When you say "My life stinks" - 4-a

Accident with mathematics

It was Saturday, albeit an unusual one in that, I decided not be at my office to accompany the deserted cubicles. I decided to visit my uncle's family. His is a ?ollywood family. Four members, energetic dad, caring mom, elder daughter who defines the words "cute" and "sweet" and a younger son who cares more about defining "naughty" and "mischievous".

My uncle is a thinker! He has a take on almost everything. He has questions, often unanswerable if you are not allowed to guess. He also discovers facts that a normal man probably wouldn't. He has an excellent feel for "landmark-dates" in the past. Wedding anniversaries? No problem! Who died in the family, when and before who? Piece of cake! He remembers almost everyone's birthdays of course! Hence he is very good at finding out the age of anyone among our relatives.

"You are 27 now right?" This is how it started on the saturday!
"Yea!", I said.
"Age 28 is unique for you because, next year you will celebrate your birthday on the exact same day of the week, that you were born!"
I started calculating..when he interrupted!.

"If you observe holidays year after year, if Diwali falls on a monday this year, it will fall on a tuesday next year. But if it is a leap year, it will fall on a wednesday. So, if you add one for every year after 28 years you would add 28 days! Now in 28 years there are 7 leap years! So, 28+7=35 and 35 is divisible by 7!"

I said "Coooooooool!"

His eyes lit up when he said, "Its simple LCM!" and smiled!

My aunt, busy preparing the day's breakfast and hence oblivious to our discoveries, called out from the kitchen. "Do you hear me? The cooking gas is empty!

Can you please replace it?" He got up and pulled the new gas cylinder into the kitchen. I followed him into the kitchen for no apparent reason. I was looking for more. As he worked on replacing the cylinder, he seemed to be thoughtful and run out of things to say!

After a few minutes emerged out of his thoughts and said "We have been talking about mathematics and incidentally, today is December 22, 2007 and Sarvajit year according to the Tamil Calender. Do you know what is special today?"

I blurted out foolishly, "Tsunami in 2002?"

"That was on December 26. Remember? It was boxing day test match between Sri Lanka and Australia and Sri Lankan team came back. So no your answer is not correct!" He smiled again.

"Tamil Calender has a 60 year cycle. As I said earlier, this is Sarvajit year. So was 1947 (60 yrs ago), the year we got independence. And today in 1887 (120 yrs ago), a sarvajit year again, the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan was born! Incidentally we are talking about mathematics!".

Then he called out to my aunt. "I have fixed it!"

When you say "My life stinks" - 3-b

Gaza: Children of conflict - 2

When you say "My life stinks" - 3-a

Gaza : Children of Conflict - I

A lesson learnt - I

I was standing by the roadside waiting for my roomie to show up so that we can go to work together. The road was getting ready for another day's traffic congestion as the city was just starting to get to work along with me.

At time, there I spotted one man on a dilapidated Kinetic Honda in a plain sky-blue track suit distinctly out of place in that crowd. Just as he passed me his pocket promptly dropped his wallet. Before I could wave to him, he was gone.

Two bikers behind riding right him both typically anxious to get to work, stopped nevertheless and started exploring his wallet. I approached them to ensure that they are looking for an address rather than money (not that there was any in it!). After some futile attempts, they finally spotted a bunch of Business cards that carried "Satish Gupta: Global Needs". They matched it with a confidential pin-number intimation letter addressed to the same name, that was also in his wallet.

I started punched his number and informed that he has almost lost his all. As he was riding back I was basked in self-congratulatory mood telling myself "See, that is such a nice guy I am :)".

Within minutes the blue martian with a graying mustache was standing in front of me. "Thank you sir, I was told by another rider that I dropped my wallet. I was on my way, but didn't hope to find it". ...... Then his voice went mute as something stuck me. I started investigating my wallet even as the blue martian's face posted a question mark that constantly grew up in size.

