Test

The Inside Story

News report in a distinguished news paper: blaming no-one:

“ Yesterday night around midnight, cops in XXXX area found an abandoned car containing 2 bodies near a dark play ground. One of the deceased is a middle level manager in a well known public company. No foul play is suspected as suicide note was found near one of the body.”

News report from a cheap tabloid looking for sensational news: (The Inside Story) Blaming the deceased.

“Mr. Srinivas Iyer and his wife lived in a posh locality in Bangalore. He had recently defaulted a load from a bank and his house was slated for auction. Close friends from company indicated that his bad financial position may be due to his habit of betting on chit funds.

He is assumed to have preferred to end his life rather than face the consequences of his bad habits. He along with his wife were found dead near a playground last week.”

Mr Iyer’s neighbour had his own “Inside Story”: Blaming human greed

“Why was it necessary, all that involvement in Chit Fund and going around with those notorious money lenders. He had such a peaceful life, successful manager in a well known company, owning a house in this area, son settled in US and daughter married and working in an MNC here in Bangalore. He had all that was required to be happy.

But human being is such a greedy creature. He always wants more than what he has got. God only knows what more he wanted to get involved in such flimsy money making schemes.”

The deceased tells his own story: Blaming his childhood experiences

“As a student I was so successful. Every body expected me to rise rapidly in the company. But, I knew I was better at finance than my actual profession. I used the knack to illegally start a small financing business of my own and succeeded quite well. As you know, only on that money I could build a big house in this locality, Send my son to US and also marry off my daughter.

But success has its own problems. Now every body including my son has some expectations on my standard of living. My relatives expect me to help them whenever in need. I surely could not have achieved all of that with my salary. Hence I got stuck with that semi-legal venture of mine. What I dint realize was that with age my financial acumen had gone down and a series of bad decisions brought me into a situation which caused my death. I wish I could have stopped this long time back.

I don’t blame anybody, but somehow in some way my mother is responsible. As a child when our financial position was not well-off, she kept comparing our position with others in her family and making remarks such as “how comfortable they (our relatives) were!”. That made a lasting impression and someway made be look for other ways of making money. But I don’t blame her. ”

Mother of the deceased: blaming nobody.

“I was married at 18, and had a kid in one more year. In that age, I was too young to take into account the prosperity of my relatives. I did not know better than comparing our position with others. I wish I had better sense then.”

Thus the Inside Stories end, with none to blame in the end.

Quantuim State: Women liberation in India

Two advertisements being played in local FM stations:

1. Voice of Priyanka Chopra, one of the leading heroines in India "I am from small city in India. but still that did not stop me from follwoing my dream....." advertising for a woman's product. represents may be 2% of the women of india.

2. An anonymous voice 'Yesterday night My husband forgot to take protection. I dont want to become pregnant..." advertising for post-contraceptive. Note that it was husband who forgot to protect, but she did not say anything at that time. May be the rest of 98% of women?

Adventurous journey Athens

Exceprts from my Bangalore to Athens flight.

1. Did not get ticket on direct flight from Bangalore to Franfurt (+4 hours detour to chennai).
2. Waiting in Chennai airport in non-AC section because I reached too early. (-200 ml sweat)
3. Free upgrade to business class (+1000 watt smile)
4. Manchester United Vs Arsenal match (3-0) (+1000 watt smile)
5. Paratha's from home (+ satisfaction)
6. Flight to Frankfurt (+ "ZZZZZ")
7. Flight delayed by 1 hour due to snowstorm (1 plate of Pasta+cheese in lounge)
8. Next seat empty in Athens flight (+ lots of leg space)
9. Flight missed its slot for flying (+1 hour of sleep)
10. Athens Airport closed again (+1 hour flying over Athens airport)
11. rerouted to Thesseloniki for the night.
12. Room in Thesseloniki (Wow).
13. Dinner arrangement in the hotel (even more wow)
14. Board for Athens at 13:00 on monday (Relief)
15. Flight accelerating on runway after waiting for 1 hour (Claps on board.. claps too soon)
16. Sudden brakes before take-off.. (+Smoke and sparks everywhere.. due to failure of Engine-1)
17. Fire department trucks around the plane, Lady crying.. doesnt want to die. (Creating even more tension)
18. Second wait in Thesseloniki.. (6 hours)
19. Take another flight to Athens (Claps but only after complete take-off)
20. Reached Athens (Once again claps of relief.. Monday 23:00)
21. Time taken 56 hours. Actual flight time from Bangalore to Athens via Frankfurt: 11 hours.

