The King reads the paper

Wonder if it was reading the paper or the framing of an opinion that took this long!

Here I am!

Am reading this book 'A Short History of nearly Everything'. Started reading it about two days back. Extremely interesting book. Talks of asteroids, constellations, planets, blackholes, comets etc.
And as I was reading about comets and how the appear so rarely, I remembered it's about time
I made yet another appearance here too.
Hope I last longer this time. And 'the light' I spread here is not as old as the light that comes from comets ;-)
Anyway for the time being, back in circulation folks!

And then there's another reason too. If she can say she's back, sure as bloody hell, I can too!

...or do I?

Now after reading this I'm wondering if I actually want to be a CEO.
Afterall, this guy seems to be making good money too.
And from the little I've seen, having much more fun making it!!!

I...wanna be....

Read today, that "last year, the average CEO made about 370 times what the average worker did"
Holy cow. In other words, the CEO makes in one day, even if it's a goddamned holiday, what I make in one year. And then, for all his hard work, he gets an additional five (of my) days' salary as bonus.
...............



.........I don't know what you're thinking. But I'm thinking I wanna be a CEO!

Not so funny when you read it....

One friend describing another's (no hyperlink here - "security concerns"!) attempt at making rasam

"It was as if two tomatoes had decided to commit suicide, and so they had gone and jumped into boiling water. And the seasoning on top - like remnants from the tragedy, just like the debris that was floating after the Titanic sank. Imagine, I had that for dinner one day."

I know that's not awfully funny when you read it, but anyone who knows Girish knows how funny it would sound when he says it:)

Also, I had to get back into blogosphere and this was the first funny thing that came to my mind!

Been away, be back. Soon

Have been away for long. Way too long.
Got out of the habit, if writing two blogs can be considered a 'habit', around the time I had to move from Beaverton to Detroit. And never really picked up after that. Rather satisfied myself with reading others' blogs! But now the bug has bitten me again, and so hopefully should be posting more again, so keep a look out!

To pack or not to pack...

A friend who recently landed in the US with one suitcase, recently offered to carry back some luggage for me when she's going to India in December.
I told her that she has no clue what she's offering; that stuff comes flying into your apartment like the whatever germ (assuming that germ flies) the moment you say you're going to India, and even a packet of Hershey's begins to weigh 50 lb, which by the way, is the bloody limit on baggage every airline imposes. I even told her that I had once put my bag on a treadmill overnight, to see if they would lose any weight!!
Nothing. I just found my reply extremely funny, so thought you could benefit from and appreciate my incredible sense of humor too!

Oh, those poor creatures!

Thoughts that ran through my mind after seeing that this tub of yogurt I recent bought had over 26 billion live cultures.

• Doesn't it give you a creepy feel to know you're eating 'live cultures'? (Next minute, I taste it and like it.)
• Ah, 26 billion live creatures. Crawling under this cap. Helpless, poor. At my mercy. Not knowing what fate awaits them. Just waiting to be devoured.
• There are 26 billion of them. And I'm all alone. I don't even have a knife. Just this spoon to face them with. (Next minute, after 'devouring' a spoonful of them...)I'm a brave hero. A knight in shining armor.
• The whole world holds about six billion humans, and this one tub holds twenty six billion of these organisms. Wow!
• (Before eating my first spoonful) Are these cultures, bacteria the same as microorganisms? Did Colgate really have to show microorganisms with the devils pronged forks in their toothpaste ad? What if these are indeed micro-organisms, and they bring out the forks after I devour them and prick my inners?
• I hope eating these live cultures doesn't make me a 'non-vegetarian' in the eyes of the maker.
• How many living organisms are there in this world, if this one tub can hold twenty six billion?
• How did they count the number? Can I become rich by proving them wrong and suing them for misguiding me?
• How do these poor creatures survive in my freaking cold refrigerator?
• Damn, this yogurt is tasty!

Man, so many thoughts over one tub of yogurt! I'm a genius. In addition to being a knight in shining armor!

MR Re-defined, Part II: Results & Reactions!!!

Read Part I first.

The results of the Survey are as stunning as the methodology itself. And if you don't get the point - my MR Prof choked on his pie as he was reading the RD over dinner. No one told him a Digest is for post dinner consumption.

Anyway, coming back to the results, New York city surprised many, including many a New Yorker, by coming on top in courtesy. However, the news reporter of the news channel I was watching (I swear this is true) was quite upset by the fact that only one American city figured in this survey conducted across 35 cities from 35 countries. His newscast was immediately followed by the song 'We are the world'.

New Yorkers however were thrilled by the results. Infact they're so nice and civil that, I hear they've invited the RD dude over to interview him about his broken nose. They've even offered him a free cup of Starbucks' coffee. Delivered.

The citizen of other American cities, while happy for NYC, claim that they could've done even better. Infact, a shopkeeper in Dallas said that he pulled out the door to his shop last summer, so the RD dude could've come in anytime without bodily injury.

This strategy however did not work for shopkeepers in Mumbai, which came last among the 35. The shops in Mumbai that do not have doors claim that their city lost 20 points because well, there was no door for anyone to open. And the citizen claim that they couldn't make 20 points even in shops that had doors, coz the shops employed doormen.

In the 'Doc Drop Test' where the damsel dropped her papers, it apparently poured cats and dogs in Mumbai that day, and consequently, even she didn't want to pick the soggy papers. So that cost the city another twenty points.

The results of the third test in Bombay (the shopping test) is now mired in controversy. The city has been denied its twenty points here too, but the shopkeepers are disputing this. They say the dude took umbrage to the fact that they were chewing paan when they thanked him for shopping here. And they insist that he came in with a white shirt with red dots.

Meanwhile, a senior minister in the cabinet pointed out that the fact that Mumbai does not have Starbucks and Victoria's Secret was the actual reason behind it's losing. But he refused to allow the westernization of the city and the degeneration of it's moral fabric, by allowing these stores. The Minister further pointed out that the reporters had not travelled by Local Trains where Mumbai's courtest can be seen at it's best.

Anyway, the good news for Bombay is that Lahore and Islamabad did not figure in the survey.

MR Re-defined, Part I: The Methodology

Readers' Digest magazine recently conducted a comprehensive, mothodical survey to see if that thing called civility is still alive in this blue planet of ours. The results of this survey, which I happened to catch on last night's news, has thrown quite a few surprises!

