Vikram's Blog . Just because everybody has ONE !

Arm Chair Revolutionaries ...

2009-08-12T16:55:00.009+05:30

The arm chair Che Guevaras have woken up in India. With the media hype surrounding the swine flu pandemic, the papers are full of articles of how bad the health care system in India is. These are your revolutionaries who will go to any length lambasting the system without giving you one viable solution. This particular article that really ticked me off was in the "Mint". In the half page article, he mentions 3 incidents where he had to get a test done and how ill informed the people in the hospital were. I thought to myself, "Einstein, we don't need you to tell us that .. The whole world is trying to figure it out". I read a few of these in the last couple of days and pondered over what could I do ? Not much really other than keep my children safe at home, take precautions and avoid panic. In whatever state our health care is, its not the time to get compared to Singapore. That's certain.

The funny thing this time around is that the people who have been affected are not the usual suspects. It not the migrant laborer who lives on the footpath, not the cart puller who hauls your expensive stuff nor the guy who cleans your drains. Its the middle and upper class. Its people who took foreign vacations or had visitors from foreign countries. This situation has created an interesting canvas. People who have not seen the inside of a govt hospital in their entire lives, have suddenly realised that they need to contend with the govt health care system. And BAM .. the onslaught begins. The red flags are unfurled and the sabers are drawn.

There are many emails and articles doing the rounds that the chances of you getting hit by a bus are much higher than dying at the hands of the grim swine reaper. Almost all the material points to the fact that its not as bad as its being made out to be. Be safe and take sensible precautions. thats my mantra.

So to all the Guevaras, I say, please go back to your page 3 parties, your wine tasting and cheese sampling events and spare us your damn opinions.

As luck would have it, they were playing the movie "Outbreak" on late night TV yesterday. Talk about sensitivity huh ? :-)

Case of the Single grape ?

2009-08-01T19:39:00.007+05:30

I have had the fortune and misfortune of having my destiny and career tied to commercial airlines for the past 14-15 yrs or so. That has meant plenty of trans-atlantinc, trans-pacific, and local domestic Indian flights. And on all these flights, I have endured the food and survived.

There is this one thing that has continued to stump me. Its the case of the single grape. If you have observed closely, the fruit bowl that you get with your meal will always (my experience is 99%) contain one single grape. And it will have pips (seeds) in it. And in 90% of the cases, the grape will be sour.

Is that just a coincidence ? There must be a grater conspiracy in play here. Its my belief that its the airlines playing mind games with us. I am now going to start documenting this. I need a new facebook campaign. "We need atleast two grapes"

states of corporate growth ....the ladder to the top

2009-06-10T19:17:00.006+05:30

Was out for a drink with a couple of colleagues and we got around to talking about the "Corporate Ladder". There were some very interesting comments made. The growth of an individual in an organization goes through phases that can be equated to the 3 states of matter. Solid - Liquid - Gas !

The "Solid" state :
We all start of with a "Solid" foundation. Good college education, depth in the field we work in, good at technology, good at coding, etc. We are sure of what we are and we can actually touch and feel our strength. Once we have done this for a while, we realize that there are younger people in the workforce now who can do a much better job. In our zeal and eagerness to be better and differentiated we proceed to what I call as the "Liquid" stage of your career.

The "Liquid" state :
This is the state we call "broadening" your horizons. Technology or core expertise become taboo. You move into the realm of middle management. Outlook, Excel sheets and power points rule your life. You still remember some technology, usually a few years outdated but you are now able to talk some "business" as well. In some interviews, I have been told by candidates that they have now abstracted out pure technology :-)

The "Gaseous" state :
This is the state you reach after you have been boiled and sizzled in middle management for a few years. In this state you make statements like "Our innovations power through and help customers realize their ROIs in much shorter time frames and hence reducing TCO". Now you are completely abstracted ! You have an army of people under you who are ready to carry out your commands. You have reached utopia. :-)

Lets take the analogy of a hot air balloon : you need to loose the "solid" stuff for the balloon to raise ! So if you want to get to the top , its the GAS you need.

Price of Vanity ?

2009-04-29T11:05:00.007+05:30

So there I was in the gym toiling away the extra calories from the previous day .. And I see this orange Lambroghini drive up the road. The guy who owns this is a regular to the gym and is quite a speed buff. I have seen him drive up on a BMW bike, Ducati once and now a Lamborghini ! Has a Delhi number plate.

