Yelläks /ˈyæl•eks/

On Sunday the Bangalore Bikers Club organized a cycle race from Bangalore to Nandy Hills. Starting point was on National Highway 7 near the new airport, finishing line was on the peak of Nandy Hills around 40km away. Four warriors from IISc started at 6am, but we were already late. So riding to the starting point (distance from IISc around 20km) was already something like a race. At 7 am around 100 cyclist gathered at the starting line. Many very fancy cycles could be seen and many people in fancy, professional looking outfit. I went there with my Photon Ex cycle. Like the one introduced earlier, it also has one gear only, but it is much more advanced (pictures will come soon). Additional weight is added due to the mudguards, the big bell and lock to prevent thieves from snitching my precious cycle.

To give single geared cycles any chance, they started in a different category. However when the Nandy Hills came close, it became difficult to climb due to the acclivity. My Photon Ex and I passed many people on street racing cycles who wondered, how can somebody with only one gear take over. The secret is: It is not the stamina (maybe a little bit). It is more that I do not waste time in choosing the right gear. There is one more secret: I just heard about the race the evening before. I could not organize any oil for the squeaking chain and rattling axes. So I used lamp oil which I found in an opening of the closed cycle shop on campus. It is very greasy, but everything runs like clockwork.

After 2h and 7 minutes I crossed the finishing line, ranked 33rd. Not bad for the first race with this cycle.

Photos have been uploaded to flickr. Look at me before the race and at the finishing line. I was simply at the end, physically and literally.

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Today again shoutings could be heard from a crowd gathered in front of the Main Building of IISc. Something like 2 months ago the union of IISc employees were on a strike to protest for higher wages. It lasted for around 2 weeks and caused lots of inconvenience to the faculty and students. However since a few days many employees could be seen wearing a small black pennant giving the impression that someone has died. Today I came to know that the black pennant was a warning to the administration to fulfill their demand otherwise it will result in the already mentioned strike.

Most interesting is their demand: This year the IISc became 100 years and therefore some special events were organized such as the Centenary Conference with many interesting academic topics in December 2008. The union believes that due to the uniqueness of this birthday, the members have the right for a gift for all employees. The administration agreed to gift Rs.3,000 to each of them, but in their opinion it is way not sufficient. They want to have at least Rs.25,000 (around EUR380). Any more wishes? Maybe a car or a new house? Since the administration did not listen to their demand for a good reason (what prevents them to go on strike again for the next whatsoever minor issue?), they went on a strike.

Suprisingly there is some analogy between this union and a 3 year old child. If a boy of that age sees e.g. a teddy bear in a shopping window, he will start crying and shouting till he “convinced” the parents to buy it just to keep him silent. Same here: If the demand is not fulfilled, they strike. And so far the best thing is not even mentioned: All those workers are government employees, so they cannot be fired. So no matter what they do, they do not loose anything. I would also like to have such a carte blanche.

By the way, if the same action is taken by students, very fast the threat comes up that the participating students loose their degree, if they continue.

[UPDATE:] I forgot to mention that strikers demanded either Rs.25,000 or 25 grams of gold. That actually suggests that 1 gram of gold is worth Rs.1,000. Ok, a little bit math: 25 grams is almost one ounce (28,3 grams) and 1 ounce is currently worth around $950. $1 equals Rs.45. So they wanted to have Rs.25,000 or around Rs.40,000. Not bad this stragety.

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“Please write neatly!” was nicely (notice the circle as i-dot) written on the answer sheet after return and corrected up by the professor. I have to apologize for my unreadable hand writing, because I have other concerns during an examination that watching the curves and lines of my writing: Usually time is running fast and knowledge is running low.

Please write neatly

But I promise to work on my hand writing till the next upcoming exam. I did not get any points after another remark on the answer sheet: “Can’t figure out anything”. Maybe that is the reason, why I did not perform that well in the exam…

Cant figure out anything!

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Story 1:
To lock up doors etc. and to keep things safe, it is naturally to use locks. The obvious purpose of locks is to make it hard for somebody to steal things out of a room or flick the owner’s bike/car. When I occupied my room in the students hostel, the hostel office provided a lock. In case that I loose my keys, I need to break this lock by myself which may result in a very exhausting work. Since this lock is not mine, but I would prefer to break my own lock and property, I bought a second lock in Yeshvanthpur, the village next to the IISc campus. The keys have a serial number with 5 digits, assuring the purchaser that many permutations exist.

After a while I visited a friend who has a lock from the same company. Although his serial number differs, he has exactly the same lock. I mean, lock and keys are exactly the same. So whenever I like, I could go to his room and he to mine. So what does the serial number mean? Is it serial at all?

Story 2:
I borrowed a bike from a friend of mine. Since he is currently out of campus for several months, I am using it. One day a friend called me in office and asked, if he can have to bike for the next hour or so, what was fine with me. So he came by to pick up the keys. 2 minutes after he left, he called and said that something is wrong with the bike. The neutral would not work and it would not start. He asked me to have a look. So I went to the parking slot and was quite surprised: He took someone’s bike and tried to start it. The only similarity between my and his bike was a broken blinker. It had a bigger engine and a different gearbox which was finally the reason, why he did not find the neutral. But the most suprising part was that the ignition worked and after finding the neutral, the bike started and ran smoothly.

