numblog

Happy

2011-02-16T01:20:00.000-08:00

The battle rages
to steal those moments
from life's crummy fingers

The bill says that it is six six six
and I wonder if that includes the tips

bright red eyelids
dilated pupils

I sail on the black river
while there is nary a quiver

angry smiling people flow by
blowing their horns as they think of an alibi

Another Joke

2011-02-16T01:19:00.000-08:00

What did the hardcore techie Sardarji name his son?
Ans: Pageinder

read-absorb-reflect-read

2008-07-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

http://xkcd.com

Read, enjoy ....

my words, valuable, less post

(borrow because everything that is to be said has always been said, we dip into the eternal stream of ideas with our minds. They make awful containers and are limited by their size. Keep dipping in I say, there is so much!!!)

joke I made up

2007-12-13T22:36:00.001-08:00

Why did Santa go to Egypt for his honey-moon?
Because he wanted his wife to become a mummy.

Yeah, I know, shit happens...

Evil space aliens

2007-09-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

They are everywhere, slowly and constantly gnawing away inside humanity. Nobody knows the truth, but the Evil space aliens led by whacko jacko have inducted an important new recruit into their secret society. These sinister plans shall not go unanswered. Fortunately for planet earth and all of humanity, we are here to expose the evil designs of these insidious creatures. Their plan is simple, and diabolical. They first identify important and powerful people, celebrities and the like. Then they infect them. Did you think that dream catcher was entirely fiction? Then these celebrities turn into hedious replicas of King Whacko Jacko. Did I hear the word proof? Did I hear some guffaws? Here it is the ultimate proof, their newest recruit, Shah Rukh Khan.

Inevitability

2007-09-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, I loved this site. Read, and ye shall know why:

In these irrationally exuberant times, it's getting harder and harder for the self-respecting pessimist to stay unhappy. So pervasive is the hope, so overwhelming the positivity, that without the firmest grip on your sullen perspective, you might actually lose it. Then one day, you wake up looking at the bright side, whistling some inane showtune, and generally annoying everyone around you.

Fortunately, we've created a solution. Despair, Inc. is proud to introduce The Pessimist's Mug™ Specifically engineered by the chronically cynical pessimists of Despair Laboratories™, this crystal-clear mug will help all who drink from it to Stay
Grounded™ by forever reminding them to see when the glass is half-empty.

The main theme, the core of this website, was born out of spoofs of those evil motivational posters that were getting the goat of any self-respecting cynic. In their very own words:

MOTIVATION. Psychology tells us that motivation- true, lasting motivation- can only come from within. Common sense tells us it can't be manufactured or productized. So how is it that a multi-billion dollar industry thrives through the sale of motivational commodities and services? Because, in our world of instant gratification, people desperately want to believe that there are simple solutions to complex problems. And when desperation has disposable income, market opportunities abound.

AT DESPAIR, INC., we believe motivational products create unrealistic expectations, raising hopes only to dash them. That's why we created our soul-crushingly depressing Demotivators® designs, so you can skip the delusions that motivational products induce and head straight for the disappointments that follow!

(Please note that these de-motivators are trademarked and marketed [cynical chuckle])

The best part is of course the section of "demotivators". This one combines two of the three most essential survival mantras as propounded by me, the prophet. They being; Irreverence, Humor and Cynicism. The acronym that I am making up for this will be CHI And these guys have the H and C of CHI covered. Actually, some aspects are irreverent too, but then, thats debatable and I shall award them only C and H out of CHI.

Some of my favorites from the list of de-motivating posters:

Well, to be perfectly honest some of their videos can be boring and repetitive but then, this definitely is worth a days laughs. If we are not cynical about a site about cynicism will we be doing justice to cynicism? Shouldn't we be cynical about out own ability to be cynical? and so on and so forth.......

ummm....

2007-07-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Interesting wonly....

Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000), born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was an Austrian-Jewish naturalized American actress and communications technology innovator. Though known primarily for her great beauty and her successful film career, she also co-invented the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.

Such enchanting beauty, such smarts, such a colorful life!! It is said that she was the first mainstream actress to pose nude in front of the camera.

Somehow, there is this buzz in my head ... "moth, fire" :D [I ignore it, as usual (GRIN)]

Fire on the mountain

2007-06-04T04:11:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid, a very young kid, maybe 6 years old, I was taught all about life there is to learn (Thats a typical exaggeration of mine :D ) during "games period". Specifically, with a very interesting and profound (The E word again) game called "Fire on the mountain". Pity I did not realize how important this "game" was.

For those of you who don't know, a "PT Teacher" in Indian schools, is somebody who is the equivalent of a gym instructor in the western world's schools. They teach kids how to endure drudgery and discipline in the hot sun. Sometimes, they let kids play some games too, the good ones at least, do. One of such games we played was "Fire in the mountain". Here is how it would be played.

"PT Teacher" would make all of us kids stand in a circle facing in the same direction. (much pushing and shoving coupled with jockeying to get near your people) "PT teacher" would then chant
"Fire on the mountain run! run!! run!!!"
And keep chanting this while we ran around in the circle. (Running around in circles, with a watchful eye on the other kids around, maintaining "strategic position")
And then suddenly, after an indeterminate amount of time, "PT Teacher" would stop the chanting and shriek out some random number between 2 and 7 depending on how many people were working, oops! I mean, depending on how many kids were playing, and that many kids had to get into groups of the number called out by hugging each other. Now, whoever was left out, without a group, was declared "out" and had to sit out and watch his other "friends" continue playing the game :-)

Now, I don't know how many of you have played this game as kids, but I bet that many feel they are playing a similar game right now :D Work, and maybe more generically, life seems more and more like "Fire on the mountain". What say, gentle reader?

Billboard bashup

2007-05-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

This picture is from here. Wonder how much money the owner of the top most billboard would have made.

Pantheism, Panetheism, Omega Point and Gods Debris

2007-04-17T01:46:00.000-07:00

Sometime last week, I was reading about Pantheism on wiki:

Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent

Basically, it is a particular perspective on the Advaita school of Indian philosophy. Now, those of you mischievous kids out there wondering why I was doing this in the first place:

Advaita is also sometimes described as being monist in nature. But then it does seem that all these are but labels being applied by the newly formed western civilization taking its first baby steps after a long time.

The vishishtadvaita school on the other hand was superficially identified with the label, Panetheistic

Panentheism (from Greek: πάν (‘pan’ ) = all, en = in, and theos = God; "all-in-God") is the theological position that God is immanent within the Universe, but also transcends it. It is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe

Meanwhile, I came across this on the same page: Omega Point

Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. Rather than divinity being found "in the heavens" he held that evolution was a process converging toward a "final unity", identical with the Eschaton and with God.

Apparently, these ideas have influenced various artists, authors, shapers of popular culture like Issac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Scott Adams and (not in the same league, but still) Gregory David Roberts

This quote from this page got me really interested

There is a Dilbert comic strip in which Dogbert postulates that since everything develops from simpler forms to more complex forms, a supreme being must be our future, not our origin. His idea is that God must be the entity that will be formed when enough people are connected by the Internet

So, I decided to take a look at Scott Adam's take on this. I had always complained to myself that unlike the other favourite comic strip author of mine, Bill Watterson, Scott Adams (at least to me) seemed to be less concerned about the philosophical aspects of life :D. He had never disappointed me when it came to awesome insight into human nature or his surreal sense of humour. But boyohboy he does not disappoint. I first searched for the strip where the above quote was from, here is a transcript of the strip:

Dogbert: Simple Molecules combine to make powerful chemicals... - Simple cells combine to make powerful lifeforms. - Simple electronics combine to make powerful computers. - Logically, all things are created by a combination of simpler, less capable components. - Therefore, a supreme being must be our *future*, not our origin! - What if "God" is the consciousness that will be created when enough of us are connected by the Internet?!! -
Dilbert: That would certainly limit the types of files I download- I wonder what it would do to response times. - It's so nice to spend time alone with my thoughts. My web browser would *fly*!

But the best part was when I was led to "God's Debris" by Scott Adams. Now, I have read many of his books and do own three of them, but somehow, this book had unfortunately escaped my attention. It is available online and you can read it here. It is just over a hundred pages of giant size font text. It will not take you more than an hour to read it. Read it, it is time well spent.

Here is a related quote from the book:

"Humanity is developing a sort of global eyesight as millions of video cameras on satellites, desktops, and street corners are connected to the Internet. In your lifetime it will be possible to see almost anything on the planet from any computer. And society’s intelligence is merging over the Internet, creating, in effect, a global mind that can do vastly more than any individual mind. Eventually everything that is known by one person will be available to all. A decisioncan be made by the collective mind of humanity andinstantly communicated to the body of society."

“In the distant future, humans will learn to control the weather, to manipulate DNA, and to build whole new worlds out of raw matter. There is no logical limit to how much our collective power will grow. A billion years from now, if a visitor from another dimension observed humanity,he might perceive it to be one large entity with a consciousness and purpose, and not a collection of relatively uninteresting individuals.”

“Are you saying we’re evolving into God?”

“I’m saying we’re the building blocks of God, in the early stages of reassembling.”

“I think I’d know it if we were part of an omnipotent being,” I said.

“Would you? Your skin cells are not aware that they are part of a human being. Skin cells are not equipped for that knowledge. They are equipped to do what they do and nothing more. Likewise, if we humans—and all the plants and animals and dirt and rocks—were components of God, would we have the capacity to know it?”

“So, you’re saying God blew himself to bits—I guess that was the Big Bang—and now he’s piecing himself back together?” I asked.

I just love his surreal take on these kind of things! He even coins a new word called "God dust" :D Apparently, we are all made up of it.

I am reminded of "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra. Unfortunately, it still lies unread upon my book shelf!

Related quote from one of the characters in Shantaram, Khader Khan.

The tendency towards complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex

And the ultimate complexity is God according to Khader Khan aka Khader Bhai, the underworld boss. Anything that helps this move towards complexity is good, anything that destroys this move towards complexity is evil.

And to end it all, an awesome video, I have a feeling that this is actually a spoof, I came across this link while reading the website of Richard Dawkins who has this to say about Pantheism:
"Pantheism is sexed-up atheism". Take a look at the video, it is hilarious!!

