A New Year, but will it be Happy

The first day of the year brings symbolic "new beginnings," but in reality, it's just another date on the calendar. Unlike the winter solstice, January 1st lacks any astronomical or religious significance. Across major cultures, there are at least five different New Year dates. This one owes its existence to a Roman-era calendar, later corrected in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII after the Julian calendar had accumulated ten extra days.

Interestingly, the Orthodox New Year, celebrated by believers of the Orthodox Church in Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Balkans, and Ethiopia, is also known as the Old New Year. According to the Julian calendar, it falls on January 14 in the Gregorian calendar. This festival coincides with the Hindu Makar Sankranti festival in North India, Pongal in the South, and Bihu in Assam, in India's northeast.

Astrologically and astronomically, this is the day the Sun moves from Sagittarius to Capricorn, heralding midwinter and the approach of spring—essentially, a true New Year. The Romans celebrated it as the festival of Janus, the two-faced god, and Christians later adopted the same date as the start of the new year. So, Pope Gregory XIII was not only poor at math but also bereft of any astronomical knowledge.

For most startups, January 1st is business as usual—or rather, no business, as usual. Aggregators might see some revenue, but burn rates far exceed it. Brick-and-mortar businesses that call themselves startups fare slightly better, but tech developers have it the worst: no clients, no investors, and no income. Most founders spend their time scrounging for grants and attending training programs at various incubators, hoping for tips to break the stalemate and win clients—or an investor’s ear (with an elevator pitch first perfected in their local language).

Not surprisingly, in India—with its Gordian knot of red tape and bottomless pit of graft—the fiscal New Year aptly starts on April Fool’s Day.

The only people with relatively secure jobs seem to be incubator staff—organizing workshops, hand-holding startups, and recruiting "success stories" faster than a cult leader gains followers. While some programs offer value, many are repetitive or led by individuals with little entrepreneurial or sector-relevant experience. Real-life issues are rarely addressed, such as: how founders can cope with or assist aging and often sick parents in other towns, deal with pompous and ignorant jury members in pitching sessions, or handle potential investors who treat them like dirt. Then there are shameless friends and relatives asking for loans the moment a grant comes through, chartered accountants who bungle compliance and saddle you with hefty fines—or worse, demand higher fees than agreed upon and surprise you with extra bills the moment any funds trickle into your account. And let’s not even get started on predatory existing businesses eager to tear newcomers to shreds, or the outright antipathy of the government machinery.

For most startups, January 1st is just another day of struggle. The only difference? The hangover makes it worse.

Bruce Lee & The Tao of Aete

 

Like many in my generation, I grew up under the stern, steely, daring, all-seeing eyes of Bruce Lee! He was everywhere—staring down from the walls of friends' bedrooms, roadside eateries, garages, and barbershops. In the late '70s and early '80s, he was the omnipresent aspirational icon in northeast India. Regular fights in the serpentine queues outside theatres screening his movies rivaled those in his films.

With a large section of the population having Mongoloid features, teenagers and young men imitated his look—sporting haircuts that resembled bristles on a wild boar’s back, maintaining perennially scowling expressions, and joining martial arts classes. Even those who didn’t join such classes still acted like Kung Fu or Karate experts. Meanwhile, traders made a killing selling Jalandhar-made fake Chinese nunchaku, pirated or original copies of Kung Fu Weekly (complete with the inevitable Bruce Lee poster), and Tao of Jeet Kune Do or Official Karate magazines, which graced the coffee tables of the well-heeled. Smuggled Chinese slip-on cloth shoes, dubbed "Lee Shoes," were on the feet of every self-respecting teenager.

By the time I got into martial arts in the late '80s, Bruce Lee had been dead for over 18 years. Taekwondo had emerged as the most popular "kicking sport," Karate had a modest following, and Kung Fu was all but forgotten. Still, several martial arts clubs in town thrived, each run by a motley crew of dedicated members carrying out morning and evening "Hu-Ha" sessions. These clubs often attracted an eccentric mix: arrogant bullies, driven wannabes (many of them feminists), cocky or frightened kids whose parents mistakenly thought martial arts would teach them discipline, self-defense, or self-confidence.

The instructors, however, were even more colorful—a veritable rogue’s gallery. They included a notorious gay pedophile, two muscle-for-hire types, a con artist extorting funds for “foreign black-belt exam tours” that never happened, and a brash(crude) young woman rumored to provide "services" beyond kicks and chops.  I chose to forgo the prominent schools, primarily because I knew most of their resident bullies and there was no way that I would humiliate myself as a bumbling novice in front of them. Instead, I selected the least popular of them all; Judo.. Unlike Karate with its dance-like katas, Judo offered close-contact sparring and had the unique appeal of being almost unknown.

