When Douglas Adams claimed that rats were the most intelligent of all species and that humans were mere subjects of a massively big experiment to find the answer (42) to the ultimate question (no one still knows what it is) he was absolutely right. Rats are a menace. They are cunning, scheming, opportunists and they never forget. I have lived in wooded areas all my life and have had to deal with rats, mice, moles and their cousins gatecrashing into our house everyday. Whenever I am asked to recall the most horrifying scene of my life, I always talk about the huge mole that darted across my study room just as I was about to go for dinner. My father once called a few men to help clean the house. They brought down the TV carton from the loft. I was ten years old then and was watching them as they opened the carton. One mouse after the other kept popping out of the carton. Illegal immigrants, living without visas, they took little time to run away. My uncle-the fearless was once bitten on his foot by a rat in a hotel sometimes in the Garwal district of Uttaranchal, while he was on an office visit. He refuses to go there anymore. My mother vividly recalls that a rat ran across the bed one morning, stopping to check if her toe smelt of food. In short, we have lived most of our lives in mortal fear of recessions, bombs, religious riots, power-cuts, water scarcity and rats.
Some time ago, when I moved to a place half-way across the world. I thought the rats would carry on their nefarious activities at any place in the world but this. After all, immigration laws are really stricts and no one can escape from taxes. I heaved a sigh of relief and slept well at night. Until last night. Shifting noises from the kitchen closet and unusual sounds made me nervous and doubtful. I decided to indulge in guerilla warfare and hid in my bedroom all night, having made sure that I was locked safely in. This morning, as I checked cautiously, I realized that the enemy had left behind his marks. The room was infested with droppings. Things were lying upside down and the sack of rice..oh grief! The kitchen closet is well, a small room with a washing machine and a dryer. The closet however is generously endowed with lofts and storage areas. In one of these lofts, my parents came up with the brilliant idea of establishing a mini-temple. And who should live in the temple but Lord Ganesha! Ma and Baba have energetically argued that when Ganesha is around can a mouse be far behind? I have tried to point out the 20lb sack of rice that has been strategically placed near Ganesha and bears cut marks now, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. A search is on for a brave heart who will bell the cat..er rat. The fear has come back to haunt us.
To be continued....
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tryst with Destiny
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the lunch hour, when the inattentive cashier at the cheap restaurant takes the wrong order, Anwesha will awake to difference between the taste of beef and chicken. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, fail to differentiate between beef and chicken by merely looking, when an age ends, when we taste beef and wonder why the chicken seems to strange today, and when the soul of a poor God-fearing beef-ignorant Hindu, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the cause of the cow and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
Hum Bill De Chuke Sanam
For the tiny spoke that I am in the mighty wheel of outsourcing, to bill or not to bill is the question. Through the recession and slack times, the customer wants me to work more and bill less while my employer wants me to work more and bill even more. And to chain in this tug-of-war with time, the customer decided to outsource the time-entry software to a third party. We started by entering time at the end of every week. Extra hours were automatically recorded as over-time (OT) hours much to the delight of my employer and the bane of my customer. Then, the customer decided to introduce a two way matching system and introduced an in-house time entry system where we recorded the same hours every Monday. This software being an in-house effort, required manual intervention to record extra hours in over-time. Most of us forgot to do that. In fact, nearly all of us started receiving mails for invoice mismatches. In order to correct 25 hours from regular to OT, I added 25 extra hours and a week later I started receiving mails of invoice mismatches to the effect of 50 hours. Another colleague who was trapped in this infinite loop of cumulatively increasing mismatched hours now has a total of 345 mismatched hours in his kitty. In the meantime, not to be outdone, the employer insisted on a three way invoice match by introducing the company's time entry system into competition. Again, this software does not recognize extra hours worked, because in the Indian software industry there is no such thing as OT. So, extra hours were treated as regular hours for us employees, while the company billed the customer for those additional hours. Things were getting muddier because of this dual treatment of extra hours and the employer demanded to have hours reported by project. That's when the project leader introduced spreadsheets where we had to enter the same information all over again every weekend. So, these days, I spend every Monday and Friday entering time in four different applications, all of which are slow to respond and record.
We then proposed to record the time we were spending on time-sheet entries and other 'project management' activities. This created confusion, because project management is not strictly a customer function, and so we were not supposed to bill the customer for such activities. However, we could not work during office hours and record the time as non-billable. Yet, nobody wanted to work on these activities outside customer hours because we did not have access to these software applications from home and staying in office beyond office hours would be akin to charging over-time to the customer for using the customer's resources to do work which er..the customer did not commission.
