New York Five Boro Bike Tour

Abstract
I was inspired by this idea that we could bike entire New York, while the cars were taken off the street, it’s a forty mile ride spanning all five boroughs of the city and ascend few iconic bridges to reach the final destination. I added additional spice to this event by choosing to get the event by riding my bike from home taking mass transit to get there and back.

Jump to:
History
The journey begins…
Destination Downtown
New York Penn Station
The kick off
Knowledge is Power
Fly overs
Verrazano’s bridge
The finish line
The Ferry
West Side Hwy
Thanks

History
Back in 1977 some 250 NYC bike enthusiasts held a 50 mile bike challenge to promote cycling in the city. Then with minimal security and within the NYC traffic they had completed the event successfully. Next year the then NYC Mayor Ed Koch officially changed the name of the event to FIVE BORO BIKE TOUR instead of challenge to attract more bikers to participate in the event, ever since it has been a popular NYC event, with the capacity as high as 25 to 30 thousand participants.

The journey begins…
Well below is the picture taken at 5am on a Sunday morning. Most Sundays I spend my mornings in bed while my wife goes to jog. I had signed up for New York Five Borough Bike Tour. My luck had it that it got cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19, hence rescheduled in May 2021. As things did not improve it got postponed to Aug 22nd. Then came the Hurricane Henri it got postponed to Aug 29th, finally the day had arrived, I had to get off my bed.

Destination Downtown
Most people would have written about the event experience itself, but I wanted to capture the whole stretch as to how I got to New York and back. Like the picture shows at 5am it was air/brake and water bottle check. I actually started to ride my bike at 5.30am to Princeton Jn station. The plan was to take scheduled 6.02am to Newark Penn and then board on to Path to downtown. Wanted to reach train station in time giving about 20 minutes to reach there but had reached in 10, was I pumped or what. So after a long wait the train arrived. The doors opened and there is a special section for bike storage in the train, to my amazement there were already two bikes stashed, bikers from Hamilton or Trenton headed to NYC Bike Tour. After Hellos I settled next to them. While we struck with conversations, time had passed by one of them asked what station is this, I looked up it was Newark Penn and train had started to move. Surprised as I asked them aren’t you getting off hear and taking path? to which the lead among them, now I know he is Israel, said, no we are going to New York Penn and from there will bike down the venue. Train had left the platform and now I was following them throwing my original plans out the window.
Conductor passed by looked up at us as one of us was supposed to get off at Newark Penn. I raised my hand and said “that’s me and I want to bump my ticket“, pulling the cash out. Conductor has his way giving a pass to their patrons once in a while today was that day, he goes, “why don’t you download the NJ Transit app and purchase the ticket their and show it to me, I will be back” and he took off. This generally means that he will never come back and he wants to give me a pass. I know this since I am regular commuter. As expected NY Penn came and we all got off.

New York Penn Station
Israel set out to look for the elevator and there were ten other people with their huge luggage waiting, the elevator looked small it would not fit three bikes and besides our turn would come after two shifts at least. I suggested lets ride escalator, which is what we did. Now we were in the main lobby of the station we had to take another escalator to get to the streets, riding an escalator with bike was easy, the tricky part was opening the heavy double doors with one hand while holding the bike with another. Last escalator, Israel had done and held the door for us, now it was my turn, with a struggle held the doors open and let the second biker out, by then Israel was on the street laughing at us. There was another set of double doors next to mine that was ajar all the while. Fun had begun, ice was broken.
It’s been more than two years now that I am not a regular at New York, due to Covid-19 reasons, the beautiful change I noticed was their is a designated bike lane on either side of the road marked with green patch in all of Manhattan, I am like wow, New York City is getting Europenised; if that’s a word. So it was a breeze biking down the roads to downtown, soon we saw a bunch of bikers settled in huddle.

The kick off
From the selfie below you can see the other two have Yellow number tags; they had signed up for yellow wave which would start at 8.30am and I had signed up for Orange wave which was scheduled to start at 9.20 which was basically a last wave after another which was Green. The Blue wave had started at 7.30am. We had reached the venue at around 8am. Israel suggested I hope on Yellow wave and I did not hesitate and we were off at 8.30am biking down the roads along with bunch of other bikers with no cars on the road, zipping by the red lights.
Like the event says, this biking spans all the five boroughs of NYC, starting from Manhattan downtown, barely touching Bronx, cross the river land in Bronx and then take the next bridge and back in Manhattan. I wonder why, Bronx is the most notorious of all the five boroughs, although it is home of Yankees Stadium. My guess is next route would have been on National Highways, which the city authorities had no rights to block them. Then we crossed the Queensboro bridge also known as Ed Koch bridge to land in Queens. This was the first big bridge with steep elevation, people took a break to take pictures on the iconic bridge. Soon after we were forced to walk the bike in the rest area. Johnny’s lined up on one side and volunteers serving banana and water to the bikers on the other. Grabbed a banana and few snacks, relaxed on the side and we were back on the bike.

Knowledge is power
I learnt this the hard way, while we began biking there was huge bottleneck hence we chatted while we rode, Israel asked “What is the pressure on my tires“, to which I said, “To make my riding easy I have pushed it to 20 or 22“, to which the other guy said, “What! mine is 100, 22 is way less, this will slow you down“, he rode a classic Schwinn, where he had received several compliments. “At next rest area you should check your tire pressure rating and put to the max” recommended Israel. The next break came after the Queensboro bridge. I had always put 18 to 20 on my bike comparing it to cars 33 to 36 PSI. My tire read 68 to 86, so I pumped it to 80 and then the life was smoother.

