Around the World, Forever

Geography fascinates me. I can sit for hours with an Atlas in hand, keeping myself busy. I almost always discover something new whenever I lay my hands on an Atlas.

Being a bibliophile, when asked what do I like reading, my answer would be: Travelogues !

I love travelogues, be it books, documentaries or TV programmes. My father used to borrow books on travelogues written by S K Pottecatt from the Trivandrum Public Library. I was so hooked to his language, metaphors and personal experiences that, they taught me more geography than my school teacher. All travelogues by Pottecatt followed by Pico Iyer (Falling Off the Map), and a book on travel experiences by Khushwant Singh (Sights and Sounds of the World) remains my favourite.

Its now the age of visual travelogues. I love them too, but seeing and listening to various places and countries does not have the thrill of reading about them. Of the many visual travelogues the one I love is ‘Sancharam’, being telecast in Asianet. It is not only the places Mr. Santhosh George shoots, but also the captivating script by Ratheesh, and the excellent narration by Aneesh Punnan Peter, which makes it so very attractive. My cable guy doesn’t supply Asianet News (where Sancharam is being telecast on all Sundays 10.30 am IST), but I do get to see Asianet, where they telecast older versions of Sancharam, Saturday mornings at 6.45; I sit glued to the TV during then.

I have read some horrible travelogues and seen some lousy TV shows which mostly explains nothing but the detailed history of the place, which is very unnecessary (in this age of google). What I look for in a travelogue is the first hand personal experience of a traveler.

Traveloging (!) is an art in itself. A fine blend of facts and creativity.

BLIND BELIEF

Disclaimer 1: I am not against religion and religious worship; rather I consider it a personal affair.

Disclaimer 2: I stay at Bangalore, and this is with reference to Bangalore.

There is nothing wrong in closing eyes before the deity in a temple and praying for 2-3 seconds. But what if the person who is offering such prayers is on his two wheeler riding at 30 – 40 kmph? Drivers already have the risk of potholes, other speeding vehicles, garbage strewn over the road, footpathless roads, cows, pushcarts and now blind belief.

Blind belief here is in the literal sense – the belief which blinds you for 2-3 seconds. But the vehicle must have gone forward by about 15 feet by the time the driver comes to senses after his mobile prayer. I wouldn’t want to travel with such a cab driver. There is no dearth of temples along the roads and it is a habit of the riders to turn to the direction of the temple, close their eyes, not caring about fellow riders and pedestrians and risking their lives.

Well.. may be they believe God(s) would take care of them.

500 days left!

Imagine.

Imagine a world when the entire human male species are about to be wiped out by some strange phenomenon. The event would happen in another 500 days.

All the babies being born in the world are females.
All the males are slowly dying. Death for a male in 500 days is for sure. While the females die as it was earlier.

Imagine.

There is no time left for a drug to be researched and developed to sustain the life of males. Nevertheless the R&D process has commenced. The Olympics will not have gents events any longer and hence the Olympic Council has decided to conduct olympics every quarter. So is the case with all other sports events.

Imagine

Gentlemen rush to write their wills and party every all night.
Resentments with the neighbours are sorted out.
All goodbyes are replaced with "C ya up there"

Imagine

Females have begun underground meetings, rewriting the constitution, redrawing the geographies, drafting the laws and electing leaders.

Imagine.

Imagine the only place which would thrive in business.
Imagine the only place which would make millions.
Imagine the only place which would be THE sought after place in the next 500 days.

Beauty Saloons?
duh!

No

The Sperm Bank!

When Diagram?

Balanji asked me "Long time no see". Well yeah, it is indeed long time since I opened my own blog.

Few changes happened. I was in a corporate. I wanted to do a PhD, so to prepare for that I abandoned the big Hairy Corporate World and moved into academics for last 3-4 months and boy! did I enjoy!. It was so very cool. It was a well known Business School in Kerala.

