2015 in Review, and Hello 2016!

Is it any coincidence that New Year resolutions get way too much attention, than Year-end self reviews? Post from a friend, inspired me to reflect on my past year. So, here is my self-assessment of the year gone by:

What went right?

1. Travel: Went solo backpacking this year. Got other avenues to travel domestic and abroad, a mix of official, leisure and treks.
2. Focus on Interests: Found time to focus more on areas of interest - Data, Technology, Startups & Design. Could start connecting with the community on these areas.
3. Writing: Got back to blogging & maintained a decent rhythm through the year.
4. Social network: New-found connect with Twitter that helped focus on areas of interest and with people to track; though need to carefully balance this away from becoming an addiction.
5. Movies: Watched a good set of Movies, including top rated regional ones.

What went wrong?

1. Poor execution: Did not really track against the yearly plan that I had put together at the start of year.
2. Insufficient Reading: Continued to accumulate too much of stuff to read, but didn't devote enough time for most of it, including books.
3. Sub-optimal self-organization: Better prioritization & time management scream for attention.
4. Inefficient housekeeping: Not too happy with the way I've re-organized internal stuff such as notes, pictures, videos, articles and other things of interest.

Perhaps, goes without saying that for 2016 I need to continue with the 'rights' and fix the 'wrongs'. That's pretty much what I look forward to in the coming year.

"Let no one discourage your ambitious attitude. You don't need a fan club to achieve your goals. Be your own motivation." - Unknown

An unusual night ride on the highway

Couple of weeks back, one Sunday night I was driving back home, on the Mumbai Highway in Hyderabad. Considering it was late in the night and close to 10 PM, the road was largely empty except for few trucks and heavy vehicles, that were on their way to destinations far away. Driving on a regular route amidst familiar roads, I was on auto-drive mode, with minimum attention necessitated for the road, while my mind was half-occupied with a random set of thoughts.

And that was when, I got a mental alert to divert full-attention back on the road. There seemed to be unfamiliar object in the path. From a distance, it looked like a bright cloth flown away onto the highway, and fluttering on the road in the night's wind. Unsure if it was big enough warranting a diversion or a drive right-through, I moved ahead. Turning on the high beam, as a last minute decision, I decided to swerve around the road to avoid hitting it. The more I swerved, the longer it seemed to stretch and I pulled across more than half of the road to avoid it.

That's when, a sideways glance struck me with the horror sight - it was a lady's body lying apparently motionless, right across the breadth of the road. A couple of vehicles behind me were now past the body and had avoided it as well, but were speeding on. At this time of the night and with pitch darkness in the highway, some vehicle was sure to run over the body, even if it were lifeless. With a thousand thoughts rushing through my mind, I finally decided to pull over.

Hurriedly parking the car by the road-side, I ran back towards the body on the center of the road. By then, a couple riding a bike had pulled over and were moving towards the body as well. Signalling to the vehicles that were rushing on behind, we lifted the body and carried it to the deserted pavement. It was a lady who must have been in her mid-twenties, she had a deep cut in her forehead and was bleeding profusely. The lady wore a bright red salwar and looked like a part of the tribals who camp by the road side on the outskirts. Fortunately, there were signs of life, but she was unconscious. 

As we rested her on the pavement, the girl who was riding with her husband started cleaning up the wounds. By then, a small gathering had formed on the road-side around us. Quickly someone telephoned the ambulance and cops from the nearby police station. In about 15 minutes, the lady slowly started coming to her senses and could respond to some of the questions. Though unable to give emergency contact details, to everyone's horror she indicated that a known person had inflicted the wounds and thrown her onto the road.

As we were wondering what to do, a cop arrived. Enquiring us about the sequence of events, he tried getting the wherabouts and contact details from the lady. Though she wasn't fully conscious, she answered and provided some details. To add to the complication, the lady appeared to be in an inebriated state. With an ambulance on the way and the cop assuming control, the crowd slowly dispersed. Unsure, we hesitatingly left the place hoping the lady gets the needed attention and meets her loved ones. 

What an unusal night my ordinary day had turned into? Thanking my senses on avoiding the collission and for pulling over, I drove on to get back home.

Is Technology dumbing us down?