Fly overs
We ride through huge bridges that is given but we also constantly bike over the fly overs pushing our limit of exhaustion up the hill and then a free ride down the hill. As easy as it sounds and rewarding riding down the hill, it can be really be painful on your rear if you don’t stand on the bike pedals.
This reminds me of one thing, it is good to have a very good bike, I could see few of the riders breezing thru me with easy pedaling, they were probably very good bikes, but if I have to say one thing, if you can buy and $1000 bike then invest $500 on the bike and rest on bike seat, trust me your bum will thank you. After Manhattan, Brooklyn is the most beautiful borough, we drove thru some chic streets. Sad as it may sound we did not ride on the most iconic bridge of all the Brooklyn Bridge.

In this picture you get to see sea of bikes as opposed to cars on FDR drive, this is akin to Tom Cruise running in the middle of Times Square in Vanilla Sky.

Verrazano’s bridge
I guess Verrazano’s bridge is on the highest elevation in NYC, correct me if I am wrong, but on this bike tour it was. Also the winding road that leads to the bridge is quite a ride, a familiar car rider would know that. Hence this was the last climb up the hill of our 40 mile tour, with that excitement I pushed on and reached the peak of the Verrazano’s. I dismounted my bike to take pictures, from this peak I could see Russia but that’s me. From hear on it was down hill to the destination. Mind you there are few more flyovers and by definition there will be ups and downs.
While I was taking pictures and recording, I saw a commotion next to me. There was a man lying on the road and someone else pumping his chest. The man lay still and people took turns resuscitating him, I stood afar from the crowd knowing that I had nothing to contribute while the pro riders were at work. Most of the bikers had stopped at distance and prayed for his recovery. Suddenly cheers erupted from the crowd yelled spread out and give him some air. That is when I thanked god and mounted my bike to ride, as soon as I peddled two steps, I heard the OHHH in the background, turned and looked to see that the man was back to square one, others thumping his chest again.
Crowd was building up so I took off, paramedics and FDNY vehicles drove head on to us to pick up the man in distress. The man had made the peak, if only he had taken a little breather in between.

The finish line
As for me cool breeze was slapping my face while I zipped by the down hill, by crossing the bridge I had landed in the fifth and final Borough Staten Island, somewhere it was posted 35 mile mark, I gave sigh of relief, but then the flyover came, now you have to pump again, I had to make a decision which cheek do I like more and whom do I punish. I repeat invest in the seat comfort, don’t make the mistake I did. Down the flyover and huge right bend, not having to pedal and then I see someone standing on the mega phone shouting, “Congratulations you have done it“, I was like, did I?, 40 is done, it’s over, should I drop the bike and kiss the floor? The next megaphone lady shouted dismount your bikes and walk it to the Bike Festival arena. And just like that my Five Borough Bike Tour had come to an end.

After freshening up and some water headed to beer stall to get some beer with my train buddies, who had finally arrived looks like they decided to hang out more during the tour unlike me just riding it down. The choice was IPA or Fat Tire, fittingly I chose Fat Tire having ridden lean tire for a while now.

The Ferry
My friends chose to hang out there so I headed to the Staten Island Ferry that would take me to Downtown. Walk the bend led to the ferry, upon arrival the line was not huge, assumed everybody was still hanging out and having fun. The lady ahead of me was puzzled “Do we have to pay for this ferry?“, she was expecting it to be part of the whole tour package to land us back to the place we started from. I mumbled “Welcome to American capitalism madam!“, Immediately the lady attending the ferry pointed further saying that “You can board that ferry, that is free ride arranged by Bike Tour“. That led us to another ferry where more than 200 cyclists waited for the next ride. Thought this is going to be a long wait, to my amazement the next ferry hosted all the 200 and more, I had got the front seat(standing) overlooking the view to World Trade Center, Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge in a single frame. It was a cloudy day, hence the gray pastel, great for biking but not for landscape pictures. You can’t have the cake and eat it too.
Hoped off the ferry, it is amazing to watch how quickly they dock it, no wonder it is a everyday busy commuter ferry for SI residents, I had heard about this ferry as NJ residents could drive up to SI and park there cars to ride this ferry to reach Downtown for everyday work. NJ Transit trains who bag awards year after year are the worst transit system to NYC.

Walking into this huge ferry, it almost looks like a cruise liner

Statue of Liberty on left, WTC in the middle and zoom in to right to see Brooklyn Bridge

West Side Hwy
Now starts my personal bike ride to reach NY Penn Station. Had known from past that there was a bike path along the Westside Hwy, which I used to cross over to the park during lunch from CITI overlooking Hudson river. Bikers gave a hard ring while we crossed their path. It was an amazing ride fully divided with two way bike path, following the bike rules, the rookie NYC riders who had come for bike tour rode on the other side of the path and got yelled by the opposite side, “Stay in your lane“. Through and through the bike lane is established along the length of Manhattan, I had to get off at 34th street while I looked at my old work building. Had no mood to ride on 34th street since it was another up hill and buses shared the bike lane for offloading passengers, hence walked the bike for most of the path until I reached Penn Station. My next train to Trenton was scheduled for 3.52pm which was more than 45 mins wait, trains run every hour on a weekend schedule. Was hoping and praying that the track assigned to our train would be 10 or higher number which usually have escalators, which is what we usually get on weekday schedules. To my hard luck finally 10 mins before departure they posted track 1, you need to walk down the steps with bike, uggh!
This was going to be an hour commute to Princeton Jn, now I had to carry the bike thru underpass one last time and ride it home. I said my self “last mile” while I took a bend to my home.

