Learning to Drive and More

“Do you think the truck driver knows theory? You will learn by pure practice” Probably these are the enlightening words that are responsible for me to be driving in Mumbai today.

I would have probably not ventured to learn to drive if I was not going to Australia; people told me if I did not learn to drive, I would not be able to move around. Taking this as a cue, I started, probably like most of us in India, by going to a driving school to learn to drive a four wheeler. It was a 2 weeks, 5 days a week, 30 minutes a day crash course in one of those Maruti 800 (I am sure you guessed right; there were no Santro's, Indica's then) which was not easy to handle. I figured out that I need to call my driving teacher “Master” and butter him with the hope that he would teach me a trick or two or atleast not not say “you do not know how to drive”.

It was time for getting the license. Come at 1000 and you need to give a test. I am not too confident, having always driven in the comfort of not having full control on the break and the clutch, it was a different domain altogether. On the other hand it was acceptable that I confide in my driving teacher and say that I was not confident. Unprepared I am in the RTO. “You will need to drive for a couple of meters and then put the car in the reverse and park it” was mentioned and I wondered how I would I complete all the chapters.

Come 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500. No news of the test and lo the driving school person comes and say “Aap pass ho gaye”. Am confused. He says come and collect the driving license on a certain date. And here I am, licensed to kill (nay drive) without the skills. This is what a huge population does. Gives you a free license.

Probably there is a certain degree of honesty in all of us. I refuse to drive, what if I have the license. I pack my license and keep it safe.

A month in Brisbane, Australia. I start hunting for a car, feels it is good to have because public transport is not very great. I call up one of the driving schools and pick up an hours or learning. I proudly say that I have an Indian license assuming that I will be driving an automatic and the only thing that I have to do is make sure I keep on the road. The roads are anyway not that dense!

The car that comes for my first driving lesson is a geared vehicle! He says that I did not ask him particularly for a automatic, so end up paying for it without trying to expose my inability to change gears without assistance (when to change etc)!

Next time I make sure to ask for an automatic. I pick up 2 hours of classes at a time for a couple of time and shell out a decent amount of $'s. I pick up the nuances of driving in Brisbane, turn abouts, side parking and make sure I drive atleast once from home to work and work to home to get conversant with the route!

Purchased an automatic and drove for more than 30 months without a ticket.

Back in Mumbai. No car. Using public transport. Cool. Until “We should buy a car” come from a high pitched voice. I guess I am in trouble; so I say may be we can buy an automatic so that you can drive easily. “No way, what is the fun of an automatic, we need to have a geared vehicle. Further automatic is expensive” says the high pitched economist in the house. Only alternative is to buy a geared vehicle. But driving in Mumbai? Geared? Traffic? Bothers me.

I am not confident driving in Mumbai, especially geared vehicle I submit meekly. May be I will need to learn some theory I say. “Do you think the truck driver knows theory? You will learn by pure practice” Probably these are the enlightening words that are responsible for me to be driving in Mumbai today.

I take this literally. So the solution, take more driving classes. I pick up 10 hours of driving without wanting a license! A little more confident than earlier (but no better!) I drive first inside the cocoon of the campus always putting away the need to travel outside the campus (Secret: fueling on a Sunday morning when the roads are empty and a route identified so that there is no right turn!) by saying “where will we find parking”, “it is cheaper to take a taxi”, “we can alight right in front of the shop” until there was an invite from IITB campus. The majority in my house say we need to take our car. So that is the first outing.

“You crossed the signal, what is your name? Where is your license” during your first outing. I give my license and pick up a receipt for the fine. Not a good start. Then I get stuck on a slope in a dense traffic near IITB. Take a while to move out of the spot, after quite a bit of sweat, literally. Choose a very late time spot to get back home. Always wonder why there were not fewer gears? Why should the vehicle move backwards when you are in gear one. Why can not the gear be displayed somewhere so that one knows in which gear one was driving. Cursing the technology or the lack innovative idea to make things that were easier for me then.

That was 7.5 years ago. 

Things have changed since then. Two reasons (a) Practice and (b) If a (not so educated) truck driver can drive a truck why can not you?

Written this in some other context.

TEDx Gateway Mumbai

TEDx Gateway Mumbai

NCPA, Nariman Point Mumbai

Attended by more than 800 people with 21 purposeful speakers the event gave the much needed impulse to “go do something useful”. While the event itself was poorly organized [;-(], the content in terms of what the speakers had to say made up for this deficiency.

