Arbitrary Servings from the Noodle Joint upstairs

New Year - 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:47:00 +0000

Its 2012 and I wish everyone a very happy New Year.

Countdown - One

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:47:00 +0000

Finally, it’s the last day of 2011. And keeping to the theme of the last week, it’s time for the last list. The thing is, when you have as many things to do, to wish for and to want as I do, you know it’s easy to write lists. But when you are like me with all the wants and stuff, how do make a list of one? We, the wise one and I, have been trying to figure out just that and finally decided we will just write whatever we want to instead of a specific list. Moreover, I am not sure how much of a list it would be with just one item on it! :)

OK, it's not a list. But that still leaves me with the job of figuring out what to write about. There have been so many things that I have wanted to write about through the year but haven’t because I either didn't have the time when I had a subject or I didn't have the subject when I had the time. But mostly, I confess, I had subjects and time but just didn't bother to put finger to keyboard and type it all down. A year is a pretty long time when you look at it in terms of stuff to write about. Especially when the year in question happens to be as eventful as this one had been. I mean, the mind boggling economics of the world or of the Euro-zone in particular, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Cuba, the revolutions in Egypt and its surroundings, the Bin Laden, the deal with North Korea and Iran, the earth quakes and tsunamis and tornadoes and floods and that is just a microcosm of what happened in the world at large. Closer home, we have had all the regular drama also called politics, anti-corruption movement, cricket world-cup, a win at the world-cup, F1, airlines going bust, scams, bigger scams, monstrous scams and I guess this is after I have consciously made a decision to forget or ignore most of what happened. Obviously it has been a very eventful year. And having not said a thing about any of those all year, it is now a toughie for me to pick something to write here about.

After sweating a bucket (literally) deliberating and thinking about this, I have finally decided on a topic to write about. I am sure it is sufficiently weighty to warrant this post on the last day of the year. So here goes. I am over-weight and I hate it. I have not done anything about it the whole year other than help it along. The thought of my weight has been “weighing” me down and on this day of this year, I have decided to do something about it. This is me doing that something about it – acknowledging it.

I guess this will do for now. I will figure out what else I can do about it in the new year. Ciao and have a good one. :)

Binary Countdown - 2

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:12:00 +0000

I like the way the new year is coming in this time. Having the new year start in the middle of the week usually leaves me sort of discombobulated. It neither puts me in the proper holiday mood nor does it feel like much of a change which I suppose moving into a new year should be. The way 2012 is planning to start, though, is the ideal way. It feels good to kick back and say TGIF, you get the weekend to highlight the holiday and on Monday morning your new year can start, prim and proper.

In case you have missed my count-down to the big day, it started with “Places I want to see” on Monday, “Things I want to do” on Tuesday, “People I want to meet” on Wednesday and “Professions I could have been in” yesterday. Now it’s today … errr, I mean Friday, we are 2 days away and keeping to the theme of this series, I have a list of two. Two events to be more precise.

The return of Microsoft – Am I nuts or did you miss Microsoft’s demise? Neither, though you could make a case out for the former. I am not talking Microsoft as in Microsoft Windows 7 or Office. Rather I am talking about Microsoft Windows Mobile! MS, I feel, got caught out first by Apple and then by Google in the hand-held device space and has perpetually been nowhere to be found. Perpetually, that is, since the whole touchy-feely devices started flooding the market place. It’s been a good 4 or 5 years now since Apple, a so far non-phone player, hit the collective consciousness with the iPhone. This was followed by yet another so far non-phone player in Google flooding the market with their 'free' Android OS. And while these new kids on the block were out not only making hay but also effectively making their own sun-shine, MS was nowhere to be seen. And to think that MS was the only one among the big three software giants with a full blown presence in the area of handheld devices before the game was changed and they were left out! Recently however MS has been making all the right noises. The marriage with Nokia looks to be shaping up well (The Lumia phones look awesome. Don’t know how they perform though) and from all the scuttlebutt going around, Windows Phone 8 is shaping up to be a cracker. Here is hoping that the mobile market grows from a two-horse race to a three-horse race. Are you thinking why I am interested in this? Well, I am always in the market for a phone and the more I have to look at and decide between, the merrier. :) All the Android phones are starting to look like, well, Androids, there is anyway just one iPhone so it will look and feel like it always has even though it can talk back to me now, Symbian is dead (though I really like the N8 and E7), MeeGo was supposedly brilliant but was a still born baby, RIM is on life support and Java based OS’es have gone the way of the dinosaur. So that leaves MS as the remaining player who I can look up to, to inject the much needed differentiation in a space that is increasingly looking the same whichever way you turn.
The US presidential elections – Yep, it’s a strange one for someone in India to be looking forward to, what with all the drama that Indian politics is capable of throwing up (and is indeed doing so right now!). But of late I have been fascinated by the whole process the Americans follow to elect their president. It all seems complicated and downright unnecessary but whom am I to complain. At the heart of it all is their two-party system consisting of the democrats and republicans and come election time, each party will have one elected representative trying to claim the White House for his (or her) own use. The democrats are going with their incumbent, so no sweat for them I guess. The thing that is holding my interest right now is what they call the nomination process to pick a candidate to represent the Republican Party. This process, which involves quite a few ‘debates’ between the hopefuls apart from the traditional campaigning seems like a great system. Given the televised nature of the debates, these essentially provide the presidential hopefuls a platform to reach a national audience from which to hawk their agenda much before they are actually in the fray for the top spot. At least on paper, this seems like a better system than that followed by our politicians which essentially consists of ceaselessly campaigning. Anyway, the main reason for following the US presidential elections is because whether I like it or not, the fortunes of our economy and the company I work in are closely tied to the fortunes of the US market and by extension, to the ideologies, compulsions, whims and fancies of those who make the governing policies for that market.

Two days to go and that’s my binary list that I am looking forward to which I hope will keep me engrossed well into 2012.

No Bucket-List. Only Countdown - 3

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:22:00 +0000

I am changing my usual style today and starting off with my list. Today’s is going to be about ‘The Three Alternate Professions’ I usually see myself in. The boring background stuff will come later, if I feel up to it. ;)

Racer – I love the idea of bikes and cars and speed, I speed unnecessarily on public roads and I claim to be good at it. Of course no one else has endorsed me but when you are as good as I am, you don’t need endorsement! Anyway, given this love for speed, it’s no wonder that I see myself strapped to a speeding missile with steering control and mixing it with the likes of Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen on a regular basis. But alas, as they say, all good things must come to an end and so it is with me when I have to wake up.
Dancer – Remember dancing to music when you were a kid? Yep, I am referring to that un-synchronized movement of your hands and legs and out-of-rhythm shaking of the hips that we all did at one time or the other when we were still young enough to not care about it. Right from those days I have known two things – I can follow a rhythm and someone has to choreograph my dance always, even the aforementioned un-coordinated movement. So it’s pretty easy to imagine myself as ‘Mr. Twinkle Toes’. But make no mistake; it’s Mr. Twinkle Toes the back-up dancer and not Mr. Twinkle Toes the choreographer.
Food Taster and Critic – I consider myself a foodie in the sense that I like anything that is labeled ‘food’. From high-brow to road-side and everything in between is a favorite. A couple of things stand in the way of me actually realizing this dream of being a FTC. My taste cognizance begins and ends with heat and spice, so I will probably miss out on all the subtle flavours (that’s what they call ‘bland food’ these days) and the fact that I am a vegetarian and am a teetotaler means that the piece of the ‘global-food-spread’ pie that I can dig into is comparatively small. But I have never let these facts get in the way of a good, mouth-watering imagination :)

So those are the three other avatars that I see myself. My main, and real, avatar is that of a ‘software professional’, which is a better way of saying that I write code for a living. Of course, I didn't set out to write code from the beginning. As I was growing up, there were the regulars like becoming a Pilot or a Doctor. After school, I did my undergraduate course in mechanical engineering. And yet here I am, 11 years after finishing college, pounding on keyboards and dealing with languages, syntaxes, bits, bytes and character-sets. “How come?” you may ask. It’s simple really. After 2 years of kindergarten, 5 years of junior school, 5 years of high school, 2 years of junior college and 4 years of undergraduate college (for a total of 18 years of 'sit-on-your-arse-and-study' kind of formal education) I was ready to stop studying and start earning. I took the first job that came my way and haven't looked back ever since. :)

If you have been following my posts these last few days, you would have noticed that this is not a “Bucket List”. No wishes here. I was going through the news-paper this morning and everybody and their uncle was on about either “2011 - The year that was” or “2012 – What to expect” or some similar thing. So the wise one and I decided that we will leave the wishing to the ones who do it so well – on nationally circulated news papers no less – and stick to general count-down lists to ring in the new year. That's why the foray into my imagination today. That being said, we are almost on the verge of tripping into the next year. Three more days to go.