After sometime I looked up and said. "Its good that you had your business card. I don't have one in my wallet." I fortunately had an untidy one in my bag which I wouldn't give to anybody. As I inserted it in to a groove in my wallet, I told him "A lesson learnt"

When you say "My life stinks" - 2

Darfur

When you say "My life stinks" - 1

This is a new series of videos that highlight or (is it lowlight) the plight of the people affected by conflict in different parts of the world. Hopefully this will put us in the place on a global perspective and remind us how much better our lives are the next time we say "My life stinks!"

Starting with Srilanka

Twin temples of Chennai

After what seems to be a long time, I went back to Chennai for a one-week-break for the naming ceremony of my new nephew which fell close on the heels of Deepavali celebrations. Being a bachelor in a family gathering has little advantages. With no wife to look after, I became the most reliable person to handle all the emergency needs. That's to eulogize things. To paint a more realistic picture, I was footballed around for almost any and every need of the hour. Chennai weather, in november was no less hostile. But hey, for once I was actually useful. And not everything worked against me. In one instance of the shopping spree, I went to Parry's Corner with my dad where I bumped into the twin-temples of Chenna Malleeswarar and Chenna kesava temples!

So, the story so far turns out to be "I left the twin-cities for a twin-occasion and got to visit a twin-temple." Hmm, how often do you get that combo??

Built in the early 1640's, this temple is said the first temple built after the settlement of the English East India Company in India. The current Pagoda (the gopuram) is actually a replacement (built around a century later) of an earlier one which was brought down in order to expand Fort St. George.

This a much younger temple vis-a-vis the other temples within the city limits of the present day Chennai (Parthasarathy temple, Triplicane, Kapaleeswarar temple, Mylapore and Marundeeswarar temple, Tiruvanmiyur) which are built around 10th century AD). Neverthless, this temple seems to be no less coveted than other temples in its unique features.

- This temple is a coeval of the Chennai city itself!
- The only twin-temple in Chennai that is dedicated to Lord Shiva as well as Lord Vishnu!
- The name of the city owes is a copyright of this temple!
- Probably the only temple in chennai (if not TN) to have a carving of the person was instrumental in its construction

I entered the temple right about the time it was to be closed in the afternoon. So, I could get only a quick look at around the temple. Here is what I could quickly note and gather.

Moolavar: Channa keshava perumal with Sridevi and Bhoodevi Thayar. (no points for guessing)
Utsavar: Shanta Nrusimhar, a representative of the temple with the same incarnation as moolavar in Tiruneermalai, a locality at the outskirts of Chennai. (I wonder what is the Utsavar @ Tiruneermalai! :) )

- A good painting of Lord Vishnu marrying SriDevi under the auspices of Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma, on the ceiling of the temple's gopuram (I guarantee you, about 1% of the visitors would have really thought about looking straihgt up, let alone admire the painting!).

- The usual sannidhis for SriDevi, Bhoodevi, Chakkaratazhvar, Kothandaramar, and all the Alwars who conjured up the Bhakti Movement.

- Pillar sculptures represented the ten reincarnations of Lord Vishnu and various flagship scenes of Krishna avatar (reincarnation) like Kalinga Nardanam (Krishna's dance on the head of a 10-headed Cobra).

The surprise element of the temple - Two pillars of the temple premises had the sculpture of Andal Nachiyar - The only female alwar and believed to be the reincarnation of Goddess SriDevi.

What is so surprising about it? Well, the sculptures depicted her *naked*!

I had to step a bit closer to double check (It was really embarrassing. Trust me!). But it was unmistakable, the trademark parrot on her right hand and the trademark standing posture!

I am not surprised at the naked depiction in general. I have seen sculptures explicitly depicting various postures of sexual intercourse on the main Gopuram of Sri Govindaraja Perumal temple in Tirupati. But those were anonymous and didn't represent any revered God or Godess. I have also seen topless sculptures of Goddess Lakshmi that are quite common. But this is the first time I am seeing a revered Goddess (Sridevi) depicted totally nude!

