what i want to say is...

generalizing stuff

2010-08-28T22:25:00.001-07:00

In the movie 'up in the air', George clooney's character says something like this "i do profiling (racial/gender/profession etc) of airline passengers.. this simplifies my life" .. he goes on to say how he generalizes people and stands in the line where he thinks those people are quicker through security checkpoints - he says "never stand in a line where there are middle eastern looking gents since extra time is spent on them by security folks".. similarly he says, "asian men pack lightly and wear those easy slip-on shoes allowing them to go fast through security check-points" ..

so i never understood when people say "dont generalize things" .. generalizations work because 'exceptions dont make the rule' ... generalizations help us take decisions fast and to be more practical..

in our world of 6 billion or so people, we have to generalize things and most of the times we all do it - consciously or unconsciously...

take the case of the govt's decision to have the voting age as 18... here it has generalized saying that people above 18 only have the maturity to vote wisely... but i am sure there are some 16 yr olds who are more wise than some 25 yr olds...

take the case of combat forces in an army being men only... again, it is a generalization based on common trends... nothing wrong in it..

this applies to other important aspects like racial/ethnic profiling for identifying possible terrorists.. there is nothing wrong to generalize that muslims should be checked more than others for terrorist links.... it is a generalization based on statistics and gives us a fast method to do a quick one level of filtering...

so dont feel bad generalizing... it is just being practical

whats learning all about really?

2010-08-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

We all learn stuff. We apply it in our daily lives. a simple example is how to tie our shoe laces - we see someone doing it and we learn. learning basically is the cognitive process of acquiring a skill or knowledge (strict dictionary definition). cognition is basically knowing something through logic.. that means to learn we have to use logic.. or understand the logic behind that particular skill or relate a particular skill to the end result of using that skill.

i was watching Nat Geo and they showed a vast dry savannah landscape. A jackal was trying to break a hard ostrich egg. It could not and a lion came along. It also tried to bite into it, but could not. It left the egg. Along came an egyptian vulture. It does not look like the regular vulture. But this vulture looked at the egg and the commentator spoke in the background 'no way this vulture can break into the hard shell with it's beak' and he paused... the vulture took a big stone in it's beak and it threw the stone on the egg. It repeated this action a few times and the egg cracked. Once it cracked, it opened up the shell using it's beak. I was dumbstruck, I never realized that animals can acquire a cognitive process like that. I did hear about the fable of the crow throwing stones into a glass to get the water up near to the brim, but dismissed it as a fairy tale. But this bird used it's learning to break open the egg shell. I thought - there must be a vulture up the generations which started this in the first place and this practice got carried on into the subsequent generations. I can also imagine that the first vulture MIGHT have accidentally dropped a stone and it might have cracked the shell. But how did that bird connect the dots? it requires intelligence to connect the dots.... and if it is intelligent and if intelligence evolves over subsequent generations, would be see vulture civilizations in the future?

the saddest day of my life is

2010-08-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

July 20th 1973 .....

i was born on January 23rd 1974...

anyone knows the answer to this puzzle?

FYI: all my family members are doing good and healthy..

Performance Review

2010-07-27T01:16:00.000-07:00

I sat in front of my manager for my performance review...

Manager: Hi, can you tell me your top two accomplishments last year?

Me: First big accomplishment - i survived the last round of layoffs and am still here.

Second One: I survived despite my utter lack of any accomplishments.

Manager: wait, you are saying, you are saying that you survived despite lack of any major accomplishments, so that means you dont have any accomplishments?

Me: That itself is my major accomplishment, so strictly speaking yes i do have accomplishments.

Manager: Ok, any work related accomplishments? for example, did you play a pivotal role in any big project? did you ensure that your work helped the team deliver the project ahead of the deadline? something like that...

Me: I made sure i did not interfere unnecessarily in the project's proceedings... by that i ensured that the project is delivered on time.. my interference would only have created issues .. so in effect i showed that i am a team player and not an individual driven by selfish personal goals.....so please add this also in my accomplishments - showed immense team player skills to ensure project delivery ahead of schedule.

Manager: So you are saying that by displaying a negative and passive attitude, you affected the project in a positive way....

Me: Sir, we are a results driven company and answerable to our shareholders.. our shareholders would not ask our CFO if the company ensured that i worked or not... it will only ask why this major project got delayed... so with that in mind, i made sure i am answerable to our shareholders like any true employee.

Manager: Ok, any areas of improvement you would like to mention?

Me: Yes, i am not good at multi-tasking.... all my instant messengers like skype, MSN, yahoo messenger and gtalk are open at the same time, plus add on to that the regular work....i am unable to respond to some friends requests because of my lack of multi tasking skills... so i need to improve upon that...

Manager: you are not supposed to chat while working. this is something that will go against you in your performance review..

Me: Ok, from now on i will ensure that i wont work while i chat and vice versa.. i will make a time table where i will pencil down 4 hrs for chatting and 4 hours for work... this will help me to follow your suggestion that i should not chat while working.

Manager: ok, what are your long term plans?

Me: to be employed in this company long term and avail of all the perks and benefits this company has to offer - be it free coffee or coke, or pencils and pens, post-its and printouts, staplers and clips, subsidised lunches and 8 hrs a day in A/C.

Manager: you have anything to say?

Me: nothing, i need to get back to my cubicle asap to prepare my timetable as we discussed... thank you.

the color riddle

2010-07-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

There is this guy who is born with a different kind of vision.. his eyes reverse the color of red and blue... he sees a red sky and a blue apple... but then since he is born with such a vision, he thinks that is how the sky looks like and how an apple looks like....

he goes to school and the teacher tells him - an apple is red and the sky is blue... but he sees the apple in blue and the sky in red... so he thinks that the color of the apple which he sees is red and the color of the sky as he sees it is blue.

no one ever knows that he sees these two colors quite opposite to what the others see since he refers to the color of the apple as he sees as red only though in his mind he equates "our (general population)" color blue to "red".

so the question is 'how would anyone ever know that our blue is his red and our red is his blue?

this has greater implications - what we think is purely what we have learnt about using our own intellect and understanding.. it is impossible for anyone to know how you think of something....

or maybe you are not getting my point here....

The white collar bribe brigade

2010-07-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a small conversation between the HR manager (a highly respected position in our IT society) of a top IT company and a consultant:

HR Guy: Hi, we need give candidates for profiles which i will send you by email. So get me some resumes for those profiles

Consultant: Sure, will work on it immedietely. BTW, did you mention the approximate salary ranges for these profiles?

HR guy: yes, i mentioned... dont push me into offering more salaries this time... and as usual, you get a month's salary of that particular candidate and our personal equation is 30%:70%.... is that ok?

Consultant: Of course Sir, the equation remains the same. BTW, i am inviting a few select friends for drinks at the bar in Leela Palace today, please do join us.

On his way back from work, the HR guy is stopped by a traffic constable and he is asked for the documents. He produces all the docs except for the emission certificate. The constable says "give me rs 300 and i wont write a challan" .... the HR guy gives me Rs 300, closes his window and mutters to himself "goddamn police - corrupt to the core" ...

Epilogue: After a few days, the consultant places 5 candidates for the five profiles with each candidate getting an approximate salary of 1 lakh a month. The HR guy and the consultant stay true to their equation and divide up the total sum of 5 lakhs in a 30/70 ratio. The HR guy wanted to buy a big screen LED TV for the world cup and he got the money for it now..... VIVA ESPANA.......

Another conversation between a corporate services manager in a high profile IT company with some 3000 employees and a food caterer... they both meet in a bar...

Caterer: Sir, please renew the contract for another 2 years... and we will maintain our current equation plus a free goft at the end of the year.

Corp Services Manager: Ok, i dont mind.. but i need to increase the ratio to 70:30 from the current 80:20....

Caterer: sir, it is difficult since we cannot raise the prices of the meals by much and all the food raw material prices have gone up.... you know how much toor dal costs nowadays sir...

Corp Services manager: i have other good offers too...

Caterer: ok, if you insist, but i may not provide toor dal, the employees have to adjust with Urad Dal ...

Corp Services Manager: I am ok with it... anyway, i bring my lunch box.... plus you can have a strict control at the dessert vessel - only allow one sweet per person. after all, employees should not overeat sweets and become obese for their own health issues

Caterer: that we do anyway, but maybe we will now only provide dalda based sweets made of flour which have longer shelf life.. is that ok?

Corp Services Manager: thats ok, so what is the gift you have in mind?

Caterer: would a nice Hyundai i20 work?

Corp Services Manager: hmm, make it Volkswagen Polo and i will renew the contract for 3 years.

The corp services manager gets up from the bar and goes to another pub to meet his friends.. they all sit around a couple of pitchers and start conversing about all topics.... then someone brings up about some politician who recently got caught in a big bribery scandal.... and the corp services manager says " i say, all politicians should be shot dead in the open... everyone of them is totally corrupt"

your pain is my pleasure

2010-07-11T12:22:00.001-07:00

I always felt that there is more pleasure in expressing sympathy at someone's sad state of affairs than celebrating someone's good state of being... in english it is called envy, but basically it is the emotion in us that tells us "you could have been THAT but you are not' ... of course this emotion does not exist usually when the celebrating party is someone truly near and dear or someone too far removed from our lives...

If Bill Gates were to be conferred the Nobel Prize, it would not have any impact on me in terms of envy... but if my neighbour gets home a nice Ford Endeavour SUV, it will piss me off... it is an emotion that is usually felt if someone we know, but is not too close achieves success in life...

Take a family which is truly in a bad financial situation... you express sympathy at their misfortune and help them with something.... in a few years the same family's main breadwinner lands up a great job and the family ends up several notches higher in income than you... your emotion towards that very family you sympathized with changes into envy despite they not doing any harm to you.... this is because our whole life is one big one-upmanship circus and our self worth is not an absolute quantity but relative to the worth of others in the minds of the general populace...

