Beautiful sunset

Unfortunately, I have also had the misfortune of being on a plane from Paris to Mumbai on which one of these was a co-passenger:

Yes, the entire flight long (7023 km)

However, most people often face the worst when they are at the airport. I have written about this in an old post : A lesson in plain jacking. Today’s discourse is about checking in for flights. According to some of my ancestors (well, they are over 40 years old) there was a time when checking in for a flight used to take less time than the actual flight itself. Imagine! Compare that to the present situation where to travel from Mumbai to Bangalore (45 min) you have to check in an hour before departure and wait another 30 min for your luggage to arrive. Of course, the ancestors also mention that flying those days was ridiculously expensive and sickening, what with the turbo-props constantly threatening to reveal their true nature – of being props!

Anyway, coming back to checking in. You will wonder how effortlessly I drift away from the topic at hand and you the reader seldom realize till the time I point it out. My pointing out is a moot point because by not pointing out, I stand to gain the advantage of knowing that I have filled in random words, thereby increasing the word count of my post, but not actually writing anything worthwhile. By the time you read this line, you will have realized that I have written yet another paragraph that has nothing to do with the post whatsoever.

Nevertheless, checking in can be quite a pain for the average Joe. There are so many rules to follow and so less time in which to complete all the formalities:

Security EXecutive (Nodal Officer) [SEXNO] {The SEXNO made his first appearance here: Convocation Day }: Sir, you have a polymer bottle containing unclear fluid and some amorphous substances in your bag.

Average Joe [AvJo, pronounced aauujo like the Gujju word]: What?

SEXNO: It seems like milk made from skimmed milk powder in a plastic bottle

AvJo: Yes. That is for the infant that is with me.

SEXNO: I am sorry, Sir. Airline rules prohibit the carrying of liquid items in bottles. We cannot permit this on the flight.

AvJo: Oh well, the wailing child is going to be someone else’s problem then. Anything else?

SEXNO: Sir, there is a Swiss Army Knife with rather sharp tools of cutting and shearing.

AvJo: Well, that’s alright. I am a soldier of the Swiss Army.

SEXNO: OK. You are cleared to board the flight. Have a safe flight.

It does not need a genius to figure out that skimmed milk is a potentially dangerous weapon, give that the person might feed it to the Pilot, then burp him to sleep and then who will fly the goddamn plane? A Swiss army knife however can only be used to hold people hostage, slice open jugular veins and also cut airline omelets. Who would want to hold people hostage that have had airline food? The mere thought of a few hundred people scared to shit after having eaten airline food is enough to put any potential hijacker off his plans.

Another hassle that people face when clearing security at the airport is of being groped by security personnel under the pretext of being checked for carrying dangerous goods. This is a particularly invasive procedure in which flexible glass fibres are inserted through the rectum into the body… oh wait, that procedure is endoscopy. At the airport, there is no such high tech device available and the security personnel make do with their bare hands. Quite what sadistic pleasure they derive is beyond my limited thinking ability and I choose not to dwell much on that.

A nice segue to this article will be one on the merriment of being transported from the airport to the airplane. But that will have to wait for another day. For now, I have to go meet the SEXNO for obtaining clearance to carry colourless life sustaining liquid in pre-packaged polymer containers*.

/R

*PS. I mean bottled water.

Forsyth’s previous book was The Afghan, one which was not received well either by fans or critics. Mike Martin, the SAS hero from The Fist of God was reintroduced and much to the chagrin of all, martyred. The Cobra reintroduces us to Calvin Dexter of The Avenger fame. The story starts when a lady working in the White House breaks down during a state dinner. She is consoled by the First Lady whence her story of a grandson lost to cocaine is narrated. This story is passed onwards to the Commander in Chief of all forces (who we know is Obama, yet he is never named in as many words) who knows the depth of a grandmother grandson relationship.

He asks for a crackdown on the cocaine business & in comes Paul Devearaux, a veteran CIA operative & former director who’s given the task of eradicating the drug evil. He ropes in Cal Dexter, ostensibly because Cal is the only person who’s ever outwitted him. And thus begins a long drawn operation for the nipping of the cocaine hydrochloride business in the bud.

As always, God is in the details for Forsyth. We are told how the cocaine plant is grown in the forests of Columbia; of the process that converts the leaves into “pasta” & then into “puro”; the methods by which it travels across the Atlantic to Europe & how it is smuggled into the United States. And of the major gangs who have a holding stake in all these operations. Mixing facts with fiction is a Forsyth trademark and he never disappoints with intrigue. The book is a page turner.

