I think it's just plain disrespect

This is going to be a rant, so bear with me.

Have you ever been to meetings where the meeting was supposed to start a particular time, but people arrive a LOT later than they were supposed to? I know this happens predominantly in India, so my apologies to someone from outside this country who is reading this. But if you have interacted with Indians in general, you would know what I am talking about.

This all stems from an incident that happened last week which really got under my skin. I obviously cannot narrate the details of the event, but it bothered me nonetheless. I meant to post sooner, but hey, I have people wasting my time, so...

There have been times when a meeting starts a few HOURS after it was originally scheduled and all this while, one is just sitting there twiddling one's thumbs. Now I've been working for quite a few years now and should be fairly inoculated to this behaviour, but I'm NOT! I still get riled up over people not sticking to the time they commit to.

And the crux of the matter is this: Indians have no respect for anyone else's time except their own. They have this distinct feeling that only what THEY are doing is of paramount importance and everything else can wait. What they fail to understand is that EVERYONE is doing exactly that. That's why you see the traffic in chaos...everyone is in a hurry to get where they are going and inevitably cause a delay for everyone.

Earlier, I used to think that we Indians are short on patience. That this impatience drives our behaviour in traffic as well as places where you are expected to queue up. Naturally everyone wants to get their work done as quickly as possible, so has to be impatience, right?

Wrong!

It's sheer disrespect for the other person. "I don't care what you think, I think this way and I'm going for it". That's why we see Indians breaking queues (if they even exist), invade people's personal spaces without realising, talk out of turn, cut people off, etc etc etc.

And there lies my point. being late for something is DISRESPECTFUL to the other person. It is a blatant way of saying "I don't respect you and your time. Your time has no value for me!"

People think punctuality is a good character trait to have...and it is - don't get me wrong - it most definitely is, but not for the reasons you would think. Punctuality means that you are willing to make an effort to stick to a commitment you made, but more importantly, it conveys that you respect the other person and his/her time to not want to waste it by making them wait.

We all have a limited few seconds on this glorious planet. Is there any point in wasting them in some waiting room or some conference room or some phone call or a traffic jam? Instead, if we just respected the other person and their time and their right, as much as yours, to exist on this planet, then we would be a much better country.

It sure as hell won't change overnight, but it has to start somewhere. Change always starts with one, and I for one am going to make it a point to let people know how I feel when they abuse my time.

End Rant!

Language barriers

I know I make it a point not to blog about work stuff, but I just had to talk about this.

I was recently in Bangkok for a business meeting and while a lot of people there understand English, it is not the preferred language of communication. Of course, that would be Thai. There's also the extremely polite "Sawasdeekaaa" with the end sound dragged out and the joined hands welcome that everyone gets.

Now, as an outsider, it becomes a bit difficult to convey everything one has to say to be effective. Especially for me where my play on words helps me to inject some humor in the proceedings. So needless to say, communication becomes a bit of a problem. There are whole parts of the meeting where an entire conversation can happen in rapid fire and then we get a summary of what just transpired. So we end up losing a lot of information. Not to mention the possible jokes at our expense which our local counterparts are too polite to tell us (I'm guessing).

I had a similar experience when I was in Japan last year. With an added complication. We had to present using a interpreter. Now this was my first experience at that sort of thing, so we have to do a dry run of the presentations or the material with the interpreter so that she could effectively translate it during our meetings. What that also meant was that I could not speak more than two sentences for the most effective translation.

I have to admit...I have a fairly fluid presentation style and I don't plan on what I'm going to say. I just go with the flow based on the audience and the mood they are in. In Japan, I had to completely change my style and now think of the two most impactful sentences which could be translated while the interpreter was working on what I had just said. I completely changed my thinking about presenting in a place where English is not the main language.

But the most amazing thing? I was at an offsite with my team from all across APJC and we were at Bintan in Indonesia for a few days. I was getting to meet with all the great people I had met during my trips to all these regions and spend some time (over drinks, of course) with most of them. Guess what? I had the best time sitting around my Japanese colleagues!

