If only people took me seriously

The question on God

2012-01-22T03:15:00.000-08:00

The Saints know whether God exists or not. The intelligent have been trying to find out the answer. The wise know that it does not matter.

For the intelligent, the question about God's existence is a tool to satisfy their curiosity. It is a mental exercise. They are obsessed with unanswered questions, and this is the most challenging of all puzzles. It will remain so for the analytical, intelligent populace, because the answer cannot be found mathematically. You can find an answer to creation perhaps, maybe to the enigma of death as well, but not to God. The answer does not lie in science. It can be had only from total surrender, which is a method they will not try. You have to believe first to find, and not vice versa. Even if the intelligent get a glimpse of the divine, they are likely to attribute it to hypnosis or psychotropic substances. The less cynic would link it to an unexplained chemical imbalance in the brain.

The best that an intelligent man can do perhaps is to reach as close as Einstein, who in his later stage was trying to prove God's existence. Einstein died before he could find the answer, but even if he had lived for another fifty years, his efforts would have been in vain. That is simply not the path.

The pursuit of the intelligent to find God is born from curiosity, and is killed by it. Now, curiosity is a survival tool, in-built in our genes, being most pronounced during the early formative years. However, the problem starts when we grow up, and hard-to-answer questions are difficult to find. You have to feed curiosity to keep it alive, which seems such an important thing to do. After all, curiosity has sustained you for so many years, you just cannot let it wither away. So, man turns to varied sources - How much does my neighbour earn? Who is Shahid Kapur going around with? The answers are no longer crucial to survival, but should be asked just to keep the faculty alive.

The man who believes himself to be higher on the intellectual plane goes for the big ones. These questions are too shallow, requiring no application of mind, just good contacts or access to the right databases. The bigger one are those that can be argued, discussed ad infinitum - who created the universe, or whether God exists or not? Over a period of time, the question becomes an aid in never trying to search for God at all.

For the saint, the answer is easy. He has surrendered himself to the faith - he has acted before believing. An area for madmen to tread upon, but the most effective in the search of the divine. Then, there are people like Gautam Buddha, the wise, who never tell you the answer. It is immaterial. If you want to believe, you can find the answer in anything. Noted Urdu poet Josh Malihabadi put it aptly - "Had God not sent His messengers and His books, the beauty of the morning would have been enough to be proof of His existence". I shall talk more about it later.

Baba Ramdev and the English media

2011-06-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

The way in which the English media has treated the Baba Ramdev campaign can be termed nothing but disgraceful. For one, the choice of words has been inappropriate. The language is bound to remind you of Churchill talking about Gandhiji - half naked, dhoti clad, Brahmin domination etc etc. But the greater flaw is that most of the articles reek of prejudice and irrationality.

Some people have commented that Baba should have stuck to yoga. Why jump into politics? Now, I am quite surprised that while people raise fingers when Baba joins politics, nobody does so when a filmstar jumps into the field. Congressmen who find the idea abhorrent do not find it strange that Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister of India without any political experience. Should a person be eligible to join politics only when 'chooses the stream' as a 20 year old? At least our Constitution does not feel so. Would you have said the same if Narayan Murthy had joined politics?

Another set says that Baba has an empire worth more than Rs 1,100 crore. Well, so what? So has Naveen Jindal. Does it take away his right to protest? You want to enquire further into his assets. Why not start with Maran who has declared assets of less than Rs 2 crore, Subodh Sahai of Rs 1.4 lakhs (Minister of Tourism) and Anand Sharma (Minister of Commerce) at Rs 27,000? (Yes, this is not a typo). Who is more likely to have stashed black money under his carpet?

What is the problem if Baba is rich? He took an indigenous body of knowledge, marketed it well, people benefited from the products and bought more, and the entire process added to the GDP. There is nothing wrong with that as long as he remained on the windy side of the law. We seem to be okay with politicians siphoning away the nation's wealth, but not with a person who makes it to the top by giving a fair bargain to the people.

There is also a large body of journalists who claim that Ramdev is backed by RSS/BJP. Let us say he is. Is RSS a banned organisation? Admittedly, some of its views are archaic. But does that bar it from raising its voice against any misconduct and atrocity of the Government? Was Baba discussing religion on the stage? Has he ever talked about religion in his speeches about black money? Then how does it matter? BJP itself has admitted that the rise of Hazare and Baba demonstrates its failure to act as an effective opposition party. If protest is an unreasonable method of fighting against corruption, then why did not the papers find Hazare's campaign unconstitutional?

Now, even an opponent of Ramdev would not belittle his contribution, that of bringing yoga to the masses, which was previously restricted to a few people who served yoga as an enhancement to aerobic classes. You can probably judge that by a quick survey - begin that by asking how many people used to do 'kapaalbhati' pranayam before Baba came into the picture, although the pranayam comes from our own backyard. That way, he might have done greater social service that half of the MPs who are sitting in the Parliament. Even if he is spearheading the campaign for his political gains, why take a one-sided view?

Sector 14, Gurgaon

2011-05-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I visited Sector 14 after a gap of almost seven years. The place used to be the Connaught Place of Gurgaon till the malls came in. It still has its charm though, and if you are not too keen on brand-focused shopping, but want to have some great street food instead, Sec-14 beats Ambience Mall hands down. To my MDI friends, the update goes as follows:

1. Raju tea stall is still there! This must be longest tenure in the "chai-wala on a movable cart" category. He seems to be doing brisk business, even though the chap has shifted behind Mother Dairy, probably to take advantage of lower rents (these guys must be paying something to the police, wouldn't they?). For the unacquainted, Raju served the best tea within a 2km radius of MDI, especially in the winters, when you could enjoy adrak-elaichi chai lazing on the fence.

2. Om Sweets continues to prosper. The shop is still expensive for students, unless you are hell-bent on having mineral water golgappas.

3. The Calcutta roll shops have multiplied like rabbits, and most of them are also offering burgers now. The roll was okay, but I didn't try the burger, although a robust demand for the snack seemed to exist.

4. The Mallu Gang and Ramanarayana, you were born a little too early. A shop called the "South Store" has commenced operations where you used to get Amritsari Kulchas, and I can tell you, the stuff he doles out is as good as what you would get in Bangalore (It is no Saravana Bhawan though). The owner is an authentic South Indian - I could guess that from his "Sarrr, please have a seat".

5. Chinese corner is still there, but his prices have hit the roof. The American Chopsuey now sells for Rs 85 as compared to Rs 20 in 2002. If I adjust my salary to Chinese-corner-derived-inflation, I have not made much progress. I would rather use the prices of McDonald's Soft-Serve cone to map that. The price of this product is now Rs 10 as against Rs 7 in the year 2000. That translates into a CAGR of 3.6%! I won't be surprised if Sharad Pawar is caught saying "If they can't buy bread, why don't they have Soft-Serve cones instead?"

6. Like most of Gurgaon, there are a lot of Momo shops in Sec-14 now. Considering that half a plate of Momos just cost Rs 15, non-vegetarian students have a cause for celebration now. A little more calculation shows that the price of one momo is just Rs 3 (plate of 5 for Rs 15), which makes them cheaper than golgappas (plate of 6 for Rs 20). By Jove, chicken is cheaper than water now! On another note, you get the best golgappas in Sector-40, where the chap boasts of five different kinds of golgappa pani (information courtesy Ankit Jain). For the best momos, head to Vyaapar Kendra near the Marriot Courtyard (information courtesy Deepak Jotwani).

In case you have explored Sec-14 further, please let me know!

Mosquito Magnet

2011-05-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

While going through the April 2011 issue of HBR, I came across this ingenious product called the Mosquito Magnet. Since mosquitoes use the carbon dioxide, heat and chemicals generated from our body to track us down, the product fools the insects by generating the three artificially, and lures the pests down to the machine, where a vacuum pump sucks them in and leaves them to die from dehydration. Quite clever, if you ask me, because there are no harmful chemicals involved, except the minor amounts of CO2 added to the environment. As to its efficacy, the story goes that when the US Coast Guard Station in the Bahamas became uninhabitable because of the mosquito population in the area, six Mosquito Magnets were deployed. The product managed to capture 1.5 million mosquitoes in six days, which eventually led to the collapse of the colony (by disrupting the insect's life-cycle) and the soldiers lived happily ever after.

Sadly, the device is meant for outdoor use, and is exorbitantly priced at $300 for the cheapest version. I say exorbitantly because of the customer's willingness to pay. I would say its still cheap because one unit can manage an area up to 1 acre, and politicians who are willing to distribute free televisions in their electorates should distribute Mosquito Magnet instead. Five units would suffice for a small village, which would make it malaria, dengue, yellow fever and you-know-the-rest free. In a country where 2 million people suffer from malaria alone every Age standardised DALY from malaria - India fares poorly among the BRICS countries in terms of losing healthy years from the disease. Image via Wikipedia year, and about 200,000 die from it, it is a small price to pay. A good article on the country's malaria situation can be found here, and this one discusses the cost of the disease to the nation.

In any case, gated communities and buildings for the affluent can easily afford the product, and I estimate the per family cost at less than Rs 100 per year. Hmm...let me get in touch with Woodstream, sounds like a decent business idea. The only issue is the supply of propane, which the machine uses to generate its plume of CO2. It would be a great idea if a homegrown genius comes up with a cheaper version that is easier to maintain. In a country where malaria is endemic and dengue is catching up fast, the man would be doing a great social service. Also, as far as the 'outdoor use' problem is concerned, my guess is that most mosquitoes are bred outdoors and land up inside our homes for their meals. If the breeding cycle is disrupted outdoors, there won't be many outside to form a meaningful threat.

