Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I have been able to recover some of the blog posts from my earlier blog. Here are the entries from 2003 to 2006 in one page so that you, Gentle Reader, won’t have to flip through ages of calendar pages. Here, you will find entries that are plain wrong, funny, quaint and crazy. Layeez and Gennelmen, here they are:
{} – indicate my current comments on these long forgotten entries.
2003
- The strategy to open doors (literally) (27th Nov 2003)
Am writing this from a really cool office somewhere in the new Business District of Mumbai. Am simply in love with this place…am here to do an HR project for this company – a hardcore financial services company and a pioneer in one field in India.
The cafeteria is good, people are nice, the office,as said before, is wonderful, right out of some of those Financial TV series set in Manhattan. The only problem for me is that since I have not yet been given an access pass, I have to strategically wait for some unsuspecting guy/girl to flash his/her card and then I move with a swiftness nobody would associate with me and go into the other room. My condition is especially pitiable before lunch time. With ill-concealed sadness and anxiety, I wait at the door of the department, trying not to look longingly at the cafeteria. Then somebody feels sorry for me (or I make an appropriately pitiable face which has an almost Somalian hunger splotched over it) and flashes the card.
Post lunch, of course,the strategy changes. I act as if I have extremely urgent work to do, glancing at my watch frequently, fidgeting a little and then, and then,when my prey comes near me, I request him/her to do the card flashing in a quick, hurried voice that (I think) conveys my urgency to get back to work (Ha!)
I am told I shall get the card tomorrow. Shucks, no more acting to earn my lunch now.I was rather starting to enjoy it…
{One of the entries I enjoyed writing}
- C(r)ATered (5th December 2003)
Is nothing sacred anymore? The last bastion has fallen. The CAT exam papers were leaked in Delhi and arrests have been made in Poona as well as Delhi.
The CAT exam is an experience in itself…ask me… I have had my share of it and it is perhaps the only exam that challenged, teased and then defeated me. But I cannot crib because I know that I was defeated by a better opponent.
(Actually, I had done quite well in the Sim CATs, exams held by classes and quite often, more difficult than the original itself. I had made it into the top 100 in the country, 90th to be precise, in one of them. I am boasting away here, because I had worked hard for it and had done justice to the exam. But the final was simple and yet, could not crack it. Guess the nerves got to me.(Now I really have lost the right to criticize the Indian cricket team))
Be as it may, many people with no qualification to comment upon the situation (well, that could include me, but then, this is my blog, what?) have explained away the leak with things like ?the CAT leak is a symptom of the huge demand-supply gap in quality management education in India.? Sure. So the best way is to leak it out, right? Gimme a break.
But I am ready to give a clean chit to IIMs in this regard…they are way too picky to allow their brandequity to be damaged.
I also know as a matter of fact that utmost care is taken to ensure that CAT tests more than language skills and numerical ability. It’s finally one of the best tests of decision-making and time management. In the world.
So, one management solution from me to the IIMs (don’t believe your eyes at the audacity? Well, as I said before, it’s my blog!)
They should start a captive Press, a la the Oxford University Press, which also has the capability to print the CAT papers. This may go against the outsourcing craze, but probably, CAT papers are a core activity for IIMs..it does not pay to outsource it. Now, CAT paper printing cannot happen throughout the year,so,to use the capacity, given the tremendous brandequity enjoyed by the IIMs, they could make a lot of money or further build up their BE as well as the “Human Capital” if they start a line of quality management books, maybe even primers on Finance, marketing etc. Many Professors do write in their personal capacity, but a consortium of professors of Finance from the IIMs writing a book to make finance concepts easily understandable to students and even the common man from the IIM Press..I think we are talking serious business here, apart from the obvious benefits to the country.
I had typed this earlier…now there’s talk of the HRD Ministry having one common management test for all management institutes in the country..Trust the HR guys to come up with something like this (LOL at my own thought)..This is almost a Microsoftian penchant for standardization. There’s no similarity between IIM Kozhikode and a third rate Management Institute in the heartland of Bihar or even Maharashtra, except the word ‘management’ in the name.
There’s a line in Yes, Minister that goes something like this “It is surprising how a decision that is wrong on all fronts, economically, morally, logically is right only on one front: politically”. Enough said.
