Six years to the day

A recent conversation with M reminded me of this blog. I am amazed to see that my last post here was exactly six years ago. How's that for coincidence? I did think about writing again from time to time. I even drafted a couple of posts. But, somehow, I could not. Whatever seemed worth writing about, whatever was most important to me, seemed too personal to share. And writing about anything else seemed pointless. I see that I had made exactly the same excuse for not writing for a year six years ago. I had just moved back home after the death of my parents. I had assumed then that I was making a new beginning, a fresh start. I was wrong. There are no fresh starts. Life is just one long journey. It starts when you are born and it ends when you die. In between, you walk, run or crawl. You stumble, you fall, you pick yourself up and you move on. You meet new people, some hurt, some heal. New wounds replace old ones. New memories add to old ones. You are the sum of your journey. Six years on I am in Bangalore, older - hopefully wiser - and still waiting to see where my journey takes me next. Read More

Blogging again...from Canada

It is 5:00 AM in the morning. I am sitting in my room on the seventh floor of Holiday Inn & Suites, Ottawa, Canada. It is slightly misty outside and the sky is overcast. There is a slight drizzle. Its my kind of day.

I reached Ottawa last evening after a twenty hour journey. As it was too late to do anything else I went straight to bed after an early dinner. I was anticipating rising very late in the morning but that was not to be. Four o' clock found me wide awake. After an hour long stuggle to get back to sleep I gave up. As I didn't want to get out of my room and there wasn't really anything I could do inside it (and I had my laptop with me and internet is free) I decided to visit this blog again.

It's been more than a year since I last posted anything here. A lot has happend since then. My parents died. I quit my old job and moved back home. One year ago I could never have imagined that my life would be what it is today. But then, I guess that's life. I didn't blog about any of it because I just wasn't comfortable talking about them. And blogging about anything else seemed so pointless. But anyway, here I am ready to scribble again. And what better way to start again than from a completely new experience. Life, after all, goes on.

I am here on a business trip but that doesn't mean I am not going to try my best to have fun.

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Shoe-ing accurately

Throwing shoes at people has suddenly become a rage. If you don't like what somebody is saying or doing just throw a shoe at him. Just ensure a dozen news channels are there to capture the moment. The benefits of doing so are many. Mr. Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journo who started the trend by throwing his shoe at George Bush became a hero overnight. Iraqis took to the streets in his support. Some parents even offered him their daughters in marriage. Others offered to support him financially during his incarceration and subsequent joblessness. The man who threw a shoe at the Chinese PM was far less successful. But that's only because he chose the wrong man to throw his shoe at. The Chinese have a habit of censoring all embarrassing news from the state controlled media. This seriously impairs any such unconventional bid for grabbing eyeballs. Otherwise, given the number of things the number of people in China are unhappy about, this man would have become an overnight star in China and an even bigger superstar in Tibet. Our own Jarnail Sigh has found his fifteen minutes of fame after throwing his shoe at the home minister. While the minister has himself tried to downplay the incident and "forgiven" him, other political parties are apparently making a mascot out of him. One party has allegedly announced a reward of five lakh rupees and another has offered him a ticket for the coming elections. I am sure others yet will come out with even more novel ways to fete him.

While the world debates on how to react to these new champions of the Shoe, I have only two observations to make. The first observation is that all these people are lousy shots. Not one of them could actually hit his target. That seems like a terrible waste. If your target has presented himself to you on a dais, standing up tall and erect to offer the largest surface area possible, the least you can do is to offer him the courtesy of at least touching his person with your missile. If you cannot do that, you have no business to be in the shoe throwing business. The second observation is a recognition of the age old Indian values of frugality and price consciousness. Where as all others chose to throw expensive branded shoes at their chosen targets with the Iraqi throwing the most expensive shoe, the Indian chose to throw a cheap unbranded shoe at his target. He must have realized it would be a terrible waste of hard earned money to spend more than is absolutely necessary on a shoe he would be wearing for just half a trip for it was always unlikely that the police would be courteous enough the return the offending shoe after the incident.

