Puppy Update

Remember those puppies across the street that I mentioned in the Charity post? Well, I have some hopeful news. My family, as well our neighbors, have been feeding those puppies with any leftover food that our own dogs leave behind (and luckily for the puppies, our dog has a very fickle appetite in that on some days, he hardly eats anything. He doesn't touch food from previous days, so it automatically goes to the puppies).

Anyway, with us feeding those puppies, they've become quite plump and nice, to the effect that passers-by have been eyeing them and attempting to take them home. Yesterday, some passersby picked up two of the puppies while trying to decide which one to take home. But the mother dog came running, so they had to leave the puppies and retreat. I also saw one other passerby who was eyeing the puppies for a long time, but wasn't able to get near them because of the mother.

Anyway, hopefully, the mother will slacken her guard over the coming weeks and the puppies will enter loving homes. More on this news story as it unfolds.

Manufacturing in India

Ok, most of you know that I try to buy things such as shoes and clothes whenever I am in India in order to support Indian manufacturing. You also probably know that when I do buy things in the United States, I search intensively in order to try and find something that is not made in China. I am proud to say that after about an hour of searching through hiking boots at the Franklin Mills Mall, I finally found a pair of boots made in Thailand.

Naturally, one would conclude from this that India's export industry isn't all that it could be. However, it used to be that most everything that is bought in India is made in India. But I was dismayed to see in India this year that Chinese goods were relentlessly advancing upon this frontier as well. The Rs. 35 wall adaptor ($0.75) that I bought was Made in China. My wireless internet router provided by BSNL is made in China. The Rs. 100 ($2.15) headphones / microphones set which I recently bought was made in China. There is an abundance of Chinese made shoes in the Reebok and Nike outlets (although there are a significant amount of Indian made shoes as well, I think all Indian made shoes are consumed domestically, meaning that production is not enough even for domestic demand, let alone export). As far as any electronic products, cell phones, computers, digital cameras, they're all made in China.

I had pretty much resigned myself to industrial oblivion for India, when I read this article in The New York Times. I found a number of things in the article worthy of comment.

"For decades, India followed a route to economic development strikingly different from that of countries like Japan, South Korea or China. While its Asian rivals placed their bets on manufacturing and exports, India focused on its domestic economy and grew more slowly with an emphasis on services."

Even this isn't really true. The emphasis on services started only after economic liberalization in 1991, before this, government jobs and jobs in factories stifled by socialist manufacturing quotas were pretty much the only options.

"A prime reason India is now developing into the world’s next big industrial power is that a number of global manufacturers are already looking ahead to a serious demographic squeeze facing China. Because of China’s “one child” policy, family sizes have been shrinking there since the 1980’s, so fewer young people will be available soon for factory labor.

India is not expected to pass China in total population until 2030. But India will have more young workers aged 20 to 24 by 2013; the International Labor Organization predicts that by 2020, India will have 116 million workers in this age bracket to China’s 94 million."

Is this something to be proud of? I don't think there's anything to proud in the fact that our population is expanding faster than China's, and we certainly shouldn't use the prospect of more industrial jobs as a reason to abandon what family planning measures we have now.

"Plenty of obstacles remain, however, notably India’s weak infrastructure. China invests $7 on roads, ports, electricity and other backbones of a modern economy for every dollar spent by India — and it shows. Ports here are struggling to handle rising exports, blackouts are frequent and dirt roads are common even in Bangalore, the center of the country’s sophisticated computer programming industry."

Dirt roads in Bangalore? Ok, that's poetic license there. Bangalore's roads are far better than dirt roads. They made Bangalore sound like a city in some banana republic somewhere. Yes, many of them are potholed and need to be greatly improved, but the improvement projects are underway. And no, we may have dirt roads towards the edges of the city, but the roads within the city are all tarred and the majority of them are in a decent condition. That said, the roads in rural areas is another issue entirely and if goods are to be transported efficiently between places, then improvement needs to be expanded way beyond the current Golden Quadrilateral, which only links the major metros with world class roads.

"“The Chinese are very good at copying things, but Indians believe in quality work, we believe in meeting pollution norms,” said S. S. Pathania, the assistant general manager of the Hero Honda motorcycle factory in Gurgaon, 30 miles south of New Delhi."

This is funny, but yes, when I think of low quality products, I immediately think of Chinese products. It's ingrained in our psyche, that Chinese products are low quality, cheap, mass produced products during the manufacturing of which, the environment has been thoroughly destroyed.

