Shame on you Bangalore

The recent incident of rape of a 6 year old kid in a private international school (VIBGYOR High School) has made me lower my head with shame. The incident happened on July 2nd, reported to police on July 9th or 10th and media leak on July 17 or 18 and first arrest on July 21. The incident has bothered me at multiple levels and raised more questions than I can answer. To start with

• The 6 year old kid was sent to a dark room as part of the punishment for mischievous behavior. What behavior entails a dark room punishment and who will be outside the dark room guarding the room?, did the parents of the school knew such punishments existed in the school, if yes why did they not raise a voice against such things? I asked some of my friends and they were totally unaware that such punishments existed.
• Lets say for a second the punishment was justified, was it not time bound? who went back to fetch the kid from the room? didn’t she notice any abnormalities with the kid? what about the damn teacher who ordered the punishment did she not notice anything strange with the kid?
• The incident got reported to the police almost 10 days later, and the media got a whiff of it a few days ago? why was there the delay from the parents to contact media, would they have expelled your kid from the school? to hell with it let them do, who in their right mind wants to send their kid after such incidents back to the same school again?
• The parents thankfully for once gathered and protested against the school and the funny part within a day of the protest the police arrested the first suspect. Is the government/establishment sleeping, does it need people to get to the road before it can take any action?
• A few incidents happen in UP and our honorable union Home minister and Women’s affairs minister make statements cautioning the government of UP, what about this one?, where is Rajnath Singh and where is Maneka Gandhi, doesn’t the lower states exist or they will only comment if the number of MP seats is more than 50?
• The accused was dismissed from a school for conducting similar activity back in 2011, didn’t the VIBGYOR school do any background check or at the least ask the previous employer as to why he was dismissed.
• For the accused to reach this level, it has to be premeditated. I am sure there were warning signs spanning over the 3 years he was employed there which the school/teachers/staff completely ignored.
• The solution from the government is CCTV cameras in every school, how does this help? only our home minister can explain.
• The parents protest also brought to light another incident in a different school a few years ago. Why did it not go to the media?
• For the gathering/protest only 4000 people showed up, again another shame. It was a Sunday and was a peaceful protest why did not more people join the protest.
• I almost forgot “thank you” supreme court for commuting the death sentences of the  accused in Delhi rape case.
• At some level I think we need to make an example of a few convicted rapists and it has to be done at an extremely fast pace. What does it take to do this? Mr. Modiji we have elected you with great hopes, I hope you will live up to our expectations. 

I have nothing against the school but if the school says they have a special coaches for skating and bicycling or some such silly things, I would be very wary. 

Coca-Cola and car battery

My trusty/beloved VW is touchy about the battery, I think I have replaced the battery more times than the tires themselves in the last 12 years.

Other day over the long weekend it refused to start and no amount of pumping gas pedal would help and I presumed a dead or almost dead battery. So, I had to bring out my trusty jump starter (btw, a good investment than cables) and jump started the car. While doing this I noticed that the presumed dead battery was reading the right voltage (slightly less than optimum) and there was some white salty substance on battery lead. I figured the battery is slowly dying and it will last a few more months.

The weekend passed with me pumping gas pedal every time to start the car and figured this would be the way going forward till the battery completely dies.

One thing that kept bugging was the white salt like substance on the battery leads, I remembered in one of my previous life times someone had told me to pour a can of coca-cola to clean the battery leads. I had never practically done it till yesterday. On the way back from work I picked up a can of ice-cold coca-cola from the vending machine and once I reached home opened the hood and poured the entire can on the battery lead. I was surprised to the see the white thing dissolve away and the battery lead has a slight shine to it now. The biggest bang was when the car started without me touching the gas pedal.

ps: There is no significance for ice-cold and I am sure a room temperature coca-cola would have done the trick too but that would have meant I buy a 6 pack or a 12-pack.

pps: If interested in trying please make sure the car is turned off and ignition key out :)     

A case for earth worm composting

It all started about 2 months ago, I was a skeptic then and not sure how it will all work out and what would it take to accomplish successful vermicomposting system. All my skepticism went away last weekend when I saw this in the compost bin. Rich beautiful and earthy smelling vermicompost. 

It was fun to watch all the greens (veggies,fruits) and browns (paper, cardboard and shredded paper) turn into fine compost. I did use it up in the garden and will have to wait a few weeks before I can assess the impact on the garden. I admit this is the fastest way of generating compost, any other technique or method would have taken a few extra months (minimum 8-12 months).

Previously I used to recycle the news paper (1 or 2 free ones I get in a month), now they are part of my worm bin, same goes to the cardboard cylinder in the center of the paper rolls, last week started to use pizza boxes too.

Having reared them for close to 2 months. I have learnt a thing or two about them and figured it would be a good time to share those insights. 

• I use the worm factory to keep these worms, the instructions that come with the bins is fairly self guiding 
• I have the setup in a corner of our garage and that’s where they have been since the day I began.
• The one thing that would become a common sight in your house will be the fruit fly trap (rice vinegar + few drops of dish soap and nothing else)
• Never had any bad odor coming out of the bins
• They prefer a 1:1 ratio of greens to browns, other methods need 1:3 greens to browns 
• They prefer to work autonomously and don’t like being disturbed by raking around or aerating around”
• Unless there is a problem (bad smell) don’t go poking around the bin, at least not frequently (once a few days is very frequent)
• There is a work around to reduce the flies like adding brown to cover the green at the very beginning but trust me they wont go away completely but will surely reduce the flies
• The worms apparently don’t like the office paper, found it the hard way but they are ok if one combines office paper with brown paper (cardboard boxes and so on)
• No citrus and no pineapples or anything that is highly acidic in nature.
• Not much time required for setup or maintenance, most of my time is spent in collecting brown material and keep them shredded 
• They don’t like too much moisture, but this won’t be a concern if you regimentally follow 1:1 for green and brown  
• As with many things in nature, patience, patience and more patience

The secret is breathing . . . . .