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New resolutions for old

I don't believe in new year resolutions. I don't believe there is any special day for making resolutions. If I feel the need to form a resolution, I don't wait till the start of next year or my next birthday to implement it. By a curious coincidence however, since the two years I have been making resolutions just around the time of new year. Last year, after dithering for years, I finally made up my mind to learn swimmimg. And I did it!! I can now proudly claim to know three of the four strokes in swimmimg. I don't know the last one only because I have decided to avoid the water during the winter. This year I found myself making another resolution while frolicking in the beaches of Puri. I have resolved to become financially literate. Its the unlikeliest place to be making such a resolution but recent events have not allowed me to ignore money matters even for a second, not even when I was vacationing in Puri. I have decided that the only way I can be free of such worries in the future is if I start worrying about my finances before they start troubling me. Till now I have steadfastly refused to think about investing. I believe I am temperamentally unsuited for the job. My investments have been limited to hurried buys into the first tax saving MF someone points out to me before March every year. Needless to say, the recent slowdown in the economy has gobbled up all that money and put it somewhere I can't find it. All that I about to change. I have resolved to become Mr. Investment himself. I am evolving a long term investement plan which should put the most die hard investor to shame. As a first step, I have bought a copy of the "bible" on investing - "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham. I have already picked up a few invaluable tips from it but more on that later. For now let me just quote a wise woman who said, "Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort".

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Happy holidays

The days just don't seem to end. My vacation starts this friday and it seems like it is a hundred years off. The last couple of months have been pretty stressful what with multiple release schedules in office and troubles with bank accounts, loans, cars and everything else under the sun at home. This leave has come at the perfect time for me. The best part is that it is compulsory - all employees have to take the next week off. So I will not feel guilty about running off without closing all issues here. I have added a week more to the leave of my own so that I will be back only next year.

I am going home initially but then the entire family is taking off to Puri. We might even visit Konark and Chilka if we have time. I have never been to Orissa. Actually, none of us have except my Dad. He has been there four times. It is one of his favourite places. We will all be traveling together after a long, long time. I am really looking forward to it.

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Why should Pakistanis leave India?

Now that our Army and police have cleared the streets of Mumbai the self appointed moral guardians of our society have started stepping out from under their beds. Shiv Sena was the first to proclaim their return to action with another of their all too familiar diktats. They have proclaimed that all Pakistanis in Mumbai have to leave the country. I was watching a Shiv Sainik on TV calling all "rashtra bhaktas" to join them in driving out all the Pakistanis in our media yesterday. Their main targets are basically the people who are trying to make a name for themselves on the various television talent shows. Apparently, they (Shiv Sainiks) respect their(singers', actors', etc) art but they do not need Pakistanis in Mumbai. He also said that all producers and directors of television serials have been served notices to expel Pakistanis from their shows or face rashtra-bhatks's wrath. It is funny how these people are so creatively challenged that they cannot even come up with new speeches for their different agitations. Replace Pakistanis with North Indians or Muslims and you will get the speech they used in their "agitations" against those people. What is not so funny is how these people, who presumably represent a significant number of our countrymen, can never come up with anything that is constructive for our society. They are obsessed with dividing and destroying the fabric of our society. What harm have any of these Pakistanis done to anybody? They are ordinary people who are trying to realize their dreams with their hard work and dedication like millions of other Indians. How will driving them out help us? Why target them? The answers are simple. Driving them out will not help anybody but these people do not carry AK-47s and hence can be attacked without fear of retaliation. The people who attacked Mumbai did not ask for Shiv Sena's permission before entering Mumbai. They attacked Mumbai in broad daylight. They were easily recognizable after they fired their first shots. Where was Shiv Sena then? Why didn't this band of rashtra-bhakts come forward to protect their rashtra then? When all of Mumbai was out on the streets expressing solidarity with the victims of the attacks the leaders from Shiv Sena and MNS were conspicuous by their absence. Raj Thakeray has not issued a single statement since the attacks. The fact the a Bihari has been hounoured by the Maharashtra Governor for saving the lives of many Indians with no regard to his own life during the attack on CST has probably put a seal on his big mouth. I am waiting to see just how long this seal lasts. Probably, till he decides that the public has forgotten this inconvenient fact. We will never be able to face the enemies by dividing and persecuting helpless people or by pointing fingers at foreigners. Doing so will only serve to justify the actions of these extremists. The only way to face them is to become so strong and united ourselves that these enemies give up trying to divide us. In view of this fact, I submit to you that the only people that Mumbai and India do not need are these Shiv Sainiks and their copies.

