Cliched Thoughts

Cross Country Travel 1990 - Part II

2011-10-27T16:50:00.051-04:00

In my previous post I had written about my preparation to travel cross country. The total driving distance was approximately 2500 miles, almost all of it on I-80 one of the longest east-west arterial roads in the continental United States. Since I was driving alone, I intended to drive for four days and sleep in motels en route for three of those nights. The actual cities where I intended to sleep were not known to me. My plan was to drive roughly 650 miles each day and before it turned dark, find Motel 6 to crash for the night and start all over again the next day!

Those were definitely simpler times!

My intention here is not bore you with mile by mile details of this expedition. Moreover, after more than 20 years, I barely remember little more than the highlights.

From Bay Area, I took I-680 till it joined I-80. I remember giving a hitchhiker a ride against all advice to the contrary. I picked up a middle aged person outside Sacramento. The drive through the Sierra Nevada was particularly fun especially on the downhill sections when I would put my stick shift in neutral and barrel down. I crossed into Nevada and after dropping of my passenger at Reno, continued ahead into desert country. Long straight roads with scrub like vegetation loomed ahead. Next I drove by a town called Winnemucca, NV. The reason this name stuck in my mind was the self-deprecating humorous sign "6 Billion have never been here". Finally after covering little less than 550 miles, I reached Elko, Nevada at about 6PM and stopped at a Motel 6. Guess whom I saw at the reception? If your answer is anything other than a Gujarati lady with the last name of Patel, you would be wrong!

The following day, after completing my morning ablutions, I headed out east and within an hour or so crossed into Mormon country, Utah. If you look in the interstate map of USA, you will notice that I-80 is quite straight in most sections. This particular section could only have been made with a straight edge. The sign at the outset warns you about the lack of fuel stops, rest areas, and in fact any humanity, for the next nearly 100 miles. Coming from India it is hard for us to understand abject barrenness. I still remember vividly the loneliness I felt at that moment. The highlight of the day was a traipse around the south side of the Great Salt Lake. Till then I had never seen an inland water body that large. Here was a lake whose opposite shore was too far to see! Of course that changed when I saw the Great Lakes in Michigan a few months later.

As I headed east of Salt Lake City, I started to get into mountain country. I wish I had the ability to describe the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. I could use a lot superlatives without describing anything of value. Each turn of the winding road opened spectacular views of the range. I would be in a valley with two mountains looming on each side or on top of a mountain with a view of ever more mountains both behind and ahead of me. After driving nearly 650 miles, I decided to break for the night at a town called Laramie, Wyoming. I again found a Motel 6 just off the freeway and parked my bags.

And then I had an adventure.

After getting directions, I went to eat at a Pizza Hut on the main street. The food was delicious as it usually is after a long and tiring day behind the wheel. It was time to pay and head back to hit the sack.

Things turned bad.

I discovered that I did not have my wallet. With a lot of embarrassment, I explained my predicament and told the cashier that I had left my wallet along with my jacket and that in the motel and pay him with in the hour. I am not sure that the the cashier, a young kid, found my confession plausible. Would you? Nevertheless he let me go.

Things then got worse. I was stopped by a police officer for speeding.

It seems I was doing 35 in a 25 MPH zone. With even more difficulty I explained why I was driving without a valid license and how I was getting back to the motel to pay for my dinner. The cop probably subscribed to the motto trust but verify and tailed me all the way back to the motel and waited for me to get back to from my room.

The outlook then got further worse. I could not find my jacket or my wallet!

Now I was worried about things beyond paying for my dinner or even explaining to the police. How was I going to pay for the motel? How was I going to get to the East Lansing? What the hell was I going to do? In a short span of 2 minutes every possible horrible scenario played itself in my mind. I came out and showed the cop everything except my driver license such as my insurance information! As I was talking; a preposterous idea came into my mind; what if I had had my jacket all along and had really left it in the Pizza Hut. Before I could consider this any further the police office ducked into the car, made a quick call and came out. I waited with bated breath for the axe to fall. The police officer told me to listen quietly. Then he told me to go back to the Pizza Hut and told me to pick up my wallet and jacket. He then told me to drive slowly through town! With relief I thanked the officer, I went back. it turned out that when I took my seat at the booth, I had put my jacket, out of sight, on the other side of the booth. The explanation only made me feel more foolish. With as much dignity as I could muster, I collected my stuff, laughed at my stupidity, paid my bill and drove back.

Then the worst happened, the sky fell.

Or so it seemed to me. I had never seen clouds this dark. I had never seen rain this thick. It felt more like a sheet of water was pouring on my windshield rather than drops. I had never seen so much lightning flashing nor thunder so loud. I have never before driven during a cloudburst. It made me completely aware of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things as never before.

Even though I drove very slowly and the wiper was at maximum speed visibility was literally nil. I somehow managed to get back to the motel without hurting my car, or myself, or more importantly anyone else. Thus ended my second day, both physically and emotionally exhausted.

Cross Country Travel 1990 - Part I

2011-10-23T21:30:00.008-04:00

Couple of years ago, I had written about my first year in this country. That was in the left coast, now I am in the right coast. How did I get here?

The stated goal when I first came to the US was; learn automated chip testing and setup a chip testing facility in India to test chips used to support Bubble Memories. Towards this noble goal, I spent several weeks in a training facility at Schlumberger in San Jose, learning to read chip manuals and to write software based on the specifications. With help from my boss Ajay, I also created a novel high-speed technique to measure current; traditional current measurements required milli-seconds whereas we only had a few micro-seconds.

Anyway, within 6 months of my stay here, it was clear that the contract I came for would not be renewed for various reasons. I was dumb. Instead of finding another job in the Bay Area, I decided to look into academics. With my boss's blessing, I picked what I was told was a good school, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and several middle of the pack schools such as Michigan State (MSU) in East Lansing, MI, San Jose State in Bay Area, Oklahoma State in Still Water, OK, and lower ones such as Wayne State (WSU) in Detroit, MI. Do not ask me about my criteria for selecting these schools. I am sure I could not have put more than a limited amount of thought in the process; how else does one explain this rather more than random list of schools!

All except University of Wisconsin gave me admission; UW had good standards and they wanted to keep it that way! No school other than Wayne State gave me a scholarship. Without expending anymore thought than one would in changing clothes, I chose to uproot myself and move across the continent to MSU. You may ask, If WSU gave me scholarship why did I go to East Lansing?

Well my friend, PG who was then at MSU, assured me that if I got good grades during summer term, the chances of getting a Teaching Assistant ship (TA-ship) in fall was a near certainty. For those of you that did not go to graduate school in the USA, getting a TA-ship is akin to a professor getting a tenure, This meant that you were a cool-cat and you now had a little more financial security and consequently you could now afford to eat out once every other week at Pizza Hut!

Back to the answer; my thought process was; Detroit is a bare 100 miles away from East Lansing; if it did not pan out in MSU, I could always transfer to Detroit where I had a scholarship. I had the proverbial bird in hand. Anyway that is another story.

So here I was at the end of May 1990, in San Jose, CA ready to embark on a long journey. I had made my plans; I had PG's phone number in East Lansing, I had gotten my car checked out, I had changed the engine oil, and I had loaded the car with my worldly possessions. It is amusing that there was a time when everything I possessed could fit into the back of my Honda Civic with space to spare! Now my 4 bedroom house is not large enough!

That's it; I was ready. No wait, I also had gone to AAA of California and had gotten maps of the route I was going to follow!

I did not know how many days I was going to travel, I did not know where I was going to sleep each night, I did no know who I could call in case of emergencies! It is not that planning was an anathema to me; I just did not think! I had a map, I had a car, I had a rough idea that I was going to a place called Spartan Village in East Lansing; what more did I have to know!

I expressed my gratitude to the host family with whom I had been a paying guest for the past year and after saying my adieus, I drove away. It is hard to express the feelings that were going through my mind at that time. Many years later I heard these lines spoken by Morgan Freeman in one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. You may remember that near the end of the movie, Red breaks parole and heads to Zihuatanejo, Mexico to be with his friend Andy. As he is riding the bus, you hear a voice over

... I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is an excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain ...

Report Card for Raag

2011-06-12T17:34:00.015-04:00

As it is well known, I am extremely insecure. I have always suspected that my parents loved my sister more; my teachers liked Pankaj more, and our friends liked my wife more. Devi has always loved her mom more. Let us see what Maa thinks of me.

In January of this year, my parents received a report card from Maalini about Jan's and my performance. While her comments about her mom were good, she told my parents that I interups a lot and watches too much TV! My wife got the ultimate kudo when Maa made a Mother's day card for her even if your just a plane MoM you macke a big difrince. She forgot both Father's day and my birthday - boo hoo.

I couldn't let it go. So I would needle Maa and ask her "Who do you love more amma, akka, or appa". Depending on her mood it would be amma or akka for the first position, but the constant was always, yours truly at the bottom. I expanded the list and added a whole slew of people to the list, grandparents, her aunts and uncles, cousins, and even friends. I found to my chagrin that my position did not improve, they all were inserted into the list somewhere below her mom and her sister but always above me. Wait one person did fare worse than I did, my sister; well she is as strict parent as I am!

I taxed her on her lack of affection for me and her comment was - At least you are above your sister!

I told this to my sister and her reaction was that she was glad that she was at least I am in Maa's list.

I needed perspective. Now I too am glad I am on the list.

Weighing Machine, Weighing Machine on the Floor ...

2011-05-13T22:55:00.013-04:00

You know the story of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. The Evil Queen asks the mirror on the wall the same question everyday, "Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land is fairest of all?". The mirror repetitiously answers "You, my Queen" until one day when mirror tells the queen that Snow White, not the Queen is the fairest of all.

Unlike the queen, most of us men in our mid-life obsess not about our fairness or beauty. Most of us should have no illusion about our looks especially with kids in the teens or older. We instead talk endlessly about how gravity impacts us. How as we have gotten older, there seems to be more gravity around us. We feel heavier.

Each day we wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom where most of us have a weighing machine. We then ask the machine the same question, "Weighing Scale, Weighing Scale on the Floor / who in this land is the slimmest of all". Just like the queen, until the fateful day, we get the same answer.

Not you for sure, Ha Ha!

For the first thirty years of my life this was not a question, I had ever asked anyone or anything. In fact I did not possess a weighing machine. Sometime in my mid-thirties, I made the fatal mistake of getting one and since then my life has been one of misery. As I stood on top of it and wondered what I was going to see, hoping against hope, to see a small number, I got down each time after seeing the needle pointed towards larger and larger numbers.

Recently, the doctor had also started talking about the fried foods I liked to consume. He then talked about the health risks of increased cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides. Even some of my friends had started talking about my expanding waistline.

It got so bad last summer, I swear, I heard the scale whisper "Fatty" as I left the bathroom. Now I know you would say, I have a vivid imagination if I told you that around last Thanksgiving, I heard a groan from my bathroom and a whispered comment, "Is it too much to ask? Why can't you eat less!".

The last one was too much for me to swallow. I had to take matters into my hand. I could take digs from my children and needling from friends. I will be damned if I take sarcasm from a weighing scale. So went and got a new one.

Lovingly I opened it and stood on it for the first time and asked the same question "Weighing Machine, Weighing machine ..." and the strange answer I got was

Fewer chips a day, keeps the doctor away!

Am I any longer a Geek?

2011-05-02T09:14:00.014-04:00

One of my favorite Wodehouse title is Carry On, Jeeves, a collection of short stories. The first story, Jeeves Takes Charge, introduces us to Bertie and Jeeves and tells the story of how Jeeves came to be Bertie's boss, I mean valet. In this story, Bertie is engaged to the autocratic but beautiful Lady Florence, who wants to improve his mind by feeding him a book titled Types of Ethical Theory that contained this memorable prose.

Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was real and self-subsisting; and that one was Ideal Thought as opposed to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other, corresponding to our Nature, was in itself phenomenal, unreal, without any permanent footing, having no predicates that held true for two moments together; in short redeemed from negation only by including indwelling realities appearing through.

Right Ho. Naturally Bertie's engagement did not last much longer. I found this to be a funny story without paying anymore attention to it.

Recently I saw that my friend had posted on Facebook a comment on NP-Complete problems and remembered reading about this in graduate school decade and a half ago and actually doing well enough to get an A on that course. Since I no longer knew what it was, I looked my favorite source, The Wikipedia and, I kid you not, this was what I read.

In computational complexity theory, the complexity class NP-complete (abbreviated NP-C or NPC) is a class of decision problems. A decision problem L is NP-complete if it is in the set of NP problems so that any given solution to the decision problem can be verified in polynomial time, and also in the set of NP-hard problems so that any NP problem can be converted into L by a transformation of the inputs in polynomial time.

Quite lucid you say

I on the other hand am no longer feel smart enough to comprehend such material.

Music I Like

2011-03-06T13:35:00.002-05:00

Single place for all the lists that I have published. This article will evolve as I create newer lists.

Asha and Rafi Top 10
Asha and Rafi Next 10
Asha and Kishore Top 10
Asha and Kishore Next 10

Lata and Rafi Top 10

My first century (of anything)

2011-03-01T18:21:00.026-05:00

I have never been associated with the number 100. You know how you finish your exam and when you get it back, the only questions your parents ask you were

Who got first? -- And the answer invariably did not include me. It was always one of the three girls Sangeeta Chandra, Namita Giridhar, Renu Aggarwal! Well no surprise, the Sangeeta is a doctor from Maulana Azad and the other two went to DCE with me.

Whom did you leave behind the 5 marks for? It is not like the teachers were asking for some! -- Sarcasm was a wonderful tool. Of course it was always one-way, since talking back was not an option. I have tried and there are a few dents in my head to show for the effort.

Why am I reopening those wounds? This post is all about me reaching a milestone.

This post is my one hundredth!

I have been writing for a little under 5 years. When I started I had no suspicion that I would write for so long. I started writing about the books I read. I found out very quickly that they were not popular, I mean the posts, not the books! The change in focus came when during a trip to India I wrote about my experiences. Some people liked it; a little; and that was encouragement enough for me to keep writing. It was not like I was getting rave reviews and encouragement. Initially it was read by no one, now I have graduated to rarely read!

It is more of, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears ....". You know how that goes. No matter. I knew I had many things to say, even if like the proverbial fallen trees, there is no one to hear them.

Today I wanted to explore one of my favorite topic; Bollywood Music, of which I have now written a few posts. But for this one I could think of no two persons worthy of dedicating it, Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar.

I will list here their Top-10 duets (In my not so humble opinion).

1) Dil Pukare, Jewel Thief (Audio|Video)
SD Burman is amazing in this movie. Listen to the complex orchestration combined with great melody.

As is usually the case in all my post, there is a digression. There is another song in this movie where Tanuja literally throws herself at Dev Anand; in this really sexy song, Raat Akeli Hai (Audio|Video) only to be rebuffed! You see the song and tell me if the hero is not totally nuts! There are not many songs even in today that is this sizzling hot! Asha Bhosle's dynamics of voice is amazing. I am sorry I digressed about Asha in a post about Lata!

2) Paaon Choolene Do Phoolon Ko Enayet Hogi, Taj Mahal (Audio|Video)
The singer tells the heroine to let the flowers touch her feet as it will be a compliment to the flowers (as best as I could translate Urdu)! Beautiful sentiment.

3) Tasveer Teri Dil Mein, Maya (Audio|Video)
I noticed a pattern of Dev Anand dominating my lists. Salil Chaudhary was an amazing composer! The only nit I can pick is the heroine. I never liked Mala Sinha, although to be fair, she was one of the most successful female star of her era.

4) Tere Husn Ki Kya Tareef, Leader (Audio|Video)
The hero and heroine praise each others looks but pretend to be are scared to say nice things about the other, since they are afraid that it would be mistaken for love. Dilip Kumar is one of the few actors who look like he is the one who are really singing!

5) Agar Mein Poochon Javab Doge, Shikari (Audio|Video)
A really beautiful song, nice lyrics, wasted on two unknown actors. Who are they?

6) Jhilmil Sitaron Ka, Jeevan Mrityu (Audio|Video)
This movie is a Decently Bollywoodized remake of the Count of Monte Cristo. Dharmedra plays the role of Edmond Dantes and Rakhee plays the role of Mercedes. In a change from the original and to suit the Indian sensibilities, the heroine does not marry unlike in the book. I have always admired Rakhee for her acting, but in this movie she was actually thin! See the video if you do not believe me.

7) Chand Jaane Kahan Kho Gaya, Main Chup Rahungi (Audio|Video)
How the devil did Sunil Dutt make it to the big leagues? Was there such a dearth of male stars in those days?

8) Dekho Rootha Na Karo, Tere Ghar Ke Saamne (Audio|Video)
Nutan won 5 Film Fare Awards for Best Actress. Dev Anand just exists!