Well, I see that the passenger side seat is occupied and usually this guy is alone. So I am half expecting a gorgeous chick to get out and the treadmill heart rate monitor shows : "You are now in Cardio Zone". Now remember this rarely happens. I am usually walking/jogging in the "You are barely moving" zone.

The car door opens and out steps a security guard ! I am not F$%$%$ kidding. It was a security guard. So he parks the car on the side of the road and the security guard promptly takes over. So this guy actually drives around town in a Rs. 50 Million car with a security guard in his passenger seat so that he can guard the car. The price one is willing to pay for vanity. :-)

Humans continue to amaze and humour me.

Rock On !

2009-03-11T15:36:00.002+05:30

I finally got around to watching the movie "Rock On" yesterday. Last time I had had to to make a choice between watching this particular movie and "Hell Boy II" , obviously Hell Boy had won. :-)

So after much ado about how I did not agree with the whole concept of mid life crisis and much cajoling by my wife (who had watched it in the theater without me), I slipped in the DVD.

I was hooked to it from the first frame. I think its an outstanding movie. Simple story line, no villains, just life as we experience it. The one thing that really struck me was the ease with which the subject of ego has been handled. There are no bad people, no malicious intents by anybody but still the sword of fate deals a blow which sets the course of the movie. The music is superb. There are a few cliched scenes but these you can live with.

After I finished watching the movie, I took my bike (wife's scooter really !) and went out for a ride at midnight. I just wanted the whole feeling of the movie sink in. It left me in a very positive frame of mind and enriched my thinking. Kudos to the team who made the movie. I would rate this one very high in my personal list. And now my dream of taking a bike and driving it to Leh is alive again.

Why I have begun to hate iPods !

2009-02-04T12:23:00.004+05:30

I woke up to a wonderful day. So I decided to forego the visit to the gym and substituted it with a nice long walk in Lalbagh.

As I walked up the familiar paths in Lalbagh, I was quite self absorbed. I was listening to the birds, the various sounds of nature and the wonderful morning. I was enjoying the feeling of nothingness and generally quite happy. Then I started observing my fellow walkers. Almost everyone of them had the ubiquitous white earphone plugged into their auditory orifices. Here I was wondering why the devil would you want to listen to bollywood music (or whatever they were listening to) instead of enjoying the soothing sounds of nature. There were a few of the more moronic kinds who were playing the music on their speaker phones. I saw father-son pairs both with headphones. Husband-wife pairs both with headphones. There used to be a time, when the father took this son out on a nature walk to explain,talk and educate. Now they both listen to ipods. No talking.

I am not against listening to music, but I think communicating and meeting people takes more precedence for me personally. Have we become a race of people who don't want partake in anything other than ourselves ? A world of headphones and annoying cell phone users.

If you visit any of the better hotels in India or outside, you will see that the lift lobby , the lift, the restrooms, the reception are all equipped with LCD televisions. Even buses that ferry you from your flight to the terminal have these screens. All of them advertising and trying to sell you something that you don't need. No talking. No saying "hello" to the person next to you. Watch the damn TV and listen to your iPod.

However on the other side of the coin, you have social networking websites where people will pour their heart out. :-)

Its getting to be a weird world ! too weird.

In support of ckunte

2009-02-01T20:19:00.004+05:30

A lot has been written about NDTV gagging Chyetanya Kunte for his post "Shoddy Journalism". The one I liked the most is here.

My post is to express solidarity for Chyetanya and the blogging community.

"Free Speech" is free. Try and stop it.

(hoooo .. i am scared now .. pls pls .. I dont want to be sued ... GOD oh God .. ! )

Long standing grouse has been answered ...

2009-01-29T13:49:00.005+05:30

Today's Economic Times had a nice article on the front page : "you don't need proof to claim LTA".

Ever since I came back from the US, I have had this issue to deal with. If I had to claim tax exemption, why do I need to submit medical bills and LTA tickets to my employer ? Is my employer the ENFORCER of tax laws ? Also from an employer viewpoint, isnt this unnecessary paperwork and expense ? Not to mention the cussing by their employees. :-)

It also led to a lot of unanswered questions with regards to privacy. Since my medical prescriptions and bills had to submitted, the back office guy verifying the bills had access to all sorts of unwanted information. Why does my employer need to know what ills ail me ? And they also did not have any full proof mechanism of ensuring the bills were destroyed. Compare this to the legislation in the US where even the parent can't access his son's medical record directly.