As for Indians meeting pollution norms, I really can't say how true that statement is. While a few high profile companies such as Hero Honda may meet pollution control standards and their vehicles may meet those in the West, the vast majority of Indian industries continue to work without much oversight. No, industrial pollution in India is nowhere near as bad as China, but that's natural in a democracy where a government cannot turn a blind eye while it's people are poisoned. We don't have the military junta-type government that China touts. We don't kidnap our Tibetan monks and attempt cultural genocide either, but that's an entirely different topic.

"Hero in Gurgaon, on the southern outskirts of New Delhi, and its archrival, the Lifan Group in Chongqing, a city in western China, produce comparable motorcycles but the similarity ends there. Hero markets heavily to its domestic market, protected from foreign competition by high import tariffs, while Lifan emphasizes exports.

With scant ventilation, Lifan’s factories are filled with diesel exhaust as workers test engines and ride finished bikes at breakneck speed out the doors, zigzagging past co-workers. Hero’s factory in Gurgaon, where Honda holds a minority stake, has far better safety standards and excellent ventilation.

The Lifan factory pays less than $100 a month. The heavily unionized Hero factory pays $150 a month plus bonuses of up to $370 a month; nearly half the workers earn the top bonus, Mr. Pathania said.

Lifan’s labor force is quiescent — would-be organizers of independent labor unions face long jail terms or worse in China. Hero’s workers staged a successful nonviolent protest in 2005 to call for more contract workers to be eligible for the bonuses as well."

This is perhaps the most encouraging part of the article. While Hero Honda is more the exception than the norm, like I said, laws and regulations, while being nowhere near as strict as in the West or as they should be, are still better than China, regarding environmental pollution and workers' rights. This doesn't mean exploitation doesn't exist in India, it still does, at unacceptably high levels. So does environmental degradation. But there is a far better chance at improving these things in India. It all boils down to the fact that the concept of "human rights" exists in India while in China, it does not.

Bollywood over the Decades

Ok, we've all made fun of Bollywood at some time or the other, but it is one of the largest movie industries in the world and its movies are shown in theaters in India, the U.S., the U.K. (also known as India in Europe), and even west Africa (yes, I know it's strange).

Anyway, regardless, good movies are certainly produced and today, I read a very interesting article in The Times of India which highlighted some famous Indian movies over the decades which caught the sense of the people and even predicted trends among the public, even though politicians didn't take note until much later.

These ranged from Shree 420 in 1955 which captured the dilemma of a young nation trying to decide whether to pursue a hard, honest path or an easy, dishonest one to Rang de Basanti in 2006 which highlighted how even youngsters today who seem to be "too cool" to be patriotic will take a stand for their nation when push comes to shove. As for Shree 420, India's principled stand regarding the non-aligned movement and attempts at social equality showed which path the country ultimately followed at the time. As for Rang de Basanti, the youngsters marching towards Parliament and getting hosed with water as they tried to cross the security barrier in attempting to demand that the absurd OBC quota bill be revoked is proof that youngsters do care in real life as well.

Anyway, without any further ado, I present:

Cine of the times

For all of you who are Indians and raised in India, this list will provide a bit more insight into the generation of your parents and will be familiar in that you would have heard such situations in the stories your grandparents would have told. For Indians outside India as well as non-Indians, this list will certainly provide a nice insight into the changing mindset from the heady days of independence to the globalized world of the 21st century.

Charity: Where does it really begin?

No place in the world is free of inequality, not even Communist nations ("Communist" China has in fact among the greatest income inequality of any nation in the world with the richest 10 percent of the population owning 45 percent of the country's wealth). Anyway, regardless of where you go, you'll see poor people. While there are many poor people in the U.S., in the developing world, the conditions of the poor are really stark.

While I am sure lesser developed countries in Africa and other parts of Asia (or even in India outside the silicon plateau of Bangalore) have even worse living conditions for their poor, even in Bangalore, the daily lives of the people who reside in the slums is very moving. I found this article, almost like a blog post, very interesting.

To Fill Notebooks, and Then a Few Bellies

I completely agree with the author in everything that he says, and if I were in his shoes, I would probably behave the exact same way. Now, no matter where you live, if you are reading this blog post, you are not among the poor in your country. No matter where we live, we get desensitized to the poor who live around us. There are a few deeply religious people who devote their lives to living and working with the poor and working for their betterment. But for the majority of us, that's just not practical and feasible.

