पागल परिंदे

बस चंद लम्हे आराम और करने दो

तपती धूप से शाम होने दो

दिल मे जो ख्वाहिशे है बेतहाशा 

कुछ ख्वाहिशे तो पूरी करने दो|

डरावना सा यह लंबा सफ़र है 

मुसाफिर भी नहीं कोई साथ है

और काली घटा है फैली चारो ओर 

पंख है थके और नयना भी हैरान है|

होठ चाहे कितना भी कहारयेगे 

कुछ और दूर तो चले ही जाएगे

पागल परिंदे है हम आवारा

इन वादियो को पीछे छोड जाएगे||

KWEST Switzerland: Rockin Interlaken

It's been almost two months since I started my MBA at Kellogg School at Management and it has been an amazing roller-coaster ride with only upward trajectory. The journey started with an amazing KWEST trip to Switzerland and it was so much fun that I felt that it can't be put into words until two my KWEST friends did it and did it nicely, though not completely! Hence I decided to repost their article here. Thanks Nick and Jeremy for writing this great write up.

KWEST Switzerland:  Rockin Interlaken- Jeremy Fiser & Nick Rowland

In August, a group of 24 Kwestees invaded Switzerland, ironic given the country’s famed neutrality.  Armed with five stellar leaders and nineteen perfect strangers, KWEST Switzerland (“K Swiss”) arrived with one objective: To Rock Interlaken.  Upon arrival, we wasted no time and embarked upon a vertical march up the Harder Klum, an unbeknownst test of the endurance required for the week.  That night, K Swiss congregated in the lobby of the finest hostel in Interlaken and created “Big Booty” (ask any K Swiss member how the game goes), a raucous drinking game that on more than one occasion landed K Swiss on the bad side of the hostel’s overly attentive Russian bouncers.  K Swiss kept the “Baton tradition” alive, and potentially took it to new levels (spoiler alert – if while drinking you see any K Swiss member with a baton, run).  Casually hungover, K Swiss went canyoning the next morning through the valleys of Interlaken and met the now cult favorite guide Simon, the overly enthusiastic outdoor guide (You will hear impersonations of Simon from K Swiss members: “GUYS…WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO NOW IS JUMP OFF THE LEDGE….”).  While canyoning the glacial runoff, K Swiss invented what is now known as the “Neutral Dance” (see Hearne or Glicken for a demonstration). After our first (10 minute) break, K Swiss then zipped through the tree tops of Interlaken, tackling a ropes course that took Kwestees fifty feet in the air with nothing but a carabineer and “social proof” from preventing a fateful slip (note: dynamite usage of a MORS 430 term).  That night, the K Swiss crew was hosted at the finest restaurant in Interlaken, at least the finest that we could afford (thanks all-time high CHF/USD exchange rate) to nourish ourselves for the task the next day:  glacier hiking and ice climbing.  Upon being informed by our guide (a Nordic pirate with a mullet and fantastic ‘stache) that little kids can do this, K Swiss’ confidence was at an all-time high… until we were lowered 50 feet into a crevice of the glacier and asked to climb out with only shoe spikes and an ice axe. While looking over the glaciers out upon the beautiful mountains of Switzerland, a few thoughts crept into our minds:  1) We are all in terrible shape; 2) Hangovers and ice climbing mix poorly; 3) I don’t think Evanston looks like this; and finally 4) Who are these people?  Thankfully, the Big Reveal was only a day away. But, before that, there was a murder!  K Swiss held an 80’s murder mystery party, laden with mixed messages and mixed drinks, all encouraged to help solve the mystery of “whodunit”.  After a free day, which created various levels of nervousness for the leaders, K Swiss found out who all these people were.  Shockingly, most of the group used to be consultants (no one saw that coming).  Also, beyond the belief of most Kwestees, apparently our leader Brooke “Ternes” is “married” to Ameed Mallick, or so we’re told.   The next day, KSwiss bid adieu to Interlaken and neutrally moved to Zurich (having no collective opinion on the matter).  While in Zurich, K Swiss swam in Lake Zurich, lounged in the parks, ate at the finest bier halls, and congregated in the city’s famed “casual drinking squares”.   

