In Defense of America

The United States comes in for a lot of bashing, and I can't say that I haven't indulged in it myself. Given that their public face to the world is an imbecile, and their foreign policy has in the present and in the past left a lot to be desired, its easy to "Satan-ize" the land of the free.

Given that, I think its important to remember why they like to call themselves the land of the free in the first place. By a stroke of luck, fate or unnatural intelligence, very early in the life of their country they managed to draft a document of such simplicity and beauty, that it has only been amended 27 times in its 300 plus year history. They've got this constitution of theirs, that many nations including ours have tried to copy. Its very short, with seven articles, and ten of its amendments outlining the bill of rights. It is, by word count and sans amendments, shorter than the insanely long document outlining the rules of debating that the National Law School of India University provides for its collegiate debates. And therein lies the beauty. In contrast, we have a behemoth of a constitution with countless articles, and amendments who's only prerequisite to be passed seems to be bearing the surname Gandhi.

The meat of the matter is this. Outlined in their bill of rights is something our and every country wishes to aspire to. Human rights, or general rights accorded to the citizens of land. Free speech, expression, public property, you get the drift.
Okay, but the serious difference and indeed the difference why one is nice and concise and the other is practically unreadable is the philosophy. The land of the free basically says, okay do what you like, and we the state specifically cannot interfere in so and so things. So their article doesn't say, "Hey, we're giving you the freedom of speech and not much else", it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
See, that's it. That's what it takes articles 12-35 to outline in ours, and it comes along with numerous caveats.

And that's why its the land of the free. It might sound naive, but the superstructure that a state creates for itself affects the fortunes of its citizens greatly. So, if the constitution allows the creation of laws in India that allow the state to basically stop us from doing whatever the hell we want to, well those are the kind of laws that we'll get (and have gotten!).

On the other side of the world, The Supreme Court of the United States is probably going to rule to allow a high school student to display a large banner supporting "Bong Hits 4 Jesus". The issue of it "offending religious sensibilities" itself would have stricken down the same in India. It was censored as being "against the educational mission" in the States, that is, against their continuing message to kids over there to not do drugs. Their court of appeals disallowed that kind of censorship, saying that it wasn't a good enough reason to go against the right to free speech.
So, here's a state that's saying that its okay to speak against our state sponsored education message in a public space, and I have to stand up and applaud that. There's a lot of noise about a culture of fear being created in the western world, but appreciate judgments for what they are. These are people who know that putting up a banner like that is childish, immature, inflammatory and stupid, hell I bet even the kid who did it knows that but a large majority of the people also support his right to make that statement.

That's the kind of country I'd like to live in.

Straw men, and other fanciful creations

Singapore continues to surprise me. Yesterday, I got up to a pretty ordinary day, had a pretty ordinary morning, went to college to do some pretty ordinary maths homework and an hour and a half later, I was shivering uncontrollably and had 103 F fever. Needless to say, I was scared out of my wits, was rushed to Singapore General Hospital (Where the emergency wing has all of 1 room and 1 attending doctor, something that well, disgusted me even more than my general low opinion of the medical profession in Singapore) to wait 5 hours before finding out that the doctors had no clue what was wrong with me, but it seemed like a bacterial infection.

Two days later, I'm seemingly fine, albeit still kinda tired, have another day of bed rest ahead of me, and am generally a bit bored in life. I should study today, as my fever seems to be off but have a tremendous disinclination towards doing so. Well, that's hardly new now, is it?

But on a more fun note, one has seen some of the more random things the internet has to present. As a teaching assistant for this course called Analytical Skills, I must congratulate the very pissed off Cuckolds over at Save Indian Family Foundation, for giving the most visually striking example of a Straw man Argument. Here's how it goes, basically. Feminism is leading to unfair treatment of men in India, and ruining our families. Some women have misused the law to put false allegations as fraud to get dowry. This is wrong. Therefore, feminism in its entirety is wrong. Oh, and if the Straw man wasn't enough, they throw in a slippery slope as well, and tell us that because of these off instances, the entire Indian Family system as we know it is in danger. How deliciously droll. They even want to celebrate Men's day, for some odd reason.

Aside from getting "Biggest Wusses On the Planet" award, I think the nice men over here need a reality check. Their 10 news reports of things going wrong because some gold-digger laid false charges is hardly a reflection of Indian Society. Yes, it does happen. And yes, the cause behind the misuse of the law is the well...startling ease that the current law in India on dowry and domestic violence allows. You're basically guilty until proven innocent under it. But I think the nice men should also remember who's fault the creation of this very biased law is. It didn't come out of thin air, nor a vacuum. If we're in a country in which there's no equality offered, then obviously laws to correct that inequality are going to be passed. I hate to see it, personally, but its bound to happen. The reason is surprisingly utilitarian. For every one misuse of the new law, there's at least a hundred cases of the law being used to protect victims of dowry or domestic violence. I'd say that it's those hundred that are a larger threat to the "Indian Family" than the one, but either the nice men at SIFF are blind to those cases, or simply think that it's an acceptable part of the Indian Family Tradition. In either case, god bless the lot of them.

That said, a check and balance is needed in the current laws. My very fun Economic Analysis of Law course would argue increasing the liability of a false charge, to change the dominant strategy of the game to Not File False Charges. That said, my very fun Economic Analysis of Law course also assumes an efficient and just legal system, and rational economic individuals.

