Changing Perspectives

No matter how fervently I talk about sleep being such a huge waste of time, sometimes I do need that long peaceful twelve hours of sleep. And what I really mean by sleep being a waste of time is when I find myself sleeping during the day thinking I’ll be fresh and be able to work efficiently afterwards. But the result is rarely that. I end up feeling all groggy and unproductive for many hours after I wake up. So that, clearly, is a humongous waste pile of unproductive hours I could have spent watching episodes from The Big Bang Theory, or Yes Prime Minister.

So I slept for twelve hours last night – 10pm to 10am. I woke up, very fresh, had breakfast and went for my regular weekend morning walk. The weather was just perfect. It was cold and sunny at the same time. Absolutely wonderful. During the walk, I listened to Dennis Dalton’s lecture on Political Theory. And then I listened to Richard Feynman’s lecture on Physics. The contrast was intriguing, yet they didn’t seem too far apart either. There’s a thin thread connecting the two. And then I thought about the course I was studying here at MDI. And I wondered, surely there’s so much more to life than to learn how to “generate revenue”, or “strategize” to generate the most revenue. So what exactly am I learning here? Am I really learning business management? Honestly, it seems like I’m learning more about people management than business management. I’m not sure if my friends pursing an M.Tech/M.S. have similar experiences, but I have enough reasons to believe that life of an MBA student is very different from the life of an M.Tech/M.S. student.

I was told before I came here that I would meet all kinds of people here. And I thought that these so-called “all kinds” would be a small percentage. I was so mistaken. The small percentage actually constitutes the normal people who behave like er... normal people. And the rest of them are eccentric. Some are complete basket cases, and some are completely psycho. It’s not very easy to deal with them. In fact, it is in such situations you need to “strategize” your dealings with these people if you want to come out of this place sane. But of course, sometimes nothing works with them and you just learn to live with it.

I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life before. I did spend four years in a hostel during engineering and there were difficult people, and not once did I feel uncomfortable. But here, at MDI, it’s a whole new world. You feel the discomfort tugging at you every moment of every day, and all you wish for is to get done with the course and run away as fast and as far as possible.

But in the light of all the reading and understanding of fields other than management, I’ve learnt to look at it from a larger perspective. If not for generating revenue, or helping the economy grow, or improving the standards of living of people economically, to say the very least, it’s an interesting insight into human behaviour and the application of this insight into conducting business transactions with people. And for that alone, I am glad I’m here.

And of course, no need to mention, the wonderful friends I’ve made here, and some very interesting people I’ve met.

Superrhero, Superrflop

Dreamworks is outdoing itself. Everytime. As if How To Train Your Dragon wasn't good enough, enough to make me want the movie to win the Academy award this year, now comes Megamind (released in India last week after an agonizing wait). I've heard Tangled is just as good, or some say it's even better than Megamind (I've read reports of Megamind underperforming, and Tangled toppling Harry Potter at the US Box Office). Now I'm not so sure which movie will win it. All the movies in the fray this year as just as good as the other. These movies just keep getting better. And my excitement keeps increasing every time I hear about a new animated movie release.

And now for my brutally honest rant.

I watched two movies back-to-back yesterday, one of which was Megamind and the other an Indian animated-cum-live-action movie Toonpur Ka Superrhero. I decided to watch Toonpur Ka Superrhero to know how far we've come. It's been a while since I last watched an Indian animation movie. While on one end of the Indian animation spectrum we have Alpha and Omega (which did fairly well abroad), on the last picometer of the edge of the other end of the spectrum we have Toonpur Ka Superrhero. I'm no longer going to accept the excuse of Indian animation industry being in its nascent stage after Alpha and Omega and Tinkerbell which have pretty decent animation. Just because these animation movies are targeted at kids, doesn't mean one can throw any crap at them and they'll enjoy it. Kids are not stupid. Toonpur was a pain to watch. The story -- Kid calls his actor dad a fake hero. Dad is hurt. Some cartoons kidnap dad into their "Toonpur" to fight a bad guy. Dad is successful. Dad becomes "Superrhero" in his kid's eyes -- brainless; and the characters bordering on the obscene.

This movie makes me wonder if the people who worked on this movie have ever seen a Pixar or a Dreamworks movie. The characters in these movies are so beautiful, even without a story, I can bet that these movies will still be able to stand only on the strength of their character appeal. Ok, maybe not. But look at Megamind's "beautiful" Roxanne, and Toonpur's "Miss Toonpur" Loveena and you'll know what I mean.

Indian character designers need to understand that female characters can be made to look good/sexy without giving them a huge bust.

What I find ironic in our animation is that while our country is basically colourless (look around, count how often you find colours other than red, yellow and dark blue, besides black and white), the environment in our animated movies are full of mismatching, blindingly bright colours. This is not specific to this movie, but in almost all the animated shorts created by students, that I've seen. I can't think why.

As long as we've got these basic fundamentals of animated movies wrong, Indian animation can never compete with the international releases. They say the Indian moviegoer isn't ready for animated movies yet, but I'm sure if we give them movies that are at least as entertaining as the movies he/she is watching right now, he/she will be ready. And once we get this right, we can then talk about animation boom in the country.

