So I was at the department store next door, when suddenly I spotted it- looking exactly the same after all these years. A Milton Kool Rider insulated water bottle that was so popular among schoolkids back in the day! Almost every kid in my class had the sturdy, chubby, familiar brown and cream 2 color bottle (or a variant). It had a nylon strap that went around, and a small chain to prevent the bottlecap from getting lost. Most of the time, the chain was the first thing to be broken off. In the sweltering 45 degree Delhi summer, it was a relief to drink icy cold water that stayed icy from one of these. They were designed for ultra rough use- the knocks and tumbles of dragging them along in the school bus, schoolyard fights where people would swing the bottles at each other (to hit the other person's bottle, not head).
These bottles remained in all shapes and conditions. Some were battered beyond recognition- the nylon strap shredded, or tied together after snapping, the original bottle cap gone missing and replaced with another, huge scratches or even cracks in the base. Despite all this- the bottle did what it was supposed to do- keep water cold. At the end of the day, many of us would rush to the water fountain to fill them up to drink on the long, hot bus ride home.
My Kool Rider lasted around 3 years. Around this time, Milton launched a variant- Kool Lancer (The gray one on the right), which I acquired. This had a small lift up spout and a large cap that doubled as a drinking cup. Useful for sharing water with friends. It also had a wider mouth, meaning you could stuff it with ice cubes. On one occasion I filled it with Rooh Afza and took it to a school picnic; it barely lasted 5 minutes after being opened.
It became infra dig to carry waterbottles around class 9 onwards. Besides if one was the only person in class with a bottle, everyone would make a beeline for it and finish it off.
The school also installed a UV based water purifier in the senior school building- thereby further making them redundant. Today I don't know what schoolkids use to carry water- or if they do at all. But Milton waterbottles remain an iconic symbol of school days in the 80's ^^
- Mood:
nostalgic
Back in the 70s or 80s, if you went on a drive between say, Delhi and Chandigarh, you would have a narrow potholed road to drive over. Of course, you'd rather choose a bus than the ramshackle Ambassador/Fiat cars that plied the roads. The bone rattling journey would probably take 6-7 hours, and on the way you would wearily stop at a roadside dhaba for food, but think little about it. After all, what was so special about a dhaba? A cheap roadside eatery catering mostly to truck drivers- with simple charpais to sit on, rustic but wholesome food cooked in a tandoor, and maybe a transistor radio blaring music.
The original dhabas would have mostly had truck drivers as their clientèle, and in keeping with the needs of their customers, they usually provided places to park trucks, the charpais served as a place to doze and relax after a satisfying, inexpensive meal and sometimes there would be a petrol/diesel filling station or a repair shop next door.
Cut to today- such places have all but vanished. The modern descendants of the dhaba now cater to the affluent zipping along the now modern highways in their luxury sedans and SUVs- with full air conditioning, varied menus, attached bowling alleys and other entertainment options,and so on.
So yesterday I went to an approximation of what a dhaba once was and what it ought to look like- in other words, a simulacrum. This was actually a dhaba themed rooftop restaurant, with cane furniture, thatched ceilings, hurricane lanterns with bulbs, and cheesy posters of 70's Bollywood movies adorning the walls. One side advertised a fake auto repair shop, there was a well complete with rope and steel bucket on another side, and the counter was made to resemble mud brick. The food was also great for a change- passably close to the 'real' thing and perhaps the only unrealistic aspect was the prices on the menu.
Essentially here I was in the city of Bangalore in South India- far from Punjab, the actual land of origin of such eateries-in an approximation of one drawn from the imagination of the shop owner and popular media portrayals. I've seen present day dhabas on the roads around Delhi, they're nothing like what's on show here. But it doesn't matter, because the approximation holds up well and not everyone who comes to eat there has seen the real thing.
Simulacra abound in our lives. They serve as a quick way of introducing a new culture, or portraying something that is difficult to comprehend otherwise ( a time lapse video of a flower blossoming, for instance). The flip side is that they can promote stereotypes and generalizations ('all rural people are simple and honest, all city people are bad' or 'Ethnic characters will always speak loudly and provide comic relief')
The state of Kerala is famous for tourism, beaches and traditional Ayurvedic massage therapy. This is a highly rigorous body of medicine for ailments, and other than massage it prescribes a strict regimen of food and exercise for a fixed number of days to have any benefits. However, in a bid to fleece tourists, they are brought down to the level of mundane massage parlors or spas where anyone can just sit for an hour, get a massage and move on. Traditional practitioners are indignant at this misrepresentation of their practice, but it works. Again- it's a simulacrum- a condensed capsule 'Ayurvedic massage spa' experience for the tourist in a hurry who can't afford to sit around for the several days the actual treatment would take.