{My interest in thinking and writing about education probably started around this time. It’s a different matter that I have hardly written anything substantial on education after this.}
- Why Science will never find out the existence of God: (29th December 2003)
Had a very interesting dinner conversation with Dad. He told us about the book he was reading, which discussed the nature of knowledge. Then we talked about science. And then, it struck me: God’s existence or otherwise cannot be found out by Science. And this is because of the paradoxical basic premises of Science itself. Science is generally defined as a systematized body of knowledge. A shortcut definition that should do for the time being. A few of the basic premises of Science are: 1.Everything that can be sensed exists and it can be proved to exist. 2. A cause precedes an event (the event is an effect for a cause…a one to one or one to many relationship or a many to one relationship exists). We can define God like medical Science defines life: by His properties, such as omnipotence, creator of Universe,omniscience and omnipresence and assume that He (She/ It) exists.
Let’s look at God’s existence from the lens of Science.
A) God must exist: Because the universe exists, we all exist, there must be some original Reason for this existence. By the definition given above, God has to exist, according to the Premise (2) of Sciences.
B) God’s existence cannot be verified: Since there is no scientifically admissible proof that can be sensed or verified that shows God exists ( you cannot use point A as proof, a mistake most religions make, according to Science), God cannot exist as per the Premise (1) of Science.
So, Quo vadis?
Science, it seems, is the Trishanku body of knowledge!
I have just posted this without delving too deeply into the whole thing. If anybody disagrees, proves otherwise, lemme know!
{Needless to say, nobody bothered. The logical jump is the implicit assumption in A, since The Universe exists, God must exist as the Creator of the Universe.}
2004
- Star Gazing (11th Jan 2004)
It’s 5 AM as I type out this entry. Something akin to a fog has come over Mumbai.There are very few stars twinkling over the city. As Mumbai yawns a little and turns over on the other side, my biological clock, in urgent need of a reset, urges me to type out something. I comply. Two years of HR make compliance a natural reaction 
. So here goes:
I have always loved stargazing. As a kid, it was just the sheer magnitude and extent of the celestial show that used to excite me. My most pleasant memories of Ahmedabad are those of sleeping on the terrace of our flat on summer nights. The city would be quiet and the canopy simply awesome. I used to be scared of the hugeness of the sky and the openness of the terrace. Just the sky above us and we below. Nothing in between. Mom used to bring our old ( I used to think it was ancestral) radio and we would listen to even older songs on that.( If you want to experience a surreal mix of peace and pleasure, try listening to Khoya khoya Chand on a ‘half moon’ night.The full moon, for all its brilliant beauty, seems slightly intrusive sometimes. It’s like trying to sleep with a spotlight pointing at your face).
After shifting to Mumbai, stargazing died a quick painless death. The only time I could see a few stars was at our annual New Year Party. But then, watching stars at a party of ‘high spirited’ people does not exactly make you the centre of attraction, and so, I promptly dropped that plan. ( Please note that I am being enigmatically silent about whether I finally became the centre of attraction or not)
M/s. Mandar and Kunal brought stargazing back into my life. It started on the 24th of December one year, when we went up to Kunal’s terrace with a telescope that looked more like a Bazooka than anything else. It was a full moon night, if I remember correctly. Our intentions were to see all kinds of stars. At the stroke of midnight, we were out on the streets, trying to see the dazzling stars that came out of the midnight mass. We were not disappointed. We saw the other celestial bodies (the ones in the sky)later. We made a resolution that this was a mighty good thing that needs to be made a yearly ritual. We did continue for two or three years, but later, colleges took over our lives.
Kunal’s terrace is a place that needs some description: It’s big and cold, with a a beautiful view of the creek. For around a mile or so, there is nothing but marshy land. Wild and untamed till a few years ago, you could hear jackals calling out to each other. At around 1 O’clock, a light fog sets in. from the creek. One expects a haunted galleon to suddenly appear through the fog. Thankfully, one’s expectations have never been fulfilled.
I have had a lot of fun during these sessions. At around 2:30 AM, after the Pepsi/Sprite or coffee stopped flowing, things really started flowing. Guys who were usually clammed up during the day bloomed like flowers in the rain and started talking about their (for lack of a better term) love lives.
