@ Escape Velocity!

Blog Action

2008-11-06T23:51:00.001+05:30

Good news. One of the best bloggers around returns: http://sambharmafia.blogspot.com/

Problem of plenty - Random records of everyday life

2008-11-06T23:42:00.001+05:30

I don’t remember the last time I did not do sufficient research before buying an electronic product. Anything more than Rs. 10,000 warrants you to read the numerous reviews, previews and stuff before zeroing-on a product. When it’s your hard-earned money, why not? Every penny matters.

And so I decided to research, my own died-in-the-wool way, before buying an LCD TV. I’ve been fond of its clarity ever since I saw one some years back, and when my old TV started acting up, I know that was the blessing in disguise, and I knew what I’d have as its worthy successor. That is, until I started researching on the options.

It’s like the coffee ad you see. Black or white? With or without sugar? With or without cream? Which blend? How much sugar? Piping hot or a little more tolerable? The list goes on, but then, the good thing about coffee is that you know what you want. And it doesn’t burn a hole in your already getting-leaner-everyday wallet.

The options are humungous when it comes to electronic products. First, there are a lot of reputed brands. Sony is costlier and probably more reputed, but does it justify the 10% extra money you put in? The marketing you learned back in the classroom clearly delineates products and positioning into two different things. In simpler terms, most products sold at a premium do not do real justice to the delta cost, but they are carefully ‘positioned’ that way by a sophisticated marketing team to give a 'sense' of extra ounce of quality. Doesn’t hurt if you manage to sell well, does it?

Then there are features, sizes, panel styles, sound output, display static and dynamic, contrast ratio and so forth. The best way to start is to finalize your budget and look at options. I had 150-200 LCDs near the price range. No kidding. Suffice to say that you are bound to be befuddled with the options. That’s when I decided to go by product research rankings. I managed to zero-in on 5-6 highly ranked LCDs in the price range.

And then I met the sales guy. 3 of the TVs are ‘old model’ ones, I was informed. The rest had worthy successors, I was told. All I wanted was to buy something that was endorsed by some reputed entity out there. Every time you want to make an ‘intelligent’ decision without getting swayed by the sales guy [who revels in the sheer count of models], who was probably concentrating on his own sales commissions that could be higher for certain new-to-market brands, there are road-blocks.

The picture clarity wasn’t too clear, the sound wasn’t rocking the floor, or the next TV out there always looked significantly better. Split second decisions had to be made, and I resorted to supposed common-sense: visual comparison of the displays placed side by side. Some LCDs from same brands looked exactly the same, even the specifications, with a price difference of Rs. 5000 for marginal sound improvement. I figured I’d go in for the cheaper model and permanently fit in a 3200W home theatre system that came in for Rs. 4000. In the end, I picked up the model, only hoping its brand wouldn’t let me down. No amount of research actually helped. For the record, I got a 32 inch LG.

Now, the question is: I NEVER resort to uninformed and un-researched buying when it comes to high-value products. I almost always research extensively and then go to the showroom just to negotiate the price and get the stuff. It’s time saving too. None of the websites seem to be of real help. When it comes to electronic products, are you supposed to do away with proper research and just go by gut-feel inside the showroom? That’s certainly discomforting and unintelligent!

P.S: No real reason behind the post, just thought I’d keep writing! Honest! Hope you had a fab Diwali btw!

The oomph factor

2008-10-08T19:29:00.002+05:30

Here's the latest addition to my family. Yamaha R15. Costs a whopping 1,10,000 Rs! It looks oomph, and is supposedly packed with loads of adrenaline (6th gear!) and the latest technologies.

Of couse, I didn't buy it though - my bro did, but I guess I'd take it for spins during weekends.

Will post a review sometime soon.

What do we owe her?

2008-10-04T18:09:00.003+05:30

My first reaction about a year ago when I read about Tata's Nano project being located in Singur, WB are... "WB as in West Bengal? Really?".

One year hence, Tata is moving out. The experience has surely been nothing short of traumatic. To bowl out one of the world's premier projects, an idea that made India so proud - for that fleeting time that proudness lasted! - is reckless. I would never forget the reaction from people around the world - some smart ones - in Slashdot that made me proud as an Indian.

It's something beyond shocking to see such a project being put through so many hurdles. While acid tests are welcome as part of a democratic, self-correcting process, the key is to find solutions and not to botch up things in the name of polity. Hands down to Mamata's politics.

Wonder who would EVER go to WB, or Kerala for that matter. I mean, when you have options, you don't necessarily go through the street with nasty thugs and mindless road-bumps.

I guess the message is to believe in your intuition and common wisdom. Because it pays to.

Photo credit: DESHAKALYAN CHOWDHURY/AFP/Getty Images

Into the Wild

2008-09-27T20:57:00.001+05:30

I just completed reading this book "Into the Wild" from Jon Krakauer (of Everest’s [the book] fame).

It’s a long time since I’ve almost-totally moved away from fiction. Of late, I’ve been magnetically pulled into two broad topics – adventure, and religion vs. atheism. Both topics have no correlation whatsoever, but are somehow very captivating in their own way.

Adventure is obviously straight-forward, and when you read real stories of adventure – tries, and ultimately conquests, of the Poles, Mt. Everest etc, you somehow wish you were a part of that hardened troop, your oh-so-comfortable life not withstanding. And the more you read about atheism, the more religion seems pointless. More so, religion somehow feels too narrow-minded, and you really don’t have to be a genius to question both the existence of God(s) and the merits of the very existence religion. It seems a very antiquated idea, but the weave it’s got on masses seems almost magnetic. Of course, the catch really is to ‘ponder’ and ‘question’ religion and Gods, which most people don’t even think about, probably fearing that God might not take the ‘lessened-faith’ or apostasy lightly. Of course, there are some positives with religion – it’s like the ‘Fair and Lovely’ that gives millions of people ‘hope’, if not real substance. [Hope I can copyright this comparison. :)

Whatever the reason, both the subjects - although disconnected - are too captivating to let go, and hope I devour as many books as possible in these subjects.

Coming back after a long digression, ‘Into the wild’ has no surprises. The book is about a very educated and smart boy who relinquishes worldly comfort of all forms – money, people, warts and all – and heads into the Alaskan wild to live as a hunter-gatherer, like men thousands of years ago. The book starts with the story’s end – the boy actually dies in the Alaskan wilderness – and is somehow captivating. Just reading about someone who actually had the guts and motivation to relinquish society in favor of adventure [which is something that you can’t do], something about being non-conformist to the material society at large, something about living like our ancestors thousands of years ago (and the argument that we have actually become inferior as a race since we no longer have the real capability to live out and survive in the open].

If you are into adventure reading, I urge you to get hold of the book. I laid my eyes on this book after watching the movie-format of the same story in a flight some 8 months back, and this book has lived up to the expectations.

By the way, wifey says hi to readers of this blog. [On a side note, I hope I can lay my hands on the ‘Thousand Splendid Suns’ she’s reading, simply because it’s from Khaled Hosseini, the author of ‘The Kite Runner’ fame and I can’t wait to read it.]

Google's Chrome got the feather touch!

2008-09-03T01:28:00.006+05:30

Google Chrome (the Google's windows killer) is in! It’s supposed to be the next big thing to (re)trigger the browser wars.

I guess I’m one of the first to try – its launch was Sep 02 PST, so here's the first cut review!

Chrome, to start with, seems very, very light and very fast (much faster than FireFox, and IE of course). It loads faster into the memory too (seems to use less page files). Interface is neat, and you have a lot of screen space to read – almost like full screen browsing. And it's got tabs.

That were the positives. I haven’t gotten any errors or problems per se, but advanced features seem lacking. For example, if I want to run an Amazon or IMDB search, I guess I need to first go to their site to do it instead of running the search from the browser… we’ll hopefully have updated versions.

I guess I will use Chrome for some days to come! It's certainly lighter on my laptop that's starting to grow beard!

What have you been watching lately?

2008-08-31T18:51:00.004+05:30

These days, amidst all the clutter of news channels and television programs, finding a good program to watch non-stop for an hour is a skill in itself. I’d much rather choose to watch a program along with the advertisements for a continuous hour, as opposed to flipping between the channels for an endless duration and watching nothing end of the day.

Cutting the long story short, I wanted to get some tips on great programs running in TV these days. Following are mine:

Man vs. Wild

Call it captivating, disgusting, entertaining, or daring, Bear Grylls (the host of this program – from Discovery Channel) has it in him to pull off whatever he does. If I see one program, this is it. Being an ex-Special Forces and the record holder for the youngest Brit to climb Mount Everest, his background gives the show a lot of credibility. Of course, critics apart, eating those live snakes, moths, fish, raw zebra meat, frogs, and the like in his quest to survive are, in my opinion, the show’s ultimate clinchers. I’m waiting for the DVD format.

Planet Earth

[From BBC] This show brings the most spectacular picto-cum-cinematography ever. Every frame of this show is a portrait and a statement in itself. I’m not sure if this is running on TV these days, but I got the entire 5 DVD set for 400 bucks, and the clarity of the images and Attenborough’s husky voice is stunning. Nature is spectacular, and if one show has managed to record it all, this has to be it.

Ice Road Truckers

[From History Channel] You just wish you were driving one of those vehicles, just for a day. Captivating - to say the least. I just love this show. Switch off the lights, relax and watch the program. It's the best part of your day.

What’s awesome is that such programs still bring sanity and respect to Television – amidst the swarm of saas-bahu soaps and irksome and constantly bickering news channels.

Any other program to watch out for?

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

2008-08-27T20:44:00.004+05:30

Some movies are timeless.

The odd sounding "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" is one. [Thanks Ash!]. It's a tad old, but if you are a serious movie buff, there is no such thing as an old movie. This one keeps you riveted, till the very last scene. No, the last frame.

Download a copy from one of those torrents, or get in touch with me!

The Delusion called God

2008-08-24T10:47:00.003+05:30

God Delusion, the last word in atheism, was unforgiving. The book is loaded, argumentative, incisive, ruthless and even nasty at times. If you can live with the tough language and the tight flow – mind you, you don’t have any racy storyline to keep you riveted – this turns out to a great read.

If you do want to read this book, I’d recommend surfing the initial 100 pages, giving the next 100 pages a very light curse, and then concentrating on the last 100 or so pages. The last pages are the essence, and are crystal clear, with less of rhetoric, but I suspect most won’t last till the last page. I would not be surprised if you feel cheated, of Gods, of religion, of the so-called holy-books, of people around you. But then, you must have felt so even before getting to this book. This book is not supposed to be a light-hearted fiction anyway, so you should know.

Like an American colleague of mine wrote to me once “Though few know of my apostasy, you wouldn't believe how wonderful it is to be mentally free!” I guess I can’t add to those words without spoiling them. I emphasize ‘American’ since he was one to be brought up in a conservative, rural part of the religious America – of the yesteryears.

I’d leave with one last wonderful quote (from the Wikipedia link above): Robert Pirsig's observation in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”: When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.

This book from Richard Dawkins is the last nail in the coffin for religion - if you can manage holding this book in your home that is.

A shining beacon in the night sky

2008-08-12T17:53:00.002+05:30

Yes, that’s what Taare Zameen Par stands out to be. I had come across countless reports showering praise on the movie, Aamir Khan and his directional debut, but I just couldn’t squeeze in a little bit of time to watch the spectacle the movie is.

It’s gladdening on a number of counts. It’s portrayal of a poignant issue plaguing the society in a rather mature way puts it far apart from the clutter of the routine, senseless movies. And there’s no frivolity – no Basu’s or Sherawat’s running around trees and encircling bare male bodies wearing a handkerchief for a cloth.

I’ve followed the ‘movies’ section of the ‘Ergo’ tabloid that is circulated in these parts for about a year now, and the section invariably contains one of these women striking an incisive still at the camera, amongst some ‘heroes’ who invariably look like immature school kids. In all the year I’ve watched this, the only thing that seems to change between the posters is the title of the movie and the color of what they are wearing. It’s almost like I can find a crap movie whenever I want to, but, lo and behold, sensible ones come only once in a long while. Love (the hetero-sexual movie-love) and sensuality are essential parts of human emotions, but it doesn’t have to be taken so far. I wonder how long people can take such crap. The two subjects have been abused beyond imagination, and it’s time for sensible directors to come up with the likes of Taare Zameen Par to put an end to this madness.

Coming back, the best part is that the movie went on to become a hit amongst the audience. I loved the parts that emphasized how much emphasis we place on not letting kids just let them be… and rather want them to follow the routine school-college-corporate mayhem. Classes, schools, exams… all the despicable items of a child’s life - accentuated further with tuitions and coaching!

Jeez, kids these days are a mess! I was thoroughly disappointed with the schooling culture in metropolitan cities (Chennai etc) and the race to ‘getting marks’ – even in the initial parts of schooling days. Say this based on our experience – what is really the correlation between achieving high marks in schools and your performance in real life?

I just loved a sight yesterday - when I ran into a bunch of kids playing football using make-up goal-posts in the open parking space of the apartment complex where I happen to stay. It was a wonderful sight… personified with childhood innocence that took me back by almost 15 years.

I think I’ve said enough. If you haven’t watched the movie yet – do not wait. This is a piece of art. Send it to the Oscars.

In defense of Dasavathaaram

2008-07-04T07:56:00.003+05:30

There’s nothing novel in people trying to get famous by ridiculing things that are otherwise popular. I guess the case is no different with Dasavathaaram. [Some reviews here]. I had almost decided not to watch the movie in theaters after reading all the reviews blasting the movie, but I had to give in to my better half.

To start with, I liked the movie. I think I even loved it in bits and pieces. It isn’t a magnum opus in any case, but it does attempt to convey a lot of right messages. And it’s pretty bold. Kudos to Kamal - I haven’t seen a mainstream movie with a mainstream actor who’s bold enough to expound the values of atheism in such an emphatic manner, with absolutely no second thoughts.

Let’s start with the positives. Kamal’s effort is admirable, as always. If acting is his profession, there’s no doubt that he does total justice to it. Here is one guy who still believes in ‘acting’ as opposed to other forms for attracting the audience – such as humor, so-called ‘ssshtyle’, so-called ‘action’ etc, most of which turn out to be silly more often than not. His acting is second to none.

That said, I think the biggest point that works in the movie’s favor is the wide-sweeping nature of the tale itself. While bits and pieces appear disconnected, the movie works. It manages to thread all the pieces together, and, in the process, covers religion, atheism, God(s), bio-terrorism, global warming, Tsunami, and what not. That an Indian movie could be so wide-sweeping in nature and still manages to captivate the audience is heartening. I mean, do we really have to look for a racy entertainer all the time for a movie? How many movies have done this? Can we give credit for the effort? Playing 10 roles is purely a marketing element, but what is gladdening is an effort to connect multiple themes into a movie. The movie doesn’t end up like a ‘Babel’, but I guess Babel won’t run among Indian audience.

Onto to the negatives. When a character is supposed to perform 10 roles, there ought to be some force-fits, and there’s obviously a possibility of lesser attention to some of the roles. Some of the roles appear purely for adding to the count, and some just didn’t make any sense. Case in point is the Japanese warrior. Then there is the biggest blooper of all – the heroine, played by Asin. Boy, wasn’t that an irritating character? So annoying and almost nauseating! I guess half the sane people in the world would ditch her first thing if they encounter someone like her in their lives. The hero deciding to marry him is admirable, and courageous. She was a perfect example of how 'not to be'. The graphics could have certainly been better.

I loved the closing lines. “I don’t say there is no God… all I’m saying is it would be nice to have a God!” Seen from the context of movie, i.e. Tsunami, I can’t wonder how true and poignant those words are.

Rate Four out of Five. Kudos to Kamal for his audacity. People who were disappointed were victims of their own expectations.

R.I.P to Petrol at 50 bucks!

2008-06-04T16:05:00.002+05:30

Here’s R.I.P to petrol costing Rs. 50. It’s going to cost 5 more bucks from today.

With petrol prices subsidized by 15 rupees to the common man by the oil companies, I guess even days when prices are going to be in the range of Rs. 50 to Rs. 60 is numbered. It’s going to be Rs. 65 soon – may be in a couple of months. Days when the middle class (not the upper middle class, mind you) can travel in airplanes are over. Sure, there is going to be Deccan and other erstwhile low-cost carriers, but they aren’t going to be low-cost anymore.

So here’s R.I.P to days of cheap travel, cheap air tickets and cheap tour packages. Wish I were in Venezuela!

Peace of mind

2008-06-02T11:26:00.000+05:30

Now, now, that doesn’t have a monetary figure against it, does it? That’s exactly what you get moving to your own place.

The very thought of a house owner (when you have taken a rented accommodation) calling you on the 28th of the month for the rent you need to pay before the 5th of next month was irksome. As if you don’t pay your rents every month. The very thought of getting an increase in rent (From 15000 to 18000) at the end of the 11th month of the rental contract was a chill down the spine, more so because you know any money you pay as rent is direct down the drain – you don’t have an inch of investment made with that money, and you don’t have any returns on that. Most house owners get a 10 month advance, and you can’t begin to comprehend the opportunity cost you could have made out of that money had you invested that in the stock market.

