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.

I am the bridge builder

I was explaining to someone that all my life I have always been the youngest one. The youngest son of the youngest son. From my mother’s side too I was the youngest son with only two female cousins younger than me. Being the youngest one should have been a natural to me, except that I didn’t ever do well at it. I think I was designed to be the eldest. I like to teach, to learn, to observe and to share. I like to protect and to have fun, I like to dominate yet cede. I am not designed to be the youngest but I learnt over a period of time to be one.

Now that I am 41, I am in many ways an elder. In this start up, I am the eldest in the office. The senior who must lead and manage the young. He who must nurture the young and initiate them into the ways of life. Ok – now that got way too dramatic. But as the years have piled on, I have moved to apposition of being the elder and I think I probably do a better job of being the elder than being the younger. Of being the teacher than at being the student.

Being the youngest helped me become a better elder. All I did was look very deeply at people who were older to me and see how they behaved. How they treated their younger ones, and more importantly how they did not treat their younger ones. This formed the basis of how I should treat others. In way that I would have expected to have been treated. That today is how I am what I am, as a boss, as a father, as a friend and as a teacher. You don’t always need role models to shape your behavior. You can do it just as well with the absence of role models. You simply ask yourself what you would have liked and you then listen to your own voice very clearly. That’s that simple.

Last week we were on vacation. I was very keen to have a camping experience with Jispa and Jasmine. Just about a month before the vacation, both of them pulled out. It was way too expensive they said and that they weren’t so keen. Oh Damn it. They broke my heart. I always wanted to go camping with family. Sleeping in the tents, walking all day, moving in the mountains, the bitter cold, the warm sleeping bags, the really silly places to go to the loo, everything. Discomfort is an important part of process. Only when you put men through real discomfort you realize what you are made of. And as a group of people, when you face hardship together, it binds you, it releases you. Camping together is one way to get to the same. Of course this was a luxury camp. We would have paid around 10k per night all-inclusive (including transport) for this experience. But at the last my family developed chicken feet. So we moved our vacation to Rishikesh where we stayed at a home stay, roamed the streets of Rishikesh and sipped on honey ginger lemon tea while having freshly baked butter biscuits. Some discomfort.

After which we went to Hathipaon where my sis runs a lovely small home stay.

It was a fun vacation, but it was marginally ruined or heightened depending on your perspective by the fact that I had an exam to give in the middle of it. This was an Insurance exam for which I had to leave the vacation mid-way and run to Delhi and back. The pressure was tremendous and I had to really learn the innards of the insurance business before I could have passed. The pressure was two-fold. On the business there was definitely some pressure as we needed a senior guy to pass the exam and be the principal officer for the firm and then as the elder in the office, I couldn’t have failed. It was too much of a loss of face. I put dramatic pressure on myself and pushed myself to study. I studied three books, marked a lot on them, read them again and again, and was generally prepared for what’s going to come. In the end of the multiple choice question paper, I scored 65 of 80 marks. 40 was passing. Wow – I had done it with flying colors. Serious respect. When you grow old, you lose something – something very raw, you lose your sense of fun, innocence and gay abandon. You lose the ability to chance a few things. You push yourself and your system to what you think is the most important thing and achieve it. This part is no fun. I have never studied this way as I studied for this exam. On the trip, I studied in the plane, on the train, in the hotel, on the bed and one full day in Rishikesh on the table studying for my exam. After the paper, I had a celebratory lunch in Delhi. I had my favorite Delhi lunch of chole and dal with naan at the road side thella (stall). That was yum. So much yum, that I took Jasmine and Jispa there when we were in Delhi switching trains. When in Delhi – do the Delhi!

So when we were back, my sis asked me for feedback. I knew that was coming and I had discussed a lot with Jispa and Jasmine about the place. We seemed to have cracked the travel thing. We go for cheaper home stay options at distinct places that seem to have captured the heart and soul of the place. We know the service and we know the way the thing works now. We know how to look at the reviews and how to manage and plan the trip. So far, it has hardly let us down. Trip Advisor has been so helpful in all of this. My nephew was wondering why would anyone put up a review on trip advisor. A rational human wouldn’t want to waste his time once he was already there. What could he possibly get. I told him two things – from a selfless perspective – it really helped me and hence it is my job to help others. From a selfish perspective – the more reviews I give the better the site gets and that leads to a positive cycle where hotels and home stays know that if they screw up you get bad reviews. This was the whole ecosystem is forced to improve if they have to thrive. My review about Rishikesh will in some way help my travels in Pondicherry, because of the general uplift in service standards.

