Turbulent Tuesday : Capsule version

Mumbai was experiencing an unusually dry period during its monsoon season, it seemed as if the rain gods were somewhat angry with Mumbaikars. But on 26/7 the adage ‘it never rains, it pours’ was once again proved true at Mumbai. Mumbaikars witnessed a record rainfall of 99cms, which is the highest downpour over the past 100 years. The drains in ‘city of dreams’ was unable to soak the amount of H2O which had rained on the fateful day.

The rains played havoc with transportation network of the city, Mumbai’s lifeline is its local railway network. The railways service was indefinitely suspended and millions of commuters were stranded in the island city. 60% of city’s taxis and a number of cars, buses had broken down, and most of them were abandoned in the middle of the roads which added to the mayhem. Water-logging and breakdown of vehicles resulted in a grid-lock situation and the city which is known to be on the move was deprived of its speed. All the cell phone networks were choked (with water !!) and ATMs were not working as well. People were on the roads for more than 24 hours, some without food or water, completely drenched in water.

But then remarkable aspect of the city and more importantly its citizens is its ability to counter adversity. That day I had witnessed the indomitable spirit of Mumbai, although stress and anxiety could be seen on their faces it did not loose its composure, it never pressed the ‘panic button’. Mumbaikars were going out of the way to help others, I was really moved when I saw a 70-year old man distributing water to the public and then providing guidance to people who were stuck in the grid-lock. Some were offering biscuits, food, water and helpful guidance to the stranded commuters, in fact such people had turned out in numbers. I cannot imagine if such a thing can happen in any other city of India. The reason for this behavior is both the geography as well as most residents at Mumbai are migrants from other parts of the country who share a common aspiration. A typical Mumbaikar is ambitious and bonds develop between strangers either in the compartments of trains or outside as most of them face similar problems and share common goals. This is the true colour of Mumbai which was highlighted on the Turbulent Tuesday.

As a result of the rains there were four water bodies which had formed between my workplace and home. I had named them as [Daddar water-body = Arabian Sea], [King Circle water body = Atlantic Ocean], [Chunnabhatti water body = Pacific Ocean] and [Chembur water body = Indian Ocean]. (Please the nomenclature has been made after careful assessment of the size and magnitude of such water bodies). It took 24hours for my voyage from the 20th floor office at Cuffe Parade to my sweet home at Vashi, whereas on a normal day I cover the same distance in 1.5hours.

It was an experience of a lifetime and I learnt a lot during this journey. I saw hope in everyone’s eye when I entered VT station, this hope was fatigued out to anxiety which transformed into agitation and protest. But at no point of time did Mumbaikars loose hope, I could see millions of people walking down their way to reach home and it was hope which was their driver, fuel and engine. I even saw some kids playing water-polo in the ocean, which was something they always missed during a routine day, it was amazing to see some people enjoying even at such hour of natural calamity. I witnessed the true Mumbai attitude of ‘never-say-die’, they were always bubbling and buzzing with activity, trying to help the commuters with whatever was possible for them.

I learnt that money cant buy everything (for anything else you have MasterCard), in such circumstances it does not matter how rich or how much money you have, as all are equal and everyone from the blue-collar employee of an MNC to a clerk at government department was walking down the streets at the same pace. It made me realize that patience is a great virtue and when something is inevitable enjoy it.

As I reached home I switched on my television set to follow the developments of the flood situation in the city. But I must admit what I saw over television was completely different picture from what I had experienced on the ground. All of the channels (expect one) were critical about the failure of the system to face such a situation. They were trying to sensationalize the news and some of the reporters also tried to victimize and single-out innocent workers. I must admit I saw a normal worker/citizen was extremely helpful, there may have been a lack of communication from system. What right does the television media have to criticize and victimize people, when it was not doing its own role of reporting facts and provide objective analysis properly. Moreover, in such hour of need they were trying to play for ratings which was really sickening. On the contrary the FM radio channels were extremely honest in their reporting of facts. They were providing insightful information about traffic situation and water levels in different parts of the city. They had also tried to bridge the communication gap between the people, who could not contact their relatives and loved ones. I think television media which has a much better coverage should be more responsible in its reporting of news and should provide due credit to heroes who deserved it . It should be more pragmatic in its approach and should portray both sides of picture, rather than always blaming it to the system. (I was wondering if the quote of JFK holds good for Indians and India "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country").


