My Peppermints with fruit...

Rational Tragedy, Irrational Tragedy

2010-06-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

25 years in delivering "justice" and there still seems to be no respite for the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy.

In the aftermath of the ridiculously disproportionate judgment for the perpetrators of the tragedy a lot of issues have been flung into the open forum for discussion and debate. There is one particular point in question where the rational arguments made by our "beloved" men in charge (the bureaucrats and the politicians) have been put so elegantly that it almost seems right.

They talk about Dow chemicals (the company that acquired Union Carbide after the tragedy) as being not responsible for the chaos and the damage and hence not being liable.

This seems fair to most, but I TAKE VERY VERY STRONG EXCEPTION to this.

While I agree that there was no way for Dow chemicals to prevent the lapses that led to the disaster since they were not involved, when you take over a company you cannot simply take the good and let go of the bad. You cannot simply take all the assets and leave the liabilities for the govt to pay. That is WRONG. Morally ethically and even legally!!

When you think the company you are acquiring is profitable you also have to be responsible for all their commitments of that company like returning the land of the factory to its proper state (as mandated by the lease signed by union carbide).

I fail to understand the absolute ignorance on the part of the media to pin politicians like Kamal Nath and Abhishek Manu Singvi down on this. These guys seems to make nonsense sound rational. Why should the tax payer pay for the losses while Dow chemicals profits from the assets. The moral and criminal burden of the disaster and the lives lost will forever lie on the people running union carbide at the time and the regulatory authorities who failed and the legal and the financial responsibilities will fall on the current owners if it has already not been paid.

Dow chemicals like any profit seeking drone will push for policies and favours from the Govt, but "our" people in the govt need to safeguard our interests first and not suck up to the foreigners like they have been doing traditionally.

This is just one small piece of a whole lot of issues emerging out of this tragedy and the "justice" it has served up.

In the absence of any real justice I think the anger and the agitation against such injustice is the only respite. Lets not let go of this!

Gopal Balakrishnan

Music that moves - Part 1

2010-05-22T03:11:00.000-07:00

Wanted to write a separate post on each of these songs that moves me to a different plane. But that will take too long and the ode and my appreciation for these songs for helping me discover some of the different sides of me cannot wait.
2 songs per post
Please help me discover new music and songs that can be part of this series.

Music makes all the bad times easier and the good times better:) (cliche' but true)

High Hopes by Pink Floyd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqvcmud3LFQ

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times

These 4 lines and the crescendo of this song always take me higher, it gives true meaning to the words psychedelic rock!

Gravity by John mayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VBex8zbDRs

Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
...
Oh twice as much ain't twice as good
And can't sustain like a one half could
It's wanting more
That's gonna send me to my knees

The depth of meaning explained in such simple words that can be universally understood. And the feeling of blues and vibes that the music sets you up while the words catch up to sweep you off your feet makes this song a great one.

The inevitable first fall

2010-04-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

I have had my Esperanza (my Black Yamaha YZF R15 for the past 6 months now. In those 6 months I have witnessed many firsts,
1. Breaking a 140 kmph barrier solo
2. 120kmph barrier while riding with a co-passenger
and a lot of near misses.

I have missed being in an accident numerous times. Sometimes due to sheer dumb luck and sometimes due to some intelligent maneuvering. (Or so I have convinced myself :)

All this while I have been warned many times by my aunts, some close friends (AP and AB) and also by strangers about how dangerous bikes can be and why it need not be your fault that leads to your "fall"

If you own a bike is "the fall" inevitable? I kept pondering and every time a near miss happened to me I kept asking myself how could I have restricted the damage if this was indeed the fall. I had somewhere in my mind already resigned to the fact that the fall was inevitable and it’s just a question of minimizing your losses.

6 months down I was really wondering if I had indeed dodged the law of averages and was on the verge of achieving something remarkable.

My hopes and aspirations and my dreams of a victory speech were shattered last week when I did have my First fall. It wasn't quite how I had imagined it and to be honest I don't think any of you would have been able to either. Unless of course you live in a toon world.

