Cost of Development

I was listening to music on my phone and enjoying my small nap in the cab. But the nap was irritating because the interiors of the cab had gotten too hot owing to a sunny day. Sweating, I opened the window of the cab a little and peeped outside….

The site that I saw was ghastly. A huge tree, probably the last in that entire stretch, was being razed down with bulldozers. Almost the entire road had been barricaded and dug up and the vehicles were moving on a narrow single lane strip, which had spread over to the footpath. The pedestrians had no space to go but along with the crawling vehicles listening to the loud noises of the engine and taking in all the smoke. The buildings on either side of the road had been demolished and only the dilapidated skeletons stood in place of what could once be called as hotels, shops and houses. Each one of these structures had a story of plight to tell. They just lay there, being mute witness to all the “development” that was going on around them

On my last birthday, I had written a post titled “Language treat” where I had mentioned about a particular poster which had opposed the metro train coming on MKK road. I had laughed about a train coming on a road then. That seemed quite funny and hard to comprehend. But today, anyone who passes through MKK road will definitely agree with me that the metro train has virtually run in to the lives of everyone on that road, destroying everything on its way.

The MKK road from Navrang to Malleshwaram has gone awfully bad. In fact, vehicles are just happy crawling on what remains of a road filled with potholes and dust. Pedestrians are in an even worse situation. They can’t even walk on the road, let alone cross it. This story is the same everywhere in Bangalore. What were once the prized greens of Bangalore have now been reduced to dusty rubble.

If you have been in Bangalore for more than 5 years and have been to places in the heart of the city, your heart can definitely feel the pain. The erstwhile MG road lined with pink bougainvillea flowers, parts of cubbon park, the dense canopy covered Sheshadri road, the tree lined Nanda talkies road are now history. Everywhere green barricades have come up with the signs of “Namma metro” on them making us dream of the day when eventually metro becomes operational.

Maybe in another 3-4 years, Bangalore might be completely different. With all the infrastructure/ construction projects coming to an end, the city might be a lot better than before. But the people who have lost their livelihoods because of their shops being razed down, the ones who have suffered due to the ongoing construction work, etc will never be able to appreciate the metro even when it becomes operational. Also, the harm done to the city’s fragile ecosystem is irreparable. We have already lost lots of the city’s bird species and lakes owing to pollution and the real estate boom. The metro work is already straining the city’s roads to unbearable proportions. Thousands of new vehicles are added to the roads everyday adding to the city’s woes. We are treading on the path of development by burdening our resources.

Even though we could not reach a conclusion to the Copenhagen summit on climate change, one thing that is clear from the attention to his topic is this – we, the developing nations cannot take the “high carbon” path towards development like the “Industrially revolutionized” developed nations. This will put a tremendous pressure on the natural resources and cause irreparable damage to the earth in the long term. Already, we can feel the climate change happening around us. Bangalore’s much acclaimed weather has slowly deteriorated over the years and is expected to go worse. Natural calamities are occurring more frequently than before. The signs are ominous.

It is now clear to us that the development for the “third world” comes at a price, a large one at that. What are the ways in which we can bring down this cost in a way that causes least harm to the nation? I was reading the book “Imagining India” by Nandan Nilekani and he has highlighted this issue. He says that the most efficient path towards progress with least harm to the natural resources would be to have “Carbon trade” – ie, put a price on all carbon emissions and by encouraging innovative solutions to the infrastructure problems. This can be done by corporate involvement in the public sector projects. When private sector companies are provided incentives by the government to save on emissions, they come up with novel approaches for cutting down emissions.

The cost of development is no doubt, high. But we have to make sure that the above schemes are also implemented so that even nature does not lose out. It is everybody’s desire to crave for a life of luxury and comfort. The approach we follow at this point of time might eventually give our future generations a developed world. But, only a careful and well-thought out approach will make sure that they will enjoy the benefits without suffering the consequences.