On what was to be the last night, we aggressively partied at Zurich’s #1 (potentially only) disco roller rink club all decked out in white (thankfully before Labor Day).  With bottle service and roller skates, DJ Matt Kawadlar treated the crew to his famed free style rap.  With these tunes in the background, we were all taught the “Barry Sherman,” a South African dance craze bound to sweep through The Keg any day. Despite best efforts, we returned to our hostel safely expecting to fly home the next morning, but we all had yet to meet Hurricane Irene.  While most international travelers were distraught by the havoc and delays, K Swiss was happy to spend one more day in glorious Switzerland, if nothing else to sleep off the hangover and reflect on our victory knowing that we’d just been on the best KWEST trip (a fittingly neutral perspective).  

Coming out of the "Shell"

After long 4 years and 8 months, I bid adieu to Shell, atleast for next two years to pursue higher education at Kellogg School of Management. My journey with Shell spanned over 4 years, four assignments, 3 countries and 3 businesses covering Coal Gasification, LNG and GTL. Out of these, last year was probably most enriching experience as it gave me an opportunity to closely witness a 20 billion dollar plant, biggest so far in the industry and that exposed me to so many different aspects of a massive construction site. This site was so massive that every month steel equivalent to 2.5 Eiffel tower was being erected and the construction has been on for the past 4 years!

It has been a roller coaster ride full of fun, friendships and sporadic periods of frustrations but there is no second opinion that past four and a half years taught me a lot. It gave me the opportunity to meet so many people from so many countries that I shall always cherish it. While with Shell, I visited around 19 countries in 3 continents for leisure and business and enjoyed every bit of it. Even in my final farewell party at Pearl GTL, there were 11 nationalities in a total of 19 people who were there. During past four and a half years, I met few people whom I can never forget (even if I wish to) in a positive way.

Other thing I will always miss is the great work life balance Shell offers to its employees. It was only during my stint with Shell that I picked three of my most important hobbies which include Guitar, Tennis and Travelling. It's hard to believe that anyone having a full-time job could pick up hobbies like guitar and tennis from scratch in parallel and pursue them.

Barring few frustrating experiences, over all Shell has been a positive experience for me but now I really look forward to exploring a bigger and newer world outside my "shell".

Renewable Energy in India - Still a long way to go

When I read the news that under Gujarat solar power policy 2009, Gujarat government is planning to set up a solar park capable of 500 Mw within two years, I really felt excited that at least one state government is thinking with a vision (click to open the link). I have always wondered why can't states like Rajasthan and Gujarat (and to some extent also Haryana & Punjab) invest heavily in wind and solar energy.

Though initially costly, they definitely can contribute greatly to reduce the high power deficit the country faces. More so for state like Rajasthan, which lack any other significant natural resources except for wind, solar energy and ofcourse 30k barrels/day of sour crude, this is a huge business opportunity. Alas, only if the state government finds time to think beyond Jat, Gujjar and Rajput reservations and agitations!

A quick look at the proposed solar park project in Gujarat shows that it is going to cost around Rs 15 cr of capex to produce a Mw of electricity. A gross estimate tells us each Mw of installed nuclear power capacity costs Rs 20 cr and traditional coal fired power capacity costs Rs 4-5 cr. This means that solar power is roughly 4 times as expensive as traditional coal fired power but 25% less costly than the nuclear power, strongly advocated by current government. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have no qualms about setting up nuclear power plants but we need to utilize all the available options optimally, which include wind, solar and also thorium based hybrid nuclear reactors, to meet our ever increasing energy demand.

Though central government has displayed some lofty ambitions in renewables through policy statements such as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, five year plans etc, the actual exploitation of potential remains a mirage. The plans to generate 1,000 MW of power by 2013 and up to 20,000 MW grid-based solar power, 2,000 MW of off-grid solar power and cover 20 million sq metres with collectors by the end of the final phase of the JNS mission in 2020 remains poorly executed. The performance in wind sector is not as abysmal and India has the fifth largest installed wind power capacity in the world but no where close to the actual potential the states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, TN and Karnataka offer.

