No wonder the China growth engine is firing on all cylinders.

Each kid has a different taste when it comes to toys. Some, like my sister's son Dan, are just scared of anything that moves or makes a sound. He starts howling on seeing/hearing such toys - ofcourse he is only 9 months old.

With my son, toys are for throwing around, resulting in them breaking. Whether it is a toy car or a doll, all he wants to do is throw them hard. It is always tough to decide what to buy for him, since I could not gauge what he likes. And that is when I saw his fascination for phones. Both the cellphone and the landphone were his favourites. He would play with them and even keep them to his ears and act as if he were talking to someone.

I was glad that I could find something that interests him. Plus, given that real cellphones are not safe for kids (even adults) due to the radiation and giving him the landphone to play with would result in it being not fit for use, I decided to shop for some toy phones for him. Basically something that looked like the original thing, with some lights and sounds to keep him interested.
That is how I decided to check out "Mera Toy Shop", which can be called a scaled-down version (in terms of size and variety) of "Toys R Us" for some toy phones. My plan was to get a cellphone and a landphone toy for him and I was expecting a total damage of max. Rs500 to the wallet.

I walk into the shop, ask the salesgirl where the toy phone section is and check out the models available. First the landphone toys, which are really well made, look bright and basically a good toy for kids. I forget whether it was a Mattel or FunSkool brand. Anyway, I like the toy, but the shocker comes in the form of the price, which is like Rs.1300.

Rs1300 for a toyphone ? The one in my apartment installed by the Telephones Department should be available for less than 1000 bucks!!! I am not sure if it is a good idea to spend so much for a toyphone. So I move to look for cellphones. Again some decent models are available, with the only problem being again the price, which is like Rs.1500. The Motorola cellphone I use cost me only Rs.2700 and it is a real phone, not a toy.

I told this to a friend and she was like, "Why do you count pennies when it comes to toys for your kid ? Those are good toys from renowned companies and will last a lifetime and more. Go get them". Well, I do love my son and while I would spare no expense when it comes to his basic necessities, I cannot bring myself to spend such money for a toy, which he will in all probability outgrow in a few months. Which is if he has already not broken it by throwing it at the wall.

Anyway, I walk out without buying the toys, though I am also feeling guilty that I did not buy the one toy that my son seemed to be interested in. I tell this to my wife and she says that she will try in Kerala at a baby toy shop where she has noticed that stuff (same or similar type) is much cheaper than at Chennai. And true to her word, she goes and gets this toy cellphone for our son.


It plays many of the current favourite Hindi movie songs, some other music, has lights and also has a normal phone ringing sound with a girl saying 'Hello'. Basically my kid just loves the phone. Ofcourse this did not prevent him from throwing it at the wall, breaking a few keys, but still it works.

Any idea how much she paid for this phone, which is made in China (where else) ? See the snap below showing the price tag.


The cellphone cost the princely sum of Rs.15, which at today's currency rates, is less than 1/3rd of a dollar. Assuming, the seller keeps a margin of Rs.3-5 on this phone, and the manufacturer keeps a margin of Rs.1-2, the total manufacturing cost comes to Rs.8-11. Man, how can you make something like this for so low ?

I was discussing this with my Dad and he said, "For Rs.11, you can't get a guy in Kerala to even move the phone physically a few metres." Given the functionality it has, the batteries that came with it, the plastic casing, speaker and other wiring etc, I cannot for the hell of me figure out how someone can make a product so cheap. Agreed that labour is cheap in China. Still how is this possible ?

Is it then any wonder that the world is getting flooded with everything Chinese ? Even during my US trip 3 years ago, most of the products on store shelves had "Made in China" on them. Heck, the ultimate symbol of patriotism which is evident everywhere - the national flag of USA itself is imported from China. Do we need to say anything more ?

Who else but a Government organisation would be so dumb to snub regular customers ?

Assume you are running a brick-n-mortar business selling some product/service. And doing pretty good too because you happen to be a monopoly, being the only company doing that business in the whole country. People flock to you to buy the product and wait hours in the queue to avail the service.

Being a monopoly and given that the possibility of competition emerging in the near future is nil, you can afford to continue as-is, without bothering about spending time/effort/money to make life easier for your customers. But some forward-thinking guys working in your organisation take the effort to bring your business online, so that customers can avail your service from home, work or practically anywhere in the world, requiring only a PC and internet connection.

As expected, this becomes a hit with the customers as they do not need to spend long hours standing in queues. And inspite of the extra Rs.10 charged by you, this option makes lots of sense for them in terms of time and effort saved. The service is zero-risk for your organisation also because payment is either via Debit or Credit cards.

Now, if this were a logically thinking progressive organisation, they would come up with loyalty plans for customers who use this service a lot. Maybe in the form of points for every purchase, which could be redeemed for some gifts or so. Ofcourse, being a monopoly, there really is no need to have programmes for loyalty because the customer does not have any other option than your organisation.

So, even if we assume that you don't provide any frequent-user programmes, will you dissuade a user from making as many purchases as he or she deems fit and requires ? I am 100% sure that no organisation led by level-headed people would even think this way. But then government organisations are a breed apart. No wonder they are bloated with personnel and low on efficiency, which finally leads to their ending in the red.