When I am waiting at the traffic lights in Bangalore, the arrival of beggars is really a big dilemma. Even in my scooter, I am riding something that is probably a year's income for them. And in my car, well, the amount it cost is probably something they would earn in more than a decade.

But the thing is, you can't help them! Giving someone a few rupees doesn't solve the problem. In fact, if it is kids, you're not making the situation any better. The kids usually aren't begging for themselves but usually for their families. The more they make, the more likely it is that their family would not send them to school but out on to the streets to beg. But then again, by not giving them anything, it's almost always more likely that they would be going hungry.

But even if you do give someone a few rupees, you'll see people like that in so many places. You can't help everyone! And throwing a few rupees here and there really is a way to ignore the problem than attempt to mediate it. Usually, whenever I do make donations, I make substantial donations to charitable organizations and the like.

The organizations I generally support are Help Age India and an animal charity like CUPA, mainly because in my opinion, old people and animals are among the most helpless in society. Rather than going through charities, the other options is to give money to old people on the street and buy some bread for some street dogs whenever you can. Again, there's a world of difference between throwing money around and going about charity in an organized manner.

A charity like Help Age India runs programs that gives old people capital with which they can set up small cottage industries making foodstuffs, etc which they can sell in their local communities. It's akin to the old adage of the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish. One is short term while the other is long term. Similarly, CUPA runs a variety of programs that addition to feeding stray dogs and cats also help to find homes for them as well as neuter and spay them. Again, you're contributing to a long term solution.

This blog has actually spurred me to action to. I just took a few minutes break, found an empty can in my house and dropped my first three rupees of change into it. By the time I get back to the U.S. the next year, I should have a fairly sizable amount of money in there which I can donate to the above mentioned charities. As you read this blog post, I urge each and every one of you to find some empty can or bottle in your house and start a change receptacle. Once it fills up, take the money to your bank, deposit it and donate it to Help Age India, CUPA, or any other deserving charity in your own country or elsewhere.

In the meantime, what do I do about the beggars I see on the streets as well as the four newborn puppies that are lying on the vacant site across the road from my house? Well, sadly, nothing. I've already said why it's useless to give money to beggars on the street and as for the puppies, if I feed them now, what then? What about when they grow old? We certainly can't have four dogs in addition to the dog that I have now. Sadly, nature doesn't know compassion. It's survival of the fittest everywhere, except where we humans have warped the laws of nature with our own foolish ideals. While it's heart wrenching to see those puppies suckling their mother (who is now pretty much skin and bones) for milk, there's really nothing that you can do. The only thing I do in such matters is attempt to take comfort in the principle of karma. While it would be a bit crude to interpret it as "they had it coming to them," ultimately, that's the gist of it. Nothing is undeserved and suffering in this life absolves sins in past lives and this ultimately leads to a better life. However, religion and philosophy don't always seem to make things right or explain them, but that's why I am thankful we humans have the capacity to be desensitized.

Ghettoization vs. Assimilation

One thing I have always admired and will always admire the United States for is its open-armed embrace of intelligent and worthy people from around the world, regardless of their race or creed. It is the embodiment of a meritocracy. My admiration for the U.S. is all the more enhanced when I read in the newspapers here of how the government is all set to extend a 27% quota in all institutions of learning (whether they accept government funds or not) for what are known as OBCs (Other Backward Castes). This is in addition to the existing quota (50%?) for SC/STs, or what are Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes. If you're unfortunate enough to be born a Brahmin in today's India, you'll pay dearly for the crimes of your ancestors. Never mind that without adequate primary schooling, these quotas will do nothing but deprive qualified people of careers based on their birth. But anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here. I'm talking about American meritocracy (Yes, I know we still have affirmative action, but hopefully, as more immigrants flood in to the U.S., there will not be any single "majority", so then race-based discrimination such as affirmative action will cease to exist).

This is a very interesting article and it sums up the U.S.A. in a nutshell.

Pakistanis Find U.S. an Easier Fit Than Britain

There is a world of difference between American and European immigrant communities. Even in Philadelphia's ghettoes, while immigrants do come in from Latin America, Asia and Africa, they almost always manage to work hard and get out of there within a generation or two. In fact, over the past year, I seem to recall at least a number of incidents where unemployed black (American) thugs in Philadelphia violently assaulted a number of Africans because they were apparently jealous of their hard working nature that was "taking away" what jobs there were left.

Anyway, back to the point, I found a number of things in this article worth commenting on.

