minus43

Noise, regionalism and a bad start to a Sunday

2010-02-06T19:09:00.001-08:00

So I woke up early morning and was catching up on a movie. Suddenly I hear a loud speaker from the temple behind the apartment. This temple is a habitual offender and time and again has prevented me and others from sleeping peacefully early morning. This time I thought I had had enough and so went to the temple personally and asked them to switch off the music. They did, and after I was 100 mtrs from the place on my way back it started again. So instead I made it straight to the HSR layout police station.

At the police station I found one guy sleeping, one awake. The awake one reluctantly asked me what was wrong. On hearing about my complaint he tried to wake up the other guy who scowled at him in Kannada probably asking him to not bug him anymore. When I insisted he write a complaint down I was asked "What is you native? Kannada nahi aata?".

My instant reaction was to not answer the question and I kept insisting that he write a complaint down and he scribbled something on a register and told me that he will wireless the message to his staff and the matter would be taken care of and I should not worry. It has been about an two hours since then and the speakers are still full blast.

The country of noise silences out the voice of its taxpayers in more ways than one.

Picture courtesy: http://www.crestock.com/blog/design/propaganda-design-aesthetics-soviet-retro-posters-118.aspx

India's secret weapon of fast destruction

2009-05-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

So news is that Yuvraj Si.. err dimple darling err.. Rahul Gandhi has invented a secret anti-terror weapon that he intends to empower villagers with and destroy terrorism in 15 minutes. The Indian Express carried a small news item about Rahul's revelations.

The following is the excerpt

"I am confident that this country can take on terrorism. Defeating it is no problem. If we empower those people in villages, we can sit back, relax and we will destroy terrorism in 15 minutes,"

Field trials of the weapon will first be carried out in Pakistan's NWFP and Afganistan since India's anti-terrorism laws do not allow untested WFDs or weapons of fast destruction. The US military has also expressed interest in using them in Iraq. Talk is that this weapon will usher in a revolution in global arms trade and will make India one of the major exporters. Herein lies the genius of Rahul Gandhi. With a single invention he will solve both terrorism and economic growth. Although some people missed this scoop in their stories they are still calling the particular press conference in which he made this revelation as a coming of age of Rahul Gandhi. Of course if you are a Gandhi with political affiliation to the Congress, 'coming of age' translates directly to 'ready to be a prime minister'.

However, some experts feel that if the weapon inventor also gets to be the prime minister of a country the weapon may start working not just on terrorists but also against the very people it was supposed to protect and may lead to a pre-mature end of the world's largest de-mock-racy, possibly within 15 mins of assuming office.

PS: An interesting thing to note is the URL of the Indian Express article. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/this-man-has-got-out-of-his-mind.../454897/
Lets you know what the reporter/news poster really thought :-)

Hurting sentiments

2009-04-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote a tweet about the Pope's condom comment. A friend advised me to be aware of "hurting sentiments". Unfortunately, I have never been able to reconcile freedom of speech and the hurting sentiments (HS) concept. Why is it that we need to worry about HS when hurtees (the ones whose sentiments were hurt) have collectively caused more harm to this world than some random bloke like me blurting out a random quote? I refuse feel apologetic or to keep quiet for fear of HS when the other party has actually been responsible for physically hurting human beings (actively or passively).

Conversation with Mom

2008-12-13T04:44:00.000-08:00

This was a few weeks back.. reproduced in Marathi..

मी : आई चांगली बातमी आहे.
आई : काय रे?
मी : पगार वाढला
आई : छान अभिनंदन. आता फॅमिली पण वाढवा
मी : hmm...

Parents never lose their focus :-)

Conversation with random recruiter...

2008-12-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Sometimes random recruiters call up and make your day :-)

Not verbatim but pretty closely reproduced..

R: Are you interested in positions in Microsoft Hyderabad? They have some openings in their Windows group.

Me: No, I am not interested in moving to Hyderabad.

R: Why?

Me: What do you mean "why"?

R: No just want to know what holds you back.

Me: (Thinks about saying wtf) No I just don't want to move.

R: Ok so in Bangalore we have positions with Yahoo. Do you want to try those out?

Me: Umm no.

R: Why?

Me: (Concludes the person at the other end of the line is a moron since she knows I work at Google) Because I am already working with Google and do not think that the current market scenario is the best to move to Yahoo..

We the Bumbling: Do our politicians not even understand self interest?

2008-11-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hours after one thought of voting for the BJP, one hears that the Advani and Rajnath Singh missed the all party meet convened by the PM because they were busy campaigning in Rajasthan. I say Mr Advani, why are you trying so hard to turn voters away from your party? The best campaigning would have been to attend that meet and playing the role of the opposition leader by taking the government to task and contributing constructively towards an action plan. On the other hand Vilasrao takes actor son and director Ram Gopal Varma to see the Taj devastation. Additionally, RR Patil, thinks small issues keep on happening in big cities.

Really, why do politicians in our country like to stick their head up their own ass with such amazing regularity, across party boundaries, I must add.

