by Merlin!

Cost cutting at the Congress

2009-08-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Recession blues have not left our political parties untouched. Latest in line to be contemplating cost-cutting schemes is the Congress. At a working committee meeting recently, the top brass of the Congress leaders set dishing out tips to cut costs. No first class air tickets, no lavish offices, no stupendous salaries, no free chai in the afternoon, blah blah blah… The CWC, congress working committee, insists that it is their way of expressing solidarity with the aam aadmi who is feeling the pinch of the hard times and crying where-is-all-the-money.

The members of the Congress recently pledged their approval to the ‘you suffer, we suffer’ initiative of the CWC and promised to

- keep their money locked in Fixed deposits schemes in Swiss banks and not indulge in any immediate withdrawals
- hold on to their lands and not engage in any immediate real estate transactions,
preserve the gold and diamond jewellery of their wives and daughters for the next season,
- reduce party spending on all internal affairs and let interest accumulate on the corpus
- Lead the lives of a pauper and propogate the selfless behaviour of the Congress workers who want to understand the plight of the aam aadmi by cost cutting and
- Not talk about how the saved money will be used for the benefit of the aam aadmi.

The Battle of the Gas

2009-08-22T20:57:00.001-07:00

Whose name is Khan?

2009-08-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Its not everyday that our babus-in-white go out of their way to promote a forthcoming blockbuster bolly movie. Never before has anyone or anything succeeded in doing what My name is Khan has done. For the first time the netas are all singing the same song. Down with the Yanks! Lets go tit-for-tat! Khan-daan zindabad! All for a few little precious votes.

The recent detention of the KJo’s so-proclaimed global icon- SRK at the Newark airport in USA has suddenly given the baadshahs of our babudom large dope to binge upon. Forget the chamchas, even the top-rung’ers cannot stop themselves from crying sympathy for Khan. The behari spirit, with its spokesperson Lalluji, insists that we should take up the matter with the Yanks and demand an apology. Ambika Soni is busy announcing to the world that Anjelina Jolie and Megan Fox will be frisked and detained on their impending arrival to Soni’s country. Soni’s fervour is infectious and the babus cannot resist themselves from hailing her no-negotiation-only-action approach. Shashi Tharoor is busy flooding his twitter page with his opinions on the rights and the wrongs as always.

In the midst of all the political drama, Amar Singh ji is the only person to have caught the trick under the magician’s hat. SRK has received all the publicity and more that he needed for his forthcoming film ‘My name is Khan’. But, of course, as we all know, it was a just a perfectly timed ‘Mishap’.

PPP- President Pratibha Patil

2009-07-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Any little news about Pratibha Patil is exciting. And its got nothing to do with the fact that she is the first person of the female species to occupy the most inactive office of the country. It is simply because news about her is very difficult to find.

Pratibha Patil has always been known to be media shy. After all, before she became the first lady of the country, no one had even heard of her. Even after she became the first lady, things have not changed. Some would expect that she'd take some tips from her predecessor who had converted the highest dormant office of this country into a playground for school children and their principals. Well, as it turns out in the last few years of her Yes-there-is-a-person-occupying-the-president's-office 'rule', she doesn't seem to have picked up many tips from the doc scientist who left her the legacy. As a result, the only noteworthy news heard about her in recent times- A boy from Kerala sent her porn mail!

Had she followed the doc's strategy, it would have probably read- 'The president hosts another delegation of primary school children in the lawns of the Rashtrapati Bhavan' or 'The president cuts the ribbon at another annual day function'. Madame Patil, trust me, they sound more glorious.

However, I would end this hope-this-inspires-the-President note with a word of advice to the little boy- Dude, you are still in college. The President is married.

P.S. The author shares her birthday with the first lady of the nation. Sagi-sisters, Mrs. Patil :)

Disclaimer: This post is not authored by the Pakistan People's Party.

100 days of agony?

2009-07-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

The baadshahs of our Babudom have been spoilt for too long. Its time they were disciplined a little. Or so think, some of the politicians who have proposed a bill for 100 days of mandatory Parliamentary attendance. I am excited. Its not often one gets to witness live demonstrations of apne-hi-pair-par-kulhadi-maarna. And our babus are masters at the art of saving their backsides.

Do our babus really have the flair for self discipline? I, for one, don’t think so.

How to answer a stupid question!

2009-07-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

Queen Elizabeth: Why was nobody able to predict the recession?
LSE Economists: Your highness, It was a failure of our collective imagination.
ROTFLMAO!!!!

Jassi babu and a few peals of laughter

2009-07-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Jassi babu and a few peals of laughter
No, it isn't Jaspal Bhatti but our beloved ex-finance minister Jaswant Singh who decided to play comedian to our perpetually-somnolent central legislators this time. Jaswant babu triggered quite a few peals of laughter in the recent session of the Lok Sabha as he dished out some anti-dethroning tips to the government in power. His tip- Money, Money, Money, It's not funny.

According to him, the finance minister is faced by a tough job. He often has to endure sleepless nights in the foregoing weeks of the budget because everything is related to money. making reference to his one brief and one not-so-brief terms in the same office, he prophesied- Sooner, than later, the finance minister ends up abandoning this portfolio. Reminiscing in nostalgia, he remembered- during his days in that office, he had to transfer the reins because the government was kicked out. He cleverly added in the middle of this autobiographical repertoire- ' I am only cautioning'. This makes me wonder whether that was for the ears of Pranab Mukherjee or Sonia Gandhi. Whoever the intended recipient, he sure had the Babus-in-white entertained even as he thrust a direct attack at his residing-in-office counterpart on the budget saying- The tax break would not even gift me a bottle of whisky! Jassi Babu, I sympathize.