When someone tells us news of his good fortune or someone keeps pictures of them in exotic places in facebook, it is to tell the less fortunate how less fortunate they indeed are compared to him who is experiencing the good things in life.. it is called 'rubbing it in'.... mos tof us succumb to it.... our pain is his pleasure and we give it to him on a platter

the true globalization ambassadors

2010-07-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

Whenever i see kids speaking in english only, i feel a bit bad since these kids will probably grow speaking only english, will probably marry a girl who also speaks english only and their children will also continue to speak english.. a complete takeover of an aspect of our culture by a foreign entity.. in a way engish is one of the main globalization vehicles.....but it happens with much fanfare with quite some people fighting against it, or encouraging local languages and such other things.... english adoption in large numbers does not go unnoticed by our patriotic consciences....

there are many other aspects of globalization which attempt to span the entire world creating mirror images of societies, more so in the urban areas..... the many faces of such globalization are coffee shops, fast food chains, big retailers like walmart, big grocery chains, multiplexes, western clothes, western sports, western gestures like handshaking, alcoholic beverages, packaged foods and a whole lot of things... but most of the times, a globalization vehicle as the ones listed above can be identified as to which country it belongs to or came from because most of it has happened in the recent past... but there is one globalization vehicle which has been quite a good ambassador since a long time but has escaped notice.... i think it is the vegetable.

I always thought that chillies are native to India and thought that only Indians eat chillies till i sampled thai food... then when i sampled sichuan food, i realized that they use a lot more chillies... after a while to my utter disappointment i realized that the chillies arent native to India at all - we only got them in the 16th century from the Portuguese who first saw them in the Americas.... from then on i used to wonder about the nativity of every vegetable i saw on the table.... the tomato, the brinjal, the cauliflower, garlic, potato, lady fingers and the latest entrant in the Indian market - the Broccoli.... where have these vegetables started their journey and spanned the entire globe? you can get almost any vegetable in most urban centers around the world and yet no one thinks about it's origin or no one protests about it's spread across various dinner tables... we all partake of their nutrition and benefits and savour them without worrying about it's influence on our native culture... if there is one true globalization ambassador, it is the humble vegetable.

all about the looks

2010-07-03T19:58:00.001-07:00

I was shopping the other day for washing powder... i had no clue on the merits and demerits of different washing powders.. but i settled on one particular powder because somehow it felt better than the rest.. on closer self examination i realized that i picked that particular one since it's packaging was nicer and more attractive to my eyes. I equated the quality of the washing powder to the external wrapping of it's bucket.

When John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared on the the first ever televised Presidential debate, John Kennedy just returned from a fantastic California campaign with a nice golden tan and was well rested and looking fit. On the other hand, Nixon had seriously injured his knee a month before and spent two weeks in the hospital. By the time of the first debate he was still twenty pounds underweight, his pallor still poor. He arrived at the debate in an ill-fitting shirt, and refused make-up to improve his color. The debate was quite even but here is the surprise... The people who heard the whole debate on radio pronounced Nixon as the clear winner.. the 70 million or so who watched TV pronounced Kennedy the clear winner because they clearly saw Kennedy's charisma and looks while they saw a visibly weak Nixon. The rest is history - looks have clinched the seat for Kennedy.

When couples go for adoption and visit an orphanage, the only thing that they seek really is the cutest kid among the lot....the thing that differentiates a lucky infant from an unlucky infant is the looks and very less of any other factor if any.

There was this poor couple who had seven daughters... initially they were terrified since they cannot afford the dowry for all the seven daughters... but all seven of their daughters got picked up by good well-to-do families and even the wedding expenses were borne by the bridegroom families - all of this because all those seven girls turned out to be exceptionally beautiful,.... btw none of them were really educated and it was just their looks that clinched the deal for them...

Most CEOs in the world are tall people... there is no link between tall people and intelligence or personality... but somehow our mind directly links tall people to better performance, performance in all areas of public and private life... and this subconscious bias makes a tall man more inclined to success than a short man.

In many surveys across the world, the Tiger emerged as man's favorite animal followed by the Horse... a grizzly bear has the same ferociousness, the same hunting skills, the same strong personality as the Tiger, but the Tiger is simply one of the msot beautiful creatures that ever roamed on the planet. Imagine a tiger having the looks of a Hyena - it would never ever top that list....

David Beckham would not be as rich as he is now if not for his famous face.... there would not have been a movie called 'bend it like beckham'... most of his success was because of his looks.... it was the clincher for him versus others who were more talented...

But there is an interesting twist to the whole thing.. i dont have statistics to prove this and i rely purely on my observation to make this statement - there are more good looking people in a random sample of rich families, compared with a random sample of poor families ..... the reason might be that the rich families can afford good grooming, make up, clothes, fashions etc, but it also that the rich can get more beautiful spouses thus passing on the good look genes to their next generation..

so my equation for success is success = 50% looks + 50% of everything else put together. call it a random equation, but i believe in it..

yes, i know it all

2010-06-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was sitting with a group of friends and i was about to relate a joke i heard from someone... as soon as i said one line, one of my friends interrupted and guessed the joke and asked me if it was the same joke.. i was disappointed but said yes.. then we had some other serious conversations and again when i started to relate a joke, some of those guys knew it already... it was not the case two decades back... jokes werent so widespread as in, if you know a joke, there was a very small chance that one of your friends knew the same joke unless you told him about it... but thanks to forwarded emails and jokes websites, jokes are experienced not by a group of friends sharing the laugh together over a drink or dinner, but in the privacy of our homes or cubicles while staring at the computer.... almost everyone knows all the jokes around.. no more telling a joke and basking in the limelight of friends' appreciation or getting the satisfaction of seeing them laugh out loud..

I went to the doctor once as i had some medical condition.. as he was trying to explain to me the prognosis, i started nodding my head and started to add sentences to his statements.... basically i was trying to show off that i also knew about my medical condition (thanks to google)... the pride with which he was exhibiting his knowledge quickly disappeared..... google and wikipedia, despite their enormous benefits have succeeded in removing some of those proud moments of some professionals.

this is the "i know it" or "i have the means to know it" generation... thanks to smart phones, one does not need to wait till he reaches home and opens his computer... it is all there for access within a few seconds... just like how GPS killed the proud way the street corner shopkeeper used to tell directions to a nearby location....

the other side of knowing it all from google is that one cannot get away with saying wrong information... one can find it out in a few seconds, like how i once told my nephew that the capital of Israel is Tel Aviv and he checked it immedietely on his computer and told me i was wrong and that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.. it was swift and instant and i had nowhere to hide... i had to admit my ignorance right there....

earlier, we used to know about movies either after watching it or from a friend... but now right after a movie is released there are some hundred reviews of it online.... we can make up our mind to save those few rupees or to watch it or watch it on a DVD later on... the charm of finding it out on our own and to rush home to warn friends not to see the movie is gone.... now everyone gets his review online only..

google and wikipedia and many other websites remove the enormous information assymetry which our previous generations suffered from, but they also removed the charm of knowing something from the "expert" firsthand.....

meaningless expressions of concern

2010-06-29T01:40:00.001-07:00

The other day my friend called me... after the initial 'how are you', 'what are you doing' things, he suddenly asked me 'so how are your parents, are they doing fine, hope they are in good health etc etc? i said 'in fact good that you brought up this topic.. can you take care of my parents for 6 months since i need to go abroad on some urgent assignment and they have no one to take care of them?' i could make out that he was speechless for a moment.. he regained his composure or voice, whatever he lost when i said it and said 'well, i dont know.. i mean i have a small house, and it would be difficult' ... i said 'then stop expressing concern about my parents' health and their well being'.

though the above example is an extreme aspect of my cynicism, the point is, we many times express concern without being truly concerned... we simply say things because they are meant to be said as part of a polite conversation. what is the point of expressing concern when one wont even budge his little finger to help the other person... these only become meaningless soundbytes.... recently my friend's mother died... when i was speaking to him, he told me that his mother died and thats why he could not be in touch... i said 'ok' .. i could not make myself say things like 'ohh, thats so bad, sorry for that etc etc' because why should i be sorry if his mother died? plus honestly i did not feel anything since i never knew her nor knew about his equation with his mother... so it only was a piece of news to me and nothing else.... expressing concern there would be meaningless to me except as a sign of a polite gesture....

i have heard many times people saying the phrase 'ohh, thats so sad' without even a hint of sadness in their expression... in fact they continue to sip their favorite cocktail while expressing intense sorrow..... our human civilization has come to such a point where we automatically say things like robots and expressing concern is one aspect of that automation... when one is really concerned, it will show up in the face... if it just a soundbyte, rest assured that he does not give a shit.....

dont ever say you understand me.. because you just cannot

2010-06-28T19:47:00.001-07:00

Many times i hear people use the phrase 'i understand' ... 50% of the times, they just dont understand, it is only used to mean 'ok, time's up, it is now time for me to put across my point' .. th give-away here is when the person says 'i understand' followed by the word 'but' .. it means he never really cared to understand you....

the above para is just intended to say that it is difficult to understand people's motivations, desires and behavioral choices.. and the primary reason why it is so difficult for one person to understand the above mentioned aspects of another person is "every person has a whole different set of chemical levels driving his day-to-day behavior and choices" ....

let me give an example from my own behavior.... i get excited big time when my wife asks me if i want another cup of coffee... if i say this to someone else, they think "whats wrong, what is so exciting about a cup of coffee?" ... but for me, the idea of a cup of coffee is extremely attractive since i derive a lot more pleasure than someone else from that cup.... my levels of opioids - the pleasure releasing chemicals of my brain are activating the pleasure giving region of my brain much more than the opioids of another person does to him with a cup of coffee... thus, the pleasure i derive from the cup is much more enhanced than for the other person... but this is about liking a particular thing - opioids only control how much one likes a particular thing, be it chocolate or coffee or anything else.

another example from my life.. i can go to great lengths to buy the best Banganapalli mangoes.. if i am invited to play a game of squash, i dont mind driving 15 kms to play a couple of games... to another person this may seem excessive - is the want for a couple of squash games so much as to make him drive 15 kms? this is where dopamine steps in - that wonderful neurotransmitter which was once known as the pleasure chemical but now is known as the chemical that drives want and desire, while opioids drive liking something.... just to deviate from the plot - wanting something is like wanting to eat a sweet.... liking something means, not having the intense need to eat a sweet, BUT if given a sweet liking it's taste by feeling pleasurable while eating it....

so my dopamine levels are MY dopamine levels and the way they make me do things is the way it ONLY makes ME do it... the dopamine system is the chemical system in our brains that helps us make the behavioral choices that helps us achieve goals or things that IT HAS TOLD US we DESIRE. So if am driven to great lengths to achieve something, as trivial as it might be like "to get a particular variety of coriander to make the curry smell and taste better" then it is because the dopamine tells me that i desire it big time and it motivates me to satisfy that desire. This can be applied to a whole lot of our desires and wants and our behavioral choices to satisfy those desires.

