Chicago

Brutal. -30 deg F. And it is only the first day of winter. Fun!

Some pictures from the drive along the Pacific Coast

Click here to view the album.

Is this the end of Dravid?

Sometimes it is just too painful to watch one of your favorite players look so shabby and out of place. Watching him play the last few Test matches, you get the feeling that Dravid is going through a mental trauma. What is sad about it though is that this trauma is self-inflicted. He is too fine a batsman and too determined a player to have such wretched patch for such a long time. His mind just isn't there. He is unable to accept the fact that a player of his caliber can fall to such depths. And it doesn't appear that he will be able able to pull himself out of this rut. He seems so aloof on the ground and doesn't appear to be getting any help from his teammates let alone his captain. I believe Dhoni has let him down in a big way and may even be waiting for Dravid to go out on his own. Sad.

After his second stint in the Chennai Test, I have no doubt that this will be Dravid's last Test series. I think he is going to retire at the end of the series. I would have loved to see him score a century or two before he departed, but I would rather not see so much pain on his face. So long, Dravid!

Guided Missile Control technology.... in chicken head :-)

The sky is no limit for craziness...

Dinner in the sky! The first thought that came to my mind when I saw the following picture was "what is wrong with these people!?!"



Oh, by the way, what if you need to pee when you are up there?! That was my second thought. :D

The India connection...

I normally don't write posts related to the business and technology I am professionally associated with in this blog. But, what I saw on the 2nd web site (the first was, of course, cricinfo.org, which I opened with trepidation and lots of prayers) I opened this morning as soon as I got up kind of amused me. The following screenshot is from IBM's home page.



:-)

Economy in the dumps!

I was reading an article by Sarita Rai on ZDNet, and the following segment caught my attention:

To survive the slowdown, outsourcing companies will have to learn to be thrifty. The successful ones have already been doing this. At Wipro, legend has it that chairman Azim Premji would ask that toilet paper be rationed, and insist employees switch off lights and air conditioners when leaving a room.

In fact, Premji, one of India's richest men by virtue of his share in Wipro, apparently practices frugality to the extent that he orders 'by-two' samosas in the office café.

Now, tell me something. How do you ration out toilet paper?! Every employee gets a daily/weekly quota of paper? Or, everybody is given a small roll for the entire week? What if that is not enough? I guess some smart folks will bring their own paper from home and keep it safe in their cubes for the rainy day! How awkward it should be to walk around with some paper in your hands or tucked somewhere! So, if you see somebody get up quietly and start walking down the hallway, you don't need to ask what is on his/her mind! What if, once you get there, you realize you needed to have brought more paper with you?

Nah! All that isn't gonna work. Why not install toilet paper dispensers in each stall? A couple of slots for credit/debit card and coins, and there you go! You don't need to carry anything. Better still, add a keypad to it on which you can punch in your employee code and you have a running account of paper used! End of the month, you have a new deduction on your paycheck!

Oh wait, this can start a whole new business of manufacturing "Toilet Paper Dispensers!" With a few trendy tag lines, it will catch on pretty fast! I already have some ready!


Swipe Before You Wipe!

Pay-per-wipe!

Pay As You Go!


Ok, that is enough. I have given you enough ideas. Now it is all yours!

Simple Truth. Beautiful Expression.

For a few days now, one of my most frequently used status messages on gtalk (when I am online, that is!) has been: "que sera, sera". It aptly conveyed my present state of mind. Or, so had I assumed. Till today. This morning, my dear friend from Bangalore innocently asked me if I was referring to the song from the Hindi movie Pukar. I didn't have a clue which song she was referring to. I was then given a YouTube link to the song from Pukar. And when I heard the song, I was horrified! No!! That song was not what I had on my mind! Absolutely not!

I then realized that what I had been offered was an opportunity to serve humanity by introducing this wonderful song by Doris Day to those who had never heard of her or the song. So here you go. Enjoy!

