How Time Flies

Son turned 5 this year and is no longer technically a baby. As if taking a clue, he has suddenly acquired a personality. No longer mama-papa's boy, he has a gang of his own - some kids from our neighbourhood, with whom he shares all his school tales and secrets. No longer watching cartoons at home, he is up there in street on his bicycle at the dawn and plays till his mother practically looses her nerves.

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Same goes for the evenings. In fact gone are the romantic evening walk that me and wifey took everyday. Now our principal function is to follow him to make sure he is safe from approaching vehicles and stray dogs. What a drill it is man. You ain't been stressed till you are through this.

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But then it does have lot of joys as well. Now he's mama's big boy actively participating in everything that we do: be it her mom making food/washing clothes or me cleaning store-room/doing workouts. And almost every 5 seconds he has a question that almost always outsmarts us. Hope he retains this sense of curiosity as he grows up.

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We are no longer we are worried about leaving him alone for even few minutes. He can now manage himself so well now that we seen almost incidental/trivial.

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What a joy parenting is....

Capitalism: A Different Take

Capitalism, thanks to the economic downturn that we are in, has been accorded evil-status. The very mention of the word draws that you-evil-destroyer-of-civilization look (specially from people pretending to be intellectuals).

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Alas we take for granted the wonders that it has endowed us with. While these are clearly too many to list, one of the blogger that I like, Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek does the job for me. Go read, its really worthwhile. And remember this next time you belittle Capitalism.

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Sanity is a virtue very few are blessed with. From what I read in Don's Blog, he seems to be surely among these few. Someday I wish I am able to express myself wish such clarity, simplicity and earnestness.

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Bravo Don!

Soft Power and all that!

I have never really been a fan of so called soft power and the pragmatist in me always thought that in corridors of international relationships only hard power matters ( see how China does it to all & sundry). But on a recent trip to Iran I experienced something that made me reconsider this prejudice of mine.

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I went to a small city called Tabriz in Iran-Turkey border. I took a taxi from airport. The taxi driver spoke as good English as my Persian (no prizes for guessing!). So except good morning and thank you, there was not much to talk. After a wile he looked at me with a glance that said "where are you from mate?". I instinctively said "India". As the man heard it he recited almost a whole song from that ageless blockbuster: Sholay - "Ye dosti ham nahi todenge". Imagine going to such a obscure place and hearing this.

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Much as I thought this to be a pleasant coincidence, on my flight back to Tehran my co-passenger was a old Iranian lady living in US. Much as she talked about the regime in her homeland, she was at her best talking about romantic Indian films of her era, specially the ones that starred Raj Kapoor & Nargis. She said she simply loved those. As a flight attendant overheard this conversation, he also chipped in and said even he loves Indian cinema.

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India cinema it seems is fairly popular in Iran and it may be a factor behind Indian being received well there (at least in my case). I guess soft power is not all hot air, it does have some influence. Although at the end of the day hard power is what helps you.

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Iran never ceases to surprise me even after my 10 trips there.

Lest We Delude Ourselves

Sometimes, it turns out to be one of those days when you don't know whether to laugh or scream. After 6 months I finally mustered enough courage to write something. Am just back from a trip to Somnath and was thinking of writing about this.

But alas, that looks like is going to wait for another day. Why? See what follows:

While whole of India deludes itself with "Slumdog Millionaire" and apna "A. R. Rahman" winning Oscars. Look finally goras also approved us. Finally India is emerging. Blah. Blah. Blah..., this is what gets written about us (as an Indian I will request you to read it). Even though the article is filled with typical cliches about India and what we fashionably call Poverty Porn, there is much truth in it as well.

I believe everyone of us must hang our heads in shame. First for the reason that open air defecation still exists in our country and second that after all hoopla about India becoming a superpower, this is what firangs think about us.

What to say. It just spoiled my day. Over to you.

Simmering Fear and Rage

These are difficult times. For the country and of course for me personally. I wish that I re-started blogging after 2 months hiatus on a positive note but there is no escape. The blasts have become almost everyday affair. I have never felt more insecure since post-Babri riots. These are times when sanity tends to take a back seat and emotions take control of you. As they say that fear is the primate emotion and when it runs through you, it rips most of the sophistication that education and intelligence gives you.

It is at times like this that even people like me who never gave a damn to someones religion suddenly have mixed feelings. Yesterday I took my wife and kid to lunch. We were surprised to find the bazaar barren. Just as I found my favourite eating joint open and took the first bite, someone asked me: Arre Yaar, Kuchh Mila Kya? I asked what he meant. In a very cold and candid manner he told me there just minutes ago police came looking for a bomb after a call (which fortunately turned out to be hoax).

If was first time when a possible death just passed me by. I am usually not the one who gets scared easily but even the steadier mind boggles when you're faced with such a situation with whole family in tow. It is this that is challenging me intellectually. When you go through a situation like this usually emotions get better of you. You suddenly feel the rage towards these insane people who get around killing innocent people. I could have been another name, another statistic!

It was easy not to get polarised by TV debate on this issue till yesterday about how Muslims youth are being looked upon as potential terrorists, or how the police is committing excesses in name of busting terror cells, or how SIMI and Bajrang Dal are social service organizations. But it is not easy to let it go when death almost kisses you.

For all this blah-blah, what a ordinary citizen like me wants. Am I not even entitled to go out and have nice time with my family? These caricatures like our PM and Home Minister has made us look like people can come, put bombs in our backyard and explode them and go have nice time. Is this what we've become, sitting ducks!