Scene-1:

Boarding a cab at Bangalore, I asked my Uber driver the direction towards Majestic railway station, to figure out if we had to take a U-turn. The cabbie didn't have a clue, and just keyed in the destination into his handheld map and waited for the route map to show up. This has been a common occurrence in the past few months, wherein the cab drivers don't have a directional sense of the destination, leave alone the exact route map. Is it any coincidence that this was always with Uber or Ola cabs?

Scene-2:

On a recent family pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi in Jammu, our family of 6 was doing the 16 km hike to the hill temple. Midway, we got split into 2 groups and lost track of each other amidst the heavy crowd. As all mobiles were deposited in the temple cloak room, and public announcements were to no avail, the only way to reunite looked like calling a common mobile number, in this case my sister's who was not travelling. One of the 2 groups remembered the number and called from a public phone to report location, while none in the other group could recall any of our relative's number. After a small ordeal, we were re-united, but the lesson was clear. Hasn't the convenience of mobile contacts & speed dialing made us forget numbers of even our loved ones?

Scene-3:

I double up usage of my email inbox as an activity tracker to track open actions through unread emails. Once while clearing up the inbox, I accidentally clicked 'mark all as read' and in an instant all my pending actions vanished into thin air. I was left clueless on where I needed to act next. Have you heard of colleagues mention about missing a meeting, since an event did not show up in his or her calendar? 

Haven't you personally faced something similar? Do such scenarios look increasingly familiar, of late? We are in an age where documents are auto-saved, urls are bookmarked, machine recommendations pop up for everything - what you might want to buy, who you would want to befriend, birthdays you shouldn't forget, news you might be interested in reading. With the touted Google-now and army of digital assistants, this is only going to get worse. Are we losing our natural instinct or means to search and fend for ourselves? Is technology slowly making us too dependent and inept? 

I'm in no way advocating against use of technology, since I'm very much a part of the tribe that prides itself on teaching machines to make decisions and 'simplify' things for humans.  Nor am I talking about a singularity or a post-apocalyptic world (end of active human cognition), though that looks like a distinct possibility. I'm only calling attention to the fact that our memory, senses and other natural instincts are getting dampened. We are becoming gleefully unaware of the world around us, unless we get a 'notification'. 

This could be avoided with little steps, without compromising on the convenience of technology. Once in a while, switch off the GPS and try driving on your own, to notice landmarks & keep your sense of direction active. For a couple of days every few months, delete important numbers and make yourself key them in to start remembering them. Every now and then take time to spend days, interact with people and recall events without technology's help, to keep your natural instincts sharp and well-oiled. This list can be expanded to cover every aspect of your life that leverages technology for convenience or productivity. Perhaps, this will even keep you prepared for the coming singularity! 

Making healthcare solutions exciting through Design

Marketing of healthcare services is a tough nut to crack. How do you communicate complex services to a lay audience? How can healthcare problems with morbid connotations be made palatable? Even if you manage these, how do you improve engagement level and brand recall by making this exciting?

Yashoda hospital has solved this quite innovatively, through refreshing ad designs, that use:

1. Creative symbolism to simplify the complexity of problems, 
2. Terse captioning with simple words to capture the essence of solution
3. Brilliant graphic design leveraging loads of white space

The big billboard ads put up by Yashoda hospital in various parts of Hyderabad in the past months were unmissable. Check out some of the more notable ones here:

All Pictures sourced from Yashoda hospitals channels on FB, Twitter, Google+

Chennai floods: when Human spirit outshone the Rains

Submerged houses.. (source)	..and flyovers weren't spared as well (source)

Chennai, Cuddalore and other northern parts of Tamil Nadu have been reeling under a monumental crisis, in recent times. Yes Tsunami was a big disaster that perhaps claimed more lives, but that was more like a hit-and-run case, whereas the Chennai rains have been giving a slow death by systematically strangulating the city, its infrastructure and the residents. 

Debates continue to rage whether this was less of a natural disaster, and more a man-made one due to inefficient urban planning, greedy profiteering by 'encashing' river beds, and costly inaction by officials in the critical few days leading up to the crisis. However, the immediate priority and focus has rightly been towards providing succor and rehabilitation for the people most impacted by this massive tragedy. 

"Adversity does not build character, it reveals it."

People in flood-affected areas have demonstrated great character in these testing times, by helping each other - whether it was by opening one's homes freely to host others, lending food / supplies or volunteering with search-and-rescue / relief management operations. Its remarkable that people did all this, while the water levels kept raising in their own homes. Someone joked that this is one tragedy where we've had more volunteers than victims! Such has been the spirit.

