6 T Options

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.- Alighieri Dante

As India eagerly awaits the result from the 5th day of Cape town test, we the people of Telangana have something a lot more important which will decide our destiny. 6 Options, we hear, the Sri Krishna Committee has made regarding the future of our people in Telangana. Let me take a guess at what the 6 options are and how they pit against each other. (It is hardly a secret that I support the Telangana state, so feel free to conclude that I am biased)

1. Separate Telangana state. What most people in Telangana want. The TRS option.

2. Status Quo. Continue Integrated Andhra Pradesh. The Lagadapati option.

3. 3 state formula. Divide into Telangana, Andhra and Rayalseema. The TG Venkatesh option.

4. RayalaTelangana. A new state with Rayalseema and Telangana combined. The JC Diwakar option.

5. Hyd as separate union territory. Nobody's first option but most of Seemandhra's second preferred option.

6. Hyd as joint capital for limited time. Again nobody's first option.

1. Separate Telangana state: Ideal scenario for the folks of Telangana. This is what they have been demanding. Not so ideal for Seemandhra leaders who have illegal assets in and around Hyderabad. Should not matter for most of common folk in Seemandhra as long as peace prevails and they can continue going about their business in Hyderabad without hindrance. Government should provide some assurance to Seemandhra businesses/people to ensure their safety in the separate state.

2. Status Quo: Continue the current status of an integrated state and provide safeguards to Telangana. Nothing new about this. Telangana was provided safeguards earlier.Multiple times. But they always lacked the will to implement and therefor failed putting us where we are. Will only postpone the problem before it comes back to haunt us and further disrupt the lives of 8 crore people.

3. 3 State Formula. An argument often brought only when the T movement gets strong. Never found much support even in Rayalaseema. Will not stand much of a chance as there is no strong will.

4. Rayalatelangana. An out of the box solution proposed by JC Diwakar Reddy. Sounds reasonable for Rayalseema but has not won much support anywhere. Not very practical given the historic context of the whole issue.

5. Hyd as union territory: A fairly popular idea in Seemandhra. But that's probably because they don't understand what a union territory is. If it becomes a union territory the central government directly governs. This means loss of power for local politicians. MIM which is strong in parts of Hyd, contrary to popular perception is against making Hyderabad a union territory for this reason. Some congress legislators mooted the idea of having Hyd as a separate state but was soon rubbished. There would be security implications also to separating Hyd, given the communally sensitive regions.

6. Hyd as joint capital for limited time: Might be the most realistic solution. There might be some common ground for both Andhra and Telangana here. Hyderabad will be in Telangana but will serve as capital for both Telangana and Andhra. Central govt can administer the law and order in the city for neutrality. Andhra govt can continue to run offices from here. Seemandhra people will still have a sense of belonging in Hyderabad. They can feel assured about their safety, jobs and businesses. Telangana will get administrative power which is their chief demand. Overtime Andhra can develop another capital city, which is in their best interest. A portion of the revenue from Hyderabad can go to Andhra which gradually decrease to 0 by the time they have their own capital.

I think this solution solves the rational issues of both sides. Telangana wants administrative power to make its own laws and govern itself. Andhra is concerned about their people, jobs, businesses in and around Hyderabad. Both of these will be taken care of. The irrational ones like driving away Andhras from Hyderabad or separating Hyderabad from Telangana will not be.

And coming to Cape town test, it won't be easy scoring 340 runs from 90 overs on a dusty pitch with uneven bounce. Will need a blaster from Sehwag to swing it our way. I'd rather like it if they play for a win and lose than try to save the game and end up with a draw.

Vastedvoters guide to Indian politics

VastedVoters is as you must have guessed the universe's most acclaimed guide to Indian politics. Much of its popularity is because it makes the General Elections very simple to understand by innovatively dividing them into 3 major parts

1. Pre elections
2. Elections
and heres the surprise
3. Post elections

Pre Elections:
This is the period before the election commission releases the election schedule. About a year before the expected polls the ruling party cures its amnesia and starts to work towards implementing its most populist promises. Like last year we had
1. A one time farm loan waiver of about Rs 600 billion
2. Increasing the threshold limit of exemption from personal tax by 50%
and not as widely noticed but very importantly
3. The customs duty on helicopter simulators was removed. Yeah Helicopter Simulators to train more pilots and make heli travel cheaper. This was supposed to make it easy and cheaper for the politicians to reach their electorate without bothering to build roads.

The earlier 4 years of the tenure are typically spent on rather boring things like scams, creating traffic jams, appointing committees to study issues they don't want to decide on, raising tax rates so that they can be reduced in the 5th year and so on. The action starts 6 months before the anticipated election date. Parties flirt and woo each other with a charm that can parallel NTR's or MGR's in yesteryear movies. Successful suitors get to form ridiculous live in relationships to get through the elections. There are a few fairly locked in relationships purely due to lack of other options to both the parties involved. However the understanding of these relations is still very poor and there is a newly evolving branch of mathematics dedicated to this. The new branch called the poll arithmetic, is yet to find its Aryabhatta and establish how the basic operators like addition and subtraction work in such alliances. So it's still unclear how the tradiional voters of each of the parties in an alliance behave.

Once the alliances are made, there comes a very sophisticated negotiating phase where the leaders of the parties sit with their alliance partners and start negotiations which can put Chennai autowallahs to shame. Unlike the autowallahs however there is not much historical data and is still a very interesting topic of research. The autowallahs, as has been widely publicized, start by quoting a price of 300 to take you to IIT Campus from Chennai Central. A novice would fall into the trap and start negotiating at 20 thereby ending up at the average of 160. Seasoned IITians though have realized that the rate drops exponentially as you go closer towards the bus stand. You walk until the asking price comes to 180 and then start negotiating to go to the targeted 100. (This was in 2004, please adjust for inflation. And did you hear about this guy who tried to negotiate with the auto guy to make a deal at geometric mean instead of arithmetic)

It is widely believed that the best results in politics are also obtained by overstating the seats to be asked by 200%. There are others who strongly dismisses this hypothesis as it is purely based on the well researched and documented pricing strategies of Chennai's auto unions. However some of the most successful party leaders were known to start negotiations at 350 seats as part of the alliance in a legislative assembly with 294 seats. As a counter strategy the negotiated parties in recent times learnt the concepts of negative integers and put it to good use. Somebody did try the geometric mean also and realized that it was much easier to explain the concept to Chennai Autowallahs.

