suited and booted!

put me in a plane with a bunch of indians coming back from any of the asian countries and chances are i can tell you which community each one is from. if not his community, then i can tell you about his profession. and if i laid a wager with the chinese sitting beside me in each of these trips i would be richer by quite a few yuan! (no matter which flight you are on and in which part of the planet you will always find a chinese and an indian on the flight! check it out yourself!)

1. the software sales executive is usually carrying a laptop and wearing worn jeans and a cool shirt.

2. the senior executive is always checking his blackberry and is usually wearing casual formals (or is it formal casuals?).

3. the punju trader from delhi is usually wearing a loud shirt, carrying on a louder conversation with his fellow-traveller and is guzzling whisky and water like its the last bottle on earth.

4. the gujju bhai is usually wearing a safari suit and is calling up his wife before they shut the door asking her to send the driver to pick him up and also asking her to cook some good dal khichdi and roti saag for dinner!

5. and if the flight is from some gulf nation and if there's a mallu lady on board, then she's usually wearing enough gold to cause some serious overloading on the flight. (they get away because the airlines haven't begun weighing the people yet!)

and the usual expats that you will find on the flights to india are :

1. the tourist on a budget trip and who looks and smells like he's just landed up on the flight straight from bed!

2. the ubiquitous old white man with a young oriental girl wearing a skimpy outfit. and no, thats definitely not his daughter! (i guess i'm just jealous.)


but the person who never fails to amuse me is the tam-brahm mama (an elderly tamil brahmin gentleman) who will board the flight wearing a full suit and tie and the works! but he's either going straight from the airport to his hotel or has just checked out of his hotel and is on his way back home! (i think they do this because most of the tam movies in the 60s always showed the hero travelling by air in this fashion! but i might be way off the mark here. maybe one of you could enlighten me.)

and each of the flights, i have taken, always has a professional rip-van-winkle who can sleep off the minute the wheels leave the tarmac and wake up just as the plane is touching down. and that is i :)

education redux!

this post was prompted by a comment from 'thinking aloud' and a post by amit varma in 'india uncut'.

the most common comment i hear when people (usually the ones without kids) are debating about our education system is that 'it sucks' and that it needs to be completely revamped! and that this system does not generate leaders and that it smothers the creativity of the children!

i beg to differ!

school days were the best days of my life! though i used to count down to my vacations when in school and then count down for the first day of school during my vacations.

and we learnt our lessons in life, both, inside and outside school. and the manner in which we learnt most of the basic concepts in math and science are being abhorred today. but i'll never ever forget my multiplication tables which we used to chant by rote between periods (i mean, between the class-room sessions. that's what we used to call them, so don't blame me!). and i'll also never forget the fact that if the blue litmus turns red then the liquid is acidic. (my friends taught me the mnemonic 'bra' - blue-red-acidic)!

and i remember having this major crush on this one teacher. this was then later redirected at her daughter. you think that was being fickle? well how about this girl who i sent a note to (i think it was poetic version of 'can we be friends'?) who wrote back saying that she found my friend cute! now that's what i call fickle! (just a case of sour grapes, i know. so don't rub it in.)

this was also around the time when i suddenly discovered my love for music and choral singing. i was not able to convince my friends that it had nothing to do with the fact that the practice sessions were held in the girls' convent across the street! philistines and uncouth they were, my friends.

i definitely got a well-rounded education through this education system (though my wife will say that i need to lose a few pounds around my waist and around my head!). and i'm none the worse for it!

p.s. and now the japanese also want to adopt our schooling methods!

the quirkier (not murkier) side of me!

prats from 'Retrospections! Emotional ecology...... ' tagged me and i am doing something which i had promised i'll never ever do! but since this gives me an opportunity to rave about myself officially i decided to break the rule :P

The Rules:

- Link to the person that tagged you.

- Post the rules on your blog.

- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.

- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

well, about the rules, i don't think i can stick to them since there's nothing about me that i don't consider important! so instead of playing by the rules, i'll just wax eloquent about my quirks.

and about tagging six random people, i mean why i would them to think that i consider them 'random'? :P

but what i'm going to do is this - i'm going to do a google search of bloggers and tag complete strangers! lets see what happens. and if anyone sues me, i don't exist ok? i'm just a robot blogger spewing out 'random' posts here!

1. i count the steps on any staircase and i try to land on the last step with my right foot!

2. i always lift the plate when i'm at a restaurant to identify the brand! (infuriates my wife, but i can't help it!)

3. i can't remember dates to save my life! read here.

4. i don't like to miss the ads or the traliers before the movies. even in the old days when they showed news reels, remember? its not only about 'paisa vasool', but i feel i missed out something really important. (i think my wife also shares this quirk... no wonder i think we are made for each other :P )

5. i want to try out all the modes of transport whenever i go to a new place. so i've travelled by bullock cart, horse cart, buses, trains, planes, gliders, bicycles, bikes (in some places you can pay people on bikes to take you from point A to B), auto-ricshaws, trams, jeepneys, tuk-tuks, hand-pulled rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, trucks, etc. (have i missed out anything?)