My Esperanza and I were cruising along the road in Bangalore next to Star Bazaar (the tata equivalent of Food bazaar/big bazaar) and the roads were quite empty in the direction I was headed in. There were 4 bikes in close proximity to one another including mine. All of a sudden a hero aunty with 2 bags of groceries decided to just cross the road and believed that the world of automobiles would somehow conform to her Laws of motion.

I saw the first bike miss her with great skill on part of the rider (or maybe it was aunty controlling time and matter around her to make the bike miss her)

Aunty decided she had to teach the world of horrid bikers a lesson and then continued on her march across the road. Factoring in her walk across I too started drifting away from her. Just as I was about to pass her almost relieved that I had managed to miss her, I realized aunty had chosen me as the example for all bikers.

I felt a big whack on my helmet, temporarily blinded by a huge star bazaar sign; I lost my balance and fell to the ground. Aunty not caring for her valuable soaps and maggi noodles had hurled her shopping bag at me. How dare I miss her by only 6 feet! It was an invaluable lesson indeed.

After I rolled over a couple of times aunty walked over to me and said "Are you ok?, It’s not my fault it’s your fault, it’s not my fault it’s your fault, are you ok it’s your fault?"

Indeed aunty had taught me a lesson. I couldn't understand why people were reprimanding aunty for her acts when clearly "it was not her fault" she was only doing what any other superhero aunty would have done, selflessly sacrificing her soaps and creams to save me from myself.

It’s been a week after the fall and I am still recovering.

As the fall was happening all I could think of was "wow, how often does this happen to someone, and how awesome a story I now have"

In all fairness to aunty I don't think she intended to throw the bag at me, when the first bike passed her I think she panicked and her reaction was a little unorthodox but hey we have all done stupid things on the road and gotten away with it. I am sure aunty felt guilty about hurting me (after the crowd started weighing in on her)

The best part about the recovery has been the story behind the fall.
Even though the pain and the bruises are real, I would have rather had a first fall this way when the story is right out of a movie scene than if i received the same number of bruises and I simply slipped on the road with an oil slick (all considering that the first fall is inevitable)

That’s the story of my first fall and now I can cross one more thing off my list. (to be de-biked by a superwoman) :)

Gopal Balakrishnan

To the paradise city...

2010-01-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

Not preachy, not contrite, not unhappy, no one to lead, no one to follow, is a world without achievements and desires the ultimate paradise? Often wondered if a world filled only with happiness would be a grand outcome and the purpose of civilized society. But the argument that ensues is that without pain without the downs in life the ups mean nothing. The argument become even more vehement and forceful when we are talking about God as the creator of an imperfect world and imperfect creations.

Well, we are so worried that we wont be able to enjoy the pleasures if we didn't have pain that we want to hold on to our pain and misery.

It is pointless to think of things that could have happened and changed the course of history. simply because the causes of that change or turning point would ensure that the entire situation is completely different.

If most of us understand this then why do we not consider that if indeed we had a pain free world we would have other forms of other means of contrasting our lives, why must the canvas of our lives only be painted with shades of joy and pain? Why cant we have something absolutely different? We could have fun and more fun. And why have a contrast at all.

Hope and Vengence

2008-11-30T12:56:00.000-08:00

We hoped for freedom for too long
then we hoped for a government for too long
we hoped for food clothing and shelter
we hoped for peace in the valley
we hope we never have to hope for anything again

and even now we hope,
we hope for VENDETTA!!

But i hope that this is one hope that is not misplaced. For there is no greater loss than the loss of innocence. When the innocent are engulfed in the flames within the world burns.

Its not the time to loose ourselves to the anger or the disgust or the apathy of those who think they rule us.

Lets use this to rise above. Vengence is sweet but not enough.

In mankind i trust!

Gopal Balakrishnan

To Budget: Another opportunity Lost

2008-10-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

By definition a Budget means “a summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them” someone please let our Government know this
Budget means the same or similar things to most people; just the treatment rendered is somewhat different. Well to our government it has to mean something totally different.

It’s not a limit on spending, it’s not control, it is in fact how the treasure chest can be plundered.
Think about it

Why are so many government services inefficient and their private counterparts doing so very well, take mtnl for example, the telecom boom has had virtually no effect on productivity or quality, in fact the incumbent in such a huge market has done nothing while the competition has gobbled up so much of the market. Why??

