Melange

Problems plaguing the "Modern Education System" by Sir Ken Robinson

2010-12-22T00:50:00.000-08:00

War and Peace

2010-01-29T19:50:00.001-08:00

I was going through the archives of National Geographic. I came across a photograph taken during the time of the war in Sarajevo. The picture is brilliantly taken by Reza and it shows a girl juxtaposed next to her dolls. The shallow depth of field provides a dramatic feel to the picture and it makes you feel girl is about to say something. I found this photograph to be a true reflection of the times we live in and the horrors of war in general. Rezza the eminent photographer describes this portrait...

"I have been through wars, conflicts, wounded people and the dead people. I was strolling on the streets around December in Sarajevo near the sniper valley where I stumbled across a girl standing next to a wall. Only when I came closer I realised why? I found out it was Christmas eve and this lilltle girl is selling her dolls to get money to buy food for her family.I still find it to be the most powerful image of the war. There is no bloodshed and no wounded. I dont want to show in this picture how the war has wounded people ...but has brought a little girl to sell her dolls...how cruel is the war?"

REFERENCES

Photo credit: "Reza" URL http://www.anterodealda.com/osdiastodosiguais/img/reza_webistan1.jpg

"Photographer Biography" URL http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photographers/photographer-reza.html

Isnt Test cricket like life itself

2009-08-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Tendulkar was speaking on Friday at the launch of a book 'Shadows across the playing field, authored by India's Minister of state for External Affiars Shashi Tharoor and former PCB Chairman and diplomat Shaharyar Khan.

"I was included in the first Test (in 1989). On the first day we fielded and I was so tired after six hours on the field that I slept after we returned to the hotel, woke up for my dinner and again went back to sleep," Tendulkar said.

"The next day we batted and Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were charging in. The first ball I faced from Wasim was a bouncer. I expected a yorker next ball but got a bouncer again. The third ball too was a bouncer when I was again prepared for a yorker for which he was famous.

"And the fourth ball, the last of the over, too was a bouncer and I told myself, welcome to Test cricket. You plan something else and you have to do something else,"

REFERENCES

HindustantTimes News Group URL http://www.hindustantimes.com

The readers paradox

2008-08-22T00:40:00.000-07:00

This is an extract from Mr Vinod Mehta's ( Outlook India magazine: Editor in Chief ) speech on receiving the IPI Award 2007 which the magazine won for its Navy War Room leak and Scorpene stories.

He says "I will just provide three examples of the confusion in readers minds regarding
their expectations from the media.

1. Research shows unambiguously that most readers desire to read more international news. Yet, the international pages of a paper are the least read. International news may be good for the soul but it does nothing for circulation.

2. Readers insist that the price of their morning paper does not matter. It is such a vital part of their life that they would happily pay the extra rupee for it. Yet, as Mr Rupert Murdoch and Mr Samir Jain have demonstrated, print publications are extremely price sensitive. You can bleed the opposition by cover price cuts. The phrase "invitation price" terrifies rival publishers.

3. Readers will tell you that they want a single-section, compact morning paper. They don’t want sections and supplements dropping out. Yet the opposite is true. Papers with multi-sections prosper, others suffer."

He adds "We must lead readers, not be led by them. Really great journalism must do more than merely give people what they want. There has to be room for the unexpected, for stories the public has no idea it wants until it sees them. The reader is a paradox. He frequently complains about negative news being constantly reported. But for all his clamouring for positive news, surveys show that people are more interested in negative news, sensational news, news about crime, violence and corruption. The reader, ladies and gentlemen, is not king; actually he is a nice hypocrite. "

This remind me of another speech on international news. It talks about a survey being done about headlines and newspaper stories. Speaker is Alissa Miller speaking at TED convention at Monterey California. She says local news is given coverage because its cheap. So we hardly get any international news in magazines, TV and newspapers.

REFERENCES

Outlook India Magazine "What the reader wants"
url: http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071219&fname=vinod+mehta&sid=1&pn=1
last accessed: 22 August 2008

TEDtalks video url:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ly7Btx0Stg

last accessed: 23 August 2008

Convict Creation

2008-07-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Came across an interesting website. The website doesnt have a list of authors and doesn't give any reference to its inputs but it sure makes an interesting read. The website is about Australian Culture. Here are the opening lines from the website "convict creations'

Welcome to Australia! This is a peculiar country where the principles of culture appear to have been turned upside down. Australians seem blissfully unaware of the achievements of their intellectuals.... yet they will celebrate long dead horses, yobbo sportsmen, and bushrangers. They often forget the words of their national anthem..... yet it would be wrong to say they are not patriotic as a song about a suicidal sheep thief seems to instil them with a great deal of pride! If they like you, they will not give you compliments. Instead, they might call you names like bastard, drongo or dickhead, and then laugh at all the silly things you have done. If you have red hair, you might be called 'Bluey.' If you are tall, you might be called 'Shorty.' If you are quiet, you might be called 'Rowdy.'

Notes on Reductionism: Why we must embrace holism?

2008-06-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Reductionism has always been the problem solving technique in sciences and associated disciplines. In reality solving a problem by reduction means transforming the problem into simpler problems and constructing or deducing solution of the original problem from the solution of the new problem. For example a student is given a problem to calculate the sum of all numbers between 1 and 101 which are not divisible by 3. Working a direct solution for this will be tedious so it is solved reductively. The required sum is the difference between sum of all numbers between 3 and 99 which are divisible by 3. Both sums can be calculated as arithmetic series. Thus the original problem is subdivided into sub problems of calculating arithmetic series which is actually nothing but reductionism (Armoni, Gal-Ezer & Tirosh 2005, p. 114). On the hand the term systems approach derives its base from holism or holistic thinking. The term holism was coined by South African philosopher Jaan Christiaan Smuts. He argued (Anderson, H 2001, p. 155) that “a unity of the parts could be so close and intense as to be more than the sum of its parts.” Smut explains the philosophy behind holism and systems thinking. Systems thinking usually deals with complex systems. Now a complex system unlike a conventional single feedback system comprises of numerous subsystems and the overall behavior of the system relies on the interaction of these systems. So the system output is not as simplistic and is not merely a sum total of the constituent entities.

Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam President of the New England Complex Systems Institute (Bar Yam, Y 2000) defines reductionism as “an approach to building description of systems out of the description of the subsystems that a system is composed of and ignoring the relationships between them.” That means any reduction thinking is bound to overlook certain aspects of engineering system. Systems approach on the other hand is the tendency to look at an object as a whole. During the mid 19th century the British philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that the properties of molecule could not be derived from the properties of the constituent elements. He (Anderson, H 2001, p. 153) postulates “…. the chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well known, a third substance with properties different from those of either of the two substances separately or of both of them taken together. Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable in those of their compound, water.” Stuart Mill speaks of what later came to be known as emergence.

In systems thinking the problem is analyzed by its face value. That is if there is patient suffering from difficulty in breathing then instead of checking his/her respiratory organs we check for his ability to inhale and exhale. In this way all the causative agents will be taken into account. Reductionist might advance into inspecting internal organs while the problem might lie in some allergic substance in the environment or it can be a common case of influenza. Therefore the system approach has a broad spectrum which might help anticipate emergent behavior or at least take every precaution against any undesired emerging behavior.

One of the most peculiar attribute of scientific reductionism is the way in which it proceeds to diagnose a problem. A reductionist would go about gathering data using a response or feedback from source. So in scientific reduction a stimuli-response is used for data collection in research. A similar set of rules are applied to every source to extract a response which reduces the time to extract data if the number of observations are large. The problem with reductionist approach (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 391) is that there is a tendency to “prestructure”. That means for every problem a system encounters a standardized and structured methodology is adopted. On the other hand a systems approach would be to look at collective characteristics. System thinker would look at culture, team spirit, and ethics especially in behavioral sciences. Similarly in engineering problem a systems thinker will look for aggregated characteristics like engine throughput, intake, output power rather than efficiency, input voltage and engine-shaft torque. The guiding force behind system thinking is holism. In contrast, reductionism is a pursuit to identify sub problems to the central problem and finding solutions to these sub problems.

A systems approach encourages inferences from previously encountered problems. A systems approach is to draw parallels between problem and the reductionist has the proclivity to proceed serially (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 392). The iterative-parallel way has an inverse relation between the research and the theory (Creswell, J 1994) . Systems approach complement, adds and challenges the existing theory. On the other hand scientific reductionism forms a basis for formulating the research. However in a systems approach the iterative and parallel thinking gives rise to theory and in turn gives rise to generation and analysis of new research material.

There are several reasons why reductionism has been successful in science and engineering. Quantification and quest for precision is one reason (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 399). Since all the physical forces are quantified engineers require measurable parameters and want that the underlying entities add to a sum total. The insistence quantification is the belief of objectivity of figures and it is a common refrain “figures can’t be wrong”. A lot of trust is attached to raw data, facts and figures. For instance, ( Verschuren, P 2001, p. 400 )consider a researcher formulating a hypothesis that there are two groups the members within group 1 interact significantly more than those of group 2. Every day interactions are observed for each group and the number of interaction per day are recorded. This is done repeated and data is recorded for a period. Now a collected data of these interactions among individuals will be more convincing than an overall impression of a researcher who would observe the whole group entities such as trust, friendship and compatibility.

In spite of such widespread success of scientific reductionism systems approach is now being preferred in sciences and in solving practical problems as well (Ackoff, 1974; Esterby-Smith et al., 1991) because the modern problems are more complex and dynamic for any reduction to be possible. Dividing and giving each quantity a unit and variable might not be feasible. It can be tedious, expensive and might not give a clear picture. The wisdom of scientific reduction might not be true. A good example is the performance of a football team. There are teams consisting of excellent athletes and players having high number of championship goals yet they are ranked low because they lose crucial matches. In general the quantity of goals individual footballer has scored is not a definitive indicator of the character of the team.

Reductionism at times can give a reduced picture of a problem and would rather ignore any emergent property. Another example, between physical between physical and social reality is the aesthetic quality of an object (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 401). For instance, a single object all by itself may not be of any aesthetic value. But the combination of objects may constitute an exceptional aesthetic appeal. This phenomenon is too abstract to define and scientific reductionism has no answer to it.

Scientific reductionism suffers from observational bias and the observation is tunneled in a sense that an object is perceived to be isolated from its physical and social surroundings. The problem can be looked upon after being isolated from the whole which it belongs. Focusing on rudimentary parts of the object/problem in reductionism one can forget its functionality, interconnectedness and context dependency (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 401).

A system approach utilizes analogous thinking and inductive reasoning (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 397). Analogous thinking is based on perception of similarity and inductive reasoning deals with reasoning that moves away from specificity to generality. Given below is a table that compares reductionist versus systems approach. The difference in perception is given with respect to object, observation and strategy (Verschuren, P 2001, p. 398).

The development in science and technology after the industrial revolution has been fast and unrestrained. The research domains have expanded and the mechanism of breaking down the problem via scientific reduction has become redundant. To counter the modern problems certain existing theories and beliefs must be changed (Wulun, J 2007,p. 395).

All things cannot be decomposed or reduced to its elements and elements cannot be replaced always.

All the elements never always add up to the original entire body. The whole is not always equivalent but larger or smaller than the sum of its part.

The whole can not always be understood by being dividing it into or reducing it into its parts and understanding those parts (Wulun, J 2007,p. 397).

In my view it is not constructive to discuss what is better reductionism or systems approach. It is concerned with the nature of the problem, interests and priorities of the stakeholder. Newtonian sciences have led to the development of ‘constitutive theory’ (Wulun, J 2007, p. 399). According to constitutive pattern of thinking, development and change are caused by division and combination of unchangeable constitutive elements, which are made of even smaller elements. The current sciences base themselves heavily on Newtonian physics and its philosophy. Albert Einstein contribution to the quantum physics gave the sciences a new breath of life. Biology, behavioral science and especially systems sciences realized that the natural world and human society are inseparable, interacted whole. To understand the whole system thinking is required.

REFERENCES

Ackoff, R. L 1974, ‘Redesigning the Future; a Systems Approach to Societal Problems, New York, London, Sydney, Toronto; john Wiley and Sons

Andersen, H 2001, ‘The history of reductionism versus holistic approaches to scientific research’, Endeavour, vol. 25(4), pp. 153-156

Armoni, M, Gal-Ezer, J & Tirosh, D 2005, ‘Solving Problems Reductively’, J. Educational Computing Research, vol. 32(2), pp. 113-129.

Bar Yam, Y 2000, Reductionism, Concepts in Complex Systems, viewed 6 May 2008,
<>.

Creswell, J. W 1994, Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.

Verschuren, P 2001, ‘Holism versus Reductionism in Modern Social Science Research’, Quality and Quantity, vol35, pp. 389-405.

Wulun, J 2007, ‘Understanding Complexity, Challenging Traditional Ways of Thinking’, Systems Research and Behavioral Sciences, Sys. Res 24, pp. 393-402.