So next time someone tries to tell us that we are chasing something trivial, tell him that what he considers trivial is what you think is vital for your pleasure..

the basis of love

2010-06-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Love is a multi-faceted word like it's very strong counterpart - f**k ... it has many connotations and used in quite many sentences, some strong and some trivial, of course all of them positive... usage of the word can vary from 'i love that girl, i love my parents, i love playing cards, i am in love with my job' to many other forms... many times we tend to overstate things and use love instead of like... for example, the sentence "i love my job" is an overstatement... one can like his job or like his job a LOT, but love is not the right word..

to me what differentiates like and love is the physical basis of love....i can like my colleague but i might do things for him, but i wont go out of the way to do it.... similarly i wont imagine being physically close to that person.... but love is something where there is either an already established physical intimacy (including that of the mother and child) or anticipation of physical intimacy... we love our parents so much because we have been physically close to our parents - they cuddled us, they took us in their arms, we hugged them, they kisses us and all of that physical intimacy forms the basis of our love for them... then of course the knowledge that they are raising us using their money and energy etc etc come into the picture.. the same i think is true with a girl and guy... anticipation of physical intimacy drives feelings of love, and these physical intimacy feelings need not be ourely sexual - cuddling is not sexual, but this does drive the feeling of love...

take the case of pets.... i dont know if we can ever love our pet dog without even touching it.... maybe if there is a person who likes a dog though he may not like touching it, then that feeling might be a different emotion like sympathy.... but pure love has to have a physical basis... we love petting our dogs and this drives that intense love between the dog owner and the pet.

we love our cars vs liking it.. we love our cars because we like driving it, we like runnign our hands over that gleaming paint on metal, we like to run our hands on the nice dashboard, the solid steering wheel, we love the feeling of the leather on the seats and we love the sound waves that hit our ears when it starts (perhaps not in the case of all cars is this sound thing true).. anyway, here also it has a physical basis.

so love without prior physical touch or it's anticipation is not really love.. it can be empathy, sympathy, affection, regard whatever but not love

manual labour - real challenge to an egalitarian society

2010-06-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

There was a time when the toilets were just pits in the ground without any flushing mechanism or septic tanks or sewage systems... in those days there was a caste assigned to clean up that shit.. and as is common those days, that caste was looked down upon since their job involved using their hands and some rudimentary cleaning equipment to clean up.. it was a really manual job and something in our psychology makes us look down upon completely manual work..

take the case of a cleaning lady mopping the floor with a cloth in her hands,down on her haunches when the houseowner and his family is there watching TV vs that of a cleaning lady standing up straight and using a vacuum cleaner to do the same job... the second case has more dignity in the work.... the first case somehow reeks of slavery, despite slavery being a harsh term in such a situation.

take the case of men or women doing any job.. when that same job is done using modern implements it gives the job much more dignity... thats perhaps one of the reason in India, where there is extremely low dignity of labour because all labour is extremely manual... though ideally despite the work being done with hands or with modern implements, it should be given the respect, our society is hardly ideal..

the more workers are given and made to use modern implements, the more they are paid for their jobs compared to the current cheap labour wages, the more egalitarian the society would become... till then, we will continue to look down upon our working classes

only the paranoid survive

2010-06-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

'Only the Paranoid Survive' is a famous phrase from one of silicon valley's legendary CEOs... he wrote a book bearing that name... the word paranoid here does not mean the true dictionary meaning, but about being constantly aware of the threats to one's current position in life, or threats to life itself.. it is a fact that accidents happen and people get caught up in accidents because of the phenomenon called 'probability'... an airline crash has a very low probability but it does happen and those unlucky ones who are in that particular plane lose their life. There are threats everywhere and we face them almost every day of our lives with a certain probability attached to it.. but our own actions and awareness can increase of decrease that probability(written here as prob) to a certain extent, perhaps in some cases to a large extent. All it takes to decrease that probability is to be paranoid...

accidents happen in varied forms - airline crashes, road accidents, lightning strikes, heavy tree branches falling on people, overloaded trucks tilting and falling on the adjacent vehicle, slipping on steps, drowning in rivers/lakes, train derails/collisions, AIDS (yeah, an accident), electric shocks, fire accidents, falling off the railway platform in front of an oncoming train and so many other ways i dont recall now.. everyone of the above seems like an accident with a specific prob but there areunderlying causes for those accidents and if one highly aware of the probability attached to each of those underlying causes, one may decrease the prob of him being involved in that accident....

take the case of road accidents.. rearview mirrors, helmets and seat belts - these three simple devices do reduce the prob of a fatal injury or even an accident (in the case of rearview mirrors).... basic driving safety reduces that prob... those who drive recklessly constantly strive to increase the probability of a fatal accident.. if they are lucky, they miss it sheerly because the prob of getting involved in an accident is rarely a one.

airline crashes are usually something in which our awareness helps very little.. the airline is a complex vehicle and we dont fly and hence arent in control.... but even in such a thing, awareness helps in reducing the prob of us getting caught in a crash.. simple rule - airlines of rich countries are always safer than airlines of poorer countries .... cathay airlines is always better than Garuda.... emirates is much much better than vietnam airlines.... rich countries' airlines have more money for better maintenance schedules, follow strict safety norms and dont overwork their pilots and staff - all elements for a safer flight...

when you see a truck heavily tilted on one side from overloaded cargo, your alarm bells should start ringing - it should tell you to either be at the back or front of it and definitely not on the tilting side.. the guys whose alarm bells dont ring usually appear as accident victims in our newspapers....

yes, finally it is all about luck, but luck is nothing but the prob of favourable events being more than the prob of unfavourable events... so by being more aware, by being paranoid, one can shift the luck towards oneself...

P.S: i dont have statistics to prove it, but i noticed since a long time that most accident victims happen to be uneducated poor folk.. it just tells me that lack of education makes them less aware of the basic self preservation techniques thereby increase the prob of getting caught in an accident.... a simple example - the railway overbridge is often used only by the educated, while the uneducated cross the tracks, sometimes when the train is dangerously close.... btw, most AIDS victims are also poor folks since they are unaware of the dangers of unsafe sex - so another case to add to my point that poorer folks suffer more accidents..

Veg vs Non Veg

2010-06-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

There is always a huge debate on whether non veg is morally right or vegetarianism is the correct ethical choice... i have long ago decided that vegetarianism is indeed more civilized and more ethical despite the fact that some non vegetarian foods are quite tasty and not easy to let go.. but the question of this short post is not to discuss the ethics of the above food options.. i thought about some of the fundamental aspects that differentiates both foods, and apart from the basic biological differences what struck me was this...

You take a die hard non veg fan.. a guy who loves sausages for his breakfast, loves grilled chicken or lean beef for his lunch and maybe a salmon fillet for his dinner.. he does not like veggies much... now, remove that grilled chicken for lunch and instead put a bowl of fresh maggots or caterpillars on his table... i am sure that unless he is Bear Grylls or the resident of the Guangzhou area of China, he would jump off his chair and not go near that bowl..

do the same experiment with a die hard veggie and instead of his daily vegetables, say put a plate of Yam or some unknown vegetable... 99% i can bet that he wont be repelled by it.. he might not like the taste or it may not look appealing, but there is no disgust factor... put the same unknown veggie plate in front of a non vegetarian, even then he wont react in the same way he reacts when he sees a bowl of maggots...

that i think is one of the fundamental differences between the two foods.. non vegetarian food is inherently yucky... years of getting used to it will make a person deal with it more naturally, but it is not inherently attractive.. if anyone has the answer for this question, it would be an eye opener regarding why we humans get repulsed by some non veg foods while it is not the case with any veg food... till then let me enjoy both my tandoori chicken and okra curry...

a matter of a coin toss

2010-06-14T02:46:00.000-07:00

i feel guilty anytime i walk in front of the security folks in my apartment in my nice clothes.. i feel guilty every time i get off my nice car in front of them... or feel guilty whenever i enter the lift to go to my nice home... why i feel is because i feel that he deserves this as much as i deserve it..

i feel that anything that we get because of pure chance from another has this guilt factor... imagine a situation where there is a cake and two guys and only one can eat it based on the toss of a coin... you win the coin toss and you get to eat it.... wont you feel guilty for winning that toss since it could have gone either way?

our relative success in life is a matter of chance, nothing more... we can delude ourselves as much as we want thinking we worked towards this and we deserve this compared to a guy on the street but it is just that - a delusion... a delusion triggered by our guilty egos which cannot accept that you are the mere result of coin tosses all your life...

so i feel guilty that he lost the coin toss and i won and as in most cases, there is only one coin toss...

the burden of praise

2010-06-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever faced a situation where you were praised and then you found yourself suddenly heavy with burden - the burden of living upto those expectations?

Tell the waiter at a restaurant to select the best dish for you and he will make sure he will go to great lengths to get you something special because you have put the burden on him by praising his culinary knowledge.

Tell a lady she is very beautiful and everytime she comes to see you she will go crazy going through her make up kit and dresses to make sure she looks as beautiful as possible - creating a burden on her through praise...

if a person is praised in front of a lot of other people as having amazing wit, he will try really hard everytime to come up with a smart line - a burden he will try to live upto everytime in front of that group of people..

if a manager tells his employee that he trusts him with his work and has enormous respect for his hard work and intelligence, that employee has just been enslaved for ever to the manager, unless either of them quit the company..

tell a man that you think he has enormous stamina to play a full game of basketball and if you are watching him, he will push himself harder than ever to keep himself on the court despite shedding copious amounts of sweat and panting like a dog.