An unforgettable day to forget

I guess this day will never cease to come back. Year after year, it arrives and brings back horrific memories that can never fade away.

I can never forget watching the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center LIVE while still trying to come to terms with the shock of hearing about the first plane. That morning, as I drove to work, totally oblivious of what was about to happen, I had chosen to listen to Mysoora Mallige instead of my usual NPR in the car. A minute or two before I parked, the first plane hit the towers. As I was entering the office, a couple of my friends met me at the door with horrified looks on their faces. They couldn't believe that I had a nice smile on my face (ignorance is bliss?). I was greeted with the stunning news. The three of us rushed to the conference room where the entire staff had gathered to watch TV. As we were all recovering from the shock, we saw the second plane hit the other tower in real time. It took us a few seconds to realize it was not a replay. We all froze.

And more news followed. We sunk deeper and deeper into mourning. Nobody knew what to do. We were just standing here and there, going back in and out of the conference room. Nobody spoke a word for a long time.

The days that followed were equally painful as more and more details, pictures and other stories arrived.

I also realized that a few people I had communicated with while on my previous project had perished in the attack. My previous client had an office in the World Trade Center.

Why did so many people have to die that way? It just doesn't make sense.

It hurts so much to remember 9/11. I want to forget it. Think that it never happened.

But I can't. I just can't.

Ganesha Outsourced!

Take a look at this beautiful Ganesha idol I bought at the Aurora temple a few weeks ago:



As I was admiring its beauty, I don't know why, but I happened to flip the idol to see the part of Ganesha that we should normally not want to see:



I was stunned to see something that I never thought I would be condemned to see someday.

Now tell me, are we Indians so incapable of producing Ganesha idols for the world market that we have to get them made in those child-labor shops in China? Are we so inefficient that we can't stay profitable in a business like this unless we use cheap labor outside the country? Are we so devoid of a sense of social responsibility that we choose to ignore an opportunity to give jobs to Indians in our pursuit of maximum profit?

A friendly argument followed with the store manager (a volunteer with no stake or decision-making power whatsoever in the store) who very zealously tried to explain to me that Indian businessmen just don't want to commit to the consistent quality and quantity the export orders demand. She was speaking from her experience in pharmaceutical sales in the US. She said it was almost impossible to do business with Indian suppliers.

Trying to make me feel better, she said: "Oh, by the way, these idols are actually made by businesses connected to ISKCON though they are made in China!" Sure, that really made me feel better!! ;)

I bought the idol anyway. And today is his day. Though made in China, this is how he eventually turned out:

Today's best and the worst

The best thing I heard today:
The nine-year old who walked alongside Yao Min, the Chinese Basketball player (and the Houston Rockets center), at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony is a survivor of the terrible earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province earlier this year. Twenty kids died in his class of thirty. He crawled out of the rubble and went back to rescue his classmates (he saved two of them). When asked why he did that, his answer was: "I am one of the class leaders. It is my responsibility!" He must have wondered why people were making it such a big deal! Simple mind. Great character.

The worst thing I saw today:
The Indian contingent walking in the opening ceremony. Did somebody explain to them the importance of the occasion and how to prepare for such an event!? We are told they didn't have time to get dressed! And some athletes were not allowed to take part in the event because the Indian officials didn't want them to be butchered the next day! Oh, give me a break!! They will get butchered anyway, put up a good show at least in the opening ceremony!!

When there is not much to say....

I guess I can resort to writing what I heard others say!

