You Are Not my Father, Mr Commissioner

The needle finally moved in my head last night.

Appalled, disgusted and scared as I was with the gruesome bestiality and impunity with which the young physiotherapist was violated in Delhi last week, mentally I seemed to have rationalized or “intellectualized” my anger. So I said things like “What do we expect in a society that kills its girls before they are born, that beats and abuses women inside homes, that believes that the girl child is a burden – the society has to change and women have to respected and valued, before such incidents will come to an end. Why blame only the police.”

Last night, my thinking evolved. A leading television channel had provided a forum for the Delhi Police Commissioner to engage with young women from across the city. Hearing the top cop speak made me realize that this is not the Police Commissioner under whose watch this city is going to be safer for me, my mother or my daughter.

The Police Commissioner was fairly circumspect as he spoke. Several times he mentioned that he was afraid he might be misunderstood. This in itself is deeply symptomatic – a person who is clear in his mind of his position, is usually able to communicate that position well. And since the St. Stephens graduate is not particularly challenged when it comes to the use of language, it was really the position itself that he seemed to be coming from, which was unacceptable.

The Vision is not Clear

A leader needs to have clarity of vision - a clear sight of where we want to be, and what is the road to getting there. That the Police Commissioner falls short was demonstrated by an exchange that went somewhat like this. 

“It would have been the easiest thing for me to tell you that you should go out in the city wherever you want, whenever you want, and you will be safe, but I will not say that,” said the commissioner. “But that’s exactly what we all want to hear from you today, Sir,” interjected a young woman. The Commissioner went on to explain, “With freedom comes responsibility. You have to be responsible about your own security as well. It is not just women who are unsafe --- even men’s pockets get picked. So I would advise everyone to be cautious.” I am paraphrasing from memory, but this was the gist of it.

Two points I want to highlight from this exchange. The first – the Commissioner accepted in as many words – asserted even – that it was not his position that women should go out anytime, anywhere and they will be safe.

And second – I want to explore a little bit the implications of this good advice. Coming from a Police Commissioner, this is too general, too nebulous and too abstract. Tell us sir – is it safe for us to be out from eight am in the morning to six pm in the evening? Could you mark out the areas, stretches, roads, on a map of Delhi, where you can assure us that we will be safe during this time? Help us understand – how late is too late. How far from home is too far. Tell us specifically.

I don’t say this sarcastically at all.  I say it seriously. As a Police Commissioner, you first need to accept, and proclaim loudly, that it is your job to make public spaces in Delhi safe for an eighteen year old girl walking alone at 3 am. And then, you must tell us what your plan is to make that a reality 3 years from now, or 5 years from now, or ten years from now. You must tell us what milestones you will achieve in the next one month, next one year, next three years, towards the realization of your vision. We understand it will not happen all in one day. So in the meanwhile, please put out clear advisories for women - don’t venture in the following areas, following stretches, during this particular stretch of time. Commit to us that all other areas will be safe. We want to see the safe zone expanding swiftly over time. Today, only the VIPs seem to be living in that safe zone. What is your plan to make that circle of safety progressively wider?

Zero Tolerance

Building a culture of safety necessitates the understanding that you have to attack the base of a well-defined pyramid. At the base of that pyramid are petty crimes – a lewd comment here, a whistle there. At the next level are more intrusive violations – groping, chain snatching, stalking. Violent assault is at the top of the pyramid. It has to be very clearly understood that unless you build a culture where even petty crimes are recognized as unacceptable and swiftly punished, we cannot hope to eliminate the violent crimes that sit at the top of this pyramid. The Police Commissioner needs to put fear in the heart of every lout walking the streets of this city. Rapists are few, but rascals who think a woman waiting at a bus stop is public property are plenty. They must be made to desist from casting even a lustful glance at her. They need to be afraid of you, and of your police force.  Bhay bin hoy na preet, said Tulsidas. Show these goons your might, Sir.

The Police Can’t be Everywhere

One statement that the Commissioner made last night on that TV discussion is stuck in my head. The Police can’t be everywhere. I would have agreed if the Commissioner had said this to mean, the police can’t be in your bedrooms or inside playschools or inside a doctor’s consultation chamber – all of which are places where we know women or little girls are not necessarily safe. But he said this in the context of public transport. He said this in the context of public spaces. He said this in the context of our city roads. And I want to ask him directly – why not?

In India we spend billions of dollars buying fighter planes and submarines and fancy weapons to protect ourselves against the enemy. Can’t we spend more money then, putting ten, twenty, fifty times more policemen on the streets of Delhi, where Mother India is being violated with impunity every day? What stops us from having a police man in every single bus that is out on Delhi roads? On every bus stop? What stops us from having much more visible policing? By wringing your hands and saying helplessly, ‘The police can’t be everywhere,’ you are abdicating your responsibility, Sir. The police must be everywhere.

If your vision is clear, you will be able to co-opt the citizens you claim to protect, into that vision. Do you have an idea of what it would take, to make Delhi safe for a young girl walking home at 3 am? Do you have a plan? Tell us. Use the media, the civil groups and online social networks to build support for your plan, to mobilize resources from the government. Co-opt NGOs, civil society groups, students, professionals, volunteers. Work on gender-sensitizing your force, surely. But gender-sensitize yourself, too. You are not my father. You are a professional policeman. I don’t need advice from you, good or otherwise. From you, I need specific advisories. I need a specific plan, to make Delhi safe for women.

I am afraid, last night when I heard the Commissioner on that TV discussion, he seemed to have neither the vision, nor the plan.

Tata Nano: Making it Cheap; Missing the Mark : Sep 2012

I had an interesting conversation with my driver the other day. His sister will soon be married. He was explaining to me the arrangements being made for the wedding. "We will be gifting an Alto," he mentioned.