Delusioned...

We have so many different philosophies of managing the economy and its people.

1. American Capitalism:
It is a beautiful mechanism in which the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor share the land. It is a place where the intelligent and gifted get all they want, but also manage that the poor have no chance of progress. They are stuck for life, but dont understand. You need money to go to school. You need lots of money to get treatement in a hospital. You need even more money to get into a decent college. And it is called "Land of Opportunities".

2. Soviet Capitalism:
What was designed to get rid of the rich and the powerful, became a tool for oppression in hands of the rich and the powerful. Only the faces changed. In the older system, the landed class ruled and oppressed. In the new system, the PARTY ruled and oppressed. And no everybody could get into the party. The decision lay with few and now they ruled and oppressed.

3. Chinese Pseudo-communism:
This is the biggest farce on the face of earth. Unprecedented prosperity has helped the chosen few to strengthen their hold over the poor. How much the poor suffer in this land is not known. How much the successful enjoy is portrayed out for the hungry media. This is the biggest PR exercise in the history of the nations. But I am sure of one thing, previous generation saw the rise and fall of Soviet Russia. Our generation will see the rise and fall of nationalist China.

4. Socialism:
Some successes in socialism with high "happiness" rates are used by some socialist as the proof of its success. But the point missed is that the so called success in these countries (France and Germany) invariably preceded a period of exploitation of some third world country and thus raising the standard of living. Some other countries (Sweden and Norway) successfully exploited the natural resources and used it for betterment of the sparsely populated country. Hence the only success of socialism is in places where already there is high per capita income.

“Kaise-Fati-2008”

“Kaise-Fati-2008”

Once upon a time in a far away planet there lived a King. It was a weird planet with its own caste system. There was common (wo)man who through his sweat and blood sustained the planet. Then there were leaders of the common (wo)men who were kind and encouraging. Then there were accountants managing the economy. But the greatest of them all were the organizers. Those born with silver spoons and having a gift to manage the show. Unfortunately, like all the bourgeoisie on all the planets, disconnected from the reality.

One day the King decided to please the public. He decided to spend some money earned by the country through the hard work of the common (wo)man, he called for a “Outing” and called it “For the People”.

Outing in that planet meant something else. On the day of outing, all the population of the planet will be herded to a far away place, will be provided with food and drinks. He even decided that a “robe” will be given to everyone to commemorate this occasion. They will be given a chance to perform on stage and show their talents. King would also give a speech and achievements would be mentioned and future plans would be discussed.

Date was fixed and venue decided. The common (wo)man began their preparation in full force to decide. All of them prepared well for the event including the King. But GODS had something else in mind.