How dare you, you Yanks!

2009-07-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Dr. Abdul Kalam was recently frisked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on a Newark-bound flight. FYI, Newark is not an indigenous spelling of New York, but a town in the latter. Anyway, the subject of the article is not a certain part of the huge North American country nor the U.S. flight which indulged in this allegedly 'preposterous' gimmick. If it was the airline's intention to grab a little attention though, it surely succeeded.

What IS preposterous about the whole episode,however, is the reaction of our beloved Ex-President. He has demanded an apology from the airline for treating him like a civilian passenger. He was after all the 'ex' de-facto supreme commander of the armed forces of the country. Our now jobless ex-president, tired of attending ribbon-cutting invitations at school annual functions and science laboratories, is now resorting to unworthy acts of grabbing attention in order to be back in the limelight once again. Our Parlimentarian babus, always happy to oblige, cannot stop singing 'Amen! So be it!'

Yet another Babu Basher!

2009-07-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

This blog has been inactive for a while. Now that I am reveling in that beautiful phase of life which is the blogging universe's delight- read unemployment, this blog shall see the light of the day once again. And yes, I am a civilized citizen of this blogging universe and like every good civilized citizen I shall respect the rituals of the blogosphere. So, I commence to do the.back-from-the-dead Shree-Ganesh of this blog with the customary hows and whats and whys.

I used to work as a writer. Yes, I am one of those few neuron-damaged people who think they can make a living out of putting words in perfect grammatical sentences. Having dabbled in a fair bit of freelance writing for some magazines, I worked for a while as a web content developer. I was hired on the proposal that I would be given charge of an orphaned political blog. Instead, I was asked to write ‘well-researched’ articles on ‘Top ten ways to get bitten by a dog’ and ‘Top ten ways to be sad’. I was witnessing commercialization of writing in its crudest form and was being made a victim of the ‘show me the money’ game. Well, the plea of the directors couldn’t be ignored and I decided that charity- (read: not-for-profit writing) was the best way to keep alive the human in me.

So ‘ByMerlin' shall celebrate its return-to-life birthday on 24th July 2009. How does this blog promise to be different from the rest? Well, it doesn’t. Like the others in its realm, it, too, will indulge in self-righteous talk proclaiming the ludicrousness of others while offering no solutions of its own. It will often broach highly controversial subjects, delve into trivial inconsequential details and avoid sensitivity talks. It will call a man a man, a woman a woman and Karan Johar Karan Johar. It will accept only love mail with open hands and trash the rest. And yes, it will make the mistake of revealing that the author is a woman.

How dare you, you Yanks!

2009-07-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

Dr. Abdul Kalam was recently frisked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on a Newark-bound flight. FYI, Newark is not an indigenous spelling of New York, but a town in the latter. Anyway, the subject of the article is not a certain part of the huge North American country nor the U.S. flight which indulged in this allegedly 'preposterous' gimmick. If it was the airline's intention to grab a little attention though, it surely succeeded.

What IS preposterous about the whole episode,however, is the reaction of our beloved Ex-President. He has demanded an apology from the airline for treating him like a civilian passenger. He was after all the 'ex' de-facto supreme commander of the armed forces of the country. Our now jobless ex-president, tired of attending ribbon-cutting invitations at school annual functions and science laboratories, is now resorting to unworthy acts in order to be back in the limelight once again. Our Parlimentarian babus, always happy to oblige, cannot stop singing 'Amen! So be it!'

How far have we come?

2008-06-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2006, I had studied a lot of AIR manuals spanning the second half of the last century and carried out a review of the history of the broad direction of the legal system of this country through the reading of a number of publications which found their way into the markets and libraries at the turn of the new millenium.

Nothing can be more frustrating for an individual than the inefficiency of a redressal forum or system and the legal system of this country bestows just this helplessness on its subjects. The following contains one of the most comprehensive and insightful readings I had come across in the course of the two months of my brief tryst with the fundamentals of law in this country. The incredible feature of this reading, apart from its quality is the time of its composition. Drafted and published at a time very close to the formation of the constitution, it exhibits a rare clarity defining the purpose and the requisite fundamentals behind the execution of law. As one progresses through the script, one realises its ever growing relevance in modern day life in this country and makes one wonder just how far have we come in the last 60 odd years?

Excerpts from the speech delivered at the inaugural meeting of the Legal Study Circle of the Calcutta Small Causes COURT Club on the 10th of march, 1951 under the presidentship of Sir Arthur Trevor Harries, Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court and in the presence of H. E. Dr. Kailash nath Katju, Governor of W. Bengal:

The March of Statutory Laws in IndiaThe law dominates the whole of life. Every activity is subject to legal regulation, from personal habits to the ways of earning one’s living. The humblest man cannot pass through life without coming into contact with the machinery of the law. Whether you are a businessman, a labourer, an agriculturist, a landlord or a tenant you are coming up against the law at every turn. The enormous strides in statutory laws today are not necessarily an indication in the stride of national development. India with her teeming millions most of whom are illiterate and disorganized, presents a problem which raises the fundamental issue how far legislation and statute can be made the foundation and basis of nation building.

The ideal is and the practice should be the less the laws the better for the country and its citizens. The reason for this is that if you make the laws too numerous and too complex touching men’s life at every conceivable point, there are bound to be in the very nature of things many breaches of such laws both conscious and unconscious and such breaches are apt to be too frequent.