As some of the conversation had been about how budgets were stretched, I asked him if he had considered gifting a Nano instead.

“Umm, that," he said, "Would appear too down-market. Everyone will say, they gave a cheap car."

Take that, Tata.

The Nano was meant to be a surefire success, based on an idea that was so clear, a need that was so universal, a concept that was so obvious. The much hyped lakh-takia, a bottom-of-the pyramid copy-book launch, a shining example of Indian ingenuity. And yet, in FY 2011, the Nano sold 70,000 cars and in FY 2012, 75,000 cars - only thirty percent of capacity. The Alto continues to sell twice or thrice the numbers, at roughly twice the price. What went so wrong with the poster-product of innovation?

The Nano, with twenty-twenty hindsight, teaches us once again that every sharp customer insight does not always translate literally and directly into a wholesome selling story.

Why do mothers buy diapers? The simple reason is that they don’t want the mess, and they want to sleep peacefully at night, rather than waking up several times to change nappies. But tell them that, and they will hate you forever. So you tell them it is about keeping the baby happy, about avoiding nappy rash, even about toilet training the baby! It cannot be about putting the mother’s sleep first, it has to be about putting the baby first.

Why do housewives buy convenience food? Obviously, because it is convenient. It cuts down on effort that gets them no credit. But tell them that, and you just called them lazy. So you tell them it allows them to become great moms, putting delicious food on the table that has their special magic in it.

So why then, did Tata go to town, bleeding heart and all, with the story of how a thunderbolt struck him when he saw a family of five on a scooter?

Buying a car -- no matter what the segment -- is about pride, prestige and achievement. Instead, this legend made it a brand of "pity" and "sympathy." There was an 'India’s cheapest car' before the Nano came along. It was one of the most successful cars in India’s automotive history, a beloved of the masses. Only, no one thought of it as 'cheap.' Not my driver. Not me. Remember the Alto ad that showed a couple in a car celebrating the rains? "Boondon me jaane kya naya hai?" Obviously targeted at the scooter rider, but no baggage of sympathy.

And then there is this other problem. Manufacturing-driven companies often believe that if you make a good product, it will sell itself.

Once it was established that 'price' was the main reason that kept two-wheeler families from graduating to a four-wheeler, the development task was simple. The engineers stepped in, and started chopping cost. It was all about design and manufacturing excellence, supply chain innovation, component optimization and weight reduction. Above all, it was about good old hard-nosed negotiation with vendors using large projected sales as a lever.

The Nano development became the biggest reality show the country had seen. No doubt, the hurdles were too high  - challenges related to design and manufacturing, as well as the larger political challenges that ultimately saw the factory being relocated. So finally, when the car was made within the stipulated price threshold, the heroes of the day couldn’t stop talking about how they had hit the target. The engineers’ euphoria resulted in a detailed ball-by-ball commentary of how they won the match to realize their captain’s dream. "How did they do it?" was a question everyone was asking. The entire country heard that there was only one wind-screen wiper instead of two. There wasn’t a tailgate, no passenger seat adjustment, and only three wheel nuts instead of four. All the accompanying stories of product development focused on how the excess frills were given up. In other words,"stripped down." Cars exist in every price segment. Has there ever been such an excessive focus anytime else, on what a car "does not have" -- versus what it has?

Why did this happen? The company built its value proposition keeping in mind the transport its target segment was using: a two-wheeler. A stripped-down car like the Nano should still have been an upgrade. Logical, but real life is hardly so linear. The customers made a multi-dimensional comparison, mostly with cars in entry-level segments. One may argue these comparisons were made by people who were not in the target segment. Fair enough, but who buys a car without consulting people with prior experience? Their target segment wasn’t reading auto magazine reviews. Who was recommending the Nano, especially after news about fires in Nano cars broke immediately after launch?

Now, the Nano has been "repositioned." Almost to say that the initial marketing was flawed, and now there will be a correction. Improvements to the product in 2012 are also helping. No doubt, the surge in Nano sales following the supply disruption at Maruti will be seen as vindication of the changed pitch. But the Nano marketing appears flawed in its Genesis. Not in Mr Tata’s insight  - but in his decision to publically communicate that insight as a selling story. That’s when the marketing of Nano started. It continued when his engineers were describing how they stripped cost down. Manufacturing companies often think of marketing as “advertising"  - the tear-jerkers that get made when the product is ready for filming. But the marketing of Nano began the day Mr Tata spoke about it in connection with a hapless family of five on a scooter. In Nano’s lone rear-view mirror, that appears to have been bad marketing. Hope his company steers the Nano to success. It is a good product, undoubtedly, and deserves better.

Scandinavia : Summer 2010

We are in Scandinavia for summer vacation. Ashi, my three-year-old expects to meet Santa Claus at every turn in Finland and Norway. Every day her list of what she is going to ask Santa for gets new additions. It helps that she knows Santa is watching, even though she can’t see him. At least three times a day she checks if she is being a good girl. Now I know why the Scandinavians love their kids.

The Missing Mermaid

Ashi has been looking forward to seeing the Little Mermaid ever since she heard the story. But on the Copenhagen harbourfront, at the spot she’s supposed to be, she is not there. Breaking news – the Little Mermaid stolen? Not really. She is away to Shanghai Expo, gracing the Denmark pavilion. I want our money back – imagine a foreigner coming all the way to India and finding the Taj Mahal gone. The husband says this is a clear case of sucking up to the Chinese. All Scandinavian governments are in a race to please China. Every year, dozens of high level delegations from China come to Sweden, for example, to learn about environmental management, urban planning, clean energy, education, healthcare and, believe it or not, labour relations. All evidence suggests that these are not Indian babu-style junkets – there are real results on the ground. Hundreds of Scandinavian companies run hugely profitable businesses in China. The Volvo-Geely deal is merely the cherry on the top.

