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BenQ GW2765HT monitor display resolution defaults to 1920 x 1080 instead of full 2560 x 1440 – Fix

2019-06-26T22:17:00.000-03:00

Problem – When connected via a HDMI cable, the monitors resolution sometimes defaults to 1920x1080 and refuses to go any higher. This happens with Windows 10.

Monitor specs: https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/stylish/gw2765ht.html

Solution – Turn the monitor off via the power button on the rear. Then turn it back on again.

In my observations, this tends to happen when the monitor is not turned off via its own switch and simply goes into power saving mode when the HDMI signal is lost. I have a laptop and I tend to leave the HDMI cable connected when I close the laptop lid. The laptop runs Windows 10. The monitor first goes blank, then displays a blue screen and eventually turns off completely. When I restart my laptop, the monitor’s resolution sometimes defaults to 1080p instead of the rated 2K.

I’ve tried several ideas such as reinstalling the monitor drivers, deleting the monitor from device manager and adding it again etc but none of them seem to work. I also have a Macbook which I’ve used with this monitor and it has never had a problem displaying at the correct resolution.

I am not certain whether this is a problem with the monitor itself, with Windows or a combination of the two. The only solution I’ve found is using the monitor’s power button. Unplugging the power and turning it back on doesn’t seem to work.

I’m posting this here in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else with a similar setup and facing the same issue.

Annoying North American sports commentary and broadcasts

2019-03-15T21:49:00.001-03:00

Over the last three years, I’ve been trying to develop an appreciation for a more varied set of sports. I’m fairly fluent with football (soccer for the North Americans), cricket, tennis, golf, formula 1, badminton and field hockey. In 2016 I attempted to make sense of rugby union and rugby 7’s. I visited some Irish sports bars in the Randstad (Utrecht, Amersfoort, Amsterdam, den Haag) with an Irishman and an Irishwoman to guide me. What usually resulted was them drinking a lot of Guinness while I struggled to finish my first beer. As you might suspect, I am not a fan of malted grains and much prefer my grains pressure cooked or in my soup. So rugby. Yes, it was not exactly my cup of tea but I persist with watching the six nations which is currently on. Last year and the first three months of this year have been the great pan-North American sport of ice hockey.

I began with being unable to find the puck on the ice and I’ve now graduated to having an opinion on the result. Meagre progress but still progress. There is, however, something that annoys me about north American sports, be it American football (played with all body parts except the feet), ice hockey or even that quintessentially Canadian pastime: curling. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that annoyed me. I’ve spent a fair amount of time watching football so it couldn’t be the adverts, certainly not. I love listening to cricket commentary that is often poetic. Much the same goes for the beautiful game. But ice hockey? Something annoys the hell out of me. Now I know.

It’s not one but two aspects of the game. One is the commentary that is more like a machine gun spewing forth statistics often devoid of meaning. I once heard something along the lines of “the three youngest offensive players on the Leafs (Toronto) have scored 19 goals between them in the last 12 games all from within 12 feet of the net”. How is the average human expected to process such a fire hose of numerical information? We didn’t evolve to do this. The second aspect of North American sport telecasts that annoys me is the relentless commercialization. Yes, it is relentless and it is in your face at all times. Every time play stops, even momentarily, speakers in the stadium start blaring some popular song. The resumption of play brings and equally abrupt stop to the music. Quite jarring, sort of like listening to Slayer’s Raining Blood but in 13 second bursts separated by random amounts of time. And the ads. Man in heaven, they are everywhere. There are ads on the walls. There are ads in the broadcast. There are even ads under the ice. The jerseys are thankfully devoid of ads but I’m sure their time will come. As will the time of ads on the player’s teeth.

This reminds me of a quote I heard on a Netflix show about North American food: “North America has low quality ingredients in large quantities”. The sport isn’t much better.

With time will come circumstance and occasion. Till then, I’ll stick to enjoying football and will keep following hockey and curling.

Go Leafs Go, I suppose.

Misinformation on the internet

2019-02-18T21:39:00.000-04:00

I, Le grand Poisson Emeritus, had the good fortune to have been born in the internet age. I will begrudgingly admit that my consciousness began a full 8 years before VSNL launched the first (1) commercially available internet service in India. Given the state of the internet in the early 90s, it may not have been a bad idea to allow 5-year-olds to wander its far reaches considering how little their parents knew about it. No, I did not get online when I was five but I did get online when I was eight, so not much after. In the mid-90s, the internet was almost unrecognizable from its modern avatar in the same way that a clueless child would mistakenly conclude that a tadpole and frog are two different species. Much like the evolution of frog spawn into frogs, the internet has morphed into something of a modern menace with a sticky tongue that seeks to collect and digest every scrap of information about you including what size underwear you wish you wore in addition to the specific makeup of your gut biome. Back in the 90s, the internet was more like a library that you visited in the evenings to see what the helpful old lady had on display at the time. A library where the doors creaked like this (2) and people were generally nice and bespectacled. Unlike frog spawn, the internet’s tail of Satan has only grown in length and reach and has now invaded every aspect of our lives. I say this somewhat ironically as you are likely reading this on an electronic device connected to the internet through the magic of WiFi or a similar sort of sorcery.

The internet as I knew it, was a repository of information. A library that was always open and in which you did not have to search catalogues and index cards to find that you were too short for the top shelf sounded like good news for an eight-year-old. As a clueless fool, wandering randomly around online, I found great resources like the magazines I loved reading, encyclopedias and other reputable sources of information. Back then, there was no Facebook, Google was not yet the Oracle of Delphi and Yahoo was still something people used. Fortunately, I was the sort of child who liked books more than people and my parents encouraged me to read and ask questions. They did not fill me in on the next step: verifying the information you read (past tense). That’s a skill I picked up on my own when my clueless relatives sent me email forwards, the first of which claimed that every single human being, 3 kilo child to 150 kilo sumo wrestler, was obligated to drink 8 glasses of water daily. Now, being an inquisitive little shit with lots of questions, I took the email at face value and replied with a question: ‘What is the size of a glass’?

The person forwarding the email had no clue. This was my first brush with misinformation on the internet and the willingness of the boomer generation then in gainful employment, to believe anything they read on the internet. I suppose this was an extension of their tendency to believe anything they read in a newspaper as there was likely a person verifying the information on the other end and besides, why would a newspaper lie or misrepresent the truth (3)? I, on the other hand, had nothing better to do with my time and would read literally every single word in the newspapers at home, corrections and apologies included. This cued me in to a simple fact: everyone makes mistakes and not everything you read may be entirely accurate or complete. I extended this skepticism to the internet and often searched for alternate sources of information. Now, in the 90s, this was not easy but what I was looking for was not Nobel prize-worth information on the Bose-Einstein condensate (4) but rather more mundane information such as what was behind the redactions I saw on the atlases I was perusing (5). I discovered that it was the State of Israel and I also found out the reason(s) why. My brush with the email forward led me to ask questions about what I was reading, though I must admit, this was initially more due to plain curiosity than any sort of skepticism. I discovered that the 8 glasses story was a myth (6) and that the people forwarding the email with the claim likely did not care and were equally unlikely to check its validity but were all too willing to accept it at face value. My doubt was not taken kindly and I faced some harsh words. No matter.

The modern internet has grown exponentially from 44 million in 1995 to over 3 billion in 2016 (7). With that, has come the best and the worst of humanity. The internet is what it is today mostly because of the people who design it, create content for it and consume content on it. Often, behind all that content is precious little verification of facts. The driving force is revenue, money, paisa, dollars, francs and euros. In the race to be the first to report or something or the “source” with the most salacious claims is a conflict of interest: facts may not be in the best interest of the people creating content on the internet.

This is a fact that I came to accept growing up but is something that many, many people struggle with. I have no solutions to this as people are drowning in the flood of information unleased by the internet. I often struggle with the question “should I correct this random person on the internet or should I move along because it does not affect me and I, myself, know how to verify information on the internet”. I don’t have an easy answer but neither do I have infinite time.

In the past, the consequences of misinformation on the internet were simple: some folks believed that the moon landings were fake and that “science” commanded you to gulp down eight glasses (of indeterminate volume) of water daily. That was it. Today, however, the consequences are terrifying. Elections are affected by the content people read online. Echo chambers are created from a polarized populace that stubbornly refuses to consider or examine alternate viewpoints and people (including some presidents) routinely confuse the weather with the climate.

With great power comes great responsibility. I don’t have much power but I will direct you to an excellent video on this topic: Crash Course on YouTube - Introduction to Crash Course Navigating Digital Information Available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLlv2o6UfTU

References

1. Wikipedia. Internet in India. 02 2019.

2. Wikipedia, William Termini on. Dial up modem noises.

3. Williamson, Phil. Take the time and effort to correct misinformation. Nature. [Online] 2016. https://www.nature.com/news/take-the-time-and-effort-to-correct-misinformation-1.21106.

