Oracle but not clairvoyant

Excerpts from a nightmare

2011-08-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

Do you remember scenes from any of your nightmares?


When everything is over (Cemetery, Auvers-sur-Oise, France)

The Faraway Tree (Parc Guelle, Barcelona, Spain)

Evil lurks beneath the calm (View from Neuschwanstein Castle, Hohenschwangau, Germany)

Possessed (Somewhere below the Acropolis, Athens, Greece)

Modern Odyssey? (Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece)

Waiting for redemption (Roman dungeons, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France)

Educational Premier League

2011-05-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the success of associating cricketing milestones with brands in the IPL, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India has decided to do the same with key concepts in all subjects in its curriculum. It is anticipated that such a move will bring in the much-needed funds to improve basic education.

According to reliable sources who attended the policy meeting, all text books, question papers and educational support material will be upgraded to reflect these new changes. Teachers will be trained to incorporate these new terms in their classes, and students failing to quote relevant brand names in answers will be penalized. Some examples quoted in the memo include:

Mathematics

Given a function y=acosx + bsinx, find where it attains its DLF maximum if it exists. What is the value of this DLF maximum value?

Chemistry

Explain the principle of Karbonn Kamaal dating. How is it used to determine age of fossils?

History

Describe the Moneygram Money Transfer Quit India Movement.

Physics

Archimedes had a Citibank Moment of Success when he noticed that he displaced his own volume of water in the bathtub. How can this principle be used to assess the purity of gold?

Geography

Write a short paragraph about the currents in the Sahara Indian Ocean.

Biology

Draw a neat diagram of the Hajmola digestive system. Label all important parts.

Ragekumar

2011-04-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

Eef you come today...

Cricket Rage

2011-04-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

Before you correct me, Sreesanth is a proud alumnus of Florence Public School, Bangalore.

And yeah, he is better than some of the worthies mentioned above.

Mall-eswaram Rage

2011-04-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

The times, they are a-changing. Malleswaram, once a staid old place is now ironically known for the hottest new mall in town.

Bishen Singh Bedi is Probably Right

2011-01-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

After Murali retired, Bishen singh bedi called for a ban on the "doosra". His logic was that

"I strongly feel the ICC should take action to ban the doosra since it just cannot be bowled legally. Ashley Mallett has said the 'doosra is nothing but chucking' and Australian spinners, including Shane Warne, have raised an alarm against coaching it in Australia."

Read the full article here: http://is.gd/u1LZrA .

I was not so convinced about this till I saw this Pepsi ad, which "traces" the origin of Harbhajan Singh's doosra (Harbhajan had been called for throwing in the early stages of his career. But, after corrective action, as well as new definitions of chucking, he is deemed clean.).

See how he grips the ball (at the 22s mark). Now, get hold of a ball, and grip it exactly the same way, and try to bowl with a straight arm. Could you? The only way to bowl (and I mean it in the old way, not the post-Murali-controversy way) with this grip would yield one of the following

A dislocated shoulder
A feeble dead ball or a lollypop delivery begging to be hit into the stands
Knuckles bruised beyond repair

Now, try to bowl the with the same grip again, but bend your elbow just a little. Voila! You have suddenly launched a vicious missile that flummoxes all except the greatest batsmen!

Thus, my contention that Bishen Bedi was right. Harbhajan no doubt has a clean action, and the few doosras he bowls go unnoticed. In fact, to my biased eyes, the delivery shown in the ad itself is chucked!

Can you bowl a vicious doosra with a straight arm?

The Infinite Set of Zeros

2010-12-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

Proposition: There exist an infinite number of zeros, and some zeros are greater than others.

Imagine you were playing Russian Roulette with a gun that, instead of having 6 bullet slots, had 666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666,666 bullet slots. And one bullet. Would you be scared? The chance of being shot by that one bullet is very low, in fact, so low that it is zero for all practical purposes. Now, suppose the same game were to be played, but with six hundred and sixty six bullets instead of one. Your chance of dying goes up six hundred and sixty six times, though it is still practically zero. Now, imagine that the shooter opens up the gun in front of you, and removes EVERY bullet. Then, he proceeds to play Russian Roulette with you. Would you be scared any more?

I do not know about you, but I would be most scared in the second case, and absolutely not scared in the last case. The reason is obvious enough: we do know that the odds, though practically zero in all cases, are different in each case.

Georg Cantor was a mathematician who proved that there exist an infinite number of infinities, and some infinities are greater than others. The crux of his work is explained very lucidly by Steven Strogatz here:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/the-hilbert-hotel/#more-48595

Cantor [proved] that there are exactly as many positive fractions (ratios p/q of positive whole numbers p and q) as there are natural numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, …). That’s a much stronger statement than saying both sets are infinite. It says they are infinite to precisely the same extent, in the sense that a “one-to-one correspondence” can be established between them.

If many infinities exist and are unequal, their reciprocals, which are zero must also be unequal. That is, if X and Y are two positive infinities such that X<Y, then 1/X>1/Y. And there are an infinite number of such infinities. Thus, it must follow that there exist an infinite number of zeros, which are the reciprocals of these infinities. Each of these is different from the absolute zero, denoted by 0.

Note to readers: There is probably a fallacy in this argument. Do let me know your views in comments...

If Real Cricket Were Like Street Cricket...

2010-11-26T04:14:00.000-08:00

There would be no LBWs, hit-wickets, byes, leg byes or overthrows.
Chucking would be legal and bowling illegal. Deliveries that are too fast would be declared dead balls.
The non striker would double up as the umpire. He would either be empty handed or hold a stick.
No runs behind the wicket. Also, any nick behind the wickets would be out.
Every third wide or no ball (in lieu of every wide or no ball) per over would yield one run.
Every team would have 4 members. Both sides would field.
There would be a joker who bats for both teams, and fields for both teams. Usually the weakest player, unless he owns the equipment.
There would be one bowling end and one batting end. Batsmen would change after every over, and not the field. Also, both batsmen would use same bat (see 3). The batting end would have 3 stumps while the bowling end would have one stump. Stumps would be placed in a stump holder, and there would be no bails.
The ball would be a modified tennis ball: Cosco Cricket, Pacer or Vicky. Both innings would be played with the same ball.
There would be no sixers. Any shot clearing longest boundary would be "six and out." In case the ball is lost, the six runs would not be given. Also, shorter boundaries would exist, for "1 declared" and "2 declared" in case of an asymmetric field.
If the batsman were beaten thrice in the same over, he would be declared out.
The owner of the most pieces of equipment would play the role of match referee, opening batsman and bowler of the second over. Except this minor change, a team's bowling order and batting order would be exactly reversed.
Only clean one-handed catches after one bounce would dismiss batsmen. However, catches after one bounce, if two-handed or fumbled would not be valid.
The winner of the toss would always bat first and win by obscene margins.
A batsman would be declared out on playing either a switch hit or a shot with the back of his bat.

The Chanakya Formula

2010-11-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

The latest book by Dan Brown will be released next year. But the story synopsis has been leaked by an employee of his publisher. Here it is:

Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon is in New Delhi to deliver the keynote address to the graduating batch of St. Stephens College, New Delhi, when all hell breaks loose. Biman Chaudhuri, the legendary economist, management guru and dean of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management, is found asphyxiated to death in his office. His white board has three cryptic symbols, a broken egg, a diamond in a heart and a map of undivided India, along with Robert Langdon's name.

Meanwhile, a dangerous fanatic hired by revivalist think tank Atanu and Sandeep Society (ASS) is on the prowl, desperate to get at the secret which could alter the very landscape of the world economy. Langdon, must run from the police and save the global economy, with the help of his brilliant, idealistic and young admirer, Ishita Sharma; an Economics lecturer and former gold medallist from St. Stephens. Their chase leads them all over India, as they must unravel clues hidden in the European architecture, fully equipped gyms, free wi-fi and well-stocked libraries of IIPM's numerous campuses. Can they uncover what the great ancient philosopher, economist and statesman had hidden in the Mauryan age? Read The Chanakya Formula to find out...

Vizzy

2010-08-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is one of my numerous attempts at being a fiction writer. I had submitted this to a contest without any success.

Howrah station was hot, squalid and crowded. From afar it was a majestic red Victorian building, the custodian of the nation’s lifeline. In the days of the Raj, the Railways had been the place to work. A job in the Railways was the ticket to respectability and a good dowry. My grandfather had worked in the Railways – his favourite boast was that he knew all the abbreviations of the station names as a Control Room operator. His father had used his friendship with the local Burra Sahib to get him that job. Now the station was just dirty. Paan stains dotted the walls, as the faint stench of urine pervaded the entire place. The presence of ten baskets of fish packed in ice and straw didn’t help too much either.

It was mid morning and I was looking forward to catching the train. Business had been good, so I was treating myself to an air-conditioned ticket ride home. I looked up at the sky – filled with crows searching for the fish they could smell. Hawkers and porters were everywhere, coexisting peacefully with the vagabonds, the homeless and the several rats that scurried past the sleeping villagers waiting for the train home. “One day I shall fly”, I promised myself. For now, I anticipated the cool confines of the AC III-tier coach with the liveried attendants to hand out blankets and pillows.

My reverie was broken by the shrill sound of the train’s whistle, and the ensuing melee. What had once been a languid trance had in a moment transformed into a free-for-all, as the mad rush began for the general compartment’s elusive seats. People flung bags, handkerchiefs and babies towards the doors, as the porters bulldozed their way past the hapless jeans-clad newly-married couple trying to find their compartment. The elderly couple seemed unfazed by all this, while the voluptuous American girl went stocked up on her mineral water. I waited, safe in the knowledge of my reserved air-conditioned top berth, as I scanned the passenger list to find out who my companions for the next thirty six hours would be.

The train was moving. The voluptuous American girl was not an American girl. She was probably from Sweden, and as tall as me. Her name was Helga Larsson (F24). She was very beautiful. I had to impress her. I took out my new Nokia phone with mp3 and camera, and made a call. “Sell all thousand Reliance shares!” I barked in English for all to hear. “I need to offload some shares at peak value,” I explained to Mr. Mehta (M46), hoping to start off a conversation. He had a nice-looking daughter too, Shreya (F20), and she was staring at the cover of the Richard Bach book (Illusions) that Helga was reading, while her mother Kanta (F40) was busy unpacking lunch. The sixth member in our cubicle was Rustom Merchant (M47), though that was not his real name. This story is really about him.

Though I rarely read anything but the business and sport pages, I had read Illusions a few years ago, and I was glad for that. I hated the book, but now I could be the brooding philosopher debating the existence and purpose of God himself. She was in the last few pages. Good. Scope for an interesting evening chat, over salted mangoes, peanuts and Pepsi, I thought.

“What do you do, son?”

My reverie was shattered by this question, which was asked in Bengali. This was Mr. Ghoshal (M54) on the side berth. He was short, bald and had a grey beard. He was travelling with his son Sumit (M17), most probably to admit him to one of Bangalore’s numerous colleges. Like me, he too had studied the passenger list and picked out the only fellow Bengalee near him.

“I am an investment banker,” I said, with a discreet glance in the direction of Helga. She didn’t flinch, but Shreya sure seemed impressed. Investment banker. I liked the term. Now you may be thinking what a hot-shot investment banker like me was doing on the Howrah-Bangalore train, instead of jetting to London or San Francisco club-class? Well, I roughly did the same things as most investment bankers did, but worked for myself and only myself. I managed a portfolio of shares. I studied the stock market as thoroughly as any wunderkind on Wall Street. I had my clients too, who trusted me with a lot of money and I used PowerPoint slides on them with devastating effect. My office was a garage and I didn’t have a projector to show my slides (I used my monitor), but my clients trusted me to make their money grow. Why, the other day, Mr. Kesavan had entrusted me with half his provident fund! Heck, to the outside world I was a mere stockbroker, but I preferred to call myself an investment banker. We achieved the same results, albeit on different scales.

“Uncle, what firm are you with?”

Damn Shreya. She may have looked nice, but was an obnoxious little twit. She called me uncle! If only, like me she hadn’t checked my age on the list (M31). Anyway, does a gap of eleven years make you an ‘uncle’? And she had to bring up my past.

“You can call me Raj. That’s what most people call me,” I said with a smile.

“Actually Mr. Raj, I am in my third year engineering and am seriously preparing for CAT. Can you give me a few tips?”

I looked at her blankly. Then I looked at Mr. and Mrs. Mehta. They were smiling benignly at me. Mr. Ghoshal was preparing his next question in his head, while his son was slyly stealing glances at Helga’s voluptuous body.

“She is very good in studies you know. But we are business family. Not much education. She wants to do MBA and pursue investment banking career.”

The conversation had switched to Hindi. Helga had finished Illusions. Now she was reading a fat Linda Goodman book on astrology. I was losing hope. Here I was amidst two beautiful women, but one was in her own world, while the other, the apple of her parents’ eye, was in reality a horrid little wench, hell-bent on raking up my past.

I have no past, at least not a past worth talking about. When I make my first billion, I’ll have to hire one of those spin doctors to build the legend. No rags-to-riches, riches-to-rags, family intrigue or tales of passion. I had been a mediocre student, and had somehow managed to graduate with second class. No fancy business diplomas for me. I had a bit of money with which I started trading in the stock market. Nothing spectacular. Business had been steady, and I had never worked too hard or lost sleep on trading. I was content making small but steady margins and the occasional loss. Slowly, the news of my prowess at day trading spread in my neighbourhood, and a few local uncles, real uncles, asked me to manage their savings, which I did for a small fee. Business was now growing steadily.

I never had a girlfriend or an affair. Many of my friends did, and I envied some of them. I, however, was content to be in the company of guys similar to me, discussing the merits and demerits of every girl we knew. I had invented a nice definition for ‘girlfriend’ – a man’s future ex-wife! Age was, however catching up with me. I was thirty one, single, and secretly dreaming of the lifestyle of the Greek shipping magnates that more than one book described. As of now, I am yet to go on a date.

Helga was now dozing off. Her ample bosom heaved, but I couldn’t look. Neither could Mr. Mehta or Mr. Ghoshal. Rustom Merchant seemed to be oblivious to everything around him. He was doing nothing, and had a blank look on his face.

“I don’t believe in fancy stuff like MBA. I am a self made man, and have my own firm. It has no name, and my clients trust me.”

I couldn’t believe what I said. Here I was, trying to justify myself to the precocious twerp. She couldn’t have cared less anyway. I bet she was busy in her own world of SMS, college fests and boyfriends. Pah! How I hated such females back in college! They never spoke to me.

“Do you believe in astrology?”

“This existence is all Maya. I am here in India on a spiritual quest for Karma.”

Sumit Ghoshal, had managed to strike up a conversation with Helga Larsson. He had a strange shit-eating smile on his face. His obnoxious little father and Mr.Mehta family seemed to have formed a tag team to keep me away from Helga though. The man had started bombarding me with questions in Hindi, all for the benefit of the Mehtas.

“How do you deal with the stock market fluctuations?”

“Do you chase the IPOs?”

“I want my son to do MBA too, after his biotechnology.”

The little twit. He surely was enjoying his journey. Shreya had climbed to the top berth now, where she was playing with her cell phone. The spoilt brat! I mumbled my way through these queries, listening to the sweet lilt of Helga’s voice.

“Swami Paramananda’s teachings have showed me the new meaning of life. I believe in the Oneness of Purpose and the Multiplicity of Paths”

“Is it better to join ISB or go for foreign MBA?”

“I don’t know; I am not an MBA.”

“My daughter is interested in going to foreign…”

“My son is very brilliant and hard-working. Bangalore colleges have good placement no?”

“Should I sell my Reliance Gas shares before it’s too late?”

“Why don’t you come to the virgin beaches of Gokarna? They are clean and unspoilt, and it’s a real spiritual trip down there. I am planning to go there next month”

That was Helga talking. Suddenly there was silence. Mr. Ghoshal had a smile on his face. He was obviously not the conservative father. Far from it, and worst of all, he turned to Sumit, and said with a broad smile

“Yes, Sumu. Why don’t you go? At your age I remember that I went to Puri with my friends and got high on the beach with some hippies. What an experience! Ha ha ha! Nearly got arrested by the police….sigh…those were the days…”

I could have choked myself and dropped dead right there. That lucky bastard! Here was his own dad asking him to go on a wild trip to nowhere with the prettiest white-skinned woman with the loosest of morals that I had ever set eyes upon!

“Of course, you keep my little secret and I shall never mention this to your mother…ha ha ha…she will divorce me and go off to Gaya forever…ha ha ha!”

If Mr. and Mrs. Mehta were a tad uncomfortable they were trying their best not to show it. It would’ve been different if Shreya was in Helga’s place though. For the first time, the stoic Rustom Merchant, whose story this really is, seemed to have a smile on his face.

I was feeling drowsy, and a niggling doubt had begun forming in my mind. I had seen Rustom Merchant before. No, we were not acquaintances. I believe he was someone famous. Where had I seen him? Page 3 of Bangalore Times? Bombay Times perhaps? No, he didn’t seem to be the party animal. Was he a famous sportsman? Arjuna awardees were had lifetime Railway passes, I think. Surely he was not a cricketer, so what sport did he play? Hockey? No, he was a bit too short for hockey. Swimmer? Possible. But there were not too many male Indian swimmers who would command a place in my memory. Athlete? Possible. Bangalore was home to the Sports Authority of India, where most serious athletes trained.

I dozed off, but couldn’t sleep. No, he was not a sportsman, on second thoughts. What was he then? A businessman? Certainly not a hotshot – they didn’t travel by train nowadays. A politician’s spoilt son? I couldn’t recollect a famous Parsi statesman. Business it had to be. I jogged my brain; the idea of not being able to recollect something at the tip of my tongue was killing me. Ratan Tata, Ness Wadia, Russi Modi…only the big names occurred to me. Nope, Rustom Merchant was not a famous businessman.

