![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/19-4.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe route was surprisingly green, given that it is peak summer. There were a lot of pineapple fresh juice sellers on the way. Stopped at one to sample his wares. Most juice sellers charge you a premium price if you want to enjoy an ice-less glass. Having paid our 25% premium for that, we realized that the specs should have also included sugar less. The overdose of sugar in the juice ensured that the juice was more sugarcane than pineapple. We were forced to wash it down immediately with some coconut water \u2013 to which thankfully you cannot add sugar or ice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My trusted friend as far as hotel selection is concerned is Tripadvisor.com We had booked Hotel Sanman Comfort near Badami Bus stand. I usually short-circuit brokers by googling for the hotel contact number after reading the tripadvisor reviews. They are happier to accept bookings without advance in such a case. With a nice bar below, the girls were apprehensive of the room quality. But on checking out the rooms we found them clean and spacious. The staff was amazingly helpful. They helped in getting the car into the small parking lot in front of the hotel \u2013 no mean feat, given the traffic density. The center of the market location meant that one could go fruit shopping and enjoy the VFM restaurants around the bus stand. The linen quality, though, was not up to the mark. The pillows were also designed for boxing practice \u2013 and funnily enough they had a video camera installed in every room!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n After having landed up at 1600 hrs, we decided that we could start our tourism right away. We were informed that the famous Badami caves remain open till 1800 hrs. So we drove down the 2 km from our hotel and did a dekko of the caves. The caves are carved into the sandstone hills that surround the town. In fact the color of the sandstone \u2013 yellow badam like \u2013 gives the town its name. In fact sandstone, being soft, is a sculptor\u2019s delight. So this area was also the training ground for the sculptor guild in the Chalukya rule. What is interesting is that the caves are actually autographed by the guys who made them. Coming back to the Badami caves, there are 4 of them (and also one natural one). I would guess that there were 5 natural caves \u2013 and 4 would have been filled in by the temples. These have been done at different times \u2013 dedicated to the Gods who were in fashion at that time. From a management perspective, it is interesting to note that tally marks were used to mark attendance. Needless to say, these marks were sculpted into the stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a fort at the top \u2013 which is most famous because one of its occupants was the great Tipu Sultan. The valley of the cave hills overlooks a lake. We did a parikrama of the lake and did a dekko of the temple at one end. There was also a museum to see, but ASI in its wisdom closes the museum at 1700 hrs \u2013 and opens only after 0900 hrs. The caves and other monuments, in contrast, are open from 0600 to 1800 hrs. One thing that I usually do \u2013 but did not do this time \u2013 is to do my HW before my monumental tours. You kind of don\u2019t appreciate stuff without knowing context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We discovered the VFM Anand Hotel next door for dinner, which was also our haunt for breakfast the next morning. Managed to raid the local fruit bazaar \u2013 and get my desserts in place for dinner and breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Left next day for Pattadakal, \u2026, a temple construction training school. There are about 12 temples in the complex \u2013 in varying styles. Am still trying to come to grips with the difference between the North Indian and South Indian style of temples. The South tends to have more layers \u2013 whereas the Northern temple spire is more parabolic. In any case the purpose of temples was not to impress the Gods, but the king\u2019s subjects. Interesting point to note was how work on the temple wall statue starts off. With a line drawing \u2013 which is chipped off. A cuboid is chosen with width equal to the foot or stomach of the statue \u2013 whichever is greater. Then the chipping starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having done an early morning sojourn at Pattadakal and enjoyed the antics of the langurs next to the Malaprabha river, we moved on to Aiholi. There are hundreds of monuments in Aiholi, not all of which are under ASI. We watched the first two ourselves \u2013 and had a self appointed guide showing us the next two. He was accompanied by a gang of kids who imagined that all tourists only served one purpose \u2013 the providers of chocolate. One of the young friends even pickpocketed a packet of cashew from us \u2013 and it took quite some dexterity to get that out from him as he sprinted away with his new found treasure. He returned to the group merrily after surrendering his booty to another friend. Well, we realized that might is indeed right in Aiholi \u2013 and there is a close battle between the simians and humans in this regards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After another two monuments, we realized that we need to wind up as it was getting too hot. The hors de oeuvre of Aiholi are the Durga temple and