Driving Milestones...

This is going to be a very different post, but one that is of great importance to me personally. This is about my driving experiences in the past and a view to the future. To most people, it might mean nothing, just that driving is my passion and I like to register every important event and milestone in my kitty! So, all professional drivers, driving and auto-enthusiast and those having patience to read long posts, please fasten your seat belts, shift to top gear and vroooom to this very special post! Here we go...

Before moving on to the more interesting part, let me first give an introduction to how it all started…

History

As a child, all I did was to collect Leo trucks, I could spend hours playing with my trucks, I would make bridges and mountain roads and all possible difficult terrains to “imagine” the challenge of driving my truck there - from my 7th birthday or so, every year my parents would get me one Leo truck (I still remember my first yellow truck with red front and black chassis). This went on for years – every birthday meant a truck, to the extent that my parents would say “score 90% in the next exam and you will have your truck!” My lack of success at school exams meant lesser trucks than I could have had, but I kept getting my birthday trucks year after year till the time I had a fleet.

This went on till early teens – when I started to realize that my friends were having a laugh about my favourite birthday present. Peer pressure as they call it, I decided against buying any further trucks, but there was no way I would let anyone else take away my existing fleet of trucks. When I went to hostel for under-grad, I locked up my trucks and told my mom – “this shelf of my cupboard has to stay this way – no compromises!”


Getting to the steering wheel…

I actually didn’t drive till I was 18 – went exactly by the books. My parents had a simple rule for me – “Do anything till the car doesn’t move!” So while I patiently waited for my 18th birthday, I did everything possible within that set boundary limit – ranging from changing the tyre of a heavy Ambassador car when I was like 8 years old, to opening the carburetor, fuel filter and spark plugs of the Maruti when I was probably 11 years old, etc, etc…

However, my road experience started at the age of 16. Time pressure for attending a million classes for school and IIT-coaching meant that, I needed a “vandi” so that I could be on my own. I got a Bajaj Sunny – the only 2-wheeler that I could legally drive at the age of 16 and when it comes to driving, I follow all possible rules. I drove it all in city, from home to school to classes and in two years it clocked 13,000 kms! Though most teenagers would prefer bikes, I was somehow never mentally inclined towards bikes and so having my Sunny was good, but not terrific.

Finally, it was the time to get behind the steering wheel – just after turning 18, I got my license – again without paying a single extra rupee at RTO, wanted to get it on merit!


The starting of a career…

Having lived in hostel all the way, my only opportunity to drive was when I came back home. Till date, it has all been a self-learning process – all from observation than training. When I started driving, I was quick to learn the basics of driving and was what I call as “in control” on city roads rather quickly. Even today, I continue to be a defensive driver in city - slow to pick-up, I like to keep the engine at low rpm in city – experience the smoothness instead of power.

My first real highway drive was in 1999 December, from Chennai – Bangalore. It was probably my biggest learning experience as well. It took me half an hour to overtake the first truck – a combination of heavy oncoming traffic and a wrong gauge of “when to change the gear”. I was in 5th at 40kmph, of-course the damn thing will have no pick-up at such low rpm!

Anyways, I sorted that out and made it to Bangalore – felt good to have ~350 kms on my CV – now it seems nothing, but it was a big confidence booster then. Way back from Bangalore was a lot easy, I had gotten used to gear changes by then, and moved on to experiment with something known as “engine braking” to slow down the car – not many people do this, but to keep car in control while braking at high speeds, apart from brakes, getting the car to lower gears helps in keeping control.

At the end of the trip, my record stood at:
Max distance in a day : 360 kms
Max Speed : 120 kmph


My next drive was to Chennai – Kodaikanal – Munnar – Chennai, sometime in May 2000. I was so exited about the trip that I didn’t sleep the night before we were to start for the trip! We started at about 4am in the morning from Chennai to Kodaikanal - a distance of 760 kms, including 60 kms of hill drive – I probably drove for 12-13 hours that day. That was starting of a dream, when I realized, that long distance driving is not impossible. The next day was even more challenging. I drove from Kodaikanal to Munnar – the road was under construction, it was raining heavily, there was a bit of land slide on the way and it was all hilly terrain. Till today, that remains the most challenging driving experience – not in terms of distance though (might have been 300 at max). All in all, that trip was close to 1800kms and I enjoyed every bit of it.