Life is greater than law. Life will express itself through laws if possible, but without laws if compliance with them is made impossible. That is a truth very often ignored. Also numerous and frequent breaches of law which are difficult to comply with have the tendency to convert the state into a punitive institution. The ideal of a welfare state legislating for the good of its citizens in every sphere of life has to steer carefully enough to avoid the Scylla of public disrespect and the Charybdis of punitive tyranny.

Legislation like any other human act and perhaps more than any other requires thoughtful planning. The legislatures must have in view sufficiently clear in their minds the objective that they intend to reach. Each and every legislation that they put on the statute book must then be so directed as to be in aid of that main objective. Random legislation will always defeat its own purpose. Also, legislation is not like the clothes to be put on casually and taken off equally casually but is intended to be the very sinews and arteries of orderly life and existence. It is not a practical proposition for any country through means of legislation to achieve at the same time all and every conceivable reform-industrial reform, labour reform, social reform, political reform, religious reform, and moral reform. A nation cannot be reformed by laws. The reform must well from within and must be part of the life of people.

Laws today passed by the legislatures are frittered away in conflicting tendencies. The present spectacle is like that of a high powered motor car whose gear is on the neutral but whose accelerator is being pressed hard in every manner so that the engine is constantly running out but there is no movement. Legislation is not normally an instrument for reform but is only one for registering a certain stage of public opinion already reached. If the vacuum between public opinion and legislation is great then the laws and the people do not react on one another.

Democracy is said to be the government of the common man but it is not recognized that legislation is not the job of the amateur politician. Legislation has always been a very skilled and technical work and more so in the growing complexities of modern life. Constant amendments raise difficult and sometimes impossible problems of construction where justice is defeated and adjudication becomes a farce. The sine qua non of good sound legislation is good careful draftsmanship. The existing system and principle in drafting statutes require radical improvement. Statute drafting in India should be the care and job of individuals specially trained for the work.

Federal democracy under the written constitution like any other form of democracy depends for its very existence on the rule of law. The rule of law must be clear and well defined. A nation that does not know how to respect the rule of law and the judiciary as its final interpreter is a nation that is not fit for the democratic way of life.

- delivered by Mr. Justice P B Mukharji of the Calcutta High Court.

laakh take ki ek baat!

2008-04-27T09:27:00.001-07:00

Quote of the day...
Padh likh kar kya karna hai?
ek din to marna hi hai yaar...
char din ki zindagi hai jee le
agle janam nursery se hi shuru karna hai phir ek baar!

- courtesy: my exam afflicted brother of 13 years.

The origin'al' chain

2008-04-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

The temperature at my current station today touched 42degrees Celsius. At jodhpur, this year, my vacation has been a warm one, warm in terms of the progressing summer and also the intimacy shared with one half of my family in the 8 days that have gone by.

Jodhpur is the place where my grandparents (mom’s folks) reside and where my mom has spent few significant long years before she got married to Dad. This is not my first visit to the suncity but never before has the visit meant so much to me, perhaps because my years were too few earlier, or because my successive visits were made at very short intervals. After an interval of close to 3 years this time, I have come to know things that I was merely acquaintances with previously and also made friends with new places and experiences.

I have learnt to read the newspaper in hindi, tried my hand at using the datun (neem stalk used as an economical one piece substitute for both the toothbrush and toothpaste by rural folksmen and also health conscious city dwellers of predominantly the previous generation) albeit with failure, savoured delicious marwari delicacies prepared by mamiji, dined south Indian style with the food served on freshly plucked banana leaves in the middle of the desert, explaining to the diners the formalities of eating on the leaf and the the correlation between the direction of folding the leaf post dinner and the non verbal communication of having/not having enjoyed the meal, much to their amusement (Ref- the folding of the lower half of the banana leaf up indicates a thumbs up for the cook and vice versa), put on a few kilograms thanks to a daily dose of the original desi icecream, the rabri malai kulfi (a thick milk preparation served in a conical shape on a stick) which is inaccessible in Hyderabad, learnt to decipher a few words of marwari and utter a badly accented greeting in ‘mujro sa! Katthe jaoo so? Mhare ghar aao so ‘, (Hi there! Where are you off to? Do come home sometime- and the people here pass a warm smile even to the stranger on the road) and many more of these trivial likes.

The significance of this visit, however, lies in that stroll I took with granny in the neighbourhood park yesterday that acquainted me with my roots.With every step that granny took towards the higher generation while she recanted the story of one half of my family to me, I realized how little I knew about my origins and just how I had come to be. Not only did I know very little of the generations that exist only in our family's history now, but I also knew very little of the surviving generations viz., my parents and my grandparents. The lives and history of five generations now lie before me and I am now trying to identify which parts of me trace back to these roots. Chances are they are but few. Roots often germinate in a place seldom traceable, travel far and wide, crossing regions, states and countries, and the tree, as it grows, gives out seeds that again seek abode in far off places giving birth to a new being. Some of us travel with the roots and some of us with the seeds. I think I grew out of the seed.

For new sprouts like me, origins are thus tricky affairs. People say that I am half a marwari because my mom hails from the marwar region. Its like saying to my kids a few years hence, that you are half a telugu because your mother hails from Andhra pradesh. Amusing!

Right now, however, I am getting geared up to discover the other family tree that I am part of when I visit the other set of my grandfolks ( Dad's parents) during the next week. To more discoveries!