I'd like to have both some day.

In my Defense

Okay, so I haven't written or posted about my life in donkey's ages. Last time I existed over here, I had just returned from Vanc, life was getting back to the college groove and generally things weren't all so bad. So what happened in between? In a word, shit. A more detailed explanation would be the wonderful way SMU's been treating me off late.

Before I get into that, I'd like to rant a minute here. One of the advantages of SMU is the sheer variety of CCAs and general activities you can take part in, compared to college back in India. One of the disadvantages of SMU is that you have absolutely not time in which to enjoy these various student life activities. A "differentiating" feature of SMU is starting to become not only the fact that there's always some concert/exhibition/competition/strange balloon related event on, but also there's absolutely no one watching. Why? Well, its quite simple. They're all busy meeting five billion deadlines, while also trying to juggle arranging for the next concert/exhibition/competition/strange balloon related event. Which basically means that the only real people who get to enjoy and appreciate the myriad of talent this little university has are the talented individuals themselves.

But of course, my following rant is based on the above. I don't remember my last 2 and a half months frankly, and that's disturbing. Since I last wrote, I've had six courses times a minimum of 5 graded components in each, projects, homework assignments, midterms, dastardly weekly presentations, readings, the works. Beyond that, I'm holding down two part time jobs, one as a teaching assistant for Analytical Skills, which involves me spending my free time correcting assignments, and as a Debate Coach for a local Secondary school, which involves me earning an inordinate amount of money for well, coaching debates. I like the word "Inordinate". Its sadly not an inordinate amount of money, as the ordinate (yes, its a fancy word for average) amount of money said coaches get is a lot more than me. But still, its monies and that's always a good thing. Oh, and lest I forget I'm president of a club, I've been trying my hand at Business Case Competitions, and of course to save myself from the insanity of it all I took a one week break during Chinese New Year time and flew back home.

I'd like to take a moment to thank the one week break. It's given me the kind of perspective that makes me realize that I no longer wish to work. Which is good, because term is winding up and I only have the full sum of Three Deadlines left. Sigh. I wish I could tell you of times I've been happier, but sadly that sort of stuff never gets written about on Blah!

So anyhow, I'll spend a vain attempt in trying to be back. Major projects and minor final exams concern me, be not too much. Chee, I think I'll grow up just yet.

More on Vancouver

Two days into my term, and I'm already realising how clinically insane the workload I've taken upon myself is. So its quite obvious that I have to spend time blogging, I mean I was too busy all the other terms when I wasn't killing myself to blog so yeah, why not start now.

But more importantly, there was a city. And as previously mentioned, it was beautiful.

Snow

Snow is great fun, while its still snow. And that's the key bit. The first time you see the white fluffy stuff, especially when its covering fir trees in a fashion you only thought was present in Hollywood Dreams and Christmas Movies, you freak out and behave like a kid. This mostly involved Harneja and I running about and throwing snowballs at each other. Technically, he was 18 and still underage in British Columbia, so had an excuse. I was the senior statesman. Okay, not, but still you can't help but behave a tad bit immature when you see snow for the first time. Its just so fun.
After playing around a while, a few realisations dawn upon you. The first is that snow is only light and fluffy when you don't clump it up. When you pack it nice and tight and into a snowball, it gets both heavy and quite solid. Thus, beaming someone on the head with said object is not a good idea.
The second reason why its not a good idea is a little bit about the chemistry of the matter in question. Snow is a very fancy version of this fun substance called water, and as obvious as that sounds you don't quite realise it till the snow melts, forming very cold water. Down you shirt. Very disturbing.

Skiing

So, after white people got over the whole excitement of snow, they had to figure a way to move around in it. Some smart chap thought it would be a great idea to slap two very slippery smooth sticks to your feet, shove two completely ineffective poles in your arms for the purpose of breaking (yeah right) and steering and tell you do go down a mountain.
This is while a very cool, but remarkably stupid way of transport. First, there's no way to get back up the slope, because skis are completely incapable of moving upwards, unless you're some muscle bound maniac who can do a Yeti act and literally climb up a slope with skis on. But more importantly, the great method of breaking known as "Bend the Knees" doesn't work. Not for first timers, anyhow. I bent my knees. I almost crossed my skis. But no, I was still going down the slope. Thus, you're left with exactly one avenue to break. Its called falling down on your ass. So that's what I did, and it worked remarkably well.

Sadly, my life doesn't leave me much time to write on further today. A last update on the place's food (you can't do a travelogue without food now, can you?) will follow.

Oh, one last thing. You can Check Out All the Photos, if you so desire at said link.

More on Vancouver

Two days into my term, and I'm already realising how clinically insane the workload I've taken upon myself is. So its quite obvious that I have to spend time blogging, I mean I was too busy all the other terms when I wasn't killing myself to blog so yeah, why not start now.

But more importantly, there was a city. And as previously mentioned, it was beautiful.

