Insults and Monkey-Gate

Australians are the past masters in the art of sledging; if you can call it art.

They provoke the opposition player and wait for retaliation and naturally the retaliation results in punitive punishments and the original incident is forgotten. Witness the recent one game ban for in-form Gautham Gambhir for retaliation. The actions of the bowler, Shane Watson, mouthing insults (available I am sure in high definition video) that precipitated this incident were almost completely ignored by the match umpire. Many Indian players have recounted episodes where the Australian fielders in slip cordon would refer to wonderful night spent with the batsman's relative. This is not considered an insult, it is not considered a harassment; it is considered a form of badinage and supposed to be taken in that spirit.

Harbhajan Singh was accused of using a racial epithet against Australian player. He was accused of calling Symonds a monkey.

First, it is normal to be called a monkey or other animals in India. My mom frequently compared me to various four-legged creatures, not necessarily affectionately, so did a majority of my elementary school teachers. Half the boys in my class have been called a monkey one time or other when they were mischievous. Almost all of us have been referred to as either a donkey or son of a donkey when we were slow with our responses in class. I remember a teacher whom we used to harass a lot during class addressing us as "thick skinned buffaloes".

Second, Harbhajan should have defended himself since it was not meant as an insult. Monkeys are revered and have temples built in their honor. In fact he should have pointed out that it was as a compliment to be compared to Hanuman!!

Third, assuming that Harbhajan called him a monkey, why cannot the Australians take it in the right spirit and laugh at at. After all, it is not as if Symonds looks have launched a thousand ships; in fact I have heard from unreliable sources that his looks have caused mirrors to crack when he looks at himself.

Assuming that an Australian player insulted an Indian player's mother, there are no rules of etiquette on how to insult that restrict Indians to talking only about sleeping with the Australian player's female relatives. I am afraid reader will blanch at my using the words insult and etiquette in the same sentence, but the rules are simple; you identify a raw nerve and keep hitting on that nerve. If you find that a player hates being teased about his looks; then talk about it more!!

A player who thrives on being aggressive on the field and loves dishing out to others has no right to expect politeness from his opponents when it is their turn. This is typical Australians being babies when they lose. It seems like when Australians sledge they call it an art whereas when the others pick up that art and apply it so well that it now hurts, it is racial epithet. Talk about double standards!!

Taking a step back; referring to a player's relative being great in bed is an insult if that player perceives it be so. Calling someone a monkey is an insult if that person perceives it be so. Perception is after all reality.

There is a solution for this - do not sledge; play cricket, but if you sledge, do not come complaining to mommy when your opponent does it better!!

PS: When the teacher called us "thick skinned buffaloes" one of my classmates quipped "Madam, but we do not give milk!!". She put her head on the teachers table and cried. No kidding.

How I wish That The Grinch Had Stolen Christmas!!

The title was inspired by this article in CNN and at about the same time my wife's colleague posted this.

Venus Williams - My Hero

I have always been vary of charlatans who claim that they made a certain prediction years ago

1. Mark my words, this stock will go up 10000% or
2. Get out of that stock, it is going to crash.

I think when people make prediction they should make it in a public fora with suitable controls so that we can verify such claims of omniscience.

Over the past decade, I realize that I personally have failed in this; I knew when I saw Venus Williams in 1995 or so that she would one day be a world champion. I also knew that Serena had a better all round game. How I wish I had stated it publicly!!

That does not prevent me from at least expressing admiration for Venus. Are there many athletes who are personally or professionally as graceful as she is? It seems to me that watching her play is akin to watching a ballet. She makes it seem effortless. She has a monster serve; amazing span; great defense. Along with Navratilova and Graf, she would be considered one of the best grass court player. She has won five Wimbledon titles in all.

Her serve in fact is out of the league. One could write an entire article on just that topic. She frequently averages first serve speeds that are comparable if not higher than similarly ranked men!! No woman comes (except maybe Serena) within 5 miles of her average speeds consistently. In fact Venus holds the record for the fastest serves in all grand slam venues and the fastest serve overall!!

Most people think her father is arrogant, opinionated, and many other unprintable adjectives. No one sees him for what he is; he has raised two world champions in really trying circumstances. He did not have the benefit of a nice suburban setting to raise them. He at least has gone on record to say how his daughters would one day rule women's tennis. This was years before they had even played a single professional game. He along with his wife deserve kudos for raising two really good children. In the age of self-aggrandizement amongst professional players, these two are quiet but self confident without the need to push themselves constantly in the limelight. They have a good balance between tennis and life. Tennis is not for them the be all and end all. They have interest outside tennis that provides them an outlet to express themselves.

What else is there to say?

Who reads my blogs?

You may have noticed that whenever you state an opinion there are people who have nothing useful to add, but chime - In your opinion. Inexplicably they feel that they have somehow clinched the argument" since they manage to say that with such an air of confidence as if to say "Take that". This leaves you rather nettled and you start wondering whose opinion have you been voicing all along if not your own. Did someone else possess you and state his opinion?

So for the record; everything I write in this post is my opinion; or at least I believe it is my opinion. So if you have a rebuttal, make it. Just do not repeat the cliche "it is your opinion" and yes I know what a cliche is. Check the title of this blog.

So here it goes.

I am jealous of all those people who have a popular blog. Not all of them write well. Not all of the post are well written. Most of the posts fall under the category inconsequential, as does mine. Not all of them write something worthwhile reading. Observe clearly the use of slightly milder qualifiers such as "Not all" and "Most" rather than the definitive "All".

Some of the posts are quite everyday-ish;

-- I woke up, drank coffee, read the newspaper, shaved, showered, breakfasted and went to work.

Others are quite inane

-- I went to see the Taj and it was sooooo beautiful.

Really, we did not know that!!

In my opinion, my posts are neither inane not boring. I have an opinion to offer. An anecdote to recount. Some quite funny. Even my mom, from whom getting praise is like pulling teeth, admits that some of them pass her sniff test. So why is no one reading my post?

I am wrong. I know some people do although the list is quite small

My wife; I must admit she has so far been faithful!! My sister and my niece; only after I took the extraordinary step of making it their home page!! These three also provide me useful feedback on grammar and typo so I can fix them before no one else reads it!!

Oh and I forgot the fourth person, I read my own blog. Yes I am a ego blogger (on the lines of egosurfing)

Then there are the stumblers, those who are searching for Cantonese teacher and Google serves them this. The only others who read it are people who I pester into submission by sending them spam messages "Did you read it, Did you, Could you, Would you, Please, Pretty please". After the tenth time of IMing them, they either read the post or they remember to block me.

Boo hoo

The Nanny and the Hare - A Story of First Impressions

When my second one was born, we knew we would need help with the baby. We were both 10 years older than we were the first time around. So we interviewed and hired this lady to take care of Maalini. The idea was for her to take care of M from about 8AM to 7PM and live with us during the week and go back home during weekends. We wanted a live in nanny since we did not want her, and by proxy us, to be at the mercy of Maryland area traffic.

On the second night after she came, I was in my drawing room watching late night TV and I felt something move near the periphery of my vision. Typically when the heat turns on and air blows it causes the blinds to move. So I ignored it, but I could not get over the feeling that someone was watching me. Five minutes of concentrated Law & Order watching later, I saw the shadow again move behind the TV. This time I was ready and investigated and found that it was a hare.

Those of you that know the difference between the two, rabbit and hare, please do not enlighten me. The title of this post sounds nice only if it were a hare.

Back to my drawing room, the hare had taken shelter under my immense TV. This is one of the first generation rear projection HD TV, weighing almost 300lbs. Although it had wheels, and the floor had Berber carpet, it was hard to move. After trying futilely for 5 minutes to escort it outside through the door leading to the deck, I made the biggest mistake.

I woke my wife up!!

Jannavi normally is a very intrepid person where humans are concerned, but the moment she is confronted by non-biped creatures, she loses her cool. There is no moderation to her fear. It does not matter whether it is a small bug, an earthworm, a cat, a dog, a friendly calf or a fearful lion. She will throw a fit. The rest of us, my daughters and I love dogs, but there is absolutely no chance we will have a pet!! It is me or a pet, is her slogan.

