R.I.P. Robin a.k.a RTech

Sunday, the 23rd of December 2007, would not be a day that I will be able to forget for a long
time to come. Around noon of that day, I got an SMS informing about the death of an online friend in a bike crash at Mumbai.

If you mourn & miss someone whom you have never met in person or even talked to over the phone, it sure says a lot about that person's character. Robin was one such person, with whom
my interaction was purely online, due to both of us being members of the Indian motoring
forum called http://www.team-bhp.com/, of which he also happened to be one of the mods.

An avid biker with interest in superbikes and a skilled rider, he put his money where his
mouth was and chose a career with the Motorsports Association of India (MAI). His aim
was to make motorsports popular in India and he worked towards that end.

From what I know, as has been a practice with his group of Mumbai biker friends, he had
gone on an early Sunday morning ride and the accident happened when they were returning back home. I am not very sure, but from what I heard, some psycho jumped across the road
resulting in the crash. He fractured a couple of bones, but no one thought the end would be
fatal.

He was taken to the Breach Candy hospital, where he breathed his last. I am not a doctor and hence found it surprising how a couple of broken bones could lead to death. A doctor I know,
said that when we have big bone fractures (ie. the limbs), one consequence is fat particles
getting into the bloodstream and choking the lungs, resulting in death.

I don't know what happened in Robin's case. All I know is that it is not fair for such a young
and promising guy to be snatched away by death. It had been just a year since he got married.
When we, who did not even know him personally, miss him so much, I cannot even imagine
the grief that his wife, parents and near ones would be going through.

Robin, may you rest in peace, brother and let us have only the memory of your smiling face.

Embracing the modern, yet holding on to the traditional

December is cold at Chennai. Mind you, not 'cold' as in North India (Delhi was 4-deg-Celsius yesterday night), but cold as in comparison to the other three seasons that we have in Chennai, namely hot, hotter and hottest.

Today was another cool morning, when you find it really tough to drag yourself from bed. And
the overnight rains did not make the task of leaving the covers and getting ready for work any easier. I hit the road to work around 8AM and the weather is pleasant, with the sun not to be seen. I take the left turn at Loyola college onto the scenic and green tree-lined Sterling road.

On the pavement, a little ahead of me, I see a young girl (late teens) walking towards Loyola college. She has a sprightly walk and is dressed in a nice top / capris - the epitome of a typical modern girl. Just before the Eatalica restaurant (serves Italian + American, hence the name), there is a sort of 3-road T-junction.

And like it is all over Chennai (not sure if it is just Chennai or all Tamilnadu), this junction also has a small idol of Lord Ganesha built into the wall adjoining the pavement. I am told this is because Ganesha somehow has the power to prevent accidents at 3-road junctions.

Anyway, as the girl comes in front of the idol, she turns around, folds her hands in prayer,
bows her head for a moment and keeps walking. It all happened in a few seconds and while
I drive past her, she has resumed her brisk walk. I have seen people cross themselves while passing a church (I do this religiously) or dab their lips with the fingers while going by a temple.

But this is an action usually associated with the elderly or atleast with those aged 30+. The current generation is not normally associated with such belief in the power above. They are infact often accused of being materialistic, selfish, arrogant, lacking respect for elders, almost
no belief in the Almighty (of any hue whatsoever) and of chucking Indian traditions out in
favour of western ones.

Looks like this is a very wrong generalisation, as the actions of this young girl made clear.
You sure can be modern and yet hold on to tradition at the same time.

Chants of "Aanamayakki-ye sharanam" in the land of Ayyappa

Last Monday evening, I am at the Mavelikara railway station, waiting for the train to Chennai. The train is late by an hour - train drivers had declared a surprise strike on Saturday, which
resulted in trains getting stranded at various stations all over Tamilnadu and Kerala. Even after
two days of them getting back to work, the after-effects of the strike showed in the form of late running of trains.

Since I had an hour to kill, I come out of the station to get some fresh air. I am standing near
the bike / car parking area, when I am drawn into the conversation between the parking
attendant and an auto-driver. They are discussing the travails of the pilgrims visiting the
holy shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala (in Kerala) and how inspite of the temple being
one of the richest in India (in terms of offerings received from pilgrims), the facilities are not enough to handle the lakhs of people that come to the temple every year.