References:
The Hindu : Metro Plus Chennai / Columns : An end and a beginning
Chennai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Corporation of Chennai

Templenet - The Comprehensive Indian Temple website

Celebrating Gandhi

"I shall work for an India in which the poorest shall feel that it is their country, in whose making they have an effective voice, an India in which there shall be no high class and low class of people; an India in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony. There can be no room in such an India for the curse of untouchability, or the curse of intoxicating drinks and drugs. Women will enjoy the same rights as men. We shall be at peace with all the rest of the world. This is the India of my dreams"

This is the Gandhian Pledge that the Prime Minister of India took on Oct. Sixty years after Independence and we are still pledging. Take a look at his dreams. We have got started on, forget about achieving, NONE of them. Why kid ourselves when we care the least about what he said?

We have to be honest to accept that

1. we know very less about Gandhian ideals and hence lose the right to fallaciously admire him or judge him
2. even a great man like Gandhi cannot be correct in *all* his ideals and *all* his ideals need not apply transcending time.

So, if we are interested in celebrating his birthday, we have to read about him. Read about his ideals at least to the point that we find at least one of his ideals that we disagree with. And we find at least one of his ideals which we feel will not be applicable to the present day.

Now that would be an honest celebration of his greatness on his birthday. At least better than the false idol worship we indulge in. What do you say?

Celebrating Gandhi

"I shall work for an India in which the poorest shall feel that it is
their country, in whose making they have an effective voice, an India
in which there shall be no high class and low class of people; an India
in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony. There can be no
room in such an India for the curse of untouchability, or the curse of
intoxicating drinks and drugs. Women will enjoy the same rights as men.
We shall be at peace with all the rest of the world. This is the India
of my dreams"

This is the Gandhian Pledge that the Prime Minister of India took on Oct. Sixty years after Independence and we are still pledging. Take a look at his dreams. We have got started on, forget about achieving, NONE of them. Why kid ourselves when we care the least about what he said?

We have to be honest to accept that

1. we know very less about Gandhian ideals and hence lose the right to fallaciously admire him or judge him
2. even a great man like Gandhi cannot be correct in *all* his ideals and *all* his ideals need not apply transcending time.

So, if we are interested in celebrating his birthday, we have to read about him. Read about his ideals at least to the point that we find at least one of his ideals that we disagree with. And we find at least one of his ideals which we feel will not be applicable to the present day.

Now that would be an honest celebration of his greatness on his birthday. At least better than the false idol worship we indulge in. What do you say?

Quota: Centre gets it right in the ass!

New report:

"Inclusion of a caste in the list would mean that it was previously socially advanced and did not figure among the backward class communities. But with time, their social status deteriorated and they had to be included in the list. This means more and more castes are getting backward as there are only inclusions and none being excluded from the list," it said.

Vahanvati said as per the procedure before NCBC, a caste could be excluded from the list only if someone filed a complaint alleging that a caste had become socially advanced. "No petitions have been filed seeking exclusion of any caste," he said.

The Bench replied, "Merely because there is no complaint, NCBC cannot abdicate its duty to conducta periodic review of the social status of castes included in the backward list."

Referring to the swelling number of castes in the backward list, the Bench said, "This means for 60 years, people who were disadvantaged continue to be backward. If this is so, then what is the meaning of the arrangements for social advancement of backward community for all these years?"

Times of India, 26 Sep 2007,

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Why_is_no_group_ever_excluded_from_quota_SC/articleshow/2402984.cms

This reminds me of Kevin Verbal Kent's (Kevin Spacey) narration in the movie "The Usual Suspects" about how he felt when he along with his "usual suspects" busted The New York police's involvement drug racket.

"They got it right in the ass. It was beautiful"

So is the message "Sunita achievied despite a being of Gujarati origin"?