About this time the election commission will be done with a thorough analysis of the security requirements and available personnel and makes detailed schedule of the election. And thus we enter an exciting 2nd part.

2. Elections:
India holds a very unique distinction of having prolonged elections which can last longer than the governments they produce. The polling process needs lots of planning to sort out the colossal logistics and security issues. This year the actual polling is spread over a month in 5 phases across the country.

Once the election schedule is out the parties lose no time to zero in on the arithmetic mean of the proposals from the two sides. Then another round of negotiations starts to sort out which of the seats should go to which party in the alliance. This often gets dirty when both the parties are strong in a particular constituency. There are street fights, burning of effigies and other popular forms of entertainment employed by party cadres. After the nuisance deciding on the constituencies of each party, the parties start a dramatic and often embarrassing episode of choosing the right candidates for each constituency. This process has been highly simplified lately to a single variable, the net worth of the individual. The higher the net worth the more suitable the candidate is purely because of his ideology. This will quite inadvertently ensure there is enough money for the campaign, beer, biryani etc. Some more sophisticated parties found ebay an excellent tool to sell their tickets on auction and maximize the party funds.

Unlike most other spheres of life, discipline is quite a liability in Indian politics and it often goes unrewarded. Indiscipline on the other hand is very well rewarded and has created many a fortune. So partymen who realize they cannot contest on their party ticket anymore find it an opportune time to rethink their ideals and realize that the other party is a lot more inline with their idealogy and in a swift move change loyalties overnight and get a ticket to contest on. In other cases money changes hands liberally to entertain rebel candidates from opposing parties to stay in the poll fray and split the vote. There are more elaborate and higher order strategies employed with the sincere intention of hurting the prospects of the rivals by throwing money around.

Once the dust settles on the candidate list, the parties start on the campaign trail criss crossing their target constituencies. Road vehicle sales in India have increased by over 10000% in the last year thanks to the popularity of the road shows. Everybody who is somebody took out a road show in the last year. The filmstars are the best roadshow artists because of their obvious appeal to the masses. This has spelt doom for the film industry as the movie production came to stand still as all the stars are on the roads trying to woo the voters. Also this further deteriorated the condition of recession hit Indian workers in USA who depended heavily on Indian movies for entertainment. Lots of Indians devoid of their chief entertainment form were forced to follow the elections for amusement.

The campaign draws to a close a couple of days before polling. And then it starts pouring liquor. There is more liquor available than drinking water in those 2 days. Even money gets distributed to buy votes at a price. The voters get royal treatment which naturally they would love and want to get more often. So I would expect them to love frequent elections. But quite strangely, it is widely believed that voters feel elections are a burden and don't want them frequently. I think its more the thought of urban educated intelligentsia which seldom votes. They'd naturally want their tax money spent on other things. For the rural poor though elections are an awesome time with so much money and wine circulating in the rural economy.

After 2 days of drowning in liquor, the polling happens. Responsible citizens go cast their vote. Some lured by their favorites actors, some by the money, some by the wine and yet quite some purely by a belief in the World's largest democracy. Let us give some thought to the scale of this exercise. Here are some interesting stats
1. 700 million voters. Thats more voters than North America and South America combined

2. The largest parliament constituency Ladakh is 173266 sq. km in size. The smallest Chandni Chowk is 10.6 sq km
3. 828,000 polling stations across the country including the high himalayas, the deserts of Rajasthan and the dense Gir forests which has only one registered voter.
4. 6.5 million poll personnel. A million more than Denmark's population.
5. Elephants, mules, Yaks, camels are some of the animals which are get to be part of this grand spectacle ( on the left its an elephant carrying the electronic voting machine)
6. Rs 11.2 billion is the expected cost. A paltry Rs 10(2o cents) per head in a country of a billion.



Post Elections:
This is the time between close of polling and proving the majority in the house. It is the shortest and what is going to be the most exciting phase of these elections. Heavy trading happens during this time with MP's commanding prices that can make many a Harvard MBA grad rethink his/her career strategy.

There are three major blocks in Indian Politics
United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
Natioanl Democratic Alliance (NDA)
and
The Third Front

UPA:
Congress is the permanent member and the central part of this block. Congress is probably the only party in India that has stuck to the principles of its formation. Back in 1885, Congress was formed by some intelligent British dudes to pacify the Indians and keep them from rebelling against the exploiting rulers (who were British). They have amazingly stuck to the task only they have replaced the British with themselves as the exploiting rulers. And still mostly British educated or lately American educated. Congress is more a religion than a political party. the leaders are born in the right families not made. All Congress party members believe that all Gandhi family members including their foreign wives and mistresses (or husbands and whatevers) are avatars of God and should lead India forever. If they have their way the Congressmen would love to make the young girl in the pic, Priyanka Gandhi's daughter, the Prime Minister of the country tomorrow. They don't have any fixed economic principles and are quite flexible to work with anyone as long as they accept the supremacy of the Gandhi family.



National Democratic Alliance:
This is a BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) centric block. They got popular by raising the slogans of Hindutva and reminding the majority Hindus of the attrocities performed against them and their religion by the non Hindu rulers. Shiv Sena is only other permanent member actually amuses itself on Valentine's day by marrying off lovers seen together. They also burn down enterprising gift shops. They are against westernisation of the culture and so don't approve celebrating the New Year's day also. Some of their other dubious sister associations indulge in more severe cultural intolerance and moral policing. While officially BJP does claim secularism, they tend to turn a blind eye on the moral police and give them a free reign. Natuarally most of their leaders are made in India and attended Indian schools and colleges. Economically they are a little right leaning. Relatively more reform and privatization friendly.




Third Front: Third Front is tricky. There are no permanent members here. Indeed it is largely believed to be a figment of imagination of doped communists. Communists have a presence in 3 of the 28 states and dream of ruling the country one day. They even claim they are an alternative to the other 2 fronts. There is no common agenda other than keeping the other 2 fronts away from power. The parties in here can be divided into 2 large categories. One, opportune parties which find it an excellent spot to park themselves and wait to see which of the other two fronts end up stronger and gravitate towards it at the right moment. And two, parties headed by people who aspire to be the next prime minister.