6. i button my short alternate buttons from the bottom-up and then do the rest top-down!

so there it is... take it or dump it, but thats how the chips fall with me!

ok, now for my tag list :

1. anita bora from bangalore

2. anantha from new jersey

3. jaina from uk, i think

4. Kanagasabapathy Surendran from india

5. twisted dna - an indian-american

6. the mad momma - from bangalore?

lets see what happens now ;-P

am i daddy blogger?

am i a 'daddy blogger'? or are they called 'papa bloggers'? (some, who are not very particular about being politically correct, might call them soppy, middle-aged men dealing with a combination problem of a mid-life crisis and premature balding!)

when i look around in the blogospehere i notice that there are quite a few 'mommy bloggers' out there. so now i know about kids taking their first step, the kiddies day out, the tantrums, and so many other life-enriching details of kids and their moms. some of these 'supermoms' also maintain multiple blogs with one focused only on their kid. and they are maintaining these blogs in the midst of juggling with career, home, kids, family, extended families, pets, hobbies and so much more. (i have this hypothesis that most blogs dedicated to specific kids are maintained by moms with single kids. is this true?)

but i don't see too many 'daddy bloggers'. i mean, there are many male bloggers out there. but then we men are all busy saving the world, analysing the stock markets, dishing out economic theories, discussing the relative merits of new phone/car/laptop models. you know, the usual stuff. our wives are worrying about small details like bringing up kids, schooling them, managing the household, balancing the domestic budget; while we are busy worrying about the fiscal budget, global oil prices, global warming, the US presidential elections and such-like weighty matters.

and have you noticed how most mommy bloggers have some kind of sisterhood of their own. i don't know of any such brotherhood of male bloggers (and i don't think tys' and my new cult initiative with our membership of one each counts)! but have you also noticed how mommy bloggers have a legion of fan followers (and not all the fans are mommys or women either!)? so its not only the single lady bloggers who have scores of lascivious male followers posting appreciative comments and trying to sound intellectual and humorous at the same time. (again, tys and i are excused because we are only trying to woo members into our cult. ladies, did i mention earlier, but membership is free for you for a limited period only? and the limited period expires as soon as i get 100 lady members! that would ensure i also have about 1000 faithful male members too! :P)

but i must confess here that i do tend to keep waxing eloquent about my kids on my blog at every opportunity. which is very often. does that make me a soppy, balding, middle-aged guy who's fast approaching mid-life crisis? maybe. (well actually, yes.)

but the learnings and experiences that i have gained from my kids is something that i would never have had otherwise. and i am leading a happier, fuller life. thanks to them. and if i am called a 'daddy blogger' because of my irrational need to share this with the world at large and get my dose of daily attention and adulation, i think its a small price to pay :)

p.s. let me clarify, at the grave risk of losing many potential lady members, that the pic i have inserted in this post is not mine :(

the chief guest

i recently attended the annual sports day function at our kids' school twice! because the sports day for the pre-primary section was on a different day from the primary section. (click here to see the pics. and don't believe the slander you will hear that i was trying to get the pretty teachers on film instead of my kids!!!)

every year i worry about reaching office late because of having to attend the darned event! and how the financial markets will crash and the country's economy will slip a few notches if i reach office a couple of hours late! (somehow this sense of panic doesn't creep in when wake up late and crawl into office at an unearthly hour, late hour, i mean!)

but every year i only feel glad that i still managed to make it. (actually i should thank the 'big boss' at home for goading me into action with some well-aimed below-the-belt remarks about the afore-mentioned effects on the stock markets, et al!)

this year's events was no different. no actually, there was a big difference. and therefore this post.

there were the usual march-pasts, the drills, the yoga/karate/gymnastics displays, the races for the kids (which actually look like some cultural show more than races) and all that.

but what made it different this year was the choice of the chief guest by the school. normally they call some local dignitary or a school official or even a teacher from one of their group schools. but this year they actually had a student from one of their group of schools as the chief student! and not an ex-student who had made it big in the big, bad world, but a student from the current 9th standard (or 9th grade as my develop-world compatriots would call it) batch!

her name was neha bole and she was a state level swimming champion who had also won at many national level events. this was the first time i saw a school honoring one of their students in such a novel way. by inviting an athlete to be the chief guest at the annual sports day!

i think this sent a very apt message to all the students as well as the parents. about how we need to give due attention to sports. about how sports is important to make our children well-rounded individuals. about how sports can help in developing skills which can actually help even in academics. about how sport can also bring glory to the individual and to our nation!

please appreciate him!

(i couldn't resist doing this post in response to "Please Appreciate Her". those of you who do not like politically incorrect writing, and using humor to deal with serious stuff, please do not read any further. and if you do then it is with the express understanding that you absolve me of any liability whatsoever and that you promise not to sue me ever, on any issue! (just in case you thought you could trip me up there! hah!))

tomorrow you may propose to a man who doesn't work,

but you should marry with these facts firmly grounded in your mind...

here is a guy who is as educated as you are,

but who is hoping that you will earn enough for both.

one who dreams, because he is sleeping most of the time.

because he is less of a human than you are!

one who has never entered the kitchen just like you (and any other member of your family)

as he was busy goofing off and was never around to get into the kitchen,

and was busy trying to beat the system while he would have actually liked to lie down on the sofa in front of the tv!

one who lived and constantly fought with

his parents and brothers and sisters for the past 30 years of his life

but still wouldn't leave and live separately

because everywhere else he would have had to pay for boarding and lodging.

one, who has bravely agreed to leave behind all that,

his home, people who are glad to see him go,

to adopt to your home, your tyrannical ways, your constant badgering

your discipline and regimen.

one, who is expected to be man-of-the house from day 1,

while you cook and manage all the household chores,

oblivious to his predicament

as he come to terms with his new-found marital status!

one who is expected to wake up early, smile

share the bathroom, and say the right things every time

even if he is tired and partially drunk.

and yet never expected to shirk from his responsibilities

to be a supporting, caring, loving husband, father and hunter

all rolled into one,

even if he doesn't want to !