Remember, we were all members of FOSLA then. That’s Frustrated One-Sided Lovers Association for those losers who have never been losers. Then, there was a session where everybody talked about their future plans. This section was heard with a degree of solemnity that befits the occasion. Before and after these two parts, there was a round of jokes (obscene ones were the norm. To tell a clean joke was a break of protocol. It’s acceptable only if the clean joke was very good.). And oh yes, we also found time to look at the stars. Here, M/s M&K came in their element, pointing the telescope to strange sounding galaxies far far away like M51 here, M something else there. Then there was a lull as dawn started breaking over the horizon and normal life beckoned.
The type of bonding that took place was simply amazing. You came to know the gory details of the guys’ lives. Their crushes, heartbreaks, successes and failures were so real, you could reach out and touch them. Empathy was the primary emotion at that point in time. You could easily put yourself in the other’s shoes. Literally. It’s too bloody dark to see who’s shoes you are wearing.
It’s like seeing your office colleagues in pyjamas: your views about them never remain the same.
- OTSDDP (14th Jan 2004)
A new series will now be started on this blog…OTSDDP. That is the short form of On the Spot Danadan Popat. For those who come in late, it means giving undeniable proof that the person in question is a genuine in-duh-vidual and may, if s/he tries hard enough, reach the Darwin award nomination levels.In keeping with the popat theme, the incidents are marked in green. To start off, today’s OTSDDP goes to:
Celeste, a blond (Surprised?) guest appearing in the Shaz and Waz show (a filler between two innings of a one day international cricket match, hosted by Ravi ‘Shaz’ Shastri and Wasim ‘Waz’ Akram. The show has a poll where a majority of Indian men choose their favourite female guest. The guest is almost always a gori female,as the Indians choose them over the Indian candidates.)
Celeste was asked who her favourite Indian player was. She replied it was Irfan Pathan. Then, the conversation turned to Irfan being a left handed bowler. At this point, Celeste made a wild dash at immortality by asking Wasim whether he (Wasim) has been able to get as many wickets as Irfan Pathan.
Wasim, nonplussed, still managed to reply that he was getting there.
{This was the alpha version of the Jaw Gently Drops}
- Major Pet Peeve (26th October 2004)
One thing that really turns me off, especially when I see people doing it on TV, is…no, not that, but holding up huge posters that use the letters of some guy’s name and give an attribute that begins with that letter to that person. If the sentence you just read was a little too long and too incoherent, let me illustrate by way of an example:
S – superb
A- attractive
C-confident
H- Hitter
I-Imaginative
N- Nation’s Pride
All this adds up to SACHIN! Surprise! Doesn’t the sheer creativity boggle that puny little thing you call the mind?The only limit is the level of non-imagination these guys can sink to.
The bad part is…well there are two bad parts. Actually there are many more, but I’ll just stick to two. They are:
1. These guys don’t realize that this lost whatever feeble novelty it had around twenty years ago and
2. Those qualities they ascribe to the person are totally meaningless and can easily be applied to one fourth of the world’s population, or as in the example above, all the 200 great batsmen of all time.
Why do they do this? Why waste good paper, ink and time on something that means absolutely nothing? The sheer happiness on their faces when their work of art (A better description would be work o’fart) is shown on TV causes surprise and pain. Look at what the Aussies or Brits or even the S. Africans come up with..it may not be Douglas Adams, but at least it’s funny…e.g. writing the same Sachin Tendulkar’s full name and then crossing out the ‘ten’ from it and adding the runs as his score progressed ( I think when he got out, he was fifty-two-dulkar). That’s creative.
What does that mean? Well, it just means the people who can think up good, witty stuff are sitting at home eating chips and not burning calories, instead of going to the stadium and eating chips and burning posters. Arise, people! wake from your slumber and send me the tickets to the next match!
2005
{Lots of entries in this year}
- (Spec)tackling English…(20th June 2005)
Sign outside a newly-opened optician’s:
Make your spectacle in only four hours!
That’s a long time, isn’t it, considering they managed to do it as soon as they put up that sign?
