One Side of a Sandwich

To all that is Brit

2011-01-24T02:29:00.000+05:30

One of my favourite scenes in a movie is in Notting Hill, where Hugh Grant is in the bookstore where he meets Julia Roberts for the first time, and is browsing through the travel section. He picks up a book on Turkey and asks the shop owner for what he thinks about the book. Without as much as batting an eyelid, the owner of the store replies “Unlike the other travel writers, this one’s actually been to Turkey.” I must have gotten the words out of order, but I’m glad I remember the essence of the statement from that scene. In putting down my thoughts here, I feel like one of the ‘other writers’ that hasn’t been to the proverbial Turkey; Britain in this case.

I’m not sure where and why it started, quite like the Industrial Revolution, which also (you’ll see why) started in England. My guess is it might have been that evening in December when I was out bargaining with the street vendor to knock off a couple of bucks from the skull cap I was looking to buy. He wasn’t too keen on giving me a monetary kickback on the cap, but he threw in a freebie and said I could have a bandanna with the skull cap if I bought it at the quoted price. The last time I wore a bandanna was 5 years ago when we were skiing for 2 weeks in Solang Valley near Manali. I have the photograph to prove it, and it was the Union Jack bandanna. I asked the cap-seller on the street that wintry evening if he had a Union Jack bandanna, and as it turned out, he had one last piece remaining. It was a good deal for the buyer and the seller.

It isn’t unreasonable to assume that somebody wearing an ‘I love NY’ tee on the streets in Bangalore has in fact returned from NY (or has someone he/she knows who’s returned from NY, in which case it makes the person nothing short of a complete twat). But that same assumption doesn’t qualify for the Union Jack bandanna. An over-sized kerchief around your head bearing the colours of Great Britain doesn’t suggest anymore than deducing that the cost of onion, petrol and beer this week are all on an even keel. But I must have anticipated it that very moment, and since clarity lies only in hindsight, I am only now allowed to see that all this while I had been swooning to sparkles that could only be British. Allow me elaborate.

In a world that is so American as in what it eats, wears, reads and sings, it is easy to overlook what Britain gave us. I can only speak for myself here, and I will point out how British influences have been filing the good part of the day for an average guy like me. In the books category, I started off reading Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘The World according to Clarkson’. The book was a breezer, and it could as well have been an audio book for the voice of Clarkson was distinct as it is on television. I’m not sure if it was chance, or divine order, but the next book was Bill Bryson’s 'Notes from a Small Island'. Now, I haven’t read any other travel book on Britain, but I can be forgiven in assuming that none other gets better than Bryson’s work. As the critical acclaim on the cover says that there is as much of Bryson in the book as there is of Britain itself. I have now moved on to another Bryson hit, 'Down Under' about his travel through Australia, which for the record is taken as Britain’s cousin. There’s just no getting away.

The shows I was playing on my computer were quintessentially Brit. There was the world’s best TV show currently, Top Gear (of course), and if you haven’t already I would urge you to catch their Middle East special that came out during Christmas. For me, personally, TG is a travel, fun and adventure show where the occasional car breaks out. But then, you haven’t gotten your head around British Television if you haven’t watched Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. I had always intended to watch both these shows, but it had remained there on my to-do-sometime-in-the-future-list; like reading the Mahabartha and Ramayana. I had just never gotten around to it. But then the timing was right, and I settled in my head once and for all the debate about the greatest sitcom ever made. Meanwhile, I got a category ‘A’ recommendation to watch 'The Office'. I inadvertently ended up downloading 'Office' which is the original British series after which the American 'The Office' is made. Coincidence? Maybe not.

It would be criminal to leave out the music playing on my i-pod these last couple of days. I find it more than a mere chance that they have been The Who, Beatles, Dire Straits and U2 (Irish can count as UK). I spent my Sunday watching the rockumentary 'Flight 666' about the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden. What blokes in the band! From the first minute, the hair at the back your neck is standing straight, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I turned on the cable television to find that BBC Entertainment was now being aired, which means more awesome shows. I spent considerable time at the British Library last week looking for a book they didn’t have but instead ended up reading Jeeves. I paced the aisles at Marks and Spencer waiting on a friend as she was let loose on the sale they had going there. The weather in Bangalore this winter was most certainly Brit, what with cloudy overcast skies and cold mornings. The cricket was great. The coffee was hot. The beer flowed freely. In short, this could just as well have been Britain, except that it wasn’t.

A two months' road-trip through England is on my bucket-list. But given the glimpse of England I have witnessed right here at home, I feel safe in saying that the feeling of walking through customs at Heathrow and into the warm London summer morning when the day comes, is going to be almost an anti-climax.

Hair care for my bald head

2011-01-15T00:53:00.000+05:30

A couple of years ago, I remember sitting on the ledge waiting for my turn at the barber’s to get my hair cut. The guy was just finishing up and it was my turn next, and I was glad the wait was coming to an end. But funny as it was, just as I stood up to make my way to the chair, the Director of institute walked in. Well, what did I know? He wanted his hair cut too. We exchanged pleasantries, and I let him take my place. The thought crossed my mind that I’d stubbornly shove him aside and rightly claim my turn. After all, I had waited for so long, and he had but just walked in. But no; instead I sat and stared at the bald patch on the back of his head and thought “Jeez, he’ll never get to see it like everyone else can. That must be a sad feeling.”

Besides all the profanities I dedicated to him under my breath that afternoon, I remember distinctly saying one other thing to myself: that when you’re in a barber’s chair, it doesn’t matter who you are. Here was the Director of an institute, in-charge of a couple of thousand people, head of a dozen committees with all the power and strings attached at all levels in the Government, plus this inter-galactical academician. Yet, for those 15 minutes under the comb and scissors (after a barrage of news-reports saying ‘under the knife’, I didn’t want to feel left behind), he was literally a nobody on that chair, and if I may say so, was at the mercy of the man wielding the scissors.

They say humans are protective about their space bubble, i.e we all carry around us a three dimensional boundary and everyone we come in contact with is kept beyond the periphery of this imaginary bubble. This explains why we get uncomfortable when someone gets too close to us while talking. As adults, a few exceptional cases when this bubble is burst, and we ‘let people in’ is while kissing, while at the hairdresser’s chair and at the doctor’s table. I will get off this topic right here, and recommend that you read Allan and Barbara Pease’s Body Language if you’re a seeking a deeper explanation into this bubble thing. But now, back to barbers (I’m told this word is on its way out. We call them hair-dressers these days.)

This monsoon, I found myself screaming each time I came out of the bath and dried my hair. Invariably, I kept getting shown that there was a good chance the towel had more hair than my head. Now, I’m one of those who does a laugh-out-loud when I see the before and after ads for hair regrowth therapy. And, I certainly wasn’t readying myself to model in those ads anytime. Hence, my predicament drove me to the trichologist, and these guys always scare you. They somehow convince you that if you don’t take their remedy which costs an arm and a leg, you’ll go bald before you leave the clinic. But in my case, the Doc (it’s funny that the first thing one always looks at is the tricholigist’s hair) sent me away saying I had a scalp infection which was triggering all that shedding and that, besides medications, I had to keep a clean ‘zero’ look for the next three months.

Which brings me back to barber angle of this narrative: there are 2 hair dressing salons within walking distance of where I live. Let’s say they are called B1 and B2 (I like fighter jets, but let’s not deviate). B1 has been cutting my hair since I was in class 1. I’ve been to B2 only once in the past, because he’s just opened recently. B1 is the guy who’s been running the place before Bangaloreans were swimming in money, and hence, there’s no air-conditioning, no cable TV and no fancy chairs in his store. For the price one pays, all you get is a tattered Women’s Era (yes, girls, for some reason, that’s what every men’s hairdresser keeps to entertain his audience while they wait), the Kannada daily all scrummy and the sheets hanging loose, good old scissors and comb, and the cheapest available shaving cream, after-shave moisturizer and talcum powder. In most cases, the hair cutting machine is broken. B2, given that he’s opened only in these yuppie times, is a kid of the new generation of air-conditioners, Tata sky, fancy push back chairs, and ergo, hair-raising rates. But he still maintains the same genre of magazines I told you about.

Dr. Tricho’s instruction to get my head shaved had me in a spot. This was about putting the blade to the scalp, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. I disregarded all sense of loyalty and ditched Mr. B1 and decided to go to Mr. B2’s 'sanitised' salon. There was only one trouble though- to get to B2’s salon, I had to walk past B1’s. And as I did so, Mr. B1 himself was seated on a stool outside his shop on the sidewalk, and pleasantly wished me good day. I guess he noticed the hair on my head. That’s what barber’s do, right: they notice the hair on your head just like cobblers are always looking at people’s feet. I got my head shaved at B2’s whilst enjoying the temperature controlled setting coupled with forgivable annoying numbers being played by one of the dozen radio stations. I paid him a handsome sum (I have no problems skipping meals if my money can instead buy me the looks), and walked into the afternoon feeling conscious about my shaved head, somehow thinking that everybody on the street was looking at my bald head. I had my head down, looking at the path and humming a tune, that I forgot I still had to pass by B1’s store to get back home.

I walked past B1 rather mindlessly, but I smiled at him nonetheless. This time, he didn’t return the greeting and instead turned the other way. I got home wondering what could have made him unhappy. Maybe it was the tea he drank; boy, we get some bad tea here in this city.

Surely, there must be another way of putting it.

2011-01-09T20:58:00.000+05:30

It took three days of loneliness and solitude away from the madness of the city to bring me back to terms with what has been happening around me. We just inaugurated the largest nanofabrication research facility in India in the academic setting on the 5th of Jan 2011 at IISc Bangalore, and I’ve lost many nights of sleep in the walk up to it. But all-in-all it’s a proud moment for all of us involved in it, and certainly a landmark event that should set the pace for India’s foray into nano-scale R&D over the next decade.

I escaped to the some-what lonely beaches of Gokharna, a getaway in coastal Karnataka about 12 hours drive from the capital Bangalore. I spent the good part of my vacation lying in a hammock, drinking beer and reading Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. Short walks, morning pranayam and conversations with strangers happened too, though not necessarily in that order. And then I got back home, because I just couldn’t wait to show up at work on Monday morning. But this post (after a break of some 5 odd months; apologies (not like anyone cares)) comes on a totally unrelated subject, the signs for which have been jumping at me from all corners.

This one’s about… I don’t really have a smart phrase/word that will capture the whole idea, but let’s just say it’s about phrases/words that leave you a bit confused than you initially were. Let me take an example here to get started. I was traveling in a bus only recently, and you see these advertisement hoardings. I saw one, and for the life of me I can’t remember where this was, or what the ad was for. But I did take the catch line away with me and that’s enough fodder for my case. The line for this product read ‘Changing rules. Changing lives’. Right, I’m sure you’ve heard a similar version of that a zillion times before, as have I. But for kicks, and also because my i-pod had run out of battery and I wasn’t exactly sharing my seat with a pretty 20-something that I was sketching my opening lines, I began to replay what I had just read: Changing rules. Changing lives.

Let us take the first part i.e. ‘Changing rules’. What do these two words mean? Well, for one it could mean that the act of ‘changing’ (goodness knows what!) was one that commanded a superlative compliment- Changing rules! Like you would say Iron Maiden rules, or the sight from the mountain top rules, implying that there is no comparison, because the object in question is by far superior to anything else comparable to it. Hence, by that equation, changing rules. The other meaning is the obvious one implying the change of rules, like the change of weather, or a change of clothes. The third meaning of this phrase could be one to point the change of power or authority, as in the ‘the rule of such-and-such dynasty’. Therefore ‘Changing rules, changing lives’; well, not necessarily. You might think that I’m merely trying hard here to show you other cases similar to ‘time flies like an arrow’. Probably, yes!

Only this evening, I was driving down near Palace Grounds and like always they’ve got these exhibitions going. The organizers had a giant board put out at the entrance that announced ‘Old Hindi film songs and food mela’. Now you must help me here. Like many others, I have trouble using ‘and’ in its right place. But I spotted this one, aha! What was the mela about afterall? Take your pick:

a) Old Hindi film songs (cds, records whatever) + food (food in general)
b) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi film food (?)
c) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi food (?!)
d) Old Hindi film songs + Old food (doctor’s fee included in the entrance ticket).

I haven’t slept well last night in the bus from Gokharna to Bangalore. We had some gear box problems, and came to a halt in the middle of a forest. And somehow, just somehow, the driver managed to fix the issue temporarily till we got a mechanic to fix it for good at the nearest town 40 kilometers away. And that was at 3:30 a.m. So, I will have to end this here since my eyes are sagging like Preity Zinta’s face in the IPL auctions earlier today. But I will leave you with this thought, and I’ve said this earlier on Facebook as well: if 'thrifty' refers to someone who's diligent with the his/her money, how come 'spendthrift' means exactly the opposite?

Constipated about reading magazines

2010-08-17T20:54:00.000+05:30

I subscribe to two magazines at home: Forbes India and Reader’s Digest. I took up Forbes for a two year period because of the amazing introductory price that was offered. And with Reader’s Digest (RD); well, who wouldn’t want to read RD, even more with the way they keep turning out annoying ‘confirm your address for the luck draw’ mails in the post.

Forbes India shows up at my door step on the first and the third week of the month. RD shows up when ever it likes. For many years I was forced to read magazines that were ordered by the adults at home. Barring Tinkle and the occasional center page poster from Sportstar, there was little to choose from in terms of taste. There was always plenty of variety though: The Week, Outlook, Gruhashobha, Overdrive, Top Gear, Women’s Era, Competition Success and names like that. As age caught on and the teenage years kicked in, Tinkle and Sportstar were replaced by the auto-car reviews by Adil Jal Darukhanawala’s crew. And the distress columns in some other publications, but we won’t go there.

The longing was always to subscribe a magazine that I wanted, for subjects that I cared about and I paid for. Given my taste for things and my constant pursuit to up my IQ points a couple of notches, Forbes was an obvious choice. I was also told that people who appreciated jokes that made you tickle and longed to feel included in this world read RD. So, I couldn’t say no to that either. But little did I know then what I know now: that when one decides to start subscribing to the RD, the editors there sense it in the ether and start showing you ways of getting rich quick overnight in a lottery where every number wins.

I gobbled up every word of almost every article in the early editions. When the new editions arrived, I carefully took the expired one and placed it in the book rack and as the months rolled by, I ensured the chronological order was maintained. All this collective wisdom could just come in handy, you never know! I wasn’t the one to sell this off for its weight.

And then, marginal utility showed up. Like with all good things in life except one, this too came to end. I soon realized that I had stopped reading the editorials in either of the magazines. Soon after, articles on China and Health care were being skipped and the Word power column was for my one and half year old cousin sister. And then, it got to a stage where I read only what interested me in the publication, and most of them half way through. These are busy times, and the world knows it. Before I knew it, there were magazines that were untouched. The weeks would go, and the new edition would arrive. But the plastic cover had still not come off the previous edition. And I like reading my magazines in chronological order for I like to know the sequence of events. I learnt that a long while ago in school, the importance of chronology. They always taught us history before current affairs.

So with this obsession for reading magazines by their date of publication, I soon found myself in a position where I had magazines piling up and time slipping away. Soon my subscription period would end and they’d stop sending me the stuff. I began to feel obsolete as such; how sharp can I possibly be reading June’s news in July? This was like buying French Fries from McDonalds and taking it home to stuff it in the cupboard to eat it someday when you felt hungry. “What sense did that make?” I asked myself. It was me at the vortex and the magazines in a swivel. I had bitten off more than I could chew; chewed more than I could digest, and digested more than I could … you get the point.

I found a way out luckily. All the months of reading the magazines had rightly up’d my IQ a couple of notches. Instead of trying to read and assimilate everything from both the magazines, I now decided to focus on getting just one point out of each magazine. Any one good article that makes me laugh, or teaches me something useful and makes me wallow in misery is all I aim for. This ways there’s no pressure and my IQ continues its upward march. In 12 months, I would have 24 (Forbes) + 12 (RD) new ideas that worked/will work for me. Over a period of 5 years, that number would be 180. So if my projections are right, I’m well on course to winning the title of Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos by 2021, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry by 2030, and the Oscar the following year from then. Not to mention a couple of bravery awards between now and 2020.

My current challenge is to apply the same principle of ‘1 idea per magazine’ to the 2 newspapers that come to my house each day, and the hundred thousand online publications I read every hour.

The gap between good and bad

2010-08-06T22:42:00.001+05:30

When I heard her say for the first time “what does ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mean? what is good and what is bad?”, I stared back with a blank expression not knowing how to handle a question like that. It seemed like a trick question for all I could see; one of those questions that breaks into a silence and anything the respondent says thereafter is either incorrect or incomplete. Luckily this time, it was a rhetorical one and the answer soon followed from her.

“Good and bad is what WE define: the society. But if you look at it, there is really no good and bad in this world. It’s about how we look at it.” I think she went on for the next ten minutes elaborating on this worldly issue of perceptions. I must have trashed it as pop-philosophy then, now that I come to think of it. But in keeping the subject of good and bad going, I see two cases that are clearly presented to my mind where one could put the two words into context in a way that it has a fair deal of meaning. One is of ‘intentions and actions’ and the other being ‘subject and environment’.

Intentions and Actions

I’m currently involved in a project wherein we’re putting together the largest Clean-room in an academic institution in the country. While the construction is happening, the designs for the subsystems (like water supply, fire suppressants and so on) undergo continuous changes and is a work-in-progress, as you would know if you were an architect, a civil engineer, or simply knew the ways of the business. In one of our weekly reviews with the contractor, we were just not pleased with the fact that he had deviated from the frozen design, albeit a small one, without prior notice. This argument started, went back and forth, and finally settled. At the end, the contractor said in his defense “We only have good intentions for you”.

He had hardly finished the line, and a professor who was part of the design team flew at him. “Haven’t you heard my favourite saying?” he asked.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I guess the penny dropped for the contractor, and a prolonged silence implied he had got the point.

Why does this happen all the time? For long, I maintained that my Uncle held the copyrights to the line “I’ve always had good intentions.” Though I never brought it up with him, I often wondered if that were to be true, why are the actions not in line with ‘good intentions’?

Which do I more trust in and buy into- the good intentions or the bad actions? Some would call it ‘walking the talk’, but call it what you will, it’s a gap in what we wish to do and what we do that baffles others, but rarely bothers us! Ask any child whose parent declared they loved the child and yet somebody went home in the evening after school having to lie about their test grades for a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this theme.

Subject and Environment

There’s the story of the famous violinist Joshua Bell who stood on a busy street in Washington D.C at peak hour in the day playing on his $ 3 million violin. In their haste to get to work, hardly any one took notice, and by the end of 45 minutes of playing, all he could show was about 32 dollars in collections in his hat that was laid out. Just a couple of weeks earlier, he had played to a packed audience of a few thousands at a landmark auditorium in the same city.

Environment makes the man. This idea is as old as the hills. But when you think about it, environment really makes the man; or the woman. A friend and I recently co-authored an article for a college magazine. When we got the prints in our hands, we were disappointed to see the article aligned and typeset very poorly.

“It makes us looks like bad writers”, my co-author remarked and I couldn’t disagree with him.

There are several cases like this where a good subject stuck in a bad environment ends up being perceived by the outside as bad. A good student in the midst of teachers who can’t rise beyond their petty selves, a good athlete and a poor coach, a genuinely good stand up comedian (or a musician) playing to the wrong audience all end up looking not quite like what they should.

The natural order of arrangement implies that a sharp looking person, well dressed, would be taken more seriously by a stranger in an air-conditioned conference room, or a social setting of some standard, than in a flea market by the heat of the day.

There’s always a best fit for everything. When there’s a sizable gap between the quality of the subject and the quality of the environment and an optimal fit doesn’t occur, it’s best for the subject to look elsewhere for a place or a way to work things out where it feels easier and more natural. Until then, he’ll continue brushing his teeth with his left hand.

The plan was to meet at Mandarin at 7 for dinner

2010-08-02T23:04:00.004+05:30

The plan was to meet at Mandarin at 7 for dinner. I was told this place was at the intersection of Double RoadCMH Road. I knew CMH to be a lengthy road, so my guess was that Double Road intersected it somewhere in between. I live 12 kilometers from Mandarin. Auto prices were hiked yesterday. Yesterday was 1^st August. I was so not getting into an auto, riding 12 kilometers, getting ripped off along the way to get to a place whose location I wasn’t sure of for a dinner I was in no hurry to attend.

I recently made a list of things I hate. At the very top was ‘wax matches’ followed by ‘the sight of food after a heavy meal’. Lower down the order were ‘pants that are shorter by an inch’, ‘travel plans getting cancelled’ and ‘the political situation in North Korea’. But somewhere in between was ‘auto drivers in Bangalore’. Fire-spewing, mean talking always looking to make easy money off people’s bones; aaah! What would I not do to have them sent away to a land far far away never to return. All this agony, all the baggage and my world view of auto drivers and yellow top autos (even the ones without digital meters) found itself turned on its head last evening.

I was determined to ride the bus, even if that meant I’d be an hour late. I visualized it in my head. My friend would text me saying ‘where r u’. I’d say ‘reaching in 10 mins’. Twenty minutes later I’d send another text saying ‘stuck in traffic, be there soon’. And I ride the bus for 12 kilometers for the next hour through the traffic free roads of the city on a Sunday evening. I must have been but 200 meters from the bus stop when I noticed an auto parked by the side of the road playing the song Pehli baar miley hain from the movie Saajan. Goodness! It’d been donkey’s years since I last heard that song. I slowed my paces as I walked past the auto just to take in more of the song. And just I did that, I noticed the auto was empty. There were no passengers or the driver, but the song was playing aloud. I stood there listening to it. What the heck, I thought.

The driver, who had been answering nature’s call not too far from the auto stood, came to where I was. He must have assumed I was waiting to hire the auto. But phew, like, “Yea right! An auto is what I need”, I almost said to myself. I was just there for a few more seconds of the song. By now, I was six years old once more, teleported into the 90’s and slyly grinning as I stood there listening to the track completely lost.

“Indiranagar barthira ? (Will you come to Indiranagar?)” I asked him. What was going on! This was the enemy. I shouldn’t be saying this stuff.

"Indiranagar alli yelli? (Where in Indiranagar?)”, I heard him say so feebly, with his voice drowning in the tunes of SPB’s jingle.

"CMH Road matthe Double road junction hathira.(At the intersection of CMH Road and Double Road)”, I watched words fly out of my mouth and they weren’t even mine. I was saying stuff that I knew I shouldn’t be saying. He asked me to sit.

I followed in to the comfortable backseat still humming along to the tune. Once inside, I turned around and noticed these huge speakers blaring beside me. No complaints, I assured myself as he got started and the meter was turned on.

In minutes, he flipped a switch and a bright set of overhead LEDs came on. All colours: yellow, green, purple, red were flickering at regular intervals like disco lights in the auto. Slowly, he kicked up the volume as the auto gathered speed. I felt like the kid in the candy store spoiled for choice. Here were lights, music, and an auto driver at the helm of things who knew the shortest route, and drove fast but not reckless. I took an occasional look at the meter. Whoo hoo! I wasn’t being cheated. I could just as well have been in a 2010 Chritopher Nolan movie.

This is where I switch to present tense.

The track ends. In the silence before the next song on the CD starts, I ask him if he can repeat the one that just finished. He repeats the track. No questions asked. This is surely a DJ who drives an auto because no disco or pub would hire him. Idiots, serves them all right for overlooking this piece of talent. We stop at a signal. I look at the vehicles parked around us. There’s an auto on the left. The driver in it is sheepishly checking out the cool interiors of my auto. The passenger in it is a fat bald dude wearing lungi carrying several tiffin dabbas. Poor folks have no LED shows, no music and I’m sure the meter in that auto is rigged. I see to the right: a BMW 5 series with its windows rolled up. Rich farts and losers who can’t appreciate fresh air of the evening. To the front is a bike, and I can only see the waistline of the chik who is sitting on it. Bah! While I’m not complaining, I try estimating how uncomfortable that bike must feel what with it not having comfortable cushioned seats like my auto.

The signal is green, and off we go. It’s now Tu shaayar hai. This can’t be for real, I think. The songs are getting better. And the track changes before I wipe my smile off.

Dhekha hey pehli baar … feels like an overdose of sugar that leaves your mouth tasting bitter.

And before I know it, we’ve arrived in front of Mandarin. He turns off the auto and the music shuts off with it. I want to tell him, “Screw the dinner, can we continue riding?”

But I get off and pay him. I take two steps from the auto feeling sad. Very sad. I turn around and walk back to him.

“This is the best auto ride of my life.” My voice shakes as it come out. “Keep going this way.”

I note the auto number and walk up the stairs to catch fried noodles and schezwan rice for dinner. It’s two minutes to seven.

Srinagar

2010-08-01T23:46:00.000+05:30

I wrote this account based on my trip to the Kashmir valley in April 2010, before recent violence broke out.

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Our cabbie reckons we ought to visit Chashmashahi, the Mughal Garden. We walk up the steep flight of stairs to be greeted by a pleasant view of lush greenery of the hills, the well manicured lawns and a flowing stream of water. Kids here speak the language they grew up hearing; we chance up on two young boys splashing water at each other near the fountain. One is saying to the other “Hamare beech mein abhi encounter hoga.” (There’s going to be an encounter between us now).

A Shikara in Dal Lake.

From the minute you land in Srinagar, capital of the picturesque Kashmir valley, you smell hope all around. The people here are clearly waking up to life after spending years in fear and only a dead-end in sight. The roads are well kept, life moves at the pace of any large town and the place in inundated with ad-boards of mobile phone service providers and private airlines announcing connectivity to all the major cities in the country. Security forces like the CRPF, State Police, and the Army are stationed at every second turning on the road. But we are assured by Mr. Billal, our guide, that this place is safe. Our home for the next couple of days is going to be on a boat-house in Dal Lake. The lake in its sheer existence is a microcosm in itself. Kids are born, families are raised and entire life times are spent on Dal Lake for thousands of people. There are close to two-thousand house boats in the lake, many of which are lodging facilities for tourists. They usually have well decorated interiors, and complete with all amenities. Shikaras ferry you back and forth to land. One can see floating markets, flower shops, and photographers all over the place.

