Step-children

I am in a really bad mood tonight. Mostly because I know I won't be able to sleep late tomorrow on a rare holiday morning because the morons in my housing society will try to push their pop-patriotism on everyone else by playing 'Ae mere pyaare watan' right from 8 am.

But, also because I am watching a rather emotional episode of Just Dance. I have generally come to see through the plastic emotionality that most TV programs thrust on us, but, and maybe it was because I am drunk, or maybe because I feel very strongly about it, I could not keep from crying when Irfan, one of the contestants on the show, had to state that he is as Hindustani as anyone else.

The fact that a Muslim citizen still has to say that is extremely painful. It makes me ashamed of myself. And my country.

Really liked Rajit's performance. Don't know in terms of the technicalities, but the dance was good to make one realize how we are leaving the green in our flag behind. The saffron and the white will not go far if we continue doing that.

Ae mere pyaare watan, the pyaar we have for you is standing on very weak grounds.

Of beautiful magazines and ugly people

I should probably create a label called 'magazines' now.

Continuing my love for Lounge a bit further, I loved this week's edition of the magazine. Firstly, it had some nice articles about gaming, of both the online and the board type, by Krish Raghav, whom I ran into at IIT Kanpur recently. The meeting inspired me to read up on European board games like The Settlers of Catan, and a whole new fantastic world opened up for me. It's been a Narnia moment for me, the one where you open a door and discover a whole new unexplored world that you didn't even know existed.

I also liked the article by Aakar Patel. He must be the man whose articles generate the most hate mails for Lounge. He seems to enjoy doing something that I can't describe in English - 'ungli karna', and there can't be a better phrase for it (I think). He loves bursting the bubbles that we Indians of the present time seem to live in and it's always great to find someone who shares my lack of faith in the 'India story'.

There's a lot going great for our country. But Indians are also the most uncultured, crass group of people I can think of. And Patel captures it phenomenally well. Great credit to Lounge for keeping him a part of its even otherwise great portfolio of columnists, including the Mint editor who writes about graphic novels.

The article by Patel this week was about how we Indians are not city builders. In fact, we bring our cities criminally down, including the great ones like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The name changes are not the worst of it.

This lack of civic sense continues into our daily lives too. I was reading the article after my trip to the local mall. People waiting right in front of the elevator door, breaking queues, not letting the people inside to get out, as if it were a vertical motion version of our Mumbai's local trains. A woman just walking away casually after her child took out several DVDs from the shelf and threw them on the ground at the Crossword store without bothering to place them back or even apologizing to the staff. Just two instances of how uncouth we are.

And the daily assault on my senses as people spit casually and honk madly on the roads is agonizing. I am increasingly beginning to hate being an Indian, or at least appreciate the merits of living within perpetually air-conditioned environs, where one does not have to encounter the real India.

This is a feeling similar to what I have had in relation to Bihar for a long time. I love the state, and feel very comfortable when I am in Bihar (even though I haven't been there since 2004), and it is an integral part of me. But, I can't identify with a lot of the typical cultural elements of the state. I can see what is wrong with the state, even though most of my fellow Biharis can't seem to, and they even revel in perpetuating these problems.

The same is happening with India on a larger scale now. We might be one of the fastest developing economies, but our mindsets are not developing at even a quarter of that rate. We might be the largest democracy, but we are unimaginably inconsiderate of other people's opinions. We might be the land that gave birth to non-violent protest, but we are easily one of the most violent people, looking forward to getting offended for the smallest of things.

******************************************************************

As might be clear by now, I am a sucker for great magazines. Am reading this other fantastic entrant into my pantheon. Forbes India has recently come out with their quarterly called Forbes Life India. It must be the most beautiful thing I have held in my hands in the last few months (without any sexual connotations). And the articles match up to the layout. I had been seeing it at bookstores for some time, but the (sterile) cover did not appeal to me at all (even though it has a naked person's picture). Then while waiting for the movie today (I saw Tanu weds Manu, which is really really good), I decided to spend some time at the Crossword store at the mall, flipped a few pages and fell in love. Really looking forward to seeing how the Network 18 guys follow up this class act.