But first, the methodology of the survey itself. Sheer brilliance. Gandhiji would've quoted this as an example of simple whatever and great whatever. My Marketing Research Professor who spent three months of my life, and seventy of his trying to cram into heads, the way you go about doing a market research - he'll be eating his words for dinner today. And following it up with humble pie for dessert. This survey just throws, well I'll just say, something dirty, on the face of market research. It shows how great results can be churned out by conducting simple experiments, and combining ah well, a secret ingredient that starts with an 's', ends with a 'y' and also has the following letters, not necessarily in this order 't','p','u','t','d','i' in it.

So here's how it goes.

Readers' Digest first takes a couple of quid from me, and from every other unwitting reader with indigestion, every other week (well, thankfully from my friendly local library in my particular case) and uses the loot to send this dude and this damsel on a freaking 'business trip' to 35 countries.

So what do these lucky travellers do? It's simple. The lady wakes up bright on her first rainy morning in the city, goes and stands five feet away from a Starbucks shop with the missionary zeal of finding out who is going to open the door for her. And when some guy who is too lazy to shut the door behind him goes in, she squeezes in too, and tells him he rocks and doles out twenty points to his city.

Our dude meanwhile is trying to hop in behind her, but oh, these bloody hinges, the door comes and hits him smack on the face. The lazy guy lost twenty points for his city. And this damned city maybe chivalrous but is not civil.

But no, we're not yet done with our jaunt. The damsel, stressed by standing out in the cold and rain for someone to open the door for her, in so distressed, that she drops the bundle of papers she's carrying. Unfortunately for her, the guy behind her, smart ass that he is, suspects she dropped them on purpose - so, well damn him, damn his family, damn his culture, and damn his, now twice damned city (our dude already damned it).

Meanwhile, our dude unfortunately can't quite figured out that a door which slams on your face as you're entering a store (and doesn't hit your ass) has a statistically significant probability of opening inwards (as against the doors of the ass-smacking variety which probably open outwards). So he gives up on the cup of coffee he was planning for, and instead goes up to the shop nextdoor, that's well a.....ahmmm.......Victoria's Secret.

He's a little embarrassed, but hey, duty is duty, and you have to do what it takes. So he spends a few more of those more than a couple of dollars someone gave RD, on buying a gift for his wife. When he goes for billing, the girl at the counter who has never met a red nosed, ruffle haired panty-under-suit wearing executive, forgets her manners in her amusement and doesn't thank him for his purchase.

And slam! The city lost another twenty points. Our damsel meanwhile has got her coffee and given another good twenty to the handsome guy('s city) who was admiring her figure (oh so chivalrous, this city is!), and now it's time to go on to the next city.

And so thirty five cities in thirty five countries later, this guy picks up a Tiger Balm in Changi airport hoping it'll help his broken nose and the couple head back home with their results. Thankfully the damsel is no longer in distress and doesn't drop all her papers with the results, in which case the results of the survey could, well, have been different. Or maybe, not.

So they come home, sit at their computer and realize it's too much work. So they outsource the computations to Bangalore and go to sleep. Next morning, RD has a 'research based story' to publish.

So this folks, is the new way you do Market Research. Three simple straight tests. No complex research forms, no questioning the gimme-a-chance-to-swear-at-you populace. No ANOVA. No Normal Distributions and other complex statistical techniques to arrive at results. It's pure, simple and idiot proof. Any idiot can do it. Never mind, non-idiots probably cannot understand it.

(contd...)

Coming next - Results and Reactions!!!!

Half and half

I woke up this morning and it was snowing.
OK, I'll admit that was a lie.
But only half a lie, coz I did wake up this morning. Only, it wasn't snowing. So there it is, the first half was true and the second half was a lie. And when you add a positive half and a negative half, you end up with zero. Zero. Nothing. And thus I've written about nothing.
And before you realized, this turned out to be a blog! Didn't I give you a hint already?

Brooke Shields

I want to blog. But like you can see from my last few blogs, I can't think of much to blog about, and that's showing in quality.
Then I saw curious gawker's blogspot. He's blogging about anything and everything. And nothing. And man, blogging about these three - anything and everything and nothing respectively, seems to give him enough fodder to keep blogging quite regularly. So I'm going to try that too. Focusing primarily on nothing.
Ofcourse he's incredibly funny, and I'm not, so mine won't be as amusing as his. But he had a blog , where he himself told me to write shit. And I'll oblige.
And if you thought this blog was just to eulogize him, no. Its only to do something else he said in his blog - to link to his. I don't know why, but that's supposed to be a good thing. So I still have to link to Sidin's and I should be fine. Oh, am I already fine?
Meanwhile, about the topic, no I did not plan to write about Brooke Shields. I put her name just to catch attention. I thought I'd put Mamta Kulkarni, but gut feel told me this is cooler.

How I'll soon be rich...

I got a postcard yesterday from the USPS. Apparently I no longer have to go to the post office to send my letters. I can sit at home, click click click and the next day, the postman, who so far comes in to drop mail, will stop by and pick mail too. Maybe I can also ask him to buy me a big burger and french fries on the way, but I'm a vegetarian, so it'll be only french fries.
Now you know what I'm gonna do? The postcard from USPS says my wife will be dumping the laundry on my head and I'd be wishing that laundry would happen click-click-click too. But no.
I'm going to use this wonderful click-click-click scheme to fill in this subscription to Exercise and Diet magazine. The postman will pick it up tomorrow, and in 3 days, I'll get my three free pizzas with double cheese toppings and diet coke (free with 60 month subscription) home delivered! And when the first issue of Exercise and Diet comes, I will cancel my subscription within my trial period, and get to keep my pizzas for free!
And then, I'll send a letter to my attorney so that I can sue the big burger company, Exercise & Diet, the pizza company, Coke, ok not coke, it was diet coke and USPS for conspiring to make me obese. And the best part is, the athletic postman is still around to take the letter and deliver it!
PS-> I actually put the names of all the companies, but blogging can you risky you see, they could sue me for defamation in return! And hey, Coke shouldn't sue me, since I didn't defame them!

Clap Clap Clap!!!

