A Note on Efficiency

The monetary system used in the world is a man-made way of thought; it's not from natural design, like a law of physics or mathematics. People assign notional numbers to different things, and arrive at concepts of cost, price, value, GDP and so on. This is simply one way of looking at things, and it's the prevalent form today. The use of the term 'efficiency' is also derived from this monetary system, and more specifically, from the point of view of Capital. So activities that are more profitable, are considered more efficient, and cheaper products to a consumer is considered more efficient. To me this is a very self-centered view of efficiency, and doesn't define what is efficient for society. There are three actors in this system- 1. Capital - the owner of everything, who decides and controls the economic activities in society 2. Consumer, who wants to minimise expense, maximise utility in consumption 3. Labour, who is considered a Factor of Production, treated as a Cost to be minimised in the interest of the former two. The center of this Universe is money. Capital owners own most of the money, Consumers spend their money by giving it to Capital in exchange for Consumption, Labourers sell their time and labour to Capital in exchange for money. This is how people are divided into 3 distinct categories, defined by money, and whether they own, spend or seek. There are some features of this system that is by natural design of the system: Capital will concentrate, and it's not an accident. There is a natural tendency to concentrate, because of a couple of reasons: the most important factor in generating new Capital, is to own existing Capital. Secondly, this is fortified by inheritance. Labour's need for economic activity is dire and desperate. This is the bedrock of the relationship between Capital and Labour: the desperation of Labour, and the lack of it on the other side. This is what enables Capital to dictate terms in any economic activity. Consumption that is self-sustained is discouraged, and dependence on the market is encouraged. There are two reasons for this: first, market dependence will allow Capital to increase it's economic activity by selling more goods and services that were earlier not channeled thru the market. Second, market dependence will increase desperation to sell one's labour to Capital, enabling the production process of Capital. In New York in the early 1900s, people baked their own bread, each family grew a little food in their yards. This enabled them to live to some extent without wages and the market, and they had power to go on strike and negotiate at work. With the advent of canning and mass production of food - things promoted as undeniably positive for consumers - within a few decades people went to the market for everything, and were now dependent on wages to afford their consumption that was earlier independent, quietly surrendering their ability to negotiate for wages. Since it would be rather impolite - even repulsive - to start by asking a human to surrender their wakeful hours and labour, Capital starts with something more tempting- Consumption. People are convinced to think as Consumers, to think that lowest cost - highest utility is the ultimate goal of each human. People are siloed as Consumers, forgetting that humans are both Consumers and Laborers, and in an ideal world, owners of Capital too. Instead, people are brainwashed (thru advertising) to pursue the lowest cost of consumption as an end goal in itself, and this is mistaken for efficiency. The idea that things should become cheaper to the Consumer for a better world is a misconception, because cheaper is not good for the Producer. For example, a coffee consumer would want cheaper coffee, but for a Producer, cheaper is not better. Capital aligns with Consumption to convince people that cheaper is better, and Capital valourises itself by its ability to provide cheaper prices, hence this system is validated as efficient and good for the people of this world. Capital forces with the argument: how can you deny people access to products by making it cheaper? My response: There is another way: pay people more, so that they can afford to consume more products. It is Capital that is denying people access to products, by paying less to it's employees. Economic activity is a zero sum game, a question of how to divide value. Whatever the Consumer pays is shared by Labour and Capital. So here we are answering the fundamental question of this zero sum game: how large is the pie paid by the Consumer, and how shall it be split between Labour and Capital. My idea of efficiency in economic activity puts people at the center, and money in the periphery. In the zero-sum game of Capital-Labour-Consumer in splitting the value in any economic activity, I define efficiency as finding a reasonable balance. The system should be designed such that too much or too little power in any one of the 3 actors has natural deterrence built-in within the system. For example, in nature, there is a fine balance between predators and prey. Too much or too little of one will lead to consequences that will automatically bring the system back in balance, without the need for external intervention. A tree or human doesn't grow higher and higher without limits. There are advantages and disadvantages to being too short or too tall, and there are forces in nature that pulls from both sides, so as to find a reasonable balance. So my idea of an economy is one that finds a reasonable balance, and shuns the pursuit of linear extremities like highest-shortest, largest-smallest, cheapest-costliest and so on. Even for an individual in the wild, in extreme hunger, the individual will take any risk, whereas with a full stomach, even easy prey or fruit is not pursued. This is an example of the push-and-pull that exists in natural systems, that enables a balance. Learning from this, a society should pursue an economic system that is fair and reasonable, and integrate by design the forces of pull-push within the system to avoid extremities. Economic activity has the following fundamental goals: 1. Provide a livelihood for Producers, so they can Consume in turn. 2. Service the needs and wants of Consumers 3. Provide common services for the welfare of Society From this perspective, I shall redefine Efficiency. For simplicity, I use the word 'product', and the same applies to 'service' as well. 1. Consumption: When a consumer pays for a product, we look at what they are paying for. There are costs that are intrinsic in the product, like the material and labour that goes into creating the product of value. Then there is the act of selling, with expenses that are extrinsic to the product, like rent, sales commissions, brand ambassadors, advertising and so on. These expenses are essential from the point of view of Capital, to clock sales. From the point of view of the Consumer, these are wasteful, in that they are not reflected in the product. If the Consumer could buy the products without these costs, the product would be cheaper while having the same intrinsic value. So efficiency from the point of view of the Consumer is minimising the payment towards aspects of the economic activity that do not affect the product's intrinsic value or utility. So functions like Audit, Quality Control, Accounting, Marketing and so on - they serve the needs of Capital, but they do not add anything to the product. If you say that Quality Control ensures good quality for the Consumer, you are assuming that the Producer is dishonest and lacks ownership over the quality of the products produced. Why is this so? Does a home-cook (mother or father) producing food for their children or guests require a quality control function to oversee their work? Since Capital forces labour to sell their time and labour for fixed wages based on time, it incentivises shirking of work, and discourages productivity, integrity and ownership. So it deliberately creates an antagonistic relationship with labour, by the open effort to squeeze the maximum out of labour for the least possible wages, and by taking away all ownership and then insisting on a 'sense of ownership'. Since there is no ownership with labour, and there is no incentive for honest work, Capital engages an army of Checkers to ensure that the unproductive double-work of double-checking everything from the product to accounting. These are all inefficiencies built into the system by Capital. It's efficient for Capital to incur the expenses involved in these activities to maximise their profits, but it's inefficient for Consumers to pay for these things, because they don't affect the intrinsic qualities of the product. 2. Production: The purpose of economic activity is to provide livelihoods, so economic activity organised in a way that it can support the livelihoods of more people, is more efficient. It creates more consumer demand, and reduces the load on the State to fill in for unemployment, like with schemes like NREGA, where exactly this principle of efficiency is followed. Since mass unemployment is not the fault of the masses, and since the State can't watch it's people suffer and die, it must intervene with some form of subsidy that would go against the Free Market. As a normal, intended outcome of economic activities in society, this is inefficient. Hence society should pursue economic activity that provides more livelihoods, so that the State is not burdened by the poverty created in the name of cutting labour costs. More labour intensive activities should be encouraged, and automation is inefficient from the point of view of providing livelihoods. 3. Services to Society: Not all activities are equal for society. Health and Education provide a collective welfare to society that goes beyond the individuals and specific economic transactions. For example, an educated, healthy society is productive and resilient towards foreseen (Climate Change) and unforeseen (Covid) challenges that life throws up. On the other end, we have vices, from alcohol to junk food, and healthcare costs arising thereof; while these contribute to conventional GDP counting, it's a negative to society as a whole, and society is better off without such economic activity. Of course, the argument here is from the lens of individual liberty, and individuals are free to choose for themselves, but society on the other hand cannot encourage and celebrate this, because these things have a negative impact on the collective. In more practical terms, the way we look at food, education and healthcare, is very different from the way we look at clothes, sports and entertainment, which is in turn different from junk food and alcohol. GDP should be split into a gradient: Essential, Good, Neutral, Bad, Vice. We have to see how much of the GDP falls in each category, and that's more important for society than merely the aggregate. If more economic activity falls under Essential, Good or Neutral, the more efficient it is for society. Role of Capital: Capital resides mainly as land. For anyone living in a home or starting a small business, rent makes life precarious. It forces dependence on employment (for home rent) and desperation to achieve profits (commercial rent). Any group of people have different talents in aggregate. So India with its population, surely has great sportspersons, entrepreneurs, scientists, chefs, hairdressers, tailors and what not. The single largest hurdle against starting one's own business is Capital. And by depriving these people an opportunity to put their ideas to use for society, we are denying Society the best ideas, people, products and services from coming to the fore. I'll give a couple of examples to illustrate: when kids of Bollywood stars get 'launched', it deprives the country's cinema of the best talents from coming to the fore, and that's inefficiency. If only a small fraction of 1% of the country can play golf or race cars, the national Golf champ or racing champ is not really the best of the best, but the best out of a fraction of 1% who have access. So by denying equality in opportunity, we deny society a chance to see the real special talents within, and instead some are forced on us as champs or actors and we're told that these are the best the country has to offer. Likewise, lack of Capital, specifically in the form of land, holds back the entrepreneurial talents from flourishing, and leaving society worse off. So in society's interest, it's good to have a population that is not desperate, or enslaved into monthly salaries. So there should be limits to Capital - people can only own what they directly work in. Owning land as 'assets' or 'investment opportunities' puts Capital at the centre - there is Capital in excess with a few and they don't know what to do with it, so they 'park' it in land. This whole cycle needs to be broken - people should not