pearls-wisdom-wacky

Rahul ka Swayamvar / Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jaayega

2010-03-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

Before I start the blog, a very strict warning… If you are lactose intolerant, skip this blog. It is… how do I say it… say… cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesey!
Okay. So let’s start. RkS (Rahul ka Swayamwar), if you didn’t know was the reality aired on NDTV Imagine this past month. It was about five weeks of fun-packed show, which I truly adored. I spent more than 16 hours of my life watching it. Granted that, I was multi-tasking for a while, but still. I did keep my ears firmly glued to the best show on earth. Since it is the best show in the universe, I assumed that the whole universe was watching it. So, I picked a couple of unfortunate souls at my workplace and home, and starting discussing the show with them. To my horror, I realized that they weren’t watching the show. I could not tolerate that. Being their well-wisher, I could not see them miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I convinced a few of them to watch it, and I must say (and I am not making this up), they were extremely enthusiastic to share their experience of watching it. That made me extremely happy. However, being the mankind-loving-person-that-I-am, I wanted to ensure that no one else missed the show. So, almost every single Indian friend of mine (that’s about 99.9 %, if you include my boss) knew that my opinion of the show and some of them (I hope) watched it. All my friends loved me for my recommendation. I realized it was time to take this global (in a way), and put it on the third most frequently visited site in the world(Google and Facebook being the first and second)… errr… this one.
This blog is dedicated to the show. The show which had me gripped for more than a week. The outline is pretty simple. Rahul Mahajan wants to get married for a second time, after his first wife (apparently) left him after drug and physical abuse. NDTV, showing outstanding judgment makes a show out of this. Oh wait… that is wrong. There was already a show, and this is the second season. The first one had Rakhi Sawant… and that was equally “Imagine”ative. I didn’t have much respect for the one-shot wonder MBAs but after these two shows, I have grown to admire them. I’ll reserve that for a later blog though. For now, lets “focus”! As the host, they chose the one and only Ram Kapoor. His charm was no match for Rahul’s… ahem. Anyways, show started with 16 (yes, you read that right… sixteen) out-of-this-world- -should-been-miss-universe-ten-times-over girls. Rahul was initially very confused. He had so many girls to choose from, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Neither could I, so I shut them instead.

Coming to the girls…. Some of them were trying to be cuter-than-cupid, a few others were trying their hands at cooking, while the rest of the lot was just trying to get as-much-Rahul-as-they-could… because, of course, they loved-him-more-than-anyone-else-could-Imagine. One of them even confessed to loving him decades before they met. My guess is she may have started loving him even before he/she were born. A couple of others fell in love when they first saw him. It was as if, cupid was in Fatehgarh palace (that’s where the show was filmed) on the first day with unlimited supply opium-tipped arrows. And why wouldn’t cupid want to be there… there was so much beauty, brains, brawn, booze and balderdash on display. And boy, oh boy, was the opium strong. The girls looked like they were hooked to him for millennia. Some people have said that the girls had a hint of desperation in their actions, and they were looking for silver screendom. But you know me. I wouldn’t buy such cynicism ever.
The show also had its set of extremely accomplished guests. Movie and television stars who have made a mark for themselves, purely based on their acting talent, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE. One such guest was… errr… Neha Dhupia… umm… uh-oh… Anyways, moving on…
The show was down to the final three, after many girls had to leave the show, and the love of their lives. It was truly heartbreaking for me to watch their true love not materialize. As they say, sometimes you crack an egg just to see what is inside.
The final, as you might imagine, were the most eligible of the lot for him. RkS had reached its finale, and I finally caught up with all the episodes on www.rahulswayamvar.in. I was waiting for the final decision. I was rooting for Dimpy I must confess. She was competing with two others who were equally beautiful, talented, accomplished in their… ahem… fields. Although the average age of the three girls was less than two-thirds of Rahul’s age, they were up-to-task in every way.
Then came the fateful day, March 6th 2010, and the whole universe (except me… I was sleeping. I missed the live broadcast, but I did catch up the recorded one) held its breath. Everyone was anxious… and surprise, surprise, I hit the jackpot. Dimpy was the one!!! Times of India has a very flattering article about her. I encourage you to search to Google/Bing for it (Dimpy Ganguly interview). Her pics on Google Images are equally good, or even better. A picture does speak a thousand words in this case.
For all those people who haven’t watched it yet, and I hope there aren’t many, I strongly encourage you to watch it. Consider it a personal request from me.
Being the idealistically-romantic, completely-unsarcastic, gullible person that I am, you can see why I say this is the best show in the universe.
There may one other reason why I liked it. You see, before this show, I thought there were two types of humour.
1. Humour by amatuers. The comedian in all of us.
2. Humour by the professionals. Professional comedians, cartoon-writers.
Only after this show, did I realize the third way…
Unintentional comedians. People who do not intend to be funny, but who end up making you laugh until your stomach breaks up. They bring you laughter by saying things you never expected. They really mean them… maybe. But they are so hilarious!
If you didn’t heed my previous request, I hope you do take it seriously now. Watch it. I never knew Indian Television was this good!

Snow, a reckless driver and two months

2010-03-11T23:30:00.000-08:00

This blog started sometime in January and I have completed now in March. Hopefully you won’t notice the break in the middle… Happy 2010. Enjoy!

I am starting this blog at 3 in the morning. It has been snowing for a while today. Went out for a walk in the snow. It was a very very nice experience. A hot coffee sent me to heaven. And here, I am back at home.

I have a few topics in my mind which I wanted to talk about. And today, I got the proper introduction I was looking for, on my way back home. This place is pretty much covered in snow. Some people are excited to see snow, others aren’t. That’s because it snows here once a year, if you are lucky. It is cold, but it doesn’t snow often. So, most people who drive here are not used to driving in snow. So you see people driving cars without having removed the snow from the top, which is quite dangerous. That was a surprising thing I noticed, however today night was a little more serious. A guy driving an SUV, talking on his cell phone, skids while trying to stop for a red signal, and stops in the middle of the intersection. He knew the red signal was coming on. Nope, this guy wouldn’t just care. If he tried to stop sincerely and missed, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Even then, he is stopping an SUV which is bigger than everything here, and frankly, has nothing sporty about it. And this great soul doesn’t think it is necessary for him to actually stop talking on the phone even then. Nope. And why am I concerned? Because I was trying to cross the road and luckily didn’t assume that he had brains. Talking about brainy people…

There’s been a nice little drama going on here regarding NBC, a television channel. I won’t go into the details of the whole drama, but this is basically what happened. The network had two people who wanted to host the same legendary comedy show, The Tonight Show. One of them, Jay Leno, was hosting it for the last two decades, and has been hugely successful. The other is a younger upstart, Conan O’Brien who might be the future. So the channel decided to go with the younger one, and pushed the older one elsewhere. Now both the shows were doing badly, so they decided to bring the old one back. The younger one didn’t like it, and he got 40 million dollars (i.e. the rest of his contract) and he is going to leave the channel, for another one which will give him the same time slot there. The older one is getting back his show. The way it has been portrayed here is that the younger one is being kicked out. And people stood in rain outside the channel’s headquarters to protest his expulsion. And he thinks he is a victim, and is milking it to the max. I mean, come on!!!!! How dumb can people be ... This is a country with an un-employment rate of 15%. Walmart, the cheapest store in town, is shedding jobs by the thousands because people don’t have the money to buy stuff even at their bargain basement prices! And of all the things to worry about, the biggest thing to do apparently is to show sympathy to a comedian who has made 32.5 million dollars, for the rest of his contract! Pardon me if I am wrong, but how dumb can people get. I mean, he didn’t like the spot he was given by the channel, so he quit. Isn’t this like any other job? And for god sakes, he is making more money than 99% of the American population will ever make. Leno on the other hand is being blamed for “kicking out” Conan. I am sorry. How is that wrong? Leno wanted his show back. NBC wanted Leno more than Conan. Simple. Why can’t people accept that?

The next topic I want to talk about is something which has even more people hooked on. Telangana. One fine day, one guy goes on a fast-unto-death, and students are “agitated”, and start burning down buses they haven’t paid for? They start damaging property they don’t own? I have a question here. If you are upset about anything in your house, do you go and torch your neighbour’s house? No. Because then you would be jailed. However, in this case, the students were apparently “emotionally upset”. Frankly, I don’t know how they can get emotionally upset about someone who hid from public view after elections because he couldn’t face his own party men, but then, even if they did get emotionally upset, why should they be allowed to torch the buses? Is this straight out vandalism? These are students who are studying to get a Bachelors or a Masters degree. Granted, it is in arts, and not a technical field. But still, if this is the emotional state of these people, that they would erupt so violently when something “aggravates” their minds, then shouldn’t they be in rehab? I keep “quoting” the words because I don’t believe in any of these explanations. I agree that there may have been some discrimination in the way the funds were allocated. But I guess the more important question here why this is happening now. If this was close to an election, it would be legitimate but it is not. At the end of the day, all these students who are actually damaging public property end up being corrupt politicians, or corrupt government workers. I don’t think Microsoft would like to hire a student who has “I torched Bus No 3K during Telangana agitations in 2010” as one of his extra-curricular achievements. I am so grouchy about this whole thing is because it’s basically a set of people with money funding others, for their own benefit. And the rest 99% of the population pays a price for it. The more I see democracies in action, I realize that it is not the perfect solution. It needs to be tweaked so that when combined with capitalism, it doesn’t end up servicing the top-end of the population. Talking about Telangana, and Hyderabad…

There is company called Notion Ink, which released a tablet called Adam. It is based in Hyderabad, started by a handful of IITians and MBA grads. They trained students from a local engineering college, BVRIT, to write the software for the applications running on the tablet. In a matter of a few months, they learnt themselves and educated the students how to write applications on Google’s Android. They did this because, as a startup, they couldn’t afford to pay the going price for professionals in the area (1 lakh a month for an Android developer). The tablet is priced lower than Apple’s tablet, the iPad and has more features. Granted that it may not “look” as polished, or have a picture of half-eaten fruit on the back, I think this is a bigger achievement than the rave here about the iPad. This might look very Hyderabadi of me to bring up this tablet, but I am taking this as an example to prove a point. Even in this era of online news, there is still a hierarchy in terms of which news gets covered. I admire the iPad for what it is. A bigger iPhone , without the phone functionality. Its running a basic operating system for its size, in a strictly environment, by a company which thinks apps with explicit content are not in the “right taste”. I know how the system works, with the advertising money and market muscle, but I just wish that there was a way in which companies like Notion Ink are given the publicity they desperately need to come up. I don’t believe that the products from a big brand company should be called awesome even before people have seen it. Did I tell you that Notion Ink was showed to the world well before the iPad? I believe that the best products will only come out when you have a lot of companies in the same field, fighting for market share. Not when you declare the verdict and bombard people with marketing 24 hours a day regarding one arguably sub-standard product, from first look. I am sure most people would agree that, for all the hype and speculation, the iPad was a dud of epic proportions.

