The Curious Case Of Dubious Quality At Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar

Have been wanting to record this instance for quite a few days. Finally.

In the last few years, a lot of construction and building work has taken place at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar.

Natural stone and granite have also been used in huge quantities.

We've been interested ever since this work began some years back. A few months back we did really get a chance, a small window to show what we can do, what we can supply, the quality et al. We were optimistic.

The construction company (a giant of a company in India) contracted by the Govt. of Gujarat
showed us the kind of material they expected from their suppliers. All top-notch.

We submitted quotations for high-quality in all kinds of stone they asked for, thinking it's such a big project. Such important work, such big construction company.

They found our quotation high. They bought the material from some other supplier(s).

We were disappointed. Just exactly why we were rejected, we were curious. So we went there for a courtesy call and to see what's getting used. The Project Manager proudly urged us to walk around and see the high-quality material they bought at dirt-cheap prices.

When you happen to visit Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar and walk around the Salt Mountain, check the quality of Brown/Yellow Kota Stone. We don't have the audacity to stock even a few samples of that kind of material, forget supplying it to any project.

That's the lamentation part of this post.

What perplexes me is, except a visual inspection, there's no other way to define quality in natural stone. Even a visual inspection will be subject to debate for there's yet no way for us, or them, to articulate and pinpoint and measure the aspects of high-quality, in spite of whatever words written or spoken, unless there's a genuine intention to do quality work. (For example, out here the word 'quality' sounds vacuous! You'll believe only when you see the material with your own eyes and feel it with your own touch.)

Even if we were to articulate the aspects of high-quality, only 100% visual monitoring can prove us right on our judgment of the ridiculous quality but that's not something that we can undertake or they would undertake and disclose.

Quality, material, words, inspection, chuck them! Humein toh Gandhiji se matlab hai!

I love my bed and he underwent angioplasty at the age of 36

But I don't love this place called my bedroom.

On dictionary.com, I find two meanings articulated for this concept called bedroom.

One says: a room furnished and used for sleeping

Another says: a room furnished with beds or used for sleeping

Just in case the meaning of room is debated and philosophized and spiritualized, here are two meanings that, to my mind, hold sway:

1. space or extent of space occupied by or available for something
2. opportunity or scope for something

Space available for something. Opportunity or scope for something. In this world called India, what kind of space is available for anything? I mean, for practical purposes. If room is 'opportunity or scope', what kind of opportunity or scope is available given our notions, ideas and imaginations of 'bedroom'?

Now have a look at this bedroom. I randomly picked it up searching on Google.

All the houses that you've been to, how many bedrooms have a similar layout? There goes room that means 'availability', 'scope', 'opportunity'.

And all construction companies, including the mightiest ones which are considered 'brands', keep feeding us with the ideas of 'BHK' (bedroom, hall, kitchen). With those thoughts we dream, we buy, we get into the cycles of EMIs, and so often get into those ever-debilitating problems called Lifestyle Diseases, in spite of the earnest attempts to visit the best of the gyms, and to work out on the best of the equipment.

Just yesterday, son of my Dad's good friend, at the age of 36, underwent angioplasty. Going by what I've seen of them, he lives in a house with a fair number of bedrooms and a little lawn as well to boast of.  

Ahmedabad is a one-mall city

I just happened to visit the Gulmohar Mall. Saw quite a few branded shops closed. Enquired about the phenomenon with a service executive at one of the shops I entered.

He informed me that after the opening of Alpha One (another significantly bigger mall) footfalls have really really gone down. Saturdays and Sundays are when some crowds gather.

Some time back, I was talking to a Mississippi patron who has a retail shop at Iscon Mall. She said the same thing. Gets corroborated by the fact that a lot of shops have closed down there as well.

I have always found the air-conditioned malls unsuited in the Indian context. For Ahmedabad in particular, I have always wondered if there's a number of people that can help survive even 3 malls. It turns out, only 1 can survive. To me, even that's suspect. Let's see.

Indeed, if we debate the definition of 'mall', Ahmedabad has many which have tuition classes and offices and dental clinics and orthopedic hospitals. In that sense then malls can survive.