Next arose, the issue of vacations and leaves, all of which were recorded differently in different systems. The customer's outsourced system recorded leaves as 0 hours worked, while the in-house system recorded leaves as 8 hours worked on any particular day of leave but in a different cost center. The employer's time-entry system recorded leaves as billable to the company but not to the customer and the project leader's spreadsheet had no provision for leave whatsoever. When I took an hour off work last week to see a doctor, I was in a dilemma. The customer's system would allow me to bill by the hour. But the employer's time entry system mandated that I could take a minimum of half-a-day's leave or no leave at all. Had I taken a half day's leave and still billed the customer for half day minus an hour, there would have been an invoice mismatch in the multi-way multi-confusing, multi-redundant matching system.
To dig my way out of this complexity, I do not take leaves, and when I have to go for that blow-out sale, I don't inform anybody. I comfort my conscience by coming back and making up for the lost hours. Tips to keep in mind, always call-forward your desk phone to your cell phone and make sure you always appear online on instant messenger. With half the world working remotely, you could be very busy in a meeting that your project leader (who does not have a clue about what work you do in office) will consider and relent. And it always helps to have a trusted ally who will over up for you when the customer, project leader, team mates all decide at the same time that you are the (wo)man of the hour and start barging you with emails, phone calls and IMs.
Touché
We then proposed to record the time we were spending on time-sheet entries and other 'project management' activities. This created confusion, because project management is not strictly a customer function, and so we were not supposed to bill the customer for such activities. However, we could not work during office hours and record the time as non-billable. Yet, nobody wanted to work on these activities outside customer hours because we did not have access to these software applications from home and staying in office beyond office hours would be akin to charging over-time to the customer for using the customer's resources to do work which er..the customer did not commission.
Next arose, the issue of vacations and leaves, all of which were recorded differently in different systems. The customer's outsourced system recorded leaves as 0 hours worked, while the in-house system recorded leaves as 8 hours worked on any particular day of leave but in a different cost center. The employer's time-entry system recorded leaves as billable to the company but not to the customer and the project leader's spreadsheet had no provision for leave whatsoever. When I took an hour off work last week to see a doctor, I was in a dilemma. The customer's system would allow me to bill by the hour. But the employer's time entry system mandated that I could take a minimum of half-a-day's leave or no leave at all. Had I taken a half day's leave and still billed the customer for half day minus an hour, there would have been an invoice mismatch in the multi-way multi-confusing, multi-redundant matching system.
To dig my way out of this complexity, I do not take leaves, and when I have to go for that blow-out sale, I don't inform anybody. I comfort my conscience by coming back and making up for the lost hours. Tips to keep in mind, always call-forward your desk phone to your cell phone and make sure you always appear online on instant messenger. With half the world working remotely, you could be very busy in a meeting that your project leader (who does not have a clue about what work you do in office) will consider and relent. And it always helps to have a trusted ally who will over up for you when the customer, project leader, team mates all decide at the same time that you are the (wo)man of the hour and start barging you with emails, phone calls and IMs.
Touché
Friday, March 27, 2009
Lights out please!!!
To people such as myself who were born and brought up in India, a load shedding/power cut may not represent so much a vote for Mother Earth as much as a daily occurrence, but for most people living in the first world, where a power cut entails a 911 call or living a night without the ac is an act of supreme sacrifice, Earth Hour beckons.
Please switch off your lights between 8:30 - 9:30 pm on 28th March 2009. This is meant to protest against global warming. First world countries please note that you are the biggest culprits in this cause, hence please make it a point not to microwave/bake/wash in the darkness. Please remember that you burn holes in the ozone layer with your excessive dependence on electronic gadgets. While we prefer to let our clothes dry in the sun, even from the balconies of our tiny apartments, you prefer to dry them in a machine because your balcony looks prettier that way. We prefer fans even the heat, or use coolers, you cannot imagine life without the ac. We switch off all our lights when shops close at night. You have so much electricity that you leave them on for fear of burglary.
Petrol (or gas, if you prefer) costs a fraction in your country. You buy in gallons, while we buy in fractions of litres. We cannot buy shrimps, Basmati rice or Alphonso mangoes - products of our country - at an affordable price because they are exported to your country. You are the largest disposer's of effluent waste, but you want China and India to cut down wastes. You even have the authority to print your currency without denominating it against gold. All because it is the reserve currency of the world.
Against all this tirade about equitable distribution of wealth and natural resources, there is one melting pot where all are equal: concern for our Mother Earth. So, please do switch off the lights tomorrow and show you care!
Earth Hour 2009
Please switch off your lights between 8:30 - 9:30 pm on 28th March 2009. This is meant to protest against global warming. First world countries please note that you are the biggest culprits in this cause, hence please make it a point not to microwave/bake/wash in the darkness. Please remember that you burn holes in the ozone layer with your excessive dependence on electronic gadgets. While we prefer to let our clothes dry in the sun, even from the balconies of our tiny apartments, you prefer to dry them in a machine because your balcony looks prettier that way. We prefer fans even the heat, or use coolers, you cannot imagine life without the ac. We switch off all our lights when shops close at night. You have so much electricity that you leave them on for fear of burglary.