To round up, I prefer Leno to Conan… I would like to see Andhra Pradesh as a unified state for purely sentimental reasons, or in the worst case, Hyderabad should become a UT by itself, with Naidu as its CEO. And I am hoping that the Paradise restaurant is not damaged in all this agitation stuff. Hyderabad wouldn’t be the same without its biryani. I have an iPod Touch and I love it. I am not likely to buy an iPad, because I am not impressed by it.

This is my longest blog so far. If you read it till here, thanks for your patience. Hope you liked it. Before I finish, a disclaimer. I have nothing against Conan’s supporters who were standing in the rain (as long as I don’t have to do anything like that), the Telangana agitators (but please don’t destroy the buses that we pay taxes for, and frankly, you don’t) and Apple fans (I know quite a few of you, and Apple did a great job with the iPhone and the iPods).

The third Q... SQ

2009-11-15T01:12:00.001-08:00

We all have taken tests for IQ and EQ. We all have taken tests on F A C E B O O K on IQ and EQ. There are also a shit load of personality tests out there to make you feel better about yourself. The tests are more like drugs, for the faint hearted. All of the results suggest that you are really God's gift to humanity, and that you are one in a million. The point is, the quiz says the same thing to the other 999 thousand also! And we imagine all those good things actually exist within us, for a moment atleast, and feel happy about it. Wonder why we just don't like being called a human... a selfish, materialistic, greedy, ambitious, faulty, sadistic, hypocritical human. Probably its that one thing in us which is only happy when it is told that we are good. When someone tells us that we are good, it feels happy. When we are accepted into the society, we feel happy. A currency to measure this acceptance is friends. This is just one measure, not the only one. But, it is an (if not the most) important one.

We pretty much can't do anything about our IQ. Maybe we can but its rare that you fail tenth because you can't add numbers, and end up discovering something great in science later. Self-help books can make you believe, and in some corner cases, rightly so, that you can change your EQ. But how about your social quotient. How about that? Can you change that? Can you read a book, or take a course, and increase your social score? My view is that you can't do anything about it. Its one of those things that quintessentially you.

For a while, I believed that it was possible to change a person's social score. I thought there were a certain set of things that you need to do, and you can change it. It is probably true with girls, because... lets face it.. there are enough desperate guys around to keep them company at any point of time. So, if a girl really want to hang out, not too much of a problem to find "a" guy. Rerouting... but I realized quite fast that basically there isn't anything you can do about it. Its what you are. There are many things we love about ourselves, and many things we don't. And this is just one of those many things. Its a part and parcel of what we are. I thought this was worth a blog because of two reasons (i) blogs are free (ii) i think there are lot of people who agree and disagree with me on this. Something contentious makes a good blog.

This is how I view things. Everybody is pretty much the same. They possess all the wonderful (please get the sarcasm) qualities (and more of what) I described above. And I am pretty happy being a human in that sense. My Friday and Saturday nights are just like any other night... watching a movie, sitting in the lab and debugging code written by someone from Mars, cooking food, sitting in a coffee shop or sleeping. No clubs, no discos, no parties every other night for me. To a sub-20, or just 20-plus year old, that may sound lame. And for a while I thought it was. But then I realized that we all live in different worlds. We are a product of our childhood, our environment, and our decisions. So, when I see people who want to change what they are, I feel quite bad about it. I think they are just perfect being themselves. We may be from the same planet, but Eve isn't our mother. And I guess the faster you accept you, the easier everything is. I think its great to party, but its equally good or even better to be excited when you fix code written by another underpaid grad student on a Friday night at 12. I think the same applies to relationships. Relationships don't define people. Its the other way round. You can love life, irrespective of whether you are in one, or out of one. And I am out of words.

Just to keep track... this blog is around 3am. Thanks for reading it. Hope you liked it. See ya.

Its a game called Life... or is it?

2009-11-08T02:42:00.000-08:00

I am sure many of you have been in situations where you were wondering... Should I just quit? Should I just give up and start over? Or cut and leave right now? And more often than not, the option is "don't do that... go ahead with it because the right path is the one with all the hurdles". If you have grown up in India like I have, most of the advice especially in personal matters comes on these lines. And as always, what works at one place, is assumed to work at another. This blog is dedicated to explaining why that is bullshit.

The basic philosophy behind keeping something going... whether it be work on a project, a particular path in the career, or anything personal... like a relationship... is that things will improve. That perseverance is the answer, and no matter what the goal is, you can achieve if you throw effort at it. This is probably correct in some scenarios. Take studies for example, if you hit your head against enough textbooks, you are more likely than not understand a concept. If you work hard enough on a project of reasonable scale, you are likely to come close to finishing it. All this works as long as you know that there are things which are impossible in this world. Nike used it... Adidas did too... and half the population almost believed it... atleast their shirts said they did... Nothing is Impossible. And not the trivial impossible, but the so-hard-its-close-to-impossible stuff. Take for example, trying to get someone like me into biology. Oh yeah sure.. I watch discovery channel a lot. But that doesn't mean I am anywhere close to good at it. Heck, I can't make out the green leafy vegetables (one of the phrases you mug till tenth) when I see them. Now, if I set out to become a doctor, I probably would never get through merit quota (or as I would like to call it, the half-eaten piece of crap left after all the reservations have had a stomach upset from over-eating). And if I ever pay my way through, the only thing I would be good at, would be acting like a doctor in tv shows and porn movies. Now, if I had a brain wave, and tried for the medical colleges ( I truly respect those souls who know they have less than a sperm's chance of making it to the other side), and failed... should I keep going on with it? No. But whats the first advice that you are most likely to get... "You'll do better next time... try again.. (and most importantly) Don't give up". That is a load of bullshit.

Another scenario... how about a wall-street banker... if he stuck onto every stock he bought. Would he go anywhere? Nope. Then, why is it that the adage "Don't give up... keep trying" is applied to all phases of life. Haven't we seen enough circumstances where giving up is better than just sitting in the same place and sulking. I used to think that life is a game without a restart button. And that sucks sometimes. I wish I could turn off damage, and have the restart button whenever I want to. Anyways... I no longer think so. Initially, I thought this was maturity. I am "growing up" and "understanding" life more. But no... that isn't it. I just realized that you don't keep playing until you win every race. Nope. Its actually a Poker game. Fold when you need to, and have no qualms about it.

Somethings in life just don't work out. Some people are meant to design processors while listening to songs, others are meant to cut cockroaches and vomit afterwards, and the rest (also called managers) get paid for not screwing up things. Ironically, the toughest job to get is the cockroach-killer's one. This didn't flash right in my face until a few days back. I have probably made a few decisions in life based on the poker philosophy, but never realized it then. I borrowed this poker thought from hollywood movies, and pragmatism.

I wrote this blog at 5am... so pardon the .... and any spelling mistakes. Its been so long since I wrote a blog. Thought I should get back to writing them. Feels good. Hope you liked it.

See ya.

Falling through fear

2009-07-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

Fear of any sort is very capable of causing an adrenaline rush. Whether it’s a fear of failing in the exam tomorrow, the fear of missing a flight, or the fear of losing someone close to you, it makes us so much more alert, and every second lasts longer. In most cases, it is out of compulsion that we experience that fear. Seldom do we decide the dates for our examinations, or the flight timings. But with acrophobia (the official, extreme word for the fear of heights, resulting in panic attacks), you can mostly avoid having to deal with it. Skydiving is the scariest thing you can do if you have a fear of heights, and I am half of an acrophobic. I had to do it.

A friend told me about a skydiving trip being organized by an MNC (I don’t have the rights to mention any of their names). The deal: For three hundred dollars, you will be scared out of your wits. Who can say no that! The friend who suggested the trip to me has absolutely no fear of heights, and she knew I did. Three weeks was enough time to tell my friends how I wanted the funeral after the skydiving accident. Plans to max out my credit card by myself proved unsuccessful, although to be fair to my friends, I refused gracious offers from them to help me out in this regard. One day to go for the jump… and I realized the cost of the humor. Skydiving is a risky sport, but nowhere near as risky as I had portrayed it in the jokes. The fearful half of me took all the sleep with it, and I hadn’t slept for two days by the time I reached the skydiving center. The first shirt on display when I entered the skydiving center was titled “Skydiving Survivor”. I assumed that anyone who lived through the jump would definitely buy one. There were quite a few of those shirts still there… how risky is skydiving?

Meet Jon, the coolest guy in the world. He is an instructor at the center, and an excellent one at that. By the end of his briefing, I was only half-filled with fear. The automatic reserve parachute deployment system and his nonchalant references to the worst case scenarios calmed my nerves. Then came the batch listing, and I was in the second load (guess that is an appropriate name for a freaked out idiot clinging onto an experienced skydiver). The first load came down safely, and the announcer butchered my name. The acrophobic took over… this time worried if I will be able to remember the rudimentary instructions given by Jon. Basically, they were a set of actions which were meant to ensure that I don’t screw up the jump with any home-grown antics. Uh-oh! I have always been bad at following instructions, especially those by wiseacres. Jon didn’t know that.

In all the flights I had flown in till that day, I sat in a small seat without enough legroom, fastened a seat belt round my waist, a flight attendant blabbered some safety procedures, the cabin was pressurized and I knew I didn’t have to do anything myself in order to reach the ground safely. This flight was going to be different. Instead of the safety lecture, I got some simple instructions from Jon: I’ll strap myself to you at 6000 feet; put on your head gear at 14000 feet; and follow my instructions from the briefing… and it’ll be “fun”. Gulp! We reach 14000ft… andsuddenly, the first few acrobat skydivers disappeared into thin air, and I was now sitting less than five feet from an open door.

To understand the gravity (no pun intended) of the situation, it is necessary to state the basis for my fear. My fear of heights arises from the possibility that the ground beneath me may give up at anytime and hence, I might come crashing to the ground. As long as the structure beneath looks strong, the fear can be negated in most cases. I had to come up with a brand new theory to calm my fear about jumping from a plane into thin air. But all I could tell myself was what Jon said (God probably built this in, but just in case)… “always breathe”. There is one silver lining to the jump… you do not have much time to think before you are headed towards the ground at 120 mph. Once in the air, there is nothing much you can do about it, and you might as well enjoy it. And that’s exactly what I did.

Fear is the ultimate adrenaline generator, and when you feel that fear, you inevitably feel the excitement. At that point, you are not just falling through the clouds, you are falling through your fear, and right into the heart of excitement. This transition is priceless. I have never felt that level of excitement in my life, and probably never will again. I am so happy with the skydiving experience… never thought I could get myself to do it… but there I was, having the most fun ever. If you think is an exaggeration, you haven’t jumped from a plane yet!

An Agnostic's Prayer

2009-06-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

Let me start with a cliché. There are two types of people in the world.

Yes, just two, not three, in this case. There are people who believe that there is God and those who don’t. And, there are two types of people in each of these two. Among the believers, there are those who believe that God has told them what to do in life, and those who believe that God only regulates the right and wrong in this world. The non-believers are split over how strongly they feel about the non-existence of God, namely, the Atheist and the Agnostic. I guess I don’t have to say which bin I am sitting in.