Sporting Down Under

2008-01-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

Last month was wasted watching movies, sleeping late and partly due to daily drudgery I was exposed too. The first month of this calendar year was celebrated at friend’s place and goofing around the city streets. One of the highlights of my exile down-under was a chance to meet the Indian cricket team for Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This will be the last Australian tour for Sachin, Kumble, Dravid and Dada. The test matches will see huge attendance of Indian immigrants. Everyone will go to see even if someone abjures test cricket. Only thing I hate about test cricket is slow over rate, Dravid’s batting and standing in the sun.

Being a cricket-summer tickets were booked/bought well in advance. I wish this enthusiasm could extend to things beyond frivolities like cricket. The first test was scheduled for 24January and the practice session were held at the oval nets on 22-23th. Practice session gives plenty of photo opportunity. The Indian cricketers in Australia are roaming feral animals with largely no security from the mob. People clamoured to get snaps of their favourite cricketer which also meant a lot of updated Orkut albums over the weekend.

The touring teams itenary was limited to hotels, selected restraunts and pubs. There was no fan fare surrounding the Australian cricket team. Andrew Symonds-homo-erectus was spotted alone on Hindley Street in the city by our dear friend. The specie was sporting a chilled look fashionable Ts , shorts and rubber thongs. How bourgeois, care-free and no one to bother even on the city streets. But around the nets in Oval there were over a hundred crazed Indian fans dying to get a snap with Tendlya, Dada or Kumble-Pathan. This behavior could have been a puzzling glimpse for the local aussie. That is normal for the Australian cricket team because this form of sport has limited following in the country. Indians are raving mad about cricket. Cricket
enjoy high priority in media coverage and the Board of Cricket Council India is a wealthy body.

Australians embraces all sports even kayaking is at par with cricket. Women’ s hockey final can has higher viewership than friday night movie. Adelaide hosts sporting events like the Clipsal V8 racing, Melbourne Cup Horse race and the Cycling tour Down under. Cycling is huge in Australia which I find very strange. Men in tights speeding on rail-thin steel pipes never got my adrenaline going. Perhaps that’s makes me another ignorant Indian. Ignorant about sports, another pot-bellied brown folk, another bureaucrat whose notion of sport and recreation lies largely in realms of bat & ball.

We have this inability to become a ‘sports-conscious nation’ even after 60 years of independence. And India missed the chance in 1982 Asian Games and, with no vision, India is set to repeat the mistake in 2010 in my backyard when Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games.

And yes I have always been a part of the dejected billion-plus-Indians-and-yet-no-Olympic-gold-medal crib brigade. I am living down under all these convincing figures make me envy the aussie sporting success. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Australia won 27 medals and in 1996 in Atlanta it was 41. In 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, Australia had another outstanding year in international sport, winning 25 individual world championships and 15 world team championships, with most of these victories not even in the Olympic sports. In 2000 Olympics were held in Sydney and there Aussies bagged 58 medals with 16 gold which is good for a country with miniscule population. Australians have healthy-wholesome succesful image of their country.

For the sake of being appropriate

2008-01-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

It took three years to admit the failure of a jingoistic campaign with the worst slogan ever.

SHIMLA: The BJP on Monday admitted that its "India Shining" slogan used in the run up to 2004 Lok Sabha elections was a "mistake". "India Shining slogan was a mistake. The better slogan would have been India Rising", Advani, who was Deputy Prime Minister during NDA rule when the slogan was coined, told reporters here. The BJP and the NDA government led by the party had undertaken an aggressive "India Shining" campaign before the last Lok Sabha polls before being voted out of power.

REFERENCE

1. Times of India [Online] 17 Dec2007

URL:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_Shining_slogan_was_a_mistake_Advani/articleshow/2629479

फेहरिस्त

2007-11-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

I have written the lyrics of the song "Wishlist" by Pearl Jam in Hindi.

फेहरिस्त

ऐ काश मैं बारूद होता, पल के लिए फट जाता
ऐ काश मैं बिछड़ा होता, शायाद अपनाया जाता
ऐ काश मैं गहना होता जो संभाला जाता
वह च्रिस्त्मस का पेड़, मैं उसका तारा होता जो उसपर चदता
ऐ काश मैं सबूत, और उसका आधार
वह पचास लाख उठते हाथ और मैं उनका आकाश

ऐ काश मैं कश्ती होता जिसका कोई किनारा होता
ऐ काश मैं अपने भविष्य की किस्मत होता
ऐ काश मैं एक ख़त, और सभी शुभ संदेश आते
ऐ काश मैं चाँद, और नेहार पर चमकती रौशनी

ऐ काश मैं पाताल का वासी और सूरज के पीछे रहता
ऐ काश मैं वह सौगात, घर में संजोयी जाती
ऐ काश मैं वह रास्ता होता जिसका कोई राही बनता
ऐ काश मैं भरोसा होता जो कभी नही टूटता

ऐ काश मैं संगीत और सब लोग मुझे सुन सकते
ऐ काश , ऐ काश , ऐ काश

Eastern Eyes: R.I.P Alyosha

2007-10-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

Its way past midnight, I knew it was Alyosha. Voice on the phone " Arrey! Mayank chemistry mein kitna Chapter kiya tune?". I reply " Nearly finished dude". Alyosha says " waat lagi hai! Organic rehta hai".

Alyosha and I were classmates at Modern School Barakhamba, New Delhi. That was most embarrasing time of my life because I was struggling with my grades. Alyosha was in the upper crest of mediocre students of our class. Alyosha never complained about grades. But he was concerned that he was a slacker like me. We had same taste in music and movies. We cheered the same premiership team and our abhorration for studies was same . He was identified with a crew cut, slanted eyes, big smile and black Nike sneakers ( which were usually purchased from Palika Bazaar at mind boggling low price ). Alyosha knew all the the treasured bargain shops in and around Canaught Place. And he was the encyclopedia for everything you don't find in books and the irreverent. His school mates Neelabh, Ankur, Luv, Dinkar and dozen others still remember him and remember all the fun we had together.

As students we had the same dilemmas in life. Will Sachin hit a cetury? Will U2 release his next album? Is the Wife, the Cook , the thief... the next avante garde in cinema? and yes, What after class XII?. I realised he wasn't that lost. He finally made it to NLS. He went to B'lore and our communication was not regular. I left shores for Masters and spoke to him couple of times on the internet. Due to my busy schedule and due to my proffesional commitments I couldn't get the news of his murder. I got to know from the internet yesterday when I was doing couple random searches on blogs. I wish I was in India and perhaps I could have met him on my next trip to India. I extend my heart felt condolences to his parents.

How to identify a desi in the first world: cynic and stereotype

2007-10-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

1. The one who can get a cab on a Saturday night by virtue of his friend circle.

2. The one who replies "No worries mate" when asked " What's your name?"

3. One who says "Thank You please, come again".

4. The one who is always asked to get his bags checked at the counter of a superstore.

5. The one who cheers for Indian cricket team without spilling his drink.

6. The one buys stuff placed for clearance at the superstore.

7. One who's particularly busy on Friday and Saturday nights.

8. The one who exclaims in the class " Sir, whats the cut off pass for the final exam?"

9. One who blissfully consoles himself with cheap wine on Saturday night.

10. One who ventures on the beach wearing sneakers.

11. One who's thinks that BBQ sausage is made out of potato.

12. The one who thinks "deli" is a non vegetarian product.

13. One who has a subject called BFS every semester.

14. One who pledges to get a haircut before exams.

15. The one who is a devout vegetarian on Tuesday.

16. One who feels plagiarism is a fundamental right.

PS: BFS is bad financial standing a status offered for non payment of tuition fee.

Elvis has left Orkut

2007-06-16T01:15:00.000-07:00

People who know me, people who I know and the people who have no option but to acknowledge my presence will be wondering about my sudden disappearance from the ghastly social forum called Orkut. Ghastly because of its dull template and stupid posting methodology. Now Orkut is probably the worst forum for offline interaction but unarguably the most popular. People find it hard to admit that they are there on Orkut only because their friends are there and it serves no purpose..... I scratch your back you scratch mine…Oops scrap!.

Plausible reasons which compelled me to step from India’s most coveted/visited website/forum.

1. I don’t have time Seriously people I have a life. I have a daytime job of a fully enrolled student of “Microsystems” if this word doesn’t scare you then my course definitely will. Secondly I am away from home and I have to maintain my own culinary routine (…yeah the chores). All this takes time. All this when I don’t even have a part time job.

2. Orkut lacks the exclusivity it once had Back in my college days in India I had only 15 friends in my friends list. So Orkut was an effective mode of communication. Now I have over a 120-220 friends ( don’t remember the exact number ). Now imagine a communication channel of a given bandwidth designed for sustaining certain number of users for effective noise-free open communication and it suddenly gets invaded by twice the number of users. What happens is a reasonable drop in quality, shorter bandwidth of clear signal and noise. (I apologise for the analogy.. its professional jargon my readers).

3. People who matter left Orkut People who introduced me to Orkut left Orkut and all my friends in India have a full time job. Moreover those who are really interested in my well being won’t mind giving me a call. Only a guy who doesn’t really want to waste a phone-call will scrap me “hey dude, wassup !” …wassup my foot up yours. You couldn’t give me a call you cheapster.

4. Everybody yes everybody is on it Brasilians are wasters (.. I hate the communist pseudo socialist South Americans.) but what saddens me is that half of my progressive nation of Indians is hopping on to Orkut. So dudes and dudettes of my beloved country rise and wake-up in the 21st century and take up hobbies of genuine concern. You have a full time job excel at it, you are student.. you fool study or you’ll end up swotting like the author and if you are jobless then get a life dude.. seriously!.

5. I have more avenues for wasting time I think that studying for more than 3 hours a day is a hazard. My friends have ended up in reputed institutes of higher learning while studying for just 3-4hrs a day. So inspite of people who genuinely consider studying 8hr a day is a good thing are in disbelief and I reckon they haven’t studied that well in their lifetime. So I have blogging, reading and writing as my hobbies for killing time. Since books are expensive here down under so most of the time I am reading from the internet. And of late I have been getting very tough assignments from my teachers at the University so that requires a lot of time and leg work.

6. The whole idea is technologically backward and lame I feel the idea of scrapping itself is pretty stupid why would anyone scrap someone when it’s visible to anyone who uses Orkut. No pet peeves here I have nothing against this openness but why can’t we just give someone an offline message on Yahoo/MSN or an SMS. Scrapping is about exhibitionism you scrap someone something to get reaction from a third party who is reading the scrapbook .Duh!…how stupid but see that’s the Indian psyche isn’t it.

7. The communities of Orkut My blog post will be incomplete without mentioning the hallowed communities of Orkut. The author himself was a member of 50 communities half of which sent regular spam in my inbox …”Earn 5000$p.m working from home” I know for sure the guy who sent this or forwarded it hasn’t seen 5000dollars in his life. Because he would have known that kind of money you can’t earn sitting at home unless of course you are Don Corleone from the Godfather. (..absolute respect there).

The Hate Communities which are totally an Indian/Pakistani phenomenon. There is so much hate in sub-continent heres a sample

hate India
hate those who hate india
hate pakistan
hate those who hate pakistan
hate musharraf
hate manmohan
hate rahul dravid
hate those who hate rahul dravid
hate hatred
hate sachin tendulkar
hate those who hate sachin
hate those who like sachin
hate vp singh
hate saurav ganguly
hate those who hate saurav ganguly
hate dhoni
hate dhoni's hair
hate those who hate dhoni
hate ekta kapoor
hate modi
hate himesh reshammaiya
hate greg chappell
hate aishwarya rai
hate cricket
hate sania mirza
hate caste
hate amitabh bachchan
hate aamir khan
hate those who hate aamir khan

8. Another thought about orkut addicts is here below. Its from Jabberwock the hugely popular Indian blogger…. Replying to one of the reader of his blog he writes in the comments section..

“I get the impression that many scrapbook addicts are like personal bloggers, except that they don't have the writer's drive that would produce 800-word posts. So they deal in a couple of sentences at a time, but still get a sense of power/self-affirmation. In the current era of self-publishing, where everyone has the opportunity to be a "writer" (that is, have something in the public domain with your name attached to it), perhaps scrapbooking is the lowest form of the trend.”

REFERENCES

Jai Arjun Singh, Jabberwock:"Orkut, the killer wall"

Source url: http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/

Intel Teraflop research

2007-06-15T09:04:00.001-07:00

How to solve problem

2007-05-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

( Polya 1957 cited in Alfeld 1996 )

I am studying “VLSI design G” at University Of South Australia. Its a course offered to engineeering graduates / postgraduates and its course co-ordinator Dr Mahfuz Aziz organised a workshop on “Project Based Learning”. Our course is designed keeping in mind the design aspects of electronic devices like transistor and CMOS. The course is designed in such a way that the theoretical knowledge gained in class is complemented by the Practical work in Laboratory. We are more concerned about the design aspect of CMOS and CMOS based circuits (sequential as well as combinational) than the actual physics behind its operation.