Thanks
Last but not least thanks to mother nature our Bike Tour was peacefully sandwiched between Henri and Ida, and special thanks to you for making it to the end, I feel your pain 🙂

_{It is very common in European countries that all the major cities have adopted to pollution free commuting, like riding bicycles around the city.}

Corona Virus(2020) or Contagion(2011)

“In order to get sick, you have to come in contact with a sick person, in order to get scared you just have to get in contact with a rumor.” Laurence Fishburne.

WhatsApp is a wonderful place to look for rumors, so I did, there is a video viral of Contagion’s trailer playing with uncanny references to the current Covid-19 predicted in 2011. As I dig deep into the movie, it is any other Sci-Fi thriller based of the previous virus outbreaks which almost all have been from China. Frankly speaking I have not seen the movie Contagion – duh! then what are you critiquing about!!!

Well as I googled to watch this movie online (you know I am working from home), although I have Netflix and Amazon Prime, I need to rent it to watch. So I googled Youtube, I did not find the movie but watched a review written by a Real Doctor, not Whatsapp doctors, but a certified one, Medlife Crisis.

Apparently he was compelled to review this movie in the wake of Corona Virus comparison. Boy do I love his review. He explains about the movie in such detail medical terms and finally gives a thumbs up to the attention to detail. More cool about his review, he sips a Corona Extra(vaccine) and runs for an extra boost once it’s over, doc has some funny bone.

Modi feeds Trump, Narcissism!

modi-trump-hug — Modi Trump bear hug, while Melania looks on!

President Trump declares to media here in USA, week ahead of is visit to India that Prime Minister Modi has promised to greet him with 7 million people; that is 70 Lakhs for those Indians reading my blog – narcissism much!

Modi is a self proclaimed businessman; every Gujarati is, but Trump is a businessman; a failed one at it, but claims he is a deal-maker. Modi knows grass is best fed to cows to milk and Trump, narcissism. Can Modi milk Trump or will it be just a spectacle verses substance.

Modi is building a 22 kilometer wall to hide the slums from Trump motorcade passing through Ahmedabad to welcome him at a biggest Cricket stadium in India. So much for those poor Indians who had offered Poojas (pun intended) for Trump to win the election in 2016. I love to here this quote from Trump,

My best friend Modi has built such a beautiful wall, very beautiful and HUGE!, those Do Nothing Democrats will never let me build a wall like this.

Now to understand Trump’s ego being hurt, we have to visit the inauguration picture that he posted in his #Whitehouse; a fake one. The real comparison with Barack Obama’s inaugural is pictured below.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-size-photos-edited#img-1 — Trump Inaugural crowd on left verses Obamas on right – courtesy The Guardian

It is just that till date Barack Obama is more popular in America and respected around the world. Here’s a recent tweet from Obama which has garnered close to a million likes. Trumps most likes have reached 200K #SAD (dragging the hands away).

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1229432034650722304

The above tweet has hurt him so much that he had to issue a statement from his four walls of West Wing, reporters tweeted in response to hold some press conference if he had some real marbles.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1231302822785953792

Here is another retweet he has done, don’t know who is this Sol but claims herself Master Memetician and this man feeds on these things.

https://twitter.com/Solmemes1/status/1231326273894526976

Well narcissism much!

I will just leave this picture here, just in case Kellyanne Conway feels this was too juvenile and plans to delete it.

TrumpRetweet

George Conway is no psychiatrist but long back has declared that our President needs help!; Kellyanne I think you should meet your husband once in a while.

How can I end my blog without mentioning our beautiful FLOTUS Melanie err… Melania Trump. She has planned to visit Delhi government school, which has aced the education system beating National School and esteemed private schools. She is there to preach India #BeBest, if only she turned around and looked at her husband and step sons, the world would BeBest.

America is BERNing again

Bernie2020

With Donald J. Trump’s gaffe as President mounting or so the democratic party thinks, is jumping in record number to throw their hat in the ring to compete against Trump in 2020.

The first one to declare her candidacy was Tulsi Gabbard, a little known U.S. representative from Hawaii although she is very well known for supporting Dictator Assad, I wonder if she was inspired by Narendra D. Modi who won with handsome majority using his Hindu card in India. Tulsi is the only Hindu candidate to ever run for the office in America period. Then came the most viable and popular candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Yes democrats had a tremendous success in Mid-term elections with electing record number of female candidates across the country, so even though world thought that America would elect their first female and most popular candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, there is tremendous hope in 2020. Democratic hopefuls list keeps growing with Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and ten other candidates, check the complete list here.

Bernie Sanders is a repeat candidate, which is rare in American Presidential candidacy, but Bernie believes that he was robbed of his pick in 2016 against Hillary by DNC, with the caveat of Super Delegates.