In other news, the Congress matriarch Sonia and the patriarch-heir, her son Rahul, are beating up all the incompetent mongrels that form the Government of India, especially the one named Shivraj, bad dog, no home ministry bone for you...

Update: And I forgot to mention how the Chief Ministers V.S. Achuthanandan and Narendra Modi were turned away.

Whom do I vote for?

2008-11-30T04:06:00.000-08:00

Do I vote for the incompetent Congress government that failed to act on intelligence related to Mumbai attacks (and other countless let downs) or do I vote for the BJP that sees terrorism through communal goggles and are also responsible for freeing terrorists during the Khandahar hijack incident (and other countless let downs)? For lack of a better option I think I may settle for voting for the BJP just to give them a chance again.

Bail out Fail

2008-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

So big car company CEOs travelled to Washington in corporate Jets to ask for a bialout :-) and several Congress members pointed out the irony. "Security reasons" pat came the reply. The logic behind going overboard on security for a top company boss typically is that if he/she gets harmed the business gets fucked up. However, in this case the business is already fucked up, isn't it?

Friendly off the field...

2008-11-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

So much was said by our friendly Aussie cricketers about how they play real hard on the field and then off the field they are soft and cuddly teddy bears. I wonder in the midst of all the on field hard play when did they manage to sneak in their book writing hobbies :-)

As luck would have it they got bowled out cheaply in the first innings against New Zealand. But again as luck would have it they are playing New Zealand. One of the few sides that can manage to under perform just about any sides. I say, hey New Zealand, show us a miracle, get the salt, the wounds are ripe for rubbing it in.. let your dear Aussie friends have it. I assure you I will gloat.

George Bush & George W. Bush: Hunting Father and son spend some time bonding.

2008-10-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

I liked the slapping bit :)

Raj Fuckeray

2008-10-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

Check out yet another interview with stupid answers of our friend Raj Thackeray. In one of the answers he says

I read the order only a day later. It’s not that I disrespect the law. Joshi runs many institutes across the state, and if I had wanted, we could have created problems at most of them.

and right in the next he says

If you read the guidelines, it says that shopkeepers should have signboards in Marathi. The law has to be complied with.

I need to say this to Raj and Bala Fuckeray that the marathi manus is better off without you and your regressive politics and routine violation of law. You guys are scumbags of the highest order with brains made of cow dung which according to you is holy but unfortunately does not make very good material for intellectual development in humans.

Jet reinstates all sacked employees

2008-10-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Breaking news of the night: Naresh Goyal purports to have fathered 1900 full grown children in a single night under zero political pressure. Does he really want us to believe that he decided to take back the sacked employees because he could not sleep at night?

Update: Rediff: 'Sacked' Jet Air staffers taught Marathi lessons

Canonisation, Amitabh and News

2008-10-12T06:48:00.001-07:00

It is canonisation time over in Pope-dom. The funny thing is that the Pope himself is involved in the process of the Vatican rubber stamping the sainthood of a person. The person can then be offically worshipped without fear of persecution from the officials of course :)

I say, the process is kind of bureaucratic, ain't it? I will stretch it further and say that it is also very elitist :) Why should the church decide who is a saint and who is not?

Over in our land of Hindustan our daily lives are governed by bureaucracy but not our religion, you see! The Hindus are empowered! We can start worshiping whoever we want to. Everyone and everything is valid game.

We have gods and also goddesses. (Yes really we are quite an equal society that way when it comes to the male vs female thing nevermind the issues of skewed sex ratios though.)

We even worship stand alone human organs, genitals to be precise. We maintain equality of the sexes in this too, worshiping both the male and the female organs.

Sometimes we absorb Gods from other religions too by simply declaring the other God to be an incarnation of one of our Gods as in the case of the Buddha.

The really crazy amongst us have temples even for film stars.

Although I am an atheist, I feel this is where Hinduism beats the crap out of the monotheistic religions. We can deify almost anything when it comes to God and it fits well in our religion's (thankfully loose) framework. Regardless of the merit in worshiping someone in Hinduism it is ok for common people to canonize a person of their wish be it Amitabh Bachchan or a obscure sadhu baba.

And it is only fit that if we can idolize Amitabh as a God, it is also the duty of our news channels to report over-enthusiatically throughout the day if the God has a stomach ache.

PS: There is no restriction on who is worthy of deification althought there are cases where who can worship has created controversies e.g. we have sexist temples that do not like fertile women as worshipers over at Sabrimala. The website title says

Sabarimala-The pilgrimage is a symbol of love, equality, and devotion

with the following paragraph in the main page to justify the equality

Unlike certain Hindu temples, Sabarimala temple has no restrictions of caste or creed. The temple is open to males of all age groups and to women who have either passed their fertility age and those before reaching the stage of puberty.

Their definition of equality is just a bit different.. all are equal.. but if you are a fertile woman, tough luck, our equality function is not defined over your set.