According to our course co-ordinator the main problem faced by electronics design students today is their inability of learn independently. And in the present context when technology is changing rapidly and electronic design getting obsolete with every passing year the ability to learn independently and quickly is important for every design engineer. You can be faced with with a new problem on a completely different platform for a sophisticated processor architecture. As a working professional probability of that happening is very high because whatever we are being taught in university now is a rehashed version of CMOS technology used 7 to 8 years ago. Add 2 years of your postgraduate study and 2 years of technical experience. By the time we’ll reach pinnacle of our professional career what we have in our head will be a historical knowledge of tehniques prevalent 12 years ago. We’ll be historical masterpieces. This is inevitable and true. And is scary!

The solution is adaptation, flexible thinking, independent learning...etc..etc qualities that are needed in order to be up-to-date with the current times and being ready to face problems. George Polya the Mathematician (...philosopher) would have called it the “GENERIC SKILLS”.

The excerpt below is a set of guidlines for solving problems in Mathematics. These steps or directions have been applied in many other disciplines from Physics to Nursing. I got this from the Learning Advisor at our uni Andrea Duff.

1.Understanding the problem
a) You have to understand the problem
b) What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition?
c) Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condition sufficient to determine the

unknown ? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?
d) Draw a figure Introduce suitable notation.
e) Separate the various parts of the condition. Can you write them down?

2. Devising a plan
a) Find the connection between the data and the unknown. You may be obliged to consider

auxillary problem.
b) Have you seen it before? Or was it the same problem with a different form?
c) Do you know a related problem?
d) Look at the unknown!
e) Heres a problem related to yours and solved before. Could you use it?
f) Could you restate the problem?
g) If you cannot solve the problem try to solve a related problem.
h) Did you use all the data? Did you use the whole condition? Have you taken into account all

essential notions involved in the problem?

3. Carrying out the plan
a) Carry out your plan
b) Carrying out your plan of solution, check at each step. Can you prove its correctness?

4. Looking back
a) Examine the solution obtained
b) Can you check the result ? Can you check the argument?
c) Can you derive the solution differrntly? Can you see it at a glance?
d) Can you use the result , or method , for some other problem?

What Polya gives is the itemised display of what goes in neurons of brain cells in a couple of nano seconds after we encountering a problem. The way we approach it might be in totally different order. George Polya at his philosophical best solved problems in Physics, Math and Nursing. But what about my MEMs assignment due next week, Can i get a room in the city next semester? And what about the VLSI Project 6? Will these guidlines help, lets see.....

REFERENCES

Alfeld, P 1996, G Polya, How to solve it, University of Utah, viewed 16March 2006,

Polya, G 1957, How to solve it, 2nd Edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton

A-DELAYED

2007-03-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

It has been a month in Adelaide and it seems like a decade. It has been a month away from dust-grime and hustle-bustle of Delhi. I grew accostomed to a care-free life and shifting to Adelaide was a shift from my non-challant life. Its been a month away from home-cooked food, KFC, choicest street obscenities, Metro Rail and DTC buses.

Interesting observations about Adelaide

There are far less Indians in Adelaide than I expected. The Indians who I meet on streets are often students of University Of South Australia and the rest are Sri Lankans with whom I invariably start speaking in Hindi.

Australians are very warm and helpful people. This might come as a shock to many people back home who think Australians are uncouth and brash. The average Aussie is very courteous, helpful and street smart. The bus drivers give time to every passeneger who struggles with his ticket. The elderly have special seating in buses and driver starts moving the bus only when he has made sure the aged person has taken his seat. And people with physical disability have a ramp pulled down for them at every stop in the city. Aussie constitute the majority of happy-shining population of the world. Every where you go you are greeted with big smiles which is quite a change from the sulking atmosphere of Delhi. During one of my house hunt trips I asked an elderly gentleman for direction. He was deaf and was very old. He gave me direction to the place and to make it doubly sure he called his wife from neighbouring hairdresser who pulled out a map just to make sure that we’re not lost on our way back.

Australians eat big, think big and stay big. An average Australian eats more meat than an averge non-vegetarian savouring Punjabi family (...it might be a conservative estimate). No wonder the average Australian is well built and those who do not exercise end up being huge. Being an Indian in the city you can feel dwarfed. And if you are in a Bachelor's program say in University of Adelaide you’ll have more reasons to feel vertically challenged.(... there are very few Indians in UniAD).

Adeladean’s are homely people or just plain sleepy. City closes at 5pm. Banks start winding up at 4:30pm and people start qeueing the bus stands at 5:30pm. Only pubs, some exclusive super stores and restraunts open at night. This might be attributed to the familial nature of denizens and also because of an aeging population. Some of my friends from Mumbai got a bit depressed because they are living in suburbs and there is no one on the streets. Isolation can be tough for people who have lived all their lives in claustrophobic lanes of an Indian metro which is in perpetual state of insomnia.

Some of my generalisations and my self-styled stereotypes

1. If you meet a Chinese in Adelaide speaking fluent English then believe me he is a Korean.

2. You’ll meet all your Indian friends at the free Uni barbecue irrespective of its timing some might come even in pouring rain.

3. You must start speaking Gujrati if you have enrolled in an Engineering course at UniSA at the Masters level.

4. If you think you might be able to pay for your tuition fees working part-time you must be dreaming.

5. If you think an Aussie is laid-back you are wrong he is "lazy".

If you think you heard someone say “No Worries Mate” you are right you are in Adelaide.

The Kooks are out in the streets… oh we are gonna steal your skies

2007-01-27T00:32:00.000-08:00

If you like Artic Monkeys and Razorlight then u’ll probably love The Kooks. They draw inspiration of their eponymous name from David Bowie’s song “Kooks” and it has got nothing to do with the word “crooks”. I have just heard their debut album InsideIn/InsideOut and I must say “its pretty neat”. The brief and mellow intro of ‘Seaside’, the album really kicks in to grab the listener by the ears, with each song better than the previous. ‘Sofa Song’ is a strumming, singalong bounce, but ‘Eddie's Gun’ is a rough-around-the-edges jangly rocker, and ‘Ooh La’ is a mellow and melodic stroll chick magnet stuff, all building up to the downright funky tracks like ‘Matchbox’ and ‘Naïve’. And so it continues, through 14 songs, propelled by Pritchard's hiccupping vocal delivery and Hugh Harris's rather excellent guitar playing.

The Kooks had a lot of hype prior to the release of Inside In,Inside Out, rather impressively, they've more than managed to live up to it. And I noticed the song ‘Matchbox’ has a calypso feel to it which is strange for a British band but its best in the album. And ‘Jackie Big tits’…oh sorry ‘Jaaakie big tits’ is a naughty song with naughtier lyrics. Overall The Kooks seem to have got the potential for producing really catchy guitar-pop nuggets plus they’ve got a young Brighton vocalist who can make girls wild.

Infy delights the netizens

2007-01-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

I was wondering about the sudden decline in forwarded junk mails in my inbox. I have found the reason behind this - “Infosys books profit”. India's number-two software exporter, Infosys Technologies Ltd, posted on Tuesday a better-than-expected 36 per cent rise in quarterly net profit and raised its full-year earnings forecast as western clients ramp up technology outsourcing. Infy’s cubicle is where half of the internets forwarded mail conceptualized, nurtured and distributed. Now Infy is doing well which means dorks at Infy are busy slogging/feeding codes and therefore no email forwards. Similarly, if Infy doesn't have that much work, email forwards will increase.

Similar sentiments at :Vantage Point

The land is Ours

2006-12-08T04:33:00.000-08:00

State V/s People : Singur

Brothers and sisters of the soul unite

We are one indivisible and strong

They may try to break us but they dare not under estimate us

They know our memories are long

A mass of sleeping villages

That's how they're pitching it

At least that's what they try to pretend

But check out our history

So rich and revolutionary

A prophecy that we will rise again

Again and again until the land is ours

Again and again until we have taken the power

Again and again until the land is ours

Again and again until we have taken the power

Deep in the forest

High up in the mountains

To the future we will take an oath

Like springing tigers we encircle the cities

Our home is the undergrowth

Because I am just a naxalite warrior

Fighting for survival and equality

Police man beating up me, my brother and my father

My mother crying can't believe this reality

Again and again until the land is ours

Again and again until we have taken the power

Again and again until the land is ours

Again and again until we have taken the power

Jump into the future dub zone

Roots rockers

And we have taken the power

And the land is ours

And we have taken the power

And the land is ours

And we have taken the power

And the land is ours

And we have taken the power

And the land is ours

Because I am just a naxalite warrior

Fighting for survival and equality

Police man beating up me, my brother and my father

My mother crying can't believe this reality

Iron like a Lion from Zion

This one going all the youth, man and woman

Orginal Master D upon the microphone stand

Cater for no skeptical man- me no give a damn

'Cos me a naxalite warrior

Song by: ADF album "Rafi's Revenge"

Few cribs and a good book

2006-11-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

Studying in an engineering college has numerous disadvantages. Firstly there is no respite from assingments, exams and frequent sessional tests. Secondly the overall intellectual atmosphere in college is deplorable. Creativity which one holds in his soul is leached out over a period of four years through tutorials, practicals and other forms of rote learning. Thirdly you get dumbed down and you crib about this all your life. To break out from the tedium of coursework I resorted to blogging, photography (...ok snapping) and reading.

And I am about to write about a fine author whose books I have followed these years. He is one of my favourite writer and he has come out with his new book “The Last Mughal: fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857”. Its about the 1857 mutiny and the subsequent fall of the last mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar. Those who have read “The Age of Kali” and “City of Djinns” would know the kind of scholarly work William Dalrymple authors. Mr Dalrymple has pretty good insight into things and matters regarding our history. He writes without bigotry which is rare for a Scotsman. But that is what makes him an excellent historian. Mr Dalrymple shared his opinion and gave some excerpts from the book which were published in Outlook. In these lines he describes the neglect of Delhites towards historical monuments, heritage and generally everything that is old.(......... Shame on us)

“Delhi feels as if it is moving away from its Mughal past. In modern Delhi an increasingly wealthy Punjabi middle class now live in an inspirational bubble of rising shopping malls, espresso bars and multiplexes. On every side, rings of new suburbs springing up, full of call centres, software companies and fancy apartment blocks, all rapidly rising on land that only years ago was billowing winter wheat. These new neighbourhoods, most of them still half built and ringed with scaffolding, are invariably given unrealistically enticing names- Beverly Hills, Windsor Court, West End Heights- an indication, perhaps of where their owners would prefer to be, and where, in time, they may eventually migrate.

This fast emerging middle-class India is a country with its eyes firmly fixed on the coming century. Everywhere there is profound hope that the country’s rapidly rising international status will somehow compensate for a past often perceived as a long succession of invasions and defeats at the hands of foreign powers. Whatever the reason, the result is tragic neglect of Delhi’s magnificent past. Sometimes it seems as if no other great city of the world is less loved, or less cared for- as the tone of the recent Outlook cover story highlighted. Occasionally there is an outcry as the tomb of the poet Zauq is discovered to have disappeared under a municipal urinal or the haveli courtyard house of his rival Ghalib is revealed to have been turned into a coal store; but by and large the losses go unrecorded.

I find it heartbreaking; often when I revisit one of my favourite monuments it has either been overrun by some slum, unsympathatically restored by the ASI or, more usually, simply demolished. Ninety-nine per cent of the delicate havelis or Mughal courtyard houses of Old Delhi have been destroyed, and like the city walls disappeared into memory.”

P.S: The write-up is a part of the feature published in Outlook, July 2006 issue

And the Booker goes to...

2006-10-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

Dont know if it calls for celebration but Kiran Desai author of ...Indian origin has just won 2006 Man Booker Prize in Fiction. Does it mean that the desi fiction genre has been recognised? the answer is yes. And me haven't read the book won't make any difference.

But I have a worthy candidate for the 2007 Booker Prize for fiction. He weilds an generals cap and is a dog afficionado. He loves cricket, plans evil millitary ops and is best freind with Mr.Bush. The 2007 Man Booker's Prize for Fiction goes to....ahem...Mr. Pervez Musharaff for his brilliant fictional work "In the line of fire"....translates in Urdu..."Aag ki lakeer par"

We are Delhi Bloggers.. We mean business

2006-10-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

The XIV Delhi Bloggers meet was organized at IHC Delhi. The feasibility along with the necessity of having a Blogcamp/Barcamp was discussed. DBM was graced by a couple of new members- Lijo, Prashant and Roopak, the regulars- Twilight, Sanjukta and Amitken, the godfather linguist- Amit, the oldies- Harneet and Nikhil, the event monger- Rohit, the loser- Mayank and the ex blogger- Yogesh. Attendance was short maybe because people at DBM were finally planning to get somewhere.

After an inconclusive discussion a conventional wisdom prevailed that we will not be having a Blogcamp thing. We at Delhi Bloggers pride ourselves in realizing the fact that even if we have a Blogcamp.. even if it is just for the sake of having it…”it won’t be a big deal”. There’s nothing new to be discussed in Blogging…its easier than writing a mail..isn’t it. People were then suggested to write about any new ideas/concept regarding blogging that can probably attract the non-blogging janata. A list will be prepared hopefully and hopefully it will be a guiding principle for future discussions in the group. Just like the UPA’s Common Minimum Program suggestions, ideas, amendments are welcome. List will be sent via mail and considering the democratic nature of the group we might have a poll.