Billal talks about places like Kargil and Drass in the same breath as someone living in Bangalore would say of Mysore. “It’s just a drive down”, you know what I mean. In the late nineties, these places were battlefields that made the country hold on to its breath and pray for the safe return of its soldiers. Today, the situation is a bit different. You can hop into a car and drive the distance to Kargil, en route to Leh from Srinagar. As Billai explains, Kargil is also the focal point for some of the best treks in the region, the Zanskar route being the most popular. As it turns out, it takes a 15 member back up crew providing supplies for a 2 member trek party on the 3 weeks Zanskar trek through the Karakoram Range.

We spend a day in the beautiful hill station of Gulmarg. You get around the place on mules that can be extremely annoying and the rides are grossly over-priced. But there’s really no other choice. Army trucks keep whizzing past our car on the way back from Gulmarg to Srinagar. As you re-enter the city, you can see posters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president of Iran. Our driver is vary to take us close to Lal Chowk, the central part of town where the Secretariat is housed. Most violence in the city usually breaks out here, and hence news channels have their vans stationed at the square all the time.


Cable car rides in Gulmarg subject to frequent power cuts.

Back in the comfort of out boat-house, I get talking to Billal over a cup of khava, the traditional Kashmiri tea. Here’s a well traveled guy with good knowledge of the history, geography and politics of the place. Azad Kashmir (or POK) and the Kasmir valley on the Indian side are the same in terms of the composition of the people, their tastes and lifestyles. “It’s just like East and West Germany; or North and South Korea”, he explains. There are families separated by the border hoping to reach out and reunite someday.”

“They don’t want the people. They just want land”, he says referring to the games Pakistan is playing. He explains how the tourism industry died for many years, and people had to sell off ornaments to make a living. Things are looking better in the last 4 to 5 years, and the Kashmiris just want to keep it going that way without looking back. This is one possible reason why tips are relatively higher here than in other places.

Everyone must do themselves a favour and visit the Kashmir valley at some point of time. The place is way too rich to let it pass.

Mr. Billal organizes city tours and treks in and around Srinagar, and in the other parts of the region.

Keep your gift and let me home

2010-03-28T20:42:00.000+05:30

For several years, we lived next door to a family that owned close to 20 cows. The main source of income for the household came from the milk they sold to people in the neighborhood. They had all kinds of cows – desi ones, big ones, small calves, two headed cows, and there was even one from Germany that flew into Bangalore in 1994 for a princely sum of Rs 45,000. It gave so much milk; the other cows developed a complex after a while. They made wonderful neighbors, and were the typical courteous family that you like to have around. They bought sweets on festivals, and their kids were taught to share crackers with me during Diwali. They had many kids running around the house, for there’s had been a joint establishment.

Anytime you have kids around at home, it’s a co-incidence that you have birthdays to celebrate. And anytime there are birthdays to celebrate, there are other kids to be invited. And anytime kids are invited, parents send their tots with a nicely wrapped gift to be handed over. My aunt was visiting us one evening, and as it turned out it was also one my neighbor’s kid’s birthday. I got the invite to attend the celebration just an hour prior to the actual candle blowing ceremony. And boy was I excited!

There was one issue, however. It was too late to go out and buy presents that I could take. So, my Aunt suggested that I should dig into my own unused stationery stock, make a nice little packet out of it and take it for the kid who was turning 5 or something. Probably re-gifting is not quite the norm with people in their 20s today, but ask anyone 45 or more, and they don’t seem to think it’s bizarre at all. I must have taken with me to the birthday party an imported pencil, a foreign eraser shaped like a light bulb, a stationery box and few more odds and ends as the present.

After the cake was cut and the fun was had, I gifted the little boy what I had got for him. He opened it right in front of me, with his mother standing there looking on. They must have expected to find something outrageous, I guess. But when the kid opened and found some cool looking stationery in it, he was happy. I think you could upgrade that to ‘ecstatic’. His mother assumed I was more grown-up in the head than I actually was, and so she tested me with the line “Oh, why did you bring all this expensive stuff?”

This was my moment to be the big man. It had finally arrived. Without as much as batting an eyelid, I said, “Not a problem, Aunty. All this stuff was at home, and so I decided to get it. No trouble at all.”

I learnt my lesson with gifts that day. I understood that you can never gift that ‘perfect gift’ to anyone. You just can’t. Maybe it’ll be too big for them, maybe it’s too small, maybe it’s the wrong time, maybe they’ll think you’re plain cheap; or maybe, they’ll think you’re just showing off. But whatever it is, they’ll never suspect that you’re re-gifting it. I’m convinced about it. When I get a gift, I might think what a cheapskate the person is, but I would never be inclined to think that he or she is just re-gifting the stuff. That would be the last thought in my head. Maybe this person would re-gift their things to others, but come on; to me? No way.

Then somebody came up with the idea of gift coupons. I once got gifted a voucher for five hundred bucks at a music store. I thought to myself, “The world needs more people like her. By giving me this coupon she’s telling a couple of things at the same time. One, she’s saying, here’s my budget for you. Now go do what you want with it. Two, I don’t really want to waste my time thinking about what you might like, or ask my friends what his tastes are. So three, here’s the money; you go do the shopping for yourself.” I loved this idea. I mean thank goodness I got a gift coupon from this person. What if she had given me something scary instead? Maybe like a horror movie DVD or something. Yuck, I don’t even watch horror stuff.

So off I went to music store and bought a couple of Steven Segal movies, Dirty Dancing and one or two other DVDs. When I looked at the bill total, it was fifty bucks more than the coupon amount of five hundred. I had two choices here: pay the extra fifty or keep back one of the DVDs. I thought about it for a while. Paying the extra money just didn’t seem right. It was a gift after all, and no one pays for a gift. But option two pissed me off even more. By keeping back one of the DVDs, the shop got to keep 50 bucks with them, because the total was now 450. That just didn’t seem fair. So I sprayed chilly powder into the cashier’s eyes and ran out of the door with all the DVDs. “Take that, you suckers.” I said to myself as I ran down the walkway to the store.

Gift coupons in stores are like the casino. The house always wins.

Through the lookers’ eyes: 5 societal trends that IPL ads want us to know

2010-03-22T00:01:00.001+05:30

This IPL has been an ad fest. All this while, ads were shown only between overs, drinks breaks and when wickets fell. This time, they’re playing them in between deliveries (took a great deal of self control to refrain from using the word balls); and not just as the fast bowler walks back to take his run-up, even the spinners are not spared. So for the viewers, it’s not just the flurry of ads that is irksome, it’s the fact that most of these ads are pathetic means that one needs a greater degree of tolerance to put up with them. Watch the Tata Docomo ad, where the guy dumps his girlfriend and walks out with this other chik, if you aren’t convinced. Here’s an open appeal to Mr. Ratan Tata to fire the ad agency, and the VP of marketing of Tata Docomo. Shoddy stuff. The Zoozoo ads too are average at best.

But like Sherlock says in the movie, one can still make order out of chaos. I’ve tried to capture some of the emerging trends in the market place that advertisers are seeing this IPL time and playing to the tunes accordingly.

1) A bit of Tiger for everyone: Aircel started the ‘There are only 1411 left’ campaign, and several folks are now jumping on this boat. A couple of the Vodafone’s zoozoo ads feature the zoozoos’ accidental misadventures with the wild cat. Though not directly featuring the tiger, one of Airtel’s direct cable connection ads shows a cheetah running across and encourages people to watch wild life shows on TV.

2) Nimboo pani: Summer is about to set in, and it’s time for the soft drink makers to up the campaigns. But there are visibly three companies pitching for consumers to drink lemon flavored soft drinks. My guess is that lemon drinks don’t enjoy a high market share in India. And with the colas coming under fire every now and then, companies are looking to back themselves up by creating a larger market for nimbu paani. Minute Maid, Nimbuuuz and 7UP Lemon are at it, with the first two showcasing their product as being no different from freshly cut lime mixed in water.

3) AC for India: Keeping with the theme of summer, this is the perfect time for fan and air conditioner companies to get to work. Havells is excited like never before about its fans and safe-switches for hand held air dryers. But what interested me more were the air-conditioners. Amongst others, Samsung, Voltas and Godrej have been repetitively screening their ads with a heavy emphasis on the fact that their ACs are ‘made for India’. The reason ACs haven’t penetrated household markets in India is primarily due to the fear people have of a high electricity bill that might result therefore. So most people who would like to have an AC at home never buy one due to this fear. If you look at these three ads again, it’s not surprising to find that the central idea is that of ACs that consume less power.

4) Mobile phones for rural markets: It was only after reading a story in last month’s edition of Forbes could I understand the cause for the sudden influx of small time mobile phone makers challenging the Nokias, Sonys and Samsungs. Have you ever stopped and wondered the same thing? Until a few months back who had even heard of mobile phones from Micromax, Maxx, Lemon, Lava, Inq, Spice and Videocon? As much as we see mobile communication all around us, a great part of the rural market still remains untouched. The same is true for dual-sim mobiles for urban crowds. My guess is that most of these new players want a share of both these pies. This has really woken up the established players to start looking at their options. Understand the Samsung Guru mobile ad featuring Aamir Khan from this perspective, and it should make sense.

5) Gojiyo.com: A last observation is the launch of Godrej’s virtual reality portal gojiyo.com. The advertisement displays two subtle yet remarkable trends in the economy. Number one, the Indian youth is ready to accept or at least try a hand at virtual reality; something that Second Life despite all its success in the west could not make a dent in the Indian market. A name like Second Life is very niche, compared to a more mass appealing name like gojiyo. The second observation, in my opinion is to be considered with more weight than the first. It basically says that you still need to advertise a website on television. Since the internet penetration in India in still low, companies still need to go to the television crowds to preview a teaser of their websites. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise if you also observed that the number of ads for television sets is noticeably high this IPL.

This article is not an ad feature, and opinions mentioned here are solely mine. Brand names have been taken out of free-will, and I have kept away from providing back-links to any of them.

If you liked this article, you might also want to read this.

Learning to say 'Venakatarama Govinda'

2010-03-21T11:47:00.000+05:30

It’s times like these that are really frustrating. If there’s one leveler of society that turns a blind eye to your bank account, it has to be traffic jams. Last Sunday India’s biggest Mall (at least that’s what the developers claim in their ads), Mantri Square opened on Sampige Road. If you’re a Bangalorean, a landmark would be that it’s opposite to the famous New Krishna Bhavan hotel. The opening of this mall comes just weeks after Big Bazar opened its doors at 5th cross Malleswaram, roughly one kilometer from this mall.

Here’s a primer on Malleswaram: now if you didn’t know, Malleswaram has classically been the traditional, and laid back part of the city. In the true sense, it is old Bangalore, though no one ever refers to it that way. The extent of shopping crowds is usually restricted to the 8th cross market on weekends and on festivals. The place is abound with some of the best eateries in the city. But that was about the extent of attraction of this part of the city. Sampige Road and Margosa road, which are the lifelines of Malleswaram are lined with trees on either sides starting from the 1st cross going all the way till 18. These two roads are relatively narrow and are capable of handling limited traffic. The area is predominantly a residential one, and connects South Bangalore and Majestic to Rajajinagar on one side and Yeshwantpur and Peenya on the other.

We saw what effect the opening of Mantri Square has had on the area only last evening. Now, traffic jams aren’t new to the city, but last evening’s display was scandalizing. It was Saturday evening, and Bangalore decided to check out the latest mall in town. At the same time, families decided to do the week’s household shopping at Big Bazar. And like I mentioned above, both these businesses are located on roads with poor infrastructure. Net result: they infused so much traffic that there was a traffic clog for close to three kilometers, and tempers were flying all over the place. This is the same road that leads to the City Railway station, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if many people missed their trains.

Mantri Square in itself is a huge place and has way too many stores. The nice part is they’ve got the first Taco Bell in India, but what shite; it’s always crowded and you need to stand in line for way too much time to get your tacos. So first, you get caught up in traffic to reach the place, and then you get caught up in queues to get your food. It’s times like these that you feel like ditching the Great Indian Growth Story and moving to Spain. This place also has the multiplex chain Inox with dozens of screens. Multiplexes are the crowd pullers in malls. And all the traffic we witnessed last night was sans the movie going crowd because Inox is yet to open. What then can you expect when the movie screens start functioning? In the words of Anoop Krishnamurthy, all we can say is “Venakatarama Govinda Gooooooooovinda!” (Take the Lord’s name and pray for the best).

This situation is not going away anytime soon; at least that’s what a common man would diagnose. The Bruhat Bangalore Mahangara Palike (BBMP) has options to solve this problem. They need to get the Metro Rail built at the blink of an eye, but we know that statement in itself is a joke. Or the Bangalore City Police has to come up with something incredibly innovative to streamline traffic flow. But I don’t think I’ll put my money on that one. Or the authorities can do what they’re best at: chop down all the trees that have lined these roads for several decades now and widen the roads. Now that, to me sounds like a solution that can be executed really fast. What’s the big deal? It’s just a couple of trees.

Note: If you need to take the route towards Malleswaram, plan it such that you don’t find yourself there between 6 pm and 9:30 pm. Unless you love stress and enjoy pulling your hair out.

Did we get it right?

2010-03-13T01:59:00.001+05:30

Sagar and I made the dreadful mistake of crossing an unmanned railway track at a local train station in Mumbai a couple of years ago. What a mistake. We were greeted by the railway police in normal clothes on the opposite platform. They lined us (along-with twenty others who made this stupid mistake) and took us into the station to have a ‘discussion’ with us, I guess. They kept us all in one room. The others were mostly day laborers, and being unaware of the consequences, had unassumingly walked across the tracks. A couple of minutes later, a constable came in and announced that each person would be taken into the inspector’s room where they would have to choose between spending 24 hours in jail, or paying Rs. 1500 as fine. Sagar immediately told me that till we left the station, the two of us would talk only in English or Kannada, and pretend to not know Hindi or Marathi. Guess what? That worked! The top cop gave us an earful, saw our college IDs and let us go.

Only yesterday, I was riding around my Hayabusa and the front number plate literally broke off and came out while I was on the road. I stopped, put the broken piece of metal in my bag and continued to ride. I was out looking for the first place where they make number plates. As rotten as luck can get, a few turns later at a signal, a cop spotted my bike sans the number plate, and as they so often do, he promptly walked up, turned off my gaddi and confiscated the key. So when a cop catches you, what do you do? Whatever you do, pretend like you don’t know the local language. If that ideology worked with the cops in Mumbai, then logically it should work with the cops in Bangalore too, I thought. How far from the truth was that? I rattled and rambled on in English and Top Cop wouldn’t reduce the fine by a rupee. After close to five minutes of this nonsense, I decided to give Sagar’s theory a rest and started off in Kannada. Result: Fine amount cut in half, Top Cop says he acknowledges that the number plate breaking off was unfortunate, and lets me know that his daughter is in eight semester of engineering at ABC College (don't ask why).

The approaches were of opposite nature in the above events, both leading to a desirable result. Which then is a better approach? You can most surely understand how knowing a language can help get your work done faster and in many cases as in mine, it can mean money in your pocket. But not knowing a language can sometimes cause sympathy and end up in a positive result as well.I was telling a friend recently about taking up Dutch classes. After a brief discussion, we came to a consensus that a foreign language class could be expensive. So we said, “Junk it.”

If Bachi Karkaria were to write about this fact- “How much does it cost to learn a language?” she probably would have concluded her article with:

Alec Smart said: “I know how much it costs to learn a language, but I sure don’t know how much it costs not to learn the language.”

The Root of Hypocrisy

2010-03-11T20:41:00.000+05:30

In the movie Cocktail, Tom Cruise works as a bar tender by evening, and is also finishing up a business degree in a local New York City College, and has high aspirations to make it big in the world of business. In one of the scenes, the teacher gives an assignment to the class to hand in a business plan. When the results come, Tom Cruise’s character Brian Flanagan finds himself with an F for his proposal of a bar franchise business. In his angst at the professor’s disapproval, he accuses to the teacher as being in academics due to lack of guts to face the outside world.

If you’re working in corporate, and for one reason or the other you do move into the academic world, the protective cocoon of the later can feel either warm and fuzzy or completely alien and unchallenging. Though both these reactions are skewed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and can be attributed to the fact that each ecosystem comes with its inherent set of characteristics.

The corporate world attracts people from all walks of life. While many treat it as a rote job, a hungry handful pursues life here with a one-eyed maniacal focus on career growth. But in between these two extremes again are all the grades of people. If you stop and observe the behavior of folks in the rank and file of a corporation, you’ll need less than two minutes to understand that the whole system is management driven. When you begin to start managing a group of people, the black box in the picture is the passion and commitment of the members involved towards their field of work. And often, if a person isn’t passionate or committed to his work, chances are their work ethic is poor. From this you invoke one of the most used phrases of the IT era called 'slacking off’. But in academia, the situation tends be slightly different. People in this pool know they can’t be in it for the money. That in itself is huge entry barrier. Unlike the corporate world, academia is not your glamour stable. Logically then, you can’t be in it for very many reasons, not counting circumstances that forced you into it. And again, as it’s not hard to observe if you talk to ten professors and twenty PhD students, that they love their subject, and are hence passionate about it. This means that more often than not, a poor work ethic is not tolerated in the top academic and university research environments. Slacking off is for the administrative staff.

Despite the differences shown here and otherwise, there’s a common syndrome that appears in both these places (and in several other places as well) that I like to refer to as the root of hypocrisy.

The root of hypocrisy, unlike what it sounds, is not an incompetence related Peter Principle. It’s best to understand this with examples. Let’s take the corporate world first: an employee is pulled up by his boss for slacking off, and his results at work or the lack of it are questioned. This is usually the employee that gives two hoots at what is being said at team meetings, and will, on several occasions ridicule the boss’ motivational talk as being just hot air. In the event that this person is promoted and given a team to manage, all of a sudden, he now expects his subordinates to cooperate, produce results and stay motivated. He doesn’t tolerate coming in late to work and expects his people to take shorter coffee breaks. He can be seen as being completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was, until recently, an exhibition of all the above stated gray areas. In the academic environment, you can draw parallels. A professor shows little tolerance and patience to the students’ lack of understanding of a subject, notwithstanding the fact that they might have shaky basics in it, just like he/she might have had in earlier years.

We all experience such things, and some of us might be guilty of it ourselves. If you dissect the problem, you can see two entities emerging out of it. A) is what can be called as the individual’s character, and B) is what can be called the role’s character. Every individual in effect wears a hat to play a role. This could be the role of a son, a batsman, an employee, a philanthropist, a mentor, a student and the list is endless. Each role comes with a *set of characteristics* that have to be rightly followed irrespective of who’s stepping in to it. At the same time, the person who steps into the shoes of a particular job also carries with him/her a set of values or a pattern of programming that is unique to that person. When the ball (the individual) sits into the socket (the role), the dimensional constraints of the socket dictates the degree of freedom for the movement of the ball.

A straightforward example, though its mention here might seem partly out of context, is that of an actor. Jim Carey could be the funniest guy on screen in the characters he portrays, but could be a stern and stiff faced bloke in his real life. When you take this analogy and superimpose it on the cases mentioned above, you can understand the case of the employee being promoted to managing staff. The care free employee now finds himself in a role that requires him to act in a manner that is not in accordance with his real self. But for the greater good of his livelihood and that of his family's, he then subdues his inherent nature and plays to the tune of the new piper. Similar is it with the professor and the student. During my torrential teenage years, I remember reading something that I bought then as Gospel truth. It said “Parents of teenagers often behave like they had nothing to do with teenage life themselves” or something similar.

This conflict between the character of the individual and the character of the role can look very confusing from the outside, especially when a person moves through multiple roles in quick successions and takes time to grow into each role. We outsiders, not understanding the inside story, coined a word for this state: hypocrisy.

Goodwill Learning

2010-03-07T10:46:00.001+05:30

Going through exam days and the days prior to it were painful. But watching my brothers at home go through the same pain now is not nearly as hurtful to me as it was for me to go through it. They’re in the classes 9 and 10, and are busy stuck in the race to meet society's goals to get a cut above 90 or whatever, so as to land a decent seat for classes 11 and 12 (or PU 1 (Pre-University) and PU 2 as it’s called in Karnataka).

The ability to produce good results consistently, be it in academics or in a sport, or in acting often has the same underlying basis: that of being a good student of the subject. Being a student comes with the implication of being a superior learner. What then makes for ‘good learning’? Here are 5 points in their order of importance that I think makes sense.

1) A desire for the subject: It’s another way of saying 'you’ve got to do what you like'. A desire for a subject is so paramount to the learner and for learning, simply because it makes the learning process much easier. The desire is like a drug; an anesthetic. You don’t feel the pain of the learning process. This one factor is of such giant importance that placing it anywhere but one would be undermining it to a large extent. History has scores of literature to support this fact.

2) A teachable attitude: I can have all the desire in the world to learn cooking, but if my attitude towards learning stinks, I’m not getting anywhere close to making tasty pasta. And attitude towards learning could mean a whole lot of things – patience, subduing one’s ego for the benefit of learning, stickability to the subject over a period of time, asking questions and not questioning everything, curiosity and initiative, and so much more.

3) Superior Coaching: The saying goes that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And the converse is true as well. A student who wants to learn and is willing to pay the price for it will, by the Law of Attraction, bring in a coach into the circumstance. And superior coaching can bring about (and always does) the difference between doing well and a stellar performance.

4) A competitive fire: The connotation of the word ‘competition’ to mean dog-eat-dog is rampant today. But this is not that kind of a competitive fire that I’m referring to here. It’s that traditional and boring meaning that you’re Principal in school told you about: each day, am I getting better than I was the previous day. It’s that competition with the self.

5) Rote repetition and mastery of the basics: Once these four factors are in place, it’s time to sharpen the pencil, learn the technique and get good at it. Unfortunately, most of us put this at number one. Learning the basics, sticking to it and repeating it over and over again is really the key. There’s nothing fancy to the big win. It’s very unsexy, but who cares; it works all the time.

What other factors do you think can be added to this list?

And btw,here's a great video that captures the essence of being a student and great learner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKXFGVMO3pc

Putting an end to the paranormal

2010-03-02T23:33:00.000+05:30

Talking about paranormal stuff is just so cool, isn’t it? I don’t know about the girls, but I think no man can ever admit that he’s scared of watching horror on screen. And if you were to spot a bunch of eighteen year-olds discussing ghost stories, it’ll not be hard to notice that each one is waiting for the other to finish his story. Every boy wants to pounce on the rest of them with his tale, and each one hopes that his story is the one that freaks everybody the most. I have scores of tales from my engineering days to demonstrate this fact. There’s the story of Vinod Kambli’s fan, last room in the corridor girl’s room-mate, the Ambassador party, the Hotel waiter, the guy in the time capsule and many more. I mean, these are actual stories that have happened to either me or people close to me. But we won’t go into that until sometime later.

Many many years ago while in high school, I remember reading a book about paranormal stuff that people had experienced. One of the stories was about a couple that lived in some part of the world and had always wanted to visit France. Now this story happened sometime in the 70’s from what I recollect. So they decide to vacation there, and in a few weeks they find themselves checking into a hotel room in Paris. Later that evening, the husband and wife are walking down a street. Suddenly the man turns to the wife and remarks that if they were to walk till the end of the road and turn right, they would find a restaurant that went by a certain name, and he said the name of the place. The wife thought her husband was playing a fun game since they had never visited Paris before, and so how could he possibly know the name of this place and the fact that it existed there? But true to his word, they turned right at the road’s end, and found the restaurant with exactly the same name as he had said.

You might have heard this story, or something similar in the past. You might have even experienced something like this yourself. But that was in the 70’s. Let’s see what happens in the year 2009. I’m on a bike with my friend. We are headed some place in the city for some errand that I can’t recollect now. My friend is riding the bike and we are headed to this place. Now both of us haven’t been to that part of the city before. I’m hoping to get directions from people on the streets. After covering some distance, we reach a signal. My friend stops and shuts off the bike. He turns around and tells me that if you go straight from the signal and take a right, there’s a flyover and near that flyover is a Chinese restaurant by the name of Blah Blah. No passerby that we got directions from ever said anything of this kind to us. I thought it could be that this guy had come here before, but that was untrue. So obviously, this must be paranormal.

Not really. Our man had been spending too much time on Google maps before we left home. Darn it, they sucked all the fun out of ghost stories.

Controlled power cuts: voices for

2010-02-26T08:16:00.001+05:30

Here's feedback/opinions/ideas with regard to the previous post. A big thanks to SG, Hari Om,Hari Sundararajan, Bhargav Ranganath, Sridevi, Kruthi and Varun Agrawal for taking time out and putting down your thoughts here. Highly appreciate it!

SG:
The first problem that I see with this solution is scalability. Given that Bangalore is the third most populous city, by the time people fill out the forms (which they take forever) and these are ingested and sorted out, the power consumption issue may actually be obsolete. Let us assume that this is planned in advance. The second issue I see with this is prioritization. Given that there are businesses (some probably with the promise of uninterrupted power supply), schools, hospitals and residential areas in the same place (and possibly connected to one or more common grids). Assuming that this is sorted out (using some parallel circuits), the third issue is people agreeing on a common slot. Even if the Govt. offers you only 3 choices, I am sure the distribution will be almost equal that the slot chosen will leave the remaining 66.6% unsatisfied. I am not trying to beat your suggestion down but I very much fear that implementing such a convenient solution will lead us all to not take the energy conservation issue seriously. I would think coming up with 'greener' solutions (like the Google power meter that speaks in a language people understand - money) could be the best approach, given that developed countries are already breathing down our necks (without any concern as to what they have been doing all these days !)...oh..dear, I should probably made this a post instead of a comment !

clarification: I misunderstood a part of your post, I was assuming that the Govt. will turn off a grid and I think that a couple of houses turning off the power (while the rest do not) will not help as much since they should power the plant/transformer supplying those grids in any case. But I do like the idea of a 'device' that monitors power supply - exactly the idea behind google power meter.