“What happens when an IPO is over-subscribed?”

Sumit Ghoshal’s wanted to know all about stocks and the stock markets. I wanted to request him to fuck off, but tamely humoured him.

“I think they have lotteries for the retail investors, and try to give most of them at least a few shares to keep them happy. They return the remaining money, but make a killing on the interest during the few days they have it.”

“Why Sumu, you should concentrate on your studies now. The stock market will come later.”

Ghoshal was at last talking sense!

“No Baba, it’s always good to know stuff…I was just asking.”

I hated Sumit Ghoshal. I looked up. Little Shreya Mehta was reading Cosmopolitan on the top berth. So much for CAT and the IIMs, I thought. When I was much younger, I would always sneak a Cosmopolitan at the first railway station after the train left. There were women around me now. I was dying to read about sex tips and the latest trends in negligees, but sadly had to pass up on this trip. Besides, the mystery of Rustom Merchant was literally eating me up by then.

The eunuchs had arrived. I hate these cross-dressing goons and their weird chants. Do the math and you realise that most of them earn more than the average software professional. They were ruthless as usual. My friend had once stood firm with a six-foot all, muscular eunuch. Many pleas were tried. His body was compared to the six-packs of Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar by the doting she-man. My friend had refused to budge. Curses inflicting impotency followed. My friend laughed, secure about his manhood. Next had been the body grope, where he had received a brief massage below the waist. My friend pretended to enjoy it with a benign smile. Then the strip-tease had begun. The pallu of the saree had come off. My friend looked the other way. He finally gave up when the second hook of the blouse had come off, and parted with fifty rupees and a lot of cold sweat. I know what you must be thinking right now, but I swear it was really my friend, not me. Anyway, I had the ten rupee note ready, and so did the Ghoshals and Mr. Mehta. Not too many people challenged the eunuchs, and they in turn seldom troubled women or old people.

Rustom Merchant didn’t pay. A eunuch nudged him. He gave a cold stare. The eunuch seemed flustered, and the entire gang backed off. There was something in Rustom’s eyes that scared me, and evidently the she-males too, for they didn’t try any wise tricks, but just carried on, blessing me with a beautiful wife and three bonny boys. Mr. Mehta was promised a rich son-in-law, and Sumit Ghoshal would grow up to be the next Amitabh.

Was he a criminal? A master forger? An art thief? A stock market scamster perhaps? Was he on the run from the law, maybe after defrauding investors in his chit fund? That was it. I hoped he wasn’t a murderer or a feared mafia don, because that was not a pleasant thought. Was there a reward for turning him in? I could do with a few lakhs. What happened to whistle-blowers? Did the gangs come after them? Would I regret turning him in? What number do I contact? All these thoughts came in a flurry, though the important question remained unanswered? Who was Rustom Merchant, for that was obviously not his real name.

Helga seemed very attracted to Rustom Merchant, for she kept stealing furtive glances at him, from behind the new book she was reading. Rich Dad Poor Dad. I was not surprised. I had read somewhere that the women are attracted to the bad boys. They have the charisma and the animal instinct ingrained in them. I was evidently not a bad boy. Would she make the first move? Was he playing the playboy to perfection? The brooding man waiting to pounce on the vulnerable and lonely woman?

The answer struck me like the Courtney Walsh bouncer that had found a gap in Manoj Prabhakar’s helmet’s grill, and it chilled my blood to the bone. Sitting in front of me was no brooding Parsi trader or ill-paid sportsman, but one of India’s, no, the world’s most dreaded fugitives. I was sure as hell – Rustom Merchant was none other than Jacky Carneiro. Yes, the same Jacky Carneiro who has toyed around with the Indian, Portuguese, Greek and Thai police for over two decades. The same Jacky Carneiro who had earned the nickname of Carneiro the Carnivore, for his ability to seduce beautiful women on the beaches of Goa and Greece, before beheading them. The same Jacky Carneiro who engineered three perfect jailbreaks in three different countries. The same Jacky Carneiro whose real-life exploits would make a Jeffrey Archer character seem like a bumbling school kid. The same Jacky Carneiro was sitting opposite me, sipping a mango drink from a tetrapak now. I had recently read about him in a magazine and I knew that Interpol was willing to pay a lot of money to get him.

What was I to do? What number did I call? Did I have to identify myself? Would they note down my name and address? More important questions. What if Jacky managed his fourth jailbreak? How did he deal with people who ratted on him? Would he behead me once he escaped? I was not a gorgeous woman, and I didn’t live close to a beach, but who knows? What if I called the police? Would the average police phone operator know about Jacky Carneiro? How would I collect the money? Would it be tax-free? Maybe I could buy a large number of shares in the next major IPO. Maybe real estate was a better bet…

The train stopped at Vizianagaram; a short stop, but I needed some air and exercise. I got down and stretched my limbs, before proceeding to the tap marked “Drinking Water”. I filled up the two bottles I had, and boarded the train as the whistle blew. The Mehtas were asleep and Mr. Ghoshal had gone to the loo, probably for a quick smoke. His son was doing the day’s Sudoku. Helga and Jacky were gone. In their places were Mr. and Mrs. Reddy (M50 and F44) respectively. They had reserved tickets up to Bangalore.

Placebo

2010-08-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful afternoon at the Parc Buttes Chaumont, one of the prettiest green spots in Paris. I was lying on the grass, taking in the fresh air, chirping birds and the beautiful people lounging around. In short, it was bliss. After an hour or so of absolute laziness, I started eating a crepe I had bought in a bakery nearby.

The man had a diabolic scar under his right eye. "Salaam," he said to me from a few metres away. "Salaam," said I. He was about thirty five years old, and was apparently picnicking with his wife and a few other girls in their late teens or early twenties. Probably sisters. Or sisters in law. Or just friends. They were certainly too old to be his daughters. "Good day, isn't it?" he said, in heavily accented French.

Why was he trying to be friendly? He took out a bottle of chilled Heineken beer and offered it to me. "Never accept food or drinks from a stranger, especially if he looks suspicious," my childhood training kicked in immediately. "I don't drink alcohol," I blurted out in my barely comprehensible French. I lied. It was a very hot day, and I had just been kicking myself for not picking up a beer before entering the park.

"Ah, religion!" he smiled. Clearly he was violating one of the tenets of his religion. The atheist and the wino in me were squirming by now. The women in his life were looking at me with amused smiles. He then took out a 1.5 litre bottle of diet coke and offered that to me. "Coca?" he said. That's what the french call their coke. I pointed to wards my stomach and made a grimace. "Desole," I said in my pidgin French. Sorry. His wife started laughing. She poured out an orange drink in a plastic cup, held it out and said, "Fanta?"

It would be really rude to turn this down. I weighed the situation. It was 4 pm, and I was thirsty. My water bottle was almost empty. I was craving beer, or at least something cold. There were hundreds of people around. The man was there with his family. What was the chance of him wanting to mug me? And what would they gain from poisoning me? I accepted the Fanta with a smile, and slowly drank from the glass.

The thoughts of being drugged still lingered though. My stomach felt queasy, even though my brain tried its best to convince me that nothing was wrong. I lay on the grass for another half hour, battling my prejudices. Finally I got up, and slowly and unsteadily staggered out of the park. I felt giddy, and desperately searched for a public toilet. The first one I found was closed. I walked around in a trance till I found the second one, where I vomited out the entire contents of my stomach. Damn you, placebo effect!

The Golden Age of Punjabi Pop

2010-07-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

It was way back in 1999. Mohammed Azharuddin was back as captain of the Indian team, after the disastrous reign of Sachin. Karan Johar had made a spectacular debut in Bollywood, Himesh Reshammiya wasn't the viral sensation he was soon to become. Internet access meant dialling an always-busy number and listening Ashoke Kumar cough his way to death on the modem, to access sites like www.uthplanet.com (who promised to make the first ever crowd-sourced film imaginatively titled "Kaiko Kare Pyaar"). Star Plus was what the "in" crowd watched. And I still did not have cable access at home, for my 10th standard final exam was coming up.

It was a bright evening, the birds were chirping, and there I was, cooped up trying to disseminate the life stories of Dr. Ambedkar in three different languages (the English one written by former president Venkatraman had indelibly added "amelioration" and "eschew" to my vocabulary), when the tornado struck. It was on DD Metro of course, which, till then was playing Sonu Nigam and Anup Jalota on infinite loop, that I first saw the Musical Sensation of the New Millenium! That's right.

It featured an early Shiney Ahuja, watching in bewilderment as Sandali Sinha (then the reigning queen of indi-pop videos) emerged out of the ground, wondering when he would be able to afford her as a domestic help, and in the process, revealing to me a whole pantheon of music gods, not just from India, but also Pakistan, Kenya, the United Kingdom and Canada. While others my age were discovering the worlds of jazz, metal, rock and rap, that classic tune by Sardool Sikander uncovered the magical world of Punjabi pop for me.

You may have been a die-hard fan of Baba Sehgal, but have you experienced the magic of Baba Khan, his lookalike across the border? His iconic number, "I want to see you only" was a favourite of the babus at Prasar Bharti, and they ensured that every trailer program on DD Metro played this video of sailors dancing on the Baby Titanic at least three times in a span of half an hour.

Another all-time great of those days was Harbhajan Mann of Canada, who was such a sex symbol in those days that hot girls would brave slow dial-up internet connections to type www.harbhajanmann.com on their browsers to access streaming videos of their dream man(n), as this video evidences (it was also used in the iconic movie Papa the Great, starring Kishen Kumar, Nagma and Shatrughna Sinha).

Harbhajan, however was just one of many Manns who dominated the Bhangra scene back in the late nineties and early 2000s. Gurdas Mann, Gursewak Mann and Babu Singh Mann all achieved varying degrees of fame as well.

At this stage you must be wondering if all the best Bhangra talent is based outside India. For those cynics, I give this classic by Surjeet Singh Bindrakhia and Atul Sharma. It features Amit, who uses his unique charm to seduce gals at a bowling alley (a phenomenon that was just taking off back then).

Yes, its true. Punjabi Pop wasn't all about those garish and tuneless Daler Mehendi. It certainly isn't about those industrially manufactured beats of Punjabi MC or Rishi Rich, featuring Caucasian girls dancing to mind-numbing synthetic beats. It wasn't aout those Karan Joharish "Shaava Shaava, Rabba Rabba" either. The real soul of Punjabi Pop belonged to the Manns, the Baba Khans of course Jassi. I leave you with his memorable song "Channo."

Change is inevitable. Needless to say, with my TV addiction, I did not top my class. I went on to join a coaching factory, and soon got cable at home, with an avalanche of trailer channels (ETC, CVO, B4U, etc). DD Metro started its slow but painful journey to oblivion. Star Plus went all-Hindi. Azharuddin was banned. from playing cricket. Himesh began to be seen as much as he was heard. Saas-Bahu dramas started invading our drawing rooms like the mythologicals had in the mid-nineties (on Doordarshan). I went to college where everyone pretended to love heavy metal. And the DJs invaded the Punjabi Pop scene. Killing the genre forever.

Holy Cow!

2010-05-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Along with several jackpot payout notifications from Microsoft, Shell and Yahoo, and offers to launder millions of dollars by fugitive Princes and corrupt ministers, I have recently been the lucky recipient of two issues of a revolutionary new magazine called The Vedic Times. Written by Kiran Kumar B, an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, two thought-provoking issues have given me a fresh perspective on many, many issues. I feel it is my duty to share these issues with as many people as I can; so I have uploaded them online, for public perusal:

For example, the "Cows" issue reveals this startling fact, that six years of training in chemical engineering (including two years in the author's alma mater) failed to teach me:

Cow ghee, when poured on burning cow dung cakes, it produces phenomenal amount of oxygen and clears contamination from air. Studies have proven that pouring ghee on cow dung can fight pollution effectively.

And here we are, trying to reduce emissions and causing tensions among countries, squabbling over greenhouse gas emissions! We are even concerned by the greenhouse effect caused by bovine farts. The solution is simple. We need to collect and burn their shit, adding copious amounts of their own ghee, and voila! End of global warming. And more oxygen for all of us.

Another money quote:

Cow urine is useful in acidity, stomach disease and many other illnesses. According to Ayurveda, cow urine removes leprosy and other skin diseases. The cow and cow products are incomparable in the eyes of Ayurveda.

Apart from the obvious medicinal uses, I wonder if cow urine can decompose crude oil. The USA is currently facing a massive oil spill crisis off the coast of Louisiana. I was wondering if a scientifically determined combination of cow urine, ghee and dung, with appropriate combustion levels, could check this ecological and socio-economic disaster.

The advice, however comes with a warning:

Do not hate cow urine and cow dung. Never eat cow meat. By following this advice, human beings can become prosperous.

I have decided to immediately stop eating those succulent beef rolls, the Kerala beef curry, the tender beef chops, the rare steaks and the fragrant biryanis. I hereby eschew the delights of chilli beef, beef spring rolls and beef kababs. No more barbecued beef, beef stew or grilled beef for me. Heck, I shall even give up beef manchurian, beef rumsteak, beef noodles and beef kheema; from now on, all my drinks will be laced with cow urine - all in my shameless pursuit of material wealth!

In fact, I think Shri BS Yeddyurappa, the Honorable Chief Minister of the State of Karnataka has taken the right step in banning beef in his territory, thus ensuring economic growth in the years to come. I implore other states to follow his admirable example.

I was wondering if cows could solve some of the world's other problems, and came up with the following conjectures. After considerable literature search, I came up with the following revelations:

Cow urine can be converted to high-octane fuel (using vibhuti as catalyst at standard temperature and pressure - and the best part is that its a liquid phase reaction) that can power petrol and diesel engines alike. It burns in ordinary IC engines with a 99.7% efficiency. Furthermore, it prevents no fire hazard whatsoever, as it can only burn in enclosed spaces.
Cowdung is the most complete source of nutrients, and a 5 gram tablet of dried cowdung, washed down with a glass of cow urine provides an entire day's nutrition. This is because of the special enzymes present in the cow's intestines, that convert grass and roughage into vitamin complexes and proteins. In fact, a single day's production of cow excreta of the city of Varanasi can feed the entire population of Somalia for a year.
Cow urine is a proven antiretroviral agent; injections of cow urine in cultures of HIV-infected T-cells have significantly reduced the population of the pathogen as compared to control samples.
Rancid ghee (got by leaving a 40.2%-vol mixture of ghee in water in sunlight for 24 hours) can absorb noxious fumes of sulphur dioxide from the atmosphere. Research is on, to harness this reaction for municipal use.
Cowdung, if powdered and spray dried at 18000 Kelvin and 300 atm, yields superconducting and self-assembling nanoparticles. A single such particle can store 1024 times the information that all of Google's servers together can hold today.

Thus, we have excellent growth potential, and we know which animal to thank for that!

Uniquely Indian Scams and Crimes

2010-05-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

Indian scientists may not be creative enough, and our movie industry may be filled with plagiarists galore. However, our scamsters and criminals distinguish themselves by creating crimes that bear the singular stamp of our great country. Here are some uniquely Indian crimes and scams:

Khap killings - An obsession with incestuous relationships makes the words "m****c***d" and "b****c**d" as ubiquitous as the "namaste" in the wheat and dust bowls of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan. No wonder that their society has come up with a unique cause for honor killing: the crime of marrying someone with a common mythological ancestor. However, we all know that pop music (especially of the rap genre) is an outlet of rebellion against societal norms. The youth of Haryana have chosen to rebel through music, asking the elders to go away and mind their own business, as this excellent music video shows
Stamp paper forgery - Abdul Karim Telgi is the criminal's criminal. If crime were to be compared to batsmen, Dawood Ibrahim would be the equivalent of Sachin Tendulkar: adaptible to all situations, with a wide repertoire of strokes and a man for all occassions. The naxalite mastermind Kishenji is like Rahul Dravid, underrated but consistent. Harshad Mehta would be more of a Yuvraj Singh, a maverick, hard hitting batsman who takes no prisoners while he is in form, but fades away with a whimper when he is not. Telgi, however is a dream amalgamation of Brian Lara and Michael Hussey: an all-time great, an artistic maestro with a propensity to inflict little cuts that gradually bleed the victim. His greatness lies in the fact that he managed to screw the government of several millions of dollars while flying completely below the radar. And the quality of his forged stamp papers is so good (he even used the same ink as the mint itself) that there is still no way to distinguish between his fakes and the real deal. Also, like Lara, he has faded into oblivion since his career ended.
Miracle workers - Another uniquely Indian scam, these geniuses have managed to con even highly educated and accomplished persons, not just in India, but all over the world. Sathya Sai Baba commands the respect of all dignitaries in India, including luminaries like Vajpayee, Abdul Kalam, Manmohan Singh and MM Joshi. Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, Deepak Chopra, Rajneesh and even Nithyananda are other examples of successful Indian miracle workers who have managed to con rich and poor, illiterate and PhD-holder with equal efficacy. Among them, they can materialize Rolex watches from thin air, leverage quantum theory in meditation, organize orgies, and a lot more.
Fairness creams - Less of a crime and more of a scam, these products explicitly exploit our inherent racism. There is even a new generation these that target men. Celebrities like Srikkanth, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone and many more, all endorse these miracle gels that promise you a Michael Jackson-like transformation in weeks. Even a well known victim and opponent of racism, Shah Rukh Khan has no qualms about being a poster boy for a fairness cream for men. A hugely profitable segment in the subcontionent, these are made and marketed by the world's leading FMCG companies.
Cash for riots - Pramod Muthalik was a hero. We believed that he and his army were selfless messiahs of Hindu culture, risking life and limb in beating up those who violated our ancient scriptures.

