India Unveils 10,000 Rupee Bungalow

Press Mistrust of India
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The Indian Government announced that it was planning to announce the inauguration of the word's cheapest bungalow in Mumbai a week from now. Details are a little sketchy at this point, but we have learned that the bungalow shall have a small garage to park the world's cheapest car in and a table to charge the world's cheapest laptop on. It shall also have a keyhole to (presumably) facilitate the installation of the world's smallest air-conditioner.

Majority of Mumbai's 22 Million (62%, to be exact) live in unimaginable poverty - without a roof on thieir head - (and clearly no air conditioner). A similar (though less dramatic) ratio suffers in other urban centers in India. The government's press release indicates that it wants every "slum dweller" to enjoy every luxury of modern life. We quote from the press release:

After a tiring day of begging at roadside intersections, we expect that the average beggar is quite tired. What better way to rejuvinate than soak in a warm bubble bath in your own personal bathtub in your very own bathroom?

India's Ministry of human resources, headed by Arjun Singh, in partnership with the Civil Engineering Departments of the Indian Institutes of Technology at Chennai and Mumbai started work on the cheap bungalow project two years ago.

Though there is no official press release detailing the various construction methods and materials used in the bungalow, word has leaked that molasses, milk and twine were used liberally. Also used are polythene bags and methane gas (emitted by cows). Staircases are made of paper and walls are made of cinnamon.

Professor Ram Singh, the dean of IIT Madras proudly proclaimed "We would have finished this earlier had not our mess staff gone on strike because of missing supplies a year ago. We are proud of this significant achievement."

Even with this revolutionary building technique, it is anticipated that house construction rates shall not explode in Mumbai. Because building a house for Rs 10,000 is one thing - but purchasing land for Rs 2 crores is another. And that's why India is working on the Rs 50,000 spaceship to Mars, so that a lot of houses can be built on mars (as land is not expected to cost anything).

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Why am I writing this article?
The answer is in two parts.
Part 1 and Part 2
All I can say is w.t.f.

CV9ap - X414a

The year is 2049. The day is September 1st. Labor day.

Incidentally, his wife went into labor today. Everything went well. They had a baby girl.

And they were faced with the unenviable task of picking a name for their daughter. After a lot of brainstorming, they settled on CV9ap-X414a, with a small 'a'.

They chose the name because it was a unique name. A name that meant business. How many people called CV9ap would you not take seriously? They know that she would thank them for the wonderful name that they had blessed her with.

There was a catergory 5 hurricane which was forecast to hit the city that day. He had caught the forecast early in the morning, so he was prepared. He took an umbrella out of his bag and shielded little CV9ap from the 300kmph wind gust. He was quite proud of his paternal instincts.

As the author of this improbable sketch, I can perceive a certain puzzlement; a certain confusion amongst my readers. If I continue on these lines, I run the risk of sounding like a raving lunatic. So perhaps I should clear the air and make the circumstances a little more comprehensible. Shed some light, if you get my drift.

The planet has heated up thanks to human emissions (and bovine flatulence). This increase in enthalpy of the planet has created all sorts of problems. It has created more intense summers. Warmer oceans. And warmer oceans imply more intense hurricanes. And more intense hurricanes mean more death and destruction.

The real problem was not created by the hurricanes. But it was created by America's hurricane warning center. In a land with a finite number of first (and last) names, giving hurricanes people's names (and then "retiring" the deadly ones) created a rather unique problem: a shortage of first names. If you had a baby in 2006, then you would call her anything but Kartina and Rita. 2009 depleted Gustav, Fay, Hanna and Ike from the name pool. By 2015, almost all western names were out. No more Jack. No more Rob. No more Dick. No more Andrew - or Dmitri.

And with more hurricanes, the number of ineligible names started to increase exponentially with time. By 2030, even Indian names such as Vikram and Ravi were taboo.

This crisis was not without resistance. The committee to rescue names (CRN) was formed - and attempted to stop hurricanes on their tracks by dropping nuclear bombs on their path. This turned out to be a particularly ill conceived idea - because these bombs heated up the water all the more, creating the world's first catergory six storm. Saffir and Simpson were really spinning in their graves.

Attempts were made by parents at using more exotic names - any word that sounded phonetically correct was used as a name. But this scheme failed too. Here's a scenario why:

Mother: Oh wow! I am so happy to see that we have had a son. Let's see what we should call him. Let me mix some random phonetic syllables in my mind. Ah. Let us call him "purugu".

Dad: Nice. Purugu sounds nice.

Telugu Guy (appears from nowhere): You might want to reconsider that. In my native tongue, "purugu" means insect. Nothing aganist those little critters - but do you really want to call your son that?

Dad: Aw. Let's try "Kamina" instead,

You get the drift. With the world becoming more of a melting pot, one just could not find any pronounceable word which did not imply something demeaning in some language or was not a killer Hurricane.

As you can see, the only way out was to use alpha numerics. And one fine day, CV9ap-X414a became the leader of the free world. She became the president of the planet. (By 2049, all countries coalesced into one large union).

Oh. And umbrellas are a lot stronger in 2049. They can withstand category sixes with ease. Though catergory 7s (created by CRN by using a hydrogen bomb on a hurricane) are a whole different ball game.

Beedle Beedle Beedle

Jim Davis has given Jon Arbuckle (and Garfield, the fat feline) cell-phones. These cell-phones don't tring-tring or beep beep. They beedle-beedle-beedle.