9) Do Ghadi Voh Jo Paas Aa Baite, Gateway Of India (Audio|Video)
What a beautiful song? Another hero about whom you wonder, How the devil did Bharat Bhushan make it big? That he was paired with Madhubala is the height of injustice!

10) Jeevan Mein Piya Tera, Goonj Uti Shehnai (Audio|Video)
This song starts rather slowly and feels like onset of some tragedy. The song quickly makes a recovery and never looks back. Lata and Rafi sing with a gusto. I do not know who this actress is either.

PS: If you the impression that I had tough parents, it is not all poor Raag. I was a difficult child too. There never was a punishment I did not deserve and more.

Top 20 - Rafi and Asha

2011-01-16T23:05:00.019-05:00

A year and half ago, I started making lists of songs I like. I started with a Top-10 of my favorite couple, Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle. Recently I had an opportunity to review that list when I discovered two songs that should have been in it. I also discovered that I could easily come up with another 10 songs that were quite worthy of an audience. Here it is.

11) O Haseena Zulfon Vali, Teesri Manzil (Audio|Video)
The first movie for which RD composed music is Teesri Manzil. What an amazing debut!

12) Main Pyar Ka Rahi Hoon, Ek Musafir Ek Hasina (Audio|Video)
It is almost like hit duets come in threes. Here is a movie with three Asha-Rafi duets. Unfortunately I could not find any video.

13) Humsafar Saath Apna, Aakhri Dao (Audio|Video)
Nutan has always been a favorite actress of mine; I do not know the name of the hero. Very touching song and haunting melody.

14) Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko, Yaadon Ki Baarat (Audio|Video)
Zeenie Baby, Wow! It took 25 more years before the rest of the Indian Film heroines had a figure like that! I am sorry I had to delegate this song so far down the list. I definitely am partial to the classical period of Hindi Film Music, if I may refer to 1950s and 1960s in that manner.

15) Aap Ko Pyaar Chupane Ki, Neela Akash (Audio|Video)
Sounds like the tale of my romance!

16) Haay Re Haay Ye Mere Haath, Kashmir Ki Kali (Audio|Video)
Well another movie with three Asha-Rafi duets.

17) O Mere Sona, Teesri Manzil (Audio|Video)
Do you feel like my comments are sometimes repetitious? Another movie with three Asha-Rafi duets in it.

18) Ye Raat Ye Fizayen, Batvara (Audio|Video)
A very haunting melody. Starts slowly and picks up tempo, barely.

19) Yeh Ladka Hai Allah, Hum Kissi Se Kum Naheen (Audio|Video)
This movie had only two great Asha-Rafi duets! Bummer! I do not know who the hero or heroine are. They could not have acted in many more films.

20) Baalam Tere Pyaar Ki Thandi, Ram Aur Shyam (Audio|Video)
I like this song a lot although it seems to be quite low in the list. Also I prefer the Tamil version of this movie, Enga Veetu Pillai, with MGR in a double role it.

Mohammed Rafi

2011-01-11T22:06:00.002-05:00

I believe there is a god. There must be. After all Mohammad Rafi lived in this world. Please let me indulge in hyperbole for an instant.

Most popular singer of his era, unarguably the greatest voice in Bollywood, smooth as silk, soft as velvet, a genius, voice like an angel, unmatched versatility, unmatched vocal range, career spanning four decades, still displaying an ability to connect with connoisseurs nearly three decades after his death. His existence cannot be ascribed to chance.

Ergo, there is a god.

Rafi's music definitely has addled my brain; I am sorry; I stand by everything except the last and I am sure you will also agree with me. I mean, about Rafi music being unparalleled not my brain being addled.

So I started making a list of solos that I like and someone pointed that they are all sad melodies. In my opinion happiness does not have the same depth of sadness. I also realized that it is hard for me to mix moods. I cannot listen to Chahe Koi Mujhe Junglee Kahe or Yeh Chand Sa Roshan Chehra after listening to one of the songs listed below.

So without much ado, here is a list of top 10 Rafi sad melodies

1) Din Dhal Jaaye Hai Raat Na Jaaye, Guide (Audio|Video)
The line that leads to this song is "Zindagi bhi ek nasha hai dost, jab chadta hai to poocho mat kya aalam rehta hai, lekin jab utarta hai ....". Very beautiful song.

2) Koi Sagar Dil Ko Behalata, Dil Diya Dard Liya (Audio| Video)
Dilip Kumar does a wonderful job in this song; you get the feeling that it is he who is singing not Rafi!

3) Khabi Khud Pe Khabi Halat Pe Rona, Hum Dono (Audio|Video)
Have a glass of wine in your hand when you listen to this song. It just makes sense. But unless you are a fan of Dev Anand, you will agree that he does not do justice to the pathos Rafi injects into this song.

4) Yaad Na Jaaye Beete Dinon Ki, Dil Ek Mandir (Audio|Video)
I saw this movie at an age when I could not appreciate it. I was 12 and there is nothing worse than a romantic tragedy. No dishoom dishoom.

5) Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hai (Audio|Video)
From my favorite director, Guru Dutt. Fifty years later we still do not make such movies.

6) Zindagi Aaj Mere Naam Se Sharmati Hai, Son Of India (Audio|Video)
The next line is "Apni halat pe mujhe khud bhi hasi aati hai".

7) O Duniya Ke Rakhvale (Audio|Video)
Rafi shows amazing range. There is an urban legend associated with this song; that it hurt Rafi so much to sing this song that he spat blood after the recording!

8) Taqdeer Ka Fasaana, Sehra (Audio|Video)
Forget the stupidity of this movie; here is another song where Rafi shows amazing range.

9) Raha Gardishon Mein Hardam Mere Isqh Ka Sitara, Do Badan (Audio|Video)
The number of romances Pran has ruined is countless. Man I hated him so much. Although in this particular movie I do not understand why Asha Parekh is sad. There are worse things than being married to Pran; being married to Manoj Kumar!

10) Hui Shaam Unka Khayal, Mere Humdam Mere Dost (Audio|Video)
Because Dharmendra is a hunk, he is underestimated as a serious actor. He was my favorite hero and for a while it used to bother me that Amitabh was more popular.

This list naturally represents my opinion and it is by no means complete. I was easily able to identify another ten songs that could have reasonably made this list.

Maybe that is for another post. What do you think of this list?

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

2010-12-14T14:11:00.010-05:00

Growing up in socialist India, there was always less of everything. Material things were for the capitalist. Take the case of marbles; There are several aspects; my mother considered it a waste of money; she thought it cost too much; and she believed that only bad boys played with marbles. On my side; I did not have the guts to ask for them. You know what happened to Oliver Twist when he asked for more!

So what did I do? When I had a chance I took 4 marbles from my neighbors house! You could replace took with stole and the previous sentence would be more accurate!

There are people who exhibit sangfroid after committing a crime. Our politicians are famous for that. Shame or fear are not words in their dictionary. I on the other hand lived with the fear of discovery and took care not to take the marbles out in front of anyone. This lasted several weeks when in a fit of bravado I played with them in front of my parents. And then came the inevitable question.

Where did you get them?

I was never good at lying and I did not fail this time either.

I got them at school

This led to the obvious follow up question

Where did you get it in school?

I told them about this hole in the ground in our school where one could dig and find marbles. Can you believe the crap of an excuse I made!

My parents naturally wanted to see this amazing hole and told me that they would be in the school the next day. Pretty much cornered, the sordid truth came out.

What followed was the climax; my parents outdid themselves. I have been beaten many times and in fairness to my parents, I deserved every one of them. My mom was good at it and my father had turned it into an art form. but never before was I thrashed more soundly.

The motto of this story to me is
-- Do not steal
-- If you steal, do not get caught
-- If you get caught, for god sake, come up with a better story next time!

My car runs on water

2010-12-12T14:31:00.004-05:00

I purchased my first car in 1989. I got it from a guy who after graduating from masters program and getting a lucrative job in Santa Clara, decided to go for an upgrade. It was a 7 year old car of indeterminate color. You could call it gray. Of course that was not the real color, it was probably silver. For reasons unknown; probably acid rain; the paint had been stripped clean showing the metal in many places which gave the car its ineffable complexion. While I lived in the Bay area, I did not talk much about my car. I had a beat up Civic, others had a cool Mazda Miata. My car had indeterminate color, other had a bright red.

In short, I had a mutt, they had a pure breed.

Then I moved to Detroit for graduate school and it was here that my car and I came into our full potential. Most of the international student population did not have a car and had to walk to the nearby Kroger in cold weather; whereas my roommates and I would go out to Dearborn, Michigan to shop. Every weekend we would go out to the suburbs. Although we did not have much money to spend, thankfully gas was under a dollar! We would go to the mall and look at all the clothes and electronics we could not buy and come back. Spending 5 bucks at McDonald's was out the question since it represented a substantial portion of my weekly grocery bill.

I may not have indulged myself, but I treated my car like a baby. I changed oil every 3000 miles like clockwork and rotated the tires regularly. My car was my asset. It was a status symbol. It represented mobility and aspiration that two thousand other students yearned for. I would tell everyone about the wonderful mileage it gave me and how it was all due to the care I took.

During the time I was engaged to Jannavi; I think it probably was fall of 1991; Jannavi, Girija who was then Jannavi's roommate, and I went shopping. On the way out Jannavi pointed out that the car was low on gas. I launched into my usual story of how well I maintained my car and capped it with a boastful sally - Don't worry! My car is so efficient, it would drive itself even if I fueled it with water!

Yup, I was proud of my car and you know the adage - Pride goeth before a fall.

As luck would have it, on the way back, about 2-3 miles from the campus my car coughed a couple of times and simply stopped running. I had the sense to put it in neutral and take it to the side. It was dark and trust me, Detroit in 1991 was no place to stranded at night. Jannavi, I could see, was furious. So I quickly opened the trunk, took out my gas can, and after telling the girls to lock the car, went looking for a gas station.

It is hard to describe Detroit unless you have lived in a city struck by industrial blight and mass exodus of its richer population. The road was dark. I had not realized how much a simple thing like street lighting transformed a dark and scary landscape into a reassuring one. Here and there a few shops held out like beacons of hope. Most others were boarded up with graffiti all over. Any that was not boarded had all its windows smashed. Empty lots were mostly filled with trash and broken bottles. The pictures you saw in magazines (this was before the internet) hardly did justice. The despair one felt in the air had to lived through to make sense.

On top of all this I was petrified both for myself and the two girls in the car whom I had left behind. I was also berating myself for my foolishness. Detroit after all was known as the crime capital in those days.

Luckily there are good people in this world. Some people like to help others. One such good Samaritan saw my predicament and gave me a lift to the gas station. To me it was like manna from the heavens. Someone had thrown me a life line and boy did I hold tight. The man not only waited for me to fill up gas, but also gave me a ride back to where my Civic was stranded by the freeway!

I was relieved to see both the girls safe. Now that my fear had abated, I was left with a shame and guilt for both my foolishness and boastfulness. Without meeting either of the girls eyes, I quietly filled up the tank and after thanking the man profusely, drove back to campus.

What an hour? I had lived and died a few thousand times during that time.

I had learned my lesson. Since then I have never been stranded.

I also learned another lesson. I never boast about the mileage I get. You know what a phenomenal memory some people have; especially when it pertains to other people's failures!

Accident - Call the Cops

2010-07-31T13:33:00.000-04:00

Three months I was involved in a minor car accident in NW-Washington DC.

I am fine.

It happened at about 9:20AM. Without going into the details of the accident, who was at fault was a function of when the accident happened. I was sure it was the other driver's fault. The traffic pattern on that road changed every day and had he done what he did after 9:30AM, I would have been at fault. So the time of the accident was critical.

I called 911. Smart move as I found out later.

The cops came. But it turns out that in most of the Washington DC Metro area, you do not need to call the cops for non-injury accidents. The two parties exchange insurance information and the fault is assigned after the insurance companies assess the evidence. The policeman gave us a standard "information-exchange" form containing details. Once he verified the details, he let us go.

I made a mistake.

I filled in all details except the time and when the policeman pointed this out, rather than enter the time of the accident, I entered the time at that moment which was 9:39AM. So the insurance company for the other party laid the blame on me! To confuse the matter further, the other party had filled in a time of 9:29AM. So my insurance company laid the blame on the other party!

How do I prove definitively that it happened before 9:30AM?

Luckily I recollected that I had called 911 on my cellphone. I called up Verizon and it turns out that they have to log all 911 in a special system and it showed that the call happened at 9:24AM. This put the time of the accident before 9:24AM which proved that the other party was at fault.

The other party's insurance acknowledged this fact. Since my car was very old and had nearly 180,000 miles on it, the cost of repairs was more than the value of the car. So they chose to pay me some money and junk the car.

Bottom line, if you are conscious, please call the police as soon as possible to establish the time as close as possible.

Naturally the facts could have proved that I was at fault. The important thing is; we were able to established the TRUTH.

It is just Sports

2010-07-31T12:27:00.059-04:00

A Sports Illustrated columnist wrote this article about the defection of LeBron James from the point of view of folks from Cleveland. Feelings it seems are so strong in Cleveland that I do worry about his safety.

I must say, I on the other hand took this change very maturely. It is just a professional athlete moving from one franchise to another.

It is just sports. Big Deal!

Really, let us rewind a few decades.

The year was 1978 and Indian cricket team under Bishan Singh Bedi was touring Pakistan. Our neighbors had a black and white TV set and I watched cricket live for the first time, or nearly so. In the last two matches it looked liked India could pull out a draw. In those days the Indian team had a long tail. A middle order collapse in the second innings of both matches resulted in Pakistan being set a modest target. India got creamed 2-0. Bedi not only lost his captaincy but also his place in the team.

Why was I alive to watch this national humiliation?

Fast forward to 1986 - This was the period when Pakistan owned India. One of the lowest point for an Indian fan was Miandad's six of Chetan Sharma to end the one day. I personally think no Indian over the age of thirty probably could forget this. It is seared in my psyche.

1987 also known as Gavaskar vs. Pakistan. The Indo-Pak series was tied 0-0 and India was chasing a rather modest target except that the pitch favored the bowlers. Wickets kept falling. Only the great Gavaskar was holding the fort. He was dismissed 4 runs shy of a century. India lost the match by a mere 16 runs.

This was the last test match Gavaskar played! What a way to end such an illustrious career?

Of course, I achieved some closure in 2004 when the Indian team visited Pakistan and this time they won in both forms of cricket. That was twenty years too late for me. By that point I had not seen a cricket match in nearly a decade and a half!

I will skip Indian Hockey completely. The less said the better.

We leave India and jump to Detroit, Michigan, home of my Alma mater, Wayne State University. The year was 1991. The previous year, I had the felicity of have watched the Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bull in Eastern Conference Finals and later crush, the Portland Trail Blazers to become the NBA champions. This year it was payback time for Jordan; he now had a team that could out muscle the Pistons and he went about ruthlessly dismantled the Pistons.

Jordan was the type of person who would remember a grudge from pee wee leagues and would tell you about it after he ground you into the dust. I guess, I never could appreciate his greatness. I do not know if I ever watched many of his games; but when I did it was only with a forlorn hope that the opponent would win. The 90s was a dreary decade for me. Even though the Pistons went on to dominate most of the first decade of the new millennium and even win a championship, it is hard far me to forget those dark years.

Then there is my favorite team the Detroit Red Wings. How can I forget the shocker in 1994, being eliminated by the upstart San Jose Sharks? The following year, they played against hooligans masquerading as hockey players. I am referring to New Jersey Devils. Wings were swept in the Stanley Cup Finals. The ascension of the Devils to the NHL throne set up the near demise and irrelevance of profession hockey in United States. In fact the subsequent decade is referred to as the dead-puck era. The following year the Wings were the winning-est team in NHL history only to get Avalanched by a bunch of goons.

Although, the Red Wings went on to pretty much dominate the next decade and a half and win 4 Stanley Cups, it is those lost ones that rankle the most.

Do I even want to talk about the pitiful Lions? With one of the greatest running backs playing in the backfield, and in my humble and personal opinion the greatest ever, Lions went on to post some of the worst seasons. At one point it was clear to the peerless Barry Sanders that it just was not worth it. The Lions broke his professionalism and he decided to stop playing rather then be part of such futility.

He was such an amazing running back just about every running back records could have been made out of reach forever. Think about this; he was close to setting the all time rushing record and he gave up playing. He is the only running back who could make watching a 5 yard loss more exciting than a touchdown pass and make it part of a high light reel. I have added some videos to buttress my arguments. Click here, here, and here for some of his amazing runs.

I cried when he retired. Man, I have a corridor in my house named Barry Sanders Drive!

The Lions managed to break my spirit so utterly, I no longer watch NFL with any passion! I just cannot invest any more emotion in professional football.

