As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

-

Seneca

Opening Doors!

Whats with these locked doors all opening miraculously even when tapped gently?

A locked door is a cause of worry. Forcing one to consider all options, even of sleeping over at a friends place for the night in case all efforts go in vain. But once one gets to action, puff!! Its all a cloud of smoke!

I mean whats more formidable than a grill door made of iron? It has iron locks in iron latches. How can one open it possibly? Without the key that is.

But once you actually get down to work, size it up and shake it up a little bit, without much strength, it opens! As if it was all actually a sham, testing you.

Sometimes getting to the door can be a little tricky. Especially when it is not easily accessible. This happens mostly when the door which is accessible should not be broken open. Past skills come in handy in situations like this. A little help from neighnours is always welcome, resourcefulness is an essential quality afterall.

But once you get to the door. A gentle tap, thats all it takes. You touch it, size it up. Maybe give it a friendly thump and boom, it opens.

And life is good again!

Wait by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .
And the Master so gently said, "Wait."

"Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.
"My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.
"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, "Wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"
He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .
and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.
"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.
You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.
"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.
"You'd never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
"The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.
"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.
"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."

How Did You?

Edumund Vance Cooke's poem. Ranjit section's favorite debate speech material!! (And most recently my refuge in the world of ToastMasters :D )

Did you tackle that came your way, with a resolute heart and cheerful?

Or hide your face from the light of day, with a craven soul and fearful!

Oh! A trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce.A trouble is what you make it.

Its not if you are hurt that counts, but only how did you take it.

You are fallen flat on earth?

Well, Well whats that? Its nothing against you to fall down flat!

But to lie there? Thats disgrace! Come up with a smiling face!

Its not whether you are licked that counts, its only how did you fight, and Why?

(Applause!)

Avoiding Trouble.

Be the change. What would you have achieved fifty-sixty years down the line? Living in a fancy house, driving a fancy car in old age?

If one isn't living according to one's values today then one is wasting away one's life. The opportunity cost is simply too high. Its your life. All of it. Living a hundred years with your head bowed down is worse than living for just a moment with your head held high.

So why avoid trouble?

When your conscience tells you, asks you, begs you to intervene; why let the psuedo-prudence prevail?

The world has a knack of brushing away as juvenile anything that is different from the conventional way of thinking. Most great people in history would testify to that.

It boils down to following your gut always. Thats the only voice there is. Everything else is relative.

Book Review : The Ascent of Money

I got hold of The Ascent of Money recently from a friend and as many would already know, it’s a marvelous book. More than anything it shows how a study of the past enables one to understand the present so much better.

The writing is simple and at the same time very educating. Harvard must be a great place to be studying, what with professors like Niall Ferguson.

The book also clarifies an important point about why it is reasonable that bankers or other people in the financial industry make so much money without doing anything real, like say manufacturing.

History is always interesting but what I loved most about the book was the correlation it explained between workings of the financial world and biological evolution. It clarified my beliefs on markets being the ultimate judge of quality of products and companies and best practices.

Excellent read, this one!

New Year!

Well actually its been some time now since the new year arrived. Come to think of it, even Lohri has passed. However, the new year has brought a whole bunch of new things in life.

1. New house.
2. New interviews.
3. New books.
4. New movies.

And all good.

Looks like this one is going to be rather interesting!! :)

Inglourious Basterds

What a movie! Quentin Tarantino has done it again. I saw this movie twice in two days and still haven't had enough. Inglourious Basterds scores on so many fronts that its difficult to pinpoint why you like it so much.

Is it the engrossing and exciting World War 2 setting? Is it the amazing performances by each of the actors? (esp Col Hans Landa) Is it the joy of listening to so many different languages? Is it the funny american accent of Brad Pitt?

I think there are a few things that really stand this movie apart. One, although based on World War 2 it is not a war movie and is also fictional. This allows the director to take the story where he wants and the audience is not disappointed at the end like they were, say in Valkyrie. Second, a robinhood kindof group has always been the favorite of people and when it is fighting one of the most infamous men in history it is al the more popular. Third, a stunningly beautiful french girl courageously plans the death of all the Nazi top-brass. Now we all love beauties especially the ones with the brains, now don't we. :-)

The above strengthen the story line so much that even acerage presentation would have sufficed. Quentin Tarantino doesn't do average. People who have watched Pulp Fiction will vouch for that. The breakneck speed at which the movie progresses and the amazing - amazing scenes (my favorite is the one in the rendezvous restaurant) make this movie a delight to watch.

