Fisher of souls

Ambazari Lake, Nagpur, India. August 18 2013.

I have  been fishing a few times. Caught a fish once.  I enjoyed the trip but not so much the flopping around  of the fish.  But then I did eat it later.  Oh well.
The one thing that stuck in my head from the instructions from my friend and boss who had taken us fishing was that don't fidget with the line once its cast.  Let the line sit and watch the float.  Patiently.  I am not very patient. I  moved the hook around if nothing happened after five minutes. Later I saw a kid amongst these fishermen catch a fish.  He did follow those rules. He cast the hook and then set the rod down by his side. Hugged his knees and squatted as he watched the float for any signs of bobbing. All of a sudden he grabbed the rod and reeled in a fish.  

Beginning our final descent

Lohogaon Airport, Pune.  Dighi Hills in the back.

I am a big fan of aviation.  It's an amazing engineering accomplishment and unfortunately it is now taken for granted.  Like metallurgy even.  I attended a wedding in Nagpur last weekend. An hour long flight in an Airbus 320.   I drew this charter taxing out with the Dighi Hills of Pune in the background.
'Check-list Manifesto" is a great book by Dr Atul Gawande.  He is a surgeon at Mass Gen (?).  He writes  about the importance of check-lists and learnt of their effective use especially in the aerospace industry. (Amongst other things.  For instance, he writes how the rock band Van Halen used them to manage the enormous logistics of their '80s concerts so their fans had a safe and satisfying experience. They used to include a line item like "Jelly bean bowl backstage with no purple beans".  If the bowl wasn't there they knew that perhaps the check-list wasn't being carefully followed.).
I mention this because of the high volume of flights being handled by airports in India all of sudden in the last five years. I often worry about safety standards.  I saw a ground crew member filling in a check-list mechanically in the gangway when I boarded my flight.  He was filling in a logbook and initialling every line item. En masse. One benefit of a check-list  is when we perform routine sequential actions. Its important to check off the action as soon as it is performed.   This reduces the possibility of  human error in remembering the action and the sequence. Obviously here he had done what he had to, and was now logging the actions afterwards.

Maybe I just worry too much.  He probably was checking off a list of beverages that were loaded.