PS: isn’t it a strong title for a rather lame post.

Perhaps the most political song

2006-10-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

You can look a hurricane right in the eye
twelve hundred people dead
or left to die, follow the leaders
were it an eye for an eye
we'd all be blind
deaf or murdered this i'm sure
in this uncertain time

so come pull the sheet over my eyes
so I can sleep tonight
despite what I've seen today
I find you guilty of a crime
of sleeping at a time
when you should have been wide awake

Down on the road the world is floating by
The poor and undefended left behind
While you're somewhere trading lives for oil
As if the whole world were blind

so come pull the sheet over my eyes
so I can sleep tonight
despite what I've seen today
I find you guilty of a crime
of sleeping at a time
when you should have been wide awake

wide awake
wide awake!

The songs from Audioslaves new album “Revelations”….better than what Bono and his merrymen churn out from time to time.
P.S: Lyrics courtesy- songmeanings.net

New noise

2006-10-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Yes ive sucessfuly downloaded Audioslave’s new album "Revelations" along with Iron Maiden’s new album during my last weekend downloading frenzy. And in keeping with the Music Piracy “code of conduct” ive distributed it to all my friends who in turn will burn it on CD’s and pass on… the legacy.. the providence to hundred other music geeks.

Iron Maiden ..the most consistent metal peddlers…the “Bhishma Pitamah” of Brit metal have come out with ”A matter of life and death”…whereas Audioslave have their third album and its pretty good…”Moth”….”Until we fall”…great singles….title song is on EA Sports NFL2007’s Madden so check it out.

Munnabhai’s Gandhigiri

2006-10-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentleman I have not seen “Lage Raho Munnabhai “which gives me no right to comment about the new pop culture and increasingly popular refrain “Gandhigiri”. But what the heck…

My reservations about “Gandhigiri”

1. Is Gandhiri a euphemism for stupidity or is it that Gandhian values are still relevant today? Are they meant for fearless retards that aren’t afraid of being sacked, bribed, thrashed and beaten in this dog eat dog world?

2. Is “Gandhigiri” here to stay or is it just a fad?

3. Will adopting Gandhian values as a governing principle for foreign affairs makes us a weak state?

4. Was Gandhi the only one who won us our independence? What about the revolutionaries? ...Saavarkar rocks-RSS rulz…he he...joking!

5. Isn’t Gandhiri a tool meant for social change at local level or can we extrapolate its principles to tackle problems like terrorism, oil prices and fiscal deficit….ya I’m getting off track.

Well I don’t have answers for these I belong to a less enlightened community.

I leave you with this Aussie chicken fast food ad…Gandhi rocks here man.

My fav movie for wasters and dopes

2006-09-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons

"Trainspotting" courtesy:imdb.com

TheKinks

2006-08-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

When I’m not contemplating to blow ETS (GRE guys) headquarters I am listening to The Kinks (from the great 60’s era). My friend, philosopher and guide-Chaturvedi actually tipped me about this band. I don’t particularly subscribe to his eccentric music leanings but what the heck I’m jobless…got nothing to do. The group's original lineup consisted of lead singer/guitarist Ray Davies, lead guitarist Dave Davies, drummer Mick Avory and bassist Peter Quaife. While they were never as commercially successful as their mid-1960's peers, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or The Who, the band is frequently cited as one of the most important and influential acts of the 1960s….damn! I never heard of them. But now ive got their downloads and I trust my ears they are good…..Brit rock good.

The most sacred-secular guide Wikipedia says “During the Punk rock and New Wave era The Jam and The Pretenders both covered Kinks songs and Britpop acts such as Blur, Oasis and Supergrass have cited them as a major influence”. As self-professed Kinks fan Pete Townshend said for "The History of Rock 'n' Roll": "The Kinks were much more quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should one day be Poet Laureate. He invented a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for Pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning."

My favorites are “You really got me”…which starts with a really catchy riff leaning into a rebel punk refrain….”girl…you really got me going….you really got me…I don’t know what im doin”. The other song which is now played in the new IBM ad….really gives a message to stand out “I’m not like Everybody else”….i don’t wanna live my life like Everybody else…I clearly see myself signing that in flow from my college roof in drunken stupor…. yeah “ I’m not like Everybody else” hic!

Again “The Kinks” didn’t really produce all rebel or dipso songs for example “Waterloo Sunset” is a simple but emotional single with the melancholic singer observing two lovers meeting and crossing over Hungerford Bridge in London. Again showing the musical prowess of the band this song has good meaningful lyrics. The only reason because of which this band lagged behind its peer is that they failed to produce albums which had hits after hits in it. So they couldn’t sell like the fab four and never had grand tours to the U.S like them either. In simple words “they couldn’t sell it”. So I recommend TheKinks to all drunken jobless people..who can get high on a couple of good songs.

Funkadelia

2006-06-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

RHCP have come a long away from singing on stage with only their underwear on. I’ve grown up listening to this Californian quartet. With "Give it away" marking my disgusting attempts in school exams and the song "Otherside" inspiring my rebellion from the science student rigmarole. Well the album Stadium Arcadium is RedHotChilliPepper’s best effort after BloodSugarSexMagic.

Songs "Dani California" and "Hump de Bump" clearly stand out in album. "Torture Me" has a nice trumpet flourish in between a heady bass by Keadis. "Charlie" and "Warlocks" have got funkadelia written all over them. Indrajit Hazara writes in HT - "This album should put up a wet sock in the mouths of critics who have insisted RHCP can only churn out singles that sound the same"

The songs are interpretive and with very prominent guitar work by John Frusciante.Songs are fun with the quintessential pop funk rock feel RHCP is known for. A nice offering for any RHCP fan who goes for the sound and doesn’t dig deep into lyrics. It’s sad there was no band playing the ChilliPeppers in the recently concluded PubRockFest.

And the bummer: The disc-2 of the double album has got only fillers but you can always exchange that with your friend.

Few words and football woes

2006-06-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

“I have not posted for a while but I have an excellent excuse of not blogging. I wrote my final exams last month and like every other engineering student worth his sodium chloride, I started getting hang of things at the last moment. I have this feeling and million other empathize that last minute studies are actually an aid to memory. Difficult units of syllabi can be solved in hours if studied days before exam. No intricate complexities, minimum input maximum output, no technical jargon and all this makes me a half baked B.E next month. I head to find my next goal in life. Hope floats - I will post regularly from now. “

A small country like Ghana is doing so well in the World Cup. The debutants qualified from their group beating the Czech and USA. For a country which geographically speaking will be no more than one fourth of Uttar Pradesh its a giant leap. Kofi Annan, The UN Secretary General also a Ghanaian lauded the success. He attributes this to the hard work of players and the talent spotting programme being run in their football fraternity. The other country which also featured this year was Trinidad and Tobago. Pintsized T&T lies next to cricket crazy West Indies and it’s just a blip in the map. As an Indian I want India to take part in the World Cup but really how bleak is our future.

It’s a bit of a wake up call for India whose ranked 117th in the World FIFA ranking. We don’t have to look far for inspiration in order to improve. A decade ago Japan and Korea were at par with us in global soccer ranking. It’s only because of long term training and professionalism that Japan did so well and is now the Asian football powerhouse. Every time I look at the blonde haired Jap’s play I scream “hey that could’ve been an Indian player”. (Of course, minus the double somersault and the exultation).

Now historically India can’t do what these Jap’s have done that is to overhaul the domestic league, providing professional coaching and giving generous dole to grass root football. Be it any sport, India is by nature an unsporting country. Even if your parent’s allow you to play, you suffer at the hands of government’s fiefdom. This is the reason why we have Baichung Bhutia and I.M Vijayan, two footballer of notable quality from the past decade. Baichung even played for FC Bury which is not the most celebrated football club. But in the more advanced foreign clubs being and even in a mediocre place like Bury FC, something special is needed to really stand out. Nothing less than a top-notch athlete can survive an English season.

In the glorious past of Indian football that is in the 60’s and 70’s Chuni Goswami and Subhash Bhowmick had some lucrative offers from European clubs , but they could not overcome the middle class “need’ for job security and preferred playing for Air India, Mohan Bagan, Railways….etcetc. Footballers like Khalid Jamil, Renedy Singh, Bijen Singh and Gautam Ghosh could never rise above their semi-amateur status. We can sit at home feeling the buzz in Germany and similarly feeling the stark mediocrity of Indian football. So we stick to comfy sports like CRICKET.

DBM X1

2006-05-07T23:35:00.001-07:00

The DBM X1 kicked off at IHC amphitheatre on 6May Saturday…call it a stroke of genius or plain common sense that some enlightened people had decided for that venue because we had around 30 people out for this meet. The DBM was graced by the presence of Mr. Bill, Gareth and Jullian of BBC….and it so happened that I was rather oblivious about their purpose…yes, I didn’t read the mails…shit man …damn…damn Sify. But after reaching an hour late what all I could gather was some stuff on blog activism, journalism v/s blogging, credibility…and associated stuff around which the Indian blogger is accused. Mr.Bill turned out to be a real conversation provoker speaking to village blogging dehaati about stuff that’s on the blogworld ( the pic. below depicts a scene from Graam Panchayat Bill being the Sarpanch….the typical Pipal tree is missing and the view is far from pastoral).

I was all ears but those who spoke raised some valid issues like Mr Swagat said “there are no blogs on politics even when politics seems to be the only hard news in India” and someone said something about plagiarizing on blogs, there was also this opinion of developing a regulating authority on blogsphere to which Mr.Bill gave head banging refusal…..“it will evolve itself…let it grow”…”self regulation”.

Replying to the above arguments I’ll say that – “why should bloggers do political reporting wasn’t blogger a deviant specie? Why can’t we leave politics to NDTV which gives a fairly good airtime and Why can’t we write about stuff closer to our heart? Rock music…Books…the arts & literature? “ and “Are delhi bloggers mature enough to carry out self regulation?” we’ve just had people lifting stuff from blogs…their argument Ms Vishwanathan does that gets half a million bucks so why can’t we? That’s fair enough.

P.S: There won’t be any posts for a while the author has exams…. in which he will flunk anyway so OK TATA BYE BYE .

Dani California

2006-05-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Just check out RHCP’s new album “Stadium-Arcadium”. The video “Dani California” is funny as hell …its actually a spoof on all the rock bands particularly their dressing style…..red hot chilli pepper’s music is again super….60s psychedelic, glam, funk, punk, goth, metal, grunge everything is gone in the video (spoofed I mean). The songs ends in a brilliant guitar solo by John Frusciante which I think is....the most gifted guitar player among the modern rock artists. The song is still in my head……

"Gettin' born in the state of Mississippi
Poppa was a copper and her momma was a hippie
In Alabama she was swinging hammer
Price you gotta pay when you break the panorama
She never knew that there was anything more than poor
What in the world does your company take me for?

Black bandana, sweet Louisiana
Robbin' on a bank in the state of Indiana
She's a runner, rebel and a stunner
Condemed everywhere saying baby what you gonna
Lookin' down the barrel of a hot metal .45
Just another way to survive

Chorus:
California rest in peace
Simultaneous release
California show your teeth
She's my priestess, I'm your priest
Yeah, yeah!

She's a lover, baby and a fighter
Should've seen her coming when it got a little brighter
With a name like Dani California
Day was gonna come when I was gonna mourn ya
A little loaded she was stealing another breath
I love my baby to death

California rest in peace
Simultaneous release
California show your teeth
She's my priestess, I'm your priest
Yeah, yeah

Who knew the hardest side of you
Who knew what others tried to prove
Too true to say goodbye to you
Too true, too sad sad sad

First to fade her, gifted animator
One for the now and eleven for the later
Never made it, Up to Minnessota
North Dakota man was a gunnin' for the quota
Down in the badlands she was saving the best for last
it only hurts when I laugh
Gone too fast

California rest in peace
Simultaneous release
California show your teeth
She's my priestess, I'm your priest
Yeah, yeah

California rest in peace
Simultaneous release
California show your teeth
She's my priestess, I'm your priest
Yeah, yeah …….

One of my few music idols

2006-03-25T03:07:00.000-08:00

There are few things on which I can blabber my critique, music is one such thing. I‘ve heard a lot of east meets west kind of music but after the heydays of Talvin Singh a time came when it was like have-tabla-will-play-fusion. Dismal attempts by many artists left a huge void in this genre which was filled by this artist of unique ability and even keener music sense.

