En Sindhanai Alaigal (My Thought Waves)

Live - from Chennai Airport

2011-04-05T21:47:00.003-05:00

It is 11:55 pm. I’m writing this blog (Though going to post it later) sitting at the passenger’s lounge beyond the security gates at the Chennai Airport, waiting for my flight out of the country. Right at this moment, the entire nation of 1.2 Billion (As per the latest census 2011 ) is in a jubilant mood. The scene is no different here at the airport – Strangers are wishing each other, the airport personnel are smiling ear to ear and are greeting passengers happily. What is the big occasion? – India has just won the cricket World Cup, after 28 long years.

The last two matches of the world cup have been electrifying – The semifinals between India and Pakistan; the finals between India and Sri Lanka. I’m not a cricket fanatic as most of my friends, in fact as most of the nation is. I just follow the game through the newspapers and websites. But even I was keenly following the last two matches, in fact the entire world cup to a certain extent. I was so hoping that the finals would end before I left home for this trip. But unfortunately, I had to leave when India needed 132 runs to win in 131 balls.

But all around the airport, the focus was only on the match. There were a couple of TV sets – one at the ground floor and other at the passenger’s lounge upstairs. The lady at the check-in counter kept checking the TV set some 100 meters away from her as if just the sight of the match progressing was enough to keep her going (Remember the Birbal story, where a man kept looking at a far away lamp and stood in a cold pond ??) Every now and then, the other ground staff kept updating the people at the counters, the latest scores. Every second person I saw was on a mobile asking their friends, the latest score updates.

The scene near the security check was even more electrifying. Dhoni and Yuvraj were guiding our team closer to victory. There was a palpable excitement among passengers and the personnel alike. I had placed my hand baggage on the scanner and passed through the metal detector. I stepped on the raised podium to be scanned security person and the entire hall erupted into loud cheers – Dhoni had struck the winning shot. All work stopped; People were hugging each other; the security person broke into a huge smile and congratulated me; Almost the entire crowd converged towards the small TV at the corner of the place. What a scene it was!!! A foreigner checking in at the gates seemed to have no clue of what was going on around him. Then the security person explained to him loudly with broad smiles – “We won! We won the world cup”. Seeing his enthusiasm, the foreigner also broke into a wide smile and congratulated him

No one seemed to care for the flights. Compared to the cheers, whistles and the applause, the public announcements about the flights sounded so feeble. I don’t know how many missed their flights today! People were calling their friends and relatives, reliving those moments and congratulating each other. The players received loud cheers whenever they appeared for interviews or collected their mementos. As expected, Tendulkar got the loudest cheers and followed, of course, by Dhoni and Yuvraj. The local star, Ashwin, also received loud cheers.

I have seen such an electrifying atmosphere inside the cricket stadiums (of course, on TV); People crowding around television sets in front of shop windows and cheering their teams; People staring at the big screens in Office cafeterias unmindful of project deadlines and customer deliveries; But seeing this in an airport lounge – that too Chennai airport – a place of perennial chaos, lost and frightened maamis eager to join their sons/daughters in US, tired workers, clueless workers travelling to Singapore or the middle east : This was one rare moment when these seeming restless souls forgot their worries and erupted into loudest possible cheers worshipping our de facto common religion - Cricket

Apple Halwa

2011-01-15T01:57:00.002-05:00

There were too many apples at home and I was tired of just eating them raw. So, I decided to try making apple Halwa. It came out very well and every one said it tasted good :) But the sugar has suppressed the apple taste a little bit. I should try reducing sugar a little bit next time.

Here is the link to the recipe that I used: Apple Halwa from 'Aayi's Recipes'

Gobi Manchurian

2010-12-31T08:03:00.001-05:00

I tried my hand at making Gobi Manchurian today. Came out pretty well. I'm happy that it tasted almost like it does at restaurants :) But it was quite a time consuming process though.

Recipe from: Awesome Cuisine, Quick and Easy recipes for you

Ironies of Life

2010-12-31T02:36:00.001-05:00

Recently, I read a news article titled 'Paralympian regains legs, but dream lost' that caught my attention. It was a unique case, where a miracle that would be considered a divine blessing has actually shattered some really lofty dreams and ambitions. I really do not know if we should feel happy or sad for the individual concerned.

The article is about the Dutch hand cyclist 'Monique Van Der Vorst' who lost the use of left leg at the age of 15. She is a wheel chair and hand cycle champion and won silver medals in both these event in the Beijing Olympics. In fact she lost the gold medal in the hand cycle event by a mere 0.13 seconds. Since then, she has been training hard to capture the gold in the 2012 London Olympics.

But fate had totally different plans for her. In March this year, she met with an accident when a cycle rammed into her while she was racing down in her hand cycle. This caused her leg to go into spasm and gave her back pains, disrupting further training. But slowly, she started getting tingling feelings in her legs and soon her legs became active. With slow training, she is now able to walk again, 11 years after she lost her legs.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a joyous occasion - treated as a miracle of life. But in her case, this has shattered her dreams of bagging a gold medal in the London Olympics as she is no longer qualified to take part in the Paralympics. So, what would have normally been a blessing has turned out to be a curse. For 11 long years, she has painfully and resolutely built her life around her condition. Just as she is about to reach the pinnacle of glory, her world has turned upside down and she has to start all over again.

But I am amazed and humbled by her positive attitude and determination. She has refused to bogged down by the turn of events and resolved herself to rebuild her life. She has now set her sights on winning the Triathlon competition in Hawaii as an able bodied person. I applaud her determination and mental strength to convert any situation into a new opportunity. It is people like her, who serve as role models for all those countless souls out there who see their long cherished dreams go up in smoke.

Outsourcing blues - Managing Client Politics

2010-07-04T10:02:00.000-05:00

Every organization has its share of internal politics with so many different groups having conflicting interests. It is always a great challenge for a CIO to negotiate all these political alignments within the organization and implement an IT strategy spanning across different groups, departments, business units etc.

In most organizations, IT is still seen as a major cost center. While a lot of investments are required to build and maintain IT systems, the tangible benefits are less. The benefits may come in different form - increased sales, better employee productivity, higher customer satisfaction etc. But most of these benefits are intangible and cannot be expressed in numbers (profits). Hence it becomes very difficult for a CIO to convince the rest of the organization on investing more in IT systems.

While an 'in-house' CIO and IT department themselves have a huge task in negotiating the political alignments, the situation becomes even more challenging when you throw in an outsourcing vendor or worse, multiple outsourcing vendors. Although the practice of Outsourcing is fast spreading across the developed world, there are also a number of concerns among the employees of the outsourcing company - Loss of jobs, loss of control / power within their departments, distrust of foreign players etc.Under such circumstances, negotiating organizational politics of the client is one big problem faced by the vendors. More often than not, the vendors have to work with multiple departments and implement systems spanning across the organization. Being outsiders, they do not have the required political clout within the client company to force the warring parties to the negotiating table. The result - Non-cooperation, deliberate witholding of information, political manipulations, blaming the vendors for anything that goes wrong etc.

Over the years, I've seen a couple of such instances. In one of my earlier projects, we needed to talk to the business users belonging to two different groups. One of the groups supported that particular IT implementation and hence was very co-operative. On the other hand, the other group did not like this implementation and hence did not cooperate with us. They deliberately avoided meetings, gave insufficient data or made us wait for long periods of time before responding to our queries. The responsibility kept getting passed on to different people and we were stuck with no definite point of contact to address our concerns.

In another instance, the different groups in our client company did not want to cooperate with or depend on each other. Hence, over the years, each of them had built separate and redundant IT applications for their own needs. The net result was that the company eventually had hundreds of applications with no one to provide a complete bird's eye view of how things worked in the organization. Now, as Outsourcing vendors, we are sometimes forced to toe the same line as them, rather than consolidate the applications and eliminate the redundancies across the system.

What can an outsourcing vendor do in such scenarios? I can think of a few possible ways:

The outsourcing vendor should identify an 'IT Champion' in the client organization and work towards getting his / her support. Without the full support of some senior person in the client side, the vendor cannot hope to achieve anything. This 'IT champion' should have the required political clout within the organization to bridge the gaps between various groups.
Analyze and draw the Organizational view of the IT systems. Explain the current IT situation to the senior management of the client and clearly elucidate the problems. Vendors should also present an alternate scenario that would benefit the clients. Any big changes across the departments should become the official policy guideline of the client in order to be successful.
Before taking up any project / implementation, analyze if any other existing system in the organization can be utilized for the purpose. This will save the cost of ’re-inventing the wheel'. The benefits of re-using such systems should be clearly explained to the concerned managements.

Most of these sound like the ideal world solutions to our problems. In the real world, I do see lots of other problems too:

How do you deal with cases where a competing vendor joins the politics of the client organization and starts acting against us?
Due to intra-departmental egos and problems, there are instances where no one in the client organization wants to take responsibilities for projects spanning such departments. In such cases, the vendor is left with no proper point of contact or line of control. This leads to insufficient requirements gathering, improper testing etc.
There are situations where we know that the current design will cause major problems in future. But our engagement with the client is not established enough to take up or suggest a complete over-haul of their systems.

Many a time, it is the question of ‘who will bell the cat?’ And from the vendor side, this is where the skills of the onsite team are very important. It requires great skill to deal carefully with the different groups within the client setup and ensure that we do not antagonize any of them or be seen taking sides in their political games.

Kindle, iPad .... iTunes replayed?

2010-02-28T09:16:00.003-05:00

A couple of months back, we were discussing the Ipod – Itunes phenomena in one of our classes. We were discussing the game changing effects of the Ipod – Itunes Combo which has completely re-organized the entire value chain of the music industry.

Today, is the publishing industry poised for a similar shake up? The Kindles and the iPads are competing with each other coming up with new models and arrangements. The way customers approach books and other published content has been constantly changing over the years and these devices seem to be accelerating the pace.

Our class discussion on the music industry started with the traditional value chain of the music industry:

Artist >>> Recording Companies / Labels >>> Distributors / retailers >> Customers (as cassettes, CDs etc.).

This model has traditionally favoured the big label and has been working well for more than 50 years. But this was suddenly threatened by online music sharing ventures such as the ones promoted by Napster. The music industry successfully killed Napster and contented that a major threat has been eliminated. Then Apple burst into the scene with its path breaking Ipod – Itunes Combo.

In my opinion, Ipod is the new age version of the ‘Walkman’. It is just a high quality digital version of the famed walkman. But the real game changer here was the ‘iTunes’. This application in conjunction with the online music stores set up by Apple completely changed the way people bought music. They no longer had to buy whole CDs or Cassettes, but download individual songs for just 99 cents. Very soon, Apple signed contracts with most of the major label and built up a huge repository of songs. This huge collection maintained by Apple also served the long tail of music lovers. In addition to this, the ability to just drag and drop MP3 songs into Ipod through iTunes also made things much easier.

Initially, the music industry looked at this arrangement as the ultimate panacea for their piracy issues. But over time, they realized that they have put all their eggs in one basket. The songs downloaded via iTunes can only be played in iPods. The huge economy of scale ensured that no label can afford to not place its songs in the Apple stores. Apple has become the master of the game. This tie-in now made the record companies look around for new alternatives. They tried bringing in their own products in the market to compete with Apple. When that failed, they approached other possible competitors such as Nokia to introduce new music apps for mobiles and other media. Apple responded with the iPhone now putting itself in direct competition with the mobile industry. Whether the record labels like it or not, the game has totally changed. So many different players from different industries have now converged into one common area bringing about new business models.

Today, I came across an article (Could the Kindle and iPad Kill Quality Content?) in gigaom talking about the publishing industry in a similar fashion. Amazon has started an initiative of offering ebooks for its Kindle for just $9.99. This has given rise to many opposing voices in the publishing industry. They argue that the amount of effort and expenses that the writers incur while writing a book does not justify such low prices.

To me and as pointed out in the article, this just appears to be an attempt to preserve existing model of the publishing industry.

In today’s world, the electronic media has become an important part of our life. More and more people are moving towards e-books. I myself have read a number of books in PDF format. Day by day, more books are becoming freely available across the net as PDFs and other documents. I remember the day the last Harry Potter book was released. Within hours of its official release, I got the soft copy version of the book. The battle against this cannot be won.
On the other hand, products like Kindle and iPad are offering a legitimate means of selling these books. The low price means that at least a certain segment of the population can be weaned away from pirated copies. This might also rope in people who previously abstained from buying books due to their prohibitive cost.

Rather than totally opposing the new business models, what can the publishing industry do?

Unlike the music industry, they should avoid putting all their eggs in one basket – be it Kindle or iPad or anything else. They should ensure that no one player has too much power to manipulate the industry.
They should aim at establishing certain open standards for the format and encryption of e-contents. An open technology standard will ensure a level playing ground for any future players and also ensure portability of data (e-books) across devices. Establishing or enforcing standards is easier when the new model is nascent. 'ePub' - the open e-book standard is a good initiative in this standard. iPad is compatible with ePub, while Kindle is not (I expect it to become compatible soon). The publishers should be able to enforce these standards.
Each major publisher or a consortium of publishers can establish a global database of the e-books in a standard format and provide an online store for the users. The open standards will ensure that users using any reading device can access these books. This will essentially loosen the stranglehold of applications like iTunes and give more power to the publishers.
Right now, when there is some manipulation space, the publishers can try to bring in a differential pricing scheme. The prices can vary by time of publication, author, subject etc.

Decade of Change - World through my lens

2010-01-07T12:42:00.001-05:00

In my previous post, I had recollected the changes in my life over the past decade. Along the same lines, I also started thinking about the important events of the past decade that have affected our lives. The ones that I have mentioned here are those that popped into my mind as soon as I thought about the past decade. These are the events that caught my attention - Events that brought joy and also those brought great sorrow. They made us happy, elated, proud, shocked, sad, angry and sometimes even frustrated. Some of these literally transformed the world that we live in, while others had a more personal effect. I hope that a similar list drawn in 2020, will contain more of the joyful events and less of the tragic ones.

Click to see a larger image

Decade of change: 2000 - 2009

2010-01-04T10:05:00.005-05:00

During the last week of 2009, the newspapers were full of count downs, ‘Top ten‘, ’50 Best…’, ’50 worst…’ and other such recollections of the past decade. Along the same lines, I started thinking of the major events and changes in my own life over the past decade. It has been a decade of changes, especially in the external world. These have produced a big change in my life style. It is amazing how life has changed with the fast changing pace of the external world !

2000 was a landmark year in my school life. I wrote my 12^th std board exams that year and joined an engineering college. I took computer science as my major because of the recent Y2K boom, because I hated electronics and also because my closest friend chose that stream in a college.

We used floppy disks to take printouts of our lab records in that crappy paper given by college. None of our WORD or PPT files exceeded the floppy size :) Last week I made a PPT that was 40 MB in size :)

It was also the time when I was just starting to get used to the Internet which was a relatively new phenomenon in India. I had entered the Internet only about an year back and the first website that I visited was not Google, not Yahoo, not MSN, but ‘www.mahindra.com’!!! My Uncle had connected his computer to the internet and I went over to try it out. I did not know any website. So, I opened the newspaper, scanned the advertisements and typed the URL that first caught my eyes. My first email ID was VIJAYDAV@hotmail.com. (Seriously, I had an email id all in caps). Today, we are hopping across Gmail, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Wikipedia and what not. I’m sure I’m going to laugh at this list when I read this post in 2020 :)

I got my first computer in 2001 at which time I asked the assembler to actually install winzip and IE for me in the system (after getting that advice from my cousin)! That guy loaded a CD full of small flash games, PPTs with those nice wordings and photos. He claimed that he is loading all superb stuff into my system. I went around proudly demonstrating all these things to whoever cared to venture near the system. I remember telling my friend that I had bought a PIII, 128 MB RAM system with 20 GB of Hard disk space. His remark was, "Wow, you can go and sit inside it. What are you going to do with 20 GB? ". Only last month, one of my friends here bought a 1 TB external drive because he had already filled up his other 1 TB drive :)

There was a time when we had to wait for years to get a telephone connection. We got our first connection only in 1998. Now, in addition to two landlines, all of us in our house also have our own mobiles. A lot of us including the elder generation has hopped on to the internet bandwagon. At one point of time, my uncle has his son in the US, one daughter in Switzerland and a son-in-law in the middle-east. And he could see them and chat with them every day through his web cam in Chennai ! Nowadays my father is trading in stocks online ! And there is a very high possibility that my cousin will meet his future wife only over the Internet :)

The bicycles of 1990s gave way to the good old TVS champ in the 2000s. Me and my friends used to roam around the place in a bunch of TVS champs. The moment we turned 18 (also in 2000), we rushed to the transport office to get our two wheeler licenses. The end of the decade is seeing us owning Hero Honda glamour, passion, splendor, Yamaha Rx, Wagon R, Maruti 800, Alto, Honda Civic, Nissan Altima and many others.

And between us (around 7-8 of us) we have visited at least 12 countries - US, UK, Netherlands, France, Bahamas, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Spain (and probably a few more that I've missed)

Three of my closest friends have got married. One is waiting to get married this year, while the ‘bride-search’ is vigorously going on for two others. Yesterday, I met my school friend after 10 years. He is married with a one year old kid. Of course, many of the girls in our school and college have got married and have already had kids.

I have quite a few cousins and I am one of the youngest of the lot. During one of the holidays in the late 1990s, (I was around 16) I was staying in my uncle's place when my grandmom wanted to buy some milk. My cousin (an year elder to me) was going out. But she felt that I would not be able to buy milk on my own and asked my cousin to take me to the shop, buy the milk and drop at the front gate of the house :) Last year, my Project Manager gave me a very wierd and amused look when I called myself as 'Anna' (elder brother) in front of his kid. I'm now introduced to kids as 'Uncle' :( (See my post 'UNCLE, Uncle, uncle...')

Back in the 1990s, even the thought of me, taking the school final exams would make me laugh. Somehow, I could not picture myself in that situation. It seemed so far-fetched. 10 years have passed since and during this time, I’ve completed my Engineering studies, worked in a firm for almost 5 years, lived in US for almost 3 years and am now doing my post graduation, that too across two countries. And the best thing in this – yesterday, the friend whom I met after ten years remarked that I have not physically changed much except for an increase in height :)

I don't know how the next 10 years are going to be. I just hope that they are as interesting and good as the previous 10. I'm so looking forward to read this post in 2020. I hope that the blogs can be preserved till then and imported into whatever technology and format is in vogue then !!!

Avatar - parallels to our dark side

2009-12-21T12:32:00.002-05:00

Most of my friends who saw the movie ‘Avatar’ were just blown away by the graphics, picturization and the creativity. To put in the words of my ever optimistic friend, the movie was just ‘beyond brilliant’ :) I too liked the movie for all the above reasons. But all through the time that I was sitting in the theatre, I was reminded of a few other things.

To me, the story is a reminder of the dark side of humans. All through the history, till today, we’ve been doing the exact same thing as depicted in the movie. Human’s greed for resources, power and control have repeatedly resulted in and still resulting in wars and destruction.

The imperial powers considered themselves superior to all other races – the Africans, Native American, Asians, Australian Aborigines, Polynesians and so many others. They set out to conquer these lands, ‘civilize’ these people and in the process plunder their wealth and loot their resources. The religious practices of these people were considered barbaric and hence they were replaced by Christianity. They were ‘educated’ and as specified in the movie, taught to love light beer and blue jeans. The Na’vi portrayed in the movie bore great similarities to the Native Americans.

Till around the 1970s, Australia had a policy of forcibily removing the Aborigine (Native Australians) children and putting them in foster care or orphanages. This was done with the ‘noble’ cause of protecting them and ‘civilizing’ them. They underwent untold miseries, sexual harassment and so on. They are the ‘stolen generation’. One first hand account (from Wikipedia) goes like this:
“I was at the post office with my Mum and Auntie [and cousin]. They put us in the police ute and said they were taking us to Broome. They put the mums in there as well. But when we'd gone [about ten miles (16 km)] they stopped, and threw the mothers out of the car. We jumped on our mothers' backs, crying, trying not to be left behind. But the policemen pulled us off and threw us back in the car. They pushed the mothers away and drove off, while our mothers were chasing the car, running and crying after us. We were screaming in the back of that car. When we got to Broome they put me and my cousin in the Broome lock-up. We were only ten years old. We were in the lock-up for two days waiting for the boat to Perth. “

Now, the Australian government is going around apologizing for this policy.

The situation is no better these days. Governments and big corporations are fighting like dogs to plunder and loot natural resources. They are funding scores of brutal, heartless dictatorships and rebel movements in places like Africa just to get access to the valuable resources. I am able to relate the plot in the movie to almost exactly what is happening in Congo today.

