The Wooden Ratio ....

So..back to my favourite topic of nuclear disarmament and political instability in the middle east. Yeah right.

Kondi expostulated this beautifully precise theory of what it takes for a guy to score in this day and age of frenetic electronicry, short attention spans and the dawn of the e-reader.

17 women and 2 Large shots of Vodka.

I am not kidding. That's what it is.

Here is how it pans out. (Kondi, once again - respect.)

Invite seventeen women to a misty evening party in a house in downtown. Clean behind your ears, dress well and be polite.


Now, as you circulate in the room with your scotch on the rocks, you'll probably find that leaving alarming filters of beauty and intelligence aside, ceterus paribus so to speak, 50% of the seventeen women are married. Hmm. 


You move on.


8.5 women left as a possible set (told you - this is precise).

You circulate among these 8.5 women and find that another 50% of them are 'Engaged' - leaving…(I hear whirring calculators here) ...4.25 potentially scoreable women. 


Still good odds, you think, while stirring some more ice into your scotch.

Hold on though.


You go on to find another (and I pause here to extend sympathy for the plight of the eligible Indian male. But rings true, doesn't it?) 50% of these lovely women are (or think they are) dating "The One", leaving (best leave the calculations to us from here on) 2.125 fantastic women to score off.


That's right. 2.125.


Still good odds…50%? Heck, you think, I can live with that, you think. Until you realise that one of these 2.125 women is a hardcore feminist and a confirmed man-hater, dragging, wait for it, another woman with her into this phallic morass (In case you didn't know, no woman can never love or hate by herself. She drags her soul sister along to hold the handbags) leaving  2.125 -1 (the feminist) -1.000 (her gullible friend)  = 0.125 women to score with. 


Damn! , you think, you were looking to score but hardly in decimal points. 

But there is hope. And here is where the story of the Indian male gets redeemed, and in one elegant sweep, adds the dash of realism which takes this theory from mere bar banter to a hypothesis worthy of academic contemplation.

10% of the original set of 8.5 married women aren't happy in their marriages, and are looking to score "out of bounds", so to speak, bringing back, rather grandly, 0.850 women back into the forlorn equation bringing to an almost-there sum total of 0.975 women. 


Er, you think. I knew the gender ratio in India is screwed but didn't really expect that to translate so literally. But wait.


Remember those two large shots of vodka? Here's where they come in. Serve those low on lime and high on ice and a potentially unscoreable 0.975 woman becomes a rip roaring cauldron of vodka-fuelled, sexually available woman with a probability factor of 1.000.

There you have it  - a finite, precise Wooden ratio of 17:1.

Recap: 17- 8.5 (married)-4.25 (engaged)-2.125 (dating) - 1 (feminist)-1 (assistant free rider) + 0.85 (married but unhappy) + 2 large shots of vodka.

Drunken Corollary: If you know seventeen women and haven't scored, you are the eighteenth one.

Life after ISB

The more things change, the more they remain the same.  Or so they say.

Not true for life after ISB.

My priorities in ISB? Getting a job, a hot chick and the next meal at Sarovar.

Five years, two jobs and one marriage on… My priorities today? 

My wife's next idea of a meal, traffic and of course…. what to do with the loads of dosh sloshing around in my bank account.

Seriously speaking though, I must say life's been very good post ISB, and from what I see around me, true of most people in the batch.

On the job front, you learn very quickly that the things that make you stand out in college have only a weak correlation to how you do at work.

You see that it takes a couple of years to figure out the delta between your dream job and your dream.Most do find an amicable balance between the two or if not, have the resources to reach that balance.

You learn that it's not the company you work for, it's the people you work with that makes a difference to how you feel about life.

You find money on its own has a short half-life, and you find yourself making choices where money isn't among your top priorities.

You also find out that fancy designations don't really mean fancy work – lots of money doesn't mean lots of work and that the big roles are in the small places.

People puzzle you with weird choices but you know it's a different game for everyone and the happiest people are the ones that know this.

Finally, there's a whole lot more to life than ISB and its aftereffects – you move on from being a hotshot MBA to being many different things – a wife, a  father, a son (better late than never), a student -  all of them equally important.

Good luck to all of you. Breathe easy. It's all good – whether you ace the next term or not.

The Great Indian Novel

I don’t know about you but I don’t like Shashi Tharoor. Blame it on shady alliances for IPL teams or the very non intellectual head of hair that he wears – I’ve pretty much placed him in a category of authors who aren’t ..well..authors.

