If-then-else...

The River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh

2012-01-24T13:13:00.004+05:30

The first book of the Ibis trilogy, 'Sea of Poppies' was set around how Ibis - the ship, started her journey to Mauritius with girmitiyas and two prisoners as passengers. Having met with a storm near the Great Nicobar Islands, she continued sailing ahead - albeit with a fewer passengers. And that is from where the storyline of the second book begins.

'River of Smoke' is about the Opium trade in China, the Hongists, the Parsi merchant Seth Bahram Modi and Raja Neel Rattan Haldar aka Anil Kumar Munshi. Parallel to this, botanist Fitcher Penrose and Paulette Lambert make attempts to rediscover the illusive Golden Camellia in and around China. Interestingly, Amitav Ghosh seems to have dived deep into the history of the first Opium War and the parallel timelines around the world. The characters are a mix of reality and fiction. You may find references to some of them on Internet as well. Ghosh's focus on the details is intense, particularly the descriptions on the Canton trade and the language. Pidgin conversations were the portions that I loved reading - reminded of Serang Ali from the first book.

View of the factories in Canton | Image Source: Wikipedia

The two volumes of the Ibis trilogy are well connected, yet completely independent in story and context. 'Sea of Poppies' is not a mandate to begin with 'River of Smoke', it makes a good prequel to start with, and lets the reader soak into the air of the early 1800s in the British India. Both the books are a must read for a sea lover, and if you aren't - they might make you one.

Andaman Islands

2011-12-11T12:16:00.066+05:30

We had two major vacations this year. Both at different tips of India. And both of them were very different in terms of geography and people. One was very well connected to the mainland India, but it made me feel alienated there. The other was set apart by sea that stretched up to a thousand kilometers - yet I felt being in my own country.

Our recent trip to the Andamans was hard earned - we had several silly hurdles to cross. Yatra, Kingfisher and Air India contributed to them in their own amusing ways. With five days spent in Port Blair and around, I am very impressed with Andaman Islands. And the credit goes to its people, who have made it such a tourist friendly destination. When our flight back to Chennai got canceled at the very moment - we were more than happy to plan another day's tour within no time.

I would touch the wood and wish that the beauty of the Andamans do not get spoilt the way other tourist destinations of India have been. Here are some snaps from our seemingly illusive vacation. :)

Such a long journey - Rohinton Mistry

2011-11-23T16:38:00.000+05:30

Image Source : Wikipedia

My first impressions after finishing Rohinton Mistry's 'Such a long journey' proved to be wrong as I sat in the bus after a day's work. It took a while for the right thought process to set in. Gustad Noble and his family reeled over my mind. Rohinton Mistry's splendid narrations have done their best in portraying Gustad's life and the people around him.

Gustad Noble did not have a very eloquent role throughout the chapters. He was a mere observant of happenings around him. There were less things in his control, and all he could do was to accept his fate and live his life the way it dragged him. In comparison to the other characters in the book, Gustad had a less harsh life. But as you read along, you'll sympathize with Gustad - perhaps he had more to suffer as a helpless observant.

The story does have its own set of comic moments, with Dinshawji's jokes and Mrs Kutpitia's expertise with black magic. Not sure why - but Tehmul reminded me somehow of Boo Radley from Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' - albeit both the characters don't have anything common between them. I look forward for getting the movie that was released in 1998, which unfortunately looks a little illusive to catch hold of. Hope it does enough justice to the story and the characters that have been shaped up by the readers themselves in their mind.

For the 'The Mistry Effect' to reel within the thought process and enjoy it to the maximum - I'd recommend the reader to begin with 'Such a long journey' and then move ahead with 'A fine Balance'.

Air India - making you fly back in time

2011-11-11T12:43:00.034+05:30

"Do you have an e-mail address where I can send my complaint?"

"Yes Sir, its dubloo dubloo airindia..."

"This is a website. I need an e-mail address."

"Sir, this is all that we have."

... and suddenly I realized that I was speaking to the wrong person. I went up-to the reservation manager and asked for an email address. She opened her diary, flipped a few pages and gave me four email ids - one of them a Gmail account.

I did not send any email. I imagined my email being printed, cyclostyled, punched in several files, being passed from table to table and finally being under someone's tiffin box. Hence I stopped myself from creating a horrendous fate for an electronic document. I decided not to trouble the Air India staff anymore since they must have a lot of their own.