Congo, especially eastern Congo holds 80% of the mineral ‘Coltan’. This is the main element that goes into electronic devices like our cell phones and laptop batteries. There are allegations that the vast market for Coltan has fuelled barbaric conflicts in Congo. The country has seen the most devastating conflicts since world war 2 and has resulted in death of more than 5 million people. But who cares? All we need is some Coltan.

There are hundreds of other such instances – the tribal conflicts in India, the destruction of rain forests and natives in south America, the oil wars of the middle east, the blood diamonds of Angola, the genocide of Darfur…

As I keep rambling all the time, we have outgrown this planet. We are destroying our fellow beings, the forests, animals just to satisfy our greed for resources. And adding to that, we are heating up the planet, thus paving way for disastrous environmental consequences which in turn is going to give rise to more wars and brutalities.

Of course, there are pockets of good qualities – kind souls trying to make this planet a better place to live. But given our huge size and materialistic life styles, I don’t see us turning a new leaf and start living in harmony with each other. We would need a revolution, a peaceful mind blowing revolution to make us turn around.

This topic seems to be a favourite blogging topic for me :). I have mentioned these things in one way or other in many of my posts:

I also stumbled upon this article on the net. This is quite anti-American. I wouldn't go about putting so much blame on one country. But these things hold good for most of the 'priveleged' class all around the globe. And the photos are pretty powerful.

Avatar - a technological masterpiece

2009-12-21T11:56:00.002-05:00

After a long time, we went to a movie today – ‘Avatar’, the James Cameron blockbuster in 3D format.

Spoiler Warning: I have explained some parts of the story here. So, do not proceed if you do not want to know the story

The day was quite hectic. We had 4 classes today and had quite a few cases today. I was quite hesitant to go to the movie. But based on the very strong recommendations of those who had already watched it, I decided to go.

It is a 3D movie. This is James Cameron first movie after he released Titanic ten years ago. He has invested enormous time and effort into making this movie. And I’m sure this will be a great landmark in his career.

The storyline is quite simple and not very new. But the story is set in future and happens in another earth-like planet called Pandora. Humans have built a base in the planet and are mining some valuable mineral called ‘Unobtanium’. But the most valuable sites are occupied by a group of blue coloured 10 foot tall humanoid creatures called Na’vi. They live in harmony with nature, interact with the life in the forests and life in a huge tree in the forests. They also worship a huge tree with which they connect with their minds. The humans have built their own Na’vi creatures by combining human DNA with the DNA of the Na’vi. The main character of the movie ‘Jack’ has his mind mapped to one of these creations through which he goes into the forests and befriends the Na’vi. He joins as one of them with the initial purpose of making them vacate the place. Later he becomes one of them, fights for them and prevents the humans from destroying the place. It is a classic story of good triumphing over greed.

The movie is a mix of all the themes – harmony with nature or the lack of it, lack of respect to other beings, inability to empathize and understand that beer and jeans are not only ways of life, inhuman (or should I say ‘typical human’) greed and savage brutality of this species…

I particularly liked James Cameron’s words, “the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are," and "the humans in the film, even though there are some good ones salted in, represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future." (from Wikipedia). Similar thoughts were running through my mind while watching the film. My next blog is on that topic :)

But the technological part is amazing. The 3D effects are simply superb. It is as though you are watching the events through a glass window. The real characters (humans) and the animated ones (all other creatures) are mixed so well that you lose track of where reality and animation come together. Stunning visuals !!! The movie is a must watch just for the way it is made.

Don't break the law... Don't sing 'Happy Birthday to you'

2009-12-13T02:27:00.006-05:00

Did you know that you are commiting an 'offence' by singing the traditional 'Happy Birthday' song to your loved ones? I certainly didn't know this until our professor mentioned this while talking about coyrights and Intellectual property rights in class. I dutifully surfed the net for details and here's what I found.

This tune of this song that is the most widely used and recognized across the world, comes from the song 'Good Morning to all' which was written and composed by American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893. They were kindergarden teachers and composed this song for their students.

The song was copyrighted by the Summy company in 1935. The copywright was sold to Time Warner in 1990. Apparently, this copyright is valid till 2030. Currently Time Warner is charging USD 5000, every time this song is sung in public places, movies and performances. In 2008 alone, they have collected USD 2 million as royalties for using this song.

Source: The Absurdity of Copyright: "Happy Birthday to You"

So, the next time you are wishing your friend, you are voilating the law unless you pay royalty to Time Warner !!!

Ridiculous world of copyrights !!! - I'm thinking of getting a copyright for the word 'Hello'. So, everytime someone picks up the telephone and starts with this word, they have to pay royalty to me. I'm going to be a rich man !!!!

Apple Vs Blackberry

2009-12-08T10:07:00.002-05:00

Ad wars have been around for ages. Some of the classic ads are the result of such wars among major competitors. Today our professor showed two such ads in class. These are ads by Blackberry and Apple, attacking each other. I really liked these ads very much. So, here they are...

Blackberry's AD attacking Apple

Apple's ad retaliating Blackberry

27th July, 2048

2009-11-29T06:59:00.001-05:00

A really nice video of a speech by Hans Rosling given during the TED conference in India. The speech is about the re-emergence of Asia. He uses historical data and predicts the future for the continent. A really nice speech.

And what happens on 27th July, 2048? Watch the video to find out. :)

Birthday Stupidity

2009-11-27T12:34:00.003-05:00

I have just returned from yet another birthday bash, in fact two bashes. As in almost all birthday celebrations, there were cakes (really delicious ones) which were dutifully smeared on the Birthday Boy's face, a number of dubious concoctions pored over his head etc. Amidst all this, there was also another form of celebration; one which seemed to provide the maximum fun to everybody around here; something that I always dread about - BIRTHDAY BUMPS.

Personally, I feel this is one of the most stupid and irresponsible way of celebrating a birthday. I've seen (and also received a few myself) countless 'Birthday Bumps' since the final years of school. In most cases, a couple of guys lift the birthday boy by his hands and legs. The rest of his ‘friends’ take turns to kick his buttocks. The number of kicks will depend on the popularity of the guy. And mind you, these kicks are not just kicks by namesake. They are real hard blows given with shoes. People even run down from a distance to gather momentum and deliver the blow with maximum force.

Today’s ‘Bumps’ were especially more outrageous. There seemed to be complete chaos and everyone was kicking the ‘boy’ from all possible directions.. Many a time, he was dropped by the ‘carriers’. Today, I think he almost got hit on his back rather than the buttocks.

In all these wild celebratory moods, people rarely seem to notice where they are kicking. One small mis-timed kick onto the spinal cord can just cripple the person for life. In fact, even the buttocks may not withstand such forceful kicks. All this fun and frolic can just vanish in a second. Then no amount of guilt or remorse or anything can alter things. It will not only cripple the boy, but will forever change the lives of all those present.

I might sound so very ‘un-cool’ or just plain boring. But I definitely do think that people should take this seriously. There are 1000 other harmless ways to have fun. I too take part in all the cake smearing, concoction pouring exercises. But I’ll definitely not take part in such a mindless stupid violent activity just in the name of fun. Imparting pain (potentially tragic) to someone, especially on their birthday, is not fun for me.

I found this blog on the net, describing the fate of a young boy who received one such ‘mis-timed’ kick on his back: Please refrain from giving Birthday Bumps

A small historical note: ‘Birthday Bumps’ seems to have originated in Ireland where it was believed to drive away evil spirits and bring good luck. But back then, it just involved ‘bumping’ (swinging) the person up and down. The number of bumps given is equal to the age of the person plus one for luck. In the US, the birthday boy (or girl) was spanked on the back. Somewhere down the ages, this has taken this more violent form.

Digital 'Pseudo-Contact'

2009-11-26T10:16:00.003-05:00

More than five years have passed since I finshed my Bachelor's in Engineering. My last official working day in college was May 10, 2004. How much things have changed since then? Thanks to Information Technology, we are able to stay in touch with many close friends. Social Networking sites like Orkut and Facebook help us maintain what I call 'Pseudo-contact' with our friends. We add them to our friend list; 'scrap' them; write on their 'walls'; follow their 'Tweets'; Read their 'Diggs'; We know their whereabouts, the main events in their lives etc. Yet we are not in direct touch with them.

I'm very bad in returning calls or responding to emails and hence has lost contact with many friends over the years. But there are a few really close friends with whom I still maintain contact. We mail each other frequently and occasionally talk over phone. Our lives have diverged into so many different ways - Direct employment and marriage; Master of Science; Master of Business Administration and so on. Different locations - India, USA, UK, Singapore... At any point of time, at least one of us will be awake at some part of the globe. :)

A couple of hours back, one of these friends had mailed to the rest of us. He had gone to India to attend his brother's wedding. Of course, his schedule was packed to the last minute.One of our other friends is also now in India on vacation. He's visiting India after 4 years. Both these guys live pretty close to each other. Yet they have not been able to meet each other. Each one had their priorities and Neither one is at fault. This just didn't fit their schedules. God knows how many years have to pass by, until the two of them can meet again. And who know what each one will be doing then???

As time goes by, our lives diverge; our priorities change. In 'ancient' times when there was no internet or telephone, people just lost touch with each other. Now, the digital media is connecting us across the globe and is helping us keep in touch. But it can only do so much: help us maintain 'Pseudo-contact'. As I told my friend, we're now just a little more than pen-pals. But I'm still thankful for that.

Doomsday - Just around the corner

2009-11-22T01:20:00.007-05:00

Every now and then, doomsday predictions surface and occupy the gossip columns. Millions of books on the predictions will be sold; documentaries or films will gross billions; salvation and a place in heaven will be promised by different ‘God men’ and in extreme cases we also see mass suicides or killings. The Dawn of this millennium was predicted to bring about the end of this world. That moment passed and the world survived. Now the next date of doom is 21st December, 2012. This is the date that our world will come to an end, as predicted by the Mayans, Nostradamus, the Oracle of Delphi and many others.

Again, the usual series of books, movies, and websites have sprung up to make money out of this prediction. Probably they’re trying to make as much money as possible to take into their next world after this world ‘expires’ in 2012. Today, I saw the movie ‘2012’ that is based on this prediction. A strong solar flare causes some problems with the core of the earth which in turn destabilizes the earth’s crust. As a result, the crust starts cracking up all over the world resulting in huge earthquakes flattening entire cities. The Governments of the world have been preparing for this event for more than 3 years. They build huge ship-like structures named Arks where they collect selected people whose genes are supposed to be good enough to make the human species take root once again. These ships are built deep inside China in the Himalayan Mountains. In the climax, a 1500 meter Tsunami sweeps over the East Coast of India and reaches the mountains. It sweeps these arks and flings them towards Mount Everest. Finally, our hero saves the ark from being rammed into Everest. The world is also changed – Wisconsin becomes new South Pole, Africa rises 1000 feet above and the tallest mountains in the world are in South Africa.

WHAT IF WE GET TO KNOW ABOUT THE END OF THIS WORLD, A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE END? HOW WILL HUMAN BEINGS REACT?

This is my take on what will happen…

Chaos will take over the planet. Governments will start programs to safe guard the top echelons of the society. The rich and the powerful will try to pay their way into the new world order. Societal order will collapse. There will be mass migrations to regions considered safe. National boundaries will disappear, governments will collapse. There will be large scale looting and destruction. Protecting self will be first and foremost in everyone’s minds. Businesses will try to make as much money as possible – selling talismans, magical potions and scientific ‘inventions’ designed to protect people from destruction. God men will rally people around promising salvation and heaven.

Of course, there will also be tales of selfless deeds, outstanding human courage, stories of heroic beings rushing to save their community. But I feel that chaos and anarchy will drown these few activities. Somehow I get the feeling that survival of the fittest will be the most dominant force guiding the human race at such times of crisis. Human beings are just not that mature yet.

My mom already keeps saying that the goodness in this world is draining fast. She complains that people have lost their moral values and ethics; there are more liars trying to cheat people out of their money; corruption has increased; there is no sincerity in anyone's work;

PROBABLY THE END IS NEAR !!!

How many planets do we need?

2009-10-15T10:31:00.010-05:00

“On an average, a normal Google Search emits about 7 grams of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere” – claimed my friend, 'S', in her presentation on ‘Green IT’. A prominent hand shot up in our class with a question. It was my friend 'G'.

“I have performed so many searches through Google and I’ve never seen any fumes coming out of my system. Can you explain the logic behind your statement?” - He queried with his ever-present ‘innocent’ expression, triggering a ripple of laughter across the class.

'S' and her team went on explain how the servers and components working on our search query use up huge amounts of electricity. This in turn necessitates greater power production resulting in larger quantities of carbon dioxide emissions.

“In that case, how can you cite increased Google searches and such operations as the cause of emissions? Shouldn’t you be looking at the manner in which the electricity is produced? If electricity is generated from renewable sources, then increased Google searches will not lead to global warming.” – shot back, 'G'

'S' and her team again tried explaining their point and few others from the class also joined in. In all these discussions, I noticed a couple of things:

Global warming and Carbon dioxide emissions have been in the limelight for so long that, almost all environmental problems are now being equated to global warming.
Right from the early science classes of our school days, concepts of ‘Renewable energy’ have been touted as the ultimate panacea of all our troubles.

Over the past century, Humans have emerged as the most wasteful species on this planet. We have become so frivolous in our consumption. To just quote one small example, during the first few days in Singapore, my room-mates 'G' and 'M' wanted to leave the Air Conditioner running in our room when we went out. This way, they claimed, the room would be ‘cool’ and comfortable when we returned. I was literally horrified at the idea and protested vehemently. They have now grudgingly accepted my demands of switching off the appliances when we leave the room. Even now, 'G' occasionally keeps pointing out that I’m not allowing him to leave the AC on. :) He once ‘complained’ about me to our friend 'P' and I was quite surprised (and horrified) to see her react as though it is quite natural for anyone to leave the AC on.

Leaving aside the fact that we have to pay for the electricity and water that we consume, can we really afford to waste resources? The global population is now more than 6 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. Can this planet support so many people with each one consuming much more than their normal requirement?
Apparently, total consumption levels had already exceeded the planet’s ecological capacity by the late 1970s. This means that we are currently living far beyond our means. The picture to the right is the popular statistic that indicates how many earth-sized planets are required based on each country’s consumption levels. At the current levels, the US alone consumes an equivalent of 6 planet resources. The growing economies are fast catching up. What is going to happen when the 2 Billion+ people in India and China start living like the Americans? Unfortunately, this is the lifestyle that most people in developing countries are aspiring for.
The current level of technology available for harnessing renewable energy resources is quite limited, though it is rapidly advancing every day. Hydro power, once considered to be a clean, efficient and ‘green’ option has now fallen out of favour among environmentalists on account of the massive ecological damage caused by dams. Even if we go after sources like solar power and Wind in a big way, how much can we produce to satisfy these ever increasing ‘Google Searches’??? Renewable energies have limitations. They are not limitless sources of ‘clean energy’ with no consequence on the environment. Imagine the amount of land required for establishing huge solar farms and wind farms that satisfy the energy needs of this world. Then are we going to coat our buildings with solar panels and mount windmill on all skyscrapers? Or as some have suggested, establish giant mirrors in the sky to reflect sunlight away from the earth, thus reducing global warming? Suppose in future, by some great leap of technology, we succeed in harnessing the unlimited source of power from hydrogen, can we start consuming more? Does this planet have enough resources to sustain our wasteful consumption habits? At this rate, we are not leaving behind a lot for our future generation.

We need not live like a hermit, sustaining on meager resources. We work hard, earn and have the right to enjoy our lives. But we can at least do so without unnecessarily wasting resources – Power, water, food and all other things that we use.

I’m not the first person to talk about others. Billion others have talked about this to the point of boredom, quoted the same examples that I have quoted. But as the popular Tamil saying goes,

"Thirudarai Paarthu Thirundhaavittal, Thiruttukal kuraivathillai”

Translation: As long as thieves do not mend their ways themselves, thefts will never reduce

Realization and self-responsibility should come from within each one of us. I hope we will be able ingrain this thought at least among our next generation, right from their early ages.

Ek gaon mein...

2009-07-16T01:31:00.009-05:00

"Ek gaon mein ek kisaan rehtha thaa" – This is a famous line in a comedy scene of an 80's Tamil film. A Hindi Pundit tries to teach Hindi to our hero, who would consistently mispronounce the words. This line has come to denote anyone who does not know Hindi!!! I'm one of the three students here in Dubai (April 09 batch) who falls in that category.

I was quite apprehensive about joining SPJCM for the very simple reason that I do not know the one language that the “Globally diverse set of students here” interact in, out of college hours – “Global Raashtra Bhasha -Hindi”. I was very afraid that I would not be able to interact with anyone without knowing the language.

After a lot of thought, I decided that my national language should not be a deterrent and took the plunge into the SPJCM community. As expected, it is slightly difficult to cope without knowing Hindi. But it is not as bad as I had imagined. I’m still having a great time here. My batch mates around here are very friendly and understand my problem. Most of them make an effort to speak in English when I'm around. But of course, as is usual with any large group, they sub-consciously switch to Hindi. A typical conversation would go something like this…

Friend: Hi Vijay, How's your day?

Me (smiling): Fine. So far, so good.

Friend: Did you finish your assignment?

Me: Not yet. It's too boring and long :(

Friend: Oh, yeah. What is this yaar? Hum Kithne kaam kar sakthe hein?

Me (understanding so far): I know... ETM, macro, marketing... My god! Did you go out anywhere yesterday?

Friend: main desert safari main jaana chahta tha par assignment tha to hum nahin jaa sake...

Me (taking slightly more time to comprehend this time, but patting myself for understanding): I just went to dragon mart yesterday. Had to buy a few essentials.

Friend: Tumko mall of emirates jaana chahiye.. bahut badi hai, thodi mehangi hai par dukaan kaafi achche hai, khaana achcha hai, bus ghoomfirne ke liye toh achchi hai..

Conversation sounds like ‘#$@%#!#$#@#$ %^#^*^($%^&*& %#@!#$~@!%^*$@*^$...’

Me: (blank stare ....... an embarrassed smile...) Stop, Stop, stop. Now you have to slowly repeat what you said...

As group conversations gather momentum, the local dialects and lingo would start peeping in and I would lose track. It becomes a little difficult to penetrate such group conversations as I don't understand the jokes and comments that can only be enjoyed in that particular language.

But I'm slowly learning the language. I'm now able to understand much more than before. Hopefully I'll also start conversing in Hindi. It would take a little more confidence on my part to start speaking. I should increase my vocabulary in order to gain confidence. One of the other two guys who do not know Hindi is learning the language even faster than me. For us, this is like an additional course – but an equally important one.

I hope that by the end of the year, I'll be able to write a post in this blog, completely in Hindi :)

Sunday Blues

2009-06-21T10:26:00.008-05:00

I've been struck by 'Sunday Blues' - yet again :(

It is that dull feeling that I get on most Sunday afternoons. It is not the sadness of the week ahead or the feeling of the passing weekend. It is just a feeling of boredom - not interested in doing anything that is physically tiring, not interested in studying, but not interested in staying at home either. I feel like going out and enjoying, but not so interested in traveling or doing any remotely tiring.

This happens almost every Sunday. Back home, I'll meet my friends in one of our houses, by around 5. We'll go to his terrace and keep talking something till 8 pm. Then we'll go out to eat somewhere - It could be the local 'Bhagya's' or 'Gangotri'. It could also be a short bike ride to 'Eden' or 'New Yorkers' :) Oh! Those good old days ... terrace cricket... carrom... besant nagar beach... one of the countless 'eat-outs'...

Moving over to New york... There were quite a few days when I used to just sit at home wallowing in my 'blue' feelings. On other days, me and my room-mate will just walk to the river front or the local mall. We'll walk around the place, go to a movie, eat or end up buying some stuff from shop rite or 'Bed, Bath & Beyond'. Nice days. A couple of days back, I watched the movie 'Pelham' starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta. I travelled back in time to those good days when I saw the Grand central station, times square, 34th street station, aerial shots of my office building and the NY/NJ skyline, the 4/6 subway trains and the streets of New York, in the movie 'Pelham'.

Here... I'm yet to find out what I can do. Right now, I'm just sitting in my chair not knowing what to do... Wanting to go out and yet not wanting to go out. It would've been a bit better if I stayed inside the city or if I had a bike.

"Universe Conspiracy" theory

2009-06-06T15:05:00.031-05:00

“When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
- The alchemist, Paulo Coelho

My friend, ‘Mr.M’ was quoting this to everyone. He was actually quoting it from a Shahrukh khan movie. I didn’t think it was originally from the movie. So I googled and found the source – Paulo Coelho from his famous ‘Alchemist’ (Alas, I’ve not yet read this very famous book which everyone else seems to have).

Back to the point, why was he going about quoting this? He had just got back his suit, which he left in a cab a few days back. He had been desperately trying to trace it since then, but had met with little success.

The day after the loss, M and another friend went around the cab parking lot near our college inquiring about the suit.