I have been with Art of Living and practicing the breathing techniques taught by them for close to a decade now. By now I have come to understand and experience the value of breathing right, but always found it hard to explain to a 3rd person about the value of breathing and how it can help control emotions and how the secret to most mental ailments like anger, anxiety and stress can be associated with different breathing patterns and how they can be fixed by fixing the way we breath.  

All was true till I heard this show on NPR called 2 Guys on Your Head and the talk was about road rage. In the talk at one point one of the speakers explain “when you are stressed your breathing is shallow and shallow breath is associated with anger, so when in a situation that you need to vent the steam. Take a few deep breaths, relax your shoulders and . . . . . ”.  I don’t remember verbatim but this fairly close. I can vouch for this as I have personally noticed at the time I am venting my anger out my breathing very shallow (of course its in hind sight).

If you are interested in learning more about the breath and its modulations and how to lead a happier life. Then contact your nearest Art of Living center and ask them about their happiness program. I am sure its worth your time and effort.  

What is the alternative

Every day I open the online portals of news papers like Times of India, NDTV, Tehelka and so on. I find articles again and again repeating why Modi is a bad choice, lets look at them one by one

• His model of development is fake: Are my friends who live and visited Gujarat and also this article in Forbes about agricultural development in Gujarat wrong and only the congress and AAP are to be believed?
• He is a fascist, I don’t even know what this means
• He is for crony capitalism, I thought more and more industries are moving to Gujarat including precious TATA Nano project from West Bengal to Gujarat
• The infamous Gujarat riots of 2002: come on guys. With supreme court and number of special investigative teams not able to find him guilty. Why should we believe you? are you guys claiming yourselves above the supreme court of India? Also, if you have proof go to the court and prove him guilty and hang him or send him to jail.
• The encounters of Ishraat Jahaan : Luckily nobody has brought this up and the one portal that was beating drums with this one (Tehelka) has gone cold right after the arrest of Tarun Tejpal and resignation of Shoma Chaudhary. Even here, I am yet to see the CBI implicating Modi or Amit Shah. 
• He stands for Hindutva: we don’t have a problem if some one says “I am true to Islam or in Hindi mein sacha musalman hoon” or if a Christian says “ we all are true Sunday church going christians” but we always and invariably have trouble to call ourselves Hindus and we stand behind it as though our religion is some sort of untouchable and to be vary of.

Despite all these, lets for a moment say we believe you and don’t want to vote for Modi and BJP. So what’s your alternative

1. Rahul Gandhi? – Pappu or Shahzada who can’t even answer questions to a TV journalist and give the power back to commit more scams. I think I am tired of this part,
2. Mulayam Singh Yadav? – the one who says boys are boys and rapes happen?
3. AAP Kejriwal – he claims he did a sacrifice by quitting as CM of Delhi but I for one fail to understand it and considering he resigned in 49 days don’t have faith that we will stick longer than 6 months if made PM
4. Jayalalitha? – if we want to have 1re for lunch and dinner all over India then here is the candidate.

I don’t know others who are contesting for the PM ship.

Composting side effect

Had some left over watermelon on the counter top that were left over night outside the refrigerator, unlike the previous times when in my laziness I wouldn’t have bothered to touch it as it wasn’t refrigerated, this time around I tried the melons, found them good and finished them for breakfast.

Sandhya was cutting Apples for Avni and gave me the core, I cut it into small pieces and realized most everything was human edible and the waste was very minimal (<10%).

Wondering what’s the significance of the above 2 stories, long story short we have started a vermicomposting bin at home. Now to the long story.

Last few months when my in-laws were in town and we were bouncing ideas about composting, my father-in-law came strongly in favor of vermicomposting and he had his good reasons. I said sold and bought the bin and ordered the worms from online store. They all are slowly settling down and eating the food scrap we are providing.

Now that we have the bin, I hate to throw anything to garbage pile which can be fed to the worms. The idea was to throw anything and everything that I thought we don’t want to eat towards them. But there is a catch, in this process of throwing anything and everything I am almost filling up the first tray in less than 2 weeks while in general it is supposed to be filled up in a month (over feeding). So, the solution, eat it if I can instead of throwing to worms for compost. 

When we started it was for getting compost for the garden but never thought of this side effect in the process.

ps: there is a big discount available from city of Austin for the compost bins (75% up to $75).

Freedom of expression

Recently Penguin publishers pulled out the book “The Hindu”, by Wendy Doniger. There has been a big media hue and cry over this crying foul. But is there a foul, or is it just any publicity is good publicity.

The book has been in circulation for close to 4 years and I had never heard of this book till I read the news online that its been pulled out. Now I am so curious that I am willing to spend $14 and buy this and give it my time. I am sure there are a few thousands like me.

For the media crying foul, unlike Satanic Verses and such books, the book was not banned by any state government or central government. Just like Dr. Doniger has the right to express her views (right or wrong) so does the agency which filed the case against her. Isn’t that the real freedom of expression.

Also, India are not new to controversial books ex: take any book of Dr. S.L.Bhairappa like “Parva”, “Avarana” or “Sartha”. Each one has controversies built in but the books still exist and people like me buy it and some read and some don’t.

Last but not the least, freedom comes with responsibility one without the other is meaningless.