Devil's Advocate

Sample this- you are standing in a shop and your bike is parked a few feet away. A wannabe dude passes your bike, stops, rotates its rear view mirror as if he's the next Bruce Lee, adjusts his mop like hair, admires his Tom Cruise look and walks away happily. The person who's unhappy is you when you return to your bike only to find that someone has fondled with it.

Now cut to this scene- you come back to your bike only to find someone sitting on its seat and all this while he has played with its instrumentation, its gears and what not as if he's the rightful owner. You frown, glare scornfully, utter a few bad words (you know what words I'm talking about!!!) and helplessly drive away.

All of us who own two wheelers have been privy to such situations all too frequently. Sometimes we're on the receiving end too (because we shamelessly emulate each other).

What does this tell? Following are my inferences (you may choose to disagree if you belong to the aggravating camp)-

• People here have no civic sense.
• We don't know how to respect someone's private property.
• We just love to abuse someone else's property (maybe this is how we vent out our frustration).
• Our teachers and parents have failed to sensitize us (oh I just love this blame game).
• We've taken this Sanakrit mantra of Vasudhev Kutumbkam so very seriously and customized it in such a manner that we consider everything we lay our hands to be our property!!!

Please guys, give me a break!!! Respect someone's privacy. Or at-least try to.....

Erstwhile USSR is to be blamed for the current security problem that we face called the Taliban. The Regan administration is to be blamed. Why? Go watch 'Charlie Wilson's War'. It tells the tale of how a congressman was instrumental in raising the CIA's covert operations fund in Afganistan from a meagre US$5 million to over a Billion US dollars. How Americans transformed Afgans into Mujahiddins equipping them with Stinger missiles and Kalashnikovs. The Mujahids were freedom fighters then. They are terrorists today. Period.  

The same weapons which drew away the evil communists away are now being used to wage a jihad against the lone super-power today. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!!!

Part of the problem today could have been non existent today had the Americans invested a few more dollars rebuilding war torn Afganistan instead of reorganising Eastern Europe. As our protagonist in the movie says while the Russians were retreating from Afganistan, "More than half of the country's population is below 14 and when they come back to find their families dead, their cities destroyed, who are they gonna turn their guns to???".

The world, especially the Indian Subcontinent is bearing the brunt of the mistakes of the Cold war. I suppose the Russians are now happy. The Americans must be happy too. India is paying. Pakistan is paying. And more importantly, Afganistan is paying.....

Finding God was never easy. Meeting God was never easy. So we invented temples, the portals which would facilitate our connection with the Gods. But its turning out even they are finding it tough to handle the traffic of all the devotees. What with all those long queues that dot the temples today. Been to a temple lately? I'm sure you have and will empathise me on this. Whoever said that finding God isn't easy clearly had this premonotion.

Now comes the funnier part. Take care of your belongings, your wallets, your shoes and what not. If temples with the Gods overlooking all of us had to write all this, I'd have to write this- God save us all. If I don't have the peace of mind, in search of which I went to the temple in the first place, there is no point going to these places only to add to the headcount (sometimes to the count of all those injured due to stampedes and all).

Why? Because we all cannot wait for our turn to come to offer our prayers. After all we are busy human beings. We have all those important jobs to finish.

Still we all will continue to add to the queues in search for God......

Fill it. Shut it. Forget it. Yes, this is the tag line Hero Honda chose when it launched its now legendary CD 100 25 years ago. It was supposed to target the mileage conscious Indian middle class. And the tag line is back once again. And there couldn't have been a more opportune time.

I feel the tag line cuts across all the segments that Kotler talks of. More so in today's day and age when crude prices are hovering around $70/ barrel and will shoot up once this recession thing is done and over with. Plus you have all those doomsday mongers who predict that the world crude reserves will hold only for the next 20 odd years at the current rate of consumption. Also with the world around realising that global warming is going to be the major concern going ahead and fossil fuel emissions are a major contributor, fill it, shut it, forget it never sounded sweeter.

It is also heartening to see the auto companies fighting to provide the consumer with options where he gets that extra mile for every drop of petrol. Auto companies the world over have understood the simple fact that even the consumer wants leaner machines. And those who haven't (General Motors to be precise), well oblivion is staring them right into their eyes.

