State of the union..

.. it is not. But there are odd thoughts about twitter and facebook.

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Amit Varma speaks of Twitter* and Internet Hindus and the alleged Enemy #2** on twitter, and how we shouldn't take people seriously. His point is rather simple, and I quite agree with it. The people who argue passionately on twitter will often not take such extreme positions in the real world. We often argue for the sake of argument, without any objectivity, and sometimes without a clue. We have little to add - voice has indeed entirely become noise.

I recently spotted it again with the Kasab sentencing. Like the incredibly hot SpyMaami said, 90% were talking like right-wing nuts and 70% like Arundhati Roy***. That death sentence led me to have a little flashback to the day it all fell like dominoes on twitter. It was 26/11. That day, we were sitting and chit-chatting like we always do. We discussed failwail, jazz and punkrockers (with flowers in their hair). And then the attacks happened. Twitter came handy, people managed to organize help and resources. It was quite brilliant, the way it all worked, the way it really put power and control in the hands of the common person. Everyone became very involved and suddenly, very serious. For a few days, anyone who would dare to say "Oatmeal for brekkie" was reprimanded. "Be serious, this is no time for frivolity", they said, "a country is in crisis". #Mumbai was trending for days. The aftermath was that the publicity in MSM brought many more curious people to twitter. Soon the mood had almost entirely changed - it became about issues, about making a point, shouting a message out. Some people thought that twitter would give them an opportunity to see their name in print. The lack of care was gone, and twitter, for me, came of age.

Now the place is all herd, all mob, especially when it comes to re-tweets and trending topics. It looks odd when people start talking about topics other than the ones which are already under discussion. People celebrate the arrival of a celebrity on twitter. People re-tweet the celebrity till the comment has lost its context. Often a discussion on a serious issue loses its merit because the objectivity is long lost, and people are relentlessly hashtagging.

Not that all is lost, not just yet. I've met and still meet wonderful people there, who have become some of my close(st) friends. There is still a lot of wit and wisdom -- in fact, way too much of it. I still have a lot of fun, but when there is noise, I tend to run away. Still, somehow, I don't turn and run, I don't quit.

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Elsewhere, I find this piece about why one can't quit facebook. The list-maker says:

Sure, Facebook has privacy issues, but you don't care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn't use your real name on the Internet?

I absolutely hate it when they equate lack-of-anonymity with lack-of-privacy. People don't mind using their real names on the Internet only because there are gazillion people out there, and to some people there seems to be little point in hiding a under a name.

Privacy is different. It's more about who you really want to share whatever you want to share with. That's why I have the Internet, so it can make sharing easier, so to me, it's quite strange when people say, "Don't put it on the Internet then!" Don't get it? Picture this - I have a, errm, picture I want to share with my friends. Instead of spamming their inboxes, I want to put it somewhere, so they can see it. I don't want to share the picture with my colleagues. Both these sets of people know my real name. In fact, I don't want these people to ever know my moniker, lest they google me out. See the difference?

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*Quite a few sentences are more than 140 chars. Such a noob (sic). :) See, some of us can now naturally write sentence shorter than 140. I'm quite sure the first bit about twitter above is all under 140.

**Who's the enemy #1 that everyone likes to trip on, is anybody's guess.

*** According to me, 35% belong to the third kind - the people on twitter who claim that people on twitter don't know anything.

Pay per clique

Dear Mr. Vir Sanghvi,

This issue is nearly five days old and I am opining now because I feel the need to. What's strange is, when I first read your post about how the bloggers are the bad people of the Internet, I wondered why you were bringing up an issue that was roughly five years old. Nobody complains about bloggers anymore. For some strange reason, you seem to have just discovered them.

Don't get me wrong, I am barely a blogger, but I read a lot of them, and I will tell you why. For that, I'll have to go back to my origins --

Like in any educated middle-class household, as a part of my education, I was forced to watch the news and read the newspaper, to inculcate a love for current affairs, opinion and language. In the evenings, we were forced to sit in front of the TV as Salma Sultan and Rini Khanna (née Simon) told us what happened in the world that day, with a certain amount of indifference. Once a week, on Friday nights, I was allowed to stay up late and watch Prannoy Roy on "The World this Week" (Loy Mendonza's title track gives me gooseflesh.) Back then, Hindi was Hindi, and English was english, we were told to respect language. For analysis, we had to read the newspaper or magazines..

All this reading came with the strong belief that the people who were writing in the newspapers were qualified to comment and were the best people to do so. That they wouldn't write just to please us (or please anyone, for that matter). Having never seen their faces, and content with those little caricatures (by RK Laxman) accompanying their pieces, we put our blind faith in these could've-been-pseudonymous writers. To be honest, to me, Jug Suraiya never felt like a real name, but it didn't matter. I liked reading what he wrote.
Similarly, when movie reviewer gave a movie his "stars", we assumed that his judgment was right, because he knew what he was talking about. Even if we liked a movie he didn't, we assumed we'd missed something. We would perhaps not even admit that we liked it. In fact, for a long long time, I barely blogged because I always assumed my opinions were wrong.