I again stress here that if we have to match our continuously increasing energy needs, it's high time we abolish our fragmented approach to energy sector. I feel we need to abolish separate petroleum ministry, renewable ministry, coal ministry, power ministry, atomic ministry and what not and set up a responsible Energy ministry capable of taking a holistic view. If all the above mentioned ministries are essential to satisfy the "coalition dharma", how about setting up an umbrella ministry over and above these ministries that can work on all available sources under one roof. We need to develop a master-plan that provides a guideline on how we want to configure our energy basket over the next few decades with a proper mix of all easily available options.

Energy Scenarios: Juggling with the Good, Bad & Ugly

The recent events including the "Arab Spring", that continues even in the harsh middle-east summers, particularly in Libya leading to a major disruption in the supply side of the crude, recent disagreements over future course of action among OPEC nations and IEA releasing 60 million BOE into the markets to "cool off" the prices show only one thing; the future climate for energy market is going to be much more challenging and haphazard than most predicted.

Good
Everyone's long loved and admired sources of "good" energy such as wind, solar and bio-fuels are yet to take off from the ground despite all the efforts of IPCC and Greenpeace (link). While the technical feasibility of varying degrees has been demonstrated for all of them, the cost effectiveness and willingness of policy makers to make some serious efforts to promote a shift towards them remains a major question. Whatever the IPCC's report may say, I am quite not convinced that policymakers will do anything drastic to support renewables over easily and cheaply (yes you read correctly!) available crude elsewhere. However, the growth rate of renewables will continue to be impressive mainly because of a lower denominator and they will continue to be a small component of the world's energy basket.

Bad
To add to the concerns of the major governments, already grappling hard with the issues related to energy security, the recent Japan nuclear crisis has taken sheen off a major option that was available to them. The first government to respond was Germany, which decided to get away with nuclear power all together! This also leaves the plans of countries like India and China in teeters as they were banking heavily on substituting part of their growing energy demand with nuclear. I feel while some advocates will continue to support nuclear, selling it to the public will be more difficult for the governments and the growth rate of this industry will continue to limp till people forget about Japan's crisis.

Ugly
I feel the ugly/polluting fossil fuels will continue to rule the roost. Till you can dig a bore in the ground (no matter where and how deep) and tap easily palatable energy, getting away with fossils is unforeseeable. While lot of advancements such as efficiency, optimization, non-conventionals (GTL/Coal Gasification/CBM/Shale) and production enhancement technologies will improve this sector further, the carbon based economy of all the major countries will dictate the continued dominance of fossil (Oil, Gas & Coal) sector.

I feel while everyone would want to shift to the renewables completely, it is not going to happen for next several decades. The large percentage of energy demand would still be met by fossils. In such a scenario, the governments and policy makers need to focus on improving the efficiencies in this sector and support the innovation to best utilize the existing resources. As for nuclear, its a necessary devil that we have to live with but whom we can't love. Anyways, it can never be about choosing between Good, Bad or Ugly, it just about juggling with them and juggling better!

स्वपन

बचैनी में मचलती उस तन्हाई में
एक पीर जगती है ऐसे
शांत समंदर के पानी में
एक विकराल लहर उठी हो जैसे|

टूटेगा यह तट भी विरह की लहरों से
सुना तो था कभी ऐसे
पर चन्द उन्मादित लहरों के अजमाने से
भला यह तट अपना सिरा छोड़ेगा कैसे|

ऊंघती सिमटती उन अंगङाईयो में
एक टीस मचती है ऐसे
कबसे बेबसी का पिंजरा तोड़
पंख फ़ैलाने को आतुर हो एक पंछी जैसे|

बाते है जरूर कुछ ऐसी जहन में
जो बस भूलती नहीं ऐसे
कब से सोया एक डरावना स्वपन
नींद से जगाने को उन्मुख हो जैसे|