On the religious front, godmen like 'Art of Living' Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, organizations like ISKCON etc try to provide a easily digestible simulation of Hinduism for Western audiences. Come to think of it, Hinduism is the ultimate simulation- the religion can be exactly how you choose to define it. Two people may consider themselves Hindu, but relate to it in entirely different ways.
Finally, this blog has been a simulacrum for me and my thoughts for a little over 5 years now ^^
- Mood:
sleepy
Almost everyone has an anecdote related to MJ from their childhood, here's mine. I used to be a latchkey kid when I was around 10-11; coming home to a locked house and then spending time till my folks got back from work in the evening. Around that time, one ritual I followed on a nearly daily basis was to put on music tapes while having lunch. Madonna. Boney-M. ABBA. And of course, MJ's Thriller. Guess which tape got the most play?
I grew up mostly listening to ABBA, Carpenters,Jim Reeves and other bands of the 70s courtesy my parents; they were not too fond of MJ's fast beats and voice, but were indulgent.
Michael Jackson was the apogee of the big record label era- Thriller is the biggest selling album of all time. His dance moves 'inspired' countless knockoff steps in Indian film songs, and even Indians who never usually listened to 'western' music would at least have heard of him, or have his album(s). I don't know why, but I'm now reminded of Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince'. He went on to dizzying success even as his personal life and health crumbled about him, entertaining millions of fans until a few years ago.
And now he's gone. There's never going to be another one remotely like him- the era of big record labels and worldwide music superstars with millions of fans is slowly giving way to directly produced indie music- lots of small bands with small but loyal fan bases.
- Mood:
morose
It's 20 years since the 'Autumn of Nations' - the dramatic time when the Berlin Wall collapsed, heralding the collapse of Communism across Europe; an event that culminated with the end of the USSR 2 years later. That was also the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, whose most epic image was of the lone student standing down a govt. tank.
Something lastingly more haunting and gruesome- is the video of a young Iranian girl who was shot through the heart by a sniper and died within seconds on camera as shown above.
The revolution in Iran has found a symbol now - one that will hopefully not be easily forgotten.
Whenever oppressive regimes rule- it is the common people who suffer always, not the ones professing these ideologies. They are the ones who, as Neda above, react with uncomprehending surprise as their life ebbs away, getting shot for no reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
As said in 1984, - 'The picture of the future is of a boot stomping on a human face- forever'.
Why am I particularly disturbed by this? Mostly because it's a case of 'people like us' facing down an oppressive regime- educated modern urban youth. It could well be here, though I hope nothing of the sort becomes necessary. Looking at them, it is easy to imagine young people in Delhi or Bombay or Bangalore rising up in protest against our callously corrupt government and being shot down in cold blood the same way. Oh yeah, we are a democratic country unlike Iran, blah blah blah. (Remember Rang de Basanti? I panned the movie as being unrealistic, after all who would shoot down unarmed college students in cold blood as was shown? Of course I was wrong).
People romanticize patriotism and dying for one's country, watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and so on. As if there's anything heroic about being killed. Nevertheless, Neda will become an unwilling martyr for the cause - ironically, she was just a bystander according to some reports and was not even involved in the protests.
- Mood:
shocked
These protests indicate that finally, the people of Iran have had enough. They would like a more liberal and democratic leadership.
Like it or not- all regimes rule with the direct or indirect sanction of the people. Even the most despotic dictator knows in his heart that if the people so desire, they can rise up and throw him out. However, it takes time. People have enormous patience, that can span generations. But inevitably there is a tipping point beyond which they will take no more and rise up. The important lesson here is- the tipping point has to come from within, and cannot be orchestrated by outsiders. This is with reference to Iraq under Saddam, and present day China. While Saddam was a dictator, he was still popular among large sections of the people, and by and large he let people get on with their lives, which they did. Perhaps at some point in the future, they would decide they'd had enough of him- but that time was not yet ripe when the US intervened with war. And well, look at what happened to Iraq, I doubt many would say they're better off now than they were pre-2003.
