BKC Accident Chowk 2

Another accident at BKC chowk opposite SEBI photographed. Rickshaw bangs taxi. Taxi radiator gone. Rickshaw damaged. Rickshaw passenger shaken, not stirred. Two days before this a woman was hit by a car. Luckily she survived with minor injuries.

Small changes for the good.

What started this string of thoughts is this article.

Okay.. so what can "I" do to change things for the better? Surely I cannot allocate gazzillion rupees for some "Middlemen Vikas Yojana" I spend so much time just to eke out a living that I don't see myself investing time and efforts for social service. But just the fact that I cannot do something big does not prevent me from doing something small. Something that could make a huge or even a small difference for somebody.

1. I can let the poor old vegetable woman keep that 5 rupees change she has to give me. Smile and tell her its okay, if there is no change.
2. I can take a couple of story books or small toys to treks and give it to the first group of young children who catch my fancy. If I feel a bit generous I can even buy a tricycle for some poor kid in a remote adivasi village. Who knows he could grow up to become an automobile engineer.
3. Just to amuse myself, I could tell our kaamwaali that I am doing her performance review and she would be eligible for a 10% appraisal every six months if she maintained consistent quality of work and attendance schedule. Then explain to her in plain language that it means more money. But implement a quality check process and let he know that. Upgrade her to using the washing machine and microwave.
4. I can buy things whenever possible during treks in villages. Support the entrepreneurial spirit. (Pic: 350 rupees worth of "bhaji" eaten at roadside dhaba in a village enroute to Ratangad.)
5. I can promote remote fort locations to drive visitors there.
6. If you see somebody doing the work the hard way and you know a cost effective method or a method with better returns, let that person know about it. For example tell that roadside typist smart lesser known features in Word.
7. Try to change the outlook, encourage them to upgrade skills, guide them, inspire them. People usually find a way once they know their destination. The problem is there is no one to tell them what is the proper destination. Give ideas from your own experience. Ask the chinese food guy, why he does not supply cold drinks with the food. "Quadra Schewan Combination Rice Happy Menu". Ask him why does he not have a cell phone to take home delivery orders. Tell the bhelpuriwala to use bottled water as a marketing gimmick.
8. I can donate old computers to village schools. One computer can make a huge difference.
9. Explain and demonstrate all the features of my digital camera and phone to curious children who collect around you while you take photos. One of them might grow up to become a cinematographer.
10. Listen to them and their stories. That gives them a sense of self worth and confidence. Some children are just scared talking to city people or foreigners. Once you strike a communication with them, they feel confident and in future would interact a lot more and hence learn a lot more.

Thats all I can think at the moment. If you have more ideas they are welcome.

Soople

Those who are dedicated Googlers, and who have spent time reading the help files know that under the simplistic interface, Google has a very powerful set of tools and methods of narrowing down searches to definite categories of sites, file types and even definitions, stock info, books etc. The difficult part could be remembering the syntax to launch the searches.
Well there is a great site out there which simplifies it all. http://www.soople.com/ You might be tempted to set it as your home page.

Korlai Trip

Yes, this was a trip. A google earth flyby revealed this was a small little hill fort, with a beach thrown in. Because of it Portuguese history, we expected quite a few intact remains. So it was decided to bring the wives and girlfriends and kids too. This for has a good location, situated on a peninsula, just off Revdanda beach, on the way to Murud. There was also a lighthouse as an added attraction. You could stand on the top and watch the sea on all three sides. Once you pass through the village of Korlai which has the smell of fish all around, you can walk along a path with a rocky beach on one side and high hill with a fort on other till you reach the light house. A small fee of Rs. 5 and you can watch the inside of the light house. The powerful light powered by an array of Solar cells and a complex lens system. There was also a radio beacon, to assist during low visibility. The way to the top was very narrow and constricted. My kid had a whale of a time, running around in circles around the lamp. Funnily enough the lighthouse does not attempt to depend on the MSEB supplied electricity, which is hardly present. They need to have their own generator and solar cells.

The fort is well preserved with a lot of cannons still lying around. Some of them were pretty massive. I haven't seen so many cannons in any other fort till now. The water tank on the top still functioned and the villagers as well as the light house staff used it. The church on the top and the engravings were well preserved too. Somebody had been cleaning up the fort, cutting off all the banyan trees and grass which had been threatening to take over the fort. We descended along the opposite side facing Revdanda through a artificial forest full of trees that I hate. Those trees which the forest dept plant all over,which have no personality or richness of foliage.The
species subabhool, eucalyptus and glyceridia are killing all the biodiversity of the traditional forest.We descended to the beach where finally the girls, who were frustrated by the climb and all were happy to spend some time frolicking in the water. We finally made back or way to home, via Alibag.
How to reach: Catch any ST to Alibag and then catch any ST to Murud. (these are numerous during morning and evenings) Get down ant Korlai and walk to the fort. If you have time you can visit the Birla mandir about 4 kms away as well as the Revdanda fort and Beach about 5 kms away.

