Culture or the Lack of It -

When I met Rhishi today, it was beyond doubt that the topic of conversation is going to be WC final, in which in a splendid display of high quality cricket, the Champions won the cup. Before I go further, which is the topic of current discussion, I'd like to restate Glenn McGrath's comments on winning the world Cup - "In 1996 we lost in the final, in 1999 we won the WC, in 2003 we won the WC undefeated and this year we won the WC unchallenged, that has been our progress!" Remember this is not a rehearsed dialogue written on a paper, this is something that comes impromptu. So what lies deep beneath is the supreme confidence and a sheer attitude. Yes sunny the same freaking attitude that results in such a response..

So what makes them a great cricketing side? Rhishi said - it's not just about one game, it is the result of "culture for sports" that is lacking here. I couldn't agree with him more.

When I am speaking about culture, I am not speaking about "५००० साल पुरानी संस्कृती", I am speaking of an ecosystem, a social infrastructure etc.

Then the topic drifted to in general "lack of culture" for anything out here. I remember saying to pilot a couple of days back "Do you know why we don't have 14 year old hackers?(please no Ankit Fartia) 'Cos we don't have 8 year olds who see their dad (or mom) coding at home" and discussion started from there.

How poorly we raise our kids "I am speaking about well-to-do urban middleclass". If a child doesn't see his dad or mom doing coding or indulging in some kind of "active" hobby, the child is not going to think that this is something that he should be doing in life. What constitutes an "active" hobby, A hobby in which you "create" something for yourself. eg. "writing blog could be an active hobby", but "reading books (without writing reviews about them) or listening to music does not constitute active hobby".

So what is the culture in which our kids are raised? (well most of them) Parents busy making money, I have no objections to that. But their idea of spending quality time with family constitutes to "going to malls, eating at Mcdonalds and spending half of their time while doing this in finding a place to park their Maruti Swift or whichever car they own". This is not quality time - This is just entertainment, which no doubt is extremely important in one's life but not everything.

Thus if a kid is raised while watching is mom and possibly grandmon watching "झी अल्फा TV मराठी (typical middle class maharashtrian household) or सांस भी कभी बहु थीish" serials, he thinks there is nothing better than that in life to be done. If his dad is watching "star news/aaj tak" he thinks this is what is important in life.

And this is precisely what I call lack of culture.......

Of course having this culture is not going to create a breed of 14 year old hackers or Adam Gilchrists', but thats our best shot at it.......

Just to conclude - Though I am not a father but I find most of the parents teach their kids "all wrong things" -
eg. you should respect elders. Saying "शुभं करोती" (typical maharashtrian family) in the evening etc.

I think it'd be suffice if they teach them just two things "respect everyone" and "work hard", unfortunately the child is a demanding creature and he can learn things only when exemplified..

Random Nonsense

I have this nasty habit of making observations about seemingly innocuous things and trying to find patterns, its Mental Masturbation to be honest, but its fun...... For instance here is a list of patterns that I have found in last few weeks

1. After I came back from bangalore sometime Feb-endish, I noticed that there is a sudden spurt in the ladies driving bikes, what was noticable was the variety of the bikes...

2. The most "in" color at the moment for a peeps of certain age group (and intelligence too I believe) is the "hutch pink". I am noticing faar too many "hutch pink" t-shirts than of any other colors or pattern.

3. This is a bit nasty one - Suddenly quite a few drainages in the city(?) of Pune are leaking,

Reality Bites :-(

This weekend I spent a fair amount of time in solving the Ruby-Quiz for the week (#121). It appeared to me that I have really cracked a fundoo solution, till I checked some of the other solutions on the list. Looking at those solutions - my solution looks like a minnow. It probably simply means that I don't know the language well enough and have to work much more to get anywhere closer to others.. Never mind though..

There is a trick that I learnt this weekend -

Given a number N how do you find all permutations of N using numbers (1 and 2)

The answer is simple

1 = [[1]]

2 = [[1,1], [2]]

3 = [[1,1,1], [2,1], [1,2]]

4 = [[1,1,1,1], [2,1,1], [1,2,1], [1,1,2], [2,2]]

Got it?

On Startups etcetra....

There is almost a bubbly trend now a days to call a "mee-too-social-foo" as a startup. I decided to break this down into : What consitutes a startup? what is simply a web application and what is neither and just a me-too? I keep thinking about this a lot, since I am involved with a project thats somewhere in between.

