Safety First, s'il vous plait

My gripe with car companies in India, either Indian or foreign is that their approach towards safety goes for a complete toss. I consider an approach towards safety as a two pronged approach
1. Mention of crash-test results from either tests in India or abroad
2. A safety-centric approach during marketing of their product to consumers
Countries like America do not allow cars to get on to their roads unless they pass specific road safety tests to make it crash-worthy. Which is quite optimistic considering most interstates enforce a 70mph (*65 is most states, unlimited with restrictions in some others) speed limit - which is far less than the total absence of control in India selling the camries, accords, and beemers to eager beaver yuppie Indian customers.
Now in India even people forking out 20 lakhs don't know that cars need to be built for safety. And that means a strong chassis, crumple zones, air-bags, ABS
and other things. In fact safety in India is always an "option" and thrown in only in high-end vehicles. And most companies dont seem to be selling those features, because they know the number of cars sold in this category will be few, and paying lip-service to safety may get the occassional US-returned NRI to buy the car.
We can debate the driving habits of Indian cabbies all we want - what is not pardonable is that when you had an option to save yourself, car companies did nothing to push up prices a bit and make these features as standard. Its ironic, that these features are required in India a lot more than they would in a more disciplined driving environment.
Coming back to point 2, I wish to dissect a few car ads
1) Ford Fiesta - guy lights up some torches using his car , shows that he does 120kmph in what seems to me a distance less than 50m - If you use simple kinetics, I am not very sure you can achieve this, but that's another folly of the ad. Ad sends no sense of value of the product and in fact glorifies bad driving, skidding, and near misses
2) Maruti Suzuki Swift - Boss takes the employee's car for a spin without his permission - Ok, that is strike one, I don't care if you are the CEO of my company, but you are not touching my wheels without my permission - A few outrageous spins, and 360 donuts later the boss comes back in one piece.
3) Chevrolet Aveo - Saif and Rani, your brains have been screwed on backwards - why is Saif trying to overtake you, like a Punjabi on testosterone? And then he drives backwards - I get no information on the product, and the ad is definitely a seller for how not to drive to impress chicks (which is also the outcome).
4) Hyundai i10 - When not baring his fabulously GAY 6-pack, Shahrukh eggs on blondes in Kawasakis to race his 66 hp i10 somewhere in Powai, Mumbai. Fallacy exposed. His first question to the bombshell is "Wanna race" - I URGE ALL READERS WITH VEHICLES - Please go through details of your vehicular insurance to read the following lines "Other than willful racing OR Organized speed trials" as a disclaimer for insurance payouts - what you are doing is not only ILLEGAL. but also doesn't get you a single paisa when you crash and burn.
5) Skoda- White skinned man, races against an F-16. Fallacy exposed - lets not go there. Its sickening. Probably not as bad as the others, but still pretty irresponsible from the Czech/Germans.

There are over a 1,00,000 people in this country who die out of avoidable accidents. We need driver discipline on the streets and corporate responsibility in the boardrooms. Only then we can not worry everytime a loved one gets late from work, that they haven't been overrun by some heavy vehicle, or atleast a well-designed vehicle and seatbelts has saved a loved ones' life.

If you meet me..

Some of my favorite quips:
1> Sweet...
2> That's right!
3> Gawd Damnit!!
4> Oh my Gawd, you guys..
5> Well, you know...
6> Sweet Jesus..
In the words of the great Bartholemew Simpson, "Eat my shorts"..

Worshipping False Idols..

Its just been a fantastic season 7 on American Idol so far - 2008 has the hottest - most talented bunch of artists on the stage easily since the show was conceived.
Just didn't like all the african-american artists on display this season though - bad song choices, and bad arrangements definitely.
Its just too close to call for me - and this time the guys are definitely giving the best of the girls a run for their money, with their performances.. Its the only show worth watching every week.
I still think ejecting Alaina Whitaker was a stupid thing to do, and then you start to wonder what ever happens to artists who kind of lose their way to the top 3 or 4.
I thought the man from my home state North Carolina, absolutely rocked with his rockin' Elvis & Jon Bon Jovi. He is now a good recording artiste now, but very few are lucky to scope out a contract..

