Musings of the Insignificant

All for Sushmita Sen

2009-12-30T17:30:00.004+05:30

Recently I underwent a weight loss program - more out of necessity than anything else. I did loose some weight, although nothing close to advertise in papers but enough to enjoy my holiday binge. In last few years, due to lack of exercise, I had gained some weight - it was not that visible but medically speaking I was overweight. I was advised by my doctor to "manage" the weight rather than "loose" it. He is generally concerned about my health (reminds me of a story of hen that used to lay golden eggs - I just happen to be cancer patient spending much more than golden egg every month!).

When somebody approaching forty, who in appearance is not "obese", joins a health club or goes on diet, the obvious question is "Why?" - after all we live in India, we are used to being on healthy side (that too scientifically proven). Besides with the approaching age, baldness and being obese is natural - why fight it?
In my case I tell everybody that the reason is Sushmita Sen - the bollywood actress. Well the rationale is very simple, she is single (yet), beautiful, strong, independent and mature women which I would have a remote chance of impressing upon. Otherwise all this charm and lean body would naturally go waste.

As I am approaching my forty, I realized that my opportunity window of impressing species of opposite sex is getting narrower. My wife of so many years, now naturally hates me, several of my old friends know me long enough to get impressed (if at all!). There are not that many single beautiful women out there in India that one would like to impress. The only choice by deduction is Sushmita Sen. Even in terms of probabilities, it is looking good. Using simple math with 1.06 males to female ratio in 15-64 age group in India, I can count my chances with at most 2 or 3 women. If I choose my sample carefully, one of those two eligible single women could be Sushmita Sen. It is quite possible that there are several other single women but probability of me meeting them to impress them is very low. With Sushmita, being a public figure, chances of meeting her are very high. All I have to do is to choose the right time and place.

I have now also enrolled for a personal training which will enable me to develop muscular body. After all the competition is fierce for impressing Sushmita. But then it is worth the effort - did I mention she loves Bengali food, just like me?

Daily Heroes

2009-12-15T09:27:00.002+05:30

"The Heroism we recite / Would be a normal thing", so said Emily Dickinson in her famous poem We never know how high we are. It is always interesting to see that heroism that we worship in movies and stories is actually observed in our daily lives everywhere. We always believe that heroic deeds happen only when some catastrophic or significant events happens and men, women rise to the occasion. The real heroism does not wait for significant events or wars, I see people all around us who are heroes in everyday.

The human society as we know it has created so many situations, knowingly or unknowingly, that really requires extraordinary effort to live in the moment. There are people who travel around the world to support their families, individuals go through tremendous personal challenges to make the day and yet maintain smiles on the face. Are these not the real heroes? The people who take their daughter to evening dance classes while after meeting grueling professional goals - day after day without fail, the people who sustain the losses and still start afresh on their pursuits everyday, the people who struggle to meet their daily expenses - all of them are heroes in our daily lives. One can argue that it is tough life, but that does not mean the heroics that we do everyday to make the day are any less significant than winning a war or fighting the social inequalities. People just don't write books about it - that's all.

It is of course less interesting to know how somebody made through the killing traffic to hospital to meet his father in time than an iconic hero fighting crime on silver screen. Daily stories of heroes might be small and to a great extent insignificant but they are are heroic nevertheless!

Choices We Make

2009-12-07T21:05:00.003+05:30

It is oft said that life is a series of experiences we chose to have. Our actions are determined by the choices we make and the experiences we choose. Even then, it is many times difficult to determine what is the right choice. Is it OK to live the life by predetermined rules or is it better to be rebel and create our own path? It is always a hard choice...

If we ignore all the psycho babble in quotes, it really comes down to one's ability to deal with the situation. In daily life our reactions are many times predictable and some times accidental. We don't really get time to decide the choice we are making or its cumulative impact on our lives. Like share trader on the trading floor our decisions are instantaneous and choices momentary. with gains and losses being equally disastrous.

What would we do different if we now gain the knowledge that every decision we make will eventually impact us? Will we be more cautious or would we be completely indecisive? Is there a technique by which we know the times when to live by existing rules and when not to?

For whatever reason, I spent more time in being rebel without a cause than living by rules (even when some of the rules were particularly useful, like say, don't drink too much wine or you will die having cancer of liver...yeah right!). Now I know that some of those decisions were not really good decisions and clearly have defined rest of my life. I chose to flunk my tests in school, I chose to fall in love with several girls (some times almost simultaneously) and live with agony for rest of the life, I chose not to make lots of money by stealing, I chose to travel around the world to solve bigger social problems; all good intentions, but mostly, bad choices. Of course several of these choices were made when I was young and stupid. Would I do the same decisions again? Maybe. On a serious note, I kind of like the life I have, except maybe for "falling in love" part, which is always painful experience to have - especially now that Aishwarya Rai is married!

Dealing with Death

2009-11-06T20:17:00.004+05:30

No matter how many reruns of Lion King you have seen or have really understood the "circle of life", it is always difficult to deal with death when it actually happens. I am particularly intrigued by the fact that even when death happens all around us, we as human beings, never seem to really get handle on reactions. I, for one, don't know how to console people who are trying to come terms with death of someone close or facing it themselves. Consoling oneself about inevitability of death does not really help. You still feel the pain, agony and despair. It is the feeling of loss or "this-is-it" moment that is really difficult to get over. I thought I would get used to it, but even today, when I check the results of my medical tests, the heart stops for a moment or two.

The fact that life (yours or somebody else's) as you know would not be around tonight, tomorrow morning or perhaps forever is very unnerving thought. While it does provide a perspective on corporate deadlines, ".. I want this ready by tomorrow morning!!" (yeah right!), it does not really help in coming to the terms with death. But on the other hand brooding over it does not help either. Then the world would be very gloomy place, everybody constantly worrying about impending doom (and of course deadlines would have no meaning).

Either due to my naivety or "getting-used-to" syndrome, I have a tendency to ignore the pain. As a cancer patient I have been programmed to think positive. I can not keep long face for very long time. The flip side of this is, I can not identify with the agony others go through while coming to the terms with death, neither can I console others. It is difficult situation indeed, I know what it feels like, but can not really tell others what they should do. In many situations I ask them to remember the happy things in their lives. It sounds sappy and even offensive, but it has worked for me many times. Remembering happy things, the smiles, the joys in your life make life worth living and gives you energy to look beyond the obvious inevitability of death. I think the best way to deal with death is focusing more on life. I focus my energy on living everyday, possibly that helps me to stay put for so many years, beating some not-so-obvious medical predictions about my life!

I really don't know how to deal with death or it's after effects, but I guess I know how to deal with life.

America Beacons

2009-08-15T09:56:00.005+05:30

What draws people to America? Everybody in the world wants to go to America - the land of honey and gold. Paul Theroux in his The Great Railway Bazaar describes everybody's desire to go to America, from eastern Europe to distant Russian outposts in Siberia. Practically every educated Indian youth wants to go to America and settle there. Is it really the land of honey and gold? Is the dream of work hard and you will get rich (and potential harassment by IRS) so attractive? I remember my brothers and father telling me about attraction to America in 70's and 80's. I am puzzled by this attraction in modern times. The borders are opening and world is becoming more connected (as apparent by the Swine Flu epidemic spread we see now in the world - 168 countries in 2 months). Does America still hold the mass magnate characteristics with its super Walmart and drive-in McDonald?

As for me, I have been practically traveling to America every year for last several years and the things that attract me most are Double Cheeseburger, the cheap coffee, and almost wide open National Parks. Once immediately after landing at O'Hara I rushed to the first McD in sight and ordered a burger. My co-traveller, another Indian, asked about my seemingly apparent craving for beef. I told her it is America I am enjoying, not the beef.

I could never get enough of Starbucks - I always joked about spreading their evil empire around the world. I tried drinking Starbucks in Japan too, but it was not the same. I think it is America with its arrogant service staff (they call you "Sir" when they hate you!), the ignorance of anybody non-white, and general attitude of America the great - makes it worth the effort. I am sure several other people in the world also strive to be part of this great melting pot. That probably explains why McD's at international airports in America run so successfully.

I recently got a letter from US Social Security informing me about my eligibility for disability and medicare benefits based on the taxes I paid few years ago. If for nothing else, I might just go to America to avail those health benefits - I am sure an extra helping of cheeseburger and super size soda would certainly help on the medicare front!

Thank you, but No Thank You!

2009-08-15T09:36:00.002+05:30

First reaction for another class reunion - more polite version of "No Thanks". This time it was with bunch of college classmates who claimed to be my friends. They were enthusiastic and polite. A set of people who knew me when I was young and incredulous trying to know me again. Now I am no longer young, just incredulous. Boys mainly spent time in learning about each others work and position in some fictitious hierarchy, girls meek and coy tried to establish a pseudo feminism of “me-too” in the world where their value was sagging. Meeting perfect strangers who knew only part of your life is always overwhelming experience for me. We have nothing in common, no hobbies, no relations, no references – the only thing common is that we spent considerable time together in a large building campus known as college. Most of that time was spent on ogling at girls and/or competing with each other for marks.

These people were supposed to vanish in your rear view mirror, but are, as unfortunate it is, still around and bumping on you. I did not mean they should vanish in literal sense but I always believed that the world was large enough for them not to be seen ever again. I had hoped that they all would have immigrated to some distant land and will never bother me again. That was not to be. They form the virtual communities and create mailing lists and invite you to programs where they introduce themselves again to you. It is a perfect nightmare. Eighteen years have passed since I graduated, lot of things have changed. Several class mates have become bald and/or fat. Several people did not recognize each other and some wanted to be introduced again. I wondered all the time why I was there in the first place. A place that was so unknown that it required me to realign my compass.

Thankfully, some of my life long friends were with me and we bid early good bye to the party and resorted to our own little get together. This helped in subsiding the pain or panic to a great extent. I apologized profoundly to my close friends about my requests to them about attending class reunion.

Reunions are good for people who want to be reunited with the past; I wanted to forget that past. A past spent as embarrassing youth with bunch of strangers, is not worth remembering. Very few life long friendships were formed, rest is better forgotten. People might travel all over the world to get to know each other and be reunited with the past, but for me a class reunion is a ghost from past which I would rather not visit.

My friend Abhi, was right about this after all (usually he is). Class reunion? Thank you, but no thank you!

Identity Crisis

2009-07-11T11:08:00.001+05:30

Recently under the garb of progress Indian government announced the citizen identity program. The program is supposed to bring benefits to common man - if there is such a thing! When everybody has an unique id then how common that would be? We are not even talking about civil liberties (if there is such a thing!).
The registered identity is a funny concept to boot. In order to get one you have to have some government approved id first. Not sure how this works for the millions of people who have more survival problems than thinking about identity. For example my mother with few decades of life still does not has government "Approved" id. She never needed one. Apart from honorable mention on rationing card, she has no record with the government. Of course there are voter lists but they keep changing on the whims of issuing officer. Born in colonial days and having lived through struggle for freedom, she is perplexed about the concept. The idea that somebody would give her a number to prove her identity is foreign to her - and so to many like her. It has uncanny resemblance to the dark past in India's history.
On a lighter note this program would be last nail on abundant freedom my generation has grown up with. I had always teased my friends in western societies about their passive submission to state machinery tracking their every movement with a number, something that our government couldn't and would'nt do. Alas, that would be thing of past now.
Everybody will have a number to go by and can be identified. Think about it. You are engaged in some casual sex with a babe on a remote sea beach in India, while hauling ship load of illicit drugs and POW - in comes the police saying,"well well Mr 00784, what would your wife say if she knew about this girl, eh?"
How are you going to explain to them that they missed the last digit and are confusing you for somebody else? Talk about identity crisis in a country where proving your identity is such a difficult task.

I am not afraid, I am married!

2009-07-04T10:34:00.002+05:30

I read the quote in the daily news paper, a man saying that he is not afraid of terrorism, he has been married for 12 years. Sounded close enough.

I wonder when did the natural process of male and female of species getting together to produce next generation turned out to be such a bounding agreement that everybody started getting afraid of it. Of course homo sapien being more "brainy" started quoting about it, but is it really that painful? Well come to think of it, you don't get male swans getting together and complaining about their long time au pair (it is observed that swans make pairs for life time), but get in any average bar or human male gathering place, the most discussed thing is long drawn marriages and problems therein.

Marriage was meant to be a simple agreement to stay together for producing off-springs and assurance of taking care of them for considerable future. With wide spread usage of contraceptives and ever growing population of humans, producing off-springs is not such a priority (in purely evolutionary terms sex is actually an incentive for producing off-springs). Thus marriage became an instrument of describing love or binding for your life - based on your perspective. It was thought to be a sacred bond. Different cultures created a context around this bond to ensure people actually stick around for longer. In medieval times breaking marriage was considered sacrilegious (effects being worse for women than men).

I am sure somewhere in the progress of civilization the entire society found out this binding for life process was artificial. So we went through cycle of self discovery. In trbial times of hunting and gathering, marriage was not binding, then we have had our modernization where we made it binding and now we are back on curve where we don't think it has to be binding any more. In fact more and more people are opting for old ways of "living together" rather than marriage. Clearly people who still have old contracts can not break them free yet, but there is hope for next generation.

In some ways marriage is fun (free housekeeping, somebody to tell you when to take pills, etc.), but is it worth the life time of bondage? I don't know. My grandfather was very brave, he had four wives. I always wondered how he managed. I have sure inherited the bravery part, I got married to the first (well technically seventh but who counts?) girl I came across and promised life time of slavery.

While discussing a loan proposal my friend casually asked me if I was afraid of taking such a risk given the large sum and limited earning potential I have. I told him I am not risk averse, I am married.

Hospitals Again

2009-04-12T20:41:00.003+05:30

Just when I thought I am done with the doctors, nurses and hospitals, I have to visit them one more time. These things keep coming back in my life. There is no recess. Recently one of the million tests I do (OK I am exaggerating, one of the 5 tests that I do - it certainly feels like million!), turned out positive. For the uninitiated, a positive medical test is NOT a good thing. It is like a doping test, no celebrations if it turns out positive - they take your medals away. So I went from, happy to excited to panic.

First and foremost thought came to my mind is, "Oh, good break from work!", second thought was, "Nurses in tight clothes" and the third thought was, "Oh looks like cancer is winning!". The third thought was not encouraging, causing me to panic.

By now I thought I am used to analyzing these things, and could calmly handle such rebound. Every cancer patient (surviving!) always plans for multiple surgeries. I know few survivors who lived through this to tell the tale. Having philosophically thought about, "Nurses in tight clothes", I was under impression that my mind could certainly handle shocks. Well, I thought wrong. It upset me for a long time. I was unnecessarily worried about future of Indian economy (especially when I will not be there!) and what would happen to my gym membership fees - would I get a refund on my annual fees with the claim of absence due to operation or certainty of death in near future. These are unnerving thoughts, what if you learn that you will really not able to watch all the TV that you paid for (I actually paid for annual subscription) - instead spend time in white rooms with limited channels TV? Man, this is tough life I live!

In any case I am preparing my mind for another long stay at hospital, perhaps a surgery or more, I am not sure. With one positive test result, I have miles to go before I get any closer to nurses in tight clothes. Besides, hospitals are not really that bad, these are ultimate destinations for attention seeking individuals, there are always people around you. Especially if you have some serious terminal disease (like, say Cancer), at any given moment there would be at least 2-3 people around you. This makes you feel very good. It is certainly worth the money you pay. You will never get that kind of attention in any 5-star hotel - for example how many hotels would actually offer you full body sponging with anti-bacterial soap?

Dog Chasing The Car

2009-04-08T21:10:00.003+05:30

"I am like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it...", says the Joker in movie The Dark Knight. Comics, for whatever they are worth, always have cheesy statements that reflect the life we live. Indeed we are all like dogs chasing the cars, without really knowing what we would do if we really caught one.

To prove this hypothesis, I did a random sampling survey. I asked 10 of my friends (yes, I do have friends and yes they are more sane than I am), to describe what is their ultimate goal in life. One said, "happiness", I asked her to describe what that meant. It turned out to be a house in the mountains. Several others described financial security as the ultimate goal (NOTE: Some of the participants are criminally rich within their societal context, earning lot more than average salaries in respective countries). I asked them what would they do if they indeed get that. Not one of them had good answer. Few commented their goal to be able to spend more time with their children - not sure if the children wanted them in house all the time for spending time, either. It turned out from my survey that many of us are really chasing something without knowing what that something is.

The worst state all of us could be is in not realizing that we are chasing. We are accelerating to catch the light, running meetings by roadside, worried over portfolio evaluation. During the entire life, we are simply chasing one thing or other - and if you are rich enough, chasing after people so that they can chase what you want. Now the realization alone is not enough, even Joker had that. Doing something about it after you realize it, is important. As the argument goes, there are two kinds of people, one who are running because they enjoy it and others who are chasing the runners because they want to keep up!

I guess the important lesson here is to buy better running shoes, whether one is chaser or runner, one still has to run!

Power of Imagination

2009-04-06T20:57:00.005+05:30

My son recently argued with me that he never really wants to grow up. Bit worried, I asked him why - after all my retirement plan was based on his ability to grow and get out of my house! His argument was very simple, he told me that he is afraid that he might loose his power of imagination if he grows up. For some reason he seemed to think that adults don't really have imagination powers (being young child he hasn't met lot of investment bankers yet!). He went on explaining how he can imagine super hero toys talking to him or his friends donning various costumes and 'imagining' that they are some kind of heroes and so on. He has not seen any adults doing that, so he never wanted to be an adult. Deceptively simple logic - of course one could excuse any rational adult human for not wearing tight clothing and not being a super hero with underpants on outside. Nevertheless he had a valid point.

Is it true that as adults we tend to be more rational than necessary? At a times it almost seems like. Our ability to imagine is limited to fantasizing about some not-so-childish-activities with the popular movie/super hero (or heroine as the case may be). Is it true that we adults can not see the different picture than is presented to us? Perhaps it is better that we do not "imagine" things. I am not sure where I would land if I let my imagination wander. As adults the thoughts and ideas are more profound and are not limited to being a person that can fly while showing underwear. I think it is part of the growing up that we limit ourselves to contextual imagination - not wandering around. Creative people and scientists could argue in favour of thinking new ideas, but large majority - I am sure could do without it. After all how much imagination you would want to have to pull you through your daily life? Too much of it and you are ready for white clothes, bed and male nurses in mental hospital, too little of it and your mind is fatigued at the end of the day. The key is having enough power of imagination to survive the life and perhaps make some money out of it - be it fantasizing about movie star or an idea that gives you better job! But not really loose it.

I told my son that one never really looses the power of imagination, as one becomes adult, one simply learns how to make money from it. I am sure he will learn that in due course, after all it is one thing to imagine about being a super hero and another to sell super hero toy collectibles on eBay.

