urban jungles

I just finished a holiday In Singapore. The efficiency of the city continues to amaze me. They run their daily lives with such discipline and efficiency. No jay walking, no litter, no pollution.  A city that is built by its citizens and is kept clean and spotless. It made me think, that the bets and the only way to get people out of poverty is proper urban planning.

Cities are the bedrock of modern society. We can wish as much for the village in the gandhian principal of “India living in its villages” but the fact remains that cities are just far more efficient means for community living. Density allows for access to advancement in basic civic services. Only in a huge bustling metropolis can you have the best of roads, transport, hospitals, schools, parks, malls, primary healthcare, sanitation, sewage etc. Large communities living together can together demand and make viable an efficient system or modern living. Cities improve the lives of people and help them compete, make money, innovate, distribute, access finance etc. These just become unviable when you have villages with a few and far dispersed population. The access costs of all these services makes it impossible.

Roads in a cities are demanded are a right and roads in a village are given as a favor. That in itself is a key point of difference in itself. The problem is the not fact that people are slowly moving to the cities in search for employment and opportunities. We cannot lament over it and come up with bird brain nazique ideas to stop it. People are coming because it is simply more efficient to live in a city.  The problem as Singapore has shown is simply urban planning (or failure of it thereof). Improvement in people’s lives and alleviation of poverty can simply be handled by proper urban planning and administration. If we give people proper amenities and charge them for it and create an infrastructure that works for its people then people will find a way to get themselves out of poverty and live meaningful lives.

We were staying at a friend’s place which overlooked a park. Next to the park was the government housing complex. The complex was clean and neat and well kept, unlike the ones in Mumbai which become a hot bed for crime. This complex had an open gym where the government had kept exercise equipment which basically was designed as outdoor equipment in which the design was such that it used body weight as resistance. They were lovely and when I tried them I realized that they could actually be sued as a great exercise tool. You just have to substitute the heavy lifting with extra reps. It was awesome.

The best part was that no matter when I saw the park and the equipment, there were always some people using it and exercising. It was awesome. I saw people exercising in the morning, in the afternoon under the blazing sun and night (even late night). This is crazy. The oldies outnumbered the young ones, but it seems that entire Singapore is into fitness as a culture. The frame work provided by the urban planners takes this into account. The gardens and gym equipment is designed to allow you to use it. It was a crazy revelation. Especially the oldies were so much into it. One thing I saw across Singapore were a large number of oldies working.

This made me think. Why would the oldies work? When you speak to people about Singapore, they all love it but they all complain that it’s become expensive to live in Singapore. My view was that possibly these oldies who I see working everywhere – some as waiters, cleaners, taxi drivers etc, were possibly working as they need to support themselves as they grow older. Possibly there is a huge cost of medical and living and lifestyle maintenance that is difficult to keep up to. What was it? In the second half of the trip I was asking everyone – why are the old people working? Whats wrong in the system?

The answer I kept getting is that they are working as they want to. Simple. What I understood is that they have money and health care is already subsidized for them and they have contributed to the health care while they were working. Also their retirement plan was worked out for them while they earned their salaries. Hence it’s not that they work to eat or live. They work as they are able bodied and they want to work. Otherwise they will sit at home and rot. It’s the same reason they remain fit. They are independent people and like to preserve their independent lives and be fit. Their great leader set an example for them and worked till he died. They see no wrong in doing the same. There is great dignity of labor and hence lots of job are available for them and they work. One taxi driver told me, while I was hurrying to see the sunset from tourist spot that the best sun set he saw was in japan and the best sun rise was in Egypt. Singapore ‘no good’ for sunset views. He was right. But the point is that he is not the normal bottom of the pyramid taxi driver. The old man was working because he wanted to and he had enough money. The city took care of them.

I was telling Jasmine that look at the Singapore model. Good urban planning has allowed so many things to work rightly. How people move, commute, live, enjoy and work. They get themselves out of poverty and crime. You give people homes and they live well. You create a disciplined environment and they live with it. So many poverty alleviation techniques are available from teaching people livelihoods, education, food and even direct cash transfer. I have a theory that all of it pales in comparison to the simple act of good urban planning and enforcing of community discipline. Density will allow the maximum impact in small areas and allow for a mass upward movement of people. If someone just sets up an independent urban planning center and in which they have templates and studies for planning and development which are free for people to access and use and ask questions of their politicians, then a massive change could be affected. They could, let’s say give out simple thumb rules for what a km of rail line could cost , or a typical walkway or methods for road construction to be followed and make these open source. Then bids of these would become transparent.