All in all, IB is an awesome movie. I am sure once will not be enough!

Cheers!

Generation Gap.

Amongst the many Indias living in India today, two are significantly distinct. India of the forty plus people and the younger India. I think this has something to do with how we progressed slowly in the 60s and 70s and also lived in the infamous 'licence raj'. Everything was controlled, regularised and monitored by the government then. We were in awe of the west which had ruled us in the not so distant past.

All this, for the 'new' India is a pre-historic era, about which we read in our history books, shake our heads and wonder how our ancestors lived in such unjust times. Most of us are unable to even imagine a time when a third country ruled India and we were "subjects" of a foriegn queen.

This difference has led to a completely different mindset and a different value system between young people and old. Now, this difference would be prevalent all accross the globe but not as pronounced in most parts as it is in India.

Take, for example, the debate on NDTV today morning about the High Court ruling legalising gay sex. Without exception the young members of the panel were more liberal and supportive of individual choices than the oldies who harped about control and acceptability. The older guys were worried about how the society feels about an issue which I am sure everybody would agree is a very personal one. I'll take a specific example. There was one Mr. Kakkar a former IPS officer on the panel. I was completely taken aback by the rigid and so obviously wrong stand he took while expressing his views and also the comfort level with which he expressed his views amidst strong opposition. Now, I am sure he is a very intelligent man with a lot of experience so he is able to analyse things rationally. Then theres only one explanation for him not being able to open up his mind to the idea of legalising something he has always believed to be wrong, it is the enviornament in which he grew up, that of the 60s and the 70s.

Without exception, the young panelists on any show on T.V are more liberal and individualistic than the older ones who have strong beliefs about society.

I wonder how will it be 30-40 years from now? When we will be the oldies. Will the young people then have a similar perception of us? Will we too over the years have become more rigid and less flexible about issues?

I think not, I hope not.

Criticism

Why do people assume that one has to be better than something to criticize it? I mean, everyone criticizes stuff all the time. A cricketer doesn't bat well. Everybody has an opinion. An actor doesn't act well, once again everybody takes his case. That doesn't mean we are better cricketers or actors than them.

But sometimes people think that one has to be better at something to be able to criticize others for not doing it right. This happens almost always when you correct someone's grammar. They get right back at you by pointing out the comma you missed or the trick spelling you spelled incorrectly.

Why are people so touchy when it comes to the english language?

Self-Confidence

This post is in reminesence of a speech I gave when I was in 6th standard. This was my first stage-experience and I still have the initial paras by heart. The topic was self-confidence, ofcourse. :-)

Self confidence is the real driving force which stirrs up our mental faculties and potentialities to give out the best under all climes and conditions. Without self-confidence a man is like a rolling pawn on the chess-board of life.

Self confidence is nothing concrete but its just a realization which is embeded in our entity. From the fields of inventions and discoveries to the battlefield without self-confidence a man is incapable of achieving any success..

.....

Bad Guys

So who are the bad guys? I mean there's fighting everywhere right? And from what we have learnt since the very outset, good guys and bad guys fight. But is that true really? Guys can be classified as good or bad depending on where we stand. Somebody's good guys are bad for others and vice versa. So all "bad" can be actually good if you change your frame of reference. So all "bad" is actually relative.

That drives one to think, if there is no "bad" in this world in absolute terms why is there so much conflict? Are people fighting for their respective points of view? Or do they, knowing fully well that what they are doing is wrong, continue to do it for some selfish ulterior motive. This question holds at all levels.

Consider nation states for example. A powerful nation often "exploits" a weaker one. Case in point, is the continued exploitation of almost all Latin American countries by the sole super power of time. This exploitation can often take horrific forms in which thousands of people are actually killed. What drives the people at helm of a powerful nation to take these decisions? Can just strategic gain be tonic enough for them to feed to their guilty conscience?

But strategic gain, if at all, is for the entire nation state. Why would people in charge( who are in office only for a short term) take such horrific decisions without them benefiting at all.

Here it would be prudent to explore what "benefits" actually imply. Sometimes we identify a community/society/city or even the country so closely with ourselves that a "gain" for the latter is perceived as a gain for oneself. But the ephemeral-ity of all this is far too evident to each one of us, why then people push themselves to extremes often fighting their own conscience to earn some rewards for the entity they associate themselves with?