This great product, however, teaches us a tragic management lesson. Mosquito Magnet was the brainchild of a company called American Biophysics, and sold like hotcakes on its launch (which coincided with the outbreak of the West Nile virus in the US). The company, unfortunately, was not able to ramp up its production, and when they outsourced it to China, quality dropped drastically. Eventually, the company that was generating $70mn in revenues per annum, was sold to Woodstream for a mere $6mn.

Why the US needs socialism

2011-05-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

Joseph Stiglitz, in a recent article in Vanity Fair, has expressed dismay over the fact that 1% of Americans control 40% of the nation's wealth. While the top 1% has seen its income increase by 18% in the last decade, the rest of America has seen an erosion. United States has long been the global champion for capitalism, so it should not come as a surprise that inequality has only increased over the years, and that in terms of income equality, it fares much poorer than the European countries. But that it ranks at par with Iran and a decadent Russia might raise a few eyebrows.

One wonders if America has evolved into a plutocracy in the last ten years, with the State failing to take any meaningful action against Wall Street, despite its obvious role in precipitating the credit crisis. The explanation is forthcoming from Stiglitz:

"Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent..."

Now, if you think about it, this scenario is improbable in the long run. If 99% of the people are unhappy with the current scheme of things, then they should simply stop voting for the 1%. In a democracy, they can always ask their representatives to change the policy. But this has not happened in the US.

One explanation that I can think of is the country's obsession with "free-market". You take any step against big business and it can stoke age-old fears of socialism. The proponents of free market are quick to come up with doomsday scenarios, stating that any interference by the State would halt all business in the US, which would pull the country into another Great Depression. Then, they talk about the obvious benefits of the 'trickle down effect', which has been succinctly described by Galbraith as "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows".

However, with youth unemployment hovering around 20%, I am not sure if the 1% would be able to sustain the lies for long. What US needs, more than GDP growth, is job creation, even if it means lower profits for Corporate America. It is the price they need to pay for a stable social system.

My experience with Economics

2011-05-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

In economics, the majority is always wrong – John Kenneth Galbraith

The first time I opened an Economics book, I had to put it down after reading the first two pages. This was when I was preparing for my CA Foundation exam, and Economics was notorious for bringing the most brilliant of students down on their knees (part of this can be blamed on the CA Institute itself, who has drafted such a drab module that even Amartya Sen would be challenged). Anyway, the next time I picked up the module was on the eve of the examination. Half an hour after grappling with it, I decided to call a friend of mine who topped the subject in school. He heard my problem and gave the usual smirk of the man who knows it all. The chap then proceeded to give a lecture on state finances and the forces of the market, the pros and cons of indirect taxation, and the various kinds of deficits and remedies for the same. “I give up”, I told him after fifteen minutes of patient listening on the other side of the phone. He found this funny, and told me to do it my way then. “It is not an easy subject”, he said, “but don’t give up”.

I had almost resigned to my fate, when I tried to read through what Micro Economics had to offer. The first 3-4 pages of the module were about the origin of the word, and how people had contributed to the body of knowledge over the years. Nothing interesting so far. Then, Micro economics proposed that if you raise the price of a commodity, there would be less demand for it. So, if you are selling 8 oranges for Rs 10 each, you would sell only 8 if you raise the price to Rs 12. That such a thing should be called a law, and taught to a person after he has walked the earth for twenty years seemed heresy to me. Somebody actually got world fame for this?

The next thing they had to say was something more subtle. If you increase the price of a commodity, its supply would increase. In the next few pages, the demand curves were moved up Image via Wikipediaand down, sometimes the supply curve was superimposed on them, and sometimes they used it to calculate what they call price elasticity. Now price elasticity is nothing but how does the demand for a commodity change with respect to changes in price. To any man who has studied mathematics, this is simply dy/dx. I realised that people often earn a lot of money and fame in this world just by presenting simple facts in a complex manner. And if you can apply mathematics to any body of knowledge, you can go very far.

The next few pages talked about the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. You can go anywhere in India, and an Economics professor with always explain this by stating that the second Rasgulla/Gulabjamun that you consume, does not give as much pleasure as the first. This is all there is to this law. You can derive the corollaries intuitively. The final thing that Micro Economics had to offer was Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. This, I agree, was something original, although partly derived from the Rasgulla law (the summary of the law is that as after a point, as you go on increasing an input (out of several) in a production process, the output per unit of input would go on decreasing progressively. So, say after 5 hours of work, every additional hour that a labourer puts in would yield lower returns, maybe because he’s getting tired. This law partly explains why Economics is called the dismal science, as after a point of time, the production of everything would reach its peak, while population would go on exploding.)

Anyway, I had a good understanding by now, and I managed to attempt about 60 marks out of 100 in the examination. I got 40-odd marks eventually, just close to passing. Later on in life, I had my encounter with Economics again, and I managed to get two A’s and one C. Very volatile I agree, but the C was in macro economics, which continues to be my Achilles Heel. The only comforting factor being that even Ben Bernanke does not seem to have got it correctly.

Will kill for food

2011-05-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

The world is just one poor harvest away from chaos
- Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute

Some time ago on this blog I had mentioned that World War IV might be fought for food. Things have not come to such yet, but civil upheavals due to food shortages have already been witnessed in Tunisia, Egypt and a host of other countries in Africa and West Asia.

Food riots, however, are not a new phenomenon in the region, and 2008 itself saw food riots in 25 countries, most of which were in Africa. In the 1960s, the governments in the African region had bought peace by subsidising food prices, but the system collapsed in 1980s, after these countries were forced to adopt market policies laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The decontrol of prices back then had led to "bread riots" in Algeria and Jordan, which eventually forced the Algerian government to introduce multiparty democracy in 1988. The situation is incendiary once more after 20 years, with incidents of food driven immolation reported from Algeria, Eqypt and Mauritania. The governments have responded to the current situation by increasing subsidies on wheat and reduction of taxes on food, but the peace might not last long.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has said that sugar and wheat prices are at their highest levels since documentation of the prices started in 1990. Global wheat output has been badly hit by flooding in Australia and Pakistan, and even countries like Russia and China are thinking of importing large quantities of food-grain. This may not leave much on the table for poorer countries of West Asia and Africa, or they might be able to buy too less with their weak finances.

We might see food prices softening for brief periods, but the long term trend clearly points upwards, as yields are scarcely catching up with population growth. Global warming is not helping things either, as every one-degree rise in normal temperature causes a 10 per cent decline in yields. Weather extremes caused by warming, such as the flooding in Australia, might pose an even greater risk in the future, when the global food supply and demand is precariously balanced.

I see three scenarios emerging in the future. One scenario could be where the rich of the world (including governments) dole out free food to the poor as a bargain for security. Another when there is absolute anarchy, when man is reduced to the state of an animal, going out to scavenge for food at the dawn of every new day. The third could be where the militarily powerful nations take control of the food baskets of the world. Or worse, we could see the army break into factions, with millions of "food mercenaries" for sale. People who will kill for food.

The costliest man in the world

2011-05-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

While the Americans have burst into celebrations after the assassination of Osama (what is a better word than assassination?), few people seem to have realised that USD 1.2 trillion has been spent in finding a man who would have been dead anyway in another ten years. Now, to put things in perspective, the annual GDP (2009) of the US, and its external debt is close to $14 trillion. So, you could have effectively used the $3900 that every American citizen has shelled out for catching hold of Osama to repay 10% of the country's external debt, or its entire current account deficit. However, I do agree that most Americans would be more than happy to donate this amount for the 'War on terror', considering that they can always print more money to take care of the rest. Not many Indians would be ready to partake of about Rs 2 lakhs per person to find and kill Dawood Ibrahim.

For Indians, even if you consider 1% of the amount being directly allocated to Osama's head, the man was worth Rs 54,000 crores. Had I been Osama, I would have made a dozen or so video tapes deploring US, each with a little makeup showing me little older, then popped a box of sleeping pills, and asked my close followers to burn my dead body. The videos would have been broadcast every two years on Al-Jazeera in serial order, and the current generation of the US Army would have spent its entire life combing the desolate regions of Afghanistan, looking for a man long dead and gone.

Summer Vacations

2011-05-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

Finally people have got it right. Tisca Chopra was on TV the other day, promoting a program targeted for children. The first thing she said was “I miss my school days”. Before I could counter with my usual objection, she added “Not the school days, but the vacations actually.” That’s right. That is what we miss the most. The summer vacations that seemed to stretch for years, and yet always felt inadequate when they ended, and the winter vacations, which though short, provided the invaluable freedom of venturing outside at any time of the day. The vacations after the first term exams were a big disappointment, except for cousins from the East, who benefited from the fortnight long Durga Puja holidays.

If the idea of summer vacations was applicable throughout life, then at this time, I would have been resting in my home, sipping a chilled glass of ‘Panna’. I still do find children coming out of their homes in droves by five in the evening (by when it is still quite hot by adult standards), and proceeding to play in the sports area. Sadly, the quaint games of ‘Oonch neech’ and ‘Thallam thalli’ seem to be dead now (the latter being my favourite). But when I think of it, these were our last resort, when we ran short of the quorum required for a cricket or football match, with the girls coming to our rescue. The girls were masters in these fabricated-at-home games, and usually came up with lesser known rules when they ended up on the losing side. We had our revenge when we promptly abandoned them as soon as we had enough numbers to start a cricket match. The other threat to cricket came from boys who owned the cricket bat, and they generally ended up batting twice or thrice, depending on how hard they could push the bargain. The threat was even greater when these blue-eyed boys ended up in the team of a habitual ‘cheater-cock’, and assumed gigantic proportions when such a team ended up batting first. In the latter case, the match rested on a heap of gunpowder, and served as an early lesson in Gandhian thought for us – to withstand the harshest of behaviour with a smile. What surprises me is that we never had enough money to own more than one bat among the ten-odd boys who were regular contenders for cricket. As a result, the lone bat used to be treated something like a much-awaited male child in a family of landowners.