I can feel the sun

2008-04-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

It had rained heavily last evening and spanned throughout the night, but as I stepped outside my house porch today, well into the morning, the weather was wornful and sultry. I foreboded the tan my brown skin would cruelly be subject to, despite having worn a full sleeved red and white striped cotton shirt, acclaimed to be the best sun tan protection by grandma. the sun's protracted glare was mockery towards my incessant attempts to attain snow white's complexion, even as I constantly tried to remind myself of the dichotomy of the Indian cliché with the west's fascination of the tanned skin that was, though I would but have got grade A if not higher in fairness by brown Indian skin standards. Just as I was contemplating discarding this thought for the time being, as i had graver issues to burden my seventeen year old Saturday morning mind with, I couldn’t help seeing the reflections of a more universal nature in this phenomenon, the Idolization, in whatever degree of introspective abstract, of the ruler, the powerful, and on the other hand the complex and successful seeking refuge with the simple, as the wise Wilde had put it," simplicity is the ultimate respite of the complex."

Invictus *

2008-04-17T04:01:00.000-07:00

One of favorite poems goes:-

Out of the night that covers me,
BLack as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced or cried aloud;
under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horrors of the shade.
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY(1849-1903)

* Picked from The Prison Diary (Jeffrey Archer)

Repeat the Q, please

2008-02-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

I didn’t know it was such a circulated piece of writing, till my sister enlightened me on its internet offline messages journey. It appeared in the Hindustan Times and though technical errors may be arguable, its good humour nonetheless:
‘The UN conducted a worldwide survey. The only question asked was: “Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?” The survey was a huge failure. In Africa, they didn’t know what food meant. In India, they didn’t know what honest meant. In Europe, they didn’t know what shortage meant. In China, they didn’t know what opinion meant. In west Asia, they didn’t know what solution meant. In South America, they didn’t know what please meant. And in the US, they didn’t know what the rest of the world meant.'

udayan's smile says it all :)

2008-01-24T08:32:00.000-08:00

stock market quiz:
1) how does a blind stock market speculator know how the market is faring?
Ans. He listens to CNBC
2) How does an illiterate stock market speculator know how the market is faring?
Ans. He listens to CNBC Awaz
3) How does a deaf stock market speculator know how the market is faring?
Ans. He reads the scrolls on CNBC
4) How does a deaf and illiterate stock market speculator know how the market is faring?
Ans. He studies Udayan Mukherjee's smile. (Ref- One doesn't need to be a facereader to interpret the direction and degree of the curve of his mouth.. it moves in direct proportion to the sensex!)
5) How does a deaf and blind stock market speculator know how the market is faring?
Ans. Sorry dude, even CNBC cant help you. tough luck!

how abt a research on the cyclicity of mood swings?

2008-01-21T07:36:00.000-08:00

Outlook (reference the Indian political weekly) and its mood swings are getting increasingly violent by the issue. If you were to pick up the latest issue ( dated Jan 28 2008) of the I-forget-how-many-years-old magazine and it happens to be the first issue of the magazine that you read, chances are that you will never pick another issue. Of course, the assumption in this case is that you are the kind of reader who likes reading stuff worth reading. In this issue, however, all the way from the cover, to the cover story and beyond, the magazine has failed to live up to its intellectual potential or seems more likely to be a part of a series intended as an experiment into commercial success ‘ the masala way’.

The cover throws upon you the catch of the experiment ‘he has the look, the attitude, the money. But when it comes to sex and marriage, the small town guy is still a macho man.’ I failed to comprehend to contrast between the two phenomenons. Its only when out of curiosity you pick up the story to make sense of the cover abstract that you realize that ‘the look, the attitude and the money’ has been equated to metrosexuality. And the conclusion of the entire survey is simply that the Indian small town man still wants a virgin wife! I bitched about statistical research in my previous post and this survey by a leading, usually sane and occasionally unusually insane magazine is a classical example of the misuse and futility of statistical research (conducted 999 out of 1000 times inappropriately). Read the survey methodology- 840 odd men sample the entire small town population. You’d be a fool to believe these figures are not inflated atleast by 100 percent. Read the survey and you’ll further find that you can sufficiently conclude that the survey was conducted in just two towns- ludhiana and hoshiarpur (barely 60 kms apart) - one of whom will not even qualify as a small town by many standards. And then the findings of the survey! Insanity, time-pass and printspace-pass do not quite make a very fruitful combination and their synergy can induce temporary mental disorders in many a readers- read frustration and irritation. Coupled with all this mental trauma comes visual torture, the editors having converted the magazine virtually into a porn mag this issue. Outlook’s experiments at masala success which have been developing with increasing frequency over the last 2 years may be affecting readership in more ways than the people running the magazine think.

I for one, however, would still tolerate its mood swings. Though it comes out with the worst in popular English Indian print media once in a while, the best in this space has also been outlook’s domain. Two issues back it ran a full fledged story on the bibi assassination and the future of Pakistan as it can be hypothesized thence. It is by far the most authoritative and cohesive document on this issue in Indian print media space that I have come across. In this issue too, inspite of all its prostitution, it contains a few delights. Sample the quote of the season- “I welcome the merchant of death… to corruption, official apathy, terrorism, darkness and despair” – Thuglak editor Cho Ramaswamy welcoming Gujarat CM Narendra Modi to Tamil Nadu. It’s a pity Mr. Modi cannot approach the election commission for this!

merlin didnt like statistics!