Celebrities, corporates and several organizations have been doing their part right from the well-known faces such as RJ Balaji, Siddharth to thousands of unknown individuals like Senthil Murugan  of Cuddalore, who have been selflessly devoting time to make a difference in their own ways. Its equally heartening to hear about several thousands who have come together from all parts of the country to lend a helping hand to the region.

Apparently, the power shutdown and total breakdown in telephone communications had further amplified the magnitude, by creating a panic situation. In today's mobile age, inability to reach loved ones for even an hour, amidst free-flowing bad news in the background heightens one's anxiety levels to the peak. The initial apathy by national media notwithstanding, this is an area where Social media came to the rescue and scored handsomely. Twitter hashtags to call out for urgent help, Facebook posts to coordinate relief work, Google spreadsheets to consolidate volunteer details worked magically by accelerating free flow of information, near real-time. However, technology does come with its limited down-sides, such as the circulation of stale information or the few instances of rumours doing the rounds - you wouldn't have missed the 'supposedly' pregnant lady in Mogappair who was 'in labor' for over 2 weeks, OR the crying, abandoned child searching for parents all over chennai OR the crocodiles doing their shopping rounds in T. Nagar!

The fight is not over, with more rains forecasted for Chennai. However, thankfully the major hurdle has been crossed, with complete awareness of the problem at hand, relief machinery in full swing and people being prepared for the upcoming rain spells. Here's wishing that everyone stays strong & safe, and perseveres for a speedy recovery!

Hyderabad Rockathon 2015

Last weekend was special, with GHAC's annual flagship event 'Rockathon'. True to its name, this is a fun outdoor event themed on rocks. In its 4th annual edition, this event has become quite popular over the years with kids and nature-outdoor enthusiasts in Hyderabad. Conducted at Ghar-e-Mubarak, close to the Golconda fort, this was co-hosted by the Hyderabad-based 'Society to save rocks', a uniqe organization that does great work in identifying and protecting the rocks by getting them declared as heritage sites.

Having heard quite a bit about this event, this was my first time and I took my family and friends along. With both my kids under-age as per the event guidelines, and with one of them young-enough and pushed around in a pram, we sure turned lots of heads around! It was a packed, fun-filled day with several activities lined up. 

We started with slack-lining, the fine art of balancing yourself and walking on a rope, the only saving grace being that the rope was tied at just 1 foot height. With adults struggling at this, the kids seemed to pick it up and do naturally; perhaps their natural instincts for outdoors are not urbanized fully yet. Rock-stacking involved creating the tallest structure by stacking up small rocks and pebbles. This provided a sneak-peak into the fascinating rock structures one sees in the city and how they could be balancing each other. And yes, our group did win a prize by building one of the tallest ones!

Slack-lining	Trail biking
Rock-stacking	...and a natural stack in formation

The treasure hunt themed around hunting for the right rock formations as given in a picture proved daunting, especially in the hot midday sun. There were several creative activities to the event's credit: rock shotput, trail-biking around the rocky terrain, a quiz to test knowledge on rocks & rock structures, and even a rock selfie contest! There was a lot of demand for zip-lining and rapelling, that was planned well and organized safely in the midst of the adjoining rocky hills. The event was complete with a workshop on snakes awareness, conducted by the popular Hyderabad-based 'Friends of Snakes' society. They demonstrated handling of non-poisonous and poisonous snakes, and provided useful tips and first-aid basics. With kids quickly developing comfort with snakes, they rushed in to touch and handle one of the less aggressive, non-poisonous varieties.

The green, tree snake	An extra-long rat snake

During the event, it was a pleasant surprise to bump into the 13-year old girl who holds world-records for climbing several tall peaks around the world, Jaahnavi. It was fascinating to learn from her father-and-guide on how Jaahnavi Sriperambuduru  started early, has persevered to set records and also about her #Mission7summit, the upcoming mission to climb all highest peaks in the 7 Continents. Wishing her luck, we signed off from the event.

Edit: Corrected typo in Jahnavi's name.

Great design of everyday things

Humming bird fork stand. Pic: Amazon

I came across this fork stand recently, and there was something about it that caught my attention at first sight. Its beautiful to look at, serves its purpose as a fork well and its quirky design makes you smile. The design is so intelligent that a set of forks kept stationary on the stand double up as a set of birds perched upon a tree, while the fork impaled and ready to be eaten looks like a humming bird feasting on a fruit!