So here goes. The best quip I heard today. A few of us in the office were seriously discussing a new project, estimates, resources and an impossible deadline, and were wondering if there was any way we can at least come close to the desired deadline. When somebody wondered if adding more people could help, one of the not-so-amused managers quipped with a straight face: "A baby can't be delivered in a month by nine women."

adE bhAgyamu....

manasuna manasai
bratukuna bratukai
manasuna manasai
bratukuna bratukai
tODokarunDina adE bhAgyamu adE swargamu

aashalu theerani aavEshamulO
aashayaalalO aavEdanalO
cheekaTi moosina EkaantamulO
tODokarunDina adE bhAgyamu adE swargamu

ninnu ninnuga prEminchuTaku
nee kOsamE kanneeru ninchuTaku
ninnu ninnuga prEminchuTaku
nee kOsamE kanneeru ninchuTaku
nEnunnaanani ninDuga palikE
tODokarunDinna adE bhAgyamu adE swargamu

chelimiyE karuvai valapE arudai
chedarina hrudayamE shila ai pOga
nee vyatha telisi neeDaga nilichi
tODokarunDinna adE bhAgyamu adE swargamu

Whatever...

Hail the Rosenstrasse women!

A young princess is asked to choose the man she would like to marry. She chooses one only to be told on her return from forest that the man she has chosen to marry is destined to die in a year. But she marries him anyway. A year later, 'the day' arrives, and her husband is taken away by the just lord of death. But the young wife decides to take him on to save her husband. And she does so, using peaceful means. She confronts him with her knowledge, her logical reasoning and her dedication to her cause. And she wins her husband back.

Did it really happen? Very unlikely. But we do remember, read and tell this story countless times -- we have been doing so as long as we can remember. A story written thousands of years ago lives on. Savitri is our hero.

Take a Savitri and multiply her 6000 times. Put them all together in one city. Have the lord of death take away their men (1800 of them -- because not all these Savitris are married to those men; Some of them are just women relatives of the men) -- the men who are destined to die not because of what they did but because who they are. As the most unjust and cruel lord of death prepares to grant those men their death, the women folk take him on, using peaceful means. No arms. No violence. Not all 6000 at once. In ones and twos initially and numbers picking up slowly. By the end of the week, the lord of death relents. All 1800 men released.

Unbelievable? Most certainly. Unlikely? Very much so. Did it really happen? Yes, it did. In1943. In Berlin. Do we know or remember it? Obviously not.

As the Nazis prepared to round up the last of the Jews in Berlin (the Final Round up, during Fabrikaktion), they picked up 1800 Jewish men, most of them married to non-Jewish women, and prepared to transport them to concentration camps while telling the women that they were being taken to labor camps. As they were held temporarily in a building on Rosenstrasse, Berlin, prior to transportation, some women got wind of it. One by one, they showed up on Rosenstrasse. And a peaceful protest, to save their men, began. Women started streaming in everyday. By the end of the week, 6000 women had taken part in the protest. A totally unorganized, totally unarmed, totally peaceful protest. They took on the very brutal SS, no less! And they won their men back. No shoot-outs, no killing. All the 1800 men were released. 25 men who had already been sent to Auschwitz were also recalled and released. And most of them even survived the war.

This was one of the very few open and successful attempts at protesting the actions of the Third Reich.

Why am I writing this today? Because it was today, February 27th, back in 1943, that the Rosenstrasse protest began.

Not sure if Gandhiji ever heard of this incident, but he definitely would have smiled had he heard it.

The Absurd

I am a sucker for stories within a story. I have always loved them! Sub-stories weaving in and out of the main story, the little events narrated by the characters that sometimes seemingly have no relevance whatsoever to the main story or sometimes adding depth and a different dimension to the characters, sometimes a deep life message molded into a small story that gets a thinking reader pondering. I guess this is one of the main reasons I love our epics, especially the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is one awesome example of story telling that required tremendous talent and imagination. And the way the sub-stories in Mahabharata appear every now and then without EVER suggesting anything that might contradict other sub-stories or the main story itself is really amazing. And all the characters just fit in so perfectly that it is absolutely impossible to refute the belief that Mahabharata did in fact occur.