Here I was surrounded by six Japanese gentlemen - some much older than me and some around my age or younger - and there were so many topics of conversation. Of course I had to talk about the absolutely awesome food I had there (Shabo Shabo, I love you) and I would get a question like "Malhar-san, which sauce do you prefer with the Shabo Shabo? Soy or Peanut?" and I would wonder if it was a trick question. I even said so. Cause in my time in Singapore, I had been made aware that people make judgements about your provess (you decide which one) or when you will get married simply by the way you hold your chop sticks! So I didn't want to say I like one or the other that makes me sound ridiculous. But no, all they wanted to know was my palette and choice so that they could recommend more restaurants.

The topic went from Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka and eventually how I "have to" go to Sapporo the next time I'm there. One of my colleagues even volunteered to chaperone me around and take me to the "right" places.

We were having such a great time and laughing so loud that our VP came around wondering what was going on at "the table that's having the most fun".

So there you go folks...languages can be a bit of a deterrent, but the people are just as much fun, as long as you are willing to have some :)

At least take the label off!

Now I see this a lot whenever I travel, especially to the northern part of the country and especially so during the winter months. Almost everyone there is wearing a suit or at least a jacket. And without fail, more than half of them still have the brand label either still in it's pristine condition on the sleeve of the jacket OR hanging on for dear life from that flimsy tack they put in (so that the label can be easily taken off in the first place).

I'm not sure these people realise it, but the label is there just to make it easier to identify the brand in the store. It's not there to be paraded around for the rest of the said jacket's lifetime.

And yet, there's scores of people who do that anyways!

You can see similar evidence at the bottom of formal shoes as well. During meetings, when your co-conspirators in the meeting are sitting in the famous "one leg over the other" pose and pretending to listen, they don't realise that the label for the price is still stuck on there.

Maybe they want me to know that they are into expensive shoes, maybe they just forgot, maybe it's like the label on the jacket sleeve all over again! They just won't take it off.

Do us all a favor, will you guys?

Rip it off, Puleeeeeze!

Friday and Saturday were a Sinday

Oh Alcohol, thou art a heartless bitch!

The day had already started well on Friday, what with me forgetting my wallet at home and in general being an ass. But the evening turned out quite differently. Dad had left for Mumbai in the morning to make sure he was in town to celebrate his grandson's 3rd birthday, so we took the opportunity to invite a few friends over for booze, food and fun.

It started off with me and my buddy finishing almost the entire bottle of scotch while playing a few spirited hands of Teen Patti. The drinking session took us well past 2:30am at which time we decided it was time to eat before we all feel asleep in the living room. That led to a hogging session of some delectable food and eventually dropping off into the lap of slumber.

Unfortunately, the bladder has a mind of its own and wanted me to know that it didn't care whether I had slept enough or not. Thanx to it, I was up at 9am, wishing the watch was telling me the wrong time. But up I was. Then a bit of breakfast and all of a sudden, it was time for some beer and meat balls. Perfect saturday. And to put icing on the cake, there were fresh crabs cooked in my favorite Goan style which capped off another super weekend day. All that was required was to take some time of for siesta, but that was spent setting up my friend's iPad (I'm jealous, but am still waiting for v2).

Evening was spent catching up with another buddy so that we could complete some things that we have planned and which are coming up at the speed of light now. A few more drinks.

It truly has been a Sinday thus far. And it's not even Sunday! :D

What will tomorrow bring?

MuaaHaaaHaaa

Did a super stupid thing this morning. In my rush to get out of the house, I forgot my wallet at home! And that meant I had no money, no badge to get into the office, no driving licence, no identity card and no credit card. Not even my emergency money. YIKES!

So had to be careful not to get into any situation where my ID would be required or where I would have to pay. Made it safely to office and borrowed money from a buddy to keep me going for a day.

Here's the kicker. Had to go with another buddy to pick up a HDD and an SD card so that I can help him hack his Wii. Got a super deal on a 4GB CF card for the D200 at home :D Ended up saving more than Rs 1200 :D

It's been a good day, considering.

Mua Haa Haa! :D

What illness and boredom will do

I thought I was getting back in the habit of posting once every day. Blogger was now part of my "always open" tabs. I thought I was back. Guess what? I was wrong.

Had a round of golf and then a drinkie session with my buddies and then came back and tanked. Was out cold! Two day of non stop coughing and another two days without a voice, not to mention a few lost kilos somewhere, not that I needed to lose them. Then a ray of hope and my body started to come back. I could feel the strength coming back, a sense of a vague memory of my appetite. And that gave me the overconfidence to agree to go for a movie with friends.