My current cell-phone allows me to use any peice of music (any mp3) as a ring-tone. It allows me to use a midi of Beethoven's ninth (that I can download off the internet). It has that "I like big butts" disaster built in as a ring tone.

But when one searches for something that sounds like a phone ringing, alas, my cell-phone does not even get as close as beedle-beedle-beedle. The best I can do it that ghastly tune that at&t bundles every phone with.

I have toyed with the idea of tweeting into the phone (tring-tring). But I suspect that it would be extra-embarassing - so I won't do it. I could get one of those birds to tweet into the phone and record a ring-tone. But (a) Birds have an understandable tendency to wing it when one makes oneself proximate to them (b) Even if one does (somehow) manage to sneak up to a location close enough to one of those birds to record a statement, birds are remarkably recalcitrant.

Technology has scored one over me. It is almost impossible to install a respectable ring tone on my cell-phone. I shall enviously look back at the old days when men sounded like men, phones sounded like phones and little furry creatures from alpha centauri sounded like little furry creatures from alpha centauri.

Boomerangs Work in Space*

For a moment, when I read this story I was shell shocked. Could it be that all the aerodynamics I learnt in my life until now was fatally flawed? Could the fact that airplanes fly be a bizarre coincidence?

Why on earth (or more aptly, Why in space) would a rotating shaped solid actually come back in space when it (theoretically) was experiencing no lift, no drag (by virtue of the all-pervasive vacuum surrounding it)? My heart was beating faster. My head was in a serious existential tail-spin.

I was sure I knew (in a hand-wavey way that we engineers are used to) how boomerangs operate. Just to make sure I was correct, I looked at this web page. I wasn't wrong. Phew.

So, how on earth did the damn thing come back in space? Does there really exist a God? Is he trying to deceive us into thinking that we understand how a little of nature works by letting some of our theories be experimentally verifiable? Have I been wrong all along? Is he having fun with us letting us think that we know why airplanes fly? By planting dinosaur bones on the surface of the planet? By planting DNA very similar to yours and mine in a Chimpanzee?

I followed up by a few frenetic Google News Searches.

Apparently the (astro) nut threw a paper boomerang INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION and was ecstatic that it came back. Duh. Of course it'll come back. That's its job in a room filled with air at more or less atmospheric pressure. (Air faithfully follows the Kutta-Jukowski theorem - creating a lift force on moving airfoils - as opposed to vacuum). A boomerang coming back has nothing to do with gravity. Actually gravity is BAD for a boomerang as it might hit the ground before coming back - therefore not completing a cycle.

This basically tells me that astronauts are only semi-educated in science - and are far from the "best of the best" that NASA proudly proclaims they are.

And .. Oh Yeah.. There's still no god.

* Where space is defined as any volume within the international space station.

Ethnic Cleasing in Mumbai? Give me a break.

Mumbai is a city of 21 million people; arguably one of the world's most diverse and cosmopolitan cities. It has among the highest population densities on the planet; it has the one of the world's largest slums; approximately 100,000 prostitutes; the world's most over-burdened sub-urban railway system and a film industry that makes more movies than Hollywood in a given year.

And if the developments in the last few days are considered, we realize that there's no shortage of imbeciles in Mumbai either. And I speak of none other than one "Raj Thakeray"; a political cipher trying to emulate his uncle's (Bal Thakeray's) openly racist and divisive politics (with only limited success). His passionate efforts to rid Mumbai of North Indian immigrants are so doomed from day one that it will be extremely enjoyable to see his entire movement implode.

Here's why. Let's consider some numbers now:

With 20% of the population of Mumbai being North Indians, Mr Thakeray has confronting him the unenviable task of deporting 4 million people, (which is half the popluation of Israel if anyone's keeping count). If he manages to do this without much bloodshed, then this would be a first in the history of humanity. And if he does manage to do this, I am sure some American politicians (and Lou Dobbs) would give an arm and a leg to learn how to repeat this feat with Mexican "illegal" immgirants (12 million of whom seem to have set permanent anchor in the US).

So, how would Mr. Thakeray go about this task?

Certainly, the most practical way out of Mumbai would be by train. Mr. Thakeray would have to give away each one of those 4 million people one-way tickets home. Some of those tickets will have to be air-conditioned. I know a few North Indians who would rather die than travel in three tier during the summer. And once the train reaches wherever it is supposed to, he must sabotage its engine such that it never comes back. (But this m.o. involves sacrificing a Marathi Saboteur - a suicide Saboteur, if you will - for an enraged North-Indian public will certainly lynch the gentleman in question.). This venture is unlikely to be financially lucrative either. Mr. Thakeray will have to spend an average of Rs. 500 per ticket - a grand total of 4million x 500 = Rs 2 billion. (The option of advertising on the train will be of little use too, since he does not expect those people to come back to Mumbai).

Clearly, this is not a tenable solution. Even if Mr. Thakeray were to procure the money by begging, borrowing or stealing, (the latter being the most probable) most North Indians would either

(a) Not go, sell the ticket to someone else (and ask them to change their name while traveling)
(b) Go, say Hi to Mum and come back

leaving his scheme doomed, like one of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge's bizarre capitalistic ventures.