"“You can keep the flavor of your ethnicity, but you are expected to become an American,” said Omer Mozaffar, 34, a Pakistani-American raised here who is working toward a doctorate in Islamic studies at the University of Chicago."

I think anyone who has lived in the U.S. for a significant amount of time can attest to that.

"Britain remains far more rigid. In the United States, for example, Pakistani physicians are more likely to lead departments at hospitals or universities than they are in Britain, said Dr. Tariq H. Butt, a 52-year-old family physician who arrived in the United States 25 years ago for his residency."

I don't remember who, but I remember someone had told me that they personally had experienced more racism in the U.S. than in Europe. I didn't quite believe the assertion then and I believe it even less now. If racism was more common in U.S., then the U.S. should have been the place where the Oldham and Paris suburb riots happened. The U.S., not Austria, should have had a ultra-right government based on an anti-auslander (outsider) platform. Have I experienced racism in the U.S.? Once, which was when Mani and I visited West Virginia. But to take West Virginia as representative of the U.S. would be similar to taking a urinal in a New York City Subway station as representative of New York City.

"The attitude of the American government in adopting terms like “Islamic fascists” and deporting large numbers of immigrants, he said, makes Muslims feel marked, as if they do not belong here. “The society in the United States is much fairer to foreigners than anywhere else,” he said, “but that mood is changing.”"

I am far more optimistic of the U.S. than the New York Times reporter. The U.S. becoming like Europe is very unlikely, because it is against the very spirit of America. Well, if anyone is capable of destroying what good America stands for, it's George Bush and his fellow Republican thugs, but I'm hopeful a complete regime change would have taken place by the third week of January, 2009.

Internet Update: Connected at Last

So I *finally* got an internet connection at home. The BSNL guy came over yesterday (Saturday Aug 19) and set it up. It was a fairly simple matter. He's set up a wireless router in my living room and with the wireless card that Mani so generously donated to me, I can access the internet with my laptop from anywhere in my house.

I just did a speed test and my "broadband" connection is clocked at 248.40 kbps. Well, I don't download much, so it'll do. Browsing is fairly fast, so that's all I care about. The deal is amazing though. Including the rental for the router, the monthly cost is only about Rs. 800 ($17.25). That's a really good deal, especially considering that unlike with other service providers, there is NO data transfer limit. The installation charges were also minimal.

Yes, it did take a long time (almost seven weeks) to finally get internet at home and yes, it is a state-owned enterprise, but find me a private ISP in India who can get you a better deal or package. Yes, it's strange, but I've long since learned that conventional wisdom doesn't have to hold true in India.

Ok, wait, let me include that story as well. Ok, about a year ago, when I was doing my co-op with the greedy land developers, Mani was in India and he had gone with my friends to buy some CD-Rs. Now they were interested in buying this brand called "Emmor" (spelling?) because it was apparently priced comparable to the rest, but its quality was far superior. Now they go to this store and ask for the Emmor CD, and the guy says he doesn't have any. They visit another store and the guy says the same story. But something catches one of my friends' eyes. They look up and there's a storage space above where the salesman is standing and they can see boxes and boxes of Emmor CD-Rs. So they're like, what are you talking about, we can see them right up there?

Now the shopkeeper decides to reluctantly part with the CD-Rs and even tries to argue that he can sell my friends no more than a certain number of CDs. This is ridiculous! Now in a normal market economy, the superior quality CDs would easily outsell the inferior quality CDs and thus competition would force the competitors to make better CDs. But apparently in India, now that socialist manufacturing quotas and other controls have been abolished, apparently, store owners have taken it upon themselves to play with market forces. Rather than stock up with Emmor, which is the best quality, they seem to buy equal amounts of all brands and then sell them to customers by saying they don't have Emmor, when indeed they do and they're saving them for last. This is inexplicable.

Now since I mentioned India's socialist days, let me talk briefly about that here. Gurcharan Das, the author of the book India Unbound said in the book, India may have achieved her political independence in 1947, but she did not become completely free until 1991 when the economy became free. Now, I recommend everyone to read that book just to see how stupid socialist economies are, but here's one example.

If you wanted to open a factory, the government would say, "Ok, we'll give you a license to open this factory. You're producing tires, right? Ok, there's a demand for 10,000 tires in the market, so that's how many tires you can produce." So how did they calculate the demand? Well, simple, they've given the car manufacturers a license to produce 2,000 cars, so including the spare, it's five tires per car, so 10,000. Now how did they get the 2,000 cars figure? Well, they just seemed to have made it up or it was connected to the license given to the steel manufacturers, the petroleum refiners, etc etc.