The conversation turns to the corrupt politicians that we have the misfortune of being ruled
by. One of them feels strongly that the only way for the country to improve is by imposing military rule for some time in the country. He should talk to a few Pakistanis before he wishes for dictatorship. As we shoot the breeze, the power goes off and the whole area is plunged into darkness. Which gives the guys another reason to bash the politicians for the frequent power cuts.

And then we hear repeated chants of "Aanamayakki-ye saranam". In the moonlight we can
make out 2 young men in enebriated condition (by their unsure walking) walk towards us on
the road in front of the railway station. For those that don't know Malayalam, Aana is Mallu-
speak for Elephant and Mayakki means tranquiliser. So, aanamayakki is something that can
tranquilise even an elephant.

It is slang for a local alcoholic brew with toddy (coconut tree sap) as base. Toddy is legally
sold in Kerala and is a very good alternative to alcohol and is considered healthy too (if taken
in moderation). Many years ago, we used to go to the nearby toddy shop to have some great
food (in Kerala, you will get the best food in toddy shops and at real affordable prices too)
washed down with a few glasses of sweet toddy.

But today I would not dare to drink toddy unless I can confirm that it is straight from the tree,
and not adulterated with god-knows-what to make it more potent. This adulterated potion
gives an instant and stronger 'kick' and thus got the name of Aanamayakki. Local legend goes
that after having a few glasses of the stuff, it would be a miracle if you made it home. Something
on the lines of "one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor". :-)

And all over south India, 'saranam' is used only alongside the name of Lord Ayyappa, as in
"Swamiye saranam Ayyappa", which means, "My refuge is Lord Ayyappa". So, basically it is
blasphemy to associate / parody the holy chant with something that has wrong connotations.

The auto-driver is stung by what these guys are chanting. But it is also not a wise idea to join
issue with 2 young men who happen to be drunk. So, he murmurs, "Such blasphemy. I am
sure they will live to regret this." in what seemed to me like a lowered voice. I am sure the
guys did not hear exactly what he said, but they could understand that it was directed at them.

One of them shouts, "Who the f*** is there, *&^$&#$ ?". Auto-guy does not reply, even though
I can see that he is stung by the obscenity uttered by the guy and in normal circumstances, it would have resulted in a serious fight. He knows it is not a wise idea to take on two drunk guys. Also, if they could not be tranquilised by the famed aanamayakki, they should surely be having enough fight left in them.

The guys move on into the darkness and you could still hear, "Aanamayakki-ye saranam"......

We do toe the line, though under duress. Not bad at all.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, the helmet-compulsory-for-bikers rule was put in
place by the Tamilnadu Government, due to the intervention of the High Court and almost
everyone had scrambled to buy helmets before the date of enforcement.

But then, as is their wont, our politicians played their part in diluting the rule, by issuing
irresponsible statements like "Cops should not harass the public using the helmet rule as an
excuse", "Women and kids riding pillion should be exempted" etc etc. Understandably, there was protest from women's organisations about the latter statement, which they felt implied
that women's lives were not as valuable as men's.

However, looks like the rule is again being enforced strictly (not sure of the motivation), as
can be seen by the majority of bikers using helmets. The other day I was having a cup of tea
at a corner shop which is located at a major junction and was watching the traffic pass by. Almost all bikers (men/women) were wearing helmets which suggested atleast a 95%
adherence to the rule.

However, I did not see even one pillion rider (men/women) wearing helmets, which is pretty
sad given that in most bike accidents, it is the pillion rider who suffers fatal/serious injuries.
Until the government intervenes again, I do not see this changing. For those that complain about having to lug around 2 helmets, the solution lies in getting a helmet lock (costing a few
hundred rupees) which is fitted to the bike and can be used to secure 2 helmets.

It is a contrasting scenario in the neighbouring state of Kerala, which also introduced with
much fanfare the helmet rule. You would not even see 5% bikers using helmets there. This
is inspite of this state being almost 100% literate and newspapers reporting statistics that clearly showed that the month in which helmet rule was strictly enforced had seen a dramatic reduction in fatalities among bike accidents.