Snow

Snow is great fun, while its still snow. And that's the key bit. The first time you see the white fluffy stuff, especially when its covering fir trees in a fashion you only thought was present in Hollywood Dreams and Christmas Movies, you freak out and behave like a kid. This mostly involved Harneja and I running about and throwing snowballs at each other. Technically, he was 18 and still underage in British Columbia, so had an excuse. I was the senior statesman. Okay, not, but still you can't help but behave a tad bit immature when you see snow for the first time. Its just so fun.
After playing around a while, a few realisations dawn upon you. The first is that snow is only light and fluffy when you don't clump it up. When you pack it nice and tight and into a snowball, it gets both heavy and quite solid. Thus, beaming someone on the head with said object is not a good idea.
The second reason why its not a good idea is a little bit about the chemistry of the matter in question. Snow is a very fancy version of this fun substance called water, and as obvious as that sounds you don't quite realise it till the snow melts, forming very cold water. Down you shirt. Very disturbing.

Skiing

So, after white people got over the whole excitement of snow, they had to figure a way to move around in it. Some smart chap thought it would be a great idea to slap two very slippery smooth sticks to your feet, shove two completely ineffective poles in your arms for the purpose of breaking (yeah right) and steering and tell you do go down a mountain.
This is while a very cool, but remarkably stupid way of transport. First, there's no way to get back up the slope, because skis are completely incapable of moving upwards, unless you're some muscle bound maniac who can do a Yeti act and literally climb up a slope with skis on. But more importantly, the great method of breaking known as "Bend the Knees" doesn't work. Not for first timers, anyhow. I bent my knees. I almost crossed my skis. But no, I was still going down the slope. Thus, you're left with exactly one avenue to break. Its called falling down on your ass. So that's what I did, and it worked remarkably well.

Sadly, my life doesn't leave me much time to write on further today. A last update on the place's food (you can't do a travelogue without food now, can you?) will follow.

Back from Vancouver

After a long Worlds, a longer flight back and a brief stopover at Vancouver, I'm back to the pleasantly warm climes of Singapore where SMU's insane schedule of work awaits me. But who's complaining. I had a wonderful trip, some amazing fun and of course, a bit of success as well. I shan't bore you with arduous details of the competition and the motions and other such rubbish, there's apparently people a lot more bored than me over at the World Debate Website to do that for you.
However, allow me briefly to toot my own horn.

In which he Blows his own Trumpet

It really was a tournament exceeding my expectations, given that it was my first Worlds. I took on and beat teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, Melbourne, Birmingham, Bristol, LSE...a very long list basically. My team, me and Joey ended up 21st out of 340 teams, and thus qualified for the knockout rounds, where we put up a good show, but went out because well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. We were the only Asian team to make it to the knockout rounds, and hell pretty much the only non-white team as well. Individually, I was the 50th ranked speaker in a pool of over 600, and the highest ranked Asian/Non-white speaker. So basically, yeah. I had one hell of a good tourney.

Thoughts on the Tournament

After the worlds, I was actually pretty glad I had chosen to study in Asia rather than White Man's Land. While there is "Social Development", and "Equity", you get the sense that its more of a nice disguise than anything else. Do what you like, racial discrimination does exist, not only in the tournament where any and all Asian teams had to not just win their debate, but had to do it so convincingly so as not to give any of the judges even an iota of doubt to allow them to give it to a western team. You also have to put up with comments like "You guys got lucky this round, because it was an Asian themed motion", never mind the lot of us debated rubbish like "This house supports the independence of Quebec.
DIVERSION
(Quebec is this little piece of shit state in Canada that's taking part in the most timid and insipid independence movement in the entire world. In a movement spanning 60 years they've managed to kidnap one fellow and killed another one by mistake. One wonders why the Canadian government hasn't just told them to stuff it and shut the fuck up given that they're totally dependent on the Federation for monetary and social aid, but instead they've been granted constitutional rights greater than Kashmir, and have made Canada bilingual by force, because they refuse to learn English like the rest of the world. If you haven't guessed by now, these people are French.)
BACK TO THE POINT
You also have to deal with teams inside debates saying things like "All South East Asian nations are human rights abusers, and thus will never condemn violations of human rights." Yeah, and Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib of course never happened. So my point is basically this. I'd rather study and live in an Asian Developing Nation than a Caucasian Developed one. We may not be as well off, but who cares. We're not quite as screwed up either and the women are so much hotter.

Thoughts on Vancouver

Vancouver is the most stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful city I've been to. Okay, so I haven't been to a lot but trust me on this one, this really takes the cake. It has...everything around it. There's a bay overlooking the pacific ocean. There's a riverfront, with an amazing view of the Downtown big city skyline. Just off the river and only a 15 minute drive from the city center is grouse mountain, the most picturesque snow capped peak I've seen. The view from the city is breathtaking. On a clear day, you can see the Canadian rockies in the distance, with clouds bobbing around them and snow capped peaks in tow. The houses all look the same. A good way to describe the city is that its like some high level gamer's Sim City creation. Everything just looks and feels brilliant. The public transport is efficient and the cabbies are entirely, and I mean each and every single one of them, Punjabi. They're mostly fresh from the Pind so all speak Punjabi, and aren't remarkably surprised if you do so too. One has to remember that there still blossoms an active Khalistan Movement in this city, and the Akali Singh Sahib Gurudwara here is one of the biggest in the western world. The buses don't seem to require payment. One of the days we were traveling, me and Harneja bought a ticket for the ferry and bus, it had a nice and fancy magnetic strip thingummy on it, which we presumed was to swipe and allow ourselves on board. Instead, we just pretty much walked into the ferry, and walked on board most buses. If we didn't have change to pay the fare, the bus driver just told us to forget it, and we got a free ride. Weird.
At the other end of the governmental spectrum, the taxation in Vancouver is insane. There's a 14% tax on pretty much everything sold, which automatically raises the price of everything. Very annoying.

