A Deepavali Night Stroll: Scenes from the Streets

The sun was making its steady descent on the horizon (because every story starts with a nod to the skies), casting its orange-yellow tint all over the streets. It was only a matter of minutes before the lanes and buildings were bathed in darkness, only to be lit up by fluorescent lights shimmering into life. I pulled up my socks, slid my feet into my grey shoes, tightened the lace and stepped out. Alas, this wasn’t an evening like any other, this happens only once a year! It is Deepavali!

Baisaran Valley, Pahalgam

On a bright sunny day (yes, it really was!), we started from Srinagar, got into our white Maruti Suzuki Dzire cab and readied ourselves for the two and half journey ahead. On the way, we stopped at a seemingly well-known and popular spot on the side of the highway and bought dry fruits. At the shop, the salesman’s portrayal of kesar was tempting – pure, high quality, aromatic, premium, handpicked and what not. Convinced just a wee bit, we bought a small packet and got back in the car.

Next stop was a small apple farm and shop. Amidst more than 15 varieties of apple trees - including Royal Gala, Gala, Amritbani, and a golden yellow cultivar - planted in a geometric pattern, there was a small clearing with some chairs and tables. As we got comfortable, came the trays - trays and trays of jams, pickles, chutneys, juices and mixes. We drank a refreshing glass of freshly juiced (plucked and juiced right in front of us) apples each and sampled a veritable array of apple, lotus stem, cherry, and fig-based jams, chutneys, and pickles. With two big bags to show for the visit, we left the apple farm behind and climbed back into the car. 

Collective Force of Good, in Action

We live in the age of AI and disruption, where technology advancements are aplenty and not very far apart either. But they feel almost recursive in some sense. Don’t get me wrong, am sure the iPhone 17 will be “the fastest ever, best ever” iPhone Apple has ever made (pun intended). Am sure the next iteration of OpenAI’s LLM - GPT 4.2 or GPT 5 will break all the benchmarks of the earlier versions. But all these “breakthroughs” feel incremental to the sane, logical man and moreover these are from individual corporate behemoths or deep tech companies on their path to becoming the behemoths. 

When was the last time you recall multiple sectors of society coming together to achieve something phenomenal? The true power of the human race, so to say.

Glimpses of my Solo Trip - 2Ps

By air, bus, car, train and ferry, my latest trip covered a solid 4,700-odd kms (alright now, yes, bulk of that distance is through air). What follows is a spotlight on that part of the journey where I travelled alone; these are a peek into those experiences in chronological order, covering two Ps - People and Places.

It’s trip time, folks!

This piece is a recollection of my first trip with fresh faces all around. I booked it on a whim, not really knowing the organizers, the peer group or what to expect. Was not disappointed, to say the least. Here goes: 

Revving the senses

I missed watching most of the last five/six F1 races. Red Bull taking podium after podium started becoming the trend and that somehow piqued little interest; yes, it seemed like the rise of Ferrari in the early races but that clamour died down as time went by. Winners and losers aside, I was recently reminded of why I really like the sport – all it took was a trip to the race tracks recently with a few friends.

This served as the circuit: A short straight, followed by a sharp swerve to the right opens the track to a broad hair pin bend, after which comes two right and left swerves in quick succession serving as a chicane and the final right turn to the pit entry.

Changing Landscapes

There was a four-decade old one-story house right next to where I live. With a pale green paint and a matching pale green banana tree at the back, it was not your modern city home. It was built for a different time; in fact, the backdoor opened into a well.  Where does one find city houses with wells these days?

A Goal for the World

Capitalism and socialism fought it out in the Cold War and after the fall of Soviet Russia, it might seem that capitalism emerged as the one ideology that is truly successful. It is successful, yes, but only to some and in wildly differing degrees- concentration of wealth by a select few is a shining example. The richest 1% own 43% of the world’s wealth, says a Credit Suisse report.

An exception to the capitalistic spread is China, which follows what is called Chinese socialism, which is in some sense a mix of calibrated capitalism and state control. Though ideologically tagged as socialism, extremities of wealth and poverty are not unseen in China. And this is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) seemingly wants to target. It advocates for an olive shaped societal income distribution, where lesser and lesser people are at the fringes of poverty and wealth. In other words, this means that the middle class outweigh the rich and the poor. Accordingly, Mr. Xi Jinping has renewed the CPC’s focus on “common prosperity”, envisioned to narrow the yawning gap between the different economic classes.

