if brook would have no song...

things that could happn only in India

2009-02-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of gost being able to read in a country bosting of nearly 65 percent literacy or gods showing appetite for milk and then end up drinking litres without saying 'enough' ? NO? then you haven't lived in India.

Divine Plot: the hindu milk miracle

"Much of an entire nation found a common bond in Oct 1995" when Ganesha began drinking milk, followed by the entire pantheon of hindu Gods. Dairy outlets in the country ran out of stock. Scientists tried to offer capillary action surface tension as examples, but no one was interested. At the end of the day,statues in public places had their mouths tied with cloth to prevent a lactose overdose.

Phantom Menace: Naale Ba ghost

In 1995, Bangloreans saw the peace of the nights being shattered by a ghost which used to call out to people in their mother's voice and then kill them. Named Koogumari, legend has it that it killed three brothers in Guttehalli in kolar. people came up with a solution: writing Naale Ba at their entrances which means "come tomorrow" . This was supposed to confuse it into coming again and returning after reading the message . The fever of a literate ghost with amnesia took nearly a year to subside. Perhaps, the exhaustion of retuning again and again proved too much for the poor ghost.

Beast's day Out: monkey MAN

"A half-simian, half human entity which moved stealthily through the dark attacking the innocent "in may 2001 created havoc in Delhi. Theories on the monkey man being an avtar of Hanuman were squashed after creature hurt several people said to be devotees of Lord Ram. Desperate people started beating up anyone resembling the description put out by the police. The creature soon tired of its antics disappeared from public view until a Russian website reported in June that it was last seen aboard a flight to Moscow.

the brook would have no song..

2008-12-02T00:35:00.000-08:00

Dancing in the nature's cuddle,

as you watched it flow along,

without rocks and falls to hurdle,

the brook would have no song. .

उद्धरण एक कविता से

2007-08-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

और चिता पर जाये उड़ेला
पात्र ना घृत का पर प्याला ,
घंट बंधे अंगूर लता से
मध्य ना जल हो पर हाला ,
प्राणप्रिय अगर श्राद्ध करो तुम मेरा , तो ऐसे करना,
पीने वालों को बुलवा कर खुलवा देना मधुशाला

- मधुशाला ( हरिवंश राय बच्चन)

हिंदी चिटठा लिखने की शरुआत है , टीका-टिप्पणी एंव चर्चा स्वागत योग्य है

the partition of 1947

2007-08-07T05:53:00.000-07:00

You open your eyes one fine day and realise the country is no longer yours ...you realise,from that moment you are living in a foreign land..the soil you considered your mother has been snatched away from you by decisions made by some power hungry politicians sitting miles away..deciding your destiny..then you realise was this the independence we fought for.."freedom at midnight" becomes "doom at midnight"..the place where you spent your childhood, you thought you will make your destiny is to be left as it is. What will be your first reaction? - What will I do now? Some one suggested..' you can sell everything and take cash or gold with and flee to the other side', destiny was laughing at you when you were thinking of this, wealth was a far fetched dream..when you faced the stark reality, question stood out to be - Can you take your family safely to the otherside saving them from the hands of the butchers invading you with that pretentious freedom bugle call ?
"At the stroke of the midnight hour,when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.." this was the freedom speech JL Nehru made.. the 'tryst with destiny' as it was called ..truly for many of us became a 'tryst'..a tryst with the gory partition which brought with it the blood bath,wails of children, men & women..orphaned as their family butchered in front of their eyes, people changed their religion when death was staring right at them, women did not return to their families to save shame as they were brutally raped. This makes you think and ask yourself what makes a man kill another in the name of religion?...Am i different if i remember god five times or only once...my foreskin is intact or not..or if i carry a sikha at the back or if i have have a vermilion on my forehead. Does it really makes a difference?? or is this madness?
The hatred with which we live in this world .. is it all worth it ? this is the question each of us have to ask ourselves?

- narrative inspired from my grandfather's memoirs of partition shared with me in my childhood (he had a narrow escape from death)
..I have a life to live on and my life is a gift ..a gift destiny bestowed to him.

Life is a gift to all of us, probably we should live it like that..

the new flower

2007-08-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

Life is like a flower,
it blooms..
Dancing in the wind and sunshine
till it's full of joy and laughter,
Sunshine goes stronger..
One day the petals begin to fall,
Joy goes away,
replaced with faith,
that one day it may rain ...
But when it rains,
petals are already fallen
Journey starts again,
for the new flower.