Lad Khan temple. For those who are curious about the religious integration of Islam and Hinduism, Mr Khan was an official in the Bijapur kingdom, who converted the temple to a residence. It has since been more famous known by his name. The Durga temple was quite unique in the sense that it had a semi circular front. The Lad Saheb temple was used more as a mangal karyalaya \u2013 which is to say an assembly hall for village functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a quaint museum on the premises, which tells us that this site has been in inhabitation for a few lakh years. There have been old stone tools found on the river bed of the Mesolithic age. Having exhausted the last of the monuments, we took off for Chitradurg, our target being to reach it by evening. We had lunch enroute at Idukki, and reached our Amogha hotel by 1900 hrs. The hotel was in the old congested part of the city. We were pleasantly surprised to find car parking in the building basement. Next day morning, we also found half a dozen monkeys enjoying the basement along with the car. About a km away was the Chitradurg fort. As a result of monumental sicknesses on the kids\u2019 part, we avoided the fort. Instead did the usual fruit shopping at the local market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The morning drive to Bangalore was excellent, as we rejoined the AH 48 from Pune. From Chitradurga it is almost 6 lane all the way to Bangalore. So we covered the 200 odd km in about 4 hours, including a breakfast halt at a Kamat Hotel (Not the Vithal variety). On the highway, the selling point of these hotels is always the washroom. I wonder why no one has yet built a business model on the washroom alone in India. It used to be the same for water, always free, always the government responsibility. Now of course the story is different for water. Probably there is too much of free competition on the highway by the open spaces. Half of the population actually enjoys relieving themselves in the open. Come to think of it, it is probably more environment friendly also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bangalore Report<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google Maps was awesome in Bangalore. We reached almost all our destinations using this. The only tragedy is that it probably makes us more insular \u2013 as we don\u2019t end up making use of any non-Google assistants on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We reached Bangalore by 1100 hrs \u2013 and drove directly to Srishti School of Design and Technology in the northern suburb of Yelahanka. Yelahanka is also an air force base. New engineer trainees of the IAF are made to spend some time there. About 30 years ago there was a plane crash at the base which killed a lot of trainees. One of them was my classmate from COEP, Mate. Srushti has a distributed campus \u2013 with 5 buildings \u2013 all in a 1 km radius. The genesis of the institute is in Aditi Mallya School, one of Bangalore\u2019s oldest alternative school. Srushti is about two decades old \u2013 and the founder, Geeta Rajaraman, is still active. We visited the campus for the First year students. The ground floor parking has been converted into a workshop, where we could see student bamboo based projects. Part of the parking serves as a cafeteria. We walked up to the first floor to meet with Leena, the admissions coordinator. She spent about half an hour with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Srushti started by offering Diploma programs, like NID did in those times. They have now started offering three year B.Voc and four year B.Des programs. They used to have an affiliation with Mysore university. Now they have switched over to Bangalore University. The intake is huge \u2013 about 300 for the B.Des program \u2013 and 150 for the B.Voc program. This is not including the admissions in their new Pune campus \u2013 which still offers only the Diploma program. I asked Leena about how many students apply to these programs. About a thousand. Srushti also offers a M.Des. program. I asked Leena what is the difference between the bachelors and masters program. Did not get a satisfactory answer. One thing that Srushti is proud of is that they do not offer any placements. Most students end up becoming free lancers \u2013 or end up getting assignments based on their contacts. Some of them do go for a PG \u2013 but typically not at Srushti. The course is expensive \u2013 hostel and mess fees are about 20,000 p.m. Students have to pay extra for stationery and craft material. And the academic fee this year is about 5.5 lakh p.a. So the UG program ends up costing 30 lakh+. My worry is that with this kind of fee level there will be a kind of monoculture in the student population. All of them would have grown up in the same upper middle class background \u2013 speaking the same jargoned English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a 30 minute chat with Leena, we did a campus tour. We were escorted around by a security person. It did not take us too long \u2013 as there are only two floors in the building. What I liked is the interesting architecture involving brick walls at the bottom and aluminium partitions above. The chairs come in two variants with the structure made of steel: the base is either woven nylon rope or wood. Tables are independent, so the seating can be made flexible based on the requirements of the class. There were also a few circular 4 seater