Ameet's blog

Yesterday, I gave a presentation at Udai study group on Pedal Power. I tried to find the various designs, their specs, economic opportunities they can create in rural / off grid areas. Though I barely touched the top of the iceberg, I was dazzled by the scope & diversity of Pedal power. People have been running wireless networks and VOIP telephony in Ugandan villages using pedal power! Here are notes I made for the same. After I posted this entry, I was contacted by Nick from off-grid net , a superb online magazine supporting alternative sustainable lifestyles. Read this story from Ladena, to see how wise economic & technological choices can lead to a 'thriving' life in the middle of nowhere, and can solve financial crisis. Click on the link below to visit this wonderful site.

I am SO proud of these guys ! They are Indian college students, and planning to build a racecar. The car they have built now, combine pulsar absorbers, toyota steering column, and Rickshaw engine. This is true learning and spirit of enterprise at its finest!

Just finished a wonderful game of Soccer. May be it had to do something with the fact that we won :-) But maybe it does not. Because Soccer is not a zero-sum game. I have always been an underdog in sports. And like all underdogs, I always hated loosing. I remember a childhood incident. I was playing cards with my Mami (aunt). It was the simple game of Bhikar-Savkaar. (each player takes turns playing the card on top of his stacks, and if your card has same type as the card below, you win) and I lost... and then I burst up in a fit of rage, tore the cards and shut myself in the room :-) I was angry with this game, with the winner for having won, and mostly with myself for having lost it. So then on, I have tried to avoid games I loose, and found perfect ally in this quote from "Catcher in the rye", as a balm over all past lost games. Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get...

I am reading a book, Grand Canyon: Early Impressions . These are writings of intrepid explorers who saw Grand Canyon, the mile deep furrow in Arizona, carved out by Colorado, literally, the 'red river'. Col. John Wesley Powell made the first river run of Grand Canyon in 1869. Without the buffers of dams, Colorado ran way too fast & turbid than it does now, making its river run almost impossible task. But Powell & his ragtag friends ventured into this great unknown river, and penned his travelogue. The funny thing about this piece is that, it has all the seeds of great novel; heroism, drama, nail biting tension & anticipation, conflicts of egos, judgment as well as trust & steadfast fraternity. But the very fact that it was a nonfiction, and written not as an afterthought but as a daily journal, makes it a dry, barebones, matter of fact document sans verbal embellishments :-) This makes each word & sentence carry its weight in gold, sinking down the mind wi...

Just finished watching this eye opening documentary, and I am choke-full of pity & disgust. Pity for the pettiness with which science & technical jargons are paraded to mask the truth & serve short term economic interests, and disgust for the big behemoths who do so with impunity. People might call this documentary conspiracy theory, but I have seen enough of corporate culture to know that it is not. Let me write a summary for you. Technology for electric car was born in 70s. Like all technologies, this was a serendipitous discovery built in a garage and was disruptive. Disruptive because it gave a new option to the people, which was in long term interests of the environment, in short term interests of people using it for its speed, mileage & convenience. Disruptive also because it would change many games in town, games in which auto companies & big oil would probably loose, and who likes the loosing games? Hence they decided to stop the game. As long as these ...

Returned from a gruelling trip to Tijuana yesterday, and have some distinct sour & sweet tastes in the mouth :-) (sol & churros respectively). In the long day, met two people who gave fodder for this post. First a curious old man of African descent while roaming near Cultural Center. On premise of inquiring a bus route, he started talking to us in Spanish, and after our vocabulary ran out, in fluent English :-) He said he was translator of Hebrew texts for the Fed & Rand. He spoke of his Indian friend in Tehran university, who started Indian nuclear program! (yes.. we were as surprised as you are!) After checking for mistaken identity with Pakistan's A.Q. Khan & Homi Bhabha , he remembered the name to be Shankar Subramaniam . We were taken aback by eclectic life of this character, who had to now use Mexican public transport. While we were started wondering about his sanity & credibility, he started on Two Rocks heading for Earth to annihilate us. "Thir...

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to visit Tierra Miguel Foundation , an organic farm near San Diego, as a part of monthly seva at local Art of Living chapter. We gladly sweated under the watchful sun, to create a state_of_the_art circular herb garden :-) A few amazingly aromatic rosemary herbs already there, added aromatherapy to this outdoor sauna! It was a blast.. This is a agriculture project, mainly aimed at education & research in Organic farming & community living. They treat it a necessary expense which they cover by selling farm goods. They avoid the age-old problems of fluctuating demand & calamities by a network of CSA customers, each of whom receive a weekly box of fresh farm produce for an annual fee. Our herb garden was in the frontyard of Peter Dukich , a 92 years old farmer! Wait.. read that again :-) He was a wonderful man, in pink of his health, with all his teeth intact and taught us real good tricks in digging, to conserve the efforts and maint...