So basically, instead of letting the market decide, the government used to set quotas on pretty much everything. In almost all cases, demand was severely underestimated with the result that you had a long waiting list for pretty much anything. Because of this, companies had no incentive to improve their products (since they were selling all they were producing) and India's scooters and cars hardly changed in appearance or technology between 1950 and 1980.

Basically, I found this really nice quote relating to one of socialism's trademarks, the Bajaj Chetak two stroke scooter.

"As a genre, it should evoke the same enthu as the two-stroke Chetak did two decades ago, when it was ALLOTTED to you by the grace of God & government, after having paid precious foreign exchange and waited in line for years ! It was really a bragging point – not bragging about the scooter – but about how "smart" you were to book the scooter at the right time, how cleverly you "arranged" foreign exchange, how you cleverly "managed" to jump the queue through your "connections", and generally how "well connected" you are. Those were the legendary days of socialism. Of the "control-quota-permit-inspector" raj of designer corruption. You never got or bought anything. Everything was "allotted" to you as a favor done by govt. And each allotment (of whatever) was a reason for celebration – since life itself was an "allotment". Be it allotment of a gas connection, a milk card, a ration card or even a single cylinder, two-stroke, manual geared, Bajaj scooter!"

Ah, those good old days, when you had to wait 10 years for a telephone connection. However, one must take the good with the bad. Despite her horrible economic policies, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (who is most derided by Gurcharan Das) was a staunch conservationist. She was the person who was responsible for getting Project Tiger started in India and for setting aside reserves.

It really is a matter of pride. I can never sympathize with people from Africa when they complain that it's overpopulation that's to blame for their decimation of wildlife. Give me a break! They have a total population of less than one billion for the entire continent! We have more people than that in one country! We've done a far better job of protecting our wildlife despite our population density being more than 10 times that for Africa as a whole. Yes, there's the emptyness of the Sahara, but even then, I'm sorry, they cannot use population as an excuse.
I am reminded of the Simpsons quote when they visit Africa. The flight attendant says, "Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare for our arrival at Tanzania." "I'm sorry, its now New Zanzibar." "Excuse me, it's now Pepsi Presents New Zanzibar." To be honest, that's not far from the truth. Political instability and the lack of pretty much anything stable is to blame for Africa's problems, but overpopulation is not an excuse. Africa's population density as a whole is comparable to that of the United States. There's something you probably didn't know.

Wow, I've really gone off on a number of tangents here. Where did I start off at, oh yes, I now have internet at home.

The Abishekham

I mentioned in my previous photo that at the Gopalaswamy Temple, an abishekham took place while I was there. Let me briefly explain what this exactly is. Basically, devotees brought to the temple things such as whole buckets of milk, bottles of honey, pots of yogurt, big vessels full of rice dishes, etc. What exactly happened was that, accompanied by Sanskrit prayers, the priests follow a ritualized process that involves bathing the idol of the temple deity in milk, followed by yogurt, followed by the rice dish, followed by butter and honey. All this is allowed to flow down the surface of the idol.

I am not sure where it all goes, but there is drainage surrounding the idol down which this stuff flows. It most like empties outside the temple where dogs and cattle will pick through it. It could even be that it is collected in a receptacle and the priests will place it in a place where dogs can have access to it.

Now a similar abishekham happened when we visited the Lord Vishnu temple in Penn Hills, PA outside of Pittsburgh a few years back (late July, 2004 to be exact). At the time, myself and Mani had gone there with my former roommate and his mother. We decided to walk out at the beginning of the abishekham because believing ourselves to be "reformed" Hindus, we had concluded that this ritualized display was a wastage of food and participation in it should be avoided by educated, modern Hindus.

My views have softened considerably since then. Now for the record, I still think the food used in an abishekham is going to waste and thinking of the number of people who go hungry around the world every single day, I do not think I will ever perform an abishekham myself. However, I also do not think that it is my place to walk out of an abishekham because I disagree with it. I believe it was Jesus who said "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." I do plenty of things in life that to others would seem like an absolute waste. I don't think any of us can say that we live non-wasteful lives. If you've ever bought an expensive dress, designer jeans, driven when you could have walked, eaten at restaurants, taken a vacation, or any of a million other things, you're "wasting" resources that could feed so many starving people in Africa.