Tell a guy that you value his financial knowledge and you ask him for some financial advice, you will hardly hear a no despite his ignorance of that issue... the burden you put on him will never let him to say 'i dont know'..

something about living upto the expectations of the people who think something of you - be it beauty or intelligence or wit or wisdom ...

photo tourism

2010-06-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

When colour TV became prominent in households across Indian cities, i heard more than once people saying 'because of the color TV and TV programs showing foreign lands, we have become virtual tourists seeing all those places sitting right here at home' ... this was from people who at that time could not afford to visit foreign lands..

but nothing has changed despite people having the money to visit foreign lands and actually doing it.. quite a lot of us who visit exotic places actually see the place once we return back through the photos.. while there, all the time is spent in scouting for the most appropriate place to stand and get a photo clicked.. and thanks to digital photography, the number of photos from each trip easily exceeds 500.... i mean 500 photos? when do we have time to actually experience the place?

one of the reasons for this obsession with clicking hundreds of photos while on a tour is because many of us visit an exotic place not because we seriously want to experience the place but because it is supposed to be one of the 'must visit' places and telling friends that we visited this place gives us valuable points in our one-upmanship game... and internet has come to the rescue of such people.... i am not talking about Picasa .. picasa albums can only be seen by people to who you send the pics... but facebook helps your case by telling random people with who you are not directly in touch on a regular basis that you are living the life.... a person with no interest or knowledge of ancient greek history would never find Athens fascinating, but taking a photo near the Acropolis and posting it on facebook gives her a huge high... this is the age of photo tourism, so unlike the one of our previous generation where your experience lived forever in your memories... now it is all about 'in your face(book)' .....

more english than english

2010-06-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

The other day i was speaking to a person to who i got introduced by a mutual friend... since none of us belong to the same state and all three being south indian, we started speaking in english... when he spoke, that person made a couple of serious grammatical mistakes.. immedietely, without my deliberate thought into it, some part of my brain started build a sketch of this person with words like 'uneducated' , 'uncultured', 'village types', 'lower middle class' etc etc.... later i cursed myself for even getting such thoughts, but i cannot really blame myself... we have been taught, rather implicitly, to judge a person based on his english speaking skills... our obsession with good english has become enormous, threatening our respect for more deserved aspects of civilization.

But strangely, we never judge whites or natives of some other more economically prosperous countries like japan, based on their command of the english language.. when Valentino Rossi, the legendary motorcyle racer speaks in horrible english, we still adore him since he is not supposed to be good at english, he is Italian.... but Kapil Dev was constantly ridiculed during his captain days for his lack of english speaking skills....

i never understood the extreme importance given in our media to winners of Spelling Bee contests.. Times of India proudly proclaimed in it's headlines 'third time win for an Indian in US spelling bee contest' .... no wonder - only indians give it so much importance.. after all americans changed the spellings of so many words..

another aspect of our obsession with english is many people are proud to say that their command over their mother tongue is horrible.... i heard quite some friends say 'my malayalam is really bad' or 'i cannot read telugu and i dont understand most of what my relatives speak' ... this to show that they are more comfortable in english and hence more acceptable in the upper echelons of society...

and the progression of this aspect of our perceived sophistication is displayed when one progresses from a very good e nglish speaker without any grammatical mistakes to one with no grammatical mistakes and without the typical indian accent.... this hybrid accent, as clearly shown by our bollywood filmstars, page 3 celebrities is neither indian or american, despite them thinking it is american.. it sounds more gay than american.. conversations in english between two actors in our hindi movies show this desperate attempt to appear un-indian/more western ... in the film Bheja Fry, the english conversation between Sarika and Rajat Kapoor was like that - extremely deliberate in trying to show their western leanings or their supposed sophistication.... it just came off as bad bad bad acting....

and the irony of all this is i am writing all this making sure i dont commit any grammatical blunders or spelling mistakes so that i dont sound like an unsophisticated person.. we never learn...

experiencing everything... from the safety of a couch

2010-06-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

I have done all of these things ... 1. drove a rolls royce 2. had a coffee with george clooney, 3.flew my own microlite plane 4. chased by a tiger after secretly entering the core area of a forest, 5.had a lengthy chat with Chiranjeevi about his political entry, 6. got trained for a couple of hours by Bruce Lee 7.visited the great barrier reef and 8. made love to sridevi..

but have i really done these things? well, i dont know what it means to have "really" done these things.. experiences are registered by the brain by taking inputs from various sense organs, so it is the registering in the brain which really matters, no matter where it gets it's inputs from.... for example, if i ate a nice crab cake in s restaurant, the brain registers the taste and makes us feel the pleasure... if in my dream, i ate a crab cake, the brain gets the signal and gives us the same pleasure.. so the real crab cake and the crab cake we see in our dreams gives us the same pleasure.... this really explains the wet dreams most guys experience during their lives....

so why is that once we wake up from our dreams, we dont achieve the same satisfaction we would have achieved if we had actually done it? is it because our intelligence tells us that what we experienced in our dream did not actually happen and tell us to dismiss it from our list of experiences?

day time fantasies never ever give us the same pleasure as dreams since while we are in a dream we are actually experiencing it as far as the brain is concerned... a day time fantasy always tells you that this is just a fantasy.. our consciousness affects it at all points of the fantasy..

so if one day someone invents a device or an environment where any experience you want can be simulated while we sleep, would we like it as much as the real experience? would we pay for it? would we derive satisfaction from it? i want to experience running on the Great Wall of China, only me with no one around... would i register this as a real experience once i wake up?

how about an addition to this technology? how about a dream recorder which would record your dream and store it for you so that you can play it back? just like how you take pictures while on a tour and see it on a later date and derive pleasure from it?

self control: the other side

2010-05-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

I said in my previous post on self control that it is nothing but succumbing to the other desire, be it a sense of morality or a long term health choice... but in defence of the concept of self control/self-retraint, i would like to say that self control is not simply about choosing one desire over the other.. it is not like 'i would like to eat a mango instead of an apple' ... it is a clear hard decision to control a desire for instant gratification for the long term benefit of self or others..

every human being likes instant gratification (referred to as IG) - be it sex, food, entertainment etc. given zero consequences for indulging in instant gratification, everyone would. But given that many instances of indulging in instant gratification would have long term implications, some people try to control themselves from succumbing to it.. the power of IG is enormous because it promises immediete results... no waiting, no uncertainty.. it is now and here vs some long term benefit, not necessarily that will please our five senses or certain to happen or even if it happens we would know about it.....

a simple example is the very chicken biryani one - a guy who is thinking of reducing weight when presented with his favorite fat rich chicken biryani might be tempted to eat it since it promises him instant pleasure... but it takes enormous restraint to overcome that promise of heaven in the next 5 minutes to possibly achieve something in the long term, that too which is quite uncertain.. so yes, on second thought i think there is such a thing as self-restraint or will power and the hype around it has a clear basis..

self-control: succumbing to the other desire

2010-05-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder why self-control and will-power are so hyped up... as a definition, it is the trait of controlling your own behavior.... but let me understand it better by an example... a guy who is fasting, lets say during the Ramadan month - this guy even if presented with Mutton Biryani from Bawarchi will refuse to touch it thus displaying enormous will power.. but what exactly is he doing? by displaying his will power to stop himself from eating biryani, he is succumbing at the same time to his idea of doing what should be done during Ramadan inorder to please his God.... basically he is succumbing to something at the same time he is restraining himself from doing something else...

take another example - a man who goes on a strict diet refusing to eat tasty fries... he is exercising self control but in the background he has succumbed to his desire to look good and fit and live a longer life... a guy who just east fries and succumbs to that taste has NOT succumbed to the desire of looking good and fit.. he is perfectly happy to be fat..

a guy who strictly controls himself from having sex before marriage is exercising his will power but at the same time succumbing to his well-placed/misplaced sense of morality..

a person who controls his urge to have an extra round of drink is basically succumbing to the desire of a morning with no hangover...

so these are all examples of behavior where one chooses based on their perspective of what is good for them, about their inclination for short-term or long term well being or their fears and rewards and punishments.

so if a person feels superior about his apparent self control, well, know that he is succumbing big time to another temptation...

the mechanics of marriage

2010-05-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

I dont know how the institution of marriage started, but if i have to assume, i would think that it was to give structure to sex and assign responsibility to individuals for it's consequences (usually a baby or babies)... we are talking about times when there were no condoms or pills nor ovulation kits....

but nowadays we have all of the above contraptions to avoid pregnancy and subsequent responsibility but still people are marrying in droves.. there might be more than one reason for it and that too depending on the particular person... one reason might be that people like to have one steady partner to share things more than just sex...the other is the need to be part of a family, a family of your own with who you can spend your life with... another reason might be that not all men are gifted with charm or the means to get girls in their bed on a regular basis, thereby driving them to have a steady sexual partner who can also wear other hats...

the third reason i listed above can be a significant factor for many Indians who grew up in the 90s, 80s, 70s or before... i remember having the first sexual stirring around the age 9 or 10.... my 4th standard teacher was hoTTTTTTT (i can fill the entire page with Ts just to emphasize how hot she was)... and as we became 13 or 14 and the first signs of puberty dawned on our lives, we were desperate for some form of sexual contact... we were most jealous of one particular community more than anyone else.. the community of teacher's husbands... these guys get to see our teachers naked and yet would not get punished for such a brazen act!!!! wow!! ..

there were many evening discussions with friends from our neighbourhood about girls, sex, etc and everyone came up with his own unique theory or idea or fantasy.. the idea of girlfriend and boyfriend was non-existent in the India we grew up at that time... the only way we could possibly have sex was when we got married... for that sole reason we hated social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy who was intrumental in the ban of child marriages .. what a calamity i thought... i was ready to tie the knot to my class beauty or whatever beauty i found in her...

then it was the time of a teenage boy life, when we lusted after "aunties" ... aunties can range from the ages 20 till 35 or maybe a bit more.. we also wanted our own aunties through marriage... i mean, we imagined ourselves as uncles tying the knot on a super hot aunty and then doing things which had only been a fantasy so far... this formed the seed of our impression that marriage is a must and something we cannot do without...