My recent visit to the Bangalore's Air India office was more or less taking a ride back in time. You might feel the 70's or 80's air there. And probably their IT systems make a good attempt to fit in snugly as well. While it took them around two long hours to issue four tickets (the reservation details were already in their system), it was fun to observe them struggling between the keyboard, mouse and the calculator. I do not intend to make fun of the technologically challenged here, but when its someone's bread and butter, it is expected that he/she gets comfortable with it over the period of time.

Interestingly, every staff member maintained a diary, which seemed to be a Bible of fare calculation rules. These rules were hand-written, and the poor ticketing agent had to execute these rules manually to calculate the airfare for each ticket. Either they did not have the systems for automating these small decisions, or they did not use it if it existed. Either ways, I judged that that there's an year long paid vacation for the fellows in their IT department.

My precious two hours at the Air India office taught me two things:

Befriend a ticketing agent at Air India with a 'diary-of-fare-calculation-rules'.
Grab the opportunity if there is a recruitment drive in Air India's IT department ~~and your skill fits~~.

The 'Taman Shud' Case

2011-10-13T17:36:00.001+05:30

Image Source: Smithsonian.com

If your appetite is full with the 'no-repeat' episodes of C.I.D, where ACP Pradyuman and his team prove that cases can be cracked in 20 minutes (excluding the commercial breaks), I'd suggest you to read this and try speculating on what actually must have happened.

The 'Taman Shud' case is an excellent example of a mystery having every element that can be typically found in a detective novel. The only difference here - we know that it is not fiction, and even after six decades we do not have an explanation that fits in correctly to this case. There are spy theories, love-triangle theories, and spy-in-a-love-triangle theories on this case - but none of them is able to provide a complete background on who was the man, why he died and how did he die.

Image Source: Wikipedia

There have been recent attempts to re-investigate the mystery of the Somerton man. Experts say that some very vital clues on the whereabouts of the man could be found via DNA profiling. There are several communities trying to decrypt the code written at the back of the book as well. But the chances of connecting all the dots, unfortunately look to be rare. To cater to one's curiosity, there is enough stuff to read on the Internet. The only book published so far on this mystery is unfortunately, not available in India.

Somehow, I really feel bad about the Somerton man. Maybe someone somewhere must be waiting for him to come back home, unknown about his death. I just hope that the Somerton Man is remembered, atleast via the Internet - till he really gets identified with the name he responded to.

2011-08-28T20:24:00.001+05:30

Some captures from Chennakesava Temple and Ellora Caves. This was my fourth visit at the Ellora Caves and like the previous three, it did not last for more than a couple of hours. In fact, we missed a major chunk of Buddhist caves due to lack of time. Someday, I would like to visit them without a return ticket.

The God is a giant quiltmaker...

2011-08-11T18:18:00.001+05:30

"...I prefer to think that the God is a giant quilt-maker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don't fit well together anymore, it's all becoming meaningless. So He has abandoned it..." - Maneck Kohlah, p. 340, A fine Balance.

Rohinton Mistry's - 'A fine Balance' is one of those books that you'd never want to end. Its a story that talks about transitions in life - from good moments to bad, and from the bad moments to good. Every character in the story goes through some transition or the other, that keeps you riveted to the book even when you finish the epilogue. Set around the period when the Indian Government declared a 'State of Emergency', the storyline is about how this 'Emergency' impacts people who barely try making their ends meet in the tough world and have no relation whatsoever with the political turmoils happening in the country. Be it Dina Dalal, her tailors - Ishwar and Om, Maneck Kohlah, Rajaram - the Hair Collector, the Monkey-Man, Shankar - the 'Worm', or the Beggarmaster - every character has been portrayed brilliantly. The book engulfs you within itself. It makes you feel as if you are standing in a corner, watching the characters unnoticed and following them wherever they go.

At the end, 'A fine Balance' does make you feel about the God being a giant quiltmaker. Some of us are part of the design, while a few unfortunate ones amongst us are ill fitted. Probably the fits and the mis-fits in the design are His way to maintain an equilibrium, and its upto us to accept the way we have been set up, or get torned out in the struggle to get away.