Bucket-List Countdown - 4

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Another new day and here I am to make a few more additions to my growing wish list. I have taken to calling this my “Bucket List” but given the rate at which I am adding to it, looks like I will be left holding an overflowing bucket by the time I am ready to kick the bucket. So I am thinking (Yes, I tend to do that. Sometimes) that maybe I should cut back on the wishing and hoping and wanting so that I don’t put too much pressure on myself. But ‘kya karen, control nahi hota’!! So this is the compromise I have worked out between me and myself. I will give in to the temptation today and get done with it. ‘Kal kya hoga, kise pata’! ;)

Today’s list is more of a Guest List rather than a Wish List. It is about folks I would love to meet. But it’s a slightly different kind of love I am talking about. Screaming their names to get their attention, hankering after their autographs and fawning over them don’t really figure in my plans. Rather what I would love to do is to have a one-on-one with them so that I get answers to a few interesting questions that I have. So without further ado, I give you...

Michael Schumacher – Given that my Formula-1 fandom began and ended with this guy, it should come as no surprise that he is the one I would love to get some answers from. The way I see it in my head, it would be a series of “What were you thinking” questions. Like “What were you thinking when you went straight into Damon in ’94 and repeated the same with JV in ’97? Couldn't you try something else?” ;) Or like “What were you thinking when you let Rubens through in the last second? That dude isn't worth the trouble!” ;) He he, if I get to meet him, I know it would be fun.
The entire set of folks who fall under the category ‘Indian Politicians’ – Agreed that this is not a single person. But I really couldn't pick one, so I thought I would conduct an open house with all of them in one place. And once there, I think the things I want to ask them are pretty obvious. Like “Why don’t you guys grow up and start acting like grown-ups?” Or like “How heck do you plan to carry all that money with you once you die?” Or like “So when do you plan to stop acting like divas and start acting as public servants?” Or… well, there are probably thousands of questions I can put forth. But considering that they will all be under a single roof, I think realistically my expectations should be that they will be trying to shout each other down and taking the furniture apart to throw at each other and the open house would have to be ‘adjourned’ keeping in mind the safety of all concerned!
Barack Obama – Yep, the current president of the USA. The same one who is, depending on who you talk to, the first Muslim, non-American to become president. I have just one question to you sir. Nobel Peace Prize! Why? How? OK, that’s two questions. Sue me.

and finally

God – This is the big one. My very own ‘Interview with God’. Of course this pre-supposes that God is a person, which according to a lot of faiths around the world, is the first mistake I could make. Well, since I am the one meeting with him, I can imagine him to be whatever I want him to be. Wait, I seem to be very sure that God is a ‘Him’ and not a ‘Her’! Hmm. Well, for the sake of convenience and expediency, let me just imagine a ‘Him’. A ‘Her’ would only result in me doing a lot of flirting and not enough talking. So what would I ask God? There are a quite a few but I guess I will start with “Having made man-kind, was it so hard to put some sense into them?” and wing it from there.

Well that’s all. With 4 more days to go for the dawn of the new year, this here is my list of 4 that I would like to meet and chat-up. Here’s to the hope that at least one of these happens.

Bucket-List Countdown - 5

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:16:00 +0000

My previous list covered the 6 places I want to visit before it is too late to do the visiting. However, visiting places can be just that – visiting. You get on a bus/train/car/flight, travel for how-ever-long and reach the place. You see the sights, eat the food, soak in the atmosphere and you come back the same way you got there. It is just a visit, even though the place you have visited is on that “must visit” list of yours. For getting an absolute high, though, you need to not just visit but do something; something adventurous that you don’t / can’t / won’t do as part of your normal day-to-day life. Of course you can do weed or some of its more sophisticated relatives and get high, but that’s not what I am talking about. Neither am I talking about any procreational activities though I do realize that either of those can also definitely fall under the “adventurous activities you don’t / can’t / won’t do as part of your normal day-to-day life” category for some! ;)

With that mandatory clarification out of the way, let me now get to my list of To-Do activities. The “Bucket-List” grows!

My first experience of watching any kind of skating were the old broadcasts on TV about the winter Olympics and the ice-skating championships which the channel used to show as time and space fillers between regular programs way back when … I don’t exactly remember when but it was way back. What arrested my attention were the grace, the ease and the fluidity with which they were gliding and I have wanted to be able to do that ever since. I have tried my hand at skating a few times and having ended all those attempts rather abruptly after landing heavily on my bum I am still waiting to show off my grace and fluidity. With wheels, without wheels, wheels in two rows, wheels in a single row, blades, skiis, ice, snow, tarmac, it doesn’t matter how I skate and where I skate on, as long as I can. So on the list goes skating.
What do Sly Stallone, James Franco, Tom Cruise and Hrithik Roshan have in common, apart from being good-looking actors? I can hear the ladies say “Does anything else matter?” but I am not a lady so I guess I am looking for some other common factor. To figure out this ‘other’ trait they share, try Cliffhanger, 127 Hours, Mission Impossible 2 and Lakshya and you will know what I am getting at. These guys made climbing mountains with nothing more that rope and pitons look easy. Do I hear you say, “It’s the movies, stupid.”? Well, I know it’s the movies and I know mountaineering is not a walk in the park, but hey if it can make me feel like Sly Cruise, I am all for it. :). Add mountaineering / rock climbing to the list.
Next up is something that thousands of ordinary folks seem to be doing, in ever increasing numbers, each year. In fact my sister has done it last year and my best friend from college has done it and continues to do it every year. And this has sort of piqued my interest. A marathon, the full enchilada, is a 42.195 Kms long running race. Yikees!! The thought of that distance itself is scary, so I wonder what it is about running a marathon that is pulling in so many people away from the cushy comforts of their couches, into their running shoes and onto the roads. I would like to find that out, first hand. On it goes then to my list.
If the challenge of lasting the distance is the marathon’s attraction, then power, torque, the smell of rubber and gas, the feeling of literally controlling your life with your hands as well as the feeling of being absolutely out of control are the attractions (fatal at times) of motor racing (specifically of the two-wheeled variety). Ever since I have been on vehicle without training wheels, I have raced and sped. And have fallen and been bruised, broken, scratched and mended. And have gotten back on the vehicle to resume the speeding and racing. Of course, all the speeding and racing is of the “traffic light GP” variety on public roads where the sheer volume of every day traffic and crowd means that all my racing happens at 50 Kmph! I would have actually been an amateur racer on two wheels if not for a conservative and “safety-first” mindset – my parents’ and mine. But all the same, it’s on my list because I would love to put my leg over a crotch rocket and let loose on a closed circuit where the only other traffic are fellow racers. No speed limits, no signals, no bull-s***. If not anything else, I will at least know whether I would have made it in that life had I chosen differently.
The last on my current list of things to do is the one that scares me the most. But I am also super excited about it because I, for whatever reason, feel that I can actually do it. Am not sure how to explain that contradiction but then that’s not what I am trying to do here. I love being in water. Linda Goodman offers an explanation for that by saying that I am a fixed water sign, whatever that is supposed to mean. However the slight hitch is that I don’t know how to swim. My standard answer when anyone asks me about my prowess is water is to say that I swim like a rock! I usually stand on the shallow side of a swimming pool splashing around. On a recent holiday, though, I broke from convention and signed up for a snorkeling session in the sea. The taste of the underwater world (apart from the sea water that is) that I got during that time has got me salivating at the prospect of deep sea diving. Lots of colorful corals, lots of colorful fish and me in full scuba gear lazily floating among it all – bliss. :)

So there it is. It’s now 5 days to go before the 12 takes over and this is going to be a list of my top 5 things to do in life, again in no particular order.

Bucket-List Countdown - 6

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:33:00 +0000

It’s nearing the end of the year and we, the smart one and I, are pretty much glued to our work laptops these days even when we are at home. For her this is an annual thing, what with this being the busiest time of the year for her company. For me, well, what else am I supposed to be doing when she is other-wise occupied? ;) Anyway, we were both busy being busy when she suddenly goes, "You know, there are only 6 more posts to go for me to reach 100 posts". Took me a couple of seconds to realize she was talking about her blog. It took her the same couple of seconds to come up with "You know, there are 6 more days left in this year, the two hours left in 'today' included". As I started the process of processing that apparently independent piece of information she was busy bridging the two observations and said , "You know, we should write something on the 6 remaining days". And that’s how this idea came about of a count-down, "Bucket-list" style.

So my list starts with the 6 places, in no particular order, I would absolutely love to visit before global warming, nuclear war and the Mayan calendar conspire to deny me the opportunity.

Taj Mahal - Been there already, but I would love to go back with the smart one and hopefully on a day when the usually maddening crowds take a break from being maddening crowds. Why? I am a romantic at heart. That’s why. :)
Petra - Have seen this only in movies. Notably in Indiana Jones and in Transformers and not so notably in a handful of Indian movies and have been in awe. A voice in my head keeps telling me that what I see on the big screen is all there is to see in Petra and a visit would actually be a letdown. But if I am hearing voices in my head, I am probably too far gone to actually listen to them, even when they make sense. :)
Pyramids - The Egyptian Pyramids are another place of supposed mystique. Having heard and read all those stories about secret passages, dead souls waiting to be revived, ancient calendars, aliens, yada yada yada who wouldn't want to check the place out? And after watching "Despicable Me", I am going there armed with a safety pin to find out if the pyramids are all that they are made out to be or if it’s just a load of hot air.
Marrakech – I am not sure what there is to this place except for maybe centuries of history but a couple of years back my previous company had organized a get together in this place and I didn't get to go. Apart from having heap-loads of history, I heard that it was a great place for relaxing and shopping (not sure how those two go hand-in-hand but stranger things have happened!). Marrakech, in Morocco, has been stuck in my head ever since.
Grand Canyon – A freak of nature, if I can call it that. The vital stats - 446 Kms long, 29 Kms wide (at the max), 1.8 Kms deep (at the max) - themselves are staggering. Add to that the beautiful but bleak and desolate landscape usually shown in pictures and it is nothing if not intriguing. I would love to fly the entire length and breadth of it in a chopper. (Reminder to self: Wake up and count the money!)
The Polar Ice Caps – Yep. Both would be great, one of the two will do nicely enough. I know I can't stand the cold, I know there isn't much in terms of sight-seeing. I also know that in the Himalayas during a mini (the teeny-weeny side of mini actually) snow storm I strangely felt at peace in the white surroundings. Guess I am just looking for something like that, magnified a whole lot more.

