random mental associations

school days:
independence day -- 10 paise orange candy
republic day -- not knowing if green is on top or orange is on top (still cant figure!)
7:00 am -- mr belvedere

school teachers:
"minus half"
teacher: yes yes that u will get only with experience
student: sir, how do we get the experience
teacher: that u will get only with experience


coaching-classes -- "kavalapadathe sagothara" gaana paattu from nearby slum
maths "anusha vidusha and burly badushah"
physics "the cancelling is counselled"
chemistry "you have practically missed the bus"
songs:
europe final countdown -- ace of base
chumbawamba tubthumping -- sachin at sharjah

will keep adding as things unearth themselves

(de)addiction strategy

the sure shot way to cure an addiction is to overdo it until the point when it becomes boring.
try it .. works every time .. at least with things like games/songs ..

to cut or not to cut that is the question

arguments for cutting:
1. brownie points with folks at home
2. avoid questions like "yaaru intha paiyan"


arguments for not cutting:
1. "effort" spent over the last 6 months
2. last chance to appear pseudo-intellectual
3. pseud value
4. can say been there done that at the end of it


not cutting wins unanimously 4:2

what is to be cut is open to imagination

desperately seeking depression

what is it about the human psyche that makes us go search for sad/depressing stuff?

case studies: books, music, movies

the best music (at least in indian films) seems to be those that have a depressed protagonist (preferably drunk beyond redemption).

the best books seem to be ones that are absolutely wrought with depression and thought-provoking stuff.

the best movies seem to be inspired by human tragedy and war.

inspired by current addiction to kabhi na kabhi ..from sharaabi

maybe its just me ...

easter

the only useful festival in the calendar is easter -- only time theres a wide variety of sweet and sour candy, jelly beans in the market in abundance.
all other festivals suck.

research

"Of course, my task was not to invent a new theory but to assemble the existing knowledge, quite doable if one could write clear English"

--quoting herb simon out of context :-)

more quotes

"much hostile and aggressive behavior among animals is the expression of social insecurity"

"when two creatures meet, the one that is able to intimidate its opponent is recognized as socially superior, so that a social decision does not always depend on a fight, an encounter in some circumstances may be enough"

"socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. they prove to be the ones most faithful to them, most in need of their company, and least likely to challenge them or be difficult"

-- "life of pi"

thanks to wikiquote!

"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

qotd

"he had fought so many wars not out of idealism, as everyone had thought, nor had he renounced a certain victory because of fatigue, as everyone had thought, but that he had won and lost for the same reason, pure and sinful pride"

-- "one hundred years of solitude" gabriel garcia marquez

V

long time since i used truly positive adjectives ... v for vendetta is absolutely awesome

p.s: reminded me of an old vinod kambli ad .. v for victory, v for veedol .. poor chap had to make do with cheap motorcycle
lubricant ads, while his schoolmate got all the big bucks :-)

greatest game ever .. i dont think so

In reference to this:
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/rsavaus/content/current/story/240507.html

Calling it the greatest game ever is a grave injustice to the game. No doubt, it was close, nail-biting, exciting, and had most ingredients of a masala-packet encounter. But, the game is supposed to be a contest between bat and ball, and the last I heard it was not a contest between bat and bat. Unfortunately in recent times ODIs have become increasingly a contest between bats on either side, and bowlers are reduced to pale shadows of themselves with little or no assistance from the pitches. Flat track bullies like Younis Khan, Veeru Sehwag (the list is long..) dominate the game with absolute nonchalance and rake up averages and astonishing scores entering themselves in the record books -- but whats the net worth of these records? I hope this game serves as a wakeup call to administrators and viewers all around the world to re-think what cricket is supposed to be about.

I will have at least one person to agree with me, the pitiable Lewis, who suffered the ignominy of scoring a century for the wrong reasons.

All said and done, its good to see the Aussies are mortal (with even playing conditions, unlike calcutta/madras dustbowls, with umpires like bansal and jayprakash who are ever trigger-happy with lbw and bat-pads) ..

quote of the day

"thats the trouble with you sad city types: you think a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real"
-- "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"

you know you are in trouble when..

you are half-asleep in the morning and you see a screensaver in your head!

sorry for my..

incompetence
indolence
insolence
insouciance
ignorance
irreverence

cranial conundrum

assume the existence of some person X. X cannot be happy because X's brain gets
worried when X is happy that X is not worrying enough about things that X should be worrying about. For the exact same reason X cannot have fun, because whenever X has fun the brain's response is to drive X into depression for not being depressed enough.

Is there a solution to X's dilemma?

self-contained/self-referential/self-consistent

"he was in the throes of composition, in a wilderness of doubts and misgivings - not only about the material and its validity but a fundamental harrowing doubt about his competence to write at all. What evil genius impelled me to undertake this task? What conceit? Waste of time ... With all the self-criticism on one side, he was still struggling to whip the pen on, not having the heart to stop it. But it was a torment."