The other thing that surprises me is that we used to venture out into the sun when the mercury was well over forty, and there was never a case of dehydration reported from our fraternity, as far as I can recall. What is more surprising is that despite filling ourselves up from the ramshackle water tank, nobody ever fell ill. On another thought, I do not think contaminated water can put people down who have been bred on ‘chuski’ topped with bright-coloured syrup that looks like radioactive waste. The most dreaded disease was malaria, and if you caught it at the beginning of the vacations, you could bid the rest of the period goodbye. By the time you were healthy enough to run in a field, you found yourselves strapped with the school bag. Luckily, the north Indian summer roasted most of the mosquitoes by June.

Fortunately, during our childhood, the DD people were sufficiently lazy and Rupert Murdoch was busy in other corners of the world. The only afternoon TV show that I remember was Spiderman, and probably “Hum Chaar” on Saturday. I will write more about it some other day.

2010-08-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Just what were the Ramsay brothers thinking when they made all those horror movies? The fraternity churned out about a score of horror films in two decades, and while most of these were scary by 1980s standards, none had a menacing feel like Rosemary's Baby or The Blair Witch Project. But then, I am sure the brothers never took the stuff seriously - serious in the Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski way. I have a vague feeling that whenever a new project was announced, the entire Ramsay family would have packed their bags and left for wherever the Kaali Pahaadi actually was. I mean, if the whole family, Gangu, Shyam, Tulsi, Kumar, was out, why would the ladies stay at home? Ajay Agarwal, who played the demon in a lot of Ramsay movies, seems quite a nice chap, and I would not be surprised if Ajay chacha played sport and carried the kids on his shoulders during the family trips.

Probably the best movie that the Ramsays churned out was 'Purana Mandir' (disclaimer: I have not seen their entire filmography). 'Purana Mandir' also had a humorous side plot, which is possibly the best parody of Sholay that I have seen in my life. With Satish Shah as the villain and Sadashiv Amrapurkar as the suspicious watchman, the film anyway ran the risk of degenerating into a comedy (just like I can never watch The Great Gambler seriously because Utpal Dutt plays the villain). Nevertheless, the director did an excellent job of making you sit at the edge of the seat till Samri comes back to life. You always know that nothing can keep the chap back, but Tulsi Ramsay makes it ohh-so-exciting.

The worst was probably 'Band Darwaza', which, as a friend correctly pointed out, loses its charm because the 'bhoot is always running away from male members of the family'. Incidentally, it is also the lowest rated among their films on IMDB (the highest rated is 'Veerana', which I cannot recall because I preferred to stay under the sheets whenever I saw that movie in childhood.). All I can say is that 'Veerana' is supposed to be excellent, as my brother, a veteran of Hindi horror movies, had the best words for it - "I could not go to the bathroom in the dark for four months after I saw Veerana".

Traffic poetry

2009-03-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Bangalore traffic, I have come up with this poem. Do let me know if it can be called so:

Bad traffic! Slithering, smoke-spewing traffic!
Like a dying dragon, punctured at every rib
Choking like a burning rope!
Directionless, emotionless, spasmodic
Like a mortally wounded multi-headed monster!
Tangled, intertwined, choked
Like serpents in an embrace!

Can be expanded the next time I get stuck in a traffic jam.

The danger of genius

2009-03-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

In Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card comes up with an interesting hypothesis - as a species, mankind ensures its survival by producing geniuses every once in a while. That's the gift of evolution to us. We keep straining ourselves till we produce a genius, who invents the wheel, sets up an empire.

I quite agree with him, as our superiority can only be partially be explained our spectacular thumb, or our high levels of 'intelligence'. We would have survived, I am sure of that, but wouldn't have touched a population of 6.76 billion. Either we would have been wiped out by diseases, or could not have inhabited regions with extreme climates. Or simply, there wouldn't have been adequate food. The world would have been a different place had it not been for the likes of Edward Jenner (smallpox vaccination), Louis Pasteur (germ theory), Tesla (developments in electricity), or of course, Einstein. Forget about television or radio waves, I am sure that more than 95% of us cannot manufacture iron, or glass, without guidance even if these products are an elementary part of our lives.

But I wonder if this theory works in the reverse as well. That is, mankind also produces evil geniuses once in a while to control our population. Like Hitler (70 million killed in WW II, about 12 million through 'ethnic cleansing'), Genghis Khan, Timur the Lame (100,000 on a single day) or Napoleon (killed about 550,000 through the Russian invasion). In fact, world population has increased by about 5.1 billion from 1900-2008, a period of just over a hundred years. Compare that to the growth from 50o BC to 1900 AD - an increase of 1.6 billion over more than 2000 years. The scary deduction thus is that when the next evil genius comes, the casualties are going to be much greater. Unless I am being a Malthusian soothsayer.

We could have very well annihilated ourselves during the Cold War, but thankfully, better sense prevailed. What could be the next "Moment of Apocalypse"? It could be climatic disasters, but then the culprit would be the collective genius of mankind, for not controlling global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. Any contagious disease could be disastrous too, considering that the world is now such a small place. But I would place my bet on wars - that's how we have worked traditionally. The motivation this time, however, would not be gold or oil or religious relic. It would be food.

The problem of the United States

2009-03-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

To my mind, the only person capable of cleaning up the US financial mess, is Mr Wolfe from Pulp Fiction. For what the US needs now is a person who is focused, not afraid of taking unpopular decisions and doesn't mind getting his hands dirty (although Wolfe delegated the task to Vincent and Jules).

For now, US is content with pumping money into banks to control the panic, which is passable as a short-term solution. But that isn't likely to cure the chronic malady, because it is rooted deep in history, somewhere in the early 80s. The Fed has just been postponing the pain by pumping liquidity after every crisis, encouraging people to spend more, and achieving a temporary illusion of growth. The last time the Fed wisely dealt with a crisis was in the 1970s, when Volcker increased the interest rates to 20%, successfully putting an end to a stagflation scenario. For the US, the going was good from 1950-1970, when the country produced more than it consumed, ensuring healthy employment and a robust currency. Lets go back into history to have a closer look.

After World War II, the US pulled itself out of the Great Depression and was in a much better shape than the rest of the world - the European countries were battered by bomb damage, and the Asian/African ones had suffered centuries of colonization. Not only did the war create over 17 million jobs in the US, the country escaped virtually unscathed compared to its competitors in Europe. As a result, by the early 1950s, Americans owned 80% of the world's electrical goods, controlled two-thirds of the global productive capacity and produced over 60% of its oil and 66% of steel. Resources were plenty, and even a blue-collar worker earning less than $2 per hour could afford a lifestyle that the rest of the world envied. To get an idea of the kind of life an ordinary shipping clerk enjoyed in the 1950s, refer Life magazine's Nov'1951 issue, which published a photo of all the food that the Czekalinski family consumed in an year.

During the early 1950s, US exported more than what it imported, resulting in an impressive trade surplus of about 4% of GDP. The tables started turning in late 1970s, and by 1998, US was running a trade deficit amounting to 4% of GDP. As a result, the highly skilled jobs at factories started vanishing, and US citizens started consuming more of foreign stuff - starting with the Japanese automobiles and electronic goods. Ideally, people should have either started saving more, or built home-grown industries to cater to the growing consumption. But that never happened.
to be continued...

The irony of M G Road

2009-02-15T22:39:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the brouhaha about pub culture, isn't it ironical that a road in Bangalore, named after Mahatma Gandhi, is also the guzzler haven of India?
Adding insult to injury, Renuka Chowdhury attempted to remedy the pub incident by twisting Gandhiji's call of 'jail bharo' to her own 'pub bharo'. Pubs, you see, are the fundamental right of the urban upper-middle class. So much so, that the subsequent furore eclipsed the relatively muted demonstrations after 26/11 attacks. People were more enthusiastic in sending undergarments to Mutalik than they ever were in sending relief to flood victims. Anyways, lets go back to Gandhiji.
Considering that Bapu was a strong proponent of nationwide prohibition, it is disconcerting to note that a road named after him probably has the highest density of pubs in India. In our usual manner of tokenism, the Govt has ensured that we pay the bare minimum respect to the Mahatma, and still keep revenues from liquor flowing by enforcing prohibition in Gandhiji's janamabhoomi, Gujarat.
But Bapu had made his wish very clear. He stated that if was made dictator for a few hours, his first act would be to close all liquor shops, without offering any compensation. Very strong words from a generally mild man. I wonder if the India of today is as far from Bapu's dreams as current Pakistan is from Qaid-e-Azam's (Jinnah).
And I wonder how Bapu would have felt taking a stroll on the MG road of our times. As a friend of mine used to say 'Agar Mahatma Gandhi aaj zinda hote, to phir mar jaate'.