have so much excess Capital, and should not be allowed to own more than what they have direct use for. For example, Beijing (or Shanghai? I don't remember) taxes a person's second house at a much higher rate than the first. Or the bidding system to own a license to own a car in Singapore. It should be easy to own a small patch, and increasingly harder and more expensive to own as one owns more and more land. The rules of the economy today are laid out by Capital owners (they form the bureaucracy, judiciary, legislature, commercial giants and so on), and they all got their land thru historical exploitation and inheritance. So essentially they looted Society of Society's land, and made it their own long ago, and now insist that land rights be honoured even as they concentrate more and more land in their own hands. This cycle has to be broken. One idea I really like - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_Justice Then there are two other considerations: 1. Resource Use: The current economy is one of linear consumption, and all talk of circular economy and recycling etc are lies. Less than 10% of plastics get recycled, mainly because it's much much cheaper, easier (and of better quality) to produce plastics from fresh petroleum rather than recycling. Likewise, crude oil, mining of minerals, coal, fertilizers, groundwater - we are digging from under the earth, and using it up in a linear chain called the economy. There is no concern about the future because if a business looks at self interest, or a country looks at self-interest, it's the most efficient approach towards wealth and more money, both individually and for the country. The GDP numbers do not count the real cost of using up a limited set of resources underneath the Earth, that belongs to Society. Efficiency is the amount of resource used to produce a certain product, and not in money terms, but in terms of the actual limited resource, like water or bauxite. If I can produce food using only rainwater, that is way more efficient than using groundwater, although the latter is considered economically more efficient in the current linear times we live in. 2. Emissions and Waste: The lesser is one's Carbon footprint for a given economic activity, the more efficient it is. The permissible Carbon footprint per capita for the world as a whole is around 1.5 MT/person/year, for a sustainable future (note: I don't remember the exact number, but it's around this). India is at 1.8 MT per capita/year, and this is mainly because the rural poor average out the urban rich. The rich in our country will consume like EU (7 MT/person/year) or America (20 MT/person/year). This is wholly unsustainable, and any valor in GDP numbers generally ignores a real hard look at this. For Society that envisions a life for humanity on this planet in the future, efficiency is defined as how little Carbon one can emit for a given economic activity, of production and consumption. How little waste can one generate in the process? Like how we tax everything, and insist on ingredients list to be (illegibly) printed on packaged food, we should count each unit of Carbon emission, and allocate it to economic activities, and to individuals. So each person is given say, 1.5 MT of Carbon emission credits at the start of the year, and they may choose to spend it on whatever they wish. They could even travel the world, but they may need to sit on a boat for a month if they must go to America. Each product they consume will have a Carbon emission attached, that will count against their permissible limit. This will encourage people to produce with less resources, less emissions, and also to consume mindfully. It will nearly eliminate private transport, and encourage cycling, good health, natural farming, an so on. Now all of this looks so idealistic that you're reading it like some utopian dream that doesn't have to be taken seriously. But when we're imagining the future, we should start from first principles, and later worry how we can get there. Maybe we don't get there in the next 20 or 50 or 100 years, but the process is the goal: what baby steps can we take from where we are today, to progress towards that goal which appears like a mirage today. Every baby step adds up, and this idea is for the idealistic children of tomorrow, not for the pragmatic adults of today. So having painted the dream, I shall now discuss the present, and what we can do today to start our journey. There are 3 key features of Capital: 1. Most of the Capital owned by people today is thru historical exploitation or inheritance. 2. Capitalism we see in society is Crony Capitalism. There is a strong nexus between Capital and Legislature. 3. Nearly all industries are subsidised. Nearly every large industry is subsidised with land, power, water and so on. This was done in exchange for providing employment. Industries tend to act like they are pro 'free-market', and if that was the case why have they not bought land from the open market, and built infrastructure of their own? One popular argument is that government needs to 'support' industry for an economy to grow. Here Capital points its finger to the 'greater good' and welcomes government intervention and subsidy, briefly forgetting the drumroll of Free Market theories. Truth is, there is no such thing as a free market, and everyone is subsidised. The farm subsidies are spoken of as a drain of limited resources of the nation. But do you know how much the industries are subsidised? For example, the Coffee Board offers a 40% subsidy for setting up small roasting facilities. Coffee land owners get a subsidy for digging ponds. How about the value of all the land that has been allocated to industry, and the roads and flyovers and power facilities provided to them? These subsidies are not in hard numbers that stare at us, so we feel it doesn't exist. Agriculture is considered 'inefficient' because food prices are kept artificially low by government intervention. This should be the starting point of deregulation, on the consumption side. Non food-producers in urban areas should pay more for food. To do this they should earn higher wages. Sadly, even people working for the government services, like the sanitation workers, are BPL card holders, meaning they are Below the Poverty Line. Even the wages for APL card holders are abysmal, and they need subsidised grains to sustain themselves. Thus the wages in urban centers are kept artificially low to enable Capital to have lower labour costs and earn higher margins. The government enables this by subsidising food grains thru the PDS so that the underpaid labour don't revolt against the meagre wages. So the subsidy paid by the government is not just to the Producers of food, but also to Capital, masking their inefficiency (in providing wages) and enabling their profits. We should take a relook at every single Common Resource that the government has given to industry first. Remove all subsidies to industries first. Everyone pays the Commerical Tax rate without exceptions or 'incentives'. End Capital's donations to political parties, or if you prefer a smaller baby step, at least make it public for a start. Once this is done, a progressive land tax should be levied that discourages large land holdings - larger the land holding, larger the tax on the marginal increase in land holding. This is followed by land redistribution. Then cut the fertiliser subisidy gradually, encouraging natural farming. This will reduce the food production, and the prices of food commodities will increase. Eventually the market price should settle well above MSP. All of this is done gradually, a slow tapering of the feeding tube. More importantly, a free market needs competition. Capital goes towards duopoly/monopoly because it's by design - Capital if left to itself will secure 100% market share (and pay unliveable wages). Capital is self-centered, and those are correct actions if one believes in self-interest as the ultimate goal. Hence, we have Zomato and Swiggy, Uber and Ola, Amazon and Flipkart, Jio, Airtel and Vodafone... wherever we see the consumer is finally left with usually two, sometimes three choices. This is inefficient in the best of times, and can be catastrophic in agriculture. I'll explain: if Pepsi becomes a monopoly in the chips business, it will decide what potatoes to grow, at what price it will be bought, and so on. This is bad for the farmer, since Pepsi will try to lower it's costs, and because of the David vs Goliath nature of things, the farmer stands no chance. This also leads to loss of biodiversity, which is something beyond commerce. We cannot put a value to history, culture and tradition, so like we preserve our ancient monuments, so we must preserve varieties of rice, wheat, cotton and so on, or at least give them a fighting chance. The existence or extinction of biodiversity in food cannot be determined by one generation or the monopoly of one corporation. All of these companies enter the market saying that they give more choice to sell for the farmer, but the truth is they are all after a monopoly. They all enter with attractive options for both buyer and seller, and after they establish strength and size, they will slowly squeeze both sides to enlarge their profits. This is the basic philosophy of Capital, found in every sphere. Once they establish dominance in the market, they will reduce the production process to a set of menial tasks paid at the price set by them, and this will be squeezed until it can't be squeezed anymore. This goes unsaid even though we see it everywhere, and it's not a good thing. So it's better to have a diverse set of small middlemen than a couple of large corporations. It's even better if the farmers can form collectives, and organise the value-addition, transportation and selling of farm produce while retaining ownership of their produce. So we should discourage concentration of power by limiting the size of entities engaged in commerce, and more importantly, encourage farmer cooperatives where the producer retains control and ownership over the produce until it reaches the Consumer. Food doesn't operate under classical economic theories. This is the reason why even the most free-market of economies subsidise their farmers heavily. A person can live without toothpaste or cars, but could kill for food. On the other side, there are natural limits on how much one can consume. So lower prices will not boost consumption like a conventional Demand Curve would suggest in an Economics textbook. A country needs to secure it's food, and also feed it's hungry. These cannot be left to market forces, because Capital doesn't own responsibility for these things. We should move towards less government intervention in agriculture, but this must be done by increasing the ability of people to pay more for food, so that the MSP is rendered irrelevant by market pricing, and not by law. People should be encouraged to live in less dense places on the map. Higher the density, greater the taxation, except for people engaged in essentials (education, healthcare) and public services (legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy). We should create strong disincentives to moving to urban living, and encourage dispersed, rural living. Localised, decentralised production consumption should be encouraged. Anything traveling long distances to be consumed should be taxed more. This way we pursue efficiency from the point of view of society as described above. Post Script: 1. If we remove Capital for a moment, the value of any product is the value of the labour that went into it. So if productivity increases, value decreases, because less labour goes into the production of one unit. So from the point of view of labour, it's not more efficient to be more 'productive'. Efficiency manifests itself only if you are more productive relative to the average labour producing a product. If the entire society becomes more productive, it only reduces the value of the product, and all the producers are none the better off for this productivity increase. 2. Nature determines the productivity of different patches of land, based on rainfall, warmth and sunlight, soil conditions and so on. Farming is efficient or inefficient based on how much a farm produces relative to the average or median farm under similar conditions. Appreciation in real estate or sales of shampoo or junk food or mutual funds may contribute to the GDP and reduce the share of Agriculture in that pie, but it's irrelevant while discussing the efficiency of agriculture. If a farmer produces a reasonable produce of food, using the sunshine and rain falling on a patch of land, securing a part of the nutritional needs of society, that is efficiency by itself. How it stacks up against smart phones, mutual funds or diamonds is not a measure of the productivity or efficiency of that farmer.