We were outraged when some misguided and loose women women decided to hurt our sentiments further by sending him offensive gifts as an act of revenge. Our world has come crashing down now, as we realise that behind the facade of the selfless crusader lies a venal mercenary, a thorough professional who commands a high price for his skills. Yes, Pramod Muthalik and his army are merely freelance professionals who will do your bidding if the price is right.
Porn doctor - Voyeur cams are popular all over the world, but trust the Indian masterminds to add a whole new dimension to voyeurism. Bedrooms and bathrooms are passe; one mastermind has instituted an altogether new genre of voyeur porn - the doctor's examination room. Dr. Prakash is truly a visionary. Starting with filming patients being examined, he soon diversified into more conventional categories of pornography, becoming the Indian Larry Flynt. He enlisted professionals and coaxed and threatened amateurs and innocents into performing for his camera.Unfortunately, the government was not amused, and he now cools his heels in jail.

These are just some crimes and scams which I believe have a unique Indian flavor to them. We have more than our share of terrorists, bigots, brigands, ponzis, extortionists, embezzlers, rapists, racists, murderers, forgers and and every other kind of criminal possible. But that is the subject of another, and probably more fascinating story.

IPL questions that nobody seems to be asking

2010-04-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

The IPL has opened up a can of many slimy worms. It is undoubtedly a good source of entertainment, and a great opportunity to gamble, because the teams are so evenly matched that the overwhelming underdogs have managed to with both the first two seasons (in true ToI fashion: Team Jaipur in season 1 and Team Hyderabad in season 2). Though there are allegations of match-fixing being rampant in IPL, I personally believe that this would be an extremely foolish thing to do, as that would kill the goose totally, Since it is a fantastic way to launder money, it is in the best interest of everyone involved to keep the cricket clean. In spite of many angles being probed, including the media reports of tweets by absolute nobodies,here are a few questions that nobody seems to be asking, and I would love to know the answers to.

Why was there a clause in the IPL rules providing for confidentiality of team ownership anyway? With India being a hotbed for international crime and a terrorism, what is the guarantee that these elements don't control the IPL?
Players were bought in an open auction. Why wasn't the same process used to sell teams to their owners, instead of the closed bidding process? An open auction would probably have brought in a lot more money, with bidding prices known to everyone.
Has anyone bothered to investigate the share price history of Videocon Industries Ltd., and the stakes in Videocon by IPL functionaries? Since Videocon were apparently going to win the IPL bid, their share prices started climbing steadily from 31 March 2010 to a maximum on 9 April 2010, before beginning a steady descent again, corresponding well with developments in the IPL saga. On the other hand the share prices of the Adani Enterprises Ltd. ( intitially supposed to be a serious contender but later billed as an insincere bidder) rose from 31 March 2010 to 8 April 2010, and fell slightly, but nothing as dramatic as Videocon. It is now on an upward trend again.

Thoughts on Cricket

2010-03-11T08:40:00.000-08:00

With the advent of T20, the face of cricket has changed drastically. While some people say that T20 is the future, we have purists arguing about the resurgence and importance of Test cricket. Most people seem to have forgotten the ODI, though Sachin's double century has brought it back into focus. So, the uncomfortable question is: are ODIs relevant any more? Should they be phased out like vestiges from a bygone era? Before you jump to any conclusions, take a few minutes to recall the following memorable events:

The Titan Cup in 1996. Not a marquee tournament by any stretch of imagination. Sachin Tendulkar has been foolishly run out by greenhorn Sujit Somasundar, who soon follows to the pavilion. India-Australia league match, with India staring at sure defeat. The stands are empty, since dejected fans have gone home. Suddenly, in the most incredible last wicket partnership, local boys Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble go berserk, and India scrape through. Most anguished are the idiots who walked out of the stadium.
The inaugural World T20 in 2007. India are overwhelming underdogs against the mighty Australians in the semi-final. Yuvraj Singh butchers the world's most feared attack for 5 sixers on his way to 70 off 38 balls. In the second innings, Matthew Hayden starts a predictable massacre before Sreesanth snares him, and the Aussies capitulate, paving the way for a subsequently historic World Cup victory for India.

Which one do you recall more vividly? My guess is the former (assuming you followed cricket back then). Even though fourteen years have passed, an insignificant ODI league match draws more recall than a recent epoch-making T20 World Cup match. And therein lies the power of One Day cricket. My guess is that people remember Rajesh Chauhan's last over sixer off Saqlain Mushtaq in Karachi in 1997 and Sanath Jayasuriya ending Manoj Prabhakar's career (though his final score of 79 off 76 balls with 9X4 and 2X6 does not seem that impressive anymore) in New Delhi in 1996 far more vividly than any T20 rampage by Yuvraj (barring his six sixers in an over against England of course) or Yusuf.

T20 matches are exciting, but have no character. One is just like another. While domestic tournaments like the IPL do give opportunities to a large number of promising players, the matches themselves hardly stand out. Almost every match follows the predictable pattern of wickets falling, one batsman going on a rampage before the tail pitches in. How many people remember anything from the two IPL finals we have had so far?

It makes absolutely no sense to have one-off T20 matches or even non World Cup T20 tourneys between countries. Domestic tourneys like the IPL and its regional variants are good enough to milk the cash cow for all its worth. International T20 should be restricted to the T20 World Cup (unfortunately its once in two years, though ideally it should be once in 4 years like the ODI or soccer World Cups, or the Olympics, to maintain its prestige and exclusivity).

ODI cricket could also do without the overkill. Test cricket is still the real cricket, and meaningless 3 and 5-match series and the Champions Trophy should be done away with.ODI matches should be infrequent tri-nation or quadrangular series that serve as gap-fillers between Test series, with the World Cup once in 4 years to crown the champions.

The goose does not lay golden eggs once it is dead.

Barcelona

2010-03-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

I heard that Barcelona is a great city, and that's why I decided to visit it last month. Our flight was late, and we reached the youth hostel at 4 am, and went to sleep. When I woke up, I was welcomed by a magnificent view of Torres Agbar, a giant building that reminds every man of his shortcomings.

Walking down the streets, one was is struck by the gaudiness (literally of the Sagrada Familia), a scary church that is under construction since the 1880s, and might be finished within two decades!

As I was to discover soon, Barcelona is a city is very much like Bangalore; perennially under construction, with a bizarre skyline dominated by several cranes used in either construction or renovation.

The Parc Guelle, is a must-see in Barcelona, where the eccentric architect Gaudi went berserk with his creativity. It is like entering one of those fairy tales where the innocent young princess is lured by a wicked witch.

The park is filled with all kinds of people; tourists, amateur models, musicians and costumed superheroes.

The city itself is very warm, and has a beautiful beach, whose beauty could somewhat be ruined by naked guys. Some of the buildings have interesting graffiti too, though most have the ugly lettering you find in Paris walls.

However, Barcelona wakes up only at night. The real fun of Barcelona is in swigging copious amounts of beer at night, and sleeping at dawn. Obviously, I have no pictures of this vibrant culture. I do, however, have a few pictures from their museums.

Do not miss out on the Museum of Catalan History, which has such rare artifacts as a 20-year old computer and a 35-year old transistor radio, apart from this vintage car you see above. I was so awestruck by these treasures, that I was unable to photograph them.

Note: Do not fret if you do not speak Spanish and Catalan. Hindi works almost as well, since most of the convenience store owners, gift store owners, restaurant waiters and drug dealers are Indian or Pakistani. Also, do try the Paella, a local dish of rice and meat or fish.

Trapped in Wonderland

2009-12-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

The Book (Le Senat, Paris)

Dawn of the Night (Town Square, Pontoise)

A Cry for Freedom (A street corner, Amsterdam)

Their Prophet (Another street corner, Amsterdam)

Open Space (Axe Majeure, Cergy St. Christophe)

The Road to Heaven (Path by the river, Neuville Sur Oise)

The Raven (Shakespeare and Co., Paris)

Their Patron Saint (Shakespeare and Co., Paris)

Melody in Motion (Quartier Latin, Paris)

The Middle Finger (Eiffel Tower, Paris)

Fodder for the Bookworm (Le Senat, Paris)

Adventure 50

2009-12-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Lok Paritran Revisited - Maybe I am a Clairvoyant After All

I celebrate my fiftieth post in a foul mood. Over two years ago I had made this feeble attempt at satirical humor:
http://oraclemania.blogspot.com/2007/07/adventure-21.html

However, that post had been inspired by the brouhaha over "educated" professionals, especially IITians joining politics. People were writing feel-good blog posts and news articles about the new wave of political reforms that would be brought about by two parties, Lok Paritran and Bharat Punarnirman Dal. I didn't feel too good though. Their websites and mission statements reeked of something fishy, and I couldn't quite tell what it was. Was it the radical and revivalist Hindutva in their mission statements? Their websites seemed to be full of the type of pseudo-patriotism that typifies their better-known Hindutva redneck siblings . That feeling of discomfort was heightened by the photographs of the members of these organizations. Somehow, they did not seem to be the erudite and idealistic scholars they claimed to be. Rather, they seemed to be, and certainly dressed like, the upper-caste Brahmins and landlords portrayed by B-Grade Bollywood movies. The kind that brought about the complex racism typical of India, millenia ago.The fact that there was a public outpouring of support for these political novices made me even more uncomfortable; the very fact that they could actually be the ones in power some day did not go down well with me. Thankfully the Indian electorate does not comprise of solely of IT professionals and engineering hopefuls at Kota. They rejected these pretenders who promised reform.

The Lok Paritran is now a party that has disintegrated into a morass of hatred. And sleaze. Take a look at their website.
http://www.lok-paritran.org/

Read each post fully and carefully. Savor the feeling of disgust that envelopes you. You might have believed in these guys, and they could have been in power. Be thankful that we had statesmen like Nehru and Ambedkar to put us on the track of some stability sixty years ago. Whatever their faults may have been (and I concede they had plenty), they prevented us from being another Honduras, Rwanda or even Pakistan. Be thankful that we have a person who is erudite, honest and pragmatic in the form of Dr. Manmohan Singh at the helm rather than a peddler of hatred and revivalism, as some of our states do. And be afraid. Very afraid. One wrong move at the hustings could precipitate India towards doom faster than you think.

If you are not yet convinced, here is the kind of hatred that's fostered among the brightest of India's brain pool.
http://telegraphindia.com/1070507/asp/frontpage/story_7744209.asp

Think twice about electing people who have spent their formative years in such cesspools of intellectual filth. Think twice before you embrace a change that might ruin you. Irreversibly.

Jai Hind.

Adventure 49

2009-12-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

The CSIR Comedy

Read this post and the comments at this blog to realize why the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research will never be responsible for that next great breakthrough.

http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/2009/12/unravelling-of-shiva-ayyadurai.html

I plead guilty for a few of the last comments. However, do my comments seem more retarded than the comments made by what is considered to be a nation's premier science brain pool?

Adventure 48

2009-12-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Open letter to Richard Dawkins

Here is an email I wrote to Richard Dawkins (to the email addresses available on his website), especially as he has provided a separate contact email address for reporting design issues.
Website URL: http://www.richarddawkins.net

to		contact@richarddawkins.net
cc		design@richarddawkins.net
date		Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 9:01 PM
subject		Please change your website design: Resembles a televangelist's website

Dear Mr. Dawkins

I have been very impressed by your talks and have read a little bit of your works. However, when I visited your website, I was grossly disappointed by its design. As an atheist and opponent of religion, especially religious fanaticism and chicanery of any kind, I would like to point out that your website has a very "American-Televangelist-Biblical" look and feel. It has your picture with an ocean and blue skies as a background, similar to a lot of fraudulent televangelists out there. Even the sidelines advertise your books in a way typical of several religious cults. For the world's best-known living atheist, that's not a very good thing.

For example, here is the site of Benny Hinn (whose name you must have no doubt heard).
http://www.bennyhinn.org/default.cfm
I hope you take my comments in the right spirit.

Hoping for a new-look website advertising your ideas,
Yours Sincerely
Prithwiraj Mukherjee

Adventure 47

2009-11-23T05:13:00.000-08:00

Name Place Animal Thing

As a nation, we do not do much to commemorate our heroes. The best way to do that is to rename great institutions and cities after them. Just like Washington D.C., Ho Chi Minh City and the erstwhile Leningrad, we must also rename our cities to honor our legends. Thus, it is only just that the great city of New Delhi should be renamed Indiranagar. While Bombay has already been renamed Mumbai, even the new (old?) name does not reflect its true regal heritage. Thus, it must immediately renamed Shivajinagar, while Ahmedabad and Hyderabad would be better off being called Narendrapur and YSR Hi-Tech City. What do we do about cities like Guwahati, Indore and Bhopal? For want of any universally famous local heroes there, they must just be renamed Rajivpuri, Rajivabad and Rajiv Gandhi City respectively. Port Blair ( a British name) should be renamed Veer Savarkar Nagar after the great freedom fighter who was imprisoned in the Andamans during the freedom struggle, while Aurangabad (named after a fanatic Mughal tyrant) should be remembered as Sanjaynagar (after the great visionary Sanjay Gandhi) from now on. Other meaningless names could be changed to be named after Sai Baba, Sri Sri, Dhirubhai Ambani, Muthalik and Vijay Mallya.

Renaming is not only for cities. Few institutions of national importance have been named after prominent personalities. A few honorable exceptions are the Rajiv Gandhi IIM (Shillong) and the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science at Lucknow (Kanshi Ram Nagar?. As a start, each IIT could be renamed for its local flavor. IIT-Shivajinagar should be called the Thackeray Maharashtra Institute of Technology (TMIT) in honor of the great family, while the one at Kharagpur could be named after either Jawaharlal Nehru (JNIT) or Jyoti Basu (JBIT). The IIM at Kanshi Ram Nagar should be renamed Atal Behari Vyapar Vidyapeeth in honor of the great statesman. The IIM at Narendrapur could be aptly be called Advani Business School, with a special chair on Political Strategy, while other IITs and IIMs could choose different combinations of Rajiv, Feroze, Nehru and Indira or Savarkar, Patel, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (depending on the rruling regime) to name themselves.

What about festivals? We commemorate Nehru's birthday as Children's Day and Radhakrishnan's as Teacher's Day. I suggest that a certain leader's birthday be designated as Love Day. On that day, migrants from all over the country would place a single hair on his photograph or idol - aptly calling it Love Day ke Bal.

Awards are another way to honor our heroes. In recognition of his prodigious sporting talent, the country's top sporting prize has been aptly called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. Similarly, in recognition of his bailout of Amitabh Bachchan, the National Awards for films should be renamed the Amar Singh Puraskar. The first recipients of the Amar Singh Puraskar could be the legend of yesteryear - Jayalalitha. Murali Manohar Joshi. The Bhatnagar award for scientific excellence could be topped (just as the Rajiv Khel Ratna topped the Arjuna Award) by the Joshi Science Prize (Murli Manohar Joshi is a legendary physicist for the uninitiated). Political hatchets could be buried by instituting the Modi-Tytler Peace Prize which would be the Indian equivalent of Obama's Nobel, with estranged cousins Rahul and Varun sharing the first ever bestowment.

Jai Hind!

Adventure 46

2009-11-12T02:38:00.001-08:00

Racist Microsoft Ad

"Please Welcome" with an Indian accent clearly suggests something black in the lentils, doesn't it? And as a country of call centers and clothes sweatshops, we must make sure to keep our Caucasian bosses happy. Kudos to the copywriters of this ad, who captured this sentiment so beautifully. Clearly, Indian Accent = Fake Product.

Adventure 45

2009-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Trip to Disneyland, Paris (A photo essay)

Ever since I was a kid, I used to fantasise about going to Europe on a Raj Travels Deluxe Jain Package, with Hindi commentary and pure veg Gujarati food and a cable car ride at Jungfrau. That dream never did materialise, but I was even more determined to go to Paris after they opened a Disneyland there. Finally, I did make it to Paris, and at the very first weekend, while my other friends did gay shit like going to the Louvre and other artsy places, I made the pilgrimmage to my Mecca; and boy, was I impressed!

Disneyland, Paris is extremely impressive, and the aura of the place struck me as soon as I stepped out of the underground Metro. The gate where I got in was like a park, with statues that seemed to be made of marble. I could not make out some of the characters being depicted, but the first statue I saw was of some stallion having his way with a woman.

I strayed into a huge building, which had Walt Disney and his girlfriend's pictures on its facade.

Inside, I was totally awestruck by a statue of the Little Mermaid.

There were a lot of rough drafts of (probably rejected) drafts of cartoon films (single frames presumably). In some cases, the lazy artist had used dots to draw the scene, instead of colouring properly. Such quirks cost Disney millions of dollars annually.

There was a statue of a scene from the ever-popular Hannah Montana series as well.

Walt Disney was known for drawing self portraits of himself.

Certain artists on Disney's payrolls had the temerity to sign their drawings, causing a huge wastage of Disney's money, since such frames can never be used in cartoon films.

Certain frustrated artists have strayed away from the standard template in movies like Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. Such rejected scenes are now part of Disneylands everywhere.

There is a very impressive replica of the Sleeping Beauty's palace inside Disneyland, Paris.

They have even built a mini-river or where boat rides are offered.

There are dark rooms which have stained glass for those artsy, intellectual whiners whiners who tag along with fun-loving guys like me.

The folks at Disneyland sure do have a sense of humour, and have livened up things by putting funny stuff on serious shit like statues of eminent people.

The kind folks at Disneyland, Paris have recognised the importance of Indian tourists, and have special Indian stores and centres, with names carefully chosen to reflect the Indian cultural ethos and diverse milieu.

