A Dream

Inertia rules me. This is especially true on cold winter mornings. Lucky are they who are able to extract themselves with ease from the warm loving embrace of their blankets. For me every morning is an ordeal. It is at times such as these that I wish I was a Columbian drug lord. It is not the sheer opulence and decadence of their lifestyle that makes me envious of them but the assumption that powerful outlaws wake of their own will. For that single pleasure I'm willing to overlook the fact that one day a bullet might end it all. These days everybody runs that risk I suppose.

Instead each morning I have to face a grim reality. The reality that I have to show up at work for another eight thousand odd days before I can retire. On each of those days I'll be compelled to obey the alarm clock. I have to bear the pain of separation from my pillows and sheets to head off to a place where I spend all day wondering if it was really necessary. You would think that all these years of following the routine might have imbibed it into my system. But my mind is incredibly obstinate when it comes to these matters. This dog doesn't want to learn anymore routines.

I like my work. But there are many who'll agree with me when I say that asking us to catch the bus at half past eight is pushing it. My fellow brothers and I have one question to ask of the corporate world. What makes nine to five the ideal schedule for all business in this world? We would like to see some facts and figures that prove this beyond any doubt. And who was the moron who came up with the adage that talks of the prudence of the early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise paradigm? This senseless practice has only created generations of caffeine addicts. I sense a scam here and can already guess who's behind it? Its the Columbian drug lord and his Brazilian cousins. Who else would stand to benefit from an army of addicts? Now you know why I see a future for myself there.

Conspiracy theories aside, I cannot see the wisdom in being at my desk when I'd rather be in my bed. Some wise biologist commented that we are the only species on earth that go to bed when not sleepy and wake up when we are. And to think we pride ourselves on being intelligent. Ofcourse the naysayers often argue that we are also the only species that drive around in cars and so we're different. As if that proves anything. It is in fact the drive that forces us to get up earlier than we should. Beating rush hour happens to give my sleep a beating as well. Talk about automobiles facilitating rapid transportation.

The whole idea of civilization, I thought, was to increase the comfort in one's life. The vision was surely to take the 'rest in peace' out of the epithet and into our lives. In that it has been an utter failure so far. I dream of a time when every man is free to rise at any time of his choice, where the mind is led by Him into ever-deepening slumber and inaction, a time of tranquility and peace. To this heaven, my Father, let me awake.

24x7

Years ago when there used to be only one channel on air watching television was a pleasureable pastime. There were about four teleserials and one movie every week. Each one was an occasion for the entire family to sit down and enjoy. Nirma and Surf were the only soaps on tv and news was broadcast once each day just after dinner time. The nation was updated with the progress made on the day on various fronts and audiences went to bed assured of a better future. Those were the good old days of state run media. Then the Soviet union collapsed and cable television took over.

This is the age of 24x7 television. Specialization is the keyword of our generation and TV channels are no different. There are channels exclusively for soaps, music, news, religion, sports ... Choose your poison. The number of creative individuals unfortunately has not kept up and naturally our breads are buttered thin these days.

The biggest change to hit Indian TV has to be the soaps. Each soap is a complex web of deceit, adultery, jealousy, revenge and all those other hateful emotions that soften and numb the brain. It's been quite a revelation, the various complications a marriage can develop. Given the same conditions in the west there'd be a divorce before the third episode. Whats more, any soap worth its weight in sodium carbonate runs for atleast a couple of hundred episodes. Mid-way through that they all begin to converge and there on one can catch any of the shows without knowing the difference. Some argue thats why they are popular. I say thats why re-runs work.

Its not only entertainment that has suffered this sea change. The worst affected seem to be the news channels. To fill every minute of every day with meaningful news is a near impossibility. Failure to comprehend as much has resulted in every fool willing to hold a microphone in front of a camera turning reporter. Specialists and experts provide insightful analyses on any topic under or over the sun. Its probably for a reason why 'news items' are now called 'stories'. In their bid to get hold of newer and more shocking news, channels regularly manipulate public sentiments. The power they wield makes them the most potent weapon of mass destruction today. Maybe they should be given million-tonnes-of-TNT ratings instead of TRP ratings.

But its not all gloomy. There are sports channels for the disillusioned. Live coverage, night games and extra-ordinary camera work has taken viewing to a new level. As one of them put it, they know our game. Until someone who doesn't pops up sporting noodle straps that is.

Middletown CT USA

Amerigo Vespucci must be a happy dead man. Even the little 'go''ca'rting that people did with his name, ended up in christening of the most awe-invoking noun in recent times (save possibly 'Dust'bin Laden): Ameri'ca'!