I now have work to do, but have plenty more to write about. My thoughts on the Genius of Snow, Skiing and why it proves that white people are insane, and why you should always stay in a Suite will follow, along with assorted photos of said events.

Leaving for Vancouver

I'm heading off to Vancouver tomorrow, for the World Universities Debating Championships. This is a city famous for Salmon. It has more Chinese and Sardars than white people, and is horrendously cold and rainy right now. So basically, it should be fun.

More importantly, its the end of a very excruciatingly long December, which albeit full of fun and frolic and tremendous amounts of activity, tend to bog one down. I need a break, and its not something I'm getting any time soon.

On a more progressive note, do check out xkcd, in my opinion the funniest comic strip on the web to date. They make jokes about matrices. And the periodic table. Now that's just class.

Back in a week's time, with hopefully a decent travelogue.

Three Years

Is a long time indeed.

Just because I haven't the time of late doesn't mean I don't love you any less.

Happy Bloggiversary.

Hehe...I haven't posted for a while, but that's cos Legala and SF were taking up too much of my time:) But this was so totally worth it. Guess what I found while surfing during Consti Law class...

http://Manav.Kapur.dotale.com/?loc=New.Delhi&gen=m&story=12&date=28th November, 2006&partner=Vrinda


Cheers!

Three Blind Mice

See how they run.

Goddamn scientists want to take away our nursery rhymes now. What next? They'll figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?

Green Apples make me happy

Yeah, so I'm going to Canada representing my college as a debater in the World Univ. Debating Championships. My term is not going disastrously. My posts and emails from now on will have flawless spelling because Firefox 2 is sweet enough to have inbuilt spell check. I have, after procrastinating for ages decided upon my first major on the basis of one class in Financial Options Trading with my megalomaniac Finance Professor. I even got over a long bugbear, and have been particularly thankful for the same. However, none of this makes me quite as happy as biting into a nice sour Granny Smith. Green Ones. From Cold Storage.

I had an interesting conversation with Joey today. Well, I found it interesting, I'm sure it bored the hell out of him. It was late, and he entered the college 7-11 which by the way should damn well be open 24-7 but was shut at 10:30. The shutters weren't down yet, and the teller was still there and one was generally lambasting the fact that you couldn't make a last minute sale. I mean, it seems so stupid. We're ready to GIVE you money and buy things, more sales for you if you just spend 1 minute more, but you don't and pack off. Why? Well, things are a lil' bit different for these franchisee outlets, and the people who own the franchises aren't necessarily the people behind the counter. This means that they're getting a fixed salary, and have no incentive to stay for that extra sale. Contrast this with Mama-Papa or Kinara convenience stores in Singapore and India, and you'll find them open at odd hours and ready and willing to make the sale, cos they've got a stake. Take not, Messrs Reliance ADAG with the launch of India's most ambitious retail network, the Reliance Stores. Innocuously, the first Reliance Fresh outlet opened in Hyderabad a few days back. The interesting part about Reliance is, although they may not be the best in the segments they enter, their scope and breadth of capital that they pump into any new venture forces the best to come out and be competitive. Take for example, Indian Mobile industry, which only became the incredibly large force that it is today post Reliance Infocomm. I mean, if anyone has used Reliance Infocomm, you'll know that its a crap service, but its price points made the rest sit up and pay attention. I'm interested in seeing how Reliance will work in its "I wanna be Wal-Mart" incarnation. I'm interested in seeing if they're going to run my Kinara store out of business one day, because its something that happened very quickly in the United States and Singapore, but has faced amazing opposition in Hong Kong and China. I'm interested even more in seeing how much in 5 years time Reliance is going to do to solve a lot of rural problems, that of guaranteed crop prices at market rates, that of crop insurance and contract farming for the same. I'm interested in seeing how Reliance sells things to a rural market, because you're only really rich if you can buy things, and making farmers rich is quite pointless unless you also give them things to buy, so that they can make other people rich too. I'm interested, because once again there's a solution in my country to a problem the government is incapable of solving, making people rich.
But most of all, I'm interested because in Singapore, there are no apples. They get them from somewhere else. And they're fresh, and given the cost of living here, very affordable. And they taste great, and the quality is good and standardized. I buy them quite conveniently from Cold Storage. I'm interested because Delhi also has no apples. We get them from somewhere else, and sadly they're not fresh and frequently don't taste very good. I want to go back and buy them one day from Reliance Fresh, or their best competitor. I want quality stuff to reach me at a good price. I want my juicy sour Granny Smith's, goddammit.
Because Green Apples make me happy.

