The Easiest Job in the World

Astrological analysis shows that Australian team will win the series.

- Astrologer Kovalu

Personal Chemistry for a Perfect Cup of Tea

Personal chemistry: to gain optimum ambience for enjoyment of tea aim to achieve a seated drinking position in a favoured home spot where quietness and calm will elevate the moment to a special dimension. For best results carry a heavy bag of shopping - or walk the dog - in cold, driving rain for at least half an hour beforehand. This will make the tea taste out of this world.

- The Royal Society of Chemistry's instructions for making a perfect cup of tea (pdf)

Hollywood Writer's strike

I have been watching the Hollywood writer's strike with some interest. They explain their position in this video:



I wonder what the situation in India is with respect to issues like movie re-runs ?

NRI Worship

Close on the heels of an unemployed software coolie venting some steam against NRIs, Ramachandra Guha decides to do the same. I thought, I detected a hint of admiration in Mr.Guha's eyes when he obliged the coolie with a signed copy of his latest book at a bookshop in Bangalore not too long ago. Tch, Tch, the mad hallucinations of these coolies ! On to a few extracts from the article:

The first thing to note about this puja is that it has space only for a certain kind of NRI. Those who live with Arabs in the Gulf or with Fijians in the South Pacific do not qualify; still less those who have made their home with humans of African descent in the Caribbean. To be worthy of worship, an NRI must live with people whose skin pigmentation is, in the Tamil phrase, paal maadri, literally, the colour of milk.

...

Some visiting NRIs express anger at these conditions. Others express sympathy, which yet comes with a very large dose of self-satisfaction.

...

Both kinds of radicalism stem from a deep sense of alienation. The Hindu professional might live in suburban America but he shall never be of it. His neighbours can't pronounce his name, have never heard of his place of origin, don't warm to his music and are uncomprehending of his religion. Back home, however, there are people who both understand him and need him. So he writes cheques to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, thus to preserve the essence of a culture too elevated for his narrow-minded neighbours to appreciate.

The university radical, for his part, also finds himself pyschologically out of place in America. His fellow dons all know their Marx, but in the wider society the ruling deity is Mammon. The only hope is to take succour in oppositional movements within India. When George Bush's America is so ferociously devoted to consumer capitalism, thank God for the desi leftists, who so heroically keep out the market and keep flickering the fading light of socialism. The Mother Country to the rescue, again.

Both kinds of radicals are hypocritical. Living under a Constitution that separates Church from State, the religious radical yet wishes to convert India into a Hindu Pakistan. Living in an open, free society that encourages innovation and enterprise, the political radical yet wants to refashion India into a Burma writ large, into an isolated, autarkic autocracy that shall pass itself off as a socialist utopia.

- Linku

In case this article disappears behind some obscure password protected archive, here is a copy .

Take a look at this lame response to his article, and you will understand why it's so difficult to take on people who write for a living on their own turf. Ever wonder why people who are foaming at their mouths whenever Arundhathi Roy posts an article are so rarely engaging ?

'Foreign Returned' - You can only take a man out of India

I realised sometime back that, I had quit most of my jobs due to foreign returned managers - Hmm, unemployment gives you time to reflect. Post dot-com, there has been a very steady trickle of those salt and pepper hair, shorts wearing, 'touch-base, ball-park estimating, my-bad' folks coming back home. It's as though all those suppressed indianisms are waiting in a latent form, only to get unleashed with even greater ferocity the moment flight touches home soil. One day, at my last job I caught the the office boy muttering 'I am from a decent family, he is asking me to do all thissu ..." - after consoling the poor bloke, I discovered that the phoren-returned boss had asked him to get a couple of beers. This office boy also gets the privilege of supervising home repairs and other domestic chores, not just at the boss' home, but at the home of the boss' relatives as well The manager is graduate from the world's number one business school that is located on the banks of the Charles river and is filthy rich. The office boy puts in upwards of fourteen hours a day. Exhibit #2: Ph.D NRI who ran his startup in Chennai as if it was his personal fiefdom - the entire office was a narrow room with a toilet at the other end and the entrance at the other. The entire office would shuffle out, if the guy near the entrance wanted to use the toilet. There was this other NRI - IIT graduate with impeccable credentials who decided to start a company in T.Nagar - I have seen programmers working sitting on the floor while the bloke used to sit in an air-conditioned room comfortably. Many of these folks now do things that even the worst Indian employer or manager thinks twice about doing these days. The less said about foreign returned faculty members and PhD guides in our universities and central government institutions, the better. I know of cases where highly cited scientists, editors of journals have asked their students to help them out with domestic chores, act as a security guards for their homes etc. A distinguished scientist once observed that faculty members in top institutions helped many airlines make both ends meet with their, "half in the air half in the chair" policy.