Pleo your best buddy..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZL1FReoBTA

Now why didn't I think of that - its cute as a button :-)

Obnoxious Little Weed

That spinner with the turban
His action's quite queer
Looks like he's doing the bhangda
Until the crease he'd near

Punter can't tell which way
That jaffa is going to go,
Unless the ball is stopped
And broken down in slo-mo


How do I get that offie
Out of my bleedin' head,
I know I cant out-bat him
So I'll get him in trouble instead!

In the dark Oz dressing room,
The team had hatched up a plan
Symmo got Bhajji all riled up,
So he cursed them like a Punjabi man

Now Hayders calls Bhajji (on air),
An obnoxious little weed,
Trust the gutsy offie to keep on spinnin',
A sticky web indeed..

What games do socialists play?

Not T20 cricket for sure..
Okay, a quick wiki check on what is socialism
"Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.[1] This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state."
Allright - so what this is, is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Now Peter may not necessarily be better off himself, but if he is even "relatively" better off, then Peter is screwed. Never mind the fact that Peter spent all those nights slaving in front of a kerosene lamp, trying to make a better life for himself, and his ageing factory-laborer parents, while Paul was selling kidneys to unscrupulous oil barons and texan worms.
A lot of commentators have first villified the shortened version of the game, an indirect productivity boost, where in a country of 1.5 billion we have people taking days off work just to catch that India-Bangladesh series. Communists, aka work-shrugging parasites, have shown the greatest opposition to the T20 game, asking for it to be banned(!!!!!!), for it viciously violates the communist norms of earning more than their fellow brother on the basis of talent, merit or any other rational word for aptitude.
Mr. Dasgupta, shut up - your annoying utterances and lack of understanding of the world around you is appalling. Why are the you and your ilk crying about the fact that players get paid (auctioned is offensive?) in the millions for (1) their worth on the field (2) their worth off of it. I'd rather you be more offended by the auctions of destitute Bangladeshi/Nepali women from across the border, than those of the country's brightest talents in pursuit of rewards for a liked game.
I don't care if nostalgic oldies without an ounce of talent to rub shoulders with even the likes of noobs Ishant Sharma/Rohit Sharma's squeal from beneath their socialist burqas that they didn't get paid well during their times. Your best efforts can be labelled as 1971 England, 1971 West Indies, and Australia 1985? All this in over 100 years of cricket? That is atrociously bad - no wonder you guys didn't get paid - you never did your job right. It was another fact that the Indian Board didn't have the money to pay you, which they would have, had India not been the socialist communist USSR loving country it was for a good part of 5 decades.
In a day and age where useless IT louts get paid in the lakhs, its only fair that the people who've gambled their careers into a game, where breaking into the national team is 1 in a million , we need to pay the top entertainers the best money. Well deserved lads, now go earn your keep.

No time for sentimental fools..

The net has opened up an amazing plethora of possibilities - with the advent of networking sites like orkut, facebook, myspace et al on the www, its been a whole lot easier to catch up people from the college, high-school and even your kindergarden days.
How much of people you want to re-acquaint yourself with, is something of a personal choice. I've found in a lot of instances that there are so many people I've not been in touch for almost a decade and a half, and obviously its nice to catch up on not just where you are right now, but how the journey was for you all the way along.
Somehow, us guys are not much talkers anyway, so we don't recollect the finer details. A normal conversation would probably include among other things, the schools we went to, and the job(s) we were at, and how we led our lives in general (!). Beyond that the talk kind of withers away, and there isn't much to say to each other anyway.
Kind of ironic, the best buddy, with whom you shared your school lunches with, shared your first crush with, or the awesome fun you've had with during those awful hindi classes, that you need to reconnect all over again - you are worse than strangers - you are two people who have had a history of good friendship a long while ago, and now there is nothing. And neither is trying to make an extension to reacquaint..
I guess a lot of friendship is temporal, that unlike blood ties, we need some level of emotional interconnect for a person to be relevant. Its been tough to let go of people you used to be close with, but I guess its a lot less disconcerting when you try to look back upon the good times you and that person have had, and decide its time to move on. Just like what will happen to the present lot of friends in a good part of a decade.. Touche