It's a big day for me folks....my counter reaches 100. Thanks to you, loyal readers. Need I say more? :)

Well, as it happens, I do !!! This has been a moment I have been waiting for the last three days. Watching the counter inch up painfully slowly, one at a time. So I'm not going to let it pass so easily! What made me really proud was this:

Yo, I felt I was a celebrity! People literally from around the world - Mexico, Norway, Spain, US, UK, India, Singapore, Taiwan... - were reading my blog, and that did give me a kick! Four continents, innumerable countries! Boy, am I famous??? :-/

(Ofcourse, the keen observer amongst you would see something fishy about the red spot there. I'll admit. Yes, it's mine. And so are probably seventy of the hundred in the visits. But my conscience is clear. I told the counter to ignore my visits, but for some reason, it tracks it every now and then! )

And now that it's touched the centum, I feel on top of the world. There have been others who've been there, seen it, moved on, but for me, it's a first, and I'll savor the moment! Know what? I'll publish my own interview. :)

But then handling an interview is a totally different game from blogging. That's a first for me too, and it gives me the jeebies. I've never done it before...I mean I used to cringe from even going up on stage and reading out my essay on 'The Cow'. So am not sure how I'd handle an interview. I'd been a cricketer, it would've been easy. The interview would've probably gone something like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

JK, the cricketer: Yeah, I just went out there to blog. It was a good day, the pen came onto the paper and the words just kept flowing.

Interviewer: So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment?

JK, the cricketer: Well, it was a team effort. The boys read really well. The new comers were strong, and the experienced guys supported them well by coming back. It was a crucial time and they clicked together.

......

No problem if I'd been a celebrity either; it would go like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

Bleep. Security, throw out the paparazzi

Interviewer: So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment?

JK the celebrity: (Hands raised, glycerine in the eyes) This one's for you, my great-great granpa.

......

Ofcourse what would've been awesome is if I'd been into politics. Those guys are born with the gift of the gab. Even if it makes others gape. It'd have gone like this:

Interviewer: So JK, a hundred, eh?

JK the politician: I am a poor farmer. I came here through reservations in higher education for the illiterate. I can't count. I'm a servant of the people. Numbers can be dubious. I do whatever parliament tells me. I follow my conscience. We will talk to all political parties and try to reach a consensus. Then we'll see what Soniaji......

Interviewer: errr.....So anyone you would particularly want to thank, for this accomplishment? Soniaji?

JK the politician: What can I say? This is an international conspiracy. Pakistan's ISI is funding. What can I do, I am an illiterate farmer. I will consider all points of view on what is right. Parliament is supreme. Decisions are taken by people who are more knowledgeable, and I will do what I think they are telling me. The West should stop trying to twist our arm. India is......

Interviewer: Errrr....thank you minister-ji.

But then, I'm just a simple blogger. And so here's how it goes:

Oh sorry, no interviewer.

So anyways, thanks folks, and keep coming back, with your friends and their friends too. It's in your hands to take the counter higher. And higher.And while you are there, don't hesitate to drop a comment once in a while! Especially if it's a juicy, good one!

Golazo!!!

It's that time of the year folks. Rather that time that comes once in four years. When the world goes mad. When one ball in black-and-white becomes the point of focus of every color TV in the world. Probably the only time when boardroom discussions and drunken brawls begin the same way, focused on it (never mind they go very different directions after that). When even Brooke Shields' posters are torn down from hostel rooms to make room for posters of men-in-shorts. Yes, it's Football season!!! The FIFA World Cup is here, and with it, all it's jing-bang!!!!!!

Well, if the beginning sounded over-enthusiastic and made you think I was one of those soccer crazy guys who knows every player in every soccer playing nation of the globe, mea culpa. My interest in the game would probably rate, average. I know enough to know Pele from Maradona and even know Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are two different guys, but ask me who the mid-fielder for Costa Rica is, and I'll ask you who the twelfth emir of UAE is. However, here's a game you just cannot ignore, and I have many a fond memory of this game!

My earliest memories are of the 1986 world cup. A World Cup immortalized by Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal, and subsequently, his 'Goal of the Century'. I remember, as a boy of 8, waking up rubbing my eyes, in the middle of the night to my dad shouting Goooaaaalllll and then sitting with him to watch the rest of it. At that age and level of sleepiness, I tended to empathize with the king who ordered a ball apiece so that twenty two guys wouldn't fight over one ball, but the next morning, I knew enough to call myself 'Maradona' in our gully-football team. Maradona got his shin kicked every other minute.

Come World Cup, 1990. Supposedly a dull world cup, but not for us kids! I even remember the lego-block mascot of this worldcup! I was more grown up and had more friends. This time, we were tracking the worldcup before it began, and had even converted our road from a cricket pitch to a soccer stadium. The local Maradona no longer got his shin kicked every other minute. Another more talented kid had kicked my butt and taken the name for himself. Our sports teacher meanwhile spotted my talent and offered me the chance to carry bottles of water for the players.

I vividly remember this world cup. The soccer world cup final and the Wimbledon mens' singles finals were on the same day. I'd made up a very smart comment in my mind and was looking for someone to crack it on. Looked around and saw this gullible 8 y old mallu on the slide. Went and told him "Both Becker and Beckenbauer (German manager for that world cup) are very tense today." He gave me one look and vacated the slide for me, and ran to dear mummy. For some reason, I never met him again till 1999, when unfortunately, he had to run to catch a bus. The next day, I heard he'd gone to Dubai.

For the records however, Beckenbauer's team won. No such luck for Becker though. He lost a five setter to Stefan Edberg in one of the most memorable of their matches.

The next, World Cup 1994 in the US is supposed to have been a great world cup with lots of goals, but it's not one I wouldn't care to remember much. There's not much for me to remember anyways. We did attempt to revive the local Soccer Club, but I was in Class XII and it was made amply clear to me, as much by fellow players as by the grownups around that couldn't hold on to a football even if I were allowed to use my hands. A career in Engineering was offered as an alternative and that cost me the fun of this World Cup.

Making this world cup even tougher was the news of Maradona being expelled for cocaine use, and then Columbian keeper Escobar being shot for scoring a self goal. Soccer could get bloody bloody.

World Cup 1998. I lost this to friends. No we weren't betting. We were growing up. And had formed our close circle of friends in college. The world cup was in France, and the matches were usually telecast at odd hours of the afternoon, when we were either at college classroom or in the canteen, eitherways, too busy in our chattering to bother about the world cup. France silently came up and won the cup. We lost the fun.