I am reminded of this poem about which I think I have blogged before.

The Bridge Builder

- Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

This poem was especially significant for me for in the 6^th standard, I tried to take part in the poetry recital competition in school. There was no one to help at home but I knew I was good to take part in the competition. I told my teacher that I was interested and she gave me this poem. By the time the trials came in, I was hopelessly underprepared and I was not selected. What a total loss it was. I laughed at the end. There none but me to crown myself!

Recently I understood the bride builder and its metaphorical significance. I am in many ways a Bridge Builder. Yes, good friend, I am building this bridge for him.

So yesterday I went over to my sister’s house and discussed what all you can do to improve the service. Small things that cost very little but can make a dramatic impact on your stay experience. In the end, today she puts on the whatsapp group something akin to ‘when did you get so smart?’. Oh well. Now the fun starts. The dichotomy of being an elder elsewhere nad being the young one at home. Sometimes I wonder how I manage it in my brain and in my behavior. I wonder.

travel to learn

The fun bit with being a client is that you have agencies trying their best to vie for your attention. Of all places that I have gone thanks to work, this month I found myself in Russia.

Moscow to be precise. I have had a fascination for the place ever since childhood. Russia, the big super power of the world and an ally of India, against the mean big consumerist USA! Oh what a fool I too was. The communist country collapsed under its own weight and then came Peristroika and complete confusion. I don’t think Russia knows what they are anymore. Whether they are a controlled or a free market economy or a political nation.

But I was super happy to see Moscow. These are cities that will not normally be on your tourist radar. I am happy that my work has taken me to these places and I was able to add to my experiences. Jispa has to find her own experiences that take her places. I feel bad for Jasmine though. I would love to take her places that she hasn’t been to before.

Travelling abroad is a real irritating thing for me these days. The fact that you going abroad means you are spending a whole lot of money and then you really want to make the vacation count and take in as much as you can. You have to do a lot of research and you have to plan and figure and do everything. It’s a painful process. I then suddenly realized that I have been a real pain. A complete ass. Now I am making a decent sum of money. Our daily life is small and our daily requirements do not really amount to much. We can after we have accounted for all our expenses manage to spend that money once a year.  Jispa wanted to go to Greece and I agreed but then when we researched we realized that June July is peak season with long queues and high prices it may not be the right thing to do. And then in any other season we would get a smaller break and then I would love to go for at least two weeks! So we ditched the plan. I feel so mean.

In around 2008, we had planned to got o Hong Kong and then the economy went kaput and we felt scared and did not go to Hong Kong. I think that was the biggest regret I have had with respect to Jispa and taking her to vacations. I think while she was growing up she would have enjoyed Disney Land. I have always wanted to go to Disney land as a child but never did and I wanted my child to go to Disney land. I am feeling like a joker now that we cancelled the plan. I so goddamn regret it. So now we have a 14 year old kid who hasn’t been to Disney and because her father was a jerk.

Now I realized that I wasn’t taking her anywhere else as well because of the same reason. SO we ended up doing a lot of India vacations. Not that India vacations are bad. You can get to see a lot of what is interesting in India. It can end fun and enjoyable and enriching as well, but there is of course a lot of enrichment that can be done outside India, that will completely help you expand.

One interesting thing in Moscow that I noticed was that Moscow built the most amazing dense network of underground tube stations. All the lines cross the city and try and connect people. They started this following the British and I think they picked up steam after the world war. In the heart of the network they built a circular line through which every other line would crisscross. Obviously these would be the most used lines by the people. These station on the circular line were chosen for beautification and beautification in a totalitarian regime is nothing but propaganda. The stations are amazingly beautiful. One has beautiful stories depicting the great Russian history on the ceiling, one has absolutely magnificent stained glass and the other has statues of brass alongside the platforms.

Everyone saw it as beautiful, which they were, but I saw it for what I think it was – propaganda. The tube stations are used by the proletariat for their day to day life, and it would be impossible to miss the main circle line on your daily commute. It is here that these monuments were built to the glory of the working class, instilling a pride of being a Russian.  A lot of the statues were about humble people working and of course believing that this work is going towards nation building. The poor people are always fed on dreams of a greater society working for a greater good. No book comes close to explaining this within the communist context than Animal Farm, which explains how the poor and the hardworking just have to work harder and harder. Large beautiful nameless generic statues are built honoring the hard work and selfless dedication of these beautiful people. You are supposed to look at them and find yourselves in them and believe that your boring drudgery is a part of the greater purpose.