At the end of the trip, my record stood at:
Max distance in a day : 760 kms
Max Speed : 125 kmph

Next 2-3 years saw a few more trips to Bangalore and to other places near-by. However, there was no real long drive for a long time. (I define a long drive as >600 kms in a day or more than 12 hours of drive in a day).


Joining the big league…

My driving CV was heading nowhere. I had not added anything significant to my driving achievements for more than 3 years. The ice had to be broken – 300 kms a day was by far not exciting anymore - a quantum jump was required to get my driving career on track. I finally got a chance in April 2005, when soon after convocation, a few of us decided to experience the leap jump that India had started making in infrastructure – “Golden Quadrangle”, highways connecting the four major cities had just been made then. We initially thought of going for an all-India trip, but time and budget constrains made us cut it down to a South and Central India trip. The route that we took was Chennai-Bangalore-Goa-Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Vijaywada-Chennai. This trip was spread over 9 days, the odometer clocked 3500 kms and I probably drove for about 2500 kms. Full details of the trip are on a separate blog that I created then:
http://wimwi-road-trip.blogspot.com/

At the end of the trip, my record stood at:
Max distance in a day : ~800 kms
Max Speed : 130 kmph


This was the “inflection point” that I needed to believe that a world tour is not out of reach! This year in June, I did it again, this time a Chennai-Mumbai-Chennai – drove for over 3300 kms (I did allow my dad to drive 55 kms!). The road trip in 2005 had been with friends with everyone pitching in to drive, now was the time to do it all by myself.

At the end of the trip, my record stood at:
Max distance in a day : ~800 kms
Max Speed : 160 kmph


Recent achievements…

Well, till recently, every meter of my driving experience had been in India. However, I moved to CapeTown for a short stint here sometime back and found 2 very encouraging things – 1) Right hand drive (same as India) is the norm here and 2) Indian License is okay to drive here!

I have had a chance to do 2 trips here till now. The first one was a symbolic one – first long drive outside India, but I would remember it more for scenery along the drive from Cape Town to Cape Point.

The 2nd one was an achievement. I broke the 1000 kms in a day barrier! This was a drive from Cape Town to Knysna and back. The roads here are very good and there is hardly any traffic beyond the extended city. I went with a friend here for the drive – started at around 8:45 am and we were back in CapeTown by 9pm. The entire trip was all driving, plus a 2 hour stop over for lunch and a few clicks!

I was driving a Toyota Corolla Automatic – didn’t enjoy the automatic part much, on a highway I would much rather decide when to change gears myself than be in a situation where the decision is forced on by a computer chip that tries to optimize the gear changes! Anyways, the car was really good, very aerodynamic and it felt in complete control at high speeds. I did 1000kms in less than 10 hours of driving, an idea of road conditions and the car quality perhaps.

Interestingly enough, when I came back to CapeTown, the odometer read 990kms. Didn't want this to be a "so close, yet so far", so I drove for 10kms in the city before heading back home - all just to meet the milestone. Looking back, it does sound funny :-)

At the end of the trip, my record stood at:
Max distance in a day : 1001 kms
Max Speed : 177 kmph


The road ahead…

A world tour has been at the back of my mind for a real long time now. The good thing is that the idea has started to make sense now, though I know it is still a long way to go. Around the world in quickest time would be a bit too tough to get to, but might not be impossible. These plans might involve 25-30,000 kms of driving, does sound a bit too far-fetched, but it is still possible in my books. To get there, there are a few more requirements that I need to work towards:

1. Testing myself for long distances a few more times and building up the stamina to take it for 40-50 days on a trot
2. A co-driver with high passion and energy for driving. Maharaj might just join me for the trip, given he has very similar ambitions
3. Logistics – would be a long process to take care of visas, permission, license rules, modifying the car to sustain for so long, etc, etc
4. And equally importantly, a sponsor to pay for the fuel bills and other expenses! :-)

So, does sound like a bit too far off, but hopefully in the next 4-8 years, I will give it a try. Till then, I will continue improving my driving skills, and more importantly, get an understanding of what it would take to do this. The real inspiring thing is that an Indian couple held the world record for fastest around the globe for sometime – they did the entire trip in a Hindustan Motors Contessa 1.8L. Now, I believe, the record has been broken and is currently held by some British passionate drivers!

Victoria Falls and Zambezi Rafting

Not too long ago, a month back, I drove down to Cape Point over Champman’s peak and I thought, well it can’t get better than this. The view was stunning and gorgeous, tall mountains on one side and vast blue ocean on the other side. The view from Cape Point and the drive down there was by far the best view I had seen.