Times have since changed. (Times has since changed too. Heh.) In the papers, instead of Mukul Sharma's Mindsport, we have "news" about Konkona Sen Sharma's latest party appearance. On Live TV, for current affairs, we have a journo shouting at us from outside the gates of the Bigg Boss household. In studio, for opinions, the moderator is shouting at the panel of analysts, all in some undecipherable mishmash of a language. Hell, now the media people are even shouting on twitter. Amidst all this, we, the then middle class, now haunt silent spaces to find good opinions and good writing. We find this noise to be unbearable and it seems easier for us to ask our friends for what they think. I don't remember when was the last time I read a "valid" movie review. These days I just ask a couple of my friends, read a couple of blogs -- people whose taste matches mine. Even if I don't agree with them, I read it for all the wit and good writing. I also take it as my responsibility to tell them of my opinion, sans fear. I usually put in some effort to articulate my thoughts. You could call it clique formation, you could call it forming a network of people you can trust.

It works fine for me as a reader, but why does it upset you?

I don't know what your exact grouse is, but it seems to be one of these: that the bloggers don't take your opinions seriously, or that that the bloggers are not qualified to opine, or that you are no longer the elite, or that we've found our friends who don't talk "at" us, and we prefer taking a weighted average of their opinions.

This was our little party. We hung out here, in our crowded little dark rooms, happy by ourselves. You seem to have entered the place right now, breaking the fourth wall, and are upset at us for having a party.

Sincerely,

--

PS: Am not sure if Mindsport is still published. Can someone please tell me?

PPS: Other better posts on this topic: Manu, Lekhni and this for all the revie-wit: Manu, again.

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art...

One of my mother's students committed suicide. Dad informed me, adding, "The 3 idiots effect."

I didn't ask for any other information, because sometimes it is easier to deal with statistics than dealing with real people. However much we try and shroud it in euphemisms, "13 people died" is far easier on our tongue, on our mind, than saying "Ma's student passed away." However indifferent or concerned we pretend to be, it always seems closer home when it happens to someone we know.

I can't imagine the parents are going through. Ma feels as guilty perhaps, being the teacher, and I wouldn't blame her. She has always taken it as her responsibility to counsel all these kids about their adolescent problems with love, puberty, alcohol, career, studies. I wonder if there are many teachers who take as much effort as she does, to connect with the students. Needless to say, she is immensely popular with her brood. So with all the honesty they give her, I can imagine why she would feel guilty. If she had spotted signs early on, that what this kid was going through was more than what other kids are also going through, maybe a life could've been saved. It may just be that she finds it unethical being part of a so flawed education system where students/kids are humiliated in school and at home for not performing well. I don't know, I will have to ask her.

What is also interesting is how many people have connected the dots and drawn a line to the movie. We can't help it, it's the job of engineers and scientists to collect stats, and present it as a trend. Somewhere along a trace of that line, the individual and his problems get lost. As I said, sometimes it is easier to deal with statistics than dealing with real people. "Suicides are on the rise after 3 idiots"-- was anyone even collecting statistics before the movie was released? Was anyone even serious about them? Plus, I fail to understand why 3 idiots has collectively had such an impact, but not a movie like Rocket Singh. How does watching the movie create such a big impact? Why do kids suddenly identify with the character, and like him, to take the harsh (or easy?) way out of life's troubles?

Which brings me to the bigger question - is the blame really on the educational system or on the society in general? The way it seems to have evolved, everyone seems to want to raise a prodigy, you know, a multilingual blackbelted rockstar with an IQ of 175. Studies, exams, education are just a small part of this.

I was reading some posts here and there about how the government could help it with educational reforms etc. The policy is important, but this could also be the issue of mental health in general. I still believe that the onus for it lies closer home. We see our family, our friends, our neighbour's kids. It should be easier for normal people to see signs of depression or anxiety in people who are amongst us. It should be easier for us to accept these as a valid illnesses. It should be easier for us to accept that some people need help, and not be dismissive about it. The govt can only do as far as to create helplines and ease up question papers and collect stats, but unless there is a broader social change, an acceptance of the individual and his mental state, the problem will perhaps not go away.

Saigon kick -1

As expected, this thing begins at the very end of the trip. One always thinks about what one has seen and done at the very end, mostly while sitting at the airport. One can't help it. So as my travel companion struts away to a much needed foot massage at the airport, I trudge to what I think I need most - quiet time with my computer. Just so you know, I can see the "spa" from the corner of my eye, and can spot more men walking to the place than women. Women are always blamed for their indulgence, but I love the way men manage to peddle their indulgences as "need". "I *neeeeed* this" doesn't quite sound the same as "Oh well, maybe I should buy myself a new bag". You would find a guy wistfully staring at a piece of art which doubles up as a gym trainer and a rocket launcher (a.k.a an iPhone) he so badly *needs*, when you know and I know it doesn't even match the furniture.