During each of these debacles and for a few weeks thereafter, I remember going through acute depression, a general feeling that life had no purpose, and total aversion of reading the sports page or listening to talk radio!

I have believed in every conspiracy theory against my teams. How do you expect any fairness from a Pakistani umpire? Could you not clearly discern the phantom penalty that cost Red Wings the game? Jordan + 4 players + 3 umpires in his back pocket make 8. Everyone knows that 8 trumps 5. How could any team much less the much maligned Pistons win? The Lions lost because.... Sorry, I do not have conspiracy theory. The Lions just suck.

It is just sports. Yeah right!

GPS lends meaning to my Commute

2010-05-31T11:52:00.000-04:00

I am generally a timid driver. I do not experiment. I learn a route and stick to it. I rarely change lanes. I rarely try alternates. This leads to problems when the route I follow is congested. I do not have any options but stew in traffic. A few years ago, that would have frustrated me. Ever since I have been able to connect my iPod to my car stereo, I chill with my music and accept this delay as the price to pay for working in the Washington DC Metro.

With the advent of GPS technology the game has changed. I wrote earlier how GPS helps in maintaining marital harmony. I now like it for more than its ability to keep peace. When earlier I would stay behind, stuck in traffic; now I change into side roads. The GPS after 15 seconds figures out alternates for me. Whereas earlier driving was a means to an end, now I am able to derive pleasure from my commute.

New neighborhoods like the one we live in have a blandness or a sameness. I guess they look cliched like my blog. On the other hand Northwest DC in particular has some really nice neighborhoods. Hundred year old homes set in winding roads with Oak trees so tall and thick they take your breath away. Each house looks different from the other. Of course they are not painted startling pink or flaming red as some houses can be in India, but they are different all the same; in a nice way.

I Ran a Relay Marathon - Again

2010-05-28T15:36:00.000-04:00

I have been running relay marathons for the past 2 summers in Delaware. To know about my past experiences read this and that.

Each of the two times, I went alone and ran with folks local to Philly area. This time I was more ambitious. I bullied my wife and daughter to run along with me. Our friends, Maran and Lorency also wanted to run. Suddenly we were a team of five. Swati, Devayani's friend in Philly and two others, a father and son duo, made it 8 which gave us to two full teams. Two months before the race, I filled out the registration form on Jannavi's behalf, put it in front of her to sign when she was distracted and mailed it to out.

During the next 5 weeks Jannavi cried constantly; she hates running, she hates the cold; she hates practice; she does so much around the house and its corollary; how little I do around the house...

As each week passed by her tension increased. Running 1 mile is OK, she had to run 6.55 miles. Additionally I ensured that she was not the last runner and so she could not stop in the middle and go home! Each runner carried a GPS chip that was handed from one runner in a team to the next one. The race organizers used it to track us for timing purposes. The result was Jannavi needed to finish her leg so I could run mine!

Finally with a mere 3 weeks to go I asked her to run with me. Very docilely she ran with me. We kept a steady pace of 12-minute-mile and ran 3 miles. Next week we ran 4 miles and the week before the race she ran 5 miles on her own. That was it; her entire preparation for the relay marathon. Devayani and I also ran a couple of times over similar distances.

The race itself was uneventful. See the attached chart for statistics. Jannavi achieved the goals she had set; complete the marathon and do not walk. I had one other goal, run faster than last time; I shaved almost 2 minutes from my results last year.

I knew she could do it; she now knows it too!

Songs I Would Like To Try

2010-05-28T13:31:00.000-04:00

Growing up I liked to sing. I would regularly take part in school activities that involved singing.

Then I reached adolescent age and my voice broke. I did not understand this well. All I remember was a terrible lack of confidence in rendering songs that I was able to belt out effortlessly just a few months before. I would yearn to sing but my larynx would feel as if it had lost lubrication all of a sudden leaving me a feeling of paralysis. I did not talk about it and at school since no one expected us boys to be interested in singing, the desire receded from conscious thought. Only when I saw a few other kids develop a deeper voice few years later did it realize what was happening.

This fear of singing lasted until I decided to take up Carnatic music in my 30s. My teacher showed me where my Sa or Shadjam is and I discovered I had a very bass voice. The Shruti I could sing in is a full octave below what is considered Five Kattai in Carnatic music. Consequently all songs composed for singers who are baritone or tenor were ruled out. Unfortunately since most film songs were composed for singers in that voice range it ruled out all songs of Rafi or Kishore. These songs are not easy on and throat which is a good thing since people would have laughed at my pretension. I later discovered that some songs (not all) by Mukesh were little easier on the larynx. These songs although were at a higher pitch, did not have the full range of two octaves. Finally we all know that anyone can bray like Kumar Sanu.

So here is a (work in progress) list of song I would like to sing. Some of them are duets and in most of these cases, I could easily pair with my daughter or wife who are far better singers than I am and could support me.

Anand - Meine Tere Liye Hi Saath
Ruki Ruki - Mast (duet)
Do Divaane Shaher Mein - Gharonda (duet)
Kai Baar yun Bhi Dekha, Rajni Gandha
Rim Jhim Rim Jhim 1942 A Love Story (duet)
Seene Mein Jalan Gaman, Gaman, Suresh Vadkar
Suhana Safar - Madhumati
Dil Tadap Tadap - Madhumati (duet)

Wrong Movie

2010-05-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

Long long ago in a country far far away I was a teenager. My sister, 4 years my junior, was in middle school. In those days we were rarely allowed to watch movies at the theater. There were many factors money being one of them. So when we did go out to the theater, it was for a good reason and it happened about once a year.

This time, I had just finished my Higher Secondary exams and had done really well and had secured admission to various engineering colleges. So I was allowed to go to a movie and take my sister along. We chose Shriman Shrimati with Sanjeev Kumar and Rakhee. I do not remember why we chose that one. I guess it was the only movie running at the sole cinema hall in Janakpuri.

I forget what the tickets cost us, but we had decent seats and we loved the atmosphere. Both of us liked to watch movie trailers probably as much as the movie itself. So it was fun for a while when we realized that one of the trailer was longer than usual. It was not as if we watched a movie every week to have any reference.

An over the hill Rajinder Kumar, dressed as a young man in multi-colored clothes that could get one killed in public, was wooing a past the prime Vidya Sinha with Danny as the Kabab Mein Haddi. RK is jealous of Danny's attention to VS. The rivalry ends in VS dumping RK and hitching with Danny. A brokenhearted RK marries someone else and has a son of his own. By this time this particular trailer had gone on for about 15 minutes and we were now sure we were not watching a trailer. But the possibility that we could be watching a different movie had not permeated our minds.

We turned to the guy sitting next and asked him if he knew what we were watching and we got a laconic answer, Dunno! That there was anyone besides us who was equally clueless came as a surprise to us.

After a few minutes when we saw Kumar Gaurav prancing around, our suspicions were confirmed. We were watching Love Story. We understood what had happened. This hall was not a multiplex and the whole of New Delhi did not have one in the 80s. So we went confidently to the box office and ordered tickets without asking what was running that day. Why should we, we had checked the schedules. When we came home and looked at it again we realized our movie hall changes the movie on a Friday and we had seen the previous week's schedule.

Since we had no other choice and it was not such a bad trade-off and we ended up watching it through. We still have a good laugh when we occasionally reminisce.

How did we manage without GPS

2010-05-14T20:00:00.001-04:00

After Exodus or during Exodus (I am not a biblical scholar) the Jewish people left Egypt and wandered for 40 years when they traversed a distance of about 250 miles before reaching Canaan. Now why would it take 40 years to travel the distance between Chennai and say Madurai? Well the punch line here is "Men, even in those days, did not ask for directions". Please see this video why men in modern times are scared to ask for directions.

This is in contrast to our household, where the women folk are extremely stubborn starting with Jannavi. She hates asking for help. It is a matter of pride for Jannavi to reach for stuff in kitchen cabinets 9 feet high even if I were standing near ready to help or, as happens more often, sitting nearby watching reruns of popular shows from the 1990s.

When we were graduate students we would drive a lot. I liked to drive and we deemed the cost of flying too high. We would go to AAA and get Travel guides and maps for the places we were visiting. The maps alone paid for the cost of the membership. This was before Google Maps made maps a commodity that can be now carried on a browser enabled phone!

The AAA maps were very helpful, since it was easy to get lost in down towns with their maze of one ways and narrow crooked streets. Jannavi was the navigator during our travels and it is amazing we are still married considering the number of times we have quarreled over the way she gave directions or the way I failed to follow it. A lot of my time would be spent on cajoling her to ask passerby folks for directions. I still see that mulish tilt of her head and the deaf ears that do not acknowledge my worthless entreaties.

I on the other hand am very different. I could be standing right outside the Taj Mahal and still feel the desire to ask for directions. I need help (in more than one way), OK.

Then one day we discovered GPS and life changed.

For better.

Somewhat.

We now fight over other equally useless things.

Strangely enough it was Jannavi that came up with the idea to buy this device. We now enter the address and I try to follow the directions from a sweet tempered woman. Being accustomed to hearing instructions barked out at me, listening to someone in honey toned voice requesting me to take various actions, was needless to say something of a change.

I used the phrase, try to follow, earlier because where directions are concerned, I am a dunce. Give me a stretch of freeway for hundreds of miles, I put the car in cruise control, set the stereo to Carnatic music and I am in Nirvana. Anything else, I get confused. Easily. But this woman never gets snippy at me even when I miss the exit that most blind man could have seen! She simply tells me "computing new direction" and within 30 seconds has a new set of instructions for me. I discovered this feature when I took the New Jersey Turnpike last weekend, or I should I say, failed to take it.

It does not matter to her how many times I make mistakes. It does not matter if I ignore her completely. She is single minded in her pursuit to get me back on track.

So for all those couples, that like taking road trips; buy a GPS. It could save your marriage.

I am a Bright

2010-04-11T09:28:00.000-04:00

Reader would have undoubtedly observed the use of the article "a". Allow me to explain.

Most people around me and elsewhere know where I stand on God and religion. Let us look up some of the words that could be used to describe this opinion.

Atheism, disbelief, godlessness, impiety, infidelity, irreligion, irreverence, unbelief, nihilism, skepticism, heresy, iconoclasm.

As you can see this list mostly made up of negatives. "theism" which is good becomes "atheism" which is bad, "belief" (good) becomes "disbelief" (bad). In short these are derived words, negation of purportedly positive attributes.

This is not restricted to atheism alone. Fifty percent of world population suffers from the problem of derivation. I am referring to Woman. Not only is the word derived, according to the three monotheistic religions, the woman herself is derived from man.

Another example is the word Homosexual. The rebranding of sexual orientations to being gay and straight was one of the best things that happened. No longer are gay men dishonest or crooked (not straight) nor straight men necessarily unhappy with their lot in life (not gay). The two words are not opposed to each other and there is no historic tension.

About three years ago I set out to invent such a word. As I have constantly bemoaned the fact, I am just not original. Several notable persons had already been at this and this leads us to the Brights Movement. Here is wonderful description from Richard Dawkins

Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, where homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot and pooftah are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like "gay". ... Like gay, it should be a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed but not too much. Like gay, it should be catchy: a potentially prolific meme. Like gay, it should be positive, warm, cheerful, bright.

In summary, I am a Bright. Are you bright too :-)

The early bird catches the worm

2010-04-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

I was never one for getting up early in the morning. Sleep was my first love. Growing up, we were constantly told to get up early before sunrise and greet the rising sun. Indians even have a ritual called "Surya Namaskar". I did not like the rising sun. I cordially disliked it. I could not understand what people saw in it. It still looked round!

My parents not only liked rising early, they also associated early morning with studying. According to them if one studied in the morning, one learned better, retained more in memory; ergo good grades.

They would repeat the well know adage, the early bird catches the worm.

When I clarified that I was a vegetarian, I discovered that my father had strong knuckles! I still have a bump in my head as proof.

When your wife says - Jump

2010-04-09T11:31:00.000-04:00

You would normally say, Why Honey?

Well I also used to ask such stupid questions for the first fifteen years of my marriage.

Needless to say, they were not very pretty years. Life was tough and miserable. I had to hear constantly how I just did not get it, how marriage was a team effort, how I constantly left things hanging, never followed instructions which even a child could follow, how other men would do all the chores in the house and outside the house, cook, clean, take care of the kids, read to them .....

I agree I am a little slow, I always make mistakes and sometimes more than once, but no one has ever said that I did not learn from them. I have reached a point in my education that I now can now follow the simple instructions really well. In fact I have actually improved to a point where I can take hints, also known in academic circles as non-verbal communications.

Let me give you a few examples.

The other day, I saw on top of my coffee mug, a few coupons for grocery items. Now someone who is a little slow would have simply thrown them as trash and finished their coffee. I understood that this was my wife way of saying hint hint (wink wink) nudge nudge.

Raag, you better go to the grocery store and purchase those items and used the coupons without fail, or else.

On an other occasion, when I woke up, I saw three laundry baskets blocking the way to the bathroom. I smiled at this subtle hint. I realized this was my wife's way of saying.

Fold these clothes you lazy bum.

After the morning shower I came downstairs and bumped my shin on something hard. I looked down and saw that the dishwasher door open. This non-verbal communication was getting too easy!

Dude, unload the clean dishes, load the dirty one, and start another load!

So now when my wife says "Jump", I say "How high honey".

Words of wisdom - From Manama

2010-04-09T10:07:00.000-04:00

Last week when we were driving in India, Manama pointed to some dogs on the street and inquired about them. We told her that they were stray dogs. When she wanted to know what stray dogs were and we explained that these are animals without an owner and as a result they have to fend for themselves and that they do not have a home and have to look out for their own food; poor animals!

She thought for a second and asked us. "Rather than looking for food, why don't these dogs look for a master instead!"

Today as we were driving to the school, she pointed to a tree she usually points to and emphatically pronounced - That is not a weeping willow. The leaves on this tree is not the right shape and this tree is bent too low. I saw pictures of the tree in a book at school.

Now I do not know a banyan from a weeping willow but just to provoke her I said - It is!

Her answer had me in stitches

Trust me Dad, I know what a weeping willow looks like!

Figment of Imagination

2010-01-05T17:49:00.000-05:00

This CNN article describes an extensive research using twins that debunks the myth of the G-Spot. The pressure is off me and all men. Henceforth we can focus on ourselves free of guilt! Just kidding.

I know, this is the beginning of a controversy; how does one scientifically debunk a subjective thing?

Sleep My First Love

2009-12-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

I loved sleep. I would play a lot and somewhere in there I went to high school and college, but come 10PM I was out and nothing could wake me till I had worshiped Hypnos for 8-10 hours. I was very religious about it. Weekend the worship was an extended one, taking as long as 12 hours. I can see that my older one has taken after me. She once did not get out of bed till 1PM in the afternoon!

You know how people drop in on you in India without calling first. Well the reason they did that was very few people had telephones then and cell phones had not yet been invented. It was not like we had much of a life outside of home. So people knew that they could expect someone at home more often than not and the few times you travel a couple of hours to find out that your friend is not at home, you go back cheerfully.

C'est la vie and all that you know.

Well this one time, about 25 years ago, a good friend of our parents, Mr Venkatachalam and his wife Girija came to see us and no one but I was at home. Figuratively speaking, of course. I was physically present but my mind was lost in the dream world. They rang the bell but the result was not conclusive. It was not as if I was far away from the bell. Moreover these are Indian ones built with a strong sense of purpose. I mean they were definitely not build to be polite as in please wake up. No; they were loud and shrill; capable of waking almost everyone but the dead. They told me later that after ringing the bell futile for 5 minutes they took to banging on the door.

Our neighbors got into the act and together while one banged on the door the other yelled loudly. This is not unusual in India at least when I was growing up. Finally after a quarter hour of various attempts at rousing me; most folks would have given up after 2 minutes; they left a note and went back home. A hour later when my parents and sister came back from wherever they had been, they discovered the note and got in and woke me up.

Mr Venkatachalam was a lot of fun to be around. I am sorry to use the past tense. He died last year when I was in India. He was very funny and could tell a joke well. He had a good singing voice and was an amateur Carnatic vocalist. He had a good knowledge of the scriptures and would frequently recite the old shlokas to my parents and their friends and bring out the meaning behind them. He never talked down to you; he was capable of engaging me in a conversation as well as he could my parents. I could argue with him which I could not with my dad. Whenever I met them later in life, he and his wife would remind me about it and we would have a good laugh over it. I think of him often and miss him.

Back to my sleep; fatherhood did nothing to diminish my passion for sleep.