Note: If you are wondering whether I am against alcohol, the answer is yes. You can read it here. Although I do agree that prohibition rarely works, the point is that do we want it to work? If we consider closure of pubs as an assault on our fundamental rights, I don't think so.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness (movie)

2009-01-31T06:40:00.000-08:00

Cover of Dracula - Prince of Darkness

Dracula: Prince of Darkness is one of those horror movies where the characters are so stupid that you wonder how have they managed to survive for the thirty odd years of their lives. In real life, people of similar intelligence would have choked to death while playing with plastic bags. The only rational explanation for their existence so far is that they were brought up in padded cells, till someone left the door open, and all of them decided to have a vacation in Transylvania. Still, they manage to put down Dracula, because the Prince of Darkness is even more demented. Its just a case of who self-destructs first. If, after more than 400 years of existence, Dracula cannot deal with people of such abysmally low mental faculties, he should start hunting rabbits and pigeons for survival.

The movie begins with how Van Helsing disposed Dracula in the last movie, and finally, brought peace to Transylvania. Until, of course, our four British tourists arrive for a vacation. While in a local tavern, the tourists come across a priest (Andrew Keir), who tells them not to visit Carlsbad by all means, and if they still choose to go, they should at least stay away from the castle, which by horror-film logic tells you that they would soon be cooling off their heels in the God forsaken place. The only progress in the thirty odd years has been that while the victims in modern day films (invariably teenagers) end up in the devil's lair usually because of a sabotage, our fellows literally walk into Dracula's abode.

After that, it is only natural that one of them would be used to bring back Dracula from death, which is done quite dramatically for a film of the 1960s. In fact, the director (Terence Fisher) is very much in control of his matter till this point. Its only when Dracula wakes up that the movie goes astray. The Count does not achieve much in his ephemeral life, except creating a few fanatic, albeit mindless minions. Never for a moment you feel that the Prince of Darkness, now awakened, would unleash his dominion of terror. But that's not his fault actually. Deducing from the fact that Christopher Lee chose to play his role as Dracula silent because of the poor dialogues, the director probably never really intended this to be a Dracula-focused movie. The only saving grace is Barbara Shelley, who beautifully plays the transformation from a fearful, upright British lady to a nasty vampire.

That said, in Hammer films, Dracula never has much hope. He can be scared to death by anything that remotely resembles a cross, has to compulsorily sleep in hallowed ground and stay away from sunlight, and he cannot even swim in running water. To counter that, he does not even have superhuman strength, a sine qua non for supernatural beings in movies. All he possesses is basic hypnotic skills and slightly overgrown fangs. Nothing compared to the demons you see in contemporary cinema like Wes Craven's or Coppola's Dracula (remember the scene in the latter where Dracula puts a cross on fire and flies away contemptuously?). Hence, I would rate the "horror factor" somewhere near 3/10, which means a fifth grader can watch them alone during night, with all lights switched off.

The question arises, why did I see it. Well, simply for the quaint English dialouges. I should also mention here that Hammer films did give an everlasting legacy to Bollywood horror movies - Horse carriage chases! Not tongas, mind you, but proper British stagecoaches galloping across rural India. Watch Veerana and Purana Mandir if you don't believe me.

BMTC buses - helpful website

2009-01-10T01:41:00.000-08:00

Mapunity has started an extremely helpful website for people who wish to travel by BMTC buses. You just need to type in the name of the origin and the destination, and the website would recommend the routes to you, along with a map that charts the intermediate bus-stops. If there is no direct bus, the website also suggests alternate routes where you can change buses. Unfortunately, Bangalore follows a hub-and-spoke model, so buses follow "popular" routes, which are not necessarily the shortest. Unless your office/home is close to to KR Market, Kempegowda Bus Stand or Shivaji Stadium, or is located on one of the popular routes (like Madiwala-Wilson Garden-Bangalore Club), you would need to change buses often.

Wonderful poetry by John Prine

2009-01-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

I came across these brilliant lines by John Prine in an equally brilliant review of "The Revolutionary Road" by Roger Ebert.

Blow up your TV, throw away your paper,
Go to the country, build you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches,
Try an' find Jesus on your own.

Segmenting, targeting and positioning

2008-08-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

This is how a friend of mine described "Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning" to one of his juniors:

Segmenting is cutting the cake, targeting is picking up a piece of it and positioning is putting it in your mouth

He's now working for an IT major. Hopefully not in the marketing department.

Communication gap?

2008-08-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Advertisement hoarding in Bangalore, written in English:

"C, C++, Kannada. The most popular languages in Bangalore".

Apne....missed opportunity

2008-07-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

Apne could have been a good movie. All it needed was some editing. I don't blame the director Anil Sharma, because constraint has never been one of his virtues. He is much happier dealing with raw emotional outbursts, the likes of which we witnessed in "Gadar" and "Hero". He could have managed to pull this caper too, had he not been caught in the mishmash of emotions that is Apne. The permutations and combinations are endless - between brother & brother, son & father, boxer & sport, husband & wife....and in the end its about "apne to apne hote hain".

The greatest disappointment is the climax. Too corny. Angad Chaudhary (Sunny Deol), national boxing champion, should have been much better in the ring. We all know that nobody can beat up sunny paaji and get away with it. Then why show the unnecessary carnage? The initial thrashing followed up with divine (in this case parental) intervention is too clichéd an idea. I would have loved something like crucial tips from father-cum-coach Dharmendra, who eluded his son till the very end because of a decade old grudge. Had Anil Sharma focused on just two emotions, Father & Son and reclaiming the lost glory in boxing, the climax would have been much more gripping & moving.
Sunny Deol was also undermined by giving him dialogues that invariably started with a docile, yet heart-moving "Papa...". That's the stuff you see in mimicry shows.
The other brother (Bobby Deol) delivers a good performance and I liked the way Sharma handled him. Not only does he look much fitter, his story is also the most impressive - a boy with a crippled hand who goes on to become a heavy weight contender (improbable yes, but not impossible).
Even Dharmendra, for whose performance I was waiting with bated breath, went about with an obnoxious expression ("main tera khoon pee jaunga") in almost the entire movie. He seemed angry at everything, venting his fury at glass tables, cement walls, newspapers - you name it. When he was not furious, he was crying - in his typical flaring-nostrils, rapid eye-blinking way. Why does he always end up in "Angry old man" roles? This was his home production, he could have crafted a role of his choice.
Talking about inconsistencies in the movie, there are many. But my favourite is: Why is Sunny Deol, who seems to weigh upwards of 100kg, fighting an opponent who is less than half his size? The person who played the role of the heavy weight champion wouldn't even scare a schoolgirl if you ask me, forget about the titanium-boned Dharmendra family.

Because it's there

2008-07-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

In 1923, when a New York Times reporter asked the British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, Mallory replied "Because it's there". It is quite a silly reply if you think of it. Normal conversations, if held that way, would result in disastrous consequences. For example:
Interviewer: Why did you apply for this job?
Job applicant: Because it's there.

But all said and done, I empathize with Mallory. Schoolboys climb steeples, trees, walls, water tanks, hillocks - basically everything that's taller than them - just because of this reason: because they are there. Maybe its part of our instinct. Climbing is an essential skill for survival, and a mechanism should be in place that ensures young members of the species feel like training themselves.

The other reason, of course, is the challenge. Even as children, we knew that the boy who jumps from the generator room of the community building would be an instant hero. Jumping from that room served no practical purpose, except that it was a test of raw courage. Still, as far as my memory goes, nobody attempted it. It was one of the unconquered bastions of our neighbourhood.

But there might be yet another reason why Mallory replied that way. Something that I realised after being tormented by the ubiquitous journalists of Aaj Tak and Star News on television. When they ask questions like "Your wife ran away with the milkman. How are you feeling about it?", there's not much reason to reply reasonably, is it?

Note: For schoolboys particularly, climbing is a highly revered skill. Good climbers are not only respected for their ability to pick unapproachable fruits, but also because they can retrieve balls from sunshades and water tanks. If you have a little negotiation skill thrown in as well, there are high chances that you get to bat twice in the same inning.

Who will save the earth?

2007-12-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

"Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned…will we realize that we cannot eat money".
It's a Cree Indian prophecy. I felt like crying the first time I read it. Perhaps because somewhere deep within, I accepted the truth in it. If there are any lessons to be learnt from the Kyoto protocol and the Bali convention, it is this: We are not going to stop polluting.
You can blame the US government for throwing the spanner in the works time and again, but there is not much hope from the regulatory side. The automobile and oil & gas companies lobby in the US is extremely powerful. Too powerful to allow any radical changes in regulation. It is the average US citizen who can rise to the occasion. The per capita CO2 emission in US is an astounding 23 tonnes! Even UK is less than half at 11 tonnes. India and China are piddly comparisons at 1.7 tonnes and 3.1 tonnes respectively. Even if you consider the top 10% population of India, who earn more than 30k per month, the figure comes to just 5 tonnes. I remember Bill Bryson taunting the nonchalant attitude of the Americans in "Lost Continent": I read once that it takes 75,000 trees to produce one issue of the Sunday New York Times – and it's well worth every trembling leaf. So what if our grandchildren have no oxygen to breathe? F**k 'em." If you want to get more depressed, read this.
Its high time we stopped. We have perhaps another ten more years. The only way is to cut down our consumption. I share Arthur C. Clarke's 90th birthday wish, that mankind reduces its dependence on oil and moves to renewable sources of energy. If this does not happen in another ten years, then I am going to follow my friends advice. Buy a house in Kodaikanal, and by the time of retirement, it will be a prime seaside property.