Like everything else, "Things start with an idea or a question". Let's take the typical example Paul Graham takes, "How about a Web Based Spreadsheet?" Now, a web based 'spreadsheet' isn't really a cool idea.. No not because "google" is doing it.. It's simply because there is enough technology available in the open-source for anyone to make that.... Dojo-Flex you name it and anyone with a bit of spare time and willingess can do it. I know the bitch is in the details, but its a well-known technology.

What is really a web-service, but not a "startup?"

Web service is a new kind of service that utilizes existing technologies and delivers it in a different flavor, a very good example of web-service is del.icio.us The web services themselves have a merit if you happen to make one that is not existing... And this really does not have to be a great technological breakthrough, but just nice ways of packaging stuff, usually they have nothing much as far as 'Revenue Models' go. Google Adsense is not revenue model (its old eyeballs business, don't worry not going to work!!) Thus, yes "new creative web services can potentially be 'acquisition targets'. But beyond a point they loose their value, so better take the deal when the banker offers them! (Remember Deal or No Deal?).

What is a me-too-social-foo?
Me-too-social-foo Is just a display of 'php' 'mysql' 'rails' etc. skills. So if you happen to make one count on getting a job somewhere that requires those skills. But nothing beyond that.

What is a startup then?
Startup -> Starup in my opinion has to have following constituents -
-> A sound enabling technology (which can be packaged in multiple applications)
-> A revenue model (May be not on Day 1, but certainly within 5 quarters of going live.)
-> They may suck a lot of money, before making any money themselves.
Example : "joost" is a very good example of this. (actually it is just an offshoot of an underlying technology developed a few years ago!)

Things like flickr fall somewhere between 'Web-service' and 'startup'!!!

So if you are working on something, you ask yourselves this question and thus position yourselves accordingly...

Ok, so people may ask what is 'paahijen' then?
I think the short answer is "web service", can it potentially be a "startup"? The answer is may be!! Is it yet another me-too-social-foo!! Certainly NOT!! (We don't have anything remotely social out there!!)

So far so good.. What has got a decent chance of success?
The short answer is "No one really knows!" Making something available on the web is like making movies - You have no ideas which will become hit and there is no real metric for judging it.. If people like it, it becomes hit if they don't it won't!!

So why should I try then?
Of course no one making a movie starts with an intention of making a super-flop. And also in my opinion (s)he does an honest job (barring few, won't take their names here!). So if you think of a "story to tell? Go ahead make a movie (aka web-app or startup or me-too-social-foo)" You never know!!

Computers 101

This was a loong overdue post. Thanks to a lot of folks I know for whom computers == Windows, sometimes it becomes very difficult to deal with. Hence I decided to create a short course (hence the name 101) about computers....

1. Brand of the Computer is not the Brand of the Monitor (eg. those who buy Assembled computers often tell me that they've bought an "LG"" computer say.)

2. Without getting into basics of CPU (tower like black box which whines when you power it on), the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and webcam etc. Let me go straight to the business.

3. Computer generally stores files (Thus files are stored on computer, to be precise on "disk" and not stored "in Microsoft Word!" say)

4. A file is usually some data with some more information which some applications know how to read and thus can open those files. e.g. "Microsoft word can open a .doc file or is able to read a ".doc" file but not a ".exe" file. The .doc and .exe are called extensions which basically tells what type of file it is (which by the way is a very stupid way of doing things.. but lets leave it for the moment..)

5. You don't open a file by double clicking it.. When you double click a file an application (say "Internet Explorer" opens that file for you!) So please don't ever ever say anyone that open the file by double clicking it!!!!

6. Just like one uses Windows, there are other Operating Systems too. Now what the heck is an operating sytem? It is a program that runs other programs.... Ok for easier understanding you can treat it like God who runs the world!, but unlike God it is fallible (I guess God is fallible too!) Short form of Operating System is OS. Now some of you may think it is incredibly stupid for others to use other "so called Operating System" after all there is only one God.. To answer your question .. Just like different religions follow different God, there are other religions in Computers too! Respect them...(hoping you do in your real life)

7. Next time someone says he's on Linux please please understand all he means is he's using different Operating System.

8. Internet is a network of computers and Messenger, Internet Explorer etc. are applications that run on network or Internet. It is absolutely not necessary to use only those applications to talk with other applications. (How is for course 102)

I guess thats enough for 101.