Add to this, the quintessential habit of finding a 'deal' makes online shopping quite attractive for people from Ahmedabad. So something like Flipkart et al offers a far bigger mall for Ahmedabadis to get hold of stuff (after checking them physically in the brick and mortar shops).

Long live the malls. 

Ph.D. = Phoolish Doctor?

It's still a 'may' headline but am positive. A lot of places don't consider me suitable in a 'teacher' role simply coz of the Ph.D. requirement.

In the same breath, when I talk with Ph.D.s I am astonished at the (lack of) quality with which a good number of these places make do.

And I can only imagine what's the state of affairs at not-so-known B-schools, and they simply take 2 mighty years away. The folks are reeling under shortages of faculty, and of the grey matter in the heads of their faculty, and then release an ad saying they want 'Ph.D.'. Meanwhile students, when they go out looking for well-paying jobs, brandish an MBA on their CVs, with obnoxious grammar and spelling mistakes haloing that MBA.

-18

That's the score at which, I was informed at an institute I recently visited, a student was (or had to be) admitted to the MBA program.

1. MBA is no longer a serious program.
2. Supply of MBA institutes far exceed the demand.
3. Students are getting dumber.
4. Institute is under pressure for monetary reasons to admit such students.
5. MBA, the tag, has become more important than actual merit.
6. MBA has become a short-cut to everything.

I still haven't gotten down to listing the more serious inferences. Make your inferences.

Elevating to the gym and driving to the divine

Right opposite our society-complex, there's a walled piece of land. In one corner near the entrance to this land there's a family residing with a few cows.

When I go for my run, every time I see quite a few people come to this place. They buy green shoots and feed these cows. I reckon most of these guys have astrological or religious reasons to do this. May be, doing so leads to some or the other believed benefit.

As with all situations and occasions, peculiar folks do turn up. Some come driving in their cars but don't bother to step out. As soon as the green-shoots-seller sees them he picks up a bunch and walks up to these cars. The car-dwellers touch the bunch and this guy feeds the shoots to the cows.

My shop is in a complex which houses a physiotherapy center on the 3rd floor and a gym on the 4th floor. I open my shop when it's typically women's time (that is, latter part of the morning) at these places. And I see all women take the elevator to the gym.

Does it require education to make the carzy folks see that walking down to the cow-shed might benefit them immensely? Or climbing up the stairs might be a good warm-up exercise instead of an inconvenience?

Disturbing pic of my early morning bedroom and how the Japanese got it right

The funniness of what we call as 'bedroom', in the modern context, has dawned upon me. And quite conclusively.

In the second line of the wikipedia page on 'bedroom', you find this:

To be considered a bedroom the room needs to have a bed.

Actually, this line makes it feel like 'bed' is just one of the objects in the bedroom. Quite so. But mathematics isn't just about numbers. It's also about space. The modern bedroom is typically filled with the bed, in a manner that no other substantial object can be placed or accommodated in the bedroom. At least, for the majority of people who've been able to afford a bedroom.

And that no other substantial object can be placed in the bedroom, means other than resting or sleeping or making love (variants of the same posture I would say), no substantial activity can take place.

Given that a mighty number of us find ourselves doing work which doesn't quite make us exert ourselves, at least physically, in any great manner, this bedroom turns out to be a great roadblock on the way to good health. Let me elaborate.

We have risen substantially in population. Per capita space available is very limited. That's the reason we find such congestion on the roads, in the malls, in the gyms et al. And when I mention gym, I can easily say that reaching the gym is also an inconvenience in general, in a world which has made contraptions for convenience of all kinds even for the smallest of things we do.

After entering the gym, the nightmare doesn't end. Certain gadgets or equipment might have queues for use.

That makes whatever per capita space available to us a really precious thing. Space that is undividedly available for personal use, no matter the time. And that is occupied by the bed.

First you shape the building, then the building shapes you.

So you start shaping your undivided personal space with a good bed in the little space you have for yourself. Now is the bed's turn to shape you. And shapes you, it does. Pretty well.

Am I saying bed isn't needed?