(he would rather watch the indians thulp the australians

at the waca)

and is learning the ropes, just like you,

to stop being clumsy and sloppy at all times

and knows that you won't like it

if he is not always appreciative

(but not of the good-looking neighbour)!

one who has his own set of friends, men and women,

but with whom he can't go out with for a late-night movie and drinking session anymore

because the lady of the house doesn't approve and won't appreciate it.

and would welcome you with a cold shoulder and

you would have to sleep in the living room couch for a few days

without the tv!!!

one who doesn't mind you smoking or drinking

but can't say so because you think/know

he is saying it just so that it gives him the excuse

to have that extra drink!

one who is doing his best to make this most important relationship work

cos else he will have to actually do some real work!

one who wants only one thing from you, as you are the only one

he knows in the entire house (or so he naively thinks)

your love and understanding (no regular headaches!)

your unstinted support (no haranguing him to get to work

while he is trying to work things out in his head)

your sensitivity (his male ego needs that regular boost)

but not a single woman understands this....

please appreciate him!

its all been arranged!

most marriages in india are still 'arranged'. as opposed to 'love marriages'. (also click here to read more)

for those of you who are not familiar with these terms, an arranged marriage is a typical indian phenomenon where the marriage is completely arranged by the parents of the bride and the groom (and usually paid for by the parents of the bride). and this also includes finding a bride for your son (who would otherwise not stand a chance of finding a bride on his own) or a groom for your daughter (who has, on last count, driven at least 6 boyfriends up the wall and around the bend!)

and no, i have never come across a same-sex, arranged marriage till date. i mean, there's only so much any parent would do for the apple of their eye!

the entire arranged marriage rigmarole is quite an involved exercise and the rituals and associated customs across different states, communities and sects are far too many, even for wikipedia to capture.

but most arranged marriages begin with the ubiquitous horoscope. if you venture out into 'arranged marriage land' without this piece of indecipherable gibberish, you have as much chance of landing yourself a spouse as a sea-lion has of marrying you because you remind him of his voluptuous neighbour! (no, maybe i wouldn't bet my money on that!)

this is usually followed by a terse, crisply worded matrimonial ad in some leading national daily. each letter costs money. and people in the know are able to decipher the meaning of the ads which usually read like this - "SM for 27/5'9" Handsome Goel boy MBA Rich/ Affluent B'ness F'ly seeks for V'B'ful Edu. Homely N.Manglik Girl BHP Em: axaxax@gmail.com, Mo:98200 xxxxx".

can't make head or tail of this ad? well, it only goes to show that you have a long way to go before you venture into the business of 'arranged marriages' :-)

most of the 'subjects' in these ads are usually blissfully unaware (thankfully for them!) that their carefree days are dangerously outnumbered and that most of the 'arranged marriage' seekers are perusing their cryptic descriptions, while they are innocently out on a steamy date with their boy/girl friend!

the responses to the ads are carefully and expertly filtered out by the wise ones (usually parents, uncles, aunts, or any remotely connected branch of the family tree). you can't have some cranky pervert trying to slip through this cordon to steal a peek at the 'apple/peach/pumpkin of your eye', can you?

the long-listed candidates are contacted and then the BHPs (bio-data, horoscope, photograph) are exchanged. this is followed by another more careful round of scrutiny and short-listing.

and then follow the 'meetings'. (some of the non-believers rudely term them the 'meetings' before the 'matings'!) this is when the 'boy' and the 'girl' accompanied by at least 3-4 members of the family from either side meet at some coffee-shop/ restaurant/ meeting-place to 'see' each other. this usually means that the family members politely introduce each other and then after some small talk, the 'boy' and the 'girl' move to another table out of ear-shot but still under the watchful eye of the elders. here they try to get to know each other as best as possible over tea/coffee/lime juice. both parties usually have a prepared set of queries which they believe will help them instantly evaluate the opposite party and thereby grant them a blissful marital life.

but its not always as easy as i make it sound here. one of my friends told me about how he 'saw' about a dozen prospective women before he made up his mind on the first lady he had seen. but by then she was already hitched! (my wife usually does the same thing when she is out shopping for clothes! its always the first dress that she goes back to, after she has gone through a few dozen options. and unfortunately for me, unlike the disappearing 'lady in question' in the case of my friend, the dress is usually still waiting for my wife! i am so glad she, my wife and not the afore-mentioned 'lady in question', did not select me through this arranged marriage routine! i wouldn't have stood a chance in hell!)

and finally if you have managed to make it through all these rounds and are still standing, and if the opposite party has also chosen to throw in his/her/its lot with you, the topic of marriage is broached. not by the 'boy' or the 'girl', but by the 'elders'.

the run-up to the actual wedding would be the subject of another post.

but as i mentioned earlier, majority of the weddings in india, even to this day, are arranged marriages. and they seem to work, not just for the earlier generations, but even for our own generation. and i am sure they would work for some time to come.

just when i thought it couldn't get worse!

just when i was smug with the belief that i have had the worst flight experience in my life, the universe conspires to show me that i still have a long way to go!

i am trying very hard here in this post to see the humor in the entire episode, so help me along by laughing with me :-D

in my attempt to surprise myself, i reach the airport about 4 hours before my scheduled flight (jet lite S2109 from delhi, etd 2020). (my wife will shake her head in exasperation and say something like, 'why does it always have be either extreme'?) the lady at the check-in counter serves me with a smile and refuses to accommodate me in the earlier flight. i smile back at her, but i think the sub-text is lost on her. she instead chooses to smile at the next passenger in the queue.

over the next few hours i have managed to look at all the shops in the concourse, eat and drink as much as i could, finish reading the book i am carrying (the calcutta chromosome by amitav ghosh), read all the possible complimentary newspapers including the delhi times (and if you thought the mumbai times is pathetic, think again!).