The Athiest's nightmare, the banana:

I was older then, I am younger now

2007-03-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

I dint want to post lyrics from the songs I liked on my blog.
But then, I am going to make an exception to put this out:

"My Back Pages" by Bob Dylan...

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

At different points in time, we identify with various different songs. Right now, this one fits into my mind like a T. Stop sniggering!! I know I am not getting any younger, grrrrrrr!

Torture

2007-02-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

Awesome article by Mark Bowden about "The Dark Art of Interrogation"

Explores the moral and ethical questions relating to torture and interrogation. In his own words:

The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion

Here is the crux of the problem, in the words of Bowden:

Getting at the information they possess could allow us to thwart major attacks, unravel their organization, and save thousands of lives. They and their situation pose one of the strongest arguments in modern times for the use of torture.

"they" in the above sentence refers to captured hard-core terrorists.

Torture is repulsive. It is deliberate cruelty, a crude and ancient tool of political oppression. It is commonly used to terrorize people, or to wring confessions out of suspected criminals who may or may not be guilty. It is the classic shortcut for a lazy or incompetent investigator. Horrifying examples of torturers' handiwork are catalogued and publicized annually by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations that battle such abuses worldwide. One cannot help sympathizing with the innocent, powerless victims showcased in their literature. But professional terrorists pose a harder question. They are lockboxes containing potentially life-saving information. Sheikh Mohammed has his own political and religious reasons for plotting mass murder, and there are those who would applaud his principled defiance in captivity. But we pay for his silence in blood.

Bowden then makes an interesting distinction, one that is not part of the Geneva Convention, apparently.

Then there are methods that, some people argue, fall short of torture. Called "torture lite," these include sleep deprivation, exposure to heat or cold, the use of drugs to cause confusion, rough treatment (slapping, shoving, or shaking), forcing a prisoner to stand for days at a time or to sit in uncomfortable positions, and playing on his fears for himself and his family. Although excruciating for the victim, these tactics generally leave no permanent marks and do no lasting physical harm.

Bowden then asks an interesting question:

Serious interrogation is clearly being reserved for only the most dangerous men, like Sheikh Mohammed. So why not lift the fig leaf covering the use of coercion? Why not eschew hypocrisy, clearly define what is meant by the word "severe," and amend bans on torture to allow interrogators to coerce information from would-be terrorists?

He then goes on to bring up the dangers of such a measure:

This is the crux of the problem. It may be clear that coercion is sometimes the right choice, but how does one allow it yet still control it? Sadism is deeply rooted in the human psyche ........... How can we ensure that the practice does not become commonplace—not just a tool for extracting vital, life-saving information in rare cases but a routine tool of oppression?

"Assuming you get useful information from torture, then why not always use torture?" asks Jessica Montell, the executive director of B'Tselem, a human-rights advocacy group in Jerusalem. "Why stop at the bomb that's already been planted and at people who know where the explosives are? Why not people who are building the explosives, or people who are donating money, or transferring the funds for the explosives? Why stop at the victim himself? Why not torture the victims' families, their relatives, their neighbors? If the end justifies the means, then where would you draw the line?"

And then Bowden quotes Jessica Montell to suggest what would probably be a "reasonable" and realistic solution:

"If I as an interrogator feel that the person in front of me has information that can prevent a catastrophe from happening," she says, "I imagine that I would do what I would have to do in order to prevent that catastrophe from happening. The state's obligation is then to put me on trial, for breaking the law. Then I come and say these are the facts that I had at my disposal. This is what I believed at the time. This is what I thought necessary to do. I can evoke the defense of necessity, and then the court decides whether or not it's reasonable that I broke the law in order to avert this catastrophe. But it has to be that I broke the law. It can't be that there's some prior license for me to abuse people."

He then concludes with these interesting words:

The Bush Administration has adopted exactly the right posture on the matter. Candor and consistency are not always public virtues. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Those who protest coercive methods will exaggerate their horrors, which is good: it generates a useful climate of fear. It is wise of the President to reiterate U.S. support for international agreements banning torture, and it is wise for American interrogators to employ whatever coercive methods work. It is also smart not to discuss the matter with anyone.

SMS your donations

2007-02-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

Here is an SMS I got:

Reach out to God! Make offerings (Rs10-Rs150) via SMS! Sms to 64655 @ Rs4/msg. Dharmasthala-SDM; Mantralaya-SRS; SiddhiVinayak-SVT; Jalaram-JST

It reminded me of a discussion I had with crvin regarding opening a chain of Temples, modeled on McDonalds. Think about it, there will be consistency of service besides a host of other positives. You could for example, walk into any of our TcTemples (Mc, I think is trademarked! grr) and say "I would like a number 3 with extra flowers, please". How convenient!

We could offer premium services like consultation on errant and threatening planetary alignments and the solution for such alignments. Consulting on the best time to start businesses, etc.. In short, corporatising priestly services and maintaining consistent service levels. Only the best and highly qualified priests shall be hired!

We would also be able to leverage scale and multiple locations of the TcTemples to offer cheaper and quality services. There could even be TcTemple members who will be able to access special services at multiple locations.

OK, enough of fun. :-) (And sarcasm too, if you dint notice. Personally, I prefer heterogeneity. But, I admit, I am sometimes seduced by banality and homogeneity)

Religion, God and spirituality for the masses has always had an economic and commercial aspect to it. I do not think there is anything wrong about that. Even when you buy a book about philosophy or spirituality, you are paying money and getting what you want (hopefully). I may be cynical, I may be agnostic tending towards being an atheist, (I am still afraid that God or one of his cronies will somehow be able to screw my life up :D more than it is already) but I would sure like to believe that every human should have the tools and the chance to reflect and think about matters of the mind. And, I would surely like to believe that there are exceptions, truly great people who are in some way, (siiiiggghhh!, for lack of a better word) divine.
And, in my own little biased way, I think that the religion that I was born into and the religion of my ancestors is the freest of the free market religions.

Private joke

2007-01-08T04:58:00.000-08:00

OK, only people who can understand kannada and have watched Deewar and know some other things can understand this, sorry. (hehehe)

Tunta: "naanu apartment maaDiddini, site maaDiddini , investment maaDiddini, neen en maaDiddiya?"
Panta: "naanu, naanu drinks maaDiddini"

Joe Barbera is dead

2006-12-19T11:02:00.000-08:00

Somebody who part created the characters that were such a big part of my childhood, is no more :-(
Among many other creatons, Hanna and Barbera created "Tom and Jerry". I still watch them on cartoon network and call me stupid, but I still love them a lot. Ah! The sheer wickedness of the violence in them :D

Bill Watterson

2006-12-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

He is one of my favourites. Funny and philosophical, with an intellect that seems to understand the human mind so well. His works mean a lot to me. I would go so far as to call him a genius.

I have been reading "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" on and off from around a couple of months. I found these lines somewhere in book three of the above collection.

This one has a painted landscape of Arizona above these lines:

I made a big decision a little while ago,
I don't remember what it was, which prob'ly goes to show
That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential
Even though it often might appear inconsequential

I must have been distracted when I left my home because
Left or right I'm sure I went (I wonder which it was!)
Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction
Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.

For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray,
And that is how I got to where I find myself today

This one has a creature that has the head of a hippo, with mouth open wide and the body of a bird, talons open flying above Calvin's bed while a Calvin in night clothes is being sucked into the mouth of the hippo. :-)

At night my mind does not much care
If what it thinks is here or there,
It tells me stories it invents
And makes up things that dont make sense
I don't know why it does this stuff,
The real world seems quite weird enough

Beauty and the Beer

2006-11-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the formula guys, it is all explained right here:

Some of the nice folks at ManchesterUniversity have worked it out.

Let me try and explain what it means. "beta" (B) is the score. A value that scales the beer goggle effect that basically explains this:

Now coming to the formula:
An -> number of units of alcohol consumed
I guess thisis in pints :D
S -> smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
This one sounds suspiciously like an unscientific scale
L -> luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo -> Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
Basically, the scale used to "measure" your vision
delta (d) -> distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

So, you put in all these values and then you find out the beer goggle effect score.
At less than 1, there is no effect, between 1-50, a person you would normally find unattractive would appear less unattractive. And anything between 50-100, you would find normally non-appealing people beeing seen as attractive. And anything over 100 you will wake up with a one nostriled hedious ass and a throbbing headache. (Basically, you are f$%^&d)

Aah! the wonders of science!!

Crush and Heartbreak

2006-11-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

What a juvinile schoolgirlish title! YUCK! I shall hate myself for this, but then, I already hate myself for so many things that this is OK :D

Look at her .. siiiiigh!

She aint no bimbo. She is one of the co-authors of a very well quoted report informally called the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) report that was prepared while she worked at Goldman Sachs. This report has got a lot of media interest over many years, even today after more than 3-4 years after th report was published, this report is quoted by wispy grey haired CEOs and by some clueless journalists . She was 24 then. She is 28 now. She has an undergraduate degree in Ethics, Politics, Economics and International Studies from Yale and an MSc in Development Studies from London School of Economics. Right now, she is with Kishore Biyani headed Future Group, (formerly Pantaloon) as chief economist and strategist.

But then, she is already engaged. (sniff) To a Cuban-Puerto Rican dude.

Soup Nazi Siddappa

2006-11-14T05:43:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in front of the tube a few days back and happened to catch the re-run of Seinfeld, Season 7, "The Soup Nazi". I had not watched this one before! It was hilarious, it took me back to a time when I had gone along with the baais for a visit to "Siddappana Hotel".

Mr. Siddappa makes this guy look like a harmless little school girl eating some candy

(This incident is real, happened in 2001. I have however, taken a few (very few, actually) creative liberties. And the post is long, and kind of boring too)

Sampangiramanagara (OK, I shall help some of you guys out, Sampangi Rama Nagara, not some butchered, sumpung ram nugur) is one of the older areas of Bengaluru. Narrow lanes, crowding houses, some temples, some bars, dark and dusty corner kirana stores, flower vendors advertising their wares early in the morning, you get the picture. In one of the parks in Sampangiramanagara, there is this small temple beside a huge banyan tree (not peepal tree). And right beside that temple, in the park is a small, old, almost derelict house for the caretaker of the temple, Mr. Siddappa, cook and terrorist extraordinaire. He runs a hotel there, early in the mornings to augment his income and to generally terrorize people. He can give the Soup Nazi the shivers and a complex to boot.