So once the results are out, the stronger alliance will be an obvious choice for most of the fence sitters in the third front. Historically we did have times when the Third front stayed united and forced one of the other 2 fronts to back them to form the government. But it would be increasingly difficult because the parties now are all so regional with almost no opinion on national issues. Most of them got through their campaigns without even mentioning the popular nuclear deal.

The large parties woo the smaller ones with promises of giving them almost everything they ask for, often at the cost of their own principles. Well atleast at the cost of the lesser important principles, power being the most important principle for all. The smaller parties for their part try to make the most of this time and demand the moon. Jayalalitha's AIADMK and Mulayam's SP have already offered to support any govt in the center that will dismiss the state govt's in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh respectively. The parties which cannot form a government on their own in their states will be open for negotiations with almost everyone. The only unlikely combination are 'Congress and BJP' and 'Left and BJP'. With the boogie of nonsecular BJP, the Congress and Left will invariably find common ground and get together. Congress has been and will continue to for another 50 years, seek votes purely for being more secular with no economic contribution.

And so I wait eagerly for May 16 when the EVM's reveal what the Indian voter wants. And then we'll have the action packed climax with parties changing sides and candidates changing parties. And the drama unfolds to establish the next king/queen of Delhi.

Nostradamus on elections 2009

I was reading Nostradamus and found some interesting verses which might be related to current times. As with all prophecies they are pretty vague and am sure they could be connected to several events that have already occurred and several that will be occurring. Its probably due to my preoccupation with the ongoing election in India that I found the correlation striking to the Indian politics. These verses did not occur together and I totally agree that statistically when you put down enough vague lines, you have to find some which match any situation. I am not trying to convince you of Nostradamus's predicting powers and I myself am far from being convinced. But nevertheless they do make amusing read and so I wanted to share. There are some other pieces which I thought related to various other things, but for now I'll stick to the general elections at hand.

annus of hostilis in terra of thres luingumus

satraps vadum perdo vox 

dum in meridianus 

tigres es venator mortuus

translates to

the year of the enemy, land of 3 luingums (lingams)

the rulers shall lose power
while in the south

tigers are hunted dead

land of 3 lingams is an obvious reference to gultland, trilinga desa. the rulers (Congress) will lose power. (I could not find the meaning of the word "Luingums" but it is hard to miss that it sounds so very close to lingam) and in the south, (must be Sri Lanka) the LTTE tigers are being killed in the war.

matris constituo tunc rex rgis 

ut procer iacio exspecto
flax quod pango vadum non opus 

capit nonnullus veneficus

mother shall decide the next king
as the princes lay waiting
sickle and hammer shall not work
it needs some magic(maya)

Mother (amma) refers to Jayalalitha, who going by normal Tamil voting trends should sweep Tamil Nadu this time will decide who comes to power in Delhi. The sickle and hammer symbolising the leftist parties wont have much of a role but maya (mayawathi) will be needed.

licens malum vicinus tentatio
uber es plurrimi vulnero
infortunatus civitas depono
Romanorum viduata in vox

unchecked evil neighbours attack
rich are the most hurt
unhappy citizens dethrone
the Roman (Italian) widow in power

the first line i believe is a reference to the Mumbai attacks. rich are most hurt. the attack was on the financial capital and upscale south Mumbai and targetted the rich in 5 star hotels. and if it predicts right, Sonia Gandhi the Italian widow who was practically the prime minister will be dethroned.

And here's the last one. This one ain't related to the elections but the connection is too good to miss. 

vereor vadum permoveo lusum 

permaneo alio adveho primoris
dum totus regius , rex rgis
quod suum miles militis morsus pulvis

fear shall move the sports 

the last ones come first 

while all the royals, kings 

and their knights bite the dust

Too obvious. GO DECCAN CHARGERS

Terrorists have no religion???? huh

Mumbai attacks are sad. It makes me angry when I think about it. Angry because of the several failures of existing systems that led to it, Angry because of the lax attitude of the current govt. towards terrorism. Angry at how slow and inefficient our response has been. Angry at the insensitive media. And the irresponsible politicians didn't help much. Like most common men, I mouthed some choicy cuss words for the terrorists and wanted to have some friendly interaction with Qasab in person. And decided not to go to Ravi Kebobs, DC area's finest Paki restaurant, just so as to cut down that 0.01 dollar of my haleem bill which would go to fund some dubious religious charity in Pakistan from where it would be re-routed to rip apart the flesh of my fellow Indians.

India has not stated any concrete steps that would be taken yet. Some ministers were blamed and kicked out. Dr.Singh made a bland address to the nation promising strong action against the terrorists which we have got so used to in the past 5 years. And thankfully we passed the bill to form a centralized intelligence agency and decentralize the NSG commando forces. Both big loopholes in our system which needs to be addressed at the earliest. 

US has taken notice of Pakistan's involvement with the terrorists but I don't think they'll go beyond words to take any action due to their own constraints. It would be stupid for India also to act directly given that they are our neighbours with Nukes and missiles that can reach deep into our country. We should continue applying the diplomatic pressure and resort to some economic arm twisting, directly or indirectly, to force Pak to act on these anti India organizations. However given that the average Pak junta is sympathetic to the Kashmir cause it will be difficult to wipe out the support completely. But we should at least ensure that it becomes difficult for these anti India organizations to run operations on their soil. 

 

Coming to the attacks, I was surprised at how seemingly well prepared the media was to ditch the much popularized Mumbai resilience from the last attacks. It was the darling of media during the previous bomb blasts. Everybody praised the mumbai spirit and resilience to the sky. But there were absolutely no takers for it this time around. Probably because they have abused it so badly the previous time. What has become extremely fashionable these days is saying "Terrorists have no religion".

NONSENSE

Terrorists have a religion and that is THE PROBLEM. Face it. Religion is the problem, not the solution anymore. Statements like this blatantly deny the problem. Why would the 20-25 year old youth take up arms and walk into certain death instead of doing more productive things like maybe having chilled beer in the friendly neighborhood bar? What could motivate them to give up the prime of their youth and go die for a dubious cause? The promise of a paradise and the 72 virgins waiting for them over must definitely have been an influential factor in their decision model.