Cutting things short, I am now dong my PhD at the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.Scholarship yes, but I'm living in austerity. Have a EMI to pay, have lots of things to take care, but then I realize if I miss this opportunity, the opportunity will show its bare-bottom to me and make faces the next time I look for it. I am already feeling old when placed among  my younger classmates. The campus is excellent, the canopy and the little benches to rest. This is one place where I am not made fun of when I go to the library and stay there for the entire day. A typical small talk in the campus is something like this
Person 1 : " Hey you. How you doing?"
Person 2: "Oh Hello.. all fine but still not able to get closer on to that"
Person 1 : "Oh is it? Were you able to get upto the 43rd equation, which says delta t minus e to the power square of xt"?
Person 2: "That was done long back, I am now stuck at the one at page number 822. the one which says the differential equation of sum of all t and gamma divided y epsilon theta..."

You get the picture.

I am now taking a course on Probability and Statistics, and I have so far learned what it feels like to be in a class of Russian, Zulu and Hebrew combined.
I now realize the importance of Venn Diagram. But by the time I make up my mind to understand a stated Venn diagram, the professor says "When Diagram?"

Gosh....

From a deep trench

Never hate anything
Never hate anyone
You might end up doing something you hate
You might be closely associated with some one you hate

Then there is no way but to do what you hate
Then there is no way but to be with the one you hate
You’ll go deep into it, when not acted against it
You’ll get closer to the person, when you opt not to move out

But when you act against it, it will be difficult to liberate
But when you opt to move out, it might be difficult to de-string

You’ll sacrifice a lot other things to get out of it
You’ll cut a lot of ties to free yourself from her / him
But does it mean you should never hate anything?
But does it mean you should never hate anyone?

No.
No.
------

I am going through a rough phase of my career.
I only hope that this gets over as soon as possible

GNINIAGRAB (Reverse bargaining)

My wife has got a new ‘New Year Friend’ and she is supposed to buy a surprise gift for that person. The common consensus is that the worth of the gift should not be less than Rs 200.
Now she drags me along and steps into this fancy and curio shop and checks out things one by one. She recalled that the person whom she is handing over the gift to is a fan of fancy jewels and walks into that section. After (what seemed to be) hours of searching she pointed to a set of chain with a horrible looking locket and a pair of matching ear drops. She asks for the price. “Rs 165” says the sales boy who has now become obviously bored, and was attending to only because there were no other customers in the shop.

She examined the chain-ear drop pair and looked at me for approval. I said ‘Excellent, this should be just fine”. But she had a second thought, as she remembered the unwritten rule (The rule of Rs 200). She said she could make up for the difference by also choosing a set of bangles which goes well with the set. She then began searching for the bangle and by good grace she discovered one without much delay.

“This seems good and matches with the set” said she

“Yes, very well”, said I, looking at my watch

“Ok, so we’ll take this, but what’s the price for the bangle” she asks the sales boy

“Rs 30 for the pair” says he

Now comes the punch.

“Oh is it. (after a moment of thinking)..Can we make it Rs 35?”, asks my wife

!!! – me

!!!!! – sales boy

Two Five Six Nine Four Nine

That’s not my phone number


That’s not my annual income

Neither is that my email password

I’ll tell you what it is; read on

When the onion prices are sky rocketing and my vegetable monger says he does not give me a set of sambar vegetable for Rs 20, but may be for Rs 40 (the new minimum)

When we pay through our nose for those brinjals and ladies fingers and chillies and ginger

When there is no more money left to buy that promised candy for the kid after a visit to the local vegetable market

we don’t realize that the money we spent is not reaching the right pockets.

What else can justify the title figure? 2,56,949

Does adding one more to this figure make any difference? Not much.
But adding one more to this figure makes a difference to an entire family.
A huge difference.

Whoever discovered the use of exclamation mark should have had cardiac arrest by the number of its usage.

2,56,949 farmer suicide. India Shining.