Blogito ergoach sum(I am therefore I blog)

Confessions of an unshopaholic

2010-04-03T02:40:00.002+05:30

‘There are only two things which are certain in Dubai – malls and mallus’. Have you heard of it? I’m guessing not, since I came up with it, only a little while ago. Let me substantiate by dwelling on the former initially, before narrating an interesting anecdote about the latter.

Nowhere in the world is retail therapy practiced as much as in Dubai. There are malls located all over the city, and outside. All of them have a large number of glittering, well-lit, well-designed shops stocked with a bewildering array of goods. Just to make matters interesting, each mall has a different theme - one has a ski slope, one is Pyramid-shaped and one has a Tower of London replica. In fact, the world's largest mall (located near the world's tallest building) has the world's largest aquarium, where you can interestingly practice your mall-dives.

To give you more detail about the shops in a mall, let me detail the shops found in the world's largest mall.

There are
• 34 fashion, accessories - If you imagined a small, box-like shop selling bangles and such-like, perish the thought. Think Louis Vuitton. And 33 other high-end names.
• 55 fashion, children
• 23 fashion, arabic
• 2 fashion, bridal
• 16 fashion, lingerie
• 2 fashion, maternity
• 26 fashion, men
• 7 fashion, tailors and textiles
• 71 fashion, women

And just in case you hadn’t found what you wanted, there are still
• 94 fashion, general showrooms

In addition, there are
• 47 footwear
• 55 watches and jewellery
• and 167 gold shops.

Bear in mind these are not your Palika bazaar type small shops; these are large shops of the biggest brands, in the most contemporary of designs. And yes, these shops are generally buzzing with activity.
To elaborate how big the opening of a shop is, listen to this story.

Two weeks ago, as I was randomly walking around the mall, I noticed a huge crowd of cheering, hooting people in front of a store. They were craning their necks, trying to look ahead, and many of them were taking photographs and videos. I questioned a few people around me but nobody had any idea what was happening. A security guy told me it was a store opening but didn't know anything more. I was extremely intrigued and wondered what store would get a huge crowd like this, and pushed forward. I asked some camera guys what they were taking pictures of, and was met with a shrug of their shoulders.

There was this pretty but not very intelligent-looking North Indian Female a little behind me, and I decided to ask her, not imagining she would know, but hoping that perhaps this could lead to coffee, my hotel room, etc etc.

Imagine my surprise when she said "Iconic store is opening"
"So what does Iconic sell?"
"Splash" With a look that said Duh! How could you not know that
"And what's splash?"
"Clothes" Followed by another look that said Duuuuuh! Don't you know anything

Just then, an old Indian businessman entered the area, surrounded by security, and he got a rock-star like reception. He looked to be the VIP, and went on to open the store.
Curious to learn his identity, I asked her. With the alacrity of a Mitesh Agarwal identifying a big biz dude, and the air of erudition of a Navin Jayakumar, she replied - 'Micky Jagtiani.'
"Oh ok" ( Knew him, but couldnt recognize)
"... , of Landmark Retail" She walked away with a frown, evidently considering me to not having the most basic knowledge in life.

I beat a hasty retreat feeling very mall indeed.
***************************************
And now to get to the other burning issue of the day…

I often pass a restaurant called Pathan's, quite close to my house. With a name like Pathan’s, I had naturally assumed it served North Indian cuisine, replete with Red Drapes by the Dozen, Ghee by the Gallon, Buttermilk by the bucket and Dal by the DLF maximum. Never being in the mood for anything so rich, I had always opted for the slightly more distant Sangeetha or Saravana Bhavan. Incidentally, why do all north Indian hotels here have a red décor? Something to do with the higher literacy levels, perhaps? Higher literacy levels, so their hotels are red. But I digress.

The other day, as I passed Pathan’s, I read that it served vegetarian south Indian. I went in, and ate a good dosa with the most amazing thakkali chutney. I asked the receptionist, a mallu down to the last olan, kolan and rolan of his being, why the name Pathan's?

In all seriousness, he replied "It's a shortened form of Padmanabhaswamy'

What an awesome name origin!

Basically the Pun Da is

2009-12-28T20:30:00.002+05:30

I like quizzing.

I like punning.

I like a combination of the two.

Which is what follows ( a small quiz I conducted)

Every answer involves some kind of wordplay.

1. This legend was given various colorful nicknames like Big Mig ( because of his size) and Colossus of Roads (because of his ability). What catchy nickname, was he given because of his name?

2. Ismay is a town in Custer County in the United States with a very small population of 26. As a publicity stunt coordinated by an American franchise in 1993, the town was renamed as Joe, for a few days. Which state was the town in, and why was it renamed?

3. Earlier this year, there were posters put up which said “Old South Wales Welcomes New South Wales”. What was the occasion?

4. Which award-winning ad campaign used great lines like ‘Leader;s Digest’,’ ‘Makes White Collars Brighter’ and ’Great Minds Like A Think’?

The next set of facts are entirely fictional. They would be good questions ( if they were true), and again, puns are involved.

5. Angana Mathew was an early 20th century Indian Civil Servant, who led the British government response to tackling the droughts of 1905, 1919 and 1922. In 1926, when a particular area was reeling under drought, a village headman was sent to Madras to report it to her. Unfortunately, he died midway, and his last words, urging a passerby to continue his task, ensured prompt help from Ms. Mathew. To perpetuate his story, the region was named after his last words. Which region?

6. The South African Government, in the early 20th century, was not only brutal against Blacks and Indians, but also the environment. The first demonstration that Gandhi made was to protect the flora in a particular region. The slogan that he used, to urge people to give their lives to save the vegetation, was later reused with great effect in India. Which region was it, and what was the slogan used?

7. Luciano Benetton became a famous designer using different colors on his clothes. He was particularly famous for his yellow color. When he was asked how he obtained it, he pointed to a vat of green color which he said influenced the adjacent vat of yellow. He said “ --- ----, yellow dyes”. What term did he use, which was later used in another field?

8. A group of 6 countries, historically, had deep enmity between them, sometimes even leading to war. To solve the substantial difference between them, and to ensure they worked together for each other’s benefit, which organization was formed?

Answers

1. The person is cycling champ Miguel Indurain. He was nicknamed Singing, so he would be Miguel Singing Indurain.

2. It was renamed Joe, so that it would read Joe, Montana in honor of the NFL legend.

3. Signs were put up at Cardiff, the latest test centre. It's first match was between Australia and England.

4. The Economist. Check out the other ads. It's a great campaign!

5. His words were Tell Angana, and we get the name of the place as Telangana

6. The region is Succulent Karoo, and the slogan is Karoo ya Maroo.
If you haven't heard of the Succulent Karoo, have no fears. This is revenge to a BBQ ( Boring Bangalore Question) where the answer, which no one had ever heard of, was something called Succulent Karo.

7. Green Shoots, yellow dies. Hence the term 'Green Shoots'

8. Tribute to a controversy that erupted in the quizzing circles earlier this year. The organization is the Gulf Cooperation Committee, which was formed to bridge the gulf between the countries.

Hope you enjoyed it!

How it all Ads Up

2009-11-16T13:39:00.003+05:30

A Beginner’s Insight into the Advertising World

After finishing my MBA, I had a break of a few months before I formally started working. Wondering what to do, I did what any MBA student is well-drilled in. I analyzed my current situation and evaluated my goals in life. My aims were moderate - I wanted to do something fun, hopefully involving extremely hot women. After ruling out the modeling industry for obvious reasons, I plumped for an internship in an advertising agency. I had figured that advertising was all about a 4S Framework – “Sexy Supermodels Selling Stuff”. This promised to extremely fun, with the first 2S’s adding the necessary spice to life.

On entering an ad agency, I was suitably impressed by its funky atmosphere. Having prior experience in the staid world of software and consulting, being greeted by a billiards table and beanbags was a refreshing change. I met the manager to whom I stuck to the tried and tested goal of ‘Wanting to experience the industry, check out my creative side, blah blah blah’. He asked me whether I was experienced enough to work in copy. Taking this as a grave affront, I looked him in the eye, and told him sternly that as a true blue South Indian, I considered myself a connoisseur of good, filter kaapi and would challenge anyone anyone in a ‘Guess-Which-Plantation-This-Coffee-Came-From-Contest’. I agreed to this role, imagining that I would be taking cups of coffee to Sultry Supermodels. That’s when I got my first insight about the ad industry.

Copy is the (yawn) text of the print ad/script of the commercial. Nothing to do with coffee. Or with Sizzling Supermodels. Bigger Sigh.

Beginning the next day, the first article I was asked to read was on How to Write a Good Print Ad. This informed me that A Good Print Ad has items in lists (preferably of 5 or 10). So without any further ado, I present –

5 things I learnt in Advertising.

The thing I realized on day one itself was that the-

1. Sensual Supermodels Seldom Seen.

This was an earth-shattering discovery. Most of the ads hardly used supermodels! I was shocked to the core – apparently, people often bought products based on their merits, or based on other factors. What was the world coming to these days? Most of` my product purchases were done on the basis of the hotness of the babe in the ad, and I was stunned to find this didn’t apply, by and large, to the rest of humanity. My earlier theory shattered to bits, I then discovered advertising was really –

2. Passionate People Peddling Products.

Seriously! A lot of customer research goes into paan masala, papads and pickles before people develop ads for them. If you are developing an ad for a safety pin brand, you should clearly know what motivates the consumer in buying Safety Pin Brand A, and not Safety Pin Brand B. Market shares are sliced and diced, focus groups are done to death, and category information is thoroughly analyzed. And once you’ve spent over a week reading on the Safety Pin Using Habits of the SEC B residents of Inner JhumriThalaiya, you feel you know the subject like a favourite brother. This information is lovingly imparted to the creative guy, whose job is to generate -

3. Ideas, Ideas, and More Ideas.

The creative aspect of advertising involves generating plenty of ideas for the campaign. Ideas can range from the absolutely mundane (Film star selling Safety Pin Brand) to the extremely creative (A giant safety pin fastening two pieces of a torn billboard, showing the brand can be used for the tying up anything) Once you’ve done that, the next hurdle is to convince people that No, That Idea Was Not Rubbish, It was Actually Pretty Good. This is a lot of fun, especially if people have really whacky ideas, which they defend passionately. Once the Grand Idea has been shortlisted by the account guy in conjunction with the creative guy, the manager, the art guy, the client and the friendly neighborhood Spiderman, the focus shifts to the–

4. Innovative Illustrator Implementing Idea.

The art guy works hand-on-mouse with the creative guy to realize the Grand Idea. Each of them has his own Grand Vision to match the Grand Idea, and a Grand Ego to match his Grand Visions. A Grand Argument occurs with each person trying to Grandstand. Finally, they settle on some common graund, the ad is produced, and then given to the client for approval. It is then aired or printed in the appropriate media outlet for the public to view, shortly after which they rush to the store to buy the product being advertised for. In theory, atleast.

Given that the ad industry has everything going for it, namely occasional supermodels; fascinating market research; opportunities for great ideas; and a chance to make aam aadmi view your work, you could be expected to pose the logical question – Why are people not desperate to join this industry? That leads directly to my fifth, and mercifully last, learning, which is –

5. Pathetic Pay Puts off Prospects.

Given that most people choose their next job by the amount of money it will bring, it makes sound economic sense to not touch this industry, even with a bottom end of a beanbag. After all, when you can be making your millions in the ~~Lehmanns and Merrills~~ Mckinseys of the World, why work here?

As I review the internship, I find that I have partly achieved my goals. The creative process of coming up with grand ideas has been an intellectually stimulating and enjoyable exercise. My alliterative articulation has advanced to an amazing achievement which has more than matched the adworse consequences of not working with supermodels. With those ~~bad jokes~~ words of wisdom, I bid ad ieu!

One line to rule them all

2009-10-22T18:26:00.003+05:30

I present a list of my favourite status messages over the last one year. These status messages either deal with something I'm currently doing or with a topical activity, written in a funny way. To me, both conditions are both necessary and sufficient, to make a good one-liner. A pun on an event in the distant past, or something that never happened, is pretty easy to make. After all, the whole world over the course of time provides infinite opportunities for making good puns. And without a pun, I would be a mere news-reader (Obama gets the Nobel Prize!), or a status-updater( I am looking forward to watching Sun TV's Kolangal tonight ), both of which roles I find extremely uninteresting.

.
Sticking to this framework was not as difficult as I had imagined - current affairs does provide a fertile field to plough. (Note - I have presented the topical situation in italics - its probably clear in most cases, but I'm explaining anyway) These messages are roughly in chronological order, starting from the current time.

Did a person with a split personality coin the word 'Fire Work'? (After a Diwali spent watching awesome fireworks by the beach)

People go to Kashi to die. They should just go to Rashee and die. (After spending three boring hours watching What’s Your Rashee)

Has learnt one thing after a bad experience at titan eye+ " Girls seldom make glasses, for men who have passes". (Had multiple vouchers to be used at titan eye+, which couldn’t be used for a wierd reason and it was extremely frustrating)

Will you brave a Worst Queue to enjoy a Coast View?(I hate the proposed beach expressway)

Jaswant's book is gonna be - wait for it - absolutely - Le Jinnah diary. (After the furore on Jaswant's Singh's book on Jinnah)
Indian cricketers are not following the old song - ' Jo WADA kiya, woh nibhana padega' (After Indian cricketers refused to sign up with the WADA code)

To sum it up, Obama's Beer Summit teaches us one thing - When faced by troubles, grin and beer it.

Is unclear on nuclear physics. Does an atomic sub use sub atomic particles?(After the launch of Arihant - India's nuclear sub)

An idle mind likes a well-stocked bookshop. (Senti thought which was in tune with my state of mind at that time)

Coimbatore's booming cloth industry should enter F1 racing as KovaiLinen (After a trip to Coimbatore)

From all these conspiracy theories floating around, one thing is clear - you can kill all the mockingbirds you want, but remember it's a sin to kill MJ.