and then i notice that all the flights are running about an hour late. only one of the airlines believes it necessary to make regular announcements that the flights are delayed because of congestion at the airport. (no prizes for guessing which airline it is). after some time i think the announcer was too exhausted to make any more announcements. and the person operating the controls for the display board also has lost interest in updating the revised times.

i sat and watched life pass me by. no actually, i watched passengers of all other flights stream by and depart for their respective destinations. and then finally i board my flight about 2.5 hours after the scheduled time.

and if you thought with that my travails ended, keep thinking again. it took another 15 minutes before we got clearance from the atc (air traffic control). that was after the initial 10 minutes lost in trying to trace one passenger who seemed to have disappeared. (my bet was that he was blissfully sleeping in some corner of the airport.)

and then finally we got airborne with the shrill engines reminding us of how well they have served humanity for a very long time! and then well into the flight the captain suddenly remembered that he had to apologise to us for 'all events beyond the airline's control'. and he ended his monologue by saying that he hoped to reach us to mumbai as planned unless 'the atc and events beyond his control' had other plans in mind for us!

after munching through some insipid fare being passed off as veg burgers and a cup-cake which had been pulled out of the oven before it was fully baked, we all decided to lean back and await our collective destiny which awaited us in mumbai.

and wonder of wonders! we landed in mumbai without any 'traffic congestion' or 'atc clearance' holding us up. but before we could start feeling amiable towards the airline, disaster struck. the plane taxied into its holding bay and then we had to wait for almost 15 minutes in the aircraft waiting for the ground staff to find the ladder for the aircraft! one of the passengers could be heard explaining very patiently to his wife that the ground staff seem to have lost their ladder and they are asking the passengers to either jump off the aircraft or sleep in in the aircraft until they found a ladder!

i finally reach home, at 2 am, three hours later than my scheduled time, tired and battle-worn, but glad to be back in one piece!

who's the villain here?

another new year and another shameful story besmirching mumbai's tag as a 'safe' city for women! two women, who were accompanied by their male partners, are molested by a group of over 70 men for about 15 minutes before a few journalists get help from a police inspector who chases away the mob. the two couples are taken to a police station nearby, but they choose to leave without registering a complaint.

now while the incident is a heinous act and the perpetrators of this should not be spared and all that... i wonder who is the actual villain here?

1. the people in the mob who commit this crime with the secure feeling that they are safe since they are part of a mob. and as recent incidents point out, people really believe that mobs are the best way to party! mobs allow the tiger to be unleashed from the whimpering kitty!

2. or the police, for the amazing faith they manage to inspire in the law-abiding citizens of the country! why do you think the victims of this incident did not want to press charges? and it was the same with the molestation case at the gateway of india last year! in fact the newspapers even claimed that the two couples were asked to go to another police station since the area where the incident took place did not fall under their jurisdiction! i guess registering such cases would not look good as far as the statistics go!

(all the 5 suspects arrested in last year's molestation case were finally let off because of lack of evidence!)

3. or the media! i'm sure the molested couples, already traumatised by their experience, would have been horrified to see their images being splashed across all the newspapers and television channels. and this would have only intensified their suffering and destroyed whatever little hope they had of trying to bury the entire incident as a bad dream!

now some people may defend the media action by saying that the media's job is to report facts and be honest about it and all that. but did anyone even bother to ask the permission of the victims before using their images to publish a sensational story? did any of the journalists pause to think of the mental trauma they would heap upon the unsuspecting victims?

so who is the true villain here? you decide!

pani puris and women

have you noticed how there are always more women around a pani puri stall than men? ever wondered why?

now a pani puri might be called a 'gol gappa' in the north or a 'puchka' in the east (i don't think its exists in the south!) but the phenomenon is the same.

and as kids i remember how the girls in the convent across the street from our 'all boys' school would crowd around the street vendor who sold tamarind and wood apple and amla (gooseberry) and such like. i don't remember us guys having any such favorites when it came to food. i think the only thing that we guys showed a clear inclination towards in school was the 'much thumbed salacious' books we read surreptitiously. (this reads much better than saying 'we loved reading porn')

now most of us believe that this is because of our social upbringing which makes boys act differently from girls. but i tend to disagree. i think it has more to do with the way men are 'wired' differently from women. (most women will read that as 'men being weird as compared to women' and i wouldn't blame them :-) )

i notice this so clearly in our kids. our son is currently going through his cricket phase where he literally eats, breathes and lives cricket. i mean, he can't hold a bat to save his life, but when did that ever stop him? why, he even sleeps cricket. just the other day when i was trying to wake him up he mumbled 'its a four!'. he will catch any unsuspecting adult and start off with his own analysis of various teams and players and styles and matches and strategies and scores and what have you. we pity the poor person who's trapped and gasping like some fish stranded out of water!

but his sister cares two hoots about cricket. she loves music and dancing and dressing up and wants to try on different hair-styles. she loves coloring. she is not as keen on using the computer unlike her brother, unless its for watching her favorite dvds. (during our recent weekend trip, while all the young girls were dressed up and learning to groove to the latest filmi numbers , my son made his irritation clearly felt and went off to practice shying at the stumps by himself!)

and i don't think either my wife or i have put any of these ideas into their heads. we usually just go along with whatever they enjoy or would like to try their hands at.

i am convinced boys are just 'wired' differently from girls. don't you agree?

saved the best for last?

just saw taare zameen par this afternoon. had read enough reviews and got feedback from friends who had already seen it and couldn't miss it.