Aah, the misery of being unwell. Can't eat my favorite movie snack (Popcorn) because the salt aggravates my cough and can't have my diet coke to sip cause it hurts my throat. And to add salt to serious illness, I picked up an eye infection to boot. My immune system, already battered and bruised, could not take it any more. I could almost hear the Scotty in my USS Enterprise of a body screaming "I'm givin her all she's got, Captain. I cannae give any more". And so the Romulans were pummeling my poor body from inside.

Another week wasted. Sigh!

After I'm back, it takes a bit of time to get the clock reset and to restart the engines. This time the engines had been out cold for a while and so took longer to get to optimum operating temperature. Therefore the lag.

Here's hoping to more post on - fingers crossed - a daily basis. Stay tuned for more Bakwas to follow.

My experiments with the truth (about 3G)

As you will have read before (how presumptuous of me to think anyone reads this drivel), I recently got a Tata DoCoMo pre paid connection to test both their network and their 3G performance claims. This was driven mainly by my frustrations with the Airtel network and the number of call drops I was experiencing.

So for the last couple of days I was using predominantly my DoCoMo connection to make calls and browse the network. The first day, the performance looked pretty good. Not blazingly fast, mind you, but fast enough. I downloaded the speedtest app for the iPhone to see what speeds I was getting. The very first evening, I got a 2.1Mbps download speed and a 512k upload. That looked nice enough. But a day later, those numbers had dropped to 1.1Mbps and 127k. Still respectable, but a marked drop from the earlier state.

Here's the problem tho. Speed tests are fine as they are, but the real test is in loading times of pages that I frequent. One such page is the Google News Sports page (UK edition) so that I can catch up with the latest in the world of the Barkleys Premier League. For the last couple of days, the time it takes to load that page is almost the same as my Airtel connection on Edge. Not the best selling point for 3G.

Forget being able to make voice calls and watch streaming videos, I was having problems with basic browsing at an acceptable speed. Very disappointing, I must say. I tried only once to load a Youtube video over 3G and the amount of time it was taking to buffer the video turned me off and I gave up pretty quickly. Now this is not an indictment of the 3G technology, cause I have seen people in Seoul watch live TV being streamed to their cell phones. So I know the technology works. Just the the 3G service of DoCoMo sucks! So does their cell reception. I can't catch a signal in our office basement (and I can with Airtel). So overall it has been a disappointing trail. Oh well, I will just have to move to some other provider after my prepaid amount runs out.

Bits in the air

I felt like the total geek I am when I was setting up the spanking new D-Link Dual Band Wireless N router, the Apple TV and the HDMI hub. The satisfaction after setting it up was immense. Made all the effort to consolidate and digitize my media these last few months worth it.

First up, the wireless router. Now being the super anal person I am, I had to set up the wireless network EXACTLY as I want it. No default settings would do. But to do that, I had to login to the router for administration. The Quick Start leaflet that came with the router mentioned that the username for the administrator is "Admin". Nope, the router refused to log me in. Then I tried "admin" and voila! it worked. Set up both the bands and now it was time to setup the Apple TV.

The setup is unsurprisingly simple...typical Apple. A couple of clicks using the included remote and I was at the network configuration screen. Here is where I thought Apple could have done better with the keyboard. It's a pain to type in my WiFi password using that keyboard, especially considering that the password I have is 26 characters long! I had the same problem when enabling "Home Sharing", a pre-requisite to start streaming from my iMac. Putting in the Apple ID and then the password was a painful affair. All said, the whole thing took me 15 mins to get thro and I was ready to start.

iMac at the ready, Apple TV waiting to receive...Start the Movie! And it works, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Next up, pairing the iPhone "Remote" application to the Apple TV. Piece of cake. Easy Peasy. Done. Now am browsing my library and controlling everything using my iPhone. Cool!

Now the HDMI port switcher. Connected the DVD player, the Apple TV and my Kodak zx3 HDMI cables to the 3 input ports and the output to the TV. And just like that, I have a tiny device - with a IR remote along with it - that I can not operate sitting back on my bed, being the lazy person I am.