Sober Scandinavia

The Swedish crown princess Victoria married her personal trainer Daniel Westling in June. Despite several hundred thousand visitors descending in Stockholm over the wedding weekend, the celebrations are remarkably – and pleasantly, in this day and age – decorous. Surely there is a stereotype of the ‘cold fish’ Swede, and surely no one expected the newly anointed Duke to break into a full-blooded bhangra while sailing down Stockholm’s waters on the Royal Barge with his newly-wedded wife. But the decorum is in contrast, somehow, to the sleaze and intense scrutiny that has come to be associated with the royal family of England, contributed to mainly by the last Princess of Wales. Except Finland, which is a republic, all Scandinavian countries have monarchies that seem to have the love and respect of their subjects. In Copenhagen, for example, to speak lightly of the very popular Queen Margarethe II is bad form, second only to eating with your hands and then licking your fingers – guaranteed to set Danish teeth on edge.

It is not uncommon to see Danes eating burgers with knife and fork. What is truly alarming to an Indian mother like me, however, is the sight of an unattended infant gurgling in its pram on a pavement outside a café. The little one has been left alone by its parents who are inside the café for a good half hour, bonding over coffee and Danish pastries, confident that no one wants to kidnap their baby. It slowly begins to register that in the Tivoli amusement park, in the Town hall square, walking in the park, riding on the metro, everywhere except maybe while crossing the street, kids don’t hold hands with their parents. These are child-friendly countries – our hotel lent us a stroller for free and in Stockholm you go free on the bus if a kid is with you. The Danes, concerned about the declining safety and quality of life in their society (really!) have enacted some of the toughest immigration laws in Europe.

Passout Parade

In Copenhagen, the day we arrive is when the high school students graduate. For the next two days, in a tradition called russefeiring, the young boys and girls raise hell, looked upon indulgently and even encouragingly by the rest of the city. They hire buses, decorate them gaily with balloons and festoons and drive around like crazy, playing loud music and blowing horns and mini-vuvuzelas. They scream, jump into public fountains, dance around city squares and drink enormous amounts of Carlsberg beer. The general spirit is, “We made it.” They are allowed the obnoxious behaviour, which actually never crosses the limits of harmless fun as we watch. The bus drops each one of them, soaked in water and beer, back to their parents’ houses, where they are welcomed with much congratulatory cheer.

No way in Norway

The National Geographic has often voted the Norwegian fjord area as the most beautiful destination on earth – ahead of New Zealand, the Swiss Alps and the Yorkshire Dales. As always, it is right. The scenery is gorgeous –  water and mountains are a constant feature on a picture-book landscape. Driving through Hardangerfjord from Oslo to Bergen or to Geirangerfjord via the Jotunheim National park, we repeatedly stop to take pictures. In the Trollstigen mountains there is ice –  vast sheets of white –  despite the round-the-clock sun. Sheer, barren brown walls of rock guard frozen lakes one minute, the next minute the vista opens to rolling green meadows and gurgling streams. Waterfalls abound –  refreshing little nymphs you can reach out a hand to, as well as raging harridans that scare you with their might. The roofs on many houses are green with grass – real grass that acts as insulation – it is an old Viking tradition, we hear.

The weather is excellent and it seems the entire country is outdoors to celebrate the sun – driving around in their campervans, mountain biking, canoeing, hiking, river-rafting – these are hardy mountain-folk, and like hardy mountain-folk everywhere they are supremely fit, generally quiet and introspective, and very community-minded. In many campsites we see satellite dishes on campervans – this is World Cup season. Campervan rental companies will happily rent you camp furniture – including a fence to build a yard outside your campervan door, folding tables and chairs, a barbeque grill – camping is quite luxurious these days, in these parts of the world, for sure. The little kitchen inside the motorhome with its hob, chimney and fridge serves us well for a week. Ashi can’t get over the little shower cubicle and potty in her “moving home” – with a small child, the bathroom is very convenient. Since you can camp almost anywhere in the Norwegian countryside that doesn’t carry a “No Camping” sign – and those signs are few – campervans are designed to be totally self-sufficient – though campsites give you an electricity connection that helps you save on gas.  Campsites are well equipped for septic tank cleaning, grey water discharge and topping up fresh water.

If India was Norway, we would drive to Siachin. The feats of civil engineering have to be seen to be believed. Never-ending tunnels cutting through mountains, roads that barely cling to the edge of the fjord – remember, dynamite was a Scandinavian invention. But someone needs to ask the Norwegians why they forgot to build overtaking lanes. Very often, you want to let a purring BMW behind you pass, but you can’t - on mountain roads there are poles (to mark the road in case of snow) - very close to the nearly-absent shoulder – that completely hem you in. On motorways speed limits vary greatly and frequently, and speed cameras show up regularly. Driving a seven meter long camper-home in Norway is not for the fainthearted.   In a country with no poverty, free healthcare, free childcare, free education, generous pensions, one hundred and sixty days of holiday in a year and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, nearly all motorways are single lane each way. There is some justice in the world, after all.

•  

On the last day of our vacation, as we step out for dinner in our Oslo hotel, we are joined in the lift by a big round man with bushy grey hair and a long white beard. “What’s your name?” He asks the little one. “Ashi,” she says. “And I am Santa Claus,” he says as he steps out. I wish he knew that his joke has made Ashi’s holiday complete, and given her the memory of a lifetime.

Did you know?

The Danish national flag, the Dannebrog, is the oldest state flag in the world.

The Norwegians eat Lomper or Lefse, a flatbread very similar to the Indian chapatti in look and taste.

It is believed that in the year 1000, Leif Ericson, a Viking Explorer became the first European to land in America, nearly 500 years before Columbus.