4. Wikipedia. Bose–Einstein condensate. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate.

5. Sabin, Lamiat. Sin of omission? HarperCollins leaves Israel off the map. s.l. : Al Bawaba, 2015.

6. Carroll, Aaron E. No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day. New York Times. [Online] 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html.

7. Roser, Julia and Murphy, Max. Internet. Our world in data. [Online] https://ourworldindata.org/internet.

Winter storms on Prince Edward Island

2018-03-22T20:06:00.001-03:00

Today saw a storm roll into Prince Edward Island, Canada. Now, as someone who grew up in a desert island (note, desert, not deserted) in the Arabian Gulf, it is a curiosity to witness blowing snow. I drive almost 90 km between home and work and I've bravely driven on that which few tropical inhabitants drive; drifting snow.

Today's storm saw winds of around 70 kmph and steady snowfall for two hours. Thankfully, weather prediction services are good and the residents of PEI were informed of the impending white Armageddon well in advance. Work sent us home at 1230 and I got onto the road expecting the worst. It was not to be. I even had time to stop for petrol and stick my tongue out to catch a drifting snowflake. I might have swallowed more than an innocent snowflake. Tomorrow morning's toilet bowl will tell. Uneventful ride most of the way except for the last 10 or so kilometres. The snow was pretty heavy by then but I wasn't fazed. I was almost home. I did think about driving up to Walmart to buy what the locals call "storm chips" but decided that my credit car had had enough work for the day with the fuel purchase.

The previous storm was just last week, on Wednesday, the 14th of March. As a naive and new Islander, I was aware of the meteorological events of the night before. What toll said events had taken on the roads, I did not know. In my morning hurry, I ended up checking the wrong closure website and got into my red commuting vehicle and set off. Driving was squirrely but I'd learned a thing or two from the Finns during my time there. I drove in as straight a line as Mika Häkkinen would and kept to my side of the road. During the last stretch to the office, the wind had blown snow onto the road and some brave Canadians with American-made trucks had ploughed through, creating gaps. The real snow plough hadn't been through. I decided to test the limits of my winter-tire equipped sedan and ploughed through myself. Not a good idea. I ended up with the car sitting on a foot of snow. I broke out my blue Canadian Tire (not tyre) shovel and started digging. Out came the snow but all four of my tyres were in the air. At this point, i realised that my car was sitting on snow. There was snow under my car which was propping it up. Shoot.

Sacre blanc neige. I had to get on my knees and dig. A local fisherman saw the plight of the city-boy, unfamiliar with the vagaries of mother nature and volunteered with a farm shovel and some elbow grease. Tyres still spinning. As luck would have it, two more of his friends showed up and the trio pushed down on the bonnet of my car.

Snow compressed (soft as it is), tyres gripped the road and reverse I went. After a handshake and a salute to the spirit of the hardy Canadian, i turned around and drove home. Shaken and stirred. Cold and confused.

Ah, winter in the Great White North.

Some ironies of the English language in India

2015-08-15T07:05:00.001-03:00

I have no qualms about claiming that my mother tongue is Indian English. Yes, my skin is brown and I like to think that I can use the English language well. I do not claim to be familiar with English slang in English. The fact remains that i depend on Hindi and popular culture in India for slang. I do understand Hindi but not at a native speaker's level and certainly not at the Narendra Modi level. I learned Hindi as a teenager in Bombay and Bambaiyya has a reputation for being rude and in your face. This leads to situations where Indians who are native speakers of Hindi immediately spotting that my Hindi skills are not exceptional. This is compounded by the status attached to the English language in the indian context. English speakers are often (but not always) assumed to be born into privilege and opportunity. Strife and hardship are not associated with people speaking English. There is the added assumption that an indian speaking English is a snob and looks down on those who do not. I have seen examples of all these and i'm sure other indians have too. The unique tendency of Indians to make sweeping generalisations and take stereotypes as universally true just makes this problem worse.

Part of this is down to my own lack of skills in Hindi and my total absence of language skills in another Indian language. I must improve my hindi and that i will. It will, however, remain an unchanging fact that i'd be most comfortable talking to an indian in indian english versus anyone else in any other language. I don't know how to react when someone cracks a joke in english and i'm the only indian in the group who gets it, often due to better awareness of popular culture and turns of language.

There is only so far that you can push a conversation about stereotypes which is often based on broad strokes generalisations and ignorant assumptions. I often long for people who are more than partners for small talk. I absolutely despise small talk more for its lack of substance than the amount of a person's bias and ignorance it lays bare. Someone i know remarked that South Indian food is based entirely on idlis and dosas, that north indian food has more variety and that all indian christians are raging alcoholics from the age of two. I know people who subscribe to the idea of planes and thermonuclear weapons having existed in vedic india.

Let me be honest. I have an intense dislike for indians who expect everyone with tan skin to conform to some imaginary scale of indianness. I absolutely despise indians who judge other indians based on their retarded standards. I hate indians who believe that anything western is bad and that indian culture alone is the ultimate solution to all problems and that it must be forced upon anyone with an indian passport.

I also know some brilliant indians who will make almost anyone else seem ignorant and bigoted. In a country as large and as diverse as india, there's something for everyone, no matter your tastes.

Food, Retail Therpy and The Search

2015-06-20T18:07:00.000-03:00

The search is still on. It has been for some time now and it will remain on for the foreseeable future. Society in India has a peculiar set of standards that you're expected to live up to and not living up to them is not an option. At your own risk you invite curious eyes, eyeing relatives and nosy neighbours. All of which are very annoying to the India that is trying to change.

India brings me to my next subject. Food. When someone mentions Indian food, the general population has certain preconceived notions of what constitutes this broad cuisine. Google usually provides a good idea of what comes to people's minds in response to a question.

Look at that image. Curries and gravies galore. Spices, colour and a whole lot more. What is missed in this are the niche cuisines from around the country. Trying to encompass the sheer diversity in every facet of India is a bit like trying to make meaningful generalisations about Europe. It just cannot be done. What is missed or overlooked in this broad-strokes approach to diversity is niches. Food niches, for our discussion here. I'm from a small community called East Indians, who are culturally similar to the Goans and Mangaloreans but we'll never admit to that when sober. EI food is a sight to behold and a cuisine to relish but being a member of the community takes away my right to claim that. You know, because conflict of interest. Just this evening, i cooked some of the sausages i'd bought with me during my last visit home and the smell of the cooking sausages took me straight back to Bombay.

Yes, those little balls that look like dog poop on a string are the best thing in the world. They taste awesome and smell even better. The trouble is, my roomies, though Indians, are not well versed with the meat-eaters of India and were quite taken aback by the smell and sight of these sausages. Pork is something they've never savoured in India and I would not expect the average Indian to be aware of spiced meat held together by string and pig intestine.

India is yet to wake up to her own diversity and while the great nation has woken from her slumber, she has yet to fully stretch her legs and appreciate herself. Petty politics and regionalism still dominate our minds, mine included.

I also baked a chocolate cake last week and took it to work. Though the cake was burnt, no one really cared until I specifically mentioned this.

I've also engaged in some retail therapy and have been working on my wardrobe. It is hard for a thin, narrow-shouldered, Indian guy to find clothes that fit but egalitarian Europe has options and I quite like those options. A glance at my clothes in the washing machine told me one thing: I desperately need colours other than blue, black and browns. That should change and must change soon.

I've also been papering my audio-loving side and I've invested in a good pair of Grado headphones besides a Bose Soundlink Mini. The headphones sound heavenly and the Bose produces great sound for the size. It's not perfect with some of the mids sounding muddy but that's a small price to pay for portability and great sound.

Finland, Recherche, the Weather and Weeds.

2014-11-19T13:40:00.002-04:00

So i’m moving out of Finland and to the Netherlands (which i will proceed to refer to as Holland). I got a job after much trying, quite a bit of frustration and a lot of soul searching about whether or not I want to do a PhD. I do not yet have a concrete answer to the last question but I often turn to the other people doing PhD’s and ask them one question: ‘Why?’

The responses have ranged from ‘because I want to’ to ‘passion’ to ‘I couldn’t find a job and the PhD stipend is good’. It’s the last answer that I find most disturbing as it’s the one that I, personally, never want to use in the scenario where I do a PhD. The world needs research and an ideal world would benefit enormously from talented, motivated researchers who do quality research, present it to the world and then allow the rest of humanity to benefit from it. Yes, that is an ideal world and in the real world this could not be farther from the truth. See, the stipends in the Nordics are pretty good, by third-world standards. Hell, they’ve even good by Nordic standards. Good enough for a comfortable life. Note that I used the word comfortable and not cushy or lavish. The Nordics are peculiar in the sense that the average public bus driver might be getting a salary higher than a PhD student at the university. Yes, you read that right. Enticing, no? Still not a good enough justification. But consider the fact that PhD stipends in the USA and even Australia are lower than in the Nordics. I don't have facts to back this up but i do wonder why anyone would prefer 'pricey' research work in the Nordics over equally good work coming from the USA or elsewhere. Why fund someone here? Capitalism knows only one answer to that question. One consequence of this unverified assumption is that the research work in the Nordics is not quite worth it. Sure, it pays but is it worth it for you, the humble PhD student? That is quite the dillema. I’m not a person driven by passion, no. But, I am someone who believes that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well and I’d rather give a PhD its full due rather that do it for just the money. This is not to belittle the people doing PhD’s in any way. This is just a choice that I’ve made and that I will live with. Circumstances might be different for everyone and I am no one to judge or evaluate another’s situation.