It was a great experience to watch HD quality being streamed thro the air and into my TV. The kicker was the 5.1 channel surround sound after I hooked the Apple TV - via optical cable - to my Cambridge Audio amplifier.

And finally, just tried Airplay from my iPhone to view an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" on my HD TV. Also realized that a video ripped to support the iPhone screen format is of good enough quality to watch on a 42" screen. Not necessary to get the videos in large formats and so a good idea to save space. Will try it with a couple of DVDs and if that works, will start ripping all of them to the iPhone format so that I can cram more media on the same hard disk space.

All in all, a very satisfying evening! 30 minutes of work and 6 hours of pleasure!

Pain in the neck

Ok, so several pains in the neck.

An actual one to begin with. For some reason, my neck has been hurting the last few days. And no, it's not from the way I slept, cause I tried sleeping in different positions to no relief. So have been walking around with a twinge in my neck that spikes up to severe pain every now and then...or should I say every Ow and then. Yep, that's my pathetic sense of humour...and I get to blame it on the pain in my neck.

Next up, Bose. Not the several good natured Bengali families who carry that last name. Bose, the makers of sound equipment, you know...speakers, headphones and the like. As you all might remember, I blogged a long time ago that I am the possessor of the Bose Quiet Comfort series QC3 headphones. These are amazing headphones that cancel noise and make the audio experience so much better. I have carried them around with me everywhere since the last year and half. So why is Bose the pain in the neck you ask?

A month ago, the battery charger for my Bose QC3 died mysteriously. One moment it was charging my battery, the next moment it was just sitting there doing nothing. Out of the blue, just phlat! So I went to the Bose service station to check on a replacement. Guess how much they told me a replacement charger cost? Rs 3000! Close to $70! What the ^%$@?!?!

So I politely declined, went back home, opened up my QC3 charger, only to find that they have sealed a bunch of stuff inside which makes it impossible to DIY repair it. So left with no choice, I went back to the service center and agreed to pay the ransom they demanded to get my headphones working again. Only this time, I asked them what the warranty is on the charger. Guess what? NONE! Not even for a day. All they would agree to do was to show me that it charges a battery and that's it. Nothing more. After that, I'm on my own!

Now my question is: are they penalizing me for buying their stuff? I can understand companies like HP selling cheap printers to make money off the printer cartridges, but Bose already charges a premium for their products. So why be so inconsiderate towards their customers? Once thing is for certain. I am not buying another Bose product in my life. They just lost a customer.

On the flip side, my headphones are back where they belong...over my ears :)

And finally there is Tata DoCoMo, whose latest 3G service is something I have wanted to try for a while now. Since I have an extra iPhone (thanx Vasu) which I am using to test the Android OS on the iPhone, I can use that as a backup phone while I use my 3GS to test the DoCoMo call quality as well as the power of the 3G network. So I walked into the DoCoMo store on Richmond Road and asked for a pre-paid card. They were very helpful and quickly took care of the formalities to get my card ready and topped with Rs 373 to get me off. What they forgot to tell me was that the account balance would not show that amount, it would show only the buffer amount (Rs 10) in case I overstep my charged amount. Also, they forgot to tell me that I have to enter an APN number (TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET) to get my 3G connection going. Since I did not know this, I kept getting a connection error. That meant another trip to the store to resolve this. A completely unnecessary trip. Another pain in the neck.

As far as I can tell, the network is just a shade better than Airtel's and my phone has lost signal a couple of times, but has caught it back on quicker than Airtel's. Also, while the 3G browsing experience has not exactly knocked my socks off, it is visibly faster than the Edge network I get on Airtel. More testing and network reviews coming, so keep a lookout here.

11 call drops

Let me begin by saying that Airtel sucks! How can one of India's largest mobile services provider have such a crappy network that causes at least 11 call drops on my way to / from office?

It starts just after Richmond Circle, near Kudla. That's 1. Then before the turn at the stadium. 2. Just before the entrance of Cubbon Park. 3. At the turn in Cubbon Park. 4. Near the Planetarium. 5. On the airport road next to BGC's 3rd fairway. 6. At Windsor Manor. 7. At Mekhri underpass. 8. On CV Raman Road. 9. After the CPRI gate. 10. At the Ramaiah Hospital gate. That's sure shot 11 call drops on my way home. 11!!! ELEVEN!