AGE: Bernie will be the oldest candidate to run for office if nominated on Democratic ticket, Americans prefer young and healthy President in office. Trump is an exception, because his doctors have claimed that he has super gene, if not this obese, he would live up to two hundred years. He is also an exception for being racist, xenophobic and sexist. But Bernie being the oldest candidate has serious young generation following, no wonder he had huge crowd at his first 2020 campaign kickoff at Brooklyn College.

SOCIALISM: Bernie’s primary agenda is to fight against big corporations, provide free college education, free health care like other developed nations for all and levy heavy taxes on the wealthy top one per-centers since 2016 much else has changed. It is this socialism that DNC got scared and tilted their support towards Hillary in 2016. Knowing this, Trump has already launched a massive campaign attack against democratic party as socialistic for 2020 re-election bid at CPAC. But the difference this time around for Bernie is another young star; recently elected US representative from New York; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more popularly known as AOC has rocked socialism. Most of the democratic presidential hopefuls have distanced themselves from socialism but Bernie prefers to call it Democratic Socialism. Socialism is a dirty word in America although it has been applied since ages such as Social Security, Medicare and free education to all until high school. Bernie says that times have changed and High School diploma is not sufficient to get a job instead every American needs a college education to get a job.

How far Bernie will get ahead this time around only time will tell with the crowded hopefuls, although he is the first to kickoff his campaign in full gear. The energy he has demonstrated thus far is commendable. Not far behind him is another most popular candidate still mulling on, Joe Biden.

With the early kickoff Berine sure has shown some steam in the game, but will America BERN this time, only time will tell.

Wars have REAL consequences

India-PakStat

In the wake of current Indo-Pak stand off Al Jazeera posted a picture of World Bank on the both nation statistics comparing side by side. The picture above caught my attention.

It all started when Pakistan sponsored JeM terrorists struck the CRPF bus killing more than forty personnel, one of the deadliest terrorist attack since a decade on Feb 14th at Pulwama. The entire nation mourned the loss of brave forces, rightly so they wanted answers from the nation that harbors these terrorists. This time it was no different that Pakistan said it did not harbor JeM.

It took ten days for India to plan and strike the cells of JeM well within the boundary of Pakistan and destroyed there camps, successfully returning back while Pakistan media mocked it’s Military as “Don’t honk, Pakistan Military is sleeping“. This covert operation was no less than what America had carried out to eliminate Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. But India is yet to eliminate Massod Azhar.

This escalated tensions on both Nuclear armed neighbors, Pakistan launched air strikes against Indian military targets and India responded aptly. Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was found in Pak occupied Kashmir as POW. India established that Pakistan had used a missile that was sold by America with a condition that it cannot be used against India. This was a clear violation of the agreement.

Understandably talks began behind closed doors to the release of the Indian POW with international community. President Trump who was busy with his failing Vietnam Summit and barrage of accusations by his long time lawyer(fixer) Michael Cohen at home, he found only one good news to deliver the Hanoi press, stealing the thunder of PM Imran Khan.

https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1101028965546749954

https://twitter.com/omar_quraishi/status/1101079219252150272

With the release of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, it is a clear victory for India and time to rejoice, but Retd: Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis cautioned (more so scolded) the media, it is wrong to use high decibels on air and hyperbolic vocabulary, one man stands out for me is Arnab Goswami who has such thin skin being a journalist and a public figure does not have a Twitter account for the fear of public retribution, but barks non stop night after night on TV screens without a rebuttal, another is Rahul Shivshankar at least this man has a twitter account. You are welcome to list more in comments. Mr Tipnis said that media is talking such nonsense that even though India has been wronged by Pakistan, it appears that India is a aggressor in the international community.

With the international pressure or the good will gesture of PM Imran Khan (that’s what he claimed in his Parliament), a brave soldier has returned home.

In the end I wish to change that picture posted above by Al Jazeera to the one below, one day it will happen.

IndiaPakNew

Modi Strikes Jaish; JeM

PM_Modi

India has struck 80 KMs inside Pakistan with a precision air strikes in response to the Pulwama attack. It is inappropriate for me to title this opine as Modi strikes; it is more of the Indian Armed Forces that has carried out with vigor. A little credit is due to Prime Minister Modi for taking a call on this strike for being the first Air Strike of India into Pakistan since 1971. Googled the number of terrorist attacks since 1971… I fainted looking at the chart, once I recovered, composed myself to eliminate the ones that were home grown. There are scores that were conducted during Congress rule; more deadlier than Pulwama and couple in one term BJP; PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration. But this is the first time a sitting Prime Minister has taken a decisive action against the terrorist in their home ground. So that’s there; Modi Strikes!

Modi was elected in part due his strong hand and 56 inch chest that was needed to address the cross border terrorism from the past which Congress had failed miserably time and again. It would have been apt to strike the terrorist cells upon his swearing in, in 2014. But he chose to give a hug to the then PM of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif to mend a better relationship with our neighbors. The opposition cried that the 56 inch had deflated. Then the URI response happened, the first surgical strike in Indian history on Pakistan soil, opposition called it foul. And here we are after a Pulwama attack, within 10 days the Modi administration has stuck with military might within Pakistan eliminating the terrorist cells successfully. This time around there is no confusion among opposition that the administration has failed.