Current Mood : Damp
Current Music : ‘Lagi aaj sawan mein phir who ghadi hai’

I encourage readers to read the graphic version of my experience of the Turbulent Tuesday here.

Aski “De Damp” “De Casta”

Turbulent Tuesday : My Graphic Experience

My friends started pouring me with calls at about 4:15 pm informing that it has been raining heavily and Harbour line (one of the three lifelines of Mumbai on which I travel) trains have been suspended since 3:30 pm. Incidentally, my parents had planned their return trip the same day, and I had planned to start by about 5:45pm from my office at Cuffe Parade to reach Lokmanya Tilak Terminus reach by 7:00pm well in time for the train. But then rain gods had chalked a different course for my return back to home.

To rub salt to most of my colleagues our employer had put a group memo informing that there has been heavy rains and in view of this all employees can leave office by 5:15 pm (as against 5:45 pm, while most employers at Mumbai had advised their employees to leave by 3:30 pm). As a sincere employee following my employers advise and as per my original plan I started from my office at 5:15 pm. There were heavy showers welcoming me outside my twentieth floor office and all taxis refused to take me to VT, so I decided to take a bus, but then I got a pooled taxi for VT. Soon, we had realized that there was great traffic jam at VT and Churchgate (the hub railway stations for central and western railways respectively) stations and my taxi mates soon ditched me halfway to VT to walk it down to VT and our taxi guy got four more guys to take them to Borivali. So I decided to walk it down to VT, storming my way through the heavy downpour I reached VT.

On my way to VT, I was trying to imagine VT on the eventful day, to my surprise I saw some of the amazing scenes as I landed up at there. There was total chaos, all trains were suspended, the platforms were flooded with people along with some water as well. I could see the anxiety and desperation on the face of Mumbaikars, everyone was panicky which further added to the chaos. The sales of the teashops and chip-stores hit an all time high, it was big business for the taxi guys as well. Such people were trying to increase their personal wealth at the expense of the common man’s helplessness, economist may term this phenomena as “rent-seeking behavior”. However, when a buyer is willing to pay a higher price (than otherwise under normal conditions) for goods/services rendered to him/her, and as long as such a behavior is acceptable to both the buyers and sellers then such a deal should be okay with the market/society. Interestingly, it also shows that money cannot buy everything (for anything else you have Mastercard, what say!) and it should be the only driver in an individual’s life.

Moving on with my journey back home, as trains were suspended I decided to hang on at VT so that I could catch the first train back to see off my parents. I was expecting a delay of about two to three hours, but then I could never have imagined what happened eventually. I got a comfortable seat in the first class compartment I managed to a few hours of sleep in the train. I could feel the frustration building up in the people as there was a lack of communication from the railway authorities. This frustration was transformed into agitation and people were demonstrating in front station master’s office and police was trying to disburse the crowd, while some of the people were blowing horns of the trains to mark their protest. An expression of exhaustion was added to the people’s face as time passed through and everyone was eagerly looking at the indicator to show some signs of activity.

My latest gizmo (interested readers can read about my gizmo here) was my soul companion and was serving me well in this hour of need, the FM channels were serving generous doses of traffic updates and the expected time of resumption of railway services was quite handy. By now I had developed verbal communication channel with my co-travelers in the compartment and I even had a short debate with co-traveler who was critical on the railways about its efforts to restore railway service, which I refuted adamantly. In the meanwhile there was an announcement that trains may start after 10:00 pm and hopes of people were raised only to shatter it sometime later. I was running short of cash, so tried to withdraw money from the ATM but without any success as people had already withdrawn all the available cash in the ATMs (infact I realized later that all ATM networks were down). The cell phone networks were jammed till now as everyone was trying to call their near-ones to give their whereabouts and well being. To my surprise my service provider’s network was working well and I was able to receive and dial calls to convey my well being to my parents who now had decided to stay on at Mumbai.