tables. And we even spotted a few trapezoidal tables. The walls were done up with some interesting collages and news letters. There are separate hostel buildings \u2013 again located in the vicinity. Being vacation season, we did not end up meeting any student or faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nov\/Dec is active time for students \u2013 as a lot of international faculty visit \u2013 and students get to attend workshops that they conduct. There are field trips also. Overall the feeling was that it is a good creative place. A very urban college which manages inside the constraints of growing fast and working its way around expensive infrastructure costs. However the flip side is the fee \u2013 which for 30 lakh plus for a course sounded a wee bit expensive. The concomitant problem is lack of diversity in the student population. There would be a lot of similarity in thinking in the kids whose parents can afford this kind of course fee. What added to the worry was the \u2018we-don\u2019t-offer-placements\u2019 stance taken by the college. And finally the counselor was not too much into academics. We asked her what would be better a UG course or a PG course in design. She mentioned that about half of the undergraduate Srushti students do end up enrolling for a PG course, many of them at Srushti itself. And what was the difference between a UG and a PG course? \u201cWell, one is basic, and the other is advanced.\u2019 I let the discussion rest after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We ended up finishing our tour quite early. We were free by 1145 hrs. Our next appointment was with my friend Karthik at 1530 hrs. So in order to pass time, we drove down to Lumbini Gardens, a lakeside amusement park. The entry fee was Rs. 80 per person. The younger daughter did a bungee jump. We had a leisurely lunch \u2013 and reached our friend\u2019s place after that. Karthik used to run two schools in Bathinda. He has divested those and has now shifted to Bangalore. I asked him how much did he get for goodwill. Of the sale price, about 70% was for assets \u2013 and 30% for goodwill. He has purchased a quarter acre plot in a gated community in Hosur now \u2013 was expecting to meet him there \u2013 but he is currently staying in a flat which is owned by his sister. His two sons have really grown up \u2013 the elder one has shot past the dad, the younger one is at mom-level. Karthik works with Westland Publishing as an editor. Westland is now owned by Amazon. They publish about 500 titles a year \u2013 about 150 in English \u2013 and the rest in vernacular. Karthik is involved in about 15 projects a year. He has to start by commissioning a book \u2013 and then seeing it through its writing and editing. I asked him what are the editorial challenges he faces. The biggest one is having a good plot. The other is to ensure consistency. There is a dividing line between editing and creating. So he has to ensure that he stays on the right side of that line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His wife, Amrinder, works with a NGO called Vistar. Vistar has a beautiful 6 acre campus not far from their house. The plot is maintained in pristine wilderness, except for some small halls and rooms that they have built. It hosts a lot of school kids who are keen to discover the wildness inside a city. Vistar does quite a few programs with school children on environment and sustainability. Am sure Amrinder\u2019s past experience of running a school helps her in program design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked Karthik about whether he misses Bathinda, a place that he stayed in for more than a decade. \u2018Not too much. Basically, I was getting caught in the administrative load of the school \u2013 and found very little time to do creative stuff. Publishing is something that he is enjoying immensely.\u2019 We also discussed his MA (Education) program at TISS. He feels that the earlier idea of getting practitioners into the classroom to teach has been diluted. So it has become more theoretical. Another thing that is happening is that the better faculty is now moving away to schools like APU. He felt that APU would be a more happening place for an education program than TISS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next stop was Anuj Vaid\u2019s place in Belandur. We experienced the full might of Bangalore traffic jams in rains as we took two and a half hours to commute on Outer Ring Road. Anuj did his MBA from SPJIMR \u2013 and joined the IT industry after 4 years in Telco. He was in the US for more than a decade, and his two sons are both US citizens. His wife is an MBA from SIMS. Interestingly, his father-in-law, who retired from the army, is the coordinator for DAV schools central office. The group now has more than a 1000 schools now. The elder son studies at BITS Hyderabad campus. He mentioned that most of the student crowd at BITS is divided into two camps: the Telugu and the Kota. Later on talking to Ashwath, Mukesh\u2019s son who has just finished first year at IIT Madras, I found that even at IITM the lingua franca is now Telugu \u2013 probably 60% of total intake. Anuj ordered dinner \u2013 but found that rainy days are big business days for all the delivery outlets. Mistake \u2013 should have ordered from Health Zingo which was in the neighbourhood. The problem is that the family is almost purely non-veg. I had been planning to catch up with Anuj during the last 3-4 trips that