1. The event was decided to take place far away. People waited for the letter instructing the transportation. People waited in vain and letter arrived only after the nightfall on the planet and most of the people had slept. Organisers blamed the Postman.
2. Still with ingenuity most of them managed to get to the venue, only to find big queue for the first food. (Organisers forgot that many people will arrive simultaneously.) They blamed the mathematician who did not model the arrival rate properly. Unfortunately Poisson arrival does not work properly in such cases.
3. The King started giving speech. It turned out that the space for the audience was small. (Organisers had forgotten that the King was ruling over a booming planet and population had increased four-fold in past few years.). Organisers blamed the common (wo)man were not interested to listen.
4. Lunch and dinner coupons were distributed only after writing down employee names. (Organizers forgot that they lived on a lonely planet, and everybody was invited). BTW, by checking the lists, the author confirmed the rumors that super-stars from far away Indo-sara like Bipasha Basu and Amitabh Bachchan had sneaked in to have food.
5. Organizers managed the complex task of collecting coupons in exchange for plate immensely enjoyable. The scene was more like olden day BSE Share market, where every person is try to get his hand high enough to submit the coupon and obtain the plates. This clearly improved the “Bhai-chara” among the citizens of the planet. Unfortunately some people were non-sportive enough to plan getting their own plates from the next ‘Outing’.
6. Being a lonely planet and not affording inter-planetory transport, judges for the competition were chosen from among the leaders of common (wo)man. As an unrelated event immediately after the judges were announced, the performers started guessing the winners even before anybody had performed. (Organisers did not respond to this question). Foreign words like “Benson” and “Bucknor” were also heard by the author, although did not make much sense.
7. Transport on the way back, food was arranged during the performance. (Organizers claimed lack of time. Participants claimed lack on ingenuity from organizers). Most people were engrossed in food while competition was on. Organizers quoted that food improved the enjoying ability.
8. Immediately after the performance, transportation was announced. Teams performing last were not given food. (Organizers claimed the Joy of performance should fill the stomach).
9. Last but not the least, robe mentioned by the King was never distributed. (When contacted, organizers claimed the robe was given only to those people who managed to take the survey of the size.) It turned out that survey was placed in shadow where nobody could see it. Rumours say it is part of cost cutting strategy by the ever-brilliant Organizers. How ironic considering that the people busy preparing for the event (and those who did not take the survey), most deserved the “robe”.

Over-all the event was named as “Kaise- Fati” by common (wo)man. But organizers still call it Casa-Fete, the Greatest success. (Scale for success: Lesser the money spent per person, bigger the success).

People have already started planning for “Phir-Fati-2009”. Some tips making rounds:

- Rent a Tent for changing costumes with dignity.

- Carry a multi-level stool for accommodating into speech-room.

- Carry a plate, spoon, bowl etc for having food in peace.

- And last but not the least, carry a tiffin-box for storing the dinner so that food can be had on the bus. Preferably Tiffin be filled already with Food. Any food is better than Cold and Stale food.

- Keep stock of some liquids from UB Group and from other groups for interested parties.

And hence I proclaim myself to be an atheist.

Benazir Bhutto, the most rational voice in Pakistan, has been silenced.

The most ridiculous fight between two communalist parties in Gujarat, each arguing how one is secular and the other not, has ended. One party won, the other lost.

Nandigram is still burning. Communist Party of India are no more Communists than George Bush's America.

Taslima Nasreen is in Exile a second time. This time from a Hindu Majority State and Communist Government could not stop the fundamentalists from destroying public peace as protest against her so called blasphemy. Here the secularity of Communists was safely bundled and buried.

Christians are being attacked. May be for monitory induced conversion. May be for indulging in separatist attitude. May be for pure social work.

MF Hussain's paintings are being attacked again.

And worst of all, media condemns Modi's pro-hindu strategy while blindly condoning Congress, CPI and other's for pro-Muslim, Pro-Christian policies.

Tony Blair, till recently PM of Great Britain, officially embraced catholicism. With that he is now not only anti-war (which is good), but also anti-abortionist, anti-evolutionary, and for that matter anti-science also.

And I better not talk about USA and the right wing Christianity. Where more than 50% people don't believe in Evolution, a theory with100 years of proofs, does not even merit a mention.

And hence I proclaim myself to be an atheist. Not agnostic. But an Atheist.

Marathi Bana: An apt Epitaph for Marathi Culture

Yesterday I watched "Marathi BaNa" in Deenanath in Parle, Mumbai. Its a beautiful and well presented play both from choreographic and content wise. It managed to depict the variety of Marathi traditions in a concise yet detailed form. It concluded with lamentations towards how the traditions are being lost even in rural India. The director/producer declared that No action is being taken to prevent the traditions from receding into oblivion.

