Penny wise Pound foolish

Petrol prices increased... again.

A very familiar scene on the day before the price hike is a long queue in every petrol station you can see. This is a classic illustration of the Penny-wise-Pound foolish saying.

Lets get some perspective.

-> The hike in the price of petrol is rupees 8 per litre.

-> You probably saw the news, grabbed the car keys and rushed to the petrol bunk but a dozen or so other cars already beat you to it. You still wait for your turn. All the time, the car is on ( how can anyone stay without the AC? right? ).

-> You finally get your turn after half an hour of waiting.

-> You already knew at the back of your mind you won't get your tank filled.

-> You get around 10 litres of petrol.


Congratulations! You just made a mindblowing saving of 80 rupees. Hold on a second!

Weren't you waiting for petrol for half an hour with the engine on? Yes you were! You probably lost half a litre there. So your mighty saving takes a hit by 50%.

You still saved 40 rupees. And you look smug and gloat about it in front your friends later.

Just take the damn bus to work for a day and you will have saved a lot more than just money.





 

Overabundant supply

The next time there is a National Census, along with asking all the usual questions like
->how many family members?
-> Do you get electricity regularly? etc, there should be another question, just for fun.

-> How many of your family members have received some sort of cricket training?

It is exciting to see so many kids taking up cricket nowadays. Definitely not good for sport, in the country as a whole, but as a cricketer, I feel happy knowing that if I'm unemployed in the future, I can always open a cricket coaching centre and know that people will flock there even if they don't actually learn anything.

In a way this is not the fault of the trainers at the coaching centre. Parents have extremely high expectations, and they convince their children that they're the new sachin tendulkars of cricket. I vividly remember the face of a parent who was told that his son was a good bowler. He looked as though he was kicked in the balls. He wanted his son to be a batsman! Heights of expectation!

Everyone wants to be T20 ready in a matter of months and then play for the state team as early as possible.
Ranji and the IPL should happen in 5 years! A friend even had the gall to ask me, "I want to play first division cricket. Where should I sign up?" Sigh. This is what money makes of people.

The plan sounds like a government's 5 year plan, and we all know how that works out!

Anyway, coming back to the matter in hand, we are being riddled with too many cricketers. Too much is too bad right? So I thought of some alternate professions for our rich stock of cricketers.


1) Invest in other sports. Tennis for example. Cricket can never again be accused of over shadowing other sports. We will supply free ball boys for all ATP tours. All they have to do is catch and throw right? They might even offer some sideline entertainment trying to dive for the ball to catch it. To make sure there's participation, have a small "Best Fielder" trophy for every tennis match.

2) Sports goods manufacture. The ONLY people who are enjoying this outbreak of cricket enthusiasts.

3) Baseball! very similar to cricket. Baseball and Basketball are still the only probable aveues in which "Indians are not involved. Its our Uncle Sam. He will accept us, no worries.

4) How come there still isn't a reality show based on cricket? Entertainment!

This post is brought to you by the lazy superstitious idiot who thinks a mindless tradition like blogging before exams will better his performance in the exam. But then again, all is fair in love, war and exams.

Ciao

Analysis and Design of Serials!

I have done it! I have found it! Eureka!

We all know formula movies are passe. (They are not strictly passe, they're just under the tag of "timepass movies"), but how many of us still have to endure irritating serials!

After extensive study and careful analysis, I have come up with the perfect algorithm using which any of you can come up with your very own kannada soap!

The Algorithm will be presented in Natural Language.

Step 1: Start

Step 2: Introduce a family- Typically a rich family having a lucrative family                        business.

substep 1: Introduce the widow (family elder). If not a widow then a healthy                         couple. If (family elder== widower) #Algorithm fail.

substep 2: Introduce the siblings. Very close to each other. Wives of siblings have                 a history

substep 3: Introduce jealous, not-so-well-off relatives.

substep 4: Introduce traditional business rival/villain. If(person == rival && person != villain) { person will soon be a relative when the prodigal son falls in love with the shy demure daughter of rival }

Step 5: Induce death/kidnap of a family member of perfect family.

Step 6: No small kids allowed.



Step 7: while (episode count < 2000) execute subroutine vamp

subroutine vamp:
-> Introduce new vamp/villain.

-> Introduce mysterious complications in business leading to strained relations between one or more siblings. Usually one of the siblings walks out after a fight.

-> Vamp success phase. All plans of vamp succeeds. Main characters suddenly become extremely moronic and fall into all kinds of traps. (min 350 episodes )

-> Hero phase. Vamp is defeated by extreme clever cunning on part of main characters which was hitherto unseen.