Hari Om:
In gujarat the power is controlled by "Torrent power" a private player.
He promises more than 99% of uptime and actually he delivers it.
Now the good thing is no power cut and the baad thing is less business for inverters and DG sets.This reminds me one more thing, people who need power doesn't care how they get it. for example if there is a power cut the "garuda" mall wont be shut down. it will glow using a powerful Generator suited on its roof or underground. a local store will run on inverter.we people are habitual of being at ease and we will pay for it.one more thing, producing electricity locally by DG sets and etc is cheaper than buying it from government under industrial tariff.

Anyway whenever we (The people) thinks and decide something we always CAN...
now-a-days we just need a "jagoo-re" campaign for enlightenment...

Hari Sundararajan:
The first question is, why is the power cut happening?

If my guess is correct in that the power cuts are happening to save power/ reduce power usage, your "I go out from 3pm to 6pm and will cut power for that time" kind of totally defeats the purpose. Your lights are anyway going to be off etc etc, and the current company isn't really saving a lot. However, if they take off power during the times the usage is at its peak, they tend to save more.

It's like saying "I don't like watching advertisements, so I will have the advertisements on TV play from 1 in the night to 8 in the morning when I am not watching TV, and then the rest of the day I can watch commercial-free content" ..

Speaking of paying off the fine, the only way I can think of is increasing the fine exponentially. In other words, you come within one hour after the curfew hour, you pay 50 but you come within two hours, you pay more and then even more, and so on with the electricity situation as well.

If, on the other hand, you want to take it one step further, you could establish incentives. For every 1 week you return to the hostel on time, you could spend the next 3 days out late. Or, ensure your power consumption is within so many watts, and you have got yourself some free electricity now.

Bhargav Ranganath:
The idea is good. However, the issue is how much power is saved when you are out and not using it compared to when you badly needed it. May be I should give it more though if the power cuts are serving the purpose when it comes to residential services. If the power cuts are scheduled ones, people will definitely work around them and the peak consumption shifts to a different time. Whereas, power cuts make sense with small businesses as they can't really work around the scheduled cuts, and end up using generators.

Also, to the point that operating diesel generators (assuming DG stands for diesel generators) being cheaper - diesel fuel is subsidised by the Government. Its worth to take that into consideration too.

Sridevi:
Nice idea, but both SG and Hari have a point too.

Anyway, something I observed at NITJ. The new warden made a rule that those girls that came into the hostel after curfew had to pay 50 bucks fine. So what many girls did was pay the fine daily and hang out with their boyfriends till late night. Same way, if the turning of power was in our hands, many would prefer to leave it on and pay the fine later, just because they can afford to do so.

But yeah, you could look on the bright side, the power cut is only 3 hours. In the Ungra village (when I was living at ASTRA centre of IISc), we had power supply only from 7pm till 2-3am in the morning, and even lesser sometimes!

Kruthi P:
I think that's a good idea, if used rightfully and honestly. The problem here is the "Attitude" of people. You should make sure that everyone does right. If one person fails to do it, there is a high chance of his/her neighbour to follow the footsteps and have lesser time of power cuts. People are used to work around the law here, and the fines are sometimes not fair to either sides.

The other point would be peak hours of power consumption. There are times of the day noted to be the peak times of consumption of power. You will have to work out some balance for that too.

Varun Agrawal: That is not the idea. If you do this the way you said that you will know that i timings for which you are ready to let go your power will coincide with a lot of people. It will be very immature to think power supply as a cookie box where you have your share. Its done more on prioritizing, by that i mean in the peak hours electricity department has to prioritize on where to send the power and not on how to distribute it to some guy at some time. Also power distribution happens through grids. Which are area dependent and not user dependent. So your alone cutting power will not make sense unless everybody else do that and grid can direct the supply to the other node ..

Controlled power cuts

2010-02-23T00:21:00.000+05:30

For the last couple of weeks, Bangalore is under power cuts: 2-3 hours a day. Now I know that this is nothing compared to many other parts of India where it’s more like 9 to 10 hours daily. So what I say here may not really apply or make much sense if you’ve got more than, let's say 5 hours of power cut in a day. 5 hours is the maximum number for this idea to have any relevance.

At the first place, it’s even embarrassing that I’m thinking along the lines of power cut convenience instead of coming up with ways to increase our power output. But forgive me, if you will, this one time. So here’s the point, folks: there’s no power in my house every morning for one hour, every afternoon for one hour, and every evening for one hour. The trouble with this, as you know, is that power cuts usually happen when electricity is most needed. So in the end, knowing that we can’t do much about it anyways, we end up planning our work around the dark hours. Like you might take an early bath, or finish off the paper work before sunset, or any of those. And kids in school are having it tight these days with exams around the corner.

We end up scheduling our work around power cuts. How about the other way round? Why not plan the cuts around our schedule? This means, the local electricity board gives every household the option to choose which 2 or 3 hours in a day they can stay without power. These hours could be broken apart, or done in one shot. The minimum duration for a one time switch off however, can be set at say 15 minutes. So I take it that there’s the main switch and plugged in along with it is a device that records the time of power cuts initiated by the household (just like the meter records units of power consumed, or a punch card that records times of 'in' and 'out').

For example, I might decide to go out between 3 and 6 in the evening. So I might as well have the ‘power cut’ at that time. As I leave, I turn off the main and the ‘device’ records the start-time of the power cut. I’m back at 6 and turn on the mains, the device records the end-time of the power cut. A condition attached here would be that if every household is required to cut 3 hours of power per day, they do not get any additional benefits for cutting it for a longer time. Going back to the above case, suppose I leave home at 3 and I turn off the power as I leave, and return at 7, that makes it 4 hours of the power-cut. But only 3 hours were stipulated by the electricity board. Then, I don’t get to adjust the extra one hour of today by reducing one hour from another day. Cutting power for less than the stipulated hours can attract a fine leading up to disconnection in cases of regular faltering. I mean, the policies could look like this.

It strikes as a convenient and a win-win solution to a problem that's not going away anywhere in the near future. Now obviously, it’s very linearly thought out without taking a whole lot of other factors into account. But what do you think of this idea?

Fights Fought: 50. Clash

2010-02-20T01:29:00.004+05:30

One of the greatest conspiracies of the 20^th century was the creation and the eventual popularity of the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF. Kids that grew up on fresh air and love had their appetites filled with a perennial flow of wrestling shows on cable TV. When WWF first started beaming into Indian homes in the early 90s, it must have been a shocker. Most parents then never really had a hold on the phrase Parental Guidance or PG, and as a 12 year old, you got away watching flicks on Star Movies that were meant for older folks – like 15 and above.

But besides Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood movies set in Switzerland, not many things really caught on and stayed the course the way WWF did with kids. When I look back and wonder what created the roaring success with this sport (mind you, that’s part of the conspiracy) and its viwership, you can’t take the spotlight away from Trump cards. Remember that bunch of seemingly-useless-but-my-life-revolves-around-Papa Shango’s- biceps cards? Or around an overtly cacopygian Yokozuna? God knows why they called Trump cards (hell, I don't even know if this is a proper noun or not) by that name; but doesn’t look to me like the real-estate honcho was bent on lending his name to a bunch of cards that mostly featured muscular men in their undies, and an occasional muscular lady in her two-piece.

We played them all the time. We woke up thinking about Shawn Michaels, went through the day talking about Royal Rumble and Summer Slam, spent the evening looking at Tatanka’s poster, went to bed thinking about Razor Ramon’s numbers and cursing why you didn’t say ‘clash’ earlier. And while asleep we dreamt about Mr. Perfect’s biceps when we didn’t really know what biceps meant. Some part of the body, but who cares?(ad lib. A sentence has been excluded at this point since the pun sounds obnoxiously strong for most of the readers’ liking. But if you don’t mind a dirty joke, write to me. I’ll mail you the line.)

WWF was mostly a show of odd balls. Hulk Hogan (rank 1) was like a professor of mine in college: you could never say how old he was and he never seemed to get older than that. And for some reason, he (not my professor) hardly fought fights and yet managed to retain rank 1 for as long as they printed Trump cards. Rank 2, the legendary Shawn Michaels, many kids claimed was the only wrestler who was trained professionally. The rest were junkies off the streets. The Undertaker was rank 3. As one can expect, anything said of The Undertaker will eventually measure up as undertone. To start with, my Aunt thought he was 100taker. This dude gave cats a run for their money. The guy had more lives than the demographic department could keep a track of. To top that, there was this short, stout ‘soul-keeper’ assistant of his who carried an urn to all the fights, which, as the story goes contained 100taker’s ashes from his previous life. Remember those douche-bag stories? No one could defeat The Undertaker. Not even Ranks 1 and 2. But the hero is never without his nemesis, is he?. For Rank 3 had his spokes loosened whenever he took on Repo Man. Repo Man was this i-got-no-life-so-I’m-here-in-WWF wrestler ranked No. 83. But he did prove to be a handful for The Undertaker. Surprising, you may say. But that was part of the conspiracy.

The ranks went on, and every time a card game came down to the wire, the losing kid started saying ‘clash’ for the most un-clashable things in the hope of salvaging some last bones. That kid eventually lost. It was good fun playing these cards, and following the matches on TV. Especially the part when the gruff voice came which announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, coming in at a magnificent 480 pounds to set the stage on fire, here’s Bam Bam Bigalo.” And the crowds would go into frenzy and hold up placards that said “Bam Bam, my girl loves you more than me.”

The newspapers said some kid nearly killed his younger brother trying to work the choke slam. But here are a couple of things I gleamed from WWF many years later:

- That Giant Gonzalez wasn’t really 7 foot and 11 inches tall.

- That aspiring to make it to the WWF wasn’t nearly as wise a career choice as engineering.

- That kids who took WWF too seriously could actually end up hurting each other.

- That my Grandpa still remembers British Bulldog was ranked 11.

- That it’s probably not a good idea to refer to The Encyclopedia of names of WWF champs: Past, Present and Future to find a name for your new born. They’ve got pretty cool names like Beefcake Barber, Andre the Giant and Lex Luger “Hands of Steel” in it. I’m not sure if I’d want my kid to be any of those.

For years, everyone stared in awe believing the fight was for real. Then one day, some person sparked off a debate about the sense of showing such violence to young kids. It all went great for a while. And then, we fucked up the end game by calling it Entertainment.

When Sting came to town

2010-02-15T23:59:00.003+05:30

If you like 60’s and 70’s rock, the place to visit is a popular corner in Kathmandu called Thamel. Kathmandu is a place of several shades. The city is an old one but is fairly young in terms of development. The kingdom of Nepal as such sees a vibrant mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. You could think of it as the place where India meets China, since the heavy influence of both these countries is very evident all over. But the city of Kathmandu retains the air of an ancient capital, untouched by the British, as it can be experienced when you go to Patan, the old part of the city. At the same time, being very active on the tourist radar, it’s a great place to spend a few days and meet new people from many different countries.

During my stay here for close to ten days, Pratik and I went down to Thamel almost every other evening. The place is abuzz with pubs, most of which have bands playing some of the best music from the golden age of Rock. As you walk through the narrow and crowded lanes of this area, it’s often hard to separate the beats of Seven Nation Army from Send me an angle coming from adjacent joints. The music is here and there and everywhere. This is where the nightlife of the city unfolds. No place in India comes even remotely close to the ambiance Thamel carries.

Though you get Carlsberg and Tuborg at most of the sit-ins, the beer to try here is the locally brewed Gorkha beer. You might begin to question the authenticity of Budweiser as the king of beers. In the midst of music, beer, fries and talks we got chatting up about the several hikes around the city. In due course, my friend was charting out the route to Lhasa in Tibet from Kathmandu on a paper napkin; and how this course can be done on an Enfield. But as the night came to a close and we were driving back, he told me the story of a man.

The story of a man called Sting. The singer. Sting was in Kathmandu a couple of years ago. He had checked into one of the hotels in the city under a pseudonym. He came into the hotel with a scarf around his head, and heavy stubble. He wasn’t in the city to perform. Later that evening, Sting went into one of the pubs and sat unassumingly in a corner sipping his bottle of beer and listening to the band play. A few songs into the evening, the band began to play Every breath you take. Sting sat and listened to his song being played. Not one person but Sting himself was aware that the guy who wrote this song many years ago was in the audience.

As the story goes, Sting took off his headgear and made his way to the stage as the band finished playing the song. He borrowed the guitar from the lead guitarist and went on to replay Every breath you take. He was doing this because the guitarist had apparently got some notes wrong, and Sting was correcting him. Before long, the whole place knew who the visitor was. In a couple of minutes, the entire press of Kathmandu had flocked on the road. And Sting gave interviews.

Before sending the next forward

2010-02-15T02:17:00.000+05:30

The baby boomer generation can be forgiven for their gaucherie at handling e-mails and surfing the web in general. Now obviously, there are the exceptional few from that day and age who are far more adroit than my beer drinking pal from college at choosing the message they pass around in cyberspace. Without singling out any particular person or meaning offense to anyone, I’d like to take a step back and say that seeing my inbox flooded with forwards isn’t really something I enjoy. I might open and check a few; but if all eleven are from the same sender, you know where they’re going: to the trash can.

But more than the volume of forwards that can piss people off, it’s their content that’s a bigger turn off. Look at it this way. I get a forward this morning saying that a ten year old boy contacted AIDS when he ate a pineapple from the street vendor. The forward says things like the pineapple seller was a victim of AIDS, and while cutting the fruit blood stains from his fingers remained on the pulp which in turn affected the boy when he ate it. If I’m not a student of science, or my general awareness is not remarkably high, my first reaction would be to believe the content in the forward. And since I caught my teenage cousin buying mangoes from the street vendor last week, I’m keen to let him know how dangerous that can be. So I forward this mail to him. Now, he respects me and looks up to me, and so coming from a trust worthy source, the lad is going to believe that buying fruits from stalls on the street can cause AIDS. He’s going to go and educate his friends about it the next time; or worse still he’ll forward it to his friends.

But truth remains that there was no ten year old that got AIDS by eating pineapple. As an adult, by sending out unverified information, I’m responsible for teaching wrong stuff to people. Sure, I didn’t come up with the content in the forward. But sending it out without verification doesn’t excuse me either. So how do i verify forwards?

Snopes.com is a great website that validates popular forwards that we receive. The website is maintained by a couple in their late 40’s and their story was featured in Reader’s Digest in 2009. The website tells you whether a post is "true," "false," or "undetermined”. Every one of these verdicts is backed by thorough research and a full text explanation and references.

So how do I work through snopes.com? Simple; follow these steps:

1) Google snopes + title of the forward or a portion of the text from the forward.
2) Hit Enter.
3) The first link in the search results should usually take you to the page that gives you a call on whether what you just received is true or otherwise.

Have a fun time browsing through snopes.com. And by the way, here’s the link to the pineapple story: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/pineapple.asp

Use e-mail responsibly.

Another duck in the hall

2010-02-12T02:50:00.003+05:30

Well, we’d all like to keep a blog and let the world know what our gray cells are processing this day and the next. But most of my friends I've spoken to who’ve tried a hand at blogging, and me too, in my early days of blogging had a stiff challenge to overcome. What do I write about? I mean, telling my audience fifteen reasons why I’m so cool is out. The “Sorry guys, I’ve been away for a while and haven’t been able to post” post doesn’t exactly get a rouse up; you realize that no one really misses you anyways. Most of us are no good at consistent diary entries either. Besides, you don’t want to be reading “I hit the loo 47 times today”.

Check out this article if you’re interested in building a blog that can potentially deliver a high impact with each post – something every blogger dreams about:

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/how-to-deliver-the-highest-impact-with-each-post/

On a side note however, I was talking to Sri today. She was telling me how this Chinese guy got deported from the Netherlands because he shot a duck in a public pond and took it home to fix a meal. The cops didn’t think it was cool. So, dear reader, buy a dead duck from the supermarket the next time you’re hungry in Amsterdam. And leave that air-gun at home.

But coming back to the topic of blog posts. For a long while, the way I came up with blog posts was I would keep my eyes and ears open anyplace I went. Anytime, anything sounded catchy, or I felt that I could milk 500 words out of a situation, you bore the pain of reading it here on One of Side of a Sandwich. Times have changed since then. Things are done a little differently these days. The task now is to come up with a phrase that can be a title for a post. My antennae are now tuned to identifying a set of words that can grab your attention. And 500 words on that phrase are a by-product. Well, at least 400.

I was at Hard Rock Café this evening, and they played Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd). So you take the phrase “Another brick in the wall”, throw in some pedestrian creativity, and you come with a title for a blog post called “Another duck in the hall.”

Houston, we have a solution

2010-02-04T00:32:00.002+05:30

The United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has put out the top 14 engineering challenges for the 21st century.

http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

Close to two weeks back, Dr. Charles Vest, President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was speaking at the Faculty Hall of the main building at IISc, Bangalore. He is currently the President of the NAE. The topic of the lecture was ‘Engineering Education in the 21st century'. What caught all of us by surprise at the very outset of his talk was the statement that he made, which said “the world is actually getting better.” This was a refreshing change from the common handout that the world has taken a nightmare pill. The world is actually getting better.

Part of this talk covered the 14 greatest challenges you saw above, and how solving them could render a great impact to tens of millions of lives around the world. However, a cursory glance at the list will tell you that there are many other challenges that are equally important if not more, but haven’t made it to the list. For example, the issues of recycling the world’s waste or space exploration don’t feature on that list. But the 14 we have here are big enough to keep our heads and hands occupied for the next 100 years.

I’ve been spending time over the last few weeks meeting with people in academia, government and industries trying to gleam an understanding of where technology, especially enabling ones like nanotech (which I hold rather dear to me) are moving us towards. Invariably in each of these discussions, the topic gets derailed from the technology per se, to the fact that the world is beating inroads to the Indo-China region; and how everybody wants to be a part of the growth story. In my discussion earlier today with Ms. Indira Samarasekara, President of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, it became abundantly clear that policy makers and influencers of tomorrow will need to root themselves in one particular 'center of gravity' of a technology/science/engineering issue, and bring forth an economical or societal or legal understanding of the same problem.

This points out to two steps the Indian government ought to consider. Firstly, the issue of Brain Drain that so famously filled debate topics during the 90’s is now not on the radar. And as Dr. Vest pointed out in his talk too, we’re now on our way to Brain Circulation from Brain Drain. This is but a passing phase where we should in all eventuality end up talking about Brain Integration. I can’t get a grip on the third phrase yet. However, brain circulation seems like a logical extension of a globalized world. I can now grow, harvest and sell my ideas to the world while living in my own country, thanks to so many other enabling technologies that could require an entirely new post to talk about.

Secondly, we’re looking at integrating the micro-technologies of info, bio and nano and bridge the gap on to the macro systems like energy, healthcare, defense and so on. India has a huge slice of this pie, and we’re only getting started. That will call on technocrats to draw on multi-disciplinary skills. We need more programmes at the masters level at Indian science and engineering institutes to implement this.

There’s never really been a better time to live and grow in this country. Houston, we have a solution!

Read this if you're engaged. What the heck! Read it even if you aren't

2010-02-03T00:11:00.001+05:30

I don’t usually think of such stuff (I mean, I do, but not aloud), but today we’re going to swing it (forgive the pun) and see where this goes. This one is about love. Any moron like me who can write so much as two sentences that makes the slightest sense hopes to write on the topic of love some day. Chetan Bhagat too vouched for this in an interview when Two States was released. And you thought I was lying about the moron part?

At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.

So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.

Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)

To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.

My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.

Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.

Appealing to a higher cause

2010-02-01T14:03:00.003+05:30

We got free passes through a friend to attend yesterday’s Parikrama and Saif Ali Khan’s concert at Palace Grounds. Once we reached and the opening band got playing, only then did it dawn on us that this wasn’t actually a concert for a concert’s sake. This was a concert for the launch of a car brand. We did see Chevy’s name splashed all over the place. They must be the principal sponsors, I guessed. But soon enough, the host for the evening (with questionable compeering skills) kept raving on about the ‘heart beat, sexy beat and smart beat’ of the Chevy Beat. Not until the show troupe of dancers and jugglers were on stage did it become apparent that the star of the show was not really Parikrama or Saif; but it was the Beat. They had the corporate triangles (meaning the top guys) of Chevrolet come to say ‘a few words’ to a stoned audience.

To say the least, it showcased some poor PR work by the company. One of the triangles went to the extent of saying “Please endorse our product.” You never say please to a potential customer. You’d like them to buy your stuff, but not to the extent where you say ‘please’. Saif’s stage presence was average. But the applause rained for Parikrama from the open skies above them. Good job, fellas!

Advertisements today need to appeal to a higher cause of the buyer. At least if not directly, every customer on a sub-conscious level needs to feel like he is associated with a brand that has a cause beyond selling products and straightening its bottom line. Vulgar marketing of this age will mean telling the world what your product is through a celeb and jingle and blatantly asking for the crowds to endorse it. Like what Chevy did at the concert. The smart advertiser of today is the one who can take a product and sell it to the world by embedding it as part of a bigger cause.

Let me quote two instances here.

Funnily, both of these examples come from the telecom world. Idea Cellular’s ad sells the idea of conserving forests and reducing the use of paper by using more phones instead. Similarly, Aircel’s ad features Baichung Bhutia saying that he’s now a part of the Tiger Conservation project in India. In both these cases, the celebrities employed to endorse the brand end up speaking about the larger community issue of forest conservation and tiger conservation respectively; and the brand name slipstreams into the ad towards the end as a matter-of-fact. To an average customer like me, who is fairly concerned about both the social problems, I now perceive that my involvement with the brand could potentially help solve the larger issue. Again at a subconscious level, I’m now buying a role in saving a tiger’s life and not just buying a sim card.

This approach has a better chance to pay off for companies adopting them rather than the direct approach of tell-and-sell, for at a logical level it’s a win-win situation: higher profits, more awareness and marketing mileage for the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.

The daring young man on the flying trapeze

2010-01-31T12:05:00.001+05:30

I told Grandpa that I’d be stepping out of the house for ten minutes to grab a copy of the Saturday issue of The Mint yesterday morning. It was 9:20 a.m. Given that the newspaper vendor isn’t too far off from home, I should have expected myself to return home by 9:30 at max. But things turned out a bit different.

I returned at 9:30 p.m instead, and had my folks worried stiff in the meantime. I could have used a mobile phone, but never mind.

I won’t go into the details of why the delay happened, but I will tell you that as I stepped out of the gate, Navneet came and we went to CTR to grab breakfast. Later, we headed off to Palace Grounds to catch the 1 o’clock show of Gemini Circus. The Matinee Show – that’s what it said on the ticket.

The only other time that I probably had such a mixed bag of emotions was when I finished watching Forrest Gump. The other occasion happened yesterday when I walked out of that tent before the show ended. You’ve probably been to a circus before. It was certainly my first time yesterday. The trapeze artists started off the show, and were quite an amazing bunch of artists; reminded me of Popeye’s tune “The daring young man on the flying trapeze”. The crowd was mostly school children in their Saturday uniforms led by the teachers, some with whistles. There were the moms and dads scattered in some seats feeding their tots curd rice out of a tiffin box. Most of these kids wanted popcorn and cotton candy anyways.

Without boring you about the string of performers and what they were up to, I’ll get down to what I really felt strongly about. It was the clowns. There was this brief 10 minutes in the 2 and half hour show where this big clown and this other midget clown had a dual act. Here I was, 23 years old, and not finding any of the clowns’ jokes funny. Two rows behind me were some 60 odd seven and eight year olds that were ROFLTAO (…Their Arses Off). How come the two of us were so far apart on the same thing? Many years back, I would have most certainly ROFLMAO at the clowns’ slapstick humor. But not today. I’ve watched way too many sitcoms and comedy flicks, and mastered complex sarcasm so well, that now; a simple and straightforward joke made by a clown that a child can get seems to shoot off tangentially to my thick skull. I was per-occupied in analyzing the costume of the jokers, and how it could have been done better.

As we stepped out of the tent, we saw the 4 elephants and 2 camels that were part of the show chained to nearby posts. Not too far from them was a traffic cop conversing with the organizers of the circus. Navneet still believes that the cop was there to write out a No Parking ticket for the misplaced elephants and camels. I think he was trying to get his way in without having to pay for the ticket. You know how these cops can be, right?

Most of us didn’t do much for New Year's

2010-01-13T09:04:00.003+05:30

Before the scent of New Year’s fades into the stench of the rest of 2010, let’s take a look at what most of us almost did for this New Year’s.

I can only speak for the self in here. How does one have that perfect New Year’s celebration? I completely subscribe to the view that the night of Dec 31^st should be a special one. The reason behind this is more attitudinal (by now you do realize that the word attitude keeps popping up in this blog for more reasons than I can see). Anytime there’s anything special about anyday, I just have a different attitude about it. Dec 21^st, for example is a special day in my calendar. So every 21/12 serves one purpose: what was a I doing last 21/12? Where will I be next 21/12? In several ways, that in itself is a good check to keep one’s goals and purposes on track.

And on the same grounds, I believe that New Year’s should be spent doing something special that you wouldn’t have otherwise done. That need not include getting wasted.In high school, New Year’s was spent strolling down the well lit but packed M G Road and Brigade road at 9 in the night. Until some drunken buffoon decided to get adventurous with an unsuspecting lady and the cops intervened to disperse the crowds. We went home and watched television. In college, New Year’s meant gathering around a camp fire with beer and boiled potatoes, and prophesying the fact that girls’ hostels in years to come will not have curfews atleast on New Year’s. What a pity!

Back in the new city, we started making plans for Dec 31^st in the end of November. We decided to head off to Goa for the new years: every person’s dream budget-new years! But alas, they told us we’d have to choose between sleeping in postboxes, or paying an arm and a leg for a room in Goa. Neither of it happened. We tried getting to Gokharna, a tourist town in coastal Karnataka. They told us to try our luck in 2011; all the rooms were booked. We also thought of Pondicherry. But the mayor of Pondy himself came down to my home, showed me the finger and told me to shove it up and left. I’m not going back there in a while.