Men with Hammers?

2007-07-30T03:18:00.000-07:00

Read this article and found it worth sharing..

Warren Buffett, the world’s most respected investor and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and his partner, Charlie Munger, call this “the man with a hammer syndrome”: To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. If all you have is one tool, you’re going to end up overusing it.

How can one deal with the man with a hammer syndrome? Well, the best way, according to Mr. Munger, is to train oneself to “jump jurisdictional boundaries” and grab the most appropriate models from multiple disciplines that best solve the problem at hand.

In early 1980s, Mr. Buffett faced a dilemma in the management of the unprofitable textile business of Berkshire Hathaway. He knew that the US textile industry was going to become increasingly uncompetitive, primarily due to its high, and impossible to reduce, labor costs. He also knew that he had other opportunities in which he could invest capital where the prospects of earning superior returns were excellent, given the fundamental economics of those businesses then available.

Long before most capitalists would even consider the possibility, in 1985, Mr. Buffett decided to shut down the textile operations of Berkshire and redeploy the capital in great businesses. It proved to be one of the best business decisions he ever made. In a letter written to the shareholders of Berkshire in 1985, Mr. Buffett reasoned:

“The promised benefits from these textile investments were illusory. Many of our competitors, both domestic and foreign, were stepping up to the same kind of expenditures and, once enough companies did so, their reduced costs became the baseline for reduced prices industry wide. Viewed individually, each company’s capital investment decision appeared cost effective and rational; viewed collectively; the decisions neutralized each other and were irrational (just as happens when each person watching a parade decides he can see a little better if he stands on tiptoes). After each round of investment, all the players had more money in the game and returns remained anemic.”

Mr. Buffett utilized the metaphor of a parade to illustrate a well-known problem in game theory called “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”

Prisoner’s dilemma involves two suspects, A and B, who have been arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, after separated both prisoners, offer each the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, the police can sentence both prisoners to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each will receive a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So the question this dilemma poses is: What will happen? How will the prisoners act? The dilemma is summarized in the following table:

The dilemma arises when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to defect from their implied pact and betray his accomplice in return for a lighter sentence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but the player must choose without knowing what their accomplice has chosen to do.

Let's assume prisoner A is working out his best move. If his partner stays quiet, his best move is to betray as he then walks free instead of receiving the minor sentence. If his partner betrays, his best move is still to betray, as by doing it he receives a relatively lesser sentence than staying silent. At the same time, the other prisoner's thinking would also have arrived at the same conclusion and would therefore also betray.

If reasoned from the perspective of the optimal outcome for the group (of two prisoners), the correct choice would be for both prisoners to cooperate with each other, as this would reduce the total jail time served by the group to one year total. Any other decision would be worse for the two prisoners considered together. When the prisoners both betray each other, each prisoner achieves a worse outcome than if they had cooperated.

In other words, actions that appear to be rational from an individual’s perspective sometimes become foolish, when viewed from a group’s perspective. The functional equivalent of the prisoner’s dilemma in our problem creates miserable choices but would we have discovered that unless we had jumped over into the jurisdictional boundary of game theory? I think not.

One model we will grab from psychology is what Mr. Munger calls “bias from commitment and consistency.” When you have already made prior commitments to pet projects, you may find it hard, even impossible, to reverse your position and change course. If old reasons are no longer valid to support the original decision, new ones shall be invented. Man, after all, is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing one.

Another model we will grab from psychology is called the “contrast effect”. One version of the contrast effect makes small, incremental escalations in commitments go un-noticed, particularly when these escalations are carried out over a long period of time.

It works in Chinese brainwashing techniques. It also contributes to foolish business decisions.

If you’ve already sunk in $1oo million in a bad capital investment project, an additional investment of $10 million will look very small in contrast to the much bigger total commitment already made and will therefore tend to go un-noticed.

This version of contrast effect is also called the "boiling frog syndrome": If you put a frog in boiling hot water, it will jump out instantly, but if you put a frog in room-temperature water and then slowly heat it, it will boil and die.

The story about the boiling frog isn’t true. That metaphor, however, is highly appropriate because the human equivalent of the boiling frog is there in all of us.