Adding to their irritation is the fact that the folks back home don't seem be impressed that much anymore. (Update: Ramachandra Guha in a recent article on NRIs makes pretty much the same observation about celebrating NRIs: However, it is just conceivable that the festival has peaked, that its most glorious days are behind it.)The economic growth in the last two decades means the boys with toys have to work damn hard to impress the locals. I have watched with bewilderment NRIs landing here, expecting people here to roll over and play dead. Reminds me this quote attributed to the author Kurt Vonnegut:

``Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Bokonon tells us that he is full of murderous resentment for people who are ignorant and have not come by their ignorance the hard way'' --Kurt Vonnegut.

Have they learnt nothing at all living abroad in places with better work cultures ? Doesn't even a little bit of that egalitarianism and fair-mindedness in the west seep into their psyche ?

What's perhaps most baffling is the red-carpet treatment reserved for such folks ? Dual citizenship makes my blood boil. It's an insult to folks who have chosen to stay here.

As the cliched refrain goes, "It's difficult to take India out of the man".

Kalloori

It sure is a disappointment coming from the director of kaadhal. Sodhappal ending - the story line simply collapses somewhere. Maybe his first movie set the bar a little high ? Joshua Sridhar is increasingly beginning to look like a one hit wonder (Uyir was not too bad) - I would love to be proved wrong about him. But the movie is not without it's bright spots. For one, Balaji Sakthivel seems to have an uncanny knack for selecting the right actors; his ability to extract quality performances out of newbies and inexperienced actors is nothing sort of amazing. As far as his understanding of oorans and their life goes, there are few people who you can call his peers. Being a ooran myself, I was amused a little by the snide remarks from the IT coolies in the audience - morons, this is not for you.

Why the hell is he hanging around Sungar ? Clearly, he is better - is it like Mr.Hassan, who, even if he were to be asked about his favourite soap is sure to include an obligatory reference in his answer to Nadigar Thilagam - a case of paying respects carried to it's extreme ? Or, are kadhal stories to Balaji Sakthivel what vigilante stories are to Sungar ? I hope not!

The Australian Cricket Board is About Cricket

... Australian sport is far, far, far more scientific than Indian sport and the Australian cricket board is run far, far, far more soundly than the Indian cricket board. The Australian cricket board is about cricket, the Indian cricket board is about finance. So the Indian cricket board wins on finance, the Australian cricket board wins on cricket . I think we are prouder about winning on finance and they are proud about winning at cricket. You win what you wanted to win.

(From an interview with Harsha Bhogle (mp3))

Rajiv Poddar has more quotes here.

21 Gun Salute for Mr.Bedi, please

The Sardar who speaks his mind is at it again:

"He (Harbhajan) is not any different. The ICC is turning a blind eye to both of them. They are blind to this monstrous problem and it is unfair and undesirable," Bedi said.

"It is not something to be ignored. A lot of people have questioned Harbhajan's action and they are right too. He has the same problem as Murali," the former Indian captain and coach was quoted as saying by 'The Sunday Age' on Sunday.

"This is cricket's greatest tragedy. Match-fixing was disgraceful but no one knew about it, so nothing could be done. Throwing is being allowed to happen in front of 30,000 and 40,000 people," said Bedi, who took 266 wickets in 67 Tests.

"Chucking is a bigger disgrace than match-fixing because it is done out in the open. It is the scourge of cricket and must be stopped," Bedi said.

"Harbhajan is also surviving on the 15-degree allowance. These bowlers are having a ball.

"And young bowlers on the subcontinent are coming through and they are copying the actions of Harbhajan and Muralitharan. These boys will be Test cricketers one day and the ICC is going to have a hell of a problem."

(via rediff)

He could have made peace with the establishment, or made millions with glib talk as a commentator. What's even more surprising is how mute the foreign commentators have become on this issue. Respect, folks, for the Sardar with the spine.