Consult Focused

Please do read the post below, where I appear to be a heartless capitalist bastard, but say, and more importantly, don't say, enough to show that I might not just be one.

I just found a few interesting articles that I really wished to share here, before I forgot, and hence this abrupt increase in frequency between consecutive posts.

Vibhor mailed me this link to a series of articles written by an MIT alumnus called Keith Yost, who worked for The Boston Consulting Group in Dubai for a few months and got back to Boston a lot wiser.

He writes extremely well, and even though I feel he is being a bit too harsh on Dubai, and way too harsh on BCG, thanks in no small measure to the immediate surge of antagonistic feelings one is bound to experience when leaving a job or a posting (refer my posts on Bangalore from last year), I enjoyed reading his articles on life in Dubai and life as a consultant.

Dubai's artificiality I can vouch for, and have written about more than once earlier. There can be few places I despise more.

BCG, on the other hand, is an interesting pack of people. Would reserve my comments on it. And other similar firms, who are the easiest targets for disillusioned grads from the top colleges across the world who think of themselves in more complimentary terms than they ought to.

Leaving Vidarbha

It might be evident that suicide is one of my favorite topics. I am intrigued by the various reasons why a person would want to end his/her life. In that spirit, I have been trying to understand the Vidarbha farmer suicides, including visiting some parts of the region because of some work-related assignment recently, and I have come across some startling facts. Startling for me, at least.

Most of the farmers who are committing suicide had a much better standard of living compared to farmers in backward states like Bihar, UP and Orissa. They owned significantly large pieces of land, their families owned cell phones, they had married off their daughters in grand style.

In fact, just taking loans to hold grand marriages so that neighbors would not consider them poor was the reason for so much misery. Relying purely on cash crops - like cotton and soybean, alcoholism, sending sons to private colleges they could not afford - these are just some of the reasons I had not realized were responsible for the much-publicized deaths.

Farmers were just living beyond the means they could afford to, and many took their lives, without thinking about the wives and daughters they were leaving behind, because they could not bear to not afford those means any more. Many were expecting that the compensation their families would get from the government after their deaths would help tide over the situation.

I cannot feel any degree of support for these people. Yes, there might be genuine cases of destitution in Vidarbha, where excessive reliance on unsustainable crops or belief in the wrong kind of financial institutions might have caused farmers to hang themselves or eat pesticides, but it largely comes across as another crop of Indians stretching their feet beyond what the bed-sheet permits.

The problem is not so much from the Government's side, as many self-righteous NGOs and social reformers allege, but from within. Tackle alcoholism. Teach the farmers to live within their means. Let them know that marrying your daughter by taking unserviceable loans is not intelligent. That might help save some lives.

Only some though. The impression I also get is that the situation has reached a tipping point where men almost unanimously feel that killing themselves is a good way to handle relatively temporary difficult times. It is a scary situation when a large chunk of the population decides to give up and not fight instead.

Auto Know Better

A question that I get asked almost as often as "When are you getting married?" is "So what car are you buying?". I find both questions as unnecessary as people asking "Wassup?" or "How are you doing?". And hence merit no reply.

But, maybe a blog post.

At least the car question.

Buying a car is like having a baby. Far too many people do it just because they can.

I think most people will do this world a whole lot good if they didn't buy a car, just as many others would if they did not have a baby. They don't know how to care for one, how to treat one or how to ride one. Car, not baby.

A car is hardly aspirational anymore. Every goddamned person can afford one. And then one more. It's just another machine like a microwave or a TV meant to provide some help.

And practically speaking, especially if you are single, but even otherwise, having a car probably ends up being more a hassle than a help. In a city like Mumbai particularly, where the public modes of transportation are fairly decent, it makes a lot of sense to not add to the traffic even if you can afford to buy a car. Of course, I realize that I might be overlooking some issues like overburdened buses and trains or possible difficulty in getting a cab or rick if a lot more people decided to use them instead of personal cars.

So, I'll just talk at a personal level about my reasons. I can't imagine liking to drive in any city in India. I haven't been to all cities, but have enough experience to make that claim. Heavy traffic, road encroachments, potholed roads, no lane discipline - this is the stuff that a taxi driver's dreams might be made of, but I would rather stick to horror stories that I see on the screen than on the road.