Perhaps as David Norman explains in his book on Emotional Design, this caters to our senses at 3 levels - 'visceral' or 'the beauty aspect', 'behavioral' or 'utility & usability factor' and 'reflective' or the 'emotional connect'. The story-telling aspect of the design was amply reinforced by the fact that my 4-year old kid who refuses to eat fruits, now looks forward to his fruit-eating sessions, thanks to this fork set! 

When an online purchase goes wrong

After years of buying stuff online, I recently had my first dud transaction. I had ordered Amish Tripathi's "Scions of Ishvaku" and two other books on Amazon, about a month back. The order was to be serviced by three different sellers. I promptly got a confirmation and delivery of the 2 other books, however 'Scions of Ishkavu' order status progressed through various stages from 'being dispatched', 'reaching warehouse' and even 'out for delivery', but there was no physical trace of the order.

When I called up customer service after a few days, the service agent was extremely courteous, reassuring and promised to check with the courier company. But again, nothing happened, not even an acknowledgement of the service request. I eventually ended up talking to the service desk 4 times, and surprisingly every conversation was alike - very courteous, understanding, reassuring and with absolutely no action. In the final call when I persisted and threatened legal action, things finally moved. I got a complaint lodged as well, against the agents who had (mis)handled the case earlier.

This was a low value transaction with no urgency, yet it finally got onto my nerves. The large e-commerce players have many a chink in their armor, inspite of increasing maturity in their processes and million of dollars of investment into customer service and delivery. Once in a while, you do keep hearing of issues from friends about incorrect billing, order not getting delivered or even worse, getting a lemon when you order high-value electronic items. However, online is the way forward for consumers and e-commerce companies should speedily fix those odd issues in their workflows.

PS: Yesterday, I got an email from the bank confirming that a refund has been my initiated on this transaction. But, the surprise this time was that the credit had been done for all 3 books, not just the one undelivered. I'm just getting a request raised for payment of the 2 other books, and I wonder how much time Amazon would take for this credit back to them!

Festival season Greetings

The 2 months from mid-September through mid-November is one of my favorite periods during the year. This part of the calendar has dates marked for several festivals ranging from Ganesh Chathurthi, Janmashtami, Dusshera, Navarathri and Diwali, and they often occur back-to-back. With festive spirit strongly in the air, sweets to share, and lots of holidays to spare, this is fun time indeed.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous Diwali! Charge up your batteries for a Successful Year ahead!!

Biomimicry: Solving today's problems with a million-year old blueprint

I attended this workshop on Biomimicry at the Lift India conference in Bangalore today. This workshop was run by people from the Biomimicry India lab, Prashant Dhawan & Seema Anand. It was an enlightening talk about a interesting concept that holds huge potential.

Source: Biomimicry india website

Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature. In other words, the fundamental premise is that today's problems have solutions all around us - in the form of nature's tried and tested blueprint that is millions of years old. Here is a 2-minute video explaining the concept. In the words of this movement's founder, Janine Benyus, natural organisms have managed to do everything we want to do without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet or mortgaging the future. So, we need look no further than our surroundings to solve some of the most puzzling problems we encounter.

Pic source: Asme.org

A classic example cited to highlight success of this concept is the redesign of Japan's bullet trains that were super-fast (300 kmph) but had the issue of causing sonic boom while exiting tunnels. This was due to the bullet shaped nose, that resulted in the high noise levels. This was solved when the train's chief engineer, Eiji Nakatsu observed the splashless, graceful entry of a Kingfisher into the water, based on which he redesigned the train's nose mimicking the bird's beak design.

Here is a nice Ted Talk by Janine Benyus on Biomimicry along with some striking case studies inspired by nature, and here are some more resources to explore.

Design for a better world

I've been dabbling in design and related disciplines as part of my work over the past 5 years. This has been across areas such as Information Design, UI-UX and Dashboarding, primarily for solving the problem of data consumption. The focus has been on practical application of these disciplines across several domains, variety of user groups, different devices and form factors. 