The same goes for China. Yes, this is the regime responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, which uses the Great Firewall of China to censor the Net and so on. But who's complaining? Not many, that's who. Dissidents get thrown into prison and no one hears of them again. The Chinese economy has been doing well, everyone has jobs and so they're happy. They could give 2 hoots about freedom or democracy...for now.
The fact that people don't rise up against bad regimes doesn't necessarily mean they're content, of course. There are socio-economic,technological and cultural factors that determine when or whether a people's revolution will take place. Coming back to Iran, it's interesting to see how Twitter is being used to usher in the revolution. Dismissed by many (including yours truly, who nevertheless does have a Twitter page) as trivial and pointless, no one could have imagined it would play the role it did and continues to do as events unfold.
Now let's take the case of India. Educated and urban Indians have often been characterized as politically apathetic- (the voter turnout in Bombay was shamefully low despite all the citizen protests after 26/11) and the real power behind the elections have been rural votebanks. So it is but natural that politicians go populist and pander to their requirements. However- slowly but surely, economic prosperity is trickling down to rural India. Communications and infrastructure are improving- perhaps in another 20 to 30 years we will see the rise of a new prosperous generation of small towners and villagers. These people would not feel the need to emigrate to the slums of Bombay/Delhi in search of work like their forebears. As this class begins to exert political consciousness- they can and will demand more of the government. And they will be in a position to do what Iran's clerics are facing today.
I can hardly wait.
- Mood:
cranky
Spam will always expand and take over any new fad or technology on the Internet.
It's a little over 30 years since the first spam message was sent, and was met with indignation over the then tiny online community. Since then, every new advance has been taken over by the spammers. First there was Usenet- an excellent distributed message board system that I feel is vastly superior to what we have now-millions of disconnected web based message boards for which you have to sign up separately. You could join any newsgroup on any topic and hold forth. In the early days of the net, when it was restricted to university campuses, most of the users were also students and academics and so the level of discussion was quite good. Posting was also anonymous- so the first spam bots began to flood Usenet- till around 99% of messages in the popular groups were spam. You can still visit the old newsgroups (rec.*, alt.*) at Google Groups, but there's very little useful information other than wading through archives from the 80s.
Then there was IRC- the grand daddy of chat systems. It still continues to be popular- but there are rogue spam bots that send you porn links as well.
Next we have email- everyone's already seen how much spam there is, and today 95% of email traffic is spam.
Then came blogs. In their footsteps came the spam comment bots- so you might suddenly find Viagra ads in the comments of your posts.
Then came 'spim'- euphemism for spam on IM networks. Google talk thankfully doesn't have this, but on Yahoo Messenger you might suddenly get messages from female sounding nicknames that are apparently dying to reveal themselves on webcam if you could only just click that link.
And now the new flavor of the season- Twitter. 'You are being followed by EnergyDrink88'. A user ID that again predictably has nothing to offer but links to other sites. To avoid such spammy stalkers, I'm forced to protect my updates. Which kind of defeats the point of Twitter (if it had one to begin with).
There's talk of the future internet being like a virtual world where you wear some sort of 3D glasses and interact with visual representations. I shudder to imagine what it will be like- African looking avatars that are hung like priapic donkeys who come waving Viagra tablets in your face while telling you how they have a million dollars waiting for you in some ex Nigerian diplomat's account? I'll pass.
In a way- this sort of thing is possible in a society that does not cringe at the thought of manual labor- and more importantly, where the cost of labor is high enough that you can actually support yourself with such a job.
What choice does one have in India? We live in a labor intensive society, where it's cheaper to hire an electrician to wire your house than do it yourself (lack of a DIY culture also means that equipment and tools are messy and not easy to do.) As a kid, my dad taught me basic electrical repair, be it changing bulbs or opening up stuff to fix loose wires. I remember the sense of accomplishment when I got an old digital clock radio to work again.
Taking the example above, of repairing bikes- in India you could take it up as a hobby, but unless you're running some sort of exclusive boutique for Harley Davidson repairs (not that there's many of those here), people won't see why they should pay you more than the pittance any other bike mechanic would make. Still, the case the author makes is good- even if you can't earn a living by doing hands on work, you should still take up some form of a craft- even as simple as gardening. Just for the sheer satisfaction of making/fixing something by hand. (I get that kind of a high when I create a piece of software, which is not too often in my current job).
