News From Home

I am a huge fan of Good News India ever since I discovered it. Their tag line summarizes it all "News from India : of positive action, steely endeavour and quiet triumphs ~ news that is little known" The site reports stories about ordinary Indians who have worked within the flawed and imperfect system, with little more than their unflagging committment to their cause to keep them going.

There is the story of Lakshmi Thathachar for instance who is using Sanskrit as his tool of resurgence. He believes that "Sanskrit-learning can lead to viable, contemporarily relevant careers." His is one of the many wonderful testaments of hope that touches the lives of the most marginalized in India.

For a decade now, most of the "good" press about India in the western media has been around the hugely successful IT story. Like all high-profile stories, it ends up being a distraction from much else about India that is newsworthy.

That a woman in Nagpur has found a way to recycle all forms of plastic back to fuel has been largely overlooked by the west if a Google search on Alka Zadgaonkar is any indicator. How India Inc. fails to create a buzz around such amazing achievements boggles the mind even as Aishwarya gets airtime on 60 minutes to conclusively prove that she is a giggly airhead.

From being a land of perverted nawabs, snake charmers and hatha yogis we've come to be one of infinite call centers, Bollywood musicals, outsourcing companies and a wannabe Silicon Valley. That we have an Italian kingmaker is an interesting factoid as is the fact that we have a Dharavi and some kids are born into brothels instead of homes. Kurtis, zardozi, bead and mirror work dominate rack space all the way from Wal-Mart to Neiman Marcus as 22 carat gold chandelier earrings adorn the ears of western glitterati.

In all we still reek as much of exotica as we did two hundred years ago and do precious little to change that. Somehow in this lopsided view of India in the west, one sari-clad woman who knows her organic chemistry well enough to turn plastic back to petroleum and can possibly redeem landfills around the world is just not interesting enough for the media.

Possibly she does not fit stereotypes that anyone is comfortable with. Now if an Indian duo were demonstrating the attainment of moksha through the positions prescribed in Kamasutra, that may have been quite another matter.

New Kid On The Block

It was that time of year when existing vendor relationships are studied, analyzed and evaluated. Familiarity breeds contempt, unhappiness and dissatisfaction even when you are one of the outsourcing heavy-weights from India. One morning, the powers that be let it be known that the Indians had been ousted by a Brazilian outsourcing company and that the transition would be completed in the next sixty days.

While desis are very familiar with one Indian vendor being replaced by another in the bitter bidding wars for a large outsourcing contract, being shown the door by the Brazilians was somewhat of a surprise. My interaction with the team from Brazil has been limited but I sense a certain lack of confidence among the outgoing Indian vendor resources as well as the American employees.

They had achieved a certain rapport over the years. Indian festivals were celebrated in the cafeteria, miniature Ganesh and Nataraj idols adorned the desks of American managers. One woman had a colorful dupatta on permanent display in her office. Team lunches were often held at the local desi restaurant since everyone loved the gajar halwa and palak paneer equally. Arranged marriages had been deconstructed to death in the smoking porch as had Bollywood musicals. The desi assimilation of America is naturally presumed. In all that was a lot of cultural bridges built.

The employees are concerned about their ability to communicate effectively with the new team given that very few people know either Spanish or Portuguese. Why they assume that English would not be adequate is hard to explain. They balk at the prospect of learning about a new work culture which they assume will be significantly different from anything they are used to.

For the Brazilian company, their challenge would be rise to the occassion and allay all concerns stated and unstated. This besides being able to complete a fool proof knowledge transfer in sixty days, make the change of guard completely transparent to the business users and deliver a significant cost saving to the company.

Failing on one or more counts could imperil their tentative foot in the door because the Indians are going to try very hard to regain lost ground. Even as competition heats up in the world of outsourcing, India will continue to enjoy significant advantages over later entrants into the game. Needless to say, complacence could prove fatal.

Crossing The Border

Coming as I do from a family of refugees from Bangladesh displaced by partition and settled in India for a couple of generations, immigration legal, illegal, enforced or by choice is always of interest to me. My ancestors were driven out of their homeland and had to start their lives over in a new country. Years after the 1947 refugee crisis was over, the tide of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh to West Bengal rises unabated.

