Pleasure of an occasional public bus ride..

However busy and successful we are in life, can we afford to ignore and forget how a common man, gets through his daily chores and lives ? Can we forget how during our younger days we enjoyed a public bus ride ?

We are so busy with our lives now, we rarely get to enjoy life, from one activity to the next, in search of that great goal in life to be happy, secure, healthy, contented and make money for the family. 

One of the simple pleasures of life is to take a public bus ride, overcoming some difficulties in life, to find out how the common man leads his life. Most of the educated people I know are so busy with their life, they have not taken a public bus ride within the city of Bangalore for ages. 

Inside the bus firstly it helps to puncture our bloated ego, how and what we feel of ourselves. In the company of a common Indian, I find how small we are and how small the world is. We understand the common psyche, what motivates them and gets themselves going in their daily lives. Understanding the basic motivation of life of the common man is a very peaceful enlightening experience.  What are the simple aspirations in life of an ordinary Indian, how carefree they are and so on. 

It also gives us an opportunity to gauge where we stand in terms of personal environmental sustainability initiatives,  how one can contribute to the environmental sustainability in a better way and so on. 

During the Covid time, exactly two years after the virus turned killer in China in March 20, presently I find about 40% of the public travelling not adhering to wearing mask and maintaining social distancing. The Bangalore roads are full of vehicles these days, choc-a-bloc, and people are all out on the roads. Thankfully the public services are fully and efficiently functional in Bangalore 

The other reason why I love public transport is the fact that Bangalore BMTC buses are not crowded, like in Kerala or Mumbai. All of us are waiting for Metro rail to reach major parts of the city. The other reason is that one is forced to walk to and from the bus stand to our home, which is a cool 2 km in my case. A refreshing walk and a bonus to keep oneself fit.

One can learn more by interacting with our environment and surroundings,  the common man and the nature, it makes one go in search of our roots, find the meaning of life and our existence on earth. Another more important reason for taking occasional public bus rides is to escape from the traffic congestion on Bangalore roads.

Do go out, interact with the common man and use public facilities , it is an interesting and great teacher in our life.

When not identifying with the common man, I travel in a simple Tata Nano and enjoy the experience.. Living simple is really a lovable and enjoyable experience..

George 

Fifth apheresis at St Johns Medical College ..

My fifth apheresis and my 46th blood donation at St. Johns Medical College Bangalore was carried out on the first of March 2022. Doing this after a conscious gap of 3 months. I went for a simple blood donation but was asked by the hospital authorities whether I would be ready to go for an apheresis. When i said OK confidently, they asked me to wait for some time and started the procedure. 

May be, I think the number of blood donors who are aware of the apheresis procedure is less and this results in less apheresis procedures being done. Being at number fortysix, I am more than excited to be of efficient use to my patients.

Last November I had done 4 apheresis and took a small rest. Also since I had a problem with low back ache, I kept the blood donation aside. Homoeo medicines were a great help.

 

I am still running 86 kg weight. When I go for blood donation, it reaffirms me that I am in good health and shape. Though not obese, I am slightly overweight and am trying best to reduce the weight to about 78 kgs in the near future, as advised by doctors. Hope with more blood donations, my body weight will come down. Otherwise as my senior colleague Prof. AMK Poduval keeps motivating all of us, we are perfectly healthy, fit, safe and sound. 

Dr. Vijayalakshmi at St. Johns was around while I was donating. Her behaviour is really appreciative, so caring, humble and modest, I feel like donating blood again. 

Thanking God for giving me the opportunity to donate blood to the needy cancer patients at St. Johns who are going through a time time of their lives. How lucky we are to be able to work healthy, happy and pursue our chosen profession !

This is how platelets look like ..

Not all hospitals have apheresis machines, St. Johns Bangalore has. Govt Medical College Trivandrum also has one. The proces being more efficient at getting the right blood components, ie. the platelets, plasma or red blood corpuscles, helps in the donation process by reducing the wastage of other blood components. 

The waste generated is high and I was told it costs almost Rs 10,000 to Rs. 14,000 to do a single apheresis and the cost is recovered from the patients or their sponsors. These days doctors are recommending apheresis over just blood donations, which is inefficient. About 300 ml of platelets are taken from each apheresis procedure. 

The Karnataka govt fixed rates for a blood donation, 300-450 ml or pint at Rs 700-950 and Rs 850 for platelets. (click here)

George..

The Diary of a young girl - Anne Frank, the heart breaking story of Nazi atrocities ..

Thirteen year old Anne Frank

It was on a passing mention by my friend Ravin about Anne Frank, that I decided to google about her. When I read that she was a victim of the German atrocities and the diaries she wrote over a two year period around 1942, when she was thirteen years and marching to fifteen, became a true testimony of what the children and common people around Germany especially the Jews feared about the Nazis, I decided it should be read. The book has been read by millions of people all over the world and has been translated to more than seventy languages.  A great testimony of the sufferings of the Jewish people during the second world war.

"The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. The diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the family's only known survivor, just after the Second World War was over. " - wikipedia.