{Me being smartalecky}
- Radio Bah Bah (28th June 2005)
FM Radio listening has become a regular ocurrence for me, thanks to the wonderful new Sony Ericsson K 700i that I bought recently. Some observations, as usual numbered:
1. Most of the RJs have really good voices and do a decent job of RJing.
2. Some ads really suck. Case in point: a Yellow Pages ad, in which the voiceover whispers “This ad can only be heard by you”. Ouch. Another one claims Narain Karthikeyan to be the fastest Indian. Huh? Where does that leave Air Force and our Commercial airline pilots? I know the answer to that one: On the ground (Heh heh…remember Bernoulli. No? OK. Sorry. Ignore)
3. ‘Woh Lamhe’ is played approximately 537 times a day. On every channel.
4. Shahrukh Khan is splattered all over the radio world. (At least these two weeks). Thankfully, he does not stutter on air. That does not, however, make him bearable. For an elaboration, click here.
{Could not get the link.Again}
5. Listening to so much music continously brings out one difference between the golden era Hindi Film Music and today’s music. Most of the Oldie songs have reaally horrible Antaras (Worse than, ummm, Ok, as bad as the Mali dame). Take your favourite old song and listen carefully to the antara. It has no connection to the mukhda. It is basically a tra-la-la-la of music, put in as a filler, almost like a placeholder till a better piece of music could be composed. And that seems to have been conveniently forgotten. The newer music seems more structured, more…integrated. Never mind the relative lack of melody.
{ Watch the phone, I say..}
- Conversations (9th July 2005)
A conversation that I had with a person who has the same phone model as I have.<> = Conversation that did not happen, but would have been interesting if it did:
Me: Hey have you tried using Bluetooth?
Her: No, my bluetooth is at home.
Me: No, you see, bluetooth is a technology. your phone has it.
H: Yes, I know, but it is at home.
M: OK, let me show you how it works
(Turn on the setting in her phone, then in my phone and then send a photo from my phone to her via Bluetooth)
( Till the time the phone recognizes the presence, nothing happens)
H: See, I told you, it doesn’t work. It needs Bluetooth. That is attached to my computer at home.
M: Just wait. It will work.
(Phones talk to each other…she receives a file transfer request. She accepts. File transfer happens..She is suitably amazed)
H: Where’s your Bluetooth?
M: . you see, Bluetooth is a technology. The receivers and transmitters are in the phone itself. What you have attached to your computer is called a dongle.
(How I wish she had asked that! At least it would have been easier to answer..what she actually said was:)
H: Ohh…Thanks a lot.
M: Anytime < Yeah Right...that's because I am a masochist and I want my fix>
Nandan Exit left.
{ Regarding the Phone, The Lord Giveth…}
- It’s raining, men! (26th July 2005)
And how!
Buckets of water all over. This is not Mumbai rain, it is Konkani rain.
Suggested the canteen-wallah to make bhajias and make a killing, but guess the guy is non-violent. And, as my colleague points out, his CRM sucks.
Santros floating in water, trains stopped in their tracks, sometimes because there are no tracks (am hearing it all today)..whew…
Seems like Gaurav finally got his wish. Again.
{Reference to a post by Gaurav Sabnis, whose link I can’t find.}
UPDATE: If you have been on Mars, you would not have known about what happened. It was the highest rainfall in a day ever recorded in India’s history. It was all there: a loss of life and property, unbelievable acts of kindness, bravery,stupidity, panic and heartlessness. It all happened.
As for me, just ended up walking around 8-9 km in knee-deep to waist deep water and reached home. major damage: my beloved new cell phone, inundated with water. Had saved up to buy it and now it seems it’s conked out for good. sigh.
.{…And the Lord taketh Away. Sigh. The memory still hurts}
- The mathematical representation (15th August 2005)
This thought came about when a friend and I were debating whether mathematics is reality or a system of describing reality. The beauty of the (Indian)number system is not just in the fact that it represents each numeral by one symbol, but that every digit in a number has two values: its intrinsic value and the positional value. That is, in the number 38, the intrinsic value of 3 is 3, but because of its position, it is multiplied by 10^1.
What if we could represent three values in a system of mathematics? How would that change our tools and calculations? How would it be represented? Most important, what would we want it to represent?
Maybe we might need a totally different branch of mathematics to understand and use the implications. Maybe, it has already been invented. i do not know. Anybody wth some explanation, please send.
