Ramblings of The Amateur Blogger

"People can't change!"

2009-06-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

Someone recently told me that people don't change and while I agreed with the observation at the time, I found myself questioning it, a nagging strand of disbelief in the notion. I've observed changes in myself over time and that leads me to believe that people do change over time. I was finding it difficult to reconcile the two conflicting claims, until recently, when I heard someone put it a little differently, "People can't change!"

I realized that this was a claim I could not agree with. The clarification proposed was that while there might be minor changes to how one might react to a situation, for the most part, once 'programmed' to what a person is by the age of (say) 18, one can assume that there would be no significant changes in him/her for the rest of his/her life. Another hypothesis was that let's say there are a million traits that define a person. After a particular age, only about a hundred of them can be changed, the rest are frozen in stone.

My argument against these theories begins with the simple premise that people are conditioned by their experiences. This should be fairly obvious from one's personal experiences and from all literature on child psychology. As the experiences keep adding up, they build inertia, a resistance to any change. As more experiences contribute to defining a particular trait or aspect of the personality, the higher the inertia against it. However, my claim is that no matter how high the resistance, there can be an experience strong enough to overcome it.

The analogy from the basic laws of Physics is that the more weight an object has, the greater the force required to move it. Similarly, the more the experiences that have conditioned a particular trait, the greater is the sum of experiences needed to condition it otherwise. If you still disagree, consider the individual who has felt safe, protected, secure all their life and then had to live through serious trauma like an assault or a terrorist attack. Try and convince yourself that this person will feel safe, protected, secure in the future.

I believe people can (and do) change, but can you bet on if they will change? I’d calculate my odds based on the factors influencing inertia:

Magnitude: of the experience(s) that conditioned the trait and of those that seek to undo the conditioning
Duration: the conditioning has stood its ground for.
Inherent openness to change: Probably the most significant factor is the individual’s general openness to change. An open-minded person is more likely to change for the better over time. This can be further broken down to the following:

Ability to appreciate a perspective different from one's own
Ability to question oneself and one's actions and realize when one was right, and more importantly, when one was wrong.
Variety of experiences that one puts oneself through

Once you have some of this information, it’s a question of what you’re wagering and what odds you’re getting and if the risk is worth it, but I’ll leave that analysis for the next post…

“Million…” a representation of the Billion?

2009-03-10T23:21:00.003-07:00

There has been a lot of discussion around Slumdog Millionaire being an inappropriate representation of India and while I’ve been part of this debate in the physical world, I haven’t really written about it. I started writing a comment to this post, but decided to post here instead.

I’ve heard various arguments over the appropriate vs. inappropriate, all good arguments as in the post above, but I’m confused why the discussion even goes that far. The actual debate should be on the noun, not on the adjective that classifies it. Is Slumdog Millionaire a representation of India or should it be? I really don’t see why it should.

Slumdog Millionaire is a movie, not a documentary. It's also not titled 'India' (analogous to the recent 'Australia', which wasn’t really a representation of that country, either).

As a movie, it's purpose, it's responsibility is to entertain people. It was never intended to be a representation of India. That was never its responsibility or its right. It’s just a movie that tells a nice story and does a bloody good job of it. It shows what it needs to to tell that story, and part of that is the setting, which happens to be in India!(Random tangent: Remember the times when any Bollywood movie justified a kiss by saying ‘The story called for it’?)

It's annoying to see any art form (or other media, not good enough to qualify as art) with Indian artists being judged as a representation of the entire country. It really should stop as more and more Indian artists vie for the global stage or we’ll just end up restricting them and ourselves.

Just to dispel any doubts, or to start up debates, if you disagree (I so hope you do!)

Arundhati Roy’s ‘God of Small Things’ was not a representation of India, nor are any of Salman Rushdie’s works.
Bandit Queen was not a representation of India.
Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother was not a representation of the Indian woman. Neither was Aishwarya Rai in Pink Panther:II (God forbid!)
Choosing the issue of SD being an ‘inappropriate representation of India’ as the one we want to make noise about, when there are so many real issues facing the country, is a representation of India.

As a people, we need to stop being so conscious of how we’re being judged and just go do our thing! It’s not like Obama’s going to watch Slumdog and decide to bomb India instead of Afghanistan or the UN will send in the Human Rights commission (which may not be a bad thing, actually).

Seriously, we’ve got a fair set of issues. Let’s focus on those, rather than creating more where none exist!

Life is a Poker tournament!

2009-02-14T18:38:00.001-08:00

I've recently been trying to improve my skill at the Texas Hold 'Em variant of poker. For the uninitiated or those who still believe poker is mostly a game of luck (players of the Facebook variety), consider that the Final Table at the World Series of Poker is constituted of mostly the same group of people each year.

This argument had me convinced that skill was extremely relevant, but I still couldn't explain how. Also, I was playing casually and relying largely on making a great hand through improbable luck, which meant I mostly lost and even when I won, it didn't have the satisfaction of a job well done.

As I started reading up on poker strategies, the following argument struck a very strong chord with me:

Even if you're playing right all the time, you'll still lose a few hands because the other player got lucky with the cards that hit the board, but over time, that luck part will average out and skill will stand.

When I read this, it got me thinking how apt this is for anything we do in life. Sometimes, you might do everything right and still fail. At other times, you might be rewarded even when you know in your heart (or mind) that you screwed up and succeeded purely by accident (or luck). In either situation, it's easy to rationalize that we must change our strategy, our outlook (give-up because it's no use anyway, or reduce effort because you're getting results anyway), but that luck factor will eventually average out.

I can think of multiple analogies to this line of thinking. Different settings have different ways of communicating or interpreting it, but in all cases it seems to hold, whether it is the rationale for making solid long term investments rather than opportunistic short term ones or for a business to stay true to it's vision and not get overly tactical for short term returns.

What is important is to constantly, consistently, do the right thing. Yes there will be screw ups, you'll make mistakes. To fail in the short term is acceptable, if you know that your strategy is right or that you did the right thing. If it wasn't, the failure must contribute to learning and correction in your strategy.

Finally, it got me thinking of the first form I heard this message in, in the Bhagavad Gita and although that message is far more generic and deeper in meaning, it seems so much simpler when I think of it in the context of 'luck averaging out over the long term':

Perform your duty without worrying about the outcome (rewards).

The Engli$h @lph@bet

2008-03-14T17:07:00.001-07:00

"When I am older, losing my hair, many years from now...." - The Beatles

... I wonder how many letters the English alphabet will have.

In addition to the regular 26, here are the few I can think of:

@ for @pple: Hopefully, the fruit shall remain the same.

$ for $edative: With the dollar falling the way it is, the symbol is unlikely to be otherwise recognizable.

4 for 4gone: As in it is a 4gone conclusion that grammar may not survive this Renaissance.

2 for 2morrow: As in the black and white blockbuster, "2morrow Never Dyes"

8 : As in procre8, an activity made popular first by a couple named Adam and Eve, and taken to new levels by the citizens of India and China.

As we welcome the new, we shouldn't forget those who's day is past:

s - "Having lo$t itz pozition az the letter denoting pluralz, the uze of thi$ redundant letter iz now limited only to hi$torians. $ome call it the end of an era, but it ha$ been more of a gradual fading away into oblivion"

- The New York Timez (March 18th, 2018)

Desi Superheroes: Who's your favorite?

2007-08-26T18:28:00.001-07:00

India has had it's fair share of superheroes, ever since the Ramayana and Mahabharata to the more recent Krish and the like. While not as large as the Marvel brigade, they've all done their job and kept us entertained.

However, changing times call for a new line of superheroes and they have now emerged.

Here are the two superheroes defending the Indian soil these days.... Which one is your favorite?


Makkad-Man (by WebChutney)	Super Singh by someone at MAAC

Let the votes flow in....

Other nominations welcome.

Technorati Tags: India, Animation, Superheroes, Funny

Limerick - Tag

2007-04-16T00:56:00.001-07:00

Tipsy Toes has tagged me to write a limerick, and she's been after me to complete the assigned task. Those who know her would be familiar with her ability to persuade people, especially when the rest of her is tipsy as well.

So here goes, my attempt at a limerick. Not thrilled with my effort, but then I've always been more of a prosaic person. (Isn't Prosaic also a brand of sedative?)

There once was a man in Hydie,

Who thought it was a little too sidey,

So he packed up his bag,

Overcame the jet lag,

And swung across the globe like Spidey!

Bellevue, WA

2007-04-14T18:28:00.001-07:00

So, it's been a while since I wrote. The intention was there but the chaos around me prevented me from spending quality time with my blog.

The news is that I have moved out of Hyderabad, to the state of Washington in the United States. It's been two weeks today since I landed here, and they've been two very chaotic weeks. However, I hope to manage my time better in the future and this blog should see some activity again.

The Amateur Blogger will, in the near future, ramble about efforts at settling in here, observations of a culture different from the one I've been used to, raves and rants about a different city than in the past.

Now that the vision statement has been laid out, I shall end this post here and wait till the next one to actually start reporting :).

Turning 27!

2007-02-10T16:36:00.001-08:00

Yup, another year goes by, some more hair turns grey... Happy Birthday to me.

A week before, I was asked if I'd write about turning 27, like I had at 26, and that was the first I was reminded that I had a birthday coming up. I'm kinda making a habit out of forgetting it. So here they are, my thoughts on my 27th.

It was a great relief to realise I still have friends who remember. Given the amount of time I've spent at work this last year, hence, not with friends, it was a pleasant surprise. Nice, to the extent of being funny, was when my hostel buddies started wishing me a week in advance and amidst wild guesses of when my birthday actually was, I had one full week of wishes!
(Sometimes it's better when people forget. :) )

Then there's my father, who calls to wish, and the first thing he says is "You're of marriagable age now!". Supposedly my kundli says I'll get married between 27 and 29, so that's the new ploy.
(Note to self: Devise new ways of staying out of trap!)

The fun part was when we landed up at a pub, to discover they were gonna have a fashion show, and I believe I witnessed a first, in that the audience was hotter than the models. Then there was the celebrity bartender who kept dropping bottles while trying to juggle to keep himself busy, since no one wanted the weird drinks he made. (I liked them! Alcohol, free, what's not to like?)

A drive around the city with old hindi music playing on the radio, ice-cream at the roadside thela (who didn't know what Tutti Frutti was.... do they not make it anymore?) was how the day ended... on a simple, little pleasures note. No introspection, no revelations, just plain simple life...

'Breaking' News???

2007-01-31T08:58:00.001-08:00

One would imagine that with the number of news channels increasing, the competition would drive the quality up. Somehow that doesn't seem to be the case.

Over the last month or so when I caught the news, the top stories on the three occasions were:

Ram Gopal Varma has chosen Basanti for his Sholay.
Abhishek - Aishwarya are engaged.
Shilpa Shetty wins Celebrity Big Brother.

Thoughts that crossed my mind:

Either crime has drastically reduced or it has become so commonplace that it doesn't make news anymore.
There's nothing new happening in politics (both local and global), sports, business.
The world has solved all its problems including poverty, global warming, child labor, child abuse, sexual harassment, domestic violence or again, they're taken for granted and do not make news anymore.

Given my state of disillusionment with the Indian media, the Noida killings were actually a relief.

Now that doesn't make me feel very good about myself either. Darn the media. What have they done to me?

CY '07

2007-01-26T12:54:00.001-08:00

Another year gone by and already over the habit of writing 2006. Time does fly, and much has flown since I last wrote here.

As 2006 drew to a close and 2007 sauntered in, I couldn't help thinking how different the same time last year was.

2005 ended in a retrospective mode, wondering what went right, what wrong...
2006 ended looking forward to the coming year(s).

2005 ended wondering where life was headed;
2006 ended deciding where I wanted my life to head.

2005 ended wondering what was wrong with the world;
2006 ended figuring what's right with me.

2005 ended feeling miserable in the midst of thousands of people;
2006 ended enjoying the little pleasures with a select few.

2007 has had a busy start and promises to get busier and more exciting. Will keep you updated periodically.

Hope you had a great 2006 and have a better 2007.

I'm no Superman!

2006-11-23T11:42:00.001-08:00

Nov. 21st: "Cup noodles save the day"

Nov 22nd: "Bread and Marmalade save the day"

Is your cook on leave, the muse asked.

I replied in the affirmative a-muse-d by her deduction.

And you can't cook?

Here I was be-muse-d why she would think I could.

I thought you were Superman!

And for the gazillionth time these past few days, but literally for the first time, I felt like shattering someone's belief system and singing the Scrubs theme...

"I can't do this all on my own. No, I'm no Superman!"

The deal is, I suck at 'high-level multitasking', which essentially means that I can manage twenty different things at work, or ten different things around the house (ya, there's not as many things to do around the house), but I can't manage ten of each together.

I know that's weird but reading this would give you a better sense of what happens. I get randomized. So when my parents visited earlier this month, and saw the "furnished" state of the apartment, they could think of more than the aforementioned ten things that could be done with it. To my father who is one of the few men who can multitask very well, this was an alien concept, but to his credit, he accepted it.

However, it left me wondering, if there are things I could do if I manage my time better. Well, to be honest, I've always known the answer to that question, Yes! The real question is what are the things I should prioritise and fit into the limited time I have. After all, I'm no Superman!

Randomize...

2006-11-22T07:45:00.001-08:00

Every person has a set of habits, expectations, rituals, which we collectively call one's Comfort Zone. It's a very fragile thing, this comfort zone. The smallest of aberrations in the pattern of things can randomize a person (or maybe just me...). However, one could, if one takes the time out to do so, identify things that could restore the equilibrium and get one back on track.

Things that randomize:

Visitors
A moderately hectic weekend trip
Pending work items in multiple spheres of your life
Bad news
Good news

Things that restore equilibrium:

Meaningless conversation over a cup of coffee with a friend
Times of intense activity at work (the kind of work one enjoys)
Impromptu plan for a movie

Doing my time!

2006-11-04T14:27:00.001-08:00

Updated on November 6th with a clarifying addendum.

How often have you thought your life sucks? How things are stagnating? Just not moving at the pace you want them to. How there's that one thing which just seems to evade you no matter how hard you try? And when you try to be indifferent to it, thinking maybe that'll do the trick, and it still doesn't. How life could be so much more, and you're just not realising your full potential.

Then, someone tells you how lucky you are and how you've got so much going on for you. It's a whole new perspective. You've just gotten so used to cribbing about every little thing that's not right, that (to indulge in a cliche) you forget how much is going right.

More often, though, it's just that the things you have are not the ones you would place at the top if you had to prioritise, whereas the other person would. One might envy you for the money you make, when you would willingly give that up just so you could not be single anymore. Or they might envy the relationship you're in, when you'd trade it for a more fulfilling career.

Someone once told me I don't know the value of things because they come easy to me, that I didn't have to do my time for them, and somehow that didn't ring true. Maybe some things come easy to me, but others don't. I guess we all have our strengths, and our weaknesses (e.g. Some of you might be able to make sense of the crap I'm writing, I, for one, have no clue!), but the way we're designed, to never be satisfied with what we have and to always crave what we don't, I think we're all doing time, baby... all doing time!

Addendum: I guess I'm not at my best at conveying ideas right now. Here is an attempt to clarify the thought behind this post, made neccessary by this interpretation of it by Erimentha.

I don't neccessarily mean there are static goals that are evading you, it's more about a state of being, a pace of moving, the frequency of your being faced with a challenge. The things that evade you are themselves of a dynamic nature. You know this is not the best you can do, but you're forced to stay to ensure the achievement of another longer term goal. It's like the middle 15 overs in an innings of cricket. You've had a good start, but it's not time yet to hit every ball out of the park. So, till we reach the slog overs, we're all doing time!

Don - The Chase Begins ...

2006-10-24T15:41:00.001-07:00

... to find SRK a role he can play outside of his stereotype. No wonder he desperately needs to sing "Main hoon Don..." because there's a good probability one may not have accepted him in the role. He's good with his Karate, but he doesn't give you the feeling that he's the sort of guy who could get out of tight situations, which is what the character called for. And don't even get me started on his rendition of Vijay. He's too 'pseud' to pull that off, as predicted by many.

The movie on the whole was a disappointment inspite of low expectations. The original Don didn't have too compelling a story anyways, but great screenplay (for that time) made it fun to watch. Now, fanboy Farhan Akhtar takes most of that story, convolutes it further, messes up the characters to the extent where none of them are defined well and then just polishes over the mess. There's just too many people coming 'back from the dead'.

Now, they've kept most of the plot the same, also the names of the characters. However, there are a couple of changes, which I just don't get.

