Freedom to Cycle and Growing Old

 I am a little envious  of people of my age cycling. I see so many in Dusseldorf and that pales in comparison to the Netherlands.

I recall that I had decided to bike to work on Sundays. I rarely went on weekends but occasionally I wanted to write some code or expecriment with some software. 

During the  normal time, I did not get enough undisturbed time given my role. It wasn't that my managerial role was so  busy. I was idle (far too) often but not for long enough stretches. 

The roads in Mapusa were not so crowded on Sundays in the 1990's; so, bicycling felt safe enough. There were ups and downs and I did not even think of a bike with gears at the time. I presumed that they would  be imported and very expensive in those years. I just walked when riding was tough.

It must have been only my third such trip that a truck rushed passed and terrified me. I lost my courage and stopped. A risk averse person, obviously. 

I no longer have the courage to rent a bike and try in Europe where it is safe - what if I fall and break  a bone. Have to accept my age even if with regret 😐 

I will be back in India in a week and will no longer be reminded of what could have been :)

 

The Age of Sanyas, the trivial hope of fixing an issue with EPS and how to live a worthwhile life after rejecting Sanyas

 I certainly have no plans for a sanyas or leaving for the Himalayas! 

Yet a couple of days before the d-day, I could sense a heaviness in the head which lasts even a day after. Since I am indifferent to religion, it has to be the social importance of turning 75.

I have no plans to change the course my life but a fogginess in the head persists.

I wanted to have a cozy house in a quiet area - started just before Covid, which delayed it. But we are now in it for the last two years. I am finally installing solar panels - not for economic reasons and not even to save the planet as we continue to consume and pollute more. 

It is more for the selfish reason of being off-grid in case of grid collapses. If California can now experience them, Goa is of course an easy and likely victim. Hence, it again doesn't give me happiness of doing something useful.

We also were able to dispose parental property on our terms of no cash, in spite of advice that we are losing money and paying more tax. Again it was for the selfish motive of peace of mind. I have no expectation that it will make any dent in the economics of sale of properties.

My investments are passive and not requiring much effort except occasional reorganisation of funds to minimize risk. A necessity in light of the absurd pension I get for Employee Pension Scheme.

I do need to continue to fight the EPFO - not for my pension but in the hope to help others less literate facing the same issue. In shifting my pension from Chandigarh to Goa, my date of birth has been incorrectly entered. The digital life certificate is rejected as the date of birth on the Aadhaar card does not match the record of the employee pension scheme. Their solution defies reasonableness - provide a certificate from the bank each year as they inform me verbally that they can't change the date in their records. I wonder how they will deal with my death certificate! I keep hoping that my occasional pestering will result in some internal escalation and fixing my birthdate. 

I can recommend to them that if they can't change the field, create another field the database 'Legal Birth Date' and use that instead. I doubt if they will listen. Even if I succeed, I can at best feel a tiny and momentary sense of achievement even after the age of sanyas.

The satisfaction from this achievement, if at all it happens, is hardly enough to clear the mental fog.

Grandchildren are also too old to be needing or wanting our advice or input. 

I am trying to convince myself that it is not being 75 years old, but I need to find something to work on which keeps me occupied and in principle could be useful even if it is never actually used.

So, time to meditate on what next!

 

Living Wage, Inflation and Guaranteed Minimum Income

Suppose we want less traffic on the roads:

We could reduce the need for private cars if the taxi drivers were paid a guaranteed basic income so people use taxis instead.

The concept can easily  be expanded to shared taxis, mini-buses and any other type of public transport.

It is easier to sell the idea if it is not treated as a subsidy but as a saving on needless infrastructure of roads - which also frees a lot space which could be better used for various public purposes.

We also want a comfortable society.

I am not comfortable when I see people struggling to survive. I cope with it by avoidance. There is nothing I can do as an individual that will help.  Donating or giving to charity makes me feel even worse.

I would love to see a living wage implemented even in India. 

We want to see a brighter future. We need peace and a low inflation.

If the wages of the workers in supermarkets, coffee shops, Udipi's,  child care centers, house hold workers, etc. are to be living wages, then the prices will increase.