A month down the line, Cape Point has however slipped to second spot in my memory – the reason being a trip to Victoria Falls, one of the 7 wonders of the world. Let me guide you through the experience.

We started from Capetown on a Friday, a hopping flight to Livingstone via Johannesburg to reach the Zambia side of the falls. Before I go on to describe further, here is a crisp introduction to Victoria Falls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls

Day 1 at Victoria Falls

The pictures on Wikipedia depict the falls in peak rainy season. They then swell up to 1.7 kms in width, however at other times the river is not as wide. So, we walked over dry portion of the falls (the right end of the 4th picture on Wikipedia link). We walked over the rocky terrain, maneuvering through the slippery shaky rocks - half way through I wished I had a high ground clearance four wheel drive and that would have been some challenge! Anyways, we walked till the point where we were stopped by illegal security men. The walk back was a bit more challenging with a few drops of rain making the rocks a fraction more slippery. We managed to take a few pics of the falls and equally gasping wide and tall prominent fracture in the earth’s crust that resulted in creation of these falls – apparently it was a platonic shift that took place a hundred thousand years ago. We got back to the hotel before it got too dark – a well deserved dinner and we called it a day, all in excitement for the day that was to follow.


Day 2 at Victoria Falls

Day 2, it was time for water rafting - with a rather early morning for a Saturday, we were picked by the rafting tour operator. We trekked down the rocky mountain to get to the place where the rafting was to be flagged off. In the process, we signed a few legal disclaimers that actually added to the excitement (or is fear the right word?)! I had never done rafting before, so I actually didn’t have a clue to what was to follow - add to it, my limited swimming skills and experience meant that I had to rely on life jacket a lot more than some of the others around who had done this before!

With our rafting boats inflated, it was time to step in. First 5-10 minutes were pure instructions:
“Left turn” – meant those on the right paddled forward, on the left backwards and yeah, the exact opposite for “Right turn”, “Forward” meant keep pedaling but the most important instruction was “Get Down” - we had to stop pushing forward and get to inside base of the raft and somehow try to hold on to the ropes at the outer end. The first dip in the water was useful – helped me realize that it would be tough to get back without help!

There we go, its time to get to a series of 10 rapids, most of these of class 4 and 5, a couple of class 3 rapids. A class 6 rapid is almost a waterfall, so class 5 and 4 are challenging for sure. Just to help you understand, definition of a class 5 rapid is: “Long and violent rapids. Large waves that are unavoidable, Complex course, Scouting is a must”!! Here is the description of the rapids that we went through:

The first rapid was called rapid #3, nice one to get off to a start. We pedaled forward and then went down to make the raft stable. We had survived the first one with no one falling off – that was a bit of a confidence booster! This was probably the last “unnamed” rapid.

Rapid #4 was called “Morning Glory” somewhere between a class 4 and a 5, this was a challenge. The very force with which water hit us and the angle at the rapid was scary at the first go and 5 seconds later the reaction was “wow”! The status of our raft was – No one down till now and we were keeping things nice and steady.

Rapid #5 was “Stairway to Heaven” – this was a class 5 rapid and trust me there was a lot more of aggression to this one than depicted by the name that Led Zeppelin originally thought of! Till the tip of the rapid, I thought its going to be as calm as “Stairway to Heaven”, but suddenly reality struck us hard as we went down possibly 5-7 meters in our raft down the voluminous rapid. We stayed intact and then raised our pedals in celebration and parked our raft to see other rafts fight the battle. The next raft followed the same path and as I saw them go down I was like “Did we really really manage to do that? I am putting this on my CV for sure!” The third raft however had a bit of a nasty experience with 2 of them finding themselves off the raft. We then assumed the role of the rescue boat, got to this guy and pulled him up our raft. He was terrified and wanted to leave right there – it took him a couple of minutes to relax down and be part of the party again.

Rapid #6 was “devil’s toilet”, a class 4, all three rafts made through with reasonable comfort. We still had our record intact – no one off the raft as yet and we started to believe that we were the real professionals out there!

Rapid #7 was “Gulivers Travels”, a class 5. We had to push hard to gain some momentum here to help us steer in the right direction as we went down the rapid with a strong stream of water flowing from the direction perpendicular to our motion. We were warned that the raft could overturn here - the idea to hold on to the raft for as long as possible. As we went though this rapid, we did manage to keep the raft stable, but it ended up being a bit nasty with tons of water all over – However, eventually, Mr. Buoyancy (!!) helped our raft back to the water surface.