Now playing the devil’s advocate, what took Modi government to give such a decisive outcome around this time? it’s been almost five years that India elected him with absolute majority for this outcome. Is it that in 2018 the people said that they are turning back to Congress with the election results in Hindi heartland? In conclusion it is the good opposition (Mahagathbandhan) that has compelled Modi to display his 56. It is not mission accomplished yet until JeM‘s Massod Azhar is eliminated. So I urge the opposition to get even stronger and the citizens of India make an educated decision to elect Modi for second term, which he rightly deserves. You have given ten terms to Congress to expect the same failed outcomes hoping for the next one to be better.

Sarah Sanders Speaks…

It was refreshing to see Sarah after 40 days, she out ran government shutdown which in itself made a history as the longest shutdown. But I wonder why Sarah went 40 days without a press briefing. Trump had already tweeted in support of her saying, media never respects her, why address them anyways.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1087733867614781446

Sarah being a true christian had intentionally stayed in hiding for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12)(Acts 1:3) from the evil press.

It is extremely cramped for reporters to sit in that small briefing room and wait for Sarah to arrive. She has mastered this art to call the reporters at 2PM and shows up on the podium at 3PM. Today was no different, Brian Karem went in to check on her, who came back with two fingers wagging, a lady reporter in the crowd was surprised that Sarah would show up in two minutes. Then when adorned the podium, she immediately went to work, “Under President Trump’s leadership, economy is growing…” though she uttered President Trump, her mannerisms sounded like Emperor Trump. The gloating monologue went for another few minutes, I wonder if Trump would like to sit on a throne nearby when Sarah addresses the press, he would have if only press was not allowed to ask questions. Soon she handed over the mic to John Bolton and Steve Mnuchin, her idea was to tire the press by asking them questions. As though these two were not enough she sent out Larry Kudlow for taking the questions on this infamous shutdown, which when asked Larry dismissed it saying it’s not his place to comment on it, walked of smiling, leaving it to Sarah.

Finally she came back to podium to take questions, saying, “There should not be much left to ask me?” The media pounced her anyway with blizzard of questions. The first question she took was from her comfort zone journalist John Roberts; a Fox News white house correspondent. She had thought it would be an easy one, well karma is a bitch!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089691564283183105

But the question wasn’t easy to which she replied her usual answer, “Look I don’t want to get in…” basically it’s either get in, get ahead or get into. Since Sarah is trump’s spokesperson, she is his mouthpiece, when she says “I don’t want to get in” does she mean she does not want to get into the guts of Mr. Trump? Then she took a few questions from her nemesis like April Ryan, when asked “Will Trump shutdown the government again in three weeks?”, Sarah responded, “I don’t know you need to axe err ask Democrats for that”, I don’t if the use of word axe was in error or intentional, she has learnt few tricks from her boss. Finally ended with sly joke on Jim Acosta, he asked “All Trump’s aides are indicted like Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Mike Flynn including the most recent Roger Stone, is White house in trouble?” To which she replied, “Look, President Trump did nothing wrong.” I wonder even if she is indicted, would she say, “Look Trump’s mouth did wrong not Trump!”

Finally she stormed of the podium when the reporter shouted, “Good to see you Sarah” and another said, “Come back soon”.

Trump imitates Modi, Modi imitates Trump

Narendra Modi campaigned heavily on India being a Hindu nation and that India needs to defend itself against Pakistan sternly. He accused the previous govt Congress of being too soft against the aggression of Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. He even campaigned that the top leaders of Congress as the Western establishment ruling India associating the Gandhi family as Italians, although Sonia vehemently opposed that saying she had left Italy to be with her now deceased Indian husband Rajiv Gandhi. It did not sit well with the Gandhi family as their budding heir Rahul Gandhi expressed no such Indian values other than wearing an Indian kurta for campaigning, while most of the time he was found in Bangkok detoxing himself to gear up against Modi attacks – the strongest one being the Shahazadha; the son of royal family. This was 2014 and Modi won with thumping majority as the next Prime minister. The Congress was decimated, Rahul who had half heatedly canvassed on the persuasion of his mother went back to Bangkok for further detoxing. Since then Modi has been the first Indian PM to visit Pakistan with surprise visit found hugging the then PM of Pakistan, Nawaz Sheriff. Since then Kashmir issue has escalated and India claims it has now given the befitting reply to Pakistan cross border terrorism, understandably now detoxed and formally appointed as President of the Congress party Rahul claims otherwise.

Then came 2016 and America went for election and Donald J. Trump took the Modi playbook and accused all the politicians of big swamp and especially Barack Obama as too soft to the world, hence undermining the might of Mighty America. The reality was George W. Bush had projected America as a bully nation after 9/11 for going to war without the UN consensuses. It is then that obese Americans who love French Fries had renamed them as Freedom Fries in retaliation to France, it is these Americans that would eventually vote for the now Republican candidate DJT who had little knowledge that French fries had nothing to do with France. Trump crushed 11 political presidential hopefuls to nominate himself as next Republican candidate in Primaries.