Sister Alphonsa is now "officially" a saint

2008-10-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

The big news is out that the nun from Kerala, Sister Alphonsa, is now a saint. News channels that otherwise do not consider milk-drinking idols worthy enough of being a miracle (and their coverage) are happily lapping up the news.

It seems that the reporters conveniently fail to question the basis of the process of canonisation as spread of superstition. Seems like the official stamp of the head honcho of the Christian world suddenly converts a superstitious belief into a miracle (in this case the curing of a persons deformity). Even if we assume for a moment that miracles are possible, the bar for recognizing a miracle seems to be pretty low considering that the miracle involves curing just one person. My heart goes out to all medical researchers. They are just stupid suckers spending their lifetimes trying to find cures for our ills. Humanity should just shut the fuck up and reach out for the miracle medicine treatment that the Vatican seems to believe in so much.

I recommend just one small change in the process for canonisation based on medical miracles. The miracle treatment should be tried out by the Pope himself when he has trouble with his human body (that houses his saintly soul) and then if it works with him he should make it official. I bet the Vatican will not be too keen to take on a process that involves medical trials :)

No reporting on Amitabh's urine samples yet!

2008-10-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

I am surprised that our 24x7 media has still not reported on whether the Amitabh's urine and stool samples were tested.. we (the breaking news consumers of this country) know about the x-rays but we want more gory details... tell us about the enema too perhaps, with when, why and "How are you feeling now sir?" interviews. Sigh! Our favourite channels have let us down again :(

How Bihar recovers from the floods is too mundane no?

Religulous

2008-10-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

There is some pretty hilarious stuff out on religion recently. Checkout the trailer of Religulous

Waiting eagerly to watch it.

Previously..

I am thankful I did not study in this school :)

2008-07-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

These are pictures from a school where I went to cast my vote during the last elections in Bangalore :-)

My first vote.

2008-05-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Voted today for the first time in my life. Vote by elimination was the strategy and consequently circus artists in the BJP and JD(S) were out of the competition and the lesser(?) evil of the Congress was chosen. The experience in itself is pretty mundane. Possibly the day of counting will be more exciting as I await the result.

What's wrong?

2007-11-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

We claim to be a "healthy" democracy. But people like Narendra Modi and Ananth Singh keep on eating away at this health. Meanwhile the political circus in Karnataka makes a mockery of democracy.
West Bengal claims to have a communist government. Not that I am taking any sides but how ironic then of CPI-M workers fighting for an SEZ in Nandigram.
We are around 8% GDP growth rate. Our software exports are increasing. However, solutions for smaller technical challenges like roads that do not dissolve away with the first rain seem to elude us. A largely agricultural economy lies waste with farmers in almost all parts of our country impoverished and taking to suicides. When one passes through our country side it is a sorry picture of large numbers of people tending to small patches of land. Our rural economy continues to be largely inefficient, over employing and producing a lot lesser than it could.
We want to be like the Australia when it comes to cricket. But when an out of form Dravid is dropped the whole nation screams.

A lot is wrong. A lot should change.

दिवाली की शुभ कामनाएं

2007-11-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Diwali to all!

Festival time!

2007-10-21T00:31:00.000-07:00

दशहरे की शुभ कामनाऍ ! Happy Dasera!

My First Kerala Ayurvedic Massage.

2007-10-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

So I just wrote an email to a group of friends about my weekend break in Kerala.. An excerpt from that email..

masseur: Remove you clothes.
me: removed shirt and pant.
masseur: ties a "nada" around my waist.
me: what is this for?
masseur: this is for your special dress.
me: ?
masseur: takes a rather narrow rectangular piece of sheer white cloth and tucks it in from the front leaving the cloth hanging over my crotch. Then says "Now remove your underpant"
me: "aa, remove ..aa.. ok.". So I removed my underpants..meanwhile the white cloth covers up my naked crotch rather precariously :)
masseur: Goes around and pulls the cloth between my legs and tucks it in from behind covering the crack :) Then gives me head massage for a while..then asks me to lie face down on a traditional wooden massage table.
me: lie down gingerly.. taking care that the cloth does not move too much :p
masseur: puts oil here and there.. then unties the nada..pulls down the cloth..
me: Think to myself.. umm..hmm..ok.. nothing much I can do since he is anyways going to charge me a thousand bucks.. so I relax and enjoy the massage.. wondering how he manages to touch and massage ugly black asses of strangers :D

Back in town!

2007-08-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Me back in Bangalore after 5 weeks in Mountain View. Meanwhile stuff that Megha was working on secretly for a while, Amazon Flexible Payment System, has been launched. More later.

The iPhone feels real cool

2007-07-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

As it so happens I got the chance to hold and play with the iPhone a week back here in Santa Clara. As a lot of people have already said before..it is super sexy. The high res screen is real real crisp. And the hand gestures like flipping through photos and CD covers is just awesome...feels like its out of a sci-fi movie. Would be interesting to know what happens to the iPods now. The Mac OSx based ones have already been announced.