And then I started working for a company that had developers in India in 2006. Well it is simple; to get work done, one need to engage with the resources in real time. People think that you can send emails during the day here and gnomes in India (and other places) would scurry around and do the work. It is mostly collaborative and regular conversations are required to iron out details. Well with the time zone differences of about 10 hours, the best way is for folks in US to work very early and folks in India to work late. So I started getting up at before 6AM.

Before 2006, I do not recollect seeing Helios ride out in his chariot, since then I have taken to reprimanding him for being late to work! It has gotten so bad even if I sleep very late, say at 1AM , I still end up getting up by 7-8AM. I cannot sleep more than 6-7 hours even during the weekend!

I am sad, my first love has deserted me.

Ambitions

2009-10-31T22:06:00.000-04:00

Those who have two or more kids marvel at the personality differences. If you ask my older one what she wants to be you would get a shrug and if you prod more you will get a slightly more clear answer - I don't know.

On the other hand you do not have to ask the little one. She has no fewer than a half dozen careers chosen. When we were driving back home, she saw this bridge under construction and told me that she want to be a Crane Builder. I asked her if she liked building cranes, no she said she like building bridges. So I pointed out that she wanted to be crane operator. She liked that a lot.

Then she casually mentioned three other careers she had chosen for herself and the first on the list was Archeologist. I tried to put her in place by asking her if she knew what that was, but she is made of unsquashable India rubber. She promptly said, she was going to dig for Dinosaur bones!

Oh, BTW, she also wants to be a doctor and a teacher.

This is the first season she has paid serious attention to fall colors. She asked why some were still green and my wife told her that pines were ever greens and then explained to her that pines do not shed their needles.

Manama insisted that that pines also change color. My older one explained again to her again what it meant to be ever green. But the little one is stubborn as a mule. She insisted that she has seen pines change color.

This argument went on for a few minutes when she triumphantly pointed to a pine like tree that had changed colors. We are not sure if it is a pine or not. In any case my wife and my daughter mustered as much dignity they could and moved on.

The next my wife needled her.

"Manama, look at that pine. I think pines too change colors"

Her reply was typically cocky

"You think. but I know they do!"

The Little Red Book

2009-08-22T15:22:00.000-04:00

I am a book worm. I read books everyday. I start the day with a book and go to bed with a book, not necessarily the one I started the day with. I read them anywhere, everywhere. I read them several times. I own hundreds of them. If I sit for 10 minutes, I would rather sit with a book, even if it were on a potty.

In fact let me tell you a secret, that is one place no one can disturb me.

My Wife - Honey can you do me a favor?

Me - Sorry sweetheart, I am reading a book, oops, I mean I am in the bathroom.

So our bathrooms always contain books. Luckily since my wife and older daughter share this passion, it has not caused too many troubles.

It was not unusual in our house for someone to announce "I need to use the bathroom" and run to the library to pick a book! I am bad but I am proud to say my daughter is worse. She has no sense of time. When you want her to get ready for an party, she will promptly take a book to the bathroom and come out an hour later. During that time, her mom would pop several arteries screaming

where are you, what are doing, please hurry, we are late, irresponsible, you are just like your dad....

Anyway, recently it was borne on me how much of a women world this is, at least my small world, my house.

I went to the bathroom and found to my dismay that I forgot to take along a book. So I picked one lying there, a library book, a small red book aptly named, My Little Red Book. I did not know that my wife was interested in Communism or Mao to read his book. You see I had not borrowed this book from the library.

Imagine my surprise when I read the first chapter and found that this book had nothing to do with redistribution of wealth. It was not The Little Red Book. It was about the onset of Menarche, aka, the First Period. I know my older daughter had varied interests but this one was a stunner. We all avoid this topic, definitely the men. I do not know why. Well we all have a mom and many of us have one or more sisters and have seen their pain first hand.

So I will say this.

Please read this book.

This is an anthology. Almost all of them are 1 pagers, little stories by women across of the world and their introduction to The Period and how each of them dealt with it in their own way. Even if we do not entirely understand it we may have some sympathy for our mom, sister, daughter, and better half.

Bigamist? Me? No Way. Maybe. You be the Judge!

2009-07-26T21:07:00.001-04:00

Two years ago, my friend, Sriram, got married. Before I go into the details of his marriage, let me tell you a little about us.

Sriram and I used to be roommates for a little over 2 years during our time in Graduate School. It is interesting how we met and ended up being room mates. During the summer of 1991, I was in the campus getting my admission process rolling while simultaneously looking for rooms to share, when I saw these two Indians walking in the street. A brief introduction later we found we shared not only a nationality but a mother tongue as well. Naturally it helped a lot to break down barriers. They needed a roommate and I needed a room. That is how I met Sriram. It was that simple. My initial suspicions were soon confirmed; although he was from a rich family, Sriram was guilty of being simple, easygoing, and generous to a fault.

After my marriage in 1993, he moved out but stayed still in campus apartments and so we had ample opportunities to meet. Then the Gold Bug bit him, at least the fever to move to the Golden State hit him after he vacationed in California for 2 weeks. I forgot to mention, Sriram was also very impulsive. He very soon got a job and moved to the left coast and has lived there since then. We stayed in touch regularly despite the distance.

Sriram then behaved in the most unfilial manner possible for an Indian boy. He refused any proposal for marriage. Since I met my wife during graduate school and got married, his mother believes he was unduly influenced by me. Soon he met a nice girl in California and after a while she moved in. Melissa and Sriram lived together for a while before he popped the question. She accepted and they set the date.

Now comes the location where they would get married. I told you earlier how Sriram was simple, generous, easygoing, and impulsive. I forgot to mention he was also romantic. He liked the movie Shawshank Redemption. If you have seen the movie then you know the place where Tim Robbins settles after escaping from prison!

I liked the movie a lot and I thought that the place was beautiful too. I wanted to vacation there.

Well Sriram chose to get married there!

If you have not seen the movie, it is Zihuatenejo, Mexico. It is a beautiful place on the Pacific coast.

The marriage was a secular ceremony conducted by a Mexican official. It took place on the beach with chairs set in several rows facing the water. The bride and the groom stood a few feet away from the waves. A ten person music band dressed in beautiful traditional clothes played very nice music. To cap it all there was the setting sun in the background. Altogether it was a wonderful wedding, uniting two very nice people.

During the ceremony conducted mostly in Spanish - I forgot to mention the bride and the groom spoke Spanish quite fluently - the secular minister (if there is such a phrase) mentioned several names including mine. That did not surprise me since I was one of the official witnesses and had to sign various documents. Also I was not sure since there was the sound of the surf in the background we could not hear much of what was said. So I kept quiet till I heard my name spoken for the fourth time and then I knew it was time for me to speak now or forever hold my peace.

Well I am sure you understood what happened. It turns out that minister got the two names mixed up, our names being very long, unfamiliar, and similar enough for him. Now you all know my name is Ramaraghavan Srinivasan and my friend's full name is Sriram Ramachandran.

We all had a good laugh but to this day I am not sure about my friend's marital status....

or mine for that matter!

Twenty Years Later

2009-07-02T14:26:00.000-04:00

I have been in this country twenty years! Two decades! Where did all that time go?

I still remember the blue skies when I landed in San Fransisco on July 4, 1989. Yes I came to the good old USA on the Independence Day. I could not believe that the sky could be so blue. In India I do not remember looking up in the middle of the day for fear that the glare would blind me.

On the first evening, the manager of the motel where I stayed initially in Santa Clara, suggested that we all climb on top of the roof of the motel to view the fireworks. Spectacular!

My first year in this country was filled with so many novel experiences. I remember the awe with which I used the ATM the first time, something that now is passe even back in India.

My boss was amused that I found it strange that someone would accept a plastic card from me in return for expensive goods and services merely on my assurance that I would pay him back in 30 days. I did not realize then that the banks had a noose round my neck! The noose has gotten lot tighter since then. Back then, formal credit was mostly unknown especially in middle class. My parents and everyone I knew paid cash for everything. Now, credit in all forms in ridiculously common place in India.

I remember with wonder that the darkness set at the insanely late hour of 9:30-10:00PM! I had not heard of Day Light Savings.

With no email and only one choice of long distance, I cannot forget what a pinch it was on the purse to make a 10 minute call to India. A minute of long distance was about $3.00! Adjusted for inflation that is about $6.00 in today's dollars. So I would make one quick call to our neighbors to tell my parents to come on line and then after a suitable interval call them again! How crude. Since then India went completely wireless by (almost) skipping the land line phase! I now pay about 5 cents a minute and can call my parents any time, any where, however long I want!

Within a month of coming to the US, I got my driver's license, and soon I became a proud owner of a beat up Honda Civic of indeterminate color; let us say Gray; with over 85,000 miles on it. I roamed all over Bay Area using my new, used car and a bicycle.

I survived the 6.9 earthquake! After that all the minor tremors were like storm in a teacup. In fact I found out that I had slept through several 5+ earthquakes.

I discovered The Supreme Court and pretty soon added much needed bulk to my lanky frame.

I watched the great Joe Montana win a Super Bowl without understanding rudiments of American Football.

It probably rained in the Bay Area, but I do not remember those days for there could not have been many of them. All I remember were long days with blue skies and wonderful balmy weather.

I probably had the most carefree 12 months of my life, which is why California always manages to evoke extreme nostalgia.

India Is Racist, And Happy About It

2009-06-26T00:16:00.001-04:00

I am ashamed but there is quite a bit of truth in this statement. Outlook published this article recently. A while back I told someone (and it is not an original observation) that the caste system in India is a form of color based discrimination and they did not accept it. In Sanskrit it is referred to as The Varna system. Varna means color.

My former CEO is an Indian American and his VP is a white American. He would tell us that when the two went to India on business trips, everyone would automatically assume that the VP was the boss!

I am not sure if India will ever stop discriminating on the basis of color. It is so deeply rooted that I am not sure of a lot of the people think of it as discrimination!

Top 10+10 Kishore and Asha - Part II

2009-06-25T18:55:00.001-04:00

Here is Part II of Top 10+10 Kishore and Asha. Observe the preponderance of RD Burman in this list (Songs 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19). RD and Asha had a very productive relationship since his first film Teersi Manzil.

10+01) Sharaabi - Intaha Ho Gayi (Video)
This song should be in the previous list, so putting it on top is my way of making amends. Bappi Lahiri can be a good music director when he chooses to not copy pop songs.

10+02) Aankhon Aankhon Mein - Aankhon Aankhon Mein (Video)
Great song but Rakesh Roshan is nuts.
When Rakhee says "Mujko Apni Bahon Mein Sone Do"
His reply is "Shaadi Ho Jaane Do"!

10+03) Seeta Aur Geeta - O Saathi Chal (Video)
Just before the song starts Hema cutely mispronounces the word skate as kates. She plays the role of a uneducated but confident girl.

10+04) Chor Machaye Shor - Le Jayenge Le Jayenge (Video)

10+05) Deevar - Kehdoon Tumhe Ya Chup Rahoon

10+06) Hum Kissi Se Kum Naheen - Hum Ko To Yaara Teri (Video)
I do not know if this girl ever acted in any other movie.

10+07) Jhootha Kahin Ka - Jeevan Ke Har Mor Pe (Video)

10+08) Khel Khel Mein - Ek Mein Aur Ek Tu (Video)
Every song is a hit, but putting Iftekhar in the role of a jealous romeo is absurd.

10+09) Yaadon Ki Baarat - Meri Soni Meri Tamanna (Video)
The only redeeming feature in this movie is Zeenat Aman. The hero's acting is worse than my writing!

10+10) Zakhmee - Jalta Hai Jiya Mera (Video)

The End

Top 10+10 Kishore and Asha - Part I

2009-06-23T16:55:00.002-04:00

After my previous post, my wife requested that I make a similar list with Kishore and Asha. She also added that a Top 10 list would not suffice and she was right. But that is not surprising since duets by Rafi-Lata and Kishore-Asha are more common than the cross pairs, Rafi-Asha and Kishore-Lata.

I was easily able to identify my Top 10, but I found that there were several others that were good and worthy of being mentioned in a list. So I decided to create a list which I titled Top 10+10 to be presented in two parts.

I feel that one of the important aspects of these songs is the absence of quality lyrics. Kishore songs are known for their energy and I think such songs do not lend themselves well to convey deep thoughts. Consequently these songs do not have great lyrics. They are simple and the songs invariably revolve around both the quality of the music and the voices of the singers and their abilities. Poetry and yodeling somehow do not go hand in hand.

This is by no means a put-down of Kishore songs; I personally feel that Kishore songs with pathos in them tend to have better lyrics, not his happy ones, with a few exceptions of course.

So let us jump into the without much ado.

01) Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi - Haal Kaisa Hai Janab Ka (Video)
Are you surprised that Kishore is the actor? I do not think anyone else could have done justice.

02) Baap Re Baap - Piya Piya Piya Mora Jiya Pukare (Video)
There is an interesting story about this song that Asha describes in details on one of her CDs. She made a mistake in one of her lines during recording and you can clearly hear it in the middle. She confesses to Kishore who assures her not to worry. He then informs her that he is the lead actor for that movie and that at the moment when Asha makes the error he would put a hand over the heroine's mouth!! Watch for that in the middle of the song at about the 2:15 minute mark.

03) Dilli Ka Thug - C..A..T.. Cat Mane Billi (Video)
Good spelling tutorial.

04) Paying Guest - O Nigahen Mastana (Video)
Amazing song. Asha sings not a single word, so technically it is not a duet. Nutan is great, but I feel Dev Anand did not do justice on screen.

05) Nau Do Gyarah - Aankhon Mein Kya Jee (Video)
Again the chemistry between Dev Anand and and Kalpana Kartik is clear.

06) Paying Guest - Chhod Do Anchal Zamana Kya (Video)
Nutan was an underrated star from that period. She was probably more famous for her histrionic abilities. She won five Film Fare awards.

07) Baton Baton Mein - Suniye Kahiye (Video)
I wish to make no R-rated comments and I am sure you will agree that Tina Munim is not in this movie for her acting skills. Good thing, since she cannot act if her life depended on it.

08) Budda Mil Gaya - Bhali Bhali Si Ek Surat (Video)
Who is this heroine? You do not know? Neither do I!

09) Humshakal - Hum Tum Gum Sum Raat (Video)
I have always liked Moushmi since I saw her play the role of the ditzy wife as the wife of Sanjeev Kumar in Angoor. A steamy song for its time (India in 1974)

10) Javaani Deevani - Jaane Jaa Dhundtaa Phir Raha (Video)
This song shows RD Burman at his experimental best. He makes Kishore sing at certain times at a very high pitch and Asha down a whole octave!

Well which one of your favorites did I miss?

Top 10 - Rafi and Asha

2009-06-21T14:27:00.009-04:00

This article was revised on 1-16-2011. See details of the changes at the end.

Ahmed, a friend of mine says on Facebook that this song makes him want to fall in love all over again. His comments reminded me of a resolution I had made - to come up with my Top 10 list of Rafi-Asha Duets. Naturally this is just my opinion and I am sure I have missed a few that could reasonably make the cut, but somehow coming up with a Top -12 or Top-17 did not sound appealing. I have tried to find both audio and video links for all the movies and songs and I have verified that all the links work. Hope you like them too.

01) Hum Dono - Abhi Na Jao Chod Kar (Video)
-- If I have to list only one song, this song would be IT, a song that would make you fall in love again. So married folks stay away from this song!

02) Kala Pani - Accha Ji Mein Haari Chalo (Video)
-- What a wonderful way to say sorry! Madhubala is sooooo ..... I am at a loss for words

03) Kashmir Ki Kali - Deevana Hua Baadal (Video)
-- Barson Se Khizan Ka Mausam tha
-- Veeraan Badi Duniyan thi meri
-- Haathon Mein tera aanchal, aaya Ke Bahaar Aayi

What a wonderful sentiment!

04) Bambai Ka Babu - Deevana Mastana (Video)
-- A very happy song, very good music. Otherwise no deep meaning.

05) Ek Musafir Ek Hasina - Aap Yunhi Agar Milte Rahe (Video)
-- Aap Yunhi Agar Hamse Milte Rahe, Dekhiye Ek Din Pyaar Ho Jayega

Well I am sure you would not be surprised when I tell you that Sadhana was my first crush!

06) Teesri Manzil - Aaja Aaja Mein Hu Pyaar Tera (Video)
-- Shammi is truly nuts. There is a scene in the middle of the song when Shammi to comes the end of his stanza and Asha Parekh who is in the background throws her jacket over the chair and twirls her way into the foreground with Shammi moving into the background. This is an unusually long shot for a song and really well done.

07) Kashmir Ki Kali - Ishaaron Ishharon mein (Video)
-- Bahaaron Ko Bhi Naaz Jis Phool Par Tha, Wohi Phool Hamne Chuna Gulistan Se.