Nope! Given the space an individual has to himself and the work he does in the modern context, I am saying naming the space blindly as 'bedroom' has entailed a massive cost on our well-being. We've taken it for granted that such a space can be nothing but a 'bedroom'. And the thing that we end up doing is installing a bed that doesn't leave much space for very very important things. And our architects and interior designers perpetuate the crime.

Let me go back a bit. When the convenient technologies weren't available and when majority of the people exerted themselves physically and really hard during the day, they perhaps found it very very comforting to come back home, do nothing more than cooking and eating, and simply go to bed. Having a ready mattress would be the perfect luxury. Since the space outside the house exercised majority of the people, inside the house dedicating space to sleeping was just a great complement. But now, no longer so.

In fact, there's very little space outside for healthy exertion. And, even inside, there's mostly the bed.

If we really want to make the space available count and if we really want a healthy body, here are a couple of things.

Futon. We all have seen this thing. From wikipedia:

A futon is traditional Japanese bedding consisting of padded mattresses and quilts pliable enough to be folded and stored away during the day, allowing the room to serve for purposes other than as a bedroom.

Perfect!

There's more. Wall-bed. Also called Murphy bed. Wikipedia narrates the legend:

According to legend, he (William Lawrence Murphy) was wooing an opera singer, but living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and the moral code of the time frowned upon a woman entering a man's bedroom. Murphy's invention converted his bedroom into a parlor, enabling him to entertain.

Now that surely takes care of a man's health, no!

Is buying when not on 'sale' any good?

I just happened to visit the Alpha One mall this afternoon. Some students were sitting in the atrium on benches doing nothing and breathing in the cool air. Shops, all looked empty.

Of course, it's a Thursday, and one won't expect much anyway. Besides, everyone's blaming the economy. And lastly the discount sales are largely over. Or have they? So it looked.

The last point has become the reason for people to move out shopping. They know that if they don't buy when there's no discount sale, they won't have to wait too long.

Now that 'shopping when there's discount sale' has become the norm, I am wondering what exactly is a person who's shopping when there's no 'sale' thinking? For surely, asked directly if he would prefer to save money on buying the same thing when there's a discount, every single buyer would reply in affirmative.

One grand excuse that people might give to themselves when they do 'unsale' shopping is that they buy when it's new, fresh, just in. They buy when very few others have the same thing. But that's only internally satisfying until it is publicly recognized that very few others have the same thing.

We all know public recognition of new things isn't necessarily uniform and up to date. In fact, majority don't bother to keep track of majority of the things. And therefore, recognition from others is difficult when someone goes 'unsale' shopping.

I think that's so terrible. 'Unsale' should be added as a tag alongside the brand name so that such shopping gives shopper some good credit for having taken the risk.

Can I talk to Goldeena Loadlekar?

We released these two ads in succession earlier in the month. Day before this is what happened.

Mobile rings...
Me: Hello
A girl's voice: Hello! Sir, kya mein Goldeena Madam se baat kar sakti hoon? (Sir, can I talk to Goldeena Madam?)
It takes a few seconds for me to gather what's happening. The line's silent...
Me: Aap mujhe bata sakti hain... Bataiye kya kaam hai? (You can tell me... So what is it about?)
Girl: Sir, I am calling from "xyz" technologies. We are offering web-solutions...
She completes her pitch.
Me: We already have a website and, right now, there's no requirement. Thanks.
Girl: If you have any requirement, please call back on this number. My name is...

Look what the kids found... p***!

There's this huge ground right beside the building where Mississippi is located. Sometimes, people are seen scavenging for whatever they can extract value/utility out of. A couple of days back, I spotted these two kids picking some papers up. I zoomed and clicked. This is what I found.

Incidents are symptoms. Society doesn't fail when incidents happen. Society fails when it lets such accidents happen. It fails when it doesn't have enough play spaces to offer to its young ones. It fails when it doesn't have enough people with time to spend wondering with its young ones.

(E)Pic Pause

Cricketers are lucky. Apart from other things, they don't have to pose as if playing a shot and prompt someone to click them in that pose. In fact, they don't ever have to tell the photographers when to click. And the latter also never have to tell the cricketers when they'll click a shot.