This is also one the reasons we honor the soldiers through another long set of nameless statues. The tomb of the unknown soldiers is a perfect example. These poor kids went off to battle and died saving the motherland. These wars are fought on the behest of idiotic politicians who put these young brave soldiers in front of bullets without much care about these lives.

When we in corporate life took a lot of these structures and ideals onto the organization, we too took these ideas and put them as at the hall of fame thing. We inspire and make professionals believe that this is the glory of life, we make them believe that we are what we are thanks to the effort of the common worker who slogs his ass out from 9 to 9 leaving his health and family at the altar of the common greatness and shit like that.

What a pain. No wonder I have never received an over achiever award ever in my life. I have never won anything like that – no best student, no best worker nothing. I don’t think that I have ever received any incentive for anything either. Just end of year bonuses. Nothing else.

I guess I am proud of that. The only real award I received was in college, ”principal’s special award for extra-curricular activities”, that’s it. That was good enough for me. I won that for basically not attending class but doing all sorts of fun things in college. I was put on the college magazine as one of the stars of the college. Hah!

So yes travelling is fun and you do get to learn a lot, and the further you travel from home, the better it is for you. Any pretext is good, as long as you travel. So I am planning to do so as far as I can afford to. Let’s see. I plan for sure to go somewhere in the next summer vacation that Jispa has. Till then, this vacation, I am going to the Indian Himalayan foothills this Diwali vacation. A cheap simple vacation where the most of the learnings are going to come from the train ride that we will be taking with Jispa after a really long time!

explore

This is a ridiculously funny prank to be played on people. Imagine the frustration when you are stuck in a foreign land and you have to go to your room and the elevator starts talking to you and send you to another place altogether. Arggghhh. It’s so bloody irritating.

The last time I was abroad was I went to Sanghai. Luckily I wasn’t diagnosed as lactose intolerant before I went there or else I would have had the worst time of my life. If vegetarian isn’t enough in China being lactose intolerant would have completely killed me.

This was a guided tour along with a conference. We had a day of sightseeing. I normally hate that sightseeing and the whole shepherding in a bus but I also see no option for the organisers. So it’s best to carry on. But I hate the part where the take you to a tourist shopping destination designed to scam the tourist by showing them an “original “ place to buy something exotic. Something like a jade workshop or in this instance a pearl palace. I hate it. I always fight and wonder what the hell is going on. But most others seem to be happy to go and buy some ridiculous junk for their wives or girlfriends. So while the crowd went in, a few happy friends and I went out for a walk in the cold city. We kept roaming pretty aimlessly. I am always a sucker for new culture and new stuff but in china its always difficult to do anything new. We saw a juice bar and went there. There was almost nothing I could make out. So I just pointed out to something interesting that was being made for another customer. Now I don’t remember how I figured it was vegetarian but I finally had it – and it was warm lemon juice with one more interesting additive like a litchi or something. Wow. That was cool. I never knew warm sherbet was this fun.

Travelling anywhere is always a great thing. You have to go outside the confines of your city or routine and visit new places, do new things and learn more. You have to have plenty of exposure to stuff around you. Exposure is the key. You go out, you meet new people, you experience new things. That is life. There is post that’s gone viral on why travelling or having a gap year and seeing the world is a great thing and they give some 17 odd reasons. Hah! Sure. Travel is something jasmine and I discovered is critical for ourselves. At first we would wonder where to go and how to go and what to see. We would wonder and think about the places to go. We would ask someone for helping us make an itinery and places to stay etc. Till once we had to go on our own once. I think the first big one was directly Singapore. I had been there on an official tour and then had vowed to take the family there.

The stress was pretty high. I searched and researched and did a lot of stuff online. I was under severe stress on what to do and where all to go. Plus we had Jasmine’s mom and dad coming along with us. but that was a fun trip and then the next time we planned a vacation to Rajasthan using guide books /internet and some references. Post which we did kumaon and now we were truly hooked on. Searching online for stuff, searching guidebooks and internet for places to go to and places to see and search for undiscovered places or hang out popular tourist spots. We were truly independent. The journey was as interesting or I dare say as important as the destination.

The bug had truly bit us. Then like seasoned travelers we went with a little less research all the time. As in you know what you are going to do and the places you are going to see but you aren’t completely prepared. You are ready to take it on one day at a time. You see and wonder and take calls and think a bit while you are there. You miss a few you spend time at a few. From a fairly fixed route plan you allow for chaos and spontaneity. Then it gets all the more interesting.

Who needs 17 or 18 excuses to travel. You need only one EXPLORE and if that doesn’t excite you – nothing will.