If the monetary aspects of being a tenant are vexing, I can’t begin to describe how it is to actually find a rented accommodation. It’s similar in most places I’ve looked out for accommodation – Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, but there’s the added humidity to tackle in Chennai. It’s not reality television. It’s for real. You start thinking about your own home – wasn’t that a King’s life you lived? The part I hate the most is dealing with the vermin – the brokers. It’s a cartel, what they run. As a strategy, they take you to the murkiest parts of the city and show you ramshackle houses for earth-shattering rents. You feel an earth quake when you hear about the rents. When you’ve seen 10 of those houses, and have begun to realize how miserable your life has ended up being, they show you a decent looking house at “just 15000 a month”, with a sweet little ten month of rent money as advance. It’s between the devil and the deep sea. You have the option of choosing that, or roaming around the entire city marveling at more people who live in the places they do. It’s a quest for survival out there, where only the fittest can dare think of survival, and a lot of guys in our cities win hands down for living where they do. Life is a bitch. At the end of the ordeal, that you will end up feeling like a loser is almost given.

Personally, after having lived 18 months as a tenant, moving in to an own place couldn’t have come at a better time. The very thought of your own home - where nobody calls you asking for a rent. Own home - a place you feel like keeping it tidy, because it’s yours; A place where you don’t mind getting that old bungalow-style artwork or that eerie-looking modern art splashed with bright colors for a couple of thousand bucks, because its yours; A place where you contemplate spending because you want to, not because you have to.

Of course, calling the erstwhile house owner (two times every day – a taste of his own medicine) asking him to return the advance money comes especially sweet!

It's all about oil

2008-05-22T13:46:00.001+05:30

The moment I read this article in ET (about gas price rise hurting the US lifestyle), my immediate reaction was “Wasn’t this so very predictable? Do you need a gas price rise to tell you this is going to happen?”

I don’t know what people think the first time they visit the US, but I felt something was odd. The country was designed around cars and the mobility that they brought. I did not want to rent a car the first time I visited the country, simply because I didn’t want any adventure without someone to help me out with the logistics of renting for the first time and driving the first time outside Indian shores, but I was forced to rent a car since I just couldn’t survive without it in the place I lived. I happened to be put up in a small town with no public transport, and the nearest grocery store was about 2 miles away. It was high winter in Connecticut.

I guess about 95% of the people in the US can’t lead their regular lifestyle without automobiles. I mean, if it comes to it, I guess a lot of us in India or in other Asian countries could manage to live commuting in trains, buses, two-wheelers or even bicycles, primarily because everything you ‘need’, and a lot of what you ‘want’, is accessible within 3-5 Kms. US is startling in comparison. Consecutive shops were spaced 250 meters apart, which means that you can’t park your car near one shop and walk to another shop due the distance in between. You ‘have to’ drive down. Distances between residential locations and grocery stores were in miles, something you cannot walk or bicycle down. There were no small stores catering to small 100-250 households, but only single Wal-marts that catered to entire towns. Public transport was available in cities, but it was generally the lower middle class that used them. Add to it, people in US generally prefered to live in the outskirts – some 20 miles away from the city for ‘calm’ and ‘peace’.

And then, there are those BIG vehicles. Vehicles bigger than those share- vans in India (that could transport about 10-12 people when jam-packed) were carrying just a single passenger (the driver). My first thought was: if you want to drive single, why would you buy a mini-bus? Why can’t you buy a flashy but small car? Two reasons: 1) The fuel in US was cheaper than in most countries, and 2) People were rich. People continue to be rich now, but since fuel price has risen, and food price has risen, people are forced to face the pinch.

The US model is just not energy efficient. It is designed without a backup plan. What if the rampant car culture cannot be sustained? Will the country survive if the gas prices rise 10 times? I think India would. I am not an expert in optimum use of energy solutions, but the basics of supply chain management tell you that your design has move things from A to B paying the least cost. And that is something that’s been overlooked for decades in the US, simply because theirs was one of the few countries that was rich and could afford fuel. Now with other countries getting richer, fuel is THE premium product. It’s all about oil.

All said, it would really be interesting to see the US getting energy efficient and transforming the way the country travels. There is no alternative since fuel price has only one way to go: Upwards. When so many million cars get energy efficient, it is certainly good for the people around the world.

Ignorance is bliss

2008-05-06T22:20:00.001+05:30

Found this image on a recent Freakonomics blog - the happiness index for Religious vs. the secular people. Looks like whoever said ignorance is bliss has got it damn right!

A peep into the Emerald Islands

2008-04-23T12:39:00.005+05:30

After a little bit of contemplation, I had decided to head to the Andaman Islands for my honeymoon.

Day 1 – Port Blair:

Port Blair was our ‘base’ for the initial part of our journey. Port Blair has nothing to write home about as a tourist location. You get very good rates for hotels, and the food is very nice – pretty much like the rest of India, but it isn’t a significant tourist spot. The Carbyns Cove beach is very ordinary. The Cellular Jail has a great background to it, and the Lights & Sounds show was ‘different’, if not amazing. Other tourist infrastructure in Port Blair is truly lagging compared to western standards.

What I really hated about Port Blair is the crowd, which is the point of differentiation between Indian tourist locations and elsewhere. People keep staring at you, and since there are a lot of people in Port Blair, privacy is literally non-extant. And of course, you have that leany-meany bunch of youth in their striped greenish yellow jeans that hang all over the place intruding into everything they see. I hated this bit.

Day 2 – Ross Island, Viper Island and North Bay:

Ross Island was awesome. An erstwhile penal colony, it’s an amazing smallish little island full of coconut trees and nice little beaches.

Viper Island was boring. A yet another Tsunami stuck island with an official population census of one man. An inspiring speech from the tourist guide did nothing to spirit up the sun-burnt sweaty existence.

North Bay has an amazing little beach and beautiful corals. And you are supposed to do snorkeling there. But wait a minute. Where should one change ones clothes? People do it behind trees and run-down huts. If the Government is serious about tourism and it’s revenue potential, why can’t build some decent changing rooms with shower etc – and charge money for using them?

Day 3 & 4 – Havelock Islands

Havelock (92 sq. km) was finally THE place for tourism in Andaman. Almost totally isolated and underdeveloped, it has very fine white sands and amazing emerald beaches, and - hold your breath - very, very less people. Radhanagar beach in Havelock was just amazing in its size and beauty. And there were hardly 10 tourists, mostly foreigners. Havelock is the place in Andaman. You get neat villas with private beaches to stay overnight for charges Rs. 1000 to Rs. 4000.

The Elephant Beach in Havelock is even more splendid due to the corals. Inaccessible by road, you have to take a private jetty to the beach, which costs Rs. 1500. Reach the place, and all you have is the beach. The cost also gets you a guide and snorkeling gear. It was my first snorkeling experience. Watching the hundred-colored corals and thousands of amazing fishes moving among them, in their own natural ambience, was straight out of the National Geographic. I could go there a thousand times again. Corals were beyond beautiful. It made Havelock picture perfect.

Day 5 – Jarawa tribes, and the Baratang Islands

Sometimes, you have to admit that the things you get to see in India are truly not possible elsewhere. Baratang island is a 100 miles away from Port Blair. You get to move through tribal reserve forests in convoys flanked by police. We got a chance to look at the Jarawa tribes. 4 feet tall, pitch black, with spears, harpoons, axes, dancing with sticks holding dead pigs, they are the truly tribal. They don’t like mingling with “us” the developed humans. Past encounters have left many humans dead.

Jarawas live in the jungle, eat jungle food and haven’t seen civilization. You are not supposed to talk to them (because you can’t), offer them food (because cooked food is not good for their health), communicate (you may end up sounding hostile) or photograph (they could bow-arrow you!). They are arguably humans, but they haven’t developed the immunity to human diseases since they’ve never interacted with humans. You get the idea. If you want to understand how humans lived 2000 years ago, come down here.

The rest of the trip was taking a boat through Amazon-type Mangrove forests supposedly containing crocodiles, and watching stalactites, stalagmites and live mud volcanoes. The Rs. 10,000 we spent for Day 5 was worth every bit, more so for seeing the Jarawas.

All said, the weather (scorching sun belting 32 degrees in mugging humidity) was a killer, Port Blair and its crowds were spoilers, but Havelock and Baratang more than suppressed the negatives.

Checkout the 'OUT campaign'

2008-04-04T18:16:00.001+05:30

Audacious, to say the least.

Desire the DZire!

2008-03-31T16:57:00.002+05:30

Maruti has made a relatively nonchalant but a very brave move bringing in the DZire. As I’ve maintained in the past, after Accent’s phase-out (it is a phase-out for all practical reasons, although I guess they still sell one model) there is a big gaping hole in Segment B+/C- (which is in the price range 5-6 lacs). You can’t choose any of Esteem, Logan, Indigo, Swift, Ikon etc without compromising on something. There was no “one” default choice.

That said, the reason why I mention Maruti’s launch of DZire as significant because DZire has features that erstwhile (before launch of SX4) used to be only part of Class D (10+ cars). Its launch effectively means that Skoda Fabia is out of the window. I can’t see a single person going for Fabia since it’s a little smaller, got pretty much the same features - including power, and is a whole 1,00,000 costlier!

Dzire’s features include integrated stereo, steering mounted audio controls, automatic climate control, dual airbags, ABS with EBD. Most of the people who paid through the nose during 2002-2007 have cars (such as Honda City) that don’t have these features. I guess it must be real fun for one of the DZire owners to buy the car at 5.5 Lacs and sport these features while Honda buyers who used to shell out 8+ Lacs don’t have them! DZire is certainly an easy choice given the other options. With its launch, you really don’t need to go for cars such as SX4, Verna, Fiesta etc since you get most of the features at a much cheaper price (difference being 2 lacs+), presuming that the power difference between SX4/Verna/Fiesta etc and DZire (103 BHP vs. 87 BHP) is not something many Indian customers would die for.

DZire is certainly not amongst the best-looking cars around. Its back is a little force-fitted into the body and its looks would take some amount of time getting used to, but I personally don’t think it’s ugly. The white piece looks pretty neat compared to other colors. For its price, it is Value-For-Money redefined. The very fact that Maruti has provided features in a 5.5L car that used to be present only in cars 10+ Lacs a couple of years ago is quite something. This is a bold move that would permanently change the features that Indian automobile industry would provide in the years to come. Competition rocks! At this rate, I would expect cars in the range 4+ lacs to sport such safety and luxury features. In the end, we, the customers, are the winners. Hats off Maruti!

How many Gods do we have?

2008-03-09T08:41:00.003+05:30

I was watching the trailer for 10,000 BC (movie) and a crazy thought struck me. Has anyone ever tried to list all the Gods that humans might have worshiped - over the years of evolution? I was curious to know the count of Gods that are/were being worshiped. Jesus, Allah, Siva, Brahma etc are present day favorites, but they didn't exist 4000 years ago. 4000 years is peanuts in the time-line of humans and human-looking ancestors, which is 1000,0000 years.

Wikipedia has tried a high-level listing of all Gods. Hindu, Finnish, Chinese, Lisutani etc.... make up the current list. And then there are the mythological Gods - Atlas, Prometheus, Zeus and a host of others.

Was a Neanderthal (100,000 years ago) or a 'Homo erectus' (1000,000 years ago) technically developed to think about a possibility of a supreme creator? If so, what would a Neanderthal's God be? Water, Sun, Stars and the Moon perhaps?

This is just the beginning. As you deep dive into evolution per se, there are enchanting and very interesting possibilities. What would a Dinosaur's God be? Godociferous, perhaps.
Dragon-fly, which is supposedly the ancestor for the entire animal kingdom has been around in earth for 700 million years (Compare humans!). If dragonfly worships a God, that would be the longest serving God in the entire chain perhaps.

I mean, if there can be Hindu-Islam and Christian-Islam wars, why can't we fight with the Dragon-flies over their Gods? Who is superior? Dragon-fly God has probabaly been around for hundreds of millions of years, and we rule the roost now. Was there a fight between Dragon-flies and Dinosaurs in history over the superiority of Dragon-fly God and Godociferous? Immense intellectual possibilities.

Wow. Life gets interesting as you think about it.

Into the Wild

2008-03-06T07:54:00.002+05:30

I knew I was lucky when I roughly had 20 hours worth of flight journey staring at me and there were about 15 movies to choose from to while away the time. Best part is I hadn’t watched most of those movies, thanks to my work schedule in the recent weeks. Of course, when you get down to it, you really only have a handful of movies to actually choose from – if you keep aside teen movies, immature comedies and other retarded stuff.

I read the plotline for most of the movies, and chose three: 1) Michael Clayton, 2) Into the Wild and 3) Bourne Ultimatum. Boy, didn’t I have a great time! I had watched Bourne once and knew it was great stuff. As for Clayton, the only thing I knew was that it was nominated for Oscars and there was George Clooney (which was reason enough). I had zilch idea about “Into the wild”, but I knew I had made a great selection just minutes into the movie. Talk about adventure and off-beat movies!

Where do I start? Well, the movie is a real-life story of a guy named Chris McCandless - a great student who feels claustrophobic amidst the chatters of capitalism and looks for ‘life’ amidst absolute wilderness. He chooses to live in the wilderness for some years essentially as a gypsy - as man would’ve lived some thousands of years ago, and he chooses Alaska as the place to live out. Remember, this movie is based on a real-life character. All our guy takes with him is his spirit, a book on ‘edible wild plants’, an essential belief on human spirit, some clothes, the love of absolute strangers, and loads of attitude. The rest of the movie is plain beauty as it just flows past you. If you are into adventure movies, you need to watch this.

Do not expect the movie to make you happy. It’s deep, real, adventurous, disturbing, and very touching. Not for the rookies.

I just checked the IMDB listing looking for an image, and there you have it: “Into the wild” is ranked 135 all time. Didn’t I expect it?

The author of the novel is Jon Krakauer, the same guy who wrote the book on the Everest disaster - “Into thin air”, which was so touching and daring. May be I should just try out all his books!

Another one scores up!

2008-02-16T05:51:00.004+05:30

It's not too often I look back and wish I hadn't done something, but this is an exception. Regrets for having missed this movie in the theaters. 'Evano Oruvan'. Lovely movie. Remake of Marathi Dombivli Fast. No frivolity, no running around trees, very down-to-earth, real and point-blank.

If you watch Tam flicks and have missed this, this film deserves better. Shades of erstwhile hits here and there, but its great for the most part. Kudos to Madhavan too... I thought he did a nice job.

The deadly duo - Diet Coke & Mentos

2008-02-15T03:08:00.004+05:30

I take a lot of Mentos, and the only Coke I drink is Diet Coke. But chance has it that the combination is deadly – literally, that is. Message is: Do not take large of Mentos AND Diet Coke, or any carbonated drink for that matter.

Here is the reaction between 500 Mentos and 200 litres of Diet Coke. Absolutely no gimmicks. Here's the original link: Link.

24 hours ain’t enough

2008-02-14T04:07:00.003+05:30

It’s been almost a month since I penned down something here. I never believed people saying they don’t have time to blog, but I realize they were probably true, and the truth is staring at my face right now: I want to blog, and the blogging josh within me hasn’t waned a single bit, but there it is, as a writing on the wall: I don’t have the time.

A couple of things that happened in 2007 permanently changed the way my life cruises by. Number one, if you have less than a couple of months to go for your marriage, you need a lot of time. And when that happens, when you realize you are entering into a wedlock that you, for so long, were wondering how it’s going to be, your outlook towards life changes. I wouldn’t say the time you spend is an investment, coz saying that would be an understatement, but you need a lot of time. You can’t throw away your time a couple of times every week in the Satyam theatre, or the deserted beaches at midnight, or in searching for the elusive Stanley Kubrick flick in the dark alleys of the Godforsaken places in your city. You can’t be detached to people, your friends, your relatives, the world around you and just be fixated on your work and still lead an unobtrusive and unsuspectingly happy life. You need to get involved. Or, better perhaps, you want to get involved - in invitation cards, attire, travel, tickets, and logistics - all perhaps with such intensity for the first time in your life.

Add to that, I booked a flat. It’s one thing to think about booking a flat, but it’s another to actually do it. There are questions; really hard and difficult ones. Can you shell out so much every year for the next 15 years? What makes more sense – a 10 year EMI, or a 20 year one? Would you have the josh to shell out so much for so long? Will you be able to take a break once in a while? Is that a right investment decision, from the return stand-point? ROI doesn’t look too interesting – is that ok? What is the opportunity cost? Do your finances look ok? And then, there are the chores. Home loans, document submissions, site inspections, listening and convincing people working in PSUs who seem to have all the time in the world; putting up with really outdated procedures and retarded people; selecting tile patters to appease your imaginations; a tired 6-hours-sleep-a-day existence; explaining the builders where and when you want to have your this, that, and everything else.

That apart, you have your work. Office, work, responsibilities, aspirations, and all related assortments that you can’t shy away from. Right now, sitting in Atlanta, all alone in an office in one of the sky-scrapers in the downtown, where I need to pay $9 per day as just parking charges, I’m wondering how life was just a year ago. I was in the US for the first time. I had all the time I wanted, and as the first time visitor to a far-away land, I felt like a kid that ran amok. I wanted to explore every bit of the world, and the momentum and verve were insatiable. I was too busy to notice.