Dus Kahaniyan - Better read Dahl or O Henry

2007-12-16T01:36:00.000-08:00

The problem with Dus Kahaniyan is that Sanjay Gupta tries to pack 10 stories, most with a twist in the tale, in a short duration of 2 hours. The tales are narrated in a stand alone style, with no common thread running around all the ten. For most stories, before you start comprehending the plot, and enjoying it, you are through with it. The director gives you little time to think, or form judgements, which are so crucial for tales of such genre.
The first story is a copy of Roald Dahl’s "Ms Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat". If you have read the story before, you would be highly disappointed. Mandira Bedi’s character is a far cry from Ms Bixby’s, who is a thoroughly scheming, conceited and sly wife of a seeminly innocent husband. Thats why the "Serves you right" twist is lost somewhere. If you havent read the story before, its an average entertainer. The plot saves the weak direction. The second story, "High on the Highway", reminded me of something that I watched on TV a long time back. I think the pathos in this story was lost because of the short duration of the story, and also because you have an idea of things to come. The character, played by Jimmy Shergill is a thorough hippy, compared to the one on TV, who was an intellectual with perhaps too much of idealism. The sad part of the story is that it fails to instil the sense of tragedy or helplessness that it should have. The two stories that I would rank at the bottom are "Lovedale" and "Sex on the beach". The former is like a music video, and the plot is not the least convincing. The story is something that would have been repeated a thousand times in magazines like "Grah Shobha". The acting also is horribly below par. As far as "Sex on the beach" is concerned, it is meant to be a horror story. But the horror never comes. You wait endlessly for a "jump in the seat" moment, but you just keep waiting. The start is promising, with Dino writing his name in an enigmatic book, but the story just fizzles out. In fact, the only three stories that are "paisa vasool" are "Zahir", "Puranmashi" and "Rice plate". The first has an outstanding shock value, and has the characteristic black humour of Dahl. It somehow reminded me of "The Visitor". Both Manoj Bajpai & Diya Mirza have acted well and you are able to relate with their characters. I liked "Puranmashi" for the simple reason that it had a rural flavor to it, something that would bring forth the memories of "Ek chadar maili si". The story is indeed poignant, and you wish it was shot over a longer duration. Amrita Singh acts well, and I would have loved to see more of the relationship between the daughter & mother. "Rice Plate" is supposed to be inspired from an oscar winning movie. But irrespective of that, the story is well directed and succeeds in communicating its message. "Gubbare" is somewhere in between. The story is predictable, but something saves it. Probably Nana Patekar’s acting, or maybe the last shots, which do convey a sense of loneliness.

To sum it up, you can go and watch Das Kahaniyan for the three stories. But keep your expectations low. The movie reminded me of "Katha Sagar", which used to make on-screen dramatizations of popular short stories from all over the world. But the execution in the case of "Katha Sagar" was better, and that made me thinking...isnt it a better idea to watch these stories as stand alone episodes on TV?

On the way down

2007-08-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) drops to his death from an airplane in Octopussy, which is the most stereotyped movie about India I have ever seen. Bond's helicopter crosses Taj Mahal, lands in Benares and the auto driver takes him to Udaipur. The royal prince, mounted on elephants, hunts tigers in his backyard jungle. And of course, there are snake-charmers & fakirs on nailbeds.
Coming back to Gobinda, who drops to his death from an airplane. What could have been his thoughts like on his way down? Initially, for the first four-five hundred feet, he might have tried to think of a way out. A lake, a river. Any desperate mode to save himself. But what later? When death was inevitable. Would he have prayed for the rest of the journey? He didn't look like that kind of a guy. He might have abused Kamal Khan (his boss) for such a stupid idea like fighting Bond on the top of a plane. But most probably, he would have tried to remember all the pleasurable moments in his life. I think that is what most of us would do. But I don't want to try. Guessing is good enough.

Fat children

2007-08-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

"The Chinese government is battling the juvenile bulge by requiring students to exercise or play sports for an hour a day at school."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-08-chinese-obesity_x.htm

I have been saying this for the last ten years. The children are just not exercising. It can always be argued that this story is about China, and not about India. But hand-on-heart, we all know the truth. You can go and visit your nearest park to judge for yourself. Chances are that you would find only two prominent age groups. People above sixty and children below the age of five. The children aged between 5-18 are either off to tuitions, playing video games or romancing teenage girls.
I think children still like physical sports. They are made that way. But something is wrong somewhere. Either there are not enough playgrounds available, or we have become too affluent for "dirty" & dangerous sports. Or maybe it is easier for adults to manage children within the accessible confines of the living room. Or, perhaps, there are just not enough children of the same age to comprise a cricket team. The answer could be anything.

Pehle uske sign leke aao....

2007-08-14T04:06:00.000-07:00

Amitabh Bacchan's interview on NDTV reminded me of the memorable scene in Deewar (1976). Speaking about the farmland controversy surrounding him, Amitabh responded that he has been singled out and there are millions who owned farmland, without being farmers. He said "If you are mocking me if I own farmland, target others who own farm land and do not till the land. Why are they coming after me?" Reminds you of Vijay's acerbic outburst "Pehle uske sign leke aao...".
I would tell Amitabh something similar to what his on-screen mother did. The men who own farmland illegally are not model citizens. Their activities do not give Amitabh the right to be on the wrong side of the law. And on a moral dimension, they do not share Amitabh's burden of being loved and respected by the entire country. It is greatly depressing when over-idolized movie stars and cricketers look to reduce their tax liabilities through murky transactions.

Addendum: A day or two later, Amitabh commented that while he sympathises with Sanjay Dutt, the law of the land has to be respected.

Good question!

2007-08-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

There is something about the phrase "good question!" which sends my blood boiling. That's because mostly it is another way of saying "I don't know the answer to that one". Since few people have the guts to say "I don't know", "good question" is here to stay. However, I must admit, it is one of those old tricks that still works. While the questioner is gloating over his success, you can think of a way out. Or, at least you have him on your side. The interviewer is no more the fanged panther after a dosage of "good question" has been administered.
Rarely would you come across people who would combat "good question" with a "Thanks. Will I get a prize for it?". Perhaps a true bred Haryanvi will have the guts to do it, but not ordinary mortals like us.
"Good question" is also used sometimes as a precursor to answering questions that you know like the back of your hand (Just as Miss Worlds know the answer to "If you were reborn, what would you like to be born as?"). Here, "good question" is just another way of saying "Thanks for giving me a chance to appear extremely learned. Let me augment your reputation a bit too".
The truly good question is one that twists a problem such that it is easier to solve it. Lessons can be learnt from the oft-forwarded anecdote where NASA spent millions of dollars on a ball-pen which would work in zero-gravity. A good question like "What do we need a pen for?" would have made things much more easier.
Q: "What do we need a pen for?"
A: "To write notes"
Q: "What else can be used to write notes?"
A: "Chalks, pencils, sketchpens, markers and even PDAs to some extent"
Q: "Whats wrong with these?"
A: "Ummmmm...well, I think pencils would be just fine"

Note: Nevertheless, I must confess, I have a liking for the other variant of "good question":- "it depends". One, because you can always ask back: "Depends on what?". Two, a lot of things in life actually do depend on hundreds of factors. So, you are not lying at least.

My World ODI XI

2007-04-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

I have finally formed my extremely controversial World ODI XI. Have a look:

Sachin Tendulkar, Don Bradman, Jacques Kallis, Viv Richards, Michael Bevan, Garry Sobers, M S Dhoni, Wasim Akram (replaces Imran Khan, see note), Richard Hadlee, Joel Garner, M Muralitharan.

People who are conspicuous by their absence are W G Grace, Dennis Lillee, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Wally Hammond, Jack Hobbs, Gordon Greenidge, Sydney Barnes, Shane Warne and a few more. The prime reason for their omission is that they have no or little exposure to the limited overs game. Don Bradman & Sobers, however, have been included because they are a class apart.
Openers like Greenidge have been omitted because their strike rate is lower than the 70 cut off set up by me for specialised batsmen. Shane Warne has been dropped in favour of Murali because the latter has a much better bowling average.

The inclusion of Kallis, Bevan and Dhoni would certainly raise many eyebrows. But Kallis is not only a good all-rounder, but he is also the Mr. Dependable. An alternative was Rahul Dravid, but Kallis can bowl on a seamer's wicket.
Bevan is perhaps the best limited overs player. Apart from having a batting average of 54 (strike rate 74), he is also an extremely useful player in the death overs.
Dhoni scores over Gilchrist because of three reasons. One, his batting average of 44 is better than Gilchrist with 36. Second, his strike rate of 99 is the best in the team (Gilc 95). Lastly, we cannot afford to give Gilc an opening slot in the current scheme of things.
Let me justify Tendulkar, which might be required in the current state of affairs. Apart from having a remarkable strike rate of 86 (batting avg 44), Tendulkar is a handy leg spinner too.

Note: I miss Akram in my team, as he like Garner, has the rare ability to control runs in the death overs. Also, he is arguably the best left-arm fast bowler ever. But whom do I take out?

Poetic justice for Shilpa Shetty?

