Yeah, I sleep here. Like a king.

"Yeah I sleep here. Like a king! When sometimes they would let me. Not a bad place yeah?

But sometimes some people don't like me here. They probably find it very audacious on my part. It's not my place afterall. So I leave and sleep on the road instead. It's summer. So road is a better place to sleep anyway. It's cool, it's wide. You can roll around any which way you want and people don't mind as long as you don't come in their way. It's a bit hard and somewhat risky, but you sleep better on a hard surface they say. And what's life without risks.

The winters are different story though. Those are the times when I really wish they would let me sleep on this couch. Cold is biting here in winters, and this couch can be warm sometimes. Sleeping on road or a pavement is very uncomfortable. I sometimes go sleepless whole night. But then sleeping in the cozy sun the next morning is the silver lining I keep looking forward to, during those nights.

They wake me up and shoo me away all the time if I sleep in the day though. But I have learnt to live with that. It must be causing them some kind of trouble, otherwise they wouldn't do that. People are nice here.

Also rolling in the sun, when no one's watching, and then going to sleep again in the warmth is such a nice a feeling.

I don't mean it bitterly, but I am not used to warmth and that makes those wintery mornings very special for me. The warmth reminds me of my mom. She used to look after me so caringly. She would sleep on the road herself and would let us (me and my brother) sleep in her fold. And then she would lick us till we slept. It was such a warm place. And we would sleep without a care in the world.

I don't know where she is these days. Some people took her away when I was couple months old. She was very restless when they caught her. My brother said they took her away because she was ill. I don't know. They took him away too. He was not ill.

Anyway, time to sleep now. Just give me a shout if you don't like me sleeping here, I will find some place by the roadside, no problem."

Paypal Will Die Soon

TL;DR

This is a story of how Paypal abused my trust and opportunistically siphoned off INR 1200 from my credit card for a service (currency conversion) that I didn't ask for and on a transaction that was swiftly reversed by the merchant who understood my concern quicker than Paypal. Even after the refund, Paypal shamelessly kept the cut on the original transaction, and refunded the rest. 

Worse - their support didn't see anything unethical in keeping their cut in the transaction, even when a customer says he is getting charged for unwanted services, and goes to the extent of getting the merchant to refund the transaction altogether. They outright refused to acknowledge that there is any problem in this practice, and kept throwing the user-agreement at me. 

Premise

About a month back, I had activated a trial subscription with an overseas service. The nominal/test charge on the credit card was around 1 USD. While the service doesn't matter, the charge currency does. It was charged in USDs. When I tried a direct charge on my credit card, my issueing bank's fraud blocker kicked in and declined an overseas transaction in USD. I didn't have much time to follow up, so I thought of using alternate payment gateway that was available - which turned out to be Paypal. 

Initially, on login, Paypal showed me conversion charges for converting from USD to INR. I have a much better setup with my issueing bank that offers me pretty good exchange rate on most of the currencies - USD included. I didn't need Paypal's conversion rate. So I checked carefully, and was able to ensure my credit card gets charged in USD. Thereby avoiding Paypal's conversion fee. I didn't care to find how much it was, since I wasn't going to need it. 

Since the payment went through, I decided to save my credit card with Paypal (I may have already saved it before payment back then). Afterall Paypal was a well-known entity in the finance world; and I didn't feel much of a problem in trusting it with my credit-card and letting it charge it. Big mistake! 

What Happened

Once the trial period came to close, I decided to continue the service for an year - year because I was getting a good discount on the annual plan, and I felt I would use it for an year. The charge would be around $300 and I let it flow through Paypal, expecting Paypal to do the right thing - charge my credit card in USD. 

