Will we "walk the talk" ?

Mar 27th night 8:30 to 9:30 will be "Earth Hour". An hour to shutdown all lights, save energy and more importantly spread the awareness regarding conserving energy.

IPL 2010 is big on Green this year. Every player is wearing a green tag. And before every match they hand out a green tip (e.g. please walk or bi-cycle to work).

Now, I am waiting to see, if IPL Match at 8:00P on Mar 27th (KKR vs KXI) halts for 1 hr or not!!!

Will the preachers of green, also do green ????

Street "Activism" ..

This is Mar. In India, it means many things and one of the most important things among them is "end of financial year".

End of financial also means - "Harassment by traffic police on the road, desperately trying to meet some numbers for the FY and for themselves too in the process".

Me and bus load of my colleagues were going on a off day today to a near by resort. Right outside the city limits, a traffic cop stopped us. For no apparent reason. There is no light to cross there. Its a place where doing any mistake is challenging.

Of course the poor driver and the helper went down. There was a higher ranking officer inside the White Gov. SUV who did not even get down and show his face. One assistant was standing out who did the "stopping" and directing to the higher up. The higher officer, looked at the papers - at his own pace. 10 mins gone. Some more negotiations, 15 mins gone. No clarity on what he is looking for and when he would let the people inside the bus (which is rented) go.

I tried to get down to talk to him. But the bus assistant stopped - Once !

Then 2 more minutes later, I asked the entire team, 50 of them to just get down and start walking on the highway without arguing, telling anything with a smile as if we had always planned to get to our destination by foot. One after another all came down with their stuff and kept walking. Back in my head, I was sure the cop will let the bus go after seeing this as he would have a lot of confusion on what happening. Just as we finished 50 meters of walking, the bus was released :)  

Staying motivated through "Idle" period ..

This morning I woke up to sear horror ! My ToDo folder looked something like this.
Empty, blank and with a message which can be labeled as the worst news to neo-workaholics like me.
"No To Do" items.

I know it is temporary. Still its chilling experience. It is so much better when this list is full with a tiny scroll bar on the right side of it.

Obviously finding difficult to accept this. I am going to spend some time researching today, how do armies stay motivated when they do not have WARs for decades together !!!!

Inclusive India ??????

Shades of "Gender" has primarily been a "West" thing. Preaching tolerance to transgenders and advocating compassion to human beings which can not be defined as "male" or "female" has been mostly a "west" thing.

However, I ve never seen an official form in US where "Sex" has more values than M / F.

And today while filling up renewal form for Indian Passport I see this (image). There is a third value. "Others".

Pretty inclusive indeed !!!

Hype

This week one of the biggest networking companies made a pre-announcement that said "Launching something that is going to change the way internet works and will redefine the world of communication".

Then the announcement did come in - that of the Biggest, fattest networking device that can hold simultaneous video calls between 1.5 Billion people.

Path breaking indeed. But not in line with what was pre-announced. World was waiting for a NEW way of communication altogether. The world got a faster way. Not sure the world is ready of that speed though !

Sometimes, too much hype sets the expectations high and the real thing fails to rise to that !

On the other hand, when I do not get a WOW moment from a hype - there may be two reasons. First - it may be too simple and basic and non-innovative. Second - it is so profound that it is beyond my capability to appreciate.

Automation .. examples !

After a long long time I happened to visit the small, reputed Shiva temple on the hill, close to my native place, in the deep rural interior of Odisa.

Found one example of "age-old" automation and one example of a "new" one.

In one picture, you would see a (form) of a Drum and some bells that are normally played during the "aarti" are automated !

Inquisitive, I asked around why the drum and the bells were automated to play in unison using an Electric motor while the age-old manual system was in place and part of tradition ? The answer was very acceptable - One of the temple fraternities thought through this project completely during one lazy afternoon and when completely done, everybody loved it and kept it this way ! Reminds me Phunsuk Wangdoo !!! 

The second one is very age-old. Farmers take crops from the field (lentil) and dry it on the only tar road on the center of the village. The idea is when vehicles go over it, the lentil is separated from the hay, that they sweep and clean during the evening. And they do expected 5-6 vehicles an hour on that road. 

Over-designed for under-flexibility

This same bench in the local mall without the middle hand rests, could have happily accommodated the 2+2 middle class, mall going, Indian family. Alas, now it can not actually take any more than 3 .....