08) Nau Do Gyarah - Aaja Panchhi Akela Hai (Video)
-- The chemistry between Dev Anand and Kalpana Kartik, spouses in real life not just reel life, is palpable. I am not an expert in Hindi, but I wonder if this movie spawned the phrase "Nau Do Gyarah Hona" which means to run away!

09) Ek Musafir Ek Hasina - Bahut Shukriya Badi Meharbani (Video)
Joy Mukherji is lucky to have so many amazing songs. As an actor, well the less said the better.

10) Hum Kissi Se Kum Nahin - Hai Agar Dushman Zamana (Video)
About 5 years ago, they had a three violin Carnatic concert at the Shiva Vishnu Temple in Maryland. In the middle of a long Ragam Tanam Pallavi, one of the violinist, smiled at the other and played this song. No jokes. I asked her at the end why she did this and; she explained that this song is based on the raaga Valaji. She is from Bombay and grew up listening to Hindi film songs and tried something different. Also I had to do justice by putting Zeenie baby back in after removing "Chura Liya Hai" from my original list.

What do you think?

Changes made 1-16-2011

I am deleting "Chura liya hai" and "Aaye Hai Door Se" from this list

09) Yaadon Ki Baarat - Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko (Video)
-- Zeenie Baby, Wow! It took 25 more years before the rest of the Indian Film heroines had a figure like that! I am sorry I had to delegate this song so far down the list. I definitely am partial to the classical period of Hindi Film Music if I may refer to 1950s and 1960s in that manner.

10) Tumsa Nahin Dekha - Aaye Hai Door Se (Video)
-- I just like this song, nothing particularly quotable about this song

My Weight Problem

2009-06-20T09:49:00.000-04:00

Long ago, I wrote about my my wife's weight problem. She really does not have a weight problem. No, I am not in denial. She just thinks she has one. Even now she looks just the way she did when I first met her. I am sorry, I did not phrase that well. I mean, she now looks prettier, if possible. Phew, I think I got over that land mine well. As far as weight goes, she has maintained her trimness over the past 20 years, that include two pregnancies, and a Madrasi crowd around us that focuses exclusively on food during any get together!

I do not have a weight problem either. No, I am not in denial again. Let me explain.

First of all, if you twist my arm I would admit that I could lose a few grams. Unlike my wife I have gained a lot of weight in the two decade since I left the shores of India, at least the shores of Yamuna. Good thing I did too. I mean, good thing I left the shores of Yamuna. It was and still remains now one of the most polluted rivers in the world. In the intervening years, depending on how you do the math, I have gained anywhere from 28% to 40% in weight since I came to this country!

It looks bad, but that is not the complete story. You see when I came to the US, I was an anemic 132 lbs although I stood nearly 6ft tall. I am told that it made me look like a drug addict! Within three months I discovered the weight room at a Bay Area gym funnily called the Supreme Court and by the end of year I had gained 30 lbs and I stood a very reasonable 165 lbs.

So taking out the one time rapid weight gain, what it boils down to is that I have gained about 1 lb for every year of my marriage. That is not really bad.

The one place where this extra poundage does show up more and more prominently is in the waist line. Even my adoring and admiring wife and daughter have started taking pot shots at the commencement of a protruding abdominal region colloquially known as a pot belly. So I do a Seinfeld. Remember that episode where Seinfeld tells his girl friend that he changes the label on his jeans from a 32 waist to a 31. I do not go that extent. I just confidently tell everyone that I wear a 32 and that I just ate a few minutes ago! No one has so far bent down to verify the number that adorns my Gluteus Maximus muscle!

So although I believe I do not have a weight problem, I would like to one day really fit into that jean with a 32 inch waist hanging in my closet. So I want you to be the witness that I have stated a definite goal to lose weight.

Here it is - by the end of this year I want to go down to a trim 180 lbs. Why such a modest goal?

Well I am a man of few words and fewer actions. I am very retiring when it comes to things that require too much effort on my part. In short you could say that modesty in action is my middle phrase!

Geek alert - If you chose my initial weight as the reference then the gain is 40%. Whereas it is only 28% if my current weight is the reference.

Pittsburgh - My Path to Salvation

2009-06-02T18:50:00.001-04:00

We, my wife and I, went to graduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and after my wife got done with her doctorate, we moved to the suburbs. My sister-in-law and her family on the other lived in Maryland. Every other year we would drive late Friday evening and either travel non-stop to Maryland or take a break somewhere in the middle. That place was the Steel City, Pittsburgh.

For Indians and more specifically, Hindus, this city is quite important. The best known Venkateswara temple out side of Tirupati is in Pittsburgh. We have seen this temple grow from a small temple to one where it is now hard to find admission for aarti.

A decade ago we moved to the Maryland area, but we still have friends in Michigan. One such couple is Pria and Ravi. Along with Jeshmi/Krishna and Jyothi/Ram, they are so important in our lives that we talk to them 2-3 times a week and try to meet them at least 2 times a year. Think about the magnitude of this commitment; we talk to them more often than with our parents; we see them more often than we see our parents or my sister and her family. Let us just say, Ravi and Pria are family.

When we were newly married we traveled light and had little to worry. With two kids it is no longer easy to travel long distance. So now Pittsburgh has assumed an even greater importance in our lives. From being a pit stop in our travels, Pittsburgh is the place each family now drives to. It is 5 hours by road for Ravi/Pria and a mere 4 hours for us. We start early Saturday and drive to Pittsburgh, check in to a motel by afternoon. We then go to the temple and here is the best part. The temple serves some of the best food at amazingly low prices. We spend 4 hours in the temple and the kids have a blast since there is a lot of space outside where they can play. We check out Sunday morning go back to the temple and after an early lunch drive back to our respective cities. Now here is the interesting thing; none of us are very religious and we do not particularly care whether we go to temples or not.

My parents on the other hand are staunch Vaishnavites and a trip to the US is not complete without a trip to Pittsburgh. Although they also know my opinions well, they have not given up hope. Even if I keep going to the temple not to worship the Lord but for secular reasons, it is OK. In their minds his blessings are still with me whatever my motivations and one day I will understand the Lord's eminence and grace.

They hope that my travels to Pittsburgh will somehow put me on the road to salvation!

Where Red Wings are concerned - The Cup is always Half Empty

2009-06-02T16:29:00.000-04:00

As I told you earlier, I am a huge Red Wings fan. Unfortunately I do not enjoy watching them play. Unlike true fans of the game, I do not enjoy the triple overtime 1-0, 2-1 3-2 victories or worse 1 goal losses. My heart takes permanent residence in my mouth and I turn into a cannibal; I chew my fingers to the bone!!

With so many victories; and by golly the Wings have been phenomenally successful by almost every measure of success; you would think I have so many happy memories to choose from. Although I remember all the victories, I remember even more vividly the times Wings blew a one goal lead with less than 2-3 minutes left in the game and the subsequent heart wrenching overtime loss. I have been known to consider a 4 goal lead, as the third period winds down, to be less than ideal! The only games I consider fun or worth watching are blow out Wings victory.

In close games, I tense up and I get so caught up that I lose my temper and curse which of course makes my wife cringe and get mad at me for using inappropriate language in front of children.

Besides the stress of watching my team play, I am one of those steeped in sports superstitions (read this, this and this for a few examples). I have this irrational feeling that when I watch the Wings always manage lose the game. Not only that, I am also a believer in conspiracy theories; at least those that affect the Wings. It is of course a known fact to all Wings fan that the NHL and the umpires do not like the Wings and do not want them to win!! I have seen so many games when it looked like the Wings would eke out a victory, when the umpire would call a penalty and allow the opposition to tie the game and change the momentum of the game.

Having said all this, I am going to make an admission that would shock you. I think that the Pittsburgh Penguins are the better team in this year's Stanley Cup Finals. In both the games played so far they they out shot the Wings, had better scoring chances, and in general seemed to be doing all the little things that the Wings were known for. Usually I believe my teams does not get the breaks; but in the first two games of this years of Stanley Cup finals I feel that it is the Penguins that do not have Lady Luck on their side. I personally saw at least 3 times the puck hitting the posts. Yet it was the Wings that won both games.

But, I do not feel too bad!

So if the Wings win 2 more games and win the Cup, remind me to buy you a beer.

My Other Love

2009-05-21T13:24:00.000-04:00

I used to live in Detroit, MI during the 1990s. By year three I became familiar enough with their best sports team; The Detroit Red Wings. They are an Original Six team and have had periods in the 40s and 50s when they were dominant. After two decades of mediocrity, their resurgence began with the arrival of my favorite player, Steve Yzerman in mid 1980s. I could write an entire post about him and maybe I will, but that is for later.

My earliest memory of a hockey game or at least the earliest one I remember was not a happy one. It was a first round play off Game 7 loss to San Jose Sharks in 1993-94. In those days I naively thought that the better hockey team always won. That year, the Wings were acknowledged to be in a league of their own whereas Sharks were the new kid on the block.

The next year was even more tragic. The Wings advanced to Cup finals and lost to a bunch of goons and thugs, euphemistically called the New Jersey Devils. As you can see almost 15 years and several cup victories later the bitterness has not left the palate.

The following year, in 1995-96, the Wings sprinted through the regular season setting a NHL record 62-12-8 record!! They seemed to run out of gas by the time the playoffs started. They muddled through two rounds of playoff and even endured a scare when St Louis Blues, led by the tandem of the great Gretzky and Hull, nearly upset them. Then in the conference they ran into another up and coming team, the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs only beat the Wings, Clod Lemeiux rearranged Kris Draper's face.

Then comes my favorite moment ahead of almost all the cup victories. On March 26, 1997 of the following season when Avs and Wings met during a regular season game, a fight broke out that would have ramification for the next decade. Darren McCarty pummeled Clod and then to rub salt in the wound scored the winning goal in overtime!! The Wings would never look back. As expected the Wings and Avs met again in the conference finals and this time the score was reversed. The cup final was an anti-climax with the Wings crushing the Philadelphia Flyers.

Within a week came the worst moment in franchise history. Vladimir Konstantinov's career ended in an auto-accident. This cut short the career of what could have been one of the greatest D-man in hockey. His nickname was Vladinator and during the pre-game warmups, JLA used to frequently show videos spoofing the Terminator.

The Wings are arguably one of the best managed teams in pro-sports. I say this not as a fan, please read what sports writers regularly say about the team management in CNNSI and ESPN. By the end of the 1990s they had been to the Stanley Cup Finals several time winning it all twice. Over all in the past ten years they have won the Cup 4 times!!

In summary, I have had the benefit of watching them

Win 4 Stanley Cups
Appear in 5 Stanley Cup finals
Appear in 8 Western Conference Finals (including this year)
Win 6 President's Trophy for the best regular season. In the years that they do not win the Trophy they are in the hunt and usually in the top 3 teams.
Appear in playoffs for the past 18 straight years, the longest current streak of any professional league in the US

No other hockey team comes close to this. In short they are the best.

Note 1: The Wings have won several more Stanley Cups, appeared in several finals, what I have here is a snapshot of the past 2 decades when hockey was relevant in my life.

Note 2: The playoffs for this year is still in progress. Based on the results this blog could be updated.

I Ran A Relay Marathon - Again

2009-05-18T16:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I took part in another relay marathon. I had taken part in the same event last year too. This year there was a small twist. In this year's edition all four legs of the relay were of equal length of about 6.5 miles (10.5 km), whereas last time the first leg was 10 miles with subsequent legs being 5.4 miles each. This meant I had to run more than a mile extra compared to last time.

The Chariots of Fire team brought only 5 teams this year. Just like last time, we came second. I personally did better this time since I had two personal goals that I had set out to achieve

No Walking
Under 1 hour 20 minutes

I did not walk. I paced my self much better this time. I also was in much better shape compared to last time.

I was within a few seconds of my second goal (I think I need 1 hour 20 minutes and about 14 seconds)!! (I averaged slightly less than 8 minutes for a km, rather slow I agree)

After I came home, I talked to my wife and we are planning on taking an entire team, even two teams from our area (4 to 8 people) to this event next year!!

Am I a Loser?

2009-05-09T15:15:00.000-04:00

That was a rhetorical question. So please do not answer unless your answer is a No, I mean an emphatic No!!

Let us go back to our childhood days when we were in some class or other. Do you remember what the teacher asked of us? Do your best. I am sure you never listened. Neither did I. I did not simply care to do my best, I wanted to be better than the others. I wanted to be better than the other boy at cricket. I wanted to beat everyone in badminton. I hated losing as I am sure you did too.

Detour time; during early years at school, I hated girls. Clean; punctual; always did their homework; teachers pet; those goody two shoes!! How I despised them!! In particular it bothered me when the girls in the class always stood first. It was not good enough for me to be good at studies; I wanted to be better than them. It rarely happened, but when it did, it felt sweet. Thank god, this phase lasted only till puberty.

Back again with more rhetoric; Let us flip the question. Am I a winner? Define winner.

Each of us has a chosen profession. I am a Computer Scientist from that time when it meant something to be one. I mean I understand algorithms, I understand good design, I do not like to merely sling code just because it works.

So am I the best in this? Am I at least near the top? Ha. I mean Ha Ha. (Hint - you are supposed to laugh)

Last time I checked, no one is waiting to give me a Turing Award which is the highest award one can get in my profession and from the body of my accumulated work there is no danger of any nominations in the near future, or for that matter in the distant future. As far as badminton is concerned I am a amateur at Class C/D level player. There are no levels below this. How about wealth? Not unless I am as rich as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

If we define success as being the richest, then most of us would be losers. If we define success as having won a Turing Award, Nobel Prize, Olympic Gold Medal, best in badminton (choose your favorite sport) well most of us are not even close.

When someone philosophies that the struggle is simply strive to be a better person; we think it is old man talk.

Well I am older and it now makes sense. Do your best. Yeah I get it now.

I try at every job to be better. I make mistakes and in my next job try not to repeat them. I try to write better code. I read what others in the field have to say and try to follow that. I try to pass on what I know to those who care to listen. In badminton I listen to my daughter's coach. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At least I cannot be accused of not trying.

Talking about philosophy you know what Descartes said - I think, therefore I am. You all know what a great man he was.

So who am I to quibble - I think I am a winner, therefore I am.

Vegetarianism - Ecological reasons for being one

2009-04-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

I read this article today in NYTimes. This article talks about emission and the resultant global warming due to increased meat consumption. About a year or two ago I read another article (I have not been able to locate the link) that went into the details of meat production and the costs involved. Roughly it takes 15lbs of corn to make 1 lb of meat (give or take a few pounds). In other words, one could feed an order of magnitude (techie speak for 10 times) more people if we were all vegetarians. In yet other words, it means there is an order of magnitude more carbon emissions than in growing plant based food.

When I mention this as my reason for giving up meat, quite a few find it amusing and some even snigger at this. Of course if this were the only reason it may not sound compelling. I already knew that I could get my proteins from a vegetarian diet. I lived on such a diet for my first 21 years and still stand 6 feet and 185 lb. There is enough documentary evidence about some of the inhumane treatment of animals reared for meat. Most of you may have seen these videos. I have too. Further more the unsanitary conditions of many of the places and the frequent outbreak of E Coli, Mad Cow, Bird Flu, Swine Flu and other diseases should have convinced us to change our dietary life style. It did not convince me. Lots of vegetarians feel that it is just plain cruel in this day and age to kill an animal just for the benefit of our taste buds. I argued about man being a carnivore although it is no longer an issue of mere survival.

For me, for some reason, it was the ecological cost of eating meat that was the tipping point. I guess that makes me an environmental vegetarian.

Caveat: You will not see me hesitate if the only item available on the menu is chicken soup. I do not believe in starving myself to save a chicken.

PS: Jannavi found the link and this article has been updated.

She wears a shirt!!

2009-03-20T08:06:00.000-04:00

Manama, my 4 year old likes to wear and prance around in a princess costume that some one gave as a gift for Christmas. These dresses are frilly and generally bright colored. She likes it so much sometimes during weekends we cannot get her to change into any other clothes and it is a trial getting her into street clothes come Monday morning when it is time to go to school.

Last week she came down walking down the stairs and exclaimed "Am I not the most beauuuutiful girl you ever saw!!". Needless to say she is well known for her modesty.

Much as I love her, I could scarcely agree since that would mean facing the wrath of two other girls in the household.

So I told "You are very pretty, but I know two other pretty girls. Do you know who I am talking about?"

She thought very quickly and came up with two of her friends. I agreed with her that her friends were very pretty. I explained I was referring to her amma (mom) and akka (older sister). Ignoring my reference to my older daughter Manama focused her thoughts on my wife. Something clearly was wrong here.

"She is not a girl, she is a women"

So?

"She is a mom!!". The tone was clear. Dad, you don't get it do you?

She clinched the deal with this

"She wears a shirt!!"