Anyway, one is attempting a travelogue about their recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. And all you kind people should encourage me. For info, it's logical, not chronological.

--

Ho Chi Minh City nestles in a spot in the south of Vietnam which if you stare at the map long enough, looks like its wrist. Formerly officially known Saigon, it was named HCMC after the city was captured by the North Vietnamese forces at the end of Vietnam war. It is still informally called Saigon by the locals. All on that in wiki, if you're keen.

I was ashamed of how ignorant I was about the intricacies of Vietnam war till I actually visited the city and felt the vibe of a place which can perhaps never forget. The words "War veterans" and "Agent Orange" is thrown around a lot for anyone's comfort, and yet the details seem to have slipped right through my history lessons. For those who don't know and don't care, and to cut a very long story short-

Vietnam was occupied by French after the Second world war. The Geneva Accord of 1954 which kicked the French out and essentially divided it into two states ("pending national elections"): - The North ( Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled by the communists) and the South ( Republic of Vietnam controlled by, well, what the vietnamese call a puppet govt placed there by the US). To prevent the communist forces from rising to power (and to harness the mineral resources in the area) US entered Vietnam.. The North vietnamese army (Viet Minh) led a conventional war, however there was a guerrilla operation run by VietCong against the anti-communist forces in the south.

If you find me a little biased in the above paragraph, it's only because it is hard not to emote after seeing a city which has assimilated war into its identity. I will try to sound more indifferent from now on.

Hold on!
Back to the beginning -

So, soon after we landed, after an early morning budget flight which made toast out of us, we had to bite into the morning traffic jam. As expected, despite what we thought was smart bargaining, we got nearly looted by the taxi driver, like tourists often do. It's the fate of a tourist - however cautious one is, however much one reads the stuff online and prepares - printouts et al -- one almost always gets cheated on the first ride from the Airport to the hotel.

Once we reached the hotel, we realized that time travel had given us an extra hour that day, we asked the kind lady at the tour desk downstairs, to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels.

Soon enough our friendly tour guide arrived, shoved us into a van, handed us a bottle of mineral water each, and decided to give us our money's worth by not letting us sleep through the ride. Going by the name Romeo, he spoke good English, and gave us, the clueless two, trivia about the country and her people and their superstitions. He didn't stop till the van did.

The Cu chi tunnels, which are roughly two hours away from the heart of the city, were built by the VietCong during the war, and are work of wonder. Up to 10 metres underground, and having upto three levels these were mostly dug using shovels. The tunnels are for the petite and small ( read: size XS) "because they knew that it is impossible for the westerners to fit". It's hard to imagine how people lived down these rabbit holes for years, and how kids were born inside those tunnels which barely have any light, and were often infested with poisonous ants and scorpions. Sectors have been widened to fit the tourists, and lights been installed, but one still needs to crawl and it is still too dark and narrow and can get claustrophobic. It's barely a treasure hunt as you would imagine it to be.

The other highlights of the tour are the booby traps and other ingenious methods used by them using mostly the scraps from the enemy - scrap from shells used to make the weapons, rubber tyres used to make slippers, soldiers' uniforms to throw the "German" dogs off-track. There are B52 craters, unexploded bomb shells and broken tanks which were damaged by the land-mines. One does realize the uselessness of such massive brute-force type tanks and weapons (?) in a war, when they were up against short and quick and agile people using common sense and intelligence.

A day later we made our way to the Reunification Palace. A little after the US withdrawl from the Vietnam war, a tank of the North Vietnamese Army (dramatically) bulldozed through the main gate, ending the Vietnam War -- an event recorded as Fall of Saigon (wiki, if you please) and reunified the country under Communist rule. The p(a)lace itself is full of rooms full of furniture, which can best be described as regal or imperial, and collects all things stinking of affluence (read:wastefulness) of the (then South vietnamese) govt. It can get boring, but I guess it holds a lot of importance for the Vietnamese people. The interesting part here is the basement under metres of concrete which is like one of those "War bunkers" you see in movies - full of maps and old communication devices where the generals point with those long pointer things and plan their attacks.

A final stop on the War trail was the War Remnants museum (formerly known as "Museum of American War Crimes"). The "American" bit was dropped sometime in 1995 (and they perhaps had no choice but to) after they normalized the relationship with the United States. There are tanks and bombs and missiles and all tangible war remnants kept outside, and one can't help but wonder about the amount of money spent in shipping those things over halfway across the world. The inside of the museum tells us the tale of the war, and is replete with pictures. There is an temporary exhibition about the true remnants of the war -- pictures of victims of Agent Orange. It was a defoliant used by the American army containing a toxic (and banned) agent dioxin which poisoned their food chain and resulted in innumerable birth defects. Indifferent as I may sound while telling you what it is, the exhibition is not for the faint hearted. A gave up after walking through ten pics. I saw around twenty, and stepped outside as if closing my eyes and getting away would prevent all things bad from happening in the world. How I wish. All around me, people were walking with their mouths covered, in disbelief perhaps, that the most celebrated war veterans, the most celebrated presidents were party to such damage, such carnage, such mutilation of life.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing ever justifies war and a war like this. Nothing justifies death of people, even if it is masquerading as nationalism. The entire vietnam war left millions dead, (including ~50,000 americans, if you please). In Cu Chi area, of the 16000 people living in the tunnels only 6000 survived [to be verified], I am told. I don't even want to get to the amount of money which could've been put to better use, perhaps. Was it even worth it?