I must admit that this line of thought suffers from a bias, that it is too individualistic. Established traditions tell us that civilized humans, in a variety of behavior, do not show absolute individualism at all. This is true for a soldier dying for his country or even a sportsperson risking his limbs for his team. But in a lot of cases doing what is "right" and "good" does not lead you to lose a game or a war. In spite of this, people continue to take very hard decisions for slight gains to entities they are only generally related to.

An example would be the Iraq war. The people who authorized it are not even in power any more. They have gone back to leading normal lives like normal people. But when in office they authorized the killing of thousands of innocent people for some geo-political gain to their country.

This is hard to understand. How do people knowingly do wrong(bad) and convince themselves that they are actually right(good)?

Maybe, its all about the money.

Varun Gandhi.

How stupid can we guys get ?

Imagine you are Varun Gandhi. A perfectly sane individual who has had the privilege of studying in 'elite' institutions and is modern and suave like the rest of us. You see a problem of anonymity in your life, know your surname holds a lot of weight in India and decide to correct the problem.

You call the press, gather a bunch of supporters (mostly paid) and make inflammatory statements. You rake up enough controversy to be mentioned in all the newspapers - most of which criticise you badly - but theres no such thing as bad publicity, now, is there ?

And suddenly everybody knows you. People have opinions about you, most liberal individuals hate you.

This con job is so pathetic, it would have been funny had it not been so sad. Varun Gandhi is actually an election issue in areas of UP and the drama he enacted and is now enacting has people believing firmly for or against him.

This leads one to wonder, how silly can the mass populace get! Why, as indiviudals we all show greater mental acumen but as a whole are susceptible to such tomfoolery? How, as chomsky refers to us as - the great beast - that is public opinion be fooled by such trivialities.

Most argue that max voters are not educated enough or informed enough to be capable of completely rational thought. I strongly disagree. Education or literacy is not a pre-requisite to common sense and we all know that. How then can a Varun Gandhi fool us, and that too repeatedly with other names and faces?

Je pense donc je suis

This phrase is not unknown to any of us. Its ubiquity is cheeky.

Especially in the status messages. Its funny that the french form is slightly lesser known than its latin counterpart 'Cogito ergo sum' or the english translation 'I think, therefore I am'. I say its funny because Discartes (the author) wrote this originally in french for the lay people. He usually wrote in latin, but the work which contains this part was written in french to keep it nearer to the masses. The lay people now remember the latin part more. Funny how things turn out.

Anyways, was reading some Descartes lately and found out more about this phrase. The author is trying to build a model for philosphy as it exists for mathematics. He wants to be able to reach to a truth the way mathematicians reach to a conclusion. He wants to build a process for this. He calls this process meditation.

It begins with rejecting all ideas, thoughts etc which are even slighlty doubtful. One doesn't even trust one's senses as one knows they can be deceived. Also it is assumed that theres an all powerful deceiver out there whose sole purpose is to deceive you. Any thought or idea, which is even slightly dubitable is rejected.

While rejecting all such ideas. Descartes reached finally to just one final truth. That he is thinking, and so he exists. Then he build a five stage model to further this thought, the next step of which asserts God exists and then continues towards the world.

Thus was born, Je pense donc je suis.

Jaipur !

Rajasthan was on the cards for quite a while now. The BhanGarh fiasco comes to my mind. There were slight feelers about Jaipur after Christmas, but then as usual, nothing was concrete. Come friday evening, around 2130, and I am back from watching Madgascar-2 (ok types movie) and Suneeth is back from the gym. We decide to head off to Jaipur.

The spontaneity of the decision and having no chalked out plans to do whatever gave us the initial adernaline rush. Tanked up Suneeth's Lancer. stored some essentials from an In and Out and we were zooming off on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. The road to Jaipur is pretty good, except that there are too many trucks at the nighttime. Around 0000 hours and we hit the first toll booth.

Not much cash was the first of the issues, loads of fog the second. Hunger struck. We stopped at the first dhaba and the dal fry was delicious. Not many times have we paid 50 bucks for a dinner for two. :-) The elusive ATM was nowhere to be found on the entire highway..! We made it past the last toll booth with 0 cash left. Reached Jaipur at around 0330. ATM problem solved we drove off to the railway station. We rested in the lancer after steaming hot tea and sandwiches. It was soon daylight.