I tried to take this up with my employers, but it was a losing battle.
UNTIL TODAY !

The income tax act section 10 does not state that employer has any statutory, legal, fiduciary obligation to collect proof for LTA claimed. The onus of proof rests with the employee. As is the case in all parts of the world. The same thing can now be extrapolated to Medical Reimbursement. Employee claims tax benefit, let him prove it when he files returns. Tax deduction at source is one thing, but to become an IT police dog is whole different thing.

In fact with TDS in place, and all these extremely stupid processes you dont need individual income tax returns to be filed. Your employer is anyways doing the work for you.

Here is how it will work. (only for salaried people !)

1. No individual tax payers.
2. Each Employer to have one "Employee Tax" account
3. Employer collects TDS for all their employees and deposists it in this account.
4. Pays tax for all his employees from this accnt. Collects evidence, bills and whatever they need. (which they do anyways today !)
5. Save me the burden.

It is said the Income Tax department spends 24% of its revenue on administering its own offices. So with fewer tax payers, maybe we can save some of that admin cost !

Today I stopped being a supporter of the BJP

2009-01-27T19:18:00.007+05:30

They say one event that can change you for a lifetime. For me that tipping point came after I read about the attack on women having lunch at a pub in Mangalore. As I watched on TV, visuals of women being assaulted and dragged on the street .. made my blood boil. More than a single event it was a culmination of a series of event over the last one year. These self obsessed, having not a single fiber of "Morality" in them, goons in the guise of activists, were out trying to restore the culture of our great country. The Moral Police. What gives them the right ? At a time when we are celebrating the favorable change in America, we get saddled with these morons.

The media has coined this as the "Talibanization" of India. Scenes from the novel, The Kite Runner, flash before my eyes. There can nothing worse than this. Apparently the culture these "sainiks" were trying to save involves molesting and beating women.

Citizens of free India, we have your task cut out. All these self styled moral policing must go. Be it the MNS, Bhajrang Dal, Rama Sene : their pitiful existence is the result of failed administration. Its the result of ruling by exclusion. Its the result of years of neglect.

Sad day that we have to put up with this. This could not have been done without the knowledge of the government machinery. And today I read that the arrested goondas have already gotten bail. And today the BJP lost my vote.

At the railway station ..

2009-01-06T12:34:00.008+05:30

It was early on a cold Sunday morning, Jan 4, that I had to be at the railway station to pick up my kids and wife who were arriving from Pune. The good part was I reached the station in 15 minutes flat. It usually take about an hour. As I stepped out of the parking , I see this sea of humanity come out at me. Even staying in Bangalore I had not seen so many people all at one place. And everyone of the them was out to go somewhere !

Since I had some time and as is my bad habit, with a cup of tea in my hand, I sat around looking at the various facets of human life. Even on that early Sunday morning the industrious people of India were out trying to make a living. One particular sight caught my eye. There were these 3 women who sat around a burl sack emptying water from discarded plastic water bottles. They had close to a hundred bottles they had collected from the train that had just arrived. And I said to myself, here is the right formula for plastic re-cycling. And we Indians have been at it longer than anybody else has. I think we are still quite unique in the fact that our waste (paper, plastic, old appliances) can be sold for good money whereas my friends in developed countries instead pay money to get the waste hauled away ! How ironic. I guess we Indians can always find some good use for things.

I guess when the day of judgment comes; which should not to too away considering the rate at which we are raping the world, the industrious , recycling , non-wasting Indians will be on a nice silver platter in front of God ! :-)

Get hold of the book "Hot Flat and Crowded" , read it and then ACT on it. As Al Gore puts it, "The earth has a fever" and we need do something about it.

Shame on you Mr Home Minister

2008-11-29T22:24:00.003+05:30

The seige of Mumbai has ended. upwards of 200 killed. I salute the brave soldiers who gave their today so that we could have a tomorrow.

If our home minister had even an ounce of shame in his tepid blood stream, he would have resigned, and gotten himself exiled in Timbuktu.

This moron of a minister does not even have the people's mandate to be a minister. He is a tapplu installed by the high goddess of Italy also the remote control of our impotent government.

In India unfortunately, accountability, responsibility, political will, etc. are as alien as water in the Sahara desert.