A nifty Ruby regexp trick

Just hit upon this while working on a rails project. Thought it might be worth sharing with others in case someone is interested.
The idea is as follows ->
suppose one defines a simple regular expression as follows

r = '(a)|(b)|(c)'

re = Regexp.new(r)

This re can be used with either String.match. The String.match returns a MatchData object. Often one is interested in an array. which can be obtained by String.scan instead of String.match. However this array is actually an array of Arrays, with "nil" at places where the string doesn't match..
eg.

"abhijit".scan(re)

will return

[["a", nil, nil], [nil, "b", nil], [nil, nil, "h"]]

If one just wants the array as ["a", "b", "c"], one could use following trick.

"abhijit".scan(re).flatten.compact

The flatten flattens out the array and compact gets rid of all nil
pretty useful .. One can then iterate over this array. Somehow this convenience is not offered by MatchData or atleast I don't know of it.

Understanding blocks in Ruby...

Blocks in Ruby.

I am trying to learn Ruby, because I am working on a Rails project. If one browses around for Ruby literature on the web, one often finds a common thing - 'Blocks are the best part of Ruby'. I have often used them while trying to do something.find { do stuff } . But never really appreciated what they were, till I decided to solve that mystery. If one googles 'ruby blocks', one finds typical examples illustrating how they are used, but not necessarily why and how they should be used. This sort of confused me to a greater degree. Basically, after spending a good couple of hours, I realized what blocks are how they are used and what is similarity difference between ruby blocks and python lambda?


1. Blocks are typically executed with an iterator -

Basically, a block is a piece of code which is enclosed between a '{' and '}' and follows immediately following a method call. Typically one would find

myarray.each {|x| p x;}


'each' is basically an 'iterator' over an Array object. Ok so what is an 'iterator' - is a method that invokes block of code repeatedly. Thus first use of 'blocks' is - they can be used to pass random code to an 'iterator' and that gets executed. But then what is the big deal about it? Well basically at first sight, one doesn't quite appreciate this. But consider -
- Find the square of each number in the array
- Find a list of all numbers in an array that is divisible by three

Now to solve the two problems ordinarily one would require two methods 'do_square' and 'is_divisible_by_3', but 'blocks' make it much simpler. Just pass a different code block to the 'each' methord.

2. Blocks can be used for 'transactional use'.

A very common example of this is code like

File.open('foo.txt', 'r') do |afile|
  while ( s = afile.gets)
    p s
  end
end

At first sight, this might appear like another use of 'iterator' an iterator oer lines of a file. But this is not strictly true.

the 'open' function of a File class (note not Object) 'yield's the block above. Thus actually the whole of while (s = ...) code is getting executed in the File.open function itself. Sounds a bit un-intuitive. Ok.. So what's the big deal again? Well this takes care of Opening and Closing the file when done automatically in case the user forgets to do so.

3. Blocks can be used to create 'Proc' objects

This use of ruby blocks is like 'python lambda'. Though ruby blocks are far more flexible than python lambda as python lambda allows you only a single line of code.
consider this

def foo(x)
  return proc { |y| x+y;}
end

p = foo(2)

p.call(2) = 4
p.call(2000) = 2002

I haven't really used this form of blocks yet. So can't comment about where this can be useful.

Actually a lot of what I have understood can be found on this page of ruby book.

What is a great poetry?

The lazy sunday had been kind of productive for some fancy new ideas :-) After falling in love with the rather haunting song, I was thinking what really makes a great poetry?

I agree the answers to this are going to be largely personal, I am just trying to thing what I perceive as a Good Poetry.

To me I think it is something like this "You understand every word of the poem, every sentence of it, but don't really get oh what is the poet trying to say and almost feel like calling him and asking, "hey what did you mean to say here?"eg. consider this - from the famous बीडी song -

ना बुलाया ना बताया माने नींद से जगाया मर गयी|
ऐसा चौंखे लिहाफ़ में नसीब आ गया
वोह इलायची खिलायके करीब आ गया|

now I just couldn't get the meaning of this... or even

जो भी कहां उस चंद्रभान ने फट से हो गयी राजी मैं|

now why does the lyricist wants to use the word चंद्रभान?