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I am back...

Its good to be back after such a long time. My last post was two months ago. So many things have happened since then and I have so much to write about. I don't really know where to start. Its probably best to talk about the present first but I have had a completely uneventful week so there is nothing to talk about there. The week before that I bought a 6 DVD pack of Guru Dutt's classics and held a Guru Dutt film festival over the weekend. Needless to say, I was the only attendee. But more about that later.

I have been buying a lot of DVDs lately. The sale section at Crossword is to blame for that. They have a "Buy 1 Get 2 Free" offer going and I just could not help myself. I got Blade Runner - The Final Cut, Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima for just 600 bucks. I also bought the anniversary edition DVD of Lagaan at half the price. I also bought a whole lot of books. The great thing is that I didn't have to spend any money on them. I had got Crossword gift vouchers as prize for something I did at work and I spent all of them. I will ramble on and on about my purchases later. Right now I have to go for lunch. Bye...

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A Lazy Sunday

00:10 AM:
What!! It's midnight already!! Should really go to bed now. Have finished season one of LOST. This is a good time to take a break. Wait, lets just take a peek at season two.

03:15 AM:
Can't stay awake any longer. Have finished four episodes of season two. Going to bed.

06:30 AM:
It's morning already? And a hot and cloudy one at that. Feeling hungry.

07:00 AM:
Am sick of having noodles for breakfast every damn weekend. But its easiest to make. Why can't we have Chicken in Atta Noodles? It will be some variety. Feeling sleepy. Think I will go back to sleep.

10:30 AM:
Is that a door banging somewhere? Its very quite otherwise. Am I sleeping or am I awake?

01:00 PM:
Can hear noises outside my door. Roomies must have got up. Lazy bones!! Lets join them. Have to decide what to do for lunch.
Oops... they have already bought mutton. When did they go out? Whats the time? O my God! Its one already. I slept for that long?

02:45 PM:
Finished lunch. Mutton curry was delicious. Lets finish the remaining episodes of season two.

04:30 PM:
Did it have to rain now. It is making me feel sleepy. But I won't fall asleep. Otherwise I will have to spend the night awake. Now lets see where was I in LOST. Episode 16 or 17?

10:30 PM:
Must have fallen asleep. Whats the time? Shit!!

10:45 PM:
We have some mutton left over from afternoon. Just have to make rice.

11:30 PM:
Dinner is over. Now, since I will not be able to sleep anyway lets finish season two.

00:30 AM:
I was watching LOST. When did I fall asleep? What the heck!! Just turn off the lights and go back to sleep. Have to get up early tomorrow. Hope it does not rain in the morning. Have to go swimming . Already missed it on Saturday.

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You have been erased!!!

Disaster struck in office on Monday. My computer refused to boot. I have three machines in my cube. I use two of them for (secret...wink, wink) developmental activities. The third is for communicating with the outside world. It is my email machine, the machine I use for browsing the net and, since the last few months, also the machine I use for blogging. In short, it is my lifeline. So of course, it had to be the machine to conk out. I had to spend a three days out of touch with the world. Not that it bothers me the least, I am only too happy to be left alone. But work suffered. I have got a new hard disk now and am back online. However, I have lost all personal data that was on the old disk. This includes online passwords, bank and credit card passwords and statements, pictures and everything else I had accumulated in the last three years that I have been using this machine. Its like the soft copy of the last three years of my life has been erased. Feels funny. Strangely enough, what I am most bothered about is the loss of a Eva Mendes wall paper that I had set as desktop background. It was a beautiful black and white portrait of the lady. I spent last evening looking for that wall paper all over the net but did not find it. Passwords and statements I can find again, but beauty lost once is lost for ever. I think I will now switch of the computer and spend some time mourning my loss. In case you haven't guessed already, I love Eva Mendes...

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An online conversation...

Transcript of a chat I had with a female friend of mine this afternoon. My friend requested anonymity. So I have removed my her name. Otherwise it is a word to word transcript spelling mistakes, sms lingo and all.

friend:
hi
i see you'hv been writing quite a bit:)

Rajorshi:
yes :)

Sent at 12:55 PM on Monday

Rajorshi:
u know what
this is the season for girls

friend:
as in?