Why do we eve tolerate these morons ? I some times think that a Jaya or Maya would be better.

This time its different. This time we will not forget. We will not Forget.

The madness continues

2008-11-27T19:07:00.002+05:30

it will be 24 hours soon and the carnage in Mumbai continues. Is there no stopping this madness ? We as Indians have taken enough of this shit. This goes beyond petty politics, corruption, local mafia and gangs and incompetency. This is affecting me .. my family and the way I live.

Afzal guru is still alive .. why ? Our idiotic govt is still blaming the lack of intelligence, and Mumbaikars are supposed to just forget and start living again as if nothing happened. WHY ? WHY the F cant we respond ?

The last time I felt this way , the date was 9/11/2001 and I lived in the US then .. today I see very similar visuals, smoke bellowing from an iconic building and the same senseless killing.

What can i do ? I need a vent .. it will have to be extreme.

Mumbai attacked

2008-11-27T10:35:00.000+05:30

While some of us were watching India defeat England in the 5th one day cricket match, Mumbai was under attack from a terror group. More than 100 people killed, hotels, hospitals and railway stations attacked. The most brazen attack until now.

One thing is certain. We in India lead an exciting life. However, its getting tougher to deal with these. We used to fall down, get up, brush ourselves off and start living again. Not anymore. It has started to hurt now.

My First Month with the MacBook

2008-05-13T14:47:00.008+05:30

I made a transition in my career recently. I was getting a little narrow visioned and was losing my touch. One of the first things I had to do when I joined my new company was to buy a new laptop. I could not buy a Dell, HP or IBM laptop since they were competitors and only choices I had left were Sony and Mac ! I had never used a Mac in my entire saga of computer usage. The only little experience I had was when I played with demo models in the Apple stores.

So on the persuasion of my dear wife and my own zeal to do new things along with the new job was go buy a Apple Mac Book. The day it got delivered to my office, I was like a little kid ripping up the packaging and the unveiling of the beautiful box it came in. These guys can really do this wonderfully.

Once the machine booted, (which it did without a murmur) I was taken through a setup wizard which even took my picture ! Now that is neat ! I next proceeded to setup email and that went without a hitch. Browsing the web with Safari was no hassle. So in general things were going great in the first hour or so. Then one thing started bothering me, the touch pad would not let me tap and click. I had to use the button below it. This kind of floored me. Man ! this machine does not have tap pad only a touch pad. So i got a little upset. I went home and ranted and raved about how I had gotten cheated. My wife being the smart one in our family, casually mentioned if I had checked if this can be enabled ?

So the next day google bought up a dozen or so websites where people had the same issue. I was like .. man this sucks. Only to find a very simple solution, By default it is turned off. Go to system prefs and turn it on. :-)

As I started using the laptop, I had started discovering small nuances and WOWs that rattled my deep fried Windows brain. I will try putting them down

1. The "delete" key is really the backspace key. To "Del" as you type or edit, you fill need to press Fn+delete. Even though I have gotten over this, it still bothers me.

2. There are no "Home" or "End" buttons. you have to rely on a combination of Ctrl+right arrow for End and Ctrl+left arrow for Home. Similarly Pg UP and Pg Dn were a funtion on Ctrl+up arrow and Ctrl+down arrow. look up http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343 for all the key bindings.

3. I dont like iTunes.

4. When you download an executable, its usually packaged as a .dmg. A dmg is "mounted" first and then the installation can begin. Safari handles this beautifully. However it took me 30 minutes to figure out what was going on. The first thing I installed was thunerbird and spent some time getting it right.

5. I had to get a software called "StuffIt" to be able to unzip files.

6. The next major challenge I had was understanding "Finder". This is synonymous to Windows Explorer but much smarter. there is nothing much to say abt this .. only it that it still drives me a little crazy when i dont get to see my folder tree on the left hand side. You can do cool things like setting folder wise background pictures or colours. You can set the spacing of the grid in the Icon iew, You can specify the size of icons, size of text and in general useless stuff. I have to figure out how to select->hold right mouse key and drag to another folder. In the windows world, this action presents me with an option to copy or move the file(s).

7. I love the application "Preview". This is the one stop for viewing all kinds of files. I dont have to install the Adobe reader !

8. Setting up network printers is a breeze. No need to install specific driver. All this happens in the background and I can just print ! wow ! All I need to specify is the IP address or the network printer name. The next best thing .. I can print to a PDF without having a third party application like CutePDF or PrimoPDF.