Mr. Buffett could see that bias from commitment and consistency and the boiling frog syndrome from psychology often combine with the prisoners’ dilemma model from game theory, making many a businessman take foolish decisions by continuing to sink more and more money in a lousy business instead of taking money out and re-deploying it more productively elsewhere. He realized that in some industries the chief problem is that if you continue to remain in the game then “you can’t be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor”.

And, so, Mr. Buffett wisely refused to play this game and withdrew his capital from the textile business and re-invested the proceeds in businesses with much better fundamental economics like Coke, Gillette, Capital Cities, See’s Candies, and Nebraska Furniture Mart. Over time, his decisions to shut down the textile operations of Berkshire and to re-allocate the released capital elsewhere have made its shareholders richer by tens of billions of dollars.

Mr. Buffett’s multi-disciplinary mind helped him solve a complex business problem. I see no reason why CFOs cannot apply the same thinking style in solving complex business problems they face.

Otherwise, they are destined to remain as “men with hammers”.

- by Sanjay Bakshi (visiting professor at MDI)

stranger who was not one..

2007-07-29T07:15:00.001-07:00

May be the song 'strangers in the night' from frank sinatra i heard has turned out to be my muse in writing this …don't know for sure…what happened was that my dear friend with whom i was sharing the flat and has been my pal since engineering days ... has now shifted to Delhi…i was coping up with that loss of camaraderie and now I had to occupy myself with reading, workout, movies, cooking etc,....it was one friday evening when …i was vacillating between the idea of going to gym or swim...weighing my options … one leaves u sweaty, smelly, tired, heated up but with stronger sense of achievement as far as burning calories and muscle workout are concerned…. the other leaving u cold, shivering but fresh and active ….and finally I decided on gym... and I went on with my usual workout program.. ..it was 8 :00 PM when a girl came there… …I thought she was a new joiner…. it's strange...you could be in a room full of strangers...sometimes a crowd that you've just walked into........for some strange reason...you seem to get drawn to somebody....you don't know their name….what they do for a living...and even with zero insight into their character...there seems to be something that draws you towards them.... she passed a lovely smile towards me…I reciprocated hesitantly…with a faint one.
Vaise,… most often, this strange encounter...remains just ...a strange encounter...very few times do we tend to act on it....very rarely do we muster up the courage to actually go across, past a faint smile...or even give out any kind of signal to convey a certain amount of mutual admiration... in fact annoyingly enough...we fail ourselves in those moments...and while what we really want to do is make eye contact....instead our eyes look away each time we sense our look is being reciprocated...and the worst part....for some reason...we try and make our act of noticing so discreet...that it almost blocks an introduction!
I wondered afterwards, why ...when two people know for sure...that there is a certain magnetic energy that pulled them....do they not act on it... so there I was...still doing my workout and chatting with trainer in between, noticing this somebody from time to time....and then call it fate, call it the lack of initiative…. or just nature's way of creating some mystery...the person I have been occupied with somewhere in my mind seem to have disappeared.
I stopped looking seamlessly...my search becomes more evident....and when I was convinced the girl has left....i cursed myself for not even smiling once and looking away when we did have a slight exchange of glances...and just when I was beginning to feel a sense of loss...that familiar face looked at me...with a smile from the most unlikely corner of the room working with the machine which is rarely used....knowing clearly well...if I was looking for her so intently...there must be a connection....like strangers in the night?..bored ?.. if not will wait for ur reply!!
and to clarify i dont know where the girl went after tht .....
cudnt find her on any day after tht :-(

Essence of life

2007-07-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

30th April 2002 7:30 PM

Life is unpredicatable
sometimes a storm sometimes its stable
difficult to understand its complexity
coming from and going to eternity
excess of things is bad
be it happiness or you are sad
whenever balance shakes
nature takes control and teaches
if something done could be ignored
if something ignored could be done
but 'ifs' are only 'ifs'
not in our hand
they are unreversing
not like the writing on sand
if times could be brought back
then the world would have changed for the sufferer
looser could be winner
but loss and win are very interesting
they haev dual perceiving
here someone looses after wining and..
someone wins even after loosing
people say things wil go as per your fate
whether soon or late
we are not the life's governor
why does ups and downs then matter?
no one comes here for ever
wheteher a fool or a clever
then see, why to hurry
there is nothing to worry
devote life for some cause
before it comes to a pause
this experience of life must teach
to help those in reach
to bring smile on a weary face
to do worthy for human race,
to unselfishly give
how long we may live.