Sins of the Father

What blood coarses through these veins
That be'it my own
Or of my progenitors of yore?
What wounds do you carry
Of injustice today,
Or of generations before your own?
Where ends this cycle
Of endless retribution
Why must I pay
For the "sins" of my forefathers?
- Harish

I'm not apologizing for mistakes that are not of my own actions..
I'm not begging plaudits/forgiveness for deeds/mis-deeds of my ancestors
Lets start judging each other by our actions of today,
The hurt may be there, but guilting people into paying reparations based on follies that are not of our own is just plain wrong..
The seeds of dissension in Indian society are far deep-rooted into the psyche of the common Indian. There are so many different categories to slot yourself into, and to further sub-categorize yourself into.
I never knew who I was, until I was forced into a corner. And all for good reason. Mumbai, the city of dreams, where everyone from the crass CEO to the honest daily-wage worker rub shoulders on the ubiquitous mode of transport - the Mumbai local, is home to me, and my innate respect for the other man. We never did judge on where we were from, or what we spake, or what God we worshipped. Life was good..
My tryst with Indians in America changed all that. Most Indians in America are insecure - both mentally and financially, which is quite ironic, considering most Indians migrate to America to make more money. Here you would see people bond only with people from their own state/religion. Its just nauseating. The poor cosmopolitan Mumbaikar is caught in a dilemma, on which side to take. I am not the one to find myself slot into a category, although even if I did, it just wouldn't work out!
People have tried to gauge my personality based on my "TamBram" lineage. Unfortunately this makes for (a) a bad rude surprise (b) a cheap stereotype, neither of which the closed-minded people are ready for.
A peek into my lineage shows I've got a lot to be proud of - but I'm not going to rest on the laurels of the past, and I want Indians in India and abroad to be more judging of people's abilities.
I've tried being someone else, I've given it a shot from time to time, but it just wouldn't work - I am proud to be an individual, without claims to inherit any legacy, good or bad. I'm a child of this free world, and I'd be damned before you insular people hate me for something that I am not!
Give me the tolerance of Mumbai anyday over the narrow-mindedness of the rest of India. MNS be damned. There are 30 million Indians living in this mega-city without hatred, and we are as Maharashtrian as varan-baath. You can challenge that over my dead body...
P.S> This author was born in Mumbai and spent 18 glorious years in that city

Thrilling you swiftly..

Feb 1st 2008

My 1st car, and 2nd vehicle joined my family..

The Arctic Pearl Metallic White 2008 Suzuki Swift just captured my heart completely. It shows signs of sluggishness in its pickup - the 1st gear is kind of short, but it feels at home in 3rd and 4th over the 30-odd kms I've driven so far on day 1.

The steering and EPS is just awesome - exteremely soft and responsive, makes turning real fun!

This is a really bad pic, but at 9pm its just what comes out with the assistance of tubelights.