Truth or Happiness

Have you seen what they're selling at amazon.com? This. Which is not such a bad thing. (However, you may want to look at the "Frequently Bought Together" section on the page). What's odd is how people are using it. Read those odd reviews of the product here. I honestly don't know if I should laugh it off, or be surprised, amazed or nauseated. As if that's not enough, there are a whole bunch of weird stuff for sale from deer rears, to Borat costumes, to chicken poop lip-balms, to Hilary nutcrackers. And others I don't even want to mention. Can this world get any weirder? Did such things happen in the old times 50-80 years ago? Or are we just more aware of these things because of the internet?

On a serious note, have you seen these war-zone photos by Joao Silva? Dr. Lightman was right. "Truth or happiness, never both".

Mint Lounge: I May Not Be An Indian

Yesterday, this article (http://www.livemint.com/2010/06/11211917/Breaking-news-I-may-not-be-an.html) by Mint Lounge editor, Priya Ramani, was probably the most read and most RTed article on Twitter (Well, it was the most RTed tweet on my timeline). I think it is a brilliant article. It takes a certain amount of courage to publish an opinionated article like that, knowing that she would face brickbats for it. And face brickbats she did.

To me, it seemed like a piece written one day in an outburst of emotion. The title and the tone of the article strongly suggest it. But then I think, the author got it all wrong. None of the things she wrote, mean that she is not Indian.

Being Indian does not mean you must like mangoes. Being Indian does not mean you've to read Chetan Bhagat or Paulo Coelho (I've read their bestsellers, and I'll run a mile away at the very sight of their books). What you wear or want to wear is your choice, being Indian has nothing to do with it. A few Bollywood actresses wear nothing at all. Does that make them any less Indian? I don't watch any Indian soap on air. In fact I hate them from the bottom of my heart. Does that make me non-Indian? Nor do I speak or even make eye contact with people in my compartment while travelling. So I'm not Indian?

No sense of pride when she's made to stand in attention in a movie theatre, but impatience that her popcorn's getting cold. Well, for the lack of another word, I'd say that that is an attitude problem, and still has nothing to do with being Indian. The first time I had to stand in attention for the national anthem in a movie theatre I did not feel pride, but I did feel a sense of renewed respect for the national anthem. After all, the Indian national anthem is known to be one of the most melodious anthems in the world, and that is something to be proud of really. Standing in attention for the national anthem is not about pride, but about respect.

Only girl child can save India? I think it's the mutual co-operation and respect between girls and boys, rather women and men that can save India. Girl child alone cannot. That, still, is her personal opinion. I don't see what it has to do with being Indian. The girl-boy disparity exists all over the world and not only in India.

We aren't the greatest people in the world. True, only a zealot would say otherwise. She never understood Indians' sense of (fake) pride, as she puts it, during the "Jai Ho" phase. Agree Jai Ho wasn't A. R. Rahman's best. I'd also like to say that Slumdog Millionaire isn't an Indian movie, but a movie about India made by a foreigner, and we need not feel proud that it won Oscars. But aren't we happy that A. R. Rahman, with that song, has catapulted Indian contemporary music (the kind I think the author likes since she doesn't like Lata's slow version of the national anthem) on to the world stage? Why shouldn't that make us happy, and proud?

We're always on steroids when it comes to festivals and weddings, she says. Diwali, she points out. Every country has its own traditions and way of celebrating festivals. If she were in another country, she'd probably rant about them too. Few days a year, people get to let go off all inhibition, be themselves and enjoy, and she says we're on steroids. Still, it isn't about not being Indian. The author probably needs to introspect her outlook towards life. Festivals and weddings are happy occasions meant for enjoyment.

Being Indian doesn't mean you've to believe in Ram Rajya. That's what the BJP believes in. I'm Indian and I don't believe in Ram Rajya. I strongly believe in secularism. That doesn't mean I'm not Indian.

Aren't there Indians that invite only about a 100 people to their daughters' weddings? How does the number of people invited to a wedding judge how much Indian one is?

The author has harped on the stereotype that outsiders have about Indians, and tried to fit herself in it. She didn't fit in. Doesn't mean she's not Indian.

In fact, I see it this way. I think she's sufficiently Indian because she came back to India after her master's. It's so much better than studying in India and taking all the knowledge abroad to serve another country. She's aware that India hasn't produced any serious scholars after independence. That bothers her. If she weren't Indian, would it? Dunking non-biodegradable idols into the ocean disturbs her. Doesn't that mean she's worried that we're polluting our own oceans? The very fact that she has pointed out where she thinks we might be wrong is proof enough that she's an Indian who wants change, however right or wrong her personal opinions are. I think all that the author of the article needs to do is look beyond her cynicism and look at the brighter side of things, accept certain customs and traditions. Some things (like Diwali) just won't change. You might as well enjoy them. You'll make memories.

Trick or Treat: IPL

Boy, did I ever think the Chennai Super Kings would win this season of IPL. I was sure though that Mumbai Indians wouldn't win the tournament. They were at the top of the points table too long to win the tournament. Call it my clairvoyance, or Sod's law, or just plain common-sense. It was too clear that MI wouldn't win the title. And that means I win the bet with my sister and she now has to treat me (The poor little thing doesn't know that I cleverly manipulated the terms of the bet so the odds were on my side. *wink*)

For the first time, I watched so much cricket. I didn't really care about cricket or any other sport for that matter during season 1. But I do have one memory of season 1... singing Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo in the lift with my friends in college to the wrong tune, and my chagrined KKR-fan friends correcting me. Very much like the Kingfisher's Ooh La La La Le Oh ad.