Mr. Thakeray could consider going to each house and weeping in front of the principal bread-winners. He could sob (in Marathi) "You're taking opportunities away from my people. Please, starve your family for my people's sake. Please be humane.". Alas, this scheme would only give him a black eye on lucky days.

He could try putting an economic squeeze by holding businesses in ransom from doing business with North Indians. This again is unlikely to work, since a majority of the businesses are not run by Marathi. This, as a matter of fact is bound to back-fire.

And, finally, one hopes, it will dawn upon Mr. Thakeray that only a simultaneous repeal-ment of the entire Indian constitution and the second law of thermodynamics will allow his fantasy to come true. But given that politics is all about inciting emotions, Mr. Thakeray is doing the rational thing.

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The second law of thermodynamics talks about "spontaneity" - whenever there is a disparity, things tend to try to even out. (If they wouldn't try to even out, then there wouldn't have been a disparity in the first place.) That's why Mexicans come by the millions ("illegally") to the US; That's why Bangladeshis come by the millions to India - and people migrate by the millions to Urban Areas like Mumbai.

There is little one can do to stop free will, as Mr Thakeray will no doubt learn.

An Embarassment Down Under

When I was much younger (fifth grade?) we used to play cricket in parks (breaking numerous windows, causing physical harm to numerous unsuspecting aunties sitting in the park and scaring the living daylights out of (and sometimes, provoking into aggression) numerous stray canines). We were, as a consequence never popular with the flora and fauna, but we did have to good time. Oh, we had our own fair share of sledging (almost everyone called me "fat"; someone else was called "Godzilla" (because the individual had an uncanny resemblance to the lizard in question)). We had our own fair share of racism (saala "madrasi"/ "sardar"/ "bihari"/ "chinki" : all not in the sense of utmost amicability). We had our own fair share of physical violence - I remember fighting with someone when we had a disagreement over a run-out. We had our own biased umpires (often quite blatant, often just plain incompetent like Steve Buknor).

Turns out professional cricket is just the same - no matter the colour of your skin, no matter the amount of money you earn. I must say, all the gentlemen who claim that cricket is their game must be spinning in their graves. Not that I care. Not that anyone does.

There's no way anyone can beat the Australian team right now. Since actual test victories against the Australians are so hard to come by - the team from the Sub-Continent will try to do the next best thing. Steal a moral victory. Does the term "sore loser" ring a bell somewhere?

But that being said, the issue of Harbhajan being reported for racism one so full with irony that it is identical to Mahmoud Ahmedinijad joining a Feminist Rally. The Australians are the master sledgers: almost as bad as that bully who used to play with us in the park (Let's Call him M.) . M had the choicest things to say about his victim's parents and siblings in Hindi. Let's jt leave that there with the confidence that all my Indian reader(s) familiar with Hindi would more or less have understood what the offensive terms in question are.

It is pathetic to hear Sharad Pawar consider abandoning the series. We never abandoned our games when we played in the park: even if one side had to bat in pitch dark. (One can imagine the umpiring standards in pitch dark!)

Here's what I say to the Australian Team. It is incredibly stupid to report Harbhajan for acrimonious behaviour. It is Indian culture to make fun of other people's races. Indian Ancestors did not enslave black people, so they're not that sensitive to racism*. (If you want to be a stickler for facts, direct Australian ancestors did not enslave black people - but the sensitivity to racial discrimination is owing to the European and American experience with African exploitation). Deal with it. You're no angels either. You sledge like crazy. Withdraw all charges against Bhajii and go to Perth and start sledging. And be sledged too.

And here's what I say to the Indian team. It makes me SICK to see you resort to emotion off the field when you find yourselves incapable of making your game speak. It's just too bad Buknor is going blind and deaf. Shit happens. Deal with it. Go and play the game in Canberra. Go to Perth and try to avoid an innings defeat. (That would be quite an achievement on that bouncy pitch). And then, try to beat Australia in at least one one-day match. And then go back to India, overthrow the BCCI monopoly, let the ICL give it good competition so that one fine day, any domestic team from, say, Hyderabad can beat the Baggy Green.


* I hope Indians get sensitive to communalism, regionalism and casteism (Indian forms of racism). But it does not look like happening anytime soon. Contemporary Indian society is bigoted to the core. Luckily, the government is not, thanks to universal franchise, a triumph of democracy.

Developing World: Adolescent Children?

It's been a freakishly long hiatus for no real reason. I wasn't getting married in these two months, like I was last hiatus. Just plain busy.

Lots happened during the hiatus. Musharaff declared emergency in Pakistan. Some "sting" reports were carried out on Modi's henchmen confirming his guilt in slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat a few years ago. And Bush's (presumable) plans to bomb Iran to hell received a plausibly fatal setback: apparently, Iran does not have nukes at all (and is probably not contemplating building any, either). Yet, John Bolton went on American National Television claiming that he does not trust the above "Intelligence Estimate". And America lost its most dependable (and unbiased) source of news when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were forced out of Air by striking writers. [I was wondering why Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Rielly were still on, but I realized that these people probably do not allow their writers to join unions].

Despite so many interesting developments to make fun of (Isn't John Bolton just asking for it?) , I still choose to talk about a lecture that I attended a few weeks ago for a "seminar" class. A lecture which was quite illuminating in understanding international perceptions on the whole energy crisis the earth is said to be facing.