I don't think I have the patience to engage everyday with all the frustrated drivers, pedestrians, stray dogs and other assorted creatures that inhabit our roads on my way to work or back, and still be able to work properly. I enjoy sitting back in a rickshaw or cab and looking at the hoardings or reading on my phone or watching something on my laptop.

Apart from the in-use hassles that driving on most city roads in India entails, the maintenance and servicing of a car is just too much extra work. Getting hit by someone, hitting someone yourself, arguments, insurance, being fleeced by the auto-mechanic, periodic servicing - that's so much precious time lost when I can sit in my living room drinking beer and lazying away. Just parking and then taking it out from the parking is such a headache half the times!

Plus, you are always worried of the car or some part being stolen. Or losing your keys inside. Or the tyre getting punctured at some random place where you have to change the tyre yourself.

One solution to many of these issues could be hiring a driver while you sit back comfortably in your car. Leave the dirty work to lesser mortals. Now that is one option worth exploring.

But, I am not sure I am willing to bear the costs of car loan, petrol AND driver's salary for something I don't need in the first place. If not a rick or a cab, my thumb works just fine.

The Fat, Brown Line

Everytime I travel on a plane in India, I think this: why do we love to line up so much? I don't know if this is common to people from other countries - more well-traveled acquaintances say that it isn't, so it must be some vestige of those times when everything had to be fought for.

You must have noticed, and very strong chances are that you would have done it yourself - people in Indian airports (and I say Indian, because I have been made to believe that this occurrence is limited largely to these shores) line up the moment there is the first call for boarding to begin. They line up and keep standing diligently even if the line extends to 50-100 people. Even if there ends up being some delay in the eventual boarding process.

Even funnier is when the plane lands and stops after taxiing. Despite all pleas by the air-hostess to keep the phone switched off, people start pulling out their Blackberry Storms and Nokia N97s, the moment the plane slows down after landing, and calling people up that they have landed. I am sure their chauffeurs/cab-wallahs/relatives can survive a few more minutes before hearing their loud voices.

Even more curiously, just as they were desperate to get into the plane, now they are rubbing their heels together to dash out of the plane the moment the door opens. At the first possible instance, almost everyone stands up and lines up looking expectantly at the door, breathing in each other's exhaled air even more effectively. I think this might be some sub-conscious remnant of having been used to lining up near the train compartment door with one's luggage near the bathroom to avoid getting caught in the melee of other passengers, hawkers, coolies and general hangers-on who infest all our railway stations. Especially at those stations where the train used to stop for not more than 2-3 minutes.

I have got used to seeing people stand up and start taking out baggage from the overhead cabins the moment the plane halts momentarily during its taxiing, only to be shouted upon by some member of the crew. Watching them lose balance, or their bags, or both, when the plane starts to move again, is priceless.

What is even more priceless is them giving me dirty looks when I choose to keep sitting at my seat, reading my book, and waiting for the crowd around me to pass through. I have cultivated some looks of my own that I hope make them feel how utterly loserly their behavior is.

Jackass At Work

I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job.

I really hate my job.

Or maybe not so much.

Monday mornings aren't exactly a picnic on normal days, but today, getting up in the middle of a particularly nice dream, and then getting wet waiting for an auto, to come to work made me feel like a complete jackass.

The work probably is decent enough. It's actually more because I can get the same amount of work done even if I work from home. The only reason going to work makes sense is if there's a meeting, and today there isn't one.

And the worst thing about my office in Mumbai is that the people are absolutely one-dimensional. I know I have probably not given them a chance and not tried to get to know them better and all that, but after having worked with them for almost 3 months now, I think I have a fair understanding of who they are.

There are about 2-3 people apart from me who don't get food from home and go down at lunchtime to the canteen in the opposite building. I have started dreading having to go out with anyone else, because for the half hour or so that we take to walk there, get food, eat it and walk back, the only conversation we can have is about deals we are working on.

Bangalore office sucked in some regards, but at least there were people who had a life beyond work.

I am gradually starting to have lunch on my own with a book or a magazine.