So wanting to squeeze that extra mile out of every drop of gasoline is not so middle class now. Its supposed to be nature friendly (and in vogue). And thanks to recession, people now want leaner, more efficient vehicles. The companies are going back to the drawing board to survive.

And all this makes for a great sight. So fill it, shut it, forget it. Sit back and relax.....

We read news regarding unemployment all too much. Newspapers and news channels awash with unemployment related news. The sheer population of our country makes the absolute unemployment numbers look gargantuan. There's too much unrest in the country's youth and unemployment is to be blamed- is what we hear all too regularly. But are these assertions true? Let's put on a contrarian veil and try to look at the other picture. The picture which we all refuse to see 'cos we have a long history of not confronting the bitter truth.

Unemployable, simply unemployable.

Take a simple example of an average domestic help. You have to repeatedly tell the person how to execute a job. Still he/ she will be more than happy to give the job his/her own twist. Now one does not need to be a rocket scientist to take orders and do only that much as is told. Then they need all the holidays. Punctuality??? What's that? I'm not trying to paint all of them with the same brush but you'll have to concur with me that most domestic help available today suffers with these problems. Being illiterate cannot be an excuse.

Now lets come on to the millions who hold a diploma or a degree. The education that is imparted to us in most of the centers of higher education is simply outdated. Or else how would you explain this- companies recruiting people have to invest on their training for 3 to 4 months. We aren't equipped to work off the shelf!!!

The problem lies within. Finding a scapegoat is easy. Finding the root cause and then fixing the problem requires competence. And that is something that we simply don't have.

Unemployable, utterly unemployable.....

You go to a friendly neighborhood kirana store (also called the mom & pop store in retail jargon) and buy something which costs, say 24 bucks. You give the proprietor 30 bucks and in return he hands over a change of 5 bucks and an eclairs (or any other toffee). What's that? If you argue, he'll counter attack by saying sahab, khulle nahin hain. In the meantime if you happen to notice, all his friendliness is gone.

Fair enough. But since transactions are a two way traffic, I'll have my say too. Or so I thought before I was disillusioned.

The next time I went to his shop, I gave him 20 bucks and 4 eclairs for something that costs 24 bucks (again!). What's that, the guy retorted (with his friendliness disappearing into thin air, I might add). This is the type of situation we all have faced when we have been taken for a ride with a perfect excuse of unavailability of change. Ya, whatever.

Such is the extent of cartelisation in our country that this scene is replicated all over the country, even while I'm writing this post. And these kirana-wallas cry foul when big retailers enter our cities citing a cripple argument that their business will be hit. Survival of the fittest dude.

And yes, I want my change back.....

Salvation at last. From Microsoft Windows. From the legend that Vista is because it decided to hang, perpetually. RIP. Period.

I'm not much of a geek or a nerd but I am a fan of speed, of performance, of visual pleasantries. XP was fast but was a laggard when it came to graphics. Buying a Mac would require me to rob a bank. Vista tried (very hard) but failed miserably on the performance and graphics front. Then you had all those viruses and worms and trojans and what not. Then you had a piece of software called the antivirus which according to me is the biggest virus 'cos it hogs 1/3rd of your system's memory. Plus Microsoft considers you, the user so very dumb that it decided to hide as many system tools from you as possible. Then you have all those 3rd party apps which cost you a bomb. Combine all this and you have an ecosystem which perhaps aims at world domination (are you listening Google guys?)!!! No more.

Frustrated from all this and having an appetite for a little bit of experimentation, I set out on the road less travelled. I typed the magical link (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download), and put the Ubuntu torrent on download. It took a painful four and a half long hours for the Ubuntu iso to download (thanks to the BSNL Broadband), but after that everything happened in a jiffy. Got the MD5 checksum done. The Ubuntu guys even suggested an open source image burning software which burned the iso pretty quickly.

But before we go ahead, its a good idea to have multiple partitions on your HDD and your data backup. Boot your system from the Ubuntu CD and select 'Try Ubuntu without making changes to your system'. See whether its playing the sounds, displaying the graphics and connecting to the net. If any of the them don't work, you'll probably need a driver for it.

Reboot.

Installation is guided!!! Select the 'Install Ubuntu' option this time. It takes seven steps to install. The trickiest part is the disk partitioning. Select the guided partitioning (the third option). Give 4 gigs to linux swap, as much as you want to filesystem (selecting ext3) and giving '/' to mount point.