The climax is a bit of an anti-climax, but we’ve come to expect that from Forsyth these days. It started with The Veteran, where the God of short stories gave us some pretty mediocre stuff. That was followed by The Afghan, where an extensively built up story line was killed off in the end by the protagonists’ death. The Cobra promises a lot & delivers on most of its promise. However, the reader is left slightly puzzled & wishing for more at the end.

Nevertheless, a 4 rating on 5 for this one!

Highway to the Danger Zone
Ride into the Danger Zone

Thus go the lyrics of Kenny Loggins’ song from the cult movie Top Gun. I was reminded of this song when I was travelling on the Western Express Highway today. Seems like the motorists of Mumbai from yesteryear, when the roads were a safe place to be have all but disappeared. Only to be replaced by mobile toting motorists from hell.

Consider this: At the Santacruz station junction on the Expressway, there were 30 (yes, THIRTY) rickshaws waiting to cross the road. As if that was not bad enough, you had three BEST double decker buses chock-a-block in the entire schema. This scenario is enough to make any sane Mumbaikar’s blood creep. However, the most creepiest thing of today’s traffic jam was this: two ladies, in separate cars, holding up the traffic because they could not be bothered to take their attention off their mobile handsets and focus on the change in the signal from red to green. Traffic sense? What the heck is that? Civic sense? Yes, I remember something from my fourth standard class.

Here are some advertisements to give you a sense of what governments across the world are doing in order to prevent people from using their mobile phones when driving. Even texting while driving is not allowed in the UK.

Some drive home the point through humour. Some take the matter seriously and show photographic evidence of tragic & untimely cell phone usage. However, the message remains the same. The human brain, a very complex and beautiful product of evolution has the following fallacies:

1. The I am Invincible syndrome: Heck no. Accidents are for other people. I am much smarter, faster, intelligent, taller, agiler, beautiful, wittier, acrobatic than everyone else. Well, this Calvin & Hobbes strip ought to put things in to perspective for people thinking on those lines:

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/06/15/

Notice what Calvin’s Mom says: Unfortunately, we are all “someone else” to someone else.

There is an anecdote which goes thus: 90% of drivers think that they are above average drivers. Wake up, people. There is no such thing as a perfect driver. Sometimes, things can go wrong even without you putting a foot wrong. Just ask a couple of my friends who are no longer on this planet, for no fault of their own. Similar article on this topic here: The Frail Human. (new window will open)

2. We are good at multi-tasking syndrome: What do you know? I can operate & switch between Excel, Notes, VLC Media Player and still have FB, Twitter, Youtube & Metacafe on at the same time on my PC. Well, dig this. Real life ain’t as easy as Alt-Tab. And remember, there is no Ctrl-Z available in real life if you are lying on stretcher zooming towards the hospital. Some articles which state why it is cool to focus on only one task at a time. And why it is much more healthier:

 http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html

http://zenhabits.net/how-not-to-multitask-work-simpler-and/

3. The law makers in my country are stupid syndrome: Why, they would not know the first thing about driving. India is a country where the law makers are very active. Though they make take ages to formulate an act or a rule (the principal reason for that being that we as a nation love to search for loopholes) the idea behind the act is often a noble one. It gets lost over time, like in the case of The Election Rules. (new window will open) So, when the police ask you not to use your mobile phone while driving, consider the fact that for a change, these people have got something right. Acknowledging their effort on this front will make them happy and probably encourage them to get more things right in the future. Just a thought, anyway.

Thought of writing this article because I am in general frustrated with the way Mumbai’s traffic scenario is worsening by the day. Some 3, 00, 000 new vehicles take the roads in Mumbai annually (conservative estimate) and there is no saying when old, run down vehicles are scrapped. (Hey, we love to reuse/recycle). And most of the new car owners are the pseudo-nouveau-rich. People who buy outrageously high priced flats in God forsaken areas and pay through their nose their entire lifetimes. High rises contribute to traffic in Mumbai. But all of that is a topic for another blog article. Do drop a comment and let me know what your take is on the entire scenario.

The quote on his website says it all:

With two attorneys for parents, thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows more about the law than most lawyers do. But when a high profile murder trial comes to his small town and Theo gets pulled into it, it’s up to this amateur attorney to save the day

We are introduced to some Tier Two city in America named Strasborough (not sure if this is the exact spelling) where Theo lives with lawyer parents. One of them deals with property issues (father) and the other with domestic issues (mother). They are his idols in the sense that he dreams to grow up to become a liar… Oops, I mean lawyer. Strasborough as we find out is a quiet place, one that makes it to the national headlines only for the wrong reasons. And one reason for it to be on the map is the homicide that has occurred in the town recently.