This center simply explained how cities should function, how policing can function, how transport can be built and lay out the best learnings across the world then, my belief is that the world will become a significantly better place. Cities are not yet congested. They are just simply badly planed and managed. They generate enough money for investments, but are simply corrupt with no base ready for comparison and criticism. Cities can take in even more people, with even larger sky scrapers being built and inhabited efficiently.

Cities are the way to uplifting people from despair and hunger and poverty. Urban planning will allow it. Efficient and effective way to help people live better lives. That was my big Singapore learning.

PS – the best part of the trip – going to a trampoline gym and jumping away with Jispa. It was seriously so much fun.

Black hole bus

“Over the years, ridership on the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses has decreased, and slipped further down in February, possibly due to the fare hike. With yet another round of increase in fares slated to come into force from Wednesday, the clientele can only get thinner, say experts.How many passengers has BEST lost over past 2 months? As per transport figures for the months of January and February, around 3 lakh passengers stopped using the public transport to their destinations. The data show that in January this year, a total of 35.77 lakh passengers were ferried by BEST buses daily to various corners of Mumbai and even outside city limits.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/mumbai-all-best-bus-routes-stopped-making-profits-last-year/article1-1310037.aspx

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-fare-hike-today-loss-making-best-continues-to-lose-commuters-2073603

Mumbai has a bus service that was once its pride. The BEST service. It was a funny amalgamation of an electric supply company and a Bus service. The name is actually – Bombay Electric Supply and Transport – hence BEST. To start with I have no clue why an electric utility company and the bus transport company must be merged into one. They have no obvious synergies in management or in supply of raw materials. It’s not like the bus service run electric busses. I think this was a legacy of the Trams which ran on electricity as I could understand from this pargraphs.

“The Bombay Tramway Company Limited was formally set up in 1873. The Mumbai Municipality was given the right to buy up the concern after the first 25 years or after every period of 7 years thereafter. After this contract was entered into between the Bombay Tramway Company and the Municipality, the Government of Mumbai enacted the Bombay Tramways Act, 1874, under which the Company was licenced to run a tramway service in the city. The tram-cars were of two kinds-those drawn by one horse and those drawn by two. In 1905, a newly formed concern, “The Bombay Electric Supply & Tramways Company Limited?bought the Bombay Tramway Company and the first electrically operated tram-car appeared on Mumbai’s roads in 1907. The passing years aggravated the problem of rush-hour traffic and to ease the situation, double decker trams were introduced in September, 1920.

Mumbai saw its first bus run on 15th July, 1926. The people of Mumbai received the bus with enthusiasm, but it took quite sometime before this means of conveyance really established itself. For several years, it was looked upon as transport for the upper middle classes. Those were the days when the tram was the poor man’s transport, carried one all the way from Sassoon Dock to Dadar for a mere anna and a half, that was nine paise. The bus fare for the same journey was four annas, that is 25 paise.

…..

As regards BEST’s electric supply side, in the year 1905, the B.E.S.& T Co.Ltd., commenced the supply of electrical energy by erecting its own generating station with a total capacity of 4,300 KW. This was later abandoned in favour of a station of larger capacity constructed in 1912 at Kussara Basin. This station was closed down in 1925, after which all the Company’s requirements were obtained in bulk from M/s. Tata Hydro Electric Power Supply Co.Ltd, With the growth of the electrical distribution system, difficulties were experienced in the maintenance of the electrical pressure within the prescribed statutory limits. The Company than decided to establish two High Voltage Receiving Stations at Grant Road, and Apollo where large bulk supply transformers provided with on-load tap changing equipment had to be installed for maintaining regulated voltage at the consumer’s premises. These two new stations were, however, actually commissioned in 1949, i.e. after the B.E.S. & T Co.Ltd., was acquired by the Municipal Corporation.”

So fundamentally a transport company and an electric supply company being one is an anachronism that has no relevance in the present – but who knows – twenty or thirty years hence when electric vehicles become a reality – this may well be back in fashion. The proponents of the electric car often cite that the gasoline fueled car simply lost a temporary race in the early 1900’s and this century will only see its rise.