Nursery School Admissions : Jan 2011

Our child was admitted last year to a nursery school of our choice. Relief, joy, peace! The worries are now about having to get up at six every morning for the next fourteen years, arranging transport, getting a bawling child on a bus full of people. But this is not the time for that story.

I write this as a parent who went through the agony of the admission process – my abiding fear through those three months was of having failed my three-year-old child – for not staying in the right neighborhood, for not having studied in Delhi, for not having a school-going child before this one! In those three months, I, along with thousands of parents like me, asked some basic questions about the way we approach nursery admissions. I write this to raise those questions.

In the bad old days, there was NO system. So you had absolutely no idea what the schools were looking for – educated parents with MNC jobs, or intellectuals, or those with deep pockets to make hefty donations, or precocious three year olds with excellent social skills and the ability to tell a lauki from a tori – in English, of course.

We have all heard stories of how crying children were dragged away for ‘interaction’ and observation, while the parents sat separately (from each other) to write long essays about their views on parenting, their expectations from the school, how they dealt with their child’s tantrums and how they would manage two careers without neglecting the child (as if the school would offer to help!).

Predictably, money stepped in – so you heard confident, knowledgeable claims of “rates” – a seat in this school is going at eight lac rupees, and that one for ten. “Knowing” someone on the management committee was your ticket to salvation.

No wonder then, that there were committees and crusades. What emerged as the solution was a glorious “point” system. Now, interviewing children or their parents would not be allowed. Instead, every school would declare their criteria for selection. All applicants would be awarded points on the basis of those criteria, and those with the highest points would be selected. Transparency, so sorely lacking before, would be enforced.

So, this year, some schools have filled up their entire nursery class with kids who have a sibling going to the same school, or whose parents are alumni. Religion, gender, and mother-tongue – all are factors for getting extra points in some school or another.  One school even gave extra points if the two parents were from different cultures!

Yet, check out any of the parent-support websites for nursery admissions – and you will find that parents were still unhappy. Topping the list of complaints was “I applied to twelve (or fourteen, or eighteen) schools, and my child did not get through any!” The second big complaint was against Mr Lovely, the Education Minister,  who forced schools to change criteria midway last year, dashing the hopes of many. On the other hand, Mr Lovely (may God bless whoever named him thus) said there were enough seats, if only parents did not run after the top few schools.

I write this now, with no vested interest. I write this in the hope that what happened last year, or in the many years before that, will not happen again, and we will find ways to further improve the system.

I have a simple question for Mr Lovely (or anyone else running this system). When you said that there are enough seats, what was the basis on which you made that claim? Do you know how many children are applying this year? You can’t just add up the number of applications to each school because parents apply to multiple schools. To my knowledge, you haven’t run a census identifying the number of 3 year olds in Delhi in 2010 – so really – how did you know?

And if you didn’t know, how did you make that claim?

And my second question is to all the committees, the website-activists, the schools – why should a nursery school choose its students?

I agree that the “point” system is more transparent. But fundamentally, it remains a discriminatory system. If I as a parent want to send my child to a school that is six kilometers away, rather than to one that is only five kilometers away, surely that is a decision I should be allowed to make? If I am an alcoholic and out of job, doesn’t my child deserve a good education? If I did not go to school in Delhi, is that my child’s fault?

Some would argue that this nursery school business is a seller’s market, and it is not possible for the buyers to choose. But so trapped are we in our cycle of hopping from school to school checking the first list, then the second, (yes, some schools that otherwise claim to have GPS enabled buses don’t bother to put their nursery admission results online) – that we forget how much technology can simplify our lives.

We have the best education minister in India in years --- and we have the opportunity to think differently. And I write for him to think about this.

Mr Sibal, how about creating a central website under the DoE? Let all applicants register there (instead of hopping from school to school buying forms). Give a central registration number to each applicant. List every school with nursery seats, give information about the fees, facilities, focus of the school, bus routes as well as the number of seats being offered, and provide a link to the school website for additional information. Allow each applicant to apply to as many schools as they want on this central website itself, clearly listing their order of preference among schools. The applicants will have the opportunity to look at all the factors, and make an informed choice about their preference.

On the due date, run a computerized draw of lots among applicants, and keep allotting seats one by one to each child whose name comes up, on the basis of his or her preference. If the seats in the school that’s the first preference are filled up, allot a seat in the school that’s the second preference. If that’s gone too, the third preference – and so on.  And then move to the next child. And the next. And – all of this can easily be done in a matter of hours, in front of an audience, with safeguards built in, with bells and whistles as much as you want – quotas for minorities, economically weaker sections – write your algorithm the way you want – technology will handle it. But basically – allow parents to choose the school, and not the other way round.

What happens to children whose names come up later in the draw? They probably get seats in schools that were their fifteenth preference. Is that ideal? No. But then, what happens today? And tell me a way that’s fairer. Eventually, the objective should be to ensure that getting the fifteenth preference makes the parents almost as happy as getting their first or second choice – raise the level of the schools that are today middling in the rating charts.

Here is what you gain from this system.

First. We will know exactly how many children are applying. We will know how many seats are available, in what kinds of schools. Instead of living in a fool’s paradise, we will plan actively. Hopefully, this process will increase the pressure to add seats, and it will then become easier to get government permissions and CBSE accreditation to open a school in this city. Businessmen (yes, let’s not be squeamish) will know where to locate schools. Quality and availability of education in the city will hopefully become an election issue.

Second. With one-child-one-seat matching, we will eliminate this entire first-list-second list endless agony. It’s a much shorter, crisper process.

Third. It puts the choice firmly in the hands of the parents. At the nursery level, that is exactly how it should be. A secondary school can choose. A college can choose. A company can choose. But a nursery school’s job is not to choose. Its job is to nurture.