The man suspected for murdering his wife is a smug rich chap, who has some bad guys to keep him company. The lawyer who is defending him has a penchant for getting people of the hook. The prosecuting lawyer does not have anything major to pin the guy and has what American law calls circumstantial evidence. And like Theo will take pains to explain to you, that will not get you the jury’s verdict in your favour.

Along the way, we are introduced to Theo’s sometime crazy life, his first real “date” with the class hottie, his teaching sessions with some illegal immigrants, his stumbling across crucial evidence that may lead to a conviction for the state… Of course, like other Grisham novels, the reader is never in doubt as to what the final outcome of the book is going to be. However, there is a twist to the tale that was not expected from John.

A good read and if you have teenage children, you might want to introduce them to Theo. Not only because he is an obedient child who consistently gets good grades but because he is passionate about what he wants to do. That is the kind of inspiration that many of today’s youth can do with.

Rating: 3.2 out of 5.

Some images and videos to perk you up and prepare you for the barrage of technical information that is about to come your way:

What the heck does this pyramid mean anyway?

Now that you have had your guffaws, how about we move to some serious stuff? Right, on we move then. Here are some tips, in no particular order for you to finally shed something (and I am not restricting you to your weight; you can lose self-esteem, pride, fame, notoriety, the works!)

1. The first step to reducing weight is to write step number one. No, seriously. You need to do this to comply with government rules on blogging. You are not allowed to have a guide which lacks stepwise instructions. Big No No!
2. Second, the most important step, is to join a fitness club. Note here that I am not taking any names here, but I would want to point you in the general direction of that Talwal… thingie. You know the one; use the code Random musings and get a discount. I am all for journalistic non commitment to commercialism.
3. Weigh yourself on day one and pay fees for a year’s worth of weight loss and fitness training. There, don’t you feel better already?
4. Skip the gymnasium for a month.
5. Return to gymnasium after a month after following the following procedure: wear the oldest, lightest clothes you have. Shave (if you are a guy, duh!) and get a hair cut. Anything that you can do without, jewelery and the like can be lost. Lose them shoelaces if you have to. All you hirsute people out there, yes you, get rid of those hairs. All of these combined will have the effect of striking of a few hundred grams off your weight.
6. Continue with your diet as normal. Hey, lifting that Maharaja Burger burns a lot of calories. So does trudging to the refrigerator at 3 am in the night to feast on the ice cream. Yep, gelatos’ the way to go!
7. Call up a health fanatic friend and offer to team up on your health maintenance procedure. Watch said friend work the heck out of her/himself. Extremely motivational. Do not fall in to the trap of trying to emulate said person.
8. Another month later, waddle over to the nearest hospital asking them for information on liposuction.
9. Despair as the hospital informs you they have stopped ordering 1000 litre FRP tanks for storing all the blubber from a single person.
10. Take up a hobby. Nothing too intense. Surf the web for sites on how to lose weight by browsing sites and useless blogs. Delight in the fact that you lose a calorie for every gazillion key board strokes that you make.
11. Watching pornography on the internet helps… get the drift?
12. Maintain your beauty sleep. The body needs it to repair tissues, cells, muscles, etc. Too technical for you? Sleep you, dunkhead! It helps in losing calories. Period.
13. Speaking of periods… Aaah… Heck, scratch that.
14. I had only thirteen points of note. But did not want to end on an unlucky note. Final piece of advice, do come back to this site once in a while to check on updates and work on points 10 and 11.

If any of the above does not work for you… well, blame it on genetics and the thyroid gland. And of course, you are welcome to share some whacky weight loss tips of your own.

China has some three major “power” companies which are essentially state backed. These corporations are on a major mission constructing coal fired power plants all across China. There is of course the environmental angle to this. However, the reason these corporations can afford to establish so many plants is that they receive funding from the Chinese government. This funding is cheap and even though the utility companies have to sell their power to the State at throwaway prices, they can eke out a living because costs are not too prohibitive. Power to the masses is what they are after.

Consider a similar situation in India. Thanks to the self imposed financial restrictions, most contractors or PSUs would have to beg and plead with banks to finance them. Alternately, they would be recipients of very costly foreign funds in the form of World Bank and/or Asian Development Bank loans. Which the nation as a whole will have to repay back. Which of course will come from poor tax payers like you or me.