-गजेन्द्र "स्थिरप्रग्य" सिडाना

स्मृति

कतरा कतरा यू ही वक़्त गुजर जाएगा

बीता हर एक पल याद आएगा

चला था जिन रहो पर बदहवास

वो हर कदम स्मृति को विकल कर जाएगा|

विषैले काँटे भी थे खूब रहो पर

बेजान कंकर पथर भी थे भर कर

बंजारो में बस बेआलमी में दिल लगा लिया

और कई बार गिरा भी थक हार कर|

बहुत हसीं नज़ारे भी मिले
झीलमिल सितारे भी मिले
कोसो फैली तन्हाई में भी
कुछ दूर हमदम प्यारे मिले

पर कुछ दूर तो चले आये है

शायद कुछ ही दूर और जाना है

मीलो चल चुका हूँ बेमानी रहो पर

अब तो बस मंज़िल को पाना है|

Brasil: Beaches, Beer and Beauties (to say nothing of the Beasts!)

Among the string of interesting travels I have taken over the last year which include Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, Qatar and Brazil, Brazil was definitely the most stand out experience. I didn't even realize when the 17 days of planned trip got over. The negative comments regarding the security conditions, though not entirely untrue, made sure that we planned everything well. The only thing that created some problem for us was the language barrier as very few Brazilians can understand English. I found communicating here to be a bigger problem than Beijing or Shanghai.

After 21 hours of long flight from Delhi, the first leg of journey started from Rio De Janeiro, a place most known for Carnival parties and fabulous beaches full of bikini clad gorgeous women. The very first day my mobile and debit card were stolen during a street party but that wasn't enough to ruin my carnival spirit. The fervent partying spirit continued and I spent next 5 days partying on the street with a zillion strong party hungry crowd or lying on one of the most popular beaches on the planet i.e. Copacabana (and Ipanema) . The carnival parade, with its amazing colors and grand scale, was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. As always met a wide variety of interesting people coming from diverse backgrounds including one Pakistani named Hasan who immediately became a good friend again raising the same question I have always had i.e. why can't India and Pakistan be good friends if their citizens can be whenever they meet in a third country!

Manaus, the capital of Amazonas (Amazon forest) was our next destination. A city so far from Rio that it took us almost 6 hours of flying time to reach there but every minute we spent there was worth it. The jungle tour was already arranged and the moment we arrived, our guide took us to a floating jungle lodge, which was 2 hours boat ride from Manaus upstream of River Niger-the name which sounded startlingly racist to me as the river's water was black in colour due to minerals deposited at the bottom! We spent next 3 days in the quite of dense Amazon forest swimming in the river, piranha fishing, alligator spotting and most importantly rejuvenating after a five day long party in Rio. Our guide, Max, was an interesting Swiss fellow who quit his Physics university studies in favor of settling in Amazon forest, where he was married to a Brazilian girl. Throughout the trip, his passion for nature was evident. Here also met a couple of interesting Indians and Srilankan Americans. Lot of mosquito repellents we were carrying definitely helped but things were not as scary as we normally read about Amazon. The last day we saw meeting of rivers, the spot where black water of River Niger meets with the white water coming from River Solomon creating two parallel contrasting streams flowing adjacent to each other for quite sometime before they lose their individuality.

The next destination of our journey was Salvador, the capital of Bahia state. This was the place where Portuguese started and did most of the African slave trade in Brazil which gave rise to unique blend of Afro-Brazilian culture. The old city center and Afro-Brazilian museum were quite nice attractions for a stay for 3 days but the safety concerns (also echoed by fellow travelers) kept us away from the roads and bars during the night.

As our outbound flight was from Sao Paulo, we decided to spend last two days there. Being the biggest Metro city in the southern hemisphere, Sao Paulo was just like any big city with very little to do or culture to experience apart from the Sao Paulo Museum of Arts, which had a nice collection of artwork ranging from Van Gough, Degas to Picasso and other contemporary artists . The last day we had nothing much to do and spent most of the time playing 29 and visiting a Zoo!

Overall I really liked the experience and given such startling beauty of women there, definitely wouldn't mind visiting that place again :)

Why we don't need an "Aadhar"?