World Cup 2002. Hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea! I was almost a grown up now. I even had a job! And the job gave me an email address, My job itself required working more on Text Editors and Unix terminals than on Power Points but MS PPT did come in useful to watch all the powerpoints of the hi-tech stadia. Stadia where the roof would open up, stadia that could turn inside out. Stadia that floated on water. Stadia that could seat a nation. In between admiring all this, I'd lost interest in the game itself. I'll admit, I had to google to see who even won this worldcup!!! What a fall.

And now, World Cup 2006. This promises to be different. I'm in the US consulting at a company that's into sports and has a liberal sprinkling of Employees from the Continent. So that does make it difficult to ignore the game! And you must talk intelligently, even if it means saying "The Brazilians should've done a one-two in the seventy-eighth minute"!

So I wake up every morning to catch the 6am match. It's fun. It looks right, it sounds right...but wait, it sounds almost, but not quite right! And then I realize. My cable dealer, for whatever reason, is beaming the match with commentary in Spanish!!!!! I do a status check with my wife and that reveals that one year of living in the US has increased our Spanish vocab by three words, so that it now totals three words - Adios, Amigos and Gracias.

But one thing it has taught us. It doesn't matter whether the commentator says 'Goal' (pronounced Gooooaaaalllll) or Golazo (pronounced 'Goooolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaso'). Either word is going to send the crowds into a frenzy and draw us from wherever we are, sleeping, brushing whatever, to watch it.

Some things are beyond the barriers of language. Football IS a Language. A Universal Language. Life for me, for millions of others like me, and many millions, much more passionate than me, is not going to be the same, for the next one month.

I would've said 'I love Football' in Spanish but I haven't caught the commentator say that so far, so I'll just say Gracias! And Adios for now!!!

Me & Money

I know. I know it should be 'Money & Me' Or maybe even 'Money & I' (whoever understood that rule between me and I?). Yes, my mom has taught me too, that only a fool puts his name first. But that's exactly what I am. Atleast in the issue of money. A fool. For there are few bigger fools in the world who'd have let as many opportunities to make money pass, as me!

The earliest opportunity , if it may be called that, I had to make money was when our neighbor's kid invited me to come with him to dig for gold. I let the opportunity pass. He didn't find any treasures, but he started his own business twenty years later and is minting money. I could've probably been a partner, if I'd been sport enough to be his partner in treasure hunting. I blame that on childish ignorance.

The next that I remember was when this Nigerian General's son whos dad had given him an untold fortune invited me to partake of it, by just opening a bank account. My 'education' did not teach me to go for easy money, and I missed this boat too. When I checked recently, he had been quite disheartened after I refused, and had contacted quite a few people, who are probably millionaires.

Then after I finished my MBA and was young and smart, I decided that opening a hotel was my way to riches. Afterall everyone feels hungry, and everyone needs food! However, I soon got married any my wife cooks well. I'm no longer hungry, and so the motivating force is no longer felt.

I once got a chain letter kind of thingy, where I'd get $3,42,719.25 if I sent a dollar to the person at the top of the list. I did. I didn't get back a dollar. When I cribbed about this to my IIT-ian friend, he took one glance at it and told me that the pence in the amount I'd receive should've told me it was a scam.

Each time I open my newspaper website, there is this pop up which tells me that I can make millions and get a free Ferrari, for only filling in a form, that asks for, in addition to other information, my SSN and credit card number. They'll even give me a free credit report. I filled it once, but just as I hit enter, realize my CC number has the unlucky number 13 (if I look at the seventh and twelfth digits) in it. So there goes another chance.

The last time I was driving on the freeway, the PowerBall lottery winning amount had more zeroes than the number of wheels the jumbo-truck that almost ran over me as I was distracted, had! But no. I don't go gambling.

But I'm not always a loser who chickens out. I've made my attempts too. Armed with my MBA, I entered the stock market. Going hi-tech, I went for demat. Bad decision. Today, I don't even have a piece of paper, that can be used, as they say, to wipe the hind side. My losses btw, have as many zeroes as wheels on that jumbo-truck. Even the PowerBall can't save me, coz there are a few other digits thrown in at random in the loss-figure.

The most recent one was interesting. This guy starts off "So do you want to make another 50grand an year?. How about 100? 150? By spending only 10-12hrs a week. Don't have to quit your job." C'mon dude, I've heard that before. He goes on to say something about this wonderful company that'll sell me their shampoos and toothpastes real cheap, coz they like me and also coz they don't have to pay distributors. And if I get more people to use those, I'll get money. Sounds interesting. The only catch, I have to be happy using their guava flavored shampoo for the rest of my life. That's not a big deal, but ordering toilet paper online is! I also realize I don't have the drive to sell soap and shampoo, which btw was one of my dad's biggest fears when I went for an MBA. I therefore get all conscientious and decide money alone should not be a motivating force.

And so here I am. it's no fun writing about how I kicked my chance to make 150k, coz it didn't give me a kick in the first place! But I guess that's how I am. Trying to get a kick out of writing. And depending on my employer to throw me my daily slices of bread.

Monstrous Modems and Ruddy Routers - A "Pioneer"'s plight

I was once the co-author of an award winning, published paper on 'Convergence Technologies'. The paper, which took one full evening's dedicated cutting and pasting effort from one member of a five member team was published in one of the leading Telecom magazines of the country, and brought laurels to all five authors. I was one of them, and therefore, automatically qualified to be a pioneer in Convergence Technologies.

This was way back in the early two thousands, when bubbles had more to do with software than with soap. Digital was a buzz word and internet was a mantra that would eventually solve world hunger. You would be cool if you used words starting with 'd', 'i', 'e' (ok, guys who use words starting with 'f' have always been 'cool') - dis-intermediation, de-construction, 'e-value chain'...but since I could say 'Convergence' too, I was super cool!!!! Then the bubble burst, and things much worse than soap came on many faces, but I was (ok, with the four other guys) always the convergence stud!

Cut forward six years. I'm now in the US, sleeping in my own apartment on the floor with a pillow to perch my head high up on, and realization dawns on me – I can live without a mattress, but I can't live without a television or telephone! Internet would've been high up on that list of must have's, but a kindly neighbor who never secured his network catered to that basic necessity in life. But phone,I must have my own!