Aside from that, the weather in Finland is back to being terrible. The summers are sunny but brutally short. All those lovely blondes with their long legs only display those legs for about two days in June. That’s it. The rest of the year, you have to be content with ogling at them clad in skinny, expensive jeans (I’m an Indian man. All Indian men are rapists and casual misogynists and I’m living up to the stereotype). With descending hemlines comes a fall in the weather in general. Snow, sleet, rain and perpetually cloudy skies makes you forget about the existence of that glowing ball of hydrogen called the sun.

And I started watching television entertainment again. In the last three years, I’ve watched all of three television serials from start to finish : Prison Break, Lost & Breaking Bad. That’s it. I took to watching lots and lots of documentaries on topics ranging from Sigmund Freud to the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka. I’ve watched all of National Geographic’s Air Crash Investigation series, all of the Seconds from Disaster series and several others. I’ve watched documentaries on how the brave (and lucky) Finns beat the shit out of the Russians in the Winter war, how India reached the moon, how marijuana and sex affect the human brain and even how chimpanzees can be trained. I have no rational answer for why I gave up on traditional entertainment except for the fact that I stopped finding it funny or even remotely entertaining. Since the past 5 days, I’ve been watching Weeds. An American comedy-drama about a suburban housewife who takes to slinging weed to pay her bills. Someone mentioned that the whole series appears to be written by a pot-head who was high and I concur. I like it and I cannot explain why. Perhaps I should stop searching for explanations for everything.

Cheers!

मैं भारीतय जनता पार्टी का समर्थक नहीं हूँ.. Though, i respect the fact that Modi is PM.

Treriksröset

2014-08-27T10:28:00.001-03:00

Finland is a pretty flat country without lofty, Himalaya-like peaks but the natural beauty in Finland is often simply stunning. This panorama was taken at Treriksröset, the point where Finland, Sweden and Norway meet and it can scarcely do justice the the view.

You have to see it, breathe the pure air and feel the chill to really appreciate it.

Once more, Finland leaves me with a memory worth keeping for a lifetime.

-Fish
27.08.2014, Helsinki

Shopping in Stockholm on a Budget

2014-06-20T17:10:00.001-03:00

Stockholm, like all Nordic capitals, is a tremendously expensive city to live in. Sample this: A two-hour ticket on public transport costs USD17. I am not joking, see the rates here. Cheap trousers start at SEK299 or about USD50. In short, nothing is cheap, deals are few and discounts are slim. Prices for eating and drinking are among the highest in the world! This makes shopping in Stockholm close to unthinkable for a miser like me. Groceries are a necessity and you can't avoid buying them. Clothes, however, are a different matter. For the penny-pinching shopper like me, there are few stores where the prices are amounts that i want to pay. Most stores leave me with a wide hole in my face right about where my mouth would be.

That said, you have to admit that Nordic minimalist style appeals to me.

I absolutely detest the loud colours that so many in Gujarat have 'developed' to like. Hell, for me, would be a place where i am forced to wear parrot green jeans and pink shirts. I avoid jeans with fades and holes that are there for purely aesthetic purposes. Holes and tears belong in jeans if you are a ragpicker in Dharavi. I admire the Nordic taste for earthy, sober colours and functional fashion. Unlike the Italians, whose definition of fashion is suited to the rich, the Nordic take on style is, like their societies, quite egalitarian. If you too are heading to Stockholm and would like a taste of Nordic style but are a penny-pincher like me, i have the perfect solution for you.

Just last week, i visited two Second Hand stores run by Stockholms Stadsmission, one in Kungsholmen and one in Vasastan. Now before you tell me horror stories of second hand stores being filled with homeless people reeking of urine and shabby in appearance, let me kill that mental image. These stores are not run as a charity. No, they accept donations, most of which are clean, and then sell a variety of items ranging from clothes to curios to books to LP's and concert memorabilia. Items here are clean but unquestionably used. Cuffs will be worn, buttons mission, glass might have hairline cracks and LP's might be a bit dirty. The staff are full time and friendly. They even have changing rooms where you can try on stuff.

The good part is that clothes, in any other country, would pass as brand new. You'll find the odd tear but the overall quality is definitely high. The prices are also definitely worth it. Nordic brands like Filippa K, Tiger of Sweden, Fjall Raven, J Lindeberg to name a few, are aplenty. The catch is that sizes may not be what you need, choice is limited and the occasional thing may be fit for the bin. Caveat emptor.

If you are willing to invest a bit of time and make the effort to visit several stores, you might be able to find a gem in one of these stores. The range of items that you can find is amazing and being hard to list here due to the sheer variety, is worth a look. If you, like me, like Nordic style but can't afford full price all the time, these stores might be the next best thing.

India: Hope to Hate

2014-05-30T18:51:00.001-03:00

I have never been one to take politics seriously but for a change i've followed the 2014 Lok Sabha elections closely. Christopher Hitchens called the Lok Sabha the consummation of a true parliamentary democracy (Full video www.youtube.com/watch?v=LunCZ7DIDEk), which like the US is based on the rule of law, regular elections and the English language.

The part about the English language i don't doubt. The Election Commission of India does an excellent job of ensuring free and fair elections. Kudos to them. About the last bit, the rule of law, that i doubt. On a similar note, M J Akbar theorised that India is yet to achieve economic equality (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XieVcOXZoU ). While that is true, we also need to achieve equality of law, gender and religion. While we are all atheist in a rudimentary sense (the religious discredit the existence of competing gods) we, as Indians, are yet to accept that no one religion or set of beliefs is above any other. Hinduism is not better or greater than Islam or Christianity. They are merely what each believer chooses to make of them. Yet, in India, this simple fact is lost on us. We choose to believe religious demagogues and take their words a bit too literally. Several choose to act on the command of those same demagogues and take to the streets, threaten violence against women, brutally attack women in pubs and even kill members of their own families who they deemed to have 'sinned'. The real judge, jury and executioner of India are her people, not Arnab Goswami. A loud voice on television has less impact than a man wearing holy orders and preaching from a raised pulpit.

What shocks me is the surprising willingness on the part of millions to forget or ignore past transgressions of their leaders and repeatedly elect the same erring individuals to power. Till this cycle is broken and sense dawns on the electorate, we might never move forward. India progresses despite her Government and while it is wrong to question the collective wisdom of the electorate, i do think it prudent to say that the electorate is quite easily misled by false promises.

In the end, democracy will succeed. Development, if delivered as promised by the party with the Lok Sabha majority, will only lead to more of Indian seeing sense. Right now, this is more the need of the hour than people like me passing judgement on a government that is barely four days old.

Inspiration :

If you haven't read this piece by @RanaAyyub, you probably should: RSS blueprint for Modi http://t.co/CdQjvQ58OV || Mega insight.
— Vidyut (@Vidyut) May 30, 2014

Badaun, Bhagana cases must go to CBI. If @PMOIndia takes action on 6 pt #Womanifesto on war footing violence wl drop. http://t.co/nxM0GfJX3J
— Karuna Nundy (@karunanundy) May 30, 2014

Getting disturbed by images on the internet does zilch. This is one more way to objectify women, even in death. #Badaun
— Farzana Versey (@farzana_versey) May 29, 2014

Jai Hind.

India : Hate to Hope

2014-04-20T18:59:00.000-03:00

For much of my life I have despised India. I grew up in the Arabian Gulf, in Bahrain, which for all purposes is much like America except for a disproportionately high percentage of Arabs. It was a fantastic life, modern and comfortable. Poverty was non existent, the government didn't interfere with the affairs of residents and citizens to a large extent. My only relation with India was the school I attended which taught the CBSE syllabus, the education pattern of the central government of India. This, and the yearly trips that my family would make to Bombay. These trips were at the peak of the Arabian summer and we would head to a land soaked by the monsoon rains, far from the scorching heat and arid desert sands of Arabia. These trips were what I despised the most. I hated the fact that my passport was Indian. I hated the stink, the fact that people defecated on the streets, the fact that dogs ran amok and that garbage was strewn everywhere. I hated the fact that I did not speak the language and that the people seemed caught up in their lives and were always on the move. Bombay is a city where time is money and people won't think twice before stepping on your toes. I hated the crowds, the smells and the food. Bombay was not me, India was not me and I absolutely hated India.