Bhajji Hullabaloo & Tait's one-way ticket to the cleaners

On the Harbhajan issue it ends with a victory to India.. Lack of evidence? check.. Muscle flexing? check.. Pissed off racist Oz players? check.. CA and BCCI laughing all the way to the bank? check... Players feeling like prostitues for being pimped by their boards rather than being taken care of? check..
Apparently Bhajji, the Punjab da Munda (son of the soil), said the words "Maa ki", and Hayders jumped on the wagon going "I'm gonna tell - you are looking at a champ (drunken monkey boxing?)" apparently referring to Symmo. Anyway Bhajji's disclosure of the "Maa ki" sent the Indian contingent into raptures, and left the Ozzies fuming - "If he insulted my white mother, it has to be racism, ban the brown bastard (this is not a racist word in Australia)!!"
In non-contact sports, there are fewer ways of gamesmanship (i.e. another english word for pissing off the opponent mentally). The best way to outdo an opponent is to get to their minds through your game. If that doesn't work, its quite fair to rattle them with a few choice words.. family? country? race? no holy cows here. How many of us do not play the race card - when we complain about outsourcing to the starving East India slave labor capital Bangalore? Or when an MNC supplants the seemingly nice but naive & eager to please Indian manager with his 'white' counterpart, "He is going to take us to task" sighs the chips and cookie face-stuffing softie.
Sledging is an important aspect of the game. Man for man, most teams are pretty equal on ability. The X-factor often lies in getting under the skin of the opponent. I want concrete example of best-loved winners in team sports - The West Indies? Hogwash - who is the dooce who can't remember them bowling at the heads of batsmen with 4 eccentrically tall and equally hostile quickies? Don't remember Michael Holding kick the stumps out of the ground for getting a bad decision in NZ? A few of their charming exploits are available at cricinfo.com.
Meanwhile, in an act of awesome stamping of superiority, the amazing comeback Indian team just sent Shaun Tait to the looney bin. The almost-170kmph-touching almost-quickie who was dragged through the Perth pitch like a nigger in 1700's Alabama, is going AWOL on cricket for a while citing mental and physical exhaustion. The Indians have put their money where their mouth is... The only thing seen dangling from the fat racist mouth of the Ozzies is their own smelly foot.

Sibling Jealousy

Sibling rivalry - both the Thunderbird and the Swifty compete for my attention...

Don't worry I love you both equally! Both of you are key to my independence.. And both of you guzzle fuel like the arabs are our friends!

A 'swift' decision...

Just made the payment for a 'pearl metallic arctic white' 2008 suzuki swift, VXI.

Should take delivery of the baby sometime in the first week of February.

The color choices I had was white and white (just had 2 vehicles in stock, and any other color takes 2 months to come in) - didn't want to lock in money, and stay put without a vehicle for a long time.

Minus ABS, minus stereo system, minus alloys its still a pretty decent package.

Totally love the cute looking gear knob, and its enjoyable clicking gear shifts. Found it a little heavy to handle in stop and go traffic, on a vehicle that had run over 25k kms. I do not like the band-aid sized rear windscreen, its really annoying while parking, even for someone like me who has been driving for over a decade.

Has a raspy feel to the engine (the same one as that on the esteem with slightly different aspiration, and a different tranny), and I must say I want to rev up the engine over 4500 rpm to unleash each and every one of the 87 ponies underneath the hood.

I still don't quite get the fact that the Suzuki sport package, (the two-door box-car) sells for 11.5k Quid in the UK, and has a really well-put together package altogether while we skimp on the interoirs with really cheap looking plastics, and garish upholstery.

The 2008 swift (costs 7k more) has a modified front and rear bumper, with the tail light stop lamps modified a tad on the outside. On the inside, the cloth upholstery gets a minor makeover, and a digital clock moulded into the facia is a small, albiet welcome addition.

I dropped by Pratham Motors, Sarjapura ORR, Bangalore for not more than 10 minutes to buy the vehicle. I am pretty sure its one of the easiest deals the salesperson has ever made in her life.

Accessories, if you can call them that include a car perfume, mats, mudflaps, leather steering wheel cover, sun film (garware) - can be bumped up for a price.

So more updates on the cute brute later next week. Makes for some good weekend running-in in the backroads of Sarjapura where I live.

Dog in the Manger..