It indeed did the "right" thing - right for itself. Paypal charged it in INR, and added a ridiculous 5% markup as conversion fee! A fucking 5% markup as conversion fee - on a credit card, which is capable of handling a cross currency charge at a 10th of that! If it had charged a bank account and then added a conversion charge, I would have understood. But it charged a credit card. There are quite a few things to note here - 

- Credit cards are always enabled/used for international transactions.
- In most cases, they are setup with a much better exchange rate than a 5% markup. 
- No attempt was made to charge the CC in USD. If that attempt had failed, charge in INR would have made sense as a fallback. 
- An earlier charge of USD 1 - had succeeded on the same card, when it was charged in USD. 
- I wasn't even asked if I want to get charged in INR; it just did the "right" thing that would earn it the highest cut at the expense of the customer. 

The Support Saga

I immediately wrote to their support about this, clearly stating all the points mentioned above, and asking them to do the right thing. I got their user-agreement thrown at me - particularly the conversion fee section. The support also mentioned if I want to cancel the transaction, I should ask the merchant for refund. 

I was pissed off, but I wrote to the merchant support right away explaining the whole situation, and asking for a refund, so that I can try an alternate payment gateway that charges my credit card directly in USD. The merchant, to their credit, initiated a refund in a day, no questions asked! 

Now comes the rudest of shocks! Paypal refunded the amount, but in USD, thereby shamelessly keeping the initial cut it received under the excuse of "conversion fee". It cleanly siphoned off INR 1200 from my credit card for a service that I didn't ask for, on a transaction that was refunded/reverted by the merchant in full within a day! 

In utter disbelief, I wrote to their customer-support again, asking if ethics and customers find any place in Paypal's core values as a business. And to my utter dismay, I kept getting the same user-agreement thrown at me. In short, no matter right or wrong, ethical or unethical, they were not going to part with the pretty penny they made by abusing the trust I placed in them by giving them authority to charge my credit card, and thereby making a fool out of me. 

Closing Words

This whole thing reminds me of my last ebay experience where a seller sold me a defective laptop charger on ebay, and ebay turned a blind eye, making a mockery of the ebay-guarantee that made me put my trust in their services. Here's the blog-post regarding that experience in detail - A Fraud Called Ebay Guarantee. I never dealt with ebay ever again after that. As of now, in a booming e-commerce market like India, ebay is nowhere to be seen. That's what happens when you are penny-wise pound-foolish and place your priorities at odds with customers. 

Having been used to Amazon level of customer-care, I can't believe there can be businesses that have such absolute apathy towards customers and run on opportunistic business practices. I don't see how they can survive innovative disruptions when they can't even command customer satisfaction, forget loyalty. 

I have removed all my cards from Paypal. There is no question of using Paypal anymore for any transaction even if there is no alternative. I definitely don't see any place for such businesses in a competitive environment of financial services. I hope the likes of Stripe and Adyen are much better and customer-centered in this regard. 

Corona Testing in India: Possible Way Ahead

Many a times when problems overwhelm us, we tend to lose sight of simple solutions that can help reduce the problem's impact to a large degree, if not solve the problem itself. 

For some time now the world has been confidently asserting that the low number of Corona cases in India have been because of under-testing. Rather than getting into the debate about such assertions, it is a fact that India has been conservatively testing - possibly to avoid wasting valuable test-kits on unlikely cases. Everyone is aware about the danger Corona poses to a densely populated country like ours. If it gets into social transmission stage, it will be a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on our health-care system (like it has proven to be in the Europe and the US). For a delicately poised health-care system like ours, it will turn out to be a monumental crisis. Long story short, since test kits can be in short supply, wide-scale testing in an over-populous country like ours, is hardly practical, and the powers that be would try to conserve this 'fire-power' till the right time. 

THE GAME CHANGER

India has been importing test-kits from Germany [1], and the test costs almost 4-5k per head, which is pretty high, if considered at the scale of Indian population. One Indian lab came up with a homogeneous test-kit [2] that can not only test faster and more accurately, but is also more cost effective. Cost of testing still remains in the range of 1k-1.5k per head though - again not exactly cheap, when considered at the scale of Indian population.