It was a cold Sunday morning in the year 2001. We set out on our bikes to pay a visit to Siddappana Hotelu. There were general complaints and grumbling as the previous night had been spent trying to yank our heads off our necks at "Purple Haze" listening to some awesome stuff by Metallica and co. (Please dont go there now, it is no longer what it was, siiigggghhh! I feel sad for that place now and for myself, for losing such an awesome pub, R.I.P, PH) It dint take long for us to have the first glimpse of the legendary place. There were the usual assortment of high end luxury cars, SUVs, bikes and scooters (it was 2001) that are found near any self-respecting eat out. We parked our bikes and proceeded towards the house cum hotel.

Now, this house or hotel or watever was small, verry small. At first, we wondered how all the people that the vehicles parked outside the park suggested could possibly be inside this place. We found that out soon enough. There was quite a long queue outside. With all manner of people standing outside. There was the poltry marwari in starched white kurta pyjama and khollapuri chappals, a couple of Vysyas who probably ran their own businesses, attired in half sleeved shirts and brown pants, sun glinting off the gold bracelet, chain and the odd ring or two on each hand. There was also a Ray Ban wearing, government aafisar types, and some other people, the usual normal people, or so it seemed. (This area seemed to have a larger than usual representation from the traditional business communities of India)

We went in and parked ourselves at the end of the queue wondering what it is that was served inside that had so many people waiting outside. And all of them, except us, carried their own plates, imagine that. We would soon find out why.

After about 10 minutes or so of standing in the queue, the legendary jail warden cum restauranter, Mr. Siddappa comes out and glares at all of us standing in the queue, and barks "ashte ivattu, inna yaaru barongilla" (Thats it for today, nobody else should come) and walks back in.

Within a few mins two marwari kids (late teens) join in, and stand at the end of the queue. A few more minutes later, Mr. Siddappa comes out, gives the most dirty look at the last two people in the queue who had joined in after his declaration. The look is one of sheer disgust mixed with rage and loathing. "helalillven ri, time aaytu, ashte, innond dina banni" (Din't I tell (you) earlier? times up, thats it, come another day) The two young people look like they have been unfairly denied permission to enter heaven by chitragupta, Lord Yama's assistant citing some minor mischief they made as a kid. They said nothing, devastated, they slinked away. We were stunned. And we found it extremely funny at the same time. Looks of disbelief were quickly exchanged. Suddenly, the morning looked great.

There was more to come. 10 minutes later, when we were the next in line to enter the sacred place, for it could not be anything but sacred, from what we had seen till then, a poltry, middle aged marwari gentleman entered the park and unfortunately for him , an already agitated Mr Siddappa was standing outside. As soon as Siddappa saw him, like a sadistic drill instructor torturing a hapless new cadet, he jumped on him. "time aagoytu hogri. ivattu enu sigalla. en ri maadthiddri ishthottu? hogi, hogi" (go away, time is up. you will get nothing today. what were you doing till now. go away, go go). And the dejected victim gets desperate. "please ri, ivattu ond dina bittbidi, please sir, pleaaaassssseeee" (please sir, just this once let me in, please sir {sob, sniff}) Mr. Siddappa then walks away with a contempteous turn. When he comes back a few minutes later, he finds that "customer" still standing there, with pleading eyes that looked like they would burst and a flood of tears would wash us all away along with the invaluable eatables inside the hotel. Ignoring the pleading fluttering of eyelashes, Mr. Siddappa says, "beligge bega barakke aagallva?" (cant you come earlier in the morning) "naale banni" (come tomorrow) and with a final glare reduces the "customer" (aka drug addict) to abejct dejection and the customer slowly dragged his almost lifeless body away, with leaden steps. Some more desperate people, who came later, were shooed away by some of Mr. Siddappa's minions.

We were almost dying with stifled laughter, I even saw tears streaming down one of my friends face. (Those who know, guess who would :D) When Mr. Siddappa went away, we were debating the merits of suggesting to Mr. Siddappa to hand over the empty vessels to one of the desperate customers and let them polish it up. He would save a bunch of money on cleaning bills.

Finally, it was our turn to enter. It was a tiny house, and quite dark too. There were some clothes hung out to dry inside (weird) all over the house. In a narrow corridor, a bench was laid out to one side and people who were sitting there were leaving after doing what ever it is they were doing there. We were walked further inside, into a room where an old man was sleeping on a bed, snoring (weirder). He was huge and hairy and wore no shirt!!! We were made to sit on the edge of the same bed (weirdest) while some more people were made to sit on another bench on the opposite side of the room.

Since we had already resigned to our fates and were quite excited by all the hype and the desperate antics of some of the "customers". We were very curious to find out what exactly it is that Mr. Siddappa dishes out that caused such desperation. One of Mr. Siddappa's minions entered and accusingly said "oh! tatte tandillva?" (oh! you havent got your own plates) shuffled out and returned with a small banana leaf on a newspaper for each of us. Perfect!!!

Next, nobody came and asked us what was available and what we wanted. We were served half a masala dose each. Yes, you heard me right, half a masala dose each. I was stunned, inspite of all the unbelievable things I was witness to earlier that day. Three people sitting in front of us gobbeled it up in exactly three seconds. A man, sitting in a corner, feebly asked, "innond dose kodthira?" (Can I have another dose please?) A voice boomed "ashte ri kododu. inna kodakke aagalla" (Thats all I will give. No more) The little man shrunk several sizes smaller and delicately picked up the last few microscopic bits of dose left on his plate (clever fella, he had a plate) while softly weeping to himself. We did not get it, (we had by then, finished our fraction of the dose) the dose was excellent, no doubt, but weeping for another one, that too fully grown men??

We did not dare ask for anything else. We were survivors all. And suddenly, in a flash, there was a small heap of chitranna in our plates. While we ate the pretty good chitranna, we heard another conversation in the adjoining room. A gruff, gravelly voice in the other room said "Sir, parcel kodthira?" (Sir, can I get some food packed?) We just heard a loud noise after that, so loud that we were afraid something terrible was happening, like a herd of Bruhath-kayosaurus' humerus decided to fart in unision. We fled the scene, after paying a surly faced extortionist while hearing shreiks that sounded like "parcella? yaarig beku ille band tinnakke heli" (Parcel?? Ask whoever wants to eat to come and eat here)

We drove back home, glad that we dint get shredded and thankful for some good food and awesome entertainment.

Ways of the american love

2006-11-02T00:24:00.000-08:00

My opinion is that it is fake, but then what the hell, as long as it is funny!! :D

Listen to this

"Sir, ... there is somebody on the line and it sounds like my wife"
absfrickingloutely funny!!!

Thanks crvin

Wonga-Taa

2006-10-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

It has been my fantasy from quite some time now. Quite some time. To be able to find and get married to an over worked, frigid, insecure, MBA, earning obscene amounts of money and who is into investment banking.
Yes, you heard me right there. I shall endeavour to present to you the compelling value proposition of such an arrangement.

First off, I shall be a stay at home husband. And my wife will have 14 hour work days and 10 hour weekends. I will be rich, because my wife will be rich. And since my wife is rich, we shall stay in one of those gated, exclusive communities that are filled with rich people. Imagine, I will be the lone bull in a community full of lonely women "home makers". All rich men have beautiful wives, don't they? And because they are all rich, they will have very little time for their "home making" wives :D. Now you know where I am getting to, dont ya? :D I shall be in the company of beautiful, lonely women pining for male company of the right kind ;-) (Did somebody choke there? Die you fiend!! People should note here that I am a stay at home husband and I can afford to spend 4 hours at my personal gym at my home, every day, with a sexy brazilian fitness trainer named Kátia)

Also, I could throw tantrums whenever I feel like buying a new sports car, or perhaps my own yatch anchored off the cost of Monaco. Periodic visits to exotic holiday locations all over the world. Ah!

What more can a man want?

But then, I guess this is more like reality :D [siiigghhhh!!!]
(Click on the image below to read it clearly)

Bangalore International Airport

2006-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have been visiting the Bangalore International Airport Limited website from quite some time now. For a change, we have a very good and comprehensive website for a key infrastructure project.

Check it out here

My favourite part of this website is the page with all the latest construction updates. It is pretty good, take a look

The stuffy, over crowded excuse of an airport, that is bursting at the seams that we have now will get some respite. Heck, who the hell thought that us Indians would be flying in such great numbers in anything other than magic carpets back when the current HAL airport was built. I thank the pack of low cost airlines led by Air Deccan for the current revolution. It is of course helped by the fact that there are many more of us who can afford to fly, either back home for that important festival from the cities where we work or the many small businessmen who want to save time while they travel on business or for many other reasons.

The one crib I will still have (:D )is that the new airport will be so far off, and currently, there are no concrete proposals to link the airport to the city with anything other than the currently under construction (painfully slow construction) 6 lane road. Imagine driving 20-30 kms to the new airport in rush hour traffic, especially from the southern areas of the city. brrrr.... Extending the metro in say phase3/4 directly to the airport will definitely help.

Confucius say

2006-09-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

On a sleepy weekday afternoon, while I was on the lookout for something to entertain me, I got lucky, and stumbled on this site:
http://www.weirdfortunecookies.com/

I know there is nothing I have done here, it is somebody elses hard work, but then, I recommend you click on that link and have some fun :-)

here are some samples

The Senses

2006-09-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

"The Senses"

when you plumb the depths of your shallowness,
when you see through the superficiality of your thoughts,
when you hear the logic in your favourite madness,
when you smell the insecurity that gives your success,
when you touch the joy in knowing your pathos,
when you taste the futility of reason,
thats when you need somebody to tell you, you are god

Death

2006-09-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

Really nice series :-) Calvin confronting death

Eye Candy!

2006-09-14T02:47:00.000-07:00

Here is some eye candy. Some serious hardware that India is buying from Russia.
From this article

Smerch-M doing its stuff

Smerch-M decked up and at display

The tunguska self propelled gun

How could I forget this??? :-)
I like this lady a lot.
I just mean to say she is hot
:D

The IMA hoax e-mail

2006-09-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

I had written about one more of those hoax mails regarding pesticide levels in various soft drinks in India here.