Bhaja Govindam

I was thinking about grammar, when I remembered this song called Bhaja Govindam, written by Adi Shankaracharya. It's a very popular song among Tamil Brahmins, and M S Subbalakshmi's rendition is like carnatic porn in Mylapore. ------- The wiki entry reads: There is a story attached to the composition of this Hymn. It is said that Shri Adi Shankaracharya, accompanied by his disciples, was walking along a street in Varanasi one day when he came across an aged scholar reciting the rules of Sanskrit grammar repeatedly on the street. Taking pity on him, Adi Shankara went up to the scholar and advised him not to waste his time on grammar at his age but to turn his mind to God in worship and adoration, which would only save him from this vicious cycle of life and death. The hymn "Bhaja Govindam" is said to have been composed on this occasion. ------- I think there are two kinds of grammar - one that is useful or essential in communicating nuance and meaning, and another kind which serves no purpose but to project the speaker as elite. Socially, if I write chief as cheif, people will look down upon me, and there is shame - in school, college, workplace, social dinner. I have spent so much time in situations where either my grammar or the other person's grammar is poor, and yet we could communicate and feel so much joy in mutual understanding. I would feel far more shy and fear of making mistakes with grammar, when I'm in a social setting with many people, all judging each other. Grammar is like clothing - some of it is essential as protection. The part of clothing which covers shame - like bras and underwears - I never understood the purpose even as a kid. Because it's merely shame, and patriarchy when it comes to bras. Why should society (both men and women) condition one gender to feel shame and cover their chest while the other gender doesn't feel this? So for me the underwear and bra are examples of clothing which appears essential in modern life, but are human inventions serving no purpose but to establish social control. The equivalent social status argument in clothing is how in most settled societies the clothes you wear signals information to the world. For example, in Rajasthan (I was told) you could recognise many things about individuals based on the style of head gear. Even now, in modernity, dressing is used as a signal to society - to show wealth and status primarily. A lot of the things that people wear serve no functional purpose but to show off something. People often say that I dress for myself. Most of the time I feel that it's a lie. With no camera, with no one around you, if you're living in a remote hut somewhere in the mountains, if you'd still dress up as frequently as you do with people, camera and society around you, that would qualify as 'dressing for myself'. There is a need for social acceptance - if we step out naked in most places we'll be in jail, which I think is stupid. Beyond legal conformity, there is a need to show off, which I think all of us have to varying degrees. When it comes to grammar - whether I say "You and I" or "I and you", really it doesn't matter. When I see words with characters which are not pronounced at all - I wonder why they exist there in the first place. Many years ago I was speaking to a Vietnamese person about their language, and told them how the tones are really hard. So each vowel could appear in 6 different tones. My friend responded saying that if you learn and understand the language, each vowel with a tone is like a unique vowel. Only for foreigners who don't understand does 'ma' sound the same in six different tones, but for the Vietnamese each tone = unique character. And my friend went further - in Vietnamese, one word written in one way means only one thing. Whereas, English has the same word mean many things, like the word 'right' for example. It's not what one would call logical or reasonable. When I look at Vietnamese, there is hardly any useless rules of grammar to be learnt by rote memory serving no purpose, like say, gendered objects in Hindi. Of course it helps to have good grammar in society. It helps to get into fancy education and jobs and social networks. In that sense it's like Ambedkar saying that Gandhi could afford to walk around naked and looking poor. So in utilitarian terms, it's good for kids to learn grammar, even if it's useless, because the world judges us by that. When I was young I used to think that people should like me as I am, and not for external superficial things, but I was really stupid and hypocritical. I was judging women basis these things without acknowledging it, yet I found it offensive if someone else did it to me. Now that I'm back to bachelorhood, I realise very clearly that people judge you by what you wear, and the grammar you use. I see how people treat me differently when I dress smartly, and when I'm in old, loose wrinkled clothes. Sometimes I do dress to manipulate - like if I'm travelling to unknown places I always get an army cut and a clean shave, to project an image which says 'don't mess with me'. I wear nice clothes to weddings and other places where I want to be favourably judged. I use flowery grammar too, to establish my credentials. So I do all the things that I rant against. It just means that I'm a little aware of the stupidity and irrelevance. I'm conditioned by popular media, movies into attraction for certain things which I know are superficial and stupid, and there are limits to how much and how quickly rationality can overpower conditioned behaviour. In my opinion, the focus should be on experiencing life in every moment fully, immersing oneself in the present. We will naturally then have things to speak, listen, share and communicate... and often we'll have complex thoughts which cannot be expressed without grammar, and for that we will learn and reach for the essential grammar for crisp, precise communication. The biggest issue I have in terms of fundamental approach is what we put first - in school, we learn alphabets and grammar without any idea why we are learning, just trusting the elders that it will be useful somewhere someday. Kids struggle and resist, because it's unnatural. I feel that the experience or activity or subject should be at the center, and grammar should be on the periphery - kids should not even feel that they are learning grammar, like they don't feel that they are learning to say 'appa' or 'amma'... I observe how kids learn before they go to school and 'can be taught' or 'made to learn', and I think that's the right way. I feel like we should only create the situations and environment to facilitate learning, and all real learning is experiential, and the kids will experience it themselves and learn. Writing in structured forms invented by other people is itself unnatural, and requires breaking of the child's will. Here the key is to make the learning useful in some way - if the kid quickly sees that learning alphabets helps me communicate in fascinating ways, and if communication is a cherished activity, that's the carrot to entice kids to go thru the drudgery of learning alphabets and grammar.