 The Dojo was nestled on the top floor of the stadium's crumbling gymnastics hall and there were only two students, an unbelievably good-natured Bengali and a perennially sneering Bodo of indeterminable age with an acute case of "Angry Nigger Syndrome!

Soon, my unusual choice piqued the curiosity of my college and stadium friends, leading to a steady flow of aspiring students—most of whom never returned after the first day.

One day, one of the stadium Sensei sternly called me aside. To be honest, I braced myself for another rebuke about some female-related issue, as I had somehow acquired the ill-deserved reputation of a Lothario. And most of my problems back then were either caused by women or related to them, not that much has changed.

The Sensei  called me because wanted my help buying a telephone call metering machine. Because long before mobile phones, cities were dotted with manned telephone booths called Public Call Offices (PCOs). One shop in town held a monopoly on selling these machines, and high demand meant deliveries often took months. The shop owners were family acquaintances, and I was good friends with the eldest brother, who remains a staunch well-wisher to this day despite being a couple of decades older.

Someone told him about my connection to the shop, so he wanted me to get him a machine out of turn—and at a discount. But instead of politely asking, he threw what the Japanese call an Aete, a challenge or dare. It was as if the onus was on me to prove my worth by meeting his demand.

Still polite in my younger days, I offered to accompany him to the shop and put in a request on his behalf. But no, this wasn’t enough for him. “Can you do it or not?” he retorted with a grin, snapping his fingers as he glanced at the gathering crowd. I repeated my offer to put in a word, but he jeered back: “So, you can’t!” I shrugged and walked away.

A few weeks later, walking through town, I saw the eldest brother from the telephone shop, grinning widely and beckoning me over. “Hey man, come here! I’ve got a great story for you,” he yelled.

Apparently, that Sensei had visited the shop without me, tried using my name—an effort worthy of a true dojo knucklehead.

Sensei: Are you so-and-so?
Shop owner: Yes, how can I help you?
Sensei: Aren’t you friends with Ravi Pagal (Madman)?
Shop owner: I know many Ravis, but none of them are mad.
(He later admitted he immediately thought of me.)
Sensei: … Heh heh…
Shop owner: Can you be more specific? I really don’t know any “Pagals.”
Sensei: I mean Ravi Deka… we all call him that!
Shop owner: Well, let me tell you this: I know Ravi very well and consider him one of the most intelligent young men I’ve met. You know what? When stupid people fail to recognize superior intelligence, they call it madness.
(At this point, the whole shop burst out laughing.)
Sensei: Er… heh heh… no, no, he’s my good friend, like a younger brother! Actually, I wanted a PCO machine…
Shop owner: We’re out of stock and not taking bookings. (Though, he admitted he had a spare box under his desk.)
Sensei: But Ravi said—
Shop owner: Cutting him off: I don’t know what he said. But feel free to come back with him, and we’ll see what we can do.

Red-faced, the sensei left and never brought up the topic with me again. This episode wasn’t about my sanity or intelligence but rather his lack of both. While we laughed at his foolishness, it also made me reflect on the toxic bullying I’ve witnessed throughout my life—friends, relatives, employers, and clients alike using Aetes or dares to manipulate others into impossible tasks, and always for free.

Over time, I learned to counter these situations using a principle I picked up in Judo: kuzushi, or balance. Instead of justifying myself, negotiating, or arguing, I listen patiently and then shift the burden back onto them. I simply ask for a wish list and budget, then respond with what I can do, when, and at what cost. This approach separates genuine clients from time-wasters, saving me countless headaches.

After all, Judo in Japanese means “The Gentle Way.”

 Epilogue: Not being Putin,  the novelty of tumbling around daily in sweat-drenched GIs with equally sweaty guys—who collectively stank like horse farts—wore off. Fed up with persistent back pain and swollen wrists, I  traded it all in for the world of bikes, peace, love, Rastaman vibes, and their hazy fumes.

Fast-forward a few years, and I read in the newspapers that the sneering Bodo was jailed for planting a bomb in a city marketplace, killing many people. Another Dojo  student was caught with a kilo of heroin, though it miraculously turned into flour at the forensic lab. Finally, the Sensei himself was arrested for extortion, claiming to belong to a militant outfit.