This is of course not counting the extra few that Airtel throws in every now and then at the Magic Box overpass after Windsor Manor, Kaveri Circle, before the Cubbon Park gates. It is sooooooo frustrating to be on a call and have it drop so many times. Even worse if you are in the middle of a conversation with some call center or the other where you have to go thro the entire rigamarole of getting them to the point where u dropped off in the conversation.

I even called Airtel customer care once to illustrate this point and asked the lady to give me a number where I could reach her all the time as I was driving to work to show how many call drops I got. Guess what? They can't do that.

I am sincerely waiting for Mobile Number Portability to become fully operational so that I can test a few other providers (my eyes on Tata Docomo) so that my mobile phone usage is a little less frustrating than it is now.

All those magnificent men / women in their flying machines

Nope, not talking about the movie, but am using it to reference another set of machines.

I have been busy digitizing and reformatting my entire media collection the last few weeks in anticipation of the arrival of my AppleTV device (which needs the help of someone coming in from the US, so if anyone is heading in that direction and back, please give me a shout!). I finally managed to convert most of my video files to work in the AppleTV format and added them in the library. Only way to test how they would look is if I went into Front Row on my iMac and saw how the library would show...since I assumed that's how the AppleTV interface would look like too.

To my surprise, my Movies section was showing every piece of video I had added to my library. Now some of these videos are part of TV series' which I am in the process of ripping from my DVDs. Things like "Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister", "The West Wing", "Coupling" and "Seinfeld". Problem is, all these shows with all their many episodes from many seasons were now showing up in the list of Movies in Front Row.

To my dismay, the solution on the Apple support website was anything but. It said I had to change the media type of the files to something other than TV show, then move the files out of the library, delete the media references from iTunes and then push them back and change the media type back to TV shows. This is no solution! There had to be an elegant way to do this.

Evidently, Doug thought so too!

He created these Applescript scripts which can be added to iTunes and which help fix this problem with ease. An adult solution to a problem that should not exist in the first place.

This is one magnificent man in his flying (computer) machine!

The reason my post title says "men / women" is because of another reason I had to go to the community to solve my problem.

I have been trying a new software which will help me backup some of my stuff from my iPhone a little easier than iTunes can. Was having a bit of trouble getting the connection to work and so thought I need to restart the phone. Ended up restarting in recovery mode (force of habit what with all the hacking to jailbreak my current and earlier iPhone). Here's where another set of magnificent men/women came to my rescue.

All I did was download iRecovery, type in "setenv auto-boot true;saveenv;/exit" and there it was! My phone booted like normal.

There have been so many instances when some selfless coder sitting in some remote part of the world has come to my assistance without even knowing it. These people put out these pieces of code just because they encountered some problem and thought that making the solution public would help someone. Or maybe just because they love this stuff. Either ways, people like me benefit from the brilliance and work of others.

This post is to thank these magnificent men and women. They have made my life a bit better and a little less stressed. Thanx a lot, folks!

And nothing else matters

For an audiophile, last night was an extremely gratifying experience! To be surrounded by the cleanest sound I have ever heard and that too from songs that I have loved and adored my whole life was simply one of the most amazing few hours I have ever spent.

My ex boss, Anil, is into actually making audio gear. From stereo speakers to subwoofers to his very own class A amplifier, he's made them all. If you walk into his home theatre room, the first impression you would get is that there is WAY too much equipment in that room! There's a HUGE, and I really mean huge, dual cone subwoofer with 15" cones thumping out some serious bass frequencies. That is surrounded by at least 4 separate pairs of stereo speakers, all of them with their own sound signatures and characteristics. There's the open baffle configuration, there's the Altec theatre horn and LF box and then there's the one that blew my mind away!

Quite simply, this floor standing box with a labyrinth as part of its innards produced the cleanest and purest sound I have ever heard in my life. I have not heard stereo music reproduced this beautifully. Period.

What surprised me the most of this setup was the versatility of the sound and the purity of the reproduction of every single sound that was part of the compilation. We heard Hindustani Classical, Instrumental, Indian fusion, Bollywood music, Classic Rock and even Heavy Metal. Simply put, the speakers blew my mind every time I listened to every one of the songs.