The funny thing is that I think they probably think that I am a really boring person. Because I pretty much shut up if they start discussing their investor memorandum and financial model and due-diligence report. I go to some wikipedia article on my phone and let them have their fun with their deal-talk.

I am really not cut out to be a banker.

We Suck

Call this lack of patriotism, but I really do wish the Commonwealth Games are taken away from us. Just two hours of rains and Delhi, which almost everyone accepts is the most world-class city we've got, comes to a standstill.

I work in the infrastructure sector, and as part of my work I keep track of infra related developments in India and, to a lesser extent, abroad. When I talk to American or European bankers about the level of development in India's infrastructure, I feel like a bloody sub-Saharan resident.

We are really that bad. And much worse actually. Some of the poorest nations of the world have better roads than us. BRIC is a joke. GS probably wanted an S (for South Africa) in place of that I, but it wouldn't have been easy to pronounce. We don't even have a proper 100 crore+ company in some important sectors.

I love India and all that, but we do suck royally.

And what sucks most is that the only thing I do is crib about it here.

Tweety Bird

I joined Twitter a few weeks back. Like a lot of things that I join and then lose interest in, I haven't gone back to the site again, at least no more than twice maybe. And certainly haven't made any posts. Or is the right term 'tweets'?

Actually, for some reason it does not take messages from my phone. Now I don't have the patience or the interest to figure out if it's a problem with my net connection, my phone connection, my connection or anything else. Just now I realized that I don't even know for sure if it is meant to take messages from my phone.

But, still, people seem to keep deciding to follow me on Twitter. Unless it's that fan thing on Orkut, or the equally dumb Recommendation thing on LinkedIn (the only two networking sites I whole-heartedly support - I find Facebook too confusing), where it's expected to be quid pro quo, I don't understand why people do that.

Of course no one loses anything on adding one more name to the list of people you follow, but it does give my ego a fairly respectable boost, which could be the secret of my energy, when I see yet another new person starting to follow me on Twitter. And like the many good people who keep sending friend invites on Facebook, I don't know a fair number of the people following me on Twitter either.

No offence meant to people who did add me on Twitter of course. I am sure they are all very nice. And busy.

Let Live

It's really annoying how often people tend to think they are more capable to make the choices for another human being. Almost every day one comes across one more self-righteous fool trying to dictate how someone else needs to live his/her life. I never quite understand why as long as someone's decision is not having a bearing on your life (and the butterfly effect argument is too dumb to count) why you would want to interfere in that person's life.

These days there's this case in the news about a mentally-challenged orphan pregnant rape victim in Punjab being stopped from having her child. Thankfully the Supreme Court let her go ahead with her decision. It's her body, her child. One really doesn't know what the child would want, and till it's born I think the mother is the only person, at least in this case, who can decide for it. Why the hell do apparently well-meaning people want her child to be aborted! There's so little that lady has to live for. Why the hell can't you let her be happy if she feels she can take care of the child!

Monsieur Sarkozy decided to ban the hijab in France. Because it is a secular country. I don't know what the definition of secular is. I have always believed that it is not banning the expression of any religious belief, but instead ensuring that people from all communities are allowed full freedom to wear, worship, speak, celebrate in any manner they want to as long as they are not harming anyone else. Barring a Muslim woman from wearing a headscarf or a Sikh man from keeping a turban, irrespective of whether that person wants to do it or not, is not secularism. It's autocracy.

It's no different from a Muslim emperor in medieval times allowing people from all religions to stay in his kingdom as long as they paid a tax for being allowed to stay there. It's no different from Muslims in a certain Well-known State in Western India living under the constant threat of another riot.

Nicolas Sarkozy might believe that he has done a great deed by liberating Muslim women. I might be wrong, but I do believe that the hijab holds a more important position for at least some Muslim women living in France than just something forced onto them by their fathers or brothers.

Which brings me to the Section 377 decriminalisation case. There have been all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds saying all sorts of things about how homosexuality is against our culture, is unnatural, is criminal, is a portent of the end of mankind and so much more.

The funniest bit that I saw on TV was in an NDTV debate hosted by Vikram Chandra where a high-school kid said with a lot of conviction that sex is only meant for having kids. Damn, that kid is up for so much revelation some time soon.