I have absolutely no problems with anyone’s beliefs unless they end up screwing the world for the rest of us. The beliefs may end up screwing that person’s life, but then again, he/she asked for it. Until recently, I did not think that there was any way that someone could be misled into thinking that the supposed architect of our world actually wants us to destroy it. But then again, I didn’t know how stupid this world can be. If I were to pinpoint one thing that has the most impact on our lives, I would say it is the stupidity of others. It defines the level of development in our countries, and in many ways, the happiness and peace of mind in our lives.
Unfortunately, nowadays, it doesn’t stop at that, and starts to threaten our existence itself. The ironic thing about this situation is that our lives are in the hands of people who have been “asked” by a person in their dreams to create nightmares in our lives.

The first time we realize that there is a subject called philosophy is when we hear the question “What is the reason for your existence?” Ask an evolutionary biologist, and he will give you the scientific answer to that question. Ask a non-stupid person, and he will tell you it’s for having fun. Pose the same question to the devil incarnate with the psychic dreams, and the answer would go something like this. We should do as the person in the dream says, and then, we will be blessed with pleasures after we die. I have just one fucking question to this person: How do you know all this is true? For a fact, you can have a great time in this life. You don’t even know what happens after you die. How can you believe a person in your dreams without any shred of evidence? Even if we excuse that mind-numbing hole in your theory, how can you kill fellow humans who have allowed you to live long enough to have that dream in the first place?

Richard Dawkins argues in his book, “The God Delusion”, that God doesn’t exist, and how every aspect of our life can be scientifically explained. Even if we could not answer all the questions related to life, that is no basis for accepting the “explanations” that religious books provide. I agree with his theories, but since I cannot and do not want to spend the time even if I could, I don’t really care if there exist believers in this world. My own theory is that God was created as a means of assuring people that justice will be done, and that they should not lose hope.

Since the people who want to kill us refuse to listen to Richard Dawkins and others who explain the fallacies in arguments put forward by “messengers” of God, there is I guess only one option left for all of us. Pray to that imaginary person who appears in their heads, and hope he listens to our prayers and doesn’t say anything stupid to them. Because if the person in their dream does say something stupid, we can kiss our happiness goodbye.

Underestimating the smart guys

2009-03-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

There is something similar between the current recession and terrorism. Besides the fact that both things screw our lives, everyday and especially at airports, I think there is something fundamentally similar in how both came into being and the people behind both of them.

By and large, this recession is believed to be a by-product of the reckless habits of the Wall-Street bankers. Their practices were in some way so complicated that they didn’t see this one coming. The common excuse is that basically no one knows economics well enough to know that this one was coming. Hence, although the bankers were getting into this, somehow no one in the system actually knew this was going on. To some extent, this myth has been blown apart by Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. There are still others who write articles about how top business schools didn’t see the calamity coming. About how they didn’t do their job well or they just aren’t that good at it. I don’t think that is the case. Every single person in the picture here knew this was coming. I don’t want to give the benefit of dumbness to those guys. They knew very well what was going to happen, and frankly, by all estimates, almost everyone on Wall-Street has made shit loads of money and waiting for the government to pick up the tab for the losses. It is only a matter of time before the economy recovers, and there will be another theory with a loop-hole which will be put forward, and adopted and profiteered from by the bankers.

The sophistication of the bankers is in stark contrast to the terrorists who come with a crude plan of blowing things up. At least, that’s what we have been led to believe. The terrorist organizations are supposedly motivated by purely religious considerations, and nothing else. The heads of these organizations strongly believe in the “radical” version of their religion, and that leads them to act the way they do. However, I think this is a load of BS. The leaders of these organizations don’t believe in the extremist views at all. They just convince the poor souls around them that they do. They would clear any Hollywood audition without much problem. I think they are as human and as normal as we all are. It is just that they realized that they can con other poor souls into believing them, and make their living by getting their followers to do jobs they would never do themselves.

The power of nightmares is a wonderful documentary on how the neo-conservatives screwed our lives. A part of the documentary shows a professor at a university as the proponent of terrorism as we know it today. The person in question is quite educated, and will easily be one of the smartest guys in any class. He had no regrets of his own, and his life was as normal as most of ours. According to the documentary, he was disturbed by the increasingly materialistic nature of the western society, and its influence on the societies in the Middle East. He set about to restore the place of God in the society. This professor was educated thanks to a materialistic society. He drove a car made by the same materialistic society. He reaped all the benefits of the society and probably his only shortcoming was his extreme greed for fame. Besides that, there is no reason why he wouldn’t want the same benefits of the western society trickle down to his own home country. It seems preposterous to me that someone who has a good life here would actually go bonkers and think that the society which made him what he is is actually flawed. And someone of his academic caliber would definitely know that his opinion is just one view, and one person or a small group of people thinking that the society is “going wrong” doesn’t justify doing what he did.

The bankers and the people involved in the top echelons are no dumb ones either. They knew exactly the course of events that would take place. For god sakes, they are the ones orchestrating the current set of “reforms”. It seems ridiculous that there is a recession every few years, and a boom that follows it, and we are always told nobody knew that it was coming. And almost all the time, it’s a fixed set of people who are making more and more money. In this case, we are basically paying their salaries, which they have already drawn, and broke the bank in the process.

I think we would be fooling ourselves if we say that the guy at the head of the terrorist organization does actually believe in the BS, or when we say that no one saw this recession coming. This world’s a stage alright. The producer, director and the actors are the smart guys. The common man is the audience which gets robbed each time he enters the theater.

Slumdogginess

2009-02-23T03:59:00.001-08:00

The backdrop: Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars a few hours ago. Danny Boyle and Rahman were among the winners. The media has gone crazy over this win. And I found enough time to write a blog on this.
I felt very nice that Rahman has won an Oscar for his work. I loved a couple of the songs in the movie. I think they played a big role in taking the movie to the top tier. Rahman’s scores have always been good, and this may or may not have been his masterpiece. Personally, I am hoping that his masterpiece is yet to come. Warner Brothers producing the movie increased the visibility for the movie in the country, and pushed it into being taken into consideration for the Oscars. The movie is a story of a young boy from the slums who goes on to become a millionaire. It’s the very bare bones, in-your-face version of hundreds of other rags to riches stories.
Rewind to a few weeks back, and the media made a huge frenzy about how the movie didn’t paint a proper picture. Apparently, the use of “slum dog” was wrong, and many people were “upset” with the term being used to describe them. Never mind the countless number of abuses hurled at them in Indian movies, I have an objection with this particular film being taken so seriously. It almost became a barometer for what India is, and how we live in India. I did not know what made the people in this pool slum dog; the movie, or their opinion that a movie adapted from a novel is an “Incredible India” type of message to the world. I refuse to consider a movie to be anything but a story-telling venture, rooted in appreciation for the story with an eye on the box office. Therefore, any movie however offensive, unless it makes blatant personal references to an individual or community, should be allowed to play. It is after all a story being told, and if you can allow movies like Black Friday portray the events of the past, you should let a movie talk about the slums in Mumbai. Interestingly, no one has objected to the way in which the people in the slums are portrayed. The objections stop at the term “slum dog”. My question is - wouldn’t you call the people in the slums using a similar term after watching movie, even if it weren’t titled so? Clearly, there isn’t much logic in the criticism directed at the movie. I am not a great fan of the movie because I didn’t think the story was very original, and the ending was too predictable.
The same set of people who erupted against the slum dog terminology also praises the movie for being the first Indian movie to win the Oscars. Hold on a minute here. When did the movie ever become an Indian movie? More than half of the top crew is British or American. It was shot in India, but the movie was made by an American company and directed by a Brit. And frankly, if it is an Indian movie, why were we blaming a couple of guys outside of India for all the wrong things? Shouldn’t the ‘culprits’ be within India if the movie is truly Indian? It is fascinating that no one actually asks these questions to the media who ratchet it up to sound as if the movie tells the world about India. This is the second time in the past few months that I have actually felt disgusted with the Indian media. This, of course, pales in comparison to the media’s handling of the Mumbai blasts, which I talked about in an earlier post.
How can the media portray a movie as ‘abusive’ and ‘disrespectful’ to Indians, and then go nuts about it when it wins the Oscars? The thing is that neither was it abusive to Indians, nor was it ever an Indian movie. I would love to see an Indian movie at the Oscars, plainly because I want to see the whole nation go even more emotional when they see Shah Rukh or Aamir holding the lady. Until then, I will be happy to see our movies and enjoy them. After all, an Oscar doesn’t make the movie any more entertaining. If anything, it certifies the movie as less entertaining, almost all the time.
Simply put, a foreign movie about a truly unrealistic story based in the slums is lapped up by the Indian media first as an abuse to the country, and then portrayed as an Indian winner at the Oscars. After this incident, I am tempted to think that the real movie begins once the Indian media takes over any issue.

The Tangible Conundrum

2009-02-03T22:39:00.000-08:00

Geeky Warning: For those of you who do not believe in materialistic pleasures or do not have a fascination for gadgets, the problem I am about to propose will be quite tough to understand and even tougher to resolve.

I have loved gadgets since I have known them. It is a fascination which I cherish, and the resulting purchases are manageable, at least till now. So, it must came as little surprise to you when I say that the day I got my iPod Touch (a birthday gift), I was ecstatic. I was totally taken in by the ease of operation. I was consumed with the way it felt in my hands. It was the best thing I have ever owned. It is the most reliable gadget I have used in a long time. When the jail break came along, well before the App Store, I jumped on the bandwagon and have been hooked onto it even more. I made the shift to the App Store somewhere down the line. So, that is the status quo. I love the Touch, and I am thankful to my uncle and Apple.

There is one thing which makes the iPod Touch and not the iPhone, the best gadget ever. You don’t have to pay any fees every month in order to hold onto it. The downside of this is that I need another phone. My current phone is a very reliable Nokia which I have turned into an rock with all the glue I put on it. The phone was with me through many tough times, not tough as in mentally, but phone-wise. It finally needed the bandages after it met with a concrete pavement. The phone, therefore, is ready to take the VRS I am offering, but I need to replace it with young blood.

Being in the most advanced country in the world has its share of disadvantages. Apparently, it is more capitalistic and free-market-ish to lock the consumer in to a two-year contract and not allow him to change his phone until the contract nearly expires. And if he does buy the phone on his own terms, even then he is bound to the two year contract if he wants to use it.

Why did I spend three paragraphs trying to explain three different things, besides the fact that this is free so I shouldn’t ask that question anyways? All of them make up the Tangible Conundrum. You see, I need to find a new phone, but whatever phone I buy, I will compare it with the iPod Touch. And let’s face it; there isn’t anything in the market out there now which can eclipse the Touch in terms of overall satisfaction. Till now, there is pretty much no competition between the Touch and the Nokia. The Nokia can call and message. The Touch can do the rest. However, a new phone which does both will be quite a problem. Any phone with the same features will cost a pretty penny, but in the end, it may not be worth it because the iPod will come out the better one. The question of the two-year contract comes in when I have finally decided to replace the Nokia with another phone in the same family. I would make money out of the phone if I were to take it along with a contract from the company. Therefore, no incentive to buy now, and I have to wait until May to replace it. And in the meanwhile, I keep searching for a phone which can at least prove to be a worthy competitor to the Touch.