Quite recently, I've renewed my focus in this area and have been trying to delve deeper in the discipline to understand what makes anything functionally better, easier to use, while also driving up the emotional connect. There a lot of questions bubbling up at several levels in my mind that I'm struggling for answers. Here is a sample: 

• How do you bypass the clutter and engage directly with your target audience? Why do things have to be unpleasant 
• Why do you have to teach anyone to use a computer, while most people don't need instructions to use basic functions of a mobile phone?
• How do you make new technologies seem undaunting, or rather more inviting for the majority of people?
• Why should we live with daily irritants, for instance, struggling to identify the right switch when you want to turn on lights in a room?

I will keep sharing more thoughts on these and also a profiling of good and bad designs that I bump into.

A world without user manuals, sign boards or loud announcements, one where thoughts can directly translate into actions, is perhaps a better designed world.

Startups that make playtime enriching for kids

Startups are all the rage now in India, and education startups operate in a perfect sweet spot for Investors. They have made traditional classrooms digital, while also making learning fun through activities. There are yet another class of startups making schools efficient by tracking performance of students & teachers through analytics & visualization. All of these have been successful and found a niche in their respective areas. 

After all, Indian parents spare no expense to better 'educate' their ward and prepare them for the rat race! Tapping this very psyche, some education-focused startups have moved upstream from schools and into the homes. Their claim to fame is to engage the children better at home and keep them away from the dreaded evil that 'TV' has been made out to be. Two such companies that have caught a lot of attention are Flintobox and Magic Crate. Though these companies have been around for a year or so, they have really upped their advertising & marketing initiatives to reach people. 

I came across these on Facebook and was impressed by the concept, team & creative marketing initiatives. They target only the 4-8 year old kids and have a subscription model wherein one box is sent on a monthly basis to each kid. This has a set of 4 things that could be games, books or other creative activities, on a set theme every month. The materials are made of simple paper or cardboard and get the kid to build stuff through simple instructions, while teaching scientific skills through the activities. Taking a look at the team behind this company explains why the box contents & the website have been designed extremely well - a talented bunch of people from various disciplines like Engineering, Graphic Design and Psychology backgrounds, from top schools & many having quit big corporate jobs.

Impressed, I tried boxes from these companies for my kid and have been quite happy with the results. This is a much better & simpler way to engage children, than buying them a new set of Hot wheels Cars, Disney toys or hunting for some new activity games in toy shops every few months. Do try out one of these companies, for your children. 

Endurance Trek - Katraj to Sinhagad night trek

Planning a trek

After a gap of almost a year, I planned to go on a trek with GHAC. This was a back-to-back trek, first one during the day to the Vasota fort in Koyna wildlife sanctuary (~12 km), and then the night-long trek from Katraj to Sinhagad (~16 km). This was categorized as an endurance one, perhaps due to ~28 km being done within 24 hours, without any break for sleep and with hectic short bus travels in between.

Locating the 21 member group in the Hyderabad railway station was a no-brainer - anyone with a large enough backpack, could be invited in gleefully without even checking. While introductions happened in the train with ice-breaking name games, most of the discussions veered towards leeches, since the trek region had reported heavy rains in recent days and was supposed to be swarming with the blood-sucking creatures. All past accounts of 'leech treks' were recounted and a variety of interesting & equally bizarre precautions reported: from raw tobacco leaves, snuff powder, toothpaste, eucalyptus oil, kerosene, salt, fire, volini spray to just running a race to outrun leeches were listed. With every account, the first-time trekkers got over-anxious. Little did we realize that the group would eventually try ALL of the remedies!

Reaching Pune station at 9 AM, we had a breakfast of hot & delicious poha and paav bhaaji and boarded the bus for 3 hour journey to Satara. The journey was lively with dumb-charades and three parallel games of cards. So much was the fun and noise that the co-passengers shut us down. Satara was the biggest city closest to the Vasota trek-base point, and all supplies had to be bought there. So immediately preparations were underway, not for the lunch which was overdue, but to fight leeches. The group split up to do their shopping and when we congregated it was found that each person had bought one 'remedy' each. With about half kilo tobacco leaves, 2 bottles of snuff powder, 3 packs of powdered tobacco, 10 rolls of cotton, 5 rolls of crepe bandage, a variety of oils and chemicals. Putting all of this together, we looked like a group camping to do drugs!

Bamnoli, a quaint village

The 1.5 hour journey from Satara to Bamnoli was a scenic one with the road going through ghat roads, crossing a dam catchment area and the dense green reserve forest. Bamnoli is a quaint little village with a small population of few hundred. However, it showed ample signs of development with several houses having cars & modern amenities, possibly due to the mild but continuous tourist inflow from Pune and neighboring cities. The village had a big temple dedicated to the local deity, Bhairavnath which was also the place where we halted for the night.