Pondy is dandy, with liquor being cheaper.(After a trip to Pondicherry)

How to describe today's interesting faceoff - Jab Dill mile, will Gul Khile?(The Dilshan-Umar Gul match up had promised to exciting. A rare one where I use Hindi words)
How Brawn GP describes its highly-automated F1 car - "Button pushes the button, we do the rest." ( A take on Kodak’s slogan, given Button’s great start to the season)
So many indian americans in the spelling bee; they sure know they're ABCD.(After seeing a million Indian-Americans in the Spelling Bee)

The plot for devD is shaD - if ditched by BanD, go to RunD ( After DevD release – another Hindi one)

Attending my last class at IIMA and wishes there would be a ReSession. ( Senti message)

If the Independent Project system had continued, then would it have solved the credit crisis?(Major academic war on campus, over subjects)

Why didn't the auditors notice the oddities? (After Satyam – most of the good lines had been taken)

The plot for billu will killu (Billu was oh-so-boring)

has decided to become a revolutionary and fight for lower classes, after having a time-table with a mind-boggling 28 sessions this week.

Moores the pity if England cracks under strauss (Strauss made captain, and Moore the coach)

Resolves to make a Thousand Splendid Puns in 2009 (New Year Resolution)

Its better to bailout than to (let) fade away.(After the wave of bailouts that happened)

The Day That Reeves Showed Skill would definitely be The Day the Earth Stood Still.( Keanu Reaves sooooo Bad)
Kandy may be dandy, but WACA is quick-ah(After a featherbed of a Kandy pitch)
Found hiking in the Black Forest a piece of cake.(An awesome hiking trip to The Black Forest)
Found Beer Steins in Munich, but sadly no Lehmanade. (Had gone to the Oktoberfest)
Are the waters of the Rhine are full of Eau di Cologne?
Is back to a full stop in Sweden after a semi-cologne tour.(Had to return urgently to Sweden because of an academic requirement)
Danes may use Trains, but a Viking prefers Hiking.
Wants to write a story called 'Stock Holmes and the Study in Sweden.'(Hadn’t written it, plan to start sometime)
Candy may be dandy, but rasam is awsam! (Senti message on one of my trips home)

Unpacking is truly out-of the box thinking (After going back to IIMA, and confronted by loads of neatly packed cartons waiting to be unwrapped)

Ledger closes his account in style ( After Ledger’s Death )
Batman was a stormy and dark knight ( After The Dark Knight Release)

Left goes ballistic as UPA goes nuclear ( After the UPA and Left broke ties over the nuclear deal)

Quickdraw Bindraw wins gold ( After Bindra won the gold)

God phelps those who phelp themselves ( After Phelps won many golds)

I'm.In.Madras.Again(After I came home)

'Jai Home!'
The best tribute to curd rice is the old jungle saying 'What can't be curd must be endurd' (After coming home, and realizing how much I missed curd rice)

Why Quick Gun Moorugun Should Take Over The BJP, Or Cow Banega Thalapathy

2009-09-04T17:39:00.000+05:30

As we know, the BJP faces many problems. They were bull-dozed in the last election. Raking up the Ram temple issue proved to be a big foaly. Expelling Jaswant for honestly writing the Jinnah Dairy showed the BJP’s herd mentality. What the BJP needs is a new issue that will resonate with the electorate.
For this, we propose they turn to the noble cow for numerous reasons:
a) Voters always consider animals as a big issue. After all, the Ram won BJP many elections.
b) Cows are very punny animals. Can you imagine the above paragraph with the double-wattled Cassowary or the Paradise Flycatcher?
c) If you still don’t believe me, let me assure you “Where’s there is a veal, there’s a way”
d) How can voters not like cows, the most gentle of creatures(‘To err is human, to forgive bovine’.)
e) The world is beset with multiple problems like Recession, Swine-Flu and Shortage-Of-Good- Cinema-Halls-In-Chennai. Cows always display a thoughtful appearance that you know is trying to detect the ‘Cows-And-Effect’ and solve these issues.

Now that we have proved that cows represent the future, it is but a simple leap of imagination to select a cowboy as Symbol of Glorious Cows. QGM as quintessential cowboy who is unafraid to take the bull by its horns will appeal to any cow-lover. He will be The Antidote to those cow-killing Cowngressmen who’s buzzword is ‘Dined it, I say’.
Ok enough bulls*** for one day. Will stop before you start nagging.

Review: Madras Day Quiz

2009-08-27T22:50:00.004+05:30

The day dawned bright and and I woke early, as the morning jasmine peeped out amidst the green garden, dewy-eyed and pristine white, like a Test cricketer emerging out on the first day of a match. It was the day of the Madras Quiz, one of the biggest quizzes on the calendar. Looking forward to it, I knew it would be a quiz that would definitely be equal to India's biggest Open Quiz, the Landmark Quiz.

The Madras quiz is being conducted by Team IQL, and was located behind a place familiar to most of us, the PS Senior School . I was slightly late for the quiz and I rushed to the prelims location, but was aghast to find that it wasn't even close to starting. After a bit, it got underway in typical fashion.

The prelims were like a cup of steaming hot early morning coffee. Some questions were brewed to perfection, while a lot others were reused decoctions and left a bitter taste. The answer on AR Rahman was a great fact and I guess it played the level field. Some others, like the first question, left us with a "Eh? Why is it there?" Overall, quite a decent prelims and we hoped we would qualify.

However, there was many a slip between the filter kaapi and the lip. We narrowly missed out on qualifying. It was nice of the quizmasters to follow the Great Derek's style of announcing the teams that missed out on qualifying. It gave us an incredible opportunity to enjoy the limelight and attention that is bestowed on teams-that-nearly-qualify. Wouldn't have missed it for anything. If only, they had announced the scores of all the teams that had made it, it would've ensured complete fairness and transparency to all. After all, what is an hour more or less, when we go to quizzes?

Speaking of filter kaapi, it was a pity that they had not arranged for a provision to serve it to the participants. After all, what is Chennai without a cup of steaming hot filter kaapi in the afternoon? And one more point in the favour of the Great Derek. I notice in the Great Derek's quizzes, something to eat and drink is ALWAYS served. I wish more quizzes start following this noble tradition.

The usual faces were among the finalists - The Legendary VV Ramanan, the Legendary Jayakanthan and the Legendary Gaurav Sundaraman. DP had ( surprisingly?) made it to the finals, and I made a mental note to work harder next time. If DP can qualify, it should be possible for me to qualify too, especially in a quiz on Madras, which is so obviously not his core competence.

The finals were like a whiff of morning jasmine, smelling sweet and pure. The quiz started on higly scented note, with a very interesting picture of the Central Institute of Classical Tamizh Studies. Quite a few other nuggets of information, like a question on Pennathur Subramaniam were present. However, as with any strand of jasmine we get nowadays, there were quite a few genetically modified flowers which had no right to be present.

One-third of the quiz, for good or for bad, was on movies. While I would agree to the odd question on Gemini Ganesan, I draw the line at a question on K Balaji as a child. One more question read - Which scriptwriter blah blah blah? When the first two teams had guessed Anna and the second MK, I had exhausted my stock of guesses. The answer turned out to be Kripananda Warrier ( the only Warrier I know in Tamil Cinema is Sultan the Warrier) And when there is question after question along similar lines, it does get a trifle wearying.

There were two long visual connects, which are like one-minute instant coffee served to quizzers brewed on the traditional thing. It might be easier to make, but unless it is interesting to all, it should not be there. The first theme had 5 unidentifiable people, and Maharajapuram Santhaman. The answer turned out to be Roads in Chennai renamed after people. Some more clues perhaps, to make it more guessable to aam audience?

The second theme, on places in Chennai named after flowers, was a poser to some teams, with the Legendary Gaurav going for the refreshingly different answer of Restaurants in Chennai. From the audience, I established my credentials as a blooming idiot on Madras, by not coming close to answering this theme.

The Madras quiz was won by L.Jayakanthan alongwith Alagarsamy from Hyderabad, with Rajaram and Joshi from Muscat coming second, and Ashwin Prabhu and Ramkey from Coimbatore coming third. The favorites, L.Ramanan and Ramkumar Shankar, and the young team of L.Gaurav and Anirudh surprisingly didn't finish in the top three.

A Madras Quiz is very hard to conduct, given the knowledge of quizzers and paucity of fresh content available. Given that there have been quite a few editions before this, it is increasingly becoming hard to find good questions. Moreover, today's quizzer is an incredibly savvy googler, and finding questions to please him is definitely a hard, if not as difficult, task. Given these constraints, the IQL team did a great job conducting this quiz. Most of the questions were very good, and most of us came away with the feeling ' I learnt something new about Madras today'

And finally - I'm thoroughly sick of a filter kaapi and jasmine analogy parallel used whenever Madras is mentioned. Thoroughly boring. How's this? "AAh Madras. Whenever I think of the old city, I think of Jalapeno-Tomato Chilli-Cheese-Cajun Pepper-Popcorn with a hint of Butter, served by good ol' Sathyam Cinema"? It has so much more of a zing to it!

The Cold and the Beautiful

2009-06-16T11:31:00.000+05:30

One more article from my Euro Trip.

I had pretty much seen all of Jonkoping's attractions in the 2 months I had been there - being a sleepy, small town, this primarily consisted of beautiful women, beautiful lakes and beautiful scenery. Having a small break in my academic schedule, I decided to Boldly Go Where Man Has Seen Snow Before. It was October, and being in southern Sweden, the temperature was irritatingly low, but with no hint of snow. Friends in Germany had ridiculed my lack of snow, while displaying numerous photos of them making snowmen. I was even gloomily told that snowfall was predicted in January, by which time I would be back in India. A brief background - Sweden is like the Arunachal Pradesh of Europe - it just tapers on and on. The snowy, extremely cold bits we read so often in the papers are all in the sparsely-populated north.

I opened the Swedish map, and randomly looked at descriptions of places really, really North. The train time table was opened simultaneously; I had to select a place which would enable me to spend a night on the train, reach there in the morning, and leave that night again by train. (I must add that I possessed inarguably the most essential piece of paper any backpacker worth his hiking boots needed - a Eurail pass. Travel by train was mostly free, and most decisions to go places were dependent on the trains to that place.) I narrowed down my choice to a few places, and finally chose Kiruna.

I left that evening, making a note of train timings, and the places to see. It got dark pretty early, and the train journey was livened up by a group of middle-aged women getting up and singing Happy Birthday to You in loud Swedish (Grattis till er! Grattis till er! Grattis till er, dear Whatzisname! Grattis till er)

What I saw the next morning was truly magical. The landscape was pristine white, the forest of leafless pine trees, which had appeared bleak, forlorn and forbidding, now appeared to be shimmering with light, when draped in white blankets of snow. The air was exceedingly clear and this vista stretched on for miles together. Having lived in hot-hotter-hottest Chennai all my life, it was the first time I was seeing snow. Now, with a cup of coffee in my hand, and snug in the train compartment with the outside landscape to gaze at, I could joyously skim through Raskolnikov's debate to
kill himself. ( Long train journeys with nothing else to do are ideal for wanting to read books one has always wanted to read. Depressing books like Crime and Punishment so aptly fell into this category.)

I reached Kiruna at 1000 AM, and ventured straight out of the station. I rushed to the fresh mound of snow outside, made my first snowball, and 'shot the snowball into the air, it fell to the earth, I knew not where.' I was preparing another snowball to follow its predecessor, when I did know where it had fallen. I was caught white-handed in the act, and profusely apologised to an old gentleman for having pelted his dog with snow.

I shfted operations to another area; after hitting a tree, a stationary car, and a baby in a pram, I decided to ease up on the snowball throwing and decided to tramp about in the snow. The sun was shining above, and it felt mildly pleasant at around 2 degrees( I was wearing six layers of winter clothing - basically every sweater and jacket I possessed) After working out the exuberance of twenty four years of Never Having Seen Snow, and feelingly slightly cold in hands ( normal gloves - after all, a shoestring does not extend to your hands) I headed out to the friendly, neighbourhood tourist office to plan my itinerary. The lady at the counter gave me a map and marked out a walking trail that would take a few hours. She regretfully informed me that it was only the beginning of the winter, so everything was closed, so there would be no Reindeer and no Northern Lights. Drat! I had so wanted to see Rudolf prancing about, with a Red Light on his nose, a green light in the skies above and an amber drink in my hand ( the last mentioned just so's traffic conventions are maintained)

I started walking along the path she had marked, when I saw this middle-aged lady, walking in front, with the professional air of a Nordic Walker. I smiled at her, and that broke the ice between us. She agreed to let me join her in her walk, and agreed to show me the sights. As she quite trustingly unbent, she told me she had lived all her life in the town of Kiruna, her husband worked in the mines nearby and found the 2 degree temperature rather warm. ( These Swedes! Tap Tap Tap) The thought of my seeing snow for the first time was immensely humourous to her, and when she learnt I had worked in the software industry, she was quite respectful.( You do our job so much better, she said)

After a brief tramp through a forest, we came to a hillock where we could view the entire town, where she pointed out Kiruna's sights - a large school where her children studied, a church and ugly black hills in the background which provided the mines that served as the backbone of the town's economy. The entire experience seemed extremely surreal - joining an unknown person on a brisk walk through a snow-clad forest in the Arctic Circle, with the sun shining down.

After a while though, it sadly came to an end she regretfully told me that I was not properly dressed for the walk. Was it my unshaven, three-days stubble, the slightly wolfish look that came from eating only fries for breakfast or was it the ugly red backpack filled with clothes, I asked, feeling the brunt of the backpacker's curse on me. Neither, she said, and pointed to my shoes.
Lesson Learnt: Reebok Tennis shoes bought in Chennai are NOT meant to be used for walking through Deep Snow.

I trudged back to the town centre, and after buying a pizza costing as much money as needed to start a pizza joint in Chennai( Goach's Paradox: Why are Scandinavians the most polite people on Earth, when they pay the steepest prices for everything?) I decided to go into the church. Immensely peaceful, with dark wooden panelling, big candles and bright lights that looked quite picturesque. It was around 1400 hours by now, and the town centre was the only place I hadn't been to, so I dutifully went there and learnt quite a bit on the history of Kiruna ( Amazing fact: Due to mining, the entire town is sinking, and they have to transplant it lock, stock, home and school, to another area. Where exactly is still being debated)

Feeling quite confident in my ability to handle a How Well Do You Know Kiruna Quiz on Facebook, I was told to see an icehotel in Jukkasjarvi, a short bus ride away. I took a bus which deposited me near it( It is the same one in Die Another Day). They were still building it, and I could see huge chunks of light blue ice being cut into different pieces and laid on the ground. The water was taken only from certain pure, pristine streams, so any guests who so desired could have the best Ganga snanam possible. Being quite cold now, I made a cursory trip round it and then went inside a brick hotel. The return bus would be back in an hour, and I was advised to go to a church nearby.