While all this has been happening, today I came across a smart way of addressing this very problem of increasing test coverage without burdening the available resources, namely: test-kits and time taken for testing. And this method is a perfect example of how simple solutions hide under plain sight when we are overwhelmed with the monstrosity of a problem. Here's the tweet a friend shared with me, and light bulbs went off! - 

It refers to a research paper published by researchers at Goethe University, Frankfurt about a method to increase Covid-19 test coverage across the world. The english translation of corresponding news is available here - [3]

At a higher level, the method suggests pooling of test samples from a large group of people, and then using binary search to drill down to the positive cases. 

In layman's terms, if let's say the test was conducted using blood samples of people, then we mix blood samples of say 100 people and conduct the test once for that "mixed" sample. If the test is negative: voila! all 100 people are corona-negative and no further testing is needed. 

If, on the other hand, the test is positive, then it indicates that there are one or more corona-positive samples in that "mixed" sample. So, as a next step, we bifurcate the samples into groups of 50 each, and then conduct a test on each of those 2 groups. Apply the same method again: if negative, all the samples in the groups are corona-negative; and if positive, bifurcate the group further into groups of 25 each, and then wash, rinse and repeat till you drill down to the corona positive sample(s). 

HOW EXACTLY DOES IT WORK

The bifurcation part is where this method derives its power from. It's a standard binary search algorithm. Well, a little less than standard maybe - because in this case the effectiveness of the algorithm depends on probabilistic distribution of corona-positive cases across a demography, rather than the textbook pre-condition of having a "sorted-set" to give it the edge. 

In simpler terms, the effectiveness of this method in a city like New York will be far less, since the prevalence of corona-positive cases there is very high (projected to be 50% of population in a few days). But in India, which fortunately seems to be at a much earlier stage, and hence the prevalence of the cases are low, due to group elimination, this method will be quite effective. 

So far, we have been concentrating on testing only highly probable cases - like people with travel-history or people with corona-positive contacts. If we adopt this method, we can bring additional categories of people, like probables, less-probables, precautionary-test-needed, flu-patients etc, under the ambit of tests. Increasing the scope of tests in such way, will not only help us strike down the "under-testing" assertions, but will help us detect and contain/quarantine corona cases at a much higher rate, without increasing costs or time required to test in proportion. 

BINARY SEARCH TO REDUCE NUMBER OF TESTS

By definition, and let's say in ideal conditions, binary search will roughly take about 2logN + 1 (base 2) tests to find out a corona-positive sample in a group of N samples. For example, if let's say there is 1 corona positive in a group of 100 people, here's how the testing process will work out - 

test-1: 100 samples => positive
test-2 and test-3: 50 samples each => 1 group positive
test-4 and test-5: 25 samples each => 1 group positive
test-6 and test-7: 12/13 samples each => 1 group positive
test-8 and test-9: 6 samples each => 1 group positive
test-10 and test-11: 3 samples each => 1 group positive
test-12 and test-13: 1/2 samples each => 1 group positive
test-14 and test-15: 1 sample each => 1 positive

So instead of needing 100 tests for 100 people, we needed only 15 test kits to come to the same conclusion/result. 

Also, a major boost will come in the form of all-negative tests, i.e. if the first "mixed" test of 100 samples itself turns out to be negative - it will mean all 100 people are corona-negative and no further tests are needed. This can be used to pool all less-likelies and less-probables together into 1 test - to verify the assumption that they are indeed corona-negative. 

Now the obvious question will be - what if all 100 are to be corona-positive? In that case, we will end up using more test-kits than 100, specifically: N + 2LogN + 1 = about 115. In other words, the effectiveness of such binary search will be directly proportional to the prevalence of corona in the demography under test. Higher the prevalence (think New York), lower the effectiveness. Lower the prevalence (think tier-2 cities in India), higher the effectiveness. Here, prevalence is expected rate/spread of infection, not measured one. 

