The Alien World

If I ask you a question “What are you proud of in India?” then probably you will have many answers, probably I have some answers like rich heritage, glorious past, national monuments, and many such things, richest cricket board, largest rail network, highest battle field, the list will be too long. But if I ask what is your contribution in keeping the pride and passing it to next generation than probably there isn’t much.

From time and again in many of my previous posts, I keep coming back to the sorry conditions of driving on roads. So is it related to our national pride? Probably ‘yes’, probably ‘no’. Couple of year’s back I had gone on vacation to Sri Lanka. It is a poor country, not a single highway, under terror for couple of decades, but as soon as I step in the Colombo airport and spoke to custom officer, I felt a difference. Airport was far better than any other airport at that time in India, though now India has much bigger and better airports.  When I stepped out of it, army was everywhere. The guide and our driver gave a brief update of DO’s and DONT’s. That included not to litter anywhere in public and keep all the trash in the car. Roads were not as wide as we have in India and there were no dividers, but still people managed to follow lane driving. In fact, in morning, during office hours the incoming traffic in the city is more than the outgoing, so the incoming traffic gets the 2/3 (two-third) of the road width and the outgoing gets the remaining 1/3 (one-third), and it is followed without any dividers or a traffic cop. Another example was autos. They were the same ‘humara’ Bajaj, but of course driver was different, because you will not expect an Indian auto driver to tell you that he will not carry more than three passengers. How you behave on the road goes a long way in defining your country, for which you can later be proud of.

On similar lines, let me take another example. India is hosting the 19th Common Wealth Games in October’2010. It is only the first time it has been hosted by India and second time in Asia. Now compare it with Olympics hosted by China in Beijing. CWG should be same to India as Olympics for China. It should be a matter of huge pride for not just New Delhi but for whole India. China has spent approximately 40 Billion dollars to host the Olympics. China built 12 new venues of total 37 for hosting the game in Beijing. They transformed the city, and probably whoever visited there for the first time (or even the return visitors) were spell-bound with the glittering city. For making this kind of event a huge success it is not just the government’s but also individual responsibility. I was told that on the day of the opening ceremony all industries in and around Beijing were shutdown to bring down the pollution. The opening ceremony was the best ever experienced in any of the previous events.

Coming back to Capital, Do you have traffic congestion around airport, the first entry point in the country? YES, during peak hours it may take minimum 30 minutes to reach the main road out of airport premise. Are people aware of such a huge event being hosted in Delhi? Not many. Ask an auto driver, he does not know. The progress of work is slow, and you still don’t see the transformation. Probably the only good thing that has happened as a result of CWG is the metro, which is no doubt the world-class. In September 2009, Commonwealth Games federation Chief Mike Fennell reported that the games were at risk of falling behind schedule and that it was “reasonable to conclude that the current situation poses a serious risk to the Commonwealth Games in 2010″.

In 2008 a new 4.43 km runway, the longest operational runway in Asia became operational at IGI Airport, Delhi. It is fitted with the highly sophisticated Instruments Landing System (ILS) on both sides, and is built to the highest Code F standards. Even with the state of art technology, there were 200+ flights delayed 2 days back.

What will happen to our national pride if we have politicians like Raj Thackeray and Police Chiefs like SPS Rathore who signifies the national shame? Or consider the root of Naxalism which goes back to 1967 started from the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, as of 2009 40 percent of India’s geographical area is under Naxalite threat. So what is the root cause, in simple word it is the over exploitation of humans by other humans. I will let Vishal talk more about it. But the fact is that there is no pride in the fact that 40% of India is under direct influence of Naxalism and people like us may be the cause.

To make a contribution, it is not important that everyone has to give dedicated time, rather it is the way of life. Not everyone can become a socialist or run an NGO, but what I do in my day-to-day life is a big part in showing what we actually are. Even though India is an emerging superpower, we still see and hear lot of things and incidents happening which are the matters of national shame. As an individual we can play our small but significant role so that we can say “I am proud to be an Indian”.

It’s been after a long time I have watched any Hindi movie in theater… the last one I remember iszzzzzzz….. ummmm… well I can’t remember.

Rocket Singh (RS) didn’t disappoint me, in fact it was better than the last English movie I saw (2012). There is no comparison between the two, the only similarity is that I watched both of them in the theater, and after watching 2012 I felt hat it was a waste of money…

Well, this was not the case with RS. A friend of mine (KM901) made a comment about the movie that it was so slow that he can see his nails growing. Though slow at times, but still entertaining. In fact this is my first Ranbir Kapoor’s movie that I had watched start to end. He was natural in the role. So by those standards it was worth 250 bucks for the ticket.

I think it was on the same lines as ‘Khosla ka ghosla’. May be not as good, because it lacked the pace, but movie characters were straight out of real life.

In all it’s a nice entertaining movie!

I was sitting with my friend, P, today after lunch, having a smoke and appreciating the beautiful weather. It is very rear in Hyderabad to have a sunny sky and still not hot. As with all good things in life, this was also short lived. As usual we blamed it on global warming (the most overused term these days).

Of many reasons we picked fossil fuel as one of the primary contributor in the global warming. With cigarette in hand and beautiful weather you tend to think of changing the world. So we were discussing many ‘what-if’ scenarios – alternate energy sources, nuclear cells, and many others.