2007-04-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

Shilpa Shetty is very angry with the media. According to her, the Indian media has blown the Richard Gere kissing episode out of proportion. In her opinion, the media should have acted responsibly and not given so much attention to frivolous issues like this. Shilpa! Are you saying this? You of all people? You are the one who benefited most from the media hype surrounding racism in Big Brother. We all know that racism is much worse than some snide comments by Jade Goody. This was a game show. People will get nasty. And Indians are perhaps much worse when it comes to sarcastic remarks. What with all the lingo surrounding people who hail from North-east India? But since Shilps stood to benefit from all the hype regarding a helpless Indian being targeted for her skin colour, she added fuel to fire. Please note that Shilpa professed close friendship with Jade Goody after the show was over. It was nothing personal, just business. I don't deny that racism exists in Europe. It does. But that's a different issue. Here, Shilpa was never the champion of the fight against racism. She's back in India and I am sure that if a software engineer writes to her that he's being persecuted in Germany, Ms. Shilpa probably won't even reply. Just as all Miss Indias don't become Mother Teresas.
Shilpa should know that media presence is a double-edged sword. Only people like Mallika Sherawat and Rakhi Sawant can dare to wield it. Perhaps because the more they bleed, the stronger they get. I suggest Shilpa invests her crores wisely and retreats silently into the backstage. She's much better at item numbers than answering mediapersons.

Martians - our not-so-lucky neighbours

2007-04-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

What if we are totally wrong about life on Mars? I mean, it is possible that life at Mars exists at a subterranean level. They may have huge colonies located some 2000 feet below the ground. And what we consider as a surface covered with iron oxide, might actually be their roof which has rusted beyond repair because of paucity of funds. The reason why Martians have not contacted us could be that they are too ashamed to meet their more prosperous neighbours. Imagine how a conversation would go in Martian families -

Son: Mom, one of the pets of the earthlings have again landed on our roof. Can I bring it in?
Mom: No! How many times have I told you? You'll learn when one of these bites you! These creatures are not safe, otherwise we would have got one for you.
Son: Aaaaah! You are always giving these excuses! I want a pet. I want a pet. (starts lashing his tentacles on the Martian floor)

Or,
Martian old guy: These earth guys are so snobbish I tell you. Just because they were lucky to have some intelligent men, they think their civilization is the best in the universe. Have they ever invited us to their Miss Universe parties? Our women are so much better than theirs.
Second Martian: Absolutely! Have you seen how they depict us in their popular culture? As if all we are interested in is invading their planet. I ask you, who sends their interfering space probes? Is it us or them? We might be less rich, but at least we have some sense of values.

Gliese 581 C - A new hope

2007-04-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

Scientists actually scanned some 220 odd planets before they came across a habitable one - Gliese 581 C. The temperature here can sustain life and permits the existence of liquid water. Other planets had what scientists call the "Goldilocks problem" (I love the term). Basically, it means that they were either too hot or too cold. Although, I still maintain that life may also exist in planets with extreme conditions. Just like some creatures are able to sustain the immense pressure and no sunlight conditions of the ocean depths.
As I had earlier commented in my blog on extra-terrestrial life, the law of probability ensured that a habitable planet should exist. If I may extrapolate audaciously, the chances are around 0.45% (1 in 220). That should give scientists a new hope. Now they just need to build a vehicle that can travel really really fast. Something like this. Alternatively, if the inhabitants of such habitable planets are helpful, we can ask them to pick us up.

Earth's cousin found!

2007-04-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

Finally, scientists have found a planet which can sustain life. Good! Now what do we do with it?
Considering that it is 20.5 light years away, it cannot be developed into a vacation spot. And even if it has intelligent life with a developed economy, Coca Cola cannot afford to sell soft drink there. So, no utility for hard core capitalists. What about politicians? The denizens of Gliese 581 C (that is the name of the new planet) have not launched an Earth invasion so far. And they are not considered an electorate too. So nothing interesting for politicians in Gliese 581 C. The only people who stand to benefit are science fiction writers. Although the theme of another earth has been used time and again by sci-fi writers, Gliese 581 C is an interesting planet. It is 15 times closer to its star than Earth to the Sun. But the planet is habitable as the star is a red dwarf, which makes it much cooler. Imagine watching a sunset in the Glieseian seas. And the drawings that Glieseian children would make of a scenic place. Also, an year in Gliese 581 C lasts for just 31 days. So you get to celebrate your birthday every month.
On a serious note, probably we can use this new planet, Gliese 581 C, to act as a backup server. I mean, if an asteroid is heading for the earth in the next 150 years or so, we can build a Noah's ark and save humanity. The weather at Gliese 581 C is much better than Earth (temperature ranges from 0 degrees to 40 degrees Celsius). It is something like a Bangalore of the universe. So life should not be too difficult. We can also try firing a rocket with some basic life forms in the direction of Gliese 581 C. That may start an evolution process there...unless it already has life. In the latter case, we might create a big problem - like when rats were introduced to the Polynesian islands. But we can afford to take that risk. That way, we'll have ready made horses and wheat plants by the time we reach Gliese 581 C.

The tragedy of the Kiwis

2007-04-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

Yet another crusade of the Kiwis has failed. They have reached the Semi-finals of the World cup five times (1975, 1979, 1992, 1999 and 2007), but never managed to breach the wall to the Finals. And they have almost always managed to make their defeat look tragic. Their fate seems so similar to Karna in the Mahabharata...the chariot wheel gets stuck just when it matters the most.
Yesterday, Shane Bond failed to deliver. For a bowler whose ODI record is the best ever in the world, this does not happen every day. But it happened in the semi-final. In 1992, all was going well for NZ till a young Inzimam came along. The entire spin-pace juggernaut of NZ, which was so meticulously steered by Martin Crowe, was thrashed against the rocks. In 1979, they lost to England by a margin of 9 runs, which could have been easily avoided had John Wright been a little more enterprising. His 69 came in 137 balls.
They had their share of bad luck in 2007 too. First, Lou Vincent gets injured. He top scored against Sri Lanka in the warm-up matches. Then Styris, the leading scorer for NZ in the World Cup, injures himself and comes to the semi-final with his right hand taped like a mummy. Bond, on the other hand, is unable to play in the match preceding the semi-final. This, according to a commentator, could be a reason why he lost his rhythm. Finally, the pitch was bouncy when the last match was played. This could have helped NZ who prefer to play on such tracks. Yesterday, it was the dry pitch so typical of the Indian sub-continent. Probably, like Karna, Kiwis too are jinxed.

The curtain falls on a great master

2007-04-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of the saddest days in world cricket for me. Brian Lara retired at the age of 37. Worst, he made only 17 runs in his last match, thanks to a tragic run out. A silly call by Marlon Samuels & a heartless throw from Pietersen pooped the farewell party. Read this article in the Hindu, it is a real tearjerker.
I wish Lara continued to play, at least for a couple of years. He still has a lot of cricket left in him. Tim Leede is still playing at 39, and his bowling average has got better in the last 20 matches. Who knows, Lara too might have prospered in a rejuvenated WI team.
More importantly, Lara could have fulfilled his dream of seeing West Indies back on the top again. They have got some good all-rounders after a long long time (Bravo, Devon Smith, Marlon Samuels along with the might of Gayle). While their bowling looks weak, the old lot will retire soon and new comers show a lot of promise (Pollard has a brilliant bowling average in List A & Lendl Simmons is not that bad). Then, allow me to get emotional, the next Joel Garner & Malcolm Marshall might be just around the corner.
Anyways, the sad truth is that all good things must come to an end and all greats have to retire. But the elegance of Lara remains unmatched. Given a choice, I would rather watch Lara's best innings than Tendulkar's or Mark Waugh's or perhaps even Richards'. Maybe we shall see him again in one of those Veteran matches, where Lara, Inzi and Tendulkar play side to side. Sigh!

The danger of the Miss Universe title

2007-04-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

Come to think of it, the Miss Universe title can be a serious threat to the well being of Earth. What if other denizens of the universe take serious exception to it? What if the standard of beauty in the universe is vastly different? What if earthlings are the ugliest and most primitive living beings in the universe?
A civilization that is highly developed can sue us for false representation and fraud. We might have to pay with three trillion gallons of water. The cruder ones can just come in their spaceships and break a few metaphorical chairs. From what we have seen of Martian powers in Hollywood movies, entire continents can be wiped out for a trivial issue.
I suggest we open up the paegant to everybody in the universe so that all get a fair chance. Perhaps we can start with sending microwave signals for the next competition right now.

Five point development plan for India

2007-04-04T02:17:00.000-07:00

This is something that I had been wanting to write for a long, long time. What would I have done if I were the Indian Prime Minister. Or, alternatively, in Gurcharan Das style, the five-point agenda to make India a superpower by 2020.

Public transport system - The objective is to lower the social cost of cars, contain traffic & lower our fuel consumption. The latter being most important, as this could greatly help in reducing our oil imports & our trade deficit. With lower fuel consumption, we can discard our obsession of building forex reserves (and hence strengthen our exports). The aim should be to create a punctual public transport system where women could travel in buses/trains.
River linking project - The aim is to control floods/droughts, harness river water for electricity & irrigation and prevent an inevitable water scarcity problem. It is as important to harvest the excess water as it is to link the major rivers. This project could result in a second green revolution if complemented by other steps (such as crop rotation), as a lot of arid area can come under cultivation.
Building a relevant education system - The objective should be to create a population base which is appropriately suited to the needs of our industry. Here, auto mechanics and carpenters are as important as engineers & MBAs. In other words, our vocational education system should be on the same pedestal as IITs, at least on the reputation front. Good workmen would contribute to improving the efficiency of the industry & incorporating innovative practices. The seeds of this kind of education, however, need to be sown at the primary level itself. This would also help in inculcating the value of dignity of labour amongst ourselves, which we so seriously lack. Then, it can go a long way in reducing the ever-growing income disparity in India.
IT implementation in Govt departments, e-governance - The aim should be to reduce red tape & corruption. The benefits are many 1) reduced time taken to set up a new business 2) less paperwork hence lower corruption 3) accurate records 4) lesser frauds 5) easy point of contact with officials, eliminating 'brokers' 6) a robust complaint redressal system and many more. This would make India much more attractive for foreign investors.
Infrastructure development - Much has been said about it already. Objective should be to reduce time spent at ports, toll booths & govt departments (IT can help in all of these). Bridges & highways are important too, but I see them improving already. Power is a concern, but river linking with run of the river projects can help. In the meantime, coal plants are the only way out, slowly upgrading to clean coal technology (India has vast coal reserves). A lot can be done by preventing power theft, but I can't think of an easy solution for it other than political will. In fact, energy & infrastructure are next only to political governance when it comes to India's weaknesses.