Suppose instead each of these persons gets a minimum income. How much do they need to be paid? 

Depending on the nature of the work, we may actually be able to lower the prices. I can imagine a person having to clean toilets having to be paid even more than now while a child care worker may well even volunteer for just the pleasure of being surrounded by little children - esp grandparents whose children live far away :)

I wonder what has happened to minimum income programs for the common good -

"Barack Obama, in a reflective speech in South Africa, mused that basic income would figure prominently in the years ahead, and prominent corporate folk endorsed it again, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk."

This was in 2019. I hope the support of Elon Musk still holds. At least it did in 2021 as well.

 

 

 

A year on and my brain is perpetually stressed

I have no connection with Palestine or even any Arab. The last Indian news channel I watched was NDTV till it was taken over. I have relied mostly on European news channels, DW, France 24 and, to a lesser extent, BBC, and youtube selectively for Indian news, trying to escape emotional onslaughts on my brain.

It all changed a year ago. My brain just could not reconcile the contrast between the news of from Ukraine with the news from Gaza. I had to switch channels and reached Al Jazeera. I still watch it primarily though I have to turn off the tv as I can't cope with the developments  still going on after a year. It pains me as I liked to believe that we were long past the colonial era and were far more enlightened.

Today the words of the Western leaders in particular may sound nice and comforting while the images stare in bleak contrast. My brain can't cope.

I find solace in Scandinavian crime fiction where even though the criminals may be awful, there is a sense of closure and what is the most significant part, the hero does NOT use violence - from the characters created by   Sjöwall and Wahlöö to Jørn Lier Horst ! 

I focus a lot on the videos of  Robert Sapolsky even though I have never appreciated or understood chemistry or biology and hope that these will help. 

How does one run away or escape from any thing unpleasant?

Who knows, I may even try ChatGPT or Google's version, except that I worry these may make matters even worse.

Walking around Chandigarh - still not too smart

Returning to Chandigarh after almost a year, Rose Garden is a bit of a shock. There is huge section dug up for the underpass. I assume it is meant for cars as I find it hard to comprend that this large a space could be needed for pedestrians alone. A few days later I come across this article on the same underpass calling it a waste of money.

The markets have barricades along the sidewalks. They may have been intended as a way to save pedestrian spaces but I find them a nuisance and ugly. Barricades may be useful for crowd control but hardly the tool to prevent encroachment of the sidewalks. Are we as a people so insensitive or not able to learn that we have to install such ugly and inconvenient options?

Pedestrian crossings, especially in 17 sector, are blocked by metal railings on one side or both sides. Either jump over the railing, which is becoming harder and riskier as I age, or walk along the road from an opening and cross and again walk along the road till an entry can be located.

Did anyone design or authorize this? Will that person ever accept credit for this weird solution?

At least it made me blog after a long time!

Can inexpensive services and decent earnings co-exist?

A friend posted a link to Why Uber is a scam: maths explains. I had seen it before but I now have an additional perspective. I do not keep a car in Chandigarh and use Ola/Uber reasonably frequently. I would have liked to use the same option in Goa.

I can easily believe that in the long run, given the fares, the drivers cannot be making a comfortable living. I also realize that if the fares reflect my desire that drivers make what I believe to be a comfortable wages, I would wind up owning a car.

There is a conflict and no easy way around it. As a society, it is in our collective interest that there aren't too many cars - both to save on parking spaces and prevent congestion and pollution on roads.

Long term solution is obvious and inevitable. The Ola/Uber vehicles will be driver-less.

Meanwhile, what if we had a minimum income provided to all citizens. Then a driver's earnings are over and above the minimum needs. Hence, the needs of society, the consumer and the service provider can coincide.

This model would be useful for all services from helping patients/old people who are bedridden or need assistance to inexpensive coffee/tea shops not exploiting the workers.




 

Wealth, Quality of LIfe and Paradise Lost

I was pretty sure that I would retire in Goa. I loved the place. I like the greenery and the beaches. I like the small towns and villages with the comfort of a modern life.