Boarding the Train - Part 2

We were almost to the end of Banaswadi when we saw a traffic pile-up. My heart just skipped a beat. “Oh, no! Not today” I said to myself. We waited for two minutes and I started to get restless. I asked the driver to take a u-turn and take an alternate route which he did. We managed to cross the bottle-neck only to land up in an even bigger pile-up of vehicles. I uttered some profanity to myself. I guess the heavens heard it. They responded by showers, rubbing salt on my already aggravated wounds. It was 6pm already. There was no chance that I would reach by 7pm today.

All the decisions I had made earlier that day came back to haunt me now. I could have taken a sick leave owing to my injury. I could have taken a vehicle and drove home early. I could have atleast taken a Volvo at 4:30pm. But no, I wanted to take the cab and risk myself. But I had half expected the “late-comer” to come. I had half- expected my cab mates to stop for food. I had half-expected the rains. I surely never expected all three to happen on the same day, especially today. I had estimated in the morning that in the worst case, I would reach home by 7:30pm. There was a chance that I would not make even by the worst case time…

We were now slowly crawling on the streets of Fraser town and Cantonment areas. The poor driver was trying his best to move faster. I noticed that the wipers of the cab were not working because of the crash last day! Not the first of all troubles – I told myself. Maybe he had planned to service the vehicle over the weekend. But even he had not expected that it would rain today itself and play spoilsport.

I started to text Ultra with more fervor now, flooding him with all sorts of questions. Thankfully he was handling it well. He had packed all stuff into the suitcase, got food packed for us and even got the banana. But he could not find a bag to put some stuff in as the suit-case was overflowing. Wait a minute, I thought to myself. I had a bag with me which fit all the things he mentioned. But unfortunately, that bag was still stuck in traffic with me and I myself did not know when I would reach. I even thought that maybe I would go to Ypr directly in my office attire and he would lock the house, get all stuff and join me there. But that would be a huge responsibility on him. He just said, “hogolo! You come home, we will go together. You tell if it is absolutely necessary”. Honestly I still did not know if it was.

The cab mates, especially the late-comer now realized that I was acting a bit restless and tried to talk to me. I tried to tell all of them indirectly that I was really angry with them for not being supportive when I needed it the most. Their reaction was really indifferent. Either they had understood everything I meant and didn’t have anything comforting to say, or they were too dumb not to understand what I meant. Either ways, there was no point in pressing it further so I indulged in some playful banter with one of them.

It was 7pm when I reached Navrang, a good 20 minutes from my place. Given the trafiic today, it would be more than 20 minutes. I had to make a decision whether to go home or go to Ypr. I had to make sure that house was locked. I had my bag which had some stuff to be filled. I could not entrust such a huge responsibility on ultra yet. So I decided to go home. I asked the driver to take as many “F(s)hortcuts and chota F(s)hortcuts” as possible to reach home soon. Finally after a further half an hour of maneuvering the traffic, I finally reached home by 7:30pm. Still a good 100 minutes before train departed.

I asked Ultra to pack up everything in my bag including the travel tickets while I freshened up and got ready. He did that and locked up all the doors and windows. Finally, after double checking everything and making sure that everything was in place, I locked the door. Ready to leave…

“Have you taken the tickets?” Ultra asked me. I said, “I thought I asked you to put it in the bag”. I was getting a little frustrated but there was no way we could go without tickets. Nor was there any point in fighting with him now. I found myself unlocking the door, running to the TV stand and putting the tickets in the bag. Finally, after a complete scan of the place again, it was locked and we started to walk towards the auto-rickshaw… It was 7:50pm

I was woken up from my thoughts when the auto suddenly came to a halt. The station was almost three fourths of a kilometer away. I asked the rickshaw driver what was the problem. He said that he had run out of fuel. We had to get down. The place was dark and it was at such a distance that no autos would agree to come from there to the railway station. It was 8:15 pm now. I could see the tension in Ultra’s face. But this was not the first blow to me that day. I asked him not to panic. We started to walk slowly towards the station. We passed through the “Metro” outlet, went under the yeswantpur bridge and towards the railway station. It was dark and we used the headlights of vehicles to guide us. We entered the station through a walkway directly over the tracks. It was 8:35pm now.