Once the sun sets, there are a few adult entertainment zones in this great amusement park that slowly come to life.

Did you know that Disney makes porn flicks too?

I did not know that Moulin Rouge (the movie with our Chhamma Chhamma) was shot in Disneyland Paris.

On the whole I had a great time walking through the great Disneyland, Paris. Did you know that they have taken great interest in our tradition and named some dishes in their food stalls after great Indian sages. I ate an interesting sandwich called Panini (named after the great sage who created Sanskrit grammar). It contained jambon (I guess that its French for "jamoon", though it was not sweet). I was so happy to find Brahmin food in the midst of Europe!

On the whole, I recomment Disneyland Paris to one and all!

Adventure 44

2009-08-19T04:15:00.000-07:00

IISc and the Slow Death of Innovation

Today's newspaper carries an article saying that IISc plans to restrict internet access of its denizens to 1 GB per week per head. As a recent alumnus, I am not surprised. The Institute, for many years now, is degenerating into a bureaucratic corporate company well past its sell-by date (think General Motors, Air India), focussed on attracting on huge cash infusions, rather than the liberal centre of learning it was meant to be. In the recent past there has been a flurry of articles (press releases?) in various sections of the media, hailing J.N. Tata's gift to India on its centennial year, and the high quality of academic research being performed by the faculty here, and all of this is indeed true. But, does faculty research alone make an institution great? Unfortunately no. Let us look at some quirky aspects of the world's great educational establishments - places considered to be hallowed portals of learning - and we will soon realise that there is more to learning than just cutting edge research (with high-speed computers and the latest gizmos), and these quirks have contributed in equal measure to these centres of learning, along with their huge numbers (higher than IISc's) of scholarly publications with high Impact Factors.

MIT is known for its high quality of research in physics, engineering, economics, and a variety of other subjects. But, its students are better known for their annual April Fools pranks that have an astonishing degree of innovation in them. Recently, some students hacked into the Institute's website and posted the headline that Disney would acquire MIT for a few billion dollars. Now, not only would an IISc student ever be capable of such a prank, they would probably be expelled if they did execute it. MIT officials, on the other hand consider it a sporting challenge to thwart such attacks, and publicly share a laugh with the community when such a thing is perpetrated. Students at Caltech managed to change the flashcards in a cheerleader routine in the Rosebowl, while Oxford students managed to mysteriously place a car on the roof of one of the University's buildings many many years ago. Since gambling is forbidden in India, there will probably never be an IISc Blackjack Team either!

Jason Katz-Brown, a 19-year old undergraduate student at MIT created Quackle in 2006, a sophisticated Scrabble simulator that can thrash the best of champions (it is to Scrabble's Artificial Intelligence what Deep Blue is to chess), apart from creating quirky Linux games like Kolf. The entire scientific community (and scientific institutions who are cash-strapped) are thankful to the John W Eaton, the creator of GNU Octave, who, as the chemical engineering department's computer administrator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, created what was intended to be a basic differential equation solving package. Today, Octave is a fully functional math and simulation package, and the favourite of students with limited access to the expensive MATLAB. Berkeley Madonna, developed by George Oster, a biologist at UC Berkeley is another instance of a popular software package coming out of an academic institution.

Molecular simulation packages are the staple of doctoral students the world over, and Indian scientific institutes are no exception. Countless students of physics, engineering and chemistry in institutes like IISc, JNCASR and the IITs depend on at least one of GROMACS, NAMD or CHARMM to acheive their publications. These packages were not made by highly-paid PhDs sitting in cushy offices. GROMACS (Groningen Machine for Chemical Solutions) was developed at the University of Groningen, with inputs from the University of Uppsala, the Max Planck Institute and the University of Stockholm. CHARMM (Chemistry at Harvard Macromolecular Mechanics), though not free, is the hallmark of Martin Karplus and his group at Harvard. NAMD (Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics) was developed by a research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sadly, even though crores of rupees are spent every year in organising conferences and schools dealing with these simulation packages, nothing close to their usefulness seems to be ever coming out of the hallowed portals of IISc, even as these packages continue to account for a large chunk of high-impact publications coming out of there.

Let us not even go into the advent of Google (Stanford), Facebook (Harvard), TeX (Stanford) and Napster (Northeastern), that changed the faces of their respective genres beyond recognition. Even if a similar innovation did ever come out of IISc, the Internet restrictions placed on its denizens will ensure that these never see the light of the day. Hell, they may even be rendered dependent on commercial software, since Linux upgrades and the various new free packages available on the web will no longer be accessible to IIScians due to the regressive download limit. The computer administrators of IISc are like the CEOs of the defunct American Investment Banks - they just refuse to believe that the world around them has changed. IISc may have been the pioneers of Internet access in India, but it continues to live in that curious time warp, even as millions of rupees are spent to upgrade computers, electron microscopes and spectrometers. What is required, however, is an upgrade of mentality instead.

Adventure 43

2009-08-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

Big Brother's Watching

Imagine a world in which you are continuously being watched. There are cameras at random, undisclosed locations, tracking your movements, and those of your compatriots. You have to wear an identity card above your waist, which contains your photo, and a serial number that identifies you. The card can be tracked by Them to locate your whereabouts any time They want. They decide when and what you eat, and also where you eat.

All is not a bed of thorns in this world. You are recognized for your perseverance and hard work by being called to dinner with the Big Brother. Big Brother is all powerful, a shining beacon who has risen from your ranks to His exalted position. You are, but a statistic to Him. He leads Them; They who can monitor every keystroke of yours; They who decide what websites you visit and what you don't; They who make sure you don't step out of line. Big Brother is part of a Hallowed Inner Circle, one that dines separately, and sits in special chairs in special rooms; that travels the world in luxury jets and gives motivational talks, while advising you to pinch every penny.as if it were your own. Big Brother is benevolent, a Comrade who understands your pain and identifies with your plight; he even shares your burden by subjecting himself to the same pay cuts as you. He however doles out little monetary gifts whenever your overseers are happy with whatever work you have done.

The above is not a description of a Communist or otherwise dictatorial regime. This is the case in most large corporate companies of the world. The regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe collapsed under their own weight, and so have a lot of big commercial behemoths recently. Maybe change is imminent yet again...

Adventure 42

2009-07-26T04:43:00.000-07:00

The Atheist's Song

I am the Forgotten One
The real Forgotten One
Without any Lineage
Without any Heroes
Without any Past

I did not fight any bloody battle
Nor crucify a Saint
I did not spill some goddamn blood
For a God that really ain't

I am humiliated in my school
And made to chant their hymns
While my rational beliefs
Are dismissed as mere whims

I see big temples in the hills
And churches by the sea
Majestic masjids on the sands
But no sanctum for me

Forms ask for my religion
Am I Hindu, Muslim or Sikh
Maybe I'm a Buddhist (they say)
Or maybe Catholic

In forms I fill up religion
Because they say I must
While zealots all around my town
Spill blood on sand and dust

I swear in courts by their Books
But believe in none of them
I wince in silent agony
When bigots cause mayhem

I am the Forgotten One
The real Forgotten One
Without any Lineage
Without any Heroes
Without any Past

Adventure 41

2009-07-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

Shallow Talk

Here is a little passage I have composed. I hope it will some day be used in a standardized test like the GRE.

The post-existential predominance of modern neuro-consciousness studies belies the statement "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." We live in a society where the paradigm of materialistic spiritualism tends to prevail over heterogenous ascetism. Consequently, spatial variations in the pseudostatic social equilibrium may affect the Machiavellian tendency to manipulate gynocentric heresies. Take the case of the pro-liberal serkali of Northern Tanganyika. Their attitude towards the bwana reflects a marked departure from the hyperrealistic outlook of their pointillistic predecessors. Consequently, their pragmatic behavior is markedly different from the moonwalk pioneered by Michael Jackson. Current hypotheses suggest the existence of a neo-Rastafarian oligarchy prevalent in the subterranean strata of Cartesian society affected by multiple syzygies in the hyper-domains in the planetary systems of Galaxy 49. Thus, androgynous body structures are bound to evolve as a protracted consequence of typification of hyperactive amoretti.

Adventure 40

2009-06-27T03:41:00.000-07:00

India - Mystic Land of Snake Charmers

Mutton (Assi, Benares)

Brand Positioning (Dashashwamedh Ghat, Benares)

Typical Indian Men (Dashashwamedh Ghat, Benares)

Chaste Woman (Dashashwamedh Ghat, Benares)

Gateway to Heaven (Shri Guru Ravidass Gate, Benares)

Symbiosis (Assi Ghat, Benares)

Adventure 39

2009-06-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

Her Majesty (Assi Ghat, Benares)

His Majesty (Mo Chit, Bangkok)

The Opposition (Dashashwamedh Ghat, Benares)

The Machine (Manchanbele Dam, Bangalore)

The Junta (Manchanbele Dam, Bangalore)

The Minstrel (Chatuchak Weekend Market, Bangkok)

P.S. All photos were clicked by me.

Adventure 38

2009-06-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Cry

Now Laugh

Adventure 37

2009-06-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

Cricket may not be fair but certainly not unfair

Chandigarh/Melbourne: Ever since Vijay Mallya monopolised this year's IPL, having been the good times partner for both the finalists, as well as having splashed the Kingfisher logo all over the Centurion, his competiors decided to address the challenge by forming an alliance of their own. So, for the first time, we see the grandest of all commercial marriages - Kings XI Punjab will now be bought over by Shah Rukh Khan (who is also the brand ambassador for Fair and Handsome), with Air France being their official carrier and Fosters their official beverage. Acclaimed actor Preity Zinta will continue as the cheerleader-in-chief, said souces close to Mr. Khan.

Leading management guru CK Prahalad has been appointed the chief strategist for the new-look Kings XI team, who immediately appointed legendary fast bowler Glenn McGrath as the captain. "We represent a region filled with an aspirational people on both sides of the LoC, a lot of whom scramble Down Under - obviously looking for that elusive fortune at the bottom of the so-called geopolitical pyramid", says Dr. Prahalad. "With a judicious mix of Australian and Indian players, we are poised to be the team with the highest brand recall, and have chosen brands that reflect our core competences and values".

"We will soon be unveiling our new-look team, where everything will be colour-coordinated to reflect our new brand identity. Unlike my previous team (who wore black uniforms), there will not be a single spot of black on my new team", says a visibly excited Mr. Khan, who will soon order his boys to dye all their hairs blonde. "We plan to hold roadshows all over the world, before we set up a special training camp somewhere in India, provided we get hotel accommodations for our Indian staff."

However, the the Indian Airline companies are against what they call an "unfair alliance", alleging that the presence of a foreign airline would rob the Indian Premier League team of its sheen.

- Agencies

Adventure 36

2009-05-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

IPL Urban Legends

Legend 1: Insiders approve of Fake IPL Player

Status: Probably true

There have been plenty of cases where bloggers have been traced (via IP addresses) and sued or hushed up by aggrieved parties with deep pockets. Shah Rukh Khan and Co. definitetely have both the political clout and the wads of cash to stamp out any small fry if they choose to. A recent post by the Fake IPL Player have put to rest any rumours of Shah Rukh wanting to sell the team (speculations that would have been disastrous to the team's sponsorships). The blog seems to be a way to keep interest in the IPL alive, since an unauthorised user can never cash in on the blog's popularity without getting sued out of his skin.

Legend 2: Buchanan is an Idiot

Status: No doubt

Sunil Gavaskar may have made some nasty personal comments about him, but it still stands that John Buchanan has absolutely no cricketing acumen. Even he has realised this and is trying to skim the most money out of his soon-to-be-ended IPL saga by bringing in his family. Just as Greg Chappell has done irreparable damage to the formidable talent of Irfan Pathan by using him as an opening batsman, Buchanan has earned the goodwill of his Aussie compatriots for having destroyed the Kiwis' most destructive batsman in both form and spirit. He may also have entered a revenue-sharing agreement with Ajit Agarkar.

Legend 3: Some Matches are Fixed

Status: Could be

Last year, the most hyped team (Deccan Chargers) failed miserably, while the rank outsiders (Rajasthan Royals) steamrolled their opponents. A very prominent Rajasthani was caught on camera recently, chanting "Super Over...Super Over" wen there seemed to be absolutely no chance of one, during the closing overs of an exciting tie, featuring his home team. Guess who won? However, the Chargers were terribly overconfident last year, while the Royals had Shane Warne's genius. This is one legend that can never be verified, unless the Kolkata Knight Riders suddenly start butchering their opponents, with Wriddhiman Saha winning the Orange Cap from here.

Legend 4: The Times of India's Pages are for Sale

Status: Beyond doubt

They hyped the ICL like it were the World Cup, with the main sports page totally dedicated to it. All articles (about 16 a day) were written by the same author, a certain Solomon Vijay, who has never ever written anything else in the Times of India or any other publication of note. Last year, the Delhi Daredevils had paid their dues, and were called by their proper IPL name, but this year they have been relegated to the plain vanilla name of Team Delhi, while the erstwhile Team Mohali seems to have suddenly transformed into the Kings XI Punjab this year. The Deccan Chargers are still Team Hyderabad and even the Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Superkings seem to be stuck to being Team Jaipur and Team Chennai respectively. The Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, however have paid their full dues, and are called by their real names on the hallowed rag's pages.

Adventure 35

2009-04-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Shitty Hero Honda Ad

Ever turned on the telly to find a shitty ad playing? An ad that made you want to tear out every last strand of hair from your head, and soap out your eyes? Recently, we poor Indians have been subjected to an ad as shitty as Ravi Shastri and Charu Sharma sharing the commentary box together, and more puke-inducing than a hypothetical party comprising of Varun Gandhi, Shibu Soren and Amar Singh.

For decades now, Hero Honda has been raising the bar for shitty ads, but this one take the cake. For proof of how shitty this is, fast forward to 2:30 (before you stab your eyeballs in disbelief) to see Priyanka Chopra on an 85cc moped being followed by high powered Karizmas!

I wonder why they didn't hire the above mentioned eminent personalities as their brand ambassadors!

Adventure 34

2008-12-25T02:44:00.000-08:00

Short Movie Reviews (vol 2)

More short movie reviews. The number next to each title is my rating on a scale of 10, while the number in parentheses is the IMDB rating

Ong Bak (Thai with subtitles):8.0 (7.2)
Ting Manopeaw (Tony Jaa) has been adopted by the temple priest's wife in a backward Thai village which is protected by a sacred Buddha Statue (Ong Bak). The village is devastated by famine when an art smuggler from Bangkok steals its head. Ting must now recover the head from an evil mafia lord in Bangkok, and leaves a trail of destruction in the sleazy pubs and fight clubs of Bangkok using the ancient art of Muay Thai. Watch it for the amazing stunts and fight sequences performed by Tony Jaa, though most Telugu movies have better storylines.

Kung Fu Panda: 9.8 (7.8)
Jack Black is a fat and lazy panda obsessed with Kung Fu. Much to the dismay of the Fabulous Five warriors (Tigress, Viper, Mantis, Monkey and Crane), he is chosen by Master Oogway, the wisest of turtles to receive the ancient Dragon Scroll and take on Tai Lung, the dreaded Snow Leopard. It's upto Master Sheefoo (a red panda - played brilliantly by Dustin Hoffman), the greatest Kung Fu teacher in China to turn this fat slob into the ultimate Dragon Warrior before its too late. Probably the best martial arts movie made till date, it manages to be thrilling, funny and philosophical at the same time. Black and Hoffman effortlessly sideline the voices of Angelina Jolie (Tigress) and Jackie Chan (Monkey).

A Wednesday (Hindi): 7.5 (8.7)
Naseeruddin Shah toys with the Mumbai police for an entire day, by threatening bomb blasts if four top terrorists are not released in this thriller. Though well-made, the plot has too many loopholes to be a really good movie (this is not an action movie or comedy where the plot may be overlooked). Cannot be described more without giving away the ending. Worth a watch anyway.

Hero (Ying Xiong - dubbed from Chinese): 8.0 (8.0)
Jet Li is an unnamed warrior in ancient China whose aim is to kill the ruthless king who has killed thousands in his mission to unite China. After two failed attempts on his life, the king resides in an huge hall where nobody is allowed to approach him within a hundred paces. However, since Jet Li is supposed two of his deadliest foes, he allows him within ten paces. What follows is the unravelling of a complex web of deceit, complete with complex Chinese philosophy (relationships between calligraphy, music and swordsmanship). Watch it for the brilliant cinematography, special effects and breathtaking sword fights between Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung and Ziyi Zheng. The brooding background score adds to the foreboding as the shrewd king foils off his deadliest foe yet, and proceeds to unite China.

No Country For Old Men: 8.5 (8.3)
A small-time criminal (Josh Brolin) finds a stack of cash in the desert after a shootout between rival drug dealers goes horrlibly wrong. A psychopathic hitman (Javier Bardem) strangles the policeman who has arrested him and embarks on a bloody quest to recover that money. He uses a peculiar weapon called "captive bolt pistol" to wreak havoc on locks and skulls in a spine-chilling chase that hurtles to its inevitable climax. Directed by the Coen brothers, this one is almost as brilliant as Fargo, another of their films about the perfect crime gone wrong.

Miss Congeniality: 5.5 (6.1)
Sandra Bullock is an FBI agent and tomboy. She must go undercover as a contestant in the Miss America pageant as there is a threat to bomb the function. The graceless girl must transform into a svelte model, and this transformation is certainly not painless!

