René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

Yesterday evening, after a short but relaxing Easter weekend outbreak, I came back to Bangalore again and the city has fortunately returned to its regular living. Thanks guys for all the nice comments about my pictures from the deserted city on Thursday; will try my best to provide “exclusive content” as much as possible in the future.

From my terrace it sounded already suspiciously quiet today. So I decided to take a little walk through the city which was shattered yesterday not only by the death of the famous Karnataka-actor Dr. Rajkumar, but from the following riots causing some local destruction on cars and shops. In the meanwhile after talking to more and more people, the public opinion definitely did swap and whoever is educated to the level to speak in whole sentences, is deeply appalled and ashamed by the recent development.

In the brief walk around my quarter, I saw something which I have never ever seen before. And I dare to say that these are historic pictures. Whoever had been to India once, or even seen reportages on TV, will in the first place have realized masses of people everywhere with – at least for Western standards – an insanely chaotic traffic. And particularly in Bangalore where in the last 3 years the situation has gone from bad to worse. And today? Nothing. Empty streets. And it has a name here: Bandh. And I swear: It never, never, never, never looks like that. Have a look into the heart of downtown Bangalore one hour back.

This is Richmond Road in Western direction – EMPTY

And this is Brigade Road in Southern Direction – EMPTY

That’s my favorite because it is the part of Brigade Road which forms the main shopping mile, let’s call it the “Champs Elysées of Bangalore” where on weekends and evenings the density of people is so high that you push yourself in the rhythm of the crowd at snail speed – EMPTY

All the shops, restaurants and hotels are not just closed but even barricaded by garage like sliding gates in order to protect the property from some mob which might come across and throw stones.

And that’s just a 180°-turn at the crossroad between Brigade Road and Residency Road – EMPTY

As e.g. German streets tend to look like that quite often, a reader from Germany will not find anything special, but for India this is a phenomenon. I was wondering for a second if I liked India more than usually, but dismissed the thought immediately. Although I am anything like a fearful person, this atmosphere is somehow scary and felt comfortable being back in my home again.

Thanks Nina for your comment, especially for introducing the cool noun “moronism”. I would like to supplement “retardship”. I guess this provides us the appropriate linguistic tools to correctly describe these both global and interlinked phenomenons. I am sure there is still some unexplored niche for a PhD-thesis. Yesterday and today, I can’t complain, I had a great field research for it. Happy Easter.

5.59 PM

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Yesterday’s demise of Karnataka’s famous actor Dr. Rajkumar is the topic of the day for Bangalore. When you switch on TV, you actually get hardly any other coverage. Thanks also for the comments on my blog which is a living evidence that this issue is moving. Likewise, a query for “Bangalore” on the blog search engine Technorati yielded a significant posting activity – again on this issue.

Apparenty, a few folks have gone over the top yesterday throwing stones at shops, cars and busses. Uzer Dot Org wrote very funnily unter the tile of “Raj Kumar and Retards“:

I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry in knowing that all the retards of the world are actually not aggregated in Pakistan.

Moronship seems to be very much a cross-national, cross-cultural and even cross-educational phenomenon on a high scale. Yesterday is was undoubtedly Bangalore’s turn, but Germany has been on the list also big time with a chancellor Schröder 7 years in power, not to mention Italy with sustaining Berlusconi so many years. As life is full of surprises, let’s see who will take the gold medal next time.

Morons of of all Countries unite.

11.19 AM

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As I am having I guess the most hectic days in the last 5 years to get a lot of things done in parallel, I have to be a bit short. Yesterday I had a great meeting with eMacmillan who are actually my neighbors in the opposite “Brigade Tower” which makes it in a 2 min walk a quite convenient way to reach. After the meeting the CEO Arun Prakash Goyal and me had lunch at the Taj Residency with a fantastic buffet of Indian food.

Today, something is happening which for a Westerner definitely falls under the category of “Incredible India”. In the afternoon, the news broke that the famous actor Dr. Rajkumar from our state of Karnataka expired at the age of 76. I did not receive the news first hand, but was wondering why my cellphone did not work and called the customer service. There I got to know this news which had led to a total network overload as everybody was trying to reach everybody to pass the news on. So, I realized that Dr. Rajkumar must have been an icon indeed. It looked like the whole state of Karnataka was in a istate of shock.

However, this is only half of the story to assume that afficionados and others who felt close were mouring and commemorating their idol. Later this afternoon I got to know that all shops, restaurants and hotels are about to close. And indeed, when I went out, I started to ask questions as the shops were not just closed, they were actually barricaded. After some hesitation, people murmured something like “they said they would throw some stones.” Throw some stones?! Who and because of what?? It was really difficult, no impossible, to get a somehow consistent answer about the magic “5 W” from journalism about what, who, where, when and why. So far I could only get fragments together which might be something like: There are very commited fans of Dr. Rajkumar who are in a sort of semi-organized gang threatening to destroy all shops in case that they do not dispay a sufficient degree of mourning – at least according to their standards. Both today and tomorrow the complete public life will come to a total standstill. Have a nice day.

What is incredible to me is not the fact if there was a common mourning for a beloved son of the region who has departed to his last journey, but the fact that people are so indifferently taking such a threat as face-value, not formulating their own stance and if they come up with a different view, opposing such an act of brute intimidation with the powerful resolve of a democractic nation. As the saying goes even domestically: “It happened only in India …”

8.40 PM

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Back in Bangalore and first thing to do: Have Indian food. There are Indian restaurants in Europe, sure, but you really don’t get the taste like you get it here. I guess it’s a question of the ingredients and the spices which are not as fully available in the rest of the world. Plus the factor, that if you have Indian food in e.g. Munich, it will taste Germanized for sure! I remember when I had lunch with Debjit Chaudhuri (“Debu”), the Head of Infosys Germany, he requested me to select a restaurant – “but no Indian, please.” As he has been living in Germany for a few years, he can cope with the food there, which however does not mean that he wants his palatine be insulted with some mimic-fake-imitations of his native nutrition.