--

PPS: If there is one person who has read till the end of this post, and hence I get one comment on it, I will write the part two. Else, you miss the best parts.

PS: Art work -- my own.

Winter of content

Cyn said my writing has subtle layers.  Needless to say, I am immensely flattered and in lust with the term. I feel this blog is suitably and fashionably dressed for winter, hiding dry flaky skin without making the subtext look fat. Warm but dirty for heater or not, it's hard to shower in winters. Noone speaks here, for the words somehow freeze as the people open their mouth to say something, and yet, in a way, it's cozy company. I know you read me. More importantly, this blog hibernates. And a lot. 

--

I find it intriguing how much people get trapped in their blog persona and land up making it more onedimensional than it was originally intended to be, at least the eminent bloggers do.  One could argue that the blog represents one part of their personality usually linked to the one moniker, unlike the real names which come with  baggage and history. So time after time, eminent  bloggers are forced to deliver the quality assured fun, and they eventually become petrified of failing. Sometimes you can see the effort which has gone into placing the sentences, balancing the tenses, and deleting the words over and over again till the expression is right, but then the mood becomes trite, no?

It's your ego that limits you -- "I am a famous blogger, you are not, so whatever I say has to come out right". Admit it, it occasionally could be filed under selfcentredness - "Ten people read this blog and comment. I get gazillion site hits a day. Hell, I even have trolls. Whatever I say should sound right, and should get loads of comments and people should love it".. The numbers don't give a blog the legitimacy for it's existence, it's the content.

You people are immensely talented. I don't read you because of the number of comments you get, or because you are popular or controversial. It's not your mugshot, or the curiosity about your real name. I like to read you because you have ideas, opinions and observations which are original, as opposed to link whores who would be peddling your stuff back to me. 

Seriously, I would rather read an honest post than read a famous post.  So, disable comments if it bothers you, be unafraid and write an honest post today, wouldja?

--

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Many things.

These days, I get that feeling of being truly in love. No, it's more like the feeling of falling in love. With something, anything, someone, anyone. I just free fall.

Acutely aware that it has taken over me, I frantically search as to what it is that I want, that I need. It's not attached to anything or anyone, or my immense need to constantly want. In that moment, it's just me and the feeling. And I float, undrunk.

Maybe it's the wait for freedom. Maybe it's all the sunlight. Maybe it's the thoughts you inspire.

--
You are indeed two steps behind me.
There are some things that I solved a little faster than you.

And take a look around, you'll see what you cant find.
Like the fire that's burning up inside me.

--
There is this part in Chak de India where SRK says: Neeyat chahiye.
The line always stays in my head.
One can want a million things and all at the same time. One can wish till the world's end, y'know, hazaaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle.
But to get even one, one needs the intent, isn't it?

What were you doing on May the 21st, 1991?

We were on our way to Mangalore in a bus, Ma and I. We took the bus from Bombay like we always did. The western ghats are tricky, and hence a bunch of buses usually left together. Somewhere near or after Belgaum, our bus slowed down, and then stopped - we couldn't figure the confusion was, nobody told us, just some hints about one of the buses being caught up/delayed and hence this one had to wait. We reached in the morning. Amidst the noise and chaos of the reunion, someone screamed for us to shut up when we heard the heard the words "Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated" on the radio.

What we didn't know was that my uncle was traveling from Bombay on the same day, and on the bus behind and was the one that was caught and torched by rioteers (?), because the news of the assassination had spread by then. It tumbled into a ditch. He reached home 11-12 hours late.

Over the next few days, Doordarshan stopped the broadcast of all their "entertainment" programmes, and it was one of those occasions when noone complained. The entire family, led by my grandmother, wept in front of the TV, openly, as Sonia Gandhi hid behind her giant sunglasses and Priyanka looked suitably in control. Everyone made guesses about the future of the elections and the family.

18 years later, the memories of that time have hit adulthood and some of the details have been lost, but the bus ride the chill in the spine, the ambiance, the lull afterwards, I have never quite forgotten. Since then TV or not, I remember, albeit quietly, every year.

Recently, I was quite surprised when a friend asked me the same question in the midst of much rave-talk about his big backpacking trip to India in '91. It was surprising only because he is not Indian, though he is sufficiently brown on the inside. We swapped the reconstructed bits from our memory, that evening. "Where were you?", "What were you doing?"

--

Needless to say, everyone misunderstood me when I asked the question today. I wasn't campaigning for any political party, or saying that Rajiv Gandhi was the greatest PM India has ever had, or trying to bring up Bofors or gaping holes in his policy. I have little or no personal interest in the matter. It has little to do with recent death of Prabhakaran.