The bottom-line however still was that we remained “all intact”. We did it in great style, going down just at the right time and making sure we hold on to our respective corners. The front portion of the raft did go deep in water and I was like cough cough by the time we came out. However, it was time to raise our pedals and scream out "Yyyooo" again. We remain unscathed!


Rapid #8 was “Midnight Diner”– a set of 3 rapids. This was challenging. We had to again pedal hard and get through the first rapid (class 3), get the momentum high enough so that we could steer through heavy forces of the water flowing in the other direction and then go through a narrow gap down to the other 2 rapids. The first one was a piece of cake; the next two were not the worst we had been though. These were class 4 rapids, so we were fairly confident and we therefore chose the difficult path on this one rather than the option of having the easy way out by the side.

So, we went down the class 4 rapid expecting to come out of it stable. However, mid way through, I suddenly found water all over me. My first reaction was that probably the entire raft went under water, so I was like clam and relaxed for a few microseconds. A moment later, I thought there is way too much water all around and I am no more on the raft. This was when the reality struck – I was off the raft and I did not manage to hold on to the raft rope!!! *#^@!” Find it funny now, but at that moment I was a bit terrified. It was all a matter of 5 seconds, I was back on water surface with life jacket keeping me afloat. And then I thought, I should do my bit and try to swim as well! That was not required though, within a couple of seconds I could see the raft again and it was easy going from there on – got back close to the raft and I was then pulled up. Phew!!

Rapid #9 – “Commercial Suicide” was a class 6, almost a waterfall and only the highly professional can do it. So, we took it easy there and got off the raft and climbed down the rocks.

Our final rapid was Rapid #10 – “Gnashing Jaws of Death” – a class 4 again, which we did with relative ease – I was probably a bit defensive this time and got down well before we were told to do so!

For detailed description of the rapids, visit:
http://whitewater.safpar.com/zambezi_rapids.htm

This was followed by around 250 meters of almost vertical climb, too tiring after the 2 hour adventure and I took a bit more time to do it than some of the others who have been regulars to gym!!

It had been 2 hrs of absolute fun and excitement – possibly the most challenging experience I have ever had. This was a big part of the reason why I moved Victoria Falls trip a notch higher than the view at Cape Point.

Day 3 at Victoria Falls

The final day started with a “game” trip to Zambezi wild life. Saw a few wild animals, a few clicks to add to the trip snaps, but nothing as exciting as the previous day. Then I got a helicopter ride of the falls and region around it. It was just amazing to see Victoria Falls from up there - the wide river Zambezi falling into a crack on the surface of Earth, the tiny particles of misty cloud-like water particles created by the very force of the falls is a sight I would remember for a long time.

We flew back that afternoon to Cape Town, ending what had been an amazing trip. I haven’t seen too many places the world over, but for the little that I have, this was probably the best experience and view. I did give a serious thought about having water rafting as a back-up profession, but decided to stay with driving! The next post, when I get some time window, will be on driving experiences in South Africa.

Welcome back Master Blaster!

This post might be 2-3 weeks too late, but as they say, better late than never. Was a bit caught up with work and travel, so didn't have a chance to get to blogger. Before this post, millions of reams of news-print, a billion journalist hours, a trillion television-hours have been invested by the world press and viewers in general - In this age of internet and blogging, I contribute to nothing more than a drop in the Ocean to this topic! - However, that by no means diminishes the importance of the topic of this post: after a 6-month injury lay-off, a warm welcome back to Sachin Tendulkar.

A marathon 141 not out of 148 deliveries, batting out the entire 50 overs, 5 sixes, 13 fours, ran just as hard as he did 17 years ago - I could go on and on praising Sachin's innings, but to sum it up, Master Blaster is back with a bang.

It might not have been the best innings that Tendulkar has played, but to me, it was probably the most important. He has virtually lost out at a year of cricket - starting from the black days of Tennis Elbow, sprinkled with indifferent form and then the long lay-off resulting from the shoulder operation. As he has accepted in his recent interviews, this was probably the toughest phase of his career - a slump in form due to injuries, commentators and experts in India sketching the end of his career (Endulkar is the term they used to grab media attention), injuries making himself unsure of the career ahead, etc, etc.