There you go! The places I would absolutely love to visit. Of course there are a lot more but when I got down to listing them, these were the toppers. I can only hope that someday I have enough time and enough resources to actually do the visiting.

Kolaveri about Kolaveri...

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:03:00 +0000

You know what they say about opinions. Opinions are like the "waste disposal orifices of the homo spaiens"; Everybody has one and they all stink. They don't say it exactly in those words but I try to maintain some parliamentary decency in the language of my posts while trying to convey the whole meaning of what they say. The bottom-line is that opinions stink no matter who is expressing them. And opinions cannot be right or wrong. They are just opinions. Before someone tries to point out the obvious to me, it is not lost on me that this is my opinion and the same rules apply. With that out of the way here are my two 'stinking' cents.

The first time I heard the term "viral" was in connection with some infection I was down with as a kid and was made to swallow gaudily colorful tablets which looked like Cadbury's Gems (for the americanised reader, think M&M's) but tasted like concentrated bitter gourd. The next time I paid attention to that term was quite a few years down the line. I had been introduced to computers by that time and computers with "viral" infections were all the rage ... I mean, they were in the news and classrooms a lot. I was initially confused and later amused at the use of a biological term to describe the fate that had befallen a demonstrably non-biological entity. That was a good 10 years or so back. Fast forward to today and virus infected computers have become so much a part of our regular lives and lexicon that the usage hardly causes a pause. Now, suddenly out of the blue (if you are color-blind, just take my word for it!) we start hearing the word "viral" being associated with a whole different type of entity. One that has no connection whatsoever to biological life forms or even to physical forms. Videos, songs, fashion, games, trends ... you name it and it has probably gone "viral". If we take into consideration what happened in Egypt and in other parts of the middle east a little while ago, you could probably say a revolution went "viral" too! I guess the use of the term in this context is because of the way something spreads across a huge set of people across geographies via the internet which is similar to the way a virus spreads in the body and between bodies via a carrier.

There is one charecteristic which is common to the things that go viral on the net. A huge volume of people seem to like it (not the FB variety of like, though given how 'FB'ised people are becoming that day isn't too far). Why they like it, on the other hand, is not so easy to discern. "Why this kolaveri di" is a case in point. It is supposed to be the first song from south of India that went viral, not just in India but around the world and that is good news (I guess!). Why it went viral worldwide ... now that is something I cannot start to figure out. It is not an outright tamil song. Neither is it an english song. The makers call the language 'Tanglish' which I think is their convenient way of saying all of this - "The song has a few tamil words and made up slang interspersed among a lot a english words used with a total disregard for the grammer of either language, all of which are pronounced with a funny accent" - in a single word. The singer is not a regular singer. Having said all that, do I like the song? Oh yes. Why? Because I found it to be extremely funny. It has got references to things like "soup boys" and "soup song" and "bouvu" which I have no clue about but what the heck. You can figure out the meaning for these based on the context of the song. As it says - "empty life-u, girl-u come-u, life reverse gear-u". Indeed!! :) Others might have found it funny too and yet others might have connected with the theme of heartbreak that the song tries to portray.

However, and this is me finally getting to the point about opinions, people seem to have a problem just accepting that this song is popular. There are some (like this person) who take the song title too literally (Why this murderous rage, girl) and argue that in a case of heartbreak, the murderous rage is usually exhibited by the guy and so the song and its title are not representative. For these folks who can't seem to enjoy something just because it is, without going into the various existing or non-existing pros, cons, whys and whynots, all I can say is "Wake up and smell the coffee" (if you are Kesha, you should smell your bottle of Jack). Then there is the other type (like this person), who don the mantle of the purist. They diss and dismiss it as not even being a song. For these folks there is nothing I can say. I will just keep laughing at their opinions because they exemplify what I said about opinions in the beginning.

All Rock - No Star

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:55:00 +0000

So there I was along with the brainy one, waiting outside the cinema for the rest of the gang to come. We were three and half couples and related through the wives (Three couples and a bachelorette actually). This was the first time we were all out together, so there was a fair bit of excitement in the air. Welcoming new people into the family and all that you know. But I guess the excitement was more because of the movie we were waiting to watch. Rockstar. The latest hyped-up "blockbuster" churned out by the "blockbuster" making machine called Bollywood.

I am perpetually perplexed at how these movies are accorded "blockbuster" status? I wonder if the censor board is handing them out along with their audience suitability certificates. Or maybe there is some secret place where the producer can walk in, flaunt his collection of filled-to-the-brim-with-currency VIP Skybags and walk out with a "blockbuster" certificate for his movie. Whatever be the case, every other Bollywood movie hitting the screens these days is being touted as a BB. And so is the case with this movie as well. Anyway, my distaste for over-hyped movies aside, I was looking forward to a fun evening with the rest of the group. And on that count, the evening definitely delivered. The movie, sadly, didn't.

I don't look for intellect in a movie. Far from it. But I do expect the movie to atleast be logical in the most basic ways. For example, I can understand the portrayal of an Indian rock star who sings only in Hindi packing the joint where ever he performs in India. But it crosses over into the 'indigestion inducing' realm when the protagonist is shown doing the same in countries like Italy and the Czech republic. And not just in some small intimate setting either. No sir, his concert is shown packing an entire stadium!! From the beginning till the end, the movie is full of such inanity.

The music company is said to be taking 4 artists to Prague. But only our Rockstar is shown performing. That is completely fine but singing along with street performers on the streets of Prague in hindi??
This hindi-only "Rock star" is instantly recognized by the common man on the street in the foreign country he is about to perform (Check the shot on the bus where the grandmother's face lights up when she recognizes the guy sitting in front of her)
In college, the heroine is termed "The heart-breaking machine". And yet this is the same girl who, for no rhyme or reason, comes up to the decidedly goofy hero and reveals her "Junglee Jawani" side to him. How come?
The opening shot has our hero trading fists with a bunch of policemen in a foreign land even as his entourage is preparing for his upcoming concert in the stadium. Why did he pick up a fight with the cops? No idea. How come the cops let him be after he assaults them and takes off for his concert? No idea.
The rock star is supposed to be a casanova and a rebel. Where is the womanizing and where is the rebellion? All we get to see is him dressed in a hybridized "pathan" costume and fighting with cops.
He flips the bird at a crowd. Only reason why he does it is because he had told us in a previous scene that when Jim Morrison did it, it was cool.

I could go on but I don't feel like putting myself through it again. I guess you get the drift.

As for the acting, I wouldn't be able to tell a bad actor from a good one. But I can definitely tell when someone is not acting and that was definitely what the female lead in the movie was doing. Pretty face and nothing else. The shots focusing on her face in the beginning of the movie were what provided some of the funny moments in the movie for me. My advice to her - "Don't give up your day job. Ever". The male lead is confusing. In the first part of the movie, where he is still a student struggling to make it big as a Rocker, he comes across as this guy who is confused by the fact that his singing fate hasn't changed in the way it is supposed to. In the second half, he is full of...confusion. We are supposed to understand that it is angst and fury but to me it looked like he was still confused. Though it has to be said that he was atleast trying to bring out the correct emotions. I really don't remember anyother character so nothing to tell about them.

There is a scene towards the end where the lady is in a coma and the guy goes in to see if he can revive her. It is one of those scenes which is unintentionally representative of the movie as it is. A few good scenes trying desperately to prop up a comatose movie.

Arif Zakaria - Agenda Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 08:29:00 +0000

Let me get straight to the point here. One Mr. Arif Zakaria took it upon himself to pass the decry that F1 is a sham sport. Well, as a fan of the sport, I couldn't let it pass. So here goes.

"Before the engine roar fades from our subconscious and the race track is swept clean using a million gallons from the coarse Yamuna water and the swish set move on to yet another peeve- let me say this point blank- F1 is no sport, it's not even a game…it’s a conglomerate of top notch automobile companies very shamelessly albeit skillfully parading their metallic wares. How the hell does it qualify to be a sport? Where is the human toil? The sweat and grind, the man vs. man gladiatorial mud scrap?"

You know Mr. Zakaria, there is nothing to say about this. Your point is indeed blank. Have you watched any other F1 race in your life before the one in India? Or are you jumping on the bandwagon like so many others have and feel a need to take a stand against it? I ask this because if you have followed the sport, you wouldn't have let loose about lack of gladiatorial mud scraps and lack of human toil. I hope that you don't seriously think designing and building the race cars is as easy as you and I letting loose our opinions on a blog site. Human toil, sweat and grind is very much part of it not to mention the actual driving of them cars. More on this later.