CLINICAL VIABILITY: POOLING

Now, in the age of sensationalism, it's but natural to be cynical about such claims, and counter question if all this "mixing" of samples is even clinically viable or practical. That is, can we even "mix" two samples, and reliably test the "mixture" for corona-positivity. 

Turns out the clinical term for such group testing is - "pooling". Pooling of samples is not a novel technique per se. I came across a research paper that asserts that such pooling has been in use since the times of world-war-2. 

So now the question remains if such pooling of samples is possible in case of Corona virus testing. Turns out not only the Goeth University, Frankfurt, but even a university from Israel, with the help from a private lab, has managed to successfully test [5] pooling of samples for Corona testing. The false-negative rate mentioned in the paper [4] is about 10% when testing for 1-in-32 samples, and I assume it can be brought down further for 1-in-16 tests. 

One small technical point to note here is - this method makes things scale even faster, since it potentially allows detecting 1-in-16 i.e. one positive case out of 16 samples. So the 'N' that we were considering above, will actually itself become log-to-the-base-16 of the actual size of the group, increasing the testing capacity at an even higher (exponentially higher) rate. In simpler terms, every one of those 16 samples, can themselves be a mixture of 16 samples, since the final test can detect 1-in-16 of the "mixed" sample which may have showed up positive in an earlier test run. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

All this information has been compiled from resources available on the internet, solely for making it easier to understand how this technique could be highly useful in Indian context, and why India should aggressively pursue and explore this further. 

I am no medical/clinical expert here, and this is not a declaration that this will bring us out of the clutches of this Corona pandemic. Nevertheless, this is a ray of hope for a densely populated country like ours, and I will love to hear what our medical professionals have to say about this. I am sure there will be some practical/logistical issues/obstacles in adopting this, but I, for one, would like to  believe that the benefits to efforts ratio, for efforts required in overcoming those obstacles, will be high enough, given the whole economy is being held hostage due to the spread of this pandemic. 

Here's hoping for a quick recovery. 

REFERENCES

Here are some references that I collected from the twitter thread, and elsewhere on the internet. 

[1] Chennai Firm Close to Developing First India-Made Coronavirus Test Kits, But 'Govt Nod May Take 2-3 Weeks'
[2] Meet the woman behind India's first covid testing kit

[3] Pool testing of SARS-CoV-02 samples increases worldwide test capacities many times over
[4] Paper: Evaluation of COVID-19 RT-qPCR test in multi-sample pools
[5] Pooling Method for Accelerated Testing of COVID-19

A Matte Black Dominar 2019 Comes Home

I had been contributing to various automobile forums in India, somewhat infrequently over the last few years. Recently, had a very bitter experience with team-bhp and one of its very arrogant admin, who goes by the handle gto. With posts getting deleted selectively, changing the narrative, and after receiving arrogant communication like "do not question the admin", I started wondering why the heck should I tolerate this nonsense, especially when I am generating content for their forum for free - by writing posts there. Gave it back in appropriate words, and decided not to contribute there anymore. 

Found xBHP to be much better, and lenient community in comparison. I still post there. But by and large, decided to try using my own blog going forward, as much as possible, to note down my long term ownership experience of the Dominar. So here goes.  

THE AVENGER 

Since returning from Spiti, last September, I had this overwhelming feeling that I had grown out of the Avenger. With all the mods I had done on the bike (the handle positioning, comfortable seat, hadlebar rod to hold mobile, charger for the mobile etc), the bike was supremely comfortable for both rider and pillion, and the bike effortlessly carried all the luggage we threw at it on long rides. 

In the ghat sections, the bike's power was more than adequate, and despite having a very long front fork, cornering on the bike, with all the luggage in place, wasn't exactly scary. It behaved very well around those corners. New tires were helping as well.  