Now, life is even more busy and interesting, but I need time to stand back, relax and enjoy the suspended reality. 24 hours ain’t enough.

Any advertisement is good advertisement!

2008-01-13T17:11:00.000+05:30

Something I stumbled on. A Merc nailed to the roof at the Moscow airport.
[via Japancarblog]

Been seeing some good advertisements of late, but being out of the broadband network sucks! I hope my connection gets fixed in a day or two...

In city, out of network!

2008-01-08T17:46:00.000+05:30

As much as you’d wish to believe that things are changing as far as the connectivity and customer experience in India is concerned, there seems to be a long way to go. Wishes, for the most part, remain hearty wishes.

To cut it to the meat – I shifted my place of stay; moved into a relatively up-market place; applied for internet connection transfer, and there was no ruffle for about a fortnight. We kept trying to track the transfer request, and about 10 calls later, someone in the service provider (Airtel) conceded that they cannot ‘transfer’ my connection from ‘A’ to ‘B’ because the broadband capacity in ‘B’ is full and will take some months before the bandwidth is increased to accommodate new connections/transfers.

My first reaction: I thought it was a joke. And then, it started to sound ironic.

I just had to dig out an ET article I read a couple of months ago.

India’s experience with broadband is a bit like the cricket team. Both look better on paper. Both have more potential than performance. And both have enormous money riding on them. This year may have been declared the year of broadband by the government, but in every other way, the targets look as distant now as they have been in past two years.

India has just 2.3 million broadband subscribers. That translates into a 0.2% broadband penetration compared to 19.6% in the US, 20% in the UK and 32% in smaller countries such as Denmark and Iceland.

In other words, the Government is bent on making service a reality, there’s a market for it, but the existing service providers don’t have the capacity to even retain existing connections.

My biggest grouch is why I was not even informed of this problem. If there is a problem, I would want to know. It’s a fair deal for any long time customer. I didn’t travel to the Airtel office in the city center wasting my time & petrol for nothing. For me, being out of internet makes me something similar to claustrophobic. And I wasn’t even informed of the problem. Grouches.

I’d most likely shift to a different service provider.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

2007-12-31T11:23:00.000+05:30

2004 was awesome in Brigade Road, Bangalore. 2005 was icy-cool in Manali, HP. 2006 was colorful in our hilltop (campus, Indore). 2007 started boozey in Chennai and proved to be splendid overall.

Here’s hoping that the good times keep rolling - for everyone. Cheers.

Wish you a very happy & fantabulous New Year 2008.

Petrol bunk fraud and caught Red-handed!

2007-12-26T18:18:00.000+05:30

In less than a month since I came up with the petrol bunk fraud post [Link], I was duped again. Well, I got duped, and by virtue of – let me say – my fraud-identification skills, I came out (almost) unscathed.

This time around, it was the Hindustan Petroleum petrol bunk right next to Guindy flyover in Anna Salai, Chennai. Their objective was the same (which was to fraud), but the modus operandi was different.

As I entered and parked near the dispensing machine, which was to my left, the guy near the machine asked me to check the ‘zero’ reading. A lady to the left then collected Rs. 1000 from me. Simultaneously, another guy appeared near the right car window and asked for my credit card. I retorted that I had already paid cash; he apologized and gave a little longish explanation; and I shifted my gaze back to check the reading. The reading showed ‘300’, and the dispensing guy was done with the loading. I told him I had paid ‘1000’, and asked him to start from zero and go till 700 for the second round. He complied and I watched the dispenser reading slowly move from zero to 700.

I received the bill receipt and started my drive. The fuel indicator slowly inched up and then refused to go beyond the 75% mark. I did a quick retrospection and figured that I had noticed the ‘zero’ and the ‘300’ readings but not the progress from zero to ‘300’. I figured they must’ve cheated me in this stretch. I dialed the bunk operator even as I was driving and threatened to call the police; I reached the bunk in 15 minutes, quite determined to go to any level possible. It’s not the monetary value of the fraud that irritates you. The sheer feeling that you got duped sucks. I just had to fix the fraud to get my mood back on track. As soon as I stopped at the bunk, even before I started talking or demanding an explanation, the lady and the guy came down and explained that they checked with the operator who originally loaded the fuel (who was now, obviously, ‘out of shift’) and that there was an error and they would load Rs. 300 worth of petrol. I asked for Rs. 50 worth of extra petrol since they made me ride 6 kms and wasted my time, and, surprise of surprises, they complied!

It didn’t take me long to figure out the way they work. They routinely cheat customers, and if any customer finds out, they give up without a winker. If people don’t figure out the fraud, the amount is split across the operators. And this is in a petrol bunk on the most important road in Chennai (Anna Salai) near the most important junction (Kathipara). What was most shocking was that all the fraudsters wore Ayyappa garlands (which mean they were on penance) and there was a lady involved.

The larger question is: how do you get out of this very common menace? Looks like petrol bunk frauds are very common. A search on Google yields me other common petrol bunk frauds. After a bunch of research, here’s what I figured out:

Avoid PSU bunks and go to private operators who have stringent quality standards. Shell or Reliance fuel supposedly gives 10% to 15% better mileage
If (1) is not possible, go to Company-owner petrol bunks of PSUs – BP, IOC, HP etc
Ask for the bill, even if it’s a bunk that you routinely visit since it’s the only proof in case your fuel indicator doesn’t behave the way it is supposed to
Get down the vehicle and stand near the dispensing machine. It shows that you mean business.

Rising residential rates, and the real culprits

2007-12-21T17:35:00.000+05:30

For me, its house-changing blues yet again.

For some reason, changing my place of stay has almost become a routine in my life in the past 7 or so years. This is the 12th time I’m changing my place of residence in the 7 years (I’m counting moving all my things from Y to Zee as one change). You could almost say I’m used to moving my things around, but I guess these are things you never quite get used to.

This time though, I’ve picked up a place at a hefty price in a seemingly ‘hep’ location in Chennai – Adyar, in Chennai (for those who know the area). Of course, when you got to stay in the area where things are currently ‘happening’ you go to pay the right price. And I am. A 2BHK comes at 15 grand a month and that in Chennai. That’s 180,000 a year, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the per capita income in India – it is 29,000 a year, which means there are a LOT of people (more than 50% of Indian population) is living with less than 29 grand the whole year. And of course, 15 grand a month is a nice salary even for Indian city standards. You could run a family, and not be a pauper!

When a colleague of mine told me he picked a place for 15 grand last year, I thought he had gone nuts. Who would pay that much and, most importantly, why would you agree for that price and slowly jack up the price for others too? It’s very unfair, but I guess you eventually fall into the very same muck that you hated looking at. These days, you just don’t find a place to stay if you don’t shell out this much.

Who’s the culprit, anyway? I guess it’s a combination of three factors – (1) A growing economy that pumps in more money with people, (2) Cockroaches - I mean, brokers, and (3) Shortage of housing supply.

If you are an economist, is there anyway to arrest these? You wouldn’t want to mess with (1), of course. As for (3), you could reduce interest rates so that the housing sector picks up, but it most certainly can’t match the march of the economic growth. That said, I have a big problem with (3). It’s unfair. I don’t want to shell out 15 grand for a broker that just directed me to a house. It’s a cartel, and a very unfair one. It's the definition of improper market. I’ll be ok with a max of 5 grand, but not this much, especially when I know that they have ALL the incentives to increase the rental rates since it would directly mean more money to their kitty. I can’t think of an immediate solution, but there is one – an internet enabled network for house owners and people seeking accommodation, a la Craigslist which seems to work in most global destinations. Of course, that isn’t happen going to happen any time soon in India what with our internet savvy population (sarcasm directly intended), and I better be looking at a house to buy.

P.S: Had a forceful blogging break coz of the shifting. And I haven’t fixed my internet connection yet.

Catching The Kite Runner

2007-12-08T00:10:00.000+05:30

Which is the most awaited film in India this season? I can't think of a better one than The Kite Runner, the movie adaptation of the best selling book from the Afghanistani American Khaled Hosseini. The book was supposed to the third best selling book in 2005.

As those who've read the book would endorse, it's really one of the disturbing books you could read, and a great way to know a little about the Afghan culture. After wetting my hands with a lot of 'knowledge' books, this fiction really did a bit to shake me up.

I just hope that the movie adaptation does justice to the book. Few movie adaptations do achieve the same class as the book (Day of the Jackal, for example), but I guess it's worth a wait. Any other ones to watch out for?

[Picture courtesy: IMDB]

Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?

2007-12-01T13:35:00.000+05:30

If there is a time in the day I’m sure to get flaming, it’s when I’m driving. I sometimes wonder how so many things can go wrong together when it comes to Indian traffic. I’m told Chennai is far better when it comes to traffic and driving sense than Bangalore and Hyderabad, but that doesn’t make things any better.

How can Indian cities be planned so poorly? Some would argue that our cities have always been there and roads can just not be widened, which is not a bad argument on the face of it, but that does not answer why even newer areas of all Indian cities are so badly choked.

Now, given the fact that roads can only be small, how can anybody [in the Government] take so long to build flyovers to reduce travel time?

It’s understandable that the people representing our Government are not so intelligent (to say the least), but how can so many of them be SO dumb? Let’s take just one example. I cross through a famously choked signal zone called Nandanam Signal in Mount Road (Anna Salai, for hardcore Dravidians) in Chennai. I spend about 20 minutes or whereabouts of it everyday crossing that junction. All other routes are worse off for my destination. Now, Mount Road happens to the largest and the most famous road in the city and this junction has been full of traffic for time immemorial (I would presume). Thousands of vehicles pass each day through this junction, the road can’t be widened, but there can surely be a fly-over to make things better. It’s not just the common people (like us) who suffer because of the jams here. The same dumbos in the Government who are supposed to decide get to travel through these same choked roads and signals. If that doesn’t give them reason enough to make everyone’s life a little better, I don’t know what will.

Coming back to the example, I just put one of the most primitive Return-on-Investment (ROI) models to calculate how much time it would take to recover the cost of the fly-over if one builds it in this signal. I’ve taken very basic assumptions, but the model still says that the money spent can be recovered via benefits in just about 100 days. And the fly-over stays for 30-40 years. Talk about the best returns!

Ok, if you are not able to widen roads or build flyovers, why not make things like Singapore? Tax vehicles like crazy to restrict vehicle purchase, and instead build a great public transport system. I can’t begin to think what the 1 lac car would do to Indian traffic. How can city ‘planners’ in India can’t think of just one of so many models that would work?

I know the Government is supposed to do ROI calculations when it comes to public projects, but whether that happens and whether people who are supposed to do that have-it-in-them to do it is anybody’s guess. For now, I’ll rest the case Good-bye.

Update 1: The parameters considered are too primitive and have only been taken for the sake of simplicity. There are different types of vehicles and different types of fuel. Some put off their engine, and some don't. And some of the problems because of traffic cannot be quantified - such as the number of lives lost because ambulances got stuck etc.

Update 2: Read Jam's take on this issue.

Update 3: Read Arun's take on this issue.

Courtesty: Quote

Achilles and the Tortoise

2007-11-23T16:54:00.000+05:30

There are a lot of simple sounding puzzles that leave you befuddled (for lack of a better word). Here’s a simple one that is so disturbing brilliant, which apparently puzzled Greek mathematicians for ages. I stumbled on this 2 months back, and I stumbled again on it today and thought it deserved a post. Read the following and Enjoy!

Zeno of Elea (circa 450 b.c.) is credited with creating several famous paradoxes, but by far the best known is the paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles.

The original goes something like this:
The Tortoise challenged Achilles to a race, claiming that he would win as long as Achilles gave him a small head start. Achilles laughed at this, for of course he was a mighty warrior and swift of foot, whereas the Tortoise was heavy and slow.

“How big a head start do you need?” he asked the Tortoise with a smile.
“Ten meters,” the latter replied.
Achilles laughed louder than ever. “You will surely lose, my friend, in that case,” he told the Tortoise, “but let us race, if you wish it.”
“On the contrary,” said the Tortoise, “I will win, and I can prove it to you by a simple argument.”
“Go on then,” Achilles replied, with less confidence than he felt before. He knew he was the superior athlete, but he also knew the Tortoise had the sharper wits, and he had lost many a bewildering argument with him before this.
“Suppose,” began the Tortoise, “that you give me a 10-meter head start. Would you say that you could cover that 10 meters between us very quickly?”
“Very quickly,” Achilles affirmed.
“And in that time, how far should I have gone, do you think?” “Perhaps a
meter – no more,” said Achilles after a moment's thought.
“Very well,” replied the Tortoise, “so now there is a meter between us. And you would catch up that distance very quickly?”
“Very quickly indeed!” “And yet, in that time I shall have gone a little way farther, so that now you must catch that distance up, yes?”
“Ye-es,” said Achilles slowly.
“And while you are doing so, I shall have gone a little way farther, so that you must then catch up the new distance,” the Tortoise continued smoothly.
Achilles said nothing.
“And so you see, in each moment you must be catching up the distance between us, and yet I – at the same time – will be adding a new distance, however small, for you to catch up again.”
“Indeed, it must be so,” said Achilles wearily.
“And so you can never catch up,” the Tortoise concluded sympathetically.
“You are right, as always,” said Achilles sadly – and conceded the race.

At the first look, it does seem like Achilles would never catch the tortoise if the tortoise had a head start because there are infinite micro distances to cover. But, as explained in the solution link, all the small half-values intimately add up to a finite number which is when Achilles would meet the tortoise head to head. In Mathematics, it is the sum of 0.5 + 0.25 + 0125 + .. which ultimately sums upto 1 (and not infinity as it looks from the explanation provided by Tortoise). Simple, yet so brilliant. I wish mathematics was taught using such examples!

Image Courtesy: Link

Meaning of Life

2007-11-18T01:59:00.000+05:30

One subject I've researched so much about in the past year. The Meaning of Life. Not that I got philosophical over the past year, but the sheer realization that the human psyche has tried and failed to get the answer to this one question for all the 60,000 (or whatever) years we've been here in planet earth gives me goosebumps. One simple and yet the most complicated question. I've tried to read so much about it over the past year, and everything I've read has made me both enlightened as never before and more confused as never before.

Anyway, a little bit of humour doesn't hurt anybody!

The most common Petrol Bunk fraud

2007-11-12T22:19:00.000+05:30

When I think about the frauds I’ve personally faced, particularly down south here in Chennai, two bunch of frauds top the ranking chart. Number one is, obviously, the auto-wallah frauds. I don’t have a count of the different types of frauds they do, but they keep reinventing and coming up with a newer fraud like twice every week. They come up negotiation fraud, meter fraud, distance fraud, route fraud, one-way fraud, traffic-jam fraud, and innumerable combinations of these. And there’s only one real way to avoid getting into this fraud – not choosing autos as a mode of transport, which is what I recommend to most people permanently stationed in Chennai.

There’s another type of common fraud that I’m witnessing these days in the petrol bunks. The first time I was caught off-guard was 6 months back. I had asked the bunk guy to load Rs. 500 worth of petrol. He showed me the ‘Zero’ reading initially and started loading petrol, and suddenly stopped when the reading showed Rs. 100. This is the point to watch out. When you tell them you had asked for Rs. 500 worth of petrol and not for Rs. 100, they pretend as though they didn’t hear it properly the first time. They then reset the meter (but the reading never really goes back to zero, and they don’t ask you to watch the reading this time) and start loading till Rs. 400 and stop there. Since the reset from 100 to zero never happened and yet they stop at 400, you easily lose Rs. 100 in the process - especially if you did not notice the reading properly before the second phase of the loading. Even if you had noticed, the bunk guy is going to insist that the meter was reset before loading the additional Rs. 400. I have also noticed that they sometimes press the so-called ‘reset’ switch, but the reading does not go back to zero.

I became very conscious of this fraud after my first incident where I think (I still am not sure) I lost Rs. 100. The same fraud was tried twice on me after that, one as recently as the day before yesterday. This time, it was the Indian Oil bunk near the Kodambakkam Flyover in Chennai. Fortunately, I noticed that the meter reading did not go back to zero after the fraud ‘reset’ and shouted at him. They do not play with you if you consciously watch the reading throughout. They only play with you when you lose a moment of concentration and fail to watch the reading go back to zero during the mid-way reset. If you think you’ve been fooled into this, the best way to tackle this fraud is to ask them to show the petrol dispensing report from the machine – the log that contains all the dispensing activity for the day, which contains the time and quantity of petrol dispensed. I haven’t seen one personally, but I’ve been told that such a report can indeed be generated. You could also threaten to call the police as you go through the log with them, just to be on the safer side. In my experience, just raising the voice and being stern works most of the time.

This fraud is very difficult to control/eliminate because, unlike problems such as adulteration or fault meters, this can never really be tested and isolated. And the bunk owners can not be penalized since it’s the bunk operator who indulges in this. The only way to tackle this seems to be to consciously watch out for these frauds.

Donate rice playing a word game!

2007-11-11T00:23:00.000+05:30

This is real interesting - a cute example of an amazing thought process.

For donating rice to poor nations, all you have to do is to play the word game in the website Free Rice. For every correct answer scored, the website donates 10 grains of rice to world's poorest nations.

FreeRice has already donated 1 billion grains of rice in 2 months.

You get to play vocab games (and some of us do that often) and you automatically donate rice.