And thus we riot

2007-06-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

In the beginning there was independence brought about by a largely non-violent struggle. Sometime between then and now the non-violence got lost in our protests. Almost all of our social/political protests nowadays take violent turns. The recent Gujjar protests in Rajasthan are a prime example. The question to ask is who is responsible for this state of affairs, people or the rulers of our country i.e. the political class who take turns at the job.

It seems like a chicken and egg problem. Either can be blamed.

One can say that the protesters are not prepared to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and the state is compelled to respond to the violent protests given the loss of life and property that might result if they don't. Seeing the Gujjar protests one feels this.

One can also say that the state never listens to non-violent civil disobedience and hence people are compelled to protest violently since that is the only way they will be heard. One just has to look at the apathy and tyranny of our state in case of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (that for the last several years has engaged in non-violent protests and has been meted out injustice and apathy even by the Supreme Court) and there is a strong case for blaming the state.

Maybe its best to see India as a violent India and a non-violent India rather than just people and state in the context of this issue. We as a society seem to have lost the ethos for non-violent civil disobedience, and having lost it, we find that most of the political class and a lot of our protesters are firmly in the violent camp. Its a shame that the two biggest parties in our country have a history of violence, anti-Sikh riots being the Congress party's achievement and Gujarat the feather in the BJP's cap. Given this then the state is to blame, right? But then it is also said that people get the government they choose and deserve and so the people are to blame. And thus we go round and round in the blame-circle of life. And thus we riot, kill and destroy.

We need one of them to step in and have the patience to break this cycle.

Now that you 've called him Sir, we 'll bomb you!

2007-06-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

If you proclaim that two people are your enemies and one of them honours the other, should you raise a storm over it? NO NO NO!! But apparently the Muslim extremists the world over do not get this. The knighthood of Mr. Rushdie is an insult to us and our religion, they say. Here we have a nation that has a colonial legacy and imperialist present (read support for the war on of terror :-) ) , conferring a title on a writer, who in the first place should not have accepted it, and instead of looking at the whole thing as an exercise in stupidity it is perceived as an insult and a hue and cry is raised over it. Someone has also called for a strike in Kashmir, he he he. I wait to hear the liberal voice, preferrably Muslim, denouncing this on national television.

Jesus Stop!!

2007-06-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when god is publicised overzealously :-) They end up asking him to stop.. The Jesus sticker can nowadays be found on most of Bangalore's traffic signs.

What Arundhati Roy gets right and what she gets wrong.

2007-06-13T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have read two of her socio/political books, The Algebra of Infinite Justice and The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire. Both are very well written as is expected from an author of her stature. Her tongue is sharp and the vivid picture she paints about the capability of our government for repression of its own people in the stories about the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the dirty world of big business behind it, the IMF, the World Bank and most depressing of all the Indian Supreme court's cavalier judgements in the matter leaves one with a lot of questions. Questions about our way of life and about the crazy comfort zone that we the privileged few live in. And most of all one is left with a sense of helplessness, of frustration and of anger. All this she gets right, spot on.
However, on reading both of the books one cannot but disagree with her views on globalization and private enterprise. It just feels that she does not get it at all. She is critical of the government in almost every paragraph of her writings. However in the same breathe she is also critical of globalization and privatization. I am not claiming that privatization is without its evils. However for me it is the lesser of the two evils where the second happens to be complete government control. I do not want to go into why private enterprise is better. It has been argued and documented by better people before. However just for quick examples look at the telecom industry in India, compare it with the times when about 7 years ago one used to wait for late night calls to ones home (and they still used to cost more than what a prime time call today costs) and you ll know. Her commentary assumes that private business and earning money is inherently vulgar and evil. It is hard for me to digest why she has such an irrational point of view. If one does not approve of private enterprise and also not approve of government enterprise, what is the alternative left, whom do you trust? Should we go back to being a hunter-gatherer society? I remember a certain IITB professor once saying that the industrial revolution has been the single biggest mistake in the history of mankind. Maybe Arundhati Roy will also support that view.

Sacrifice?

2007-05-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

Its that time of the year when the media does the annual academic results dance and props up all and sundry e.g. Seen on NDTV..a girl chose to not do some dance with SRK and concentrated on her studies ..when interviewed she said thus "My sacrifice really paid off...." Sacrifice?? Hello?
On a related and more serious note the IIT-JEE results are also out. Those lucky few who made it are of course happy and should be. The news stories point out that about 250000 applicants vie for the ~4600 seats and then go on to how difficult it is to get through the test blah blah. None however raises the more serious issues of why in our country is there a shortfall of quality education. Why should we be able to grant the best engineering education to only 4,600 students every year in a country of a billion people? Where's the rot? What's stagnating the education industry? Who benefits from this constricted supply? Why do most of the engineering colleges in the country have a politician connection? These are the questions that they need to probe and air rather than the banal stuff that they dish out yearly.

