The people without six feet of land

I was coming by 16566, Mangalore-Yasvantpur train. My night was mostly sleepless on account of co-passengers talking and watching videos. I logged in to twitter once again after two months to log a complaint with railway. But, for some reason I did not do that. They were surely not supposed to be on sleeper class. But, just recently, in Kerala alone, railway had suspended 8 trains for two months owing to  some track repair and labour crunch. With such strained infrastructure, it might not be good to complain about few extra people in sleeper coach. But, they should also ensure that they are not disturbing others who are sleeping and plan to attend offices the next day. Anyway, after having breakfast from Salem, I slept for about two hours and woke up just before reaching Kuppam.
Just after train left Kuppam station, before the nearest railway gate, I saw a small, mostly monotonous house. But, it had one very striking feature. It was a few pieces of brightly coloured squares on the outer wall. It was surely not going well with rest of the house. But, for a moment it made me think. Perhaps the owner wanted to do something different from what is seen in the nearby houses. Perhaps he wanted to make his children happy in whatever way possible by him. Whether it was about satisfying his own ego or about making his small family happy, he has tried with his limited resources. Now, that house should be his little heaven.
For a moment, for me, the weekend family man, thus person became an enviable symbol of happiness!
Suddenly, just after the gate, I saw a burial ground. A small but cramped one on the banks of Kuppam lake. And guess what, there were bodies buried in water. It must have been dry land when burials took place. But then water should have entered  later. Further away, there were tombstones clearly standing on the lake.

Now, the two sides of the railway gate reminds me of two contrasting images. One of all the worldly pleasures and our rush to get them and the other, the momentous nature of this entire life. During this small life you fight, you get angry, you get happy, you get rich, you get famous... but, you may still not own even six feet after all these.
Now, I don't get my six feet. So, should I end my war here? No! Whether I fight or not, I will not get that final six feet. So, it is not about the final six feet. Its about all that which comes before that!

Rainwater harvesting

I did get the rain water harvesting done. Will post more details later. But, here is the info.

1. The guys who did it for me (Susthira, Kannur) was a total rip off
2. For 12000, they only made a tank close to well and have a pipe into the well
3. They also filled filtering material
4. The tank was about 300 liters
5. The whole thing should not have cost more than 5000-6000
6. For connecting it to my already existing water draining pipes from terrace, they took another 3000

I repent not having getting it done by the Thrissur guys. On a hint sight...
1. The Susthira stuff is Ferro cement
2. Its lid is heavy and cannot be lifted easily. => Difficult to clean and maintain
3. They did not use a cloth to do initial filtering => All that solid waste gets into filtering media and makes your filtering media cleaning a mandatory task
4. The tank is fixed and it is right next to well => Cannot extend this easily to connect to a rainwater storage tank
5. The lid does not fit well. There is good enough space to let in a small rat :(
6. Its a one size fit all solution

So, though the thrissur guy's stuff was requiring me to source a few things myself, that would have given me a better system, options to customize and cleaner filtration tank.

The milky way

Just a random thought. I was reading a headline about a galaxy that was 300 light years away. Did not read the details. But, I felt that 300 light years is a a bot short distance when it comes to galaxies. So, I checked the size of milky way and found it to be 100, 000 light years in dia. There are galaxies that are 980, 000 (M87) light years in dia and another one at 1.5 million light years (Hercules A) in dia.

But, how can it be? I dont claim to be good at Physics. But something tells me that there should be a simpler and closer path connecting most of the universe.

It was just yesterday that I was seeing a video where I heard that we really do not know what happened from 0 to 10^-43 sec of big bang. Well, so, there was no physics (at least as we know it today) during that time. So, matter could travel at speeds exceeding that of light in that duration. But, did matter travel that much distance in less than 10^-43 sec? Or, was matter always present at those points where it is currently present (or at least close to it)? What was really the speed of matter just after 10^-43 sec?

May be physics has answers. I need to read further :)

Rainwater harvesting

I have been looking at various rainwater harvesting videos in YouTube and reading about them out of curiosity. There are many things that I notice, have my wow! moment and then forget about it. But, right now, I am a bit serious about this whole stuff as we are expected to face some water crisis soon at the place where we stay. So, I have been interested in water harvesting, solar energy, aquaponics, off-grid living etc. Now, I am going to take the first step in water harvesting.

What has been holding me back was the cost. There are few things that need to be addressed.

1. If I do well re-charging via rain water harvesting, how long will it take the real results to appear?

2. If I save water in container, even if I assume that I use only 140*5 = 700 liters per day, for 2 months, I will need about 42KL tank. Cost of such tank is going to be too high even if I go with ferocement way of constructing them

3. Tank area, ensuring that water stays clean over long time in the tank etc are all other issues to attend in the method described in point 2

As I already mentioned, I have been seeing many videos which claim to have solutions to many of these issues. In these sequence of blogs, I will try to document, analyse and decide on which method I will follow for each of my problem.

Illegal migration and fake aboriginal souvenirs

This was a quick thought that came to my mind. The president elect of usa is talking about illegal migration and keeping American jobs in America. However, there is another news that i saw about  Australian indigenous artists complaining about fake aboriginal souvenirs.

Now, here is the point... whether it is America or Australia, the modern people who live there are migrants. Well, are they illegal migrants? They both slaughtered the indigenous people in respective continent and gained control of the land which they today call as the USA or Australia.

The real inhabitants of these lands are even today struggling to survive and they are at the mercy of the current government even to monetize their own art forms and make a living!