Back to the i-net to research and I get a list of phone companies who service my areas. I spend a late night researching between these, and get a call early next morning (those days, I had a company cell. this was circa pre-no-credit-history-realization) from one of those 'co-pioneers of convergence technologies', who, with me had hitched a free ride to fame!

It's strange how life gives you opportunities to enact your dreams. (Agreed, convergence wasn't a dream, and the only guy in the team who knew anything about just had a baby today, but if I'm considered a convergence-stud, I'm supposed to dream convergence too! )

After a fifteen minute discussion, when we had done a quick roundup of all college day couples and bashed the West for the hunger in Somalia, he asked me about my phone, and told me about this wonderful technology revolutionizing telephony in the US. Sounded sexy, and I decided six years was enough time to let the technologies converge.

Read about it a bit, and it was super-cool! A cable would run into my house and stick it's tongue into my idiot-box. But before that, I'd pull a wire out of its throat into a splitter, and push the other end of it into a modem. The modem would be connected to a router, the router to a phone adapter, the adapter to a phone and the phone would connect me to the world. If all this sounds too linear, the modem had a USB port, the adapter could connect to two phones and the router had four slots and was wireless enabled too (if I didn't secure my network, I'd be a kind neighbor too!) and together, they could mean laptop-works-in-the-loo to the cyber-kids. To me it would mean chaos, but I'd realize that only later!

As I read, I realize that several technologies have converged in a haphazard way, throwing up more options than I cared to count, for me to get my phone working! The best option turned out to be the one explained above, where cable television converged with high speed internet, and telephony was thrown into this concoction.

Mail-in rebates, another concept in the US that made life challenging and worth living, meant I bought the router, modem and adapter at three different shops, from three different vendors, and in the process ended up making $3.33 (well, actually I pay $333.33, but they'll send back a cheque to my grandson, refunding more than that).

I come home, open the boxes to pull out three UFO-ish devices and enough wire to have an electric fence around my house, and connect them all together as instructed. Just as I'm lifting the receiver, I see three diskettes lying, one in each box. I shove them all into my laptop, one after the other, do the installations as instructed, and wow, I'm connected!!!

Everything works fine for a day. Then the laptop sputters and almost stops downloading data. The phone just has a whizz. Cable TV however is crystal clear! Something somewhere wasn't converging, but I wasn't sure what.

I call the cable guy. He threatens to charge $49.99 if it's not his fault. I decide to take the risk. He comes with a briefcase full of flashing meters, plugs them all over my house and tells me the signal is weak. He goes out, and comes back after just the time it'd take an average man to have a fag, and tells me he's boosted the signal, shakes my hand, renews his threat of charging $49.99 the next time I called him, smiles and leaves.

Things are again fine but just for a day. Now I go one level downstream and look at the router with suspicion. Their tech specialist asks me to go to their webpage, upgrade my firmware, press the reset button, utter an incantation thirty times (one way of counting half a minute), reconnect everything, power on all the stuff, and hope my incantation worked. If that didn't, I could hope the new firmware would work. As if I’d understand all he said.

Surprisingly, I did, and more surprisingly, one of those worked, but whichever it was, expired after a day, and the laptop and phone were down again. He asked me if I had any 2.4gHz device in my room. I'd done a course in eM Waves and knew enough to tell him that my pillow couldn't be giving out radiations. He didn’t like the joke and hung up. I tried a trick every Indian kid knows - when something doesn't work, power off and power on. Worked! But again just for a day.

In frustration, I contact the router guys again, and this time, they ask me if I tried the American trick - power off, wait 30 sec, then power on. I try that to realize American tricks are more powerful than Indian tricks. This time it works for 27 hours.

Meanwhile, I lay to rest my convergence dream, also lay to rest my wireless dream (no laptop-in-my-loo) and connect the laptop to my laptop directly.

A day later, something seems to be working. The laptop has been up for 17 hours now and the router guys have admitted the router may be faulty, and are sending a new one.

Pray that the new router will usher the dawn of the Convergence era in my house!!! Long live Convergence. Whatever. Give me a phone connection and an internet connection that's not dependent on my whether my neighbor switches his 2.4gHz gizmo or not!

Bedtime Stories 4 - ...I Sleep. Comfortably I sleep.

No the story doesn't end there. I come home, happy to have made good use of the sale, bought a queen for the price of a double, gotten free delivery, and even managed to get a smile out of that once-friendly salesman by telling him a joke about the ant and the elephant (no, I'm just kidding, but this made even you smile, didn't it?!).

I casually try to look up what the mattress I bought is like, and the reviews I read are horrifying! The sale suddenly doesn't seem as attractive as it seemed and now I'm not sure if I did the right thing! Ofcourse anything in the US can be returned, or so I thought. I look up the company's website just to make sure, and realize they don't have a website!!! What kind of business is this - I didn't even know there was any kind of business that didn't have a website. Panic slowly sets in, and I look up the receipt. It doesn't talk of moneyback. Just exchange under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. I finally find a loophole - I haven't taken delivery. And so mustering courage, call up the showroom. I show him the loophole and he doesn't see through the hole in my argument, so agrees to cancel the order! Yohooooooo!!!!!!

Today I may not have a mattress, but I have my greenbacks back. And the pride of someone who survived mattress salesmen. Believe me, that's something. You must meet one, or be one, to know what I'm talking about!

I, and my feet may still be on the ground, but I, and the marketing-graduate in me, sleep with the head held high. Afterall, I even convinced him that I should get to keep the pillows that were to be free with the mattress!!!!

PS->This narration may differ slightly from what the sincere historian recording facts may chronicle, but those differences are slight and have been done with the sole, nay dual purposes of keeping it interesting and my prestige intact.

<<<>>>

Bedtime Stories 3 - ...and smiles to go (past)...before.....

And oh yeah, I forgot part of the gyaan. Sizes. Mattresses, like your eyes tell you, are different from shirts. Their sizes are different too. Not for them the simplicity of classifiction as 'S', 'M', 'L', 'XL' yada yada yada (the fascination hasn't worn off). Our good burly friend was kind enough to explain that too, and here's kind of how it goes.