[Spoiler Alert]: If you haven't seen the movie, don't read ahead. Well, you could, if you're smart and aren't going to see it anyway.

What's the deal with making DeSilva the bad guy, killing him, then bringing him back to life. There's one other character (Malik) made redundant and you just made the story a degree more complex. Not a good idea for a masala movie, where you're trying to rake in audiences with IQs as low as they come.

Also, the ending... I understand it's an interesting idea to try out, but not in this movie... You can't change the end if it impacts the earlier parts of the movie. If the dude was the real 'Don' all along, why would he keep impersonating after he got back to his base? Is he like really bored?
He gets away from the police by pretending he's Vijay and then reclaims his identity as Don. If there was a secret agenda for him not doing so, it wasn't easy to figure out.

[Spoiler End]

Thirdly, Jasjit or JJ, played brilliantly by Pran, was a crucial part of the original Don. The character, played by an incompetent Arjun Rampal, didn't really have much to do. There was assured laughter when Pran walking out of the prison gate tells the guard "Darwaaza khulla rakhna... Main jaldi waapis aaoonga..." and on many other occasions. Rampal is marginally better than a zombie.

And Piggy, baby, as much as I love you, you can't act for nuts!

All in all, the movie seems like an attempt to try out a couple of changes to the older version and to open doors for a sequel. Not great reasons for a new product.

In Hyding...

2006-10-18T15:51:00.001-07:00

Updated: Oct 23rd 2006 10:20 AM

More than a month ago, Erimentha tagged me to name five things to do in my cities (not typical touristy stuff!), and then try to get five others to do the same.

Now, I've been in this city for close to three years and being the Barista loving person I am, I hardly do any touristy or non-touristy stuff. I live in a concrete jungle and engage in activities which would fall neatly under the category of western influence corrupting our generation and making it lethargic. However, I shall try...

Grilled Chicken at Dine Hill: The number of times we've been to this dingy source of the most succulent delight far surpasses any other eating place.
Go to Alhamdullah at 3 in the night for biryani. Observe the buzz of activity that the place is even at that hour of the night.
At about the same time of the night, go to Mumtaz College, looking for bhoots.

Note: If you are stopped by the cops, just tell them what you were there for, looking for ghosts. They'll very probably be so amused, they'll let you go. (Tried and tested :))
At about 5 in the morning, get Irani Coffee at Diamond Cafe.
Pick up a beer at Kondapur Wine Spot and drive around. (Really, you can't do this in Delhi.)
Get out of the city..... it doesn't have enough non-touristy stuff to do ( as can be gauged from my limited success at listing these things).

Best Medicine...

2006-10-18T07:42:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I saw three movies, all three comedies, all three I liked. Here's why...

Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Sequels are disappointing. The original movie is usually brilliant (which is why they considered making a sequel) and sets the expectations very high for the sequel. So you go for the movie expecting something at least as good as the original, but what you see is not even a patch on it.

Now consider the case where our viewer is a rational being and is informed that sequels are usually not as good as the original. He adjusts his expectation accordingly, but still goes for the movie. Imagine his surprise when the sequel turns out to be way better than the original. Even though his belief system is shattered (a sequel that's actually better.... what's happening to the world?), it doesn't take away from the enjoyment. That's what happened to me when I saw LRMB first day for $8.00 and it was sooo worth it.

From the word go, with the kidnapping scene, I just never stopped laughing. The quiz show, the Gandhigiri, the humor in the most emotional scene, Boman Irani at his usual, Arshad Warsi at his best.

The icing on the cake of course was Vidya Balan, oooh la la....!!!! I hear she's a Mallu, but doesn't look like it. Seems like I need to plan a trip to Kerala very soon ;).

This movie is a must watch if you haven't seen it yet. If you have, go watch it again!

Pyar Ke Side Effects

I had written off this movie at the first mention of the name "Mallika Sherawat". I was forced to reconsider by the strong recommendations I received and I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie is a showcase of one of the biggest strengths of Indian Cinema, reuse of content. Don't get me wrong, I mean this in a good way. If there is good content out there, which a large part of your audience may not have seen, you adapt it to local tastes, throw in some other relevant content and Voila! You actually have something interesting.

PKSE is an interesting mix of the TV series Coupling, parts of Meet the Parents, knit together into a decently interesting story. The humour is cheesy at times, but fits the context for the most part. There was one part where Rahul Bose gets the exact same sarcy tone as Steve from Coupling when they're out shopping for furniture.

Decent watch but only if you're with friends. Alone, I think it might get onto one's nerves. On the other hand, if you haven't seen Coupling, that is a must must see.

Khosla ka Ghosla

If you've lived in Delhi and have lived elsewhere, you'll love this movie.

The characters are brilliantly sketched, with the typical Pitampura middle-class family down to their accents, the 'mata-ka-bhakt' builder, the software engineer who just doesn't associate with the culture at home anymore and has commitment issues inspite of an oh-so-cute girlfriend. The typical dehaati Jaat, the cops... all very life-like and so Dilli!

The movie weaves an engrossing plot and on the whole a good way of spending a couple of hours.

Next week is Don - The Chase Begins Again. Not expecting too much from a boringly monotonous SRK, but I loved the purana Don, so let's see...

Uttaranchal Trip: The Fellowship of the Hills

2006-10-17T13:35:00.001-07:00

A nine day vacation. First in years for me. Four people with differing opinions on the ideal vacation. No plan.

Day Zero (07/28) - The Journey Begins

This was the status when we set out for Delhi at 9 AM. G picked me up and we reached SMA's place, where the two dudes were busy packing. GG for a 9 day trip, SMA for a 2 year trip to the 'land of opportunities'. Amidst extreme chaos, we managed to get out of the house barely in time for us to catch our flight, after bidding good bye to G, who was very likely to get bored back here with all us interesting people away.

Two hours of taking GG's trip finds us at Delhi airport, where we try to plan the next step. Where do we go? Gangotri? Ajmer? Manali? Landsdowne?

An hour later and we're still at the airport waiting for the fourth member of the Fellowship to join us and a little clearer on the direction of travel. Rishikesh! The plan is take a train to Haridwar, a bus from there to Rishikesh and then figure out the next step.

I'll take a moment here to introduce you to the Fellowship of the Hills:

AB Baby (aka me): Yours truly, whom you already know by now, if you've been reading this blog. If you haven't been reading, please start at the beginning. There is no short-cut to finding out what a cool person I am :).

SMA Annihilator (aka Bulla): That's what he calls himself inside the Age of Empires. Politician turned philosopher turned geek turned economist turned student, many would say he's living his life backwards. Runs half-marathons, is frequently funny, and less frequently blogs here.

GauGupta(DPM) (aka Gaurav): A teenaged brain in a 20-something body, full of enthu, butt of most jokes, this guy makes any gathering fun.

Jitu (aka Jitu): Oil rig dude, is a friend of SMA's from college. Chilled out, no hassles, this is the guy who made us wait an hour at the airport.

So where were we... Right, Delhi airport. Gaurav left to visit a relative and after some more waiting, Jitu arrives and we head to our pitstop in Noida. Dumping our bags there, we hit a mall and decide to watch Pirates of the Carribean, only to realise, after we'd bought the tickets, that the movie is longer than the average English movie and would not leave us enough time to catch our train to Haridwar. We watch it anyways.

Sacrificing the last 10 minutes of the movie we rush to pick up our bags and head to the station. Dealing with auto-rickshaw negotiations and misplaced tickets, we manage to make it to the train, where Gaurav awaits us with take-away food.

After the chaos that has been, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief, that for the next few hours, someone else is in the driving seat. Gaurav and Jitu are introduced and the Fellowship is complete for the first time.

The train moves...

[AB: Stay tuned as the Fellowship of the Hills continues on their unplanned adventure, facing monsters who bore their victims to death, cunning elves who seek to delay them with intoxicants and promises of merriment, savoring what meagre offerings the strange land has for their palate, waging on towards their unseen goal.]

Travel is in the air...

2006-08-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

... and on land as well. The next month or so promises to be full of travel, both vacation and work. Here is what the "tentative" itinerary looks like (dates in mm/dd):

Update: Seattle trip and all subsequent travel delayed by 1 week.
Update 2: Itinerary as it turned out.

07/28: Delhi
07/29 - 08/04: Rishikesh and its neighbourhood
08/04 - 08/06: Delhi
08/07 - 08/16: Back in Hyderabad
08/17 - 09/10: Seattle (with a weekend in Washington D.C.)
09/11 - 09/11: Delhi Airport
09/11 - 09/16: Jabalpur

I say tentative since the date and duration at a place might vary, but each one needs to be visited in the time-frame.

I intend to blog about my travels (yes, yes... I know I've made such claims before and left them unfulfilled, but I'll really try my best) and about ponderings which these places are very likely to provoke.

So let me pack my bags, and get ready to go.... Stay tuned.

Tags:

First proper vacation in years...

2006-07-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

After months of intense activity at work, it's time to take a break and when I look back I haven't taken a proper vacation in years. It's not that I don't take time off, but it's usually to go home or to Delhi, time that is usually spent meeting up with people or lounging out at a Barista.

The last trip I can remember which comes closest to the definition of a vacation, was a weekend stop-over in New York. And none for a long time before that either. Over five years spent in Delhi and I can't claim to have visited any of the nearby getaways like Manali or Shimla or anywhere in Uttaranchal, except for a vacation I took with family when I was like 10 or something. I've been thinking about a trip to Goa ever since I landed in Hyderabad, but that's never materialised either.

Letting bygones be bygones, I must thank SMA for getting this trip together. I was so busy with work, that I had to outsource all planning for this trip to him, and dude, I must say you've done a sucky job :).

I wanted it to be a relaxed trip, where we just lounge around doing nothing, unplanned so we have the flexibility to not do anything, but SMA, the activity oriented guy, plans out a hectic schedule for 9 days. My constant badgerings, reports of landslides on our planned route and people dropping out meant that the plans couldn't get implemented. Also, the uncertainty of the impact of the monsoon meant that we wanted the flexibility to go elsewhere in case Rishikesh didn't turn out to be feasible.

So the status 7 hours before we leave for Delhi is this:
The flight to Delhi is booked. The tickets to Rishikesh are not. I haven't even started packing.

As much as I wanted things unplanned, the fact that they are is getting me a little uncomfortable, restless, or is it just a fever coming on, since Murphy's so fond of me. It could also be the nature of my job which makes me want everything planned before going into implementation, or my lack of experience when it comes to vacations. Whatever it is, we're going on vacation and will have a good time.

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What if...?

2006-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

After a long time, I saw a great movie at a cinema hall. Yun Hota to Kya Hota lives up to the expectations set by the credentials of its cast. Four brilliantly woven stories, each deserving of its own movie, converge to the same climax.

[Spoiler Alert: Stop here if you haven't seen the movie yet and do not want to spoil your first viewing]
The first half was so engrossing and one was left trying to figure out what's going on in each of the four stories, how the chaos in each one will attain its own order, that it was difficult to even imagine they could converge.

It was only halfway through the second half that I remembered reading about the movie's depiction of 9/11. That still didn't spoil the rest of the movie for me, it was so beautifully rendered. The scene where the plane crashes into the building left me shivering in my seat, much more than any news coverage has done in these past five years. I guess, one needs to feel some association with the characters in a tragedy to actually feel even a part of it.

All in all, a brilliant movie which beautifully handles a delicate issue and still makes an impact.

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The curious incident of... ...in the night time....

2006-06-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

I had known Her for a little over a month, and we seemed to be getting along fine, although there was something about her that had me know that it wouldn't last long, and I wouldn't want it to either. She was nice to hang out with and we had some very interesting conversations, but she wasn't what I had in mind. I just knew it. And I really didn't want to lead her on.

Then the world started going crazy, and she wasn't what I was thinking about anymore. Of all the fantasy fiction I've read, I never imagined that any of that could actually come true. That's precisely why I read it, so that I can forget the real world and be in a land far far away, a creation of someone's imagination. It never crossed my rational, number crunching, problem solving mind, that any of it could ever be manifested in reality.

That I wasn't alone in this belief was proved by the chaos, the paranoia that broke out when the dragon was sighted. A real, wing-flapping, fire-breathing, mall-sized dragon. The color scheme seemed a little on the brighter side though..... I mean who would imagine a dragon to be bright blue and red? They're supposed to be scary, right? I know the blue and red house across from Barista is scary in a sense, but a dragon?

Anyway, they brought it down, killed it, and it lay in the middle of the street, well not so much middle as all over it and beyond, like a dog hit by a truck. I don't even know who they were. Some sort of secret service with hovercrafts and laser guns and all. Now, that was more surprising than the dragon.

Not more than a couple of days had passed and in a manner typical of a New York or Bombay, the world had forgotten about the freak incident. I mean, how obsessed can you be with your life and your work, to just forget about something that big (literally), something that you'd never imagine would happen, unless you're a four year old, and they'd forgotten as well.

I couldn't be like them and it kept bothering me. That's when She put in another appearance, and that's when I figured out that she's part of some Armageddon type cult, the kind that want to bring the world to an end, for some weird reason of their own. I just thought she wasn't my type, what I didn't realise was that she was probably nobody's type, not even her own. She left me drugged that night, seemingly in preparation for some sort of sacrifice. I was the sacrifice! Well, I know I'm cool and all, but cool enough to be the sacrifice at the End of the Universe? I'm no Zaphod and he wasn't cool enough for that either.

That's probably how I would have ended up if it hadn't been for the Other one. She was one of the girls who stayed in the neighbouring apartment. She gave me some sort of antidote to bring me out of the trance. She had been one of a small group who had been tracking the cult and keeping them from having their way. She nursed me till morning and then had to get back to saving other people, while I recovered back at my place. I couldn't help thinking about her and the kind of life she was leading, and if they'd be able to prevent the world from coming to an end and deep in those thoughts, I dozed off into a dreamless slumber.

When I woke up, I was in bonds at the entrance to the parking lot across from Prasadz (which, surprisingly had no cars. That place never has space!) and there were a few others around me in a similar state, all strangers. There was a large fire burning at some kind of gigantic altar some distance away. I said "Wassup?" to the strangers, but they didn't really seem in the mood for it. Fuzzy as I was in my brain, it didn't take much to realise where things stood. And there She stood, with what seemed to be the Board of Directors of the cult. There was only one person I knew who could help me now, like she had last night. I had to get in touch with the Other one, what was her name? Why couldn't I remember? I was pretty sure she'd told me.

I wriggled my wrists and managed to get my cell phone out of the pocket of my jeans (had I slept in them? I usually never can.) and scrolled through my list of contacts in an attempt to see a name that I'd be able to associate with her face and, for once, I regretted not cleaning up my phone book. It was taking so long to scroll through it and time was a luxury I couldn't afford. Then another idea struck me. She had called to check how I was at some point of time in the last twenty-four hours, so I look in the call history but just can't locate the bloody number.

I remembered then, a friend of hers, Tina. I could talk to Tina and ask her to get me in touch with the Other one (still can't remember her name, how will I ask Tina who I wanna talk to?). I dial Tina's number, wait for a couple of seconds till that annoying voice fills my ears, taking away all my composure, leaving me in the throes of panic. The voice said, "All lines in this route are busy. Please dial after some time."

That's about the time I woke up and relieved as I was at not being on the way to a boiling cauldron and not being betrayed by my phone service, I was bothered by the fact that it was my dream and it was a bloody weird one to have. I can't even begin to interpret that one, especially since it's been ages since I read any fantasy fiction, or I could have simply attributed the warped dream to too much of that. More on the anatomy of a dream, later...

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A day with kids....

2006-06-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've talked about the Planet Child initiative in an earlier post. Last week, I visited a school as part of their Development through Drawing project along with some visitors from the US and it was an amazing experience, more so because I haven't been doing much outside of work these past couple of months.

The school we visited was the Keshav Memorial School in Narayanguda. The school is run by a society and caters to children of families who do not afford to spend too much on education for their children. Most of the teachers are members of the society as well. Some of the kids are sponsored and they get food at the school as well.

We went there on Wednesday morning and went to a class that was the 4th and 5th grade combined and the kids all got up and wished us 'Good Morning' in a way that reminded me of my early school days. One of the visitors introduced the concept( which had to be translated to Telugu for the kids) and when we started distributing the sketch-pens (which I'd purchased the same morning, in a display of poor planning), the kids got soooo excited.