-> A previous vamp/villain becomes a die-hard friend.

-> One of the characters becomes pregnant but tragically loses baby. Vamp's revenge.

-> Hum saath saath hia phase. Everyone is happy.

->return.


Step 8: If (TRP is good && old people become more senile seeing the soap)
             {
                 conduct public discussions.
                 goto Step 7.
              }

Step 9 : Stop.              

"Bug" off!

Some pointers for a bug-free summer.

 I am sure that I am not the only one who is bugged by mosquitoes, flies, ants, big ants, big flying ants and all their relatives. Yesterday there was a sudden outbreak of flying giant ants at I had to spend a dark night unable to switch on the light/tv/computer to avoid being swamped by these things. Jobless as I was, I tried a few things to get rid of them. Here's a list in case you are looking for some solutions to related problems.

 1) Air Freshner spray does not work. I emptied half a bottle of air freshner on the bugs and it had no effect. I ended up with my hair smelling like sandal wood and spent the night having nightmares about my hair falling out in clumps, albeit with the sweet aroma of sandalwood.

 2) Ditto with deodorant.

 3) The mosquito bat was extremely effective in making them flightless. A precautionary towel tied around your face and a round neck tee that sticks to your neck is recommended. After they are on the ground, you can finish them off with the good ol' one-two with your standard issue bombay parke (broomstick).

4) Suck them right out of the air with a vacuum cleaner! Do you want to use that age-old, good for nothing vacuum cleaner that you got as a gift like a billion years ago? Now is the time. Its not quite as exciting as say, catching a fly between chopsticks, but feel the chi flowing around you as you suck those bloody bugs right out of the air using your ninja like reflexes.

 ** If you did come upto tip 4 then you can be sure that someone else, father/brother etc will want to help(Obviously! Who doesn't want to be a ninja!). But then again, you are not happy with the quality of chi around them. you might want to modify plan 4 a little.

5) Combine 3 and 4 and you have one of the best bug battle strategies ever! Give the annoying father/brother/mother/grandfather the awesome job of vacuum cleaning the bugs fallen on the floor and you take up the "boring" job of swatting them out of the air with your electric bat. It helps if you have seen star wars recently. Not quite different from a Jedi swatting battle droids with a lightsaber.

There you go. You now have a flying-bug free living room. Now lather-rinse-repeat at all the tubelights in your house.

Ciao.

Darshini

We Bangaloreans are definitely forgetting what is required of a good hotel. A hotel is about food and food only. When I walk into a local Darshini, all I expect is quick tasty food. Unfortunately, the owners of these local darshinis, in a bid to appear 'hip and happening' are bringing in chairs and tables with smiling waiters, and compose a menu card a la other "big" restaurants.

Nobody in their right mind is going to go to a darshini to have a close soulful conversation. Coffee Day, Barista and the ilk already have dibs on that!

It is sad to see these darshinis that make up such a big part of Bangalore's rustic charm being transformed, hurriedly, into places of dining wihtout having the right set of people to manage the show.

In many ways, my dinner at a diner in Udupi had everything that I look for in a Darshini. Good food and quick, efficient, no-nonsense service.

Nowadays, it has somehow become fashionable for people to wait for food at "big" restaurants. Apparently, this is a status symbol which is supposed to show that the food in that hotel is in such great demand that the people who have ordered must wait for their turn. We who shamelessly jump queues and road signals are ready to show a great amount of patience to wait for the food!

I cannot imagine a Bangalore without idli vada soaked in sambar, coffee being drunk in glass tumblers, mangalore vada and bajji along with breakfast!

I don't understand why there is a grimace on people's face when I suggest a quick bite at a nearby SLV. After all, one plate of absolutely anything in the SLV is much much much better than any burger/snacky/sandwich/pizza that you eat by paying almost double.

Sure, I get the fascination that a McDonalds or a Dominoes holds at the beginning, but after a coupe of times of eating there, there isnt any fascination left. It is definitely not a place to go to have your regular lunch.

I will trade a McVeggie burger for a masala dosa... any day.

Save darshinis! let them know that we still appreciate their food. Have food at your nearby darshini atleast once a month!

Hey Jude~~

Hey Jude! Dont make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better.

Anytime you feel the pain, hey jude, refrain,
Don't carry the world upon yourself.

Hey Jude! An amazing song by the one and only Beatles.

Now try this.

1)Copy the lyrics of "Hey Jude" into a word document.
2) press ctrl+f;
3) go to the find and replace column, type "Jude" in the find box and type "Sachin Tendulkar" in the replace box.
4) read the lyrics again.