Since we were walking on the tracks itself we did not have to take the over bridge to get to our platform. We just ran over to the platform on which our train would come. Our past knowledge that the Garib Rath train would always leave from either platform 4 or 5 helped a lot. Finally, we saw our train – the green colored Garib Rath express comprising completely of AC coaches. We had finally made it to the train. It was 8:40pm now. We walked towards the train from the rear of it. Our coach was G12. So we expected it to be at the rear of the train. We crossed the first two general coaches and reached the first reserved 3A coach. It was marked “G1”! One more jhatka in the long list for today – and probably the last. We walked past almost the entire train (except the engine and G13) and finally reached our coach and ran to our seat. It was 8:45pm

Never in the history of our train travels had we reached a station so late. But we were happy that we had finally made it against all odds. The AC inside the train was a welcome relief for our sweating bodies. Both of us relaxed for a while and started to talk. We laughed about how pathetic we would be if we had finally managed to run till the train and remembered that we forgot the tickets back home! Thankfully that had not happened. Ultra asked me if I had kept the house keys safely. I said yes and checked in my bag to make sure. But I had packed so much stuff haphazardly that I could not find them. Just when I thought everything was fine again, we ran into this new “key” problem! Finally, as the train slowly moved out of Ypr platform at 8:53pm, we ransacked the whole bag and managed to find the keys. We were totally exhausted from the happenings. Right time for dinner, we thought.

As I lay in the comfort of my lower berth snuggled up in a cosy blanket that night, with the train rumbling past sleepy villages in rain, I reflected on the happenings of the whole day. We were pushed to the limits with one after the other tough situations inflicted on us. But we had finally made it to the train with our perseverance. I was wondering whether it was God’s way of punishing us for not attending the fest or something. After all, he is called the destroyer of all troubles. If someone messes with Him, He could as well present them with troubles- Right? Then this realization drew upon me. This year, I expected the experience of Hyderabad to be less exciting because I would miss all the festive fever of Karkala. But even before we reached Hyderabad, we had already experienced so many exciting moments that even with little happening, we would always return with so many memories to treasure. With this realization, all my worries, tensions and anger towards fellow cab-mates vanished and I was able to appreciate the beauty of life as God presented it to me. That’s the true rationale behind celebrating festivals Isn’t it?

PS: YPR - Railway code for Bangalore's new complementary railway station at Yeswantpur. Due to many long distance trains starting from here these days, the load on SBC (Bangalore City) railway station is greatly reduced.

Boarding the train - Part 1

“Boarding 21-08-09 2050 hours at YPR”

I heaved a sigh of relief as I held the ticket in my hands. It was 8:10 PM. We still had a good 40 minutes to go and we were almost there. Given the incidents of the last few hours, I really had my doubts that we would make it so smoothly. Ultra had made it as comfortable for me as possible. I looked at his spectacle covered face. He still seemed a little fidgety about reaching on time. I asked him to relax assuring that everything would turn out fine. Sitting there in that auto-rickshaw headed towards YPR, my mind wandered back into the happenings of the day….

For quite a few years now, the festival of “Ganesh Chaturthi” is linked to a trip to my native place and a get-together of our big joint family of about 40 people praying in unison to the “Vighna Vinashak”. As soon as we get a calendar for the new-year, the first thing that Ultra and I look for are the dates of the Ganapati festival so that we can plan leaves in advance. The tickets on bus/ train are booked one month before and the day of departure is very eagerly awaited. The round trip during monsoons, the celebrations, the food, the pooja, the immersion of the idol – each and every aspect of this festival is a treasure in itself which we would not want to miss for anything else.