While I did that, I also wrote to the IMA (Indian Medical Association), asking them if they have tested any soft drinks whatsoever. I know it is a stupid thing to ask, but I thought I might as well declare to the whole world that this is a HOAX!! And a rather dumb one at that, if I may humbly add.

And I was pleasantly surprised when Dr. Dharam Prakash, Hony. Joint Secretary, IMA replied and confirmed the obvious.

I am going to reproduce the original e-mail (again) here as well as the reply from the IMA.

Drinks released from IMA recently
Dear friends,

Pesticide Percentage(%) in cool drinks released from IMA recently.

1 Thums up 15.2%
2 Coke 13.4%
3 7 up 12.5%
4 Mirinda 10.7%
5 Pepsi 109%
6 Fanta 9.1%

If the Range exceeds 2.1%, then its very dangerous to the Human
Liver.Results in Cancer!
So don't drink any brand from Coke and Pepsi!
This Message is from Indian Medical Association. Please pass it to
all known persons in your e-mails Save Indians!!!.............Save
Mankind!!

And here is the reply I got. I have edited it to discourage spambots.

From:	"Indian Medical Association-Projects" Book Add Mobile Alert
To:	my mail id @yahoo.com
Subject:
Date:	Thu, 7 Sep 2006 11:31:48 +0530

Dear Sir,

Received your email and noted the contents.

I wish to inform you that IMA has not conducted any study on the pesticide level.

With kind regards,

Dr. Dharam Prakash

Hony. Joint Secretary, IMA

Boy oh boy! Some satisfaction this :-)

Man, the creator

2006-09-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

I happened to read a few articles regarding Synthetic Biology, Synthetic Life, BioBricks, DNA Hacking and that sort. Looks like the future holds a lot of promise and potential, for the "good" as well as the "bad", to us as a species. Many people call this phenomena, Life 2.0.

There is this interesting comparison of some predictions regarding Synthetic biology with Moore's law . In this case, the parameters are the growing effiency of DNA patterns instead of the number of transistors on a silicon chip. These predictions have been made by Dr. Rob Carlson from the University of Washington. Here is a chart from this article from The Economist.

There are already DNA Kits for kids who are interesting in ruining their social life and learning about DNA intead of trying to ermmm spread it around :D

The one above is from Discovery and is called Discovery DNA explorer kit. It is for kids above 10 years, FYI. There are some websites for DNA hackers too! Just you wait and see, when people of my generation are 70 yearls old, we shall be mercilessly recycled for some vague genetic material by asexually reproducing young yahoos created synthetically by our progeny.

On a more serious note, I have a feeling that perhaps this is the next phase of evolution. We have understood the evolution of organisms, how they are but "mindless" machines doing the bidding of their masters, the genes, and then we had one of these organisms (us, homo sapiens) postulate and think about memes and how they are similar to and different from genes. Maybe the next stage will be the memes finding (or more aptly, building) better and more powerful carrier machines - synthetic life forms that exist at the confluence of biology, bio chemistry, nano technology and electronics.

Passion and Suicide

2006-09-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

I happened to read the suicide note of Kurt Cobain, vocalist for the awesome alternative rock band Nirvana. A sad end to a very passionate and creative spark. And this note kind of gives a glimpse of what was in the man's head.

To Boddah

Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complain-ee. This note should be pretty easy to understand.

All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guity beyond words about these things.

For example when we're back stage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins., it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you. It simply isn't fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I'm having 100% fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage. I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do,God, believe me I do, but it's not enough). I appreciate the fact that I and we have affected and entertained a lot of people. It must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're gone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

On our last 3 tours, I've had a much better appreciation for all the people I've known personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There's good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. The sad little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man. Why don't you just enjoy it? I don't know!

I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what i used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function. I can't stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I've become.

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy. Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess.

Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Peace, love, empathy.
Kurt Cobain

Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your alter.
Please keep going Courtney, for Frances.
For her life, which will be so much happier without me.

I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!

Here is the image of the actual note:

Boddah, apparently was Kurt's imaginary childhood friend. As he grew up, Boddah became the ideal of what Kurt thought he should be like.

I admire the passion in such people and sometimes I wish I was really passionate about something, anything, but it looks like I am passionate about nothing. I was passionate about a lot of things a long time ago, or rather I like to think I was. Even so, somethimes I think that maybe being very passionate about something is not so good too. It could consume you. Confused :-)

Added later:
OK, as required by M, I have to acknowledge that the reason why I read a little more about Kurt and and his death is because she brought up his topic. OK, Are you happy now?

Grad Student

2006-08-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

"Being a graduate student is like becoming all of the Seven Dwarves. In the beginning you're Dopey and Bashful. In the middle, you are usually sick (Sneezy), tired (Sleepy), and irritable (Grumpy). But at the end, they call you Doc, and then you're Happy."

- From "So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.!"

a.k.a.

"Everything I wanted to know about C.S. graduate school
at the beginning but didn't learn until later."

The 4th guide in the Hitchhiker's guide trilogy
(and if that doesn't make sense, you obviously have not read Douglas Adams)

by Ronald T. Azuma

A fairly well written article about life as a graduate student and how to survive graduate school. The best part of this was the quoted text above comparing the state of a graduate student with the seven dwarves from the fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (oops, I actually meant this link, the previous one is hilarious take on same story, and if you suffer from any morality issues, please dont click on that link, the language is profane and the narrative has a wicked twist)

(<#added later> I am taking off the link to the wickedly funny story as it seems to be related to a porn site though it cannot be called a "porn site" as such, not that I have anything againt porn, but I dont want to directly link to it off this blog, for those of you who would like to read it, I suggest you dont do it in office and you can get to it by keying "utterpants snowhite" into Google. I had linked the text "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to this URL earlier<#/added later>)

Anyways, graduate school was fun, whenever you are not numb enough to not notice how much fun it is. Here is a night shot of our room when I was at Grad School.

What did you think would be there other than computers you pervert!! We are talking of desi grad students here :D and that too ones that have learnt to use the computer for ermmm, all their needs. Yanyways, there are a total of 5 computers there and a switch and a 12 port (I think) USB hub, they generated enough heat (of the thermodynamic kind) in the room to keep us warm even during the cold NY winters.

There are quite a few stories from stories from grad school, however, they are so "ghise-pite" (endlessly flogged) for most of my friends that I will put some of them here only after thinking a bit :D

Where I belong

2006-08-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Where I belong

i build my wall, i dig my hole
i clench my fist, i grind my teeth
this is where i belong, i am still warm

bitter is the taste that is sweet
black is the colour that is white
this is where i belong, i am still warm

searing drinks quench my lust,
while still warm ash quenches my thirst
this is where i belong, i am still warm

minds here, how they excude fear,
the paths here, can take you no near
this is where i belong, i am still warm

the thieves here can commit no sin
as sleep is all they can hope to win
this is where i belong, i am still warm

when idols crack, while principles break
faith gets frayed, beliefs! what a freak!
this is where i belong, i am still warm

for redemption one shall scavenge,
a bit like some clockwork orange
i feel so cold

Chimps released from detention recently

2006-08-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

Here is an e-mail I got from some random person, who I dont even know. I shall reproduce it in full (well, almost) just so that the effect is not lost:
(Please note that this e-mail is a confirmed hoax (DUH!), I have a reply from IMA to prove it, take a look at the e-mail from IMA Hon. Joint Secretary, Dr. Dharam Prakash at the end of this post)

Drinks released from IMA recently
Dear friends,

Pesticide Percentage(%) in cool drinks released from IMA recently.

1 Thums up 15.2%
2 Coke 13.4%
3 7 up 12.5%
4 Mirinda 10.7%
5 Pepsi 109%
6 Fanta 9.1%

If the Range exceeds 2.1%, then its very dangerous to the Human
Liver.Results in Cancer!
So don't drink any brand from Coke and Pepsi!
This Message is from Indian Medical Association. Please pass it to
all known persons in your e-mails Save Indians!!!.............Save
Mankind!!

With regards,
JXXXXXXXX NXXXX

I feel a mixture of pity and loathing when I see things like this. Any person with basic congnitive capabilities and who has any IQ higher than that of a cerebrally challenged chimp high on LSD (CCCHL) should be able to make out what is plausible and what is outright gibberish (the mail above being a prime example of gibberish). And I know that the person who so proudly sent this e-mail to unknown people of all things has purpotedly studied science for more than a decade. I would like to flame torch the miscreant(s) who passed off as science teacher(s) to loathsome characters as these.

The IMA is the Indian Medical Association. It is a national level body of licensed medical practicioners. Pray, tell me, what do doctors have to do with testing pesticide levels in cool drinks??? And here we have the IMA miraculously releasing pesticide laced drinks :D

And look at the percentages! At these levels, people like me would have been composing this from the netherworld after all the internal organs are dissolved by the "pesticide".

I am sure another bunch of CCCHLs will have dutifully forwarded this e-mail to their respective torture lists amidst much high pitched screeching and chattering.

And look at the grand finale... Save India! Save Mankind! Yes, Mankind needs saving but from such simians with easy access to the internet and lots of time to kill and lots of energy to waste.

But this time I decided to give these CCCHLs a piece of my mind and replied to this mail starting with a "Who are you? How do I know you?" grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Is it any wonder that I belong here?

Added Later:

I had written to the IMA via their website and I have got this reply:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Indian Medical Association-Projects" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert

To: my_email_id@yahoo.com

Subject:

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 11:31:48 +0530

Dear Sir,

Received your email and noted the contents.

I wish to inform you that IMA has not conducted any study on the pesticide level.

With kind regards,

Dr. Dharam Prakash

Hony. Joint Secretary, IMA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

emetic

2006-08-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

After the last few posts, :-)
emetic

Some more Shantaram

2006-08-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

OK, before people accuse me of being obsessed with this book, I should say that I am doing that only because many people were visiting my blog looking for quotes from Shantaram, and I thought that I will add a few more to the ones I already had here

Also, although I liked the book and even enjoyed it a *lot* it is not by far the best book I have read. Whew! :-)

So without any further ado, here you go:

You can never tell what people have inside them, until you start taking it away

A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.