Petrol (or gas, if you prefer) costs a fraction in your country. You buy in gallons, while we buy in fractions of litres. We cannot buy shrimps, Basmati rice or Alphonso mangoes - products of our country - at an affordable price because they are exported to your country. You are the largest disposer's of effluent waste, but you want China and India to cut down wastes. You even have the authority to print your currency without denominating it against gold. All because it is the reserve currency of the world.
Against all this tirade about equitable distribution of wealth and natural resources, there is one melting pot where all are equal: concern for our Mother Earth. So, please do switch off the lights tomorrow and show you care!
Earth Hour 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Photography Contest
My friend Ratheesh is participating and hopes to win this one with our encouragement!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
To my famous birthday-sake Osama Bin Laden,
You and I just completed another trip around the universe with the Earth. While I am very sure that my humble life has not been as adventurous as yours, yet I consider myself lucky because I sleep well at night. Us Pisceans are always laden with doubts and queries. And you addressed yours on a grand scale. While you wanted to know whether planes could fly through buildings in the same way as we drive swords and knives into ghosts in the movies, I made samosas using wanton wrappers. No, the plane crashed into the building and people still prefer crab meat to potatoes in their wantons. Point proven.
We are both living away from home. Surviving a harsh terrain. We both yearn to return but are constrained. So, do you change houses as often as I change apartments? Do you have friends who bring chocolate cakes and laugh and make merry on your birthday or send gifts from afar? Do you know how it feels when everyone of your friends remembers your birthday and makes you feel so special? I said I am lucky. I know, perhaps they will never print my photograph on the front page of the NY Times, but I made it to the student supplement of the Statesman and my 15 seconds of fame can pull me through a lifetime. I don't want innocent people to die, I love peace. And being ordinary is a small price to pay for it.
These are tough times. Markets are crashing. I don't really understand all that, but I know that my friends are losing their jobs and it hurts. Can you kill unemployment and poverty? Can you throttle the fear in our hearts and terrorise the insecurities that we are going through? I wish you could. I'd tell everyone proudly that OBL was born on the same day as I was!!!
Many happy returns.
You and I just completed another trip around the universe with the Earth. While I am very sure that my humble life has not been as adventurous as yours, yet I consider myself lucky because I sleep well at night. Us Pisceans are always laden with doubts and queries. And you addressed yours on a grand scale. While you wanted to know whether planes could fly through buildings in the same way as we drive swords and knives into ghosts in the movies, I made samosas using wanton wrappers. No, the plane crashed into the building and people still prefer crab meat to potatoes in their wantons. Point proven.
We are both living away from home. Surviving a harsh terrain. We both yearn to return but are constrained. So, do you change houses as often as I change apartments? Do you have friends who bring chocolate cakes and laugh and make merry on your birthday or send gifts from afar? Do you know how it feels when everyone of your friends remembers your birthday and makes you feel so special? I said I am lucky. I know, perhaps they will never print my photograph on the front page of the NY Times, but I made it to the student supplement of the Statesman and my 15 seconds of fame can pull me through a lifetime. I don't want innocent people to die, I love peace. And being ordinary is a small price to pay for it.
These are tough times. Markets are crashing. I don't really understand all that, but I know that my friends are losing their jobs and it hurts. Can you kill unemployment and poverty? Can you throttle the fear in our hearts and terrorise the insecurities that we are going through? I wish you could. I'd tell everyone proudly that OBL was born on the same day as I was!!!
Many happy returns.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Like a committed lover, my electricity bill remains unchanged, unflinching and unmoved. Even if I stay 15 days of the month in my apartment, he understands. Whether I keep the ac or heater switched off, it maketh no difference, his love only grows stronger. Ofcourse, this affection is not shared mutually and lately it is growing beyond my means of endurance. I now plan to use, misuse and manipulate him. I shall keep all the lights, fans and heaters on all the time and watch how he fares in the test. If the bill remains the same, hallelujah, I shall continue with the practice. If more, I shall soon threaten the electric company with dire consequences.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Life of a DBA
It was a dark and stormy night
The winds rampaged asunder;
To the world was born a DBA
It was a miracle, a wonder!
As he grew up, a thoughtful child
He recorded every session,
Of life, of love, of moments true,
Every guilt and confession.
His parents spotted his charming habit
Of cloning instances;
For he had the temper of his father
And the face of his mother
With minor version changes.
Every sysdate of his early life
Was spent in performance tuning,
His superior user environment parameters
Had the women swooning.
For he was handsome, charming and nice
And his pockets were full of money.
His cost based optimizer ensured
That his days were always sunny.
Then once day his calling came
And he leaped to join the forces,
Of the exalted men and women who make
Tables, indexes and sequences.
He copied data from schema to schema
And cleared the buffer cache.
His queries never had full table scans
His joins were always hash.
Thus progressed the perfect life
Till he was sent onsite,
The world proclaimed the mighty DBA
Had finally arrived.