With Panini getting married, this year we were faced with a dilemma. Out of Dad, mom, Ultra and me, two of us had to go to native and two of us had to go to her place in Hyderabad for her first “Gowri Pooja”. Since the dates of both the festivals were the same this year and given the large distance from Hyderabad and our native, it was impossible that all of us could go to both the places. Finally, it was decided that mom and dad would go to the native for the fest and we both would go to Panini’s place. Though we would miss going to the native, the joy of going to a festival and going together would always be there. And moreover, Ultra and I would be going by train together. Also, it would be my first trip to Panini’s place and I was looking forward to it eagerly.

We had booked the tickets for Friday. Mom and Dad left for native on Thursday. I met with an accident while coming back home by cab the same day. Next day, ie, on Friday morning, Ultra fell off his vehicle while going to college. Though both were not very serious kind of injuries, the very fact that they happened just before the festival made us ponder whether it was God’s way of punishing us for missing the festival this year. Maybe yes, and more probably no. But I have decided to ask Him whenever we get a chance to meet next. If you have anything to ask Him, you are free to write to me. I shall ask them those too :)

I woke up Friday morning with little pain in hands and knees due to accident. I dint know whether to drive a vehicle to office so that I can leave early or to take the usual office cab. The cab would reach home by 6:45 pm usually and even if it got late by a maximum of half an hour, I would be home by 7:15pm. And the train was scheduled at 8:50pm. Since Ultra was there to pack stuff and get everything ready, I decided I will take the office cab – a decision which I would regret later….

Panini called at office and asked me to get 5 dozen bananas for the pooja. She said the ones that were available over there were either not good for the pooja or too expensive. That’s when I realized the significance of Bangalore’s yelakki baaLe - It is unique, tasty, famous and most important of all - economical. I put a reminder in my cell phone to purchase the bananas from the in-building department store during lunch break. However, during lunch, we were too busy eating a “festival special” meal that I forgot completely about it, inspite of the reminder on my cell! When I remembered it after lunch again, I consoled myself thinking that the best place to buy bananas, that too dozens of them was not a department store at office but a HoPCoMs store near home. So I texted Ultra and entrusted him the responsibility of buying bananas. That was the first of long list of tasks that I was to assign him that day – poor ultra, he just had an accident and might have wanted to sleep. Being the youngest child, he was not used to taking responsibilities as yet. I felt sorry for him. At the same time I was helpless.

Work went well that day. All tasks assigned to me were finished by 4:30pm itself. A thought occurred to me that I could start from office early and take a Volvo bus till majestic. But then, it would be too hectic to travel and the cab would drop me off home by 7pm anyway. So this idea too was vetoed out. Little did I realize that all these thoughts would come back to haunt me later.

I left office at 5pm sharp and went and sat in my cab. Our cab usually has very less number of people and they come to the cab by 5:05 to 5:10. But there is one girl who seldom comes in our cab but whenever she comes she is late. I just prayed she didn’t turn up that day. But as luck would have it, she said she would be coming. It feels quite funny when I think about it – most of the times, people who come early to the cab call up the people who are late and wait for them. It is like calling up someone wasting your money and then wasting your time. waiting for them Maybe I would not make a big deal of it on other days. But today, even a minute was precious to me and I was getting restless. That girl finally came at 5:15pm and we started. She gave a big smile and said “sorry!” – seems some kind of a weapon that all girls possess. How can you fight after that?

The driver was very cautious after the accident last evening and was going a little slow. But we were only 5 minutes behind normal time and I didn’t think much into it as we had crossed the most dreaded K R Puram by 5:40pm. One cab mate said she was feeling hungry and wanted to stop for some snacks. We do this sometimes owing to our long journey and less people in cab – we stop at some food joint and have something before going home. But I could not afford to waste more time today. I told her politely about my situation and they agreed not to stop today. I thanked them for understanding and decided to rest for some time before reaching home.