Season 2 was when I was formally introduced to the format and that was when I learnt all about the game. I still wasn't exactly watching matches during season 2. I only watched the second innings of the final match in a room full of supporters of the Royal Challengers while I, all alone, supported the Deccan Chargers. The Deccan Chargers won, but I'd learnt my lesson. That I am an Indian and that means I must belong to a mob. Standing out of the crowd isn't so much fun.

Come IPL3, with a TV in my cute little rented haven which my mom totally despises, I decided to support RCB and watch a few matches (the reason not being the sport, but that I'd read somewhere that some BSchools were contemplating introducing "creative" topics such as cricket, hockey and football into Group Discussions. Yikes!). Anyway, I shook hands with the game, got to know the game better, made a few wonderful memories watching the game (such as the IPLGate, the Zoozoos, Dhoni's lost Maxx mobiles and the apple of everybody's eye, the MRF blimp!) and now I'm all set for IPL season 4 to support yet another team, and yet another set of ads.

That is, if the IPL is not scrapped. What started with Lalit K Modi's tweeting about the details of the Kochi team ownership has now snowballed into the biggest scam I've ever seen. Corporate honchos, Bollywood stars, politicians, the country's so-called "elite" all embroiled in the biggest controversy I've seen. I've always maintained that however entertaining the IPL matches are, it is a huge HUGE waste of economic resources. With more than half the country below poverty line, such extravagant display of wealth only heaps insult on the deprived. What's worse is that the owners of the teams call it a solely-business proposition, which is not wrong, but I'm disheartened to hear that they so blatantly ignore their responsibility towards society, the very reason they thrive and exist. Whatever happened to Corporate Social Responsibility. Why is it that when the IPL was played in South Africa last year, scholarships and gifts were given to children, teachers and schools there and when the game is played on home soil it becomes a solely business proposition devoid of social responsibility? Cricket and IPL's popularity could be leveraged to create awareness, to encourage people to improve their communities and solve issues.

The "breaking" news right now being Lalit Modi's suspension, I heard a reporter on some news channel saying, "After half a decade of friendship between BCCI president Shashank Manohar and Lalit Modi, the BCCI president heaved a heavy blow on Mr. Modi" Uh. Hello. What the hell. What else is Shashank Manohar supposed to do? Grant amnesty because Modi is a friend? If he did that, he'd be accused of favouritism. He suspends Modi and such statements are made. If I were in Shashank Manohar's place and I had to suspend a close friend for nefarious activities, I'd do it. With a heavy heart. But do it, nonetheless. What Modi did was wrong and he must face consequences. A wrong is a wrong. Is a wrong.

Is a wrong.

The Opposite of Pet Peeves

I understand that it's not very easy to convey emotions and intent
through the written medium for many of us. Trying to precisely convey
those emotions could make it wordy and not many of us are that patient
or good with words. We try and avoid using too many words and
consequently have evolved a multitude of ways to implicitly express
intent and emotion. After over a decade of emailing, over six years of
SMSing and a little under a year of Gtalking with friends, a few
things about informal written communication have made into my pet
peeve list.
#1 hi....................... or ok......................

What's with the million full stops? What are you trying to say with
'.........................'? I understand 'hiiiiiiiii' but what the
hell does 'hi..........................' mean? Three dots, optimal.
Four, maximum. More than that, sound of nails on chalkboard.
#2 i told ma motha tht i cud neva eva do dat

Aaaarrrgh! This really should be my #1 pet peeve. I could slap the
person if he/she were in front of me. Unfortunately, when this happens
the person is always miles away. Those who think writing 'ma' for
'my', 'motha' for mother, 'neva' for never, 'eva' for ' ever' and
suchlike is cool, please, it's disgusting. Makes me think very low of
you. None of the other pet peeves manage to do that. But this one
does. Thankfully, none of my friends do that. Except one. When that
friend messages, I call him back. Just to avoid seeing his messages
that neva fail to get ma dander up.
#3 K

That's the worst reply one could send me. Following closely, is 'Ok'
or any such one-word replies. I've grown accustomed to it though. Even
then, I find it impolite and impersonal. Makes me feel unimportant, as
if the person thinks I don't deserve the energy to type a whole
sentence, or at least, the whole word (in case of 'K'). I'd be happy
if the sentence was complete, as in, "Ok, I'll be there" or "Ok,
7o'clock it is" or even, "Ok, sure." or at the very least, "Ok :)"
#4 This is a sentence that so needs exclamation, don't you think!!!!!!