Make The Peace

2009-03-29T20:04:00.002+05:30

In my journey to spirituality, I came across the opinions of the "great" guru on Death. The guru explained how and what of death and why it is important part of the "circle of life" and so on. Apparently the guru has never seen Tuck Everlasting, he might have changed his story to, "would you like to live forever?". In any case, I realized that in ordinary world, thinking about death is next to impossible. If we plan our small life with the view of death, we would be forever sad and worried. In effect, not enjoying the life as such. We plan for several things, how to loose weight in next 4 weeks - and get into affair with the hottest lady in gym (yeah right!), how big a pension I should have, do I have sufficient petrol in my car, and so on - with very little thought about would it really matter, if let us say you die tonight? What if the life you had so far is all the life you would ever have and that's about it? If one keeps thinking about such thoughts, it would be impossible to enjoy the moment. And this is important part of the life, enjoying the moment (and yes also watching TV, that comes next!).

In many tribal areas of India, death is known as something that allows one to make peace with oneself. The dead person is referred to as, "he made peace with himself". This is very unique way of accepting the inevitability of death. You fight with so called "fate", "destiny", "circumstances" and occasionally with your wife (!), but eventually you make peace with yourself when you die. You are at peace with the world, no more fidgeting, postponing the meetings, or delaying the budgetary decisions. You die and make the peace!

Of course several other things can be done without making the peace, but then what is life for?

Spirituality Beacons

2009-02-15T19:15:00.000+05:30

Spirituality has now become a lucrative business. Any person with some profound thoughts about life of human beings could record his/her messages and distribute using electronic media and voila! you are the next guru. For a week I worked at a rather distant office and was required to spend 1.5hrs of "awakening" in commute. I listened to the recorded messages of one such self proclaimed guru and his anecdotes about life in general. I listened to "lion and elephant" fable. I heard about duality and how it is preventing me from cleansing my soul. I was introduced to new yoga that I must include as part of my daily life. I heard about how sex is a form of recognizing the duality in human species. I also heard about how to do "inner management", which apparently is different than "external management" that we pretend to do in our daily lives.

All this was a new knowledge to me. I thought spirituality is something that you do when you retire (or live long enough to retire) Or are old enough when ogling at Internet porn is too much of effort. I clearly had no idea about so called duality in human nature. The only duality I knew was the one in mathematics and that too not well as my grades proved (rather consistently!).

I did not know that my soul was trying hard to break free from daily stress that I put up with and requires a full-time guru and set of yoga positions to manage. Boy this spirituality is a serious business - if you decide to follow it.

Among other things I realized I have too much stress in my life. For example, fights at work place, world peace, terrorism and my wife (not related, two different stresses, just so that there is no confusion!). I also realized that I must do several meditations and advanced programs in certain type of yoga to keep my soul cleansed from all this stresses. The sheer thought of doing something of this magnitude caused my stress levels to go up. I had to calm myself and engage in a deep thought of starting this journey. Red wine, consumed in enough quantities also facilitated the thought process.

I think cleansing my soul is a right thing to do, I might just change the yoga positions with enough quantities of red wine. There is evidence in Hindu mythology of using alcohol to support the process.

Hence fourth, I will be a changed man. I will no longer look upon female of the species as sex objects. I will instead search for the duality within them - even at the cost of spending more time with them. I will not hate morons, instead I will recognize that their souls are not cleansed enough - I will encourage them to do so, at a times at cost of my wine. I will not blame others for my problems, instead will strive for inner management (and perhaps become problem for others!). Spirituality beacons and here I come...

Year of Blogging

2009-01-31T19:19:00.004+05:30

OK I took long time off from blogging. Several people pointed out that the articles are not posted for almost 5 months now. Some people got little worried about my health etc. - and I heard some people also celebrated, of course they did not know their happiness was short lived. A new year has started and here I am, back with my bad English and opinions on everything that is happening on the small planet of Earth. I am going to take blogging seriously now. I recently came across Christian Lander's Blog about white people which got published in book. Blogging is probably better career option and mechanism to change people on this planet. I wish I could meet some beautiful girls this way - wishful thinking, but again everything is possible in this modern world. It has not happened after so many years of blogging, but that is not to say it will not happen..

This year I am planning not to travel too much. I am hoping that most of my frequent flyer miles and hotel stays will carry me through this year. After all if you earn them better use them. Another resolution I made this year is to focus on my health (!). I have joined a gym. I am planning to spend enormous amount of money on my "training", just to hide my guilt of not doing regular exercise and not following the diet. I guess at the end of this year I will have good knowledge about why my current weight is the best weight at this age.

Although not all my goals for this year are unachievable, I also have some that I think I will achieve. For example, I have planned to be more emotionally intelligent this year. According to my niece - a part time psychologist and part time Spanish instructor ( a career combination only psychologists can justify!), it is very easy to have emotional intelligence - have empathy for other people. I am developing this skill.
For example, I no longer smile when my wife starts crying watching a mushy movie - instead I empathize with her about the bad movie! I no longer get upset about my son watching violent cartoon on TV, I watch it with him - again I empathize. Given this track record, I think I will be able to make it this year.
I also plan to drink better coffee than last year - a coffee shop at work helps!
I will keep sharing how it goes through my blogs - and yes I will be more prolific than before, at least expect one post a month.
People can remember 2009 as a year of change in the world, some people argue it is year of economical downturn, while others keep trudging along; for me this is year of blogging. A goal set and achieved!

Programmed Life

2008-08-23T14:39:00.003+05:30

In Hindu religion the life is assumed to be governed by the God. Anything that happens to you is supposed to be written fate by the God. This could be dangerous affair. I mean if there is one God then you are at mercy of his/her whim - on the other hand if you have millions of Gods (like Hindu mythology leads us to believe) then life is like Open Source program with community of geeks committing to the source!
You are never sure if what is happening to you is by design or some bug in the programming.

For example, people you met in your school days or college days, who you never want to see again, meet you at some chance encounter. Is this by design ("it is meant to be") or just a programming mistake ("coincidence")? I am never sure.

In my college days I had crush on several girls. But I never wanted to meet them after the college was over. I did not keep in touch with any of them, I even avoided the college reunions, in the fear that I might meet with some oversize girl that I thought was goddess in the college days - shattering images in my mind. It would be a great disappointment to meet the erstwhile "Miss Chamko" of size zero now with size ninety four, five children and an apologetic husband. I am sure the girls are thinking same thing or maybe not, they do turn up for reunions in hoards - I am told.

But more importantly are we supposed to meet the people from the past that you thought would get lost somewhere in this wide world? I always thought that people you meet in one part of life should not be entering in other part of your life. The remote acquaintances of childhood are not supposed to be coming back and meeting you in the young age or even worse when you are old.
If you meet the classmate you had crush on, later in the life, then the whole fabric gets disturbed. You are thinking of parallel universes and what would have happened kind of things, it all is very overwhelming. The entire model of human mind is programmed to believe in other program called life. If there is a problem in that program rest of the programs do malfunction or go in a repetitive loop.

I thought that was always the programming of the life - if there is one! You pass the people, places and things on time dimension and you are done. Except some obnoxious remotely related uncle or aunt from yesteryear telling you how you were soling your pants in childhood, the people from past should disappear somewhere else. After all the world is wide enough place.

The events that we generally think are disruptive, fateful, agonizing are either programmed or semantic mistakes during programming. As Master Oogway said, "There are no accidents", ....in the programmed life.

Live with Hope

2008-07-27T13:40:00.005+05:30

Another day, my friend exhorted me to have hope. People always tell me to have hope, as if it is important for cancer patients to be hopeful. I told my friend that these are merely false hopes, but she was persistent. I wonder how false hopes of your longevity can help you living better life now. We hope for better salary, better life style, better partners, more happiness, etc. It becomes like a 'Mission' statement in consulting-speak (for the uninitiated: Mission is something you strive for!), something that you strive for but never achieve.
Hope is of little help when there is certainty about death or birth for that matter. It is a disillusion.

Humans are funny animals, we like to believe in things, we think we can actually change the arrangement of world and can predict what can happen in future. Unfortunately it is all a big illusion. Illusion that qualifies as a life style, we hope one day things would be better and in that hope we make our present miserable.

I argue in the favor of pessimism and think that hope is a useless feeling that perpetuates illusion. I have several proof points, I hoped to marry with Aishwarya Rai, never materialized. I hoped to have extramarital affair with Kareena Kapoor, she did not even come and meet me. At one point of time, I even hoped to be the richest man in the world. I can go on, all this proves the point that "hoping" is not really good for you. You can hope for good life all your life and not have any!

Ignoring hope, I trust the "be happy in the moment" life style. It is easier to achieve and heck, lot less to think about. Don't hope, be happy, would be my life style statement. It takes away the disillusion of future, it helps you to see life in a perspective. It lets you appreciate what a miracle life is. It makes you realize that your existence is very fragile, temporary and precious and perhaps needs more attention now than hoping for a future state that, as a matter of fact, will not arrive.

My friend argued that you could never live without hope. In some sense I agree. There is always a hope that Aishwarya may not get along well with Abhishek...

Singular Life

2008-07-27T10:36:00.003+05:30

I have some friends who are committed monogamous. I always find it interesting, how somebody can live without having routine "bedtime" that comes parceled with marriage.
When you are single, you miss two important things that come with committed partnership, free sex with same partner and frustration that comes with it :-)

But before people start writing me about my rather 'liberal' views of single life, let me concede that there are several advantages(!) of marriage too, notably, the overbearing in-laws, demanding children, regular need to cook breakfast and food for 'family', and joint accounts which your other half regularly empties, taking your partner's car to servicing and so on.

It is always a struggle of have's and have-not's between married and single people. Married people desire what single people have (i.e. better sex life) and single people always want what they think married people have (i.e. free sex). I remember an old joke when my doctor, during the cancer treatment asked me about my sex life, and I said I am married, I don't have one!

Both have pros and cons of course, but I believe Single people have most fun in their lives. They can date whoever they like, they can go around the world and not worry about 'people waiting at home', they can spend their own money and not worry about somebody else overdrawing their accounts, and best of all they can overcook their own food. Married people on the other hand are butt of all jokes and are always at receiving end.
Married people age faster (I recently was called "Uncle"), worry about their future since the children invariably dump them and are constantly reminded of their bad physique.

I have not seen any single people in my acquaintance, ever aging. They are always young and athletic, whereas married people I know (men and women) are always pot belied or oversize. I am sure there is evolutionary reason for single people to remain attractive, but all said, who wouldn't want to remain handsome till the very end? You marry you loose the focus!

Single life has other advantages too (well less significant than the sex part but important for consideration), e.g. freedom of expression, in married life if you are man you get yelled at for not having social skills, if you are women you are looked down for your choice of mushy movies. When you are single you can do both, burp openly while watching a mushy movie.

Some of my single friends rue that they do not have their own family or they are lonely, obviously they don't know how lonely it becomes for a married person every single moment!
At a times it is nice to have somebody around to fuss about, but by and large "having family" is an overrated myth. Having family simply means bigger expense account. People could write books about 'Marriage Rocks', clearly they don't know what it means to be single!

I envy my single friends, they have all the fun in their lives, it is quite a Singular life they lead while we Plurals watch from sideways!

No Loyalty

2008-07-27T09:12:00.004+05:30

Many times people ask you trivial questions as part of social interaction, i.e. "who is your favorite star?" or "who is your favorite author" and so on. I could never answer it. I simply don't get it. I have NO favorite actor or author that I would die for.

As part of my world cruising duties I stumble upon several so called "deities" of the modern world. My wife really envies me for that (at least one thing that keeps her awake :-)). In the lounges, I get to see Sharmila Tagore, Rahul Bose, Shahid Kapoor and likes up close. Being illiterate about film stars in India, I don't necessarily know them but given the flutter they cause in otherwise boring airport lounges, it is easy to spot that there is something 'special' (in non-sexual manner !) about them. I then generally ask the attendant or the stewardess about these 'people', and they exclaim "Oh don't you know? He is XXXX !" - insulting my general knowledge and pitying me at the same time. In all circumstances, I never felt that I should go and disturb their privacy and ask for a photograph or a signature. I liked the movie, "Pyar Ke Side Effects", I also liked Rahul Bose's work in it, but that does not mean I am a great fan and would die for his autograph.

My wife gets all excited, "You saw Bipasha Basu, and couldn't even take her autograph? What's wrong with you?"
All I could tell her was, in real life she does not appear that sexy, and not my type really!

It is very difficult for me to be a loyal fan of somebody or some concept. Having strong conviction about something is quite different than being loyal fan of something. I read so many books, but haven't found the author that I would love most. Many times I meet the authors, but none give me goose bumps. This happens all around, living in India, I am still not a fan of any special cricketer, not follower of any politician, no actor that I would like to identify with and no buxom babe that I would want to watch again and again.

I wonder why that happens, is it natural for learned men or it is simply a "trust and loyalty" problem that I have? Perhaps it is both.

I sure hope my wife does not read this blog, not being loyal might give her some ideas too !

Packed Bags

2008-07-11T06:05:00.002+05:30

My Stupid little life
Is all I have to show.
Where is the road of reward
That was meant to be?

Yet why should I weep?
The Gifts of eyes and ears-
Are mine, unto me,
To seize Creation with.

In a world full of music,
I really can't say
That God sent me down
With my bag unpacked.

- A pill for soul ache, from The Idiot's Prayers

... most appropriate. From a bedside commodity book in Hotel Room, called "The Book of Prayer" which exhorts all occupants of the room to pray to the Almighty in different languages and styles. An entity and a belief which explains everything from why fuel prices are going up to why there are traffic jams in Bangalore.
In Delhi last week, the cab driver gave me book of "Prajapita Brahmakumari", and told me that the world is going to come to end in 2012, so I better be prepared and start saving my soul right now. I also read that according to Mayan Civilization calculations it is indeed end of the world or closer. And of course several religious predictions and other reasons of "world coming to en end" are around. While so many doomsday predictions are going around, all I have to say, is The God (if exists) has sent me in this world with Packed Bags, I had fun and I am ready for next journey :-)

Generator Town

2008-05-27T10:02:00.000+05:30

Every time I visit Gurgaon I get a feeling that I am leaving in a b-grade sci-fi movie. An isolated town where people generate their own electricity, live in sky scrapers, cruise using space rockets (uncannily looking like Safaris, and Innovas) and where oxygen is sparse and muncipalities charge citizens for breathing it.

Otherwise touted as "The Millenium City" was a small farming town on the periphery of Delhi. During the late 90's real estate boom, Haryana Urban Development bought tracks of agricultural lands and developed into what is toda'y 6th largest city in India with population of 22Lacs (2001). I recall the days in 1992 where I was one of the several visiting business folks to Delhi, Gurgaon used to have lush green farms and was popular for farm house investments. Today Gurgaon is city of malls. It is almost like a city inside the malls. There are malls of all types, Indian, "Phoren" and malls that offer everything for the "middle class". The construction boom in Gurgaon is still at its height. New sky scrapers are being built for new companies to come in. Most of the glass building (read criminal copying of western architecture in electricity starved country!), shine in the afternoon Sun glare.

It is difficult to see beyond 100 meteres due to smog during any time of the day. Haryana state did make Jat farmers rich by buying their land but failed to provide basic amneties like electricity. Every building runs its own generator. There are power cuts of 12 hours in the town, sky scrapers of 18 floors can't survive without having private generation of electricity. The flat owners pay upto Rs. 10000/- per month for private electricity. The current short fall is 500 Mw per day! The diesel consumption for electricity generation in Gurgaon is more than consumption for vehicles. Every shop worth its salt has a generator out on the street. A continuous hum of generators greets you in the market place or in shops. The smoke generates very high density of smog which obstructs the view even from the tallest building in the town.

The lush green fields have now become construction places, the tractors of Jat farmers have now been replaced by big cars which they drive at the speed of sound, the farm houses have been replaced with sky scrapers and clear sky with diesel smoke.

A small vilalge of Guru Dronacharya in Hindu Mythology has now become a Generator Town, complete with its own 'country made' smog !

Theme Park Horror

2008-04-25T20:27:00.003+05:30

Vacation time !! After one year, I had a week long vacation in the classical theme park nightmare of USA. Yes the same one, Disneyland. While my son enjoyed it to the tee and my wife still has lost her brain on one of those upside down roller coasters, it is going to be a vacation to remember.
I never thought first hand interaction with harmless characters like Mickey Mouse could be so devastating. After first two days of Disneyland I started getting dirty dreams about cartoon characters. I almost decided to spend more time with Jenna Jameson in hotel room for adult only entertainment. Trust me, a visit to Disneyland could actually get you addicted to cheesy HBO movies in hotel room.
The capitalism in land of plenitude is blatant and some times terrifying. Every theme park we went to had shows which had exits in the shop. The general idea being as you exist watching Buzz Lightyear show, you would want to buy a plastic image of him. A compelling set of consumers a.k.a Children, and lot of "Made in China" cheap plastic toys ensure that you have to buy one more bag on your return journey. This disease is spread throughout the theme park world as we know it. The Universal was same and so was the Kennedy Space Center. I would imagine some of these theme parks may actually would have their sustenance dependent on this kind of tourist business.

After 5 days of visiting everybody from Mickey Mouse to Shamu the killer whale, I no longer have a desire to be entertained. I have stopped watching TV, I barely read the newspaper, I did not linger on Jenna Jameson's official website. I think I am almost close to becoming a workaholic person again.

In all fairness, I could still live with horror dreams about work place (what's worse that could happen? printer eating people?) than nightmares about theme parks (yes, imagine Mickey Mouse eating tourists sitting on one of those crazy roller coasters... Arghhhhhhhhhh!)

Small Luxuries

2008-03-21T13:36:00.004+05:30

Recently I got promoted on my frequent flyer program of an airlines. In little ironic but interesting grading system, I am now a Platinum member of this program. An inevitable thing if you travel too much. I have been round this bend before, over period of my short life I have been, 'Gold' and 'Platinum' Member of Airline programs, 'Diamond' member of hotel priority club, carried my 'Golden Passport' (which is really a plastic card of golden color), 'Senator' member or 'Silver Crest' club member of international airlines, 'Gold' member of car renting companies and so on. I think I am kind of gullible person who actually falls for this kind of harmless marketing.

Many of these program do not offer anything tangible; an airline frequent flyer gets more free passages to exotic destinations in adverts but in reality to achieve that status you have to fly to US and back to India every other day of your life. Some time back an European airline offered me free stay and a redemption gift ('flash light that works as a radio' - in case the flight crashes and I get marooned on a remote island - yeah right!). Airline frequent flyer status has some practical advantages, such as easy access to the lounges - which are primarily created to show the gaps in rich and poor in extremely capitalist airports. The prolonged stays at hotels gets you a preferential room and some times a fluffy teddy bear with name of the hotel on it. Couple of times I tried to pass these gifts to others, but the brand labels always get you.

For a long time I did not actually bought into this loyalty programs, but then my yet-to-be-wife at the time, reminded me of intangible benefits of these things - i.e. walking into priority check-in lane, or getting bigger rooms at hotel, and I was kind of hooked. Over next several years, I practically signed for any program of any commercial merchandiser that was on offer. Now I am loyalty club member of couple of grocery shops in US, bookshops in Frankfurt and India, at least 5 airlines, 4 different hotel chains and a Chinese eatery at Singapore airport. Similarly my wife has loyalty cards for several malls in the city and outside.