Or maybe not.

But, on a more serious note, I was just peeved with the time that was being spent on the issue. I know it's one of those things that need to be discussed in the open and not brushed under the proverbial carpet, but while doing that it's really annoying seeing people like Baba Ramdev saying things they obviously have no clue at all about. Why do these people feel it's so important to dictate what I do in my bedroom. Or, for that matter, even what their son/daughter does in his/her bedroom.

I doubt most such people would even have a clue about it actually.

Looking back at Dubai

After my trip to UAE last year, I had written about my experience in Dubai. I didn't like the city at all. Even apart from the heat, there are a lot of things about the place that I absolutely disliked. Like the tons of things about the city that spell out artifical in big, bold letters everywhere. I was in Dubai for just one day, spending the rest of the time in slightly better Ras-al-Khaimah, but even that one day was enough for me to realize that Dubai would be one of the last cities in the world that I would want to work and live at.

The reason I am bringing this up almost a year after the trip again is this article I came across today. Even otherwise, I have been coming across stories of how the Dubai dream has soured for a lot of expats over the last few months. And some of the stories are quite shocking. If it doesn't go down in this downturn, at least in the long run I don't think the Dubai model is sustainable. Either its debt burden, or the bigger ecological burden, would do it apart.

Of course, in the long run, nothing is sustainable, so we probably don't need to bother.

Middle Class

There's this series of rather idiotic fuel-saving ads coming on TV these days. If in my 2 hours per week TV viewing I come across these insane ads at least 5 times, it must be a whole lot painful for those of you morons who watch TV everyday.

One ad shows a woman thinking about pizzas for dinner just because she can save 20% on her gas bill. Is India's middle class so miserable that it needs to wait for a stupid INR 500 saving to have pizzas for dinner? Shocking!

There's another ad where an idiotic kid (what's with India's kids these days anyway?) says that he wants to open a cycle repair shop because fuel wouldn't be available to run vehicles when he's grown up considering the manner in which people (and his even more idiotic Ram-Kapoor-ic dad) waste fuel. If the people who made this ad had done the most basic research they would know that there will be fuel for a long long time. In fact, all petrol companies believe that technologies that would make petrol/diesel fairly redundant would come up earlier than the time when these fuels become difficult to source.

Two Cents on Pride and Culture

First Cent: This whole obsession with getting back Mahatma Gandhi's personal belongings has gotten really crazy now. And everyone involved seems to be trying to outdo the next party in being idiotic.

Firstly, I don't understand why India's pride is at stake here if a dead (even if arguably great) man's slippers and glasses and few other things get auctioned off. Haven't some really priceless pieces of art and architecture been also auctioned off earlier? And, though I am not very sure of this mainly because I AM NOT INTERESTED, weren't these things already in foreign possession? So why this sudden fuss? The only thing could be that this is close to the election season. I mean I have genuine respect for Mahatma Gandhi, and a visit to his Ashram in Ahmedabad was one of the highlights of my recent trip there, but I am pretty sure he wouldn't have cared either.

Now the Government says that it'll go all out and bid for these items at the auction. Am I the only one who finds it really idiotic that they are openly declaring that they are going to bid anything to get these items back in an open auction. Opens up some interesting prospects for the seller.

And the rediff news article says that James Otis, the seller, 'wanted the Indian government to shift priorities from military spending to health care, especially for the poor'. Is the man crazy? Or are we?

Second Cent: I had made a post some time back about how Bangalore is looking more and more like Delhi each passing day.

The latest bit of resemblance is how this city is getting unsafe for women. It will take a long long time to get anywhere close to Delhi, but it seems all determined to get there. Such incidents have suddenly become very noticeable, so they are either just being reported more now even though they were always there, or some sick bastards have suddenly realized that they can get away with a lot of things because Mr Yeddyurappa has some very twisted ideas of what constitutes Indian culture.

There have been quite a few incidents lately where women walking alone in a jeans or in a pub with a man or riding a bike have been misbehaved with. And even slapped. By people at random. For no reason. What kind of castrated, low self-esteem, frustrated moron would slap a woman, and think that he is protecting Indian culture.