i remember a friend when asked what he would like or prefer most in his future wife.. he said one word - "chest" .. the funny thing about that answer is not in the content of his thought but the word he used.. he never heard about the word boobs....

at the age our idea of marriage was nothing about our current idea of it .. we assumed that the thing most on any husband's wife is to have sex with his wife... and marriage ensured you daily sex without you trying to hide the fact that you are having sex.. this was the greatest gift since till then anything related to sex - watching porn, or masturbating or seeing adult magazines or talking about it all was done in complete secrecy..
we never understood that the need for daily sex takes a back seat a bit after a couple of years of marriage and many other things take priority....

so marriage in a way was something we knew we have to go through right after we get a job... only much later in life we learnt about concepts like pre marital sex, girlfriend-boyfriend and other things...

then it was time to get married... like most friends, something about love marriage attarcted me.... the idea of a long courtship, convincing parents and then tying the knot on the one you loved... but more than the above reason, the reason i disliked the concept of arranged marriage was the sheer openness of the whole thing.... in an arranged marriage it is like 'the parents decide that the boy has been physically mature since the last 14 yrs or so, has raging hormones and needs sexual contact.. so they need to find someone with who he can have sex with but someone THEY can accepe too... i mean, the sheer imagery of parents seeking the most suitable partner for their child's wantonness was revolting....

but as is the case always, life always has the last smile... i ended up in an arranged marriage, of course of my own accord and after about two and half decades realized that there is more to marriage than the obvious..

restroom tales

2010-05-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

restroom is a word picked up by indians who visit the US.. in india, in the traditional houses, the bath area and the crap area were two separate places.. the bath area is called the bathroom but the other area was called 'latrine' or toilet' .. in fact while growing up in traditional houses in India, the concept of attached toilets or bathrooms was non-existent... usually they were situated outside the house in the backyard, which made it really tough if you were young and afraid of darkness and if you have to pee in the middle of the night..

the other concept of toilets we grew up with was of course 'the indian toilet' vis-a-vis the western toilet/commode. It was impossible for us to understand how people can sit as if sitting on some chair and do it.. we thought and knew that squatting was how nature made us to do it... but once people got used to the ease of it, western toilets have become a permanent fixture in the Indian toilet scene.. but anything new has to come with a user manual and the commode never came with one and thats why most people dont understand that what you sit on is called a toilet seat and that males should lift it up when they pee standing... because of this oversight, a lot many indian western toilets feel really dirty..

and coming to western toilets, the biggest scare we received when we thought about moving to the west for better opportunities was the harmless toilet paper. Was'nt water the better cleaning agent? was'nt paper/leaves etc to be used only if you find yourself in a place devoid of water but had to do have a bowel movement?

one of the big cultural differences i noticed between the east and the west is how much privacy the respective toilets offer... i have had the opportunity of spending 10 mins in a toilet in Malaysia and the toilets have full walls and full doors all the way down and all the way up giving you complete privacy... so unlike the american toilet stalls where the doors leave nothing for imagination really.. in american toilets, the smell spreads across the whole area uniformly regardless of who is contributing more to it unlike the asian ones where the biggest contributor has to fully suffer his own emissions..

then there is the wet area/ dry area demarcation you find in the west which of course has found it's way into the cities in india... this in my opinion is one of the best concepts since it ensures that the toilet/bathroom is not always wet like one big swamp....

an innovation from some creative Indian mind that was short-lived was the indian-styled western toilet, where right next to the toilet seat, there were tiles on which one can rest their feet and squat thus blending both styles....

and the toilet sometimes has a dual function.. it also serves as the puking bowl for people who have a drink or two more than they can handle... thats when they keep their face right where they usually rest their ass....

toilets are also a source of embarassment especially when the attached common toilet is situated right next to the living room and in the audible range of anyone sitting on the couch... a high powered exhaust fan can be the savior in such situations..

then there are toilets in our modes of transport.. anyone who has experienced a bowel movement when a train is moving fast will know how difficult it is to balance oneself... as for the plane's toilet, the very first time a person travels on a plane and uses the toilet, the sudden gushing loud noise that follows the push of the flush botton can be a bit quite unnerving....

whatever they are and whatever form they come in, they provide us with our own best private moment....

knowing a thing or two - the other side

2010-05-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

A friend and i decided to go to Hampi for a tour.... my friend is the practical type - he knows the current share market trends, he knows the current economic indices, the rates of lands across cities, the different kinds of ways to evade tax legally, the best furniture deals in town and pubs where the best looking girls visit.. i am on the other hand know nothing about the above practical stuff but know a lot about trivia - i can list the capitals of many countries, can tell the histories of europe, asia and america quite well, know about the latest scientific discoveries, can talk in length about darwin's evolution theory or about the effects of oxytosin on the human body and mind... but i do not know the price of 1 Kg of potatoes..

In Hampi, while roaming around the ruins of the old squares and temples and bazaars, i transported myself in time, imagined how these were during the reign of the great Sri Krishnadeva Raaya, imagined his minister Thimmarusu holding court, imagined the ashta diggaja poets entertaining the King in the Bhuvana Vijayam, imagined traders from across India selling their wares in the busy streets and a whole lot of things.. basically i was on a time machine based on all my knowledge of Vijayanagara's history and could fully partake of the enjoyment it provided..

at the same time, my friend got easily bored by the ruins.. he said 'i prefer the mall to this.. can do some shopping and hunt for deals' ... i was shocked.. i thought 'this is our history, our view of a time gone by, our experience of a rich historical past, our only chance to walk alongside the great Raaya.... how can shopping in a mall ever match this? "...

A person who never tasted wine would prefer a coke anyway... wine is an acquired taste, you need to groom it and you will love it later on... it is not always about the practicality, it is about making one's life richer in terms of partaking of more experiences than the layman... if two persons ever visit Cambodia, a guy who knows our Puranas, our saagara madhana story would love the experience of Bayon much more than a guy whose only entertainment is playing PS2 games... knowing a thing or two definitely makes one's life richer despite it's seeming impracticality.

knowing a thing or two....

2010-05-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

A parent asked his child in front a big group of other parents to name the capitals of all the scandinavian countries.

the kid promptly started listing : denmark - copenhagen, Norway - .... etc etc and followed it up with a smug expression..

After a resounding clap, another parent expecting this time a standing ovation for his kid, asked him to list all the currencies of Europe..

The kid promptly started listing 'UK - Pounds, Sweden - Kronor.. etc etc and followed it up with a smug expression..

Not a standing ovation but again parents wondered how intelligent these kids are.

I asked my kid to come on to the stage and asked him to tell the price of a 1/2 litre milk packet and that of a Kg of Potatoes...

my kid promptly 'Rs. 9 for milk and rs 16 for 1Kg of Potatoes....... and followed it up with a smug expression..

i expected an equally good reception from the other parents for it, but it was surprisingly quiet .. some even laughed as if it was a joke... i had no clue how my son's knowledge was less relevant than those other kid's knowledge...

a friendly conversation

2010-05-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

I am meeting a friend over a drink and he brought along his friend.. so here we are sitting over a table and some drinks - two strangers and one mutual friend.. it was time to show off our stripes to each other as do most strangers when they meet... on my part i wanted to desperately tell him that i work in a big company, live in one of the best apartment complexes in the city and drive a really nice 4-wheeler etc etc etc.. on his part i was sure it would be something similar..

The stranger is denoted as S and myself as I and the mutual friend as F

I: Hi, i am M....

S: Hi, i am Venu...

F: Venu was my colleague in AB infosystems... then i moved out and now he moved out too.. Venu, as i said, he is my friend from college.. same branch and same class...

I: so where do you work now?

S: I work in CD infosystems, but mostly based in the US.. i come here once in 3 months....

Comments: I did not ask him if he is working out of the US or out of his toilet, but he had to say it.. anyway, i understand..

I: nice to be in the US, right? i really miss it a lot..

Comments: that comment of mine was to entice him into asking his next obvious question... and he fell for it...

S: ohh, so you worked there?

I: yeah, worked there for 5 years and studied there too... fantastic country.. i miss the food (microwaved MTR readymade bisi bele baath), the strip clubs (one lapdance in 5 yrs, that too when a colleague paid), the drives (to the indian grocery shop), the hot girls (the only time i came a bit close to a hot US girl was in a chat room) ...

S: yeah, it is a nice country but somehow i prefer Germany more than the US.. basically i love europe more....

comments: obvious enticement and i have to fall for it just to appear polite

I: ohh, you have been to europe?

S: lived there for 3 yrs on a company assignment... germany is awesome man.. the autobahns (was in a bus on an autobahn), the beer fests (had a coke during oktoberfest since my company's daily pittance cannot cover me for such beer binges), the girls (again, only limited to seeing), the parties (male indians getting together and cooking chicken biryani while keeping hindi music at full volume and dancing among themselves).. ohh man, i miss europe... america cannot match europe in terms of culture and diversity

comments: as if he immersed himself in european culture.. he would have eaten the same pickle and same MTR pongal as i had in the US.. this guy is beginning to irritate me... i think i dont like him

I: you should have seen japan then - culture and modern outlook packed in perfection.... and it is so safe and people are so polite

S: have you seen korea? now thats what i call a beautiful little country... and koreans are nicer people than even japanese....

I: YES, been to seoul once... never liked it really... i think koreans have too small eyes (i havent been anywhere near 1000 miles of korea, but i cannot accept defeat) ... and what do small eyes have to do with politeness anyway..

comments: this guy seemed to match me place to place .. need to change topics..

I: so are you a programmer?

S: no, am a principal architect.. moved beyond programming a long time back.. anyway, what about you? ru a programmer?

I: no, am not into this software thing.. am into marketing.. marketing manager for south asia....

YESSSSS, I scored over him... he is in a shocked state...

S: ohh, thats good... did you do an MBA?

I: yes, i did.. from the 'EFJ school of business'..