Modi, Art and Lions

2007-05-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

A lot of the (very few remaining) Asiatic lions in Gujarat's Gir sanctuary have recently died raising alarms with the conservationists. Some therefore asked for some of the lions to be moved to another sanctuary. But the Gujarat govt said that these lions are the pride of Gujarat..well that is true you know...a pride of lions living anywhere would be a pride of that place then won't it :-).
Elsewhere in the state right wingers called out an attack on an art exhibition alleging obscenity. We all know that our tradition and religion "was open" in matters of sexuality. Go to Khajuraho towards the north, Halibeedu and Belur temples (Note: _temples_ ) towards the south and plenty more I guess and you ll know. (I hate to repeat these examples again and again but in the interests of contributing to the collective liberal voice I shall do it anyways.) Look at the site Kamat's Potpourri for a collection of images and essays describing our rich and open heritage. But we are digressing here..
I want to add another reason for the movement of lions out of Gujarat. Given the ideas of obscenity that some people have in Gujarat I am afraid that the lions there might soon stop fornicating..what if some wild VHP-BJP animal takes objection about the pride of Gujarat indulging in indecent acts and gets them jailed or killed :p. I say get lions out now.

God exists, sometimes

2007-04-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

When you postpone a visit to the dentist for treating a cavity and you do so by 4 months and then get away without a root canal...you are inclined ever so slightly to believe that HE is looking out for you!

Publicizing the joy

2007-04-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

The joy of using eclipse across two side by side vertical 24" flat panel LCD monitors is worth publicizing :-) It is a serious productivity booster. Larger views, less scrolling, more info. Imagine not having to scroll your variables view even when the string representation of a var crosses 80 chars! This and other joys..some the +ves of working at a great place :)

Lost

2007-04-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

So recently I had been to Mountain View and things started going bad the moment I reached there. Indian team lost in the preliminaries. And while they were busy losing games, I was busy losing my gadgets. First came the digital camera. To make matters worse it was a borrowed one :(( Then a bit later my pride of not having lost a single cell phone was broken too. Story goes that I was in the loo and you know..was just catching up with a game of "Worms" on the Sony Ericsson w550i as a parallel activity and then as I proceeded for the "post" rituals I kept the phone on a mantle and there it stayed till some dishonest ass flicked it. So currently I am without a cell..so dont bother calling on my number. Just ping me on mail/chat or something and I ll call you.

Of course I shouldn't be ending a blog post without calling the BCCI a bunch of jokers. Seriously they are all men-in-plights lost in a dark room. I wonder what stops the top players of the country from forming an independent association or if not that from atleast taking on the BCCI for the lack of professionalism once and for all.

The end of Imaginathon?

2007-04-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

Has the nuptial knot nuke led to the end of Imaginathon? Suhail where are you dude?

A little thing that had to wait..

2007-04-14T03:23:00.000-07:00

The little marathi caption to the last (slightly distasteful :-)) post came in quite a few days after the video was posted. It had to wait because there was some little bug that prevented me from posting transliterated text with a video. Needless to say it has been fixed now!

Holy Cow!!!

2007-03-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

आपली मासाहारी गोमाता

Google Cricket World Cup site launched.

2007-03-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

Join in the cricket fun on Google!
This is a world cup special launch by Google.

Every once in a while..

2007-03-10T12:44:00.000-08:00

the अर्ध-सत्य guy comes up with a gem..here is one of them from last October.

A five-year old tot
Mailed Kalam, a Viagra dot
He'd heard that the missile man's gun
Took more than two decades to come

It relates to the development times for the much hyped Trishul missiles.

हिंदी ट्रांस्लितेरेशन

2007-03-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

हिंदी ब्लॉगर लॉन्च हो गया है :-) परंतु क्या इसका मतलब है कि मराठी भी लिख सकते है?
कदाचित लिहू शकतो असे वाटत आहे :-) This is pretty cool eh!

define:cruelty

2007-02-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

Creulty is working at the Googleplex and being afflicted with GERD . I reached Mountain View about a week back and my amazement still continues. The food is awesome here. Its like eating in a 5 star restaurant day in and day out, breakfast, lunch and dinner and all times in between :-) It is hard to keep your hands off food..the cafe that I go to serves Italian, Chinese, Indian, Mexican and Continental along with a salad bar and 3-4 desserts. I invariably hog and keep on chewing antacids between the meals. God help me gain some control please. In other non-cruel news just the second day of the working week I had the opportunity to go on the Google Ski Trip to the Squaw Valley Resort. It was a lot of fun..skiing during the day and an awesome party at night.

VISA interview, Kingfisher flight and dental floss

2007-01-30T01:33:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday I was in Delhi for a VISA interview at the US consulate. After going through the whole process it felt like an anti-climax..do they call you all the way from your city of residence to the consulate just to ask you banal questions like "Where do you work?", "Why are you travelling?", "How much do you earn each year?" etc and taking two finger prints? Agreed that I was applying under the BEP program that makes it a bit easy for the applicants to go through the process but then if you can make it so easy then why not just call for my documents and passport. Why do they need me to travel personally for all this. The whole process is just stupid and wastes productive time.