Being a very frequent traveller with the Indian Railways, I was excited when they setup online ticket booking/reservation. No more going to the booking office and standing in line for hours to book a ticket. I could book my tickets in minutes from home / work. However, I was in for a shock today, when I tried to book a ticket on their site. The error message I got was :

Note : You are Permitted only 10 transactions per month, and you have exhausted them. Please use other services.

Basically, since I booked 10 tickets this month, I cannot book any more. How dumb can the guy be who came up with this restriction ? I am paying money to book tickets for my travel requirement, which is legitimate in all ways you look at it. But somehow some bird-brain decided that the limit should be pegged at 10 tickets a month. Instead of trying to come up with ideas that increase revenue, they want to reduce sales.

Ofcourse, there is no such restriction for those that book tickets at the booking counters - they can book as many tickets as they want. And also lest someone wonders whether this is to prevent black-marketing of tickets, that also cannot be the reason because while booking tickets you need to give your ID details and the same ID would be verified when you travel. So, it is not like I can book a ticket and sell it to someone at a premium.

So, what do I do when faced with such a stupid stumbling block ? Since I really need to book that ticket and can't wait till the month of November rolls in, I just open a new online booking a/c in my wife's name and go book the tickets.

I don't expect them to reward me for being a frequent traveller. But is it too much to expect them to not create unnecessary stumbling blocks ? But does this surprise me ? Naah, government enterprises are capable of much more stupidity and customer-unfriendly behaviour.

The biggest animal on earth. And some old time memories.

We were driving back home after a visit to my sister's home, when I chance upon this temple procession on the road, with 4 elephants part of it. Which is not really an uncommon sight in Kerala, given that most temples have elephants and so you could see them sauntering on the streets, while being led to the nearby river by the mahouts for their daily bath.

But somehow since my son was born, I never have seen elephants on our streets. Usually you could hear them long away, by the bell around their neck and the rattling of the huge chains around their legs. And hearing the racket, people would come out onto the streets to have a look at the majestic animal walking leisurely on the road. Infact there is a popular saying in Tamil - "Yaanai varum pinnai, mani-osai varum munnai" which translates to "While the elephant comes behind, the sound of its bell precedes it".

Usually, I like to introduce my son to the various animals and birds around us and he now knows the crow, hens, pigeons, goat, cow, cat, dog etc. But an elephant would surely be a sight to behold - I would love to see his eyes widening as he takes in the big animal. So, I think of parking the car on the side of the road and taking him near the elephant. But my idea is quickly vetoed by my wife who feels that it is not a good idea to wake the kid up from his sleep. I agree and decide to later take him one day to the nearby temple so that he can see an elephant.

Aah, the pleasures of being from Kerala. Who needs NatGeo or Discovery or even the nearest zoo, when wildlife is all around you ? As we move on, leaving the elephants and the procession far behind us, my Dad goes back to his childhood days :

Dad : When I was a small kid, in school they asked us to write down the name of the largest animal and I wrote down "cat".
All of us : Cat ? Why would you think a cat is the biggest animal ?

Dad : Well, we did'nt have the kind of exposure that kids of today's generation or even your
generation had. Also, then we were living across the river, in a sort of island, waterlocked on all 4 sides. The bridges you see now, did not exist.
My wife : Agree to the exposure part and about being on an island. But you surely had cows, goats, dogs etc in the neighborhood and they surely are bigger than cats. Then why did you name a cat ?

Dad : True - we had all these animals around. But I don't remember why I named a cat of all the animals. I was too small, and somehow that was the answer that came to mind.

I don't know what my Mom and wife were thinking, but my mind immediately tried to imagine those times - no electricity, water all around, landlocked place etc. That was where I was born, though in a few years my grandparents moved across the river, to where we live now. We had a small piece of land there, where the old house used to stand, where my Dad was born and grew up. It was kind of sentimental for me and I hoped we would retain it, but some of our relatives made my grandparents gift it to them, citing some emotional reasons. Anyway...

Dad brought me back to the present by saying, "And do you know what your Grandpa did when he saw the notebook with the wrong answer written by me ?"

Me ; What did he do ?
Dad : He promptly took me to the nearest place where an elephant was available (must be
some temple) and showed me the elephant. Letting me know which was the biggest animal.

Why am I not surprised by what my Grandpa did ? Exactly what I would expect him to do. Teach by example, instead of rote. He could have corrected my Dad and said that, "You are wrong. The elephant is the biggest animal on earth." But he chose to actually show him the biggest animal, since seeing is believing.

The longest time I spent with my Grandpa was during my 2 years of schooling in Kerala. He had by then had had a paralytic stroke which rendered one symmetric half of his body pretty much useless and also had weak eyesight. But he still kept himself active. I learnt quite a lot from him during those 2 years and things which I still hold on to.

The blog-writing I do, can be attributed to him. He was an avid diary-writer & even today we have his diaries extending back to 3-4 decades ago in which he has noted down various events like my birth and that of my sisters, my Dad's career & important events in life etc. I started off with diary writing and then stopped that to have it online on a blog.

He also practiced what he preached and had a set of principles by which he lived. Charity was an important part of his life. Most of the day, he would be reclining on the easy-chair which was placed close to the main door from where he could see as far as the main gate. He had a bowl kept within reach with coins in it to give to anyone coming for alms.