And who are these 20-25 year olds anyways. We have established that they are Pakistanis. But irrespective of their nationality, I'd like to know what they did before they got into this. And if my guess is right, they would be fairly normal people, without any serious criminal offences. Unlike most of us they probably didn't booze, watched no porn, ate according to their Holy book and prayed 5 times a day. The moderately sinful people like us, who drink an odd beer, gamble, watch adult content etc. could not even think of doing anything even remotely so destructing and stupid as what they did.  For one, I am not very convinced of the 72 virgin paradise and would rather stay here and try my luck. That makes a big difference as I want to live vs. these folks who probably aren't having much luck here and can't wait to see their 72 girls. Once the zeal to live is gone they become infinitely more dangerous. And secondly, I don't believe that there is anybody jobless enough to watch over my acts and judge them. So I give myself the responsibility and I tend to be pretty ruthless. I'll never allow myself to cause such grief. Most of these folks also under normal conditions would have been good to others. But their cause, the religion, gives them the license to destroy in its name. They have the comfort of prayer and religion which will absolve them of their sins. I don't have such comfort. And if these guys really didn't have that comfort, they would never have been proud of taking this extreme step. 

Apparently the Hindu fundamentalists have also recently made their decent to these abysmal levels of violence. Almost every other major religion has also proved its capability to destroy under favourable conditions. So if provided suitable pressure and temperature all religions can get destructive. Nothing can fill people with such pure hatred as religion and make them feel great about it. Religion gives people an identity and makes a reason for "us" to fight "them". If there was no religion, there would have been no "us" vs. "them". Actually that's not true. There would always be "us" vs. "them". If it is not religion, man would find other innovative ways to differentiate among themselves and reduce it to a "us" vs. "them".

As much as I'd love to, I am not asking Man to give up religion up yet. I understand Man has not yet evolved enough to do the right thing without the fear of some kind of ambiguous supernatural power. It would actually be disastrous for people without a good conscience to give up religion as they won't have a reason to be nice to others. So religion is still required at some level. But we should atleast acknowledge the problem and give religion the credit it is due. Denial of the problem doesn't help us at all in finding a solution. Atleast not a solution that can work in the long term. 

It might give you popular support from religious people if you claim that the terrorists have no religion. It won't help the nation to deny the problem, repackage it and sell it in a more marketable form. Stand up for the truth, do the right thing. The truth is religion is the mother ship of terrorism.

Origin of ghosts

This is NOT Ghost Physics 3. Ghost physics 3 has been suspended indefinitely due to matrixophobia, fear that the 3rd part will ruin the excitement of the earlier 2. Some trilogies are best left without the triquel.

Ghosts! Those gracious charismatic elusive electromagnetic afterlife forms. The concept of ghosts is also the second most popular hypothesis with no solid proof. They have captured the imagination of many generations and have carved out a niche segment for themselves in Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood and all other respectable woods all over the world.

Ghosts have been very profitably employed by almost all civilizations throughout the history of mankind. The earliest known reference of ghost was in 8347 BC when the 6 foot 3 inch hunter felt there was someone watching him in the deep forests in central Africa. He thought it was his mother-in-law whom he had killed the previous week due to some domestic differences over portioning of dinner. The feeling sent a chill up his spine and he ran away from the place. He later informed his beloved wife of his experience much to her amusement. A week later he was attacked by a pack of wild wolfs and was never seen again. The tribal chiefs attributed the disappearance of this fine hunter to his old mother-in-law's ghost.

Within 2 days the news spread to the entire African continent and was well on its way into Europe and Asia. Dedicated gossip mongers were also dispatched to Australia, Antarctica and the Americas and never again heard about. Their disappearance is also very conveniently linked to the ghost of the MIL. Several other killings, disappearances in the forests over the next year were attributed to the ghost of the MIL. Soon several other men all over the world started seeing their dead MILs in lonely places. All these men, a later research found, were directly responsible for the death of their MIL.

A decade later it was observed that the average life expectancy of MIL's grew by 7 years. There were fewer instances of domestic differences at dinners leading to murders. And an average man started being much nicer to his MIL. About this time the phenomenon of ghosts has started spreading to include other relations. Consequently the general homicide rate went down significantly much to the relief of authorities. Buoyed by such positive results, the authorities were inspired to put to good use the fear of the ghosts.

The first known conscious application of ghosts was in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. On the banks of river Tigris, there was a small tribal settlement in the exact space where a notorious jail, Abu Ghraib would be set up centuries later. Several kids from the tribe were lost in the waters of Tigris much to the grief of the community. The octogenarian chief thought up of a very original and path breaking idea which changed the course of evolution of Ghosts. He gathered the tribe for a GBM(general body meeting) and told them in graphic detail his encounter with the terrible ghost at the Tigris and how it drinks the raw blood sucked out of innocent kids. The message got home very well and the child deaths in Tigris decreased by 98.34% within 6 months.

The success of this strategy spread like wildfire through the extensive human information network spread over the world. Soon several other tribes followed the best practice and replicated the much sought after success. Inspired by this initial success many smart analysts the world over modified the ghost characteristics to customize to the local needs and designed elaborate campaigns to publicize them. These customized ghosts were employed very innovatively in diverse fields for diverse tasks. The most popular applications of the ghosts can widely be classified as

1. Protect property. Especially employed by the rich people mostly because they are the ones who have any property. When the rich have to stay away from their property for whatever reasons, there is no better caretaker than a terrible, ruthless ghost. This is by far the most important and most used/abused application. It has modified and used in different formats on different kinda properties, almost always with positive results.

2. Keep people away from danger. This is again the earliest known use. And again presented in different formats to suit the location of danger. Like, yours truly while in school was told of a ghost that lived on the terrace of his school. This was ofcourse to avoid school kids from getting on the terrace and jumping/falling down. The inquisitive stupid kid he was, went to check it out one day only to find the door firmly locked. In retrospect he thinks that the ghost must have existed before the school authorities bought that shiny lock.

3. To scare people away: Mostly employed by people involved in illegal activities. They use ghosts to keep people away from their dens thus keeping their activities a secret. This is a rather modern application and again very effective.

4. Entertainment: This is economically the most viable application. All major movie industries of the world have dedicated horror genre of movies. Collectively they rake in up to $10billion annually in sales. They have amongst the best risk/reward ratio among all movie genres. apart from movies, there are popular TV shows, books, comics, video games etc which use the ghost theme.