it was exactly what i had expected from the film, an aamir khan film. (i think even if he hadn't directed it himself, he would have ensured it was treated the same way!)

its definitely worth a watch. so don't miss it. given the timing of its release, i think it will be rated as the best film of the year 2007 and also be a hit in 2008!

darsheel safary as ishaan awasthi, the dyslexic kid, and tisca chopra as his mother get my votes for the best actors in the film. and i think the film would have been as wonderful even if aamir khan had got anyone else to play his role in the film. the subject matter and the way it was dealth with would have ensured that. don't you agree?

the movie, like most of our films, ends on a happy note. that's part of aamir's formula for commercial success and you can't hold that against him.

but life doesn't always have happy endings in store for such dyslexic people. but the film at least increases awareness and attempts to sensitise people to this phenomenon.

like i said earlier, its a film you must watch. if you haven't already!

p.s. i would be lying if i said that i did not have moist eyes during some of the poignants portions of the film. (so be ready for some 'moist eyes' yourself!)

an adventurous weekend

the golden square gang made good use of the long holiday weekend, took the day off on the24th (monday) and had an adventurous weekend from 22nd till the 25th. pawan and his family were also here this time on vacation from singapore. (read about our earlier trip to kashid here.)

we drove down to palas resort which is on the mumbai-goa highway (just a little before nagothane - check the map here) on saturday morning. (we were planning to start by 7.30 am but ended up leaving only by 9.30! tanu will never let me forget about this for life!)

we had a good time at the resort. the pics say it all. spent time in the pool, playing cricket, badminton, football, cards, dancing, watching 'the incredibles', lazing around.... and most importantly stuffing ourselves at every possible opportunity.

on monday (24th dec) we drove to kolad which is about 45 minutes away from the resort and spent a day at the z-bac adventure facility. everyone, including the kids, rappelled, rafted, climbed rocks, made pots and had a whale of a time!

the punch-line for this trip was 'jaana padta hai!' (one has to go!) people had to use this line whenever they had to excuse themselves from the group (for reasons i can't state here, since this is a family blog) or when they had to try out the adventure activities after the kids took the lead!

palas resort is named after the nearby village called palas, which in turn is named after the 'palas' tree. this tree has leaves with 3 large segments and these dried leaves are used to make 'patravalis' or plates.

this trip also showed us that -

1. food tastes much better when we are really really hungry!
2. kids are much tougher than we make them out to be.... they need more exposure to nature.
3. roughing it out occasionally is good for all of us... it helps put things in perspective.
4. fear is in our minds... and we normally transmit these fears to our children.
5. children overcome their fears quite well if they are left on their own. they get inspired by the other kids.

there's no such thing as 'free'!

i recently got an sms from a lady who said that she will not be using her cell phone any longer and that she can be contacted only by email.

when i checked with her later (not through her phone) then she explained that she felt the phone was a nuisance (an obstacle in her path) and that she wanted to try this out as an experiment!

how many of us can think of doing anything like this? and survive? the only time i manage without a cell-phone is when i am on vacation. else i usually get a panic attack or a great sense of incompleteness when i leave home without my phone. and its not a one-sided thing. most of my friends, family, business colleagues, clients, etc also would feel annoyed/upset if they are not able to contact me on my phone.

now if we think about this carefully we notice that the cell phone, like many other things in life today, is a tool which binds us even while it frees us in some other way. this reminds me of what a great master said recently - 'remember, the law is, you have to pay the price for anything in life'.

the blackberry allows me to access my mail anywhere, so it frees me from my desk. but then ask any harried executive's spouse and you will hear a long discourse on how it has become the bane of their existence!

travelling by car frees up so much of my commute time (not to mention the convenience) but then i have to walk on the tread-mill to overcome the problems associated with my sedentary lifestyle!

i could go on and on.... but i guess the message is very loud and clear - there's no such thing as a free lunch!

flight to nowhere!

a mumbai-ahmedabad Go Air flight took off on 13th december without 24 passengers. (read all about it here).

no i am not going to shout myself hoarse that this is grave injustice and that the airline should refund the money. nor would i say that the passengers deserved such treatment for reportedly being abusive and violent with the airlines staff.

i think the truth, like it mostly does, lies uncomfortably somewhere in between.

(i recently had a similar experience on my way back from delhi. waiting for your flight in delhi airport after your security check is a very depressing experience as compared to any other airport in the country.)

- the airline for some inexplicable reason chooses not to keep the passengers updated on the status of the flight. why don't they realise that passengers would be less upset if they were told about the problem upfront?

- i don't like to crib, but the state of the delhi airport brings out the worst in me (maybe bangalore is a close second) - its usually dirty, there are not enough chairs, the air-conditioning is either too hot or too cold, the snack counters sell food at a premium, the indicators are usually not working, ... i could go on and on... but like i said, i don't like cribbing :-)

- and passengers don't help the situation any. they normally tend to do one of the following

• start pouncing on the poor ground staff as if they have purposely delayed the flight and are taking perverse pleasure in agonising the passengers!


• start crowding around the gates demanding to know what is happening, when they will be asked to board, will they get some refreshments, will they get a refund, will they be accommodated on another flight, etc?


• demand that the airline charter another aircraft because the aggrieved person who is making this brilliant suggestion has to reach his destination to meet some other equally important person at any cost (as long as he is not bearing the cost!)


• threaten the afore-mentioned ground staff with dire consequences and demand that the top honcho of the company appear in front of them right now and give them an explanation for this mess.


• or threaten to drag the airline to court for the mental torture and trauma caused and the irreversible damage caused to their delicate psyche! (how about the poor staffer who's wondering what sins he had committed in his past lives to land this job!)