Nitin Sawhney is one of Britain's most original and gifted music creators - over the last decade he has carved out a singular niche in British culture melding the musical barriers between East and West, between classicism and popularity, interspersing music from around the world to club-land-culture. His 4th album, Beyond Skin (released in 2000) was short-listed as one of the albums of the year for the Mercury Music Prize and it also won the prestigious South Bank Show Award. Its successor, 2001's Prophesy - recorded in five continents and featuring over 230 musicians - won Nitin further honours including a MOBO, an EMMA & a BBC Radio 3 Award. Nitin Sawhney’s latest album – Philtre – was released by V2 in 2005. Besides his own albums, Nitin Sawhney is massively in demand to score for film and television - film scores include Pure (directed by Gilles Mackinnon) & Anita and Me (directed by Metin Husseyin). For TV, his credits include Channel 4's Bodily Harm (starring George Cole & Timothy Spall), a new adaptation of Twelfth Night and Neil Biswas' drama Second Generation, both of which aired in 2003. In addition, Kaash - his collaboration with dancer Akram Khan (a fellow South Bank Show Award nominee) and sculptor Anish Kapoor - world-premiered at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and has toured as far afield as China. His BBC Proms commissions have been received to great acclaim and among his recent album production credits is Varekai for Cirque du Soleil (their latest global touring show). Having completed Lila Says, for Passion Pictures, Nitin will soon start work on Mira Nair’s new feature film, The Namesake. And I happen to have the cassette of the album Human ( yes, a tape not downloaded mp.3) which I found absolutely brilliant right from the opening track “River”,”Chetan Jeevan” to “Heer” and the delirious “Falling Angel”

And if by any chance you have seen Dev Benegal’s …Rahul Bose starrer “Split Wide Open” the background tracks were courtesy Nitin Sawhney. I first saw the movie for totally different reasons which I will reveal later.

PS: The biopic of the artist is available on net and this post has the excerpts.

Management lessons that “Lagaan” has to offer

2006-03-06T09:16:00.001-08:00

One of my friends prompted me to write this and i'd rather give a word of caution for readers: see this is highly inspired stuff don't blame me if you have seen it somewhere else.

India has over the centuries used various forms of Art including literature, music and dance to spread messages for everyday living. The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Panchatantra, the Hitupadesa are a few standing examples. For a country so used to Art, it is no surprise that films and more recently Television soaps have become an integral part of our lives and have shaped public opinion and views on many subjects. Their power to influence and impact is beyond doubt. We are however unfamiliar with the idea of an Indian movie seeming to teach us lessons in Management! Even if many of them did, people have seldom looked at it that way. Trainers and Management Consultants around the world have however been using movies extensively for Management & Leadership lessons. Few films like - Hoosiers, The Wizard of Oz, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Moby Dick to teach a dozen management lessons.

The idea is simple:

1.Movies are easily accessible, unlike training films
2.They combine entertainment with learning
3.Their linkage with everyday living makes the bridging easy
4.Their quality of production makes them significantly absorbing

There is another important point. The world of business which is ravaged by unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty seems bereft of fresh ideas and perspectives. There is too much theorizing about the same old things. No wonder football coaches, musicians, actresses, Swamijis turned motivational speakers turned management gurus and other celebrities are in great demand in the Lecture circuit. I am told that a Professor at IIM - Kozhikode has already written a case study using the film for use in the academic program.

The lessons I derive from the movie are as follows:

A lesson in entrepreneurship:

The protagonist in the movie i.e. Bhuvan's character is risk taking, responsible, confident, encouraging, supportive with a 'never say die' attitude which I feel is an intrinsic character for any manager. It was the village ingenuity of Bhuvan that gave him the idea to challenge the British in a cricket match and getting exempted from the tax “lagaan” levied on them. Otherwise the villagers couldn’t have payed the tax in aftermath of a drought. Such risk taking and “thinking out of the box” is required for every new venture or a commercial startup.

A lesson in teamwork

The relentless pursuit of Bhuvan coupled with some team spirit and co-operation made the villagers form a cricket team. A cricket team that went on to beat an established, professional and well equipped British team. I feel Bhuvan upholded this saying throughout “fear not; only believe”. Giving his vision to his team that they can win and get through the tax debt by winning a cricket match was key element that how to handle a team. Convincing people is very tough, the way Bhuvan did it was really very good.
The learnings from Bhuvan’s team can be:

“spirit and power of team work”
“will power and determination”
“unity and focus on common goal”

A lesson of relentless spirit to fight

There was terrible start to Bhuvans cricket match idea. The problem was villagers didn’t know how to play it …some couldn’t wield the bat. But Bhuvan with the help of Elizabeth led them secretly to a real cricket match of the British team and later on emulated that in their own fields. The team later on learnt by imitating Bhuvan and managed to get hold of the game. This gives an important lesson “Accept the challenge, be open-minded”. It tells us even if you don't know something you can learn and achieve it what is needed is perhaps the zeal and willingness to learn.

Other lessons that we can learn & teach from the movie

It is evident that Lagaan has the potential to help us learn and teach some very important lessons in Management & Leadership. While even this limited research effort has thrown up so many significant lessons, we see many more that can be learnt. Here are some:

1. The importance of Learning to survive & win

2. The importance of accepting & working with diversity

3. The need for a “can do” spirit, a positive attitude and the importance

of fighting the typical Indian despondency.

4. The need to stay focused single-mindedly on Results

5. The importance of being objective & unbiased

6. The importance of trust despite betrayal

7. The importance of learning to manage and work with limitations and

minimum resources

8. The importance of taking chances & risks to make dreams come true

9. The leader's role in :

a. Being able to spot talent: How Bhuvan found a spinner in “kachra”

and a fast fast bowling sardarji
b. Physically & emotionally mobilising a team: Bhuvan’s inspiration

when the team was losing the match.
c. Coaching the team: which I feel Bhuvan did a good job
d. Leading by example: Staying at the crease till the end and hitting

the winning runs.
e. Using the right balance of humor, encouragement and force

What is significant is that many of these lessons are not general or universal but are reflective of competencies that Indians need the most. At a time when Indian Organisations are discovering the limitations of using western models to look at Leadership competencies and are searching for Indian ideas, Lagaan has certainly helped make a good beginning in this exploration. It is evident that Indian movies of this kind can certainly be a useful and effective medium to communicate relevant lessons in management and everyday living. While Lagaan is just one example, I am sure there are many produced in the past which hold similar learning potential.

Budge for Budget

2006-02-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

Can prices of commodities be fixed only on their economic position in the market rather than social impact & vote bank implication? This is the question I ask myself scrubbing my makeshift Yogendra Yadav stubble every time I see a budget rap-up on news channels. There is this show on TV which picks people from street at random and asks them their recommendations for the upcoming Budget. Last week they picked a shady looking rag picker…. half droopy half dopey.. He asked for a subsidy on 250ml whisky pet bottles. I’m waiting for my turn..my reco’s : Ban the ciggies, hike the LPG and fuck the police…. thank you please.

Fight Club: Dishum Dishum

2006-02-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

Its amazing , how I catch the most bizarre bits of news even after I’ve proof read the whole newspaper when it had first appeared on my door mat at the break of dawn. Now its way past midnight I’ve had coffee I glance over the newspaper. It reads “Amar Singh’s phone tapped”, “Subhaash Bhowmick held on charges of accepting bribe”, “Roger Fedrer in final” nothing unusual but wait what’s this in the magazine section? “Fight Club starring Sohail Khan, Zayed Khan”. It is true they are making Fight Club in Hindi with manicured boys spitting blood like Brad Pitt, male duds pulling punches onto each other and fighting till their faces are smeared with blood. The promo’s have it Dino Morea with a prophetic sigh yelling “Fight Club ka pehla rule koi bhi fight club ka baat nahi karega” (…...ueee maa I’m scared ) juxtaposed with 1999’s Edward Norton starrer you’ll see the reason for my hilarity. This doesn’t end here, just last month I saw “Chocolate” and it was such a pathetic immitation of Kevin Spacey’s “Usual Suspect” that me and friends were peeling to laughter adding to the dismay of people sitting next to us.

The Fight Club released in 1999 was an adaptation of Chuck Palahnuick’s novel which some found sick. I found it faithfully following Chuck Palahniuk's acerbic satire, Fight Club presents the vast emptiness of modern existence- ridden as it is with shallow values, rampant consumerism, empty of meaning, feeling and life itself- in a slick and ironically consumer oriented fashion. It talks about a group of bare knuckle street fighters headed by Ed Norton who is a bored surveyor of an insurance company. In his subconscious he is a vagabond soap maker called Tyler Durden i.e. Brad Pitt and comes to life at night. It is the insomnia of Ed Norton that compels him to acquire a schizophrenic double identity without being completely aware of it. It rather compels the viewer to draw their own conclusions. Now I’ll be surprised if the Hindi version of movie will be any good because Sohail, Dino, Ashish etc..are the regular cuttie-cuddlies, their non existent acting skill can’t depict the masochistic tendencies of the Fight Club dudes who were antisocial/ anti-establishment and counter culture to the core. And I’m sure Neha Dhupia and Amrita Arora don’t make beautiful sluts like Helena Bonham Carter. And forget the ciggies there is a blanket ban on smoking in Bollywood. I wonder can someone stop these third generation filmmakers from making these heart felt “inspirational movies”.

Delhi Blogger's Meet

2006-02-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

For the uninitiated DBM is an acronym for Delhi Blogger’s meet its not Data Base Management ok, my engineering friends. On 29th Jan DBM was supposed to kick off at CP walla CCD ie Café Coffee Day (…not charge coupled diode) and I was suckered to be the first one to arrive. I could see old geysers having a cuppa, prospective couples, people fiddling with their mobiles and some isolated blogger thinking where the hell everybody is. Everybody meant pseudonyms coz I’m new to the crew I knew no faces and names. There should be a ruling against people signing incognito I’ll tell you why: If I sign as Tyler Durden on my blog there might be an impression in your subconscious and you might come expecting a Brad Pitt look-alike. Let’s forget appearance for a second I think it’s already an overrated virtue. Around two years back I had a blog on live journal and I signed as “Daaku Gabbar”(….really it’s true) suppose I hadn’t junked that blog then what a surprise it would have been.

By the time clock struck 4:30 I had finished coffee and surprisingly I was printed Mr. Nayak on bill. Now Mr Nayak i.e me was pissed and looking at his mobile to call the moderator but she is already on her way …. wait there somebody on the door, no he is a pony tailed fella, looks clean can’t be a blogger. There is someone behind him, he is carrying a camera on his shoulder. Sorry boss, wrong address no photo shoots here bloggers are nocturnal buggers… don’t make great models. Now there’s this quiet dude, the other is scratching his head, earlier he was doing rounds outside. Now there are five people coming close shaking hands. So I am at the right address these are Dilli Blogger-Motley Crew (……..cathartic feeling sinks).

I meet Kreeti, Snigdha, Amit, Sanjukta, Sanjay, Asheeth etc….or should I address them as Maam and Sir….maybe I should I’m the youngest here. The upper storey was under renovation; with drills and hammer playing carousal a quick consensus for COSTA was passed…yes bloggers are a democratic species. COSTA boasts of generous serving and comfy sofas- an Italian Coffee experience that’s there tag line. The coffee was better than what I used to brew in Chemistry lab often in lieu of marks in internals. Still my professors swear by it.

People have got coffee tumblers and started the “Chai-vaarta”. I was posed with the first question. Question which I field most of the time “Tell me, wassup really I haven’t seen your blog". My reply “Yes, Sir I haven’t seen yours either”. Our first agenda i.e blogs as an advertising medium. I compromised my stand and was made to tilt my opinion in favor that too by an ex-blogger who despite a staccato accent was an advertising guru himself. Ok guys, from next week I’ll feature ads for homemade “vaada-pao” on my blog I know I can’t make money like this but at least I can expect Delhi Bloggers to book orders for marriage and kittie parties. (…I know you won’t let me down).

The evening was turning to night and still no sign of the mythic “Twilight Fairy” some tell me she appears after dark. I don’t mind, our tumblers are empty and we are running short of engrossing agendas. Mr. Sanjay has captured eight lost souls on camera and is busy brewing his own agenda with Mr. Nikon.

We are joined by Nikhil Pahwa and his buddy. He introduces himself as a blogger and is friends with Jai Arjun Singh of Jabberwocky fame. He is growing hair, aspires to have rockstar like trendy tresses. He explains to me why Mr Jai Arjun reads so much? (…….its his job dumbass, what are book reviewers supposed to do)

Dr Madhulika, the blog meets official observer is wondering about her appointments and the cavities that need to be fixed ……oh damn these bloggers have great teeth (..congenial smiles all around)

COSTA is getting empty, the hip hop crowd next to ours has left, no sign of Twilight Fairy. The a.c is finally working, its display reads 15 Celsius but its still hot maybe the a.c is Indian not Italian. There is another serious onlooker of our conversation Mr. Swagat, who had probably come expecting a debate. But we are bloggers: rambler we don’t debate Barkha Dutt debates. Moreover if “Big fight” equals debates then “DBM” equals Great Indian Comedy Show.

Sun’s down its evening Twilight Fairy appears, she happens to be a long lost friend of a fellow blogger ……hugs, hughes and heartfelt cheers! At least DBM has networked two friends. More discussion on varying topics like R.T.I act, NGO startups..etc follow. Its 8:00 clock DBM concludes. Its time for me to shut up and leave.