5. Tourism: There are 537 towns on the east coast of USA which claim to be the scariest towns in the world citing important metrics like absolute no. of ghosts, ghosts per sq. inch, ghosts to people ratio, ghosts per Hooters and so on. These towns typically are the ones settled early but where not much happened since then, other than the death of its founders. To attract visitors, these towns have well organized ghost tours around the old houses, graveyards, churches etc conveniently scheduled in the night to capture the ghosts in all their glory. Again fairly profitable, creates employment opportunities and helps the economy in dead towns.

6. Psychic reading: This is a very sophisticated and smart application. Psychic readers are very well trained individuals with an impeccable attention to detail. They have an extensive knowledge of the most common characteristics of typical people based on their age, gender, race, geography, language etc. They use this easily gatherable knowledge from their subjects and use common names, general characteristics to convince their customers that they can communicate with the dead. Just check out how Darren Brown does it here.

7. Stupidity: Not strictly an application but 80.38% of the ghosts in existence can be directly attributed to this very entertaining human characteristic. People attribute every unexplainable thing to either God or ghosts largely depending on the mood of the first person who experienced the phenomenon. These ghosts are the ones which are most inconsistent, contradictory and useless. The one found in the gas station in this video is a good example.

And if you haven't figured it out yet, the blue angel is very likely some innocent fly(or some other bug) hanging out on the camera lens.

Ghosts will continue to amuse us, entertain us and in their own ways, help us. Love them or hate them, they are here to stay.

PS. Just in case someone is jobless to check out Abu Ghraib on google maps, it is away from the Tigris because that bloody river has changed it course over the years.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"Well you see, five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom-made planets are something of a luxury commodity you see ..."

He paused and looked at Arthur.

"You know we built planets do you?" he asked solemnly.

"Well yes," said Arthur, "I'd sort of gathered ..."

"Fascinating trade," said the old man, and a wistful look came into his eyes, "doing the coastlines was always my favourite. Used to have endless fun doing the little bits in fjords ... so anyway," he said trying to find his thread again, "the recession came and we decided it would save us a lot of bother if we just slept through it. So we programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over."

-Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is one of my favorite parts of the book. The comparison to the current mortgage crises is tough to miss out. Bernanke actually gave a serious thought to the option of sleeping through this but ruled it out in favour of a 700 billion bailout.

I don't really know how I managed to stay away from this book so long. It finally found me, at Duke University bookstore when I was there on a recruiting trip recently. And thanks to a review I read recently it managed to grab my attention and the alumni discount made it affordable.  Now I'm trying to spread the goodwill and reduce the number of people who managed to stay away from this book. 

It is always easier to review crappy works, 'cos you have the liberty to get creative in making fun of them. Not so much fun when you endorse something. But I'll try. 

The first couple of pages are slow like the roller coaster going up the slope but once the plot opens up, you take that big plunge down and have the adrenalin rush. Chapter after chapter of wild twists,  meaningless jargon (I love the Infinite Improbability Drive) and some of the finest British humour. The satire, subtle pun, irony, sarcasm and random nonsense make it an absolute fun to read. The random nonsense is my favorite chracteristic. It makes it impossible to predict whats coming at you . Just surrender to the author and enjoy the pleasant surprises which extend your imagination beyond the nuiances of the day to day world. You wouldn't look at the mouse the same way after you read this book. 

The comical science fiction is complete fun. I have always loved Wodehouse and I find lots of similarities ( and some differences) between him and Douglas Adams. Both have the wit typical of British authors which makes it a thoroughly enjoyable read. Douglas Adams is a lot more wild and unpredictable. And thats probably because even he did not know what was coming in chapter 23 when he was writing chapter 20. Wodehouse would have got the larger plot first and then add his wit to make up funny situations. Douglas Adams has a fertile imagination which can go into more dimensions than you can imagine and in the process sometimes contradict what he said earlier. Do not expect him to be consistent. It is a small price to pay for the wild imaginative ride. Also give him the liberty to break a law or two of physics in the greater interest of the galaxy.  

I can't wait to get to the second book in the series. Douglas Adams passed away but the good news is that the publishers are coming out with the 6th book in the series next october to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first one.

Go grab the first book and get on it now. 

So long and thanks for all the fish. 

Chiranjeevi, an NTR Sequel?

Finally after several months of speculation, gultland's mega star made his plunge into politics. And his entry has been very similar to NTRs 26 years ago. He, like NTR, chose Tirupathi, the abode of the planets wealthiest God for his first political public meeting. NTR has toured the state and made the name of the party public before the grand meeting. Chiru initially wanted to hold the public meeting on his birthday, like NTR himself did, but like it so often happens with huge projects, the time lines slipped and they had to look for another date. The nearest date available was Mother Teresa's birthday on Aug 26th. If they waited another day they would have had the privilege of doing it on the 100th birthday of the previous century's greatest entertainer, Don Bradman.

Tirupathi is a natural choice to launch a political party in gult land. It has the religious angle. It is used to huge inflow of tourists and has the infrastructure and transportation facilities to handle them. And then half of gult land at any point of time has an unfulfilled "mokku*" to Lord Venkateshwara, the presiding deity of the seven hills area. So when somebody comes along and offers them a free ride, stay and food at Tirupathi, it would be tough to refuse. Throw in the opportunity to see their matinee idol live and you end up with a million jobless gults congregated to watch Chiranjeevi launch his party on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Chiru read from his well written monologue giving us an insight into his life, hardships and achievements. Great, awesome. It is always inspiring to hear from people who have had to strive through life to get on top of it. I would have loved to hear it in my extra mural lecture series back in IIT. But this is a political talk and I would rather have liked to know what his policies are on major issues. What does he think of Kashmir? the nuke deal? and Telangana? And that is where he disappoints. He did spare a couple of words in praise of Telangana history and culture and then added something like "if those people still want to fight for it, I'll let them". He did worse on both Kashmir and Nuke deal. He is probably not even aware of whats happening in Kashmir, which is understandable since it all happened so quickly and he was busy launching his own political party and had quite a monologue to memorize. But Nuke deal was tough to miss out. I think he just doesn't care about it. It will have huge implication for all of us in the long run and he had a golden opportunity to let us know his thoughts on it. But instead he chose his filmi lines like  "naaku ganji telusu, benji telusu" , "ammaku boy ayina, adukune toy ayina nene ayanu". 