When she came down, I was bombarded by a series of questions. What are we going to do? How will we get rid of it? What if it goes upstairs? What if it has invited its family? How does it affect the resale value of the house? How does this affect the economy? I am kidding, she did not ask the last one.

You would think from her questions that it was an invasion of our house by a machete wielding monster thirsting for our blood, rather than an accidental ingress of a hare.

I barricaded the family room using the futon and its mattress in such a manner that it could not leave that room and left the door to the deck open. No matter what we did the hare did not take the bait. We tried for a while and finally gave up and went to sleep. I mean I went to sleep and Jannavi worried about the hare in our drawing room till dawn.

Morning came and we described the events to our nanny. We then asked her where she was when all this was happening? You know what she said?

She had come down and had seen that my wife was crying. The house was in total disarray with furniture strewn all over the ground floor.

So she assumed that after drinking like a fish I had been beating my wife.

I know that I do not necessarily make the best first impression on people, or for that matter second impression. But this takes the cake. You try to get a hare to leave the house and people think you are a drunkard and a wife beater!!

After what she said, everything else was an anti-climax. Our nanny coaxed the hare to leave its hiding place and leave. It just was as scared as my wife and wanted to leave our house as much as we wanted it gone.

I have weird dreams. You have probably read this post on the same topic sometime earlier.

This edition takes place in TVS Nagar, Madurai. My maternal grandfather used to live there and now my uncle does with his family. I still go there and it is very nostalgic. It brings back some of the best summer vacations I have had, literally living like an urchin from 8AM to 8PM for 5 weeks. I still remember the fun I had learning to ride a bike. I also remember how I rode my bike and hit this woman on Rajam Road, and had the gall to tell her she was walking on the wrong side of the road!! So it was not surprising that I dreamt of this place.

The dream started very strangely. I was swimming. The strangeness is in part because in real life I cannot take my head above water and breathe. That act of raising my head and gulping for air breaks my rhythm. Then I stop kicking and very soon I start sinking. How I have wished that all pools were no more than 10-15 yards wide, so I could swim without taking my head out!!

In contrast, in my dream I magically realize what I have been doing wrong all along and rectify it and suddenly my stroke was smooth. I was as smooth and fast as a dolphin. What is strange about this? We all wish to do things that end up getting fulfilled in a dream.

Well does anyone swim on a road?

Well that was what found I was doing. I was swimming on a road full of flood water. I was totally oblivious of this and was enjoying the fact that I was swimming so well and with such ease. In case you know TVS Nagar and are curious where I was swimming, it was on Lakshmi Road!! Then you must also know how this road crosses the railway tracks. Since that was high ground and had no water, I had to stop swimming. So when I stepped out of the water I found myself wearing swimming trunks.

I was wet and wearing only swimming trunks in the middle of TVS Nagar!!

Now it gets into the realm of bizarre. I suddenly decide to go to a movie and magically get transported to a building appropriately dressed. It was about 7PM and very soon I find myself inside the theater looking for seats for the 7:30PM show. But there are no seats although there are several long benches on which lots of people had decided to take a nap. So I was in a theater where there were no seats but only benches; where no one was sitting up, but were out flat on the bench. Even more unusually all of them had blankets and pillows and were sleeping soundly. I woke one of them up and asked about the movie timing and if they would get up in time for the show. He laughed at me and told me that there was no 7:30PM show and that they were there for the 10PM show. Since this man knew he was early he like all the others had decided to come prepared with bedding to to make himself comfortable.

I thankfully woke up before this dream progressed any further. I challenge even Freud to make sense of this!!

Serendipity

This word is one of those long 5 syllable words your cram for GRE to get to the US. It means Chance. Well here is my story about chance.

Scene 1: Four months ago I went to Bangalore. There we planned on a hike to a place called Shivagange. The “we” here includes amongst others, Naveen, my brother-in-law and his wife’s colleague’s teenage daughter Mala. This was the same hike Naveen and I had attempted earlier last December. The hike was wonderful and it could make a post of its own. More on that later.

Scene 2: I went to Bangalore last weekend since Naveen and his wife had a baby girl and they had planned a ceremony at the temple. They felt that I should be present at this auspicious moment. But before going to their house I made a detour to my friend’s house in Malleswaram near Sampige Theater after getting off Bangalore Mail. He lives in this new high rise condominium complex called Mantri Apartments. BTW, condominium complexes are called apartments and the individual unit called a flat. Anyway, Swamy was due to leave for the US and I wanted to catch up with him before that since his return to India was after my return back to the US.

Scene 3: I was quite tired and wanted to rest, but Swamy dragged me to his good friend in the same complex. I dragged my feet and complained that I was not in the mood to be polite and make social conversations. He assured me that Raghu, his friend was a nice guy whom he had known from his Austin, Texas days. He was right, Raghu and his wife very hospitable and made me feel right at home. We talked about pretty much nothing of consequence, but time seemed to pass by without effort. When it was time for me to go, they invited me to some party they were having that evening. Swamy also added his emotional blackmail. I regretfully left their house.

Scene 4: I met Siri, my new niece; very cute baby exhibiting no stranger anxiety at all. She even came to me. When I first came to the house she was asleep in this nice old fashioned crib. I asked about it and Naveen mentioned that it was Raji’s colleague’s grandfather’s crib; almost an antique.

Scene 5: Raji, Naveen's wife came back from her parent’s house and after some small talk. BTW could someone tell me how is my wife's brother's wife related to me. Is there a named relationship even in Indian languages? Getting back to the topic, I mentioned that I was with a friend in Malleswaram in this new complex behind this theater. She immediately said that she also knew someone, her friend’s brother, who lived at Mantri Apartments. She added that Raghu was an expat from US. My ears perked up. I immediately gave details I knew of Raghu; engineer, wife, 2 sons; CEO of a startup etc. Yes Raji's answer was yes to all. Turns out, Raghu was her colleague’s younger brother.

So I called Raghu and promptly told him that the child I went to see was actually sleeping in his grandfather’s crib and additionally I had gone hiking with his niece few months ago!!

Now that is a small world.

Flush

We take this for granted. This is so universal in the USA that if the flush system were to fail most people would not know where to look and what to do. In fact we can mark the year 1907 as year ZERO in the Before Flush, After Flush calendar; anything before that was savagery and after that modern age. I am not referring to any flush system, I am referring to the system where the water goes round and round in a vortex which allows for better cleaning. There were other flush systems before but none that meant anything to the relevance of this post.

As always a brief digression; I feel at times that I chose a little too frivolous in making the toilet more important. There is an equally important item if not more important, namely the lowly Toilet Paper. If people in USA do not know what to do without toilets think how unsure of themselves they would be without the benefit of TP. I like the word unsure to describe people’s feeling. I checked its meaning in the dictionary and here is what it says

lacking or indicating lack of confidence or assurance; "uncertain of his convictions"; "unsure of himself and his future"; "moving with uncertain (or unsure) steps"

The last one “moving with uncertain steps” explains their condition perfectly. I think it is visual enough.

Anyway, enough of this vacillation; Year 1907 is the Anna Flush and the years before that Before Flush and we will defer the merits and demerits of TP over Flush toilet to another post.

Or better yet maybe we will defer forever.

In India flush toilets are pre vortex age. A huge amount of water gets dumped into the bowl in a rather haphazard way. Because of this the water has no coherence and beats uselessly against itself and the stuff. I refuse to name it by its technical term and other not so technical ones, and stuff it will be called thoughout. With this lack of unity shown by the water forces, the stuff insides fights hard and resists to be flushed down. It is like the Indian spirit; refuses to give in despite the conditions around. After a while the water gives up its hope and the triumphant stuff floats mocking at your attempts.

If you wonder why Indians have this extra tap and bucket even in western style toilets, well now you know the reason, they have little faith in the flush actually working first time. No matter the reason, you are merely grateful for this fact. Having a bucket of water is handy. You pour a bucket of water in one fell swoop, even the hardiest of stuff can be drowned successfully.

I never thought I would sully my blog about a post on stuff. I guess I am frustrated with toilets here.