The scenic route to Bamnoli (Pic: Ibrahim M)	The beautiful Koyna river (Pic: Ibrahim M)
An amazing sunset view, by the Koyna	Bhairavnath temple

The plan for the rest of evening was to get forest permit from the local ranger office and then spend the evening in the river. The Koyna river is a serene, clean river flowing right by the village. The group spent a couple of hours bathing and playing in the river, after which we witnessed a beautiful sunset. The sun sets right by a hill in front of the river and this was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen. Tired from the day's travel, we un-winded at one of the many hotels in the village, incidentally belonging to the village Sarpanch's that served delicious rice roti, curry, rice & dal, . After a camp fire by the river, the group had a good night's sleep in the Bhairav temple.

Trek to the Vasota fort

Gathering energy for the long day ahead, we woke up to a scenic view of the river from across the temple. How calm and different a morning this was from the hustle and bustle of the city life. With a sumptuous breakfast of hot poha (yet again!), we quickly got the needed permissions from the forest office and took 2 boats for the enjoyable 1.5 hour ride, which was yet another highlight of the trip. This trek route through the Tiger sanctuary was the one supposedly leech-infested, so all preparations were in full swing during the boat ride, using the procured materials. Applying eucalyptus oil on the foot as level-1 deterrent, followed by tobacco-soaked water or shampoo on the shoes as level-2, while a layer of toothpaste applied on the legs up to the knee as level-3 protection. God save the leeches if they happened to latch onto the shoes! Given my encounter with leeches on earlier treks & the backpacking trip, I took some precautions as well.

Koyna river in daylight (Pic: Ibrahim M)	...and the boats waiting to ferry tourists
Clean blue-green waters	That's part of the 'leech-fighting' prep!

Vasota fort is tucked deep in a jungle and is considered to have one of the best natural defences, hence its other name of Vyaghragad or 'tiger fort'. Completing the registration formality at the forest office on the other side, we started the 1.5 hour trek that took us through some dense green forest area that crossed a crystal clear water stream at 2 places. The trail eventually snaked up out of the thickets and onto the mountain that housed the fort. Emerging from the forest, one gets a majestic view of the Koyna backwaters in the midst of the jungle. Moving ahead, the remnants of fort wall covered in moss and greenery, dotted with a lot of wild flowers makes for a breathtaking view. There is not much left of the fort apart from an old temple and few pillars razed to the ground, thanks again to the British rule. However, the spectacular view from the top point of the surrounding mountains ranges, Babu Kada, Nageshwar peak and the Koyna river at the base makes it well worth the visit.

River stream in the forest	Moss-laden walls of the Vasota fort
View of the forest & river from the fort top	A clean water tank in the fort

On the way back, we noticed a fork in the road at the mid point, with a route leading up to a Nageshwar cave, that was closed post-monsoon due to dense bushes & tall grasslands, since it also supposedly has very high density of snakes. This is reported to be a popular destination during Shivaratri and I've seen blogs of trekkers covering this place as well, apart from the fort. Not disappointing our group in both legs of the journey, there were a lot of leeches! These were found mostly on the initial part of the journey that's closer to the water stream. Excitement turned to anxiety with frantic pulling out of the creatures, however the precautions seemed to help since most in the group did not suffer more than a couple of bites, with several emerging completely unscathed. There was a sense of relief upon reaching the boat and the group took a much needed break. The boat ride was enjoyable in the blue-green waters of the Koyna, while passing by some tribal village huts and few small islands.

Thats part of the gang..	Babu kada range

...and the imposing Nageshwar peak

After getting back to the Bamnoli village, we picked up the packed lunch and headed straight to the bus that was waiting for us; booking 21 seats in a 30-seater does get you some special treatment! The travel back to Satara and then onward to Pune was eventful, with more card games taking up bulk of the time while some caught up with few quick winks for the long night ahead.