But, that is not what I set out to write here. I went off tangentially -- maybe I was too consumed by the sub-story concept that I started planting something else in the post I intended to make here! :D

Some stories just shock you. They surprise you with the chillness that life keeps throwing at you from time to time.

There is one such sub-story that keeps coming back to me all the time, not from the Mahabharata, but from one of my most favorite books, The Stranger, by Albert Camus. The story is so absurd that I don't know what to make of it -- it just is a chilling reminder of how seemingly mundane things can turn tragic.

Here is that story. It is in the first person of the protagonist who is doing time in prison.

Between my straw mattress and the bed planks, I had actually found an old scrap of newspaper, yellow and transparent, half-stuck to the canvas. On it was a news story, the first part of which was missing, but which must have taken place in Czechoslovakia. A man had left a Czech village to seek his fortune. Twenty-five years later, and now rich, he had returned with a wife and a child. His mother was running a hotel with his sister in the village where he'd been born. In order to surprise them, he had left his wife and child at another hotel and gone to see his mother, who didn't recognize him when he walked in. As a joke he'd had the idea of taking a room. He had shown off his money. During the night his mother and his sister had beaten him to death with a hammer in order to rob him and had thrown his body in the river. The next morning the wife had come to the hotel and, without knowing it, gave away the traveler's identity. The mother hanged herself. The sister threw herself down a well. I must have read that story a thousand times. On the one hand it wasn't very likely. On the other, it was perfectly natural. Anyway, I thought the traveler pretty much deserved what he got and that you should never play games.

Don't know what to say.

The Rhythm of 'Eternal Rhythm'

Last night was one of those nights when my older sister and I have really long conversations on phone talking about everything under the sun including life in general, philosophy, the old times, her kids and her usual motherly concerns. It was one of those times I get to advice my sister, because, after all, I have all the theories and no parenting experience whatsoever (if you don't include Caesar, that is!). During the conversation, which went well past midnight, I narrated an anecdote to her, the anecdote I had read in Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba The Greek, back in 2005, the book I happen to be rereading now (I don't know why I do that, but I do reread a lot of books I like). I had blogged this story on my other blog, which has been down for over a year now (because it used to run on one of my personal Linux boxes which I had to shutdown for maintenance). The title I had given that post, back in early 2005, was 'Eternal Rhythm.'

Barely 6 hours after I narrated this anecdote to my sister to reinforce a point I was making, I get a scrap from a good friend of mine all the way from Belgium. Along with her usual 'Good Morning' greeting, she wrote: "Your 'Eternal Rhythm' storyline was very touching!" I fell off my chair when I saw that scrap from her. Did I call Bijapur or Belgium last night!?!? My friend had NOT seen my other blog at all! I had never even talked to her about that post! How in the world did she know it!?

Anyway, since it will take some time for me to revive the other blog, and since this particular story came up in a peculiar manner today, I thought I would post it here too.

So here it goes:

I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in a bark of a tree, just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life.The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it I tried to help it with my breath. In vain.It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of its wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.

The little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience, for I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.

When an idiot asks stupid questions...

"Sizu, tell me something. I walk you 3 times a day and let you out in the backyard to do your thing twice (very early in the morning and very late at night), pick up after you, then wash your feet and mouth with warm water and dry you with a soft towel. I do this whether it is raining or it is 90 degrees or -35 degrees like last night. Not to mention putting on your beautiful boots every time we step out in cold winters.





"As soon as we are done with this procedure, every single time, you run to the kitchen and sit by the cabinet where your treats are kept. You don't move from there till I give you your favorite treat. Once you get your treat, you dash off to the living room where you happily munch on it. And then you expect me to play with you for at least 5 minutes.

"I might miss my meals but I make sure you never miss yours. I fill your water bowls with fresh water twice a day without being asked. I clean your eyes, clean your ears, brush your teeth & coat, pay a groomer to give you a bath and do your nails and take you to dog park for your workout, etc. Like Seinfeld says, if Martian creatures were watching us dog owners here on earth (at least in the US), they wouldn't buy our claim that humans are the masters here.