Now the question I asked myself was: "What are traditions? What is culture?". It is something which helps us in being a good citizen and good member of society while providing the entertainment. The traditions of Vasudev and Bharud engrained in the marathi society was to spread the moral discourses far and wide and self sustain the tradition. In the age of information technology and widespread education, the importance of 'word of mouth' spread of moral discourses have become somewhat irrelevant in the cities. And it is bound to become more and more irrelavant as time passes even in rural India. Instead of lamenting and spending effort into saving a now worthless tradition, it will be better to spend the same effort to include the same messages in our schooling system. Improve the quality of education. That will serve Maharashtrians and India better in the long run.

The society is moving away from animal dependence to machine dependence. Importance of Cows and Bulls, Sheep and goat is reducing day by day. So is the importance of all traditions celebrating the interdependence between animal and human.

Girls/Ladies and become more and more independent, working and getting more freedom in the society. They are able to meet their freinds/relatives without the need to "supported traditions" like Haldi-Kunku, Mangala-Gaur etc etc. And hence the reduce importance of these functions/puja in Urban India.

Agriculture is a thing of past. From now on more and more people will move out of dependence on agriculture and allied fields into more urban style of work environments. Today, with advent of electric machines like mixer-grinder old equipments like "jaata" etc are obsolete. And that is true in all walks of life.

Traditional 'koLi' is being replaced by Trawlers. Tribes are getting educated and moving into urban environments. Children find 'Foreign' games like Cricket more attractive.

Now do we need to lament the lost traditions? And is it worth while to spend the effort to support the traditions? At best we can achieve the traditions on life-support. Their is no way we will be able to make the system self-sustaining.

I am happy to let go these traditions. Others are sure to disagree, there is certain nostalgia attached to each and every thing. Everybody hates change. But this is the price to pay for all the conveniences we receive. Watching a "Marathi BaNa" in an AC hall, eating Vada-pav, drinking Pepsi is not the best way to show your support and cannot be more ironic. I wonder how many people clapping their hands off even have time to teach their children Marathi. Clap for the performance. Applaud the effort and creativity. But clapping in support of "lamentations of lost traditions" and "Lets save this culture" is ridiculous at best and laughable in general.

A new Intelligent Idiot box

A group of friends, sitting on park bench and staring at it,
A group of adults, discussing while the child stares at it,
A couple walking hand in hand, and talking on 'it' all the time.
A mother and son sitting in a restaurant, and son playing games on it.

A group attending a funeral, and everyone on 'it' half the time.

What about knowledge sharing, learning from elders, enjoying each others company and sharing of grief? All lost in one thing. The Mobile.

Greed

In the eye of the Gold Shopper,
And in the eye of Green Card hopeful,
Also in the eye of MBA Aspirer,
So also with Electronics Lover.

The basis for Capitalist Society,
And about Skin Deep beauty.
And Year long Green House Summer,
sad childhood, ruined youth and many a murder.

[Regarding Book] Games Indians Play: A prejudiced view without proper analysis

This is not a book review, but my impression of the book after completing 1/4th of the 200 pages. Games Indians Play is a book by V. Raghunath.

This book is supposed to explain the 'Why we are the way we are". It starts of with saying that we as Indians have typical characteristics which is not found anywhere else in the world, be it developed or developing or under-developed countries. The traits like: Jumping the Red light, Being late and untrustworthy, keeping the surroundings unclean, bribing and corruption, jumping the queue and being insensitive about needs to elderly etc. It has a foreword by none other than Mr. Narayan Murthy.

I completely agree with him that all the traits are completely valid and true. We see them day in and day out. But where I disagree is that these traits are special to Indian genes and are not found anywhere else. Having been to many countries and interacted with people of many different nationalities, I find this completely ridiculous. Here are my personal experiences:

1. The bus I was waiting for in Nice, France was 20 minutes late. The driver was unapologetic and kept chattering with a person sitting next to him all the while from Airport to my bus stop, many times taking his eyes from the road. All of these are supposed to be typical Indian characteristics.

2. People honk of impatience at traffic lights in Italy. I have seen them taking a shortcuts which are not exactly legal. So impatience on the road is not "India only trait".