9. Airport is like a dream come true. It handles Wi-Fi connections in such a painless way that you will get addicted to it. Another wow.

10. I still would like to see the date on the task bar or Menu bar as its called in the Mac World. Here is a link of how to get this done. Its not a simple click a radio button task. http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-tip/display-the-date-on-the-menubar-316029.php
OR
If you have iCal on the dock, the icon will change with the date. Just look at the icon for the date ! WOW

11. Uninstall is a breeze. just delete and you are done.

12. Adium is a great tool if you chat online. It integrates all the chat clients (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk).

13. I am still confused by the "option" key ..

14. Spotlight is godsend. It helps you search anything and everything. and no indexing that Google Desktop does all the time on windows. WOW again. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304778

15. Now comes the interesting challenge. If you have to sync your Mac with your Windows Smartphone or PDA. What do you do ? Use SyncMate from Eltima software. The Free version works well. Its syncs up Cal, Contacts, Notes, To-dos. Very useful.

16. Clicking on the red ballon in the top left corner closes the window and not the application. Command+Q does it !

17. The photobooth is one thing you will spend tons of time on. Great entertainment tool. My kids and I have a lot of fun experimenting with this.

18. Expose is a nice .. if you master it. It can get irritating sometimes.

19. Renaming files is completely counter-intuitive. To rename a file, you have to hit Enter and then rename it. The right-click menu does not have "Rename". This is a major gotcha.

20. Highlighting a file and hitting the delete key does nothing. To delete, use Command+delete. or right click and "Move to Trash"

So there you have it .. my first month with the Macbook. I still have a long way to go .. its like a nice little toy chest. Everyday i stumble across a new feature or gotcha.

VIVIA !

Life at Snail's Pace ..

2007-05-13T21:01:00.000+05:30

Today as I lay dislocated from 3 days of stomach flu, I have had some much needed down time. Time that i have not had in the last one year.

I got to sit down and observe life as it exists around me. No more running around, no more ringing of the cell phone and no emails. I realized my kids have grown so much over the past year. My little son, Sarvajit who is all of 1yr and 4mnths has just learnt to change the welcome message on the answering machine, my elder son who is almost 6 is playing Rainbow Six on my home computer, my wife STILL cooks the best pasta around and there is absolutely nothing you can watch on TV over a weekend.

Life seems so much more natural. My recent visit to my hometown Belgaum and my village Murgod have re-affairmed my faith that its not about reaching the end, its all about the journey.

Tomorrow is another day. I have to take Siddhant to watch Spiderman 3 !

Trip to Devarayana Durga

2006-04-09T12:35:00.000+05:30

It was late on 8 April 2006 we decided to make a trip to Devarayana Durga in Tumkur District. No particular reason. Just people from the team. Bright and early on Saturday 8th of April we gathered in the Oracle OTP office. I had Siddhant (my 4.5 yr old son) along with me. The other people in the group were Nilotpal and his better half;Ruby, Anand and his wife and kid Nalin, Toji, Sandeep and Dev. After the usual "mai tere ko saath (7) baje aaneko bolatha , its now eight" kind of arguments, we had a nice breakfast in Udupi Garden and got on our way at 9 am in 3 cars.

We took the long route using the Outer ring road,Hebbal flyover and Peenya. It took us 90 minutes to reach Peenya. So a good lesson learnt. Use the inner roads ! We stopped for the mandatory tea and then proceeded on NH4 towards Tumkur. This is now a toll road. The toll is 20 ruees/car if you are travelling till Tumkur. Its 10 if you are getting off in between. On the excellent toll road, you can really take off at high speeds, but with frequent 'U' turns this can quite hazardous. I still think this road is as good as the ones overseas. Lots of shoulder area, reststops, and well lit petrol stations.

Just after crossing a village called 'Yede Halli' we got off the toll road. Below the flyover, there was a mass of humanity. We navigated our way through them and the comment was "Dream Sequence all done. Back to reality". We asked for directions and were told to turn right below the flyover bridge towards "Udegere". I could be
wrong abt the spelling, but just asking Devarayana Durga would have been better since this is a well known place. We now proceeded on the country roads with each one of us reminecintg about their own travels when they were kids. Remembering grandpas and village homes we have not visited in a long time. It was nostalgic.