Comments: YES, i scored again... i am giving it royally to him... he thought he had the upper hand with all that europe, korea bullshit

S: nice. i also wanted to do an MBA.. in fact got admission in London Business School, but then i thought, it wud be 2 years without pay plus lot of fees and studying etc.. am anyway earning really good, already the principal architect, and actually thinking of starting my own company, so why waste money.... so decided to let go..

I: Oh, so you are planning to start a company?

S: yeah in talks with some investors.. we should be able to start in 2 months... btw, here is my card for the new company.

comments: the card read CEO - HIJ Infosystems ...damn this guy - i hate him... i cannot stand this any longer.. i have to show him what i drive.....

I: ok guys, lets call for the cheque.. and leave.. there is a game tonight on TV and i need to watch it on my new TV... btw, bought this brand new 54 inch LED..

I got up before Mr.S can say he has a bigger TV and i walked out... i waited till he came out and then pressed the remote lock and got into my big black Tata Safari... he went near a 2-wheeler.. i was smiling to myself when i noticed that this 2-wheeler is not some Bajaj Pulsar but an imported Ducati 1000 CC state of the art motorcycle....

huh, i should never have met him.... thats why parents always told kids "NEVER SPEAK TO STRANGERS"

all about a damn name

2010-05-19T17:57:00.000-07:00

All couples spend or rather waste a lot of time and energy on deciding on a name for their future child... they pore through websites, old puranas, greek mythologies, roman goddesses and scour the seven continents for that one unique name, which they hope will make their otherwise ordinary child unique. It is as if once you keep an extraordinary, that rarest of rare names, the child automatically becomes a prodigy and the world will suddenly notice the rise of a star.

But does it really matter so much? i always thought that the fancy surrounding the name of one's child lasts a few days and after that the regular dull life takes over... it is like locating that perfect lakeview or seaview apartment thinking that everyday you will sit on your balcony with a coffee or whisky and enjoy the breathtaking view... after 3 days, with a coffee or a whisky you rather watch your TV as usual...

People name their children i think based on three or four things... some want the most unique/rare name for their child for example an indian living in Vizag might chose to name his son Borat.... some go with the modern/popular trend, like Rahul or Siddharth (Sid) or whatever it is.... some just name their kid after a personality they admire - thats why i have come across telugu guys whose first name is Bose because his parents admired subhas chandra bose.. btw that guy ended up nowhere near as great as Bose except creating confusion regarding his identity... some try to be smart, real smart and invent their own unique name for their kids - i know of a cardiologist who named his twin daughters - hrudaya harshita and hrudaya samhita, that hrudaya because he is a cardiologist... imagine if he was a gynaecologist...
i remember once going to a strip bar and a lap dancer approached me and introduced herself in a fake accent and said 'hi, i am Isabella' .. i thought to myself "you can be cleopatra for all i know but i dont give a damn about your name, to me you look like 100% white texan and i am not interested" ..

but whatever you name your child, does it really matter after a few days? in my opinion, the only thing one should make sure when it comes to name is to keep it short and easy to pronounce because a child has to fill in a LOT of applications when he grows and it is not easy to fill in the name boxes if you have a long one.. throw in lot of vowels and it makes it easy to pronounce, like aria or idea or asia or udon or banana or ahaa or anemia...

names can never be unique for long.. it is the person who makes a name unique... like apple... who would ever name a company, apple? it is just some random name, but look at it's iconic status.... name your son subba rao for all i know and he will become the next Nelson

Marital Match

2010-05-16T02:20:00.001-07:00

I entered her home along with my parents and were greeted by her parents. ..after we seated they called for their daughter to come and sit with us and present herself in the best traditions of her family and upbringing.. she was drop dead gorgeous... after the initial conversation which polite strangers usually indulge in when they first meet, like the route to their home or the increasing heat, we did not quite know what else to talk about... in another world, in another century, in a different setting, i would have just stared at her with wide open eyes, but i could not do it now.... so the next five minutes we just exchanged sheepish smiles... while i was waiting for some snacks to act as a filler, they asked me questions to assess my mental well being as well as my family's acceptability quotient.
after their questions, it was decided that the girl and i should talk in private and better understand each other.. so we moved to a room and sat opposite each other.. i was all set to understand and asses our compatibility.... i broke the ice by saying 'hi' ....
she responded equally well by returning my hi with a 'hello' ...

i decided that i better start knowing her better immedietely since if we spent any time longer, the elders might get wrong impressions..

I asked "do you like your food really spicy or mildly spicy or bland?

she looked at me strangely and then said 'i like it mild, not too spicy"

hmm, i thought, i like my food spicy, so if i marry her, my life might turn bland..

i then asked: "do you like to eat your rice very soft or a bit more grainy?

she said : "i like it a bit grainy" .... hmm, how can she ever make two types of rice always since i like my rice very soft almost pasty like...

then i asked "what are your favorite vegetables?

she replied "cabbage, carrot, beetroot, capsicum, beans, sprouts...

i thought "ohh no, my absolute no list is her big yes list... i cannot imagine a life with the above vegetables and without my favorites Potato, Brinjal, Ladyfinger, Tomato and Onion.

i asked " would you like to cook food with mustard oil or groundnut oil or coconut oil or sunflower oil or gingelly oil or olive oil or canola oil or vegetable oil or palm oil or ghee or vanaspati"?

she said "i havent really cooked food, but in my home my mother uses vegetable oil".

hmmm i thought, i am ok with vegetable oil, though i love mustard oil in pickles and gingelly oil in some foods.. anyway, i can convince her on this point after marriage"

then i asked her if she likes sesame paste in curries...

she said "i never had it, so cannot tell"

i thought "if she had said yes to it, i would have made up my mind to marry her, but she says she does not know... hmm, i love sesame paste in my curries..

well, lets go on to different relevant topics...

I asked "do you like having the fan at high or higher speeds or lower speeds, lets say in summer" ?

She said "i prefer it at higher speeds"..

i thought "ok, atleast this matched perfectly,, i love my fan at high speeds"..

then i asked her "do you like stiff mattresses or very soft mattresses? and on the same topic, you like thick blankets or thin blankets?

she said " i prefer really soft mattresses and thick blankets" .. her answer was exactly the opposite to what i preferred.... maybe i can adjust.. i cannot let go of such a gorgeous looking girl..

then i asked "do you like flourescent lights (tubelights) or more diffused yellow lighting at home"

she said "i prefer flourescent lights.. they add more life to the rooms" ... i differed - for me the home should be like an extension of the pub - soft yellow lighting and beer...

i wanted to ask her what soaps and shampoos and toothpastes she prefers, but then decided not to since if we differ we can always buy two different soaps and shampoos and toothpastes...

i guessed i now know her quite well to take a decision.... she also asked me questions, but then all her questions were irrelevant to a happy married life - questions like 'what kind of books i like to read, what kinda movies i like to watch, who are my fav sportstars, whether i like traveling, what i like to do in my sparetime, if i drink or smoke and other such unnecessary stuff...

anyway, it ended well .. we had good filter coffee at their home and left their home satisfied.... actually i forgot to ask what brand coffee she prefers.. coffee is extremely important to me....

the benefits of an unjust, criminal, amoral, chaotic society

2010-05-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

Not everyone wants a clean, neat, crime free, orderly society and in here i am talking about people from normal professions which are deemed important and beneficial to society. Every man's aim in life is to earn money and that he earns by offering a particular service or a product in exchange for something else, like salary or goods. That particular service or product many times hinges on something 'bad'. A few examples on some of those professions which basically are legal and good professions but which depend on the society being unjust, criminal, chaotic and a lot of such things.

Doctors: Doctors serve patients and receive money. So their money is directly proportional to the number of sick people. The bigger the disease, the more money. So i cannot imagine doctors wishing for a disease free society.. a few examples of doctors can be - a veneral disease doctor would always wish for a lot of prostitution and unprotected sex and a lot of men and women with gonnorrheoa and herpes. A cardiologist would prefer fat and obese people. And a proctologist would love a lot of stinking assholes.

Armyfolks: I am not saying army people want/like wars since they are better off getting their salaries without fighting.. but they certainly would like a constant threat of war or defence issues with neighbours thereby making sure they are given good budgets and high importance.

Lawyers: Lawyers would love a crime ridden society.. imagine a Ram Jethmalani without people like the killers of indira gandhi, manu sharma, harshad mehta or lalit modi, or imagine a divorce lawyer who wishes for the blissful married lives of his fellow citizens.

Newsmen: No news is as good as bad news. Of course the bad done to some stranger and not one's relative or friend. The first reaction when people hear about a bomb blast or terrorist attack is to reach for the TV remote. And this is exactly the basis for all the TV channels making money... i remember a case once when Hyderabad doordarshan newsfolks depended on a huge coastal storm that killed lots of people and ravaged homes, for a whole month of news.

Prostitutes: In this context i am only referring to prostitution when allowed legally by a country since i am only talking about legal professions here. It is a fact that a lot of money for the Prostitutes come from married folks. Would a prostitute or a pimp for that matter ever want a "moral" society? they would love a world filled with cheating husbands and cheating wives and a lot of broken families.

Test Engineers: Test engineers would love design engineers to make a lot of mistakes and create a lot of bugs thereby underlining the importance of their existence or just feel god about their jobs... they certainly dont like clean bug free designs..

Aircrash investigators: This is a specialized job and requires special skills but they arent the unhappiest lot when they hear about an aircraft crash... i dont intend to say they jump in joy at the news of such a calamity, but certainly in their heart of hearts would not wish for the perfect flying machine.

Professional Blood and body fluid cleaners: there are professionals in the western couuntries whose day job is to actually clean a place where a violent death takes place - be it an accident site or a murder site or a bomb blast site. They are paid handsomely for these services. these guys certainly know that blood is thicker than water and more difficult for common folks to clean it thoroughly.

Mortuary/Corpse Makeup Artist: These guys are the last guys who will ever take care of you, attending to your final makeup details when you die and before you are buried. These are the guys who make an otherwise wrinkled, diseased and dead old woman look like Madonna in the casket. They are paid well to make the corpse look visually pleasing... if you are an old person or a person prone to horrible accidents, they arent your greatest well-wishers.