The revenue concept is simple and sparkling in its sheer brilliance. The website uses advertisement revenue to pay for the rice, and the more the number of people who visit the site, better the ad revenue. I don't want to hazard a guess as to the possibility of ad tariff increase and its ceiling value as the traffic increases, but this is surely a brilliant thought.

Worst movie still of the century

2007-11-07T00:01:00.000+05:30

Just watch this still.

Ok, honestly, I don't know how good this couple is actually gonna look in the movie, and I really don't think I'll watch this movie, but I think this has to be the worst still of the century. If this still makes anybody watch the movie, let me know. I'm just plain curious.

Yuk.

Pa's the answer to Splash

2007-11-02T20:25:00.000+05:30

Just when you thought the B (or A2) segment of Indian cars got a little boring, there’s a lot of news to cheer up.

Almost all the cars in the segment are quite old. Santro has become an old-looking race horse, Zen Estilo never did justice to the Zen brand, Wagon-R and Indica have been around for a while and don’t really do justice in the looks department, and Spark is stuttering to even start, probably because of its Chevrolet association.

It was time for a change, and I think Hyundai has got it right. I10, or the Hyundai Pa as its known elsewhere, has arrived, and, with Maruti Suzuki’s Splash (Wagon-R’s cuter replacement) set to release next year, I10’s release has set the car-war rolling again. It’s refreshing to see some change in the hottest car segment in India.

It was time Hyundai replaced Santro coz of its dated design, and it was time Maruti had one solid product in the entry segment. I think Maruti somehow didn't have a real winner as far as the looks are concerned in this segment, probably because of its recent focus in Swift, SX4 and the Grand Vitara. B-Segment is really a cash cow in India, and products such as ‘I10’ and ‘Splash’ would just be the perfect bets to get the cash registers rolling for the two biggest car makers in India. I love the fact there are new options for the car buyer. A lot of other segments are boring for lack of competition. For example, you don’t have a real choice in ‘A’ segment – it’s just between the M800 and Alto, both from the Maruti stable. B+ Segment’s got Swift and Getz, but Swift is easily a no-brainer. Also, Skoda’s premium hatchback (Skoda Fabia) will be positioned in the C segment.

That said, the segment that could really do better is the entry level Segment ‘C’. If you are looking for a petrol car between 5L and 6L with a boot, there’s really no car that you could go with without thinking too much or compromising on one factor or the other. Esteem is from our grand-daddy’s generation, Logan looks boxy and sometimes yucky (and you don’t want to pay that much for a car that some just wouldn’t like), Indigo Petrol is not refined as the other ones in this segment, and Ikon has got maintenance issues. Of course, Hynudai Accent’s slow phase out was a case study example of killing a solid cash-cow of a brand.

In short, I would love to see some real action in this segment. I personally had to stretch to reach the SX4 since this segment was out of solid options. 2008 is going to be one fine year.

Crossing out stalkers

2007-10-30T22:24:00.000+05:30

If you ask me what's the most irritating thing on the net these days, I'd say that 'Checking out others messages and scraps' on networking sites ranks high up there.

I'm actually ok with people who check out others' messages or scraps without their knowledge. In Orkut terms, one could check out others' profiles/scraps after enabling one's privacy options. That way, one won't let the other person know that one has visited their profile. This is ok to an extent because you would probably presume that people who visit your profile and don't scrap you are the ones you don't know, and you most likely don't care what they are up to. If they are stalkers, so be it. If they have all the time in the world to check out messages meant for others, amen.

But what is most irritating is people whom you know - directly or indirectly - who visit your profile very, very often; who deliberately let you know that they are doing so, and also don't say anything to you. I mean, what is really their point? If you know that a remote 'friend' of yours visits your scrap daily and says nothing, what would you do? How do you cross them out? I personally don't write personal stuff out there, but stalking even in its rudimentary form is very unnerving. And that is not to say much. That's being cheap, and letting everybody know that you are cheap, which makes it cheaper than cheap.

Image courtesy: Randomstuff

Capture a moment in history

2007-10-26T22:42:00.000+05:30

This is the kind of stuff I like. You could either look at each second as just another second or as a moment in history. A moment that you wouldn't get anymore. Point of no return.

MetroBlogs Chennai is undertaking a unique and very interesting project: Capturing the moment. Wherever you are, and whatever you are looking at, catch that snap at exactly 3.11 pm on November 3rd 2007 and send that to Chennai Metblogs.

I instantly liked the concept, and am excited to see how different people's lives looked like at that moment in history. Go ahead and grab yourself a snap!

Powerless dressing

2007-10-22T22:35:00.000+05:30

This is one of my favorites. Why are Chennai’s youngsters so insensitive about dressing and personal grooming? No, please don’t wear the ‘we are born conservatives’ turban right away. Not yet. And no, don’t jump into the conclusion that I’m drawing parallels between Chennai and Paris. I’m not that Utopian. Ever wondered why dressing and Chennai just doesn’t even try to go hand in hand? Why do people (for the most part) have such a pathetic dressing and presentation sense?

First, allow me clear my points. I’m absolutely open to the idea of conservative dressing. I’m totally fine with people wearing what they like. My argument is why the selection has to be so bad? Why should the end presentation be so awful? Why do most guys appear out with uncut and uncombed and near-ruffian looks even to office and hi-fidelity shopping zones? Why would they choose apparel that just doesn’t suit their complexion and physique? Why do most young women (or should I say girls) choose to wear Tetra-large apparel given the first chance? And what’s with that awful so-called ‘natural’ hair? The bitter reality is that most of us aren’t blessed with a wavy, silvery silky hair and - let’s face it - we need to give it some treatment to make it look presentable. And, to quote one of my friends, why do so many young folks choose clothes a person from most other metropolitan cities wouldn’t even bother trying as curtain cloth?

Mind you, ‘presentation’ is not about the complexion or height or physique. Why do people just give a damn about their shapes and sizes? Being out of shape is ok to an extent, but being distorted isn’t – if I’m making my point clear. Half an hour of exercising or taking the stairs as opposed to lifts would certainly help.

I’m not against simplicity. I’m not for spending what everybody earns in their neighborhood boutique. It’s not about looking extra fashionable and stylish, a la people in the European capitals. It’s just about looking professional and cultured. I’m not all for western dressing and tight fitting clothes, but there is a way to present yourself as well-groomed in whatever you wear, and Chennai, most unfortunately, and in my opinion, just doesn’t give a damn. Most awful, young people in the IT and ITES sectors in Chennai with loads of disposable cash are also among the awfully dressed ones. Talk about missing the boat by a mile!

Of course, one needs to give credit to some parts of the city. Most people in the likes of Nungambakkam shopping zones, Ascendas and Citi Centers know to carry themselves well. On the other side, people - even the old couples - who visit the temples in Mylapore look fabulous in their dhotis and colorful saris. I think the problem lies with the careless youth, the ones who migrate from the remote towns in TamilNadu who refuse to pick up the better bits and pieces of big city life.

Add-ons: There's power in your dressing.

A sleepless follow-up

2007-10-20T01:25:00.001+05:30

Just a follow-up to the previous post: I'm darn surprised by the sheer number of friends/people who've called me and told me they've experienced something similar. Interesting.

Sleepless in Seattle

2007-10-02T07:54:00.000+05:30

All the sleepless days and nights, night-outs, and mostly self-imposed crazy schedules in B-schools generally leave you with a half-baked biological cycle. Last week was when whatever left of my biological cycle went for a sixer.

When I accepted a week’s travel to the US, what I did not realize was the impact such a 12-hour time zone shift has on one’s rhythm, particularly in short trips when you don't quite get the luxury to get used to the shift. The time zone change ensures that you are forced to be awake at times when you normally sleep, and forced to sleep when you are normally awake. If that dazed existence wasn’t enough, I had 15 hour very-intense work schedules, an additional 3-4 of preparation work, and an additional time zone change within the US. Net-net, most of the last week seems like a distant haze, akin to a mirage. I realize I was there, but I wasn’t fully there. But trips to a different country being what they are, they are always fun.

The difference in education levels between the east and west always amazes me. We are accused of learning by rote in India, but if it’s sheer smartness that you factor in, Indians win hands-down. [I do not know about the Chinese.] It's probably because of the cut throat competition in everything we do. The simplest examples could be gathered by observing the efficiency with which guys that do routine jobs in India do their job. I mean, if you notice how fast our neighborhood ‘annachi’ grocer does the math for the items you’ve bought, how quick and efficient the iron-guy in his job, how mellifluously our ubiquitous chai-guy handles the river of aromatic chai, how sneakingly and snakingly our drivers drive the cars and autos, you’d think they are the best people to do what they do. I’ve been more than amazed at how efficient our guys are in what they do. It’s a world of difference compared to the US. Picture the examples below. Mind you, all these occurred within a week – so ‘law of averages’, if it ever exists, cannot be factored in.

Scene 1: I go to a toy-store for buying toys for a colleague

Me: Hey I’m looking for ‘Bob the builder’.
Retailer: Good morning sonny, how are you doing this morning?
Me: Fine. Thanks. I’m looking for ‘Bob the builder’.
Retailer: Lemme run a search. [He opens a computer terminal]. And types in ‘Bob the biulder’, and it doesn’t find anything, obviously.
Me: I guess you got the spelling wrong.
Retailer: Oh yeah, I see. He then types in ‘Bob the boulder’.
Me: No. [I spell it]: It is ‘B-o-b t-h-e b-u-i-l-d-e-r’.
Retailer: Alrite. I see what you are saying. And then types in ‘Bob the biulder’.
Me: [I think – dude, English is supposed to be my second language and your first!]

Scene 2: I go to Burger King in Seattle Tacoma airport.

Me: Hi, I’ll have hash browns, two of them.
Retailer [a woman with Mongoloid features]: Honey, hath broons are very small. [I figured it is hash browns she's talking about] They come in medium, grande and king sizes.
[Incidentally, how many have noticed that American ‘medium’ is Indian ‘Large’. We don’t have their equivalent of Grande and King-size anywhere. And they don't have anything that is 'Small']
Me: No, I want two of those long hash browns.
Retailer: Oh no, you don’t get ‘em here. You get them in McDonalds. Do you want French fries instead?
Me: No, I’ll go with medium hash browns.
Retailer: Sure. Medium French fries.
Me: No, Medium Hash Browns.
Retailer: Sure Medium Hash Browns. Anything else honey?
Me: Yes, Hot Chocolate Medium.
Retailer: Sure. Gotcha. And then goes on to type ‘Medium French fries”
Me: Arrgh!

And that wasn’t all of it. The guy in the ‘United Airlines’ counter was the perfect recipe of disaster. He took about 20 minutes to find an alternate flight for me since my original one got delayed, even as the Jamaican-looking guy from the same airline in the next counter was re-booking people at the rate of 5 minutes a person. What more, at the end of 20 minutes of finding different flights, he canceled all my 3 flights en route to Chennai and re-booked only the first two. That was something I realized only in Frankfurt when they said my booking was canceled by the Airlines guy. How smart. The flight was thankfully half empty, which helped me avoided getting stranded in Frankfurt for a day. Getting stranded that way when you are in the middle of a 36 hour long airports-and-flights routine is the worst thing to happen.

Come to think of it, the guys who do the routine stuff in India may not be the most polite ones, and may be frequently understaffed, but the ones who are there know what they do, and are as efficient as anyone can get in their job.

The heritage hangout

2007-09-16T23:00:00.000+05:30

One of my colleagues who recently shifted out of Chennai told me that if there is one thing that he will definitely miss Chennai for, it's the coffee. I had to agree with him. Chennai rocks when it comes to coffee. No other place I've been to beats Chennai when it comes to coffee. You can barge in to any shop that dishes out coffee (and you'll find thousands across the city), and you can bet on your odds that the coffee is going to be good - immaterial of whether you are dishing out 3 rupees or 50 rupees.

Of course, when you know where to go as a coffee connoisseur (Hot Chips), you'll just love it. And what more, you get the Hot Chips coffee for five bucks. Hell, I love coffee and I'll pay twenty more if I have to. But this is not about coffee or Hot Chips. This is about one place you have to visit if you happen to be in Chennai. It's Amethyst, a nondescript hangout place in the heart of the city.

It's an old heritage bungalow converted into a coffee/fast-food type hangout place. The bungalow is a distillation of peace and beauty - quiet, lots of greenery, lots of space and lots of fresh air. It's natural. I found the prices to be similar as that of CCDs. And what's a better deal? The ultra-commercialized Cafe Coffee Days or a nice peaceful garden? If you want directions, you'll find the map in a Kiruba's post some years ago. Once you are on the road, watch carefully for a guard outside a colonial bungalow. There will be no banners advertising this place.

It's a perfect place for conversations, and when some of us met yesterday, we almost solved half the world's problems.

More reviews here:
Metblogs: Amethyst, Jewel in the heart of Chennai.
Hangout Digger

May My India!

2007-09-14T20:10:00.000+05:30

Wow. This is about one of the best things to happen in the web in India in the recent times.

One of the most useful online services when you travel into the US (or other developed countries, I would presume) is the direction find facilities such as Maps.Google.com. You just type in the complete 'start' address and an 'end' address, and you generally get a perfect outlay of the routes you need to take to get to the destination.

Looks like we have something similar down here in India too. I just saw the comment to my last post about http://mapmyindia.com/ and checked a couple of locations I know, and Voila! these guys seem to have got it right. Kudos. Even an approximation of the routes would be immensely helpful to all of us.

Now if I go to a relatively new city - say Delhi, rent a car and try to drive between the routes between Greater Kailash and Connaught Place, I know where to head for the direction and routes. If the service works throughout India or at least in Tier I to III cities, I think this is fabulous reason to get addicted to the web. Until then, hats off to the http://mapmyindia.com/ team for the attempt to bring the concept to India.

Blog Action Day: Prelude

2007-09-10T01:24:00.000+05:30

This is for fellow bloggers.

Bloggers around the world are about to unite on October 15 to write about the environment. Visit Blog action day. Register your blog and help promote the event.

The best thing about this is that you could write about anything you like - if you hate people polluting rivers, taking public places as open-air lavatories, those spoiled kids driving around with blaring music, throwing trash all over your favorite hill-town, or against US and Australia not signing the Kyoto Protocol ... anything!

As I write this, more than 4300 blogs and websites are participating around the world.

Hattip (and Thanks!): Mukesh, reader and my classmate.

Different people, Different thoughts

2007-09-07T00:02:00.000+05:30

I think the HSBC ad rocks. I haven't felt this way about that ad for so long, but I now do.

Getting to the point - Chandoo and I had a great discussion almost 6 months back [and one of those truly fruitful and unforgettable ones, even for my notoriously painful memory] during one of the routine walks. The discussion centered on the importance of working hard, and whether there is a marginal benefit of working extra hard vs. working plain hard. To give an example, from economics, machines provide maximum utility when operating at 80% of their maximum speed. If you continuously push them more for a long period - say 95% of their max. speed, the wear and tear costs increases much more than the extra benefits accrued because of the 15% extra speed. [Which is also why cars make such a rattling and blowing off noise when you push towards the maximum speeds, and do great just a little below.]

The discussion between Chandoo and I centered on working hard vs. extra hard throughout your life time, and if the benefit that accrues going that extra mile justifies doing the extra bit. We were at a fix, and came close to the conclusion that working extra hard may not be as beneficial as one might think (or made to believe by the society, friends and family circles) because, in the long run (say when you reach retirement), the difference one could make working that extra mile would probably be owning an extra house in a metro suburb. And frankly, what difference does it make to you or your off-springs if you own 3 instead of 2 houses by working 'extra' hard as opposed to plain hard? Does it matter whether you end-up as a CxO or a Director in a company?

Coming to the point, my parents have always asked me to tone down on work - irrespective of whether I work 8 hours that day or 12 hours that day. I happened to receive the Employee of the quarter this time, and I frankly didn't know such a thing existed until I was called for it (which means I didn't put anything extra looking for this), but this has stirred up the discussion again in my home. While my close friends think it's great (and nobody knows how great it is), parents are too cautious and concerned to see the goodies. Ditto with some of the old family friends who have 'seen it all'. May be it's just different people, different thoughts... but what is the ideal thing to do? To just work hard, or work extra hard? Or should we wait for time to take its own time to provide the answer?

The Yawn Experiment

2007-09-01T22:15:00.000+05:30

Does yawning make you yawn? I mean, it's common to feel hungry when you see others around you munching something. It sometimes make you feel like going and grab something immediately. Similarly, Science blogs has conducted a live experiment.

The image below is of a man yawning [Franz-Xaver Messerschmidt's The Yawner (model), circa 1778-1783].

Does the image below make you yawn?

It didn't make me yawn the first time, not even the second time. But I kept thinking about it and when I saw it the third time, I did yawn - but am still not sure if I forced myself into it and eventually gave in thinking I'm going to yawn all the time. I still am positively puzzled!

Filter coffee please!

2007-08-27T22:49:00.000+05:30

Despite my crappy schedule and work load, and in between working in the weeks and weekends, I’ve managed to squeeze some 'life' out for myself. In the process, I come across another great book [The Weather Makers], a great movie [The Transformers], the very-definition-of-shitty movie [The Host], and some marriages interspersed here and there.