Its Complicated

Eid Mubarak, Shubh Diwali and Happy New Year, as may be your persuasion.
I live in a strange world. It's getting tougher and tougher to keep things simple, and I'm pretty fond of keeping things simple. But lest I start rambling on about nothing at all, let me make some sense of things.
Gender roles are getting increasingly muddled these days. Feminism has redefined the landscape for women, and as a strong proponent of human rights (I am a libertarian after all), this is a wonderful thing. Sadly, it didn't come with a refresher course for guys on how to deal with it. Now, I'm lucky. I've grown up in an environment of equality, at my house and school. It doesn't surprise or shock me, as it does many members of my gender. Pelt me if you like, but you've got to feel for a lot of guys out there who're just clueless about how to deal with this brave new world. I don't think they can. So they join orkut and ask for "fraandship".
Hell, its not even easy for me, or my demographic. There are very hazy and undefined lines between being chivalrous and being condescending; between smothering and caring; between joking around and being unacceptable. Sadly, there's only one real way to find these lines. Fortunately, I'm used to the school of hard knocks.
I live in a complicated political world. It used to be quite simple, things used to make people happy or sad. Somewhere along the line, things changed. In school, I loved to be oblivious to all the power plays and politics because...it just didn't suit me. Then one day, it hit me and I felt very dissapointed with the world. This year, in college I'm having to learn all over again. That there exists a tough but very important job of balancing egos, responsibilities, the present, the future and your own godforsaken ambitions.
I used to do this juggling act by writing out about things that I liked, things that were important, things I hated. You need an outlet to get you through your head, after all. Especially if your brain like mine is always set on hyperactive overdrive. I guess that's why many bloggers have mild neurotic disorders. At least their writing points to the same.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped writing. But this is my outlet, my way out. Lest I forget that, let me start writing again.

Mushie Baby Speaks Out

The world's biggest weasel, topping even George W. Bush and Arjun Singh speaks out today, and I love this. I mean, I've heard it before but he just puts it so damn well.

"Does one call terrorists in Sri Lanka Hindu terrorists? Why is Pakistan's bomb called an Islamist bomb? Why is India's bomb not called a Hindu bomb and that of Israel as a Jewish bomb?"

Umm...lets see. The reason a lot of people, shudder, use the word Islamic Terror, Islamo-Fasicism is that rightly or wrongly, its being done in the name of Islam. Sri Lanka's terrorists want a Tamil, not hindu homeland, and thus they are branded Tamil Terrorists (tigers, whatever have you). I wasn't exactly aware Israel had a bomb, though I garauntee you when they finally announce that they do, it'll be called a Jewish Bomb.
See, when terrorism is done in the name of something, to do this wonderful thing called differentiation, so that people know what you're talking about, we attach tags and names to things. Therefore, terrorism done in the name of Chairman Mao, god burn his soul, is called Maoist Terrorism. Terrorism done in the name of Islam is called Islamic terrorism. If this kind of association pisses you off,Mr. Musharraf as an Islamic Moderate any more or less than it would piss a Tam Bram off that people are calling the Tamil Tigers Terrorists, or piss a hindu moderate off when the world Hindu Fundamentalism is used in conjunction with RSS/Shiv Sena, then I think you've gone a long way in justifying the otherwise ludicrous opinions of the west vis as vis Islamophobia.

But sigh, who are we as Indians to lecture Mushie on the question of offending sensibilities. This is my country which banned Da Vinci Code, Water, Fire, The Satanic Verses, Coke, Pepsi, The display of Nude Art, and about a thousand other things because it "offended someone's sensibilities". I wish people would grow up, but then I read our constitution and realise they're not going to. Because our freedoms are not absolute, so they don't have to care.

Such is life.

I'm very busy. And very happy. I think I'm in love. Again. It keeps happening every so often. Quite pleasing.

With Portifolio

I'm exiting my teens. As of tomorrow, I'm in the 20th year of my life. I'm currently in denial, however, and just as I've not been single for two and a half years(a now fixed period of time that shan't change for a good while), I'm going to be 18 for another 2-3 years. The way I see it, I still pass off for 16-17 so I have no honest right to claim that I'm no longer a teenager. So sucks to anyone who thinks they're going to make me older than I actually am.

I'm with portifolio now. I've been elected (heh) to the post of President of the SMU Debating Society. We have a logo now, and a catchy tag line. I'm very impressed.

Finance Jokes

No. They don't work. They're just simply wrong. I've been subjected to Finance-related-jokes by Prof Who Shall Not Be Named(I have to learn to be politically correct and diplomatic now that I'm with Portifolio). These are so cringe worthy that I've even lost my patience for jokes on maths and science. Afore mentioned Prof is also a megalomaniac and makes me look like a humble and modest youth (can I stress the word youth a little more to you people, I'm so not ready to get older).
Sample these gems.

"No Finance, no Romance"
"Random. Its a word, its origins are from Randy"
"Arbritage: There's always a sucker and a suckee. Don't be a sucker."
"For those of you who have a liquidity crisis, go ahead. Have more liquids or go do whatever you have to." (The most disturbing way EVER to announce a bathroom break)
"Why is Internal Rate of Return called the dog's metric? Because when you say it really fast, it sounds like IRR IRR IRR (eye-aarr-aar eye-aar-aar eye-aar-aar)."
The last particular one sort of loses its effect without Prof barking like a dog. I'm sad to say I mean that literally.

Suffice to say, this term shall drive me insane.

Heh.