Fourth. The way applications and preferences stack up, we will have the most comprehensive and transparent rating of schools. This will force many schools to improve their quality of education. Able administrators will be able to set clear, measurable targets for their schools in terms of improving their preference score. Such dramatic disparity in the quality of education imparted by schools affiliated to the same board should be a cause of great concern. Why does no one prefer government schools?

Hopefully, this system will put clear numbers in front of those responsible for running the education system that will leave no room for pointless debate.

Fifth. This system allows the government to step in and make short-term corrections as gap-fillers. Before the draw of lots, you clearly know that in a given year, there are 10% more applicants than seats. There can then be a decision that every school will offer 10% more seats than planned, or the government will quickly move pending applications for new schools. You also clearly know which children need to be admitted next year to schools that start at the KG-level – the ones that did not get picked this year, or the ones that got picked way down in the draw of lots.

Let’s start a discussion – this is one solution, there could be others. We are through, but there will be more parents like us dealing with the same chaos this year. With one of the best education ministers India has seen in decades, the time to act is now.

What Green Buildings can learn from Mobile Telephony in India

What is the similarity between Green Buildings and mobile phones?

If you are my age, you lived more than half your life without a mobile phone. Yet, today, can you imagine life without it? No way. On the other hand, do you think you would live in a green building in your lifetime? Hand-on-heart – No, correct?

So, what is the similarity?

I am going to try and explain, and by the end of this blog I hope you will have the answer. I am also going a make a case that it is very likely that you will live in a green building in your lifetime.  Not because you would have converted to a save-the-world greenie. But because that’s how buildings will be.

Remember Maslow? He established a hierarchy of needs for humans that move to a higher order as the person evolves. The same hierarchy applies to buildings too. As society evolves, our expectations from buildings mature to the next level.

Here is a hierarchy of needs for buildings.

Stage 1 – Shelter . At the beginning of civilization, Man took shelter in caves to keep him dry. Needs were basic – protection from the harsh sun, rain or from the biting cold. 

Stage 2 – Security.  With evolution, there developed a need for security from animals and theft and violence from others. Individual dwellings for family units with a secured entry - a simple village hut, shanties in a megapolis, they all answer this simple need.

Stage 3 – Comfort. A leap of innovation came when buildings started to be designed for comfort – in response to the need to have private space, and to control the internal environment – heat, humidity and noise. These are probably the kind of spaces you and I live and work in – our townhouses and apartment blocks.

Stage 4 – Inspirational Design. Buildings then became a measure of achievement and accomplishment. Now, not only were buildings comfortable, their design said something about the owner, or the society. Think of the Empire State Building, the World Trade Centre, the  Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – invariably, every major economy has heralded its arrival on world stage by creating “The World’s Tallest Building.” China’s great coming-out party was characterized by distinctive architecture created for the Beijing Olympics.  

Stage 5 – Socially Conscious.  Variously called Green, or Sustainable, or Eco-friendly, or Energy-efficient – these buildings represent the highest order of needs in the hierarchy of buildings -- --- the parallel of the “self-actualized” individual.

In developed societies, buildings went through the first three stages -- as a result, there is a large base of buildings that are in stage 3 and 4 – inspirationally designed and comfortable – but, have a large environmental footprint. Every middle-class house in the US will have climate-control and running hot water. Every tall commercial building in Manhattan or downtown Chicago is a design statement --- but each of them is an energy guzzler.

In India, on the other hand, buildings are currently transiting from stage 2 to stage 3 – from Security to Comfort. We have a great opportunity – we can skip a couple of stages and go directly to responsible construction.

Think of telephony. The developed world spent enormous amounts of money laying down the infrastructure for fixed telephony. We in India started late – but jumped the evolution stages in communication and went straight away to mobile telephony -- saving ourselves a lot of money we would have otherwise spent wiring up the entire country.

When mobile phones first started in India, they were very expensive, and thought to be for the elite niche. But today, they are the communication devices of choice for the vast majority.

India has the opportunity to repeat the same successful formula in construction. Today, “green construction” may be seen by some as a niche segment. With the right interventions from all stakeholders, this has the potential to become the construction method of choice. We don’t have to first create a large base of energy guzzlers stuck in stage 3 and 4 before we start to think of evolving to stage 5.

The western society has, in the last hundred years, consistently stopped at asking its buildings to deliver comfort and inspirational design. Green Building movement in the US is a very recent phenomenon and lags the transition to the Comfort and Inspiration phases by decades, if not centuries. Contrast that with India, where through most of the twentieth century, society focused on putting a roof over the head and a lock at the door --- and the recent transition to the Comfort phase has very nearly coincided with the growth of the Green Building movement.

Some will say that traditional Indian architectural concepts have always been “green” – the jharoka that prevents excessive solar heat gain but allows use of natural sunlight, the courtyard in the middle that serves the same function, trees around the house that shade, rather than vast manicured lawns that guzzle water – the list goes on. Be that as it may, there has been a revival of these concepts in the context of contemporary construction.

When the BPO boom began in India some 15 years ago, it was important for Indian businesses to demonstrate to their foreign clients that they had offices “just like theirs.” The glass-and-metal buildings in Gurgaon and Noida could have been anywhere in the world. In reality, they should have been anywhere – but in India. The large expanse of glass façade heats up the building and puts tremendous additional load on the cooling system. Since it is the tenants who pay the energy bills, there is little or no focus on part of the builder to invest in “higher specification.” So most curtain glazing in these buildings will be with plain float or annealed glass – not a double-glazed unit, which provides better heat insulation. Most building facades are not insulated, nor wrapped in air barriers to prevent air-conditioning leakage from the building.