I had made to Bangalore \u2013 but it was just not happening. Was happy that this time we could meet. Though I wonder how frequently I will be in touch with him. A good idea would be an annual phone call to see how things are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We stayed the night at Mukesh\u2019s place. Was embarrassing as he gave up two bedrooms for us. I think the practice of just putting a rug and sleeping it out on the floor is a good one. Next time we stay with friends, the drawing room rug should be the favoured sleeping place. We had a leisurely breakfast and left in the morning to visit APU. Ashwath decided to accompany us. We reached the campus \u2013 about 17 km from Mukesh\u2019s house \u2013 around 1100 hrs. Unlike most security personnel, the guys at the gate were quite friendly. They told us of the Bhoomi Pujan that had happened at the new 75 acre campus a week ago. In 5 minutes we were escorted to the office of Sunil Dev, who is in charge of admissions. Sunil used to work with Christ University earlier. We asked him to do a comparison of both. He said at APU, scholarships are offered; at Christ they had to be requested. We were joined in the chat by Vishnu Vandana \u2013 who had already taken up admission this year for the Economics program. She had her younger sister who accompanied her along with the parents. The mom was a teacher at Silver Oak school in Bangalore. The dad works with TCS. The family was based out of China for more than a decade. It showed in the daughter\u2019s accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are basically 4 UG programs offered at APU. A Science program in either of Physics or Biology major \u2013 or an Arts program with Humanities or Economics major. They consider Psychology to be a part of Biology. There were only 3 Psychology courses on offer last year. This year APU is introducing a Data Sciences minoring \u2013 which should be interesting from an employment perspective. A total of 84 credits need to be done for the UG program. Most subjects are 3 credits, with a few 2 credit courses like Yoga and Music. There are compulsory subjects in every year \u2013 Literature and Indian Polity among them. 8 areas are offered for minor. You have to have 5 courses in your minor area. You are also allowed to take extra courses for an honors program. The condition is that you should have a consistent CGPA of 6.5+ to be eligible for applying for the honors program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunil mentioned that there are only 4 places that offer a Liberal Arts Program in India \u2013 Flame, Symbiosis, Ashoka and APU. The hallmark of these programs is the ability to mix and match subjects of interest. One interesting proposition offered to Simran was that she could do a B.Sc even if she had done Arts in her Jr College. One more interesting course that is being launched this year is the 4 year integrated B.A B.Ed \/ B.Sc B.Ed program. APU is known for its depth in education programs, so I think this would be a good option to pursue. It would also be helpful if you were to apply to US schools for a graduate program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the chat we were taken on a campus tour. There are reasonable sports facilities. We walked through Biology and Chemistry Labs. The canteen serves mostly veg food. The hostel is in the same premises for the juniors. As the population has increased, seniors have been allotted a hostel outside the campus. There is a lift, which is only for faculty and seniors. The rooms seemed to be spacious. One regret was that it being vacation time, we could not meet any students. We did end catch up with Benson, one of the APU faculties, at Priti\u2019s place in Kengeri. He teaches the graduate program at the Electronic City campus. I asked him about how he would manage the cross-city ride after the campus shifts to Sarjapur. He was apprehensive, but he hoped that the flexible working hours would help. He feels that unless professors continue to be practitioners, the teaching suffers. He is involved in a lot of projects \u2013 and those do not require him to be on campus. Benson is a TISS pass-out \u2013 and he really had interesting views on education. In passing, he mentioned one incident about a graduate student, which was quite humbling. The student\u2019s father is a vegetable vendor in Mumbai. The student decided to continue with his dad after finishing his PG. His aim is to sensitize the population to the travails of the unorganized sector. And he feels that it can happen only if he works there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We asked Sunil about placements after UG. He mentioned that only about 2-3 students opted for placements this year. The rest have all gone off to PG programs. He did mention that APU could get more companies to campus, if students showed interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We talked about the roughly 50:50 rural-urban mix. Most of the rural crowd is from AP and Telangana. They have a very interesting practice about compulsory room sharing happening between rural and urban students. The rural students have been quite to pick up urban habits \u2013 pubbing and \u2018tinder\u2019ing seems to be the rage with them also! About 50% of the students come to APU on scholarship. The cut-off for applying for a scholarship is a salary of 8 lakh p.a.