...so, the news tells me that Sunita Williams is a celebrity in India! She has won the Prestigious Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vishwa Pratibha Award. Great! But before we talk about it any further, a brief life history of this successful astronaut.

Born: Euclid, Ohio
Father: Dr. Deepak Pandya, Indian
Mother:Bonnie Pandya, Slovenian
Education:

• Needham High School, Needham, Massachusetts, 1983.
• B.S., Physical Science, U.S. Naval Academy"U.S. Naval Academy, 1987.
• M.S., Engineering Management, Florida Institute of Technology, 1995

Marital Status: Married to Michael J. Williams, a Federal Police Officer
Occupation: Commander, US, Navy
Recent Achievements:

- Unprecedented 3 spacewalks in 9 days
- Cumulative total of 29 hours, 17 minutes in four spacewalks, highest spacewalk time for a woman.

Now these sure seem to be commendable achievements. But to put things into perspective, as the Vishwa Gujarati Samaj (VGS) claims this award is conferred "to well-known Gujaratis recognizing their lifelong services/contribution to the cause of Gujarat".

If the point is to recognize people who have served Gujarat, where does Sunita William's marathon fit in? Or if it is to recognizes her achievements, why was it not given to the person who has achieved the same feet earlier? Because she is not a Gujarati? From what I see, the only thing that connects Sunita to Gujarat is her father who was a practicing doctor there before moving to the US and she owes the plaudits and accolade not to her perseverence, but to her father.

For our own sake, why don't we refrain from quoting one's origin (place or community) as a reason for conferring an accolade to someone? It appears to send a specious message to the world, "Sunita could break the space walking record despite being a Gujarati." Would you like that tag on you Sunita?

Sources: Wikipedia

Tribute to a soul that entered and departed 100 years ahead of its time

மஹாகவி சுப்ரமணிய பாரதியார்
டிசம்பர் 11, 1882 - செப்டம்பர் 11, 1921

"Mahakavi" Subramania Bharathiyar
December 11, 1882 - september 11, 1921

'மாதர் தம்மை இழிவு செய்யும்

மடமையை கொளுத்துவோம்'

We will destroy the idiocy
Of denigrating womanhood

நெஞ்சு பொறுக்குதில்லையே - இந்த
நிலைகெட்ட மனிதரை நினைந்துவிட்டால்

"கொஞ்சமோ பிரிவினைகள் - ஒரு
கோடியென் றாலது பெரிதாமோ ?

'My blood boils to think of these idiotic men!
How many divisions within us, they are more than a crore!…'

Tribute to a soul that entered and departed 100 years ahead of its time

மஹாகவி சுப்ரமணிய பாரதியார்
டிசம்பர் 11, 1882 - செப்டம்பர் 11, 1921

"Mahakavi" Subramania Bharathiyar
December 11, 1882 - september 11, 1921

'மாதர் தம்மை இழிவு செய்யும்

மடமையை கொளுத்துவோம்'

We will destroy the idiocy
Of denigrating womanhood

நெஞ்சு பொறுக்குதில்லையே - இந்த
நிலைகெட்ட மனிதரை நினைந்துவிட்டால்

"கொஞ்சமோ பிரிவினைகள் - ஒரு
கோடியென் றாலது பெரிதாமோ ?

'My blood boils to think of these idiotic men!
How many divisions within us, they are more than a crore!…'

Run

Life is a rat race. From the time our minds matured enough to distinguish between our mom from others we have been running. Some times behind a bus, sometimes a teacher or sometimes the manager. But we have been running to ensure that we are not left behind.

Interspersed in this never-ending struggle to stay afloat are momentary respites during which we walk back to the "good old days" when life was easy. But hey, haven't we been running all our life? Where did these "good old days" infiltrate from into our past?