Almost coinciding with the proliferation of these Gurgaon Glasshouse Gas Guzzlers has been the spread of the Green Building movement in India. Thanks to this movement, the glassy guzzlers are largely discredited, at least amongst the A-list builder community.  Today, outside of the US, India has the highest number of square feet under Green Building certification. Unlike in the US, the lag hasn’t been centuries or decades. There is a thriving community of architects who are experts at Green Building design. There are two rating agencies with well-developed certification systems in place. The Energy Conservation Building Code of India exists. Leading builders are active participants in the Green Building revolution.  Indians are not stopping at asking its buildings to look good and feel great. They are going ahead and demanding more, already. Our buildings can be comfortable, and inspirational, and responsible, all in one go.

There are likely to be three hurdles in the way of this big leap into the self-actualized level for buildings.

First. Despite the downturn, the real estate market in India remains a sellers’ market. As long as the construction specifications stay with the builder and the energy bill with the tenant, it is unlikely that the builder will increase upfront investment in energy-efficient construction materials because the payback will not go into the builder’s pocket. Legislation is the most obvious answer but probably not the correct one. The answer may lie in demanding from experts a clear “rupees per square foot” energy bill norm. So suppose that experts told you that for a centrally air-conditioned office building of over ten floors, the typical energy cost is Rs 25 per square foot per month, and an energy efficient building should be able to give you the same thermal comfort and indoor air quality for Rs 15 per square foot per month, these are clear, easy to understand benchmarks that tenants can use to negotiate with builders. Tenants are usually not experts at energy efficiency, and bodies such as the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, the Indian Green Building Council and TERI must work to educate the people about the lowest common denominator – practical and obvious results that tenants may be able to demand from builders. This also becomes a tangible, measurable differentiator between two otherwise similar building projects.

Second. Across the world, Green Building technology is still evolving, and even in the US, we have found insufficient understanding of building science. For example, codes that mandate the use of vapour barriers in building envelopes in cold climates have been copied and applied to buildings in warm or hot climate zones. Southern USA, with largely cooling or mixed climate, has seen severe moisture problems in its buildings due to this import of codes from Canada – which is a uniformly heating climate. Only in 2006, codes in the USA were modified to exempt Southern USA from the use of vapour barriers. The awareness of correct design principles for buildings that are air-conditioned and also energy efficient is evolving in India, and code makers must take care to adopt practices suitable for the Indian climate. We commonly see in India vapour barriers being wrongly specified to protect fibrous insulation, a practice imported from colder countries, whereas in most places the correct solution would be a vapour-open air barrier. Errors such as these may discredit the use of insulation, a very important green building practice, as a whole.

Third. Green Building construction requires newer products, newer construction materials. Most Green Building design still depends very heavily upon design – small recessed windows to prevent excessive sunlight from heating up the indoors, for example. But what if you wanted a glass curtain wall and still have minimal solar heat gain? An infra-red filter sandwiched between two layers of glass may give you that. Similar material interventions will be required in several other areas – to match Indian construction practices, and Indian budgets.

These challenges are not show-stoppers, and they will be overcome. Indian construction is poised to make an evolutionary leap – an inevitable leap. Just like telephony did, fifteen years ago.

Cape Town : October 2008

Ashi is eighteen months old, and the first criterion in choosing a destination for our annual vacation is to minimize transfers. I Google Scandinavian Cruise, and find one ship with sailing dates, ports of call and expenses seemingly suitable. But as always, I propose, The Husband disposes. His research shows there was a virus outbreak on that ship a decade ago, and this means that that ship is not for Ashi.

Meanwhile Tatjana visits for a Sunday lunch and brings a South Africa travel guide as gift. She knows we had planned to go in 2006 before we discovered Ashi was on the way. The Husband has been blowing up money on cameras and filters and lenses and Manfrotto-something-or the-other (investing, he says) for years, and South Africa seems to be a good place to practice his art.

●

The Cape Town airport is efficient and under renovation, though with Ashi we wish there was an aerobridge. We get her stroller back at the baggage carousel, and once in it, she looks around interestedly while her father rents a car and a SIM card. Soon she is strapped in her booster seat and we’re on our way to a South African holiday, armed with the usual potty seat, bottle sterilizer and  a small pressure cooker to make her khichdi. We are staying in Strand, a small beach town near Somerset West, forty kilometers from Cape Town. The Strand Pavillion, an RCI Golden Crown property doesn’t disappoint, with great views of the beach and the bay from the room, a well equipped kitchenette and ample parking.

●

We drive from Strand to Stellenbosch along the wine route. There are a hundred private cellars on the route we are told, and it is possible to taste and buy wines at all of them. The drive lends itself to exclamations of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at several turns with rolling mountains, a deep blue sky and many different shades of green in the landscape. Some of the famous estates recommended to us are Morgenhof, Delheim, Hartenberg, Neethlingshof and Simonsig. But the GPS on The Husband’s N95 has not worked, and we willingly lose ourselves on the scenic drive. Finally, we choose an estate to stop – Uitkyk. Actually we mean to stop at Kanonkop – a canon standing on the road leading to the estate off the motorway seems interesting and their Pinotage has been recommended strongly. But we are confused by the electrified fence around the property and, fearing for our lives, go to the adjacent estate instead. At Uitkyk, for twenty five rands we sample five wines from a selection. We choose Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Carlonet, Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio. I find the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carlonet all a little too spicy, but love the Pinot Grigio, slightly fruity but very light and crisp. The Husband is driving so he just takes a sip or two of each, but he pronounces the Chardonnay worthy of purchase. We leave with three bottles and numerous pictures of a fabulous estate owned, no doubt, by a billionaire.

On our way back we drive around Stellenbosch a bit. It is an obviously wealthy town with lovely Cape Dutch architecture --- every house on Dorp Street is a masterpiece. Stellenbosch is the oldest city in South Africa after Cape Town. It’s a bright day and students of the University are out on the streets, enjoying the sun. It’s the first University in the world to have set up an Afrikaans language school of higher learning.