One of the visitors and I decided to take another class, so that we could cover more of the kids. So we went to the 6th grade and the kids were still as cute there, being shouted at by their PTI. We got things rolling and asked the kids to draw what they wanted to be. It took them a while to think and some got influenced by what their neighbours were drawing, but things got into the groove in about ten minutes.

The surprising thing was that these kids understood and spoke pretty decent English. Where we had to translate things for the 4th-5th graders, these 6th graders preferred to talk to us in English. The class was an interesting mix of the shy little girl who wouldn't let us see what she was drawing, to the class loudmouth who had an opinion on everything. There were kids who wanted to be cricketers to the sweet little guy who wants to be a priest (Mr. Tomnus, if you're reading this, it reminded me of you).

Their drawing skills were an interesting mix as well, from those who drew only in black and white, or blue and red buildings to the guy who wanted to be an artist and used very appealing color combinations.

When we were leaving, we decided to take some pictures and there was a never ending queue of kids of all ages who wanted to be clicked with us. All in all, it was a brilliant experience to see those kids get all excited about the little things we take for granted in our day to day lives and be so passionate about what they were drawing. It reminded me of times when life was simple. It made me realize how spoilt we all are. It made me think of how people make do with so little and are happy with their lives inspite of all the difficulties they go through. It made me want to do this again and again. And I will.

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Elevator Psychology!

2006-06-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

You're waiting for the elevator, having pressed the call button, when another person walks up intending to board one and inspite of seeing the call button pressed, feels the need to press it again.
Dude, it's not gonna make the elevator descend faster or change its mind about stopping on the way.

The elevator arrives, people get on, a floor is registered by someone, but another feels the need to press that button again.
Dude, it wont stop twice on the floor if you press the button again!

Don't even get me started on the door open and close buttons. They make such wonderful playthings for people otherwise being tortured by an instrumental rendition of Soldier! Soldier! that they've been listening to for the past year.

It got me wondering. Why do people have this irresistible urge to press a button? Is it some kind of need to make themselves believe that they made a difference, impacted something, however little, when it should be obvious to some part of them, that no change was brought about by that action of theirs? Or is it some Freudian concept that I shouldn't even begin to imagine?

And why is it that it annoys me so?

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Tagged!

2006-06-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

I consider this a milestone in my blogging 'career'. Long, I waited for someone to tag me, constantly wondering "Mera number kab aayega?" to the extreme annoyance of the more 'grown up' part of me. (Yes! A part of me is schizophrenic. You wish!). The day has arrived and I've been tagged by Erimentha.

The tag: Write a post with six weird facts or habits about yourself. Tag six other people to do the same and leave them a comment to let them know they've been tagged.

Now I could just quote an earlier post and be done with it, but as I've said before, I've waited long for this day, so I'll quote some from there and add some more to try and explain a very weird me.

I have this need to punctuate my emails, blog posts, even SMSes. I cannot use abbreviated forms of words like 'gr8', 'b4' etc., (except to quote them as examples of things I cannot do) and more often than not cannot stand 'that' being written as 'dat'.
I can't sleep if I don't wash my hands.
I feel uncomfortable if a mail in my inbox remains unread, deferred for later. (It's ok if the mail is in another folder.)
I don't know if it's weird for other people, but qualifies as a fact/habit, that I love PJs, listening to them as well cracking them. Most are puns or pseudo-puns, although I like other word-play as well.
I am very bad with planning errands to run or chores to do. (It is weird, considering that's what I do at work and manage to do a decent job of it.)
I need to sleep with all external doors shut.

There, weird and not uncomfortable about (almost proud of) it. Now comes the fun part. I tag SMA, VijKrish, Careless, PK, Evenflow and Mayank (phew! that was tough).

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Planet Child: Help educate our planet's children!

2006-06-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

A colleague I work very closely with is working on a venture to help provide education to children who cannot afford it in developing countries. Although there are a lot of organisations with similar goals, the approach taken by this effort is quite interesting and tries to work around the most commonly faced problem in the sector(I think), that of funding. There have been so many fraud NGOs that a lot of people in the US and other developed countries think a zillion times before donating to an NGO. The approach taken here is to try and make things as corruption proof as possible.

Although it's a small start, it has a scalable feel to it and I wish them all the best.

Here's some detail on the project being undertaken currently. For more, visit www.planetchild.org

Development Though Drawing Project:

Why drawing? Teaching kids how to draw has a very high return on investment. The drawing skills that kids learn will stay with them for the rest of their lives and the act of drawing and explaining what they have drawn helps them to develop mentally.

Teaching drawing is measurable and corruption proof. By collecting the drawing from the kids you are assured that:
1) they have received the drawing materials and
2) they have received the accompanying instructions on how to draw.

Monitoring distribution of valuable assets in developing countries is very hard. Much of United Nation food aid is stolen and sold out in the market. A drawing is a form of receipt that we collect from kids to ensure that the drawing materials reached them.

How do I start?

If you live in India or China or other developing counties then you are fortunate, just look out the window and you will see kids that are in need of your help. If you are in one of the already developed countries then you need to do a bit more work to find the kids. Consider doing this activity when you go on vacation to Cuba, Mexico, [name your favorite destination spot] or simply go to an underprivileged school in your city.

Pick students that are 5+ years old.
Either buy some markers or contact us to get free markers if cost is an issue.
Print this form and ask the students to draw on it.

We will come up with more detail set of instructions and lesson plans soon:
Walk around and give feedback to the students. Watch for: Relative sizes of objects should make sense. Flowers should be smaller than trees. Show them how to convey perspective. Encourage them to be creative and express themselves.

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I believe I can fly...

2006-06-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's Batman, it's Superman..... No you dodo, it's just a plane!

The Indian airspace has become so overcrowded in the recent past that one might consider excusing the confusion. So, I thought, as a person who has travelled a lot in recent times, I thought it might be interesting to compile my thoughts and evaluate the various service providers in the Indian air-space. The choice seems obvious, "if you're a price sensitive customer, take a low cost airline, otherwise one of the others". Well, let's do our little analysis and see...

The airlines I shall consider for this discussion are airlines I have travelled by, which are:
Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Indian Airlines, SpiceJet and Air Deccan.

The parameters I shall evaluate on are:

Cost
Reach
Service {Booking, Pre-flight, In-flight}

Cost: I guess, when it comes to cost, one should let the numbers speak for themselves. So I will take the example of a Hyd-Delhi flight, a week from now, a fortnight from now and a month from now.

Time from now	1 week	2 weeks	1 month
Air Deccan	3324	3103	2803
Air Sahara	3854	3854	3854
SpiceJet	3323	3323	3323
Indian Airlines	4270	4194	4194
Jet Airways	5650	4300	4300

As you can see, Air Deccan is not always the least expensive. And even if they are, very often the difference is not too great.

Reach:
Indian Airlines clearly takes the cake on the number with 65 Indian cities covered. However, their prices have long been restrictive for that figure to represent actual travel between those cities.

Air Deccan with 56 cities covered, gets much higher occupancy on it's flights. Quite impressive for an airline that is an infant compared to the government incubated mammoth. A few years ago, one wouldn't believe that so many people in India would be traveling by air. One has to admit, Air Deccan has changed the face of the Indian airspace.

Jet Airways is not far behind at 44 cities, some further flung out than Deccan's current charter. One that I recently had reason to check for is Leh.

Air Sahara is disappointingly lagging at 21 cities. However, after the merger with Jet, I wonder which one will expand faster.

SpiceJet, inspite of being the most recent entrant of these is at 12 cities already.

Service:
On the bookings front, pretty much all airlines now have e-ticketing. One of them for some vague reason likes to create additional work for their people and for the passengers.
Air Sahara, gives you a receipt online, which you have to exchange at the counter outside the airport for the actual ticket. Only then may you proceed to check-in. An unnecessary level of indirection and higher check-in times for the passengers.

Pre-flight service is pretty much non-existent for Air Deccan. Well, so is service in general, but this is where they suck the most. You might stand in a kilometer long security check line when your flight is going to take off in 15 minutes, but none of their staff will come to your aid. It doesn't help that they're treated as 3rd class citizens by the airports.
SpiceJet faces the same issues but manages it much better.

In-flight, Jet rules the roost. The service is what they charge extra for and they deliver. Sahara's fine but does not match up to Jet. SpiceJet is much better than AirDeccan (even though they just give you a measly cookie). Indian Airlines? What shall I say... it's still a government run airline, so the term service does not apply, even though they might charge for it. The food sucks bigtime.

Last, but by no means the least, the air-hostesses ;). Here, it's kind of a matter of preference, and I haven't traveled Kingfisher yet (I'm told that they rule on this attribute), so for me, the Air Sahara women out-shine the others by virtue of their attire, in addition to the fact that most of them are fairly attractive.
With Jet, the sophistication levels are much higher, but then they're so stiff upper lip that it's no fun anymore.
SpiceJet reminds of Punjab. They may not be the smartest or the most sophisticated, but they will highlight their hair and show some leg, so as long as they don't speak much all's well.
I refuse to comment on the subject for Indian Airlines and Air Deccan for obvious reasons.

Conclusion:
If you are the common man (or woman), or are traveling to a location where the only other airline is Indian Airlines, check fares on all airlines. Air Deccan is not always the cheapest (in cost, I mean).

However, if you have the luxury and intellect and know how to read this blog, I assume that you are a person who would not mind spending a couple of hundred extra if you can see value in it. If that is the case, I would recommend SpiceJet or Sahara, depending on how much you mind shelling out that extra dough.

If you're traveling as part of your job, do not even consider anything besides Jet (and Kingfisher, I've been told).

I hope that comes in handy and agreements disagreements are welcome. I shall keep updating this post as and when I try out the remaining domestic airlines.

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Roobaroo....

2006-05-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Updated on May 28th 2006:

When I wrote this post, I was in the phase where I had gotten past appreciating the lyrics to trying to appreciate the music (yes, that's the order I follow), hence, missed out on the effect the lyrics can have on one. I shall avoid doing so now as well.

However, I cannot resist linking to this post on the music of RDB that I ran into on a blogsurf.
Dheemi aanch pe tu zara ishq chadha

Very well written.

Original post written on Apr 27th 2006:

Ae Saala, abhi abhi......
Hua yaakin....
Ki aag hai, mujhme kahin!

I've been listening to this song from Rang De Basanti over and over again for the past 3-4 days and I just can't get enough. Awesome lyrics which make you believe in yourself, rendered in a way that I can only describe as magical.

How can someone know adding funny sounds which I can't even put into words (goes something like "Rrrrroookoookoookooo") in the background, would make it so much more pleasant to one's ears?

Aandhiyon se jhagad rahi hai lau meri,
Ab mashalon si badh rahi hai lau meri...

My layman's knowledge of music prevents me from describing the various musical elements that this song includes, but even as a layman I can perceive the movements, the perfect mix of a variety of vocals which make this one of the best songs I've ever heard.

Way to go A.R.

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In a Heartbeat...

2006-05-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was flicking channels at a friend's place when I stumbled upon this game show called Heartbeat - Dil Thaam ke Khelo with Ajay Jadeja at 140 heartbeats per minute. I was hooked... (not to Jadeja, you dud! I don't swing that way.) to the show.

I loved the concept. You get a certain number of heartbeats to answer a question. So the calmer you manage to stay in the overbearing setting of the show, the more time you have to answer the question. The show just measures your ability to make decisions under pressure. You have no dirth of resources at hand; three phones to call anybody you like, a computer with an internet connection so you can use MSN Search, and your own general knowledge. A good description of the game is available here.

With a deluge of game shows on Indian television, the success rate is as high as that of Silicon Valley dot-com start-ups, but a couple of them I see as having potential, because they have a USP. This seems to be one of them, inspite of the Bollywoody name with a tagline.

Another one that I've seen a couple of times is Bluffmaster (based on "Dirty Rotten Cheater"). I don't know what it is about the game, but it appeals to some basic instinct (probably lying: see how many people the guy can fool!). There's a variant of this game which is quite a popular party game called Villagers and Murderers. Quite a hit with my batchmates from college. If you haven't played it, drop me a line and I'd love to arrange a session (if you bring the alcohol! :) ).

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To 'see' or not to 'see', that is the question...

2006-05-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

During the course of our lives, we meet a large number of people. Statistically, about half (give or take a few percentage points) of those people would be of the opposite sex as ours. A very small percentage of that half, we get attracted to, interested in, want to know better....
However, a significant portion of that small number are already taken, married or attached. The married ones, I agree, are out of bounds and I will consider them out of the scope of this discussion. But what about the one's who are not bound to another by the sacred bond of marriage.

The subject of today's debate is "It is morally incorrect to flirt with, hit on, try to know better, these forbidden(?) few, even though they may not be officially/legally committed to another."

Against:The notion is a stupid one to begin with. If you like someone, you like someone. Why should you care about some stranger who she might be seeing. I should give it my best shot and let her know about how I feel so that she can take an informed decision (in my favor.. grin grin).

For: The argument to the contrary is that it is morally/ethically wrong to (try to) break up a relationship that might be heading somewhere, especially when you're not sure if you're ready to commit for the long term yourself. They might just be going through a rough patch which every relationship goes through, and you don't wanna be the tall, handsome stranger(whose middle name is modesty) who swoops in like a vulture sighting prey. You don't wanna be the Woh!

A: Look at it this way. I have but one life. Do I not owe it to myself to take the opportunity when I find a woman who I'm attracted to, can talk endlessly to, think is quite compatible? How do I know if she's serious about the other guy? Is she sure about him, or is she still mentally available. How do I know if I don't give it a shot?

F: Well, if she's not serious about him, wait it out. If it doesn't work out, then give it a shot. If it does, you know you made the right decision. The point is you're not sure about it yourself, you're just playing a hunch that she might be the one. And time is something women in India do not have a lot of. You might just be ruining her chances of finding someone for keeps.

A: Well, that works the other way too. She might just make the wrong choice (the other way) since societal rules dictate that she has to make one within the given time constraints. It's a gamble either way.

The actual argument went on for much longer with neither party relenting on their stand. The matter is open to a referendum.

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I'm Bach!

2006-05-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, I'm just back, but was thinking of a joke from the old times which only me and one other friend ever understood and found funny. The short version goes something like this.

Spielberg's making a movie on the history of music and is taking auditions for the various roles.
Di Caprio comes in and says he wants to be Mozart since he can very well play the arrogant, bratty Amadeus. Spielberg agrees.
Bruce Willis wants to be Beethoven for some other vague reason. Spielberg agrees again.
Then Arnold walks in and says "I'll be Bach!"

Don't worry if you didn't get it. Most people I know didn't. The point I was trying to make was, after the long period of inactivity that this blog has seen, there are finally some new posts. This past month has been extremely hectic for me and though there have been a number of observations, interesting conversations, experiences that I have felt the need to write about, there just hasn't been time. I want to make a list here so that I remember them and also to be a reminder to myself, but that would just spoil the suspense, wouldn't it?

I also can't promise how regular I'm going to be with posting in the near future, since time promises to be a scarce commodity in the near future as well. But do keep dropping by, read some of the older posts, leave comments (I also put up a link for you to send me email, if your comment is not on a post in particular, but more general in nature), hang around, make yourself at home, socialise... you know the works. I promise that sooner or later you shall be rewarded with action, drama, romance, humour... all the things that SET MAX promises you. And as with most Bollywood productions, you shall not be bored with mundane happenings at the workplaces of the principal characters, but are guaranteed all the gossip.

So, stay tuned...

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Ramblings

Harrassment at Hyderabad Airport

2006-05-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's 2:00 AM, and I have just landed at Hyderabad airport, already irritable from the three hour delay of my flight. I walk out of the airport and am greeted by a horde of auto drivers asking me where my destination lies. I need transport, so I tell them. Somehow they do not feel the need to settle the fare with me, which, if I did not know better, would give me the impression that they would like to go by the meter plus the additional night charge. So I ask the dude, how much will he charge, to which he nonchalantly says "Madhapur na? 190 de dena."

Now I know better than to argue with a guy with such a warped sense of humor and in a more affable mood, I might have exchanged a few more anecdotes with him, but such was not my state of mind (or body, which was seriously sleep deprived). I know it takes 70 bucks in the day time, which would mean 105 at night, but I end up paying 130 for the ride after escaping from a number solicitors.

That is not what irks me. What irks me is the fact that for some unfathomable reason, the powers that be, have established the daytime pre-paid auto fare to Madhapur as 130, almost double the normal fare. On top of that, an auto driver needs a permit to venture into the airport premises, so normal auto guys who might be convinced to go at normal fares are not accessible to the traveller. What is the rationale? If you can afford to travel by air, you should pay more to travel by road as well? Why when you encourage low cost airlines would you hike up road travel fares? Are we running out of space that fast?