All-night K2S Trek

At 10 PM, we walked towards the Katraj tunnel and started the overnight trek to Sinhagad fort base. This route had around 15 hills spread across a 16 km stretch. Being the post-monsoon season, the entire area was completely covered with 5 to 6 feet-tall grass and other dense foliage all over the hills, while the narrow trail was barely visible in several places. The walk from the highway and onto the continuous uphill climb for the first 2 hills was steep, wading through shoulder-high grass. Reaching the top ridge of the hills, one was greeted with an amazing, night aerial view of the Pune city on one side, while the other direction showed the long winding highway extending for some distance.

The walk through each of the 15 continuous set of hills was as if on a set pattern, with the trail gradually edging up the hill and then running almost through the center until the top of each hill, after which a steep decline takes you down onto the other side. Most of the descents were steep, but not too technical and could be covered with some simple and careful maneuvering, albeit in the dark. The weather was dry but pleasant, with pleasant breeze greeting one on each hill top. The few other trekking groups visible in the distance were moving like a group of fireflies, with only a continuous set of torch lights marking their movement. I quite liked the trek and thought that this could have been even better on a full-moon night, wherein the natural lighting could add to the beauty. 

As we navigated hill after hill all eyes were trained on the blinking red light at a distance, which actually was the telecom tower atop the Sinhagad fort and was clearly visible all the way from Pune. With no other indicator of the progress made or distance to be covered, this light was a motivation for one traversing in the dark of the night. After 4 hours into the trek, at around 2 AM, fatigue and lack of sleep started hitting the group,which had 5 to 6 first-timers. Water was quickly getting finished and the 3 litres mandated for the trek looked all the more critical, for there was not a single water source in the vicinity. With completion of every hill, people slumped down only to push themselves ahead with rest of the group.

At around 3 AM, we had done about 60% of the trek and it appeared that we were doing good on time. That was when we came across the SOS of another trekking group from Pune. The group of 7 had split up into two and the backward party had wandered off-trail. With enough able people leading our trek and guiding our group, we decided to split and have 2 of us who were sweeping at the end help this other group. So, 2 of us traveled back to find and guide the group. We located them and found that one of the members, a first-timer had fatigue & was ill. Using medicines from our first-aid kit, we then set them into a slow pace and led them back onto the trail. With an hour of delay due to this change in plan, we eventually brought these 7 people and caught up with our group, that was duly waiting for the 2 of us around the last few hills.

View of the last few hills in daylight	Wading through the post-monsoon greenery

It was 6.45 AM and we paused atop the hill to witness a beautiful sunrise over the Sahyadri mountain ranges. With the path completely lit up in broad day light, the last patch should have been easier to cover. However, as in most treks, the last few kilometers turn out to be the most challenging, particularly since our group had done a back-to-back trek over the past 24 hours without much sleep. Motivating, pleading and pushing, we got the group to cover the last lap and then moved down towards a village with road connectivity, in the vicinity. We had heard of most other groups climbing over the last hill to hit a tar road on the other side, but considering the condition of our group, we decided to take the down-hill path. Walking past the village's grazing cattle, we took shelter in front of a farm house that had beautiful green-brown fields growing wheat, pulses and a variety of flowers. The availability of water and a shade to cool the heels was like a God-send after completing the trek.

Beautiful seasonal flowers	Green fields, by the farmhouse

After taking some rest, we hired a truck to ferry us upto the Sinhagad fort entrance that was atop a nearby hill, and then back to the bus stop. We took a quick walk around the historic fort, that had seen some spectacular battles of valour and had continuously changed hands reflecting the power struggle in the region. Sadly, there were no details about any of the places of importance in the fort, the historical wars or rulers who commanded the fort, nor is there a museum or gallery to house any important artifacts. Most of the people who visit the fort are couples looking for some quiet time in the parks/remote areas of the fort, or groups of travelers on a daily sight-seeing mode who tick off the fort as a spot to visit while in Pune. This is yet another squandered opportunity in preserving history and highlighting its importance.

Entrance to the Sinhagad FOrt	Rock structure that housed the army's horses

With the trip completed, we took a bus back to Pune, that saw heavy rush due to the ongoing Puja festivities. Boarding the train at Pune station, the people had a quick meal and hit the bed early by 6 PM, to catch up for the day's lost sleep. Overall, it was an enjoyable trek testing the endurance, with a good itinerary that provided an eclectic, scenic view of forts, forest, river, hills... and amidst some leeches :)

Feature request for Twitter

Earlier this month, I got a user feedback survey questionnaire from Twitter in my account. Here are the 3 things I had asked for:

1. Smarter way to consume tweets in my account. If I manage to log in twice a day, I have several hundred tweets in my stream for the ~180 people I follow. If this is the volume with daily usage of twitter, I pity those following over 500 or 1000 people and accessing twitter once every few days. The current solution is for one to skip the tweets stream altogether or mute people, both of which defeat the very purpose of following others in the first place. One solution could be a smart summary of relevant tweets or a digest that brings one up to speed since the last login.