●

Having been exposed in India to regular media coverage of South Africa’s dramatic politics, I am pleasantly surprised to find, at least on first impression, a developed country with well-preserved natural beauty, Georgian houses and European-level civic amenities and systems. The other misconception that I carried - of South Africa having been a British colony – stands quickly corrected. In reality, the Dutch started to settle here first – Boer is Dutch for farmer. Then came the British, and they started their own settlements. Both the European settlers used African and imported Asian labour. With the discovery of diamonds and gold industrialization was rapid, and there was much to fight over --- the two powers went to war. A unified South Africa, as we know it today, emerged, but the spoils of war were divided among the Europeans --- the Africans were politically marginalized. Dutch influence is evident in architecture, food and language. Afrikaans is of Dutch origin and is spoken by most whites and coloured people. Indeed, Afrikaaner is the term often used for the white South African.

●

Back home in India, Ashi has a penguin stuffed toy. We can now show her the real thing, in natural habitat. On Boulder’s Beach on False Bay, beyond Muizenberg and Simon’s Town, among large granite rocks, is a breeding colony of penguins. The beach itself is fairly secluded and the waters are warm, and swimming with penguins can be an unforgettable experience. For those who prefer to remain dry,  there is long viewing ramp along the beach. The penguins are smaller than I expected – the tallest is no more than a foot and a half tall. They are also remarkably fearless. Ashi leans out, her arms stretched out to the penguins. They bray loudly, but the girl doesn’t blink. “Ana, ana,” she calls them. When it is time to go back, she refuses to leave.

The drive to Boulder’s beach has taken us towards the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula. We have driven past interesting towns of Muizenberg and Simon’s Town. Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling and Cecil Rhodes bought houses here. Numerous Victorian buildings line the main street. Kalk Bay is lined with arty cafes and antique and curio shops. The beach huts at Muizenberg are colourful and brightly painted, though I discover later that this has nothing to do with South Africa’s sobriquet of “the rainbow nation.” It’s quite the opposite in fact – almost the entire False Bay coast was designated “for whites only” under the Group Areas Act in the 1960s. I discover more about this later.

Continuing our drive southwards to the tip of Cape Peninsula, we enter the Table Mountain National Park, for a visit to the Cape of Good Hope. I correct another long-held misconception – the Cape of Good Hope is not the southern-most point of Africa, nor is it the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The Cape Peninsula hangs like a comma on the map just above Cape Agulhas, the “real” cape where Africa actually comes to a full-stop. But the Cape of Good Hope is indeed situated at the junction of two contrasting water-masses – the cold Benguela current on the west coast and the warm Agulhas current on the east coast. The cliffs at the southern point tower more than two hundred meters above the sea. There are two well-defined promontories – the Cape Point with its lighthouse and a funicular to reach it, and the Cape of Good Hope, with its geographically hard-to-define and v-e-r-y touristy proclamation of being the most southwestern point of the African continent.

The national park around the Cape of Good Hope is an entire floral kingdom in itself, one of six in the world. Fynbos, or “fine bush” plants include proteas, a word familiar to us from cricket. There are several varieties of proteas found in this national park. When flowering, proteas attract sunbirds and sugarbirds, but otherwise, because of the coarse, scrubby nature of fynbos vegetation, bush birds tend to be scarce. There is a wealth, instead, of small animals such as dassies, mongoose, lizards, snakes and tortoises. We especially look out for baboons, that, we are warned, are dangerous and attracted by food --- not too different from the monkeys in Delhi parks, I’d say! We are finally rewarded to see one scampering across the road.

●

All Indians who have watched a telecast of a cricket match played in Cape Town are familiar with the backdrop of Table Mountain looming large above the city. It rises more than a kilometer above Cape Town, and is visible from almost everywhere in the city. We have decided to drive down to the point where a cable car will take us to the top – but the thought of driving inside a city without the GPS is stressing the Husband out. I don’t miss the opportunity to tell him that his fancy gadgets, despite gobbling up a lot of our money, fail when we need them most, and, that, like normal people, we should rent a GPS device. Pushed to the wall and under extreme pressure, the N95 performs. Miraculously, it picks up the GPS signal and starts giving directions. Voila! It is a bright, sunny day, and once there, we realize tourists are out in droves to go to the Table-top. There is a long queue to go up, and both of us use the time to clear mails on our respective blackberries. At the ticket window, as he is taking out money, he asks hopefully, “One-way for you?”

The cable car takes in about sixty people in one go. The floor rotates a full circle, so no matter where you’re standing, you get a full view of the city and the ocean stretching beyond, as well as of the mountain top. Don’t look down if you don’t have a head for heights – the cable car is not for the weak of heart. Along the way we also see some hikers making their way to the top. The trek is extremely treacherous in parts and several people have lost their lives, enough to merit an on-call helicopter rescue service, which we have the misfortune of witnessing in action. “Hope the guy makes it,” we pray silently. From the top, we have spectacular panoramas of the ocean and the peninsula below, as well as the other formations flanking the flat-topped massif – Signal Hill, Lion’s Head and Devil’s Peak. The restaurant on the top has a wide selection of salads, steaks, burgers and drinks but as is usual for such places, the food is of indifferent quality. Almost all walks are stroller-friendly. We look out for dassies and baboons. What is stunning for us, and somewhat reminiscent of the Delhi Ridge, is that this large tract of wilderness sits plum in the middle of a bustling city and commitment to conservation seems fierce.