I went there, was not surprised to find myself alone and remained inside for quite a while. You might wonder if I had been entranced by the beauty and magnificence of the 18th century church, or captivated by its bright lights and golden candles? Rest assured - I stuck to my tambram roots. It was just that by this time become quite sick of the extremely dark ( at 1630) and the cold ( minus five degrees) and wanted to be somewhere else( Chennai in peak summer looked so inviting) Visions of frost-bite and snowstorms floated in front of me, especially since no one knew where I was. The stupid bus was taking forever, I needed to go to the toilet and desperately wanted a warm drink, and the church was the only shelter around.

The bus finally came, the walk to the station seemed infernally long, especially against the cold wind, and I reached around an hour before the train came. I waited for the train, felt like killing Dostoevsky for rambling on, and resolved never to go to infernally cold places ever again.

When I reached Jonkoping the next day, I banished the thought of cold to the distant recesses of my mind, aided in this process by an expensive Chai Latte. I brought out my Lonely Planet, all eager to plot the next trip...

QFI Quiz Fest

2009-06-06T11:43:00.000+05:30

(Slightly IIMA specific post disclaimer)

Have you done any of the following?

Taken a Which-Dorm-Will-You-Be-In Quiz?
Taken a How-Many-Countries-Will-You-Visit-In-Europe Quiz?
Taken a How-Many-Movies-Can-You-Watch-In-A-Day Quiz? (Basically, are you on the threshold of being a jobless tuccha in IIMA?)

Taken a How-Many-Facebook-Quizzes-In-A-Day-Can-You-Take Quiz?
Taken a Which-Facebook-Quiz-Are-You Quiz? ( Hello, PGP3 from IIMA waiting to start working!)

Blocked All quizzes on facebook, and refuse to log on for fear of seeing arbit people take arbit quizzes and filling your page with nonsense? ( working professionals)

In other words, does the sight of the word ‘Quiz’ fill you up with strong emotions?
If so, this notice is for you.
If not, its time for you to take the Why-Does-The-Word-Quiz-Not-Fill-You-Up-With-Strong-Emotion Quiz on facebook, and then come back to reading this.

The Quiz Foundation of India Chennai is organizing a quiz fest on June 7. There will be a SpEnt Quiz, on the topics of Sports and Entertainment, and inspired by the ‘Amount-Of-Time-SpEnt-on-Facebook-Quizzing’ Quiz. This will be followed by the QFI Open Quiz, a general quiz, inspired by the answer of ‘Which-Army-Rank-Will-Your-Quiz-Be’ Quiz?
The details are as follows:
Date: 7th of June, 2009 (Sunday)
Venue: Museum Theatre, Egmore, Chennai
Sports and Entertainment Quiz
Quizmaster: Rajen Prabhu
Research Team: Sreeram, Vijay Sarathy, Vinod Ganesh, Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan, Sivakumar V.V.
Timings: Prelims – 10:30 a.m. and Finals – 11:30 a.m.
Team size: Maximum of 2 members
General Quiz
Quizmaster: Vinod Ganesh
Research Team: Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan
Timings: Prelims – 03:30 p.m. and Finals – 05:00 p.m.
Team size: Maximum of 3 members
If, for reasons of IPL team affiliation, you happen to not live in Chennai, I hope you realize now that by living in Chennai, you get to support the Super Kings AND participate in the annual QFI Quiz Fest.

If you are not from IIMA, you are allowed to participate as long as you get an amnesty signed from your board stating that they you will never again take part in any facebook quiz. (Yes, I will start working soon)

Obligatory Questions:

1) American colleges have an annual students directory which have the photo and details of the students. It is officially titled ‘The Photo Address Book’. Being too long a name, what nickname did they give to it?

2) This annual event was started in 1925 by the Louisville Courier-Journal and there have been 78 editions held so far. The event can only be sponsored by daily and weekly newspapers serving English speaking populations all around the world. Which event are we talking about?

Answers:
1) They call it a ‘Facebook’ and this reportedly inspired Zuckerberg to name his website.
2) The Scripps Spelling Bee

So be there!

Variety is the Rice of Life

2009-04-29T17:35:00.000+05:30

Effect of having just finished reading Crime and Punishment, and having nothing else to do all day. Written on a lonely, boring day in Sweden ( where I had to cook for myself, since eating out was insanely expensive; no net or tv in the room either)

He spent ages agonizing in bed, whether he would gain anything by waking up promptly at eight. Was the hot water bath, which was available only early in the morning, worth the long hours spent in the mid-morning with nothing to do? After a quick weighing of the pros and cons, he decided against waking up, and got up at a more respectable ten in the morning.
It was a bright, sunny day, but he knew from instinct that it would be really cold outside. After a depressing breakfast of corn-flakes, which taken on a daily basis, seemed to taste more of wood shavings than anything else, he turned to VS Naipaul's 'A House for Mr. Biswas.', the only book available at that time. His mood turned even more somber as he realized the protagonist was leading an incredibly sad life, and things would keep going downhill for him. The book was put down with a thud, but taken up after five minutes thinking had reasoned out that there was nothing else to do.

When the book was dropped a second time, he decided to turn his energies towards cooking, where he hoped fate would be kinder to him. A mental check-list of the items present followed, and he decided to make up with determination and will-power what items he missed, rather than risk a trip to the super-market in the sub-zero temperatures outside. The ingredients available were beans, broccoli and rice, and he decided to combine the lot with pulao masala. He had no idea how it would taste, but he was sure it would be edible. Secure in the knowledge that there was nothing else to do, he set about cutting the beans and broccoli with a patience he never knew he possessed. The rice was ready in next to no time, and given the ample time present to him, he decided to both boil and fry the vegetables, a practice he had not followed in cooking until then.

Spices were added with gay abandon, as he had still not learnt the proper quantities. Considering he didn't know what to expect at the end of it, he reckoned on adding spices and salt whenever he got bored with things. Which was around every five minutes or so.After about an hour's cooking, the vegetables were finally ready and he mixed everything in the rice cooker, and added pulao masala. On first tasting this dish, he realized he had tasted something similar many, many times before.

After 7 years of school, 4 years of college and 2 years of a software job, where he used to take a lunch box of similar ( but much better) vegetable rice on a daily basis, he realized with a pleasant smile that he had finally discovered how it was prepared.

ps - Mashed pringles chips was used as an appalam substitute.

The blog is dead, Long live the Blog!

2009-04-29T16:14:00.000+05:30

Considering this blog is just about dead, I have decided to resuscitate it with a few articles. Given that I've become just so incredibly busy doing absolutely nothing, and given the corresponding sloth associated with it, let me put up a few random articles, that I had started over the last one year, but not posted.
The following article was started during internship in Dubai

This is the story of an epic battle between Iron Mike and me, the scars of which will be present for a very, very long time, especially on the battlefield, which was a formal shirt. At the end of it, both of us were really steamed up over it.

Round 1 - Selection of the battlefield

There was an ironing board in my hotel room, but somehow it seemed really tiny, especially when compared to my shirt.If I spread the shirt fully, it tended to extend beyond the surface. Also, the side stand to hold the Iron didn't seem to be stable enough to hold the iron. After trying various angles and getting board, I chucked the board back into the clothes-stand and decided to use a dining slab made of marble which had more area.
Winner - Krishnamurti

Round 2 - Placing the shirt suitably
I thought I knew the correct way to place a shirt, so that one could iron without further creases. Apparently, I was wrong. I simulated all combinations in order to get a second crease from collar to bottom, passing near the pocket. The shirt was way bulkier and heavier than it should have been. 'Oh shirt!', I thought, as I realized it could not be done. After around 20 minutes, I moderated my ambition. I decided to pleat leave it alone and just iron out all the creases.
Moral of the story : IIMA students do NOT consider placement as the be-all and end-all of life.
Winner - Shirt

Round 3 - The iron is out cold
By the time it took me to place the shirt suitably so that one could iron out the creases, the stoopid iron had gotten cold. So, I had to put the plug on it ( which obviously wasn't nearby). Once I brought it near the shirt, it became cold and lifeless in no time. So, I took it to the plug point, and then back to the dining board. After the third or fourth time this happened, I was really hot and bothered, while the iron remained cool and calm.
Winner - Iron Mike

Round 4 - Actually ironing
After all the preamble, I finally used the iron by brute force. I put the shirt out of the crease, effectively stumping the iron for an answer. Moving the iron up and down, I put my shirt in some semblance of order. Hooray!
Winner - Krishnamurti

At the end of it, A One Hour War resulted in exactly one shirt pressed. I was thoroughly exhausted, and my nerves were frayed. Ah well, looks like I'm making a bad imPression on you with my rusted ironing skills. Who had thought pumping iron was so hard?

2 Bad Jokes

2008-07-22T20:43:00.000+05:30

Called MHU's in IIMA jargon.

Joke-in-Law

There is a severe shortage of an essential commodity, say rice, in India.
Hence, the government allocates rice randomly to people. Needless to say,
people are incensed at being allowed to being alloted random quantities of
rice, quite often much below their requirements.The people rice up in protest.
Some decide to take the matter to court. A person decides to go to private
courts to speed up the process.
How would you term the decision that the private court made?

Ans. Arbitration on Arbit Ration

Cricket Joke

It was noticed that Jayawardene won all the matches day-night he captained,
especially in locations where there was substantial moisture in the
evening.
He had a knack of predicting when to bat first, and when to bring on the
spinners when bowling second. Invariably, these predictions would turn the
dewuel in Sri Lanka' favour.
It was dewring one of these tournaments that an ibank recruiter spotted him.
They noticed him making trips to the ground for several evenings before every
match. Realising that he wasn't as dewy-eyed and
innocent as he appeared, they cornered him and said 'Dewde, waddya upto?'. Dew
to this reply, and his past proven success, the headhunter give him an instant
offer. Can dyou tell me what he said?

Ans. "Dew diligence is the secret of my success"

Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in LKP set off a blizzard of rock in RJM?

2008-02-09T17:33:00.001+05:30

Yesterday, while idly walking the lawns of LKP, an MBA student was struck by a brilliant thought. He decided to describe the behavior of people who descended upon Ahmedabad every year and like all MBA students are wont to do, he decided to create a model of his own. The parameters he used were enthu, enthu, enthu, skill, creativity, energy and the ability to crack short MANAC quizzes (the last mentioned just to ensure the MBA S. himself would fit in the model). Inspired by the names of other models, he wanted to come up with a super pseud name and thus chose the refreshingly-original-and-blindingly-radical name of Chaos Theory.

To check whether Chaos Theory actually fit into real life Chaos Practicals, he decided to observe the proceedings from afar. First up were the dances. These were vibrant, full of color and brilliant to watch; the dancers energetic; literally scorching the stage with their dance moves. In fact, the only feature missing was that the dances didn’t depict whether the dancers could crack short MANAC quizzes or not. Deciding to give his model a second shot, he decided to fit the fashion parade into his framework. However, the fashion parade provided so many models to keep track of that our MBA S. was totally lost in a 2-by-2 matrix of his own dreams. Among the many he did notice, Madame Butterfly occupied his attention the most, her head still as she paced the stage and her wings flapping ever so silently. This model seemed to predict a major impact on future events, and he realized he would just have to wait and watch.

Later that night, his worst fears came true, and the butterfly effect was proved beyond all doubt.The flapping had resulted in a tornado which developed into cataclysmic proportions. The blizzard of rock had everybody in the auditorium head-banging to their head’s content. There was enthu, enthu, enthu, skill, etc etc. The MBA S. noticed with delight that his model seemed to work on almost all parameters.(On a lighter note, he noticed that one of the bands had taken the name Blizzard very seriously and played the song, Hail, Hail, Hail and Kill).
He headed back to his room, deciding to give his model two more days of real life practice before proclaiming it to all and sundry. Would our brave MBA S.
be proved right? Or would the forces of Nashure drive his theory into the ground? Stay tuned tomorrow, same butterfly-time same butterfly-channel!

PS - part of an article I had written for the newsletter of Chaos
Chaos - our cultural fest
RJM - An ultra-pseud auditorium
LKP - best open-air theatre in the world!
MANAC - see post below

MANiACal

2007-12-02T01:20:00.000+05:30

“Let there be liabilities!” With this cryptic statement, our MANAC professor asked us to continue with the case. This was the third class, and until this my understanding of the rudimentary concepts had been proper. (Yes! Hard to believe but I can still can proclaim loudly from the rooftops - there was a time – exactly 2 sessions - when I understood MANAC!) . After this, well, … Let’s just say I went deeply into the red in the grade sheet.

MANAC stands for Man Can’t, though some benighted souls seem to be believe that it stands for Managerial Accounting. Like wisdom teeth and Australian victories, some things in life just can't be avoided.

Since there are must be people out there who voluntarily flirt with danger, the following Dummies Guide to MANAC is for them.

1) T-Account :IOU's kept with canteen primarily to pay for the copious amounts of beverage students drink is called a t-account.

2) Balance-Sheets: The remaining paper left in the printer after taking all the printouts you need.

3) Current Liability: Unpaid electricity bills of yours.

4) Current Assets: Do I need to elaborate more on this?

5) Income statement: The salary slip one used to get at the end of the month while working, leaving one with a pleasurable sense of having achieved something.

6) Liabilities: Your capacity to tell untruths so that the 2 sides balance.

7) Bad debt: Some people struggle to solve acccounting problems. They spend ages and ages and just when they think they’ve nailed it, they notice a negative balance of $1,00,00,000 in the liabilities( refer above) column. They suffer major heart attacks and sometimes even expire. This is known as a ‘bad debt’.

8) Profit and Loss Statement: When you are cold called by the professor, and are at a loss to state what the profit is.

9) Operating Lease, Finance Lease, Please Lease Me: I have no idea what these are so the lease said the better.

10) Capital: This is the most obvious figure that comes in the balance sheet. Or does it come in cash flow statement? Wherever it comes, as every second standard school kid knows, this is New Delhi.