If you have any suggestions (non-abusive), let me know. And last, a wacky pearl of wisdom… If you are in a dilemma when it comes to buying the next fully featured phone, just buy the iPod Touch. You will end up with the above conundrum, but at least, you will have the Touch which will keep you entertained all the way.

Virtues of boredom

2009-01-26T01:04:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, I was totally occupied with work. And then came boredom. So, I didn’t know how to take it and went on a mission to find out what it is. At the end of the mission, I didn’t find an answer, so I killed everyone else on the planet who wasn’t bored and felt happy that the rest of humanity was also bored along with me. Right.
Lets start over… with the real story this time. After a long semester, I was a little scared of the winter break. I was scared because I had nothing to do during that period. No plans to go out. No trips to any place. Three weeks of absolutely nothing awaited me. When I say nothing, I don’t mean a life of loneliness in the middle of a forest. It just means I didn’t have any concrete plans to go visit any friends or relatives (or a trip back home like last year). The inevitable three weeks began with an upside down routine, also called the jet-lagged routine, or the IST routine. Sleep in the morning and wake up at night. Counter Strike was the biggest draw to begin with and a couple of other games joined the line-up as the vacation continued. But these games would take up about 6 hours a day (yup, we did play that long). What about the other parts? Food took up a few hours. We had really good food this time round. Well, those were the oceans of boredom which were so empty, you could almost lose yourself in completely useless things and not feel guilty after you get back to reality.
It was one of those trains of thought which actually led to coin the term “virtues of boredom”(if no one else has trademarked it, I wish to) (and even if you did, I will buy it from you). I realized that boredom is that time in life which makes you realize that your life isn’t overflowing with stuff to do. You have enough time to schedule any number of stuff that you want. You are like an under-utilized engine which has enough free time to refit itself with a turbocharger and see how it sounds (I am a car freak, if you didn’t know).
I think life comes with a project specification. That specification tells you what to expect and what you are expected to do. Once you understand that specification, you have figured out what life is all about and you won’t be really scared out of your wits about anything. You will understand everything around you properly once you have completely absorbed the specification. It is a pretty big one, and I don’t think mastering it is achievable, at least not when you are loaded with work for 9 plus months of a year. But you can get a rough idea of what it is. And that’s all that really matters. I can proudly say that I have understood some of it, and what it tells me is that being bored is a good thing. You have fulfilled all the things you wanted to do in the other parts of your life, and you still have time left to do something else. Something new for which you don’t have to sacrifice other things. And when you are bored, you find a lot more things to do. Personally, I wish there is always some amount of boredom in my life (not the sort of boredom while sitting in an office with loads of work on your head). And that boredom allows me to come up with new things I want to explore. This time round, I realized that there is such a thing called useless thinking, but that’s the topic for another blog.
My first ever suggestion to readers… always leave enough time to be bored in your life. It really does feel so good to be bored. :)
P.S. I was a teaching assistant last semester and have been studying for quite a few years. So the word “specification” is something I hear and use a lot. :)

Rational thoughts

2008-12-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

I keep thinking… isn’t it easier to picture life as a c program. What we want to do should be cleared marked out as the goals of the program. All the fun should be placed in the main function with a few intermittent calls to work. Comments are your conversations and thoughts which help you understand life. Isn’t that so easy to work out? Call me nerdy, but you should agree that most decisions look simple once you cast them as a set of nested control statements.

I come to this conclusion after a semester which helped me learn a lot, not just about coding, but also the similarities in problems stated in project specs and situations in life. What normally happens in life I guess is that there is a “sense” vacuum in situations where we don’t use the brain when we should. There are a variety of names for what occupies this vacuum, some of which are heart, emotions and feelings. I guess all of them refer to the excuse given for irrational thinking which cannot be justified later. Yes, the smile on our faces and the pain we feel comes from emotions, but that is emotions for short periods. Periods where emotions are necessary, but in most cases, they aren’t. And certainly, life as a whole cannot be run by them. Instead, a proper algorithm with comments and syntactically correct coding can do wonders.

There’s a reason why the brain consumes 1/5th of all the energy we expend. And that’s because we should be using it most of the time. I find the argument that emotions are essential, and some people have their emotional sentiments which should be respected, no matter how illogical, to be quite unacceptable. I believe that there are absolute boundaries within all our brains work. One of them is rationality, and that is the ability to think with your head and judge what is right and what is not. There are areas where we are allowed to disagree. However, the basis of rationality is the same. We will believe in something we think makes sense. It makes sense to imagine that we would fall off if we don’t balance ourselves on our feet. If we drop a stone, it will fall to the ground, not go up into the sky. If it were to go up into the sky, and there is a rationale behind it, we would understand it. All this looks pretty obvious, but I think this same principle to the realm of social interactions. Why is it not possible to apply the same rational thinking and define a set of rules which allow people to co-exist? It should be possible to get people to agree that it is in their own interest to follow a basic set of rules. This isn’t a curtailing of one’s freedom, but a requirement for the continuation of the society. I think everything in the world must be defined after accepting the terms of these conditions.

I firmly believe that it is because that there isn’t such a framework which is enforced on everyone in this world that we find ourselves with supposedly complicated problems. The framework can contain extremely simple rules which can get into the dunderest of dunderheads, provided it is turned on. Turning on the head and using it should, obviously, be the responsibility of the individual. Any individual refusing to accept the terms should not be allowed into the society. I think this is particularly relevant topic now because in the name of freedom, there are ridiculous activities being carried out around the world. Religious freedom is the first freedom that is abused to striking proportions. I wonder how blowing up one’s own neighbourhood can possibly be a right thing. I wonder how respecting an uncertain entity (God) to such an extent to hurt real and living entities around oneself can be passed under the garb of freedom. It is clearly stupid to think that it makes sense to respect anything more than the society that has allowed you to live for so long. If there has been injustice done to you, then there are a finite set of people who are responsible, if at all. However, the rest of the society cannot be held responsible. And this definitely cannot be passed off as insecurities, emotional outbursts or any such crap bag of terms.

We pride ourselves on being the most advanced of the species based on our genetics. Going by the proportion of dunderheads that we are churning out, at alarming rates, around the world, I am happy that the job of evolution is left to nature and not, until now at least, left to any of the dumbest characters.

I believe there is a finite cost/share that everything in the world has in one’s life. I think most people lost that sense of finite cost, and assume that there is something that is more important than their life. I am sorry but evolution will take too long to eliminate those genes, and we cannot afford to have such genes causing harm to the rest of mankind.

The Palin Paradigm versus the Maher Mind

2008-11-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

My last blog was about the one thing which matters the most. It focused on what is the most important ingredient in life and… heck, if you really want to know what it was about, you might as well read it.
In this one, I will talk about what we need in plenty. As you might have guessed, this is related to the presidential race, and my comments on it.
Comedians always have a special place in the society. Their job is make people laugh. They blur the line between the public and personal parts of anyone’s life, to get the audience to their feet. That’s something to be appreciated and contained. Most of them tend towards the excessive always, to achieve their goal. This leaves a sour taste, and the laughter is purely based on insulting a person’s personal life, in extremely exotic words. I find Craig Ferguson to be almost always overly personal with most of his jokes on politicians. Even with the personal assaults, I don’t find him outstandingly funny. Jon Stewart tends towards the gross, especially when he starts digging deep into a single personality. However, there are times when the comedian brings out a fact, which is humorous by its very definition. It is true and extremely funny purely because unbelievably, it’s real. According to me, this is differentiates the really good ones, from the rest of the crop. The ability to find facts which astonish and humor the audience is appreciable. Bill Maher is one such comedian. He has captured the essence of the race in far fewer words than any of the other comedians. But he has made the point clearer than anyone else. His focus is not just the election, but its impact on the world around. He questions every facet of the world which looks irrational. Be it religion, be it the Wall Street crash, or the most ineligible candidate in the fray, Sarah Palin. His analysis of why she isn’t suitable, and how absurd it is to think of her as the president was just awesome! His jokes reflected reality. And he made me realize how screwed the system has become.
Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska. I do not know about her achievements during her term as a governor, but from what I can gather from the news, they are not something to write home about. I do not want this blog to turn into a personal attack on Ms.Palin. Rather, I want to highlight how ineligible candidates can come up and be posed in a democracy. I leave the Palin-bashing to the news websites (except for Fox which thinks otherwise!).
To me, the GOP VP pick looks to be dumbest decision ever by the party. I cannot believe that in today’s age, we have such an incompetent candidate in the fray. From whatever interviews I have seen, I can see that the professional knowledge needed by a vice-presidential candidate are completely absent in her. However, the topic is not the person, but how she managed to grab the ticket.
To find out how she pulled that trick, we have to look quite a long way back. I was watching a Greek movie a month back in Charlotte in which the narrator was boasting about the contributions of Greece to the rest of the world. He attributed quite a few things to Greece, which was quite obvious because he was Greek, and another Greek edited the movie. Before all this sounds too much like Greek and Latin, let me tell you why I brought this up here. He mentioned that democracy took its birth in Greece, and the world has to thank Greece for that. Really?
The question I ask is not about whether Greece introduced the world to democracy (that’s for a later blog), but should we really thank Greece for democracy? Lets see how democracy works. Everyone (dumb or not) votes for their choice and the candidate with the maximum number of votes wins the election. This looks like a very fair way of managing large populations, as the candidates are responsible for their constituencies. But there is an underlying assumption here, which is that every voter is smart enough to know who to vote for. I think this is the fallacy which has helped so many incompetent leaders to make it to the top, and remain there. It’s in the interest of the leader to continue to maintain the population at their current level of dumbness, hence ensuring that they don’t make the smart decisions when they vote. And this is cycle. In India, my home country, this is the single biggest reason for the lack of development in sub-urban and rural constituencies. This is a fallacy conveniently hidden from the public, because every party has a vested interest in maintaining status quo. Now, the weave is almost done. It is to target these voters that Ms.Palin has been brought into the fray.
The initial surge in popularity was purely due to the “wonder” factor. Most of the smart ones realized soon after that Ms.Palin wouldn’t qualify as an educated voter, let alone as a vice-presidential nominee. I find it extremely shocking that even with her on the ticket, the race is as close as it is now. I think it is the biggest example in modern times that the second most powerful person in the world throws books out of a library, and has absolutely no idea what her job is. It is a mockery of the system that such a candidate is contesting in the most powerful country in the world.
The interesting thing is that this country is home to the smartest people in the world. This country attracts the best brains in the world, and retains them. It is continually the one super-power which leads the world in every field. However, the fact that there are more people like Ms.Palin than Mr.Maher only suggests that democracy isn’t something which can be applied in its truest form.
I really wish the Greeks thought it through before they imposed democracy on us.

The one cake you should eat

2008-10-13T21:22:00.001-07:00

The weather’s really cool. The streets are deserted. And you are on your way to nowhere. There’s only one thing in the world that knows where you are. It’s the white thing up there. It has always been there, but it’s only now that it feels that it’s there for you. It will light up any place you go. It will be right there. It’s telling you there’s nothing to think about. Just do whatever comes to your mind. Actually, don’t go to the mind, go to your heart. Do whatever you want to. No consequences. No future to think of. No past to remember. No present to care about. Just float on the plane of carelessness.