To top it all, we played songs like "Stairway to Heaven", "Brothers in Arm", "Nothing Else Matters", "Beat It" and "The Pianoman" on LPs and the added warmth these speakers added was simply amazing. I never really appreciated Stairway to Heaven quite as much as it should have been up until last night! And to hear Jimmy Page's guitar play so clean and so crisp coming out of these wonder boxes just left me getting goose bumps all evening.

Thanx a lot, Anil. You made my evening. An amazing experience. The cleanest and the most wonderful sound I have heard till date. Thank you so much.

RIP, Sir

My friend's father passed away two nights ago. May the Force give him, his mom, his sister, his wife, his kids and his entire family the strength to deal with this.

I'm here if you need me.

The only one there

I got this weird reminder on my phone two days ago. It said "Challenge to meet at Koshy's" for the 8th of Dec between 7pm and 8pm.

Now I remember sitting with a few folks where we were talking about how friends decide a time and place to meet a few years later...cause in today's world, we don't know where we are going to be. So the experiment was to pick a random day and see if we could keep a date with each other.

Naturally, I landed up curious to see who all were there...assuming anyone even turned up.

Guess what?

I was the only one there!

I sat by myself for an hour, hoping that someone would turn up. But alas, I left alone.

A clean bill of health?

Now if you remember a post a few days back ("A weird dream"), I dreamt of my buddy from engineering college who passed away a year and half back. I just happened to mention this to my friend the next day and he said, in a solemn voice I might add, that nothing is a coincidence and that I should get a health check up done.

Now most of you who know me know this about me. I am not superstitious nor am I religious and I certainly don't believe in this stuff. But something about the way he said it got me spooked.

So I scheduled an appointment at the Columbia Asia Hospital for a general health checkup yesterday. Had to go there early in the morning without breakfast for a bunch of blood tests, x-rays and ECG tests. Then some breakfast and more blood tests after two hours. Then the long wait until the results land in my hands...which would be 5pm in the evening.

So when I land up at the hospital to collect my reports, they tell me that the reports will be available when I come for my doctor review appointment the next day. Bull Shit, I say. I was asked to come at 5pm and I'm not leaving without my reports.

So I did get them.

Blood pressure 120 / 70.

Almost all blood tests normal...except for LDL and Triglycerides which are on the higher side. These have always been on the higher side for me ever since I can remember, so am not sure if it has to do with something genetic about me or something of my lifestyle that is causing it. Will know when I go for my doctor's appointment in the evening.

X-ray normal.

ECG report not received yet, so will know by end of day today.

All in all, I'm hoping to be given a clean bill of health...and for the doctor to tell me that I'm doing fine and that I should continue with the debauchery in my life :-D

Fingers crossed!

Lights and roller coasters

Do you ever feel like you are on a roller coaster in life?

One moment, everything is fine and looking like it's on the way up. A steady rhythm clicking under your feet as you shuffle thro the day. And then all of a sudden…BAM! The floor leaves your feet and you find yourself plunging down towards some hell hole drawing you nearer like a magnet whose pull you cannot fight. It could be one call, one meeting or even a chance reading on someone's blog. And just when you thought gravity is going to crush you under the might of it's force, you pull out of that free fall are gliding on your path like the hell hole you just left behind never existed. Once again, the chance call from a friend or a piece of good new or just a funny video someone share on Facebook saves the moment, presenting the necessary distraction.

And then another plunge and another lift…and then another…and then another…and yet another. Until at the end of the day, you are exhausted and just want to sleep. But the ride does not end there.

Even in your dreams, you plunge and you soar and then plunge again, only to wake up covered in sweat to some unthinkable nightmare that you cannot even remember. And then a peaceful slumber in the arms of a beautiful dream…that you could not remember yet again in the morning…only remembering that you had a nice dream and that it made you smile as you woke up.

What has all of this got to do with Lights, you ask?

Absolutely nothing! He he he…

The only reason lights is in the title of the post is because I went out and bought a remote trigger for my speedlight yesterday. Yep, it's one of those cheapy Chinese made stuff that is good only for firing a strobe remotely and nothing else. But I tell myself that I am not even fit to be called a novice in this area and therefore don't deserve a PocketWizard or ElinKrome set of transceivers. So with my wallet a couple of thousand rupees lighter and the spring in my step a couple of inches higher, I tried out the combination last night. And came away with a big grin on my face :)

Just thought I will let you know. After all, I won't have a rant every day to put up here. And so this is my attempt at blogging at least once every day to get back into the habit.

