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.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Goodwill Learning
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
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
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Putting an end to the paranormal
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.
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.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Controlled power cuts: voices for
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 ..
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 ..
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Controlled power cuts
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?
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?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Fights Fought: 50. Clash
One of the greatest conspiracies of the 20th 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
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 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.
Monday, February 15, 2010
When Sting came to town
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)