Rajorshi:
most new babies are female
a frnd of mine had a girl
she is the thrd frnd to hv a girl
last year it was all boys

friend:
oh
i thot...
:)
lots of women proposing to you

Rajorshi:
i wish :(

friend:
awww
come on
with such writing
you'll be a hit among women journos

Rajorshi:
i dnt know any journos :(
neways writing is the last thing women look for

friend:
what do they look for then?

Rajorshi:
writing indicates brains/intelligence

friend:
women like that

Rajorshi:
women luk for dumbos

friend:
i thot men look for dumbos

Rajorshi:
of course they do
both luk for dumbos

friend:
waah

Rajorshi:
and since the world is full of dumbos of both sexes
nobody has any problems hooking up

friend:
and getting married

Rajorshi:
except a few poor souls like me

friend:
me too
me too:)


Sent at 4:13 PM on Monday
Rajorshi:
i thot u said u r surrounded by intelligent people in ur co. :)

friend:
yes
i am...
some women
men r married
:(

Rajorshi:
hell...
same here with women

Sent at 4:17 PM on Monday
Rajorshi:
u know wht this is a funny conversation
i will post it on my blog
after hiding names
u mind?

friend:
no:0
go ahead
but hey..
no names

Rajorshi:
yeah i said that "after hiding names"

Sent at 4:21 PM on Monday

friend:
ok

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An old blogger and a new one

Sis has finally published her first post. Now I can add her blog to my blog roll. She has named the blog darkness. She is not very happy with it and is looking for a better name. I am really imporessed with her post. I didn't know she could write so well.

Olive Riley, said to be the world's oldest blogger has died. She was 108. I visited her blog The Life Of Riley to check it out. There are hundreds of comments, all expressing grief and offering condolences. The lady seems to have had a lot of fans. Personally, I think its all a bit of a farce. I mean, this woman never even used a computer in her life. The blog acknowladges that posts were from a documentary film maker called Eric Shackle. He and his wife used to get Ollie to tell them stories about her life and then write them down, edit them and post them. That does not make Ollie a blogger. It makes Eric Shakle a blogger. I could get my mom to talk about her life, write down whatever she says and post it regularly. That won't make her a blogger. It would be my blog. At best, it would be a blogumentary (I think I have coined a new term here).

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Of Posts & Comments

Blogging has suddenly become a craze among my friends. NJ and C have already started their own blogs. Others are still at the planning stage. All of them have different reasons for blogging. NJ and I started our blogs on the same day. She said it was for putting down random thouhts that walk through her mind. She has not been able to move beyond three posts one of which was about why she has started blogging. I can only hope that thoughts have not stopped walking about randomly in her mind. C, always the financial genious, has filled his blog with Google Ads. His stated objectve in starting the blog is to earn money from the ads. I tried explaining to him, that the way Google Ads work, it will take atleast 30 yrs for that cheque from Google to reach him. He retorted that if he gets $100 after 30 years it will still be $100 he wouldn't have got otherwise. I can't beat that logic. He posts pretty regularly. No body will accuse him of doing nothing to earn his $100. His posts are always about the stock markets and performance of companies I don't know even exist. Being a complete moron in all matters financial, I find it tough reading any of the posts from end to end. I have read his disclaimer though. It is hard to miss, being longer than most of his posts. It says that C is not responsible for any opinion anyone might form after reading his posts. Before I read it I had no idea, anyone can say a simple thing like that so many times in so many ways in a single paragraph. The weirdest though, is my little sis. She told me she had got an account from Blogger and had tried posting but, somehow, the title of the post had become the title of the blog and the post had disappeared. That was around a month ago. Yesterday, she wanted to know the difference between a blog and a post. I tried my best to explain all the terms but I have no idea if it has made any difference to her. Her ways are mysterious. I have never pretended to understand them.