My Parent's Pilgrimage

Yesterday my dad described a pilgrimage he made to Muktinath in Nepal last month.

As usual it started with an argument. My dad is autocratic and my mom who got her BA in Political Science resents autocracy and thinks of herself as a defender of democracy and freedom of speech. The question was how much ID the two should carry. My mom suggested that the newest passport was adequate but my dad ordered “Woman, bring both the old and new”. My dad felt that since the old one carried the US Visa it carried more weight when going to Nepal. Makes sense; if USA itself allowed them access why should Nepal not? After extensive fighting and much bloodshed my mom capitulated. They ended up carrying, two passports each, Voter ID, PAN Card, and Pension ID. The only card they did not carry was the ration card!! Poor thing, once upon a time it was the only ID our family possessed.

This was one extreme, in the airport they met up with the others who were going with them. My father’s friend (henceforth called Mr. S) who was the spirit behind this trip is a bindas person. Nothing bothers him.

To describe him better let me take a detour. Once when Mr. S was traveling from Madras to New Delhi, he saw Oranges at Nagpur station. Now Nagpur is famous for its oranges. So you cannot blame the man for wanting to buy some. So he stepped out of train. Further out he saw some grapes and so entranced was he by the sight that he decided to walk out of the station to buy some. After the mandatory bargaining, he got his grapes and came back to find the train driver did not share his taste for fruits and decided to move on to Itarsi, the next station. Since there was no point in crying, Mr. S coolly went to the station master and explained his situation. The station master, for whom this was not such an unusual incident, commiserated with Mr. S and advised him to buy another ticket and meanwhile called ahead to Itarsi and told them to unload Mr. S bags from the train.

Now comes the kicker, Mr. S did not have any money. As I mentioned nothing fazed him much. He called several people and through them identified someone who used to work for him a while back. Mr. S talked to him and requested him to bring some money for him. Well everything ended well. Mr. S got his money, got another ticket, picked his bags at the next station and reached New Delhi safely. Later as he recounted this story, he commented to my father casually “pretty expensive grapes those were”.

Back to the Nepal trip; Since Mr. S had come to this trip with two relatives who did not have a passport, he felt a sense of camaraderie and decided to forgo his passport too. Now he did not stop there. He decided to come with no identification!! Mind you, although they were only going to Nepal, it was really quasi-international travel. The only piece of ID he had was a driver’s license. Sorry, I am wrong; the only piece of ID he had with him was a Xerox copy of his driver’s license!! Seriously, not even the real thing.

Now the people in the airport would not let him travel with this poor excuse for an ID. So he casually talked to several people in several windows and tried to cajole them in letting him fly. For people in the US this would sound strange. The rule is you have no passport, you make no international travel plans. India is beyond material things, mere ID or lack of one cannot stop one from traveling. If you talk to enough people you can get on any plane. In between my dad, who is a retired bureaucrat, kept telling anyone and everyone, who cared to listen to him, how his son’s classmate is now a Deputy Inspector General in Indian Police Service or DIG in the IPS for short. As proof he would show my friend’s business card. It came as a major blow to my father’s psyche that no one was intimidated. They all knew a few DIGs too, in fact they all had worked with quite a few DIGs. My dad was so used to scaring my mom. By the way, he does not yet know it yet, that she is not afraid either.

Not everyone was as sanguine as Mr. S. Others in the group were very worried. You see no one precisely knew where they were all going. This leads to another detour

Two of the original members of the group could not come due to some personal problems, so two others were roped in at the last minute. One of them was this widowed lady who had been very keen from the beginning. Her children checked that my parents would be part of the group and allowed her to come, since she had a variety of ailments. They thought if my parents were going then it would be safe. When she reached the airport she had to fill out a few forms, she wondered loudly to no one in particularly “I wonder where we are going”. She then cheerfully confided to my mom that her children would be furious with her if they knew that she had no clue where she was going.

They all trusted Mr. S implicitly. My father later told me that most of his plans were on bits and pieces of paper very haphazardly put together in a small bag.

It was so funny, I have not laughed so much in several weeks. It hurt so much to laugh since I have a bad cold and could not laugh without coughing my guts out.

Coming back, like I said, in India you can get anything done if you knock at enough doors and meet enough babus. What is a minor irritant like need for a passport to cross international borders?

Well my parents successfully went to Nepal; there was no stopping Mr. S, he got on that flight; the widowed lady also made it without any hitch. Her children though are still blissfully unaware of the details.

In conclusion, my parents and their friends had a great time in Nepal.

Women - Happy in marriage but dreaming of divorce!!

It seems women seem to be living their lives based on the above motto!! Here is at least one woman's opinion in CNN. Now I wonder if this is universal. I also wonder what an appropriate response would be from a man. In this day and age when it is now accepted wisdom that most problems in marriages are caused by immature men, I wonder if it is even political correct to rebut. More to the point what would it do to my marriage? So I guess I will leave my thoughts where they belong - in my brain.

Sleep eight hours a day and lose weight

I like to sleep. From childhood till now, it has been my favorite activity or as some would say favorite inactivity.

My parents did not take kindly to my sleeping habits. They tried to reform me. They gave me adages like "The early bird catches the worm". I wanted to tell them - nice way to motivate someone who is a vegetarian!!

My school punished me whenever I was late. They make you stand in a line and all the kids grade 1 through 12 would know who the late comers were. It is is pretty demeaning. My college expected me to be in class by 8:00AM which meant I had to be up at an insane 5:30AM everyday (in case you are wondering why I need 2.5 hours - get ready, eat breakfast, catch the 6:40AM University special for an hour long commute). The problem only got worse after my marriage since my better half is an early riser. Now I have a job with employees in US and India which means I now have no defined working hours!!

Now do not be under the impression that I share a curse with Kumbakarna. All I need is 8 hours of sleep during weekdays and 9 hours on weekends. During all these years, I almost had no ammunition to fight my foes namely, parents, school, college, and dear wife. It was clear that working is better and sleeping is a waste of time. All I could say lamely was - if God intended man to work 24 hours he would not have created sleep. This argument carried less weight since I am an atheist.

Recently I read a very nice article on the need for adequate sleep which is defined by at least 7 hours and lists some of the dangers of sleep deprivation such as the obvious one - poor decision making ability and adds weight gain, diabetes, and even a link to cancer this list.

Now you can tell your other half - if only you had slept an hour more everyday, you would have easily taken off those 5 lbs you so badly wanted to!!

Comic Genius

I know the word genius is strewn to lightly, but I would like you to view this video of my friend's son. It is utter nonsense and very funny.

Manama and Bahubali's Bidhi-bidhii-bee

I have a daughter. OK backup, I have two daughters. My younger one was year and half old when we to India.

Her name is Maalini, but she calls her Manama. Well she could not say her name very well at that age and the alternate name has stuck. Sometimes we shorten it to Mana. Finally teachers have given her a nickname and shortened it to Maa.

To return from that digression, while in India we went around Belur, Halebid, and Shravanabelagola. This post is about the Shravanabelagola, Please read the link provided for detailed information - but to summarize, it is an important pilgrim center for Jains and for most others its prime attraction is a huge almost 20 meters tall monolithic statue of Bahubali. I have attached a picture below. As you can see it is very well made in all its proportions and details including toe nails, amongst several other features.


My older daughter is a teenager and she started giggling at the sight of this statue. When asked her what the problem was became red and quiet. Manama on the other hand is very outspoken and immediately pointed at the middle of the statue and said

- Look amma, look at his Bidhi-bidhii-bee!!

Now Manama at that time could not say the word Belly-button but she was always fascinated by it. She would instead call it Bidhi-bidhii-bee.

Thank god!! We were so scared what she was going to blurt.

Now admit it, you and I have a similar dirty mind and we are thinking of something else. I wont say what it is either, let us say we are referring to a nickname for Richard.

I am a Playback Singer and So can you

Disclaimer - I am stating my opinions and not facts

Songs in Indian movies have been a staple since the inception of the movie industry itself. In the Bollywood of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, there was a holy triad made up of great Music Directors, Great Singers, and very accomplished poets who wrote songs for the movies. This may have been true of times earlier but I do not know much about the music of that time.