I particularly like the respect which these companies treat their loyal customers. It does not translate into anything significant but the operators at check-in counters are more friendly than necessary, some times they make an attempt at remembering your choices, provide a tiny bit of preference over other customers. These things are gratifying enough for generally downtrodden people like me. Few days ago I was flying on domestic sector and just before take-off, the air hostess came to me and gave me ear plugs, I thanked her and asked how come I get this favor; she informed me that 'they' knew the preferences of frequent flyers... cool! In Europe, I checked in earlier than the arrival time and front desk was apologetic that they could not get a bigger room for regular customer like me - in ordinary circumstances hotels would not even allow you to check-in before the time. When I achieved my first 'Platinum' status, getting free breakfast at the hotel was an attraction, then the rooms at top floors.

Separate check-in queues, people trying to remember your preferences, easier upgrades, these are indeed insignificant things and only pathetic people like me actually go for it - but then what is life without small luxuries?

The Laws that Actually Govern the Universe

2008-02-09T12:08:00.000+05:30

After my operation in 2006, I got hooked onto Roger Penrose’s The Road To Reality, a book about generally neglected subject of Mathematics. This book is not for invalids or people with weak hearts, at 1049 pages (the bibliography is of 30 odd pages), it takes lot of patience to get through the book. Of course, in my case I had nothing important to do in those days, so it was easy way to forget other body pains.

Once in my school career I actually failed in Mathematics, and for rest of my life, it seems, the subject would puzzle me – and some times amuse. Simple mathematical notions like equivalence class (deals with fractions for the uninitiated) which govern the elementary maths are indeed never explained in school. I recently started explaining some basic concepts to my son around maths - and miserably failed.

I was surprised by the fact that the notion of Mathematical truth (Platonic or otherwise) is not even explained in the schools and colleges. It takes Rs. 810/- and really bulky book to read and understand it. I also realized that several things about maths were not known to me in this age and times. Usually complex sounding concepts like, Canonical quantum gravity, well.. are indeed complex, but make good reading. Especially when it comes to some Indian names (e.g. Abhay Ashtekar in 1986, simplified the equations of general relativity - yes from famous Einstein). While Penrose tries hard to explain the beauty of the mathematics, I think the book is more important for a casual reader to understand the subject of maths. Of course there is quite a bit of Physics in the book (Penrose is a Physicist), and that makes 1049 pages more interesting.

Another book I recently acquired is Stephen Hawking's God Created the Integers - a book describing the history of the mathematics (1160 pages - another example of my courage). The book does not necessarily has lucid description of mathematical concepts, but indeed brings out the fun in the lives of Greek mathematicians. e.g. Archimedes's servants got him against his will to the baths OR that when Diophantus died his friend left a puzzle describing his lifetime. Certain historical facts like Laplace was the teacher of certain Corsican called Napoleon Bonaparte, make the book interesting read (it also proves the fact that studying of maths with great mathematicians is not necessarily a good thing - something that may set you on a wrong path of geography and you spend your retirement in rather protected environment)

These books do not particularly make me maths genius but it certainly helps in knowing that several mathematicians and physicists with their lifetime of research and bulky books and noble prizes haven't been able to find the road to reality OR laws that actually govern the universe - just like me. And I do that without lot of effort or tussled hair.

Without Clothes in Brussels

2008-02-01T21:11:00.000+05:30

If one has to loose the clothes, Brussels is probably the last place on earth where that should happen. The EU capital is so expensive, it alone should be good reason for dismantling the united Europe.

As usual my travails (!) took me to the EU capital, twice in less than a month. A record for myself. My wife jokes that I have a lady per port like sailors (I wish…), I am seriously thinking of an European affair in any case. The Jet airways put my luggage on priority and the bags never left Delhi. Mind you this is our ‘Best Domestic Airline' with direct connection to Europe and America – I personally like the direct NY and Brussels connectivity and really bad air hostesses.

I generally plan follow-on meetings, as in you land, get refreshed and walk in the office, saves time and you can excuse your inactivity to long distance air travel. More rest follows. This time I landed, I am in a great mood of walking through and I am thinking of work. The luggage belt does not yield anything for 30 long minutes. I got suspicious, and the suspicions were true. Luggage is not there. Belgium at this time of the year hovers around 7-8 degrees C. Unless you have real warm clothes you shouldn’t be thinking about it. Somebody like me who loves Sun (and gets super powers from it), is not a right person in this place without the right clothes. The paltry first compensation helps me in buying a good toothbrush and that is about it.

I reached hotel and for the first time in my life went to the shopping mall at 9AM sharp. Fortunately the hotel is in the Brussels city center so it is easier to walk into the shopping mall. What followed was an emergency shopping by a non-French/non-Dutch speaker in a crowd of sales people who can not speak a single word of English. The prices really did me in. A pair of undergarments was 29 Euros (that is Rs. 1700.38 for the uninitiated) - almost equivalent to annual income of some families in India. A tie was 49 Euros and to top it the sale-lady can not speak English and translate the sizes. This is unique in a country which is officially bilingual (Dutch and French; when you see one street having two names - life is not easy). I was at my wit's end - literally. One would think buying clothes in stereotypical box department store anywhere in the world should be easy.. well one has to try this theory.

My colleagues at work (almost) commented on clothes choices but they had no option to lump it - the cheap shirt I bought had a black rose on the side !!! Besides the amount of time I spent on this was not well spent either (after 313 Euros that is!).

Otherwise a city of no particular significance (started in 10th Century as a Fortress Town), Brussels grew to prominence only after EU was established. The most notable attraction is 'Manneken Pis' (or Pissing Boy) - rest I guess you can figure out. The only other attractions are tourist shops in shacks that have sprung up around the main city square (and at the cost of repeating - expensive departmental stores). The chocolates were overrated anyways, i.e. my son did not like them - he is our family's official expert on chocolates.

For me French girls were nowhere to be found - almost a rare species. Every time I looked for proper Belgian affair it did not materialize. Perhaps I should try Paris next time - now that would be an idea - to get into Paris without the clothes, presumably French won't mind that much. Only problem being Jet Airways does not fly to Paris (yet!)

This is Your Captain Speaking...

2008-01-05T12:31:00.000+05:30

Increase in air travelers in India has brought in a new breed of pilots (or in aviation-speak Captain of the Craft). There are Indian pilots, there are foreign pilots, jr. pilots and retired (and brought back from grave) pilots. Encouragingly there are more female pilots too.

In air travel the part I like most is the Captain announcements.
"This is your Captain speaking, we are cruising at 30000 feet; There is slight damage on left engine and we are probably going to have a mid-air drop of 10000 feet; Nothing wrong really, but you might experience some dizziness and perhaps a delay of few days", the undertone of these announcements is so engaging. They always announce it in monotonous sound and appear almost Supermen or Superwomen. Nothing detracts them except maybe the not-so-good-looking air-hostess or steward. It gives a sense of reassurance to travelers, regardless of the bumpy ride - and equally bad food.

Unfortunately the increasing number of female captains don't seem to carry the same flair. They are more like, "This is your Captain speaking.. and arghhh looks like we are having company - get ready for mid-air collision people - and where is my bag"

Call me misogynist, but seems the aviation schools need to do a better job in educating their female students on intoning the announcements. Something more in the line men of steel - now that is an idea - all pilots wearing their underpants outside and not getting distracted with fire on left wing.

Improve My Life !

2007-12-22T12:35:00.000+05:30

While talking to a colleague in Brussels this week, she said she wants to "improve her life", what she really meant was she wants to improve her work-life balance - apparently her Dutch did not translate correctly in English. I tried to find that out of course (I am not the one who trusts on first impressions either !), I asked her, did she mean she wants to change her identity and run away to Canada or perhaps find a new partner (bling! opportunity!!) - no she did not mean neither. She meant her well deserved holiday should not be jeopardized with our commitments on her time. Of course we did not listen to her, I bought her some Leffe and explained to her the importance of work and life (yes that pithy four letter word reserved for magazine writers!)

Everybody talks about it work-life balance and if one asks people to define it - they would generally end up giving you a book to read - but can not define themselves. It is such a vague concept. It does not tell you if you should have more fun or do more work. And what if people enjoy the work that they do? Should they be working more to achieve work-life balance or less? We keep complaining that work is bad - I think that is primarily an urban thing. I don't seem people outside cities complaining about their work - or maybe it is just me. I think the civilization as it stands today has made life more comfortable and that includes millions of people doing work. Imagine you take a vacation at the same time hotel staff is on vacation, how the hell you are going to enjoy the vacation? You want to go on a picnic to improve your life and the petrol pumps go on holiday too! So if one part of the society has to enjoy life the other part still has to do the work. Is that what is work-life balance is all about? I am sure it improves the life of several million people at one go!

Friends in Small World

2007-12-12T09:10:00.000+05:30

I was in Europe couple of weeks ago. While in London I met with quite a few friends. Friends with whom I spent most of my youth. It was an interesting experience, we would fight for or cup of tea in most cheap places in Pune and there we were drinking Starbucks on Kensington high street, like couple of snobs (I even used cab in London – I am really getting indulgent). People who could not have afforded a bottle of beer between them were drinking lager in posh London lounge! Of course we have come long way from cheap (er.. economical more like) college students to some kind of office workers. So we make some money and spend it; however we did not plan this future. A friend of mine is now Queen's subject, another one is a development executive (and a pitiful bore at that!), third one runs a company. In big scheme of things these are not small achievements. Everybody has worked hard for this. However the bond that connects has remained same. It was great fun to recall old days and talk shop.

One good thing about meeting close friends is that you don’t have to be socially polite or have inhibitions. I can be very frank, I can tell them what happens to me or my work, I don’t have to underplay it. I don’t have to gloss over the difficult subjects. I feel very relaxed in their company. This is a typical challenge I face nowadays, I can not share what I really feel to many of my office colleagues or people otherwise I meet around the world. Most of the times they are business contacts with vested interests and very few actually qualify to become good friends.

We talked about our lives and realized that the world has really become small (my mother argues that we have grown big – but then she has been commenting on my weight for a while now). We could meet as easily as we would meet in Mumbai or Pune. The travel times have come down and travel convenience has increased (still Asiad buses in India of 80’s and 90’s were better than modern day business classes of most of the airlines). Most of my friends shuttle between US, UK, India, AP and it is such a common thing. All NRI’s have their relatives distributed around the world and it makes traveling continents a necessity than novelty. The dreaded visa and other regulations are dissolving rapidly – for example one can get visa for bulk of countries in Europe at one go. This is convenience. Eventually passports and visas would become biometric so we don’t have to carry these pieces of paper around us. The world as we know it is becoming much smaller.

In my college days, I recall we used to talk about how people feel going around the world. One of our friend was in merchant navy and we had quite a bit interest in his life as he goes around the world. After a while when we all started visiting different parts of the world, the novelty kind of wore off. In our office-speak it is more important to remain connected than where we are physically. My phone keeps ringing even at odd times – in global village and 24/7 work environments, people on wrong side of time will always suffer. And I think we are getting used to this lifestyle – even to the extent that the word ‘globe trotter’ has become a bad word in social circles. People speak of going to international shopping places for Diwali. My wife likes to do shopping in Singapore or Dubai (haven’t taken her to either places since I learnt that – if she spends her money on shopping binge that is her problem; nobody is buying Prada handbags on my money – ever!). Airline delays become national news. In my childhood, when my brother first traveled on airplane from Aurangabad to Mumbai, it was a celebration moment – now my nephew complains of headache in direct flights between Mumbai and Atlanta.

I don’t know is it simply because of convenience of travel or because we are becoming more dependent on things around us. The Soya requirement of China is causing depletion of Amazon jungles, gold consumption in India has caused challenges on London exchange. Open trade and bigger businesses are causing the world to shrink to the point that everybody feels connected with each other – no matter where they are. I think that would be the greatest achievement of our times in 20^th and 21^st century – returning to a small world – where we started a million years ago!

Keep Safe Distance

2007-11-25T00:13:00.001+05:30

How close you can be to other people? This is a perpetually troubling question to me. I am an asocial person (or in plain English a complete jerk). I do not have social skills to interact with others. When people come and visit me at my home I have no clue what to talk to them. When I go and meet people (which happens rarely), I do not know what to speak to them. I have very few friends, something that I can count on one hand fingers, even with them I am not in touch for a long time. My wife tells me that I should be more active listener in order to be more socially conscious. My brother advised me to take interest in others lives. I find that simply boring, I realize this appears almost selfish but it is not. I mean I am not that interested in my life too! (perhaps it is too short for my taste :-)).

I realized this inability (of being asocial) very early in my life. In school I would befriend with only those people who would follow me or listen to me. Thus I had very small group of friends. They are very loyal but I did not follow-up with them in my later life. It continued in the college life. Although I think we had a good group in the college.

The experience of socializing with opposite sex has always been a disaster, first the girls that would befriend me would be either little light in the head or primarily interested in getting some work done out of me. There were some exceptions who had crush or too many hormones (in either case that would still count as category of light-in-head). The fact is even at this age, I do not have a friend of opposite sex other than my wife.

My social circle is too small, and I think I am primarily responsible for it. I can never figure out how to develop the social relationship. If I remain too distant and meet occasionally then I think I am not being nice. If I am too close, I almost feel as if the other person is getting uncomfortable with my kind of closeness – and frankly I am uncomfortable in close relationships too! It almost feels like invasion of privacy – when all people are asking is what you had for dinner. I think there is some unwritten social rule about how close you can get to people, just like on the road, if you can not see the rear wheels of the car in front, maybe you are just too close. On the other hand if you can not read the number of the car, may be you are too far off.

It is same thing in social life, if you don't remember the name of an acquaintance then you are far off, you are discussing deoderants and coffee habits you are practically tailgating!

The Modest Country

2007-08-16T22:45:00.000+05:30

In my knowledge, I think Scandinavian countries are the only countries in the world which are most modest. I recently finished my trip to Denmark (my childhood dream of running between mountains of cheese finally fulfilled!). The city of Copenhagen is a typical old European city with old castles and courthouses mixed with latest sky scrapers. The socialist democratic dogma is still attached to the dealings of the people. The cycle riders are many and far more fearsome than New York taxi drivers. This is summer so everybody was riding cycles, to my untrained Indian eyes, an office worker wearing suit jacket and tie and riding on bicycle was a new sight.

However what gets you most in Denmark is the modesty. The most famous Danish beer, Carlsberg is advertised as "Probably the best beer in the world" - I kid not, one can observe this on their, appropriately titled, "Probably the best website in the world". People are by and large very modest, even with per capita GDP of $46K, they still describe prices of house in matter of fact tone. Several families adopt children from Africa and Asia. Charities have been a way of living for people and most of the times it is not considered as favor to poor countries. My mind was comparing this "give" attitude with "take" attitude in my country and the contrast hit me very hard. The owning of most expensive cars is still considered a social taboo, even if it is affordable - as in person showing off things - not really acceptable in this country. The rich people do not want to show off at all, the poor people don't want to describe the poverty (hey but there are no poor people!). The economic achievements are described in simple tones, as if it was the most natural thing for a small country with hostile weather in northern seas to be the most advanced economic power.

In Denmark, either as part of the culture or simply by habit, the achievements are down played. The historical achievements are rarely mentioned, not many people describe Niels Bohr as national hero (but physicists rarely get that honor, Nobel prize winner or not). You have to actually read the Wikipedia entry to know the top industries (I mean other than Lego) in Denmark. No lavish advertisements, no history in making arguments or we-made-the world go round arguments. Simple facts, stated in such an undertone, that make you think about veracity of the claims. But then it is all true, Danes, were the big viking navigators that actually established sea routes. One of the largest merchant shipping company in the world, Maersk is Danish. Danish hospitality and open arms when it comes to charities is well known. It was also the first country to legalize the pornography. Even the advances are stated in undertone. A casual listener might feel that this country needs lot of help. In fact it is almost reverse.

Scandinavian countries outdo each other in generosity and cultural achievements, but Denmark is probably the most advanced and possibly more modest.

What do you do?

2007-07-18T21:51:00.000+05:30

I met my old friend from school days at office today, and she asked me the most dreaded question, "What do you do other than your job?" and I fumbled (yes actually !).

I thought I had this part figured out. I thought I had a great work-life balance, but when she asked this point-blank, I really had no answer. I told her about my parenting (not very good at it -I admit), attempts at outdoor sports and she was visibly unimpressed.

This was really difficult question to answer. No matter what you do, if you can not answer this question, you are practically doomed. It means you have no life outside your job, it also means that you are really asocial person and do not meet people outside your office acquaintances (I remember an old joke - "are you asocial or do you just enjoy living in the Antarctic?"). It also means you have no hobbies and/or life (literally!).

It also reflects on the choices you have made with your life. It almost appeared as if my choice was to work for a large corporation with no identity. I tried to think hard, what was that thing that kept me running, and I realized it was all about being engaged in some creative activity. I did not start my job as a mechanism to make money. I started it as a creative gig that could also give me some money. The general idea was I could do lot many things outside the job such as painting, research, writing, reading, trekking (if health permits).

Today, I do not do any painting, my research is limited to finding new ways to teach mathematics to my son, writing does not go beyond blogs, reading is limited to newspaper and trekking - I do not do at all. I recall once upon a time I dreamed of trekking Annapurna mountains. The closest I have been was the base camp and recently to a lodge with the view of Kanchanjunga in Sikkim. The last time I held a painting brush was 3 weeks ago to clean my headset.

This was very depressing thought. I realized in the haste of living life, I actually had forgotten what it meant. Without getting too philosophical, I think somewhere in between I lost the part of life which was beyond the 9am-9pm job. It is almost time to find out what the world looks like outside the walls of the prison.. er the office. I am going to start looking for that world. After all I don't have much time.

One of the first things I would do is to go and thank my friend for opening my eyes. The only problem is, I will have to go to office for that.

Depression House

2007-07-11T18:57:00.000+05:30

Hospitals are very depressing places. They claim to be happy places which care for people but in reality they are great big machines creating depression all around. It is difficult for them to grasp the concept that people can be happy even if they are sick. I have a terminal sickness, so I know what the end result is, however nurses still try to patronize me, junior doctors give me assurances that it will be all right. It is almost like rubbing salt. I have several scans to go through, so I go to hospitals alone (as it is they are boring places, why make others suffer?). So comes the first question,
"who is the patient?"
"me.. all of me!" (my sarcasm does not leave me, I should get rid of it some time!)
"who is with you?"
"me", by this time staff is thinking I am in a wrong hospital..

If there are people with me then they keep hampering them to leave the 'patient' alone. As if it is not important for others even to be at that place. Right.. only patients get the right to be depressed.

I am at nuclear scan and I am joking about the warm glow of radiation within as an example of pure soul. The young doctor takes it as a spiritual comment. She goes on explaining to me about death and life. I have observed it before, medical curicula should contain some sense of humour built in. Another patient with similar ailment is an old woman. She is worried about pains of radiation therapy (there are none!) and word 'cancer' has unsettled her, so I am joking with her. The lab assistant does not like it;
"Don't talk in the lab, you are a patient, be depressed; I should know, this is depression house and I work here"
He may not have said it exactly like this, but he sure meant it !

