of cyborgs and HANs

by far, the most path breaking (literally) mode of communication one might come across. data transfer over tactile terminals, built-in encryption and authentication protocols, biometric probably?

couple it with implants on the human body. a more desirable cyborg in the making? trinity would learn to fly a chopper by touching the manual. you could walk past someone and (if they forgot to secure their transmission), probably read their thoughts :) - mel gibson wouldn't have needed that hair dryer treatment... "forgetting" would be an interesting aspect too, where would the machine stop and the human kick-in... or the other way :)

what is also interesting to note, in such a scenario, is the route collective information will take. will there be a difference in tacit and common knowledge? and the plethora of ethical questions. this is merely scratching the surface...


definitely a bicentennial man :)

CCD

it was a while since i had read up on current affairs - but a glance at it over the weekend told me what i had been missing all this while.

news says, cafe coffee day yes, our (un)friendly neighbourhood CCD, is going luxury. its boss wants to start a chain of high end hotels, starting off with chikmagalur, replete with swimming pools, sauna, jacuzzis, et al - some even private ones! keeping in tradition with any average cafe of theirs one would come across, it sets one's imagination on how this new venture might turn out to be.

sample this.

customer (C): excuse me, where is the fitness centre?
hotel attendant (HA): thats down the isle to your right sir.
C: (on reaching down the hall to his right) er... i see only aerobics mats. where are the treadmills and the weights?
HA: we dont have those sir.
C: but your brochure said you have them all.
HA: it is not here sir. we are yet to order them. not in stock sir.
C: eh? whatever... can you at least tell me where the jacuzzi is?
HA: the room adjacent to the swimming pool sir.
C: er.. excuse me, the jacuzzi water isnt hot.
HA: yes sir, it is cold.
C: that's what i meant when i said it isnt hot. isnt it supposed to be hot?
HA: yes sir. but the heater isnt working sir.
C: but the sauna seems to be working fine. how come?
HA: yes sir, you can use the sauna also.
C: i meant the sauna has hot steam in it. isnt the heater supposed to be down?
HA: sir, we use different heaters for the two sir. that one is working.
C: hmmm. ok. (sigh) say, i had these coupons that give me complimentary use of the jacuzzi, but since that isnt working, can i swap it for the sauna instead?
HA: am sorry sir, that cannot be done.
C: and why not!? it is just swapping one service to another!
HA: am sorry sir, but they are not priced the same.
C: so i shall pay the damn difference! @#$%!
HA: am sorry sir, combining coupons and cash is not allowed. you will need a coupon for the sauna or pay for it in total.
C: (ripping his hair) aaarrrggghhh!
HA: (pause) so would you like to opt for the sauna sir? (C nods - his head could boil the jacuzzi by now) would you like some aromatic oils and vapours while you are in it sir?
C: (looking around for sharp and dangerous objects) no thanks, just gimme the goddamn steam!
HA: very fine sir. (more pause then presents C with a folder) sir... the bill sir, it will be charged to your room. you dont have to sign it now, this is just for your information.
C: @#$%!

the icing on the cake - it seems the venture has got going with a meagre investment of 15 crores. i would be surprised if this episode doesnt remain a figment of my imagination... not to forget, a 24hour coffee shop - catered to by the regular cafe coffee day staff!! (faint)

they didnt tell us!

agreed that some people are a bit slow on the uptake even in seemingly obvious situations... but mankind as we know it, has its ways of baffling its own understanding.

Britons are gradually waking up to the news that their kids are becoming obese. yes, in literal terms, its news for them (saw it on almost all the channels here). but that seems to be the least of their concerns... what seems to be bothering them, more than the sight of their under-11 covering the better part of the sofa, is that nobody told them their kids were growing fat! ....eh!? rather dense i should say... (no i dont mean the kids!!) one parent complains that the government is now doing nothing about it! look, my kid fed on the fast-food stores that you allowed to be erected, now he's grown out of his shorts thanks to you (huh!?) and you ought to do something about it! wow!