• and the smarter ones are trying to negotiate free life-time flights, upgrades to business class, use of the vip lounge, etc. to compensate for the inconvenience.

sometimes i miss the good old journeys by train!

vodafone blues!

i don't know if its only i who's going through this experience. but i've been on the receiving end of the drastic and perceptible deterioration of quality of service in my mobile phone service. and this has been noticed ever since vodafone took over hutch in india.

the problems range from :
1. sudden absence of signal.
2. regular dropping of calls (at least 8-10 times a day).
3. poor voice quality (and no, i have not changed my handset recently).
4. and all this obviously resulting in higher billing amounts every month.

but i must mention here that this has been my experience in mumbai (and also when i travelled out of mumbai to delhi). i am not sure if others have had similar experiences.

if there are more of you out there who are facing a similar problem, here's a simple plan that i am putting into action.

1. i am writing a complaint mail to the following address - assist@vodafone.com with a copy to the nodal officer whose email id is provided on their website. the url is - www.vodafone.in. (i tried submitting the same complaint through their online feedback form but with no luck.)

2. the text of the mail is -
Hi :

I've been a Voadfone client since many years now (right from when it used to be Maxtouch, to Orange, to Hutch to Vodafone now).

My number is 9820190487.

Ever since Vodafone has taken over Hutch I have noticed a perceptible deterioration in quality of service. This includes -

1. Sudden absence of signal.
2. Regular dropping of calls (at least 8-10 times a day).
3. Poor voice quality (and no, I have not changed my handset recently).
4. And all this obviously resulting in higher billing amounts every month.

With this mail I am writing to communicate to Vodafone that I AM EXTREMELY UNHAPPY WITH THE DETERIORATING QUALITY OF SERVICE!

I hope that :
1. You will acknowledge my mail.
2. You will let me know how you propose to improve the quality of service.
3. There will be a significant improvement in service standards.

Best regards,

Guruprasad

3. you can replace the number and name with your number and name.

4. mark a copy of your mail to me at ckguruprasad@gmail.com.

5. i then propose to collect all your mails and send a consolidated mail to the vodafone india ceo. (if anyone has his email address please send it to me.)

i am sure such collective action will get their attention, and hopefully get them to act promptly and fix this problem.

please send out your mail by the 20th. i will keep you all posted about further developments.

when tv was a celebration

(this post was suggested by my brother.)

i don't know about you, but i remember the days when a television set used to be a big luxury. where i grew up, it used to be as rare as a 'vertu' phone is today, maybe more so :-)

and tv watching used to be a social event. those were the days of black & white tv and a solitary 'doordarshan' channel. and the programs were beamed only for a limited number of hours each day. and weekends were the high points when we all trooped to the houses of one of the more 'fortunate' ones to take in the weekly dose of a regional language film on saturdays, a children's english film on sunday mornings and a hindi film on sunday evenings.

it was not a rare sight to see an entire family visit another family so that they could watch tv together. and the news break was an occasion to have some tea and snacks too :-)

and there was no mtv, can you imagine??? only some rare telecasts of the grammy nominees or an occasional collection of the european 'top of the pops'! with artists in sequined dresses performing in clubs with disco lights!

those were the days of star trek, and fireball xl5, and 'go kart go' and lucy ball. and buniyaad, of course :-)

and we used to lap all this up so eagerly. each film or episode would be discussed at length in schools and playgrounds.

but today we have a surfeit of channels offering you everything you could ever possibly want. but we don't find anything worthwhile to watch. and we don't even have any excuses to visit neighbours for a movie and some tea and snacks. we prefer doing this in secondlife! :-)

did i miss something?

it sounds like the economic times is venturing into the business of foretelling the future. this article looks like a peep into the future. but the reader is clueless about who or what is launching the service that this article is talking about!

i am reproducing the entire article verbatim here. i would like you to read it and tell me if you got it? i didn't.


Browse, chat, confer — all on the same Web page!

AHMEDABAD: All your favourite Web sites will soon be available on a single platter. Personalised, only for you. So, whether it’s checking latest stock market tips online, discussing it with your analyst friend through a chat tool or taking global cues and holding live video conferences, everything will be available on a single Web page. And that too without any downloads but by simply registering on a Web site. What’s more, the new tool will also enable phone, mobile and web users collaborate on a single platform.

('quick bytes' section on page 5 of the economic times of 3rd decemeber 2007.)

good cop, bad cop!

(came across this post on india uncut which prompted me to write this post.)

i recently came across a news article about someone we know being stopped by cops when he was driving to lonavala. though the papers were in order and he had a valid license, the cops accused him of being a private taxi operator without a permit and wanted him to pay up. when he refused they then found that he hadn't renewed his puc license. when they realised that he was a tough customer and one his co-travellers was calling up various people they drove off with his license.

and then there was this time when i spent a few hours in a police station when a friend and i were rounded up by the cops. our crime was walking in a group on the road during holi. we had to pay a fine to be let off. later i heard that the cops have a target of people they have to round up on days like holi.

but i've also had my share of 'good cop' experiences. the most memorable one being an incident at the delhi airport.

i was carrying my hp laptop in a bag which looked like exactly like what at least a dozen other people were carrying. after the x-ray scan in security i noticed my bag was missing from the x-ray machine belt. and there was another unclaimed laptop bag of a different brand. i reported this to the cops on duty.

one of the cops then mentioned that he recollected a man in a light pink checked shirt picking up a laptop bag which he felt was not his. he then came along with me to help identify the person in the large busy concourse. and he managed to identify the passenger too, who happened to have picked up my laptop bag my mistake.