The semi-porosity of the international border and the government's studied indifference to the problem only helps these people who desperately seek a better life. Once in India, they form a formidable vote-bank that no political party can afford to alienate itself from. They derive their strength in their large, undocumented numbers and just for that reason the free flow from across the border will never stem.

Anyone who has spent time in West Bengal knows that an impoverished neighbor and electoral math involving illegal immigrants is a lethal combination. We bemoan the state's appalling lack of infrastructure and how it is the least favored destination for domestic or international investors. We watch helplessly as the swelling ranks of illegals overtake what little the state has got left - it is akin to watch a parasite grow so large that it kills the host it feeds on. We wait for that slow death to deliver our state form its delibitating status quo.

The storm of protests over the US immigration bill fills me with deja vu. With some variations, there is the same fatal mix of an impoverished neighbor and electoral math. Only in India illegal immigrants would not so boldly proclaim that an enforcement-only policy is not acceptable to them. Also, in India we do not have a large body of people working diligently through legitimate channels to acquire permanent residency and citizenship.

Granting any form of general amnesty to illegal immigrants in America is a slap on the face of those who have and are pursuing the long, arduous and mind-numbingly painful immigration process. It is as much a mockery of the immigration system in this country as it is of all those who are involved in it.

The real solution lies in eliminating the root cause of such exodus from one country to another - in helping the impoverished , sometimes relatively dysfunctional neighbor improve their lot and set their house in order, so their people would have no incentive left to cross the border. Because once they do and their numbers swell to 11 million and over, the electoral math will render it impossible to remediate the situation as is evident in the ongoing struggle with the immigration bill.

Infinite Choice

If programmable beverages become common, the coke wars would become a thing of the past. Choice fatigue acquires a whole new connotation when we start to have at our disposal,

a programmable cola bottle with buttons for lemon, lime, vanilla, and cherry flavors as well as a caffeine button allows for thirty-two potential choices of soda.

Add to that being able to order online a "mass customized" pair of jeans sewn to fit us as perfectly as our skin. Mall hopping to find that elusive pair of jeans with the perfect fit - with or without that can of soda to keep us going - will become quaint old habits.

Bad Genes

J has always been a very perseverant little person. Last evening she finally managed to turn cartwheels on the couch after three months of concerted effort. I celebrated her success with her even as I realize her athletic career (beyond reasonable doubt) is ab initio void.

I spent the school years reading under the shade of a tree as my friends sweated it out on the basketball court. R's (my ex) solitary claim to sporting fame was that he played a mean game of chess. J's tenaciousness can't possibly overcome the odds of such terrible genes.

My mother wrote me off at seven when I straggled to the finish line twenty minutes after prizes were given away to the winner and runners-up of the lemon-and-spoon race. She expended no further energies on my athletic ambitions and instead made me a junior member of the local library. She was wise to cut her losses early.

In the life of every mother there comes to pass such moments of epiphany.

Coming Of Age

Earlier this morning D and I were have a light-hearted conversation about our coming of age experiences. He told me about his first sexual encounter at seventeen. She was his teacher. I was quick to be outraged "You were a minor. That makes it molestation" He burst out laughing "Hell no ! It was a welcome rite of passage. I got laid not molested. And I was more than willing"

Made me think of me at fourteen when I told my mother about a PT teacher touching me inappropriately and how she and my dad showed up at school to complain to the principal. How following my example, several other girls and their parents followed suit and how the principal fired the PT teacher within a month. All of us girls felt vindicated as did our incensed parents.

Whereas D's experience gave him the bragging rights among his friends who to quote him "wanted a piece of the action", I felt humiliated and victimized by mine and pretended it was a bad dream. So many years later, it was still hard to tell D about it today.

There is nothing new about D's story or mine. Nothing new in that boys are conditioned not to think of themselves as victims of sexual abuse even when they really are. D and I probably carry residual scars from our adolescence.

For very different reasons we would not think it might take therapy to heal us. To me it would be coming out of denial and ascribing significance to what I had thrust into oblivion, to him it would be a negation of the first affirmation of his manhood.

I would be guilty of reading too much into it and he of not reading anything at all. We were and are victims in different ways. Of the two of us, I felt sorrier for him because unlike me, he does not even know that he has a loss to mourn.

This is an example of gender stereotypes at work. A woman is not generally viewed as a perpetrator of sexual abuse when she can just as easily be. Infact the presumed innocence gives her protection than men don't get. In this case the teenaged boys labeled their teacher a “slut” and that was the extent of her punishment. To talk about it with parents would be whining and therefore un-manly. The contrast in our experiences could not be more glaring.