But still – I grew up wondering what BEST meant I remember still finding it very odd that the two were in one company. But hell. The BEST services haven’t improved one bit ever since I was a kid. It’s the same buses and the same conductors. Only the tickets changed. Now the conductor gives you a thermal paper ticket as opposed to the paper tickets of the era gone by. The crowd is crazy, the services are erratic – the bus routes are not clear and nothing really works well. Obviously the service is making losses. They introduced AC services at the start but only on certain routes. At first they had these stupid buses which looked like outstation travel buses. Then they moved on to nicer buses but these very severely limited. The majority of the buses in operation seem the same from when I wa s achild. To my mind they haven’t moved anywhere in the last 35 years. The iconic double decker made its exit but nothing else.

A transport company must understand its relevance every few years or so and must make adjustments accordingly. There is no point having large buses running through the day when you clearly have peak and off peak hours. The city earlier was very clearly structured on the north south axis. The buses simply had to go up and down. The business district was in the south and the suburbs were in the north with a large middle class working in the mills and staying in its vicinity in the centre. The bus routes were infinitely less complex. Now the complexity of the city has ensured that the conventional routes won’t work. I remember when Bhakti Park where I stay was coming up. It is in the middle of nowhere with almost no civilization three kms in either direction. Why would anyone live there?  But slowly the infrastructure came up. I remember my friends who were early adopters of the area making representations to the transport undertaking to start services. The service assured them that service would start if a certain threshold level of population comes in. That is a classical chicken and egg. But the BEST played dumb. They should have had smaller buses in operation with higher frequencies in the morning and evening. These need to be the simple feeder routes that simply took people and pushed them to the big bus stops or stations where people could hop off and hop on to their bigger buses which took them to their offices. The city was expanding on the east west axis and the bus services were not keeping pace. Why should the service not have efficient bus services with 20 seaters or even lower. The taxi guys started the share a cab services but they too are notoriously bad and are available only in certain places. The transport authority was best placed to handle this.

Also they don’t need to look too further to improve their services. They simply need to follow the UBER model and fit their buses with a smart phone. Now people will know exactly where their bus is and figure the best time to leave home to reach the bus stop to reach their destination. It can also give expected delays and journey times. There is an inordinately long time that people wait for their bus – that can simply be cut off.

A simple mapping of people’s journeys and traffic patterns can render a lot of data on making these routes efficient. But the EBST is working with its head in the sand. Right now they have resorted to really stupid measures like putting up posters and urging people to use their services. What a bum head. People will use services that people value. Period. Increase value.

Uptill now all it did was believe it was a monopoly and then it behaved like one. Bad service, bad route planning, bad conductors, bad buses and a complete mismanagement of crowd. Nobody likes a BEST bus on the road. They behave like bullies and I have been on the receiving end quite a few times.

My other favorite solution was that instead of putting so much money on bridges, we should have simply put money on making the bus service air-conditioned and subsidized that and slowly removed that subsidy. As of now the bridges are so ill designed and one after the other that that most buses don’t ply on them. And the road under the bridges are really narrow especially to make space for the landing and take off that you often find jams near there. This just compounds matters.

Simply put – the BEST must change itself if it has to stay relevant. Mumbai took great pride in having an efficient bus and train service. But this is now not the case. We have not kept pace with the changing needs, trends and technologies and now risk being irrelevant. The city, I see is dying. It is imploding under its own weight and gravity – like a fading star. It will suck inside all – into its black nothingness. This is the death, unless we see some serious innovations.

Here – complete unrelated music…  but I love the song… Jispa loves the movies and the books.

man... statesman!

Lee Kuan Yew. The great statesman and the father of Singapore passed away yesterday. Singapore was the second country that I went abroad as an independent adult. It was a part of an offsite that we were going to. I was just inducted in the international division of the firm and there was an offsite planned in Singapore. I thought that was so cool. And I remember the day when the secretary just asked me for my passport. I heard it from her that we were going to Singapore. I think it was for two or three days. I promptly bought the Lonely Planet and read all I could about the city. I asked around as well… and yes… you are Indian so you will have to stop at the mecca of Singapore – the Mustafa shopping centre. And to cater to tourists who enjoy the city during the day – the dam store stays open 24 hours!. Wow that is super cool.