"Now, there is definitely something wrong here, don't you think? I walk you, I clean you up, dry you up and all that, basically I am the one doing all the work for you. Don't you think you should be giving me the treat, and not the other way around?"

As I lay in bed, Sizu licked my face for 5 minutes, snuggled up to me under the blanket, and dozed off to sleep on my arm.

"But I do get this all the time from you, even if I screw up with any of the tasks I listed above! I get this even without asking for it!"

"Lick lick lick..." And back to sleep.

All my stupid questions had been answered. :)

Bangalore is where I want to be this week!

Received this email this morning and was thoroughly disappointed that I am not in Bangalore right now, more so because Bgm Parveen Sultana is performing and she is one of my most favorite Hindustani singers. I am posting it here for the benefit of those lucky ones in Bangalore who might stumble onto my blog in the next couple of days. If you make it to the Utsav, please let me know so that I know it was worth taking the time to convert this mail to a jpg image and post it here! :-)

ಅರ್ಥವಿಲ್ಲದ ವ್ಯರ್ಥ ಸಾಲುಗಳು - ೧

ನಮ್ಮ ಹುಡುಗಿ ವಸುಧೆಗೆ
ನಿತ್ಯ ಸಂಕ್ರಾಂತಿ ಹಬ್ಬ
ಏರಿಸಿಳಿಸುತ್ತಾಳೆ ದಿನಕ್ಕೆರಡು
ಒಂದು ಚಿನ್ನ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಬೆಳ್ಳಿ
ಬಾಲಂಗೋಚಿಯಿಲ್ಲದ ಗಾಳಿಪಟ

***

ತುಂಟ ಚಂದಿರ
ಮೇಘನೆಯ ಸೆರಗ ಹಿಡಿದು
ಕಣ್ಣಾಮುಚ್ಚಾಲೆಯಾಡುವಾಗ
ನನ್ನ ಮನದನ್ನೆ
ಬಿಚ್ಚೋಲೆ ಗೌರಮ್ಮ-
ಳಾಗಿ ಕೂತು
ಸಾಧಿಸುವುದು
ಸಾಧುವೇ?

***

I liked this video. Why? Find out for yourself.

ಹೀಗೇಕೆ?

ಕುರುಹಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಹರಿದು
ಕಲ್ಲು ಕುತ್ತಿಗೆಗೆ ಜೋಲು
ಅಕ್ಕರಿಸಿ ತಂದ ಹೊಳಪೀಗ
ಕಣ್ಣು ಕುಕ್ಕಿ,
ಧಿಕ್ಕರಿಸಿ

ಭಾಷೆ ಹಗುರ
ಮಾತು ಒಮ್ಮೆಲೆ ಭಾರ.
ಘನಿಸಿ ಘಟಿಸುವ ಮುನ್ನ
ಎದೆಯ ಸೊರಹಿನ ಸೊನೆ
ಸ್ರವಿಸಿ ಅಪಸ್ವರ
ಆಗಿದ್ದು ಯಾವಾಗ?

ದಾಪುಗಾಲಿನ ನಡುವೆ
ದಾಟಿ ಕಳೆದದ್ದೆಷ್ಟೋ
ಕೂತು ಬೆಳೆಸಿದ ಹೊಡಕೆ
ಬೆಳೆದು ಬಿರಿದದ್ದೆಷ್ಟೋ

ಅಲೆದಲೆದು ಹುಡುಕುವುದೆಷ್ಟು
ಮತ್ತೆ ಜೋಡಿಸಿ ಹೆಣೆಯುವುದೆಷ್ಟು
ಹೊರಲಾರದೆ ಹೊತ್ತು
ಈಗ ಹಗುರತ್ವದ ಭಾರ

ಹೀಗೇಕೆ? ಹೀಗೇ ಏಕೆ?