On the day in discussion, a series of ‘chance’ events have led him to the suit. And of course, he was on cloud nine.

We had a series of ‘long’ lectures that day and were about to leave college so that we can reach home quickly and start preparing for our exams the next day.

Time: 4:00 pm

Obama...Osama ???

2009-05-12T15:14:00.006-05:00

I was preparing a small write-up on great orators and as an obvious choice, I started writing about Obama. And there it was - the notorious squiggly red line of MS-WORD. This time, WORD had dutifully underlined Mr.Obama's name. I dutifully right-clicked on the word; Here is it's suggested correction:

I know that this blooper has been noted and talked about so many times in the world wide web. But I could not resist posting my 'discovery' here :)

Dubai Nila

2009-05-12T11:02:00.005-05:00

A couple of photos of "Dubai Nila" (Dubai moon) that I clicked from our college. It was quite a beautiful sight that day - the place was completely quiet, green lawns and desert sands around and the moon above ...

Coffee with camel's milk

2009-05-03T05:36:00.005-05:00

"Ottaga Paal-la tea podra; Ottaga paal-la tea podra-nu ethana vaati solliruken. Dubai-lalaam appadi than poduvaanga"

- popular lines from a Vadivelu comedy that sprang to our minds when we saw the bottles of camel's milk in a supermarket here in Dubai. :) Since coming to Dubai, we've been having coffee / tea only with cow's milk :( So, we decided to give camel's milk a try. Still skeptical of the taste, we decided to go for a small bottle.

We came back to our rooms and told our plan to a few people around and it spread across the entire place with many people curios about this. But no one really wanted to try it out. One of the guys from Rajasthan warned us that Camel's milk taste very bad. After lot of hesitations, we decided to try out. My friend made coffee using camels' milk. Our first victim was a girl who was brave enough to come and try this. I was having a camera and closely watching her first expressions after sipping the coffee. She first looked at the colour and texture of the drink; smelled it slowly; looked at us; and slowly proceeded to take the first sip. Then her facial expression changed - not happy; not distaste; but disappointment. My friend had used a lot of coffee and very less camel's milk that we couldn't really taste the milk. So, we decided to directly drink the milk. I decided to take the plunge and took a first sip from the bottle. For a moment, I didn't feel anything different. It didn't even taste like milk. Then it slowly came out - slightly sour, more salty and little thin. Final verdict - not bad.

But contrary to what Vadivelu said, they don't use only camel's milk to make tea/coffee in Dubai :) In fact it was very costly - Double the price of the usual cow's milk !!!

And here's the vadivelu video :)

Dubai - first impressions

2009-04-06T11:58:00.009-05:00

Dubai - the city where I'm going to spend the next 5 months. New York and Dubai are totally different in so many ways. While New York started its journey somewhere in the 1600s, Dubai as we know today is onyl a few decades growth. Both cities have one of the largest number of skyscrapers. But while New York has packed so many of them on the Manhattan island, Dubai has allowed them them to spread across.

Dubai seems to have had a unique growth model. Unlike many other world cities, which grew as the population moved in, Dubai was specifically planned and built, so that the population would one day move in.

Everything here is so big and built on a very grand scale. They've tried to create the world's largest, tallest, biggest ... in everything. While Old Dubai area called Deira has its share of narrow streets and old buildings, they've just built an entirely new downtown area called 'Burj Dubai' consisting of huge 16 lane roads and super tall buildings.

The Sheik Zayed road is the spine of Burj dubai. This is a 16 lane road stretching for miles inside Dubai. In fact it also connects to Abu dabhi and other emirates. On both sides of the road are one of the most dazzling array of super tall buildings. Virtually, every major company has set up shop here. There is a huge indoor skiing place that has ski sloped of the expert levels. The Burj Dubai building is currently the world's tallest building. It has not been completed, but has already reached 818 m. A building stretching almost a kilometer into the sky!!!

Then there are palm Jumeira islands. These are entirely artificial islands built by dredging the sea shore. The islands are shaped like a palm leaf. The leaf like structures are called fronds and each contain luxury villas that have sold for millions of Dirhams. Even the smallest apartments cost over a million. At the head of the structures is the ultra-luxury hotels - Atlantis, that supposedly has rooms under the sea. So, if you look out the windows of one of those, you'll see under the ocean.

Apart from the downtown district, Dubai has allocated chunks of desert for different industries as free zones. The usual laws of doing business in UAE does not hold good in these zones. There is an academic city(where my college is), international city (place of my stay), silicon oasis for electronic research, aviation city, sports city etc.

Construction has been going on in every single part. At any point, you can dozens of cranes over buildings. But it is so glaringly evident that things have gone terribly wrong in the city. The rulers have taken too huge a step and as a result, have been so badly hit by recession. Foreign investment has totally dried up. One can see huge buildings in the downtown district sporting the "for rent" signs. The roads are seeing less traffic as so many expatriates have returned. Most of the projects including the Dubai metro have been delayed or stopped.

Dubai is a millionaire's paradise. It grew so fast and hence when the fall came, is hurt so badly. Hopefully, things get better and the city starts growing again.

First Days in Dubai

2009-04-04T11:21:00.004-05:00

After a 2.5 year stint in the U.S., it is now time for a stint in Dubai. For good or bad, I've taken a decision to break out of my comfort zone, resign my job and pursue a MBA degree. I landed in Dubai on 01-Apr-09 and will be spending the next 4.5 months here.

We went around Dubai yesterday (03-Apr-09). Compared to Indian cities and the Us, Dubai is very different. The pattern of growth has been unlike any other city in the world. I'll write a whole different post on Dubai :)

Today, we had a full day of inauguration activities. We were asked to wear suits for the occasion. So, I had to wear a tie for the first time. It is one of the most uncomfortable things to wear :) but I felt I do look good in a suite. :):):)

The day was filled with speeches. Our president and dean gave long speeches on the value of MBA program and their expectations from us. There was a 2 hour session where each of us had to come up to the stage and introduce ourselves. I think I did good, though I forgot to say a couple of things that I had planned.

There were a few other sessions dedicated to scare people - sessions on grading system, warning against plagiarism of assignments (this was a long one), effects of absenteeism ... Suddenly I felt as though I'm in school again. College does make you feel young :)

There is one common thing that everyone is saying - the course will be tough, tough, tough. 4 hours of sleep is supposed to be a luxury. Sometimes I do ask myself - "What have I gotten myself into?". But then, hard work need not be painful. I just hope that I can turn this into a transformational experience and have an open mind.

UNCLE, Uncle, uncle...

2008-12-30T23:37:00.005-05:00

"Uncle - Kitta poriya ? Uncle Chocolate tharuvaaru !!!" - sounded the voice of my colleague. She was pointing at me and talking to her baby girl. There was a small voice in my head, that echoed like that background voice in the popular hair dye ad , "UNCLE, Uncle uncle...". When did this transition happen - the shift from "Anna" (elder brother) to "Mama" (Uncle)? Ever since I was a child, I had always been an "Anna". Of course, the elder kids would call me by name. But to all the younger ones, I was introduced as "Anna". Over the past year (or even more), there has been a transition from "Anna" to "Mama".

I'll not forget this particular instance that occurred a few months back. We were having a company get-together and many of my colleagues had brought their families along. I was trying to play with one of my Colleague's Kids. I stretched my hands towards the kid and called out, "Anna-kitta variyaa?". My colleague was sitting nearby tending to his other kid. From that seated position, he just lifted his head, looked at me with a slightly amused-cum-mocking look and said "Anna-vaa?" :)

I realize that it's not only me. I've seen many other guys who are about the same age as me, react in a similar way. On a more serious note, of course, all of us accept that we're getting older. In fact, we rarely bother about it (We're not that old, yet). But on a lighter vein, hearing someone introduce us as an 'uncle' give a slight prick :) One of my friends has taken to signing his name as 'Youth' in his personal mails to friends :)

Nowadays, age (or 'youthfulness') is a regular way of teasing others. The younger guys in our group will call themselves 'kids' and tease the older ones as grandpas, while the older guys will pretend that the younger ones are not old 'enough' to understand certain things :). But as soon as a guy marries, this equation will automatically change. He will then become the 'Big uncle' or the 'Grandpa' of the group, even if he is much younger than the rest of us.

We are going through a transitional period of our lives - We're getting older and moving out of the college (or fresh out of college) mentality; settling down in our respective careers; seeing so many fresh baby faces around in our workplace (against whom we seem older); hairlines receding (this is a very important one); and slowly each one is entering into marital relationships. I guess, all these are making us want to hold on to the image of "youth", a little longer.

I would like to revisit this post when I make the next transition - from being an 'Uncle' to a 'Thatha' / 'Grandpa'. I wonder how it'll be then :)

Shoes

2008-12-21T22:58:00.004-05:00

Last week, the outgoing US president Bush paid a visit to Iraq. While there were elaborate security measures to protect the president from terrorist attacks, no one expected him to be hit by a shoe. This act of defiance by an Iraqi reporter has caught the world's attention for the past few days. This is not something seen so often in the news. While Bush has brushed it off, the reporter has been arrested, allegedly beaten and made to apologize. The shoes were also destroyed. Now, almost after a week, I read these lines in the newspaper,

"A new run of 15,000 pairs, destined for Iraq, went into production on Thursday, he said. A British distributor has asked to become the Baydan Shoe Co.’s European sales representative, with a first order of 95,000 pairs, and a U.S. company has placed an order for 18,000 pairs. Four distributors are competing to represent the company in Iraq, where Baydan sold 19,000 pairs of this model for about $40 each last year.

Five thousand posters advertising the shoes, on their way to the Middle East and Turkey, proclaim “Goodbye Bush, Welcome Democracy” in Turkish, English and Arabic."

Ever since the reporter threw his shoes at the president, they have become quite popular. A shoe maker from Turkey, Ramazan Baydan, claims to be maker of those shoes. The result - he's now flooded with orders from around the world for that model of shoes. The shoe's sudden popularity or that the president's unpopularity is proving to be a gold rush for this cobbler.

Strange world ... :)

Here's the news article : ‘Bush shoe’ gives a Turk firm footing

Stuff, Stuff and more stuff...

2008-12-21T16:04:00.003-05:00

70 million computer mice, 60 million motherboards, 2 million square meters of wooden flooring, billions of plastic/glass/wooden beads, 15 billion buttons, 200 million yards of zippers, 8 billion pairs of socks, 300 million ties, 3 billion toothbrushes ...

What is this list? This is a teeny tiny portion of the stuff churned out by Chinese factories in a year. Are these the total production figures for the entire country? Again, the answer is a big 'NO'. This is just the amount of stuff churned out by a single factory or a single small city in China. For example, the electronics company 'Logitech' has a manufacturing base in the Chinese city of Suzhou. It produces approximately 70 million computer mice per year and supplies under its own brand as well as under other brands like 'Dell'. 'Acer' etc. Almost every single molecule of any product that we use everyday is from these huge Chinese factories. We're now buying things because they're being produced and are available in the market, rather than things being produced because they're needed for our life.

Over the past 3 decades, China has taken up mass manufacturing at a scale not imagined by anyone before. There are millions of factories across China churning out products by the billions. Most of us would not have heard of any of these companies as most of these products are sold under popular home brands of the respective countries. This is in contrast to the development model of the Japanese or the South Koreans who, over the years, have built up a popular brand image and value. While the world would blindly trust a product from a popular company in Japan / Korea, we would think twice before purchasing a product marketed directly as "Made in China". But in all probability, the entire product floated by the Japanese / Koreans would've been manufactured in China.

The massive scale of production in the Chinese territory, the ways & means of sourcing the raw materials to meet this production scale and the consequences of such massive production & dumping of products, while awe inspiring, also makes me uncomfortable and uneasy.For example, the Chinese city of Zhangjiagang is like the 'wooden workshop of the world' producing all sorts of stuff like plywood, wooden flooring, furniture etc. Seeing the effects of large scale deforestation on the Chinese forests, the government banned the felling of natural forests in the country. As a result, the wooden industry turned to the outside world for wood supply. Currently, China is said to be the largest importer of wood and a sizable percent of it is supposed to be illegal. Millions and Millions of acres of rain forests are being destroyed illegally and the wood is sent to the Chinese factories to be made into furniture to be sold to the affluent of the world. Forests of Africa, South America, Indonesia etc are rapidly diminishing due to this illegal trade.

The Chinese have a majority market share in almost every single product that you can imagine. There is a region in China,specializing in fake oil paintings that we see in hotels, shops and other public places. This place churns out thousands of fake Mona lisa, Marlyn Monroe and even Bush. There are huge markets selling plant herbs, animals parts and even human placentas to be used in traditional medicines.

The output of every product is in the Billions. I'm personally not in favor of this model of development which has produced millions of workers working around 100 hours a week, on the same monotonous job in an assembly line, for an extremely low wage. Some argue that this is better than the wretched life that these people would be living, if not for such factories. But I'm not comfortable with that thought. This model has produced millions of workers with steady, but low wages on one hand and a handful of rich factory owners, managers and industrialists on the other. The cities become divided into sections of huge overcrowded workers, interspersed with affluent homes and apartments.

This type of mass production is also building up clutter in this world. Everywhere we see huge warehouse style shops in our places such as Saravana stores or Big Bazaar in India or the ones like Walmart or target in the US. They have huge mounds of stuff at dirt cheap prices, all mass produced in such factories in China. We see people buying stuff by the cart loads. Most do not even care if they really need these items. They're just cheap and attractive. I see a huge glut of materials among the affluent of the world. Each one has something like 2 televisions, 3 mobile phones, 2 laptops, 2 cars, 10 bags, 20 pens and 5 bundles of paper. The concept of buying just one of any item seems to be vanishing. Here in US, I don't think I can buy a single pen or just 10 sheets of paper. I have to buy a pack of 10 pens or a whole bundle of paper.

The mass output of such factories have not yet covered the entire humanity. Imagine what will happen if the entire human population starts living like this. The production which is already in the billions would shoot up into the Trillions, Zillions or Pillions (I don't know what such huge numbers are called). Where are we going to get the resources for these? What will be ecological footprint of these operations? How are we going to dispose the waste products? I don't think, this mindless obsession for filling up our lives with endless cheap material possessions, augurs well for this planet.

A billion Lives

2008-12-16T00:09:00.003-05:00

Mankind is a warring animal. Ever since man evolved from primates (possibly even before that), he/she has been involved in some kind of conflict. Archeologists have even speculated about the possible conflicts between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals in which we, the homo sapiens triumphed. Until the last few hundred years, these conflicts were mostly local and affected only a particular section of the world. But as man advanced technologically, so did his reach across the planet. Conflicts started becoming global and have now reached a point of threatening the very existence of our species.

The last century saw two global wars - wars that affected almost every part of earth; wars born out of greed for money, power and resources; wars conducted without any respect for human lives. The aftermath of the wars rewrote the political, economic and the social landscape of the planet. New countries were born; Peace blossomed in some regions, while more bloody wars were fought. How has the world fared after its epic battles? What has been happening in the different parts of the world? 'A Billion Lives' - a book by Jan Egeland provides a view of the world's most troubled spots as seen through the eyes of its author - a former undersecretary general for the United nations.

Jan has lived on the front lines of UN operations under Kofi Annan. He has also worked with the Norwegian Ministry. Through these posts he has traveled to many of the most dangerous and troubled spots on earth, has held talks with the most ruthless rebel/government leaders and has arranged humanitarian relief efforts in those areas. In his book, he takes us on a journey through the civil wars and disasters in Colombia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Indonesia and Darfur. He describes in detail, the background of the conflict or the disasters in each region and walks us through the progress made in each place. He provides an insight into the minds of the dictators, rebel leaders and other warring factions.

All the places (except Indonesia where he assists the Tsunami victims) described in the book have been ravaged in mindless, unnecessary wars. Whatever be the history, economy, geography or religion of the place, one thing is common - Wars have served no purpose and have been waged without purpose. End of the day, people suffer. Most importantly, the young children, women, old people - all the vulnerable sections suffer the most. Most of the rebels fighting decade long wars do not seem to have any particular agenda. They really do not know what they're fighting for and why. And most of them are headed by paranoid maniacs who are perpetually afraid of their lives and ruthlessly kill anyone and everyone.

While the UN has carried out numerous relief programs, it has not been able to successfully prevent the ruthless genocides, unless approved by the Security council and the majority of nations. A full approval by the security council is very difficult as one or other permanent members invariably vetoes the proposals. For example, China has consistently refused to back any proposal to pressurize Sudan to stop the Darfur Genocide. Jan describes his helplessness towards the Darfur Atrocity - "The one thing the women beg of me - protection & security - is the only thing we cannot as UN humanitarian workers give them".

In many cases, I felt nauseated reading about the cruelty (the word is just not strong enough) of these so called Militias/rebels/governments/terrorists. He talks about the 20 year long fighting that has been raging on in Uganda. "The Northern part of the country is in the hands of a rebel group called 'Lord's resistance Army' which has kidnapped more than 20,000 children, who have been brutalized, tortured and raped while being forced to join this self-styled army and attack their own villages and families in a forgotten war".

In every scenario, Jan describes the frustrating way in which the peace talks seem to be progressing slowly over the years only to be suddenly broken and everything returning to square one, resulting in a fresh wave of violence, killings and sufferings. He has tried to finish his account in an optimistic note. He has cited statistical evidence that conflicts have reduced around the world. For example, there were 10 unfolding genocides in 1989, while there was just one in 2006. But somehow, these accounts leaves the reader with a big question about our species - Can we ever learn to live in peace and harmony? In the past 10,000 years, I've not seen any evidence of that being possible. The recent conflicts are so huge in scale affecting millions of lives. Millions of children have been abused, tortured and forced to torture others. Entire generations are being bred on violence which would effectively be creating socially retarded psychopaths, accustomed to killings and insensitive to suffering. I fear this generation. We can see some encouraging examples of some of the conflict zones successfully returning to peaceful ways. I just hope that at some point, our species comes to its senses before we ruthlessly destroy ourselves.

From the perspective of a book, this is a really good one. Jan has clearly portrayed the conflict zones and has powerfully expressed his feelings of anger, sadness, frustration and in some cases relief and happiness. The book gives us a good idea of the intricacies of international affairs, the key players and the way the game is played across the world.

Chandrayaan - making us proud !

2008-11-14T13:29:00.005-05:00

It is truly a red letter day in India's history. We've become the fourth nation to drop our flag on the lunar surface. Chandrayaan has made each one of us proud. We now join one of the very few countries in the world to have demonstrated the capability to carry out space missions. This is a very good answer to all the cynics who say, "If it is made in India, then it'll surely break down". As Madhavan Nair put it, there are not many countries who've been this successful in their first attempt. And the most important thing is that we've done it with one of the smallest budgets.

Our scientists are truly amazing to have carried out such an enormous task with a very high degree of precision. This is truly a moment for each one of us to be proud of being an Indian. I only hope that we replicate this achievement in every other field.

Kudos to the Chandaryaan team for making us proud with this successful mission !!! Kudos to all the scientists and workers of ISRO !!! We salute your achievements and wish you success in each one of your future endeavours !!!

I sincerely hope that the probe functions with the same precision seen so far, for the rest of its lifetime. Plans are already on for Chandrayaan-2 and talks are circulating about a possible mission to Mars or Venus.While it is nice to dream of such things, we should not get carried away by our initial success. We should take one step forward at a time, with great care and planning.

ISRO's mission have made significant contributions to our economy and provide tons of data that have significantly boosted weather prediction models, agricultural practices, remote sensing, mapping terrains, communications, entertainment etc. In my opinion, following an indigenous space programme is one of the best decisions taken by our governments.

Having said all this, I also find ISRO's home page to be really pathetic. It is very informative, but it is no way appealing, especially for such a high-tech institution as ISRO. On top of that, we're the outsourcing capital of the world with an IT company in every nook and corner, any of whom would do a very good job of designing the site. The site looks like a collection of HTML pages designed as a school project.There is a link, "Suggestions for website" on the main page which then opens the "mail compose" page to send a mail to the webmaster. I'm planning to send in some of my suggestions :). Such a world class institution deserves a world class brand and site.

ISRO Homepage: http://www.isro.gov.in

Parangikai Errisserry

2008-11-08T12:56:00.006-05:00

It's Halloween season here and the markets are full of pumpkins. I had bought a small piece, a few days back and was looking for something different to do with it. That's when I came across the popular Kerala dish - Errissery. I tried the dish today. It came out well. But I'm not so sure if this is what an Errisserry should taste like. I'm hoping to give to some of my Keralite friends and get their feedback :) In the meantime, I'm sharing the recipe here. (Whatever it is, it tasted good).