A Day Lost is a Day Gained

2007-04-25T09:01:00.000+05:30

Back on traveling days, my wide (ok wife, little slip of tongue there... but she never reads my blog anyway) claims that I have certain liking for travel. I suspect that might be true. I was thinking about this while entering the Los Angeles International airport, and the smell of airport lounges and stale restaurants hit me really hard. The suspicion was not true after all. I hate the international travel. Crossing five continents in 3 months is bad, flying in aluminum jets is worse. With international travel come the unique problems that Columbus never faced. For example, the international date line. I am starting my homeward journey now from LA on 19th April and by the time I reach Singapore it would be early hours of 21st April. It is as if the 20th April never existed in my life. There are 24 hours in my life which would forever go unaccounted for. Would that make me younger than rest of the world? Rest of the world would be enjoying the Friday of 20th April, having meetings, dinner dates, fighting with their wives, but not me. I would never have this day in my life. When 5yrs down the line I am on my deathbed and accounting for all the good or bad things I did in my life, this one day I can never account for. Somebody would ask me, what were you doing on 20th April 2007, and my answer would be "what is 20th April 2007?", I don't even know if that day is applicable to me.
This opens up several opportunities, e.g. I could have set up all my meetings on 20th April and people would call me for attending, and could never get me. As if I am in hyperspace transitioning from one dimension to other. A complete blackout... few seconds in my life would mean 24 hours for the earthlings. Wow, I am really onto something here. The biggest possible scam of the life. I would doing this feat again in May when I travel to San Diego for another conference. As it is I have lot of less time in my life, this crossing date lines in reverse direction is costing me several more hours.

I wonder some times how much time I might have spent in travel. It could be some thing that I should be able to reuse, you know, like reclaiming the life spent in sitting in the airplanes. It would be fun that way, like, give me back my 20hrs wasted at Tokyo, due to canceled flight. I think I could make at least a year this way.

Traveling is always tiresome activity. No matter how glamorous it may appear. Sitting in one seat for 20hrs is no joke, neither is getting too many unsolicited requests of help from unattended old ladies (one even used my phone to call somebody... I am feeling terrible about it now!). I think it is my face, I look like a person who is gullible enough to be fleeced. Even the beggars become very forceful when they are talking to me. All over the world I get mugged, cheated, fleeced for money. I think like interpol, the anti-social elements world over must be having record of world travelers, and I must be ranking pretty high in the category of 'easy-to-rob'. The cab drivers always ask me for tip, while several others get away without. The check-in lady is always very arrogant with me. The airport helpers always show me the 'tips please' board, and probably are always remarking on my back. Invariably I end up spending more money than I can afford to. Just the bad luck I guess (or gullible face) whichever way you look at it, it is a personal characteristics that affects me a great deal. And I am saying nothing about all those days I am loosing simply because of the rotation of earth.

Disneyland Nightmare

2007-04-15T08:34:00.000+05:30

After 24hours of back-to-back flights over Indian Ocean and Pacific, I am back in US of A again. The event I am attending is for some ironical reason is in Anaheim CA i.e. *very* close to Disneyland. The customs officer at Los Angeles airport was encouraging me to visit the theme park. I disappointed him informing that I really have to attend bunch of business meetings.

After flying in world's smallest flight to Orange county (for some stupid reason my corporate travel desk thinks it is easier to take flight from Los Angeles to Orange County and then go to Anaheim than just drive the 26 miles in 35mins from Los Angeles to Anaheim), I landed up in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. Disney owns several places around Disneyland (duh..) including bunch of hotels. I did not realize what was going to hit me, till I saw that the hotel valets dressed as Cinderella dwarfs... argh! The reception counter staff dress looks like carpenters; I asked Cheyenne (blond.. figures) what the dress meant, she did not know. She wanted a photo-identity and did not know that passport has address in it. But worse was yet to come...
The hotel was full of children and their families; Family is a good thing to have... at home. In hotel you expect an alert staff, good room service, clean towels, not children running through the passage! The room was another nightmare, modeled after Winnie the Pooh's house, there are poster bed (ahhhh) and the TV shows 4 channels of cartoons. The window opens the view of Disney theme park. Several tourist-type people with camera bouncing on their bellies are walking around in shorts and sneakers. I am in the tourist paradise. The bed side mints are in the shape of Donald duck. The breakfast menu contains 7 varieties of kiddie breakfasts, including but not limited to, 'Mickey Mouse shaped Waffles'. The restaurant is called 'Storyteller's Cafe', idea being children would be told stories while parents stuff them in this land of plenty. The hotel has special road to Disney park, every normal adult comes out with Mickey ears on their heads. In my house I watch cartoons all the time due to my son, in here I pay $224 per day to watch SharkTales on TV (3 times in the day!) and cheering children shrieks from theme park (the room is very close to the them park) in the background. I was dreaming pager boys dressed as chipmunks.. maybe too many of Mickey mouse chocolates.
Disneyland, of course is and was famous for its marketing. When it started the TV advertising actually made it so popular. In smack middle of there is Disney Drive, Downtown Disney and Disneyland Street. It is like a set of people living inside a theme park. I wonder what their suicide rate would be... It is just too much of advertising. Thankfully Starbucks came in standard cup and tasted same (another reason why you love the consistency introduced by Americans).
A visit to Disneyland is of course on the cards, but without my son, I will have to be fairly drunk to spend $50 for a theme park visit (and actually do it). Maybe I should get my family here too, it might be a pleasant change to have my son spill some his ice cream on the hotel passage.

Well I have to live through this Disneyland nightmare, my only revenge is to watch tacky action movies on TNT...

Land of Artificial Islands

2007-03-06T23:02:00.000+05:30

I think Japan is probably the only country in the world which creates land (of course Dubai is catching up, as my friend pointed out). It sounds little creepy, a-la Lex Luther style. The country is so small and densely populated that they simply run out of land so they end up creating new one.
My last day in Japan, I am sitting on one such artificial island based airport (Kansai) it is little scary when the plane takes off and lands, all you see is South China sea on both sides and no land.
The first thing that hits you when visiting Japan is density. It is ironic for a person like me, coming from one of the highly populated countries in the world, but there it is. There are no vast open spaces, there are simply houses and houses and.... houses, well you get the point. Every vacant place is taken up by something or other. Everything is compact and close, the houses are so close together, that it almost seems like one long house in the lane. No wonder Japanese are high on suicide rate, it just gets on your nerves. Even the temples and monasteries are closely packed together. I went to the Golden Temple, it turned out to be complex of several temples hidden in the woods.

As necessity drives invention, the hotel room I was staying is 12feet by 16 feet including a bathroom and oversized bed (well it appeared oversized to me relatively!). The bathrooms are made of plastic (I kid not) and fixtures are attached to the walls. Japanese people, ever the inventors, have found simple yet risky solution for the land Vs density problem... High rise buildings! simple because you can get many people sleeping on each other (pun intended), risky because earthquakes and typhoons. I was surprised to see so many tall buildings in a country which is practically sitting on a earthquake-mine. Tokyo is the worst... and all this time I was worried of increasing FSI in Pune.

The city of Osaka where I lived is 'B' grade metropolis with all 'A' grade amenities. Japan was reconstructed after WWII by Americans so all cities look alike, barring few temples, evidences of Japanese electronic giants, and Japanese names nothing is Japanese about cities. Perhaps villages are more, but I never visited them. Kyoto, which my Japanese friends recommended as 'the' old city, looked more like some California town, complete with 'American Chopsuey Noodles' being sold at nearby restaurant. My hotel had shopping complex selling ever-so spreading McDonalds and Starbucks. I must confesss that this was the only time I liked consistency, i.e. I knew exactly what I was getting. I could not say the same thing for all other Japanese eateries.

All the menus in Japanese hotels were in Japanese (prices in English numerals!), and by looking at picture everything looked like:
a) fried
b) noodly
c) some fishy thing with seaweed.
My friend, who was my escort for weekend picnics went out of the way to ensure I get to test everything original Japanese, so I practically tried every kind of Japanese food, except Sushi (I never liked this stuff!).
I also had a typical Japanese evening, which translated in English means, sake with some Japanese snack food, served by pretty waitress - sake without any food served by grumpy old men in a different bar - cold noodles (SOBA) served by old waitress with green tea as dinner.
Of course, I could not test Sake due to my medical condition but I had lot of food, including the SOBA. My chopstick skills were really tested in Japan, some hotels were considerate for gaijan while others simply wanted you to convert, so you sit on floor, drink lot of green tea with your lunch or dinner and make fool of yourself trying to eat noodles with chopsticks. Interestingly in Japan it is ok to slurp noodles, my son would love the country. I can never get used to slurping the noodles, so I suffered silently, even at a times by burning my lips and tongue.

Everything in Japan smells of fish or sea-weed. Hotels, dishes, cups everything. Even in cities which are not close to sea, like Kyoto, general smell in the air is of fish or sea-weed. I particularly did not mind it, but it takes little getting used to. I remembered the experiences from 'Geisha Story' where the heroine gets harassed because of her fishing village smell.

Japanese are voracious when it comes to fish, they practically eat 117 types of fish (translated in quantity that is huge amount of fish - tons of fish every year). I wanted to visit the fish-market but could not make it, perhaps next time...

I had several impressions of Japan before, some of them are still valid, i.e. Japanese people are very friendly, they go out of the way to help foreigners. Unique experience for Indians!

Everything is compact and neat, this applies from dinner table to sleeping bed to automatic toilets (well the toilet functions... you still have to do your job). The legendary service and respect in daily lives, even the policeman bows to you. At the airport, customs officer was practically groveling after looking at my business card. I never carry my card with me, in this electronic world none are needed. However in Japan the culture of exchanging the visiting cards still exist. So I was sitting like a fool when everybody came by and presented their cards to me, I had very few to return back. Japanese women are really beautiful and wear really skimpy clothes even on the cold day. The tea ceremony is for real and costs 500 Yen (with small dessert). The bowing by juniors to seniors is real (even in business world with highly modern business model). At meetings you see everybody practically groveling to each other. Culturally 'respect' is far more important thing in Japanese life than anything else.

It is an interesting country, with lot of friendly people. Just keep open mind when eating the raw octopus...

Deodorant Terrorist

2007-01-15T10:34:00.000+05:30

The airline security becomes more and more stupid (I think there was a phrase about dumb and dumber). Yesterday travelling domestic, I was required to trash by deodorant and aftershave and toothpaste. Apparently the security took me for somebody who can cause sufficient damage with a can of deodorant, some aftershave and tiny travel pack toothpaste. I practically felt like a high flying terror suspects using chewing gum as explosives. This was my moment of glory and I was not going to let it go. I ask the public servant (aka CISF - your safety is our concern!), the challenge with scanning my handbag. He does not like people questioning his authority, besides he has his orders. Ok.. using my stubborn Indian attitude, I want to meet his supervisor. Supervisor is very emphatic in describing that security is the foremost concern. I agreed, after all I was the one who was flying, not these uniformed public servants. However he could not answer logically for banning the deodorant. I used my final tact, and started talking in Hindi, but my suit wouldn't allow him to talk in Hindi. He sticks to 'propah' English. By this time I am getting little frustrated, after all this was an issue of personal hygiene. I was going to stay for a day and I am used to living in land of deodorants, like Rohinton Mistry's characters, BO was not in scheme of things. All I saw was despair and disaster facing me. The officer still is scrutinizing the bag.
I said, 'Do you really think if I had something interesting in there, I would have argued with you so much?, C'mon be serious'. He is serious.
'We have orders and we are just doing our duty, and this is for your safety.'
'Do your orders say that AXE Deodorant is dangerous for passengers?' I thought for a moment that he took the Ads for AXE rather seriously (and probably has never heard of 11th commandment).
'Couldn't you read the board? You look like a person who can read. It says no gels or liquid'
'Ok but you scanned *this* liquid, if it would have been pressurized nerve gas and I was playing my presumed terrorist role, I would have spread it by now!'
'We have orders and we are just doing our duty, and this is for your safety.'
'Ok, once again, explain to me how combination of AXE Deodorant, Anchor Toothpaste and Nivea Aftershave lotion can be dangerous to flying public?' Apparently I was missing a great deal and using this deadly explosive combination for several years... in the hindsight this explains my
cancer. Tired and frustrated, knowing my plot of causing sensation in fellow human beings regarding my personal hygiene has been foiled, I took out my terror equipments and trashed them. The officer is happy, I am happy and the world at large is far safer than it was before. The moment I landed, the first stop was buy a new deodorant. However while returning I was more blatant in displaying it and apparently not everybody in CISF is that worried about deodorant brandishing terrorists (read sensible blokes).
This episode was revealed number of things to me, such as why all terrorists have long berds (no need of after shave), why Osama uses goat shit as deodorant (there is no security restrictions on carrying your pet goat with you, but carry a deo from the supermarket and you are busted) and why terrorists have to live in cave (nobody cares about the breath). The experienced terrorists have learnt that using things like deo, aftershave can actually get them on the security radar. The aspiring terrorists like me, on the other hand, make these silly mistakes and get caught.
Anyway lesson learnt, no more deo for me when travelling, and if it bothers the fellow passengers, so be it, it is for their own safety. The al-Qaidas of the world are going to miss me but deo-free, safer world is better world.

Why does Superman wear his underpants on the outside?

2006-12-31T13:10:00.000+05:30

Raising children is the toughest job in the world, regardless how many others in different conditions are doing it. There are not even patterns that you can copy.. I mean, in my profession you would have design patterns that could be used off-the-shelf and you are happy. In human world, regardless of millions of years of history nobody has documented set of patterns for raising children. Everybody has some theory that may work or may not work. Humans are strange animals indeed.
My 6-yr old is now in the comics world. He gets these fancy ideas about being a Super Hero. So one day he is the Dark Knight, other day he is the Flash and many times - favourite, the man of steel. Even though Superman dispenses American Justice (which in today's world may not get many admirers...), the character has universal appeal. Of course it helps that modern media propogates the character in more neutral way than 1940's. The first time I saw the Fleischer series in the VCD format which my wife bought for my son, I was really scared by racial undertones of the cartoon especially about Japanese. I kind of had to 'ban' the viewing of this CD from our household. Thankfully my son does not yet know the history of world wars. In the comics world it becomes increasingly difficult when things start getting more earthly. In that sense I like the Justice League or Power Rangers better, given their job of protecting earth or galaxy.

However getting to child rearing experience, now we have to deal with more innocent questions like Super hero's dress sense. It practically looks like a gay-fair (Batman I recall, was actually called out gay in the comic book cover once !) and of course the style of wearing red briefs on one's dress is really something that all parents have to answer once in their lifetime (at least in the parts of the world where Superman media is watched by children). However cliche it might sound the answers have to be invented. My answer was because Superman may have gender insecurity and thus wants to show [it] off. My wife disagreed with me and argued that our 6-yr old may not have had time to study Freud that well. Minor detail.. but women have always winning argument, as I see it. So we went through the saving-world and graces phase of parenting. Top three(3) answers that we came up with:

Aerodynamics: The dress provides easy flying with minimum resistance, wearing clothes over clothes would introduce air resistance.
Convenience of toilet: Consider lack of toilets in earth's stratosphere and during intergalactic travel. This went very well with my son, this was something he could directly relate to.
Style statement: This was pretty good (and obviously thought by my wife, if you get the hint!) and something that bollywood crazy 6-yrs could understand.

Clearly we bypassed the 'suppressed sexuality' issue, but I am sure he is going to find it out one of these days and would tell us that we could have told him earlier and that we were being protective. Presently he is happy in killing aliens and is terribly afraid of kryptonite which helps us a bit in managing command and control.

I wonder what the originators thought of making Superman with underpants on outside theme. There is lot of research on Superman costume of course. Superman through the ages, for example describes that these were tatters left from the childhood of Superman that were stitched together. Given that Martha Kent had little rustic fashion sense, I submit that style statement had revealing underwear but why red? I mean there was choice of having same color as other dress. In India, VIP underwear never caught on about the value proposition Superheros had till late and when they did, X-Gen was already here to provide more view of epidermis than caped comics characters.

On many weekends I play with my son. Some times we form the Justice League, with him in Superman role. I just hope that my son limits his dress choices to himself, I have not been asked to dress for the role yet and frankly I don't care much for superpowers if it requires me to show my underwear.

Life is a Journey

2006-12-12T11:51:00.000+05:30

Delhi Airport, so called fancy airline of Kingfisher (yes the same one... famous for air-hostesses than for flights running on schedules). The flight to Pune is delayed by zillion hours. I am looking at the swanky new Airport, now managed by GMR instead of GOI – privatization has its own advantages. The little rough remarks at the King First club lounge - I do not know if the short form was supposed to mean something, it is named (!) King f - earn me a free coffee and quiet corner to charge my laptop battery. The air hostesses are still the same…

I wonder how much time I must have spent this year at the airports, more than in hospital for sure… and this is with two months of compulsory vacation. God only knows what it would have been, if not for my health. In this year alone, my Jet Privileges (Jet Airways frequent flyer program) got upgraded. Couple of hotels in

India

made me their platinum member (ironically, one added more points for staying at Mumbai for 4 days in row for nuclear medicine scanning). I think the frequent flyer programs, hotel membership cards, all are pointing to the important fact of the life, that many so called achievements are not particularly beneficial… oh wait no that’s not what I meant. I meant the fact that life is a journey and you are here more as a passenger rather than permanent resident. There are very few life forms that have been around for a while, like Sharks or Crocodiles. Homo Sapiens were never that lucky. Blame it on fragile body, susceptibility to diseases, ability to think and like all other animals weakness for air hostesses wearing short red skirts.

People start trusting these theories in earnest. Many religious scriptures pointed to this fact, Hindu one’s most than any other. For obvious reasons, transient life theories helped priests prosper so clearly it was more popular than rest of the theories.

In my little philosophical world life is a journey on a messed up flight, it never gets started right, never takes where you really wanted to go – gets diverted mid-way, has many shallow attractions, and get you only the mileage points which you can not use for barter or cash. Like all glorious things that it brings along, once you get the boarding card, you never know where you are headed. So life is a journey, but make sure you are headed in right direction regardless of the flaunting beauty of the check-in person.

The 51st State of USA

2006-10-28T20:08:00.000+05:30

The immigration officer at Toronto airport is friendly, even though I was selected for special interview.
"When are you going back?"
"In weeks time"
"OK.. enjoy your stay here. The weather is nice this time of the year"
"Who are you kidding? At 7 degrees Celsius, hazy sky and rains you have to be high on Canada Dry to think 'beautiful'", of course I did not say this. I am more polite with "Thank you".

Cab driver wants to make sure that I will pay cash. He is not interested in card payments and wouldn't run meter. He explains me the difference between Canadian dollar and US dollar at great length. The radio in cab plays commentary on Dallas Cowboys; I am curious... big mistake.
"Why are you listening to US NFL?" [it is like me watching Judo matches in Japan.. no interest and no attachment] "Did you think I was interested?", my global American English accent(!) is deceiving at a times.
"No", it turns out mon chauffeur is really interested in US NFL.
"What is Canada's favourite game then?"
"Ice Hockey" [my favourite part, players can actually hit each other with sticks for 3-min penalty]
"What about [American]football?"
"Oh yeah, we have CFL, CBL, CBA"... OK so replace N with C and it becomes Canadian? Figures...and all this time I was thinking Canada was a different country.
"Don't you have this bilingual requirement of boards being in English and French?"
"Yes, but that is more outside Toronto", all right my inadequate knowledge slip is showing now.

