Thursday, August 24, 2006

Walk. Walk. Walk

Wondering why fitness experts do not talk about the immediate dividends of long morning walks

  1. Humbling experience of seeing many like you who woke up much before you did to take a walk

  1. An ego boosting experience by assuming that those not on the tracks are the lazy miserable bones sleeping their life away

  1. Eves drop on conversation between the US-based-son-bought-nike-shoe-wearing old grandpas and nike-shoe-and-saree-clad grandmas

  1. Experience the rise of the sun in the east

  1. Reminding oneself how fortunate one is, seeing the deprived ones who need to wake up before dawn to attend nature’s call in the open

  1. Feel the freshness almost till you hit the bed more than 16 hours later

Walk. Walk. Walk.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Death ride

Spotted today a sign at the back of a call center pickup van in Bangalore:
“For rash and negligent driving, contact: 98xxxxxx”

Wow! At least you know in advance that the ride in the van would be a close death run for those on the road. This is unlike the driver of the bus in which I travel who seems to have got his license from USA (prefers to drive on right side of the road), has the horn on the accelerator pedal, suffers from selective blindness to traffic lights and seems to even have a blanket anticipatory bail for all offenses he may commit.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

We can consume less oil!

The latest issue of Business world carries an article which has a pleasantly surprising fact. India’s oil consumption in 2005 is less than that in 2004. But with a growth rate at more than 8%, how could we have done with a lot less oil? Here comes the dividend of good infrastructure. Golden Quadrilateral project and other such projects ushered in good roads and the fuel consumption reduced due to improved fuel efficiency. Just imagine if all the highways were to be improved. The results would just be amazing with improved utilization of energy.

Let the tribe visionaries like Nehru (not for roads but IITs and PSUs), Vajpayee, SM Krishna, probably even Laloo (his track record in railways has been impressive) increase. Let the tribe of Deve Gowda, Mulayam, Arjun singh etcetera be extinct.  Amen.