The world is your spittoon, the country your trash can

I'm finally back…after 6 month and a few days. Yeah I know…this is becoming my usual theme. I promise to be back and then there's a long silence and then a post.

So here's hoping to an improved attitude towards blogging and trying to be regular. I am immediately reminded of Master Yoda's statement: "Do…Or do not…There is no try". Now you know why I am not a Jedi Master yet. Wish I was tho. Would have loved to do the Jedi mind trick on so many people.

Now to the reason for the irate heading. And here starts the rant…

My buddy and I were walking from UB City to the office (had to do some shopping at the Apple Store) and we had to cross the hellish intersection that is Richmond Circle. In the space of a few minutes that it took us to cross the road, we heard so many car honks that we could not hear each other think, least of all hear each other's voice. And every one of those people who honked somehow had the impression that honking would make them move faster.

On top of that, in the same time span, I counted at least 7 people spitting or throwing trash out of their car. What the hell is wrong with these people? And to top it all, the traffic police constable at the intersection was the model of apathy. Can't really blame him for being apathetic, cause he probably sees what I saw a few hundred times every day. It's easy to get desensitized when you are overexposed to these things.

Now that got me thinking as I was driving back home from office. It was a rare occasion that I was leaving office before peak traffic hit and so made it smoothly home in 20 minutes. As you folks would have read in my earlier posts, I have a very intelligent car that is the Skoda Laura. On it's mainframe display, I get readouts on how many kilometers I have driven since the engine was turned on, what speed I was driving at and most importantly, how much fuel I consumed on my drive. And to my wonder, I had run a mileage of 14.7km/l for my 20 minute drive back from work. Which meant I had consumed less than a liter of diesel to get from office to my home. The worm in my head started chewing on something.

The next day, I hit peak traffic on my way to work and noticed that this trip, I had averaged 9.8km/l and taken 40 minutes of starts and stop traffic to get to office. Hmmmm! That evening, my buddy and I were meeting for a drink at The Beach in Indiranagar and thought it would be best to drive straight from work. Guess what…we covered just 3km from the office in 41 minutes! 41 minutes! That's insane. By the time we got there, we had spent almost an hour in the car (for a short 8km) drive and averaged 8.2km/l.

Now let's do a bit of math.

If I did not hit traffic every day, I would average between 3 km/l and 5 km/l better during every drive. My car has a huge 60l fuel tank. Even if I use the pessimistic number of 3 km/l, that means that my car would have run for a hundred and eighty kilometers more on the same amount of fuel! That's a saving of more than 15 liters of fuel…translating to more than Rs 600 for every tank of fuel I pump into my car! An improvement of 25%!

Here's another interesting figure. I have had my car for the last 3 years and am on the verge of hitting 40,000 kilometers in it. That means I am averaging about 12,500 kilometers every year. Now extending the same calculation as above, considering the same efficiency (that is not completely accurate as I tend to do long drives - I love to drive - and that drives up the fuel efficiency even higher…so we are still pessimistic in our calculations), we would be able to drive the same amount of kilometers every year with 33% less fuel. Let's see how much we save, shall we?

12,500 kilometers x current average of 11 km/l = ~ 1140 liters of fuel = ~Rs 48,000.

12,500 kilometers x efficient average of 14 km/l = ~ 890 liters of fuel = ~Rs 37,000.

A saving of Rs 11,000! Eleven Thousand Rupees saved by one car! Just by improving traffic conditions and therefore fuel efficiency!

Not to mention the implied benefits of lesser smog (from lesser stops and starts), lower noise pollution (hopefully) and time saved for everyone.

And here's the kicker! As per the Petroleum Conservation Research Association, 51% of India's domestic fuel consumption is done by transport vehicles…cars, busses, trucks, rickshaws and all the rusty old things you see on the road that make you want to get a Tetanus shot just from looking at them. From the same PCRA website, India has more than 75 Million registered vehicles. Think about the sucker punch I'm about to throw at you.