But before that, let me make a mention of Mr Al-Gore's speech yesterday when recieving the Nobel "Peace" prize (a prize, I believe he really deserves, because his movie reaches exactly the right audience). He lambasted US and China for not doing enough to fight carbon emissions. The US stands squarely incriminated in both these estimates: (total CO2, per capita CO2), whereas China is the 80th in the "per-capita" pollution ratings. To blame a bunch of people who emit 10 times less CO2 (each) than you is plain bigotry. Or plain ignorance. And I believe it is more the latter than the former.

Here's an irksome analogy that I came across during a discussion after a lecture on energy policy a few weeks ago. (I keep the identity of the speaker secret, because some of the comments I make here can be quite caustic, and I know the speaker did not mean any harm - he just suffers from a luxury delusion syndrome - like Al Gore and most of the people in the US, who have been insulated from significant economic suffering by a nation with a historically unprecedented per-capita prosperity)

"Think of Europe as the Old Man of the World, The US as the 40-something middle aged man, and the developing countries as the Adolescent kids of the World. We need to show them the way and teach them how to live the right way. We need to sensitize them of environmental issues."

The above analogy is so miserably flawed that I don't even want to start to correct it. Suffice it to say that it serves as good starting point to understand the well intentioned but far-removed-from-reality mentality of the first world inhabitant. Perhaps we should call the first world the fantasy world, instead?

It's no wonder that fear-mongerers like Lou Dobbs are immensely popular here, in the US. Lou Dobbs' entire life is dedicated to making the lives of some of the poorest people in the world (who come to the extremely prosperous US in search of an opportunity to feed their family back in Mexico, just like his Ancestors did, from, presumably, Europe) that little bit more miserable, thereby enhancing his ratings and making him a little richer. Nothing sells like patriotism, as Stephen Colbert shrewdly observes.

The whole thing is just a battle of perceptions. I am not indicating that there is any actual bigotry in the Average American (or the average inhabitant of the first world). The First world inhabitant, as a matter of fact, the least racist and the most tolerant (dare I say liberal?) person there is in the world today.

The truth is that Democracies are genetic algorithms which favor populism and narrow regionalism over globally egalitarian ideals. This is because only inhabitants of the first world vote for their leaders. And this makes me conclude that the very concept of regional democracy is deeply flawed.

It is my opinion that, for democracy to really work (and for free trade and free markets to really work), the world needs to be one large nation which free movement of capital AND labor, not just the former.

Introducing Entropism

As far as religions go, there's plenty of religions out there - all brimming with messages of love - and beating the living daylights out of each other. To add another religion to this abundance of hate in the name of love would be unwise, to say the least. But nobody told me that. Here I go, starting a religion of my own.

Nothing makes sense right now. Christianity's most sacred assertion of virgin birth is improbable to say the least. And Judaism (and other faiths derived from Judaism) believe in a male God who created the world in seven days. Hinduism and other associated faiths believe in life after death , Nirvana - all equally irrational and improbable as virgin birth. (Please note that I dare not criticize Islam in this blog, as I might be imposed a fatwa upon by some Cleric and be prohibited from entering India - a fate similar to the one that has befallen one Salman Rushdie - so let me say for the record - Islam is a great religion and a religion of peace. That sound you're hearing is my knees shaking in fear of getting a fatwa issued in my name.)

Here are the basic tenets of Entropism:

Entropism is the belief that shit happens. Especially when you are careless. In order to limit the amount of shit that happens, one must be quite careful.

The intelligentsia amongst my readers would surely have realized that this is little else than the second law of thermodynamics ("the entropy of a closed system never decreases"). Yes, this is INDEED a cop out of mammoth proportions. The fundamental premise of this faith is just a statistical reality. No chance of that going wrong, eh? (Unless they make a Maxwell Daemon for real this time).

What is the central message of entropism? Is it one of love?

No. It is one of utter self centeredness (sic). And love, incidentally is a mere consequence of selfishness. (For an elaborate discussion of the same, the reader is refferred to Prof. Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". Though I think Prof. Dawkins' emphatic confrontations with theists are counter-productive from a practical point of view - his book is still very powerful philosophically). The basic message is "Do unto others what others do unto you - keeping in mind, of course, legal constraints - for if what others do unto you is illegal, turning them over to the police might produce more satisfying results". A sort of order in the society shall then result - something not unlike the Evolutionary steady state that Prof. Dawkins discusses in his book.


The central message of entropism is one of faith. In oneself. Libertarianism comes close. But that's a political ideology. This is a religion. So, let's keep them separate - shall we? Separation of lack-of-church and state. (If I had my way, we'd do away with international borders and we would be worried about the separation of lack-of-church and planet but that's an altogether different story).

And what about prophets? Does entropism believe in prophets?

Yes it does. There's one and only one prophet. That is me. Possibly because there is only one entropist. Me. If you wish to convert to entropism then you could also become a prophet. Shit happens.

Vegitarianism: Am I a Hypocrite?

I've always had this "holier-than-thou" attitude: I don't do meat because I reckon killing an animal causes it pain. And since, in general, the average living thing tends to avoid pain as much as possible - pain must be, well, painful to say the least. So, I don't do beef, I don't do chicken - or any other meat for that matter.

But the average roach that encounters me gets the under-side of my shoe, inevitably. I have an obsession with killing ants and other insects that bite. I would kill a bed-bug if I ever saw another (something I seriously wish I won't). In other words, if insects were human (which they, thankfully, are not) then most of humanity would be in my firing line.