This is where our DBA
Was laptoped and anointed
He was on call for a week each month,
His slumber was to be disappointed.
For every time he dozed off at night
The environment would act on its whim;
His troubleshooting skills were tested
SLA's were second nature to him.
Loading data, procedures and packages
Synonymns triggers and indexes,
He partitioned the diskspace and granted privileges
The watermark levels were never in excess.
Thus our DBA labored on
With only his work in sight,
He never noticed the pretty programmer
Seated to his right.
They never met, they never spoke
Though one cube did they infest
For when she turned to him, he was just a number:
Issue, Remedy or Change Request.
Then one day, our DBA
Set his eyes on her and rested his case,
Love fluttered like a silent beast
And filled up his tablespace.
He queried after her alright
He committed with autosave,
In his heart's rowid
Her name did he engrave.
But she implored him to rollback
For she was besotted to another,
He dealt with pointers, methods and classes
A Sun certified Java Developer.
In grief, he tried to kill v$session
And delete the audit trails,
Meanwhile he prepared to format the hard drive
For they say it never fails.
Our story ends here so far
For when database there was no more,
Our DBA's contract was terminated
They sent him packing back offshore.
PS - As if life was not getting shunted behind the computer, here's further proof that the effect is spilling over to the blog. Yesterday, when posting the above, I made the cardinal sin of using technical TLAs (Three Letter Acronymns). So, a DBA is a database administrator. They are the men and women (usually men, we women are more colourful than that) who make sure that when you go online to check your bank account, the records show that you have the booty alright. They are however, NOT the hidden hand behind the reason why sometimes that phone costs Rs2000 even after a discount of Rs100 on a base price of Rs1500. That happens due to enlightened people called programmers (such as myself) who believe in equality. So most DBA's I know are nice, harmless, soporific people who are busy trying to catch sleep between cloning databases. And when they are not on call, they like a cup of coffee and a good chat. Quite a species I tell ya!
The winds rampaged asunder;
To the world was born a DBA
It was a miracle, a wonder!
As he grew up, a thoughtful child
He recorded every session,
Of life, of love, of moments true,
Every guilt and confession.
His parents spotted his charming habit
Of cloning instances;
For he had the temper of his father
And the face of his mother
With minor version changes.
Every sysdate of his early life
Was spent in performance tuning,
His superior user environment parameters
Had the women swooning.
For he was handsome, charming and nice
And his pockets were full of money.
His cost based optimizer ensured
That his days were always sunny.
Then once day his calling came
And he leaped to join the forces,
Of the exalted men and women who make
Tables, indexes and sequences.
He copied data from schema to schema
And cleared the buffer cache.
His queries never had full table scans
His joins were always hash.
Thus progressed the perfect life
Till he was sent onsite,
The world proclaimed the mighty DBA
Had finally arrived.
This is where our DBA
Was laptoped and anointed
He was on call for a week each month,
His slumber was to be disappointed.
For every time he dozed off at night
The environment would act on its whim;
His troubleshooting skills were tested
SLA's were second nature to him.
Loading data, procedures and packages
Synonymns triggers and indexes,
He partitioned the diskspace and granted privileges
The watermark levels were never in excess.
Thus our DBA labored on
With only his work in sight,
He never noticed the pretty programmer
Seated to his right.
They never met, they never spoke
Though one cube did they infest
For when she turned to him, he was just a number:
Issue, Remedy or Change Request.
Then one day, our DBA
Set his eyes on her and rested his case,
Love fluttered like a silent beast
And filled up his tablespace.
He queried after her alright
He committed with autosave,
In his heart's rowid
Her name did he engrave.
But she implored him to rollback
For she was besotted to another,
He dealt with pointers, methods and classes
A Sun certified Java Developer.
In grief, he tried to kill v$session
And delete the audit trails,
Meanwhile he prepared to format the hard drive
For they say it never fails.
Our story ends here so far
For when database there was no more,
Our DBA's contract was terminated
They sent him packing back offshore.
PS - As if life was not getting shunted behind the computer, here's further proof that the effect is spilling over to the blog. Yesterday, when posting the above, I made the cardinal sin of using technical TLAs (Three Letter Acronymns). So, a DBA is a database administrator. They are the men and women (usually men, we women are more colourful than that) who make sure that when you go online to check your bank account, the records show that you have the booty alright. They are however, NOT the hidden hand behind the reason why sometimes that phone costs Rs2000 even after a discount of Rs100 on a base price of Rs1500. That happens due to enlightened people called programmers (such as myself) who believe in equality. So most DBA's I know are nice, harmless, soporific people who are busy trying to catch sleep between cloning databases. And when they are not on call, they like a cup of coffee and a good chat. Quite a species I tell ya!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A mid-winter night's dream
The army of Alexander the Great rushed down the mudded waters of the Yamuna charging into the landscape of Delhi. Nearby, a train passed on the Metro rail over the river and the passengers screamed with fright at the sight of the army. The Yamuna has been silting for years and now the army reached the other side - the Promised Land in no time. Across the land, they were in for a surprise. It was vast, barren, empty, and lonely except for a sole eighteenth century Englishman who stood there nonchalantly with a bar of Cadbury Bournville dark chocolate in his hand. He demanded to speak to none but Alexander the Great. As the great conqueror approached, the Englishman asked, "Have you truly earned this chocolate?" Enraged, Alexander drew his sword and charged at the Englishman with his horse. Just as he swooped down to behead his enemy and grab the chocolate bar, the Englishman disappeared. Dejected and shocked, Alexander looked hither and thither and ordered his army men to look for the enemy. In confusion, his army started fighting with each other.