That feeling of self pity loomed large over us. We weren’t going to do anything for new years. With that submission, I woke up the following morning to make the ceremonial phone calls. Turned out that most people I knew hadn’t done much either the previous night.

As partners in guilt, things will hopefully be different in twelve months time. But if you do have a party, call me.

A Brief History of Bad Breath

2010-01-11T19:46:00.000+05:30

That’s right; bad breath. That’ll be the theme for this post.

When was the first time in human history that man first started brushing his teeth? Why did he start this at the first place? Did he do it necessarily to keep up oral hygiene, or did he get started on it because early woman demanded it of him?

I don’t know why they started it, but I’m sure glad that one day someone was wandering in the woods. The guy probably broke off a twig and stuck it in his mouth and lo and behold, the dental care market was born. We’ve heard tales from Jataka where neem twigs were used in the early days of dental care. In fact, it is still used widely in several parts of rural India. People then (and even now) used mud to clean their teeth. How then did we evolve from twigs and mud to Sorbitol, Sodium Silicate and 0.04% Methanol in mouthwash?

The answer to this complex question lies at the intersection of a historical time line and biological evolution. In the early days, humans were sparsely populated across a geographical stretch. Just like all animals, humans too have a personal space (or bubble) around them. As dogs go around the block leaving their excretions to demarcate their territorial space, so do humans. Public urination is proof enough.

So when humans were fewer in number, they had relatively bigger personal spaces. As we got good at mating, the per head availability of space reduced, and consequently the size of each of our bubbles shrunk. This was about the time when early woman refused to sleep with early man any longer unless he started his day by biting away at the neem twigs. As more and more people came inside a given territorial boundary, they started interacting at closer quarters and began heavily encroaching each others’ personal spaces. By this stage, even early woman was sucked into biting away at twigs and sediments. Very soon everyone was at it. The common denominator of society was set at brushing when you woke up.

Unlike other evolving social trends, oral hygiene demands a person to stay a cut above the rest in order to smell ‘better’. If I have good breath and you have good breath, then we both don’t realize that the other has good breath because both of us now operate at the same level. But if one of us has good breath and the other has bad breath, now you can tell the difference. This perfect imbalance spawned the market for the tooth paste and then the tooth brush. (Truly speaking, the story of the tooth brush and the tooth paste is a chicken-and-egg problem. So we won’t go into that one.) Now the whole world started using a toothbrush and toothpaste in the morning. To get ahead of competition, some guy started brushing twice a day.

You see, the story could have ended there. But in order to stay ahead of the rest of the pack, I have filled my toilet shelf with the latest battery operated toothbrush, a tongue cleaner developed by NASA for its astronauts, a 5-in-1 toothpaste that squeezes out of both ends of the tube, a set of dental floss so fine it can pass though the two syllables of ‘Hello’, a bottle of mouthwash with a higher percentage of alcohol than absinthe and a self invented, patent-pending mouth spray so strong that even a whiff in your eyes can cause permanent blindness.

Good luck to the rest of the world!

The underground constipation versus the overhead overflow

2010-01-10T09:16:00.000+05:30

One of the pluses of growing up in a city is that you become adept at English. In most cases, kids in school and through college end up picking on at least one other language besides English and their own mother tongue. The educated section of the western world usually holds the Asian population in regard since most Asians can speak at least 2 languages fluently. Many Asians might speak up to 4 languages. As you know, we don’t think it’s a big deal to bump into someone who can handle four languages in India. But to the rest of the world it’s a colossal mark of mass intelligence of a certain geographical pocket; almost like Russians are good at physics, or Koreans are good at math or any of that. It was out of such a train of thought that several jokes emerged, the least of which being: “What do you call a person who speaks many languages? Answer: Multi-linguist. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Answer: Bi-linguist. And what do you call a person who speaks one language? Answer: American.(well, British and Australian too!)”

Besides the blip-on-the-radar jokes about the English language, there’s no getting away from the fact that English is really what makes life, business, politics, restaurant menus, instructions on condom packets and everything else in between easier to fathom. Yet, in some strange way, there is a big portion of the Indian population that seems to think that it can somehow remain divorced from the Victorian Language. Now we both understand that trying to change someone who isn’t willing to change is like dancing with someone who isn’t willing to dance. It’s called wrestling.

I haven’t tried the English lessons on Tata Sky, but I can say from here that probably the easiest way to get good at English is to first start by being bad at it. That is, I’m assuming, you haven’t been used to speaking it from the days of your kindergarten. Common self-help techniques to learn English that people resort to can be put in two boxes:

The underground constipation: Don’t let the word constipation mislead you into thinking that somehow this one method is bad. This technique usually encompasses reading lots of books and working away at Wrens, Martins and Norman Lewis. It is very important, but this method entails learning the language in isolation. While this might help you say words like ‘incorrigible’ and ‘preposterous’, there is no way you’ll be able to marry the knowledge with the comprehension and its use in day-to-day speech. English really isn’t about saying big words.

The overhead overflow: This is the playground where the real learning happens, and yet most English speaking aspirants never step into it. It is that space where you communicate and talk and exchange information with people who speak better English than we do. The law of physics never falters and a certain degree of osmosis happens between the people exchanging ideas. Over a period of time, hanging around with the eagles actually helps us soar higher than we could have if we continued pecking with the hens.

I write this not as a master of the language, but certainly as a long term student. The words lucid and pragmatic have been giving me a tough time off late. So, if we can somehow find that balance between the underground constipation and the overhead overflow, our ability to communicate in English would be up several notches.

A Nobel for the attitude

2010-01-08T09:21:00.006+05:30

I’ve got friends in universities in the

and Europe who are lucky enough to have a Nobel Laureate take the lecture from 11 to 1 on Tuesday mornings and another Nobel Laureate take another class from 3 to 5 on Thursday evenings. While that’s not the case in our IITs and even in IISc where I currently work now, we do have the occasional celebrity from the science community come in every once in a while to lift our heads above the water.

Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year for his work on the ribosomes structure at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.On Tuesday, 5th January 2010, he spoke at the IISc Centenary Lecture at the J. N. Tata auditorium at IISc, Bangalore. The talk was titled "From Baroda to Cambridge: A life in science." Click here to read the story from the press.

There’s no dearth of role models for students in science. Text books are awash with Linus Paulings and Neils Bohrs. As Dr.Venki (as he likes to be called) himself pointed out earlier in the week on a show on NDTV, the nature of science is universal. Intellectual property can flow (and usually does) with relative ease as the matters of the mind cannot be contained by judicial laws. This very nature of science has meant that scientist role models are not in shortfall, and that their country of origin is almost seemingly inconsequential. The DNA doesn’t care if the discoverer was Irish or Japanese.

The first half of Dr. Venki’s talk was an autobiographical one. He had slides on the screen, and in talking about his journey through school and college in Baroda, he frequently had pictures of his teachers and made references as to how each one played a role in impacting him. He was heavy in challenging the premise of performing ‘a pedestrian PhD thesis’ and in doing 2^nd and 3^rd grade research that are marginal increments of existing knowledge. However, he did add that making fundamental breakthroughs in Physics at this stage was definitely very unlikely.

The second half of the talk encompassed decoding the ribosome structure at the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. As one of the 14 Nobel Laureates in his department, the unsaid rule among researchers there is that if one cannot answer the question “Why are you doing (researching) what you’re doing?” you probably shouldn’t be there at the first place. “We are not in the business of generating information and data. We are in the business of understanding and advancing our knowledge”, he said.

I’m not sure if I understood the part about the ribosomes, but I sure learnt that a constancy of purpose is very important in one’s career, and that even a Nobel Laureate gives credit to those who have gone out before him and created that pool of knowledge for the rest to work on.

For Dr. Venki’s Nobel Lecture, check here.

Mother Earth

2010-01-06T14:11:00.006+05:30

My good friend Shweta Soni writes this gem of a poem on the condition of our planet. Very well written, but more importantly the point is made loud and clear.

Mother Earth

Once there lived a beautiful woman
A beautiful woman, the Mother Earth
But today she is in misery
All alone with her sufferings and dearth

And who is responsible for her condition
All her own sons
A mother who gave them so much
has to her rescue none

In place of her green forests
she sees today the forests of stone
and the cold blooded inhabitants
they have no heart, only bone

There is no water to be found
only blood flowing everywhere
'coz if look for violence
you can easily find it anywhere

The word 'Love' is forgotten
by all and sundry
The streets are full of
people who are hungry

But it's not hunger, it's greed
driving everyone mad
Greed for money, greed for power
through a means good or bad

But her sons are all indifferent
They care no more for their mother
A mother who is hurt but hopes
they'll wake up some day or other

Let that day be today itself
Let us all fulfill our duty
And pledge together one and all
To return the mother her lost beauty.

Peek over the pail and look down the road

2010-01-04T18:21:00.003+05:30

So this is the year they were talking about after all, eh? At the turn of 2000, tech futurists went to work thanks to all those advancements that were happening. The real visionaries spoke about the year 2020, and the short-sighted (pun unintended) ones kept themselves occupied with 2010. It was all over the place, remember? Somehow, 2010 (or the turn of the decade as we call it) was expected to be this tipping point in everything that cocooned the human imagination. They said it all – ranging from high rates of diabetes to back to back economic recessions to selling real estate on the moon. Somehow, in 2002 (or 03), 2010 seemed liked this year that was way into the future. For some of us it even seemed that it would take a really really long while to get there.

But then, here we are. It’s 2010 and it doesn’t feel very much different than it did when they made those predictions, really. The undeniable fact however is that the world today looks very very different from the one 7 or 8 years ago; maybe even 3 or 4 years ago. Probably because we’ve come to accept change living day to day that we don’t realize it! The futurists were right. Well, at least some of them were. So i find it hard to digest when people say "This is what i am, i can't change." Sorry bud, don't tell fibs.

So the deal-of-this-coming-decade as I understand is the (seemingly obvious) fact that we’re going to remain logged on to the internet twenty four bar seven. Logging on-and-off is out; staying logged on is in. This means we’ll all have a smart phone in our hands whether we like it or not. Balckberries ain't just for the C-suite guys. If some one had told you in 1999 that you’d OWN a mobile phone ten years from now, you’d have probably thought that the guy had lost his marbles. But trust me to trust the tech pundits on the blackberry thing.

Expect two other things this decade:

Number one:- Expect drug companies to shift towards producing preventive medical treatment moving forward over the traditional curative medications. People and insurance companies it seems are more into fixing the tap before it leaks. If you're planning on studying medicine, at least be sure to learn nutritional medicine really well.

Number two: - If people are going to stay logged on to the internet 24X7, much of the money in the world will move into cyberspace (accelerating the already building trend). How does that help you and me? This means that if we can figure out a way to get a slice of this internet money pie (monetizing blogs, tweets so on), we can effectively work at our careers because we like it and not because we have to. Which means, expect to see people in their twenties retiring before their parents do. And expect billionaires still in high school. Forbes will just have to put out a trillionarries list eventually.

Until then, sit back and have a meaningful year ahead. Take care of the years, and the decade will take care of itself.

Eating my own words

2009-12-29T10:53:00.001+05:30

It’s a feeling of frustration and relief at the same time. Being as optimistic as I normally am about the world in general, and more so about the evolving tastes of dishes at eateries near (and far too) me, I found myself taking a rather one sided all-doom-and-gloom approach to the newly refurbished Central Tiffin Room. (Check the post below)

Here’s the good news guys: It’s the same. I’m even inclined to think that the dosa is better. Never mind the hike in prices, but full credit to the guys who’ve redone the place. The outside board looks catchy, modern and homely at the same time. This time around they’ve displayed 'C.T.R' in brackets below the obscure name of ‘Shri Sagar’. Once you step in, you can see that the ambiance has been recreated very subtly while retaining the antique smell of the place. The new set of plates and the waiters’ uniforms actually blends effortlessly even with the attractive, and importantly, legible menu board (not card). The hand wash area has been redone totally, and is a lot cleaner now. They still continue to scribble the total amount on that tiny bit of paper. Right, some things never change.

However, the back end operations seems to have slackened a wee bit too much. They’re keeping people waiting for longer lengths of time than before at the table before the food can be served. Have that solved and you have a reason to come Malleswaram once again.

The nightmare has come true

2009-12-03T22:54:00.001+05:30

Holy Kaw! They’re renovating CTR.

Think of it. They’ll put air-conditioners, set up comfortable chairs and replace the newspaper tear offs with paper napkins (gosh!). They’ll start printing the bills instead of handwriting them; the waiters will get new uniforms and the manager will get a buzzer at his table instead of the bell. And since the new setting is so mod, they’ll bring down the 100 year old grandpa clock and put up Westend’s latest model in it’s place.

They’ll get ceramic plates and glass tumblers, and start serving sambar even without asking for it. They’ll start handing out menu cards. Still worse, they’ll run home deliveries. They’ll put a first floor that serves Chinese and Thai food. They’ll launch www.centraltiffinroom.com and nail the coffin.

In short, ladies and gentlemen, they’ll kill the dosa. They will.

(If you’re wondering what that was all about, let me explain. CTR, or Central Tiffin Room in 7th Cross Malleswaram Bangalore makes the best dosas on the face of the planet. It’s a popular joint for the traditionally old setting that it has always had. I wonder if the owners understand that the taste of the dosa is what it is because of the setting that it is served in. Jacks are renovating the place.)

Barter in the blood

2009-11-28T10:11:00.002+05:30

I get these quotes for the day on my i-google homepage. Helen Keller is on today saying “College isn't the place to go for ideas.” All the due respect to the great woman, but I can’t seem to agree with that statement.

To the vast majority, college appears to be a collection of people who can be classified as the haves and the have nots. And I’m talking strictly brains here. You have those who have brains, and you have those who don’t. Or atleast that is the popular belief. The dogma persists that a nerd is brainy and the guy with gelled hair and torn jeans is thought to be sans the gray matter. Or the girl with the skin huggin' outfits. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

I’m doing the 3rd reading of a classic book written by Dr. Charles Schwab called The Magic of Thinking Big. Chapter 5 – 'How to think and dream creatively' outlines the meaning of the word creative thinking. He says in this chapter that when the word 'creative' or 'creativity' is brought to the forefront, most people think of the inventors and artists of the world. The author clarifies here that creativity includes even the smallest of things: like a person managing to live inside his/her budget, or a teacher who gets her students to do what they aren’t ready to or any of that stuff. All of that counts as creativity too.

If you aren’t familiar with the two halves of the brain, fyi the left side does the logical reasoning and the right side is responsible for the creative side of things. And so, going back to the case of the nerd and the non-nerd, the former might have a highly developed left sided brain, while the non-nerd might have a superior right sided brain. That doesn’t really make one better than the other, does it? But yea, our big bad black society likes to put labels on people.

I’ll prove it to you.

While I was in Engineering College at NIT Hamirpur until last May, we ran a bi-annual quiz called The Big Quiz. This was a major event for all the quizzers on the campus; the prizes were usually attractive and there was a rolling trophy attached to it as well. As organizers, we seldom expected the beer guzzling, late night-partying, movie watching crowds to show up at the quiz. We were mostly right. But there was this one guy who did all the ‘wrong’ things in life and he’d show up at these quizzes and would be seated in the audience. He would answer nearly 60 to 70 percent of the questions that were passed to the audience. And every time he got one right, the quiz master threw him a Perk or a Munch. By the end of the quiz, this guy would have collected close to 5 or 6 of these chocolates. He’d then leave the venue and make his way to the little chaachu’s dhukaan. He’d hand in the 5 chocolates to chachu and get a packet of Kings in exchange for it.

I think smoking is bad, but come on; that barter was some creativity from a right-brained torn-jeans beer guzzling dude.

Hump ahead

2009-11-25T14:57:00.003+05:30

From the previous post, Anoop’s comment with the phrase ‘Hump ahead' was just too tempting to my vanity of thought that it had to find its way into the title of this post. We all know what it means: the first meaning to do with road safety and the second being a teenage vernacular to imply that there are 'exciting' times ahead. But I thought I’d draw back my focus and of those who’d be interested towards the third meaning of hump ahead.

But before that, here’s a category-A recommendation. If you’re interested in reading a small story, I have one just for you. My good friend Narayanswamy has authored a story called The chicken that never crossed the road. Any aspiring writer can take away several key elements from this story – just in the way the simple idea is narrated and how it strikes a chord with the reader. Good job, Dobby!

In playing the devil's advocate, I have taken hump ahead to reflect on some of the flaws in the cigarette snipper that were overlooked at the time of design. This is based on feedback I’ve been getting from a couple of smokers; and it’s meaningful enough that I share it with you.

Here are the points in no particular order of importance:
1) There’s always the cigar cutter. They come small and handy. Big deal if they’re meant for cigars. I’m sure the cigarettes won’t mind it.

2) For someone trying to quit smoking, he needs to_feel_the_pain of throwing away half a cigarette. That’ll remind him that he’s throwing away money and hence stands a far better chance to quit smoking out of guilt (but not all cases, of course)than by snipping and saving for an hour later.

3) A smoker friend demonstrated that you can actually put off the burning end by crushing it against a wall without damaging the remaining portion. That was some ignorance on the inventor’s part!

4) Competitive products like nicotine gum, nicotine sticks and so on make more sense than a snipper and lighter with petrol tank in your pocket.

You’re welcome to append to this list. But I’m not sure if anyone’s got the time and mind space to pick faults with a cigarette snipper that'll never see the light of the day.

Step aside chicken (It's now time for the cow to cross the road)

2009-11-23T13:39:00.003+05:30

National Law School Bangalore’s annual rock show Strawberry Fields happened yesterday. I believe the whole show was put together in a relatively short period of time, and what should have happened in the month of January happened in November. A pretty good show given this fact!

The contest round wasn’t all that fun: very few good bands and a hoard of mediocre stuff. Parikrama’s segment was what everyone was there for. This certainly wasn’t one of their better days – Smoke on the water or Highway to Hell or even The Trooper wasn’t really at their usual best, but hey, they got energy man! (If you’re brushing shoulders with Iron Maiden every now and then, why wouldn’t you have energy?) And the crowds loved it.

While driving to Strawberry Fields last evening, we were talking about the ‘any minute now’ Indian Formula 1 GP. We were joking about how there will be humps and potholes on the track to give the race an Indian flavor. Maybe there’ll be cattle crossing the track. Alonso would probably have to pause and honk for the cows to get out of the way. Take it further from there.

But in all of this humour lies an opportunity for advertising and eyeball grabbing. Think of it. A cow is crossing the track. Chances are the cameras will draw away their focus from the pole position driver and focus on the cow instead. I mean, in a sport as exciting as F-1, in how many races would you find a cow half way down the 3rd corner? Not many, in my diagnosis. So the cameras would stay focused on the cow until the marshals took it out. They’d be playing re-runs of the clip on the after-race shows on all the sports channels. Times NOW would put it on breaking news, and the news reader would scream her throat hoarse talking about the cow in the race. And since Times NOW played it, every other son and his mother who owns a news channel would play it several times too. Think about the front page of all the dailies on Monday morning. Or if not the front page, at least the sports section. Not to forget the youtube videos. And the facebook community of ‘I love the cow that crossed the track’.

As the brand manager of a company, this cow would be worth more to me than the brand power of David Beckham, Brad Pitt, Tiger Woods and Shah Rukh Khan all rolled into one package. I’d be looking to get my company’s logo emblazoned in big bold font on the cow’s back and adding some serious equity to my brand value.

Now tell me, do you need an MBA to come up with this? I don’t think so.

To help you quit smoking

2009-11-18T20:41:00.002+05:30

Since moving back to my lovely hometown of Bangalore, I’ve seen myself making several dozen trips to Hallimanne on a weekly basis for the legendary coffee they serve. Off late, we’ve (Anoop included) cut our coffee intake by half. So instead of buying a cup of coffee each, we just buy one and split it. Here’s the funny thing: the feel-good-factor (FGF) after half a cup is the same as that after one full cup. When I buy one full cup of coffee, the caffeine addiction part is satisfied in the first couple of sips, and then I’m just drinking the rest to finish it off.

If you’re a smoker, I’m sure the same analogy extends to you as well with respect to nicotine. The first couple of drags sends in the buzz, and then you’re just finishing off what’s remaining, right? If you think about it, cigarettes which are half the length as the ones currently available in the market would be good enough for the average smoker to satisfy his one time nicotine cravings. Hence, if you smoke 5 stubs a day, only about 2 to 2 and half of those are actually satisfying your urge while the remaining is merely accelerating the lung damage.

So here’s something I’ve been thinking about. It’s called a Cigarette Snipper. The idea is that of a device which lets you snip off the ashes and the burning edge and retains the remaining un-burnt part. So, you may now smoke the same cigarette in two sittings (or standings or which ever way you like it).

Let’s say that the average smoker finishes a cigarette in about 10 drags. Using the cigarette snipper, he ‘cuts off’ the fire after 5 drags and saves the remaining for the next smoke.

About the device:

Look at the image here.

The device has three main parts: The Snipper compartment contains the snipper which could effectively be a small pair of scissors, or a set of blades aligned to face each other. The Cigarette Holder is where you store the remaining portion that you haven’t smoked. There’s provision for a lighter to make the whole deal seem complete.

You could even get a key ring fitted at one of the ends, and have cool colors and graphics on it so you’re convinced that as someone trying to quit to smoking, such a device will never embarrass you when you pull it out the next time you’re at a party.

Send me e-mail to order your personalized patent-pending Cigarette Snipper today.

Rerun

2009-11-15T22:44:00.001+05:30

Anyone that has ever written so much as a leave letter tends to go back and read what they've written.

You kept reminding me about a post that I put up in my first days of blogging in mid-2007. So I did go back and read it; and like anything old, this one too still smells fresh!

Here's Gooble-de-gook revisited:

You walk into this room. The windows are wide open. The door creaks as it sways back and forth. It’s a summer noon and it’s hot. You wish to ease those nerves. That can only mean one thing - Coldplay. Having en queued five of your favorite tracks, you put on those headphones. By now the door is shut and the curtains are drawn. Pleasant is always a few minutes away from a summer noon, if you know how to get it.

4 and a half minutes later, it’s Track 2. The first song has driven the anesthetic a little too far. When The Scientist is ‘go’, you are floating. Those aching calf muscles don’t seem to be around anymore. And it starts…

You see a little girl. She’s running in the open. It’s a vast field. And she is running. Draped in a brown skirt and checked uppers, she wears a cap to keep her hair in place. The wind is getting the better of her skirt though. She is 12, you might want to think. Why is she running? Where is she running to?

A hundred meters behind her, at a distance you can see two boys running towards the girl, who, by now you figure out, is running away from the boys. The three of them are happy to be running in the pursuit of whatever it might be. The boys are wearing shorts, btw. And one of them is blond. The other has a cap. A painter’s cap, you might say (not all painters like to wear them though.) They look 15 years apiece. And they are running, not real hard, but just enough to keep the girl at a flowing river’s width from them. She is finding this to be fun!

There’s a pond there and a towering windmill that stands by it. As she nears the pond, she looks to run harder. She goes inside. The windmill. The boys follow her.

… Could not speak as loud as my heart (faintly, at a distance).

She comes out, as you turn around in your bed. Remember, you are standing in the field. But only this time, she holds a round bottomed bottle in her hand. It has a straight neck at the top. And the cap is fastened tight. Or so you assume. Let’s see. There is scotch in the bottle, you might want to think. And she runs faster than her legs can carry her. And then you see. The girl is being chased by two rather grown up men. They must be 40 apiece. Who are these men? And what would they want from a little girl with a bottle in her hand. And then it strikes you.

Where did the two boys go? You cross the pond and go inside the windmill. It’s dark, except for the cone of sunlight that a small window at the top is permitting. You search around the cold place for the two boys. No, they aren’t there. You come out. The field is empty. There is no sign of the girl; or of the boys; or of the men. Something doesn’t seem right of the whole picture. You stop and wonder – “Did the boys become the men?” And before that question can be answered…

It’s Track 3 - Clocks.

Wikitheria

2009-11-05T19:44:00.003+05:30

A couple of years ago, my good friend and namesake Arjun Shankar had coined the term wikitheria: a condition by which a person knows it all because he (she) has been spending too much time on wikipedia. This term sprung out of necessity since we had this particular someone in our hostel who knew all about guitar harmonics and how the C-chord synced in with the G-minor (or what ever) but had never held a guitar even once.

Most objects around us have a theoretical side to them as well as a practical side. It’s good to know all about the anti-oxidants and vitamins that an apple contains; still better to preach that one a day keeps the doctor away. Right, but how about actually DOING it? I mean, eating an apple a day continuously say for a whole month and realizing it’s benefits before barking theory.

In its pure sense, wikitheria is not a bad thing. It’s just what it is. I’m not opposed to being a walking encyclopedia. But the prophecy of preaching prophecies when one has no idea how it’s applied sure is turning off. I have been watching a fabulous video about legends from the sporting world: my daily dose of motivation. One of the featured champions is the Olympic Gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci, originator of the ‘perfect 10’. The video mentions that this girl put in 16 hours of practice and spent 4 hours learning theory each day.

How many people do we know who fit into the mould all f**t and no sh**? And how many of us are amongst them?

Time for a change. My apologies.

Searching within Confined Spaces

2009-10-22T19:26:00.003+05:30

This is a guest blog from Shweta. I tried highlighting your name and attaching your blog's URL to it, but sadly you refuse to keep one! But for you're 25th b'day, this is the least i can do :-)

This one's called Searching within Confined Spaces

For sometime, I knew I had misplaced something. I didn’t exactly know how or when or what exactly I had misplaced. I was sure it wasn’t an old diary or a faded photo album either. All I knew that that it was somewhere waiting to be rediscovered in my room.

Take a quick peek into my room. This room will tell you nothing about me. Usual bare essentials of a table, chair, phone, lights, ceiling fan, an a/c, a clock, bed stacked with pillows, couple of open book racks and a closed wardrobe exists. Yet, everything in this room will tell you about me. I’m a modern day minimalist. I claim to be organized. To tell you the truth, in this tribe of 'minimalist', we are trained to shove all 'unwanted' things into lofts placed close to the ceiling. So, I thought that this confined space high above may get me to the stuff that I had misplaced.

