Dear social networking friends

All dear friends with social networking enthusiasm,
I am enthusiastic too...but a tad bit lesser than all of you who seem to be intent on replicating social networks on Orkut, Gazzag, Multiply and the likes. I have about 150 direct friends and to add them takes up a fair amount of time. I really really do not want to invest similar amounts of time going ahead and adding the same friends on a different social networking site. I do not see any value in it. If there is please do tell me. I am happy with Orkut and I am happy with the set of friends I have on it. So please resist from flooding my inbox with requests to join Gazzag, Multiply or whatever.

Google calls!

Its now official. I have resigned from IBM Rational yesterday and will be joining Google Bangalore in January. Will be in Nagpur on a 2 week break between jobs since my parents have just shifted back from Pune. Planning to relax a bit and then get the renovation of our house in Nagpur started. Here's looking forward to a good time at Google. Cheers!

Getting an auto driver punished.

The following is an incident that I wrote out on a mailing list in the office...EGL & GE are two office locations..the names of 3 colleagues mentioned in the mail have been changed to initials.

It so happened a few days ago that three hopeful players stepped out for a ride to EGL from GE to participate in the ISL sports carrom competition. No sooner had they reached Airport rd they were snubbed by many a rickshaw driver. So one of them finally said to a rickshaw driver that it is not legal to refuse a ride to a passenger. We ll not get into the debate whether this legality is right or wrong...but hardly had he said that he got an answer back. And when he argued some more uttering a word or two like "police complaint" etc he started getting a mouthful of choiciest abuses. Of course he did not hold back either :) However things soon took a "regional" turn and stuff like "you people should not be allowed in Karanataka" etc were heard :)..however it ended there and the three took another rick and reached EGL. They won their matches and started back soon. They caught another rick just outside IBM gates and consequently the rick had to go towards Koramangala to take a U turn..so they deliberated in the rick that they should have walked out on to the road and then boarded a rick..in the meanwhile they were also looking at the meter to estimate what this wrong decision had costed them...around the time that the rick had taken a U turn and reached back in front of DELL the meter showed 12.50 Rs. Then there was some more banter and the auto reached the Airport Rd flyover. On the climb one of the three happened to look at the meter that had by now morphed into a meter on steroids..it had run up a whopping 31 Rs on it..yes..a distance of about 1/2 a km from DELL to the flyover and a jump in the fare from 12.5 to 31..so puzzled they brought it to the attention of the auto driver who stopped by the side and soon the second argument of the day with an auto driver started.

Words were exchanged and even though they were in different languages the overall gist was that the driver was unwilling to accept that the meter was faulty and demanded the excess fare. This time the three decided that they would take the matter to a logical conclusion even if it meant investing a significant amount of time. So they refused to pay and asked him to take the auto to a police station of traffic police..of course this demand was futile since he did not agree. So the search started for a traffic police. One guy went till DELL then till airport road..no success. Then they called up the office and retrieved the number of Airport Rd police station and called up. The request for a policeman to be sent to the scene was met with the usual responses.."not our jurisdiction".."call traffic police, we only handle law and order" etc. On arguing that this was a law and order situation since there was a dispute and the auto driver was bent on abusing and threatening physical violence, some feeble promises were made to send a policeman and it ended there. Thirty minutes and another phone call later the impasse continued since there was no sight of the police. Then there was one traffic cop on a bike and all three waved in all joy only to be ignored..the cop drove on. Seeing that the three are really determined to get the police the auto guy started his vehicle and was about to go away. His good bye style included a long sentence with abuses in his native language and finally a "thoo" on one of them. Instinctively the chosen one spat back in reply :) ... he was amazed at his own de-generation, but it prompted the driver to stop the rick and start abusing again. In the meanwhile one of the three pulled out the keys from the ignition and kept it in his pocket. This ensured that the battle would continue.

Things cooled down a bit and after some more calls they got the number of the traffic police control room. One of them explained the situation and was assured that a cop would be on the way soon. There was some more waiting and some feeling that this too was a futile exercise. A call again to the control room and they were informed that a cop was just 2 mins away. And then the much awaited moment arrived with the cop. He took a stock of the situation and then informed us that this is not his jurisdiction and he would leave...this almost took away all the hope but they were assured that the right cop would be there soon. So some more waiting and then came the right guy..guess what..this was the same cop that they had waved too like monkeys just a while back!!! So he came and stopped gave a few excuses for having ignored them earlier and soon took asked the auto to get off the flyover and onto the side of the road near EGL. Once there there were some paper checks etc and then finally the driver was fined 200 Rs. The two hours invested by the three finally bore some fruit.