I see a lot of the dog in the manger mentality..
Flashback - in case you didn't read your English books/stories as a kid - the dog in the manger mentality refers to the presence of a dog in a manger, a cow-shed if you will, and while a dog doesn't eat grass, it didn't allow the cows to eat it either. Well, any symbiotic relationship involves a bit of give and take, but the fact that a lot of people love to have a say, without being responsible for their inputs actually pisses me off. Give me responsibility, I relish it, and I absolutely stand by whatever I do, no matter what the outcome. I don't care how outcomes reflects on me, because to me, if I make a conscious decision at a point in time, I think there a pretty darn good reason for doing so.
These days the communists are a very good example of the "dog in the manger" mentality. A role in running the destiny of a billion people, the ability to pull a government down, without having to be directly responsible to the people for their behavior.
I have no respect for someone who tries to weasel his way out of something - be a man, stand up for your actions - often a good justification, serves to highlight that even while hindsight is 20-20 we are often blinded by the absence of providence.

Jellycut Ban

Villagers in Tamilnadu banning the age-old masculine (read vicious) sport of Jallikattu plan to defy the Supreme Court ban on the sport. The reason being, they don't want the bulls to be injured (loss of human life, which may be incidental could be second) :
Villagers in effect telling the SC :
"Hey SC, don't have a cow man!" (i.e. lets have a bull!?)

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Dard-e-dil ke syahi mein dubokar,
Likha hain bewafa tere pyaar ka naam,
Dard-e-dil ke syahi mein dubokar,
Likha hain bewafa tere pyaar ka naam,
Milke-bichadna, Bichadke-phir milna
Kaisi hai tere-mere pyaar ki ajab si ye dastaan?

><=================================><
Us haseena se mohabbat karne ki jurrat
Kuch humne bhi karne ki taan li is tarah
Us haseena se mohabbat karne ki jurrat
Kuch humne bhi karne ki taan li is tarah

Lavs agar na nikle in labon se agar
To kaise karti woh is pyaar ka izhaar?

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Shayari - Dil, Dard, aur Wafai...

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27.9967890 and counting...

Birthdays are strange days!

We celebrate the entry of life into this world. We celebrate our addition to the swarming human population.
I don't understand birthdays a lot. There isn't much to understand per se. But the celebration doesn't make sense. Unless you have a lot of friends to hang out with. You would hang out with them on any other day. Just this day, they ensure they bathe themselves in your esteemed company. Some of them are there, to wish you well even though they don't really mean it, some of them are there for the dinner and open bar concomitant with any birthday celebration. And still others are there to make you feel old about yourself, for they just happen to be a few years younger. The good ones don't care for more than a phone call and a wise-crack.

There are major differences between celebrating a birthday as a kid and one (if you still call it worth celebrating) as an adult.
Kids want to grow older because the world doesn't take mental maturity on face value.
Adults, or atleast I, see it as a good time to take stock of my life, maybe analyze a few things in retrospect, and see the birth day as a good problem solving exercise.
So I should have this short list of things which I think I should have/ should be doing by the time I turn 28. I need to set some good goals for the following year and take up on them in right earnest.
Hmm, lets see what I plan to do the next year - Tomorrow is D-day, so I probably could think up of some good ones to put up on my blog tomorrow.
Keep reading "Randomly Coherent".

Epilogue - South Asian basket cases..

epilogue
-noun.

1.
a concluding part added to a literary work, as a novel.
2.
a speech, usually in verse, delivered by one of the actors after the conclusion of a play.
3.
the person speaking this.

The definition of the word lies above.
I refer to the noun, as in definition 1 throughout this post. I am also doing definition 3.
And it is a reference to a "play" if you will, after its conclusion...