Sorry honey I batted for you.

Concert by Shobana Vignesh

2009-02-22T15:04:00.000-05:00

Shobana Vignesh gave a Classical Carnatic music concert yesterday at the Mahalakshmi Temple in Hockessin, DE. She was accompanied on the violin by Sandhya Srinath, a well known artist from the DC Metro area Rajana Swaminathan on the Mridangam.

The concert started with Saraseeruha Sanapriye in Raga Nattai followed by a piece in Raga Atana. The second half of the concert was devoted solely to crowd pleasers such as

Kurai Ondrum Illai by Rajaji
Chinnan Chiru Kiliye by Bharatiyar
Bho Shambo by Svami Dayananda Sarasvati

There were only three songs that I would rate as more serious or heavy. The first was in Raaga Lalitha, the second was in Raaga Dharmavati and the last was Raaga Thodi, although the last is a popular concert raaga. She closed out her concert with two songs in Raaga Madhyamavati and Raaga Kurinji.

Shobana has a crystal clear voice. They ranges effortlessly in the upper ranges of the scale (tarastayi) where she shows no signs of stress. In fact I told her after the concert that it felt as if she had a whole octave to spare. I did feel that she did not dwell a lot in the lower ranges (mandarastayi), but that I feel is not surprising. In general I think male singers fare better in the lower scales whereas women seem more comfortable in the upper reaches. Overall, she was keenly aware of the pulse of the audience and picked her songs very wisely. This was not a crowd of hard core Carnatic music connoisseurs besides there was a decent sprinkling of children. So typically the songs contained a brief alapana and short svara kalpana. The bulk of the time was spent rendering the Kriti itself.

Click here for a complete list of songs.

Genome - Matt Ridley

2009-02-15T19:32:00.001-05:00

Two years ago Raji introduced me to Matt Ridley by lending me a copy of the book Genome. This is a book that should be read in one sitting. I did. This is a book that should be read many times. I have. Three times - so far.

The book consists of 23 chapters and each chapter focuses on one of the 23 chromosomes in our species. The author goes about with his description in an interesting manner. He takes various topics that are important or interesting to humanity and weaves a story about the chromosome using that topic. The author credits this approach to a similar approach by another famous author, the late Primo Levi. In his book, The Periodic Table, Primo Levi described the elements of a periodic table by relating them to various stories, some of them taken from his own life and experiences.

Without revealing too much details, let me describe some of the chapters that were very good, the rest being merely good!!

Chapter One sets the tone for the book with a grand title Life!! It deals with several important topics, RNA, DNA, 5S gene on chromosome, and surprisingly a Turing machine!! What on earth does a central concept from computer science have to do with biochemistry? Well you have to reach this chapter for that. Trust me it is not incidental. A brief digression - Alan Turing was a genius. If Noble Prize could have been awarded for outstanding work in Computer Science, he would have easily won one or two.

Chapter Four is Fate. Religious people and others who are not aware of advances in biochemistry generally misrepresent or misunderstand how genes work. They imply a determinism to genes - if you have this gene then this bad thing (put a suitable disease) will happen to you - that does not exist. First of all, genes do not exist to cause diseases. They exist to serve a purpose. It is when a mutation occurs in a gene that bad things could happen. The key here is could. Second, genes are no more deterministic than the weather is, both being examples of nonlinear systems. Just as weather man never gives absolute answers but couch their prediction in probabilities of certain weather patterns occurring, so does a geneticist.

Chapter Seven is about Conflict. This chapter was really scary - at least for men. Men may rule the world, but out in the world of gene, it is the women who have the men on the run!!

I will just list the titles of a few more chapters that I loved; Stress, Immortality, Sex, Memory, Politics, Free Will, and Death.

If there is one message I took away from this book, it is this - Genes are not there to cause diseases.

Dubya's affliction with The Foot In the Mouth Disease

2009-02-15T18:25:00.001-05:00

George W Bush has a well documented affliction with this disease. In fact the store of inanities attributed to Dubya, or Bush-isms as they are called, is so large this site has indexed it by the year it was uttered. Here is a short list of my personal favorites.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.
Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?
There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again
Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country

Note - In case you wonder about the phrase Foot In the Mouth Disease, it is a play on Foot and Mouth Disease that typically afflicts domesticated animal. I thought of this phrase, but I am sure I was not the first to come up with it. I googled the phrase but could not find a definitive answer as to who came up with it first.

Prince And I

2009-02-15T12:18:00.001-05:00

You all know the maxim - If at first you don't succeed, try try again. The spider at the center of the legend surrounding King Bruce required eight attempts to succeed.

But George W Bush succeeded in only his second attempt!!

4-5 months ago it was finally clear that Dubya, as the former President is affectionately addressed, had done it. I mean he had succeeded in ruining our great economy. The economy is now officially in recession. Over 10 trillion dollars of wealth has evaporated!!

It is such a large number, that it makes no sense to ordinary folks like us who need a calculator to compute 15% tips at the restaurant. So I tried various ways to put it in perspective - if you counted one dollar a second you would need nearly 30000 years to count it all!! I am sure that leaves you as clueless as before as to the sheer enormity of this number. Don't worry. I am in your company. I am no more capable of comprehending 30000 years as I am of 10 trillion dollars. It leaves you with a feeling of helplessness.

So I stopped my attempts at getting a handle on how someone could evaporate this large an amount of money and I did the next best thing. I decided to refinance. I had a more aggressive 15 year mortgage and wanted to move to a easier 30 year loan in case one of us loses our job.

I searched for one and found a lender named Prince Aurora. When I met him, I was not able to place him accurately. He was tall; over 6 feet, of wheatish complexion, smart looking, well dressed and generally presented an air of quiet confidence.

The phrase wheatish complexion is a familiar one in Indian matrimonial circles. When used on a man it is complimentary; a man who is neither too dark not too fair. God forbid if it were used to describe a girl; it means she is dark. And Indians discriminate very well on the basis of color!! The Hindi word गोरी pronounced funnily enough "gory" means fair maiden!! Not for nothing is our caste system called वर्ण (varna); it means color.

Back to Prince. Now I am a curious fellow and my curiosity takes the form of trying to figure out origins of names. His first name, Prince, gave me no help and his last name Aurora had a Scandinavian sound to it; Aurora Borealis. Prince did not look like he was from Norway or Sweden. So I caved in asked where he was from. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was from India and was raised in West Delhi quite close to where I used to live as a child. So I asked him how did he get the name Aurora and it turned out his father when he became a naturalized American, changed the Punjabi name Arora to Aurora to make it easier for folks in the good old USA.

My curiosity was now sated. I could now sleep well at night.

Sporophyte and Gametophyte - When is a human a human?

2009-02-01T17:37:00.001-05:00

Alternation of Generation - I remember reading about this in 9th grade and not paying much attention to it. But it is very interesting. In simple terms, there are two phases, the haploid when the cells of the plant have one set of chromosomes and then the diploid phase where the cells have two sets of chromosome. The former is also called gametophyte and the latter sporophyte. The diploid form is produced by fusion of two haploid and the haploid form by meiosis of the diploid form. In most higher forms of plants (the word higher is not used in a pejorative sense) the dominant phase is mostly diploid and the haploid form is restricted typically to flowers. But in Bryophytes such as moss the dominant phase is the haploid phase.

Well humans and also most animals are diploid, that is, the majority of the tissue contains two sets of chromosomes. The haploid phase is restricted to the gametes, namely the sperm and the ovum.

What does this all mean?

Think of it this way - the broyophyte is either made of all sperm like tissue or ovum like tissue. I do not mean in physical appearance.

Why is it all important to us?

It is a question of when a human being is a human being. Is there some humanity in the sperm? How about the Ova? People use the 24th week of pregnancy as a magic mark, as the line that differentiates a human from what is euphemistically called a fetus. We use that word fetus so we can be objective when decisions involving termination of pregnancy is being made. But is that obvious? Not to me. In certain creatures the entire life is made up of sperm and ova like entities and the diploid form shows up for only a few days during spore formation!! As I see it, the sperm, the egg, and the fetus have as much humanity as does the individual that reads this post. There can be no individual without the sperm, the egg, or the fetus.

Despite all this I still am Pro-Choice. Why?

I am opposed to the Church, which means Men, controlling the womb.

But I also hope we could have an educated conversation on this topic. Abortion after all should be a means of last resort and not a form of birth control!!

I actually like Federer now

2009-02-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

Before 2008 there was an air of inevitability about men's tennis matches. Unless it was French Open, it was a given that the winner would be Roger Federer. Even at that venue, there were some doubts - what if Rafeal Nadal were to succumb to a hot player in an earlier round and lose. After all Federer had been in 19 consecutive Grand Slam Semi-finals and 18 of the past 23 Grand Slam Finals!! You had the sense you were watching Borg in their relentless mission to assimilate and nothing would get in his way - Resistance is futile and all. If there was a smidgen of suspense left, it was always who was going to be the bridesmaid.

If all this did not give away my opinion, let me state it before it is too late. I do not like Federer, I do not mean as a person, since I do not know him at all. I know, it is sacrilege, as if I said I did not like Michael Jordan. Yes I did not like Michael also; only one who has lived in Detroit or New York and rooted for Pistons or Knicks respectively would understand. Similarly I always rooted for Pete Sampras from the outset. Sampras lost at Wimbledon in a 5 setter to Federer in 2001 in their only head to head meeting in an ATP tournament.

Before 2008, the question was when would Federer win more Grand Slams than Sampras's tally of 14. Then came the year 2008 when Federer won only a single grand slam title and lost in (holy cow) of all places Wimbledon to Rafa. Now people could actually dare to ask - will he ever get more than 14?

In 2009 it gets more interesting. Roger Federer aiming for the 14th grand slam title, loses again to Nadal in a final of 2009 Australian Open in another 5 setter epic considered by many to be one of the best matches. To compound it he breaks down and sobs during the the award ceremony!!

The Borg do not cry!!

I was always afraid that if we we ever peered inside Federer, we would see nuts, bolts and micro chips not blood and guts. I guess, this was the first time I saw the human side of Federer. I could even conceive of the possibility of actually rooting for Federer, since no matter what, he is definitely now the underdog whenever he plays Nadal.

Free At Last

2009-01-20T12:53:00.000-05:00

It is one of the best days of my life. I saw Barack Obama being sworn in. I heard his speech. I never thought I would live to see the day when a speech by a politician would move me. We are all jaded. We saw Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Oh My God, Dubya and we saw the spiral downward from which we thought politics would never recover.

We are finally free, free of George W Bush. Hooray.

It is too early to say the politics as it was is finally over. I have hope. I have hope that this man would lead us to a better future. I also hope that the weight of our expectation would not crush him.

All in all a great day for United States of America and the world in general.

What is in a name - Take Two

2009-01-19T07:50:00.001-05:00

I have written before how my name gets mangled all the time. Recently I received an mail from my bank addressed to

Ramar G Havan

It was pretty decent of the bank to shorten my first name, give me a new last name and finally add a middle initial that I so lacked!!

Insults and Monkey-Gate

2008-12-30T11:06:00.001-05:00

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!!

2008-12-06T12:49:00.001-05:00

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

2008-12-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

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

Mark my words, this stock will go up 10000% or
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?

2008-11-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-11-17T06:32:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-15T05:52:00.000-05:00

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

2008-10-27T13:17:00.000-04:00

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

2008-10-27T13:04:00.000-04:00

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!!

2008-09-16T11:19:00.001-04:00

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

2008-09-08T11:23:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-03T18:36:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-25T18:31:00.001-04:00

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

2008-07-18T19:45:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-04T01:41:00.002-04:00

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

Restaurateur - Oil producers
First Obese person - USA
Second Obese person - Europe
Overfed pets - Monstrously big vehicles, centrally heated and cooled McMansions 200 hundred miles from civilization (and more).
7 poor people - China and India
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.

USA - 7794 (this includes me)
France - 4518
Germany - 4203
UK - 3918
China - 1138
India - 512
Ghana - 400

What do you think?

Lakshvataram

2008-07-04T01:41:00.001-04:00

Kamal is a great actor.

He has won a the National Film Award for Best Child Artist
He has won several national awards for best actor
He has won several Filmfare Best Tamil Actor Award. I would be surprised if he has not won the most number of these awards
He has won Filmfare Best Telugu Actor Award
He has won the Filmfare Best Kannada Actor Award
Several of his movies were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film
He has won a regional Filmfare award for a Malayalam movie
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

2008-06-27T05:21:00.000-04:00

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

2008-06-24T03:13:00.000-04:00

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

2008-06-23T03:52:00.000-04:00

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

2008-06-23T03:37:00.000-04:00

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

2008-06-07T12:42:00.000-04:00

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

2008-06-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-31T09:06:00.001-04:00

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

2008-05-19T08:07:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-19T21:36:00.000-04:00

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?

2008-04-12T03:02:00.001-04:00

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

2008-04-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

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.

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.
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.
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.
Is there a cash prize and if so who gets it? I am not sure about this part.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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

2008-03-31T02:45:00.000-04:00

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

Hosted solution implies controlled development and deployment environment
Keeps them small and agile
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

2008-03-21T02:24:00.000-04:00

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

2008-03-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

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

How much I have improved.
How she did not like all this self-deprecating humour.
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

2008-03-08T00:53:00.001-05:00

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

Ununderstandable - Some of the earlier subjects were a bit dry. (This, that, and the other)
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.
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 ...

2008-03-04T12:10:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-18T19:35:00.000-05:00

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

Ravi K and I ate 60 Idlis

2008-02-02T17:07:00.001-05:00

The event described below happened more than a decade ago when J was expecting our first child D. One of the usual features of this pregnancy was that J barely put on any weight. Most people would not guess that she was pregnant especially if she was sitting. And when the lady joined civilization 6 weeks later most people would not believe that she has just delivered a baby.

Most pregnant spouses usually get pampered but not in our house. J still cooked the best meals and our friends use to comment on how well I held up under the pregnancy. One day she made Idli and Sambar. Our friend Ravi K had come that evening to check on us. Ravi is a funny guy although his humor sometimes takes a juvenile turn. I believe that jokes about bodily functions (such as crapping) stops being funny post teen-age after which jokes take the form of sexual innuendoes. In Ravi's case the former type of jokes are yet to lose their appeal. So we suffer.

Getting back to the idli and sambar, J suggested that we eat our idlis hot and we acquiesced gracefully. We must have been very hungry or the food extremely delicious or both. The next thing we remember is J telling us that there was no more idlis left!! We ate so much that we left nothing for a pregnant woman!! Suffice to say neither of us are very proud of this episode in our life.

My nightmare

2008-02-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

I dream a lot. I dream daily. Thankfully I do not remember all of them. But some of them are very vivid. You know the type of dream that when couple of days later remind of some event that you think really took place.

It seems it is OK to dream but my mom before my marriage and my wife thereafter do not seem to enjoy listening to me recounting them. So it is your turn to listen.

My dreams come in several varieties. Surprisingly even after 2 decades of being out of college; yes I am old fart; the most common theme seems to be around exams. Sometimes I find that I am at an exam and cannot remember anything that I have studied. Other times I realize that I have not prepared for the exam. Invariably this is always the final semester which would prevent me from graduating!! A variation on this theme is the missed exam. Usually I forget that I have an exam and do not go to college and find out later that I have missed it or I go to college several hours late on the day of the exam. Once or twice I have gone to an exam having studied another subject; I am kidding, that one was real. No really I actually did it and I am told that it is not that uncommon either.

Another genre of dream is about clothing or the lack there of. In all of these I usual find myself in various public places not suitably dressed. Occasionally I am not dressed at all. The strange thing in all these is not the fact that I am embarrassed and want to put on some clothes but that everyone else in my dream is serenely unaware of my natural state!! I must remember to ask our friend Dr. Ram who is a shrink what this dream means.

Then there are the dreams where something bad happens to people especially near and dear and I do not want to talk about them as they make me sad. I have enough pain from reality not to relive the painfulness of these dreams. I am thankful that these dreams are few and far apart.

Lastly I have a large number of dream where I miss a train, flight, or the bus and I have be somewhere urgently. Well I recently had one such dream that took the cake.

In this one I was standing in line at the airport and guess who do I see. Rudy Giuliani was ahead of me and flashing his badge and was being allowed to jump the line. I am digressing this dream is not about Rudy. At that moment I realize that I do not have my tickets!! That did not bother me as much as the fact that I found myself walking empty handed which means I left my computer in office in Velachary, Chennai. The worst of all I did not have my luggage.