As of now the party has nothing more to offer than the charisma of its founder. The policies are so shallow that the naxalism's "thupaki rajyam" is actually more appealing than this "praja rajyam". This is probably where he differs from NTR the most. NTR's had his USP clearly spelt out when he launched the political party. His was a regional party to work for telugu pride. His speeches even sound a little fascist with frequent references to telugu atmagauram and liberal use of "telugu jathi", "telugu bidda", "telugu gadda", "aaru kotla andhrulu" etc. this song from one of his movies captures his USP very well



NTR did not care much about the national level issues. He probably wasn't even aware of most of them. A reporter asked him if he was left of center or right of center and our man replied "we are a regional party. we don't have anything to do with center". He went on to sweep the next elections winning 200+ of the 294 assembly seats. He had no opinion on Khalistan movement which was at its peak then. And he was definitely ignorant of the differences between the left and the right wing ideologies. 

Chiru probably did his homework and is on the track he wants to be. But for someone like me, Chiru has nothing new to offer yet. And given that I have not liked any of his movies since "kondaveeti donga", the charisma wouldn't be enough. Like NTR, I expected chiru to pick up some ideology from some of his best movies. My natural choice would be "Kondaveeti Donga" where he played a Robin Hood, with a leftist inclination.  But his first public speech was a let down. He doesn't seem to have the guts to stand up for the truth. He doesn't seem to have the strength to "do the right thing"? He has do more to convince us that he is capable of making tough decisions. Right now he is in a cinema hero-ish please all, hurt none mode. It wouldn't last long in politics, as he will have to take tough stand on real issues where there's little black and white and lot of grey. So I remain cynical and wait for him to come out with his agenda. Until then, I'd rather vote for Laloo Prasad Yadav and watch Chiru bash up the baddies as kondaveeti donga. 



*Mokku is the bribe you pay the God for tweaking the laws of nature in your favour.

Bloody Tuition

This is a story of discrimination, exploitation and human right violations. A story of unparalleled courage and sacrifice. The story of my favourite hero.

Long long ago when clean water flowed through the Ganga, "Nishadha", an indigenous tribe of hunters, inhabited its plains. The Indus valley civilization was in the decline for a while and the new kingdoms came up along the banks of Ganga. The Vedas were in wide circulation and provided the much needed spiritual guidance to the citizens. The society was well fragmented along the caste lines with the Brahmins at the top and the Sudras at the bottom. Nishadas were Sudras and therefore at the bottom of the pack. They were predominantly bird hunters, fishermen, forest dwellers by profession, living on the outskirts of the villages. They were considered lowly in the well defined caste hierarchy and were treated as appropriate according to the holy texts. (It is believed that Valmiki's Ramayan was inspired by the cry of the bird who's mate got killed by a Nishadha.)

Lowly, the tribe is, but they did have a well defined internal hierarchy. Their leader, the king of the tribe was at the top of the hierarchy. He represented the tribe in the court of the local king. The tribes warriors would take commands from him. The tribe would align themselves with the local rulers and provide them with human resources when needed in a war. They probably were just about average or even slightly below average ranked warriors. They are mostly foot soldiers and are usually the worst affected in an event of war. Being at the bottom of the hierarchy, they were denied training in the Kshatriya warfare arts like archery.

The kingdom of Magadha was ruled by Jarasandha, a king of questionable integrity.There was a small tribe of Nishadha's in this land led by Hiranyadhanus, who was a commander in Jarasandha's army. Hiranyadhanus with his Nishada tribesmen lived on the edge of the city. When not called for duty the Nishada's would live by hunting in the forests for survival. Hiranyadhanus and his men formed a significant part of Jarasandha's army which was an easy military pushover like much of Indian armies at that time (which is why we had a steady stream of invaders from all over the globe).

During the peace period, Hiranyadhanus would venture into the forest with his men on hunting trips. On one of the trips, after a successful hunt he and his men setup a bonfire in a clearing and started partying. Koilkanta, the world famous singer and the "magadha idol runner up" fueled the party with his songs which are written in praise of Hiranyadhanus and Jarasandha. (That was the only kind of music which got rewarded.) The drinks included the local favourite Sura, arishta and a super strong Madira. (Low cal drinks were not in fashion as people had enough to do to burn the cals). When they woke up in the morning with hangovers they found a young boy wandering aimlessly in the forest. The kid was dressed well and seemed to be from a well to do family. He seemed oblivious of the surroundings and did not seem to be afraid or feel lonely. Hiranyadhanus, the leader, who has not been blessed with kids, inspite of the regular fastings and pilgrimages, was impressed by the bravery of the kid and decided to adopt him. The followers in appreciation of their beloved leaders benevolence raised slogans and proclaimed the new kid as the future commander of Nishadas of Magadha.

The kid was taken home and given the name, Ekalavya. He grew up with fellow Nishada kids in the tribe. He was a very inquisitive kid with a zeal for learning. He wanted to grow up and be strong like his father. He liked the meat of the hunted animals and often pestered his father to take him along on hunting. Hiranyadhanus, like any father, did not want to expose his beloved child to the wilderness of the forest. But he couldn't see the disappointment on Ekalavya's face each time. So when Ekalavya was old enough to protect himself, Hiranyadhanus took him on his first hunting trip. Ekalavya was very excited that day. He drank the milk and ate the roti's his mother made before his father. They packed some roti's and spicy blackbuck masala for their lunch and possibly dinner. Since they have the kid, Hiranyadhanus ordered his men to stay away from alcohol for this one. It was nice bright sunny day as they started from the fringes of Magadha into the dense tropical forests.

Ekalavya who was super excited about his outing made no attempt to conceal his energy. He was walking faster than most of the men and keenly looking around. Their first hunt that day was a wild boar which Hiranyadhanus killed with his sharp spear as Ekalavya watched from behind. The kid was slightly disturbed by the struggling animal which laid fighting for life as the poison started working into its bloodstream. After 20 mins of struggle, the animal calmed down and breathed its last. Having got an early kill, the party settled down to have their lunch. Ekalavya, who was not used to the wild, was drained and tired by this time. He enjoyed the mela with his Mom's blackbuckmasala and soon found himself dozing off. Hiranyadhanus left one of his men with the kid and went back to hunting.