I am an ardent follower of Tendulkar - I keep a track of not just his scores, but almost anything that I can get hold to through secondary research. I have been doing this for a couple of years now - almost on a daily basis and sometimes on the hour, every hour - I end up with the following sequence of involuntary steps:

Double Click on internet explorer --> www.google.com --> type Sachin Tendulkar --> Click search --> Click news --> Click Sort by date!

What has been rather surprising over the last one year is that there are singificantly more news articles published when Tendulkar is injured than when it is "business-as-usual" for him i.e. when he is on the field and scoring runs. I could find news articles almost every half an hour on this topic - might just be someone's opinion on his elbow or shoulder injury, but so what, it was enough to help me get a picture of when would Tendulkar get back on field.

We all know Tendulkar the genius, the run-scoring machine, those 25,000 plus international runs, the consistent performer, the aggressive thinker and much of what he does serves as an inspiration, not just for us (a billion Indians), but many more around the world. However, there is much more to Sachin Tendulkar than just his cricketing skills and performance that makes him among the greatest that this world has seen. Let me highlight what in my view are three most important things that we can try to learn from Tendulkar:

1. The obvious: Sachin the performer - it's not just his hand-eye-coordination (a natural gift), but it's the effort he puts in - at 33, with all success behind him, he is still found spending more time at nets than younger players. At most times, Sachin has a very clear game plan based on his mental homework - bowlers to go after, when to play a subdued innings, working on his own game, etc. These are very important factors behind his success and surprisingly, it's much the same for rest of us in compeltely different careers.
2. The basics: When you look at Tendulkar's life on and off the field, there has hardly been any controversy that he has ever ended up with. All through the match fixing scandal, I was very sure that Sachin would never have been a part of that 'gang' in the dressing room. Crtitics have positioned his lack-of-willingness to pay tax on a gifted car in the wrong light, but to me, Sachin has a very clear filter in his mind - no compromises on ethics and basics at any cost. Add to that, he is extremely modest and clearly has his head just an inch above the shoulders - just where it should be. Again, we all can draw a leaf from it.
3. Communication: Getting back to the professional angle, I think, Sachin is a genius when it comes to communication. He might sound a bit diplomatic at times, but he never comes up with any provoking or loose statements. (as opposed to Warne, McGrath and likes) Infact, he often responds to criticism with 'no-negative-reaction' and instead lets his bat do the talking. I am not a 100% sure of this, but as much as I know from my secondary research, Sania Mirza and Narain Karthikeyan have had sessions with Tendulkar on two topics: 1) How to handle success? 2) How to manage media and communication? Most of us would probably never need to balance the media part, but we can probably learn a bit from the balanced well-thought way of communicating.

Phew! This has been a long post. But then, I really can't help it. Sachin probably has been the greatest influence on my life, outside the range of obvious circle. I didn't have much of sense for the first 9 years of my life. Ever since then, life has been simple - a good day is when Sachin scores a ton, rest of the days are just about average - and I have been fortunate enough to see 75 good days and hopefully there will be many more in the next few years... But, Sachin would retire one day... well, I haven't thought about my life after that!

Right to freedom of speech/expression! :-)

The title of the blog speaks for itself! It has been sometime since I blogged last, part of the reason being a new job apart from the common consistent never-say-die factor governing the general inertia in life! Having said that, I have realised that the biggest threat to my blogging career is probably my lack of 'ideas'!

I was about to blog last weekend - spent good 15 minutes thinking about a topic, didn't manage to get anywhere! So has been the case today, making me question why I actually wanna blog? More so, in this world of open source (and yeah, my google backed blogger follows much the same logic), where I don't incur any cost to maintaining this blog... advertisers to blogspot make sure that burgeoning young bloggers like me don't find the incremental cost as an excuse!

So, back to square one, what do I blog about? Actually lots of stuff happening around, but nothing is worth a full post. Ahhaaaa... idea, a blog that's like a 5 minute interesting news update sounds like a plan... may be not, but more than anything else, gives me something to type without having to think...!!