And another of his principles that I follow religiously is "Everything has a place for it. If you take something from somewhere in my home, ensure that you return it to that place. This will help the next person looking for it find it easily." Somehow my Dad did not get this practice of his Dad's and occasionally would be at the receiving end of my Grandpa's rebuke for not replacing stuff at their set location.

And one of his quotes that I still vividly remember is, "Do not ever lend anyone your pen, spectacles & footwear. These 3 are personal objects and only for one's own use." In today's world, I guess we can add "cellphone" to the list. I ofcourse promptly modified the adage to include bike/car in the list of items that one should not lend to anyone.

He was also religious, but not a blind follower. I remember him debating the finer points of the Bible with preachers/priests and in some cases even recall them leaving unable to answer his questions.

Did he have any vices ? Sure he did - he was no saint. Smoking was one. Even to his last days, he used to smoke. Also I have heard from my Grandma about how when he was younger and abler, he used to like his few glasses of toddy and would occasionally take me along to the toddy-shop on his bicycle when I was a small kid. Somehow, my Dad turned out to be a teetotaller, while I smoke and also like my occasional drink. Looks like the vices skip a generation in our family, which I hope is true because then my son would be a teetotaller.

Another vice, if I can call it that, was his buying lottery tickets. He was convinced that he will hit the jackpot one day and would buy the weekly tickets without fail. On very rare occasions he did win some small money, but nothing even remotely close to the jackpot. But he never stopped buying lottery tickets. On the train to Kerala, there is always this guy selling lottery tickets and whenever he comes around, I am reminded of my Grandpa and even wonder if I should try my hand at it.

What if I hit the jackpot ? For all of Rs10, I could end up winning Rs.10 million, which after-tax would work out to some Rs6.5 million. Still not a bad sum to retire early to Kerala. You know what ? I think I will give it a try next time. And if you don't see me updating the blog, you can be sure that I am somewhere in Kerala, enjoying the moolah and having fun in the backwaters.

The girl with a strange way of expressing how she misses people.

Yesterday evening I was at the station to catch the train to Chennai after a 3-day weekend. As is the normal practice, my parents, wife & son had come to see me off and we are all talking on Platform-1. The train's arrival was announced and since it would be coming on Platform-2, I move to that platform.

A distance of some 10-metres (and 2 railtracks) separate the 2 platforms. Earlier my son would not even recognise me once I moved to the other platform. But as he grows older, he sort of understands that I am going away and this time he tries to jump towards where I am standing, from my wife's arms. He wants the 4 of us (me, his mom and my parents) to be always near him and even if one of us moves away, ever so briefly, he starts bawling.

Anyway, the train arrives and I get on. There is a brief 1-2 minute wait before it will leave. So, I stand near the door of the train looking at my folks and saying goodbye. And that is when I see a girl (actually woman - mother of 2 kids now) talking with my parents. Even though she has changed quite a bit since the time I last saw her (13 years ago), I recognize her as a friend of my sister's.

Actually, they met each other due to taking the same train to college and over time became
thick friends and she has come home many-a-time too. My parents know her well too and so they catch up with news on each other. There have been many friends of my sister's who have come home and whom I have met, but I am not sure I would be able to remember most of them. But the moment I saw this girl, I could recollect her immediately, due to two reasons.

First being her strange way of letting others know that she is missing them at that particular moment of time. In the mid-nineties, when there were no cellphones and even a landline was a big deal, when I was home on vacation, occasionally I would hear the phone ringing. If no one was around to take the call, I would abandon what I was doing and rush to the phone. But many a time, I saw that by the time I reached the phone (say after 3-4 rings), the phone would go silent.

When this happened repeatedly, it would irritate me no end. But we did not have Caller Line Identification on the phone and there was no way to track the caller. Sometimes after this routine has happened a few times, I would wait near the phone to pick it up on the first ring, but mysteriously there won't be any calls at that time. This happened occasionally and even though irritated, I did not give it much thought.

Then I happened to mention this to people at home and my sister revealed the mystery behind the caller. She said that it was a friend of hers who has this habit of giving missed calls to the person she was thinking of at that time and whom she missed. So, this was her way of telling my sis that she was missing her. But, problem was my sis usually would not be at home when this girl missed her and used her unusual way to convey this to her. Instead, it really ended up irritating me. Anyway, after I came to know of this, I stopped rushing to the phone and if it rang briefly for a few times, I would just ignore it.

This was what struck me immediately after I saw the girl, helping me identify her. Ofcourse it also helped that she had complimented me (not directly, but via my sister) and like anyone else, I do not easily forget people who compliment any attribute of mine.

As the train left the station, I waved to her too and was wondering whether she still uses her missed-call technique of letting those she misses know about it. Must be much easier to do it
today with cellphones than with the landlines of old times.

And the last bastian falls. Where do we go now for a weekend get-together ?

In the last post about WTPT (and maybe other earlier posts too), I had mentioned about the Friday night get-togethers that me and a group of automobile-crazy friends have, over food, drinks etc. Gotta mention one peculiar thing about this crowd - we all met over the internet.
Yes, all of us Chennai-ites, but it took the internet for us to meet and become friends. And
the medium that helped us was www.team-bhp.com, inarguably the best automobile forum
in Indian webspace.