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There are strange opinions (from my view) here regarding decency in public places. Two examples just recently happened on campus:

My friends and I went to the swimming pool in the early morning. After finishing our dip at around 8:30AM, we went back to the hostel block, where we stay. On the road a lady passed us obviously going through her morning fitness program. Since we walked very slowly she passed us again and while doing so, she complained about our decency. First I did not understand anything, what she talked about. I thought, my friends said something nasty or naughty about her in their mother tongue Telugu. Then I understood that the complained about the visibility of the towels, some of my friends wore around their shoulders since the towels were wet. She said that we can walk around like this in the hostel but not in publicity. We are not coming from a river but from a swimming pool instead, so we have to maintain a specific level of decency. Let me remind you, it was all about a towel and not underwear or something. On the other hand, it has also a positive effect: You can walk around naked and she will not complain about your nudity as long as there is a towel visible.

The other example happened when the juice center of the campus has been moved to a new location. Due to the planned metro railway a part of the campus is under heavy construction. Unfortunately the juice center was in the way of the demolishers so that its owner moved it to a new designated location. Everything was set up at the new spot: Plants were removed and stones and concrete were put in place to support the shack. One night it took some hours, a tractor and around 20 men to move the juice center to its new location which was close to the girl’s hostel. After finishing the work, at least one girl complained about this. Her argument: even boys will use the juice center there and they will show up in short pants, which view she does not like. So it took another 20 men, a view hours to shift the location again. But this behavior raises two questions: How many times have I seen people in short pants (not doing exercise or sports) so far and what happens, if I sit all day in short pants just in front of the girl’s hostel entry and do my work there? Well, the answer to the first question: I have seen three so far (and I am here for 9 months now) and the answer to the second question: Let us see…

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After 6 months in India I got adopted to the culture and behavior of the people over there. This led already to some difficulties: I was used to small bikes with around 100 or 150ccm. Two days back I rode my bike I have here in Germany which has 650ccm. It was so powerful and very hard to control in the beginning. In addition it needs a lot of concentration to use the right side of the road.

Since it is summer in Germany the sun sets at around 9pm. In India the sun sets every day at almost the same time. So when it gets dark, it is around 6pm and at 7pm it is completely dark. Used to these timings, it makes it difficult to estimate the time in Germany and at around 8pm I am still thinking that it is only 5 in the afternoon. In winter it is much worse: The sun sets at around 4pm in Germany and when you go to work or when you come back from work, it is completely dark. Hopefully I will get used to that soon. The photo below was taken at 7pm in the evening. The quality is quite bad, it is an old phone.

Going to a food store is quite interesting: So many things which can be bought. Anyway, nothing can come close to the mangos, you can get in India. They are available, but very green and hard. It is like eating an apple

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Ok, it took some time till the administration office namely the Society for Innovation and Development issued a cheque in my name to give me a little bit of award for my work here. Just a tiny little stamp saying “A/c payee only” makes it quite hard to cash it. It means that there must be a bank account with my name to which the money is transfered. Here is the dialog which I had in the bank.
I: “Good afternoon, I would like to cash this cheque. But since I don’t have a bank account, I would like to transfer the money (my money) to his account (pointing to a friend standing just beside me).”
Bank employee: “Go to that next next counter, but it wont be possible.”
So we went to the next next counter. Same question, same answer. So here it is, what happenes next:
I: “So that means, I have to open a bank account, cash the cheque and close the account immediately after that. Alright, where is the application form? I mean, it’s your work, not mine.”
Lady: “Ok, do it like this: cross the stamp and sign it, then we give you the money.”
I: “Ok, do you have a pen?”
Lady: “No no, you have to go to the issuer. He will cross it and sign it. Then you come back and you’ll get the money.”

Fine, so where is the guy issued this cheque? It took around 10 to 15 minutes to figure that out. First we went to the cashier of IISc, who directed us to the society. After a long walk, I asked the guy at the reception, where to find the one, who has this signature on the cheque (We had forgotten the name already) and we found the check issuer finally.
He directed the check to a lady who directed it to someone else and again it has been forwarded to the last person, who was told to cross the stamp, to write “cancelled” beside the crossing and put the stamp of the society below that. What did he do? He wrote beside the “A/c payee only”-stamp: “Crossing cancelled” without actually crossing the stamp.

Let’s see what the bank will say tomorrow…

[Update:] I went to the bank today and got the money. Unfortunately the bank ran out of Rs500 and Rs1000 notes, so that I have 200 Rs100 notes in my drawer right now. The height of the pack is around 2cm :-D

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Yesterday there was a high alert in the office. Someone saw a snake, but it hid somewhere and nobody knew, where it was. Eye witnesses were sure it was around 2 to 3 feet long. So we started to search for it. Since the office is not that big not many places are available for such a long snake. Finally we found it and managed to put it in a box.

The longest length of the box is one foot. It was so small that the snake could even hide under leaflets without you noticed it. If it had bitten someone (assuming it was poisonous) it would have been most likely not more than a normal mosquito bite. Anyway, high alert could be revoked shortly after that incident.

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