I now also do not think that it is my place to be arrogant enough to think that I have decoded the laws of karma, that I know exactly which and which actions are good, exactly which and which actions are bad, etc. Personally, I do not think an abishekham is right, so I wouldn't perform one. But whether it is or isn't is ultimately decided only by the laws of karma, of which I have no knowledge. It's kind of like with the Hajj that Muslims perform. In one of the final steps of their pilgrimage, they have to sacrifice one goat each or a few people can together sacrifice a cow. On the one hand, it seems wrong that you're killing animals in the name of God. On the other, so many millions of pounds of meat are packaged each year and delivered free to poor people around the world. There's got to be some good in that.

Basically, it's all relative. You might construe this to say that I'm just using this as an excuse for indecisiveness and not taking a strong stand. On the other hand, I firmly believe that it isn't indecisiveness, but tolerance for other ways of thinking. As a society, we think of certain things as good and certain things as wrong, and we've based our system of laws and penalties on that. As individuals however, we can only do what our conscience tells us is right. Whether it actually is or isn't will be decided later, and we can't waste valuable time debating that point.

Photos from the Road Trip

Gopalaswamy Betta from the distance.

Sunflower fields as seen from the drive up to the hill.

Can you make out the boundary between the national park & the farmland?


The lake in the center is used by both animals from the forest and villagers tending to their fields in the distance.


This is a typical multistoried tropical forest. These are what real forests should look like, not the monotonous, evenly spaced single story forests found in the U.S., which in the winter resemble twigs sticking out of the ground.

The grassy forest found at the top of the hill.


The entrance to the temple at the top of the hill.

The view around the top of the hill when the clouds lift intermittently.

View of the temple when the clouds have lifted.

One of the photos we took of wild elephants.


Another elephant photo, look for them in the center.

Gopalaswamy Betta & Mysore Zoo

STATUTORY WARNING: The following is a very long blog post detailing my recent road trip. Extended reading may result in headache, eye strain, or general confusion.

So I finally took my first road trip after coming to India. Yes, I had once driven to Mysore before, but that was to a cousin's house, so I won't count that. Anyway, before my friend Tusheet leaves for the U.S. to do his Master's at the University of Houston, we had to go on a trip. There were many postponements (exams, dengue fever, etc) and we were ultimately faced with the following constraints.

1) Overnight stay was not possible due to Tusheet leaving this week (Aug 11) and the fact that Naveen still had not recovered enough from dengue fever to risk an overnight stay.

2) We had to be able to get there and back in a day from Bangalore and it had to be something memorable for us.

As a result, when we reached Naveen's house on Thursday night and his father asked us where we were going, we replied that we were going to go upstairs and figure that very thing out. Based on my cousin's recommendations, we finally decided upon Gopalaswamy Betta (Hill). Gopalaswamy Betta is about 220 km southwest of Bangalore and it is the beginning of Bandipur National Park. There is also a temple dedicated to Gopalaswamy (another name for Lord Krishna) at the top of the hill.

I regret that I do not know the elevation of the hill, but it is substantially higher than the surrounding plateau because the forest around the temple is mainly tropical montane cloud forests consisting of short trees and lots of grasses. It was also about 15 degrees Celsius at noon with the rain and blowing winds making it feel much cooler. But more on that later. We left Bangalore at 04:00 a.m. and were in Mysore by around 06:00 a.m., averaging 70 kph on the excellent Bangalore-Mysore highway.

We decided to take the bypass around the "city" rather than entering it. Now half-assed and half-thought out things are extremely common in India. An example would be set of steps that run into a concrete wall on a hillside. Someone decides to build something and does it, but then realizes that it is a stupid design and then walls it off. Anyway, it was a similar case in Mysore when we decided to drive around the city. To get to Gopalaswamy Betta, we had to take the Ooty road. For the first few kilometers, we noticed clear, well-placed, U.S. style signs towards Ooty. Then at one point, the signs suddenly stop. Continuing on the same road, we saw a kilometer marker by the side of the road to Kollegal. The mental map in my brain sounded an alarm and I realized that Kollegal was on National Highway 209 and it ran parallel about 50 kms away from the road we were supposed to be taking. So we stopped and asked someone for directions. In India, you really don't need a mapquest or Google Maps to give you directions. We have one billion people, so if you're ever lost, you'll always have someone nearby to tell you where to go. And it doesn't hurt that Indians are among the most helpful people in the world.