A Double is distinct from a Twin, and while a Double doesn't double up as a sofa, a futon does. A Twin meanwhile is NOT meant for two. It is meant for one. If you need a bed for two, go for a King, but if your room is small go for a Queen. If your room is small and you are small, a Double might do, but again, remember, a double is distinct from a futon. Ofcourse, things come big here, so you also have a California King, even if California never had a king. Ofcourse, you have things like a bunk-bed, a hide-away-bed etc, but those are not for my limited imagination and my small room. I'l never remember this, so my wife made it simple - just look for a queen she said. I just remember the other names to confuse you folks :)

Anyway, continuing on with the story...I went back to the mattress showroom this time with my terminology and phrases well rehearsed. The guy seemed as happy to see me, and gave me the familiar "have I seen you before, oh your first time, then your twin is doing the rounds" story. Not sure what he meant, since in his world, Twin didn't necessarily mean two people.

Today I'm a veteran mattress shopper, but the first time, I was as lost as a child in a ....Sidhu told you where. This smiling, I was born to help you salesman came by and explained to me how lucky I was! Like the balloons in the shop said, they were having the "Biggest Mattress sale ever", and like the ads in the paper proclaimed "The HAD TO liquidate all stock to make way for new models". As a result, I was getting a a queen for the price of a double a king for the size of a double, essentially anything for the price of a double. Paying what double would cost for one didn't seem to make economic sense to me, but my wife who'd mastered the size ratios by now assured me he wasn't off the rocker. The only catch, the sale ended in two hours so I had to buy soon.

Now now, don't you play your dirty marketing tricks with me, I think, afterall, I graduated in marketing too! I mumble some story about forgetting my credit card, and go over to the other shop. Coincidence but the competing showroom has a similar sale and unfortunately, his sale was ending in two hours too. Moreover, the kind salesman really likes me (my sexy voice again?!) and offers to throw in free delivery too (oh my god, a $35 value for free!). However, he reminds me that he has seventy showrooms being serviced by a single warehouse, and since orders come in, he can never guarantee stocks, unless I order NOW!

I might've graduated in Marketing, but work planning supply chains. There might be something in the warehouse-to-showroom story, but I decide to go back to the first showroom, since he'd promised to beat any competing offer by 5%. I go there and tell him. He's now, "Ah, you had to come back afterall, didn't you, OK, let me see if we have any left...we have eighty shops all over timbuktoo eating out of one warehouse you know", and tells me I'm lucky, the last piece is left. But because I didn't buy from him the first time, he's not going to gimme that zillion dollar smile of his.

Today, I don't know what I saw that day, and I wonder if these salesmen are trained like that or if they're born like that, but that day, forgoing that zillion dollar smile for a mattress made sense somehow. I flashed my credit card and in a moment, I was down a few hundred dollars, up few feet, perched in my dreams on a to-be-delivered-in-a-week mattress!!!!!

Bedtime Stories 2 - ...but I have 'concepts' I seek...

Research!!! This word, I know, is associated with long nights of nightmarish studying in plausibly haunted libraries for all the PhD wannabies and PhD-i-did-its of the world. What I had to do in the name of this word, to locate my dream mattress, might seem like fun in comparison. It's $%*# on the face of research, they may say. "Blasphemy", the researchers of the world may shout out - for calling what I did research. But believe me, all ye researchers, all ye PhD-wannabies, all ye PhD-i-did-its, my work is no less than yours!!!

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Where I come from, a bed is a bed is a bed. Often, it's not even a bed, it's just a cool hard floor. Maybe even the shade of a tree. At best, the bed becomes a bed. It takes form. The form of four legs supporting a frame. A plank of plywood on this frame. A mattress on it, and a bed sheet covering the mattress. And that's it, you're ready to retire. Life is cool and simple.
The mattress is no more complicated. You either have a lumpy cotton mattress for Rs.X or you have a branded mattress available for Rs.47.3X (multiplied by the INR-USD exchange rate to make it sound it's from the US). That makes your choice easy too, and you're ready to sleep.

Here....phew!!! The bed is a 'concept'. You first have to pick up the phrases. Then you have understand what they mean. Then you have to be able to put those together into meaningful phrases. And then you have to face the smiling, what're-you-doing-here-look-on-his-face mattress salesman (more on them later). IN THAT ORDER.
I was a novice. I didn't know this order. I thought the best way to buy a bed was to visit a store that sold those. I went to one. The salesman smiled. I asked for a bed. He showed me he was a mechanical engineer with imagination (Spoke of springs, stress, patterns and packaging). I didn't catch the connection and came back home.

In irritation switched on the television box. Man! That's man's best friend!!!! I switch it on, and immediately, there's an ad for a mattress!!! A fat guy and a fat girl come and ask "Why buy a mattress anywhere else?" (I could write a blog on ads in the US, but that's another story). I'm ok buying from them. I'm ok buying from anyone!!! Luckily the ad shows a phone number. This time I don't want the ignominy of showing the world my face, which is not that of a mechanical engineer, so I call them up.

A lady picks it up. I put on my sexiest sweetest bestest voice and tell her I don't know what I need to buy a mattress. She talks something about money. I explain to her that big as that issue is, the bigger one is that I didn't understand the 'concept' behind the bed. I tell her that the last time I'd gone to buy a bed, the guy had spoken of components I thought went into an aeroplane. She probably thinks I'm acting smart and calls a guy (her boyfriend?), whose 'burliness' is audible at this end of the wire! "Hoouuwwww may I haaallpppp you???" he asks in a bury-friendly voice. (OK, not boyfriend, pissed boyfriends won't go about helping me! My sexy voice was working!) I tell him I didn't understand the concept of a mattress and it's components.

There's a theory that says that fat people have more patience than thinner ones (different issue that you have a bigger problem to tackle, literally, when they run out of it) .The 'burlyness' of his voice indicated a rotundity of figure, and his patience indicated the truth in the theory. That lady might've been slim, but this guy had the patience of a thousand slim ladies, and at the end of it, I was definitely wiser!

I came to know that a bed, in all its complexity, can be broken down into three distinct pieces that one has to acquire. A mattress, a frame, and something called a box-spring (oh damn, that bastard wasn't a mechanical engineer who designed planes afterall!!!). He told me that the frame can be unscrewed into further components, or can be taken as a whole. That the frame had to be arranged in place and locked with pegs. Then I had to place the box spring on it, so that the spring would make me bounce. And then you put a mattress on the box spring so that the bouncing becomes softer. Oh yeah, then there are varieties in mattresses from double pillow top to break your backs, but from what he said my affordability restricted my choice to a tenth of a percentile of the variety available. So far so good. Things can get more complicated when the mechanical engineers play with permutations, and put pillow tops on box springs but thankfully budget rendered those combinations immaterial too!