Silence is the tortured mans revenge

If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke

Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

News is about what people do. Gossip is about how they enjoyed doing it.

Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons.

Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.

Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but it’s worry that keeps the knife sharp; and worry that gets most of us, in the end.

At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.

Logic and Reason

2006-08-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

D'Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart.
I know how much you like to hear that - but I don't only write it because you like it - I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you - almost two years but I Know you will excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; & I thought there was no sense to writing.

But I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead - but I still want to comfort and take care of you - and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you - I want to do little projects with you. I never thought just until now that we can do that together. What should we do. We started to learn to make things together - or learn Chinese - or getting a movie projector. Can't I do something now. No. I am alone without you and you were the "idea-woman" and general instigator of all our wild adventures.

When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn't have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need becasue I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true - you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else - but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.

I know that you will assure me that I am foolish & that you want me to have full happiness & don't want to be in my way. I'll bet that you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you cant help it, darling, and nor can I - I don't understand it, for I have met many girls & very nice ones and I don't want to remain alone - but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you.
I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.
PS: Please excuse my not mailing this - but I don't know your new address.

The above was a letter written by Richard Feynman. I read it while reading a book about his life and works called "Genius". Now, Feynman, as he claims in the letter is a rationalist, he is also an atheist. He is a zealot who believes in the fundamental truth of science. So much so, that he refused to say the hebrew prayer that the rabbi asked him to at the funeral of his father, whom Feynman loved dearly.(he was born Jewish. All physicists are :D)

It is really hard to imagine a person who is so much a realist and for whom logic has always been sacred thinking and feeling what he does in this letter. There are indeed powers so much more powerful than our intellects, the powers that made us. No, I am not talking of a God here. I am talking about the humanity in us and evolution. The fun part is, our intellect is but a product of the forces of evolution.

anyways, two phrases:
"the tyranny of emotions"
"the tyranny of reason"

Red Hammer

2006-08-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

I learnt something last week. I learnt that I should not delete mails without reading them first. Even evil mails with Fwd written all over the subject line. I should give them exactly 10 seconds and decide if I should read them further or not.

Now for the particular mail that set me off on this thoroughly intersting ramble. Many of you might have read this e-mail which asks you to do some irrelevant addition problems and then ambushes you with a sudden, "Think of a colour and a tool quickly". Most people are supposed to think of the colour red and the hammer. ( I wonder what that pervert and miscreant, Freud would have said or thought :D)

Anyways, this got me wondering as I did think of a hammer but not the colour red (I thought of blue), and I set off on a wild google chase. And it did throw up some intersting stuff - Prototype Theory

Now prototype theory, after some rather shallow and quick reading of stuff available online, suggests that there is a graded categorization in the elements that we identify. We understand some of the elememts we perceive based on a distance from a prototype that we have internalised. This internalization happens as we learn to recognize various objects.

here is something that I quote from wikepedia:

The other notion related to prototypes is that of a Basic Level in cognitive categorization. Thus, when asked What are you sitting on?, most subjects prefer to say chair rather than a subordinate such as kitchen chair or a superordinate such as furniture. Basic categories are relatively homogeneous in terms of sensori-motor affordances - a chair is associated with bending of one's knees, a fruit with picking it up and putting it in your mouth, etc. At the subordinate level (e.g. [dentist's chairs], [kitchen chairs] etc.) hardly any significant features can be added to that of the basic level; whereas at the superordinate level, these conceptual similarities are hard to pinpoint. A picture of a chair is easy to draw (or visualize), but drawing furniture would be difficult.

Rosch (1978) defines the basic level as that level that has the highest degree of cue validity. Thus, a category like [animal] may have a prototypical member, but no cognitive visual representation. On the other hand, basic categories in [animal], i.e. [dog], [bird], [fish], are full of informational content and can easily be categorised in terms of Gestalt and semantic features.

And the reason why many people (not 98% as the mail claims) chose red as the colour and hammer as the tool is because, red and hammer are one of the most prototypical in their respective category, colour and tool.

Interesting.....

Here are a few links that I read during my wild google chase (I have half a mind to copyright that term :-) )
(Added Later: Darn!!!!! There is always somebody out there who has already done what I wanted to do. )

Vincenze's pit
The language guy
The prototype theory, an analysis by Anastasia Giannakopoulu

(OK, you caught me on the last one, I din't read it completely, somehow, somebody named Anastasia writing about psycology gave me the shivers. And I know, I know, this one has a different last name, but what to doo, I am a last nameless rice eating south Indian onleeee ayyooooo!)

Emandan

2006-08-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

According to some sources the word emandan in malayalam means "very big" "top notch" "immense" "powerful" etc...

This word is a new word added to malayalam, it appears, unofficially. You could call it colloquial usage or even slang.

And like many such new words, there is quite a bit of history to that. This word is derived from the name of the german warship SMS Emden. Emden was a bit like a legendary anti-establishment entity in times of general resentment to authority, that generates part respect, part fear and part joy in the minds of the people.

The SMS Emden

The time was during the first world war, the British, the rulers of India then, were fighting a world war, and fighting hard. It was also the time of the raj, when the sun never set on the empire. The British Navy then, was quite easily the best and the most powerful in the world. This was the arm of the British empire that enforced the writ of the pre-eminent power on planet Earth, Britan.

At a time like this, the SMS Emden, which was named after the german town of Emden, set off on one of the most romanticised and legendary cruises during the first world war . It was apparently, a piston engined ship and not a steam turbine driven ship like most ships then. It was apparently the last piston engined ship built for the German navy.

So we have this classic david vs. goliath face off. Mr. David being the SMS Emden, and Mr. Goliath being almost all of the Allied navies present int he Indian Ocean region. After many thrilling raids and naval battles all over the "backyard" of the British, the Indian Ocean, the Emden raided the port city of Madras, now called Chennai.

I reproduce the effect it had on the people of Chennai from chennaionline.com

It was a quiet night and life was going on as usual in Chennai. Suddenly, a pair of bright searchlights were turned on the city from the sea. Even as the few people on the streets stopped in their tracks, the noise of deafening explosions rent the air. Apart from the High Court compound, shells landed in the Royal Barracks, among the oil tanks of the British-owned Burmah Shell Company (setting off a conflagration), on the sand bar outside Fort St. George and on a British ship, 'Supra', where a British sailor manning the lights was killed. Caught by surprise, it took a little while for the British Army to react. But by the time the Royal Guards had trained their searchlights out to sea, the Emden had struck tents and slipped away beyond the horizon.

Senior citizens still remember that night. A retired lawyer, R. Kesava Iyengar (age 96), who lived in Thambu Chetty Street at that time, was "chatting with relatives around 9 pm when we heard a defeaning noise like nothing we had ever heard before....... Outside, there was absolute pandemonium and people were running in all directions. We couldn't sleep a wink that night."

Kalidas (age 92) was lying outside his house in San Thome and just looking at the stars "when I saw bright searchlights in the sky. Before I could make any sense of it, loud explosions were heard and I rushed to San Thome beach along with some friends. We saw the huge oil tanks of Burmah Shell Oil Company in flames." A friend working in the house of a British Shell employee reported that some explosive material had landed through a bedroom window and destroyed everything inside.

A centenarian retired police constable T. R Srinivasulu Naidu, who was in Chetpet's Naoroji Road at the time, remembers the searchlights and the explosions and frightened people running helter skelter in the dark. Next morning, there were military police all over the beach road. "We spoke of nothing else for weeks afterwards."

"Sangu" Ganesan, so called after a weekly "Sangu" (the Conch shell) he owned, was working in "Ganesh & Co" on Thambu Chetty Street at the time. He was at home with some friends when they heard the massive explosions. "We were terrified and ran out into the streets. The sky was covered with smoke. The next day, we saw the High Court building's compound wall blown to smithereens."

Anyways, the Emden also raided all along the coast of southern India and Sri Lanka, and that is how the local language of Kerala, malayalam, got its new word.

There is also the curious story of one of India's freedom fighters, Champakraman Pillai, (or Shenbagaraman Pillai, depending on how you want to pronounce it) landing at Madras that night, and dramatically applying the sand from one of the beaches on his forehead while a bunch of awestruck fishermen looked on. He is supposed to have said that he has come to free Mother India from the yoke of the British. It is claimed that he was on Emden, variously as commanding it (untrue), as the Engineer on it (I don't know for sure) or as a intelligence operative on it. However, we do not know how much of this story is real and how much is a legend. But that is for another day, another blog.

Simplicity and Profoundness

2006-07-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

Of all the sanskrit shlokas that I have heard, there are two that appeal to me the most. One for the sheer simplicity and beauty and the other for the sheer complexity, profoundness and abstractness.

The first one is the very famous "asatoma sadgamaya" from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

In english script:

Om! asatoma sadgamaya.
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrutyorma amrutam gamayah
Om! shantih shantih shantih ||

And a rough translation of that is here:
(take me) from ignorance to knowledge
from darkness to light
from death to immortality
peace, peace, peace

Simple, straight and to the point.
I still remember, when I was just beginning to make half meaningful sentences, how my grand father would stand with me with folded hands in front of the family pooja room, and help me recite this shloka. I can claim to remember this because, I have a recording of this with me reciting the shloka with my grandfather. My baby voice with that of the gruff smoke hardened voice of my grandfather.

The second one is the equally famous "purnamadah purnamidam" from the Ishvasya Upanishad

In english script:

Om! purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudachyate |
purnasya purnamaadaya purnamevavshishyate |
Om! shantih shantih shantih

And a rough translation:

this is complete, that is complete from this complete comes that complete
if this complete is taken out of that complete, only completeness remains
peace, peace, peace

Many tomes have been written about this particular shloka for its profoundity. It might seem incoherent at first glance, but taken in its entire context, many people would aver that it encapsulates the entire advaita philosophy in it. There are many interpretations of this shloka. It is something that can really give a feast for thought. In spite of all that I said about this shloka, sometimes I wonder is this shloka all about simplicity itself?