The Dark Knight: 8.0 (9.0)
The Joker (Heath Ledger) is a brilliant psychopath holding Gotham City to seige. Can Batman stop him? Ledger steals the show with a brilliant performance, but the rest of the movie is about average, and aimed at Batman afficionados rather than the common movie goer

Bombaiyer Bombete (Bengali - The Buccaneer of Bombay): 6.0 (7.2)
Sandip Ray is another Rohan Gavaskar. Born to a legendary father (Satyajit Ray), he seems to have inherited none of the talent. This Feluda story probably was the best suited for a film adaption, but Ray makes a total hash of it, and even manages to unintentionally make all characters seem gay. Even the music seems to be rehashed from Sonar Kella, his father's masterpiece.

Adventure 33

2008-12-23T00:57:00.000-08:00

The world is full of suckers... (vol 2)

...who live in office and cook there

...who sell products using human tragedies

...who give "radical" solutions like "dudes...lets...like...stop paying taxes...and like..."

...who want Ratan Tata to be Prime Minister

...who want Ratan Tata to be Chief Minister

...who want Ratan Tata to be President

...who want Ratan Tata to be Defence Minister

...who want Ratan Tata to be Home Minister

...who twitter about social reform

...who blog about social reform

...who blab about social reform

...who think war is glorious

... who live on Facebook

...who use SMS lingo

...who vote in reality shows

...who participate in reality shows

...who watch reality shows

...who forward SMSs about Raj Thackeray during emergencies thinking they are being witty

Adventure 32

2008-10-08T01:09:00.000-07:00

Creative Genius

This guy should be doing publicity for Louis Vuitton...

Adventure 31

2008-09-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

Short Movie Reviews

Here are some movies I decided to rate on a scale of 10. The figures in parentheses are IMDB ratings as of now.

Death to Smoochy: 8.5 (6.2)
Infinitely enjoyable, this hilarious and bawdy expose of the seamy side of the kiddy TV industry and the charity mafia has not a single dull moment. Brilliant performances by Robin Williams (Rainbow Randolph - busted by the FBI for accepting cash in return for casting a parent's kid on his show) and Edward Norton (Smoochy the Rhino - a squeaky clean replacement for Randolph and a pain in the ass for the Parade of Hope - the toughest of all the charities) and the Irish Mafia .

The Way of the Dragon (Meng Long Guo Jiang - dubbed from Chinese): 8.5 (6.9)
Bruce Lee must rescue Nora Miao's Chinese restaurant in Rome from the Italian Mafia, whose guns are no match for Chinese darts and Jeet Kune Do. Watch it for the climax where Bruce Lee struggles to overpower Chuck Norris Iimported from America to deal with Lee) at the Coliseum in the greatest martial arts duel ever captured on film.

Danny the Dog: 7.0 (7.1)
Jet Li has been raised like a dog whose owner unleashes him on his detractors with devastating effects. Can a blind Morgan Freeman show him a new life?

Tom Yum Goong (Thai with subtitles): 6.5 (6.9)
To save his elephant that has been smuggled from Chiang Mai to Sydney, Tony Jaa must unleash the power of the ancient martial arts of Muay Thai and Muay Boran on unsuspecting Aussie goons, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighters, South African Capoeira experts, WWE wrestlers, and diabolical Thai immigrants in Sydney.

Fargo: 9.5 (8.3)
Greedy car salesman schemes to rob his father-in-law by geting his wife kidnapped by dangerous hoodlums The plot goes horribly wrong and a 7-month pregnant lady cop must unravel some mysteries to stop the series of killings in a chilling Minnesota winter.

The Forbidden Kingdom: 7.0 (7.0)
A Bruce Lee fan somewhere in a rough American neighborhood is roughed up by hooligans before he is transported to an ancient Chinese village. With the help of the village drunkard, poet and Kung Fu champion (Jackie Chan), he must return a magic staff to the Monkey King (Jet Li - who initially appears as some sort of Shaolin Monk ) , who had been decieved by an evil magician centuries ago.

The Godfather II: 8.5 (9.0)
A long-winded sequel to The Godfather. Features Robert DeNiro brilliantly portraying a young Vito Corleone (he speaks only in Italian) and an over-the-top portrayal of his youngest son Michael by Al Pacino.

The Big Boss (Tang Shan Da Xiong - dubbed from Chinese): 7.5 (6.5)
Bruce Lee goes to Thailand to work in an ice factory whose owners clandestinely manufacture narcotics. They try to bribe him and kill his cousins before he overpowers them with the power of Jeet Kune Do. Poor dubbing ruins a lot of the charm, but has brilliant fight scenes.

Romeo Must Die: 5.0 (6.0)
Jet Li beaks out of a Hong Kong prison and escapes to America, where he causes mayhem using the ancient martial art of Wushu. The best scene is where he pwns a whole bunch of huge thugs in a game of American football.

Yeopijeogin Geunyeo (My Sassy Girl - Korean with subtitles): 8.0 (8.1)
Crazy girl make life hell for naive boy - and then they fall in love. She makes him do lots of crazy stuff. Along with Oldboy, this makes me crave for more Korean movies.

More ratings when I feel like it.

Adventure 30

2008-05-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

More Fun With Google Analytics

Here is an interesting visitor profile to this site (I was able to get full details because there was only one visitor on that day) .

Date: 30 April 2008
Country: USA
State: Virginia
City: Arlington
Network Location: The Pentagon
Referring Site: Google.com
Search Keyword: "Microsoft Office 2007 sucks"

Uncle Sam agrees with me!

Adventure 29

2008-02-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

Free Knowledge = Better Science

I am not battle-weary professor. Neither am sore after having my work rejected by multiple journals (not yet at least). I am a humble graduate student trying to prepare my first manuscript. In the process, I have discovered the pitfalls of multiple journals and their editorial policies; each with its own formatting guidelines, way of presenting ideas, kind of work expected, etc. While hunting for literature, I was faced with journals that my institution hasn't subscribed to; an article could cost upto USD 75! Thats when the ideas below occurred to me.

I believe that knowledge should be freely shared. Hence, I am against the practice of scientific journals charging exorbitant subscription fees to allow readers to access their online material. A better option would be to charge the authors themselves enough publication fees to sustain the cost of maintaining these knowledge databases. Most serious research projects are heavily funded, and there may be institutional memberships to get research published rather than access literature. Apart from allowing researchers with institutional affiliations to work from locations outside their organization, this would breed a lot of independent startups and amateur researchers who, without the need to buy expensive subscriptions, would be encouraged to contribute to scientific development, not unlike the 'hackers', who spurred great developments in computers over the last three decades. Furthermore, it would automatically put pressure on academics to publish, if at least to justify their institution's publication membership, which would be at a premium to subsidize under-funded organizations.

With the onset of the internet, I also believe that the practice of having separate journals for separate disciplines (sometimes a large number of journals of varying importance for various areas) should be rubbished. With the abolishing of journals and their impact factors, a research article will have no crutches to stand on apart from its own academic merit. Nobody will cite an atrocious article written by some heavy-weight of yesteryear with enough clout to bulldoze a peer-review process just because it appears in Journal X with impact factor 32.1 ortrash a perfectly good piece of analysis just because it appeared in Journal Y with impact factor 1.1. All articles should use the same formatting macro, and this editor could be freely available on the web (this is not some wild flight of fancy - check out the beautiful pages of Wikipedia) reducing the dependence on expensive and proprietary word processors (read MS Word), as well as the inconsistency of various LaTeX packages (I suggest the development of a markup language that incorporates both Wiki and LaTeX markups, as well as a few online toolbars for thosedisinclined to use markups - especially biologists, arts and business researchers). Apart from easy database searches (each article could have various tags, like most blogs nowadays do), this would weed out plagiarism and duplicate submissions and also facilitate a uniform format that everyone could follow. It would also allow such a database to be self-funding, with google-like text ads running alongside searches (a boon for project recruiters seeking expertise in specific domains, suppliers of scientific equipment and publishers).

Adventure 28

2008-02-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

The World is Full of Suckers...

...who have made F1 the richest sport.
...who have made golf the second richest sport.
...who click on AdWords links.
...who comment on YouTube.
...who use Internet Explorer.
...who buy fairness creams.
...who participate in Indian Idol.
...who participate in MTV Roadies.
...who participate in Item Bomb.
...who participate in Nach Baliye.
...who believe "long equations = advanced math".
...who listen to Backstreet Boys.
...who listen to Megadeth.
...who listen to Amit Sana.
...who send SMS votes for Lead India.
...who send SMS votes for Indian Idol.
...who send SMS votes for Nach Baliye.
...who use del.icio.us.
...who frequent McDonalds.
...who wear Iron Maiden t-shirts.
...who wear Pink Floyd t-shirts.
...who wear Manchester United t-shirts.
...who wear Chelsea t-shirts.
...who wear Arsenal t-shirts.
...who wear Britney Spears t-shirts.
...who love Kentucky Fried Chicken.
...who use Shelfari.
...who love Microsoft Office 2007.
...who use MSN Messenger.
...who use LiveJournal.
...who pay real money for virtual Facebook gifts.
...who write posts like this.
...who read posts like this.

Amen.

Adventure 27

2008-02-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

Search Strings

Here are the top ten search strings that led to my page (information courtesy the Google Analytics script in this page). Though my blog has hardly a few regular readers, Google does throw it up among the top results for a few search strings. Here are the top ten, with some explanation for those who might be unfamiliar with these subjects. If you are smart enough (or you attend quizzes of the "connect, put fundaes , stage 2" variety), you will find a clear pattern linking most of these searches. Do tell me if you find that out. (The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of searches in the last 12 months).

Harathi Reddy (31) - Bangalorea-based supermodel. Erstwhile queen of Bangalore Times' page 3. Currently appears to be either shunning the limelight or on sabbatical to Delhi Times or Hyderabad Times. Overwhelming search volume proves that the public is dying to see her more often in Bangalore Times.
Pavithra Halakatti (28)- Bangalore-based socialite. Reigning queen of Bangalore Times' page 3. A party isn't a party without her. Equally at ease in a chiffon saree or an Aki Nirula gown. Close second to Harathi Reddy in the number of searches.
Carun Carumbaiah (8)- Bangalore-based supermodel. Was hot on the scene when Harathi Redy was at her prime. Was her favourite arm candy. A distant third to Pavithra Halakatti in the number of searches.
Pashmeena Barker (8) - Stunning wife of DJ Rohit Barker. Bangalore-based socialite and supermodel and page 3 regular.
Rubi Chakravarti (7)- Bangalore-based comedienne, party hostess and page 3 regular. Shot into fame for hosting the Times Food Guide awards recently, where she had the audience and later the readers of Bangalore Times in splits with her outrageous one-liners.
Rani Jeyraj (5)- Bangalore-based supermodel and former Miss India World. Now trying her hand at making films. Like Aamir Khan, her sporadic page 3 appearances always elicit rave reviews from fans.
Jai Prakash Nath Publications JPNP (4)- Famous IITJEE book publishers. Have immortalized the likes of M.L. Khanna & J.N. Sharma (Mathematics), O.P. Agarwal (Chemistry) and Gupta & Gupta (Physics). Have repeatedly vanquished pretenders like Tata McGraw-Hill to occupy the pole position in IITJEE study material. Pioneered the use of holograms to protect their wildly popular tomes from piracy.
Priscilla Corner (4)- Singer, diva, supermodel, socialite, star-mum. Mother of supermodel Sarah Corner. Wife of top jockey Robin Corner. Bangalore-based socialite, among the first few regulars of Bangalore Times, way back in the mid 90s.
Raghu Mukherjee (4)- Bangalore-based supermodel. Former Mr. India.
"Harathi Reddy" (3)- Yes, the same Bangalore-based lady who appears at no. 1! Dissatisfied with the results of a plain search, some obsessed stalker refined his/her (ego?) search with an exact match, again proving the lady's popularity.

I sometimes wonder about the demographics of the population whose searches lead them here. Do the seekers of JPNP truths also fantasise about Harathi Reddy? Is Pavithra Halakatti the latest muse of all the IIT wannabes? Is Rubi Chakravarti the next Rauf Lala? Wish Google Analytics could answer some of these questions as well...

Note: The original search strings are all in lower case. The author has introduce caps wherever deemed appropriate, to improve readability.

Adventure 26

2008-02-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Office 2007 Sucks

Why do people rave about the exciting new Microsoft Office 2007? Because they are morons! Office 2007 is singularly the shittiest suite of software I have seen. Hold it - before you laugh me off as some linux geek - I am not. I still use MS Office 2003 and prior versions (whose features I have grown used to ). And I haven't figured out how to use either vi or emacs!

So whats so shitty about Office 2007?

Microsoft has shown scant respect for users who got accustomed with their old suite. This new one has too many buttons all over the place. Its one hell of a pain in the ass trying to find the print button, or for that matter any formatting button in the applications.
Excel 2007 sucks harder than the average DPS student. Its so shitty that I feel like banging the monitor every time I see a graph plotted by it. The default graphs are just plain ugly. Its hard to format graphs. The axis tickmarks and their labels are horrid. The list goes on and on and on...
Word 2007 blows like the answer in the wind. One would have expected those geniuses at Microsoft to introduce a simple form of equation numbering atleast now! Also, what about some pdf generating feature (even the shittier OpenOffice Writer has that feature!).
Forget about PowerPoint. I convert my presentations to pdf format anyway. Who wants to risk having all the fonts distorted and pictures skewed due to compatibility issues!
I don't use Outlook. I used to use Thunderbird a long time ago, but nowadays I am content checking mail on the web.
Is Internet Explorer a part of the Office suite? I couldn't care less... been ages since I last saw it; just use it to recharge my cellphone online, since my bank is probably run by some Pagalguy members, who attended MBA classes wearing red blazers and purple ties, who have never heard of Firefox, and probably never will.

I hope Microsoft buys Yahoo! That way both those shitty companies will end up screwing up each other's happiness. Now is the time for all of you out there to see the light and migrate to Gmail or AOL. Keep your yahoo accounts to subscribe to those newsletters which you wouldn't open unless you are your company's system administrator. Yahoomail is anyway slower than Indian Postal Services many a time. And before you accuse me of being some Google freak as well, I exhort you to never log onto Orkut again - unless they disable the mass scrapping feature and allow unfettered access into each and every photo album and scrapbook. Till then, go to Facebook, where you can spank each other, throw sheep, become a biting zombie or just buy virtual handcuffs and Teddy Bears. However, if you are in IISc, just be content browsing scientific literature, because India's premier research organisation, breeding ground for future Nobel laureates, Turing awardees, Fields medalists and Bhatnagar awardees, just cannot muster enough bandwidth for you any longer! Amen...

Adventure 25

2008-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

Black Hole

Black Hole beckons. Few have escaped its clutches. People have left it, but keep coming back. Some intend to leave, but keep inventing new reasons to stay back. Outsiders look at Black Hole with a mixture of amusement and derision. Some of its inmates have have made its flashy but dusty interiors their home, hearth, workplace, private space, party room, larder and kitchen. Others hate it. Its a place of contradictions - a place that has seen legends and hopeless truants and people who have despaired over the futility of their endeavours here. Most of Black Hole's neighbours prefer to keep a safe distance from it.

Black Hole. Black Hole. Black Hole. Shines from far. Beware.

Adventure 24

2007-10-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

CoolHotmail - The Revolution Begins

There have been a host of exciting innovations ever since the Internet became popular in India in the late '90s. Propelled by the dot com boom, the internet truly became the harbinger of an egalitarian society, with the tastes of almost every section of society being reflected in some website or the other. There were and are several portals to cater to every taste possible ranging from friendly chat rooms which promoted the free flow of ideas to the contest portals which made sure that everyone could win exciting prizes by exploiting their general knowledge and/or analytical prowess. This post describes the unique features of one such innovation that promises to take the business of free email into the next dimension.

Sabeer Bhatia's success with Hotmail was a milestone for Internet entrepreneurs the world over. Today, Microsoft has ensured that Hotmail shall at last enter the new millennium, with a distinctly jazzy new avatar called CoolHotmail. Actually now it basically ensures that no two peoples can be having the same bloody email ID. Its a real cool thing, bcoz, basically its gonna give us individuality, na? The funda behind this concept is basically so that guyz n gurlz can reflect their ideaz n tastes thru their distinctive email address. Lets check out d features...it's like...real kewl...

What if ur a cool guy? or wanna be known as a sizzling gal? Don't worry dear...CoolHotmail provides real good variety of addresses, which, basically, cover all aspects of the current yo generation culture. Lets say, for example, ur name is Raj, and basically ur a Shah Rukh fan. U take care to emulate all his mannerisms, including the latest style that can be seen in Pepsi ad. Basically, u wanna ID that will reflect ur true allegiance to the Shah Rukhian School of thought. Not to worry, all u need to do is create the ID raj_1986@clubsrk.in. Simple na? Lets explore more...

Ur basically from...lets say...Delhi, ok? And ur based in Bangalore, where ur basically into IT job, like SQL, PL/SQL, Struts and etc. U really miss those malls of GK, the magic of Friday night at Priya or simply the thrills of travelling by Blueline buses. Basically, South India is is quite boring. How do you bond with like-minded people? Now its real easy man, with the ID of kunal_chikna@delhirocks.com, ur sure to hit the dance floor as easily as you update a row using Oracle Forms!

Ladies not to worry. U have not been ignored my Microsoft. Imagine urself to be name is Silpa, and ur real sizzling. Ur in fact in the mood for some timepass with , say rahul_1986@clubsrk.in. U wanna draw his attention, and now u need a catchy email ID rite? not to worry - may we suggest silpa_2hot4u@iamsizzling.in? Yeah, that should basically keep all d guyz real suspensed na?