but people do know how to throw their weight around... news channel calls in the health minister and asks her what her ministry plans to do about this 'crisis'... and minister asks the public to be more judicious in their choice of diet and discipline their kids a bit (i heard your jaw drop... i agree. thats sacrilege in this land!) in a perfect world her answer would have been well digested but we are not there yet. tv host with all her seriousness asks if she implies she's not going to do anything about it & leave it to the poor unsuspecting parents to fend for themselves... poor poor parents! tsk tsk... they just didnt see it coming did they!

its the fear... yeah!

reminded of psmith at times like these... should i rate this as unusual? maybe yes. improbable? certainly not! :)

v and i making our way back from office, wait for the lifts in the tube station... and i hear some chatter around us. the tone and words being repetitive in nature draw my attention to its source... am still looking for words to describe what they were. am sure v is just as much at a loss! yes, she was blurting 'i love you' to v... does catch us off guard to say the least! we feel it prudent to remain silent spectators to the entire affair...

they were two of them, both packed with make-up... frail attempts at hiding nature's malady... feminine looking nevertheless... and it was not their hair or their dress that brought me to this gender conclusion... a fair display led me to believe so (no pun intended!). lets call these two (the persons silly!) s1 and s2...

s1: (looking at v) i love you... i really love you...

me looking totally doe eyed... first at her... as the zipper traverses its teeth to & fro and finally at her

s2: (to s1) they are scared... (more zipper movement)
s1: come on! its ok to smile!
s2: no they are angry! they are angry at us...
s1: come on! there's nothing to be angry... surely you can smile!

mind you i was pretty much tempted to smile if only i had managed to go beyond awe (and what lay behind the zipper)...

s1: they do not understand english... thats why they are not smiling! (i really liked her depth of understanding here - no pun again!!)
s2: of course they can understand english... they are in england! (hmmm... this one's logic was stronger)

but our stoic silence and ignorance seemed to convince them that we really didnt understand english! for the rest of the public these two seemed to not exist at all, but for the mother pulling her child away from them... (un)fortunately the lift journey ended, we saw the last of them and out we were on our way home... mulling over the recent incident (and thinking aloud if they accepted cards...) had heard enough about the youth of this land... saw it first hand today :)

the curious few here would wonder why we didnt take our chances... v's outlook held a lot of truth... fear of aids is the global guiding force!

the trash heap has spoken... yeah!!

radio ga ga...

this had been on my mind for quite some time now. cnn-ibn's (another of my fav channels) "southern verdict" was much like the vigorous shake of a bottle of soda.

there's fm radio in chennai (yes, its time it started behaving like a city if it wants to be called one.) with more channels coming up of late. am told theres radio city as well as radio mirchi. i jumped with joy and clapped my hands with glee when i heard the news... strained my ears with childlike expectation to hear something other than tamil in the airwaves. i have nothing against tamil or tamil radio... but public demand seems to have everything against what is not tamil. radio city as i knew it to be never got to be so here in ammaland... in the days of yore it did have a mix of hindi, english and tamil for about a month; until it wised up and started playing only tamil... its ad revenue probably hit new highs after it learnt the rule of the land :)

makes me wonder if the local populace loves the language truly, madly, deeply or mere hypocritic hatred for something else - am tempted to use the word "foreign" in context of hindi. as a show of hands, i would vote for the latter. hypocrisy? yes, that too. why? heres where we go on air :)

theres this channel whose name i couldnt care to note, where its jingle starts with the schummacher song and proceeds into a hindi intro... it lights up my face... but what follows is a barrage of tamil movie pieces (my understanding of music refuses to let me call what they air songs) its just the jingle... i dont understand this. if all they play is tamil songs, why resort to hindi and english as a crowd puller? seems like the listener is aware of this music but still wants only tamil. a couple of RJs get into what seems like a warzone. i sit tensed. but the crowd seems to be laughing in tandem with the chaos... oh! so thats how their jokes sound!? ok :)

then there is this song which has adnan sami's voice (i think). probably the movie demands it or its this guy's style, the tune had to have a northy feel in it. there seems a desparate desire to ride the populist wave, but also an insecure yearning to look beyond the moat. but this doesnt last for long... what follows resembles a masai hunting song. am sure they have one, if not they might as well borrow it from here. but my fellow passenger seems to be having a gala time lip-singing it... wow! this guy actually likes this!? he even affords me the horror of a jig. michael jackson is put to shame...