Here are some good links that discuss this shloka
one, two (The link number two is a link to a pdf)

Imagination and Taste

2006-07-24T03:25:00.000-07:00

"There is nothing worse than imagination without taste"
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Well, well, it looks like many years before these even born, Goethe predicted the rise of hip-hop, fashion nazis, modern art, Austin Powers and me. It does a tiny bit of good to my ego, I should imagine. It being as small as it is currently. Afterall, Gothe is looked up to by Friedrich Nietzsche himself.
Let me clarify here that I dont like hip-hop (yuck), I have the fashion sense of a neandrethal who is still using last years supply of tattered mammoth skin and I would not be able to tell a wall tile with paan stains on it from a piece of modern art. But I sure do love Austin Powers.....
oh! behave!
(Is there anything cooler than sharks with fricking lasers on their heads??)

Enlightened Moderation

2006-07-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is really old news. But it is so funny that I should put it up here, or down there or wherever :D
Operation to remove light bulb from inmate's anus - Reuters

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus.

On Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.

"Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else," Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.

"We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation."

Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.

"When I woke up I felt a pain in my lower abdomen, but later in hospital, they told me this," Mohammad said.

"I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners."

The doctor treating Mohammad said he'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon's story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose.

Maybe this is all about the "Enlighted Moderation" that His Highness Democratically Elected Dictator for Life (Elected with 98% vote share with 400% guarantee) El-Presidente General P Musharraf of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan keeps talking about.

We all understand the enlightened part here, but what about moderation? Is it that it was because of moderation that a bulb was used and not any other lighting instrument, like perhaps something a lot longer?

Crazy Diamond

2006-07-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

Roger Keith Barrett ,
(Syd Barrett)
January 6 1946 - July 7 2006
RIP

:-(

Word for the day and Mail for the day

2006-07-11T01:46:00.000-07:00

Alligated
al·li·ga·ted (ăl'ĭ-gā'ted)
v.

1. Bringing to notice the Karnataka state equivalent of Watergate.
2. The process of making the gate that legislators make when one of them gets the itch to assault another.

Usage:
"Allegation is not proof. You have to ask whoever has allegated againt me"

Our beloved CM, HDK used this word to devastating effect while giving an interview to one of those private "aap ko kaisa lag raha hain" tv channels.

Maybe I should not laugh at a rustic theater owner and film producer's english skills. So for kicks, I will put this e-mail up here so that everybody can laugh :D
One of my friend's friend ( :D ) got this e-mail thanks to (HAI, CAN WE START FRENDING? I LOVE YOU) orkut.

It might take some effort to understand given the splendid vocabulary of our man here, but I urge you infinite patience, it is worth it, trust me. Ah, the poetic simplicity, the incredible panache that shines through such modesty, wah, wah!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Heya xxxxxxxxxxx :)

XXX hea!! checked ya out n thought of droppin a hi... so mind gettin talkin? cos tat's wha we are hea for.. i guess..

about me.. hmmmmmmmmm..dont really like blowin ma trumpet!! modesty pays ya see!! came ta bangalore say 8 months ago. now analyze this : im jus "basically" a marwari, born in Delhi n brought up in BARODA, tha's ma hometown!!!! studyied for 4 yrs in dis sick place called Trichy (cos was rottin at this REC/NIT there!!). in bang bang bangalore right now..

so me a hybrid mule kinda thing.. now, REMEMBER it okay!! :)
(ok, we all should remember that, after all how many can claim to be the direct descendant of a horse and a donkey?)

haha im a real talkative guy... like learnin frm people n respectin them, enjoyin life to d max, and knowin and analyzin people's thoughts... thats what life is about.. theres more to life actually... and i can go on n on n on n on n on...

neways, hmmmmmm.. gues u're bored enuf!! write back, even if you DO mind bein pals.. i mean, jus send a blank NO, n i will respect your decision. trust me, i will.

got msngers? [ i am a retard ]@ hotmail.com and [i will always be so ]@ yahoo.com

keep rappin!!
XXX

PS: forgot d usual crappy stuff : love rappin (dont get me wrong.. love RAPPIN.. not d word with only one P"!!!) , clubbin, Swearin, travellin (i just LOVE IT..) , music(hip hop, rap, punjabi) freakin OTHERS out! spendin time with myself and talking and analyzing.. arguing logically too!! (game?? can bet ma nation on tha!!)

n yeah... im kinda what you'd call a practical guy. wud appreciate if we dont stick to these lame virtual media for interaction... cos ma work hardly gives me ne time for mails n stuff. oh yeah, i know its real difficult n vague ta trust ppl nowadays.. but believe me, im no cheapo or despo ta keep givin u missed calls, or send those stupid lovey dovey FORWARDS! or to pass on ur number.. i just HATE, ABHOR, RESENT al that, n all that puts me off. i dont get it how someone can be so jobless to do that. pity such people who do it... so u cud probably drop in a text on 98XX XXX XXX :)

see ya at d beach??

btw, orkut's blocked at my work place..using it thru another proxy.. and i cant see any pics on any page! so dont think i messaged ya cos of any pic! :)

n yeah.. i hate scrappin.. its like almost showin d whole world what colored undergarments u wearin.. might as well invest d same effort in a mail! :) see ya at d beach?? btw, orkut\'s blocked at my work place..using it thru another proxy.. and i cant see any pics on any page! so dont think i messaged ya cos of any pic! :) n yeah.. i hate scrappin.. its like almost showin d whole world what colored undergarments u wearin.. might as well invest d same effort in a mail! :)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Now that I have had my laughs, I wonder
Why is the world such a surreal place.

Drive

2006-07-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

I wrote these lines over a period of time, when my mood was sufficiently dark. I guess it describes a typical day of mine from when I return home.

Drive

loud music, lonely drive
discordant lyrics, reflecting my mind

the broken city crawls by,
bright lights and dark holes

the rowdy drivers wont obey,
flick a switch to make it go away
BMP has forgotten them roads
and the rain god has performed his ode

the prodigal walks in alone
into which was home in times bygone

the magic mirror is switched on,
grotesque dancers keep frolicking on
[click]
hey look, those rhinos are turned on
[click]
the stuff celebs do to blow their own horn
[click]
another homeless child looks forlorn
[click]
bring out the coke and pop-corn
[click]
while the greedy eyes stare into soft porn
the book welcomes me, like it is lovelorn
[klack]

the welcoming book is now to be read,
cause I am addicted to ideas so full of dread

swirling fan, circling thought,
confused existence, creeping rot.

what could have been,
in this world so mean,

I wish I could just sleep,
and slip into its silence deep.

Fundas and Opium

2006-07-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

I got to know today that there is a flower named after Pink Floyd, one of my favourite bands. They are so poetic and compose hauntingly beautiful tunes. Basically, they fcukking rock!!

Getting to know of such trivia thrills me no end. No wonder, this is what one of those scientific studies had to say about it.
"Thirst for knowledge" may be opium craving

The Elements

2006-06-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

I came across this really fun song by Tom Lehrer about all the chemical elements known to science at that time. TL is witty, funny and incredibly well informed. Here is something I have linked from http://www.tomlehrer.org:

"... I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity ..." - Tom Lehrer

Anyways you can listen to the flash rendition of this song here

``There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium (inhale)
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

``There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.

``Isn't that interesting?
I knew you would.
I hope you're all taking notes, because there's gonna be a short quiz next period.

``There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdinum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Paladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, and
Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, (inhale)
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

``There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper,
Tungsten, tin and sodium.

``These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.''

Continuing from my previous post, I think I should recall this composition by the genius composer Thyagaraja:

endarO mahAnubhavulu |
antarIki vandanamu ||

(Very) Roughy translated:
There are so many great men,
I bow down to them all

I would not be able to put the greatness of this divine person in perspective, simply because I lack the depth of understanding necessary and so, here are some good paces to start
link 1
link 2

I am not trying to compare Tom Lehrer with Thyagaraja, phluease! But I just recalled 2 lines from one of the compositions of this genius just to state what I feel about great people.

Andrei Tarkovsky

2006-06-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

I got an email from my good friend M with some quotes from Andrei Tarkovsky, a Russian born film maker. Some of them were such that I identified with them instantly. It is at moments like this that when you are able to identify with the thoughts of a Russian Film maker or a Columbian writer or a Japanese Businessman that you could believe there is a universal human language, and that is the language of ideas and inspiration.

I thought I should share these quotes without having to forward the mail :D

Or I would risk this or this.

Ok, fine, that was not so relevant to this kind of mail, but who am I to say, one man's food is another's poison.

Anyways, here are the quotes

We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.

It is so much easier to slip down than it is to rise one iota above your own narrow, opportunist motives. A true spiritual birth is extraordinarily hard to achieve.

...nobody wants, or can bring himself, to look soberly into himself and accept that he is accountable for his own life and his own soul. The connection between man's behaviour and his destiny has been destroyed; and this tragic breach is the cause of his sense of instability in the modern world...[man] has arrived at the false and deadly assumption that he has no part to play in shaping his own fate.

There is nothing more beautiful and mysterious than simplicity.

Artistic creation is by definition a denial of death. Therefore it is optimistic, even if in an ultimate sense the artist is tragic. And so there can never be optimistic artists and pessimistic artists. There can only be talent and mediocrity.

Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.

Bitter Brew

2006-06-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

I love black tea. Just the tea leaves, boiled.
Nobody in my immediate family drinks (at least used to drink, now yours truly drinks tea now) coffee or tea. Which to some, can sound like "nobody in my immediate family has five fingers". Did somebody say, "Freaks!! They deserve to be sold off to the nearest travelling freak show."?
Good.

While I was pretending to study Computer Science so that my father would continue to feed me, I first started drinking tea. I had to, in order to continue pretending to study, I had to convince some total ogres and some other buffoons that they should let me continue to pretend to study.
And this required that I endure a few weeks of intense siberian torture sessions where I would be asked questions that sounded a little like, "Confess! You are a worm trying to pass of as human. Confess! And Repent!"
Sometimes, exams could also be like this:

Well, it was then that I first befriended black tea. I found the taste too bitter and would add tons of sugar to it. Ostensibly, this was to keep me awake so that I could go through the "character building" sessions that were strangely, for some reason, called examinations . Maybe, those critters did have a sense of humour of their own, albeit twisted :D

After I was tired of pretending to study, I convinced somebody to let be pretend to work. Now, this was infinitely more easier for me, so easy, in fact, that I lost touch with my pal, black tea. For a long time later (not too long, I am only 8 years old) I used Diet coke as an awesome substitute

I met my old pal a year or so back, when I got tired of drinking kiddish coloured water that passes off as some exotic drink at Cafe, Coffee Day and decided to try tea. It was the bitterness in my pal that so endeared him to me this time around. I felt no need to add anything. Awesome. I have been hooked ever since.