Ingredients

Pumpkin (parangikai) - 1 1/2 cups diced into small cubes of around a cm wide
Shredded Coconut - 1/4 cup
Red chillies - 7-8 (depends on your spice level)

Cumin seeds (jeeragam) - 1 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Turmeric powder - around 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - for garnishing
Coconut oil or any other cooking oil

Method

Boil the pumpkin with around 3/4 cups of water along with salt and turmeric powder.
Fry the shredded coconut, red chillies and cumin (you can add a very small amount of oil) till the coconut is reddish. Grind this mixture into a thick paste.
Once the vegetable has cooked well, add the ground mixture to it. Add some water to it if required (take care not to make it too watery). Allow this mixture to boil well, letting the masala blend with the vegetables.
Fry some mustard seeds and curry leaves and add to the dish. You can also add some coconut oil to the dish to give it a nice flavour and smell.
The dish is ready to be served :)

We had a nice lunch today with this Errisserry, Paruppu thuvaiyal, Rice, tapioca curry and curd. The Errissery tasted good when mixed with rice. It was also a good combination with the thuvaiyal and curd rice.

US elections - acceptance speeches

2008-11-05T08:07:00.005-05:00

The main leg of the US elections are over. The electoral college has been decided. All that remains is the formal process of the electoral college selecting Obama and Biden as President and Vice-President of USA. I followed the election coverage on TV yesterday. There were a few words that were repeated so often by everyone - Bad economy... Change... New young voters... Once the poll projections forecast an Obama victory, both the candidates gave acceptance speeches in front of their respective home crowds. Both were them clear, courteous and did not express any resentment towards the other candidate.

The poll results started coming out as soon as polling closed in each state. The early closing states on the east coast started giving out the results hours before polling closed in other western states. In addition to this, the news channels gave out their projections and by 11:00 pm Obama was decisively projected to be the winner. Actually both candidates gave out their acceptance speeches even before polling closed in Alaska.

Both of them are very good orators. They did not have notes or papers and spoke as though they feel each and every word that they spoke. The crowd responded to each and every word of theirs. There were joyful tears all around in the Obama meeting. You could see the expressions of pride, happiness, achievement and determination on all the faces as he spoke.

First, McCain delivered his acceptance speech from his home state, Arizona. I liked it very much. He was quite gracious in accepting defeat and then wished Obama on his victory. He termed this to be McCain's failure and not the people's and asked them to cooperate with Obama. There was no complaints, no accusations and no drama. This is a very good example of how a democratic process should go. Here's the video of his speech.

Obama then gave his acceptance speech from Chicago, Illinois. He also wished McCain and Sarah Palin. He gave much credit to Mccain by saying that "the man has made so many selfless sacrifices for the country that many of us cannot even begin to imagine". He then went on to describe the tough days ahead and gave the example of an old lady in Atlanta who voted at age 106 and reinforced the faith that "together as Americans, we can bring change".

Obama's victory seems to carry a new meaning to most Americans here. The African Americans take this as an example of how anyone can achieve great heights in America regardless of race, colour etc. This has given them a lot of hope and energy. Obama has energized the younger generation of voters who had become disillusioned with the electoral process. This election apparently saw record turnout of young voters. Every demographic category seem to find something in Obama to be proud of. Let's wait and see how the next 4 years turn out.

US election - How is it held?

2008-11-04T21:59:00.005-05:00

The entire world is now closely watching the US presidential elections. The entire country is caught in the election fervor and as I write this post, the preliminary results have started appearing and all news channels are continuously discussing the outcomes. There has been lots of discussions on the electoral process here. I've made a small attempt to explain the process to all the non-Us folks following this.

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. As the name suggests, the senate has senators and the House of representatives consists of representatives. The number of representatives from a particular state depends on its population. The Senate house has 2 senators from each state.
The US president is not elected directly by the people. Through today's election, the U.S. citizens elect an electoral college (They need not be senators / representatives). The number of people elected to the electoral college from each state is equal to the number of representatives and the number of senators from the state. For example, California has 53 representatives and 2 senators and hence has 55 electoral votes. Each member of the electoral college has one presidential and one vice-presidential vote.
In 48 states and Washington D.C., all the electoral votes go to the victorious party. For example, let us assume that the democratic party secures majority votes in California. Then all 55 electoral votes will go that party. So, it will not matter if one county in California has voted overwhelmingly republican. Only the total number of votes at the state level is considered.
In the states of Maine and Nebraska alone, they are counted on a district level. So, it is possible that democratic party wins a few votes while the republican party wins the rest.
Once this election is over, members of electoral college who got elected, will gather on Dec 15 and will vote for the president and vice-president. On Jan 8, these votes will be tallied in front of both the house and the winner will be declared as president and Vice-president. And obviously, the president will belong to the party that has got the most electoral votes as the members of the electoral college will definitely support their party.
There are totally 538 electoral votes. Of this, the candidate should get at least 270 votes to be elected as president / vice-president. This system makes it possible for a person to become president even if he/she has got lesser number of votes from the public. For example, the democrats might have got 49% votes in Florida and the Republicans might have got 51%. The margin is very less. But this proportion will not be reflected in the electoral college, as the republicans would get the entire 27 electoral votes of Florida.

Now, some features of this election :)

The elections are held by the respective states themselves. As a result, there are different rules.
Polls close at different times in different states. For example, polls close at 8:00 pm in New Jersey while it closes at 9:00 pm in New york. Polls close at 9:00 pm in California. But due to time different, it'll already be 12:00 am in New York.
As soon as the polls close, the states start counting and release the results. Counting mostly take place in the voting centers itself. As a result, the earlier states start releasing results even before voting completes in others. This sometimes affect the mood of the public and form trends. This has been criticized by many.
In addition to this, the different news agencies continuously release exit polls throughout the day affecting public opinion.
The candidates campaign even on the election day. They cast their votes and then continue campaigning.
Since the states hold elections, each follow a different method. Some of them have paper ballots, some have electronic machines and others have machines with touch screen. If a state has electronic voting, but a voter wants a paper ballot, then he/she should be provided with a paper ballot.

'Meera' by Ellis Dungan

2008-10-29T14:38:00.017-05:00

"Katrinilie Varum Geetham... Kangal Panithida Pongum Geetham..."

For most tamils, these lines would invoke memories of a young and beautiful M.S. singing the song as Mirabai. The song is from the film 'Meera' - released in 1945 and one of the classics in the Tamil film history. The song will be more familiar and will invoke greater emotions to our earlier generations - of our parents & grandparents. I have not seen the movie, but have heard/seen the song a few times - A really nice melodious song.

Now, why did this suddenly come up? Yesterday(28-Oct-08), Wikipedia sported a small snippet on this movie in its front-page. I followed the links and was really surprised to learn the movie was directed by an American director 'Ellis R. Dungan'.

Ellis is a native of Ohio, USA. He came to India after completing his studies in the 'cinema department' and directed tamil films from 1936 - 1950. He directed many hit films such as 'Sathy Leelavathi', 'Meera', 'Sakunthalai', 'Manthira Kumari' etc. 'Meera' and 'Sakunthalai' (both starring M.S.) are considered all time classics. Many of his films were based on historical settings and required shooting inside temples. At such times, he would disguise himself as a Kashmiri Pundit. He apparently introduced many new and modern filming techniques to Indian cinema and Tamil cinema in particular.

Personally, I feel that it is great to be able to direct such 'Classic' films in some language that he does not know, reflecting a culture that he's not very familiar with. In those days, most of the films were almost poetic and contained so many songs. The dialogues are so pure and poetic, that many young Tamils of today do not understand them. Even though he would've had so many to help him, I feel that it requires a real skill for a non-native to effectively direct such a film, bring out all the emotions and reach the audience as powerfully as these films did.

Some links on Dungan:

For those who would like to hear the song that I've specified at the beginning:

The Chennai forums

2008-10-25T14:34:00.005-05:00

Almost all of us have an affectionate corner in our hearts for our hometown. Wherever we are, we carry with us, fond memories of times in our hometown. I now live in a city that calls itself, "The greatest city on earth". However great this place might be, my first love is my hometown - Chennai.

Ever since I moved out of my hometown, I've always been on lookout for any news or any event related to Chennai. I surf around the net trying to read up news items and articles on the city, describing the new developments, constructions etc. It is one such trips around the net, that I stumbled on to this forum called 'skyscapercity.com'. This is a forum where people get together and discuss about the various cities of the world, infrastructural and architectural developments, new projects, people initiatives etc.

This forum has a separate section for different countries, cities, transport networks etc. There is a huge section on Chennai that has different sub-forums for general discussions, flyover updates, IT corridors, Road development projects such as ORR, city buildings, malls, MRTS, Metro etc. I'm happy that I've been a member of this forum for more than a year now. There are members from different walks of life and from different places around the world. Members regularly post updates on the city, photos of various city landmarks, under-construction structures etc. We also discussion on the pros and cons of various projects announced by the govt. and some members even draw up their own plans for subways, flyovers etc. There are some who are in the engineering / architecture fields who give us great ideas. Some of the members have taken these ideas to the concerned departments / IAS officers and some of them have actually been implemented.

So, we get to know lots of updates about the city, that even those currently in the city do not know. As a result, I really knew what to expect of the city when I visited the place lmost after 2 years. Though I've not given any great plans or ideas, I do post a few small ideas every now and then or post my views as the common pedestrian who has walked the streets of the city for a long time.

Today, Times of India has run an article about the forum that talks about how the forum brings together many city-lovers from across the world.
Talk of the Town - times of India

Here's a link to the main page of the Chennai section of Skyscrapercity:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1229

Kara Kuzhambu

2008-10-25T11:32:00.007-05:00

I was feeling quite bored with the usual cooking of mine - consisting of the same old sambhar or Vathal Kuzhambu or the tomato rasam. So, I decided to try a slightly different one - Kara kuzhambu. This would be a very very common dish in many households. But this is quite unusual in our households as we don't usually add tomatoes, garlic etc in our sambhar-like dishes. I thought it came out quite well. So, here's the recipe that I followed:

The quantities specified here will be sufficient for around 3-4 people.

Ingredients:
For masala
Channa Dal (Kadalai Paruppu) - 2 tsp
Corriander seeds (Kothamalli verai) - 3 tsp
Fenugreek (Vendhayam) - 1 tsp
Red Chillies - 8
Chopped Onion (medium size) - 1/2
Chopped tomato (medium size) - 1
Garlic - 7 pods ( i used 2 tsp of ginger garlic paste)
Cumin seeds (jeeragam) - 1 tsp
Saunf (Sombu) - 1 tsp
Grated coconut - 1 handful (app)

Other ingredients
Tamarind paste - 1 tsp (I guess, this is equivalent to a tamarind piece that is slightly smaller than a lime)
Chopped Onion (medium size) - 1/2
Any chopped vegetable like Drumsticks, Brinjal, Capsicum etc - 1/2 cup
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida (Perungayam) - a small pinch
Salt - as per taste (I used slightly 3/4 tsp)
Cooking oil - 3-4 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few leaves for taste

Method:

Pour around 2 tsp of oil in a frying pan and fry the Channa Dal, corriander seeds, fenugreek, Cumin seeds, Saunf and red chillies till they are red.
Add the chopped onion (1/2) and the garlic pods to this and let it saute for a couple of minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes to this and cook till it is slightly soft.
Grind this mixture along with the grated coconut and make it into a fine paste.
Now, pour 2 tsp of cooking oil in a vessel and add a tsp of Channa Dal to it. When it starts becoming red, add the mustard seeds, asafoetida powder and the curry leaves to it.
As the mixture starts spluttering, add the remaining chopped onions and saute it till the onion becomes translucent.
Now any other vegetables that you have chopped. After a couple of minutes, add 1 cup of water with the tamarind dissolved in it.
Add the turmeric powder and salt and allow the mixture to boil until the smell of raw turmeric and tamarind are suppressed.
Now add the masala paste to the boiling mixture. Add some water if it becomes too thick. Let the mixture boil for some time till you get cooked aroma of the kuzhambu.

That's it. The kuzhambu is ready to served. :)

Quick points:

Instead of frying and grinding Channa Dal, corriander seeds, fenugreek and red chillies, you can just use Sambhar powder.
If you cannot grind anything, then chop the tomatoes and garlic as finely as possible, saute them and add to the kuzhambu. Then add the grated coconut and sambhar powder. Once the tomato is cooked well, it will make the sambhar nice and thick and give a ground paste effect.
Things like saunf, cumin, Curry leaves, turmeric, asafoetida etc. add flavour to the kuzhambu. They can be skipped if you don't have them.
Garlic is also strictly optional. If you do not like garlic, you can just leave it out of the picture.

People reading this - If you know any simpler or better or more creative ways to cook this dish, please let me know.

'Dhonnai' - reinvented

2008-10-09T06:47:00.006-05:00

On one of the usual lazy evenings, I was browsing through time.com, when I stumbled on to this article titled 'The Dish on Green Disposables' and contained the following opening paragraph -
"Americans trash an estimated trillion disposable plates and utensils every year; a single-use plate's useful life averages only about five minutes. For Verterra, a hyper-green New York City start-up, the solution is simple: fallen leaves and steam. That's all it takes to make the new plates and bowls Verterra hopes will soon change how Americans serve food at parties and picnics."

On went the article talking about how a person has created a biodegradable 'green' plates based on what he saw in India. And yes, as you would've by now guessed it, he has re-created our very own 'Dhonnai'. These are small disposable cups made of leaves that have been an integral part of prasadam in temples. He has created this Dhonnai out of palm leaves and has treated it with UV rays and has come out with a product that is microwave, dishwasher and freezer safe . Plus it also degrades in just 6 weeks.

Photo of the 'Dhonnai' from the product's website : www.verterra.com

While it is very good to see the world re-discovering our products and put them to better use, it is also painful to see how much we are moving away from them. Things like the Dhonnai are being ruthlessly replaced by plastics. People have started using disposable plastic cups for prasadams in temples. We even have plastic banana leaves, which according to me, completely robs the pleasure of eating on a banana leaf. The leaf itself adds additional taste to the food. Enter a big shop like Saravana stores and you'll see mountains of cheap Chinese made plastic wares on sale - more and more of these items are single-use items such as disposable plates, cups, spoons, plastic bags etc. If you walk on Ranganathan street after 10:00 pm, you can see huge 10 foot high mounds of waste plastic bags piled up in front of each shop. Now, this is not a problem only in India. Here in US, every shop gives plastic bags even for the smallest items bought. And most shops place one plastic bag inside another in order to 'reinforce' the bag, so that it can hold heavier stuff. One visit to the local grocery shop and we'll be stuck with around 10 plastic bags.

I'm not against plastics. Life cannot go on without them. But the amount of single-time disposable plastics is increasing at an astronomical rate. We should try to re-use them as much as possible or substitute these single-use 'useless' items with something more durable.

Small wonders

2008-06-18T22:08:00.007-05:00

I came home from work by about 6:30 today. Dark rain clouds were gathering on one side of the sky while the evening sun shone brightly from the other side. It was quite an unusual sight - a light drizzle combined with the bright evening sun. Conditions were perfect for a rainbow and there it was - just above the building opposite my house !!! Here's my effort to capture it.

Tonight is the day before the summer solstice - the day when the sun is farthest from the equator in the northern hemisphere. Apparently this is also a day when the moon will be the lowest on the horizon. And lower it is in the sky, bigger it will 'appear' to be. So, the weather channel predicted a bigger than usual moon view. So, I walked down to the Hudson river front to get a night time view of the moon and the NY skyline. And here's what I saw:

I want to take a noiseless, clear night time photo. Hoping to get it right some day.

Good old days...

2008-06-07T16:28:00.005-05:00

Memories are flooding past one by one. Yesterday, I went to Hot breads in Jersey City and got a veg. puff and a black forest cake - a most favoured combination of our gang. I was reminded of those good old days when we used to stop by 'Iyengar's bakery' or 'Hot puffs' and have a veg puff and a cake ; days when myself, roger and kaus2 used to go to the college canteen to get their samosa / cutlet with the watered down ketchup.

Then there were those days when we spent entire evenings playing carom. Each one had our 'specialty' shots, weakness and strengths. We would play for hours together. Someday I would get the samosa/puff - cake combo from the bakery. Or my father would come in and give us trays filled with some snacks or pass on glasses of some juice. Nice days :) Why this sudden flash back of the carrom days ???? - I bought a carrom board today !!!!!!! - Played the game after a long time.

Hope we will get to have a replay of those good old days sometime in future. I know it will not be the same again - Still...

Life after IPL :)

2008-06-02T16:37:00.005-05:00

A nice cartoon in the 'The Hindu' capturing the imapct of IPL on our people :) It has been like a huge festival for the past 1.5 months. The entire nation re-adjusted its daily schedule to suit the IPL and now it's going to be difficult to go back to the "old" ways.

I think its going to be difficult for the players too. Especially in cases where players from different countries would again have to return to the national teams and play against those who played with them in IPL.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/03/stories/2008060399991000.htm

All in a day's work...

2008-05-22T22:05:00.004-05:00

Last week, someone in my workplace had posted this printed note in our pantry. And today I found this handwritten note at the bottom.

Greendex

2008-05-09T10:04:00.006-05:00

Today morning, I was as usual browsing through the online edition of 'The Hindu' when the following words captured my attention: "Indians are world’s greenest consumers". So, I opened the article which starts like this, "Consumers in India care the most for the environment in terms of their day-to-day behaviour with those in the U.S. coming at the bottom, according to National Geographic.".

National geographic has conducted a survey on how much the consumers care for the environment. 14 countries were studied and 1000 people were surveyed in each country. They've come up with a score called 'Greendex'. Apparently India and Brazil have come out on top, thus earning the reputation of being the "world's" greenest.
I feel that this survey does not give an accurate picture of the reality. It might be true that some of the practices of people in India and China are more environmentally sustainable. But that does not make them more environmentally caring - Actually I feel not many actually understand what all these terms even mean.

First of all, I feel that a sample population of 1000 "internet-enabled" citizens in each country is an extremely miniscule sample size to give any meaningful data especially in countries like China and India with more than a billion people each. Second, in developing countries like India and China, people are forced to go in for smaller homes, rely on public transport and save on water & electricity. In these places, demand outstrips supply and hence consumers are forced to make the best use of whatever is available. This should not be compared with places like US and Canada where most people do not know the meaning of the word 'scarcity'.

NGC specifies the following as some environmentally friendly practices -

Live in smaller residences
Prefer green products and own relatively few appliances or expensive electronic devices
Walk, cycle, or use public transportation, and choose to live close to their most common destination

Do Indians do all these by choice? They have no other choice.

In most areas, housing is in great demand. The real estate sales and rental costs are so high and there are millions of people competing to grab every suqare feet of available space. We simply can't afford to have huge expansive houses.
Same is the case of water and electricity. The majority of the population will have memories of runnig behind tanker lorries or standing in line at the water pump to get a few pots of water.Most states face an energy shortage and there are wide fluctuations in the power supply. so, we have to make th most of what is available.
Similarly, the roads are all clogged and we've not yet reached a stage where each individual can afford their own vehicle. But it remains one of the ultimate aims of the majority.

Now compare this with the scenario in US and Canada. The results for this country are probably more accurate. In most cases, they do not have any resource crunch. Lots and lots of land is available to serve a comparatively small population. There is no problem of water or electricity. All commodities are available in plenty. They have these huge warehouse style supermarkets that usually sell items in bulk. It is very very difficult to find a store that would sell a single pen or a single A-4 size paper. You have to buy a box of pens and a whole bundle of paper. So, if I'm going to have 10 pens lying around the house while I just need one, why am I going to really bother saving them all properly? People really do not see the need to save on anything.

Now, in the recent years, the Indian economy is booming and the country has a huge middle class population. The result - more and more people are opting for personal transport like cars & bikes, buying expensive air-conditioners, video/audio systems etc. I don't see any environmentally caring practices among this rising population. how many people actually care or even know about source segregation? How many care about the dumping of the untreated sewage and garbage in the Pallikaranai marshland in Chennai which continues despite the area being declared as a protected wetland. How many even understand the value of the marshland? Most people just view it as wasteland fit to be filled and built upon.

What is needed is a mass environmental educational program. It should start right from the cradle. Children should be taught to care for their environment and make it a part of their lifestyle, not something that is done outside the everyday life. Above all, a major improvement in the livelihood of the common man is needed in the developing countries. Only if they are economically and socially secure, are they going to think about caring for the environment.

A full report of NGC's greendex survey is available here

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

2008-04-19T13:10:00.004-05:00

Came across this video in youtube. Reminded me of the good old 'Doordarshan' days. :)

I was small boy when this song used to be played every now and then on TV. I always used to stop a few minutes to watch this. Even now I don't understand the actual lyrics of the song - I'm just bi-lingual and the song has so many languages in it. But I get the concept - underlying tone.

This is a wonderful composition and anytime I hear this, I get goosebumps.

Thinking about those good old days now - they appear to be from a long gone era - seem so far away both chronologically and geographically. Everything around me now is so different from those bygone days.