In hotel room the radio is playing Malyali and Hindi songs, ahhh welcome to NRI-land. The TV is showing all American ads and shows, including The Simpsons. I thought may be this is just Sunday evening thing. Next day the local newspaper - The Globe and Mail ("worldwide coverage with Canadian perspective") has front page photo of American Football player. California Wild fire is the most prominent news. The city mayor is way down in the bottom with feeble attempts of making news for Canadians obsessed with what is happening in the 'south of the border'. Okay... I am getting this now. So my next test is in the coffee shop.
"Do you accept US Dollars?"
"Not really, but we can make arrangements", right, you pass the test Ms. Average Jane Canadian.
This was my first impression of Canada. Never been there before, so I always had this different country picture in my mind. In reality it almost looks like another state of US sharing Lake Ontario on border. The road signs are green with white lettering and in English, in Toronto at least. Some of the merchandise comes with bi-lingual notices but mostly people simply speak English with accent. Almost everything from TV to newspapers is covering the American news (OK.. barring few about Quebec wanting to declare independence from rest of the Canada - and given the US obsession of rest of the Canadians, I would not blame them!). Even the CN Tower of Toronto looks copied over from Seattle Space needle.

I wonder what makes Canada call itself different from US. It has similar history (immigrants outnumbering natives and settling in) and is same old cultural melting pot of the world due to immigration. The continent of North American really contains only one country and that is USA. Canada is just another state with some French speaking people, colorful currency and friendly immigration staff.

I think US had it all figured out, they even made the 51 stars flag for such situations, and they love ice hockey too!

Life is Trouble

2006-09-17T13:29:00.000+05:30

One of the common things most of the Cancer patients do is plan for their life. It is ironic how humans, when threatened with death, plan for life. You would not see an average person planning for life (OK.. perhaps a long term home loan.. or Marriage.. or Children.. all right in general activities that require long term involvement but NOT lifetime!). But threaten them, a la movie style, that they have only few months/years left, suddenly they do a deep dive in financial planning, retirement living and all sorts of things that they may never actually use.

I recently went through personal 'Vision 2010' planning exercise (hey if President of India can do Vision 2020, I can certainly see the first half!). Among other things I planned what car I would be having then, or more importantly what car my wife would be driving by then, what kind of property I would have by then and what kind of bank balance I would look forward to.
There was also a plan of proposing to Aishwarya Rai, hoping privately that she does not get married by then. My wife does not necessarily agree with all the planned items but long years of marriage have trained me well. I told her only half the story. She doesn't need to know about my late night visits to Aishwarya Rai's website.

So in my Vision 2010, I have a big house (or real house!), a big car, a big flat screen TV (most important for human life on this planet!), and a wife with small non-polluting car, and who squanders her own money. Man, this is life. Just 4 more years and I am there. This also fits in my health issues, by that time I would be under or over my cancer.

It felt real good while planning, but then my wife(!) pointed out that I was being tad selfish in the plan and I do not care much for the rest of the family. Ok, so I planned for some additional furniture in my big house so 'family' can sit and watch my big TV, also some additional beds for 'family' to sleep on. But she was not happy, well.. there is no pleasing some people, no matter what you do.

This being selfish tune is getting kind of repetetive. When I talk of my limited life, and how I want to enjoy it, out comes the 'selfish' part. It is demonstrated with examples, about how I do not care for the rest of the loved one's and how they would miss me. In my opinion this 'miss you' theme is absolutely rot. Once somebody is dead, burnt to ashes, it is done deal. You don't miss them, they are simply not there. It is just illusion of the brain. But then these illusions are the trouble in human life. We get consultants making living out of 'how to plan your financial future' or 'how to plan your home'. Just bunch of people helping you solve the troubles of life.

In a perspective my life is full of trouble. I have to plan for future without having one. I could never get a date with Aishwarya Rai and would not make to the top 10 young golf players in Pune circuit (..just few more years and Tiger Woods had tough competition; saved in nick of time, lucky guy!). But I would argue that the fun part is in troubles. Life is trouble, if there is no trouble there is no life.

Like Zorba the Greek said, 'Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble'. I am sure, if he would have been real, he would have never planned for early retirement.

PS: Recently many (OK..er 3) of my friends told me that they read my Blog regularly and complained that I do not post that frequently. I have enabled 'Site Feed' feature so you can use your favourite RSS Feed reader to check if the blog has been updated. I use Sage in Firefox. It uses default stylesheets which provide better readability and one click updates..

Once upon a time there was a Queen...

2006-09-05T19:57:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time there was a Queen, she had huge palaces and lot of jewellery. Unfortunately all of it was owned by the subjects she ruled. Her palaces were tourist attractions and her guards were loyal to the prime minister. She lived in stately palaces secured by police and could rarely move around due to ill health. She was the great queen and luxury cruise yatches were named after her.

Same old London, same old gray skies and snapshot clicking tourists. Several years ago (OK.. I exaggerate, it was merely couple of years ago; Wishful thinking...) when I last visited London I made a vow of never coming back. But here I am. The situation could not be more pathetic, I am in London for 4 days and I miss the Sun already. I hate this city, those bally tourists, dingy apartments, crowded trains, dodgy bars, all of it (during lunch an American gentleman wanted to about the lamb and I told him it was bit 'dodgy'. He could not understand it. It took me long time to explain him what 'dodgy' meant.)

London always appears as an old prostitute, overused and cynical. It has the relics of empire and signs of civilization and over the period is loosing its identity. There are more McDees than Burger Kings, deparmental stores sell more American brands, HMV or Virgin stock more American comedy DVDs than British (Homer Simpson beats Tony Blair head-on in popularity), hotel menu has Balti, Tikka and Jalfraizee, the shop assistant on Oxford street has distinct (and familiar) breath of 'Pan Parag'. The bloody city is becoming a hybrid of Mumbai and New York. There are way too many distinct ethnic people in this city. But instead of giving the city a colourful hue like New York, London looks like badly created collage. Patches of ethnicities stuck at random. In the tube, two burkha clad women are distinctly recognizable. The young man with deleberate middle eastern dress appears to create an identity for himself. It is just a place of confused identities.

The food is equally bad. Lamb was of course 'dodgy'. beef was worse, but desserts were good. Southbank was very crowded with millions of tourists and queues that started from hotel lasted till public toilets. I tried to hide in the office and hotel for most of the time (familiar places, even the crapy Holiday Inn was better than being on Victoria). It took lot of courage to go to Oxoford street again and a strong pursuation by friends. Same old shops with nothing new to offer. I wondered aloud why would anybody come here and buy t-shirts with broad logos like, 'My Husband went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'. There was one about bad girls going to London (apparently good one's go to heaven !), I looked for them. I did end up buying some touristy stuff, always helps...

Once upon a time London was financial center for the world. When my brother visited London it was a family achievement. The London t-shirts increased your rank in college circles. Having London address was a thing of pride. No more. Like the old Queen, London is aging. There are no new skyscrapers, no new industries, unemployment is up and prime minister is loosing the rating. In nutshell, London is loosing the glory (even the 'we are londoners' logos do not rhyme well.. not sure if Britain as whole is loosing its famous sense of humour). But then what do you expect in a country where Harry Potter is national hero and a fictional writer makes more money than the Queen?

WARNING: Radioactive Cancer Patient

2006-08-26T13:34:00.000+05:30

So there I was waiting for the flight at Detroit, in lounge with free wireless (I love this part, hopefully we get that fixed in India). The server walks by and offers coffee and I tell him that I don't want any.
"Not good for my liver, you know!", he did not.
The neighbor with Sony VAIO (NwSV) suddenly gets interested.
"Does coffee really affect the liver?, I did not know that!". But of course!
I hate explanations, especially the one's involving my liver, but I play the ball. Thanks to my stupid corporate travel desk I have time to kill (well..er literally). We went through detailed discussion of how caffeine is harmful to some body organs while beneficial for others. Actually during the course I did not talk about my sickness, but towards the end we got talking about life of globetrotters. I talked about my experiences and how it is increasingly difficult for health challenged people like me to carry on. This point onwards the discussion went south.
"So what's wrong with you?", this was a big hint, but I missed it. I blame it on the cancer drugs, they make you fuzzy at times. I explained with some highlights (ever the consultant, never fails). The NwSV now is more interested, concerned almost, takes pain to explain that it is all right and I will survive and how someone he knew survived all right. I agreed, also explained how doctors don't like to see me anymore.
"Hmm, so what is the treatment?", NwSV.
"Nuclear medicines, with radioactive isotopes", I had to be honest.
"Side effects?"
"Well nothing for me, but the radiation is harmful to the people who are in close contact with me."
"Like how close?"

"Almost anybody in 10 feet range for more than 2 hours".

Now NwSV got suddenly alert, it was almost time for his flight. Yeah, I understand.
"Don't get me wrong, it is just that security checks nowadays, you know!"
Yes, of course. He practically rushed out.
I am seriously thinking of getting T-shirts done with radioactivity message. I have to make sure others are warned.

Return of Cancer Part 1

2006-08-06T20:38:00.000+05:30

For two months I almost forgot that I have life threatening disease. Getting back into the work, giving solutions, discussing office gossip, drinking free coffee in workplace, all these things are hugely distracting. In a way that is good, my doctor advised me to 'live normal life', well doc this is as normal as it gets. One of my friend commented that working late is 'not-normal', of course he does not know a computer from microwave and the kind of stuff you have to do make computers run.
So there I was happy in my little life, thinking that I survived one big operation and its aftermath, but cancer is like waves of the sea on a sunny beach (pretty ironic, eh?), it keeps coming back at you, wave after wave after wave. After another set of scans and consulting trips, doctor anounces that we have one more operation to go, but he is not sure where. The primary has to be removed.
I asked in my naive ways, "what are you going to operate, if you don't know where?"
He says, "I will feel it by hand".
"No thanks, Mr. Oncology Surgeon, nobody is going to feel my small intestine any time soon".
I mean there is a limit how much physical one can get and I know this guy only for past three months. Even I, a sexually suppressed Indian male, was not going to allow him to do the job on me second time. So now we are exploring alternative treatement, like advanced nuclear medicine therapy. It will take its own time but I will have to do it. I do not know what the end result will be but the fight with cancer now looks like a boring sequel to a good movie. Another consulting doctor told me that it is going to be a really long fight.
Ok, so we are running Return of Cancer Part 1, Coming to the theater near you, and then there would be Part 2, 3, 4, etc. unless of course the hero 'retires' with a large pension and insurance benefits for the family, or worse, survives and writes a 1000 pages biography (I think I have sufficient material to last 924 pages).

My Mother Loves Football; Does Yours?

2006-06-10T10:51:00.000+05:30

The Football fever is in air. Germany kick started with a 4-2 win over Costa Rica (I never knew they were officially CRC; My wife had trouble locating them on world map; FIFA however solved the problem by giving two teams different colours. That helped). The atmosphere is charged with 'Goal' screams.

The modern sports audience is more driven by marketing skills of the Sports federations than the interest. Some people argue it is win-win situation either way. In India, a traditional cricketing country, Football fever has caught on. Even I am considering buying a Brazil T-shirt (you would argue that, it is more to support the Brazilian bikini clad supporters than the team, but hey, not everybody knows that Ronaldo and Ronhaldino are two different people!).

A game, with historical lineage going back to 2nd century BC in China, has become a worlwide phenomenon today. Traditionally known as 'game of peasants', caught on with most of the developing nations. The only game that can be played by poor, rich, smart and not-so-smart (according to EMA scheme in England, the football players are the dumber than most other sportsmen, except Snooker players who are the dumbest). It is unfortunate that the game has not caught on that much in India (even when we have many not-so-smart people!). However like many other things we are getting there, starting with buying T-shirts for Football (this alone should let us through qualifying rounds in world cup). The commercial football in India is still in nascent stages. I recall the football games in my college days, which included more fights than required in the sports of this nature. Of course, commercial sense has not entered in the sports then. I am sure that would have brought some sense to the proceedings at the time.

I had rather unusual partner watching the game yesterday, my mother! I could not find the reason for her interest. I suspect it was more out of protest to my father's addiction to cricket. She said it was more to do with 90mins and speed of the game. Whatever the case is, she enjoyed it to the boot (pun intended). The timespan of Football game is indeed admirable (and really, you can not get 20 grown men to play with one synthetic ball for more than 90 mins, no matter what the rewards are). It takes all the ingenuity of a willow, stumps, small leather balls, stodgy umpires, complicated rules to keep 22 men engaged for more than 5days. Even then only British and their colonial subjects can enjoy it. Football on the other hand has much broader fan base. All it takes is good running skills, and ability to kick (the ball or opponent, depending on the preference at the moment). Cricket requires ability to fudge the seams of the ball, fool batsman with LBWs, match-fixing, good deal of shouting to threaten umpires and white clothes (this last one is real stupid, somebody has to tell them).

The game yesterday was real treat, with Germany scoring 4 goals. I asked my mother what she liked most apart from the speed and spirit of the game. Her answer though predictable, was rather unusual. She said, 'All players played well, but the goal by Torsten Frings was fantastic'. I did not know the name of Klose or Frings before the game yesterday. Looks like I have to work hard on my football fan skills. After all I have to keep up with my mother..

How do you want to die?

2006-05-21T19:40:00.000+05:30

I have been thinking about death quite a bit lately. Especially about the 'how' part. Different people have different fantasies about this particular situation. For me I have almost zeroed in on dying in sleep, without lot of pain. The last part is important. I don't want to go through a detailed medical procedure and doctors declaring that nothing could be done now (a la Hindi movie style). I am already super-sensitive about the pain. I want somebody (preferably relatives!) to admit me to the hospital for a minor incident and then I'd sleep and die. As simple as that. Dying in house is not real fun (and lot of inconvenience to the family). Dying within professionals has its own advantage, for example, they know exactly what to do or more specifically know when to stop trying. At home you are at mercy of some half witted idiot thinking you might be just unconscious and urgent action is needed. At hospital one gets to die in company of young, friendly, weirdly dressed women. At home all you have is your old wife (if you are lucky enough!). The post-processing (I developed a software once called post-processor, funny now I think about it!), is rather easy in hospital and a routine procedure (as I recently learnt). On the other hand, death at home is one-off incident and in my religion celebrated as such with mourning and so on. Who wants that funny business? After all there are no feelings when you are dead!
All I want is clean, mid-sleep death. Now I know that I can not really ask for euthanasia in this country, I am sure the appropriate legislation would not come to India for a long time (even though many people want to die voluntarily, not because the disease, but because they can not earn their living in this great country of mine!). But I would want to try some similar techniques so the ultimate moment, whenever it comes, is effortless transition into lump of atoms from a living being. Sigmund Freud once said, "The goal of all life is death". He was describing Death Instinct (referring to Thanatos, the Greek god of death), found in all living things. An urge of returning to state of calm and ultimately non-existence. That is my goal, a quick transition to non-existence. I hope it would be easy.

Returning to (ab)normal life.

2006-04-30T18:05:00.001+05:30

Returning to activities construed 'normal' takes lot of doing, especially you have the surgery wound across your abdomen. However this is the most common question you get, 'when are you going back to office?'. Well, I would like to get back to the grind as soon as possible. It would be quite a distraction from the pain and other things (e.g. having cancer).

In medicinal parlance there is a term called, 'quality of life'. Doctors claim that they try to improve patient's 'quality of life'. This generally covers, all the inflicted injections, see-and-don't-touch nurses, surgeries, etc. Of course they mean well. In doctor's opinion a walking and standing patient with little grin on face is an assurance that they treated patient well.. (or earned day's salary). Doctors would always insist that you should resume your regular activities as soon as possible. They want to make sure that you can stand, walk and work after their deeds. What nerve, one would say, but that is their way of ensuring your quality of life. I remember when my brother had angioplasty, the doctor was insistent that he should start working again as quickly as possible. Probably he wanted to make sure that the blood is flowing after he put in the stents (one can never be too sure, you know!). In my case doctor should be happy if I can stand again(!).

All said, there is no normality to resume to. After you have been diagnosed with a major disease, every small symptom is looked in a different light ('you have dandruff? I guess we should better check it out!'). Ordinary people can get away with headache and broken limb with simple treatment, cancer-patients, no way. If they get headache it must be some form of metastases, if they break their leg, it must be because of weakened bones. If cancer patients lack the desire of sex it must be those injections of chemo, ordinary people can simply get away with 'headache'.

Then there are multitudes of suggestions on how to resume normal life. Some people advocate to take it slowly (of course these people never worked in IT services field), others advise to jump into it. I like the later approach. It is more attractive than answering one mail at a time in my inbox of 1733 'unread' mails. It is amazing how quickly a large inbox with multiple 'cappings' can get you back in circulation.

Returning to normal life takes little getting used to. For example, driving the car around the block. I felt that I had almost forgotten how to drive. Fifteen days of compulsory bed-rest and no bath can make a man lethargic. However, the overbearing thought of disease seem to diminish over a period of time. I no longer worry about tumours or their ability to grow or the fact that I have to live 'an-injection-a-month-life'. I am more worried about mundane things such as what is happening to the engagement I was involved in, why the steering wheel of car is making so much noise and why Kareena Kapoor is having affair with Shahid instead of me.

For all good reasons, I like to return to normalacy. It would make me forget all the treatment and blood sucking nurses (you may not believe it but I have distinct marks on my body where nurses used their teeth to suck out the blood from my body... I can prove it). However, I would be a changed person now. I would be more educated about cancer and related treatments. I would also know what an enima means ( ok.. I did not know about this procedure before!) and for sure I would know how painful hospital diet can be. Like I always say, it is a great learning experience. At a cost of course, but there are no free lunches.

I am looking forward to getting back to the normal life. Like an injured warrior returning after a big fight, I would resume my life where I left it, as if nothing happened. People would look at me with an awe and whisper quietly about my courage. Young people would respect me and aspire to be as courageous one of these days. In short it is going to be a grand return. It does not happen every day that people return from celebrity hospital without meeting Bipasha Basu, especially when she was there to meet them. It requires lot of courage!

Pain, Pain, Go Away

2006-04-24T22:49:00.000+05:30

After operation the first thing that hits you right in the middle of abdomen is acute pain. There is no escaping it. You try to run, hide, walk slowly, it simply stays with you. It wants entire body for itself. I consider this very selfish nature of pain. Of course you resist, but that is generally very feeble exercise. It gets into your back, it gets into your legs, hands, you name the body part the pain is there. Every activity then becomes a painful activity, like turning on your side. The injections and drugs try to make you sleep so that you forget about the pain, but you wake up and there it is, waiting like your pet cat ready to pounce on you. I have tried ignoring it, I think that has made it more angry and increase its dosage when I am least expecting. My doctor advises that is better way of handling pain rather than paying attention to it. He also advised talking loudly about how the pain does not affect you and perhaps sing about it. The pain listens and eventually disheartened, leaves your body. It seems to be working.

Like most operations they cut open larger part of my abdomen and then subsequently 'stitched' it. This stitching is merely act of stapling together two pieces of skin. So my scars look like second copy of expense report, highly stapled! No wonder it hurts. This confirms my belief that my surgery was closed in hurry. It was late and they thought, 'Ok, what else is remaining? Ah the skin is not together is it? Let us staple it!' Now I am running around finding a right doctor who would remove the staples and put something meaningful there, like good dressing with some anti-septic. I don't think my pain would go away till somebody does that.