My first real TEDx talk, having only seen several interesting talks on youtube, this was kind of special, else I would not venture out a full Sunday leaving all the chores behind! Took a train to CST early and was in NCPA well before 8 am to find that the organizers were just walking in! So what happened next was expected, I did not find my name in their records because “I registered late” so a hurriedly badge with “Sunil Kumar” was penned and there I was ready to sit through the sessions.

On purpose I will not dwell into the names of the speakers, because then I will be focusing on the speaker and not so much on what they had to say. I will only focus on what they were doing or had done, one can actually get to the names of the speaker from the TEDx website.

[a] What do you do when you are blind to color? You make yourself a cyborg and listen to the “sounds of color”. A camera attached to the head acted as the color sensor and converted the color into a piece of sound. So now each color is sound coded; you listen to the sound and make out what color you are seeing. And lo now one needs to be color blind. You can now dress so that you sound good and not necessarily look good. The concept if cyborg is interesting because with age one looses sensory power and wouldn't it be great to get some much needed support from some external “on body” sensors?

[b] The use of wheel has always fascinated the mankind and probably most development can be attributed to the invention of wheel. Apparently 6 hours a day are spent by women in Rajastan trying to gather water in addition to facing numerous hardships in terms physical strain to the neck and shoulders. It was heartening to see a cylindrical drum with a nice comfortable handle to roll the drum. Costing 700 INR, it could be rolled with ease with double the amount of water that could be carried on the head. I thought this was very innovative and helpful to the folks in Rajastan. Apparently this innovation has shaved off 35 hours per week of the time spent by people to fetch water. More free time for the lady of the house means better house!

[c] Chlorine added in right amounts to water can make water portable and remove strains of several diseases. The problem is one of how to get the right amount of chlorine mixed in water? At water collection point, people come with different size buckets and also the water flowing is not at the same speed to think of mixing chlorine in transit. The solution was a simple structure with no movable parts. The water came into this box like structure and the right amount of chlorine was added, a tap on this structure allowed the water to flow into the bucket. So the box temporarily stored the water with the right amount of chlorine. I though this was a wonderful idea. Simple yet very effective.

[d] Then there was this man who took up the task of providing cheap sanitary napkin for the women folks. With trial and error and he came up with a mix of ingredient (cotton) and a napkin making machine which can be easily setup and napkins produced. I appreciated the fact that he was able to take this the sanitary issue because most men consider this as not their domain. Hats off to him.

[e] Examify was more of a data analytics based tool that helped students prepare for exams in a more focused way. It is a tool that scans all the previous exam papers and come up a set of questions that the student needs to study to “pass” the exam. I personally thought this was a technologically good, however this ideas was in poor taste and would make the kids do things to “just pass the exam”. May be this is an eye opener for all the educationalists!

[f] Giving dignity and identify to nomads was a tremendous effort. Apparently in several parts of the country nomads have no identity and the only identity they have is that of thieves. Giving a life and identity (voters card) to several of these nomads is commendable. The only speaker to make no effort to speak in English. Hats off.

[g] A collaborative effort to identify a design and be able to build a 300 USD house. While the effort is commendable, the only thing that struck me is that the cost of the house in Mumbai is a very small fraction of the cost of the land. To won a piece of land for this kind of monies is distance away, else why would there be so many high raises.

[h] I had seen this on TEDx videos earlier, A non-intrusive hemoglobin measuring device which is portable and can be used to measure hemoglobin. Apparently there are several lives lost, especially at the time of childbirth because of anemia. As I understand the person can show no signs of deficiency and so an attempt to get a prick seems unnecessary, with this non-intrusive device anemia can be detected in flat 10 sec. Cool.

[i] This young musician from Pakistan hailing from a family of musician uses youtube videos to teach himself guitar to such perfection that he lands up actually sharing stage with the gutarist who was his youtube idol. Appreciate the urge to learn and the fact that the internet as the channel is the teacher. Now there is no excuse for “I do not have access to a good teacher”.

[j] A neat idea which allows people to share details of their blood type and of their social circle. In case of need of blood one knows where to find it. Social blood. Giving social networking (in this case facebook) a meaningful face.

[k] Started with making a non-toxic fluid that can conduct electricity has evolved into paper electronics, giving a new dimension to learning electronics by doing it rather than just studying it. How more meaningfully this can be used is something that will happen with time.

[l] Navigating using sound was definitely an eye opener, though was not very clear on how this technique was actually helping visually blind people navigate using sound.

[;-(] Couple of things. The invite read registrations starts at 8 am and the actual event started close to 11 am; added to that they wouldn't allow anyone to sit inside the main auditorium. There was virtually no distinction between a corporate pass priced at 8400 INR and a anyone can buy pass for 5000 INR. Mad rush for the food, the only meal that I ate was the breakfast; the rest were what ever was left which meant no roti/rice during lunch!