"Make no mistake this is automobile technology at pinnacle, engineering marvel at its dizzying best. The best and the fastest machines the outcome of relentless human toil in mastering notions of speed, combustion and gravity. Hats off to all, that but it is no sport."

Wait, did you just acknowledge the "relentless human toil" which goes into making the cars? Wow! But you still display your lack of understanding and your ignorance by saying it is no sport. Please figure out what the word "sport" means and I am not talking about your version of it. I am talking about the dictionary meaning of it which says "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc." You see racing there don't you? Racing is a sport Mr. Zakaria and it does require a special bent of mind to not see it that way

"The machines guide the drivers. All they need is a sense of fearlessness and a good anti nausea pill (30 circles in 90 minutes need a bile control prescription). What skill is needed in driving at 300 kmph in a relative straight line?"

Where do I even start with this? The machines guide the drivers? Really? All you need is fearlessness and an anti-nausea pill? I think you are actually crying out for a chance to get strapped into one of these machines yourself because by what you said you could probably do a decent job of it. You are certainly fearless judging by how you are so openly touting your ignorance and an anti-nausea pill is most probably available over the counter drug in any medial store, so you are set Mr. Zakaria. Since according to you, "What skill is needed in driving at 300 kmph in a relative straight line?" If you have ever stepped into a car, sat yourself behind the wheel and driven it, you wouldn't ask the question about skill being required. Yet here you say there is none involved when you are travelling at 300 Kmph! And finally please explain how I can go around in circles 30 times on a circuit which is a relative straight line. That is after allowing you the lee-way of calling the circuit a circle.

"And it’s a bad sport for the feminists with zero women drivers. Why no women drivers yet and just for that I don’t call it fair game."

Another classic piece - no women involved, so it is not fair. I do not know how this disquallifies F1 from being a sport but hey, I am not into ignorance and twisted logic either. Mr. Zakaria, do you know how many of the technical and engineering staff of these teams are women? And coming to your point of drivers, F1 has had a total of 5 women drivers over the years? That definitely is not much of a male vs female ratio to speak about but hey did you even know that they were there? And please do explain your notion of "fair game" because I sure don't see how it is not. Are you saying it should be made mandatory to have female drivers? Is that your idea of "fair game"? IF that is what you mean, then maybe we shoud classify our education system as a "sport", what say?

"Believe me it's all managed. Fixed. Red Bull this year, McLaren next, Mercedes the year after. Settled. So there’s hope for Force India."

This here is the author becoming desperate. After the lack of reasoning and logic in the preceeding lines, he needs this final desperate push to sell his point. That it is all Managed. Fixed, he says. Mr. Zakaria, you do of course mean it in the same way as matches are fixed in Cricket right? Yet Cricket is a sport to support but F1 is not even a sport? And to draw a parallel across other sports - Football is fixed because FC Barcelona seem to be winning always; Tennis must be the epitome of 'Fixing' with the Roger domination, Nadal domination, Williams domination, Djokovic domination etc; Long distance running is fixed because the Kenyans always win; Cycling is fixed because the US teams always win - Hope you get the point Mr Z. As an example of how wrong you are, if you actually bother to take a look at the Red-Bull team over the last 5 years, you will know that they have evolved from being the back markers to the mid-field guys and have finally made their way into the leading pack. As for Force India, their position on the grid is going to be decided by the quality of their off-track and on-track teams and not through some mythical fixing that you alone seem to know about.

"It’s also the worst event for a paying public, the true spectators who form the life line of any sport. You shell out 35,000/- per seat to watch the cars vroooom past for all of 3.5 seconds. I watched the F1from the most vantage point this year, better than any paid/privileged seat- on my TV screen sitting at home. Didn’t Mr. Bean, though omnipresent at the venue, watch it on a screen too? We had the same view."

Mr. Zakaria, please grow up. If you did not want to pay through your nose for a premium seat at the venue of the grand-prix, you don't have to. No one is holding a gun to your head to cough up that money. And let me point out that you conviniently left out the part about 35K being the price only for the premium seats. How about the tickets which were originally priced 2500 and 6500 and later sold at half those rates? Are they still un-affordable? And if you do say that, who exactly are you batting for when you cry un-affordable? The below poverty-line population in our country? Well this may be news to you but I bet they aren't really raring to go to a GP event even if the ticket is priced at 100 bucks. They have more existential things to concentrate on. Do you think everyone flocks to the cricket stadia in our country because all the seats are affordably priced for the lowest economic sections of the community? As I said before, please grow up Mr. Zakaria. This is not a supposed to be a reflection of the economic conditions in our country. This is a sporting event like any other and if enough people think the prices are too high, the prices will be corrected for the longivity of the event.

One last thing. Fans go to a stadium or a circuit because they enjoy the atmosphere of sharing their appreciation of a sport and a team with other like minded fans. Not because they get a clear view of the proceedings. You would understand this if you were a fan. Of any sport.

"So, big deal I wasn’t there. From the couch I marveled at the technicalities (the complex communications network) but scoffed at those who were watching it from the stands. How do you pitch this ‘sport’ to your child? For a true sport inspires while leaving behind an easy legacy. So whenever your child is behind the wheels will you coax him to drive real fast, undertake a few sharp maneuovres and try staying alive in the bargain? No way. Give me real sport. Even though it lasts all of 9.5 seconds, I will give all my dimes and the shirt of my back to watch Usain Bolt."

This here is your major problem, sir. You are risk averse. And lazy. And ignorant. And you want everyone to be like you. Pity. How do you pitch cricket to your kid, I wonder. Whenever your child has a stick in hand will you coax him to whack whatever is close by, out-of-sight and hope they don't break something valuable? And may I point out that in spite of your so called support for feminists and lament about lack of females drivers in the sport, you automatically refer to your boy kid when it comes to coaxing your child to take this sport up. :)

How you pitch this sport to your kid is by saying the same thing that his uncle told spiderman - "With great power comes great responsibility". You pitch this sport to your kid by getting him/her into a go-kart at a kart track and teaching him/her the skill of driving fast and specifically advising them that the public roads are not a race track. Driving fast and responsibly is a skill, irrespective of what you think about it, because it involves finding the limits of your own body and the limits of physics while at the same time keeping in mind that there are others around on the same track. It is a hard-earned skill where you spend endless hours toiling away to get the interplay between the clutch, break and accelerator as smooth as a symphony. It requires you to be at the best physical shape you possibly can be at. It requires brute strength as well as technique to hold yourself up against the physical forces at play in an open car and concentrate on driving eye-searingly fast. And if you know what it takes to make a top-notch athlete, irrespective of the sport, you would recognize that training, sacrifice, hard-work and dedication are what it takes. It is down to human toil, sweat and grind but then given your ignorance at display here, I can't honestly expect you to know that.

You say you would watch Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt would probably spend the 9.5 secs productively by running away from you.

...and so he is off to B-school

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:49:00 +0000

My latest favorite movie is 3 Idiots. It's got Amir Khan in it, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi were wonderful, Chatur 'Silencer' Ramalingam was super hilarious and the story on the whole was very relatable, all of which totally negate the fact that it also has Kareena Kapoor in it. So that's good. 'All izz well' in 3I speak. So why am I talking about 3 Idiots now, a few months after it has trail blazed itself into Bollywood history books?

Because, like I said, the movie was relatable. As in, I could relate to it. Take this for example.

I was out of town on work a couple of weeks back when one of my friends (I happen to have those you know) left me a scrap on Orkut (yes I am one of the two people in the world who hasn't jumped on to the Facebook bandwagon. The other one is the man in my mirror) saying he has something important to tell me and that he will call me when I am back. I started thinking about what the important thing could be and decided that he was going to get hitched. After all, I knew his mom had been insisting for some time now that he should "Marry a nice girl and settle down" (as opposed to being single and being able to sow his wild oats around. Hmmm!!). With that decided in my head, I put it on the back burner as I had more pressing things to take care of.

Two weeks go by and I am back home and I get a call from this guy. "Dude, I have quit V***** and am moving to H*****". Wow! That’s not the marriage news I was expecting. This was a job change news he was giving me. And thinking about it, I thought this was in-evitable because he had been complaining about his current job for a few years now. No pay rise, no promotion, office politics, the lot. Made sense that he had finally worked up the courage to let go of the devil he knew for the god he didn't. So I asked him, "Where in H*****? Which company?" And he says, "Dude that is a hint I just gave you. I have turned in my papers in V***** and am moving to H*****. So guess where I am going." And it hit me then. He wasn't going to any other company. A move to H***** could only mean one thing, at least between the two of us. He had finally made it to the B-school.

It's been a few years since we both met during B-school preparation courses. We hit it off immediately and from that time have been constantly in touch, keeping each other updated about our futile attempts at getting into an elite B-school in the country. Along the way, my efforts petered off, I started concentrating more on my job, I got married and today my B-school dream is all but forgotten. At the same time, he had given up, made peace with his work and work environment, went abroad on an assignment, tried to get into a school there (and failed) and finally settled down for a career sans a business degree. Or so I thought until the call yesterday. He hadn't given up and now he is going to one of the best schools in the country. Wow!! Congratulations man.