And oh! – add some nice blogs to the list too. The one below is good. The next time the guy/gal with you tells s/he likes a little stronger Americano with extra sugar and a little salt, you tell him you love Café Latte, but one that is not formed in the regular way but the one formed by mixing equal amounts of Flat White and Cappucino.

P.S: I like all these coffees, but just think they could do something more. Read my earlier argument how the modern Cafe's can actually make much more money by serving just one additional item to their menu - a strong and nice filter coffee, at their own rates of course.

Hat-tip: IndiaUncut.

The tipping point of sanity

2007-08-26T11:22:00.000+05:30

We notice odd things once in a while with people, and generally let it pass - mostly coz we are nobody to judge others or to decide what they should do or look like, unless, of course, you are the Taliban.

But here are some amazing (or should I take the liberty once, just for once, to say 'insane') people who've permanently modified their bodies (with permanent tattoos, piercings, surgical body implants and all the other things from Mars) to look, well, you see and decide. And yes, these people are very real.

If you want more of this, here you go: Top 10 physically modded people.

I initially thought it's ultra-cool to do something like this - and come in style for say one of the retro-parties, but permanently looking this way? Excusez moi, I'm outta here!

Hat-tip: BoingBoing

I'm just one in a 100 million

2007-08-25T18:55:00.000+05:30

That's right. The official count of blogs all over the world crossed 100 million sometime in the last couple of days.

Technorati reads:

Currently tracking 100.1 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

The World Live Web is incredibly active, and according to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.

Another milestone in evolution?

Hat-tip: Instapundit.

Diet Coke is 99% water

2007-08-25T00:02:00.000+05:30

Says the new Diet Coke ad, according to the Freakonomics blog.

You might ask why you would drink it then, if it is almost the same as water. The argument is that it is tastier, not so unhealthy (unlike plain Coke) since it's mostly water, and is actually cheaper than bottled water in the U.S.

So why do we drink it in India paying a hefty premium? I think it's because Indians think drinking Coke is cool, pretty much like what we think about most things (and even people) from the west.

[Image Courtesy: 1to10reviews]

Stumbled on Happiness!

2007-08-19T17:52:00.000+05:30

Now, now, this is how fast things can go when you don’t quite plan for it. When I wrote about the book “Stumbling on Happiness”, I did not know a lot of things about the book – including its price. But then, I stumbled on the book yesterday during one of the unplanned visits (where unplanned expenditures warrant you to look beyond the wads of cash you’ve got into your credit cards, but that’s another story) to Landmark in the only true mall that Chennai’s got. And I ended up picking the book.

I first read about the book in the Freakonomics blog. I found later that the book has also won the Science Prize for 2007, and been for about 20 weeks on the New York Tims best seller list. That’s something, and is testimonies enough to make you pick the book. Unlike what you might think, the book is not a sweet shortcut to make you lurch into happy Disneyland. Instead, the author uses a combination of science and psychology to analyze the phenomenon that this whole elusive business called happiness is.

This is how it starts:

“Some people would wag their fingers in your direction and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to say that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving dumb advice to other people”.

That’s smart, and you can’t go wrong with a start like that. The author carries on at this pace for the rest of the book and makes you look, scientifically, at minute aspects of human behavior and how it affects happiness.

I wouldn’t say the book is a ‘must read’, but it’s an interesting and entertaining read. If you loved the likes of Freakonomics, Blink etc, you know what I’m talking about. And I’m positive you’ll hear more about it in the coming days. Overall Rating: Just about 4 on 5, or may be a shade less.

Have a great week!

How about Stumbling on Happiness?

2007-08-15T23:16:00.000+05:30

There are different ways to find good books. I normally scan the best-seller lists in the internet and the front-alleys of the major book stores - Landmark, Odyssey, Crossword etc - to find the latest hot ones in the market.

The other sources include blogs, newspapers etc, but the risk with most of these is you'd end up getting familiar with lot of 'popular' books as opposed to good ones that suit your taste. For example, Hindu tells me that the self-help (Shiv Khera and likes) and motivational (Paulo Coelho etc) books sell the most (they, apparently, are timeless; and sales volume is about 25% of total) - and keep the cash registers ringing. Nothing wrong with that per-se, but that is stuff I do not like. And again, fiction always sells like hot cakes, but that is something I'm trying hard to refrain from, because, Fiction has started to sound a little pointless, and I want to make sure I read good books in the limit time I have.

All said, the most credible source of good-books information come from friends, colleagues and other avid book readers you know, particularly ones with similar taste.

For picking up Science related books, I generally go by the Aventis Science Prize winners list. This list is considered the Booker prize for Science books. And my personal experience reading these books ("Short History of Nearly Everything", and "Guns, Germs and Steel" that I'm currently immersed with, to quote two of them) have been awesome. Looking at that list, and coming to the point, has anyone read "Stumbling on Happiness", that has been listed as the winner in 2007? I remember seeing the book in New York Times Bestseller list too, and reviews say the book is off-beat, but just want to hear from people who've read it...

Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

2007-08-11T12:44:00.000+05:30

That's the title of a book [from Bill Bryson] that I just closed. It's about life and times in America in the years of transformation - 1950's and 60's, and actually one of those light harmless reads, but one of the lines was particularly poignant.

"By closing years of 1950s most people had pretty much everything they had dreamed of...

... Soon millions of people were caught in a spiral in which they worked harder and harder to buy labor-saving devices that they wouldn't have needed if they hadn't been working so hard in the first place".

How disturbingly true. I guess that explains development, as we know it, in a single sentence.

India has only 31.5 million taxpayers

2007-08-10T21:27:00.000+05:30

That's the news item that I came across. Interesting. Just 3% of people pay tax. Isn't that great? We are what we are with just 3% of us paying tax?

However, I think they missed the closing lines: "India has only 31.5 million taxpayers. But they get badly milked."

Snapshots from the backyard

2007-07-31T23:59:00.000+05:30

I don't even have a count of the number of times I've been to Mahabalipuram. And almost all the time I've been there, I basically went to the Shore Temple and thought that was just about the best thing Mahabalipuram had to offer.

I was proved utterly wrong last weekend, when I was forced to tour the entire place as a part of an official visit. This place rocks, and I think I got some nice snaps. We had a guide with us, and the stories from his mouth gave an all new life to the entire (wonderful) place.

One below is the Shore Temple (Built with granite 8th century).

The place below is called Descent of the Ganges. Built around 7th century, the most surprising thing is the traces of Egyptian design in the sculptures. Can't even begin to think how people exchanged ideas across continents some 1400 years back!

One below is Pancha Ratha. There are five huge pieces of monuments (each named after the Pandavas), and the interesting thing is the whole place was one massive rock which was cut into what is below.

The guide told us the one below was a Light-House some 10 centuries back - lit by a flame at the top.

Can't believe I didn't explore a UNESCO World Heritage site, one in the very backyard. Well, better late than never!

India through Chinese' eyes

2007-07-30T22:29:00.000+05:30

Folks with roots in the hill (IIM-I), head to Bhasky's video post on Chinese students who came through the exchange program to India/IIM Indore. Bhasky's post here.

Some photos are great. And sound/video mix/selection is awesome!

Live Free or Die Hard, but don't waste time!

2007-07-29T11:30:00.000+05:30

Boy, oh Boy, I went to ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ this morning, and I’m like ‘Do you call this an action flick?’ It must’ve been categorized as Sci-Fi!

I know what to expect from Die Hard movies. They’re generally full of action, Hollywood-masala, larger-than-life stunts et al, but man… this was way over the top. Live Free or Die Hard, which is also Die Hard 4, comes after a decade in the Die Hard series and was also much expected, but I didn’t believe myself when I saw user rating of 8 on ten in IMDB. I just had to watch this flick. 8.15 am show in the morning did not matter.

I try not to take my logical lens with me while watching pure action flicks – Rambo series, Terminator series or Die Hard series etc, because you aren’t supposed to watch these flicks looking for logic. You watch them for their speed, the special effects, the stunts, and larger-than-life heroes and villains. That said, this does not mean than that you become dumb for the two hours while watching these flicks. Die Hard 4 is masala taken to the very next level. It’s not just beyond reason. It’s beyond your wildest imagination, and beyond the wildest absurdity.

Some spoilers start here -->

Our hero is an old school hero - the kind who loves fist-fights, guns, car races and blood. But he is not a geek, a tech-wizard, and he does not understand computers. The villains are everything our man isn’t. You get the idea. Villains hacking into everything – traffic network, banks, nuclear stations, TV stations, getting direct lines to F-16 pilots etc are to be expected in these action flicks, but what you can’t stomach is our hero escaping from F-16s and Helicopters and laser-guided missiles and instead destroying all of them. And wait a minute; did someone say there was a ‘plot’? I wouldn’t call some junkies putting an entire country to jeopardy by hacking into computers and our old-school hero rescuing everything single-handed a plot. That’s way over the top for me.

<-- Spoilers end here

All said, you have to give something to this movie – it’s fast, it’s packed with stunts, some funny dialogues, some sentimental-crap and overall fast-paced action. It is one of the ‘yeah, don’t have much to do this afternoon… can watch this flick for once’ movies, but I, for one, couldn’t really stomach the absurdity in the name of a movie.

The Happy Planet Index

2007-07-18T00:10:00.000+05:30

Went home this weekend again. I just love being away from all the mails, the internet and the computer. I’m sure I can’t keep away long enough, but 2 days is just about the right time you can stay comfortably away without being troubled. The mobile was a potential intrusion, but it was luckily silent for the most part this weekend.

Coimbatore is so unbelievably pleasant this time of the year. A cool breeze keeps ruffling the leaves… people have a slow pace of doing things; most things look still in time… the houses en route to home, the woman crouching in the hospital footsteps munching paan, the damaged cars that got stashed in a road corner some years back, and the tea-shop that just hasn’t changed its look since the 12 years I’ve seen it. The same people visit and eat the tasty ‘molaga bajjis’ and masala teas for all the years I’ve known. You see them being happy and chatting away to glory, and sun and rain doesn’t really matter. You don’t see any signs of the growth that you could otherwise see in more active parts of the city – where bungalows have doubled in size and number, and traffic jams have become the order of the day.

The opulent side is also where you could get to see irritated looking people chomping big packs of Salt and Pepper Lays Chips sitting inside the car and cursing traffic. I really am confused if all the growth and the so-called action are as good as has been infused into all of us over the years. Does all this capitalistic rat-race really mean anything? Would we have all been better off just taking it easy – the old-ish 8 hours, 5 day weekdays and weekend visits to the temples, pedaling along in an old cycle, and waiting for the only TV channel to show a melody number?

Maybe Governments should actually go the Bhutan way and measure the nation’s growth every year using a Gross National Happiness Index instead of the Gross National Product? Or are we going to be better off just cherishing the 9% growth story year-on-year and slowly but surely yield ourselves to the waistline-widening service sector? I know service sector doesn’t always mean widening-waistlines or lesser lifespan (if you take the Japanese example) but I guess the correlation is indisputable. Whatever the answer is, I’m positive equating an individual’s or nation’s success to material wealth/salaries etc is just about the dumbest thing anybody could do. Interestingly, countries with dominant service sectors rank pretty low in the Happy Planet Index.

P.S: I haven’t exactly become anti-capitalistic/anti-progress or anything, but let’s just consider this as one of those routine thoughts that just got accidentally recorded!

When in doubt, pay back!

2007-07-08T20:24:00.001+05:30

I shudder when I hear friends/colleagues talking about EMI that is more than 40-50% of their take home salaries, and for an extended duration - such as 5+ years. The assumption is that our salaries will keep flowing without interruption, but the risk seems enormous. What if one gets real sick and needs a 3/4 month sabbatical? What if you want to switch a job immediately and there's no second job in hand?

Here's an eye-opening incident that I came across - a man killed over an ICICI bank loan - for a mere Rs. 15,000 loan.

Y Yadaiah, 42, an electrician in the state medical and health department, had defaulted on a Rs 15,000 personal loan he had taken from ICICI Bank a few months ago.

Yadaiah had called her up sometime later, saying the recovery agents had detained him at their office. “He was told he would not be allowed to leave until he returned the money,” she said. Around 2 pm, Sunanda received a message from a hospital saying her husband had died.

It's common knowledge that banks use goons to recover the sum. Here's the version from the 'recovery' agents. I don't think there's a single person who's gonna believe this.

Elite Financial Services told the police that Yadaiah went into convulsions, fell on the floor and injured his forehead. It said Yadaiah was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

Here's more, and the evidence that ICICI was actually involved in it:

“Many debt-recovery outfits employ retired cops for their expertise in third-degree methods,” said a police official on condition of anonymity.

"We had demanded compensation of Rs 50 lakh but the ICICI Bank officials offered Rs 15 lakh. Whatever the amount, the readiness of the bank to pay implies its connivance in the sorry episode and that it is using goons to recover dues by hook and literally by crook"

The guy has apparently paid 8K out of 15, and the 7K costed him his life. Here's a huge bunch of issues faced by ICICI's customers. Guess I need to rethink about renewing the 'relationship' with them - it's one dark murky world, this entire banking thing.

Mika Brzezinski & the Media

2007-07-01T22:07:00.001+05:30

If you are sick and tired of watching news that isn't supposed to be news, you're gonna love this.

Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC refused to cast the lead story about Paris Hilton when on air, and she even made an attempt to burn the script and shred the script papers - Live on air on a 7.00 am prime time news show. Why did she do that? The lead story about Paris Hilton's jail episode was forced on her by her superiors, and she thought it was too frivolous to be a lead story.

Read: I have a new hero and her name is Mika.

It's amazing that one among the media has stood up against all baloney and gossips elevated to news for want of TRP ratings. It's an ethical question alright - should media deal with real news or gossip - that people want to hear?

I personally hate Paris Hilton and everything revolving her since she doesn't deserve to be a serious celebrity that she is - And she is a celebrity just because she's a heiress of Hilton empire and because of a leak of her private sex video, both of which doesn't qualify a person to become a celebrity. She isn't even good looking, for heaven's sake!

You lead Mika! Make her the CEO of our masala (Times) group!

Do not call, please!

2007-06-30T12:45:00.000+05:30

I wrote sometime ago about the Do Not Disturb 'service' 'offered' by the mobile operators. I filled those form and have noticed over time that the unsolicited calls/smses have reduced by as much as 90%. I still do get one or two spam smses and feel like whacking the guy who sends it, but it's peace for the most part.

On similar lines, there is a Do Not Call 'service' provided by ICICI bank. Being one of their customers, I get frequent telemarketing calls for their loan offers or credit card offers. I guess having a neat credit history only worsens one's case. I've now registered for the Do Not Call service now.

I just hate calls from unsolicited numbers. It's even more irritating to get a call about a '4 lac, no questions' loan offer when you are in a middle of a serious meeting. I do like banking with ICICI coz their internet banking is good, and I rarely have to go to their branches, but telemarketing has been an irritating part. Hope there's some more respite from now on.

United Colors of Kerala

2007-06-28T21:13:00.000+05:30

Jamster decided to get married, and some of us decided to use that as the perfect execuse to take a chill-pill. It didn't take a second to decide to bunk a day once we knew the marriage was in Kerala. Kerala impresses me everytime I go, and I have no idea why. It's probably the colors, the attire, the genuine bungalows that pop out of nowhere - shouting 'gulf money' all over, the terrain, and, ofcourse, the language and the way they speak English. I love Kerala!

We took the Chennai-Coimbatore-Palghat-Thrissur route. While waiting for an engine to pass... guess it was a moment of pleasure in the kid's life!
I don't know the name of this falls [It's en route to Vazhachal falls], but if you've watched the video of the famous Tam number 'Kaatre en Vaasal' from the movie Rhythm [or was it a different song?], you're home.

Wouldn't you just love being on the driver's seat? That's my friend's Blue Swift there.

The entrance gate en route to the Athirampally falls. You read that right!

The Athirampally, or Punnagai Mannan falls itself. I vaguely remember visiting the falls as part of the college tour, but I don't remember it to be half-interesting as it was now coz we were under watchful eyes then, which killed all the fun. Time and energy were the only things that we had this time around. We trekked down 300m to the bottom of the falls, and got this view. You'd most certainly think it's raining down there, but not to worry - the breeze carries the water droplets quite far that you think it's raining all over. You have to experience it to believe it.

The view from the top. I made the typical photographic mistake - not capturing an object of known size to project the real size of the waterfall.

United Colors of Kerala!

I don't know what this guy was trying to convey, but it was larger than life.

Here's the L&T Coimbatore Bypass, one of the best engineered roads in the country -just a couple of KMs from my home. If you love the fights between rubber and the tarmac, this is where you want to be.

We hit 150 kmph in our blue Swift, and came out astounded with the car's performance. The car felt solid at that speed, and we felt there was room for more. In fact, I think I averaged almost 110 kmph in the Bangalore-Chennai highway for about a couple of hours during the night-time, and didn't feel unsafe even for a single moment. Maruti Swift truly rocks for its price.

Until next time!

Say Al-Lubnāniyyah!