From the first experience that I received while landing – at the Changi airport – I was dazzled by the city. Clean, orderly, and everything works to the clock. People walk on the amazing pavements, travel by the metro or the MRT as they call it. The busses are air conditioned and the malls are amazing and the people and service is great. I remember one instance where at the crossing, I was letting the car by but the car stopped and allowed me to cross first. It was absolutely a city in order. And then in the free time I went around the city. We were staying at the Sentosa island which itself had tons of fun things to do. The first thing I did was see the aquarium and the first thing at the aquarium – the touching tank! OMG. In India we are used to seeing barricades that stop us from going anywhere near the exhibits or animals or anything. But here we are free to  - of all things touch the fish. These were the Ray fish that we were experiencing. Then I roamed around the city and saw tons of things. I was a crazy wide eyes tourist with a mission to soak in as much of the city as possible. Mind boggling.

As an adult my first international visit was Bangkok and then this. This was my first experience of what a modern city feels like. I remember walking along their main road which was Orchard Street and not feeling any pollution at all. I swore to take my family along the next time. And sure enough, with the next bonus I was in Singapore again with Jasmine and Jispa. What a city! Organized and orderly and great living standards. How this happen? Who made it happen? Is this really true? The amazing Bird Park, the zoo, the island, the beach, the airport. How they make it happen? That’s when a friend of mine told me about the Man himself – Lee Kuan Yew. I read about him and then chanced upon his two books. One is about the way at 35… only 35… he led his city country to merge with Malaysia to only cede within a short time due to race issues. This book is ‘My Singapore Story’. It’s a bit boring but you get a sense of the resolve of the guy. The next book is an absolute mind bender. “from third world to first”. This book talks about the various issues he faced and the various challenges he resolved while he transformed his island country. My god. That man at 35 had an amazing vision. He resolved race conflicts, understood Singapore’s geo strategic positioning and built a modern efficient city. He ruling with a  strong arm but with a benevolence of a father, an incorruptible man of the highest integrity… he transformed Singapore in the magical city that we see it today. And he started at 35.

What an inspiration he is to all. The ability to fight off opposition, impose a fair just society and build the highest living standards for all. He talks about how at the start, Indians tried giving him a planner to help him and how he quickly realized how useless it was. He use of corporal punishment and banning of chewing gum was felt as suppressive to the world but you need to just look at the pavements of London to understand the impact. Every pavement of main street London has black spots that bear testimony to the ugliness of spat out chewing gum! Banning Chewing gum is good! though the real reason he banned it was the MRT. It would jam the doors.

The tourist magnets that are available for sale mock Singapore’s fine culture by calling it a Singapore -  a Fine City. Fines for smoking in public, spitting, not flushing etc etc…

But you can’t take away anything from this great guy. Lee Kuan Yew. Amongst those that lived while I was alive – to me he ranks up there with Nelson Mandela. I don’t think that for their people they were any less than great founding fathers! I salute you guys! You guys were awesome and to rephrase the words of great in memory of another great – generations to come will scarcely believe that a man such as this walked in flesh and blood on this earth!

We will soon deride them as our memories fall short as we do for Gandhi and Nehru. But what leaders of men these were. I need to someday think about what’s common in all of these? Possibly Lincoln as well. That makes me think. Time to read up on George Washigton!

tech talk tick tock

Technology – I have got so many technology innovations wrong that I almost believe that I have no sense of what the future holds. But funnily I am in a job that requires me to forecast and work towards using technology in our daily life. It’s not that the job description says so, but I guess my interests in technology make me feel so, behave so and be so.

But so many times I have seen myself as an older person not really embracing technology as I should be. I remember I got my blackberry well after a lot of the others got it. I saw it as a tool that people used to become wannabe peoples. People with the blackberries were the ‘I am so uptight that I will pull off my BB in a lift and check it rather than do nothing but look at the lift screen and get bored.’ This was especially trues because I worked in an uptight wealth management set up in a building teaming with investment bankers – all seemingly more uptight than the other. Hence – I resisted buying the BB for the longest time. Then once I got it, I used it way past it expiry date. I used it for three years it so till one day, it gave up on me. Then I bought the tough screen interface form Samsung. And I am hooked for ever to it. One thing I get really scared of doing is buying an apple device. With the restrictive iTunes interface, I really can’t get my head to work with it. See I am getting far older than I thought.

Some time back, I bought a shaving brush and a shaving round. I guess in ten years or so if any one were to read this blog they would be pretty confused as to what a shaving round is. Here, this best describes the round.