While I am an infrequent visitor to these weekend meets due to my travelling to Kerala on almost all weekends (I need to catch the 8PM train to Kerala on Fridays), the rest of the
gang have been religiously meeting almost all Fridays.

Except for a few weekends when we got together at the home of 2 of the married members(when their family was away ie.), the rest of the weekend meets were always at the home of
one of the bachelor guys in the group. He has a nice cosy pad on R.K.Salai (salai being Tamil
for road) . This guy is a nice, friendly chap, with extra-ordinary knowledge in automobiles
and pursues both racing and off-roading with equal interest. Usually people are attracted
to only one of these - I love racing, but don't really find it fun to take a Jeep and navigate a
rocky river bed (he does the annual Palar challenge and also won this year) or to go through knee-deep slush.

Anyway, we have had quite some nice weekend meets at his place, with some nice music
playing on the car-stereo setup he has in the drawing room. Till recently, we used to use
the drawing room, because one of the rooms was full of automobile stuff - a seat from one
car, an LPG tank from another, set of racing wheels, etc etc. But after he disposed off all
of it, that room became our venue.

However, like anything else, all good things have to come to an end. And so was it with this arrangement too, because our guy got married last week and no woman is going to be ok
with a bunch of guys having a party in her home. We are on the lookout for alternatives,
but yet to zero in on one, which meets our needs - has to be inexpensive, should allow us to talk/argue/shout and should be ok for a sub-10 crowd.

One option that looks like a fit would be the bar of the Hotel President, again on R.K.Salai.
Would surely be much more expensive than our "R.K.Salai bar" as we used to call his pad. :-)
Thanks for the nice time at your place, man. It was great while it lasted.

Google-dependence and the mystery behind WTPT.

There are some appliances / applications that are so helpful that over time, we just end up relying completely on them. For eg. the cellphone. Before it came into our lives, I had atleast
10 phone numbers committed to my memory. Today, all I can remember is the landline numbers of my parents, inlaws, sister and ofcourse my own Chennai number.

It is tougher with the 10-digit mobile phone numbers. The only mobile number I can reel off from memory is mine. If someone asks my wife's cell number or my Dad's, I would be clueless. Once I reached Kerala by train and needed to call my wife to ask her to come pick me up from the station. But since my cellphone battery had lost its full charge, I had no way of knowing
her number to call her.

Had to then call her parents (who were surprised to know that I did not know my wife's phone
number) and get her number from them. Ofcourse, they also did not have it committed to memory - they got it from the address book. :-)

Similiar is the experience of most netizens with Google. You want to know about something,
the first thing to do is google it. See, it became a verb too. Just like "xerox it" is used liberally
in India (not sure if it is used in other parts of the world also).

So, when my friend called to tell me that our common friend's wedding reception would be at
the Tag Centre in Chennai, the first thing to cross my mind was to google the place to locate where it is situated in Chennai. As if reading my mind, my friend said, "I have no idea where
this place is. Will ask around. And I am sure you are already googling it as we speak". :-)

My googling-mania became a kind of a running joke with my auto-forum mates after I
googled WTPT. I am not sure about you guys/gals, but when I first heard this acronym,
I had no idea what it meant. Ofcourse, I tried to challenge my mind by thinking what it
would be representing, but failed to find a logical expansion for it, given the context in
which it was made.

It was a Friday evening a year or so ago and I get the following message from one of my
auto-forum guys : WTPT ?

Just 4 letters. The ? indicated that it is a question. But what the hell does WTPT stand for ? Ofcourse it being Friday, I could guess that it was about the weekend get-together that we normally have - basically comprising of some good Signature whisky, nice eats and finally a
light dinner. And all this interspersed with lots of talk - about cars, bikes, etc. And yes, a bit
of talk about women too. :-)

After a few minutes of mental struggle, I automatically reach for the keyboard and google WTPT, with the sure belief that Google will deliver. But no, I do not get the full-form for
WTPT. Quite a let-down actually, given that I had come to depend on Google so much.

Anyway, I get another SMS a short while later mentioning the time and venue for our
weekend party. While there, I tell the guys about how I could not find what WTPT stands
for inspite of googling it. This leads to allround laughter for a few minutes and comments
about how those in the IT industry are so hooked to PCs, google & stuff. Finally the mystery behind WTPT is revealed - Where's The Party Tonight ?

Is this what it all was about ? Something so basic and simple and I could not get it. Anyway,
even a year later, when talk at our weekend night parties drifts to the internet or google,
the joke is on me. So much for being a google-believer.

The absurd height of advertising.

Like any other cellphone subscriber, I keep receiving junk text messages advertising anything
from self-driven rental cars to inverters to portfolio management. And I know that this is the
result of my service provider (BSNL - a Government enterprise) selling my phone number to
all and sundry making a neat packet for themselves.

Since my phone has a beeping reminder to remind me of missed calls and unread messages,
it can be quite irritating at times to keep hearing the beep and when you take the effort to
read the message, it happens to be some junk SMS. I sure can turn off the reminder feature,
but I need it to remind me of any calls/sms-es that I might have missed while I am driving
or so.