{Total Responses = zero}
- About Wisdom and Stupidity (20th October 2005)
There is a lot of material written about ‘wisdom of the crowds’. I strongly suspect that there exists something to counterbalance this overdose of wisdom on the Earth: The stupidity of the crowds.
Cut to: a bandh in Kolkata in 1980s. Trams burnt (Not such a bad thing to happen given their condition…mercy killing, I call it), buses stoned and razed to the ground (Ditto).
Now, almost everybody in the crowd knows that this is all their property, they, the tax paying bourgeoisie have, well, paid for it through tax. They will have to suffer the consequences of their actions, since there are less trams or buses to go around. It is also common knowledge that as a means of protest, it is not only passé, but has very little recall value. One burning bus looks a lot like the next burning bus.
So why would a crowd do such a thing? Is it because there is safety in numbers and they are sure they shall not be caught? It is different from the soldier’s line of thinking, which I believe is a basic example question of game theory: An individual soldier may think that as an individual, there is not much that he can contribute to his side winning, since there are hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers on each side. However, by running away, he can not only not make any change to the ultimate outcome, but also save his life, which is not a given in the event of him fighting in the war. But if all soldiers of one camp think like that, the war WILL be lost. So, individual gain could lead to overall loss. Again, this is a (so-called) rational line of thinking. In the mob example given earlier, there is at best, a specious logic: They (Government, capitalist pigs, religious bigots, hardworking people) own the property…let’s teach them a lesson. Or it is just mob fury. Either case, it is an illogical argument.
So, we have two cases: A rational soldier and an irrational member of the mob. Both of them are part of a group of people. Both take a decision that is seemingly correct at their level, but wrong at the broader level. So, does this mean that either way, crowds end up behaving in a way that is not in their long term interest?
Does groupthink play a part in the irrationality? Is it stupidity because of the crowds?
To quote an anonymous source, “Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.”
- Shitty telecom ads (7th November 2005)
The growth in the telecom sector seems to have dried the last drops of creativity in the ads, especially the TV ads. Watching a cricket match puts one at risk of being at the receiving end of these ads. Let me analyze these ads for you, gentle reader, so that you may know when to change the channel and pray that the next channel does not have another similar ad playing at that time.
- Orange/Hutch: What’s wrong with these guys? Are these the same people who gave us the wonderful doggy ads? The new ads involve Irfan (who is Irrfan for numerological purposes) talking with viewers. If you listen closely (which you should not after you have read this piece) you will be able to hear a sucking sound. And that’s the ad sucking big time. In one ad of this forgettable series of ads, we have a heavy-lidded (actor formerly known as) Irfan telling us about how we enjoy on the first day of the month…we ‘move around in taxis’ ‘stock our fridges with cold drinks’ and by the time we reach the 20th of the month, we are out of money and how we can recharge for Rs.10 to tide us over till the next month. This ad is characterized by the following: lousy ‘acting’ by (the actor…) Irfan, who looks drunk and talks as if he is a representative of the masses describing their common, shared experiences, which makes the whole ad irritating, since the setting of the ad ( a five star hotel) and the middle class talk have absolutely no connection with each other; a total lack of empathy with whichever target audience it was aimed at for the above reason; seemingly unanswerable questions about why the ‘artist’ was chosen, why the setting and the clothing were chosen and finally, why did one not change the channel when one had the chance.
- Tata Indicom: If (the artist…)Irfan’s acting makes you feel sorry for him, Ajay Devgan’s and Kajol’s acting in the Tata Indicom ads makes you want to cry with deep, shuddering sobs. This is supposed to be India’s best actor couple and the only reason one can think of for them doing this ad could be arranging some extra pocket money for their kid. The latest assault of an ad contains Ajay Devgan in a double role (each role is equally detestable in the 15 second ad, though the simpleton role is sad as well as detestable) and Kajol in a kimono, with a Korean/ Japanese/Chinese accent that is as Originally Oriental as Chinese Bhel or Paneer Tikka in Schezwan Masala. In those 15 odd seconds of agony, there is a group dance with all these three characters in the foreground and some really impoverished, non self-respecting actors with Mongoloid features in the background. Yes, they are the Jaapaanees, Chaaynees businessmen who make the fatal mistake of coming to Ajay and Kajol’s house to do some business with them. Yes, they end up dancing. Yes, this is creative and funny. It is. Don’t ask me how.