Extra-terrestrial life

2007-04-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

I believe that, apart from Earth, there are planets where life exists in the universe. Such life may or may not be intelligent. It might only comprise simple organisms that display growth through metabolism, reproduction and the power of adaptation..like algae or bacteria.
The strongest argument for the existence of extra-terrestrial life is the sheer size and age of the universe. Probability favours extra-terrestrial life. One needs to bravely assume here that the essential characteristics required for life to begin and prosper are: 1) A star and a planet which is at a “healthy distance” from it, 2) the planet having a right mix of gases, along with water. With more than 70 sextillion stars, the chances of meeting these two criteria are quite high. And I might be a bit conservative here, as it is very well within the realm of possibility that life exists in extremely adverse conditions, such as a methane-dominated atmosphere.
But then there is the Fermi paradox: Where is intelligent life? Why haven't we seen/heard them? My answer to that is: Most life in the universe is not intelligent enough. We'll be lucky if we find a planet where evolution has even advanced beyond reptiles. Radio communication & space travel require very advanced stages of scientific development. Secondly, the timing of development of civilizations might be different. Perhaps earth was just inhabited by hydra when extra-terrestrial life contacted us. Or perhaps, the tales of Gods descending from the skies, which are abundantly scattered in almost every mythology of the world, hold a secret. Then, of course, there are the pyramids...in Egypt as well as Latin America, and their uncanny linkages to astronomy.
We might find life in the universe if science keeps on progressing, and if there is no catastrophic event before that. But what we discover might not be the stuff that Hollywood movies are made of.

Global Warming part II

2006-12-15T01:33:00.000-08:00

Global warming has apparently started claiming its first victims. Poison frogs in S America and plankton are bearing the brunt of our follies. The real threat comes from the reduction in plankton quantities, as it can seriously disturb the food chain in the oceans.
If one can learn a lesson from these two incidents, it is this. Global warming would not only threaten our food security, it would also lead to widespread epidemics. Disease spreading organisms can travel far more when the temperatures are conducive (that is, warmer). This is what is killing those beautiful poison frogs (described by one researcher as tropical easter eggs). I suggest people read "Guns, Germs and Steel" to fully understand the repercussions of seemingly innocuous environmental changes.

Don - something's missing in the movie

2006-11-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

There is something missing in this new Don movie. I can't pinpoint it, but that void exists nonetheless.
Let me mention what I missed:
1) Firstly, SRK does not have the cold-bloodedness that Amitabh so brilliantly portrayed. SRK as Don is too excited, too flamboyant to be treated with respect. Amitabh on the other hand, was more businesslike, a la Michael Corleone of Godfather II. I would have appreciated if SRK would have exercised restraint, instead of behaving like a wayward James Bond.
2) The "khaike paan Banaras wala" song is a disaster. I felt I was watching "Nach baliye" rather than the clumsy yet adorable dance of a UP wala bhaiya. The 4-5 people behind SRK in jeans, possibly from Farah Khan's troupe, were perhaps too stylish. SRK, too, nowhere looked like a "Chhora Ganga kinare wala". UP people would have been thoroughly disappointed. I was.
3) I missed Pran. Nothing against Arjun Rampal, but Pran was the quintessential Bollywoodian character of the 70s. The kind of characters that people imitated in streets - their quirky style of dialog delivery, their outrageous outfits...Like Gabbar in an army uniform. Pran in Zanzeer as a fancy dress pathan. Asrani with the Hitler like moustache and a jailor uniform which belonged to the 1910s. Watch Pran say "Main tumse utni nafrat nahin karta jitna apne bacchon se pyar karta hun" and compare. Even Iftikhar had his absence felt. The police chief who looked more like a professor.
4) The mafia members in Farhan Akhtar's Don were like company vice presidents. I missed MacMohan, with his zebra like beard and Narang, with his piercing light grey eyes. Villains in 1970s looked like villains. I would have been happier if Farhan had opted for Sushant Singh or Mukesh Tiwari.

If I had my way, I would have made Don like Ram Gopal Verma. If I had to remake it at all. Don here would have been a semi-psychopath underworld leader, like Bhikhu Mahatre or Nana Patekar in Bluffmaster. He would have been replaced on his death by a "seedha sadha" clerk. But when this clerk gets the power & authority of Don in a very different environment from which he originally comes from, his dark side starts to take over. As he can do things which he could never have done as a less powerful clerk, the temptation becomes too difficult to resist. Roma realises that he is Vijay, and falls in love with him. But eventually, when she realises that Vijay is developing the same traits that she had hated so much, she kills him. Or maybe the character of Roma could have done away with entirely. The film would have most probably flopped, but I guess some critics awards could have been won. Comments invited.

Fashion doesnt get better than this

2006-09-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

I thought girls hate cockroaches. They generally emit funny noises when they see one. So, would I have believed that few girls are willing to pay $80 to allow a cockroach crawl up their shoulders and circumambulate their necks? And no ordinary cockroach, mind you, but a Madagascar hissing cockroach. If the name alone does not disgust you, then please note that it is one of the largest cockroaches in the world, and grows upto 3 inches.
But there's a catch here. This particular bug is studded with jewelry. It comes with a pin attached and can be worn as a necklace or a bracelet. As you move along the hoi polloi, the poor creature would just roam around your body, twitching its antennae. You can be sure that everybody in the party notices what you are wearing.
Remember, its not that girls hate bugs less, but they love diamonds more. So, the next time your wife tells you she can do anything for a diamond ring, you better believe her.

Global warming Part I

2006-09-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Nobody seems to be concerned about global warming. Nobody influential that is.
The data on global warming is extremely alarming. "Doomsday" could be just around the corner. Of course, human beings would continue to survive, even if there is another ice age resulting from the sudden alteration of ocean currents or a prolonged heat wave. In the initial stages, it is the impact on the global economic scenario which would be most devastating. Apart from that, a significant number of world's population would perish because of food shortage.
The most alarming fact is that the effect of global warming is like a snowball rolling down a slope. As time passes, it starts getting bigger and bigger. This leads to increased velocity and a vicious cycle steps in.
Consider the latest shock called methane trapped in permafrost. The amount trapped in permafrost is estimated to be around 100 times the annual emission caused by burning of fossil fuels. As these gases are released into the atmosphere, it would cause further rise in temperatures, leading to a vicious cycle where the permafrost would eventually melt completely. The horror is that according to some scientists, we have already crossed the tipping point. If that is true, maybe we shall meet the fate of Venus - which probably experienced rapid global warming. Consider this:
Venus is a near twin of Earth in size and mass but is completely enveloped by thick clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid droplets. Its surface gravity is about 90% that of Earth. Its atmosphere is over 96% carbon dioxide, with a pressure about 95 times Earth's. The dense atmosphere and thick cloud layers trap incoming solar energy so efficiently that Venus has the highest surface temperature of any of the Sun's planets, more than 860 °F (460 °C). Radar imaging indicates that the surface is dry and rocky, consisting mostly of gently rolling plains, broad depressions, and two large elevated regions analogous to continents on Earth; The interior is thought to be similar to that of Earth.
It is not an impossibility that the atmosphere of Venus was similar to Earth millions of years ago. Now it is just a huge oven.
I feel that there is still hope - and the onus on saving the earth lies with the US. But that shall be known only after the next Presidential elections. In the time being, we can just wait and hope.

Creation of Life

2005-10-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

Why did life start only on the planet Earth? Is it related to its distance from the Sun?
If it was so, then there should have been life on Moon too. The Moon is supposed to have been originated from a collision between a semi-molten Earth and another large heavenly body. In that case, it must have been part of the Earth, billions of years ago. If there was there anything in the Earth's crust that facilitated creation of life, then why did the Moon get left out? Why did it go through a much different evolutionary path? One possibility is that life came to Earth through an external medium. Like a meteorite. Even though it sounds exciting, I find it to be an incredulous theory. It would have been far more believable if the Moon had vast amounts of water like Earth. According to me, it was the Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere that "created life". Because logically, the moon must have had the same lithosphere (rocks etc). But then, what created the atmosphere and hydrosphere? Probably, the atmosphere was not created from the earth's crust. So, it all gets very confusing in the end. Can somebody throw a light?

IT enabled sweet shops

2005-10-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

I just visited Sharma sweet shop, the proximate halwai, for some Sunday evening sweetmeats. On his showcase, I could see a laser print-out stating:

Sharma sweet shop (Contact: XXXXX)
Jalebis and dhoklas would not be available on 10th and 11th Oct 2005

That somehow reminded me of our IT helpdesk mails: "Server won't be available on 20th Oct 2005".
Bangalore is the IT city of India I tell you.