this is where cnn-ibn fits right in. it seems the southern states had a golden jubilee month celebrating their "southernhood". i wouldnt comment on the skewed manner in which the research was carried out... nor will i attempt at understanding why rajdeep sardesai felt jolly glad about 36% southies polled wanting hindi made compulsory in schools while "only" 45% wanting it to be a voluntary subject. what i would like to understand is the need for such a program in the first place :P do programs like these hold any water when basic demand for seclusion and exclusivity glare at you in the face?

eh?

Naa Peru Bond... James Bond (My name is Bond, James Bond)

yup, good 'ol double-o-seven gets the vernacular tongue :) personally i couldnt care less about the tongue he speaks... what tickles the funny bone is how these news channels target it...

casino royale hits theatres in andhra dubbed in telugu (well before the english version makes its way there)... so our news reporter gets first hand reviews from our telugu speaking fraternity as they step out of movie halls. the audience is only too glad to pitch in and tell us how good it is to hear bondgaru... ironically, audience responds in er... english :)

of cabs and AC coaches...

it was one of those futile attempts at traveling light. grossly futile one must say... what with one that warranted me to hail a cab to get me to the city station.

well, here i was waiting for my 10:15 cab and as soon as i notice the vehicle at my doorstep, out i jump and board it. "ramesh sir? central station?" - me says, "not ramesh. central station, yes." and off we go. for a place like chennai, i was mighty impressed by this chap's punctuality! now these cab guys need to keep informing their control room of their pickups and drops... so while our man kept bellowing into his wireless "saar 411, on drip! number 411, on drip!" (took me a while to realise he meant we were on our trip!) though all we heard was the control room howling into the radio set that his customer was pretty pissed that he wasnt picked up... about 20mins into our trip i get a frantic call informing me that the chap on the other end was at my residence waiting to pick me up... now what are the chances that two individuals call the same cab service, from the same area, at the same time and head to the same destination? :)

that settled, i finally make it to chennai central. i must also add this trip truly deserved being labeled unusual. its not always i book my tickets in 3rd AC, but the times i do, my co-passengers ensure am not left unamused :) we always have a crowd that has this glaring misconception that as one shells out that extra money for that extra bit of comfort, one is obligated to talk in english - which may well be a verbatim translation of one's native tongue. in steps our protagonist huffing and puffing the hot madras air...

bloke: (looks up at the coach ceiling) "AC ij not on?"
lady: (not to be left behind) "it has just been on-ed. it will take some time to get cold."

mind you, we are in an AC compartment. boasting expensive gadgetry is second nature. so out comes our bloke's cellphone. now it is imperative he lets us know it can play songs and more than proves it to us with his hits of kumar sanu...! i had to burst that bubble - my ego was being called names here! so out come my iPod and PDA phone... there! :P and as the journey proceeds into the night, its time for all to hit the sack... we have the best saved for last...

bloke: uich ij your borth?
lady: (pointing at two of them) thich and thich

happy diwali

a long overdue post. but looks like things have reduced to but monthly entries. wanted to put in something about the Diwali celebrations (if one may call it that) here in the US. got a glimpse of it in pretty much 'desi' San Jose. was rather curious to find out how junta here observe the fest of lights. would there be crackers? fireworks?

well, there was nothing of that sort. v in raleigh mentioned a community celebration at a local park where the indian community organised more like a fair. fireworks? nope. stalls with goodies to eat. why no crackers here? well, i guess they are allowed only on the 4th of july. fire trucks take positions before the crackers.

did something i hadnt done ever before in my life. something that would make folks happy. went to two (not one but two) temples on Diwali! well, the first one (in sunnyvale) was more of an aberration to the definition. looked more like a garage or warehouse converted into a make-shift holy dwelling. seemed like every conceivable Hindu deity was brought together and cramped under one roof. immensely sacred or claustrophobic, i couldnt gather. arrangements and puja seeming more of a matter of convenience than anything else. took a while for the girl to realise that the holy water is given first and then the prasadam. yup, thats the purist in me talking. then again, its also common sense. giving them the benefit of doubt, probably they are doing the best they can.