I'm just 25 and I'm feeling this way. I can't imagine how our grandparents must feel. My grandpa was born when India still had 19 more years of British rule. Think of the changes that he must have seen - he used to recall the days when 1kg of a vegetable used to 1 or 2 annas. Now think of the things he's seeing now- He's able to see me and talk to me sitting here on the other side of the globe through a web cam .I'm sure my generation is going to see even more drastic changes.

If only I can collect all my thoughts in a pensive (Harry Potter terminology :) ) for future recollection !!!!!!

Recession ??? or not ??? ...

2008-04-16T16:19:00.006-05:00

For quite sometime, there has been talks about a recession in the economy. There are varied opinions among the economists on whether the country has already entered a period of recession or not. The federal reserve bank of US is talking about a big slowdown in growth, increasing inflation, rising energy bill and an increasingly costlier war in the middle-east. The sub-prime housing crisis that broke out last year had an adverse effect on the global markets including India.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1633436020080416?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

There's an interview with Dr Shanto Ghosh, Principal Economist, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, Bangalore, posted in 'The Hindu' on the effect of the US recession on our economy. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200804170321.htm

He talks about various investors are going to look at investing dollars in other world economies including India. If there is an increase in the inflow of dollars into India, it is going to strengthen the rupee which in turn would affect the export oriented sectors. This would also bring about an increase in the inflation increasing the price of essential commodities.

Finally he talks about the effect of this development on the outsourcing industry which caught my attention. These are the things that I've been asking for a few months now - What's our future? How secure are we?

"The second, and a more direct, linkage is with respect to the services sector. Corporate profit outlook in the US is bleak. In the face of a recession, we should expect companies to announce postponement in their capital expenditures as well as information technology budgets.
The fact that the political climate in the US is currently biased against the outsourcing of jobs from the US will have a direct bearing on the amount of dollars that are likely to flow into India as payment for the outsourced jobs. This is again a negative stimulus for the service sector which has been the engine of growth for India over the past few years. "

Aren’t some people arguing that the pressure to retain margins will actually result in a higher amount of outsourcing from the US to countries such as India?
"There is a subtle fallacy in that argument. A recession is characterised by higher levels of unemployment. Moreover, it is a politically sensitive issue. How likely is it that, while joblessness and job cuts attract media attention, a US company will announce further job cuts and start outsourcing jobs outside the country? In my humble opinion, such speculations are nothing but wishful thinking."

I can't say if his words are entirely true. There are lots of differing opinion around. but the general consensus is that there will be a slowdown. As one of my manager put it, "We don't see any immediate effect (at least in our company, in our account). Business as usual will go on. Existing systems need to be maintained. But investments in new ventures, upgrades etc --- not sure.".

So far,the IT biggies have insisted that it is business as usual. They still seem to continue hiring new people. They're just talking about moving up the value chain, hiring quality talent and increasing productivity. Let's hope the industry weathers the storm. But at least in the immediate future, I feel that the big hikes and incentives will reduce, if not completely eliminated.

Reservations... Creamy layers ...

2008-04-12T08:36:00.006-05:00

The supreme court has landed another 'landmark' judgment - one that's going to make it more difficult for us to land seats in some of the most prestigious institutions of the country; Ones that kids from our place aspire to, right from the day they join L.K.G.

The supreme court has upheld the validity of the providing 27% reservation to the OBCs in central institutions, IITs and IIMs. Looking at the verdict, the apex court seems to have tried to minimize the damage while at the same time giving some advantages to the OBCs. Few measures towards that end seem to be

Exclusion of the creamy layers from the OBC category. The creamy layer definition is quite exhaustive. It's available here: http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/11/stories/2008041159981200.htm
Directive to review the list of OBCs every 5 years.
Fill up any vacant seats under the OBC quota with candidates from general categories.

I'm not totally against reservations. There are millions of people in our country who cannot even afford a day's meal and it is just not fair to expect their children to compete against the rest of the country and fight for their education. But what bothers me is the manner in which it is being implemented.

Already most of the seats in the state institutions are filled up the candidates under the OBC, SC, ST categories. The central institutions, IITs and IIMs were one of the last places where merit really mattered . Now that has also been removed. Now our kids have to work even harder, compete even more fiercely, battle it out over marks up to 5 decimal places and at the end of the day endure seeing someone with much lower marks getting ahead. Already we see that most people in our community concentrate on nothing but studies. Our children are already over-worked and are mentally and physically stressed out.

The IIMs have declared that the total number of seats will be increased by 54% by 2010, higher than the reservation rate, so that the number under the general quotas are not reduced. That is a welcome move. I hope the other institutions also follow this.

If an OBC candidate is well-prepared and scores well, he/she fills up the general category. If not, still no problem for them - there's always the OBC quota. We, on the other hand will not be able to get in even if we get good marks. We have to be exceedingly brilliant and grab the spots available. Any candidate from the OBC category should first be filled under the OBC quota. Only if the quota there gets filled, should they be allowed to come into the general category. That will at least prevent the scenario where they fill up all the places - The exclusion of creamy layers (I really like this idea) should mitigate this situation a bit. But again, the implementation of that clause worries me. Already all the parties are unhappy about excluding the creamy layer - lest they alienate potential voters. And people will find all ways to go around this. There will many changes to the supreme court definition of the creamy layers.

Somehow over the years, it has been made a bad thing to speak against such reservations. So no one wants to voice against this, fearing that they'll labeled anti-Indian, anti-development, communal and so on. So, these things keep on increasing.

I don't know what's going to be outcome of the so called review of OBC list every 5 years. While it sounds good coming from the mouth of the apex court, in reality it will only lead to more and more communities being included in the list.

Now some parties have started urging the center to extend these reservations to private institutions and private jobs. That is the most horrible thing to do. That is an intrusion into the private freedom of individuals and organizations. I hope this is prevented and we have the choice to participate in a fair competition somewhere. If this goes on, we'll one day be waiting outside Saravana Bhavan waiting for a table under the general quota.

YNM - insult

2008-04-05T21:23:00.006-05:00

After a long time, I went to a tamil movie today - and regretted it. I was not looking out for a blockbuster or a superb award winnig movie, but just a time-pass. Yet I was disappointed, angry and insulted.

The movie I went to - "Yaaradi Nee mohini" starring danush and Nayantara. Screenplayed by Selvaraghavan and music composed by yuvan, the movie sounded Ok.

The first half was hilarious by virtue of being extremely silly. It is so silly that it is almost an insult to IT professionals. Danush is roaming around without a job. He sees Nayantara on the road, follows her and decides to get a job in the company where she works - "Software Solutions Inc.". He scrapes through the written test (which nayantara later claims she helped pass) and goes through the GD. It is one of the most stupidest GD I've ever seen. And Danush especially says he's not fluent in english and is asked to speak in tamizh. And finally the personal interview - The first question is "What is a foreign key?" followed by "what is multi-threading". He gets ready to leave the place not knowing the answers, but then sees Nayantara and starts answering the questions. I didn't know programmng was so easy !!!! Then starts his work. Right on the first day, he is scolded and insulted by Nayantara and becomes dejected. He is not able to code anything and in his frustration types something random and all of a sudden a siren like sound blares through the hall and all monitors go haywire. Our hero danush has "crashed" the system. And there comes the boss and blasts Nayantara right there in front of everybody for allowing Danush, a trainee to work on the critical project to be delivered in two days. He just throws the project docs in her face.This makes danush feel so bad and he spends the entire night working on the code. Whenever he is stumped, he thinks of Nayantara and starts working harder. And after much hard work the code is completed and Lo and behold !!!there is a bright blue box flashing on the screen that says "Code Activiated". And just like that he is selected to go to Australia on a project assignment. My god !!! If only things were that simple

Now the second half. This is one of the most insulting load of rubbish I've ever seen. Danush's father dies and his friend Karthik (mirchi suchi's hubby) takes him to his hometown for a change of mood. Incidentally Nayantara is Karthik's athai ponnu and they plan to get married. Apparently Karthik and Nayantara are from a brahmin family and had come to city against their grandfather's wishes to pursue their careers. Now the story moves into the brahmin household in the village.
1. Danush goes and sits on an oonjal in the house and Karthik's grandmother (sukumari) comes rushing and beats him with her walking stick. Apparently she is horrified that a guy from some other caste has desecrated the oonjal and washes it off. Karthik then explains that she is slightly out of her mind. Atleast that explains it.
2. Danush then goes to take bath. He is asked to bath in the open space (mitham) of the house where he finds Karthik bathing with a komanam (the small cloth used as a brief). He's shocked and Karthik explain that to be the way they do in that household.
3. Then the next day, Danush is made to get up very early and gather along with the rest of Karthik's family where the grandfather recites a slokha and everyone is made to drink arugampul juice and made to walk for some time to ensure free excretion.
4. Then one by one all the mamas in the household start farting. Danush is very uncomfortable and disgusted.

This was the end of the patience for me and my room-mate and we just came out of the theatre. My god ! It was just plain horrifying. What did they think? They've made a complete mockery of Brahmins. None of what is shown is even true in the remotest sense and these things can be shown of anyone. Why choose a community? Because they're so damn sure that none of us would object. Obviously this can't be done with anybody else. There would be mass demostrations and
protests. Jodha Akbar is being opposed in the north just because of a marriage between two religons and some supposed historical mistake. Hordes of movies and books have been opposed and even successfully banned. Even harry potter was opposed. But everyone would have a hearty laugh at this movie. This is an absolutely disgusting scenario.

This movie is an insult in both halves - insult to IT professionals by the silliness and stupidity of the first half and to the Brahmins by the mocking comedy in the second half.

600 km to vote !!!!

2008-03-24T16:16:00.007-05:00

Bhutan is a small insignificant country nestling in the eastern arms of the Himalayas and any event there does not capture the world attention. The current political changes happening there is no exception. Bhutan is holding its first ever general elections marking a transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

While this is insignificant for the rest of the world, it seems to be an event of great importance to the Bhutanese. They seem to be very enthusiastic about participating in this "historic" event. Their enthusiasm is perfectly captured by this news article that talks about how a 65-year old woman made a 600 km long journey by foot just to cast her vote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080324/od_afp/bhutanvoteoffbeat

Apparently she suffers from motion sickness and does not prefer travelling by car (which she has done only one before in her life). So, she undertook the 600 km journey to her hometown by foot. She walked for 14 days just to cast her vote. People all over the country have travelled to the different corners of their rugged & mountainous country to participate in this historic exercise.

Bhutan is a very small country that thrives on subsistence agriculture, cottage industries, hadicrafts and such. It has a very low per capita income of around US$ 1,321. In spite of this, it is supposed to have one of the happiest populace. They've used a term called "Gross National Happiness" to demonstrate that the population is infact much more happier than the "advanced" western nations and have emphasized that happiness need not be directly proprotional to the western notion of "development".

Compare the enthusiasm of the Bhutanese to the situation in its gaint neighbour. Most of us do want to walk to the polling booth in the next street and stand in a line to cast our vote. Instead, we ramble about our lack of faith in the democratic machinery and the insignificance of our single vote. Of course, this is the first time Bhutanese are tasting democracy. Let's hope that their faith in the new institution is reinforced and they continue to be happy and prosperous.

Beautiful Moon

2008-03-22T10:03:00.007-05:00

I was bored at home yesterday and was fiddling with my camera. The moon was shining brightly outside. I switched off all the lights at home and tried to take a few photos using the manual controls in my cam. Not too great, but felt they're nice.

Peeping out from behind a chimney :)

The bright shining disc radiating brilliance

The perfect disc !!!! The chimneys and wires are faintly visible

Finally, view through our blinds :)

Guess I'm totally jobless :):):)

Fresh 'n' Colourful

2008-03-16T11:26:00.010-05:00

I made a sort of a vegetable salad today for lunch. The sight of all the different vegetables inspired me to take these photographs. Felt they've come out pretty well.

The main ingredients

Beautiful tomatoes - Liked both photos. So here they are.

Now, some greens

Finally, the finished product

Animal welfare vs conservation

2008-03-15T09:32:00.003-05:00

This is a environment conservationist's main question. Where do we draw the line between conservation and over-protection ?With increased human activities, the ecosystems of this world are rapidly deteriorating. This has also given rise to various conservation programs around the world trying to save this planet. In our zeal to preserve the environment, we sometimes also try to stop the natural forces of change that has been responsible for life in this planet. There is always a debate among the environmentalists on this.

One good case is the conservation effort of South Chinese tigers. There are very few tigers in the wild. There are few others that have been bred in captivity. Now they're making an effort to teach these captive tigers, the basics of hunting in the wild. For this, these tigers have been loose on a ranch and have been allowed to hunt blesbok, a kind of antelope. Now other conservationists have objected to this saying that this is cruel to the blesbok. They say that it is not acceptable they are deliberately made the hunted in a simulated environment.

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2008/03/13/animal-welfare-vs-conservation-the-case-of-chinas-tigers/

Now what is right and what is wrong here?

Can the tigers be kept in captivity all through their lives? This will totally remove the tiger population from the wild. Or can we just release the tigers into the wild? They do not have the instinct to hunt as they're bred in captivity. So, they cannot survive and even if they do, they cannot pass on the hunting instincts to their offspring.
Is it right to introduce the blesbok into the controlled habitat of these tigers? They may not have some of the advantages that they have in the wild. So their chance of evading predator becomes slim.

There are some questions where there are no Black/white answers? There are only shades of Grey.

World's worst airports

2008-03-14T12:37:00.002-05:00

This is a time of huge infrastructural advances in India. I was reading about the inaugaration of the new greenfield airport in Hyderabad. The photos of the airport were quite impressive. The Bangalore airport is also due to open soon. These led me to think of the fate of our own Chennai airport. It has a very old building totally out of touch with the modernity and class of its peers around the world. It is already stretched to the limit and there are frequent build-up of passengers leading to chaotic scenes outside the terminal. The scene inside the terminal is not great either. The decoration is drab and the facilities are sparse. There are very few shop, just a couple of food stalls selling things like samosas and cakes and that too are way over-priced. We've been waiting for years for a new airport in chennai, but the plan has not progressed beyond the paper. Nowadays, Chennai is lagging far behind other Indian cities in terms of infrastructure development. The only things the government is keen on 'announcing' are the mini-flyovers.

Now this line of thought about the state of Chennai airport made me google for the world's worst airport. I came across this article where a number of foreign correspondents share their thoughts on the worst airports of the world.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/the-worlds-worst-airports-760778.html

A lot many of them have listed the delhi airport as one of the worst ones. But there are supposedly "world-class" ones in this list - Heathrow, Paris, Madrid etc. It all depends on the views and experiences of the foreign correspondents. Makes an interesting read :)

This 'Elephant' can dance

2008-03-10T11:23:00.007-05:00

The 80s and the 90s were the decades of the Asian tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong & Singapore). The world then saw the rise of the Chinese dragon which is still continuing to sway gracefully and now the great Indian elephant has finally arrived on stage.

This is the often repeated story of the rise of the two Asian giants. But it is still good to read, that too in "Time" :) (as opposed to reading our own accounts in the Indian media)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1205374-1,00.html

We still have an extremely long way to go and we will go all the way to the top.

On a different note, I read this article about India's action (or rather the lack of it) towards the Myanmar Junta. We have shifted our foreign policy from one of friendship to pro-democracy forces to a relationship with the military junta. Like so many other rising powers, we've also become opportunists. Myanmar has crucial natural gas deposits which are very valuable to a power-hungry country like us. We also need the co-operation of the Myanmar government to tackle the insurgencies in the North-east. In situations like these, it is quite difficult to say what is right and what is not. Regardless of what actually goes on , this article stings. :(

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1666859,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom

And this article sharply criticises what the author calls India's "bumbling" foreign policy. Here's an extract,

"For those who have been following India's foreign policy, India's bumbling is not surprising. The nation has long clamored for a place on the international high table, citing its democratic traditions, size, and strategic geopolitical importance. In reality, however, its foreign policy is still immature. The problem of Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) has suddenly thrust an unprepared India into the field along with the professionals. "

"India's time—and credibility—may be running out. Meenakshi Ganguly, top South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, worries that if India does not take the initiative with Burma now, it could lose its sheen as a champion of freedom and democracy in Asia."

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071019_332887.htm

Grace to disgrace

2008-03-10T11:19:00.004-05:00

Once again, an all too-familiar spectacle has happened in the Indian sports arena - but this time, this as taken the sport to an all time low. I'm talking about the failure of the Indian hockey team to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

The hockey team has been in a really bad shape for almost 2 decades now. Yet they've managed to at least qualify for the Olympics. So, this failure, the first in 8 decades has shocked so many fans across the country.

Actually I'm not a great follower of the game. I just catch a few bits and pieces every now and then.But of late, I felt that our team has actually improved on its performance. If I remember correctly, our team won a Champions trophy last year and also won the home series against Belgium. Even in this tournament in Chile, they performed exceedingly well. They trounced all the lesser teams and were a close second at the end of the league matches. It was the final crucial match that they've failed - the all too familiar failure script at the last hurdle. So, we cannot just blame team for the failure. These things do happen. But if only the team had performed so well in the 2006 Doha Asian games, we needn't worry about this single loss. But the entire sport needs a new burst of energy and a set of new leaders at the helm to revitalize the game.

As usual the blame game has started. Responding to the demands to have the IHF modified by the government, Mani shankar aiyar, the sports minister has stated, "We don't appoint a Federation President so we cannot remove him as well. We just watch and suffer.I took no credit for the fantabulous victory of our cricket team in Australia because the credit should go where it is due and here it was for BCCI and debit must also go where it is due which is, you can fill in the blanks" - an interesting statement !!!

Now so many political leaders have started talking against Mr.Gill. The coach Carvalho and the IHF vice president Batra have stepped down. Let's see if anything at all happens to help the game.

Indian sports - run up to Beijing

2008-02-21T17:05:00.006-05:00

Our country is now gripped by the IPL fever. The teams backed by the corporate world are frantically bidding for the world's top cricketers. It is just raining in dollars. The common man is just awestruck at the magnitude of thi new concept. He is happy as long as he gets to see his favourite stars battle it out on the grounds.

In the midst of all this high profile drama, this small news article in the "HINDU" sports section caught my eye -

http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/21/stories/2008022151692100.htm

The article talks about India's performance in the recently concluded Asian Indoor athletics championships in Doha, Qatar. India has finished at the top of the medals table with five gold, nine silver and three bronze medals. This is a very optimistic article praising the achievements of our players and this is indeed an achievement that should be praised.

But the article exudes cautious optimism. It is optimistic about a handful of athletes "qualifying" for the Beijing Olympics, not winning a medal there. A look at the winning times clocked by these athletes explains why.

1. Sinimole’s has clocked 2:03.43 (800m) and 4:15.42 (1500m) in Doha while the Olympic qualification mark is 2:01.30 and 4:08.00 respectively.
2. Chatholi Hamza (1500m) and Sajeesh Joseph and R. Rajeev (800m) are supposed to be quite capable of achieving the Olympic norms of 3:39.00 and 1:47.00. Hamza in particular has come very close with an impressive 3:41.18 for the silver in Doha.

It is very sad that there is not a single sport where qualification to the Olympics is not at all a problem for us. It is not that our athletes cannot perform. But they do not have the necessary support. For every athlete in the top sporting countries, they have coaches, nutritionists, psychiatrists, practice partners, advanced exercise + playing equipments, high tech sporting gears customized specifically for that individual and so on. Our athletes have to depend only on their talent and compete against these well-trained & maintained athletes. Now whatever I've said here will be repeated in so many newspapers and magazines after the Beijing event. Hopefully someone follows it up and acts to provide a solution to this. Let a tiny fraction of the money going to cricket, trickle to other sports.

There are quite a few champions in other sports like Humpy in Chess and illavazhagi in Carrom - She won the world championship last week. I'm not sure how many of us know this. She is the daughter of a daily labourer and hopes that the world championship will help her land a job quickly. How pathetic!!!!! Probably if these sports are included in the Olympics, we might have a chance of winning one more medal.

Given the state of sports now, it is remarkable that we've been winning at least one medal in the past 3 editions of the games. I'm eagerly awaiting the Beijing games. And as usual, I'll be checking the websites every hour to see if at least one Indian sportsperson is in sight of a medal. Hope the day will come when our national anthem is played in the games more than once.

This is a very old article, but it still holds good today:

http://www.roopaonline.com/it1998.html

Rain after snow in NY

2008-02-13T19:59:00.011-05:00

This is the sequel to the "Snow in NY" post - RAIN in NY. Today is one of the most messy days this season. It had snowed a bit yesterday evening, followed by some ice and today morning, it began raining. The result - a cold, sludgy commute.