Bangalore is an amazing city, with a culture that people have unbelievable pride in, and not altogether unjustified. Even for someone who has been here for less than a year, it feels great being called a Bangalorean, being part of that community. So, it truly sucks when I see something like this spoiling what is supposed to be a rich, tolerant, beautiful place.

Even though, I am also sure that if I see a couple of guys on a bike slapping a single lady on the road and driving past, I would not do much beyond standing there and cursing them. Sucks.

Getting Real

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this the Sinha residence?"

"Yes, that's right. May I know who I am speaking to?"

"Good evening, ma'am. I am calling from Manipal Hospital in Bangalore. Am I talking to Mrs Sinha?"

"(Already panicking) Yes, that's me. Is everything alright? What is this about?"

"Umm...ma'am, can I speak to Mr Sinha, please? It's urgent."

"(Now frantic) Mr Sinha is traveling right now. Can you just tell me now what this is about?!"

"Well, ma'am...I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. The thing is...you see ma'am...a body was brought to our hospital's emergency ward last night. We are not sure about it ma'am...but we have reasons to believe that...as I said we are not sure...there aren't enough identification papers on the body...that it might be your son. We would need someone from your family to visit us and identify the body."

Mrs Sinha's pretty much speechless by now. And if it required any more effort to hear the person on the other side than just standing there and holding the phone to her ear, she would pretty much be incapable of doing that too.

There's about a minute or so of not knowing how to react. Then, she says something garbled into the phone and drops it. The next 5 minutes or so are spent trying to get through to Mr Sinha, who has probably just switched off his phone on the flight to Mumbai. The reaction comes after that. But it's too unique to be described as mere shock/grief.

And then, after 5 more minutes have passed in the confusion, a stranger walks in, followed by a man holding a camera. The stranger does not wait for Mrs Sinha to say anything before shouting out simultaneously to her and to the camera, in extreme glee:"Mrs Sinha! This is Ultimate Reality TV! You are on camera LIVE right now!! Your reaction has been captured for our viewers across the world, who I am sure are glued to their TV screens watching how you reacted to the phone call! It was fantastic! Don't worry, your son is fine in Bangalore! Congratulations! You have won an all-expenses paid trip to Thailand with your family! You must be delighted!"

How's that for a reality show idea? We could call up people with other less-interesting news like "Your house has been demolished by the municipality" or "Your cat was set on fire by the neighborhood kid" or "This is IIM Calcutta. I am sorry your application form for this year's CAT was rejected. You are also debarred from taking the exam for the next 5 years".

I think I have a winner on my hands.

Lost My Religion

In a work-related meeting, a few days back, I met an 82-year old guy who has been a member of one of the Freemason lodges in Bangalore for a long time. I really enjoyed meeting him, and if things go as they are planned right now, I might be making a trip abroad with him. Which is really interesting because, despite being a chap who started working even before my parents were born and who retired almost by the time I started to read, he can still speak and move around really well. He manages a kids' basketball team in his colony in Jayanagar, works regularly as a consultant on mining and still has enough stamina to make trips to Africa. Amazing man.

But this post is not about him, but about the society he is a member of. I have long wanted to become a member, partly because I have read that they do a fair amount of charity work and partly because one gets to come in contact with some really successful people. But another reason has been the aura that surrounds Freemasonry. For some reason, even though I have read enough about them to know that it's not a clandestine organization with secret initiation ceremonies and weird rituals, I still find it extremely intriguing. The word 'Freemason' somehow always creates images of the secret society in Eyes Wide Shut in my mind.

So, I was gathering info on the society yesterday. I qualify in every other way and I even have at least one person who would nominate me, which helps one's candidature. But I fail qualification on one count. The fulfillment of this criterion is the most important factor to be a Freemason, and I don't satisfy it.

To be a Freemason, irrespective of whatever religion you belong to, you need to believe in the Supreme Being. No atheist can become a Freemason.

Soiled Sons

The whole Raj Thackeray issue brings forth several other problems that cannot be attributed completely to the Great Son of Maharashtra's Soil.