Delving into my past I find that such nostalgic memories don't really constitute days that start with a morning filter coffee and end with a "sweet dreams" kiss on the forehead. Instead they are transient moments of memorable joy or just another respite in which we stopped running and life didn't speed backwards! Be whatever it may, they replenish our tired mind with enough energy to get up and start running again. Yet, as we keep running we always manage to let these magical moments zip past us from the uncertain future directly into the nostalgic past.

May be we should use the next break to evolve a strategy to catch the past as it happens. It may so happen that we are just running behind "good old days" instead of a bus. But hey, is the situation any better now?

...and there is this!

..................

Throw up!

I remember the last time I had to throw up an undigested potato patty half-way through my work-out at the gym. I felt that I was going to remove my food-pipe the same way I remove my socks. I couldn't eat or drink anything for the next two or three hours. But there are creatures on this earth for whom its all in the day's work!

Postcard from Singapore

I am in Singapore on a business assignment, sitting in our 31st floor office that is really an enclosed balcony (with 30 floors of nothing right under the floor) that overlooks the confluence of the North Pacific and the Indian Ocean.


My short observations of the place.
- British style right-hand drive, to the left-side of the road
- Lush green vegetation everywhere, along side the roads.
- Chinese, chinese and more chinese. Restaurants, cafes are all chinese (people and cuisines). Burger King, ice-creams and baked breads have kept me alive here.
- Tamil letters "சிங்கப்பூர்" in the currency and coins are all that is Tamil that I have seen so far. Few Indians, but no Tamils!
- Disciplined people. Example? I have about 12 students (3 malaysians) in my class. Every day people walked in almost on time. When they wanted to have water, they picked up styroform cup. But as against condemning them to the dust-bin after first use, neatly wrote their names on them and used them for water all day! Impressive.
- Some similarity in their gestures to that of Indians. When they wanted to express "how did you make such a stupid mistake" they hit their fore-head (which I thought till date was an Indian copyright!)
- Most Girls prefer higher-than-knee skirts, and healed footwear. Few of them wear short. Evenings are dominated by shoooooort shorts. Very few jeans, and very few sneekers. Guys....well who cares!
- Indians...they don't change anywhere they go. I went to an authorised money changer (who is an Indian) and exchange USD 50 to get singapore $75 . He just gave me the cash and walked away without bothering a transaction receipt. I asked for it and in a typical Indian style he typed a "50 X 1.5 = 75" in a plain low-quality paper, as if I can't do the math. I clarified him "In case you don't know, a receipt is some thing that has at least an address on it!". He said "You will such receipts in Mustafa! Not in small places like this". I pointed him to the Cash transaction receipt book that was lying right in front of both of us and said with a glower "What is that then? Look, if you are not giving me the receipt, I will get the money changed somewhere else". He looked at me with a "Shit! Busted!" expression and gave me the receipt.

(Don't try to come up with a nationalistic "What makes you think that Singaporeans are better?" How does it matter to me?)

I have pictures, but left my USB back home in India! A typical me!

Eight

Tagged by Ranit (no not that one-eyed king, stupid) and the concept it 8. So, here it goes

An abstract one to start with!

1. I have completed about 21 years of education, but have just started learning about learning!

2. I am perceived to be a cheerful fellow, equally by guys and girls, but have never had (and likely will never have) a girl friend! I am not sure if that is an achievement or a misfortune!

3. Inspite of my share of failures in life, I consider myself luckier than about 80% of people in the world. Why?
- Never had any bad ailments or disability, temporary or permanent, nor got hospitalized for any reason whatsoever. As a "touch wood", here is another fact. I was bitten by dog.....twice!
- I have an enviable gang of friends (in the truest sense of its meaning) who have helped me in need (and this is not cliche)
- Parents, brother, sister...no complaints there (I wish I had a sibling) either!

Bottom line, I have enough of every thing one needs!

4. I have a lot of things that I fear, but end up gathering the strength to face the music. Whether I have won or not is another matter.