When I really get these questions, I start liking the it.. eg. consider another one (and for a change this is not one of the haunting types but a bit of religios marathi song)

पिते दूध डोळे मिटूनी जात मांजराची मनी चोरट्याच्या कारे भिती चंदण्यांची

सरावल्या हातांनाही कंप का सुटावा? उघड दार देवा आता उघड दार देवा....

this one is by ग. दि. माडगुळकर.

PS: I used to use ScratchPad for typing marathi or hindi words, till aditya said to me, I use it to write even in english.. After trying it myself, I think I will never use blogger editor again.

democratization of startuping

In his famous book "the world is flat" Thomas Friedman speaks about democratization of information, finance and politics, which is really a very interesting observation. While enjoying a rather lazy Sunday afternoon, an interesting thought came to mind - "There is one more thing that is getting democratized and that is startuping".

What a startup needs? idea, funding, platform to quickly test out and deploy it to get a user feedback. Here is how this is getting democratized.


1. Thanks to opensource tools and frameworks like ruby on rails, its a matter of weeks to test out your idea and see it evolve in front of your eyes.

2. Thanks to the initiatives like Y-combinator by Paul Graham, there is a funding available to bright ideas for a period of time where you can make something meaningful and if one comes up with something really meaningful at the end of a period of three months, he can look for further funding or simply can get acquired for a decent bit of money and the best thing is you can apply to it from anywhere, we've applied even sitting in India. So funding is no longer a luxury for those who are within few miles of Sandhill Road.

3. Thanks to shared hosting plans for about 40 bucks a month (thats just 13 Starbucks Cafe Mocha, or 7 Sam Adams if you prefer it that way), you can keep it live for a considerable period of time and figure out how users' see it.

Thus anyone with an idea and willingness to put in few hours everyday can make a startup whether it succeeds or not is a different issue and thats the best part of it. The society filters out good ones from bad ones. Well not necessarily.. I don't find myspace quite good, still if the people like it and use it, there is a value it is delivering.


Happy startuping!!!

check this song....

Thanks to "महावितरण" I was almost without any kind of plausible entertainment for some time, when I decided to play some songs from movie "ओम्कारा". This one is just one high quality stuff.

Thanks "गुलज़ारजी"

(written whatever I could gather while listening and typing simultaneously.. ofcourse in multiple attempts NOT written in "google hindi transliteration")

मैं चांद निगल गयी । हो जी मैं चांद निगल गयी दुइया रे
हूं भीतर भीतर आग जलें बात करु तो सेक़ लगे
आजी भीतर भीतर आग जले बात करु तो सेक़ लगें

हो मैं चांद निगल गयी दैया रे अंग पे ऐसे छाले पड़ें
तेज़ का झोंका का करु सी सी करती।
सी सी सी सी करती मैं मरू ज़बाँ पे लागा जि लागा जि रे
ज़बाँ पे लाग लागा रे नमक़ इश्क का| होए मेरे इस्क़ का

बलम से मांगा मांगा रे
बलम से मांगा रे बलम से मांगा मांगा रे
बलम से मांगा रे बलम से मांगा मांगा रे नमक इस्क़ का तेरे इस्क़ का

हाय रे तेरे इस्क का

जबा पे...

हाय रे तेरे इस्क का

जबा पे...

सभी छेडें हैं मुझको सिपाहिए बाँके छमियें
उधारी लेने लगे हैं गली के बनिये बनिये
कोइ तो कवडि तुभी लुटा दे.
आजी थोडी थोडी शहद चटा दे.
आजी तेज़ का तदक क्या करुं सी सी करती मैं मरु ..
आजी .. रातभर छाना रे नमक इस्क का. हाये तेरे इस्क का

रातभर छाना राअतभर छाना राअतभर छाना रे .....

जबां पे लागा लागा रे ...

हो ऐसी भूक लगी जालिम की ..
हो ऐसी भूक लगी जाआलिम की ..
के बासुरीं जैसी बाजी मैं
अरे जो भी कहां उस चंद्रभान ने
फट से हो गयी राजी मैं.

हय कभि अखियों से पीना कभी होठोंसे पीना
कभी अछा लगे मरना कभी मुस्कील लगे जीना
करवट करवट प्यास लगी थी.
आजि बलम कि आहट पास लगी थी .
टेज का झौका का करु सी सी करती मैं मरु...
डलीभर डाला डालाजि रे .......

जबां पे.....

बलम से मांगा मांगा रे....