P.S : View expressed above totally represent my state at tht time and
may or may not reflect on my current views as far as life is concerned
;)

RDB

2007-07-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Daiypayan Mukherjee one of my project mates asked me at 5:00'o clock on Tuesday eve "Kapil, are u interested in coming along with us for Rang De Basanti"?
I instantly said yes without giving a second thought because the movie been praised a lot by people around me had already made inroads to my heart and mind, and didn't ask even who all are coming along Later I came to know Shereena, Santosh and Mrigank, all from my project are also accompanying.

I told Dai "Shuks man! Why didn't you tell me earlier? I can't go with Shereena for God's sake!" and I said this in front of her and mocked at her for going to same movie second time. I even went to extent of asking her whether she had difficulty in understanding the hindi movie first time ,being a South Indian for which she is seeing it again. Both these remarks intended to be light and not meant to hurt her. It was just the never ending "war of words "with her which has continued since I joined the same team in the project, and definitely it has not been a sign of any sort of animosity between us and we have always taken it in right spirit.

Finally it was decided Dai will bring his car and tht group will reach E- Square, the well known multiplex in Pune and will take tickets of 7:10 show of the movie.
Moreover I will take my bike after reaching my house from 5:30 PM Bus which reaches my place at 6:30 PM sharp and reach there for 7:10 show.
Bus took a bit more time because of a congress rally organized at Dange Chowk by Mr Narayan Rane, a Shiv Sena stalwart earlier who has now defected to Congress deserting Shiv Sena. I reached my place at 6 :40 PM, hurriedly put my bag and took my bike keys and headed directly towards E-square without loosing any more minutes. 6 to 9 PM are the busiest hours in the day on University road, and traffic moves at snail's pace. I looked at my watch constantly in that mounting traffic.
Some how I made it in nick of time, putting my all driving skills to use , cutting and overtaking in the narrow spaces between vehicles.
When I reached there I saw them loitering in crossword, the book store in the same building, the watch was showing 7:10 PM. I just asked them why??.

The 7:10 PM show was houseful at 6:35 PM itself when they all reached, then they decided and went on to book the tickets for 8:15 show, without calling me once to tell about the new developments. I was furious, I said that why didn't they tell me, I could have come at my own ease and would not have driven rashly, and this time Shereena came up and answered tht they wanted me too to wait with them and not take rest in the comforts of my house. Her revenge for the day was over. J She might have told them "Let him come, don't call him now". ...Whatever! I didn't ask.

We managed a seat in the 4th row from top. The movie was good watch, extremely well directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.
He is same guy who directed AKS which bombed at the Box office. He impressed all with his work even then.

Mr. Mckinley met these extremely intrepid guys (Bhagat Singh, Azad, Bismil and Rajguru) during his service with the British police force and witnessed their hanging. He was so impressed with their valor and character that he wrote a diary on these extremists. His writing mentioned all the events related to these heroes in detail. McKinley's grand daughter (Sue), a film maker, was obsessed with making a film on these heroes. She lands in India in search of the cast for her movie. She meets DJ, Karan, Laxman, Sukhi, Ajay and Aslam (Amir, Sidhartha, Atul kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor) thru her friend Sonia (Soha Ali) and sees the characters of her movie coming alive in them.
Ajay is a fighter pilot and Sonia's Boyfriend (God! he mentions that at the start of the movie, I was a bit confused bcoz Sonia used to hug and get close to everyone in the group). The other four are college going brats except DJ who had passed out 5 years back but couldn't leave the college for his love for friends and college and an inner fear of losing his identity outside the college. They are hardcore party animals totally disappointed with everything this country provides. They are also of belief that nothing can be changed in India and it would be the same for years to come. Ajay had a different opinion. He believed that every Indian was responsible for anything right or wrong happening in a country. 'No Nation is prefect, it had to made perfect' was his thought which others couldn't buy. As opposed to Ajay, they had no passion for a free country which offered them nothing better than a dog's life.

Amidst all this, the movie goes back to the lives and events of India's freedom fighters and freedom movement at regular intervals connecting contemporary analogical events. This has been done beautifully in the movie. The background scores at these junctions in the movie pronounce the effects and generate that passionate feeling in the audience. The movie carries itself pretty well with the soundtrack that creates a good impact with the movie. After a few casual rehearsal sessions, the characters delve into the freedom fighters psyche and start producing impressive acting for Sue.