Its been over 72 hours since Benazir Bhutto was slain. Bullets, bombs or a car lever - it doesn't matter. A woman, an ex-PM, a person fighting to maintain her father's legacy in the country of her origin is dead.
The repurcussions of red-letter days, or historical events are always to be seen in perspective. It is important to not get swayed by tear-jerking montages, pithy platitudes, and fake tributes - by the like of Barkha Dutt and Karan Thapar on their respective channels. Heck in fact 24x7 can now be renamed, the Bhutto channel.
The woman was PM at one of the times India almost went to war with her country. Her legacy of going soft on the Taliban has cost both America and India dearly, but the biggest price has been paid by the Pakistanis themselves. If she is dead, she is dead for a reason - if you play with fire, you ought to get burnt sometime. Whether she deserved death for it is debatable, but the bastard love-child (Taliban) has turned judge, jury and executioner - so its not a decision for us to make anymore.
While we in India usher in 2008, with trips to shopping malls, talking of the sensex reaching 20k, and talk about India's nanotech policy, Pakistan, the rogue-basket-amputee limb of India is being eaten away by the very maggots that created her in the first place.
I have no remorse or sadness on the ex-PM's death. Hers has been a legacy of death in India, either directly or indirectly, and for that she has paid the ultimate price. It is Nawaz Sharif's turn up next, and possibly Musharraf's after that. Very well - this country is ripe for American intervention, and I'd be a banner holder for American troops on her soil. They are best suited to protect its nukes from the mullahs and fanatics, and they indeed should do that as soon as possible.
There is talk of her 19 year old son succeeding her. Probably we in India are not that sycophantic. And it apparently says so in her-will. It is her legacy to her people. To be led by an immature 19-year old. It is her legacy to the people to be led by her family, even if it means paying the ultimate price herself.. The family name must go on!

What ails this fragile heart?

I am by the sea-shore...
I beseech the calm ocean - ye of strong under-currents to swallow me. I yearn for an end to this life. I do not call it death. Death is silent. Death is in the passing of the earthly being. I crave not for the decimation of this earthly body.

What do you say of a man who wish he'er never born?

This is a day of achievements I am not very proud of.
I have accomplished all my life's goals.. (strange feelings leap from the chasm that would be my heart)
I feel as empty as I was when I'd set out to achieve them!
I've strained every nerve, every sinew of my now fatigued ageing body, in search for the highest levels of accomplishment.
Here I stand at the top, lone victor I truly am!
Yet I feel vanquished.

The dichotomy of my existence
The duality of my existence
The paradox of my existence

I cry
but the tears are dry
I weep
yet the sadness is locked within
My penance
My penance has no meaning
All around there is joy
But I am still so numb
Inside me a million stream of tears flow
But I am still so numb
I am dead
But I am still so numb

Chaos and World Order

Some, maybe you the reader, would like to think there is a lot of chaos in the world. Your observation may be based on the assumption that anarchy, lack of self-determined governance, access to the country's own resources, lack of free speech and demonstration, and absence of legal franchise leads to the conclusion that most of the free world is not quite free. And then there are those who believe we are better off than people were, say 100 years ago. It depends on which country you are from, and it is quite possible that any one of these observations might be true.
What has not changed, is my observation that while we may over certain periods be "better off" than we were at some other time, we as a race of people are just not well off altogether.
The reason, which I propose to highlight, as root cause of all our problems, is quite shocking and something which would make you shrug in disbelief.
A peep into your high school physics tells you that the most natural state for a particle with a lot of energy is to lose that additional energy and go down to a more balanced natural state. As with your simple electronics gadgets where a potential difference leads to a charge migration, it is but human nature to violently resist being in a high energy state. You can define this kind of energy, as potential energy - a form of energy you get in springs which are happy in their most natural, and relaxed state - however when wound, suppressed under external influence, it gets tighter and tighter, beyond which it snaps and goes back to its original state. If wound too tight, it could break or implode.
We need to make similar decisions about us as a race - we have far continued living in viciously violent socities - and the only reason we are that way is because we have been tightly wound - bound by laws, rules, regulations, emotions & religion. Human beings were successful in their evolution not because of structure but primarily due to the lack of it - when we have a problem to solve, we evolve - something like this is not out of place in today's socities, but our roles have become so straight-jacketed that it doesn't allow for radical thinking.
The best form of society, if given a chance, would be one where we are not bound by laws - death will initially takes its toll, but we would survive - knowing the survival of the species depends on our ability to work together - but for this we need to break down the artificial barriers of today's society. In other words, we need to go back to where we started from...