Now that the ground rules are laid, let’s get down to the serious business. In any T-account, you have to put various values in the left and various values in the right. People who can’t differentiate between left and right, don’t fret. Even the people who can differentiate between R and L are not sure if they are right, so don't feel left behind.

My suggestion is to do what I normally do. Close your eyes and arbitrarily put the value whichever side you want. Look at it this way, you have only a 50% chance of getting it wrong.

One normally has never ever balanced a balance sheet. and doesn't think one can. Is fairly sure nobody can either. People get pure lucky.'Tis a fact of life that one cant balance a sheet without becoming mentally imbalanced.

Then there are the oh-too-often 'surprise' MANAC quizzes. These have a very nice feature- being incredibly short, one's misery ends quickly. Calculators are considered very essential. This is mainly to time the quiz. By the time you open the calculator, the quiz is over so the only thing to do is to close it again. Till the next quiz.

Now, that you have understood the intricacies of balance-sheets, cash-flows and p & l statements, feel free to go ahead and do some accounting. Please do inform me if you can balance balance-sheets, cash cash flows and profit and loss profit and loss statements. If you can fill a minute with sixty seconds worth of accounts done, then you will be a man, my son!

PS - This post is both to vent my existenstial angst and an opportunity to make the worst pj's ever.

The Case of the Billion Bolts

2007-11-18T19:57:00.001+05:30

I walked in through the door. I noticed the dame sitting tall and upright against the chair. She stiffly shook my hand and asked me to sit. She asked me to tell her about myself. Ah, these dames. Never trust anybody!

“My name is Wim Wian. What people call me is something else. I’m an IIMA student. It says so on PGP1 List of Students.”

The last thing I wanted to solve this morning was a case, but the dame immediately started on it. Dames always bring trouble and my sixth sense told me this one was going to full of it. The wind from the air conditioner suddenly seemed to blow cooler and I pulled my coat tighter round me as she started the reading out the case.

“Estimate the number of bolts in the United States”

What? Was she for real? Did she expect me to solve this case? It was another baffling case and I thought she expected too much out of me. Why did this dame want to know anyway?

I reviewed the facts.

a) This was a bolt from the blue.

b) Bolts are used for various purposes.

c) There is a country named United States.

d) She was bolting mad.

e) She was a mental case.

I started thinking about what bolts were used for. What were they used for anyway? I reached inside my coat and felt for my weapon. My heart went cold as I realized the inner pocket was empty. I felt I had lost my right hand. Alas, I had forgotten to bring my trusty Casio FX-260 calculator.

I needed a clue and a drink. Wordlessly she handed me a glass of water and motioned me to begin. This dame needed answers, and fast.

I started explaining what I thought about the case. Bolts are used for a number of purposes. I started listing them out. I then went on estimate the number of bolts present in an average house. My voice droned on and on, with the case facts being stated in as many different ways as possible. The dame let me speak, interrupting me with a question now and then.

As I continued speaking, I realized that she wasn’t interested in answers. She just wanted to watch me think! She was a real close one, this dame. Deciding to play on, I kept on speaking as long as possible.

Then suddenly the answer hit me. The pieces all fit together. This was obviously a ‘numbers’ racket.I blurted out the answer ‘One Billion’. She gave a grim nod and seemed satisfied with that. She handed me back my file and I went out closing the door.

Case closed.

PS - Having recently participated in the summers placement process, the above is a fictional 1930's Private Eye spoof on the case interview conducted by consulting firms.

Third Time Lucky!

2007-05-07T11:12:00.000+05:30

It’s been a long long time since I’ve updated my blog, mainly due to a rare combination of circumstances, prominent among them being climate change (I have realized climate change can be blamed for anything). However, I thought I could do no better than chronicle what has been recently happening. Before we begin, a few things that has to be kept in mind

1) These are recent happenings in my life only. So, there wont be any mention of the Ash-Abhi wedding.

2) If you find an overdose of sentimentalism, blame it on my watching spidey battling his inner self and crying his heart out. And also on climate change.

₃₎Climate change may be a burning issue in today’s world but it won’t find a mention, except for it being blamed for everything.

4) One has recently been reading Ponniyin Selvan (in English) and one found it a decent read. The part names have been utilized for various paragraph titles.

5) This story revolves around how one person(me) battled the odds, triumphed when all others had lost hope and fought one’s inner inner demons. (One didn’t actually battle any inner demons but battling one’s inner demons sounds ubercool)

6) It actually deals with The Great Exam aka CAT, which for those not in the know, happens every year in November with interviews being scheduled in Feb/March.

THE CYCLONE

November 2004:

First time I wrote The Great Exam. After studying and studying and studying for it, we will just erase this year from memory with a brief ‘This year was not to be.’ Why is it sub titled The Cyclone? Left me devastated.

THE PINNACLE OF SACRIFICE

November 2005:

Second time I wrote The Big Tamasha. It didn’t come out go too well. Finally, I got a call from Kozhikode that I converted. ‘To k or not to k, that was the question’. I was advised, by almost all and sundry, against going. But, could I write The Big One again? Writing it was a spine tingling, blood curdling, nerve wracking adventure with far too many baddies and didn’t always end with an ‘All’s well that ends well’.

Finally, I decided to listen to my inner voice. ( If Sonia can have one, then I can jolly well have one too).

Decision: Go for The Holy Grail again.

THE KILLER SWORD

November 2006:

For the third time, I wrote The Grand Endurance Test. It had been a difficult year. Loads of work at office. At the same time, rushing to classes. Writing tests at home. Hunting up old dog eared, flea bitten school books. Wondering what would happen if two trains traveling sixty miles an hour, and separated by a distance of 300m, came upon a number the square of which is three times the fifth prime number, and the probability that could happen, especially after drawing a black queen from an incomplete pack of cards. The mind boggled at the possibilities. A year of Blood. Of Toil. Of Sweat. And Tears. A year that, most alarmingly, brought up the possibilities of Climate Change.

The paper turned out to be an utter nightmare. English was so awful, it was more luck of the draw than knowledge of English. I didn’t have too many hopes at the end of the day. By this time, I was really really sick of going through The Whole Cycle again, that I wrote a number of other tests to a number of other management institutes.

THE FIRST FLOODS

Dec 2006/Jan 2007

When the results came, I was overjoyed. I had got calls to all the IIMs. English had been a real lottery and I had got more wrong than right but that was enough to get me a decent score. Also I was pleasantly surprised to find that the floodgates had opened wide, to make up for the previous two years drought. I had got calls from a number of other management institutes. February/March was a very busy time. Three Chennai-Bangalore trips. One Chennai-Bombay-Bangalore-Chennai trip. All in a space of a month or so. Learnt a lot in the interviews. Met lots of new people. Travelled a bit( Dalal street in Bombay was a big let down-so run down. More on that on a future post) And, the finally the long wait.

The quota issue was raked up and results were indefinitely postponed. There was a keen tussle between the Supreme Court judges, the HRD Ministry and the IIMs with us hapless students caught in between. Each person made contradictory statements. Would results ever come? This indefinite wait was very irritating and concentrating on office work amidst all the confusion was extremely hard, nigh impossible. Then, the political parties raked up the OBC issue and with a very dog in the mangerish attitude, assumed all results could be postponed till May 8. One expended one’s frustration making cheap puns, a sample of which is given below to pain you with.

This city in Rajasthan sends a large number of people to the IITs every year, so much so that a certain number of seats have been considered reserved for it. What is this called?

The Kota Quota

This child actress gets to act in every film that stars a small girl. It was thought that this was due to her acting talent. However, it has been realized that this is due to an appeasement policy followed by the cinema industry, which is said to follow an active reservation policy. Her name reflects this fact. Who is this?

TheQuota Fanning

Ok, think I’ve used up my bad jokes quota for the day and will put an end to this sordid chapter.

THE CROWN

Apr 27

Results were expected today. The air was heavy with anticipation. Then, at 1330 or so, I got a call from a friend who had got C. Checked the website and saw my first reject. I was out of luck then for lucknow, and was now waiting with dread for A/B. Would it be another two rejects?

Finally, at 1850 or so, I check the Ahmedabad website. AND FIND I”VE GOT A!

PS- Kinda abrupt ending, but can’t end on a happier note so will stop here. And for all those still wondering, I didn’t get B. It was obviously due to climate change.

Food for thought

2006-03-31T00:39:00.000+05:30

When I heard there was a ugadi food fest organized by our caterer’s, my first reaction was one of trepidation – I expected an overdose of gongura and spicy pickles in addition to the usual rices alongwith a few balloons added to give a dose of colour. Whenever our caterer's organize a food fest, it’s usually the same daily meals with a few extra symbolic dishes thrown in to justify whatever the cuisine served (Chinese/ pongal/ North Indian etc), but balloons being hung all over the cafeteria remains a constant, perhaps to divert our attention from the authenticity of the food.

Imaginary conversation between colleague 1 and colleague 2 in cafeteria during Chinese food fest

C1: This noodles is only so-so
C2: Yes but the gobi Manchurian is good stuff. Kimchi is awful though
C1: Don’t think that’s what the kimchi is supposed to be though, going by the actual culinary dictionary.
C2: Heck what are you saying? They hung balloons. That speaks volumes for the dedication they’ve put in. It must be an authentic Chinese food fest.
C1: (nodding sagely) : Oh yes, you are right.

Coming back to the ugadi fest, it was the menu which set my taste buds tingling. It just sounded so exotic. Merapakkaya gujju. Rubudu charu. And so on. What epicurean delights would these dishes hold? If the dishes were half as good as the names sounded, I would be getting my money’s worth. After all, who has not licked his lips in anticipation after reading about Anatole’s Timbale de ris de veau Toulousaine or escargot a la crème, but reading it as snails with cream sounds so unbearably unedible. For those who have lost the plot here, and haven’t heard of Anatole, or his cooking, well, wake up! Instead of wasting time reading this, go read Wodehouse.

After starting off with a sweet ( whose name I sadly don’t know) , I started off with the pesaratu and the pulihara. Then loaded my plate with the pappus – pappu namidikiya, pappu mandikaya and pappu passhogaya. Think we were cautioned against taking too much as it would be very spicy but one of them, unexpectedly, turned out to be very sweet. Next item on the buffet list was bangaluthupa koora. Who would’ve thought that the humble aloo curry had a super human alter ego and would metamorphose into an amazing dish when taken as bangalathupa koora.

It turned out our mundane rasam was rubudu charu, and that just made it so enticing but deciding to free annam( or rice) I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to taste it. The last course was perugu annam which amply justified the theory that thayir sadam by any name would still be as divine. The gongura was good, as spicy as it should be, and the avakkaya urukkaya with its deep red and black shades drew my friend and I to question its etymology to Tolkien’s Uruk-Hai, who look much less frightening though compared to this fiery dish, looking hot enough to cause submerge all coastal cities and cause massive floods by causing all polar ice caps to melt.

With a contented burpu, I ended the meal, determined to try out more Andhra places ( mandatory caveat --- list of dishes has to be present and described fully )

It Happened One Night

2006-02-27T00:24:00.000+05:30

As she lay in my arms, did I detect a faint glimmer in her eyes as she noticed the sea--- for the first time? I looked up and noticed that the waves were only a few feet away, providing a soothing symphony as they crashed onto the land every once in a while, their precision in repetition unmatched by any machine made by man.

Though there was no moon, the sky was brilliantly lit by stars, light bulbs suspended from the sky, merrily twinkling, not too bright but just enough to provide the necessary comfort and a friend had just earlier that evening kindly pointed out the Big Dipper to me. Thankfully, the light was enough for me to observe her properly and I could clearly see the contours of her back. Just between you and me, she seemed too have been through many a fight as it was rather scarred. The wind blew past us, the pleasant breeze that ruffles the hair and luckily not the cold inducing sea breeze that carried plenty of spray. Still, it was past one in the night and it was quite cold. I pulled my jacket closer to my body and though she wasn’t wearing anything, she seemed to be unaffected by the cold. She moved restlessly in my hands. Shouldn’t I be taking to her to the water, which I had been told she liked? Was she getting impatient with my inattention? Was it time to lay her down and get down to matters more pressing?

Deciding to do so, I kept her down and got down to the process of getting her to the water, an ingenious process which involved using a Nokia 1100 torchlight as a guide.

Thus began my tryst with the fast disappearing species known as the Olive Ridley turtle.

PS --- This was a baby turtle, about the size of a matchbox, and was being helped towards the sea. Just to clarify.

Sunrise Boulevard

2006-02-12T23:43:00.000+05:30

It was a bright and moonlight night. I was sitting by the sea, watching the moon’s rays create a silver luminescent patch on the dark water, when I realized with a guilty start that I had hardly ever seen sunrise, despite going to the beach ever so often. (Nowadays, leading the life of a typical software professional, by the time I wake up, the sun is well above the horizon) Determined to rectify this error, I decided that I would try to get up early next morning and go to the beach. My friend was openly critical of my rising early and said unless I used Krishna like tactics to hide the sun or perhaps delay its start by a good ‘n’ hours, there was no way I would make it to the beach by sunrise. Ah! For every noble thinker, there are always a million detractors out there waiting for you to fall.

Determined to prove him wrong, I was woken up promptly at six and the combination of the unearthly hour and deep sleep was enough to make me contemplate to silently ditching the expedition for another day. However, somehow or the other, my willpower triumphed over sloth after a few minutes battle, and I awoke, realizing I have to rush if I have to make it before sunrise. Which my father informed me should happen at 6:33. Actually let me reframe the previous lines since I seem to be portrayed in a negative light. Let us pause a moment and hither to a parallel dimension, an idyllic world where men are men; dreams come true; Dubya doesn’t win elections; and pizza tastes as good as it looks in the ads.

There

Woken up by the shrill cackle of the rooster, I burst out of bed bustling with energy. With a brisk good morning to my parents, and a quick glance at the headlines (for those nit pickers out there, the paper delivery boys give the papers just before the crack of dawn), I step into my neatly pressed and matching track suit, strap on my well worn Nikes, and rush out.