Once we reached Udegere, which is about 10 kms from where we took the right turn, all of us had forgotten the Bangalore traffic. Its a quaint village with children playing on the road and cattle lumbering around without a clue. Toji did remark that the cows were very lean. ;-)

Continuing on the road, we made a left turn towards Devarayana Durga. The signs along the way are very helpful. We passed through a protected patch of forest. Forest always have a way of making environmentalists out of people. The sad part is they forget the comments as soon as they are back in Forum Mall. The road was in very good condition. The white temple on the mountain is visible from the road.

After making a right turn, we started climbing a steep hill. The view is quite exquisite from the top. My Casio Pathfinder watch told me the altitude was 1200m.

We parked our cars, there is space for about 20 cars on the top. I guess this is a famous temple since there were a few people around. The temple itself is about 700 years old.

It is believed to have been a major stronghold during the Vijayanagara empire. So it was like passing through a curtain of time. These were the very steps on which the "Palegars" walked 700 yrs ago.

We made a quick visit to the temple and started exploring the mountain top.
There is old pond structures right next to the temple. Its supposed to a natural spring. We climbed up to the top, and it is a fantastic view from up there. Undulating hills allround, varying hues of green blending with the clouds. We spent some time at the flat rock top and then we climbed even higher where we could see an old structure. The climb is not much, problably 50 feet, but is steep in places and requires some scrambling. There is a nice big cave along the way. Siddhant got all excited about finding tigers, panthers
and pythons. At the top, there is an old stone structure. This directly overlooks the temple. Inside the structure hangs a bell, which had some engravings. It was cracked from being exposed to the elements. After spending some time, we decended down, and took the road to Tumkur. This is again very nice drive through the forest. Once in Tumkur we had a nice lunch at around 3pm and got on our way back to Bangalore. Got into Yestwantpur at peak traffic and spent the next one hour recovering all the forgotten STREES !

All in all a great trip. One of the memory books.

-Ciao.

Birth of a new life

2006-01-31T15:43:00.000+05:30

Jan 21st. its 5:25am in the morning. I wake up to my mother-in-law's urgent whispering. Its time. We need to go. I wear whatever i can find, pick up my sleeping 4 yr old son, Siddhant and rush to the hospital. I am told i need to register. Did I not do that 2 weeks ago ? I ask. No they say , this is different. No time for the usual arguments, away i run to the counter pay them the money and my wife gets admitted. Phew ! my job is done; i proclaim.

then begins the wait, wife is hooked to the monitor, mother-in-law is all tense. the heart rate monitor does not have a volume control is all i can keep thinking. Its my second time, yet my heart races. I am craving for a cigrette and a cuppa tea.

time passes, its now 9:00 am, the doc announces, we have to wait longer. Baby is not ready to come out yet. I keep thinking, why the devil did not put a volume control on the heart rate monitor? Its really loud. It sounds like i am sitting in a train and its passing over a bridge.

12:30, Heart rate monitor does have a volume control ! I find it the most akward place. thats better. then i see the monitor showing me Sine waves, Not GOOD ! Baby's heart rate is getting dangerously low. Frantic calling and the doc arrives. Emergency c-Section is the verdict. She asks me .. "you wanna watch ?". I want to be near my dear wife, and I nod. My wife has been taking it quite well all this while. I am proud of her.

She is rushed into the op theatre. I join in and the doc tells me .. off with those dirty jeans. Find some scrubs you can fit into. Now thats a major challenge as well .. I usually dont find good fitting readmade clothes and i am not a sight for the faint hearted in tight payjamas for sure. I manage to find some , they reach my knees in length. In I go .. i hear myself breathe like Darth Vader because of the mask and my glasses colud over. They point me to a stool and say "SIT. and dont get in the way". I oblige.

1:30 pm the op starts, its a tough sight. especially when the person on the table is your dear one. IMHO, docs are carpenters with stainless steel tools. The doc keeps asking me "Are you ok ? .. if you feel faint put your head down". I cloud over with emotion as i see the scarlet swabs. i hang in there. then another guys quips " Are you in the medical profession ? we have never seen anybody handle this so well" .. I reply .. "too much Discovery Channel" . that satisfies him.

2:04 .. i see my son being born. He is so beautiful. My eyes brim with tears as i rush to see him. He is tiny yet so perfect. I thank God and continue to wonder how a single cell can grow into a baby with a beating heart.