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early admissions happen in Jan. They account for almost 60% of the intake. There is a written exam, with very low cut-offs. Students who have SAT scores above a cut-off are exempt from the written exam. This is followed by an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Met with Dhiraj\u2019s family for dinner. He was gracious enough to include the Bhat family in dinner. 4 of us walked it out to Dhiraj\u2019s place from Mukesh\u2019s house. It was 4.5 km. Naveena, Ashwin and Chhavi came by car \u2013 and took almost the same time to reach \u2013 thanks to Bangalore traffic. Mukesh reached directly from work \u2013 and we caught up with him at the Society gate. We had recommended potluck, but Dhiraj insisted that they have enough practice getting huge dinners organized. We saw that in action \u2013 as a grand dinner was dished out. The interesting thing was that they used the lift to transport the food and plates. Dhiraj\u2019s brother and sister stay in Bangalore. And the entire family meets at least twice a month at his place. We ended up chatting with his daughter, who is keen on pursuing medicine. He is planning to send her to the US. She has already started preparing for SAT. An interesting thing in her preparation, is that most students end up getting more in the actual SAT than in the internal tests that this class conducts. I discussed this with Mandar who hypothsesized that either the class is using only Kaplan tests or they are doing some hanky-panky in the scoring. His son, Dev, was busy with HW \u2013 and we did not end up seeing too much of him. Unfortunately we could not catch up with Dhiraj\u2019s DJ performance. And he had a morning flight to catch for a short Srinagar holiday-honeymoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next day, we left for Priti\u2019s place after breakfast. Taking the NICE road was a good idea \u2013 as we reached the other end of Bangalore in an hour and 105 bucks toll. Her house is very close to the toll exit. The builder of the society in which she stays, Good Earth, is renowned for making environmentally friendly housing. We could see that immediately on entering: Brick buildings, rainwater harvesting, gardens for every house and terrace. Priti tells me that the society is cooler than its surroundings by at least 2-3 C. What also helps is that there is a river which flows close by. What strikes you as soon as you enter Priti\u2019s house is the simplicity. The big drawing room has just two objects: A sofa made of water hyacinth rope \u2013 and a compact 4 stooled dining table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We met with Tejas and Priti\u2019s mom-in-law, who happened to be at home. Her husband, Hari, works in IBM \u2013 on the other side of town. Tejas is a bright chappie, and looks at becoming a good all rounder. He plays a mean guitar, and is a regular at soccer. He goes to a Swaminarayan school close by. Priti stayed in the UK for some time \u2013 and was impressed by the school that they had there. So she decided that if she found a branch in Bangalore she would put her son there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We went for a conducted tour of her society. There are two conventional wells that have been dug for rainwater harvesting. There is extensive use of stone for the exteriors. As the society is still being built, we could see the specialized stone craftsmen at work. There are more than 250 species of local plants that dot the gardens. In fact, the gardens get built before the buildings. She showed me a shrub which is a butterfly magnet. Indeed, we found 5-6 butterflies hovering over each of those shrubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her mom-in-law is a great cook. She reminded me of Venkatesh Rao\u2019s mom because of her Hindi. She does not know it too well, but she makes good attempts to speak. She made us some great dosas for lunch. Followed by a 5 course regular South Indian meal. Immediately on completing the extensive meal, Pinki declared that she is going for a siesta \u2013 and she went on to sleep for the next 1.5 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We left around 1630 hrs after chatting up with Benson. Uddipan had indicated that he would be available only after 2100 hrs \u2013 so we were in no hurry to reach his place. Hence decided to not take the faster NICE road. As expected, it took us almost 1.5 hours to reach then. In hindsight, the NICE road would have been a better option \u2013 as we had a close encounter with a Bangalore traffic cop checking squad. We had no car papers on us \u2013 and almost got waved down by a cop who was intrigued by the Maharashtra number plates. We managed to wave back to him \u2013 and moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n L & T South City is a city in the middle of a village. A huge township, with about 2,000 flats \u2013 and beautiful amenities inside. But you step outside \u2013 and you are greeted by narrow roads clogged with parked vehicles. Uddipan\u2019s meeting had been cancelled \u2013 so we ended up meeting him early at home. The four girls had a gala time \u2013 and chatted through the night. Uddipan\u2019s father-in-law stays in the adjacent building. We ended up greeting him the next day \u2013 it also happened to be his birthday. He had worked with BHEL, Bhopal. I asked him if he knew any Thomas \u2013 and he mentioned that there was a PA to one of the Directors by that name. Must check with Manoj on that when I meet him next month. We walked in a beautiful 5 acre garden developed by the society. It has now been handed over to BMC \u2013 though it is still maintained by the society. The residents have also come together to protect a lake in the vicinity. The ETP of the society pumps in about 700,000 liters of water into this lake everyday. (Most of this water is purchased by tankers by the society. Some if it comes from the Cauvery river.