So, today I am at work and there is this beeping every few minutes. I take out the phone and
read the message, which goes thus : "Working women's hostel at Vadapalani signal, with good
rooms, bath attached, distilled water, T.V., phone, internet etc. Please contact xxxxxxxxx.

Having TV is surely great. Especially for women who might like to watch the weepy family
soaps aired during late evenings. With the residents being working women and most of them
being techies, an internet connection in the room is actually great.

But, distilled water ? Ain't that what you use to top up your car-battery ? I am not sure why
someone would advertise distilled drinking water as a feature ? While there is nothing wrong with drinking distilled water, it is not generally used for human consumption. Guess they got
it confused with mineral water, which must be what they meant. Or actually they just meant treated water, which is a big industry in India today, with all and sundry selling water in satchets, bottles of various sizes, bubble tops etc etc.

I just hope the women trooping to the hostel are not provided distilled water because there
still exist two camps of thought on whether distilled water is good or harmful for us.

It's good to love your country & its customs. But bad to expect the world to follow them.

Long ago there used to be a time when I would voice my opinion via the comment section on websites, when I read something of interest. If I liked what's written, I would say so and if I
did not agree with their view, I would post a comment in that vein.

But over the years, I stopped the practice of commenting due to a mixture of laziness, lack
of interest and a feeling of "why bother?". However, I could not resist commenting on this
"Open letter to the Prime Minister of UK" from an American waiter, which was published
on one of my favourite blogs - waiterrant.

Check out this letter, which rants about how the British (& the Canadians & the Australians
& the New Zealanders & those from EU & the rest of the world) are bad tippers and how we
all need to be educated on tipping by the all-knowing American wait-staff. Some snippets
from the letter for those who are lazy to click on the linky :

"...one behaviour of your citizenry here in America of which I find the most annoying,
disturbing, and ultimately maddening is the ignorance of a peculiar American cultural
artefact, which manifests itself most obviously in the act of the tip."

"Mr. Brown, I urge you, if only for decency’s sake, to inform your citizens, before travelling abroad to the United States, that while dining out in a restaurant where waiters take orders
and serve food, that the tip is not compulsory, but mandatory, ..."

"I can only surmise the problem stems from a lack of education of the British People, "

And this interesting (but one that apparently stems from ignorance) one is for my Canadian friend Will of "Wandering Will" blog fame :
" Please forward this letter your your pals, the Prime Ministers of Australia, New Zealand,
and Canada, as we have similar problems with them, Actually, we’ll deal with the Canadians as we see fit."

To which, the author of waiterrant commented thus : "Actually Martin, the last time the U.S. invaded Canada, it didn’t work out so well for us." He he...

The author of waiterrant himself has posted many-a-time about stuff like bad tipping, linking bad karma with bad tipping, soliciting tips via PayPal etc. But since I like his writing, I chose
to ignore that minor abberation in his attitude. But this 'open letter' was a little too hard to
resist and I posted the following on the site's comment section.

"While this blog has been my favourite for years (Congrats! waiter, on the book), I could
never digest the attitude towards tipping that it tries to enforce on the readers & the world.
If the U.S. laws do not even guarantee minimum wages for wait-staff, I think you should
start working on that first, instead of trying to 'educate' the rest of the world about how
to tip. We know how to tip, thank you.

And BTW, the US is not the world. Just because a few million of you follow something, does
not automatically make it the world standard for the billions elsewhere. For us, a tip reflects
the "Quality of Service" and that is how it should be. You serve well, the tip will reflect that.
Your service is lousy, there ain't gonna be a tip at all.

It would be the height of self-centredness to think that you could get away with poor and abysmal service on your job and still expect the patron to tip you. And that too 10% min.
Why don't you guys then get this enshrined in the US constitution, under a tipping section ? Something on the lines of, "Any visitor to the US is required to tip a minimum of 10%".
Truly hilarious. "

Feel so relieved now. Really. :-)

P.S. : Just tried out some text colouring in this post, to distinguish between quotes from
different people. Hope it is not too harsh on the eyes.

What matters in life is attitude. The right attitude, that is. Gotta learn this from kids.

One of the most important traits to have, is the right attitude - to life, work, relationship or to just about anything. Yet, that is one attribute that most of us (including yours truly) do not
really work on.

I was having my usual weekly phone call with my sis who is based at Cochin in Kerala. After
the usual talk about life in general, she said that she was actually planning to call me to discuss something. She said it was about Divya (her daughter and my favourite niece) and some problems she was facing ather school.

Some background details :
Few months ago my sis had got a job as a lecturer in a Government college in Cochin and
since it was a big career growth for her from her previous job of teaching in a school, she
and my BIL decided (after weeks of thinking) to go for it. Even though it meant relocation
from their own home in Kollam (150kms from Cochin) to a rented home in Cochin. Plus
moving Divya to a new school in Cochin.

Ofcourse, Divya was all gung-ho about the move. Like any kid, she was open to change, more
so if it meant moving to a new city, new school, new neighbours/friends etc. Ofcourse it took
only a few weeks for her to realise that it was not as much fun as she imagined it would be.
Kollam was just 50kms away (1 hour drive) from my parent's home and we could drop in
every now and then. Plus, the neighborhood was familiar to her, with quite some of her Dad's relatives living there.