If every vehicle saved Rs 10,000 annually due to better fuel efficiency achieved due to better traffic conditions, we would have saved…wait for it…16 BILLION DOLLARS!

16 BILLION DOLLARS!

Say it again after me…

16 BILLION DOLLARS! Savings!

Savings worth 16 BILLION DOLLARS!

Imagine what part of that money can be invested to better the traffic conditions going forward. And as technology improves, we will have better, more fuel efficient cars which will only improve our savings number.

How's that for analysis?

But for sure, there are people already doing this analysis. From the PCRA page again, we learn the New Delhi alone burns more than 990 Crore Rupees due to stopping at traffic lights. Just imagine!

And here I come back to the heading of the post…part of the money that we save can go towards putting trash cans every few feet. I think the current problem is both lack of social decorum as well as lack of opportunity to demonstrate it. To give you my example, I carry litter in my pockets until I see a trash can (which can sometimes be once I reach home). More trash cans and a cleaner city will only shame some people into not spitting everywhere and making this country a better place.

Songs have such acute memory recall

I was driving home last night and, as usual, the music was playing out loud in the car.

What was different this time was that every time a song would come on, my mind was going back to a time when I either heard the song for the first time or something special was happening with the song playing in the background.

I floated from the pages of a book, to a dance show, to a stage performance, to a bus ride, to a restaurant. And just like that, I was home…floating on a cloud of memories, all of them triggered by as simple a thing as a song coming on.

I've had the same experience with perfumes, but this was far wilder. And there were so many memories that crowded my car as I drove home.

And I realized that I enjoy these songs, the ones which have a memory hard coded in their MP3 tag, a lot more than most. Must be something that makes them sweeter.

More than a 1000 people have something to talk about

So I might as well scream from the mountain tops.

I LOVE MY NEW SHOES!

This might make me sound gay (and as Seinfeld rightly pointed out…Not that there's anything wrong with it), but I just have to tell you guys about the shoes I have. They're called the Vibram (pronounced wii-br-um) Five Fingers and they are the closest I have felt to barefoot while still wearing shoes. You have to check these out.

I got these shoes two weeks ago and ever since I have put them on, I have not wanted to put any other shoe on…and if I have to, I do so grudgingly.

Now these shoes don't exactly look like the shoes you are used to. These are distinctly different and actually have a pocket for each toe, hence the name Five Fingers. They look a bit different and so get used to people staring at you. If I'm in the elevator, the whole elevator stares. If I'm in the bus at the airport taking me to the airplane, the entire bus stares. If I'm in the office, the entire office has asked.

Since the time I have gotten these shoes, there must be at least a thousand Tamilians with a new story to talk about. And at least 200 Bangaloreans. Which should tell you how much time I have been spending in Chennai for the last few weeks.

Long story short, the shoes attract attention…and usually the wrong sort of attention with people sniggering or smiling or just shaking their head at the contraption I am wearing on my foot. And most of your friends will try to make your life a living hell over the shoes. Only 2 out of those >1000 people have looked at them and said "They look really comfy. I wanna get them."

Luckily for me, I really don't care about what anyone has to say. And at the end of the day, my feet thank me. And that's what matters to me.

Thank you Vibram for creating this fantastic product and I am proud to be an exponent of this fantastic piece of footwear.

My feet are sooooo much happier these days!

Aromas of China, Taste buds in Heaven

Felt like eating Chinese food for lunch today, for no rhyme or reason.

After a lot of deliberation, we decided on Aromas of China at Richmond Circle. When we entered, we noticed the festive decor celebrating Chinese New Year and we were informed that they had a special menu for just the occasion. So we decided to order things from that menu and boy, was I blown away!

We ordered the Sliced Chicken with Peanut Butter Sauce (Chicken Bann Bann if I recall correctly) and steamed spiced wantons. The chicken just blew me away. It was spicy and sweet and tangy and my taste buds had a field day. Perfect start.

For the main course, I had chosen the Mongolian Pepper sliced lamb. This dish rocked! The lamb was ever so thinly sliced and cooked so nicely that it seemed to melt in my mouth. And the flavour, oh the flavour! I could not resist ordering more just so I could take it home and eat it again (which I did…for dinner) :-)

I recommend you try it!