As we approach the end of our month long visit to India, Margaret and I took advantage of a WiFi-free day on a ‘Kettuvallam’ - a houseboat on India’s longest lake, Vembanad to discuss our top 10 experiences - intense, spiritual, picturesque, humorous - during our trip. Not an easy task from a very long list of candidates which included visits to tea plantations and spice farms and are cataloged in hundreds of photos and videos.
If Margaret had made the list by herself it would likely include many Shiva, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Baha’i and other temples and churches, mosques and synagogues we have seen. If I were to do the list alone it would include spectacular fruit buffets (mounds of papaya and muskmelon) and much more humble meals served on banana leaf and some of the wind farms and other technology we saw in our travels
Here they are in no particular order
Old Delhi spice market - the wild cycle rickshaw ride through narrow streets. The sinus clearing walk through lanes of red pepper and other spices. The admiration of workers who carry heavy bags while politely dodging the vehicular and tourist traffic
Taj Mahal under a full moon and next morning we saw its remarkable Makrana marble gleam as the sun shone at it from different angles
A boat ride on the holy Ganga along the ghats in Varanasi, supposedly the oldest city in the world. The steep climb down and up, the cremation fires and jostling with other boats to participate in the aarti - the fire ritual made for an intense experience
A visit to the spot In Sarnath where Buddha gave his first sermon after reaching his enlightenment
A ‘drivethru’ meal - on the way to Tenkasi the Zoho bus stopped for what looked like a traffic jam. Next thing we knew folks boarded and handed each of us a choice of packaged veg or non veg meals. Bags with very filling lunches.
A langur - long tailed monkey - hitched a mile’s ride on our vehicle in Rajasthan
A visit to the Zoho village in rural Tenkasi. Kids during traditional dances, songs and martial arts. A guided tour of schools, farms, local architecture and more from Sridhar Vembu, the CEO of Zoho and his team
A room In Haridwar where you could walk into the Ganga. Margaret took a dip in the fast moving holy river and was glad she could hold on to the metal cage
A room overlooking Munnar - rightfully called “God’s own country”
A pedestrian bridge in Rishikesh. The 1st and 3rd lane are for two wheelers but the walking humans opportunistically take advantage of them and the cows use all three. Brought home the hustle and bustle which defines India. Everybody is on the move all the time!!!
Bonus - the gentle houseboat ride through the Wetlands at 3 knots with room and board included. We went by countless snake birds and snake boats. On a busy Sunday the lake has over a thousand of these boats. At times, we felt an armada was coming towards us and headed to and from one of the ten rivers which feed the lake.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Dave Truch, a polymath who I have known for over 20 years and profiled in my books. His career has progressed from academic, to management, to digital technology to robotics, to futurist and beyond. He has been keynote, panelist, white paper author, and consultant on many topics. He currently dabbles in 3D passive technology.
He has a deep passion for all the above but adds hockey, music and humor to the list. First and foremost, he is a family man. He writes about hockey – the ice, not the grass, version:
I’ve had a passion for ice hockey from the age of three. I grew up in a small coal mining town, Coleman, in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada. The major sport during the long winter months was hockey.
I learned to skate on old CCM hand me down tube skates. The “ice” was an old slough behind our house which froze over in the winter. All the neighborhood kids there would go to play hockey and we often used the tufts of grass poking through the ice as our ice markers including goal posts!
As a youth, I played league hockey until the end of Bantams. The price of equipment became too expensive and although I continued to skate extensively, and play in University intramural games, I didn’t play in any league hockey until I moved to Anchorage Alaska. 38 then, I obtained my coaching certificate and coached my four sons, the two youngest of which inherited my passion for the game and along with myself, continue to play to this day. Now a lot of people are going to laugh at this but hockey, if played well, is a cerebral game! Sure, sure there’s body contact and yes, occasional fights, but think of this:
1) Skaters are extremely fast. Average speed is 10 mph, with accelerated bursts exceeding 20-25mph.
2) The puck is moving extremely fast. Wrist shots generally are 80+ mph while slapshots can exceed 100+ mph.