A Date With The Waves

8 Nov 2020 Manju and I are on the bike at 5:15 AM, and it cuts an all-day ride by half - we are 470 kilometers away in Gokarna by lunch. The heat drenches us in sweat, and Manju goes to wash it away in the Arabian sea. I follow later, and the waves appear great to bodysurf. I spend two hours fighting the current to ride two waves - they were awesome. I am standing in neck deep water and when the swell approaches I swim towards the shore to catch the wave as it breaks - the body is the board here, and I slide down the wave as it's breaking, and after that I'm a torpedo, zipping underwater. I'm thrilled, and can't wait to get back the next morning with the board. We walk 3 kilometers to town in the evening, and I bring a beer back. The next morning, Sandeep of Cocopelli surf school has no lessons and is out surfing on a short board. There is a longer board (8-9 feet) for beginners - it's easier to stand on, harder to manoeuver. Sandeep and another guy is out with short boards (6 feet long). The waves look big and the roar is inviting, almost mesemerising. They are out early and I see them work hard to get past the waves to the other side of the swell. I get a pink board which is strapped to my leg. Unlike last year, I choose to wear a bright red 'Rash Guard' - a swimming shirt that prevents the board from eating away skin from the chest and abdomen. I get into the water and I'm a little tired from the long ride, surf, walk and beer the previous day. I'd had breakfast an hour back - the food is floating around inside. I am out of my elements, but full of energy and excitement. I paddle past waves, remembering the technique from last year. The waves are relentless, there is no break, and each white-water wave (the foamy wave after crashing) pushes me back as I paddle in. Progress is slow and I expend a lot of energy. The strap tethering the board to my right ankle comes off, and I stop to strap it again in waist deep water, and keep going. I struggle for half an hour, and I'm exhausted, and nowhere near where I want to be. The current had pushed me a few hundred meters north from where I'd entered the water. I take a break and go back to the beach to rest. Sandeep and the other guy are walking back from further north on the shore - they'd been pushed by the current too. They haven't managed to catch any waves - it's too hard to paddle in these conditions. The other guy lost his board when the strap unfastened, and had to swim to the board and reach the shore. The other guy tries out my long board, and gives up shortly - it's too hard to paddle out with a long board - with the shorter one you can dip into the water as the waves roll past above. The longer board is too buoyant, and I press down with my hands in the front, with toes on the back, like a plank, and allow the white water from waves that have crashes to roll past between my body and the board - it pulls you back several meters. I go back into the water with the pink long board, and I work on my technique against the white water waves, and it works well. Still, every time I paddle a dozen meters, a waves sets me back by nearly the same length. It's slow and arduous but I'm excited and giving it my all. There is complete focus on paddling past these waves. After half an hour I'm close to where the waves break, and I just need to paddle another 20 meters and I'm on the other side of the swell. A huge swell appears, and I'm filled with dread as it's going to crash right where I'm floating, so I dive into the water abandoning the board. I'm under water listening to the roar of the wave crashing above, it pushes me down, and I'm expecting a yank on my right ankle - except it never comes. I rise up above the water and look back to see pink far away and feel nothing on my right ankle. I look at the shore and it's at least a hundred meters away. There is no one around me, and my feet can't feel the ground. The shock hits me, and there is panic. The exhaustion in getting there surfaces, and my limbs cry out in fatigue. I have nothing to hold onto and no one around me. There is no one in the water or in the shore watching. The next swell is approaching, and the roar sounds like a lion. The wave pushes me in, and I am forced to hold the breath for a few seconds while its pounding 2 or 3 times a second. I get up and I'm gasping in desperation and dread. I tell myself: "calm down your breath and you're going to survive". It's strange washing one's own brain, but adrenalin is everywhere. I don't remember the next minute, except that I was really fortunate that after a short distance I could feel the sand with my toes. It feels like I've been reborn many times; in this one I soaked in dread for several minutes. Another wave comes, adding half a foot of water and I'm floating again. I swim towards the board, and with it, back to the shore. Disoriented and humbled, I walk back. That afternoon Sandeep is giving surf lessons to Manju and a few others. He says the afternoon low tide is perfect, and there will be others around. I ask him for a different board, and he says that he'll tie the strap for me, and if it comes off again, then he'll change the board. I agree. So I'm back with the same pink board, and I'm eager to dispel any fear. So I paddle out slowly, and keeping watch on the heartbeat. I'm still tired, but I ignore it. The waves are less menacing, and I make good progress. The current pushes me out and I don't notice it. There is a sting from a jellyfish. I'd encountered jellyfish last year and I ran back to the shore in pain. This time I ignore it and keep going. The strap comes off again from the ankle - I re-strap and keep going. Soon I'm close to where the wave breaks, and it's a short distance away before I can turn around and paddle to catch a wave. Suddenly I notice foam floating around me, and I feel the sting from a jellyfish. Then one more. That's when I realise that I'm in the middle of a school of jellyfish. I can see them all around - hundreds of them. There is a wave crashing behind me and it washes me off the board, and I'm filled with dread again. I'm praying that the strap stays fastened, and luckily it did. I swim past stinging jellyfish and climb onto the board. There are waves behind me and jellyfish all around, and the sand bed can't be felt. The shore is again far away, although closer than the morning, and there is no one around. What can anyone do anyway? I get on the board and see dull brown jellyfish floating right beside, and I can't help avoid them as I paddle. As my hands enter the water to paddle, I can feel tentacles wrap around and sting away, but the pain feels immaterial, it barely even registers. Soon they are climbing on my arms and I shake some of them off. A wave crashes ten meters behind; the body is so focused and wound up - it will be painful to lose the board. I ride the wave and go towards the shore. Until I reached the beach there was near constant stinging - I stopped paying attention to it. Back in the shore I'm disoriented, and pulling out needles lodged in the bite sites. They've bitten all over, giving extra love to the right forearm. Manju comes out from his lessons with a few stings, and he's jumpy and irritated with pain. Everyone got stung. Still Sandeep wants to go back to complete the lessons so that he can earn his money. Crocodiles which are being fed are so focused on the meat that you can sit on it's back or tail and it wouldn't care to notice. The rashes heal within a day, except the right forearm - with maybe fifty stings it remained red and tender for a few days, even now as I type this.

Lessons learnt: 1. Need to be a capable swimmer, well rested and feeling strong. The sea looks beautiful, it can change into dread in a moment. 2. Nature must be respected. There is no argument or negotiation, it's ruthless. 3. There needs to be awareness and alertness. One needs to pay attention to detail and to the surroundings. 4. Without fitness, one cannot enjoy life on the edge. Out in the sea, there is nothing with you except your own body and mind. The next day I sat on the beach and observed the waves for many hours. I walks on the shore, stared at some jellyfish washed ashore. I didn't get into the water again, but I'll be back. That morning Manju took the bike to a beach with black sand, near Karwar. He was hopping with happiness as he left that morning, and narrowly missed a snake curled up. He shot a picture from a distance, and it looks like a Russel's viper. Seems like we are dodging a few things on this trip. The next day we went to a beach that is a 20 minute walk from the road. It's called Paradise beach. 15 years ago, on 31st December 2005, I was there with a memorable group of people, and we'd hiked there from Kudle beach, further north. The place had been taken on a 20 year lease by a commercial guy, and they have tents. I buy fish on the way, and they cook it for dinner. It really feels like Paradise. Manju takes the kayak out, and he looks so happy to be out there in the sea. After sunset we walk to the rocks and observe bioluminiscent algae as the darkness descends. It's the most magical sight in a long time. Stars above, and stars below. The fish curry and fish fry couldn't have tasted any better. Manju eats rice and dal, but even that was delicious he says. We went back to the rocks and float in our thoughts - there is so much to digest. The next morning we are clinical in our return to Gokarna town, and picking up the bike and riding back to Mysore. I left behind my surfing shorts at Paradise beach. I wouldn't usually feel so much for a pair of shorts, but this was the only thing I had for company when I was gasping for life.

Public Servant

17 January 2020 | Bangalore

I skip breakfast waiting for hunger to arrive, and it arrives suddenly, in full force. The irritability is apparent on an empty stomach. Some research shows that people's IQ dips with hunger.

I'm here to pick up my bike from the service center and ride back to Mysore. Lal Bagh main road screams Commerce from both sides. Every inch of pavement and road are taken by people, and there is barely place to stand and no shade or ledge to sit. All the food options look junky and I'm thinking where can I find a plate of idlis to fuel me. There is MTR nearby, outside which a board says they are shut from 11 AM to 12:30 PM, after which lunch opens.

There is half an hour to kill on a hellhole of a road. I walk past Urvashi theater and the huge cut-outs of Mahesh Babu riding a bike and Allu Arjun trying to be stylish. Their smile and pretense of coolness irritates me at that moment. I walk up and down and I look at the clock and it's been only 17 minutes. I'm almost there - 13 minutes more. I see a scooter-for-rent from Bounce parked on the footpath, and I sit down.

A traffic policeman comes and asks me if it was my bike, I say no, and he asks me to get up pointing to my legs which were jutting out. I get up, and after he walks by, I sit again, this time with my legs closely held. He again walks past and says get up, I ask him why, and he says we're going to tow the bike. I stand on the side, and he says go stand at the bus stand. I ignore and move away a little, and he again approaches and asks me to wait at the bus stand. We argue briefly and I tell him that I'm not going to the bus stand, what is the crime in standing by the side of the road? There is no agreement, and I continue to stand, a little more worked up now.