Yet, when driving it on the plains, after getting down the loooong ghat from Manali, into Chandigarh, the 220cc, ~20bhp engine started feeling inadequate. The bike would do 80-90 without much trouble, but anything beyond that would strain the engine, resulting into vibes all over the handlebar. Irritating. 

Besides, having used to cruising at 130+kmph in the car, 80-90kmph started feeling very boring and mundane. 

NEW BIKE

So, since coming back, I started saving for a new bike - which one? That was yet to be decided. The KTM 390 Adventure that was rumoured to be released during 2018 EICMA, never did. And then what started with a Dominar as an alternative, quickly degenerated into a salivating pursuit of a "sports tourer" - from RR 310 to the world of parallel twins - Ninja 300, Ninja 400, R3 and even Ninja 650. I had even finalized R3 after taking a test-ride and figuring out the economical running maintenance costs of the bike. I knew at the back of my mind all the time that the aggressive posture these bikes demand (ofcourse vis-a-vis an avenger), would make them more of a "sports" bike and less of a "tourer". Yet, childhood memories of doing oohs and aahs oggling at a fully faired sports-bike, kept pushing me towards it. 

Thankfully, around the same time, the 2019 Dominar started making an appearance in prototype reviews. And my biggest concern - that of vibes in the 'touring' RPM range of 4000-6000 - owing to an SOHC engine setup - was taken care of by introducing a DOHC engine. There was still this fly in the ointment that the compression ratio was increased to 12+ - on the lines of the Duke - meaning possible addition to vibes and excessive heat generation. I would have preferred it being decreased, and addition of more torque low down instead. But that wasn't to be. 

Anyway, the reviews that were coming in were very encouraging. I let the better sense prevail, and dropped the idea of booking an R3, that would cost almost 4.3L on road in Bangalore, and instead decided to book an equally powerful, though single cylinder, Dominar 2019. I went to Khivraj Bajaj on Kasturba road in Bangalore, and put down a booking deposit couple days after pre-orders officially opened. The prices were declared almost a month later, in April. 

The folks at Khivraj Bajaj were quite professional in their handling of a customer. While they didn't allow me to take insurance from outside, they allowed me to choose a bike out of 4-5 bikes after a detailed inspection, and gave me delivery on the day I wanted - 7th May 2019 - on the occasion of AkshayTrutiya - अक्षय्य तृतीया - one of the very auspicious days (muhurta) as per Hindu calendar. 

Just out of delivery bay. 7-May-2019

The Dominar 2019 - Finally comes home, after a long 6 months of wait.

Musings about Hindutva and Secularism

It's been an amusing watching political reactions post the election results of 2019. On one side there is this repulsive Amar Singh, who changes colours faster than a chameleon, talking about how he kicked Manishankar Aiyyar's butt back in his hay days, and on the other side there are likes of Shashi Tharoor musing about the results in as honest terms as the suave diplomat in him allows himself to.

THE SHASHI THAROOR INTERVIEW

Just sometime back I watched Karan Thapar interviewing Shashi Tharoor about Congress' debacle in the 2019 election. 



I like Karan Thapar for the pointed questions and his ability to shoot point blank. It's a treat when you have an erudite like Tharoor responding from the other end. It makes for a very entertaining and a very thought-provoking discussion.

While for a long time I myself have been wishing to see a Congress lead by Shashi Tharoor as a capable and much needed opposition to Modi, as Karan Thapar kept suggesting all through the interview, I am as 'optimistic' about it happening, as either of them are. 

That aside, what troubled me towards the end of the interview was the standard hate-mongering about RSS and Hindutva. I have been hearing this for a long time, from this pariah-making industry, and this time I decided to note down my thoughts around this. 

HINDUTVA AND SECULARISM

In the interview, they sound so worried about how Hindutva is dangerous, how it will "destroy" this multi-cultural country, how it's against the Nehruvian ideas (while simultaneously being 'intolerant' to an alternative school of thought that Savarkar presented - and why). But at the same time they are either completely unaware of, or are unwilling to acknowledge, why so many people in the country, who, by the way, believe in live-and-let-live or 'वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्', and who would have voted BJP to power, do not associate Hindutva with the negative connotations that these people are so hellbent on projecting. 