Not wanting to fight another auto driver after that, they went off walking all the way to GE after this :D

And for people who like the moral of a story to be stated explicitly...
1) If citizens actually "invest time and effort" to fight back against exploitation things can improve. It is futile to lie down and complain..we are a part of the society and we have to play our part in it.
2) Being in a group helps. Had it been just one of us it would probably have resulted in physical violence.
3) When you notice a faulty meter do not stop at arbitraty locations. Let the auto drive to a signal where a traffic police can be easily approached. Will probably save a lot of time.

Protagonists: AY, NS, Neeraj Bhope. Supporting role: SN (For providing the Airport Rd police station number)

Number for the traffic police control room that actually responded and resulted in some action being taken: 08022943131. Next time this happens to you use this. Also since most of us now have camera phones we can photograph the permit plates in the auto that has all the details of the driver and also record a video in some cases as supporting evidence.

Its official. I am a quitter.

Not in general :) But in the following context..
.
It ll be about a month now I think. A side effect is increased consumption of beer :)

In a strange nation

Of late I have been thinking that India is living in paradoxical times. On one side we have an agency crying hoarse about pesticides in colas and on the other we get to see thousands throng voluntarily to Mahim beach to drink sweet sea water believing it to be a miracle..and of course there are still plenty in the country who do not have access to clean drinking water but then cola bashing is that much more politically correct. Also there is this strange argument that the CSE has put up..food items that are essential to nutrition have a greater permitted level of pesticides and non essential nutrition items have to have far less amounts of chemicals..why would that be..I am more likely to consume essential items..am I not? Now people really really concerned about pesticides would have checked stuff that is consumed the most...but checking samples of the fruits and vegetables we produce across the country would be a far more involved task than taking samples at a few known cola factories..and would not provide the short cut to the media coverage...so there it is..its like trying to improve performance of the code where it least matters..trying to optimize that .01% time-taking string manipulation code just because it has something to do with strings :)

Then we have a progressive legislation in the Right to Information act that is followed by a quota legislation that is as regressive as it gets.. One trying to weed out corruption and the other corrupting the social fabric and productivity of the nation further. Why is it so? It brings us to another one..I earn more than the President of India when all I have is 5 yrs in the industry and a President generally reaches there towards the end of his career..Sometimes one wonders why aren't civil services and legislative positions in the government "legally" the ones that pay well..I mean the official salary of the President is 50000/- of course he gets to live in a very big house and would have other perqs..and ya occasionaly gets to fly in a fighter jet..but I am sure a lot of corporate head honchos do better than that..It sounds simplistic..maybe it is not..but then these jobs are important factors for a country's growth and economic sense says that they ought to pay well and if they do we would surely see competent people doing their jobs and possibly a double digit growth rate and hopefully then it would feel strange in a different, more positive way.

Where am I?

Well I have been a bit busy with work and family for the last month. Release dates are coming up and the product quality is still suspect :( So lots of bugs to catch up with. Was in Pune some during the 1st week in August to meet my parents and sis who will be going away to Bangkok for studying animation for about 8-9 months in 2 weeks time. It was nice to be in Pune after a long time and it always feels nostalgic there recounting my weekend trips from Bombay to Pune and the beer binges with all my friends...and of course the beer binges reduced in number when I met Megha and the great time we had together romancing in Pune is one of the happiest memories I have of the city! :)
However back in the real world I noticed that city has been defiled beyond recognition..so much so that I felt Bangalore is better now :) The roads are in a complete mess there..there is slush by the road side everywhere you go with garbage rotting up as a bonus.
I got to gatecrash yet another company party this time around. Last time it was Veritas and this time it was some Synechron if i have managed to name it correctly :) Of course the credit goes to my Pune friends who manage ways to accomodate me :)
The weather though was very wet, cold and gloomy and I came back with an infection. It was not too bad but enough to get me worried about my talk scheduled on 11th at RSDC. Well the infection did not trouble me much and I manage to not sneeze violently on stage but since the talk as the last one that too on a friday evening it meant a thin attendence and one feels a bit let down after preparing for larger show. But so it was and probably the next time would be on day 1 and consequently better.
Right now need to get back to work and get some defects fixed in time for tomorrow's beta bit freeze.

