Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

January 22, 2019

Is notifying HR dept where Offenders work a good way to reduce Drunk Driving?

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 11:21 PM

While waiting for my flight to Bangalore I was refreshing my Twitter feed to stave off boredom and one of the tweets caught my attention. The tweet was as below:

So employers are the new mummy-papa? The state should treat adults like adults. Punish them as per law, throw them into jail, but please spare everyone this nanny nonsense.

and the image attached to the tweet is as below:

I checked out the image attached and was reading the replies and one of the commenters had posted something to the effect of “The cops shouldn’t be doing this as this could destroy the persons career if HR knows about their habit of drinking and driving.” This comment sparked an immediate reaction which is what led to this post. From a quick check on the internet the letter appears to be real and there is a very polarized debate ongoing about it. I will be replying back on the Twitter thread as well with a link to this post but wanted a blog post as it gives me more space to give context.

Basically, drinking and driving is a big problem in India. Even in cities like Bangalore where there are frequent checks for DUI, I personally know people who drink & drive. They use strategies like waiting for an extra hour after closing time/event end to avoid cops. Some of them take the back roads to avoid known blockades location for testing. If I can, I do try to get people to take cabs back but its an uphill battle. In one case this guy could barely stand but wanted to ride his bike home and when I told him to take a cab his reply was “It’s ok I will be fine once I am on the bike” as if it would magically make him sober. In 2017 73,741 drunk driving cases were registered in Bangalore. I couldn’t find the numbers for 2018 but am still searching, I will update the post if I find it. The article didn’t have the breakdown on how many repeat offenders were there in the list but I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant count was from repeat offenders. A lot of the folks don’t care about the fine or think that paying a bit of money is a good option to get away with something that risks lives.

It would be one thing if they were only risking their own lives but they also end up killing innocent people in accidents. Take this incident from New Years 2019 in Mumbai where a drunk driver killed a class 9 student who was waiting for his friend alongside a road and had the bad luck of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. We have to face facts, fines are not working as well as we want them to. People still think that they can get away with this behavior with minimal consequences.

The fix is to increase the stakes. The cops first tried to do that by increasing the fines and jail duration but that hasn’t had such a major impact. So the question becomes how do we raise the stakes further? One way would be to do what Hyderabad cops are doing and start notifying the HR department of the companies where the offenders work, in cases of repeat offenders or when people are significantly over the allowed limit. If you know that your job might be impacted when you drink and drive then a lot of people will think twice about doing it. To clarify I am not saying that this should be done everytime. I think that they shouldn’t do this when the person is over the limit by a small amount e.g. if they had 3 glasses instead of 2 but if they had 10 glasses (for example) then yes their offices should be told and the HR will take a call if they want to have such a reckless employee working for them and what action if any should be taken against them.

As for the impact on the job/wreak the career of a person driving under the influence I have just this to say “Good”. Why should we be concerned about the impact to the career of someone who drives under the influence and refuses to take accountability for their actions? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the impact to the families who lose loved ones to these senseless drivers? What about the impact to people who are crippled in drunk driving related accidents?

What do you think?

– Suramya

January 8, 2019

Welcoming 2019 at Winterburn Festival, Sakleshpur

Filed under: My Life,Travel/Trips — Suramya @ 1:08 AM

Happy New Year! We (Jani & Me) don’t like doing the usual Party/get-drunk/passout for New Years so each year we try to come up with something more interesting and unique. This year we decided to go to WinterBurn which is a Music Festival/Camping event in Sakleshpur organized by Motorcycle Diaries. Initially only the two of us were going but then Ayush, Akanksha & Dipika decided to join us as well which made the trip more fun.

We started the trip early in the morning (5am) on the 29th with a light breakfast and lots of caffeine. The drive down was quite nice as we missed the lovely Bangalore traffic by leaving so early in the morning and we took about 4 hours to reach the venue even though we stopped a few times for tea/coffee and watermelons. When we reached the address we had to do a bit of off-road driving on a muddy track to get to the field where the event was being held. I would not recommend that you take any car with low clearance for this kind of trip as even with the new Honda Citi’s increased ground clearance we scraped the bottom of the car a few times during this last stretch and each time that happened it hurt me more than the car. 🙂

When we reached the place we had a pleasant surprise that we were allocated 2 cottages and a tent instead of 1 cottage, 1 shack and 1 tent. Plus the front of the cottages faced away from the rest of the dormitories so we had a bit of privacy with a nice sitting area in from of the cottages that faced the plantation. So we had pepper & coffee plants about 10 mts from our door and it was quite nice. Since we reached before the food trucks had finished setting up we joined the various artists for a late breakfast of local food which was surprisingly quite tasty (yes I have had bad experiences with local food a few times).


