In my schooldays in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, bicycles were the prime mode of transport for the middle-class. The affluent among my class-mates came to school in own bikes. My parents didn’t get me one till I joined college in New Delhi. By which time (this, in late 50s) bicycling went out of fashion.

With aggressive marketing of Luna, scooty, and other two-wheelers bicycles became a poor man’s vehicle. We, who considered ourselves better-off on the social scale, preferred the rush, long wait and uncertainty of public transport to a bicycle for travelling to work. Coming to office on a bike wasn’t an executive thing. Clerks biked to work.

Today, the good old bike could be an answer to traffic congestion and carbon emission in Bangalore,if only office-goers and company executives take to the bike in a big way, making bicycling a fashionable mode of transit, as they have done in Paris. One would like to see Anil Kumble and Shivrajkumar going to work on a bike;see Rahul Dravid with a bicycle in lifestyle media ads. Major IT companies - Infosys, IBM, Yahoo and others - could promote use of bicycles.

They could cut-back on car allowance and offer, instead, bicycle bonus to employees. And those who give up their cars for bicycles could be considered for telecommuting. Maybe IIM-B students could take up a project to explore the prospects of putting in place (are you and your project group reading this, Reema Mahajan?) bicycle rentals service in Bangalore on the pattern of Velib’ of Paris.

The New York Times, in a recent article – A New Fashion Catches On in Paris: Cheap Bicycles Rentals – gives us an idea of how the system works. Maybe we can’t replicate it in all aspects, for Bangalore isn’t quite Paris; but the concept could be emulated.

The highlights of the Paris bicycle rentals:
1)The bikes are cheap to rent, as they are subsidized by advertising; some 20,600 bicycles are for hire, from 1,450 rental stations.
2)Annual subscription (29 euros) lets user take a bike whenever needed for 30 minutes at a time without extra-charge. It is reckoned 96 percent of all rides are less than 30-minute duration (and hired bikes can be returned at any convenient location).
3)Bicycles theft rate – 15 percent in the first year of operation. About 1,500 bikes a day come in for repairs.
4)Bikes can be rented on hourly basis, for a day, and also on weekly basis.
5)The 10-year contract for running bicycle rentals has been taken up, not by a transport contractor but a major PR and advertising company – JCDecaux.

Cross-filed in Giving It A Shot

As someone visiting the US, it appears to me that the question that haunts the political-minded here is not who the next President would be; but what if, Barack Obama gets elected. Pundit Dick Morris, who was for long a Clinton consultant, but now their strident critic, has written a full-fledged book to illustrate the point. An Amazon list-topper, the book - Fleeced - has, presumably, been written in the fond hope that it would influence enough people to wish away Obama, come November. But then Mr Morris, more than anyone else, appears convinced that America is in for the Obama presidency, even though the Morris vote (Dick and his co-author wife) would go to McCain.

I happened to catch on C-Span Book-TV a re-run of Dick Morris’ recent address at the Cornell Club, NY. A PR-plug to his book, it was an engaging hour-long speech-cum-Q & A, by an articulate Obama-basher, who took in in his swipe Hillary and McCain as well, for balancing his bash-job.

Doing justice to Dick’s pet peeves and political prejudices; and his alarmist analysis, in the event of an Obama presidency, would take a book, not a mere blog post. What I found noteworthy and must-be-posted are his comments on how the other two presidential potentials have virtually allowed Obama a walk-over in this race.

The author’s considered opinion is John McCain is ‘sleep-walking’ through the campaign. He said he wrote Fleeced for McCain to read it. As for Hillary Clinton, it was not a good idea for her to highlight ‘experience’ to a constituency of Democrats who are sold on ‘change’ as the prime campaign point. Talking about ‘experience’ in Democrats’ primaries, said Dick Morris, was akin to talking ‘abstainance’ in the French primaries.

The other factor that did in Hillary was her lack of appreciation of the power of the Internet. In contrast Obama has built up a formidable online following. Mr Morris reckoned Barack Obama had a million online donors who keep funding his campaign, whether or not he won a given primary. Hillary’s fund-flow dried out along the way.