Gangulys seek tantrik's help

Gangulys seek tantrik's help. And we thought he only played politics and deliveries on the off side :-)

Kalam on wings of tax-payers money

as he gets to fulfill his "childhood" dream of flying in a fighter jet...just that the media prefers to call it Kalam on wings of fire and goes gaga. And if I may ask why did he not fly in a Mig29? Could have been more adventurous than a Sokhoi, nay? One more Mig crashed today...thankfully the pilots are safe...but who cares when we have a dead politician's "I just can't hold my dope" boy in the headlines.

Bishops say no bad movies for all you kids!!

So the breaking news is that the Information & Broadcasting Ministry has decided to put a temporary stay on the release of the film "The Da Vinci Code". I just saw CNN-IBN interviewing a certain Donald Dsouza who is hotshot in the Catholic Bishop Council in India. Of course it goes without saying that he made a complete fool out of himself with his arguments :-) According to him (and probably others in the "council") in a country where we do not have much of a Christian population such a film should not be shown as it will spread a wrong view of the religion. In Christian countries everybody is already a Christian so they are better informed to make the right decision..etc etc. When asked that the book wasn't objected to then why the film, the response was that films have more effect on public opinion...okay granted..but how that justifies a ban is still not clear to me :-) All in all a completely incoherent, inconsistent argument. About 200 Catholic groups have complained to the government. So this looks very much an organized and co-ordinated activity intended to flush down freedom of speech into the gutter. I hope this time sanity will prevail and if it is taken to the courts I hope our "Supreme" court will act as named. However if this results in a ban I won't be surprised..it will just one to the shameful list comprising of Satanic verses, Lajja, Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy and many more. Another funny thing is that the film will be reviewed by the I&B minister and the Catholic council members. Bloody hell if they are objecting to it why don't they just close their eyes on the movie and go back to their worship and strengthen their weak faith :-)

PS: It pains me to write the obvious but it has to be done for it is only the spoken/written word that is heard/read and countless such tiny voices make up a collective social opinion. To stay silent would be to weaken my own side.

Yet another addition to the Francis Sujai naming contest

"Francis S Arokiaraj" is the latest permutation by which Francis will be known in IBM's official records :-).
Update: And his son is named Jason Fleming Francis wherein "Fleming" is the arbitrary pick :-)

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick A Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick

A tiny speck on what I hear is an illustrous career?? This song "If you come today", starring the late Rajkumar, is a real real gem..a must watch. The pronunciation of "desires" is one of the high points of the singer's talent and the dance steps during the "tick tick tick tick" melody seem to indicate that the Rajkumar was of the firm opinion that no matter what the tempo of the song he would dance at his own relaxed pace :-)

The Firefox bus :-)

Too cool! Not somewhere in the Americas or Europe...but in our very own Karanataka:-) Click image to see more photos.

Thanks to this guy "Kalyan" for the images and to a colleague Girish for forwarding the link.

Google translation goofup :-)

This might have been doing the rounds on the net I think...kind of churlish but i enjoyed it and if you haven't tried it do so..

01. Open www.google.co.in
02. Click ‘language tools‘ link.
03. Write “Aishwarya’s mom is very nice” in ‘Translatetext:’ textbox.
04. Select “English to Spanish” in the below combo.
05. Press Translate and wait for translation.
06. Now copy the translated text from the above text and paste it in the ‘Translate text:’ textbox.
07. Select “Spanish to English” in the below combo.
08. Press Translate and wait for translation.
09. Enjoy.

Down memory lane..

In case you haven't figured it out..I am going down the memory lane a bit. I found a CD with lots of pictures from college and immediately after college. I think the CD belongs to Mitra.(Are you listening?) It was a wild time then..not much money in the pockets, lots of assignments, lots of drinking binges in the hostel and ya no girlfriends...which used to be such a cribbing point during most of those drinking sessions :)

Once upon a time I had a Yamaha 135. In college it used to carry as many as you see on it in the picture. 5 in extreme conditions has been achieved too. Sadly the bike got stolen one night in Bangalore :(

Convocation!

And the lighting of a cigarette was also captured on that night trek to Matheran. I think it was Mitra's first experiment with an SLR and an ISO 400 film in the middle of the night.

And thusly the three in the front pissed in Matheran about 5-6 yrs ago.