Then I read the Great Indian Novel.

It’s a quiet, unassuming book with no grand declarations of timelessness on its blurb-zone, neither does it start with a bang going into whirlwind chapters or breathless action.

It starts with a conversation between a quirky old man and an assuming young man. Its only as you read on that the characters unfold merging multiple times into people you have heard of and people you think you have heard of. You worry a bit about whether you are placing the characters right, and you move uneasily on, peeling back pages ever so often, but you end up moving on.

And then you get caught up in the events that pages unfold for you, and you realize that you have got the characters right and that its all beginning to make sense. Often you are caught unawares by the clever turn of phrase and often by the rhyme. The pages make you smile and make you frown but it never fails to touch you.

The book is about India, the creation of it, the fragility of the events that led to it. It surprises you to see the very human and very mundane conversations and emotions that could have led to its creation, and how it could all have ended up very differently. The fight for independence, you realize, was about greatness and sacrifice but also about petty matters like ego and pride, willfulness and sloth.

Shashi Tharoor ( I am tempted to knight him on the fly, never mind the hair) is a giant intellect who has brought an immense amount of knowledge about world history and affairs to bear very lightly on a subject that touches most Indians in the most parochial of ways.

He uses the Mahabharatha’s familiar contours to take us into the lives of eminent personae of the independence struggle, and brilliantly uses the it’s remarkably tolerant view of human strengths and frailty to bring us close to these leaders, to make them more human without judging them.

In Tharoor’s book, the characters of the Hindu epic stand for people - Bhishma becomes Gangaji Datta  (Gandhiji), Dhritarashtra is Nehru while sometimes he uses the characters to stand for institutions and values – democracy, then Indian Army and so on. It’s great fun to decode the characters so I won’t spoil it all for you here – the wikipedia has a list if you are still tempted, but I would suggest you read the book. Its in the various characters you will try on each character that the book holds its truest joy.

In the end, the book will leave you a little closer to the idea of India – and also to the leaders who helped create her, you will feel more intimately connected but also more than a little sad for the streak of mortality that you will see. Enjoy this book slowly – am sure you will find a number of flaws – but you will come away richer, none the less.

A DSLR or a digital camera In India?

Spewnotes will take a slight detour from its avowed goal of purposeless rambling and meandering tales to delve into a supposedly useful topic (instigated by the blog's collective readership of one and half souls). My apologies if the post below is solemn and takes itself too seriously - a heinous crime in my view.
Should I buy a digital camera or a DSLR?
Well, assuming good pictures is the goal, one has to start of saying that buying a good camera is no guarantee of a great picture. (as author has found out with recurring regualrity - Editor). So, choose a camera with care. For a DSLR, I think a Canon is a fair choice. Simple to use and takes good pictures. Also, very popular in India and the US.
Deals: Best to get from the US or Singapore -cheapest there. You will get a basic DSLR for about 20-25K.
Canon 1000D is probably what we could call a basic DSLR (also known as Rebel XS in the US) - 550-650 US$. In India, retail prices have dropped quite a bit but should still be about 20% higher than the US. If you are adventurous, you can go to Palika bazaar and get the DSLR for an in-between price(I know a guy here I buy from ). Chandni Chowk is the place in Delhi where you get the camera cheapest, but its a wholesale market and may not be great for service. Its a "buy-it, forget-us" price.
For a nation-wide view, cameras generally get imported into Chennai from South East Asia and hence, the grey market prices are lowest there, followed by Bangalore. Of course, this is about DSLRs.


But honestly, I think the rush for DSLR's is a little misplaced and not necessarily for everyone. I'll put it like this:
Low-end digitial cameras >>> Low end DSLR >>>High end digital camera >>> High end DSLR


This is a simplistic view and to be taken as such.
Point I am making so laboriously is that a DSLR is not a necessarily a better camera - its just more accurate in terms of positioning and detail.

For someone not into fine detail photography, a high end digital camera is probably a lot better and a lot cheaper than a DSLR, simply because it has got outstanding flexibility in terms of zoom in and out, Liveview etc. Do check out Nikon or Canon digital cameras and image quality - they cost about INR 20K in India. (Price info applies here as well).
DSLRs, for every new zoom range, you need an extra lens costing INR 5-10 K upwards. The Nikon ones now come with a projector capability - you can project pics directly onto a wall from the camera! For INR30 K you will get an outstanding digital camera or basic DSLR.