The fact that Hindutva rose as a response to counter the hardline presented by political cults of Islam and Christianism, seems to be nowhere in their conscious. Neither does it seem to register with them that Congress' idea of 'secularism' - appeasing religious vote-banks - has been laid bare time and again, may that be way back in late 80's in the Shah Bano case or as recently as in defending triple talaq. They never seem to acknowledge that it's the RSS that's been pushing for common civil code for so many years, and it's the congress and the muslims who are opposing it, and having it their way for so long. The Indian populace may not be as big an 'intellectual' as they are, but they are smarter than what likes of Karan Thapar seem to assume. They catch these double standards and that's what they have rejected. 

That's also why people seem to resonate with Modi when he says 'the veil of secularism has been lifted from those who were hiding behind it'. Secularism, lately, has become the idea that pretentiously denounces everything that can cause even slight inconvenience to religious 'minorities' (Common Civil Code, Triple Talaq et al), and upholds everything that undermines Hinduism (Shabarimala, Hindu Terrorism et al). And while one can endlessly debate for or against it, people have acknowledged this disparity and double standards, and have expressed it through their votes. 

There are scores of intellectuals and journalists who wouldn't say a word about the train that was audaciously set on fire, burning scores of people, including women and kids, to death, but would endlessly go on denouncing the anger that boiled over into the unrest that followed. Remind me why there are hardly any 'intellectuals' or journalists who are critical of muslims when they commit a religious crime. For all the wrongs that you associate with Hindutva, it doesn't kill you for being critical of Hinduism 24x7, despite being a Hindu yourself. Try doing that with Islam, and in no time you will have to go hiding like a Salman Rushdie or a Taslima Nasreen. 

The moment you have muslims (and these so called 'seculars' or 'liberals') denouncing the wrongs that (other) muslims do, as vociferously as Hindus do when some overzealous Hindus commit a religious crime, the Hindutva that these people fear of so much, will dissolve in thin air. 

PARTING THOUGHTS

In this context, what's really dangerous is that these so called intellectuals, who look upon themselves so highly and who consider themselves as the torch-bearers of the secular cosmopolitan thought, either aren't cognisant of this, or are just plain unwilling to acknowledge it. 

So far as they keep up beating around the bush like this, Hindutva will keep gaining momentum, and people like me, despite being secular and liberal in our thoughts, will not find any fault with it. After all, if true secularism is never to see the light of the day, and if it has to be a political cult that rules India, I would much rather prefer it to be the one that I belong to, and one that I have confidence about in having scope for inclusiveness for any other religion. I definitely don't want to live in a Bangladesh or a Pakistan of yore, thank you very much. 

The Kasmir Conundrum

The recent situation in Kashmir had me intrigued and I wanted to find out if there is any base, other than the age old separatist rhetoric, behind the boil. Incidentally, I came across this purportedly facebook post by a young Kashmiri lady - Shazia Bakshi touting reasons about how she went on from being an Indian to being a Kashmiri - vis-a-vis her 'identity'. 

It had me concerned, not because her arguments held much water, they didn't as a matter of fact, and I will come to it, but more because that outlined how gullible even the educated Kashmiri youth is to anti-India calls and related brainwash. You would expect their education to have a say in determining right from wrong during their inner-voice debates, and lead them to choose a path to co-existence, peace and prosperity; over religious, regional and perceived-superior (and hence mistaken) identity. 

Since the writeup came from a girl who claimed to be an Indian before she became a Kashmiri, I decided that one writeup was from horse's mouth, and was enough to gauge the situation and the mindset there in Kashmir. 