2008-01-20T09:46:00.001-08:00

Academic research is just not my cup of tea! I have a strong dislike for statistics and any results they predict. So, having to do a heavy weight (6 credits paper compared with 3 credits for the other 5) compulsory research project in the final semester of your undergraduate studies doesn’t make life seem any easy. This comes with the additional realization of the fact of ours (St. Francis batch of 2005-08) being the first ever batch subjected to the semester system (would that qualify us as pioneers or guinea pigs?) and its resultant consequent of we (B com professionals) having been given only one semester (90 working days or 4 months of college including abundant holidays) to complete the project as compared to our seniors who had more than twice that time (annual examination system). Thank them now, be elated, be proud or blame them for setting such standards in this research exercise over the last years that the evaluators now expect nothing short of a PhD paper from undergraduate students who now have less than half the time with more than twice the pressure (academic and life- read admission into an MBA oops diploma awarding B-school, or fulltime CA articleship or CS inter or final examinations). Add to that fools like me who don’t believe in the credibility of statistical analysis of most kinds… at least the ones that I can undertake at this stage of my education in finance and statistics and thus plan to do a research project over a period of 10 days by simply anthologizing various papers done earlier and pick up a super-sophisticated topic like ‘diversification of banks into non traditional banking sectors’ worded simply to people-with-dislike-for-long-titles as ‘universal banking’. You have 40 days to do your project and it takes you 30 days to realize that things are worse than it seems, in other words, that you have created just the right environment for the world to eat you up alive.

You break your I-stayed-awake-till-dash-hours-after-midnight records every night, live with the constant fear of developing spondalysis with the ever increasing growth rate in the number of hours you spend in front of the comp each day and each night, you google, you altavista (I don’t know if the verbs have yet found their place in the dictionary) almost like never before, read up every article and paper there exists on the topic, curse JSTOR for commercializing academic information on the internet (read charging users for access to academic papers after providing an abstract which enables the reader to frame a far-from-vague-idea), write close to 40 pages of notes (yes handwritten!), compose the introduction and review of literature (9 pages- keyboard typed- without copy and paste) and then one day the bomb drops on you! You learn that the osmania university evaluators who had far too much confidence in the ability of undergraduates with one semester of statistics as a paper, now have the backing of the management of the college who insist and send a guideline requisition to the evaluators asking them to make the project methodology and analysis a prime criterion in the evaluation.!

The 40 pages of written material now find their place in the bin, ditto with the 9 pages of the word document now occupying unnecessary place on my hard disk (even in the recycle bin) and the topic is finally discarded for I did not plan to do any significant analysis on the project and was hoping only to create a well structured and cohesive theory base for the work that has already been done. An analysis, which I had not thought of, and which was now required, of any nature in this topic would have to be based primarily on secondary data, the only accessible documents being the annual reports of banks, which most claim suffer from non-reliability and inadequacy, thus nullifying the entire project. Added to this is the incapacity of the researcher (read me) with regards to the awareness and competency in use of analytical tools and techniques that a research of this nature and complexity requires. A difficult task now seems super-difficult, almost to the point of being impossible and it seems only wise to discard the foolishness and move on… to a new topic.

That’s 10 days now to come up with a new topic, do the research and drop the bomb of having changed the topic at this sensitive time on my research guide. This doesn’t make me fancy academic research any more than I did earlier. Only maybe less.

Find me the man who invented birth anniversaries!

2007-12-29T07:13:00.000-08:00

Ten reasons why I place birthdays on the top of my list of ‘the most disconcerting days of the year’.
1. You realize you are one year older than what you were same day last year.
2. And 4 kgs heavier!
3. You pick the morning’s paper and a cruel reality confronts you in the face- that you share your birthday with a certain president of the country about whom you had bitched generously in a post not too long ago ( destiny can be extraordinarily peevish sometimes).
4. The rule of the day is to be happy. You cannot cry or sulk or whimper. Mood swings are a strict NO-NO this day.
5. You get tired of eating cakes and getting them smeared on your face. Yet the routine seeks a repeat telecast every 4 hours.
6. You are aware of people around you conspiring for the last one week planning surprises of various kinds and you study every action of every person with suspecting eyes wanting to beat them at their game but fail in spite of all your efforts.
7. It’s a pain in the **** unwrapping presents specially when your friend insists that the wrapping paper be intact and that you show some ‘respect’ to her efforts and sentiments by unwrapping it meticulously! Chick, who gets the respect here? You or the wrapping paper? - think about it!
8. You place all the phones in the house by your side at 11: 50 with anxious anticipation wondering who will wish you first on your birthday this time and suddenly it begins to ring. Congratulations! You just had your first greeting. Unfortunately it happened to come on the wrong day. If only her watch was not ten minutes fast!
9. Distant relatives call you on your birthday and wish your sister!
10. With every passing year the teaser, ‘chhori bees/ikkis/baees (whatever) saal ki ho gayi bhai! Ladka-vadka dekhna shuru karo!’ gets louder and more resonant. Your confusion whether you should blush or laugh increases in proportion to the frequency of the teaser.

I’m not complaining really, everyone likes attention... it’s just difficult to reign for a day when you are not used to being the queen!

The Bigger B

2007-12-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

It was long due. I doubt how many people were actually sent into a state of shock at the assassination of the president of the PPP ( pakistan’s people’s party) Benazir Bhutto. Most would have seen it coming… The state of turmoil in Pakistan has just worsened after yesterday and a tragedy it is for Pakistan for Musharraf is emerging as the scapegoat in the entire drama.