Minnows with Superstars

I often used to wonder "Who is more incompetent? Bollywood or Indian Cricket Team?" Actually I owe a couple of sorries for this. First to bollywood for comparing them with "Team India" and second to "Team India" for rating them way too higher.

To some this might appear as a result of frustration due to a humiliating defeat vs. Sri Lanka. But actually I am quite happy that this team is unlikely to make it to super 8. I think it will be a grave injustice to teams like SA and Aussies if they have to play "Men In Blue". For several reasons - they play cricket which the good teams used to play about 15 years ago. There is no intensity, no fitness and just exemplary display of incompetence.

The question I would ask myself if I have been playing cricket for 15 years and doing nothing else is -

1. Should I make the same mistakes time and again ?
2. How did I improve over last 15 years?
3. Should I really be playing (reminds me of Damien Martin who took a voluntary retirement, the reason he gave "There are faar too many players who are more committed than me. I really don't deserve to be there.")

A lot of cricket fans feel that the players don't play for the team or country, they play for themselves. What I'd say is "Don't play for the team or country. Play for yourself and that requires a great deal of self-respect. If I don't play well - I can't look at myself in the mirror and say I am doing a good job or atleast doing a job for which I am being paid!"

While watching the Aus vs. SA match, I was thinking lets count the number of runs we'd have gotten less than the aussies or the number of runs we'd have saved. After third over I stopped counting, its just apples vs. oranges. You just can't compare Indian team with them. Sorry, just can't.

If one looks at the kind of games the so called minnows play during the world cup, there is a distinct similarity between their play and the way MIB play. There is no strategy, there is no application, there is no plan (forget about Plan A or Plan B. Interesting to note - When Sangakara came forward to Vaas' second ball, we had no clue how to go about it? and juxstapose it with the way Hayden or smith played - against arguably the best bowlers in the world!)

It simply means Team India is plain "incompetent". And there is no reason to feel bad about it, sometimes the facts are too hard to believe. They may be talented - but competence is not just about talent - it's about fitness, stamina, application and a certain degree of confidence that only comes with hours and hours of hard work.

But thats just not the problem of Team India. Its the terminal problem of Indians as a whole. We just don't work hard enough.

Thats the reason I call this team a "Minnows with Superstars".

Before I conclude - I pray that Bermuda don't come up with a surprise against Bangladesh. Mostly my prayers will be heard. If they are not - I think aussies and SA should consider giving a walkover to India in super 8. They just don't belong there.

The joy of reading your favourite song in your language..

बीडी जलाइले जिगर से पिया जिगर मा बडी आग हैं.
धुवारा निकालियो लब से पिया ये दुनिया बडी खाक हैं|

ना गिलाब ना लिहाफ थन्डी हवा भी खिलाफ ससुरी
इतनी सर्दी हैं किसीका लिहाफ लै ले जा पदोसीके चुल्हेसे आग लै ले!!
बीडी जलाईले....

ना कसूर ना फतूर बिना जुरम के हुजूर मर गई|
ऐसे इक दिन दुपहरी बुलाइ लियो रे बांध घुन्घरु कचहरी लगाईलियो रे ||
अंगीठी चढाइले जिगर से पिया जिगर मा ... आग हैं|

ना बुलाया ना बताया माने नीन्द से जगाया मर गई
ऐसा चोखें लिहाफ में नसीब आ गया वोह इलायची खिलायके करीब आ गया|
कोयला जलाइले जिगर से पिया जिगर मा बडी आग हैं |

[written in paahijen - ScratchPad: http://www.paahijen.com/scratchpad ]

एक सुप्त ईछा पूर्ण..

बरेच दिवस आपल्याला मराठी मध्ये blog लिहीता आला पाहिजे असं वाटत होतं. म्हणून हा प्रोब्लेम स्वतःपुरता fix करण्यापेक्षा इतरांनाही काही उपयोग होइल म्हणून आम्ही एक application develop केले आहे. 'paahijen ScratchPad' जिथे मला english मध्ये टाईप केल्यावर मराठी मध्ये दिसते आणि ते मी कुठेही Cut-Paste मारु शकतो.

हळू हळू थोडेसे गुजराथी पण शिकीन म्हणतो!