Then, one spring, we packed up an left the Gulf. I started my education in India. I hated that too. I hated the standards of English, that not many even wanted to learn. Gradually, I learned the local language. I learned the ways of Bombay and of India. I started working. I went to god forsaken parts of the sub continent where people had never known electricity let alone made phone calls. I saw a part of India that existed below the common radar. An India that no one knew or whose existence people loved to deny. I saw India in the dirt, in her villages, in their unintelligible tongues and their raw struggles. I constructed power plants to light up peoples lives and provide electricity to wires that had never known an electric current. While this was inspiring, my hatred for India grew. I hated every aspect of her. The riots, the intolerance the fact that people hated me for my religion and my habits. I hated all of this.

I decided to move for foreign shores to study and vowed never to return to the land of my birth. Chapter closed. I would leave the dusty mess of the Indian subcontinent behind and head to greener pastures in the West where I assumed I would get along better with people who shared my views. While on this journey abroad, I heard of one Anna Hazare. I heard of his fight against corruption, that old Indian bugbear. I heard of Arvind Kejriwal but never paid serious attention to him. I dismissed their hinger strikes and demonstrations as another movement that would fizzle out over time. Once dead, the government would return to looting a trillion dollar economy. Then Nirbhaya happened. Then the Mumbai Rapes. Then Kejriwal became Delhi Chief Minsister and I read the news, shocked at what was happening. Shocked that the people of Delhi had voted a rank, political outsider to power.

India suddenly came alive for me. I realised that there were millions like me. Millions who just wanted a better country, one free of corruption, where the state could be trusted and relied upon. Millions who wanted India to prosper and not to die a rotten, corrupt death. I realised that my hopes were not just mine alone but were shared by uncountable, yet till now silent millions. I watched as the Aam Aadmi Party's movement gathered steam. I watched the opposition by the entrenched political establishment and their hatred for the wisdom of the people. I realised that India was changing, and changing for the better. India was never a poor country and never will be. India, long silent to the loot and destruction that was forced on her, by foreigners first and Indians later, has risen from the dead. Karma, you could call it. I see now that millions are participating in the political process and forming opinions. I see the rise of the haters, of those who would have India turn into a Hindu Pakistan. People who would resort to violence and intimidation to maintain the status quo. This was when I started to feel something new. Hope. Hope, for India.

This is the first time that I have genuine hope for India. This is the first time that I hope that India will take control of India, and not allow the Government of India to engage in plunder and thievery. India will take control of India and not allow rioters and extremists to tear her to bits. I have hope because I can see that people genuinely want change. India is tired of corruption and of daylight robbery by the system. Bribes, corruption, extortion and barbarism are not our way of life. We can be so much more.

I am sure that if India solves her problems, she can be the greatest nation on earth. This is not idyllic dreaming. We have something that no other nation on earth has. Unity in diversity with freedom and a long history to look back on. Finally, I feel some small pride when I see the four lions of Ashoka on my passport. Finally, I can admit that India is far from perfect. We have problems but we can find solutions and move forward, not backward.

Finally, I am proud to call myself Indian.

IndianElections.h

2014-03-16T20:56:00.001-03:00

Exported from Notepad++

#include <iostream>

#include<gandhi.family>

#include<Gujaratmodel.h>

#include<AamAadmi.h>

using taxpayer money;

int Congress() {

    int RaGaIQ=-5;

    string Question[20];

    cout<<'What can the Congress do for you today?';

    cin>>Question;

    if(Question=='silence')

        Manmohan(Question);

        else

        int dustbin = Question;

    while(RaGa(statement)='empowerement')

    {

        PassMessage('RaGa','Call Mummy')

        RagaIQ++:

    }

    if (media.Present=1)

        {

        Hide.all.scams=1;

        Corruption.index=0:

        }

        else Next.scam=1;

    return 0;

}

int BJP() 

{

    int Modi=0;

    int PM=0;

    Gujaratmodel.progress=1;

    while(Sansad.seats<=272)

        {

        impact=NaMospeaks();

        if(impact>0)

            Sansad.seats++;

        else

            Sansad.seats--;

        }

    string Congress[20]='CorruptChor';

    string AAP[20]='InexperiencedChor';

    if(Modi=PM)

        {

        taxpayer.money--;

        BJP.funds++;

        party(start);

        }

        else

    cout<<Congress<<AAP;

}

void Kejriwal(Modi, Media)

{

    int dharna =0;

    int brashtachaar=CorruptionStatus(Ask,Media);

    while (brashtachaar != 0)

        {

        return (dharna)

        else 

        return (void)

        }

}

Dream Theater: Along For the Ride Europe Tour : Stockholm

2014-02-24T16:41:00.000-04:00

22 February 2014, Globen Annexet

Outside temperature +4C.

Typical rotten Swedish evening, cloudy, depressing and wet.

Towards the end of the first leg of their Along for the Ride Europe tour, Dream Theater made a stop in Stockholm to promote their new, self titled album. Featuring a departure from their previous concerts, the setlist on this tour has remained remarkably consistent with a mix of old and new numbers. The Stockholm set-list was no different.

The intro was a well made video, showing a camera pan through scenes depicting the previous album covers. Each scene was beautifully animated and held that important frame just long enough for you to recognise the album. A noticeable cover missing from the sequence was Once In A Lifetime.

The band came on stage to a show of hand-horns from the crowd and lights flashing fast enough to give someone an epileptic fit. The three hour set list was tight and the songs paced brilliantly. One let down was the fact that the sound engineer didn't get the balance right. Too much of the muddy guitar sounds, too little bass and way to little vocals.

Technical skill was on display, with each of the members being nothing short of a virtuoso with their respective instruments. This is something you admire when you go to watch Dream Theater play live. There are few or no pyrotechnics, not much of jumping around on stage, no smashed guitars and no drunkards. These are all family men with responsibilities and kids to raise. While Petrucci was changing guitars, the camera often zoomed in to Rudess and his array of instruments ranging from a Korg Kronos to a continuum to an iPad. Twice, he took centre stage with his keytar and did the regular twirl-the-keyboard stunt.

Mangini was well hidden behind his array of percussion instruments and did the one drum solo on Enigma Machine.

Altogether great concert. You must remember that you do not go to a Dream Theater concert to see theatrics just as you do not go to the Opera expecting to see a piano catch fire. No, you go to a Dream Theater concert to see and appreciate the full range of sonic power that musical instruments can produce and to see grown men make wielding those instruments seem surprisingly easy. How else can you explain a 12 second guitar squeal or drum work that can shake all the fillings in your teeth and probably raise the dead too.

Technically perfect if not a bit predictable (no thanks to the internet).

Rating 4 / 5.

-Fish

The Charge of the AAP Brigade

2014-02-19T18:56:00.001-04:00

Today's Rally in MH with @AapYogendra ,just a third of d crowd today in pic pic.twitter.com/oaGE9tTVKK @RitikaChopra28 @Princygoel90 @ankitlal
— Gaurav Bhartiya (@gaurav_aap) February 19, 2014

The Aam Aadmi Party has lasted 49 days in the Delhi government. Not long, by the standards of our last few governments. Using the national yardstick, the NDA government lasted a full term as did both incarnations of the Congress-led UPA. By those standards, the AAP government was a speck on Indian democracy. However, a bigger change has been brought about. The AAP has really brought about political change in the cities and towns of India, particularly among the youth. Leaving aside RaGa and his nonsensical claims about women empowerment, the AAP has got people like me, your average living room, arm chair Indian, interested in politics and what it means for India.

The Indian political system for me, and for millions of other, has largely been a motley bunch of pot bellied men and (dare i say) ugly women who shout at each other, occasionally hurl parliament furniture and more recently, pepper spray at each other. Being from the middle class, with aspirations of living and working in the first world, i could not care less about this. This very fact has become the bane of and otherwise healthy democracy, when measured by any standard. The brain drain has been continually depriving us of the best minds that the country produces. What we are left with are political dynasties and corrupt politicians with eyes only for votes before elections and the nation’s coffers after elections. The politician and the government have become entities to fear and avoid. My most recent memory of a politician was of Mr Govinda Ahuja, whose only contribution that i can remember was that he got the Rajdhani Express to stop at Borivali. Ok, votes get a non zero return, it seemed back then.

The AAP has changed all that. Look at the photo at the top of this page. You see young people sitting at the front of the crowd. The majority of the AAP’s candidates are in their political diapers but yet seem more trustworthy than any member of my state’s veritable Sena or the RSS. What the AAP has achieved is much more than free water or 50% off on your power bills. The AAP may no longer be in power but they have ensured that their memory cannot be easily wiped from the nations collective conscience. The youth have stood up to be counted. The middle class voter is watching his daily news bulletin. More are watching the political class keenly. Twitter is alight with people talking politics. The politician is no longer someone who lives in a palatial mansion funded by tax payer money. No, he has been cast from his vaunted position and been brought down to where he really belongs. A servant of the people who elected him is what he is supposed to be. The people have woken from their slumber and are taking back what is theirs.

This could be put down to economic progress as more and more people have stepped out of poverty and are joining the teeming middle class. This is a section of society that largely wants to ignore religious, caste and regional differences and wants to see the nation move forward instead of backwards. It is this section that political parties are now targeting. The BJP with their social media campaigns, the Congress with their telly adverts (showing RaGa as a sort of modern day Hamlet) and the AAP, well with their continual media coverage.