Today there was another hoax bomb call in our town and I had to cancel my hair cut. The goons have succeeded in what they set out to do. Disrupting our life, making life difficult for us, scaring us from stepping out from our house. And this stems from one and only one fact: We are probably world's worst state when it comes to ensure law and order (save Sub-Saharan Africa may be! even that will be a close call).

To me there is not intellectualising necessary. This is not about Babri, Godhra, Muslims being among the most backwards people economically. This is not a religious problem but an administrative one. If you can't bring goons to book, you incentivize terrorism. If someone can just walk in from Bangladesh to India, its a cake walk to drop bombs here and there.

I could go on and on but I guess it makes no difference to our political and executive class when few people die like this every other day. They must be saying, come on, we've got more then a billion of those fools. If we need more we can get as many as we want from Bangladesh. Do people even matter?

My beloved motherland cries!

Wish There Were More Like Him

Till I saw him speaking like this, I thought Barack Obama was the only person who was both young and a great orator at once. But this really blew me off. I only hope he really meant whatever he said. Well said Omar.

Below is the url for Omar Abdullah's speech during trust vote debate in parliament. One word: Brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_4pE7G6Kdg

PS: I had to past this url as I am novice enough not to know how to put a YouTube screen in a post. Someone please tell me.

You Know I was Yawning All Day Long

When you are bore at work, there are many things one can do like pretending to be working. I just sat down and these one liners came to my mind. Original stuff, not copied from Reader's Digest. Take your pick:

Life, in General: Incentives matter, Intentions don’t.

Life in Cubicles: People who matter don’t work, people who work don’t matter.

Crisis: The best first reaction is no reaction at all.

Work: Like entropy, always increases with time.

Pseudos: Who have read Alchemist & 3 issues of Reader's Digest in last few years.

Life in the Lounges

Travel is something that I initially loathed but have now begun to like. This month seems to be hell bent on testing me for how much travel can I put up with in a month. Last week was in Iran, last 2 days Chennai and early next week off to Europe. It is now that I understand what living out of a suitcase (that too without a suit in it) means.

But on any given day travelling is a wonderful experience and it always leaves you enriched in some way. Flight to Chennai was on-time; boarding process was swift with everything falling in its place to perfection. And yes Kingfisher has some of the better looking ladies in Indian sky. They can make even cattle-class travel a reasonably good experience.

But the real experience was my return flight. I took a flight very early in the morning and view at the dawn from the window-pane is fabulous. It was mesmerizing to cross clouds and see the beautiful onset of sunrise. One word: Magical.

At the airport, I bought a special issue of Time that ran a cover story on Nelson Mandela, a man that I greatly admire specially after my travel to South Africa. Cover story was nicely done. What was even more interesting was another story telling us that in Japan there is suddenly a huge demand for Porn movies with Septuagenarians as lead actors. Come to think of it. I mean it takes a lot to be 70+ and act in a, well, less said is better.

But there are certain things that scare the hell out of you as a traveler. Bangalore had serial blasts today. Originally I was supposed to be in Bangalore today but cam back to Delhi due to some urgent work. When you think of it, it was a godsend but then for the poor fellows who are affected from this. Guerilla terrorism (sic) is really growing into a big menace, but I’ll save more on this for a post later.

Zeitgeist

I spent last 2 days in Iran, a country that evokes a strange emotion in me whenever I visit it (which means once a year). As I sat in my hotel lounge watching beautiful young girls struggling with mandatory headscarves, I had this uneasy feeling that how would it be to be like them? Being forced to do something that you don’t like.

On a drive next day, I passed a small township. Strangely almost all houses in Iran are built by yellow-brown bricks with no paint. The whole town looks eerily similar. I thought behind this uniform exterior, every house has a story waiting to be told, with its dark secrets, problems, little joys and suchlike.

On my return flight met an Iranian girl who was coming to India alone to climb a mountain in Laddakh. Brave, I thought. To my surprise this girl was to be joined by 3 girls from Poland, all of whom have only met over Internet and decided to form a group for this expedition. Cool. I wish I had those guts.

And to top it all the return flight developed a technical snag just before take-off and finally they had to change the plan. But this took 13 hours and I was forced to sleepily sit on a lounge sofa for 13 hours. Think of the torture is has been specially when you realize that these zombies don’t have vegetarian food.

But the interesting and tultumous journey was a perfect anecdote to start 31st year of my life. Yes folks I turn 30 today. To all who say “Its all downhill past 30”, my take “30 is the new 16”.

Orwellian way of Marketing

I recently bought a CDMA phone as I have a phone connection from India’s largest CDMA service provider. Two features drew my attention.

In FM radio memory they had a station preset (which is owned by my service provider). Of course there was an option to tune other stations as well, though not as easy as I would have liked.

Neat marketing ploy!

In reminder tune section (the tune that plays to remind you of something that you fed into phone), you had no choice but to choose a tune that is their corporate signature tune. I mean there was no way you could choose another tone.

To me it is fairly Orwellian idea of marketing. The customer does not care what your signature tune is. If it is so good that it’s worth listening many time over, he will nevertheless choose it. But to rob him of choice is not such a good idea. May be an MBA type thought that this could be a good way of pushing their brand name into subconscious mind of customer.

But to me (and I am sure to you as well) the right to choose is paramount. I guess they could have offered it like FM option, default but changeable. Marketing (and I know a thing or two about it) is not about pushing yourself into customer’s face but its all about being at his side, at his beck & call. Hope someday these companies understand this small thing.

Note: I have not named the service provider (though I’ve dropped fairly obvious hints) not because I am scared and all but because it’s irrelevant to the central theme of this post. To me customers need care and choice.