Formed Memories

There is something about Handel's Harp Concerto in B flat that I can't get enough of it. I have always loved the sound of the harp, but that's not what this is about. Memories of my childhood home, listening to Rabindrasangeet on vinyl records come rushing even as the first movement begins.

I can't trace it back to a particular song but given the influence of western classical music on Tagore, it is entirely possible he composed something inspired by this piece of music. These are the tenuous strands of memory that slip out of one's reach like so many skeins of silk.

Yet sometimes, memories for the future are subconsciously made. One of my very favorite songs of all time, Rukh Jaana Nahin by Kishore Kumar turned even more so after my marriage. I played it countless times on the keyboard R gifted me on my first birthday as his wife.

So many years and upheavals later, that song has turned into my personal anthem - every word profoundly meaningful. When I first heard it, destiny must have turned on receptors unawares knowing that I would one day derive much more than musical pleasure from it. Memories like these etch marks that you wish would dissolve with time but they don't - they are meant to be indelible.

A Baby Star

J and her friends at ballet class performed for the parents today. They've been learning for about two months now. The only discernable difference (at least to my eyes) was that the kids moved around less chaotically than they did at first. There were as many camcorders as there were parents - except two of us who had old fashioned non-digital cameras.

The other woman was the mom of the only little boy in the class. Hers was a high-end Nikon with telephoto lens and works. After the class, she gave me some pictures of J she had taken on a previous class. "She is such a pleasure to shoot. So photogenic and such a beautiful face!" gushed the photographer. "I will send you the pictures I took today as well". Thanks to ballet class, J will have a portfolio by a professional photographer.

While it was not much of a ballet or even a dance performance we did catch a glimpse of our children's personalities and inclinations. There are some fast and eager learners who if pushed may some day turn technically good to sophisticated dancers. There are those who just don't get it and can't be bothered by this whole dance thing (reminded me of my own childhood - born with two left feet). They will struggle through a few more seasons of dance lessons and then retire hurt.

And then there is a nascent star like J's buddy Kyle who is already interpreting music in her own way, using the steps she has learnt like the alphabet to create beautiful arabesques on the dance floor. Kyle of the dazzling smile, fluid grace, body moving to music like every pore is longing to be one with it. I hope her parents nourish and nurture what God has given her so bountifully.

Plastic Over Paper

The chirpy checkout girl at the local farmer's market asked me "Do you have a bagging preference this evening ?" The inordinately long time it took for me to answer her must have made her wonder if I had understood the question.

She stood there waiting politely for my preference be declared . I said "Plastic will be fine" feeling that was the wrong choice as soon as I had made it.

I am always in a quandary when asked to choose between paper and plastic. What exactly makes one a better choice over the other ? At what point does wholesome turn unsustainable ? Is it right to assume that the consumer has access to all relevant data points to make an informed decision ? Is it reasonable to expect they be able to process such data in all of thirty seconds that the bagging assistant allows for the task ?

Yet, I made a decision that contributed to a landfill hoping in return a tree somewhere gained an extra lease of life. Maybe in truth my plastic will be recycled and that tree be reduced to mulch to make way for a high-rise.

So much for social consciousness and a conscience.

Cubicle Mate

T and I are office spouses by the 3^rd test of spousal relationship between a guy and a girl in the work place namely:

You're a guy and girl who frequently (like every 15 minutes) engage in invective-laced vent sessions on how idiotic your bosses are. And continue griping during the lunches and breaks.

Guilty as charged.

We laugh at each other’s jokes and sometimes the third person in the conversation has to play catch up and we enjoy that bit. He is married to a woman he obviously adores – it shines in his voice when he answers her calls in the middle of meetings. For my part, I have either been in or between relationships for as long as T and I have worked together. Up until now, I never thought of T as anything but "that guy at work with a quirky sense of humor"

With T around workplace aggravations turn bearable – exactly what a real spouse is supposed to do for life. So I guess, the moniker “office spouse” is not so far off the mark after all.

Of Finite Deeds

I was thinking about how out of infinite resignation rises a tentative will to challenge status quo. How I try one last time knowing fully well that "the last time" is like the horizon - a line that recedes as I approach it. I fall back , get hurt yet don't stay down forever. Every pain heals in the end to reveal new hope. A very long day, and these thoughts must have lead me to Maria Rilke.