But, things were different in Cochin since everything was new and required adjustment on
her side. These problems sunk in only a while after the move to Cochin and by that time,
there was no turning back. The main problem was making friends at the new school, because
while the rest of the kids had been studying together for the last few years and were already friends, she was a newcomer to the group. So, getting entry into the groups was a hurdle.

Ofcourse, she did manage to make friends with some of the kids in her class. Over the weeks
and months, she managed to gain the confidence of the other kids in her class and things sort
of settled into a routine. She still missed her friends at Kollam, but was slowly getting used to
the eventuality of having to be in Cochin for atleast 2-3 years, till my sister got a transfer to a college near Kollam.

Since Cochin was 100kms away (2-hours if I drive, 3-hours if my Dad drives), we could drop
in only once a month or so over the weekend and she would be delighted. But when it would
be time for us to leave, it would invariable find her crying. Anyway, things were settling down and she was doing good at school -she always was a good student and figured in the top-5 of
her class.

And that is when trouble reared its head. She got an invite from a classmate (let's call her D)
to a party that D was hosting at her home. D is the daughter of a big shot in the Malayalam
movie industry - I googled his name and saw that he seems to be some kind of an alrounder - producer, distributor, music director, talent spotter etc etc. Anyway, to summarize, a real
loaded guy. During our Cochin visit last weekend, we were walking around the neighborhood
and Divya showed us D's home and it sure was big and well-designed - the backwaters on one
side, a fancy white picket fence and stuff.

Anyway, my sis being a little wary (like any Indian mom when it comes to their daughters -
sons are ok) decides that it really isn't a good idea to be attending house parties and stuff
when you are just 10 years old. More so when the hostess is in a different league all together.
So Divya has to decline the invite, which was not really an issue with D, though I think Divya
would have loved to attend the party.

But what caught D's goat was seeing another classmate playing with Divya at Divya's home.
D's thought process went something like, "She would not come to the party I hosted. And yet invites over other classmates to her home. But not me." Being an adult, I am not sure how
this becomes such a big issue, but kids being kids, D is not happy.

And since she has so much clout in the class with the other kids, she directs everyone in the
class to not talk to Divya. Basically a fatwa to boycott Divya. You can imagine how this would
be for a kid - no one in the class talks to her and to top it, she is new to the school. Some of the kids do want to talk to Divya, but don't do so out of fear of D's wrath. They do converse with
her when D is not around.

Anyway, like with any kid, these developments have their effect on Divya, which does not go
unnoticed by her carefully observant Mom (my sis). After quite some prodding, she tells the
whole story to her Mom. My sis expects her to cry or feel down due to the kids boycotting her. Knowing Divya since she was born, I would have also not been surprised if she broke down.
She is the exact opposite of my other neice Ann, who is defiant and would take situations head on. If Ann were in Divya's place, I could say with certainty that D would have ended with a bloodied nose.

But Divya surprises her Mom (and me too), by saying, "I am not going to sit and cry about
this. I will show them all by working hard on my studies." And this was not empty rhetoric.
She follows up her words with hard work and excels in school, especially in the Computer
Science class, where she is ranked first in the class.

The teacher is all praise for her achievement and puts a question to the rest of the class,
"Who all here are Divya's friends ?". No one answers or raises their hands in the affirmative, given that they do not want to get in D's bad books. The teacher (who does not know about
D's fatwa to boycott Divya) is kind of surprised and says, "None of you are friends with Divya. That is so odd because you should always make friends with hardworking achievers like her.
I am really surprised that none of you are pally with her."

Now, the kids slowly overcome their fear of D's wrath and a few hands go up here and there
in the classroom. Obviously D is not happy about the development, but given the teacher's encouragement, there is nothing much that she can do about it. Things get easy from here
and slowly Divya is taken into the fold.

Divya had 2 choices here - to sit and sulk, which I really doubt would have helped her gain
any friends OR to take the steps to overcome resistance. And the decision she took shows
her attitude to obstacles. Ofcourse taking a decision is only half the work. Completeness
comes only from following up the decision with hardwork. The course she followed speaks
volumes about her attitude and if this is any indication of how she would approach other
things in life, I am sure she is on the right path.

I could surely learn lots from her approach to what we would otherwise dismiss as a kid's problem.

Why do we drive the way we do ? Something to do with how we behave off the road ?

As someone who spends atleast 2 hours a day on the road, I have always wondered why
we drive the way we do. We drive rashly, do not show courtesy to other road-users or pedestrians, do not follow any rules or in case of many on the road, are not aware of rules
in the first place, etc. The list is long.

To know/understand why we drive the way we do, all you need to do is observe how we
behave when off the road, and the parallels will emerge clearly.

1) You are standing in a queue to buy a movie/railway-platform ticket, patiently waiting
your turn. Suddenly one smart-aleck rushes over to the front of the queue and thrusts his
hand into the counter. As far as he is concerned, all the people standing in the line are just
not there. Sounds familiar ?

Translate this to road-behaviour and you would be able to explain the behaviour of those
punks who ignore all those waiting patiently at a signal and drive around them to plonk their car/bike in front of them. Or worse, drives on the wrong side of the road to bypass all those waiting at the signal.