Does one sense a certain double standard somewhere? Well, I did - so I did some reading up.

Causing a living thing a sensation of pain is what I want to avoid - and it turns out that in order to experience pain (pain as we know it), one needs a central nervous system - something that insects apparently do not possess. (A rather dumbed down explanation of the same can be found here.).

Which gets me thinking on a tangent: an insect is little but a robot: it does what it is programmed to (by evolution, so to speak).

Which eerily corroborates what I had been thinking all along: even humans are little but over-rated robots - after all, consciousness is an illusion that the conscious mind creates to "explain" itself.

At this point I see a roach crawl on the floor. I am taking a shoe out of the closet right now. I have the shoe on my hand. The shoe is being used to crush the roach with lethal force right now. After hearing a convincing "crunch" sound, one is sure that the roach is no more. But I am not a sinner. Killing the roach was as much an ethical crime as, well, breaking a pen.

Quarter A Century

I am twenty five years old now. Turned 25 around the "ides of July". Turning twenty five had a sort-of -sobering effect on yours truly. It got me into thinking about Human timescales. Our lives are not mere drops in the ocean. Here is why.

Twenty of me and you have the Mughal Empire. Forty of me and you have the Christian Dark Ages - full with plagues and little ice ages and everything. Sixty of me, you have Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) fighting his wars. Eighty of me, and you have Jesus Christ - allegedly perishing for the sins of one and all. Hundred of me and you have the glorious kingdoms of ancient India and China. You have Buddha sitting under a tree in what is now Laloo-land. You have Asterix and Obelix plundering the Romans. You have Aristote and Plato commiting blunders. You have Pythagoras talking about hypotenuses. Two Hundred of me and you have the Egyptians and Chinese starting out and the Indians (some contend) on song.

As a matter of fact, just a hundred and twenty of my lives could have fit into the entire Egyptian empire. A hundred and twenty is not much - why, I see a hundred and twenty people all the time. There were classes in IIT which had 250 students. (Ah, the lovely farce that is IIT education!).

Half a billion of me, and you have the big bang. Considering that the world has SIX billion people, it is intriguing (though absolutely useless) to note that the cumulative age of all humans on the planet right now exceeds the age of the universe. On a more somber note, the cumulative age of all Indians right now exceeds that of the universe by a factor of roughly two. Now, that is scary.

I am just 25 right now. Current longevity estimates would put my life at around 75 years at least - assuming something is done to control sphericity of my own self. Utterly sobering to think that only forty of me would be sufficient to fill the entire 3000 years of the Egyptian empire.

Considering that the median age of India is 24 right now, I must also realize that I am one of the older Indians on the planet right now. It's all downhill from here, eh?

If you're not mesmerized by these statistics, all that means is that you grasp human timescales much better than I do right now. Kudos to you.

The Trip Home.

Why the Hiatus?

The avid reader of this blog would have observed an uncharacteristic hiatus in recent times - and would probably have guessed that the reason for the same was the matrimony that the author was undergoing. And (s)he would not entirely be in error. The author, to use a Wodehouseism (that's a neologism) has become rather superfatted and lazy after getting married. All the author does is sleep and eat and surf and sleep, while the little woman does all the dirty work.

The Trip.

A mention must be made of the recent trip to India. The trip to India was a pleasant affair - the ubiquitous rudeness notwithstanding. There were absolutely no surprises in the trip- save, perhaps the Mumbai Airport. I expected a mess, frankly, when I landed in Mumbai. But the airport was probably cleaner and more impressive than all the other airports (besides DFW) I had been in ... Frankfurt and Bahrain. And the immigration and customs were a cinch. I did not have to stand in those fabled kilometer-long lines awaiting my turn.

The Traffic

The traffic was terrible (on expected lines). To say that I was scared when I saw Indian roads for the first time after coming back would be an understatement. I was petrified. I had no clue how people could survive with such traffic. A five hour drive to Surat on the day I landed was affected. Though most of the road was wonderful (the golden quadrilateral) the stints on the two-laned portions really scared me. My heart was racing faster as the driver overtook slower vehicles. (Mum and Dad didn't even flinch when this happened, to top it all).

Here's how an over-take is performed in India. Let's say you have to overtake a truck (henceforth referred to as the victim) on a two lane road in India. Let's say there's a car coming in the opposite direction. You first speed up, such that your speed is at least double the speed of the victim. Then you perfrom a cursory check to see whether a vehicle is coming the other direction in the right lane. If a vehicle is indeed approaching - then the overtake is not abandoned. In such a case the accelerator is depressed all the more and a headlight is flashed. Flashing this headlight momentarily (this is still mid-day, mind you) lulls the you into a sense of security. It is almost as if all responsibility is passed on to the driver of the approaching vehicle. The overtake is completed. The approaching vehicle might be forced into the shoulder - that's just routine. These delicate maneuvers are performed at speeds approaching 100kmph on those roads. Needless to say, safety is an eternal issue. Indian roads are among the most dangerous on the planet.

Surat turned out to be a singularly interesting town. Absolutely no garbage on the streets - spic and span - without any city buses - with newborns (virtually) driving two-wheelers - and absolutely no place to go to.

