Driving on Indian Roads

Browsing through some random Blogs I ran into this Blog by Adhiraj Joglekar. He has come up with a blog to educate at least the net browsing Indian population. Now this is something that I appreciate a lot.

Please Visit this blog and also try to follow some of it. Driving-India

Even before I had visited any foreign country I had seen better driving etiquettes in one area with in India. Early part of my life was in various Air-force stations. Inside the camps it was absolute order and outside I always noticed the conspicuous absence of traffic order. After traveling outside India I notice the sorry state of affairs in India even more (and the worse part is I enjoy it to some extend).

Terms like blind spot, defensive driving etc were an essential part of driving lessens that I got from my father. From him I heard how the driving instructors in Army/Air force stressed on driving etiquettes. And for sure educating the drivers and some strongly enforced rules can make even Indians drive sanely (Definitely proved inside the Air Force Camps). Probably that is what we need through out India. For sure it can make Indian road a slightly better and safer place for us.

Happy and safe driving to all

Achieving Childhood Dreams - Part 2

This is in continuation of this post. (Note: It is not mandatory to have read previous post to read this post).

After 9 years of aging was approximately the time I started having more serious dreams (Or rather started claiming that I have serious dreams). Looking back there are a few I did not achieve and a few I achieved and many that I may achieve in future. Few dreams that I failed to achieve made me achieve a few other dreams. But I would not be writing in detail about those here. Those are for my autobiography which I would write if I become famous and successful enough and feel that my story can motivate a few (and on a lighter note this is called positive attitude).

My problem with the dreams after 9 years is that I doubt its originality.

I never felt the need to think what I would do when I grow up. Some overzealous people did ask me what I would be when I grow up. It was probably this that got me thinking. At times on seeing the nice car the doctor had I wanted to be a doctor, seeing pilots fly I wanted to be a pilot, watching Sholay I want to be a thief like Amitabh Bachan. But all this asking had some effect on me by the time I reached high school. The constant questions on “Your Ambition/Dream” made me come up with some presentable dreams.
Now how much do I own these dreams? -- I am not sure.
The dreams are so gelled into my mind that I cannot differentiate the ones that are genuinely mine and the once that got in due to environmental factors.

Probably this is also true about great people like Professor Randy Pausch (Professor in Carnegie Mellon University) who talk about their childhood dreams and importance of achieving it (and empowering others to achieve it). Link here (Note: it is not mandatory to have seen this video to go ahead and reading this blog).

When we grow up and are successful and interested in telling out story to the world we have already forgotten a lot of our genuine dreams. What we remember are the dreams we had as a child which are at least remotely related to the field we got successful in. And then of course few others are just cooked up dreams. As a child we have so diverse set of dreams that often it is impossible to be truthful and claim that we have achieved all.
But yes we should agree it is important to talk about the dreams that we strove hard to achieve. Who knows we may be motivating another Sachin Tendulkar or Abdul Kalam.

Achieving Childhood Dreams - Part 1

Due to internet the world has become a highly interconnected place. One of the examples of this is the forwarded mails that we get. When ever there is some good forwarded mail doing its rounds in internet savvy generation of ours we get multiple copies of the same mail. I get a copy of the same mail from my family group, school friends group, college friends group, room-mates group and office group of friends.

Recently I was forwarded a speech by Professor Randy Pausch (Professor in Carnegie Mellon University). This was a nice one on achieving our childhood dreams and empowering others to achieve theirs.

Link here (Note it is not mandatory to have seen this video to go ahead and reading this blog)

This made me look back on my childhood dreams. The first confusion was what is defined as childhood dream. So I decided on below 18years. Now again I had to split this period to below 9 years and above 9 years. This post is about my dreams below 9 years of age
Below 9 years all my dreams were very small and genuinely mine. Some I still remember are
1. To get the window seat in train while going to Kerala for summer vacation.
2. To buy half kg jilebi and half kg chocolate and eat it.
3. To buy a piano and tape recorder with my first salary.
4. To read every issue of champak, chacha chaudhary and Tinkle.
5. To sleep till noon.
6. To watch all Mohanlal and Amitabh’s action movies.

I achieved the 1st one every train journey without fail. The 5th one I achieved first when I was in school hostel and then on multiple times and still do that once in a while. But it never gave me a sense on accomplishment; it feels just like another day.
2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th were the dreams that just got too old as I grew. All these were dreams that I no longer wanted to achieve when I was in a position to achieve them. As I grew up I lost my dominant love for sweet. Hot and sour food took over my dominant sweet tooth or at least matched up to it. By the time I reached high school I lost my interest in piano probably lost interest in learning or owning any musical instrument (Except for a brief time after watching Desperados when I wanted to learn Guitar). To read probably I did a lot but definitely by high school I was really intolerant to the kind of books I wanted to read before. The Sheldon, Archer, Blyton etc really caught on to me. On the 6th one, I started hating action movies. The Mohanlal or Amitabh kind of action movies were villains fly as the hero swings his hands were promoted to “pay me to watch” movies list. Movies with some good theme/story and comedy started to fill my favorite lists.

I believe Dreams too have a shelf life. It is not just important to have dreams but it is even more important to achieve those then and there. Probably everyone has some small dreams which they think they can achieve some other day. We always think “let this get completed then I will do that”, “Once I take care of things there I will do things here” etc. But when we are ready to achieve these small things we may no more want to do that small thing. As an example (although slightly unrelated), I have a lot of blogs noted down at different places as and when I feel. I always think I will post it once I have completed doing some other work and by the time I complete the work I would have lost the drive to complete and post what I had started.

Picture: from rediff movie review.

Back home

I am back in Bangalore after a longer than usual outside India travel. “Hell is full I am back” … I wish I had a t-shirt with this message, I could have worn that around (although the trip was good and I enjoyed a lot). Not much has changed anywhere. No one messed up with my office too. It looked the same as I had left it.

By around 6 pm jet lag was catching up with me. But some urgent work still kept me around till 8.30 pm. I ran to the bus yard to catch the 8.30 shuttle home. The first to start buses were already moving. Then I realized that I had forgotten something important in these three months period. The magic bus number N23, N6, N8, etc written on the busses no more made any sense to me. I was finding it difficult to find the bus route I needed. And the arrangement of busses had changed a lot since I last took 8.30 shuttles. Time was running out. The first two people I asked gave me the universal right answer - “Sorry, I don’t know.”
Now this sounded like trouble, the next shuttle was an hour away. Then looking around I saw her, one of those hard to forget beautiful nameless faces. It was the familiar face that reassured me every morning that I had not missed my office shuttle as I came running to my bus stop (Being late and running to catch the bus is of-course my idea of healthy living). Now things were easy I followed her into the bus. Took an empty seat, and put on my mobile’s ear phone and tuned into 104 FM. Everything went on smoothly till the bus took that unexpected turn. It was then that I realized that she has shifted her house. I stood up and shouted for an out of schedule stop. The driver murmured his disagreement and followed it up with a curse for all stupid engineers and stopped a few hundred meters ahead. That was his way of sweet revenge.

A lot has changed I thought as I got an autorickshaw back home.