There are plenty of other really exciting domain names to choose from. Imagine the the kind of mileage that yeddyurappa@bornleader.co.in would derive while applying for a managerial post that looks for out-of-the-box thinking. Or the kind of macho man image that is conjured up by the thought of prasad.bidapa@rugbyrocks.in. The camaraderie between varun_iitjee4355@dpsonline.in and nitesh_kotaguy@dpsonline.in would be instant, with Nitesh getting valuable tips on how to crack that really tough Irodov problem.

With the revolutionary concept of CoolHotmail, Microsoft has managed to get a hand to the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The opportunities are immense. The email address of an individual speaks volumes about her personality, likes, dislikes, cultural background, etc. This eliminates the need for sophisticated algorithms like the ones used by Gmail to direct relevant text-based ads to the user, after parsing their mail. Using the domain-indicates-specific-keywords-for-advertising approach, Microsoft as managed to kill two birds with one stone. Now, apart from eliminating the need for high-level research into algorithms to decide what ads the reader must receive, they also address the security concerns inherent to the controversial approaches followed by Google.

CoolHotmail still leaves a lot to be desired though. The choice of domain names leaves a lot of people disappointed. How about registering a few choices for Kannada superstars Upendra and Dr. Rajkumar? Why have the fans of Dev Saab and Mithun da been ignored? There should be special domains for CAT aspirants, GRE candidates, Beer addicts and people who love table tennis and carom. Also, why are there no domains called thiruvananthapuramrocks.in or iliveinkolhapur.com? There seems to be a general bias towards some states that Microsoft seriously needs to redress, failing which it could lose a large chunk of potential users.

Summing it up, CoolHotmail seems to be the idea of the future. Wonder how long it takes for competitors like Gmail, Indiatimes, Rediffmail and Yahoo to join the race for the coolest and snazziest domains, and give Microsoft a real run for their money.

Adventure 23

2007-08-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Stop the Spam You Dickheads - Use Orkut

This one's specifically dedicated to all those losers who decide to spam all their email contacts with shitty spam. Get hold of some nice jokes or celebrity pics if you will - I am game for that. Just stop inviting me to those new revolutionary concepts called friend networks. I don't give a damn about whether we like the same books or not. I don't give a damn as to whether you are currently reading The Monk who Sold his Ferrari or the latest offerings of pop philosophical trash gurus like Chetan Bhagat. I have absolutely no interest in sending free SMS to you, in exchange for a hundred SMS's sent by your free service to my cellphone. I don't give a shit about the Re.1 I could stand to earn for the every ten SMSs I read either. My mobile phone is strictly to receive corny, vulgar and politically incorrect forwards you morons. Yes, if I have joined such a network, its purely to stop the bloody spam and pass it forward.

Yes, occasionally I do give a shit about the wild rave parties you attended - especially if you are young, photogenic and female, or have friends who match that description. Please do post pictures of you with a pierced, tattooed belly holding a Bloody Mary on your Orkut album. I do check up on those regularly. If you are beautiful, female and photogenic or have friends who match that description, please feel free to post your/their photos on your orkut / facebook profiles. I am not however a total moron who spends a dollar on virtual gifts (handcuff, teddy bear, etc). Yes, I have occasionally felt like virtually winking at or spanking (using SuperPoke) a few young and photogenic females - unfortunately they are not my facebook friends' list. Get a life and join the India Network will you? Facebook sucks ass - bigtime. Where are the good old days when people would post snaps of their office picnics and rave parties on Orkut? I also respectfully show the middle fingers to all you losers who post pics of scenery, cartoons, babies etc as your profile pic. And if you are using networks like Facebook - get a brain and use Orkut, MORON!

Adventure 22

2007-07-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code

Is it just me or is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a tribute to Dan Brown by JK Rowling? Here are some similarities:

A quest for a mythical object (or set of objects) that only some people believe actually exists
A triangular symbol for the objects of desire, with sordid tales of bloodshed in previous quests
Protagonists accused of crimes they didn't commit and being pursued by misled law enforcers
A dark clique after the same objects as the protagonists
A quirky man in a quirky residence with quirky hobbies, and a fanatic believer of the legend, who introduces the protagonists to the quest for the mythical object(s) and then betrays them (he also asks one protagonist to narrate the legend to another)
Plenty of deaths of keepers of secrets
Secret societies to protect the legends
A climax where secrets are unearthed but legends are allowed to remain
Mega movie deal which will produce a real yawn of a film

Dan Brown discovered the template to the ideal bestseller. Looks like Rowling has followed the same mould. Am I right or what!!!

Adventure 21

2007-07-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Consultancy

I believe that consulting is easy (my former employer even had its main office next to the Accenture building!). You have to be a smartass who has read a few pop books like Rich Dad Poor Dad (I haven't), Count Your Chickens Before they Hatch (I have) and You Can Win (I have read a few pages and I believe the author has internalised my thoughts). You need to think out of the box and mince few words. Having read Kotler (I mugged up a few photocopied pages for an exam) I feel confident in my knowledge about business strategy. I have added to my formidable understanding of socio-economic issues by reading blogposts like this.
Case Study: LokParitran at the Crossroads

Lokparitran (nee Paritrana) was a party formed by former IITians, who realised that social evils could be eradicated if IT professionals (who form the majority of today's blog readers and hence best know how to tackle complex issues of governance) took over. They quoted the Vedas and principles of control systems and managed to garner a huge fan following, especially on Orkut). Unfortunately, a few dissenters (who obviously never even made the grade in the Bansal/Ramaiah entrance exams) did not agree with the Vedic scriptures about division of labour and split up the party. Lokparitran is the most active in Chennai, since it is home to Mani Rathnam, director of the cult film Yuva - the inspiration for their party.

An excerpt from the ideology of LokParitran:

Knowledge System:

Reality is a continuum. Knowledge system, in shortest, is fragmentation imposed upon the continuum of reality. Fragmentation is always a necessity for understanding of the unknown. Every fragment in the knowledge system becomes a construct or an entity that is defined in the knowledge system. This very fact shows that different knowledge systems can be build on the same reality based on different possibilities and patterns of fragmentation.

Where does Lokparitran go from here? How do they continue to generate funds? What about the support they need to gain critical mass? How shall they mobilise the masses?

My suggestions: Contest from Kota, where the IITJEE aspirants will welcome back their long-lost brothers. To raise funds, maybe you could sell your ideology to the many CAT-coaching institutes and save them some effort in finding new essays for their verbal sections. Do not worry about people from the hinterlands - just look at the massive support you receive in Orkut, where most of todays young men and women spend their time. You should become a web-based party and stimulate discussions on Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, Fropper, Gazzag and Yaari as well. I also suggest an Indian Idol type reality contest, where college students, IT professionals and BPO workers will select the best by using the power of SMS. As for those losers challenging your agenda, do not worry. You have many even more intelligent and competitive people who share your opinions. May the intelligentsia rule once more and return our glorious Motherland to the glory of the Vedic Ages! Jai Hind!

More case studies later.

Adventure 20

2007-06-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

My first Page 3 Party

That's right! After over a decade of watching the evolution of good old Bangalore times from Priscilla Corner to Pavithra Halakatti, I finally attended a do that made it to page 3. Unfortunately, I was too overwhelmed by the free goodies and chilled beer to posture for the camera. But it was as close as it gets! But I have made a very bad start, so let me start from the very beginning...

A semester exam had just gotten over and I was jobless. There were no new mails in my mailbox too, so I decided to read the mails in my spam folder. And there it was, the diamond amidst the muck! Among all the ads for Viagra, stocks of Chinese fruit vendors and lottery vouchers for millions of Euros sat the invite...the result of me giving my email address to this very noble organisation called the Strand Book Stall. May they flourish forever and take over all the Landmarks of the world!

I was bored, and if you observe the card closely enough you may notice that the main sponsor was a company that operated Bangalore's finest five-star hotel, which would also be the venue (I discovered that their loos had ice cubes in their errr... receptacles). Anyway, the event itself had the who's who of Bangalore including Ruby Chakravarty, Sudha Murty nee Kulkarni, Nandan Nilekani and of course the celebrated historian Ram Guha whose book was being released...

An Infy employee who vaguely recognised me (he was the only other misfit there - having come there solely for intellectual enrichment) told me that he had actually lobbied with Nandan's personal secretary and wangled a pass. I decided not to break his heart by telling him about the mass invite that had reached every ruthless rustic who had scrounged for an (upto) 80% discount at Strand's annual clearance sale.

A fifty year old page 3 extra (let's call her Veronique) sat behind me, flanked by
a Fabindia clad, Baccalaureate passed young man in his late twenties (Rahul). I sat in front, trying to pick the mannerisms of the elite...

Veronique - ... Ram sure captures the postmodernist angst in his works
Rahul - Yeah..sigh...remniscent of the chronicles of Dubrowsky (thats what it sounded like atleast)
Veronique - Hey, have you tried this? (I steal a quick glance behind to see her unzip her handbag)
Rahul - Hmmm... how's it?
Veronique - Quite exotic flavour... a bit minty actually (I love chewing gum, so I wonder what brand she has got from her son in the States)
Rahul - I heard...quite similar to the Edgar Allen Poe style I suppose...
Veronique - A bit, you know... (I look back to see her hold a book and mentally curse Rahul's greatgrandfather, grandmother, father and mother)

Post Script: Ram Guha's book "India After Gandhi" is selling well. Ram gave a fairly insightful and entertaining speech. Nandan, Ruby and Sudha appeared in page 3 a week later; Veronique didn't and neither did I. The organisers announced that a famous beer brand had kindly agreed to provide free beer to all, along with the delicious snacks. I went home happy.

The End

Adventure 19

2007-05-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

Cricket and Page 3

The cricket stories and Page 3 (of the city supplement) are the only parts of the newspaper I read thoroughly. Then the idea struck me. There's a lot of similarity between Bangalore's glitterati and the Indian cricket team. Hence, I propose a Page 3 squad to tour the world along with the cricketers. Just dont ask why they need to go...they just do.

Note: You may ask, 'Why Bangalore's Page 3?"
I believe that the character of Bangalore's Page 3 is closest to that of Team India. Mumbai's well-oiled disciplined circuit is reminiscent of the current formidable Australian team. They have a great system in place that allows only the best to make the grade. Delhi's circuit is more like the South African team. Though they are aggressive and disciplined, they occasionally tend to choke, and never really threaten Mumbai. Also, factors other than merit (like the rank of the politician who paid to sleep with you) also affect selection occassionally.

Chief Selector

Waseem Khan - He has seen it all, through the unforgiving lens. He knows how to make the ugly look bad and the bad look good. Calm and disciplined like Dilip Vengsarkar, he shall accompany the squad as a talent scout.

Coach

Prasad Bidapa - Age hasn't dulled him. He is the big daddy of glamour. He taught Bangaloreans that you don't have to live in Mumbai or Delhi to be glamorous. He is known to get alon well with male, female and people of other genders as well. An ideal counterpart to India's new flamboyant cricketing coach, Ravi Shastri.

Technical coaches
Shreen Malani - She could teach the youngsters a thing or two about tenacity. Similar to Robin Singh in temperament, she has always believed that hard work can compensate for the lack of elegance.

Harish Bijoor - He started off as a marketing manager, and helped sell everything from coffee beans to telephone booths. Like Venkatesh Prasad, whose metamorphosis into a coach is complete today, Harish successfully rebranded himself as a brand guru many years ago.

The Twelve-Member Squad
Rohit Barker (C) - The closest in temperament to our beloved captain Rahul Dravid. Has stuck to his guns for many, many years, and his perseverance is finally paying off. Today, he, along with wife Pashmeena, are a regular fixture on Page 3. Rohit is truly Mr. Dependable.

Harathi Reddy (VC) - An exciting talent, she has been consistently and aggressively been making her presence felt amongst the wine-tasting and art-loving circles in Bangalore. A perfect Page 3 analogue of the dashing Yuvraj Singh.

Raghu Mukherjee - A product of Malleswaram's famous Cyber gym, this former Mr. India is aggressive in temperament. Just like Robin Uthappa, who is known to hit the ball very hard when he sees it.

Carun Carumbaiah - He is maturing fast, and seems to be cornering the best arm candies these days. was a sensation during the Halloween fever that swept through Bangalore late last year. Liable to be a bit inconsistent though, like Zaheer Khan.

Pavithra Halakatti - Is always there, nmo matter who hosts the party. Reminds one of Ajit Agarkar.

Chippy Gangjee - Once flamboyant, has now mellowed down, and is expected to play the role of senior mentor. Is senior to some of the coaches, like Sachin Tendulkar.

Rubi Chakravarty - Everyone's favourite comedienne, but somehow always got overlooked for the big ones. Ramesh Powar anyone?

Priscilla Corner - Once the darling of the yellow media, she somehow lost favour somewhere down the line. Has resurfaced now, in a more subdued avatar, reminiscent of Sourav Ganguly's third coming.

Rani Jeyraj - Once a favourite with cricket captain Rahul Dravid, she lost her way as a model after her appearance in the Miss World Contest cost the Big B his dignity and fortune. However, she has resurfaced as a serious filmmaker, and deserves yet another chance. She goes on and on and on, like Anil Kumble.

Pashmeena Nowrozi-Barker - Long hair and seductive figure, she is the prettiest of them all...much like pretty-boy Dhoni.

Ranjit Narang - Inconsistent but brilliant...the king of style. Brings back memories of VVS Laxman's elegance.

Pankaj Advani - Is an accomplished pocket-billiards player, and has been taking the Page 3 world by storm of late. Shows a lot of promise, like young batsman Manoj Tiwary.

Adventure 18

2007-05-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

B.Tech

The World Cup was a disaster. A big disaster. It was a torture to watch. Not because of Ajit Agarkar, but because of Srikkanth, Shankar, Ehsaan, and Loy. Also the dancing tiger going balle balle after every boundary made me switch over t0 Doordarshan.

Advertising is not what it was. And I lay the blame squarely on IITs. They created a myth that an engineering degree is the only route to happiness. Hence, perfectly intelligent youngsters wasted a lot of time chasing the holy grail. A few did make it. Some make it to the decent engineering colleges. Most make it to IT coaching centres.

The biggest casualty is the arts. Millions of TV viewers are made to endure Shankar Mahadevan singing "Mind and body heart and soul", and watching Yuvraj Singh morph into a tiger. There's just one solution. Introduce B.Tech degrees for every discipline. Just scrap the B.Sc, B.A., and B.Com degrees. The IITs realised that and introduced the B.Techs in physics and agriculture a long time ago. Here are a few of my suggestions:

B.Tech (English and Communications Engineering)
Addresses the current industrial demand for qualified English speakers and copywriters. Active industry-academia interaction is required to supply high-quality E&C engineers for the mass communication and the BPO sectors.

B.Tech (Social Science and Economic Engineering)
A specially designed course to train professionals in the socio-economic aspects of the burgeoning global economy. Students learn to maximise financial output of an enterprise by understanding the cultural nuances of their business partners.

B. Tech (Art)
A lot of artistic work (especially web design) is being done by former engineering students. The scientific aspect of art shall be taught here to ensure standardised quality artistic output.

Note: Many of these courses may also be offered as PGPs or MBAs to attract the those who have already wasted four years or more, studying one of the old economy engineering courses.

Adventure 17

2007-04-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

This is the best spam mail I got on yahoomail yet! Check out the accompanying text also. This is more hilarious than any of the forwards ever created under Sri Sri Narayan Murthy's many ashram's all over the world. Learn, Infy, learn! (do click, enlarge and read the text in pic)

But with phishing attacks and identity theft, it has become a lot more money-oriented.

Does your company have a plan?

Business and financial risk too high?

Does your company have a plan?

Do you know how to sell your business?

Employees in the council's Adult Services Division now have their sickness notification calls re-routed to a call centre in London. And if your accounts information, customer contacts, bank details and personnel data are held on the same server, they could be vulnerable.

"There has been a shift in the professionalism of the groups involved.

According to Twynham, one of the top 10 vulnerabilities is a result of companies hosting their websites on the same database as their operational and financial management systems.

Do you know how to sell your business?

Adventure 16

2007-04-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

A lot of water has flown through the Malleswaram pipeline since I last wrote a post. Now I feel like writing again. So here are the new developments:

I have quit Oracle. I am now grossly underpaid and overworked.
Gaurav Sabnis has started reading graphic novels and watching obscure movies and serials, apart from commenting on US politics, Indian cricket, etc.
Shilpa Shetty has at last come of age.
The video posted in my last post is no longer on youtube.
Yahoomail now reaches slightly faster than normal post.
I have discovered that Google is conning wannabe IITJEE aspirants to my blog.

Adventure 15

2006-04-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

Care for environment

Here is Rocko's Modern Life with a brilliant musical episode, teaching us about environment awareness...

Adventure 14

2006-04-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

Random rants

Let's start with some opening music for once...

Here is my list of great copycats. The names in parentheses are the originals. The order has no particular significance apart from the sequence in which i recalled them.

1. Kaavya Viswanathan (Megan Mcafferty)
2. Ravindra Pushpakumara (Waqar Younis)

Shit! Can't remember any more!!!

This is for all you intellectual souls who love bashing Bongs.

My new motto is "It's now or never". Thanks to TVS Apache...

Who said nutty guys walk around stoned in art galleries and comic book stores wearing expensive khadi kurtas or smash guitars on stage accompanied psychedelic lights? Some of them just patrol the seas...

If I could get one person chucked out of the Indian team, it would definitely be Sreesanth. Here are two reasons why:
Reason 1
Reason 2

I thought I had seen all types of geeks...till I saw this! Incidentally, Adam Logan is the World Scrabble Champion 2005.

Talking of Scrabble, Chinedu Okwelogu (Sidespin) has brilliantly responded to a ridiculous announcement by Yahoo!

Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 08:32:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Hellen N.M."
Subject: Fwd: Urgent sana
To: monica wanjiku

Dear YAHOO User,

Because of the sudden rush of people signing up to
YAHOO, it has come to our attention that we are vastly
running out of resources. So, within a month's
time,anyone who does not receive this email with the
exact subject heading,will be deleted off our server.
Please forward this email so that we know you are
still using this account.

SIDESPIN:
Since when has it been punishable not to receive an
e-mail? And what if I perfectly legitimately use my
box once in two months?

We want to find out which users are actually using
their YAHOO accounts. So if you are using your
account, please pass this e-mail to every YAHOO user
that you can and IF YOU DO NOT PASS this letter to
anyone we will delete your account.

From Mr. ALLEN SMITH
YAHOO Admin. Dept.

SIDESPIN:
Sir/Madam/+s/?,
Does this obligation also apply to government
ministries, hospitals, and military establishments?
Not to mention Upper and Lower Houses of Assembly?!!!!
Also, am I correct to infer that 'Hotmail' subscribers
are too cold and frigid to enjoy this joke?

Our YAHOO system is getting to crowded!! We need you
to forward this to at least 20 people. I know this
seems like a large number, but we need to find out who
is really using their account.

SIDESPIN:
Then stop admitting!! And why the interchange of the
1st person singular and plural pronouns? Or have you
forgotten whether you are one or more than one?

If you do not send this to at least 10 YAHOO members,
we will delete your account. Sorry for this
inconvenience.

SIDESPIN:
Why do you wield so much stick without carrot? Go and
study the tactics of absolute rulers of time past.
Meanwhile, make up your mind whether your minimum
mailspread requirement is 20 or 10 or 30 or 5.

Sincerely, Director of YAHOO Services

SIDESPIN:
Is it the same you who started this missive that are
signing off? I sign off with as much sincerity, though
with less hermaphroditicalness.

Adventure 13

2006-03-22T03:29:00.000-08:00

One More Chance

A star-studded India just got humiliated by a depleted England squad. One hundred runs was all the 'youth' brigade (incidentally it consisted of young veterans like Sachin, Dravid and Sehwag - who have all reached the 200 run mark more than once) could score. Which got me thinking. Should the older, more experienced players, who have given their entire lives to cricket be resurrected? Those forgotten hopefuls; shouldn't they get another chance?

Here is an alternate Team India, sans the 'stars'. Semi-veterans (mostly in their thirties) who may just do the trick. No airs, no inflated egos, no affairs with bollywood starlets - only a passion for the game. Here's my India Sans Glitz (ISG) - XI.
In batting order:

Playing Eleven

1. Sadagoppan Ramesh
2. Vikram Rathour
3. Hrishikesh Kanitkar(VC)
4. Vijay Bharadwaj
5. Vinod Kambli
6. Sairaj Bahutule
7. MSK Prasad (WK)
8. Sunil Joshi (C)
9. Gyanendra Pandey
10. Doddanarasaiah Ganesh
11. Debashis Mohanty

Substitutes
12. WV Raman
13. Laxmi Ratan Shukla
14. Vijay Dahiya (WK)
15. Harvinder Singh
16. Dinesh Mongia
17. Nilesh Kulkarni

Coach
Sourav Ganguly

Sunil Joshi has been a consistent performer, and a shrewd and intelligent performer for Karnataka. He is a born fighter, who made it from a small town to the big league by sheer grit. He is a shrewd left arm spinner, superb fielder, and a handy bat. The natural choice for captaincy. The interesting thing to note here is that only Laxmi Ratan Shukla here has the benefit of youth on his side, but he too is a veteran, given that he has been playing first class cricket for over eight years now, and was exposed to the rough and tumble of international cricket at a rather tender age (ok, everyone is not of the caliber of Irfan Pathan!)

Vinod Kambli and Hrishikesh Kanitkar are talented players who lost their way at some point. Kambli in full flow was a joy to watch. The fame got to him, and somehow his off-field antics got the better of him (Zaheer Khan is threatening to go the Kambli way). Kambli was the Brian Lara that never was. An ideal foil to Kambli's aggression is his Mumbai teammate Kanitkar. A cool, composed and thinking cricketer, one can never forget the last ball four he hit off Saqlain Mushtaq to take India to a historic win in Dhaka. Also a useful slow bowler, Hrishikesh Kanitkar deserves another chance.

Nilesh Kulkarni. Bad luck is his middle name. He had to run into Sanath Jayasuriya. The man who destroyed the careers of two of the world's (then) best allrounders - Phil DeFreitas and Manoj Prabhakar in a single series (World Cup 1996). That too on a Colombo Dustbowl. With Roshan Mahanama for company, the butcher for Matara made Nilesh pay for his first-ball wicket (Atapattu) with his career. Debashis Mohanty can swing the ball. He forged a deadly opening partnership with Ganguly in Toronto, to torment Pakistan to no end. Though his chest-on technique cost him several yards of pace, he can swing the ball genuinely, and has surprisingly managed to keep his shoulders intact!

Gyanendra Pandey is the level-headed captain of UP, who led them to the Ranji title this year. Sadagoppan Ramesh is a stylish opener who was discarded unceremoniously. Ditto with Vijay Bharadwaj, touted as the next superstar, but never given a chance. India needs a stylist like Vikram Rathour also, to take the shine off the new ball, before taking on the spinners.

Now for the important part. The coach. Why Ganguly? The coach should be one with whom the boys can identify. One who has undergone the same harrowing experience of being in the wilderness for many, many years, before making a glorious comeback, to be one of the most celebrated Indian captains ever. One, who, though he never contributed too spectacularly with either ball or bat, showed the boys how to fight! To stand up to the opposition and pay the supremacists back with their own coin. One who always stood up for talent, irrespective of the region the player belonged to. One who resurrected a (now celebrated) batsman's failing career by fitting him in a new role till he found his bearings. One who showed us that a team following on can also win. One who overcame his natural temperamental flaws to give a sense of direction to Team India. Even though he is younger than many in the team, his wealth of experience and natural killer instinct can galvanise the ISG-XI to be a parallel India squad, capable of beating the best in the world.

Adventure 12

2006-02-27T03:20:00.000-08:00

Tribute

I was a callow lad of sixteen, when I was first introduced to the magical world of JPNP. ML Khanna (and his famous mentor JN Sharma) introduced me to the sublime world of determinants, trigonometry and coordinate geometry. Slowly and surely I was weaned away from those voluminous tomes written by ancient Englishmen and Russian communists and idiotic Americans. I began to believe in The Great Indian Dream. Soon, AK Agarwal (oh...the delights of physical and organic chemistry) and Gupta & Gupta (clearing concepts in physics) also entered my life.

I was introduced to the world of Indian engineering colleges. I had to only see a 'problem' to identify it as an IITJEE, REE, MLNR, DCE, WBJEE or TS Rajendra type. Sigh...those were the days. Limits lived at my fingertips. My jokes involved complex numbers, and I dreamt of the day free radicals would rule the world. Grignard reagents, concurrent forces and the L'Hospital (sic) rule were my constant companions.

JPNP naturally had many competitors. Krishna publications, the biggest (literally) pretenders to the throne, brought out volumes that my wiry fram could barely support. Tata-McGraw Hill tried to bring out suave and urbane books on glossy newsprint for the urbane South Indian, who liked a challenge without being spoonfed the solutions, but nobody was fooled. JPNP ruled supreme. Others, knowing that they could never match the sheer might of JPNP, simply tried to pirate Prof. Khanna's epic. No use. JPNP promptly introduced a multi-coloured hologram, and also threw in a lucky draw coupon. They needn't have. Those babies did not need cheap gimmicks to sell themselves.

However, like all good things, we had to part ways. I attempted many of the above-mentioned exams (IITJEE, REE, DCE, KCET) and did not taste any success except in the last one. However, I spent the best two years of my life with JPNP, my constant companions. When in college, I spent many a sleepless pre-examination night without a suitable guide. But I knew, my friend, philosopher, guide and guardian angel was watching over me.

Forever.

Jai Prakash Nath!!!

Adventure 11

2006-01-31T03:38:00.000-08:00

The great escape

Call me DJ - bcause i am cool type guy. I am also dead. I am martyr.

I became graduate, but for five years I was loiter around university campus, with my gang of friendships, enjoying beer, fast motorcycle and good life. My mummy ran dhaba, so I was getting nice food and also not worrying about the livelihood and all. I was just interest in bike, beer, womens and all only.

One day, cute white girl from UK come and told me that I am like Chandrashekhar Azad. To get friendly with her, I agreed to act that part in her picture she was producing and scripting and directing and cinematographing and probably editing too, but we all died before she could get to editing part. To my pleasure, my friends also were looking like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and etc. Only there was one jerk who was like Ramprasad Bismil, so we had to make friendships with him also for the sake of memsaab. By the by, my friend's boyfriend was MiG flyer - dude from Air Force.

Poor fellow got married, and went off to fly MiG, and died after his plane crashed. Not his fault, the parts were defective. But Mantriji insulted his memory. Then that brute also had his mother and widow lathicharged for peaceful demonstration. We got mad and decided to murder him. Defence minister no, very tough job because of Z+ security.

He went out for morning walk with only one unarmed security guard (very lucky for us). One of us dudes distracted security guard while we shot minister from bike. We got away and nobody even saw us...like wow yaar!

Let me not bug you with more detail vetail...we hijacked AIR station, broadcast our message, and got shot by snipers. We are heroes.

Let me get this straight. Rang De Basanti makes for pretty good watching, but the message it carries is pretty dubious. Atone for your sins by killing someone? Not acceptable any more. The makers do make a good job of resurrecting our forgotten hero; but must it be so jarring? And as for originality, isn't it a clever rehash of Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, which itself is a rehash of some Hollywood flick I haven't seen?

It does convey one message though - the lives of pilots (for that matter anyone) are not for playing with. When will our politicians learn to exclude innocent lives from their shenanigans?

Another film which resurrects a forgotten hero is Jahnu Barua's Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara. Full marks to that one for originality as well as for making the right point. We need more films like that and less of pop-patriotic, escapist eye candy that is Rang De Basanti.

If you want escapism, Karan Johar is the stuff for you.

Adventure 10

2006-01-04T05:17:00.000-08:00

Reject

I got rejected by The New Yorker Magazine. Yeah. They sent me the rejection roughly four months after I sent them my story. Anyway, I have decided to put it up where I call the shots. The text below is an exact copy of their rejection mail, and my story, complete wth the screwed-up formatting (whenever you see text enclosed by two funny characters like 'Š' it means the text was to be in bold or italics.

We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material.
Thank you for
giving us the opportunity to consider it.

The Editors



On 6/23/05 1:28 PM, "Prithwiraj Mukherjee"  wrote:

> MAKING NEWS
> By Prithwiraj Mukherjee
>
> "You can't do this!" she screamed, but her voice could
> barely be heard over the hum of the chainsaw. However,
> her face was coming just perfectŠmy new camera was
> serving its purpose well. "Hi, this is Michael Das
> reporting for TV 42. We are transmitting live from a
> shed somewhere near New York, where the chainsaw
> murderer who calls himself Manson-II is about to
> perform his third gory actŠ" It was a pity I had to
> blur out his face, but the victim was pretty. A
> small-time model in her mid-twenties, she had no
> future, thanks to those broad shoulders. At least now,
> she would be famous. In the background the chainsaw
> made contact with skin, and a few red droplets
> appeared on the lens too. A small price to pay for
> those TRPs, as the world looked on in horror.
>
> TV 42 used the catch phrase "making news", and had
> recently grabbed a lot of eyeballs by airing a lot of
> shocking live footage over the past year. The three
> massacres of Manson-II, the bombing of Planet
> Hollywood, and the impassioned pleas of Senator
> Johnson as his captor dissected him limb by limb. What
> nobody knew was that the catch phrase was literally
> true. Seems confusing? Let me explain.
>
> In the summer of 1995, Albert Karinski, the son of
> Czech immigrants and a controversial reporter with Fox
> News, decided to part ways with his employers and
> start his own news channel. He was apparently
> disgusted with Fox's policy of censoring and editing
> its content for prime time viewing. A veteran of the
> Iraq War, Karinski had to face many a humiliation,
> when his footage, often taken at great personal risk
> was consigned to the dustbin on account of
> 'unsuitability'. Images of US soldiers being branded,
> or Iraqi civilians clutching their entrails had no
> place in Fox's reports of heroic America and those
> magnificent aerial bombings which made the average
> Joe's heart swell with pride.
>
> To cut a long story short, Albert Karinski, along with
> a few like minded persons - Sarah Callaghan of NBC,
> Peter Schmidt and Alfred Benigni of CNN - started TV
> 42; a channel that would broadcast nothing but the
> truth - the whole shocking unedited truth. A year
> later they realised what the truth was, and it was
> even more shocking than they expected. Nobody cared
> about Channel 42. The terrorist groups still preferred
> CNN for their warnings. CBS reporters were kidnapped
> by anarchists looking for attention. TV 42 was just
> another news channel that people turned to for
> baseball scores or stock market figures that appeared
> as a continuous scroll at the bottom. Karinski had
> almost given up hope, till in walked Michael Das, that
> is I.
>
>  My story is even more interesting than that of TV 42.
> I was born in a small village in the beautiful state
> of Kerala, India. My father was a devout Catholic, and
> determined that his youngest son, that is I, become a
> priest. So, at the age of sixteen, after completing my
> elementary school education, I was bundled off to a
> monastery. They could not keep me for long. In a
> couple of months, I had run away to Bangalore. There,
> I waited tables at a fast food joint, and
> simultaneously pursued a degree in mass communication
> via correspondence. I managed to secure a job with
> Asianet, a leading Malayalam Channel, and was soon
> posted in Saudi Arabia, where the channel's largest
> overseas viewer base was situated. It was there that I
> met Albert Karinski. We shared similar views on a lot
> of things, and I totally agreed with his views on
> censorship. We kept in touch. In 1998, I got a call
> from him, asking me whether I would like to work as
> the Middle East correspondent for TV 42. I readily
> agreed. That was seven years ago. Now I am one of the
> top people in the network, and a star.
>
> It all started a year ago. Our share prices were rock
> bottom. Advertisers gave us the cold shoulder. We were
> reduced to wannabe status. In short, TV 42 was one
> step away from total bankruptcy. One night, after an
> especially frustrating day - three reporters had
> deserted ship - I lay in bed, thinking of my dream;
> the dream of being that sensational guy who broke the
> story that shook the world. Let alone breaking
> stories, we even had to buy BBC and CNN footage these
> days due to lack of money and contacts. "Making news,"
> our catchphrase went. Somehow those bold flashing
> letters refused to go away from my eyesŠand then it
> hit me! Why not make news? If we were the one to make
> news, we could be the ones to break it. Serial
> Killers, terrorists, bombers, extortionists, spy-cams,
> all we had to do was decide the crime we wanted to
> cover! We would soon be number one!
>
> "You must be joking" Karinski said, his voice almost
> inaudible.
> Susan was just laughing hysterically.
> Alfred Benigni was the only guy without any expression
> on his face. He looked me in the eye. "You know,
> Mike," he said "what you have said is not only
> extremely far fetched, but also a sign of total moral
> bankruptcy. But having said that, I must admit that it
> could just work our way. But, we need to be extremely
> careful, not only our reputations are at stake, but we
> could even get convicted if these crimes are traced
> back to us."
> Susan wasn't laughing any more. "What do you plan to
> do?" she asked.
> "I don't knowŠI think we should start small, some sort
> of minor felony," I offered.
> And that¹s how it all began.
>
> The decapitation of Senator Oswald Johnson was our
> first major coup. Oswald had been a classmate of
> Alfred Benigni during the late Sixties. He had
> reportedly been the school bully. Even in those days,
> Oswald had used muscle tactics to upstage Alfred -
> till then the favorite for the post of school
> president. Alfred had never forgiven him. One more
> thing. Alfred was a racist and made fun of a lot of
> ethnic minorities, especially the Italian community.
> Even in his political career, Oswald had not spared
> the Blacks and Hispanics, winning the White Catholic
> vote bank over with his promises of stricter
> immigration laws and the abolition of Evolution in the
> elementary school curriculum.
>
> Our idea was to get Senator Johnson kidnapped and
> tortured. Not many would shed tears for him, we
> figured. For this purpose, we hired Pablo Mendez, a
> professional kidnapper and hit-man from the Bronx
> area. Pablo would be one of our most reliable men in
> the coming months. Pablo and three others traveled to
> Washington DC by road. My cameraman, Sidney Lawrence
> and I took the flight. They took him as he stepped out
> at night to buy a few beers before the Superbowl game
> began. All very professionally done - not even a
> scream was heard. By the time his wife came to know,
> Pablo was miles away. Not that she cared too much,
> anyway.
>
> To keep up the charade, Pablo had Lawrence and me
> blindfolded and gagged when we were brought in front
> of Senator Johnson. This was our first time, in the
> later stories we didn't bother. "One finger at a
> time," was what Bengni and Karinski had ordered. And
> so it was. Had I made a mistake? The bile rose up my
> throat as the blade touched his left thumb, but by the
> time his ring finger was taken, I actually enjoyed it.
> Oswald's screams meant only one thing - our fortunes
> had reversed. E were very lucky - the police found the
> hideout three days later, but TV 42 did not suffer.
> Nobody knew that we were actually "making news". The
> Oswald Johnson videos made history - every channel
> paid through its nose for telecast rights. It became
> one of the most searched items on the Internet. We
> made millions in licensing deals. Why, I even had
> offers from Playboy and Time for a no-holds-barred
> account of my adventures!
>
> TV 42 soon became the channel to watch. We even formed
> a secret team to script the crimes to perfection. We
> decided what crime was the best for the particular
> time of the year, and areas where it would make
> maximum impact. So it was no surprise, when a secret
> 'informant' told us about the bomb planted in Planet
> Hollywood, Los Angeles. The only thing secret about
> her was the number of boyfriends she had had. Wynona
> was the most creative of them all!
>
> This one was easy. A pizza delivery truck loaded with
> fertilizer would just be parked outside and detonated
> at eight thirty in the night. Around thirty deaths
> would occur. As part of our 'social responsibility',
> we would call 911 just five minutes before the event,
> with news of the bomb scare. We would break the news
> to the world. It cost us less than fifteen thousand
> dollars to set it up.
>
> As usual, this event catapulted TV 42 to the top of
> the ratings as usual. Nobody even suspected our
> involvement in the damn thing! Planet Hollywood was
> big. A few of the casualties were even high-society
> Bel-Air residents. The tragedy caused a nationwide
> uproar.
>
> At this juncture, let me confess that I am completely
> morally bankrupt, even as my taxes have doubled over
> the past year. I am a murderer; so are all the others
> in the 'core group' of TV 42. Surprisingly, not a
> single person has ever voiced a concern over our
> perverse strategy to garner eyeballs. Our website is
> today the most visited news site in the world. Not
> surprisingly, we never poach reporters from competing
> networks. Neither can we hire new reporters for the
> fear of being exposed. TV 42 is a dead channel with no
> future. Its staff shall grow old together. Our
> children will never know the crimes we have committed.
> We cannot sleep in peace any more, haunted by the
> countless souls we have killed, in the name of "making
> news". The third massacre of Manson-II is my last
> assignment. But I know I cannot quit until I die.
> Karinski and friends would never let me live. Hadn't
> he had Susan run over when she had mentioned
> retirement. We could not trust even each other with
> our dark secret any more. Most probably I will be
> found hanging from the fan in my apartment a couple of
> days after I quit. Forging my handwriting on a suicide
> not is no big deal. I was the one who had found master
> forger Edward Russel - there was not a signature he
> couldn't forge. He was the one who had written young
> and beautiful banker Dorothy Greer's suicide note
> after she 'jumped' off the Sears Tower at midnight,
> after she had filed for bankruptcy. Conveniently, she
> had called TV 42 before she had done itŠ
>
> No, I cannot quit. However, I shall quit being on the
> field, breaking news. Instead, I shall confine my self
> to the boardrooms, planning and handling the finances,
> or editing content. I want to live, that¹s allŠmy
> conscience has died a gruesome death long long ago.
>
>