Perched on a ladder and armed with a duster, I decided to examine this mysterious corner of my room. Out came the rightful occupants i.e. some sleepy and annoyed cockroaches. A little further, was a mass of odds and ends either waiting be disposed, sold, scrapped or just waiting for something. Yep… Dog-eared books, accounts ledger notebooks, School and College annual year books were all stacked. I'm sure I had good reason for retaining some question papers, rusted geometry boxes with cracked protractors and Reynolds pens with no refills. My erstwhile favorite 28 inch faded Lee jeans was sitting pretty in between this mess. I seem to have an amazing collection of R.D. Burman cassettes that I had wanted to convert into CDs. Oh, of course… school bags, college t-shirts, ties, belts, bags, cheap jewelry, friendship bands, key chains, study guides, old photo albums, some signed t-shirts, a tennis racquet, a dice…too many things…

My attention soon went toward a Philips music cardboard box. I opened that to find a box full of old greeting cards that I had received and treasured carefully over the last two decades without allowing my parents to throw it. The variety of shapes, sizes, and colors of greeting cards across occasions were amazing.

In that heady jumble, out came cards in no particular order. I found cards received on birthdays gone by, on getting my first period, on wishes for exams to be written, congratulatory cards on surviving exams written, becoming a teen, on completing my teen-hood, on recovery wishes for some sickness or the other. I even found couple of cards that was sent only because some one remembered me! In between card covers bearing foreign stamps, I found the first ever valentine card received by me. Out came a crumpled disjointed heart shaped piece of paper. It had the golden words “If roses are meant to be red, and violets are meant to be blue...' Now, the sad part is, the other part of the heart seems to have disappeared under the weight of time and other cards. I searched hard for the missing piece of paper. It was of no use. I tried hard remembering who the sender was...I'm sorry. I just couldn’t.

Yet, I smiled. I discovered what I was in search of… MEMORIES...amazing ones...In these greeting cards, I found trails of time celebrating some of the best and the worst moments gone by. Over the years, each card had some kind of personal note that acknowledged the trials and tribulations in my life time from various well wishers. In this confined space, did my search end...In these greeting cards, did I find what I craved for…Memories that made me realize that my 25th year of existence on planet Earth has not been all that uneventful… It’s been good…Damn good! Happy Birthday to me!

The biggest landmine in sports

2009-10-20T22:26:00.002+05:30

Argentina just squeaked into the last flight leaving to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup. Phew, what a relief!

The curse and blessing of the Argentinean team has been its coach, El Diego. A blessing for obvious reasons and a curse because it has now been laid out bare to the world that a good player need not always be a good coach. In fact, some the best coaches in the world in sports were seldom good players. Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger had forgettable football careers as players. Jean Todt peaked as co-driver in his racing days, never really achieving anything significant during his stint as a (co)driver. On the other side of the spectrum are cases of players-par-excellence turned coaches-par-nightmare: Kapil Dev, Alain Prost, and Diego Maradona until recently to name a few.

To succeed as a player requires a different skill set than it does to succeed as a coach. For long, I often wondered that if Sachin was the best batsman in the world, why was Anshuman Gaekwad his coach? I had never even heard of Gaekwad’s batting prowess. Or why did a Tiger Woods or a Roger Federer need a coach? Being a coach means bringing out the best in a player, or a team. That often involves placing belief, trust and transferring motivation and bringing about the discipline to develop the ‘balls’ to go out there and succeed. These things need a third party to be involved even with the best players on earth. The lack of understanding of this concept is probably the biggest landmine in all of sports.

Up on skimming through a couple of books recently, my friend noticed that baseball and basketball coaches in the US were well respected, often quoted and remembered even after their prime years. Similar was the case with European football coaches. Maybe in India, we should start doing the same too. Our coaches (only the deserving ones), in any sport, need to be recognized way beyond what they get in the deal now. And we may just have solved one of the problems in the eternal question: “Why can’t a nation of a billion bring home a few Olympic Golds.”

And then, you have these…

2009-10-04T00:08:00.005+05:30

Here are two tales that I think you ought to know :-

How do you bring down the roof of a pub?

My friend was out with 5 other guys one evening in a pub in Mumbai. The evening was great with the music, the drinks and the crowd, until this lady walked in. She was extremely gorgeous, and carried the air around her that made many heads turn around. As she settled down on a stool at the bar, my friend and his pals couldn’t hold back from remarking to each other about the beautiful thing that had just walked in. One of them came up with the idea to pen some lines on a paper napkin and have it handed to this lady through the waiter.

The lines were well thought out and written out on a tissue. The waiter was called. The guys handed him the paper napkin, and along with a tip of Rs 30 asked the waiter to hand the message to the girl on the stool.

The waiter walked up to the girl. The guys held their breath eagerly at the table watching while the waiter approached the girl. He handed the paper to her while pointing that it came from the table ‘over there’. And then, he handed her the 30 rupees. He didn’t know it was his tip. He had assumed that the money was a part of the package.

I was told by my friend that the girl stormed to their table and yelled at them. It must have been loud, I guess.

How to make your way to the front of a concert crowd?

I think this idea, which comes from another friend, is pretty cool. This guy finds himself at the back of the crowd at an Iron Maiden concert. So how does he go to the front? He taught me a two step process that is worth sharing.

Firstly, as you start making your way through the initial rows from the back, there’s bound to be resistance from the people from letting you go forward. So, you say to them – “My girlfriend’s in the front”; and they let you move. But after a certain distance of advancing, the crowds become less forgiving and that line doesn’t work any longer. So here’s where step two comes in. You say to them - “My boyfriend’s in the front”; and they let you move.

He tells me they always oblige. Try it and tell me how it goes.

The world map

2009-07-04T12:03:00.005+05:30

NASA’s Terra spacecraft has come out with a map showing the elevation of almost all the places on earth. Scientists believe that this is the most complete map of the world till date.

Check here.

There is something fascinating about the word map. We had a wall hanging of a giant world map at home when I was in primary and middle school. A world map on your wall is a great investment. Compared to a globe, the map is better in the sense that you get a single snapshot of the whole world in one view (unlike in a globe where you get to see only a portion)*.

Most of us have never been to a world map after we left school. I suggest you try it out: get out an atlas or google for a high resolution picture of the political map of the world and study it. It can be a very consuming activity.

*Footnote: List the differences between a map and a globe.

A world of spiraling success

2009-06-25T14:17:00.003+05:30

The chance of a third world war breaking out is remote. Read The World is Flat if you want to be convinced about this fact. Despite the supposed bad times that we are in economically, when you take account of the things around and as you zoom out, it is in fact not very hard to believe that the world as a whole is spawning on a path of self development. Technology is getting more sophisticated and life is in a way getting more comfortable, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the human emotions and the way the mind works.

Our discussion here is about the domino effect that is created by the company a person keeps. By company, we imply those thoughts that fill a person’s mind in a given day. Like the saying goes- if you want to fly with the eagles, you’ve got to stop pecking with the hens. Who we hang around with and who we listen to is far too consequential that most of us hardly pay attention. One of the principles of personal success in any field as history has shown is to surround oneself with successful people. Group dynamics automatically ensures that an individual performs at a level close to that of his high performing peers.

Tracing back a well known fact, it is estimated that 1% of the world’s population controls close to 96% of the wealth on earth. Why is that we don’t have more than 1% doing this? The answer is association. If I could have a daily access to what is running though the head of Barrack Obama, or Roger Federer, I would be better positioned to think along the same lines and react like they would in circumstances. Association leads to a change in thinking, be it positive or negative. And what drives those thoughts is inspiration. If you got to spend a couple of minutes with a person you admire, you might probably come back feeling better. You would probably choose your actions differently from there on based on the inspiration you received from the person and not from the information you received in the form of advice.

Twitter, social networks, blogs and so on; the internet has put the 99% of the population in direct access with the 1%. There’s more unfiltered information coming though between the two camps that was unseen and unheard till recently. For instance, I can now follow my idol Shashi Tharoor and get into his mind through his tweets. Or I can understand at closer quarters what Aamir Khan is thinking through his blog. That inspiration drives the future. As more people start acting on that inspiration, and as success begins to breed success, it is but inevitable that we’ll see more wealth creators coming out. By the turn of 2050, that 1% could possibly become2%. In this way, the world has set itself up for a self perpetuating ride towards a brighter future thanks to the internet.

A Home University

2009-06-20T16:53:00.005+05:30

We are 5 of us living in an apartment in Chennai. After some tiring days of searching for houses that were more than just a hole-in-the-wall, we found a reasonably big and comfortable place to stay in Srinagar Colony, very close to Great Lakes Institute of Management. You must visit Srinagar Colony the next time you are in Chennai. This residential area is cut off from the hustle of the fast paced life of the city. The colony is typified with a temple and a banyan tree, and an upscale crowd that goes on jogs each morning in their Nike cut offs. Unlike us bachelors, the families around us are well settled and quite well-off. We are glad to be living next door to some influential names in south Indian cinema, theater, academia and politics.

Many of these families have kids that are growing up, in the age group of 12 to 21. Like any parent, the average parent in Srinagar colony would want their kid to excel in studies and in certain extra curricular activities as well. But the well-to-do families would also be willing to pay just as much a price for it too, for they understand that it isn’t wise to nickel dime good coaching. So Kashe and I got talking about setting up a Home University for these kids. Here’s the crux of the idea:

Like I said before, we are 5 of us living in 2 bedroom house. Now each of us is good in certain areas. For instance, one of us can speak and write Hindi very well. One other person is good at yoga and stretching exercises. Another one is good at cooking. Like this, by combining the areas of expertise of 5 of us, there is roughly about 15 areas that we could teach kids aged 12+. Classes would start every morning at 6. The yoga teacher would handle the yoga classes in the hall. The cooking classes would go on simultaneously in the kitchen. Math and French would be taught in each of the rooms respectively. Here’s the tentative list of subjects our home university is offering currently:

1) Hindi – Read, write and speak
2) Physics, Chemistry and Maths
3) Programming in C, C++ and Java
4) Basic Lessons in Salsa
5) Cooking
6) Basic Housekeeping for guys
7) Pranayam, Yoga and light exercises
8) Football
9) Riding geared bikes (only for valid license holders)
10) English – Write and speak fluently
11) Handling household electrical appliances
12) French – Read, write and speak (on Sundays only, special visiting faculty)
13) Western Vocals
14) Time Management
15) Geography

If you’d like to excel in any of the areas specified here, contact the marketing executive that is me. We can work out a package for you.

We are still working on a name for our home university. But we do have a punch line for the time being: “One school. Many skills”

The calf syndrome

2009-06-16T13:55:00.003+05:30

Thanks Ramya for the engaging conversation last evening. I’m sure Accenture wouldn’t be too pleased to read this! But nonetheless, you won yourself a surprise gift for the surprise idea.

I’m looking for the answer that settles this question once and for all: what is the right age to enter the workforce?

If that question is leading you to think in the direction of child labor, pause. What’s running through my head after close to a year in the corporate world is more or less what almost every other kid of my age is thinking, which is: work life sucks. I want to go back to college.

Let’s call this the calf syndrome. If you’ve seen a new born calf, you’ll know that anytime it tries to stand on its fours, the legs slip away in the opposite directions and give way. The calf lands with a thud and stays comfortable sitting. Until the legs stiffen up and get strong, the calf cannot do much but to stand and fall again.

The first year (at least) out of college into the workplace is like that in my opinion. You are trying to find your feet. Suddenly, the world looks bigger and more unforgiving than you initially anticipated. You come to realize that the kid in class who told you that rules are meant to be broken wasn’t quite right, after all. You get your Form 16 and you have no clue what it even means. All of a sudden, that thing called independence is no-where to be seen. For those of you still in college, you’ve been warned.

You know where I’m going with this. Close your eyes for a moment to all those souls who are crying to get back to college.

I’m reminded of an old joke that did the rounds: What’s common to an engineering college and a public toilet? Answer: The ones outside want to get in and the ones inside want to get out.

You can substitute ‘engineering college’ in that joke with ‘corporate’. And if you’re a fan of Shawshank Redemption, the calf syndrome lasts till you get institutionalized. How long would that be?

Depends.

Always grateful, but never enough

2009-06-15T12:36:00.002+05:30

My Principal in high school taught us chemistry. Besides the Aufbau principle of how electrons fill into the atomic sub-shells, I remember one other thing she told us. It was on our graduation day and I quote her “The purpose of an education is not to compete with the other person; but rather, it is about competing with oneself”. How boring and clichéd is that statement? Very.

But how important and significant is it? Very.

In his blog, my friend Sumeet talks about an inner struggle. He describes his constant search for perfection in anything he does, or in anything he seeks. A part of the brain is constantly scanning and probing around to show each of us why that guy or girl is better than us. Sumeet goes on to describe how we live our lives by measuring ourselves with our peers. Or what the world popularly knows as keeping-up-with-the-Joneses. A key takeaway from his article for me was the line “i myself think of many things i have not and i am not. it brings a feeling of discontentment towards quality of life in me …”. This line packs in everything that I was looking to tell my audience on this blog.

Society teaches us to operate from a win-lose paradigm - that in order for me to win, someone needs to lose; that there are only so many seats available and there are more people in the race than there are seats available. In a nut shell, we are told from day one that there is a ‘lack of’ resources in this world. Stats are all over the place showing how only a fraction of the people who appear for the IIT/IIM entrance exams clear them. A kid comes home from school with the report card, and the mother asks “How much did Karthik get? How much did Richa get?” The kid must have got 4th rank, while Karthik and Richa stood 1st and 2nd respectively. The mother doesn’t appreciate the fact that her kid outperformed 35 others in class. She instead chooses to focus on the fact that her kid lags behind 3 others. So there on, the kid is constantly operating from a feeling of ‘not enough’. And this remains until the ‘not enough’ becomes a part of the gene. That kid could be you. That kid could be me. This is the kid that moves through life with a sense of zero accomplishment even when that may not be the case.

How is this problem fixed?

I heard this somewhere and it made sense to me. This is not about thinking positive. It is about working with a sense of gratitude; and gratitude is a word I go back to very often. That is to say you are thankful for whatever you have now, but we just can’t stagnate here. Always grateful, but never enough.

“Fantastic that I outperformed 35 others in class. Superb! But how can I get to number 1?”

And mom, when the child falls, you don’t shoot the shoot the wounded.

Malleswaram on a Platter - P2

2009-06-11T16:22:00.006+05:30

This is the second part of the series that brings to you the best eateries in and around Malleswaram, Bangalore.

Check here for Part 1.

6) Halli Mane: Opened in 2003 in 3rd cross on Sampige Road in the same place where the legendary Planters’ Coffee Home once stood. The ancient restaurant closed down soon after Amrith Café opened across the street. A couple of years later, Halli Mane (meaning Rural Restaurant) opened with all its marketing paraphernalia and in a few months brought Amrith to it’s knees. This place is best known for some classic Karnataka delicacies like akki roti, raagi roti and raagi mudhe. The bonda soup started out very promisingly but has dropped down a couple of notches in recent times. But you really want to go here only for one thing: coffee. That’s it.

7) Juice Kade at IISC Gymkhana: Extremely popular with the folks inside IISc, obviously. It is located at the foot of the yellow overhead bridge on the road connecting Malleswaram to Yeshwantpur, inside the IISc compound. Entry is through any of the IISc gates. Every single juice is shockingly tasty and is prepared under hygienic conditions. The milk shakes are a bit disappointing though. But the low prices of the stuff here is worth making the trip for. Here’s what you do: get a glass of juice and climb the steps of the yellow bridge. Walk up to the middle of the connecting platform. Look below as the buses, cars and tempos zip by beneath your feet and freak yourself out.

8) Iyengar’s Bakery: While ‘Iyengar’s Bakery’ need not necessarily refer to any one particular bakery, the place of interest here is the one adjacent to Asha Food Camp on 11th Cross Malleswaram. It’s not uncommon to see a string of Iyengar's Bakeries around the city and this often leads the newcomer into believing that a certain ambitious entrepreneur with a second name ‘Iyengar’ started a franchise business of bakeries around Bangalore. That’s not quite true. The Iyengar's bakery in Malleswaram may be completely unrelated to the one in Basavangudi or to the one in Banaswadi.

Coming back to our place on 11th cross, there’s whole lot of things the guys excels at making- dilpasand, khara bun, honey cake and benne biscuit to name a few. But your trip to the bakery has been futile if you didn’t add rusk to your basket. 250 grams, 25 bucks: that’s all it takes to rock-n-roll. Plus filter coffee from Cothas for the rusk to bathe in.

9) Cothas Coffee: Located on Sampige Road opposite to the bus stand on 10th Cross is the headquarters of Cothas Coffee, the authentic and original south Indian coffee. Other coffee brands can take a shower. You want to ask the shop keeper for the Home Blend variety. If I’m not wrong, it’s 20% chicory.

10) Bhagyalakshmi Ghulkand: (Credit: Narayanaswamy). One-of-a-kind store that sells all the varities of ghulkand. Ghulkand is a sweet item made from extracts of rose petals and is eaten with butter. Yum! This little store is located at Malleswaram circle at the junction of the underpass (what was earlier the traffic signal, for those of you who haven’t been here in some time). Ask for the dry fruits with ice cream version of gulkand. Good stuff. And then, pack some for home because you’ll need it.

(to be continued)

It’s all in the blood

2009-06-08T14:52:00.002+05:30

While Malleswaram sits still on a platter, here’s a small diversion before we get back to eateries that serve good food and don’t rip people off.

The theme for today’s post is about habits – specifically those that have come down the family tree because no one really bothered to stop and ask why. My grandmother, like grandparents of many of us, grew up in some pretty tough times. It was just around the time of independence and growing up on a very limited income was a challenge. Money and resources around the house in general were mostly in a shortfall. This meant that every food item or every piece of clothing had to be utilized sparingly and to the fullest extent possible.

Such was the case when the household bought milk each morning. Grandma would transfer the milk to a vessel on the stove, and the one containing the milk initially was washed well with a small quantity of water and later poured into the second vessel containing the remaining milk. This was done to ensure that not a drop of milk was wasted. Time went by and the state milk corporation started delivering milk in packets of half liter and one liter. With Grandma, the same steps applied for the plastic packets. Cut, pour, rinse and pour. But there was an additional step this time. The packet would be washed thoroughly once again with water, and the water would be allowed to drain by the kitchen sink. The inside of the cover would dry in a few hours and the now redundant milk packet would go into a big yellow plastic bag along with milk packets from the previous weeks. This collection of milk packets went on for a month or two till the big yellow bag could hold no more. Grandpa would then dispose them off to the paperwala in exchange for 2 bucks.

This practice is prevalent in many south Indian households. Watching this in action, my mother sub consciously grew habituated to cleaning milk covers and collecting them. Years rolled on and the family finances stabilized to the point where drops of milk could be deemed insignificant to the monthly budget. But the habit stayed in the blood. We lived in a fabulous neighborhood, would eat out at fine restaurants, wore good clothes and even bought a PC when PCs at home were uncommon. Yet, my mother continued to clean and dry milk covers and collected them in exchange for 10 bucks from the paperwala: not because she wanted the 10 bucks, but because she was so programmed to what her mother did that she continued to do it without once stopping and questioning the relevance of the practice in present day.

I learnt the same from my mother in my early teens. I would cut open the packet of milk, pour it, rinse the cover, pour it again, clean it, dry it and stack it. It was in the DNA. Until one day in high school, I went to a friend’s house. His mother was not at home. We decided to whip up a yummy chocolate milk shake on that summer noon. My friend opened the fridge in the kitchen and got out the packet of milk. He poured the contents into a vessel. And right there before my eyes, he threw the cover in the dustbin. I almost had a heart attack at that young age. I guess his great grand parents were well to do.

Malleswaram on a Platter: P1

2009-05-27T20:08:00.007+05:30

Everyone’s got to do their bit for the community. As a resident of Malleswaram, a brahminical south Indian neighborhood in Bangalore, for close to 18 years now, I do state with certain confidence that this is the place you ought to stop by for good food, street side markets and 30% offs on garments at Mummy Daddy’s.

I’m not much of a foodie, but here’s a list on some of the best eateries that you must visit in and around Malleswaram (in no particular order). Big thanks to Grandpa, Anoop, Navneet, Satya and Anu for all the visits.

1)CTR: Stands for Central Tiffin Room, though you’re not going to find that name displayed anywhere. The board at the entrance above the little green door opposite Malleswaram Association says Sri Sagar, and it’s here you’ll get to taste the Oscar award winning benne masale dose. The owner of the restaurant once worked as a waiter here, or at least that’s the popular belief. They don’t serve sambar until you ask for it. The big grandpa clock is said to be more than a hundred years old. Make sure you go here on an empty stomach. The best time to get here is on weekdays around 4 pm when it’s least crowded. This funny little place attracts page 3 socialites and paatis alike.

2)Janata: On the street parallel to CTR in 8th Cross Malleswaram Market is Hotel Janata. A household name in the locality, this restaurant is best known for its vade and sambar. The tea is also amongst the best you can taste around the city. Visit anytime other than Saturday evenings when the crowd usually spills on to the sidewalk.

3)Veena Stores: There’s a fan following on Orkut for Veena Stores. It’s a one of a kind place where steaming hot idlis are sold across the counter, and a little crowd is always gathered on the pavement on 15th Cross Margosa next to the MRF showroom. Get here early in the morning around 7:30 a.m after a brisk walk around 4th main to avoid crowds. This place is all about the chutney.

4)Adigas: This is the new baby on the block. Just up the street from Veena Stores across Sampige road is the relatively big Adigas Sampige. The coming of this restaurant proved beyond doubt that Bangaloreans are born foodies. Just when everyone thought that the eatery business in Malleswaram was saturated, Adigas came along and proved that there’s still plenty of room at the top. No dish that is worthy of exceptional praise, but the juice stall is alright.

5)The push cart guy on 11th Cross: The guy rocks! He is your master chef with his chaat on wheels in 11th cross Malleswaram. He usually stands in front of Visu Consultant/ Way to wealth. The place is not very crowded, but the stuff is good. Must try: Dahi Puri.

(to be continued)

What Barney Stinson forgot to add

2009-05-22T14:51:00.002+05:30

“What’s that box for?”

“I’ve decided to start collecting cigarette boxes.”

“But why?”

“Generally, man. I’ve got five of them – 555, Marlboro, Surya, Navy Cut and B&H.”

“So, new hobby?”

“Yea. Timepass.”
---

“How have you been doing? How was the vacation?”

“It was great. I was in Delhi most of the time.”

“What did you for two months?”

“Lazing around, catching up with friends and shopping.”

“Nice!”

“What’s your roommate been up to?”

“Nothing much, except starting a collection of cigarette boxes.”

“Hehe!”
---

“How is she?”

“Normal only.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked how you were doing.”

“And ..”

“I said you just got back; and that you had started collecting cigarette boxes.”

“You told her that?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“Did she tell you that her roomie collects panty hoses?”

“No. Why would she tell me something like that?”

“Then why would you tell her something about my cigarette boxes?”
---

What Barney Stinson forgot to add: guy talk should never leave guys.

When is it too late?

2009-05-18T14:40:00.003+05:30

I read a joke once in which a gorgeous woman on a stroll notices a guy seated on a park bench. He looks old but fit. The woman is intrigued by the man’s appearance and decides to find out more. She sits beside him on the bench and asks him what the secret to his good looks are at such an old age. The man starts off by telling her that he spent most of his life consuming junk food and alcohol. He tells her that he smoked a packet of cigarettes everyday, and regularly visited brothels. He never exercised and in a nut shell, led an erratic life. The woman is surprised as this was certainly not what she expected to hear. But nonetheless, she continues and asks him how old he his.

Bang comes the reply: “Twenty seven.”

I found the joke funny and sad at the same time. We all have our moments in time when we wake up one fine morning and realize we are 23 years old (like I will be tomorrow) and haven’t really done much all these years. A sense of panic sets in at times and we ‘decide’ to do more with our lives. But a few days later, there’s a visitor at the door. His name is laziness. He’s been with you before and you recognize each other all to well. He wants to move in with you this time. Most would oblige and let the visitor in. Time goes by and soon you realize that he’s been sapping you of energy. It’s time to drive him out. Many others would let him be their guest for as long as he chooses.

At 19, I expected to be much further ahead by this time than where I am right now. Maybe that thought occurs to you sometimes. But what’s going to make the difference is the answer to this question: “What then?” It’s unreasonable to think that it’s too late.

I’m working with a book called Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis. The author makes it explicitly clear in the introductory chapters that it’s never too late to increase one’s vocabulary. I think you can take that thought and broaden it out to other areas as well. I have friends who are 28 that think they’re getting old. Still worse; there are 24 year olds that think it’s too late. On the other hand, I know of a 61 year old who’s been looking forward to going to the Oktoberfest in Munich.

The human body is designed to function well for a period of 120 years with all the right kind of care and nutrition. Take your current age and subtract it from 120. Maybe that should give you an idea if you are interested.

The Lord was in town

2009-05-12T16:15:00.002+05:30

Yes, he was!

Lord Jeffery Archer met fans and followers at Landmark, Nungambakkam on 11th May 2009 at 7 pm. Chennai was the first stop of the 5 city India tour of his book release “Paths of Glory”. The evening started with the Man outlining the tale of the book. He went to share the story behind the story and the entire behind-the-scenes effort that went into bringing out Paths of Glory.