China is ensuring that villages in the innermost regions of the country have a receiving station and power throughout the day. And they are doing this with their own money. Whereas, we are as near achieving power for all utopia as we are near food for all and employment for all. The same problems plague both nations: unmanageably high population, greedy, corrupt politicians and all the vagaries of climate that nature can muster. Difficult terrains and distribution of natural resources are spread across the nation. However, one nation is using the strength of its resources whereas the other is left facing problems of its own creation.

Another thing. China is unperturbed by the tension its activities cause across the world. It does not care two hoots about economic sanctions, primarily because the countries who would impose sanctions are heavily dependent on China for much of their imports. Ditto for nuclear weapons and power plants. They have put themselves in a position where they can as a nation do pretty much what they want and get away with it. That is what makes a country a superpower.

I am not condoning their human rights violations. But how can we be sure that human rights are actually being violated in that country? Maybe as citizens, the Chinese have decided that they are better off being an autocracy type of nation as opposed to semi-failure democracies that abound around them. Would ensuring power, food and access to clean water for all count as a human rights violation? Or would failure to provide this be one?

Something to ponder over, isn’t it?

/R

I write this as the city has received some indication on the future of Kasab. The guy who’s so confused, he got reporters in a tussle over the correct way of spelling his name: Kasab/Qasab. Be that as it may, Mumbai has learned today that this bugger has been found guilty of all that he was charged for. The unfortunate news is that death is the maximum penalty that he can be subjected to. Small price to pay for reaching jannat, you say? Hmm, I am sure there are people who would agree.

The city has also been subjected to blackmailing of the worst type by some of the people who make it run; the local train motormen who went on a hunger strike and refused to operate suburban local trains. Mumbai was held hostage as its lifeline grappled without its prime drivers. Denizens of this great city were then left in a quandary – whether to worry about catching a local train / taxi / bus home or to discuss the state of India’s judicial system when it takes over a year and a half for a guy to be sentenced correctly. (Update: There is no indication that the judgment will indeed be correct. It’s just that Mr. Kasab has been found guilty of all charges). Again, a situation wherein Mumbaikars find themselves torn between two varying thoughts. And there is no correct thought in these two. Each thought deserves sufficient attention.

I may be extrapolating my own thoughts across the entire cityscape for all I know. One thing I know for sure: the humanity in Mumbai citizens’ shone through today – a lot many people were seen offering rides and lifts to less fortunate travellers than themselves. And though some motormen held the city to ransom, some others turned up for work and did their bit in thwarting the attempt to throw the city off balance. Also, kudos to Central Railway for managing to hook local train bogies to express train engines and running them to keep the city running. True entrepreneurship if there was ever…

As always, your thoughts are solicited. Much like the prostitution solicited by so many politicians in this city!

/R

I am going through such a phase now, myself. There are certain people who repeatedly tick me off and have exasperated me to no end. I have been restraining myself in the name of professionalism. Its quite difficult to do, since the other persons obviously do not even have an iota of that (professionalism). What is then the solution to my conundrum? Any suggestions?

Do I blast them over the phone? Voice is a vapour medium; maybe those at the receiving end of the blast may forget all that I have said and may not highlight it to my colleagues and/or friends. Maybe they will. But it will be difficult to substantiate. Or should I put an electronic pen to paper? Damn all those who care and and all those who don’t. Maybe there will be sanctions. Do I really care? Will I feel bad about what I wrote later on? I know I will. But then I do not care about it at the moment.

I am sure all of us go through such phases in life. How did you deal with these situations? Is there a solution to this kind of a problem; an imperfect one will have to do in the absence of a perfect one. Lemme know your take on this.

/R

Next question. Which image best defines the Mumbai that you stand for?

Chances are, like most Mumbaikars, you chose the Gateway of India over the Bandra Worli Sea Link. Or the Rajiv Gandhi Setu bridge as it was christened after a lot of bickering. Why? Here are a few reasons:

1. The Gateway of India is a historical monument of great significance. It represents India’s flight to freedom…
2. The Gateway is a monument which reminds us of the sacrifices our ancestors made to ensure that their successors had a democracy to live in…
3. It is a monument which reminds us of our past, dark though it was; a time when we were ruled by tyrants from a foreign nation. It reminds us of pain, suffering and agony…

If the Gateway is indeed a testimony to all of the above, why does it still hold a special place in many Mumbaikars’ minds? It is good that as a nation, we remember the great sacrifices that some of our ancestors made. It is wonderful and heartening to see that we are proud of the fact that we are now a democracy. And yet, we are also still hinged to the fact that we were once a slave Nation to Her Majesty’s great empire. And somehow, we are loath to let that feeling pass.