It will make perfect sense.

The Sachin bandwagon is on its last wheel. And the wheel is threateningly close to being punctured. Now I'm not being sacrilegious. I'm just stating what is obvious and what we as a nation love to ignore. The mortality of our God!

The nation seems to have mixed feelings where Sachin is considered. Some want him gone. some want him to play forever. Such fierce pride in people who are ready to knock the block off any bloke willing to suggest that Sachin's days are over often nears fanaticism.

Why are we, as a nation, desperate to keep him going? My answer is that we have no one to turn to after Sachin. Saying that we have no one to turn to when we have a population of more than a billion individuals is alarming.

Sure we have loads of individuals who command a lot of respect from the community, but almost everyone has a love-hate relationship with the people. Some communities love them, some hate them. And some communities alternate between love and hate. Even Anna Hazare had almost as many haters as he had admirers!

It is inevitable that an individual will piss off a lot of people. However, I do not see anyone who commands undying love from the whole country. The only person in the last decade who possessed the same charisma is Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam.

So Sachin. Please keep going. Even if it takes you another decade to get that 100th century. Play matches. Get out in the nineties. But for the sake of our country! Do not retire!

What a sad state of affairs.

P.S. For all Sachin haters and fanatical supporters alike... Get a life! He will either score another century or not. Its just a game! Instead of moping around in your underwear and watching endless replays of cricket matches, switch to Neo Sports and watch the Indian Hockey team kick some a**!

Hypocrisy

The latest fiasco at the Vidhan Soudha involving certain "XXX" ministers opened a floodgate of criticism. And a serious matter it is too. There is a place and time for everything. But surprisingly, the emphasis of all the criticism seems to be the video in question rather than the unabashed display of contempt towards the proceedings in the House. It just makes me wonder whether they would have gotten away with watching a movie or a cricket match.

In my view, sleeping during proceedings (a favorite pass-time of namma ex PM), vulgar language etc are just as serious. Only in India can we ignore everything negative that is prevalent in our society and take a very hard stand on the vices that we're not familiar with. Pornography is as real a component in our society today as smoking and drinking and we very conveniently turn a blind eye to the latter two.

Are we becoming a nation of hypocrites? We, who in microcosm live quite amicably with our choice vices, fall on certain things alien to us and brand it "Anti-Indian Culture".

Modern India is facing a race-culture issue.

It will be fun to see the subtle developments in our society in the coming years.

Is it essential to continue our rigid stand or should we just accept what our society is becoming (the positives and the negatives)? Can we possibly turn our backs to and stop the tide of (the quite stupidly tagged) western influence and preserve the (quite unbelievable and apparently) Utopian society of the India of the past ages?

One thing is for sure. Our outlook on society is as outdated as the textbooks our school-kids study. Both need some serious updation.

Ban on the Gita!

There was a big ruckus regarding the Bhagavadgita in Russia recently. The kind that saw protests happening in Bangalore. It is stupid because no small protest in Bangalore will influence the court decision of a little town all the way up in freezing Russia.

The interesting thing is this sudden vehemence against a deeply spiritual text. One that emphasizes on bettering oneself and rarely addresses the society as a whole.

It has been 200 years since the first Russian translation of the Bhagavadgita came out. Millions of people who have read the text for 200 years have found no evidence of anti social or sociopathic teachings in it, and as almost every living Hindu will swear on every one of our large plethora of Gods, nor does it have any.

So there can only be the following explanations for this Russian filing a Russian equivalent of a PIL against the Bhagavadgita

1)India's favourite charge "The Opposition is the culprit" obviously does not hold here. The Russian government is facing enough heat to be worrying about this small event.

2) The man who filed the case is a moron. Doesnt seem so. He is a lawyer.

3)There are actual anti social teachings in the text: Not a chance.\

4) There has been a gross misinterpretation of the text by the interpreter or the translator.

The last point seems the most valid and on some deeper investigation is indeed the culprit.

ISKCON founder Swami Prabhupada has written this "bhashya" and these are some excerpts from his interpretations of the verses of the Gita.

1)A man must always fulfill his karma. i.e. as hateful as it may seem, a brahmin must be ready to kill to save his vedas, a vaishya must cheat, a shudra must obey his master even if his master commands him to do the most vile of deeds.

2)Women are weak and must be protected. They are not trust-worthy and should be content with looking after the affairs inside her husband's house. In the present day, the woman is living a lie by trying to become educated and trying to hold places that should be held by men. This is causing social instability.

3)The social system must be upheld. The shudras should respect and look up to the higher castes.