Congestion is normal on Indian roads. Surat is congested. Mumbai is congested. But Hyderabad is something else. It is saturated with a prosperous middle class. Though clean, it is static. Honestly, there are times when you feel it is a miracle that things actually move. Let me talk about one specific road. The Hubsiguda main road. And let me tell you how we cross Indian roads.

Just walk across. Don't care what is coming. Vehicles are usually so static that stopping is not a big deal for them. Just act as if you are blind-folded and cross. Unless some Salman Khan is driving along on his BMW, you are as safe as you can possibly be.

The monsoons came (albeit a little late) to India. Rain wreaked havoc over Mumbai (on expected lines) - and even over Hyderabad and Surat. Since the internet is more or less saturated with stories about the rain - let's let that go, shall we?

The Wedding

I would like to firstly talk about the status of atheists in India. There is no respect for atheists in India at all. When you say you're an atheist, people just assume you're a Hindu of sorts. I managed to bear this soft bigotry( yeah right, bigotry!) with a smile of my face - primarily because I am not a Dawkinsian crackpot.

The wedding, firstly, was as traditional an affair as a wedding can be - with the exception of a gazillion camera men fighting with each other giving both the bride and the groom an Angelina Jolie complex. I kid you not. If you were at the wedding, you would also get the feeling that most of India's 1.1 billion turned up as cameramen (armed with Nikon D-somethings).

The food, it must be metioned, was incredible - and even as the groom, I managed to get a fair fill (sneaking to the catering room every now and then). I have a gut feeling that it was frowned upon by a few powers that thought that they were - not that I cared a hoot.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the wedding ceremony was the number of reunions it facilitated. I met cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmothers after a cruel hiatus of two years. I met friends after an equally long hiatus. It was incredible in that I met almost everyone that mattered in my life at one point - and in that lay a regret - viz. there was just not enough time to do justice to everyone who turned up. Lots of people I did want to spend time with - but I just could not make it.

Lots and lots of relatives were met - regardless of whether they were known or unknown. I would like to add that I am almost positive that there were some impostors and some gatecrashers in the mix. But one never knows, does one? Lots of gifts were handed over. Usually idols of Ganesha - a hindu God destroyed and then re-created by Lord Shiva (the destroyer). The fact that Ganesha is a fan of the edible and is characterized by rotundity could be an ominous sign of the role that obesity might play in one's life - but, if that were true, then almost all Hindus would be fat.

Moral of the Story

One of the most important players in the wedding was rice. Rice coated with turmeric was thrown at the us by one and all. The rice crashed into the our heads like a Japanese Kamikaze airplane. It was all out war. And let's not forget the long rituals. The whole wedding was a blind ritualistic orgy. But within these rituals I could see genuine devotion among the people - and often genuine happiness. A certain joy that only religion can bring to the believer. A placebo that does more good than bad.

If there is one thing this whole experience in India taught me, it is the following:

Religion and rituals make people happy.
Being happy is the point of life.
Trying to spread atheism (like Dawkins and others do) is incredibly stupid, ignorant, arrogant and counter-productive.

I am an atheist who likes to see others happy. I don't care about the logical consistency of what others believe in. As long as they're happy. For happiness, often, is much more than a warm gun. It seems to be approximated quite well by devotion.

Doggerel: Impending Doom

These "poems" are dedicated to my little cosine, Kavi.

And there I was in the sea
As deep as I could be
I saw a little hook, it looked nice
And now I'm being served with fried rice.

"Bark, bark, bark!" I said
As I snuggled into my master's bed.
He got up; "Don't disturb me" he said
And kicked me till I was dead.

I can carry fifty times my weight, you see;
No cube of sugar is a match for me.
But I am very scared of the shoe -
For, when it crushes me - there's only formic acid and goo.

I saw a lamb tethered under a tree
My mouth watered"That's a meal for me"!
After a very sumptuous feast,
In the Hunter's cabin, I am now a stuffed beast.

India Guilty for G.W.?

Politicians never cease to surprise me - in their shamelessness and utter stupidity. And the latest Bushism, holding India among those "responsible" for global warming is just worth a good laugh - little else. I'm laughing so much that I'm not able to focus on work. So, I will rant and rave and get it out of my system.

It is a cynical laugh, a resigned laugh. A sad laugh which concedes that the world is run by individuals with negligible IQs and big mouths. And what scares me is that such people are in charge of weapons that can destroy the planet many times over - and history has shown - are not afraid to use them.

Picture someone, say Bill Gates (for want of a richer guy) walking down the street - nay - driving down the street in a Hummer (for want of a more polluting vehicle). Picture a grad student (for want of a poorer person) driving her bike innocuously on that "bike lane". And picture Bill Gates stopping beside the bike and exclaiming "You are so shameless, you {female dog}! Do you have any idea how much pollution making those tires of your bike causes? How much CO2 do you think the manufacture of that thing pumps into the atmosphere? You'll kill my planet."

A tad exaggerated, of course - but I trust you get my point.

A math course perhaps would have done these people a whole world of good. I idea of comparing nations as a whole (as opposed to per-capita comparisons) is incredibly stupid. It is incredibly stupid while comparing economies - and even stupider while comparing environmental effects.

I do believe that there is very little that outraged rhetoric can achieve, so let me change gears into full- blown satire. (Not that satire will achieve anything either - but it is much more fun!)

So, let me quote a report from an international Journal. Let's say, Science.
-----------------------------------

India IS Responsible For Global Warming

By Lunatic, Some.