3) Passing and scoring are based on 3D geometry. The puck is often sliding on the ice, but when taking a shot on goal, the puck is most often moving in the air.
4) Not counting the 2 goalies, each team has 5 players and only one person is controlling the puck at any given time. So essentially, 90% of the time you are moving without a puck. The average time an individual holds the pack before shooting or passing is around 2-3 seconds. This translates to only handling the puck for a little more than one minute for an entire 60 minute (3 periods of 20 minutes each) game!
What this all translates too is that you have very little time to think of where the puck is, where you are and what is your next move! The best hockey players in my opinion, think of where you need to be rather than where you are. This in coaching is often called the “open ice” concept. Your object is to find the open ice where in a few seconds and with a good pass from your teammate, you can pick up the puck and not have the opposing players around you. This ability to “see the future” of the movement of everyone on the ice is a skill possessed by the most talented NHL players at the those speeds.
Thankfully, for us not talented enough to be in the NHL, we find that most people are considerably slower, and not talented enough to see where the puck is going to be so that we can enjoy the game thoroughly even at our snail pace compared to the pros.
When I lived in Chicago, BP had an internal company event called the BP Torch Classic. Employees of the company would get together and participate in sporting events. This quickly blossomed to become a way to pay back the communities where we worked. Employees would contribute time, money and effort into helping local community charities, local parks and recreation upgrades.
My favorite event was the hockey game played against the Blackhawks (the Chicago professional team) Alumni. Employees would earn a slot on the BP Dream Team by obtaining “donations” from themselves and respective supply vendors who would contribute to the AHIHA (American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association). This association was founded by Irv Tiahnybik, a Chicago businessman and Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks (he has been named one of the 100 Greatest NHL players). Irv had a son named Lex who was hearing impaired but loved the game. This became a school to teach hearing impaired children how to play the game.
I was fortunate to play in two of those games, one in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and one in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. I was even allowed to take the ceremonial opening face off against Keith Magnuson! The second game also included my two youngest sons on the Dream Team. Importantly. I was able to raise $25K for the association. I treasure to this day the friendship I had with Stan Mikita who served me beer and pizza from the Blackhawks alumni room at the Chicago Arena!
Technology has dramatically changed the game. Stan Mikita actually was part of that technology change. He was the first to introduce the curved stick to the NHL. They didn’t have rules for what he did so that first season he was able to lift the puck underneath the cross bar. The wrist shot became a dramatic new weapon. He told me that the only problem with his curve was that he couldn’t then do a backhand!
After that season, the NHL had rules on the size of the curve and that has continued to this day. From the early days, technology has changed in skates, sticks, goalie equipment and even the puck. New materials, including carbon fiber has been incorporated into the boots of the skate, the stick itself and much of the material in goal pads and other padding for the skaters. Helmets and hockey protective gear have been modified with new materials, made lighter, and most importantly made safer for hits and concussions. High tech tracking technology is implanted into the pucks and the jerseys of players; the data related above regarding speed, etc. is verified with this new technology.
My passion for the game continues to this day and surprisingly, even here in Houston, I can play ice hockey. I joined my team, the Ice Dragons, in 2008 when we moved here with BP. I am now retired but continue to enjoy the team camaraderie, teammates, game excitement, post-game beer consumption, and overall feeling of being a part of something wonderful.
We have even managed to win a few championships in our league and even though this year I will be 70, I am still able to contribute a few goals, especially those in a shootout.
The team I play on consists of individuals from all part of the globe and from all walks of life. The members are professors, engineers, construction workers, teachers, students, business owners; you name it we’ve had someone on our team who’s done that. Our post-game conversations in the locker room, of course accompanied by consumption of ice cold beer, varies from the scientific and relativistic discussions, mathematical challenges, energy related stories, fun facts from our past, etc. My mind is constantly stimulated both on and off the ice and I have maintained some very long-lasting friendships and relationships through this passion.
I wear the number 77 on my jersey as I wish to still be able to play league hockey at that age. As we say at the start of the third period - there’s still plenty of hockey left!
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