One thing was crystal clear to me - the veil of her 'Indianness' was pretty thin. the vitriol was in your face. It was obvious she got brainwashed at the slightest of a bait. In fact, that write-up was probably not aimed at Indians, but at Kashmiris, who were/are sitting on the fence, recruiting them towards the Burhan-Wani-cause. After all, what better person to recruit sane minded people towards a path to destruction, than someone who claims to be 'one of them'. 

Initially I wanted to rip through each and every argument she had in her writeup; but then I realised many of the arguments were not worth the response anyway. They were not arguments, they more felt like her attempt at convincing herself. What needed response was the way she sympathized with Burhan Wani, claiming the guy had not even fired a bullet. It was a ludicrous premise, if not ridiculous. Should India/army have waited till he fired a few rounds and killed people in buckets? Nevertheless, I found it intriguing enough to check out more about Burhan Wani. 

The first image I found, was that of him wearing a kalashnikov and (Pakistani?) army fatigues. Then there was a neutral sounding article about Burhan Wani in Huffington Post (india), detailing his life. An interesting anecdote about why Burhan Wani became a Hizbul Mujahideen commander - mind you, commander of an organization that's declared a terrorist outfit by India, the EU and the USA - was the incident where an army patrol bullied him and his brother, friends in his late teens. And that was enough of a reason for him to join a state-fighting terrorist outfit. His father puts in a very convincing defence as to why his son joined a terrorist camp: his 'ghairat' (self-respect) made him retaliate. And I think this is thread most of the Kashmir-cause-champions hang on dearly to, most of the time - that 'you did it first and we are retaliating'. Playing victim is an excellent alibi to veil over your real intentions and deeds. Here is a wikipedia article that very succinctly explains the psychology behind abusers routinely engaging in self-victimization -

It is common for abusers to engage in victim playing. This serves two purposes:
1. justification to themselves – as a way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance that results from inconsistencies between the way they treat others and what they believe about themselves.
2. justification to others – as a way of escaping harsh judgment or condemnation they may fear from others.

Spot on, wiki! That explains most of these alibis, doesn't it? I sometimes wonder if the Kasmiri Pundits, who were driven out of their homes, if not killed, for staying in their motherland of Kashmir, had started retaliating violently, leaning on their 'ghairat' (self-respect), would these same Kashmir-cause-champions or Burhan-Wani sympathizers give credence to that 'ghairat'? 

Destruction, killing people or inciting mobs to go against a state/republic is not how you avenge/revenge or satisfy your 'ghairat'. At least not in this post barbarian era. There are better, diplomatic, social and evolved ways to address your concerns in this day and age. 

After all, we don't see people in rest of the India turning against the state and becoming terrorists because of overtures by army and police (unless they are resuscitated by the communist, who get funded, we know from where). There are so many examples of police overtures being fought in courts all over india. i am sure someone will quickly point out that kashmir situation is 'different'. Well, maybe it is. Any thoughts about who/what made it different? The pattern of arguments that follow this question are the same old Ruy Lopez with Sicilian Defense boilerplate: eventually ending at "we want to join Pakistan". Good, now you are talking. What follows is my, a proud Indian's, message to all those thinly-veiled 'Indian' Kashmiris (and their sympathizers) who advocate Kashmir joining Pakistan. A tough stance that I wish India takes, instead of soft-gloving Kashmir.

"""
Now that we have cut all the crap and arrived at the root cause, let's get one thing out of the way before we discuss any further: it's not happening - you are not taking Kashmir to Pakistan, no matter how hard you try. Get over it. It's been 50 years since Kashmir was merged with the then new born India, and while the details can be argued for and against till the end of the time, the Kashmir deed is done and dusted in the last century. India has spent way too much time and resources since then in building its defences and guarding Kashmir as its own territory. No one and nothing, not even a nuclear holocaust - in which India has higher chances of surviving than Pakistan, can change that fact now. 