Sheila Dixit has said in this ‘interview’ of sorts, that the Congress in Delhi underestimated the impact that Kejriwal would have. They did. So will others. As long as the young and free are watching, questioning and then voting, the idea of the Indian republic will live and the Indian republic will thrive.

Jai Hind.

Indian Politics Reduced to Computer OS's

2014-01-17T08:20:00.002-04:00

I’ve been watching the political news in India for a few months now and honestly, after a point, it does get repetitive and boring. True to the geek in me, I’ve come up with a computer OS analogy to the three main political parties that every news channel and every person in india in talking about right now.

The Congress, the BJP and the AAP.

1. The Indian National Congress

They are like Windows. Everything ~~falls apart with use~~ works, the end users don’t like it, the management want you to like it, you know there are tons of ~~scams~~ bugs and loads of other problems. They've been in ~~power~~ control of your PC for so long that you don't seriously consider an alternative till the ~~next scam breaks~~ virus hits. Plus, the fanboys of the other two are constantly trying to accuse ~~the UPA 1 and 2~~ Windows Vista and XP of being the reason why you have to ~~pay more taxes~~ upgrade your PC’s hardware ever so often. And the most important factor is that it seems to be largely controlled by one ~~family~~ man.

2. The BJP

They are like Mac OSX. The have their ardent fanboys who swear by anything ~~Modi~~ Jobs says. ~~Bills that were passed years ago~~ Features that existed years ago in other operating systems suddenly become news in each of their ~~rallies~~ conferences. Oh, and if you say that ~~the BJP and Modi~~ Apple and the Mac are bad in any way, be prepared for the ire of lots of people who know little about what they are saying save for information presented in the television advertisements. And they usually have high maintenance and running costs since they claim that ~~they are scam fee~~ software piracy is hard.

3. The AAP

They are clearly the smallest players, who are often touted as being giant killers, a la Linux. One man had a vision of a ~~corruption free government~~ virus free and secure computing environment and legions of others followed him. Their central ideas are excellent on paper but poorly implemented. While ~~Kejriwal~~ the Kernel works like a charm and is hailed by everyone as being excellent, the rest of the ~~party~~ supporting software is, meh. Everyone knows that the idea will work but no one will put in the coordinated effort required to get rid of ~~corruption~~ software bugs. And, when some sections of the ~~AAP~~ Linux camp have differing views, they will form a new ~~political party~~ OS fork and the leader will claim that freedom of choice is a good thing.

Cheers, from Fish.

Kejriwal. Gandhi. Modi.

2014-01-10T19:38:00.001-04:00

I just had to do this.

Every evening, I face a very comfortable but long journey from the centre of Stockholm to the very edge of the County of Stockholm (see City of London, it’s similar). In this one hour, I am faced with a 67km journey, comfortable seats, an air-conditioned bus (not that you need is, when the temperature outside is -10) and Wi-Fi. Yes, SL (Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, which as you might have guessed runs the public transportation system) provides you, the bored commuter, with free, high speed access to the internet on the bus.

From KTH, the (free WiFI) bus looks like this.

With this internet access, I watch (videos on) YouTube and not just any random part of YouTube that presents the antics of cats, dogs or other animals for you to laugh at. No, I watch the ‘channels’ of Indian news channels and their nightly debates about issues in the country. Call me boring, but it is very interesting to see what the maximum bandwidth of the human ear is. Some debates seem to be based on the principle of CDMA (where multiple users send information over a single communication channel). One of the favourite topics of discussion is the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and who will be Prime Minister (PM) of India. Now, India is many things on paper, sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic. The first sentence of our constitution does not mention that we have an indirect democracy, one where the people elect the people who decide who becomes PM. Among the two major national parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (aka the BJP, represented by the saffron lotus) only one (the BJP) has announced its candidate for the PM’s post. The Congress are yet to do so but word on the street is that the scion of the Gandhi dynasty (Mr Rahul Gandhi) is set to be their candidate for the PM’s seat.

The latest entrant to the Indian political circus is Mr Arvind Kejriwal, and IIT alumnus, engineer and (what matters most to the real Aam Aadmi) an honest person. Or so he claims.

Pretty much the only thing you hear being thrown around on the various debates is whether or not the Aam Aadmi Party (Mr Kejriwal is the party leader, AAP = Common Man’s Party) has rocked the established Indian political boat.

Now I’m not a political person, I am, like many before me, quite content to put in the occasional vote and to ‘let it be’. I’d prefer to let the political establishment be as it is and crib about it in my living room. But, the AAP has taken the national capital by such a storm that even the Aam Aadmi in other cities are taking notice and wanting to make a difference. What has really set the AAP apart from the others in the fray is that they seem to be genuinely giving the people a voice and taking a stand against corruption and political complacency on the part of the voter. They have reminded us that the government of India is meaningless without the voters, the Indians, and that is the true meaning of democracy. Not Manmohan, not Lalu Prasad Yadav, not P Chidambaram, no. Indian democracy is the people of India, period.

Now, while I can wax eloquent about the AAP and Mr Kejriwal, I must digress briefly and present my views on the others in the fray, a certain Gujarati and a certain man who has Inherited.

But first, the knight in white armour, the gora-chikna young man of Indian politics, whose mother rejected the PM’s post in 2003 when the Congress-led NDA won the elections. If Walter White was the ‘one who knocks’ Mr Gandhi would be ‘the one who inherits’. I don't see a good reason for him to become the PM of a country which is not a monarchy. He is ‘young’ (if at 43, a man can be said to be young) by the standards of politics in India, he is a Cambridge graduate, and he is believed to appeal to the young Indian voter. I am a young Indian voter and I would like to believe that like me, other young Indian voters do not want to see India turn into a hereditary monarchy where you can get the PM’s job by right of birth, just like Jus sanguinis. Our present PM, while being criticized for being inactive, silent and incapable among many other things, was the man who set India on the path of economic liberalization. The end result of those reforms were that many of the Aam Aadmi who now claim that the man was not capable of being PM, would not have jobs, India would not be a trillion dollar economy and we would still be stuck with international economic bailouts because of our socialist policies. I am no politician and am not qualified to make a judgement on whether or not Manmohan was a good or bad PM, hence I will not. The point I’m making is that Rahul Gandhi has done nothing of the sort. I would not like to see him in power. Were the Congress to put another candidate forward (when they do make and announcement) I’d be happy to side with them. Till then, no vote from me (not that I even can, being outside the country).

This brings us neatly on to the other man in contention, the Gujarati. Mr Narendra Modi started as a small time member of the RSS (see here) before moving on to the BJP in 1987. This is another story of a man who seems to have progresses to the top largely because he’s ‘been there for long’. You see a similar thing happening in Bollywood where it’s hard for new blood (or faces in their case) to get in. True, the man is educated (by our own low standards), holding a Masters in Political science from the Gujarat University, but I question if that degree has any context today or in his climb up the ladder (the same argument, I must mention, holds true for Mr Gandhi). True, the SIT has cleared Modi of involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots (see this) but I still don't see myself gravitating to a party who declare themselves to be a ‘Hindutva’ party. There are also reports (see this) that all the fuss being made about Gujarat being a developed state (comparatively) and that Modi being largely responsible for this are simply based on propaganda and perception than facts. Gujarat is among the most developed states in the Indian union (yes, I’m aware that this is a vague statement. See this for a different opinion) and it has been for some time now. This is not a new fact and cannot be due to one man alone, let alone in the last 10 years. If you take economic growth as an indicator of performance, then few states are ahead of Gujarat and Maharashtra (Bihar has the advantage of a smaller starting base). You have to admit that during his tenure, Gujarat has maintained its past growth rate, even increased it and this is not a fact that can be ignored. Numbers aside, were Modi to move to a more openly secular party, I wouldn’t think twice before backing him and his party. Till then, no vote from me. (Since this chap evokes a lot of emotion in debate, here are two contrary, but still rational IMHO views #1 and #2)

The final man who’s being talked about as a possible candidate for a the PM’s job is Mr Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He’s untested as a politician but the urban middle class seem to identify with the man. He’s become the voice of the people in the Delhi Assembly. Politicians have made personal attacks on him and his family and he’s ignored them. And he’s a product of one of India’s greatest educational institutions, the IIT’s (bio here). As has often been said, Kejriwal brings a clean slate to the table. Let’s also not forget that an IIT degree takes work, lots of it and also mental ability, not jus sanguinis or the benefit of having been around for long. From what's emerging, it seems to be the 250 million plus middle class of India that's rallying around the man. While I have no clear understanding of what plans he has for India as a whole, I did find this image on Quora that says a lot.

When the Masses rise up in unison, the biggest of thrones fall like a pack of cards.

For a candid internet discussion about this, see this post on Quora.