Referring the Clintons’ ignorance, and lack of faith in the Internet Dick Morris observed neither Bill nor Hillary even knew how to type. They believed in drafting speeches in long-hand. And the former Clinton political strategist referred to an incident when Mr Morris had to draft a State-of-the-Union address for Clinton.

President Clinton tossed at Dick Morris an yellow writing pad, asking him to get on with the speech, while the latter was used to keying in such stuff in his laptop. Clinton didn’t want this. For, according to Mr Morris, the President didn’t want anyone in the White House to know his State-of-the-Union wasn’t authored by him.

As Mr Morris put it, they produced an IBM electric type-writer on which he pounded out the speech, working late at night in the White House. Clinton walked in now and then to take away the type-written stuff, page by page, for copying on his yellow-pad, in his left-handed scrawl. So that he could brag the next morning to his aides about how he worked on the speech through the night.

Brenda, a blogger from Australia, would like to make contact with folks from other cultures; left a blog comment, saying as much. The 77-year-old who took to blogging recently posts in her Rinkly Rimes daily comments, all of them in verses. We have linked her blog to Mysore Blog Park.

Born in Britain and trained as teacher, Brenda Bryant has worked on a mail ship; spent seven years in Zimbabwe, married in Capetown, and moved to Australia in1974. After retirement Brenda worked for a publisher for a while.

Interesting person, whose posts would interest me more, if only she were to do it in prose. Not because her verses are bad, but because I lack the flair.   

Ancient Greeks used semicolon for a question mark. In London, it first appeared in a 1568 chess guide. Shakespeare, it is said, grew up in an era that scarcely recognized its worth. Two law professors in 1837 dueled, with swords, over its usage. The wounded advocated a semicolon to conclude a given passage; the winner favoured a colon.

However, recent years have seen a decline usage of the punctuation mark; possibly because of widespread ignorance about its proper role. In his piece on using semicolons Robert Harris says that by using semicolon instead of a period between two sentences you show that these two sentences have a closer relationship to each other than they do to the sentences around them.

An article posted in Slate refers to an April Fool’s hoax themed on the French passion over a semicolon. A French online publication, credited with the hoax put out a story claiming that the Nicolas Sarkozy government stipulated that there should be “at least three semicolons per page in all official documents”.

Reporters were taken in, since, like every great hoax, it was plausible enough to be true. Le Figaro has proclaimed, “The much-loved semicolon is in the process of disappearance; let us protect it,” and there was even a brief attempt at a Committee for the Defense of the Semicolon—a modern update on the Anti-Comma League that France had back in 1934. French commentators blame the semicolon’s decline on everything from “the modern need for speed” to the corrupting influence of English and its short, declarative sentences.

So says the Slate, which runs an engaging piece on the rise and decline of semicolon. Link to the Slate story…Has modern life killed the semicolon ?     

Wonder if it is customary for those invited to deliver Commencement Speech at Stanford to leave gifts for the students who give them a hearing. Oprah Winfrey who addressed the Stanford Class of ‘08 gifted each graduate a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth’, and also A Whole New Mind - Why the Right-Brainers’ Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink.

“I really want to give you cars, but I just couldn’t pull that off,” said America’s best known talk-show host, as she informed her audience about her gift - ‘underneath your seats you’ll find two of my favourite books’. In her speech Oprah shared with Stanford grads, their parents, grand-parents, the faculty and the trustees the lessons she learned from failings, success, and her life in-between that she defined as ‘a reciprocal exchange’. To move forward in life, you need to give back. And it is in the giving, she finds happiness.

She reminded the students that the institution from which they had just graduated was the result of the giving by Jane and Leland Stanford, who had suffered in life the worst any mom and dad could ever endure - the loss of their only son to typhoid, at the age of 15. As Oprah put it, the Stanfords channeled their grief and pain into an act of grace, with their funding grant to the university, pledging to do to others’ children what they were not able to do to their own boy.

Link to Oprah’s Stanford speech was forwarded to friends by Bangalore-based blogger Tanay Behera.

Current TV one-minute video clip of Oprah’s speech

Lisa from New Hampshire plans to spend the summer in Bangalore on volunteer work at an orphanage. “This is my first trip to India and my first time volunteering in an orphanage,” she e-mailed. Googling for ideas on how she could make her work meaningful Lisa happened by an earlier post in this blog.