The cop stops a scooter and points out a mistake in how the vehicle number is written in front. I see the scooter guy take out two bright green fifty ruppee notes, and I take out my phone and record. It's apparent that I'm incompetent at voyeuristic video recording, and the cop sees me and rushes to grab my phone, and I lock the screen before he grabs it from me. His superior rushes and they both start screaming at me while trying to unlock the phone, which they cannot. So they ask me to open it, and I oblige, and as I quickly try to delete the video, they grab my phone and prevent me from doing so.

They are really pissed off, and the senior cop puts my phone in his pocket and they're chanting in chorus that I should be taken to the police station. I tell them that I want to call my lawyer and ask for my phone, they shut down my request and get even more angry. We move to a little hand-slapping, shoving and wrangling as a crowd gathers. I tell them that I need the phone back, and that they can take me to the police station. The cop refuses again, and flags down an auto and we both get in.

Inside the auto we are like a fighting couple, each looking out of their side of the auto. He enquires what I do, and I mention coffee and Mysore. He asks what I'm doing here, and why I'm in Bangalore. I don't want to tell him about the bike, for it will give them something to harass me with, so I tell him that I'm waiting for a friend to pick me up. Then he spontaneously began screaming at me for recording a video, and by now I'm used to it, and I ignore and look out of the window as he screams and lets his anger out. We reach the police station in five minutes and he takes 20 ruppees from his wallet and hands over to the auto guy.

We walk into the Wilson Garden police station, and there is a more-senior cop there in khaki and khaki, at the entrance, with a register and surrounded by people. Two - three other cops are also interested in my case and they surround me as the constable narrates his ordeal of being filmed, and after he finishes I ask if I may speak, and tell the more-senior cop that the traffic cop was harassing me. The junior cop in conflict with me asks "You can't speak in Kannada?" I tell them that I'm Tamil and continue speaking in English. They all crowd to see the video, and every minute or two they have to ask me to unlock the phone.

The more-senior cop and the expanding gang of cops take me into a room where a menacing looking lady is sitting. She must be the Superintendent of Police or something like that, I'm thinking. She reminded me of the many teachers in school I've encountered, and for a moment I forgot that I'm now all grown up. Again we repeat what happened, the constable now remembering to add details like a CM convoy coming on that route and how I disobeyed his request to move and recorded the video. The video is played once more, and there is no curiosity over the money handed over in the video, rather I'm the one accused there, for having recorded the video. Even the strict looking lady had nothing to say about the video except that it needs to be deleted, and they do a vigorous job of pressing buttons.

I tell the lady that I'm being harassed by this cop for standing by the side of the road, and I took the video in self-defense. I rant against the cop, and my pitch must have gone up, because the lady brought down the hammer down and screamed at me: "You can't speak softly!?" I was taken aback, and felt that I'm back at it again 20 years after school - a dispute with some boy my age, and being screamed at by a lady sitting in judgement.

I tell the lady that he was being disrespectful. "What is the crime in standing by the side of the road? He was being disrespectful and harassing me for no provocation." She asks if by respect I mean he should address me as 'Sir' and fall at me feet while requesting. I use a tax-payer card that I usually loathe when someone else uses it - "Madam, I'm not a criminal... I'm a tax-paying citizen, why can I not stand by the side of the road? He didn't mention anything about CM coming..." and one cop from the gang of cops asks me why this junior cop would single me out of the crowd for harassment? "You should ask the cop why he singled me out, how can I answer that question over the cop's intent?"

They say that taking a video recording is illegal, and I can hear murmurs of "we'll book him under Obstruction of civil servant carrying out his duty", and I tell the lady that of all the things I'm accused of, I'll only admit one mistake - recording the cop on video, and for that I'm sorry. She asks me to tell sorry to the junior cop, and without blinking I turn to him and say sorry. They seem dissatisfied that all this is ending so timidly, so they ask me to write an Apology Letter and I'm smiling inside my head.

I sit down and write a letter, supervised by the junior cop. I mention that I recorded a video of the cop, 'which is illegal' and score off the illegal part. Why am I admitting to illegality of something that is not illegal? The junior cop sees it and tells me to rewrite the illegal part. He is searching for the word 'sorry' and I deprive him of the pleasure by writing 'I extend an apology', and he's not sure whether to complain again. Then he enthusiastically takes my letter to the more-senior cop, who tells the junior cop to keep it with him, and the letter is folded thrice and placed in his pocket, and I'm free to go.

After that I had 150 minutes of silence with my head on the ride back, and it gave me plenty of time to think. A few thoughts:

1. The Law

There is a Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with 'Disobedience to order duly promulgated by Public Servant', which I'm assuming is what they meant by 'obstruction of civil servant carrying out his duty'. It's a relatively lenient section (in terms of detention powers and punishment), so it makes one wonder what are the other sections that the police uses in abuse of power to detain people. Going back to Section 188 and looking at data from the National Crimes Record Bureau for the year 2019, there were 22,907 cases registered under this section across the country. Out of this, Delhi accounted for 5,100 cases, Tamil Nadu 3,100+, Maharashtra 3,500+ and Gujarat 5,200+. Nearly 17,000 out of 22,907 cases under this section comes from just four States. It would seem that only people of these states are obstructing civil servants, and that states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Madhya Pradesh, which are otherwise high on crime, do not have many people who obstruct civil servants. A further reading of the data in the NCRB report shows that certain states use certain provisions to detain and arrest people who the people in power wish to silence. For example, Uttar Pradesh likes the Arms Act, West Bengal likes Attempt to Culpable Homicide, and so on. In the coming days I will do a dive into some important segments of the NCRB data, to show the intent and differences in means used by each state to suppress the civil rights of people.

2. The police have too much power to do whatever they want. Because they are forced into mute acceptance of whatever the elected government wishes, the police take out their frustrations and lack of agency and power on the people on the streets. The police are full of stress and tension - it's so evident in a small chat with anyone there. They are pissed with life, their duty, lack of agency, and the pain of mutely saluting and surrendering one's will to their superiors whose tails wag to political power. It's amusing that they call themselves 'Public Servants' in the IPC Section 188, while acting like goondas. The cop who took me in the auto to the police station surely suffered from hypertension. He was screaming out of control, and just about everything triggered him into an outburst. I feel sorry for people stuck in these jobs, but it only helps understand their incompetence and frustration, not the malice in their minds. It feels like this tension is a ticking time-bomb, and their minds are ripe for cracking.

3. The NIA act allows the central government to detain people for weeks and months, without any reason or charges. The state governments have their own ways to browbeat the public into submission. This kind of excesses in power bestowed to stressed out political pawns in the name of public servants is bound to be misused. This is justified under the ever-enlarging umbrella of 'National Interest'. We can use words like Security and Terror to justify even the most heinous of crimes by the police. Torture is legal as long as the person being tortured can be painted as sub-human, and from there is a short hop to treating the person like vermin, with the same courtesy extended as those given to mice and cockroaches. Since the majority and powerful are unaffected by these things, they remain mute spectators while certain segments of society are harassed and tortured into submission. We cannot accept this as normal, even as the government rewards itself with progressively greater powers to cement its control over power.

4. There is a girl in Mysore who was recently at a protest rally at the University of Mysore, with a placard saying 'Free Kashmir'. She has been booked under sedition, and the lawyers who form the Bar association in Mysore have passed a resolution to say that no lawyer will represent this girl. This is not merely null and void, but shameful and against the very fabric of the profession, in violation of an individual's right to legal representation in the justice system. There has been significant, unequivocal judgements setting clear rules to test the validity of the sedition clause when applied to any individual. Guilt demands a call for violence and subsequent violence, akin to a spark in a powder-keg. As unpleasant as seccession may sound to some people, it's a perfectly legal to express a desire to secede so long as it's done peacefully. The public conscience is shallow enough to morally legitimise this abuse of sedition by the State.

5. The police is petrified of video and social media. The State and it's police have set up thousands of CCTV cameras all over the city, with facial recognition and control rooms to make a surveillance state out of urban spaces. Yet, they don't allow any video of their own actions. This is like the British Monarchy selling opium into China two hundred years ago, while banning the same in their own country. People often ask: are we heading towards a surveillance state? I think we're already there. There is no milestone announcing it's arrival. We should all have video recording of interactions with 'Public Servants' of all kinds.

Yesterday was the first time that I've entered a police station as an 'accused'. It felt strange, and I felt powerless despite the privilege and power I enjoyed. I cannot imagine being from a lower caste or being a Muslim, especially in the cow belt of North India. We need to read the news, distrust the State, learn the law, and fight for civil rights - for everyone.

Question Everything

Over the last hundred years, many countries across the world have overthrown monarchies and embraced Democracy. In the timeline of settled human societies, Democracy is like an infant – barely fifty years old in the form that we now recognise.