2. Better profile stats for a twitter account. While looking up the profile of an individual, I'd really like to see more than a simple listing of thousands of tweets & followers of a user. It would be nice to show an aggregation of interested categories, activity and how aligned is the person to my network. Today, its impossible to look at your own summary of historical activity level, unless you get an offline archive.

3. Smart recommendation of who to follow and what to read. Yes, there is some recommendation in place of 'you might be interested in', but that can get a lot smarter by going beyond the direct network. Bubbling up to most relevant tweets by interested categories / location / user's network would do a world of good to exploring the twitter-verse better.

In summary, context-relevant tools, content discovery features & a smarter analytics layer can make Twitter even more awesome.

Germany after Hitler - an interesting history

While visiting Bonn recently, the erstwhile capital of West Germany, I made a stop at the Museum of Contemporary History, a highly rated local attraction. The museum had free entry, but the real surprise and relief was to find an English audio guide! Perhaps because of the historical western influence for this part of the country, most boards were in English too.

The gallery entrance was setup like a rubble from the bombings of war, with signs proclaiming the allies' final push towards capturing Berlin in the Second World War. This, was the theme of this museum - to trace the history of Germany from 1945 until present day, covering all aspects of the final Nazi defeat, surrender treaty, reconstruction efforts by the victors, division of Germany and the eventual unification, while also abundantly covering the economy, culture and people aspects of the past 70 years. I thoroughly enjoyed the museum, spent my entire day there, learning quite a bit about these oft-missed aspects. 

Enough has been written about the world war, Nazi atrocities and the various battles, but the trials and tribulations of picking up a country that was all but destroyed in a major war, and tracing the path of its recovery back to world dominance is a commendable topic that needs detailing. Germany is promoting this museum to let its people and tourists learn this checkered past, and it was heartening to see a lot of families and locals spending time educating their kids on their national history!

Collection of interesting pictures & cartoons

Here, I share some of my favorite pictures & brilliant cartoons split across 3 key phases of this history:

1. Culmination of WWII and the Nazi defeat

This shows the final days of war & internal deep discontent on Nazi rule. Actual bomb shells, bricks and recovered household items are used to recreate real war scenes, combined with posters of the joint rule established under Soviet-US-UK-France. Heart-wrenching is the gallery on millions of missing civilians & the re-tracing efforts. The actual TV clippings of orphaned kids shown on TV, in an effort to trace the parents is poignant, where most kids are so young that they just smile innocently at the camera.

Entrance with actual vehicles used..	Partial structures built with actual bricks
...and a lot of war rubble & bomb shells	Map with occupation areas after Nazi defeat

2. Germany's Division & twin diverging paths of reconstruction

The stark contrast in the reconstruction efforts of West & East Germany under the US and Soviet rules is highlighted. Interesting stories about the controversial Marshal plan, Candy bombers, rigged elections and historic events of nation building are covered through excellent articles, videos & samples. The events leading up to the Berlin wall and massive casualties suffered therein are captured too.

Cartoon showing different approach of US & USSR	Germany's Rulers
Creative setup of 2 zones showing conditions in the East & West	Cartoon on policies

Cartoon shows East Germany starving & isolated	Powerful cartoon on Hitler vs Stalin

The Berlin wall & the Geographic division

3. Socio-economic progress, Economic miracle and resurgence of a unified Germany

This is a heart-warming section on setting up of a social market economy and the Economic miracle led by German scientific progress & brand building - Beetle, Braun, Zeiss lenses, Adler typewriters, Steiff toys, Bayer pharma and hundred others are shown with earliest products. The impact of reconstruction on culture and everyday life is tracked through changing nature of day-to-day objects & actual posters. And yes, there is also a separate gallery celebrating Germany's miraculous 1954 Soccer world cup triumph!

Brilliant cartoon on lowering of post-war restrictions for Germany

Early products of the brands that made Germany..	Why Balance of Trade?

Artifacts on scientific progress..	Interesting twist in the 'logo' tale