The Surf's rising




I was not always this idle blog surfer who has little else to do to see him through his drab and dreary days and lonely evenings. No siree. Yours truly used to get a little more in the way of amusement, the thrills of life, the rush of adrenaline. In other words, I used to have a life. It's another thing that I never quite learnt the parameters of having a life. Having a career that's fulfilling and rewarding may not be one of them I guess. That'd render so many people lifeless, apart from me. Playing and partying hard may be another indicator. I was never a party person.Been a decade since I last put bat on ball, too.

Besides other unmentionable games I played, I was quite fond of playing the markets. I have a good mind to come back to the unmentionables in another post, but that'll wait. Tonight I'm in a, what's that word? peculiar pecuniary frame of mind.

Once upon a time, I had a very small amount of money. Some monies, if that's what it'd take. Definitely not many monies. I took them to the market. No, not just like that. I'd mostly keep them in my savings account. Where they'd earn a robust 3.5% for most of the year. I'd wait for dips in the market and put some of these into stocks. Sometimes the market would heat up and I'd sell. This went on for about two years. I'd aim for an ambitious 25% p.a. on my net worth, and end up with a promising 11. Not so bad, huh? Prudent investor, that I was.

Then this January, it melted a little. I put in a little. Next day it was dripping. I put in a little more. Then it started to run down the drain. I was in denial. So I put in all I had. They took the shirt off my back and hung it high on their wall and threw me out into the street. Cruel Wall Dalal Street.Then they restricted entry to men without shirts. So that's what brings me here.

Don't let yourself run away with the idea that I'm bitter. I'm not. I'm not trying to whine either. Actually I've completely quit worrying about them small monies. I only ponder sometimes on the BIG monies they're going to bring back. Yeah, that'll be the day.

What I've observed in the interim, however, is a very interesting phenomenon. And that is the crux of this post. I've found out that the art of making a purchase decision gets infinitely easier once you are out of liquidity. I'll elaborate. Let's say we have a dining set which has seen twelve years of wear and tear. I've been getting hints at the home front every now and then. Let's also say my PC has of late started crashing and restarting without provocation. The vendor says it's with this mo-bo. Better get a new machine, sir. All of this going on while I had those some monies in that savings account, remember? But I can't spend it, no? It was earmarked for investment? Then again, is it financially wise to borrow for petty purchases while you have the cash? No. So these decisions were put on hold. All of this past year.

Then one day I didn't have the cash anymore. So wifey falls for that monstrosity in chrome and glass, and I hear myself say, "sure thing, momma." The hardware man yaps about this new pocket-friendly core-2-whatever processors and 2 Gb ram and I say, "why, bring it on!" at the snap of my fingers.

Now that I'm in a debt situation and just about able to breathe with difficulty, I've started to secretly drool over that 42" bravia x-series ( eludes me why Sony should name it like that). Me worry. It's been telling on the last reserves of my prudence.

There's only God to thank, ( and maybe Bernanke, or, Bush, or O'bama, or Chidambaramji, I don't know, whoever deserves my gratitude, kindly accept) I've noticed lately that the surf seems to be rising a little. Which means I can now see my investments lurking like distant shadows below water, as opposed to lying at the bottom of the occean. It gives me a notion of semi-liquidity. Nobody knows if it will hold, but at least now I can hopefully put off my tryst with Sony Inc. for another year.

SRK chromosomes


My dear Kolkata has let me down this evening. Miserably.

The warning signals were there, even before the coin was thrown. As Jadeja handed it over to Rabi Shastri for the toss, the telecast lost video feed. Shastri had a pathetic time doing his opening line twice. Then it become a regular feature of the telecast. Every time the commentator at the box tried to transfer feed to an away location. With only the exception of their fetching PYT ( keep forgetting her name, old age catches up) and her footage. Maybe because hers were recorded video. But I would have blamed it entirely on SET MAX and Kunal Dasgupta. You didn't need to do shoddy work to make quick bucks, people. As it is, you had the mint at your disposal.