Raj Kumar passes away..

Bangalore, Apr.12: The great thespian Raj Kumar of Kannada film industry passed away today. Saddened "fans" have decided to express grief by vandalising the city. Unrespectful car drivers and shopkeepers will be forced to cry when their windshields and shops are smashed and stoned. Several other ways of spreading grief will also be used with religious zeal.

Update: Since grief should be expressed not just through violence but also through TV, the local cable operators want me to watch only news channels and Kannada channels which are obviously playing only Raj Kumar content. What the fuck is wrong with these people. My prospective landlords (planning to shift tomorrow to a new place) have their father admitted in a hospital. They were stuck in the hospital yesterday since there was no public transport available. I was planning to sign my lease agreement today..now I can't because its not safe to go out. I was planning to shift tomorrow..it will most probably be postponed to the day after. All the reactions are so misplaced and I would believe it is with the backing of some local Shiv-Sena like political groups to make a point about their "Kannada" pride. Or it is just some anti-social elements wanting to enjoy a day vandalising public and private property and bullying people. Fuck them all. And fuck the local police.

If you want to..

show off your skills, do it like this. The video takes some time to load up. But it is worth the wait. Thanks to Darpan for the link.

Ardh-Satya

Ardh-Satya. The quatrains are nice. Picked up from VK Shashikumar's blog on CNN-IBN.

An example of consumer rights working too well in India!!

A colleague's friend applied for a Standard Chartered Bank credit card through one of the bank's/marketing firm's agents. In the application he gave his home address. Some days later he got the card at his office address. He thought it was strange. Fortunately he had a xerox copy of the card application. He learnt that the agent had changed the address by scratching out the home address and writing in the office address instead (for whatever reasons). Somebody advised him to go and file a complaint in the consumer court. So he went there and talked to an enterprising lawyer. The lawyer declared that this can be seen as fraud and filed a claim somewhere in the range of 70-80 lakhs. Yes you heard me right. Some time later the person was called by the bank for an out of court settlement. They settled "some" of the points in the claim for 5 lakhs + 1.5 lakhs credit on his card. I haven't heard what happened with the remaining points in the claim. But 6.5 lakhs for an address change..isn't that cool :) Next time you find something strange be sure to file that complaint!!

Update: More Success Stories

Nasal Drops for the Singer Please

I have had enough of the nasal singing of the capped music channel darling Himesh Reshamiya. "Aashique Banaya Aapne" was listenable even enjoyable at times with the remix but now the congestion has set in even more and "Tera (tera tera tera) suroor" some "Naam hai tera tera" and the mix have just taken it over the edge. Help! Help! Help!

Be warned!

At last a voice of concern against increasing totalitarianism. (via Atanu Dey) I wish it were a secular message..something against all the religions :)

Acceptable Abuse of Sanctity

In most societies today swearing/abusing is common place. It is probably more prevalent amongst men than women. The chioce of words often is very colorful and can involve several blood relations and genetalia. Despite the sacrilege involved it is acceptable in certain social situations and contributes to a lot of banter, humour and entertainment. If it is possible to make peace with such offensive creations (offensive when taken literally of course) involving real and emotionally close people, why don't people do the same when it involves their "Gods" whom they never even get to see for real?

Let's Call the Bluff Please

A lot has been seen, said and heard about the "cartoon" controversy. Some, like Suhail has, have taken stances of trying to place blame on both the sides. Some are the liberals and some side with the right to be "offended". Today I stumbled upon this article "The Silence of Liberal Muslims" by Vir Sanghvi. A very good point made here is this

It is instructive that the agitation against the Danish cartoons began three months after their publication. In many cases - dare one say, in nearly every case? - the outrage is manufactured by religious and political leaders who whip a frenzy among ignorant followers. Let's stick with The Satanic Verses. Ayatollah Khomeini placed the fatwa on Salman Rushdie's head only because he heard about demonstrations in the Indian subcontinent. He never read the book and nor did any of his assassins.

I couldn't agree more. To extend this argument a bit further if one takes a look at the MF Husain Saraswati paintings controversy it took not just months but years for the sensibilities of Hindus to be offended. And that too when nothing less than Hindu temples themselves have examples of sculptures of nude gods and goddesses. Look here for an example. * And god forbid if Mr Husain had painted a picture of what is described in the above link and which I quote below..