In Monarchy, people had to accept whoever became King by inheritance. People couldn’t question anything, and they were left to the mercy and intellect of the King. All there was to do was practice acceptance.

After centuries of obedience, Democracy arrived to give newly recognised powers to the people – the power to vote, to choose their representatives, to question and challenge power, and fundamental rights that are inalienable and, until recently, unknown to people.

The primary motive of people is self-interest. Until Democracy came along, self-interest was confined to one’s position in the social pyramid and material well-being, both of which were correlated and hence the same. With Democracy, self-interest extended to fundamental rights. This is the most beautiful promise of Democracy. No matter where you are on the social pyramid, certain rights were equal and inalienable, and protecting this is self-interest.

With a King that one couldn’t overthrow, people had little choice except to back the King to seek material and social development. So whatever the King did, the people could only work on how to exploit the King’s decisions to garner wealth and social status. Because there was almost no chance of equal rights of any form, people accepted inequality in society as God’s design, and focused their energy on exploiting the rules of the Game to further their material self-interest.

In a Democracy, there is a popularity contest on the side of the candidates, and on the other side a utilitarian choice - of the best candidate from a set of imperfect choices. Here power is vested with a set of people who represent the interests and voice of the people. So each representative’s primary duty is to follow the Constitution in letter and spirit, and to act as the medium of communication of the people’s interests.

Let’s now look at the structure of power. In a Monarchy, power comes from birth, and it is assured and inalienable. There is no fear of losing power. While popularity is desirable, it’s not required to retain power. In a Democracy, those in power are vulnerable to the people’s wishes every five years (at most).  Since power is not assured, and the people in power have self-interest to retain power, there is a conflict, between their duty to the Constitution and the people they represent, and their  self-interest in retaining power. This conflict is the primary source of dysfunction in Democracies.

It’s not like the founding fathers and mothers of Democracy didn’t know this conflict. So they instituted checks and balances, like an independent judiciary and (less apparently) independent executive. Further checks include the securing of fundamental rights of the people (exceptions notwithstanding) and the absolute immunity from change enjoyed by the basic structure of the Constitution.

It seems like the founders of Democracy were acutely aware of how power could be misused to further the interests of power. Giving power to a few people thru elections is straight-forward. After that, it’s a slow, asymptotic march of checks and balances on this power conferred to a few.

Quite different from a Monarchy, where people sat back and accepted the consequences of the Monarch’s decisions, the people of a Democracy, thru their elected representatives, influence the policies of the Democratic State. The consequences of the decisions of the State are studied and discussed by the people, and their feedback is communicated regularly thru their elected representative.

Elections are utilitarian decisions made by people. If a voter has independent thought, it’s rare to find a candidate (or anybody) whose principles will be 100% in alignment with the voter’s. So the voter is forced to pick the best available candidate, and this is a utilitarian compromise that cannot be escaped. The elected representative represents the interests of all the people in the constituency, and not merely the ones who voted in their favour.

Having selected the candidate the people have conferred an excess of power in the representative, because power needs to be concentrated for agile decision-making. At this stage the focus shifts to the checks and balances to keep power accountable and working for the interests of the people and the Constitution, rather than the interests of power.

As soon as elections are over, people need to closely observe the people in power, regardless of one’s vote in favour or against. Politics is the system of representing people’s interests, and for that to work, every person must be political, and be constantly engaging with the state and society. People should be aware of what is happening around them, mix freely and discuss the policies of the state, consequences of these policies, educate themselves, and voice their opinions and interests free from fear or prejudice. People should organise social gatherings and form channels to exchange ideas. People in power should be constantly watched. It’s like how someone representing the country in a sport is under the spotlight. The powerful people in politics hold a great deal more influence over the hopes of the people, and face great temptation to work against the interests of the people and in the interest of their own power, so the system demands constant scrutiny.

Now to the question of morality. If you put any 1000 people thru the same conditioning and temptations to abuse power, there are going to be some who succumb to temptations and some who don’t. This doesn’t depend on which random set of 1000 people we pick. We don’t know who succumbs and who doesn’t, so the system is designed to distrust individuals in power. So there is an intrinsic doubt placed on people in power, because the temptation to abuse power is so tempting. It’s like airport security. Since one cannot tell the good guy from the bad, everyone is frisked, because there is an intrinsic distrust which can be allayed by close examination. One can be charming, educated, wealthy, beautiful or popular – it doesn’t matter. Everyone gets checked, and everyone understands that it’s not personal. All people in power deserve a similar distrust, and it’s not personal. It’s their job, and since they have excessive power, they need to be watched, and kept on a leash.

The people who do this questioning, perform labour essential for a Democracy to function as designed. People who are apolitical or indifferent enjoy the fruits of this questioning by others.

In India, most people’s entire lives are consumed in a fight to survive. There is no respite from the drudgery of relentless manual labour which pays just enough to keep one alive to provide the next day’s labour. It’s near impossible to have the time or mind to explore anything beyond survival.

The people who are higher up on the social pyramid are consumed in consumption. There is a constant bombardment of things to consume, ways to show off and gain social acceptance. The means employed is advertising and marketing gimmicks that exploit human psychology. Sportsmen and actors don’t consume cola (not even for an advertisement), yet they urge people to drink cola. All kinds of things are sold by famous people lending their faces to products and services they have no expertise in. People are constantly urged to look ‘pretty’, wear expensive clothes and jewellery, and work on their social status. Cinema and television are filled with people pretending to be someone they’re not, and most humans cannot distinguish and keep separate what they see on screen and real life. We are clearly influenced by whatever we see on a screen even if it’s explicit that they’re pretending. We feed junk to the minds of people tired from the drudgery of work and the endless struggle to survive or consume.

All of this needs to change for a questioning mind. People should have enough to free themselves from this cycle of labour, survival and consumption filling up their lives. We should stop feeding junk to the mind, and only then is there empty space for the molten lava of knowledge to flow, and form rich volcanic earth from which shoots of independent thought, scientific temper and a questioning mind can grow.

It doesn’t matter who you vote for, question everything and everyone.

Uttar Kannada with Manju

Mysore, 19 Nov 2019, 4:45 am

Sleep is cut short by nerves awaiting the ride to Uttar Kannada. It feels strange to not set off alone as I wait for my riding partner, Manju Kashyap.

He's 21 and we play basketball at Mysore University. For the first time I'm on a trip with someone much younger. I wonder how Wendrick felt when they first met me at Kovalam, when they were in the mid fifties, and me 17.

Manju and I have done a short trip to Chikmagalur a year ago, and shorter rides before that, so there has been a slow progression in familiarity. The partnering gets me nostalgic about Joy and Gopal for a moment. We have 3 Aluminium boxes fitted to the bike, and he's a big guy when compared to me. I can immediately feel the weight of a pillion, which I'm not used to, and buckle down to accept it. The riding is harder with a pillion, and one can switch, so there is a neat trade-off. A few days later Manju would say that the first day of the ride is the hardest - and I found that interesting; getting out of the familiar can be boring and we have nearly 500 kms to go.

Karnataka has a sprinkling of unmarked speed breakers all over, even on roads which are speed breakers in themselves. It's tiring to be alert, and quite often we run over speed breakers at 70 km/hr, and it's a bit unpleasant, but doable thanks to the suspension. The suspension on the Tiger 800 XCA is called WP (White Power - whoever came up with that!), and it has over 21 cm of travel at both the front and the rear. For the most part we can glide over bad roads. The trade-off is that the bike is tall, and it's difficult to 'put bends' on corners, and a fall feels like one off a horse.

For the next few hours we ride silently, past fields of sugar cane, rice, corn and arecanut. We stop to stretch, and to eat. The bike draws looks and questions. Price? Mileage? Over the years I've been asked if I was a vagabond, or an advertisement. I get a machined cut and a clean shave so people hesitate to mess with the potential army man.

As we cross Shivamoga, there are plenty of ponds and lakes that spring up on the side of the road, and it feels lush at the start of the dry season. Lunch at Sirsi was the first of a series of simple (and same) meals for around Rs 70. The quality of the betel leaves and arecanut in the Sweet Paan is exceptional, and it remained so across Uttar Kannada.

From Sirsi, we have to reach Anshi-Kali National Park before sunset and find accommodation. We're close to Yellapur when we see a signboard saying 'Magod falls'. This trip was originally conceived as a waterfall hunt, and got postponed 3-4 times. Magod falls was one that Manju has had eyes on for some time, so we decided to take a u-turn. As I turn to my right, I lose balance and we fall.