Carl Sagan on Swastika

2005-10-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

The swastika appears ubiquitously in pre-historical art and design, sometimes symbolizing good luck, sometimes the sun, and sometimes Brahma (the creator God). The swastika can be found almost everywhere in early human history, with the exceptions being most of Africa and South America. It occurs in Asian, European, African and Native American cultures – sometimes as a geometrical motif, sometimes as a religious symbol. It was used extensively by Hittites, Celts and Greeks, among others.
The ubiquity of the swastika has been explained by three main theories: independent development, cultural diffusion, and external event. The first theory is that the swastika's symmetry and simplicity led to its independent development everywhere. According to the second theory, the swastika symbol spread due to cultural diffusion. It is sacred in Hinduism, which is considered the parent religion of Buddhism and Jainism, both dating from about the 6th century BC, and both borrowing the swastika from their parent. Buddhism in particular enjoyed great success, spreading eastward and taking hold in southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan by the end of the first millennium. Similarly, the existence of the swastika as a solar symbol among the Akan civilization of southwest Africa may have been the result of cultural transfer along the African slave routes around AD 1500. However, the existence of the swastika symbol in the Americas is a clear challenge to the diffusion theory. While some have proposed that the swastika was secretly transferred to North America by an early seafaring civilization on Eurasia, a separate but parallel development of religious symbolism is considered the most likely explanation.
Lastly, we come to Carl Sagan's reasoning. In his book, "Comet", Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika.
Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world. Very interesting, isn't it?

Vidyapati

2005-10-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Also known as Maithil Kokil Vidyapati (Vidyapati, the cuckoo of Maithili). Vidyapati's position as a poet and maker of language has been described as "analogous to that of Dante in Italy and Chaucer in England."
Vidyapati is primarily known for his love-lyrics, composed in Maithili, a language spoken around Mithila (regions on the northern Bihar region on the Ganga), closely related to the abahattha form of early Bengali.
The love songs of Vidyapati, which describe the sensuous love story of Radha and Krishna, follow a long line of Vaishnav love poetry, popular in Eastern India. This tradition which uses the language of physical love to describe spiritual love, was a reflection of a key turn in Hinduism, initiated by Ramanuja in the 11th century which advocated an individual self realization through direct love. Similar to the reformation in Christianity, this movement empowered the common man to realize God directly, without the intervention of learned priests.
And finally the poem. What imagery I tell you!

All My Inhibition
All my inhibition left me in a flash,
When he robbed me of my clothes,
But his body became my new dress.
Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf
He was there in my night, on me!

More here

How much money does a man need?

2005-10-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

How to answer this perennial question? The difficulty, to my mind, lies in distinguishing between need and greed. Tolstoy "the wise" came to the conclusion that a man does not need more than two yards of land. For all men deserve a decent burial. (Refer short story “How much land does a man need?”)
Unlike Tolstoy, who perhaps looked for answers in religion, I took the refuge of mathematics. Not economics, for economics is a treacherous science, if it is a science at all. So, using game theory, I came up with the following model:
Imagine you are in heaven, waiting for your next birth. You are asked to assemble in a hall, with ten other people. You are not able to know anything about each other. God manifests himself. He says “All of you, take a piece of paper each, and write down the sum of money that you need in your life. Be careful, because you won’t get a penny more than that in your entire life. The person who quotes the smallest sum will be the chosen one. He shall get the entire amount he desires. The rest will get half of the sum the chosen one gets. And beware, you are not allowed to communicate with each other.”
What amount will you quote? Will you factor in a car? Will you take into account a large mansion?

Two ways of travelling

2005-09-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are two ways of travelling. One is the highly planned, pre-scheduled tour where hotel rooms are booked in advance and each meal of the day is pre-planned. Every morning you wake up, you know what you would be doing for the rest of the day –
9:00 Breakfast
9:30 Bus leaves for beach
9:45 Bus reaches beach
10:45 Bus leaves for Entertainment Park and so on

The second way is to wander mindlessly like a nomad. Needless to say, I prefer this to the surgical precision of organized tours, which treat leisure and business travel alike. According to me, travelling is more about spontaneous urges than well thought over, scientific decisions. Its about letting your feet take you wherever they wish to go. The end result is nothing short of an adventure. What use is traveling if it has the monotony and predictability of your daily office life?
Perhaps the best advice I can give to a fellow traveller is the saying by Lao Tszu:
"A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving"

Wodehouse on commerce

2005-09-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from "PSmith in the City" by P.G. Wodehouse. My empathy for Mike (the bank employee) stems from the fact that my feelings for commerce are no different. Let me bring it to the reader's notice that Wodehouse too used to work as a clerk in HSBC. Therefore, these emotions might be regarded as genuine.
"There are some people who take naturally to a life of commerce. Mike was not of these. To him the restraint of the business was irksome. He had been used to an open-air life, and a life, in its way, of excitement. He gathered that he would not be free till five o'clock, and that on the following day he would come at ten and go at five, and the same every day, except Saturdays and Sundays, all the year round, with a ten days' holiday. The monotony of the prospect appalled him. He was not old enough to know what a narcotic is Habit, and that one can become attached to and interested in the most unpromising jobs.
He looked through the letters he had stamped, and re-read the addresses. Some of them were directed to people living in the country…It made him home-sick, conjuring up visions of shady gardens and country sounds and smells…About now, if he were not in this dismal place, he would be lying in the shade in the garden with a book, or wandering down to the river to boat or bathe…Few workers in the City do regard lunch as a trivial affair. It is the keynote of their day. It is an oasis in a desert of ink and ledgers. Conversation in city office deals, in the morning, with what one is going to have for lunch, and in the afternoon with what one has had for lunch."

Harry Potter - the movie

2005-09-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to see “Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone”. The movie was not as bad as I had thought. Potter is essentially a potpourri of Tom Brown’s school days, Oliver Twist, Lord of the Rings and the Grimm’s fairy tales. The worst thing about this Potter book is its predictability. However, that would torment you only if are an adult, accustomed to the twist in the tale. Children should enjoy this book immensely. It adds an exciting flavour to their dull school lives (when you are a child, you are sure that school life is dull). As an adult, I prefer to watch the movie version and be through with it in two hours.
Judging on creativity, I would rank Tolkein much higher than Rowling. For most people, even the comparison is sacrilege. Tolkein’s ability to create hundreds of characters and fit them together tightly, like in a jigsaw puzzle, is unsurpassed. Coming back to the comparison, Dumbledore seems to be heavily inspired from the all powerful, yet selfless, Gandalf. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, is something akin to Sauron, desperately attempting to regain his lost power. And Malfoy, like Saruman in LOTR, is helping Voldemort in his ulterior motive. Then, Harry Potter also features an elf who has a vocabulary similar to Gollum. So, Tolkein the king reigns supreme at the top.
Overall, my assessment of Potter is - not as bad as I thought.

A Palestine here, a Lebanon there, Londons everywhere!

2005-08-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Before you blame the Americans for being somewhat lacking in Geography, let me apprise you with some facts. The US has some six Londons, two Bagdads and one Lebanon. Have a look at Texas alone. It is littered with historical places like Athens, Carthage and Palestine. You'll also come across cities like Edinburgh and Paris. Then there are cities named after Newton, Dickens & Dumas. That’s just one state of the US. The Americans truly have “The whole world in their lands”.

Insult of the day

2005-08-09T03:08:00.000-07:00

How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunich jelly thou!
---Alex, in The Clockwork Orange

Nice blend of Shakespearean English, Captain Haddock-isms and street-side slang! It very well depicts the feeble intellectualism of Alex eclipsed by his violent nature. That’s why the tagline of the movie aptly said – “Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.”

Song of the day

2005-08-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

When some pretty maiden sulks, she turns prettier
When a train leaves the station, it turns 1-2-3

Adapted from:
Koi haseena jab ruth jati hai to, aur bhi haseen ho jati hai;
Station se gaadi jab chhut jati hai to, ek do teen ho jati hai
----Veeru, in Sholay

The Calculus Affair

2005-08-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

I read “The Calculus Affair” some time back. I was reading it for the 4th time, which is much below my overall average for Tintin comics (15+ times). Hence, ample scope for research existed. Ultimately, two interesting facts were unearthed:
1) Herge’s “self-portrait” as a journalist. This can be seen where, following the strange incidents of glass-breaking, Marlinspike Hall becomes a popular tourist spot.
2) The ubiquitous whiskers of Kurvi-Tasch - Used as a swear word, emblem on Nazi-style badges and also as a diacritical mark!
Sadly, all this research can already be found at Wikipedia!

Disposing UK's nuclear waste

2005-08-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

Firing nuclear waste into the sun, placing it in Antarctic ice sheets so it sinks by its own heat to the bedrock, or putting it under Earth's crust so it is sucked to the molten core. These are three of the 14 options the government's advisers are considering to get rid of the UK's troublesome nuclear waste legacy.
Nuclear waste stays dangerous for 250,000 years and even the best constructed concrete bunker is likely to need upgrading every 100 years or so.
UK government's estimates it will soon have 500,000 tonnes of higher level nuclear waste it has no home for, even if it never builds another nuclear power station.
Complete news article at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1191443,00.html

On Thursday

2005-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday is an aberration of Thor’s day (Thor being the Norse God of thunder). It was earlier known as Jove’s day, after the Roman God Jupiter. Since Thor was associated with Jupiter among the Germanic people, Jove’s day became Thor’s day.
Now, among the Hindus, Thursday is called “Guruvaar”, which again means – Jupiter’s day! This is something that I find quite peculiar.
Similar link can be found for Sunday, Monday, Wednesday & Saturday. I am yet to find out the linkages for Tuesday & Friday.