off to livermore - and i was in for a pleasant surprise. shiva-vishnu temple, supposed to be quite popular, and a comforting sight too. place to wash your hands and feet before you enter, elegantly attired priests, sricharanam et al, the calming smell of incense/camphor all around. felt at home. the place did keep pace with the times. brochures and banners replaced by snazzy LCD screens. tirupatiesque laddoos at $5 a piece. irresistable :) and this one just couldnt escape my eye... archana tickets starting $51... was used to seeing Rs. 51 onwards... are desis in US rich enough to shell out $51 per archana!? no wonder this place looked all decked up! dwarfs the sunnyvale experience hands down.

but a pleasant place this. leavng me with happy thoughts :) an hour and a half long drive each way, well worth the effort! happy diwali to everybody and a great year ahead :)

egad!

you try not to notice these things... but its difficult...

1. no matter who you are... if you look anything close to an indian, a gujju will always talk to you in gujarati. you may respond in anything but gujarati, but it doesnt matter. you get more questions in gujarati. switch to guestures. only to realize how pathetic you are in dumb-sharades. you are now facing a barage of questions in gujju...

2. business centre at singapore airport transit lounge i try to kill precious time. and the type of links i find in IE history... http://www.amishapatel.com... granted some poor bloke must be one helluva die hard fan, but this one's a killer. http://www.oriyamatrimonials.com...! now here's one desparate suitor who wants to make best his/her transit time!!

tarla dalal, make way

now mom worries sick about me falling sick thanks to my reliance on company mess and the neighbourhood restaurant. it were the food bills that had me worried sick. potent reason to get down to the basics and take charge in your hands.

lets start from the beginning. get yourself a gas connection. theres an energy crisis it looks like; no new connections are doled out anymore. am ready to pay i say, "no saar. ille." hmm. should i buy a microwave now? naah... too much of an investment. hey! theres that electric rice cooker lying at home, that should do some good :) so off i go home & pick it up with fantasies of penning down the next cookbook bestseller. tarla dalal, make way.

so i arm the kitchen with MTR pulliogare (just add rice!) powder, lemon rice paste, pulao powder, veggies, the works... er dude... pulao works differently am told. it needs the cashews to be sauted, onions to be shallow fried... it wont work in a rice cooker. why? thats the pulao you normally know. have you tried without the rigmarole? the truth is, am already kicking myself for picking up this stuff. but; theres always a first time for everything. then again, am reminded of the immensely learned Sir Humphreys... "you should always do new things, but never for the first time"...

all said and done, it was an experiment i wanted to indulge myself in. measured the rice, chopped the veggies, laid out the spices (read: OTC masala powder.) felt like the druid with the cauldron. yeah, post menhir crash. knife for sickle, veggies for herbs. i had my roman soldier marked out too. good friend & roomie c. "oooo! this is so much funnnn!" and in they all went piece by piece into the pot... and look for the plug. ah! its all there in the kitchen itself! now why doesnt this damn switch come on? wont budge come what may. ooo... the switch's stuck with grime. damn the previous tenant! hmm... need another plug... now you know why one shouldnt watch TV while cooking!? and aglow came the lamp... impatiently looking at the clock as the minutes tickted by, me fuming and fretting in sync with the lid. and finally... thack! there. its all ready. but the roman had already hit the bed.

it was necessary for him to wake up. as noted earlier, it was c's turn to taste it first. not that his verdict mattered much, i wanted to see if he changed colours and started flying. he did neither. life is boring i tell you. soon out of a slumber, he's a man of limited vocabulary - no salt. ah! well now, where did i put that lump of white powder? nowhere. it was still in the container. out you come... pulverized and sprinkled all over... there! tarla dalal, make way.

now this being a family space, i'll spare you the gory details. day two was just as uneventful. only this time i had to look for the lump of masala. strangely enough, the onions i had put in seemed to have disappeared while inside the cooker. not a trace of them roots! c still doesnt fly. i think rice was too pasty and made him heavy. next time, lesser water. tarla dalal, make way.

