Lagaan - Cricket without the cricketers

Another image created by removing the person, and keeping the clothes. I know I have got nothing better to do.

High American standard company contacts me

I found this mail today in my Inbox.

---
Hello Friend,

I saw your profile on Timesjobs.com [hell, even I don't know my profile anymore] and short listed few people to present an unique Home Based Work Offer.

We are an International American Company. [like the phrase, our company is world famous in India]
We are operating in 64 major countries working for past 26 years.
We Deal in Health Nutrition & Tele Communication.
Right now our company is looking out for people for its new division called "ShapeWorks" TM,
to perform different functions


like, Customer care, Supervising, Management,
Working on Internet with an option of Working from home.
Without sacrificing your current occupation.
Our company provides all support and training needed.
You can do it part time or full time in flexible hours.
No Qualification or Experience Needed…
And we have a High American standard of income.

For more information you can come down to one of the oriantayion [I was gonna apply but this put me off] sessions on:



26th april 2007 thurssday [???] at 6.00 pm sharp*
or
27th april 2007 friday at 6.00pm sharp*
at
hotel sahaja palace,conferanceroom.ashram road.behinddinesh hall near torant house [umm, which city should I go to?]


These are the only dates for company oriantation [arre atleast you should have copy-pasted from above]
And Ask for Mrs.xxxxx at the counter.

All the best,
MRS. XXXXX

Director- Business development
xxxxxx@yahoo.com
CALL, 09xxxxxxx, 022xxxxxxx

Please Take Print out of this letter to the interview.

*There will be a Regn Fee of Rs.30 at the counter

Rang de Basanti - A generation disappears

Did this in my free time. Click to view full. Original image here.

Dilbert comic for 23rd April - Long boring meetings

This comic strip made me laugh like a baboon! Can't wait to get into the boardroom and witness this firsthand. :-)) The interesting thing is that this happens in the classroom too.













PS. My only concern is, are baboons allowed inside the boardroom?

How to read faster - an experiment

Today I am starting with the book 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. Along with it, I made a Google spreadsheet to keep track of the number of pages I read daily. I have kept aside 10 days for reading the whole book and thus it works out to some 26 pages per day. By creating a chart showing the actual and the optimal reading speed, I get an idea of where I am and whether I need to speed up.

The observations I hope to ...err... observe are:-
1) Does keeping track of daily reading help me increase my speed?
2) Does it make me more regular? Is there any correlation between the day of the week and the number of pages I read?
3) Does reading faster necessarily result in better comprehension?

Update (1st May 07) - Although, I managed to finish reading the book faster than the optimal and the revised targets, a single book isn't indicative of any trend. So I plan to extend this experiment to few other books as well. Read about the review of Good to Great here.

Tuesdays with Morrie - Book review

Finished reading this book in little over two days. A simple and clear read. I found it quite moving, especially about the deteriorating appearance of the author's professor and the difficulty in doing simple things which we take for granted. Having experienced a recent death in my family, I know how difficult it is for the family to see the person suffering. Thinking about death is an event which is a reality check for the victim, for and those around him. It brings to the forefront simple things such as love, support and understanding and puts behind things such as money, fame, power etc. As explained by the author, the book was littered with Morrie's aphorisms, some of which were worth thinking twice about. Here are my favourites:-

"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, `Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?' "
A simple reality check. Am I doing the things I'm supposed to do or am I just chasing the pot at the end of the rainbow?

"The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.

This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.

"When you're in bed, you're dead."
This sentence, I feel, has multiple meanings. Besides the literal meaning, it also means (to me) that as long as you're in bed, you're unlikely to do any useful work. Get out of the bed, get out of the house, get into the community if you want to do something worthwhile.

If I worried about being forgotten after I died?
Hmm. Most of us probably worry about this in secret.

...there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.
Amen to this.

God is a DJ

If God is a DJ, why doesn't he ever play my song?

Suicide and video-conferencing

It seems that the media has started providing long distance telephone call service to needy people. An example of this is the recent suicide attempt by one Jahnavi Kapoor and the subsequent telecasts of her talking with her mother and her brother live on national television. Oh, did I say telephone service? Change that to videoconferencing. Its quite simple really. All you have to do to get selected is to dig up some sensational issue, preferably about yourself or it could be about any celebrity. For example, you can claim to run away from home because your parents didn't agree to an inter-religion, inter-caste or same-sex marriage. Or you can tell the news channel about your relationship with any celebrity. That's it. The news channels will take it from there. They'll hook you up with the celebrity, with your parents, relatives etc. You'll also have the choice of having either an astrologer or a psychiatrist at your disposal. Umm, I just cut my fingernail. Do I qualify for the long distance call? I need to call up Arjun Singh urgently.

Gourmet coffee, anyone?