In the meantime, having nothing better to do, Alexander dismounted from his horse and started to explore the land. A street lay ahead and as he crossed the street a Starbucks coffee shop beckoned. Alexander the Great remembered how thirsty he was and walked in and ordered a cup of Tazo tea. To his great surprise the Englishman was also in Starbucks enjoying a cup of coffee. Tired as he was, Alexander was in no mood to fight and settled on a comfortable sofa by a window. It was a Saturday and as usual a band was playing in Starbucks. Only this time it was the renowned tabla artist Zakhir Hussain. As the barista served tea to Alexander, he took a sip. Zakhir finished his performance and everyone said 'Waah Ustaad Waah!' Alexander closed his eyes and remarked in chaste Urdu, “Arrey Huzoor Waah Tazo Kahiye!"
In the meantime, having nothing better to do, Alexander dismounted from his horse and started to explore the land. A street lay ahead and as he crossed the street a Starbucks coffee shop beckoned. Alexander the Great remembered how thirsty he was and walked in and ordered a cup of Tazo tea. To his great surprise the Englishman was also in Starbucks enjoying a cup of coffee. Tired as he was, Alexander was in no mood to fight and settled on a comfortable sofa by a window. It was a Saturday and as usual a band was playing in Starbucks. Only this time it was the renowned tabla artist Zakhir Hussain. As the barista served tea to Alexander, he took a sip. Zakhir finished his performance and everyone said 'Waah Ustaad Waah!' Alexander closed his eyes and remarked in chaste Urdu, “Arrey Huzoor Waah Tazo Kahiye!"
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Tired out and Tried out.
In hibernating for almost a month and not posting anything at all in this blog, I have nobody to blame but myself. I have traveled across the seven seas and have come back to the land of the insane, wiser and fatter. In the short span of time, that I was at home, I have been subject to a treacherous schedule of boiled vegetables in the morning to build my appetite, followed by sinfully rich chingri maacher malai curry during lunch, samosas fried in ghee in the evening and chicken chowmein for dinner. The cycle has been repeated with small variations during the stay. I have been woken at 6 A.M in the morning to watch the spiritual programs on ETV Bangla and had to practice the daily new Yoga shown at exactly 6:40 AM Monday to Saturday on DD Bangla. I was made to visit all kinds of temples and ashrams, holy men and aged relatives. The last mentioned fed me with beguni, roshogolla and love. It was too much to digest. I was not allowed to hang out with my friends, because time was precious and they were dispensable while relatives are most definitely not.
When along with my stomach I cried for mercy, I had a day's rest and I finally caught some sleep. In the meantime, I visited the bank to make sure that the little money I had was safe, visited tailors because despite the freezing temperatures an Indian girl must always wear her salwar kameez, went shopping but could not buy anything and even made a futile attempt to take out my folks for lunch to a nice restaurant.
Much of my ranting here would have lessened if time had let me relax and heal the exhaustion both mental and physical. My time has been divided between dropping relatives at airports and teaching my parents to use the webcam to communicate with me. My mother now puts it to optimal use. She positions the webcam in front of the 'thakur ghor' - the prayer room and makes me say my daily prayers even though its 10:30 at night when I usually speak to her. My maid servant was astonished to see me disappear in such a short span without any 'bakshish' (as if!!!) and now demands to know whether I have a maid who does dishes for me. When my mother informed her that I use a dish washer, she said she could come over and wash my dishes for real cheap!
My whirlwind tour has come to an end. I am not even sure whether I am glad to be back or whether it would been better never to come back at all. To contemplate on that, I need to catch up on my forty winks!
When along with my stomach I cried for mercy, I had a day's rest and I finally caught some sleep. In the meantime, I visited the bank to make sure that the little money I had was safe, visited tailors because despite the freezing temperatures an Indian girl must always wear her salwar kameez, went shopping but could not buy anything and even made a futile attempt to take out my folks for lunch to a nice restaurant.