Anyways, while in Delhi I took the opportunity to meet with Chirag and Prateek. I saw Webaroo's Delhi office and it looked much better than what we had when we all used to work for firstRain :-)

On the way back the stupid flight was delayed and it was pretty sad for me in the meantime see the Indian team going down in a heap. The real fun however started when I boarded the flight. There was gentleman next to me who was according to my breathe analyzer a bit drunk. Well nothing wrong with that..I am drunk too quite a few times..infact on international flights they like you to get drunk..but that's not the point. What was surprising was that this person kept on eating some sort of mouth freshner all through the 3 hrs of the flight :o And not just that, he occasionally also spat out the remnants of his freshner in the air sickness bag..arrggghh.. but the worse was yet to come..at the end of the flight out came a floss and the mouth freshness freak flossed his teeth right next to me..aaarrrghh aaaarrgh aaarrgh..and then very coldly stuffed the used floss in the seat pocket.. so much for being suited booted and all that..

PS: BTW I took the Jet Airways flight from Bangalore to Delhi and they have pretty cool touch screen in-flight entertainment systems with nice content.

Still a quitter

2007-01-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

For Prajakt's satisfaction, I hereby ascertain explicitly that I am still a quitter :-)
And news from the Google joining front is that I would be traveling to Mountain View late January if the VISA gods bless me favourably. Most of my time nowadays is spent reading through piles and piles of documentation which is great since I am learning a lot of new and really interesting stuff..I won't be able to reveal about what though :-) but you can take reasonable guesses! Life is pretty cool here..there's a pick up and drop service and there's breakfast, lunch and Subway sandwiches in the evening..and lots of snacks and drinks for the intermediate times not covered by the above three :-) That's all for now..more updates later..

From the inside

2007-01-09T05:33:00.000-08:00

I joined Google yesterday. From the inside the first impression is "AWESOME"!!! The place is lively , the colors are bright and the people are great...and ya the food and drink stuff has been keeping me quite busy :-) Of course its a small world nowadays..so I ran into a team member who has worked at Webaroo and another one who comes from Trilogy and was talking about a tool that Megha had worked on in SQATech..I think the days to come will be quite exciting.

You and I, in this beautiful world..

2007-01-02T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Hutch campaign with the pug following the kid is back on air. Its a nice ad, little boy, cute dog, nice jingle but the truth is that the "our network follows" claim is utter bullshit. I think it is so very bullshit because in my office on Airport road right in the heart of Bangalore city where all other networks follow you without explicitly saying so, people with Hutch connections have plenty to cry about! And its not as if we are in a deep cave of something..shame on you Hutch..your network symbolizing omnipresent wrinkly toy doggy just cannot get past the access control in our office..
Update: And of course here is some trivia about the dog.

Dear social networking friends

2006-12-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-05T04:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-10-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-08-13T04:33:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

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!!

2006-05-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-05-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

2006-05-04T02:36:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

2006-04-17T02:32:00.000-07:00

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..

2006-04-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

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 :)

2006-04-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

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 :(

2006-04-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

Convocation!

2006-04-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-04-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

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

Raj Kumar passes away..

2006-04-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

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..

2006-04-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

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!!

2006-03-28T16:23:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-09T01:37:00.001-08:00

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!

2006-03-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

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.

---
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.

2006-02-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

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!!

2006-02-21T06:18:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-20T20:27:00.000-08:00

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

Lee Kuan Yew on India

2005-12-25T21:38:00.000-08:00

Part 1, part 2, part 3 summarising the lectures of LKY on Atanu Dey's blog. Long posts but good reads.

Bar dancers ban: The Life After

2005-11-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks Sonia Faleiro has compiled a series of articles for Tehelka on the life of bar dancers after the ban. This concluding article sums up all the pathos. The articles are also posted on her blog* and you can find links to them in this article which is the last profile in the series.

*As an aside, Tehelka allows journalists working for them to post articles on their blogs but for some convoluted refuses to open up their online edition..I think it is one of the stupidest things that they have ever done. Suhail's very well written Open Letter to Tehelka also raises this point but they haven't mended their shop yet.

CNBC picks up the IIPM story.

2005-10-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

CNBC TV18 today carried a story which had an interview with the UGC chief who said that IIPM's ads are "misleading". Surprisingly however, there was no mention of Gaurav Sabnis, Rashmi Bansal, IBM etc etc. In essence what they reported was just a part of the story. The whole truth is out there..but only in the blogosphere. Now is IIPM going to sue CNBC? :-)

UPDATE: Apparently there is truth also on some of the news sites like NDTV, Business Standard. Check here for the links, but I am not sure if anybody other than CNBC TV18 has carried the story on TV.

UPDATE2: http://rga.blogspot.com/2005/10/weekend-adventures.html
tells that CNBC did mention desipundit and had an interview with Rashmi Bansal during "the tech show".