One would be forgiven if they thought I had some valuables in them such as gifts for J and the kids D & M. Not really. I recently discovered that I could buy inexpensive but quality books India. These are books I read as a kid such as Amar Chitra Katha, Enid Blyton, Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, etc. Lufthansa allows 2 check-in bags weighing about 100 pounds along with 15 pounds in carry on luggage. So I usually carry an empty suitcase since all my clothes fill just one bag with the hope that I could fill the other bag full of books for my return trip. The thought that I had wasted an India trip without coming back with books was sickening. I guess only a bookworm would appreciate my anxiety about the missed luggage.

Shaivism and Vaishnavism - Two Exclusive Clubs

2008-01-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

More than a decade ago, I heard in graduate school a joke -

Q) What are the three degrees of egoism?
A) I, Iyer, Iyengar

This probably does not make any sense to a Non-Indian and even amongst Indians it is understood best by South Indians. Iyers and Iyengars are two sects of Brahmins predominantly from Southern India. The joke (if it is not clear) is about their snootiness

and therein lies the irony; first some back ground ...

Sometime in 11th century Ramanuja initiated a philosophy what ended up resulting in the sect Sri Vaishnavas or Iyengars. Ramanuja disagreed with the prevailing orthodoxy, which was the Advaita school of thought (that in its time was revolutionary) and Iyers follow Shankara's school of thought.

This post started with a joke, promised an irony. Now you are merely left with boredom. So to tide over the boredom let me recount a story, sorry I mean two stories, one attributed to Shankara and the other to Ramanuja.

While on a walk, some disciples of Shankara were supposed to have shooed a person of lower caste to which this person asked them how that was possible since the same entity (Brahman) that pervaded him also pervaded Shankara. Shankara acknowledged the validity of this argument and is supposed to have apologized.

In the case of Ramanuja, his teacher taught him a powerful mantra, but adjured him to keep it a secret. Those who repeated this mantra were supposed to attain Salvation. Ramanuja immediately called all people, irrespective of caste and creed, to assemble before the temple. He then stood on top of the tower above the front gate of the temple, and shouted out the sacred Mantra to all of them at the top of his voice. His teacher was furious to which Ramanuja said that he would rather see millions attain salvation if that meant torture in hell for himself.

Then the irony as I see it is this;

Both stories clearly demonstrate that at least in the minds of these two men All men were equal. Both these sects were universal in their philosophy. To the best of my knowledge there is no mention of caste. How then do Iyers and Iyengars form two of the most exclusive clubs?

As you sow, so shall you reap

2007-12-30T17:58:00.000-05:00

Little over a decade and a half ago, a suicide bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. I vividly remember one Sinhalese student at that time telling me in an acidulated voice about how they have this saying in Sri Lanka that can be summarized as follows - if you feed a snake it is apt to bite you in the end. She was referring to Rajiv Gandhi's support for LTTE and its subsequent withdrawal finally culmunating in his assassination by an LTTE suicide bomber. I was shocked at that time. How could someone be so uncharitable? It is a convention that if one is unable to praise the dead one should at least avoid censure.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated a few days ago in Pakistan and my first reaction was how sad. A little later the reaction set in. I now realize that the reaction from the Sinhalese student made sense in a perverse way. This is not to justify my uncharitable thought. It is my thought right now.

Almost all Pakistani political leaders typically follow a policy that can be summed by a saying - To run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In a way Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a logical denouement; the proverbial chicken coming home to roost. For over two decade Pakistan has been been involved in a proxy war using religion as a strategic tool. It has had the tacit approval of all political leader regardless of their public utterances.

Well the creation has now fully come of age. The snake that used to dance to the piper's tune so well initially has realized that it no longer needs to obey the master. It now dances to a tune of its own.

May be some good could come from this. India lost two Prime Ministers to assassination; Mother and Son. Both of them were done in by creations of their own making. This I think lead to certain healthy introspection in India. Last week's event could lead to a maturing of body politic in Pakistan.

Can I sing Jana Gana Mana?

2007-12-28T11:38:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, to be precise on August 14th, we were having dinner at our friends place. She had also included several other couple we have known for almost a decade now. All of us at the dinner were of Indian origin, settled in this country for over 15 years. All of us had chosen to take US citizenship voluntarily. You must be thinking "If there is a point, please make it now"

Since August 15th, the following day, is the independence day for India, some of the people in this group wanted to sing the Indian National Anthem. I asked the question that having voluntarily chosen American citizenship, if it was appropriate and pretty soon the conversation got pretty heated.

From this point on this post is nothing but me simply bloviating at the WWW. So stop reading if you so choose.

So let me pontificate.

To sing a national anthem of another country; let us face it; India is another country for some of us; is similar to swearing allegiance to another country. No one in US actually twisted our arms to become citizens here. We voluntarily chose this responsibility. In fact we wanted to be US citizens for the multitude of benefits that it gives is starting with no hassle travel all over the world. Moreover in the US thankfully for the white dude, we are just this brown skinned guy who speaks with a funny accent, worships strange gods, eats spicy food etc. We are not thankfully segmented by caste, language, region, and all the many ways we choose to divide ourselves. Don't kid yourself we do not; just check the matrimonial section of any newspaper. This is not to imply that there are not many advantages in remaining Indians. The fact is that all of us made some analysis and chose one over the other. Case closed.

Now obviously certain members of this crowd still felt guilty about their choice.

Some of them tried to gloss over it with the quip "It is just a song". If that were so, why sing it on only August 14th or 15th. Why not sing it in the loo or during showers. These individuals felt emotional and a strong sense of nostalgia when that song was played. Obviously symbols like the flag and national anthem mean something of belonging to a group.

Nuf said.

How I went on a hike and ended up eating a great Breakfast instead

2007-12-07T06:35:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I was in Bangalore to visit my wife's family. I landed at the house at 5:30 and we leisurely talked about this and that. Usually my b-i-l and I make some plans or other to go see some nearby places. So after talking about various places of interest we settled on a day hike to a place called Shiva Ganga near Tumkur.

We had starting problem. To eat or not, to shower or not, to drive or not etc. Finally we hauled our butts at about 8:30 and left Jayanagar without having had a decent breakfast. Within 10 minutes it was apparent that we should have left much earlier. The traffic was stop and go and near Yashwantpur it pretty much stopped moving. After about 45 minutes of this intermittent driving I could sense my b-i-l getting a little frustrated and I suggested that we just turn around and go back and maybe plan on an early morning hike the next day. By this time our stomachs started making themselves heard rather loudly. As luck would have it we saw some signs by the side of the road that lifted our spirits. Turn left for Golden Palm Resort. It turned out to be a really posh hotel cum restaurant cum resort cum spa. Yup, just a nice place to have a much needed breakfast.

We parked our car and went through a lobby with vaulted ceiling. Beyond that were nicely laid paths with grass, shrubbery, flowers, and trees on either side. In front was a large swimming pool with a restaurant further away. I must tell you that the dosa was really good and so was the coffee. After eating a mere 6 masala dosas and 4 vadas and 2 coffees the world was at peace. I could hear birds chirping again. After idling over our 2nd coffee we paid our bill and drove away. At this point I made a supreme discovery. After the rather sumptuous meal I had lost my appetite for the hike. Moreover since I had landed just the day before from the US the jet lag kicked in making me very sleepy. So to cut it short we went back home!!

A small digression; while we were walking back besides the pool my b-i-l told me how he had stayed earlier at this resort and had met the person who was the manager of the pool. This man was a white man who looked vaguely familiar. My b-i-l could not resist mentioning the fact to pool manager and guessed if he was an ex-cricket player. The white man laughed and said "Jai Bajrang Bali" in anglicized accents.

Did you guess who he is?

He plays one of the bad guys in Mr. India, you know the one trying to steal India's heritage.

Tchuss

Puddle hopping in Velachery, Chennai

2007-12-07T06:09:00.002-05:00

Today is December 3rd and it has rained in Chennai early in the morning. By most standard it would be an average sized downpour, something that when it happens in the US we do not take notice. But in Velachery, Chennai the streets are waterlogged. Not that anyone is making any fuss about, it is not a catastrophe. People just walk around the puddles. When they are unable to navigate around the puddles, the shrug the shoulders, remove their sandals, and wade in!! They are used to the corporation doing nothing and have no future expectations either.

Anyway, I set out to get something from the store near Vijay Nagar Bus stand and was navigating my way around the various puddles and really enjoying it. If you have not done it before try it; it is a lot of fun. Then I was in front of a mega puddle which means that the entire street, end to end, was covered in water. Unfortunately I was wearing shoes and wading in water was not an option. It looked like I was stumped and was on the point of walking back when I saw an ingenious solution. I saw this guy walking along the wall of a house holding on the metal grill set on top of boundary wall literally hanging on to it!!

I too tried it. It worked. As I was hanging from the grill, a car went through the puddle and my heart was in my mouth as the waves (yes they were small waves) washed over my shoes. Luckily I navigated without any disaster.

The next one was interesting. So far all the puddles were in the middle and the high ground was on the side of the road. This puddle was all on the side I was walking on and to get around it I had to go to the middle of the road and just then this huge van horn blaring came behind me. I was surprised by the agility I displayed. No one else seemed surprised; the speed with which I got around this puddle is normal for people here but it was a bit scary.

On the whole I loved it all. Puddle hopping, puddle skirting, hanging to the grill and evading a puddle.

How easily we lapse into our old self. For example I now nod my head side to side as Indians generally do. You know what I am talking about. The ambivalent, neither a NO, nor a YES, shake of the head!! It took me decade and half to cure myself of the side to side waggle of my head. A mere year and of half of association with India and Indians was enough to undo it!!

Odds and Ends from Chennai September 2007

2007-11-09T10:32:00.000-05:00

Couple of months ago I did something that pleased my parents a lot. I joined them on a visit to see their guru (teacher). On the way I spent my time looking at other vehicles, the drivers, various billboards, and just about anything I could read. Here are some that sounded interesting

"We two, Ours One" - This slogan does not sound nice in English. Anyone who has heard of family planning (euphemism for population control) knows it sounded better in Hindi "Hum Dhow Hamaare Dhow". The important thing to note is; parents are now being asked to have one kid!! Growing up in India, the ideal family size was four; two parents plus two children.

Trucks that ply on the road have many interesting messages and slogan on the rear; such as "Conserve water" and the one we saw earlier "We two, Ours One" to name a few. But I am missing a very important one that is almost an order; "Sound Horn". Folks that have driven a vehicle in the US know that honking is akin to giving someone the middle finger!! Fist fights have broken out over this and here we have people asking for the horn!! Some of them even have a polite touch "Please Sound Horn" as if that made it palatable!!

There was a sign for a some training institute named "Pengvin". I wonder if their course material had one on spelling.

Driving through Chennai one sees some unusual sights; there was a priest dressed in his traditional dhoti, bare chested, but driving a motor cycle!! Another one was the sight of a conservative Brahmin lady dressed in a 9-yards sari and driving scooter. I never missed a camera more in my life.

Blogs I Read

2007-09-24T00:54:00.000-04:00

This post is one that will keep evolving as I find more interesting blogs.

The first one is Fake Steve Jobs. Although there is no mystery anymore over identity of Fake Steve Jobs, his posts are still hilarious. Here are a few of his posts I like a lot

Regarding my management style : The picture at the top is worth a thousand words. But here are a few gems.

"Never let people know where they stand."
You don't have to hire the best people. You can hire anyone, as long as you scare the bejesus out of them.
Hold people to an impossibly high standard, but here's the twist -- don't tell them what that standard is.

Regarding our iPhone
My lunch with Nancy Pelosi
Hassles with Yoko : This one is about licensing Beatles on iTunes and how Yoko wants the band to be named "John Lennon and the Beatles"

Then there is Joel on Software. This is techie blog; to use his own words "Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet". Some of the articles I have liked are

The Law of Leaky Abstraction: This article shows how most abstractions (a concept widely used in software engineering) fail for various reasons and reveal the underlying details they are meant to hide or abstract away. He uses the TCP/IP as a example of an abstraction to hide the network.
Pretty much every other article

I also like several article from Paul Graham. He was a founder of a company that was acquired by Yahoo and now he is a VC. He also is a great fan of Lisp and has written several articles on the subject.

Why startups condense in America? describes the conditions that make america an ideal place for startups. It also analyzes the reason other regions have not be so prolific.
Beating the Averages : This is also titled "Lisp for web based Development"
Pretty much every other article

I have also read a few blogs of Guy Kawasaki.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint
An open letter to CXO is a reference to a very nice post a from Pam Slim where she exhorts management to not treat employees with dignity and respect, "to avoid endless hours of PowerPoint, buzzwords and meaningless jargon like "our employees are our most valuable asset." If you suffer from (mis) management (or even otherwise) please read this.

How my wife one day broke the weight barrier

2007-08-29T13:34:00.001-04:00

Now I have been married close to 15 years. So I know the answer to this really, really, very dangerous question which if not properly addressed, few marriages survive the answer.

Q: Honey am I fat?
A: Of course not. You are as slim as the day I met you (remember opposite of fat is not thin, it is slim)

Now unlike other hubbies, I really do not need to resort to this lie. No really, I mean it. I have not hypnotized myself into believing my own answer to a point where I ignore reality. My wife really has not put on weight in the past 15 years. But you could say that if the spouse were 300lbs to start with, there is not much more to gain. As you will see shortly this is not the case.

Anyway it came as a surprise one day a few months when she came crying to me

"Raag, I am fat, I just broke the weight barrier".

She then added how she had been binge eating and was unable to stop. I did not really hear much past the word "broke" as I rushed to the bathroom where we kept the weighing machine and was relieved to see that everything looked fine.

Since I am used to getting the latest update on my wife's weight every week, I knew what my wife weighed to within a pound or so. So I asked her what was her latest weight wondering if she had secretly gained 20 pounds or so which she could really be hiding under loose fitting clothes.

My wife sobbed "119lbs"!!

For those of you on metric system it is 54Kg. Now by no stretch of imagination could 119lb be considered fat unless one is under 4 feet and my wife stood 5ft 3in in stockings!! Besides this was also very much in the range of her weight since our marriage except when she was encumbered by two pregnancies.

But as I told you I am a pro and knew several ways to address this issue. So I started by simply blaming the poor machine by telling her how really these weighing machines are retail machines calibrated with as much as 5% error. Being technical helps. Being able to talk confidently about statistics, errors in measurement, etc makes it plausible.

I also asked her what she weighed the last time and prompt came the reply 117lbs. It did not seem so bad, but I knew better than to tell her that. So I casually asked her if she humor me by checking her weight again for my benefit.

Imagine my surprise and her shock when the machine stubbornly showed 116lbs!!

My wife no longer likes to talk about her weight problem with me.

Jannavi's Moment of Clarity

2007-07-12T14:13:00.000-04:00

Jannavi sent this as an email to some of our friends on May 28, 2004. She says nice things about my writing, but you all will admit that when it comes from the heart as this one does, it is really good. A cliche definitely, I just wish I wrote such cliche :-)

Disclaimer: I have taken the liberty of fixing typos and reformatted the email. No other change has been made to the original email.

Hi Everyone,

Sitting at home yesterday, I was just thinking about things that happened in my recent past and I thought I should send this mail to all of you about how my life, our lives, has changed, and how it is actually helping me have a different perspective. I do apologize if it is a bit long and disconnected, i am penning this as my thoughts are forming....

When I met Raag, in 1991, he joked at the way I planned my life, I only saw in multiples of 5 and 10 into the future. I planned for us, with an attitude that, I would make it happen exactly as I envisioned. I planned.

When we had Devayani in 1995, I planned months ahead how I would bring her up. I had detailed plans of what she will be when she grows up. This, even before she knew how to walk! I planned.

When we were looking for a house in MD, I was paranoid I would not get into a good school district. My daughter was 3 and I was planning her high school graduation. Raag and I fought everyday about the house we wanted. He didn't care about schools, I didn't care about commute time. We bought a house far from his job, and not in the greatest school district and I was upset it did not go with my long term 'plan'.

When we started trying for a second child back in 1999, I was 'planning' yet again I wanted only a summer baby because I didn't want to have my child lose a year by being born in winter. I 'planned' for a summer baby because I thought it would suit Raag well during his trips to and from the hospital. I planned.

When I lost my job last year, my world came crashing down around me. We were going to have a baby. What were we going to do with one job down and how were we going to pay for college for two kids. My distant future plans were upset. I had to get a job, and I did. My plans were still intact, till the miscarriage.

After all this, here I am. Devayani is doing so well at her school, that I am happy we bought this house when we did. We survived a car accident that few can live to talk about. I have discovered that I have such a resilient daughter, she makes me proud everyday. In the end of March this year, I was laid off again. I realize I am actually happy. I am happy to be home. I haven't had any of the knee jerk reactions I had during last year's layoff like cutting down on expenses, vacations, activities for Devayani, none of that. We had such a wonderful vacation hiking in Utah and CA and for something we hardly 'planned', it was our best trip. And this was two days after I lost my job, very unlike me.