Dear Mr. PM,

I am writing this to bring to your notice a matter of serious concern which has been conspicuously not taken up enough by mainstream media. While I have great respect for your vision, acumen and capabilities, I feel the confines of Z+ security at Race Course road has somewhat taken you away from the common man of India. Few months back, you quietly handed the first Aadhar ID to a bunch of poor Indians thinking you have found the panacea of all the problems facing the country today. You, on suggestion of few individuals equally disengaged from ground realities (read Nandan Nilekani), assumed that a 12 digit number would solve all the problems like corruption, poverty and hunger that face this country. While you were busy visualizing ways this 12 digit number could help in elimination of corruption, people like A Raja, Kalmadi and ISRO officials were busy creating scams running into 12 digits right under your nose. I am pretty sure, your 12 digit "Aadhar" has no aadhar to tackle this kind of rampant corruption. I find Aadhar to be grossly misleading, dangerous and a big blow to exchequer for the following reasons:

Panacea for all evils:

The biggest justification given to Aadhar is that it can stop the pilferage in Public Distribution System (PDS). There is no denying that poor don't receive allotted food grains, benefits under Govt. schemes etc as expected but that is not only because of lack of identity. In-fact if you travel to villages, you will find that large majority of poor people do have identities like Ration Cards, BPL cards, Voter ID card etc but the PDS distributors/NREGA coordinators don't give them their full entitlements. Basically, they get their signatures/thumb impressions on much inflated quantities/amounts, where the excess is sold in black market/their pockets. Even if you provide these people with Aadhar, they will end up being the victim just like they have been so far. The way to address this issues is not creating a new ID but making the grievance addressing mechanism stronger, where even a poor guy can complain and get action done against the corrupt officials if he/she is not given his/her due.

Wastage of Public Money:

Election commission of India started issuing voter ID cards over a decade back and still is not rolled out completely. Even where it is rolled out, there are major errors in the data. My card spells my name wrongly, whereas each of my family members has some or other mistakes in their cards including date of birth, address etc. Despite being educated and informed, I couldn't get my voter ID card rectified. What makes you believe that Aadhar will be different? Will it not be one of those mammoth projects that never achieved what they were set out for?

Countries like UK, Australia etc. have tried similar projects in past but concluded them to be infeasible. What makes you think that we would be any different given the much bigger size of our country and much lesser per capita resource available to Govt.?

If we have to utilize all the advertised benefits of Aadhar, we will have to put in place huge infrastructure in place such as millions of biometric scanners, thousands of micro ATMs and internet connectivity at every point where Aadhar will be verified. Is India currently in a position to undertake these kind of investments when we don't have adequate roads, metros, fly-overs and electricity in all homes?

A rough calculation shows that if each PDS shop were to utilize Aadhar identification for disbursing grains, they will have to shelve out roughly 2.5 Lakh rupees. Do you really think those people can afford that kind of money without extracting even more profit through black-marketing? Basically you are giving them more motive to be dishonest.

No project feasibility study was ever taken, no cost benefit analysis done (atleast to public's knowledge) and national debate held in parliament. Never in my professional life have I seen a project even above 1 Million dollars go to the execution stage without a feasibility study, brainstorming and discussions. Here we are undertaking a project worth billions without any such study.

Identity/Privacy Issues:

In a country as diverse as ours, there is a very high probability of Aadhar being misused by the ruling Governments against certain sections of society. While I agree that post independence so far we have been lucky enough to have a fully functional democratic setup, thus precluding such incidents from happening but that is no surety for future. If we ever have a totalitarian regime in the future, Aadhar can be used for catastrophic end results. Who would have thought of Jews persecution in Germany by Hitler in early 20th century, say 1901 AD.

A few key strokes will yield complete lists of males, females, Muslim, Christian and Hindus in that district. Imagine this information getting into the wrong hands. The argument will be but Aadhaar database does not include religion. Is it not possible to get around this by searching the database using names for example names like Raman, Rehman or Raymonds? This can be extremely dangerous to say the least.