P.S: “A very stereotyped person is the poor engineer”--- just like the author, who inspite his sarcastic self enjoyed being at DBM and thanks all bloggers.

Sambhar of 69

2006-01-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

Bryan Adams: eat your heart out

Sambhar of 69 (lyrics)

I had my first real six rupees,
stole it from my father's pants.
went to a madrasi hotel,
to eat the sambhar of 69.
Me and some kadke dost,

had it all and we caught bukhaar,
jimy puked, joey got ulcers,
and Bagga ne maari dakar.

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 1999,
still the sambhar was being served over there,

that was the worst food of my life.

Therez no use in complaining,
when you got no other place to eat,
rushed in the evening to the doctors clinic,
but he too was at the toilet seat, yeah

standing there waiting outside,
nurse told me I will wait forever,
oh and when I held my breath,
I knew that I had to use that loo there
That was the worst food of my life.

Back to the sambhar of 69.

Man I was getting killed,
I was full and restless,
I needed to unwind,
I guess nothing can wait forever - FOREVER... NO!!!!

And now the dhabas are changing,
new dishes have come and gone,
sometimes when I pass that old madrasi lane,
I still smell it, I can't be wrong.

Standing in those unwashed clothes,
the waiters still call me in there,
oh the way my nostrils burn,
I know that it will be served forever,
what was the worst food of my life.

yeah it was the sambhar of 69,

the sambhar, the sambhar, the sambhar of 69 ...............

Times of India

2006-01-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

I often eat from the streets and one of the rudest food I’ve had from my neighbourhood was from this hawker selling “Hot Kolkatta Rolls”. I asked him for a plate his hands went into action which went twisting and swirling producing eggs and curry wraped in layers of maida. I obviously lack this lucidity for instance give me a numerical from my chosen topic subject I will fumble to give an answer. Perhaps if that boy was educated he would have given better answers. Poor fellow couldn’t read or write, couldn’t read the 20 rupee note I gave him.

It is observed that there are two India, the educated and the underprivileged perhaps the ignorant and the ignored. That is not a great insight but a shameful aberration. Walter Bagehot in the early nineteenth century got it right. This editor of “The Economic” wrote “Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult (for them) to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell”. In our country poor people can beg, ask for help, can file petition, can go to Lok Adalat, run to courts, write to Prime Minister they are sure to get no response. And for people of the city they are virtually invisible, our imaginary friends they come to iron our cloths, wash our car, clean our homes but of course how can we help them.

In the past few years of BPO, KPO, IT’s resurgence India slipped from rank 124 to 127in the Human Development Index of the UNDP ( and even my pocket money slipped a notch). And it shows that you are better off being poor in Botswana, El Salvador, Guatemala or the occupied territories of the Palestine- than in India. It had earlier sparked an indignation when I was in eleventh but it was lack of self will or maybe societal pressure that would reduce me to a pen pushing negligee who unsuccessfully prepared for IIT like million other zombies. If today’s youth is a wreck I hold my father’s generation responsible. For pulling a MATRIX before our eyes that choice itself is an anomaly and walking anything other than the self righteous path of acquiring a professional degree is considered a taboo. My friends had met with severe criticism when they tried their hand at helping the others. “Are you nuts? Starting an NGO, “You must be on drugs?” “Why waste time teaching street urchins?”

I think that giving back to our society is absolutely essential if that doesn’t happen then this “Two India“ thing would never cease to exit. Ankur Garg IAS rank1 who happens to be an ex-IITian summed it up nicely, he said “India aagey ja rahaa hai, Bhaarat peeche ja raha hai” but I don’t know if all the IIT graduates share the same realization. Anyway, can anyone name a single innovation from these Indian institutes which has brought significant change in your daily life? ziltch ! Still 1.5 lakh pack of nerds sit for JEE, what a waste of human resource. If these many educated people had ploughed fields or worked in agri-research then millions of people in Orissa and Bihar could have been saved from starvation.

From ploughing fields I remember that our all helpful, ever so considerate credit and finance institutions have always been there. Its now easy to obtain a low interest loan to finance a Mercedes Benz than it is to raise a farm. This is the reason why debt ridden farmers in Karnataka commit suicide. The BT cotton has been a flop and now the cotton growers of Vidarbha are in debt. Things are different in rich farming states like Punjab and Haryana after the green revolution the dependence on irrigation and fertilizers has spiraled, yields have reached a plateau so the farmers once rich can’t be rich anymore. One of my friends in Amritsar has three tractors and a Mitsubishi Lancer but doesn’t have money for tuitions (unless he sells his spanking new Ludhiana chic house complete with imported bath fitting) his family is looking to migrate to Canada.

Poverty itself is of different at different places. The poor of Punjab and Haryana are reasonably well of than those who are poor in West Bengal similarly rural and urban poverty are totally opposite. The urban poor the rickshaw puller, the cobbler, painter etc are on the brink of poverty line but sometimes are also lazy enough to pull themselves from this stigma. The florist near my house left his home in Jharkhand at 14 now he is 19 earns reasonably enough and shares his employer’s living space. His corner carries a whiff of poverty and hard work steeped in dreams, what do you call it “reminiscent of craft economies of yore where the guild master presides over both the work and life of his family”. He might never have his own house but instead of saving he likes to splurge on burgers and cold drink. Maybe he’s just a boy no one probably told him how to handle money. And this is the reason why I don’t believe in donations by charities in physical terms i.e money, clothing etc. The poor lack the sense of spending we as educated adults often get in spending frenzy so how can we expect an illiterate to be a wise consumer.

I had earlier involved myself in the Rotary Club, did teaching work for slum dwellers but as I grew older I had less and less time to spare. I even found the children opting out from such basic studies and one time none of friend turned up for collections. Even the poor I know don’t bother, don’t want to migrate from poverty, for them education ceases to be a vehicle of “social mobility”. They are habituated to free money dolled out to them in charity, free meals at langar, free medicine from dispensary, free money from begging on crossing etc. Maybe they are sick of working hard, sick of the corrupt police, sick of exploitative money lenders. Don’t know when this other India will pull itself up my helping hand will always be there.

2005's best heard stuff

2005-12-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

The year is coming to an end and boy what year this has been. We had Sting playing in India that too in Pitampura, Joe Satriani set his feet on the Indian soil for the first time and Mark Knofler was here (minus his maserati Ghibli). Delhi continued to be taboo for all such events (no change there), Bangalore or Bangaluru was the place for audiophiles and rock junkies and Dhanauti in Uttaranchal pitched for its place to be the Indian Woodstock.

Now coming to brass tacks, the Best rock album for the year 2005. The year saw albums from White Stripes, Green Day, Incubus, Velvet Revolver, Alter Bridge, Good Charlotte etc..
Green Day’s “American Idiot” had a tremendous response in the US topped Billboard ratings and bagged a few Grammy’s. But you know how things are in our part of the world, things which work elsewhere probably don’t work here. Anyway I don’t follow their music, don’t believe in commercialized slick packaging and all this anti-musicmanship. So the undisputed “Best rock album 2005” is Out of Exile by Audioslave.

Audioslave pools its talent from the Rage Against Machine guitarist Tom Morello and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. This band has just created history by becoming first rock outfit to play in Cuba, more specifically at La Tribuna Imperialista, in front of 60,000 fans in a show organized by he US Treasury Department and Instituto Cubano de La Musica.

The album has a nice song titled “Your time has come” which has almost Pearl Jam like feel to it with some extra effort on the vocals. Found “Out of exile” pretty neat, ”Be yourself” was rather contemplative (it has become my anthem, it plays in my mind whenever I am doing something stupid) and “Heavens Dead” has beautiful lyrics.

Finally the downer: the album requires patient listening and is not meant for Linkin Park fans. If you love filter coffee and extended guitar solos then you’ll love it.

I depart with famous words of the band’s Harvard educated guitarist
"A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I’m only interested in writing great songs." -Tom Morello

Who kiled the CAT ?

2005-11-26T09:49:00.000-08:00

Wasn’t able to catch the latest installment of Harry Potter but my friends went to see it. If you are reasonably competitive student in final year then the chances are last Sunday you would’ve been taking CAT.I wish best of luck to all. My attempt at CAT was rather perfunctory I had lost interest in it even before the exam. Here’s why

The application to IIM –C last year were 1,23,000 and the batch strength was 181, which means 1 in 680 got through and for all IIM’s combined this figure was 1 in 402. It means only 0.25 men and women ( and boys) who applied got a seat. You can do better than 99.5% of all those who applied and still not get admission. I could imagine myself sitting in exam hall knowing the theoretical possibility that no one in the exam centre will get through. So aspirants today spend thousands of bucks possibly even more on coaching classes and cram for a two hour test. I’ve met people who have given up their job at Infosys to spend a year studying for CAT. The consequence of all this is the competence to crack an exam at the expense of general awareness and life skills.

Most interviewees would say that their ambition is to be a CEO of an MNC yet claiming that Bill Gate’s “Business @ The Speed of Thought” is a novel. I wonder how many of these MBA grads would be able to take unusual yet crucial business decisions. ( It’s unfortunate Mr Manjunathan did take some steps but paid for it with his life ). Will the MBA grads of IIM’s make interesting managerial choices in decision making ? The simple truth is that pressure to get into IIM and following anything but the narrow corporate path will have worrying long term effects.

The panacea would be IIM’s throwing open its gate to larger no. of students. And all this issue of “not being able to maintain quality education” is crap even IIT’s and NIT’s manage a reasonable brand equity after taking in a lots of students. Our country needs go getters not someone who just makes the best out of campus placements and make profits of other peoples money. We need creative individuals not duds and most importantly we need new breed of home grown entrepreneurs. But to see sub 25’s fritter away most glorious years of their lives in crash courses and coaching classes makes me little sad.

In religion

2005-11-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

India is a secular country but it has always been in constant consternation with the Muslim community. I feel its tough to pinpoint our issues with Islam, but this list helps:

Timothy Garton Ash - Los Angeles Times
Sunday, September 18, 2005

Sitting in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a metal arrow on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing to Mecca, I feel impelled to write about our troubles with Islam. Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which were perpetrated in the name of Allah, most people in what we still loosely call the West would agree that we do have troubles with Islam.

Why? What's the nub of the problem? Here are six different views often heard in the West but also, it's important to add, in Muslim countries such as Iran. As you go down the list, consider which one matches your opinion.

1. The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society.

This is a view held by many highly educated people in the post-Christian West, especially in Western Europe. If translated directly into a political prescription, it has the drawback of requiring that 3 billion to 5 billion men and women abandon their fundamental beliefs. Nor has the track record of purely secular regimes over the last 100 years been altogether inspiring.

2. The fundamental problem is not religion itself but the particular religion of Islam. It does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that an Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth: Islam is stuck in the Middle Ages. What it needs is its Reformation.

Two objections to this widespread view are that it encourages monolithic thinking about Islam and that it is based too much in Western terms (Middle Ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do," there is a huge spectrum of different realities.

3. The problem is not Islam but Islamism. Fanatics such as Osama bin Laden have twisted a great religion into the service of hate. We can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree.

This is the view promulgated by George W. Bush and Tony Blair. But then, they're not going to insult millions of Muslim voters and the countries that the West relies on for oil. Do they really believe it? Put them on a truth serum, and I bet they'd be closer to No. 2. On the other hand, this analysis is made with learning and force by distinguished specialists on the Muslim world.

4. The problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but the specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 Arab League members, none is a homegrown democracy. (Iraq now has elements of democracy but hardly homegrown.) This is not a racist claim but an argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernization.

Indeed, there are democracies with Muslim majorities --- Turkey, Mali. Columbia University political scientist Alfred Stepan has suggested that, in the democracy stakes, non-Arab Muslim countries have fared roughly as well as non-Muslim countries at a comparable level of economic development. But even in a traditionally anti-Arab country such as Iran, very few people think the trouble is just with Arabia.

5. We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, Western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created the mortal enemies of Western liberal democracy. And, after causing (via the Holocaust), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians.

Even if this simplistic version of history were entirely true, we couldn't change the past. But we could acknowledge the historical damage for which we are genuinely responsible. And we could do more to create a free and law-abiding Palestine next to a secure Israel.

6. The most acute tension between the West and Islam comes at the edges where they meet, where young first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants encounter secular modernity. Its seductions attract them, but, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes or their marginalization, a few Muslim young people embrace a fierce, extreme new version of the faith of their fathers.

I wish I could find some compelling evidence against this account. Even if we were to assist at the birth of a free Palestine and pull out of Iraq tomorrow, this problem would remain.

Now, to which of the six views do you subscribe? What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves. Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are.

P.S: Timothy Garton Ash is a professor of European studies at Oxford University and a Hoover Institution senior fellow. He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

Megalomaniac

2005-10-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

I hear you on the radio

You permeate my screen

Its' unkind but,

If I met you in a scissor fight

I'd cut off both your wings

On principle alone

Hey megalomaniac!