4) A person is born into a particular family for a reason. He should take up the traditions of his parents. For a Vaishya, it is better to be a poor businessman rather than be an excellent administrator because nobody must deter from the "karma"that has been chosen for him/her.

And there are many more if you continue to flip pages.

I am a firm believer of the rule that one must not comment on something one does not understand. And talking about "Dharma" as such is an extremely unapologetic job.

The biggest problem with Hindu ancient texts is their ridiculous complexity and is obviously prone to misinterpretations. Even then anyone with any sense will see the perversion in the synopsis of the verses given by the Swami. And as such, there is no surprise in this lawyer from the little known town of Tomsk asking for the Gita to be banned.

ISKCON must look into this matter and get together men of renown in this field to correct these mistakes. Hinduism, today does not appeal to a lot of people in the world because of its supposed complexity, but the last thing I would want as a Hindu is for my religion to be tagged extremist.

Advocating the caste system, calling women not trustworthy, asking people to commit crimes in the name of their religion is as extremist as it can go.

Please give us authentic interpretations of the Gita so that posterity can look at us with pride rather than shame.

Dharmo rakshati rakshitah!

BASE SUCKS! I keep finding new reasons to say that!

There is a new post going around facebook. One that says "I'm from the 1990s, the last sane generation blah blah blah, played on the road, could live without my mobile and computer..." and a lot of other such stuff.

True, I am proud to have known the awesome fun in playing on piles of sand, chucking stones at dogs and running away, climbing trees and going back home with bloody knees and wide grins. Something that today's cuckolded generation might not do. We have all grown up listening to amazing stories of our grandparents doing apparently superhuman feats and listen with awe as they described the distances they used to walk to school and other places. How many nights have ended with these stories!

When I look back on my first 10 years of existence, I have my fair share of stories of those times to pass on. And most of these stories start off with me going out to play at 8 in the morning during summer holidays and coming home tired and hungry in the evening. Even during school, playtime was attended with utmost regularity.

I fear that this will not be the case in the near future.

I heard recently that BASE, (yes our very own BASE) is now conducting classes for 5th and 6th standard kids! AIEEE and IIT coaching makes sense, FIIT a little less sense but palatable. But conducting tuition classes for 4th standard kids amounts to child torture.

The timings are weekdays, at 5 in the evening.

Is this some kind of practical joke? How can parents subject their kids to such environments when they have to play and learn from experiences outside. They will all face a time when they have to study and academics gains prominence, but 5th standard is not that time!

What next? I wouldn't be surprised to see billboards saying "Start your child's education with BASE", Preschool for toddlers! (with a grinning pic of HSN).

Why is there such a big fuss being made about education? Being street smart is what they learn on the street, not as a chapter in personality development in engineering.

Give kids back their freedom.

It will certainly be a sorry day when there are kids who look down upon the idea of evening playtime (spent OUTSIDE the house).

Let us hope that we never see such a day.

Tuition classes for 5th std kids?!! WTF.

Someone go knock some sense into HSN

Ciao

Music

I like listening to music. All kinds of music. (For all practical purposes all kinds of progressive/trash/death and other forms of metal cannot be termed "music"). My playlist contains everything from the purest classical music to metal (as long as I can understand the lyrics). Name any genre in between and I probably listen to it.

I pride myself in the fact that I am tolerant to all forms if music and often find myself lecturing others to be receptive to all forms of music. I finally found (much to my dismay) the kind of music that irritates me.

I am a music purist. Experimentation on songs is not something I enjoy listening to. If a song is sung in a particular way, I expect to hear that song in that way itself. Pardon me for not using the proper technical terms but I guess you can understand what I mean. For example, consider the song "Dum maro dum". The old song was a cult classic and still is one of the revolutions in music. The new song just sucks.

We can find loads of examples of this kind of change in tune in the kannada bhavagites.

The late C.Ashwath is someone every kannadiga knows. His style of singing is inimitable. Perhaps you might have also faced the same sense of irritation when you hear someone trying to copy his style of singing.

Now what made me blog about this?

There was this program on TV in which a woman sang one of my all time favourite songs.. "KolikeRanga". The lyrics is by T.P. Kailasam.

"Murdered the song" is a very mild way to describe what she did to this song.

I felt I really had to blog about this.

I did not feel comfortable until I had heard the whole song in its proper state once again.

Now I can sleep peacefully.

Ciao.

P.S. Not writing or speaking english for a long time does screw up your language and vocabulary big time. I should blog more often.

Teaching a student.