This was followed by a short story that he shared from his upcoming collection of short stories "And thereby hangs a tale". Questions and Answers were next. Like only Chennai can do it, the well read audience came out with some fabulous questions. Lord Jeff provided valuable insights into what goes into writing a book. For instance, Paths of Glory is a 140,000 words novel. It was completed in 1000 hours and it took him reviewing 17 drafts before the publishers snatched it away from him. Archer’s writing routine goes like this – he writes during the following time slots in a day: 6 am to 8 am; 8 to 10; 12 noon to 2 pm; 4-6 and 8 to 10 pm. It takes close to a year before the book can hit the shelves. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t suffer from Writer’s bloc. Sometimes, it just takes fours days of walking to get the plot right. Like with playing a violin, painting and dancing, he believes that writing a book is a God given talent too. He rarely knows the ending of a novel when he begins writing one. “The story takes its own course along the way, and the writer must follow that. One should never stick to a rigid structure”, he said.

His favorite writer is R.K. Narayan who he believes had the double bonus of being able to tell a good story in an excellent way. Most other writers write observations, he remarked. A good story necessarily has a good beginning, a middle and all of this leading up to an ending.

The evening concluded with a long round of book signing. He’s promised to be back in India next year.

You can catch up with Lord Jeffery Archer on his blog:
http://www.jeffreyarchers.blogspot.com/

Grub and tunes for the road

2009-05-06T10:56:00.004+05:30

Did you know they have golf carts at the Infosys Training Center in Mysore? Anoop tells me it’s meant for use only for the top guys. The rest have to walk or use cycles. Similarly, IIT Madras has these battery run shuttle buses for commuting inside their beautiful campus. Such environment friendly transportation should be made a norm across other campuses as well.

Talking of buses, I was in one traveling overnight from Bangalore to Chennai earlier this week. If you’ve been on an overnight bus journey across cities, you know these guys stop at roadside dhabas. Over the last couple of years as Pratik and I made several trips across Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal, and even as recent trips in the south have shown there are a couple of observations I wish to share. Number one: almost without exception, the food served at these dhabas is miserable. Yet, the chai kicks ass. The food not only tastes bad, it looks scary as well. I mean, go to the dhabha (it’s a big one where all the buses halt) on the GT Karnal Highway between Karnal and Panipat in Haryana and check out the bread pakoras for yourself. On this bus ride between Bangalore and Chennai, the driver pulled over at this place. We don’t call them dhabas here in the south. At 2:40 am, I got out of the bus and found the guy behind a counter slicing watermelons and fixing an assortment of fruits. I bought it; it had been more than 5 hours since dinner. Here’s what I mean when I say the stuff you get is weird: the guy had taken the word assortment to a new level and had included cucumbers along with papaya, watermelon, pine apple and grapes in the salad. Yew! I bought 2 plates to amuse myself.

And the other given at these highway stopovers - they play obnoxious music really loud. As you sleepwalk out of the bus, the blast of incoherent music being played at illegal decibel levels comes as a jolt. Try it sometime.

And those golf carts at Infosys - they can be used by the other non-top employees too. But just not always. It’s for them to transport the luggage from the living quarters to the main gate up on getting the pink slip.

How coconut sellers can improve customer satisfaction

2009-04-29T18:09:00.002+05:30

I’m told being underweight is just as bad as being overweight. I’m not too sure about that, but since the last week I’m on a programme to add some “good fat”. This constitutes proper eating habits, good sleep, exercise and nutrition supplementation. One of the requirements is to take tender coconut water daily. If you’ve had tender coconut water in the south, you’ll know that the coconut seller can tell the quality of the content inside just by looking at the physical characteristics of the green coconut. I don’t understand how they do it. After you finish drinking the water, the guy typically splits open the hollow coconut and scoops the ripe tender pulp that can be eaten. But if you don’t really like the pulp, you can ask for a coconut that is rich in water only without much of the pulp content. And the seller, like I mentioned, should be able to spot the one from the pile that suits your requirements.

I figured that the guy who sells these tender coconuts near my workplace is a bit of a novice. On one occasion, I asked for something with a lot of water and almost no pulp. He did give me ‘something’: turns out it was exactly the way I didn’t want it – very little water and thick layer of fruit. I got thinking of designing a machine that would not rely on the judgment of a human, but would rather go the old fashioned industrial way. It’s a scanner like something used to check baggage at airports. The farmer is the target customer here. Every coconut plucked from the tree is put through this scanning machine, and comes out on the other side with a blue stamp mark of the percentage content by weight of water and pulp.

Talk of a better way coconut sellers can improve customer satisfaction. If you're in the tender coconut business, I'd like to get to know you better.

The cycle of music

2009-04-21T16:56:00.001+05:30

The cycle of music is a popularly observed phenomenon in urban India. It is something that most of us are familiar with, but only did not realize that we knew it. Let me fill you in.

The cycle of music documents the variation in the interest in a particular type of music that the average kid goes through in his years. We all start off the same way: listening to our first beats, rhythms and lyrics in our mother tongue because that’s what mom and dad played on the music system every morning. Maybe you watched Doordarshan on weekends, and got hooked on to Hindi music. Or maybe it was that North Indian neighbor that played tracks from Mohra that got you hooked to Philips Top 10. And do not discount Rangoli on Sunday mornings. We all grew up to the tunes from Roja, didn’t we?

Years passed, and one day you were playing with an older friend in his house, and you noticed the cassette cover of Aqua on his desk. He played it on the speakers to show you that kind of music you ought to be listening to. You loved the tune of Barbie Girl. You took the tape home, slid it into your deck and played Dr. Jones loud enough to herald the arrival of English music into your life. And thus began a long journey into the world pop music. This was it – the years passed with Boyzone, Spice Girls, Vengaboys, Backstreet Boys and Aron Carter. You looked around at your classmates with head held high like they were losers listening to Hindi music. What era were they in, to get a high out of Yash Raj’s Movie Tracks? Pop music was the way of life. You had arrived.

The years went, and Enrique Iglesias, Michael Jackson, Peter Andre and Ricky Martin had their time with you. Gradually Bryan Adams came, and you moved to the next step. And now suddenly, Backstreet Boys was for sissies. Bon Jovi, U2, Queen you started moving up the music ladder on band at a time. Bohemian Rhapsody was the new favourite. In the teenage years, rock defined you very existence. The progress from pop to pop-rock took a while. The move from pop-rock to rock to metal was much faster. This was when you tore the life out of anyone listening to pop music.

“Blue and West Life need to go kill themselves.”

Before you knew it, Metallica and Iron Maiden were the new Gods. Pink Floyd and Aerosmith had no equal. You woke up each morning thanking the heavens for sending the electric guitars and the double bass to earth. This was the real you – with the screaming face of Eddy on your chest saying “Dance of Death”. The peak had arrived. A few maniacs had tried to over do things and had fallen off on the other side: they tried death metal and gothic stuff.

Like all things, this pattern changes too. We grow and mature like we should. Today, we open Winamp and enqueue Backstreet Boys and Westlife and Enrique. Pop music doesn’t seem so bad now. You can give these guys some credit atleast, even thought they all look gay and stand in a straight line to sing the song. Hindi music is getting better and better as we are seeing lesser and lesser of Anu Malik. But the day you’ve arrived is when open your CD tray and slide a music CD of your regional language, so that your kids may re-live the cycle of music.

Brad Pitt and I share a special bond

2009-04-17T12:36:00.005+05:30

Greetings Arjun's readers! I come in peace.

My name is Sridevi and I will be guest posting here today. Arjun and I have been friends for a long time now. But that's not what I am here to talk about today.

Wait a minute, what was I planning to talk about today?!!

(frustrated expression)

Sorry friends, you see, since last couple of weeks, I have been working on a paper on Sanitation, so that all that comes to my mind when I try to think up a decent blog posts is toilets, water supply and proper waste disposal.

Anyway, to distract you from the beautiful images and thoughts that I just inserted in your head, I will talk about Brad Pitt for a brief moment.

(If you have already read my blog, then you have been clearly forewarned that I usually lead you into believing that my post is about others and finally it ends up being about me, because it is fun to be self-centered)

I assume that all of you have seen that particular episode in Friends where Brad Pitt makes a guest appearance. Therefore, I also assume you found it especially entertaining that his character in that episode hated Rachel (played by his then wife - Jennifer Aniston), to the extent of taking revenge by starting an I-hate-Rachel Club that spread rumors about her.

Well, neither am I a female Brad Pitt, nor is the object of my wrath even remotely like Jennifer Aniston, but I too dislike (to the point of hate) a woman and have already proceeded with my path of revenge!

(witch-like cackles in the background)

So until last month, I used to take a daily bus pass of Rs. 30/- on my way to work, which lets me board how many ever buses I want for that particular day. It is a convenient system for those who cover long distances daily.

Cast: Me, Evil Woman who sells daily passes, Random people nearby

Me (thrusting 3 bunched up 10 rupee notes into her hand): "One pass"
(Me slightly distracted by the disgusting kid trying to wipe his snot on the person near him, meanwhile sees out of the corner of the eye that Evil Woman dropped a note deftly into her shoulder money bag)
(Me also slightly impressed at her precision of throwing the money correctly into her bag, without letting it flutter down to the ground)
Evil Woman: "You have given me only 20 rupees, the pass costs 30"
Me (completely shocked): "But you just threw a note into your bag"
Evil Woman (obviously well experienced in handling these situations): "What? Why would I do that?"
Me (in my head): "Because you can keep the extra money, Evil Woman"
Me (stupidly slow and stubborn): "But I saw you do it"
Evil Woman (opens her bag to reveal a pile of 10 rupee notes and hastily shuts it before I could look clearly): "See, I didn't throw your money in the bag!"
Me (clearly not Sherlock Holmes): "But.....but...."
Evil Woman (loudly to other people nearby who couldn't care less as to what she is saying): "She lost her money on the way, and is saying I took it" (fake laugh) "why would I put the money in my bag?"
(Onlookers totally not reacting)
(Me fuming, angry with myself for not being the usually clever person that I am)

(Curtains close)

But the story isn't over yet Evil Woman!

Because now (April 2009), whenever I board your bus, I will give you the cold stare, which you might not understand (remember) why, but will make you lose your sleep at nights.

Now, whenever I board your bus, I will haughtily ignore your requests to buy tickets.

Now, whenever I board your bus, you will no longer be able to cheat me out of 10 rupees.

Because now, I have the power of the monthly pass, that will let me travel in any bus I want for the whole month.

Now I shall no longer carry any money with me, to "lose" it.

And now, there shall be JUSTICE.

(Immature you say? Well, if Brad Pitt can do it, then so can I)

PS: I know I should give her the benefit of doubt, but what are the odds that the moment I happened to IMAGINE that she dropped the note into her bag, she tells me that I have not given her the correct amount??!

Apples, Traffic Signals, and the Male Species

2009-04-09T13:28:00.001+05:30

I’m guest blogging here for a change.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

2009-04-06T10:55:00.001+05:30

Cristina Kirchner is the current President of Argentina. She assumed office in December 2007, taking over from her husband Néstor Kirchner who was President from May 2003 to December 2010. And as the story goes, Cristina won the election by a comfortable margin. That meant, the President on retirement, became the First Gentleman of Argentina.

That’s a real tale. Hillary Clinton almost wrote the same story too, but not quite. So one gets wondering, what’s all this fuss about ‘upliftment’ of women. What’s all the noise of women and emancipation? In India, many women even in senior positions of corporate, academia and politics have an attitude that the men are out to ‘get them’; and in many cases they are. But isn’t it unreasonable to spend your years fighting when instead following successful examples would have made life much easier. It really isn’t a battle of the sexes as many women like to keep it: a fight for you v/s me; good v/s evil; strong v/s weak and the list may go on.

Michelle Obama has begun addressing audiences of women after becoming the first lady, like she did recently in London on the sidelines of G20. Our Indian ladies that are caught up in battle with the courts just for the sake of the fight need to stop and listen to successful women like Michelle, Cristina or Indora Nooyi. Our country would move ahead quicker. The rules of success don’t care if you’re man or woman. They just need to be applied with a purpose at hand.

Hope the ladies in the current elections take a leaf out of the Presidential office in Buenos Aires.

How my SUPW teacher handled this one girl

2009-04-01T21:36:00.004+05:30

You’re probably not going to enjoy this tale very much if you didn’t study in SHS.
To appreciate the juice of the following story it would be necessary for you to read A confident lie (2 posts below).

Like I mentioned in there, Mrs. SUPW had a way with dealing with pesky brats. Her way of dealing with girls, however, is yet to find mention in a nationwide publication. Maybe our dumb politicians can learn from her.

Flashback: The year is 1992.
Scene: A classroom on the first floor of SHS. At the entrance to the class is a green metallic board that reads ‘Class1’. The corridor outside overlooks the basketball court. Two rooms away is the BIG BAD PRINCIPAL’S ‘chamber’. Now you know why they’ve installed the bell outside her office.

(Narrator)

The last two periods on Wednesdays was SUPW. I hated it. This one time, the teacher asked us to draw and colour the flag of any country other than India. The really fat girl who sat behind me drew a rectangle and put a circle in the center of the rectangle. She shaded the region inside the rectangle in red leaving the circle to remain white. She wrote ‘Japan’ at the bottom of the sheet and submitted it to Mrs. SUPW. So, as you can see, we were a bunch of bright kids.

Another Wednesday came by. It was SUPW hour and we all sat quietly and painted, with some kids dripping from the nose. It was this one kid’s birthday. She had got Eclairs (remember that toffee?) to distribute. By the time the last period came, the stock of toffees in the box must have reduced. So while the rest of sketched and coloured, Birthday girl took out 2 toffees from the box and walked up to Mrs SUPW’s table.

Birthday Kid (wearing colour clothes, and feeling important): Ratna Miss, it’s my birthday today. (extends the 2 toffees to Ratna Miss)

Ratna Miss (a.k.a Mrs. SUPW): Happy Birthday! But this is bad manners child. Go and put back both these toffees in the choclate box and bring me the box. I’ll take it from there.

Birthday kid returns to desk, puts chocolates back in box, walks back to teacher’s desk. Teacher smiles, shakes hands, wishes and takes 2 toffees. Every other child in class is pissed off because all the kids got only one toffee and the teacher got two.

The teacher has to go to the staff room for a while. She understands that the kids will kick up a ruckus in her absence. So she tells us to stop our work and meditate till she returns. Remember that old trick, fellas?

She leaves; and the 2 toffees are left on the table.

5 minutes later: Mrs. SUPW is back.

Kids are opening their eyes partially to steal glances and see if the teacher is in.

The teacher pretends to look surprised. One of the toffees is missing!

Mrs SUPW: “Who took the toffee from my table?”

Silence.

“I said, who took the toffee from my table?”, louder than the previous time.

Pin drop silence – everyone’s meditating.

Mrs SUPW: “I know who stole the toffee. If that person doesn’t come forward, I will put magic in everybody’s bag. And tonight, the one who stole the toffee will come to my house in their sleep and return it.” (She meant the person would sleep-walk to her house that night and return the toffee because of the 'magic' that she would 'put').

Everyone is shit scared.

And then:

She walks up to a girl in the last bench and puts magic in her bag.

(This girl is existent, if you must know. Revealing her name is not the best thing to do).

My President and other follies

2009-04-01T15:03:00.001+05:30

President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday inaugurated ‘India’s Air Force One’, christened Rajdoot.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4343550.cms

And before the tape was cut, there were cries from all over the country questioning the need for this unnecessary luxury at this point in time. Read the comments on the Economic Times article if you want this validated. I think the issue is not so much about luxury or with the plane in itself. My view is that it is more to do with the person who is getting it. I mean, think of it this way: if Dr. APJ were still the Prez, and had he inducted the Rajdoot, do you think there’d be all these comments on the article? No one would have thought it as being unreasonable that the Head of a Country is getting an official plane to match his tag as the first citizen. But when this President does the same thing, it is unreasonable. With all due respect, I don’t think she deserves the plane. And if the debate must really go on, the expense for the Air Force in purchasing a Boeing Business Jet is no where near what all our politicians take home in a year.

As an afterthought, here’s what is unreasonable: The President hardly has powers in India. If at all anything must change, it’s not the plane or the motor car that ferries the President. I think a wider scope of responsibilities and power needs to be instituted for the first citizen. That could reduce some of the roles of the Prime Minister. And if the PM needs a new jet, let’s get it for him or her after the results of the first year in office. Perks tied to performance! Makes sense?

A confident lie

2009-03-26T15:58:00.001+05:30

School memories have a way of flashing back. I was never really a big fan of school, but I think some days were better than others. Like the day we counted 27 bikes on the road. Here’s what happened:

There was this class once a week called SUPW where you painted and sewed and sketched. For me, being artistically challenged, it was a good distraction that helped me take my mind away from Math, Science and EVS. Mrs. Ratna Patwardan took the class from the time I was in Class 1 till the day I left school in class 10. Only recently, I went back to visit my alma mater. She still teaches SUPW to this day. This was a teacher who had a great sense of humour and a way with handling pesky brats (and the girls too, but more on that some other day).

One day in class 4, Jesu and I sat in the last bench with the window behind us. It was SUPW class, and the Mrs. Ratna had stepped out of the class briefly. The two of stopped our work mid-way (painting a piper, maybe) and started looking outside the window and talking. A minute went by, and the teacher came into the class. And she was not very pleased to see Jesu and me gazing at nature (well, peak hour traffic on Bellary road is about as close to Nature as you can get to in Bangalore). We got our punishment: for the next 10 minutes, we were to count the number of cars, buses, bikes, cycles and birds that we could see from outside the window and go back and report the numbers to her.

I felt smug and self-assured looking out of the window. The rest of the class was painting away. I told Jesu, “We’ll just go and tell her some random numbers. She won’t know it.” I mean, I had read the story where Birbal confidently says that there are one thousand four hundred and thirty three crows in the city.

10 minutes went by in mindless chatting; and then we were summoned to the teacher’s desk.

“So, how many crows did you see?”

“17.”

“Bikes?”

“27. 5 red ones.”

“Maruti cars?”

“11.”

“Buses?”

“6.”

“How many bees did you see?”

I looked confused, and I could see from the corner of my eye, that Jesu was just as perplexed.

“I said “How many bees did you see?””, she said trying to look annoyed. I could see this woman was having fun.

“None, Maam.”

“None?”

“Yes. We didn’t see even one.”

She stood up from her chair, and told us to follow her to the window at the back of the class. The other kids stopped painting and became the audience. We walked to the window.

“So, are you sure that you didn’t see even a single bee.”

I’m a believer in confidence. “Yes, Maam. Not even one.”

And she pointed at the bee hive hanging from the ceiling of the building across the road.

Sluts for superlatives

2009-03-07T16:15:00.001+05:30

Is the human race done with inventing all that needs to be invented? Marconi, Bell, Wilbur and Orville.. you know where this is headed, right? When was the last time that someone invented something that changed the very DNA of a society? The computer was one. You could say software and internet, but I’m not so sure. Radio, TV, airplanes; when was it last that some one invented something so basic that you could say it was created out of thin air. My friend reckons that everything this society needs has already been invented. We are just working on improvising existing platforms (the mobile phone was a step up from the landline).

Have we well and truly laid the foundations for all the requirements of a social animal? If the answer is a ‘YES’, then the 21st century will turn out to be quite a boring one. We’ll just move from alpha to beta to gama to zeta before the sun eats up the earth (or the Mayan calendar comes true; my money is not here). If the answer to the question is a ‘NO’, then whatever exits around us is one big joke compared to what’s in store. Imagine Rama’s wooden footwear placed alongside Nike’s latest shock absorbing nitro boosting cosmonaut sneakers.

It’s a fair thing to consider. Technology breeds itself and sooner or later we'll be beaming people around the world instead of flying them around in stupid airplanes. But again, that’s a case of extending the frontiers of science. My question is whether there’ll be another Galileo or Copernicus (in this century) who will pull another rabbit out of the hat and not just feed carrots to the ones that are already scurrying around.

Onde usiranthe innu naanu

2009-03-06T14:13:00.003+05:30

I’ve been listening to this song at least ten times a day since Thursday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f2mRaBRl54

It’s from a Kannada movie called Snehaloka (Universe of Love), starring RamKumar and Anu Prabhakar. For those who don’t understand the language, let me add here that this is a love song (like duh!, who else dances in a forest for no reason?).

My van driver played this song each morning while going to school and I remember enjoying it, humming along from day 4. I was in class 8 then and I didn’t know the name of the song or the movie that it was a part of. And after I stopped going in my Van Driver’s van (no, he wasn’t Dutch), the tune continued to play in my head. It was one of those songs: you know its tune and nothing else. No lyrics, no artist, no movie, no album name. You love the tune and hope that someday someway you’ll get to hear it again.

Yep, this is that song.

There was recession in Heaven

2009-03-04T14:52:00.005+05:30

Let the scientists figure out how and why dreams occur. I am here to experience them; some will be good, most will not make sense and the odd one or two will send me looking for the water bottle at 3 am. It’s the dreams that have absolutely no logic to the sequence in which they unfold that are the most interesting ones; and I’m sure it’s the same with most people.

I had this one particular dream, back in 2003, which I found so hilarious I began laughing in my sleep and consequentially woke up. It was one of those no-brainer nonsense jokes, but I guess the punch line at the end of the dream was too good that even today, 6 years hence I can recount every detail as it unfolded.

The scene is set in the prayer hall of my school. There isn’t much lighting around in the hall but for what’s filtering through the windows on a cloudy December morning. There’s a stage and I’m standing on it. The hall is empty and spacious with the big wooden door on my far right. There are framed photos of freedom fighters on the walls on my left hand side. At the entrance to the hall near this door is a tripod stand supporting a black coloured board with holes (the kind you would find at the entrances of reception halls with yellow and white letters stuck in it announcing the event details). I see my Head Mistress and my two best friends Satya and Anoop standing in front of the board reading what’s displayed on it. Curious to see it for myself, I get off the stage and walk towards them. As I get around to facing the board, I call out to my friends. They can’t hear me, for they aren’t responding.

Here’s what I see on the board – in big white letters is the word ‘Prayer’. Following this, in smaller letters are four lines of English poetry; the first three ending with commas and the last one with a full stop. I don’t remember what the lines were, but interestingly after the four lines, I see something else. In tiny yellow it says ‘Rs 81’. That’s right, Rupees Eighty One. Anoop is reading out the lines on the board with my Head Mistress and my other friend Satya nodding along approvingly. I’m a mute spectator to all of this. All the while, I’m standing there thinking “What is the ‘Rs 81’ doing there at the bottom? What does it mean?” Soon enough, Anoop completes reading the ‘Prayer’ and looks towards the teacher. She asks him in her bossy commanding voice “What do you think of this prayer?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he replies “It’s good. But why did you have to pay 81 Rupees for this English prayer? You could have bought a cheaper Hindi Prayer for 25 bucks.”

I woke up with spurts of laughter that morning. I’m still trying to figure out what the 81 Rupees was for. Maybe even God wasn’t spared of the 2003 market downturn, and He had to resort to selling copyrights of His prayers to lesser mortals like us. For the record, my school prayer was Gajananam, bhoothaganadhi sevitham ....

Who needs a life here?

2009-02-25T16:34:00.002+05:30

You know what’s funny? It’s the choices we make. I recollect seeing rajmah for the first time in my first week of college in Hamirpur. I’m talking about that reddish brown kidney shaped group of pulses. Gosh, I hated the very sight of it in the mess. Every Tuesday night meant a trip to Ekta café, Tilak, Canteen or anywhere as far away as possible from Rajmah for Narayan , Sagar and I. And on Thursday mornings we had oats and banans for breakfast. I felt like these mess guys really needed a life. Who has oats at 7 am for crying out loud? I always waited to get out of college and get back home to Bangalore where I could have ‘good’ south Indian dosas, idliys and filter coffee for breakfast.

Now that I’ve relocated to Chennai, I must not have any problems with the food here, right? There’s dosas and idlies and pongal and gallons of filter coffee available; I just need to wave my arms to get it. But instead, I choose to have rajmah, black dal, cauliflower and rice for breakfast AND lunch. I prefer oats, banana and milk for dinner. I’m serious. It’s like when you’re growing up in India in your twenties, you’re thinking of blonds and bikinis. And after that second year in Amsterdam in your early thirties, you are thinking of gold and silk saris.

The great big Indian Wedding just got smaller

2009-02-21T11:19:00.000+05:30

There’s no denying that love is in the air. Matchmakers are in business. Families are buzzing with excitement this season with someone in it readying to tie the nuptial knot. What is that one thing that, maybe besides organizing logistics for the wedding (and finding a partner) that takes up maximum time? I believe it’s got to be the invitations. House after house: your first cousin’s wife’s third sister’s Labrador will be pissed if he’s not invited in person.

I think I’ve got some news. The times are changing. An average Indian Wedding would have around 500 to 600 guests. But an average wedding in the west would have only a few dozen people. Doesn’t the difference seem striking? May be the roots go back to our ‘joint family’ system, where an average family consisted at least 10 members. So, assuming that the guy’s family and the girl’s family each had 10 people, that makes it 20 in the first circle. These two families had 5 other extended families with an average of 10 in each. That means, about 100 in the second circle. Let us say that each person in the initial 20 knew 20 others (friends, acquaintances etc.) That makes it a straight 400. Btw, these numbers are rather conservative in south India. So, 600 people at a wedding is really no big deal.

You may be going, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” I’ll tell you what the frequency is.In twenty years time (at max), Indian weddings will have only a few dozen guests just like their Western counterparts. I got an e-mail invite this morning from a distant friend. Now, I know what that means: I am on her guest list; but I am not worth the pain and trouble of a phone call or a personal invite because we don’t know each other well enough. And so, I won’t show up at the wedding because I know she really doesn’t want me there. Extend this to the hundreds of people that have received her e-mail invite. I’d be shocked if anyone turns up.

In this way, we keep playing this game of invites through e-mails, blogs and worse still, orkut and facebook posts. Slowly, down the line, the numbers at Indian weddings will keep reducing. My generation is far less attached to its second circle of family than my mother’s generation anyways. I have first cousins whose name I don’t know. Extrapolate this over 10, 15 and 20 years. I think my assumption is safe. Weddings will cost far lesser; and we’ll manage to keep the noise out.