निठल्ले की डायरी

2011-07-23T20:46:00.001+05:30

Harishankar Parsai's 'निठल्ले की डायरी ' (English: Diary of an idle man) makes you grab and read the other works of the author. The book is a compilation of snippets from the diary of a common man who prefers to stay idle and does not wish to do anything in life. Each incident, narrated in form of a short story justifies why the protagonist chooses to be this way. Although written decades back, the stories from the book can still be related to whatever that happens around us today. The expert lobbyists in the sarkari offices, cynic neighbors, moral police and groupism in society - it covers all, and exposes how a common man indirectly becomes a part of these gimmicks in his daily life. To cut it short, the stories are timeless. Written in lucid Hindi, the book offers a lot to tickle your funny bone and ponder on how inaction could be the best approach to survive in the society we live in.

A must read, even if you don't read Hindi for leisure!

From the old folders...

2011-07-19T12:56:00.000+05:30

People had actually gathered to watch me as I struggled to get this captured. It was a hard time getting the kids and the crane jib - both into the frame. Shot in the early 2010 - this one got dumped in the backups I had made, anticipating a hard disc crash.

Mela, the shadow of the sunlight

2011-06-19T22:45:00.000+05:30

From the movie Anwar and sung by Pankaj Awasthi, this one of those easily forgettable songs which misses its deserved share of appreciation. Since this song appears, as a background score in a very short footage, very few remember if this song was actually a part of the movie.

Past three years, I have been trying to understand the lyrics of this song without any success. Even the Internet seems to have little to offer in this regard. I believe its an Awadhi folk song, and if any of you has any clue on what the lyrics are or what they mean, please do give me a shout via the 'Kontactr me' link below. I'll be more than thankful. :)

Snaps from a recent vacation

2011-06-11T09:16:00.000+05:30

I have been familiar with Jammu and Amritsar, but experienced Kashmir for the first time. In spite of being a single state, Jammu and Kashmir have noticeable difference between them. This difference is not the skew in ratio of followed religions, its about how these areas have developed over the period of time.

While there is nothing much that can flourish apart from tourism in Kashmir, the state government has not done much to manage the hapless state of this industry. The business is ruled by touts all across. In lush green meadows, or snow covered valleys and glaciers, you will find yourselves haggling instead of looking around and enjoying the view. In fact, an initial quote by the guides, poneywalas, and the other '-walas' made me think of quitting my job and work as a tout. The idea looked promising since -

I get to stay in this beautiful place with a large house.
I get to work only for six months.
I get to earn at least double of what I get now (in just six months).

I must admit that every tourist place in India has a similar story. But here in Kashmir, I found it a little more extreme, which was very annoying. Probably the reason for this could be that the excess money getting shelled out from the tourists' pockets goes into the activities Kashmir has been notoriously famous for. Anyways, here are some snaps from Kashmir, Jammu and Amritsar.

CyanogenMod 7.1 on Motorola Milestone

2011-05-25T08:45:00.001+05:30

I went Android last year and chose Motorola Milestone A853. Initially on Android 2.1, I got an upgrade to 2.2 by Motorola, which I found a little sluggish (Motorola marketed this phone initially as 'a phone without compromise). For a change and in search of performance, I rooted my Milestone and went ahead with CyanogenMod 7.1. Results are impressive as the phone is now faster, and here are a few screen shots of I what I have in my hand.

The Internet offers loads of information and steps on rooting your phone and probably this post explains it the best. Note that your phone's warranty voids the moment you root, and you are responsible if your phone is reduced to a brick. Motorola Milestone is not officially supported for CyanogenMod 7, but works well and can be downloaded from here.

Muthathi Forest

2011-05-13T09:14:00.000+05:30

Few weeks back we took a drive to the Muthathi forest. The place is around 80 kilometers from Bangalore and on the banks of the Cauvery river. It is a good place to trek or drive around, and heaven for nature photography enthusiasts. You'll often spot deers crossing the roads, and if you are patient enough to spend a couple of moments in silence, closer shots are definitely obtainable.

The forest is abundant with rhesus monkeys and we found it difficult to get out of the car since the entire clan was over it. This photo is the best of the entire set of snaps that we took. The ma-monkey gazed at us balancing herself over the rear view mirror. While she was interested in getting something to eat, its baby was curious over the items scattered on the dashboard.

'Internet-for-keeping-in-touch'

2011-04-30T13:54:00.001+05:30

In the last two months I switched between four different workstations. And while the backups were being created and copied across, I had some free time so I created this silly chart of 'my-Internet-usage-for-keeping-in-touch', and hence this long rant.