Heads and Tails

2014-01-03T06:30:00.001-04:00

Now Ferraris are built with a zest, a Latin passion. This, though, is built in a more ‘Northern European’ way. – Jeremy Clarkson on the Koenigsegg

The holiday season in the West is drawing to a close and people are starting the crawl back to the rat race. It’s quite a comfortable rat race here, when compared to the developing world. Each rat has his space to run and can run at whatever pace he chooses. He is well fed and well looked after.

But, I digress.

This was another holiday season spent largely in the company of myself and pretty much no one else. While I was not alone in the strictest definition of the word, I did find myself actively avoiding people, with the exception of people I enjoy making conversation with. I’d like to make a comparison of my attitude to society with a friend of mine. And, I will take advantage of that glorious invention of language, the indefinite indicative speech and not reveal the gender of or much about ‘this person’.

This person’s view on the world can be summarized quite simply as, each person in the world is friendly and trustworthy unless proven otherwise. My outlook on the world is the exact opposite. Every person is an ignorant, bigoted cheat, unless proven otherwise. I do appreciate our glaring differences in what can be called world views and this gives me an excellent chance to compare some of the issues faced by both of us. I am an introvert. I’m quite content with being alone and I’m comfortable with myself. I don’t appreciate meaningless small talk and I do not like talking about the weather unless hailstones the size of houses have been falling out the blue sky. This person would love to go on and on about nothing at all, from things as pointless to the weather to something as obvious as the change of seasons.

When it comes to getting along with random strangers, this person held a distinct advantage over someone like me. I would take the cold and reserved approach while my friend here preferred the warm and friendly approach. This often landed us with contrasting sets of friends in our respective social circles. The emo versus the bubbly (google emo, to understand what it means. Alternatively, click here). The outspoken marketing stereotypes versus the geek. The talkative versus the witty. I’d leave it to you to guess who made friends with which types. What struck me as odd was that over time, we warmed to the types that the other liked. It’s not always easy to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. It’s a bit like going to France to try some escargot. Squeamish, but an acquired taste, much like Finnish Salmiakki. It definitely was fun to try some of what I had internally labelled ‘the forbidden fruit’.

My friend here disliked being alone. Loneliness was something that this person could not tolerate, just as a fish will die in the excessively dry but oxygen-rich air above water. Being alone was something that I quite liked and I liked the company of those who like to be alone. The advantage being that silence was never awkward and that conversation seldom required more than two participants. My friend, on the other had always preferred circles, audiences, the performance. This strategy has its advantages. More opinions, more ideas, more varied conversation. The catch was that once silence descended on the conclave, it usually sent up a white smoke signal which was the sign to disband and to reconvene on another day.

I have deep respect and admiration for the power of music to influence people and their moods but surprisingly, here, I found some similarities with this person. When in a more sombre and calm mood, I’d much prefer to listen to something like an instrumental number by Mark Knopfler or Kenny G (elevator music). For a strange reason, I like to listen to Iron Maiden and Metallica early in the mornings (caffeine substitute, maybe). Though I found this persons liking for Bollywood music, which I often dismiss as the soundtrack to soft-porn, typical, I did find the odd song whose brilliance or relevance we agreed on.

Even on issues such as choice of newspaper sections and presentation styles, the differences were evident. Gtitz versus the edit page. Factual and convoluted versus simple yet complete. There’s a lot to be learned from those who are different from you, in whatever way they may be different.

In the end, you need to see both sides of the coin to fully appreciate either. You need to be cold and wet to fully understand the joy of being warm and dry.

Touché.

Design

2013-12-14T18:49:00.000-04:00

I've always had a thing for design. Design is a very broad term and what i'm getting at here is the layout of advertising, the fonts, the colours and the impression they make. While my education has nothing to do with the arts or design in anyway, i've always admired the arts and those involved in them. I do admire the literary arts and the graphical arts in particular. I do not get paintings, especially the modern ones that seem random to me while people who 'get it' claim to see all sorts of social problem in smudges.

That aside, I won't go on about my views. I will instead show you what i've done in the past four to five years.

#1 : The Lunch and Tea Parody:

Rubber Duckmarine

This was made as the 'thinking mans' response to some of the advertisements run by a certain India based heavy engineering firm. What we essentially set out to prove was that all that was being hailed as modern technology was actually rehashed tech, from the 70's and 80's that no other self-respecting nation would use.

#2 The Group Debate

Do we affect Carbon?

This was made deep one night, in a hotel room in Baroda and did not involve drugs, prostitutes or anything illicit. Even alcohol was hard to come by in the state of Gujarat (and still is!). The idea was to get the middle management and other employees of a certain Indian heavy engineering firm to actively debate things with each other. While this did achieve the desired result, the subsequent ones were not so successful.

#3 The Conference Logo

Nordic Skyline

This is still a work in progress. It is meant to make the location of the conference instantly recognisable. While it does a reasonably good job of that, it is still a little rough around the edges.

-Fish

Phone. Now. Period.

2013-12-10T05:58:00.002-04:00

Now.

Abhi.

Jetzt.

Everything must happen instantaneously. The cellphone and the internet are two things that people can’t live with and without. No one wants to take the time to learn how to read sheet music the old fashioned way when there’s a guy with a video on YouTube who’ll hand hold you through which key to press and when. If you want to meet people, there are last minute messages on Whats Up, Fibre and nameless other applications, rushed walks to catch the underground, busses missed, abuses hurled into the cosmos and so on.

Really makes me wonder how on earth I got by without a cell phone, in the not so recent past. I managed fine. Dates and times were agreed on, calls were made, transportation was arranged and things miraculously happened. All without the ability to communicate with the person you were meeting, up until the point that you actually met them. Bingo, that’s how I still like to do it. Spontaneity is nice, it’s spontaneous and that’s what gives it its allure. Things just happen. But I still am a stickler for the planned and the organised.

Sadly, in an age dominated by devices that sold on the premise that they will make our lives easier and more organised, we end up doing just the opposite. People without the money to make a phone call but within reach of a free wireless network would rather rely on another person checking their phone for important communication. I would be labelled a raving lunatic if I told people that I still send post cards and letters to people.

The art of writing is dying. I feared the day when I would be able to type faster than I could write. As I write this very sentence, I’m staring out the window at melting snow.

Facer and Twitbook have become more important than traditional news media. Sensationalism and the fifteen minutes of fame are more important that investigative journalism. YouTube and the internet at large decide what I watch online.

A few days back, my trusty laptop decided to die on me. While the fix was relatively inexpensive (zero, actually), the opportunity of sitting in the bus with no electronic gadgetry and no internet access made me appreciate just how dependent I’ve become on the web and all sorts of electronics. The chance to finish a book I’ve been wanting to, the change to just stare at the scenery outside in wonder and amazement. The chance to walk in the woods in the middle of the night and not see that annoying cellular glow on someone’s face.

On another matter, I’ve been watching videos of debates in which a certain Professor Richard Dawkins participated and I’ve been struck by the man’s critical thinking ability. While I do not subscribe to all his views, I do agree with his contention that it is right to question and constructively debate what religion tells us. It may, after all, not be 100% right and there is a very good evolutionary (or otherwise, divine) reason that humans have an intellect and dogs, for example, do not. Another admirable quality of the man that I particularly admire is his ability to keep his cool in a debate where the opposition gets heated up and speaks in tones that may be border on shouting. I just watched the Deepak Chopra v/s Dawkins debate and I was really surprised that someone with the level of education of Chopra can actually believe such nonsense as the universe having sentience and atoms and cells being conscious. What struck me are even more stunning were Dawkin’s responses to such crass nonsense, which was put in a way that even a layman can clearly appreciate the argument and the reasoning.

Death to the Fourth Estate in India

2013-10-29T19:26:00.002-03:00

Just a few hours ago, I deleted the oldest bookmark that I had in my web browser, one that I’ve had since October 1997. Sixteen years old, older than many Indians who will never be able to see it in its full glory.

This is the result of years of pent up frustration and it’s been a long time coming. I’ve been resolving to do it for quite some time now and its finally time. The time has come to say the final prayers for the soul of the Times of India.

Dear Jaideep Bose, I’m sure that you have a fancy degree and also see a nice number of Gandhi’s added to your bank account at the end of every working month. What you do during that month is what I’m particularly miffed about. See, I’m from the urban middle class of Bombay and I grew up in the Arabian Gulf, like scores of other children of working parents from the sub continent. I grew up in the 90’s, when the internet was something that was yet to reach the shores of our desert Kingdom. We had precious few sources of information, just the print and the televised media. Two things were treated as the truth in our household, one the Bible and two was the content of the Times of India. This was the only connection I had to the land of my birth. I still remember reading stories about whose content or implications I had no idea, set in a land far away. The Times was also what teachers in my school would recommend, to improve the standard of my English. I do acknowledge that several things have shaped the way I use the English language today and among these were the content of the Times and also the BBC, the news channel of our former colonial masters and in whose language I am now writing this. The Times back then was filled with content that I loved to read. I had precious little idea about the background of what I was reading, but this was where a 10 year old learned about Bofors, the impact of the economic reforms of ’91, Kargil, the Air India hijacking of 1999 and the elections of 1996.