Against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, he pitched that under her administration it would be the same 8 eight years as her predecessor Obama. Frankly she was running on that agenda as Obama had brought the respect for America it deserved from the rest of the nations and had made an effort to diffuse the nuclear tension from Iran by holding a bilateral talks. He had also steered America from the worst recession created by out going GWB since Great Depression. But what Trump used against her was Modi’s strategy, America’s superpower status had diminished under Obama and he was too soft to speak with Iran and bent backwards to appease them. He vehemently opposed the stand immigration policy against the illegal immigrants, where in the past both Republicans and Democrats had avoided the issue. Trump came along and said he would deport all illegals back to Mexico, 11 millions of them and build a beautiful WALL across the Mexico border. Although majority of the illegals are from Mexico sizable illegals are from other nations too, including India, so will he send them to Mexico too? but this was a good catch phrase for election and he ran with that.

It worked and Trump was elected as the first non political failed businessman (not according to him, on the contrary Trump race is the most powerful gene, to which he feels that every women needs to be impregnated with his sperms, to further the dominance of America against the rest of the world) as the President of America.

Now it is Modi’s turn to run for a second term and he is using all the gimmickry that of Trump. Although it’s almost two years since Trump took office he has not gone any further with his biggest policy of building the wall on Mexico border. He had promised his supporters that Mexico would pay for the wall, the supporters had cheered him in every rallies “BUILD. THAT. WALL.”, now as a elected president he went to Mexican president to pay for the wall, that did not go well but he got a big middle finger from former Mexican president Vicente Fox. So now he has retorted to build the wall using American tax payers, although the congress is not approving it, even though republicans are in majority. So trump has planned to shut down of the government, twice by now.

Here Modi has called for deporting some 4 million illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, apparently the illegals that have entered India since 1971 are at the risk of getting deported back to Bangladesh, only problem is they are all born in India. To make it more complicated he had declared in 2014 that all the Hindu, Sikh and Christians refugees from Bangladesh are welcome anytime, so who else is left, that’s the Muslims. Muslims mostly poor daily wage workers are claiming that they are born and lived in India, if they are deported they have no place to go, Bangladesh would not accept them. Indian constitution is built on secularism and cannot ban the immigrants based of religion. But Modi supporters are backing the move. The opposition is warning bloodshed if such a move was executed. Thus some 4 million people are stranded as to not knowing when they would be deported to Bangladesh.

Trump announces ‘SPACE FORCE’ and Modi pulled of Space Mission on Aug 15 2018.

WhatsApp Lynching

I first read the lynching incident way back in Sep 2015, which has now become infamous Dadri lynching. The incident was so sad that the man was lynched based on the rumors that he had eaten beef.

So what?

I know, if you are in USA beef is an American staple diet; trust me it’s high in cholesterol, you need to cut on that. Just a suggestion or if it was Mayor Mike Bloomberg, he would heavily tax on it, which is outrageous, who wants a nanny state, right? Even if that saves your life in the long run. Lets get back to our story, turns out this man from Dadri (I try not to use the real names, it’s subject that matters); a parent of an active soldier, was made to run in the village streets while a mob chased him with machetes. The senior man ran for his life behind a bunch of teenagers; could you think that a senior could out run a bunch of teenagers with adrenaline. That senior out ran them, it was the last hope he had, else death. Anyways the peasant ran to his home, locked himself up in the bedroom. Commotion erupted in the living room, the family members scurried around the crowd begging to save his life.

What couldn’t they immediately call for the police help?

You might think these poor villagers did not have phones, they did! as a matter of fact every individual has phone in India, actually India has the highest number of cellphones in the world. No wonder Mark Zuckerberg visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi multiple times, to provide a free internet to all his citizens. Good deal hah! not so fast, in return Mark gets to control what content the nation views. See the game here. Well that did not happen and Mark returned home empty handed, actually the first thing he ate after landing on American soil; A double cheese Hamburger. So they had called for the cops but they were standing outside the home as the tiny home itself was filled with mobs. The wife begged and pleaded the leader to spare her husband; it was immaterial what his offense was. Nonetheless his son demanded what was the offense?

“You filthy humans, you eat beef”, said a burly mustache and darted towards the kitchen and opened his fridge to produce the beef.
Aah! the beef, dear Americans pardon those mobsters for calling beef eaters as filthy humans. Well lets talk about this beef a little, there two flavors of beef in India. No it’s not Angus and regular beef; that’s debate you fight in America. Here it’s cow beef and Water buffalo beef.

What’s the difference?

Big difference. Cow in India is a sacred animal, so sacred you worship her everyday. That buffalo, the dark cousin of cow, not so sacred, you can butcher it and eat it, at your will. Mind you, buffalo provides more milk to the nation than cows. If only they evolved using Fair and Lovely to become fair like cows, Sigh! So this Cow Beef is banned in India since independence, see the Brits left the land and cows roamed the streets at freewill. A foreign delegate comes to the capital of India; Delhi, the entire population is shooed off the streets for the entourage to pass by and suddenly it comes to halt. Then President, Barack Obama once asked, “Aaah! Why did we stop?“. The Indian high command sputtered, “Saaar! it’s the cows they are crossing the streets and one is just resting on the road, they will have them moved and we will get going.”

Buffaloes dare not come on the streets, they would be beaten like hell. You say, “I get it, this man was eating Cow beef“, no he was not, it was a buffalo beef, but this wonderful WhatsApp we have now had spread the word that he was eating otherwise, even , more sinister a calf meat. You know how fast the news spreads on WhatsApp right, it goes viral within seconds and then the cow vigilantes gather and dart towards the culprit. So here we are attacking this father whose teenage girls were huddled in the corner for the fear of being raped. Son pleaded that the beef in the fridge was buffalo beef, if only he could reach his older brother who was deployed on the treacherous Indo-Pak border; defending these cow vigilantes from the terrorist attacks. This soldier does not carry a cellphone for security reasons, in short he was nowhere to be reached. The mob chants grew louder,

“Kill that man, who abuses an innocent cow.“,

few reprimanded the family members and rest broke open the doors of the bedroom. Father was mercilessly beaten to death while his entire family looked on!