- BSNL: For long, the public sector ads were fair game to be torn apart. BSNL continues this tradition very capably indeed. This ad has Harish Bhimani in his “Main..samay hoon” ( ‘I …am Time’, a line he made famous and memorable in the televised series Mahabharata…you can call it his “time memorial” line) glory. Old Father Time asks all family members of a (presumably dysfunctional) family about their telecom needs. (Do I see a question in your mind about why Time should ask a particular family about their telecom needs? Banish the question from your mind and follow me closely…we have only ten seconds to abuse this ad.). The family starts with ridiculously reasonable demands like fax, telephone, internet (the child of the family says internet, but the editor probably thought this is a lame demand, even by BSNL standards, so s/he simply had somebody say ‘broadband’ instead of internet in the voiceover. The fact that the kid’s lips do not move as if he’s saying broadband is your perception problem, not the editor’s). So far, so groovy. Then, there appears on the scene some perpetually bhabhified female (a female who always plays the role of a pious sister in law, a very important position in the shitty joint family movies and serials…she is generally accused of everything from petty theft to infidelity and murder…but I digress) who prays to God to provide one service that can take care of all their needs. (Why should she pray to God for a unified service provider, you ask? Shhh!) If all this is not enough, we have an extremely out of work Gajendra Chauhan (OK, bet you don’t remember him…he played Yudishthir in the same Mahabharata serial) saying Bnet Bhavatu ( a sort of wish granting, meaning may there be Bnet or whatever the service is called) and the family gets it. This is the time when you collapse laughing…Long live BSNL!!
Hmmm…I wonder what Airtel and BPL mobile are up to.
- Some good ads (17th Dec 2005)
There are too many ads out there that deserve to be ripped apart, piece by painful piece (coz that’s what they do to our sanity). However, there are some that deserve praise. Have shortlisted three of them here, two of them have elderly folks giving knockout performances. Here they are:
- SBI Life Insurance:
SBI Life Insurance continues its good run with the ads. This one starts with two senior ladies at a railway ticket counter. The counter clerk says, “This is a 48 hour journey sitting” (or some such). One of the ladies replies, “so? Do we look old to you?” and buy the tickets for the journey. The train journey has them playing cards (one of them tries to peek in to the other’s hand while she picks up a card fallen to the ground), requesting a young couple to pass their teeth (dentures) and telling the same couple about the purpose of their visit (their brother’s birthday – he’s younger than them and they want to surprise him by a visit).
They reach their brother’s place, keep a box of laddoos with a candle on it and hide. Out comes the elderly brother, sees the laddoos and is confused by the packet. Out come the sisters from their hidnig place, singing, “Happy Birthday Chhotu!”, followed by warm family embrace.
What sets this ad apart is the wonderful detailing . The long train journey, the twinkling of the couple’s eyes when they talk to the sisters, the loving complaint of the sisters about their brother (“Bahaane banaata hai”)the expressions on the three main actors’ faces…all have been emoted superbly. The ad leaves one with a distinctly warm, fuzzy feeling. Tremendous execution.
- The Times of India:
Yes, it is the Lady of Boribunder! And this ad is absolutely top-drawer, probably the ad of the year. Stunning. It starts with a boy running to a town saying “Pakya has been selected!” As this news spreads, the people start dancing and celebrating…one can glimpse the TOI headline “Prakash Mirajkar selected”. The mother of the boy rushes to his grandfather and tells him the news, giving him the copy of paper to read. The old grandfather takes out his spectacles, which are broken, adjusts them and reads the news. He gets up, goes inside, opens an old drawer and takes out a very old copy of the ToI, which has the headline “Mirajkar dropped from Indian Hockey camp”. Overwhelmed, he starts his very private celebration. The wording shown on the screen says “ A day in the life of India”.