Change your Electricty Provider. SwitchMe.In

Change your Electricty Provider. SwitchMe.In

SwitchMe.  By way of mouth people did mention that I was paying out of the roof for my electricity bill because I was using a particular service provider and not the other; in Mumbai. While this was probably true there was no way I was able to check it out for myself though I knew that I could opt for a electricity service provider of my choice. Couple of things stopped me from actually trying to reduce my electricity bill

• I was not too sure how much I would save by switching (not a simple unit multiplied by INR)
• How much effort would go into this (long queues for almost every thing in Mumbai)
• How exactly to do it (I did bing and google for this!)

until I landed up looking at a new service on the block. 

 I found this concept of switchme.in very interesting.

I could log in to their website and could actually compare which electricity provider would charge me how much (for the same use of units ofcourse!) quite easily and lo when I saw that I was paying a couple of extra hundred rupees every month, I opted to switch(me) my electricity service provider. 

 For a small fee of five hundred rupees I was saved of all the hassles of trying to identify what papers were required and what procedure to be followed to actually affect the change. I quite literally switched my electricity service provider sitting at home (and office).

I understand these guys are going to come up with making things simple to switch my mobile operators! I always wanted to .. but did not know how to or how much effort would be involved. I am staying tuned for them to come up with a switchme option for this ;-)

Rules for whom?

I am travelling from Bangalore to Mumbai in a fairly "full" train with a confirmed upper berth in one of those AC bogies.

One round of checking by the ticket inspector - all set - everyone has ticket.

[6 hours into the journey]

"You need to pay a fine" says a special inspector to a co-passenger and reads out the rule "You need to carry your original proof of identity mentioned at the time of reservation for Tatkal tickets". This poor co-passenger has (his agent who booked the ticket) mentioned PAN card as the proof of identity and this chap does only have a color photocopy of the PAN card and not the original. The ticket collector does not budge even after the co-passenger shows him his original driving license and few other original photo identity documents; sticking to the rule by rereading it.

The co-passenger finally pays up and collects the receipt with some monetary support from one of his co-passenger.

As I walk along the aisle I see the same ticket collector now with a gray haired senior gentleman with the same argument. You have to show me your original PAN card because your agent has mentioned that that is your identity and I will not look at any other form of identity. The senior pleads to deaf ears.

I finally ask the ticket inspector. You know these guys are genuine (because they look the same as the photo on their identity though the PAN is only a photocopy) so why are you so insisting on original photo identity only of a certain kind? He says "These are the rules, I need to do my duty".

Pattern matching are for machines that have no brain of their own. But that ticket inspector that day was behaving like a machine. Work to rule, but shouldn't we use our brain?

Cooourrrriiiiieeeeerrrrr

My bank mentioned that they had couriered the two Demand Drafts that I had ordered online by Courier.

[6 days later]

The courier is yet to arrive after 3 calls to the courier call center with the large number of digits ABW number. The call center response (in Hindi translated to English) It is only four days since your courier has been posted.

The two letters did not have to travel a whole lot of distance; may be 20 kms in Mumbai. It should have taken lesser time for even the slowest half-marathon runner, ughh.

In the name of technology, where we can track our courier, we get to know that we have not received but the actual receiving is pre historic. Why even the Indian Post (which is generally a target of humor) would have delivered the letter sooner!

We build technology (helps you know the status of the courier!) but do not use technology to make sure the courier is delivered. Where are we heading? Technology should better the whole process isn't it?

Indian Railway - Seat Unreserved

This is a suggestion that I thought I should communicate so that it will be useful to passengers who use Indian Railway (IR).

I have often traveled in train and I very frankly I have never traveled in the allocated berth especially when I travel alone. Why? There is always an elderly lady or gentleman who has been alloted an upper berth and the request is made for a change with the lower berth. I have no problem giving up the lower berth for the elderly.

However I feel we can avoid this situation. How?

Let us say at the time of booking IR does not assign the seat numbers but only mentions that the ticket is confirmed or not. Only at a later date say 1 week or 1 day before the journey (so that it is quite clear who will travel and who will not) the seat allocation is made which possibly can make use of the age to determine who gets the lower berth. That way atleast the elderly will be assured of a lower berth (which they rightfully deserve) and would not have to "ask" a co-passenger for a exchange.

I am not very sure of the feasibility but I feel that this should be given a thought and if implemented would truly help the senior citizens.