Here are some singers from that period who I think were great - Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar.

Then there are other singers I like a lot but I would not put them in the previous list but who still are very pleasant to listen to Mukesh, Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood, Hariharan, and Shankar Mahadevan. There are I am sure a few others I like but cannot recollect their names at this moment.

After this golden era came the period of 1970s and early 1980s when there were still great singers and music directors. Poetry to be used as lyrics became optional and pretty soon we had songs like Mein Ek Disco Tu Ek Disco Duniyan Hai Ek Disco. By the late 1980s, with the death of Rafi and Kishore and the decline of Lata (again my opinion) singing talent became optional too in Bollywood. Finally and from early 1990s except for a few songs to alleviate the dreary landscape, even music directors became optional. Bappi Lahiri ruled during this era when it became the norm to copy pop songs. So we had songs like Ramba Ho. Not many people can name many other noteworthy songs or singers from this period which I call the dark era of Bollywood Music. There was a total dearth of any quality.

In to this vacuum came Kumar Sanu aka KS

I hate his singing. I detest it. One of my friends does a very good imitation of this mammal who pretends to be a playback singer. Most of you can do it. Simple - hold you nose and sing any song, take particular pains to sound unappealing.

At this point I experienced an epiphany. If KS can sing so can we all. In fact I coined the title of this post at that point.

I am a playback singer and so can you

I know it is not a character flaw that KS brays so well. I am sure he is a good father and an admirable husband. I feel that he was lucky to become a singer during times of turmoil and he used his opportunity well. I just cannot stand his singing much less sit and listen. Here is a telling fact - AR Rahman has never used him for his songs.

For those who believe I am being arrogant in dissing KS - Yes, I can sing but unlike KS, I follow Clint Eastwood's dictum - A man's got to know his limitations from the movie Magnum Force. I know my limitations, but I guess KS does not.

PS: For people who miss the reference, I paraphrased the title of Stephen Colbert's best selling book I am America (and so can you). It is a OMG, I-cannot-put-it-down-funny book.

Limited Resources

Imagine this meal.

There are 10 people who need to be fed. The restaurant that makes the food only produces enough for 10 people. One of them is obese and eats 45% of the food. The second person is also obese and consumes 45% of the meal. These two really do not eat all the food. They give it to their equally over fed pets. The remaining 8 make do with the last 10% of the food. They have not complained so far at this discrepancy since they did not have any money and were happy at getting even those scraps of food.

Of late 7 of the 8 have become modestly wealthy and proportionately hungrier for more food. The restaurateur unfortunately is unable to cook any more food. But he sees that there is demand for his food and decides to double the price. The 7 are capable and willing to pay more money to get a greater share of the food. This is galling to the two obese people. They are irritated that they have to pay twice the amount they were paying for the same food. To add to their woes, the restaurant owner has also told everyone not to be surprised if food prices will triple in the near future. Now these two can no longer provide gourmet food for their pets.

Horrors!!

Now the two, let it not be forgotten, are still very rich. With money comes the ability to buy air time on TV, Radio, and space in Newspapers. They start circulating stories how these poor people are consuming a lot of the food and are causing ridiculous price rise. They get conservative talk shows to rail against the growing consumerism of those 7. They get the liberal media to write about global warming caused by increasing consumption of those 7. They get SPCA to complain about ill treatment and mal-nutrition of the pets.

In general they avoid talking about the real issue - their obesity, their consumption, their greed.

In case you are dense, or I am too cryptic, or both - here is the cast with real names

1. Restaurateur - Oil producers
2. First Obese person - USA
3. Second Obese person - Europe
4. Overfed pets - Monstrously big vehicles, centrally heated and cooled McMansions 200 hundred miles from civilization (and more).
   
5. 7 poor people - China and India
6. Last poor person- Others (Africa)
   

I have never been more irritated by articles in respected newspapers that talk about increasing energy needs in China and India, rising consumption of various commodities and relating it to rising prices and global warming. No one ever mentions even in passing the real number that best describes the quality of life - per capita energy consumption. Well here are some numbers for annual per capita energy consumption in a few countries. See here for a more detailed list.

1. USA - 7794 (this includes me)
   
2. France - 4518
3. Germany - 4203
4. UK - 3918
5. China - 1138
6. India - 512
7. Ghana - 400

What do you think?

Lakshvataram

Kamal is a great actor.

1. He has won a the National Film Award for Best Child Artist
2. He has won several national awards for best actor
   
3. He has won several Filmfare Best Tamil Actor Award. I would be surprised if he has not won the most number of these awards
4. He has won Filmfare Best Telugu Actor Award
5. He has won the Filmfare Best Kannada Actor Award
6. Several of his movies were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film
7. He has won a regional Filmfare award for a Malayalam movie
8. He has acted in several blockbuster Hindi movies
   

In short, and to repeat, Kamal is a great actor.

Kamal has also done dual roles, there have been three Kamals in the same movie, and finally in Dasavatharam there are no less than 10 Kamals. I looked at the cast and was disappointed to see only ten entries for Kamal. Hence I refuse to watch this movie. I feel there are too few Kamals in the movie. One cannot get enough of Kamal. So I am going to wait for a movie where Kamal also plays the role of a pole dancing Mallika Sherawat.

Why not? Nothing is too hard for Kamal.

In fact I have a great idea for his next movie. A movie where the hero is Kamal, his girl friend is Kamal, Mom and Dad are Kamal. After marriage, his kids are little Kamals. The bad guy is Kamal, the bad girl (pole dancer) is Kamal. All the assorted side characters are Kamals. The play back singers both male and female, the director, assistant director, producer, lyricist, choreographer are all -- you got it Kamal.

Here is the neat trick - the entire audience in every movie hall is also composed of Kamal .... and I have the name for this movie - Lakshavatharam.

Remember, when this movie gets made, you heard of the scoop first in this blog.

PS: I tried some alternate names, since there are Crores of humans in India, I tried Croravatharam. It did not sound so catchy.

My Happy Looks

My company has been trying to hire developers in India for the past 6 months and it has been an interesting experience. The no-brainer option is to go the IITs or the top 20 schools in India and pay top dollars for the brightest candidates. This is also the easy one since everyone can do that and it results in ridiculous escalation in salaries. Last year I read somewhere that for the first time a fresh graduate from IIT Bombay received a 6 figure offer. In US dollars!! Additionally small companies like mine stands no chance to get entry into the campus interview schedule. They would interview us and reject us as not worthy of hiring their students!!

The harder strategy is to sift through a pool of candidates, invite over ten candidates to select just one. It is not easy. Again everyone else is also doing exactly this. Just this week some company in Chennai offered nearly 80% more in salary to one of my candidates!!

Anyway, today, I was talking to this candidate, to whom by the way we ended up making an offer, during lunch. I asked him about his background and he mentioned he was from Nellore, two older brothers, a retired dad, and a home maker mom. It seems he is a budding author and likes writing stories and has written 5 in Telugu and 1 in English. He also volunteered the information that the story in English is a thriller going by the title Q.

No jokes. Just the letter Q.

When I asked him if he has published his stories anywhere, he shook his head regretfully. I suggested using Google and posting his stories in a blog. He did not like this since he feared that others would read his stories and steal it!! Dude does not know how hard it is to get people to read your posts, much less steal it.

In fact, I say, please steal my posts. In fact I will give top dollars for you to steal it!!

I assured him that once he gets people to read it and he becomes famous there are still 25 other English alphabets waiting to be written up as stories, so he should not be too worried about losing one of them.

When his turn came to ask a question he wondered if I was married and when I answered with an affirmative, he promptly hid a smile.

Naturally I asked him - what's up? To which he replied I looked very cheerful.

I asked him what was wrong with that. He replied that one could look at a person's face and see the beaten look of a married man and also figure out who wears the pants in the house!!

I, it seems did not fit that profile since I seemed happy and confident.

Funny guy, smart guy, I guess he is bound to remain a bachelor.