I was merely experimenting on whether people retroactively attach importance to ordinary goings on in the wake of a "big event". I was also trying to verify whether Rajiv Gandhi's death can be considered one of those "big events" for someone my age, or was it just me who remembers everything so vividly.

I have a substantially accurate memory of time leading to that event. And I wondered if many people could accurately reconstruct the mundane goings-on of a day because something seemingly big has happened. It was a study of how the brain captures memories of a Black Swan event.

It struck me when someone (Oprah, was it?) said about the day Obama won "It is one of those things where you'll tell the future generations - What were you doing that day when Obama won?"

I do believe that ordinariness of a day gets magnified because of a big event, and you retrofit the events leading to the point when the news was broken to you. I was skipping about in the corridor, doing my math, playing hopscotch - when I got the news. Some remember more details (from the start of the day), some less (five minutes before the event). Almost everyone remembers the location. It's almost as if people correlate the ordinariness of the time before to the degree of shock/joy/any-other-emotion experienced.

Right after the event, everything perhaps moves in a sort of slow motion. If the event was the cause for the succeeding chain of non-routine events in an otherwise normal day, for instance, riots, then even the normal circumstances during that day become a part of the memory, even if it's only to connect the dots, the high points, and one remembers every bit of a that train ride in excruciating detail.

Agreed, the importance of the event is subjective, it comes from the buildup, the months preceding, the media, the charisma yada yada. Someone in a small kampong in Malaysia is perhaps not that greatly affected by 9/11. But due to his charisma, or the general Kennedy-esque tragedies that have are attached to the family, Rajiv Gandhi's death seems to have had a great impact on quite a few people of our generation (except you, youth icon Manu). I think the previous generation was impacted by Indira Gandhi's assassination the same way.

So, yes, tell me, what other such events can you remember in this detail? Describe.

Of intelligence, stereotypes and word salads.

Overheard: You get tired of people complimenting you for your intelligence, and hence read trash which insults it.

--
Monday morning came with the unusual comparison to a very interesting character, a man, from a TV show. Immensely flattered by this compliment, my question was rather simple "Why aren't there any intelligent women to be compared against?". The answer I received was nothing short of a revelation: "Because intelligent women become a stereotype and then proceed to get utterly lost."

The Activist, the Carrie Bradshaw, the power dresser, the Martha Stewart, the Liberated feminist, the Joni Mitchel, the SAHM, so on and so forth. At some point of time most get slotted, pigeonholed into their parts.

I have heard this before, I think. It never registered. And never before have I been this amused.

Every now and then..

...I do this to myself. Every now and then, I go back there and devour the trite.

Cut into little pieces, rinse-repeated in an infinite loop, the ordinariness of a story is executed in detail. And it's not just executed normally, it's clubbed to death. Then you round up the usual suspects who all go by the last name of Trite. Let me say that once more: TRITE.

Oh, and the drama in a bowl of Chocolate frosted sugar bombs.
Every single time, I put a skeptical spoonful in my mouth, and then I promptly start complaining about it. Ah, how does one resist the incredible urge to throw up.

I really should have no reason to complain. You would tell me, it's a choice I make. There are other people to read, other ideas to live by. I know. And yet, I don't know why I still do it.

I still do it, every single time. Every single time, I hop out of control. Rather, I hope out of control. Maybe it's the curiosity of knowing if something has changed. Maybe it's the insecurity of "Why can't I be like them?". Or the confidence of "Hell, I'll never go that low". The only reasonable explanation of why I go back is because oftentimes you see something really disgusting, and so really disgusting that you can't take your eyes off it.

No, something must be seriously wrong with my planetary alignment that makes me so masochistic. Marquis de Sade Saati.

--
Oh, don't ask what or who it is..

WTF1

One is not qualified to write about Motorsport, but one can always mention a sport we love: Calvinball.

The only consistent rule of Calvinball is that it may never be played with the same rules twice, because Calvinball is against organized sport. You can always change rules on the fly, especially after it (the game, the season) has started.

No sport, really no sport, is less organized than Calvinball.

So with all these rule changes, maybe I'll switch to watching football, learning the offside rule is much easier.

--
Title credit: shub

Bindra and all that.

As an Indian blogger, I can't possibly miss out on the Abhinav Bindra slice of the blogging pie.
Much has been said about how it's an individual achievement, about how India -- her govt and her people-- had little to contribute and yet dwell in his glory. A generous dose of sarcasm has been meted out to the officials accompanying the Olympic team, with passing comments on lack of sports infrastructure, and lack of money in sports except cricket. Much has also been said about the golden boy being born with a silver spoon -- his father being rich and being able to risk the head of a domestic-help and waste (invest?) money on his son's indulgence.

And yet, somewhere, maybe, we all miss the point. The onus is not on them. It's on us.

