The Story of a Water Warrior- Getting Started!

I want to start by telling you a little about myself. I am just a regular corporate citizen. My family moved to Whitefield a little over 5 years ago. As time went by, I grew increasingly concerned about our overall water situation. All signs were around me – to be noticed and to be enacted upon! The frothing smelly lake, the water tankers, the super-advanced methods being used for water treatment across all communities, Cauvery or no Cauvery, water borne diseases and mosquitoes – and ominous warnings about the possible 2023 Bangalore evacuation because of lack of water.

Throughout the year – I would see the ubiquitous water tanker and think – why are we getting our water from miles away for our regular consumption?

From where are they getting these tankers? Somebody within driving distance has water to spare and we need to buy it from them? And just how do these vendors justify large amount of transport related leakages? Do these water tankers give a certificate of water quality?

Then what you see during the rains is a watery mess! Floods happen really fast –  and water is unable to drain out. Why are we water logged and flooded on our main street? Where are the storm water drains? Don’t they function? Should the big vents lining the roads be filled with sewage? What happened to the famous Rajakaluves of Bangalore?

As I got more and more interested, I started learning more. Did you know that borewell technology did not exist in India in the 1960s – but now I see those large borewell drilling equipment everywhere. These are called super rigs.

A few years ago they used to hit water at 200 ft or so, now they are going as deep as 1000 ft to get anything. And the quality of water is totally suspect. Why is ground water deteriorating in quality?

Water is not as available as it used to be and it is not completely benign. As an example, in my community we felt a growing need to treat water –to prevent water related issues. Everything – from our pipelines to our appliances to our health can get affected.

V Balasubramanian, the former Additional Chief Secretary of Karnataka said that there are over 300,000 borewells in Bangalore city alone – and the ground water drawn is almost three and a half times the water available to recharge the same area!

This means that we keep taking and taking – without giving back! How can this be sustainable? Does this seem like sheer injustice to you? Somebody is not thinking this through!

So what next? Keep in touch to hear more thoughts.

Summer 2013 Update

The school year is out! Yaaaaaaay - and the Khanna kids came out looking pretty good! 

Of course we think that all 3 are super cool and a lot of fun. Each one has a distinct personality and this picture captures them completely.

• Ana is the princess, and gets her way all the time.
• Krish is Ana's 'Mary's little lamb' - following her lead in most things. Except when it comes to any mechanical flying object - which he obsesses about in every waking hour. He is 4 yrs old but can already tell you the visible difference between the F2 Typhoon and F3 Tornado. (fyi - these are fighter jets) 
• Arjun is the 'crushed one' - among the 3. But he has managed to find his following - with Ace Khanna, who literally licks his footsteps. 

And this is what their schools had to say:

Krish is happy and affectionate. He is a leader to his peers - in a kind and helpful way. He has a vivid imagination and is very physical as well. He loves new ideas and different experiences - never shies away. He is musical minded - forever playing a beat under his breath as he works in class.

Ananya's report card at school looks great - she is an "A" student doing well in Math, French and Environmental Sciences. She has gorgeous handwriting and loves art - I will ask her to write you letters or make cards if you give me your snail mail address - she loves doing that! Ana has a green belt in Taekwondo and she is trying to become an ace swimmer - a little reluctantly :( Ana's teachers tell me that she has a glorious voice that needs to be trained - I will try to help her with it. I want her to take up Hindustani classical vocal. Do you have any better suggestions?

Arjun' academic report card showed a marked improvement in all round performance this year. Admittedly, it was a difficult transition for him from IB to ICSE curriculum. He scores A++ in enthusiasm - he loves school and his set of friends! :) :) He scored straight "A" in Math, Science and Computers. He participated and won for the school in various track and field meets. Arjun also won his first football championship this year. He already has a red belt in Taekwondo and aiming for brown belt this year. He is playing the tabla with a lot of gusto - learning from panditji every Sunday. (for this - he is a little reluctant :( )  

Please continue to bless them and give your good advice - it takes a village to bring up a child! Here is wishing all of you a lovely and lazy summer - and come visit Bangalore soon!