The great thing about DSLRs of course is that you can dive deep into the world of photography, learn a lot about it and experiment with different quality lenses (an expensive hobby - my spend on lenses since I started shooting about six months ago is upwards of 20k INR now :))
All in all, buying a camera is a labor of love - else you could find yourself with yet another cool gadget (read all cellphones other than the iphone, thigh massagers, feet scratchers, etc) that you don't use all that much.


http://www.digital-photography-school.com/should-you-buy-a-dslr-or-point-and-shoot-digital-camera

Dilli Game

Dilli's never been home to me - surprising me in ways that I ought not to be surprised in, throwing up the unexpected with frequent regularity and on much rarer occasions, does me the bizarre.

Its 11.30 p.m. on a warm Saturday evening in Dilli, and the trance beats at Mojo weave their way into my body. The cold club air washes over me, the energy is crackling out of my fingertips  - I am feeling good, and am about to let someone know it.

I see her at the bar, nursing a scotch on the rocks. Dressed in a long black dress, the smooth shiny fabric clinging on to every curve like an old girlfriend - she looks cool, calm and confident as she tosses her long hair back in one sinewy motion as she brings diamond studded fingers to her mouth, to drag deeply on a Camel.

I catch her eye - and her gaze lingers for a heartbeat before washing over the rest of the gyrating crowd. I know its my night. The beats accelerate as I seat on the empty bar stool next to her, nod over at her emptying scotch glass and say "buy you another of those?".

She leans over, sending a wave of Bvlgari up my senses, clears a curtain of black shiny tresses from her shoulder, tucks it neatly behind her ear in one sweet motion and says "Henh-ji?"

The beats stopped.

RIP

Sitting on my armchair, looking over the balcony of a crowded apartment complex in a Mumbai on a Thursday evening, I found myself wondering (among other things, of course) about how times have changed. Well, yes its the economy, stupid and yes, sure the green cover has depleted and of course urban congestion needs to be addressed right away, but I held our collective social horses on these weighty issues and settled down to think about how boys and girls have changed in our lovely country. More specifically, the relationship between boys and girls in India, or to drill a hole in it, about the sheer lack of sexual tension between boys and girls in India.

Now before you get all agitated and start throwing statistics and hyperlinks (damn! how I hate it when someone sends me a link like its supposed to be the answer to everything - imagine a sage looking all inscrutable and handing you a leaf with hieroglyphics in response to a complex question about directions to the loo - god! I even got a link on SMS yesterday) about fall in average age of people "getting some" for the first time and percentage of teenage abortions ad neveryoumindum, am not talking about actual sexual incidence here -I mean, that was bound to increase with global warming (another story) but am talking more about the utter sexual tension in a teenage environment. Remember, for instance, going into brain freeze when a that sweet girl from E&E rubbed shoulders with you in rush to get to the lab, or if she leaned close to ask you which class was going on and leaving behind a teasing peek that straightaway clogged your brain. Well, anyways, I think that's all over now.

Platonic relationships are on the rise, poisoning young minds, subverting them into weird relationships which men and women were never supposed to engage in. We have buddies, pals, unisex clothing (the nerve!) and even room-mates, for heaven's sake.

And, as far as I can see, the real cause for this is the Bra.

No, really, I mean this. Think about it - especially you bro-folk growing up on "how I met your mother" ( I feel a little like Ted here), there used to be a time where the bra used to be less an item of clothing and more a weapon of mass seduction. I recall the days (and i have to say, those were the days!) where the bra used to a flimsy piece of clothing held together by no more than a couple of pins and a fraying thread. While dismaying engineering this might be, it made for fabulous viewing pleasure - though, offering the wearer little protection, and doing charmingly little to hold things together.

Girls walking on campus would try to add support by folding their arms in front of them at every given opportunity but it did get a bit limiting and while I have no way of knowing this for sure, I think they stopped caring (especially after the first semester). Leaving us boyfolk with untold joy in viewing unrestrained staircase jiggles, brain-whooshing wobbles and of course the soft, pliant hug - the 'give' was unmistakably inviting, leaving the lingering hug as more a sign of sexual invitation than the disgusting symbol of bro-dom that it went on to become. Even as you got to base, all you had to do was wave your fingers in the air behind said pliant chick, and the bra would drop off from her body out of sheer fatigue, leaving you looking a like a hero.