Streak of Narcissim

15-20 years ago, the greatest dread of my life was the word horoscope. If someone asked for your horoscope it meant they were looking at you as a prospective groom for their daughter or niece. I was petrified by the prospect of marriage and that too an arranged one. Also I guess like all boys of that age I was still rebellious. The notion that in this age of science people actually cared what Rahu, Ketu, Shani and Shukra did or believed that these distant planets could influence your future seemed so 19th century-ish!! It still seems to me despite the passage of two decades. Luckily, I met a really, really, nice girl in grad school who took pity on me and decided to marry me despite my boorishness. Thus did I escape the horoscope.

OK you escaped. So?

Well I am in Madras at present and yesterday I met a friend of my parents. This couple had relocated from Delhi to Madras to be close to their daughter. They had some friends over at that time and pretty soon we were involved in the merits and demerits of Bombay, Delhi, and Madras. One of the guests, who had been raised in Bombay, talked about her recent trip to Delhi and described how the Hindi there was so corrupt. It seemed to her it was Punjabi laced Hindi that was spoken in Delhi. I am like Lady you come from Bombay where god knows what dialect they speak and you are talking about the quality of Hindi spoken in Delhi!!

Of course, I did not say it that rudely, but people who know me, know that it must have required a lot of resolution for me to keep my mouth shut. I casually said that in the 20 odd years that I have not been in Delhi things could have changed. You may remember from my past post, how I have evolved into an improved person. In case you do not here is something to refresh your memory.

My question still stands. So?

The conversation veered to where I lived and why I was here and if I came so often to India why I should not simply relocate to Chennai for the duration of the project. I told them that while that was a good idea, one that I myself have idly thought of, the problem was each time I came here I missed my wife and kids already and that they probably miss me too.

Will this ever end?

Well one of the older ladies had not spoken for a while. At the mention of my wife and kids, she looked shocked. She turned my parent's friend and asked her, how old I was, since it seems she was almost at the point of asking for my horoscope!!

Wow, I did not know I looked that young!! I sadly had to tell her the truth that I was a father of a teenager!!

Well, wonders never cease. I actually liked having someone (nearly) ask me for my horoscope.

Had a very rough morning today - I had to tear myself away from the mirror and my very marriage worthy and youthful looks.

Holy Book

My cousin lives in the IIT Madras campus. Her husband is a professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is very serious in his pursuit of research and is frequently absconding from home when he could be found working in his lab. When I asked him how many papers he typically publishes in a year, his answer was evocative of the publish or perish mentality in higher education

More papers than the IIT average!!

My cousin's son is in 3rd grade and he studies in Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Madras. For the record, I was a student of that Kendriya Vidyalaya for two years in the mid 70s.

As part of an effort to raise awareness of prevalent cultural diversity in India the teachers talked about the various religions and their holy books. To make this point the teachers asked various students what book they followed in their own house. Each student came up with a list of the usual suspect such as Gita, Koran, and Bible.

When it my cousin's son turn, he asked the teacher what constitutes a holy book and how would one identify it at home. The teacher vaguely said that it would be the book that is most commonly read by his father or mother and then repeated the question. My nephew's answer was

Principles of Thermodynamics!!

Learn Mandarin and help the Cantonese

My sister is a teacher in Hong Kong. She has now lived there for more than a decade, both my niece and nephew were born and are being raised there. So I guess it is her home.

Soon after Hong Kong was taken over by China, she felt an urge to learn Mandarin. She, like many others, felt that it was the language of the future when the world would make a beeline to China. She was right, the future is now, and China is a economic super power and it would be a great advantage if we knew Mandarin.

Recently as part part of a school sponsored trip she along with the students and other teachers went to a school in Shenzhen, China. Several of the teachers were Chinese from Hong Kong and they spoke Cantonese. Now here is the unusual fact, the two dialects are so different that the Cantonese speaking Chinese do not understand Mandarin!! All the presentations at the school in Shenzhen were in Mandarin but since these Hong Kong Chinese did not understand they kept asking my sister to translate it for them!!

Imagine a Hindi, Tamil, English, and Mandarin speaking Indian woman (my sister) translating Mandarin for Cantonese speaking Chinese. I thought it was apt in a world that is gone flat!!

Words Of Wisdom

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." -
-- Reinhold Niebuhr

I like this phrase a lot. It may seem somehow to imply I am a theist. I am not. It tells us how to deal with the cards life deals us from time to time.

Carnatic Music

Most of my posts start with the perpendicular pronoun - more commonly known as I.

Digressing briefly - I heard this phrase in the television series Yes Minister. Here is a gem of obfuscation

Sir Humphrey: "The identity of the Official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion, is NOT shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom you [sic] present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun."

Jim Hacker: "I beg your pardon?"

Sir Humphrey: "It was...I."

I wanted the title to be I like Carnatic Music. Later the feeling grew on me that if you are not already tired of my posts, the frequent self-aggrandizement, I am referring to the frequent use of the word I, must surely tire you. So to lessen the impact of my ego, I changed the title.

That said, I like Carnatic Music. In fact I like it a lot.

My friend Krishna says when I fall for something I go overboard. In fact he says I am very extreme in my likes and dislikes. Either I like it or I hate it. It seems I cannot take it or leave it!! He may be right.

Coming back to music, growing up in a South Indian Brahmin family, it was impossible to avoid Carnatic Music. My mother had to learn it as a child. Growing up my sister was also introduced to it. So was my wife. I use the word introduced loosely. Neither of them were particularly fond of it at that time. My parents were so enthusiastic, they took it up again when I was a teenager. In short there was no shortage of exposure.

Yet I hated it. To make it worse, my parents made me listen to it. They would try to get me to recognize raaga and all I wanted to do was listen to some Kollywood film songs. My parents enjoyed listening to raaga alapana. I liked it as much as I liked having my teeth taken out with a hammer and chisel, maybe a hack saw and without pain killer!! Watching an artist perform a raaga alapana was most comical. I have frequently had to think distasteful thoughts just to avoid laughing!!

Digressing again, I now inflict this pain on my older daughter. When we travel we usually listen to a mish-mash of songs, Kollywood songs, Bollywood songs from the past 60 years, Pop music, Rock&Roll, and Carnatic music. I then compete with my parents and my wife in identifying the raaga. If it is song in the raaga my daughter has learnt she has to make an attempt at recognizing it. I guess I could not take revenge on my parents!!

Back to myself, this state of affairs did not change during teenage life when I discovered pop music and took to liking Boney M, ABBA and Bee Gees. Yes I had bad taste, but even in my stupidest moments I never wore bell bottoms. In any case my parents could not afford to waste money on frivolous fashions.

Later during my years at Delhi College of Engineering I developed a taste for Mohammed Rafi. This passion for Bollywood music still persists and not a month goes without me extolling the virtuoso of Rafi to my wife who incidentally likes Kishore Kumar. I think the latter is extremely talented just a shade behind Rafi. Just kidding. I like them both equally.

I met Jannavi when we were both in graduate school and she introduced me to Carnatic Music. For almost 2 years I listened to it just to please her. By chance I happened to come across an album of Maharajapuram Santhanam. There was no turning back.

I had now caught the fever and I was hooked. I am thankful the fever has not left me since it has enriched my life as nothing else has. One of my greatest pleasure is listening to some familiar movie songs and realizing after an hour of mental torture Oh that was Valaji.

The last comment was not made idly. During a concert several years ago, one of the violinist, in the middle of a Raagam Tanam Pallavi, started playing a Rafi/Asha duet Hai Agar Dushman from the movie Bollywood Hum Kissi Se Kum Nahin. Several people in the audience smiled at this. After the concert when I asked the artiste why she played a movie song she informed that the song in based on Raaga Valaji.

My changing tastes

I am told I had extremely poor taste in clothes. I preferred dull monochromatic shirts. Usually they were beige, gray, dark blue, black and sometimes white. I rarely wore nice polo shirts preferring collar-less T's. My friend Krishna on the other hand would wear bright colors such as Red, Crimson, and Light Blue and for some reason it would make me cringe. I probably felt it drew attention to me.

In fact my taste could have be described as follows; drabber the better

Something changed over the past half a decade. A lot of this was merely mental adjustment on my part that I am wrong most of the time. Along with this understanding came the realization that a lot of the things that were earlier important seemed no longer relevant.