No sun to disturb the loneliness. No rules to follow. No paths to guide you. No time to return home at. No need to think about sleeping. No alarm to set. No problems to think about. No need to worry about which world you are in. No need to act 24. No need to think about anything at all. The mind is just a spectator watching the dreams in the heart come alive. For once, the castles are in the heart, not in the mind, not in the air.

All the things you wanted to do. All the freedom you ever wanted. All the strings you ever wanted to cut. All the things money can’t buy. All the happiness you ever wanted. All the love you ever wanted to experience. All the peace you ever wanted to take in. All the things around you, you didn’t want. All the space in the world you ever wanted. The never-ending horizon you wanted to look at.

Life’s isn’t about a million things. It’s about one thing. And it’s that one thing which changes everything else. It’s that one thing which I want to live for. It’s that time when your mind stops, and your heart takes over, as if they knew it was coming. It’s the time you have been born in this world to experience. It can be a clear night with just the moon and you. It can be the most crowded place, but everything else is silent when you look at her. It can be the time when you go back to your home for the first time after staying in the US. It can be the moment you reach the beach or a mountain, and you are at the edge of the flat world. It’s that moment which makes you feel lucky that you understand the beauty of it. At that moment, everything else that you have learnt pales in comparison. The most important thing you need to learn is already in you.

All of us have the ingredients for the cake. All of us bake the cake. Most are worried about the icing and the strawberries. It’s only a few of us who actually know how to eat the cake.

Style over substance

2008-08-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this particular topic for a while. I have been trying to put my thoughts in order regarding this one. I hope all the effort has paid off.

I think there are two parts to a personality, namely the style and the substance. The substance is the one which is the essence, the thing which takes a person where they are. But there is another component called style. Thats responsible for intangible stuff which are crucial for all the successes mentioned above. Some people think that style is more important than substance. Some people admit that fact, others don't. I personally don't think haven't been able to take one or the other side of the argument. I have realized that there can be zero style, and that means you put in no effort.

In some professions, I think style plays a greater role than anything else. If you are in a job where your perception among your employees matters a lot, then you would definitely need a lot of style. Style is that element which is the immediate signature that you leave at every occasion. Its the first thing people recognize in you. If you are a manager, style is paramount in order to maintain your position among your peers. Charm is part of style. There are some natural elements to style, and those are define the style mostly. The temporary additions wear off very fast. I, am, not, a, manager. And most of the day, I am trying to figure out simulators and bugs in code, so I really don't need to worry about the impression I leave on people. What matters to me more than anything else is the computer understand what I am saying, and vice versa. And luckily for me, computers haven't been taught to grasp style. Its so much better when things around you are linear. People aren't. I guess thats 'coz the brain has to service its illogical side in order to be creative. That is the only plausible explanation that I can come up with. I have an interest in trying to figure out how people decide on their actions, and if you have anything to say in this regard, I am all ears. Some actions in this world seem like pure bull-shit. And I would to hear how and why they could justify the actions.

Anyways, coming back to style over substance. I think its unfair to look at lives as either with or without style or substance. I think there's more to it. There are some supercars which fall into the following analogy. Piece together the words style over substance and think again. Doesn't that sound like a garnishing of style over substance. I never think of it that way, but once I did, I couldn't think of it any other way. Style is the icing on the cake that is the substance. You like the icing, but it costs nothing compared to the cake. The icing always has to be with something, otherwise it has no meaning. Some super cars are designed inside out. The final shape is made aerodynamic once they know the approximate shape based on the engine and the chassis. Thats smart engineering. And it works really well. Taking off from the icing part, do we really need it? Isn't icing just and add-on? I mean, don't some cakes taste much better without icing? Isn't style just another way of adding something hollow. If style is really connected to one's field, isn't that better put without the garnish? Wouldn't it be easy to appreciate without the blanket of style which may blur whats inside. I think style is as important as icing. I don't prefer icing on most of the cakes. Its a stupid way of adding to the selling price. Its got no use but to add fat. In the case, its your ego that's disproportionately growing. And no over-the-counter/prescription pill can solve that problem.

Dedicated to everyone who thinks MTV has more style than computer labs.

A "backbencher's" account

2008-06-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

I liked this article more because of its narrative style, which resembles five point someone. Its about a self-confessed "75%" person's view of the "toppers". Nice ending though. :)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2947772,prtpage-1.cms

The Hyderabad Airport - review

2008-06-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

First up, the background. I went to hyd in may, and returned a couple of days back. I flew by lufthansa, and there wasn't any other airline flying around the same time as I was. So the airport was relatively empty. That said, the number of people on the plane was in excess of 250, and begumpet was really bad at handling the same schedule.

Now, the airport looks pretty modern. Its not a mix of concrete without any ventilation. Its a futuristic, steel-and-glass structure. It gives you the feeling that you can see through it, from one side to the other. If you have passed through IAD (Washington Dulles), you will know what I am saying. The immigration and emigration is a breeze. It took me about two and a half hours to go through begumpet, last time round. It took me about fifteen to twenty min to do the same here. So, on that count, its ammmaazzzing! Its got all the duty-free shops you would see in any other airport, and the prices. I am not kidding. An idli would cost you 80rs, and a vada, 100. So, its not all hunky-dowry, but thats how it is. And without your knowing, you are paying 25$ more than you would've paid had you flown to begumpet. Thats thanks to the UDF (User Development Fee).

Next up, the approach road. The airport manager, GMR, owns 4000 acres, and only a small part of it is the airport. There's already a new novotel right next to the airport. A few more hotels and malls are set to come up in the next couple of years. And the airport is at the other end of the 4000 acres, so the airport is about 7 kms from the time you enter the GMR compound. The drive is a pleasure on the bangalore highway, and inside the GMR compound. Until there, its a bit of a hassle, but beyond 10 in the night, its not that much of a problem.

I love exploring new airports, and I have this special place for some of them. Its not just because this airport is in my home town, I really think this airport is one of the really nice ones. The staff, the layout, the hassle-free setup, all of it adds up. And its just 20% of the total planned. Its got that charm. Its got that feeling which makes you feel really happy when you land there. There's no other airport that I would want to land in, to welcome me home.

I love it... and I am sure you will... until... ?

Whats wrong with xp?

2008-05-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Lets start with the most popular ones and move onto more deep stuff. First, XP takes a little bit of time, no.. it takes a lot of time to start. By the way, thats because of the number of items on the critical path... believe it or not, it waits to connect to wifi before you see the desktop... and until it connects, or tries and fails, you won't see the desktop. Even after the prolonged bootup, it still takes a while to load the apps. And it needs about 256 MB to do stuff, which linux manages in half as much. Although that isn't much of an issue in today's age of 4GB RAM chips, it weighs in when you want to run memory intensive apps. And almost every security app, starting from a firewall, to the anti-spyware stuff like spysweeper, to norton antivirus... the last one's notorious at it... slow down the system. And it seems quite obvious that these should be in the startup list. Whats not so obvious is why acrobat reader is put in the startup list, along with all sorts of junk third party applications. The applications have the same layouts, absolutely bland, and utilitarian. And the X-window system is just about working, on the best of days.

So, XP has a lot not going for it. But then, isn't there something we are missing here? Sure, the XP starts slow, and doesn't have the best looks around. But... once it up and running, do you ever have a crib against it?... Ten mins into its running... Is there anything lacking?... no!.. Its an absolutely joy to work with once you get it going. Its easily the fastest OS around on most laptops. It even trumps ubuntu once in a while, in terms of app loading speeds. Now, i am not saying all this speed comes with MS apps... mostly its with apps like firefox and gtalk. But its ridiculously stable, dependable, and probably, the best OS MS will debut in a long time.

So, why are most of the critics in the tech world upto MS bashing? MS screwed up vista. Sure! But thats one failure, after five successes. Thats allowed, isn't it? I mean, they went after the apple interface (which is brilliant), and they screwed up while they were doing it. But still, that doesn't justify classifying MS OSes as bad, and useless. I am refering to a blog on arstechnica, which started blasting MS and compared it with the Apple OS. Now, first up, MS has a lot more audience to cater to. Second, it has a lot of backward compatibility issues it has to deal with when it comes out with an OS. Mac is just now gaining prominence. Its not as if Apple has been going high all the time. Its with the ipod that the resurgence started. So, obviously, there's something going wrong here. Why would the critics want to bash up MS?

I think its because its now the in-thing. To bash MS, is now a fashion statement among the critics. Whether or not it is correct, they take the line that Apple has the best OS in the world, and Windows sucks. I am sorry, but I beg to disagree. You cannot be MS Windows XP... Its better than any other OS on the market. Its cheaper, more compatible, and portable (Apple should learn that word)... and it runs like a charm on my laptop. I have no cribs against it, and I have been using it for donkey's years now. Its as dependable today, as it will ever be. I may be the only soul in the world saying this... but... MS Windows XP ROCKS!

Perfect Harmony --- where to find it

2008-02-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

In the weather... when its cloudy, but not dark... and there's that hint of drizzle... a few drops of rain, just to make you feel fresh...

In the music... when you feel the tune is made for you... when there is a message which put everything else in life, in a different perspective... which makes you wonder... leaving you in heaven...

In the food... which changes your mood... makes you realize how somethings heavenly are right here on earth... and they are most unlikely pathways to happiness...

In the pleasure of a car... which drives you to drive it... more and more and more... where you forget that the world is round, and chase the setting sun... a car which never makes you feel alone... even though you are happy that you are happy being alone... and you leave your world behind and head off into distant lands... just you and your car...

In the passion... for games... which transform you into another actor in the game... and you have a country to conquer... another race to win... another role to play... another challenge for you to take up... another adrenaline pumping experience... another opponent who wants to test his skills against yours... with all the artificial intelligence that the computer has garnered... and you will have to come up with new tricks... to outsmart it... to win the game... the ultimate proving ground...

In the breathtaking speed of the computers... of their brains... the processors... the gadget which is leading the world... the most abused, the most loved, the most understood, the most misunderstood... the gateway to the whole world... at the "tap of a key"... the "click of the mouse"... with its own english... where faces are pasted on books... where you can have all the space you want... and still feel crammed...

In the eyes of the one person who makes you feel happy about the world... every single second... who lets you free when you want to venture out... and shield you whenever you don't want to... shares the perfect moments in life... a million memories every second you spend... a million more when you recollect the good times... and every fight looks like a expression of thoughts, with no evil intent... and all this happens, without even noticing that the two personalities are disparate... two living beings, who were brought by people based on either the "hypothesis of love" or the "stars" and grandparents... and there started the journey... another of the many stairways to heaven that life gives you...

heaven is right here... gotta grab one of the many stairways to it... all the stairways have one common tag on them... they are all in a perfect harmony...