Returning home I was worried about the post-operative care. For example, in hospital if it pains they give you injection to make you sleep. You complain more, out come the tablets that go in various parts of your body. At home you do not have this proper care. At home more pain generally causes a long discussion to one's lack of exercise, and how in the first place that started the whole thing. My family is of strong opinion that my cancer is entirely caused by my eating non-vegetarian foods. Consequently they do not see any reason why I should complain. For them it is simple situation of a person who desires cancer. ('You eat cow meat, well you were digging yourself in it!'). It is different kind of pain but you see there it is.

Another painful exercise after operation is working through the beauracracy of insurance companies and hospitals. So I call various people, and they inform me that things are in progress or that they would take some time. Insurance companies and agents however are more humane lately. So everytime I call, they make it a point to tell me that I should pass on their best wishes to the patient and the fact that they strive very hard to make patient comfortable. I assure them that the patient is comfortable and acknowledges their best wishes. It is not considered polite for patients to call hospitals or insurance agents. They generally expect the relatives to do the grunt work. I think it is fair too, they probably expect relatives to carry some pain rather than patient getting lion's share of it and being selfish about it.

I remember the old song about pain (or was it love?); The song goes like this:
'Wherever you go, whatever you do,
I will be only minutes behind you'

I think it must be about pain, there is no other feeling which follows you so closely...

Slaughterhouse and sheep

2006-04-18T15:45:00.000+05:30

Once a lamb went to slaughterhouse and asked, "why do you slaughter the sheep?"
Slaughterhouse said,"I don't. The butcher does that".
So the lamb goes to the butcher and asks, "why do yo slaughter the sheep?"
Butcher said,"you see, those sheep make me cut them. I particularly do not like slaughtering."
"how come?" asked the lamb.
"well you see, they come to me with extra weight and sheepish look. They try very hard at being a roast chop or stew. I take pity on them & cut them. It is not easy thing to do, but I guess the sheep like it."
"oh really?" asked the lamb,"can you show me how to cut sheep?".
So the butcher slaughtered the lamb and hung him up to sell. The message of the story is: dont waste your roast mutton chops. Remember the sheep have worked hard on it... No wait, that is not the message. The real message is 'be careful about what you ask for, most likely you will get it.'
I was thinking about this folk tale on the next day of operation quite a lot..Ok you would argue that you don't have lot of other things to do when you are in ICU, bed-ridden and entirely wired. The story sounds very familiar. I went to the doctor, told him I have cancer. I asked him what would be the treatment & he thought I am interested so he cut me open. As simple as that.

The entire surgery went on for 8 hrs and they charged me for overtime of anasthecist, the RFA guy and even the attendant in operation theatre. No wonder they forgot to cut the larger portion of tumour on the right side (their reasoning: it would have been fatalastic touching right hepatic artery; my reasoning: they were simply tired and overworked and possibly hungry too! It was well past dinner time). After such a long surgery I was anyway tired so I told them let us finish off tomorrow but they wouldn't listen. This is the problem with medical profession, they simply have no commitment to the work (unlike let us say software engineers who always carry working on the problem to next day;never finish a thing in a day,that is our motto). Well being under anasthetic and all I could not really convince them and they sewed it up and put me at the mercy of ICU nurses.
ICU, like other hospital departments is mainly run by nurses who hate their jobs and subsequently their patients. One could argue that they are so dedicated to cure the patients that they do not care for the pains of patients in the process. They do the dressing, they clean you, they give you bucketful of drugs, they inject all sorts of needles in your body, they search body cavities for disease. In short they do everything in their capacity to cure the patients. What if, some patients get wrong dosage in the process or suffer pain while dressing or get reactions of the drugs. I think it is human nature to complain, especially about small things like being unconscious. Just another day a patient next to me became chronic because of wrong dosage, and relatives were all blaming it on the poor nurse. I mean how could they, besides how could a nurse remember sophramycin for a day? For a change you try to spell it after seeing once! See how difficult that is? And doctors are always at hand in hospital, so all the ruckus was really unnecessary. Doctors could always solve such problems, e.g. In this case doctor just put him to sleep. Simple solution to simple problem. Life is much too complicated at the age of 82. He is better off without it.
The nurses being serious people, dont laugh. You dont joke with them. I tried once but was punished with a tablet in the lower back (literally, I am not joking). In any case the stay in ICU was more like being tested for astronauts. You have plenty of tubes coming out of your body, including one which allows you to pee and another one which allows to breathe. There are set of tubes to monitor your body performance. Sitting up or sleeping down is very painful process of entangling or dis -entangling various wires, tubes, etc.

In short you learn what an operation and aftermath feels like. The worst part is when they start removing bodily attachments. The first one to go is your anasthetic, and thus goes your painfree life. Why do they have preferenc for this, they cannot explain. My guess is that they wanted to give me special treatment and let me experience the pain first hand, unlike other patients who are kept on extra dose of painkiller out of pity. I earned my firsthand pain, what can I say? It is just my charm!

However, now I can say with atmost authority that I know what an operation is. my expertise lies in long, excruciating liver operations (patients wanting to know about less than 6hr operations or smaller than 6" scar are not entertained) with follow-on chemo or radiotherapy. We can also add ICU experiences as a feature.

I have now officially survived my operation. Agreed it is a small victory against cancer, but how many sheep can know about slaughtering and survive to tell the tale?

Life of pain

2006-04-12T21:05:00.000+05:30

I recently saw the ad for movie on Christ by Mel Gibson. The critique was that the movie shows gory details of crucification and pain. I wonder how people had suffered the pain in the days when anasthetics did not exist? Maybe that should explain why witch doctors were burnt so frequently in good old times. The eminent danger for me is the pain of operation and pre-op procedures. They told me about putting a needle in my spinal chord. For some reasons doctors want the bowels to be sparkling clean (well looking at average human insides, I won't blame them) thus meal follows the enima.. It hurts like hell (ok no jokes about backend jobs!). Followed by series of pricks on hand and neck and thighs. The operation is one hell trip you don't want to take, cancer or not. I was getting inclined to chemo, but my brother reminded me of the pains involved. I told him I can take loss of hair (there aren't any!) and vomitting to, 'what is this green thing?... Let us cut it anyway doctor, h
e has paid for it' kind of operation. If I visualize (and my imagination is wild!), I could see bunch of doctors handling my interiors ('hey did you see these? Even Amitabh doesn't has these large kidneys', 'great, what do you say we keep one of these for ourselves? ..would look good in my new office') and cutting at random till they are exhausted. Apparently the pain would be made bearable by anasthetics injected in spinal cord, no less.

People would imagine that I would be ready for pains now that I know I have cancer. I am going to say one word to them, 'marriage'. No matter how many experiences you have seen or been through, one can never accurately predict the pain or suffering their own marriage can cause them. It is same with cancer, no predictions only anxiety.

More you think about pain more scared you get. Especially around future. I guess I should prepare my mind now about frequent pricks on hands, occassional IV fliuds getting in body and chemo cycles. I do not know how long I will live, it is difficult to predict with cancer, but I know certainly that I will die because of cancer (of course if other things such as income tax do not take their chance before!). And for certain it is going to be life of pain. There would be bottles of pain killers that I have to carry around. The travelling life is almost finished (that is probably good part), and occassional wine is ruled out (what me? tee totaller? OMG !!!!!). I wonder how wine sellers are going to make living in Pune area, guess they will have to lump it. Such is life, and I am not saying anything about sex yet(!).

Perhaps it was better life without diagnosis, it would have been easier to face the pain without prior knowledge. Now I know what to expect and that has changed my lifestyle forever ('no more brown sugar just painkillers and absolutely no sex in the morning, it intereferes with my chemo, you know..').

It is going to be painful life, especially when your brothers are drinking the scotch that you bought (which they would, I know) and you can only watch. Such is life, artist and creative people want suffering and pain to get the idea and they don't get any (van Gogh had to cut his ears), whereas me, who likes to keep pain 10 feet away and watch it in glass cabin, get the pain in abundance. I blame this all on capitalist policies of the government, which is going to rule for another 4 years. I do not know how much pain and suffering I can keep up with...

Anxiety Quotient

2006-04-12T16:45:00.000+05:30

Is there a thing like anxiety quotient? The doctors informed me yesterday that there is a problem with the machine they use while cutting people open. Apparently the machine being tired of cutting too many people and doctors getting all the credit, decided to call it a day. The engineers are working on it. If they can fix it by the time my surgeon is ready, they might have to cut me open. Otherwise it is another day of anxiety and discussions of pain. The good part is the view from the room and 86 channels of cable TV. Life is never so good. Room service is quick and good. So far I am on fasting(in the anticipation of operation) but they regretted the inconvenience and allowed for late breakfast in case operation does not take place.
I keep pondering over the cancer types and what would have happened if I ignored it long enough. Neuroendocrine cancers do not show the symptoms. In fact I would have never known about it for rest of my life (however short that could have been). The knowledge I have cancer is very...let us say, unsettling. It makes one very anxious. It leads you to the path of writing a will (& spending some money on your lawyer friend so he can take his family out for dinner), false impressions that you might die soon and allows for freak ideas such as brazilian bikini wax. If I live long enough to remember these things, I am sure to have some fun with it. In the process however, my anxiety is going up. I am worried that this anxiety would kill me earlier than cancer. Now I really know what chicken in poultry farm feel like. They never know when they would become chicken biryani, for example. One day happy life of clicking and chucking genetically modified food and another day being served
up with onions and tomatoe gravy. It is very insecure state of affairs. Also when you are in hospital doing particularly nothing and watching seedy movies, the thoughts about when this is going to end are very profound. Every time they tell you about dooms of operation, one gets more anxious about the operation. How it would be painful, what would be after life(i mean after operation.. Not after after) and whether you would be able to get a date with Aishwarya Rai just under the heading of humanitarian cause. My anxiety quotient is going way up. I remember the movie, Holy Grail, where even God wants Sir Lancelot/Zoot to 'get on with it' in castle Anthrax.
Well doctor, dont wait any longer, can we get on with it?

A room with a view.

2006-04-11T21:39:00.000+05:30

Day one at Lilavati. The admission procedure was smooth. Given the fact so many celebrities with ordinary diseases (sprained ankle while killing innocent bystanders after mid-night drinking binge) get admitted here, it is difficult to find place for ordinary people with serious disease. There was some discussion around room availability, but my charm (yeah all with cancer patient look and Arizona cap) won us a good room.

The ho(spital)el is well located. The room has splendid view of Bandra reclaimation and flyover, 24hr hot water, TV, spacious bathroom, full-size mirror, exercise room, personal barber and attendance of pink ladies. In other words an ideal get-away for overworked executive like me. The charges are not very high and generally guests are required to leave behind a body part as tip; prior appointments are recommended.

Hospitals are queer places. Every hour or so a junior doctor walks in and explains you the hazards you are going to face and makes sure that you understand them (make you sign too!).

Doctor1:whats wrong with you?
Me:well you see there is this tumour...
D1:ok..ok; dr.xxxx would remove that. As part of the procedure, you will have brain damage, liver malfunction, loss of limb, headache and perhaps you will have to leave the country under false identity. Do you agree?
Me: Would I be able change my wife?
D1: No. What do you think this is? We are going to operate on you liver. Wife change requires different procedures..ok enough joking, now sign here and here and put the blood spot here.
Me: What is this one for?
D1: It says that we get to keep your liver and tumour in it if we feel like. Do you want to know anything else?
Me: When is dinner?
D1: No food, liquid diet only (contains no alcohol).

Things happen in repetetive fashion, every doctor explains you the procedures in detail. I joke around but my wife gives me stern looks. An anasthecist walks in,
A: ah, mr. Kulkarni, I will be the anasthecist for you. Do you know what anasthesia is?
Me: no..not really. Is it something that makes you unconcious during surgery?
A: see half knowledge is more dangerous..anasthesia is more of art than science. We make sure you are unconsious and then very cleverly take the bank informtion, ATM pin numbers, password and other personal details so that we can blackmail you once you gain cosiousness.
Me: what about pain?
A: oh you would soon get over it and we never overdraw from our patient's accounts. Besides there would be a catheter in back to continuosly keep you dizzy, so you would never really feel it.
Me: and what if the anasthesia gets over me forever?
A: oh that..don't worry about it, it is called coma and happens to few lucky ones. You see, we are not gods, but we try.
Me: what are those tubes?
A: well.. Let us see, there is nose tube, the neck tube, the lung tube and the catheter and few others that we forgot. But you get used to it. We never keep it more than 6 mths.
Me: would I ever be able to walk again?
A: that depends.. You should drink lot of water, exercise and remember to thank anasthecist instead of the doctor.

I was so scared by this time that it was impossible for me to keep straight face. I signed on all forms and told them that being a poor man I can not really sign on the one which required me to fund fully paid trip to Las Vegas for the ward-boy and his girlfriend. Ward-boy took more humanitarian view and agreed to go to Singapore instead. The doctor was, however pretty crass about compromises, but things being as they are he lumped it.

The nurses apparently are very forgetful, for example, each nurse takes my blood pressure at different times. One of them is called Florine. She made me eat same colored tablet three times in the day. I made a point to repoprt her like flowers or not.

The best part of admission process was the body shaving. I would never have got such a nice brazilian bickini wax so cheap in India ( and barber who explains liver operation to you ).

Barring few gliches the hotel is pretty good. Once the payment of organ parts procedure is finished tomorrow I would have more time to test various facilities (breathing exercises, heard of them?)

Now I must return to my porridge, they tell me that is the star attraction of liquid diet, and helps you forget the suffering of operation. Looks interesting..

How scared are you?

2006-04-11T18:35:00.000+05:30

The first thing that strikes you when somebody says you have cancer is, how many days I have got to live. It is natural for humans (who, by the way, are accidents on earth) to be worried about the life span. Every doctor I met was impressed with my +ve attitude, and told me that I would survive this cancer.
I go fooling around, I tell them examples from physics. Explain difference between practical reality and visible reality. The tumour well concealed in my liver is harmless as little puppy. Once cut open I would have series of problems with it. First two third of my liver would be gone, then I have to get chemo cycles to remove whatever is left of it. Then I will have cancer officially (Generally you don't have a cancer till you have chemo. It is important step in social standing of cancer patients), and I will have to go through series of test periodically. In short what is theory now would become reality once operated. This scares shit out of me. Now we are happy people, me and my tumor. The liver is also used to large non-functional encroachment. My liver functions are normal. Everything is hunky dory. We occassionally plan for picnics and outings. But things are going to change now...(see this fooling is going to cost me).

Doctors keep wondering about my jokes. One guy told me candidly that I would recover since I am taking this very lightly. Part of the light-heartedness comes from my inexperience about the cancer and the fact that I have no symptoms at all. I joke about the operation, the procedures, nurses and doctors. I am literally enjoying all the attention. My wife's relative was asking whether I am scared. I told her, 'yes a bit' which is true. Mostly I am worried about the pain of operation. I have already passed the phase of being scared of my life because of cancer. Here today gone tomorrow...what? Inexperienced in pain and suffering (barring few meetings and trans-continental flights, or listening to wife..ok let us just stop here), I have no idea what having cancer feels like. Only people who seem to be scared are the doctors. Ignorance is real bliss here. No fancy blood vomiting or pains in abdomen, just plain cancer (only visible thru ct scan).

It turns out that doctors are generally disappointed if the patients are not scared. They want to play the role of saviours. Not a happy situation when the patient jokes about surgical procedure. For them it is complex procedure involving life and death (and day's pay which could be substantial). No wonder they are scared when they get a patient with cancer. I mean really scared. The treatment and councelling time depends on the scare quotient of the patient. High sq qualifies for long sessions and assurances. Sarcastic remarks get nothing!

Am I scared? Not really. It is my firm belief that the people who are going to operate should be scared, my loan officer should be scared, my insurance company should be scared, not me. I am the guy who is getting operated under anasthesia and painkillers, assisted by young nurses for everything (yes including baths and what not..in case you are wondering). Nowadays even chemo does not hurt. And in case of death, having no prior experience I could not say, but definately not scared at the moment.

My mother is upset that I am not scared enough. How much scared I should be, she could not say. Lacking prior experience and guidance, my scare quotient is dwindling in -ve. Is that a good thing? I do not know..

Unusual Vs Impossible

2006-04-09T23:33:00.000+05:30

How many times in our lives we really distinguish between unusual and impossible? We assume in good faith that life threatening diseases happen to others ('liver problems? The guy must be living in the swamp of alcohol 24x7!'); AIDS happens to the people who do weird stuff in their bedroom(s), so on and so forth. Middle class upbringing encourages the impression that it is almost impossible to have these diseases. What we tend to forget that it is not unusual to have these diseases for an average young person (even tall, dark, handsome, intelligent, not so average, such as myself.... OK I exaggerate, maybe not that tall).

The theory of life, as such, is built on 'impossibility' premise and not on 'unusual' phenomenon. My wife alludes my liver tumor to Kolkata water. I forgot the name of the philosopher now, he proposed that human minds always like to think 'rationally'. i.e. we always try to fit everything in cause-and-effect box. Thus it is easier to convince people to buy more lottery tickets(?)...er sorry, got in the moment there. Actually this is a popular proposition in Artificial Intelligence systems where computers try to be as rational as possible to pass the Turing Test.

It took me long time to convince her (and internet medical sites helped too) about the time it takes to get a tumor of this size. Kolkata water or not, this was going to happen (to be fair, the Salt Lake water *is* bad, and people do die because of that, but I think that happens instantaneously rather than delayed). In all chaos of asymptomatic diseases, she was trying to find a reason that explains the cancer. Well... on the second thoughts it is just as good that I did not tell her about my drinking binge and cigar smoking or brown sugar addiction, that would have given her some reasons. On the serious note, I was practically in denial at first when I heard I had a cancer. I felt like Peanuts cartoon, 'why me?' (and then the voice from sky said, 'why not you?').

My life was based on 'impossible' premise, thus I never thought about the cancer. The best guess was heart disease (now this one happens to even the best of us). The first oncologist I met kept telling me unusual presentation of my tumor and related cancer. Like my wife, all doctors were also trying to find the cause-and-effect. They needed something to go by. None of them wanted to concede that it is not unusual for young people with no background (and no sufficient social standing) to have cancer. Thanks to the medical education system and what have you, they always thought it is impossible to study non-alcoholic young patients with liver cancer in India. Well, my case should teach them to be prepared at all times. Next time they wouldn't be making second guesses at casual breathlessness. The world of medical diagnosis as we know it, would be fundamentally changed; people with breathlessness and left shoulder pain would be checked for cancer first and cardiac problems later. There would be package advertisements about cancer checks and cardiac diagnosis would be part of routine physical. Hospitals would compete with each other to diagnose liver cancer first. In short, Cancer would no longer be an impossible disease, it would be categorized to mere unusual. I look forward to that day.

Latest biopsy revealed that I have neuroendocrine carcinoma and not HCC so I might live after all. It is unusual but not impossible!