Recent Studies by Exxon Mobil have shown that the Over-Indulgence of the Americans (OIA) is not a significant factor in increasing greenhouse gas levels in the world. The study further states that the carbon dioxide combines with oxygen and water under sunlight to produce acetone and sugar. Acetone has a low boling point - and actually cools the atmosphere.

The main reason for global warming, the study then goes on to say, is bovine flatulence in India. The report quotes "A cow in India is fed grass - which makes the flatulence contain a significantly high portion of methane. Methane is a global warming gas. It is anticipated that god lights methane up to keep himself warm - and some of that heat inevitably leaks back to earth. Even though, at a given time, the US has a billion live cows, they are not harmful to the planet - as they are fed a diet rich in meat made from other cows. This creates a sort of endless cannibalistic loop that would be extremely freakish if the species in question was Human Beings. American Bovine flatulence does not consist of mehane. And most of these cows are killed young for their meat. Studies have shown that only old cows can warm the globe"

The study has the following recommendations:

1. Abolish Hinduism as a religion since God created cows so that humans could eat them. People praying cows (as opposed to preying on them) are infidels. India can subsequently be colonized and the Indians (whatever we leave of them) will be forced to kill and eat cows.

2. More automobiles should be used. The use of cycles should be banned as the amount of CO2 emitted by their manufacture is inadequate. Hummers should replace SUVs and SUVs should replace sedans.

3. Hybrid vehicles should be illegal. This can be achieved by stipulating certain maximum mileage standards. Every car should achieve less than 11 miles to the gallon - failing which there will be a significant tax disincentive.

4. Anybody Driving A Hybrid Should be: given lethal injection.

More recommendations will be aired on Fox soon.

-------------------------------------------------------

I hope I did not overdo it this time.

A.

N'Kisi

Are birds really that stupid? My previous article would seem to say so, but the reality is far, far different. Birds are actually very intelligent. Empirical Evidence suggests that they do indeed solve non-linear partial differential equations while they fly; they do have a reasonably philosophical insight into quantum mechanics. I regret the stand taken in my previous post and I retract the same in all humility.

Their genius lies in looking aloof. The are great at looking like they're stupid, when in reality, they are little Einstiens flying around deriving E = m * c^2 in their heads. It is birds, not us who run this planet. We spent millenia trying to imitate them (by flying) - and we still need airports with huge conrtrete run-ways. How smart can we be?

How do I know this? Ah, that's because of N'kisi, the parrot.

Birds, in general, are quite good at keeping secrets. They have not let us know that they are incredibly intelligent. (When I say "all birds are intellegent", I mean "all" with the exception of dodos. Only idiots would go extinct before taking over the world. Evolve better or die.)

Just like every dam has a leak and every rose has its thorn, every species has its lunatic. Someone who would love to let the proverbial cat out of the bag. And that someone is N'kisi, the parrot.

N'kisi is a foolish bird. It pays no attention in school when the teachers are discussing the commandment of secrecy. It is busy eating some worms. So when the teacher goes onto "we shall never let any other species even suspect....", N'kisi is eating the aforementioned worm with great relish. It licks the slimy scales of the worm and ingests it like a grad student would ingest a Ramen Noodle. To N'kisi, the teacher is as good as inexistent.

In a few days after "graduation", N'kisi lured a human into captivity - a moved "frowned upon" by the feathered elders, but not strictly taboo. N'kisi made the human pamper it with milk - and loads and loads of sumptuous maggots. In return, N'kisi derived the grand unification theory of quantum mechanics and general relativity on a peice of paper, but the human thought it was some illegible garbage and threw that paper away.

N'kisi then realised that the average human would not know opportunity if it bit them in the bottom. So, N'kisi decided on a slightly more devious course of action. It would excite the humans by uttering some "cute words" every now and then. It could laugh its head off by looking at the interest generated amongst people.

So, next time someone showed it a picture of a guy popping his head out of a car, N'kisi bellowed "Uh-oh, you put your head out!". On smelling some nice oils, it exclaimed "Pretty smell medicine". You can see how much excitement it would have generated (and it did).

Feathered Elder the Esteemed Kiki was not a very happy parrot. It was a learned bird with greying feathers and a flowing white beard to boot. It was in the twilight of its life, but it was a passionate philosopher, nevertheless. It had written down the grand unification theory in a poem form which went:

Water bird eat pig
I buy you new wig.

Brick cat eat mat.
Happy bubble is cat.

Big fat man is meat
When he dies we will eat.

We will become big fat bird,
Big fat man will eat us then.

This poem was considered a gem. That the last two lines did not rhyme added to the mystery, the intrigue of the poem. This poem was Kiki's highest point in life. But I digress. This is N'kisi's story. Kiki's story will be told. Not today, though.


Kiki had never seen anything like this before. No bird had ever been stupid enough to spill the beans to the humans. If the humans ever got to know the secret, there would be hell to pay fo all the birds. It was okay that dogs knew : they never could harm anyone except each other. But man was a particularly stupid yet malicious animal. An animal that should have been pecked into extinction by those negligent vultures millions of years ago.

Kiki was apalled that N'kisi was so insensitive. It decided to have N'kisi killed. Brutally snuffed.

Moral of Story:

Independent thought is a dangerous thing, even if you are a parrot. You must always conform to society, or else someone will kill you. Brutally snuff you.