day three, c isnt sleepy, wide awake. i ask his choice. home food or eat out? boss, am feeling healthy today... lets eat out.

culture police

sometimes i wonder if i just go around asking for it! it was a delayed decision to make a weekend trip to b'lore. after much dilly-dallying about taking the following monday off and make it a real nice vacation :) but decided against it and stuck to the plain-vanilla weekend trip.

i certainly seem to be in a minority 'cos there was no dearth of tickets to get back here on a monday morning. the problem however lay in reaching b'lore. for someone like me, who is always quite kicked about online bookings, it was overwhelming to find a private tour operator offer such an option!

now this travel operator's site gives you a lot of options... but considering my timing, wasnt left with much. so here i was, looking at a volvo service with just 1 seat to go. gleefuly i decide to go ahead with the booking only to be shown a message that i wasnt eligible for the said seat. the reason? the seat adjacent to the lone one i chose was taken by a female passenger!! wow!

frankly, am at a loss for words here... not that i was overly joyous with the thought of having female company for the trip... it is imperative that i must remind the reader here that i do not abhor female company. not the least! but its the other way round that disturbs me. then again, my past observations of female transit on the b'lore-chennai route certainly makes me not look forward to such company. takes me to the one-liner "99% of the women in this world are beautiful, the rest travel b'lore-chennai"...!! grrr..

but i am deviating from the point here. my angst was about not being given that ticket... it merely reflects the kind of "culture" found in this part of the country. custodians of culture and tradition is what they like to think of themselves. somehow they need to convince me of the culture they are protecting when their very backyard is one overworked sleaze factory.... does it unsettle them that this little secret of theirs is out in the open?

oh btw, they allow a female to sit next to a seat occupied by a male... funny.

rude? frenetic?

this thought was triggered by an article about chennai being a rude city. the summary said "the frenetic pace of city life" and it spoke of chennai. i couldn't read any further. i had to sit up and take notice of the "frenetic pace."

it wasnt about the etiquette of the city. i fully accept and expect the average tam in chennai to be rude. fortunately all my tam friends here are above-average :-) (devil, i can see your horns grow) :-) for someone coming here from mumbai, i've been groping on chennai's arm to feel its pulse. from the walk on the roads to the service in restaurants/stores. the whole place seems to be moving at 6fps.

one ought to be more considerate though. you do find pace here. but one also needs guts to look for it. try the roads for a change. its a dragrace against the lights. and doesnt matter if you are on the left side of the road. on-coming traffic is legal. after all, its the frenetic pace one has in this city... who has the time to go around and take a 'U' turn? and yeah, it wasnt a cycle coming my way, it was a rick :-)

car pool

i have gradually come to the conclusion that people in bangalore have too much money. do i hear a few "duh!"s here? no its not a long overdue divine revelation. more of an empirical observation...:p

this certainly seems true for those headed towards the IT oases. and rather striking in the traffic strongholds of k r puram, marathahalli, airport road, hosur road... find them flooded with bumper to bumper altos, zens and santros. not to forget the thousands of yellow board sumos and indicas (indicae!? :D) (tata motors is surely laughing its way to the bank!) but forget the taxis here, lets look at the altos, zens and santros. each can hold upto 4 in cosy comfort. why dont they car-pool!?

but no. they insist on getting their own rs.3-4lac vehicles, pay about 53 bucks a litre and spend hours cussing at the bumper ahead... what a pleasant way to start/end your day at work! i was aware of paying for your entertainment, but you also pay to screw your mood? as if a day at work wasnt enough to do the honours!

they all come up with excuses that they are forced to match their timings with the others... given a normal working day, how difficult is that? and bring in some urgency and emergencies and you always have a cab/rick to do handle them. would you still not end up saving time/money? dunno... please let me know if i have a flawed reasoning here... oh yes... money wastage was never a concern here :D

for those wondering how i manage... well, i use a private bus along with 25 others. and my paycheck doesnt give me the luxury of investing in a car... not on bangalore's roads for sure!