Beauty is only skin deep

2006-04-01T21:50:00.000+05:30

Then the wise guy argued, 'who the hell wants to see the inside?'. I agree. For past several weeks I have been going through one CT (computed tomography for you medically unsound people) scan a week treatment. The mechanism is fairly simple. They give you a colorful drug to drink and then scan the flow of that drug throughout the body using spiral X-rays. End result: a nice set of pictures printed on black(!) film showing your interiors. This is the time for men and women to blush. Every other doctor I visit, starts looking at these interiors of mine. It is embarassing, makes you feel like in slave market and the buyer is checking out your interiors. Maybe dancing girls, more appropriate. Another oncologist, I was talking to, said that these are the most beautiful pictures. Well, the beauty is in the eye of beholder. For me, I am happy with my bald head and little bit of pot belly, I do not want to see what is inside. Liver tumors or not.

Today's CT scan was to find out if I had a cardiac problem too. I was just afraid that I might be promoted from a rank brigadier to general (one star to two stars - cancer and heart disease both). It turned out my promotion is long way off, all my arteries in and around heart are performing fine (even though that was the youngest and shapely doctor around!). These images are way too detailed, some times more uncomfortably so. For example, one of the reports said, my bowels were covered due to gas. This is absolute invasion of privacy. You literally die many deaths (was is Keats?) when some doctor in broad light is looking at those films and discussing in front of all of your family members how your kidneys are in nice shape. Thankfully we do not go beyond liver most of the times, where I have star attraction (for now). I wouldn't want another pretty young doctor making guesses about life on planets beyond liver ('do you see the small thing there?'.. 'oookay doctor, I did not come here for checking that..'). The eMedicine site describes that CT scan is just like slicing the bread and looking inside it (it helps doctors to look inside your body, soft tissue and all!). Go figure what your upper body slice is going to look like. I tell you from experience, it is not a pretty picture. Then there are, of course, bone scans with radioactive isotopes. Besides the contrasts that they use, wow amazing! These drugs really give you out of body experience in 2 minutes or less (LSD anybody?).

The doctor was very detailed in explaining the pains and after effects, e.g. I might vomit or die of suffocation. Your photographer in studio does not warn you, these guys do (very professional!). Talk of advancement in clinical procedures. To be fair, Angiography was done quickly and the drug was injected through IV so no pain. I recall the days when my brother went through these procedures, he invariably had to cut his thigh every single time doctor felt like looking at his heart.

So one more digital image in collection and lot of money less we progress on our path of medical diagnosis. My wife was complaining that doctors these days depend more on circumstantial evidence than actual physical checking. I tried to convince her that these are complimentary techniques (and that we already landed a man on moon, however far it may appear to a naked eye), but no avail. These wanna-be doctors are more dangerous than the original one's.

For the moment at least, I am happy that I do not have blocked arteries like many others on this planet do (and imagine all the fuss they make about heart attacks!). In pure competetion, we cancer patients can take on these heart disease guys (sissies) any day. We have bigger terms like 'metastases', 'carcinoma' and what not, the heart patients have to live with cardiac arrest (heart attack) and 'blocked arteries'. Poor chaps. Even the treatment is a wash-out ('change in life style'). C'mon what is treatment in that? I would like to change my life style every other day. Cancer treatment, on the other hand, requires chemotherapy or operation. It changes your face (literally!) and life changes automatically. You 'survive' the cancer, you can write a book and participate in celebrating marathon. Who would buy a book by heart disease survivor (there are just too many of them out there)? And seriously how many heart patients can plan to run marathon? In my opinion the medical fraternity should wake up to the reality and start treating cancer patients with more respect they deserve. (Cardiac department, bah! why would you need that?). There are just too many inequalities in this world.

On the other hand, I was going to ask about few more things that did not seem right in my body in the CT scan. However, I was afraid it might lead to another discovery (in style my liver tumor) and would put me on bed for rest of the year. For example, I am almost certain that I am missing one of the ribs on left side, but telling this to the doctor had its own risk... and what if insurance company rejected the claim under 'pre-existing' condition (a.k.a. manufacturing defect)? I learnt my lesson and kept quiet.

Thinking it over, I am planning to spend little more time on looking at the cover and not inwards ('Do not look inwards', would be my message to the young generation, 'the picture is not pretty and you probably have a tumor in stomach!'). Hence I plan to spend more time on my tan, pay more attention to my facial, hair-cut and ever glowing skin , after all that is where beauty is.

Biopsy, A liverly experience.

2006-03-28T19:02:00.000+05:30

Day 2 of anxiety. Now the surgeon is thoroughly pissed of with me (I ask too many questions) and thinks that my operation would be more of a liability than success that he can show around. Compounded with multiple queries from various other doctors, he thinks that a biopsy would be more fruitful. So here we are, at Raheja romancing with another doctor with attitude willing to insert needles in my liver. I must say that having serious illness does has its advantage. For example I have visited all major hospitals in Mumbai by now, Jaslok, Lilavati, Raheja, you name it.

Getting on with biopsy the doctor is trying to humour me.
"what do you do for living Srinivas?"
"umm.. it is difficult to explain, you sure you want the answer?"
"sure, I have time"
"I am IT architect"
"oh there is such a thing?"
"see I told you.."
Doctor by this time looses the interest and takes out real long needle and stabs in my abdomen. It hurts like hell, even with local anaesthetic. I was going to ask him what he did for living, I think he guessed it and wanted me to shut-up. These livewire procedures are not for the people with weak heart, l mean if you look at the size of needle there are good chances that you'd faint.
I endure it, old military training comes handy. After the needle is in the liver, doctor has free hand to take out as much tissue he likes. There is this chuga-chug sound when he is taking out the stuff. Once the sound stops you are ready to kiss your wife good-bye, they declare, its over. He asked me to sleep on my stomach and after half hour there's a small blood spot on the cover. Now I know why they call biopsy as 'traumatic' procedure. One more scan to confirm that my liver is functioning (or not..) and we are out. Coming out I warned everyone about cracking jokes on my posture (I was sleeping on my stomach in hunched position). Outside an old man told me that I should not worry, he had his biopsy done just now & it didn't hurt. I was going to tell him that this was my first baby so I am little inexperienced. Good sense prevailed. I said nothing.
The doctor walks in, "is the pain better ?" I told him it was a trick question, he did not get the joke. One particular thing I noticed is that medical professionals do not have much sense of humour as we would like. Or maybe they see life in bare form everyday, so find nothing funny in sarcastic jokes of a cancer patient. The nurse called me, 'madam' by mistake and I told her that I am still a man, they are yet to perform the surgery. She, of course, didn't get it. My wife did, so it was very difficult for her to conceal the laughter. They ask you to drink something and attendant is watching to see if something oozes out of the body puncture. I almost felt like the cat in cartoons. Well nothing interesting happened, the water & tea went straight in stomach. I even had lunch after that.
On journey back home, we were discussing next action plan and my eldest brother told me that I have a long life barring few inconveniences later this year, which may include some surgeries. I told him, that meant two things, I need a long term pension plan and 'inconvenience' is good choice of word for an operation which involves removal of two thirds of the liver and subsequent chemotherapy.

Journey of No Return

2006-03-27T11:58:00.000+05:30

Today I start my personal journey of no return. A day in my life when I can make grand statements like this. I was talking to my son today, and I realized that my outlook of the world might be changing soon. Today the doctor would decide to operate upon me, on the other hand he might open up and declare that cancer is spread so much that it is impossible to operate and chemotherapy is the only option. watching lot of strangers decide whether you should leave or not is wierdest experience of all. I also realized that I may not survive this ordeal as much I would like to. I had, what is known as, deathbed experience. There are high chances that I may have malfunctioning liver and go in coma and die naturally. Once the death is accepted as inevitable rest of decision making is rather easy. As I think about it, I am kind of short circuiting the pains part. I am told that surgical procedures of any kind are extremely dangerous and could be fatal. On the other hand chemotherapy is
seen as equally dangerous, e.g. Loss of desire for sex.. I mean what is the point in living life after that? Death might be easier option in that case. Don't think I am sex maniac but let us be serious, I will not be drinking for rest of my life, no smoking and now you take out sex what remains behind? So what is life?
That is a good question to ponder over at such an artificial Sunset of my life. I would have still liked to run that marathon with my Nike shoes you know! But all my material aspirations seem very distant now. Now the only aspiration i have is to live my life. Fight for my life, be a cancer survivor. I want my son to remember me as person who fought hard.(And of course write a book about it,with photographs of before and after, no less! :-))
With all these grand thoghts i start my journey of survival today, with abundant hope and a gratitude towards life lived. 'Right ho!' as bertie wooster might have said...

I have cancer!

2006-03-24T03:59:00.000+05:30

Well finally my day in glory. As noted before I do not have great achievements and I used to brood over that. The fate however was in my favour. It decided to give me a glamorous disease instead. Finally I have my golden oppty to write the book, whether I survive or not!
I passed the first stages of yes/no dilemma fairly quickly and now am choosing between surgery or chemotherapy. Life is just another Starbucks.
Every doctor I meet is at first surprised, then resigned, and finally consultative. I have been dignosed to have HCC (hepato cellular carcinoma). This was based on FNAC of the large tumor in my liver, accidentally discovered during CT scan of my abdomen. However I have no other commonly observed symptoms of hcc, such as AFP markers, hepatitis (b or C). I do not have alcohol abuse history and I do not stay in sub-saharan africa to eat something carcinogenic. In short I have rather unusual case of HCC. This puzzled many doctors as the signs do not follow textbooks. Funniest part is almost all doctors agree that I would be treated well, if I go to US. Doctors are also divided on the treatment. One school proposes that first the size of the tumor should be reduced and then operated, while other school of thought is more aggressive in cutting first and treating later. However both schools are certain that if I do not treat it I will die. No brainer there... I mean, who needs highly trained doctors to tell you, you are going to die, once you have cancer? One certain Einsteine predicted long time back that life is accident!
Well it gets better, couple of doctors I met today almost wrote me off. They said the 'd' word too frequently while looking at my reports.
Now I am waiting for my chemotherapy, first ever! I read on internet that chemotherapy affects the desire to have sex, I wonder whether that is true (this will be quite a disappointment with my all new georgous look, 'see no hair', another side effect of chemo!)
Well I will find out soon enough...

Prisoner of Hospitals

2006-03-12T09:57:00.000+05:30

It is now a week that I have been out of my prison (Hospital !). I had little breathlessness on couple of weeks ago and that started a string of tests and subsequent hospitalization. I was diagnosed to have a cardiac problem, a cancer and pulmonary complications (at the same time!). The hospitalization itself was not that bad.. well there were lot of young nurses to begin with, but the being-instructed-where-to-pee is not a state one would want to be. Especially if you are used to sufficiently democratic house (now don't get me wrong, we do have bathrooms, but we also have balconeys with potted-plants). The worse part is most of the young nurses did not know their trade, thus they would insert the needles everywhere in my body without lot of professional skill and cause all kinds of IV fluids to get in my body, where least expected. I consider this to be very dirty game on the part of nurses. After all one is expected to be warned about the punishment before treating to full effect of it. The good part is I learnt how to manage the IVs and a great deal about 'Hepatoma' (hepato-cellular carcinoma or HCC. We, in medical trade, like to use the shortforms you see..), but none about what caused the 'breathlessness'. My doctor has a hypothesis that tumour in liver causes pressure on diaphragm and causes breathlessness. I think if proven true, he would probably publish a paper on it. In other words we have a rare condition. I wonder how useful this case would be for generations of medical students. There would be discussions about whether alpha-phetoprotein level should have indicated it or it was just another form of FLC (Fibrolamellar Carcinoma). Professors would have pop-quizzes on symptoms and the right answer would be 'breathlessness'.. :-). I am looking for quite a bit of photographs taken of my tumour in liver and become famous posthumously.
My wife (who wanted to be doctor but became engineer and assumes that she has the knowledge of medicine), on the other hand, thinks that I have a problem of overgrown nose bone which is causing all this 'breathlessness'. According to her I have sinuses problem compounded with pollution. My mother thinks I do not have problem and I need lot of rest.
However all of them agree on putting me through the experiences of hospital. I do not hate hospitals in general, but what gets you, is sleeping on rexine beds and staring at the white ceilings (well.. er and also the fact that you can not really flirt with the nurses, however young - it is like being in strip clubs, you can watch but can't touch!). Hospitals are almost like a prison, you have to drink tea at time they give it to you, lunch on time, dinner on time, even sleep on time (if you decline they force a pill down your throat to make you sleep) and absolutely no sex..not even thoughts (in case it increases your blood pressure). I am sure in even in real prison they treat prisoners better and nobody is drawing their blood 2 times a day. I have got so many pricks on my hands that it is difficult to find the contiguous part of the skin. I have radioactive isotopes in my body, lungs, liver. I have been treated through multiple magnetic scans. The tests ensured that if I do not have cancer, I would have one eventually.
I have few more tests planned this week, I am assured that the new prison is in different place and has better nurses, however punishment would be little severe... this time they plan to cut me open. It is true that prisoners don't have choice, only change of wardens...

Being Rude Indian

2006-02-11T11:40:00.000+05:30

I recently came across Talk to the Hand (Lynne Truss) and it put me on the thought of rudeness in Indian society. I think we do not have any decency left in Indian society. People push each other around, everybody speaks English but has rarely used words like 'Thank You' or 'Sorry' or 'Excuse Me'. The part that drives me nuts is that nobody holds the door, for women, old people, children, handicapped. The worst part is that the people in this category don't expect the courtesies either. For example, another day at the Airport I let an old women go ahead she didn't even thank me! Women rarely expect door to be held open for them in India. Now it is a different story that Indian hypocrites argue that women are more respected in India (!).

I have my own theory for this utter rudeness in Indian society. I think that years of foreign rule have made people very protective and focussed on self-preservation. In the process people have simply forgotten to pay attention to others. The society became so self centered that people simply forgot that there are other people. The endemic queues for getting daily things and overall poverty for generations made even rich people to be greedy. This reflected in the behavior of the larger society. Indians have tough time in standing in queues, it is another thing that the famous for queueing British ruled India for more than 200yrs. Indians don't really excuse themselves before interrupting others. Indians don't say sorry for cutting the lanes and traffic rage is notorious (sometimes you might get stabbed simply because you were not giving the side for faster vehicle!). John Moulton argued that nation resided not in obedience to laws but abiding by conventions that were not obligatory. Indians at least presently have tough time in obeying the laws, we have long way to go to 'obedience of nonenforceables'.

Orphan Generation

2005-11-07T22:37:00.000+05:30

Finally I landed up in India for Diwali (Festival of lights). Story has it that people started celebrating it when the great Ram (of Ramayana fame, assisted in parts by monkeys, monkey gods, brother and wife who preferred to die than continue marriage), returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana. I do not know if this is true or not, for me, gourmet ever, Diwali is lots of fun and time to eat variety of sweetmeats. I also had my vacation on the sea (Dapoli, west coast Maharashtra) and had lot of quality time with family.
Returning to India is always mixed feeling for me. I like to see the western finess in India and Indian culture in US. Sometimes I think we are really an orphan generation. Due to economical situation and other factors we definately have much better life in India or US, but we do not belong to either countries. In India my parents can not simply accept the ways of modern world. In US I can not relate to the individualism. I belong to that community which has no identity and no context in either society. I have seen many of my colleagues in US trying to find their sense of belonging in NRI communities and hindi movies. On the other hand colleagues in India find significance in buying an imported car. Where do we belong? To Diwali or X'mas that browns can not relate?

Parking Attendant in US

2005-09-25T23:06:00.000+05:30

Ok..so I had my first well profiled remark in US of A. Time was Friday evening, when most of the world is enjoying themselves about the fact that they don't have to work for next two days. I went to this hip Japanese place for Sushi (big picture with naked girl and remark, "She Sue" and then a picture of a Fish with remark, "Sue Shi"; I thought it was fun). By and large I am not much in favor of Sashimi (fresh sliced raw fish), but the art and style of making Sushi always gets me.
Since we were in hurry I chose Valet Parking. In Phoenix AZ most of the city is always in short pants. Either the heat gets them or it is a fashion statement in this part of the world. Following do as Romans, I had my work shirt (white) and short pant for an evening outing. Little did I realize it was the dressing disaster (as style connoisseur would have it). The restaurant did allow us to get in and finish our dinner. We came out exchanging good tip and thanks with our Sushi-chef and waited for Valet to get my car. At this time two 'Friday evening' attired girls came out of the restaurant and almost handed over their parking ticket to me and asked me to get their car.
I did not get it first time, I asked, "Do I look like Parking attendant?", one of the girl said, "yeah sure, you are wearing this white shirt and dark pants and standing by the parking booth". I laughed it off, my friend consoled me that we could have really taken her card and probably drove in her car, which could have been better... Eventually I got it, she was not referring to my dress at all, she thought, genuinely, that I was the parking Valet. I was overwhelmed by the acute feeling of racial profiling. It was funny and at the same time very real. I told the 'real' parking attendant about it, we all had a good laugh about it and he was worried whether I pocketed the tip from her.
Driving home I realized what racial discrimination meant. In workplaces and people I meet are too influenced by world economy, it is only outside the ordinary people can give you the real feeling of social undercurrents.
I always get this question, "if you travel to US so much, why don't you stay here forever?", now I think maybe I should, afterall parking attendants make way more money in US than imported software engineers with bad dress code.

Life is short, buy the Shoes

2005-09-06T03:43:00.000+05:30

Labor day (Labour for us General Indian English folks) is a long awaited holiday in US. It is official start of Autumn. Compared to India, in US the official holidays are very few and insecure Americans keep working through these holidays anyway!
The last holiday was the independence day on 4th July. Of course in capitalist world holidays translate in more retail sales and high turnover. Even the mall barber shops are open during holidays. Both holidays, 4th July and 4th September translate in more sales as these are immediately after the payday for most of the average Americans (yes in contrast to what many people in the world believe, average Americans make approx. $45K per annum and have limited disposable income). So I joined the bandwagon of many million Americans in holiday spending spree. It is important for my business that American economy is stable and growing, so I contribute wherever and whenever I can. I buy the stuff, I may not need, would never use, but hey, this is business not personal (The Godfather - it is a bible of life and has answer for everything, "What to pack for travel?", "..leave the gun take the cannoli.").

Well anyway, I had to do my bit so I tried multiple things. It is very difficult for me to go buy something at a whim (called incidental shopping in US). Especially with all that middle class background in Indian family. This is true for the things I need, now imagine trying to do incidental shopping for the things that I don't need!