लहान मुलाला एखादं नवीन खेलणं हातात दिलं कि त्याची जशी अवस्था होते, तशी माझी झाली आहे!... उगाचच फुकट आहे म्हणून काहिही type करत सुटलोय!! :-)

मजा आली!! पाहिजेन!!!

written in http://www.paahijen.com/scratchpad

On Rave Party

It is my usual habit in the morningto open the door grab the newspaper, as soon as I get up and just browse through it.... I was really startled by a news that made headlines today about a certain rave party near pune where police raided and arrested 280 youths... I was not surprised at the careless manner in which the people were enjoying, but I was surprised by a trivial yes trivial offense like this making headlines......

There is usual ruccous - Blah Blah.. etc.

What I don't really understand is having a rave party is wrong, but having bhang on mahashivratri is not wrong. Dancing in front of ganesh idol during immersion procession (where admittedly most of the people who are dancing are drunk.) is not wrong or obstructing traffic for a Goddess procession is not wrong.. I think this is sheer double standards...

Carrying and seeling drungs is illegal offence in India and the people should nie MUST be punished for that and that should be end of story. This is certainly not worth making headlines... there are thousands of criminal offenses happening in our city everyday do they make major headlines?

Atleast, these people where minding their own business away from the city, so their offence to society was marginal compared to the offenses mentioned above.

What I would like to see is one of those who were partying to stand up, show the guts and say "Yes we were partying in a manner we liked and while doing that we ignored the law of the land and we deserve punishment for that and that alone...." But a lot of these people were ashamed to show their faces? Are you ashamed of your way of enjoying? Then you have no moral right to "enjoy" in the manner you were....

Microsoft.. Again...

A week back I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, about what could be dangerous for Microsoft? having their development tools at a premium. What opensource is actually doing is - it is driving a lot of "smart" developers away from Microsoft, and that could be a big threat to Microsoft in the long run. I told him, what will be a stroke of genius from Microsoft will be to make their development tools free. (even free as in beer would do!)

and I read today about this news. where they have launched a Beginners site for MS platform and some of the development tools they have their it free.

A really solid move by Microsoft, the effects may not be immediately visible, but will help them in the long run.

From 'मैं हू ना' to 'कल हो ना हो' - Part I

You might be confused to think that this entry is about movies of SRK/KJ and company. Actually, there is one man whose fortune is following the same path as these movies.. After all there is a limit to which you can expect people to like nie tolerate non0sense.

Yes you guessed it right..

From an almost arrogant "मैं हू ना" a couple of years back, mr. PC is almost thinking "कल हो ना हो", and it won't be a surprise if his budget reflects those sentiments.

More about this later.

HMTPL blues.....

Well really I couldn't hold myself from writing about this "Wonderful" (pun intended) movie I saw today, "HMTPL" Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. The only good part about the movie was I watched it with Sujay. You've to watch a movie with Sujay to understand what this really means.

The movie has got a lot of unique things - Story in short is - It's about a bunch of couples going to Goa for honeymoon.

So far so good - There is a "Superman/Superwoman couple. Who fight once only in 16 years (atleast they claim so....) and make feline and bovine sounds before making love. Didn't know that the supercreatures have to go to sub-human levels.. anyways." Then there is this girl who's always in dreams and she finds an oyster (of course made up of cotton and wool) and there is a pearl in that oyster that unfortunately looks like an Dinausaurus Egg from Jurassic Park (ok thats' Sujay's idea not mine). Then there's a guy who's Gay (which he knows. already) but still marries a poor girl who's been ditched already, and the husband of the dreamer girl (yeah the same Jurasic Park Pearl one) who apparantly is attracted towards the Gay guy.. Hello, Are you still with me? Yes all of this is there in one movie...... And I sat for two hours watching this and being tortured...

Worst part of it all was - I was surrounded by too many members of fairer sex around, so couldn' t use my usual abusive impolite language while making comments about the movie and was reprimanded for disturbing by an elderly lady... (Actually I know what put her off.. But Let's leave that..)

A freakonomics Solution to Pune's Traffic Woes

Driving on Pune's roads is an ordeal one has to go through, and for a few unfortunate souls its a daily affair. There are a number of problems - One biggest being "When to stop at a signal and when not to?" For instance one would often find people going ahead on a red signal. Though it is universally accepted that Red signal is a stop sign, you'd often find people not giving a damn about it. If you happen to be an unfortunate one who believes that one should stop at the Red signal, you'd be horrified by the persistant honking that follows. The things become so worse, that eventually they are completely out of phase ie. you'd find vehicles forced to stop on Green Signal and others just continueing to go as if it's a big deal.



