All Play and No Work...

Quite contrary to what one would expect a sports-columnist in India to write in a National Daily after India's shameful performance in the WC, Nirmal Shekar had this to say in The Hindu.

The concluding paragraph, I found, was extremely moving...

"Today, seemingly, there is far too much at stake in cricket for it to be viewed as sport. Yet, that is what it is. The truth is, when our cricketers fail, in the larger context, it hardly matters. But when our politicians, public servants and nation builders fail, it does matter. If only we had demanded of these men and women — from the time of Independence — the same level of organisation, unwavering consistency and excellence that we always seem to expect from our cricketers, India would have joined the First World of nations long ago."

... for some reason, I was reminded of that joke in the movie 'Perazhagan', where a beggar uses a public telephone to call up his friend and ask for the score.

Rendezvous ... After Five Years ;-)

An easy way for those of you living abroad with high speed Internet to catch up with Indian Television (including Live WC 2007).

http://wwitv.com/ - Click India in the left tab and you have list of Indian channels. Doordarshan shows the matches. I thank Krishnan for sending me this link.

Now after making sure DD was working, I browsed through the list of the other channels available and my eyes lit up when I chanced upon CNBC TV18- the Indian chapter of the popular business news channel. With fingers crossed I clicked on the link, held my breath as the video started to stream into my WinAmp player... buffering 90%... 95%... 100%...

...bingo!

Very few in this world (now that I think about it, I guess only Vijay) would understand what exactly I'm talking about... it is the reason why I started watching News on TV with zest ... a story that goes back to my first year in college ... a story that goes back to the days when Headlines Today was still a nascent news channel...

... Now, with a little bit of research, I'm sure many in this world will understand what I'm talking about!

Science Vs Sexism

This article titled 'Biology Vs Law' by Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, in CNN IBN blogs, though scientifically inaccurate and incomplete in some parts, brings out in gist, some fundamental flaws in Feminism or at least the way it is being interpreted in contemporary India.

One particular paragraph of the lengthy prose that made me ROTFL was the Supreme Court's definition of sexual harassment (which I was not aware of before):

(a) physical contact and advances,
(b) demand or request for sexual favors and
(c) sexually colored remarks or any other physical/verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature

the implications of the above is that the next time you propose or ask a girl out on date, you are punishable under law!

Cheap Work- Cheap Life!

One of the typical lazy afternoon conversations with Andrew...


A: You know what? This place sucks. I think I should find some university in some nice tropical place and go there to do my phd... live in a huge house... servants doing all the work... you had servants in India didn't you?

Me: Yes, there was a servant maid who used to clean the house and do the dishes.

A: How much did you pay her?

Me: (sheepish smile)Hmmm... you want me to tell you the figure in rupees or canadian dollars?

A: Dollars

Me: (Murmuring... 200 divided by 40...) about 5 dollars.

A: A day???

Me: No, a month.

A: What the hell are you saying!... thats about 3 cents an hour... How on earth did she survive...

Me: Well, she worked probably for an hour and a half a day at my place, used to go to other places to work after that. I think she worked in about 4 or 5 other places with about the same pay... And then you know this kinda salary suffices a bare life over there...

A: (Laughing) Are you justifying what you paid her?

Me: He he no... but when put into the Indian perspective yes... well, How much do you think an average middle class family makes a month there? The begining pay of an IT professional could be about (Murmuring ... 20000 divided by 40...) 500 dollars a month.

A: Is that enough seriously?... How would you rate your family?

Me: Middle Class

A: And there is a class lower to you which...

Me: ... that's the servant maid whom we pay 5 dollars

A: ... and there's a class above...

Me: ... yeah, those are the guys who pay us 500 dollars.

A: Yeah right, everyone has a Daddy... how much do those guys make?

Me: Hmmm... I don't really know. But I think they make about the same as the Daddys here.

A: Yeah, I have heard there are many firms over there who pay next to nothing...

(Long Pause)

Me: Don't you think that's the reason why people here are losing jobs?

A: Hmmm?

Me: I mean like an average IT professional in india would probably work 4 times more than his counterpart here and would probably cost 4 times less.

A: But I'm sure they have 4 times less brains (laughing). You see I'm guessing the work they do there is just repititive without anything new to think about and so they become the obvious choice for bulk jobs. There are far less number of people in here who work in technology related firms and yet they could be doing something far more productive.

Me: Yeah but you see...
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PS: Andrew did not mean any ill and all the conversation was in the lighter vein.