The Kopitiam(Canteen/Food Court) outside of college has a pizza place which offers a Beef and Pork Pepperoni pizza, i.e pepperoni made of a beef and pork mix. This proves once and for all that it is possible to piss off both Hindus and Muslims at the same time.

Me? Its nice to be an atheist.

The Forgotten Hero?

On Independance day, Indian TV channels run obligatory patriotic films on prime time and pretty much through the day as well. I'm guessing its a money spinner. Some are your old classics like Border, Gadar, Sunny Deol Kills a Lot of Pakis and Yells in The Process, and some are the new wave of period patriotic cinema, including but not limited to every single person playing Bhagat Singh. I had the misfortune to catch parts of an incredibly bad movie about well...an incredibly daft individual. Bose, the forgotten hero.

I tied it back to my trip to Manila, just before I had returned back home for my holidays. Over there. Talking to the local junta, and indeed Singaporean Junta sitting along with, there's a hell of a lot of continuing animosity against the Japanese. If you follow the news you'll know that their otherwise charming president has got himself into a hell of a lot of trouble with the Chinese by visiting old war shrines. See, here's why everyone has a problem. The Japanese imperial army was at the time some of the most vicious bunch of sick individuals walking the planet. They had in very simple terms no respect for human rights whatsoever. To say that carnage ensued where they went is putting it lightly. The population was tortured, the women were raped and/or forced into prostitution and everyone else was generally put through hell. In China, mass graves of over 100,000 were found. This is a ground army, may I remind you. Not an atomic bomb. 9.3 Million Chinese prisoners are estimated to have been killed, and only the relatively lower population of places like Singapore, Hawaii and Philipines kept that number lower over there. Horrific is a pleasant word for this. It puts even Hitler's Holocaust to shame, though seems to get far less publicity. Lets just say the Jews seem to market themselves better.

So here's the thing. The last thing any sane sensible person would want to do, especially an ASIAN sane sensible person during the world war is to invite the Japanese army to help take over your country. I mean, agreed the Brits at the time weren't the best thing going, but hell I don't think the UPA is any better in terms of securing my rights but seriously, the Japanese and the Germans weren't exactly popularity plus in the world at the time. So what does our Netaji do? He flees to Germany. Why? Cos they're at war with Britain, and anyone against the mother country can't be all that bad, right?

Before 500 angry bengalis attack me and tell me the times were different, I agree with you. They were. The entire asian region was petrified of having the Japanese anywhere near them for very obvious reasons. The rest of the freedom movement in India was against the idea of asking for Axis help too. I may bitch about Nehru, but even he stepped up and spoke against the facist rise in Spain, Italy and Germany. Stupid yes, but sane at least.

But here we have Netaji, who decides that he needs blood spilled for freedom (Hmm...I wonder who that sounds like now....oh whoops I forgot that the times have changed). We have a man who literally went and begged the Gerries and Japs to come and help him take over the country, and naive enough to believe that they'd just march right out afterwards. We had an insane fool at best, and a vicious facist supporter at worst. Both options don't seem pretty appealing. As far as his heroism goes, he managed to get himself killed and matryed, like everyone elses favourite insane mass murderer, Che Guevera.

I think its funny that if I mention to a Filipino, Chinese or Korean that in our country, we have a national hero who ran off, wanted to march in with Axis Support, and trained his army using Japanese help, they might even consider boycotting us, or generally issuing statements of distaste. But such are our heros. He was a great patriot, and that seems to be enough.

They say the Hezbollah are quite patriotic as well.

Independance Day

I went out for a very nice breakfast today, at a place called Yellow Brick Road. Driving there, the streets were empty, almost deserted. My bua was much pleased, telling me how it was like the Delhi of old. Gone was the regular hustle-bustle and noise that makes a metropolis what it is, the entire place was empty, nary a person on Ring Road; the artery of Delhi.

Its time like these you question Independance Day. Great, so there haven't been any attacks today, so the terrorists will wait a few days. In exchange, my city is too terrified to step out, the airports are paranoid about people coming in or leaving and we've all accepted as a part of our lives the "Red Alert" that we're in. I'm dissapointed to be honest. I'm going back to Singapore tomorrow, and even though it is a token democracy, it is quite well functioning in terms of your basic rights. Critics abound over there over restrictions over freedom of speech, but the only people you can't criticise without getting into trouble are the Men In White (People's Action Party members). Here, there are a thousand holy cows. But free speech shockingly isn't even the highest of my worries. There's even my basic freedom of movement that's come into question.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I want freedom. I don't want Independance from having a foreign power making my laws. I want anyone making laws that empower me to do what I like. People don't get that. People are okay with shitty governance and shittier laws as long as they're ours. People value independance and our flag and our national symbols but they don't seem to value being able to step out of the house, or walk into a theatre without having to be checked. I value that, I'd like to live in a world where I can walk into a theatre even while carrying a bag, which quite frankly may contain a bomb. I'm mortal, and I know if people around me are crazy enough, they're going to kill me; whether that's because they're bad drivers and are going to get into an accident when I'm on the road, or because they're fundamentalists who think its going to send them to heaven, I really don't care. I'm more comfortable accepting it, and moving on with life. If they're going to get you, they're going to get you. They're crazy and are going to find ways to blow you up, no matter what you try to do. I think its time people realised that. There's no security from them. There's no stopping terrorist attacks, untill they stop terrorising you. Leave it be. Go to the hall, go to the airport and just relax.