My uncle has gone on his almost quarterly visit to Helsinki on some official business and I am again on my (almost) quarterly stay over at my grandmother's place. I don't complain though. With a library as vast as his, I can just pick up a novel and read till I fall asleep. The other day, I was leafing through "Brisingr" possibly for the fifth time when amidst the soaps and serials, there was a reality show on the telly.

The show is called "neena, naana" meaning "you or me". As the name suggests, it is a debate between two groups of people. This time it was between a group of teachers on one side and a group of students on the other side. It was a very very poor representation of students for reasons I will explain in the coming few lines.

The program started off with both teachers and students making references to the bond between Dronacharya and Arjuna in the Mahabharatha and how teaching has evolved over the ages. Then started the blame game as students blamed their teachers for absolutely everything on earth. Some of the topics discussed were

1) Tuitions: The students harangued the teachers that the only reason they go to tuitions is because of the incapability of the teachers to conduct classes in college.

True. Many teachers do bunk classes. But what is the point of separating college teachers and tuition teachers? Aren't the people who take tuitions teachers as well? I am sure that half of the teacher representatives on that show took tuitions. So somebody's devil (college teacher) is somebody else's God (tuition teacher). Secondly, in many institutions, the fees being paid to the teachers is insulting. So there is no way for them to feed their family other than to take tuitions.

2) Sexual harassment: The rough literal translation of an accusation by a student was "What do you say about all the sexual harassment you people do in class"?

Seriosuly? Are these students trying to make the world think their daily visit to their place of studies is fraught with perils and dangers? and that the staff room in such institutions is the equivalent of a sodomist's jail cell?

3) Teachers taking bribes: Another pretty serious comment that one student made was that his teacher asked him to buy a TV for his house to grant him attendance:

You moron! If you were as prompt in attending classes as you are in commenting on your teachers, you would have had no need to bribe your teacher to get attendance.All these discussions took up the half an hour of allotted time for the program.

Is there any sense at all in this discussion? Public forums are meant to debate general problems, not bleat about some apparent injustice that happened to you and then blame the whole world for your problems.

Nowhere was a word uttered about improving the quality of education in the country. Nowhere was there a discussion about quota in education. Nowhere was there a discussion about the complete lack of research facilities and the unavailability of world class instiitutions for higher education.Going to the grassroots, there was no discussion about what can be done to make sure villages get atleast one teacher in their schools. About how to make more kids attend schools.

We should look at the example of Finland. In Finland, the facilities available for teachers of schools is so good that their education department has completely done away with exams as they are confident that their teachers will not let their children down, In such an atmosphere, the children can obviously concentrate on learning more rather than studying just to pass in an exam. The Finnish teachers undergo rigorous training at the end of which their pay and social status is equivalent to that of a person in any other profession.

Personally, I feel that everyone from whom we have learnt something in life deserves some amount of respect. I also agree that there some complete idiots posing as teachers who bring a bad name to the whole profesion. But is that prevalent only in the teaching field? No.As someone who is planning a career in education, I feel that it is better to introspect rather than blame the world. There is no good or bad teacher. There is only a teacher who knows how to teach and one who doesnt. That does not imply that the teacher who doesnt teach so well is a lightning struck fool.

But then again, its just me. Who can stand up against the might of the Great Ignorant Indian Student?

May God help us all!

the BJP's Blunders

I have refrained from commenting on political issues for a long time. I accept that I am somewhat ignorant. But I will comment from the viewpoint of an innocent bystander. The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) is better than a diarrhea ridden cow at creating a ruckus. First the CWG scam, then the Adarsh scandal, after that it was the 2G scam and the biggest of them all, the Lokpal Bill.

The UPA govt has been taking hit after hit in the crown jewels and still managing to put up a wounded smile! And the biggest reason is the completely idiotic policies of the Opposition. If it was any other country, the PM would have been replaced and we would already have had another election.

The following are some things that led to the "Dunce" tag of the BJP:

1) Stop saying "Sonia Gandhi is Italian": I doubt if there is ever a press conference of the BJP without these words. True or not, we are no longer fascinated with her nationality. You never have an answer if I ask you to look beyond "the Italian". Besides, Sonia being Italian is not the cause of all the problems the country is facing.

2) Stop taking digs at Rahul Gandhi: You might feel very clever making small boy jokes about the "Prince". But he is called "Prince" for a reason. Believe it or not, he is a very strong candidate for the PM's post. So stop taking digs at people and start taking digs at the policies.