Here we go: News correspondent Joseph Khanna reporting with our special guest news reader from Singapore

Politics

India' PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh has stated in his secret autobiography that Laloo Prasad Yadav should be made the next PM of India - "He has got Indian Railways to mind boggling overall profit of Rs. 11k crore and his vision would enable India to wipe out poverty, fiscal deficit, get to growth rate of 12% and overtake China by 2016". When asked to elaborate on how Laloo Prasad could get us to 'India Shining', PM Dr. Manmohan Singh said he was in high level discussions with Laloo's think tank Rabri Devi and in her view, the secret path to success would a involve step increase in India's cow and buffalo population - "Laloo kahaith hai ki bhains ka khayal rakhna chahiye... hum kahaith hain ki jitna sasuri bhainsawan ko badhaya jaye , utna desh ka bhala hoi hai"

Singapore correspondent: Cannot lah, Singapore no buffalo last time, but orredi developed.

Universe

Moving on to bigger issues surrounding us, recent discovery of relatively small objects revolving around sun have made astronomers think about the existing definition of planets. The aftermath of this discovery has made Pluto a non-planet.

This has however resulted in major discussions world around, with President Bush releasing a statement to international community - "The threat of terrorism has to be faced with courage and we stand united in this hour of need. Al Qaeda has managed to launch attacks on Pluto, severely damaging the size and solar path of Pluto. In consultation with Nasa and international community we have therefore decided to bring down the status of Pluto. These are tough and testing times for our solar system, but I request all Americans to take a white marker and change the text books of your 4th grade kids - Solar system now has 8 planets. I declare."

Astrologers world-over have reacted strongly to this change as well, with some of them claiming the relative superiority of astrology over astronomy. The International Union of Pure and Applied Astrology (IUPAA) in an official statement released "We strongly negate the view of disowning and degrading the status of Pluto in our solar system. Pluto has been a strong contributor to Astrology - whenever the bigger planets don't explain the reality, we have always believed that Pluto accounts for the difference between astrology based predictions and the real world observations. We will therefore continue to believe in the importance of Pluto for the years to come"

Singapore correspondent: Noooooo.... nooooo.... Singapore small country laah, United Nations can declare Singapore part of Malaysia orredi... Can or not? Danger laah, very lucky orredi we been till now.


Stock Market

Let's now move to our analysis of BSE Sensex - Despite higher economic growth projections, lower interest rates, Sensex went down by 4.77% points. The sudden unexpected decline has been attributed to withdrawal of FII money that has been pouring in. It is widely believed that FIIs withdraw money from Indian stock markets on Fridays so as to enjoy the weekend with luxuries ranging from a glass of wine to filling their petrol tanks for weekend trips. This was the conclusion of a very detailed behavioral pattern analysis conducted by MBA students.

Singapore correspondent: We Singaporeans invest in Fixed income only. Money lost in stock market then we cannnnoot get back. Risky lah....


Sports

In a stunning revelation to the international community, ICC president Malcom Speed has come out in open about Darrell Hair's one-time settlement offer to quit ICC's elite panel for $500,000. Further speculations surrounding the issue range from allegations of match fixing to bookies betting on Darrell Hair's future. Defending his stance in international cricket body, Darrell Hair said "I have always played the game in true spirit and my umpiring has been in line with true professional standards. I rate myself as the most committed individual to cricketing world - even Sachin Tendulkar has started to lose focus on cricket - he is probably a bit more inclined towards tennis, now that his elbow has accepted and adapted to tennis"

Singapore correspondent: I don't know lah, cable operator charges $25 per month for cricket channel.


Weather

As we move towards winter, Indian cities have started to experience temperature changes. Delhi was at a minimum of 9 degrees, maximum of 38 degrees, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai oscillating between 12 and 42 degrees. Forecast is of clear skies, except when it is cloudy.

Singapore correspondent: Yesterday my aircon thermostat failed lah, therefore temperature dropped from 24 degrees to 22 degrees in my room. Too cold lah, Singapore very costly, cannot buy blanket also... For weather forecast, we divided Singapore into 26 zones with individual temperate and expected rain fall in the next 24 hours. But no time to tell lah in this short news... I orredi told the news agency that I don't like short news.... last time also cannot...

Launching "driving and autoworld" blog!

Announcing the launch of a very special blog for all driving and auto world enthusiasts!:
http://autodrivezerocool.blogspot.com/

As the name suggests, the primary objective of the blog is to discuss and document driving tehniques along with the latest in the auto world.

This primary blog, would however continue to be a bit of "post just about anything in here" kinda stuff!

'Reservation system' - can it ever be reversed?

This post is something about which I have very strong views, but I shall restrict my comments to purely objective statements, as far as possible.