How many of us can truthfully say that we’d always choose an Indian product over a “foreign” made one? Care for a Videocon mp3 player if there is an iPod on display just besides it? Why get an M. Tech. from IIT when you can easily get an MS from Johns Hopkins? Ditto for space and nuclear technology. Why develop indigenously when we can import? Which brings me to my next question: Are we really free from our dependence on foreign nations? Have we gotten rid of our slave mentality? I think not.

The premier institutions of the country, the IITs and the IIMs refuse to accept as faculty any persons who have completed a Ph. D. and/or some Masters course within India. They give preference to a degree from a foreign nation (no matter how obscure:- Oh wow! You have completed your Ph. D. on Biochemical degradation of Cow Dung to form Biogas from Turkmenistan Agricultural Institute! You are so hired!!!) There are numerous other instances of blatant acceptance of foreign material as better – take for example the blind faith that so many of our chemical process industries place in foreign technology. A disaster like Bhopal and Union Carbide is just a stark reminder of how misplaced faith can backfire.

Then again, we are still associating ourselves with pain and misery when we look back at the Gateway and reminisce. Why cannot we let go of the past and move on?

Which brings me to the second image. What did you think of when you saw the Rajiv Gandhi Setu Bridge. (Setu = Bridge. Kind of like saying Akbar the Great, when clearly Akbar = Great). Did you think one of the following thoughts:

1. Took bloody 10 years to build this. I am sure that some German contractors would’ve had it completed in three years flat
2. I wonder how much money how many people “ate” to get this bridge online. I am sure some coffers have filled and overflown
3. I wonder how long these chaps are going to collect these outrageous toll amounts from us

Did you stop and wonder that Mumbai now has a bridge that it can be proud of? A landmark on the lines of the Golden Gate bridge of San Francisco? OK, maybe not as spectacular, considering that the Bandra Worli sealink overlooks the Arabian Sea as opposed to the Pacific Ocean. Did you envisage for a moment that some twenty years down the line, you would be driving on the sea link, with the breeze ruffling your hair. And that you will be glad that such a link was constructed.

Time to ponder, isn’t it? Should we abandon all our links with our past and look forward to the future and the future only? Or should we take a middle path? Lemme know your thoughts on this.

/R

I have never found the stock market as interesting as most simple folk in Mumbai do. There seems to be some charm about the goings on in Dalal Street which include wheelings and dealings (and in some cases stealings!). Most unsuspecting chaps are lured by the promise of free wealth; a chance to make it big without putting in efforts. An attempt to “create wealth” where there is none. The odds are long and the risks are great. But money has a strange effect even on the best of us. Even the most stoic of investors have been known to dapple in some losing stock once in a while. Or they have fallen prey to some scam. As Mr. Gump said, shit happens.

All of this led me to think of analogies to the stock market process in real life. To me, investing in the stock market is like investing in a tree. You buy a sampling, you plant it in the garden. You water it regularly and ensure that it has a sufficient supply of fertilizer and a dose of pesticide once in a while. This helps ensure that it will withstand the vagaries of nature as and when they attack. After a while, the plant becomes a small tree, when you have do not have to tend to it with as regular a frequency as before. Soon, it becomes a plant. And based on whether you chose a fruit plant or a flowering one, you will reap the rewards of your efforts. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong and you could end up with a male tree and then all you will get is the satisfaction of knowing that you did your bit for the environment by reducing green house gases in the atmosphere. And of course, some shade in the afternoon!

Now, look at buying the share of some start up. You need to ensure at the beginning that the guys running the company are doing a decent job. You cannot have the CEO hogging a massive salary and getting minimal business for the firm. Little by little, the company will gain business, very like the plant getting its nutrients from the soil. You may have to correct the direction of the company by making yourself heard in stakeholder meets. You will have to publicize the company such that it becomes known in the outside world and can earn more revenue. Soon, the company will attract good talent (Bees for pollen!) and become seld sustainable. There onwards, you can rest assured that the returns will arrive.

As is plainly obvious, this process will take a while. But the rewards one will reap will be worth the efforts. Look at the market scenario now. People who invested in stocks some 30 years ago are now millionaires many times over. Given that inflation is rising at 8-9% and that fixed deposits only give a return of 8% at best, a steady 17% return is not something you cannot pay heed to. So, my advice to all youngsters out there is this: give up the pub for one night a week and invest in yourself. It will come in handy later!

/R

PS. No, I am not a stock broker!