Today's Holi and I was trying to click a few pictures of the action. I observed that a lot of action was so frequently punctuated (even punctured). Hardly anything happens before people start posing for pics. And more pics. And yet more.

Moving aimlessly looks foolish surely :) but photography without intense action is futile too.

Photographs are not stories, even though they might be equal to a 1000 words. But what we are looking for is an equality of 1000 great words woven rivettingly. Great stories are borne out of great efforts. Monumental efforts. Monumental efforts fetch their words automatically. A body that's gone through some intense action will automatically recount the story as vividly as the recounter desires, irrespective of the photographic prompts.

*The above is a randomly clicked picture on 27th March '13. The post doesn't specifically talk about those posing in this particular picture. :)

Gym is for the Schoolish Foolish

Having titled it like that, let me tell you this up front. I've been to gyms and on a few occasions subscribed and lapsed out of the gym routine.

Gym is the school-model of staying fit. Go there, do the things in a particular manner, with the purpose of losing weight or gaining muscle (like getting maximum marks in school).

Some of the best times in school were when we played, when we whiled away time with classmates planning pranks or just chitchatting. While attending classes is what is considered important for career, the most pleasurable time was in all likelihood outside of the class.

Gym puts you in a class meant to get you a fit body. You don't make a career only through a school. You make it regardless. You make it coz something spurred your curiosity or interest or the desire to learn and earn. You don't stay fit just through a gym. You stay fit coz you enjoy your body move. You enjoy the freshness that the breathing fills your mind and body with. Fitness regimen would be more a result of the curiosity to explore the limits and stretches of your body. Not coz you have been made to undergo yet another class to shed a few kilos.

Witnessing tragedy of the commons, literally

There's some open space outside our factory compound, and likewise, every factory in our industrial area has. This space is of course meant for easy movement and manoeuvring of heavy vehicles which frequently visit these factories.

Don't know who started it but now some factories are seen stocking their material (natural stone) outside their compounds. Means, in the space that is common to all.

The other day we found that another guy has installed some shanties for workers in the common space. The guy is insistent that he would continue to use that space until others stop doing the same.

And the movement of heavy vehicles into and out of our compound has become slightly inconvenient for the last few months.

Fuzzy Logic? No, Fuzzy Duck!

Those in Ahmedabad and read Ahmedabad Times must've seen this ad. The size compels you too. And if it holds your attention, you must've noticed the name. FUZZY DUCK.

FUZZY DUCK?! I check my eyes every time I see the ad. Must admire the audacity. Not sarcastic here. Of course, with their spends and audacity, they could think of better branding efforts surely. I really want to see how they fare.

The Skill of Anticipating

I've been trying to click birds in flight for the last few days. I am so wont to simply switching the camera on and start clicking that it has taken a little while to remind myself to prepare before clicking.

Well the thing is I couldn't quite grasp what it means 'to prepare' either. So after switching the camera on, I would adjust the controls and get ready. I couldn't click any great pictures.

Then I realized that like I have my moods, these birds also their moods. Like I give some indications of movements, they also indicate a few things provided I am willing to read.

So I tried reading the indications, and thereby, anticipating the direction of the birds' movements. For that I had to keep the camera aside for a while and just watch. And then I adjusted the position and settings of the camera accordingly. I left ample space in the frame to capture the birds' movements in a certain direction. I took a few decent pics, by my standards.

Next, I figured that it's important to place oneself in a certain manner vis-a-vis the bird and the source of light. And I figured that to place oneself one has to move. Move quite a bit on legs. Because you see birds have moods and they swing more than we can imagine. They don't pose. They simply move. Faster than the trigger. And to get a great shot you got to have legs to help you. Or the sense to place yourself precisely at the point where you know the bird will perch and offer a super pose. To sense the point, you would need your legs to develop that sense.

Story of Bulbuls

That's the Mother Bulbul. Ever since she built the nest she used to occupy my bike very often. Didn't fly even when I was just a foot away. Instead, perhaps frightened by my presence, she would increase the intensity of her calls.

That's the parking lot adjacent to ours. The guy is looking in the direction of the nest on top.

Three babies in the nest. Only two can be seen clearly.

That's the Mother Bulbul on one of her regular feeding occasions. The pics were taken in the morning.