Manju has a partial tear in his Anterior Cruciate Ligament in his right knee from earlier this year. And during this fall he landed right on that knee and his entire weight fell on it. I hear the bike fall, and I get up to see his face in distress as he cluthes the right knee. There is petrol leaking thanks to the incline. Thankfully there is some traffic, and people come to help me lift the bike up.

Manju's knee is throbbing, and he has felt this before once when he returned to the basketball court too soon from the injury. It's not a tear, but the knee feels like a pissed off snake, hissing and rumbling to let you know that something is wrong. We sit, walk up and down, and thankfully it's not a serious re-injury. Much stretching later we are off, and my shoulders are stiff and tense. I cannot wait for the ride to end. I'm telling him that we'll rest one day, and if he doesn't feel better, we'll head back to Mysore.

I feel guilty at having dropped the bike, and I realise that u-turns on the right is something that I am not good at. My legs are not strong enough for a load on the bike. We are tired and ragged now, and I'm thinking what an unpleasant end to the first day. The throbbing knee makes it hard to sit pillion, and pain is magnified. The perks of sensory distractions are so clear while switching between rider and pillion.

After the fall, we ditch the original plan and head towards Dandeli. Because we have no bookings, the end is not in sight. An hour later at 4 PM, it's been 10 hours and we are gassed. We stop at a scenic bridge for more stretching. Manju's knee is still throbbing, and sitting tight is not helping. He groans as he gets off and stretches. The pain is written on his face.

Less than 30 minutes later we find Kulgi Nature Camp. We are there, the tents are empty, yet I am asked to book online first. An example of mindless application of 'Digital India'. There is no network or signal in the forest, yet the distrust in the system demands that they insist on online bookings and payments.

I try talking nicely, and they insist I go to Dandeli town and book online. The injured knee card is not enough. Then in a moment of nothing-to-lose madness I raise the lack of professionalism and service, and rant about how salaries are paid to these people and they don't do work. This irks one Forest Official there and he takes exception. To my luck I am able to pacify him saying that I'm not talking about him but the system in general, and it wakes him from the slumber. We get a tent.

Here I felt that I need to know the law. Under which act does the Forest Department establish these Nature Camps, and what are the laws and rules that govern them? The Forest officials are not used to being challenged, and one needs to know the law to be able to speak effectively.

We get a tent for 1400, and it's a great price. I'm trying to compare the prices to 15 years back - we used to spend between 200 to 400 per night for two people back then. Manju likes view points and we walk to one nearby from where mobile phones can make calls. While being photographed his favourite pose is back-to-the-camera, so we take turns.

The next morning I wake up remembering that I had killed a small scorpion the previous night as it crawled near the shoes, and I can't find the dead scorpion. Dead meat doesn't last long here.

We go bird watching, thru a 'Trail' marked out by the Forest Department. In one tree right on the main road we see dozens of birds, and we stand there for a long time. Manju clicks away. Later he'd say that he wants to know what he's clicking in the future. The 'Bird Trail' doubled as a Timber Trail, with logs of wood meant for commercial use. It's a reminder that the Forest Department is primarily a tool of exploitation of forest resources - controlling access and profiting. Conservation here is akin to Corporate Social Responsibility for Capitalists. Then again, we all use wood, and it has to come from somewhere, so we should also ask questions about consumption.

By 10 AM we are ready to head out for the waterfalls. Manju's knees feel alright, and we ditch the big side-boxes, so it feels light and slender. We ride thru the same forest that we passed thru the previous evening, and it feels beautiful and relaxed this time. Besides fatigue and injury, uncertainty over the end point makes a lot of difference.

Two hours and some broken roads later we are at Magod falls. It's a misnomer as it's merely a view point. Still, the view is mesemerising, and we are elated to be present there. It's been a dream for Manju to see Magod falls so there is a lot of excitement. We take the usual back-to-the-camera pictures. I give out safety advice as he heads to the rock beyond the rails on the cliff, and I feel old. I used to be that guy, and now I'm catching myself giving advice. In my mind it feels like the waterfall is as good over here as from the cliff - clearly I don't know better anymore. I am happy for his enthusiasm, and I love the contagious nature of it.

We go to a view point afterwards to see the Kali river in the plains. There are a couple of couples there and I feel bad about interrupting their privacy, but they seem less than bothered. They take photos, and the women are working on their hair for the pictures. We give them some space and sit some distance away. A security guard walks down with a ledger that we fill. The chit-chat reveals that he is less than pleased about 'non-family' people visiting the cliff. He also tells us that a month back some guy couldn't suffer thru a love failure and came here and jumped off the cliff, hence the register.

The security guy felt that the couples need to be asked to leave, because this is a Family Place. I love the importance accorded to Family in Indian society. Even if Families abuse their adults or children, as long as they are legally sanctioned by society as Family, it's cool. But unmarried couples at view points? That is like loose Plutonium.

Manju tells me that at Sathodi falls we can jump into the water. It's a 30 km stretch of ruins of roads, and some parts are entirely loose stones  on steep hairpins. I am feeling the pressure, and the thought that we'll have to ride back up these roads is nagging me. We walk quickly to the falls, and it's gorgeous. The Rhesus Macaques close in on our belongings - helmets, footwear and clothes. There are stones everywhere, so it's a volley that the monkeys can't stand, and they retreat to pockets higher up on the rock face. We keep a close eye, and cannot truly relax. Still, the water was refreshing and I received a brief back massage from one set of rapids. Manju is amazed with how his back looks in the pictures, and we take enough back-to-the-camera photos to respect the gym work put in.

The ride back is aggressive and tense, and Manju holds on tight to the rails. I ride fast and he doesn't complain. He observed later that there were a lot of bends to the right on the way back, and he was worried about a fall to the right, where his injured knee resided. I told him that he should feel free to communicate without hesitation.

We reach back just before sunset, after 185 km. The next morning we go to Dandeli and I book a room at Anshi, and two nights at Cocopelli Surf School in Gokarna. With a big bike and bulky riding gear unplanned ends are less appealing. I realise this when I feel a sense of calm and relief after the next three nights are made certain.

We eat Hubli-Dharwad style meals, and it feels distinctly different from anything we'd eaten so far. Jowar rotis, and the way the vegetables were cooked were different and very nice. The bypolls are on in Karnataka, and the TV is blaring news, flashing endless graphics to keep pace with the decreasing attention span.

Manju rides slowly thru the forest and it feels peaceful at 60-70 km/hr. Maybe he wanted to experience this after the previous evening's mad ride. I felt completely relaxed, and it was my favourite stretch in the entire trip. The forest itself was so lush and rarely interrupted. There were laterite bricks everywhere, and it feels like the buildings are one with the surroundings.

That afternoon we decide to split. He takes the bike to a view point at Kadra Dam, while I find a stream nearby that I want to explore. Leaving the chappals where people can find them, for evidence, I set off barefoot on the shallow, stony riverbed.

As soon as I found a comfortable perch on the river, the leeches show up, and I realise that the jungle is only idyllic in pictures. Even at the start of the dry season, there are leeches in the wettest regions. It's also a sign of a healthy ecosystem, so I'm happy to see them.

I head back, and get lost in some sand-banks with fallen trees. I'm wary of vipers hiding close to the water, and nervously find my way back. I sit there and read the first book that I remember reading that affected my thought process - Waiting For The Mahatma by R K Narayan. I remember the train ride I took in the summer of 2001 - West Coast Express from Chennai to Coimbatore, on my way to a cousin's place in Payyoli, Kerala. It was a slow and empty train, and I sat by the window, in the sun. The only other person in the coupe asked me if I would like to sit in the shade opposite him, and I said no thanks, I like the sun. He didn't speak to me after that, and I remember soaking in that book. It inspired me, and when I got off that train at Coimbatore, I had changed irreversibly. I remember wishing I had been born before Independence, and wished for a sense of purpose and a girl to run behind like the main guy in the book.

Back to the present, I'm floating in nostalgia when Manju stops at the bridge and calls me to come over, he has something important to tell me. I rush up, and he says that the bike just refused to start a while ago. He's panicky and shaken up. I told him that I've been in that position and that it happens sometimes - what can you do? Worst case park the bike on the side and hitch a ride back, we'll figure something out. He took the help of some people to push the bike to start, and now he doesn't want to turn off the bike. What are we going to do - keep the engine on all night? I switch the bike off, and this time it starts. These big bikes are very rugged compared to say, Enfields. Regular parts don't break down as a matter of routine. But if something does break down, it's damn near impossible to do anything about it. There is so much computing and automation inside that it requires to be plugged to a computer to even detect the problems at the service center.