2) You are still in the queue to get your ticket. You and others in the line have managed to
drill some sense into the guy who was trying to bypass the queue and embarassed, he moves
to the end of the queue. The line is moving as fast as the guy at the counter can handle it, but
the guy behind you is impatient. He is almost shoving your back, making sounds of impatience and acting as if you are not moving, while the fact is that there is a guy already at the counter transacting business, which needs to complete, before you can move forward.

These are the guys who are ready to wait 110 seconds on the timer-enabled traffic signal,
but become impatient at the last 10 seconds as if their life depends on speeding away from
the signal as fast as possible. And on the road, they indulge in honking or revving the engine
or gesturing you to move on. It does not bother them that the signal is still red with a few
more seconds to go, which means that it is green for someone else and your moving forward
now could lead to disaster.

3) You are walking along the pavement in your city. Yeah, I know, how many roads in our
cities have pavements ? Anyway, the pavement is good enough for 2 people to easily walk abreast. But our hero is bent on having all of it to himself (must be the one with the "Yes, it
is my Grandpa's road" sticker on his car) and is walking bang in the centre of the pavement.
And that too very leisurely. He is strategically positioned himself such that you cannot pass
him from either side.

This would be the guy who would straddle both the lanes on a 2-lane road and be driving
slowly, maybe even talking on the phone and basically creating a big traffic jam behind him
for no valid reason.

4) You are again continuing your walk on the pavement and in front of you are two guys
walking at a normal pace. You walk behind them maintaining your own steady pace and
then when you least expect it, one or both of the guys just come to a sudden abrupt stop,
for no apparent reason, resulting in you almost banging into them.

These are the ones who when driving on road, stop all of a sudden for no obvious reason
or for dropping someone at a curve or in such a way that traffic gets blocked. No amount
of honking, swearing or shouting would have any effect, because they are just oblivious to
all that.

5) You are again back at the railway station for a ticket. There are just a few of you in the
line, with enough space for all to stand comfortably, but the guy behind you just needs to
stand in contact with your rear. Also add the occasional poking with the book or bag that
he has in hand. He has no idea at all of what personal space means.

This would be the one who would park his car/bus whatever really close to the rear of
your car, inspite of the two of you being the only ones at the signal and there being space
for him on either side of your vehicle.

I am sure there is scope for many more such instances where our behaviour on-road
mirrors what we do off it. Is it any wonder that we drive the way we do ?

Quitting the instant gratification path for the traditional. Even if it takes more time/effort.

One of the things visitors to Tamilnadu usually love is the filter-coffee available here.
The aroma, the froth and taste is just out-of-the-world and a delight for any coffee lover.
While I also like filter-coffee, till recently I never bothered to find out how it is made or
to brew it at home.

Reason being that instant coffee made life so much easier. Just buy a satchet or pack of
Nescafe Select and add the coffee to a cup of hot milk with sugar to taste and your coffee
is ready. Coffee is made the traditional coffee-filter way in most TamBram (Tamil Brahmin)households and I have had the good fortune to be treated to this beverage at the homes of
my TamBram friends.

Last week, we dropped in at the home of a TamBram friend and she served us a cup of hot
filter-coffee. Having savoured the drink, we went into the specifics of how the coffee is brewed and she not only showed us the coffee-filter used for this purpose (see pic below), but was also kind enough to gift us a coffee-filter.



Check this Wikipedia link to know more about filter-coffee. Ofcourse, having the equipment
is only half the job. You also need to know how to use it properly. So, over the weekend we
did some experimenting, but found that the coffee we made was still nowhere as good as the
one she served us.

Add to this, the 'expert' comment from our neighbour, "Only TamBrams can make good filter coffee. The rest of us can't do it." I am neither Tam or Bram, but this comment was enough
for me to take this up as a challenge. Gave my friend a quick call today to reconfirm the
process and learnt that we were adding too much water, which was hopelessly diluting the
brew, which resulted in ultra-weak coffee.

Hopefully tomorrow morning's cuppa would be just perfect. Anyway, I am saying goodbye to instant coffee for good and intend to continue with filter-coffee. I guess some things in life are
best enjoyed the traditional way, even if it takes little more effort and time.

Finally its monsoon season in Chennai. Yippee !!!

Looks like the monsoon has finally set over Chennai. It has been raining on and off for the
past few days and from yesterday the intensity has been increasing. Today morning, when
I was driving to work, the showers were strong enough to reduce visibility. And this inspite
of the windscreen wipers running at the highest possible speed.

To say that it was raining cats and dogs would be an understatement. While I do love rains
like any true Keralite, there is only so much rains that Chennai can handle. Even with a brief
5-minute shower, the roads get flooded, resulting in traffic snarls.

So, while I hope it rains now and then, which would also help the water reservoirs around Chennai get full, I also hope the rains are spaced out well over the course of the month, so
as to not flood this city.

Now, if only I could sit at my balcony at home, with a cup of steaming filter coffee in one
hand and the newspaper in the other, just looking at nature in its wet glory.

Aah, if wishes were horses ....

The best way to resist temptation is to succumb to it.

I do not remember the last time any motorbike really tempted me enough to spend time drooling over it or thinking about buying it. And now, out of the blue, this new offering from Yamaha has set me thinking.