- Mood:
blank
Social networking and Web 2.0 somehow snuck up upon us around 5 years ago. Today everyone blogs or tweets or updates their Facebook status, and stays up to date with RSS feeds. At least that's what one would imagine surfing random blogs. Even this one- you can see the latest pictures I clicked and music I listened to from the sidebar. Suddenly, the internet became more a place to connect with others, share similar tastes and observe trends and statistics among the most obscure of interests. This also coincided with the rise in ubiquity of internet capable smartphones- so that with a GPRS connection, you could stay wired all the time and talk about what you're doing in real time. As my friends know, I've often been guilty of doing exactly that- updating my blog while on vacation, or sending photos instantly via MMS (to the 3 people who actually have it activated on their phones :D)
RSS feeds published from each of these allow us to advertise our 'presence' in real time and invite comments and interactions from others. The bottom line here is - you are interacting with other real, live people in a much more closer way than during the previous era of the net. Back then, people just made personal home pages, and email was the only way to communicate. If you wanted discussion, you went to specific message boards, or even *sigh* Usenet. I remember the intense speculation on alt.movies.the-matrix in 2003- during the 6 month gap between Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions.
But I (as usual) digress.
From what I've read and observed-it's primarily about personal contact. Getting close to the end user/customer base, being open to feedback and taking timely action on it, blogging about what the company does- all these are a far cry from the traditional 'faceless mega corporation' stereotype, that just issues press releases and has the typical hell-desk support for interaction. It's many to many interaction of a sort, and companies are understandably flustered. Some have issued exhaustive guidelines for their employees-to avoid litigation, misinformation and primarily a consistent source of information for others.
The future, and everchanging present, are increasingly about human interactions. At the end of the day that's a lot more personal than mass mails and flyers.
Ok, I better stop before I end up sounding too much like Seth Godin!
- Mood: thoughtful
- Music:Depeche Mode - 2005-Playing the angel -01 - A pain that I'm used to
So, rexzilla, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 0% unique, 9% peculiar, 37% interesting, 26% normal and 28% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy techno). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are wary of trusting strangers. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.
Your overall weirdness is: 16
(The average level of weirdness is: 29.
You are weirder than 32% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is!
- Mood:
blah
Who hasn't heard the above line from their parents/elders at some point in their lives? It is the most meaningless statement anyone could make, and increasingly so(when said in an admonishing manner). Change is the sole constant in life, and the pace of change is accelerating so fast we can see it happen year on year, to say nothing of generation wise. Our generation (Late Gen X/ early Gen Y for those who love such labels) is the one that has seen maximum change in our short lives- we can still remember when there were no mobile phones or internet, when the USSR seemed invincible, 9/11 and other events.
Here are some samples of what usually comes after the above statement:
"...No one went out dressed like this!" - Sure, and when YOUR parents said the same thing to you, India was under British rule, women were not allowed to step outdoors unveiled or unaccompanied and so on. Times and fashions change.
"..we didn't have any (TV/radio/internet/other modern day convenience) and we made do with what we had!"- You also did not have vaccinations or instant communications, running electricity and infrastructure (which still has room to improve) and a million other things we take for granted today. In fact, rewind this in time as far as you can, and I'm sure you'll encounter a Neanderthal parent telling their kids how no one knew what fire was when they were kids, so learn to bear the cold.
"...<common item> used to cost only <a triflingly small amount>!" Yup, and your monthly salary from back then wouldn't cover the price of one cocktail at a bar today. It's called inflation.
Perhaps it's an expression of a human trait- a longing for the 'good old times' when everything was familiar and under control. People from older generations are bewildered at the pace of change today, and many of the things we do would seem incomprehensible to them. Hopefully this will not happen in future- as us and the children of today and tomorrow are born into a rapidly changing world and are perhaps better equipped to deal with it right from an early age. I've caught myself a couple of times starting to say the same to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
moopflower, but I stopped myself in time. It simply does not make sense.
But just as well, imagine conversations with the teenagers of tomorrow:
"An Apple iThink implant to share your thoughts instantly with your friends? Why, when I was your age we used to use Twitter and Facebook to keep our friends up to date!"
"But Mom, going to Goa and getting stoned on the beach is so 2000s! Let's book a holiday at that orbital space resort!"
"No I don't care if all your friends are getting them, but I'm not paying for a MegaBoobTM genetic upgrade, young lady! Go get a nipple piercing like the rebels in my day used to !"