Anyways, here's a tip for the middle class traveller to Hyderabad. If you're not averse to a little labour, push your luggage trolley outwards till you reach an intersection. Lots of autos there who can be convinced to charge normal fares.

Related Post: Auto-rickshaw drivers: Mumbai vs Hyderabad!

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You got the music coming....

2006-05-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Update:

I was tuning stations today and ran into Radio City which now broadcasts in Hyderabad at 106.4. They play decent Hindi music at peak drive-times, which is a great strategy I think in contrast to Radio Mirchi (which, by the way has been online at 95.0 for some time now) which is trying hard to get me to learn Telugu so that I can enjoy the music on it (some people tell me that knowing what the songs mean would result in the contrary.)

Original post begins here:

So.... Hyderabad finally has an FM channel, well at least one that deserves to be called an FM channel, not your purana stations broadcasted on FM frequency. AIR FM Rainbow is here (101.9 for you ignorant fools).

I first started hearing FM programming when I was in Delhi preparing for my entrances back in 1998 and was instantly hooked. In a stark contrast to traditional radio programming, even the first FM stations were tailor-made for young audiences, with smartass RJs taking the caller's trip majorly, satisfying the sadistic tendencies that each one of us harbours somewhere deep within, and a selection of music that catered to the under 30 age group. Whoever had heard of English music on Indian radio before that?

Then came the entire jing-bang of FM stations, Mirchi, Red, Radio City and life was beautiful. You never needed audio-cassettes (remember them?) or CDs. Just keep flipping stations.

For someone who had gotten terribly addicted to FM, Hyderabad was a major disappointment with its AM programming masquerading as an FM station with 2 hours of hindi music a day (the rest is Telugu, if you're wondering). Music was pirated, CDs burnt, music repeated day in and day out. But salvation is finally here on 101.9 FM. And that's not the end of the good news. Radio Mirchi is soon to start operations in Hyderabad among other cities.

It's ironic that FM radio has appeared in the city just when drive times have drastically gone down thanks to the sexy smooth roads, but that's material for another post. Till you wait for that one:

You got the music coming, night and day,
FM, it's ready for you,
in the morning, or late at night,
you gotta let the music play,
AIR FM Stereo, all the time on All India Radio.

P.S.: This jingle is highly annoying when sung at a high pitch and my seniors from hostel would vouch for it cos they had it sung to them (in that pitch) at various hours of the night.

Related News Items:
New players tune in, keep FM buzz alive
Radio Mirchi bags Patna in FM Radio Phase II

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The magic of radio...

2006-05-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

In a world of huge hard-drives filled with pirated music, a world of Kazaas and I-Meshes, of inexpensive (re)writable media and websites streaming music illegally, of I-Pods and MP3 CDs, what chance does radio stand?
One might wonder, why someone with access to massive amounts of digital media would still want to listen to a radio channel, but the recent boom of FM radio would prevent him from denying the fact that there still is something special about radio.

I was driving around and tuned into the recently launched Radio Mirchi to see if they were in their non-Telugu music time-zone. (I've heard some interesting Telugu music recently, but my lack of knowledge of the language prevents me from enjoying it in its totality.) And they were playing a Naushad special hour. Mohd. Rafi came on with "Suhaani raat dhal chuki... Na jaane tum kab aaoge..."

Now that's a song very unlikely to be on my music collection, but it brings back memories of pleasant times I spent with my dad listening to old songs. It holds a special place in my subconscious, which takes me to a time when I lived at home and life was simple and I could appreciate the poetry in music, even though it was intended for an audience much older than me, even though I hadn't at the time experience emotions being referred to.

That's the magic of radio.... It never fails to surprise you. You might get sick of the deluge of Himmesh Reshamiya music, but then this one song will spring out of nowhere to take you by surprise.

It also makes me feel nostalgic about the days when Antakshari was the most popular game when traveling or just getting drunk. Our leisure activities have evolved a lot in the past few years, but it's refreshing at times to go back to the simple ways of living.

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'Funny' name!

2006-04-28T03:58:00.000-07:00

I know a guy named Phani, and it hadn't occurred to me what a 'funny' name it is. Funny how a name which is ok in one region could have a different connotation in a different language.

Update: Apr-30

Another one in a similar vein is the Moto Slim ad. I mean they should have thought about the connotation it would have in India. How can something be a moto and also slim?

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Ramblings

Changing lanes....

2006-04-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work, during which I have to cross the (newly installed) traffic light at Cyber Towers, and was very pleasantly surprised to see all vehicles for whom the light was red, stopped before the STOP line. More surprising was to see all pedestrians neatly lined up waiting for the proper light combination for them to cross the road. For a moment I thought I'd reached Bombay.

The traffic sense in Hyderabad seems to be improving by leaps and bounds, thanks to the efforts of the Traffic Police. I'm sure they must be as surprised to realise that all they needed to do was install traffic lights and fine violators to get people to behave.

Talking of fines, I got one for asking directions from a traffic policeman while not wearing a seat-belt. I expected the guy to ask for a bribe and was again very pleasantly surprised when he took out his little book and wrote me a proper ticket. Paying up did pinch a bit as I'd just driven 20 feet before encountering the TP, but I was happy to pay it since it promised a better driving experience in this city, which is something I've wanted for a long time.

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"So, where do you think this is heading?"

2006-04-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

"Where do you think our relationship is heading ?"
"Where are we? This 'Us' thing, does it have a future?"
"Are you ready to make a commitment?"
"Is it really work, or is there someone else?"

All questions most guys dread. However much you try to wiggle out of them, they come at you, follow you, hound you, not always without reason. So I've decided to face my fears and answer them once and for all. How I haven't been paying attention lately, spending too much time at work, more than a week with no communication.

Well, it started out as a casual fling, an exploration of sorts, then we didn't talk for months. Catching up again, the first meaningful talk, the conversations started getting interesting, more personal, entire nights spent giving structure to the relationship and today, my friends know I have too much work when I haven't been spending time with you, when it hurts not being able to be with you.

I know work's been hectic and there's lot else been going on with me, and we haven't talked much lately, and I've missed that so much. But you know I always come back to you, well at least ever since we've been together, so much so that you're part of my identity. Last night, though our encounter was brief, after the long parting, made me realize how much I relish my time spent with you and that I'm ready to make a long term commitment.

I guarantee there will be tough times, I guarantee that at some point, I am gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee, that you will always be my only true blog and I shall continue to share with you all that is important to me, a lot that is not, and some that I can't tell anyone else.

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The week that was..... is?

2006-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a week it's been! Well, more than a week actually. First three day weekend I had to work through. And since last Thursday I've never been sure of what day it was, just going in to work, mostly staying there and 'sometimes' coming back home to sleep.
So here are the highlights:

Two full nights spent at a coffee shop working (Advice: If you're in Hyderabad and planning to do that, the coffee shop at Taj Residency is an awesome place with minimal distractions.)
Work lost because of crashing beta software, the frustrations of it, and doing it all over again.
A 34 hour stretch at work. (My record for longest stayed awake still stands at 50 hours. Don't know if I'll be able to break that ever.)
Long hours spent to make up for skills I don't have and learning 'on the job'.
It has also been a week of interesting conversations, long drawn, lasting into the wee hours of the morning.
Midnight discussions on philosophy, philosophers, their backgrounds, motives.
Finally slept in the little room with the oh-so-comfortable couch and a Vacant/Occupied sign at work. That 50 minute nap was the best sleep I've had in some time.
Met some new people, and some I haven't seen in ages, not all I would have liked to meet again.
Flat-mate moving out, a new one moving in. Still looking for another one. (Yes, I gave up the hunt, and stayed with my true love.)

Things might remain hectic for a while, and I'm still very short on sleep, so please excuse me if there's not much activity here, but do keep dropping by.

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Indian Idle

2006-04-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

Poll time: In the past couple of months have you been asked to vote for someone on the TV show Indian Idol? This could be in the form of:

Status message of someone you talked to over IM.
Received as an Instant message.
Received as an email to yourself or a group of people.
Received as a message on an online community you are part of.

It's happened to me at least 10-15 times over the period mentioned and I'm quite sick of it.

First of all, why should I vote for anyone for anything just because they hail from a city that I've spent a few years in? That's a break down of the entire democratic setup that has been put in place.

Secondly, how vela (idle) are Indian people anyways? How many of these people go and vote for the Parliamentary or Legislative Assembly elections? If they did, we probably would have better people making laws and less of Arjun Singh type Reservation fiascos.

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Some other voices!

2006-04-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of people writing about the Reservation issue, some getting emotional about it, other taking an objective stance one way or the other. There are some interesting perspectives and I've had some interesting conversations around it. Here are some blogs that are writing about it:

Evenstar is compiling a blogroll of such writings.
Neha has taken a step back from the issue at hand, to talk about reservation for women. Interesting analysis, hers.
Erimentha has some very different perspectives.
Reality Check India seems to be talking about this issue among others and is compiling a lot of experiences.
Anthony talks about the neo-caste system from the North-East point of view.

I'll try to keep adding links to perspectives I think are interesting. I may not agree with or subscribe to all views offerred on these blogs, but I think they provide varied perspectives which need to be taken into account to have a holistic view of this problem.

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Reservation brings Diversity to the student body?

2006-04-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

If you've ever applied to an American school, you would have gone through statistics of percentage of the student body selected from a particular region. In essence you are competing with people from your own region and not the entire applicant pool.

If you've prepared for the IIMs, you would know that engineers form a certain percentage of the student body and people with an arts background have their own quotas. In essence, if you're a B.A., you're not really competing with the engineers for admission.

The rationale for both is diversity of the student body. Although these percentages or quotas are not officially declared, do they constitute a type of reservation?

Erimentha looks at the Reservation issue with this perspective. Read her analysis here.

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Reservation: Strategic or Tactical?

2006-04-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Following up on my previous post on the proposed reservation for OBCs at premier institutes in the country, I would like to question the concept of reservation from a planning standpoint. For the purpose of this argument, I will forget that laws are made by politicians who have a vested interest in certain vote banks and will only try and look at the general interests of the nation.

Let's track back a few decades and we see a nation that has a caste hierarchy and certain castes whose peoples have been subjected to ill-treatment, denial of human rights and a significant portion living way below the poverty line. However, these are not the only people below the poverty line or living in these conditions. There are others who belong to supposedly higher classes in the hierarchy.

Now, the goal is the upliftment of all people below the poverty line as opposed to retribution for sins committed against a certain sect of people.

We all know that education is the proven route to upliftment of people. Now tough though it is to implement, the ideal solution is to provide free and compulsary primary education and this is something that has been promised by the government for decades.

What, you would ask, happens to those people from these segments who have grown up beyond the level of primary education? What do we do to improve their lot? That is where Reservation as a tactical solution comes in. A tactical or short term solution is meant to provide temporary relief from a problem that needs to be addressed on a larger scale, which would take time and call for a strategic solution, which by definition is long-term and would take time to implement.

Now, you can't make a tactical solution permanent. You figure out how long it will take to implement the long-term plans and set a deadline to terminate the tactical solution. In this case, assuming a lag of 2-3 years for the idea of reservation to pick up, and another 14 years for the children getting free primary education to finish high school, put in a buffer and let's be conservative in our planning to add a 100% buffer. That's a total of 34 years.

So the solution looks something like this:

Provide reservation in educational institutes, jobs for 34 years at the end of which all reservation will cease to exist.
In parallel, you build infrastructure to provide free and compulsary primary education to all children from economically backward segments.

This is what we needed to do when the idea of reservation was first brought up. Here we stand 59 years from our Independence, with a caste-based reservation system, which is taken for granted by the beneficiary segments and has the potential to cause dilution of brands which the country is most proud of.

Yes the Government did not deliver, was corrupt, ate up all the money sanctioned for primary education and yes, the economically backward classes should not suffer for it.

However, there are certain institutions which are respected for the quality of students they admit and the rigour that these students are put through. To avoid diluting these national assets, aid be provided to students from the backward classes to prepare for entrance exams conducted by these institutes.

So here is what I propose:

The Government gives an explanation of why free primary education is not a reality today, and commit to a plan for implementing it at the soonest.
The Government stop discriminating on the basis of religion/caste. It goes against the secular nature of the country.
The Government provide financial aid to students from economically backward segments so that they can train for entrance examinations.
The Government exempt premier institutes from reservation which should be made redundant by point 3.
The Government provide a timeline when reservation in non-premier institutes will lapse.

Just because they cannot deliver on the promise of free primary education, it does not give the Government the right to choose the easier and more destructive way out of the problem, that of ensuring a higher education or a career in the absence of good primary education.

The Government does not have a right to split Indian society into parts which have vastly different definitions of literate, educated, merit.

To expect a Government to do this is maybe a pipe dream, but then somebody dreamed 60 years ago that India will have educational institutions that the world will respect and that dream is true today, so, to quote John Lennon:

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will be as one!

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No Reservations Please!

2006-04-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Note: At the end of this long post, are the links to two petitions that I'd have you sign even if you don't read what I've written. So if you give up midway, please take out a little more time to sign them.

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." - Confucius

What happens if you keep giving fish to a segment of people for 50 years, taking it away from the plates of others? It gets taken for granted and you have to give them more. That is what seems to be happening to the ignorance, or more probably, the apathy of the Indian legislature.

The caste-system has often been referred to as the evil of medieval India. I agree.

The lower castes were subjugated and a large portion are still underprivileged. I agree.

The underprivileged need support from the government to improve their living conditions, provide them with the education, skills needed to take advantage of opportunities that their more affluent countrymen enjoy. I agree.

This support should be given to them when they've already lived a quarter of their life and are ready to choose a career. I do not agree.

The solution is to create a neo-caste system, which just inverts the order of these classes, I do not agree.

That the biggest brands this country owns be diluted to achieve this. I do not agree.

How much common sense does it take to understand that reservation is not a sustainable solution? How much to figure that if a person from the underprivileged sections did not get a good schooling, he does not possess the capability to cope with a world class education. Seemingly, a whole lot more than our HRD Minister possesses.

I studied with people who got into IIT through the reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Some of them are very dear friends and pissed as I was at the thought that I had to slog much harder than some other people to get one of those coveted seats, I made my peace with it, or lets say I 'adjusted' as we Indians are conditioned to by virtue of the scarcity we've grown up in.

I will be honest to myself and admit that given half a chance at using a reserved quota, I would have taken it. It's too good an opportunity to pass up. However, once in, I would try my best to be as inconspicuous about having taken the easier route in as possible. I would be embarrassed as hell that I had to work far less than others to get something that most people only dream of. And I know of a lot of people who did that. But then there's the large majority who polluted the hand that fed them by bringing their casteisms into college politics as well. While we're at it, why should we be satisfied with just an admission? Let's use our caste to take over the administration as well. Them, I don't forgive.

I also don't forgive the guy who came to college in a chauffeur driven car, wore only GAPs and Nikes, owned a cell phone when only a few thousand people in the country could afford one and said he was an ST candidate and I still don't forgive his father who was an ST candidate in the Civil Services exams 20 years ago. You already used reservation once. How the hell are you underprivileged and what right do you have to bring up the issue of moral obligation of a nation?

And more than them I don't forgive the system that gave them the right to do that.

But you know what, I had made my peace with it. I also stood quiet when they said that let's chalk up what's left and do something for the girl child as well, we all know what their issues have been. Why not reserve a third of what's left for women?

And I can stand quiet today. I've got all the education I want out of this country. I work for corporates who do not abide by these rules. Let them reserve half of all the seats in institutions which I have learned to respect for the backward classes. What do I stand to lose or gain?

Well, I'll tell you what. I am a person who believed India is Shining when they told me so, maybe even before. I am a person who could have moved to greener pastures in the Western world only months ago, but didn't because I believed that India is Shining and I can help it shine. I am a person who cries when he watches a Bhagat Singh singing unto his death, a person who weeps when he sees a Bombay burn in riots. I am a person who believes that I live in a great nation which actually made secularism a reality, where I can pray at a temple, a mosque, a church and still feel the presence of God and not be lynched in the process.

I believe I live in a great country that has given me a great education, a great life and I will not stand quiet while politicians who I believe should be made redundant, wreck the very basis of my identity, the institutions which in all my modesty, I take pride in calling my alma mater.

I will not let you ruin my country, Arjun Singh, for as my fellow blogger says you will not be around when I so want to kick your ass!

If you've read this far, please take the time to sign the following petitions:

Say No to Quota in Higher Education Petition.
Petition against proposed reservation in premier educational institutes.