So what does the movie have anything to do with this? There is this one scene where their first exam results are out and two of the guys (Madhavan and Sharman) anxiously scan the results only to find that they have just about made it, at the bottom of the list. But they don't see their friend’s name (Amir) there and turn back, sad that he has not even made the cut although they have made it. Then they come to know from someone else that their friend has topped the exam while they both have just managed to scrape through! Their faces fall even lower and the voice over says, "It is a common enough feeling. We feel bad when our friends don't do well. But we feel worse when we know that they have done much better than us."

Dude, there is this corner of my head where I am feeling real bad that you made it and I didn’t (I think it’s the J word) but pay no heed to that (I won’t either). You did it and that's what matters. All the very best to you and let me know how it goes.

February 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:01:00 +0000

The last month has been frantic to say the least. And I had managed to make it through the most hectic and frantic month of my work life.

It all started with my annual master health check. They said it was a good idea to get it done once you hit the big 3'oh'. Well, I did hit it pretty hard and fast last November, so I thought of doing something different for a change and took them on their advice. Presented myself at the doctor's at the unearthly hour of & in the morning and proceeded to spend the better part of the day there being poked, bled and x-rayed, not to mention going through the mandatory peeing-into-a-box routine. At the end of which the doctor declared that nothing was wrong with me except for my lifestyle because of which I was overweight. Duh! What did he think I was, dumb and overweight? If I knew I would be hearing stuff that I already knew, I wouldn't have blown the thousand bucks which I ended up blowing. I was still steaming out of my ears and foaming at my mouth as I returned to the car and started on my way back. Thankfully I calmed down as soon as I got out of the gates there because I knew I would end up wrapped around a tree if I drove in that mood and would, in all probability, end up in the emergency ward of the same place I was trying to get away from. It also slowly dawned on me that getting to know that nothing was wrong with me (apart from the weighty issues I already am aware of) was the whole point of getting the check done. By the time I was home, I was only thinking about losing 13 kilos. Fast.

It's been more than a decade since I stepped into a badminton court and so when a friend told me of this place he was going to, I was excited. What better way of shedding excess weight than a good workout on a badminton court every morning? I made arrangements to join him every morning and the first day, I was there. Racquet in hand and looking spiffy in my new sneakers, I was ready to shuttle those love handles to oblivion. That was the beginning of the month, mind, and by this time I was supposed to have regained a bit of my touch around the court. Alas! That first day turned out to be my last day on the court, all courtesy my ankle. I had started out well, managed to become breathless in the first 15 mins on court and managed to come down rather heavily and awkwardly on my left ankle in the next 15 mins. Imagine 90 kilos coming down on one ankle, that too the wrong way. After that I spent the next 15 mins limping and hobbling around before calling it a day and getting back home, getting ready and going to work. It wasn't until the next day morning that the full extent of my problem hit me. The ankle was swollen up to the size of a tennis ball, I couldn't put any weight on it and my limping around the house on a tennis ball freaked out my folks. So off I went to the doctor once again. Second time in a week.

At the doctor's, looking at an x-ray of my ankle

Doc - "Thankfully, there is no fracture. But seeing how bad it has swollen, I suggest you take a lot of bed rest. Try to keep your leg horizontal as much as possible."

Me - "But doctor, I..."

Doc - "I know, you have to go to office and all that. It's all right. Make sure you find a small stool or something to rest your leg on while in office."

Me - "No, that's not the thing. I am travelling tomorrow and will be gone, probably till the end of the month."

The doc didn't say anything after that but he did give me a look which said, "I told you what you are supposed to do. You want to travel. Be my guest, break a leg!" And off I went, armed with a week's dose of tablets and an ice pack, along with my clothes, neck-ties and laptop. Over the next ten days (not counting the weekend in between during which I was not working) I religiously popped the pills, regularly wrapped the ice pack around the ankle and almost always kept the leg up and horizontal (except when I was standing in front of the clients in the training hall and while having my food). The size of the swelling started going down, the limp found itself out of work and the pain wasn't apparent unless I masochistically poked around my ankle to find it. Not bad at all.

If all this were not enough to deal with, there was this small, tiny matter of my first wedding anniversary. This was on the weekend that was bookended by my travel to different clients in different cities. Any other weekend, I would have spent the weekend lazing and dozing around, recharging batteries (That's what I told everyone. I actually just like lazing around). Not this time though. So back I came from one travel, drove the wife out to a resort we had long wanted to go, spent a serene couple of days relaxing and getting surprised by the staff at the place before driving back home to real life, work pressure and general mundaneness. Not to mention more travelling.

Off I went again, packed bags and all, to another place to once again stand and deliver. And stand up and deliver they made me do because I realised that the client's expectations were different from what I was informed about and for what I had prepared. This trip, which I thought would be the most straightforward of all my journeys in the month, just turned out to be the worst. I ended up staying up late in the nights preparing for all the new stuff that I would be handling the next day. This went on for the whole trip. I feel the need here to give a pat on my own back because I think I did an admirable job, given the circumstances. Just as I started thinking that I had it under control and was very much looking forward to finishing it and getting back home, the wife informs me that she will be flying out the same time I would be flying in. She's part of her company's recruitment activities and she's got interviews lined up for the weekend. So much for getting back home because I was spending too much time away!

Now, here I am, just back home and just off the phone with the wife. In all of this month, this is the most time I have had to sit and gather my thoughts. I am just lying back and ruminating now and waiting for the nwife to come back so that we can start March afresh.

Female Bloodsuckers

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:57:00 +0000

There I was, standing near my desk and thinking about kamikaze pilots. There were these madcap fighter pilots who used to load their planes 'till-the-gills' with explosives and then dive down into enemy ships. They were Japanese and were called 'Kamikaze'. The Japs must have been crazy! But then that action of theirs, towards the end of the second great war, did give all of us some new vocabulary. Now instead of saying 'suicide bombers' or 'reckless bikers' or 'rash drivers' we call them 'kamikaze'. Simple!

Like I said, I was standing near my desk and thinking about kamikaze pilots. More specifically, I was thinking if any of the kamikaze pilots of old had been from the fairer sex. But thinking about suicidal, women pilots was not the only thing I was doing. Someone watching me from the side of the glass wall (we have one in our office. Not to be confused with the proverbial 'glass ceiling' which is also present in the office but this is not the time or place for me to write about that) would have seen me with my legs firmly rooted, my upper body rotating slowly and alternating between straightening and bending at the waist, my eyes following my hands with sudden claps ringing out. There is a chance that they might have thought I was doing some kind of slow dance or practicing tai-chi or doing an odd mixture of both. I won't hold that against them though.

I won't hold that against them because they don't know what I was actually up to. I was there, in an extremely frustrated mood, trying to follow and swat the living day lights out of the b****y, blood sucking, flying irritants found in large numbers in this part of the world and of late, inside the office. We call them 'mosquitoes' here. When they get their act right, the result is large spread mayhem in the form of malaria or dengue or some such disease. When they get it wrong, well, they are nothing more than a black and red smear on your palm. They always seem to swing for the fence and they are the closest I have come to experiencing 'kamikaze-ness'.

But why was I thinking about female pilots in particular? Well, I read somewhere that only female mosquitoes suck blood! Hmmm.

Questions and Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:49:00 +0000

ULCC. Ever heard of it? Well, it stands for Ultra Large Crude Carrier. Which is, I guess, a better sounding way of saying ‘monstrously-huge-oil-tanker’ and that is what it is, an oil tanker. You know, those thingies which often are shown in the news, lying half on their side in water, for having caused an oil spill somewhere in the five oceans and seven seas. Now, the ULCC is so huge - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXL - that it is, for all practical purposes, non-maneuverable. And apparently this allergic reaction to being maneuverable is so acute that when the pilot (or is it Captain?) switches off the engines now to stop it, the thing stops after a few hours!

So if you are wondering, "Why this General Knowledge session on ULCCs and their stopping habits?” please desist. I am not about to continue and in case you are interested in learning more about ULCCs, Wikipedia is the go-to place.

What I am intrigued about, however, is a more mundane, everyday subject. Rather, an every week subject. I am sure there is a big history (or herstory or theirstory) behind the fact that we have a seven day week which ends, quite predictably, with a week-end (Yeah I know, Duh!). But that is where the intrigue starts. Why does it take two days for the week to end? If you are giving over 2 complete days out of a seven day week - that is 29% of the week - there must be a good, strong reason behind it. If the ULCC takes a few hours to stop, I can understand the physics behind it. The thing is, well, ultra large and hence carries an ultra large amount of momentum which would require an equally ultra large braking force for a small period of time or a small force for an ultra large period of time. What about the week though? It is but seven days long, so I doubt it qualifies as being large, leave alone having a U-prefix. So, why two days to end?

It is Friday evening. I am sitting here, on the cusp of yet another weekend, and getting intrigued about the two day weekend in front of me. Is it just me or do you also get the feeling that I have bid goodbye to my marbles?