I am sure Mr. 'Dust'bin Laden would have cared to disagree with me but unfortunately, he is too Laden with his own burdens to care about a non-American speaking about the virtues of America. (Readers: Please dont mind the 'go''ca'rting that I have done with Mr. Laden's name: I dont see his condition any better than a dust Laden dustbin in the stormy deserts of Baluchistan)

Anyway, I am here to talk about America, not what Americans like talking most about. You see its been a shocking first 4 months here.
In India, America is a fantasy land. You may never have known but this is what a street talk about America summarises into: You get to see porn on prime time, Booze is available like 'Thums up' there, You can have more than one car (thanks Henry Ford), You can change more wives than you change cars (you dont even have to thank Henry Ford for that), there are skyscrapers all around, Indians are really showing to America what India is all about etc etc.
Surprisingly, since that Delta Airlines flight landed in Cincinnati, Houdini has replaced George Bush as the president of America.

. The American concept of porn is watching Larry King live on CNN. My goodness, why has no one offered him a role in the 'Exorcist' series. Either hollywood is blind or I am the only one scared looking at him stare down at the camera and hiss out national news. Believe me sirs (in India), American TV is more clean than the Sushma Swaraj controlled Doordarshan and that "AajTak" deserves an Emmy!

. Booze. Well, the booze shops close at 8 in the evening, 2 hours before any sane mind would even think about drinking! Moreover, the driving school manual scared me so much that I dont even sniff on Heineken before I drive.For a fact, I have driven down the Mumbai-Pune expressway with 6 pints of Kingfisher in me.

. Cars. Well there are 1000s on the road, not one of them mine.

. Wives. Well I am married and I have as much to fear about my wife looking for other husbands as she does.

. Skyscrapers all over America. This is what I dearly wanted to talk about. You have to visit Middletown to see the wonders of the nature. I can actually touch the sky everyday! Its only 30 ft high here. Can you believe it??!! Ah well, I live on the top floor of the tallest building here. If this 2-floor building really scrapes the sky, the blue hemispherical cover I see everyday above must be the Holy Grail (You got it wrong Mr. Dan Brown!).

. American Indians. Definitely a proud association. But who I get to meet is a small cohort of newly Americanized or waiting to be Americanized Indians. I would be higly prejudiced in making a sweeping statement about all of them but a commonality that I could observe makes me believe that the newly naturalized Indian Americans are more American than the Americans themselves. I for one cannot catch their accent although speaking with the American lot has never been a pain. The extra effort that they spend in showing themselves Americans rockets them into being residents of some other planet. 'How u doon' becomes 'heeaw ve den'. Whether Germany beckons them or not I'm not sure but they top it up with an identity to prove themselves distinct from us, the H1B-not-interested-in-GreenCard lot. Somehow a card marks a genetic distinction between them and us. They smile back patronisingly, speaking about the issues of India as empathetically as Bin Laden would speak about the Cauvery water controversy. And, they add middle names to sound like RamKhelawan Alexander Yadav.

Do I hate these few people? Somehow, I end up loving them all the more. They show me the inherent complex that pushes Indians out of India. Of finding in America, an opportunity to be one among the equals. The humor is lost on us, the forever Indians, who would rather condemn the shortcomings of America than inculcate its great values. One among equals is not a homogenous community in India. There are so many groups of equals each greater than the other. That new Indian Americans turn out to be overzealous in their effort to be Americans shows their desperation to achieve symbolically(America) what they have not been able to achieve practically (India).

Democracy has opened up the world for India. Will that world be anywhere near to what America practises is for us to see. And I am not talking of the jazzy cars, the Hollywood and the Skyscrapers but of the value of individual dignity, the pinnacle of Democratic values that we Indians strive to achieve.

How have we been faring? Do we have the answer? Dont know, but I think we certainly have a question to ask ourselves - "How u doon Man??"

The Process

The last two years have seen three of my good friends tying the knot. This year it's another buddy's turn and we have to go through the whole process again. I'm not referring to the actual ceremonies. Those I understand have to be repeated. Ofcourse, it would be a lot easier if they just have some templates where the couple key in their particulars and sign them off. Anyway there are specialists for that kind of thing and I am not concerned about that. I was referring to a difficulty of another kind.

Let me put this to you. What do you think is the toughest thing to accomplish before a wedding? If I did a survey, here is what I would get. Finding a wedding hall, getting the menu right and spotting the right girl. In that order. Actually there is one more thing and it is probably courtesy that keeps people mum on the toughest of them all - deciding a wedding gift for the couple.