3) Tell Yeddy to fuck off. Party comes before person: If there was ever a time ripe for the BJP to cement its standing as serious contenders for the next election, it was when they were asked to man up and take a strong discussion about the corruption in Karnataka. You can't expect to force the Congress to take drastic measures to curb corruption when you have no moral right to ask them to do it. You faltered at that crucial time and his removal later was more of a face-saving measure rather than an actual step towards better governance.

4) Stop consorting with illogical Babas: Hobnobbing with the likes of Baba Ramdev and the likes will earn you no favours with the educated class. Base your policies firmly on economic facts and predictions rather than religious sentiment and you will stand a better chance.

5) Stop saying "We have many capable PM candidates": Come under one banner and then start your election propaganda. A party that is not united cannot hope to keep the country stable.

6) Have a very strict selection criteria for party candidates: Cut down possible cases of corruption and humiliation to the party by being very strict with selecting your candidates and advertise it properly.

Let us hope with time, these people realize that their first responsibility is to the people.

Ciao.

Random Ramblings

I am facing an acute inability to string 2 sentences together. Its probably caused by overexposure to sitcoms and an acutely boring lifestyle. I don't know how much longer I can keep kidding myself that watching "House" is actually informative and that I'm actually learning about medicine. What I am learning from that particular TV series is how to be sarcastic. Whoever wrote the dialogues for "House" is a genius! Brilliantly scripted dialogues. Each sentence oozing with high quality sarcasm. The doctor stereotypes are also brilliantly depicted.

So why am I raving about some TV show? Having written nothing in over 3 months, I just thought I will type everything that comes to my mind. Writing, like music requires constant practice, without which, the fingers just don't feel at ease at the keyboard. It probably has nothing to do with the new keyboard that I got, but I am still disappointed that my first post in this new keyboard/computer is such a lousy one.

I am a great believer in the Placebo effect. You get better at something if you convince yourself that you will get better at that by doing something completely irrelevant. Well, if I do actually know that it is the Placebo effect, will it still be successful? I dunno. I'm just typing everything that comes into my mind.

I had been on a pretty long tour recently. A fortnight spent in 2 cities that are at the 2 ends of Maharashtra. Nagpur and Pune. Both cities offered their share of fun, but I would have to say Pune was the better part of the tour. The trip to Lonavala was a visual treat. Not to mention that shady Wax museum that had statues of all prominent Mallus, and a horrible statue of Angelina Jolie, which made her Tomb Raider avatar look like a sick albino woman with a bad case of hairfall. Sins like that cannot be forgiven.

Ever since I have started blogging, I have followed a habit of thinking of titles for all my posts only after I have written them. That is I dont start with the title of the post and then write the content, I write whatever I feel like and then put up a title that somehow relates to the post.

And now I have to write the "President's Note" for the OSA newsletter. There's only one bummer though.The damn thing already has a title. I dont know how to write a PResident's not while completely ignoring the fact that it is actually a President's Note.

Anyway, this little exercise might prove to be helpful after all. If I can manage to fill in half a page of completely unrelated comments without thinking then I suppose I can deal with a formal note of a somewhat lesser size if I do put in some effort.

If someone actually came upto this line then like this article. No wait! This is not facebook. Just leave an empty comment.

Im off now to try and write a President's note. Wish me luck.

Chaklis

"The problem with old people is that they don't want to accept that age is catching upto them. Nobody's asking them to prove anything. So why should they torture themselves and others with all this?", I told my mother as I stood frying "chaklis" in front of the fire, in a slightly exaggerated british accent so that my 78 year old grandmother doesn't pick up my words. All I got in return was a stern look and a signal to shut up and continue frying.

Firstly, let me explain the procedure involved in preparing chaklis.. First the rice should be dry fried, then laid out to cool down, then it has to be ground into one particular smoothness and the flour has to be mixed into a dough. The dough should then be laid in the form of a chakli which should then be fried and frying is not as easy as it sounds.

Anyway, I had run around the past day getting the rice ground and making the dough soft by repeated beating. And finally, swallowing my growing frustration, I agreed to fry and the chaklis actually came out very well.

A few days after this episode, I was relaxing at home watching an awesome episode of Boston Legal when I get a call from my grandmother asking me to go with her to the mill to get more rice ground. I became angry, very angry. I mean, hadnt I stood in front of the hot oil for almost 4 hours just a few days back?

After shouting at my mother for half an hour, I did take her to the mill and then dropped her off at her place. The sight of her shrunken frame and wobbly gait now irritated me a little. I am still confused whether my irritation was aimed at her actually working too much or her dragging me away from my sitcom. I hadnt spoken a single word to her all along. To initiate some conversation, I told her "Why did you fry more rice? Didnt we just make these chaklis a few days back?". Her reply completely humbled me.