There is this stretch on Banaswadi main road where our cab usually zooms past at over 60kmph. But unfortunately today, the driver was feeling thirsty and stopped to drink water just in front of a bakery. This time, the cab mates didn’t listen. They said that they would pack food for eating inside the cab instead of eating it there. Some sort of a favour they were doing me, they said. I had no choice but to oblige this time. True to their word, the cab mates came back soon and they had got me some snack too. We were back on the road. It was 5:50pm… already 10-12 minutes late from normal.

This was the first signs that things might get really nasty today. I was particularly angry at my cab mates for not being supportive. I messaged Ultra asking for status. He said that things were ready to be packed, the maid had come and left, but bananas were yet to be brought. It was raining heavily and so he could not get out. I asked him to take the car and get both banana and food for us packed. He agreed. So far so good....

[continued in part 2]

PS:
1. HoPCoMS - Horticultural Produce Co-operative Marketing Society - Head quartered in Lalbagh, Bangalore. This was set up for supporting the horticultural produce and encouraging horticulture as a side-business by regular farmers.
2. Panini, Ultra - my siblings. In case I had not told it earlier :)

"Jai ho" or the end of it?

Humankind has some good traits and some not so good ones. They feel sorry for people who are under-privileged; tend to help out people in trouble; try their bit to help the struggling ones. But at the same time, if someone who is really hardworking and deserving makes it to a state better than they are, the feeling of sympathy and compassion is immediately replaced by the green monster – jealousy and the strong feeling to put such people down.

Consider the case of a fresh graduate who joins a team at work. Initially all the team mates are co-operative and willing to help. Everyone has some advice to give to the fresher on how to go about things in a professional world- what to do, what not to do, etc. The mistakes that he makes are often ignored/ covered up quickly and every effort is made to accommodate him into the scheme of things. The fresher feels happy to be in such a team and with the support of all the seniors, transforms himself into a very talented workplace resource.

Now, here comes the twist in the tale. As soon as the fresher makes a name for himself, the other “seniors” start to view him as a threat. Instead of acknowledging the fact that the guy is really talented and taking pride in the fact that such a valuable asset is present with them, they start to put the person down at every juncture – loading him with too much work, setting unrealistic targets for him to achieve, highlighting every small mistake as a huge blunder and so on. All of a sudden, the fresher feels a new kind of challenge thrown at him. He has to deal with new responsibilities that his career demands as well as with the ego-clashes of his seniors. It is how gracefully the guy deals with this situation that determines his true worth at work.

At a higher level, a similar situation is faced by the developing countries. A classic example in this case is our own country – India. When it became independent in 1947, no developed country at that time thought of it as a future super-power. They entered into deals with us to serve their own selfish interests only to further consolidate their positions as world super powers. But when India tested its nuclear missile in 1974, all the countries that had looked upon India as a fresh entrant into the World arena became aware of its enormous potential. They started to see India as a security threat even though our past record of zero military offensive seemed to suggest otherwise.

It is with this fear that they brought in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). This group adopted an approach where technology and raw material for Nuclear Energy would not be supplied to the countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT). This was a smart move by those nations in order to make our nation starved for nuclear fuel.

India is just one among the four countries in the world which has not yet signed the NPT. A common sense question that arises is this - Given its flawless record of not having attacked any other nation in its history of over 5000 years, why is India not signing the deal? The answer is also pretty simple – India has stated in clear terms its policy as “No first use” meaning we will never use weapons for any kind of attack. Our military systems are titled “defense” because we never go about attacking nations like the other big nations do. But if there is need to protect ourselves, we should be ready with any sort of arsenal that the war demands. The second reason why India is not in favor of the treaty is because of its inherent flaws. Though the treaty states complete “non-proliferation”, there is a clause called uranium Enrichment and Plutonium Reprocessing (ENR) which could mean that countries can still develop weapons even after signing the treaty. This means that it allows partial proliferation of the only those countries which had nuclear weapons before 1967, giving an unfair advantage to them. And finally, India does not want to sign the deal till all the countries of the world declare complete non-proliferation, especially our crooked neighbors.