Here's a slightly toned down version of what the problem looks like. (Source is punepolice.com)







The question is how to solve this problem? You'd hear cries about - What if we "educate" the people that "Following Traffic Rules" is in your interest? Now I am not personally convinced of efficacy of any such mechanism. So Let's ask this question from a different view "What really causes people to break the traffic rules?" Possible reasons are
- They never believed that they were meant to be followed
- There is no benefit that they get by following traffic rules
- or They know that they can remain anonymous while continuing to do so.

Which means - there is not enough incentive to follow the traffic rules nor there are enough deterrents to stop breaking. So let's disturb this cost-to-benefit equation a bit. Obviously, you cannot offer benefits. So can you put more deterrents? Possibly yes.

How do we go about doing this? There is a solution to this problem, which unfotunately is a bit expensive, but with a little bit of efforts (and sacrifice in terms of advertisement revenues) from Local News Papers and co-operation from Pune RTO, can be achieved. Infact, this solution might actually generate a few part-time jobs (or other incentives can be thought out.). The solution is as follows - You deploy a bunch of young kids on each of the traffic signals and ask them to perform only a simple task. Whenever they find a vehicle breaking the rules, they simply note down the number of that vehicle and thats it and around 8pm everyday they submit the list of all such vehicles to one central place (say a Newspapers' office.) The newspapers office then with the help of RTO, figures out the owner's of the registered vehicles and publishes a database of 1000 offenders every day on the front page of their Local Version of Newspaper (most of them have eg. Pune Times, Pune blah blah etc.) The format should be as follows -
- Vehicle name
- Vehicle's Owner
- Number of offenses.

With Font sizes becoming bigger and bigger when number of offenses increases.

What this would actually result in - No one can remain anonymous breaking signals and one is bound to feel embarrased, when one's pal point out his name in the newspaper. Imagine if you are "behind some girl and she figuring out your name in a newspaper? Gosh that alone can be the single biggest deterrent."

I firmly believe this would alleviate the problem to a great extent and eventually it will be solved.


Possible problems - How do you guarantee that the kids will really stop at the signal and not write fake numbers? (I guess one can write a program, to figure out fake entries, eventually, but for the time being lets accept that we live with this limitation.) Imagine offering right incentives to people eg. Their name published in a newspaper for doing this noble job?

Other possible outcomes - There will be a unique data available about the vehicles, which might throw in light on something else we have never thought about yet? eg. You may find a certain number of Honda Activa's registered during so and so time period. That's just one example. Now imagine what you can do with that data? Possibilities are limitless.

Happy Driving...... :-)

Anyone interested in "funding" this project, drop a comment!

No More Cruise Control, Wear Your Seat Belts.

The latest issue of Economist has got a very interesting cover. It's showing a Tiger with his tail on fire. If I'd have it my own way, I'd rather Have P Chidambaram with his "lungi" on fire. I know it is politically incorrect, so I'd refrain.

Last time when Mr. PC announced the budget, there was a headline which I still remember "PC leaves the Economy on Cruise Control." Unfortunately, the same economy has found the turbulance of rising inflation, current account deficit and Mr. PC has to infact make an announcement to the effect "Krupaya Kursi ki Peti Baandh leejiye.. (Please wear your seat belts.)"

Meanwhile, in hindsight there are a number of things that could have been done - If the local fuel prices did actually follow the crude prices, initially, this would have helped to curb inflation a bit.

The credit flow (in the form of housing mortgage) should have been checked.

The government who shouts from the rooftops about being pro-poor, pro-farmer should answer why farming output growth over las t year has actually slowed down? Sharad Pawar, there is more to life than Cricket and BCCI.

What happened to the 2pc that you take Mr. PC over and above our Tax that is supposed to be going to Education? I don't see any new schools coming up, except the lamentable debate about the Reservations in premier institutes?

But then here's a Finance Minister busy making comments about "Stock Markets" while leaving the economy on Cruise Control. It will be interesting to see what actions Mr. PC takes to find a way out of turbulance.

Withdrawal Symptoms

Didn't know that they have NSE closed on account of "Mahashivaraatri"...

Welcome to the country of 10 odd religions, 20 odd languages, 100 odd dialects and 200 odd public holidays in a year!!!