My actual Internet life began in 2005. Prior to that, the Internet use was sporadic and consisted of 'one-hour per student’ sessions with an upper cap of 30 hours each month. That time, there used to be a broadband connection (which seemed like a dial-up) which probably followed some sort of Lunar calendar for determining its data transfer speed.

The 'Internet-days' between 2005 and 2007 had a high intensity of Orkut activities (I was in college with an unlimited Internet connection, with lots of free time). During those times, getting testimonials written from friends about you was almost like a competition. I must admit that I was good at writing syrupy testimonials. So good that fellow students requested my expert guidance for writing testimonials for their girlfriends.

During the same period, there was a separate breed of creative gurus who up skilled themselves in ~~copying~~ creating roses, hearts, broken hearts et al with ASCII characters (and text descriptions wId wEiRd caPItAlIZaTiOns) in their Orkut profiles and testimonials. Some of them were also notoriously famous for fishing out profiles of female users and scrapping them with wIlL-u-B-mA-fRAnd and similar requests. In future, when users began migrating to Facebook, these creative honchos were called as 'Orkutiya(s)'. This breed lead to the death of my ‘Testimonial Writing’ career, ~~as well as the plans of my publishing the book: 'Orkut Testimonials Unleashed'.~~

During 2007-2009, my Orkut usage declined. In mid 2009, I discovered that Facebook was taking over Orkut and made an attempt to follow the trend. The moment I registered on Facebook, I saw that the people of my 4th, 5th, 6th class (sections A to F – yes, we had so many sections) and many others who somehow were never a part of my memory were already there to invite me to play Mafia Wars, Farmville, Friends for Sale, Pillow Fight and other games that I was least interested in. This entire junta did not care about getting in touch, but was more interested in growing eggplants, harvesting their crops, and gather their crystal balls. People uploaded almost anything in their albums. Right from ‘This week’s trip to the Sabzi Market’ to ‘Ma Offiz Rockz \m/’ – my notifications were full of uploads, likes and requests for joining some shady MLM scheme. There was less communication and more commotion happening under the bracket of ‘keeping in touch’ and ‘staying connected’. Logging on to Facebook meant like checking your spam inbox. ~~It was when one of the girls in our college took the quiz - 'How sexy are you?' and scored an impressive 98%; I made my decision to quit Facebook. Ideally, the quiz should have disqualified her.~~ To be honest, I'm waiting for the day when the term 'Facebookiya' is coined and actually gets used.

It was during the same year, I was introduced to Twitter, which has been so far one of the best ways to gather news and information. I relied solely on Twitter during the Ayodhya Verdict, Kasab’s Trials, Anna Hazare’s Fast, Japan Earthquake and similar other events to keep myself up to date. (Pro-tip: Check out Google's 'Real-time Search'. Very effective, if you know what’s junk and what’s not).

Its 2011 now, and my approach to keeping in touch has completely changed. I must say that by not using Facebook/Orkut and something else on similar lines, I am not missing anyone. And the best part, I am not compromising over my privacy. Over these 6 years, the Internet has taught me a lot – and I pay my respect to it by limiting my social networking activities strictly to emails, IM and Twitter.

On an ending note, try answering the following questions to yourself:

Why are you using a social networking site? (Skip this question if you use it to stalk over your ex’es and spy on friends with whom you haven’t spoken in years.)

Are you really in touch with your friends? (Skip this question if you believe growing crops on Farmville together and ‘liking’ each other’s albums and updates is going to strengthen your friendship and keep it alive.)

What value are you getting out of it? (Skip this question if you believe that Facebooking/Orkutting provides you a great way of maintaining work-life balance.)

If you do not find your answers satisfying, you know what needs to be corrected. And for those who managed to get exempted from all the three questions above, you are a true blue ‘Facebookiya’. :)

From the desk of a 'desi-comic' fan...

2011-01-28T19:57:00.000+05:30

Reading a few hindi comics in the last few months of 2010 revived those old days. During the 1980s and the early 1990s, there wasn't much on the television, options for indoor activities were limited which lead children to be glued to comic books. You would find informally running comic clubs in localities, and the most popular kid in the block was the one who used to manage the latest ones in his collection.

The desi breed of comics and magazines grew popular owing to their low cost and characters - which were easy to relate to. Diamond and Raj comics were primarily popular in the hindi speaking region of India (not sure if they had impacted the kids down south and far east). I guess Tinkle was one that had a pretty good distribution pan India. During those days, Diamond Comics had its own show on Vividh Bharati, broadcasted on Sunday afternoons.