Anyway, before I get to asking directions, there's something you need to know about directions in Mysore. In Mysore, distances are not measured in kilometers or miles. They are instead measured in terms of circles. For example, a few years ago when we were going to Ooty, we asked someone directions to Ooty Road. We were told to go straight, turn right at the next circle, go three circles and take a left, and then a right at the next circle. A few weeks ago when we needed directions to where my cousin was staying, we were told to go straight, take a right at the next circle, take a left at the dead end, then a right at Ramaswamy Circle (which is a big circle), then go under the railway bridge to Vijaya Bank Circle, which would be near our destination.

So anyway, the circle thing is hilarious and we often joke about it. So when we asked this guy directions, he put up his hand and counted 1, 2, 3, 4. Then he says, "Neewu straight hogi, sir, amele left tagoli main road nalli. Amele nimge nalakku circle sigatte, wondu doddu circle, amele chikku circle, amele doddu circle, amele innondu medium circle. Kone circle nalli left tagondu straight hogi, highway sigatte." That means, go straight and take a left at the main road. Then you'll get four circles, a big circle, then a small circle, then a big circle, and then a medium circle. Take a left at the last circle and go straight to get the highway. Now as he's alternating between the big and small circles, the smiles on all of our faces were widening. I had to do everything I possibly could to burst from laughing and my friends said their situation was the same. The guy was a very nice guy and his directions were impeccable for the most part, but the circle thing combined with him counting in his head, 1, 2, 3, 4 was just too funny. Ah, Mysore. Now the only part of his directions which was "peccable" was the second small circle. It wasn't a circle, just a point where the road widened and narrowed in a circular arc. So my friends and I are still trying to figure out exactly what Mysore people mean when they say "circle."

So anyway, we continued and stopped at a village called Hangala just before the turnoff from the highway towards Gopalaswamy Betta. My friend Tusheet had a flat tire about three weeks back and was driving with the spare (Cars in India don't have donuts as spares, but rather a complete actual tire). So we wanted to repair the spare since now we had nothing to fall back on if we got a flat. So we stopped in this one village and while the flat was being repaired, these villagers would keep walking by the car and peer inside intently. My friend Tusheet naturally wondered out loud why these villagers are acting so weird and peering into his car like that.

My response was because they probably rarely ever got to see the inside of a car and were fascinated by it. Naveen said when he had asked his dad the same question some time ago, he had been asked whether we wouldn't look inside a fighter jet if there was one parked. As my other friend Nikhil said, even when there's a sports car, we gawk at it and peer inside, so in light of all this, we concluded that there was nothing abnormal about the villagers' behavior. They were just seeing something they had rarely, if ever, seen and were curious as to what it was like. Now there are a number of reasons why the villagers rarely see cars, but if we were to go into all those socioeconomic and political factors, we would run into another ten blog posts and this already lengthy post would probably never end. So let's continue with the story.

By this time, we could clearly see Gopalaswamy Betta in the distance. The sight of the summit hidden in the dark clouds underscored once again why the monsoons (I say monsoons because being in south India, I am affected by both the southwest and northeast monsoons) are my favorite seasons of the year. During the drive up the hill, it got progressively colder and more foggy. Surrounded by thick tropical forest, it was absolutely beautiful. The temple at the top of the hill was amazing. It is my favorite type of temple, the non commercialized, small kind that actually inspires devotion. Now the hill is actually known as Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta and the temple is Himavad Gopalaswamy Temple. Now in Kannada, "hima" is ice/frost/dew. In this temple, just above the entrance to the inner sanctum where the idol is kept, there is supposed to be a layer of ice that is protuding down from the roof. The priest was explaining the story of supposedly how the ice came to be there, which is why they called the God, Himavad Gopalaswamy. Unfortunately, I didn't hear the story because a baby was crying there and some people were talking in the background. Since I didn't hear the story, none of us reached up and touched the ice. What's amazing is that the ice is always supposed to be there. My cousins remember having felt it even when they once visited the temple during the summer. Even at the top of hill, during the peak of summer in April / May, I would venture that the temperature would easily cross 25 to 28 degrees Celsius during the day, so it's a mystery of how the ice is always present. Also, the temple is constructed in a way to minimize the loss of heat, so even though it may be 12 to 15 degrees outside, the area around the inner sanctum itself is a comfortable temperature of 20 to 22 degrees. I would guess that maybe there's a refrigeration system involved in this, but it would have to be incredibly complex. And according to stories at least, this phenomenon is supposed to be happening ever since the temple was built in the year 1315. A Wikipedia entry on the temple says that it isn't ice, but dew which is on the temple ceiling. That would be a lot more plausible since condensation would occur on a cold surface since the room is warmer than the outside. However, I would think that my cousins would know the difference between touching ice and touching dew. Hmm ... next time, I must touch it to find out exactly what it is. For the moment, I'll assume it's dew since I don't imagine how ice can form there. I'll give you an update next time I actually visit there and touch it.