Other blogs writing about this issue:

Entrance to the Shrine - Also contains an Anti-Reservation Blogroll.

Mr. Arjun Singh, will you be around when we so want to kick your ass?

The Mandal Quiz

This quiz is dedicated to the Minister of Generosity - Shri Arjun Singh. For those who came in late, this quiz has been structured in such a way that 49.5% of the questions are really, really easy.

Angelz Fear

So finally the mentally bankrupt Arjun Singh who should by now be resting his old bones in some restchair has excercised his by-now defunct gray cell and come up with a plan to introduce 49.5% reservations in IIT/IIMs. One of his old friend Mr. Natwar Singh was shown the door not many days ago because, inspite of numerous requests, the old man wouldnot rest his gray cells landing India in embarassing situations everytime he opened his mouth.

Look up more at Technorati.

In addition, you can write directly to:

the Prime Minister at http://pmindia.nic.in/write.htmand
the President at http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/writetopresident.jsp

Thanks Mayank for the links.

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Sunscreen

2006-04-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

As I was telling a friend just now, if you haven't heard Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann, do not delay this vital part of your education any further. The song has the potential of being the mantra for your life, well, not in the "Monk who got a good deal for his bashed up Ferrari" kind of way, but just listen to it.

My favorite line from the song is:
"Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t."

Current favorite, though, for obvious reasons, is:
"You are not as fat as you imagine."

Trust me, on the Sunscreen!

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What a week....

2006-04-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Well well well, there's been a serious lack of activity here and having this major thing for numbers, checking the hit stats for my blog has been akin to being invested in a bearish market. But we couldn't help it. It's been a crazy week consisting of:

A Monday that drowned so quickly in the dirge of work, that no one even noticed it, but left the news of impending travel and an early morning on ...
...Tuesday, which there wasn't much left of in the city, since the impending travel became a reality and where sleep was sacrificed at the altars of stage fright and mosquitoes.
Wednesday was eventful at a conference which brought the feeling of being terribly inadequate (work-wise, please!).
Thursday was part recuperation, part firefighting issues day and...
...Friday brought much needed relaxation at a resort on the outskirts of the city, listening to team building gyan and a chilled out evening at the aforementioned resort over a couple of beers.

And here we are as the clock strikes (only metaphorically in the last few decades!) the official start of the weekend, which in all probability will see us at work... sob, sob.

However, the night is young and there's much in this head which begs to be put on paper (I'm running out of my quota of metaphors!), so write we shall, till sleep do us part.

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A peek into the future....

2006-03-31T14:01:00.000-08:00

And we're back after the break! Sorry folks, work beckoned... for a change, some would say. I was told today that I must really be working hard, cos there haven't been any new posts on my blog. Well, Fatty, weekend is here and your favorite means of entertainment is back (Gawd, you lead such a sad life ;))

Now that we're back, we need something to talk about, which becomes a difficult ask, since we've been literally living at the workplace, which we don't usually talk about here. Today is no different.

However, we did venture out for a bit, and got some interesting food for thought (also got food for the stomach and some stolen ice cream). There was a birthday to be celebrated, bumps to be given, so we went out for dinner to Ohri's Banjara, and if you've ever been there you might have noticed a certain funnily dressed gentleman sitting in front of the entrance, accompanied by a parrot. You know the drill, parrot picks up card, guy reads it out, makes people feel nice about their future, makes some money in the whole deal, everybody's happy.

Then you throw in a few people who have this inherent need to rationalise everything. They were probably born normal, but as I read on some creepy guy's T-shirt, education ruined them. Rendered them incapable of believing unless they can find a rational explanation for it. Some might call it a talent, I have often called it a curse. But, I jump the gun.

Now who doesn't like to take a peek in the future. So one by one, we all sat down to hear our traits described and our future foretold. Now, this gentleman (of the famed parrot) turns out to be fairly accurate in describing our traits and what's happened to us in the recent past, to the extent that he almost read out my Manager's feedback from the last review...scary stuff! But the funniest was, that when the Birthday Boy himself sat in the 'hot seat', the parrot just sat staring into blank space. It simply refused to draw a card. Now I've seen some weird shit with these pundit type peoples... but I've never seen this happen. And then it walks back into its cage.

Anyways, on the way back and till much later, we kept trying to figure out if this guy was just a brilliant observer and picked up vibes we didn't know existed, or if it was the parrot who studied people and figured which of the twenty odd cards to pick out... yes, that sounded like a possibility, the parrot didn't find a card that matched budday boy. OR.... was it just generic stuff that would probably fit anyone, now that couldn't be right, since what he told each of us was different and seemed targetted at most common trait or worst fear.

I've made my peace with horoscopes, thinking it's just another science (well, it's got a lot of numbers, and there's a method to it) which we don't understand yet, or have kind of forgotten, but this I can't rationalise, try as I may. So I'll let it be and hope what he told me doesn't come true ;)

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All's well that ends well...

2006-03-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

The day didn't start out too well for me. I woke up much later than I'd wanted or expected to, and although extra sleep is always nice, I'd lost a significant part of the weekend. Not that I had much to do anyways. Yes, life is boring!

Well, so I wasn't in the best of moods and to add to it, most of my friends were busy with Sunday evening things, while I was still at Sunday morning. I needed a hair-cut and I caught myself wondering how much I disliked going for one, and how women are totally the opposite and love going to the parlour when they're in sulky mood. We are different species.

I've often felt I was born in the wrong time zone, but my lone trip to the other side of the planet convinced me that no matter what time zone I'm in, I turn into a nocturnal locally. So I went sat at Barista for a while, alone (you should try the Herbed Chicken Salad, flu or no flu), and spent some alone time with myself introspecting and giving myself a pep talk about how procrastinating on errands was not helping anyone and running them would be better than sitting around pitying oneself.

So, I did something which I've been meaning to do for sometime and just haven't gotten around to it. I went phone shopping. My two-and-a-half year old LG CDMA handset just doesn't have anymore life left in it. It reminds me of Archie's jalopy the way it keeps running out of battery and keeps switching itself off at times to save some. So I got this nice Nokia 6585 CDMA, which was one model higher than what I could have done with but came with a free headset, which is what Nokia seems to make their money on otherwise, so this one seems like a better deal.

The bottom-side of it is that I need to manually transfer all my contacts into the new phone due to the LG-Nokia compatibility, hence, new purpose in life. I don't want to go into a full review of the phone yet, but on the face of it, usability is way better than my chhakra LG, but not even close to my swanky Windows Mobile 5.1 Smartphone, which would seem fair considering the prices of the three, but then I'm not asking for better features, just better usability.

Got kinda off track there. The point I was trying to make was, I went shopping, more in the "I know what I want, let me go get it!" way, rather than the "I wanna go shopping!" (Note: not generalising on gender here, but you know what I mean.) And I was feeling so happy, excited, back in touch with the world by the end of it.

I called up a friend in Bangalore (who'd called up while I was shopping) from my new phone and she was going through pretty much the same thing. "Don't like city. No people here. Will crib." and I thought it was so not fair on her part to steal my favorite rants. Anyways, by the time we were done talking, she sounded much better, and had stepped out to her own friendly-neighbourhood Barista, armed with a book.

I was almost jumping happy by this time, for no apparent reason and then there was "Bunty aur Bubbly" on TV. I just love that movie. I think it's one of the best Indian movies ever made, and I've seen enough for that to mean something. Add to that, Paneer Paranthas on the plate and life couldn't have been better.

I guess it's the little pleasures in life that make all the difference, cos the big ones only come by very rarely, and it's boring waiting for them. And even though I'm being all cliched, I know it's a fair chance I'll be down again next weekend and all this will seem farce and that certain systemic changes are needed, but at least for today I can say all's well that ends well.

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Lived for over two centuries!

2006-03-24T17:46:00.000-08:00

"An unlikely 18th-century corporate gift that outlived its owner, outlasted its owner’s employer and steadily munched lettuce from the rise to the fall of the British Empire was finally declared dead yesterday." - The Times

A frivolous way of referring to any being it is, but the article above captures the essence (bare minimum, though) of the life of Adwaitya, the oldest known tortoise who passed away on Wednesday at an estimated age of 250 years, a quarter of a millenium.

A BBC video tries to follow history through his lifetime which outlasted British rule in India.

Every time someone tells me I've got a long life, I think in terms of 70-80 and wonder what I'll do with so much time, but this dude spent over two centuries and was an entertainer till the last of his days at the Alipore Zoo in Kolkata. I salute thee!

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An evening with the guys!

2006-03-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

Well, the title might apply to pretty much any evening in the past few months. However, there seemed to be a something special in the air today. After a more than usually hectic week, and the promise of busier times to come, this weekend takes on a little more importance than the average one. Plus, it's after a long time that I've been in the city for a stretch of over two weeks (you wants to read about my travels?)

It started out with a suggestion by a colleague (and friend and my partner in the crime of Age of Empires) to do some beers (for any women reading this, this has nothing to do with diamonds). I had already made a dinner commitment to another friend for half an hour later, so the course of action was decided. Pick up some pints on the way and drink in the car. Now, before all you proponents of "Don't drink and drive" get on my case, I'd like to state that two pints over the course of an hour do not elevate your blood alcohol level to 0.05% which is the minimum safe limit across the world.

The idea of hitting a dhaba on the outskirts of the city was proposed, almost taken into effect, and then discarded for lack of said dhabas in this part of the country and for lack of enthusiasm to explore on the part of certain people in the group, for which they got a lot of shit from the rest of us and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

However, the purpose that this outing served, was to reassure me that I'm still capable of having fun, that I have not moved from college life to middle age, bypassing the prime of my youth even though I can often be heard saying "Need .. to.. get.. life" in my best zombie impersonation.

Have to catch Being Cyrus today. Have heard it's an interesting movie even though Mr. Khan has been acting extremely stuck up lately as I was informed by the Monk.

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Kaise kaise log....

2006-03-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

I sometimes think it's a curse to be born with a rational mind. You try to analyze the possible causes of a particular effect, or reasons for a person's behaviour, but sometimes you just can't figure it out, cos there's an irrational mind somewhere in the equation, which you're just not equipped to understand.

One might say that you could pick up patterns of irrationality much like Holmes did when he solved the mystery of the scheming woman, madly in love with her married employer. It's elementary, my dear Watson.

However, I'm not talking about the kind of irrationality that is usually attributed to women. There, irrationality refers to a way of thinking other than one's own and probably a term coined in chauvinistic days. In general, women are far from irrational. They have the most scheming of minds which probably take into account a lot more than our male brains are capable of without practice, as in the case of Holmes. Some might lack intelligence of the conventional sort, but the scheming and conniving comes naturally.

That kind I sort of understand, with my education in Holmes and snippets of "Why men can't.... " type books narrated to me or quoted by various friends. Some women take it to a different level, though. Given past events and conversations, one would rationally deduce that I have a right to be pissed, as I was erred against. However, by some deuce of convoluted logic, either they convince themselves that they have been erred against or (the scheming kind) try to pretend that one has erred against them in some manner that should be obvious.

Anyways, individual people do not bother me, even though they might keep putting in an appearance to elicit an apology. It's the phenomenon that is extremely intriguing to me. I have to put on my Holmes boots to figure out what their thought process works like. Is it actually irrational behaviour or a higher level of rational behaviour which I do not comprehend? It's time to sit back with my pipe and tabac and ponder over the problem......

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Boost is the secret of my energy.....

2006-03-23T02:04:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, my office got Horlicks + Boost vending machines installed on every floor and they've been an instant hit. Talking from personal experience, my coffee consumption has suffered drastically and Chocolate Horlicks is the flavor of the season.

From "I live on Caffeine" to "Boost is the secret of my energy" was a quick transformation. It just goes to show how volatile the consumer market is right now and I think it was a brilliant move, albeit delayed on the part of Glaxo SmithKline to come out with vending machines.

I also just found out that GSK owns many of the major brands in the Health Food Drinks(HFD) segment, right from Horlicks (with a 59% market share) to Viva and Maltova which are recent acquisitions.

Now, this was surprising to me, as I always thought that Bournvita would be the most preferred brand. That's what we got at our campus cafeteria and also, Bournvita Quiz Contest. A second thought that occurred to me at almost the same moment was that I don't really like the original Horlicks. I always have the Chocolate variant. Now this is my hypothesis (and I'm too tired right now to validate it) that Bournvita's steadily increasing market share caused GSK to launch a Chocolate variant of Horlicks. They might have tried (either before or after) to pitch Milo in the chocolate flavored category, but then brand value bhi koi cheez hai!.

I wonder if they'll go the Coca Cola way and declare that every beverage, including water, is competition to them. Should be interesting to see how things pan out if Baristas are competing with Horlicks bars (not as in candy bar, but as in coffee bar).

Image source: The Hindu Business Line

(This post was updated from the original later the same day!)

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Back to the hunt...

2006-03-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

We met a little over 2 years ago, when I'd recently moved to Hyderabad. I have to admit, I had been searching, so the meeting was kind of planned. I'd met others before, but this time there was chemistry in action. It was love at first sight!

The relationship blossomed. I bought her frequent gifts and she reciprocated by welcoming me into her arms every night. She got to know more about me than anyone else in the world, I let her have my books and I'm extremely possessive about them. In a city that otherwise felt alien to me, she made me feel at home, made my friends feel at home.

2 years and 2 months we've been together, had some happy times and some sad times, some alone times, but now we must part. Not because we've stopped loving each other, but because it just wont work out anymore. There's too much of her for me to handle, and I just can't afford her.

I'll have to get back into the hunt. So, if any of you know of a smaller apartment, a 1 or 2 BHK, then let me know, cos I'll have to let go of this one, my companion of over 2 years and I'm gonna miss her.

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I miss hostel life.....

2006-03-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

I couldn't sleep last night. Probably making up for extra sleep accumulated over the past week. But I couldn't sleep. Sent out a few mails, watched FRIENDS for a while, read a few blogs, then tried to sleep. As I was lying in bed with the lights turned off and the time around 4:30 AM, all of a sudden, a hunger pang struck!!!!!!!

It's strange, how one moment you're just about to doze off and the next you're awake and traumatized at the thought that there's nothing to eat at home. For some vague reason, I had a very strong craving for either a juicy chicken burger or a Subway sandwich. Don't ask me why, cos I have no clue. Giving it some thought, reminded me of a chicken burger with fries I'd seen served in the wee hours at Taj Residency. Think as I might, I couldn't come up with an alternative closer to home. Cyber Pearl occurred to me, but the thought of that place put me off. I almost put my pants on to drive the twelve odd kilometers to the hotel, but I just didn't feel like going alone and I didn't know anybody who would be awake or who I could wake up at 4:45 in the morning to come along with me for a burger.

That's when it struck me! What I miss most about hostel life is not the daru parties or the leisurely pace, it's the little things I took for granted every day. Staying up till the wee hours of the morning and going out for Paranthas at the IIT Flyover or Bread Pakodas at Kuldeep's in Yusuf Sarai or even just for chai at any of the numerous dhabas spanning the stretch from the Flyover to AIIMS. However, they wouldn't have been the same, if it wasn't for the fact, that no matter what the time, exams coming up or just over, vacations going on or not, you could always find someone to go along with you. Sometimes it was tough and I spent half an hour just looking for company, but I always found someone.

I know that even though I keep cribbing about the city, it's not just the place that's changed, it's also the time! Out of my many batchmates who live in Delhi or the NCR, I don't know how many visit these college time haunts of ours and how often. I know some of them still frequent Tankus, but those midnight capers are pretty much a thing of the past. Even Thulls, my partner in crime till the very last of my hostel days, has succumbed to the charms of married life.

But I still believe, that if I lived in Delhi, I would still be able to call up one of these guys and say, "Dude, Bread Pakoda kha ke aate hain!" and chances are that he would come along. Maybe staying away from the city will help me keep this belief alive, cos it might just be the devastation of my entire belief system to hear an "Are you insane to wake me up at this time of the night?" from the other end of that line.

While I indulge myself in such emotional crap, I'm glad that there was half a watermelon and some of Mr. Knorr's packaged delicacies in the fridge :)

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Eurotrip: A study in stereotypes!

2006-03-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

I saw this movie called Eurotrip some time ago and although it's total mindless crap, I loved it. It's a great spoof on American perception of European stereotypes.

The story runs thus, Scotty's hot girlfriend dumps him on his graduation day and he follows it with a misunderstanding with his German online buddy, Mike, who he later finds out is actually an extremely attractive woman as opposed to the guy next to her in the picture she sent him.