Lisa is among the 60 million Americans who take to volunteer work in their neighbourhood, or farther away from home during summer break. A report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that people between the ages of 34 and 54 are the most likely to volunteer; and they do so for various reasons - a need to help out, do good, give back. Or maybe it’s boredom that drives many to volunteering; a desire to meet new people; or, as NYT report put it, ‘concern that one’s obituary won’t (otherwise) have much to say’.

I can’t help feeling that a sense of adventure, coupled with the spirit of volunteerism, has been a factor in Lisa’s decision to make her first trip to India, volunteering for the first time to work at an orphanage.

Here’s what she says in her mail: I am a teacher in New Hampshire and I volunteer in afterrnoon programs for kids here all of the time.  I am constantly trying to combine children having fun and children learning. 
I have been trying to think of ways I could help the children I will be working with this summer in Bangalore - besides teaching them and caring for them , bringing them gifts, starting fundraisers in the US (where I live) for them etc….  I thought about taking them someplace special… and the zoo idea came about.  that’s how I “googled and found” you!
I was wondering if this is something feasible - of course I would have to discuss this with the people in charge of the orphanage,,,,
I was wondering where/if I could find some type of transportation to rent - a school bus or something to bring the 40 children on an outing.
I was also wondering if the zoo is the place of choice to bring these children to.  I would want them to 1) have fun 2) get out of the orphanage 3) learn something….
If you or anyone you know could help me with this, I would much appreciate it!

I don’t think my mother lost a wink of sleep over my getting it right, nearly seven decades ago. In a joint family set-up, where we had cousins and nephews growing up together, it was a peer group thing, done at the backyard of our farm house. We took it as extension of playtime activity, and took our own time doing it, till one of the woman in the household found time to pull us out to give us all a wash. Diaper culture was then unknown in my native Pollachi, Tamilnadu.

In my son’s case my wife did not see it as a big deal either, though he didn’t have the benefit of a peer group to learn from. Left largely to fend for himself, with a little help from friendly neighbours, our son picked it up through trial and error. Parental guidance was minimal; and mom intervened, with a threat or spanking, occasionally, only when she found you in soiled shorts.

As our son grew up to be a teenager we moved to Chennai; and our second-floor apartment in Egmore had a view of Don Bosco’s  kindergarten section. And we were used to the sight of pre-school kids with soiled behinds, waiting for the ayah to clean them up.

Now his son Siddarth goes to play-school at San Ramon, CA; and he has had parents worried over his apparent reluctance, nay, refusal, to give up diapers. This can be embarrassing, particularly if most others in his play-school were potty-trained. Siddarth is two plus, talkative, and even daring in a childlike way.

What cramped his style was the suggestion that it was time he switched diapers for ‘Spiderman’ underwear. He would have nothing of it; and after much cajoling and coercion Siddarth relented, insofar as he agreed to swap diapers for more fashionable underwear. Doing without diapers was one thing, but doing it without diaper was quite another can of beans. And, here was the sticking point. Siddarth would rather hold it, rather than do it in anything other than a diaper. Using potty was simply no, no.

Getting Siddarth out of his potty-block called for some collective thinking in the family; and a plan of action was drawn up for the Memorial Day weekend in May-end. Everyone in the house – mom, dad and the grandparents – cancelled all other plans to join the ‘SpotForce’ (Siddarth potty-training task force).

During the three-day weekend Siddarth was put off-diapers; and we took turns to watch for signs in his facial expression or body language so that he could be rushed to a potty, strategically placed in the house – one in the hallway and the other, in his upstairs bed-room. At the slightest hint of anything happening we gathered around the potty with expectations, like cheering fans on the stands, watching a goal-mouth tackle in a game of hockey.

Amid several such false alarms that had us rushing to the potty during the much of the long weekend, the breakthrough came, late Saturday evening. Irony was that when Siddarth took his first shot at breaking the potty-barrier none of us, other than his dad, was there to witness the event. He got his favorite toy car as a reward. In accordance with the plan, with every successful strike at the potty Siddarth got a gift from a special basket of toys. And by the end of the Memorial Day the basket was nearly empty; and mom Meera was proud of having her Mission Accomplished.

Related post – Who’s turn is it to change diapers.