Picking a wedding gift is a delicate affair. One doesn't want to give something too mundane like a pressure cooker while others like a crate of beer may not be particularly apt for the occasion. Add to it the pressures of finding something that is useful yet totally unique and you have a problem on your hands. Things really get out of hand when fifteen adults have to agree on one gift. Endless discussions and sleepless nights are a logical consequence. Coming from a software engineering background as I do, I evaluate the cost of the thing in terms of man hours and it usually outstrips the actual wedding itself.

That's exactly the kind of situation we techies are trained to handle. Present us with any new problem and what do we come up with? A process. Firstly, one of us raises a gift request. Once it is acknowledged a budget hearing is held. Then come the brain storming sessions. This is when everbody gets worked up. Every suggestion is shouted down and remarks are made on the intellectual capacities of its owner (which are documented for later use). When we finally run out of options, one person inconspicuously asks the prospective groom what he wants and informs the team. That is common in our line, asking the customer what he wants comes rather late in the process. Based on the groom's inputs the procurement group gets hold of the item and closes the matter.

And then its time to manage the logistics of getting to the wedding venue. That has a process of its own and I'll tell you about that some other time. Where would we be without processes...

Dark and Bright

Oh the darkness. The nemesis of all that is so hypocritically 'good'. Those who make a living through the day are veritably Angels and those who make a living through night are called .... Demons?? No... Prostitutes. (What?!) Now dont frown at this comparison. There are no Demons that I have seen. (Angels?) but there is one Angelina Jolie whose name sounds like one. (Stupid!) As if I was really writing this blog to sound intellectual. Huh!

Back to the prostitutes (oops), I mean darkness. Darkness is the only truth. Havent you seen the stars on a clear moonless night? Their very desperate twinkling tells you how jealous they are of all that darkness that engulfs them. Still, we are in love with the stars and not the darkness: Twinkle twinkle little star...? Huh! "Twinky winky little useless star, have you wondered what you are? Up above in the dark sky, waiting slowly to burn and die". A scientifically correct nursery rhyme, isnt it Mr. Stephen Hawkings? Now dont start on the Black Holes as I am already halfway through my blog and do not want it to be like your most popular unread book of all times, A Brief History of Time; Everybody praises it but nobody has read it completely yet!

Black cats. Now they are the most beautiful of creatures but somehow Doe took away all the analogies to beauty and beautiful eyes. C'mon! Have you visited a zoo? These Deer and Does stink and bore. In the jungle they run around for nothing and get caught by Lions and Tigers and get eaten up. Happy Beautiful end! Black cats, well they slither (like another of their beautiful counterparts, Black Cobras) and their, eyes, they shine in the night like rubies and their teeth, when they bare them even Julia Roberts seems like a stupid smiling Doe.

Owls. The uncrowned beauties of the night. Why no Wordsworth worth his ilk ever wrote a poem on them seeing them fly past flapping their noiseless wings and rendering that sleep invoking hoot that no nightingale worth its stupid neck could blurt? ( Perhaps he was selling Daffodils or paying up Lucy Gray for all that solitude!)
I dont feel like writing any further....

"This is a bad bright world. This brightness blinds all that is Dark and bad. Lucky are the blind who can't see nothing but Black!”

Brobdingnag chronicles

Gulliver is not the only guy to have visited Brobdingnag. I have been there too. In fact this message comes to you directly from Brobdingnag, the land of gigantic things. You would have thought that Gully was off his rockers when he talked of this land of big creatures. Obviously everything would look swell to a shipwrecked and miserable guy who's just been given an extra large mug of coffee. But he was not as far off the mark as you would imagine.

This place is similar to every other land I've set eyes on but for one thing - size. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about let us consider a coffee outlet here called Starbucks. Their smallest cup holds about a gallon of coffee. And it comes with only one straw. A B'dingnagian light meal usually leaves me feeling like a piece of lead and a cup of water here fills the bladder twice over. A small mall can accomodate everybody from Fiji. I even heard a bloke at a university called Stanford call it a small place and the campus is actually spread over eight thousand acres. Obelix would surely have gone 'These B'd'n'gians are crazy. tap! tap! tap!'.

But the most shocking feature has to be the automobiles. While the rest of the world faces an energy crisis with crude selling at two Iraqi heads a barrel, folks here still drive around in monster trucks. They probably use gas to wash their cars. Public transport is unheard of and roads only get smoother and wider by the day. Discomfort of the lowest degree is intolerable. These people remind me of the pea princess, the one who woke up sore because there happened to be a pea below her mattress. Well, they better watch out because the path they are driving down leads to a bed of nails and they dont want to arrive there with soft bottoms.