That's how I learnt how to stop worrying, and love the bomb.

Honour My People

For centuries, my people have been systematically opressed. In asian societies in India and China, we've been labelled "wrong", "unnatural" and evil. The Catholic Church has spoken out against us, missionaries have resorted to capital punishment to make us conform. Even in today's enlightened times, clothes, sporting goods, instruments, and pretty much any object, building or proccess of note discriminates against us. I demand a correction of these historical wrongs! I demand a ten percent reservation in all institutions, to be in line with my representation in society! Goddammit, I demand my rights!

Hell, actually I don't. I'm left-handed by the way, and all the things written above are true. But we Southpaw's aren't much of a political demographic, nor are we a bunch of whiney wusses, so you'll never hear that kind of noise from our camp. Why would you? We've got the smartest brains, the coolest and most sexually prolific presidents and the rest of the jing bang as well. So Honour our People, just for today so that we can feel a bit important in the whole "lets be nice to minorities" scheme of things, because quite honestly no one seems interested in our lot. So here's to spreading the word.

I'm leaving this Wednesday, it's been fun.

Dynafares

Budget airlines such as Air Deccan have, or used to have a flexible fare system known as Dynafare. This basically means that the earlier you book your ticket, the cheaper is the price you pay for it, up to a point. Also, if a ticket cannot be sold, a last minute booking is also going to be considerably cheaper. Here's the logic behind it. The only way to make revenue on a plane flight is to fill the thing. Its going to fly regardless, so your fixed costs are there whether you stuff it full or not, so it just makes plane(sic) (please excuse the pun) sense to not have any empty seats, even at the cost of giving them away dirt cheap. If you are a budget airline, your variable cost per passenger is also low, as you're not exactly providing much in terms of service. Basically, its a really smart move, that has only really backfired because there is an extreme mismatch in India over demand and supply of plane tickets, i.e everyone seems to want to fly. Something that our "Ooh, spending any money on yourself is a fucking luxury" stupid ass government didn't seem to think of. The point is that in a market where demand and supply are evenly matched, this is a great system to maximise your revenues, as you encourage people to a)get into your flight early, garaunteeing you revenue b) More people to fly, by booking early c) Filling up the last few seats which would otherwise have gone to last minute travellers taking a train or having to pay insane amounts for a fixed final fare on Jet or other full service airline.

Okay, not that I've dealt with the explanation, here's my idea. There's another industry with high fixed, low variable cost ratio, that is also dependant on people buying tickets, also involves a lot of cheapasses, and also has to deal with a large amount of stupid and overburdening tax. It's also targetting a very similiar economic demographic, which usually has the access to internet (Deccan usually has its bookings online) and credit/debit card payments. It's called The Multiplex.

See, especially for morning/afternoon shows on weekdays, you have a lot of theatres going plain empty (which is a good thing at certain times, but anyhow...) I'm sure this entails a lot of lost revenue for any cineplex. It would be interesting to see how a dynafare system for a movie theatre would work, if you could price tickets dynamically. It would be of great convinience and advantage as well, setting up the online system, as it would save you the bother of having to buy tickets beforehand. If anyone has an eye on petrol costs right now, I'm sure the little extra you'd spend on the credit card service charge would kind of account for the money you'd spend going to the theatre to buy tickets in advance. It doesn't make sense. As with airlines, a printed ticket system for the movies could also be set up, making life a lot easier.

Basically, I think a system where the ticket cost starts off cheap, and gets progressively more expensive as the hall fills up is a very good idea. It'll encoura the last 10-20 at higher than average rates, so the people who really want to see the movie but were too bloody lazy can pay to get in it. Its supply and demand at its finest.

It would be interesting to see a study on whether it could be implemented or not. It might succeed, but then it might also be a fantastic failure. As with these things, you never know till you try.

Happy Rakhi by the way. If you're Mika, you might get more than you bargained for.

Backlog

Okay, so I've been lazy. In my excuse I've actually had a decent amount to do, and have been spending the rest of the time (where I've not had a lot to do) doing pleasant things like reading very large novels. In the interim, I have gone to Gult-Land (Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad), organised a quiz for The Alma Mater, and done secret important things that are none of your business.

At any rate, here are the prelim main round questions(at least the notable dry ones), for those who might be interested. Leave your answers in the comments.