Back on Earth

Having just got up, and still feeling extremely groggy, somehow I strap on my running shoes (which haven’t been used at all), and rush out. After a few minutes breathless run, I convince myself to slow down to a trot before I realize that the sunrise was scheduled in another ten minutes and unless it followed Indian Standard time like trains did, I would miss it. Another minute of determined run before I find I’m panting far too much. A traffic signal gives me much time to get back into shape before a few more minutes of haphazard jogging, after which my pace slows down to a fast walk. Nearing the beach again, I hurry into a sprint that peters out into a slow walk after a hundred meters or so. The slow walk continues till I reach the beach

There
My legs moving in perfect unison, breath perfectly controlled, I chomp away at the distance covering my house to the beach. Making a quick calculation that at my current speed, I would reach the beach 12 minutes before sunrise, I slow down by the requisite amount so that I would reach the beach exactly 7 and a half minutes before sunrise. Hardly sweating at all, I take offence at the protracted traffic signal and glance with a supercilious smirk at the tired and sweat drenched runner beside me who seems to be glad of this break. Continuing again, I reach the beach much before time and do a quick few minutes of power yoga while I waited for the sun to rise.

And Back Again

Enough of parallel dimensions. As I reach the coast, I find to my immense relief that though the sky has attained a pinkish hue; the sun hasn’t crept over the horizon yet. After a few minutes of waiting, all my effort is finally rewarded as the sun first peeps timidly out and then bathing the sky and the sea in mild pink rises out, an orange ball suspended from the sky and drawn by an invisible string, perhaps by the Hand of God. The rays glance off the sea, causing the waves to shimmer, a dull blue with the region under the sun suffusing with orange, as the sun steadily makes its progress up. After some time, I decide its time I leave, and this time walk back, making no effort to run, or even break into the slightest jog, but resolute that I would attempt this epic journey some time in the near future.

For those who wanna know more about how to get there, here are the details

Location: Besant Nagar Beach

How to get there: Take the second right and keep jogging ( If one can reach NeverNever Land that way, no reason why one cant reach the beach too)

Means of transport: Since the idea is to go jogging, no reason for me to mention that the place is well connected by rail and air. Note : I haven’t mentioned it so the previous statement could be right.

Time to visit: Look up sunrise timings at the Hindu

Book Fair and Lovely

2006-02-02T00:45:00.000+05:30

Saturday morning. Me fast asleep. Phone rings. Its my friend Nandan. He calls me to the book fair in Quaid e Milleth college. Though still groggy, my mind registers that he has mentioned the word ‘book’ and instantly I agree to come.

Pleasantly surprised at the large crowd, we went in, hoping that perhaps we could unearth some rare gems. Initially it was a big letdown. The first few stalls had mostly Tamil books (If a dim witted snail started crawling on a Tamil sentence and I started reading it too, it would be a close call as to who would finish it first. My money would probably on the snail) The other stalls were none too inviting with entrances piled with Oxford dictionaries/ Manorama yearbooks/ Word power Made Easy and other such stuff designed to ennoble the mind.

In fact, this was maddeningly repetitive giving the fair a maze like appearance (If one sees a Watziznames stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a Watchamacallit stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a You-get-the-picture-stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries for like 20-30 stalls it gives the feeling of moving around in circles. After all the market for Tamil books and English dictionaries cant be that immense can it?)

The first stall which in I though would cater to my reading interests was the British Council stall ( and this had nothing for sale!) The next interesting stall was the Rupa stall (actually only interesting because they had a collection of Wodehouse school stories for less than hundred which I hadn’t noticed before at Landmark/Odyssey. An immediate buy.) Satisfying to note that among popular fiction, Enid Blyton was selling well too. However times change, midnight school feasts and Ol Clear Orf doesn’t change. There was an American books stall too but since there was no major discount, the throngs of people there made no sense to even consider perusing. An interesting hardbound stall caught my attention but with prices way beyond my budget, it was sadly written off.

Only on coming out did we notice the second hand bookshops outside. This looked Promising. Very Promising. Starting from the Mount Road entrance, we decided to work our way to the college entrance. The first shop was the 10 buck stall. Most of the authors I hadn’t heard of or ever wanted to read. A few books in German. I mean proper German. And Spanish. Loads of other stuff I couldn’t imagine anybody (and I mean anybody!) would be in their proper minds to buy, even less read. I mean which shopper here would be interested in Easy Ways to Backpacking in Maine? Or a Russian travel guide( in Russian)?

Digging through the dirt though, one unearths a few diamonds. Very hard to imagine a decent copy of Danny the Champion of the world (Roald Dahl) selling for 10 bucks. The owner who gave that book away needs to be executed without any trial. Convinced my friend to buy it. I found a Peter Wimsey novel and a Mary Poppins. Nothing I particularly wanted to buy but just had to when its selling for so little. Got a pleasant surprise when I found a text on Ramayana by, hold your breath, G Krishnamurti. (Right down to the current spelling of m-u-r-t-i) I just HAD to buy it.

Got a cheap Carl Hiassen and a Ram Guha from the next few stalls. And a Graham Greene. 10 bucks is decent for a slightly torn dog eared copy. On a whim purchased a book on travels in 19^th century Egypt by some arbit guy. Sounded interesting though. Steered clear of the pirated books stall redolent with Dan Brown and Harry Potter but even a cursory glance there seemed to be a market for Pony Tailed Guru’s books.

Getting dark, we decided to leave. Not before noticing a scary sight of the book sellers using kerosene lamps and placing them carelessly over the books. A single spark would have been enough to have set fire to the entire set ( which in my view was much much better to the actual fair inside

Good fun!

Meme and myself

2005-12-26T00:14:00.000+05:30

Vinod passed this meme(sounds a very egoistic word) to me a long long time ago. Finally got down to filling it out only now.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451! Which book do you want to be?

Wodehouse’s Blandings castle series. I know this isn’t a book but the Blandings castle collection with hare brained Lord Emsworth, irrepressible Galahad, forbidding aunts, Efficient Baxter, servile Beach and of course The Empress , provides an amazing milieu for Wodehouse to weave his magic in a typical English county castle.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Hmmm…..

3. The last book you bought is:

’No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency ‘ by Alexander McCall Smith… good buy it turned out to be.

4. The last book you read:

Fahrenheit 451. Very nice book.

5. What are you currently reading?

Following the Equator by Mark Twain , a travelogue. Pretty funny. He’s left Australia and nearing India right now

6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Wodehouse’s Best ---- Cause Wodehouse is Wodehouse.

The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling ----- Captains Courageous is a superbly written story (of Boy V/s the elements and triumphing against the odds), Stalky and Co. is a brilliant book written in boarding school ‘ The Sun never sets in the British Empire’ England (without the saccharine sweetness of Enid Blyton), The tales of the Raj transports one to a different timezone altogether, Kim and Mowgli, well enough have been written without me having to eulogise further.

Captain Blood --- Rafael Sabatini’s swash buckling tale set in the buccaneering age with the wronged Peter Blood outwitting the Spanish, among others, brilliantly described with a panache and well tied plot that seem to be his hallmarks.

Hindu Sunday Magazine Crosswords --- Dunno who sets these crosswords but Sundays don’t seem like Sundays without spending an hour or two on trying to solve atleast half the crossword

And the final one --- throw of the dice between Tintin and Asterix). Probably will be Tintin cause already have the collection.

7 Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?

Nobody because its been ages and anyone who reads anything more than the paper in which sundal is sold in has probably been tagged ages ago.

My Experiments with cooking

2005-12-19T00:37:00.000+05:30

Deep-fried, cooked golden brown and crackling and crunchy when popped into the mouth, the taste of the cauliflower perfectly blending into the outer shell of the flour that enveloped it… I could wax eloquent all day about well-cooked Gobi Manchurian. As an avid reader of food reviews, I have learnt that food in most places is really amazingly cooked and the photograph alongside the article convinces the reader on the long hours that must have gone into the presentation (These reviewers must be the luckiest people on earth ---having their cake and not paying for it too) Read on if you want to know how food is not to be cooked and how all people aren’t born with a thumb itching to check the salt and temperature of each dish.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when my mother had finally procured the requisite ingredients to make Gobi Manchurian, namely - a big gobi( for all those still in the dark- gobi means cauliflower). Problems started when I started cutting it. Not being the most skilful of people with the knife, I was getting along all fine in my own way cutting in various crisscross lines when I saw my first worm. Light green, it stood out starkly against the brown cutting board and watching it move inside the food that was soon to be consumed was a slightly disorienting experience. Its whole body convulsed while moving millimeter by millimeter with the tail moving first then the middle then the head (or atleast what I imagined was the tail, middle and head). After sending it to the extreme corner of the table, I finished my already eccentric cutting in a even more haphazard fashion, rather afraid to find any more creepy crawlies. Then I heated the diced pieces to evilly do to death other light green worms that may be lurking in my gobi.

Then the fun began. One thing that I’ve learnt after many amateurish attempts at cooking dosas and idlis is that flour and I don’t go together. Ours is a soured love affair and somehow the flour tends to win the battle hands down. It starts off by dripping all over my dress, then the coats the stove in a thick layer of white, and finishes off by leaving a pattern all over the kitchen, even prompting allusions that I was celebrating an early janmashtami. Today was no different other than the fact that the red flour paste led to the wall resembling a typical railway station festooned with betel juice. My father’s laconic comments at the end of today’s episode “Looks like a battle zone!”

After heating the oil, I started dipping the cauliflower in the flour and then into the oil. Putting it into the oil is a another great source of trepidation for both me and my mother (who checks up every ten minutes or so to ensure that I’ve done nothing worse than spreading the aforementioned flour in the aforementioned mysterious ways on the aforementioned wall) The oil hisses and crackles every time an intruder in the form of flour coated gobi enters its territory and habitually spits its venom on me. Dodging these high temperature oil drops is a big adventure (and invariably the oil manages to hit me a few times).

The first batch took a long time and afforded me plenty of time to keep checking on the match. With an occasional stirring and watching it closely, like a mother indulgently watching its offspring, I ensured that all the gobi did was lie contented in the oil and turn the golden brown needed for me to remove it out. Mistiming things a little, I found that some had turned a light black when they were taken out but sampling the first batch, I detected to my delight, other than a dash of salt and perhaps a slight spiciness missing, it was quite good. The second batch turned out faster and while it was cooking, I was with one hand turning the pieces over with a ladle and with the other helping myself to the first batch. It was with a slight gasp of horror that I realized that I had cleaned out the first batch while waiting for the second to cook. Determined not to have any more in the midst of cooking, I took out the second and then put in the third (The third was tiny pieces of cauliflower that had disintegrated during my crisscross cutting). Having slightly lost patience and feeling tired of standing in front of the stove for so long, this batch was taken out rather quickly. Still quite decent it was.

My mother pronounced the dish fit for eating and that it was not bad taken with sauce. HOORAY!
Tips that I have learnt during my past forays in cooking ----
i) If one likes broccoli, then fried broccoli is also quite good( though not in the same scale as cauliflower).
ii) Keeping cold water/ice is very handy for treatment from splattered oil drops.
iii) Cleaning up the mess is a really tedious process.
iv) Waiting for the gobi to cook allows one ample time to ponder on various mysteries of life like how the gobi got its name. When God was naming all vegetables, he told the humble cauliflower to just leave and exist and thus the name stuck.(He said ‘Go !Be !’)

So go ahead. Happy cooking!

15 seconds of fame

2005-12-11T00:22:00.000+05:30

It was a dark and stormy day. Somewhere a dog barked. A maid screamed. (Ok nothing of that sort actually happened. Just felt like continuing the famous starting line sequence) It was a grayish day and I was in Besant Nagar beach leisurely ambling along as usual with a few friends. The waves were grayish colour, much much darker than the cloudy sky, and broke to form milky white pools, with the sea slightly choppier than normal. As we were walking down the promenade, a guy with a mike, who asked me if I wanted to comment on Sachin’s 35th century, suddenly accosted me. Not having been home all day my first reaction was “Hooray! He scored it today?” To which he replied with a curt “Yes! Please give us your comments on that. I’m from channel ----------.”

Not unwilling to have my say on Sachin, I instantly agreed and within no time a crowd had formed around the camera, all eager to pour out their views on the Great Man. Turning to the camera, he started speaking in Hindi and told the viewers there that he was getting the reactions from Chennai about this momentous effort. He then smiled at me and asking me to introduce myself and give my views on this. Putting gas I said “amazing effort, wish he had done it here blah blah “ Then he asked my friends these questions too (including a guy who didn’t watch cricket at all)

Interviews with a kid followed.
I ( Interviewer) : So what do you think about Sachin’s 35th century?
K(Kid) : (After long pause) Amazing
I:And?
K: (Even longer pause, K clearly uncomfortable and fumbling for words doesn’t answer but stares in a sheepish manner at the tv)
(Father prompts from behind to no avail)
I: (Trying to get K to say something changes tack) So what do you feel about Sachin’s batting)
K: (Smiles a little because it’s just remembered another adjective) Fantastic
I discontinues and goes to father
Scenario repeated for another kid among the group

At the end, he concluded “While viewers from Chennai are clearly happy that Sachin achieved this effort, they are disappointed they missed out on it last week when the match was rained out”
Then thanking us, he left and the curious crowd immediately dispersed.

Is this really news? Is there really a market for all this? Do people actually watch this and think “oh Chennai fellows are so unlucky.” Just because they have to fill in a day with 24 hours of distance run, do they have to telecast all these obviously contrived statements. While I’m happy (overjoyed rather) at his scoring ton number 35, how does it make a difference what I think? Whether I’m happy or not, I’m not gonna ruin a perfect sound byte and say “No, I don’t watch cricket, I think it’s a game of 22 flannelled fools. I prefer buzkashi and pelota vasca. And pray tell who is this Sachin?”

Since unfortunately I couldn’t tune that channel, I didn’t watch the fifteen second interview where 6 arbit people (+ 2 kids) helped form the channel’s opinion of Chennai’s reaction to the event.

What would news be like without 24 hour news channels?

Learning how to code

2005-09-28T23:33:00.000+05:30

This post has been a long time in the pipeline and I’ve forced myself to writing about it only now. I got head hunted (placed is the right word but head hunted conjures up visions of exotic tribals and big corporate boardroom battles and sounds soooo much better). Training was scheduled for a month or so and was held at a 3 * hotel. Here are 10 things I learnt during training; ten valuable pointers which will greatly aid me in my quest for the software holy grail (according to top techie sites) – how to write a three line program without causing the computer to crash / self destruct / do other stupid things computers are prone to do when executing programs .