So I was just around the corner, had some Tomato Masala with Rice, mixed Raitha and a fresh orange juice for alltogether, guess, guess, Rs. 80 which is EUR 1.60. The fact that it was a bargain was much less delightful than the fact that it was simply delicious, pure and true.

12.59 AM

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Komme gerade von meinem PPL-Piloten-Refresher wo wir heute mit der C 172 eine Notfall-Übung gemacht haben – unter absolut realistischen Bedingungen. Einen normalen “Engine Failure” simuliert man dadurch, dass man das Gas ganz rauszieht und den Motor in den Leerlauf setzt, aber eben jederzeit mit dem Griff zum Gas den Bock wieder zum Steigen bringen kann. Karl Stöber von Schwabenflug, ein sensationeller Fluglehrer und ehemaliger Starfighter-Luftwaffenpilot, hat mir im Briefing angekündigt, dass wir jedoch den Motor komplett abstellen würden. Gesagt, getan. Auf der Position “High Key” über der Runway 25 des Flughafens Augsburg gut 2000 Fuß über Grund macht er den Motor aus. Allerdings schwirrt der Propeller durch die Fahrt von selbst noch weiter, so dass man die Nase knapp bis an die Stall-Speed ziehen muss, damit der Propeller so starr wie ein Bleistift vor einem steht.

Leider bleibt keine Zeit, die Stille der Windströmung lange zu genießen, weil man sich sehr schnell um eine kontrollierte Landung kümmern muss. 90 Grad rechts weg, Speed auf 65 kts mit geringster Sinkrate, noch mal 90 Grad nach rechts in den Gegenanflug, bei 1300 Fuß über der Position “Low Key” Landeklappen auf 10° setzen – funktioniert. Ein wichtiger Indikator an dieser Stelle, um die weitere Landung sauber zu portionieren. Weiter noch raus in den Gegenanflug, allerdings bei weitem nicht so weit wie mit aktivem Motor. Rechts herum in die Base noch 800 Fuß über Grund, Rechtkurve auf die Landebahn 25 zu, Flaps 20, Anflug fortsetzen, noch näher heran und als wir von der Enfernung und Höhe ganz sicher sind, dass wir es bis zur Landebahn schaffen werden, Landeklappen voll 40 Grad, steiler Sinkflug, Maschine nach der Landebahnschwelle ganz normal ausschweben lassen und nach dem Ertönen der Stall-Warning sanft aufsetzen. Done.

Klingt im Grunde spektakulärer als es ist. Das Landemanöver unterscheidet sich von einem “normalen” kaum, bis auf die Tatsache dass man eben nur einen Versuch hat, was einen Piloten psychisch unter Druck setzen kann. Allerdings war mir bei Angelegenheit zu keinem Augenblick unwohl, da ich von meinen Segelflugstunden nichts anderes kenne. Zugegebenermaßen gestaltet sich ein Landeanflug in einem Segelflugzeug ungleich eleganter, als in einer klobig geformten Cessna der plötzlich der Motor gekillt worden ist.

HINWEIS: Das Bild oben zeigt den Endanflug auf die Landebahn 25 in Augsburg, allerdings möchte ich ausdrücklich betonen, dass das Bild NICHT während des geschilderten Manövers entstanden ist, wo sowohl der Major a.D. Stöber und der Obergefreite d. Res. Seifert voll auf auf eine saubere Landung konzentriert waren. Das Bild hat einer meiner Passagiere vor gut 2 Jahren bei einem regulären Landeanflug aufgenommen. Over and out.

7.48 PM

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Thank God it’s Frieday (TGIF)! For the weekend I got something funny from Connie who used to be during my time as a presenter at Munich’s local radio station 10 years back Radio2Day a “Nachrichtenmaus” (=”news mouse). This was the official jargon of the boss Peter Bertelshofer to describe in a politically correct and utmost respectful manner the position.

Have a look at this one: It’s a virtual Indian Music Machine where you can switch on and off various tracks. It’s great for me: When I am out of India and start getting homesick, I just have to switch it on for a while :-)

Have a nice weekend.

4.58 PM

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Just re-discovered one of my favourite proverbs which which served as my Leitmotiv when I emigrated to India more almost two and a half years back:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — (Mark Twain)

It has been an exciting ride, sometimes bumpy, but it overall an experience which shaped me more than anything else. And the best of it: The journey is still on.

2.41 PM

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Yesterday I wrote on possible outlooks how we might be watching “the media formerly known as TV” :-) Today in my RSS feeds I found a great account from Techcrunch on various video on demand services: the basic technology solution of YouTube and their clones popping up like mushrooms, but also services which really do add some new functionality like online editing.

Any video can be cloned (unless restricted by the publisher), and other clips can be added to the cloned video. Sound files can be added to either overwrite existing audio or mix in with it. They also allow a number of “transition” features as effects.

Cool. Rather uncool is the downtime of YouTube for the last 18 hours or so. It looks like it was intentional as for an upgrade of the service, but usually these things happen between 11 pm and 5 am Pacific Time in a clearly predfined time-slot. So waiting curiously for its resurrection, especially as lots of people are coming to my blog entry on the hilarious VW advertisement spots where I had implemented the HTML-code for embedded viewing. With all its undisputed beauty, that’s definitely the downside of the brave new SOA-world.