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day the girls caught up with Saloni and Christ College. They later on went to watch a film \u2013 Parmanu. We left for a luncheon IIMC alumni meet \u2013 organized by Mops. Called up Ravi Tennety \u2013 he was not enthusiastic to join \u2013 so we went to his place to pick him up. It was in Kanakpura \u2013 again close to NICE road. Coincidentally, he also stays in a Good Earth building. He shared with us that he has two more properties in Bangalore \u2013 by the same builder. Ravi has a 7 year employment itch. He spent the first 7 years of his post IIMC career with ITW Signode. He then spent 14 years in the telecom sector \u2013 the first 7 with Airtel, the next with Tata. He is now working in skill development. It would be interesting to stay in touch with him \u2013 and see how these 7 years unfold. His company has a contract from NSDC to train and get employment for youth. They have 100 centers in more than 20 states. (Btw, Ravi\u2019s wife is an oncologist from JIPMER. She works in a NGO run Cancer hospital \u2013 and has half day working on Sat. Next time, will visit his\u00a0 place.) We picked up Praveen on the way. Praveen has a major attrition issue with his field staff at Vistar \u2013 and on the way preliminary discussions happened as Ravi is hoping to solve that problem for Praveen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We took 2.5 hours to make the journey with poor Uddipan alone doing driving duties. Found that even he is a Google map addict, in spite of being a long term denizen of Bangalore. Mops had organized for a fantastic venue \u2013 Shanky Lake Forest Guest house. Bang next to IISc. His brother-in-law is with the IFS \u2013 and that helps. Quorum was good \u2013 we had almost 9 people who landed up. Spent some good time with Raghava Rao. Raghava worked for more than 20 years with HUL before shifting to Amazon. Amazon considers itself a tech company, which is still learning how to do retail. They continue to go through a sifting of ideas in order to identify diversifications. Raghava is quite gung-ho about the education sector, especially coaching. He had made a pitch about that in their internal meet. We ended up discussing Byju\u2019s. The other person I caught up with was Aakash Mallik, who is not CEO of Cloud 9, after a decade long stint at Pepsi. Cloud 9 operates about 15 hospitals across states. They are also in the process of setting up separate IVF centers. The minimum wage act has been causing the company trouble off late. With a more than doubling of wages in some states. We discussed gender discrimination in hospitals, and he observed that the parental cribs about ICU bills are higher if the child is a daughter vis-\u00e0-vis a boy. We chatted up with our IFS friend at the end. It was a working Sat for him. The conversation veered onto Aadhar and data privacy. His point was that as of now, there are a lot of IT silos, and although they refer to Aadhar for verification, but this is not resulting in profiling. But can it be done? I guess all it involves is running a query across databases for the government to build up a profile. If the profile building is used for law-enforcement, it should be Ok, but if it ends up being used for witch-hunts and targeting the opposition, then it is cause for worry. But then who will police the police? The possible balance that can come in is from bureaucrats, who know that there is no permanent ruling party \u2013 and no permanent opposition. Had a brief chat with Sanjay Saraf, who is nowadays into CXO coaching. We ended up recreating WhatsApp political debates \u2013 and thought it wise to refrain from commenting. On the way back, Mops gave us company. He had an interesting query: what is the average net worth of an individual in the batch? Praveen suggested 10 cr. Mops felt that with average salary being a crore plus, this was underestimation. His guess was that it is closer to 15 cr. Praveen\u2019s counterpoint was that for most people the savings have not been happening for the first 10 years \u2013 especially in cases where the spouse has not been working. Also, the stint at CXO level has been only for 3-4 years in most cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Praveen is still going through the pangs of a separation. The wife felt that Praveen was not spending enough time with family. I would tend to agree with her point. Also, she feels that he has caused a rift to happen between mother and son. I may not tend to agree to that point, as the son \u2013 also an IIT D passout, has come to stay in Bangalore, but will not be putting up at his dad\u2019s place. Praveen has proposed a 3 way split of assets \u2013 with 1\/3rd<\/sup> going to husband, wife and son. His house in Gurgaon is de-facto with his wife. He has also been paying an alimony of 50,000 per month to his wife. Wife is not happy with the current arrangement \u2013 and the case is expected to drag of for some time. Is there any way that we can get a fast closure to these kind of cases? Every divorce case that I know