There was hope among my co-travelers that the train would resume service by 4:00 am (of next day morning), but the clock was indicating 5:30 am and there was no signs of activity. My co-travelers were losing hope and they were discussing the possibility of taking a taxi to Vashi. Finally, four of us decided to take a taxi but then getting a taxi in this rains was also a tough ask. I was not too convinced about the idea of taking a taxi but then I went with the momentum of my co-travelers. There was a huge crowd outside at Times of India building to ‘grab’ a bus/taxi. Finally after half an hour (at 5:30 am) of struggle in the rains we got into a taxi, and zoomed through the abandoned streets of Mumbai.

Till now I was unable to gauge the gravity of the situation, but while we were on our way I could see some amazing scences on the road which made me realize that the road ahead was not going to be easy. There was knee-deep water at Matunga circle there were many cars stuck in the pond however our taxi driver drove astutely and we managed to cross the pond. There were cars, taxi, buses and two-wheelers lying in the middle of the street, which added to the road block. This was an indicator of the havoc which rains had ruled the previous night, there were broken trees on the roads. I now figured out why it was such a difficult task to get a taxi and that how lucky we were (my estimate was about 60% of the taxis were grounded on the roads and the balance were stuck in the traffic jam). In a record time of 30 minutes we reached Sion circle which made added excitement in the atmosphere and there was a talk about reaching Vashi in another hour or so, but then I was still in disbelief. After witnessing the carnage at Dadar and Matunga I could not subscribe to the ‘popular perception’ of reaching home early but was hoping that I would be proven wrong.

After reaching Sion circle all our joy had died very soon as we had crawled about 100m in the last one hour, it was now 9:00 am. Suddenly the taxi’s engine died and the driver tried hard to start it but without any success, I even pushed the taxi in the rains hoping that it would restart. We paid off the taxi and then started walking towards out home we were asking all taxi drivers on the way if they would drop us but then no-one was willing to drop us. We had only covered 200m and a great pond greeted us, the water was neck-deep and there were kids playing water polo and there were some people who were trying to cross the great ‘Atlantic Ocean’ of Mumbai. I was in no mood to get wet in this season and decided to wait in a BEST bus which was destined for Deonar which was on my way to Vashi. We got a comfortable seat in the bus and to our surprise the bus embarked on its expedition across the ‘Atlantic’, its engine was on full throttle and it was creating waves in the ‘Atlantic’, water entered the bus and reached the engine as well but then we managed to cross. I could see the fumes coming out of the engine but I must congratulate the designers of the engine who made it possible for us to cross the great ocean. Everyone in the bus and outside we cheering the driver in this great ride, I have doubts whether Schumacher could such pyrotechnics.

After this ride my hopes were on an all-time high, and I was thinking that now I could reach home by 12:00 pm, but then we had drove into a grid-lock and for the next three hours we would move 50m. It was 10:00 am now and I was hungry and thirsty, there was no toilet around so the situation was quite ‘desperate’. The rains had subsided and the only things which were moving were humans who relied on their foot, I of course did not have much faith on mine, so I was waiting in the bus. In order to diffuse my anxiety and tension I switched on my gizmo which gave me periodic updates on the situation as well as some ‘dhinchak’ remixes. I waited and waited, I even had a short naps, there was tea, biscuits and water served to us. People were volunteering to break the grid-lock of traffic. Some were offering guidance to people to find their way, while others gave their mobile phones so that people can convey their status to their relatives.

By now my cell phone was running out of battery and my co-travelers their patience. At 2:30pm they decided it was time to move on foot as the jam showed no signs of movement. I was quite reluctant to leave the bus, but then obliged to the other three. As soon I stepped out of the bus I lost track of my co-travelers I tried to find them but then they had disappeared suddenly in the sea. I decided to cover the rest of the journey on my own, walked about 2kms from Sion hospital to Chunnabhatti flyover and was greeted by several volunteers on the way who were offering water, bananas, food, help and guidance to the people trapped in the jam.

I thought that I had crossed the ‘Atlantic’ and there was no other ocean to be crossed I was mistaken I saw the ‘Pacific’ at Chunnabhatti although the depth of the water was same it was 5 times the length of ‘Atlantic’. I stood at the shores of the ‘Pacific’ devising strategies for crossing the ‘Pacific’ and finally after half an hour of vigorous debate I decided not to get myself wet. I was looking for a truck or bus to help me cross it but there were equally intelligent people like me, who were quicker and more aggressive in their approach. After missing two trucks and one bus I managed to board a truck filled with potatoes to cross the largest ocean of Mumbai. The truck was then packed with people who were equally intelligent but less aggressive in their approach than me. The ‘Pacific’ looked awesome although its grandeur was reduced over the period of last eight hours with water draining into Arabian Sea but still it managed to divide the city into two halves. With some fight I managed to deport from the truck and almost lost my spects on the way.