Wallah. You have your Ubuntu ready to be installed. It took my system 20 mins flat to install Ubuntu. Pretty fast!!! Updates take upto an hour to install depending upon your net connection speed. But the results are pleasing. You have a system that's nifty, visually pleasing, no viruses, highly customizable, all the basic applications and complete support @ http://ubuntuforums.org/.

What else does a man (or a woman for that matter) need.

In a world with Linux, we don't need windows and gates!!!

Stumbled upon this piece of news a couple of days back (catch the full article @ http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/06/07/stories/2009060750090300.htm) and was instantly alarmed, not because its titled in the name of national security, but because of the sheer importance this article holds. Because its about your privacy, my privacy. Because I've been watching too many films like Enemy of the state and their like. Because a senior babu can be privy to your emails, can block your URL, can round up your ISP to cough up your surfing data (yes, they'll know if you visited all those x-rated websites). So much so for the anonymity you longed for. All this in the name of national security.

Yes, whatever you read in the above paragraph is totally correct. An innocuous sounding The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 seeks to give teeth to existing laws on information technology and cyberspace. And it was hastily passed in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. You and I were happily sleeping, our supposed vigilante(?) media, which creates a hue and cry when the Indian team gets out of the T-20 World Cup was sleeping. Everyone, was SLEEPING.

Privacy? What's that? More importantly who cares about privacy? True, national security is important. But providing your babus with absolute powers is quixotic. And all this while the laws remains open to interpretation by these people. And talking about ambiguity (intentional?), sample this- unavoidable circumstances are not defined, remote areas are not defined.

As the case already is with us people, we are not sensitive towards the privacy of other people, we are not aware of our privacy rights and all this clearly reflects in the draft. Looks like we are interested more in taking cue from China when it comes to freedom of expression on the net. We all bear testimony to the fact as to how (in)justice was served in The Pirate Bay case.

The net was the last bastion which offered some sort of anonymity and freedom but by the looks of it, those days are soon going to be over. Big Brother is watching. The gestapo is watching. All this while we are sleeping. Comfortably Dumb??? Yes!!!

Yesterday I was sitting, happily sipping away on my evening tea when suddenly my phone rang. My friend on the other side sounded quite anxious. He had developed some sort of a bulging on his abdomen and needed to see a good surgeon.

We went to one, considered one of the best in my city. People there were apparently waiting for doctor saab. More than the patients, you had their concerned relatives. You also had an organism, rather organisms, all impeccably dressed, all loaded up with their bags. These organisms are also known as medical representatives. The scheduled time for saab to show up was 6, informed his assistant. We waited. 6.15. 6.30. 6.45. Finally saab decided to show up. Or better still, he took an avatar for the well being of us lesser mortals. The patients and their families (mostly from the villages) bowed (this reminded me of feudalism which still exists, but has metamorphosed).

As soon as saab entered his chamber, chaos ensued outside. Everyone wanted to get hold of saab first. Fair enough. But this reminded me of all those chaotic scenes wherein you have police too, ensuring orderliness. But somehow sanity prevailed and the assistant (no less than a superhero's sidekick) ensured some orderliness. Along with diagnosing, saab also had his chats going on with the medical reps.

I'm sure you too are familiar with such an experience. We see and feel it all too regularly. But it also raises some questions-

• Why do we prefer to visit a doctor at his house rather than the hospital?
• Does the sarkaari doctor saab diagnose better at home than hospital?
• When the patient is paying him his fee, why doesn't he ensure an undivided and undiluted attention? Is talking to the medical rep so very important?
• How is a poor person expected to pay 100 bucks as the consultation fee when the minimum wage rate in Rajasthan is 73 bucks?
• How is he going to survive the aftershock of buying the supposedly superior patented medicines?
• Is anybody listening?

All this simply points to one thing and one thing only. Our medical system is in rots and it has now become untreatable. Many of the doctors are a part of the nexus of some medical companies (with the goodies being delivered to them continuously). Even the private hospitals like Fortis, Apollo and all are not an answer, they're simply out of budget for most Indians. Surely we have tough times ahead.

Doctor, are you listening???

Two incidents yesterday made me sit up and ponder over what is happening in India.