All this changed irrevocably, with the grand entry of the bloody Tee-Shirt bra.

I think its known by a few other names as well, but I think (and I choke up with emotion when I do) this invention is solely to blame of the rise of bro-chick buddydom. The bra underwent a transformation from a peeky nothing to a heavy-duty, multi-component, full fledged garment padded up with what feels like (quite literally) layers of Kevlar -the same material used to block bullets and other metal-laden shrapnel, leaving women traveling in what looks like elevators around their lissome bodies, utterly impervious to cold weather (sigh!) and the titillating (how I love the English language) Dave Barry breeze. A hug that's now more GI Joe than Pam Anderson, with a sameness and uniformity to the most titillating of body-motion combinations, which we so scientifically call cleavage, that makes the eyes glaze over.

Parents world over sleep a lot easier, knowing how well protected their teenage daughters are, boys find a lot more time to listen to their I-pods, playing pool on Iphones blissfully unaware of the various chemical reactions could have occurred during what they probably thought was an uneventful day at school.

And I think the biggest damage has been done to women and girls, who now spend billions of dollars on (or steal from their aunts) beautifying gels, creams and doctors, sweat zillions of buckets at gyms to get the perfect body to get male attention when, as Dave Barry put it (in another day and age), just a stiff breeze would do.

RIP, The Great Indian Bra.

More dilli...

And this can happen only here.....and you will not believe me, but this actually happened...


Smart young purchase officer of BLC (Big Large corporation) saunters into the cabin of his boss - a balding, pot bellied general manager (PBGM)
"Sir, here are the - " he stops and stares at PBGM - "sir, pardon me, but dont you think your hair looks like Shahrukh Khan's today?"
PBGM blushes embarassedly and self consciously pats down a decidedly scrooge duck-like tuft at the back of his head..."really?" ....more patting..." ahh..hemm..well...i ..er...DID get my hair cut yesterday..."


"I swear sir....! my heart almost stopped thinking I am giving my leave application to Shahrukh khan" ....he shuffles a piece of paper unobtrusively onto PBGM's table...
"well..my wife has been making this special egg yolk based henna, y'know...." PBGM scrawls enthusiastically  


"Sir, its WORKING...you look YOUNG"...pockets the paper...." I will come after my leave for this recipe sir!"


Told you...this is dilli ...!

and more chaiiii...

Its a wintry morning, Singhsaab and I have decided to go wild and walk down to Kamal tea stall instead of the pantry for our 11 o clock cuppa. I am in deep in thought about global warming, megan foxxxy and whathaveyou while Singhsaab has just taken a break from building another complex BI query.

We are walking along companionably when singhsaab nods his head vigorously in response to nothing in particular and announces "Medical doesn't cover OPD charges, y'know". "Eh?" I go. "Swines" he carries on smoothly "its all a scam...!" I am now utterly tongue-tied at this scholarly holding of the forth. "you tell me, how many times will you get a brain tumour?" he looks at me and before I turn my fuddled brain to the actual mathematics of the knotty problem, he thunders on "and how many times will you get a viral fever?" I close my eyes and shake my head in amazement at one more of singhsaab's unbelievably profound conversations. I open my eyes to find him calmly looking at me.

"Chai?"

Chai!

Dilli has a vigor and zest all its own, most of which even the sweeping surge of modernity is hard pressed to contain.

Picture this: its about 11 a.m on a thursday morning and my first day in the offices of a busy large corporation (BLC). Hundreds of worker bees hunched over flickering screens and busy excel sheets, the hum of profitable conversations counting millions of rupees of buying and selling, I trundle over to the office table size pantry room where weary old kattoo is hunched beside the coffee machine. I am about to politely interrupt his reverie when something large and busy bustles past me into the pantry room rubbing his hands in utterly undeserved glee and booms "Kattoo , yaar - ek BADHIYA si chai pila de..!"

Kattoo bursts into action as if called by Dalai Lama to invade China and turning purposefully towards the coffee machine, with as much zest as his twenty year old body and 7.2 mm of turning radius will allow, pushes the big red button which says TEA on it, watches intently as weak tepid tea dribbles into a cup and produces it with a flourish. One sip by big bustling man and he erupts "waah kattoo! mazaa aa gaya!!" and trundles away happily.

Its inane - a meaninglessly celebrated and overinvested moment of the day and yeah, its incredibly Dilli!