Initial
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Out of infinite longings rise
finite deeds like weak fountains,
falling back just in time and trembling.
And yet, what otherwise remains silent,
our happy energies-show themselves
in these dancing tears.

Ideal Bot

Anyone who has felt a twenty four hour day is not nearly long enough would love the idea of a digital butler - described thusly "a digital butler that roams the Internet, intuitively knowing your likes and dislikes, retrieving perfect strands of news and information that you never would have discovered through old-fashioned surfing. That's the holy grail of personalisation and automation on the Internet."

Some things on my wish-list would include - finding the lyrics of a song often recalled but never fully remembered, long lost friends, news of technology in incubation, travelogues about uncommon places, new words and interviews with favorite writers.

Belated Shrek

From J's earliest babyhood parents of all stripe have been telling me that my love for J is entirely questionable if she has not watched Shrek, that her childhood would be remarkably empty for the want of that experience, that I would regret my decision to my dying day if she grew up to be the one kid in the known universe who had not watched Shrek. Now that she is getting ready for kindergarten, I figured it was time to introduce her to the cultural icon of her generation. We watched Shrek this afternoon at the long last.

If the message of the movie was to look beyond superficial beauty and love the person inside, it was lost on both of us. The ending was deflating for me in that the beautiful princess had to turn into a fulltime ogre to become Mrs Shrek.

Its wonderful that Shrek remained an ogre but wouldn't the lesson be more convincingly taught if Fiona turned forever beautiful and still loved the ogre. My take away at the end of the ninety minute plus hoopla was that ugly people belong together and if you're too beautiful for your significant other, you need to kiss them and reach their level of unattractiveness. You cannot be beautiful outside and love someone that is not - not in real life, not in a fairy tale and not even in a deconstructed fairlytale Hollywood style. Physical compatibilty is key to loving and living happily ever after.

J was confused because the spell did not break like it was supposed to. The first kiss of true love did not make both Mr. and Mrs. Shrek beautiful. She was not able to reconcile between the princess and the ogre-ess and figured that the princess died when she kissed the ogre. How horrifying ! She wondered how the nice princess come to such a sad end.

I wished adults would leave fairy tales alone and find other vehicles in literature to make their crude adult jokes. Despoiling fairy tales to entertain grownups leaves children without a childhood memory to fondly revisit as an adult. It is yet another example of excessive consumption and inconsideration for our progeny.

In any case, J is now Shrek-aware and therefore ready to take on the social and cultural challenges of kindergarten.

J must have been mulling the fate of the princess when post-parandial enlightenment struck her. She declares "I figured out how the princess turned ugly" I was curious to know. "They marinated her in gold and that's what turned her ugly. It's not a good idea to marinate people in gold. It makes them ugly." she explained to me. This was her understanding of the fireworks that followed the Shrek-Fiona kiss. Who knew watching me marinate chicken in soy-sauce would lead to this one day ?

What would I do without J to decrypt Hollywood for me ?

Mutating Logo

In most corporations of any reasonable size, the branding gods have to bless all online and print content that their customers will see. The tone and voice of copy must be reviewed for consistence, colors must be chosen from a branded palette, fonts from a tiny set of approved families and so forth. Needless to say the process is tedious and has little room for creativity. The end result is as boring as it is conformist.

The fact that Google is almost God and chooses to mutate its logo so frequently flies in the face of conventional branding wisdom. As an end-user, I am excited by Google's everchanging stripes. Instead of taking away from its brand equity, it adds pizzazz. What's more it catches the customer's eye.

The reason Google is able to play so many variations on its theme and yet not stray dangerously away from its identity is simplicity. There is not a ton of copy that needs to be rejigged each time the logo acquires a new look. Google's branding strategy clearly won't work for most corporations though there is a very valuable lesson to be learnt in simplicity.

Ersatz Mozart

Only earlier today I was listening to Bob Mondello talk about recycling of Shakespeare for teen consumption by Hollywood. It was a portent perhaps. I have been looking forward to the Magic Flute performance ever since I got my tickets a month ago. It would be the first time that J would be watching a western classical music performance and I was excited on her behalf.