Taare Zameen Par

2008-01-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

The movie Taare Zameen Par symbolizes the amazing vacation I have had in Hyderabad. I went for a second show to PVR with my mom and cousin. And I truly felt the movie is the best movie I have watched till now. It symbolized the nicest and easiest way to across the message the director wanted to convey. The message was important, but the purity with which the director put it across, even more. And I have listened to the songs, many times since I watched the movie. The song are very good, but the memories I attach with them, even more. I did not spend most of my time in Hyderabad going to different places, nor did I spend it at the theaters day in and day out. What I did was spent the maximum time possible with the people who matter to me the most. And that made it the best vacation I have ever had. I am sure the happiness has its root in the fact that my hometown is Hyderabad.

I had such a wonderful time with the people in Hyderabad. I am sure that this is also because of the short span of the visit, but I think there is something else to it. It takes a break from each other to realize how important and wonderful the other person is. And after the break, you are so much more dearer. I love my life, and part of the reason for that are the people around me. When I went to Hyderabad, I had no initial plans of what I was going to do, but as things unfolded, I rediscovered a side of myself which I had lost. I realized that there was a hidden person inside who didn't dare to come out after I came to US. And that person was an integral part of me, and my happiness. It is wonderful to realize that side, like discovering the missing piece in a puzzle. And I think this realization happened due to the heavenly comfort factor that I share with everyone close to me. They are my family, friends and relatives. I realized quite a while ago that I have an extremely wide variety of friends, close friends at that. And I have begun to appreciate the various facets of my personality which are interacting with each of them. And they have help make my Hyderabad vacation, the wonderful vacation that it was. I will remember this one forever.

I would like to thank each of them, and for that reason, I have mailed a link to this blog specifically each of them, and as always, everyone's free to read it.

woh hain... taare mere zameen par... aur... hyderabad mera taaramandal...

Mission America(ns) - A view from the other side

2007-12-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

This isn't quite the patriotic blog, if thats what u r expecting. I have had a really good time this semester in NCSU, and I am headed home for the winter break. Thats the background, now I start painting...

Friends, gadgets, family, good food, games... is that the perfect recipe for life? Okay, I'll add gf to the list, to widen the consensus. I have every one of these things back home... but I didn't realize that something else lay ahead of me in US. Guess what... YES! there is something in US which I didn't get in India... absolutely, top-notch education system. They make u slog, push u to the limit, but it works! it really works... Without any doubt, I have done a lot more work this sem than multiple sems during the bachelors. And its not butcher's work either, its really really good work. So, in hindsight, do I regret coming here? No ways... Do I have everything I want in life back home? Now... thats a tougher question to answer. I can't find a single institution (besides the IITs) which can guarantee the standards and the curriculum here.

Now thats interesting... its easy to answer the flip question... Should I have come to US? YES!... Did I have everything back home?... ummm... If I were doing a job, I guess yes... I mean, I wouldn't care for the quality of education then. But as a student, I think US presents a wonderful opportunity to study. And for that, and that alone, I think its worth making the journey.

True.. you don't have the neighbourhood theatre playing ur fav movies... you don't have dadu's chat right beside ur house to drop in for a chat every other day... you don't have ur mom to cook food everyday by the time you reach home... you don't have a home with limitless food (believe me, my house is a heaven for food, always). BUT... what you do have... are really good courses... peers who are just as good as u... wonderful facilities... and a way of life... you MAY start to like...

Normally, around this time, I set out explaining the title... so, lets keep up the tradition... when I was in hyd, I was really excited about coming to US... and so were each and every one of my friends... i am guessing pretty much everyone in my age group felt the same way...

A semester later... "u r so lucky to go back home"... "u r going home? awesome man"... "have really good food back home... and bring us back lots"... Now... this isn't a contradiction... but its surprising... but what is... "this life sucks... life back in hyd is really great man"... (btw, i love my life in hyd, and really love the work life here... if u haven't already, read between the lines)...

my point in all this... indians have been coming to US for a few decades.. shouldn't US be a known quantity by now? Shouldn't we know what to expect and what not to... Well, somethings really do stay unknowns although everyone knows about them... :) US is one such place... Its a wonderful place to come to study... and... if u ask me, thats about it...

If any of my potential employers is reading this... pls don't take this to be a testament of my english and/or views... but pls do consider placing me in India... :) cheaper for u... and happier for me...

HD 3800 series makes good on R600 potential: a review of the AMD RV670: Page 2

2007-11-22T23:54:00.000-08:00

HD 3800 series makes good on R600 potential: a review of the AMD RV670: Page 2

And we actually thought the Auto was going extinct!!

2007-10-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered who in the world would've thought of designing the "minitaxi" in the first place?!!! Well, there's someone in this world who actually believes that a vehicle with three wheels can be attractive!! Alas, he couldn't be more wrong...

When it comes to wheels, 4>2>(every other number except 3)>3

The chinese bunny... or is it the american F1

2007-10-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, finally a "track record" of innovation :) What a logo to copy!

The people's world... or is it?

2007-10-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I think by now everyone who as read any of my previous posts would know what to expect from a new post. But for those who haven't done the right thing and didn't read my blogs... this won't shake you out of your seat. It will make you think (hopefully, I can use the word "again" here). :)

Now that we are through the courteous introduction, let me get on with my work of writing the blog... Thanks for tuning in, hopefully you'll enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.

How this world is all about people... and how its not
How important it is to mingle with others... and how important it is to realize that its not that important either...
How its wonderful when you get hang out with them... and how its just as wonderful when you realize the same all by yourself...
How you can find yourself so happy when you are with them, and without...

In this world of youtube videos, and orkut scraps, and facebook werewolf attacks, its nice to step back and watch the revolution created by netizens. Responsible or not, they are creating a revolution. But a few points escape the mind in this world. How important it is realize who friends are. I talk about friends because the buzzword among all the communities is "friendship". I think friendship is something very nice... and its even better in richer quantities. I think its the one place where quality matters more than quantity. Its the one place where the person matters, more than the time.

I have found a very good analogy for almost anything in life. Everything in life is a pill. A pill because everything in moderated quantities is great. It has a fine balance. I call it the finite balance. Zero amount of anything is bad... be it studies, be it relaxation or anything else for that matter. But so is an overdose of the same. There is a fine balance where everything is just perfect. Let me put it this way. Instead of using the pill analogy (inviting bitter sweet comments :) ), let me use the cooking analogy. A fine balance is like the correct amount of ingredient... makes the dish perfect. Especially something like biryani ( I come from Hyderabad... :) ). Every restaurant has a rice dish masquerading as biryani, but only very few chefs know the correct balance. Life's just like that.

Coming back to friends... the recipe is just the same. The quality of friendships is what matters. Not the number. :) Just like... it doesn't matter if you own a hundred cars, but just one gallardo. You live in hyderabad, and eat all the udipi biryanis, and haven't tasted the real one. Just like you have a collection of a hundred comics, but only a few asterix or c&h. Just like you have read many blogs, but haven't read mine. :)

Friday night musings

2007-09-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Captain's Log: Stardate: 09/22/2007; 2.15AM

I have heard the term "wonderful nature" so many times that I started investigating why so many people say that, and why so many people second that. During my usual critical (also referred to by many as cynical) view of the surroundings, I have realized that "wonderful nature" is the most politically correct statement ever! It has a little bit of truth, though. What is completely false is the next statement after that... "Whatever man makes, it can never compare to nature". Now, that looks like a Foreign Affairs statement... rather than a balanced observation.

You could always argue with me that these are "points of view", but so is mine on them. :) It really is a loop!

Getting back to not-so-wonderful nature and amazing humans. Man has accomplished almost everything he needed, whenever he needed it. Without much problem, he has survived and flourished for the past god-knows-how-many years. Among the various "works" of man, are literary (something close to this), architectural (nothing like my house here), and automotive and electronic... besides the "when-u-get-sick" medical stuff. To me, any expression of pride starts with either electronic, automotive or architectural. Among these, the architectural wonders are the biggest, most visible symbols.

There's a bridge called the Milau bridge in France. It is built over a very large valley, and its fantastic! No other word for it... Its Fantastic. It never has and never will get as much attention as the lazy elephants on discovery or animal planet, but the bridge speaks volumes just through pictures (courtesy google images). I dare anyone to look at the Milau bridge and appreciate the nature around and rank it above the bridge. The bridge is just so imposing, so arrogant, so much "in-the-face" that it is pretty much impossible to lie about it.

I could've chosen a gallardo... Already have a blog on that, and I wouldn't want to butcher it to death... There are already a hundred clones of it here in US who are doing that job.

I could've chosen the computer... which is still mind-boggling in its complexity... I say still because I find that it is more and more complicated as I learn about it.. not the other way!!

Coming to the point... I think man has created his own place in earth's history. And I am not referring to global warming or any such "negative impacts". I am referring to the way he has made a land of jungles and rivers, and deserts and ice-caps, into an extremely fun-place to live in. He has transformed the way earth looks from the sky and the moon. He's like a chef. He was given a world to live in, and has mastered it. What was given to him may have been really good, and it truly is, but what he has made of it, is even more startling.

I love animals and plants and other stuff, but what I love the most is the world that we have created... that world where what we want is done.

C(onfused) I(ndian) in A(merica)

2007-09-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

...... hmmm?...... Facilities... not really totally! And... lemme think a little while longer...

Lets look at the other side of the coin... Internet, Y!msgr, orkut, great indian food, great friends, political pages, Economic Times.... HOME...

On a balance... we would break the balance by its tilt...

RRYTEYEIWYREWIYREIUY............ US is the most advanced country in the world. It is going to take you by storm with the facilities available, and the quality of life... RZREWDOSFJODSJ....

Didn't really get that... Lemme just check... Nope... Didn't get that. I had everything in India... everything I wanted, everything I cared about. Therefore, when I look at this place, and look around, I am not shocked... rather, I am curious as to what are the things here taht I haven't seen earlier.

There are a few things which I haven't seen... driving on the right side of hte road... which i still feel is a bit screwed up!

As you may have imagined, this is a crib blog... and also a reality check for anyone in India who thinks US is off the charts...

You'll be getting a really balanced blog a little later... For now, this is it.. Cya

Nature - an anecdote

2007-06-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

A few pictures of the supernova… a few drops of rain,
Happenings from the world above and my homely lane,
What is it that brings them so close,
What is it that makes me muse,
Is it the colors, or the lack of it,
Or the silence that comes with it,
Happiness, in seeing the most beautiful,
All the words in this world cannot describe in full,
How I wish we knew how to create such beautiful happenings,
Alas… after all, we are only beings;
Who can see all that nature has to offer,
But nothing comes close, whatever we proffer,
But again, we are lucky to sight,
What is definitely the most wonderful sight,
Which leaves us in awe, over and over again,
Nature never repeats in vain,
It never cease to amaze,
As we continue to gaze…

A million avatars

2007-06-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

The world of avatars is the first step towards the virtual world. The difference between both is quite obvious... right now. But will it stay that way?

Most of the social networks and related apps allow for an avatar in one way or another. The word avatar was (I am guessing here) used by Yahoo! and subsequently there are many names for the same. For example, the status message in Gtalk, or the Headline in Orkut.. hell, probably even this blog!

These avatars are an expression of what we are... no, sometimes they explore what we want to be. All this sounds well and good. But isn't it all a little wierd? Total introverts writing "Hey gals, wanna chat?"... or an absolute dumbass quoting einstein or the million other quotes on the net. At some level, it is pitiable to see people coming up with some plagiarized lines just to make themselves sound "cool". And this is the final nail... the avatars keep changing, to keep up with the cool bandwagon...