Quite some reasons for being interested in this mobike :

1. Awesome styling and looks.

2. Lineage inherited from the legendary Yamaha R1.

3. Exclusivity on the roads, courtesy the high price of the bike. This 150-cc engined bike
would set me back by a hundred thousand rupees plus change. Compare this to the 150-cc
bikes from Bajaj, TVS etc that you can buy for 60 thousand odd rupees.

4. Maybe I am growing old - I read somewhere that when men feel they are aging, they try
to prove themselves younger by indulging in macho symbols like motorbikes etc. :-)

And yeah, last but not the least, I am sick of seeing all these Bajaj Pulsars on the roads.

But then there is also a sane voice trying to make itself heard to me, with logical arguments
like, "This bike is not something that you can use as a city commuter in a crowded city like Chennai" or "Why waste good money on a bike that you are going to use only occasionally ?"
or "Throw in another hundred thousand bucks and you could get a 800-cc small car, which would be an ideal gift for your wife for the upcoming anniversary." etc etc.

And the fight between the mind and heart rages on.

P.S. : For those that did not know, Chennai has the distinction (dubious, if you ask those that
drive cars here) of being the city with the highest number of motorbikes in India.

Having your cigarette and smoking it too.

With effect from 2nd October 2008, smoking has been banned in all public places in India.
And if you are caught smoking, you are liable to pay a fine of Rs.200 per instance of violation.

Since the definition of "public place" can be hazy, I looked up Wikipedia as per which, "A public space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all citizens, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. Most streets, including the pavement are considered public space, as are town squares or parks. Government buildings, such as public libraries and many other similar buildings are also public space."

Given that India has such a huge population and an equally high population density in most places, this effectively means that all of the country is a public place. Which means, a smoker's options in case he/she wants to light up, are to take a flight to a neighbouring country like Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Or maybe book a seat on the space flight planned by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Not very practical options though.

I do understand the intention behind the new law. It is to minimise smoking among the public thereby reducing the casualities due to cancer caused by tobacco usage. But if the government
is so concerned about the health of its subjects, isn't it better to just ban the manufacture and sale of all tobacco products in the country ? You know that tobacco kills. Then why let it be
made and sold in the first place ? Just ban the damn thing.

But no, that means loss of millions of rupees in tax revenue for the government. Ofcourse they would not admit to this reason. Instead they would come up with the following reasons against banning sale of tobacco products :

1. Banning the sale would lead to grey market sale of the product. Maybe. But then if you can enforce a law against smoking in public places, you can surely also track down grey marketers. Also, grey market sale involves the risk of being caught by the authorities, which means the prices would be higher than what is charged currently - much higher actually. How many
would be able to afford their nicotine fix at such inflated prices ? So naturally the number of smokers would come down, which I would guess is what the government wants. Right ?

2. Another pathetic reasoning from the government against banning tobacco sale would be "What about the thousands of people making a living from the tobacco industry, who would
be out of jobs if we ban tobacco ?"

This line of reasoning is as absurd as the drunkard whose rationale to drink is, "If I drink,
only my liver gets damaged. If I don't drink, the thousands that work in the beer/liquor
industry would be out of jobs. Their families won't have food to eat and would die of starvation. Isn't it better that I drink and lose my liver than all those people dying" ?

The government's attitude seems to be something on the lines of "hunting with the hounds
and running with the hares". They don't want to let go of the huge amount of money they make in taxes from tobacco, but at the sametime they also want to be seen as socially responsible.

My my, am I really in India or just dreaming things ?

Thanks to the Internet, I have managed to avoid a lot of mundane travel to pay various bills
like Property Tax, Metro Water charges etc. Infact, even for other utilities which do not have
a website that accepts payments, I could avoid sending out cheques by doing an online money transfer to their account directly via Netbanking.

But one place I still could not avoid standing in queue was the payment of electricity charges. The TamilNadu Electricity Board (TNEB) payments needed to be paid every 2 months.
Ofcourse the line is not long since they computerised the bill payment many years ago, but
still it was a chore that I could do without.

So, I was very happy when a friend told me that TNEB had recently built-in an online bill payment facility on their website and today I decided to give it a try. Since I needed to
register myself as a new user, I click on the "New User Signup" link, which leads me to the following page.

I glance through the details that I have to key in, and remember that I don't know the "Consumer number" which is one of the main entries to be made on the form. I decide to

make a note of the number later and come back again to register myself.

I am about to close the webpage when my eyes lock onto the "Gender" option. All my life,

I have seen only 2 options for 'gender' in the thousands of forms that I have filled. But here

I see three options - the new one being 'Transgender'.

Coming from a resistant-to-change Indian public enterprise, this surely startled me.

I mean, I do not remember seeing such an option anywhere else in India or other countries. Yeah, India has quite some Transgenders and I read somewhere that Tamilnadu has the most numbers, but to actually see a gender option for them was so surprising.

I know people (both normal people and celebrities) who have protested against forms asking

for information about a person's religion or caste. But most governmental forms still ask for

this information. I am aware that there are many NGOs that are working for the upliftment

of Transgenders who are shunned by society. And there is quite some governmental effort happening for their benefit in Tamilnadu, which might explain their inclusion in the form above.

I am not sure how the transgenders feel about this, but I am guessing that they might be pleased. If so, a laudable effort on the part of the government.