5. Inspite of my reasonable command over the English language, my reading speed is abysmal.

6. I can read Japanese, but my reading speed is (Eng. WPM) / 100000

7. Unlike an average Indian, my contribution to the society doesn't stop with paying taxes. But I have never voted.

8. Unlike an average engineering graduate, I *hate* the days of my undergraduate engineering. That is one things I would wish to change if I can go back in time.

Tagging...
Driver: Anonymous
Maaya: Cousin
Srinivas: Dost
Ponnarasi: Fellow Blogger
Anand: Dost
DNA: Anonymous
Sriram: Dost
Subha: Invite with fingers crossed!

Rules of the game :
- Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
-At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
- If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes :)

Thank god!

Hanuman can grow or shrink in size as per his wish! Cool!
Strangely, So can his weapon.
Evidently, so can his clothes!
Thank god! :)

Need of the hour

I have heard some time in the past, not exactly in the same words, that

"The more you learn, the more you realize about how less you know."

I cannot agree more. Based on a quick introspection, I have listed for myself six traits that I need no later than NOW. I have identified a lot of "traits" that I have to do away with, but a little rumination told me that those "traits" are only the offshoot of the paucity/absence of one or more of the elements of the list.



This list leaves me wondering "What do I have now, if I don't have any of these?". But the first element of the list proscribes such a thought! :)



1. Positive outlook

2. Meticulous planning

3. Relentless pursuit

4. Discipline

5. Application

6. Time management



Tagging...

Driver

Maayaa

Srinvas

Ponnarasi

Calling for answers

Source: Artswithoutborders.com

This is an "infamous" M.F. Hussain painting's The question I have is simple and straight.

"Why is Sita naked here?"

I can possibly find a fairly simple and straight explanation for Hanuman's nakedness. He is a monkey. He is great, strong, cool, adorable and admirable monkey. Clothing him up may be just euphemism on our part. But I don't understand Sita's nakedness.

I made a quick, short search and was flooded with opinions tangential to my question.. like "freedom of expression" and "naked goddesses in Hindu temples" and "nakedness implies purity" and all that. So, just gave up. I just want to know the answers, I would hope, from M.F. since he has created this and he is the only one who can come up with the *real* reason. But anybody's direct, unprejudiced view is invited.

Ungrowing: At the frontier of my memory

This is as far down the memory lane I can look. When it comes to evening cricket on a bouncy uneven pitch on a march covered ground, I was unstoppable. Lesser people like my family members could do nothing to keep me from it. They prayed the almighty. They were looking for help at the wrong place! They never realized in all those now nostalgic years that there is one hero who can spin a web around and drag me back home every Sunday at 5:30 PM, no matter where I was. He is your friendly neighbourhood...




(concludes!)

Why women don't like hill stations..

Source: Reader's Digest

Ungrowing - peeling of another layer!

Sundays during higher-secondary were universally spent among Math's test papers, chemistry equations and physics record notebooks. Right at around 5:00PM when I felt like my brain can't take any more variables that I never understand, this "entertainment tonic" used to revitalize me like a spring water does a dried-up throat...and it fit right into my schedule just half-an-hour!. Like a correct-size wallet!

This is one cartoon that I would like to re-visit without treading the mine-field that higher-secondary used to be!

What's Gandhi doing here in Israel?

Un-growing

Un-growing, I believe, is one of the best ways, not only to kill time during night shifts, but also to lose some of the vagaries of growing up. Television, like it did to most of the others I grew up with, screwed up my life too! But somehow it still forms one of the best part of my sweet memories as I take the time machine back to the days of the Black-and-white Solidare TV. And this cartoon clearly was my first love!

Traf**king

SOS...LOL

Family

"I am really amazed at how she has changed. She is so mature now. I am glad I that sent her out for her higher studies. I think that experience changed her for the better!"