Without intending any insult to the memory of the lady who lies buried at Larkhana sahib from today, my conviction stands stronger today than yesterday that Musharraf is the best thing that ever happened to Pakistan and democracy will be the worst thing that can happen thereto, very contrary to the lady’s beliefs. Musharraf is as die hard a nationalist as they come and the only non corrupt leader to have lead the country since its notorious inception in 1947. The only blemish on that man’s record from a pakistani’s point of view is the manner in which he usurped power. Ignoring that one fact, he has been as able an administrator as that country can afford and has protected it like a father. He might not have been best friends with his counterparts in India and probably even extended gestures thereto only in perfunctory terms, but his very presence at the head office of our most precariously poised neighbour was a boon in disguise for India, came though it did with its price.

And all the propaganda lately surrounding the prospective elections, whenever they may now take place, is leading to an ill advised advocacy of the failed western ideals of democracy in a place where they are extraordinarily misfit.

Pakistan shares its borders with Afghanistan and the scale at which arms are treated in that goner of a country coupled with ‘people’s rule’ in the former would mean a terrorist attack every second day in Pakistan and every 3rd day in India. And things are not going to stabilize for a long time now. Meanwhile Pakistan will remain caught in the quagmire and the question resonating since yesterday “ what's next for pakistan?” is something neither a nobody nor a somebody can predict with any certainty.
In the not too far future, however, this is what I predict:
1) Musharraf will be assassinated in the next 2 years for he has become too much of a liability on America and on his own people.
2) Imran khan will emerge as the new leader of the country probably heading the country 5-6 years down the line.
3) India will, albeit too late, realise its responsibility towards its neighbour and extend its support as Big Bro and a mitigation of the tensions between the siblings will ensue.
4) The real rationale behind Al Qaeda’s claim of bibi’s assassination will emerge to replace the ‘only a fool would believe it’ reason given by the organization-‘because she was a very close friend of America’!.
5) The people of Pakistan will get some sense into their heads and then maybe they could deserve a democractic government.

Yesterday, really, was just a humbling start to a long struggle. May Allah give them the strength. Amen.

Chak de India!

2007-09-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Baari barsi khatan gaya si!
khatke le aandi aari!

pehle angrez!
fir afriki!
fir kangaroo!
te ab pak de vi faari!!!!

burrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

chak de fatte!!!

Cricket- the biggest file!

2007-09-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah! We have it! A cricket world cup after 24 years! India has etched its name into cricketing history, having won the maiden Twenty20 world cup! And the frontrunners of this victory are nothing short of demi-gods for the populace of this country now for cricket is not a sport. In this subcontinent it is a phenomenon. And it metamorphoses into a fever, when two countries, co existent with a nearly six decade long relationship of hostility and cautious contrivance, compete against each other in this sport.

What is the sport indicative of to be recipient to such a status, distinct from the other sports? Cricket enjoys popularity pervading all sections of the society. To consider cricket as an unproductive activity may deem you to be a non-patriot. It binds the country together in a way the national holidays have ceased to. After all, independence has been achieved. But a new cricket match between the parent nation and the child nation means a fresh challenge, a challenge to insist that the parent will always be superior to the child, and the challenge for the child to exhort the development of his identity. And this insistence on a nationalistic identity finds acquaintance in all ages because cricket is youthful. The young thus connect with it, the younger see their future in it, the old see their youth in it. Because cricket is one game that every boy in the country plays, it is the national sport above the indigenous products like hockey, polo, chess or badminton.

It may have been a while since some violent upheavals occurred at the grounds and the crowds may appear well behaved, but no Indian still supports the Pakistani team. If he does, he is deemed to be an outcast, and this is when contingent betting is considered as a thing of the past, or so it seems. The 20000 plus people seated at the rims of the grassy grounds and above that, and some millions who sat glued to the television from the stroke of the clock at 5:30 to the fading of the lights at 9 are more than just spectators. They are participants of the game, to whom the victory of their team matters more than it may to the players themselves. The atmosphere in the stands is exuberant, actual festivals may not seem worthy of the festive spirit of the occasion, classroom and office gossip may cease to relate to anything other than Dhoni’s locks and yuvraj’s swearing and the like for the next week and a half, the soaps ratings’ may be recording a low, the essence of the phenomenon is that the victory is addressed in the first person plural rather than being credited to just the Indian cricket team. The victory in the game is seen more than a victory of its national heroes, it is seen as the victory of the nation.

Victory in cricket is seen as the victory of the nation and a defeat as the nation’s defeat, even when the sole sport may not even be a coherent indicator of the failure of efficacy of the nation’s sports administration, leave aside it being representative of the entire country’s machinery. But then such symbolism is only momentary. What drives this passion amongst the populace of the two countries is that unlike the existent history of the two countries charachterised by hostility and coldness, the cricket ground is one where there are results. A victorious result is reason for celebration and a defeat is enough quid pro quo for frustration manifesting itself into violence and other condemnable forms of heat, light, sound and muscular energy.

The cricket ground is a miniature representation of the aspirations of the two countries’ populace. Each wants victory. None can tolerate defeat. The leaders have just to realize such, and deliver a result where both are victorious.
Till then who is to deny that an Indo-pak match with drinks, snacks and friends is fun to watch? And it’s a double treat, when its with a win! Way to go India!

16k it is!