At first I tried with some gift articles I wanted to buy for my relatives back home, this proved to be quite time-consuming exercise and I was not convinced that the salesperson knew any better. I decided to do some internet research before buying. Then I tried something for my own use (or not)... I could never submit myself to buying clothes in US, since majority of them are made in India, Srilanka, Malaysia or Pakistan and I could buy them much cheaper back home. To my mind this is last step before Americanization, so never do it.
Finally I zeroed on shoes. The story goes like this, in past few months, my weight went up exponentially, so I had to do lot of exercise, one of the things I do is a long run in the morning on Green belt behind my apartment. As it turns out, I have never done the hard court running in the past. This resulted in shin splints (very painful at that!). The 'wise' people advised me to buy better shoes than my $15 Walmart all purpose athletic shoes. As if I needed another reason to spend money. I went through internet running sites, branded goods sites and Men's Health magazine (yes the same one!). Nike had new 'human engineering' shoes, which were supposed to be much better cushioned for runners. Well, that was enough convincing for me to buy the $85 shoes. Sports Authority was very close and the commitment to run 2-3 times a week seemed very much achievable. So after 5 mins long research and a resolve to run everyday, I was ready to spend the $85 plus tax (gotta pay Uncle Sam!). Now the most needed thing was bought, I was thirsty for more.
Typically when I travel I carry one formal shoes pair and one casual. But now I realize how uncivilized I was. What I really needed was one casual, one athletic, one for running and one formal. Ignorance is never bliss. Now I know why I was feeling so out of place in United States. I just did not had enough shoes! I wanted to fix the problem so I went to another shoes shop in the mall, now the kindly people at the store were offering me half price on second pair. It would have been very rude of me to just reject their offer. We checked various shoes and finally managed to leave with only one red cordovan shoe pair. It took me long time to select the red shoes, but you know, there is never such a thing called perfect shoe. So you have to buy more than one imperfect pairs, at least you would get closer! Thus, after $200 on shoes and a Joni Mitchell CD (Both Sides now - Love is life's illusion - I heard it first time in Love Actually, nice songs), I was out of the mall. Happy that I contributed something to the $9 trillion economy of US. 25% of that comes from Retail. If I am ever to be known to the posterity, I would be known as one good shopper in US who spent lots of money on shoes. After all life is short, everybody needs to buy more shoes, whether in US or otherwise.

Staying in America

2005-08-19T04:13:00.000+05:30

Every time I visit, United States of America it is always a new experience. At immigration counter, I get questions like, how many times you visited US? I am usually tempted to answer, this is my first time..
Every time I visit, there is a new crisis the country is going through, last year it was war, year before that there was homeland security, this year it is gas prices... The list goes on. I do not watch the news closely enough but I think US probably has crisis every day. One day it was missing girl in Aruba, another day it was Drunken Driver going bersek, few days ago it was a dead news reporter. I love the media in US. They cover each and every thing as if it is first time it is happening. The US media is so powerful that it can help an average (and not so average) American Joe/Jane to become a president.
US is also considered as "melting pot" of various cultures and ethnicities. I love this part, anywhere in US you would get a Chinese eating place, Mexican restaurant, Outback (Australian), Indian eatery, Jewish food... the list can go on. Seriously one can get all kind of food in America. Another thing I like about US is, despite such large land mass, one can get seafood
practically anywhere. For a gourmet like me it is indeed a party.

There are three most important things in US a person should have... Credit Card, Car and a Cellphone (also known as 3C's). Practically every bank would open an account for you (if you have sufficient money), with or without a SSN. A Car can be rented and pre-paid Cellphones are available (now!). Most of the companies now issue international credit cards so no worries about frauds or authorizations.

Filet Mignon

2005-07-16T11:20:00.000+05:30

Filet Mignon - French Derivative, it means small or dainty fillet (filet = boneless meat - mignon=small dainty).
So we were at Monty's steakhouse. This is American thing. If you are in America you have to eat the steak. Americans from early days of settling were infatuated by the beef and have carried that tradition very well. I was convincing my friend to eat a steak, he naturally was afraid, being an Indian Hindu Brahmin, perhaps it was more of my fault than his. One of the things I do not like about American steaks is its flatness. Even the best steakhouses do not serve the spicy richness that is required to go with the red meat. So I always go for Filet Mignon, thanks to the French, it is gurranteed of being same taste world over. Also thanks to the food fashion statement of calling everything French, Filet Mignon is known as Filet Mignon in most parts of the world. Some places in US they sell it as Tenderloin Steak but it means pretty much the same thing.

I can say that I do have some authority on the steak in particular (10 yrs of eating as opposed to getting used to it as a lifelong staple food!). It has to be medium rare for best taste and the meat has to be tender, not the heavy duty fat content stuff... Not because I am health concious (at 170 pounds you generally become one!), but mostly due to the chewi-ness that comes with the fat.
Thankfully I have sharp teeth, so not much worries about choking hazards.

Filet Mignon goes very well with Cabarnet. In Matrix (first part) Cypher says, "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak] Ignorance is bliss". Except in my case it did exist and was juicy and delicious...well and I missed Cabarnet as well. Being the designated driver in the group I had to sip on Iced Tea.

Sometimes I wonder, what would world have been, had it not been for French to invent how to cook beef?

In Routine

2005-07-10T12:25:00.000+05:30

I am still not over the Groundhog Day... More time I spent here, more I feel like man in prison. Agreed I have more activities now, I play tennis, I go swimming and even shopping... but in the end it is simply a mechanism to pass the time. Like Red in Shawshank Redemption says, "in prison a man will do anything to keep his mind occupied." So I keep doing my routine activities. Like prison, my life at present contains of routine, and then more routine.

I liked the Shawshank Redemption, first time I watched.. eventually I watched one more time on the Star Movies. I never read the original short story by Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)... and I am being honest here, I liked the Screen play better, so much that I am not looking for the story book anyway. Morgan Freeman is good as usual and I really enjoyed his comment about being Irish..very funny...

Apartments and Credit Reports

2005-07-07T12:51:00.000+05:30

It is interesting to rent apartments in US. For example, every apartment advertises about fair housing and does a thorough background check on you before signing a lease... I love the way they represent the case about credit check and criminal background check. Mind you, most of these leasing consultants get commission on the number of rents they sign up.

Another interesting thing in US is credit report. It is almost close to the Orwell book...1984. Your SSN is tracked for credit history. Somebody (the big brother or the cartel of private companies) keeps track of money that you spent (or in some cases did not spent) and then for a little charge everybody but you can see this report and make a judgement about you. I appreciate the value of such information and perhaps it makes many others in the society feel safer. However it still feels very creepy... I certainly do not appreciate the fact that everybody can see it. And if it is so publicly available what prevents intentional interference with my report by some real wise guy(s) out there?

US is a free country with very high price for freedom.. some times I wonder whether it is really worth.... From driving the car to renting an apartment, law and regulations make it so intrusive that you can not breath without worrying about breath analyzer... I am sure Thomas Jefferson did not imagine this society...

Groundhog Day

2005-06-30T08:30:00.000+05:30

I saw Groundhog Day one more time on the TV today. I saw this movie first time in UK in 1996 on a tape given by Paul Klaassen. It turns out the background of the movie is real. The plot is simple, an egoist weatherman (Bill Murray) gets caught in the time warp in the small town of Punxsutawney until he becomes a better person. He faces the same Groundhog Day again and again and again... well you get the point.
I remember Paul saying that we are very much like Phil Connors (Bill) in the movie... and I agree. We are all caught up in the same day. We do same things every day, wake up, goto same office, drink same coffee, meet same people and talk about same things. Next day it is all same day again. Gosh.. I even have same wife to meet every day! My travelling engagements have also become kind of routine now...

I liked the movie first time and I still like it every time I see it. I generally like Bill Murray and his tongue-in-cheek comedies.

Here is one more thought.. According to the legend, Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog - website ascertains that there is only one !) has been predicting weather for 119 years on every 2nd February.. how much more routine you can get?

Rental Car

2005-06-24T10:18:00.000+05:30

It is rather interesting experience to travel on business. Staying in hotel has its own advantages (e.g. late night TV and room service). But most I like is rented cars. Everytime I travel to a different country my stay is never long enough to actually buy a car for while. So I end up doing these monthly rents. My fav. company so far has been Hertz. And they get me new cars every time. So far I have driven, Chevy Impala, Explorer, Focus, Elantra, Camry, Corolla and many other models that I even don't remember... I guess it is my little fantasy world. I drive new car every month which otherwise wouldn't have been possible for me at all to buy.. Definately not in India where I stay. Most of these cars when imported would be hugely costly and some are not even available...
It is just funny to think about it. The person who could not otherwise even dream of buying these cars can drive them with relative ease and cost in a different country at very less cost when rented.. welcome to globalization and capital world...

Beer for the breakfast

2005-06-02T10:27:00.000+05:30

Ok.. it is almost one and half month now that I landed in US of A. Routine business.
One of the first things I did at Chicago airport was eating a big mac. Now..I know there is quite a bit of political uproar about big burgers (remember 'Super Size Me' ?) but for me it was the begining of my stay in America. For some reason or other I could not imagine an American trip without eating big mac.
Another advantages of travelling alone on business is you get to stay in hotels all by yourself. You can watch TV at 3:00 AM in the morning and nobody bothers you. You can use one towel everyday and housekeeping cleans it. You can run the AC for entire day and utility guys are not after you.. God I love the business travel. I have a Waffles House (Good food since 1955.. yeah right!) right across the hotel, I enjoy very lazy breakfasts there (and they are cheap - just what the doctor ordered). However on a recent weekend, I dozed around till late and actually had to cook breakfast by myself. Naturally I needed a cold drink to go with my breakfast. It turned out to be Mexican Corona. Now I am not against imported beer, I believe Americans have their own share of good beers, but it just turned out to be at right place at right time... Well nearly, I have a Circle K few blocks away from the hotel and at present they are my primary suppliers of quality beer. It is little scary place where the guys behind the counter ask ID for every transaction and think twice before opening the cash register for return money. But they have a good stock of beer, a cold room and lots of Corona. At first I did not catch the Corono with lime (its not lemon) taste, but now I have learnt to appreciate it... Afterall it is not everyday one has beer for a breakfast.

PS: Another Americanism: Everything is a chain across the nation. CircleK, Waffles House, Old fav. McD.. Thus thankfully anywhere you go in America, there are same TV commercials, so you know when is the time to sip a beer between TV shows.

Knowledge is Constraint

2005-03-08T09:51:00.000+05:30

Right.. start with the philosophical thought for the day. I have been thinking about this thing for a while. A month ago one of my colleagues, Sandeep, came up with the idea of software development automation. His idea was to create agents which could organically learn and create software constructs. This spurred thoughts in my mind about how much constrained we are about what is possible. Say we are facing a problem, we typically tend to solve it using the knowledge that we already have. This in turn prevents us (or our minds) from having new ideas. As usual our mind keeps thinking of what is feasible, based on prior knowledge. This is more emphatic in information technology. The new techniques come up every other day and we have to some extent glorified the term "innovation". Essentially what we do is use old discoveries in new contexts.. some people even went ahead and termed it as "applied innovation", wow talk of play of words!
Human minds are tuned to reuse the knowledge, to an extent that majority of us could not trust any new notion. History is full stories of this kind. A scientist proposes a new idea and rest of the society turns its back on it, terming it is one of those "new ideas". Even Julius Caesar at one point of time wondered whether there was anything beyond "known universe". Fortunately in modern times (ok... these are modern times because I am in it; Time like everything else is relative!), we are less opposed to new ideas. However coming back to problem solving, our knowledge of existing techniques and tricks is always a constraint. If the problem could not be solved using existing tricks we think it is difficult to solve... Ok I am not advising the creative mind theory here, but I think if we remove the constraint we are probably half way there. It is important to remove this constrain, as a fellow blogger quotes, What ur mind doesn’t know, ur eyes wont see.
Removing constraints of knowledge would also mean freeing mind to solve problems as a child would. Theoretically a child has no knowledge so your mind free of knowledge and child's mind should be at equal advantage (or disadvantage depending on way you look at it). Thus a child can solve the problems much better than an adult. But this does not seem to be the case... so what is missing in this theory ? I do not know... I am still thinking...

Meet Me, My Best Friend

2005-01-27T17:25:00.000+05:30

Occassion: Vidyapeeth Highschool 1985-86 batch Re-union. Kolhapur..
I have never felt so lonely in a social occassion. There I was, standing amongst familiar (and some not so familiar) faces. Some came forward and shook hands, others required introductions. Some deliberately ignored. However people were jolly and at the same time nostalgic. In general the mood was up-beat.
We went through the routine rig-morale of finding what people are doing now (or who-is-who) I was asked to introduce myself. It was a moment in remiss, they wanted to know what I do for living. Not that many cared. I did not try very hard. It is hard enough to explain to my wife what I do in a software company with a designation of IT Architect, it is practically impossible to explain it to bunch of strangers (well..er let us say remotely familiar people). I was also not aware how many of them knew about computers and internet in general. Then there was a form to fill in. Some took very deep interest in filling it in, assuming that would be printed in a class directory. I filled in the relevant part, ignored 'achievement's section...well I had none to note anyway and put 'reading' under hobbies.
Thinking about it...it is not rational on my part to expect them to know me. I was hardly at the school for 2-years, that too in two different divisions. My thinning hair and broadaning face did not help either. There were some close friends (in fact I hoped for more of this species..). They were also not that close as I expected. Probably they just got old.
In short everything was happy, nice get-together but I was feeling terribly lonely. Travelling back to home today, I imagined of number of things I could have told them. About my hobbies, about my cooking, about my family, about my world travels, about my professional achievements (if they could understand it :-)...then it finally occurred to me, just like that...the occassion was not to know about 'unknown' people, it was to know more about 'known' people. I was unknown then and I am unknown now. Obviously nobody was interested in knowing me.
It also occurred to me that I do not have many friends in my social circle (or is it otherway round? social circle is made of friends? not sure...). I could count few from school on my fingers and probably few from college in remaining. In the college-friends group there is always discussion of a reunion. Thankfully we never get to actually doing it...now don't assume that I simply hate people, but on social occassions I do not know what I could converse with them. Everybody is interested in how much money you make, what you do for living, how many kids you have. Probably socially these are the only things that you could ask. Very few would be actually interested in knowing, how you are. Is that what makes me run away from such social occassions? Maybe...
Probably it is better for everybody, that I stay away from reunions of such 'known' people. I probably could converse with myself better than most of these people anyway. Is there an inclination to stay with me always? Maybe I am the only person I could befriend with (little scary isn't it?). Maybe I am not a social animal after all...

Computer Games

2004-12-14T17:47:00.000+05:30

I know computer games are very popular pastime for many people and for some it could be a obsession for life. There is also a big industry around it. Recently I was introduced to a new game called 'Age of Empires'. It is a simple strategy game in which you build your empire over thousand years using various resources such as food, technology, army etc. I enjoyed playing it, although for some reason I could not get obsessed with it. May be I am simply lacking the winning spirit that is oft spoken about.
I tried the 'Civilization' game and was able to progress with lot of engineering advances over few thousand years, but apparently failed to build good military in all occassions. Imagine, if I had been a leader of a tribe, maybe we would gone in history as most advanced nation with no recorded achievements. :-)
Somehow I could not get myself attracted towards the computer games. I know it has its own following. The earliest one 'Pacman' (DOS PC fame) to present day 'Age of Empires' have engaged gaming enthusiasts over a period of time. I once studied Game Theory in college, making assumptions about people behaviour based on rationality and common knowledge is a primary constructional pattern for many games. Of course modern day PC games have lot more graphics and really intelligent engines. This obviously leads to the personal pride issues, such as winner of Game X and winner who has reached level Y in certain game.
Strategy games differ in terms that more than killing enemies or navigation of fast bikes these games require the players to think beyond what is obvious. For some it might be challenging (well no offense but for some, even chase is a challenging game !), but in essence it is simply hierarchical thinking by infusing some rationality in it. Arguments can be made in favour of both sides. Some game enthusiasts would argue that they have better hierarchical thinking abilities than rest. However I know for a fact (er..well the people I know who play these games, i.e. 4 for now) that so called 'game enthusiasts' eventually download the 'cheat codes' for the game and simply try to win the game. (Time for philosophical thought of the day: Is modern society forcing this attitude in people, to win at whatever cost?)
At one point of time I thought having knowledge of Game Theory and nuts-n-bolts of these games would kill my enthusiasm in playing these games (which I now realise has done some damage...), but observing people downloading the 'cheat codes' makes me think that probably I was right in staying away from these games all along.
a. I have no obsessive compulsion disorder to win a game.
b. I have not wasted my time on PC games (well, I have wasted my time on lot many other things.. but not PC games)
I see many college kids playing these games on internet. I wonder how many of them would care about the Game Theory or the engines of the games. Maybe I am just getting too old.

Parting thought, real complicated games are the easiest to design...:-)

Internet Surfing

2004-12-10T17:11:00.000+05:30

How much time one should spend in surfing the internet? This is not typical question of how much time you should spend at your gym or with your family and is not about spending "quality time together". This is simply question of how much internet time you can afford. Another day I was reading the blog of Grady Booch on IBM DeveloperWorks and I was impressed with the amount of research he does on internet. That is definately not possible unless you spend at least a few hours on internet and browsing the sites. Agreed, Grady Booch probably has more brain than average human beings and possibly could remember more things over a period of time (which is an understatement, he has been around for very long time and is not dead yet !).
I generally like to use office internet for surfing (saves family 'quality time') and speed is much better. Unfortunately, I do not get much time in office to do it. At home, like many other 'infotech-savvy' Indians, I use the VSNL dial-up (yes we live in caves and use lap-top batteries to start the fire! Talk about spread of technology to developing nations...). Now surfing internet on dial-up is really a time consuming affair. Finding ordinary information such as PDA based GSM cellphones, can easily become an hour long operation with dial-up. (and we are not counting Mrs. Kulkarni, whose looks make you feel you have been days in front of computer).
This simply rules out real valuable research on internet, like for example, most viewed porn site, which could take probably more than couple of hours. I recently decided to put at least 3-hrs every week on internet to various research and keep myself up-to-date about what is happening around the world e.g. what is largest selling lingerie in United States for this X'mas season. (For the record : That goes under heading of research in retail industry and web-site performance in peak shopping season). In any case I never managed to spend so much time on internet so far. For many it seems futile exercise to browse through huge junk information. For some it is a hobby (or area of interest). I saw some profiles which contained internet surfing as a hobby on Blogger.com. I hope these people are either unmarried, have lot of 'research' to do or simply spend lot of office and/or college resources on internet surfing. For me spending more than an hour on internet is 'moksha' for a week.

Adding to the Insignificant

2004-12-10T16:33:00.000+05:30

Internet is an amazing thing. There are multitudes of ways by which you can create information junk and in most cases almost free ! I always think about advancement of technology and pure insignificance of the purposes we use it for. SPAM is a good example. Why on earth average people would pay money to some doubtful business sending them unsolicitated mails is simply beyond me. On the other hand e-mail as a technology has affected our lives a great deal. Recently I came across a study where telephone companies were complaining about loss of revenue on telephone booths in India. Nobody seems to need them anymore ! E-mails which can contain voice attachments, e-mails which can be read in your local language, e-mails which work even when your local post office is not, e-mails seem to have replaced average communication media. So many advances in electronic communications have also lead to large scale spread of hoaxes (RAND Computer picture in 1954) and related urban legands. It is amazing how e-mails and web sites could spread information with lightening speed in the world. Few years ago in India there was a hoax of God idols in temples drinking milk; within one day the rumours spread throughout the world and Indian people world over were rushing to the nearest temple to confirm this. I also saw few web-sites which were anouncing news per temple in India every hour. This all sounds very strange (and to some extent stupid) now, but in the abscence of internet, I doubt if this hoax would have spread so much.
Well this is first Blog and going with the theme I will keep adding the my thoughts and other junk information to this wide world of insignificant information (including my picture while we are at it)