With so much of digitization around us, the Indian comic industry is going through a lot of transformation. The characters are evolving with the changing times. Infact, a few characters have now ceased to survive. Pulishers like Tulsi, Indrajaal, Manoj and Madhu Muskaan have now reduced to a collector's item. There still is a pretty huge fan-base of these old characters, and you may find them floating on the Internet. However, this fan-base will eventually dissolve as the generations pass by. Now that the 'Kids Channel Pack' on our STBs, the Wii, the PlayStations and the XBoxes have invaded the minds of the Indian youngsters - it is unlikely that these old comic heroes will ever get any chance to revive themselves to the fame that they had 15-20 years back.

Raj Comics and Diamond Comics are still operational entities along with many other Indian and International brands. Cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma - the creator of Chacha Chaudhary - has established its own school of media and mass communication. I hope that their new strategies of moving into motion comics and attracting the masses via web brings back the glory of our desi superheroes.

2011-01-14T22:19:00.000+05:30

The Dragonfly. As kids, we used to call them as 'Helicopters'. I've heard about kids tying its tail to the end of a string and enjoy watching it struggle to fly - never seen though. I must admit that I would not have liked it if I were a dragonfly.

There was a time when we used to spot dragonflies around puddles, lakes and other similar water bodies. I spotted this one clutching itself to a wire in an institute.

Perhaps, it was the 'thirst' of knowledge that made it land there. #badjoke :)

The Moon

2011-01-07T20:44:00.000+05:30

The Earth's only moon in its full bloom. I had to grayscale the image to make the apparent noise less visible. Shot with a point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot SX100IS and guided by Niranjan, this looks neat enough for a beginner trying his hands on the manual mode.

2011-01-05T14:33:00.000+05:30

The previous decade was the period when people stopped using 'Yahoo!' to express joy, and the proper noun - 'Google' became a verb. I like the way Google has seeped deeply into our lives, and I hope that with this new decade something similar happens to Android as well.

There are no plans as such for 2011. Habits will remain the way they are and lets not make an attempt to change them unless they are really, really bad. Career progressions, monetory benefits, struggle to balance work and life, et al is all a part of the rat race we're in - and that will continue.

But since I need to have something to keep track of, there have been a few Indian flicks I wanted to watch and have been in my list for a long time. This year, I plan to check them off (hopefully). Here are the links to these movies:

Books read this year

2010-12-31T11:10:00.000+05:30

Several things have been keeping me busy these days. While there is a separate life at work, life at home has started parallely. Fortunately, this year has been into a lot of reading. Books, e-books and Wikipedia have been the major sources of my reading content. Infact, Wikipedia in my opinion is the best source of msicellaneous reading content. If you follow the links within the articles, you'll be surprised how you'll end up reading a totally unrelated topic after a few iterations. So, if you're reading a writeup on Ajmal Kasab, you might end up reading about Dahi Puri and Acetic Acid as well! :)

Most of the time I spent reading was during my daily commute to work. I must say that if you don't drive to work, this time of your day is simply priceless. Here are some of the books that I read this year. While its difficult for me to rate and pick the best one out of these, I must say that if at all this post influences you, then you must read 'The Kite Runner', 'Life of Pi' and 'To Kill a Mocking Bird'.

The Steps of Wisdom

2010-12-10T16:39:00.000+05:30

Steps to Wisdom - as I call it. I clicked it earlier this year in Vrindavan, where I found myself lucky to spot a lone rhesus macaque, sitting and staring right towards my camera. Yeah, I know that the snap is a little overexposed. But so we are, to the worldly affairs. To us, the step that we're on appears to be the top. We stop and sit there, considering ourselves as the wisest. But probably, there is another step ahead, which would make us wiser. It’s just a temporary blindness – similar to this exposure that hampers our vision to look out for the fourth step. Let’s just unwind ourselves from this exposure, and make an attempt to look for the steps ahead.

Photofeb Tweetup - Red Fort, 13th February, 2010

2010-02-15T23:16:00.000+05:30

Some snaps from the recent photo-shoot tweetup I attended at Red Fort. I took these shots with Canon Powershot SX100 IS. Ananda's Blog lists the snaps from the other tweeples. Do check them out as well. Thanks to Daksh and Mita_Majumdar for organizing the tweetup. :)

Welcome 2010

2010-01-03T22:59:00.000+05:30

With this post which marks the beginning of year 2010 on my blog, I'd like to say thanks to each and everyone who took time to scan through my posts.