2007-06-22T21:43:00.000+05:30

Till last Sunday, my experience with Lebanese cuisine wasn’t anything to write home about. I had tried Lebanese kebabs here and there, but it had always been bland on the tongue, and always been costly. But I knew something didn’t add up since those weren’t the kind of reviews I used to hear from people who’ve tried it big time. The thought suddenly came up last Saturday – on a surprisingly slow afternoon when even a classic like Flags of our Fathers didn’t tie me too much to the seat.

That’s when I hit upon the idea of checking out one of those exotic places in Chennai, and I knew where to head for opinions. IndiaMike.com is the forum where expatriates move around quite frequently, and wine and dine discussions really have a lot of credibility. A quick check, and I zeroed-in on the unobtrusive Lebanese Restaurant that actually happened to be on my everyday office route.

I ain’t going to write too much since Chandoo has done all the writing, and I love flicking:

I was pleasantly surprised to find the place to be quite spacious and big. The walls were decorated with photographs from Lebanon and other Mediterranean countries. The décor itself was simple and charming. Smooth and unobtrusive Arabian music filled the air.

We started out with HumMus, a chickpea paste made by adding lemon and garlic juices along with pita bread. We also ordered few drinks to go with it, and most of them were house specialties - date syrup, a refreshing mint juice etc. The waiter was kind enough to explain each dish he brought along.

Going there: Cedars is on Gandhi Mandapam Road, on the left side if you are coming from Anna university / IIT.
Must Haves: Jelab / Mint Dew / Shawarma / HumMus / Hookah if you like

In all, it’s 5 stars to this place. Authentic-sounding Lebanese cuisine that is delicious; a neat and quiet ambience; knowledgeable waiters; and soothing music. It would cost about 400 Rs on your pocket per head, but it’s just worth the experience. Apart from stocking up your socializing vocabulary, you could actually spend a nice evening sipping one of those very-exotic mocktails.

Here’s hoping to write a review every time I visit an exotic restaurant. Hmm, wish I had 36 hours in a day!

Sivaji the Sensation

2007-06-16T16:30:00.000+05:30

I was never planning to watch Sivaji, The Boss, Rajnikanth’s latest blockbuster on the second day of its release. Infact, I didn’t know I’d be in one of the theatres this morning till the fag end of yesterday. The whole of Friday went by as if a carnival was happening around the corner and I wasn’t a part of it.

Stories came in hordes.

Articles on Sivaji topped the ‘most read’ sections in newspapers. Sivaji made to the headlines in every news channel worth a mention. About 2100 members were to hit the theatres on Saturday from the company where I work. One employee bunked the office on Friday – first day of release – citing the classic ‘grandmother’ reasons and was caught red-handed while giving a review to NDTV. I don’t know what he was thinking! Purely official mails carried the ‘Boss’ themes. Magazines wrote about tickets selling at 1,900 Rs and being sold out till the end of June'07. You hear about the 30$ tickets in the US, and a guy spending 50$ on popcorn for jubilation throws. The temptation was too much to resist. And then, an influential friend of mine gave the lucky call - first show on the second day of release. ‘Wow!’

I hit the theatre at 7.30 this morning. The first thing I noticed was the presence of police – understandably to ebb the frenzy. The movie started, the 'Boss' walked in with a mask, the dancing began, the whistles blew everyone’s eardrums off, and all of it peaked to an unprecedented high when the Superstar gave his first glance at the audience. Amidst the crescendo, in that moment, that very moment, you know there can only be one such guy, perhaps in the whole world.

The movie itself is proper entertainment – one that just can’t wrong. The first half just rolls across – and you just feel very happy being there. Vivek is at his best; Shriya’s got a thunderbolt screen presence, and AR Rahman’s tunes keeps growing on you as you listen more and more. The plot is a perfect mass entertainer, one where nothing can ever go wrong – good wins evil, do-good to society, and a bunch of dumb villains. Add to all this, the music videos are something else – you know where all the money went in making this the costliest Indian movie yet. Let’s not even start about Superstar’s antics and their effects on the audience.

I don’t think I was a full-time Rajnikanth fan before, but I guess I am one now. Salutations to the brand called Rajni, one that has been built without even endorsing one product on small screen television or anywhere else.

Watch the movie if you don’t want to be left out of the carnival in the town. Watch the movie because everyone around is going to speak about it – for sometime to come. Watch the movie because it’s the latest ‘Da Vinci Code’ in this part of the world. Watch it coz you have to watch it!

Go Black!

2007-06-12T22:57:00.000+05:30

I first heard this when a colleague/friend of mine told me about how much power we could save by using 'Blackle' instead of 'Google'. There's a lot of material out there, so I ain't gonna type the whole thing again.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

Go Blackle. Guess it takes a little bit of getting used to it - and tackling your impulse, but I guess it's worth it.

This day, that age

2007-05-28T07:50:00.000+05:30

This blog came live three years ago, on exactly this date.

Hmm. Never imagined it'll survive three full years. Let's see how far it goes. :)

P.S: I know the title 'mumbo jumbo' is least imaginative, but I never figured when I created the blog that it would stay so long. Now I'm too tired to change it. :)

A perfect weekend

2007-05-28T07:46:00.000+05:30

Had a perfect weekend at Coimbatore. Awesome weather, awesome-r breeze, no internet/computer crap, a lil' bit of music, a lil' bit of driving, a lil' bit of reading, and a LOT of home cooked delicacies.

Just perfect.

Beauty is nothing without brains

2007-05-23T22:32:00.000+05:30

You've got to see this.

The beauty and the beast

2007-05-22T21:50:00.000+05:30

I've booked the SX4. The choice was a cinch - there were no real alternatives in the price range. Did quite a bit of research though - I guess you automatically become cautious when an EMI (although only for 18 months) is going to load you for the first time in life. The research only double-confirmed by decision.

Here's one comment in an expert Car Reviews forum that definitely went in favor. I didn't know such a great car related forum existing in India. What is really surprising is the forum never really comes up in any search - probably because it's page rank is lesser than that of my blog (??!!). You know you are in the right hands when people use an impossible number of abbreviations. I've expanded each one in brackets in the evaluation below.

This car is incredible. If the FE (Fuel efficiency) can get to the 11 kmpl mark, I don't see the petrol Fiesta and Verna, and even the NHC (New Honda City), left with any real reason to exist. If you slam it down 20 mm, and fiddle with the suspension, this car will be track ready, and how! Tight chassis, nice mill, good GC (Ground Clearance), Maruti's legendary A.S.S. (After Sales Service), this car has it all. At a price that's lower than its main competition by a lakh or so. If I had to buy a petrol A3/C segmenter, this would be it. Small gripes include the overenthusiatic ABS, the too-high GC, the hollow feel the rear doorpads have, the Swiftness of the whole car, the gripless OE tyres. But still, incredible VFM.

The forum is infested with people who wheel-spin, stress test, and even participate in Raid de Himalayas. You get the drift.

VFM (Value for Money) was pretty much what I was looking for. I don't think I would've fell for the snob value or spend this much on a car right now if SX4 hadn't been from Maruti. Let me see how things go from here. The car apparently goes to 98kmph in the second gear and 145kmph in the third. Wonder what one should do with the 4th and the 5th gear.

Some of the things that make you long for life.

P.S: Wrote all this down and then had this feeling that I shouldn't post this coz it's getting personal, but figured wtf!

2 Life Skills B-schools Don't Teach

2007-05-17T22:45:00.000+05:30

Here's a surprise. For probably the first time ever, an article titled 'What B-schools don't teach' ends up really conveying something! Open the cork!

Here are two points I whole-heartedly agree with:

Good health: Corporate waistlines are expanding almost as rapidly as company bottom lines. And between early morning flights and late night conference calls, no one seems to have the time to take care of their own bodies.
Perhaps B-schools should inculcate the habit of an hour in the gym every day. And the pursuit of a sport, say, every week.
Work-life balance: No man on his death-bed ever said "I wish I'd spent more time in the office." Watching your child grow up, spending time with loved ones, being there at those special moments in other people's lives - all these can probably give you as much joy as a deal clinched or a market share point gained.
"What would you do differently if you knew you had only six months to live?" We could all probably answer that one quite easily (spend more time with the family, play with the kids, take off on that vacation to the hills, write that book...). Alas, none of us really knows when precisely we have only six months to go.

I just couldn't agree more!

Most articles titled 'What B-schools don't teach' are pure, certified crap. Some so-called hot-shot giving opinions such as 'B-schools don't teach leadership', 'B-schools don't teach the art of negotiation' is gibberish and write-for-the-sake-of-writing stuff. I just used to detest those articles. In my opinion, given the two years, there are somethings B-schools can teach, and some they don't - because they simply cannot. Leadership skills and negotation skills are some of those.

To visa or not to visa

2007-05-15T22:59:00.000+05:30

If you are one who's employed in the IT/ITES industry, chances are you would've already seen this from one of your friends. Two US Republican senators have asked top Indian outsourcing firms to explain the rationale behind the number of visas that they have requested.

Contending that the H-1B visa programme is being abused to displace qualified American workers, two US lawmakers have asked nine foreign-based firms, including some leading Indian companies that used 20,000 of such visas, to disclose details about their workforce and their use of the special programme.

As the US Senate gets ready to take up the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, the two top law makers -- Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin -- said "more and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas to displace qualified, American workers."

"As we move closer to debate on an immigration bill, I continue to hear how people want to increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to companies. Considering the high amount of fraud and abuse in the visa programme, we need to take a good, hard look at the employers who are using H-1B visas and how they are using them," Grassley said in a statement.

I guess it's one of the issues that everyone had conveniently buried till now, but it just had to come out in the open. There are, obviously, two directions - one where the number of visas will further be reduced, or the other where the number will be increased. Senators would obviously ride the first option for attracting the vote bank - by selling the 'visas displace US jobs' story. But people who've really tasted the might of skilled workers would ride the second story.

The companies the senators sent letters to were Infosys Technologies, Wipro Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Tech Mahindra Americas Inc. and Mphasis Corp.

US technology companies have long lobbied for removal of visa restrictions - to keep US competitive.

Bill Gates said he has a hard time understanding the logic of those who decry the outsourcing of American jobs yet are reluctant to facilitate bringing the high-skill people who are catalysts for economic growth to this country. "People just shake their heads at what kind of a central planning system would say having 65,000 smart people come in, that's okay, but 70,000 smart people, no."

Let's see what's in store.

The rocker called SX4 from Maruti Suzuki

2007-05-11T19:56:00.000+05:30

Update: I've booked the car.

I just had to put a post on SX4. Touted to be one of the most important – and significant – releases in the recent years in India, SX4 is a rocker from the word go.

For starters – I’m referring to Maruti’s newly released saloon called SX4, which is said to be next version of Baleno. This is very significant in the Indian car industry since Maruti has always been perceived as a ‘low cost’ or low-end (A1 and A2 Segment) car manufacturer, despite being the market leader. They proved themselves in the upper A2 segment by releasing Swift. And SX4 is Maruti’s answer in the A3 segment, and I guess they got it damn right.

Image Courtesy: Autocar India

SX4’s release had been hyped up until now with occasional glimpses of this stylish piece in European car shows. But everyone was tight-lipped about its price, and that’s again where Maruti made the perfect move. SX4 has been priced well below market expectations. The automatic version of Suzuki’s SX4 had been running in Europe as a hatchback for sometime now. With SX4’s release in India, even before it hits the most competitive market in the world (US), Maruti and Suzuki have shown the importance of India as a car market. SX4, in India, comes with features that are generally present in cars that are 2 to 2.5 lacs higher.

The base price of SX4 comes at 7.03 lacs on road – according to the business quote I’ve got from a dealer in Chennai. It’s longer, taller, wider and, in my opinion, much better looking than all of Honda City, Hyundai Accent, Verna, Renault Logan, Chevrolet Aveo, Tata Indigo, Ford Fiesta, Fusion, and a host of other cars in the same category. Running costs are certainly going to be easy on the pocket – what with Maruti’s spares and mighty service network. What more, it comes with a rocker of an engine that generates 103BHP @ 5500 rpm. Compare that with Honda City that generates 77BHP @ 5500 rpm and priced about a lac higher than SX4, with lesser features. In my own test drive, SX4 is vintage Maruti in refinement, smoothness and noise control. I think they’ve got it all damn right. This is a great move by Maruti to fulfill the needs of long time Maruti owners who are looking to stick with Maruti for the value the cars bring along.

I had almost zeroed in on Renault Logan which fits exactly my budget (6 lacs), but SX4 is simply irresistible. I really wouldn’t bother to stretch myself if this car hadn’t been from Maruti, but now this is serious food for thought. Let’s see what’s in store.

For people like me (who’re planning to buy a car) 2007 has been an amazing year. Logan was one of the most important releases in the recent years. It doesn’t look as stylish as SX4, and is apparently not the last word in refinement and noise control, but Logan is one damn good buy, in my opinion, for under 6 lacs on-road. For people who can stretch a little bit, SX4 is a great deal. If I were asked to choose petrol cars in difference categories, this would be my list: Maruti Alto to start with, Hyundai Santro in the 3-4 lacs range (or Maruti Wagon-R if you want cheaper running cost – the only vehicle with company provided LPG option), Maruti Swift in 4-5 lacs range, Renault Logan in 6-7 lacs range (or Maruti Esteem if you are ok with the looks), Maruti SX4 in the 7-8 lacs range, Toyota Corolla in 10 lacs range, Honda Civic beyond that, and then straight on to Mercedes.

Technology and choices have come a long way in the 12 years – which is when I first started driving with the hand-geared old Premier Padmini. My love for driving hasn’t lost a single bit since then. Days now are really exciting and I can’t wait to floor the pedal of one of these beauties!

SX4 on road price in Chennai (with sun film):
Base specification: Carwale research.
VXi (AC + Tubeless tyres + Power steering + Power windows + Central locking) - 7.03 lacs
ZXi (VXi + ABS + Stereo + Air bags + Alloy wheels + Auto air conditioning) - 7.80 lacs
Leather (ZXi + Leather seats) - 8.20 lacs

Also Read: Renault Logan hits the C (A3) segment

Chennai is the second cleanest Indian city. Or is it?

2007-05-06T10:16:00.000+05:30

When Metblogs Chennai posted the results of the AC Nielson ORG MARG Lifebuoy survey (Also in Business Line) that Chennai is the second cleanest Indian city, I fell off the chair. Well, almost.

Chandigarh emerged the clear winner with a score of 144 followed by Chennai and Kolkata with 118 and 108, respectively. Kolkata has scored high on greenery and plantation, clean roads and garbage disposal system. The only other cities to log above 100 points are Thirivananthapuram, Bhuvaneshwar and Lucknow.
The rest of the cities, including the national capital (Delhi) and Mumbai apart from Hyderabad, Dehradun, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, Bhopal, Patna, Raipur and Ranchi had below par cleanliness scoring 99 to 76.

There's no surprise that Chandigarh tops the list. It is one of the two planned cities in the world, and I was very impressed by the city. I wouldn't have thought twice to settle down there if it had been down south - closer home, that is.

Everything else in the survey comes with a bit of surprise. Bangalore is rated 4, and in my two years of stay with the city, I thought it deserved better. But things seemed to have gone awefully wrong in the 3 years after I left - echoed by the Bangalore Buzz blog that hints that it is surprised to find Bangalore even at the fourth spot.

I haven't been to Kolkata, but was nevertheless surprised to see it in the number 3 spot. As far as I've heard - and I've heard this one thousand times - Kolkata is a filthy old place. That's number 3? Lucknow is rated 6. Again, I'm surprised a city in UP ranks 6.

Mumbai ranks 8, and Delhi stands at 9, which seems fair.

Either the survey is screwed up, or the following comment in Chennai Metblogs is true:

If Chennai is second in india then I can only see how much worse the other cities are..

It takes quite a bit to quickly realign your brain to think that you are living in one of the cleanest Indian cities. Right now, I'm reciting the line "I'm living in the second cleanest Indian city" a hundred times a day. I expect myself to get accustomed to this fact after thousand recitals.

The new manager

2007-05-04T23:58:00.000+05:30

Sidin's articles in the New Manager section of Business Line is always a great way to start the week. Here's one of the best pieces that I came across in the recent past.

Is it true that young managers are often asked to do menial jobs in their first few months in the office? Isn't this insulting to my education and self-esteem?
It is a sad truth that many young managers do often end up photocopying and couriering for many months in their first job. However, one must realise that several people have risen to GM and VP levels purely on the strength of their documentation.
Dear Sidin, I am a fresh new manager. I love my new job and I am very happy with the money I am making. Everyone here respects me. All in all I am absolutely delighted. But no one else I know is. Is this norma

This is perfectly normal. This is because you are probably in HR.

All said, I truly don't know how people pass 20 to 30 years of life working in the office day in and day out. It does look like a mammoth challenge staring hard in the face...

Paranoia in the west

2007-05-01T16:56:00.000+05:30

This is fun. You know how much the developed world is scared of the developing world when you read articles where people start comparing entrance exam question papers between countries to check how competitive their exams are.