- Mood:
pleased
1996. Me. Fresh out of school, and in college. One day, at a friends' place, I see this utterly kick ass first person shooter with fantastic graphics for the time. And the main character is a wisecracking, bubble gum chewing, politically incorrect badass, who finds time to party with strippers in between kicking massive quantities of alien butt. That was Duke Nukem 3D, a game that to this day remains an all time favorite. A little afterward, the creator, 3D Realms announced an upcoming sequel, Duke Nukem Forever, which would set the standard for graphics and gameplay. Soon it was 2001. A few screenshots were released, apparently the game was almost there..
And that was that.
By this time, we had already seen Unreal, Unreal Tournament and all its sequels, Quake 3 and Half-Life 1 and 2.
Time passed, and DNF set the gold standard for vaporware- winning Wired.com's annual Vaporware awards every year since then. It became a standing joke on the net- that it would be released with Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy as the soundtrack. Guess what? GNR delivered their much delayed album last year!!
And then comes the news that 3D Realms is shutting down due to funding being cut off. So DNF will retain the title of greatest vaporware of all time. Rather sad, considering how much potential the character had, and what could have come of it if not for shitty management.
They simply don't make em like they used to. Whether Duke or Shadow Warrior, another character created by them, both were known for their wise cracks, political incorrectness and digs and homages to pop culture. In Duke 3D for example, there's a map that's laid out like Mission Impossible, where you have to crawl through the shafts like Tom Cruise and avoid touching the floor. Another place has a secret area with an Indiana Jones reference, another one pokes fun at the contemporary rival game, Doom. I've written about this long before, but what I said still holds. Today's games are all about graphics and very little character development- or, they take themselves too seriously.
The original Duke 3D's source code was released long ago- and now there are updated versions available on the net with better graphics and textures. So it will at least live on for nostalgic old gamers like yours truly :(
- Mood: gloomy
- Music:Megadeth - Duke Nukem: Music To Score By -01 - Duke Nukem Theme
From an evolutionary perspective- survival of the fittest and propagation of ones' genes is the prime objective of every living species, humans included. A man who has sex with multiple women is doing just that- spreading his genes around and maximizing his chances at propagating his genetic line through offspring. Hence the kings and emperors of the past had enormous royal harems guarded by eunuchs to ensure that no one but the king got to the concubines. Genghis Khan, for example, had hundreds of them-mostly as a result of conquest- and a sizable part of present day Europe can trace its ancestry to him.
On the other hand- Cleopatra, the powerful Ptolemaic queen- just took to Caesar and Mark Antony- both powerful and influential men, and had children by the latter. Again when it comes to ensuring survival- a woman would pick a partner who was able bodied, capable of providing for her (and offspring) before deciding to mate with him. Since she's the one who has to bear the brunt of pregnancy,childbirth and child rearing, she's got to be careful about who she picks.
When a women has had multiple partners and gets pregnant by one of them- it becomes hard to determine paternity (before the advent of DNA tests anyway)- and she is being/has been careless in selecting her partner. This might lead to the propagation of undesirable traits- which does no good for the future of the species- and so she is ostracized.
You see similar behavior in other species as well- weaker members of the group are shunned, denied reproductive rights or even outright killed. And among social animals that organize into herds or packs, the leader of the group is naturally the dominant male (or female)- and when they meet another similar group they square off and fight to see which one wins.
5000 years of human civilization has spread a thin veneer of social behavior and norms over naked Darwinian impulses and tactics. You can appreciate how thin this veneer is, when you see that the dawn of human evolution was around 5 million years ago- and much before we arrived on the scene, the various species that came and went before us already were behaving in this way. This is of course a pretty unconventional viewpoint, and taken further one can even come to even more controversial conclusions. For example, from an evolutionary angle, rape is a good thing because it helps to propagate aggressive genes that would help one to survive better (in the prehistoric savanna, maybe; not so in a modern setting).
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if civilization were to collapse- due to global warming, asteroid impact or plain old fashioned nuclear warfare. Would we lose all our civilized checks and balances and revert to the primeval state of survival of the fittest dictated by our genes?
- Mood:
groggy
Being a kid there, I was subject to the mandatory cheek pulling and 'what are u gonna be when u grow up' among other questions. (A software geek turned MBA that reverted to software geekness- who would've guessed back then!!). My dad would solemnly introduce each person that came over with an 'Uncle' suffix ('Say good morning to Saxena Uncle!' or 'Do you remember Chacko Uncle from last time?') and I would solemnly greet them to much amusement (incomprehensible to me of course) .