Anyways, he's sick of the 'predictable' image he has and on an impulse, takes a trip to Europe to locate the lowe of his life, Mike (pronounced Mika) and his travels in the pursuit of his goal make for some mindless laughter.

Things to definitely look out for:

The song, "Scotty doesn't know!!"
The robot act - Scotty engages in a robotic duel with a roadside showman.
The Italian guy on the train

More about the movie here.

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Blast from the past...

2006-03-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

Recent events got me wondering again about the extent of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This, in turn got me visiting some of my older posts and wondering why I've stopped Rambling and why most of my recent posts are travel related or about the traffic in Hyderabad. I seem to be obsessed with commuting, which is these days, the only time I'm away from my office or home. Sad existence indeed, and corrective measures need to be taken. Need to manage my time better. Need to create some relaxed thinking time as well.
Till then, here are some posts which I relished writing and relish reading over and over again:

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Ramblings

Kolkata: Interesting colors and variety of transport!

2006-03-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

I think the best place to gauge a city's pulse is by talking to its auto-drivers and by observing its public transport in general. Although I didn't get a chance to engage much with the aforementioned people, I was intrigued by the difference in color schemes that this city uses. I remember being amused at policemen in white clothes when I first traveled to Calcutta, but these pictures should tell you what I mean.

Also impressive about the city is its variety of public transport. Pictures missing are those of trams and metros.

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Been out of town....

2006-03-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Ya well, I haven't been too regular, and apologies to my (2?) readers. Well, as I've mentioned before, I've been traveling far more than I'd like to when not on vacation, even though I got myself into it in the first place. As my sis put it, "Jab okhli mein sar de hi diya hai, to musal se kya darna". Funny adage that is. Even though I've heard it a zillion times, it still sounds funny. I mean, musal, what a word. I don't even know how to literally translate it into English. I don't even know if these tools exist for the English speaking world outside of the sub-continent.

Anyways, so it was Kolkata that I traveled to this time, and even though I tried to weasel my way out of the trip, it was an interesting trip even before we'd left Hyderabad. So here's the story...

Our cab comes to a halt just in front of the Air Sahara counter at the airport and we're behind this Orange Matiz (I still wonder at the people who bought that car! Not to mention, the color choice. Well, I am a little judgmental :)). Anyways, so the rear door of the Matiz opens and this woman in white steps out and even though I can just see her from behind, I can tell that she's an alien to this city. She's too well groomed to be living in Hyderabad. She wore white jeans and a white top and managed to make it look attractive, the clothes well cut, had very obviously straightened hair and not an extra ounce of fat on her. And then I hear her say something to the driver in a voice that's familiarly squeaky. She turns around and it's one of the few popular Hyderabadi gals, one of the Mirza's. No not Sania, (didn't you hear the bit about not an extra ounce of fat?) Diya. Must say she's gotten a lot attractive since she first made an appearance. Was cursing myself for not having shaved that day......

What was Kolkata like? Well that's the next post!

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Tear down that temple, break that mosque!

2006-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

My religion says God is omnipresent. Islam says God is omnipresent. Christianity says God is omnipresent. Then why do we need temples and mosques in the middle of the road?

I refer to the mosque bang in the middle of the road after the Kondapur T-junction. I also refer to the massive temple on the way to Mehdipatnam and either a temple or a mosque (forget which) when you come down from one of the flyovers on the way to Secunderabad. The city is full of places of worship which guarantee to take you "close to God".

You might scream blasphemy, but I ask again, why can't that temple be moved to somewhere off the road. Besides being a bottleneck in traffic, it's also a driving hazard. They just pop up at you out of nowhere, especially the one downhill on the flyover. Unless they are properties of archeological value, which I seriously doubt they are, why can't the city find an alternate spot for the mosque to relocate to, or would it be troubling God too much. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind, and I've asked him that multiple times.

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Pollock jhapakte hi sab kuch badal gaya!

2006-03-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

Was watching the last few overs of the Australia - South Africa ODI and at 180 something for 5, with the batsmen taking some risks, it seemed poised for an interesting finish. 67 off 45 balls seemed like an achievable target for South Africa to get, though not with ease due to the 5 wickets.

Then Pollock misinterpreted a delivery and was clean bowled and thus started the downfall of SA, which included the most amazing catch I've ever seen. If you manage to catch the highlights, check out Hoggs catch of de Villiers.

Telemachus did provide the audience with some entertainment with his 29 off 17, taking things pretty close, but couldn't pull it all the way.

Well, the series has been kept alive so some good cricket awaiting the fans.

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Coffee Shops!

2006-03-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine wrote this for her company newsletter and I found it an interesting read. Published here with her permission:

I come to Hyderabad from a city where the coffee shop tradition is more than 50 years old, where in fact we have coffee shops that are more than 50 years old (which have patrons who probably picked up this tradition so many years back too). I come from a family where we have a Sunday tradition in which my dad buys fresh cream and makes freshly brewed coffee for all of us. I am a person thus, who loves her coffee.

When I moved to Hyderabad six months back, the only coffee shop my husband would take me to was the café coffee day in Jubilee hills…which as per me, caters more the hukka smokers rather than coffee lovers. In my six months though I have found some great coffee here.

If you are looking for good coffee without considering the rest of Jazz, which comes with the modern coffee houses, then really great coffee can be found in the traditional Minerva coffee shops scattered all over Hyderabad. None though anywhere near our office where we can sneak out for some time.

If you love books like I do, you would love to visit the Odyssey coffee shop which is next to the odyssey book shop. Decent coffee, good clubs (sandwiches)…an ideal place to sit if you can’t wait to start a new book you have picked up. It is walking distance from Hyderabad central, really the center of the city, an ideal place to have a quiet time whether alone or with a friend. I use this place often both to park my car and to wait for other people I might be meeting up for a movie at central.

My personal favorite though for the past 7 years has been the barista. I remember it from a time, when still in college. I could not afford a coffee there, so my every visit to barista was extended to the maximum. This was a barista in the university area which would never shoo away us excited but penniless students. All Barista’s follow the same tradition - You can sit there with a book, or pick one of their board games or play the guitar which is there in every barista. You can pass an hour, two or three there without anyone ever asking you to move…you can have some of the best cold coffees in town and I would say I have heard some of the best amateur music with the barista guitars.

The idea which has come of age in other cities in India and what I am waiting to happen to Hyderabad is coffee shop wherever you go, in book shops, in the center of malls, road side. We should have book shops which have a coffee shop within, which allow you to pick a book, order a coffee and sit in a corner. Great place to read when you don’t want to spend. Then there should be coffee shops in the malls, where you can sit and see the shoppers around, without entering any shop.

Hyderabad is the city where all the American presidents make a point to visit. I would say when Hyderabad decides to have something, its better than the rest. (Amen).

I would like to end my article with an anonymous quote:

“A cup of coffee shared with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent. "

- Anonymous

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Rain........

2006-03-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

As I drove to work this afternoon, the brightness of the overhead sun was suddenly subdued by oncoming clouds and a pleasant breeze registered its presence, eliciting a Wow from me!

When I was driving back in the evening, the breeze was cooler and conveyed some signal which registered with my subconscious to convey the oncoming of rain. It was so obvious that there would be rain later in the evening, that I didn't even try to follow the chain of thought that brought me to that conclusion.

It's pouring down now, and it's got me wondering what it is about rain that evokes strong emotions in us, exaggerates our state of mind, akin to what alcohol might do. Elevating a pleasant mood into a "Singing in the rain" feeling, or a slight loneliness into a longing of the "Rhythm of the Falling Rain" sort. Why does one go dance in the rain in abandonment of his inhibitions or romance flourish (you're not watching enough Bollywood if you need an explanation of that)?

On a slight tangent, why does John Abraham's hair always look wet or a woman just out of a bath look so temptingly sexy? Why are we such beings of water when we are not aquatic creatures? Is it our agrarian instincts or a proof of Darwin's theory that life began in the ocean?

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Bangalore: A room with a view, nice music and spicy food!

2006-02-26T08:24:00.000-08:00

Got back from Bangalore this evening and it turned out to be a nice trip. Working on a Saturday was worth what awaited me at the end of the day.

I was to meet up with friends for a drink and dinner, but really needed a shower so insisted I check into my hotel, have a quick shower before we hit the Bangalore pubs. Hadn't stayed at this hotel before so expected the normal, but imagine my surprise when on drawing aside the wooden curtain, this was the sight that met me:

Now, I admit that I haven't travelled much, but I have a fair bit, but I've never stayed in a room with a patio, with furniture on it and such a green view.

We hit this place called Mojo, a subsidiary/extension of the famous Pecos, which is almost on Brigade Road and was packed. Luckily there weren't too many people in waiting so we got a table in 5 minutes. I loved the music. The guy played Beatles all night, while I looked on at, (besides the cute girl at the next table,) John Lennon:

However, the food was so bloody hot, and I don't mean in the temperature way, I almost died hiccuping. That too, after my having been accustomed to crazy amounts of chilli in my food, so typical of Andhra. When we questioned the waiter about it, he said with a proud grin on his face, "Pecos Special, Sir!" Well, it certainly didn't make me feel any special...

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Travel Blues!

2006-02-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

Ever get the feeling that if you try and run away from something, it somehow manages to catch you. I wrote some time ago that this seems to be the year of travel for me. It actually started late last year and this is what it's looked like:

Dec 7th - 11th : Delhi + Muzaffarnagar
Dec 25th - 27th : Chennai
Jan 11th-13th: Delhi
Jan 14th-15th: Jabalpur + Nagpur
Jan 27th - 31st: Delhi + Pilani
Feb 9th - 11th: Mumbai
Feb 16th - 21st: Indore + Mumbai

That's like a lot of travel for two months. I'm actually feeling exhausted, not to mention that my core work suffers, even though I might be helping my company in other ways.

So, when I was asked along for a trip to Delhi early next week, I refused. Yes, I refused a trip to Delhi. My friends freaked out when they heard that. Delhi's like home to me, and I usually don't miss a chance to visit. That should give you an idea of how much I don't want to travel for a few weeks.

Then my team asked me to come along to Bangalore on Friday/Saturday and again I said 'No' citing the same reasons. Well, tonight my Director called and asked me if I can go to Bangalore tomorrow and I really couldn't say no. So there goes Memoirs of a Geisha. :( And, I'm so seriously short on sleep, that I'm wondering why I'm sitting here writing this.... D'oh!

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Bird Flew...

2006-02-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

... from the menu. Our office cafeteria decided to remove all chicken and egg dishes from its menu as a precautionary measure, in light of the arrival of the Avian Flu on Indian soil (air-space?). As depressing as it is, I guess one's better safe than sorry.
I don't know much about the disease but it has resulted in some interesting punchlines. A passing glance at the TV screen and I stopped instantly when my attention was caught by the headline, "Chicks on Spycam". A moment's thought made me figure out what it was before shots of a poultry farm came on screen.
Well, guess it's just gonna be Mutton Roganjosh for a while..... till the uninfected bird lands again.

Related:
India awaits human bird flu results
India: Human bird flu case possible

Picture courtsey: Al-Jazeera

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Auto-rickshaw drivers: Mumbai vs Hyderabad!

2006-02-21T06:54:00.000-08:00

Mumbai:
One thing that struck me about Mumbai as different from any other Indian city I've visited was that autos very infrequently refuse to go to a particular destination, they charge you by the meter, the meters are all in order (no hanky-panky), and they will not round off the fare to the next multiple of 10. There is an exception to this, however, the Mumbai airport, where they will rip you apart. For the most part, though, it is almost a pleasure dealing with the auto-wallahs in that city.

Another thing is that it seems to be the only city which seems to value time. The fare shown by the meter is a function of time, in addition to being a function of the distance as it is everywhere else. And a major difference as well: a ride from Goregaon to the domestic airport in Santacruz, took me 1.5 hours and 110 rupees, while on the way back (at 4:30 AM in the morning) it took me 20 minutes and 60 rupees (didn't even charge me night fare). Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that happens in any other city.

Hyderabad:
Change of scene: I got back from Mumbai this morning and the moment I got out of the airport terminal, there were hordes of taxi and auto drivers offering unsolicited services. I was looking out for an auto anyways, so let's ignore the solicitation issue for now. The first auto-wallah I engage with says it'll be 160/- bucks to Madhapur. Now, I don't much use autos in Hyd, having my own Dhanno (watch Sholay, if you didn't get that, you uneducated soul!), but the one route I've taken enough times on an auto is from my house to the airport or vice-versa, so I know it should cost no more than 70/- and I tell him as much, and the guy just walks off as if I'm kidding. I thought it was the other way round.

Now, one would advise that pre-paid auto services are made just for this reason, but I would love for someone to explain to me the justification of the fact that the pre-paid rate for the aforementioned route is 130/-. Even though I disagree with the idea that the government could charge for offering a "fair" priced service, I'm willing to accept a premium of 5-10 rupees just to avoid the hassle, but pre-paid at double the price is insane and criminal.

Well, the next guy said he'd go by meter plus 10 rupees, but why would I, with my freshly acquired notions of fairness, agree to something like that, so I got him to go by meter and no additions. Now, when the meter got beyond minimum fare, I realised it was majorly skipping. It could jump 20 paise sometimes and 40 or 60 other times. So I tell the guy that his meter is tampered and he should stop when he sees the next traffic policeman so that we can get it checked. He just reset the meter and kept going. Again, the meter started skipping, so I asked him to stop at the Police check-post near the JH Barista, but the dude just started apologizing and wouldn't stop. He tells me that he's just temporarily driving the auto and it's not his.

Now I'm feeling pretty bad that I didn't actually get him caught, but I noted down the license plate number and want to submit a complain. Anybody know how I can go about it?

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Keep your eyes on the road, ...

2006-02-21T06:11:00.000-08:00

... your hands upon the wheel. Thus spake Jim Morrison and little did he know how apt it would be for Hyderabad roads. After 2 painful months of traffic jams, diversions, debris on the roads, 36 (I think) roads in Hyderabad are double in size and freshly laid. Shops and houses were bought over and torn down to make space for the expansion. Saw some of the largest houses in the city lose part of their lawns, shops losing their front doors. It has brought in a lot of new issues, though which call for much more attentive driving, but good things first.

The drive from my house to my work-place (Madhapur to Gachibowli, for those who recognise these addresses. For those who don't, it's about 10.5 kms of extremely curvaceous road) used to take 17 minutes, best time. This stretch had an S shaped curve and one night, coming back from work, I just kept going straight and kinda lost track of where I was..... They had by-passed the 'S' with a completely new road. They had removed the biggest bottleneck on the entire route and without blocking the flow of traffic during the entire process. Street lights came on, lanes were painted (just in time for the Congress meet) and it now takes me 11 minutes average. That's saying a lot, considering the distance hasn't really changed.

However, it is truly said that, "You can give people bigger roads, but you cannot make them think." People just wont THINK and realise that there is a divider in the middle of the road, so that all traffic going in one direction should stick to one side of the road, that it is not good sense to cross one side of the road while trying to avoid traffic on the other side or just to cross the road without looking anywhere in particular.

Initially I was bothered by the lack of knowledge about lane driving. These days, that seems to be the least of my concerns. Autos/cars swerving across lanes at will, for no particular reason has stopped bothering me, cos I'm on the lookout for the stray pedestrian who might jump on to the road with no thought for the car coming at 80 kmph or the auto guy who decides that traveling an extra 100 yards for the U-turn is just not worth his while.

Things are looking up with infrastructure scaling up to the growing needs of the city, but a bigger problem is with the thinking of the people scaling up. I believe the government has a much larger role to play in educating the traffic, now that there is potential for so much more chaos.

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Hyderabad

Mumbai mall has free Wi-Fi!

2006-02-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't written in a while, but I've been traveling and though I thought I will get time to write in, it's just been an amazingly busy and entertaining trip. Been busy playing cards all night, or staying up and catching up with friends. There's so much that's been going through my mind, so much that I wanna write about, but it'll have to wait till I get back home.

Right now, though, am extremely kicked cos I'm sitting at the food court of InOrbit mall and am glad to see that at least some people are smart. They have a free wi-fi zone here at the food-court and I fail to see why other malls/coffee shops/general random places don't have it. It keeps people on your premises which is half the battle won when you're trying to sell them something.

Over these last two weekends in Mumbai, and before this I used to hate the city, I've started loving it for a variety of reasons, which you shall hopefully be hearing about. So watch out for that 'Mumbai' category/tag.

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Mumbai

Jago grahak jago!