She said "I heard you say that you like the khara chaklis more than the tasteless ones we made that day. These are for you", and started preparing the dough.

In the days when we can get almost anything by throwing money across the counter, moments like these show us how sensitive and caring our folks can be. She need not have made those extra ones for me. She did anyway. My anger ebbed away.

I walked into the kitchen, picked up the wooden piece that was used to fry chaklis, stood in front of the fire and said "Where's the oil? I'll help you".

Ciao.
Today is Star Wars day.. May the force be with you.

P.S. I came to a dreadful realization, a few hours after coming home that night. I had told my mother about my preference of khara chaklis in the same exaggerated British accent. I completely forgot my Grandma is as literate as you or me :P

What is the Question?

I was introduced to the myraid and mysterious ways of spirituality about 4 years ago. The journey started off with promises of ultimate knowledge, inhuman strength (mental strength obviously), an ability to be successful at everything etc etc etc.

All this sounds like a load of bull crap for a non believer. I am a firm believer.. why am I a believer? Because I have nothing to lose by believing.

After belief, the next hurdle to cross is practice. Regular practice of religious rituals is supposedly the easiest way to spirituality. After achieving some proficiency in that as well, the next thing is to find a spiritual goal to achieve.

When people said that anything can be achieved if one is disciplined, they very conveniently forgot to answer what it is that one should try to achieve.

The question "What is the best thing I will need in my life", is an extremely tough question to answer. I can be materialistic and pray for something awesome like a sports car, but that is useless as I will be left without a goal after achieving that. Since the process of achieving a goal is more useful than the end result itself, the thing that one must seek should be a very distant goal.

What is the question, is itself the toughest the question.

And unfortunately BMS does not give me sufficient time to ponder over it. Off to do some very physical activity (writing the workshop diary).
Ciao

Unemployment

My daily horoscope said that I will enjoy creative writing today. Hence this post.

I was employed and earning regularly until very recently. Unfortunately, my profession is not one that can be continued throughout the year. The demand for people in my profession starts after a few more months. If I do want to continue my profession, I should probably increase my charges. Not worth working for such meagre salaries.

Being unemployed has left me with a lot of free time. Especially in the evenings, not to mention pinching my pocket. Gone are the days of hogging 3 samosas in a row and not thinking twice about buying an Ice-tea later. Other than the obvious credit crunch there are also other things that are missing.

1) The long-ish drive to the workplace in the cool evening breeze.

2) Perks which included coffee, tea, juice, and the occasional tasty dish.

3) Lessons learnt in man management and communication skills.

4) Ability to put across sentences in as simple and persuasive words as possible.

5) Occasional physical tussles.

6) Making threats and hinting at blackmail to get work done.

7) Lessons in being patient and calm, irrespective of the situation.

8) Listening to good stories.

9) bonding with clients

And that's about it. I terribly miss being employed. But in the interest of my studies and the obvious point that my services are no longer required, Ive been discharged from services(without a pink slip!).

The only thing left to do is to drown my sorrows in a mug of you-know-what.

May none of you ever have to be unemployed in your lives!!
Ciao

Prepare to read lots of gerunds

Sorry, Couldn't come up with a better title...

All this hype about cricket is getting to me. I enjoy the matches by themselves, but it is the extras that are extremely irritating. Apart from Harsha Bhogle, and possibly Tony Grieg, nobody else is worth listening to. Let's lock up Ravi Shastri and Siddhu in a room full of movie screens and keep playing the audios of their own commentary over and over again until they understand what we have to endure. But them being the egotistic megalomaniacs that they are, they'll probably enjoy it.

There seem to be a sudden burst of fests from every college in Bangalore. I have to keep finding ways of escaping campaigning students from different colleges to avoid listening to them explain how great their fest is. Believe me, however great the fest, it would take a lot more than the lure of prize money to make me go upto a college like CMRIT or REVA to take part in their fest.

Did surprisingly well in the first internals and I am thus going through the expected hangover of complete over-confidence and a slight disdain towards all classes which I'm sure I'll come to regret later.

College apart, there is nothing new going on which is making life extremely boring. All these days I did have something to look forward to every 3 evenings in a week, but now even that has stopped. Money spent eating junk is increasing exponentially while physical exertion of any sort is decreasing exponentially.

Seriously considering learning some musical instrument. I will wait for two more weeks to see whether this is one of those urges that subsides after a few days.

That's all for now. The effort of actually writing again and spending these few minutes fruitfully has left me drained. Will go and recharge my lethargy by doing nothing for an hour or so.