It is a well-establised fact that venturing outside instills a lot of value to one's character. When parents see the difference when kids come home after a prolonged absence, they are always delighted. But there is one thing parents more often miss to give a thought about. What is the primary factor that has contributed to the change? The answer, independence, though simple, actually has more questions to explore. Is "the outside" so out of reach it so miserably fails to have an impact on them when kids stay with parents? Why does one have to step in to the outside to learn from it? With correct parental mindset, the answer is "Nothing!".



Sure parents are protective. That is presumably part of the parental DNA. But protection and love are only part of what a parents can offer. It is high time that one more thing gets included in the list to ensure that their kids need not wait to get out to live to make that "jump". Independence. With the observational knowledge I gather that one easy way to nudge kids towards independence is Delegation.



Parents can offload some work on your kid and let him/her handle it. While reducing work-load on themselves, this can offer priceless lessons on soft-skills like team-work, say when siblings work together while helping to clean the kitchen. More crucial point of time is while the correcting errors, when parents tend to "spoon-feed" or "just get it over with". A little patiece and a nudge towards "self-correction" in the form of questions like "What do you think exactly went wrong?"..."and how do you correct it?" should help a great deal in improving reasoning ability".



Small initiatives like giving a larger denomination of money to buy something will help in applying simple, mental mathematics and instill negotiation skills early. Morning newspaper may be a good time to teach how to look-up a dictionary as well as impelling reading, contary to watching TV, as a primary source of entertainment. When dinner time discussions are confined to relevant and progressive subjects and kept on a positive tone, it will be a good source of insight, inspiration and consequently bonding and respect.



Come to think of it, nothing that is mentioned so far is really new or insightful. How come, then, these points go out of the window at the moment of truth? Honestly, I have had a taste of being over-protective and over-reactive with someone I care about. I guess, I will learn the resit only when I step into their shoes. But I guess that is the interesting challenge that parents should acknowledge and rise up to face it.



To conclude, I can recall a plenary of adage that I have known for a while without really understanding their meaning. For now, the list reduces by two..

- நல்லதொரு குடும்பம் பல்கலைக்கழகம்.

(A good family is a university)



- A family that eats together stays together.



Disclaimer: This is not "Parenting for dummies", but a feedback for the oldies.

Dilbert's way of saying...

நாயை அடிப்பானேன், ஆயைச் சுமப்பானேன்?
Why to hit the dog(bert), and why to carry shit?

What a Coconut taught me

I walked by the lane in front of my apartments early during the evening and Coffee Day was inviting me for a cup.

"But come on, you just went to Pizza Hut instead of the much cheaper and not-so-bad quality Arya Tiffins." rebelled my saner side.

Just as I turned away from my temptation I found a cart full of tender coconuts (wo)manned by a lady not older than 30 years. She looked at me with expectation of making some sale.

"Kitna hai?" I enquired.

"Che rupiya, bhaiya!" she said in a subdued voice.

"Ek dejiyae!"

She dexterously sliced the cocunut, inserted the straw and handed it over to me.

"Khaan se aate hai yeh sub?"

"Gaon se bhaiya, Yellore!", she answered with an amused smile, probably glad that some one actually cared to know.

As I started sipping into the sweet nectar, I mentally weighed the worth of a 50-rupee flavoured cappuccino from Coffee Day or, for that matter, a 15-rupee Coke against a 6-rupee tender coconut. The difference in value for money was glaring. There is not a match to the feel-good factor one would get at the realisation of making a right choice!

Little did I realise that more was about to come. Right at that moment, two well-groomed girls with all the typical looks of the middle-class youth riding the wave of IT industry's gift walked by, and took interest at the coconut cart (or I would hope, me!) just as I did minutes ago. After a quick eye-lock with mine, they turned to business!

"kitna hai?", asked one of them

"Che rupiyah"

She considered that for a moment and replied,

"Dus ka Do karke do"

The seller remained mute implying a half-hearted agreement. That got me thinking. This is one instance where people like us who are habitual bargainers "save" some money, without really saving much. If one thinks about it, people especially in our strata of the society squander so much money on totally worthless expenditures for no better reason than because we can afford it. Or worse, even if we can't!