Then I discovered colors. I am not saying this in the same sense that Columbus discovered America. This is one of those cliches on self discovery.

Now I like bright colors in shirts. These dresses were probably always nice; who know why my mind has begun accepting it recently. In fact on a trip to India 2 years ago someone called me a Metro sexual. I chose to take at it as a nicest compliment!!

Earlier I liked no variety in food. During the first 9 months in the US, my lunch consisted of 2 boiled eggs, 3 cheese sandwiches plus salt and pepper. My dinner consisted of 2-3 microwaved potatoes cooked with some spices along with 6-8 slices of toasted white bread and plain yogurt. I never got bored of this menu.

Now I try new food and actually enjoy eating out. That does not mean that if my wife made deep-fried potato curry every day to go with toasted Italian bread I would complain. My waist line may, I definitely would not.

My wife feels very proud about this fact; it took her 15 years to mold me to her taste!! I fortunately cannot make such a claim. She is unchanged from the time I met her.

I Ran A Relay Marathon

Over the past weekend I took part in a marathon in Delaware. A few of us were part of relay. In case you are wondering what a relay marathon is - quite simple. Most of us cannot run 26+ miles so 4 persons run as a relay team for a total of total of 26.2 miles. The lead runner tackles the first 10 miles with the next three running 5.4 miles each for a total of 26.2 m. For this race, there were almost 100 relay teams. Quite a few of us were so unfit we ran when we could and when we were winded we walked.

Our group was named - Chariots of Fire. We were 28 runners in 7 relay teams. Amongst our 4 member team the first runner, Mark, ran his 10 miles at an impressive 8 minute per mile for a total of 1H:20M. The 2nd member Mary, ran her 5.4 mile leg at about 14/15 minute per mile for a total of 1H:15M. The third member, Charlie, took 1H:5M for his 5.4 mile leg. I was told I took 1H:6M for the last leg. Charlie, 3rd leg of my team, was the first person to come back (amongst our seven teams) so you could say I had an advantage. Due to the fact that I was unfit and had to walk for a little while and the 4th runner of another team overtook me and won the race for his team. We came overall 2nd. BTW, the friendly race was only amongst the 7 teams. We could not have competed with the other teams. The fastest relay teams would have averaged 2H:45M and my team finished it in 4H:48M!!

To put it in perspective (how slow we were), I ran at about a 13 minute per mile pace over a 5.4 mile course and the overall marathon winner yesterday ran a 6 minute/mile over 26+ miles and he was a slow marathoner since world class ones run closer to 5 minute a mile pace!!

Wow!!

Down Memory Lanes

I met my future wife, Jan, when we were both at Graduate School in Detroit. This led me to get pretty well acquainted with her colleagues in the Chemistry Lab. They were really fun loving and one in particular was hilarious. Mark had an amazing but different sense of humor and was usually not serious.

One day one of Jan's lab-mates went around very seriously asking what each of would do if they had a million dollars. I cannot remember the reason why this topic came up. It must have been Lotto fever time, you know when the jackpot is very high and everyone speculates what they would do with the winnings. Jan started talking seriously about some charity work she could involved in if she were freed of the need to work for a living. Couple of others answered in a similar vein. When it was Mark's turn, he very seriously answered "I have this crack in my butt, that has bothered me from childhood. As first order of business, I would get it fixed!!".

Mark liked to write sci-fi short stories. One story is as follows - Life on earth is going on normally till one day every human becomes mad. They seek single combat with anyone with the sole desire to kill the other person. After an hour of this bl0ody orgy, they cease fighting and go on with their life as if nothing has happened. At about the same time the next day, they again take up their cudgels or whatever weapon that is available and go again on a killing spree. Ties of friendship or kinship does not prevent bloodshed. Man kills wife, children, father. You get the picture.

This goes on for several days when finally one man, once upon a time a fine specimen of manhood, survives. He pauses and surveys the fact that there are no more humans left to kill when music bursts forth and a space ship lands and out come strange looking creatures. They award him a trophy and congratulate him on his victory. Turns out the madness and desire to kill was a result of the aliens desire to watch bloodsport. After the award ceremony, the winner turns to the aliens and asks what he should do next, now that he is the champion. The aliens tell him to procreate and start humanity again. The man then explains Birds And Bees to the aliens.

You know what the aliens say - Oops. They then depart. Like I said, different sense of humor.

Another lab-mate was Richard B or Rich for short. One day Mark answered the phone and the person on the line asked for Dick B. Mark told him that Rich was away. He then went on to add how Rich did not like being addressed as Dick and also how Rich made it a point to correct anyone who addressed him as Dick. Lastly he asked who the person on the line was. Prompt came the answer.

Dick B Senior!!

What is in a name?

My name is Ramaraghavan pronounced रामराघवन. For those who do not speak Hindi try Raamaraaghavan - Raa rhymes with Baa

During my middle school years kids called me Raami. Why?

In high school my friends called me Raamaa but new teachers glancing at the student list frequently assumed I was a girl. They would look for a Miss Ramaaraaghavan. If you speak an Indian language you know the first five letters can be pronounced with the stress on maa making it a girls name as in रमाराघवन.

During undergrad years in Delhi guys called me Raamu (रामू) which is a typical name of a servant in Hindi films.

When I applied for a passport, I found I needed a last name and typical of people from the south I used my father's first name which is Srinivasan. My long name became longer and it became Ramaraghavan Srinivasan.

I found it was a good ice breaker at parties. Most people asked the same standard questions about the length of the name, what it meant, whether it stood for some village etc. To cap it all I would tell them with ghoulish delight how my friend has one of the longest name ever

Punyamurtula Venkata Hanumantha Seeta Ramachandra Swamy.

No Kidding. We all call him Swamy, but his wife calls him Raamu!! It comes as no surprise since he is her servant anyway.

So I shortened my name Raghavan. Even that proved to be difficult. Since I used to work at one of the big three automakers as a contractor, I tried explaining how one could rhyme it with minivan, caravan and they took to addressing me as Ragvan!!

So I gave up on that name too and now I am just simply Raag राग

About a decade ago I rented a truck and gave my name as R. Srinivasan since it would have been difficult spelling both the names. I then passed my driver's license. When I returned the truck, he could not find my rental record since the genius had entered my name as Art Srinivasan!!

A contractor came to our house to give us a quote for a deck. I introduced myself as follows "Hi I am Raag" and when we got the quote it said IRog Srinivasan.

In graduate school, my wife labmates used to call me the Ragman and even sang a song

Yeah he is the Ragman set to the famous Beatles tune. They even wrote two stanzas. Alas I lost the lyrics. Here is a link to the original Beatles song.

Three years ago when we had our second daughter Maalini, (मालीनी), I called up my wife's boss and left a message "Hi, my name is Raag. Jannavi had a daughter last night. Her name is Maalini. etc. etc.". You know what she sent her team?

Subject: welcome baby Maloni Srinivasan
Hi everyone,
Maloni was born last night. She weighed in at 5 lbs 5 oz and 18 inches long. Congratulations to the proud parents, Jannavi and Bob !!

You can call me Bob!!

The Most Beautiful City in India - A Contest

I am not making any assertions here about which city is the most beautiful city in India. Everyone likes their home town and having lived in both New Delhi and Madras, I am partial to both towns. So this is not a post about why either or both cities are beautiful. In fact I know most people would balk at calling Chennai a beautiful city. All I can say is I like it there.

In general what do people notice about India when they first land there? Dirt, trash, and, lack of hygiene everywhere. This is almost universal. People who have marveled at the Taj have also commented at the squalor elsewhere in Agra. All this is not new. Neither is this a diatribe on Indian cities. Let us see if we can make them better. So towards this I came up with this idea.

How about creating a The most beautiful city in India contest?

Naturally since this is an emotional question for most people and hard to deal with objectively, we need to define some set of objective rules to come up with an answer. With that as a setting let me share my thoughts on this. Please share your ideas too.