A new era

2005-10-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Today marks the dawn of a new era. I have shrugged away 5 almost 4.5 yrs or lethargy and finally started calculated gambling err..investing some money in the stock market :)!! Hurray! Thanks to Nabajit to guided me through the web site (ICICIDirect). While the stock that I have bought is marginally down just hours after the epoch making transaction :) the hope is to cash in on a (1:1) bonus, the record date (see how I have started slipping in the money jargon :)) for which has been fixed for Nov 14th. I hope this era is that of prosperity!!

Coming soon: the mp3 breast implant | The Register

2005-10-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Coming soon: the mp3 breast implant | The Register

Likewise, God alone knows how you select tracks, but breasts do come equipped with a pleasing alternative to the iPod's selector wheel. We can imagine the scenario: Girlfriend: "Oi, what the bloody hell are you doing?" Boyfriend: "Hold on, I'm just scrolling down to Stairway to Heaven."

Legal entertainment

2005-10-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

An interesting, entertaining saga is doing the rounds for the past few days. Involves IIPM and some bloggers, including one Gaurav Sabnis who resigned from IBM during the fracas. Apparently JAM magazine tried to verify the claims in the ads of IIPM and posted their findings and Gaurav linked to it. IIPM then sent Gaurav a "legal notice". There is comprehensive coverage on DesiPundit. Read and enjoy.

Story heard via Suhail's blog (Imaginathon).

Modeling tools..

2005-09-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has just announced a perview release for its DSL tools that can be downloaded here. Should be interesting to see how it turns out. I am not gonna try it out right now since it is a competitors tool :( IBM Rational's tool Rational Software Architect(RSA) can be downloaded here or from the linked site. RSA exploits UML tooling and UML profiles for modeling while Microsofts tools have a DSL approach. Other interesting tools are Meta Programming System from JetBrains. For business modeling IBM has a the WebSphere Business Integration Modeler which allows business analysts to model business processes without using UML since business analysts typically do not want to get entangled in knowing UML. These models are similar to UML activity diagrams and the user can associate costs with each business task in the process. The models can then be simulated and subsequently optimized based on the simulation results. When the analyst is done with the business modeling the model can be imported into RSA as a UML model for use by architects and developers during the implementation phase of the processes. There are pretty interesting days ahead in the modeling space.

Thou shalt laugh I say!!

2005-09-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

Flathead: Matt Taibbi on Thomas Friedman. (via Atanu Dey.)

Given a chance..

2005-09-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

Given a chance any place can turn into Bihar. These and other conclusions were reached after a discussion about Katrina and its man-made aftermath with a few colleagues some days ago. Stories like Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences support the theory. (via Ongoing)

Story of a hard-disk crash and recovering data from it..

2005-08-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

A few days back the ThinkPad I work on started behaving wierdly and the wierdness increased monotonically and then gave way to predictability..i.e. the TP refused to boot after a certain point in time. Tech support analysis confirmed that it was a disk crash...it did make wierd noises...The repair centre then gave me back the disk to salvage data whichever way I could..(no integrated "repair TP and get data salvaged too" solution was offered unfortunately).
So I put the hard disk in an USB enclosure and looked at what I could get...Initially the signs were very discouraging and I was not able to see any partition even though a USB device was being detected..After much thought, Neeraj Sharma (of key mapping fame :)) came to the rescue and pointed out that the disk was password protected (IBM security policy :) ) and this could be a reason it was not readable on USB. So he and another colleague, Ramanathan, put it back in a Thinkpad with easily removable disks and diabled the password after which I plugged it back into USB. After a rather long wait I saw that the boot partition was completely invisible but the other two were. Most of my data was fortunately on those and I managed to copy it just like that and some after running a disk scan. A further disk scan later the boot partition too was repaired and was up for scavenging. Managed to get some data out of it but a rather big (350MB+) mail archive file was not recovered since the copy would terminate after about 120 MB due to unknown reasons. Anyways, thanks the help from Neeraj Sharma and Ramanathan and the USB enclosure a lot of data was recovered and time and money which otherwise would have been spent on some third party vendor were saved.

Mapping keys on a ThinkPad

2005-08-31T03:51:00.000-07:00

If you miss the windows key or the application/right click key (I know Prerana did at some point of time) on your ThinkPad then you will be pleased to read this. Click the blue button i.e. Open "Access IBM" using the button on the TP or the desktop shortcut. Then "Manage keyboard & pointing devices" -> "Map keys to functions" and customize as you like. Thanks to Neeraj Sharma for enlightening me!

Getting help in Mumbai..

2005-08-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Got the following mail from Suhail today morning..

Just a quick update that two new blogs that have come up in the past few days, w.r.t. the recent Mumbai flooding tragedy (& in general Maharashtra rains).
http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com - relief/rehab info, NGOs. hospitals, medical care, ambulances etc...etc. (long-term help)
http://cloudburstmumbai.blogspot.com -- running news tracker, collated by a host of bloggers spread all over (mainly frm Bbay), about news/links related to this incident. e.g. - telehpone/water/electricity going on-off-on in certain areas, roads/rlystations/airports opening-closing etc..drainage, sewerage, filth conditions..even individual calls for help, and getting in touch with lost folks. etc..etc.