I confess to being a perpetrator of this heinous crime for a while,
but then one day epiphany happened and it became a pet peeve. I notice
people using exclamation marks when it really isn't necessary. Makes
me wonder what's so wondrous about what he/she is saying. That, still,
is forgivable. What irks me more is the use of multiple exclamation
marks!!!! What do two or more exclamation marks do that a single
exclamation mark doesn't? I'll forgive the use of two exclamation
marks occasionally for greater emphasis, when one wants to show that
one is enormously surprised, but otherwise I'd rather that people keep
exclamation marks to a minimum and if indispensable, don't use more
than one. Use that energy that you spend in typing that extra
exclamation mark for other productive activities. Like inserting space
after a full stop.
#5 "cool when did u go how is ur family good say hi to them" or
"cool.when did u go.how is ur family.good?say hi to them"

Though not inserting space after a full stop in SMSes doesn't annoy me
much, not using full stops at all can annoy me if I'm in a sour mood
already. But miss a full stop in an email or miss the space after a
full stop, the sender, mostly a friend, is sure to see the smoke from
fireworks at my end.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post. The opposite of pet peeve.
Remember when a new friend (of the opposite sex) SMSes you for the
first time? "Hi Manasa, what you doing?" is the most common first SMS
I've received over the years. And there was never a time when I
genuinely wanted to reply to such an SMS. I reply, just to be polite
and not to be too snobbish. I have absolutely no interest in the
inane pointless conversation that is to follow after the 'what you
doing' question. Unless, of course, he/she says "Manasa, you are the
best" and I say, "I know... Tell me more :D"
Today, a friend, a new friend (who I never spoke to while in college,
and who I hardly spoke to during my brief stint at Infosys) who I
befriended, after several meetings at my best friend's home, a movie,
some PS3 games video-watching and a photo, sent me his first SMS. It
wasn't the dreaded "What you doing?" question. It was the perfect
conversation starter. It was different. I was impressed. This type of
conversation-starter SMS suddenly became the opposite-of-a-pet-peeve.
Opposite of pet peeve. Whatay long phrase. What's the word or a phrase
that means the opposite of pet peeve? After much brain-racking and
producing zilch, I went to Google for help and found out there really
wasn't a commonly used phrase for it. Though I did find some
interesting words people use to mean the opposite of pet peeve -
Kinks
Quirks
The little things (that make life worth it)
Cheap thrills
Right-ons
Warm fuzzy
Simple pleasures
Secret delight
Undomesticated peeves
Buttons
Personal favourite
Feel-good moments
Soft spot
Pet likes
Turn-on
Fetish
Guilty pleasure

I think 'secret delight' comes close to the opposite of a pet peeve, no?

It's only words. And damaged eyes.

Reading is supposed to expunge short-sightedness. Right? Ironically, you see, the more I read, the more myopic I become. The more I feel the need to get my eyes checked. All this while I prided myself on having a perfect 20/20 vision, and now... kisiki nazar lag gayi... literally.

All this short-sightedness is to be blamed on the extensive non-stop reading I've been doing over the past six months or so, with my E63 or the newspaper or the magazine at an eyelash's distance from my eyeballs. Now, totally intending to show-off, I must tell you, as background info, that I've been dabbling in a wide range of subjects, from art to literature to poetry to mythology to drama to music to philosophy to psychology to economics to politics to blah to blah to oh-how-i-love-to-show-off to blah to blah. These 'wide-range of subjects' have nothing to do with what I have to say. It has more to do with my reading articles, mostly editorials, from the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes India along with our Indian counterparts such as The Hindu, The Times of India and The Economic Times. You don't believe? While I say all this is as true as Mayawati not using taxpayers' money for her statues? How dare.

Anyway, the point is this. My most striking observation of all this reading is a noticeable difference in the writing styles of Indian journalists and foreign journalists. As a newbie who has just forayed into the world of editorial-page reading, I find articles by foreign writers much easier to understand and comprehend than the ones written by Indian writers or journos. The difference lies in the sentence construction and the choice of words. Give me an article and I might just be able to tell you with a fair amount of accuracy if the article is by an Indian or a foreigner. Not trying to demean Indian journalism or anything (Mera Bharat Mahan!), but I must say, with a heavy heart, that Indian writing has a hint of pompousness and pretentious diction in it. I find most of the times, the sentences incoherent and need to be read twice to be comprehended. They're not speed-reading material. Unlike the foreign counterparts. Be it a Chinese journalist, a Korean journalist, an African journalist, a British journalist or an American journalist, I find the articles by these foreign journalists much easier to discern and analyse. This, only because of their simple sentence construction and choice of words that are in the realm of a literate person as opposed to a person with journalistic vocabulary. Indian journalists tend to use complex sentence constructions and heavy, unusual words way beyond the comprehension of an ordinary literate person. They use words like, "wedbedrip", "fysigunkus", and "xertzing". Yes. They do. No. Don't open the dictionary. These words don't exist. Unless you google them out. Of course, we do have great writers, but the numbers of these 'typical' Indian journalists far outnumber the good ones.

Now now, I'm not against vocab building. I love learning new words. If it weren't for Indian writing I'd never know that 'wedbedrip' meant 'a full day's reaping from a tenant's land that feudal lords demanded from tenants'. Or that 'fysigunkus' meant 'a person with absolutely no curiosity'. Or that 'xertzing' meant 'swallowing quickly and greedily'. But I do think newspapers must keep a check on the usage of such unusual words. At least, newspapers. No. Especially, newspapers. I find it frustrating when I have to open the dictionary more than twice per page/article. I lose the flow of thought and have to reread the sentence or the paragraph again to make something of it. It's ok to have difficult words, but an article shouldn't have too many of them. Articles by foreign reporters rarely, if ever, make me go to the dictionary. Their articles are lucidly written. Which is weird. Because I always thought it would be the other way round. And I think that's the reason why I know more about the other countries than I know about my own. Newspapers are supposed to cater to a huge demography to keep them informed and educated about what's happening around them. Not everybody has a journalistic vocabulary, and not everybody is an English major. Journalists need to concentrate more on reporting comprehensibly than on flaunting their vocabulary. Few Indian journalists seem to be doing that. Journos, when will you ever learn?