After going through the coffee lovers' thread at pagalguy.com, I realized how far the coffee industry had come. With retailing coming into the forefront in India and with the setting up of international coffee chains, people now sip coffee named 'The Devil's own', 'Almond Frappe','Kaapi Nirvana' etc. And to think that I'm still stuck at the small Bru/Nescafe pouch. Just add water and sugar, it says, and you'll have your own espresso ready. Sip... Lick... Ummmm... it says. Well, never mind the fact that its more of sip... blechh... spit... @#$!%&*

I have never been attracted to coffee. For me it never did its job. In fact, coffee has a calming effect on me, quite the opposite to what it is supposed to do. I remember the countless number of times during my CAT preparation that I have felt asleep just after having a cup of coffee. For me the good old chai is a major addiction - especially in the morning. Don't try to talk with me before I have had my morning tea or I'll make you squirm in pain.

Whenever I have had coffee, it was due to circumstances. Coffee helped a lot in my college days. It was mainly because I hadn't come across any instant tea mix. During the submissions and the exams, the all-nighters had to be survived through. The 3Rs. Nescafe pouch helped me through those long nights. But I'm sure I was only one of some ten people in Ahmedabad who actually drank that instant coffee. I remember my roomie looking at me strangely many a times whenever I drank this concoction. Another time when it helped was at my previous company. Gathering with fellow internet surfers software developers and spending time near the vending machine was always a good excuse to get away from the boss. Eventually we had worked out a strategy which involved visiting the vending machines on all the floors once in a day. Ultimately we calculated that a mixture of 3/4ths coffee and 1/4th tomato soup will do wonders to your concentration and help you through the siesta sessions meetings. But there was a side effect on some which involved an extra visit or two to the loo (which again was a welcome break).

To me, coffee has been useful in many ways. It may have its lovers, but for me, Wagh Bakri scores over The Devil's Own.

Formula One - The formation of the equals

Well well. What a race! Massa managed to hang on to his pants this time. And Hamilton is proving to be a revelation more and more after each race. Wouldn't be too surprised if he's now at par with Alonso as an equal driver. I wouldn't go as far as compare him to Schumacher. Coulthard maybe. He'll have to work much much harder to be compared to Schumi!! Even Massa could be an equal contender to Raikonnen if he performs well in the next couple of races. It is going to be a really good year.

Poor Coulthard had to retire bcoz of his engine. He worked hard to catch up with half of the herd. Alonso had a quiet race.

PS: Just a draft. Will clean up this post later.

German is in, Java is out

To be frank, I don't have much knowledge of foreign languages. Of course, I know a little French e.g. Parlez vous is the name given to the Parle-G biscuits which are exported to Paris. ich (German for I) is the cute sound which one of my friends makes when she sneezes. Puta is Spanish for umm... well... never mind. The point is that I have never learnt a language in its entirety. And that's what I'm about to do now. I'm planning to learn German. Actually its not a new thing. I have been trying to learn German since my college days. Thought that learning a new language would improve my resumé. But time and other constraints caused me to put such grandiose ideas aside and dive back into my engineering books. In the struggle to learn Java and C++, the quest to learn German went kaput.

The second wave started during my project days. SAP was implemented in the company I was doing project in, and again I dreamt big dreams of going to Germany for SAP training. Thus having a working knowledge of German would have helped me converse freely with the 'Germanese'. That stint again was short-lived.

As far as I can remember there were a couple of stints more, dictated by the situations and the spurs of the moment. But all these stints didn't help in any way. Considering my limited German vocabulary, a Yahoo chat conversation would go like:-

Me: Guten Morgen/Guten Tag
German: Guten Morgen! Wie gehst du heute?
Me: Umm... well... uh... Auf Wiedersehen.

*Click* *Click* *Log-off*

But now this bhoot of learning German has again taken over me. So I have downloaded the Complete Idiot's Guide to learning German (Extra Idioticity Edition), and this book coupled with the Internet will help me learn this authoritative language. Then I'll have a multilingual blog. Then I'll get visitors from Germany. Then I'll be ... (beta niche aaja). Anyways, if nothing else I'll feel good at learning something new.

So, Auf Wiedersehen for now, and ja, to the foot-in-the-grave politician I was talking about recently, du bist ein schwarzes Schwein (Tsk tsk. I can see you running to Google Translate. Chalo uski bhi link de deta hu).

The last king of Scotland

Just saw 'The Last King of Scotland'. When I had first heard of the title, I didn't know what it was actually about. Then two things attracted me to this movie, firstly it was about Idi Amin, the notorious Ugandan dictator, and secondly Forest Whitaker played Idi Amin's role.

The movie is a dark, grim movie which starts out with a mixture of suspense and humour (mainly due to Amin's charm), but then as the movie progresses we see Amin's dark side. Forest Whitaker has delivered an excellent performance, every bit worthy of his Oscar award. The suspense during any scene where Amin's advisor gets the guts to suggest something to Amin is palpable. The way Whitaker pauses before replying is, for a lack of a better word, too scary. We think he's about to burst out and shoot the poor chap to Kingdom Come, but then he gives a huge smile and the tension dissipates. James McAvoy plays a Scottish doctor and personal physician to Idi Amin. At the beginning, he comes out as arrogant, cocky and carefree. Again as the movie progresses, he realizes the mess he has gotten himself into. His character was as dark as Whitaker's. A short role by Gillian Anderson was another pleasant surprise.