'Reservation' system needs no introduction - be it admission to colleges/univs, jobs, etc, etc, it is something we have learned to live with. The idea behind this 'once upon a time' noble step was to get our caste-based society to some level of equality. In principle, I totally agree with this view and I stand committed to doing my bit to make sure that as a society, we get there.

However, in my view, this now has become a tool to influence vote bank, with little analysis behind what is the 'right level of quota'. Anyways, the objective of this blog is not to criticize, but to find a solution to this issue, given the current situation and constraints acting on the decision makers/society.

My friend, Ranga forwarded this article published on rediff by Prof. T. Pradeep of IIT-Madras:

Click here to view article

My post is greatly influenced by the article above. I totally agree with the view that ‘one opportunity’ in life is sufficient to make a difference. Prof Pradeep has suggested an IT based solution of providing each individual with unique identification number – this is as close as we can get to being practical about this problem.

Zooming out, lets consider another parallel problem faced by Indian society and economy – that of corruption. But somehow, I think, in the years to come, corruption is not going to matter that much. Two factors make me believe that corruption is not the biggest challenge anymore:

1. Privatisation of economy – right from roads, airlines, banks, grocery, etc – influence of public sector in day today life has decreased a lot and this trend is likely to continue in future. So, corruption, in absolute terms might continue to grow, but will mean lesser and lesser for all of us.
2. IT – Data based computer systems have reduced complexities and have increased accountability – this has helped reduce corruption as well in government services.

Now, can a similar logic work with ‘reservation system’? Answer would have been ‘yes’ if reservations were restricted to government colleges, government jobs, etc. Unfortunately, the decision makers in this case happen to benefit the most – vote bank counts and matters the most. Even with the most pure and noble intentions, a good party/prime minister has to remain in his position so as to make a difference. One easy way to influence the vote bank is to give incentives, a perfectly logical and correct way to do things in the world of economics and political science.

Given this background, I think, it is difficult to imagine why government at centre would ever take any step to rectify this problem. This is where, I think, 'judiciary' has to step in. Supreme Court has changed a city as big as ‘Delhi’. 5 years back, I used to get dehydrated in Delhi – not ‘coz of the heat, but the pollution used to leave my eyes with constant irritation and tears!! Now, Delhi is so much better – the CNG enforcement, Euro and Bharat Stage norms have changed the city – credit goes to Supreme Court for the way Delhi is today.

The judiciary needs to step in once again. This time, not to give a verdict, but to lay down a policy on reservation – it can be based on Prof. Pradeep’s suggestions of 25 years horizon with one opportunity per person OR Supreme Court can have its own team/ committee to solve this issue. It might take them months to collect data, put forward a view, debate, but all this is worth in larger long term interest of our nation. Till then, I will continue to sign petitions…

The Road Ahead

I am an hour away from starting my drive down to Mumbai. Chennai-Mumbai, a distance of ~1,450 kms, I look to cover in two days with a night halt in Hyderabad.

It's all set, for once I have packed my stuff well in advance! The fuel tank is full, car serviced, maps ghoted/mugged, etc. But there is more to this drive than pure logistics.

It's my first long drive with Swift. There will be a bit of adjustments required before I feel absolutely 'in the zone' on highway. I am just about to getting used to the gear ratios and engine of Swift - a bit of a difference from Santro that I am used to driving on highways. Will probably take me a couple of hours upfront to get it right.

This drive is also important for my long term driving ambitions. In some vague corner of my dreams, I wanna break the current world record of 'around the world in 42 days by road'. That's a lot of driving and I myself know how difficult that ambition is. This drive to Mumbai and back will help me sort this conundrum to some level of comfort.

If I don't get bored and tired of driving 1450 kms in 2 days, that will be like one step towards the world record ambition. Still would remain a distant dream, but yeah, I will probably feel a bit more confident about it.

The other possible outcome is that I might just understand that World Records are World Records and I probably need to practical about things. I might decide to forget the time factor to the record and keep the aim to 'Round the world' - that would still be 40,000 kms approximately. I might get a bit more realistic and get it further down to Asia trip or a notch lower to sub continent trip. I don't think, covering India would ever be an issue. Anyways, I shall revisit my driving ambitions after this trip.

It's almost time for me to get started. I shall keep the long term goals aside and for now, it's one day, one drive. As I always remind myself about any long drive, it's not speed that matters, it's consistency and ability to drive long hours that the differentiating factor. For I know and remember the 'thought for the day' that my teacher made me say in 4th standard morning assembly:

"A journey of thousand miles, begins with a single step..."