Then again, I've no plans to emigrate neither are our journos going to change and I, therefore, have no choice but to combat this issue by equipping myself with 'sesquipedalian' words. Ha. Since I'm also planning to enter the field of business administration, I also need to win the battle of learning to say things like, "We 'repurposed' the product to create 'synergies' and expand its 'parameters'. Please 'interface' with the relevant parties, 'dialogue' with the manager and try to 'incentivize' him and his staff" which in "real" English makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Can't wait!

Of Fourth Estate, climate change and the worst ad ever - part1

I didn't mean to be so quiet here for so long. In fact, one of my
lesser important new year resolutions was to update my blog at least
once every week. I wanted to make posts on the climate change fiasco,
the IPL-SRK-ShivSena thingie and a few other things as well. And then
one day, I saw on TV, a member of the public making exactly the same
comments on our neighbours being snubbed that I was to make here in a
blogpost on the same day that I wanted to update. It would make me
feel like I was plagiarising those thoughts and so I settled on doing
it at a later point in time, some day in an obscure area of a
blogpost.

I'd been to Hyderabad recently. Finally. Had a fun time. For the first
time, I liked biryani. And for the first time, I was surrounded all
around by men with moustaches. Scary.

People around me always compared Bangalore and Hyderabad, and I always
wondered why. Now that I've seen both places for myself, here is my
ruling - Bangalore scores high on pleasant weather while Hyderabad
scores high on landscape. Everything else is pretty much the same.
Only, Bangalore doesn't have as many men with moustaches as Bangalore.
Score!

My family received news of my paternal grandfather's demise while at
Hyderabad, so we had to make a trip to my native place, Sompeta for
the '12th day rites' after meeting my maternal grandmother in
Berhampur, Orissa. Her dynamism amazes me. Sompeta is just a few
kilometres from the AP-Orissa border, about 40kms from the famed
'Ichchapuram'. It's the first village you see after crossing the
border from Berhampur aka Brahmapur in Orissa. We went to Sompeta by
car. It was an amazing experience seeing rural India with the remix of
'dil to bachcha hai ji' playing on full volume in my ears. Awesome! It
was a Shah-Rukh-Khan-from-Swades type experience. So different from
the world I know and live in. It made me wonder if these women working
in fields were really happy with what they were doing, if they desired
something more and better, did they know there's another world out
there completely different from their own, did they know I was
watching them in awe and amazement wondering how it would be to be
living a life like that. How would it be if all of these people moved
to cities, or if this little village turned into a city? We depend so
much on them. If it weren't for these men and women working hard under
the scorching sun we wouldn't be eating all the vegetables we're
eating. We would be surviving on chocolates. Which still is awesome.

Sompeta is a village. It was only the second time I was visiting this
place. There were few known people when I reached and until cousins
arrived that evening my only source of entertainment was Dork - The
Incredible Adventures of Robin 'Einstein' Varghese. Sidin's book. The
beginning disappointed me. I was expecting so much Sidin. The only
thing that kept me going was it's uncanny resemblance to my own
journal writing style. The style, the voice, same to same! Alas, I
can't provide proof.

Back in the village, I met 98% of my relatives from dad's side. Two
weddings that were in the pipeline before grandfather's demise are
still in the pipeline. The death didn't change a thing. The most
scandalising moment I had there was when a girl told me that she was
'chosen' by the guy for marriage ONLY because she was 'slim'. All the
girls he had seen until then were 'fat' and he and his family wanted a
girl who was 'slimmer than he was'. I heard the whole story with my
mouth open. The guy 'warned' the girl not to grow fat. I couldn't
believe my ears. This could not be happening. Even in a village. Is
that how marriages in villages take place? Just then, an aunt appeared
with another relative who I wasn't acquainted with. She introduced me
to her and then went on to tell her about why my sister couldn't make
it. And then she said, "She is much prettier. She's active and
smarter. Too bad she couldn't make it". It was demoralising. If it
weren't for the conversation I had earlier about marrying for
thinness, I would have spent the rest of the day sulking. It wasn't
the first time somebody compared my sister's and my looks. And no
doubt, my sister is so much more prettier than I am, and much more
outdoorsy and fun than I am, but it still hurts every time someone
does that. It's very shallow of them to say things like that. I may
not have the looks, but I do have other good things about me that
people could appreciate. Anyway, what this relative did was undone by
mum's side relatives the next night when we visited mum's younger
sister's family in Vishakapatnam.