Early morning Breakfast

As nothing was planned for the day till late evening we spent the day doing a bit of relaxing Yoga to stretch our backs thanks to Dipika followed by a lovely walk around the estate. Saw a whole bunch of plants and even though Jani tried her best to tell us about each of the plants I kind of zoned out and just enjoyed the walk in nature. We did find some wild chilies that we picked for eating but still haven’t tried them. After the walk we just hung out and chilled for the most part. We spent a while talking and catching up with each other as some of us hadn’t met in a while or were meeting for the first time.


Stretching Akanksha’s back after the bumpy ride


Ayush, Me and Jani stretching our backs outside the cottage.


Dipika walking Akanksha, me and Jani through some stretching exercises for the back.


Just Chilling at the camp

Since we had an early start and nothing was happening at the event we decided to call it a night and crashed earlier than normal. The next day there was supposed to be a Yoga session organized at 6am but none of us woke up in time for it. The food-truck’s food wasn’t that great and since we had packed enough supplies for breakfast (the plan was to have it while driving to the venue but after eating watermelon we didn’t have space) Jani made sandwiches for all of us along with salad and Tea.


Breakfast courtesy Jani

After seeing the sad state of the festival the day before we decided to not spend the day at the venue and went on a drive to check out some of the local attractions near us. Using Google Maps we found a few locations that looked interested and started the day with a visit to Shettihalli Rosary Church which was about an hours drive away on some very picturesque and narrow roads. The drive took us a bit longer since we stopped a few times to enjoy the scenery and to pluck Imli (tamarind) directly from a roadside tree and eat it raw.


Jani trying to feed me raw Imli

The Shettihalli Rosary Church was built in the 1860s by the French missionaries and was abandoned in 1960 after the construction of the Hemavati Dam. The gothic architecture of the church gives it a haunted feel and even though its only been abandoned for ~60 years it looks a lot older and spookier. We spent about an hour at the church taking pics and admiring the view after which we decided to get some lunch as we were hungry. Lunch was at this little hole in the wall restaurant that kind of looked shady from the outside and you really had to know it was there to find it but it was one of the best lunches I have had in a while. The food was filling, tasty and only cost us Rs 230 total (for all 5 of us) including coffee.


Group Pic at the church

After lunch we drove over to Manjarabad Fort which was built in 1792 by Tipu Sultan. It is in ruins now but at its peak it would have been extremely difficult to attack due to its commanding position on top of a hill. Spent a bit of time exploring before we were kicked out when the place shut down for the night. Interestingly the way they make sure that everyone leaves the fort for the night is by herding everyone to the main gate of the castle that is locked, once the guy inside makes sure there are not stragglers he comes and opens the gate to let everyone out and prevents people coming back inside. It would have been a lot more efficient if there were two people doing this but it works so… can’t really complain. We had a round of coconut water and drove back to base where we hung out in our cabin for a while. The stage was finally setup so a few bands did play but nothing that really stuck out and made us want to sit outside. Went to sleep early again with a plan to *try* going for the 6am yoga classes but once again no one woke up on time for it.


Group pic at the Fort

We freshened up and decided to check out some of the workshops that were running. Ayush, Akanksha and Dipika tried their hands at pottery making while me and Jani watched and made fun of their skills. After lunch we joined the Dreamcatcher workshop run by Meghana. This was a great workshop and I realized that even though it looks easy to make it requires a lot of concentration and skill. Unfortunately Meghna refused to let me and Ayush use a rectangle as the base design so we spent the next 5 hours trying to keep threads tight enough and the design normal enough that it didn’t look like it was made by a drunk spider. After much sweat and tears we finally managed to create our dreamcatchers. By this time the bands were prepping so we freshened up and walked over to the stage.


Jani focusing on ensuring all the threads were tight


Ayush and Akanksha trying their hands on Dreamcatcher making

The first few bands were quite good but unfortunately the crowds we had expected/been promised didn’t materialize. In fact there were about 60-65 people total at the event out of which about 50 were the artists and workshop people. We sat next to the bonfire for a while but then the music wasn’t much to our taste so we went back to the room and all of us snuggled under the blanket waiting for midnight. As soon at it was midnight we wished each other and within 10 mins after that we were all fast asleep.


Happy New Year! Welcoming 2019 snuggled in bed.

We all woke up late the next day and properly wished each other since we were all barely awake at midnight. After another round of sandwitches/salad made by Jani we all packed up and headed back to Bangalore. It took us a lot longer to drive back due to the increased traffic and stops.

Reached back home around 8pm after dropping Dipika on the way. Had a late dinner with Jani, Ayush and Akanksha thanks to Swiggy and that’s how we ended 2019’s first trip. Overall the trip was fun though I was disappointed with the music festival. That being said Gagan (the organizer) did refund part of the money to us so I can’t really complain much. If it was just me and Jani doing the trip alone then it would have been a lot more boring but the excellent company made it fun.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

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