The most shocking was this piece of news that was on top of Rediff's news-stories today for a short while. When I saw it my first reaction was - "Fuck! They actually went ahead and killed someone today for the arrest!", and then I realized that it was a story from last Sunday. Yes, MNS activists did beat the guy up, but not to avenge Thackeray's arrest. And it's really sad on the part of the Rediff news desk to portray it that way. I can think of some hot-blooded Biharis already planning to take it out on Maharashtrians around them.

Another Rediff article led me to this site for Shiv Udyog Sena, which was the brain child of Raj Thackeray when he was still a part of Shiv Sena. They have a good vision, but I don't know if they actually did anything much except create nuisance. Their website sure is pathetic. The funniest part has to be this profile of Bal Thackeray. The page title says Caricatures by Shri Raj Thackeray. And this profile does pretty much look like one.

More than anything it makes Maharashtrians appear to be these weak kids, who had been bullied for ages by North Indians, and who needed this senile cartoonist to finally let them taste the fruits of their own soil.

How can Maharashtrians let this joke of a family insult them every day?

Update: Rediff seems to have removed the page now. They are better than TOI and Aaj Tak in that they at least feel shame and correct their mistakes.

Point Counter Point

The slowdown in the markets has finally hit us. No, we aren't being laid off en masse. But since the banks, PE funds and everyone else has gotten really cautious with their money, deals aren't moving fast enough. In fact, most of them are not moving at all. We need to think of something innovative to make things work right now. But until that happens, I suppose I can blog from office.

Last week's Economist had an obituary of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, the Opposition Leader from Singapore. This was the first time I was hearing of him (which happens with most people that Economist has obituaries of), even though I have read and heard stories of how difficult it is in general for the few prominent opponents to the People's Action Party rule to lead a normal life.

This and a debate on our IIMC message board about Narendra Modi, made me think again of an issue that I have brought up while talking to a lot of people. My own opinions regarding this have changed drastically, several times, over the years.

How important is democracy/secularism/socialism to a country? I use the terms together because I believe that one of the three alone is difficult to exist without the other two.

Even though Mr Modi might not have been personally responsible for the carnage in Gujarat, he pretty much did let it go on unabated for too long. Just as Mr Yedyurappa let Christians be killed and churches be burnt in Mangalore. Both chief-ministers - the former having already shown results, and the latter at least making the right noises - symbolize the minority progressive and development-oriented section of India's politics. Objectively speaking, for someone like me - a well-educated, economically well-off, Hindu - a smooth road, 24-hours power and water and industrial development matters a lot more than some Muslim or Christian family being hacked to death in some village or ghetto. Objectively speaking.

Similarly, even though in some cases it might have been for fear of persecution, across my interaction with people in Singapore, most of them seemed pretty happy with the government that has ruled them with a fairly strong fist for around 40 years. I don't know of any major human-rights violation in Singapore, but an opponent can be made to bleed in other ways too. Economically for one, as Mr Jeyaretnam was. And this is a government that could be the paragon of good governance across the world.

As I said, I don't have a conviction strong enough to be on either side of the debate. I commend Mr Modi for the development Gujarat has seen. I was awed by Singapore's at-times spooky efficiency. And I would much rather live in a place like Gujarat or Singapore or even Bangalore, where I would have a better standard of living than some other place in India or abroad where everyone's treated equally and everyone's safe (though I can't think of any such place at the moment off the cuff) even though living standards might not be all that great.

But not being able to decide for either side actually makes things worse because I get offended by both sides' arguments. How can one ignore taking away a person's right to expression, freedom and even life itself just because the culprit is a good administrator? How can one even compare the two? On the other hand, how much does a few lives lost, a few families destroyed matter when the greater good is being ensured? Aren't more people killed in Bihar, even though it has been ruled by 'secular' governments? Bajrang Dal wasn't responsible for 1984 (ok, George Orwell was, but I am talking about the Delhi riots - the most cited example in such debates).

Yeah, I am as confused as ever.

Flight Fight

I had been really looking forward to traveling by Emirates again. The last time I traveled on it, I had been floored by the friendly air-hostesses, which was some contrast to the crew on Air India and Iraqi Airways - the only other airlines I had flew in till then. I had even been given a teddy bear and a bag full of goodies (I was 8 years old then). I wasn't expecting a teddy bear this time (would not have minded it though), but was definitely expecting service of the same stature.