2007-09-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Its sweet sixteen baby! The sensex today crossed the 16000 mark and went stronger into the day to close at an all time high of over 16200 after an intra- day trading of almost 600 points. The question now remains, however, just how long is the saccharine gonna retain its sweetness.
The market has seen volatile trading for a long time now and the rally over the last 7 and a half weeks which led to the 1000 pt increase was charachterised by as much. A 20 % change in the index from the opening mark, which leads to a close to the day’s trading means as much as 3000+ pts change at the 15000+ level. Below the 20% level, there is no mechanism to check volatility and given the latest predominant bullish trend in the market and its increasing tendency to react sharply to even minor developments in the national and global markets, this development was long overdue. In fact, the 53 days that the last 1000 points leading to the 16 K mark took seem like an inordinately prolonged period for such a run.
However, it shall not come as a surprise to many if the sensex touches the 17000 mark within the week. Given the recent speculation about the central bank announcing a cut in the bank rate, for market experts across the country and around the globe are of the opinion that there is an increasing credit crunch in the country and that the rates have been high for a very long time, and especially in the light of the fed bank rate cut of 50 basis pts announced yesterday, even decent trading of about 200 to 300 pts up at the end of the day should do the trick. Also, expected to contribute to this bullish run are the dark horse stocks, those that did not participate in the run up to the 16k mark and are trading lower than their usual trading levels, but are fundamentally good stocks, even expected to grow better.
Despite the volatility, the asian economies are growing fundamentally stronger by the day, even as the fed bank in its statement expressed concerns about the direction in which the American economy is heading. Experts throughout the world vouch for the fact that its in asia today where all the big money is. However, what degree of correlation can be attributed to the incredible rise in the sensex and nifty vis a vis the growth factor will become clear in the following weeks.
Meanwhile the age old investment advice holds even more promise today- invest in fundamentally sound companies and do not get carried away by volatile and sharp market sentiments. For in the long run, one may expect the front runner stocks of this rally to get cheaper because a correction in the market is long overdue and such high volatility in the markets at such high rates will be hard to sustain. Quick money, however, is on the cards for the smart and agile players.
Till then, its sexy sixteen!

Orkut treats

2007-08-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

Some personalised friend requests can be really amusing. Here's a sample:

Hai Nalini, So You Looks very Interesting Personality by your Profile , Your way of writing words & attitute & Specialy by your Community....When I saw The Community that is "Military Technology"...You're the first on my eyes Nalini , that a Girl like this Community & She's from India thats really very impressive...Thats why I need to know you & Want you to be my Orkut Friend..
But if you truely like me as your Orkut Friend too....So First you've to take clear & deep look into my Profile , Pics , Specialy My Commnunity...Its must be given you a cleart views about me , who I am , what I need & Want from a Person whos in the Orkut & why Im inside the Orkut , My taste...everthing that essentials for knowing the person truely by words....

Now its upto you Nalini...what you gonna do

Mr. X (name omitted)

ROTF! I am a person who generally admires hard work.. inspite of that Mr. X , if you ever read this post, i am really sorry i couldnt bring myself to accept your friend request

just passing by

2007-07-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

Courtesy can assume ridiculous forms. Take this example of passing communication for instance.

I was descending the staircase after class. I saw a girl climbing the stairs my way. There was no one else in the vicinity. She looked at me. I looked back at her. She didn’t look away. I smiled at her. She smiled back. I smiled back again. She greeted me, “Hey! How have you been?” I replied “Good! What’s been up with you?” She replied, “Usual, catch you around later anyway… Gotta rush for a class”. I bade her farewell, “Sure, see you around later”. We crossed each other. She left for the class and I left for the grounds.

And I am almost certain that neither of us knew the other.

What you saying, woman????

2007-06-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

“I think the purdah system should be abolished”!!!. Oh dear! There goes the dodo.

I wasn’t really too excited by the prospect of Pratibha Patil being made first citizen of my country because of some instincts which were inexplicable to me then. She just had to open her mouth and make some noise for me to dawn upon the realization that my instincts had already unobtrusively comprehended the irrepressible truth- that there were no brains behind all the big talk.

Her first public utterance after being chosen by the U-Pratibha-Alliance as the nominee for the post of the president was audaciously characteristic of self flattery- one that seemed to hail the decision of the ruling party coalition of having chosen her. What cheek! And then you go as far as asking age old traditional customs to be abolished in a night’s hours.

I confess that I have a proclivity of siding with the conservatives generally. Disregarding that too, in the pure spirit of enquiry, I wish to ask what essentially is wrong with the purdah system? In countries like England and America, it has, of course, come to be identified with a suspiciously-eyed, even hated, community- the Islamists. So much is the attention even the Sikhs attract, as much as does every brown man or a black man. I, for one, trust human ingenuity enough to believe that it can identify a south asian or an east asian, for example, rather comfortably, even without a burkha or a pagdi or a kimono. We are different races of people all over the globe and all races have physical charachteristics typical of them. Thereby, even as the question of the burkha or the pagdi being prospectively banned in England sounds perverse to me; the suggestion of my probable president, Pratibha ji is something I simply I cannot digest.

The purdah is a tradition that has not harmed any woman till date. I fail to see what this lady is trying to arrive at.

She calls her nomination a big step for the women in the country. I am not too sure too many women think so. I, for one, don’t.

Let's play

2007-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

The guardian quick crossword, appearing 6 days a week in the Hindu, has been one of my favourite spaces in the newspaper. Unlike the Sunday crossword, I do not end up developing a ‘I – know- nothing’ complex after solving the crossword. Quite often I end up filling in all the white boxes (albeit many a time wrongly) and what follows is a sense of complete elation at having beat the crossword at its own game.