I have known Dr. Javeed Nayeem as a social activist, student of Mysore’s folk-history, book-lover, coffee-planter, Star of Mysore columnist, a Haji and, of course, as a reputed cardiologist. His latest column however shows him up as a gun-lobbist. I wouldn’t associate him, though, with die-hard crusaders of US gun lobby. Would suggest he read - Guns and Losses - by B S Prakash, India’s consul general in San Francisco.

Dr.Nayeem’s gun-talk stems from the poll time humiliation that a section of law-abiding citizens have to go through, for the ‘fault’ of owning licensed guns. They are required to deposit them at the local police station during the election process. This ’revolutionary’ measure was thought of by former chief election commissioner T N Seshan, a ’sabre-rattler, given to theatrics’. These are Dr Nayeem’s words, not mine, though I wish they were.

The Seshan Effect continues to cast its shadow still; it has gone into the rulebook, as a pre-poll sanitising measure. What is worse, as Dr Nayeem puts it, “we have all shamelessly tolerated it without a whisper or a whimper” all this while. His point is:

1) The gun, especially a licensed one, has never played a role in any poll in Karnataka.
2) When all and sundry, ‘the bad and the ugly’, come to know that weapons owned by law-abiding residents are safely locked away in police stations during election time, they take it as an open invitation to ‘make hay as soon as the sun sets’ over the Chamundi Hills. Isolated bungalows, farm-houses and outlying residental layouts are particularly vulnerable.
3) The police can’t be everywhere; and during election time they tend to be ‘nowhere’, presumably, under pressure of campaign bandobast.
4) Gun licences come at a hefty price; and a handgun, says Dr Nayeem, is literally worth its weight in gold. He reckons that police stations are certainly not the place where licensed weapons should be tossed around. Priceless ones are known to have been ‘misplaced, replaced, or even lost while in police custody’.

He would like to see public opinion moblised to persuade the three wisemen in the election office to see reason. And towards this end, columinist Nayeem is prepared to go beyond his ‘Over a Cup of Evening Tea’ column in Star of Mysore . He invites you to a cuppa of the real stuff, this Sunday evening at King’s Kourt.
Mail (or nail) him on this at kjnmysore@gmail.com or call 9880179722

A Karnataka assembly poll candidate is reported to have declared his assets in US dollars. Presumably, because he runs a business in the US, owns a flat there and holds US government bonds. It is not clear if his dollar declaration of assets would be acceptable to the electoral officer. Every candidate is required to file an affidavit, declaring his current assets, along with his nomination papers. These are then scrutinized by the election office.
Mr Sonne Gowda, contesting the Kolar constituency seat as BJP candidate, is a green-card holder. Maybe there is nothing in our electoral law that says he can’t contest election. The issue is whether Mr Gowda would serve the best interests of his voters; whether he would be available for them whenever he is needed in the constituency.
Normal requirements of a US green-card preclude his continued presence in India for the duration of his term as an MLA. Maybe Mr Gowda, if elected, can so schedule his presence here during assembly sessions. I knew of a green-card holder who was mayor of Ludhiana (or was it Jalandhar?). His business interests in the US were taken care of by his family members there; and he made brief visits of no more than a week or two to the US to comply with a green-card provision that required his presence in the US every year. The mayor made his US trip, usually a couple of weeks, in December end, returning to Punjab in early January. He could, thus, account for two years in one go. This was some years back.
This is no longer possible. Current rules, they say, stipulates longer stay in the US, of six months every year in order to retain one’s green-card. Many NRI parents who split their time between India and the US no longer find it appealing to apply for green-card; and some who have it find their to-and-fro-ing between India and the US cramped by the six-month rule. A green-card holder who becomes an MLA can possibly seek a waiver. And Mr Gowda has, perhaps, worked it all out.

Got these pictures by mail from Monica Mascarenhas Prabhu, who wrote, “I visited the new Bengaluru International Airport last week and took some pictures. … thought you would find this update useful”.

 Parking lot that can hold 2000 vehicles; and (right) the signboard points to check-in right ahead. 

Check-in counters. They have 53 of them.

snacks & coffee area; (below) bar and lounge area.

 
Departure lounge.

Airside view of the terminal building.