--

Very recently, I was at a friend's place. A single mother, she had a tough time controlling her little son who is hyperactive and showed textbook (wikipedia?) symptoms of ADHD. We sipped tea. On Tv, Olympic cyclists reached their destination of the badaling section of the great wall, after a grueling 5 odd hours of cycling. We spoke of their endurance. And A and I joked and bantered whether her son should be trained to be a fencer or a gymnast. The mother looked sternly at us, and said "You two can start a fund if you want, I am only paying for his education, and not for this". She stopped short of uttering the word "nonsense".

By the time the child is 14, he will be enduring marathon study sessions at his table. And before we know it, he would be sitting in front of the TV watching Olympics 2024, looking at the athletes with envy.

And yet, we crave that kind of glory that being on TV would bring us. We like to associate ourselves with glory. We all know "a cousin is a cricket player", "A friend who started his own business and made millions", "An uncle who won the Pulitzer prize", or the "colleague who ran the marathon". We didn't do it, someone else did. Then we spend hours evaluating whether s/he deserved it. If they are related to us, the glory somewhat rubs off on us, by law of association. If not, then we settle for dressing our envy with criticism -- how we are/were equally deserving and they cheated their way out of it, how we never had the opportunity. To give you a simple example, I love repeating that Anil Kumble was an alumnus of my engg. college. The sports teacher in college though, didn't have the nicest things to say about him.

For every one of them that succeeds, there are thousand others that fail. And naturally, we are not willing to take any such risks.

We don't aspire for glory, we aspire for mediocrity under the garb of security. So, the hypermobility is not a reason to take up swimming, it's just a cheap party trick. The big feet are just a shoe-shopping issue that mothers would complain about. And in the end, it's the marks that matter. And frankly, it's not anyone's fault. Without a social security system, the insecurity about bread and butter gets the better of us. Given that it's gonna be a while before this changes, our mindset changes, govt is better off spending their money on additional IITs.

Office attire

The company I work for is a privately held French firm. The partners are all naturalized French citizens - they of Lebanese descent. Most of their families, and those of many of my colleagues are still in and around Beirut.

It's a cool place to work. They let us be. As far as attire is concerned, they don't care one bit. We dress to our nines only when we go to the client side. Rest of the time, everyone is casuals - Jeans and t-shirts, even on weekdays. Yes, they are nice to us. Which is why I was stunned when I saw my teammate wear "Israeli Defense Forces" T-shirt to work. I casually asked him if he didn't think that it was kind of inappropriate. He said "It's just a T-shirt man! My friend got it for me". Following which, he hurled a mild accusation at me for making a big deal out of it. I smiled and changed the topic. I admit, I have heightened sensitivity to things, but somehow this unnerved me, and I began wondering how much are our T-shirt messages meant to demonstrate what we stand for. Maybe it struck me as odd because I feel the company is being nice to us by not insisting on proper business attire, and my colleague shouldn't misuse this freedom.

It really is a T-shirt. There is little reason for one to be sensitive, or to believe that it portrays ones allegiance. Like a foreigner wearing a t-shirt with a bold "Om" emblazoned across it, doesn't mean he believes in Hinduism, or is remotely spiritual. The figure of Ganesha has become more or less a commodity, till a bunch of religious fanatics find it on a piece of clothing and create a furore. We argue - it really is nothing but a t-shirt.

And yet, I still feel that there is a thin line between coolness and impropriety.


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Now playing: The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The uncommon couple

Due to the immense popularity of my previous post on Mr. Lim (Two people, both friends, read it and liked it), I have decided to do more sketches of people. The people I meet make up most of my stories and to avoid repeating them when I meet you in person, I will type them here. So today, I will introduce you to Jorge and Soo. Both in my Spanish class.

Jorge is retired. Jubilado. The connection with the word jubiliant is rather distressing for a workaholic like me. If I have no work, what will I complain about? Anyway, Jorge seems rather happy. He comes on time, does his homework, and pays attention in class. He has a snorty laugh and perverse amount of curiosity about rights of transsexuals in Spain. He also refuses to accept that things like tables, chairs and keys can be classified as masculine and feminine.

Soo teaches. Somewhere. Something. But that's not really relevant, is it? She speaks very clear English, which makes me suspicious that she teaches the language. She owns a dictionary, and brings it to class rather religiously. I don't carry mine around since dictionaries are thick and rather boring to read on the bus.
I think Soo is a closet activist. She brings up her dissent in the rarest of moments. The word bonita means pretty. It can only be used for things and little girls. Chica bonita. Pretty little thing. This made Soo immensely worried about the objectification of women.

Soo and Jorge have been together for many years. It is rude to ask how long, but I am curious since she pauses before she refers to him as her boyfriend. They are too old to be boyfriend and girlfriend, you know. What makes them strange as a couple is that they don't stay together. He claims, they would have killed each other if they had another day under the same roof. This works, and works well for them. But it must be togetherness, since he buys her a snack before coming to class so she can grab a quick bite during the break.

They amaze me... for in this world of fragile relationships, they are willing to stay away from each other just so that they can be together.