Frankly, I haven't yet heard of a definition of cool, other than the "highly successful in talking to girls" one. I wonder what kind of people would love to show off something which they aren't. I wonder what kind of people would spend hours browsing and pleading for friendship on every girl's scrapbook. I wonder what kind of people struggle to keep with the handful of courses in their college but keep track of all the possible break ups in the vicinity. (And here I am refering to both guys and girls). I wonder how the country can pride itself of bringing up the biggest, youngest "TALENT" pool in the world...

When I say that, I am sure that there are people who don't fall into such groups, but most of the people do. And the point here is not just of "whether they join an IT co" or not, the point is that of the society that is being built up. Frankly, we may be wearing Levi's, smoking a Marlboro, driving a Ferrari or drinking JW, but when we do all of that, we should have atleast one cent of self-respect and decency!

For once, an avatar of decency and truth will go a long way...

Spoofs aint bachelors no more...

2007-05-31T02:04:00.000-07:00

First things first, the credit for this article goes to ME, and the brickbats go to Ms V... this article is take off from where she left off in hers... You'll find her in my friends, please feel free to let out ur anger at this article...

Marriages are lovely times, and I mean that. From every perspective possible, they are the best occasions... Lemme explain why... and how...

They are the best everyone loses something, and gains something... Lets start with the groom shall we... He gets a fully paid publicity event, with lots of money (I would like to be politically incorrect and say "from the guy's point of view, dowry is a positive thing"), gets to meet lots of friends, gets to see lots of girls, enjoys the great food... and gets (all virgins, say i do) a honeymoon... NOW... what he loses is the freedom for the rest of his life... he is now officially gonna tick the "married" column which probably holds much greater significance than just the ink... He is now a responsible person, and i think the "r" word is the opposite of the "f" word for a guy... or is it?!

Next, the bride gets loads of jewelry... which is again, quite good when you love to show off... she gets to live in her own house, have her own family, and live the great Indian dream... and the gifts.. and the honeymoon... what does she lose in all of this? well, she wont be getting a million friend requests a day which actually make her feel so sought after... and of course, her husband is gonna throw everything in wrong"est" place possible...

The guy's parents lose a pocket-hole digger... they can finally buy the skoda and not the swift... the girl's parents can proudly say that their daughter is married, and they don't have to worry about "when will we get her married? ... how much will it cost?"... they can buy the flat and get out of rented accommodation...

The guests are split in half... Half of them love the food, the girls... and the give the gifts as a sign of payment for all the enjoyment they get out of it...
The other half are the left to fend for themselves... they are the disgruntled ones... who hate wearing jewelry, hate the photos, hate the insatiably hungry "others", and still sleep off early in the night for the marriage next day...

Well, as is usual now, I don't think everyone will get everything I have written in the blog... But do feel free to give a 10 rating for the spoof that it was...

Art of attacking the Gods

2007-05-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I am pretty sure most of the readers are aware of the "Art Attack" episodes on news telivision universe. The news channels have laboriously created a universe for themselves, and funnily, its drifting further and further from that of the astronomer's. And the use of such terms as "Art Attack" (by the way, thats a really good show on Disney) are quite a poor effort on the part of the researcher/reporter in highlighting the story.

Cutting to the chase, I don't think all of the "vandalism" by the VHP activists should be viewed in the photographer's room. I don't believe that all "expressions" should be left uncensored. I don't think it is right to propagate the view that "The artist should be allowed to open his mind and heart whenever he has a brush/pen in his hand". After all, would we like a person on the street opening his filthy mouth when it comes to addressing us or our family members. I am not going into the Constitution here for two reasons. I don't have such a deep insight into the laws in that large fat book. And second, I believe that the Constitution is deeply flawed if it allows for such "expressions".

Over the past year, it has been made quite clear through various incidents that everthing from a cartoon strip to a movie to a painting can be categorized as offensive. In the countless discussions that have gone on, one thing has emerged. The religious leaders are very liberal when it comes to "offensive" material with respect to another religion, but very strict when it comes to their own. So, basically, the discussion is stuck in a muck, with no outcome whatsoever. I have a very simple solution to these mess. A common sensical one.

Why can't there be a law which states that a finite number of sacred symbols cannot be used in "artistic expressions"? I am sure the artists can work with such a "restriction". I am critical of the artists because it is becoming more and more obvious that their effort is more to create a media hype, and fetch a higher price for their work. I cannot think of any other reason why the artist in Vadodara would paint such a painting knowing fully well that it was refering to the sacred space of a religion. I only wish he wouldn't have got himself into jail by painting his explosive and deragatory expressions. I wish he would be as relaxed as I am while I am writing this blog. :)

If only the artists would go about their business the way the rest of India does, I would have had a better discussion than "Art Attack" to watch while I had my dinner. :)

Where realism meets idealism

2007-05-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Actually it doesn’t. I don’t think both of them will ever meet. I don’t think the analogy of parallel lines applies here, either. ‘coz once u talk of parallel lines, u know the distance between them. Here, they are just so far apart. U can’t measure the distance…
The difference strikes you when you think of the VT shootout. What was a guy doing with a gun on a campus. More importantly, how in the world did he get hold of it. And even more shocking, how come this happens so frequently in US. The reason behind it is the stimulus for this article.
Guns are available freely in the US. That’s a known fact. What is also known is that the gun lobby is very strong, and hence doesn’t let the “harmful” laws to limit the presence of “self-defence” arms. Well, ironically, the pistol didn’t even save the life of the miscreant at VT! To the un-“shielded” brains, the incident will look quite unbelievable. How can this be going on in a country which, otherwise, is a model for all the developing countries? Well, that’s quite true. It is a model for the developing countries to look at. The “developing” part of the country means that the country is going deeper into capitalism. And the leader of the Free World is showing us what it means to reach and live at that level. I am not an anti-capitalist. After all, my first job was a result of the proliferation of capitalism in this country. And the reason why the airline tickets are as low as the train fares is due to the same. And there are million more such examples. But the point I am trying to make here is that, we live in reality, not idealistic.
But when the reality is filled with such punch-you-in-the-face stuff, how come I find that people stick onto morals. Why is it that people stick onto out-of-date principles, and perceptions about life? At some level, it’s hypocrisy. It’s a drive within a person which makes him choose to talk of morals. Which makes him try to ridicule the world around him, or watch in apparent “amazement” at the lack of morality. This is one of the most difficult questions to find answers to… it has been so for me. I find it quite simple. Morals don’t have only one place in our society. They are taught to the tiny tots so that they believe that the world runs on “good” principles, and they live a blissfully happy time until they reach adolescence. And then they realize that life isn’t all about the good stuff, but its just as fun to live in. :D
To end on a happy note, life is just as much fun to live in, one way or another. There aren’t many rules in life, except for the ones we impose on ourselves. And I personally have found that a more practical understanding of the world un-complicates most of the events. :)

By the way, a final thought... doesn't realism meet idealism (around... lets say 21) ?

THE INTOXICATION SERIES VI

2007-04-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

For the unfamiliar and dumb readers, a small introduction regarding the intoxication series of blogs. These blogs do not represent the cutting edge (if there is such a thing) in blogs. These blogs do not represent the great strides mankind has made over the years. These blogs do not represent the brighter side of life. These blogs may not represent the truth always. These blogs may not be up-to-date. These blogs may be the greatest pieces of writing by an Indian (definitely better than anything written by Arundati Rai… the other Rai seems to have hit jackpot with Mr. Motorokr). These blogs are definitely very different from anything you may have read in your life. These blogs… these blogs… these blogs… well, I could go on forever, but let me keep it “short and sweet”. What you have been reading took me about a nanosecond to make up… and what I am about to write will take a millisecond for you to understand… this blog is the exhaustive definition of intoxicating crap.

And if you have remembered through all the “do not”s, “may not be”s, “may be”s and “definitely”s, this blog is in fact titled the sixth, and not the fifth. Well… the fifth was not really socially acceptable, but I intend to polish it before I put it up… (crap!)

THE INTOXICATION SERIES IV

2007-04-17T05:01:00.000-07:00

Ten things which aren’t fair… Ten things which shouldn’t be discussed… Ten things which are unique to India… Ten things which define India.

Sachin ‘Ten’dulkar shouldn’t be asked to retire. After all, he has given his life to the game. He has the right to suck whatever life is left in it now. And quite seriously, how do you expect to know what is the newest product in the market without the girlish voice drooling over it?
It is not correct to expect Yuvraj to shut up when the BCCI tells him to. He did not bat when the whole of India wanted him to! And he is used to blabbering on TV ads anyways. Remember, he did give a one-liner there too!
Air India shouldn’t be blamed for the lack of nose-gear on some of its planes. Its after all, a million to one chance that something may go wrong in a plane, and on Air India, that millionth part turned out to be the front tyres. And don’t tell me the plane can’t run on sixteen other tyres.
It isn’t fair to expect Rahul to know history. Atleast not Indian history. After all, all our bedtime stories come from our parents. In his case, his father was flying around in planes, and so was his head. And his mother is an Italian. So, you should expect him to know Italian history.
Its not correct to oppose the reservations in education and/or jobs. After all, the Supreme Court did say “We like to be called backward”. So, the more number of “reserved seats”, the better... as more of "India" is “learning”.
It is not correct to expect Arjun to leave Manmohan in peace. It would be like Tony Blair giving up on George Bush. Too much love and hate to separate the two of them. And they are the solo supporters of each other’s policy!
It is not fair to expect Miya Musharraf to give up his presidency and/or his chief of army post. Atleast the posts are Pakistani, unlike Kargil.
Its not fair to blame Air Deccan for a few “overbooked” seats. After all, everything in India is overbooked. From the trains, to the buses, to the seats, to the electricity, to the houses, to the concerts, to VIP (apparently!). Even stupidity.
Its not fair to expect Renuka Choudhary to stay on the “unequal” side of life. After all, women have been oppressed for a million years, and the vengeance should last another million, at the very least! And, why the hell oppose it when more than half of “man”kind in India is on the other side!
Its not fair to expect me to write a wonderful blog every time. Sarcasm is the bitter-sweet taste of life. Black humor is no one’s own. Sarcastic humor is an intoxication with no bounds.