In the last few days when I came back from Mississippi in the evening and when I found the tube-light on, I would switch it off. The passers-by would watch curiously why I did that. It is then that most of them started noticing the nest actually. That act of mine drew attention to the Bulbul family.

On Friday morning, to send a picture of the Bulbuls to participate in a contest on one of the websites dedicated to saving birds, I started clicking pictures and drew yet more attention to these little birds.

And then the intelligent move took place. That afternoon, after I took pics in the morning, a well-wisher ordered the nest to be moved into a bird-feeder hanging clay-pot. So it was done and the hanging-pot with the 3 babies was hung right in the way of the passers-by near the parking lot.

The Parent Bulbuls were furious. Against relatively gigantic intelligent beings they could only do so much though. I sensed trouble.

By evening the hanging pot was found in one corner. Two babies which could barely manage to fly, flew out in the open under the parked cars. One little baby relegated in the pot.

Someone showed me pics of Bulbul babies in the hands of the kids playing around. I couldn't help but feel that we were toying with the Bulbuls. And with the fancy toys - the ready-to-be-flaunted-and-brandished smartphones - we would do nothing better but this. 

With the help of some kids in the building and a couple of concerned ladies, I gathered the two flying babies in a basket. I had lost hope for the third one. But luckily found the third baby sitting quietly in the pot in utter darkness.

The 3 siblings spent the night in that basket. 

Next day, Saturday (that is yesterday), we kept the basket on the car shown in one of the pics above. To our delight, the Parent Bulbuls came back in the morning and found the babies. The Bulbul Mother got into action and in a few minutes brought some food to feed. 

We tried tying the basket high up in place of the nest. The two barely-flying babies panicked and flew out in the open again. The Parent Bulbuls were again furious and intensified their calls. They chased the flying babies. One of babies found refuge in a tyre-rim cavity and got trapped. And Mother Bulbul got food to feed it even there! The baby was trying to come out and was calling as best it could. We spotted it again and pulled it out.

Now we had two babies - one who could fly a bit and the other who was still in the basket - with us. The one other baby which flew out was untraceable at that moment.

We had already removed the nest. So, we had compromised the safety of the babies. They could become prey to crows (or cats or dogs) which are always in the vicinity of the building.

I couldn't dare to see the baby which stayed in the basket. It opened its mouth in anticipation of food every time it sensed someone near. It was smaller than the other two babies which could fly a bit.

Fearing for the two little babies' lives, I put them again in the basket and drove them to Jeevdaya, a charitable trust-cum-hospital which takes care of animals and birds in need. All the while the little ones calling out for something during the 30-min drive.

I came back and tried listening to the calls of the third one. I saw the Parent Bulbul sitting on a ledge and felt like I heard the cries of the third baby right near to where they were perched. I didn't interfere but I was worried.

I couldn't apologize to the Bulbuls for what we did. Last night I prayed for these babies before sleeping. And I prayed to see the third one.

Today morning, after I came back from my earlier-than-usual morning run, I spotted the third Bulbul baby perched on top of one of our compound's boundary ledge-grill. And yet again found the Bulbul Mother feeding it. The other Bulbul Parent was around, among the leaves of a little plant nearby.

How could they have figured where it flew? How could they hear the not-so-loud calls and respond? How could they manage to stay away from so many preying eyes?

If the nest had been in place, I reckon they would've managed just fine no matter if the two babies flew helter-skelter and the third one stayed in the nest.

:)

We really think we are smart. Don't we?

The unsophisticated little birds have their ways and they manage just fine. That is, until we interfere.

We build these fantastic buildings and landscapes by cutting down the trees which had grown without any possible human assistance. So the little creatures have no option but to adapt to the ways of humans. And then since they try to use the constructed settings, we always have opportunities. We have these contests and we have these high mega-pixel cameras. And we are so click-happy. Like I posted the pic of the Mother Bulbul the other day on FB.

We draw attention to such happenings and these little beings become toys. And then we come to their aid and feel great at helping them.