The question of anonymity

I think bloggers make a big deal out of their online identities. You find some of them obsessing over keeping it secret. Not sure if it is because the persona they create, that of being fun and erudite and with a fun life is far detached from their real lives. Not sure if it is the romantic appeal of being a mysterious stranger with a smart moniker, or Spiderman-Peter Parker dichotomy. Maybe it was a trend started by the chicklit bloggers to preserve the identities of people they speak about and to avoid being googled.

Anyway, nom-de-plumes are a good idea. If and when you become famous, it will make a good trivia question a la - What was 'The blogger formerly known as Prince' formerly known as?
Ok, bad joke.

My point being that bloggers put up a nice little fight to keep their identities secret. Frankly, it's hardly a challenge, ever since orkut, facebook and the other evil sisters came about to put one's six-degrees in the public domain.

How hard can it be? There is a high chance that people blogroll their fleshandblood friends (as opposed to virtual friends?), and few of those friends are vain confident enough to use their real names for sure. A click here. A click there. Easy, no?
And then there are pics of family, kids, latest holidays and tattoos proudly cross posted on orkut and the blog. Seriously, you actually thought you won't be discovered by someone who has listed "stalking" under "passions" a lot of time to while away.

Sigh.

Find a random person on orkut, and discover their blog. Now that's like a real challenge.

Spring Cleaning

What I perhaps will never learn is how to deal with yesteryears. I don't think I like the feeling of flooding myself with a certain set of memories. And yet, I keep all the stuff, just because I am afraid that if I let them go, I would have nothing left. It would be like losing history of my being.

I have never been able to delete mails from the past. The way I deal with files/photos is even more peculiar - I zip them up, and put them away in a CD or in a folder named "Important". And then one fine day shift-delete or junk the CD. It helps me get rid of the remorse, and doesn't spike my curiosity of why I kept them in the first place.

Clutter. It is almost impossible to classify my clutter between what's truly "junk" and what's really "important".

In comes Ramdeen, who got an unfair share of wisdom at birth, with the recommendation of the cleanup. The experience, he promised, would be cathartic.

So I have cleaned it all up - good, bad, otherwise. Have kept a few priceless treasures, though - one being the first email sent by then-little nieces, one with an intense discussion about the feasibility of the layers of a stack being implemented as different processes, one containing sepia toned pics of awkward teenagers in bright shirts, and one with my favourite little Johnny joke.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Understanding Human behaviour...

Why are we so obsessed with looking at water bodies? Ever found yourself taking a long drive, walking a thousand miles to see a sea, a river, a lake, a waterfall, a pond, a stream, even a puddle. And then we would stand there, pose and go click click clickity click.

Which is another thing, photos, pics. With a camera attached to everything, hidden or otherwise, we can't seem to avoid being in the eye of the lens. Being in them pictures and looking at them. We almost never look at those pics again. Sometimes we treat our friends to our little treasures, piles and piles of pixelated bits on our cellphones, and very lovingly indicating who that little blob on the screen is supposed to be.

Equally commendable is the effort that goes into making the home videos. No, not those kind. Ever noticed people taking videos of static objects? The statue of Liberty is not gonna move for God's sake. Moving the handycam up and down twenty times to give it an appearance of motion won't fool noone. Neither is anyone interested in getting all details about her wrinkles and laughter lines. So avoid those close-ups, wouldja?

And why is that if one person on the table gets a phone call, rest of the people take their phones out and start checking for sms'?

Ever noticed how conversations inevitably turn to sorry things that happened to people. Is it to ensure that the discussion follows a predictable path.

I am so cynical.

On Random Public Obsessions

1. Spelling bee: Never understood why this creates such a big buzz. Is it just another demonstration of intellectual superiority of the indian diaspora in the US, or is it a real competition? Why is everyone so obsessed with it?

As an aside, the girl who came second stumbled on the word weltschmerz. Wait, did I spell it wrong?

2. Fanaa: Yes, its maudlin and full of improbable conicidences. Yes, the plot is full of craters. Yes, the shayari gets a little too much to bear. Yes, Kajol still looks thin and young. Yes, Aamir Khan still looks fat and old. Yes, we differ on the yakkity-yakking Bobo female. Yes, to have Lara Dutta in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo is bad. Yes, to have Lara Dutta and not have an item-number is worse.

But then all said and done, we have to remember the premise: "Its a Yash Raj movie", and that would explain it all. We are talking about the same factory which mass-produced tearjerkers like Veer Zaara, Mohabbatein and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. They do this for a living. What else did you expect?

3. Vinci da Code: Err, the lesser said the better. The controversy and the sensationalization of it, in my opinion, is way past its sell out date. Read it, haven't watched the movie yet. But I wonder how they will manage to implement the trivia-in-the-storyline, a format patented and perfected by Dan Brown. Heaven forbid, if there are any car chases, I would hate for Sophie(?) to exclaim "Jesus Christ" and the Langdon fellow to give us a "crash"-course in what I call reinterpreted history in response.
(Thanks AA for the Vinci da Code bit. Apparently, thats what they would call the movie in Sadda Punjab. Sorry, I killed the joke.)

4. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt: I pity her that despite her parents' honest effort to find the remotest corner in the world for her, that's perhaps the last bit of privacy she will ever get. They also made an honest effort to find her a name as "remote". Frankly, I pity her more for her name, for everytime she will have to stand in front of a desk and spell it out, oooof. But then, maybe she never will have to. With those set of genes, I don't think so.

5. And whats with Oriyas these days: First there was the winner Budhia Singh and his "also-ran" counterpart Dilip Rana. Then the NASA awardees and the tea-stall owner's son who made it to the IAS made us proud. Now there is a woman getting married to a snake. Suddenly Oriyas are ubercool and are commanding their own space on the news paper. I wonder if I am missing the publicity bandwagon.


I am getting mo' and mo' cynical by the minute.

*Update*: Few days after this was posted: Desipundit led me to this piece:
On Being Oriya

No title.

I avoid writing about discussions which are political or controversial in nature, so will try and give a passive third-person narrative.

This was a discussion over a formal dinner. The participating entities included two natty Frenchmen F1 and F2, a Korean K1, two singaporeans S1 and S2, (all named thus to protect anonymity and prevent ambiguity), and of course, the very non-anonymous Indian: yours truly. The topic of discussion was Lakshmi Mittal's bid to take over Arcelor.

For the uninitiated, Mittal, world's richest non-american, has made a "hostile" bid for Arcelor, the detailed analysis of which can be found online in abundance. This bid has sent the price of the Arcelor stock and the pulses under the white skin racing.

So, S1 asked the frenchmen about their opinion on this proposed merger/acquisition/takeover. The opinions at the start of the argument were predictable, plain vanilla - Jobs will be lost, hostile bid is contrary to practise, Mittal will control a bit too much etc etc.

Then came the part of the argument which was strange to say the least. The part of the argument which has been labelled as "cultural differences" in papers for lack of a civil word. F1, F2 firmly argued that this takeover would compromise the quality. Of what? The quality of life. As corroborative evidence, they quoted the example of the slums in Mumbai. The quality of life in EU was supposedly already pretty good, the best in fact, and there is no scope for improvement. This was peppered with the *characteristic french shrug*

K1 argued that as European the firm is a brand, and the brand value will be lost, and pointed it to the French wine on the table, and said "This cannot be replicated". (perhaps, by then he had enough of it to swear his allegiance). To this S1 quoted an article from the Time magazine which described how the Chinese have managed to replicate French Wine to such a degree of accuracy that even connoisseurs are confused, and that its more cost-effective. All of them vehemently shook their heads to this and said it was impossible. Even if its expensive, K1 claimed that people will still pay for it, since its all in the name. A brand is like an insurance for which you pay a premium. Hmm... Nice parallel that.

S2, like a typical Singaporean, kept quiet through it all.

Brands? Quality of life? Is that argument remotely convincing?

Xenophobia, certainly. Nationalism, chauvinism, jingoism to various degrees, perhaps. Maybe, the french ideas are like they prefer their wine to be: vintage. But what really bothered me was, why did I feel the undercurrents of racism in it all. Its easy to be passive towards it when the news aggregator bundles them up as "all 3xx related-->" but, you really feel the pinch of it when you are right in the middle of it. Like I typecast them using alphabets, I and I1 - I1000,000,000, yes, we are typecast too, because of the colour of our skin.

(As an aside, strictly within the boundary of cultural prejudices, it was strange to see a Korean talk about brands, and genuine stuff.)

In any case, it's just a matter of time.....

After-thought: Very tempted to quote Russell Peters. If you know what I am talking about...

Of Blogging and the big O...

Two bloggers were jailed in Singapore under the sedition act. Race and religion are sensitive issues, the law would try to preserve this delicate balance of harmony and peace. Hence, a punishment was inevitable.

In an isolated set of incidents, an institution, their ads, and bloggers’ opinions on it have wreaked havoc in the Indian blogosphere creating heroes and villains alike. The incident, though not as serious as the one in Singapore, is dramatic enough to make the story worthy of a “K” prefix… All of them: bloggers and the bloggers blogging about those bloggers, are superglued to this one concept: “Freedom of Speech”.

What bothers me here, is our Opinions, strong Opinions, our expression of those Opinions, how much are we are entitled to express in the public domain, and how much restraint should be practised.

I spent some time mulling over it. Under a broad generalization, there is an inherent contradiction in my opinions about the above incidents. On the one hand, I feel the Bloggers (A) had to be reprimanded since they shouldn’t have expressed their opinions the way they did. On the other hand, I could join the peace march for Bloggers (B) and brandish a flag about their right to express theirs…

I eventually figured the key to untangle the mess, to put things into perspective. Abstract and fragile as the idea may seem: its what we call the Social Responsibility. Bloggers (A) didn't use theirs, Bloggers (B) were acting on it. Simple.

With great power, comes great responsibility.
--Peter Parker/Spiderman