1.Linux games rock! – This fact I had learnt in college during programming labs but I realised the full potential, however, only during training. Playing for many hours a day generally helps. Another tip – put tux racer (penguin racing game) in demo mode and watch it the penguin skim across the ice!!!!! ( good fun especially when you are supposed to be listening to the intricacies of database designs or other core techie stuff )

2.Point 1 is reinforced when the trainer walks past all the computers, notes the diverse games being played on each computer and continues teaching the intricacies of database design.Super fun!

3.Continuing on point 1 and 2, realising the utter pointlessness of expecting the students to understand the intricacies of database design while playing games, the intricacies of database design instructor would infrequently cut short the classes and let us off.

4. I’m sure even if I’m not, you should be heartily sick of the intricacies of database design by now. Anybody eager to know more about this revolutionary new subject please don’t hesitate to call. As its such a hot topic, I admit only a few students based on stringent criteria (gender and looks only) Since I hadn’t been listening too much to the I O D D trainer, not too much I could teach you but its worth giving a shot anyway.

5. There Is Some Such Thing As A Free Lunch – food was arranged at the hotel every day. Another valuable tip -- stuff like ‘Maxican Coilslaw’,’Suop’,’Vice cream’,’Bread Butter Putting’ is quite good to eat. In fact, every day, I looked forward more to the name displayed in front of the dish than the dish itself. Still don’t understand how anybody can misspell soup though.

6.One more amazingly useful fact I learnt is that if one squeezes lemon onto tea with milk , it’s not possible to drink it before the milk curdled. Wasted two cups of tea in trying. Keep this in mind when your stranded in a desert island without food or water.

7. Back to techie stuff. It was during training that I realised how beautiful a language java was. Any friends of mine from college who, after that reading that statement are scratching their heads and going to the top of the page to make sure they are reading my blog, fear not an read on. I think Java is the computer’s answer to Captain Haddock. Imagine you’re the computer and a programmer has tried valiantly all night to write, say, a program to print ‘hello world’ on the screen and expectedly has failed miserably. How do you tell him enough is enough and give him not so subtle indications that he should try alternate professions such as maybe intricacies of database design instructor? Don’t show normal errors. Fill up the screen with errors like ‘FormatFlagsConversionMismatchException’ and ‘UnSupportedLookAndFeelException’. If the insulting exceptions don’t work, the impressive capitalisations sure should psyche him out.

8. Daily to training I took the MRTS train. Very fast, sparsely occupied , and providing a super aerial view of chennai. What more could one ask for?

9.How to do 3 crosswords in a day - This was amazing. The hotel had a lobby full of papers and as unobtrusively as possible we would flick the Hindu and Indian Express for the express purpose of solving the crossword. One guy would bring the Economic Times from his home and thus I had plenty to do all day (especially when not playing games)

10 Most useful part of training is that now I can now happily term drop left right and centre. If somebody insults my code I know enough to blame the software, go into its ancestry and version number saying the appropriate patch wasn’t available and then divert the topic into every programmers pet topic – how windows sucks! which should ideally make him forget my inadequacies

Harry Potter and the Full Time Snogging

2005-07-28T21:50:00.000+05:30

Spoilers alert! (Actually I’m fairly sure the only spoiler possible that I can say is to reveal who dies and if you belong to Planet Earth, you would have probably heard everyone right from the neighbourhood paanwala to the irritating kid next door cast his two pennyworths of ideas on why this person should not have died) Other than that, there is nothing here that could radically spoil your reading of this book so if you've still not read it go right ahead and read the book – it’s as well written and fast paced as the other five.

The book as such is quite good, very readable with lots of new ideas (Horcruxes,interesting insights into You-know-who’s past, etc) written in the trademark Rowling style. One can see Harry’s transformation into an adult who’s capable of making decisions (unlike Harry in the fifth who was the most irritating of all five books – constantly shouting at others, expecting everyone to think from his point of view, probably expected at that age but the continual screaming does begin to grate on one’s nerves). Also the book ends very surprisingly leaving a whole host of possibilities for book seven. And the mysterious R.A.B – who’s he? He’s probably going to play a big part in book seven. My money’s on Sirius’ brother Regalus, the ex Death Eater, because of his initials and for the fact that the letter was addressed to the Dark Lord (who’s answers to that appellation by the aforementioned D.E’s).

Now my grouses at the book. What’s with all the romance? One can understand Harry - Ginny, perhaps one can stretch a limit and agree to Ron - Hermione, but why Tonks - Lupin? The constant snogging between Ron and Lavender? That was totally unnecessary. And whats with the Bill Fleur till-death-do-us-part sentimental romance and the moment of perfect understanding between Harry and Ginny passages lifted perhaps from a romance by Georgette Heyer?

Why was the book called Half Blood Prince? Infact this book acts mainly as a filler for book seven and other than explaining new ideas, the story isn’t carried forward until the very end. The Half Blood Prince storyline could safely have been removed without affecting the story too much. What part does the potions book play? Infact unlike the other books, there is no central theme to the book and perhaps thus the name (Harry Potter and the Horcruxes as title sounds totally unsellable) And the first chapter can happily be removed without too much hesitation, as it has no relation to the rest of the story.

Still for all those who haven’t delved into the franchise – do so now! Very good fun!

That's what we think!

2005-07-19T22:07:00.000+05:30

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Left is AC (Arvind Chandrasekhar ) Best Outstanding Student of 2005 (among other things)

On the right, ladies and gentleman, from the city of Chennai, standing tall at 6 feet one, is

loud applause

< /drumbeats > ME!

Photographer: Divya M

The board reads "To develop ---- as a centre for excellence offering Engineering Education to Men and Women ( note the impressive capitalisations!) at Under Graduate and Post Graduate level, bringing out their total Personality, emphasizing ethical values and preparing them to meet the growing needs of the industry and diverse societal needs of the nation""

Now that you people have got the gist of the picture let me plod onto to the finer details and try to write the thousand words this picture is worth. For all those who haven’t studied at SVCE too bad for you, you’ve missed something!

The photographer has chosen exactly the right moment to vividly capture the spontaneous expressions of the two participants and the split second laughter has been brilliantly preserved for posterity. There is a subtle play of light, with just enough for us to distinguish each person being captured, while at the same time they seem to be oblivious of the presence of any photo being taken. The object of their mirth seems to be an old board (perhaps a close up of that would indicate the exact reason!)

Notice the yellowish tinge that adds to the impressiveness of the photo by conferring a-wise-beyond-its-ages-and-historically-old-and-hence-amazing-and-definitely-worth-buying look. The presence of attractive flora indicates that life must go on; whatever happens will happen, according to Schroedinger’s cat (Just wanted to write a line of total rubbish – I have no idea what it means)

If any of you saw the above things do let me know as I sure didn’t. Just wanted to try some general gas as quite a few photos are described in this fashion.

HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO CHENNAI

2005-06-17T21:41:00.000+05:30

Having recently read an article on the dying art of hitchhiking in The Hindu (hereafter referrred to as HH) and because the movie is about to be released (it might have been released all over the world but here in Chennai it hasn’t), let me give a few ‘rule of the thumbs’ to be taken into consideration while practicing this noble art.

1.Surprisingly, putting your thumb out works fairly frequently. Best place to get a lift is a traffic signal or around a turning where people slow down.

2.Always put your hand out when pretty young things zip by you. The chances of you getting a lift are abysmally low (say lower than the chances of Dubya being able to spell ‘United States of America ‘ correctly) but just assume you convert, then boy oh boy…

3.Murphy’s law of HH – the people who are willing to take you always take the first left. Invariably this involves their making gestures to indicate that they are very sorry but they will be turning left soon and they realise they are committing the worst mistake of their lives and will probably go straight to hell for this but inspite of this off they go, taking the first left, worst fellows. If however you want to take the first right, then my advice to you is to go to the White House, bonk Bush on the head, then come to my house where I will drop you off wherever you want to be dropped.

4.If you ever thought HH was boring, think again. There was this guy who went some distance out of his way to drop me, and then preached to me that at my age I should be walking. Another guy dropped me at home after recognising me (he had seen me on this quiz show on BBC called University Challenge) and kept questioning me about it, how I got there, what it takes to be a quizzer, how Bush got elected twice…. There was this old professororial no nonsense chap who started the conversation on finding I was finishing my B.E. by asking whether Anna Univ graduates were employable and then rubbishing my point of view (thankfully the journey ended much before I abused AU too much). Then there was this pretty girl who offered me a lift…. Wait a minute that happened only in my dreams. Sigh!

Simple rules to follow but if you follow them, and if you can fill a minute with sixty seconds worth of hitchhiking got, then you will be a man, my son!

Me and the Art of Frisbee Flying

2005-04-15T22:11:00.000+05:30

From time immemorial, throwing things at each other has been a favorite pastime of Man (and Woman) (as can easily be witnessed by the chipped jugs, saucers and whatnot that have been discovered; how else could they have be broken as badly they are if not for people chucking them about?) Needless to say, frisbees were invented by cavemen to fuel this passion. For readers who have just entered, a little additional info would go a long way into unperplexing them and helping them find their bearings. What is a Frisbee? Who invented it? How? Why? And most important of all, How on earth did George Bush get re elected? Find out the answers to these if you want to understand the rest of the post.

Legend has it that the ape man we know as Homo Floriensus aka Hobbit had chucked his brontosaur breast bone to his friend homo MyPrecious aka Gollum when the idea struck him at the same time the brontosaur breast bone struck MyPrecious, that this was THE THING! Visions of him putting his legs up and retiring at the young age of 28 after milking the commercial success of a professionally managed company to market and sell frisbees floated before his eyes. Unfortunately for him and for the rest of humanity up to the year 1857 which wasted their lives not knowing the noble art of frisbee throwing, the idea died with him when MyPrecious attacked him with his Saber-toothed Rotary Club (made from real Saber-tooth for that long-lasting effect and capable of rotating when jerked) for having pulled that dastardly trick of throwing the brontosaur breast bone on him.

It was a dark and stormy night in 1857 when the idea of a frisbee literally hit
T. Bush, the notsogreatgreatgrandfather of our old Friend George W. Picture the scene. He’s pacing his room, which is adorned with trophies of various regions he’s helped conquer. E.g. the emerald from the eye of the statue in the hindoo temple of Siva the Destroyer from a small temple in North India(any mention of imperialist treasure in India has to have an emerald from the eye of the statue in the hindoo temple of Siva the Destroyer), ivory tusks given by the ‘grateful’ natives of Arrack (for those who don’t know, it’s in Central Africa) and so on. He picks up a gold plate which had been given by the peaceful law abiding villagers of Be (which also is located in Central Africa which incidentally is a big place) and is wondering how best to replace their king by a democratically elected head and to ensure that the contract for rebuilding the village which obviously would be smashed to smithereens would be given to American companies only. He sees the sharpness of the gold plate, calls his chief spy, and tells him to chuck it on the king, sharp side first and hey presto! We have a kingdom without a king!

In honor of his successful plot and using the first words the grateful natives praised him with, on being faced with a new king who had ruined the economy but however had given them the all important ‘democracy’, which happened to be ‘Frees Be! God save him!’ In honor of that incident, any plate shaped device that can be chucked about is called a ‘frisbee’

Now that the history class is over, lets get down to the brass tacks vis-à-vis playing with the frisbee. First, chucking it. Hold it in your hand firmly, release it in the direction your aiming at and hopefully it will fly. If not, too bad for you!You would have criticised George W. at some point in your life and thus are paying the price for that!

Now that you have mastered the simple act of throwing you might want to graduate to other more complex ways of throwing

1.The-release-normally-but-frisbee-turns-belly-up throw
This is normally the beginner’s throw and happens unintentionally. The frisbee starts off normally but lands on the ground upside down. If you do want to throw the frisbee like this, chances are high that you will fail miserably as this throw happens only if you are trying it unintentionally.

2.The-bounce-off-the-ground-throw
2.1 If the wind is sou-souwesterly, aim the frisbee at an angle of 18.5 degrees to the ground so that it strikes the ground, rough side up at an angle of 23 degrees
2.2 If the wind is nor-noreasterly, aim the frisbee at an angle of 23.5 egrees to the ground so that it strikes the ground, rough side up at an angle of 18 degrees
2.3If none of these conditions hold true, god help you!

3. The-smooth-flick-that-scythes-through-the-air-and-swings-in-the-breeze-throw
For this, you need somebody who can do the-smooth-flick-that-scythes-through-the-air-and-swings-in-the-breeze-throw. What you as a beginner have to do is simple. Toss it to that guy. Sit back and watch the rest.

Now that you have mastered the fine art of throwing, we move onto the equally easy to learn art of catching.

1.The-clap-catch
This is the catch most suitable for beginners. Pretend you are clapping and watch the frisbee get caught between your hands. Very convenient but awful to look at.

2.The-both-legs-off-the-ground-one-hand-in-pocket-other-wrapped-around-
waist-tongue-hanging-out-right-eye-closed-left-eye-looking-at-right-foot
-knees-bent-catch
Impossible to catch anything in this method but good fun for you if you have a gullible partner who can be convinced to attempt a catch of this type

3. The-between-legs-catch
This is strictly for advanced players only because you could get hit at all kinds of spots if you miss the frisbee altogether while trying to catch it between your legs.

There are a lot more methods of throwing and catching but I have presented only a small subset of them. And in case any of you do want to play this noble game and happen to be in the vicinity of Eliots Beach, you will probably catch me there. If you are young and female but don’t want to play, do look me up anyway!

BUSHisms and all that

2005-03-11T19:50:00.000+05:30

Anand Patwardhan’s award winning documentary “War and Peace” was being screened at Eliots beach and I decided to go watch it, more out of a curiosity to see something in my ‘backyard’, than any deep passion for Leo Tolstoy or absorbing interest in watching award winning documentaries. There was a decent crowd (a few hundreds methinks) ; the setting was amazing, under the stars, with a light breeze blowing. After A.P. introduced himself and the topic, there was a song against the atom bomb. It had a nice kishore song(‘aa leka chalna’) as background music; a very apt accompaniment to the telling visuals, and most amazing of all, it was a hindi song which didn’t have the words ‘dil’,’pyaar’,’mohabbat’ or ’ishq’!