Much of my ranting here would have lessened if time had let me relax and heal the exhaustion both mental and physical. My time has been divided between dropping relatives at airports and teaching my parents to use the webcam to communicate with me. My mother now puts it to optimal use. She positions the webcam in front of the 'thakur ghor' - the prayer room and makes me say my daily prayers even though its 10:30 at night when I usually speak to her. My maid servant was astonished to see me disappear in such a short span without any 'bakshish' (as if!!!) and now demands to know whether I have a maid who does dishes for me. When my mother informed her that I use a dish washer, she said she could come over and wash my dishes for real cheap!
My whirlwind tour has come to an end. I am not even sure whether I am glad to be back or whether it would been better never to come back at all. To contemplate on that, I need to catch up on my forty winks!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Anwesha's law of food making and its subsequent consumption states that the time taken to consume a meal is inversely proportional to the time taken to prepare it and quality of the meal itself, if the quantity of food remains constant.
For instance, I could spend 3 minutes to fry an egg and find it consumed in another 5 minutes, while it would take me 2 hours to make 'mishti-doi' and have it disappear in less than a minute.
So, assuming you want your meal to last as long as possible, cook it badly, put all sorts of unwanted ingredients like 'potol', green beans and cook it really fast. However, note that since quality is an extremely sensitive factor in this equation, do not extend its range so much that your meal finds no takers.
For instance, first time when I cooked one packet Maggi in one litre of water, it took a little more than 3 minutes but nobody wanted to eat it. When I cooked 5 packets of Maggi with the same amount of water, it took almost the same amount of time but was better received.
Lastly, never cook in large quantities. You might find that after a point, people get bored of eating the same meal day-after-day even though it might be well cooked. Results may be obtained by experimenting with a one kilo packet of puffed rice to make bhel-puri on the same evening and expecting your parents to consume all of it.
For instance, I could spend 3 minutes to fry an egg and find it consumed in another 5 minutes, while it would take me 2 hours to make 'mishti-doi' and have it disappear in less than a minute.
So, assuming you want your meal to last as long as possible, cook it badly, put all sorts of unwanted ingredients like 'potol', green beans and cook it really fast. However, note that since quality is an extremely sensitive factor in this equation, do not extend its range so much that your meal finds no takers.
For instance, first time when I cooked one packet Maggi in one litre of water, it took a little more than 3 minutes but nobody wanted to eat it. When I cooked 5 packets of Maggi with the same amount of water, it took almost the same amount of time but was better received.
Lastly, never cook in large quantities. You might find that after a point, people get bored of eating the same meal day-after-day even though it might be well cooked. Results may be obtained by experimenting with a one kilo packet of puffed rice to make bhel-puri on the same evening and expecting your parents to consume all of it.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Cold Play
I have a bad cold and it has set me thinking.
Catching a cold is like catching a butterfly. If you catch it, you've got it imprisoned and its yours for the time until it dies. However, to know whether it's really yours, you should learn to let it go (with the help of Coldarin). If it comes back to you (as soon as you think that you've had enough of those tablets) it's yours. But if it does not come back, you were only dreaming about it on a light-headed midsummer night.
Catching a cold is like catching a butterfly. If you catch it, you've got it imprisoned and its yours for the time until it dies. However, to know whether it's really yours, you should learn to let it go (with the help of Coldarin). If it comes back to you (as soon as you think that you've had enough of those tablets) it's yours. But if it does not come back, you were only dreaming about it on a light-headed midsummer night.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Black is back
Welcome to the new look blog courtesy J seen here hiding behind the transparent coffee cups. It is in testimony to his coffee drinking capabilities that I dedicate this blog to him. While I could not finish the iced coffee adulterated with God-alone-knows-what, J was not to be put down. The picture is a result of our efforts after almost 30 minutes. Its not difficult to guess who crossed the finishing line.
They say if we finish 6 of these, we'll get a free one. That's what makes this exercise so challenging!
Back to the blog, this reminds me of my teen aged days when my wardrobe had four black tops, a few black skirts ( I wasn't into jeans yet) and all my shoes were black. Whether it was a futile attempt to create an optical illusion about looking slim or simply a fad of the age, I'll never find out. Suffice to say, I remember embroidering pink flowers on a black colour rubia handkerchief for SUPW (ofcourse! Some Useful Periods Wasted) and I cried when we had to dye our black cloth in other colours to create the bandhni (tie and dye) patterns. My mother refused to buy me any black coloured woolen garments because she felt that winter was about bright colours and I protested against this curtailing of my freedom of expression. My first pair of sneakers were black and I wanted a cool black school bag that year even though school regulations were blue. In short, I was in love with color black. Like its true physical nature, it represented an amalgamation of all the mysteries of growing up, the invisible thoughts that played in my mind in those formative years, to absorb everything and give away nothing. As this blog takes a dark turn, who knows what secrets will be unravelled. Perhaps, a riddle to be solved or an enigma waiting to be discovered. Keep your fingers crossed and keep guessing...........
They say if we finish 6 of these, we'll get a free one. That's what makes this exercise so challenging!