Why Steve Jobs' $1 salary means little

2009-02-04T16:46:00.004+05:30

There’s a table calendar on my colleague’s desk. The month of January has on it the photo of a man with curly, ruffled hair holding up two wall clocks on his shoulders; one clock shows 9 and the other clock shows 5. The punch line reads: “Success cannot come from a 40-hour week”. I love the illustration for the simplicity with which it conveys a very powerful message. Hidden into it is also the idiosyncrasy of being displayed on a guy’s desk who clocks 40 hours per week.

But the elephant in the room is easy to spot. I went up to this guy and asked him how he interpreted the line “Success cannot come from a 40-hour week” He looked at me with a “Duh!” and continued “It could mean one of two things: A) is that success cannot come from putting in just 40 hours per week at my job or, B) I need to be more efficient with the 40 hours that I put in to be more successful.” Maybe that’s how you would interpret it too.

But let me tell you how a man who takes home 1 dollar a year as salary would view the statement. The 40-hour week is representative of a job (or in other words something that the great majority is involved in). To be in position to take home a dollar in pay check, the guy would not have to depend on his pay check for food. And that means, his net worth/ passive stream of income would make his paycheck irrelevant. Again, that implies he keeps his job as head of Apple not because he has to (for Goodness sake), but because he chooses to. As popularly misunderstood, a 1$ paycheck to a CEO of a company who holds equity in it means nothing. However, a CEO with no equity in his company is never going to see a 1$ pay check. He’ll be well taken care off (or at least, that’s how it’s made to look).

A friend said this over lunch: “If you borrow 3 lakhs from a bank, the bank owns you. If you borrow 3 crores from a bank, you own the bank.” I’d say “If your company pays you a 100, 000 a year, the company owns you. If it pays you one dollar a year, you own it.”

Wish you a speedy recovery, Mr. Jobs.

Well Well

2009-02-04T10:40:00.002+05:30

Looks like someone seconds my opinion:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Davos_goes_nowhere/articleshow/4072530.cms

Happy Day

Our Leaders are on Drugs

2009-02-02T12:08:00.004+05:30

Davos is over; at least for 2009.

Here

As a by-stander, I am disappointed. Beyond re-iterating the existing gloom and sad stories, I can’t quite see an action plan in place. Platforms for discussions like the prestigious one in Davos tend to pride more on the fact that world leaders, diplomats and religious leaders made an appearance. Little is understood as to why they did it.

The message from the Annual Meeting is that leaders must continue to develop a swift and coordinated policy response to the most serious global recession since the 1930s: global challenges demand global solutions.

Honestly, did we need 4 of the heads of G8 counties to tell us that? What next?

Does the WEF have any follow up programme? How are we doing on the agendas that were set in the WEF 2005 (say) to tackle hunger in Africa? Or trafficking in Cambodia?

The greatest outcome of the Annual Meeting 2009 was that, despite the economic turbulence, people chose to come together in record numbers from industry, government and civil society to reflect on the seriousness of the global challenges we face and to connect and respond to such challenges.

Goodness! Is this the kind of conclusions that you would expect from history makers at a time in history like this?

The bottom line question is: Will the effort that went into staging the WEF this year pull the world out of recession? I doubt so. A lot will be achieved on the periphery.

In case you suspect, I am not a critic of the World Economic Forum. On the contrary, I am a keen follower of the event with the hope that something might get done that could improve the well-being of an old lady in the Andes, or a twenty five year old in the heart of India’s Silicon Valley.

Look who's talking

2009-01-30T12:09:00.006+05:30

Crowded lifts are fun. Notice how ten people in a lift will stay perfectly silent; they’ll look up at the display counting the floors, look at their shoes, and look at the walls of the lift. There’s a cold silence and something tells you that everyone inside prefers it that way. Isn’t it funny how people can stand next to each other and go up 23 floors without making an eye contact? And that sight when the floor has ‘arrived’. I’ve noticed how men and women will literally rush out of the lift as soon as it lands, almost like a Ferrari in a pit stop whose crew took a second too much to refuel. Men will steal glances, searching around for the best assets and women will punch away into their cell phones like that’s the last hope for survival.

How do I know this? I ride up and down five floors each day looking at assets. We are men, and that’s how we are wired.

* * *

“I think she should start hanging out with single men more often”, I thought to myself, as I stood in the lift.

Her hands were folded, shoulders slightly stooped and the hair tucked behind the ears suggested that the she had been complimented on her ear rings earlier in the day. Her glance was fixed to the floor and the corner of my eyes was fixed on her.

“But you know girls. They like committed men.” my alter ego said.

“Yeah, but what good is that? If she gave single guys a chance, it would be good for all 4 of us.”, I couldn’t help but think to myself.

“Who four?”

“Herself, that guy, his wife and the single men. It’s such a win-win-win-win situation if she only decides”

The lift reached the ground floor and we all moved out.

* * *

I like Mel Gibson’s movie What Women Want. In the movie, by a stroke of circumstance, he gets the ability to hear what a woman is thinking. I visualize a device that can give each of us the power to do this; and I don’t mean masculine and feminine. I mean everybody can hear what every other person is thinking.

Here’s the catch: This device will work only inside lifts.

I wonder what she must have thought had she heard what I was thinking inside that lift. Probably something like, “Jerk!”

But the device is still an idea. Until lifts are equipped with this ‘thought hearing device’, I still maintain that she needs to give single men a chance.

WEF kicks off

2009-01-28T12:52:00.001+05:30

The 5-day World Economic Forum (WEF) kicks off this evening in Davos, Switzerland. The event is expected to draw 2,500 participants from 96 countries. Participants from around the world include:

• 250 public figures, including 41 heads of state or government, 60 ministers, 30 heads or senior officials of international organizations and 10 ambassadors
• More than 510 participants from civil society, including 50 heads or representatives of non-governmental organizations, 225 media leaders, 215 leaders from academic institutions and think tanks, 10 religious leaders of different faiths and 10 trade union leaders. [Source: www.weforum.org]

The co-chairs of this year’s meet, as in every other year, is a handful of some of the world’s most influential names: Kofi Annan, Stephen Green of HSBC Holdings, Anand Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, Maria Ramos (Transnet Ltd., South Africa), Jeroen van der Veer (Chief o Royal Dutch Shell) and Werner Wenning of Bayer, Germany.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to pitch Russia’s Economic Vision at the opening address (00:15, IST) that is expected to set the tone of the debate over the course of the forum. Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath is leading the Indian congregation.

It will be interesting to note how Klaus Schwab’s stage will shape up discussions (and solutions, hopefully). With all the doom and gloom expected for much of 2009, this could very well be a place for the top brass to put matters into perspective. As it is already being said, this is the most important edition of the WEF in forty years.

A familiar face at WEF, Bill Gates, seems absent. The Obama administration is sending only one senior adviser. Another section to watch out this WEF: The Young Global Leaders.

Scroll Up

2009-01-19T17:41:00.003+05:30

[Blog credit: Sweta Ramachandran of ERA for sparking the discussion on Kane and Abel]

Speech detection is hot and happening. Microsoft is hard at work getting their speech identification tools right. While all the work is going around in getting voice, ink and electronics to meet at a point, I think it would be worthwhile extending this to our everyday human-human interaction.

Losing your train of thoughts and getting distracted is easy. Often times, we find ourselves talking about a certain something only to be pulled away from it due to a hundred and one reasons. When we finally decide to get back to the main theme of discussion, it is not surprising to find that we can’t exactly remember where we left off.“I’m sorry, where was I?” Teachers, doctors, directors, politicians, engineers, mothers and zoo keepers: we’ve said that line at some point of time.

It must be evident to you by now that we’re relying less and less on our memories for remembering things. There’s Wiki and there’s Google and there’ll be several other morphs of these in years to come. Our minds are increasingly migrating towards activities such as strategizing, designing etc. that require more of lateral thinking. In a nutshell, the human mind will begin to do what all attempts at getting a machine to do has proved unsuccessful. I’ll give you a few examples:

1) Wine Tasters or coffee tasters. (A machine could never tell the fine difference between 30 varieties of coffee as precisely as a connoisseur of coffee could).
2) The human nose. (Getting a machine to differentiate between various odors is a difficult task, though nanotechnology is beginning to make replacements for the human olfactory systems possible).
3) Human stupidity. (Think of Albert Einstein’s famous quote: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Now, think of ICC’s recent ’20 Greatest’ list.)

But while researchers are hard at work, here’s my pathetic hypothesis. It’s the kind of forward looking stuff that a million others are hypothesizing as I write this. But I come in a minority since I took the pain to write it. And a handful of us will go onto making a prototype and test it. There’ll be a rare one or two will give up their social life to commercialize this kind of stuff. And that’s when, I’ll tell my kids, “Your Dad thought about this when he was 22. Imagine how rich we’d be now if I had sucked up to my idea.” (Well, not exactly in those words).

Here's the technology, folks. Every human mouth will have implanted in it a small little micro speech-to-text converter device with a built in projector. This device may be turned off and on with a button that will be placed in ‘another’ part of the body. Assuming that the little converter device is on as you speak, what you say will appear in text form on a 3” X 5” black display screen (the kinds that appears to be suspended in thin air), Johnny Quest style. Green robotic font. As you keep rambling on, real time transcription will occur and the scroll bar will keep moving down. In case you get distracted and lose your train of thoughts, all you’d need to do is the scroll up using your index finger and continue from you left off.

That's tomorrow’s technology, by the way.

For better or for worse

2009-01-15T13:26:00.003+05:30

My stay in Chennai is getting more interesting with every passing day.

I came here in August last year, quite by choice and my ongoing stint at Frost and Sullivan (www.frost.com; these guys are good) is keeping things where they should be.

Some of my friends might know this – I spent the first six months living in a room so small that calling it a ‘match box’ would be an overstatement. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this previously in my blog, but I was forced to skip certain positions in my morning yoga because the walls wouldn’t permit. I hope you get the picture.

Almost as a New Year resolution (to live in less claustrophobic places), I moved in with the Logica boys into an apartment in Srinagar Colony. I’m better off here in most ways: I have the best of roomies in the entire eastern hemisphere. Kashe and Nire are the guys you want to live around to get an appreciation of little things- like the importance of having a minimum of three eggs a day, or waking up early; or snoring at night.

But as we collectively acknowledge, our move into this house has proved worse off on two grounds. And these are like the national problems of Chennai: water and mosquitoes. Brushing every morning and night gives me a feeling that I’m taking water straight from the Bay of Bengal into my mouth. Gosh, the amount of salt can put Captain Cook to shame. And those sonovabitch mosquitoes. Every night is a fight for survival. We tried everything: Mortein, Good Knight, Palm Oil, Agarbathis. But these f!@#$%^ keeps coming back. A blood donation camp would have been richer by a couple of units of blood by now.

Last night, Nire came up with the mother of all solutions – a mosquito net. I’m talking about those netted screens that insulate your bed from the blood suckers. We had a hard time getting the net up on to the hooks. But once it went up, I tell you with no shame that we had a night like few others can ever imagine.

Here’s the fun thing about the mosquito net: you get to see the little bastards valiantly trying to get in. But you know that there’s not a chance in hell that can happen. All the fun lies in counting them from inside using your torch; there’s no better way to tease them. It’s truly the joy of laughing at the misery of these guys that makes it all the more worth it. Here’s the sad part: these guys ain’t gonna spare you when you walk out of bed in the morning. They’ll prick you and pound you until you wish you had lived in a blood donation camp.

Everyone must get a mosquito net. I’m convinced about that.

My Apologies

2009-01-12T17:56:00.002+05:30

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading this blog and accepting slash rejecting all the mumble-jumble that comes through it.

I wish to apologise for all the typos that you you might have spotted over the months. It may not necessarily reflect the author's carelessness; it could just mean that English is evolving.

Thanks again!
Happy day.
Arjun

Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure

2009-01-09T10:54:00.005+05:30

Big thanks to Navneet for tipping me off on ‘Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure’.

I believe that the final stretch of road at Ushuia is the only gateway to the next world. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have walked down that road, got into a vessel and stood on the deck only to set sail to the Isle of South Georgia. We’d then wade our way through 800 miles of rough sea to reach the Elephant Island. I’d pose there and get a picture clicked with 2 penguins on either side. The ice bergs were gigantic (an understatement), and it did really feel like end of the earth and the end of all of our understanding. I did this over and over again in my head. And I still do so today; and will keep at it till I can make it in flesh. You know like they say in The Secret: “If you’ve been there in the mind, you’ll go there in there in the body.”

I got a category A recommendation to watch a documentary on Sir Ernest Shackleton, called Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. I had heard about this brave man’s expeditions to the southern most continent before. My admiration for him and one Hiram Bingham grew by leaps as I read through the literature of places that these men explored. But more on Hiram Bingham in a later post.

Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure retraces the tale of 28 brave men led by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton on the 1914-1916 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Endurance (named after Shackleton’s family motto: by endurance, we conquer). This epic journey has been considered for long as "the greatest survival story of all time." The story is a testimony to what can happen to the human spirit when one does not give up and continues to push for survival against all odds. The film features breathtaking shots on location in Antarctica with near exact recreations of situations that the crew faced nearly a century ago. It also features motion-picture footage of Frank Hurley, the official photographer for the Endurance expedition (“who would go to any lengths to get a shot”, as described in the narration).

The audience is thrust into a feeling of awe, respect, pain and relief for the men who took the journey. But like all great tales, it is that mixture of emotions that makes it worth talking about nearly a century after the event.

I was reminded of the i-see-clearer-because-i-have-stood-on-the-shoulders-of- great-men philosophy.

To the Polar Explorer and his men,
In his shadows, we walk.

For info on the movie: http://main.wgbh.org/imax/shackleton/

The Irony of Mahabhrata

2008-12-30T10:44:00.001+05:30

It was my Dad’s idea to name his son as Arjun. He wished that the name not convey an identity of N/S/E/W Indian-ness. There is a lot of pressure when you’re name is Arjun; not because of any demigod predecessor whose shoes are asking to filled in, but because of the unnecessary comparisons with the mythical character that your 3rd uncle pulls you into that you are expected to fulfill. Like shooting an arrow; or being fearless; or having Partha for a nickname.

My exposure to Mahabharata was grossly limited. Besides the episodes that played on Sunday mornings when I was 8 years old (remember that title song: yatha yatha hi dharmasya?) and the 3 verses that we read from the Bhagvadgita during school assembly, I never had the slightest inkling to look into the story of Mahabartha. Early one morning in 1998, the Sanskrit teacher announced that there would be a competition (some written exam) on the Ramayana and the Mahabhartha. One could choose which topic they wished to attempt. Now, this was an optional exam. When I saw nearly 80 percent of the class sign up in one or the other, I signed up too. You know that highly over rated thing called peer pressure. What was I thinking? You could have put on a fingernail the amount I knew about either of the epics. And since I was signing up for this examination, my teacher says “You are Arjuna! Neenu Mahabharata exam baribeku (You should write the Mahabharata exam).” Remember that unnecessary- comparisons-with-the-mythical-character-that-your-3rd uncle-pulls-you-into thing? Yes, exactly.

Long story short, I did not study for this exam (I mean, who in their right mind would have?). The exam was on a Sunday at 10 am. On the previous night, my Grandpa handed me his treasured copy of the Mahabharata yellow pages. I mean, not the Yellow Pages. I read the first 10 pages: the conversation between Valmiki and Ganesha. Call it the preface if you want.

In the paper the following morning, there were all kinds of questions: long ones, short ones, match the following, filling in the blanks – what difference did it make to Arjun? He saw stars in any case.

2 Weeks later: 17/100. I stood second from the bottom. I’m sure my mythical namesake is out hunting to shoot me down with his bow and arrow.

5 men and 2 lessons

2008-12-03T12:57:00.001+05:30

Times of India’s Heart Beat Concert that happened last night at the Central Auditorium of the University of Madras featured the very best of the very best - Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivamani, U.Srinivas and Selva Ganesh. To say the very least, what a treat!

I’m not going into the sing-song of praises for the musicians because everybody knows them and their talent. But I can say this: Zakir Hussain’s fingers flow. I mean, they literally flow. Shivamani is insane. U Srinivas is “one of the greatest instrumentalists of all times”, according to Zakir Hussain who said that during the course of the performance. Sivaganesh is nothing short of a genius, for only someone like him can create such an array of beats with one drum. And Shankar Mahadevan’s vocals sound exactly like on the records, I mean, the guy is good!

But as the concert went on, I watched some very interesting things happen on stage that got me thinking about music and musicians. In my experience, I have noticed that almost every human being that plays an instrument really well, or in other words is a musician of some form or another, is a person of humble nature. I don’t understand this, but I sure appreciate it. You know what I mean. If you can wake up a guy or gal from sleep in the middle of the night, and they’re able to 5 minutes of coherent music groggy-eyed, chances are 9 out of 10 that he or she is your “down-to-earth” person. Maybe, all those endless hours of practice and hardships make you refined when you come out on the other side.

Here’s another thing I noticed on stage. During the solo performance of each artist, the remaining 4 had their eyes fixated on the performer and provided him much valuable feedback through hand gestures and mainly just by their body language. You could say that the guy playing was literally drawing energy from the 4 other champions on stage. And this happened in turns with all the 5 under the spotlight at different times in the evening. This brings me to another conclusion. Musicians respect other musicians. Only one instrumentalist knows what goes into the making of the other instrumentalist. When Shivamani stands and applauds for Selva Ganesh, that’s an applause of respect. When I stand up and applaud for Selva Ganesh, that is applause out of hollow excitement and recognition for a man that can play ‘an instrument’. I have absolutely no idea what has gone into the making of this A-class drummer. And so, by the time he gets off stage, my applause for him is gone and I’m now excited to clap for the next guy. But when Shivamani claps for Selva Ganesh and viceversa, there’s mutual respect in it. And I think, that’s a healthy lesson we can take and apply it in our lives and to the people that we come in contact with – recognizing and applauding for people’s talents, irrespective of what it is and how much we like it.

A short lunch break

2008-11-14T16:24:00.002+05:30

There was this kid back in high school. He was the only one in our group of 8 that used to carry a ‘short break’ (I mean that lame 10 minutes break that we got in school that seemed to serve no apparent purpose). The rest of us ate our lunch in the short break and played terrace football in the lunch break. It came as no surprise then that this kid would turn up for the last 5 minutes of the football game in the lunch hour and end up being the goal keeper.

I say this for a couple of reasons. If you look back at school days, there were always these few odd people whose lunch habits were bewildering and fascinating.

So this kid that I mentioned earlier (the short break kid) – on one particular day opened his box for the short break. There were potato chips in it. But there was chocolate cream sticking on the walls of the box. We wondered how chocolate cream came out of salt chips. And then he clarified that he had got a chocolate pastry the previous day.

There was this other kid whose Mum used to pack 2 rotis in the first tiifin box, 2 rotis in the middle tiffin box and yummy Ladies Finger (pun intended) in the third dabba. The chap would munch up the 4 rotis dry and run it down with water in ten minutes of the short break. In the lunch break he would eat the ladies finger palya.Whoa! Call it a strategy.

Kid number 3 used to bring one sweet, one pastry and ONE CHIP for short break. And a spoon to eat them with. Lol!

But my pick of the lot is the kid number 4. Kid no.4’s mom used to pack the three-storeyed-tiffin-carrier and send it by lunch time through the ‘Automan’. This kid would pick up his basket and run up to the class and lay it out on his table. And this is what he found on some days: Top box- Tomato rice. Middle Box- Tomato rice. Last Box- Tomato Rice. And he would wipe them all clean without complaining! There’s a winner.

Well, as for the rest us, we played terrace football.

Day 4

2008-11-10T15:59:00.003+05:30

Here's one for the road:

Question:

Chinese restaurants in India:

1) Are a poor excuse for chinese restraunts.

2) Get waiters from NE India and fool the customers into believing these guys are actually from China.

3) Serve a special Chinese dish called Gobi Manchurian that the Chinese aren't aware of.

4) Serve fortune cookies only to guests who have an eye in the forehead.

5) What a gas-bag of options are these?

Winners

2008-11-10T15:41:00.003+05:30

Heya!

After the first three takes of MCQs, the board has announced in a press release as under:

Part ONE: For the event Titled 'MCQ's' featured on the 27th of October, the reseults are:

Third Place: Shorty, for her x-ray vision.

Second Place: Aditya, for his dig at the sex-transmutation.

First Place: Akshay Vaidhyan a.k.a atvaidian, for getting the answer bang-on-target.

Special note
Cheato: Nice try, but better luck next time.

Part TWO:
Your board hereby announces the results for part 2 of MCQs titled 'Day 2'.

First Place: Cheato, for commendable humor.

Right answer: d.

Part THREE
MCQ # 3, published here on the 7th day of the eleventh month (and hour) proclaims the winner as:

Third Place: Cheato.

Second Place: Daily Milk

First Place: Games

Correct answer: Option 3.
(Games == Gems) and (Daily Milk == Dairy Milk)

Have a safe trip back home.
Sd
Chairman of the board.

Day 3

2008-11-07T09:54:00.002+05:30

'Games' and 'Daily Milk' are:

1) Essential for kids.
2) Indispensable necessities of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment.
3) Duplicate brands of a famous Chocolate manufacturer.
4) Pseudonyms of President Hussien Obama's Secret Service Chiefs.

Day 2

2008-11-06T17:19:00.003+05:30

Here's the next one (sorry for the 10 days gap)... I know, no one really noticed it. Not even me :)

MCQ 2: Laughing Buddha is closely related to which celebrity?

1) Yukta Mookhey

2) Ato Boldon

3) Hobbes(the Tiger)

4) The guy who featured twice in the obituary column.

(Please justify your option)

MCQ's

2008-10-27T10:02:00.003+05:30

and if i hadn't bought that (THAT) cup of coffee at Kallmane Coffee Shop, I doubt if this post (series of posts) would have happened. so, here's the deal folks: Everyday (ok, as often as I humanly can) epxpect to find one lame/bizzaro question in this blog. There'll be four options to it.

Leave your choice as a comment.The board will compile the results and declare the winner soon.

So here goes:

Q: Why is that idiot wearing sunglasses INSIDE the coffee shop?

A: 1. He's an idiot.
2. He's hiding his red eyes.
3. He's just bought them.
4. It's actually a She. Look closer.

(Pick the closest answer.)

The Gratitude Rock

2008-09-19T12:30:00.003+05:30

Try this:

Pick up a small stone or a pebble. Clean it and let it dry completely. Carry this stone around with you where ever you go. For men, let it remain in your pocket throughout the day, and when you retire for the night, leave it on your desk along with the wallet, keys and the hand-kerchief. Ladies, it can remain in your bag. But take it out every night, and put it back in the next morning.

This is called the ‘Gratitude Rock’, and this technique has been featured in the movie The Secret. Every time you see the rock or feel it with your hands, just say this to yourself: “I thank the Universe for giving me _____”. If there is something that you’re missing in your life at this point in time, fill that in the blank. It could be as simple as “I thank the Universe for giving me a good night’s sleep” (which is something that I have been saying a lot lately!) or “I thank the Universe for giving me a stress free day” or “I thank the Universe for giving me a triple frappaccino latte with double cinnamon shot”. Ask for anything. And sooner or later, you will see yourself attracting it. Gratitude works well with anything in life. This is a law of the universe.

‘Focus’ is the next key word. Always be specific in what you ask the universe for, and focus on it in your mind. And that evokes another great law: What you focus on is what you get. If your want to be healthy, thank the universe for granting you good health. If it’s money that you need, every time you touch the gratitude rock, thank the universe for giving you an abundance of money. But do it regularly and consistently with focus. To burn a piece of paper, it takes a magnifying glass to remain in one position and focus the sun’s rays on to the paper. Obviously, nothing much is going to happen if you wave around the magnifying glass. Why? Focused attention ALWAYS delivers, but when executed with a sense of gratitude.

This might be heavy philosophy from someone who’s been writing about coffee and beer and escapades. But then, we all change tracks.

Coming soon: Coffee, beer and escapades.

Throw the shovel - 2

2008-09-15T10:17:00.005+05:30

After a month of going to sleep and getting up feeling like I had been run over by a truck, I had had it. I had a second panic attack as soon as I came into the office one morning. It was just a stroke of fortune that a hospital was right across the road. The Doctor prescribed some chewable pills and I told him that I was headed back to my hometown (Bangalore) for treatment. After being subjected to 13 tests from the head to toe, I was diagnosed with 3 inter-related sleep disorders: parasomnia, bruxism and Excesive Daytime Sleepiness.

I sat down with the psychiatrist and told her that I was feeling ‘disconnected’. I joked that it could be a psychological condition called ‘depersonalisation’. She laughed and asked me where I had heard of that term. ‘Bang’ came the reply: Internet. I had been reading up too much on psychology and sleep related stuff on the internet in the past one month. I was just out there looking for some cure; but I now realize, in retrospect that by doing that I was digging myself deeper and deeper into the problem.

Here’s some advice folks: The internet comes AFTER the doctor. Please do not Google for any health disorder issues on your own and read up random stuff from websites and come to conclusions about it. Lots of us like to perform a self-diagnosis. Bad idea, with the exception of this particular post, of course!

Besides some basic medication, here’s how I’m recovering, and these are generally good practices to follow to steer clear of any crap:

1)A positive approach: If you find yourself digging a pit under your feet with a shovel, what’s the first thing to do if you don’t want to get any deeper? You stop digging and get rid of the shovel. I had been gorging on negative information (the serial bomb blasts, and reading crime reports in newspapers). I understood that the media in general is a very negative source of information. I called the housekeeper at the place where I live and asked him to move the TV out of my room. I replaced my daily dose of news with the Monk who sold his Ferrari. Such books are not for ‘losers’ as many would feel; especially the ones that perceive themselves as floating above any need self improvement.

2)Good nutrition: It is important to have a balanced diet, more importantly at the right times in a day. Add health supplements to it if you want to get ahead faster.

3)Water: A minimum of 10 glasses of water a day (say about 5 liters). Drinking water BEFORE you feel thirsty is a good habit. If you have to ‘quench your thirst’, too late and it’s not happening!

4)Yoga: 30 minutes of basic yoga consisting of Pranayam and simple aasanas done regularly for 21 days can cure any sort of lifestyle issues.