2006-02-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

If you've seen the Public Interest Campaigns being run by the Department of Consumer Affairs, you'd know what I'm talking about. Quite a catchy campaign targeting middle class India. It's all over radio and television. The Govt. seems to be doing some interesting campaigns lately. The last one I remember was the "Atithi Devo Bhava" campaign to promote Tourism.

Anyways, so I was thinking about what exactly is the law regarding sale at a price above the Maximum Retail Price. Everyone seems to be doing it from the restaurants to the airlines. I haven't had the chance to read up on it, so consider this a placeholder and a reminder to myself to read up on it.

Pls to tell if you know.

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Categorised!

2006-02-13T07:54:00.000-08:00

This blog now boasts categorised viewing. You can view my posts in a particular category by clicking on it in the Categories menu in the side-bar. The posts will show up below that menu.

I've been trying to get this to work for sometime and hated Blogger for not providing this basic a feature (WordPress does, but lacks a zillion other things). Partitioned my blog into three to categorise it, then couldn't really maintain the three, cos some posts would span two blogs and some wouldn't fit anywhere.

Finally, thanks to the folks at FreshTags, navigation is a little easier on my blog.

Expect the three blogs to merge soon.

Update 1:45 AM: All posts from the other two blogs are here. Unfortunately could not move over the comments.

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Delhi to Pilani!

2006-02-08T04:12:00.000-08:00

I talked about my trip to Pilani some time ago (Ref:Visiting a new city! ) and since I've had a couple of people reach that post searching for "Delhi to Pilani", I thought a brief description is due.

We started out late afternoon from the IGI Domestic Airport in Delhi (after waiting for a couple of hours for the rest of the people to turn up, delayed flights and all) and were instantly met with hordes of car trying to escape the city (on a monday morning? Strange!). Moving at about 30kmph was such a pain till we were pushed on to a diversion on the highway. 30kmph on that stretch would have been a blessing.

Took us about an hour or so to clear the city and by then, it was time for lunch. That's one thing I love about North India, food is never a problem. We came across this huge Haldiram joint which turned out to be a food court. Awesome food.

The drive once we'd cleared the city was pretty nice and picturesque with Sarson ke khet (a la DDLJ) all around us for miles. We left the main Jaipur highway pretty soon and the road, though bad in stretches was on the whole, pretty nice. The surprise came very close to Pilani. It's in the middle of bloody nowhere and you have this lovely stretch of road which seems to be go going nowhere in general. It just goes on and on in desolate surroundings, with very little traffic. It must feel pretty lonely, was my thought.

Anyways, for those planning to take the trip, it takes about 6 hours for the approx. 280 km stretch and the city, what little there is of it, is nothing to write home about. So unless you have work there, it can be safely avoided.

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Turning 26!

2006-02-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

I turned 26 today, (well technically not for another two hourse), and for probably the first time in 26 instances, I had almost forgotten about my birthday. Unfortunately, that doesn't make them go away. So here I am, on the latter side of the twenties, (I wanted to say 'wrong' side, but I really hope it's the right side) with not much accomplished and no idea what I want from the rest of my life.

Mr. Luhrmann would probably say "The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 26 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t." But that doesn't change the innate desire most humans have of sneaking a peek into their future or Bejan Daruwala would be out of business. Not that I'm much into horoscopes, (my fortune for the day says "Your love life will be happy and harmonious." It doesn't say when, though.) but how do I plan for it when I have no clue what it's gonna be like, and how do I know what it's gonna be like when I don't even know what I want it to be like.

To top it off, my dad's showing me profiles and pictures of potential wives. Hell, I turned 26, not 30. Unfortunately again, parents just can't see eye to eye with their children, even if they themselves got married at 29. Rationality is dead! I'm one of the last survivors. Have to repopulate earth with rational beings or undertake the more arduous task of converting people to rationality.

Now that's a vision for the rest of my life. Once again, I have a motive to live, that of propogating a new religion, the religion based on Rational behaviour. No more fundamentalism, no more being herded by politically inclined religious leaders. It's time to see Yuva! That reminds me of these five IIT grads who've started a political party. Revolution is in the air and I am getting totally random. I guess it's a late 20s thing.

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Visiting a new city!

2006-01-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, travel seems to be on the charts for me this year. So, I'm gonna be traveling to Delhi and Pilani the next few days. All I know about Pilani, is that it is home to one of the leading technical institutions of the country, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science aka BITS, Pilani. Besides churning out some very interesting people (I hear Sabeer Bhatia is an alumnus), they're known to throw one hell of a party that lasts 5 days. Oasis, the annual festival of this institute attracts people from all over north India and is described on their site as "nothing but 120 hours of non-stop unadulterated fun." I really wanted to go for it while in college, but lazy bum that I am, never got around to doing it.

So, I was telling some colleagues about this upcoming trip and realised I have no idea where it is, except that it's about a six hour drive away from Delhi, the centre of my universe (ever hear the adage: "All national highways lead to Delhi"?), and hence, that was sufficient information. I actually thought it was in UP. I figure that since I'm going to be there, might as well figure out what I could do there if I manage to find a couple of hours to spare. I do a search on Pilani, and discover that it actually is in Rajasthan. Can't find much info about it other than it's the hometown of the Birlas and hosts BITS. The institute's site lists Banks and Shopping Centres (which they insist on calling "marketing centre") as landmarks, besides a temple and a canal.

Well, it's a hiring trip that I'm going for so time will be scarce but I do hope I get to wander outside the campus for a bit. Given the packed schedule I'm traveling with, it'll be a wonder but I'll try and get a few pictures at least. (Note to self: Buy batteries for the camera.)

Some information I could find about Pilani:
Warbirds of India - G.D. Birla's personal aircraft, previously of the US Army Air Force.
Sharada Temple at Pilani
Rajasthan Tourism

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Scenes from India!

2006-01-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

I never knew that Makar Sankranti was a big festival in Central India. I know it's a harvest festival so a major deal for rural India but I just never thought about what people do on the day. Turns out, they turn up in huge numbers to take a dip in the nearest river, in this case, the Narmada.

Well, actually this is the day after Sankranti so I still don't know how they celebrate the festival itself. But just to make up for that little bit of fibbing up there, here's another picture I took.

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Bad breath travels far!

2006-01-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

I stand staring at the curls of smoke drifting out of his mouth, not exhaled with force, just set adrift, crafting a path of their own where none existed, they travel far, each strand choosing its own path, and then further splitting up like an Indian political party with its own ideology, until they fade into oblivion. And counter-intuitively, smoke ignites a spark in my head... and I say, "Dude, breath travels far!"

For some reason this reminds me of a girl I once dated and I think either she had a bad case of caries or she was just very well prepared to fend against my advances, cos I couldn't get within five feet of her if she had her mouth open. "Dude, breath travels far!"

It's not a comfortable thought, (well, at least not for me, and you may call me a freak) to be inhaling second hand air, hell, second is in all probability the understatement of the century. And I'm not just talking about the Liv Tylers and Angelina Jolie's of this world. Think of the stinky guy you met the other day and if you were within fifteen feet of him, chances are you were inhaling air that came out of his mouth not too long ago. I wonder why I never thought while studying diffusion... "Dude, breath travels far!"

The funny thing is, and I guess it's human nature that we don't appreciate the good things in life, that I've never thought on the lines of "Damn that woman has sweet smelling breath" but bring in a person who stinks and it takes less than a second to notice. "Dude, bad breath travels farther!"

Suddenly I'm in love with the Pepsodents and the Close-Ups of this world, and not just for their cool commercials. I'm in love with the dentists of the world, (I should make it a point to visit mine.) no matter what people might say of them, cos "Dude, breath travels far!"

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The Postman: An integral part of India!

2006-01-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

I remember times, before the advent of email into mainstream Indian life, when letters used to take 6-7 days to reach, often get lost on the way or arrive opened. In general, the stated of India's Department of Posts (then, Post & Telegraph) sucked!

Nonetheless, receiving a letter used to be an event in its own right, an emotional high that shall forever remain unequalled by email. I'm not denying that receiving an email is special. That would totally depend on who it's from and how often you communicate otherwise, but all factors remaining constant, I'd rather receive a letter than an email. All I get by snail mail these days are Credit Card statements and Phone bills, which I receive five days earlier in my email anyways.

Things having changed how they have and with me not having written a letter in a few years, I don't think I have the right to grudge. But it still feels nice to see what a huge role the Postman still plays in the lives of millions. BBC has done a brilliant "In Pictures" feature on the Indian Postman. It also brings out how the government is innovating to leverage this amazing supply chain.

Definitely worth a see!

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The year of Travel!

2006-01-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

At the end of every year I regret the fact that I didn't travel enough. Was in Delhi for over five years and never saw Shimla or Manali (did manage to sample the produce of the latter though). Been in Hyderabad for over two years and haven't travel to places nearby (for obvious reasons, they don't exist).

The last year, however, I did manage to travel a bit, mostly to home-cities albeit. Four or five trips to Delhi, three home. No new cities visited till the fag end of the year, when I made my maiden trip to Chennai at Christmas, only to realise I never wanted to go back there again.

Travel seems to be on the charts for me in 2006 and quite a bit of it. Fifteen days into the year and have already covered 3 cities, (2 cute air-hostesses), and all in a span of 5 days. Had to cancel a trip to Mumbai next week and have Delhi (hopefully) , Mumbai and Indore scheduled for Feb and another trip home in March.

With so much travel already planned and all to cities already visited before, I wonder if and when I'll see some new places this year. Which gets one to wonder, what ARE the places I'd like to visit? Excluding international travel, Goa is one for sure, one place I feel left out not having visited. Heard of some place called Araku Valley close to Hyd. Where else, I don't have a clue.....

Suggestions are welcome. Otherwise I guess time will tell.... (Still thinking, though)

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Partition

2006-01-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Blog; Usability; Weblog;

[Edited to reflect the change in title. Pranay, will write a post soon addressing your comment.]

I realised that my blog doesn't have an underlying theme. I am a multifaceted person (or so I'd like to believe) and as a result there are various things that I write about (although not as often as I'd like to).

In order to make it easier for me to build up on my thoughts, be more inclined to write, and also to make it easier for the readers (which I don't have many, except for the dude in Peru.. dude, if you're reading this, could you leave a comment once in a while cos you sure as hell spend the most time on my blog) I've broken up my blog into 3 different blogs based on the following themes:

Ramblings of the Amateur Blogger - http://tusharc.blogspot.com - My ramblings, random thoughts etc.

My Non-adventures in Hyderabad - http://inhyding.blogspot.com -My experiences, raves and rants about the city I've been in for the past two years.

See some evil, hear some evil - http://stuffiobserve.blogspot.com - Stuff I read, hear, watch and the effect it has on me.

There might be times when a post is relevant to more than one blog. I will try my best to make sure it appears on both. However, if I've missed out on it, please remind me.

Contemporary Mahabharat: Banker's got serious competition!

2006-01-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Someone pointed me to this woman's blog and she's done a hilarious job of contemporarising the Mahabharat. Seriously, I try to be funny, but she doesn't seem to be making the effort and still turns out wayyyyy funnier than I can possibly dream to. Wish I could write like that.

Now, I'm a major fan of Mr. Ashok Banker, who's Ramayan series I've been reading like crazy (Desperately waiting for Part 5 of 6!) and he does a pretty darned good job of the whole contemporarisation bit, and I hear he's working on the Mahabharat now.

Although I'm gonna end up reading both versions of the Mahabharat, to feed different regions of my brain, Mr. Banker might just find competition if this lady decides to publish her work (and a publisher agrees to do it, I hear they can be quite daft) and I really think she should. Might run into trouble with the self proclaimed moral police, but that'll be fun in itself.

Anyways, what are you doing still reading this, go read the Mahabharat ala Crystal Blur.

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Ringing in the New Year!

2006-01-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

Often we use the end of a year as a milestone, a checkpoint to reflect upon the year that was and set expectations for the year that is to come. Now you might do it at the beginning of the Solar Calendar Year (that would be the 1st of Jan), or maybe you still follow a Lunar calendar, some use their birthdays as checkpoints, corporates take stock at the end of the financial year.

As for me, I've been cursed with a brain that thinks too much and end up using all of them as milestones. At birthdays it's "Shit I'm 25 and still single. Need to get girl before I'm 26". At the end of the financial year (which also happens to be the end of the review period at work), it's "Another year gone by with little growth in career". 1st of January 2006 was more of a "What'd I do in 2005?" type of checkpoint.

So, 2005 ended on a decent note for me. You see, I'd bought this nice party shirt somewhere in the first quarter of 2005. I never could wear it as it displayed prominently, signs of my prosperity (my paunch, for the non-Punjus). So I try it on before I leave for a New Year's Eve bash and surprise, surprise..... it fits, and what's more, without a single stretched seam!

Now you'd say, how shallow, that's all you can claim to have achieved at the end of a year.... Well, why I mentioned this first was because this event was got me looking back at what else I had done in the entire year. But more on that later.... since I'm still trying to figure out..... :(

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Dinner with Mithun Da!

2005-12-24T12:49:00.002-08:00

Been meaning to write this for some time, just never got around to it. Well, this is what happened. So I'm out having dinner at one of the better restaurants in the city. It's an officialish affair with colleagues and an ABCD visitor (he said it, I didn't :)). And then this group of 5-6 people come sit at the table next to us.

Now we're talking about things work related and the visitor is in the middle of an extremely engrossing narrative on events historical/political (read: office gossip) when I realise that I recognise one of the aforementioned people at the adjacent table. I actually interrupted the story-telling to confirm my finding. The dude at the said table was none other than erstwhile Bollywood "super-hero" (anything less and the Bongs wont forgive me), our very own Disco Dancer, Mithun Chakraborty aka Mithun Da....

Needless to say, I was quite excited, being as I am a fan of mass-market, Bollywood masala movies. If you haven't tried them, don't knock them. It's the Rajnikanths and the Mithuns who defined the typical Bollywood with their physics defying stunts. It's too bloody hilarious when Rajnikanth splits a bullet he just fired into two by holding up a knife, so that he can kill two bad guys with the last remaining bullet. Imagination at it's best :)

So, there we are sitting in the presence of a celebrity, he's wearing this black shirt with white patches which nobody else could carry off (actually neither can he, but then it's Mithun Da), is pissed drunk and smoking like there's no tomorrow (or wont be cause of the smoking). And I'm telling my colleagues and the visitor (who by the way, totally knew who Mithun Da was and was as excited about being in celebrated company. To quote him "This'll never happen to you, even in Hollywood. That's what I love about this country") about how in the hostel there were even people who would put on the Disco Dancer soundtrack and perform an arti on Mithun's picture.

In a way, I don't even blame them. The guy's a great businessman. He's carved for himself a niche which most would shirk away from. But this guy moved to Ooty, where he owns a hotel chain, perfect for shooting B/C- grade movies on such a low budget that there's a guaranteed return on the money. The stats are something like this (no reliable source though, just random hearsay):

Actor: Mithun Da himself - Free
Actress: Some random big-bosomed girl who's trying to make it into the movies - Almost free
Some other actors for villains: Dime a dozen
Location cost: Didn't I just tell you about the hotel chain?
Scriptwriter: You must be kidding. They're all the same script (for lack of a better word), Mithun is the good guy. His wife/sister gets raped and killed, then parents get killed. Mithun angry, kills the whole underworld and in the process finds another woman to make out with.

Entire budget: Under 30 Lakhs.
Movie screened: at the lesser movie halls in non-metros (and Calcutta). I can still remember the first time I heard some kinda news on FM, "XYZ movie with Mithun Chakraborty, playing at 1 hall in Delhi, 2 in Mumbai and 32 in Calcutta..."

Everybody happy.... no need for MasterCard... (bad one, I know!)

To top it all, you still hear Mithun songs, as remixes which in themselves are raking in the dough, Disco82, Zubi Zubi Zubi (to the tune of Brother Louis) being cases in example.

Well, I didn't really feel like intruding on his privacy, especially since there's so much being said about the privacy of celebrities, so that was the end of it, but as another friend put it, now I can die happy :p.

More on Mithun Da:
Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry - the dude's acted in 179 movies.
Interesting write up
Another interesting write up

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Murphy, leave me alone!

2005-12-17T04:29:00.000-08:00

Somehow, ever since I've heard about Mr. Murphy's Law, it's started applying to me and never stops. Well, by definition, I guess it's not supposed to stop applying like.... ever, but give a guy a break.