What’s so awesome about this ad is the way in which it is executed. It begins abruptly and as it progresses, we get drawn into the story. After around 15 seconds, we become one with the ad. The touches, such as the mother praying to God involuntarily, the impromptu dance of the kids etc. are so Indian, so real. But the old man takes it all away. The way in which he pieces together his broken spectacles (that touch is one of the best things in the ad..according to me, it could either be interpreted as the family not being well off, or the grandfather not concerned about these things- a person who has a broken past and does not want to keep in touch with the present). His celebration is muted and awkward- a person not used to dance or feel happy, a person who has been vindicated by his grandson in a tally sheet of unreason.
3. Pepsodent:
For a change, a good ad from the Pepsodent stable. I have not enjoyed the ‘bhoot police’ funda. This ad has downplayed the bhoot police angle and has approached it from a mother’s angle. The pitch is, Pepsodent has heard the prayers of mothers all over. The jingle is the best part of this ad. Set to a typical Bhajan (religious song), it goes “Nahi Karta, nahi karta brush nahi karta” (doesn’t brush, doesn’t brush, he does not brush – God, that sounds corny, doesn’t it? But the ad still carries it off). The other thing about this ad is that it is very well edited, with the scenes merging well…
More good ads as and when I see them.
{ I did not}
2006
- Baar Baar Bar Girls (7th Jan 2006)
The Bar Girls controversy just refuses to die down. Now, I am of the opinion that shutting down the dance bars is a plain stupid and sub-optimal decision and nothing worthwile has been achieved by doing so. But what bothers me is the automatic conclusion that many people jump to: now that they are out of work, the bar girls will have to work as prostitutes and the stewards of the bars will be forced to indulge in thievery or join the underworld. There are enough avenues open for employment for these displaced people, though of course those avenues pay much less. The argument also bothers me because it tries to justify an ‘immoral’ activity as a logical inevitability, when it is not so. The argument is the other side of the “Dance Bars are frequented by anti-social elements, so they should be banned” coin.
To take it further and apply it to other situations, there was a ban on coaching classes charging high fees and the fees were supposed to be regulated by the Government (in Maharashtra). It would sound hilarious if the teachers complained that fixing a limit on coaching classes fees (or even banning coaching classes altogether) would cause them to go into prostitution or crime.
But teachers have skills and bar dancers don’t, somebody might say. How will they fend for themselves?the same body might say, with a lump in his/her throat.
Balderdash, I would say. What would these people have done if there were no dance bars? The stewards were hard working waiters at Udupi restaurants (judging by some interviews published in the media) the girls migrated from other cities when they heard about these employment opportunities. They were not dying of starvation there (most of them, I would believe). They came here to make big money, which they will not be making. Tough luck. Shit Happens.
The Bar girls and stewards earned more than enough when they were not banned. Enough to provide for a major part of an individual’s life. Most decided to splurge: buy expensive flats in places like Lokhandwala, throw lavish parties and so on. A little wise investing would have helped matters. Let’s face it: It is the lifestyle that they want to maintain and their moral compass that pushes them into crime, not lack of employment. So, while I think the ban is stupid, it is yet another example of needless Governmental interference, the ‘plight’ of the bar dancers and their stewards does not move me.
{This entry got me some nasty comments, both on the blog as well as Desipundit. People did not like my ‘tone’, which seemed to be rude. I did not really think so.}
- Shallow Blonde Alert! (16th Jan 2006)
The fetching Celina Jaitley just made herself a little unfetching.
Sample this gem in her interview with Harshada Rege in Bombay Times, dated 6th January 2006:
Q: You are appearing once again in a bikini-clad avatar post Janasheen…
A: I have done a lot more in this movie than I had in Janasheen. (OK, hold your breath and fortify yourself for the artistic experiment-Nandan)I have experimented a lot more with the bikinis. I’ve experimented with what is called two-layered bikinis that have two colours overlapping.
Surreal. The mind boggles at the extent of this experiment.
- Indian Science, Part II (28th Jan 2006)
Business World (free registration required) has a very nice article titled ‘The rebirth of Indian Science’. It talks about the new Science University called the Indian Institute of Science and Research (IISER), which will be of the same class and stature as the IITs. The difference, of course, is that this institute (and its editions in Kolkata and other parts of the country-slated to be up in the next four years) will be devoted to Science education and research, not to technology. This is perhaps the best news I have heard in this field in a loong time. The article shows how India lags behind in the number of research papers published and the number of PhD degrees in engineering. So, while our IT firms excel in the market, we are not cultivating new markets in our educational institutions.