Basically a soap on which you vigorously rub the brush to get enough lather and then it goes on your beard. It was fun a start. A throw back to the time I first started shaving. My dad had this which I used after the tenth exams to get rid of my moustache. I was sure that the mouchie was a dam uncool thing to have. So I used my dad’s stuff. My dad realized I shaved and then sat me down and gifted me a set. My own shaving brush, I think a shaving cream and a razor with spare supplies. I think that was the ultimate father son cliché moment. The coming of age. I soon graduated to shaving foams. That was thanks to Jasmine and her cousins from US. Jasmine would routinely get me the cans. I kept the cans going for many years till one day I saw the round at the supermarket. It was cool to be retro I thought. And really really cheap. Till I realized a week back that it’s stupid. It takes more space and more time and given that shaving is the most boring thing to do when you are 39 (and amazingly exciting at 15), just take the latest thing and move on. So back to a fast and quick shaving solution. I am now waiting to get through my blades to figure if I would enjoy an electric shaver. The technology on those things seems to have improved drastically since I first used it many years ago.

And cars – there is one place I always wanted all the technology I could afford. I like to think small when it comes to possessions. And I have always had simple (relatively simpler) tastes in car. I don’t really drool over fancy sports cars and see no real use for them. But I wanted some stuff in my car. Always! Lets take a feature check. Tubeless tyres – who wants to change punctures in the middle of the road – I got that from the second car onwards. Alloy wheels – one friend in MBA had a brother who dealt in alloy wheels. He explained how they were lighter and stronger and cool to look at. Then I wanted rear defogger – my second car onwards. Air bags – safety first – third car had it. then you have stuff like keyless entry. Why would you need keys at all. Push start – all my life I wondered why we need a key to start the car. Just press a button. Isn’t that simpler. And the holy grail of them all – automatic. You need an Automatic. I was done changing gears after 20 years of driving. What a freaking pain. So now my new car is the 2014 Honda City. Push button start, automatic, alloy wheels, rear defogger, Rear parking camera integrated into audio system, key less entry – no button to press – just open the door if your key device is on you, a lock that automatically happens at a speed of 20kmph, sun roof (absolutely lovely useless stuff), airbags, ABS EBD and some other really cool stuff that I don’t know about. But it’s cool. and yes yes – Cruise control. How could I forget that. And the simple audio controls on the steering wheel. I am eligible for something much more than a Honda City from the company but I am ok with this. This is good enough for now. My first car was the Indica, we sold that and bought a Honda City, then we bought a second car – the iTen which we just sold to buy this City. So now we have two Citys. But truly for some reason this car is one that I am truly very excited about. I have no clue why I like it so much. The dam waiting period was 8 months, but I felt that it was well worth it. Japanese trouble free engineering with cool gadgets built in. I know it and I hate it, it’s not nice to covet something so much. it’s wrong. It’s just a car. But I like the leather seats and I don’t want to see them spoilt.

One thing I always wanted at the bare minimum was a clean, rattle free, reliable free car. I hate a car which has a rattling part. Or a car that needs to go to the workshop again and again. I love technology in a car. That’s one place it needs to be. And I figure if I spend at least 90 minutes in a car every day, I don’t mind spending a little on this car; which gives me the comfort I want.

There… now let me leave you with a completely irrelevant bonus video… but is it that irrelevant…?

perspectives

Long ago I too thought that the solutions to all traffic woes would be to build flyovers. As many as you possibly can, just build them and the traffic will simple cease. The simple logic being that if you don’t have halts you don’t have traffic.

Reading books by intelligent people gives you a perspective on life that is different than the average Joe. You look at life from different angles. That is the single biggest thing about reading. You understand that there are multiple perspectives and viewpoints for various issues. You also realize how much to trust propaganda and simplistic thinking. Also being in marketing you realize that you are not the center of the world. Most people (even in marketing) market to themselves and their own sensibilities. That’s not the right way to understand things. Just because you like it is no reason to have a pack design in a certain manner. Its what your core customer wants that’s important. I have learnt that India is not English speaking and we continue to throw English inside our communication. We marketer’s believe that everybody understands English. In offices in metros we think since we use English as the primary means of communication, that is the answer to everything. Of course you must understand English. May be earlier it would suffice as the big markets were the well-developed metros. But now as we look beyond the metros the vernacular languages need to addressed. The politicians and the film world have got it bang on. They are ones who have embraced the vernacular since time immemorial. But since we marketing people are based out of cities we forget the basics.