(I would also like to tell you that I did not think of this story myself.)

Three Stupid Birds

Birds are not known for their intelligence. As a matter of fact, most of them are just plain stupid. They don't solve partial differential equations in their free time; all they do is make those irritating chirping noises. They don't ponder over the meaning on life while sailing the silken blue sky; they chase worms instead.

Three instances demonstrating the intellectual negligibility of birds are documented herewith, lest some people succumb to the temptation of conceding that birds are actually intelligent. After reading this article, the reader will never look at a bird and go "If only I could understand what that little guy is thinking!". Because that bird is probably thinking of worms to eat, little else.

Let us go back to July 2004, a time when lots of people I knew were graduating from IIT Madras. I was not, but a lot of my colleagues were. And we were sitting in that jam-packed auditorium in that miserable Chennai Heat (it was 38+ outside). And guess what was flying inside the auditorium? A bird. Damn thing was trying its best to get out. But all it would do is try to fly out, bang into a transparent window, fall down and repeat the aforementioned procedure ad nauseam. Rather than watch my friends graduate, I watched the bird confuse itself. It made me wonder: how did the damn thing ever eat? How did it grow so old?

Say whatever you might want to about the average bird, but you would never expect to see a bird make mistakes while flying. The bird might not have a philosophical understanding of Quantum Mechanics, but it surely knows where it is flying. No chance of it banging into a tree or something. No chance of it hitting a gradual cyclist, you might say. But you're wrong. A clueless crow actually banged (beak first) into yours truly - when I was biking near the hostel. I had a scratch for a couple of days on my person as evidence for the vicious attack.

This stupidity is certainly not just limited to avians in the sub-continent. The lack of intellect is universal - as evidenced by a recent incident in College Station. Here's what happened. I was walking down the street and I heard a mild "thud". I thought it was a meteor or something and was shocked for a moment. I looked around to investigate and there was a pigeon which appeared shaken. It was stumbling on the ground. What happened was that the stupid bird forgot to flap its wings and hit the ground. (It probably was thinking: "I know I'm supposed to be doing something now. What could it be?").

Of course there are stupider birds in the world. There's the sparrow which hit the fan in my bed room once, but I don't want to document it as stupid as the poor soul is no more. There's the parrot which bit me when I was two years old - but I don't want this post to look like personal vendetta, so I won't mention that either.

For once I feel thankful that I am a human and not a bird. But lots of people will contend that I am as stupid as one of the birds for writing this post. I can't say that they are entirely wrong.

How to get snakes onto a plane

After the recent (inspiring?) Jackson starrer, one cannot but help contemplate various ways of installing snakes on an airliner with the motive of causing inconvenience to one and all. And the term "snakes", I use not metaphorically. This is indeed not a post with layers of meaning. The term "snakes" implies not a terrorist. This post is as crass and unsophisticated as, well, the movie in question.

How do we get snakes on a plane without getting detected? This question has puzzled countless moviegoers for a week and a day, and bloggers with nothing else to do for more than a year. So, I take a crack at bringing them on board. A warning though: one must not try getting snakes on a plane. It would be cruel to the snake; PETA would get back at you for doing so, no doubt. Another warning: if you're flying Sam Jackson on the plane, it would be better not to get any impressionable children on board. Profanity is something most children should never learn. Or they become like, well, Sam Jackson when confronted with wriggly thingamajigs.

One must make use of the fact that snakes are organic creatures. If smuggled in the check in baggage, they would be detected in the x-ray. Snakes are soft, and when pressed, some feel like a gel. It would be best not to get them in cabin baggage either - especially with the stringent new anti-gel norms. The sensible snake bringer would carry the snake on his person - preferably tranquilzed -something slithering would arouse immediate suspicions. The advantage of their "organicness" is that the metal detector won't go "beep beep beep" when it hovers over the snake. It will think the snake is a part of the body and will move on its quest of detecting firearms.

So, how does one smuggle these things into a plane? Snakes are not drugs - and cannot be smuggled in "body orifices" - for they might suffocate. Plus no one wants venom in the aforementioned parts of the anatomy. Prosthetic limbs come to mind; breast implants too, I guess - but how would one produce those snakes on demand in the plane without looking extremely conspicuous? One therefore does see that these methods entail severe risk. One could try bribing the stewardresses - but that would work only in domestic Indian flights. (Corruption seems to be an endemic part of current Indian culture right now).

I think the most pragmatic way of achieving the stated objective is to smuggle an undetected snake in one's pockets while boarding the flight. The snake must be in a state of infancy - so that it can be mistaken to be a part of the pocket lining of the trousers. The infant snake must then be hosted in, say, seat 12A. It must be put undetected in the seat pocket. Then, the assassin (let's call the snake-bringer the "assassin" rather than the "terrorist", primarily, because the term "assassin" has two asses) must make his people buy tickets on all flights of the plane in question such that they get to stay in seat 12A. They must feed the snake a share of their airline food daily - and remove its excreta in a litter bag.

And on D-day (let's refer to it as SSS day from now on?) the snake is released. One must make it a point to make it either an anaconda or a venomous snake; failing which the snake shall wind up as a mere amusement. Spray it with pheromones and hear Sam Jackson deliver his famous lines.

[Please note that there's a lot of bleeped profanity in the link. Please be aware of that before you click on it. ]