UK's Royal Society of Chemistry got pretty paranoiac after seeing a Chinese pre-campus Maths people and floated a challenge to people in UK. They've even compared their own maths entrance puzzles versus the ones in China and have come to the conclusion that they are falling behind. I couldn't stop smiling reading the whole thing. [Courtesy: BBC]

I think this is plain paranoia. For one thing, the way people get taught in developing and developed worlds is totally different, and I presume China isn't very different from India. I remember solving far more difficult questions in standard XII. The other experience I had was when attempting Maths questions in the IAS exam where I didn't accomplish anything other than counting cobwebs in the room. The difference in learning between the west and India is: we learn to solve the problem, and the same problem appears in the so-called 'exam' where they are supposed to test our skills. In effect, we mug the solution instead of learning how to actually solve the problem.

That said, I think what the west has to be really worried about is not the quality of questions in our (say India and China) syllabus, but the effort students put in to get into universities, and how hard-work is just wired into our routine. Unlike in the west where education in a good university could be attained with some effort, we pretty much need to mortgage our life to get into one of these prominent universities - and that teaches us the 'survival instincts' that make us quite competitive.

This bout of paranoia is very similar to a chat I was having with a museum curator a couple of weeks ago in New York. The discussion veered towards outsourcing after he found that I hailed from India, and he said 'you guys are doing a great job and are pretty successful'. I spoke about our how our low cost of operation helps, and he retorted 'Apart from low-cost I think you Indians excel because the genius is in your genes, and you guys are like born smarter. Like Jews.'

I couldn't help smiling. I didn't retort because, I admit, it was too tempting not to accept that sort of a compliment. If that is the general impression, amen!

Fighting the dragon

2007-04-30T16:35:00.000+05:30

My interest, or rather curiosity, on Tibet and its plight started during my first visit to Manali (HP, India). The compound wall of the Tibetan monastery in Manali had an inscription that would generally be considered rebellious - "Free Tibet from the clinches of China", made by the Students for free Tibet. I made a mental note to check up on the entire history sometime later. And while doing so, I also got to watch the movie '7 Years in Tibet', which again prompted me to read the splendid book by the same title.

The book stands high up there as one of those marvelous books of human struggle, determination and courage I've ever read. From those days, I try to follow the developments and what Tibetans try to do to make the world notice of their plight and struggle. Of course, given a chance, I'd jump at the opportunity to visit the roof of the world (Tibet) and the Forbidden City (Lhasa).

Image Courtesy: 'Friends of Tibet blog' - one of those blogs that I *try* to follow.

As anyone who knows a little about Tibetan culture would say, it's one of the most simplistic cultures in the world. Tibetans are very peace loving and simplistic - which is exactly why China had absolutely no problems taking over an entire country without creating as much as a whimper. It was like being a nice guy and someone just ran over an 18 wheeler on you for being nice.

The biggest problem that Tibetans face today is that not many in the world know of their real plight. And all because they are the 'nice guys' who wouldn't cross the line of morality (which I guess is wired in their religion and culture) to prove a point or two. On the other hand, struggles such as that of LTTE are known to the entire world and there's recognition of the world. What happens next is a different story, and one that's better left untold.

Now, the moral of this story - I guess it doesn't pay to 'be nice' all the time. The world would swallow us and we wouldn't even know about it. Sometimes it pays to be crude and be dodgy, if that is the way the world works.

The latest initiative by Tibetans is 'One world. One dream. Free Tibet 2008', and to create a real ruffle before the Olympics 2008 to make China look nasty before the eyes of the world. All this even as China bulldozes into the world economic scene. Let's see what's in store...

20 Indian cities 'mapped'

2007-04-26T17:27:00.000+05:30

Yahoo! has mapped 20 Indian cities - providing a detailed online map with a decent list of services.

On Wednesday he launched "Our City", a new Net resource which aggregates city specific information including, news, travel and tourism, weather, local business as well as user contributed blogs, photos and videos, for 20 Indian tier-1 and tier-2 towns.

Following are the cities in the radar.

The 20 Indian cities now in Yahoo's new Our City Web portal are: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bubhaneswar,Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Mysore, Pune, Shimla, Thiruvananthapuram.

This is, obviously, a good thing. The maps for these cities are quite detailed. We don't have to purchase a city map anymore, and ATMs and other common services such as restaurants, theatres, hotels and tourist spots can easily be located using this service - especially helpful for someone new to one of these cities. I'm not sure how useful weather information is going to be - Indian weather is too predictable, unlike in the west.

This is a good start. However, I think the key feature that's still missing is the navigation aid. Similar to the US (I don't know about the rest of 'west'), if there is a service that shows the exact map and directions to reach place A from place B - including all the roads and turns you need to take and the distance between each of them, that would be of real benefit for travel. Let's hope this great service comes soon - at least within the major (top 10) cities.

Have a Patel (photo) shot yet?

2007-04-23T09:54:00.000+05:30

A friend of mine told me about 'Patel shot' yesterday.

What is a 'Patel shot' anyway? Doubletongued.org says this:

Patel shot n. a candid photograph with a person in the foreground and a place or object of interest (such as a tourist destination or landmark) in the background.

The phrase reeks of derision from the word go. All of us have posed before famous monuments, but I guess the phrase originated because we Indians tend to overdo it. You'd find it easy to catch an Indian taking a photo as s/he poses before something, but it does seem true that we take lesser number of person-less photographs compared to other races. Not that any of this is wrong; it's just that I didn't understand why Indians overdo in 'Patel shooting'. A random blog search might have the answer:

In India, with international travel booming in the IT industry which employs almost 40% of the eligible educated bachelors, 'Patel shots' are the in-thing for quite sometime now. I am not sure if it is by choice or chance, 90% of such IT world groom-to-be snaps that are exchanged happen to be shot abroad in a well known tourist spot!

It is not the same with the opposite sex though. Bride-to-be pictures are usually shot at home, studio with a plain background in ethnic wear. Women travel abroad too, but the pics in western outfits in tourist spots are not preferred.

Interesting. I guess the other reason is that we travel very less compared to, say, westerners, and hence visiting these places itself is an important event in our lives, and we make sure we record it for posterity.

The city that's 'Always turned on'

2007-04-20T06:07:00.000+05:30

‘Always turned on’ is the caption for ‘Atlantic City’. This is a caption adapted consciously for the sake of branding.

Atlantic City is located 2 hours from the New York, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And it’s designed for one purpose: to be the Las Vegas (The Sin City) of the East Coast. And how do you do that? Build flashy casinos and legalize gambling. All ingredients of a ‘Sin City’ automatically come in. You’ve got money, casinos, gambling, stage shows, lots of tourists, and lots of shops, lots of lights, a fabulous beach, and dance bars. I’m not sure if prostitution and assorted stuff is as prevalent as in Las Vegas - which is probably why people say Atlantic City isn’t there (as a Sin City) yet.

The picture below is that of a tourism office that’s bang on the edge of the city at the entry point. You can’t miss it because it’s beautiful. You don’t have to know anything about the city before you plan to visit since these guys assist you in everything.

The Atlantic City Boardwalk, which is the world’s first boardwalk. It’s now filled with all kinds of stores selling exotic stuff. Just walking here is a great time-pass. Wonder why Indian cities with much better and larger shoreline beaches – like Chennai – haven’t implemented the boardwalk concept.

The Ripley’s Odditorium.

The Trump Taj-Mahal theme based Casino. Actually it isn’t anything close to Taj Mahal in its style, but I don’t think people from this part of the world know that. I read somewhere that Donald Trump spent 1 billion dollars to build this, and he sold junk bonds for the purpose. The jazz just oozes out.

Casinos are generally divided into two sections. One is full of slot machines like below where you really don’t have any say in the output. You just keep putting in money one unit at a time – from a nickel to a dollar depending on how risky/wealthy you are – and press the slot machine wheel. If the machine gives you a good combination, you get rewards. You lose otherwise, which is what happened most of time. I gave up after wasting 20$. People just sit there and feed in 5 cents at a time and spend 100$ a day.

This is what was surprising: you have a lot of old and poor-looking men and women playing in these machines. Most of the players were over 40/50 year old. I guess these guys want to gamble but just don’t want to think. Just watching it was like waiting for an absolution that’s never gonna come.

The (shaky pic, which is all I could get) is the second part of the Casino – which is what most of us have seen in movies. There are different types of games here. I picked up the Big Six Wheel of fortune, the Double attack Blackjack and American Roulette here. I tried hard to understand Craps, but it just didn’t sink in - maybe since it was late in the night.

At the end of playing in the Casino for about 9 hours, I broke several myths I had about Casinos:

You don’t lose big time unless you are real stupid and/or bet real hard.
Its 25% brain, 15% speed and 60% luck.
The chances of winning and losing are 30% and 70%. Yes, you do get to win. We started with 500$ in bets, hit a bottom of 240$ at one point, and came out in the end with 492$ after playing 10$ as tips. And this was our first time. I’m not implying we were smart - you’d do just as good.
The Casino floor had at least 5% Indians – all youngsters, all into the games. Indians gamble - and gamble real hard - given the chance.
It’s all professional. And there’s not even a security guard to vet you at the entrance, let alone brick-bodied bullies.
Gambling is like dope or alcohol. Stupid people get addicted, and smart ones just use it to pass time. I don’t see why nations like ours are too conservative.
Casinos make a truckload of money because there are truckloads of people who want to pass time. I could relate to what DeNiro said in 'Casino': "Running a casino is like robbing a bank with no cops around. For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It's like a morality car wash."
Casinos don't trick you to make you lose money. Games are purely built on probability, and, like most things, the probability is designed not in our favor in the long run.

Just watching different players bet was an entirely different experience. It’s just amazing. People just throw 100$ (and these are not real wealthy people) bet on 1 square out of 35, and just lose all that in no second. No sweat.

I closed the mad-day starting the mad-drive back at 3.00 in the night and reached home at dawn, on what is usually a 4.5 hours drive. Still waiting for any over-speeding tickets I might’ve picked because over-speeding is an understatement to what I did the entire route on a stormy, slushy night. See ya around!

A Life with Liberty

2007-04-12T05:39:00.000+05:30

The visit to Statue of Libery just had to happen. It was only a question of when, and it struck me at 6 in the morning of the Sunday that went by. The slight snow and the chilly wind just couldn't put the brakes.

Come to think of it, it's been a nice decision to sleep on the visit to Liberty - since the round trip pretty much consumes half of your day. You start from the tip of Manhattan, from the Battery Park in a ferry to the Liberty Island. The trip also takes you to Ellis Island before returning to the point of start.

The universal soldier in Battery Park. It's a simple statue, but one that's neatly done, and adds a lot of character to the whole place. I liked the imagination that went behind. Simple yet neat stuff.

Downtown Manhattan from the waters. More of a customary photo!

The lady of Liberty. Gifted by France in 1886, and took about 30 years to become green due to oxidation. The statue is quite good looking, but it isn't really awe-inspiring or anything - absolutely nothing close to the first look at, say, the Taj Mahal.

That, I guess, is one less in the list of Thousand places to see before you die.

Ellis Island immigration checkpoint. This was the port of entry for about 12 million immigrants in the early 90's, mostly from Europe. A major reason why America stands for diversity.

Then was this costly visit to Madame Tussauds ($31 for 2 hours), the wax museum. They painstakingly design wax figures of very popular figures with near total perfection.

Captain Jack Sparrow in his elements.

Jimi Hendrix. A classic (and funny) pose.

And I'll stop right here. :)

Logan hits the C segment

2007-04-04T06:07:00.000+05:30

Renault Logan enters the Indian market - and that in the 4.5 to 5.75L price band. This is some fine news for people who follow the car segment and are interested in picking one. I've been looking at cars in category C entry level for sometime, and I've always felt there was a strong vacuum.

Class A and B are full of options - Maruti 800, Alto, Estilo (Yuck!) to Santro, Getz to Swift and now the Chevy Spark. Indicas and Wagon-Rs have some ugly bends, and nobody's ever heard of Palio.

The option is to jump into the C segment - without burning too much money - and there are few options. Accent is probably the best in line, but it's lost its charm becoming a 'cop' car. Ikon is a decent deal, but maintenance, I hear, is prohibitive. Esteem looks too old fashioned, Indigos just don't scale up, while Corsa and Seina have long been forgotten. Swift is arguably in this segment, and it's terribly cool, but I'm done with hatchbacks and fastbacks.

The C1 segment - Hyundai Verna and Fiesta - becomes a shade costly (into the 7L range), while Baleno's design is too crass.

In short, there wasn't a reliable, neat looking and less maintenance saloon in the entry-C segment. And that's where Logan fits the bill. It sounds like a neat deal - we just have to wait for initial round of feedback on Indian roads and the maintenance/service issues. No doubt it is going to be a great gun since it was meant for East-European and other developing markets. Mahindra having half the share in the partnership certainly gives confidence - that after-sales spares and maintenance wouldn't be a rip-off. Let's wait with bated breath.

If you are interested in it's performance and reviews, here are some: Autoexpress review, Yahoo review. Most of them say it's a fine a value for money car, and that makes fine sense.

What is surprising is you get Logans in Europe (being among the cheapest cars there) for Euro 5.5K to 6K, while it is costlier in India. This being produced in the Indian plant, does anybody have any idea why it becomes costlier than in Europe?

Update 1 (April 10 '07): I stumbled on the site called CarWale.com when I was doing basic researches. Never knew such a great site existed for comparing and researching about Indian cars. The research is deep and helps a ton in making decisions. Do check out.

Update 2 (April 11 '07): This is some serious dope. A comparison in Logan website says Logan is wider, taller and has a bigger boot than all of the following: Mercedes C-Class, Chevrolet Optra, Honda City and Toyota Corolla. Some serious shakeout in the car marketspace in the offing!

Life's a beach

2007-04-02T04:33:00.000+05:30

I decided to hit a couple of places around the shoreline this week to compensate the hard week in office.

As I was researching the beaches, I found one named 'Hammonasset beach' 100 miles away under National Geographic Traveler's Best Beaches, and it was mentioned that it was off-season till June. I instantly knew where I'll spend the evening - It's been a long wish to visit a totally tidy and neat beach in solitude.

A chilly wind rushed through as I entered the beach front. The only sounds that were puncturing the silence was the 'chalak' sound of small waves lapping the shore and the calls from sea gulls around. The place was eerie, and that made it lovely.

Boardwalk to paradise.

A lonely planet.

The other place I visited was the marine aquarium in a beautiful little town called 'Mystic' in Connecticut. I mean, how cooler can a name of a place get?

A pair of frolicking sea-lions.

Live Jelly fish. They've been living in planet earth for more than 650 million years. And we think we are the masters of the planet. How typically human!

I loved the refraction effect. It's a rare beluga whale that is small when you look at its head above the water surface but looks huge when under water.

I'm limiting my photos here. Rest are uploaded in my photobucket account.

Danger Bush

2007-04-01T18:31:00.000+05:30

Spotted during a visit to one of the popular photoblogs. ROFLMAO!

Sugar, spice and everything nice

2007-03-31T08:35:00.000+05:30

A random photo that I took for testing my cam.

Murphy’s Laws of Placements

2007-03-30T06:25:00.000+05:30

Read this beautiful article in BusinessWorld (No subscription needed).

I loved the closing lines.

Murphy’s final law of placements is: if you’re happy with a salary today, you won’t be day after tomorrow. There’s always someone out there earning a few bucks more. So don’t covet thy neighbour’s paycheck. Just remember, the concept of RG (relative grading) continues in life — as it did on campus.

Someone’s gotta make up the middle and bottom ends of the curve. What really matters is how well you sleep at night. Choose the person you marry more carefully.

Steffi Graf being proposed for Marriage

2007-03-25T23:40:00.001+05:30

Just watch this awesome video!

via Kiruba and Jammy

Uncle Sam’s backyard

2007-03-25T08:25:00.000+05:30

I opened the map of USA a couple of weeks ago, closed my eyes and randomly touched my finger on the map. My finger tip pointed to Long Island.

And that’s where I went today.

Ok, I was kidding. Wish I have the luxury to say things like these! This is roughly how the Scottish doctor found himself in Uganda, in Idi Amin’s terrain. Go watch The Last King of Scotland if you haven’t.

Read on if you are ok reading about not-so-famous places.

After two weekends in NYC, and a busy week in office, I decided to drive down somewhere into the country side, and one of the few places that were in the drivable distance was the stretch jutting out of New York State into the Atlantic Ocean called Long Island. I decided to go to the tip of the Island, visiting famous places en route.

The risk about driving to a totally unknown far-off place is getting lost. I had taken printouts of the maps and had an overview of the major routes to take, but, to my utter surprise, a lot of roads mentioned in the map (Mapquest) were simply non-existent (I probably made a mistake here since I generally go for Google Maps). After several sorties in the middle of nowhere, I decided to go on my hunch and the compass in my watch (I hate asking directions – they just add to the multitude of confusion!). I did get back on track each time, but my total driving for today extended from 8 hours to 9.

Here are some pictures (as usual). To start with, the country side was awesome. So splendidly clean and romantic. Artistic buildings like these pop out of nowhere. And a LOT of these buildings and shops have an American flag waving outside.

And these are remote villages. Wonder what makes them so artsy - the architecture, or the ambience or the effort they put in. Perhaps all of these.

At the end of the drive, I arrive at Montauk Point. I first saw Montauk in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was much more romantic in the movie, but I guess I got the timing wrong - should’ve come here during winter.

Montauk Point Lighthouse, built in 1792, is the fourth oldest in the US.

Atlantic Ocean. A pillow of winds. (View from top of lighthouse)

A long lonesome highway, east of Long Island.