More details can be had here from my blog. I am a contributor on both of these. Pls spread the links, on yr blogs, in your organizations and to yr folks who might have anything to do with Bbay. feel free to write back to me, with any queries/suggestions.

LDT proposal withdrawn..

2005-07-18T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Eclipse LDT project which I talked about some time back has been unfortunately withdrawn. This is bad news.

Autoclipping??

2005-07-13T00:07:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! now offers transcoded web pages for mobiles. If they do support any random site then they ought to be doing some sort of relevant content extraction on a page.. I think at some point of time we had discussed similar things in firstRain.

Hawa Hawa

2005-07-12T03:09:00.000-07:00

And here I sit in the afternoon hearing for the first time in MP3, the faint notes of Hawa Hawa by the once famous Hasan Jahangir, playing on a colleagues machine and I say to myself I am lucky :) For me the album is a collector's item. Really I mean it. Even during college days when the pockets were always light I had spent 18 Rs IIRC on buying a copy from a certain friend Ajit Khanzode who had once bought it in his childhood craze I guess. However, over the last few years I have lost track of the cassette :( Hopefully I can lay my hands on the mp3 :)

Another good blog

2005-07-12T02:41:00.000-07:00

Via one the earlier two recommendations..
The Jesustan Diaries. The Pervert's Progress is a pretty nice, in a perverse way :)

TOI hears dirt on TOI

2005-07-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Checkout this conversation about a TOI faux pas on Chien(ne)s Sans Frontières. Has some comments from TOI employees. This is the first evidence that I have come across which tells that all the -ve feedback has started reaching TOI.

Some recommedations

2005-07-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

I recommend reading Imaginathon. This is Suhail's blog who used to be a colleague.( In a way still is but has moved to a far away land (of the free) for now :) )

Another recommendation is C***S***F Chien(ne)s Sans Frontières. Suhail co-blogs here and has also won a writing contest for the Myopia for the Masses piece on the same blog.

Eclipse LDT

2005-07-09T01:27:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to the Eclipse LDT (Language definition toolkit) project delivering something concrete. Eclipse JDT has a number of very good productivity features like refactoring support, completions, quick fixes, hierarchical view in the package explorer etc etc. However all these features are pretty tightly coupled with JDT and hence supporting same levels of functionality for other languages involves a lot of rework in terms of infrastructure. A typical example is a package explorer like view. If one adds support for a new language one needs to parse the source, create an AST and then populate the tree viewer widget in a package explorer like view with the appropriate values. Then one needs to listen on changes to the source files and update the views appropriately. Ideally one would like to create an AST (with a standard interface perhaps) and just hook it into the view and the rest should be taken care of. Things only get messier as your xyz language development toolkit plays catchup with other functionalities like refactoring, editing etc. There is a scope for creation of a platform layer over which addition of new languages is easier. The LDT project has this as one of its goals. Needless to say for IBM Rational tools the problem is similar (or worse even) where we try to build modeling, visualization of source in UML notation etc. In the absence of a base toolkits the process involves creation of a JDT like toolkit on top of which we can provide our value adds. In these layers too addition of new languages becomes difficult in the absence of a common framework. Hopefully LDT will provide something good. Chris Daly from IBM has done some work on this is actively participating in the LDT newsgrp discussions. I think IBM should have some more participation. I am trying to understand the work that he has done and probably will be able to use some of his ideas in my work and probably come up with some on my own too ;)

Joe Sat pictures

2005-06-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

Some photos from the concert and the airport are posted below.

2005-06-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

Nice red lights here..

2005-06-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

You can see at least 3 camera phone at work in this picture

2005-06-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Him again

2005-06-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

Joe Sat himself

The BileBlog

2005-06-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

I have to recommend The BileBlog to all who enjoy a well written flame or two. To give you some preview of the kind of foul languaged flamage on the blog here is an excerpt:

In terms of self love, we have 23 wank related incidents and 22 faps (including things like fapfap noises, fapfests, and boring old fapping),

And there is more you can discover on your own. Enjoy!!

Camera phones are everywhere.

2005-06-07T02:36:00.000-07:00

About a month back my mom and sis Saee flew down to B'lore. The very next day B'lore was going to host a Joe Satriani show and Saee wanted to attend it pretty badly. Saee was on a different flight and reached a bit earlier and was waiting on the airport with Megha and much to her delight realised suddenly that certain white people coming out of the arrivals gate were in fact the Joe Satriani troupe along with the man himself. What followed involved plenty of delirium I am told :) They got some books autographed but wanted to take pictures too..Megha has a camera phone and that one came in very very handy...I was not expecting very good picture quality but was impressed when we actually transferred the images to a comp. Have posted some of them. And not only here but when we went to the concert I was surprised at the number of hands that went up trying to capture images of the concert..

Posting from a train..

2005-06-05T04:21:00.000-07:00

People get happy posting from aircrafts which are wi-fi enabled..I get happy posting from a train using a reliance phone and a data cable :)