Thats where we Bangloreans score over them. Admittedly we dont boast of such luxuries but we've heard of the ant and the grasshopper story. So we've been brought up on bumpy, congested roads. Blood comes cheaper than oil and the sight of a large car makes our stomach turn. To us, the day vehicles go bust would only be a blessed release. In other words, we are future proof !

Workflow Management

I've just discovered that I suffer from another ailment. The writer's block. It is characterized by the total emptying of one's mind when faced with the proposition of putting pen to paper. Unfortunately I seem to be in one of the advanced stages since the symptoms show up even if I so much as look at a writing implement. It does not help that this ailment is also governed by the inverse square law, the strength of the symptoms being inversely proportional to the square of the skills of the to-be-writer. A lost cause you might say. But where there is the internet there is still hope. And I dont intend to poach.

So I set out on the internet looking for some inspiration and you will not believe what I found. A website claiming to own a pool of ideas for the weary blogger. With successive clicks of my index finger, I could go from picking ideas to giving them a form and to finally publishing them. Total workflow management has indeed arrived. For those of you who escaped the software trap, workflow management is the new IT buzz-word. As evolution takes its toll on human intelligence, workflow management has stepped in to bridge the gap. From here to what we saw in The Matrix is but a short and unpleasant journey.

But in all sincerity I always thought it was the less fortunate who would be the beneficiaries of these expert systems. To almost make use of it today has been both a humbling experience and a wake up call. Kindly note the usage of the word 'almost'. Just so that you dont label all this to be some workflow enabled expert system's auto-generated junk because this, my dear friends, is one hundred percent homo sapien crap. Oh shit! Thats not how it was meant to come out. Well you know what I meant.

Midnight musings

Have you ever stayed up late in the night wondering what it is that is keeping you awake? Tonight is one of those nights for me. Dinner was fine, the weather is alright, I am reasonably tired and yet I simply cannot fall asleep.

I would have started counting the sheep already had it not been for the deep mistrust I have in that method. The last time I tried it was in my engineering college hostel. The power was out as usual and I was sleeping in a pool of my own sweat. Everytime I reached twenty or thereabouts my attention was drawn by the urgent hummings of the many mosquitoes that kept me company and I had to start all over again.

I have to admit, there's something in the tone of those nasty little things that makes people sit up and take notice. It might be the pitch of their voice or the lilt in their tune, of that I'm not sure. What I'm sure of though is that there could be few things in this world more annoying than a conversation with a mosquito. For one, they get so close to you that you could almost smell their breath. If they were hovering around your nose instead of your ear that is. Secondly, they seem to do all the talking. And its not easy convincing them to find somebody else to share their secrets with either. Almost as difficult as convincing a life insurance peddler to try your neighbour instead of you.
The most effective solutions for the situation known to me are:
1. Ignore them. But then it usually only encourages them. Worth a try though.
2. Give a firm indication of your lack of interest by placing your palms around your ears.
3. Start screaming loudly to drown their voice and hope that they get the hint.
4. Stage a walk-out.

Now that I've helped you out with this, can you help me out with my original problem? Maybe you'd like to sleep on that.

Whats in a name?

I learnt something new today when I created my first blog. Writing a blog is not half as difficult as naming it. With a zillion users already online, its not all that easy to get a unique url if one does not resort to ridiculous stuff like rags1830BC. Obviously Shakespeare didnt realize the magnitude of the problem when he made that irresponsible and callous remark. So what if he doesnt care what a rose is called, the internet does! Just goes to show that all generalizations are absolutely evil.

Now i totally understand the need for those long and horrendously complex identification codes used to identify me in my passport, tax card and other official papers. Imagine having to give unique names to people. Even though Hinduism in its great wisdom has given us a few crore Gods and hence as many names, it has not quite foreseen the current situation of a billion people. Ofcourse suffixing your name with the year of birth would take care of it for a few years, but surely we'll be making more than a billion people a year by 2020. The crisis at the birth certificate registrar would then be greater than at the hospital.

Coming back to my problem, I was at my wits' end trying to give my blog a name that I could understand. Almost every word, term, phenomenon, condition known to me has already occured to some other blogger as he tried to set up his little junkyard on the internet. The clever ones have picked up the Greek, German, Italian and Latin translations. I admit I didnt try Turkish and Arabic though I suspect that it might not have been vastly different there.

So you can understand my elation when at long last I found it. I could not quite come to grips with the fact that I actually had something totally unique on the internet. It was a special moment. And whats more, that url is going to be mine for eternity. Or atleast until this dotcom bubble bursts.