As the Tamil adage goes “Ore kallu la rendu maanga” or as does the alternative in English “To kill two birds with one stone”, “common prosperity” achieves more than one purpose. First, it provides a solution to the moderating economic growth of China. The Chinese engine, thriving on investment and export, is looking to shift towards consumption. A consumption based economy flourishes only when a majority of the population has sufficient spending power. Common prosperity might just hit the bulls eye here.

Second, it helps rein in larger than life private enterprise which is seen to have amassed a little too much of clout in the internet era. Xi has initiated a crackdown aimed at some of the most successful companies in China like Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan. He has also indicated that it is time for these mammoth companies to pay their share. Since then, Alibaba and Tencent have made announcements of plowing $15B each to further the “common prosperity” agenda.

It feels like a brilliant step in the right direction. Though the true intentions behind the second line of reasoning may be convoluted, no one wants all powerful tech companies. They already control half our mind share and more of our time share. On the other hand, if policies end up in wealth redistribution, yes, give me more!

The CPC does not run a democracy and has its share of controversy but some of its policies are worth noting. With income inequalities burgeoning after the COVID waves and the brunt of climate change being disproportionately borne by poorer countries, “common prosperity” should be a goal for the world, not just China.

My trip to Matrimandir, Auroville

Right off the bat, does it sound awfully like the “My trip to the zoo” essay you wrote in 3^rd grade (I honestly have no idea what grade that was, excuse me for growing up 😜 ) ?  To answer the question, it is a bit like that but it is also a grown up version of that. So, here it goes:

I reached the parking lot of Auroville where the guard was quite taken aback when I informed him that we had reserved a spot online. Rolling in to the lot, I see almost all the shady (I mean trees and shade, not crackheads) spots taken. I do a round, and another until I find one with reasonable tree cover. Why, you ask? It was hot out there, scorching hot.

A balancing act, at 300 kmph

There is no denying that motorsports and F1, specifically is dangerous prima facie. Hurtling through space at 250kmph-300kmph is no amateur feat. It requires immense physical and mental strength. The level of speed naturally brings in an element of risk. The risks involved are one of the main factors that draw drivers and fans alike to the sport.

But human life is paramount and F1 has seen numerous advances in driver safety over the years, regulations have also been moulded and re-moulded to penalize drivers who overstep limits. The modern monocoque is a true testament to advances on safety. Not just technology, F1 culture itself has evolved to prioritize driver safety from the Prost-Senna era.

Yesterday, Verstappen and Hamilton collided in the British GP, sending Verstappen scurrying towards the barriers. It was later known that Verstappen took a 51G impact as he hit the barriers. A big, big hit. Verstappen was understandably winded. Thankfully, Verstappen is alright now and hasn’t been injured, which is an immense relief.

Not Tomorrow’s War

Yes, the globe is warming up. No, don’t trust Trump on this.

Yes, there are multiple efforts to counter climate change. No, they aren’t doing enough. But at least there is widespread acknowledgement of the scale of disastrous effects of climate change and remedial steps are being purported.

Global warming is already upon us. News bulletins shout out “never before” droughts, rains and floods from time to time. There is something that is still in a nascent stage, that might have just as deleterious effects as global warming. Am talking about electronic waste.

E-waste is piling up, quite literally, in dump yards. The Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP), which counts the UN and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as founding members, predicts e-waste will reach 74 metric tonnes in ten years, double the number in 2014.

Raining hell, from up above

The backstory

About a week back, there was a drone attack on an Indian Air Force base in Jammu. Two drones dropped explosives and flew back. We do not yet know where the drones came from or if they had a specific target, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conducting an enquiry. All we know so far is that the twin explosions did not damage any defense equipment nor did they cause loss of lives.

So what?

While the direct impact of the detonations does not seem to be high, there is cause to worry. Although the use of drones for disaster relief, mapping and surveillance is becoming commonplace, drone warfare is still new to India, especially on the contentious Jammu & Kashmir border. Disturbances on the Line of Control (LoC) have been either due to direct shelling from the Pakistani side or the disquiet created by proxies in the region, that is to say disturbances did not have an aerial angle to them.

Money, Money Everywhere- Not a Dollar to Tax

The law of the land is more often than not decades old. Many laws have been rewritten to accommodate the changing stride of the world like the laws pertaining to same sex marriage and individual privacy. One segment of laws that has not yet gotten a makeover is corporate taxation. From time immemorial, companies have been taxed based on their physical presence. In today’s globalized and digital world, that is an outdated concept.