Who could one blame those 22 yards on then? Nobody perhaps will argue the fact that the wicket was not suited for any manner of limited overs cricket. Like Ajay Jadeja remarked, " Slow and Low, now how often have we heard that?" For a fifty over match that pitch would be a dampener. For T20, it was bloody murder. The lessons are evidently never learnt.

What Kolkata really shamed me with, though, was the drama over lights that dragged on and on. Till such time smart people in the commentary box suggested invoking D/L and adjudged the match to be a tie. All these would've been standard fair about two decades back. To follow up the grand opening at B'lore with this poor show? Unpardonable.

Only by SRK's lucky charm and Hussey's cool finish could Dada and his Knights save face today. BTW I could not spot most of Kolkata's page3 crowd (apart from Rituparna) at the box. King Khan should take care to add more local flavor to his cheer brigade. Especially in home matches.

Pic source : Cricinfo

Of mice and men

Son-Of-A-Bitch Mouse Solves Maze Researchers Spent Months Building

This is teh make-my-day funny. Wondering, however, if there was a video somewhere? Someone knows of a link? That would be real ROFL stuff.

And on the same funny lines, here's another that I chanced upon :
If a programming language was a boat not that I've ever so much as heard of turing, or ruby and other such languages, it's still hilarious. Do check out!

All you who sleep tonight

A gust of wind in early evening. No, slightly stronger, a gale. Yes, it's a gale. As in, not a storm. With all due promise of a good nor'wester, it peters out. Not a drop of rain. Branches rubbing up each other's thighs. Leaves and twigs blown in on our bedspread through the open third-story window. A whoosh here, and a shoo-i-eee there. Then. Suddenly. No, I don't think Dennis did it. The lights are out all over the neighborhood. Remember that all black panel from Hank Ketcham?

Seven-fifteen post meridian . Early days yet. After an hour's wait lights are back. Not on our street, they aren't. We fret. Fume. Cuss. And call up maintenance. Repent that decision of not buying battery backup before this summer. Head out of home. No choice but. Bad moon rising. Listen.

Get this widget Track details eSnips Social DNA

Turns out there's a snag at the transformer. Maintenance people work out a wonderfully equitable solution. They cut off the substation and go home to sleep. Back to black. Whole square furlong. Thanks to that gale, it ain't that hot a night. Meaning, just below 30 degree c with 75% humidity. Forty winks? Forget it. Me too worked up as it is. Why does my blood boil every time there's a power cut deep into the night and nobody tells me ghost stories?

Toss. Turn. Sweat some. On about my eighth wink, phone buzz. Who the, what the heck's the time etc. My senior colleague at 2:33 AM. Wants me to go to the steel plant and try and fix something some mother's messed up. No it won't wait till morning. I feel kinda relieved, actually. Wasn't getting much sleep anyway. Mustn't let it show, though. Show righteous indignation, fool.

Next afternoon, asleep. Evening, groggy. Now I understand why firefighters write so very few blogs.

Well, everything has to pass, I imagine. That was two nights ago. Tonight we're back in business. Tonight I'm tossing pasta. Oh, how I love to cook. And when it's pasta, I go with my gut. Penne in bianco con salsa di pollo e verdure. La mia bambina mi ama cucinare la pasta. A bit easy on the sauce, all right?

My fav corner of the universe. Ah yes, the drink. Haig. With some ice and water. Like they say, Don't be vague, say Haig & Haig.

Word of the day


1. wikidemia

An academic work passed off as scholarly yet researched entirely on Wikipedia.

"An A on my English paper? That's a fine piece of Wikidemia!'

Found serendipitously on The Urban Dictionary while googling for entha hotness.

Whose torch is it anyway?

Thanks to the greatest free thinker of our times and his everfresh views on the subject (the alma mater bred such great minds in those days!) , and this article below from Mukul Kesavan on The Telegraph Kolkata yesterday, I now have an opinion vis-a -vis Torch, Tibet and Amir Khan.Excerpts :

The moral of this story is that it’s a PR mistake to air mixed feelings in public. The trouble with the derision heaped on Aamir Khan, though, is that it seems to teach another lesson: namely, that it’s feeble-minded, unprincipled and immoral to not have a list of correct, categorical views on Everything, that if you’re tentative, less than encyclopaedically informed or ambivalent about a particular issue, you shouldn’t talk about it in public. This is a bad lesson to teach and a worse one to learn.