Looking for a place to freshen up and breakfast, Suneeth found Pinkz (Breakfast from hell).
The buffet breakfast there was horrible. If not for the interiors and the people this could actually have been a lowpoint in the trip.

This done, we were off to the walled city (which is actually pink) and houses the famous HawaMahal. This structure is beautiful. We met a tour guide here who offered to show us around the city for a meagre 50 bucks. We hired him.

So now that we had the tour guide with us. Heres some interesting trivia : This facade was built so that the Queens could see the parade passing on the road below and fitted with black curtains so that nobody could see the queens. I wonder why ? The queens were all supposed to be good looking, why then were they so averse to being looked at ! Anyways the next stop was Jhulelal Temple. Then Queen Gayatri Devi's handicraft factory and then the City Palace.

JhuleLal Temple



City Palace.

Having had enough of museums, it was time for some forts. However the guide suggested we go the Shashoidya Gardens first. We took his advice. The gardens were ok, but we gathered another fun fact here. Rani Shashodiya agreed to marry the Raja only if he built her this palace outside the city with exclusive gardens. That he did. And then she had a son named Madho singh. Madho Singh was 250 kgs, 7 feet 3 inches and had a chest expansion of 3.5 feet ! He also had nine wives and 101 dasis. Too bad he still never became a father. Anyways I did get a chance to do my famous handstand so was feeling pretty good about myself as we left the gardens for Tiger Fort(Nahargarh).

Rani Shashodiya's palace

Near perfect handstand.

Nahargarh was elusive. We lost our way once, corrected it but found another landmark enroute. The Jal Mahal. This was Raja's 'pleasure palace' for which he got a dam specially to create the lake and then this palace in the middle of water. Some antics these Rajas had !

Jal Mahal.

There were a lot of tourists here, mostly Indian. It was sad to see how everybody was littering the place so much. When will we start to care !

Anyways, off to the tigerfort. This one was Awesome.

Tiger fort

Inside the fort.

From top of the fort.

With this done, we quickly headed off to JaiGarh. This housed the famous Jaivaan which is the largest canon in the world. Had to walk around a km to reach this one, but then the superlative canon was enough to keep us motivated. ;-)

Jaivaan inside JaiGarh

Road to Amber fort(as seen from Jaigarh)

Next stop was Amber Palace. This one was the oldest and very beautiful. It also has an elephant ride but the jumbos were nowhere to be seen while we were there. This palace is also called the Mirror Palace for all the mirror work done inside.

Amber Palace

Tiny mirrors used in this artwork.

More art.

This was the last of our stops in Jaipur. We reached the parking and were about to take the car when we could actually smell heaven. The fragrance of food was actually so good that I had to enquire its origin. Turns out there is a small Paratha shop nearby. We helped ourselves to steaming hot and delicious Parathas. They were pretty awesome. :-)

Finally with this happy conclusion we bode farewell to Jaipur. Its a nice city and a quick weekend getaway from Delhi. Some spots were missed esp the Pandavpul village. Next time. :-)

We had a flat tire on the way to add to our experiences and were back in Delhi by around 0030 after having a near midnight dinner at a Dhaba enroute.

Awesome trip ! Cheers !

Ah my first movie review. Rab ne bana dee jodi. Superly sweet movie, set in Amritsar, and as I was recently in that city, this did strike a chord. The Golden Temple bit is mesmerizing. Also there were a bunch of kids sitting behind me and given that the movie didnt really need me to concentrate, I was kindof enjoying their chatter.

So, theres was a scene when SRK doing his 'simple guy ' bit is taking a bath sitting on a stool on his haunches under a high tap on the terrace, and the kid behind me goes, 'mere papa bhi bilkul aise hee nahate hain' if that wasn't enough for the spontaneus giggle it invoked, he actually stood up and asked his dad (who was sitting a little away), 'Papa, aap ekdum aise hee nahate ho na ?'. This sent all the people within earshot into peels of laughter.

Allright back to the movie, SRK did his employed with Punjab Power bit flawlessly and the office antics were also brought out well. Anushka looks great in the patiala suits she adorns in most of the movie. Also the songs are great, esp the one with Kajol, Bipasha, Rani and Zinta. The movie does get a little longish in the end, but given that it was a 10:30 PM show and I had gone all by myself, I won't comepletely blame the movie for the odd yawn.