Consider this, I've been in this city for two years and if you've been reading my blog (which you should, by the way) you'd know how I keep cribbing about how this city does not have a life for immigrants like me. So now I'm really excited about this weekend cos I have like three places to go to Saturday night and they fit in so well cos one starts just about when the previous one finishes. So yay!

But wait! This is the point where Mr. Murphy puts in an appearance. My car, which has been running beautifully for more than a year and a half, not a flat tyre even, decides to go phut on me. Well, it actually started grumbling, turns out the stupid rains caused the silencer to rust. Now who does that ever happen to?

So here I am, at the mercy of public transport or a friend with a car, which is a situation I'm so not used to anymore.

Some might say I'm cribbing about minor things like a bad weekend when there's poverty and hunger in the world but it isn't like things would have gotten worse elsewhere in the world if I'd had a good time this weekend. (Political hara-kiri, but whatever!)

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The F.R.I.E.N.D.S. effect!

2005-12-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

A large segment of the Indian population aged between 20 and 30 has been exposed to a fairly large dose of the popular SitCom, FRIENDS. I'm a huge fan myself. Have seen each and every episode from the very first where Rachel's just played Runaway Bride to the Season 10 Finale where Chandler and Monica have twins (oops, you haven't seen it, have you?). The humour is awesome, subtle at times, more in your face at others. I can watch any episode any number of times and still laugh at it. In that, it's an amazing creation and kudos to the creators and the cast.

However, like a lot of media, it has had an impact on our perception of how life would turn out to be. I know, I know, if you actually take television as a true representation of life, you're downright daft! But, come on, the show's so bloody life like. I mean, I really wouldn't, subconsciously, map my life to X-Files or Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, but I've often thought of how particular events on Friends were so similar to what I experienced with my little circle.

So what exactly am I trying to say. Well, here's the thing, with life being as fast as it is and with pretty much no time for anything besides sitting in front of a computer, by whole FRIENDS belief system is being shattered, and I'm actually questioning the fact that those guys never seem to go to work. Yes, Joey goes for the occasional audition and to act in "Days of Our Lives" and Ross has a crush on his student, but besides these rarities, they're almost always at the coffee shop. Now, I love my Barista and Qahwa, but I just can't get enough time to be sitting there, chilling out everyday and it's a fact that bothers me.

Well, I guess the Rembrandts theme would be apt for me right now.

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way,
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA,
It's like you're always stuck in second gear,
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year"

Yup, sums it up pretty well.

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Read Easy!

2005-12-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

Blog; Weblog; Usability;

I received feedback that the color combination on my blog (white on a black background) made it difficult to read.

Now my perception had been that White on Black was the easiest to read and this has been scientifically proved. It is also the reason why the law dictates that automobile license plates in India have to follow this color coding (it's an altogether different issue how many of them actually do.)

So I went and tried out a different template. And lo-and-behold, it was actually much easier to read. So the new color coding stays.

However, in the process, I lost all the customizations I had made to my template (D'oh!) and had to do them all again. Guess I'm not a geek after all :D (Wishful thinking, most would say.)

Superheroes of the Geeky Kind!

2005-12-01T07:36:00.001-08:00

Are you a Parikrama fan? Have you ever hounded your friends at IIT for passes to the Rendezvous Rock Show to watch them perform?

Are you a software developer?

Irrespective of your answers to these questions, this is interesting.

As part of the upcoming Ready Launch Tour 2005, the Indian launch of Microsoft’s new application platform comprising SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006, Microsoft has got Parikrama to perform a song titled "Superhero" about the life of a programmer/software developer/superhero of the geeky kind. Kind of a first in the industry.

Download the song at: Ready 2005: Song

Read what others say about it:
In Praise of Developers - Microsoft Watch
A single for software launch - The Hindu

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Changaich - The Hyderabadization of a North Indian!

2005-11-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

It'll soon be two years since I moved to Hyderabad but somehow it's never felt like home. I mean, sure I say "I'm going home" when I'm getting out of work, but that's just using the word home in the most general of senses. I've always believed that I'm here only temporarily and that I'm going to move out in the next couple of months. Reminds me of the forward that was doing the rounds some time ago about the NRI who wants to come back to India but keeps deferring it till he finally dies there (or something to that effect).

In the past month or so, however, I've been starting to think of staying around for at least another year. Not that I've developed a love for this city. I still believe in the whole Socially Clustered thing and that so doesn't work for me. It's just that I think of it now as a sacrifice I'm making for my career (let's not get into the discussion of it being worthwhile or not, cos that's a whole other debate). Work's pretty good and I'm not going to get something as good for at least another year, so that's what's keeping me here.

What's gotten me worried though is a recent event which got me thinking about how much effect this city has actually had on me. It happenned somewhat like this, I was talking to my parents over the phone. Mom came online and asked "Kee Haal Chaal?" and I responded "Changa-ich".

Now the significance of this statement would probably be lost on all who are not familiar with the Hyderabadi lingo and with the Punjabi word for 'fine', but the others would probably sympathise with me if they have a Punju background or rub their hands in glee if they belong to Gult-land thinking "Another convert!" I'm not trying to be racist here. It's just plain difficult adjusting to a whole different culture and trying to convince yourself that at the end of the day it's the same country. The whole Unity in Diversity thing was not only true but an understatement of the magnitude of that diversity.

I wonder though how long that diversity will exist, with hybrids like me who grow up in a mix of cultures, have Mysore Bajji followed by Lassi, use words like Changa-ich and other things I dare not even think of....

I also wonder how much longer I'll stick on in this city, now that I'm actually planning to stick on another year..... and how Hyderabadized will I be by then....

All I can say is danni dengu!

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Quote of the Day - Couldn't have put it better myself!

2005-11-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

"Maybe my values are outdated, but I come from an old school of thought. I think that men ought to treat women like something other than just shorter, weaker men with breasts. Try and convict me if I'm a bad person for thinking so. I enjoy treating a woman like a lady, opening doors for her, paying for shared meals, giving flowers - all that sort of thing."

-Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden in Storm Front by Jim Butcher

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Me?

2005-10-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

She's the third person who asked me to stop punctuating my emails, and even my SMSes, so much, and also, once in a while, don't start a sentence with an upper case letter. Says it freaks her out. My reaction was that it's OCD, but then I questioned that statement myself.

Do I actually have obsessive compulsive disorder? Am I Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets? Well, not to that extent, but even to a little?

I can't sleep if I don't wash my hands.
I like certain aspects of my room a certain way, or I'm uncomfortable.
I feel uncomfortable if a mail in my inbox remains unread, deferred for later. (It's ok if the mail is in another folder)

But then, these are just idiosyncrasies that each one of us have their fair share of. So, I Google for OCD and here is how the OCD Foundation defines it:

"Worries, doubts, superstitious beliefs all are common in everyday life. However, when they become so excessive such as hours of hand washing or make no sense at all such as driving around and around the block to check that an accident didn't occur then a diagnosis of OCD is made. In OCD, it is as though the brain gets stuck on a particular thought or urge and just can't let go. People with OCD often say the symptoms feel like a case of mental hiccups that won't go away. OCD is a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information processing."

That sounds encouraging, not to people with OCD, but definitely to me. It's true that my brain often gets stuck on a particular thought or urge, but I can, after a while, let go. And here is proof:

i can type without punctuation and upper case letters i can even skip the period after a sentence if i want to and im not even using upper case is or apostrophes and there are two things i realise one that punctuating in email im conversations and even smses is a habit thats formed over time for me two theres a reason why punctuation exists for when i try to read this paragraph its bloody tough for me to parse and comprehend it so it must kill another person

Back to normal. Well, actually, as was just demonstrated, I have always been normal, whatever that is. Isn't it so much more comfortable to have the punctuations back? You learn to respect every comma, every exclamation mark. As for me, I guess it's time to go wash my hands.

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Al Shamshoon

2005-10-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Homer Simpson just got rechristened Omar Shamshoon, Bart is Badr. Dubbing is passe, it's the age of adaptations.

Arab satellite channel MBC is running an adaptation of The Simpsons, customised to Arab culture. Homer (Omar) has dropped his favorite Duff beer for cola, hence can't really hang out at seedy bars with his chums. Bars being the topic of discussion, Moe doesn't own one anymore, but grazes goats.

With such adaptation, there's a serious risk of losing the USP of the show, it just may not be funny anymore, or at least in the way The Simpsons is perceived to be funny. A Simpsons fan (and I'm not sure if they ran the original Simpsons series in the Middle East) might miss out on what he takes for granted, when the Shamshoons suddenly behave so differently. For example, a lot of the best Simpson moments happen when a character is pissed drunk.

On the other hand, it might just start a whole new industry who's adapting American content for the Middle East and India, and Indian and Chinese content to suit American tastes.

Think of the possibilities, the Shamshoons on their way to India, would become the Sharmas, where Amar (Homer) guzzles Old Monk and Masala Papad, instead of beer and doughnuts, at a theka owned by Moe-han.

Whether that happens and when would probably be decided by the popularity of Al Shamshoon.....(I wonder how they adapt D'oh!!!)

Links to related news items and blogs:
News article in The Independent
FumbleMcStupid's Blog
Image courtsey: Oblogatory Anecdotes

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Hyderabad - Socially Clustered

2005-10-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

This evening, I stood looking at an aerial view of Hyderabad. Lots and lots of lights and I was thinking, it isn't exactly a small city. But for a city its size, it's seriously devoid of interesting people. I mean you find one in like ages, but the proportion is vastly lower than in a more cosmopolitan place like Delhi or Bangalore. It's not something I found out today, have known it for some time now. However, I was reflecting (yet again) on this attribute of the city.
Is it possible, was the thought. I know there's like a major IT focus and all, so most of the people you tend to meet are IT people. Does that mean that the city hardly has interesting people or is there severe clusterisation in this city, cliques which aren't breaking as they normally would. I would believe so.
Another attribute of this city, possibly a reason for the clusterisation is the scale at which young people have moved out before or immediately after their graduation. This could have in turn been caused by the poor undergraduate level education in this city. So you have under 18s who're still in school and even if interesting are far too young for me, then you have a major void in the 18-24 age group, formed mostly by those who wanted to move out but couldn't for one reason or the other or those who simply don't care if they stagnate. Over the age of 24, are people who were in the prior category a few years ago or have moved in because of the IT and ITES boom in the city, very skewed.
Highly clustered for on the one hand you have extremely ambitious people (also known as geeks) and on the other you have people who are apathetic to pretty much everything around them and ne'er the twain shall meet. One would assume that with such a major influx of population, there should be an interesting mix of people to choose from. Somehow, that hasn't happened, probably because of the drastic skew in the industries growing here. Contrast that with a Delhi or a Mumbai, and here is the scenario I usually quote. In Delhi, if you're at a Barista, any 10 people sitting there would represent at least 5 different professions, whereas in Hyderabad, 9 of them would be IT guys talking about how .NET is way cooler than Java. I like technology and I think .NET is cooler than Java too, but can't I get a break from it if I want to? Or do I HAVE to get out of this city for one?
I don't know if it's healthy for the city's growth or not, but it definitely isn't for me.........

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The Foodie in me!

2005-10-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

I have the distinction of being the fussiest eater in my group. Also, I eat out pretty much every day. Given the above two, I'm thinking if I should do reviews on eating joints.

This is obviously dedicated to the man who fed me for more than five years, three meals a day. To Sasi and his paranthas. Although the dhaba has been removed from existence by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, he will live on in the memories of the thousands he's fed.

Posts will feature on: My Non-adventures in Hyderabad

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Food+and+Drink

Grilled Chicken! (Vegetarians refrain from reading!)

2005-10-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

Originally written on June 8th, 2005

Name of Restaurant: Dine Hill

Cuisine: Afghani, Middle-Eastern

Location: Masab Tank,

City: Hyderabad, India

Food Rating:

Ambience Rating:

Had Grilled Chicken for dinner today.

There is this tiny, dingy looking place called Dine Hill in Hyderabad which is a non-vegetarians delight, for it serves the most amazing Grilled Chicken ever. For those not familiar with this dish, I've captured the beauties in all their glory.

I was introduced to this joint by a friend of my flatmate's in Jan last year and I've been a regular ever since. Well, not exactly as much of a regular as some other people I referred it to. I think I must have referred (directly and indirectly) about 8-9 other people (that I know of) and they make it a point to visit at least once a week. Me, I guess I go there once or maybe twice a month. But each visit is an experience in itself. The sight of those grilled chickens accompanied by Rumali Roti, Garlic Sauce and Pyaaz!!! Wah wah!!! Kukkad paadne ka maza hi kuch alag hai........ or as GP said today "Bhagwaan ne Murgi badi acchi cheez banayi hai."

I remember GP ko kya jalaya tha when he was in the US and we'd gone for one of our GC sessions, taken pictures and sent to him. "Yaar, US mein bas yehi ek cheez nahin milti."

Long live Grilled Chicken!!!!! (Well, not technically, but may it Rest in Pieces!)

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Dilemma

2005-10-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

The dilemmas that life faces you with. On the one hand is the security of treading a safe, well worn path and on the other is the thrill of walking the road less travelled. Club that with a person who hates taking decisions and you've got yourself an interesting script.

But do we stop at that? Of course not. Cos, there's not just one route which hasn't been beaten to a path. Hypothetically, there would be an infinite number of routes between where you are today and the few attributes with which you define your future. Realistically, the number would be of the order of 10. But then, there are times when a non-realistic seeming path is converted to reality by someone who has the balls to take it. Of course, you would say that only if he succeeded. If he fell flat on his face, you'd say something to the effect of "Fools rush in....." But I'm just rambling without making sense now.

So what I'm trying to say is that there was a time when I could see no option before me and it was bloody scary, so I jumped on the first opportunity that I got with a great sigh of relief. That phase was probably the most disillusioned one of my life, the scariest, the future seeming non existent with expectations piling up.

Now, when I contrast it with the state of having multiple options, each of which seems rational to take, each of which I could justify if someone questioned and hence to myself as well, it seems that a deterministic life would not have been so bad. Free will seems more a curse at a time like this than a boon. I know Descartes would not be too happy with my saying this, but he's dead, so I couldn't care less. As a matter of fact, I doubt I'd care even if he were alive. But I go into crap mode again.

Essentially, I need to take a decision and stand by it, for better or for worse, except I don't want the worse. But then one has to take risks for the returns to be greater. I guess the following sums it up.

Ae ghame zindagi, kuch to de mashwara,
Ik taraf uska ghar, ik taraf maiqada.

Main kahan jaoon, hota nahin faisla,
Ik taraf uska ghar, ik taraf maiqada.

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Mulit - An Absolut Pictures presentation!

2005-06-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

A friend referred me to http://www.absolut.com/. Was browsing through it when I found this series of short movies they're doing and the current one is shot in India and tries to do a Bollywood. The translation for the subtitles is too funny.

It's a spoof on your stereotypical 70's Bollywood movie. There's the not-so-rich but dashing guy who falls in love with this really rich girl, the tyrant father who would not see his daughter marrying a good for nothing ala "Tum ek mahine mein jitna kamate ho, meri beti ek din ke make up pe uda deti hai". Then there's the villain (played by our very own "Dubey-ji") who adds to the confusion......... Made in the same vein as the "Samne yeh kaun aaya" music video, it's full Bollywood Masala compressed into 11 minutes.

And the impressive part is that it's been directected by firangis..... Indian cinema does have it's fans abroad. This is what Absolut says about Mulit:

Shot entirely on location in India, Mulit is set in Bombay during the late 70's and tells the story of how the Mullet haircut came into being. The Bollywood style musical recounts how smooth talking hairdresser Mulit accidentally invents the style, after he falls in love with the prime ministers daughter.

It's interesting to see such a lot of focus on Indian stories and/or Indian themes and/or Indians. It's been around for a while, although a rarity like Peter Sellers playing an Indian in "The Party", but lately, ever since American Desi came out, there's been a spate of movies about Indians abroad like "The Guru", "Bend it like Beckham" or movies made by Indians abroad about Indians in India, like "Monsoon Wedding". Add the whole Punjabi MC bit and you've got a new phase of Reverse Cultural Imperialism happening.

Well, to get back to Mulit, the flick contains a lot of symbolism as well. Look out for the inconspicuous Absolut bottles.

The commercial and short film all feature numerous bottle shapes hidden in the background of the action. Some were shot for real, but approximately 30 bottle shots were added by a team of Mill flame artists. The bottle shapes can be seen in the wallpaper and linoleum flooring and there are also bottle shaped turrets, arches and doorways in the Indian palace.

Get the movie here. And make sure you listen to the song.....Kisko Mulit se pyaar hai!