( Read about the prank! )
There's a certain musty aroma of mold and damp, produced by fossilization of files piled up over time. It permeates the whole place, and is nicely aided along by the big coolers groaning away as they circulate humid air around. I thought it practically defined my dad's office- until the time he took me 3 floors up (via a creaky and small Otis lift, I loved pushing the squishy buttons on it that took effort to depress, unlike the smooth ones today).
There was a red carpeted corridor ending in a big polished wooden door. Another peon sat outside it-but dressed in livery like the guys who open your car door at The Taj or similar places. A huge Lloyd's air conditioner jutted out of the wall, noisily blasting hot air down the corridor. "That's The Chairman's room", my dad said reverently. I gave him a look as much to say "So?", and then he went on to tell me that he had an Air Conditioner and a Private Office, and he was the Big Boss!!
Looking back, I can see what a big deal air conditioning really was in those days. Strictly a luxury item, a regular window AC cost a huge amount of money to own and operate, and was the ultimate status symbol for some. I would experience it when we went traveling south by train on the concessional tickets handed out every 2 years to govt. employees.
Many years later- when I was almost done with school- the office shifted to bigger and more modern premises-and that time when I went visiting the same bunch of colleagues were there this time, much older now, and gaping at how tall I'd grown. They actually had started getting desktop PCs- but many still considered them as glorified typewriters and preferred their secretaries or assistants to type out stuff.
Fast forward another 4 years, and I was entering my first job after graduation. I can still hear him asking on the first day,"So your office is fully air-conditioned? And you have coffee machines there? Wow, what a start!"
- Mood: nostalgic
- Music:ABBA - ABBA - Take a chance on me
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Here you can see my good old watch. This has adorned my wrist for the better part of a decade now, and it shows. I must've changed its batteries at least half a dozen times till now. All was fine until a splash it received during my recent trip to Goa- disproving the 'water resistant to 50m' written boldly across the face. Then again, it's old, and has been opened so many times that probably the seals lost their sanctity years ago. I still remember the circumstances when I got it, way back during 3rd year of college.
I had been mugged, for the first and hopefully the last time in my life. I was walking down the street to the eatery where I and my room mates had dinner usually, and these 4 guys casually surrounded me, on the pretext of asking for directions. Next moment, they've pulled out enormous cleavers, the kind butchers use to chop up goats, and given me the universal equivalent of 'hand it all over or else..'. So they made off with my last hundred bucks- and the watch I was wearing at the time- a fully digital Timex. Leaving me totally shaken for a moment, after which I ran to the eatery and told the owner. He and his 2 assistants took off in pursuit, but the crooks had escaped.
Turns out our landlord (who stayed in the house opposite) was the local municipal councilor. He immediately placed a few calls, to see if any of his goons were involved!!
The next day I'm asked to go to the police station and identify the perps. And this isn't like what they show on US TV shows/films, where you see them from behind a 1 way glass screen. I have to go up to the cells so that they can get a good look at me and know who fingered them. Besides I could hardly remember their faces, it being a dark street whose sodium vapor lamps had conveniently not been working that evening.
So I quailed and turned down the offer.
"No praablem saar," the potbellied cop grins. "You just say it's one of them, we will beat the shi..er..truth out of him."
"But I just want my stuff back! What's the use of beating up a fellow who's innocent of this?"
"You just tell me wonce, saar..."
"Erm..I'll pass. Kthxbye."
So it was that my dad got me the current watch, when he came visiting around a month or so later. And I continue to use the same watch to this day- it has been a constant companion through day and night, summer/winter, rain/shine....and sea water. Of course it's indefatigable, and a battery change later, continues to chug along.
I view watches in a strictly utilitarian sense- time, alarms and a nice backlight. And of course, I'm quite attached to this wristpiece ^^
- Mood: nostalgic
What I'm about to say is of course rapidly changing, given the economic meltdown of 2008-09, but this is more an observation of an ongoing trend over the last decade or so.
Our(the Indian, that is) education system pretty much is geared towards setting up for a 9 to 5er in large (preferably IT) company. Right from early days of school, one is exhorted to focus on 'serious' subjects like maths and science, the ticket to the engineering/medicine careers of choice. Now there's more variety- thanks to the craze for doing an MBA. Those who did/would not join engineering courses opt for B.A./B.Sc courses- but at the end of it all they still take the CAT and head off in hordes to do an MBA. Every March/April, the news media is abuzz with the latest juice on campus placements in B-schools (this year will of course be bad). Fast forward to the mid 20s (age wise) and we see everyone dutifully ensconced in a regular job. Which again- determines your position in the Great Indian Arranged Marriage market.