I was one enraged consumer when I discovered that we would be subjected to a Disney-fied interpretation of Magic Flute complete with smart-ass jokes. That was not what the ad for the concert said. J was dismayed and told me several times "Mommy, I wish we had not come here". She was close to tears. I shared her sentiment but thrifty single-mom that I am, having paid the monies, made us sit through the torture.

There were plenty of kids in audience. I observed that they were enjoying it and for the most part got the humor. In our TV-less household J does not have the advantage of complete media immersion that these kids do.

I'm not sure it this served as a good introduction to Mozart for J - she was genuinely relieved when it was over and only reluctantly lined up behind the excited kids to meet and greet the cast. The one heartwarming thing about this misadventure was the realization was that J's anti- Disney/Pixar sentiments are as pronounced as mine. Makes me hopeful that the road ahead will not be dotted with amusement and theme parks not to mention animated drivel.

Oil Standard

To see the cost of things in near real time equivalent barrels of oil is disturbing. Maybe that is exactly the point - to disturb. A credit card balance, the sum total of your savings and the iPod Nano you have been lusting are all only so many barrels of oil.

You wonder if should allow your reserves to lower, if you should want less and conserve what you have - better still add to your stock. You wonder what might happen if oil prices spiked so high that it pushed life's smallest desires out of reach and finally if indeed one day it was the "Oil Standard" instead of the "Gold Standard" for trading all goods and currencies.

Created Home

An uncle recently bought a home in India after spending four decades in the US. They intend to move back for good within a couple of years. He and is wife have an extensive friend circle and are very social people. They figure spending their old age in India will be more comforting. The relatives back home view the decision with puzzlement and concern. Can they catch up from where they left forty years ago ? Why would they not want to stay in the country they have lived so long - where their kids are ? Wouldn't they miss familiar faces and surroundings ?

Maybe if the Indian community in America had something like Nikkei Concerns,(In the early 1970's, aging Issei (first generation Japanese Americans) had nowhere to go to receive culturally sensitive nursing care. In response to this need, seven Nisei (second generation) mobilized the Japanese community to develop a nursing home to meet the cultural, social, language and dietary needs of elderly Nikkei.) their longing for roots would have been satisfied even without actually returning home.

Most Unfavorite

In which J's vocabulary takes me by surprise and makes me ponder my life's purpose.

"The winter coat is my most unfavorite thing" she declares this evening on our way home.

"What does unfavorite mean ?" I ask

"The thing that you don't like at all" J explains.

It's been warm and summery after a long time. J was in her summer clothes today and exuberant to be freed of her "unfavorite" coat.

Listening to her made me wonder what my most unfavorite thing was. I don't think I have one - there are too many contenders tied for the top slot. To have just one "most unfavorite" is Zen. It signifies peace, tranquility and emotional well being - the things that really count.

Imaginary Storyline

I finished reading Anjali Banerjee's Imaginary Men yesterday. Interesting genre - 50% Mills and Boons 25% Chick Lit and 25% Expat Desi Lit. Part One of the book should have been titled "Totally Clueless In and About Kolkata".

Being a local, the cringe quotient is so much higher for me. Hopefully the non-Bongs among us desis would have felt half way better. She totally does not get it and does not have anyone on her editorial/review/research team that does either.

Coming from an MM Kaye in Far Pavilions many trespasses are forgivable. You figure she does not know better. Allowing Banerjee similar latitude is hard because she is a local at least in part. Maybe a case of misplaced expectations here. Take-away from Part One is that Banerjee is very seriously fixated by the geckos on the walls of Kolkata homes. They pepper her sentences like sev on bhelpuri.

Once back in the SF Bay, Banerjee is more in her element. She talks like a normal person in a language and idiom that is comprehensible to even a desi such as myself. I learn the phrase cross-mojonation and am much edified in the knowledge thanks to the protagonist’s younger sister who has the improbable name Kali. Bongs of the class Banerjee is writing about would choose a more uncommon of Durga's hundred and eight names. Kali is way declasse.

Other than Kali’s funny Austin Powers-speak there is not much else going on with the story that would be of interest. The hero Raja Prasad is very much Mills and Boons standard issue (no surprsies or deviations there) except that I am no teen and don’t suspect a lot of her target audience is either.

The one redeeming factor about Banerjee’s book is its length. Unlike Hari Kunzru's Impressionist, she does not belabor her non-existent case past page 236. Thank God for the small mercies !