Multinational corporations make a lot of money, a lot. A look at some of the revenue figures of top tech companies in 2020*:

• Amazon: $386 billion 
• Apple: $274 billion
• Facebook: $86 billion
• Google: $182 billion

Notwithstanding, they make use of an army of lawyers and ever present loopholes (call them provisions? Concessions?) in countries’ tax structures to take home as many dollars as possible, duly circumventing what is owed to the governments. Alas, we cannot blame the corporates entirely either, the demands of capitalism bear on their shoulders.

Controversy, off the coast of Kerala

When the East India Company started becoming more than just a trading company, the colonial overlords deemed themselves superior and felt it necessary to “uplift the backward”, although it is no secret who uplifted whom as we look back today.

While am sure the intensity and deviousness of the British colonial rulers is not what is being played out in the Lakshadweep, it is hard not to at least draw a parallel of the ill placed ideas driving these changes. The administration is defending all the changes being ushered in as those that will benefit the community, while the community itself, feels differently.

Rich get richer, Poor get poorer

 There is a popular dialogue from the Tamil movie Sivaji, starring Superstar Rajinikanth “Rich get richer, poor get poorer” {Thalaiva! 😎}. Without even drawing on the backdrop of black money that Rajini looks to portray through this dialogue, the line by itself cannot be more true.

Income inequality has been talked about for decades but the COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation much, much worse. White collared workers largely escaped the wrath of the lockdowns and restrictions which hit blue-collar workers manifold. Alas, if you earn your pay at the end of every day and you can’t show up, there is no pay to earn. Income is not unidimensional- it affects access to healthcare and formal education; things considered essential for societal wellbeing. Loss of income has a debilitating impact on lower income households, where there is barely any scope for savings that can be used to push through difficult times.

The Vaccine Conundrum

Just as a new COVID strain ravages Europe, the Indian drug regulator has approved two vaccine candidates for use in differing capacities. One is based on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute of India, called Covishield. The second vaccine, Covaxin has been developed by homegrown company Bharat Biotech in association with ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research).

The tortoise doesn't win here

We might have come across reports about 5G rollout in "developed" countries in recent times. Popular YouTubers have also given their takes on the mind blowing speeds (albeit limited coverage) on mobile data using 5G technology. Notably, Qualcomm, Nokia and Ericsson already have 5G equipment up and running in multiple parts of the world and leading consumer electronic companies like Apple, Samsung and OnePlus have launched mobile phones that support this advancement.

Telecom giants in India like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have also promised roll outs of the cutting edge technology in different phases in 2021. Now, in sharp contrast to these developments is the recent announcement from the state run telecom enterprise- BSNL.

The real deal

It has been over a couple hours since the sun set after beating down on the city’s hapless inhabitants, giving way to a cool breeze. A mélange of shops line the left side of the road, with neon lights and the hustle and bustle of an evening market. There is a brisk flow of hungry people walking into a brightly lit restaurant with an equal amount of people strolling out, their tummies full and hearts content. Just beyond the restaurant's parking space is a makeshift table covered with a blue tarpaulin sheet, on top of which sit a heap of jasmine buds and a sole short strand of flowers that have been deftly tied together with a wafer-thin string. Sitting behind the bench is a tired old lady with a crease on her brow, patiently looking at all the bikes whooshing by and the pedestrians zigzagging through the thoroughfare.

Look to the other side of the street and there is a bank that is winding down for the day; the staff pulling down the grey shutters, mentally getting ready to go back to their homes and families.

All the Light We Cannot See: A Glimpse

 No one envies a writer, or an orator for that matter, who has to deliver content that the audience don't relate to naturally. It is particularly onerous to convey anachronistic content. Would a Gen Z kid appreciate the momentous time the telephone was discovered? Probably not.

Anthony Doerr does this incredibly well. Born in the late 90's, it is hard for me to understand the humane aspects of war but the book, All the Light we Cannot See, brings to the fore multiple undercurrents that might otherwise be brushed over.

The Far-Reaching Dragon

Little history before we begin- the Sino-Indian War of 1962 started primarily on two counts: the border dispute and the alleged Indian role in weakening of Chinese dominance in Tibet. After about a month of fighting, then Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai declared a unilateral ceasefire which India decided not to upset.

Fast forwarding to June 2020, clashes erupted between the Chinese and Indian troops that media houses have dubbed as the deadliest in the region in decades. Efforts have been on to resolve the standoff at multiple levels between the armies, but with little to show.