DETAIL TALK

Keeping favorites is a difficult thing, especially in India and on Indian highways.  They all appear to have a character which is unlike the other.  But if any one has to be stated, then it would be NH-4 connecting the two large metropolises- Mumbai and Bangalore. A ride down this highway is like experiencing the contrasts, contradictions and diversity that India is. Urban agglomerations loosing up into suburbs which then unfold into rolling landscapes of rural India. And all this connected by a modern 4 lane highway! What a contrast! I remark every time I am on it.

The bike cruises at a fixed speed, feeling neither too stressed nor playing under its capacity, giving enough free room for me to observe and relish the landscapes in which I feel like a buzzing bumble bee, on a linear path. Leaving Mumbai and taking the old NH to Pune and down on to Satara is when the Sahyadris reveal their beauty, ofcourse from a distance and reminds me of the numerous incursions that the Deccan kings had in the region. 

This highway for me has a mind of its own. Some days it is that vast welcoming road offering a swift connection to my home from my workplace and yet some other times it feels like why was this needed! Why did we even attempt such a monstrosity in these lovely laid back country side and infect it with our false and thin urgency about everything in life. I love this highway because it lets me imagine, it lets me dream. Sometimes I wonder how the fort at Chitradurg would appear in the horizon as I gallop down a path on my horse, probably a multani throughbred. Would it be as formidable as I suspect it was in its glory days? It is no joy seeing it disappear in the rear view mirror, as soon as it appeared, riding this modern highway. Yet, it is this modern highway which has made the island like settlements connect like a stream of humanity, to their dreams, to a prosperous life and be a part of the grand Indian growth story that the sarkar in Delhi keeps harping about. I love watching those young girls riding their TVS XLs or Scooties down to work, in the nearby town. Wonder how would things look had not this highway been there. And so the mind picks up ‘why is it here’ and ’why should it not be here’ turn by turn and I ride the 1000km till the metropolis on the other end appear in the horizon. 

I am no explorer or an adventurer and this highway certainly doesn’t make you feel so. But what it does do is offer a quick short rendition (with a full ensemble) of the music that is India. 

And here is a song, I often play on the road:

‘Sair kar duniya ki Ghalib, zindagaani phir kahaan’. I had only read these lines. Last month I lived these lines. It was liberating, exhilirating, overwhelming and a brilliantly new perspective to life, people and the wonder that is India! I covered a total of 2,500 kms on my bike, Bajaj Discover 150cc,which I like to call Lakshmi, after my Mom because both have taken me far and higher in my life. I rode solo from Delhi to Mumbai and further down to Bangalore. This was a memorable ride on many counts, starting with the fact that this was my first 1500 km+ ride. Second, that Ajmer was on my route, where I was to spend an evening at Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s shrine. I feel, if biking could ever be a religion,it would be much like Sufism. While riding emotions and love are an outpouring. It is a ceaseless stream. And you feel like a derviesh, spinning through the latitudes of the earth.

(Until here is the entry for PowerBikers. Rest…was a flood I could not control. Read on… )

The urban landscapes of Delhi amplified further into the dizzying skyline of Gurgaon and then all of it dissolved into the plains of Rajasthan. Soon the landscape was of colourful sarees and infectious smiles, with young NHAI women workers rushing to finish their ice-candies, sitting on the road divider and the distant mirage on the road, all of it now seem surreal and overwhelming. Soon, it was Gujarat. I spent a night in Ahmedabad hopelessly lost in the mess that Ahmedavadis call ‘traffic’. Ran with my Lakshmi, with a hand on my saddle bags, helmet visor open, letting loose some choicest words on the directionless vehicles. Mumbai becknoned thereafter. My mom, lovely food and the smells of my home waited for me. I spent 2 days letting the riot of experiences percolate and for me to make sense of it all. 

Two days, we rested and gave the other Lakshmi a chance to talk. She was in a state of denial. She didn’t expect me to ride down all the way. I was expected on Dehradun-Mumbai Express, dragging down a suitcase which I have never had any use of! Amma and Appa’s shock took some time to surface and then double the time to subside. Then came the suggestion that I should consider parceling my bike to Bangalore and take a bus/train/flight instead. All tricks in the book were tried. All Gods pleased. And while this happened, the little one was giving my bike a spin in the city, perfecting her grip on the bike! Man… are Amma and Appa happy with their two daughters showing no signs of ‘ordinariness’? I guess! They sulk!

The following morning confirmed their fears. Saddle bags stood packed. A balaclava and a pair of gloves lay prepared on the table. In submission, Amma packs some dosas for my lunch on the highway and Amma, Appa and the little one wish me good luck for the road. My destination for the day was Dharwad, where another lovely couple were to welcome me to their home and open their hearts for an aquaintance whom they discovered only on their dinner table that night! The Kolhapuri spread on the dinner table was too good for the darveish to stop spinning for a while and polish the plates clean. Can’t forget that evening with the gorgeous Simintini and @patilst , my hosts. Thank you is too short and incomplete. Perhaps, a terminator style.. “I’ll be back” would convey my feelings better.

The Indian Iron Lady- Indira Gandhi

Dream city of a sort, Shimla, India

Untouchable, published in 1935, was a chilling exposé of the day-to-day life of a member of India’s untouchable caste. It is the story of a single day in the life of Bakha, a toilet-cleaner, who accidentally bumps into a member of a higher caste.

Bakha searches for a salve to the tragedy of the destiny into which he was born, talking with a Christian missionary, listening to a speech about untouchability by Mahatma Gandhi and a subsequent conversation by two educated Indians, but by the end of the book Anand suggests that it is technology, in the form of the newly introduced flush toilet that may be his saviour by eliminating the need for a caste of toilet cleaners.

Our work with CEEW (www.ceew.in)  in visualizing their National Water Resources Framework Study 

schoolsonthemoon:

Our mini documentary about building a School on the Moon. Thank you to the people that donated and helped us provide tents to the children in Door Baba, Rodat.

At work, I sometimes muse about the state of education in India and around the world in general. Not sure about how it looks like elsewhere, I am sure that India has gone way off the track as far as true spirit of education and child upbringing is concerned. Schools and colleges no longer are what they were… they are factories which feed factories of another sort. And in all this have we really “progressed”. Going through John Dewey’s seminal article “My Pedagogic Creed” , here is the portion that I’d like to read out loud to the educationists and planners busy planning (ruining?) India’s future:

The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on of his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child’s activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.

Go ahead and read the entire article, if you haven’t:My Pedagogic Creed