Simplistically as well, we think that the only spending on infrastructure we must do is the roads. So many people (very smart at that) have told me that the solution to Mumbai’s infra mess is more roads, costal roads, ring roads and flyover etc. No one seems to understand the huge amount of money being spent on what is a fraction of the people enjoying the service. Mass Rapid Transport is not about roads for cars but using bus and train services to connect people across the city. A network that takes a huge mass of people from one end to another. This opens out the city and flattens it evenly. People want cheap reliable mode of transport. The car is the worst thing for solving city woes. My argument has been rather simple here. My guess (only a guess) is that the amount of money the city spends on these massive flyovers can be simply utilized to do something else. Suppose we just take the number of busses on the road and triple it thus reaching far off corners and for good measure put air-conditioning to placate the office goers, the cost of which can easily be borne in lieu of the flyover constructed. Me thinks that with this kind of money you can even charge normal rates and give AC service. Ofcourse this is simplistic thinking. Flyover can last many years, far more than an average life of a bus. Plus no point having busses if your roads are jammed to start with. But the thinking is different. The point is to look at lakhs of people at the lower level than the few bums at the top.  

But it’s not easy to change habit. Over the last few years I have got the habit of travelling by car. First at kaliana and then at worli – my house is ill connected to office by public transport. It doesn’t make sense to travel thus. It takes far more time and is tedious. So I have the car habit. While I was in nariman point I used to take pride in travelling by train. This way I got my reading time as well. There is some loose talk that our office will get transferred back to Nariman Point. Jasmine and I saw it differently. I thought great - there is a new freeway from town right upto my building (literally – mine is the first building you get off to) and Jasmine said – great, now you can go by train and catch back on your reading. Oops. I missed that one. No body like change from routine.  I too am a victim of my own routine.

Nirvanic walks

Huffff… yesterday I was a bit later than usual coming into office. As I hit the bus stop I realized that I had only 100 rupee notes and no small change. wuu, whoz gonna argue with the conductor for a 5 re ticket. And listen to gaalis early in the morning… so I thought why not. Let’s walk. I used to walk into office two years back. I stopped when the winter ended. Yes yes… I know it’s just a notional winter in mumbai. It’s never really cold. But atleast you can manage to get to office without having a sweaty wet stinky shirt. I normally walk faster than most but yesterday I decided to slow my pace down a bit. A fair bit actually. I tried noticing the people, structures and other paraphernalia around. It’s interesting to see how people, a majority of them walk and run to office with their eyes looking down. With the city pavements you are always avoiding a hole here, a sewage there, a dog etc. And not to mention plenty and plenty of feet. So every one is walking with eyes down. I don’t even think beside the conversationalists anyone even looks at the heritage buildings. We fret and fume and spend so much agony over whats happening to our heritage. But the guys who work there everyday don’t even care a dam. I think the simpeast way to make people concerned about the heritage is to make them notice it. and the opnly way to make them notice is to get their eyes off the floor. The only way to get their eyes off the floor is to ensure smooth and predictable pathways. This way they walk with their eyes up and see around them. This way more men and women notice each other. The more they like each other, the more hey fall in love, and pronto… World Peace. Ok ok ok…you can’t get rid of Saddam by better pavements… but you sure can ensure beautiful facades. I don’t mind Iraq war as long as I can get a prettier surrounding that I can look at. What say?
Also slowing down walking is almost a nirvanic exercise by itself. You actually need to control your walk steps, breathe a bit, and relax. The world just seems different if you are slower than your normal. Try another stress buster. In the mad rush, just simply follow all traffic rules a s a pedestrian. Cross only at zebra crossings; walk only on pavements, cross only when the green man smiles at you. It is actually a big self control not to walk ahead when the teeming mass behind you is inching forward with a nervous pregnant energy, conquering space and redefining the road available for the car. But resist this force, and feel the energy flowing through. Wait on the footpath and start your cross of the chasm only when the signal turns and you will realize one outstanding fact as you are triumphantly crossing. The pedestrian crossing signal does not give you enough time to cross the road. It is built to discount the fact that you are already half way across. And you suddenly realize you only half way there when the green man disappears and the red man motions you to stop. You swivel right, all the share taxis that run amuck in the morning are aiming for you and you bloody run like mad across the 30% that is left, trying you best to look down so that you don’t trip, look up so that you don’t hit the opposite guy crossing and then building up into an almost flying trapeze jump across the gutter that is always placed at the corner and landing in the arms of the lady who is busy talking on her cell while getting to office (eyes down of course). She gives you the loveliest ugly stare and mental swear you could get in the morning. aha ha… what a nice day….nirvanic exercise was never so touching.