The film has been rated mature, and two scenes in particular are really gruesome. I won't reveal them here, but be prepared to watch the horrors perpetrated by Amin's regime. I guess showing the violence was the only was for people to realize the extent of his cruel dictatorship. This site has some of his videos.

All in all, a very good movie. It will get you interested in Idi Amin and his eccentric ways and, like Blood Diamond, it will give you a glimpse of the continent of Africa.

TIA.

Freakonomics - A half-read book

I started reading this much-hyped book a couple of days ago. Currently I'm halfway through the book and I found it to be a mixture of interesting, absurd and downright boring. The book starts with explaining the importance of asking the right questions. But to me the questions asked in the book are strange.

Strange? Yes.
Useful? No.

Judging from the title of the book, I guess it isn't meant to be a serious study in the field of economics (again, is it economics or just plain statistics?) and the society. Just a freak correlation between unlikely to be related events. Some of the explanations given are worth thinking about, like the part on asymmetric knowledge or the part on conventional wisdom:-

But they cannot deceive on their own. Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome. Working together, journalists and experts are the architects of much conventional wisdom (not necessarily a positive term).

while some of it is just plain commonsense. Like the question 'Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?' The answer is simple. The small fish in the gang are bound to earn much less than the average. It is only the leader of the gang and his few trusted cronies who would earn good enough to get their bling bling and their low-riders. This certainly didn't warrant living six years with crack dealers or getting hold of the financial transactions of a crack gang.

At one point (the description of the KKK) I felt it so boring that I wanted to abandon reading this book. But it was sleepiness which was making its effect felt (again due to the book?), and so I started reading it again. I hope to learn something by the time I finish it.

Update (9th April 07): I'm done with this book. No I haven't finished it. I have kept it aside. I couldn't take more of these strange comparisons if they were not going to be useful in any way. While reading this book, I was reminded of another writer of the same genre, Malcolm Gladwell. His book, Blink had made the presses and had got many raves. The same feeling had accompanied me while reading Blink and The Tipping Point. I felt the book to be empty of spirit (There I go again). Just a collection of numbers and statistics. While both this writers have gone against the norm and brought out innovative ways of thinking, I just can't digest their writing. So I'm keeping this book back in its shelf. In the future when I'm getting bored in the CEO's chair, I'll pick up this book and make up some nice Dilbertian theories to irritate my employees, while at the same time, impressing the Board of Directors.

Kkkaash Mmujh Mein Bhhi Thodii Akkal Hotiii

Although it is still a draft, here is my first episode.

[Suspenseful music and slow motion as the husband walks in to the hall]

Husband01: My watch! It has stopped ticking.
[Heavy drums. Zoom-ins of all the other members of the family one by one. Pan the camera from one shocked face to another]

Vamp:[Looks down and smiles smugly] Relationji, are you sure it isn't your brain which has stopped ticking?
[Zoom in on the lips, and the sly smile]

Mother-in-law: [Eyes wide open. Stern expression.] Bahu, talk with some respect. Do you have any idea what you are saying?

Vamp: [Looks sideways and smirks.] Its true only. The whole samaj knows that you dropped him on his head while he was small. Who knows what all has stopped ticking?

Mother-in-law(of vamp): [Red hot eyes. Burns in anger] Slapppppppp! [Multiple echoes of the slap. Drums again. Zoom in to the astonished and lost faces of the family members.]

A quick ad first...

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Note: Anacin is currently available only in limited quantities. Most of the stock is used by the Board of Directors of the company for agreeing to sponsor this programme. Our sponsorship ends after two months. Thereafter we will be free to release more medicine to the general public.


Back to the programme...

Mother-in-law(of vamp): [Red hot eyes. Burns in anger] Slapppppppp! [Multiple echoes of the slap. Drums again. Zoom in to the astonished and lost faces of the family members.]

Mother-in-law(of vamp): [Wipes the make up stuck on her hand from the slap. Tears come to her eyes.]

Vamp: [Turning to face her husband (Husband02)] Aiejee, ojee. See what your budhiya mother is doing to me. You said to me you'll take care of me after our marriage. This is what you do, stand silently while your mother insults me in front of the whole family (and the 10 crore fools which are glued to their TV sets ) ? I won't stay a moment in this wretched house. [Turns around and walks out from the set]

Husband02: My dear Vamp, wait for me. [Follow Vamp out of the set].

Mother-in-law(of vamp): Bahu (To wife of Husband01). Look after your husband. You're the only one who will take care of this huge house after I have an argument with the director over payment issues I die. Please take care of this house as your own.

Wife01 [Wife of Husband01]: Jee maaji. [Turning to Husband01] .Come let us go, buy a new battery for your watch. Then it will start ticking.

In the next episode... Who do Husband01 and Wife01 encounter when they reach the watch repair store? Who is the owner of the watch repair store? What is the relation between OwnerOfWatchRepairStore and Wife01? Keep watching for more of Kkkaash Mmujh Mein Bhhi Thodii Akkal Hotiii. Write in the comments on how you liked this first episode.