Well the budget has a lot to do with this inefficiency. A private enterprise is rewarded for saving money while a government enterprise if efficient and saves some money then it’s penalized by getting allotted a lot less money the next time. It’s the sheer mentality of people who don’t understand economics and people who think they understand people trying to make economically viable solutions for “the people”
Let us just make sense of one fascinating aspect of this budget. The Rs. 60,000 Crore farm loan waiver. Here is where bad governance takes the shape of populism and ends up hurting everyone and helping the incumbent government in the near term. I often thought to myself “what’s wrong with populism”; I mean the government is supposed to think of the public good that’s why they have been elected. The answer is there is nothing wrong with populism its bad economics along with cunning and wrong use of position that I have a problem with, and this government seems to have done both with “the waiver.”

With growth rates of the country tending towards a decline on the back of a US recession, foreign investors and the industry in India needed some confidence in the capital market system of the country. The waiver which flouts the banking regulations and asks the banks to give a ‘no dues certificate’ even without reimbursing the waived amount the banks. This just sucks out liquidity from the system. To cut it short, the govt says it will clear 60,000 crore worth of bad debt from the banks books and that this is good for the banks, but here’s the catch
They will only provide 10,000 crore this year as for the remaining they claim to clear that in the coming 4 years (giving the burden of the majority of the weight of the waiver to a possible “incompetent” NDA government). In the mean time the banks have no money to show for the ‘no dues certificates’ they have issued. This pushes the country’s organized banking system to a big slow down a 50,000 crore slow down.

There are other problems with the waiver too

• It sets a bad precedent. What about farmers who have paid their debt by selling
their belongings or land or both?

• What about the farmers in the Vidarbha and Telengana region who all have land holdings greater than the lower limit 4 acres set by the FM?

The worst thing about this waiver is that it still offers no solution to the farming community. The solution to the problems of the farming community is that it’s not productive or profitable for most. The reasons are clear ever since 5th standard for me and most other paanchvi pass students. The vagaries of the monsoon determine almost completely how the year is going to be. Good rainfall = excellent harvest and the family is happy for one year and too much or too little rainfall implies debt burden increasing.

The solution has to be irrigation development. Israel which is war torn and has virtually no big source of non brackish water. It requires 1.2 billion cu metres of water annually of which a staggering 900 million is portable. Imagine if that were true in India, 75% water requirement is portable, every farmer will be able to come out of the death trap and lead a sustainable life.
Drip irrigation has helped Israel export water intensive citrus fruits as well. The catch with irrigating Vidarbha and Telengana is not the cost involved because it is much less than 60,000 crore. It is purely a matter of political will. Drip irrigation for the entire Vidarbha and Telengana region together will ensure water usage up to 95% and increase productivity by 75%. Its initial setup cost would be close to 15000 crores.

India is still not a consumer driven economy, it’s driven predominantly by government spending. This is the opportunity for the govt to spend on infrastructure and pick up stake in the growth it promises. There are a lot of opportunities of public private partnerships in the waiting. If only the Government can ‘budget’ for the losses if these opportunities are lost.
Kya humari government paanchi pass se tez hai??

(wrote this for the college IEEE magazine immediately after the budget. found it now, and thot it'll make a good read.)

Hockey Still Our National Game

2008-03-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Who says hockey is not played anymore with the same passion and doesn't deserve to be our national game?
India always wins because hockey is part and parcel of life as this ad beautifully shows...

Good Job Times of India :)

Un GODly...

2008-01-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

(Dont worry about me, God and I have a set of rules we play by and this doesn't violate them)

Been pondering on this in my alone time, and avoiding my views to surface completely in public for lack of insight..then I came across something i wrote from the bottom of my heart and now its as clear as mud...

UNGODLY!!
Can't believe there can be a Supreme body out there that has a conscience which wants us to be afraid, which want us to praise it, and this is what i ask
why hasn't "God" made perfect people? wouldn't be much fun then would we,
so its all for HIS fun that we are here? for the first time I think I am, if at all HE exists, I really am afraid of HIM and I don't like the feeling, I'd much rather he doesn't exist for I think he actually doesn't otherwise what he is doing is kind of weird and unGODly if you may, but then again what do I know...

experts and their expertise

2007-10-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less till he knows everthing about nothing.