I am readin this book "Plant Intoxicants - A Classic text on the use of mind altering plants" by Baron Ernst von Bibra where he puts it oh so sweetly, wondering why we adultrate the wonderful tasting tea with substances like milk and sugar.

And coming to the book, it was decent. It is more of a scientific dairy that describes the cultivation, harvesting, processing and usage of various plant intoxicants such as tea, coffee , opium, tobacco, hashish etc... The most interesting chapter was about Betel leaves and arecanuts.

A really pointless and rambling post, but I am just recovering from the fungal infection of the AC ducts in my office :D

Balance and Joy

2006-06-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

I completed reading the book form of a collection of blogs by my friend and (now) his wife. Splendid!
Words that were once familiar to me, feelings that once embraced me, jump out of the book, from the lips of my friend and his wife. It is hard not to be moved. Words like joyous, frolic, goosebumps, yearning, memories, colours, love, passion, warmth, asong, sunshine, tumble out of the book in a torrent. I wonder why I try to protect myself from them sometimes. The fragrance of the sheer positivity and earnestness that so infused my mind while reading the book take me back to a time when they were my constant companions. It is difficult not to be swept away by all these refreshing thoughts. It is at times like this that I catch myself saying, "Life is Beautiful"

Here is a beautiful poem by Rudyard Kipling that I came across in the same book.
Moderation and Balance.
Equanimity.

If
- by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

When the mind is still

2006-06-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

When the mind is still, just before you sleep, the thoughts and memories that were sunk deep inside the still pool of you mind float up like so many bloated, half rotten corpses of things that drowned in your mind.

When the mind is still, just before you sleep, the thoughts and memories that would have made you smile, when you dint want to, bubble up like the fizz in your favourite drink.

When the mind is still, just before you sleep, remember to brush your teeth :D

Some random riff-raff, its the weekend heebie jeebies hitting me, I may have to work for sometime this weekend :-(

Diet Coke

2006-06-13T04:49:00.003-07:00

I am feeling rather flippant today, :-) so here goes:
DC here is Diet Coke, and for those of you who are too dense to know :D, or have been living with Osama or the Taliban, I have modelled it after "Cocaine"by JJ Cale.
when you want to hang out, and also want to keep a count, DC
the sleepies hit you, and you still want to wade through, DC
she dont weigh, she dont weigh, she dont weigh, DC

if youre not just a kid, and you dont want to take a hit, DC
when you wont take the bean, but you still need some caffeine, DC
she dont weigh, she dont weigh, she dont weigh, DC

it has aspartame and acesulfame, DC
phenyleketonurics, pity you wont ever try this shit, DC
she dont weigh, she dont weigh, she dont weigh, DC

The ingredients section on a can sounds like a chemistry experiment gone wrong :D and phenyleketonurics is spelt as phenyleketoneurics on the can. I love her just the same, how can you love anything that does not harm you in some way? :-)

Look what phenylketonuria means: (from here)
"A genetic disorder in which the body lacks the enzyme necessary to metabolize phenylalanine to tyrosine. Left untreated, the disorder can cause brain damage and progressive mental retardation as a result of the accumulation of phenylalanine and its breakdown products"

The return of Napoleon and Kafka's Amerika

2006-06-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

I learnt something about Napoleon today. Yeah, that midget of a man, wearing those funny fluffy white pants and the weird hat and those knee length shoes.

(Oh! Those pretentious French and their sense of fashion!!)

I learnt that he was actually exiled twice.

The fist time aound, he was exiled to the Island of Elba in the year 1814. He retained command of approximately 1000 men and was supposedly in control of the entire economy of the island. Which is not much, Elba, in those days was apparently a poverty stricken speck of an Island off the coast of Italy.
So our man is there in Elba, terrorising the local populace with his towering personality and chasing the mountain goats around and plotting his return to France and glory. (Ok, I just made that up, but we do know that he did plot his return)

And then, almost magically, his turn comes in the year 1815. He commandeers some ships and sets sail towards France. He lands in a troubled and chaotic France with a restive poplation. He then starts marching towards Paris with his small army and things go his way like a knife through butter. Apparently, he goes unarmed and alone in front of the army sent against him in the french Alps and is so persuasive that the army comes over to his side.
This is repeated again and again all along his triumphant return to Paris. (Let me guess what he said, "make me emperor and you can have all the moules à la crème you guys want" :D)

And then he is able to do what many thought was impossible, he is able to raise an army of at least 100,000 before the other allied European powers could raise theirs and send them against a still consolidating opposition.
We would better appreciate this if we understand that all this, his entire journey from Elba all the way to his Waterloo took less than 100 days!!

Finally, almost in a tragi-comic replay of this return to France in opposite, he loses at Waterloo. Some historians believe that rainfall on one day, gave the defeated Prussians enough time to regroup and rush to the aid of the English, and if this had not happened, had it not rained, history and our little man's life might have taken a very different turn.

Ok, now coming to what this has got to do with Kafka's Amerika? I dont know about you guys, but saw a parallel in how Karl Rossmann, the main protagonist, gains so much so quickly with so little effort and then loses everything equally quickly through no fault of his. This happens twice in his life.

So thats the story of Napoleons return.

OK , heres a movie that I absolutely loved:

30 billion viewers, 1 bull

2006-06-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

On most days, I read the morning dope lazing around in the living room. Today, I almost fell off the couch when I read a screaming headline with jazzy graphics on the TOI main page.
(OK, I get the TOI on wednesdays and Fridays *only*. Everybody needs to get some dope on the celebs, even cavemen like me)
It had nothing to do with celebs. And it had everything to do with football.
The line screamed out something like:
30 billion viewers
1 world
1 cup
Or something lame like that.
30 billion. Wait a minute. T H I R T Y B I L L I O N!!!!
three oh BILLION? three zero BILLION????
I am sure that includes all the baboons who run the TOI besides every single man woman child and human like thingie on planet earth. Well, I dont think it requires so many baboons to churn out drivel like the TOI does, anyways.
Last I checked, the population of planet earth (homo sapiens and chinese only) was less than 7 billion. Where did the rest of the 23 odd billion viewers come from??

Did they start counting Laloo Prasad Yadav's extended family as humans to get so many viewers suddenly?
Or is it that all human pets, cattle, Michael Jackson and Elvis Ghosts were included this time around?

All these "responsible journalists" "editors" "sub editors" "assistant editors" etc.. etc.. whos job is to maintan sanity and hide all signs of retadration and actually try to *read* what is being printed (if they are all literate baboons that is) and try not to jump up and down while plucking lice off each other when they are supposed to be performing a very rare and miraculous act called as due dilligence.

Somebody writes that 30 billion cumulative users will be watching the world cup and it suddenly miraculously becomes 30 billions viewers. Bring on the martians I say!!
It is like a man who after his second marriage anniversary claiming that he has cumulatively slept with 730 women!!!

(mutter mutter grr grr)

The Genographic Project

2006-06-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

I came across this link quite by chance today and it is fairly interesting. What makes me extra interested is that I have always wondered about my ancestors, where they came from, were they like some fierce warrior types who roamed the planet pillaging and looting (that would be cool) or were they a lot like me, where did they actually come from?

Here is a short description of the project:

The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages.

The fossil record fixes human origins in Africa, but little is known about the great journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did we, each of us, end up where we are? Why do we appear in such a wide array of different colors and features?

Such questions are even more amazing in light of genetic evidence that we are all related—descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 60,000 years ago.

All these questions may not be answered by this study, but I am sure it would be interesting nevertheless. I am really tempted to participate in this study. Maybe I will come to know that I am descendant of a disgraced slave woman in Chengiz Khan's harem :D, or may be I will come to know that my ancestors are most related to some remote forest dwelling tribe from south of the vindhyas, or maybe they were all somehow related to some secret egyptian order that brought dead people alive.

The only problem is the cost. It is going to cost me $130!! I am thinking hard, real hard about this one :-)

Here are some interesting trivia: (Totally unrelated to the genographic project)

The origin of the military salute.
The following explanation of the origin of the hand salute is perhaps closest to the truth: It was a long-established military custom for juniors to remove their headgear in the presence of superiors. In the British Army as late as the American Revolution a soldier saluted bv removing his hat. But with the advent of more cumbersome headgear in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the act of removing one’s hat was gradually converted into the simpler gesture of grasping the visor, and issuing a courteous salutation. From there it finally became conventionalized into something resembling our modern hand salute.

Which side of the road do you drive on?

From this link about the change from Left side driving to right side driving in Sweden in the early Sunday morning at 5:00 on the 3rd of September 1967.

Pamphlet from 1967 about Sweden's change to right-hand driving. By Anders Hanquist.

Of course where I live, you can choose to drive on the left side, right side, topside or under the road or wherever, drive and just dont die :D

Obscenely Disgustingly Irresistibly Attractive

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

Anybody who reads the numblog should not get a wrong idea of who I am, after reading the last two posts.
:-)
With this in mind, I am going ahead and posting this one which gives a glimpse of the true me :D
Dont mistake me, I am but 8 years old.
This one here might sum it all up:

I was able to find just the right calvin comic by using this website. Its awesome, it lets you search the text in the comics and locate the precise comic image file, for example ch851119.

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The story of the incredible Mookkusali Samiyar (Snot Swami)

This one first appeared in the Outlook, that is a subscription link, so you can directly access it here .

I am going to save you the trouble of clicking on that link by quoting part of it here:

The long-locked man is just about five feet tall and an undernourished
40 kg. Clad in a yellow veshti, he lives in the Adi Dravidar (Dalit)
Colony, where the roofs of most of the 27 government-built one-room
houses have collapsed.