My bleak outlook

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:12:00 +0000

26th of January has come and gone. The smartly dressed battalions with their marching bands, with uniforms creased to a razor's edge and with their eclectic and dangerous-looking hardware have strutted their stuff. The different floats symbolizing and representing the different parts of the country and its uniqueness have had their 15 minutes of fame. The heroes, dead and alive, from the armed forces and from within the general public, have been honored for their heroic services. The nation’s leaders have made their speeches from the ramparts of the Red Fort. India celebrated its 60th anniversary of becoming a Republic. And all that is left at the end of it was an empty Raj Path strewn with paper cups and plates and discarded streamers and the jet trails in the sky left-over from the fly-bys.

The politicians, who have taken to masquerading as 'National Leaders', have retired back to the comforts of where-ever-it-is-that-they-retire-back-to and are now catching up with their work of cutting and dividing this country between themselves; a work that got so cruelly disturbed for a few hours during the ceremony. The general public, that ubiquitous entity of our nation which has shown a remarkable willingness to let itself be divided based on religion, region, caste, creed, language, gender, age, skin color, shoe-size, hair style, energy drink brand and anything else you can think of, has also gone back to its where-ever-it-is-that-it-goes-back-to and are now back to their busy lives trying to work out which, between a "mega serial" or a "breaking news", is more entertaining, trying to figure out which "Reality Show" would fetch them more moolah and at the same time trying to decide which other "Reality Show" is worth wasting their hard earned money on and finally is also trying to make a living and make ends meet; this last one since it's an existential requirement.

They will of course all be back again in an years time. To celebrate the 61st anniversary of becoming a Republic. There will be loud noises about how our country is literally banging on the doors of the 'Developed Nations only' club, how we have developed self sufficiency in nuclear technology, how our economy is resilient and yada yada and blah blah and so on and so forth. There will be more crap strewn around the Raj Path and we will go back to wait for the 62nd anniversary. In the mean while, questions about education, health, standard of life, corruption, jobs, agriculture, water, income disparity, food sufficiency, development and other such trivial things will remain firmly unanswered and uncared for.

It is indeed a bleak outlook I have for the country I call my own.

Intelligence and us

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:32:00 +0000

We woke up one day and found ourselves at the top of the heap. As a species I mean.

Think about it. The Food Chain. There is vegetation at the bottom of the heap. Above this are the, for lack of a better term, vegetation-eaters. Above this grass-munching, cud-chewing bunch are the vegetation-eater eaters. These are better known as predators though I am yet to find out what they 'pre date'! And among this top level of 'predators' is where we find ourselves. Lording over the rest of them. If this heap were compared to a mountain, we have not only scaled the peak that matters the most but also have made the top our very own stronghold. We are, by self-proclamation, the masters of earth because we are the 'intelligentest' of all which is what enabled us to come to the top.

But are we really all that? Extreme prejudice is key to how we reached the top but is our intelligence worth the definition that we ourselves have come up with?

Think about it. Our genesis. In an ancient (50,000-BC-and-before kind of ancient) community of chimps and monkeys, we must have been nothing more than an abnormality; a small group of 'chimkeys', infuriating the adults of the community by being able to walk on two legs. Over generations, we must have slowly grown, in numbers, in relative intelligence and in 'bipedness', till we were ready to start striking out on our own. And from then on, via fire, wheel, stone tools, metals, fossil fuels and artificially designed weapons, we have reached where we are today. The top of the food chain. But - of course there had to be a 'But' - we reached the pinnacle only on the basis of being the biggest brutes. Not because of intelligence.

If we did have 'Intelligence' - which means "The faculty of thought and reason" - we wouldn't be dealing with what are referred to as 'endangered species'; we wouldn't be talking about an 'ozone hole'; we wouldn't be desperately looking for an alternative to fossil fuels; we wouldn't be automatically thinking about annihilation when we think of a mushroom. We, most definitely, wouldn't be calling all this development and progress.

Naysayers of the "Intelligent Life existing elsewhere in our vast universe is extremely probable" theory usually counter it by asking, "If that is so, how come they haven't contacted us yet?". What they don't seem to grasp is the fact that if the life form were intelligent, it would know better than to contact us.

A Century of Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:34:00 +0000

The twentieth century probably wins the competition for the 'Century-of-maximum-impact-on-mankind'. Cell phones, Digital music, MP3 players, Internet, Internet devices, Touch technology, 'Don't Touch' technology, Plug'n'Play, Cordless power transmission, Non-coal/non-wood/non-fossil fuel based energy, The Human Genome Project, Nike shoes, Test tube babies, Pamela Anderson's 'babies', Television, HD, 3D, GM food, MCD, Swine Flu, AIDS virus, Computer virus, Supersonic travel, Underwater travel, Air travel, Space travel, Satellites, Missiles to bring down the satellites, Tanks, Stealth fighters, AK-47, Mechanized wars, Chemical warfare, Biological warfare, Oil wars, Format wars, Atomic energy, Demonstration of atomic energy, Nuclear energy, Threatening to demonstrate nuclear energy, 24-hr News Channels, Tabloids - You name anything that has had a significant impact on mankind and you will see that it has happened in the Twentieth Century. And it was all a result of trying to answer questions like "Can I...?" "How can I...?" "Where can I...?" "What can I...?" and such like.

In fact, the twentieth century is perhaps the century when we, the people, finally figured out that no aspect of life is a mystery and sufficient analysis and research will always provide an answer. Some of these are answers which change every other day - Is Global Warming for real? There are other answers which are conclusively concluded very fast - Is Obama for real? Yes, according to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Then there are answers which are all set to go down the annals of analytical history as being eternally in-conclusive - Was 9/11 for real? Was WMD for real? Irrespective of which category they belong to, today we have answers, provided by analysis being done into every imaginable aspect of our life however trivial it might seemingly be.

I came across one such example in my newspaper recently. An analysis to explain what is commonly known as Happiness. They call it an enigma, assign it a code that they then claim has to be cracked and go about trying to do so using research, more research, yoga, genetics, a paradox and some philosophical MJ ('mumbo-jumbo' for the uninitiated). Read it here if you are interested. Of course, staying true to form, I gave it a miss because I knew such arcane things like "Happiness" are not written with me as the target audience. Not that I don't feel happy, ever, but just that I do not want to get into the nitty-gritty of understanding the philosophy behind it! But as you have already read, it did get me thinking about the twentieth century and what we, as a race, have been up to during it.

To Like or Not

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:20:00 +0000

Andre Agassi, Goran Ivanisevic, Tiger Woods, Michael Shumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Sachin Tendulkar, Leandar Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi. A list of sports guys I like. All champions. All flawed in one way or other.

Ok, with that list out of the way I will now let you in on a secret. This is not what I set out to write. I was supposed to write about why we like what we like. My explaination of the hard-to-explain phenomenon of liking something. It was supposed to be all-encompassing and insightful, looking at this phenomenon from all possible angles, from the uniqueness and randomness of human thought to the socialogical and communal influences that dictate what we like and don't. This was supposed to be my attempt at coming across as being wise and wordly and other similar stuff. So I started listing down those names of the sportsmen I like (it doesn't include everyone I like but the list is close to complete) and thought I'd take it from there.

Then came the realization. While the list lists my favorites, these were also the same names that feature in the all time hate-list of some of my friends because of their flaws. How could that be? Then it hit me that I didn't have the first traces of a clue regarding the what and why of liking something. Of course, I like lots of stuff and dislike lots more and I can give a passably convincing reason for both. But that hasn't, I discovered, equipped me to explain the reason(s) behind why people like and dislike certain things and why people differ in what they like and don't. I realised that the stuff about randomness of human thought and sociological influences was nothing more than me putting that sentence together because I knew the words. And that it sounded nice and educated when I said it out aloud.

So instead of trying to use research, more research, yoga, genetics and philosophical MJ (Mumbo-Jumbo for the uninitiated) to try and explain "Likes and Dislikes", I will just leave you with reasons why I like the guys in the list above and their flaws.

Andre Aggasi - Bad boy gone good. Kept 'Pistol' Pete honest when he was at his best. Was a true character. Of course the fact that he is married to 'Fraulein Forehand' aka Steffi Graf also plays a major part in why I like this guy. Recently revealed that he had done drugs during his 'bad boy' days.
Goran Ivanisevic - Untill I saw him serve, I used to think that a tennis ball could travel only in straight lines. He was the ACE, pun totally intended. The guy didn't know that the word 'consistency' existed except when he was serving those curve-ball aces.
Tiger Woods - I now know that an Eagle, though definitely a bird, is not a birdie, which most certainly had nothing to do with birds! And this knowledge is because I started following golf after this guy came riding a huge wave of hype and publicity and went on to prove that every bit of it was justified. His clean-cut, nice guy image took the most horrendous beating this side of a boxing ring after the revelation of his numerous outside-the-marriage hook-ups (was it 12 affairs? or 16?).
Micheal Schumacher - The Man. Formula 1 fed my need for speed during my formative years and I probably wouldn't have given even the first glance to Formula 1 if not for the fact that I started watching it in '94 when this man was beginning to make history. The guy has a ruthless streak which made him forget a couple of times that Formula 1 is a sport where people can get hurt real bad if you trip them up. Thank God that the only thing that got hurt those couple of times was his reputation.
Mika Hakkinen - MS is a seven time world champion because Mika was there. Otherwise, MS' count might have been more. This guy had everything to be The Man. The speed, the skill, the ruthlessness, the car. Except for the fact that couldn't motivate himself, he got bored with it all and retired.
Sachin Tendulkar - I wonder why they don't sign him for a Duracell Ad. Twenty years and he is still the (Demi)God of cricket he has been for the majority of the last two decades. Some say he buckles up when put under pressure. And that he plays for records. All we know is that he is the best we have had in quite a long time.
Paes and Bhupathy - The Indian Express. An appearance in all 4 grand slam finals in a single calendar year and winning two of them. A career Grand Slam in doubles. Top ranked. An Indian tennis team which literally swept everything in front of them on the world stage was a dream come true for me. Untill they hit that shiny red self destruct button called EGO.

