ Determined to do fewer kilometers on the car. Working out very well, thank you!
+ Been trying to promote cycling in our circle of influence, and beyond. Decent success.

- Cannot seem to reduce geyser usage. Love warm water, and attempts at minimizing time switched on have failed.
- Have not revived attempts towards en-mass adoption of solar heating in our apartment complex
- Have failed in attempt towards getting apartment to optimize usage of diesel for backup gensets
- The Standby Switchoff is only a partial success - needs more work
- Plastic usage is still not low. There's so much that comes packaged in plastic from the stores :(

Overall, pleased - but there's scope for improvement.

Silent Majority

They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Most recent trigger for the above - a biker got beaten up on the flimsy premise of his attire. The mailing list on which I read this got into a debate about the off-topic-ness of the story and reactions to it!

Overall, the spiritual leaders forgot to speak out strongly against the association of weapons with religion. The political leaders at the top got into marriages of conveniences with the terrorizers of local populations for short term "gains". We stay shut on the roads when there's a brawl, or a woman gets beaten up by some neanderthals.

None of my business. Thats what it is all boiling down to.

Your Own Little Space ? Read on...

If you've been thinking about a house, don't like living in the heart of bustle and traffic, want a good community, do not like the run-of-the-mill builder version of creating living spaces and were priced out of the market, this may be of interest to you.

What: A smallish comuunity - bet 12-25 homes (depending on costs, configurations) with potentially homes/condos/row-houses thrown in. Very green. Lots of open spaces.
Where: Off Sarjapura Road. Options exist between the area near the Railway Line and a little before Sarjapura Town. Beautiful green places, decent connectivity, emerging hotspots (hopefully a little in the future so we can have some peace and quiet)
How Much: Want to keep it in the affordable range - so maybe as much as a decently priced 3#BHK apartment.

Honestly, not all the details have been worked out. But I trust the guys who're ready to execute this. I've seen their work in the past, and saw something they're developing now only yesterday. The entire campus there needs just 7.5KW of electricity, which is completely supplied using a combination of solar and wind generation! In addtion there's a bio-mass unit, and rain water harvesting takes care of most of the water needs. And the construction style is concrete-minimum, and very energy friendly, yet pleasing.

Ok, that almost sounds like a sales pitch. Perhaps it is. The idea is to have like minded folks living in the same place, running a sustainable community without breaking the bank. If you're curious or keen, lemme know. There are 5-6 people on board already, and we could think in terms of an "expansion" of the plan in terms of the area/number of dwellings, but ideally don't want too much of built space.

Amen.

BCycle: B the change :)

Oh so cool. Will this work in Bangalore? Need someone to try this out. Whatsay ?

Engleash

Some I've noted. No its not irritating etc - just amusing how many have used these "incorrectly" and I'm guessing the latter won't even be true in another decade or so - quite like "prepone".

• loose/lose
• voila/viola
• off the mark/of the mark (and similar contexts) [ The Outlook's latest issue has this too! ]
• advice/advise [ of course used interchangeably :) ]
• consist of/comprise [ I've been corrected to "comprise of" instead of comprise, in a doc! ]

If you know more - comment maadi.

The one thats become popular already, and does get my goat :

• my bad (my bad what ?)

Then there's the very Bangalorean

• by the by

which is both a little irksome and a little cute.

[ Oh well, I'm probably just getting old :) ]

Seriously, language is a dynamic, living organism. Nothing proves it like these changes as more populations adopt one. So Messrs Wren & Martin, stop turning in your graves.

Edit:

Part of the reason (the more recent trigger being the Outlook) was this thread on BikesZone, where I added:

Advice for Advise ?
Which the Verb, which the Noun,
"Stadiums" reprimanded
"Prepone" gets a frown!
Ah the English Nazis march,
Hup-one-two-three
Love Queen's Desi tho
Want to break free.

Slow down your life, and all that jazz

Nice video:

Culture-vulture and all that

Culture. Hmm, deep one.

Ok, I'm trying to find my own personal answer to this. What is culture. Is there a "definition" ? Whats the "list of things" we can arm ourselves with to respond to the Selvams and the Muthaliks of the world ?

Well, here the definition (I like Wiki's combination of the more common ones, so quoting that)

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate")^[1] is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.^[2] However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

• excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities
• an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
• the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.

Part I is something I doubt occurred to Muthalik or Selvam or their ilk when they repeated what they've heard so often from others who wanted to use it as a blunt object to beat other people on the head with, or stop from this or that.

The second/third: Wow, those are deep and complex. What's the "pattern" for India - land of extreme vegetarianism as well as cannibalism, country of the devout and the atheist - not just now but in recorded history and given an appropriate place in the texts as well, social behaviour that stresses on idealism, is pragmatic about politics and corruption, includes in its ambit both polyandry and polygamy, and proudly tells tales of ferocious gods, and more human kings who started out bloodthirsty but overnight became persistent role models for peace mongering ?

Is it the rigid rules in the Vedas that define us, or the moral strictures, or our codified caste system, thats been handed down to us as collected knowledge ? Is it the subtle sarcasm in the extremely open minded Upanishads that define our philosophy, and the tradition of tark-vitark and recorded accepted disagreements ? Was there a reason for a personal God for every Indian, while the texts simultaneously speak of "inclusive monotheism, which acknowledges a personal form of God as the Supreme God, with all other forms of God as plenary expansions or aspects of the Supreme" (source) ?

Are we trying, too often, to define our beliefs, religions, culture and traditions by what is disallowed (often for a convenient truth in a political or social power struggle), illegal and considered profane ? Are these not better defined by their positives - what they enable, what they help better/improve ? Is culture not a concept that aims to define some set of ideals that works towards a more refined, tasteful goal ? Is that served well by fear, and a demand to adhere, or else... ?

To me, India and its culture is about not just tolerating, but embracing and adopting the strange and new, respecting the different even if one doesn't necessarily understand it, and celebrating life in all its myriad forms. What its never been, certainly, is homogeneous, or a one "best" thing to do, to follow. Gods, clothes, customs, traditions, beliefs, philosophies - we have numerous cores, and even more forms of packaging of each. Like a Buddhist Lama explained to me when I wondered about the gazillion sects of what started as a simple message - different folks accept the same truth presented differently. Its the same end goal. That, to me, was Indian culture. Be what you are, be comfortable, and expect to be comfortable with your truth though there are others who have a different truth and a different take on things.

Often this exists at an individual level as well. The west and western trained minds consider it hypocrisy - our extreme politeness with folks known to us, yet some very crude/rough edges in our behaviour with strangers, our patience in certain contexts when we cannot even queue up for a bus - but its the same comfort with multiple truths and acceptance of opposing concepts that co-exist simultaneously - that defines our culture.

If there's any one thing its never been about - any one negative you want to define it in - its rigidness. India is an old, mature adult who's seen it all, and is pragmatic yet pious, comfortable with its blemishes and revels in its grace. It certainly does not seek to define itself narrowly, or through intolerancle of this set of beliefs or that. And certainly not intolerance of tongue, or attire, or faith.

[ The song from "Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani" captures it quite nicely :D ]

Will ride better

The Well-Tempered Cyclist | Momentum - The Magazine For Self Propelled People!

No more "riding past" along with pedestrians - get down and walk if one has to use that. Bangalore's riders are a new lot, and we gotta establish the rules and the riding culture here.