So all in all, a decent outing and you come out of the hall with a smile on your face. :-)

Cheers,
Vikram

P.S : Why, whenever I go to see a movie alone, am I placed next to a canoodling couple is something I'll never comprehend !

The Argumentative Indian - first essay

I started with Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian recently, have finished the first essay and this is a review of that. A general observation : his writing is like classical music, you have to pay a lot of attention and appreciate it as it flows down your senses and you fully grasp the author’s intent. A little different and very enjoyable.

Ok about the first essay, the book derives its name from the first essay itself, it too is titled : The Argumentative Indian. In this essay Sen explores the deep routed tradition of discussion, arguments and basically loads of talking in the Indian ethos. He gives a lot of historical examples, right from the Mahabharatha and Ramayana to Akbar’s court of nine jewels. Historic traditions of debating and reasoning are also presented as one of the pillars of our tolerance of diversity and richness of culture. Sen also points out that argumentativeness cuts across gender and caste biases which were very much present in the historical Indian society. He gives examples from the Vedas, Upanishads and other ancient Indian texts. The example of Bhagwad Geeta which is a discussion between Arjun and Lord Krishna is also highlighted.

Our culture of reason, arguments and discussions is also thought to be the source of tolerance to heterodoxy and our significant advances in Mathematics and Sciences in the ancient India. Even the very existence of God is questioned in none less than The Rig Veda itself. To quote a line from the essay, (which quotes it from an english translation of The Rig Veda) :

Creation Hymn :

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen -perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it didnot - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he doesn’t know

This is an example of questioning even the most basic of religious beliefs (that of the very existence of God) in a religious book of the stature of The Rig Veda.

The first essay is full of such examples and makes for very sound reading. Amartya Sen has done a pretty good job, at least in his opening essay of the book. Lets see whats in store ahead. I can’t wait to find out !

Cheers !

Vikram

Book review : 3 mistakes of my life, Chetan Bhagat

Finished this one last night. The book starts off dramatically like the other two Chetan Bhagat books. The author presents a scenario to grip the reader and introduces what made him actually write this book. The story starts beautifully. Three friends, cricket fans, high on each others company, worrisome about the future. Then starts the entrepreneurial part. They actually start a profitable business and the protagnist shows astute business sense. They diversify, expand their core comptencies and are successful.

But like any other business, the story is not completely rosy. The infamous Bhuj earthquake of 2001 occurs and the boys lose all their money as a mall collapses in which they made a huge deposit to book a prime location shop. Following this loss, the protagnist falls ill and is dissappointed. However the friends, who were a little clumsy till now rise to the occassion and keep the shop running. Things even out finally and they get into whole sale business and make lots of profit.

Nice read. Uptil now. But catering to ‘formula best seller ‘ genre, the author digresses from this well crafted theme to actually throw in romance, guilt, a gifted underdog and the fight between friends over a family matter. The ending is horrible in which a actual screenplay of a movie is written (Our heroes defend the underdog from a mob during the Gujarat riots - one of them dies in the process). The last 60 pages of this 260~ page book are horrible.

Apart from the end part, it makes for some good light reading, if you are not doing much on a lazy sunday afternoon. :-)

Stay Hungry..

I bought this book by Rashmi Bansal a few days ago. Loved it. It has 25 chapters about 25 IIM A grads who are doing their own thing. Yes, thats the best way to describe it, doing their own thing. One of them is actually not an entreprenur per se , meaning he is an employee, with a nominal ownership stake like many of us, but he does his own thing.

In all 25 chapters their are remarkable similarities and yet stark differences. The advice to young entrepreneurs section after each chapter is quite enlightening. But again, contradictory points are made from one such section to another.

I have not decided which is my favorite chapter as yet (we don’t decide favorites we just know them, well sometimes we do).

Also there are certain patterns to which a certain group of people adhere to and the others have something else of their own. This post is just a signal that I have finished the book and soon the pattern matching analysis will be posted here. So watch this space.

Am reading this, this and also this now. Yes I have read the last one before (like everybody else) but this has pictures and everything of the important things and the user experience is markedly different, also a friend was kind enough to lend it to me, so there you go.

So I am finally in the elite league of people who read multiple books at once. Yay ! Took me long enough, but I got there finally !

Greed, Doctors and a Life

Here