3. Uncleanliness is quite rampant. Dog owners dont lift Dog-Shit from roads in Germany, they litter the downtown in most US cities, China is as dirty as India.

4. Taking advantage of a unsuspecting tourists is quite common in China, Italy, Greece etc. A friend of mine lost his Wallet in China and another friend lost his laptop in Rome, both incidents happened within Airport premises. My colleague was ripped off 3 times the normal fare in Beijing, China.

5. And if bending the law is typical Indian attitude, I cannot account for piracy of movies and music. And how can we take into account the Enron's and the Worldcom's? And china is not much better than India when it comes to bribery.

Overall this may be a good book from analysis perspective, but has been twisted for the sake of publicity. People tend to buy more if it is related to India rather than a generic behavioral science book. But this is unjustifiable when book shows India in negative light without any reason just for the sake of publicity.

I hope nobody buys this book and make success out of anti-Indianess.

Luck

And people say I am lucky
What do they know how much
I tried and what I left for luck
- Kavi RSV

Kavi RSV

Yesterday was cloudy and rainy,
Tomorrow will be damp and cold
But today I have decided
Decided to be jolly and bold
-- Kavi RSV

Alice in complicated land

It was a bright day with the big white clouds floating around in the nice blue sky. Alice was lying down under an apple tree and trying to make out which cloud looked like which animal. The last one was a horse, like a big stallion galloping at full speed. The next one was sheep with a small little nose and lots of wool. With the third one she was amazed, it looked exactly like a puppy and not just any puppy but the one with dreamy eyes and slight smile too.

She suddenly decided to get herself a cute little puppy.. and where else to go but to the wonderland with lots of friends to help. She was sure with so many friends she will be able to get the best puppy in the world. But...

There she was staring at the first puppy of the day. It was not exactly as she had seen in the sky.. but it was cute in its own way. She had almost picked it up, when the cat appeared.. first its teeth (all 32 of them) and then the body.
"Wait, Did you count the number of teeth the puppy has? You would not touch it if you knew it had only 31" said the cat.
'But how does it matter? It can chew as well as you do.." said Alice.
"You fool, last time a girl of your age took the puppy with 31 teeth.. and do you know what happened? She fell down and broke her hand."

Its Ok, thought Alice, I will find one with 32 teeth.. not more nor less.

Next she saw another puppy which was perfectly white like a fairy. She picked it up and the puppy immediately made a sweet little sound. "Common Alice" said the cat. "This one is not for you.. Did you see under its paw? It has a black patch. It will not be able to adjust with you".

And so came the third puppy. And went too.. because its age was exactly divisible by the age of Alice. "How in world you could even look at it, Alice" was the comment.

And so Alice roamed around the land looking at one cute puppy than another. And the cat got happier and happier. If the cat let Alice have the puppy, why will she think of him? She will be too happy with the puppy.

By making the life complicated, the cat ensures that people remember and offer it fruits daily. Not that the cat liked the fruits that much. But the adulation people gave was good enough.

So, will Alice be able to find her puppy? Lets wait and see.

--
~RSV

Two Lives

Part-1
It was a bad day. It started with a headline in the newspaper. 'H1B visa quota exceeded in 1 day'. "What the hell, we work so hard here and America doesn't even have consideration to let us live our lives peacefully" thought the Vimla. She had been eagerly waiting for the new year so that she could restart working. It had been a long wait, but worthwhile now that their son was in school and she had free time to start thinking about supplementing the family income. She had even managed to get a sponsor for the H1B after long process, even agreeing to drive 2 hours one way to work. And now all the hopes were dashed. She was cursed to this wait-for-husband-and-kid routine for one more year. And over that, the plans of buying a new car will have to be postponed.

But what wretched life this was. She could not work. Ram could not change his job. The expenses were rising. And the forever illusory 'Green Card' was taking forever to be granted. She had just heard that the backlogs were enough to last 5 years. And this was going to increase with time. Without the green card, they could not settle in life, could not buy a house, get scholarships for their children.