I walked towards Suman Nagar signal at Chembur and saw there was still ‘Indian Ocean’ to be crossed this time I was not too lucky to get a lift easily I had to wait for another hour to get a lift from BEST bus again to cross the ‘Indian Ocean’ which was of course not as ominous as ‘Pacific’ and ‘Atlantic’. After my voyage across all the three oceans of Mumbai I again started to walk towards my destination, it was 3:30pm now. I managed again to get an autoricksaw till Mankhurd (which was about 5kms from Vashi) who charged me a whopping Rs.100 for a ride of 5kms, but I was happy to give that 100 bucks. After this I again got a lift from a bike to finally reach Vashi at 4:15pm. I went straight to Center One and got myself three pair of socks as all my socks were wet, then tried to withdraw cash from ATM, I tried five different banks but was unsuccessful in all such attempts. Reached home at 5:15 after an adventure across three oceans and one pond over a distance of 35kms exactly 24 hours after I started from my office. On a normal Mumbai day this one-way journey takes me about 1.5 hours but then this voyage made me realize a lot of things which I could not have on any other day.

Current Mood : Wet

Current Music : "Abke Sawan Aise Barse"

Aski "De Wet" "De Casta"

Success

Success can be defined by purists as attainment of a stated and desired set of objectives within a given resource constraint. As defined hereinabove there are two distinct aspects in achieving success one is clarity in statement of objectives and the next is the process through which such stated objectives can be achieved, of course with the universal underlying assumption of resources are always a scarce commodity.

Sometime back I was wondering what is the chemical and psychological composition of success. Is success a transformation which changes an individual's outlook towards life, some people believe that nothing tastes better than success. It makes an individual feel more confident about his/her abilities. Success should be celebrated big time, as you never know how many failures you may face in your future path. But I was wondering is success like a trigger which makes one aware of one's own ability. It is like one always had those skills but then it needed a trigger to make him/her believe that it exists. This phenomena is observed often with people who are not confident of their abilities and need external support to realize their inherent potential.

If there is some amount of truth in above paragraph then success can be a dope for all diseases. It would be a panacea, seems logical right, but hang on! If this was the truth then why cant one success cure all the maladies in a person's life, have you ever wondered about this. So you need more and more of success in your life, greed for more success (incidentally Greed is considered a sin) in order to constantly cure one's ills. Hence, Success is not a panacea but a "crocin" for limited relief, it is definitely not a cure. So why is it valued so much in any person's life? why do people keep chasing success all their life. I believe it is quite human to run after mirages (read success and/or results and/or products) which of course don't exist. It is like humans running a race to be winners but then in race there is no winner but then there are lots of losers (interested readers can read similar analogy in my blog on Mumbai here). So success is a myth, it only boosts one's ego temporarily but then one comes back to the original state subsequently. How about failure, will the same analogy work for failure as well, NO it does not. Failure can break you any day and is a truth and reality. I don’t think there is any argument about this.


Current Music : None
Current Mood : Sedate

Aski "De Failure" "De Casta"

Some of the ideas have due reference to my friends philosophy about process and product (interested readers can read his view here), I completely subscribe to such views.

Have I changed ?

Over the past few months, I have observed that more and more people have been commenting about me that I have become a "crack", "nerd" and/or "insane". Of course, I do not subscribe to such views and moreover on the contrary I feel it is the other way round about such "commentators". But then if you are a geek and a number cruncher (which incidentally is my profession) and you tend to believe in pure statistics then there must be some "iota of truth" in such statements. One great statisticians once said "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!", I am forced to believe this great statistician (the great statistician was called B. Disareli).