This was also where I read about the massacre in Godhra, the issue of Ayodhya, the Ram Setu and also the exposition of the remains of St Francis Xavier in Goa. This newspaper made me want to understand what India really was, in all her glory. This newspaper made me want to understand the workings of our economy, as told by Swaminathan Iyer every Sunday. This newspaper made we want to understand people and their emotions and the complexities of human life, as touched upon by Carol Andrade. This newspaper made me want to experience the fun of life in India as presented by Jug Suraiya. This newspaper provided the facts and the ideas for debates at school, debates not concerning the content of the latest Bollywood film but rather issues like education reform in India and racial abuse.

This newspaper introduced me to facets of life and news stories in faraway lands. I learned that the capital of Canada was not Toronto or Ontario just as the capital of Austraila is not Sydney. I learned how many stars were on the flag of the United States of America and what the three colours and the Chakra on our own meant. I learnt about the Nobel Prize in Sweden and of the Cliffs of Dover. I learned about the existence of marvels of nature such as the Amazon and the Victoria Falls. I read about the Tokyo Sarin attacks and of the perils when science and nature meet with the latter winning. I saw pictures of the Exxon Valdez, I read about Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar.

And I can pen all this today just from memory, without having to use Wikipedia or the internet, two things that the Times of India introduced me to.
I remember scoffing at those who read the ‘glamour’ magazines, with their attractive covers but flimsy content. I remember holding onto my Sunday copy of the Times just to do the crossword, something I never managed to do. I remember standing up for the Times when others contended that the content of newspapers such as the Hindu was more politically neutral and often better. I was often criticized for reading a heavily ‘Westernised’ newspaper, but no, I countered that the Times represented the best of the West and the best of free India. The content of the Times was what relatives and friends discussed. They disagreed with the editorials. They took apart the cricket analyses. They rose and fell with the Rupee. They loved it, as did I.

The most lasting discovery that the times introduced me to was the Internet. The first page I opened with my copy of Netscape Navigator was the TOI website. Ever since the TOI website began, I’ve had it as one of my bookmarks. Today I deleted that bookmark in disgust.

Times have changed and so has the Times.

It seems that you, Jaideep, and your bosses are more interested in making money than in informing the nation. We are not a nation of vain and petty fools but it seems that that is exactly what you and your lot are hell bent on turning us into. Check the Times website. Sleaze. Hot photos of women I don’t care about. Parties, whose knowledge the Indian Republic could do without. Bollywood. Pointless news. Poor language. Glaring mistakes in grammar. Spelling mistakes. Political stories that scream bias instead of rational analysis.

Bennett Coleman and Co.? #fail, to quote the internet.

I really wonder about the quality of the journalists and the management who run this newspaper. Can they even put together a coherent sentence in English? Or, do they mentally translate from one of our numerous languages? I do not value the English language over any Indian language but it must be said that the global success of the majority of Indians is our ability to communicate in the lingua franca of the modern world. More the result of circumstance than choice, it is nevertheless something we should take pride in. What is the point of and English language daily if it is going to be filled with what can be best described as pathetic material? I don’t have to cite examples here. Take a look at the content of the day’s Times when you read this. You’ll find them like mosquitoes after the monsoon.
If you’ve ever watched the newspaper headlines scan on BBC World News in the mornings, you’ll see there, among the best newspapers in the world, the masthead of the Times of India. Proudly claiming ‘Established 1838’. Yes, the world knows about the Times. Not only are the youth of India watching, so is the world. Yet, you persist with presenting me with an advertisement when I visit your website. You fill it with information that a party hopping socialite would love. You combine the worst of the West with the worst of India. Their vanity with our penchant for wanting to know about disasters. Rape has become the latest word that garners eyeballs. And , that sadly, is what it has come down to.

Eyeballs. TRP’s. Readership.

What happened to the newspaper that wanted to make informed citizens of its readers? What happened to the newspaper that put the Nation above the escapades of Deepika Padulone? What happened to the newspaper that considered the Parliament’s budget session more important than who Kangana Ranaut has a tiff with? What happened to the newspaper that put news that mattered on the front page instead of the news of who could pay the most for the front page? There are times when I cringe at work while reading the Times of India’s home page. It’s nothing short of a cheap porn site.

Readership matters. Sales matter. Profits matter.

So does the nation. So do the people. So does quality.

Do you accept the fact that something that reads ‘Made in the EU’ should cost thrice as much as it would if it read ‘Made in India’. I don’t accept that. Maybe you could take the first step to changing that perception by giving people the news they need, not the news they want. Sleaze and shock can turn heads and get you eyeballs. But for how long? In the age of attention spans shorter than a pigeon and of instant news, I can being to see the point of the majority of your content, but is that what you want to give to Indians? Is this what you want to feed the world’s largest democracy?

When will you change, dear Times of India? Will I live to see a newspaper that flies the Indian Tricolour high? Will I ever be able to display proudly to foreigners, ‘The Best Newspaper in India’ or will they continue to remark that the visuals are too racy for this to possible be a newspaper of substance.

Or will you end up as the ‘most widely circulated’ but least respected?

That bookmark is not coming back any time soon.

Drunk People in Stoclholm

2013-10-20T10:27:00.000-03:00

Friday was a long day for me. I had tons of things to do and didn't manage to get them all done. When i finally decided to call it a day, it was past midnight. So into the cold night i went and walked towards the bus stop with minutes to spare till the bus left. I was the last person to get onto the bus and so i didn't have the best choice of seats. I had to go to the upper deck (yes, Stockholm has double decker buses too, but they are blue, not red) and found a seat by the window at the back.

Three rows behind me were a pair of fairly intoxicated Swedish men, just how intoxicated i did not know, but i could smell the alcohol a good distance away. They had a few beers with them and as the doors of the bus closed as we pulled away they opened the beers in mock celebration. There was a Swedish chick seated by the window opposite mine and she started a conversation on her phone. As is typical with the Swedish accent, the very nasal i caught the attention of the two drunk men. They started imitating her. She got pissed and moved to the front of the bus.

At the next stop, a gentleman took a seat behind me. He too was not spared by the drunkards. He to got pissed as moved to the front of the bus. Alcohol has a tendency to make you want to take a leak. These two did too. But the bus had no place for a leak so they turned to the floor for their business. That was where i had had it. I moved to the lower deck of the bus.

At a stop called 'Danderyds Sjukhus' a man from the upper deck informed the bus driver. This was where the Swedish law swing into action. A quick call was made to the law and the bus was parked in the bus station outside the tunnenbana (Metro) station. There was a bit of confusion where there cops could not find which bus had called in the sea of blue buses at the bus station. But finally they found the bus. In the mean time, the drunk duo had sensed that something was wrong. Since alcohol also impairs your judgement, they decided that the right thing to do was to take off their shirts. That looked odd when they came to ask the driver was was going on.

Then came the shock. The police had brought along some friends too. These friends had a boom mic and a TV camera! The telly folks where there, presumably from some strange Swedish telly show where they show you the escapades of drunk people. The police forced the duo to clean up the mess they had made and then, in a show of concern for the two they made them both put on their jackets. It was pretty cold outside, -1 to be exact. With the camera rolling, the two were escorted out of the bus and to an undisclosed location.

What i noticed was that the Swedes are not content with just 'grinning and bearing it'. That's what i would have done. No, in Sweden everyone knows their rights and they will have them. No one has the right to create a public nuisance. The police are pretty efficient and do the job quickly without leaving behind a mess.

After the cops left, the bus broke out into applause. This was not directed towards the police but to the man who complained.

Know your rights. Use them.

Go Sweden.

Lots to learn.

-Den Fisken

India and Russia globalizing Finland

2013-10-13T11:42:00.001-03:00

People do weird things when they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I, on the other hand, do weird things when completely sober and with my senses about me. These things are not what normal people would do and are more often than not, the result of being in a strange situation at the wrong time. Now, given the reputation that India has, people expect strange things to happen there. People would not flinch if snakes started talking or if elephants started pulling trains. That may amount to stretching the stereotype a bit too much, but it’s just to illustrate a point. Another country with a propensity for the queer is Russia. Do a YouTube search for ‘strange russians’ and you’ll see what I mean.

The strangest things can be expected to happen when you put an Indian and a Russian in a foreign land and that’s exactly what this story revolves around. One fine summer evening, in the fair land of Finland a Russian called an Indian to ask for help.

This help would involve some manual labour, lifting to be precise. The conversation went something like this:

Russian: Do you want to come help me pick up a chair?

Indian: Sure, why not. When and where?

Russian: About 8PM. We can leave from here (location in Helsinki) and go to (other location in Helsinki) by bus. We can pick up the chair and get it back here by bus.

Indian: Wouldn’t it be more fun if we walked there and took the bus back?

Russian: Sure. See you outside in some time.

Indian: Ok.

What the Indian understood from this conversation, we will never know. He met the Russian at the designated spot and they proceeded to walk towards their destination, all the while engaging in conversation about the design of apartment blocks in the Helsinki region. So far so good.