The archaic laws were forcing them to lead a life of relative poverty and was unsettling. Why was that happening to them. Most of her friends in the US had got their green card, bought a house, sending the children to best of the schools and now even planning for a second home. She took another dose of anti-depressent, hoping that she will be well by the time her son returns home, cursing the US and its weird laws at the same time.

Part-2
It was a bad day. It started with traffic snarl in the morning. The maid had taken another day off without informing. Vimla was already late for the office. So many problems. The new home they had bought was farther than her office and road worse than thought earlier. It would have been so nice had her husband Shyam took up the job offer in US. She would have a comfortable life like her sister Bimla. How nice it would be to be out of this traffic and cruising on a free-way. It was year since she had started working again after a long break. Now with the new job of Ram and the additional income she was earning dint heart in any way. They had a bigger home, sending their son to one of the most expensive school in the city, and also managed to buy a new bigger car. But still the heat was killing her. The car she was driving dint have an AC and the roads were jammed. Why did India has so much population. Why did Shyam ignores her nagging. It was such a comfortable life her sister was leading. And she took an anti-depressent from her purse and drank a bit of water. Cursing under her breathe, she started honking hoping that the additional noise will clear the traffic.

Modern World

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Microsoft

Microsoft is dead, Long live Microsoft

Haiku: The Great Indian Game

Drunk Captain, Fallen team
Murdered Coach, Missing diary
Big Billion Wins, Gentelman's game

Note: This was written before end of Srilankan innings.

The 2 Indias

Here is the story of 2 Indias. 2 sides of the same coin. 2 extremes of injustice.

All of us know and expect that the mail/blog will be about the difference in standard of living. The rising income of the city dwellers while the poverty and debt ridden village farmer. But expect the unexpected.

This is from a different perspective. From the Casteist perspective.

City is where the "other" castes are empowered. They know the power they hold. It is the place where the injustice of thousands of years is vindicated. They get the reservations in education institutions and jobs generations after generations. May be the first person in each family deserved some concession. But this "Chalta hain.. waise bhi IIT mein admission mil hi jayegi" attitude lowers the performance of the individual as well as the country.

This is the place where the employees make false complaints against their bosses, falsely alleging casteist comments. This is the place where they form unions and monopolize several businesses. This is the place where they get loan and freedom to not repay however rich they are.

And this class of people are the main cause for opposition to reservation in the minds of the upper caste.

And then there's the other India. They dont even know what freedom is. They dont have access to water, toilets etc. They have to get up from the seat in government bus if an upper caste person enters. And the administration is not with them. Hardly any lower caste IAS officers/Police commissioners want to work for the upliftment of these people.

And these are the people who deserve the reservation more than any one else. And they get nothing. No dignity. No opportunity.

Miles to go before I sleep.

On climate change..

After warm ice free winter in Europe, Frosty California, over cold east coast, string of typhoons in US and finally a big storm raging across most of Europe the developed world finally woken up to the ultimate truth, that of global warming caused by the "Waste is development" philosophy led by US and followed by most of the developed world.

This is the first time in many years that the common man in Europe and US is being directly affected by the effects of global warming. After trying to stifle the voice of scientist on global warming for years, the American administration has not be able to completely eliminate it. And now the public opinion in the countries that matter is totally in favor of reducing the environmental impact.

A few hours of watching BBC and CNN will show the amount of change in the perception of media:
1. Toyota ad with tag line "aiming for zero emission" is broadcasted multiple number of times per day
2. Number of advertisements from many funds advertising the projects they undertook to reduce emissions.
3. US Congress rejecting the multiple billion subsidy and stating that the money is better used for renewable technologies

World is changing. But are they doing enough to save the world from catastrophe?

The new and emerging manufacturing powerhouse China, still does not care about the environment as long as it gets to manufacture and sell cheap products. And the materialistic world will not care how a product was manufactured as long as it is cheap and desirable.

India with its population is not much behind. As the affluence increases the consumption, we dont care what is the impact on the world.

Just guessing how many million deaths will be needed to actually open the eyes of the world.

And how feasible is it to save the earth as we know today from the conflicting and competitive citizens of the earth.