Firemen: After the kind of adulation they received for their efforts after the WTC collapse in New York, there would be no fireman in this world who does not dream of participating in his own little WTC collapse event...

Priests and Religious professionals: These guys of course bank on the gullibility and ignorance of people... they dont want any modern scientific knowledge to tinker with their pet theories which continue to give them their revenues, be it creationism or the concept of soul and re-birth or the concept of heaven and hell or the concept of confessions to a holyman.

The only guys who really wish the whole world becomes a rich beautiful place inhabited by a lot of generous happy rich people are the ones who stand at the street corner or at a road junction or near a shop asking for some money - our dearest well-wishers, the beggars. So when they wish you well, they really do so unlike the doctor who wishes you well only till you come back to see him with another illness.

Science - the almighty, the most generous, the most merciful

2010-05-05T02:27:00.000-07:00

Science is as much a product of man's brain as is God and Religion, but science always somehow occupied a lower position compared to the two other things i mentioned. Philosophers, Godmen, and Gods always commanded our respect more than scientists. Yes, people respect Einstein and Newton, but compare that to the adoration accorded to Jesus and Mohammed, and it pales in comparison.

I believe that the ability of science to remove the magic off the miracle is what makes it less attractive.People like to be awed and people love to deify things. Science being this cold calculating logical entity, it leaves no room for such things. It pursues truth clinically and efficiently till it finds the truth behind an apparent miracle or phenomenon.

But it is rather a sorry state of affairs when people start questioning science. I often hear people saying 'if science is so great, why has'nt it created a life form yet, or why has'nt it found a cure for cancer?" People have to understand that like all things, there is a certain timescale even for science. One cannot expect a child to understand calculus. Similarly as far as science is at concerned we are just beginning to understand the many facets of this universe, both micro and macro. So far, science has done an admirable job, which no religion or Godman can match. It has found the answers to many things, found cures to many diseases, made communication easier, made our lives richer (not monetary) and extended our lifespans. It has the answer to even things like 'removing poverty', only that one has to seek it. But to me the greatest beauty of science is it's utter humility and lack of ego. You question a Godman, he retorts back. Many religions prohibit people from blasphemy or criticizing their prophets. But science is the only thing that allows anyone to criticize it, because it often critiques itself. If Einstein proved that Newton's laws arent valid at speeds close to the speed of light, that is ok, it is not blasphemy. This is because science keeps evolving and changing in it's pursuit of truth.
If there are Godmen, they are the scientists who work in places like CERN or TIFS or BARC or NASA or even in tiny labs. It is time to give them the respect they deserve, and it is time to promote them over the godmen and prophets and religions

the great marketing blood sucking game

2010-04-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

An imaginary world of one consumer with fixed income and a whole lot of companies trying to get his pennies for themselves..

a company which makes bottled water: this guy does not spend a penny on water.. he simply draws water out of his well and drinks it... how about a campaign which exaggerates all the negative aspects of well water, make it look really bad and then sell him our expensve packaged water? make that campaign actually look like an independent research so that he trusts the content and gets completely disgusted by well-water...

a company that makes rice: this guy is not spending enough on rice... he only buys the cheap white rice we make... but look at how much money he is spending on that useless packaged water...how about packaging our rice saying it has extra protein, extra fibre and list some ten health benefits on the package and price it really high.. am sure he has enough money for us to extract more out of his pocket.. alternately we can sell him our un-husked brown rice... please work on printing an article quoting some research showing benefits of brown rice over white rice..

a company that makes instant food: this guy spends way too much time on preparing his food.. rice, dal, curry etc etc... we should market our instant food to him so that he has more time for himself to do things which are more meaningful .... ohh, by the way, he started buying that really expensive rice thinking it's good for his health.. so make sure you price the instant food a bit high and package it nice...

a company that makes TVs: hey guys, lately this guy is buying instant food.. he has a lot of time for himself to do meaningful things, like watching TV for example... why dont we market to him our latest 44 inch LCD TVs so that his TV watching becomes even more meaningful.... a junior exec in the TV company: yes, and within an year we are anyway launching our LED TV line.. so next year we will make him dispose this old tech LCD and make him buy an LED TV... maybe we will tell him that LCD TVs are bad for eyes...

A company which makes computers: this guy thinks that TV is the only entertainment.. he sits in front of his big 44 inch LCD TV and does not do anything else... the internet is a whole universe out there... lets tell him that he is wasting his time on a TV... he has to instead sit in front of a computer.. lets market our high end 8 core processor based computer to him...

gaming company: TV is such a passive form of entertainment.. what this guy really needs to do is to play games... a junior exec says "you mean playing tennis or basketball"? the senior exec retorts back "ru nuts? tennis, basketball are bad for health. they cause sports injuries... what this guy needs to play are video games... they are fun, it makes you exercise your thumb and index fingers, sometimes even the middle finger.. plus he can do all this while sitting on his favorite couch" ...

a company which makes high end chairs: this guy spends way too much time on his computer and TV and console gaming system.. and he sits on his nice old wooden chair... how about selling him our chair telling him how bad his chair is for his back.... btw, whats that word commonly used these days? yea yeah - ergonomics.... yeah, use that word liberally in your campaign.. ohh, you think he wont know the meaning of that word? not knowing the meaning is much better, makes it sound really important.

a company which makes mobile phones: this guy is buying a whole lot of gadgets with his money... but the thing is, all that money he is spending on those gadgets, he can as well give us and we can give him a phone which will do all that... he can make calls, watch TV, browse the internet, listen to music, play video games etc etc... we should get his money,in fact we should get all his money, not those TV guys or computer guys or those music player guys.... i wish we can get that extra money he spends for his brown rice too... and why does he have to buy a fancy chair when he can walk around while using his mobile phone at the same time - exercise and entertainment at one go.. we can call it 'exetainment' .. there you go, take that word and market our phones....

the bottled water company: this guy has a whole lot of gadgets, and it makes him sweat a lot juggling around all those different gadgets... it makes him so tired at the end of the day.. what he needs to replenish himself is some water plus some salts... lets put some water, add a little bit of some salts and put it in a nice bottle and call it a fancy name.. make it really expensive, but tell him that he needs it if he has to feel energised the whole day.. i bet he will buy it...

The Historicity of our Mythologies

2010-04-14T23:10:00.001-07:00

It is commonly believed in current day india that the Raamayana and the Mahabharatha are mythologies or to put it in plainer terms - works of fiction. But what is commonly believed need not be always true and it is indeed important for us to establish the historicity of Raama and Krishna.

The two reasons that spring to my mind for us assuming that these two epics are mythologies are

1. The mythical descriptions of the main characters of these two epics combined with mythical portrayals of some of the events that happened.
2. No effort on part of the Indian govt to focus on seperating the fictiitious aspects and the real aspects of the epics and funding serious archaeological and historical research into the times and events of those ages. Basically a flat out refusal of the Indian Govt to accept that these two epics might in fact be historical records of things that happened.

The first reason has got to do with the fact that we find it easier to believe more down to earth events than events which seem miraculous. For example, the vastrapaharan of Draupadi and the way Krishna divinely wraps her in a never ending piece of saree seems like a miracle and hence a bit unelievable. Similarly the story of Hanuman leaping over the ocean also is unbelievable and hence adds to our idea that this is a fictitious story.

The historians of the 1st century BC or AD never wrote anything about Jesus. Whatever information there has been about Jesus, it was from the gospels. But isntead of dismissing the story of Jesus as a myth, biblical scholars dug into the various archeological evidences and tried to understand the story and surroundings of Jesus from the gospels and painfully reconstructed the historical Jesus. In fact as we speak, more and more information about the historical Jesus is coming out and it has been shown that there is a big difference between the historical jesus and the jesus of the Bible. But, it is indeed established that jesus as a person existed.

Likewise, any similar research into the history of India can reveal spectacular information about our past and the histories of ancient dynasties like Ikshvakus or ancient kingdoms like Gandhara and Hastinapura. There has been serious but independent researches done by people and the excavations of Dholavira where signs of an old stadium etc were found. There was also an excavation team that found the ancient city of Dwarka, now submerged. But no further interest has been shown by the govt to excavate these ancient sites.

It is said that the initial Mahabharatha, called Jaya was only 8800 verses in the time of Vyaasa. Later it became 24000 verses by the time of Vysampayana and later became 100000 verses by the time it was recited by Ugrasravas. It has always been true that historians or poets exaggerated events and one needs to dig deep to uncover the real person or real event. Napoleon crossed the Alps on a mule, but paintings of his famous crossing show Napoleon riding with his head high on a beautiful white horse.

If western historians had dismissed the story of Jesus as a myth, they would not have found biblical structures like the Pool of Siloam, the walls of Jericho, Shechem temple or that Jesus Christ's actual name was Yeshua. By dismissing the historicity of our epics, the Indian govt and the Indian people have driven the nail on the coffin of what might have been the most spectacular historical discoveries of the modern age.