Thus, the isolation of India continued for almost three decades. But then, India’s potential as a consumer of nuclear fuel could not be disregarded. In spite of imposing economic sanctions on India in 1998, India’s GDP continued to grow and thus, the Bush administration had to withdraw all sanctions in 2001. India, with its ever-growing demand for energy and its vast economy presented a big business opportunity for USA which was greedy for business with India. It wanted to sell its nuclear fuel to India and make money out of it. This formed the roots of the “Indo US full-civil nuclear co-operation”. The US was so keen on the deal with India that even after facing opposition from its own congress and the NSG, it went ahead with the deal.

A historic moment came last year when the entire set of NSG members decided to grant India a “clean waiver” from its existing rules. This meant that India was free to enter into civilian nuclear deal with any country in spite of not signing the NPT. The NSG finally had recognized India’s history of non-proliferation and no first use and had given it full powers. It should be noted here that India is the only country which has not yet signed the NPT that has been given this kind of a waiver. A similar attempt by Pakistan to secure a deal was outrightly rejected by the NSG given that nation's track record of military offensive and terrorism.

This was a truly significant resolution for India. It meant that the world had finally recognized India as a potential great nation. It was a moment when we could stand on our rooftops and shout “Jai Ho!!” We could now go on to become self sufficient in terms of energy which is a pre-requisite for any kind of development. Given our track record of insufficiency in power for last few decades, this would surely be the turning point. Besides, nuclear fuel is more efficient and less toxic to the environment when compared to the conventional fossil fuels.

But again, the joy of last year was short-lived as the ego of the world superpowers came into picture this year at the G8 conference at Italy. They came to mutual agreement to curb transfer of ENR technology to nations which have not yet signed the NPT. This came as a surprise to India as it would impact our three stage nuclear programme. This means we would again be starved of energy unless something was done about this. What is particularly saddening is the way our leaders have downplayed this issue saying they are not "deeply concerned” about it. Instead of recognizing this as detrimental to our progress, they are still resting on the past laurels that they have achieved. Also, in the ten full months since the waiver was given last September, no effort has been made to secure deals with potential suppliers of fuel like France, Australia, etc.

Our country is now at a similar situation like the fresher at office. No one wants to support it because they see it a potential threat. Not only on the nuclear front, but in many areas like science, agriculture, astronomy, etc we are facing isolation from other nations. I came across a news item recently where it said many countries are now not so keen on sharing space science info with ISRO after the success of Chandrayaan. It would lead many of us to believe that the JaiHo season is finally over. This is a challenge that every aspiring super power has to face in its quest for glory. But I am sure that eventually we shall overcome all these obstacles and find our deserving place among the nations of the world – at the top. It can never be the end of JaiHo. Can it?

PS:
1. The fresh graduate in this case is selected as a guy for ease of explanation. It could as well be a girl. It is the same case with the girls too, although a bit more complicated as they are to deal with even the gender related egos of the senior male colleagues.

2. This article is my personal opinion about the recent happenings. As such, it need not be politically correct. Although, every effort has been made to verify the facts from reliable sources, the views expressed are my own.

3. [added after Saravanan's comment] : The situation where a fresher joins new team at work is one "particular" case selected for leading into the bigger issue. It does not mean that "seniors" at work are always bad and freshers at work are always hardworking and sincere. There have been instances where freshers joining the team have been so bad that training them to adjust to professional life has been impossible. Also, there have been cases where seniors have been so good that kept inducting new guys year on year into the team and enhanced the team's as well as the company's reputation of a good workplace. I am sorry for the ambiguity it has created.