Looking through a child's eye (Disney Pixar Cars)

Being a father is a great opportunity to relive childhood. It enables us to look at everyday objects with a new sense of wonder and excitement. My two year old son has been a fan of he "Cars" movie by Disney Pixar. He brings up the Cars DVD, gestures towards the DVD player and fetches the TV and DVD remote, whenever he wants to watch it. He will start tugging at my shirt if I am not paying attention. Once the DVD is put on he watches with rapt attention. As if on cue he laughs loudly when Chick Hicks gives his TV interview and when the birds cameo appears
with a tweeting sound. Generally I am only paying passing attention to him as he watches the movie. One day I began him getting increasingly nervous and tugging my sleeve. The movie was on, so I could not understand what he was wanting. Suddenly he ran inside the house crying and did not come back for a long time. When this happened for the second time, I began to understand what was going on. He was getting scared of Bessie, the road paving machine. While all the other cars have eyes, mouth and in general facial cues, Bessie had none. Must be quite scary for a child.I had to fast forward. But turns out he is scared of Frank as well, so I had to fast forward to the happy parts and then he watched the movie in contentment.
As I play my duties as a father I try to draw from my childhood experiences, about what excited me, what scared me, how I outgrew my fears, how the elders reacted and all. When I was a child, the only place where you could watch something scary was in a movie theater and whenever scary scenes like, hero getting beaten up came, I used to crouch down in the chair and close my eyes and ears, till the hero had gained enough strength and confidence to fight back. But at least the scary experiences were limited to the theater. Home was safe turf. Now the kids are having a hard time with scary things invading home, due to irresponsible parents like me who have brought movies into homes.
I have discovered a lot of scary things, which I had never noticed before. The sound effect at the beginning of Microsoft Train Simulator, The fact that beach sand starts washing away under your feet when a sea wave recedes, any blinking red LED, any scene with monochromatic or desaturated color scheme.
Bringing up a child is sure scary.

BKC Accident Chowk

A black Ford Fiesta has it face mangled by the white Esteem

Every now and then in the office, we hear a brake screeching. 10% of these noises end up with a thud and noise of crunching metal. That means another accident has occured on the crossroad in front of SEBI in BKC. Boy its getting so routine. It is a very saddening to watch expensive cars getting destroyed. All I can do is take pictures from my window. I now have a nice collection. Guess all those CCTV operators from the security of buildings around must be having some interesting footage. Ahhh... a signal is desperately needed there. Ohh!! those beautiful cars.

Desensitisation of the masses

Picture shows a family staying on a railway platform. See that small infant on the newspaper?

This is just a thought process that was triggered off yesterday by a small incident. A guy was trying to cross the road by taking his bike over the road divider without bothering to check traffic on both sides. He was almost in my path, had I not been alert. So I started blaring my scooter horn as I approached him. By the time I reached him I was clear on my left so could quickly pass him. However my horn blaring probably irritated him and he thrust his bike into my path, to teach me a lesson. If I hadn't anticipated him as a complete jerk and my reflexes had been a bit slower, I would have fallen down, surely be creamed by the bus behind me. I however passed him safely and held up my finger to show him who was the daddy.
However I thought, why would anyone want to endanger somebody's life for such a small thing as a warning horn? Was that guy a jerk? Did he not value human life? But then so many examples came to mind. In the urban jungle, the value of human life has become nil. Everyday people risk their's and other's life to get into a train, to overtake, to get to the other side of the track. How many times had I passed a dying beggar at a railway station, knowing he would be dead in a month or so? How many times have I witnessed somebody getting pulled under a train and not even bothering to see if he is dead or alive?
On treks, I have witnessed, people welcoming us into their homes and offering water or something to eat. I have drunk a cup of tea, or eaten at a family who can hardly afford a 100 rupees blanket for their infants. I have patiently listened and helped with problems in small adivasi padas. What happens to me when I come back to the city? What happens to "everybody" when they come to the city? Why do I just helplessly watch that hungry infant wallowing on a dirty newspaper on a cold December morning?
The bus driver does not care, that you might fall down and injure yourself. He is in a hurry to get to the next stop, whether you have alighted properly or not is not his concern. Recently the railways closed an one of the two overbridges at Dombivli railway station. Imagine a station catering to 5 lakh people everyday having just one overbridge. The fact that one guy (Vinay Patil) lost his life due to this bad decision did not concern whoever took that decision. That was just one person, what about the kids in Nithari? What about all those riots for petty political gains? That injecting poison of religious and casteist hatred into an innocent population.
How desensitised can we get? What is causing this desensitisation? Is it the alienation? The "alone in the crowd" thing? Is this due to the failure of the undivided family, a non existent value model, children growing up alone? Is it the over exposure to violence or sheer overload of human interaction, ? There are just too many people around.
So as the population increases, does this desensitisation also increase? Will the future be all war?
Meanwhile, good thing I showed him the finger. He must be having his thoughts too.