All my Gods have clay feet

Terminal 3 , Delhi International Airport

Lohegaon Airport, Pune.

Back from New Delhi/Guragon this morning.  All the talk in business is about the weakening Indian Rupee. Distressing but boring after the twentieth time.

This week has been stressful.  Lots of stuff happening.  This travel also added to it.

Paper Planes:  MIA

" I fly like paper get high like planes."

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

Shatabdi Express, Pune Secunderabad. August 25, 2013

Looking north, on a west- east bound train.

I went to Hyderabad (Secunderabad is a sister city) last weekend by train.  Left early Saturday, ran the full, 42.2 km Airtel 2013 Hyderabad marathon on Sunday morning and returned the same day.  Quite exhausting.  I did not do as well as I wanted.  I went too fast initially and had severe cramps in the 29th Km and had to walk/limp the rest of the 13 km to finish in 5 hours 39 minutes. But finished all the same.  The depressing split stats and ranking can be found here. Bib Number is 1289. Male. Category :Overall.

The lines and coloring on the drawing is shaky because of the rocking of the train.  The watercolor landscapes are glimpses of the freshly monsooned countryside sliding past.  Beautiful.

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.

Right there in black and white

Funeral procession.  Pashan. Pune.

Sugarcane juice stall. Baner, Pune.

Couple in rain, Baner-Sus Road. Pune 

I had planned to do this.  Draw scenes of life in the neighbourhood where I live, from memory, like a visual diary.  I drive a very short distance through Pashan village to my work place on Baner Road. I get to see a lot of village life everyday to and from work. The village is quite "villagey'.  Pashan sits amid all the boom in construction as urban Pune threatens to swallow it.  Kids run around barefoot.  Goats, chicken, and dogs roam freely. At the appointed bathing hour, a herd of water buffalo block my road to work as they lazily wander from the river to their dairy.  I take photographs sometimes but I really had hoped I would be able to draw from life that will very soon be gone. I have been teaching myself figurative drawing and other technical aspects.  Drawing from memory is a lot of fun but frustrating when you cant really construct the scene as you see it in your minds eye.  Hope you like them.

Short story: My father on his way to bed recalled a story from his childhood. He and some others in their childhood used to tease his mother ( "JiJi") that her father used to peddle hooch.  It so happened, the land her father had given on her marriage to my grandfather ( Dowry you think? Of course!) had a number of 'Mahua' trees.(Madhuca Longifolia) These trees bear a sweet and fragrant flower ( and a fruit) that is fermented to brew 'Country liquor'. Jiji's father used to auction off the flowers and fruits of the Mahua trees to manufacturers of country liquor. Hence the young scamps, my father included, would tease their matronly mother.  Well, I had to write it down.  So I did that here.

Pointing fingers at everyone

Off Laxmi Road, Pune

The Indian Parliaments House of Commons ( Loksabha) will come up for elections soon.    India is the worlds largest democracy. It also has a very diverse population. 16 odd official languages. 44 odd dialects.  At least five major religions. ( Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity and Judaism.).  In the last fifteen years at least 5 additional states have been created from the original 24 (!?).

Multiple poliical parties exist.  The top two currently are the BJP and the Congress.  The current Govt Of India is ruled by a majority of the Congress party.  The Congress parties last five years have been marked primarily by huge corruption scandals.  The BJP, that used to be in power before, is ideologically linked to Hindu fundamentalists.  India will go to the polls soon.

So....I had an interesting visit by two middle aged ladies this Sunday afternoon.   They told me they were taking a public poll.  They mentioned a electoral roll.   Asked if I was a registered voter ( I am) and then asked me to answer questions about using the internet to cast my vote.   Turns out they work for  a marketing agency.  They then asked me some perfunctory questions about my internet use and inclination to use the internet for elections.  Rather cunningly, the questions then turned course towards asking me for my facebook ID, my email, inclination to get political information via email etc.  Of course I did not give them any details.  The next set of questions asked me to list "Political issues" based on my concerns.  eg. "Corruption", "Access to education" , "Infrastructure" etc. Then a variety of questions about religious preferences etc.  I bluntly told them I was done answering any more questions about my political views or religious.  They were quite nice  about it. They said they come to our neighbourhood often. Wished me and left.   Looks like Indian politics is learning fast from the west. And with resources to spare, as India gets more affluent, such relatively sophisticated means of getting information and selling it to political parties seem to be on  the rise.   

Born under a bad sign

Shop across from Tambdi Jogeshwari Ganesh Temple, AB Chowk ,Pune

This is in the old city of Pune. The stone pillar is a "Deep Stambh" or a Light Pillar.  Lamps would be lit in the curved arms along its height.  Made from native basalt rock probably 50-100 years ago, several remain around the city. I have drawn one in the past as well.   This is across from a famous Ganesh Temple in Appa Balwant Chowk. ABC.

It's a busy street corner as well. The old curved shop caught my eye as well.  So I squeezed into a cranny by the entrance to the temple and drew.  Several people stopped by on their way. Almost as usual, one person said something  that was strange and creepy.
The sketchbook I use is oblong. It opens lengthwise and its spine is on the short side.. I am right handed so I prefer to rest the right half on a flat surface and draw.  The long left half is propped up on my left and doesn't get in the way.  Basically, I always draw on the right half. And stingy that I am, I use every damn page including ones facing each other.  That means I rotate the book so that  I always draw on the right half of the book. Makes sense? Probably not. In any case, it turns out that if you open the sketchbook the  drawing on the left is upside down and on the right half is right way up.
Long story short, according to this concerned nutcase citizen of Pune this is not a good thing.  NEVER WRITE OR DRAW ON FACING PAGES UPSIDE DOWN! This was explained to me in a creepy way that was half pitying me in tone and half coaxing like you would coax the  devil to leave the possessed.  The man asked me to reconsider the way I drew.  Sleep on it. He said.  Ponder what I was doing in a quiet moment of meditation. All this in Marathi, the local language. Low tones. Six inches from my face. He left saying that all he could do was suggest the right path.  My life was mine. But bad luck was everyones (!).  He was only working in his "Circle of influence" ( RIP Steven Covey!).  Lot of head wagging.
After he left, I thought up many many smart and witty retorts. My fantasy ended with me changing his life with the debunking of many superstitions that cloud the minds of his kind in this post medieval part of Pune.  But in real life I was squirming and getting really pissed off. Jackass.