At the temple, we also reached just in time for the "abishekham", which is a separate blog post on its own.

Anyway, we left the temple and went for a walk along a hiking path leading from the temple into the valley below through the forest. We walked for maybe 200 to 300 meters until the trail got really steep (none of us were really prepared for hiking). The forest is interesting. It's mainly grass and short trees. I would venture that for pretty much every day from June thru November, the top of the hill is enveloped in clouds, so you have an area that doesn't see the sun for half the year. That certainly would contribute to the nature of the flora you find there. The grass however was very interesting. It was being blown by the wind and was mostly green and with yellow blades. Oh, and each grass blade was about a meter long and vertically stood about as high as my thigh. Being blown by the wind, I realized how perfect a tiger's stripes were for camouflage. Even us humans, with our superior eyesight being able to discern colors and depth very effectively would have a very tough time trying to spot a tiger's stripes amongst the flowing sea of grass. The poor ungulates that actually are the tigers' prey have pretty much no chance. It makes you appreciate all the more the beauty of evolution through the eons of time.

So after spending some time at the top of the hill, we started back down again. One of the forest guides hitched a ride with us to the bottom of the hill. Halfway down the hillside, we saw some people standing by the side of the road and they said they saw elephants below. We had some trouble spotting the elephants that time, but we did see white specks below which were cattle roaming the forest below. Anyway, slightly further down, we clearly spotted a herd of four elephants. They were moving into the forest, well, being chased by villagers into the forest rather. The villagers were making a lot of noise and were moving on the forest floor below. More villagers were on the road and were throwing football sized rocks towards the elephants and were making them move away. As the elephants moved, they were cracking small trees like twigs. At this moment, Naveen asked in a very agitated voice as to why the villagers were throwing rocks at the elephants. My response was, "You come from Bangalore one day and see the elephants and they are very nice. But the villagers spend their entire waking moment guarding their fields, which are their only source of income, from elephant raids."

Naveen's perceptions though are very similar to those of urban dwellers in India, and indeed across the world, who have little to no idea of human-animal conflicts. The forest guide was obviously a lot more sympathetic to the villagers and I even sensed some hostility towards the elephants. I wouldn't say such hostility is unreasonable. Consider this, you are a villager who are trying to eke out a living the hardest way possible, tilling a bit of land using mainly human and animal power, for roundabout $1 a day. In addition to toiling during the day like this, you and your family have to take turns staying awake all night and wielding torches ensuring that elephants do not come and eat your crops, taking even your meager standard of living away. Elephants meanwhile raid crops because it is an easy source of protein and other nutrients, whereas otherwise they would have to forage extensively in the jungle. The humans aren't entirely free of blame either. Grazing of domestic cattle within the forest boundaries takes away from what the elephants can eat and further induces them to leave the boundaries.

However, who is most culpable in this conflict is the government. The government should have taken steps to mitigate the concerns of the the villagers, but few have been tested thus far. And it isn't as if there are no solutions. One needs to only visit Google Scholar or journals such as Conservation Biology or Biological Conservation to realize that there have been plenty of scientists working on similar problems. For example, across Africa and certain parts of Asia, different methods have been tried to prevent crop raids. Electric fences have been successful in southeast Asia. Scientists have also determined in Africa that elephants have a maximum distance they will stray from the forest edge and that the planting of crops that elephants find unpalatable within that distance will greatly reduce crop losses. Ultimately though, this requires effort from the government in either providing the money for the construction of electric fences and education of villagers in crop loss mitigation practices and support in that. Unfortunately however, the government is keen to ignore the problem and continue to allow the elephants free reign, except during election year when perhaps crop losses are compensated for. Permanent solutions that work for the benefit of both elephants and humans is the least of the government's concerns, and that perhaps is the greatest tragedy in this conflict.

The drive back to Bangalore was uneventful, although we did manage a visit to Mysore Zoo, which was nice. Ok, finally, this blog post has ended. If you are reading this, thanks for bearing with me through this post. I hope it was at least some food for thought.