Noises

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:56:00 +0000

It's past seven in the evening. I am sitting at my desk in office, all alone, listening to a barely audible hum. I think it's from the central aircon. Or it could be the hard drive/fan in my laptop. Or both. I really can't be sure, especially over the clackety-clack of my keyboard. I stop typing, but that doesn't really help determine the source of the hum, so I continue with my clackety-clacking.

I wonder if that's what I would hear, the hum, if I ever managed to get into my own head and listened to my own brain working. So I get in and...wait, there isn't any hum in my head. No. Only a gentle swishing sound, the kind made by a gentle breeze in an empty room. Definitely no brain-work related hum. Only the breeze swishing. Wonder how the breeze got in. Maybe through the nose, since I breathe. Nope, I know the air I breathe goes down into my lungs, not up into my head. Ok, maybe through my ears. Hmmm, that must be it, the ears. More importantly though, no brain. Empty head.

But then I can't be a living, breathing human being without possessing atleast an excuse for a brain. And if it ain't in my head where the heck is it? It definitely wasn't moved because the room looks empty, covered with layers of dust, grime and....I mean, the inside of my head looks empty, it is covered with layers of dust and grime (must have been carried in by the breeze) and above all it shows the classic sign of not having been used - there is dust and grime all over the place. Hence proved, my brain hasn't been moved from my head. But I still don't know where it is. I start thinking and that upsets me more because there I am, in my empty head, thinking! On one hand, empty head, on the other, thought. A contradiction if ever one hit me in my face.

That's when I hear yet another noise. Not the hum, not the swish, not the clackety-clack. It's something else. Familiar. Melodious. Like a bell ringing. By this time, I am trying to figure out what this new noise is, having forgotten about the contradiction that had hit me in the face. The new noise is slowly growing in volume. And before I realise it, the noise is too loud, reverbrating off the walls of my empty head. It is so loud now I have to do something before my head splits and spits me out. But what do I do? I start running back the same way I came in. Atleast I think it is the same way. But there is no way to tell. The insides of my head look the same, dusty and grimy, any which way I turn and there is no way to be sure I am headed the right way. But I keep going. I need to, to escape the ringing noise. It didn't seem possible but it seemed to grow even louder with every step I take. There just doesn't seem to be a way out. Nor does there seem to be a possibility of getting away from the noise. It was like a physical thing, slowly, steadily and inexorably moving towards me, seemingly intent on...well I don't know what its intentions were. But they didn't seem friendly. I kept running, it kept getting louder and........

My wife is done with her work and is ready to leave for the day. She has just called. To ask if I can leave for home with her. I said yes, packed up and left the office.

Change

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:38:00 +0000

For ages I used to think that I wouldn't change, meaning I would remain the same kind of person I have always been irrespective of my age or my girth. And I still think the same way. Except during those bouts of honest self appraisal when I look back and notice the differences between the snapshot of me from the past and me in the present. Much like in a game of 'Spot the 6 differences', the changes are subtle but they are there. However I am not about to start a dissertation titled 'Me and Change'. Nope. That would be an overload on my mental faculties which are already stretched, it would require me to be honest about me to myself for a considerable amount of time and in any case, you don't want to read a dissertation by someone who had to look up that word in a dictionary before using it here, now do you?

No. What I had in mind was more in the nature of why change happens. I am rather confused by it. It's a loaded question, no doubt, and the acceptable answer(s) to that is(are) probably found in the realm of philosophy. Saying that change is the way life persists and that is why change happens is probably an oversimplification but I will stick to this answer. After all evolution is nothing but change and seen from that perspective, my over simplified answer sounds correct (atleast to me). But I am not looking at it from a philosophical or existential point of view. My confusion stems from the fact that change seems to happen only in some areas and not uniformly in all. To state an example, in this past decade, which has been affectionately dubbed the 'noughties', I have seen more and more people accept the concept of 'eating out' as opposed to having home cooked food at home but in these same 'noughties' I have also seen an unbelievable proliferation of engineering and medical colleges, of wildly varying pedigree and standards, proving that when it comes to options for higher studies nothing had changed.

So why does change happen? Are there some areas which more change resistant than others and if so, what makes them change resistant?

Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:47:00 +0000

Twenty10 is no longer the 'new year' it was made out to be a few days back. Why? Because it's already a week old, no. :) Ok, lame humor alert. That's my dose for the day and now let me get to it that which I set out to get to.

Happy New Year to everyone and hope Twenty10 brings with it reduced real estate prices, increased share prices, lower prices, better roads, more humor, common sense...you know, things we all look forward to all the time. That said, the year past has been one where a lot had happened and given that my capacity to remember stuff is somewhere south of miniscule, I thought it would be prudent to jot down the memories while I still can recollect them (especially since I am no Albus Dumbledore with a pensieve in my office. Somebody, somewhere invent it. Fast).

So here goes:
1. I got married. Accepted, that it's not something I will be allowed to forget but neverthless it ranks as the most significant thing that 'happened' to me last year. Previously I only had parents. Now I also have in-laws.

2. I travelled. To different parts of the country, for different reasons, using different modes of transport. My work took me to swank hotels and corporate offices of all kinds in the country's biggest, busiest and most polluted metros, social engagements took me to Kanyakumari and the beautiful beaches of Kovalam, Office team meetings took me to Mahabalipuram and my marriage took me to the hills of Darjeeling and the chills of Lachen. Wow! Now that I see all of it together, I wonder how on earth I managed to travel so much. Because I hate having to pack and being on the move.

3. I prayed. Please don't think that I was an atheist before and suddenly found God. Nope. My "praying" is an event to remember whenever I did it last year because of what I prayed for. My first major prayer was that my wedding should happen without a hitch. A wedding ceremony comes with an in-built potential for everything from silly one-up-manship games to wedding-stopping fights between the two families; throw in the fact that mine was a marriage between people of different religious faiths and that potential just got exponentially multiplied. My next major prayer was that I should stay alive. When you are trapped in a 4x4, driving up the narrow roads of the Himalayas with a vertical fall - into a freezing river that was so far down as to look like a painting made to scale - on one side of the road, I guess even the most die-hard athiest will be hard pressed not to find God and seek help for a safe return from that journey. My last major prayer is something of a work in progress. It has something to do with asking God to grant my wish of being able to retire early in life and live on my wife's salary. I believe only one person in a couple should work and being the gentleman that I am, I have decided to leave that honor to her. Now God, if you are listening, please make it happen. ;)

Well, that's my 2009. There were other things too but I think those are the three things that define 2009 for me.

3 idiots

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:55:00 +0000

'3 idiots', the movie, is currently in the news for two reasons.

1. It has set the cash registers ringing like no other "Bollywood" movie has, ever.

2.Mr. Chetan Bhagat, author of the hugely popular book "5 point Someone" has taken up cudgels against the makers of the movie stating that he has not been properly credited for the story on which the movie is based.

Coming to the second point first, I have read the book a few years back and enjoyed it thoroughly. It read like something out of my fantasy about how I would have liked my college life to be. Ever since I heard about the movie being made, I have heard it being mentioned that it would be based on the book. A couple of weeks back, I went to watch the movie and was almost close to literally 'ROTFL'ing in the theatre. It was funny, witty, had decent actors who played their parts well and, above all, a new story to tell in a well paced manner. While I was watching the movie I also was noting the places where it resembled the book and those where it wasn't. And in the end, as I was walking out of the theatre, I was thinking that the film makers had taken a thoroughly enjoyable book and adapted and modified the story to fit the big screen, to come up with a thoroughly enjoyable movie. So in light of the recent "credit" controversy, I will say that the movie was inspired by the book, to borrow a much abused phrase from some of our well-entrenched music directors.

Now about the first point. I think it is obvious to say that the cash registers are ringing because people who go to watch it are finding out that they actually enjoy what is being dished out. This in turn makes them go out and encourage people in their 'circle of influence' to watch the movie. Simply put, word of mouth publicity is working wonders for the movie and rightly so. It is a breezy, light-hearted, entertaining movie with a message which is left on the buffet table for you to pick up if you want it rather than being funnelled down your throat.