By attaching divinity to Raama and Krishna, we have ensured their name in our mind for a long long time, but have made sure that modern folks dont take these two characters and their stories seriously from a historical perspective.

the success equation

2010-04-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

“ I have achieved success in life” or “he has achieved greatness” are common phrases used by people. These phrases put forward the idea that success or the ‘position of a person’ in society is his own achievement. The more I see people, the more I read scientific literature on the workings of our mind and brain, the more I am convinced that ‘position in society’ is determined by only two things – one’s birth and key external events, both of which are NOT under the control of that person.
When a person is born, he not only inherits the family wealth or affluence if any, but also inherits the genetic makeup of his parents. This genetic make-up wires his brain to think and act in a certain way, this influences his intelligence as well as his whole range of emotions, be it competitiveness or jealousy or empathy or sensitivity. In the two things I mentioned above, being born with a particular genetic make-up comes under the birth variable and being born in a rich family comes under the external event variable.
Science has repeatedly shown through various research papers how our emotions are wired into our brains. One particular research showed why some people more than others succumb to temptations. Another research showed how extrovert/introvert behavior is hardwired into our brains. Since all emotions/intelligence are by-products of the various chemical levels in our brains plus how our neurons fire and are connected to each other, emotions and intelligence are pre-determined in a way. You are just born with them. One cannot learn to be emotional in a particular way. They are inherent as much as your other physical traits like height etc are.
If you look at some of the characteristics of successful people, you will see that they are highly competitive. Competitiveness is an emotion which has a chemical basis like other emotions. For example, males are more competitive than females because of higher levels of testosterone – the male hormone. A simple hormone in our body drives such a complex emotion like competitiveness.
The chemical which influences our empathy towards others is Oxytosin. Research has shown that a particular version of a gene called ‘oxytosin receptor’ influences a person’s empathy towards others. A person with more significant levels of this chemical might be drawn to do things for others and might achieve greatness. So a person’s actions does not depend on some mythical ‘will power’ or ‘mind’ but by his chemical levels and their various permutations and combinations.
External events are events that influence a person either without that person’s knowledge of it or his interference in it. Being born and raised by rich good parents is a favorable external influence. A person cannot willingly choose to be born in a rich family. Similarly being born in a developed rich country itself is an external event which has the ability to shape the life of an individual rather differently than a person born in a poverty ridden country. The access to nutritious food, access to better knowledge gathering tools, access to better up-bringing are all external events that pushes a person more towards a better position in life than a person on which these benign external events don’t act.
People often argue that there are extremely successful people from poor backgrounds, and failures from rich families. It is true, but what people don’t see is the complete picture. To see the complete picture of a person who has a high position in society or has failed in terms of society’s success metrics, one has to take both the variables in the success equation into account. It would then be clear for the reasons of success and are as per the equation position in society = birth + external events. If external events are less, a successful person should have had an amazing advantage of birth. If birth is a disadvantage or not so good, external events play a huge role. If either of them are zero, there would be no success in life. I take three examples.
Birth is normal but external events are highly favorable. Take the example of Rajiv Gandhi. He is not famous for his intelligence or scholastic achievement. He is not a born genius nor born with the shrewdest of minds. But he has achieved and held a high position in society. In his success equation, the external events variable is very high. He was born in a rich, politically influential family which is a very favorable external event, plus many other events shaped his lives. The death of Sanjay Gandhi and the demise of Indira Gandhi acted favorably for Rajiv Gandhi’s eventual success. So despite their normal birth (as defined by me) their external event variable made them successful. Many current day film actors come in the same category.
Birth is extraordinary but external events only partially favorable: One person that comes to mind is Srinivas Ramanujam, the genius mathematician. He was born in penury and died in penury, but he achieved tremendous success and recognition in the field of mathematics. He was born with the genius. Ramanujam’s genius was not shaped by his parents or his teachers. It was inherent in him and it drove him to think about complex mathematical ideas. External events in the form of money etc were not favorable but his “birth” variable outweighed it. A person with average intelligence born and raised under similar circumstances would never have achieved what Ramanujam achieved and that’s because intelligence and drive are inherited qualities.
Birth is extremely bad and external events highly favorable: Take the case of a severely mentally retarded child who is born in a rich influential family. Despite the best external events, the child can never grow up into a successful person because his birth variable of his success equation is practically zero.
The above examples are rare and that’s why we usually see very few highly successful people or super failures. The majority has a partially favorable birth variable and is influenced by partially favorable external events. They achieve moderate success.
It is human to dismiss theories which dismiss the achievement of a human mind as a product of that mind only. People who achieve success dismiss favorable external events as well as inherent birth traits since it diminishes them as individuals and places them on the same mat as other lesser fortunate humans. Hence statements like 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration etc. But in the light of scientific reality it is a fact that we are a product of our inheritance and external influences, nothing more and nothing less.
I like to end this with an analogy from the animal kingdom.
A lion cub is born in the Ngoro Ngoro crater. It is born in a big pride headed by one large powerful young lion and lot of lionesses. The crater had an extremely favorable two years of good rainfall and is teeming with life. The pride is spread over a huge area and has access to lot of food and water. The cub inherits strong genes from it’s parents and has strong limbs and great immune system. It is protected from the deadly assault of other male lions by it’s powerful guardians till it grows up. This lion grows up into a powerful beast.
In another part of Africa, in Etosha national park, a cub is born in a small pride headed by an old lion. This lion is growing weaker by the day. There has been no rainfall and all the prey has vanished. The pride has not eaten for days. Increasingly hyenas have become more aggressive and are attacking some members of the pride. The cub has no food to eat since the lionesses have become weak and unable to hunt. There are two male lions on the fringes of the pride’s territory which want to seize control of this pride by ousting the current head. One night they come, drive away the lion and kill the cub. End of the story.

Job Interview

2010-03-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

This was my first job interview after my degree. I finished my degree course in BE and applied for 'Perfect Solutions Pvt Ltd', a software company. I finished my technical interview, which i thought i did very well and now they directed me to the HR. I did not understand why i need to speak to the HR. After all, i was not applying for a role in the HR department. Anyway, i knocked on the door of the HR manager and entered the room. I said 'Good morning' and sat on the chair opposite to him.
He said 'hello, good morning. do you have a copy of your resume?" ... i said "i dont have a copy sir, i have an original resume which i got printed this morning, but if you wish to see a copy i can quickly get a photocopy of it".
The HR manager looked at me strangely. He said 'ok, give me your resume'. I gave it. He scanned it and said 'hmm, you seem to have very strong academic background.. above 80% across all your education". I said 'i dont know about background or foreground, but academics is my homeground sir, so obviously i will do well in it'. this is the first time i played around with a word and it gave me a smile. Luckily for me the HR manager also laughed at my joke.
He then sat back and said 'so tell me, why did you choose our company'? i said " for the same reason i chose other companies who came to the campus.. if i get into one of these companies, i dont need to hunt for jobs outside"..

he said 'so you chose our company just because it is more convenient' .. i said 'yes, that is right'.. and i gave him a big smile.

He asked 'ok tell me, what are your strengths and weaknesses' ... i said "should i tell about the ones which are relevant to the job or ones that arent relevant?"

He said "the ones relevant perhaps" .... but if you wish to, you can also tell the ones that arent relevant"

i said "sir, i have a strong sense of justice, especially when it comes to salary range, CTC, promotions etc... my weakness is that i tend to speak out against it which might land me in trouble'...

as for the irrelevant part 'my biggest weakness is women.. am sure as a fellow male you perfectly understand this" and i gave him my big smile..

He finally asked "ok, tell me why should we take you for this job? convince me " .
I said "you should take me for this job because you can finish off this charade called interviews and pack your bags, go home, relax, hav a drink, make love to your wife, eat a nice dinner and sleep" ... if you dont take me, you only can do all this tomorrow.... so decide..

P.S. I got the job...

an MBA interview

2010-03-11T02:40:00.000-08:00

I entered the room.. the chairs were all occupied by the 'council of elders' except one in the front of the table... i sit on it but not too sure where to place my hands...on the table? on my legs? fold my hands? put it on the arm rests of the chair? i decide to put it on my legs - safe option i thought... the guy opposite to me and who looks important has a squint... i always had a problem deciding which eye to look at when speaking to a squint eyed person... i settle for the right eye since right is supposed to be more auspicious and this is my MBA interview...
one of the guys begins it and says 'good morning, how was your day so far? ' .. i said 'it is good so far, but i cannot guarantee that for the next 30 minutes or so' .. they laughed as if i joked... i stated that as a fact.... then another guy said 'ok, so tell us about yourself.. something that is not in your resume.. something about you, what makes you a unique individual.... i said 'i think i am a unique individual because there is no other person in this world who has the same set of genes or the same fingerprints as i have'.. so that's what makes me physically unique... as far as mental uniqueness is concerned i am not too sure.. i havent got my brain mapped and examined it against others' brains maps.. so cannot comment on it... they exchanged glances at each other... i had no clue why.. they asked me a question and i gave the closest answer there is to a real fact...
another guy intervened and said 'well, seriously, what is that in your achievements so far or your background that makes you unique?'
I thought for a while and said 'perhaps my lack of any substantial achievement so far makes me unique compared to other applicants" ..
The interviewers started showing signs of distress. i did not know why..
One guy said 'ok, lets be serious, what is that you will bring to the school, or put it, what will be your value-add to the school" ..

I said "to the first question, i plan to bring my clothes, some utensils to cook when i feel hungry at odd times, a few photographs of family and a couple of novels all packed in three suitcases" ... aa for your second question regarding my value-add to the school, i plan to attend this b-school to add value to my resume... so i dont think with my current state of life, i can add any value to the school".

They again exchanged looks, looks i have seen in many other such interviews... i never understood those looks... to this day, i havent passed any interview which had "soft questions" ... the only interview i passed was for my current job where after the technical round, the HR round got cancelled because the HR manager had to attend an seminar... i got through luckily... so i dont know why i keep failing in such iterviews.

finally Mr.Squint who has been strangely silent so far asked "ok, tell us this. why do you want to do an MBA? you have a decent job as an engineer, you have very good academics and you seem good for an engineering job.. so why an MBA?"

I said 'i heard MBAs are paid more than engineers. I calculated that despite the Rs 12 lakhs it takes to do this course, i can recover it in about 4 years if i get the kind of salary your students get as you claim in the newspapers .. so based on this 'back of the envelope' calculation i conclude that i will be better off with an MBA" ....
a guy in a black suit sitting at the corner said 'so you want to do MBA only for the money, not because it interests you, not because you want to manage a company or want to learn the building blocks of a business'
i said 'yes, that is my intention'

i thought that the guys seemed to be quite happy with my "to the point frank and honest replies answered to the best of my knowledge... one guy said 'ok, do you have any questions for us?

I said 'i have one question.. how do you evaluate who is the right candidate based on the above questions? since it seems to me that whatever i have answered is the only right answer for all the above questions and since they are obvious answers, everyone will say the same things... so how do you evaluate?

they said 'well, we have our own way of determining who is the right one... it is a trade secret.. we will intimate you if you are selected through email.. have a nice day .... i said 'you also have a nice day'. I got up and walked out of the room thinking that i did well in the interview and that i have a very good chance of getting into the business school.. after all i answered the questions to the point and truthfully. I am really going to have a nice day.