Experts remove the holistic approach to any topic and view it as a control in an experiment rather than a situation which has to be dealt with..

its in the best interest of the expert to keep you in darkness...its a place that we've got to as a civilization when we need to be dogmatic to be heard and heralded as leaders/experts . The experts/leaders whose thoughts move to accommodate more opinions and views are not considered powerful or followable...in the words of the brilliant economist or should I say freakonomist Steven Levitt

"The typical expert...is prone to sound exceedingly sure of himself. An expert doesn’t so much argue the various sides of an issue.... That’s because an expert whose argument reeks of restraint or nuance often doesn’t get much attention. An expert must be bold if he hopes to alchemize his homespun theory into conventional wisdom."

And the above is what we want our experts to be....

In the end all I can say is...with the current expectation of experts that we have now...

Experts, we can't live with them we can't live without...oh wait a minute, we CAN live without them :)

Image source: www.doglegs.net

The Sweetest thing!!

2007-09-27T06:28:00.000-07:00

a beautiful beautiful song....Sweetest Thing By Bono and the video is also kind of funny.
The word just are absolutely to the highest degree of superlativeness amazing.

Expresses the feelings of a romantic who is absolutely confident on everything else but just can't seem to understand and give his love all that she needs...In a valiant attempt he writes this song and the words are just beautiful...

"(My) Baby`s got blue skies up ahead
But in this I'm a rain cloud
You know she wants a dry kind of love"

(I'm almost exactly what she doesn't need right now)

"I know I got black eyes
But they burn so brightly for her
Guess it's a blind kind of love"

If only she could see how much she means to me...but its a blind kind of love

"Baby's got blue skies up ahead
But in this I'm a rain cloud
Ours is a stormy kind of love"

And though I'm not what she needs now and tho she cant see what she means to me we'll make it work and its our special kind of live and love:)

(After thought: a rather mushy one..but worth it)

The video

Revolutions for change!!

2007-09-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Revolution...Change...Radical...
There is almost a undeniable and irresistible character that these words have. They seem to possess me even before the thoughts are crystallized. There are just too many things that are wrong...Justice as blind as it is supposed to be does nothing but turn a blind eye and the anger and the discontent grows. There are just too many things to change and Revolution it seems is inevitable. On the verge of this impending revolution (even if its a revolution of ideas) I'm reminded of these words which should make people think before moving ahead....

"They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day. Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying or crippled for life or dead under the rubble of the revolution.." as spoken by Bono during a live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday
Words to remind us that passion and aggression must back revolutions that change without destruction...Destruction and a new beginning is something we have tried over and over again and it always fails. We need to adopt a policy of change. Its possible and it shall be done.

A Revolution for change...the word revolution inspires passion and a promise of a land free of the dogmas of the present. A revolutionary's role doesn't end with the end of the wrong and the unjust. The dawn of a new age with new ideas and mechanism for change is the culmination of a revolution otherwise like most if not all revolutions of the past we shall remain unsuccessful.

As adrenalizing as a revolution may seem the ultimate aim of the revolution should be to ensure no further need of a revolution..

Its just a matter of time...The intellectual revolution is inevitable and the will to change will bring it to effect..

Image Source: www1.istockphoto.com

night and day

2007-08-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

Going through some of the stuff that I had written and saved up for nostalgia sessions. Somethings hurt no matter how hard you try to forget...

Chanced upon a night one day
listened very carefully to what the silence would say
with devilish intent I saw that blinding light
My guardian angel, there she was, in my sight

Now shes gone, in forsaken thought
I have myself a question bought
Sins in heaven are to break
though in spirit my soul it aches

Knocking doors and ringing bells,
Walking away with my sins to hell,
I questioned HIM if prayers would say
what is it that made me pay???

The title

2007-08-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

My peppermints with fruit...I didn't expect this one to go unnoticed but somehow it has. I somewhat believe that the truth need not be bitter and the correct path need not be the most difficult one.

Gandhiji was a great man, now whether you believe that or you don't you must agree that the title of his autobiography was pretty good...and it was indeed "My Experiments with Truth" This blog was, and in the future is supposed to contain what I perceive to be the truth, but the truth can be tricky and ambiguous.

and now I hope the title of my blog makes a little more sense, for the truth can be nothing more than "My peppermints with fruit"

Welcome to The Human Network..