Becoming lethargic is like getting addicted to drugs. You know its not good for you, but you still cannot stop doing it.

Ciao

Dear Cricket,

It has not been the easiest of 3 years for us. We have broken up and gotten together more times than even SRK has in his film career. There is no denying the tremendous part that you have played in shaping me as a person. I still remember the day I went to Olympic Sports almost 10 years ago to buy my first bat. Consequent bats might have followed but it is something similar to a wizard first choosing his wand. The touch felt magical.

I remember those first few days of our association when I woke up every morning to wear those oversized shirts and struggle to run a complete lap in the ground. The first match and the first tournament now seem a blur, but i clearly remember the pride when i won the "Best Batsman" award. It is to this day, my most coveted award. My first half century came in a small pitch and I still remember the sheer exhilaration I felt after winning the match and scoring those 50 odd runs.

The first of many victories, and the first of many more defeats.

I came into school, bragging childishly about my supposed exploits in You. I did manage to get noticed and play for my school as well. It was both a pride and a responsibility to play for school. Thanks to You, I became recognized as "that cricket kid" in school and subsequently came to represent the whole cricket team. If not for you, I would probably have turned out to be just another student in school.

The friends I made during our 10 year courtship and the invaluable lessons learnt both on and off the field are too many to be mentioned here. I came to understand myself better because of you.

You may think that I am being unnecessarily squeamish about this whole affair, but it is high time we reached a conclusion.


There is no easy way to say this, we have to break up. We have both forseen this day arriving. Somehow, I do not experience the same thrill when I pick up a bat now. I do not feel the same berserker-like emotion to succeed. Somehow, the losses have not been hurting that badly and the wins do not seem that sweet.


Tomorrow is perhaps my last chance for us to get back together. And I am not going to take it. For the present, I no longer have any interest left to play. I know it is impossible to let go of you completely, but I have taken the decision I think is best for myself.

This is it.

Goodbye

Of Passion

The word "PASSION" is something that is used very loosely. I'm sure we have all been enduring sentences like "be passionate about what you do", "if you are passionate about something, you will excel in it" and many other such sentences. And after all is said and done, at the end of the day we are as passionate as we were the previous day.

So what is passion? I do not know. They say passion is like a fire that is burning inside you. A fire that lends you a lot of energy in the subject or activity that you are passionate about. I have never experienced anything like it.

In my 18 years of existence, I have not been able to recall any incident where I was driven by pure emotion. It has always been about rationality and a certain amount of ignoring emotion. There is a school of thought which says that emotions must not play a part in whatever we do. There is another school of thought which is of the opinion that working with certain emotions actually increases the quality of the work.

What is passion if not an emotion?

Does a person suddenly realize what he is passionate about? Does a person instinctively know how he wants to spend his life? And what about people like me who are still knocking two stones together to start that inner fire?

Is passion an acquired taste? Or is it supposed to appear magically in a person's life? IF it is magical then I probably have to wait longer. If it is an acquired taste then I probably haven't tasted enough to realize which taste I can get used to.

But "Passion" has become a very confusing term for me which is kinda ironic looking at the name of my blog. Guess I have to reconsider the name of my blog now!

May the force/passion be with you...
Ciao

The Two-face dog

I know I shouldn't be doing this. I can also predict the fairly dire consequences that await for wasting an hour's time blogging, but when the whole world conspires to keep you from studying, there is little that you can do to resistht the waves of distraction.

At no other time can you have such profoundly meaningful insights into so many things that will in no way help you in the exam tomorrow. At no other time can you appreciate the hypnotic quality of the arrangement of seeds in a pomegranate. At no other time can you truly reflect upon the illegibility of your handwriting. At no other time can you come across fascinating discoveries like the mole which was hidden all these years amidst the hair on your head. At no other time can you imagine "lol" looking like a drowning man. Well, you get the drift...

As everybody will have experienced, "study holidays" make for some of the most interesting time in a person's life. Be it watching movie after movie, flipping past pages with zero concentration, the sudden berserker-like urge punish yourself for wasting time and the occasional piece of information which is promptly forgotten, study holidays are extremely useless. (for me atleast).

If you are thinking about how the topic of this post is related to everything that I have said above, dont bother thinking. there is no connection.
I had intended to blog about a badly injured dog which had half its face siphoned off and was looking like "Two Face"'s pet dog. and my attempt at getting some medical help for the poor creature.

An hour is wasted! the urge to blog has subsided, and now its the time of panic to set in and give me some much wanted seriousness.

May the force be with you.

P.S. The credit for coming up with "lol" looking like a drowning man goes to Abhijit.