Here is a common example. When we buy Coke or Pepsi, we pay a large portion of the money to cover the beverage company's cost for wooing movie and non-performing cricket stars into advertising their products and buy a diuretic (which makes us lose water) to quench our thirst. Yup, this is what we use our freedom-to-choose for. And do we know to identify the real ones from fake? To get back to the point, we don't even have an option to bargain!

What do I gain from this small episode?

- In general, for our own good, we need to interpret the freedom of choice as "responsibility of choice". That way, we would tend to be more progressive, like, say, knowing that soft drinks are diuretics or to check a fake Coke from the real one.

- Specific to this case, I think the buyer has already saved when she chose a tender coconut over a cappuccino from Coffee Day or Coke. She could have been more philanthropic in just letting that two rupees go.

I felt like treating myself.
"Ek aur Naariyal deejiye!", I said with smile as she looked at me puzzled.

Demographic Dividend

India has a "Demographic Dividend" says the Economic Times

What is Demographic Dividend?
The presence of a large number of citizens in the employable age group (15-59 ). Currently about 54% of them are under 24. But such a large pool is an edge over competing Asian countries (most importantly China) only if they are skilled and hence are capable of contributing to the productivity of the labour work force.

Is the employable age group a "dividend" now?

No!

- 70% of the current labour force is either illiterate or educated below primary levels.
- 5 million college graduates each year are not skilled for direct employment.
- Outdated curriculum in most of the engnieering and other technical (diploma, ITI) educational institutions and poor quality teachers
- Low skill level among women causing increase in unemployment rates among women.

How does it affect to have people of employable age with little to no skills?

It backfires! A large pool of skilled and employable labour means adequate supply in terms of quantity and quality for meeting the rising demand of labour due to expanding economic activities like manufacturing. Large pool of unskilled youth, not only decrease productivity, but also tend to consume without contribution, thus pulling the ends apart rather than converging.

What the government has to do?

Explore all avenues of skill development.

- Massively improve literacy for long-term benefits, identify sectors where currently illeterate can be employed for short-term benefits.
- Improve quality of education (update curriculum etc) at all levels, most importantly at the mid-level - those who complete higher secondary education, but do not enroll for graduate-level courses - by increasing visibility and quality of vocational education. (this initiative helped post war USA and Japan and a lot of asian countries that do better than India today!)

Other interesting points to note:

A figure to corroborate the low skill-level in India compared to other developing countries.

- 5.06% of Indian Youth are single-skilled (vocationally) trained. The number is 95.86% in Korea, 36.08 Mauritius, 27.58 in Mexico.
- BIMARU states, which lack most of the facilities to realise the dividend, will contribute about 150 million (about half) to the population of working age in the next 20 years.

source The Economic Times


- What do I think?
If the governement is serious (and there is no question it isn't), instead of lowering the cut-off and reserve seats in engineering colleges and medical colleges, it can upgrade its vocational courses, make them more accessible to the inner regions of the country and accomodate all those "low-scoring socially-backward" and "low scoring but socially forward" at the mid-level. Afterall these graduate-level courses are over-heated, but offer little to nothing in terms of employable skill. This move will give more importance to vocational courses, reserve the professional courses for the high-scorers, hence shutting down useless colleges and evince skill-development in the true sense.

Simran's ..ummm

All right, I do agree that Simran is the hottest and the only answer South Indian answer to all those hotties of the rest of the world. But it seems something is wrong somewhere! I don't know if it is with the costume designers, dance masters, directors or just the "super-sensible" movie-goers. If you want to know what I mean, take a goooood look at all these pictures!

What's common about them (Apart from Simran herself)? If you answered "Her Belly Button", look again (at the last one!). What makes her arm-pit the such a sought-after commodity? I am sure it stinks as much as mine. Any answers?