Ekalavya woke up and did not see his father. The other man was happily sleeping with his back rested against a tree. With the intent of finding his dad Ekalavya climbed the tree to look around. He found some men moving in a short distance and thought it was the hunting party and so went in their direction. As he came closer he realized that they were not his tribesmen. What he found there was fair, well built, young boys being trained in warfare. The elderly man was teaching the kids to use a bow and arrow. This was the training school of Dronacharya the top ranked guru of that time. He was also appointed as the teacher for the princes of Hastinapur, the capital city of Kuru kingdom. Kuru was a very powerful kingdom to the northwest of Magadha. It was much bigger than Magadha both geographically and economically and hence was very influential. Hastina and Magadha, were not in great terms historically due to a multitude of reasons.

Drona was preparing the princes for their tenure as the royal family members. Apart from the literature and basic sciences they get rigorous training in warfare. Among all the princes, Drona has a special liking for Arjuna, the third one among Pandavas (Sons of Pandu) . He was his favorite pupil and so he promised to make him the best archer in the world. Arjuna for his part was a very dedicated student himself and has shown great promise. He had unparalleled focus and dedication to learn. Thanks to the pampering of Drona, he convinced himself that it was his right to be the best archer.

Our dark skinned kid from the forest was very impressed by the skill of Drona. The young heart wanted to learn the art himself and be able to shoot the arrows like the fair princes of Hastina. He didn't want to be crowned the best archer of the world. He didn't want to learn so that he could fight his opponents and expand his kingdom. He didn't want to learn to show off his skills and win the fairest princess in a "swayamvar". He wanted to learn for the sheer fun of being able to shoot the arrow straight. He probably at most wanted to use it as a hunter and earn his daily food.

The innocent young boy with dusty skin burnt by the sun and sweat dripping from his matted hair, decided to plead Drona to take him as his student. Little did he know the complex human needs of hierarchical superiority. Neither did he know that he belongs to the lowly tribe and cannot be taught the kshatriya arts. All he knew was that he wanted shoot the arrows. And shoot them straight. With such sincere intentions of learning archery he approached Drona and made his case known. Drona listened to the tribal boy and was impressed by his pro activeness and courage to come talk to him directly. He thought it was his fortune that the boy found him. To get started with the official application process Drona asked details about his birth, his parents, caste etc.. Ekalavya, with little knowledge of Nishada's place in the caste hierarchy, was always very proud of his father. He proudly informed Drona that he was the son of Hiranyadhanus, commander of the Nishadas. Drona was very disappointed to hear this and told him that he was unfit to learn the sacred art because of his lowly birth. He told him that Nishadas are Sudras and are not supposed to learn the kshatriya arts like archery. the holy texts forbid it and breaking it could bring the wrath of the Gods. He advised him to drop his plans immediately and go back to his ancestral profession of hunting.

Ekalavya was terribly disappointed to hear this. He did not understand why he cannot learn what the fair princes of Hastina can. What this difference in treatment Why is he not an equal? He went back home and asked his mother. His mother, sympathized with her child but knew she was helpless in this. She was always told she was inferior and did not know the answers herself. She cared for Ekalavya and wanted him to forget this episode. So she told him to make an image of Drona and practice before it.

The obedient son he is, he made an image of Drona and started practicing shooting arrows in front of it. By impeccable dedication and undivided focus, he learnt the art painstakingly by trail and error. It took him a lot more time than it would have taken under the guidance of a trained guru. As his father and his men ventured into the forest for hunting, he would go back to his shooting range where he had the image of Drona and practice his art.

One of the days as Ekalavya was practicing a hunting dog came over to his place and started barking wildly. Disturbed aand annoyed by the dog, Ekalavya shot several arrows at blazing speed into the Dogs mouth. Dogs mouth was filled with arrows but it wasn't hurt. There was not a drop of blood. The dog unable to bark anymore quietly went back to its master. Ekalavya returned to his practice. The dog belonged to Drona who was on a hunting trip with the Princes. They were impressed at the skill of the archer who fired arrows into the dogs mouth without hurting it. The dog lead them to Ekalavya's place where we was practicing blinded folded archery. Arjuna himself has not yet learnt blindfolded archery and was terribly upset to see someone do better than him. It hurt his ego as he always thought of himself as the world's best archer.

Arjuna lost faith in Drona and wanted to know who the guru of this boy is. Ekalavya told them it was Drona who taught him the art and pointed to his statue. This further enraged the young prince and he demanded an explanation from Drona. Arjuna felt cheated and fooled by Drona's promises of making him the world's best archer. Drona who was still in a state of shock did not know what to reply to his favourite pupil Arjuna. He has loved Arjuna more than his own son Ashwadhama. And now he has to be in a situation to justify his promise.

Drona knew that it was in the best interest of his career that he make, Arjuna the finest archer the world has seen. It would earn him brownie points in Hastina and grow his influence. He has done all he could to impart the finest skills of archery to Arjuna. Arjuna has been a receptive student and learnt all that was taught. And still today they find someone who is more skilled. And someone who claims Drona as his teacher. Drona knew that this wouldn't go very well with the powers of Hastina. He had to set things right to live upto his promise. And there might be some collateral damage in the process.

After careful analysis of the situation, Drona commended Ekalavya for his skill and said

"Now that you claim me as your teacher, wouldn't you give me a guru-dakshina" (Guru Dakshina is the fee you pay your Guru for the skills imparted. Often the guru would ask for it after the education. "Tuition" in simple English)

Ekalavya, was very happy that Drona has accepted him as his student. This was a great victory for a young boy who not long ago got turned down to be taught archery because of his birth. And so he replied very humbly

"Guruji, it is my honor to give you Guru dakshina. It is a honor I have been looking forward to. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to serve you. What is it that I can do for you?"

Drona relieved that the young boy buyed into the concept of guru dakshina so easily, lost no time

"uh..Can you please chop off that thumb on your right hand and place it at my lotus feet."

The princes of Hastina were aghast at the cruel request of their teacher. They could not believe what was happenning. Even before they recovered from the shock, the lowly Nishada took out his sharpest arrow and chopped off the thumb from his right hand without giving it as much as a second thought.

severed thumb laid dead

shivering four fingered palm

the highest fees ever paid

art learnt never taught

The princes sweated

Drona composed

the dog had to vomit

the sight indigestable

cold blood soaked

the earth trembled

no arrows to break its flow

wind froze in tribute

The arrows wept in silence

the bow mourned

the dog howled long

it was the men least moved

Ekalavya, held out the hand with the thumb laying on the four fingered palm to Drona. He knew he wouldn't be the greatest archer anymore. But he never wanted to be one. He never cared about it. For him it was all about the sheer pleasure of using the bow and arrow. For him what mattered more was that he be treated equal to the fair princes of Hastina. His skill at archery would have got him there eventually. Now by asking for guru dakshina Drona has accepted Ekalavya, a sudra, as his student. By chopping off his thumb and offering the guru dakshina, Ekalavya has defeated a system. A system that has been the nations No.1 problem for a long while, discrimination based on birth.