Seated on a gunnysack, Arumugam pedals his sewing machine, stitching a
green blouse. It’s early on a Friday, and before the clients turn up, he
asks us to fetch him two 180 ml bottles of Cosmopolitan whiskey, two
plastic glasses, two water sachets, a packet of savoury
‘mixture’, some pickle and five idlis. Of course, the ‘prasadam’ will be
of even greater value if you add ganja, pan parag and Ganesh beedi to
the list. The man at the state-owned liquor shop 2 km away knows at
once: Is all of this for the Snot Swami? he asks.

After a turmeric-scrub bath in a lotus-strewn pond, Arumugam drapes
himself in a sari, sits below a tree near the Karuppusamy temple, and
elevates himself to a higher plane of consciousness by gulping 360 ml of
rotgut whiskey in 40 minutes. "Other swamis hide what they drink, I
don’t," he says.

Arumugam makes pronouncements on visa cases, court cases and health
problems. However, his speciality is blessing childless couples. He
tells Outlook: "I have blessed 5,700 couples with children." It’s a
claim nobody can confirm. Or contest. He says he has been rendering this
service for more than 15 years, though it is only in the last two years
that his fame has spread. "A man on whose kidneys the Coimbatore doctors
had given up came to me. I cured him," he says.

On an eventful Friday, more than 100 people—of all castes and
communities—seek out the cross-dressing swami. After a few swigs of
whiskey, idlis, pickle and tobacco powder, Arumugam is able to generate
a great deal of phlegm—and he lets it fly. Snot and spit fly out of his
sharp nose and mouth and hit the faces of those seeking his counsel. To
wipe it off would be blasphemous. For Snot Swami’s disciples, this is
the best way to be blessed. The irony is: If Arumugam was just another
Dalit agricultural labourer, people would have refused water from him.
Now, they welcome his snot on their faces.

I thought of some nice things to say after reading this;
"By the slimy grace of the holy snot"
"May the holy snot rain down upon you"
"May His Holiness, Shri, Shri, KHRAAK, Mookkusali Samiyar shower his ample blessings on you"

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Kopi Luwak (Civet Cat Coffee aka Cat Shit Coffee)

Now for those of you doubting thomases who think I am making this up, here is a google search link for you. Read, see and understand the wonderful world of haute whatever.

Here are the gory details:

Only about 50 kilos of this blend is collected per year, making it the ultimate in exclusivity and rarity. And when we tell you where the beans have, er, been, you'll understand why. You see the primary reason for Civet Coffee's distinctive taste is that it's been partially fermented by passing through the digestive system of a Sumatran Civet Cat. No, really!

Basically this feral feline prowls Sumatran coffee plantations at night, choosing to eat only the finest, ripest cherries. The stones (which eventually form coffee beans) are then collected by sifting through the Civet's number twos.

Revered for its luscious chocolatey flavour Civet Coffee is totally safe, totally sterilised and totally delicious. Plus there's no discernable aftertaste.

The above is a quote from here. There is no "discernable aftertaste"!!!!!

Added on 8 June:
Here is a picture of the beans:

Thanks to AK for pointing me to this awesome blog that has the picture.

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I shall now retire with a warm fuzzy feeling of contentment :D

Shantaram

2006-06-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

I read Shantaram, a novel by Gregory David Roberts quite some time back. My good friend M, and myself collected some quotes from the book to share them with some friends.

This is a good book, but is the bestest thing about it is the sheer passion with which it has been written. It better be, it is supposed to be a "fictionalised account of real incidents".

Some of these quotes can be trite and down right stupid, or very profound depending on the ambient temperature, comfort of your seat, well being of your digestive system, whether the Karnataka State Assembly is in session or not, whether you had any "white powder" in your champagne or not, or any other random thing.

Take your pick and eNj0i :-)

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Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like (Karla) - unknown page

I dont know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it (Karla) - 336

Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything exept tears. In the end that's all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn - 346

Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things (Karla) - 367
(Lin is considering how he had befriended a mouse and used to feed it and kept it as a very dear pet, and because he taught it to be friendly to humans, his cell mate is able to capture it and cruelly crucify it)

It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive. - 370

One of the ironies of courage and why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for somone else than we do for ourselves alone - 381

The tendency towards complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex.
(And the ultimate complexity is God according to Khader Khan aka Khader Bhai, the underworld boss. Anything that helps this move towards complexity is good, anything that destroys this move towards complexity is evil.) -480

Happiness is a myth. it was invented to make us buy things (Karla) - 491

The only time he ever stopped hating himself was when the risk he faced became so great that he acted without thinking or feeling anything at all (A dutch mercenary) - 583

Heroin is a sensory deprivation tank for the soul. - 630
Floating on the dead sea of the drug stone, there's no sense of pain, no regret or shame, no feelings of guilt or grief, no depression and no desire. The sleeping universe enters and envelops every atom of existence. Insensible stillness and peace disperse fear and suffering. Thoughts drift like ocean weeds and vanish into distant, grey somnolency, unpercieved and indeterminable. The body succumbs to cryogenic slumber: the listless heart beats faintly, and breathing slowly fades to random whispers. Thick nirvanic numbness clogs the limbs, and downward, deeper, the sleeper slides and glides towards oblivion, the perfect and eternal stone.

(Lin is charging at the Russians in Afghanistan here)
And I looked at the men, the brave and beautiful men beside me, running into the guns and God help me for thinking it, and God forgive me for saying it, but it was glorious, it was glorious, if glory is a magnificient and raptured exaltation. It was what love would be like, if love were a sin. It was what music would be, if music could kill you. And I climbed a prison wall with every running step. - 779

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be. - 872

Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting - 918

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There you go, I had a readymade post :D

Added Later: Here are some more quotes that I posted recently
http://tantrik-porter.blogspot.com/2006/08/some-more-shantaram.html

Bulleh and Sarvagna

2006-06-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

I came across this number by Rabbi Shergill called Bulleh ki jaana main kaun, and I found it awesome. I mean, when was the last time you heard lyrics like that coming from the world of IndiPop, known more for mind numbing and banal lyrics. The best way to watch these is with the volume muted :D That way you wont miss all those skimpily clad bombs gyrating around. (I am not complaining about *that* :D )

I did some googling around, and found out about Bulleh Shah, a sufi mystic from Punjab, who had originally written these beautiful words.

Something interesting that I noticed in the song composed by Bulleh Shah, he uses the word "Bulleh Shah" as a kind of anchor to end stanzas. You could see parallels with the "vachana sahitya" originating from the veerashaiva movement in parts of Karnataka state in modern India. There is also a strong contempt for ritualism and all forms of authority in both.

I am reproducing the lyrics of the song here from here

Bulleh! ki jaana maen kaun	Bulleh! to me, I am not known

Na maen momin vich maseet aan Na maen vich kufar diyan reet aan Na maen paakaan vich paleet aan Na maen moosa na pharaun. Bulleh! ki jaana maen kaun Na maen andar ved kitaab aan, Na vich bhangaan na sharaab aan Na vich rindaan masat kharaab aan Na vich jaagan na vich saun. Bulleh! ki jaana maen kaun. Na vich shaadi na ghamnaaki Na maen vich paleeti paaki Na maen aabi na maen khaki Na maen aatish na maen paun Bulleh!, ki jaana maen kaun Na maen arabi na lahori Na maen hindi shehar nagauri Na hindu na turak peshawri Na maen rehnda vich nadaun Bulla, ki jaana maen kaun Na maen bheth mazhab da paaya Ne maen aadam havva jaaya Na maen apna naam dharaaya Na vich baitthan na vich bhaun Bulleh , ki jaana maen kaun Avval aakhir aap nu jaana Na koi dooja hor pehchaana Maethon hor na koi siyaana Bulla! ooh khadda hai kaun Bulla, ki jaana maen kaun	Not a believer inside the mosque, am I Nor a pagan disciple of false rites Not the pure amongst the impure Neither Moses, nor the Pharoh Bulleh! to me, I am not known Not in the holy Vedas, am I Nor in opium, neither in wine Not in the drunkard`s intoxicated craze Niether awake, nor in a sleeping daze Bulleh! to me, I am not known In happiness nor in sorrow, am I Neither clean, nor a filthy mire Not from water, nor from earth Neither fire, nor from air, is my birth Bulleh! to me, I am not known Not an Arab, nor Lahori Neither Hindi, nor Nagauri Hindu, Turk (Muslim), nor Peshawari Nor do I live in Nadaun Bulleh! to me, I am not known Secrets of religion, I have not known From Adam and Eve, I am not born I am not the name I assume Not in stillness, nor on the move Bulleh! to me, I am not known I am the first, I am the last None other, have I ever known I am the wisest of them all Bulleh! do I stand alone? Bulleh! to me, I am not known

And to end this, I quote some of the writings of sarvagna a great wandering monk from Karnataka, India

suTTa bUdiya tandu daTTawAgi baDidu
neTTaneye sreshTa swargawa padEwaDey
katte tA paTTa keDenenda sarvagna

If only heaven could be reached just by wearing ash thickly, even a donky that rolls in ash will be able to go to heaven.
(Wearing the sacred ash as religious markings, especially on the forehead, is common among hindus (shaivaites))

firefox rocks

2005-02-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

This will join the ranks of those millions of blogs singing praises of firefox. I am by no stretch of the imagination (or vocal chords) a good singer or even a decent singer, but what brought out the singer in me was this wonderful feature in firefox. You can open many web-sites in the same window as tabs . OK, that by itself might have brought a smile on my lips, not peans in this blog. What blew me away was the fact that you can save all tabs in a window in a single book mark, and then later, open all of them in exactly the same way it was. Isnt that great?
I have like a dozen windows that I need to keep open and monitor. These are personal as well as browser windows dealing with work. I dont want to open them one by one after I have rebooted my system to get back to a desktop with things in place so that I can start working. This feature solves this in a trice. Great going mozilla!!
It requires a browser like this to kick M$ in the wherever and send them off to develop a good product instead of that dinosaur that they have been providing. When was the last time you saw a new feature in IE?

2005-02-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

blogging for the first time(or doing something new) is not as exciting as doing something new was when I was younger. I am staring at the number 30 as it hurtles towards me. In a matter of 3.5 years (shorter than my undergraduate days) it will hit me.

From:	"Indian Medical Association-Projects" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
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Date:	Thu, 7 Sep 2006 11:31:48 +0530