The atrocities committed by both parties during the second World War, especially the hardships and pains of the Jews of Germany and Europe in general had to undergo during the Second World War has been very well explained from the lenses of a teenager in the book.

The book explains the how Anne's family to escape imprisonment and possible gassing in the concentration camps or gas chambers decided to run away to Netherlands. In Netherlands they had to stay in an office cum warehouse for almost two years to escape the prying eyes of their neighbours sharing their living with another family and three male jews.

Anne Frank diary in her house, a museum now

The narration by Anne of her daily events are very interesting. Especially of the fear that grips the whole family when someone knocks on the door, the efforts taken by the family to prevent noise from the house going outside, masking their daily activities to give everyone the feeling that there were no one staying in the warehouse.

The casual mention by Anne of how Jews were discriminated against by the Nazis and were sent to concentration camps and gas chambers is really frightening and at the same time sad too. How could European white man discriminate and exterminate his fellow white men so disgustingly is a thought that runs through the back of our mind while we are reading the book.

The dairy was written before the era of digital computers and so I was naturally inclined to know how the dairy entries were done manually. 

Wall in Anne's room ..

The beauty of the book is that we are able to see the Nazi Germany from the eyes of a 13 year old girl.  How did an intelligent community of Germans get to be swayed by the communal propaganda of Hitler and the Nazis over fifty years ? The Germans under Hitler were allowing the Nazis to commit the atrocity on the Jews.  Sadly by 1945, the greatest extermination of a race was methodically underway and almost 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis around the world.

The world has learnt a hard lesson from this and see that there is no repetition of this atrocity on any section of the population in any other part of the world. We should not allow politicians to use communal propaganda to divide the people and kill each other. The events happening in Syria and Iraq over the growth of ISIS is a serious event all of us should try to address seriously.

There is a no place for hatred in our society and in this world, let us unite in love. We all belong to the group of Homo sapiens and we may have brutally killed or evolved from our cousins Homo erectus maybe 300,000 years back, but we should not kill our own brothers, be they from Caucasian, Negroid or Mongoloid race, never ever ...

Anne and family were captured on 4 August 1944 by the Nazis on being informed to the authorities by an unknown informer and sent to prison. The reason, they were Jews and nothing else. Around Feb 1945, Anne, 16 and her sister Margot, 18 contracted Typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and died.

How lucky are people living in democratic countries ? they fear nobody and can exercise their freedom to choose their religion, profession, partner and a future. 

The way Anne analyses human emotions and writes of the limited people in her diary from a teenager's viewpoint in a deep and erudite manner, I wonder whether in Anne, we have lost a future Nobel Prize winner in Literature ..

To know more about the life of Anne Frank, visit the Anne Frank website here ..

Click here to buy it from Amazon .. 

If we were to look at the 6 million Jews who were killed during the five years from 1940 to 1945, it comes to approximately 3300 everyday. That is a great tragedy the world does not want to see again. All the world residents and leaders should do their level best to avoid such a catastrophe again, not for the rest of time humans are on this planet. A grave lesson all earthlings should understand and learn. No wonder in spite of constituting just 0.001 percent of global population, they have got almost 20% of all Nobel Prizes awarded so far.  Of the 900 people who have been awarded the Nobel Prizes so far, over 20%, ie. 180 have been Jews. A point for the world to ponder ..

George.

How Jaguar used lean methodology to improve operations ..

Jaguar is one of the iconic car manufacturer from UK that has had tough times over the past four decades.

Sensing problems, Jaguar was up for sale and was bought by Ford. Later Ford sold it to Tata from India. While Jaguar was with Ford, they tried a partly successful implementation of lean in their Jaguar S line at Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham. While Jaguar was with Ford they successfully implemented lean. Probably due to mismanagement and high input costs for Ford, they had to finally sell it to Tatas.

Looking at the lean implementation, what were the salient points behind the successful lean implementation in Jaguar? I am listing out four points which is a great learning for organisations around the globe looking for lean implementation. Refer to this case ..

1. Bringing change in the working culture and organisation structure

2. Matching supply to demand by incorporating Just in Time inventory policies

3. Visual management and visual control

4. Open Information centre.

5. Ownership of work and formation of work teams

My recent purchase, a GREEN Samsung Refrigerator

It was indeed with some hesitation that I gave away my perfectly working old design 27 year old Tata brand Voltas 300 litre refrigerator couple of weeks back to an orphanage in Tumkur. I checked up in Amazon for a replacement. My daughter suggested a 250 L capacity 2 star double door refrigerator from Samsung through Amazon. After some thought and some days dillydallying, we went ahead with the purchase.

Samsung is one of the largest white goods manufacturer of the world, at #15, it is the second largest electronics manufacturer of the world after Apple. The looks of the modern refrigerator that works on digital inventor technology is killer type. At least 5 ft tall, it is very convenient to handle, open, place items and retrieve them from the refrigerator.

I am perfectly satisfied. The good thing about it was the dashing looks, compact frame. There are no exposed refrigerant tubes behind. A 2 star energy rating indicated it uses a max of about 243 electricity units (Kwh) annually, ie running expense of about INR 2000 annually. 