He also explained something about what goes over the mattress - half a dozen things - spreads, sheets, quilts, yada yada yada (I like this more than etc). When he spoke of buying skirts for the bed, and said something about a sham, I decided it was over me, and I'd go to Walmart and buy that 'package'. That's another day's story! For now, I had mastered the concept!!! I was good to go!!!!....

(contd....)

Bedtime Stories 1 - The (hotel) bed is lovely, cozy and neat...

My first few trips to the US were short, and were spent living in hotels. The hotels were all quite good, cozy rooms that faced the five foot pool in which a three forty pound (yeah, I talk weights in pounds too, since it makes you sound like a yanky!) mammoth would be splashing about displacing a zillion gallons of water, five pillows for my one head, wireless internet that you might even get going before you check out, microwave that'll warm your coffee overnight, an ironing board, that might warm your coffee faster than the microwave and a bed that'll support your back as firmly as Mamtha Bannerjee supports the party in power or Nauru supported the Gulf war. In all, a happy setup for a bachelor. Except for the bed that is, if you didn't get my joke! Believe me, I sunk in so much one night, I bounced off the belly of the 340 lb guy (yeah that confirmed it was a guy) in the room below!!!

But then once I mastered making cabbage kootu in the microwave and warming coffee on my laptop, my tongue started yearning for more. Meanwhile, I was here on a longer trip, and so the happy compromise between both was to rent an apartment.

An apartment was a challenge in many ways - after paying the deposit, I would've have enough money to buy a cake for my sixty second birthday - and that too because I decided not to have a cell phone. The deposit on that would have put that cake off by another fifteen years, considering current rate of inflation. All this deposit in the name of something called "Credit History", which along with a yankee accent was among two things I apparently lacked.

But look at the positive - I can atleast choose my bed! And make it as firm as my budget would allow! The first piece of news I received would've made me kiss even Mamta B. if she were in the vicinity (I'm no duffer, I know she's not here!) - the softer the mattress, the costlier it is - and vice versa I learnt!! Yohoooooo - they're gonna pay me to not bounce off that bald headed pot bellied guy!!!!

And so I started (re)searching on beds.
(contd.)

"Re-Org"

Here I am taking technology by the horns and changing the name, look and hopefully fortunes of my blog! So if any of you -I'm still an optimist and think there were hundreds of you reading my blog silently, waiting patiently for me to start again - were on http://read-jks.blogspot.com or http://jks-travels.blogspot.com - you'll have to update your Favorites. No, not favorite bloggers, just favorite links in your browser!!! JK is still here to regale you!

OK, so here's what I've done. Started three blogs for now:

1 word - Mine ( http://jks-1word.blogspot.com ) :
Where I write my serious thoughts. Coz when I'm talking seriously, it's only my word that matters. To me.People who know me will tell you that this blog will be updated next when Calvin grows up, or Hobbes actually finds a babe, but I beg to diff....oh, did I contradict myself by talking of Calvin & Hobbes?!!!!! Anyway, keep checking, I do get serious thoughts sometimes! Seriously!!!

100 Words.....too many! ( http://jks-100words.blogspot.com ) :
I thought I'd fit this between 1 Word and 1000 words (next, read on), and so named it 100 words too many...but Million Words too many would probably have been factually more correct. Afterall, when I'm not saying anything, why should I be stingy in saying it?

1000 Words ( http://jks-1000words.blogspot.com ) :
A free trip to Azarbeijan to anyone who guessed what's in here correct. No, words like these should go into 100 words, where they would have no meaning anyway. This place is only for photos. That I click and want to show off.

But yeah, if you still want to go to Azerbaijan....

Well, if you thought that's all there was to it, hold on - here's where I merged creativity with craziness and came up with a concoction I'm well, proud of! After doing all this, I wiped the sweat off my brow and went to MSN Spaces. Liked the backgrounds there, so decided I must use those too. And since it was my 'Space', I decided to set up 'Mission Control' there!

So go to http://spaces.msn.com/jkrish and you're in Mission Control, from where you can see my space. Btw, that dude Einstein was bang on the point when he spoke about Space and Time. If you didn't understand what he said, never mind. In short, he said both change or one changes with the other or something to that effect. And here's living proof of that. Space, Mission Control will keep changing with Time...and it's Bright and Sunny in that space today...but who knows, one day, it might actually look like well, "space"!!!

Wait wait....there's more coming!!! Here's where I got on the cutting edge of Technology, took it by the horns...whatever!!! I liberally borrowed ideas from other blog sites and am trying to put in a lot of cool stuff like Site Counter (yeah, each time you visit me, my ratio inproves and I feel better!), Subscriptions(now you know when crap hits you!) ....etc - you know what ....etc means right? That's all I have for now, but you must believe I have a lot more to come!!!!

And before I end - tomorrow, if my blog suddenly has a lots of <<>><><@#$!!!!// - no, it's not coz I'm really excited. Sorry, but it's not even that I'm swearing at you. It's just that I've slipped off the edge, and Technology has gotten me! So you'll have to wait till I get the "....etc" right, and the blog will be back again!!!!

Back in Business!!!!!!!!!!

OK that was a long hiatus. And believe me, I wasn't spending all my time wondering what to write about!

I wrote two blogs. TWO FULL BLOGS damnit. And when I write, I expect the world to read.

The day after writing those, I logged in, expecting the comments to run into four digits at the least. It stood at one. Six months later, it still stood at one. That one comment would've been very encouraging, had I not known that it was my wife's, with whom btw, I'd succeeded on my sixth attempt, to make her sit and read both blogs!

And so, if the world doesn't want to read, it wouldn't write, I thought, and stopped blogging. That explains this long hiatus of almost an year!!!

But two things happened in the last few weeks. First I read a close friend's blog. His counter was doing as badly as mine.

Infact, I first encouraged myself by thinking that my "Comment Count/BLOGs" ratio was way way better than his, due to the fact that his denominator was way higher!!! Then I realized - HIS DENOMINATOR WAS WAY HIGHER!!! Which meant he had kept writing, inspite of the low numerator. He was realizing the joy there was, in writing for writing's sake, while I was missing out on all the fun, just because you, you dumbhead, wouldn't come by and read what I wrote!!!