The mosquitoes in the evergreen forest are big and plentiful, and we have smoked our room with Mortein so I sit out until the smoke clears. After sunset the mosquitoes mellow down, and it's a pleasant night's sleep. The next morning we go back to the stream for a dip. Manju piles some stones on the other bank and we take aim for an hour. It was reaffirming to know that we don't need much to invent nice games on the fly.

It's a delight to float and look up at the canopy above. The water was clear and cool, and there was a piece of wood to perch on and jump off.

We don't hit our Stone Pyramid even once. Still, it's a great morning, one that reminds me of Chikmagalur and Hornadu from 20 years back, when clear water was plentiful and everywhere. We pack up and speak to a Forest Officer over breakfast. Tea for him is served in a ceramic cup, as opposed to steel for us. He enquires about real estate in Mysore with Manju and takes his number. We overhear him exacting a 100 ruppee per person cut from daily wages paid to the labourers hired by the Forest Department.

As we climb down from the Ghats, we spot the labourers who helped Manju yesterday when the bike wouldn't start. He explains things briefly, and we show thumbs up and set off. The road gets crowded once we hit the coast, and we see hordes of Enfields on the opposite side of the road, exchanging a variety of hand signals that are considered cool. There is nothing spectacular about this stretch. The bikes are going for an annual Royal Enfield congregation in Goa. I never understood these mass congregations of people in a place just because they bought the same tool. I understand it at an age when there were few riders, and people maintained their own machines for the most part.

I never understood riding clubs that had dozens of bikes going together somewhere. The whole point of riding is to experience some freedom, and what's the point of following a line then? All forms of private transport are ultimately evil, and real freedom is with a small bag, off the road and on foot.

At Cocopelli Surf school we get a decent room for 1500. The shore has a gentle slope, and the waves are perfect for bodysurfing. Wendrick taught me bodysurfing at Kovalam in 2002, and it's made some beaches so much fun. After an hour on the waves a jellyfish bounces off my legs and it's stinging. I head back to the room and the advice is to pee on it. I had just peed in the sea, so I'm wondering if I should ask for pee from one of them. The thought magically musters more pee in my bladder, and I have enough. The jellyfish here are not that bad, and I rest at ease.

We head out to town for dinner, and the center of town feels like Mylapore. There is a Deepotsav, and the Brahmins are out decorating the streets with colourful kolams. Coming from the Agrahara in Mysore, Manju is thrilled at the display of culture. The white people are suitably impressed. Blending in like Waldo is a tribal woman, whose glides thru so light on her feet that I'm fixated on her walk, and she goes undetected - nobody looks up or moves to avoid or let her pass. I'm surrounded by Brahmin uncles at the restaurant, and it feels like Mylapore.

Back at the Cocopelli Surf School, the main guy Sandeep has hired the services of a couple from Bangalore to paint the wall to his home's entrance. The theme he gave them was Waves, and the artists painted for three days. Sandeep tells me that he has a girlfriend who has given birth to their daughter 6 weeks ago in Europe. He tells me how he has a past with so many women, and now he has a daughter and things have changed. Later he sends the picture to his girlfriend, and she is pissed off.

I particularly like the artist's interpretation of the lady's face. The artist is happy with the work, and is shocked when told of The Wife's objections. As I feel a need to contribute, I tell Sandeep that maybe it's the post-partum hormonal rushes. Later with the artists he would repeat this advice, and I feel slightly guilty of being taken too seriously. People advise him to hold his ground with his wife, but ultimately he decides that the painting must go before she arrives. "I don't know why she doesn't trust me bro... after the daughter also..."

I find the use of 'bro' to be really odd and funny. I catch myself slipping into Bro mode, and I tell myself that I'm not that guy who uses 'ji' and 'bro'. Sandeep tells me that I should stay back one more day because a couple of English girls are coming to stay over, and we could party. I laugh.

The next morning I go for a long walk on the beach, and one end of the beach has road-access, so buses of Indians land there early in the morning, post their temple visits.

I see some human feces on the beach as I walk back. I walk into one of the beachside restaurants to feed, and some things don't change, like the terrible overpriced food by the beachside. Soon after I get back to the room, it all comes out, and I'm cleansed, feeling light and ready to go.

I ask Manju if he would like to join us on the beach, and he says 'of course!' Even though he cannot surf until his knee gets better, he is full of enthusiasm to watch me learn to surf. I am totally floored by his enthusiasm. After two hours sitting on the beach with no hat or shades, he has a headache, which didn't prevent him from coming the following morning again.

By 9 we are out on the beach, for surf lessons. Sandeep draws a board on the sand and we practice getting up into surfing stance, as I'm advised on the position of limbs, body and so on. The water is warm, and I'm learning to paddle and it's hard. Sandeep pushes me into a few waves and shouts 'Get up!' whenever he feels appropriate. After a few tries I stand up momentarily, and it continues like that for an hour before I am able to ride a wave for ten seconds, and it's pure elation.

Sandeep is very precise and sharp with his observations and feedback. I really like good teachers, it's a delight to learn from them. There is someone on the shore filming me for the surf school's website, so my baby steps on the surf are captured for posterity.

I go shirtless and the paddling on the board has left my front side bruised. The nipples are tender, the shoulders are tired from the paddling, but I'm happy that no jellyfish found me today. It's the paddling which got to me finally - I couldn't do it anymore, so we call it a day.

We split for lunch as I want to eat Fish Meals and the place has no vegetarian options for Manju. As I plough thru the mountain of rice with many varieties of rava-fried fish, I see an old woman seeking alms. A group of foreigners give her some money and take a picture of her in exchange.

That evening we find our way to a cliff. There is one solitary guy there, and I bet he was looking forward to some alone time on that beautiful cliff when we landed up and unintentionally drove him out. Sunset was beautiful, and Manju said it's perhaps the best he's witnessed so far. There is some Hanuman music blaring from the speakers of a temple which plays the same line on loop for hours. We adjust our position to the far side of the cliff where the sound waves can't reach so well.

Later that night I tell Sandeep that I'm considering staying back for one more day. He sits me down and tells me how it's really good if I stayed back. Normally he takes 3 lessons (for 2000 each) before one can be on their own. He would try to fit all the lessons into Day 2 for me.

In the NBA players often give themselves, or are given, nicknames. Kobe Bryant called himself Black Mamba, Lebron is The King, Paul Pierce was The Truth (one of my least favourites), Kevin Garnett 'The Big Ticket', and so on. Like that, on that evening I felt like I was conferred mine, by Sandeep. He called me a Natural.

Clearly now The Natural cannot decline surf lesson number Two on the next day. This time Manju jumps into the water and his head doesn't ache. I start off feeling like I took a step back on the surf, but slowly I get better, and I'm able to catch waves on my own. Manju is there in the water shouting and cheering as I stand up on the board. He is the best cheerleader, even a cow will stand up on the board if cheered that way. My paddling improved, and it became smooth from then on.

Three hours later I've been thru a few tumbles on the sandy floor and I'm exhausted, bruised and happy. From here on I need a board to practice and learn on my own.

Some nights at Gokarna come with low voltage, and here I thank Madras for my ability to sleep thru fanless nights. Manju, spoilt by Mysore weather, takes the pillow out of the room and sleeps on the floor outside.

The next day we leave at 6:15, and ride along the wide coastal road which would soon get overcrowded. By the time shops opened for breakfast, we were climbing up towards Agumbe.

The last day's ride is usually easier than the rest, because there is a clear and tempting end goal, and one doesn't need to save up any energy. We pass by one view point that Manju mentions casually and asks if I'd like to go, it's only 7 km. I tell him that I've had enough views, and turn down the idea, and I feel bad at dousing his enthusiasm. Later we see a board for Sirimane falls, and it's close to Sringeri. We agree to go here, and I'm mentally preparing to jump into the water to cool off. Since it's so close to Sringeri, there are many fellow tourists. Don't they have any work on a Monday morning? We quickly turn around and head back. Manju is a little disappointed, I tell him that it's the small price to pay to discover nice places, and that we should come back here during the rains when no one wants to be here.

Soon we reach Belur, and we are really tired and our legs stiff. Sitting at the back is not easy over long distances, so we take turns shifting more than usual. Sitting at the back also leaves the mind to dry out there, so all kinds of thoughts come in. There is no real sensory distraction to escape to, and mentally it's a challenging experience - one that I didn't realise while riding solo earlier. A clear and happy mind is needed to enjoy the pillion's seat.

After lots of stops and stretching, we reach Mysore by sunset. We are both happy about the trip, and it's really nice to feel the sense of exploration and learning. Manju is a good travel partner, and I'm lucky to have found him and his high energy enthusiasm.