Moving Advertisement Boards

2006-01-02T20:18:00.000+05:30

I am sure every living creature on this earth now knows that Bangalore lacks infrastructure to sustain its growth, the traffic is a mess, and in general quality of life is quite bad.

I am going to add a little bit more to that mess ..

I have been noticing these 3 wheelers which tow advertisement boards all over town. They have no other purpose, just drive around town towing this hoarding. they stop at busy intersections and generally loiter around. they want people to see this hoarding so they drive in the middle of the road at snail's pace and cause numerous problems. Like we had lesser problems to deal with.

I am supremely unhappy with this. How can the organization allow something like this ? Like we had enough commercials on radio or TV , we now have 3 wheelers running all over town selling wares that range from insurance to colour TVs.

Ok now get ready for the kicker.. what prompted me write today was i saw a canter (mini-truck).. a proper canter which takes up half the road and uses tons of fuel, mounted with floodlights and a grissly hoarding right in the middle of a busy street. what a waste of money i thought as i tried to pass it with one hand stuck on the horn. I did not even look at the product that was being pimped .. i had one other thought which would appeal to a lot of people in Bangalore.. unfortunately it cannot be published on a public blog.

The Vanishing act ... Make my whites whiter

2005-12-28T13:16:00.000+05:30

I recently bought my wife a new washing machine. Its top of the line with fuzzy all and nano technology to clean up your clothes and make them whiter. This blog is not to debate that. The salesman assured me , that with this new machine, you could wish stains good bye and it made my whites whiter.

interesting I thought as I fished for my credit card.

Then we went shopping for the appropriate washing powder. We zeroed in on one that had all the right credentials. It too promised to eliminate stains and make my whites whiter.

Interesting I said .. now I cannot be wrong. I had two products that would get all my whites whiter. What more could I ask for ? I had redundancy built into my washing process so that i got my clothes clean and white.

As I rested on my laurels, i came across an advertisement .. VANISH it said. I was curious as to what this pink product did ? It cleaned clothes and removed stains. It was an additive to the washing process and promised to make my clothes whiter .. touche ! so my whites were not really all that white after all !

so i lay down and bowed to the genius of marketing.

and then there is the story of Fair and Handsome fairness cream for macho hunks .. real cream for real men .. that is another story for another time ..

Journalistic Maturity

2005-12-27T19:49:00.000+05:30

As I was watching the TV recently and scanning the various news channels I was struck by one thing - Indian TV channels have the most paranoid news reporters. They are extremely well versed in predicting doomsday scenarios.

There were four stories that made me sit up and listen that particular day on four different channels.
1. The money for query scam in the parliament
2. An illegal slaughter house running in downtown New Delhi that showed blood and animal parts on the streets. With the cameraman taking special interest and zooming in on a bladder.
3. The Meerut police beating up couples in a park . The reason I guess was being together !
4. Rape and murder of an HP employee in the early hours by a taxi driver. The news reporter in this case was more worried abt how the victim had married outside of her community/caste/religion against the wishes of her parents. Like that justified her killing.

Each one of these stories was as dismal as it could get. It was a bad start to the day. In all these four reports, the news reporter ended his report on a dismal note. "Ees desh ka kya hoga" ..

I switched to BBC. They were running a story of a refugee camp in some African country. The pictures they showed were horrible portrayals of misery and woe. Children and women were dis-membered and decapitated. houses were burnt and countless killed. However at the end of the program, the reporter was very positive. He ended his story , with words that bought hope. He chose to put aside all the problems and focus on how we can make it better for these people. Rays of light in the otherwise dark sky.

I then turned to CNN. They were showing a a documentary on the anniversary of the Tsunami disaster. How entire villages were destroyed and thousands perished in the terrible waves of the ocean. They then highlighted a story of a small group of young men who were setting up wi-fi towers in the destroyed village so that aid agencies could work together to co-ordinate better. Again, HOPE in the midst of ruin and destruction.

Our so called journalists and reporters need to wake up and understand that they have a duty towards the people who watch their programs. And we need to mature as a nation and not be drawn to glossy crime thrillers masquerading as News channels. Journalism and mass media have to be harnessed for the betterment of the country. These are the people who reach countless homes every day. they can build nations. they need to sow seeds of hope and not despair.

I like a particular snippet on NDTV. It runs through various B&W pictures of regular day to day people with a very strong commentary and ends saying "Sawal Poocho" (Ask questions).