Secondly, he came on my blog and wrote some very kind comments....(these took my ratio sky-high btw ;) ).

And so, now I'm back in circulation. No, not because of what the second reason did to my ratio!! ;)
I'm back. Not because you want to read, but because I want to write. If you read, that's coincidental. I write if I want to, and I don't, if I don't want to. So that's how this blog works, going forward...so Happy Reading.....ahhmmmm....Happy Writing to myself!!!!

On intros, plans and expectations...

Well, so now that the decision has been made and I've taken up the onerous task of blogging, let me get down to the task right away.

Each person has his own style of getting down to a task. The old warrior would've lifted the reins and shouted'dhuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrraaaaahhhhhhhh" upon which the horses would've raised their forelegs, snorted and started charging. Old uncle Tom would've folded his sleeves at the crack of dawn and lifted his axe to cut the wood.

But no, not that zeal to spring on the task and see it to completion right away for me. I prefer to enjoy doing it. And for this task of writing and reading, I believe introductions are first warranted. Ideally would've liked to sit with you across a table, slapped you on the back, said "hey buddy" or "howd'ya doin? , but since the net does not permit all that, I'll just say "Hey Buddy, howdy'a doin?!"

So civilities completed...now introductions. I don't know if you folks have read that forward about what's in a name and why Subbu Swaminathan and Jose Babykutty find it tougher to find a girl friend than their north indian counterpart Vijay Singh, but I believe it held merit. These names ain't cool!!

My name as you see, with the surname expanded, crosses the 24 boxes that are usually provided for 'name' in any application form, and even without the surname would serve as a short primer on Hinduism to anyone unaware of this religion. And I think that explains why dear parents had to step in to achieve what a well written matrimonial profile could not! But what the heck, I like it! Afterall, it's not like Bill or Jack, where twentyfive heads turn when Amanda or Jane (respectively) calls her boy-friend!!! And then, this is the name that I hope, will see fame as "The best blogger in the world"!!

My age...well, I just attended a b'day party y'day and realized age isn't a nice thing to talk about either, especially at my age...so shall skip that!

My education - anyone who has studied what I have studied would be able to guess what I have studied. I've gone through two wonderful courses that shape the way you think. Engineering which first makes you think simple and straight and then an MBA that teaches you the words "it depends" and sends the listener going in loops, trying to grasp your simple, straight thought.My background - Lived and studied mostly in Hyderabad (India - had to clarify this to a very well read American who knew enough to know there are two towns with this name in teh world!), did my MBA in Lucknow and now working in B'lore. In consulting so travelling a bit.

PLANS - To write. And think about what to write. Not necessarily in any order. So you may catch me writing on "The Weather in Wisconsin" today and about "The Teetotaller at the Toddy Shop" tomorrow. Might throw in a story about where I went last weekend, if I'm in the mood for it. And the next one might be well about that book on Philosophy I bought two years back and have sworn to myself to finish sometime. So some Atman and Brahman coming up soon too!

EXPECTATIONS: While my plans above may sound grandoise, my expectations are simple. That I'll write and you'll read. And together we'll make the world a better place. If you don't know what I mean by that, go back to the ending of my previous blog. And please...save that "What the @#$@!!~" for the next blogger!

To blog or not to blog...that is the question!

Contemplating on "being", I admit, is a bigger contemplation than contemplating on 'blogging'...and in that sense, I cannot compete with Senor Hamlet. But with all due respect to him, his problem was his, and my problem is mine. And I care more about mine than his!

If your question is "To be or not to be..." may I suggest that you keep an inspirational book and a dagger at hand (one of them is bound to be useful, depending on whether you decide ‘to be’ or ‘not to be’) and google for Hamlet’s blog-page? If not, read on…

So good, to stop the digression…do I blog, or don't I? I've been contemplating on this for quite some time now. Ever since I read the blog journal of this dude to be precise. No I'm not going to name the dude lest it affect his pride. I may go on stage to collect the "Best blogger in the world" trophy, hold it up and say "Dude (with name), you were my inspiration", but till then, will hold his name. For now, suffice to state he (dude) started off this contemplation.

Can I, is a different question. I never addressed that. I always knew I could. After all, I’ve been writing my own essays on 'The Cow' and 'How I spent my Christmas Vacations' since Class VI. Prior to that, my mom wrote my essays, but still, mine were the best in class -and that's what matters right? I had even written a short story once, based on the school-time crush of a dear friend, and had almost published it - stopped at the last moment, when my aunt told me she could've suppressed that yawn if (a)I'd made it one third as long OR (b) I'd made her a flaskful of caffeine - but what the heck, I could write a short story, even if it wasn’t exactly short.

Darn it, I had even written my own matrimonial profile and managed to get married too a few months back!!! (Different matter that dear parents had to step in and take things in their hands to get things going, but like I already said, the result is what matters, right?)

So "CAN I BLOG?" was not a question I even considered worth considering. "SHOULD I?" seemed more pertinent. Some of the considerations that went into it were:

1) Is the world up to appreciating my blog?

2) Can I keep the quality?

3) Was my aunt really serious about that yawn?

I moved from Que 1-3 as my mood-index slid down from to-of-the-world to apprehensive to despondent.

There were three hundred and seventy eight other considerations that went into it to be precise, but I'm a sensitive writer. I can 'feel the pulse' of my audience. I can smell when their interest is waning, as I do so now, so I shall end by only touching upon the FIRST FIFTY of them. Or…NO, WAIT!! Don’t GO!!! I shall skip ALL the considerations and just tell you how I decided.

PHILOSOPHY. Strangely, that's what decided the question. “Reward all effort” – that’s been my philosophy in life (at least with respect to my effort). That's the nice way of putting it. ("Damn, if I've taken the trouble of writing it, you might as well read it" is the not so nice way.)

And so, if my effort on this contemplation is to be rewarded, I MUST BLOG. That answers my question. And look! Even before you realized, you've already read my first blog, haven't you??? Didn't I tell you I'm a good writer? Keep coming back to read more!!! Thou’s effort shalt be rewarded!

How frequently depends on my answer to Que2 above. But a note before I end. I once read "It takes nice thoughts to make a nice world". So if your reaction after reading this is nice, do express your thought in liberal terms. But if it goes like "What the @#$@#@!@#$?" the best thing to do would be to hit the delete button on the top right corner. After all, we all want the world to be a better place, don't we???