Then came the documentary which was good – started off with Gandhi’s assassination, then India in 1998 exploding the atom bomb, a variety of interviews with the aam aadmi, scientists and villagers near Pokhran, the effects of the fallout, then Pakistan exploding the atom bomb, then their aam aadmi and scientists, then Japan after the atom bomb, then USA and why it decided to explode the atom bomb.

It was all very thought provoking and conveyed a strong message. Fittingly, it ended with Gandhi and the suggestion that non violence was the way out, though without a clear indication of how to accomplish this in order to ensure world peace (which is surely what every young guy, including me, ponders about twenty four hours a day; the main reason why I decided to watch the film in the first place.). Needless to say,documentary filmmakers have to take potshots at politicians and here AP broke the matka with a few powerful blows.

Then there was a question -answer session which brings me to the subject of this blog. Wherever you go, there always is a Bozo Unafraid of Shooting Himself/Herself in public (whom I will refer to in future as B.U.S.H); you know, the kind of asses who make fools of themselves in public by asking ridiculous questions or doing something stoopid deliberately.

There is this old B.U.S.H who comes to quizzes, mainly to win an audience prize. In fact, whenever Derek O’Brien asks him an audience question, this guy tells him he knew his father in 1965, thus exposing himself to a jibe from quickwitted DOB. B.U.S.H grins widely at the joke and takes in the applause like an Oscar winning Best Actor too tonguetied to give any speech. Every answer will elicit a loud explanation from him( one answer given by the quizmaster was something Kapil Dev so B.U.S.H tries to attract the quizmaster’s attention by saying “Ah Yes! the Indian cricketer ” and acting as if he had been born with the answer in his mouth). Nowadays, I go to these big quizzes more to watch B.U.S.H than with any hopes of winning any prize.

So,in the Q & A with AP,there was this B.U.S.H who comes and says “You screened it in Alliance Francaise where there was an elite crowd, now you are screening to the masses …”he stops as he realises he has insulted the crowd in calling the crowd which consisted mostly of college students,retired guy and a few working professionals. AP corrects him. Then he asks when he plans to show it to the masses. AP cuts him down to size by saying that it was clearly explained in both English and Tamil earlier in the program that they were in the process of translating the docuentary to Tamil so that everybody could understand. Sheepish grin from B.U.S.H and exit left centre.

Enter B.U.S.H jr. who thankfully started of with a “ I know this may sound dumb” then went on to elevate herself to B.U.S.H status by continuing with
”Did the Shiv Sena threaten you in Mumbai?”. To those who have not seen the documentary, AP criticises the BJP and the Shiv Sena throughout, showing how their volunteers signed their names in blood after the bomb, blocked peace rallies and so on. So, dunno what B.U.S.H jr. expected the answer to be. No,the Shiv Sena are amazing sporting types. Love a good joke. pukka sahibs all. In fact, they welcomed him with aartis wherever he went and promised to build a temple installing him as the principal deity.

However,all things considered,the documentary was good;definitely worth watching. And, the world, thankfully, is not populated with too many B.U.S.Hes.Yippee!

‘FIR’st

2005-02-23T22:22:00.000+05:30

Sometime ago, I was walking along the paved path skirting Eliots Beach, my favourite haunt, alongside other dandies and fops who were enjoying the breezy evening on the promenade, with my friend Manish(of NIT Trichi now placed in IBM). We were debating the finer points of IEEE protocol 802.11a ( don’t remember what we talking about and no way in a million thousand years it would have been this but to put pseud let us assume this is what we were talking about ). After going one up against him and comprehensively proving that the header format could only be four bytes large and it would take a mentally defective person to argue that two bytes were sufficient, I was about to say “Ha” when I realised with a sudden chill in my heart that in the process of verbally trouncing him, my mobile had fallen out of a small hole in the side of my pocket.

Frantically retracing my steps and calling from Manish’s mobile resulted in my inferring with Sherlock Holmes like accuracy that somebody had picked up the phone and switched it off ( if I had been less distraught, I probably would have deduced that the guy was five foot four; left handed ; came from Adambakkam and had a mole two inches below his neck but I guessed my analytical abilities took a holiday that day). Oh, and as I seem to have forgotten to mention it was Kaanum Pongal day ( the day the beach is most crowded).

At the police assisstance booth, I was told to lodge an FIR in the Police station. Enroute, I made another call to my mobile and to my surprise, a policewoman answered the phone and asked me to come to the booth pronto. There she asked me my phone model and colour and having more than convinced her it was my lawful property, she decided to look into my contacts lists and perform a final check. Now the fun starts.

I must digress here and explain to all those who don’t know me that I am a crossword puzzle maniac. So, all my contacts are stored as crossie clues with the starting letter being present to maintain names in alphabetical order.
eg. NSister finished=Nun done=nandan ;
Hrush=Hurry=hari ;
Amonth in articles is jan in an and a is anjana.

you get the funda I assume.And there are no names, only words like this. The first name was Aa joint hole(A knee rut =anirudh)

To resume, seeing this, the policewoman gave me a strange glance, stared at list and then gave me an even weirder glance.(One that seemed to say –how did these guys escape from Kilpauk) She asked me if these were all codewords and unable to tell her what it was I said yes, and with a doubtful look, she made me file an FIR (yay!I’ve filed an FIR) and then handed me my phone and warned me to be more careful in the future.

Moral of story –If you fill your phone with vague crossie clues,do not repeat do not show it to a police official.

Angry Speech for mannequins

2005-01-14T14:37:00.000+05:30

Hoping to evangelise and convert more people to the glorious religion of cruciverbalism,I am putting up a simple crossword (along with explanations of the clues so that next time you see a crossword,you hopefully wont be so baffled/stumped/mystified/puzzled by the clues)

The title incidentally, reads cross words for dummies

This explanation is only for beginners/novices/learners/apprentices/amateurs so others can kindly go back and read/peruse/browse other blog entries.

When you see the answers,they might seem tough if taken one by one, but if you have entered some words the other words automatically fall in place like magic and hey presto before you know it the majority of the crossword is filled.I would recommend starting on The Hindu crossword ,much simpler and lots of easy clues to solve.

1.Two supporters hold dishonourable man for a spell(11)

7.Friend backs a round(3)

9.Metaphorically dead creatures(5)

10.Driver,say,is a horse dresser?(9)

11.Editor returns in average revolutionary and wandered leisurely(9)

12.Leave colour positoned at the end and dance(5)

13.All mixed up,neo sold dish(7)

18.Reportedly ,nail father in capital(7)

21.Sister that is the cause for boredom(5)

22.Reportedly most important law(10)

24.Attractive bowlers aking earnestly((9)

25.A vine,tangled up, is very simple(5)

26.What arrives after wood distillation here(3)

27. Transfers to another place(11)

1.Body part needs to be sorted out from horrible sign(7)

2.Light emitter or cooling device?(8)

3.Enclosed accountants with editor(5)

4.Ditches without help at Sahara or Kalahari(7)

5.Blends love for gentlemen's preference in movie(7)

6.Success of sportsman caused by physically powerful member?(9)

7.Falsehood ruler says to display inclination(6)

8.Forgives mafia leaders after hit back(7)

14.Car built in the north using oil(10)

15.Taken a child and notice choice(8)

16.To carve,excitedly,and in a exagerrated manner(7)

17.A student salesman in charge of copy(7)

18.Begs ride endlessly across connectors(7)

19.Dense record dances and extends further(7)

20. Parsnip errs on finding shooter(6)

23.Let criminal swin on waterway(5)

don’t got through the answers till you have tried each clue atleast twice.

ACROSS

Two supporters hold dishonourable man for a spell(11)

Supporter is usually bra (for obvious reasons!),dishonourable man is cad,hold indicates they have cad in between so it is

ABRACADABRA

Friend backs a round(3)

Round can be lap. Backs/returns/rejects indicates you have to return the word so

PAL

Metaphorically dead creatures(5)

This is direct.

DODOS

Driver,say,is a horse dresser?(9)

Say/reportedly indicates it sounds like

Driver is schumacher.

SHOEMAKER

Editor returns in average revolutionary and wandered leisurely(9)

Editor/newspaperman is ed.revolutionary is red/che.average is mean.in indicates the word is present in between.so,

MEAN+DE +RED

Leave colour positoned at the end and dance(5)

Colour is a type of colour and leave is go

So TAN + GO

All mixed up,neo sold dish(7)

Mixed up/tangled up/excited indicates jumbles.These are te easiest types of clues and have to be cracked earliest.The anagram is usually easy to spot as it has some word/name which makes no sense whatsoever to the rest of the clue.

Neo + sold =NOODLES

Reportedly ,nail father in capital(7)

Father can be dad/pa

So bag + dad=BAGHDAD

Sister that is the cause for boredom(5)

This is usually a common clue as it helps cruciverbalists out of a tight spot.

Sister is nun + ie (that is) so

ENNUI

Reportedly most important law(10)

Most important principal sounds PRINCIPLE(law)

Attractive bowlers asking earnestly(9)

This kind of clue is sometimes the best(most funny) as it cleverly utilises second and lesser known meanings of words in a clever way

APPEALING

A vine,tangled up, is very simple(5)

NAIVE (straightforward anagram)

What arrives after wood distillation here(3)

Here /found in/indicates the word is found here what arrives and tar is end product of wood distillation

TAR

Transfers to another place(5)

Stupid kind of clue.direct word meaning

TRANSPLANTS

DOWN

Body part needs to be sorted out from horrible sign(7)

Horrible =bad

Sign=omen

Body part =ABDOMEN(sorted out)

Light emitter or cooling device?(8)

RADIATOR(clue using alternate meanings of words)

Enclosed accountants with editor(5)

Accountants=cas + ed

CASED

Ditches without help at Sahara or Kalahari(7)

DESERTS(fairly obvious)

Blends love for gentlemen's preference in movie(7)

Love/not is o .o + blends =BLONDES(gentelmen prefer blondes is a famous movie)

Success of sportsman caused by physically powerful member?(9)

Member =leg/arm/limb .here arm + strong=ARMSTRONG

Falsehood ruler says to display inclination(6)

Ruler is king.falsehood say is li.so.

LIKING

Forgives mafia leaders after hit back(7)

Hit=rap

Mafia leaders=dons

PARDONS

Car built in the north using oil(10)

Another little tip would help here.point is n/s/e/w .quarter is ne/se/sw/nw.north is n and so on

So car + built + n=LUBRICANT

Taken a child and notice choice(8)

Notice is normally ad

Choice=option

So,

ADOPTION

To carve,excitedly,and in a exagerrated manner(7)

Jumble

OVERACT

A student salesman in charge of copy(7)

Student/learner/apprentice=l

Salesman=rep(as in representative)

Incharge=ic

So,

REPLICA

Begs ride endlessly in excitement across connectors(7)

Endlessly means take off the last letter

So begs + rid

BRIDGES

Dense record dances and extends further(7)

Record can be EP/LP (As in audio storage medium) so dense + ep

DEEPENS

Parsnip errs on finding shooter(6)

Clues can’t t easier than this.parsnip has no relation(brother/dad/mum!) to the rest of the sentence.finding indicating the word is located here so

SNIPER

Let criminal swin on waterway(5)

Criminal is usually al so

CANAL

The crossword as such might be slightly sad as I finished it quickly using a compiler(People might think I used a gcc compiler on a linux kernel after telnetting on a remote LAN using a …. Oh,drat ,can’t think of any more technical terms to namedrop)a crossword compiler(amazing piece of software)Clues are very direct to make it simpler

HAPPY SOLVING

Notes from a small island

2005-01-13T15:17:00.000+05:30

“Yours tickets,sir!”The IA hostess said handing me back my tickets,glaring grumpily at me and rudely gesturing towards my seats.As Dennis Bergkamp and I would be close contenders for any airlines frequent flier program,this was the first time I was experiencing IA’s unique version of hospitality.For Gods sake,the hostesses atleast have to be taught to smile and perform basic courtesies.If I’m paying a sum that would ,say, give me 10 years supply of playboy,I expect to be treated extremely well.(The fact that somebody else was sponsoring for my jamboree to Singapore is besides the point).

<>
We(my friend nandan and I) stayed at a hotel called Golden Landmark(that also put on someones tab!).It was decent and what put it high in my esteem was the fact that it had a tub.Just a normal small tub but tub all the same.Also it took getting used to the fact that they drank the water straight off the taps.Hard to imagine doing it here in Chennai.

<>
We decided to go to the zoo and went by the MRT(their metro).The fully automated system to purchase the ticket,electronic trains,automatic doors,you know it was just mindboggling.And just to when you tire of making a demographic profile of your carriage and decide that the Chinese looking guy sittting two seats away was,well,Chinese,they vary the monotony by making the train go above ground where you can get a full aerial view of Singapore with its enormous highrises seemingly a frisbee throwing distance away.

The buildings are wonderful,in various sizes(L,XL and XXL), rising perpendicularly out of the ground;a celebration of glass and cement,in all colours from dull brown to a bright blue,virtually utilising all the 256K colours available in MSPaint;in crazy shapes varying from the short and the squat to ones that invites Newton’s followers to question the blasphemy regarding nonconformance to the first commandment(Thou shalt obey the laws of gravity).And to ensure there is more than just a sea of asphalt,oasises of green have been tastefully set amidst the skyscrapers.

<> However,I digress.We got off the train and then took the bus to the zoo(Their bus also involves an obscene amount of technology that however does save human labour )The zoo is superbly planned,in a natural setting with the animals not caged but roaming about in short expanse of land,a small moat separating them from inquisitive spectators.What is so astounding is that hordes of tourists descend on the zoo and the bird park,knowing virtually nothing of animals ,and on seeing a Greater Red crested Magpie(found only in the Congo region feeding on crickets,tennises and baseball bats and nearly extinct –actually it doesn’t exist ,there might be such a subspecies but most of the names were something like this so I am fairly sure that a bird like this does exist ) and say “Look!Birdie !Sooooooo sweeeeeet!” They see the same type of animal (for example ,there were gazelle,impala,sambar,blackbuck,nilgai,springbok,reebok,
someotherbokwhosenameiforgot,all in addition to the humble deer of course) and still go around and for the zoo to draw huge crowds to see all this is praiseworthy to say the least.The night safari was crowd pulling and deservedly so; it involved well trained animals,crowd interaction and some super tricks.