The mob moved on warning the remaining family,

“Dare you eat this beef, you will meet the same fate“,

actually the mother darted to eat the meat; it was suicidal, her children held her back.

Mob moved out, police moved in.
“What happened here?” asked the inspector.
“Sir, they killed my father for eating this beef, it’s buffalo beef”, cried his son.
“Send that meat for forensics”, ordered the Inspector, you see his priority.
Indeed the forensics report had come back as buffalo meat, really nobody eats cow meat in India. Actually cows have become such a nuisance on the streets, they have been left to die eating plastic bags and trash. The day cow stops bearing milk they are left on the streets, nobody dares take any action. Not to digress, but there are few organizations who shelter these abandoned cows.

Finally the military son was informed, whose bosses were appalled to hear the story and sent him home to attend his grieving family. He being the elder son torched the dead body for cremation and did the final rights.
Media asked him, “Soldier how do you feel that you serve our nation and here a bunch of mobsters kill your father”.
He simply says, “I forgive them”, and finally moves the entire family from that town where his generation had lived.

Since that incident scores have been lynched over the past few years, it was not always cow related though, some times it’s religion, other times it’s journalists/writers, I was loosing track of these incidents until the last one that literally hit home.

My hometown Karnataka, a software engineer, who had just returned from Middle-East on vacation, gave-away few chocolates to street kids, who devoured with joy. The bunch of vigilantes go to work, sent a Whats-app message among their friends, with this engineer’s picture attached saying that, he is a child-lifter. Really that’s a popular word in India a Child-Lifter. The mob got to work and this highly educated engineer was not given any chance to defend his actions and dragged on the streets and beaten to death.

Since most of these mob vigilantes are affiliated with one or the other political parties, the police keeps looking for them but can never identify the perpetrators, conveniently, even though all of the act is circulating on the same WhatsApp among rest of the world, I mean, I sit here in USA and get to see these videos within an hour of the incident.

Argument has been that WhatsApp has to stop these false propaganda, Facebook parent company of WhatsApp has been under fire for selling out users information to Cambridge Analytica, which has compromised the election results in USA and India alike. The technology can only go so far as in case of WhatsApp, the privacy of the user is protected by not revealing the information to anybody except the intended party, in this case the vigilante groups messages cannot be seen by law authorities or the WhatsApp organization itself. Facebook has put in place a lot of checks and balances in case of English language, but would take a lot of time to decipher the hundreds of Indian vernacular languages.

For argument sake let’s say a person ate beef or abducted a child, what right and authority does the mob have to punish him or her. Yes there were women killed based of fake messages of child-lifting. If anybody suspects that somebody is doing wrong, inform the authorities, let police handle it. Well in America this has gone too far, too. A black child sells lemonade and a lady calls cops on that child. Yet she did not take law into her own hands, at least for now.

My final plea is that we as humans need to care for other humans, justifiably to animals too. I cannot fathom that a bunch of people use there bare hands and kill another human in a gruesome manner while rest of the people watch it or video tape it. The person begs for water during his last moments and beating continues, until he goes silent!

KRSNA

KRSNA is a mythological story told by himself for children in a very simple language.

Excerpt

What Next…

Well it’s been five thousand years and I am meeting with Lord to land on earth. We feel like we left it for you humans to handle it on your own without we meddling too much, but we are noticing the state this earth has been brought to.

The constant argument here is who will lead the effort to go down there and take care of the business. Every time; all of these thirty three million us, none wants to come down there. Everybody has gotten very comfortable up here, we look down and see the technological progress you guys have made, frankly lots of devas fear of being outdated. I remember few decades back, if I am not mistaken Narad went to Varanasi; the university of Hindu literature. He even met with you people and explained that he was Narad, Lord Brahma himself had sent him down there to address your concerns. He was heckled so bad, that we couldn’t help but laugh at his plight.

Narad went to one beggar who had his legs crippled and twisted from knee down, beard, hair and body starving for nutrition, clothes falling apart rotting on their own and said, “I see you in distress, is there anything you need from Lord?”

The man looks at him like Narad was some kind of an alien and goes, “Who are you?”

“Oh! I am Narad, the messenger of Lord himself”, explicitly displaying his signature Veena and Jasmine flowers tied around his head and arms.

“Well you seem like a nice guy, what’s up that hairdo”, he scooted over a little and continued, “come sit here, this is a popular spot, every temple visitor passses from here, you can collect a lot of money here, you seem like a nice guy, what brought you to this state”, he spread another rotten gunny bag next to him and patted to dust off.

“No! I am not here to beg!”, Narad looked up into the sky, frankly we were laughing out loud, this embarrassed him and continued to the beggar, “I am sent by god to check with your concerns”, frankly he was losing his cool.

“Alright then, give me hundred rupees”, said the beggar, “you make my day today”.

“No I can’t pay money, I don’t have, I can carry your concerns…”

“Alright beat it now, you are obstructing my busy hours here, go check concerns of other people out there and take them to your lord”, he threw an air quotes around Lord.