Cheers,
The Bangalore Khannas

Overextended bladders

This write-up has been some time in the making. This is an issue that gets to me 20 times a day. One thing I notice incessantly going on all around me with studied determination - in the most populous and busy areas of the town - no matter what time of the day - men peeing publically! Ironically, it is less prevalent in the scantily populated areas- I am yet to see a guy up to his business near secluded Varthur lake. I can conclude that there is a need to feel safely surrounded by teeming masses while publically urinating- totally understandable, dont you think? After all, privacy should be the last thing on your mind when the urge to pee strikes...
But why am I noticing it so specifically? I have seen it before, haven't I? This is not unfamiliar. Public urination is quite the norm in India - happens all the time. Peeing against a wall, peeing against a tree, peeing as they squat, peeing as they stand, hell- peeing standing on their heads... men do it publically all the time. So why am I just a little shocked?
Is it the sheer numbers? Has the number of pee-ers increased substantially in the last 13 years that I have been away? The well- known burgeoning middle class of India - have they been reproducing like rabbits? - and specifically producing public pee-ers? Surely it is the population density - while occupying a little over 2.5% of the land mass of the world, India supports over 15% of the world population.
Another well known fact that may be impacting this - the skewed gender ratio. More males than females - and hence, more standing pee-ers who are more noticeable to an average observer passing by. Proud mothers produce male offspring and also possibly train them to be as obvious as possible when struck by the slightest need to empty their bladder.
I am sure another factor also is the intrinsic lack of patience in the populace. Whether you are in the middle of traffic or navigating your beaten down car down a pot-holed road or on an abandoned road with nobody else but that other car which is a mile away - they will honk at you! Move on, they tell you -- we don't have time for your safety related shenanigans. What is the most that can happen to you? You may go down with your car into a ball of flames? Oh well!
When it is morning, they can't wait for it to be lunch time... when it is lunch, they can't wait to get into bed! It is always the promise of the future that eggs them on - there is no time to realize that right here, right now - we are in the present -- and it is an intolerable, smelly mess that we have created or added to! So, when it comes to the slightest whiff of a drop or two of pee descending into the bladder -- they have to get it out! Right here, right now!
Also I wonder - is it subliminally cultural? Is it macho to pee in public? Is it a male bonding mechanism? In which case, there must be an implicit pact that if a guy wants to express his high level of comfort and familiarity with another, they pee together in public. Because another phenomenan is that there seem to be multiple pee-ers locating themselves close to each other. Do they know each other? Or do they just cluster together because birds of the same feather flock together?
And then - the biology aspects of this. Kidneys filter about 2 liters of waste products from the body every single day. So, does that mean - Indian males have too many diuretics in their diet - elevating the desire to urinate? Either way, it has got to be a male thing - because I have never seen a female join the legion of public pee-ers. The reason to explore the diuretic angle is that I compare their bladder control (or lack there of) to that of my seven yr old boy - who has the ability to hold it in until he gets to a pre-specified peeing area - aka a bathroom or lavatory or restroom.
Of course lastly, the civic angle - or the lack there-of! But that may be the last thing on everyone's mind. Especially when confronted with the biology aspect of the situation.
Just some casual observations - no further comments and no call to action!