You're no Jesus!Yeah,

you're no fucking Elvis!

Wash your hands clean of yourself, baby

And step down, step down!

If I were your appendages

I'd hold open your eyes

So you'd see

That all of us are heaven sent

And there was never meant to be only one

To be only one
Hey megalomaniac!

You're no Jesus!

Yeah, you're no fucking Elvis!

Wash your hands clean of yourself, baby

And step down, step down!

You're no Jesus

You're not Elvis

You're no answer

Hey megalomaniac!

You're no Jesus!

Yeah, you're no fucking Elvis!

Wash your hands clean of yourself, baby

And step down, step down!

Yeh KPO kya hai ?

2005-10-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

WHILE OUTSOURCING is present in numerous business functions, including manufacturing, legal, financial and human resources, it is the term BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) that is largely in the news on a daily basis. India's capabilities in this area have been moving towards enhancing the nature of the work done. From mere data entry kind of work, the fosus has shifted to transaction processing. Now, there is a nascent move towards knowledge process outsourcing (KPO).
Unlike in BPO where the focus is on executing standardised routine processes, KPO involves processes that demand advanced information search, analytical, interpretation and technical skills as well as some judgment and decision making. Examples of KPO functions are intellectual property or patent research, R&D in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, data mining, database creation, and a range of analytical services such as equity research, competitive intelligence, industry reports and financial modelling. Many of these activities lend themselves to remote execution from anywhere.
Typical users of KPO services include market research and consulting firms, investment banks and financial services institutions, industry associations, media, publishing and database firms, and corporate planning departments of large Fortune 500 companies. Several global players such as McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Reuters, IMS Health, Harris Interactive, Ipsos, Maritz, AC Nielsen, TN0S and the WPP group are already using India as a remote base.

The KPO Value Chain
Typically, the extent of offshoring is a function of the degree of e-enablement possible and the quality of the human capital required. Some activities such as paralegal and medical transcription require low quality human capital as compared to activities such as data mining and analysis, engineering design and e-learning. The latter are also highly amenable to IT enablement. Other services such as legal consulting, intellectual property research and strategic consulting require the highest level of human capital and are the least amenable to IT enablement.

A veritable gold mine
Companies in the KPO space thus need to make the transition from offering services that require low human capital quality and low IT enablement to those that require a high degree of human capital and IT enablement. The National Association of Software and Service Companies projects that the total global offshoring market opportunity by 2008 will touch $141 billion. Of this, data search, integration and management will account for $18 billion. Medical, legal content and associated services represent an opportunity of $2 billion. However, Scope e-Knowledge Center estimates that only 45-50 per cent (about $65-70 billion) of the total off-shoring opportunity is likely to be realised even by 2010. According to Scope, the global offshore BPO (non-IT) revenue in fiscal 2003 was close to $9 billion and this is expected to grow by about 35 per cent a year through 2008. An obvious advantage of BPO is the immediate cost savings (over 30 per cent) and yet a steadfast focus on high quality standards. This also allows the in-house team (of the overseas client) to focus their expertise on more value-added work while delegating the lower-end work to more cost-effective resources. For India, it is a new job creator. It is estimated that the total number of jobs created so far as a result of outsourcing, primarily call centre operations, is about 180,000. Of these, the U.S. and the U.K. together have a share of over 86 per cent. By 2010, the share of non-call centre outsourcing is placed at 50 per cent of the total number of jobs created. One estimate places the KPO jobs alone at over a quarter of a million by then.
At the same time, companies abroad are sceptical about outsourcing high-end services for varied reasons such as data security, quality and professionalism in a remote location, political and regulatory climate.

Collaborative approach
Clearly, this is an evolutionary process and certain roadblocks that exist need to be taken care of. Companies need to adopt a collaborative approach to tackle such issues. For instance, Scope has addressed these issues by adopting a relationship-based model. In this model, concerns on quality and timeliness have been addressed by Scope through a process of pilots and phased transfer of work. Technology — hardware and software — is world class. International certifications such as ISO and BS7799 also help. Likewise, Service Level Agreements that are mutually fair have been put in place.

What i conclude from this article which appeared in HINDU
What helps the India case is the ready access to a large intellectual pool with expertise in areas such as research and analysis, not to mention reasonable English language skills (that need honing) and strong domain expertise. But finally, it is the management that plays a vital role in enabling the smooth operationalisation of such remote knowledge partnerships. There is tremendous potential in the KPO space. Only companies that have a strong pedigree, domain expertise, clear focus on the high-end space, a proactive solution orientation and a collaborative mindset will emerge as the winners.

The Calcutta Chromosome

2005-10-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

I ve been consuming this book "The Calcutta Chromosome" for quite a while now. Having finished reading it I must confess its a good book with a gripping haunting quality. This is actually a medical thriller and a ghost story but Amitav Ghosh the author likes to call it a "A novel of Fevers, Delerium and Discovery". This book is about L.Murugan who investigates the life and works of Noble prize winner Dr Ronald Ross in colonial India and this yankee figures out that this scientist who won the prize for malaria research was perhaps the least likely to succeed. Murugan propounded that he was guided by someone else. He goes to his birthplace Calcutta and goes missing only to be found by Antar in the next century on his computer Ava. The problems I have with this book is that the story is not plotted well. The story moves backwards and forward and then back but I was dumbfounded because I couldn't figure out who's talking to whom. And a word to the publisher Orient Longman "Guys you could have offered me greater discount at the Delhi Book Fair"

Mystic masseur

2005-09-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

Sat Sri Akal, this post comes after the disgusting report of Nanavati Commission on sikh riots is splashed on the front page of newspaper. The page2 of the daily is filled with intricate details of murders in the city (details right to the fact that culprit was wearing Armani) they spoke of attempts which were successful and the mournful unsuccessful. The page3 is again littered with gore and more murders, more accidents, more blood. Read the page4 obituaries, making sure none of my relatives had died I took a quick scan of rest of the pages I come to the “Classified” section . This has a strange milieu – bright coloured ads selling water filters a.k.a reverse osmosis, ultrasonic pest repellers, water heaters, kitchen chimney, inverters with sinewave and navjot sidhu with consciousness. Ok the last one wasn’t available.

The ads under “Health and Fitness” always make an interesting read. Some excerpts :-
“Millee – want a massage, 5-7 star, home/hotel………………… contact:[number] “
For an ingenuous reader in search of a relaxing massage may fall for the pose but for the prying lecherous eyes like mine they give more than that. Brilliant advertising always amuses me and some are outrightly funny. Here’s one

“ If u want broadminded, decent massage, male/female, full satisfaction
.........contact: Pamela [number] “

Well ever heard of a broadminded massage, emollient iodex can be relieving but broadminded – I don’t think so.

“We assure about quality & hygiene, call Lopez:[number] for luxurious massage”

Don’t talk of hygiene, my Brahmin friend Chaturvedi takes 4 baths a day
( and four less than that I take )

Available Russians, Arabian, Persian escort 24 hours - another indian genius and another instance of outsourcing other than IT. Talking in alias names like Lopez, Pamela, Jane etc makes them feel international but its just hilarity for me.

Top of the pops

2005-09-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

I know i've fallen into a trap since that blasted VH1"Top 100 artists" came out last year. Anyway apart from barfing on the fact that it didn't include artists from our part of the world i've come up with my own list of top five:

1.Mohammad Rafi

Rafi Sahab was one of the greatest forces in the history of the Indian sub-continent culture. His Immortal Golden Voice still rules the hearts of millions of Indian music lovers the world over.In his music circles he was simply known as 'The Voice' because he was so famous for the way he put his heart and soul into every rendition. Rafi Sahab was the greatest and it is impossible to conceive of another singer ever attaining the range, the versatility and the awesome emotion that his golden voice always contained. Rafi Sahab had picked up the rudiments of music from a fakir while already possessing a God-gifted voice. When he was barely seventeen years old, and sang his first playback song for a Punjabi film, 'Gul Baloch' under the music direction of the late Shyam Sunder in 1941, Rafi Sahab was illiterate and had to commit the words to memory before he could go before the microphone. When it came to remembering any melody though, there never was a problem. The young genius in the making needed only to hear a melody once to not only commit it to memory, but also suggest improvements to the tune. Following the popularity of his Punjabi song, Rafi Sahab took the final big step in his life and ventured off to Bombay to realise his dreams of making singing his career. In 1942 he arrived in Bombay to sing, again under the music direction of Shyam Sunder for the movie 'Gaon ki Gauri'. Although Rafi Sahab had several 'hit' songs during these early years, he never-the-less had tough competition from respected singers like Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood, Hemant Kumar and Mukesh. I remember his nonchallant style of singing "Main barbaadio ka jashna mana ta chala gaya, har fikra ko dhuyain main udaa ta chala gaya....." thats everytime time i see my college result Rafi Sahab was the sort of genius who appears once in a life-time ; unique, his golden voice continues to flow like essence drawn from several jewels, a constellation which enriches, in a mystical way, the firmanent of music, the spiritual peak of eternal silence and of the celestial world that listens to itself through the voice of cherubic Mohammed Rafi, the immortal singer who is interpreter of that very sublime silence.

2.Kishore Kumar

Kishore kumar brother of Anu and Ashok went on to become an icon of his generation and the indian music industry itself. Having sung one of the most memorable hindi songs and for directing a lot of them he gets a second place in this hallowed list. His genius lay beyond singing, he was a tremendous music director and few people know he was an amazing lyricist. I tell what’s good, listening to KishoreDa at 100km/hr on a free highway,it is because the voice transcends time itself. Irrespective of how many years pass his voice remains fresh in our memory. Even after 100yrs from now when 102.6Mhz plays his music your moron friend will tell you its a 50year old song, change the channel please, which means the piece gains 50yrs in our biological clock of collective memory (that u will understand if you get the logic).

3. R.D Burman

A lot already said about him so I won’t blabber my critique. Pancham Da was quintessential of the Wakaw! generation catering to people half his age. His music is popular even now and is a staple for every remix album company. Jhankar Beats said it right he’s the “Boss”.

4.A.R Rahman

A musician with humble beginning Dilip Kumar hardly knew he would make it big one day. After embracing the Islamic identity of A.R Rahman and a few south indian hits he tried his hand in hindi movies. Being intrinsically inclined towards new sounds and experimentation with the use of synthesiser for background scores he created his own genre. Soon shehnai, harmonium and strained notes of Lakshmikant-Pyarelal became passe’ and A.R Rahman brought Mumbai the “latesht maal”. He was the only music director could propel mediocre movie to box office succes for instance remember Dil Se…

5.Still looking for 5th

If anybody has his own ideas how top5 should read, plz leave comments. Those who have got AnuMalik’s name for the fifth space don’t even think about it.

To BE or not to BE.........continues

2005-08-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

By the time you would read this half of my collegemates would’ve been placed in high flying MNC’s and I’ll remain a pen pushing negligee (typist rather).Good morning friend’s, in a few month’s I’ll be a free man. Yes I will not be having coffee at 7:00 breakfast at 7:30 to catch a cab at 8:00am. I’ve got used to this routine ,early morning monotony and idiosyncrasy of telling myself that it will be a good day in college today. I will tell you about my college later but I will tell you how I got there in the first place. I probably wouldn’t have made into IIT, I got thrown out after screening test. Screening test is a sacred ritual those who pass are deemed fit for future life and are not scorned for life if they drop a year for dedicated study ,those who fail are condemned from the educated middle class (that’s my sarcastic version). In the uncalvinist part of town where I live, the general wisdom is that you can’t crack JEE without special coaching but snoot boots like me don’t fall for the pose. So after CBSE board and half a dozen entrance test’s later I moved up to a college called “BMXYZ” By week2, I was certain I didn’t really want to study there. The teachers were bad. Some taught out of yellowing notes, some taught utter rubbish and some just didn’t bother. 75% attendance is compulsory . And in keeping with the generallly repressive regime , playing tennis ball cricket in the college premises wasn’t allowed. Going by the penchant of our college in imposing fines they must have collected a huge revenue. The only reason I think I stuck around that place with its moribund intellectual atmosphere was because I thought (and my parents thought ) the degree was worth hanging around for. I still have remanants of days where it was difficult to find admission in any Engg. institute but when I will graduate I am sure this degree will mean very less for my employer or anyone else. I learnt more out of the class than inside. The reason I’m saying this is because the admissions in college’s for the next academic year are about to start and it has brought memories flooding in. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have lost interest in engineering were it not for the pathetic academic atmosphere. As for MBA to be honest I had lost interest before the exam date. However there are several among my friends who have suffered grievous long term damage from the boring atmosphere in college. None of them was stupid. In fact some were smarter than the toppers. They were more original more creative and more rebellious and that got them into trouble. Now our HRD ministers always turn his and the country’s attention on fixing up tuition fees for IIT’s and IIM’s. This is probably first thing they do after coming to seat. I don’t really know if it’s a good or a bad thing .On the other hand , college like mine and countless others where about 98% of India’s engineers and managers come from do need an urgent looking into. They don’ have teachers, they don’t get funds, recruiters avoid them , and students suffer untold miseries.

