What ‘free basics’ ideally seeks
1. Digital equity
2. Access to education, jobs, news etc. for billion Indians

Pondicherry is a union territory of India with the city of Pondicherry as its capital. The city fondly called Pondy is a coastal city with a mix of different ethnicities, architectures. The city is well planned and some of its areas are simply mesmerizing in terms of its beauty. I visited the place recently with a friend of mine.

There is something about trekking that enlivens your senses, releases the tensions within; both physical and mental. It’s an ordeal into achieving nothing. Many of my friends find it hard to follow the reasons why I trek. I hardly care about the summit or the destination. For me the journey itself holds the charm above all else. Okay so all philosophy apart, I write this blog post to share my experiences of travelling to a place called Kunti Betta 100 km away from Bangalore.

The monsoon has been delayed this year, however the weather seems much cooler now in comparison to summer. Perfect time to come out of trekking hibernation. Last Saturday we planned a trek to Chavand and Shivneri, two hill forts situated in Pune district. We started early morning around 6am from Pune and reached the destination around 7:45 am. Had a breakfast of tasty Misal at a small roadside hotel. 

Software development might be a science but an excellent code is a work of art. The programmer uses a language to write code, which has its own grammar. The programmer follows the syntax, composes accurate expressions and does his best to create concise code. As with literature only mere combination of right words and sentences does not produce a beautiful poem or prose, similarly just an act of writing correct code does not make it aesthetic or pleasing. 

Currently there is an epidemic that has gripped the IT industry. The epidemic called weekend working. The disease that has left thousands stressful, depressed and unhappy. There is a huge number of smart, hardworking individuals who are exposed to this new way of slave labour. People are forced to forgo the desire to bond with their families, people are coerced to give up their priorities in life and focus on only single objective: saving their only job. There are numerous disgruntled employees who prefer countless hours of gossip at their desks instead of few productive hours of actual work. This may not be the case at every organization out there, but potentially it’s ‘THE CASE‘ at every organization. When things go wrong weekend work is the first solution that appears. Nobody thinks it is unethical to take away people’s moral right to get rest and rejuvenate themselves. Managers instill a sense of guilt into the minds of employees from the very beginning of the project, virtually scaring them off with warnings like: “nobody likes to work on a weekend, you guys better complete your tasks on time and we will never call you over the weekend”. So if at all people are required to work weekends, it’s their own fault as they did not give proper attention to the manager’s prophecy.

Regular exercise and ability to do heavy physical activity whenever required wasn’t enough to keep away that excess fat around my belly. My diet is moderately regulated, but sometimes it just goes berserk, chocolates and sweets are my greatest adversaries when it comes to losing weight. A hundred times I had tried dieting and failed. It’s not that dieting never worked, but the thing was I had such great expectations, that I was stubborn to have it all or nothing. So whenever I hit a plateau I just quit. Recently it became so worse that I just quit the effort of keeping my weight under check. And as expected this had a dire effect. With weeks and months passing by my weight kept on mounting. The weight that fluctuated between 68-70kg, was now 73 and it didn’t feel right. 

I always preferred being called an agnostic. Although I don’t buy any philosophy that religions profess, I quite didn’t appreciate being called an atheist. Atheism somehow meant vanity for me. There is so much that we do not know about our own nature and the nature of the universe that surrounds us. We are deceived by our senses and brain perceptions at almost every stage of life and yet how can we be absolutely certain about our faith. It was this dilemma that kept me from calling myself an atheist. I was open to all the convincing arguments put forward by religions so that I could switch sides with them, but somehow luckily for me that never happened. As I learnt more about religion, the more I distanced myself from it. 

Sitting in the train door, legs on the stairs, cool night air thrashing against our face. Yes that was the beginning of a wonderful and memorable trip to Mangalore. The berth next to a rickety door in the 2nd AC compartment, and the constant creaking noise of the door opening and closing couldn’t really dampen my spirits. Me and my friend Abhinav reached the station early morning next day for a pleasant surprise called the city of Mangalore. 

I am quite comfortable running a half marathon, read my post first half marathon on how I got started. So the next adventure in line was off course completing the full marathon. When I made it public that I was participating in a full marathon, it was wonderful to observe peoples reaction. Some believed in me, encouraged me saying I could do it. Some thought I was joking and I would run only a half marathon if at all I did. And my good friends just noticed me being more crazy than my usual.