Confronting mortality

I believe I have been living my life as if I have all the time in the world - and to an extent, so do my loved ones! Procrastination is frequent and rampant. Lack of appreciation even more so. Add into the equation our endless battles - Mars vs. Venus, Generation X vs. baby boomers, whats our kids generation called anyway? - Gen Y? Type Alpha vs. Type Z and also the power struggles within - to prove who's boss!
And then when it suddenly strikes - without any warning - death! It is numbing. It blows the mind. It is reality - the only thing real and certain about life is death. And yet, it is inexplicably sad. It HAS to come - sooner or later.
We will all be confronted by this soon enough - death of a parent. I lost my father when I was too young. And in retrospect - I did not really get it at all! I did not understand the magnitude of my loss. I remember I felt this constant hollow in my stomach - I equate it to insecurity now. But back then I could not put my finger on it. I definitely appreciate it when they say ignorance is bliss!
Now - I am older, I hope I get it. I hope I can handle it better. But when confronted by death yet again - it was as numbing, as unacceptable. We lost A's father to his long drawn battle with health issues. Part of me wants to offer gratitude that he was spared more pain - but the other part is constantly asking 'why me? why now?and what next?'. Suddenly the whole relationship feels wasteful - because it feels like unfinished business. There are still so many things I wanted - from this relationship. There are so many upcoming events I was hoping we would share - the event of life!
And I discovered that, death is an equally important event of life! Intuitively, I would want to quickly acknowledge it and deal with it - like removing bandaid. But that is probably not good for me at a subliminal level. And Hindu rituals probably take that into consideration. What follows the death of a human being is a long process - a whole set of rituals that basically drive the fact home. And all this has nothing to do with the person who passed on but it is meant for the surviving family and friends. This is a set of age old, highly supported, sincerely practiced rituals that start from bidding farewell to the mortal remains of the departed by cleaning and preparing of the body for cremation - with great involvement from family members. It is not something carried out at a funeral home by morticians. It is led by a priest but it is physically conducted by family members. I feel that it is morbid and disturbing.
Then comes the actual cremation - offering the mortal remains to the purity of sacred fire. Another lengthy process.
Following that is an unending set of rituals and customs carried out by the family members over a span of days - if not weeks and months. We decided to keep it short - in accordance with Dad's wishes. But it is clearly a process of mourning. And mourning is not allowed to be personal. It is a public and shared process. It consists of many steps where a person is guided to share the grief and talk about it. The rituals ask for involvement of the person's siblings, children, grandchildren, womenfolk, friends - the whole ecosystem seems to get involved. It is about introspection and articulation. A process of thinking, feeling, converting thoughts and feelings into action.
Some of these rituals have been bastardised - for economic gains. But most of the process remains intact under layers of tradition and begs you to find it's value and meaning.
To me it is a reminder of how precious time and relationships are. It also provides a fresh and crystal clear lens to look at my life, my blessings, my ecosystem. I still feel numb and get that 'unfinished' feeling. But the rituals may be helping in their unexplained, mysterious ways.

Past, present and future. or are they all the same??

So now we have aimed for the moon with an unmanned space shuttle which will stay in orbit for 2 years and study the origins of the solar system. Chandrayaan (journey to the moon) launched this morning at 6.28 am IST. It will take 5.5 days to get into orbit around the beautiful satellite. It is a rainy, Wednesday morning here (it still pours!) - one could not even see the rocket a few seconds after it launched because it disappeared among the clouds. It is India'a maiden mission to the moon. All four phases of the launch went off flawlessly this morning.
I can just envision more romantic poetry to come out of this exercise - :) as fodder for Bollywood. We do need more data on the moon to incorporate into our Bollywood songs - dont we?
We may also make use of scientific data on why the human race can sustain in some parts of the solar system and whether we can find some real estate to sell on the moon. With no hope for a better life in Bangalore, we need new spaces to invade and mess up with unplanned urban growth.
In the same breath, last night the Maharashtra government (where Bollywood is located) found the balls to arrest and jail Raj Thackerey with a non-bailable warrant - he is also known as the Indian Hitler. He has been spending the last few weeks inciting his mob of hooligans to prove how superior his race is compared to the rest of India - by burning effigies of other political leaders. His essential ploy is based on communal divide and he hopes to find power when the whole country has disintegrated into chaos based on religion, caste and cult. He has taken on other powerful politicians by bad mouthing them and their origins. He even managed to piss off the doyen - Lalu Prasad - who called to chop off his head- in a very Marie Antoinette-esque style.
BTW, this guy and his cult took over Maharashtra (my homeland) around 1995, a year after I left home (see what happens when I am not around to give him a piece of my mind?). Seriously, I have always felt it all went downhill from there - starting with their dim-witted initiative to rename Bombay as Mumbai to 'preserve our cultural heritage' (baloney!), and enforcing a curfew time of 11.30 pm on clubs and pubs because it is against the eastern culture to party at night (whatever!- he seems to have missed the Kamasutra age). It is time that we officially moved into the 21st century - which, of course, will have no room for Hitler.
So while, our scientists and our intelligensia are trying to project us into the future -- it is the Raj Thackereys of the country that may actually be having the maximum impact on the masses - engaging in the true and tested, age old tactics of divide and rule. And the masses dont see through it or question it. Good for Thakerey - he can power on! After all, this is what defines leadership capabilities, does'nt it?

The new life

Week 3 in Bengaluru! Feels like a disaster so far :(
It does not rain - it pours.
Which could be quite gorgeous in the so-called Garden City - but it has brought along- gastroenteritis for Anu, slushy streets/ walkways, bigger pot-holes on the roads, reticence from friends to come out and meet up, power failures resulting in unproductive workers at the home-in-the-making, a mis-step down the slippery stairs resulting in a sprained and bruised ankle.... need I say more? This world moves at it's own pace - a slower one, a more disorganized one.