PS: One of the later books actually mention that Ekalavya was the original son of Devashrava, who was Vasudeva's brother. Vasudeva was Lord Krishna's father. The young boy was sent out of the home by Devashrava. Hiranyadhanus found the young one on one of his hunting trips and adopted him. I think this must be done to reinforce the belief of the discriminators that a Sudra cannot be so talented.

There are other variations, very likely from the same sources, which justify Dronas actions on the grounds that he established Ekalavya's place in Mahabharat. I don't much resonate with them. I'll punch Drona on his face if I run into him in hell.

Nepal turns republic

I am glad that Nepal has thrown their royalty out of the palace and declared itself a secular republic today. It took a little longer than I would have liked but am glad it happened. Now that the maoists have done their job successfully, its time for them to disarm themselves. That might however not be happening anytime soon. I am kinda sympathetic to communists when they are in the opposition. I think they make very good opposition and fight for common man's issues. However they make miserable policy makers and should not be entrusted with policy making. Often the power gets concentrated among individuals and that effectively makes it hardly better than a monarchy. So I hope, Prachanda, for all the good work he's done takes a back seat and lets the political parties make the policies. While I can still hope, I do feel he is more likely to take the Fidel Castro route and rule Nepal until old age forbids him. In the process he might even shelter and nurture the Indian maoists.

So India should watch it closely and try to build pressure on Prachanda to stay away from power. The communist backed UPA will probably not be able to accomplish this due to conflict of interests. I would assume both CPI and CPM would be extermely supportive of Prachanda, 'cos they all basically believe in the same book. And the Congress wouldn't dare to do anything that doesn't have approval from the leftists. So again goes back to my point of why we should not have the communists in a policy making position. Communists make an ideal opposition and its in the nation's best interest that they remain there.

PS:This is a good time to revisit my earlier blog on Nepal.

Saturday Morning Sale

Most of my regular readers are aware of my long term aspiration of being an entrepreneur. Towards that end, I keep thinking of ways to add value to the society and make money out of it. Not many ideas survive the rigorous thought experiments they are put through. But one of the ideas I have had recently has come a long way.

It was inspired by a not so pleasant Saturday morning towards the end of last year. I spent a good Friday night playing poker, returned home to watch the world famous gult flick, "happy days" and slept somewhere in between wondering why the director had such a huge crush on females in "langa-oni" (half Saree). I never cared to have a well formed opinion on half sarees, probably 'cos I never found them attractive and was fairly surprised that people could get so aroused by it. (Interestingly the wiki description says that they are worn by unmarried females. Probably it is an indication that you could go hit on them.) Before you jump to conclusions I am not planning to make a fortune by selling langa oni's to the world, though it might still be a good idea going by the success of this particular movie. So going back to that day, it was well past 6am by the time I slept. And at around 11 am I heard a knock on the door. When I opened the door, still half asleep, I found 2 neatly dressed men in black pants and white shirts, with sweet manners. They very politely asked me if I'd be interested in buying their product and I, as politely as I can, told them I wont need it since I don't use it. They tried their best to educate me on the benefits of their products and why it is better than the gazillion other ones out there in the market. I thought of making a case for the benefits of not using the product at all and persuading them not to use the product either, to make the world a better place, but it was Saturday morning and I wanted to get back under my comforter. So I just told them that I am not interested and sent them away, as politely as I can.

I, understandably, was not very happy with these blokes who spoilt my nice Saturday morning to sell their shit. I went back still angry with them to salvage what's left of my hard earned Saturday. Later that day, when I am significantly more conscious, I thought about their business model and it made perfect sense. The market is huge and there is lots of money out there. This is the field to be in.

The market is pretty big. Of the 6 billion people in the world, 5 billion actively use these products. There are 2 major players spread over the globe. The biggest player has 2.1 billion dedicated customers and is continuing to grow in newer markets. The next biggest player has a customer base of 1.5 billion and it also has very active acquisitions strategy. There is one regional player confined geographically, with a little less than a billion customers. They don't have a very aggressive acquisition strategy which is why they have not expanded to other regions. And then we have 1 billion who don't buy any of the products currently available in the market. But atleast about 80% of them are not sure of their needs and will very likely buy if you have a right customized product for them. The other 200 million think they don't need the product, like yours truly, and are virtually non existent for our purpose.

The two major brands in this space have been highly successful in expanding their operations. They competed fiercely against each other to capture new markets. As you would expect, there is not much love lost between the two brands. There have been several ugly instances where they had come in contact of one another. They monopolize the markets they are in and restrict the entry for other players. They have monopolized some of the markets so badly that they have to diversify the brand and compete fiercely with themselves.

The third big player, the regional one, has not been very focussed on the expansions and acquisitions. They have seen some amazing internal organic growth, which has almost become unmanageable and are now trying to restrict it. They have also started some acquisitions overseas but still very small in numbers and is negligible.

All these big players have a common strength of highly loyal customers. They have never tried the other products but are convinced that their product is far superior and believe that everybody in the world should use it. A good percentage of these customers are actively involved in acquisitions and help sell their products to new customers. They even try to poach customers from the other brands. Very often from the smaller players who don't have very organized operations.

And the money is big too. While it is tough to get the actual incomes of these huge players as they are spread over several countries and diversified several times. But the largest subdivision of the biggest player had an annual income of 422 billion dollars in 2001. It is known to be growing at 7% on an average every year which puts it currently at 677 billion USD. They have a customer base of 1 billion. So by quick extrapolation we can put the potential market size at 4.06 Trillion USD annually all over the world. Now even if we only target the confused customers who currently don't use any of the available products, we have a potential opportunity of 540 billion USD. Capturing even 1% of this particular sub segment will still make us 4 times bigger than Infosys by income.

So you see, this is the most happening thing to be in. Lets go sell FAITH on Saturday mornings.