The crossword is after all one impish gamer.It dodges you and you chase it. And when you think the chase is almost over and there's just one clue left to decode, it throws at you a googly. Try which way, you can solve that clue only by stepping into the shoes of the troublemaker. Take for example, the clue that reads: ‘old sphinx (6)’. You have just one letter of the word from a cross word (s_ _ _ _ _). You break you head, search up all your neurons, still finding nothing you decide to make use of technology (yes! After long moments of debating whether or not to give the final credit of solving the crossword puzzle to the artificial world, you decide in its favour) and wiki arrives! But alas, wiki doesn’t give you any synonym for the sphinx.

You google and you arrive at no results either. What in the world was the sphinx called earlier and why in the world does wiki not know that, and If wiki doesn’t know it, and nor does google, then how in the world do they expect someone to decrypt the clue? A mania of sorts grips you and an obsession to outbeat the crossword. And that’s just where it ends. The crossword has won.

The next day you inquisitively pick up the paper and turn first to the second page of metroplus ( and without first having a look at calvin and hobbes), frantically look for the answer that dodged you all of the previous day. ‘sphinx’. You read and you re-read aghast. You are angry. And then suddenly you are amused. Of course! The old sphinx was never called anything else. It was always the sphinx. Wiki knew the answer after all. And so did you all this while. But the crossword won because it played while you competed. There’s a fine line between the two but what makes all the difference is which side you choose.

Master of the game

2007-04-20T04:32:00.001-07:00

Long family lineages remind of Sidney Sheldon. If you fail to see the relation, most probably you have not read ‘Master of the game’. The only masterpiece of Sidney Sheldon and his only work I would recommend. It happens to be the first Sheldon I had read and all his other books after that seem to me to be scripts of C grade A rated movies. And no, Master of the Game’s no book you’d give to an underrated child still. It does have a generous demonstration of Sheldon’s most prized art (else, how in the name of Merlin, would his books sell?), but as a bonus, this one also has a soul thats not prostituted. It’s a wonderful tale spanning three or four generations, I forget how many, and has insightful accounts of various kinds of human personalities and how their interplay defines destinies.
It’s a pity Sheldon exhausted his genius with one book.

Love your family!

2007-04-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

It’s all about loving your family! Who’d know that better than Rahul Gandhi? Maybe, Karan Johar. But its not Karan’s family the country is interested in, and the country doesn’t comprise all of film industry sychophants, who flatter him and are all praises for his 3rd grade movies, only made on a kingly budget, just to get a chance to act in his ‘annual blockbuster’. I thought even Ekta Kapoor outdoes him after I sat through half an hour of KANK! (coincidently, it even rhymes with Skunk.. poor creature! )
Him and those stalkers aside, its Rahul’s family that we are worried about. Fool us once, fool us twice, but his family has played the same trick for four generations and want us to be fooled everytime. What fools! Those self abnegating individuals, having been forced to take up the office of the highest executive of the country for four generations! By Merlin! That makes my country sound handicapped!
Nehru hesitantly became the prime minister (Gandhiji was the citizen deemed for the popular honours), Indira didn’t have a political inclination and joined the fray only for the good of the country ( and what good she did!), Rajiv was a happy go lucky pilot, not bothered about politics at all. Sonia was forced too, but didn’t accept the office, smart girl!. The old trick would have become rather too patent!
And then isn’t Indira Gandhi the one who had made oh, so many bloody mistakes- the most criminal being the Emergency? She is also infamously rumoured to have killed her son. I do not know about the veracity of the last rumour but most of her contemporaries would probably swear by it.
I can gladly say thus, that I am no Indira fan, even though I wasn’t even born when she ruled our country, to know her politics too well. I wasn’t born even during Nehru’s days, but I have come to admire him immensely as a passionate idealist and a human from the little literature that I have read of his and about him. There’s not much literature on Rajiv though, but people’s accounts of him are often praiseworthy and he seems to have been a committed prime minister. His wife’s, however, turned out to be no nationalist- Indian definitely not, Italian I don’t know. She was the one who didn’t want Rajiv to make his foray into politics, he did it and yet did she. And what was the reason espoused by her? – to raise congress back to its past glory. Not once did she speak about Indian interests. The only preoccupation of her mind seems to have been to preserve her family legacy- and that legacy is the party. Its all about the family after all. Rahul’s no alien to that blood.

Sorry boy! I don’t hate you. But I am not too fond of your family- blame it on the womenfolk.

oh, Merlin!

2007-04-20T03:33:00.000-07:00

Oh, Merlin!! NO dear, he is not a creation of J.K Rowling. Her books do not even tell his story. They just use his name as most wizards do. He is a fictional legend ( the earliest instance of his name is in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, as Merlin Ambrioses) who is reinvented again and again. Some use him as their villain, some name humanitarian societies after him. It all boils down to convenience in the end. I prefer to know him as a frivolous sage(yeah! Talk of paradoxes!) and best read him through these lines:

*Of Merlin wise I learned a song,

--Sing it low, or sing it loud,

It is mightier than the strong,

And punishes the proud.

I sing it to the surging crowd,

--Good men it will calm and cheer,

Bad men it will chain and cage.

In the heart of the music peals a strain

Which only angels hear;

Whether it waken joy or rage,

Hushed myriads hark in vain,

Yet they who hear it shed their age,

And take their youth again.

*-MERLIN'S SONG by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

By Merlin!

2007-04-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

she: by Merlin! why by Merlin?
I: why not?
she: what do you mean by by Merlin?
I: by by Merlin I mean 'by Merlin' and 'By merlin!'
she: by Merlin! You mean it!
I: In Merlin's name I do and Merlin does so too!