Now somehow Bob Dylan's Things Have Changed resonates. The road in front of my flat now hums with traffic and it is bound to get worse. Taxi services are aimed at tourists who have no other options. With such conflicts, there is little chance of Ola or Uber like services.

If one way taxis from home to point of destination were easily available at reasonable costs, I for example would be happy to use them and not own a car. Who wants to search for a parking place near a beach or in the town?

I can't imagine roads being cleared of parked vehicles anytime soon. We don't need more roads but using the roads more effectively. That too is not going to happen.

I don't see any efforts on changing the mindset of the people. We should expect polite and courteous behaviour on the roads. Discourtesy should be the exception and not the other way around. Try showing courtesy to pedestrians and observe their nervousness!

I don't see any chance of cars being stopped and parked outside the coastal villages. We should move around the beach area by walking or using small electric vehicles like golf carts.

I can expect that we will widen the roads, create new roads. We will not create a society where people do not need to move around so much or need personal vehicles.  We will not be able to manage well with what we have. Growth is the modern mantra :(

In short, Goa is no longer an obvious choice for retirement. The cold and the heat of Chandigarh no longer seems so bad. I can walk to rose garden.

Public sector pensions - Generous world wide!

I was somewhat surprised by The Unsteady State of America which I read in the Indian Express. The surprise was that the generous pension which various Indian governments had been offering their employees was not all that unique. (Realistically, it is the government employees who are taking care of themselves.) Even US public sector had been offering pension based on the number of years of service and the last drawn salary!

Governments seem to have been remarkably ignorant of the life expectancy of their people or the financial implications of the long life span.

Government of India tried to offer the same pension option for even private sector employees(mandatory). I wonder what led them to implement it with an absurd limit of Rs. 6500 per month (less than US $ 110 per month) rather than scrap it. My unhappiness with the pension scheme is because all it seems to do is increase the size of bureaucracy while hurting the interests of the "organized sector" employees and doing nothing at all for the informal sector employees.

Grim reminder of why I stopped commuting and quit teaching

The news about an accident in Kharar between a school bus and a private bus was a painful reminder of my rationale for not continuing to teach a course at IIT, Ropar. This was the route on which I drove :(

I had forgotten the number of times the private buses had terrified me. I was beginning to feel that perhaps I should not have stopped as I find myself not exploring as much of software as I used to.

I wish there were a way to nudge drivers into acceptable and socially responsible behaviour as Stockholm did in handling traffic congestion.

Dealing with Metamorphosis with cards for “tough times” or “extended illness”

I loved this cartoon, probably, created in celebration of the birth anniversary of Kafka.

I had recently reread Kafka's Metamorphosis after a gap of 40 years. It was as powerful an experience as it was 40 years ago. I did not find it quite as gloomy as my recollection of it. However, it definitely follows the Vonnegut's Kafkaesque shape of a story.

One factor which I think I had not appreciated in the early twenties was the reaction of outsiders, that is people other than the family members. It is difficult for people in general to know how to react to such a scenario. So, it is nice that the greeting card industry has found an opportunity to meet the needs of the customers as I found in this article in the Economist. The image on the article is terrific.

However, I am not really certain whether I would prefer a card to indifferent silence.

Living for ever? Boredom will kill me

After learning about the possibility of living much longer by studying the bats, I am relieved to have found an antidote. The thought of living for ever or much longer makes me shudder. I used to get bored in 3 years. This time I was bored in just a year and half of teaching.

I loved science fiction novels until I read Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. After that, every science fiction novel I tried to read was boring. Obviously, I do not regard Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as a science fiction novel.

Aside from Ishiguro, I have not found a modern author who appealed to me after reading Ian McEwan. So, there is little chance of finding happiness by having more time to read. The problem would be to find what would not bore me!

 

Misery of Aging and Education

I used to tell my wife that I am happiest when I had something to be miserable about. She never did appreciate this concept.

Recently, a couple of reasons have given me cause for misery but they have not made me happy :( So, I suppose I need to be miserable about only some type of things.

I have been trying to get some output from a person and it makes me wonder. Is it possible for the education system to have damaged a person to such an extent that he can no longer think? I have lost my patience which makes me literally miserable.