People who say Hyderabad's landscape was good clearly haven't seen
Vishakapatnam by night. The lights there are not man-made, they're
god-made. Like stars on earth. Taare Zameen Par. The road from the
railway station to BHPV is in its own right, an unplanned wonder of
the world. A sight to see. It was so beautiful. Heaven must be like
this. Back to the undo button, my mum's sister said Asin reminded her
of me. Ahem. I'm not that fond of Asin, but I truly deeply sincerly
appreciate the sentiment. And then swoops in my cousin. Deepu. He said
I reminded him of Priyanka Chopra. Can you believe that? Priyanka.
Chopra. Piggy Chops. Our very own, my favourite Piggy Chops. Yay! We
had to catch a plane to Chennai early next morning and had little time
for conversation. Deepu, Sandeep and I slept in a room and we talked
and talked and talked until we heard snores from the next room. I was
surprised how Deepu told me about all those things he wouldn't tell
his mum or dad. Being a good sister that I am, I counselled and guided
him a little. He seemed to get convinced. And I did all this in
Telugu. With negligible helpings of English. Am I awesome or what?

Air India sucks.

Robin Einstein Varghese kept me company on the train from Chennai to
Bangalore. I finished the book on the journey. The story in itself
wasn't so great. There is nothing 'incredible' or 'adventurous' about
the story, nor did I laugh like I've never laughed before, as the book
claims. It is a good book nonetheless, for light reading, when you've
got nothing better to do. I wouldn't buy the next two volumes if I
wasn't truly madly deeply in love with Sidin's writing. What? Who is
this Sidin Vadukut? If you don't know who Sidin Vadukut is, you might
as well go and live in Afghanistan. Or Kazakhstan. Here -
www.whatay.com Read it and laugh like you've never laughed before.

While alighting from the train, I saw a girl and a guy.
Girlfriend-Boyfriend. Public display of affection freaks me out.

With the new people I follow on twitter, most of them journalists, I
can't help but notice that they are always complaining. About the
decisions our politicos are making. It's true, our politicos don't
always make decisions that please all citizens, but I do think running
a country is not easy and it's impossible to please everybody. Would
all these incessantly complaining journalists do a better job if they
were at the helm of running a country? If the decisions bother them so
much, shouldn't they do something about it? Stop complaining, if you
don't want to do anything about it.

Now that I've started ranting about the Fourth Estate, let me also say
that Barkha Dutt, who I had so much respect for, lost some of it after
her interview with SRK recently regarding his comments on IPL
auction. I totally support SRK's views. Sports and politics should be
kept separate. What did the Pak players do to deserve this rejection?
It was highly humiliating for them. And for us. When I heard the news,
the first thing that my mind said was, "Oh no! This is not good" and I
immediately knew we would see a series of terror attacks soon. And we
did. We brought it on ourselves. I'm worried about the Commonwealth
Games and IPL3 that will take place here. We've angered our neighbours
so much it's would be foolishness to think we have enough security to
ward off a terror attack. Was saving some money more important than
our fragile relationship with our neighbour? You can earn that money
back, but will you able to earn trust from Pakistan after the snub?
There's nothing to gain by fighting and hating our

Of Fourth Estate, climate change and the worst ad ever - part2

our neighbours. Shiv Sena slammed SRK's views on this. So what's the
big deal? Why did the media make it an issue? Would the media do the
same thing if it happened to Rakhi Sawant? Day after day... the media
just didn't get enough. As if there weren't more important things
happening around the globe. Barkha Dutt, you too? :(

So climate change isn't happening. Does that mean you can continue
polluting the environment? Is there something called 'too early to go
green'? Countries need not make carbon cuts as high as 40% or even
25%. Now that climate change isn't happening, we could start with 15%.
It's never too early to mend.

1411 tigers left. I get that. Now what? How is blogging about it going
to help the tigers? What a stupid useless campaign. Apprehend the
people who are involved in killing the tigers. What's the public
supposed to do? There are issues bigger than saving tigers. The 'Save
Fuel' campaign makes more sense to me. Their ads are very good and
effective. They hit you where it hurts the most. The pocket.

Bikini-clad woman and J K Cement. Worst ad ever. What were they
thinking? The ad guys who made it (and approved it) must be total
perverts.

The opposition walked out of the Lok Sabha when the Finance Minister,
P Chidambaram announced a hike in petrol and diesel prices in the
Budget session today. Is resorting to such substandard tactics the
only way to show resentment and disagreement? Sigh. Anyway, I thought
hiking prices wasn't such a bad idea. I don't know if climate change
and environment pollution was on PC's mind when he decided to hike
prices, but it is a good move if that was what made him do it. People
will now judiciously use fuel and contribute towards a greener
environment.

Is there a movie on Nelson Mandela?

The Little Sacrifices She Makes

The incident just happened. It's almost insignificant, but what struck me after that is what is making me write this post. Mum had come home for lunch. She wasn't supposed to come home today, but she had to because she had forgotten some documents that she needed at work. While mum was searching for the documents in a folder, I was arranging lunch in the kitchen. I noticed there was dal and curry enough for just one person (We thought there was enough food for two and so no lunch was cooked). Instinctively, I served all of the dal and a major quantity of the curry along with rice on mum's plate and handed over the plate for mum to relish. As mum began to eat, I went back into the kitchen and served rice and the remaining curry on my plate. Since there was no dal, I picked up curd from the refrigerator to mix with rice. I then went to the dining table where mum was having lunch and sat down. When she saw my plate her jaw dropped. "What?" I asked.
"Why are you eating rice with curd?"
"Because I want to eat rice with curd today"
The pathetic liar that I am, mum knew I was lying.
"Did you serve all of the dal on my plate?", she asked.
"Ummm... yeah"
After a second's silence she said, "I'm supposed to do that for you."