i was completely dumbfounded and thoroughly impressed.

bob's my uncle!

a friend recently shared this very interesting observation. and it hit me when i thought about it. and i'm sure it will hit you as well :-)

we were talking about the recent trend of many recently married couples who willingly choose not to have children or to have only a single child. earlier i had written a post about the benefits of having at least two kids - the second solution!

my friend then said that we will soon have a significant number of kids who will not have brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, no brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law, no co-brothers or co-sisters, and so on and so forth! and as this trend continues it will be even more stark.

most kids will only have theoretical knowledge about such relationships and will not be able to understand what these actually mean in real life. in fact, over time, they would start wondering whether such people and such relationships actually existed!

i guess it would be similar to our understanding of kings and queens and dinosaurs too!?

such kids would lose out on the joys of visiting relatives, vacationing with cousins, the scores of marriages in the family which are usually an excuse to fix some more marriages and also have a feast with good food and the company of near and distant family for a comfortably short period of time!

i wonder what fond memories the children in the future would have

mosquito magnet!

my wife and i never let go of an opportunity to pat ourselves on our back when we see one of our kids do something which we believe is a trait they have inherited from the 'self-back-patter'! nor do we miss an opportunity to rib the other party whenever there is some embarrassing or awkward trait noticed in our kids and are convinced that we ourselves had nothing to do with that particular trait. and we all know where that came from and all that!

well here's a bizarre one where both my wife and i have the same view, one of those extremely rare moments :-)

my daughter is a 'mosquito magnet', just like i am!

before she was born, if there was one solitary mosquito which was in the mood for some human blood sampling it would unfailingly find its way to some exposed part of my anatomy and proceed to go on a binge on my vital body fluid! the said mosquito would choose to ignore the presence of an entire brood of family members present in the vicinity at the same instant. i used to console myself by claiming that i was a 'pure blood' which even the discerning mosquitoes vetted! ('pure blood' of what species, don't ask me!)

and now i've noticed that our daughter is a better mosquito magnet than i can ever aspire to be. the solitary mosquito now makes a bee-line (shouldn't that be 'mosquito-line'?) for her. that explains the ever-present tube of mosquito repellent in our household.

till recently i thought there must have been something unique about me which makes us more attractive to the animal kingdom. (nonetheless, i would have preferred doves and cats and other representatives of the animal kingdom expressing their allegiance to a royal personage than just some measly mosquitoes!)

now medical science throws some light on this mystery. scientists believe that genetics account for about 85% of our susceptibility to mosquito bites. people with concentration of steroids or cholesterol on their skin surface; people who produce excess of certain acids like uric acid; these are the people mosquitoes like best :-)

researchers are still trying to pinpoint what compounds and odours people exude that might be attractive to mosquitoes.

so next time the mosquitoes prefer you over the others in your company - blame your genes!

p.s. here's an interesting fact - mosquitoes have been around for more than 170 million years. basically tells us that they are not going to disappear in a hurry :-)

frozen food!

i stumbled upon this news item on the bbc news site - Doomsday vault begins deep freeze.

engineers are building the svalbard international seed vault in a mountain on one of the islands of svalbard, norway, where they will store seeds from all known varieties of key food crops by freezing them at -18C. built to hold about 4.5 million seed samples the vault aims to safeguard the world's crops from future disasters such as nuclear wars, asteroids or dangerous climate change.

the concept is amazing and i could think of somre more such vaults for :
- books
- art
- films
- recipes
- animals/ birds/ insects

... a post-modern noah's ark of sorts!

but a few questions come to mind -
1. what if nobody survives doomsday to pull out the seeds from the vault?
2. will there be any arable land left for use?

drink & drive!

after a series of high-profile drunk driving cases, some of which resulted in deaths of pedestrians, the mumbai police had launched a campaign and passed an act to address this problem.

according to the official website of the mumbai traffic police more than 9000 cases of drunken driving have been registered since jan '07 and fines amounting to more than Rs.1.5 crore (15 million) have been collected.

and this had a huge impact on the sale of alcohol in mumbai. there were reports in the media about beer sales dropping by more than 3 lakh litres and imfl (indian made foreign liquor) dropping by one lakh litres in september '07 itself.

why am i talking about all this here?

last night on my way back home after a late dinner i noticed a man, who was obviously drunk, on a motorcycle with his wife and son weaving dangerously on the road. he stopped at a traffic signal and after a few lurches collapsed on the road. his wife and young son were also thrown off the bike. fortunately this happened when the bike was stationery and all three escaped unharmed. but i shudder to think what would have happened if he had fallen while they were speeding on the highway with vehicles zipping by at break-neck speeds.

what is tragic in most cases of drunken driving is that most of the victims are innocent pedestrians or co-passengers.

the dna campaign for responsible driving is very apt - 'die for your country, not by drinking & driving'.

and the manickchand ad campaign capitalised on this high awareness by launching their bottled water with their brilliant tag-line - 'drink and drive!'

oso vs. saawariya

this was surely one of the biggest wars in india in recent history! both oso (om shanti om) and saawariya released on the same day).

and the battle lines were clearly drawn weeks ago. and both camps pulled all stops. no trick in the book were spared. for the first time blogs were used to build up the tempo. and all radio and tv channels have been airing viewers' initial reactions for the last two days. (i heard that there was a special 7.30 am screening of saawariya at one of the multiplexes... another first!)

i happened to watch oso on friday itself, thanks to a treat from bil (bro-in-law). here are a few thoughts ...