The women having problems with their puberty, menses, conceiving and child-birth take vow to worship Lajja-gowri with all dedication they can command. as part of this ritual they apply butter and kumkum and sometimes lick the yoni of the idol.

That would probably have been enough to ask for his head instead of just vandalism. So the point I am trying to make is that freedom of speech/expression should be absolute. Anybody (Suhail you are included here I guess :) ) who accepts that the cartoonists should have resisted from "provocation" should rethink. A protest today could turn into a murder tomorrow. Almost always there is no spontaneous perception of offence to religious sentiment. As we can see from the Saraswati painting case even in cases when a religious notion is really not offended, political forces or so called guardians of religion (even when they do not understand it fully) will make sure that they try and gain mileage from the incident. Please deny them a safe passage by calling their bluff.

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And while we are on cartoons depicting gods, take a look at the "Cahlo Lanka" animation on this page. Well the saffron brigade might find it offending, what with the crotch grabbing dance ala Michael Jackson :), but my take is that since Hanuman is supposed to be single and not ready to mingle it is but natural that he takes it on himselves to grab it every once in a while :)) (And I am not gonna apologise for saying this :))

*BTW Kamat's Potpourri is one heck of a site. Lots of content on ancient India.

Burn those holy books and save those lives.

This post by Adam Bosworth resonates pretty much with my views on religion. I have been a non-believer pretty much since my childhood. I remember incidents when my elders around me would threaten me "if you do X, god will punish you". As a curious kid I tried certain taboo things waiting for the wrath of god to break loose on me. Fortuantely that never happened :) That was the beginning of my journey against the flow. I have had countless number of arguments with my mother ever since. She hasn't given up and still feels that I will someday see the light. But all this is a digression into my personal life...what I really want to discuss is what is wrong with religion?

The public aspect of religion is very concerning. Religion has been effectively used as a garb for countless killings mostly for political, fascist and imperial reasons. The Christian crusades, Islamic jihads, 1984 anti-Sikh and Babri masjids riots closer to home, Al Qaeda, Ku Klux Klan, Bajrang Dal, Hamas are all shameful and unfortunate examples of these. However, it is arguable that in some cases this is mostly because men have misled others and mis-followed others and religion has just been "used" in the process. However, if one takes a closer look at the scriptures one can find the roots of why religion renders itself to be used so. There are inflamatory writings in the "holy books" which though not highlighted are enough for zealots. Refer "Atheism: The Case Against God" by George H Smith for some examples of the same in the Bible.

I had long held a view that public practice of religion is wrong but private tolerable. However, now I believe that private practice is also harmful for a person. The concept of sin is central to most religions and it is something that can only breed guilt and take away a person's self esteem if subscribed to. It has a numbing effect on the senses and decision making of a person. In the book "A World of Fatwas", Arun Shourie has put forward actual cases where people ask for advice from Islamic clerics about phenomenoly trivial aspects of their personal lives. I do not have the book handy right now so I will post examples later. A related argument that surfaces when this point of interference in trivialities of life is brought up is that some religions are a "way of life". In my opinion the only way of life is the law of the country you are in. Ignoring slow and dumb legislators, it atleast has a mechanism for change. With religion as ways of life one is bound by so called holy texts written, uttered by some individual in a completely different social context.

The above brings us to - how can one discourage the practice of religion? Inspite of the -ve psychological effects I have seen people who manage to lead seemingly balanced and happy lives. You will always find people around you, seemingly rational, analytically very smart, good at heart but when it comes to religion, still hanging on to the lies. There seems to be healthy reconciliation of science and religion in their minds even though such reconciliation is logically flawed. I wonder why? If these so-called educated and rational people do not get out of it who will. I urge all such people to re-think and take a look at history. The world that we inhabit has evolved through various ages which have consistently seen the power of religion decline. Most advanced nations today have legal systems that differ from religion as a way of life*. Througout history people have stood up for the sake of science and truth challenging religion-backed beliefs. This achievement of our ancestors is not a small one. Several people have paid with their lives for it. It is up to all of us to denounce religion and limit its effects on the generations to come.

*Unfortunately in India the law is still not common to all with religion specific if statements abounding in the law.

Burn that bra and save those breasts!!

Linking bras to breast cancer. Findings are striking even though preliminary. You might also want to read this article.

What to look out for on TV and miss

Beware!! Zee Studio is spreading the joys of Van Wilder :)