One step further, it's definitely not happening on the basis of religion. India has never adhered-to/believed-in the two-nations theory - reason why the Hindu-rashtra theory is fought with tooth and nail. If Kashmir was to let off to Pakistan just because it's majority Muslim as of now, then the left and center won't have any face to fight against the right when it comes to the Hindu-rashtra theory. So forget the right, you can't get much of support even from the left or center for your cessation demands. 

As for a plebiscite, India will never accept one since Pakistan has worked overtime to increase its own settlements in the PoK to bias any future plebiscites; while India still gives you a special status through Article-370. You should hang on to it, rather than stretching it so much that the rest of India looses its patience and starts demanding the article be dropped for good. It's the taxes we Indians pay, that has sustained Kashmir and your life style over the last 50-60 years. Reference: here is the latest [2016-17 budget for J&K at a glance](http://jakfinance.nic.in/Budget16/budGlance.pdf) that shows 48% of your budgeted 'income' is out of the grants that the central government bestows upon you. Don't you forget that. 

Better be sane, stop brainwashing your kids, and learn to co-exist with Kashmiri Pundits and the rest of India. That's the path towards peace, prosperity and a better quality of life. 
"""

ती गेली तेव्हा रिमझिम

Today, I learnt, is birth anniversary of कवी ग्रेस (Poet Grace - A Marathi Poet). Someone sent an old poem as a message on the social network. That started a chain of events that lead to this emotions-dump.

The poem was - ती गेली तेव्हा रिमझिम. It brought a lot of emotions, feelings with it. It's one of my all time favorite songs, sung by Deenanath Mangeshkar (here on youtube). Suddenly I was on youtube re-listening to the song, umpteenth of a time.

Then came the next one - भय इथले संपत नाही. Another one from ग्रेस. This one is a gem in that there is no fixed meaning to the song. It's like Schrodinger's Cat. The meaning changes as per the background, sensibilities, emotions and feelings of the reader. Here is a thread with interesting discussion about different meaning of the poem. 

Then a couple more - मालवून टाक दीप, चेतवून अंग अंग -  this one, this time, from another grand-master of marathi poetry - सुरेश भट. Sample these lines - 

हे तुला कसे कळेल, कोण एकटे जळेल

सांग का कधी खरेच, एकटा जळे पतंग

If words ever carried power to change the world, may that be of an individual at the least, these poems are living emblems of that power. 

तरूण आहे रात्र अजूनी, राजसा निजलास का रे - another grandiose masterpiece from सुरेश भट. 

Any mind sensitive enough to gauge the meaning and the depth of intense emotions in this song, will have its eyes welling up. Sample this - 

सांग ह्या कोजागिरीच्या चांदण्याला काय सांगू,

उमलते अंगांग माझे … आणि तु मिटलास का रे?

Simple words, combined to create such a highly potent mixture. This is golden. 

A few more of these -

सुन्या सुन्या मैफिलीत माझ्या

भातुकलीच्या खेळामधली राजा आणिक राणी

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.

.

Here I am sitting high up in one of the hotels on the MIT campus, the American institution that I always had highest regard for, observing the beautiful Boston skyline, overshadowed by clouds, sipping coffee and listening to these timeless classics that bring with them the essence of the home - the sensibilities, emotions, ethos of the very Marathi culture that I grew up in.

All sorts of incoherent thoughts crowd my mind. Like how these mavericks who wrote, composed and sung these songs, formed some of the best 'startups' in the yesteryears of glory of Marathi arts. Startups - because this is how a great startup team forms - all mavericks in their own domain - the best writer, the best singer, the best composer - and what you get is the best product - a timeless classic that will last generations on end. 

Had they have a big enough market, they would have enchanted the world with their artistry. If only the world knew/understood Marathi …. If only पानिपत (Paanipat) hadn't happened …. if only Abdali didn't have शतुरनाल …. Better yet, if only we were better prepared …. 

Too late … too incoherent …. 

"…. and then there was an impedance match … resonance followed …"

               -- Unknown