- quite disappointing.. considering the hype. (if you look at it shorn of all the hype n hoopla, then its quite a fun, mindless kind of film).
- deepika adds a freshness to the film but has some way to go before she makes her mark.
- i think it will do better than saawariya (srk power and the 'timepass' quality will prevail!).


but for me the winner, without any doubt, was 'jab we met'! we happened to watch it earlier today. and it was miles ahead of oso in terms of screenplay, direction and production values. kareena literally carried the film on her shoulders. and even though both the story-lines were hardly original, 'jab we met' managed a much better job at the retelling.

(and the kids thought that 'tara rum pum' was much better than oso! well, there you have it!)

my hoarding is bigger than yours!

one of the most conspicious things that hits you in your face in most cities in india is the number of hoardings all around. you see hoarding of all shapes and sizes. (no, most of them are rectangular actually.) on bus-stop shelters, road-sides, across the roads, on buildings, on boats, on airplanes, on train coaches, on vehicles, on helium-filled balloons, and even mobile ones!

the number of hoardings have been reduced to a large extent in places like delhi, thanks to the state government strictures. but i guess in cities like mumbai, the income generated from these hoardings is too lucrative for the municipal corporation to ignore.

have you noticed how the hoardings change over a period of time depending on various factors like :


- the economy - remember when most of the hoardings in cities used to talk about equity ipos? and then there was a phase when many insurance companies and mutual funds shouted at the top of their voices from the hoardings. and now as the real estate boom simmers we see many hoardings for residential and commercial projects all across the country.

- trends - there was a time when all we saw around us were hoardings of mobile phones and mobile operators vending their fare. and now all we see are hoardings announcing various tv soaps, tv contests, sporting events (only cricket actually), and reality shows. and i can't for the life of me remember any of them except for the 'biggest loser wins' hoardings.


- hoarding war - when dna was launched in mumbai almost all hoardings were taken over by them. this was then soon followed by a series of campaigns through hoardings by the times group. it was war out there!

- launches - this could be anything ranging from films (its oso vs saawariya now), to shampoos, to tv channels, to music albums, to malls, to foods and more.

- regional bias - have you noticed the hoardings for dhotis (mundus) & set sarees in kerala? and the numerous gold shops/ souks. or the gigantic hoardings in chennai of actors which overshadow the film they are acting in?


you can feel the pulse of india through its hoardings! (personally i find them an eyesore... especially the temporary ones put up by political parties during festivals, anniversaries, birthdays.... any occassion is an excuse enough!)

we are smart and dumb

i came across this article (actually an interview) of 'why indians are privately smart and publicly dumb' based on a book by the same title authored by v. raghunathan. (thanks for the link leya.)

in this interview the author talks about why indians are reasonably smart in private but publicly are dumb. one of the traits he describes is our 'low trustworthiness'. according to him we indians tend to believe that if we do not co-operate then we benefit more.

our normal mode of thinking goes something like this -
'what if i co-operate and the other person doesn't? then i end up a loser.
but if the other person co-operates and i don't, then i win.
similarly if the other person doesn't co-operate and i too don't co-operate, then i am not worse off.'

and then based on this infallible logic, we choose not to co-operate.

this is reflected everywhere around us in all our actions - in the queues we disregard, the traffic signals we jump, the litter we throw on the streets (while our homes are spic and span).... i could go on and on :-)

according to the author, the line of thinking we should ideally be adopting should be something like this -
'what if i co-operate and the other person doesn't? then i end up a loser.
but if the other person co-operates and i don't, then i win.
similarly if the other person doesn't co-operate and i too don't co-operate, then i am not worse off.
but if the other person also is thinking like me then he too will choose not to co-operate (and given that the other person is also an indian you can be sure he will think along these lines!)
this means that both of us would be losers.
but if i co-operate and the other person also decides to co-operate then both of us win. and this is the best option for both of us.'

now this might sound like an idealistic situation. but if you think about it, this is the most practical option. but how do we get to this state of existence? how do we get people to understand that cooperation and not defection is the best option available to us at any point of time? this actually means taking a big leap of faith and drastically changing our outlook about people.

is that about to happen? not in a hurry, i think. but i agree with the author, v raghunathan, when he says that possibly with the improvement of the economy and increase in education people will replace defection with cooperation.

the language of thought

this post is about dreams & thoughts.

but don't worry, its not about your 'aspirations'. nor is it about the contents of your dreams which i propose to analyse. and i am definitely not going to share the details of my dreams and scandalise you in the bargain! :-)



have you noticed that, irrespective of what we dream about, we dream in a particular language? and we normally dream in the language we think in.

now you might say that dreams don't have any language. its only a series of images passing through our sub-conscious mind. but by that logic everything we see in our waking state is also only a series of images. in fact, if we think about it, everything we think about in our waking and dream states are composed of nothing but thoughts. our dreams are also, therefore, a series of thoughts. (for more about thoughts read 'bundle of thoughts')



and we think our thoughts in a chosen language. and for some, this is not necessarily the language you speak in. some of us think in one language and then translate these thoughts into another language before we speak. and therefore, the language we speak most comfortably in is the language we think in. even if you are a multi-lingual person, you would still be thinking in one default language.

and the most amazing thing is that we even see objects in a particular language! because whenever we see anything we always label it and then use these labels to relate, recognise, understand and experience the objects and events revolving around those objects.



imagine watching a 'rose'. in your mind you see a 'rose', if your default language of thought is english. alternately your mind would see a 'gulab' or a 'roja-pu' or a 'rosa-pu' or any other such name depending on your own language of thought!

but then, these are all my own random thoughts (in english :-) ). how about you? what's your language of thought? what language do you dream in?