Actually, I do not need to look far to see non-conformance of this rule, which is for our own
safety. My father-in-law is a regular biker and inspite of my many subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions, he prefers not to wear a helmet. And mind you, he does have a helmet, which
he promptly went & bought when the government brought in the rule. However, it remains unused, except for the rare times when I use his bike.

My Dad is an occasional biker - he mostly uses his car. He also never uses the helmet and
his argument is that he uses the bike only occasionally and also only within a 1-km radius
of our home, which is not a high-traffic area. Again, he also has a helmet at home. The only
silver lining is my younger sister's husband, who religiously uses the helmet, though this
was not out of his own rational thinking, but because the government enforced the rule.
Still a laudable effort.

When my wife started riding her bike some 6 years ago in Kerala, mainly to go to work,
I was insistent that she always ride with a helmet on, which she adhered to and has now
become second nature for her. There was no rule in place then insisting on helmets being
worn and she used to be a curious sight for people around town because practically no one
wore helmets then. Add to it, the fact that she was a women rider, and there is really nothing feminine about a helmet.

Today, 4 out of 5 women (young working women) in our town zip around on bikes, but
not even one sports a helmet, which could in serious accidents mean a difference between
life and death. It is sad that we need a government to prod us to do something which has
to do with our own safety.

What is more sad is a lack of will in the authorities to enforce a rule that they put in place.

Quest for coffee leads to learning something eco-friendly

It is usually not much fun working at the client's place. Not only do you have to work within serious restrictions (restricted work areas, inadequate work space etc), but sometimes even getting a cup of coffee can be a real nightmare, as I learnt last September when I found myself at the client's place for a weeks time.

Taking a break was a job in itself. Getting out of the high-security area where we were assigned workplaces was easy (the door opened from inside without requiring any ID), but entering it was tough. It used finger-print recognition technology for identifying legitimate users and being vendors, we were not in the 'pass-thru' list.

So, we had to either wait till we found some employee who was entering the premises and tag along with him or had to knock on the door and hope that someone inside would hear our knock & open the door for us. But, this was a minor inconvenience that we learnt to get adjusted to.

What was tough was not having access to even a single cup of coffee during the whole workday which lasted anywhere between 10-14 hours. At my office, I usually down around 4-5 cups of coffee a day. So, it can be imagined how tough it would be for me to manage without even one cup. Ofcourse, there was a well-appointed pantry at the client's place. But my Japanese colleagues had mentioned it in passing that the pantry was out-of-bounds for us non-employees.

The first day passed painfully, without the dose of caffeine that my body was used to. But, I
was sure I could not go through the whole week without caffeine. So, on the second day, I decided to check out the pantry. It was quite small compared to the one back home in our
office, but then what is big in Japan ? I see the mandatory coffee-maker with jugs of hot
black coffee. I do not see any cups or stirrers - maybe they are in the cabinets.

Anyway, when I am checking out the pantry, an attractive lady who works there drops by for
a cup of coffee. We smile on making eye-contact. I want to ask her help to get a cup of coffee,
but do not know the Japanese for that. Anyway, I am determined not to let my ignorance of Japanese keep me away from a hot steaming cup of coffee.

Using a mixture of hand-gestures and English, I am able to make her understand that I would like a cup of coffee. She smiles and takes a conical-plastic cup, plugs it into a cup holder, pours out coffee into it and points me to the tray of stirrers, sweeteners etc in the cabinet.

Pic-1 : The plastic cup with stirrer.




Pic-2 : The cup-holder into which the cup slots in securely.




Pic-3 : The assembled coffee-cup ready for use.



I thank her profusely and move to the reception area to enjoy my first dose of caffeine after what seemed like eternity. Coffee done, I go to the pantry, chuck the cup and stirrer into the trash can, wash the cup-holder at the sink and leave it in the tray nearby which holds the washed articles.

And that is when I see the washed cups/stirrers in the tray and realise my mistake of throwing the cup/stirrer in the trash, like we would do in India and elsewhere - we do not normally reuse the disposable plastic stuff. But here, they wash and reuse them.

Commendable practice given the fact that we are going to soon make the earth one giant
trash-bin full of non-degradable plastic, given the rampant abuse of plastic. But, before you
start replicating this in India, ensure that the disposable cups you use are of the same quality
as the ones I saw in Japan. The ones we get here are so flimsy that it is usually a big deal if
we can manage to use it atleast once, let alone wash and re-use.