As the events unfold, Ajay dies in a plane crash. The plane crashes due to some mechanical fault in the MIG. Defence Minister alleges Ajay to be an irresponsible youth and denies any bad or old parts being responsible for the crash. The fearsome foursome kill the Defence minister and admit it on AIR. Eventually they all get shot by the Black cat commandos in the AIR building, and with this the mystery behind Mr. McKinley's opening statement -- "I knew two kind of people in this world, one who go to their death screaming and other who go in silence until i met the third kind" is unfolded. An end to such movie couldn't have been better than this and it's impact, as expected is tremendous. It proves to be the final seal to vicariously spillling emotions of the viewer.

The entire crew has done an impressive job. Amir is good as usual; Atul Kulkarni produces fire and passion better than all the other people.
Sidhartha is cute and thoroughly stylish. He even kills his dad as he was involved in the MIG deal.

The movie is thought provoking and mocks at people like us who want to go to the US and lead a better life rather than improving things here.
Audience watches the movie spellbound, laughing out loud in the first half rolling, clapping at their places and is just speechless in the second half. Movie generates lot of passionate feelings for nation and viewers comes out of hall feeling and arousing the hero present somewhere inside them the one they have just seen.

A must see movie!!
No wonder Shereena saw it twice.

NITian's Trauma

2007-07-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

It was a funny incident of prank playing which happened in our hostel....my cousin brother 6 yrs elder to me, a passout from REC Rourkela told me to try this out ..he succeeded in executing this plot and became a known prankster, and this created a craze during his times. Though, I wasn't that successful because firstly the prank was outdated and secondly it was an awakened generation by then, still I thought of trying it out with my hostelmates, the first year of REC nagpur. I remember that no one except one was convinced with my story....but still that lone incident is remembered as one of the funniest experiences we had in 4 years...the situation was like this...

Concept of the prank, the story:
Scientists have also proved that navel is the centre of all inherent energies a person is having , the Manipuraka chakra which is responsible to awaken your drowsed kundalini shakti . Now when a thought occupies your mind completely and is so strong that it has a energy behind it…a potent force which drives it .. and simultaneous pressure is applied to the navel centre then then neurons in your mind form a magnetic field which results in a electric wave of particular freq , and phenomenon called as telepathy occurs (can't write few things as this is a public view).

Aaditya Mishra is a friend of mine from Varanasi. He hails from a city which is one of the oldest and the most holy place of Hindus. Aaditya bought my theory and was really looking forward to experience telepathy. He is a kind of person who enjoys the company of philosophers, palmists, spiritual gurus, tantriks and himself claims to be one…and that's why was an easy bait. He was completely tricked by this and had not even a remote sense of a prank beign played. I was in complete charge of the situation. I had every thing ready in his room…no lights …only a small lamp that too covered so that i can recognize everyone...we were five to six guys in the room, some had sensed the plot but played mute because of the greater fun coming along and some were anxious to know about what was going to happen...I asked Aaditya to take out his T-shirt, a steel glass with its mouth upwards was taken inside his vest and bottom was pressed on the navel.. vest stretched tight over it .. another steel glass with mouth down and pressing completely the glass below with vest acting as a layer between them....now i told him to tell the name of person whom he wants to telepathize... he said his 'father' .. i asked him to completely occupy his mind with a 'message' which will reach him and this will not be told to any one here.. the words should not come out loud but should be so loud in his mind that they have capacity to rise deads . The telepathy will be confirmed by giving a call to his father.....now as his thought process started, his eyes were closed by my tender hand. I signed everyone there to close their eyes as well. I started pushing the outside glass to and fro over the vest slowly and started chanting 'OM' and then i gestured every one to start chanting ..aaditya too started chanting…it became louder and frequency of my hand too ... and then the inevitable happened ...the vest tore apart ...chrrrrrr.....someone laughed and then all of were just rollling over our stomachs....lights on ..drama realised by aaditya ...he was red with anger...he didn't happen to talk with me for 2 months after that incident

PS.. Before starting, I told him to change and wear new vest ...he was told tht it would have greater effect ....as it will be more pious process….kya funda diya bhai?

Moral : One who lives by the gun dies by the gun