The rain so far has not been heavy enough to melt and wash away all the snow. Instead, the water has mixed with ice to form a highly rarified cold sludge. The side walks were so full of this sludge and we had to walk as slowly and carefully as possible to avoid slipping. The worst part was when I had to cross a street. My route to the PATH train station has so many crossings. At every intersection, this icy sludge has formed a big pool. Being translucent, it is difficult to judge the depth. If we step into this thinking it'll be shallow, it is quite deep and the sludge comes up to the ankles. Wading through rain water is not something new. We used to do it for for fun :) But the difference is that this is an icy mix. The moment the sludge enter our shoes, it becomes so cold and the feet become numb. As it has rarely snowed in NY, I never bothered with snow boots. So, I ended up coming to office with fully soaked shoes and numb feet. :)

The weather department has forecast heavy rain for today. So hopefully all the snow gets washed off by the time I leave office. If this is the case, for a small snow-rain combo, I'm afraid to think of how it'll be in places like Buffalo, Syracuse and Minneapolis where it keeps snowing and raining all the time.

Anyways, while it was pure fun walking in the snow yesterday, it was a micro-adventure today walking in the rain & sludge. I saw a guy slipping and almost falling down while crossing a signal and a woman falling down the stairs while entering the PATH station. It was a delicate balancing act out there :)

It was quite foggy today. Most of the building just "vanished" into the low clouds. :)

IT'S SNOWING IN NEW YORK :):):)

2008-02-12T18:46:00.001-05:00

This is one of my most ad hoc posts - posting just after I had a thought. I usually let my thoughts go on for a while before writing them and most don't get recorded. But I don't want miss this - write as I feel it.

Nothing much - the usual stuff that people close would've heard so much - IT'S SNOWING IN NEW YORK :):):) . For all those who've seen sooooooo much snow this year, I might appear to be nuts (probably for others too, but I don't care). But I'm pretty excited about this. While the average snowfall in the NY city region is around 12 inches per annum, it has been falling short of this mark for two consecutive years. I badly wanted to walk outside and feel the falling snow. And today I got my chance after a long time. It's not a huge blizzard, but a small snowy day, probably an inch and a half of snow.

I started slightly early from office, so that I can get some day light views. It was nice inside NY city, but due to the high human and vehicular traffic, we could not see any accumulation. The best part was after coming to Jersey city. When I came out of the PATH train, all I could see was the white powdery substance everywhere. - Just a thin layer. So, I started walking as slowly as possible to my home and snapping photos all the while. Didn't miss a chance to record my foot print in any undisturbed accumulation of snow; didn't make an effort to brush of the snow over my jacket; tried capturing everything from the vehicle tracks on the road, prisitne accumulation on the sides, my deep footprints, tiny dots where the snow salt has melted the snow ...

Its amazing how the sky turns a bright red when its overcast and is raining/snowing. I've noticed this even back home. This gives a twilight effect to the setting when its actually well beyond sunset. This combined with the white powdery snow around and the yellow sodium vapour lamps give a totally different effect. I can say its reddish, yellowish or probably greenish - not sure, forgive my colour blindness :).

The photo looks very "green" to me. Probably the colour more exaggerated by the camera. But this is what I'm seeing outside now - at 7:39 pm

Whatever it is, it's beautiful and that's important. . Actually the complete silence around the place, does make it slightly eerie and I like it.

Recently I bought a $50 digi-cam from HP. One of the most basic models - very small, no optical zoom, additional features. I've been carrying it around in my coat pocket and snapping pictures whenever and wherever I can. All my snow photos today are with that. I'm surprised at the quality of the pictures. They're pretty good for $50. :) In some photos, they've captured the falling snow - something that I could not manage with my other more expensive ones.

And for my parents, if they come across this post - or to anyone else who might talk to them - I was wearing all the protective clothing, covering myself from head to toe. So, no worries in that front. :):):)

Energy quest - Where will it take us ?

2008-02-04T15:24:00.001-05:00

http://www.scragged.com/articles/energy-conservation-in-india-and-in-china.aspx

I recently came across this article in Scragged.com. The article talks about how India and China are moving in the same path taken by countries like US and Japan. It talks about our preference for personal transport and the increasing energy demand resulting out of it. The author then advocates fresh research on better, energy effecient automobiles. He lays particular emphasis on using hydrogen to fuel our vehicles.

He gives a couple of links that describe how a hydrogen based technology would work. On the outset, whatever he proposes seems very promising - A clean, efficient, low cost alternative to fossil fuels. But after reading the comments posted by few others, I'm not so sure anymore. They point out the inefficiencies of hydrogen based technologies and emphasize that a battery based technology is more efficient.

We hear of so many new alternatives every other day. But none of them seem to have been successful enough for mass production. The combustion engine based on fossil fuels seem to have been the last major breakthrough here. So far, nothing has come close to challenging their dominance. Hopefully something comes up soon. As the author specifies, the world does not have the capacity to accomodate the energy demands of the two great asian neighbours.

Place in the cosmopolitan world

2008-02-03T19:26:00.001-05:00

My room-mate is returning home next week and so we went out on the usual shopping tour around the city. As usual we were scratching our heads not knowing where to begin and what to buy. We roamed around the city for more than 5 hours and finally found ourselves outside Saravana bhavan at dinner time.

As in Chennai, this outlet also had quite a few people standing outside. We had to write our names on a sheet of paper and wait for our turn to go inside. I was standing just inside the main door trying to shield myself from the cold air outside. I looked around and noticed quite a mix of people waiting along with me. There was a group of six people - all white Americans waiting outside, two women - one Indian and the other white and also a lone east Asian woman. After a short wait, we were called inside and given a table. I noticed that around 50% of the customers are non-Indians. Quite a few of them seemed to be quite used to the place. They placed their orders without any doubts and a few of them even gave their own specifications to the waiter !!! They knew exactly how to eat the dishes and which dish goes with what and so on. One man in particular was having a full south-Indian meal and seemed to have no difficulty in handling the rice, sambhar, rasam etc. Few others were new-comers and were asking the waiters for some help with the dishes.

It was really a nice sight - A small room filled with people from different corners of the world and having a taste of our cuisine. New York and that too Mid-town Manhattan is one of the most cosmopolitan place in this planet and we have our own spot in that. Coooooooool :):):)

My portraits for the Photo Contest

2007-08-03T20:18:00.001-05:00

Gifg;glg; Nghl;bf;fhd vdJ glq;fs;:

vd;d ,Ue;jhYk; fWg;G nts;is Gifg;glq;fNshl moFk; fiy czh;r;rpANk jdp jhd; !!! ,J ehd; vd;idNa vLj;Jf;nfhz;l glk;.

,JTk; ehd; jhd.; rhaq;fhyk; #hpad; Kd;dhb vLj;jJ. vg;gb ,Uf;Nfd; ???

,J vd;dJd;D njhpahjtq;fSf;F : ,J jkpopy; Gifg;glf; fiy elj;Jk; Nghl;b .

tiy jsk; : http://photography-in-tamil.blogspot.com/2007/07/blog-post_31.html

The great Indian Jinx

2007-07-29T15:59:00.001-05:00

It would be a heart-breaking day for all the Sania Mirza fans around the globe. She has just lost the finals of the Bank of the West Classic tournament in Stanford, California. This was one good chance for her to win a second WTA title after the first one in Hyderabad. Having beaten 3 top-twenty players in the run-up to the final, she looked to be on course for the title. But then she has meekly succumbed to her opponent in the final.

I did not see the match, but just followed the scores through the net. From the way, the score board ticked, the final score (6-3, 6-2) and from the total duration of the match, it looks like Anna Chakvetadze had the upper hand throughout the match. And that is why she was the top seed in the tournament.

Sania on her part seems to have been bitten by the "Great Indian Sports Jinx". She appeared to play really well all through the tournament and finally when it is time to reap the benefits of her performance, she stumbles in the last hurdle. This seems to be a jinx that is affecting all spheres of Indian sports (It even seems to affect me at my level of playing any game :) ). Our sportsmen in so many disciplines, be it cricket, weight lifting, Boxing, hockey, tennis, shooting, archery ... seem to be doing well until the final stage of a tournament. But then something overcomes them and they seem to fail at the last moment. We've witnessed this so often in major tournaments - World cups, Olympics, Asian games, Commonwealths and so on.

Sports always takes a backseat in India. As long as the government and the public do not give importance to this field, we should not expect any great results. But this doesn't mean that there are no talented sports persons in our country. We know that they are capable of winning and we see some good performances in smaller tournaments. But somehow they fail to deliver in the big stage. This seems to afflict all sports irrespective of how popular the sport is. We all hope this jinx is broken soon and we see some good results. Sania has to play the doubles finals now and she is also taking part in a tournament in San Diego next week. Hope she sees some success there.

Potter - After the hallows

2007-07-22T18:48:00.001-05:00

Spoiler Warning: This post will contain references to the story of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows and will discuss some parts of the story.

So, the wait is finally over. The final edition of Harry Potter has come out. I was eagerly waiting for my copy on Saturday when my friend from India boasted over the phone that he has received his copy. Finally the book came in by around 10:30 am. I brought it in, unwrapped it and immediately called my friends to do my bit of boasting :) I started reading by 1:00 pm, and completed the book by around 12:30 pm the next day.

Now, coming to my impressions of the book. Overall it is a good story. Most of the plot is on expected lines (atleast my expectations), but there are a few unexpected things too.

Looking at how Rowling killed Dumbledore and Sirius, I expected her to finish off either Ron or Hermoine. But she has played safe and kept both of them well and alive. In fact, eventually Ron marries Hermoine and Harry ties the knot with Ginny. I would've been heartbroken, but that might have done justice to Voldermort's power. And all along, Rowling kept saying that we're delaing with a great war and so loss of some of the bigger characters should be anticipated. But the people who died are no doubt important, but by no means the main pivotal characters - Mad-eye, Dobby, Fred, Lupin, Tonks etc.

Sometime back I received a fake 7th potter book (fan-fiction). That author had paid a great deal of attention to every small bit of information that Rowling has provided in her first six books. Plus she (I remember the author is a lady, but not her name). She has also carefully analysed the small clues that Rowling provided about her seventh book. The basic storyline of this fake book is so much like the Actual book (Or should I say the reverse, since the reverse came out first?). In both the books, the horcruxes are the Locket, Ravenclaw's diadem, helga hufflepuff's cup and finally Harry himself. And the person who stole the locket is 'Regalus black', sirius' brother. this has been guessed by so many people in the discussion forums. We just cannot think otherwise. The raven claw's tiara is vaguely specified in HBP to be on a bust in the room of requirements. Both books have placed that exactly in the same place in this book. I'll give more credit only to the author of the fake book. And there are similarities in the retrieval of Hufflepuff cup too. In the fake book, Harry goes to the house of Hufflepuff and goes to someother place through a cupboard and fights a dragon to get the cup. In the original book, the trio steal it from Bellatrix Lestrange's vault in Gringotts and in the process makes use of a dragon to escape.

A special mention should be given to the cup retrieval. For all the hype given about the safety of gringotts, it seems to be childishly simple for Harry, Ron and Hermoine to go in and steal voldermort's most treasured article from one of the most secure and guarded vaults. If this is the case, then I can't imagine, how lax the security will be at ordinary times.

I really liked Dobby's appearance and sacrifice. The author has cleverly used the available options to help Harry come out of difficult situations. Dobby's innocence and unfailing devotion to the person who set it free is really moving. This is to just show the effect of love on a person. We should not think any creature as being lowly and inferior. We should learn to love everything around us.

Hermoine is absolutely brilliant. She compliments the Hot-headed Harry and the emotional Ron very well. Her expert knowledge on the complex charms, quick-thinking abilities are visible throughout the story. The way she led the three of them to safety after Bill's wedding, their escape from the ministry, escape from Lovegood's house etc. But as lovegood says, she has a narrow view. That is why she refused to believe about the hallows.

The hallows themselves are just additions to the plot. They are like a distraction for Voldermort from his main quest of destroying Potter. Gaunt (Voldy's grandpa) mentions that he descended from a Peverell. Then Dumbledore says that Harry is a descendant of Ignotus Peverell, the youngest of Peverell. Voldermort is younger than Dumbledore, but elder than James and Lily. So in a way, Voldy is a very distinct uncle to Harry. :):):) Harry and Voldy are related. I remember that in HBP, Voldy is said to be the descendant of Salazar Slytherin. so that means, Harry is also related to the slytherin line :)

Rowling has taken it in her mind to talk about Dumbledore's past. And to make it interesting, he has portrayed him to have been briefly overcome by desire to rule over the world and dominate the muggles. Isn't this exactly what Voldy is now trying to do? Of course, Dumbledore comes to his senses, mainly due to the death of his sister. Makes an interesting read, but this doesn't seem to make a difference to the story. Anyways, Dumbledore fought Grindelwald and confiscated the Elder wand. So it doesn't matter if they were friends before or not.

And Rowling has done justice to Neville. The poor guy has always had an inferiority complex all through his life and had difficulty coping with his studies. The manner in which he resisted the death-eater shows the warrior in him. And the loyalty he shows towards the end, that makes the Gryffindor sword appear before him and the way he killed Nagini are simply brilliant. But to make this point, Rowling has made Voldy summon the sorting hat and show some tricks. Just like our tamil cinema, where the villain will have the gun and the hero will be unarmed. Inexplicably, the villain will throw the gun off and will say that he doesn't need a gun to finish off the hero. :)

And Rowling is using the Love-protection clause so often in her stories. It has become an overdose. Whenever Harry is face-to-face with Voldermort, some aspect of love comes in and Harry is saved. As bad and filled with hatred Voldermort is, he would've found a way over this. He is not some petty thief to not be able to master over this. And the final duel between Harry and Voldermort is just too simple. This is not a dueling clib match, where Voldermort and Harry fire spells at the same time. Voldermort is an accomplished legilimens and would be able to read Harry's mind within seconds. And he's also skilled in non-verbal spells, whereas Harry is not. He can cause incredible damage just by thinking a spell. For the hype given to him, I felt that he can just obliterate everything and everyone in the great hall.

Rowling has been portraying Harry to be just a school kid with some additional powers bestowed upon him by a sequence of events during his childhood. He does not possess any extra-ordinary magical power. At the same time, she has to show him as a hero matching Voldermort, the greatest wizard of all times. She has handled that really well to some extent. Whenever Harry is stumped, his mediocrity is well complimentede by the brilliance of Hermoine. Even though Harry is the center of the entire book, he does not do everything alone. He is helped by various people . Ron, hermoine (obviously), Aberforth at hogmeade, Luna a couple of times, Snape in delivering Gryffindor sword, griphook in gringotts, narcissa in the forbidden forest, Neville in killing Nagini, Dobby from Malfoy manor and Dumbledore himself from his portrait through Snape, Fred, George, Mad-eye and so on. That is good. Obviously Harry cannot handle this alone. But he handles the final duel with Voldermort to justify him being the hero. But I guess that is the main crux of the story. You need to love people. Harry's love for the people around him, made them rally around him (though the prospect of getting rid of Voldy is another reason), stand up in his defense when Parkinson talks about handing him over to Voldy. Of course, Voldy also had his set of faithful followers. But that was due to fear rather love (except probably Bellatrix. She seems to be totally in love with him).

The handling of Snape is yet another masterpiece from Rowling. And I'm happy that my instinct about this before reading the book had been correct. After saving Potter for so many years, it just didn't make sense that he suddenly switched sides . And simlarly I was right in telling that Dumbledore will help Harry in some way (Though he did not pass on any power as I suspected). But I do not like the prospect of talking portraits. In the earlier books, this looked good - the photos just moving about. But now all the photos are talking, thinking and just behaving as if they are in real world. Just one another way Rowling has used things to explain some part of the story.

It is unfortunate the "Mcgonagall spy" theory didn't come true. But it was fun thinking in that angle. but I myself never believed it. But I feel that she is just a waste of space. For a teacher of her caliber, she has not done anything worth-while in any of the books. This book is no exception. She makes her appearance only towards the end and runs here and there fighting. So did so many others. But did she do anything extra-ordinary. No, Nothing. Many other like Mad-eye, Snape, Trewlany (atleast she gave the prophecy), hagrid made some contibution through the series. Similarly Ginny also didn't have any role. She's like a heroine in Tamil movies who appear just to fall in love with the hero and dance a few duets (Of course, she did have a good role in COS, though she didn't do much even there.)

All these days, Rowling has been saying that some non-magical person will perform magic. But I don't recall anyone like that from this story. I'm not sure if I missed that. If any of you know about this, let me know.

I see a lot of similarities between this and the fake book. In the fake book, Harry will lure voldermort to the ministry of magic and use Avada Kedavra on him. At the same time, he holds the golden snitch and created a horcrux from his soul which effectively rips off Voldy's soul from Harry. In Rowling's book, Harry gets a snitch from Dumbledore, Hermoine researches about the Horcrux and finds out how to create it. But then towards the end, the snitch just opens up to reveal the "resurrection stone". And I really did not see any use for the stone. In what way Sirius, Lupin, James and Lily help Potter when he went into the forbidden forest? They followed him for sometime and he just let the stone slip from his hand and they vanished. Did Rowling originally intend to put the snitch to the same use as in the fake book? But then after reading the fake one, she probably changed her mind. I got this feeling in many places throughout the book. For example, Bill and Fleur marriage is also so similar in both the books.

A review in Time magazine has specified that the "Accio" charm is childishly simple. At one point, they say "Accio Hagrid". Why didnt Voldy get this idea? When there are seven copies of Potter at the beginning, all he should've done is "Accio potter" and the real one would've come zooming to him or atleast struggled against the charm :):):)

I thought that there are only 7 pieces of Voldy's soul. But in this book, it seems that there are eight: Seven horcruxes namely Riddle's diary, Ring, Cup, diadem, Nagaini, Locket and finally harry. Then the last piece of Voldy's soul is with himself. That makes it eight.

We can keep asking lots of questions like this and give zillions of opinions. But we should admit that it is a good piece of work from Rowling. It is not easy to tie all loose ends together and provide some acceptable solution. She has done that job really well. She is a master story-teller.

A few of my predictions / theories have come true - Dumbledore's help, Snape's goodness, Fred/ Lupin's death, Neville's role. Some have gone wrong - Ron/Hermoine's death, Kreacher helping Voldy, Draco's death etc. But on the whole, it doesn't look bad :):):)

Potter - Before the hallows

2007-07-20T22:07:00.001-05:00

Today is July 20, 2007. Time is 11:51 pm. Exactly 9 minutes later, Rowling will read from her final edition of Harry Potter - the series that captivated the entire world for the past decade. Never have I heard of any literary work winnig the hearts of such a wide range of fans - children, adults, whites, blacks, browns and what not.

And I'm sitting here at my home like millions of potter fanatics around the world, painfully waiting for the final edition of the series. And like them, I've also pre-ordered a copy of the hallows and am expecting it to be delivered tomorrow. So, before immersing myself into the final edition, I'm putting down my thoughts, ideas and expectations. I'll follow this up with a "After Hallows" blog once I finish reading the book. Let's then compare my thoughts and expectations with what Rowling has actually created.

The first six books have built an elaborate plot based on very simple concepts : Good Vs Evil, power of love, friendship etc. All these are themes handled by countless authors, but not many have been as successful as Rowling. Now the final edition is expected to tie all the open ends of the plot and provide a exciting feast for its fans.

So what is one guaranteed ending to this series ? Voldermot will be destroyed and the good will triumph over evil. But how will this come about? Will Potter die along with Voldy? Who else will die? As the series progressed, the story kept becoming darker and darker. So I'm sure this will be no exception. My bet is that either Ron or Hermoine or even both will die in this edition. This is my first bet. Even Harry might die. But that will break the hearts of millions of fans. I myself will be soooo disappointed. But Rowling may just want that.

Next comes the question of how Harry, a seventh year student (?) is going to win over Voldermort, one of the greatest wizards of all time. Voldy specializes in wordless spells, that too one of the most powerful ones that no one else knows about. He is an accomplished occlumens whereas Harry is very poor in this. So Harry will have some special help. I've a few guesses:

Dumbledore is going to give Harry with some kind of power to Harry or is going to help Harry in some way. His death is going to aid Harry, like how Lilly's death saved Harry. The circumstances of Dumbledore's death is highly suspicious. However weak he might be, I think he could have protected himself against Draco. His delay there, led to snape interfering. Plus he also stupefied Harry. All these will have a better explanation and effect.
I still trust Snape, probably more than Dumbledore himself. All through the five books, he has been protecting Harry. Then all of a sudden, he goes to Voldy's side. His reasons are not so convincing. I feel this is all a part of a plan between him and Dumbledore. He'll probably be the one helping Harry, while at the same time pretending to be a death-eater. He is an accomplished legilimens, so his thoughts cannot be read by Voldy.
Whoever this RAB is, he's also going to help Harry in some way.
I came across some discussions which proposed that Mcgonagall is Voldy's super-spy. I've always complained that she is fit for nothing and is just a side character who does nothing significant. But what if these discussions are true? It gives a different angle. And We can expect rowling to do something like this. But somehow, the character portrayed by Maggie Smith in the movies doesn't give me that impression. She is more like a headmistress than a spy. This link analyses each of the six books and tries to establish mcgonagall as a spy, some of which are quite convincing: http://community.livejournal.com/unplottables/46684.html
The other important characters like Hagrid, Lupin and atleast one of the weasley brothers might die. On Voldy's side, Lucius, Bellastrix, Narcissa might die.
Draco might die trying to protect his father or might end up at the good side (even if reluctantly), after seeing that his father is prepared to sacrifice draco to save himself.
Rowling has said that Umbridge will have a role again. Maybe she'll again mess things up.
Kreacher might follow Dobby's footsteps i.e. become free. But he might work like a spy and feed voldy with info. Or he might devise some plan to make it harder for Harry to find the horcruxes.
Neville longbottom is going to play some good role here. Mostly Bellastrix lestrange will be killed by Neville - revenge for what she had done to his parents.
Rowling has said that one non-magical character will perform magic. and she herself has ruled out Petunia. I think the person is Dudley. Though I can't imagine what it is. But Petunia is someway related to harry's childhood and is going to play a part.