The ergonomically designed handles fused into the body, the product overall design and final finish is simple superb. Being a value addict and a tough value master, unless I find great value in the purchases, I do not go ahead with them. Regarding this purchase, I am extremely satisfied. Having worked in the industry and having worked with 200 Ton industrial scale chilling plants in the tyre industry, I know this purchase of a 0.25 Ton refrigerator is chicken feed. In addition there is a 10 year warranty on the compressor and no need of an analogous voltage stabiliser.

Unlike the standard single-speed compressor, which is either off or operating at full speed (typically about 3,600rpm), the digital inverter compressor is almost always on, but can operate at different speeds – from 1,100 to 4,300rpm. This ensures high efficiency and consistent temperature inside the refrigerator. It also results in significant cost savings, a reduced carbon footprint, less noise and a longer lifespan for the compressor. The digital inverter compressor is one of the most important innovations in the history of refrigerators and food preservation and Samsung has led the way. www.samsung.com

But the extent to which Samsung has made the product extremely customer attractive and given fantastic finishes, I can only say they are doing a good job. South Koreans are no doubt, doing a satisfying job in India and they are bound to grow even further, be it mobile phones, white goods like refrigerators, washing machines or even automobiles from Hyundai. Tata recently trounced Hyundai to be the second most popular and largest automobile brand in the country.

The customer obsession in this product is extremely gratifying. The looks are extremely stunning. My friend has the same 7 year old model in his home, working perfectly fine. A big thanks to Amazon for having given a 12 % discount on the price and delivered the product without any damage in the best condition in two days. And Amazon charged me just INR 22,300/= ..

Should Kerala govt follow up the K Rail project ?

K Rail project is a railway project that is being claimed will help Kerala to reduce the travel time from Kasargod in north to Trivandrum in the South. 

K-Rail is a government-proposed speed-rail corridor collaboration between Kerala Govt and Department of Railways Govt of india, connecting Kasaragod in the north and Thiruvananthapuram in the south. K-Rail promises a 200 km per hour speed, and is expected to cover a distance of 529.45 km in less than four hours — at present it takes the Indian Railways 10-12 hours to cover this distance                                                 www.moneycontrol.com

Most of the people of Kerala I spoke to are tooth and nail opposed to the project. All media are against the project. E Sridharan, the metro man of India, who is considered to be the father of railway projects in India is opposed tooth and nail to this project - unprofessional project management and incapable technical expertise.

Inexperienced professionals are heading the project. The project said to cost INR 64,000 crores and to be completed in 3 years, can never be completed as the Kerala CM only has inexperienced professionals in key positions in the organisation running the project. 

There is total lack of transparency as to the environmental damage, the undisclosed Detailed Project Report (DPR) etc. Simply said, a project of this type, the railway engineering professionals of Kerala are incapable to manage and execute. This people say is just a ploy by the CM Pinarayi Vijayan to start huge financial irregularities, corruption and to push the state into eternal state of debt. 

When the most sincere Metro man of India E Sridharan sir says the project is infeasible in Kerala, given the Madhav Gadgil report that mentions Kerala has a very precarious environmental balance, such projects should not be followed up. 

If Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is supporting that is with an eye to sell their technology and reap gains, with total disregard to the delicate environmental balance in the state, post the floods of 2018 and 2020. Hope the obstinate CM understands the gravity of the situation and pulls out of the project at the earliest not letting any unnecessary expenses on the state.

The people of Kerala do not want the citizens to be further pushed into a virtual economic spiral of debt, decay and degradation of the state. Starting a mammoth project of this size and expense, without proper planning and with an eye on the commissions behind the work allocation, the people smell inefficency and corruption in this project.

As a responsible citizen, I feel the project is being attempted to be executed with total disregard to the environment and this project should not permitted to be executed given the delicate environmental balance in Kerala. It is true we need projects to develop, but do it with transparency and include available international experts, not local party sympathisers who will waste public money and bring disrepute to the state. The CM should work for the development of the state.

George.

Simple ways for detoxing yourself ..

When one hears of the word detoxification, what comes to our mind is the dictionary definition which says that detoxification is the process of removing toxic substances (either from human body or other substances)

An interesting article which I happened to read of late is one at getpocket.com (click here) which talks of simple two steps of detoxification.

They are 1) getting atleast 7-8 hours of sleep and 2) drinking lots of water.

By getting enough sleep, we give enough rest to all our organs to revive after functioning for good 15-16 hours a day. It helps our brain to revitalise, our muscles to get oxygenated and take enough rest before starting another day of full activity.

Drinking lots of water helps our body remain hydrated, remove the acidic content in our intestines and flushes out along with the fibrous food we take, the digested material, enabling free movement of the bowels, ensuring healthy bowels. Every night before I go to sleep, for many years I have been sincerely following the habit of taking two glasses of water. Of late when I get up, my wife also feeds me two glasses of hot water with jeera or methi, that again helps cleanse the digestive tract. 

Besides these two steps, I also engage in good personal exercises like walking a least 2-4 kms daily, always climbing stairs wherever possible and not taking the lift, ensuring a healthy heart.

Anybody who follows these steps I can ensure good health will follow.

George