Strange Detour

P has been on my mind for years. His last words to me came to haunt me much after he spoke them - "I hope you fall in love with someone as difficult as you are. Then you'll know how I feel". I have loved only "difficult" men since and pine for simplicity. I call it the "Curse of P" on my life.

Many times in the last ten years I have longed talk to P one last time to let him know I treasured how he felt about me, that I always wished him happiness he would not have found with me. That I had loved him equally. In some corner of the world, I imagine an older, wiser P surrounded by a loving wife and a couple of kids - the picture of perfect domestic bliss. I know no one more deserving of happiness than he.

Yet, P has vanished without a trace. I hesitate to reach out to him through our batchmates from college. It would embarrass both of us - we were both fiendish about privacy. I have trawled Google time over time but my precious Akoya pearl never surfaces.

Yesterday on a desi matri site I saw a profile with a picture that made me jump out of my skin. It was K - P's very best buddy and by transference my friend. I don't know why I can't believe the dude is divorced. My immediate reaction was a "OMG" meets "Holy Shit!"

Next to Soup my dear friend who mysteriously and disturbingly went out of circulation five years ago, K would be only person I could trust to get me in touch with P. The only way to do that was to respond to his ad and hope he'd accept. Once he knew who I was, he'd know exactly why I had contacted him. I'd not even need to explain. I kept my fingers crossed.

Earlier today I was notified that K had declined. This is the closest I have come to being able to reach P in the last ten years - it was almost like a dream. And like a dream it ended in wakefulness. Maybe I should stop seeking closure with P - maybe some things are best left be. Please, P for old times' sake and for all that we once meant to each other wish for me simplicty.

Two War Movies

Watched Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Stanley Kubrik's Full Metal Jacket in the last week. I have enjoyed other Polanski movies but The Pianist was a disappointment. One jarring note in the movie was the physical appearance of a family in the middle of the Holocaust. Not a hair out of place, in glowing health and almost too well dressed for their horrific circumstances. Just that was too much of a distraction from the storyline making immersion impossible. I was expecting something memorable like Schindler's List but this was not even close.

Full Metal Jacket will be a movie to remember for both its theme and treatment. The "Jungian" duality of man that the protagonist feels and lives was portrayed amazingly well. The morphing of normal men into killing machines at bootcamp in the first part of the movie was more gut-wrenching than the second part - the reality of the Vietnam war itself.

Craft Capital

A while ago, I had bemoaned that crafts and hobbies do not alas the bills pay. I spoke too soon and now stand corrected. There is a thriving market for it - if the site's appearance is any indicator. It seems like just the tag "hand-made" comes with a steep price tag.

Consider for instance this very ordinary looking "handcut" paper flower embellished with "hand-sewn" beads is worth four dollars plus shipping. Now that's some serious return on investment.

Some of the stuff that the kids in J's daycare turn out can be quickly transformed into even more pricey "child hand-painted" and "child handcut" cards and more. I am going to be more scrupulous about preserving J's endless stream of "art work". The fees to set up shop seem very reasonable but who knows what the fine print might be hiding. With a little help from J, I could be in the business of making money and not art very soon.

Music Of Money

J has an informed opinion on music and her verdict on playing the market is "Its too noisy. Don't play that music. Stop !"

Playing the Market is based on patterns found in the stock market, economic indicators, and related algorithms. The resulting tracks range from minimalist orchestral pieces to raw industrial audio arrangements.

There goes my hopes of J picking the fiscal reigns in this household. Looks like we are two of a kind here. Maybe I should have found a better way to introduce the subject to her. We were listening to the Irrational Exuberance / Great Depression track.

"Irrational Exuberance / Great Depression" is a composition for piano that reflects the investor psychology that drives the stock market and the overall economy . Notes and expression changes are determined by the historical patterns of the Consumer Confidence Index. The background sound is a piece of musique concrete featuring the processed sounds of an antique ticker tape machine.

Architecture Creed

Where I work these days is a shop that uses both MS technologies and J2EE. The mix is unwieldy but it is fated to stay that way for a while. Like religious fanatics adherents of one would die before they converted to the other.

Thought to check around for punditry's informed opinion on the subject of .NET or J2EE so I could make sense of the techies. One discussion thread that started in 02 and is still alive and kicking. At some point the debate degenerates into a cheap slanging match but other than that its quite an interesting read.