of, has dragged on for more than 5 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Left next day morning from Uddipan\u2019s place for a breakfast meet at Pravin Pathak\u2019s place. Pravin has been a Bosch lifer. He started his career in Bosch at Nasik \u2013 and hopefully will be back in Nasik after a few years. Has been in Bangalore since 2015. Before that he had a 3 year stint in Germany as well. He has spent most of his career in Production \u2013 but now has been tasked with a kind of IoT project at Bosch. He stays in a lovely apartment, owned by Bosch, bang opposite Ulsoor lake. We started with a one hour ride to Cubbon Park. Mukesh and Ananta joined us for breakfast later. Pravin\u2019s wife, Kojagiri, dished out a lavish spread, which ensured that we did not have to worry about lunch. Incidentally Kojagiri is also a part of the coaching sorority. She comes from a family of teachers. Grew up in Sadashiv Peth. She used to run a Math-Science tuition in Nasik. Worth discussing one very interesting practice that she had in her coaching days, She works with children from the neighborhood slums. She coaches them in the same batch as her other students. She ensures that only first names are used in her class \u2013 so that there is anonymity about the background of the students. Also though she takes full fees from all students, the poorer slum parents receive a full refund, with a condition, that they don\u2019t let their kids know about this. Hats off to Kojagiri for her novel initiative. I have invited her to visit our school during her next trip to Pune. I hope we will be able to get her involved in our Nasik school project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We started back for Pune after the brunch. Traffic was manageable, as it was a Sunday. We got onto the toll road from Yeshwantpur. Took a short diversion in the evening at Davengere to have their famous butter dosa. The restaurant was opposite the dental college. The set dosa was not as great, though. Chhavi managed to do a reservation for an overnight stay at Belgaum. Google Maps does not work too well in congested inner city areas looks like. It sent us on a 3 km diversion, and we had to use human googles to find out way to the hotel. The hotel management segmented customers based on toilet preferences. We opted for a cheaper Indian loo, only to find that Indian loos are expected to be without any flushing systems. After some intense lobbying, we managed to shift to a room with a Western loo \u2013 and a flush. Left early morning after a very forgettable \u2013 nut VFM \u2013 stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Had fixed up to have breakfast with Sanjay Khodbole at Nippani. We took a diversion at Sankeshwar to buy some mangoes for him. He stays in a joint family in a house built by his grand-dad in the fifties. His brother is into farming, like the father. Dad is more into social work nowadays. Sanjay\u2019s primary business is into maintenance of pumps and compressors. Before he got into business, he was employed with Atlas Copco as their sales executive in Kolhapur. He has a diversified customer base \u2013 both geographically and industrially. Has a 5 person service team \u2013 who is on the road most of the time. He usually sends a team of two for calls \u2013 they go on motorcycle. Whilst one attends to maintenance, the other goes around looking for further selling opportunities. After a simple poha breakfast, we had nimbu paani \u2013 they have a lemon tree growing in the backyard, which was where the nimbus had come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We discussed agriculture. Tobacco and sugarcane are the main crops in Nippani. Tobacco is coming down over the years. But it is a challenging crop \u2013 each plant needs to have exactly 11 leaves. Also, constant weeding is required. The drying of the leaves is done in the fields itself. And if it happens to rain then, the harvest is totally lost. Sanjay\u2019s dad feels that the young farmer is happier opening a dhaba on the highway, then toiling in the fields. The ones who do continue farming \u2013 have tended to reduce their working hours. Sanjay feels that it is the middleman who has made farming unviable \u2013 as they continue to get the higher share in profits. On our way out of Nippani, Sanjay took us to a vendor who sold us some great Alphonso mangoes \u2013 at Rs. 100 a dozen. My regret was that I only bought 2 dozens. We peeped into his office \u2013 which was his residence earlier. It adjoins the main Nippankar wada \u2013 which is spread across 15 acres \u2013 and used to be the entire Nippani at one time. They have a lovely mango tree in their backyard \u2013 but it was not fruiting this season. We started around 1030. We purchased some aakha masoor dal about 30 km after Kohapur. Unfortunately in the morning you only get leftovers of yesterday. The difference in taste comes from a very heavy onion gravy. Must try this at home sometime. We stopped for a lovely lunch with Mayur Vora at Mapro Food Park in Wai. The kids saw the factory as we chatted about the food industry and CEO hiring. Mayur bhai has done a lot of innovative work with containers. His theatre is made of two containers at an incline.. However he is realizing that it is not as cost effective and is planning to switch over to simple steel sheets \u2013 aka Peepal Tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20-3.png\")
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