• Let’s get it started. Commonly known as Rongi, or Lobia, these harmless little beans have been made quite famous, through oddly enough, the American Music Industry. Just tell me what their “Western” name is.
• Mitchell Baker, the CEO of this organization has the designation of “Chief lizard wrangler” Name the organization
• CryptoKids™ is a new initiative by the _________ Organisation. It’s a cartoon based learning site for children, starring Crypto Cat™, Decipher Dog™, Rosetta Stone, Slate, Joules, T.Top. It aims to encourage the youth to take up cryptology, and join _____, giving whole new meaning to catching them young. Which organization?
• An _______ ___________ or Einser Vorhang was an obligatory precaution all German theatres had to take to prevent the spread of fire from the stage to the rest of the theatre. It was first used in its current context by Joesef Goebbels, who popularized the phrase. What are we talking about?
• Okay, this is a visual depicting a kind of demon that visits nubile women at night and well, makes merry with them. What is it’s name?
• The word ______ most likely comes from the Old Icelandic "______" meaning "bear shirt." This refers to Scandinavian warriors who wore, quite literally, bear shirts which they thought would render them invincible. These warriors would attack ferociously, and their name became synonymous with their attitude to life. Fill in the blanks.
• The lunar cycle repeats itself every 28 days. This usually means that there is one full moon every month, as most months have 30-31 days. Every so often, a month will have a second full moon. What is this event called?
• Connect Nyxem-D, Raymond India Ltd. and Sir Richard Francis Burton and Frederick Foster Arbuthnot’s seminal translation of an ancient text.
• The official site for this new religion is www.venganza.org, which in Spanish means the vengeance. Its followers are called Pastafarians, and believe that Global Warming is a direct result of fewer pirates in the world today. Their prayers end with Ramen. This is the Church of the __________ ____________ ______________. Fill in the blanks.
• His real name is Mahakshay, but since the name seems hard to pronounce, _______, his Father, decided to make it _______, which is both, short and sweet. In fact the name is a combination of Michael Jackson and Mohammed Ali who happens to be his father's idols. He’ll be making his film debut in the upcoming release “He- The Only One”. Name him, or the father.
• According to Zainol Abidin Abdul Rashid of Malaysia's space science institute, "following Earth time and facing in the direction of Earth are the key elements to solving the problem". This is a new problem, being faced for the first time by Malaysia’s space program. The National University of Malaysia was employed to produce a program to solve the problem. What’s the problem?
• She once told Malcolm Forbes that "you may be publishing the capitalist tool but I publish the capitalist carrot, as it makes it worth all that hard work!" She is the CEO of a publishing and merchandising company, taking over the reigns from her illustrious father. Her, and the Company.
• Okay, so the Ravens at the Tower of London had to be moved inside, to “Protect the british empire” in February of this year. Put Funda as to why.
• Heidi Klum has sent us to hell. Who about what?
• Its been produced exclusively by McIlhenny Company, a family owned business, since 1868. The product measures between 2500-5000 units on the Scolville scale. The product shares a strong relation with the US Military, appearing in Military Rations, and was also recently used in space. What am I talking about?
• Composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, sung by Shankar Mahadevan, and propped by Amithabh Bachan, this has a lot of big names behind it. It’s a part of a larger rebranding campaign, entitled “Think Bigger” which aims to make this brand more youthful and consumer oriented. What am I talking about?
• During his tenure as chairman of West Bengal board of industries, he made countless overseas trips to promote FDI, signing Memorandum’s Of Understanding. This earned him the nickname “MOU-Da”. He was born in Tezpur, Assam and of his more recent held positions is the chairman of Santiniketan Sriniketan Development Authority. Incidentally, its his happy birthday today. Identify please.
• Okay, so this US organization (name withheld) awards a certain award, known as the Golden Fleece award to senators and government organisations across the united states. It was started in the mid 70’s, and awardees include · United States Department of the Army for a 1981 study on how to buy a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, and Rep. Don Young, in charge of a 315 million dollar bridge project in Alaska. What is the award in honour of?
• In Liverpool, the town council recently voted to rename several streets previously named after individuals linked with the Slave Trade, of which Liverpool was a major center. One street, however, has been spared, named after James _______, a wealthy 18th century slave ship owner. Which street, and why?
• He started out his career with Zee TV, working for some 1500 hours. His first break as a music director came with the film Pyaar Kiya toh Darna Kya. Two years later, he got his first Solo Break, with Dulhan Hum toh Le Jayenge. He became a popular composer for Salman Khan Productions. Some of his less inspiring works include the music for Tarzaaan the Wonder Car, and Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya (please do not watch these films). Who am I talking about?
• The story goes that X made a bet with his team captain about whether he would win a certain Davis Cup match. If he won, his prize would be a alligator skin suitcase. He won the match and got his nickname as a result. Who?
• When the company took its catchy rhyming phrase for its Vacuum Cleaner “nothing sucks like an _______” and brought it to America from English-speaking markets overseas, they failed to take into consideration the fact that “sucks” had become a derogatory word in the States. The serious language barrier persuaded the firm to turn to a U.S.-based PR firm for future ad campaigns. Which company?
• England-West Indies test series in 1928-29. Walter Robbins, the English batsman was stumped and on his way to the pavilion said "Fancy getting out to a ______". What?
• Zorbing video : What are these people doing?
• Nicknamed the dynamite from TNT, this guy named his daughter after the city where he gave arguably his best performance. Who?
• He was born in Luton, Bedfordshire. He had a fine first class season in 2005, where he took 46 wickets at 21.54, was followed by a stint at the Darren Lehmann Academy in Adelaide. In his international debut at Nagpur, he picked up his first international wicket, that of Sachin Tendulkar. Who?
• It was created in 1994 and installed on the web in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who also created the Portland Pattern Repository. It means "hurry quick" in Hawaiian. It also refers to a type of native fish of the islands. What word is this?
• The mechanism used to open and close the stage curtains during a performance gave rise to this phrase. The hope is that the performance will be so well received and the bows of the performer will be so frequent and sustained that this mechanism collapses. Which phrase?

Answer away. Cheers