free?

this one qualified to shake me from my innards. ad in b'lore times by VLCC for its weightloss and slimming facilities sported this tagline with a fair bit of ease... "Pay Rs. 5000 and get treatment worth Rs. 5000 for free."

huh?

world animals day?

yesterday was World Environment Day. Find lotsa plants in the office - resembles a rain forest...

colleague 1: is there a world animals day too?
colleague 2: thats everyday.... this section is the carnivores... that one has the omnivores....

mod god

neighbourhood Annamma* temple devotees are demonstrating their love, respect, devoution, you know... the works. the temple it seems, isnt enough, so they bring it out onto the streets. which means closing the road for traffic, rerouting buses, etc. geez! you actually use the bus!? you can do without it for a day. awww... come on now! stop cribbing.

the lanes, by-lanes and just about any path that leads to that place sports loudspeakers. you really need to pump up the volume. after all, heaven is way up there & the gods are a bit hard of hearing. saar, its all part of the festivities saar! reminiscent of the days in mumbai when prayers to Ganesha included "tu cheez badi hai mast"... guess the slokas, mantras & bhajans could get a bit monotonous eh? the gods need some entertainment too. yo baby!

but gulshan kumar came to the rescue pretty early in the scene and a local influence is not far away. a kannada rendition on the tune of "babuji zara dheere chalo" is the perfect crowd puller. did somebody say belief and devotion was all that one need to have? dude! get a life!

noise pollution is it? call the 'for-your-service-and-protection' police station and here's what you get... "saar, protest against this, you for sure would get beaten up, even we wouldnt be spared! forget it saar..." i am all for the hafta system now.

gen-prev raised a toast when bangalore clamped the 11:30pm deadline on pubs & discs.... he he heee.... what goes around, comes around :) praise the lord! cheers :)


* an incarnation of Devi

annavaru

this is not an obituary, neither a eulogy about the humble soul. its about what people made of his departure.

never did one realise that someone's death could be so scary, and ironically, bring you close to your own. it was an inflamability test for just about anything they could lay their hands on. he was buried but bangalore burned.

they mourned, they say. and insisted that others were ordained to do the same. it didnt matter if he meant nothing to the others, it was made sure they felt bad he wasnt anymore.

like a scene out of moses, it was the passover of the plague. anything that carried his picture survived. the rest had a gravestone ready in its name. the mob didnt realise the joke was on them. companies closed early and carried annavaru with them. they thought it was in respect for their star.

they took a cue from mumbai, where they couldnt care less before bringing down a hospital for their leader didnt survive an accident. not that they repented it later. the law there learnt and wised up though. only, their counterparts here dont like to learn from others' mistakes. they like their name in blood. be it at the cost of being sitting ducks as they get pelted by a mob.

sorry, i forgot. thats how funerals happen here. you know, just like that da. adjust maadi.

office conversations #2

colleague 1: you know this DJ, he scratches...
me thinks: i say, he ought to visit a dermatologist!


c. 2 to c. 3: i am told your cubicles are gonna be named after cartoons.... (pause).... i mean the meeting rooms are....

bon appetite!

on the billboard of a restaurant (forget the name)...

man giving that look of home-sickness or the sick-of-home-look.

caption only underscores the confusion...

"paali, it tastes like your cooking!"

aa bail mujhe...

garden city. thats what its called. but its time for a new name. something that speaks of the accidents here? it's so common, one would hardly raise a brow to it. auto companies could use these roads for their crash tests. read an article sometime back that b'lore manages the 2nd highest number of road accidents in india, following delhi.

the two months that i've been here, seen 2, witnessed one and was almost part of 2. but i was nestled safely in a cab... those on the receiving end were bikers. as my cousin retorts... need not worry. with the pace of the traffic, you cannot go fast enough to hurt yourself! a minor brush here & there, thats all.

it seems delhi has some 27k kms of road & manages some 1000+ collisions in a year. b'lore meanwhile with 4.5k kms of road does approx 750. that in fact makes me wonder about delhi... with 27k kms of road, do those buggers go around asking for a bump!?