I do not want to guess what the horcruxes might be. I've read the fake potter book (I know it is fake because it has a happy ending, which is so unlike rowling. And not many people died) and as per the book, the horcruxes are ravenclaw's tiara, hufflepuff's cup, locket stolen by RAB and potter himself. With this idea in mind, I'm not able to think of any other credible alternative.

Finally seeing how Rowling approaches her books, I don't think this book is going to have a "Lived Happily ever after" ending. Even if Harry is alive at the end, he's going to be all alone, having lost his friends (possibly Ginny too). The World would be rejoicing, but Harry will be crying in his heart, all alone in this world.

I'm preparing myself to be heart-broken at the endding that Rowling would have given to this series.

That's it for now. I'll get back after reading the book. We'll see how close my thoughts were to Rowling's.

Evolution - yesterday, today and tomorrow...

2007-07-08T12:27:00.000-05:00

Sometime back I saw a program in the history channel about evolution of life. It was really fascinating. It is as though nature is playing a game - something similar to playing with the Lego building blocks. The natural elements are the building blocks in this case. Before starting with the creation of life, the stage needed to be set. From what man has postulated so far, this started with the big bang. Then it took billions of years to get the stage ready. Looking at the sequence of events, it looks like nature is gradually building things by trial and error.

About 5 billion years ago, the sun is formed and remaining debris are allowed to coalesce into planets, moons and asteroids.
All the planets cool down, settle into their relative orbits and start rotating around the sun, paving way to season and weather patterns.
Here each planet seem to have a different characteristic - probably samples of different conditions. Mercury - small and hot; Venus - has excessive carbon-di-oxide and atmospheric pressure; earth - has liquid water and oxygen, Mars - has thin methane based atmosphere and violent storms, Jupiter - a gas giant with lot of hydrogen and so on.
Then the organic elements in earth are fused together to create the first single cell organism.
At this time, the continents look very different. There is just a single giant continent. It is like how we keep changing our designs while building something. The continents continuously keep drifting about forming different land masses.
The single celled organism slowly evolves into complex life forms. The majority of life forms are concentrated in the oceans. Then slowly life spreads over land.
Life multiplies in the oceans and the continents. but what about the skies? They are devoid of life? Then nature creates birds to fill the skies.
The land is quite swampy and the plant life looks very different. The world is ruled by reptiles. Huge dinosaurs roam the planet. The scene must be as chaotic as it was depicted in the Jurassic park movies. It was an age where physical size dominated mental capabilities.
Then suddenly it looks like nature didn't like the path that evolution is taking. Just huge reptiles roaming about and killing each other. Nature has already tried different forms of reptiles, birds and fishes. So how to reverse this evolutionary path? The answer is a meteorite. A huge meteorite strikes the earth and wipes out a major chunk of life on earth. It just happens so quickly in geological terms. The huge dinosaurs are wiped and the slate has been wiped clean. But Nature is careful not to obliterate life totally. It is like pressing ctrl +z just the required number of times.
Now the land form changes. The swamps start drying out and out came mammals. this time nature is careful not to bring about such huge monstrous creatures like the dinosaurs.
But this time nature decides to go one step further. A thinking mammal evolves - man.
Now man starts doing some of Nature's work. He changes the character of dogs, cows, pigs etc by domesticating them. He alters landscapes to suit his needs.

From that point onwards, man has come a long way in his work. He is trying to alter nature at will. The entire evolutionary process has changed because of this. Plants and animals that would have thrived under the absolute rule of nature are now dying out due to man's interference. Similarly life forms that might have been eliminated by nature's plans are being preserved by man's conservation efforts.

In the past, forests grew and disappeared, species developed and became extinct on their own. no one tried to stop either of these. But now man is interfering with every single activity. He is not allowing other life forms to flourish and develop nor is he allowing other life forms to die out on their own.

After man arrived on the scene, how has evolution progressed? I'm not sure. Physically man has changed in appearance from apes and gorillas. And he started looking different in different parts of the world. But now with increased movement of humans across the globe, he has started interbreeding. So probably 1000 years down the lane, all these differences between humans might disappear. And what about other life forms? Many will die out and new ones will be born - but rather than being a direct work of nature, this time it might be due to man's work in genetic modification and such work. Probably nature is driving man through his intellect to further the evolutionary process.

But as with the dinosaurs, will nature again try to change its plans? Will it again try to erase the slate clean and start over? I personally believe it will. If so, how will it happen? Will it be through man? He is already standing ready to wipe the slate clean - nuclear weapons, biological weapons, pollution climate change and what not? But how many times is nature prepared to press ctrl+z? Probably nature will attempt a complete shift+delete and use this experience in a different game - establish a better system of life in some other planet / galaxy?

Bodies - the exhibition

2007-05-12T09:35:00.001-05:00

New york is like a city of museums . There are quite a few of them here : Museum of natural history, arts museum, financial museum, architectural museum ... A fortnight back I decided to visit one of them, a rather unusual one - The 'Bodies' museum. Back home, people call museums as 'Setha College' (Dead college). This museum is a 'Setha College' in its literal sense. Yes, it houses real dead bodies - some 20 of them.

The aim of this museum is to explain the human body and its anatomy. They've displayed the real organs of the different systems of our body. The bodies are preserved by a process called 'polymer preservation'. Different organs have been separated according to the different systems and arranged as such. The photo to the left is the backside view of bodies in sitting posture. The brain, spinal chord, shoulder blades and the muscles are all clearly visible.

The museum starts with the skeletal system. The first items of display are the different joints in our body - the hips, knees and so on. Bones of different parts - skull, joints, fingers etc along with a whole skeleton are there on display. There is section on the functions of cartilage - the soft tissue like covering over our bones. They have separated the cartilage from the bones of a body, preserved the entire cartilage exactly in the shape of the skeleton. The skeleton shaped cartilage and the corresponding skeleton are holding hands as though playing together. It is a really wonderful and innovative display. I'm just not able to put it in proper words. The cartilage and the skeleton are supposed to be from the same body. They've carefully separated the cartilage from the skeleton, shaped it the same way as the skeleton and have arranged both of them together. Excellent innovation.

The museum then takes us through the other systems like nervous system, digestive system, circulatory system, respiratory system and so on. Under the respiratory system section, they've displayed the lungs of a chain-smoker. They are fully coated with tar and totally black in colour. There is also the specimen of a healthy lung by its side. And just after this exhibit, they've appealed to people to quit smoking. A huge glass container has been placed asking people to drop in their cigarette packets symbolizing their resolve to quit smoking. A very good effort, I should say.

There is also a separate section displaying foetuses. These are specimens collected during miscarriages. They've placed a warning at the entrance to this section, asking people who are sensitive to these things to skip this section. But this is a really wonderful section. It is here that we can fully appreciate the wonders of God's creation, the complexity of the evolutionary process. There is a long row of specimens showing the development of a human embryos starting from a couple of weeks after fertilization. The first specimen is of an embryo that is just a few days old. It is very small, not bigger than our finger nails and looks just like a small piece of cotton, translucent and very fragile. But even in that we're able to identify the shape of the baby. Then this embryo grows in size and by the end of 12 weeks, it is still has the same cotton-like appearance, but has clearly distinguishable hands, legs, head and other organs. It is no bigger than our thumb. Then there is this series showing the development of the spinal chord in an embryo. Within a few weeks of development, the spinal chord starts developing and appear like numerous tiny pin-heads. It is just really wonderful.

There are cross sections of most of the body parts. There is one specimen showing the cross section of the entire body. The entire body has been cut into small slices in a horizontal fashion and the pieces are spaced slightly apart, so that you can see the cross-section of the each body part along with their respective positions in the human body. The head alone was cut in a vertical fashion to show the brain clearly. The photo to the right is of a body split vertically through the center. You can notice the lungs, heart, stomach, intestine etc. This I feel is a very good depiction of our body.

Whenever I tell people that I visited this museum, they give a kind of shocked and disgusted reaction - probably the effect of seeing so many horror movies, deaths in movies, TV etc. In fact, I feel that even the photos of the museum do not give a very comfortable feeling. But it is so very different when experience first-hand. The organs have been drained of traces of blood and have been hardened. The most unrealistic exhibits are those of the circulatory system. So actually they've lost some of their realistic look or feel. The entire network of arteries and veins has been carefully extracted from the body and is arranged exactly in the shape of a human body. But when you look at it, it just looks like being made from coconut fibre dipped in red paint or ink. I somehow feel that this is a minus point. But this will make people who are more sensitive to bodies, feel more comfortable. I noticed specimens of all important body systems, but I didn't see any explicit explanation or specimen of the optical system. Most of the full-body specimens as in the photo to the right had eyes in them, but no specific section on the eyes. Probably they felt that it is just too much to have a cross section of the eyes.

And finally about the source of these bodies: All these specimens are supposed to have been obtained through the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories in China. It looks like the 'Made in china' tag will follow us even after death. China has really pervaded all sphere of life, from birth till even after death.

Beauty

2007-04-22T12:17:00.001-05:00

I was all alone at home yesterday. and I have not gone out anywhere since the start of winter. every weekend, I used to spend the entire stretch of 48 hours inside the house without even opening the windows. My record is staying indoors for 72 straight hours :)

So I decided to break my monotony and go out. And what better place would there be than a botanical garden - a place where I can see spring rushing in and pushing winter out !!! Winter in these regions is quite depressing for people - especially if it was a "snowy" one. The trees are all bare with no leaves or flowers; the birds become silent and it is dull, white and dreary everywhere. And so when spring arrives - it is like the birth of a new day; the trees are covered with beautiful flowers, the birds start chirping, the climate warms up allowing people to shed their heavy woollen coats. So people really enjoy spring and I decided to take part in their celebration.

To tell the truth, I was a bit early to the garden. Most of the trees are still bare with winter trying desperately to maintain its hold. Only yesterday did it look like spring is finally getting the upper hand. But some trees and plants were early starters. There is this tree in front of my house, that is now totally covered with beautiful white flowers. And this contrasts nicely with the red bricks of the building behind. I caught the NY city subway to Brooklyn botanical garden and went inside. I was initially greeted by nothing but bare trees on either side of a walkway. I started wondering if I had done a mistake by going there at this time of the year. But my doubts disappeared after going round a bend. There, in front of me were half-a-dozen cheery trees all in full blossom. Here, during spring time, most of the plants first produce flowers and only then start growing fresh leaves. I guess this is nature's way of utilizing the spring season to its maximum and ensuring that pollination is completed early and new plants start growing ASAP.

Then I came across a small pond with small rocks on its banks. And there were these small turtles standing on these rocks. Even they were in pairs - probably enjoying the spring. There were beautiful ducks, some crow-like birds with bluish neck and giant squirrels (they are really giants compared to the ones found in Chennai). Then there were these flaming yellow flowers. And the blazing sun did its part to make the flaming yellow to flame even more.

And there are these group of trees just outside the botanical garden. They are totally covered in white flowers. There must be lakhs of flowers in that group alone. The flowers are so dense and there is no a single green leaf anywhere. Wow !!! what a sight !!! And this is just beside a very busy road - Have we ever seen like this !!!

I then boarded the train back home and when I was nearing NY downtown, I thought "Why shouldn't I take a small walk on the NY riverside?". And this short walk turned out to be a 2-hour one. As you would know, NY downtown is called the economic capital of the world and is full of skyscrapers bustling with activity. And behind all this hustle-bustle, lies a small oasis of beauty. They have set aside a paved walkway along the banks of the Hudson river behind the buildings for enjoying the beauty of nature and to forget all gadgets and gizmos inside the walls of the surrounding buildings. And across the river is the state of New Jersey. The sun was setting behind the state making the buildings stand out as tall dark silhouettes against the sky. The sky was a beautiful collage of colours of different hues and shades. Every now and then, the sun's rays would reflect on the glass exteriors of the buildings, giving a sparkling effect. The statue of liberty, Ellis island, Staten island, Brooklyn were visible in the distance. There were all sorts of people around - people skating on roller skates, cycling, walking their dogs, young and old couples walking hand-in-hand (with younger ones kissing every now and then), solitary guys/gals sitting on the numerous benches listening to music/reading books/working on laptops, tourists trying to the take in the magnificence of the sunset, guys with their fishing rods set in the water, parents pushing their kids in prams, groups of kids runnig around, a dedicated photographer with his camera mounted on a tripod hoping to capture all of this beauty in his lens ... And I really was angry with myself for not taking my ipod with me then. There is nothing like soaking yourself in this beauty and enjoy some melodious music. The batteries in my camera were also getting weak. I had to switch-off the cam for a few minutes in order to take a photo. But anyways I managed to capture things as much as possible.

On my way back, I was thinking if there are any such places in Chennai. What would I do if I need to go on a trip like this? For the greenery, we have the guindy park, the theosophical society and so on. But having a evergreen forest makes them less colourful since we do not have the fall-spring cycle of the deciduous forests. But then what about the water? Is beach the only option - And even that is crowded. Then I thought - Chennai has 2 rivers and a few canals too. How nice will it be if I can walk along the banks of the Cooum/Adayar river, probably stand on its banks in Saidapet and see the buildings of T.Nagar across or watch the early morning sunrise over the mouth of the river at the Bay of Bengal !!! Probably we can have our local flowers - Red/pink/white Arali, Yellow flowered thoongu moonji trees, red/pink/rose/white/yellow shades of hibiscus, white nandiyavettai, green money plants lining the banks. Throw in some local attractions - pattani sundal, molagai bajji, boiled groundnuts. And the result - Hudson river is no match. But it all remains wishful thinking :(:(:(

Hmmm... Anyways, here is the link to more of the photos that I took: http://picasaweb.google.com/vijayvmail/BrooklynBotanicalGardenRiotOfColours
http://picasaweb.google.com/vijayvmail/ManhattanRiversideWalk

Indian English

2007-04-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

Recently I read in Wikipedia that India has the highest English speaking population in this world - around 325 million, followed by US at 250 million. UK comes fifth in the list. China comes third(but there is a note saying that this is the no. of English users and not speakers) followed by Nigeria. English is an official language in India whereas it is not in UK and USA (They are defacto official but has not been declared)

There is a distinct English variety called "Indian English" (I've seen this option on one installation of Red hat Linux). But all along I've been thinking that my English is not so very different from the English of the Brits. But this article proved me wrong. There seems to be a huge difference between the two. And the grammar that we are taught in schools are supposed to be archaic in UK (supposed to more specifically Scottish English) - result of our prescribed books being Wren & Martin and the likes that were written in the late 1800s. Here are some excerpts :

Legacy of the East India Company and its practices still prevails in all official correspondence in India। Official letters continue to include phrases like "please do the needful" and "you will be intimated shortly".
British writers who made creative (and comical) use of now obsolete forms of colloquial English, such as P.G. Wodehouse and Thomas Hardy, are still popular in India. It is ironic that although British writers Enid Blyton, P.G. Wodehouse, and Agatha Christie are now considered to have held racist views in their time, their books remain immensely popular in India. British writer, journalist and wit Malcolm Muggeridge once joked that थे last Englishman would be an Indian.
Schools still teach grammar from (frequently older) British textbooks like Wren & Martin or J. C. Nesfield (1898): the grammar of higher British English is considered the only correct one. Efforts by the Oxford University Press to publish a dictionary of Indian English were an abject failure since customers in India preferred the 'proper' British dictionary.

Few things specific to Indian English:

Usage of "out of hundred" instead of per cent: "He got hundred out of hundred" instead of "He got a hundred" or "He got a one hundred per cent".
"Your good name please?": "What is your name?", carryover from Hindi expression "Shubh-naam", literally meaning "auspicious name".
"Out of station" to mean "out of town".
"send it across" instead of "send it over", as in "send the bill across to me" instead of "send the bill over to me".
"back" replacing "ago" when talking about elapsed time, as in "I met him five years back" rather than "I met him five years ago." (Though this too is not uncommon in British English)
"freak out" is meant to have fun, as in "let's go to the party and freak out."
"pass out" is meant to graduate, as in "I passed out of the university in 1995."
"go for a toss" is meant to go haywire or to flop, as in "my plans went for a toss when it started raining heavily."
"funny" is meant to replace not only "odd"/"strange" but "rude"/"precocious"/"impolite" as well. "That man was acting really funny with me, so I gave him a piece of my mind"
"on the anvil" is used often in the Indian press to mean something is about to appear or happen. For example, a headline might read "New roads on the anvil".
"tight slap" to mean "hard slap".
Use of Respected Sir while starting a formal letter instead of Dear Sir. Again, such letters are ended with non-standard greetings, such as "Yours respectfully", or "Yours obediently", rather than the standard "Yours sincerely/faithfully/truly".
The phrase of 'the concerned person' is widely used in oral Indian English
'A child was born of wed lock' in Indian English has the opposite meaning of its English origin. (I really don't know what the opposite meaning is)
"cent per cent" means "100 per cent" as in "He got cent per cent in maths."
"centum" is also frequently used to refer to 100.
"Metro" to mean large city (i.e. 'metros such as Delhi and Bangalore') This is a shortening of the term Metropolis. This can be confusing for Europeans, who tend to use the word to describe underground urban rail networks.
Use of the word "shift" to indicate "move", as in "When are you shifting?" (instead of "When are you moving?").
Batchmate or batch-mate (Not classmate, but a schoolmate of the same grade)
Eve teasing (catcalling - harassment of women)
Foot overbridge (bridge meant for pedestrians)
"pass-out" to "graduate from college"

I really didn't know that our speech is so distinct from others. This is so cool!!! I like it.

For more info, here's the link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English

Perspectives

2007-03-31T10:10:00.000-05:00

An instructor in one of my company organized training programs used to say: "There is no right way or no wrong way. There are just different ways of doing things".

Though I really didn't like that instructor very much, this line just stayed with me. Whenever someone says/does something that I don't fully agree with, these lines automatically pop into my head. This makes it very difficult for me to get angry with someone - even if I should get angry.

Coming to the main topic here, I recently came across a blog in my company intranet. It is about how a team successfully endured a number of obstacles and took a project to completion. I've known people from that project (my current manager is one). That project was notorious for its loss making bid and a bad estimation. Its members used to continuously stay all night in office. If on any day they manage to leave by 10:00 pm, then its an achievement.

So this blog goes on about how the project people sacrificed a number of things for the project.

"Mr.A, a team lead had an eye infection and was not able to drive to the office for couple of days. He asked team members to email the source code, so that he can review the same from home and send the feedback to the team. He had to stay at on-site for few extra days to cover another associate on vacation though his wife was expecting him back home urgently as their baby was due anytime – Incidentally, when he returned back from on-site, he had to directly drive to the hospital from the airport to see his just-born baby."

Mr.B, the data conversion lead on the project was blessed with twins just few weeks before the project went live. This did not stop from being completely available and work throughout during the entire conversion week-end along with the rest of the team who was waiting for the momentous occasion for 3 years.

Mr.C proved his versatility when he took the challenge of uncharted territory of CVS for code merge/branching etc – He showed the true company spirit of continuing to be involved even when he had health issues and in hospital while at on-site.

I thought: Whats the big point of being onsite, earning a 5/6 digit salary, having a car, house and what not, if you cannot be with your wife during child birth or when you cannot even look after yourself? Is it really worth it?

These things are quite common in developing economies like India. There's whole lot of things that happening in the country. Jobs are very few compared to the demand, so there is always someone to replace you and work even harder. And there's lot of competition around and companies just keep increasing the load of their employees to stay competitive. The result - the individual loses his grip over his personal life.

It is just the perspective of the concerned person. I personally want to have a balance between the personal and official life. Putting in more work at a crunch time is fine. But it should not always be a crunch time.