THE INTOXICATION SERIES III

2007-04-10T03:29:00.001-07:00

Had a drink… walked over to my garage… the door opens to reveal my shining new Lamborghini Gallardo. I drive it anywhere I want, drive it as fast as I want. Drive it to a race, and play hardball! Walk away with a few grand, some of which I use for a new coat of paint. Just for kicks, ram a few pedestrians in their teeny-weeny cars. The race didn’t do it for me… set a new speed record for the police. And yes… there they are, right on time! The cars have more power on their radios than at the wheels. I can hear them trying to scramble more and more cars, even as the existing ones are on their rims. And then… come the backup cars! By god, these can’t be the police cars! They are as fast as my Lambo!! And they drive more recklessly than me!!! But the radio is still full of their anxious voices. I lead them into the downtown area… drive past their “HQ”. The radio is a blur with all the turns and bumps… I slow down to let them know I know the traffic rules… “We got him surrounded”. I can feel a crash against the bumper. The mirrors have been warning me. And then… I bring to life… the V6. I unleash the power of over 500 horses! I disappear without a trace. The hounds are left smelling the burnt rubber. Now come their friends from the neighboring borough… it’s time to show them how the Lambo handles. The roads are winding, letting never either of us floor the pedal. But the low-end torque of the Lambo is surely the best in its class… the class of Super Cars. The handling is awesome. It’s as if the car seems to know which way I want to go. At the same time, it’s like a beast, which needs to be tamed. The cops are long gone, trying to change gears and keep up with the Lambo. For the couple that did follow, the gas station taught them a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry! On my way back to the garage I met a few cops, but the woods were there in time. The Traction Control and the muddy soil are a potent combination. Too much for the hounds, which should’ve stayed on their homely roads. I turn into the driveway, and see the reflection on the garage door. Not a scratch! It’s a wonderful car. It’s a wonderful drive. It’s the stuff intoxication paradise is made of!

THE INTOXICATION SERIES II

2007-04-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet. 300. Music and Lyrics. “Not my work schedule”. Sachin Tendulkar’s confidence. Sachin’s height. The most aerodynamic car. What do these all have in common? Well… they are all short. And a couple of them are admired for being short. I will let you choose your picks. My picks would be 300 and Music and Lyrics.

I watched 300 a couple of days ago. And I am glad I had to pay half as many bucks to watch it. Because, the effect, the sheer effect in an IMAX theater is overwhelming. The movie is very good not just because of its effects, but because of the lack of “complication”. Most people can’t distinguish between sophistication and complication. They merely assume both to mean stuff, which can cause make our mind go crazy, for good or bad reasons. 300 was sophisticated, not complicated. I was joking about this to my friend. I said “if the king returned back to find his wife had slept with another man, there may have been a further complication”. More often than not the complication destroys the movie. I loved watching 300. The ideas were original, the setup was excellent, and the actors was brilliant as usual.

In sharp contrast to the earth-shattering IMAX sounds, I watched Music and Lyrics y’day night on a laptop with headphones. The movie was an hour and a half, and it wasn’t complicated either. It had sophistication. Two people had to understand each other and realize that they knew more about each other than they knew about themselves. That, for me, was the essence of love. The movie wasn’t based on extravagant plots, and special effects with out-of-the-world sets. It probably didn’t have more than a dozen sets to begin with, and all of them were in the heart of New York.

To me, the second movie showcases love like no other. There is only one movie which comes close… You’ve got mail. The songs are beautiful, and so are the characters. They show how wonderfully simple love can be. How beautiful you can make it. And how we don’t need helicopters and sphinx shots to showcase it (Karan, wake up and smell the Koffee!). What I look forward to in a movie is an intoxicating blend of creativity and beauty. The former was in 300. The latter is in Music and Lyrics.

For many, the story may not be large enough. But, I like it short and sweet.

THE INTOXICATION SERIES I

2007-04-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

What is it about India that makes me love it so much? I have just downloaded a U2 song. A wonderful one. I know that even before I listen to it. But… there’s one song from Swades.. Yeh jo des hain tera. It fills me with that very deep feeling of patriotism. And by patriotism, I don’t mean how to make India better? It is this wonderful feeling of being an Indian. The place is wonderful. It may have the worst politicians in the world. It may have the most silent and uncaring public. The worst drivers. The power cuts. But its India. And I am an Indian. Frankly, this feeling I have right now is quite different from anything else I have ever experienced. This feeling doesn’t stop me from going to US. This feeling wont force me to stay here. I will do it over the course of time. I wont come back because this country needs my help, but quite simply because I love it. People. Food. Cricket. These are features of this country you wont get to experience even if you have a few million NRIs in your country. That’s when I realize that… no matter where I was born, I would have loved this country. Not love it “inspite of its faults”. Just… LOVE IT!

NOSTRADAMUS AND I

2007-03-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

Since the last time I have blogged, India has lost its last match in the WC. And the millionaire posters have turned into bisexual ones. And I have broken my promise… I cursed them the moment Murali caught Rahul in the deep. And haven’t stopped ever since. Being a passionate cricket fan, and till recently, a believer in the Indian cricket team, I was completely disappointed. There is one not-so-welcome outcome of the very-famous Natwest victory. There is one thread of hope which refuses to give up, until Sreesanth is back in the pavilion.

As I write this, I am listening to a few of the best songs in the recent past… Yeh honsla (Dor) , Ajnabee shehar (Jaaneman), Rozana (Nishabd).

When I think of this exit, and its subsequent repercussions, I can’t help but imagine, HOW COME NO ONE ANTICIPATED THIS? It is very easy understand the poor little Indian fan who has all his emotions resting on the shoulders of 11 people whose credentials, besides cricket, are quite suspect. It is very easy to understand why the media hyped the team of 11/(1 billion) brains. + 1 Australian one. But how did the companies miss it? How is it that the companies stand to lose around 2 billion rupees, (initial estimates). Well, that is quite a mystery. But what is a bigger mystery, and probably the least quoted is how the greatest one of them all, Nostradamus, never wrote about this wonderful game? When one-sixth of the humanity is held in the grasp of a few men, how did Nostradamus miss this phenomenon and its outcome? I haven’t read any interpretations of his writings from the Indian cricket’s perspective. And I think I know the reason for the “apparent” gap in the “future portrait”. I am sure he would’ve had this on his mind, but did not put it on paper, for fear of being maligned. It’s not easy to predict the Indian team’s fortunes from a month away from the WC, leave alone a few centuries. J

Well, now that the demi-gods are descending on our mortal land, what do we do about them? Shall we get them to work as mortals as a punishment? Or shall we condemn them to hell? Or shall we change the system? I have a few suggestions here which can work. We can always use diversity to our advantage. Team diversity. More teams, more chances of winning. Let BCCI select some of the really good cricketers around now, and make them into a team. Let it also add the ones with “senior recos” into other teams. The identity of the really talented team is kept secret for political and economic reasons! J That would work. That way, everyone can find a cricketer to throw their old shoes at, and more posters to deface. And, even if one of them wins, we can feel that “hum lade bhi… aur jeete bhi”! After all, it is not fair for 1 billion to show their anger on 11 + 1 men.

My second suggestion is even more radical and wouldn’t require so many teams. It would assure us of victories in every match. Here, I take a leaf out of the government’s think tank. The government has made it mandatory for all the channels to share their feed for matches involving India. Why doesn’t the government make it mandatory for all bookies to bet on India? That way, the bookies would do all the “coaxing” and “bring the best” out of the cricketers. Put in another way, “they would pray loud enough so that the demi-gods can hear and be forced to answer them”. And, the bookies get a tax holiday and a swiss account as freebies. Howz that? Think they can be paid consultancy fees from the Fringe Benefit Tax accruals? J

Well, I believe in God. And I believe he poses the challenges in our lives. This would be the first time, when we would force the gods (read cricketers) to answer our prayers.

The two teams and one funeral

2007-03-19T23:49:00.001-07:00

If Paris Hilton ever suffered from lack of attention, she should get herself hooked onto to the Indian cricket team. She may not be able to play cricket (well, not as well as Bangladesh atleast!), but she can be "seen" with a cricketer. And thats not such a bad idea, since Mr. John isn't really the flavor of this month.

The Indian cricket team is the most adored, and alternately hated, team in the world. They grab more column inches in most sections of the paper (forget sports, the page 3 and biz journos live off them). And when such demi-gods lose to our neighbouring mortals, the reactions are, quite obviously, very strong. Strong enough to "demolish a house under-construction". The effigy-burning is quite a common phenomenon by now, and so, the news channels don't really bother covering them. In these situations, the country is split in two. One half of them believe that the team would do better to take the next flight back home. The other, probably influenced by the "ladega toh jeetega" campaign, believe that India should fight back. For the cricketers, I guess all this makes little difference because they were butchered nano-seconds are the loss.

Whether the cricketers should be kept under such tight scrutiny and whether cricket is over-hyped is a question which is nearing the end of its time. I think the media has sucked all the money it can from the question. But there is another aspect of reporting, which carries an implicit message. That there are two teams when India talks about cricket. Not one.. but two! The other being our very fervent, lost-to-us-in-all-world-cup-matches neighbour.

On saturday night, the top two stories of the news generated mixed reactions. The first about India's defeat to Bangladesh. The second about Pakistan's exit from the world cup, thanks to the one-day-wonder Ireland. The Irish announced their arrival on the international scene with a big-bang win over Pakistan.

Indians therefore had two things on their mind. India's loss, which meant that India may return without even entering the second round. Pakistan's exit, which in some convoluted minds (like mine) meant that India had after beaten Pakistan to the post. India may well return, but Pakistan returns earlier! A small consolation, you may think, but in India, its a big prize. My condolences to the advertisers if India does come back before next weekend.

In all this commotion, there was a tragedy which put all the events in a different perspective. The death of the Pakistani coach, Bob Woolmer, who was widely regarded as the pioneer of modern coaching techniques. That filled me with (a shock to begin with, and) a sadness which overshadowed everything else. I hope this world cup does not claim any more victims. It simply isn't worth it.

I always like to end on a happy note, but I think it is impossible to do so for this article. I hope India reaches the second round, and wins the world cup. Thats a hope, with a rider. Even if we don't win one more match in this world cup, I..... wouldn't blame any of the cricketers.

The love-hate relationship

2007-03-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

Irony is the taste of life. Don't really know if thats an original, but that does fit into the current article very well.
How often do we find that the biggest ironies come in real life, and go quite un-noticed by most of us? Quite often, actually. And this is one of those instances.

What is the first song you heard on radio when you are in a traffic jam? The traffic jam is probably the most confined place in the world! I assure you, it is the one place in the world you can't run out of. And, its the one thing which you have go through if you live in any place with a population greater than... well, in India, you can have a traffic jam even in the loneliest of junctions. And thats not a contradiction. So, now that we are in the greatest place in the world, we would like to make our lives a little worse. And the radio is the only companion, besides the sweat and the humming AC. And there you have it... the one song you never wanted to hear, the one song which everyone in India knows but wish they didn't, the one song which ostracizes its patrons. Its a song with a very deep nasal trademark. Its one of a million, the rest 999,999 songs playing on the other stations. Its a Reshmmiya song.

I would like to think that the world hates the songs, because poor HR is the punching bag for any journo who can't make up the lines for the page 3 script. But that isn't quite the case. It definitely isn't. Because as you surf thru the channels, all that you find is the one trademark voice, the trademark background music... well, even the copyleft pain!

And thats my point. How come the media criticizes a singer who rules the airwaves? and whose pics are on the telly more often than our prime minister (not Sonia!) Manmohan, albeit with a cap always! Its quite an irony that an apparent "idol", is rubbished by the very popular media, and still retains his status, at the least! One of the million ironies in India... "we love to hate HR" or... "we hate to love HR"?

What was I doing when I heard HR's songs on my radio, well, i turned the radio off, and listened to my iPod, which btw, has no HR songs. :)