Back to the blog, this reminds me of my teen aged days when my wardrobe had four black tops, a few black skirts ( I wasn't into jeans yet) and all my shoes were black. Whether it was a futile attempt to create an optical illusion about looking slim or simply a fad of the age, I'll never find out. Suffice to say, I remember embroidering pink flowers on a black colour rubia handkerchief for SUPW (ofcourse! Some Useful Periods Wasted) and I cried when we had to dye our black cloth in other colours to create the bandhni (tie and dye) patterns. My mother refused to buy me any black coloured woolen garments because she felt that winter was about bright colours and I protested against this curtailing of my freedom of expression. My first pair of sneakers were black and I wanted a cool black school bag that year even though school regulations were blue. In short, I was in love with color black. Like its true physical nature, it represented an amalgamation of all the mysteries of growing up, the invisible thoughts that played in my mind in those formative years, to absorb everything and give away nothing. As this blog takes a dark turn, who knows what secrets will be unravelled. Perhaps, a riddle to be solved or an enigma waiting to be discovered. Keep your fingers crossed and keep guessing...........
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Mumbai, Thou art fled to brutish beasts
In the face of what’s happened to my country a week ago, I still feel shocked and helpless.
I know that no place on Earth is safe.
I have learnt that being a law abiding citizen means nothing.
I have seen that there is no such place as a ‘secure locality’.
Is the future generation of my country going to grow up in the fear that they can never take living for granted?
I thank God every night for keeping me away from death for yet another day. And maybe, this is how I am going to live for as long as they will let me.
I know that no place on Earth is safe.
I have learnt that being a law abiding citizen means nothing.
I have seen that there is no such place as a ‘secure locality’.
Is the future generation of my country going to grow up in the fear that they can never take living for granted?
I thank God every night for keeping me away from death for yet another day. And maybe, this is how I am going to live for as long as they will let me.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
Set in post-apartheid South Africa, Nobel Prize winning author J.M. Coetzee’s second novel ‘Disgrace’ won the Booker Prize in 1999, the same year in which it was published. Such illustrious credentials and sheer curiosity prompted me to pick the book up from a local book-store a few months ago. What I did not expect was a hard-hitting, no-bones-spared story of a Cape Town University College professor, David Lurie, whose life would take a sudden dip into the murky waters of ethical conflicts, post-apartheid violence, and insecurity, finally sinking into a vast lake of disgrace before emerging stronger and more resilient.
David Lurie, who has long been planning to write a chamber opera on the life of the poet Byron, is fifty-two, divorced, lonely and bored. His classes evoke no response from his students and teaching is a mere means of livelihood. A chance meeting with an attractive student in his class leads to an affair, which upon discovery provokes a suspension from the university on grounds of misconduct. As the news spreads round the university campus and makes it to the newspapers, the disgraced professor leaves town to join his young daughter Lucy in the town of Salem where she has chosen to live alone and raise a farm. Life in the farm is sedentary and un-eventful until an incident of unimaginable terror rips apart their lives. Father and daughter are attacked by a band of natives who rob the house, nearly kill him while raping the daughter and leaving her pregnant.
As they struggle to pick up the remaining bits of their lives, David Lurie is tormented by Lucy’s indifference to the incident. She knows the culprits and yet neither she nor her neighbors try to denounce them. As the father of a daughter who has been subject to such a heinous crime, David Lurie is helpless because he was unable to protect her then and avenge the atrocity now. Instead, he watches impatiently, as life gets back to normal in the farm and Lucy decides to go ahead and give birth to the child she is carrying.
Disgrace portrays the angst ridden world of the white population in post-apartheid South Africa. Once the powerful class, they are now the centre of a backlash which they cannot withstand. David Lurie’s inability to come to terms with the power shift and his daughter’s acceptance of the ways of the new country is the totem pole of the novel. The novel examines the sentiments of the native population that is friendly with the white on personal terms but has no generic empathy for the community. Coetzee’s novels typically push the protagonist with their back to the wall only to watch them fight or come to terms with the humiliation and indignation of their circumstances. In this novel, Lucy’s rapist turns out to be the fifteen year old brother-in-law of her neighbor. After the incident, the neighbor offers to marry Lucy even though he has two other wives. He wishes to own her land in dowry and in exchange, protect her from such miscreants in the future. David Lurie who has sufficient money to send his daughter to Holland where she can go back to a normal civilized life has to reconcile with this unusual situation when his daughter accepts the offer.
The analogy between strange twists and turns of David Lurie's life and that of the poet Byron influences the opera that he is composing. Where he once planned to write about the eternal love between Byron and his mistress Teresa, he now depicts pain and agony as they separate and their desires remain unfulfilled. As Allegra, Byron’s five year daughter lies dying of malaria and cries for her father, David Lurie’s own helplessness and frustration at his daughter’s condition creeps in front.