So, I have seen the movie, enjoyed it and added to its considerable collections at the till. So far so good. Till I saw this - A blog entry by Ms. Sagarika Ghose, well known TV journalist with CNN IBN - and this - A televised debate on the same news channel, anchored by Ms. Sagarike Ghose. I fail to understand how these folks (Ms.Ghose and others like her) read so much more from a comedy. She writes, "The fact that the film is so enormously popular shows how eager we are to embrace mindlessness and how keen we are to promote a culture where education and thoughtfulness are seen as obstacles to enjoying the good life. Is it any wonder that an Indian Express Indicus Analyticus study gives us the bad news that by 2020 those holding medical degrees/diplomas will go up from a shockingly low 1.3 million to only 2.1 million in the next ten years. As a nation we are in no mood to study, and Three Idiots encourages us to throw away our books because today we are chanting the mantra, "the-system-sucks-and teachers-are-pathetic-and-who-cares-about-grades-and-the-rat-race-is- foolish." Going by this, would it be safe to say that since the movie "Avatar" is enormously popular it must mean that all of us are ready to look like extra tall blue beings and live on a 'suspended-in-mid-air-mountain'? And talking about the Indian Express study, how does the scant increase in the projected number of medial degree/diploma holders lead to the conclusion that "As a nation we are in no mood to study". This is just an excerpt from the post and the I feel the whole post is more or less the same.

I have read the blog (haven't seen the debate though) and despite having a strong urge to argue each and every point she makes in it, I will just say 'Ms. Ghose, it's a movie, a form of entertainment, like reading a book is for some people. Enjoy it, if you find it to your taste. But don't take it so seriously.'

Oxymoron of the Day: Positive Discrimination

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:20:00 +0000

Let me talk about myself for a second or two before I get going.

Cynic: A person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view.
Cynical: A word used to describe the above person.

Now there are a lot of folks who label me a 'Cynic' and call me 'Cynical' and I am ok with it. Even I think I am one and so it doesn't put me into one of my 'I-have-to-try-and-prove-them-wrong' mindsets because doing that would essentially mean that I would be proving my-self wrong as well and that can't be because I have a t-shirt which says "ARGUE if you must but remember that I am RIGHT". So, yes, those who label me a 'Cynic' and call me 'Cynical' are right to do so.

With that out of my system, for now, let me come to the point. This article in the Telegraph. For those of you who have clicked and read through that article before continuing here, you can skip the next couple of lines unless you want to go through that mindless stuff again. For those of you who are reading this line without having clicked on that link, here is the beginning of what that article says:

"New laws planned by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister, mean that firms tendering for taxpayer-funded work could be judged on new criteria including the gender and race of their staff. "

I read this and was amazed that
1. There is something called an Equalities Minister
2. Which means there is an Equalities Ministry being headed by said Minister
3. And they can come-up with something so discriminatory in the name of Equality!

If that statement had read "Company XYZ Inc has declared that firms tendering for work could be judged on new criteria including the gender and race of their staff" it would have been immediately called discriminatory and the dreaded 'D' word would have hung around the company as a pall of death. But no. This is the government, via its 'Equalities' minister, discriminating and hiding it under the guise of law and equality. If someone hasn't got it still, because of a skull that is too thick or too empty or both, this is how Discrimination is defined: "Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit". Which translates to "Making a decision based on a lot of other stuff that doesn't answer to the name 'Merit' ". And they call this Equality!

One more excerpt from that article:

"Miss Harman insisted, "We don't see this as anti-competitiveness - it actually underpins competitiveness. Equality and opportunity underpins a meritocracy. This does not hold business back, this helps business."

Consider, for example, that I am a company which has a team of 3 guys and one girl, all hired based on interviews and their performance records. From what I understand after reading the article, I need to ditch one guy and go looking for another girl to be in my team for me to stand a chance of landing the contract. I can now go into related headaches I might have to face if I start something like that but I guess you get the point. And assuming I do go through the pains of finding and recruiting, on time, another female team-member who is qualified, I might still not win because the competitor already has an all-girl team. And Ms. Harman believes this underpins competitiveness! Nice, in a very nonsensical, Ministry-of-Equalities kind of way.

I can imagine how this can mutate and grow going forward. These could be realistic headlines and news stories we might come across in the future:

"The Department of Health has proposed new guidelines for all registered doctors which would require them to attend to a minimum of 5 patients who are not white and male before attending to a white, male patient. Male Doctors who do not follow these guidelines run the risk of being de-registered and imprisoned for discrimination"

"Plastic Surgeons beat the Recession
The Association Of Plastic Surgeons has reported a whopping growth in their general earnings and also a steep rise in the number of their actively practicing members. The chairman of the association attributed this raise solely to the government and its initiatives. "There has been a sudden spurt in the number of people, mostly white male, who come to us and ask to be turned into non-white males or sometime females. The most popular option for the white guy who walks into our clinic is to go out looking like an Asian. The lean, athletic types go for Heidi Klum. They say it improves their job opportunities and their social life. We have to thank the government, especially the Ministry of Equalities, for this turn around in our fortunes"

"Government Ensures Equality in the Family
A newly proposed law, currently under discussion, aims at inculcating the spirit of Equality into kids right from their birth by requiring families to have Identical, Different-sex Twins. The minister, speaking to the media, said that, "Our kids are our future and this will make sure our future has all the opportunity it needs to grow in an equal environment"

Hopefully these things won't come to pass and someone manages to knock some sense into moronic politicians who come up with oxymorons like "positive discrimination".

Disclaimer: I am not British, I don't live in England and there is no Equalities Ministry where I live. So why am I complaining? Because of the realization that politicians are the same in what they do irrespective of where they are from. We might not have an 'Equalities' ministry but we do have equally euphemistically-named ministries trying to do the same.

Knotty times ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Boy meets girl
They fall in love
They get married
They live happily ever after

If only love stories were so simple and straight forward. Hmmm. But then, if they were so sasf (that's short for simple and straight forward) I am sure we wouldn't have had works like 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'Devdas'. Nor would we have had movies like 'Titanic' or 'Romeo and Juliet'. Or for that matter, the Indian mainstream motion picture industry in its entirety.

As per my experience, personal and second-hand included, the real life love story goes more like this:

Boy meets girls... Ok, before the self proclaimed feminist brigade raises an objection or a hue 'n' cry (whichever is easier) let me clarify that it could very well be Girl meets Boys but for the sake of brevity and lack of experience in terms of presenting that particular perspective, I shall stick to my gender as the main protagonist of the story. With that disclaimer out of the way, let me start again.

The real life love story. in general, goes more like this:

Boy meets girls before he finally meets THE girl

Usually this is because the ones before THE girl don't think he is close to being their purrfect guy. To use a cliched phrase - our boy is "not even in the same postal code". That is, till he meets THE girl.

They fall in love

That she actually falls for someone rejected by so many before her might make you wonder if the girl has really low standards. What really happened was that he just moved into the right postal code!!!

They fall out of love

Essentially because one of them wakes up to realize that the other is not, after all, all that purrfect.

Now repeat steps 1 thru 3 and after a few iterations, for reasons unknown, they progress to step 4 which is when

They tell their families about their intention to get married

This could lead to a varied set of reactions from said families like stunned disbelief, shock-induced heart attacks and character assassination, bracketed on one end by silent acceptance and 'Great -Wall -of-China'esque opposition on the other.

This is where the real life love story ends because at this point, the 'Getting Married' and 'Living happily ever after' steps might or might not follow and hence can't be listed down with any degree of certainty. Before anyone asks, this sudden interest in love stories is because mine happens to be one of those which has managed to reach the 'Getting Married' stage. And, once again before anyone asks, my story did follow the steps above but not in the exact manner (No iterations!! To say otherwise would end up netting me a couple of black eyes, courtesy the girlfriend)

The Cat is out of the bag

noreply@blogger.com (Vishnu Prasad) — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:57:00 +0000

Now let me get on with it. "It" being the "something" that I said I would write about next time, the last time I wrote here. In case you missed that last one, you can look at the post called The Teaser. Let me warn that it will not help much with understanding anything I write but it is confirmation that I did say I will write about something that happened.

I would like to drag this out a little more because, to my own surprise, I can think up of ways to do it. But two reasons are stopping me. Someone out there might lose their patience. Normally that wouldn't bother me but I am sure Noodle House attracts ab(ove)normal folks and I am also sure that the only one who loses his (or her) patience would unfortunately (for me) turn out to be an exceptionally talented ethical hacker who would be driven to use his (or her) skills unethically for once. Result - A defaced and 'graffiti'ized Noodle House. I don't want that to happen. The second reason is that by the time I am done dragging this out like a used bubble gum in a two-year-old's hands, I am very much liable to forget what is supposed to come next. I don't want that to happen either.

So what did happen? My vacation, that is what. After 4 long years, I suddenly up and left. Took a week long vacation. In the Himalayas. With friends.

That was the cat in the bag which is out. Of course it was just a cat, not an earth shattering, wow-inducing event like I tried to make it sound. But it so happens that this cat is a big deal for me, since I don't do it normally. I mean, I don't take a vacation normally. And when I happen to take one, it becomes wow-inducing as in "Wow!! I am on vacation". Of course, as I mentioned before, there is also this huge opportunity for writing lots of posts under a whole set of categories - "write about the vacation", "travelogue", "anecdotes from a travel", "do the same things on a vacation as you would do on any other day but write about it because it was not done at home" to name a few - which actually makes it truly wow-inducing as in "Wow!! I can write something now".

PS: More about my vacation to follow. Whether you like it or not!