Adventure 9

2005-11-27T22:54:00.000-08:00

Scrabble, anyone?

Who said the world lacks original thinkers? One of the most original thinkers, in my opinion is Nigerian Scrabble ace, Chinedu Okwelogu a.k.a Sidespin. For want of any original thoughts, I have decided to introduce you to the world of Sidespin, who is a regular contributor to the SOWPODS Yahoo group.

The A--Z of Why You Should Play Scrabble Able bodies require the support of able minds. Scrabble trains the mind. Busyness requires the companionship of other business. Why not make Scrabble your other business? Capital is essential for development. Your capital support base is incomplete without Scrabble. Dangerous situations require desperate measures. Scrabble teaches you desperate measures. Education without leisure is boring. Scrabble provides the link. Friends are made through Scrabble. But be careful! They can also be lost through it. Gateways to success are manned by sentries of perseverance. Scrabble introduces you to those sentries. Holiness is next to godliness. Play Scrabble with your spouse or betrothed, and you have a godlike assurance of it. Innovation may live in the neighbourhood of invention; but Scrabble is the estate manager. Justices are lettered balancers of judgment. Scrabble players are judicious jugglers of letters. Kingdoms, over time, have been ruled over by kings. Scrabble, with time, will overrule even a king! Love without reciprocation can be sheer agony; Scrabble, even without love, is sheer ecstasy. Madness is sanity in a scrabble; Scrabble is sanity in madness. Nature abhors a vacuum. Scrabble is the vacuum sweeper. Opportunity knocks but once. Scrabble opens up several opportunities, so you can receive several knocks (pun intended and unintended). Parliament is the battleground for the sharpening of wits. Scrabble is the fairground for the display of sharpened wit. Questions are fascinating for as long as they remain unanswered. Scrabble is riveting for its many unasked questions. Rottenness is a stage in the chronological progression of a body. Scrabble is a halt in the progression of a mind to rottenness. Size is of great consequence in the field of sports. Some sports require big bodies; others create wide bodies; Scrabble is just content with the size of the contents in the skull. Tennis is sexily divided into male and female. Scrabble is hermaphroditically sexless. Utopia is a painting of imagined realities. Scrabble is a photograph of realistic imaginations. Variety is the spice of life. Scrabble is the spice of variety. Wives at times hate Scrabble, for they see it as a RIVAL. Scrabble is indifferent to such wives, for it sees them as VIRAL. Xenophobia is the morbid fear of strangers. Scrabble is a strange cure for morbidity. Yoghurt is a cream enjoyed by society. Scrabble is enjoyed by the cream of society. Zoology is the study of living animals, wild and domestic. Scrabble is the animalistic ology of wildness, living and nonliving. Sidespin.
More from the Sidespin treasure chest:

Scrabblica Parrotonia Members of the House of Assembly assembled in the house of a member for a baptismal party. By and by, the Speaker sat down to a game of Scrabble, and his opponent, the Whip, enquired whether he had anything to say before he spanked him. The Speaker replied, "My words will speak for me." Rejoined the Whip: "Just remember you'd be speaking to the Whip." Then chimed in the household's pet member from his cage: "Just whip the member you speaking to...Just clip the mamba you spoken to...First grip the ember you picking to...." After five minutes: "Don't speak the member you weeping to!" The Clerk, who had been listening, vituperated: "Shut up, or you'll be baptised with alcohol." Without blinking, the malapropian Mr. Feathers replied with "Phut up, or you be advised leave the hall". Sidespin. Too much Scrabble? Well, here are the lessons he learnt from the Under-20 World football finals:

Hi, Everyone, 1. I should always assume that when my opponent commits an infringement, he will get away with it; but if I DO IT, I will be punished. So I should NOT DO IT. 2. Knowing how to legitimately win a penalty in topflight football is an artful science, part of the game, and should be distinguished from DIVING which is next to criminal. Knowing how to convert a penalty kick is a scientific art, equally part of the game, and not synonymous with CHEAPNESS. 3. Conversely, knowing how not to give away a penalty is an artistic scientific technicality, and it takes the MOST PRESENT of minds, in the SOUNDEST of bodies, under the LUCKIEST of circumstances to perfect it. All said and done, we cannot take anything away from the Nigerians(including the two infringers), for at that high level of physical combat, it takes supreme ability to control a body in motion, especially in relation to another body equally in motion. It is not easy. Bravo, Flying Eagles! But, were the Argentines not a delight to watch! What with the spraying of wall passes and fleet-footed dribbles!! In my small opinion, they are deserving World Champions. Sidespin.Hats off to you, Sidespin. Shine on, you crazy diamond!!!

Adventure 8

2005-11-16T04:44:00.000-08:00

Ennui

Cars pass by on Hosur Road. I sit at my desk, looking at the plasma skin. I contemplate the future occassionally. Mine, that is. Does not seem too bright. Peeleraja, the scourge of the NITK Final Block LAN Forum, made his entry in the internet. But, even posting there has gotten quite mundane. Unfortunately, the netizens of Bangalore do not know how to use forums like the inmates of Final block hostel of NITK, batch of 2005.

Orkut has gotten stale. Online radio is now repetitive, albeit a welcome respite from that continuously looping Winamp. CAT is a few days away. No leave. Long hours at office. I am bored. IIM seems a distant dream now. No enthusiasm to study any more.

The pool table at office has degenerated further. I have grown tired drinking fruit juice (on the house) thrice a day. I drink it once a day now. Nobody seems online. I am bored.

I miss college life. Yes, I really do. Even those horrid labs in the Chemical Engineering Department. Even those psychopathic teachers. Even the bad mess food. I can't wait for the Convocation. I hope they do not cancel it.

Adventure 7

2005-10-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

Für Elise

I wake up in the morning to the alarm Für Elise.
The lift opens Für Elise.
The car downstairs reverses Für Elise.
I walk out; the bus honks Für Elise.
My neighbour's cellphone beeps Für Elise.
I am watching TV - the advertisement is Für Elise.

I am now sick of Für Elise.
Click here to find out why

I get back home and play some music - Für Elise.
My irritation vanishes.
Here's to Beethoven who composed Für Elise.
Click here to find out why

Adventure 6

2005-10-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Speech

IIPM targets bloggers.
Bloggers unite.
Gaurav need not worry.
Neither does Varna.
The blogging fraternity will crush the Empire.
The Revolution has begun.
The world will be a better place to live in.

Arindam Chaudhuri is a fraud. One of thousands, in a land of frauds. The land of Maharshi Mahesh Yogi. Abdul Kareem Telgi. Satya Sai Baba. Subroto Roy. Ramar Pillai. Lal Krishna Advani. Laloo Prasad Yadav. Murli Manohar Joshi. CR Bhansali. Ketan Parekh. Harshad Mehta. PV Narasimha Rao. Kishen Kumar. Bal Thackeray. Daler Mehndi.

So where did he go wrong? A man who had effortlessly duped thousands of students a year, with his slick advertisements, has suddenly found himself on the wrong side of the 'cognoscenti' of Indian cyberspace. Chaudhuri is not a bigshot. He will be overcome. But what about the rest?

Free speech is a myth. It has never existed - either in the civilised or uncivilised world. The Soviets erased all records of Stalin and Trotsky from their official records. The y had no remorse. They openly practised censorship.

The free world is more subtle. Dubya for example. The prospect of losing major advertisers was too much for CNN. No wonder American soldiers were shown cuddling babies and giving Mars bars to the young ones in Baseh.

India. The land of the free. Where miracle workers are known to have rather strange tastes. Where newspaper offices are raided by State servants, and official apologies doled out like laddoos in Tirupati. Where Money Is Power. Just like everywhere else. And why not? What is the fight for? The ones with money will continue to control the press. Opinions will continue to be manufactured. For thats the way things work.

Arindam Chaudhuri is no Dhirubhai Ambani. He made a false step and will pay dearly for it. He will soon be consigned to the dustbin. Like Shakti Kapoor. He is unfortunate. The real suppressors will continue to flourish. Because nobody knows them. Because they uproot the cause. Not the symptom.

Bye bye Arindam...

Adventure 5

2005-10-03T01:42:00.000-07:00

Paradox

2 October, 2005, Bangalore:

There I was, at Screen 4, Inox, Garuda Mall, clutching a Rs. 200 ticket, and sipping a chilled soda (Fanta, to be precise). Before that, an escalator had transported me to the fifth floor of this place, populated by such brands as Baskin Robbins, Swarovski, Samsonite, Nokia, Westside, and Shoppers' Stop. The movie I had come to watch: Maine Gandhiji ko Nahin Maara; 9-time National Award winner Jahnu Barua's first ever Hindi film.

It was fantastic. Barua is not only a gifted director, but also an excellent story and script writer. Anupam Kher as the paranoid schizophrenic (or whatever) and Urmila Matondkar as his harried daughter were absolutely outstanding. The film rues the loss of Gandhi's loss in today's generation - and does manage to score a strong point.

The paradox lies in my surroundings. Only such a mammoth multiplex as Inox could play a meaningful film like this, which is bound to bomb at the box office! One that lives off the boom in the technology sector and ever increasing disposable income in today's youth. A multiplex that is slowly cornering all the better movies from the smaller and older cinema theatres. One that is responsible for the ever increasing closure of cinema theatres all over. One that has jacked up prices of movie tickets all over the city. One that is slowly killing competition. A shark that threatens to eat up the smaller minnows. Exactly what Gandhi stood up against. Such a multiplex is one which has managed to resurrect the smaller, meaningful Hindi film.

Enjoy the show...

Adventure 4

2005-09-23T05:15:00.000-07:00

What's Google upto?

Sorry, I do not know too much about either computers or business. But seriously, what the hell is Google upto? Every other website is raving about how Google is going to overthrow Microsoft as the future Empire in the computer world.

Supposedly Google has been continuously buying dark fibre for the past five years to connect all its data centres (or whatever they call it). Google Earth offers satellite pictures of the world. An ambitious online library project is coming up. Google is the toast of every techie worth her salt. But for what good?

The cracks are already evident. The South Korean Government is planning to sue Google for providing satellite pictures of its defence installations openly on Google Earth. Some authors have already sued Google for copyright violation. GMail has faced severe criticism for breach of privacy. And the small print says that Google will sell the personal details of millions of Orkut users in case it goes under.

I am sure more is yet to follow.

Sadly, Google, a company famous for its unorthodox innovations and superior talent pool is going the way of other big corporations. They have unveiled a slew of other services, which seem unbelievable at first. But, seriously, who's going to pay over a hundred dollars to know how many ICUs are there in Texas? Google's revenues are mainly from search results. Admittedly it controls more than half of all web searches. But why not concentrate on that only? By shifting focus, they may let Yahoo! and MSN just take a large chunk of the pie. Google Talk is hardly an innovation...Yahoo and MSN messengers already had the PC-to-PC call feature, though admittedly not so clear. Other services like linguistic support are good, but cannot be used by serious professionals, as some flaws do exist still...not everything is translatable!

Google needs to watch its step, or it may just cease to be the religion that it is...

Adventure 3

2005-09-09T04:28:00.000-07:00

Ode to the software industry

Please forgive the erratic metre and poor language...

Early in the morning I wake
And a hurried dash I make
To the cubicle
To sit and stare
And tear my hair
Over PL/SQL

Please tell me friend
Where's the end
To the Java Bean
No point I see
To J2EE
Whatever does that mean?

But hold on dear
I've had fun here
Surfing and playing pool
The pay's not bad
Though the place is sad
To quit I would be a fool

So let us toast
Our gracious host
The software industry
Where we while away
The entire day
What a place to be!

Adventure 2

2005-08-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

The Great Automatic Grammatizer - now a reality

Roald Dahl is, in my opinion, second to only Jules Verne in his prediction of future technologies. He isn't famous for science fiction. But I came across this short story the other day - The Great Automatic Grammatizer. The creation of Adolph Knipe can create stories based on input parameters like magazine (for which story is invented), type of story, amount of passion, genre, etc. With it, the creator corners the market, as a hand-made item cannot compete with a mass-produced one in terms of consistency and rate of production.

Seems like a distant dream? Not quite! Though the English language does not have this sort of grammatizer, Oracle has managed to creat the Oracle Aplplications Framework (yeah - it is OAF) as far back as 1997. This is a handy tool to make mass-produced computer code. You have to give input parameters like object names, kind of page, class names, region names etc, and this baby churns out page after page of Java, SQL, PL/SQL and XML code! All in conformity with Oracle's global standards!

So now, any layman (euphemism for oaf), with a few weeks of training , can create sophisticated XML pages, with advanced search, delete, create and update algorithms in a few days. Thank heavens for that!

2005-08-03T01:47:00.000-07:00

Adventure 1

2005-08-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

Rowling's Muggled-up Act

Why this blog? After all, I am neither inclined towards high literature, nor do I have an exciting persona that everyone's dying to read about. Well, the answer is, thats why! I am not new to blogging. Some of you may remember the larger-than-life adventures of The Crime Syndicate. Well, at least that's one bad piece of trash off the web! But the itching to propagate my thoughts (read rants) got the better of me yet again. I tried a lot of fancy names for this brand new blog (names that make me cringe now), but thankfully they were all taken. So here I am with Oraclemania - Oracle but not clairvoyant! welcome to my world once more...

The Harry Potter series has intrigued me for years. I started reading it when the fourth book was out, and was hooked by the time I was half-way through the first. The writing was splendid, and Rowling showed an uncommon knack for analysing human nature. The second book was all right, but the third one - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was simply mind-blowing. I had become a dedicated Harry Potter fan.

Then the rot began to set in, along with Harry's hormones and JK Rowling's growing popularity. The creatures began to get larger and scarier, while the curses could disfigure a person for life. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix continued the same downward trend. By this time, Rowling had become a victim of her own plots. She struggled to find her way out of the logical complexities she had created in previous stories.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a desperate attempt by Rowling to run a pair of garden shears through the now-tangled web of circumstances created by the five previous books? Why did Lord Voldemort kill Harry's parents? Why did he want Harry's blood? wouldn't he be a living corpse after drinking unicorn blood? Why did Severus Snape protect Harry Potter all these years, after coming back from the dark side? Only Albus Dumbledore knew. But did Rowling? I don't think so...that's why the old man had to go! In this respect, Rowling is no different from a mafia ganglord or the CIA or the Vatican, which (courtesy Mario Puzo, Sidney Sheldon and Dan Brown respectively) arranges for a convenient hit-and-run case for its agents and obstacles alike.

But some more questions arise. How did Snape manage to hoodwink one of the greatest wizards of all time? What happened to Dumbledore's (peace be to his soul) hand and why couldn't Fawkes' tears - powerful enough to act as Basilisk antivenom - not heal it? Why is the person whose memory is being accessed in the Pensieve be visible instead of being a first-person view like Quake3Arena? Could he see himself from various angles also when he experienced or remembered the incident? And finally, should I pay 900 rupees for this piece of crap when I can read its .pdf file (albeit at the risk of straining my eyes and enduring the typos) for free?

I can only answer the last one - the answer is "NO!" Because I may be in Oracle, but I am no clairvoyant!

The magic is over.