I've seen some who are really charged up for their company. They will do everything possible to benefit the company. They will be ready to sacrifice their personal life for the company. So, in their eyes, whatever that blog said is really a great thing. They would actually expect everyone to be like that.

So everything in this world is perspective. It is each individual's perspective of things that decide their actions. And conflicts arise when the perspectives and consequently the expectations/views of two individuals do not match.

Thinking from both angles of a situation, I usually can't really say that either one of the views is right/wrong. This attitude sometimes confuses me a lot. whenever I feel angry or when I feel something is wrong, I immediately start thinking more from the other person's point of view. And most of the times, whatever bothered me no longer seems wrong. I don't think this actually is a good thing. It becomes really difficult to get things done - It just makes me too soft. Assume I'm standing in a billing counter in a shop and the sales person is so busy with so many people pulling him/her in different directions. I will then refrain from asking him/her anything till they are somewhat free. There are instances where I've just stood there for more than 15 minutes waiting for them. On the other hand, there will be someone else, who will just walk in and demand attention. And they will get all the needed attention whenever they walk in through the door. But I on the other hand, end up being taken for granted - because the people there know that I won't say anything and that they can afford to take some liberty with me.

And because of this attitude, I'm considered too much of a moderate. My cousins call me 'truly secular' for my beliefs that everyone has a right to practice/propagate their religions. Sometimes I even go to the extremes of justifying Jihad or any such thing (Definitely not the killings, but their anger). So am I an extremist from that perspective? I have this terrible habit of finding flaws in my own beliefs - vegetarianism, Hinduism etc. When I think of some idea, I also think of what points an opponent would put forward for that idea. And suddenly I find my idea weakening.

Is this good/bad ? Again, its matter of perspective.

Has mankind become more barbaric?

2007-03-18T08:10:00.000-05:00

Everyday we hear around us, someone saying "The world has become sooo bad. People are not good anymore. Voilence, murder, wars have increased. The world is about to end..." or something like that. We hear this all round the world. I don't want to say anything about the 'doomsday' forecast of the world coming to an end. But whenever I hear something like this, I start thinking - Has mankind really become more barbarian? Have our moral values deteroirated?

Looking at the history of Mankind (yes, I know I'm again talking about history), I don't really think so. Right from the time we evolved into modern day homo sapiens, barbarism, violence and cruelty has been a part of our genetic imprints. Whenever a group of Humans moved into a new land, it was common for them to clash with the original inhabitants of the area. Either one would survive the clash.

Right from the ancient times, we can find several instances of barbarism:

The cruel pharos of Egypt who proclaimed themselves to be gods and just obliterated anyone who opposed them.
The cruel roman emperors who just mass murdered their own subjects. One classic example is the emperor Nero, who was a psycho path and just went about killing his own people and family.
The barbaric Germaninc tribes of northern Europe who went on a rampage across Europe and challenged Rome.
The cruel and Barbaric Vikings who for more than a century spread terror across large parts of British Isles and Ireland. By 1000 A.D they even reached North America and establish some settlements there.
The harsh regimes of Aztecs and Mayas, who were busy Killing each other in the New world, while others were busy doing the same in the old world.
By the time the Viking invasions ended, there were huge number of soldiers across Europe who had taken up arms to repel the Vikings. Suddenly they were left jobless and could not stay put. So they resorted to terrorozing the local population.
Now it was the turn of the Roman catholic church to take up the reigns of terror. They launched the Crusade wars again the middle east and the orthodox christians of Eastern Europe. They plundered and ravaged the cities that were in their way. No one cared about the value of human life. A total of 9 crusades were launched resulting in a loss of thousands of lives.
Asia saw the barbaric acts of the Mongols under Chengiz khan, huns and many others.
Then came the Renaissance in Europe. The new worlds were discovered and thus began an age of exploration and discovery(also colonisation and exploitation). Wherever they went the Europeans brought a reign of terror and destruction. The spaniards literally obliterated the indegenious poulation of the americas. The french, british, germans, portugese and others took up the same task in Asia and Africa. Their atrocities in Africa has made a huge impact on the African continent from which it is yet to emerge.
The period also saw some atrocities by the Muslim rules of the Indian sub-continent like some rulers of the slave dynasty, mughal emperor Aurangazeb and other invaders like Nadir shah who plundered Indian cities following the decline of the Mughal empire.
The period also saw mass plundering and exploitation of the people of europe themselves by the rules of France, the Czars of Russia and others.
Then finally came the world wars, the marked the height of barbarism. Millions perished.
The period after the world wars saw a number of proxy wars.
A new form of violence has emerged - terrorism. That is going to see another round of barbarism.

So as we can see, no where in the history was there a period of relative peace and never did man exhibit any high sense of morality and respect for his fellow being. Every one and then, a great person came along and tried to harness the good side of mankind. Though they seemed to bring mankind to its senses for some short periods of time, we invariably slid back to our violent ways.It has always been a period of violence followed by a period of calm and peace brought on by some benevolent ruler, religious head or someone like that.

But what makes the current age more deadly is the technological advancement that we've made in our methods of warfare. We now possess bombs and weapons capable of destroying the entire planet. But if Nero or the vikings or the huns had these technologies they would have definetely caused the same damage.
So it is technology that has made the current age seem more deadly. Man himself is always the same, seeking to prevail over others, subdue his fellow beings and consolidate 'power'. Maybe mankind will merge into one unified race, only in the wake of an all-out attack by some alien race - Remember the movie 'Independence day'. Yeah -something like that.

Why is Africa like this?

2006-12-17T23:17:00.001-05:00

I had always liked reading about the world history and Geographies. And in recent times, Wikipedia has really helped me in this. God, how I like Wikipedia (there’ll be a separate blog on that!). In the past 1 year (probably even more than that), I’ve read about almost every single country in this world. Wikipedia gives the history, geography, politics, current events, economy etc of every country.

And as everyone would know, none of the countries in Africa are in a good state. And I’m sure this is the impression about Africa in the minds of every single non-African. I used to think a lot on what actually went wrong in Africa and why are they suffering like this. The countries of Asia and South America were also colonized and exploited, but we seem to doing much better than the Africans. Reading and thinking about this, I realize that there are host of reasons that have caused this devastations.

Geography

Africa has a highly varied geography – the dense fertile Congo rain forests, the central highlands, the dry Kalahari Desert, fertile Nile delta and also the harsh Sahara. And a majority of this is really inhospitable. And this has isolated much of interior Africa from the rest of the world thus giving it the name ‘Dark continent’. So the people did not really catch on the advancements of the outside world. The interior of Africa remained mostly nomadic and is still is like that in many countries. This is totally against the modern way of living.

There did exist powerful kingdoms like the kingdom of Benin, but they were still backward compared to the colonial powers.

Paper Partition

When the European powers started colonizing Africa, they really did not care about the culture of the people living there. The African race was just considered so inferior that they didn’t even think of treating them of normal humans. Large number of blacks was exported as slaves and they were just treated as animals. They were portrayed as being equal to monkeys. There were lots of zoos in Europe and Americas, where the Africans were displayed along with the chimps in cages. The last human zoo was in Germany as late as 1958.

So the European powers met somewhere in Europe (Antwerp I guess) and had a map of Africa in front of them, and drew out the borders of colonies and divided the continent among themselves. Many of these borders were just straight lines; cutting across areas inhabited a people of a single tribe, thus effectively dividing them. And these borders remained after independence. So many of the existing borders are not based on the tribes, religion, language or anything, but just lines drawn in paper by some European power in some European city.

The best example is the case of Tutsi and Hutu people inhabiting the regions of current day Rwanda and Uganda. These people are divided among these countries. While they are a majority in one country, they are minority in other. This was also used by the colonial power to divide and rule them. That animosity developed by the colonial power has now led to decades of civil war including the notorious Rwandan genocide.

Human Development

African countries ranks last in the World wide Human Development Index. This again is fallout of imperialism. Unlike in Asia where the local population was trained at least to do the clerical administrative jobs, the African population was largely neglected by the imperial powers. Large number of whites settled down in the African colonies to take care of governance and to exploit Africa’s natural resources. And when the countries got independent, many of them left for their motherlands. With the majority of Africans also not having any sort of education, there was a huge knowledge vacuum in many of the newly independent African countries. And as a result, there was no big leader of any sorts available to guide the nations. And the big warlords and criminals took over the governments paving way for civil wars, genocides etc.

At the time the African countries became independent, i.e. by the 1960s there was just one university in the whole of North and West Africa. Such was the pathetic state of affairs.

Cold War

Most African colonies gained independence when the cold war was at its height. Their economies were too nascent and vulnerable and totally lacked any infrastructure. And many countries did not have any leader with a proper vision. Also these countries were rich in important natural resources. So obviously they caught the attention of the two super powers. In order to control the natural resources, they started installing puppet regimes in many countries, which just gave the super powers all access to the resources, while denying the locals even the basic necessities. The super powers even supported such fanatics and maniacs like Idi Amin, just to propagate the cold war. The result – Anarchy, civil war, genocide and stripping of natural resources.

Many of the governments were supported by huge aids provided by the super powers. And when the cold war ended, the aid was abruptly stopped and the governments were left in the dark and the economies started crumbling.

Agriculture

The colonial powers created plantations in many parts of Africa, often supplanting the local crops. They created plantations of mainly cash crops like Coffee, rubber, cashews etc. And this practice continued even after independence. The new governments did not give much importance to food crops and invested more on the cash crops. Plus many countries were concentrating on just one or two varieties. So when the prices of those particular cash crops fell in the international market or when there is a drought or famine, the economies fell. During times of drought, the food crop production was not enough to support the population and there arose huge famines crippling the economies further.

Natural resources

The rich natural resources of Africa are both a boon and a bane of this continent. So far it has mainly been a curse. The governments do not have the infrastructure or the money to exploit these natural resources. So they are compelled to let foreign governments and large corporate to do the job. These external agencies resort to bribery, illegal funding of civil wars & rebel groups etc in order to gain control of the natural mines and to exploit the people there. Many of the corrupt governments also support this in exchange for arms. And in the process all the natural resources are just exported overseas with little benefit to the local population.

And in addition to all these, there are other things like tropical diseases, AIDS, nomadic lifestyles of the people unsuited to modern development etc. that are continuously keeping Africa down.

Blood diamonds

2006-12-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

This weekend I had gone to a movie called "Blood Diamonds" with Leonardo Di Caprio in the lead. The story is set in the small West African nation, Sierra Leonne. The country has been experiencing a 10 year old civil war that started around 1991. The war is waged by a rebel group called Revolutionary United Front (RUF). These people are so ruthless and cruel. Their main aim is to control the huge diamond reserves of the country. They raid entire villages, abduct the small girls, boys and some men. The rest were cruelly killed. Millions of poor people were amputated. The theory is that democracy survives through voting by hand and so hands were just chopped off to discourage voting. Other body parts were also mutilated.

The story is about an African fisherman whose family is ripped apart by these RUF rebels. He is taken to work in a diamond mine. His daughter and wife are taken as refugees to neighbouring country Guinea. His young son is captured to serve in the child army. The fisherman sets out to track his family. Leonardo di caprio is a diamond smuggler. The fisherman finds a huge diamond in the mines and hides it. Dicaprio helps the fisherman in his search for his family in return for the diamond. They travel through the country surviving the RUF atrocities.

The movie was really voilent. But most of what they show is not too much of an exagerration. I've been reading about these blood diamonds for quite sometime now and I've read quite a few disturbing accounts of the RUF.

The RUF control the diamond mines of the country. They use these diamonds to buy arms to fund the civil war. They do not have any people oriented agenda, plans or anything. Their only aim is to fill their own pockets. They were being supported by the gangster president of the neighbouring country Liberia.

Poor people are abducted from the villages and taken to Diamond mines to look for diamonds. Diamonds occur in places like river beds. The miners have seive, keep filling it with river water and see if any diamond gets caught in the seive. If anyone is caught stealing the diamonds, they are just shot. So these diamonds are just worthless stones to the poor people.

The children are kidnapped and the young boys are inducted into the children's army. There they are tortured and hardened and handed machine guns and trained to become ruthless killers. They are whipped and beaten. One account claims that the rebels rubbed Cocaine on the children's wounds to make them maniacs. Further they are hooked on to drugs to insenstise them to the brutality.

On the whole the rebel camps become a totally cultureless, ruthless place filled with children drinking, smoking, doping and gambling. They just move about the villages armed with machine guns, machetes in open jeeps and loud rauchous music. Villagers are caught, women and girls raped, shot and tortured.

The international arena just turned a blind eye for more than 8 years and just continued to buy these illegal diamonds. In fact many diamond companies funded the rebels in exchange for the diamonds. Then starting from 1998, the UN started sending peacekeeping missions and finally the RUF was quashed by 2002. The diamond industry met in Antwerp and adopted a resolution to stop trading in Blood diamonds. Also they created a diamond certification agency that will certify all legitimate diamonds.

Now for past 4 years, Sierra leonne has been at relative peace. But as long as the needs of the people are not taken care of, there will always be the danger of the country sliding back to anarchy.

Vegetarianism

2006-12-03T22:22:00.000-05:00

I frankly don't understand how the non-veg ppl can talk of animal conservation. Think of the amount of animals being killed every day. The no. of burger, sandwiches that BK, Mcdonalds and others make. I guess Billions of animals are slaughtered around the world in a year. Yet these ppl talk of not killing other animals. So if animal population is more, that animal will not have pain, does not need comfort, freedom, sanitation or anything. So they will happily butcher a snow leopard if its population is same as pigs or lambs. And the way these animals are stored when they are alive !!! horrible.

In one of the 'Everybody Loves Raymond' TV series, Raymond and his family go to his brother's in-law's place for Thanksgiving. Suddenly a pigeon hits itself against the window and gets badly hurt. So his mother-in-law takes the bird in, finds that it is in acute pain and so just kills it to relieve it of its misery. Seeing this, Ray and his parents get so angry and call their family 'savages' and argue how they can kill a life like that and so on. A big fight ensues. Then the mother-in-law brings in the thanksgiving turkey and at the sight of food, all hostilities are forgotten and all is well. It is just a humourous scene. But What an irony !!! Ppl who care for a pigeon and fight because someone put it out of its misery, are so happy to kill and eat a much larger bird. I guess, they don't even realize that these are animals. I think it will be like different things : Food and animals. Chicken , pigs etc are food and the rest are animals. I remember the Tom and Jerry cartoons, where when Tom sees a small duck / chicken, the live bird will appear as a hot plate of steaming food in its eyes. I think it will be the same for these ppl. When they see a Hen or a turkey, immediately deep roasted chicken wings or a steamed turkey will probably cross their minds .

Ideally I'll support those ppl who make it a point to eat only dead plant food, like veggies/ fruits that fall down from the plants naturally. I remember the girl, Hugh Grant tries to date in the movie 'Nottinghill'. She tells that she is one such person. That way we don't even kill the plants. But living like that is very difficult. Probably that will be the same argument of a non-vegetarian.

However hard I think, I'm not able to think of a concrete argument that will justify vegetarianism and also prove non-vegetarianism as wrong. We do kill plants as they kill animals. Probably I can say the following (But I am also able to produce counter arguments for each of my argument):

It has not been fully proved that plants feel pain -- But plants do have safety mechanisms, like thorns, repelling poisonous chemicals etc. We eat the plants only after overcoming these defences.
The condition in which the plants are grown is much better than the conditions in which animals are grown. This I feel is somewhat a valid point, though the growth of many plants is being manipulated by man.

This is the link in Wikipedia about Vegetarianism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism

These are some points I liked on that page:

Vegetarians in Europe used to be called "Pythagoreans",[1][2] after the philosopher Pythagoras and his followers, who abstained from meat in the 6Th century BC. These people followed a vegetarian diet for nutritional and ethical reasons. According to the Roman poet Ovid, Pythagoras said: "As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Many Hindu scriptures advocate vegetarian diet. The secular literature of Tirukural (circa. 100-300 AD) advocates vegetarianism. (I didn't know Thiruvalluvar talked about these things)
Vegetarian societies (apart from India) were first formed in majority meat-eating European countries both as a means to promote the diet and to gather together vegetarians for mutual support. By 2000, most Western and developing nations had functioning vegetarian societies. The countries that were first to establish societies are still the ones most likely to have the greatest proportion of vegetarians within their populations.
Today, Indian vegetarians, primarily lacto vegetarians, are estimated to make up more than 70% of the world's vegetarians. They make up 20 to 30% of the population in India, while occasional meat-eaters make up another 30%.
The majority of the world's vegetarians, statistics wise, are Hindu. Hinduism and Jainism teach vegetarianism as moral conduct while Christianity and Islam generally do not.
Islam allows some consumption of meat; this meat is known as "halal", and this meat is slaughtered by the Islamic standards, and disallowed meat is haram, which is non permitted meat or meat not slaughtered according to Islam's standards. Islam accepts the ritualistic animal slaughter done by Jews, known as shechita. (Hebrew)" Islam also excludes the consumption of pork (pig meat). Muslim vegetarians are very rare as the consumption of meat is intertwined with religious sacrificing of animals (namely caprids, bovines and camels) in Eid ul-Adha. Moreover, in Islamic jurisprudence, it is wrong to forbid what is not forbidden. When travelling to locations where it is difficult to get halal meat, Muslims eat fish instead or eat only vegetables.
According to the United Nations Population Fund "Each U.S. citizen consumes an average of 260 lb. of meat per year, the world's highest rate. That is about 1.5 times the industrial world average, three times the East Asian average, and 40 times the average in Bangladesh."(Think of the number of animals killed )

So Basically, India is the most vegetarian country in the world. A recent survey (Hindu-CNN poll) has concluded that more than 40% of the country's population is vegetarian. This is really huge, considering our population.

The ubiquitous "potti kadais"

2006-08-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

Do you remember the ubiquitous potti kadais (Bunk shops) seen everywhere on Indian streets? They are found everywhere and sell all sorts of things like cigars, beedis, water packets, butter biscuits and other such life saving things. We never cared too much for these shops. They were supposed to be an eye sore of the localities compared to the new trendy malls and departmental stores.

Now after coming to US, I miss them in one unique way. They had always acted as our location markers. Any new town we enter or any new locality we visit, we first look at the name boards of these shops to identify the street name and the locality we are in. Even in the dead of night, while traveling to other localities, when the bus stops at a teashop in the highway, these name boards will tell us where we are. They had always been a part of our lives that we never thought of this. When we go to a new bus stop, we immediately go to a nearby potti kadai (which will definitely be there) to get details about the bus number, bus timings and so on. I remember the time when I went on a trip to Yercaud with my cousins. We got down at a station at around 3:00 am and were clueless about the location of the bus stop or the shortest route that we can take and so on. Then there was this potti kadai that came to our rescue. The people there gave us details about where the bus would stop, what are the possible routes we can take, what are the other places of interest in the region and so on.

All this comfort of the potti Kadai is not available in the US of A. A few days back, I went to a residential locality to search for an apartment. While returning back, I went and stood near a small board that proclaimed that stop to be a bus stop. But there was no one around to ask whether I'm standing at the right stop, whether the bus has already left etc. The street was very calm, beautiful with lots of lawns and stuff, but there was not a single soul in sight. This was when I wished there was a potti kadai nearby. Undoubtedly they are doing a great service. They are showing the people "their way".
Maybe we should export this potti kadai technology to these backward western nations too :)

Self-Discipline

2005-06-26T00:21:00.000-05:00

India has now become one of the most happening places in the world. Our cities are transforming into true cosmopolitan centers. Everyone around us we see high rise commercial centers, apartments shopping malls etc. 'Brand India' is emerging a global winner. But with all these, we still see overflowing garbage bins, dusty roads, public buses and trains with damaged seat and windows and so many other such things. Ask a person, the reason for this. The most common answer that one would get is, "The government is not doing anything. This corporation is cleaning garbage regularly. The transport corporation is not repairing the buses regularly...." Is this the right mind-set?? Yes, it is agreed that it is the duty of the government to take care of these things. But as citizens don't we have a role to play in all these issues? We buy a packet of chips. We hold it in our hands and walk through the streets eating the snack. Once we finish eating, we just throw the empty cover on the streets. What was not a burden when the snack was there suddenly becomes a burden that we cannot hold it in our hands till we come to a dustbin? How many times we would have seen people spitting out of a bus or lorry unmindful of anyone who may be coming nearby? Why is all this happening? Can't we prevent all this by just maintaining a small amount of self-discipline? We need not go out on the streets and start cleaning the place. But we can avoid adding to the dirt. When we go out in a public transport, can't we maintain a small amount of discipline and refrain from tearing pieces of seat cover, writing names on the walls, spitting near the doors, dropping skins of fruits etc. Are the walls of public buildings, toilets and vehicles places to declare your love? If each one of us can maintain some amount of self-discipline, we can make our surroundings a clean and green place. We should first do our part and then go about criticizing the government.