Narad, stepped away from the man and got moving, beggar yelled back, “Hey watch out godman, a bus will run you over, nobody has time for your Lord concerns out here, take it somewhere else”.

Narad turned to look around and a cyclist knocked his Veena and broke it, he just yelled back “Sorry” and kept riding his bike. Some other person picked up his broken Veena and handed it to him, “Are you looking for the drama theatre?, you look lost, it’s right there, you see that cobbler sitting down there, turnaround you can’t miss it”.

Narad frustrated, “No, I am not…”, before he could complete the man had taken off, was hanging on to a moving bus. The wooden slippers were also knocked off, he decided to meet the cobbler to repair. Limping on one leg with broken Veena he approached the cobbler.

“My good friend, can you fix these sandals for me?”

Cobbler busy sewing a leather sandal adjusted his broken glasses and looked at Narad, “What are these, you don’t wear these on streets”, he continued with his work, irritated.

“No! This is all I have worn all the time, please fix them for me”, pleaded Narad, his feet was burning in the hot sun, his other wooden sandal had stuck in the melting tar and had no clue how to get it off. Cobbler wanting to take a break, dropped his sewing and grabbed the water jug and gulped the water. Wiping his mouth turned to Narad and said, “I can’t fix these sir, leave them here, walk into the theater and when you return maybe I will see if I can fix them”.

“I am not going to a theater!!! I just need these fixed, I need to go home”, said Narad visibly irritated by people asking him to go to theater, feet were killing and sweat dripping off his temples.

“I can’t fix them, here you can buy these”, cobbler handed him a pair of Hawaii slip ons.

“What are these?”, asked Narad looking at the soft sandal shaped pair.

“Go ahead try it, they are very comfortable”.

Hesitantly Narad slipped on the Hawaii and was amazed, they were soft, did not have to pinch his toes to hold to them like he did with wooden sandals.

“What are these”, asked Narad, a smile had broken on his face, they were so comfortable.

“Just pay two hundred rupees, I feel bad for you”,said the cobbler while he got busy with his sewing.

“I like these, but I don’t have rupees!!!”, said Narad, “Here take this, but I need these sandals”, he jumped with joy handing him a gold chain.

“I don’t want your chain, you seem to be a nice guy, go home now it’s hot, pay me later, don’t cheat me, I know you come to this theater”, cobbler waged his finger sizing up Narad.

Narad turned around the bend to check on this theater, he saw bunch of people dressed as Amitabh Bachchan and Elvis Presley impersonation, of course he could not make anything of it. This was it for him, drifted back into the clouds and reported to Lord Brahma, “Fire me if you want to, I am never going back there”, flashing his new sandals.

“I am not firing you! Go take rest”, Lord could no longer control his laughter. Narad walked away with a swag enjoying his new sandals.

The meeting went on for hours at end and there were no takers who would go down there and do the job they are supposed to do. Lord Shiva had declared, “I have gotten too comfortable with Kailash, it’s hot down there, I am not going”. Of the top three two had already ruled out. I being the third, well if you don’t know I am an incarnation of Lord Vishnu; the third supreme god. I had to speak up, “We can send Ganesha, he is very popular among them, I see every car dashboard adorned with elephant head wobbling there”.

So Ganesha was summoned, he came with a laddu in his mouth, looked and his father respectfully, then sized me up and bowed his head to Lord Brahma.

“Ganesha, we want you to go down to Earth, looks like they need your help, also they believe in you”, Lord Brahma was like a car salesman selling his idea.

“What! Did you see what they did to Narad?, he looks so normal yet he was ridiculed, I have this elephant head, thanks to this man here, if I go down there some billionaire or a politician will claim my ownership and keep me in a cell and start billing the customers for my viewing”, he went and fell to the feet of Brahma and Shiva walked away staring at me, for suggesting this idea.

The meeting continued, actually it was only me and Brahma that were discussing, Shiva was peaceful. Lord Brahma ran his fingers through his gray beard and looked at me pleading.

“Alright, alright, I will go”, I said throwing my flute on the floor. Shiva just smiled in the corner, he stood up to leave, it was settled. I had to work on logistics with Brahma, first thing I said was, I am going to lose this attire, thanks to my mom, who made my look a legend but this peacock feather and dhoti had to go.

Brahma got curious and asked, “What do you plan to wear?, I know you like those gold jewels”.

He is right, I have this affinity towards this bling, I just love it, “I don’t know yet, I just don’t want to be fooled like Narad.” I really can’t believe you guys treated him like that, what a change millennials can bring. After he saying he wants to help a beggar, he was ridiculed, what will a common man do us when we get down there, I wonder.

Anyway Lord Brahma has left it to me to wear or do whatever I want to, all he wants is somebody to get down there and bring some order. So good or bad news, I am coming, I do need some input from you guys, especially the millennials, it’s your time to shine. I am planning on getting hooked with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, really what do I do with instagram, I am the most progressive out here but, I am clueless about instagram, I know people post pictures there, but what good would do that to me. I am also done with these chariots, planning to get a fast ride; Lamborghini or Tesla, I am torn. Tesla will be good in a sense, I don’t have to drive and relax at the back.

I am thinking we will see how it goes…

hadagali

Up in air

Category: Uncategorized