I asked the all important question to my good friend - who has spent the last ten years of her life in this city - what does Bangalore have to offer? She said - a calm mind, slowing of pace. I thought to myself, this may be exactly what I need. What I am missing right now is the ability to savor the moment. Do you remember getting excited about a haircut and a fresh perm? A new outfit? I remember that feeling - as also the fact that I have not felt that way in a while. Maybe I need to go back to savoring the little pleasures. But now I think what she meant is that your surroundings are so unruly and uncouth that you learn to appreciate the peace and quite of home/ nest, that you finally understand what "calm" means because you are surrounded by the antithesis of "calm".

Being originally from Pune- Bombay and having lived in Delhi , I compare everything to what I saw and learnt there. (And I think I am being more than fair - by not bringing in any comparisons to the Silicon Valley.)
So - here I am thinking about Pune - and how it is evolving:
It has always been big on the Automobile and Industrial sector - with the Tatas, Bajajs and Kirloskars with an established presence there.
It also has the so-called "salubrious climate" - a word I have often seen associated with Bangalore.
It has been an age-old education center - grad schools, engineering schools, AFMC, NDA, b-schools -- people from the country flocking there to partake.
It has hip and well planned defence neighborhoods - with the rest of the city being cacophonous and unplanned.
It's proximity to Bombay assures that people and fashions are adequately influenced by Bollywood. It also caters to Bollywood through FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) and numerous mass communication institutions spawning graduates every year.
It has more recently evolved into an IT and STP center. The IBMs and TCSs of the world are flourishing there.
And now - thanks to Suresh Kalmadi - it is about to host the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games - which means new roads, freshly painted look, good infrastructure and all associated keenness to get represented as an international venue.
Pune is the #2 - the Enterprise Cars of India- they are trying harder.

What about Bangalore? What is it all about? IT? That happened 15 yrs ago.
IT happened to Bangalore first and foremost - not to Hyderabad, not to Pune. It all started in Bangalore - by design or by luck. Then, why is it still so difficult for Bangaloreans to digest? Why are they still acting like they are a small town? Why is the infrastructure so deplorable? Why is it difficult to find a taxicab or an auto-rickshaw in the SEZ- where the yuppies work? Why are there such frequent power failures - 3 times in 2 hours on Saturday night? Why is Outer Ring Road so chock full of vehicles - at a complete stop for no reason (as I discovered) except for the fact that a confused traffic cop was trying to manage it - with motorcycles trying to squeeze into that 2 inches of space on the far corner of the road - that is meant for pedestrians?

Last night, I took on a short taxi ride to Koramangala from Sarjapur Road - a 6 km stretch. Traffic was light, being Sunday night. But, it is not all about traffic. It is about crumbling roads, lack of infrastructure, lack of planning. It is about total disregard for a citizen of Bangalore - who pays twice for this infrastructure to be in place - once with income tax and second with vehicle tax - both of which are in the highest bracket for Bangaloreans.

And why is Bangalore apathetic to it? A good example is my interior decorator. This guy seems totally over his head wrt small things - ready to throw stuff over the fence to me the minute he gets an opportunity. In the meantime, he is full of great big promises, and polite conversation. He will never say no or push back on anything I say, but at the same time anything I say never gets done! And of course, time is of no consequence! If he has promised to deliver something last year (yes, you read that right) - rest assured it is probably anywhere near getting done next month! A nice guy - but totally ineffective in real life! Here is a good example of a laid back person, who holds no accountability for his actions and has no control over the tools of his trade.

And then my biggest deal-maker - something that makes me love or hate a place - shopping!
I went to Russell Market today - great for fresh fruit, veggies and meat.
But people recommended that I go there to buy steel kitchenware. Being that South Indians are steeped into stainless steel in their homes, I expected to be floored by variety. I hoped to see gleaming thalis and nicely shaped katoris. I was scouting for steel dabbas to store my groceries - and swore to give up my Tupperware. I was sorely disappointed. I found 1 store - Adams - and that's it! They were short on stock, variety and quality. Ulsoor market looked equally un-impressive as I passed by. Not a patch on Tulshibag of Pune! And certainly not on Lajpat Nagar of Delhi! Where do these people go to shop? I now plan to go to Chickpet next week - and hopefully will be suitably impressed there.