<> Returned the same way but went to Orchard Road(probably Asia’s swankest road with huge malls,hotels,windowshoppers,and the usual hanger ons)which was brightly illuminated for the Christmas season.Amazing place to walk around but no place to eat anything vegetarian!.I had to make do with a McBurger without the meat ,an apple and juice.

<> Next day,the tourist guy (since I’ve not mentioned it earlier, we had a won a quiz for which the prize was a trip and stay in Singapore) had arranged for tour of the city.Each tourist destination has been well looked after , marketed superbly , lots of signboards ,with commentary wherever possible,and every place of any remote interest to a camera toting tourist clearly indicated(I’m sure if you hunted long enough, you would find a butt of the first cigarette Sir Stamford Raffles ever smoked on the island,carefully preserved in airconditioned splendour in a museum ,with a $10 entry fee and commentary in all the 72345 dialects spoken on earth).

We then got on the cable car to Sentosa. New panoramas are opened as you travel on this jawdropping ride perilously carried on a slender spidersthread thickness rope.You repent for all the sins that you may have committed in your previous life just to thank God that you could get such an superb view .Some distance away are those skyscrapers,pretty hard to miss;in another corner,a toys playground style shipyard and freight region with enormous cranes manipulating even bigger containers;green forests on one small side and the steel gray waters of the ocean right below you.The underwater world in Sentosa is a must see where you look at schools and even colleges of fishes separated by a mere sheet of glass.Also,I found what should be another major tourist attraction here;an entirely vegetarian restaurant serving all kinds of Chinese dishes.I had to ask her more questions than Siddartha Basu has ever asked before I was convinced I was seeing the Eighth wonder of the world.First and only chinese meal(noodles!) I had in the Garden City.

<> Next day,we went to Jurong bird Park,where I saw one of my favorite birds,the penguin at close quarters.Amazing animals to look at,clumsy and gauche on land,but swimming with great ease and elegance.Could spend hours staring at their whimsical movements(Penguins daily schedule –go to the water ,swim with extraordinary grace there,waddle about on land,eat,loop back to step one ) but still fun to watch.Walking through the enclosures,designed to look like a forest and doing its succeeding very well,seeing birds at close quarters(close one eighths would be closer to the point as some were really close)flying about merrily in a riot of colours, and hearing the chirping of the birds in the humid jungle like atmosphere was a great experience.

<> The people there are pretty friendly and were very helpful with directions and other questions I plagued them with like why there was a button on the traffic signal (to speed up the green light!);on where to get vegetarian food(this I had to ask a lot of people and most of them were stumped for an answer ;for best results hunt up a tam looking guy,lots of them, and ask him)

Did a lot of other things but getting pained on writing for so long ,so “So long!”

PS-funny sign at the airport -in addition to the usual list of things not to do,no spitting no chewing gum,no durian there was a no studying!

On the waterfront part II

2004-12-26T17:41:00.000+05:30

Feels funny to think that I went to the coastline just 12 hours before the tsunami inundated the beach.The sea then was moderately calm and to have predicted a catastrophe of this sort would have labelled one a definite crackpot and a certifiable lunatic.

In other matters,in theIMS simxat gk section, there was a question “According to the 2001 census,the percentage of 0-6 population to total population”.I thought it was time to put my ol’ quzzing guessing skills to test and eliminate the ridiculous choices and hopefully hit on the right choices.Then,I looked at the choices still hopeful and confident of arriving at a reasonable answer.The choices were a)16% b)15.36% c)15.47% d)15.42%

What the hell?

How in the whole wide world do they expect people to know all this?My confidence all but shattered I went to the next question which was

What was the literacy rate according to the Census 2001?

a)54.16% b)75.85% c)65.38% d)68.9%

Hope died eternal in my breast and I went to the other sections.No wonder its called a ‘mock’ xat.

Also saw sawdes.despite SRK crying (like any other SRK movie) every 15.3 minutes and Gayatri Joshi breaking out to talk about ‘sanskaar’/’parampara’/’hamara desh ki dharti’/’senti’ ,I wouldn’t say it was the ‘sawdest’ hindi movie I’ve ever seen.

Lets hope things return to normal in Chennai and the waters recede soon.

On the waterfront

2004-12-24T23:15:00.000+05:30

“The waves are alive with the sound of music”.I could hear the orchestra of the waves as they beat upon the beachshore ,a veritable jaltarang as waves of different strengths simulated different octaves and banged on the water, playing a kind of water music not unfamiliar to Handel,as I neared Elliots Beach coastline.Sitting on the waterfront,many thoughts flitted across my mind but mainly I mulled upon the recent CAT results where I came quite close to getting a IIM call.”I couldve been a contender “was what kept going inside my brain.Well, Call ho na ho,I decided,life must go on.

The scene was indescribably beautiful,akin to a picture painted by a can- never-win,there-is-no-hope- pessimist-whos-psychiatrist-does-however-cause-brief-moods-of-optimism-- –a blackish coloured sea,interspersed with small flecks of milky white foam dashing on the sand,a bluish ‘blackground’ and a bright moon often obscured by dark,gloomy clouds.Actually I should say describably beautiful since I’ve described it and perhaps,though my modesty says not to,beautifully described also?Actually,I could wax lyrical about the waning moon but don’t feel in the right mood for it.

So there I was alone near the waters,actually almost alone ,considering almost every other minute there was a bajji/sweet/keychain seller trying to hawk their wares or plagued by beggars who for some reason formed the notion that I was easy prey(though I did nothing to encourage this of course).It seems amazing just when I seemed to really feel the spray on my face,watch the waves beating down and picture myself on a caribbean cruise to the middle of nowhere,there was some irritating guy who brought me outta dreamland(I was asked by 3 different keychain sellers.I mean how come there is such a big demand for these lighted key chains anyway.In case somebody is interested the going rate is Rs.10 for 1).The breeze was very soporific and I nearly dozed off but I was woken up by a soan papdi guy whose radio was playing ‘suhani chandni raaten’.Very apt I thought and decided to make a move back home.

A rather stale CAT joke to end.

Why do I envy a scarab beetle?

Because it’s got 6 kaals.

waiting for visaot

2004-12-14T20:25:00.000+05:30

Today morning(how early?), well at the unearthly hour of 5,we(Nandan & I) went to get our visas from the Singapore Consulate early,very early,in my opinion envisaging a difficult time. When v saw the queue vis-à-vis the visa that had already built(about 10 people but one travel agent was claiming 25 visas) ,my visage said it all but after taking a visa census,I realised we would probably get it.The agents there imparted gyaan on the procedure and,in some cases, had sent people to wait for them.It was dark,there were mosquitoes and I had nothin to do.Then,when I realised that I had 5 hours to kill and it couldn’t get worse,well,what d’u know?It started raining.After the quick downpour,it grew brighter and I whipped out my Kipling(amazing author) and read on till breakfast time.

Deciding to go hotel hunting on GN road(didn’t know that was GNCRd),I saw a school friend who very kindly dropped me off at Murugan’s Idli Shop.Me cud eulogise abt that place all day, its soft meltinthemouth idlis ,its not so sombre sambar,and the ultimate ambrosia –the chutneys.After that,I hitchhiked back courtesy an old man on a chetak,who nosed out my life history(including when I cut my 3^rd molar from the right side of my mouth and my jathagam).However,he saved me a long walk and there I was back at the Consulate and found Nandan stoically braving the elements,staring resolutely ahead ,determined not to be Conned So late after waiting so long,giving no quarter to the vicious,queue jumping,murderous looking travel agents that enswarmed him.

We got in and gave the forms after a small delay(more Kipling time for me).Hotfooting it out of there,I realised getting the visa would open new vistas for me and visualising the agony on your faces,the blog stops here.

Trainin a Day

2004-12-11T22:56:00.000+05:30

I basically wrote this article for our college magazine ,the names and characters are fictional but all the thoughts are what I have really felt .Train journeys are simbly amazin

TRAIN TO NEW DELHI

“Chaiya ! Chaiya!” Like Shahrukh and Malaika on a train,a teaseller carrying a huge steel container and many mudpots, though much less alluring to look at, seemed to sway to these words as he went about his day’s work.The milky light brown liquid he gave me was served in a teacup that had caused so much storm in the political circles.The mutka added charm to my daily shot of liquid cocaine,and it was a nice experience sipping steaming tea which somehow seemed to blend with the khullar.

However,as Maria von Trapp sung ,”Lets begin at the very beginning “.I was on trip to New Delhi with my good friend Bingo(he was a short guy hence he was nicknamed after the Wodehousian character).The train had merrily chugged its way past Central Station and was furrowing a path through the lush green paddy fields of Tamil Nadu.After stowing my knap sack (actually it was a battered school bag but it sounds more hip to say knap sack) and VIP under the seats,I examined the fellow travellers.They seemed to be a grumpy old Telugu couple whose conversation seemed to rhyme with the trains”Chukkadu Chockadhu Chukkadu Chockadhu” .Then breakfast in aluminium foils arrived amd Bingo and I fell to noisily unwrapping the food.While Bingo got a decent looking meal,mine was a glutinous mass ,with a limp looking vada and idli floating in god knows what.Seeing this ,Bingo quipped”Kya hua tera vada, woh sambar,woh idly,da?”Hope he chokes on his vada,humph.

Breakfast past us ,both of us nodded off.On waking up,I noticed a change in our immediate surroundings,the couple being replaced by a snooty nosed kid and his mother.After an energetic tongue pulling and face making contest between me & SNK (hiding behind his mothers sari),(result-SNK being definitely worsted by me)I cast my view outward,with a hopefully naïve look on my face after having aroused stern looking mum’s suspicions.

Villages with not more than ten houses sped past us.The telegraph poles seemed to be engaged in a long distance relay race with our train and the native cattle that stared disconsolately at our train could have passed of as inmates of Auschwitz or Bergen.The entire landscape was akin to a huge dish of my mother’s red tomato thokku sprinkled with a dash of basil.I pictured myself as a farmer in one of these seemingly absolutely dead villages where the latest news would be the story of how a mongoose killed a cobra one moonless night near Farmer Ganpati’s well six years ago.

I started staring at the station names that stared at me, big and black on a bright yellow board.I find most village names immensely funny, and with names like Bad,Gudur,Warangal(sounds more like a Tolstoy novel than a major junction),they are an unending source of hilarity and provide fodder to the aspiring punster.Imagine being Narasimhavarma Venkatarajulu of Srikrishnachamarajavarupet.When your filling forms before joining school/college you won’t need a better excuse to commit suicide.The funnier the name the more the probability of there being a station alloted to it,distance be damned, seems to have been our British officials line of thinking.

<> Lunch woke me out of my reverie and with memories of the bad breakfast fast dispappearing,I fell to attacking my chappatis with gusto.The sidedish was paneer in all shapes and sizes ,light and soft,and virtually melting in the mouth.After my hunger was satiated,I washed the meal down with a tall glass of lassi.SNK had taken advantage of stern mum’s sleep by trying to perform the herculean feat of cleaning the Indian carriage windows,though without a river unlike Hercules, and testing to see if the dirt was edible.Tired of this process,it was the turn of the seat to face the human vacuum cleaner.Next scene:Stern mum wakes up,spanks SNK,I exit smirking from side to side.

I got down to stretch my legs at Jhansi,the queendom of the khoobladhi mardani jhansiwali rani.The junction could pass of as any other nondescript station in India,a few vagabonds loafing about,hardly any waiting passengers,a fresco of paan stains decorating the walls and a few mangy looking dogs to keep the loafers company.The train let out a loud belch and I got on immediately.Bingo was still sleeping –this time SNK had decided to give him company.The sunset was amazing,a vast canvas painted with broad brush strokes of many colours ,the dark red of the sun blending with the deccan soil,the clouds tinted with almost every shade of red and the overall effect producing a surreal atmosphere(punctuated by the sound of the train – quite pleasant actually and the periodic snores of Bingo-very very unpleasant ).Dinner arrived –nothing much to write about so I’m not going to write about it.We followed it up with a game of cards and then Kumbhakarna Bingo hit the sack again.I continued my gazing out of the window,now everything was jet black with sudden townships indicated by the glaring brightness of sodium lamps and then darkness again.What was going out there,I wondered ,could there be fiery denizens who’s very roar could curdle the blood in my veins,could big bad things boldly roam in this area where no man has trod before?I had sufficiently spooked myself when I was brought down to earth by SNK’s nose dripping onto my foot whiled the stupid kid continued dozing ,blissfully unaware of how much trouble he was causing.I decided that I might as well call it a day and went off to sleep.

The next day morning ,we reached Delhi,the trip being far too short in my opinion.After all,in my opinion,men may come and men may go but train journeys should go on forever.As somebody rephrased Marshall Mcluhan,”The journey is the goal”.Even a journey of thousand words spread across many kilometres has to come to an end so this is it-goodbye.

Ze trial

2004-12-09T19:03:00.001+05:30

Cogito ergo rum(With these not so famous first words,I begin my leap into cyberspace)
Not So Famous first words??Of whom??
For all those who don’t know,it means “I drink therefore I think”,the precursor to
‘cogito ergo sum’,also known as 'The Great Spoofable proof'.Descartes came up with this beautiful hypothesis but the Church(dangblarst ‘em!) carefully suppressed it not wanting to corrupt young minds and through my Dan Brown like prowling through the recesses of Latin literature(I would strongly recommend this if you have a couple of hours to spend wading aimlessly through latin literature) , I arrived at this startling fact.

Casual students of latin might well be inclined to think “what does my blog name mean”?”shouldn’t it be blogito ergo sum meaning I blog therefore I am” .?
I wouldn’t want to blame them,poor souls.With their schoolboy swotting of latin ,they wouldn’t be expected to know the present participle verb adjunct clause in latin where ‘ergoach’ forms a compound bridge thus resulting in a reversal of the original meaning

Incidentally,this probably ‘sums’ up my approach to blogging.I like thinking stuff to write but am detest putting finger to keyboard so here goes.Lets see how far I go……..