That was when it struck me. God alone knows how many times mum compromised with her things just to make me or my sister or my dad comfortable, and the number of times such small sacrifices go unnoticed. We don't even realise that mums do these things. They do all these things without complaining, ever, without even hinting that they're doing it, without expecting anything in return. And what do we give them in return?

That is why they say, "God cannot be everywhere, that's why he made mothers"

Arranged Marriage

A discussion with a friend today compelled me to make a post on the highly debated topic. This post is not about love vs. arranged marriage. These are just some thoughts/fears I have about the whole process before you tie the knot, be it love or arranged.

How does an arranged marriage happen? The parents choose the boy/girl. The boy and the girl meet, they talk, talk and talk some more. Finding that their expectations from marriage match, they decide to get married. Is that all? Is the matching of expectations all that is needed to decide to spend the rest of their lives with each other?

Honestly, the concept of an arranged marriage freaks me out! Now let's say, the expectations of both the sides are a 100% match. You now see the personal traits and compatibility of both sides. Obviously, when you meet a new person you are nice to the person. The other person will be nice to you too. How do you really know if the person is good or bad. Ok, nobody is a 'bad' person. So let me put it this way. How do I know we're compatible? Do I say we're compatible when our expectations match and there is a good chemistry between the two? The chemistry is always good when things are good. When situations are adverse, that's where it really matters. Will we be compatible when things go bad? Or are we going to fight over the silliest of matters? I know fights are inevitable when two people live together, but it's ok when the fight is over something that really matters. Fighting over silly matters is a big pain. I hate fighting and arguing, and would do anything to avoid it. When I get married, I really would want to know the not-so-good side of the person. More than the good part, it's the bad part that I want to know. Everybody has got good qualities, which is not something that you need to worry about, and bad qualities, which you cannot take for granted. I need to know if I'll be able to put up with the annoying qualities of the person for the rest of my life. Is it possible to know what these qualities are before one gets married to the person? Or is it going to be a surprise-surprise moment after marriage? Of course, marriage is a life-time commitment and one would (at least, I would) accept all the annoying qualities and accept the person for what he is, unless it is an immoral quality that is totally unacceptable.

... which is why I think, personally, I believe love marriages make more sense. I have nothing against arranged marriages. In fact, my marriage would be an arranged marriage if things are as they are at present (You never know the future ;) ). In a love marriage, you know everything about the person, the good and the bad (and the worse) before you tie the knot. You'd have had fights and you would know how both of you deal with it. When you marry the person, you already know how the rest of your life with that person is going to be. Maybe your expectations are not the same, but the love that you have for the person will let you make small compromises with expectations, and make expectations match. To quote Canara Bank's tagline, "You change for the ones you care". The only downside is the heartache when one side refuses to accept certain qualities and the couple breaks up (before marriage, of course). Heartaches are painful and nobody would want to go through them a second time, but a heartache before marriage is better than a heartache after marriage.

Now that I think about it, love marriages and arranged marriages are not so different except for the two facts that in a love marriage you fall in love before marriage and in an arranged marriage you fall in love after marriage/engagement; in a love marriage you choose your partner and then tell your parents, and in an arranged marriage your parents choose a prospective partner and then let you know. It's the matter of how much of the person you know before you tie the knot that makes all the difference.

Sony Ericsson K550i vs. Nokia E63

I recently bought a "smartphone", a Nokia E63 for which I left a Sony Ericsson K550i. And honestly, my K550i seems smarter than my E63. Not that the E63 is a bad phone, no way. It's just that Nokia E63 doesn't show its smartness in conspicuous ways. The K550i was just a normal phone with normal features, yet it had some features I wish were in my new phone. I love the features of E63, but when it comes to ease of access and the user interface it is no match to Sony Ericsson. If Nokia learnt looking at phones from Sony Ericsson, without doubt they would be one of the best mobile phone manufacturers in the world.

Here's what, I think, Nokia should learn from Sony Ericsson:
Smartness - When a person who's not in my contacts messages me, I see his/her number in the From field. After I enter the person into my contacts, the number doesn't change to the name of the new contact! This is really annoying after using K550i where the name appeared in every place the number had been there! Nokia, where is your smartness?

One-touch buttons - I could do more on my K550i without the one-touch buttons than I can do with the E63. While E63 has specialised customisable one-touch buttons, I could use the up, down, left and right buttons on the K550i as one-touch buttons that I could customise. There was a button on the right where I could list any number of frequently used applications for easy access. I agree, the home screen on the E63 has this option too, but I can list only six applications (nine, if you include the long-press feature of the one-touch buttons). If I list the rest of the applications on the second homescreen, the switching between the homescreens takes longer than my limit of patience with electronic gadgets. There was another button on the K550i that showed me a list of all open applications that I could switch between. I think the feature is there on the E63 too, but what are the buttons for it? Anyone?