The New Year eve has always been a reason to party. Celebrating past successes, forgetting the failures and projecting optimism for the coming year. Its a new beginning, and it gives everyone a chance to start afresh.

So lets start afresh. Let's not make resolutions that get broken or forgotten with time. Let's keep it simple. Let's keep work and life balanced as much as possible this year. The picture says it all.

Some unfinished ones...(contd.)

2009-12-11T17:28:00.000+05:30

A continuation of my previous post, here is an unfinished draft for the November month as well.

November 2009,

"While I waited for things to change around me, my location changed to Delhi-NCR. Breathing in North India feels good after a long yet temporary stay in the South. Here, anything that is edible can be stuffed into a 'Paratha' and served before you. Needless to say, I am enjoying my share of life here.

This region has its own charm, its own style of hustle-bustle and commotion - much different from Mumbai. It has these strange buses that run on the roads (and kill people) which have their unique way of operating. They hardly halt at the stops, expecting you to alight the buses while they are on the move. Most of the times, the so-called conductor never returns change or gives you a ticket in lieu of the money you tendered. And all this is pretty routine.

Talking of the pavements - most of them have uncovered manholes. So if you follow the 'walk-when-you-talk' Idea, it is highly probable that you may land in serious trouble.

Not that I am in one of those complaining moods. But then, it seems that the tolerance of people in this area does not show up at right places. Maybe there are hundreds of other things that these people have to worry about in life. And probably, I am becoming one of them..."

Some unfinished ones...

2009-12-10T18:55:00.000+05:30

Well. There should be something for the September, October, November and December post. I did draft a few of them, but by the time I could finish the first, a second one came in and then the third - and so on. With 2009 waving goodbye to us, I would like to publish all my unfinished posts that kept haunting my OneNote/Google Docs for quite some time.

Today, I feel relieved to have posted them.

September 2009,

“The swine flu threat is still on in Pune. Handkerchiefs, Surgical Masks - its difficult to recognize people around. A couple of days back I saw a kid playing around with one of such disposed masks. Needless to say, we Indians throw anything - anywhere. The child's mother, a rag picker by profession was more than happy to tie this mask around her son's face. Some re-creation for the kid.

I must admit that I made no attempts to stop the kid or the mother from touching that infected mask. But then, it surely forked a thought process in my mind. Sometime later, the thought process got sublimated. The masked kid was forgotten…”

October 2009,

“We have this constant debate over the work-life balance in our mind. It is a subconscious attempt to feel guilty about not balancing at least one of them. I believe that on this work-life debate front, there are three kinds of people in this world:

- those who are unable to balance work in their life.
- those who are unable to balance life in their work.
- those who are unable to balance both of the two.

A perfect balance is much more than an ideal state, which never happens - and hence the debate. Life goes on…”

2009-08-09T18:26:00.000+05:30

"In a bid to promote Tamil language and culture, the Tamil Nadu government has started a scheme under which babies born in city corporation hospitals would be given a gold ring if they are given Tamil names"

So much for culture and language. Will this scheme work?

We fail to understand that culture is something that cannot be preserved. It has to be cultivated to keep it alive. And we cant keep it alive just by distributing gold rings for Tamil names. For me, the cave men would have been a happier lot. They lived their life and went away. There were no attempts made in promoting, preserving and enforcing their culture. If something within their 'culture' was worthwhile to be absorbed by the next generation, it was absorbed. Rest everything was discarded. This absorption is a natural activity - and any external force in this process would make it look spurious.

A one-gram gold ring makes no sense for a baby. There are about hundred other things that could help the child and its future. I'm not sure what motivated the TN Government to pass this scheme. Now that its into action, I hope that the distributed gold goes into the right causes. I am sure that there are many parents who will re-think of a suitable name for their upcoming baby when they hear about this scheme. What would matter to them is a mere gold ring - the culture is nowhere into picture.

I appreciate attempts to promote culture. It is our heritage and our fundamental duty is to make sure that it is not forgotten. Definitely, this approach has to be well thought and practical. If we really have a lot of gold rings to distribute, why don't we make it a wedding gift for the bride who gets married only when she's eighteen and over?