Philosophical principles and a sprinkling of Japanese wisdom aside, years of Judo neither taught me discipline nor provided inner peace. It didn’t improve my concentration, and it certainly didn’t attract female attention. The world of martial arts is riddled with an incredible amount of bullshit and fallacies. While it looks cool in photos or deadly in films, the reality is far less glamorous—it’s much like Facebook, where human flaws like posturing, insecurity, ego, envy, ambition, and bullying take center stage. The difference? Martial arts leave behind not just bruised egos but broken bones and bodies crippled for life.

One of the most brutally honest appraisals of this field by an insider is the book Angry White Pyjamas by Aikido black belt Robert Twigger.

 

Blame it on the Gods

In a convoluted scene straight out of a raunchy early 70s Ted Mark novel, like the one where the US President (a parody of Richard Nixon), undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, was asked by a doctor whether he was attracted to his mother, before another inquired if he had ever acted on it—I too was facing a similar situation, but in a woke mid-2020s fashion. First, I was asked whether I identified as male, and next if I had the necessary hardware provided by Mother Nature. And no, this wasn’t some gender rights imbroglio I unwittingly got into, but a questionnaire from a US-based Impact Startup Fund for their fellowship program, one whose DEI agenda far overshadowed their green credentials.

The rest of the questions were pretty staid: what you’re doing, why, who benefits, and so on. Until my non-bionic Terminator brain’s non-electric eye stumbled upon one for which I had no ready answer. It was like being back in college, sitting for a Corporate Finance paper—a subject I utterly detested, never understood, and had zero interest in then, with zero regrets about it now. If I now have the excuse of dyslexia and ADHD for barely scraping through Accountancy and Statistics, in Corporate Finance, I just slept through lectures, eyes wide shut, often helped by ganja smoked atop the library building beforehand, sometimes in the reading hall.

Thus, when I sat for the finals, I just wrote down whatever came to mind, though I am still convinced that I flunked the paper due to a severe stomach infection I had on that day and not my ignorance. The next year they passed me, hoping to see the last of me, not for any knowledge gained.

Coming back to the form, the question was: "Explain how systemic discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or any other factor has affected the field in which you are engaged?" Honestly, I had no answer. I made myself a cup of coffee and tried accessing any remaining archives in my terminator brain related to Corporate Finance exams, or at least recalled how to get back into that mode. And before I knew it, I had my Eureka moment. Despite the urge to run down the street in Archimedes' style and dress, I settled for returning to my desk with mild euphoria, having cracked the biggest puzzle that has plagued me since I began designing and developing green sustainable boats—why the hell wasn’t anyone interested in the subject?

From the first time I pitched for a government-owned refinery's startup ideation grant to the country’s leading tech accelerator, the result was always the same: utmost disinterest and inevitable rejection. Surely, the problems I presented—like the shortage of rescue boats during recurring annual floods, unsafe medieval boat designs, and the fact that scores, sometimes over a hundred people, drown each year in Indian boat accidents—would resonant with someone? My innovative proposal to use bamboo composites, the most sustainable plant material, should have appealed to climate tech advocates and funds. But no, nothing! After about 20 or 22 rejections, I shifted gears and claimed that I would first design an electric boat motor for the armed forces, with bamboo composite boats only as test beds. That's when I finally got my first grant. Fine, I built both.

The reply to the question is that the root cause of apathy towards boats and water transport lies in faith, more specifically, the most nautical sector-unfriendly religion in the world: Santan Dharma, that's Hinduism for the rest of us!

While the ancient Greeks had Poseidon, Christians have St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, the Chinese prayed to Guanyin, protector of the seas, and the Arabs crossed the Indian Ocean under Allah’s protection, the Hindus—except for the merchants of the Chola empire and coastal communities like the Kachis, Malabaris, and a sprinkling of Marathas—all believed that crossing the ocean made them lose their caste and religion. Thus, there is no single pan-Indian Hindu sea god, no matter what the online Hindutwawadi revivalists and YouTube experts claim - at most, some local demi-gods.

Even when Ram had to rescue Sita from Ravana in Sri Lanka, instead of building a flotilla of warships to reach the island, he used an unpaid monkey labour force to build a highway across the strait. In all the branches of Hinduism, water is for drinking, bathing, and pouring over the heads of gods. Rivers are all declared holy and hence meant for rituals, immersing ashes of the dead, and performing daily ablutions—you got it, having a crap.

Most riparian and coastal communities, along with their professions like boat-building, ferrying, and fishing, were invariably relegated to lower castes. Even after many converted to Islam or Christianity, their social standing didn’t change even after independence. They may have got some education, quotas and reservations, and a few health facilities, but nothing has been done to modernize their tools of trade or traditional livelihood. Their boats remain as primitive as they were at the dawn of the century, with not a single government program for affecting any positive change, either with modern technology or by upgrading their skill set.