Organisation of the menu - I'm sure anybody who has used Sony Ericsson would agree with me on this. Sony Ericsson always has only nine menu items within which all features are embedded. Nokia has a very cluttered and confusing menu. It takes really long to get used to, and most people who have little patience never go through the entire menu. It looks like in an attempt to organise all the features they ended up over-organising. I just wish my E63 had a menu like the K550i where I didn't have to scroll down every time for the rest of the menu.

The T9 dictionary text predictions - This I can never get over. The K550i seemed to know exactly what I was going to say. If it offered me the wrong word and I hit a backspace, it immediately offered me the next most likely word I would use which, 99% of the time, turned out to be right! It offered me the list of words in a drop-down box from which I could choose the appropriate word. Though with the E63 I no longer need word predictions what with the qwerty keyboard, the text prediction feature on K550i was the best! I truly miss it.

Mark Several feature - This feature on the E63 frustrates me a little. When I need to select a few items in a list, I have to select individual items, open its menu and then mark each one of them, while in the K550i the Mark Several option would only require 'checkmark'ing the required little boxes that appeared at the bottom-right corner of the all the items on selecting Mark Several. This, I think, is a feature that Nokia should really work on. Nokia, please introduce a Mark Several concept in the phone.

Delivery Reports - A whole section for delivery reports? Isn't that a little bit of an overkill? E63 lists delivery reports in a separate section! In the K550i, a successful message delivery would be indicated by a tick mark next to the message in sent items. An undelivered message wouldn't have the tick mark. Sony Ericsson kept the concept of delivery reports really simple.

Well, there are a few more but these are the main features that I wish were different in Nokia. If you're asking me why I didn't buy another Sony Ericsson phone when I have so many complaints against Nokia, blame the price. A Sony Ericsson phone with the same features as an E63 would be at least 50% more expensive. If it weren't for the price, I'd have bought another Sony Ericsson phone without a second thought. That doesn't mean I like my E63 any lesser. I still love it! E63 rocks! :D

I don't know what to do online

Internet has revolutionalised the world. It has changed the way people live. In India, however, it does not seem to have influenced the lives of people in a very big way. Yes, people do use the internet to keep in touch with family and friends; however their usage of the internet stops there. I wonder why.

Ever since I was introduced to it at 12 years of age, the internet has never failed to fascinate me. It first started with exchanging emails with my cousin. I then got introduced to the ever-green search engine google.com, and ever since then, there was no looking back. And that is the reason I fail to understand why the internet hasn't intrigued more than half the population in our country. You might say half of them cannot afford it or don't have access. My point is in purview of the people who can afford it and have access to it.

In college, everytime there was an assignment to find out information from the internet, most people groaned. Well, that's probably because it meant more "studying". Most people I know have email accounts they never use. They hardly ever log in to social networking sites. When asked why they don't access the internet often, they say they don't know what to do online! How could they not know what to do online? I could spend hours browsing, reading and discussing online. There is no dearth of things to do online! After checking my inbox, replying to emails, reading online newspapers and feeds on my feed reader, reading blogs, watching videos, appreciating art on smashingmagazine.com and I still have time to stay online, I google-search questions that haunt my mind, or just play silly games on facebook or tickle.com. I never run out of things to do online, and people say they don't know what to do!

I find it incredibly amazing that I can share the silliest of thoughts on twitter.com and have interesting conversations on them. It's amazing how I can stay abreast with the latest information to the minute, and people say they find it boring and don't know what to do online! How is this possible?

P.S. If you are reading this, you probably are among the small percentage of people who use the internet for more than just keeping in touch. I would be glad to know how you spend your time online.

[3rd Nov 2010] Things  to do online:
Here's a list of interesting websites that maybe you could check out. Just a few to get you started (in case you're here because you really want to know what you could do online)

• If you've got a lot of digital photos on your computer, maybe you could try ShapeCollage that lets you make picture collages in different shapes.
• If you want to learn something new you could try SoYouWanna.com - a website that tells you how to paint your room, how to fake an appreciation for art, how to survive in a Brazilian jungle, how to publish a book, how to be a model, or maybe even how to be productive online... just about anything for anyone.
• New to the internet, and want to know all the things you've missed? Check these top 35 internet memes of the last 15 years.
• There's even a website that says it is dedicated to the bored and unemployed (not that you are), but this site's got interesting entertaining stuff. It's called Fork Party. I like checking the Fail section for laughs.
• If you like TV (or fiction - be it watching or reading), there's TV tropes. This website, I must warn you, can be addictive.
• If you like art, or even if you want to look at all the beautiful art that people are coming up with, you could try Paintings I Love or Deviant Art.
• And then there are the more popular websites like TechCrunch, Mashable for all the technology and gadget news, YouTube and Vimeo for videos, Flickr for photography. There are websites for just about anything one could be interested in. Someone I know learns to cook new recipes through YouTube.
• And I absolutely love the Make magazine. The DIY stuff is awesome.
• And finally, animation. If you're into it go to LineBoil.

These are just a few websites that I like (I'm not associated with any of these websites). But you could really find anything you want on the internet. Have you tried Postcrossing (where you can trade postcards from your country with someone else from another country)?

There is so much you can do and learn online. I hope I've helped you get started. Happy browsing. And also, be careful.