And we slowly tread the American way.

This piece of news in yesterday's newspaper made me sit up, literally.

Two school students in Delhi, just 13-odd years old, shot to death a classmate over some trivial
issue. One of them pumped 4 bullets from the service revolver of his Dad (who is in the police
force) and then handed the revolver over to his friend, who fired the final bullet.

Kids going on a shooting spree in American schools was shocking when we read it for the first
time. But over the years and many such incidents later, the shock-value just wore off and we
would just attribute it to the easy availability of firearms in the US due to the right enshrined
in the American constitution for every citizen to bear arms to defend himself/herself.

Whether we ever get to American levels of development (in terms of infrastructure and standard of living) could be debatable, but looks like we are pretty quick in taking up traits
that we are better off without.

And now FM radio turns tearjerker.

I have lost count of the number of FM radio channels in Chennai, given that there is one being
announced daily. Infact, one of my colleagues comes out with an idea of starting a Malayalam
FM channel in Chennai, which he thinks would be a great business idea, given that there are
lots of Mallu guys in Chennai. When s/w engineers are planning FM stations, I would think it
is better to quit the radio scene itself.

Since my car stereo provides the option of storing only 6 pre-set channels, I usually stick to surfing through those 6 channels. Radio Mirchi FM remains my favourite from the days of
their fabulous RJ Suchi (too bad that she is no longer with them) and Radio City FM is the
least favoured channel (mainly because they were too much into Western songs - give me
Tamil songs anyday).

Today I surfed to Radio City by chance and stumbled upon a program, the format of which
is pretty common across radio channels. Its all about phoning in with your personal problem
and they either tell you a solution or like in this case they would even take the trouble of
sorting it out by calling the other party and explaining your viewpoint to them.

So, usually you would have girls calling up & telling about how they are in love with someone
but now the guy is chatting up his ex-girlfriend and she is feeling insecure and such trash.
And the RJ, like some agony aunt would chip in with his/her advice about how she could
either ditch him or slap the other girl. :-)

Anyway, today morning, on my way to work, I happened to be on RadioCity and a guy calls
in. He is a software engineer (who is not one in Indian cities?) and starts off with "I am having
problems with my Mom. I am what you would call a 'Mamma's boy', but after my wedding,
the relationship with my Mom has never been the same again (what's new there ?). She does
not understand how much I love her and that I am still her boy, inspite of marriage etc etc".

Now the RJ's call up his Mom and tell her that they are from the FM channel, but not telling
that her son gave them her phone number. She sounds like any typical mom, exuberant and
all. Then they ask about her son. Immediately she thinks its someone from his office playing
a prank on her. The RJs convince her that they are truly from the FM station.

She says that she loves her son a lot and that he is the best son and she has learnt a lot more
from him than she could teach him as a mother. But, she also acknowledges that she is at times
a little short-tempered. She tells that her son lives in the same apartment complex as she and
his father stay, but different apartments. She tells about how she would like to see him in the
morning, but does not because she thinks it would intrude into his family's morning activity
of leaving for school and office.

She thinks she will instead see him at night, but he works late. This irritates her and she gets
mad at him to which his reply is, "why don't you just drop in whenever you feel like seeing
me ?". She doesn't tell it, but I think she would rather he drop in once in a while and his not
doing this (or not doing it as often as she would like) could be the reason for her irritation.

Then the RJs tell her, "We see that you love your son a lot. But do you know that your son
loves you equally or more ? Infact, we have him over here and he has something to tell you,
which he is going to say over the airwaves and all of Chennai is going to hear it now. Would
you like to hear what he has to say ? "

And then the son comes online and sings a para from a Tamil song (don't know the album),
the translation of which would go like, "If there is another birth for me, I would still like to
be born as your son ...... ". She hears this and does not know what to say and becomes very
emotional and keeps repeating, "I love you Venky", to which he says that he also loves her.

I had never thought an FM program would bring me to tears. But this incident did. OK, its
not like I started crying while at the wheel of the car, but it was so emotional for me as just
a listener. And after a few minutes the RJ reports that they had got numerous calls from
listeners who were affected the same way as me. Anyway, all I hope is that after this radio
conversation, the Mom and son live happily ever after.