The events in our lives, has shown me what a fool I have been all these years. What was I thinking when I said I can tackle life and control it to my liking. How I have wasted my time planning into a future I have no control of. It is sad that we had to go thru the things we did to have such an eyeopener (I am not being sarcastic).

All I want to say is, live for the moment. Cherish what you have now, and don't think what all you can have in the future. Don't plan so far into the future, that you forget to enjoy the present. So if you ask me what my plans are for Labor Day or Jul 4 weekend, I will smile, and tell you, I don't know what I am doing tomorrow. And you know what, it is not because I am afraid of the future, it is because I am really enjoying life this way. Stopping for all the small joys around me because I don't know what is in store for me tomorrow, and I don't care to know about it
today.

I hope I didn't bore you.

Cliche

2007-07-09T14:33:00.000-04:00

I never have original thoughts. I despair of ever having original thoughts. In fact I cannot recollect ever having had one. I have had a few quips, a pun here or there, some word play that resulted in a neat joke. But an original thought that can be go toe to toe with those by say Mark Twain; nah that does not seem to be in my fortune in this birth.

You must be thinking "What arrogance, guy can't bat 0.25 but wants to hit a Grand Slam!! He has to request, say please, sometimes pretty please, several times .... to get people to read his blogs and he has the effrontery to refer to Mark Twain. Get real!!"

Anyway, there have been times, albeit rarely, when I have had moments of clarity, when an epiphany arose (Disclaimer - moments not induced by LSD or any other stimulants). Later after passage of some time when I make an attempt to recapture those thoughts they no longer feel as impressive. In fact they come across as common place or cliched. But then after several days of inaction I am left with a feeling of discontent that maybe I had a good idea but never followed it up.

Maybe it is not merely having an epiphany that is important, it is what we do with it that makes it relevant. We need to develop them, polish them and finally present them to a discerning audience. Maybe all great ideas start as a epiphany, only in these cases the author has the extraordinary drive to take this idea from his brain and successfully plant it several million brains. It is our choice whether we let our ideas live or die. Does that make sense?

Hey maybe the previous para counts as a decent thought?

So when last time a thought occurred I took the decision to in the future put it down in writing. So rather than present it as original thought I decided to set it out in blogosphere and see what people think and let them judge its triteness. But thinking is hard and I do not mean idle thoughts of winning 100 million dollars in a lottery, but real, to the point, purposeful thinking. This is compounded by the fact that I am out of practice. If thinking is hard, writing is harder. Anybody can write, only a few can command the attention of the reader.

So what is the cliche for this week?

I am sorry I forgot what it is :-). It is probably not as important as the resolution it led to, which is --

In the future when a wonderfully cliched idea hits me you will be the first one to hear it.

NONZERO - Book

2007-06-16T02:31:00.001-04:00

Games like Chess have a simple proposition; I win, you lose; you win, I lose. Both cannot win at the same time. Games like these are called Zero Sum Games. The opposite of this is Non-zero-Sum where the sum of gains and losses by the players are always more or less than what they began with.

This concept was developed in Game Theory where players choose different action to maximize their returns. It turns out that although developed as a tool at the height of cold war, it has ended up being a useful in day to day affairs involving negotiations between two parties.

Trivial as these concepts seem at first, it turns out the life itself is a large scale Non-Zero-Sum Game operating at many levels!! Nature has been doing its own research on Game Theory for billions of years!! Genes subsume their individuality teaming with other genes to form viruses, bacteria and other single celled creatures. Cells get together and form multi-cellular organisms with continuous evolution in complexity. At each point the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The implication here is that life presents us with scenarios that may seem adversarial at first glance only to reveal opportunities for cooperation.

The book I want to talk about is NONZERO is by Robert Wright

This book takes a slight slant in it that; it claims that cultural development is predictably always in forward. Although politically incorrect to label earlier cultures as progressing from "Savagery", "barbarians", "low barbarians" to finally "civilized", it was felt by looking back at over the past several millennium that historical forces inevitably forced a cultural evolution along those lines.

This book describes several cultures spread over several millennium with examples spanning five continents. In each case the author makes a convincing case for direction of the arrow of culture as moving forward; towards greater social complexity and interdependence. He shows by clear examples how repeatedly in history there has been major technology shifts that convinces that generation that they are living in a period of great change!! Each technological leap increases the possibility of Nonzero-sumness leading to even greater interdependence.

Read also The Evolution of Cooperation by Axelrod for more on this topic.

Importance of a 20 Rupees

2007-05-30T23:40:00.000-04:00

As you all know (since I do not fail to mention it in all my conversations) I have been travelling to India often in the past year and a half. The past 3 visits have all been to Chennai which happens to be the location of the company we are doing business with. The name of this company is Adventnet and they have a unusual product line called Zoho. Adventnet is well known in network management circles and Zoho is now making a name for itself. Rather than describe the various Zoho Products in any level of details, I will just say this; very soon (no prediction on the time line) you will not be using Microsoft Office. Check them out. Consider this para as a plug for Zoho.

Getting back to my topic; I usually take a cab to go back and forth from my house in Indira Nagar where my parents live when they are not in Delhi. Yup, my parents are very Cosmo. I get my cab from Sai Cab, decently reliable guys, average cars, and affordable (definitely a plug). The bill for the trip is 280 rupees and I always round it to Rs. 300.

On one of the morning rides I did not have change and that is also OK with these guys, they do not mind accepting payment the next day. In the evening I got both the receipts but the evening driver (heretofore referred to as Driver II) was a different person and I was wondering how I could ensure that the tip from the morning trip reached the correct driver (heretofore referred to as Driver I). So I did a quick addition and proffered 600 rupees and asked for 20 back (280 from morning + 280 from evening and 20 for evening tip, in case you are wondering). Needless to say these guys do not carry almost any money!! I got a little flustered and it showed in my face.

If you are wondering where this is all going, be a little more patient. The end is near.

Driver II was quite astute (he in my opinion is under utilized) read my mind clearly. He told me not to worry and that the Driver I from morning had given him the bill from morning ride and told him clearly that I would give 20 rupees tip for the morning ride and that he (Driver II) better see to it that it reaches him (Driver I). The man actually gave clear injunctions to ensure that that this seemingly small amount (for american: 20 rupees = 50 cents) reached him!! Yeah, I intended to tip him, but I was also merely rounding the number to make it easy on myself!!

One year later

2007-04-09T02:39:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I went yet another time to Bangalore and this time due to time constraints I took a Volvo bus. If you have not travelled by one please try these out. They are stretched buses with 2 wide comfortable seats on each side and a narrow aisle. The seats lean back almost horizontal and in the private operators there may even be leg support. Overhead rack for smaller luggage is available inside with a storage space for larger luggage underneath.

On the return journey we took the bus from Majestic. The trip itself was uneventful but the less said about Majestic the better. Never mind, I will say more. Banglore bus terminal is a mini version of their airport; messy, disorganized, chaotic. No one seemed to be in charge. The stand itself has long ago outgrown its capacity.

In contrast my eyes lit up when I saw the Chennai bus-stand. You have to take a look at this terminal Koyambedu. This terminal is almost futuristic and infact better than most airports in India!! Very huge with both local stand next to the intra-state/ inter-state stand. The only thing that would make this more useful is an auto stand that is also integrated into this stand.

Sundry comments

There was an usual sign on the side of a bus "Dehradoon education, available now in Bangalore". I tried to translate this to US English "Boston education, available now in DC". Did not make any sense.

I saw a Bar & Restaurant in Bangalore near a place called Minerva called "Coastarica". The question is do you trust his food and beverages if you do not trust his spelling!!

Gah-Rham Restaurant

2007-04-05T00:45:00.000-04:00

This translation was forwarded to me by Jannavi

Gah-Rham Restaurant

5027 Garrett Avenue, Beltsville and Maryland 20705
Phone: 301-595-4122

As for Korean restaurant there is a large quantity, but price, taste and service etc synthesizing, you think that here reputation is best. When it is from the campus, when Route 1 it goes north, Powder Mill Road (Route 212) exceeds and goes a little (MVA compared to forward), is Seven Eleven in the left hand, is Gah-Rham on the reverse side. Because there is Korean restaurant classified by another in the same site, will try not to make a mistake.

Most the fact that it has popularity Buffet which is done in the lunch is the eating at will. Also the sushi comes out in addition to various cooking. But as expected the first-rate sushi shop it is not compared, to grasp, because you can eat building, if of price is thought, you think that it can be completely satisfied. If it is the dinner, the burning meat and meal served in hot pot etc are popularity.

Roads in India and Software Development

2007-04-04T00:33:00.000-04:00

Having traveled too many times to India, I am now jaded. I am no longer excited either by international travel for purposes of work or about the prospects of being in India. I no longer notice anything interesting at all. I suppose if a person lives 4 months in a year in a certain place it grows on you. It reached a point when I heard my mother complain bitterly about the beginning of summer heat whereas I found myself defending the heat; in fact I find that it is quite pleasant. Don’t get me wrong, it is warm and definitely humid, but nothing like late April or even middle of May when only (as the saying goes) “mad dogs and Englishmen roam the countryside”!!

As I drive through the roads of here in India, the one thing I noticed over the past two years is there is a lot of construction going on our roads all over India. On an idle whim, I began seeing if there were any parallel between the two processes, road building, and software development. If we could this is what I feel would the position of various cities.

Work with me here, OK!!

Bangalore would be in a state of perpetual requirements gathering. They will do one of the following
1) They will check of the roads are by any chance going through a rich neighborhood and if so raise so raise pro-socialist slogans and accuse the government of selling out to multi-nationals.
2) They will check if this somehow benefits Tamilnadu and raise the bogey of Kannada being belittled and tie the construction of the road to release of Cavery waters

Chennai would be in state of perpetual alpha with various major roads seemingly always under construction. One particular road called RK Mutt Road connecting Mandaveli and Mylapore probably has never been completed since the time it was laid. Construction and commute seems to have decided to co-exist peacefully!! Anyway the only topics that the government here cares are
1) 69% of all employees must be from minority communities. Woe betides the contract that is based strictly on merit.
2) Is the contract written in Tamil in triplicate? It does not matter that the officials cannot read it since their parents while touting the fact that Tamil is a classical language (someone please enlighten me what it means) gave them a convent education.
3) If either of these criteria is not met, both leaders will accuse the other of having treated the Tamils unfairly and call a bandh (it may sound interesting, but a sitting government not opposition calls a bandh; you are in power, how can you call a bandh against yourself?)

Roads in Bombay (oops I mean Mumbai) will be in beta state, mostly functioning wide roads, well laid befitting the financial capital of India. Only thing the roads will be built to handle capacity from 30 years ago!! When people complain about this is what would happen
1) The government would complain that Mumbai is for Maharastrians and the rest of them should leave especially those Tamil, Muslims, Biharis, UPites, people who have ruined "Amchi Mumbai"
2) Provide an impractical solution such as building a bridge that runs past (say) Lata Mangeshkars house. The resulting commotion will probably kill the initiative.

In Delhi, no one will gather requirements. The central government will decide arbitrarily that all 2 lane roads will be 4, 4 to 6, 6 to… you get the picture. Delhi will be as close to production quality as possible in India. Even roads 50 kilometers from city center will be built that are 6 lanes wide in each side built to international standards. One road will contain no less than 20 flyovers and as we all know since that is not adequate they are in the process of building 5 more. No one dare question the government’s rationale since we all know Delhi is the capital and it must be ready for Common wealth games in about 3 years.

Raag gets used to India

2007-03-28T15:22:00.004-04:00

I sent this as an email to some of my friends on March 27th 2006 when I went to India on a business trip.

I took a day off from work to see my parents in Delhi over the weekend where I met some classmates of mine from Delhi College of Engineering (Friday). It was nice after 3 years to meet them all again. This time we met at Sandeep's house. He is a DIG!! (Observe how well I drop names and my relationship to important people). Well he lives in a decent area near Delhi University and has a huge flat with 3 servants, couple of drivers, and 2 person security detachment!! It is all very impressive. Anyway my friend has this house servant, medium height but looked rather ferocious with a mustache big enough to hang on!! But when he talked to you it was obvious he was a meek man, someone who would not say boo to a mouse. After a while I heard my friend's wife call out to him, guess what his name was; Ghabbar Singh!! I kid you not. Poor man saddled with a name like that. Later Sandeep was kind enough to lend me a cell for the day and told me that since the airports come under his supervision, he would have one of his men come and escort me around and then take the cell phone back. He used hindi to say this "Mere aadmi tumse airport mein milenge", I could not resist asking him, if he was going to add "Tum mujhe woh phone vapis de do nahin to mein Ghabbar ko tumhari ghar bejh doonga"!!

It is astonishing how quickly acclimatized I am becoming to India; not just getting used to more obvious things like hot weather and dirt, but to the roads and the driving habits. In fact I have now become inordinately proud of my driver's skills. On the way to the office there is a place where the road goes from 4 lanes to 2, actually it really does not, but the drivers merely go over the yellow line and drive on the other 2 lanes. Did you not know that lanes don't matter? Then very logically there is an extremely narrow bridge, that allows only 1 lane in each direction. In this stretch, my driver was playing chicken with a bus to our left as to who could get ahead. Earlier I would have cringed, but now I found myself rooting for my driver and thinking, if he could only shift a little faster after each stop he could really get ahead.

When he finally put our nose ahead and won the race, I almost put my hands up. YES! You have no idea how happy I felt at my driver's achievement. But in India I have learned that managers and bosses (addressed as Sir) do not behave in this undignified manner. Observe again how used to India I have become. Note the repeated use of the phrase My Driver.

Last week I asked the my driver to turn into Brigade Road to see what is it that people are raving about. It is extremely crowded but I suppose it is the place to hangout. As we were stopped at another of the traffic jams, (I will no longer explain that I was stuck in a traffic jam, the only reason traffic stops is for a jam), I saw a couple of young guys riding on a motor cycle. The guy in the back had his hand on the shoulder of the driver and in his left hand he had a paper bag with something to eat. Periodically he would put his hand in the bag and eat something from it. Then he did something that surprised me, he took another piece and lovingly fed the driver!! I tried to picture Ravi's reaction to this, but failed!! (Let us say, Ravi is allergic to men touching other men and leave it at that).

We had interviews yesterday during the day at the hotel where I am staying. We invited about 95 candidates and only 55 came for it and we made offers to 3 of them of which I am happy with maybe 2. It is hard.

Later in the evening I went to a mall since everyone talks a lot about them. This one is called Garuda Mall off of MG Road on a road called Commissariat Rd. It is hard to imagine the crush of people, the beleaguered air conditioning was working hard but it was still so warm inside. As far as the mall itself, it is nothing to write home about. 6 to 7 floors tall with a food court on one floor, theatres on the top floor and shops everywhere with mostly over-priced items.

News flash - India beats Raag

2007-03-28T15:11:00.001-04:00

I sent this as an email to some of my friends on March 23rd 2006 when I went to India on a business trip.

*** News Flash ***
Raag the ever timid takes strike. On Sunday, his first day he eats at the Chancery hotel and everything is good. The next days he feels emboldened and eats at the office cafetaria and everything is good (or is it?). Thinking he is very much the punter now he attempts to repeat the stroke and eats again on Tuesday at the cafetaria and disaster strikes. He is clean bowled and by the end of the of day, the bathroom is very well acquainted with Raag. Furthermore he has been reduced to fetal position all of wednesday and has retired from the test match!! Henceforth he has decided to eat idlis and dhahi for breakfast, pack idlis with dhahi every day for lunch and eat curd rice with pickle everynight for dinner, all only at Chancery hotel .
*** End News Flash ***

This is good for two reasons.
1) I will be able to survive India.
2) I can prove to certain people, notably my beloved wife Jannavi, my friend Jeshmi, and Jeshmi's mother that I am very easy to feed and I am not at all picky.

On the side, here are some phrases that are funny.

1) I saw a road sign "Hump here", there may even have been the ubiquitous prefix "Please" !! To the pure of heart and mind, go to dictionary.com and check out "Vulgar Slang".
2) My driver has a simple explanation for traffic in Bangalore "Bangalore roads very traffic".

If I like Bangalore for it weather, then I hate its traffic and its roads. The conditions of the roads are such that I think Bangalore is a dream market for shock absorber companies.

Speed bumps here are another story, I am not sure how it is elsewhere, but here I think they took the standard speed bump and then redesigned it in such a way that you cannot get over one at any speed without a spinal injury!!

Less said about traffic and traffic manners the better it is. In a traffic jam, everyone honks, although it is not clear to me yet why they do so. It practically achieves nothing at all. The other guys looks ahead and plows on ignoring it anyway and if he is unable to, he honks back.

Note - Bangalore-philes, please note that most of the comments above may apply to almost all of India. So please do not flame me.