Either you're a software type with a H1 visa for the US, or a hotshot MBA grad with a job in retail or finance or advertising or what have you.
Art for art's sake, takes a back seat. How many of us saw classmates in school curse at the arty subjects- History, Geography, Economics, Political science? How many people actually went on to pursue careers in these fields even after taking them on as their major subject during graduation?
I find it rather sad that despite having a rich culture and diversity unparalleled in the world, there seems to be no appreciation for beauty, aesthetics, art and culture around. How can there be, if everything is viewed through the prism of suitability for employment?
Some people are exposed to music or dance lessons in their childhood- this is quite common in south Indian households. Such children will at least grow up with an appreciation for classical music/dance compared to their peers, even if they don't wind up pursuing that as a career.
Art is essential for society. In the old days, royalty and nobles were patrons of art, today it has to be the general public. Not everything can be viewed through the filter of 'usefulness' and practicality. A sense of aesthetics and an appreciation for beauty and taste for their own sake will manifest themselves in different ways. Art often portrays ideals. Think of the beautiful Rennaisance era sculptures and murals of Michelangelo, the sweeping music of Beethoven's 5th, or the moonlit vista of the Taj Mahal- each of these tug at the heartstrings and call to something joyous and amazing within us. These are like an ode to the human spirit - to make something beautiful and eternal that outlives the creator and inspires future generations for millenia. Pity to sell it short because it's not 'practical'.
- Mood:
giddy
Before I know it, I've plunked down the cash and headed home with my newly found thingy, deo be damned:
( Take a look )
I can totally sympathize now with women who go on buying shoes. I mean, look at this. I already have one of these. In black. It was gifted to me along with shaving foam and aftershave by the same company (gift pack) for my birthday at my first job. (Ah, the heady .com era). It is a solid bar of steel with rubberized grips. Over the last 8 years, countless Mach 3 blades have been attached to it. It will easily last a million years.
And yet I go and get another one exactly like it. Just. Because. It's. RED.
I don't care. I just spent 200 bucks on something just cause IZ TEH SHINY!!! Thank heaven I'm not always this impulsive at shopping for stuff :D
It's no coincidence that red and black are my favorite colors. My car (bless it) is red. I wore a red tee while in Goa last week. Something about #FF0000 that totally hits the reptilian brain and forces a reaction that is beyond logic and rational thinking. And don't marketers know that.
- Mood:
bouncy - Music:Epica - 2003-The Phantom Agony -07 - Run for a Fall
I'm downloading an obscure Russian movie as I write this. It's racing in at around 120 KBps- and there is exactly one person sharing the movie. The entire speed I am getting is thanks to him- and his IP indicates he's from Finland. Hopefully if he sticks around it should be done in another hour.
Sharing stuff is what keeps P2P alive. Napster, then Kazaa and now Bittorrent are possible only because people out there are sharing their song/movie collections!! If everyone only leeched and did not share, these networks would implode overnight more effectively than in the wildest fevered dreams of every RIAA/MPAA executive. Whereas I've seen people around me, both at college and later- who absolutely refuse to share. Even if they've got unlimited usage plans,they'll either throttle back the upload speed to a joke- something like 5 or 10KBps- or they'll disable uploads altogether.
Earlier there was little you could do to prevent people from leeching. Thankfully now with private trackers on Bittorrent, your upload/download ratio can be determined- and if you don't share you get booted out of the community.
There used to be people in college hostel- who would watch as a download completed- then instantly remove it from the queue. So far if there's any Indian content on the net- it's probably coming from NRIs. The people sitting here still haven't graduated to learning to share stuff >.<
- Mood: amused
- Music:Bahramji & Maneesh De Moor - 2006-Siddharta- Spirit Of Buddha Bar, Vol- 3 (2006) -01 - Dreamcatcher
So well, one goes and has a kid. What next? The following 2 years you spend changing diapers and being kept up late night by the caterwauling, sex and intimacy with the spouse becomes a distant memory. Next, the frenzy of school admissions. The kid grows up somehow, another product of the consumer generation- hooked onto Cartoon network and throwing tantrums at not getting wat he wants. Then come the great teenage years. Heaven knows what society will be like in the 2020s- when the kids born today enter their teens. And well, don't forget mounting expenses, the unenviable task of 'work-life balance', the danger of how horribly astray your kids can go if you don't give them enough attention. Oh and yeah, THEIR college education/marriage etc. By the time they're finally gone off to college or gotten married or whatever, it's empty nest syndrome time. The first time in over 20 years, you get to actually look at your spouse and spend some quality time together. By then both of you are in your 50s at the minimum.