2007-07-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Cisco Systems Inc.,

We're way more powerful together than we ever will be apart...

A badly drawn boy gets a taste of the human network...
This is just a beginning...the beginning...

Living excuses...

2007-07-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

When you start seeing too many things around you that have contributed to your success or failure, when you know you've been repeating yourself for too long now, when all you can think of is trying not to think of the things that made you start thinking in the first place...When nothing is going the way it should even God is only an excuse...

There are reasons why you exist, there are excuses why you don't..

You stop existing when your reasoning is replaced by your excuses.
And the funny thing is reasoning is an excuse to be right...

image source: http://www.beatcanvas.com/

Out of....

2007-06-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

Something I had penned down a long time ago..thought it still makes sense

Out of Control
Out of Bounds
Out of Luck
Out of Riches
Out of hope??.....not yet

out of money
out of chicks
out of friends
out of things
out of faith??...not yet

out of a family
out of a home
out of a community
out of better things
out of life??...not yet

out of sorrow
out of pain
out of jealousy
out of anger
out of misery??.. just not yet

if I'm
out of desire??
out of belief??
out of love??
out of
simply put me out...

It is!!!!.......isnt it? yup its time

2007-02-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Time...a very real concept and a concept which shapes almost* everything in the world that we know, and yet we know so little about time itself**

It seems to be an abstract and intangible thing inasmuch as we can't touch it or sense it in any physical form though we do feel its effects.

Imagine having a person know everything that you do, number of breaths you take and who sometimes follows you and sometimes already knows what you are about to do and does it for you (sometimes successfully and at other times not so much).

This someone is TIME.

Now imagine this person to be your enemy...A scary thought because there is no way that you can get back at him^^ but we somehow seem to live with it.
Now imagine this person as your well wisher....Think of the possibilities..

I am have a lot of thinking to do before I befriend time

* I say almost because we don't know what we know

** well isn't that ironical

^^and we all know the best thing about having an enemy doing wrong to you is REVENGE

Deceptive Lies?

2006-06-02T03:58:00.000-07:00

We've all heard about the truth being deceptive...what about lies that are deceptive, no one cares or thinks about them because lies are meant to be deceptive...
Most lies, however, are quashed before they reach their adolescence...some lies live to a ripe old age...and then there are lies which are as immortal as time itself...
Does the age of a person decide how good bad or evil he is?
Does the age of a lie decide how bad it is or does each lie come with an inherent stamp of its viciousness? Are there time variant and time invariant lies?
Well some lies cause much damage not because because they are age old but because we are human...and if we weren’t human would we lie? Has God lied to us?
Well all I can say is that no matter how old bold or stupid lies are they are as much human as u and I so lets not shun lies as if they are not a part of human nature, instead lets ask the government to set up a commission on lies...(please refer below for commission)

Cheerz
And enjoi

Cost of Commission

2006-06-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

Commission is the best way to silence the public, or to get rid of any topic without ever having to discuss it:), or destroy it, annihilate it..etc etc NOT because having a commission is bad but because its your constitutional right not to heed the recommendations of the commission...

So by setting up a commission we are basically giving the topic a voice which shall never be heard
And some food for thought
Government has a "Knowledge Commission"
Government has a "Planning Commission"

CHEERz:)
And Enjoi

More Equal??

2006-05-29T06:12:00.001-07:00

Undying Belief in the non existent, and unquenched desire to ignore the fact that some people r definitely more equal than others...but the good news is its not a vicious circle and thats what my temporary goal is...to prove that this pyramid of "equals' cannot hold everyone back...and its still possible to have a circle of equality...

Do the evolution

2006-05-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

Politicians---money---corruption---absolute power---votes----vote bank----reservation----not economy based---no guidelines----death of merit----power to the 'weak' yet powerful----those in need still poor---those who cud have done without now no more indians----india 2020??---100% reservation then---no protests---all poor dead---all meritorius left---a country of politicians---u do the math---do the evolution...

not enough time for a complete picture with exams etc...but u get the picture...