5)Rest: Sleep for 8 hours between the same times each day. Do not sleep in the afternoon. And never, ever watch the TV before going to bed. A glass of warm plain milk can help a lot. Unwind for atleast half hour before bedtime. And eat your dinner an hour and half to two hours before you go to sleep.

But all said and done, nothing can really replace one’s attitude. I read a line recently that went like, the person you are going to be is the person who is made in the face of fear. There are many ways of saying this – you are like a tea bag; your true colour is revealed only when your put in hot water. Or, it’s easier to measure a tree’s length when it flat on the ground than when it’s upright.

I learnt that the outcome of every situation is the way we choose to react to it – either as a victim of the circumstance, or a victor of it. So, in every inch of the statement, it’s true that your problem is not really your problem. My problem was not my sleep disorder. My problem was attitude towards the disorder. With all due respect to the doctors, I like to think that the medical expenses went towards correcting my attitude, which in turn put my health back in place.

It’s all in the head.

Throw the shovel - 1

2008-09-11T15:20:00.002+05:30

I’ve just come out of a sleep disorder called Parasomnia. The purpose of this post isn’t to bore you with my health report; but having been through the ordeal, I understand that this disorder can strike anyone and the reason for it is self-driven; what I mean is that it can happen to anybody simply because of the erratic lifestyles that we lead.

Studies in sleep sciences haven’t really progressed as much as the other branches in medicine, yet we spend almost two-thirds of our life sleeping. There are many types of sleep disorders known (wiki it for more info.), with insomnia being the famed one. However, many others like parasomnia, bruxism,excessive sleep disorder, sleep apnea etc. are equally predominant. I would like this text to sound as a precautionary note to all those who take sleep for granted, like I did.

On the 2nd of August 2008, I woke up to a cup of coffee in the morning. I was on holiday, waiting to report to my new company for work from the following week. I have loved coffee to the point where I have gotten addicted to it. I know many people are. That day, I was running around the city helping a friend of mine who was to leave to the US to finish his shopping. In the merry, I skipped my lunch, had horrible junk food (like I did everyday) and ended up drinking 7 cups of coffee through the course of the day. I am not the person who goes around drinking a lot of water either which in itself contained the seeds to my disorder.

Later that night, I worked on my computer till about 11 and went to bed. I kept tossing and turning in bed feeling uneasy (like many of us do). And then all of a sudden at around 1:30 in the night, I started having difficulty in breathing. My breaths got shallower, my heart started palpitating, my palms started sweating and they turned red, my legs started getting week and jittery – all of a sudden for no apparent reason. This is a condition known as an anxiety/panic attack. It typically happens to people out of a sudden surge of anxiety or fear in crowded places or theatres. I opened the windows to let in some fresh air. I started moving around the house like a mad man just to keep myself diverted from the way I was feeling. I tried distracting myself by turning on some music, but it wouldn’t help. About 20 minutes later, just when I thought I’m going to collapse, I went and woke up my grandparents (I was statying with them). My throat had gone dry, and I ended up drinking 2 litres of water with no difficulty.

After a glass of lemon juice and lots of prayers, I barely managed to go to sleep at around 3 in the night, hoping to get up alive the next day. And I don’t mean to exaggerate on that note.

When I woke up the next morning at around 8, my body was aching, I felt very tired and I realized that I felt kind of ‘disconnected’ from the world. I don’t know if your have felt this, but it’s very difficult to explain what ‘disconnected’ feels like – it’s like your not plugged into the world. It feels like you’re just moving around in a daze, something like a hangover but not exactly that either! It’s a very scary experience and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. One can perform regular activities, but as your say, taking a bath or even walking around, you can sense that ‘something is not feeling normal here’. My heart was still palpitating.

I went to consult with my physician. I walked into his chamber, and tried explaining what had happened the previous night, but I was lost for words literally. He did his test and declared that I was perfectly normal! He asked me if I had exhausted myself recently, and the answer to that was YES! But I have exhausted myself a lot more before and every single time; it doesn’t take more than a couple of hours of decent rest to overcome it. I wasn’t running temperature either. So my Doc prescribed a cough syrup (to act as a sedative) and told me to go sleep ‘properly’. I wish I could!

(to be contd.)

"This is so going into my blog"

2008-07-29T15:39:00.004+05:30

Two men are having a conversation.

1st: I need to buy a watch. Let's go to National Market.
//National Market is the chor bazaar of Bangalore//

2nd: What kind of watch?

1st: A decent one, like a Rado.

2nd: My friend is selling his Rado. Do you want to buy it? It's brand new.

1st: How much is he selling it for?

2nd: 25,000 bucks.

1st: Baalls! My budget is 300 bucks.

2nd: Bhull! For 300 you'll only get a 'Radio' watch in National Market.

1st: You mean, there will also be a radio in that watch.

2nd: Possible! But it'll say 'Radio' on the dial.

1st: (Laughs out loud)

2nd: The shopkeeper will say that a printing mistake has happened. He'll strike out the 'I' and make it Rado and give it to you.

Me: This is so going into my blog!

A round of coffee follows.

(With inputs from !Anoop and !Navneet)

My Grandma and Batman

2008-07-29T15:26:00.007+05:30

I was at my cousin's school last evening to pick her up. Deepika studies in class 5 at Poorna Pragnya Education Center (P.P.E.C, often referred to as Poori Palya Eating Centre by rival school goers!). As she came out of the school gate and we made our way home, I got remembering of my school days in the early and mid 90's. And especially since I caught up with The Dark Knight later that evening, I couldn't help but thinking of the early days of the Caped Crusader as well.

I dedicate this post, firstly to my Grandma; the most light hearted soul on this side of the earth and to her noble idea that incomes must not be taxed. She was educated up to class 3. I think she would have done well in the finance ministry.

Secondly, to all those who went to school in the 90's; especially the twenty year olds. This text is intended to take you down memory lane.

And thirdly, to Star Plus who made living for school kids worthwhile between 4:30 pm and 6 pm on weekdays in the last decade of the twentieth century.

Narse Gowda would pull up the auto in front of no. 6 'B' street Sirur Park Road Sheshadripuram at 330 every evening. After ensuring that the shoes and socks were carelessly thrown in the corner, and some grub, a round of cricket would follow in the 10 ft by 15 ft area compound. Yes, one of those places where the minimum score always ran into 3 digits. But all action would seize at 2 minutes to 430 only to be resumed later.

My grandma would fix a huge glass of Bournvita and I would turn on Star Plus for the first show of the evening – Small Wonder. She would sit and watch the show along with me even when she didn't understand a word of what was being said. I translated the dialogues for her; even to this day I can vividly remember “Vicky” the Robot, Jamie, the Dawsons and Harriet. Close your eyes and I'm sure you'll hear a soft voice in your head singing the jingle “She's a small wonder!”

By now, with the chocolate milk in my glass missing, we would move on to slot 2 of the evening – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The four heroes – Raphaelo, Donotello, Michaellangelo and Leonardo and their Rat Master (I can't remember his name). Boy! Were they good! Close your eyes again and your sure to hear the jingle of the intro song. I really can't remember many of the plots from the series, but it did leave a mark that I remember the show to this day.

Show no. 3 for the evening was Batman. But this wasn't starring Christian Bale. This was the Batman with Robin (before the days when the word 'gay' was thrown around). This was the Batman that drove the Bat mobile through the bushes that concealed his hideout. All the fight sequences were punctuated with Biffs!, Pows! And Bams!Kapaow!. Batman carried everything he ever needed in his belt. Bruce Vain lived in a Victorian style Mansion above the hideout, not in a plush penthouse like billionaire head of the Wayne empire. That is where the library stack gave way to reveal the 2 pillars that Batman and Robin slid down to their den. The Mayor of Gotham City pressed the black button on the Red Telephone to call for the Superhero and the candy like Boy-wonder. The series where the villains' sidekicks could be replaced by a stack of cards very simply because the odds were always stacked against them. Every alternate episode ended with the good guys being trapped and battling for life and a closing message would flash: “Can Batman survive the horrible trap of the Joker? Can the Joker have the last laugh? Stay tuned.” No points for guessing who had the last laugh the next day.

It was serious affair for a 10 year old back then. I would watch the series like there was no tomorrow. My Grandma would suspend all her household chores to watch Batman. And she would follow the tale with translation from her grandson. That was the age of simplicity. Now, in a multiplex, the Dark Knight is shown in dark light. He loses several battles with the Joker, before getting the better of him. He still womanizes though, and his gadgets have gotten cooler. The plot is complex, the sounds are louder and you'll have to make prior reservations to get a seat in the hall. It's no longer fun viewing for a class 5 kid and his grandma. I doubt if I'll be able to explain even 10 % of the movie to her, and that provided she agrees to come and watch the show in a multiplex hall for the first time ever in her life. This is the age of pseudo simplicity.

Testified

2008-07-19T15:47:00.003+05:30

Last Saturday was a quiz for all the trainees of the Murugappa Group at Dare House, Parrys Corner in Chennai. Mr. Austin Anandkumar was the quiz master and he had quite a couple of good ones under his sleeve. Here are a few:

1) What is the origin of the word 'testify' (as in to testify in the court of law?)

A: It comes from the word 'testis'. In the earlier days, men who walked behind the box swore on their testis to speak the truth and nothing but the truth. Yewh!Scary thought if he lied.

2) What kind of a magazine is referred to as a 'Top of the Shelf magazine?'

A:) Adult magazines are called Top of the Shelf because they are out of visibility for children.

can't think of more ... append if wish to.

House hunted

2008-07-18T12:59:00.004+05:30

Many of my age group are just stepping into the The Great Indian Workforce. Housing for young kids like us is a real challenge. We are, as I see, not yet there to make a down payment and pick up a property to pay EMIs yet. We make good money to pay some reasonable rent. We are picky and choosy about whom we live with. We want to live independently and 'live it our way'. Food is important, but not as much as unwinding after a tiring week's work. For some of us, our private space is far more necessary than saving on those couple of thousands.

As I've been house hunting in Chennai for about 3 days now, I see that rentals have gone through the roof here for no apparent reason. Most of the houses that are now flying off the shelf didn't have takers a year ago, or maybe even 8 months ago. In 2007, houses that cost 2K are going for a bargain rent of 5k today. All this despite the fact the starting incomes have actually dipped. Work out the economics and it will show you that the situation is bizarre.

I responded to an ad for a single BHK house in Central Chennai (close to my work place in Nandanam). When I did end up at the location, I found the house to be well located, as in the approach road being tidy (which is a rarity here; no offence). The owner was a courteous gentleman who woke up from a relaxing siesta to show me the house. It was a cute little thing just right for a single person. I loved it. I could 'see' myself 'living' there. The house was 7 minutes walk to my office. It had a little hall, a cute little kitchen to fix the dishes and a small room. "Perfect!" I thought for a minute and decided to take it. I paid the owner a token of Rs 101 and told him I would arrange for the advance in 2 days time for which the gentleman kindly consented.

I came to my aunt' place with a sense of achievement. My first real estate deal was just finalised; it was a rental one, but a deal is a deal! I called on my mom to tell her that I had booked the place. Later in the evening as I sat discussing the place with my aunt, something hit me.

The house I was going to be living in had no windows. Not one. It dawned on me that I'd be spending the next couple of years in a box. And I don't plan to befriend Claustrophobia.

This morning, I called the owner and cancelled. At least, you want good cross ventilation in the house you live in. Coming to think of it, when the owner opened the door of the house for me to see, it was pitch dark as a burrow at 3 in the afternoon. As he turned on the lights, the darkness went out of the door along with my common sense.

In case your hunting for houses, I would suggest you to go with a prepared checklist of things your looking for in it. It makes life easier.

Corporate Baby

2008-07-11T17:01:00.005+05:30

Stepping out of college into the corporate world can be a harrowing and fun experience. I certainly wish you noticed the oxymoron in the previous line. As I was getting ready to leave for Chennai to start work, my Mom went into her concern-for-her-little-boy mode and told me that it was now time for me to start building my own umbrella. Apparently, I had been living under the shade of the umbrella that she had built all these years (and boy was that comfortable!). And now, it was my turn.

The Umbrella could mean a whole lot of things. Initially I was narrow minded enough to assume that the Umbrella was one of money. And Money being one of my favourite subjects, I got out a pen and paper and started charting out an 'investment plan' in the dark. But as I look back to grasp the bigger picture behind the advice, I certainly understand that it's more to do with one's reputation, law abidance (and talking of which, rules are certainly meant to be followed) and mapping out a bigger picture for oneself rather than just keeping up with the Joneses; or Kumar's if you're in our country.

I'm told by my experienced colleagues at work that you need to be politically correct in the Corporate world. Back biting and judging can backfire and cause some serious damage, I'm told. Engineers might want to test it and confirm it for themselves. But I'm willing to take my colleagues' advice at face value. A corporate baby has a lot learn and the best way to do it: Don't touch the fire if you're told it's hot. I mean, listen and trust experience.

But yes the food, coffee and the glamour is good. I'm not too sure of the timings!

A Gate-a-way.

2008-07-05T14:37:00.001+05:30

It's been almost a week now since the celebrated Chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates stepped down from office. As an aspiring entrepreneur myself, I have always kept my ears open to the words that spring out of his mouth every now and then. Like many great men of the previous centuries whose words continue to be quoted long after they're gone, Gates will be be no exception.

There's little that remains unsaid of his scholastic, professional and financial genius; and Blogger wouldn't bail me out if I were jailed for repeating it. For a couple of days now, I have been keeping myself busy with Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers. An interesting incidence that points out repeatedly in this book, and even as History has put into spotlight: there are always the theorists, and there are the practical men. Theorists will 'study' patterns and trends and show light into the way of the future. That is how consultants have always earned their bread and butter in any field. No one better than Peter Drucker in Management Circles and futurist Alvin Tofler pop up into my head here. I haven't read of much of Drucker myself; but the number of volumes that carry his name on the cover page across the book shelves of the world speak for themselves of the guru. I personally adore, respect, follow and worship Alvin Tofler. Call this clan as Toflerians, but if the previous sentence made you want to jump out of the window for lack of comprehension, I would at least urge you to read The Third Wave (one of the most influential books of the last century) before doing so. But Bill Gates would figure ahead of the two gentlemen. Having opened the doors of the information age, he has always operated ahead of the rest of the world by at least 5 to 10 years. What does that mean?

The 5 to 10 years window is not necessarily in the sense of a visionary. Most men/women that have achieved anything significant in life have all been visionaries. Bill Gates, as of today, can say what exactly technology will look like in some years from now. Picture this as the look out in a ship standing atop the sails and warning people on the deck know of what lies ahead. And the man is pin point accurate to what he says. Having started out as a programmer, he went on to play a sales man pitching the world to buy into his software, then built a strong business system and provided super leadership. Besides this, he's donned on other caps as a successful investor. an economist (he's a regular face at the World Economic Forum in Davos annually), a futurist, a writer and more recently as a philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far bigger than the Rockefellers' or the Fords'. In charity size does not matter, but then, it matters.

He deserves all the accolades that have been bestowed on him. Thanks Bill for the new age! I'm proud to have lived on this earth at a time that he did.

The Price Sensitive Indian Consumer

2008-06-25T18:33:00.002+05:30

Week before last, within 2 hours of the Congress announcing a hike in fuel prices, 4 filling stations inside a circle of one km around Malleswaram circle were packed with cars and bikes lining up in huge numbers to get their tanks full. My friend was one amongst them, having filled in 11 liters of petrol into his bike. At five bucks a ltr, he saved around 55 to 60 bucks. The guys with the cars must have done a little more.

This is a classic example of the price sensitive Indian consumer. Every Sunday, Big Bazaar runs a 5% off sale on their products, and they're forced to bring in cops to manage the crowd. The telecoms sector is probably the best example of price sensitivity. The Indian telecoms market is said to be the most competitive in the world. Now, that's a little bizarre, given a couple of things: an incredibly huge consumer base, just 7 to 8 operators and low market penetration compared to a lot of other markets. But in this business, pricing is king and all else can come later. Brand consciousness is unknown. People are ready to chuck their sim card if there's another operator offering local calls at 20 paise lesser per minute.

The same is true for the airline biz. Airline search engines thrive on the price sensitivity factor. Ever wondered why yatra.com has the words 'lowest fare' very conspicuously displayed on its page? The vast majority of the flying population doesn't care which airline is taking them, as long as they're getting the best price.

Over the years, we've built up price-sensetiveness into our DNA. But with the yo! generation seeing some pretty heavy numbers on their pay checks, branding might just be the next answer on the drawing boards of several corporations. If pricing were still to remain the detrimental factor, companies might as well replace their MBAs with monkeys.

On a Kaalej

2008-06-10T17:06:00.001+05:30

Towards the last week of my college days, I went around the place saying 'This is the end of my formal education'. Anyone who heard this reacted in either of these 2 ways: a) They'd give a shaky nervous laugh and stop it at that or b) They'd shoot back with 'So, you won't be studying any further?'

To the second reaction, I would say 'No, I won't be studying for another formal degree.' From that reply, the talk would spiral into the mis-consequences of my irrational decision. Everyone's doing it; so how can you afford not to? All along, we have learnt to take a pro-Napoleanic no-nonsense view towards higher education, and this is true for most of us. But that is not the point of the discussion here. It is in my interest to take something that the reader already knows about college and package it around in a never before seen wrapping.

A new perspective
At the Fresher’s orientation in the Mechanical Engineering Department where I studied at NIT Hamirpur, the Head walked up on stage and said to all of us present there: “How many of you ended up here by choice? And how many came here by chance?” For the first time, we understood the difference between the two C-words.

In engineering admission circles, there is a dogma that one branch of engineering is 'better' than another. What with the definition of 'better' being so loose, it took a while to realise that the world needed both windows and bridges. And all of a sudden things began making more sense. Typically, an Indian kid gets into college largely due to pressure (like IITian writer Chetan Bhagat says). And as we know very well, what is being taught inside classrooms is rather uni-dimensional. When a friend of mine moved into the hostel at 18 years of age, his dad said to him “This is where you will become man from a boy”. For starters, he shed off his baby moustache and the rest of the story was true to the last word. My mother paid for my college. Like most parents who pay for their child's education, expectations were all always there. And like a dutiful son, I wished to carry out my mother's dreams to the best of my ability. But as my student years rolled on, I realised that the tuition fees that were paid for the academics actually gave me little in terms of value addition. It is what wasn't paid for that taught a lot more.

Backpacking to nearby places was favourite pastime. The thrill of getting into a horrible rickety bus and riding along the hilly roads and throwing up thrice in 2 hours was good fun! Well, not really the puking part, but the rest of it was. Settling down in cheap stinky rooms to save cash to try English cigars that cost a bomb were all a part of an experience I call unconventional education. Shoe-string travel would never be that much fun ever again. Keeping 'udhar' with the canteen wala and avoiding him, taking pangaas with seniors and hoping they won't catch you and pulp you, breaking window panes playing football in the corridors, asking for money from home each time and clearing out last time's debts with it; and yet managing to keep enough cash to buy a bottle of RS for the weekend are reasons to experience college life. You learn almost all the technical know-how they teach you in the classes almost anywhere, But there aren't very many places to experience the stuff you just read about.

Continuing education Post College
Everyone wants to get ahead at the end of the day, and wants to get there soon. Many of us are ambitious, a few are in hot water and we need to get out of it soon. Some just want to prove a point to somebody that didn't believe in them. A college degree is very important. But if truth be told, it is nothing more than a sheepskin. You might learn the technical stuff in there, but the skill set necessary to lead a fulfilling life will never be taught at school. If you are fortunate enough, there might be a great mentor in a teacher willing to help you out. But that's if you are fortunate.

Understanding humans, gathering success principles, effective living, learning ways to handle money, public issues, charity, growing mentally and spiritually and even maintain a stress free and a healthy life style are the least of which one would need to go through life and they were never even discussed at college or school. Instead we learnt math, sociology and thermodynamics. Giving back to the family that supported you, the society that defined you, the alma mater that gave you an identity, giving to a cause you believe in or to the people that really need it: all of this encompasses continuing education. There are hundreds of places imparting higher education. Few schools, if not none, impart continuing education.

Saying “My formal education ends now” is just a more radical way of saying “my continuing education begins now”.

Go to college, but get out of there soon!

Courtesy

2008-05-11T12:47:00.004+05:30

Week before last, I was at the bank. The lady behind the counter was a fabulous person; always smiling and really helpful. Next to me at the counter was another woman who was there to transfer money to her relatives in a neighboring district. She was the typical villager who worked in the field all day, and she was roughly in her late 40's.

Since she didn't know the details of the account fully, she was facing trouble completing her work. But of course, the banker woman, being the helpful soul she was made this woman's life easy by going out of her way to arrange for information that she could have very well dismissed as being beyond the scope of her job. The two women spoke in pahadi (the local dialect of the hills). After a couple of minutes of going back and forth, the task at hand was finished. I stood there watching as the villager woman handed the currency notes to the banker lady. And just she was about to walk away, the villager stopped and looked at the banker and said : Thank you. I was stunned. So was the banker across the counter. She asked her customer to repeat what she said. And smiling, with her lips concealing her teeth, she repeated: Thank you.

Courtesy doesn't demand much time. It is something as small as a Thank you to someone who doesn't expect to be thanked. If a woman with nil education knows this, it is embarrassing for us who hold fancy degrees to somehow think that we are above all of this. Do I say I was touched by the woman's act? Yes. But I learned a valuable lesson that day - Be courteous even to strangers.

A closing note

2008-05-08T11:57:00.003+05:30

Stereotype demands me to resume blogging with a post on the senti-mity (I just coined the word) of leaving college. I'd have to be brain-dead to do that. So I thought I would give a little antithesis on the end of college and what's running through my mind at this point in time.

Without a whiff of a doubt these 4 years have been the best years so far, having taken away the cake, the icing and the little red cherry on top. But then, like I mentioned in one of my early early posts, this place is too rich that it gets to you after a while; kind of like the Death by Chocolate at Corner House. I like this place too much that it's now time for me to get out of here, go all the way around and come back to help it grow bigger and better (if that's making any sense).

And for the record, I showed Nagraj the middle finger. May he lead a long life. Having the last laugh is good, since you can laugh louder and longer than you would normally.

But as of now, it's time to play mentor to some fabulously promising people (Iti, I know you're reading this!)

Jaago NIT

2008-04-10T21:11:00.003+05:30

Jaago NIT is a students' campaign for a better future.

This movement aims to fulfil two motives:
1) To strengthen student-alumni ties and hence improve the value of NIT Hamirpur's brand in
the outside world.
2) To make ourselves (the students) more accountable for our actions.

A Students' Parliament is being organised on Tuesday, 15th of April at the conference hall of the Auditorium between 430 pm and 630 pm.Entry for students only. Participants in the parliament are free to raise any issue and talk about anything of anything of anything.

The only criteria for participation is write out your views on this question:
“If resources (like money, time or contacts) are not a problem in the future, what/how would you
like to contribute to this institute as an alumnus?”

Send it in to arjunbs@gmail.com or abhinavjogi@gmail.com

Full House

2008-04-09T22:16:00.003+05:30

Here's hostel life for you:

Day before last, 5 guys get together in a room on B-top.

Reason: Major Project.

5 minutes later: Project chucked. A round of Tambola is in (one of them just remembers that he's still got unused tickets from the cul-fest).

One announcer and 4 players.

Prizes:

Jaldi 5: A spray of Axe deo on your underarm.

Top/middle/bottom row: A spoonful of Boost.

Four corners: A sachet of Nescafe Cappuccino.

Full House: A photograph with the basketball champions' trophy.

Hostel life is great.

Top 12 things I would do, if I were to start over again

2008-04-06T02:16:00.004+05:30

With less than a month to go before I leave this place, I thought it is but right that I share my ideas on what would be some of the things I would do differently if I were to start all over again from 1st year at NIT-H.

12) I would care less about what others thought of me and more about what I wanted for myself.

11) I would treat my batch-mates as seniors and my juniors as batch-mates. I would stay away from the 'sir/maam' culture and would encourage people calling me by my first name instead (a nick would be far more welcome!).

10) I would get a girlfriend who lives in PGH. Not long distances. Not long phone calls. But a fabulous relationship with a girl that I can one day look back and say that “Yes! she was my college sweetheart.”. Life here is just so different when you have a partner, as against when you don't have one.

9) Exercise would be a part of my daily schedule.

8) I would work on improving my spoken and written English all the time.

7) I would read a lot more books than I did in my field of interest (outside of academics).

6) I would be obsessed about participating in national level events, especially quizzes, and I would focus on becoming a top of the notch business quizzer.

5) I would certainly pick up at least one art form – either singing, dancing, a music instrument or even a new language.

4) I would look for every opportunity to be an organiser of an event and I would do my part religiously.

3) I would travel around more often and see more places.

2) I would treat my projects seriously. I would focus on interning with an industry,a foreign university and a multi-national bank respectively in each of my three summers.

and the number one:

1) I would find the senior in the final year batch that I would want to model myself after and I would work very closely with him/her.

Notes from the Tycoons Journal – P4

2008-04-04T21:39:00.003+05:30

Day 3 and final day at camp. We head out to an hour long yoga session amidst the peace the hills always offer. By the time the heat of the sun is out, Satya and the Men erect a white board and we undergo a personality self-analysis. Hmmm, somehow, I'm just not too convinced at the end of it. The personality test says that I'm the kind of person who blames everything on himself. Well, I don't quite look at it that way; my belief is that I am responsible for the happenings in my life because of the choices I make each day. But then, what do I know!

Brunch is yummy. We click a couple of last minute keepsake pictures at the tent. And by noon, the whole troop empties the valley and marches towards the three buses that are waiting to take us back to the Capital.

7 hours later.

After battling the heavy evening traffic in Delhi, we reach Gurgaon at around 9 at night. We drive into the MDI campus (across the road from the Bata building). This will be our home for the next couple of days. After dinner that night, I head to room no. 218. Rohit Begwani is my roomie. Namma Bengaluru huduga. End of day.