They then got a bit lost and so the Indian whipped out his GPS enabled phone and found the right road. It would be important to note that the phone was German made and was a Finnish design. Nokia phones rule. At this point, an hour into the walk, the Indian suddenly realizes that he has forgotten his ‘matkakortti’. This can be translated as a travel card. As he’s cheap, he’s also conveniently forgotten his wallet.

The following silence implied that the Russian would have to buy a ticket for the Indian on the return journey. Now, if you are a student in the Helsinki region, you have access to discounted tickets with your travel card. If you don’t have your card, you have to pay the full price, which is a lot. It’s a lot compared to most other countries around the world. If you don’t have money either, you are screwed.

But no matter, and they soldier on. They passed beautifully illuminated bridges, connecting the more affluent islands of Helsinki, in particular the one connecting Kaskisaari and Lauttasaari, which is illuminated in white. This would have been the ideal place for a couple, but sadly, being straight men, they both banished such thoughts from their minds.

Onwards, comrades!

They reached their destination and as luck would have it, the chair was rather unwieldy, but not too heavy. The problem was that the chair’s shape was a bit odd, odd enough to require both of them to lift it.

Now, getting the chair down from the sixth floor of that apartment building to the ground floor was not a complicated task. This was aided by the elevator. Once at ground level, the true horror of their situation dawned on them.

They had taken an hour and a half to walk to their destination. With a chair to be taken back, it would take longer. The time was now half past ten at night and the Finnish summer sun was just below the horizon, illuminating the clouds. At this rate, they would be out in the streets well past midnight on a Friday night. This is the ideal situation for a couple of virile young men, out looking for a date. This is not the best situation when both are dressed to visit the gym and have a chair too.

See, strange things happen in Helsinki. It is perfectly normal to see naked people in the sauna. It is perfectly normal to walk around in public in your underwear. It is normal to eat snow. All these things are normal if your skin is the colour of a fish’s gut and you have the word ‘Suomi’ on your passport. Carrying a chair in the streets, at midnight is not normal when one person carrying the chair salutes the tricolor and the other the Триколор.

Chalo. What to do? No time to be lost.

So we proceeded, one using his left hand to support the chair and the other using his right. It did help that one was left handed and the other right handed. Towards home!

Since walking 10km is no mean feat, walking 10km while carrying a chair is even harder. We had to stop every now and then. On one such occasion, we took a longer than usual break. The Indian whipped out his trusty Nokia and took this photograph:

While we were laughing about the weirdness of sitting in the middle of the road, on a comfortable chair, a woman strolled by. A Finnish woman with a Scottish terrier. She asked us what we were doing.

That conversation went something like this:

Finn: Mitä sinä teet?

Russian: I’m sorry, we don’t speak Finnish (Though I understood what you just said).

Indian: We are on our way home.

Finn: So why do you have a chair with you?

Russian: I’m taking it home. We just picked it up from a friend in Lauttasaari.

Indian: (I wonder if it’s illegal to carry a chair in Finland)

Dog starts smelling chair.

Russian: (in a vain attempt to distract woman from the presence of the chair) What dog is that?

Finn: That’s a Scottish Terrier.

Finn: So where is your six-pack?

Russian: We don’t have one.

Indian: (sensing the purpose of the question) Neither of us are drunk.

Finn: Ok. (she’s not buying this story): So where is home?

(Indian and Russian explain)

Finn: So where are you both from?

We answer Russia and India.

Finn: Well, you can walk along the sea, it’s the shortest route, but it’s a bit dark. Good luck with your chair.

This exchange can be interpreted in several ways. The indian and the Russian chose to dismiss it as a Finnish citizen doing her due diligence. How often do you see an Indian and a Russian carrying a chair in Finland? Not too often.

So off we went, wondering what more strange things we could do in the land of the Finns.

See route here : http://goo.gl/UbMcWI

Science, the Church and Rock 'n Roll

2013-10-03T13:23:00.000-03:00

I recently (two Sundays back) attended a talk given by a priest. He was a professor of history at a certain Swedish University. This particular talk dealt with the role of the church in shaping modern scientific knowledge and the perceived ‘opposition’ of the medieval and modern church to scientific thought.

This is something that I particularly like knowing more about, simply because it helps me answer the question about whether the church and science are two different, and more importantly, opposing schools of thought.

What is often cited as a prime example of the medieval church’s attitude to science, is the church’s proclamation as a heretic, of Galileo. While the fact that Galileo was persecuted by the church is well known, what is not known is that there are few other historical instances of gross cruelty by the church. It is generally assumed that if intellectuals like Galileo were not immune to attacks by the Church, the common man must have been put through numerous, undocumented atrocities. There is scant evidence of the latter.

While it is true that the Church has opposed scientific thought outside of its teachings, it must also be remembered that the earliest scientific contributions were from the Church. Several contributions to the worlds of astronomy and theology were made by Church scholars. While I am neither agnostic not atheist nor mystic, I am in no way justifying the actions of the medieval church.

I also doubt that there was ever a serious conflict of sorts between the church and science. Let’s not forget that the big bang theory was proposed by a member of the church. Since this is not intended to be a well-researched article, I won’t be getting into the sources and reasons for the opinions I hold, but I’d rather present them at face value.

On a more modern note, it can be said that the church has voiced its disapproval about issues such as gay rights and rock music. I’ve read accounts by several priests, most of them American, about how rock and roll music and it’s more modern avatar as heavy metal is an instrument of the devil. Isn’t this more on the lines of the ‘guns are dangerous’ argument? The Pope has condemned rock festivals, saying that they take on characteristics of cult worship. I don’t deny that.

I do have an opinion about this and I do listen to rock and metal, but I don’t feel in any way encouraged to worship the devil or to take drugs or lead a life of promiscuity. People make those choices.

Just as a gun left to itself will not kill anyone.

-Fish

Scandinavian Airlines

2013-07-15T14:28:00.000-03:00

Three weeks back I did the cheap thing and flew a low-cost carrier in Europe. Incidentally, this was also my first intra-European flight. Taking the plane, (or the Airbus) from Helsinki to Stockholm is a bit like taking the bus from Borivali to Bandra (both suburbs in Bombay). Both journeys take the same amount of time (150 minutes, end to end, including waiting and walking times) and both allow you to hear a smattering of languages, not many of which the average Indian will understand. I must emphasise the difference in the distances here. Borivali to Bandra is 20km while Helsinki to Stockholm is well over 200. On the BEST bus in Bombay you’d hear things like app-a-dee-ya and keym-chh-oh while the only words I understood on the friendly SAS flight were fran, Helsingfors, till, Stockholm, SAS and Sverige (in that order). I’m not going to ramble on about the low cost carriers in Europe or the ruthless efficiency of almost everything in the Nordics. No, I will tell you about my favourite pastime here, up ‘Nord’. Validating stereotypes.

The Finns I’ve encountered have given me a certain mental picture of the average Swede and the Swedes have done likewise. I’m sad to provide the spoiler this early on, but not many of them are true. So let’s get going.

All Swedish men are gay.

If you define ‘gay’ as dressing well, being neat and harbouring a love of song and dance, then calling Swedes gay would still be stretching it. I can, however, see where the stereotype came from. The average Swede on the street has slicked back hair, trimmed to perfection, like an albino Italian Mafioso with not a strand out of place. One difference that you can’t escape so easily is that many of these Mafia-dons are tall, slender, blond and don’t speak Italian. None of the Swedish men that I met (in five days) were gay or attracted to me in any way. They did, however mistake me for being Italian. Naïve, maybe. Gay, no.

Sven the Swede lives in a red house by the sea, with his wife Christina and his two children, his dog, his yacht and his Saab.

Saab (automobiles at least) are defunct. Many Swedish houses are red and they do look quite nice, I must say. Sven is quite a common name, as I Christina. I met one of each during my short stay in Stockholm. One the way back, I flew Norwegian and my pilots name was Sven. I’ve also seen a lot of dogs in Stockholm, all manicured and pedicured and with hair in better condition that mine. There’s something called a ‘farmdog’ and I’ve been told that many Swedes like their dogs. So I saw.

No one in Sweden talks. They sing all the time.

Yes, with the accent and the way that emphasis is put on (seemingly) random words, it does sound like people are singing.

Going the other way:

Finnish cannot be understood by anyone.

It can. Over five million homo sapiens speak and think in the language every day. It is different from other languages (such as this one) but not impossible to learn.

Finns look different from Scandinavians.

If you are Scandinavian or have lived in Scandinavia for some length of time, you’ll find this true. You can look at a person’s face and tell instantly if they’re Finnish or not, but as with all generalizations, this may or may not work all the time. I’m guessing that this stereotype chooses to exclude the people living north of the Arctic Circle (Lappi or Lapland).

(going this way i.e. Swedish stereotypes of Finns, I’m not really sure. More material when I get there and actually ask around).

-Cheers

Den Fisken / Kala

From other websites

2013-07-10T06:20:00.001-03:00

http://www.eurocircle.com/events/41759

Nothing else needed.

-Fish