I'm on a self-deprecating spiral. Can't feel anything but that there's a huge downside to the 'progress' we so often keep referring to. We are an ever-growing attention-craving status-anxiety-driven generation and we are adding the fancy tools which encourage the same. You understand the unwritten rant here.

Even paying attention and drawing attention on occasions is an act of violation and violence. Thinking 'good' for some others also is. But then one would say, every move in that sense could be violation and violence. YES, could be. Where does the line get drawn?

We invented the gun. Why? We were lazy to constantly defend ourselves from our adversaries. Lazy to prepare ourselves. Lazy to endure the surprise attacks. So we said stop them at a distance, and once and forever. Invent the gun. Shoot. Kill. Done.

Violence is at its best when it is applied to our defense and without leading to a killing of the other. Killing is a defense mechanism for the lazy. Not killing and yet being able to defend is the way of the strong. The way of the observer. The way of the 'violent but non-violent', to speak in the same breath.

--

I feel really sad that the Parent Bulbuls can't see the other two babies grow and take flight and be able to eat on their own. I feel sadder than the Parent Bulbuls themselves do, though I doubt if it can be like that.

After having read Rupert Sheldrake's ideas, and after having seen the Parent Bulbuls with the third baby this morning, if I speculate on the powers of nature (and the way it has shaped these organisms which do not use smartphones and gadgets) I would say (perhaps and somehow) the Parent Bulbuls sense that the other two babies are alive and growing up.

--

That reminds me, I should visit Jeevdaya and check up on the babies.

Buildings shape us

Winston Churchill's quote: We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

I've got this little desk which gets occupied by the laptop and the wires behind. I don't get enough space to place an open diary when the laptop's open and on. And when I say 'when the laptop...' it's almost all the time that I spend at my desk. Instead of scribbling useful stuff on paper, now I find myself staring at the laptop screen so often with very little to do. And I also find myself numbly jogging my memory to remember to do something, of course on the laptop, since it occupies all the space.

Did I anticipate this when the interior work was happening? No. Why don't I change the setting now? I am thinking about it. So what's stopping? That so much effort and money has been put in and one change could mean changes to a lot of other things. So it's gonna take time to change the setting. Until then, this shape that I gave to the desk and the space around, and this laptop that's been created by humans, will shape me.

Inadvertent disrespect, is it?

Early morning I called up Justdial to get in touch with some guys who offer injection-moulding services. Out of the few results I received via SMS, I picked one which was nearest to my place and dialed the number.

After an exchange of hellos and explaining how I got his number, I asked, "Do you offer injection-moulding services?"

Guy says, "Yes."

I try to explain to my requirement, "I want to get a box made in transparent plastic material..."

He doesn't let me complete. Blurts out, "Time nahi hai!"

Taken aback, I respond, "Kya matlab time nahi hai?!"

"Matlab ki spare capacity nahi hai."

"Oh, ok!" I hang up.

One of the most amazing things about entrepreneurship is bearing and negotiating your way through numerous such conversations as you are trying to set things up.

Politeness isn't just being nice on the face (and talking whatever behind the back). Politeness is a face of the respect one holds deep within for just being human and for appreciating humanness. Business or no business is at best a consequence, to which politeness, along with many other factors, contributes.

The Kaaju Effect

Just had a couple of samosas from Gwalia. I had to carefully extricate the kaaju pieces from the samosas.

On other occasions, I've found kaajus in pav-bhaaji at Honest too. I won't be surprised if someone somewhere has introduced kaajus in burgers and pizzas too.

I haven't found kaaju to add in any manner whatsoever to the taste in such preparations. At best, it has only destroyed my enjoyment from such food.

Am sure Gwalia or Honest charge a good deal coz they use kaaju and sort of show that they make high-quality food. And guess majority of the foodies also find it like that coz this has been going on for long now.

Placement woes

Found this on the front page of AM yesterday. Doesn't come as a surprise. And won't be surprised if the stats in other states are similar.

The numbers are such that I suppose India has to produce jobs for 1 Australia every year. That is insane! Couple the enormity of the number with the quality of governance and structure of education system in this country, I wonder what are we staring at in the times to come.

Anyway, all's not bad. I've plan for some young grads willing to take initiative and be on their own. Will try to connect with some of them and find out.