●

We love Hermanus so much we go there two times and stay long each time. We drive down the R44, a motorway with views of the mountains plunging straight into the ocean, creating an interesting coastline. At Hermanus, the Cliff Path goes all around Walker Bay, and there are several sighting points. We are lucky – September and October are the best months for viewing whales. We are able to spot as many as fifteen large whales on day two, and the Husband manages to get some shots of lobtailing and spyhopping. We sight a few whales breaching, but the Husband is unable to get good pictures and blames it on his equipment – he claims he needs vibration reduction on his long lens (there goes more money). We have not heard of a place that offers better land-based whale-watching. Later, Sajid at the DVD rental shop across the Strand Pavillion tells us that his cousins who are visiting from the UK have discovered on Google (again!) a micro-flight that allows you to fly really low over the bay, as close as five meters above the whales. We get momentarily excited but agree later that we probably would not have gone for it, even if we had known about it in time.

Hermanus has an official Whale Crier! His job is to wander around the coast and blow his kelp horn when he spots a whale, to alert visitors. The town itself is charming, but we don’t stray from the coast. Several sentences in our conversation start with “When we are here the next time.”

●

Each time we drive down to Cape Town from Strand, we see very large slums around an area sign-posted as Khayelitsha, near the airport. While slums are no novelty to an Indian, we begin to notice that these are predominantly Black settlements. I decide to look it up in my guide and I am intrigued to read about the Group Areas Act. My interest leads us to the District Six Museum on Buitenkant Street. Here is what I learn.

In 1966, the Minster of Community Development, P.W. Botha (remember Pig Botha? - the same) proclaimed that District Six, in the heart of Cape Town, would henceforth be a white area. This meant that over the next few years, tens of thousands of African and coloured families were forced to relocate to slums in Khayelitsha, so that Europeans could have exclusive use of the vacated prime real estate. An entire community was destroyed. The horror and madness of apartheid become evident in this unique District Six museum that preserves and displays relics of the uprooted community. The walls are covered with heart-wrenching personal accounts of devastation and dislocation. Photographs and articles add to the sense of history.

We know from talking to locals that apartness persists – forbidden by South Africa’s Bill of Rights, but very much alive in reality. “I can never forgive – my parents died in prison. If I took off my shirt I could show you what they did to me. If you ask me, the Afrikaner should just be given small separate state,” says a South African of Indian origin. “I can speak Afrikaans, but hate to speak it – the language of the oppressor. When ANC comes back to power next year, we will ban the teaching of Afrikaans in schools,” says an African. If such opinion is widely held, how has South Africa achieved the miracle of reconciliation among the races, without a massacre or flight of the Whites?

After having meant to for a long time, I finally buy Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. I read two more books – Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton – an exploration of race relations during the apartheid era and Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog. These books begin to answer some of my questions about this very unique and complex country.

The founders of South African democracy, in order to help the races transcend the divisions and strife of the past, decided to bring out in the open, tales of horrific human rights violations. The intention was not vengeance but understanding, not retaliation but reparation. Accordingly, it was provided that amnesty would be granted to human rights violators for violations committed in the pre-democracy era. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu to recognize the personal accounts of injustice as Truth, and, in doing so, to begin the process of Reconciliation between the oppressor and the oppressed. Krog’s book captures the formation and proceedings of this Commission, and explores the terrible cost of transition from apartheid to democracy – a miraculous achievement of justice without retribution, in the end.

●

The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is a great place to spend a day. To begin with there are fancy malls such as the Victoria Wharf, where shopping is a pleasure. The Clock Tower Centre too has interesting merchandise. Then there are pubs and restaurants from one quay to another, with great views of the waterfront. The Jewel of India restaurant in Victoria Wharf has a particularly good one, so much so that a movie crew has hired the balcony for a shoot. Once they are done, their cameraman willingly shoots our family with our camera at the same location – great pictures for the album.  On the waterfront, there are craft and souvenir shops and street performers. There are numerous up-market hotels that add distinction to the waterfront skyline, and multi-million dollar luxury condominiums where, we are told the super rich Michael Schumacher and Ronaldo have apartments. The Table Mountain provides a dramatic backdrop. We decide to take a ride on a motor boat into the ocean towards Robben Island, mainly for another perspective of the waterfront. The ride is enjoyable and we are able to sight seals and dolphins. Robben Island, or ‘seal island’, apart from being home to many seals and a haven of biodiversity, is also famous for its prison – Nelson Mandela was housed here for several years. Only a limited number of visitors are allowed to disembark at the island each day, and guided tours are given by former prisoners.

●

If you visit www.thesoapgirls.co.za, you will read about two immensely talented teenagers who, at fourteen and sixteen, are already on their way to cutting their first album. The two girls are bubbly, chirpy and attractive and have a remarkable talent for – believe it or not – talking together. Ask them if they always talk together, and charmingly, they chirp back in unison, “Most of the time!” They live in Hout Bay, a fishing village and now a tony Cape Town suburb. They make soap at home and sell each cake for twenty rands to raise money for charity. Each sale is made amid much entertainment. As we walk down Mariner’s Wharf at Hout Bay, the pair, dressed attractively in silver and pink, accosts us, and begins to sing a jingle about itself, asking us to buy their soap. Upon quickly learning that we are from India, the girls render a remarkably in-tune and well pronounced chorus of baar baar din ye aaye, finishing with happy birthday to you, delighting the husband as it is indeed his birthday. They follow it up with kajra re and papa kehte hain. They tell us they can say a few words in Tamil, Telugu and Gujrati too and quickly rattle off the words as proof. I can tell that they are star material and that the Husband has become a fan for life.

We celebrate the Husband’s birthday with dinner at the seafood restaurant in Mariner’s Wharf, with good views of the wharf, the bay and the numerous fishing boats. The kipslinger is a fresh local catch and the Husband pronounces it “delightful,” as he does the wine. Perhaps it is the soap girls’ hangover. But my pasta and wine are very good too. The restaurant itself is themed to be a ship and the décor and menu are designed accordingly. All in all, it is a ‘delightful’ birthday.