This is not surprising, since post-independence economic policymaking has been shaped by those with an upper-caste, middle-class mentality. For them, both then and now, river and water transport never played any significant role. In fact, in their zeal to improve irrigation during the Green Revolution to boost agricultural production, they collectively destroyed the hydrology of most Indian rivers with an almost compulsive spree of dam and barrage construction and canal digging. As a result, most rivers today are either running dry, have raised beds from accumulated alluvial deposits, and floods are occurring in places that never had them before. Predictably, all riverine connectivity has been cut by multiple dams, with no vessel locks ever built to facilitate boat traffic. What was once a vibrant river transport system across the subcontinent has been relegated to forgotten history.

This same disregard for all things nautical extends beyond rivers to the sea. Despite India’s massive coastline, relatively cheap labour, and domestic steel production, the country has less than 1% of the global shipbuilding market. Meanwhile, South Korea, a country the size of India’s northeastern region, commands 30-35% of the market.

For once, it wouldn’t be wrong to blame the gods for the current state of India’s rivers and maritime industry. 

And yes, the US DEI chaps didn't select me for their fellowship either...

 

To those interested in learning about the absence of Divine (Hindu) presence in India's maritime tradition, I will highly recommend reading Devdutt Patnaik's article on the subject. The above image has been copied for his article as well, needless to say, without his permission.

Karma of the Fallen

 

It was during a visit to an industrial area near Delhi where by chance I came across a familiar steel rebar factory. Now abandoned, its gates locked and bent, with not even a guard in sight. When I asked around, I was told, "Oh, that plant? It’s been closed for years, the owner’s in hiding." Further digging revealed that he and his sons were wanted by banks, private creditors, and government agencies. Their investments in an African plant had also gone belly up.

How the mighty had fallen, I thought.

These were the same people who caused me immense distress and months of sleepless nights, using legal intimidation and a sham arbitration case, appointing their own foreman as arbitrator. All because I refused to get arm twisted to reveal one of my professional secrets - the formula of a surfactant used in fuel emulsification. Finally, it was only my well-wishers in the government that got them off my back.

A clan of arrogant, greedy, egoistic and unscrupulous scoundrels—now bankrupt and hiding like rats, their factory rusting and falling into pieces.

I played no part in their downfall, as it was all their own doing, and nor do I believe much in karma. But I doubt they've learned anything. They were scoundrels then, and they’ll likely remain so till the last day they breathe.

However, this episode made me quit consulting on industrial furnaces and all further development work on fuel emulsification technology. I also left the steel industry behind once and for all. Thereafter, I faced years of unemployment, financial ruin, and the breakdown of my family. Worst of all, it shook my faith in humanity and in my own knowledge, abilities and self-confidence to the core. Yet, despite everything, I never regretted that decision.

It took another decade to repeat the cycle of clawing up and again falling, but this time due to trusting government officials, whose words I have since learnt the hard way, never mean anything, unless it concerns their bribe or cut. And learning first-hand about the absurd inefficiency and red tape within government machinery. People who love to criticize our government have no clue as to how  pathetic things really are deep inside, especially at the upper echelons. So my grand project of dealing with sophisticated watercraft, which included sourcing a hovercraft for the man himself, which was to be used at the Kumbh Mela, all went splat on the ground due to bureaucratic delays and infighting. So it was back to sleepless nights, an empty bank account and a Covid lockdown thrown into the mix for added comfort.

Last year, it was the "currently most well-known Assamese - Tridip Goswami", a Climate Warrior, then one of the top executives of C-Quest Capital India, the Indian subsidiary of the now disgraced Carbon Credit Creating (out of thin air) Snake Oil firm, who tried scamming me out of my Biomass Stove design under the guise of testing out prototypes. Now awaiting his trials at our Supreme Court and the US Criminal Courts for participating in a multi-million Carbon Credit Scam. Meanwhile, infected by an epidemic of schadenfreude, many of the same people who snorted at me for calling him a conman earlier, are sending me messages with links to news stories from around the world.  All gleefully talking or snickering about his forthcoming OEM (Orifice Enlargement Massage) at the hands of American Blacks in a US prison. Yes, Indians can be perverts and bloody racists as well. Appalling but true !

But, here I am, still around, living, working, writing and trying to design and innovate with whatever means I have. And yes, I just got bamboozled by a car transporter whom I foolishly or, due to lack of time in Delhi, entrusted to transport my 18-year-old heap to Guwahati. Not only they took over two months to transport, I was also overcharged by a third and instead of delivering it at home they dumped it over 36 km away, and finally I could recover and take possession of my car only with the help of the police..