And then some,

So how is the Dalai Lama’s opposition to boycotting the Olympic Games (despite the fact that he virtually embodies the Tibetan struggle) different in principle from Aamir’s reluctance to boycott the Olympic torch run (despite his sympathy for the struggles of the Tibetan people)?

The short answer to that could be that the Dalai Lama has a rather longer record on Tibet than Aamir Khan does. So while his stance on the Games will be be seen as a strategic position in a long struggle, Aamir’s position is likely to be seen as expedient fence-sitting. Link..

In my opinion it is best not to have an opinion. I didn't have one before, but now I've made an informed choice not to. See how cleverly Mr. Kesavan covers his tracks in every paragraph, so it gets almost impossible to rant over his article. (Dear confused , you now have a challenge on your hands .)

Not having to have an opinion is relief enough. Especially as, post TZP, I feel inclined to forgive Amir much of his vaunted page3 activism and double standards.

In the peanuts mood

All you really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.



Lucy: Charlie Brown, life is like a deck chair on a cruise ship. Passengers open up these canvas deck chairs so they can sit in the sun. Some people place their chairs facing the rear of the ship so they can see where they've been. Other people face their chairs forward - they want to see where they're going. On the cruise ship of life, which way is your deck chair facing?

Charlie Brown: "I've never been able to get one unfolded."

All my life I've wanted to talk in Peanuts quotes and Peanuts quotes only.

O Parmanand !

Now don't talk to me about the polar bear
don't talk to me about the ozone layer
ain't much of anything these days, even the air
they're running out of rhinos - what do I care?
let's hear it for the dolphin - let's hear it for the trees
ain't running out of nothing in my deep freeze
it's casual entertaining - we aim to please.....
Dire Straits..My Parties

Many a blogger would write enthralling posts about their PMS, their mood swings, bad days at office, a secret being pondered upon if at all to be shared or not, and such existential angst. (I've astutely observed that a majority of these is distaff, but that's neither here nor there.) Then there are many who will gallantly rally on for the Tibetan cause and make a case against Amir Khan's decision of torch-running. Much do I admire their sincere efforts towards shaping public opinion and start a raging debate. Personally speaking, I've reached an age most events don't touch me much anymore (excluding ,of course, "Team India" being routed for 76 in 20 overs, I'm still reeling in horror over that ) , expressing opinions no longer seems a priority (actually I've been taking a long hard look inwards to determine if I have an opinion on Tibet and Amir at all, and the jury is still out)

Thus, the only sort of writing I can attempt can be either anecdotal or about trivial experiences and thoughts. Speaking of which, last night, at a party, a good deal soggy, we were revisiting the Ghost of Tom Joad, oops, Parmanand. One of our elderly colleagues told this story. This gentleman, let's call him RK because that's his real name, was in engineering college with a Parmanand, a very sincere and hard-working student. This is by far a minority group in engineering colleges across India, most people should agree. Our RK boss, one of the smarter majority, did not and still does not believe in work. (don't we all love him?) He just got to be a good pal of Parmanand, and for those four long years, happily leaned on P to glide through batteries of project work, thesis papers, tech labs and.... you get the picture. The day they were passing out, P said to RK, RK old man, now you're going out into the big bad world, fending for yourself, sweating your ass off for a loaf of bread. Prepare for work, bro, cause where'll you find another Parmanand ? To this RK answered, dear P, you may not believe it, but there are myriad Parmanands out in that big bad world, one just has to find one's own Parmanand to lean on.

And RK is still making do. Nay, he's thriving. He's given a new turn to this simple story. In his postulate, Parmanand is not a mere mortal. P is a way of being. जीवन प्रतिनियत एक खोंज है अपने परमानंद का। Life, as he sees it, (and it's so easy to see, all of us can) is one's constant journey towards finding a Parmanand for every situation, every problem, every requirement. In the process, one may even have to transiently assume the role of someone else's P. The roles are shifting, but the matrix encompasses all.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. Thus spake Morpheus. In my ears. Dizzy after having had too much to drink. O Parmanand, where art thou?