So, the flight from Bengaluru to Dubai was a massive letdown. The flight was 2.5 hours late, which we got to know only after we reached the airport. The seats in the plane were uncomfortable. The in-flight entertainment had terrible movies - I chose College Road Trip, because the other options seemed even worse. And CRT has to be one of the shittiest movies of the last 2-3 years. The food was disgusting. The wine was of a really bad quality. And, worst of all, the flight crew was really cold. After the great service in Singapore Airlines and, closer home, Jet Airways, this was particularly striking.

On our return journey, the plane was on time and the entertainment options were much much better - better than any I have encountered so far - but the food remained as bad as ever, and the crew sucked equally badly. They should just stop trying to serve Indian food and stick to continental stuff.

Even the Emirates ground crew is extremely impolite and makes one feel obliged for the basic service being provided by them. The fact that their flights are always over-booked does not help the case. The only thing that could have made the whole Emirates experience any worse was if my luggage would have been misplaced by them. Which thankfully did not happen.

Such is Life

A year back:
- I was working in a bank, with work I hadn't been completely prepared for
- I was staying alone, and more or less enjoying it
- I had just started to get the hang of a new city
- The Gujjars were protesting in Delhi, and creating a nuisance
- Noida had just witnessed a gruesome murder case

Now:
- I am working in a bank, with work I hadn't been completely prepared for
- I am staying alone, and more or less enjoying it
- I have just started to get the hang of a new city
- The Gujjars are protesting in Delhi, and creating a nuisance
- Noida has just witnessed a gruesome murder case

Some things never change.
(I wrote this post in 2 minutes - I am sure there a lot of things from last year repeating themselves now, even if we ignore things like Indian TV reaching abysmal lows that won't change for a long time)

There and Back Again

Returned yesterday around noon from what was easily the worst trip of my life. A day's trip to Mumbai for a quiz turned into my worst nightmare of cancelled tickets, delayed landings, missed flights, cash shortage, credit card bounce and more. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been a terrorist attack at the airport or a plane crash, or maybe both together.

All said and done, I am a more knowledgable person now though, as far as plane travel goes. For all its hype, Kingfisher Airlines came across as pretty ordinary in this trip. It feels like, instead of working the other way around, buying a low-cost airlines has started showing signs of laggardness on the main carrier. The one airlines that stood out in the helpfulness of the ground crew, and later the on-flight crew, was Jet Airways. The worst ground crew, by far, is of course that of Indian. My opinion is based on two days' experiences only, but I am sure I have had enough to last a few years.

The quiz was pretty good though. Unfortuantely, we ran into a road-roller called Shamanth M. People who attended any quiz in the IITD Nihilanth, or have seen him quiz on any other occasion, would understand what I mean. If not for him, my team-mate and I, who I think make a pretty strong team, could have made some really good cash. The hospitality of the Axis Bank organizers, the champagne and the food, the conversations over dinner with senior executives and the Chairman, Mr Nayak, himself, and the nice hotel that we stayed at (all for four hours though) made up to an extent. Hopefully we'll have more rewarding trips to Mumbai in the near future.

It's really fun attending Harsha's quizzes. I love the man's humour (though my team-mate cribs a lot about the Derek O'Brien-ish nature of it) and, thanks to Quizician, he has managed to find the fine balance between a quiz that manages to hold the audience's interests as well as doesn't insult the intelligence of the participants on the stage. He has been seeing a lot of us too, and if not by our names at least recognises us (and remembers threads from old jokes from previous meetings) by our faces. At least one meeting is scheduled for this weekend as well.
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Our Night Canteen has come up with a new recipe for Maggi (or maybe it had always been there and I discovered it only now) in which they fry it with onions and tomatoes, and some additional masala. Apart from the low nutritional value of Maggi, it's got oil now too. But do I really care? Plus, they stock Amul Srikhand now, which, even though is not as good as the unbranded version one gets in Maharashtra and Gujarat, is good enough for this part of the country. I am the only person in my family who can tolerate more than a spoonful of this gooey, extremely sweet (and a little sour) paste. Only if exams and submissions were not at hand my movie watching hours would be so much fun.