The other factor is that home visit by a doctor seems unthinkable. Getting a nurse for home care is equally difficult.

But we do not necessarily need or want a doctor but a health care worker. It amazes me that there is no effort to train people who will provide home care services. The person does not need to be able to prescribe medicines but needs to be able to adjust dosage based on observations. It is not hard. I think that we have learnt a fair amount about some medicines using internet, some advice by the doctor and based on observing the patient.

What makes me miserable is that we can see some type of jobs are bound to disappear - like truck and taxi drivers. But the society is unprepared for the new jobs which will require skills and training and the need for some of them is blatantly obvious.

No place for old people

My mother does not like to go out. Yesterday, she went out after a long time.

As we passed by the local market, she wondered why the extra rush. We told her that double parking, chaotic parking was now the norm. She had been driving till she was 75, a little over 6 years ago. She was horrified at the idea of driving like this now.

Driving conditions have been deteriorating rapidly. And I wonder what will happen to us.

I recall hurting my father years ago when I said that retirement homes are the ideal solution and we should have more of them even in India!

In the last couple of years of his life, my wife or I would drop him to the Rose Garden nearby. He would slowly walk back. In the last year, he would take a rickshaw back.

His last public efforts were to get traffic light installed at the crossing between Rose Garden and Shanti Kunj garden. It was an inner road. He got a polite response from the police that they would look into it.

He was very happy about having pursued for a toilet in Shanti Kunj and getting it done. He had also persisted in getting lights installed on the pathway behind our home leading to Shanti Kunj. However, he did not succeed in getting the traffic lights installed.

Often, it can be hard to cross that road even for us. Our drivers have no patience or courtesy. I wish we could genetically alter people for these characteristics.

Where will we be? I am inclined to trust the advice I was giving my father. Fortunately, this need has become more common and facilities for retired people to live peacefully and comfortably are becoming more common. Who knows by the time I need one, there may be a home for retired computer programmers!

Becoming a Conservative?

A couple of discussions in the last week has me worried. Am I becoming a conservative with age?

I sent a link to the planning commission's site for ideas to my sister. I was optimistic about the possibilities. She was surprised. She had expected me to be cynical about their intentions.

I was supporting the national UID project and did not think that it was a waste of money.

I am wondering if with age, I have become aware of my failings and am less likely to reject projects which I may have questioned in my younger days.

I thought that color tv was a waste of money for a poor country like India. Satellite tv with the devastating 'Bold and Beautiful' on Star Plus was going to destroy whatever was left of Indian languages. Little did I know Star Plus would become a Hindi channel and we would be exporting Saas Bahu serials to the world. Boy, was I wrong in my fears.

Abroad, sales of computers and software were driven by cost savings led by reduction in manpower. Hence, I was not very enthusiastic about computerization in Indian companies, e.g. banks. The private banks also seemed elitist. The signals seemed, 'Don't come to us unless you have lots of money'. And, yet the combination of computers and private banks has led to remarkable improvements in the quality of the banking experience of the middle class.

A third elitist step which troubled me a lot was the mobile phone. I recall the early days when talking on the cell phone was a symbol of showing off, especially at the airports. It seemed such a waste. Money should have been used to bring phones to more people. Yet, today it is the indispensable tool for me to contact my plumber or electrician. I am embarrassed by my ignorance at the time.

Karel Capek and 'hurting' my father

My words used to bother my father - at least some of them.

I recall being deeply affected by a fable by Karel Capek (I think) and wanted to 'educate' my father. The story, if I recall correctly, was that an eagle carries only that offspring to safety who says that when the parent eagle is old, the offspring will have his own family and will not be able to able to look after the parent!

I suppose it wasn't the best tale to give to my father! Fortunately, my father's view was that I made statements to shock but my actions are different.

I recollected this memory today. I am still affected by the tale and believe in its message. For me, everlasting life or reincarnation or whatever is only possible through the perpetuation of my genes and I would like see their perpetuation as being the most important task of my offsprings.

However, I am not sure if I would have liked one of my sons to ask me to read this story!