If the illegal migrants should leave from each country today, it would mean majority of each nation gets displaced! Well, this brings the real question of who is the real owner of land and who is a migrant? The first thing that comes to my mind is the "Bhoomiyude Avakasikal".

Given a chance may be each life form on the face of this earth will ask us the humans, the illegal migrants of the land which originally belonged to them to go back to our 'country'. So, shall we all try to find a place that is set apart only for us and go back to that original designated space for the species homo sapiens?

Well, that perhaps is not possible. However, what we can all do is to remember that we are all illegal migrants! We are on the encroached land. We must keep this in mind before try to play masters of the land whether it is with respect to illegal migrants in USA or ox that is slaughtered in the name of jellikettu in Tamilnadu. We can probably stay on this land as long as we follow the rule of live and let live!

The pond

It was when I was studying in 3rd standard, my father got me a story book on nature. Though I don't remember the title, I remember that it was published by KSSP. It was this book which told me that a pond was not just a simple water body. Pond is an ecosystem supporting large number of organisms. It has algae, plants, fish, snake and many other life forms that thrive in the pond.

But, the significance of the pond does not end there for humans. I remember the large pond we had at my mothers house, the water from which we used for irrigating the coconuts trees, bathing, washing clothes etc. In the village, neighbors used to come and use our pond for washing clothes and bathing. It was part of the social fabric.  When neighbors came to use our pond, they always found a minute or two to talk to the people in the house. Yearly cleaning of the pond where we will rent heavy duty diesel pumps, pump out the whole water, catch fish and remove mud from the bottom of the pond was nothing less than a festival. It usually happens in summer and we used to go there just to see it. Many people will come there to catch the fish on that day also to see the mighty diesel pump set in action. It is very difficult for me to think of my childhood without thinking of the pond. There was a bigger pond, which we called "Ambala-Kulam" (Temple pond) and when in summer, our pond used to have less water, we all went to this bigger pond. This pond to women was like the banyan tree for the men. It was here the women folk shared their daily gossip and even carried out many of the daily chores. While they did so on the one side of the pond, men enjoyed their bath and swim on other side of the pond.

I have heard that the temple pond was much bigger in past. When I started seeing it it was already less than an acre. I am not sure what is its size today and whether this pond still exists there. But, here is the interesting news that I read:

http://www.mathrubhumi.com/youth/features/school-students-and-kudumbasree-workers-combined-work-pond-digging-youth-story-malayalam-news-1.1610682

The news is in Malayalam. This is about a few school students digging a pond in about 2.5 hours at Talikulam (this is the native village of my mother). The pond will be used for irrigation and fish farming. I am glad that a new pond is born. A new link is created between human and nature and also between humans who worked together to achieve it. I hope this spirit will spread and there will me many more ponds born there.

Well, it will not be fair if I do not mention my paternal grandfather while talking about ponds. I remember him as a one man army. He had few acres of coconut plantation and after his retirement he used to work there all alone. However, his land was close to a river and he did not have much need of a pond or motor to irrigate his land. But, later, as years passed by, summer started becoming more and more punishing. My grandfather then dug small ponds on his land. All alone. At first he dug one and watered many trees which were in the vicinity. But, it was too difficult to carry water to all the trees from that single pond (He used 'kavu', two buckets tied to either end of pole which is carried on the shoulder by balancing at the mid point of the pole). He then dug 3-4 more ponds at different locations and watered the trees. I still remember him almost running down the steps of those ponds and running back with water on his 'kavu'. For me, he is the symbol of undying spirit and innocent love of a farmer towards his crops which he perhaps considered as important as his own children.

I wish all the best to the new generation that is striving to find new springs in soil as well as in the hearts of people.

Rs. 3600 Crore

Recently we have seen that government is spending Rs. 3600 Cores in making a monument for the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Like many others, I truly believe there are better ways to honor and remember the warrior king!

What can we do 3600 Crore? (This is about 0.53 billion USD)

1. Our mid day meal program costs about 2 billion USD per year (2013-14). So, we can feed all those children for 3 months with this money. (There might be considerable difference as today as food grain price is changed from BPL to NFSA price. NFSA prices are much lower compared to BPL prices)

2. Make 1200+ LHB coaches for Indian railways which is presently reeling under acute financial troubles. (LHB coaches can carry 80 people instead of 72 of traditional coaches and they are much safer and can move faster. Cost of LHB coaches is about 2-3 Cr. Current production capacity of these coaches is about 400 per year)

3. Build 250+ KM paved 4 line highway (Approximately 14 Cr is needed per KM - 2014-15). India has the one of the largest ratio of population to road network. We have about 0.07 KM per 1000 people where as the numbers for USA and France are 21 and 15 respectively. It is estimated that India loses 1-2% of its GDP (equal to 10 million jobs per year) due to lack of good road connectivity.

4. Provide Bullet Proof Jackets for 12+ Lakh soldiers. This will cover a major part of the soldiers  who actively guard our nation. Our Army had been asking for bullet proof vests for a decade and few months ago they got 50,000 (50K) jackets at a cost of 140 crores. We invoke them every now and then to talk about patriotism. We play national anthem before we see any movie. But, we seldom remember that this 140 crores that will save the life of our saviors is much less than the box office collection of many movies that we watch!

I can write a lot more. But, the key message that I want to convey is in our nation of poor, where the government talks about being pro-poor, being patriotic, being innovative, we should have found better use for that 3600 crores and immortalizing a great warrior king through more acceptable means!

Note: Most of the data for this is collected from wikipedia, quora and national news sites. Bullet proof vest price seems to be on a lower side (Rs. 28K). It was expected that army will get 1L vest