1. Which cities should be included in this contest? Cities with a population of 1 million and above. If you choose a smaller number the sheer number of cities that would qualify would inundate the system. Additionally the problems that the larger cities face are an order of magnitude more complex than the smaller towns and so the comparison would tend to favor the smaller ones.
2. How often should this contest be run? I feel once every other year is a justifiable interval since it will give the winning city the glory of the title for a reasonable time without the civic administration getting too complacent to rest on their laurels.
3. What is the award? Rather than awarding a trophy at the end of the two years, I think a rotating shield is better with the list of past winners.
4. Is there a cash prize and if so who gets it? I am not sure about this part.
   
5. What are the criteria? To start with cleanliness should be be given the highest priority with aesthetic values given lower weight. I guess most Indians would be thrilled if the streets are not littered with trash and people do not pee in public. As conditions improve the weights can be adjusted. Other factors that could be added as time goes on are pollution, congestion etc.
   
6. How to prevent regression of winning cities (PART-I)? Once a city wins the award it will keep harping about this award twenty years later. Indians are good at it. My cousin told me that everything in mathematics comes from Vedic Math!! The solution is easy. A winning city can advertise the fact for a total of 4 years. Two years when it holds the shield and two more if they do not repeat as winners. There should be some legal teeth to this. How?
   
7. How to prevent regression of winning cities (PART-II)? Part of this contest is also to list the three worst cities!! Cities may not care to win the award but shaming them is a powerful tool since the residents and the media will excoriate the politicians and civic administration. This is similar to the Ig Noble prize.
   
8. What happens two decades after this contest is started? Assuming that this works and cities do beautify, it is possible that the worst three are really not bad places to live in anymore. Dream on buddy!! We will cross this bridge when we come to it.
9. Weather should be eliminated from the equation. Shimla, Bangalore, Pune will always beat, Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai!! How does one take weather out of the equation?
10. What is an objective panel of judges? Simple - media is best suited for this job since they have the best resources for this. I think one reporter from every major newspaper in every major city that qualifies for this contest plus national newspapers such as The Hindu and TOI. National magazines such as India Today and Outlook. TV channels. This list is not complete. Media must demonstrate size, minimum of (say) 1 million newspapers sold every day. What should the number be for magazine and TV stations? It is critical that a suitable panel is created. To prevent nepotism, all magazines should list their city affiliation (and be certified). They should not be allowed to vote for their city in any category. Oh, by the way, voting is is not via secret ballot.
    

I will add to this when I get more ideas

To SaaS or Not to SaaS, That is the Question

I visit Joel Spolsky site Joel on Software on a regular basis since I came upon this excellent article on The Law of Leaky Abstraction. He is a very good writer. Not only does he write well but other articles and blogs he refers are an excellent source for further reading.

Recently I was looking at Where There's Muck There's Brass. This talks about the myriad challenges that a developer faces getting software run in diverse environment as a consequence of deploying it at customer sites. He is referring to managing the complexity of disparate OSes, database vendors, web servers, and application server amongst other variables that the product would need to handle.

One of the references include a post by Jason Fried from 37signals on why they would not consider installing software at customer premises. To quote him It would be highly unlikely that we’d sell installable software. His reasons, to list a few, are

1. Hosted solution implies controlled development and deployment environment
2. Keeps them small and agile
3. Avoids backward compatibility headaches
   

On the other hand, Joel states that 4 out of 5 of his customers opt for installing it themselves and hence he now has four times the sales opportunity. Interesting perspective. He also makes a telling point with this comment The one thing that so many of today's cute startups have in common is that all they have is a simple little Ruby-on-Rails Ajax site that has no barriers to entry and doesn't solve any gnarly problems. Bottom line, his point is, people normally pay for solving difficult problems not easy ones.

As always there is no one way!!

If you thinking about your strategy for selling web based software, both these articles provide good reasons why Jason and Joel did what they did. You now can make an educated decision rather than follow the herd one way or the other.

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past 4-5 years and have just now come out of hibernation, here is a good reference for SaaS.

How can one lose ones heart twice in the same night

Quite easy.

Watch the Tamil movie Vanjikottai Valiban that was released in 1958 and I bet so would you lose your heart to the late Padmini and Vyjayanthimala. That is how!! It is hard to chose one over the other. You try

And here I thought my heart was safe with Aishwarya!!

I found a very touching eulogy to Padmini in The Hindu.

The story of Vanjikottai Valiban is a love triangle. Actually it is a little more than that, but the love triangle features predominantly in the end. The two ladies are in love with the hero Gemini Ganesan and their rivalry culminates in a dance duel. This song titled Kannum Kannum is considered to be one of the best dance sequences in Indian Cinema not just in my opinion. View the song in its entirety in Youtube. It helps if one understand the language since as you know the lyrics used to have significant meaning in those days. It is not like a My Ek Disco, Tu Ek Disco, Duniya hai Ek Disco type song!!

This movie came out in 1958 starring Padmini, Vyjayanthimala, and Gemini Ganesan. The story is quite simple. It recounts the adventure of a young man as he seeks retribution for the murder of his sister. The movie has extravagant sets and costumes, really good effects for that time, good dialogues, great song and dance sequences. Naturally it was a super hit. The plot has more than a strong resemblance to The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas in many places.

Here is the complete plot

There is a King with two children; the Princess and Prince. His second wife and her brother plot to assassinate King along with his two children since only they would in time inherit the throne. The king is killed but the loyal minister sacrifices his family in saving the King's children. The three live in hiding biding their time. The minister's wife in the meantime loads her children in a boat which drifts away before she could board and is arrested. The children grow up as orphans and in time come back to the same kingdom where the bad guy is now the general. The bad guy naturally, as all Indian bad guys do, drinks and carouses. He kidnaps the sister who dies in an attempt to escape.

The hero makes a foolish attempt at revenge and is promptly arrested and naturally gets thrown in the same jail as his mother. The forbidding looking prison happen by chance to be the middle of the ocean. Mother and son discover their relationship (she digs a hole in the wall to meet him since she has all the tools necessary. I was surprised she did not have any Power Tools). Mother tells son of their father's heroism, son tells mother the sad story of his sister. They dig hard to escape and as they are about to, the mother dies of a heart attack. She had to die since the hero cannot escape with her. Old women, nay women in general get in the way of the hero. I forgot to mention she told him before her death of the mole that father and son have in the arm to help him identify each other. Very convenient.

Son escapes and becomes a slave to Vyjayanthimala. I mean a real slave, not the metaphorical one as when a guy tells the girl that he loves her and he is her slave. Naturally she falls for his looks and literally throws herself at him in a very beautiful song Raja Magal, Roja Malar, but he is all throbbing for revenge and has no time for romance. He then proceeds to tells her his sob story. So she lets him go after eliciting a promise to come back and quench the fire in her heart or somewhere else (I kid you not, I did not make up those words). She also sends with him a boat load (literally) of precious jewelery to help him attain his goal.

The hero then disguises himself (the clever audience can see through the beard, but not the villain who can scheme and overthrow a king!!) as a merchant selling exotic jewelery and proceeds to the villain's castle and worms his way into the queen's heart with his charm and wit and in case that proved inadequate, with gifts of gold and diamonds.

Meanwhile he meets the princess who is Padmini and rescues her from the villain's henchmen since their hideout is revealed. In the process the father and a few of his people are arrested. The hero now asks the princess to dance for the villain with hopes of getting him drunk. When the villain is incapacitated he then proceed to the prison and helps his father escape. In the meantime Vyjayanthimala also comes to this country and see the hero and Padmini together and jumps to the conclusion that there is an understanding between the two. So she challenges Padmini to the dance duel which leads to the famous song Kannum Kannum.

Anyway the villain finds out the hero is not his friend from Vyjayanthimala and arrests everyone, but there are other loyal people who rouse the citizenry into attacking the castle. There is a general free for all at this point and Vyjayanthimala regrets her decision and dies in saving the hero. The villain dies in the fight and then

as my little one would say everyone lives happily ever after.

I am not Funny

It is useless. I am definitely not funny. I concede. After reading this my wife, J took it all personal and came to my defense saying

1. How much I have improved.
2. How she did not like all this self-deprecating humour.
3. How no one else has changed so much in 15 years or shown such capacity for change.