This is especially worrying, because China, South Korea, Brazil etc. are already working towards these goals. Another major problem is that of Human Resources (hmmm). India has a huge crunch in this area, with South Korea producing more scientists than India. The problem, as I see it, has to do more with the remuneration accrued to the scientist, rather than lack of interest. Being a scientist is probably not a very rewarding career, money wise. The aim of SAC-PM (Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister-the ‘think tank’ which err…thought of this) is to increase PhDs by a factor of five in the next ten years.
Some interesting things about the IISER..it is being built ground up, incorporating newer and more innovative methods. For example, undergraduates, postgrad and PhDs will be on the same campus, something which has not been done in India before (AFAIK). Students will be taught Computers and a few Arts subjects as well, something which would have been an anathema a few decades ago. But the best news that came out of this article is this: there would be only one Department, the department of Natural Sciences. As the article says “the mathematician will work with the biologist, the physicist with the chemist”. Given the way Science and the disciplines within it have advanced in the past few years, this seems to be the best way to integrate the understanding of almost everything that comes under Science and Scientific Method. Yes, there is still a long way to go. But this news is reassuring enough.
- It ain’t getting any funnier (22nd February 2006)
Ahh…first, we have one weirdo, sitting in some remote part of India, offering rewards to chop off the Danish cartoonist’s head (The rewards being Rs.51 lakhs and the killer’s weight in gold, for those who are interested in such things).
Then, we have another weirdo, in a fit of nationalism, declaring a reward (of Rs.11 lakh) to anyone who chops off M F Hussain’s hands. The reason being, M F Hussain depicted Mother India (Bharat Mata) in the nude.
Now, don’t get me wrong…I am no fan of M F Hussain. I do not understand his allegedly brilliant paintings. Neither do I like his insistence of drawing almost every female in the nude. Nudes are nice, but depicting the Goddess Saraswati (the Goddess of Knowledge in Hindu tradition) in the nude is outright silly, in my opinion. It does not matter if the depiction is recent or a thousand years old. Depicting Mother India in the nude is equaly repugnant for me. WTF is this guy thinking? Has he finally gone demonstrably senile?
But to chop off his hands? Where are we, guys? In a certain oil rich Shariat following Kingdom that cannot be named? And even if that were so, look at the reward amount. If I were MFH and somebody broke into my house to chop my hands off, I would pay him 22 lakhs to get the hell out of there. That’s like, you know, one painting for me. Wrong at so many levels and on so many counts.
One thing I love about weirdos: they are such wonderful teachers of how not to do things!
PS: This was originally started as a thoughtful post, with ample bits of indignation thrown in. However, when thought was put into it, the ridiculous side became so apparent that I decided to highlight just a few of the less obvious, but equally stupid tangents to the whole thing…
- War-karis? (26th Feb 2006)
‘Warkaris’ beat up SSC Board chief in Pune.
..(C)hairman of the state board of secondary and higher secondary education, Vasant Kalpande, was beaten up in his office here on Friday by over 15 members, reportedly associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Warkari Mahamandal, over the inclusion of an “objectionable” paragraph relating to Sant Tukaram in the Marathi question paper of the ongoing higher secondary certificate (HSC) exam.
A peon in the board office, C.D. Takale, who tried to shield Kalpande from the attackers, was also severely beaten up and lost a couple of teeth before fainting. …
Kalpande received blows on his left arm and both sides of the face.The entire episode lasted for about 45 minutes.
The painful part of this whole episode is that these people quoted Sant Tukaram to justify what they did.
“We have beaten up Kalpande in keeping with the advice given by Sant Tukaram, that ‘the obstinate should be hit on the head’,” they declared.
The Wari (The word, I believe, means again, as in Baari/baar Baar in Hindi, though am unable to get a verified etymology) is one of the most beautiful rituals in Maharashtra, beautiful because of its simplicity and the sheer ‘bhakti’ (devotion) embedded in it. It is a fundamental part of the Bhakti tradition. And Sant Tukaram is considered the pinnacle of the great saints of Maharashtra.
What culture can these guys preserve? do they even know what culture means?
Jo waar kari, to warkari kasa houu shakel? (How can he, who strikes another, become a warkari?)