Never a dull moment living India and no lack of reasons for the Blood Pressure remaining permanently high... Maybe karma exists after all...

Phantom Menace of Carbon Credits

 Last year Channel 4 made a major exposé on the Biomass Stove Carbon Credit scam specifically naming US based C-Quest Capital and detailing how most of their distributed stoves in Malawi were out of commission, but still accruing phantom Carbon credits. As someone who's been deeply involved in developing high-efficiency, low-smoke Biomass Stoves with a patent-pending design, I am not surprised.

Having seen many of the stoves distributed by these so-called Carbon Credit companies, I can tell you first-hand that the claimed efficiency figures are laughable. Most of these stoves are poorly made, flimsy, and to put it bluntly, absolute garbage! Worse still, their methods for calculating carbon credits? Accountant meets the Phantom Menace, in other words a spreadsheet fantasy.

Last year, C-Quest Capital's Indian subsidiary approached me for my patent pending biomass stove design. Long story short, they wanted a few units for testing, made me jump through endless hoops for their paperwork, and even had me sign NDAs with their U.S. office, then again sign a contract and submit a quote to their Indian subsidiary in Delhi. The order finally came from some shady firm registered in Bangalore. They also gave me an impossible deadline, which I told them right away that it was not possible to meet, but they implored that I give it a shot and promised an advance.

I ended up wasting two months—one in paperwork, the next trying to get the prototype done—cancelling two flights only on the insistence of one of their top Delhi executives, a fellow Assamese. I never received the advance, but instead, got an obnoxious chiding WhatsApp message from some HR flunky, while their top guy who first contacted me and was responsible for pushing me, started ghosting. I dropped the project and cursed the day I agreed to work with them, but never regretted my decision, despite the loss of time, effort, and money.

It didn't take much time to deduct that their whole operation was a sham and as translucent and smokey as their supposedly 50% efficient stoves, which they were handing out to rake in carbon credits. The more I learned, the less I wanted anything to do with them.

Now the icing on the cake? The same top executive— the fellow Assamese—who later left the company, is the same Tridip Goswami who now being dragged to the Supreme Court with criminal charges by the US government for fraud along with his former Boss.

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.

As insipid as the episode was, I guess not all bad things happen in vain.

It's a shame that something that had the potential to genuinely helping poor communities and the environment by reducing deforestation is being exploited in this cynical way. But isn't everything these days?

Fill her Up..

 When I first dipped my toes into inland navigation, I once embarked on a few zig-zagging trips aboard the local country boat ferries, known as “Bhutbhuti,” on the Brahmaputra in Guwahati. After my earlier failed attempts to engage with country boat operators and nearly getting tossed out by hostile crews, I took a different approach. I played the role of a clueless NRI( Indian residing abroad), out on a nostalgia trip in my hometown. With a big, stupid grin, obsessively clicking everything with my mobile, I asked the most naive questions, looking every bit like a harmless tourist.

 

 

A new government subsidized marine engine in a Country Boat Ferry,

but it still doesn't plug the leaks 

 

 What I saw on those trips wasn't eye-opening as I had seen it all before. The boats were all flooded up to the floorboards. Their propeller shafts, connected to old lorry engines serving as power plants, were so poorly sealed, that they practically poured water into the hull. When I innocently asked, “Why not pump the water out?” I got a surprising answer: “The water toughens up the wood!” 

The reality, of course, is quite the opposite. Constant exposure to water rots the wood, and that's why these boats crumble like matchsticks in every riverboat accident. These boats are made with reverse clinker hull constructions, where planks are nailed atop one another with an overlap, and the gaps are filled with rope and tar. Keeping the wood damp is part of their sealing process — the wood swells, closing the gaps. However, these boats leak at virtually every joint due to poor craftsmanship. But, it took me another half-decade of working in this field to understand why they keep their boats flooded. Most of the reasons are unknown even to the operators themselves.

1. Their design is inherently flawed, making the boats unstable. The water load inside acts as ballast, somewhat improving stability. But it comes at a huge cost — increasing the boat's weight, reducing speed, lowering the waterline, and making them prone to capsizing as the water inside shifts when the boat tilts.

2. There's a deeply ingrained belief that a heavier boat is a more stable and safer boat, a belief that has persisted for centuries. This thinking has even carried over to metal ferry builders and many naval architects. The result? It's not only the Country Boats, but inefficient steel monstrosities, consuming insane amounts of fuel, that continue to dominate our waterways for decades.

 

Water up to the floor boards, a characteristic 

of all wooden country boat ferries.