You see from J's point of view she is a success. I am any wife's dream husband. I do not mean in the Brad Pitt style although I am not entirely devoid of looks. I mean I am the one they hope to mould to their needs. Most women give up trying after a while. My wife persevered through various trials and tribulations and succeeded and here I am making jokes about myself.

My daughter read that blog and said, it sucks. She actually believed that I no longer consider Pria a friend. She is a pre-teen. No sense of humor.

The only comment my mom made was "Why do you write such personal stuff?". My mom is interesting. Getting compliments from her is akin to getting teeth pulled. Very hard. Let us say it is next to impossible. You could get a 99/100 in Math and she would grill you for an hour about the 1 you missed.

My friend Krishna gave me a compliment ... I think. He said ... That was a good read Raghavan. May be I should read your blogs when I am waiting to board a plane :-) just seems more interesting. Krishna Sent from my iPhone ...

Three points can be inferred from this comment.

First, Krishna is on a business trip. We know this since his wife is back home fending for herself and the children.

Second Krishna in his own subtle way of showing off his iPhone. He takes more pride in it than Jobs himself. Jobs will directly tell you how everyone, yes everyone, hated their phones before he made iPhones for the benefit of mankind. Krishna as I said is not so direct. In a crowd he will casually take his iPhone and call someone usually regarding work, or pretend to read emails, again ostensibly work email.

Third, I am sure there is a compliment there somewhere. I will tell you what it is when I find it.

In closing J take a chill pill. Please do not believe exerything I write. Just because I say I am needy in a blog does not mean I am. I was merely trying to be funny.

I Had a Friend

I like the title. It sounds so Martin Luther King-ish. I had a dream. In fact I wrote a blog about that too. My dreams, I mean.

I have a friend named Pria.

She said she preferred my wife's blog.

That is OK. That is not a crime. I can handle that. I guess after 15 years of marriage, I have gotten used to the fact that everyone who knows us both like her more. Do you notice I did not say almost everyone? Yup, sadly without an exception no one likes me even a smidgen more than her, not even I myself. If they can like her more they can like her writing more too.

See it is like this, I was not always this nice or generous, I used to be needy, really needy. I don't mean the ordinary garden variety needy like needing affection, attention, or reassurance. It was not enough that people liked me, they had to like me more than my wife. But as you know we do not always get what we want.

The more I wanted people to like me more than my wife, the more they liked her more.

Say what!! Let me repeat that slowly.

The more I wanted people to like me more than my wife, the more they liked her more.

Kinda convoluted huh.

Worse, not only did people like my wife more, pretty soon they only liked her. I mean, they did not like me less. They did not like me. PERIOD

Now imagine how that made a needy person like me feel. Sad; and I did not like that.

Trust me it is no fun going to parties and having and people hissing behind your back. At times I have seen people move away casually on seeing me approach. You know, I am sorry I did not see you casually. Other times promising conversations would come to a halt when I joined it. Initially I thought I had some personal problem such as Bromhydrosis or Halitosis. After acquainting myself with suitable hygiene products it became clear it was just me they did not like. So I was forced to reform. I stopped being a really, really, needy person and just became mildly insecure. I have now improved. I am a better person. In fact people now tolerate me for the sake of my wife.

Coming back to Pria; she said she liked my wife's blog and like I said that is OK. I mean it hurts a little bit. How I wish she had stopped there. As I told you earlier, I am a better person. I do not mind if people like my wife's blog.

She said my style was ... I can't say it. OK, take a deep breath. Get a grip. She said my style was Pedantic.

I looked up the meaning and then came the double whammy. You know what the dictionary says?

... marked by a narrow, often tiresome focus on or display of learning and especially its trivial aspects; an academic insistence on precision; a bookish vocabulary;...

That hurts. Call my blog

1. Ununderstandable - Some of the earlier subjects were a bit dry. (This, that, and the other)
   
2. Not original - I can accept this. In fact I myself bemoan this fact here and here. Sadly how can a blog titled Cliched Thoughts ever be original.
   
3. Not funny - All I can say is; I try.

Anything but pedantic.

So in summary, after what she said about my style of writing, it is more like

I had a friend named Pria

PS: Please do not correct me that MLK said, I have a dream. I know.

I am an atheist ...

and I have been one for over 15 years. At one time I would have even described myself as an evangelical atheist, since I argued a lot and tried proselytizing others to atheism!!

So what is new? Why am I broadcasting this fact publicly now?

Simple, no one reads my blog. I could say I see men in underwear dancing at night and no one would think I am crazy. For the record it is women I see (suitably scantily clad or mostly not clad). Not that there is anything wrong in seeing men in underwear.

The problem all started with this book. It always does, first you read a book; then you get ideas and everyone knows ideas are dangerous. Pretty soon you get arrested for setting the flag on fire as a protest!!

To confess, I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and guess what - I got religion!!

That's bad, real bad. Read any book but a book by Dawkins. Everyone knows he is going to hell. In fact he is so bad I heard he has an E-ZPass to hell.

About the book. It is great. If you wish to keep his company in hell (and mine) read it.

Now this post changes tone from being casual and almost but not quite funny to being mildly serious.

During the middle part of this decade, I had lost my passion for atheism. My wife and I were in our own pain and things looked really dark. We were in search of I_do_not_know_what. I guess we wanted anguish free life. We did not want to be unhappy. We wanted to be able to smile again. In those dark moments it seemed logical that people would pray. I used to wish I could pray. So I lost that militancy that made me a pain in the certain place of great heat. I guess I still am one but I hope less so than before.

I also felt that it is an innocent belief and that if I could escape from the clutches of religion and belief in god so could others. I felt that it was more often a matter of personal choice or decision.

Finally in raising a child you never know whether it is correct to deny ones child all that religion and belief in God brings; Culture and Tradition which really is about your identity. So I used to earlier avoid this topic considering it a little dangerous to tell my daughter that I really did not believe in Rama as a god and that Ramayana was just a story, albeit in the form of a great epic.

Although after reading this book I still did not feel the same passion as earlier, I no longer have any hang-up either. I am very comfortable with my atheism to a point where it no longer feel unnatural to bring up this topic in any conversation with my daughter.

One last thing; since I was born in India, I have always known that I would never be the President of USA. Since the greatest prize is being denied to me I want to make sure that I could not run for political office of any sort, setting aside the fact that no one wants me to run for any political office. How is being an atheist relevant? See results from this survey.


Ignoring the fact that the survey refers to "Well Qualified" candidates, I wanted to be sure that 20 years in the future when my wife forces me to run for a minor post in my HOA my opponents can dig this up and dish it out.

The beauty of this is that I could always re-discover God if the urge to enter politics resurfaces. It is well known that it is hard to resist the temptation of Satan. I could always blame him for my delusion and claim that I am now Born Again. Everyone knows you will go to hell for your sins but my mistakes naturally are between me and my maker and you sir have no right to judge!!

Look at the number of right-wing politicians who somehow have maintained their reputation through various scandals although they excoriated Clinton for his peccadillo's. Gingrich one of the central figures in that drama it turns out was himself having an affair at about that time he was impeaching Clinton for having one (or more)!!

PS: I thought I was the first person to coin the phrase evangelical atheist, turns out I was wrong. So much for me ever coming up with an original thought!!

Books I Have

This post is to list the books I have. This could help my friends who may accidentally stumble upon this post, and get an idea about the type of books I read, and hence know the sort of books not to gift me if they take it into their heads to get me a gift. Pretty convoluted, huh? Also I am not particular that the books be new. By buying used, you may be able to buy more books. I like more books. I buy books solely for the purpose of reading not to own a collectible. Here is a short list of books I would like to read.

Books I Want

In case you are curious about what I read, let us start here

My Current Reading List

Below is a comprehensive list of all the titles titles I have. This list is not complete and I will try to keep it updated.
Adventure Series
Agatha Christie
Alistair Maclean
Asterix
Biggles
Famous Five
Fantasy Genre
Fatty Series
Georgette Heyer
Indian Classics
Issac Asimov
Scott Orson Card
James Herriot
James Michener
Jeffrey Archer
Perry Mason
PG Wodehouse
Popular Science
Richmal Compton
Random