How can the system protect ‘Identity theft’ in such a vast population? One of the major issues in the western world is identity theft. Even in countries with a fraction of the population numbers of India, there are fraudulent people drawing government pensions and social security benefits for years using dead people's IDs. Identity theft is an international issue and a thesis can be written on the topic.

Does being a ‘poor’ person in India leave him or her unprotected from all issues related to invasion of their privacy? (This topic is best left to legal experts on privacy and human rights issues.)?

I know 7 Race course is too far for my voice to be heard so I have put it in my blog.

Regards,
Gajendra

And let the game begin.....

Finally the time has come for a tournament that can make the hearts of a country of 1 billion to skip a beat. Yes, the time for ICC World Cup has arrived and for the first time in the foreseeable history, India truly have a world class team that can take any opposition head on! With their current ranking of No. 1 and No. 2 in ICC Test and ODI rankings respectively, they definitely stand the strongest odds they have ever had in the history of this tournament. Added with the decline of other teams such as Australia and Pakistan, its a golden chance for India to reclaim the much loved trophy after 28 years of drought.

The other reason that makes this world cup so special is that it, in all likelihood, will be the last world cup for Sachin Tendulkar, the legend who has been part of 5 Indian World Cup squads but for whom the coveted cup has so far been been elusive. Considering the contributions Sachin has made to this game, nothing can be more befitting tribute than a World Cup trophy for this batting genius. Sachin has a tremendous record in World Cup tournaments and in addition to a WC trophy for this legend, my personal wishlist would also include 4 more centuries from him.

Stage is set, the start has been made. Two warm-up matches won easily and a cakewalk win against minnows Bangladesh are good omens so far! Go Team India, nation of 1 billion wants you to bring back the cup to the place where it rightly belong.

India, India, India.......

Of Qatar, Turkey and much more.......

Here comes my post after a long time. It was my new year resolution to write more often but you know, new year resolutions are made to be broken. Past few months have been extremely busy while doing nothing and as always, there is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. Over the last one year, I moved to another assignment in Qatar, which is turning out to be a great learning experience. While the monotonous camp life left me craving for some normal human life in a normal human urban agglomeration, the shift rotation of six weeks on and two weeks off gave me the much needed time to travel around.

I used this opportunity to travel to Turkey, which was a tremendous experience. Having lived in an Islamic state like Qatar, I was amazed to find the liberal attitude in Turkey. A perfect blend of modernity with traditional values. I traveled to Istanbul, Fathiye, Cappadoccia and Antalaya. The cultural heritage in Istanbul was impressive whereas the natural beauty of Fathiye was breathtaking. One remarkable thing I noticed was that the average beauty of Turkish women is highest amongst the countries I have visited so far.

Later in the year, I had a two week long eurotrip. Going back to Europe after so long was real nice and I enjoyed every bit of it. I traveled to Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Venice and Athens in that order. While Barcelona was really a beautiful city, Madrid had its own charm. Watching the works of likes of Picasso and Rafael during the day and the happening nightlife is all what a person can ask for during a holiday.

Similar was the case with Rome, which had so much to see that 3 days were just not enough. Managed to attend the Sunday mass at Vatican, where I saw and heard Pope during is weekly appearance. The museum at Vatican was amazing with real ancient antiquities belonging to several civilizations. Venice is definitely not an ideal city for two single guys and clubbed with a rainy weather, the whole two days definitely could have been spent better. Though quite beautiful and culturally rich, Athens didn't impress me much. The place was real nice but just after my visit to Rome, it just didn't look that much special anymore. The Acropolis and other millennium old monuments were ofcourse the highlight of the trip.

Through out the two weeks of exploring some very fascinating cities, the most interesting aspect was the people I met. Met a very charming and real smart business journalist girl from Sao Paulo, Brazil and almost fell in love with her. Hey Juiliana, by any chance you reading this? :) Another interesting character I met was a peculiar middle aged man from California, USA who was bag-packing across Europe. Have never met a more interesting character then him, particularly of that age. This trip was real fun and now I eagerly await for my impending trip to Brazil. Rio Carnival, here I come ......