(sorry this post is self centred and talks of misery, i am sure i'll make amends
next time......)

The Talkies

2005-08-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

AS A CHILD starts to explore the world, many things are accepted the way they come. For me cinema was a similar obvious presence. The language of film was still beyond my comprehension, but I was anyways enthralled by the larger than life moving images. The first film I saw - ‘Laurel and Hardy’ - I still remember Laurel trying to fix a car by putting it up on a jack. The jack gave way and the car fell on his foot. The rest of the class laughed, as he jumped out with pain. I felt sorry for him.We were shown children film’s and cartoon movies on projector in junior school. Movie time meant a day of much mirth and enjoyment. And my favourite cartoon character was a cunning beaver “moolo”. Then came television. Films became more accessible. Days were short and there were lots of ways of having fun. But I still remember those Sunday evenings, between homework and guests, amid all the hustle and bustle, the TV set still flickering in one corner. It didn’t care whether anybody looked at it or not. From a weekly dose of one film, to now an average of almost one film a day. Cinema still holds much to reveal. My film education, initially, on autopilot, with only involuntary realisations about the medium, has slowly turned into a time consuming study of a language. ‘Sooraj Ka Saatwaan Ghoda’ holds a special position in my personal filmawareness bank. I was in my 7th standard.Watching ‘Sooraj…’ on Doordarshan. I had a vague idea who Shyam Benegal was, but the typical ‘art-movie’ look was a complete putoff. Anyways, halfway through the movie, all of a sudden, I sat up. It was something abnormal I had seen in the film. The sequence that had just occurred was a repetition of a sequence they had shown sometimes back, but through different camera angles. And then I realised we had gone back in time to revisit the scene,but from a different point of view, through a different character. And the information in the overlap was what we were looking for. This was my first revelation of alternative film structure (and also the idea that a film has a structure) - the fact that in a film ‘LIFE’ can be shuffled at somebody’s will, to help us understand things better. However, later I learnt that the Bible is one of the first narratives with parallel stories. The story of Christ is told four times, by four of his disciples. After that going back to Enid Blyton was a little difficult, so I picked up ‘Midnight’s Children’ - though I could - though I could hardly afford it. Almost two years after I had seen the film ‘Jurassic Park’, I got hold of the book. In my tenth standard, and still not consciously aware about the process of filmmaking, I guessed it would be fun to read the ‘movie’ in words. I had assumed the film to be a complete visual translation of the book. To my surprise, it was nowhere close.Then I realised this is what they call ‘adaptation’. At this point I must also talk about a friend of mine, Deepak I believe he has an innate sense of filmmaking. He should have been a filmmaker, but unfortunately he is a engineer now, editing 0s and 1s instead. We have spent hours trying to re-structure a book called ‘BhootBangla’, a contemporary version of Lolita, into a movie. At that time both of us, with our gathered vocabulary of filmmaking, tried endlessly to satisfy each other, giving up after the first sequence. Around that time another profession caught my fancy. Two-timing between films and PCM, I have been committing professional adultery. The process of capturing life and experience into a set of cleverly choreographed visuals and sound. No other medium can be as seductive as cinema. It is much more than entertainment, for those who see it; and more than an art form, for those who make it. People discover themselves in movies. ‘Close up’ by Kiarostami and ‘Camera Buff’ by Kieslowski come to mind. In ‘Camera Buff’, the lead character gets highly engrossed into film making,which causes a rift in his relationship with his wife. He and his wife quarrel, and as she stomps out of the room in anger, he lifts his hands to make a frame between his fingers and looks through it. Even a spirit couldn’t possess anybody this strong. Salman Rushdie says there is something predatory about photography - a portrait is a shoot, and the subject the trophy. Cinema eats up the soul. My mother says in their time they used to call films ‘Magic Lantern’. And a magic lantern it is.

Golden rules of blogging

2005-07-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

1.Do not introduce it to family members/relatives: it can cause embarrasment.

2.Do not introduce it to your girlfriend ( if u have one): you never know what you might write.

3.Do not copy from published works: Its plagiarism.

4.Do not talk about the Fight Club: as you can see rule3 is optional.

City of Djinn’s

2005-07-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

This vacation I was on a strict diet of anecdotal stories and historical findings of Delhi, brilliantly penned down by William Dalrymple in his travelogue “City of Djinns”-A Year in Delhi. This is an account of Scotland born English writer’s visit to Delhi with his artist wife Olivia. “City of Djinns” is not really a travel book at all. It is a kind of a memoir recording the response of a gentle, merry and learned mind to the presence of an ancient city. What impressed me most was that this book unravels the evolution of the city from the Mughal Era (i.e Shahjehanabad) through British Raj to the city as we know today. I deem this

book “compulsory” for anyone who stays in Delhi or studies history.
Delhi has more layers of culture, civilisation and history extant in it than any other city in India, arguably in the world. It is this, the enthralling and enigmatic features of this ancient modern city, that Dalrymple set out to trace in this book. The book moves through time than space looping and unleashing in the past and present. Dalrymple covers the evolution and the historical legacy of each and every part of Delhi right from by-lanes of Sitaram Bazaar in Old Delhi to suburbs of Shahpur Jat, from Lutyen’s Delhi to Shalimar Bagh spanning probably every nook & cranny of the city.
The book describes the unfortunate 1984 riots after Indira Gandhi’s assassination and speaks of the brutalities against the Sikh. On the other Dalrymple never fails to ridicule the Punjabi lifestyle and has an unimmitable style of doing it, using the words of his Punjabi driver (glimpses of Madhur Bhandarkar’s inspiration in ‘Page3’). But the great merit of this book is that the author conducts himself without prejudice or bigotry. He explores Delhi without idealogical or racial baggage and I can say that you will be amazed by the research this guy has put in.
Thing which might prevent you from reading it is that sometimes the author explores so much about city’s history that it gets into notorious depths like our old history textbook and you might see Romila Thapar’s horrid face but really its worth the shock.

Present state

2005-07-04T10:40:00.001-07:00

Currently doing summer industrial training stipulated in my engg syllabus but only i know that it is an ordeal to get training. After going through an intense bureaucratic procedure i was able to secure a place at a prestigious but ailing institution. While my friends from big name colleges are learning the tricks of trade at leading foreign institutes I slog my my way through it...but good times will back soon.

Why MBA ( best of blog )

2005-07-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

The Master's in Business Administration is one of the most sought after degrees in the world. The degree originated in the great capitalist country, USA and has now spread its wings far across the entire world. The course brings knowledge, experience, value and above all a good take off point to a career.

The business world some 50 years back was not as complicated as it now. Most of the best managers "climbed up the ladder" and there were no "lateral entries" back then. In fact Managers itself was not a common term among many of the biggest corporations. One of the most professionally managed big business of that time, General Motors was built by managers like Alfred P. Sloan and so was General Electric but they were seldom called 'managers'.

In fact Management as a discipline was invented by Peter Drucker by the way of his seminal study of General Motors in the "Concept of the Corporation". This was the first book which explained what management was and how it was creating the biggest change in society by creating and managing large organisations. Drucker went on to provide the benchmark of Management and management or business books by the publication of "The Practice of Management". He then took a step forward a wrote about the Manager or as he later changed the much abused word to "Executive" in "The Effective Executive".

Through time the schools of Harvard, Columbia (where Buffet graduated from) and later Stanford etc began to define the study of management and the skills need for the manager.

The need to better create change in the society through organisations has become the major tools of the 21st century. The concept of management, which until the 1970s was restricted to large businesses, has started flowing downstream to small and medium enterprises. This was best explained by Drucker in his book Innovation and entrepreneurship. The definitive guide to entrepreneurship and its main tool - Innovation.

The concept of management went through another major change when it was started applying to as varied institutions as the hospital, the university, the community center, the church, the government. Every institution is now in the ambit of management which in effect would mean the entire society.

Due to the rapid growth of population, resources and requirements we have created varied institutions to effectively manage ourselves. The way to accomplish this is the organisation and the tool - Management.

From where I see, I do not see an MBA as an education to manage a business but a "set of codified knowledge" which will help me to create, run and manage varied institutions which will help to bring about change in the society.

And by the way this from some other blog, I hope the author doesn't sue me for plagiarism.

2005-06-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

Very nice cover (above). Asian dub foundation is out with their new album "Tank" listen to their wacky song 'flyover'.My favourite is from their previous album, the song's called "Ta dheem" late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has lend his vocal with ADF doing their routine eletronicl wizardry.

The Asian Underground

2005-06-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

Before Swami Vivekananda made historic speech at the World's Parliament of religion in Chicago in Sept 1893 he cut out a deal with the orgnizers .He would introduce the West to the glories of Hinduism while someone else would introduce the virtues of Asian Underground to India one day.Well here I am brothers and sisters arise,awake!While reggae,rock ,classical,hindustani have their legions of listeners,the asian underground has never got its due respect in this age of bhangra, bhajan, qawalli. Perhaps it has something to do with swastika or maybe words mixed with hindi and english but most of the people I ve met haven't heard much from this genre.

The greatest exponents are Talvin singh, Nitin Sawhney, Karsh Kale and the recent popular Asian Dub Foundation. Recently I bought this amazing album called Human by nitin sawnhney and I can bet on the fact that this has got sounds that are out of this world .Tabla hindustani classical R&B it has got songs havin elements of all of these. Other beautifully composed songs are on his previous album Prophesy but its a bit more international its got a world music feel to it .The instrumental "breathing light" is pure sonic creme brule and the best creation by this artist.I won't talk of Talvin Singh because he is already too famous ,too accomplished that I blabber my critque but there is this new album State of Bengal the artist Sam Zaman has mixed out sitar tunes from the maestro Shankar Anand and he say's "The Asian Underground looked like a movement, which it doesn't now," noted Zaman. "Everyone is still doing their own thing, which is sometimes better. The roots were sown quite a long time ago, and they've developed." The movement got its start in London's Anokha club nights, organized by tablatronics guru Talvin Singh, and was documented on the 1997 album, Anokha: Soundz of the Asian Underground, where State of Bengal was represented by "Flight IC408" and "Chittagong Chill," two tracks that reappear on Visual Audio.

Another artist another album ,this one is by KK acronym for Karsh Kale (this is different than our desi crooner). Well Karsh is a finely-tuned engine of tabla-terror that gets inside your head and kicks your head. I call him the reincarnated Talvin Singh for more you can check out his album Realize and the new one Liberation. In addition to his solo projects, Kale has played along side, remixed and collaborated with Paul Oakenfold, DJ Spooky, Paula Cole, Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell, Talvin Singh, Ustad Sultan Khan, Zakir Hussain and many many others. He's also leant his talents to four bands in NYC as main precussionist: Bell Cafe Band, Omzone, 32 Tribes and now Realize Live.

Now I am running out of time,the other mofussil of the Asian Underground one must look for are Badmaarsh Shri, Midival Punditz,Trick Baby and the ustad Trilok Gurtu.

2005-06-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

Top 100 vh1 album covers Dont want this stratocaster? Give it to me then.

Religion and my life

2005-06-08T03:16:00.000-07:00

I lead a surprisingly dull existence .My idea of an exciting evening is to make up my mind wether to buy Parle-G when shopkeeper says that he’s run short of Tiger.So when people would be going for rounds in temple ,doing langar or doing qawalli,bhajan and kirtan I would keep myself busy finding new ways to kill time. Actually religion has never had any lure for me but I recognize the right of others to worship in their search for truth and meaning ,solace and peace .Maybe when I am older I will join the flock .May be then i will come to believe that life is more than an accidental combination of disparate chemical compounds catalysed by volcanism and impact cratering on a planet coicidentally just the right distance away from a star That humans aren't just the current state of a thread of life trigerred by an autocatalytic systems that appeared on the earth 3.5billion years ago capable of passing information from one generation to next through DNA a chemical thread which rose from the primordial ocean and built all the lineage of organisns whose descendants populate the biosphere today. Maybe it will be easier to be happy then and accept gief with humility not anger .
It is easier to come to terms with defeat and misery by associating it to ill luck or inauspicious interplanetary configuration.It is like this, if worship had brought us happiness then India would've been a wonderfull place to live in . I feel that if atheist are unhappy then so be it, after all there is no big deal in being happy .I suggest that "The amount of tragedy you told in your heart is directly proportional to your creativity ."-- (write this down you won't get this in college physics) the perfect example is Vincent Van Goh ,imagine what he would' ve painted if his heart was at peace . I confess of not reading most of his work but just imagine Kafka being a happily married bearuecrate.Happiness is evanescent but unhappiness is essential apart from bringing out the best from individuals it is a part of evolution. India has produced great revolutionaries,engineers and entreprenuers not because we are backed by a deep rooted culture or inherited family values but because of the struggle for subsistence. I guess nobody gets this yesterday I saw my batchmate scribbling swastika on his answersheet maybe thats because physics and metaphysics go hand in hand in our country.