Eagle’s Nest estate castle built by marine biologist Vanderbilt. An amazing peaceful place with a backside entrance from the port.

The pleasure of getting lost is the drive, which takes you unwittingly through really beautiful port-side villages like these...

See ya next time!

Meeting Lucy

2007-03-18T09:16:00.000+05:30

Ever since I read about Lucy in A short history about nearly everything, I wanted to visit the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). I never imagined it to happen this fast though.

AMNH, being 135 years old, is one of the greatest natural history museums in the world. A view from Central Park, NYC:

It consists of a dome planetarium, an IMAX theatre, several temporary exhibitions, in addition to the 45 exhibition halls that are open round the year. Here’s what makes it different: the Dinosaur hall, the Anne and Bernard Spitzer hall of Human Evolution, and the Earth and Space center. The whole museum is so big you can barely browse through the entire collection. You need to spend about 10 days to read the contents of all exhibits.

Here’s the view of the space center. Needless to say, things all over are sparkling clean and tidy. There are thousands of LCD screens in addition to exhibits all over, I truly don’t know how they break-even.

The Hall of Human Evolution is a major reason why I visited AMNH. The hall explains how life evolved (whatever science explains), how complex life originated, and how chimpanzees finally transformed into humans.

Here’s the prized Lucy – one of the best known fossils till date. Lucy is the ONLY fossil (3 million years old) ever found (in Africa) that explains the migration of human ancestors from trees to plains.

The Jurassic era…

What is really breathtaking about AMNH is the amount of detail that has went into each of the thousands of exhibits... here's one. The 3D representation is just spotless.

I did have some pleasant surprises as I came out. When I was strolling in the snow-covered Central Park, I found a beautiful snowman in a corner. I instantly named him Calvin!

And, as I was walking near the famous Madame Tussauds, I lost a moment of breath when I saw... one of my idols!

I couldn’t catch the New York rickshaws last time around, but this time I did. Watch the bottom left of the picture… a typical rickshaw, except that it looks much better. Women too drive rickshaws in NYC!

There is one other big reason to visit this place – the breathtaking dome planetarium that gives a thrilling ride through space and time. It was the biggest dome I had ever seen, but photography was unfortunately not allowed. My camera memory conking off half-way is another story...

Update 1: Since no one found it, I'll disclose this myself: The Morgan Freeman in the picture is his replica and not his actual self. You just can't see the difference until you are real upclose. :)

3 reasons to catch up '300'

2007-03-14T08:52:00.000+05:30

I haven't yet, but there are three reasons to watch this war epic - titled '300'.

It's apparently en route to break North American Box Office opening records (BBC news) - which is how I came to know about it.
Iran condemns this 'war epic'. So there's gotta be something good about it. :)
And here's the ace - this is from Frank Miller (of Sin City fame, to the uninitiated). And its already topping the IMDB charts.

Enjoy the trailer.

300 Trailer

Go catch it folks, and let me know if there's a download link around! [Don't bother about industry revenue falling et al. We'll catch up in the theatre too!]

Biting the Big Apple – New York City

2007-03-11T11:46:00.000+05:30

The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There's only one Big Apple. That's New York. (Via Wikipedia)

And that’s where I stepped in this morning. When the crazy side of me tickled me into stepping nto a city such as NY without help or company, I did decide to give in - to the extent of doing a quick visit to a couple of places and turning back, and then to slowly get comfortable with the place. In the end, I visited more landmarks in one day than what I generally do in whole years.

It all started when I stepped into a metro train heading to the Grand Central Terminal (GCT), New York. GCT didn’t look an iota like the largest train platform in the world. Things are so organized there are just a bunch of tourists in the main concourse taking photographs. All commuters use several exits and get away smoothly.

I stepped out of GCT and walked across, subdued by the magnitude of skyscrapers. As I inched towards Times Square, I tried hard to recollect the Manhattan map that I had seen in Google Maps. What gave direction to me were the increase in intensity and presence of colors. That’s what Times Square is about – colors. You see colors, colors and more colors. And your senses automatically start to savor the taste.

Here’s the Times Square – the square of the squares.

It’s almost unfair to have so much in such a little place - Broadway shows, I Love New York merchandise stores, some of the world’s best dressed people, climax of technology, the flute, the drums, live performers, round-the-clock restaurants, shopping plazas and high-fashion stores.

Square side performers like these set your mood on fire.

And then there was the ‘Naked Cowboy’, singing happy and free in the heart of the world.

I had a hard time getting the solo snap of this guy – there was a mad frenzy among the girls to strike a pose with him, just like the one below. It’s all about having fun. :)

Times Square is also where I met the NY Sight Seeing bus. You pay 40$ and select a route – Downtown, Uptown etc- and that’s about it. Buses keep going around the circuits and you just hop-in and hop-off anytime, anywhere in the circuit.

After some shopping, and more of hanging around, my next stop was the Empire State Building. I was more interested in a sky-line view of downtown Manhattan from the 86th floor, and this is how it looked.

This is how the other buildings stack up (or chicken out!)

I liked the Graffiti, New York style...

Ground-Zero of WTC. Time-travel backwards by 6 years, I might’ve been staring at the tallest buildings in the world.

Traffic, New York style. I hear downtown NY has jams for 3-4 hours even during mid-nights.

‘Melting Pot’ to the IIMI fraternity is the name of our dance floor, but the word originally got its meaning in New York, the truest of the true cultural capitals in the world. You see people of every know breed – Caucasians, Africans, Hispanics, Asians, Mongoloids… you name it.

There are places in Manhattan for everybody – Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Korea… and the street for exotic Russian, Ukrainian, Indian stuff etc.

Here’s a sneak view of Chinatown.

Following is the crown-jewel landmark of NYC, the Central Park. I just loved the half-formed ice... makes for a very peaceful setting.

And by the time I decided to return, the colors only got brighter…

I hope my next trips would be to museums – especially the science museum. And NY has got just about everything – Museum of Science/History, Museum of Art and even a Museum of sex!

What's the dumbest thing you've done?

2007-03-10T04:38:00.000+05:30

Whatever that was, I bet you can't beat proposing stuff like this.

I don't understand what's the point in doing dumb things. You could do a lot of crazy things, which is alright coz you might be hoping that one day someone (a la Elisha Cuthber t in The Girl Next Door) might ask what's the craziest thing you've done, but doing dumb things?

Duh! Guess I really digressed.

Nike Cricket Crazy

2007-03-08T06:44:00.001+05:30

Did you guys catch up with Nike's Cricket commerical? We are all mighty used to those awesome football ads from Nike, but this is the first one of the same genre in cricket. And it r-o-c-k-s. This is one good ad full of passion I'm seeing after a long time.

Njoi the video!

(via YouthCurry)

When angels cometh and call thee a blessed one...

2007-03-05T11:07:00.000+05:30

You'd probably feel how I felt tonight.

Yeah, looks like there is something in the world for everybody. Even for the lazy-to-the-last-underlying-bone ones like me. (Near) two weeks of bread-omelettes, corn flakes, repeat of the same 'n' times, burgers, of all kinds and shapes, muffins, salads, with and without dressings, then some chocolates, peanut butter, chips, more junk, even more junk, apple juice, orange juice, etcetera left my taste buds nearly dead.

And then, on one of those routine sorties to the nearby grocery, I find this heavenly thing. At 4 something dollars, but I don't give anything close to a damn.

Heavenly. Beats the stuff you get at home. Creamed spinach & cheese with rice and rajmah dal. Made with support from people flown from the region of Punjab in India, it says.

Buy it, put it in 5 minutes of oven and you are done. Perfect for bums like me. Amy's Foods. New York.

Bless life. Bliss life.

IIM Indore placements 2007

2007-03-03T05:45:00.000+05:30

You feel each day moves very slow (depending on where you are), but net-net, time just scoots. I can't believe it's been a year since I passed out of the 'hill', or 'Planet-I', as we call our alma-mater. On the other hand, the placement report this year makes me feel I passed out a full 5 years back.

For those who didn't read the report in EconomicTimes and IBN Live, here goes the excerpts of Final placements 2007.

I'm just putting in the excerpts here, while the full report will be uploaded here (shortly I suppose).

A total of 329 offers were made to 115 students of the eighth batch, which included 12 international offers and an average salary of Rs 12 lakhs per annum, an increase of 45 per cent over last year
Out of the 67 companies that participated in the placement process, 29 took part for the first time. On an average, 2.8 jobs were offered per student
In the IT sector, besides Oracle, Capgemini, Headstrong, Cognizant, IBM, Tech Mahindra and Covansys - Infosys also came back to the campus with an international offer of US Dollar 110,000 per annum
This year saw IIM Indore’s placements take the stage among the big league of consulting profiles - McKinsey, Accenture Business Consulting, KPMG, Stern Stewart & Co, Deloitte Consulting, Aptivaa Consulting, Price-Waterhouse Coopers, SAP Labs
Global giants Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Ocwen Financial, Bank of America, HSBC, Citigroup, Standard Chartered and JP Morgan along with domestic majors SBI, UTI and new-comers YES Bank were vying for the best students on campus
New entrants Alghanim Industries with international retail profiles and Colgate Palmolive in FMCG were accompanied by established names like Asian Paints, ITC, Reliance, Dabur, Astro MEASAT among others. The pay packages saw a high of US$67,000 internationally and an unprecedented Rs.18 lakhs per annum domestic

Apart from the reporting jump in salaries, it's gladdening that the big daddy of consulting - McKinsey is in, in addition to Accenture Biz Consulting. McKinsey coming in per-se isn't all that big a deal. It's the time they've taken to visit the campus. IIM-I has pulled them in for the 8th batch that's passing out, which is probably a record of sorts.

Heartening to see the institute grow in jumps, leaps and bounds.

My previous posts on IIM-I placements:
IIM Indore placements 2006
IIM Indore placements 2005

The story of the sacred ash

2007-02-24T05:37:00.000+05:30

It was exactly 7 days ago that I was forcibly pulled out of my slumber at 11 in the morning by a mobile call. The caller said I had to start to the US the same night. All the airliners thought otherwise and I started two days later. What ensued were yawns. A lot of them – throughout the 30 hour journey: two long 10-hour flights with 4 hours of waiting time between them, and a flight for 3 hours, and then a taxi for an hour. To say that I was a dead-meat was an understatement. Infact, that was the word the non-stop chatter Pakistani cab driver used to describe my state. His other words of wisdom I recollect were “never listen to Indian/Pakistani parents”, “Punjabi and South Indian girls are beautiful” etc.

I’m positive I heard that right.

It was a little disturbing thought that I myself had to book the hotel room, find cabs at airport, check-in and find something to eat day-in and day-out etc in a country that I’m visiting the first time, but knowing the language (in and out) was a real morale booster.

The United States is exactly what I see in the movies. But what no one told me (or what I didn’t inquire properly) was that if you are all alone, there is absolutely nothing you can do without a car. Irrespective of where you stay, the next restaurant, or the pizzeria, or the burger king, the Wal-mart, the Pakistani owned Indian store, or the office, is miles away. With establishments spread across a very wide area, there is nothing public transport can accomplish. Taxis are not a daily option, since you have to pay a BOMB. I did try walking, but I quickly realized I was the only one on the roads and the only other people who walk are African Americans. Some rogues in a passing car also shouted "Immigrant" something at me. In short, if you are in the US, you need a car. Nothing else would come close. If anyone who’s reading this is expecting a trip to the US, get yourself an International Drivers Permit. Or be prepared to get screwed. You don't really have to know driving coz all the cars are Automatic Transmission. Driving here is a joke for Indians.

As for me, I didn’t have an International Drivers Permit. But thanks to our British cousins who invaded our country, my Indian driving license was in English and that worked in the state I visited. I rented a brand new (ok, its done 7000 miles) Automatic Chevy Cobalt. I’ve promised myself a new brand of car or SUV every fortnight. This is dream country. There are fast cars. There are big, wide roads. Fuel is cheaper than in India. They give you all sorts of cars for rental. And places are REALLY far apart. Beat the combination!

It’s time I tell the story of the sacred ash. Those who would’ve read my previous post would know my level of belief in a supreme deity. But thanks to my pious background, I have small paper packs of sacred ash in my entire luggage – including the laptop. And when I opened my laptop at a security gate in my office this fine morning, one little pack fell off. A camera stocked in some corner recorded it. A guy sitting behind a monitor got something to tell his boss after - I don’t know - may-be years. When the security guy came and told me something ‘suspicious’ fell off my laptop and it needs a little explanation, I thought it was straight from the movies. But I did go and see the pack containing God’s sacred ash and explained about India, Indians, temples, South-Indian temples, and sacred ashes.

And all of us had a good laugh.

What's your world-view?

2007-02-13T22:24:00.000+05:30

I chanced upon this interesting quiz that positions your own world-view (regarding faith, science, evolution and human destiny) in a spectrum compared with other popular people. I liked the idea immediately and took the quiz. It was really one of those no-nonsense quizzes around, and I got the following result. [My world-view has been marked in blue]

Go ahead and take the quiz. The questions are pretty interesting themselves.

And remember that there is nothing right and nothing wrong with any our world-views as long as we aren't maleficent.

Impressive people series - #1

2007-02-08T01:34:00.000+05:30

I don't really write about people in my blog so often, but I was so impressed about some of the things Kiruba has done and penned down that I don't want readers of this post to miss this.

2) I volunteered as a waiter for 6 months at a restaurant called 'Annalakshmi'. I also washed dishes, swabbed floors and polished cutlery. I worked for 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. I did not get paid but I earned much more. I learnt what dignity of labour meant.

5) I wanted to know what it is to live without money in the city. So, I took bath at Central station, survived on prasadam at Kapaleshwarar temple at Mylapore and slept the night on the pavement of Whites Road at Royapettah. Wanted to do this for two days but gave up after the first day.

This is from a man who gives talks in leading IT companies and contributes to the formation of amazing stuff like ExtraBed.in and WikiCamp. When I first read about the ExtraBed concept , my faith in humanity certainly got a big, big boost.

Impressed is all I can say. Guess this is the same urge that has prompted him to put down risk-free salaried jobs and take something of his own.

P.S: I hope I can continue writing about interesting people as and when I come across them.

Is Chennai the place to be in 2007?

2007-02-03T18:43:00.000+05:30

A friend of mine quipped a couple of days ago that Chennai is expected to overtake Bangalore in terms of the IT job market in 2007 by the sheet number of jobs on offer.

On the face of it, this seems to be true. All the massive-sized-companies have a huge presence in Chennai, and are growing really really fast. While Bangalore really seems to have hit the brakes due to the infrastructural problems, things aren't so bad in Chennai. Office space doesn't seem to be problem with all the huge complexes coming in almost every corner of the city. Traffic doesn't seem to be that much of a problem since Chennai, having been a metro for a long time now, is better planned in terms of the number of arterial roads. It takes a little less than 45 minutes to travel half way through the city in car in peak time (I do this every day) - not at all a bad deal, considering Mumbai and Bangalore. And there's going to be some big respite for the entertainment starved upper class populace what with the big multiplexes that are popping up at about a half-dozen locations.

I really couldn't find any statistics or news article proving this theory, but I did come across a blog posting on this.

One just has to just travel an hour out of Chennai,in any direction-and you wd see the phenomenal growth- of the manufacturing industry-which to my mind, is a much more endearing and long lasting impact than what the service industry can boost. If Dupont has transformed Gummidipundi and the surroundings - Hyundai and Ford have created ancillaries for miles along the other important highways. And one really cant forget Volvo-in Hosur which is practically the neighbour of Bangalore in Karnataka.

I sometimes wonder if all this is true or it is just a proximity effect on me. Bangalore seemed to be the most happening place when I stayed there 4 years ago. And now Chennai seems to be. Let's wait for some real statistics to nail down on the trend.

Sorry for typos/grammatical errors if any. In a hurry to catch a train right now...

Update 1 (March 7 2007): Guess I was right. I did find a news report that pretty much confirms my claim.

As good as it gets

2007-01-17T23:31:00.000+05:30

I read Calvin and Hobbes when I'm out of steam. I read C&H when my mood is crappy. I read C&H when my mood is on fire. If you could relate to what I'm saying, you'd find the link terribly useful. I thought I was a C&H fan until I visited that link. S-Anand, the guy with one of the most picture perfect resumes you could ever set your eyes upon, has typed down ALL of Calvin and Hobbes content (that is about 10 years of Bill Watterson's work) on his blog.

It doesn't end there. I thought my movie watch list would rank somewhere really high up there until I visited this link of his.

Bah!

Of courage and disgrace

2007-01-06T23:07:00.000+05:30

Been late in catching up with news, but couldn't resist posting two contra incidents that happened in two of some of the world's most populated cities. Don't know how many of you caught up with this.

First, a refreshing story of bravey in New York. Subway Hero saves teenager. Read this stuff before starting your day.

And a shameful story in our own backyard - Mumbai. Girl molested in New Year's Eve right in the open, near Gateway of India, by 70 men. What's surprising is it has happened in Mumbai, a city that is relatively - just relative to other Indian cities, mind you - considered safe in India. Guess it takes an India for such incidents to happen.

Sometimes, however hard you try, you just can't be too proud of your country. And your country men.