-- R. K. Narayan, "The world of Nagaraj"

42

the optimal answer to any question is:

"I dont know"

straight answers beget more questions

(feigning) ignorance begets annoyance (pessimistically) annoyance or (optimistically) sympathy,

joy is..

finding a long-lost pack of chewing gum in your backpack

money

Everything needs a performance index (whats life without scores!) . Money is a performance index for estimating the life-sustaining ability of a society. Of course, why life should be sustained is entirely questionable, for the moment lets assume that there is some meaning to life and that sustaining is worthwhile. That raises the natural question of how should money be defined.

In the current context, money is defined largely on the basis of non-renewable resources such as gold, oil. Historically, humans have had an obsession for gold and its sort of natural for gold to continue to play a crucial role in our notion of money (in today's context the role of gold is significantly diminished, except of course for Indian women :-)). A more recent important resource are fossil fuels, and the fact that it is scarce, and we have grown increasingly dependent on them to support our extravagances, increases its value rather inappropriately. So, the money index is then based on fuel resources a society has. As the society diversifies more, and evolves over time, different resources assume greater significance, and the resources used to define the index change over time. What is interesting however, is that traditionally the resources that have been used to define the index have had little or nothing to do with fundamental life-sustenance and knowledge growth.


As an alternative, assume that the total amount of useful resources in the world is X. I am punting on how X can be defined, but a general guideline is that X should be based on renewable sources that have direct impact on life-sustenance.
Why shouldnt these resources be distributed uniformly among all interested participants? Theres no obvious reason to not do a uniform distribution, modulo concerns that not all participants are honest/intelligent and may misuse/abuse/waste the resources allocated to them. If the distribution is uniform, then there is no need to define a performance index to decide how much of the resource belongs to a participant at any given point in time. Of course, most participants in the society are rational, and more importantly selfish and will never agree to the uniform distribution of life-sustaining resources.

Money, then is just a means of perpetuating iniquities in society. It ensures that there is an inequitable distribution of resources among different competing entities in the economy. And worse still its defined on indices that have little or no relevance in the long-term to life-sustenance and knowledge. SCARY!

P.S. Im not a commie!

athithidevo bhava

Indians are the most gracious hosts. Nothing exemplifies this more than the generosity of Indian bowlers towards visiting batsmen on subcontinent pitches (save for a brief period of time when Ajit Wadekar and Mohammed Azharuddin decided to play all home games on cow-dung pitches that would crack as soon as the sun would show up). Historically we have been very good at bringing back to form discards and fringe players from opposing teams time and time again. Case in point: Saeed Anwar, the guy was good but obviously had his share of weaknesses against good bowling, but Venky and Sri ensured that he continued to be listed among the top left-handed batsmen in the world. And now, messrs. Pathan, Harbhajan, and Kumble have donned the mantle of generous hosts. Now, which team in the world consistently allows the opposing tail to spend ridiculous amounts of time in the middle and get as many (if not more) runs than the top order. Why the opposing top order fails to capitalize on the generosity occasionally is a mighty conundrum beyond my comprehension (maybe suicidal tendencies are infectious?).

The point of having a leg-spinner in the team is to ensure that he cleans up the tail, with his guile and variety. Someone should tell the honorable Mr. Anil Kumble, that the ball is supposed to have some semblance of turn off the pitch, it doesnt suffice for the ball to be turning in his hand (if there was an award for maximum torque before delivery and minimum turn after, it would surely go the bespectacled engineer from namma bengaluru). And not to forget his googly, didnt someone tell him that its supposed to be difficult to read from the delivery stride, the hand position, and the wrist position. Even I, sitting thousands of miles away watching it on pathetic 100Kbps streams (illegitimately I may add) on winamp, can pick the googly even before he is into his delivery stride! Not to forget the rambunctious Sardar, ever since the 15 degree rules came into effect he has been a shadow of his old self, very conscious of his continued existence in international cricket.

The remedy:
1. Pick one fast bowler who can bowl yorkers at will (how srinath and co never managed to learn this skill over many years is inexplicable!, maybe the likes of ganguly always wanted juicy wide half-volleys delivered at them in nets to boost their already bloated egos).
2. Pick a leg-spinner who can actually turn the ball, maybe not as much as warnie, but at least as much as Sachin! Whether Piyush Chawla fits this bill, only time will tell. but its high time Mr. Anil quits and starts a coaching camp on how to get labeled as a leg-spinner without actually bowling a leg-break.


Of course we can continue to good hosts -- feed them properly, house them properly, and ensure that they dont get any gastro-intestinal problems, and in the case of a certain Mr. Warne get him his supply of baked beans on time. But for god's sake kill the tail -- its a bloody shame to let them wag!

travails in crocin country

call me ismile [1]. i embarked on this journey 2 1/2 years ago. The last two years have been spent assiduously searching for that elusive great white-whale of lactose-free breakfasts: JUICE!

Unfortunately, everything in the us of a that has to with berries and cherries reminds me of "Crocin" [2] syrup from my sickly childhood days. That leaves very little choice -- I can either pick artificial, saccharine, mixed-fruit concoctions, or stick to and get sick of OJ and its numerous siblings/cousins.

And so, the quest continues....

[1] due apologies to herman melville
[2] for the uninitiated Crocin is Glaxo's brand of paracetamol

finally an explanation for "indian standard time"

``no people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on time''

-- from 'Midnight's Children'

did southies escape the timelessness?