However, professionally I have firm belief in statistics so I think there is a "mild" (could be an understatement by some standards) change in my behavioral pattern. I certainly believe that this change is more towards developing my thought process and has helped me mature as a person as well as a professional. I have been doing thinking over the past few months, I been trying to assign reasons to actions taken by persons and society, I am also trying to find patterns in such behavior. I am also trying to understand human psychology and as a logical next step to be able to predict their future actions to given circumstances.

It is certainly not the "commentators" fault when they make such statements about me, I can understand their ignorance about me as a person. Although there is change but not many people in this world know me well as a person to observe this change. The obvious reason for this is I am an introvert and don't generally open up with "public" at large. Moreover, for some people who "think" they know me better than "public", I have changed since my school and college days when people used to imitate me for my laziness, not I am quite active and was considered workaholic by people. In fact I walk faster than the Mumbai crowd swerving my way through the crowded VT station.

In terms of physical appearance also I have changed since my schooldays, I put on a scholarly spects, I dress up more formally for work. I still remember my college days when I used to wear the same old T-shirt, Jeans and bathroom slippers to classes, that also has undergone a transformation. I have put one picture (here) of my schooldays and another (here) one taken recently for readers to appreciate the change in my physical appearance. In terms of putting on weight I certainly have been unsuccessful in this respect (I am 54kgs by weight, which is "under-weight" by fitness standards of my height), of course my height has increased since the day I was born (in fact change is about 145 cms, assuming I was 75 cms at birth). But of course not many people comment about me in terms of physical appearance, so I think this could be irrelevant to the present discussion, but for the sake of completeness of the discussion it finds a reference in this post here (!!).

I think it is human to resist change, it is our inherent inertia of seeing things the same old way which our eyes have been trained and accustomed to. But I believe to constantly keep innovating is the way to improve and this belief in me has evolved over the period of last few months. I have realized to enjoy life one needs to keep learning new skills, keep improving on your faults and weaknesses, for which one needs to realize your weaknesses in the first place. I have been doing all this to understand human and society behavior so that I can understand what my weaknesses are and what I need to do to improve upon them. This aspect of mine which has developed recently has been perceived by others as "profound" and which leads them to think that I have traits of an "insane" person, but I belief it will help me develop my thought and intellectual process and eventually make me a better human being.

Some intellectual said "Change is the essence of life", I have realized the importance of these words and am trying to implement it in my life. Those "Commentators" who do not understand the power and importance of these words would have such opinion about me, but then for others it would mean a process of self evolution. I leave the reader to judge me on their frame of reference (interested readers can read my blog on morality here in order to understand what I mean by frame of reference).

Aski "De Evolutionary" "De Casta"

Living on the edge

As a child I remember there was a not so popular (cause I never understood it) weekly science documentary on Dordarshan called ‘Living on the edge’. I still cant figure out why the documentary was titled so, anyways my understanding of the documentary as well as english language per se was and still is, quite limited.

A lot of people like to lead their lives on the edge. I think once a person gets addicted to living life in this fashion it is difficult to change and it becomes addictive. I never thought that it can be pulling and one can enjoy it. I had always believed in the good old tortoise adage of ‘slow and steady wins the race’, but there are underlying assumptions in this logic. The logic is that it is only the ‘product’ and not the ‘process’ which matters in the long run. I think both the ‘product’ as well as ‘process’ are equally important. There is a lot of fun in the process of achievement of result which can sometimes be greater than or equal to the joy of actual achievement of success. So the tortoise fable may not be that completely true under such circumstances.

I believe life is a long journey where the actual achievement of results is towards the end of this journey, in such circumstances most of our life we are in the process of achievement of success or rather chasing a mirage. So it becomes more important for an individual to enjoy this chase. I am in no way undermining the importance of achievement of results, rather I am only emphasizing the fact that the run of life is equally important and that the faster you in the race the more enjoyable it can get. Hence people who have realized this fact tend to run as fast as they can.

Speed has always fascinated humans, but then as one of the ads mentions “Speed thrills but then it kills as well”. It is not that living on the edge comes without stick, there is a very fine balance between enjoyment and danger. It can be fatal sometimes as I have found and experienced several times, but the addiction of this way of life still drives people. But then one should always be conscious that over-addiction of any kind should be avoided. Trying to do the balancing act of living on the edge of the wedge (!!), but I have started enjoying the edge.

Aski “De Khatra” “De Casta”