Disgrace is an excellent novel written in a mere two hundred and twenty pages. Coetzee’s deep understanding of Romantic literature and lucid language ooze the right emotions and provide the perfect setting for the story of a father and daughter who learn to put the past behind, after their lives have been shattered by disgrace.
David Lurie, who has long been planning to write a chamber opera on the life of the poet Byron, is fifty-two, divorced, lonely and bored. His classes evoke no response from his students and teaching is a mere means of livelihood. A chance meeting with an attractive student in his class leads to an affair, which upon discovery provokes a suspension from the university on grounds of misconduct. As the news spreads round the university campus and makes it to the newspapers, the disgraced professor leaves town to join his young daughter Lucy in the town of Salem where she has chosen to live alone and raise a farm. Life in the farm is sedentary and un-eventful until an incident of unimaginable terror rips apart their lives. Father and daughter are attacked by a band of natives who rob the house, nearly kill him while raping the daughter and leaving her pregnant.
As they struggle to pick up the remaining bits of their lives, David Lurie is tormented by Lucy’s indifference to the incident. She knows the culprits and yet neither she nor her neighbors try to denounce them. As the father of a daughter who has been subject to such a heinous crime, David Lurie is helpless because he was unable to protect her then and avenge the atrocity now. Instead, he watches impatiently, as life gets back to normal in the farm and Lucy decides to go ahead and give birth to the child she is carrying.
Disgrace portrays the angst ridden world of the white population in post-apartheid South Africa. Once the powerful class, they are now the centre of a backlash which they cannot withstand. David Lurie’s inability to come to terms with the power shift and his daughter’s acceptance of the ways of the new country is the totem pole of the novel. The novel examines the sentiments of the native population that is friendly with the white on personal terms but has no generic empathy for the community. Coetzee’s novels typically push the protagonist with their back to the wall only to watch them fight or come to terms with the humiliation and indignation of their circumstances. In this novel, Lucy’s rapist turns out to be the fifteen year old brother-in-law of her neighbor. After the incident, the neighbor offers to marry Lucy even though he has two other wives. He wishes to own her land in dowry and in exchange, protect her from such miscreants in the future. David Lurie who has sufficient money to send his daughter to Holland where she can go back to a normal civilized life has to reconcile with this unusual situation when his daughter accepts the offer.
The analogy between strange twists and turns of David Lurie's life and that of the poet Byron influences the opera that he is composing. Where he once planned to write about the eternal love between Byron and his mistress Teresa, he now depicts pain and agony as they separate and their desires remain unfulfilled. As Allegra, Byron’s five year daughter lies dying of malaria and cries for her father, David Lurie’s own helplessness and frustration at his daughter’s condition creeps in front.
Disgrace is an excellent novel written in a mere two hundred and twenty pages. Coetzee’s deep understanding of Romantic literature and lucid language ooze the right emotions and provide the perfect setting for the story of a father and daughter who learn to put the past behind, after their lives have been shattered by disgrace.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The good, the bad and the desi.
Whoever thought that a silly movie like Dostana could be called 'entertaining' should be refunding me Rs490 for watching it. I was certainly not entertained and more so embarrassed by the excesses of the movie. The sensivity with which they handled the issue of homosexuality reminded me of Michael Jackson dangling his newborn infant on one leg from the top of his hotel window.
Came back completely bored, hungry and almost injured. We were there to watch the movie on the opening day and we literally had to jump ropes and push people to make it to the theatre. And when we finally made it to the hall, the smarter desis who got there before we did, had reserved all the seats. Consequently, all of us friends who had gone there had to sit separately, and that made the movie further unwatchable.
Two days later, I made it again to watch Quantum of Solace. Whoa! I loved the near empty hall and the fact that I did not have to jostle for seats. We got to choose which row we wanted to sit and because it was all empty, we could even decide whether we wanted to sit towards the left of the screen or towards the right. Whatarelief! I loved QoS and I think it had much more to do with the ambience of the hall than with the movie alone. Anyway, Daniel Criag was outstanding as the killing machine and our 21st century Bond isn't looking at women unless it is absolutely necessary. Haa haa haa.
Came back completely bored, hungry and almost injured. We were there to watch the movie on the opening day and we literally had to jump ropes and push people to make it to the theatre. And when we finally made it to the hall, the smarter desis who got there before we did, had reserved all the seats. Consequently, all of us friends who had gone there had to sit separately, and that made the movie further unwatchable.
Two days later, I made it again to watch Quantum of Solace. Whoa! I loved the near empty hall and the fact that I did not have to jostle for seats. We got to choose which row we wanted to sit and because it was all empty, we could even decide whether we wanted to sit towards the left of the screen or towards the right. Whatarelief! I loved QoS and I think it had much more to do with the ambience of the hall than with the movie alone. Anyway, Daniel Criag was outstanding as the killing machine and our 21st century Bond isn't looking at women unless it is absolutely necessary. Haa haa haa.
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