What I found most significant about the discussion is that it remains inconclusive after all these years. I can see why conversion from one faith to the other is so impossible. I am very glad not to have any opinion on the subject.

Accidental Blogger

If I wanted to stop by at all my favorite blogs on even a semi-regular basis, I'd have to quit my day job. Unfortunately reading blogs and even commenting on them is not a line of work that pays - at least not for a lot of people.

For those of us who are avid commenters and would like to keep track of all that we have said to everyone, everywhere at any time coComment is a great tool.

Comments are a rich and expressive medium and in no way less important than the post that provokes them. To that extent, the aggregation of all of an individual's comments could be well be a blog without intending to be one. That would make one the Accidental Blogger perhaps.

Distant Endorsement

I love reading Margaret Atwood and her novel idea of the long distance autograph device. Sure it takes away from the novelty of the in person experience but makes up for it by possibilities it opens up.

If the robot or device were to become commonly used and turn into a standard computer accessory, it could be a way for all manner of celebrities to make money. Singers signing on CD covers, sports people on gear associated with their sport, artists on limited edition prints for their works and so on. All this apart from the more prosaic but extremely useful function of signing documents without requiring to be physically present. Quite amazing.

Dumb User

This morning I feared that my two year old laptop had given up ghost. The techies I know have predicted doomsday for a while now. It would not boot up no matter how much I coaxed it.

Ten years have elapsed between my engineering degree and me.Back in the day I used program in assembly language all in days work.Today I was no behaving no better than the broken-cup-holder stereotype.

My dumbing down has been a slow but steady process and I fear the worst is yet to come. In the end all it took was to pull out the battery pack and push it back again - securing it with scotch tape for good measure.

Rarely if ever has the sight of the Windows logo caused me as much euphoria as it did this morning. Later in the day I asked around to see what might be a fair market value for my machine on eBay or Craigslist. I am almost half ready to sell unless laziness gets the better of me.

New Clean

Back in the day when stainless steel had not yet overtaken my grandma's kitchen, the maid used a piece of brick about the size of a cake of soap, ash from the her coal cooking stove,tamarind and lemon rinds to keep her brass and copper utensils clean and shiny. The concoction was very effective.

Dish cleaning detergents were considered quite unnecessary and even harmful. Without trying too hard she was being green and eco-friendly -it was her natural way of life. Whereas grandma's clean did not cost her anything , now it does. Though similar in principle and action, it is a whole lot more sophisticated and is called Sandclean.

Blade Of Grass

Read this beautiful poem about the beauty of simple things that go unnoticed and unappreciated which reminded me of a favorite and popular Tagore quote in Bengali

"Bahu klesh kori, bahu poth ghuri, dekhithe gyechi porbat mala, sindhu, dekha hoi nai shudhu chokkhu meleya, duar hoithe ek pa feleya, ekti ghasher shisher opor ekti shishir bindu"

Which crudely translated in English means :

"Much have I toiled, many roads have I traveled to see mountain ranges and the ocean. Only I have not cast my eyes to see, one step away from my door, one drop of dew on one blade of grass"

A blade of grass
by Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

Snooze Deterrent

I often try to squeeze in reading a few pages ( I promise myself it will be no more than twenty pages or minutes which ever happens sooner) of a book before going to bed. On many days this is a very poor choice because I really need to sleep instead of read - every pore of my body is begging me to shutdown.

To compensate I'll hit the snooze button in the morning to get another fifteen minutes of shut-eye. Another bad choice right there. Then once I get to work, it will take five cups or more of green tea to keep me functional through the day.

So a "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is set in motion the moment I break my twenty page or twenty minutes rules ( as I inevitably do). As nifty as it is, the snooze deterrent alarm clock is not for me.

Playing The Field

For men who can't keep up with their philandering help is now at hand in the form of Girlfriend X , a relationship management software with a difference. This could well be the killer app the online dating space has been missing. I am assuming the companion product aka BoyfriendX is atleast in its beta and that with some tweaking one or both could meet the needs of non-heterosexuals.

Nirvana for the time and resource strapped modern Casanova could not be defined any better than having - a dedicated accountant who constantly evaluates your Booty Yield so you can determine whether any particular woman is worth the time, effort and money that you’ve invested.