So why wait that long? What's the big biological imperative to have kids? No one has ever managed to give me a straight answer to that. The human race is not going away anytime soon, if anything we're overcrowding the planet. I and most people are not scions of royal families or bigshot industrial dynasties who need to prolong the family line out of tradtion or for bequeathing ones' wealth.
I get stupid arguments like 'what if your parents decided against having you' (They didn't ask me before having me either did they!!). Or, 'you will come to know when you have them'. Oh puh-leaze. All I see kids as are as utter nuisances, ill behaved brats (my cousins' daughter is a prime example, her shrieks would shatter glass at 50 paces if anyone dared ignore her stupid antics for a moment) . Can you ever imagine having a quiet evening with your significant other when there's a Calvinesque demon in teh household on the loose? (Calvin is a totally spoilt brat, his smartass intelligence not wiithstanding. I pity his parents). I've been to movie theatres where parents insist on bringing their bawling crotch fruit along for the show, and you're supposed to put up with the howling because that's what they do? Who asked you to bring em to a movie?
So the choice is between sending your social life for a swim with cement overshoes and lugging your so called pride and joy to every place you go to, causing a disturbance to whoever else is there. It's easy to see what people pick.
There's one other thing. When it comes to reproductive freedom, the dice are heavily loaded against men. Women have a variety of choice in contraceptive methods- the pill, IUDs, patches, female condoms. Men have exactly one- the standard condom. And those can also be easily sabotaged with a pin, if a partner is determined to have a baby. To me- there can be nothing worse than forced parenthood. What is one to do when the other announces her pregnancy and insists on seeing it through? Ones' sense of decency means there's nothing that can be done further, and one is resigned to becoming a parent and shouldering the burdens that go with it.
The 'joys' of seeing your kid learn to walk and talk? I'll pass. All those stages are transient anyway. Before you know it, your doting toddler has grown into a sulky teenager with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
However, there's hope for people like me. Permanent DINKs are gaining ground even in India, and there are quite a few childless couples (as in, who've chosen to remain childless and not that they can't have kids for medical reasons) who find ways to spend time, following their interests, volunteering for NGOs or just enjoying life together, going on vacations etc.
Gimme something like that anyday. To single and available female readers of this blog - if you don't think you need children to 'complete' you, drop me a line ^^
Update: Why do I get the sinking feeling that all of the above will amount to nothing in a few years time? u_u
1700: Taking a dump
1705: Still taking a dump.
1710: Aah! It's over. Should'nt have eaten at that Mexican place..
1800: Bah! my friend hasn't yet showed up and she's late!!
...and so on. Meaningless, de-contextualized 'updates'. Perhaps it would work if all of us were running around, going places and parties and tweeting away to glory, via SMS on our phones or something. But if you have something to say, why not just blog about it? After Twitter, a lot of me too services stated, one of em being Jaiku. And then suddenly last year, the (American) blogosphere discovered it and began to hail it like the second coming of Jesus.
Let's look at the nature of 'tweets'. Firstly I refuse to believe that you can really have 20 things to say to others that might be relevant to them- when it largely concerns YOUR day, and the information is in bite sized chunks. A regular sized blog post might at least give you time to provide an insight or an observation about whatever event happened, there's nothing like that here.
3 months ago,
sashdude pesters me to start tweeting. Whither are all the tweets now, pray tell? >.<Let's face it, most of us lead rather dull lives. We go to our desk jobs and return, and aside from going someplace separately, there's no minute by minute excitement happening in a day that has to be updated live.
I shudder to think what the future will bring. The day they invent live streaming video from your eyeballs, everyone will wind up unwitting voyeurs into each others lives. It also sets the stage for an impromptu infinite loop. Two people with said technology in their eyeballs watching each other on a computer screen. Results would be fun.
- Mood: annoyed
- Music:Aria - 1999-Buddha's Dinner -08 - Un Bel Di