P suggested teleportation should be our primary means of transportation. It will result is going away with all the current gas hungry means of transportation, and it will be fast, fast as in speed-of-light. Guess what, we can reach New York in less than a second, which otherwise takes anywhere from 15 to 20 hours. I liked the idea, but then I started thinking on means to implement it and its consequences.

You remember Star trek, don’t you? Well teleportation seemed so simple in it. But we have a bigger problem at hand. Our star trek fellows only have to teleport very few at a time, but here we are talking about it as a means of mass transport. So we may need teleportation station, like we have railway/metro station, bus stands, airports, etc.

We are all made of hydrogen and carbon, and so is everything else around. Isn’t it? So it boils down to the atoms of hydrogen and carbon that we really need to transfer from one end to another. Transferring them physically may not be a real good idea. What if we have huge containers of stored hydrogen and carbon on the receiving end and we just transfer the details about the composition of a particular person to that end, so that we are reconstructed at the other end. In order to do so, you have to be first broken down into these molecules or atoms (whatever you want to call them). It sounds so painful, right? Well its not my idea, I read it somewhere. If I come up with something, that will be less painful.

Now consider the consequences of having teleportation stations.

1. First we need an infrastructure that can support mass teleportation,
2. Huge band width to transfer the molecular information to the other end,
3. Fail safe, of course I don’t want to be lost in transaction
4. Each station having multiple entry and exit points

Imagine what really happens at teleportation station – you get inside one of thousands of machines, enter your destination. The machine analyzes your vital signs, molecular structure & composition and breaks you down in to the basic elements. Stores your converted form in its hydrogen & carbon containers, and transfer the information of your reconstruction to your destination, where you are reconstructed again. Isn’t it fun? No way… it’s scary…

But never mind, we will do it for the sake of our beautiful planet earth. But I still have some unanswered questions:

• What if there is a traffic jam?
• What if all the receiving ends are busy?
• What if a VIP (like a politician or film start) is on the transfer? Will others have to wait for reconstruction?
• Do they need queuing?
• When we are reconstructed, will we have our cloths on?

Location: Dzongri Base Camp to Dzongri Peak
Distance: 2 Kms
Height: 4200 mts
Date: 6-Oct-09

Dzongri peak gives the best view of Mount Kanchenjunga, but to see it we had to reach there before sunrise.  After previous day’s high altitude sickness, I woke up fresh in the morning. Anything after midnight is morning, though it was still dark outside. At 4 AM in the morning, all I could hear was the occasional sound of yaks & horses and the stream flowing next to our tent.

We (Vishal & me) started moving uphill. On our way we found Maurice & Kim (trekkers from Singapore). It took us more than an hour to reach on the top. By the time we reached, dawn was just breaking. There was thick blanket of fog, which we expected to shed soon.

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We waited patiently for sun to come out. As the time passed we realized that the fog was there to stay and all our hopes of seeing the mighty Kanchenjunga may not be fulfilled. At around 7 am fog slowly started to move away and we could see Mt Black Kabaru. On its left was Mt. Pandim, and on its right was only the faint trace of Mt. Kanchenjunga.

After waiting there for another hour, we realized that we may have to finally return back without seeing Kanchenjunga so we started back for our base camp. We spent some time there on the locals, who stay there for only two months during the trekking season.

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We started back from Dzongri to Tshokha at around 11 am. I realized that climbing up was tiring but going down was painful. This realization is going to last for another 2 days… and probably for rest of the life.

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Maurice & Kim stayed back that day as they had to go to Goechala which was further up at a height of 5000 mtrs. Later they sent pictures of Mt. Kanchenjunga from Singapore.

Location: Trek from Yuksam to Tshokha
Distance: 12 Kms
Height: 10000 ft
Date: 4-Oct-09

The day started early for us, as we had to get ready to start our trek. It was the bright sunny day and that reflected in my mood too. I was full of energy and ready to conquer the peak. On the way we had to register at the police check post. This has to be done by all the trekkers. On the outskirts of the city (Yuksam) was the last tea stall, where we stopped to meet Subba’s girl friend.

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Starting few kilometers were fine, with not much slope but as the time passed the distance started looking longer and the slopes steeper.

At around 1200 hrs, I was too tired to carry my bag so I handed it over to Subba. Later we stopped at Sajang for lunch.

We resumed on the trek at around 1330 hours. Fresh cooked food and rest had given enough energy to my legs to carry my load further. After walking for another couple of hours we reached Bakhim. Vishal didn’t stopped for a break at Bakhim, but I was too tired to go any further without taking a break. I had some tea and took some rest.

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I don’t think that I can walk again like this. After Bakhim, it was still a couple of hours more to reach our night camp Tshokha. By the time we reached there it was too foggy and I was almost dead. Vishal was nowhere to be found. After Subba setup the tent, I went in for rest and he went to look for him only to return back with his bag. He was still to be found.

He came back and took to to a local shop for trying the local brew called Jaard. It is made of fermented millets, served with hot water in a tumbler and a straw made of bamboo. While we were still enjoying our drinks, it started raining heavily. We came back all drenched, water started seeping in the tent.  Couldn’t sleep that night due to heavy thunder and occasional sounds of horses and yaks. Everything was wet by morning.