Most puzzling though are the comments I am getting from the few people who have read my posts. Or rather, the diverse methods in which I am getting the comments. I have enabled comments on my blog but you won't find a single comment there. So sir, that way is too simple. My readers prefer giving comments in person. It is probably because are people who know me personally. I get stopped in office corridors and parking lots to be told what so and so thought of that post I put up last week. Friends give their opinions over IM and mails or over phone. The weirdest was a friend of my sister's. He read my posts, pinged my sister on GTalk, sent his comments to her over chat and asked her to copy-paste his comments to me next time she chats with me. He also added that it would make me happy. I have been trying to figure out a more complicated way of commenting on any post since I got his comments. I am ashamed to say, I have not been able to come up with any. And I am not even going to try to understand why his comment is supposed to make me happy. However, people, especially people who are little sis's friends, have to be humoured. They ususally have the best intensions in mind. Their comments are always welcome irrespective of the ways they choose to convey them in.

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A rose by any other name? Never...!!!

I hated my name when I was a teenager. "Rajorshi" seemed long (especially when combined with my double barrel surname), out of fashion and nobody seemed to be able to pronounce it. Worst of all, most people pronounced it "Rajoshri" which is a feminine name. For a fourteen year old boy, that was the ultimate humiliation. Filling up forms used to be a headache. My name always exceeded the space available. All this made my name the biggest source of unhappiness in my otherwise peaceful teenage life. My parents, on the other hand, were delighted with it. They just could not understand what the problem was. Which was why they were shocked when I announced that I would be changing my name. I had decided on "Rishi". A shorter, more pronounceable and, in my opinion, trendier name. My parents, of course, did not agree to it. And, since I was a minor I could not change my name legally without my father's permission. I was furious. I raved and ranted and then begged but he was not moved. He advised me to wait till I was eighteen and then do what I liked with my name. But he was not going to be a part of it. I never did change my name. By the time I turned eighteen I had completely changed my views on it. I had even begun liking it. In hindsight, my father's decision was the best.

Say what you will, but I love my name now. It gives me a sense of identity like nothing else does. It is deliciously ethnic and quintessentially Bengali. And now that everything ethnic is in fashion, it seems trendy too. Surprisingly, somehow people generally have no trouble pronouncing the name anymore. So everything should be alright now. But no, I have a new problem now. Some people have started shortening my name and calling me "Raj". It annoys me to no end. This name reminds me of that atrocious Shahrukh Khan movie called DDLJ. I absolutely hate that movie and, by association, this name. "Raj" is so bland and so devoid of character that it makes me feel invisible. I think NJ was the first person to call me "Raj". Since then, a few people in office have started calling me that. Apparently, "Rajorshi" is too long for them to remember. I think it is unfair. Why should my name be mutilated just because they are too lazy to remember it? Well, I probably can't do anything about the people who already call be "Raj", but I will damn well make sure nobody else does so.

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Define Life

Life:
The condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity and the continual change preceding death.
Concise Oxford Dictionary, English

Myô, Inochi:
The totality of one's existence including karma. the totality of one's existence including karma.
Teachings of Nichiren Daishônin, Japanese

Life:
Complex physico-chemical systems whose two main peculiarities are 1) storage and replication of molecular information in the form of nucleic acid, and 2) the presence of (or in viruses perhaps merely the potential for) enzyme catalyst.
Penguin Dictionary of Biology, US

Life:
1 a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body
b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings
c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
Life noun (plural lives) capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change until death.
Merriam-Webster Online、English

Life:
1. The aggregate of the animal functions which resist death. Bichat.
2. The state of animated beings, while they possess the power of feeling and motion. It commences in contemplation of law generally as soon as the infant is able to stir in the mother's womb and ceases at death.
3. For many purposes, however, life is considered as begun from the moment of conception in ventre sa mere. Vide Foetus. But in order to acquire and transfer civil rights the child must be born alive. Whether a child is born alive, is to be ascertained from certain signs which are always attendant upon life. The fact of the child's crying is the most certain. There may be a certain motion in a new born infant which may last even for hours, and yet there may not be complete life. It seems that in order to commence life the child must be born with the ability to breathe, and must actually have breathed. 1 Briand, Med. Leg. 1ere partie, c. 6, art. 1.
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

Life:
The average number of hours a bulb will burn.
Lumber terms dictionaryUS

I have always been interested in how different cultures, peoples, professions and philosophies look upon life. I want to collect as many definitions for life from as many varied sources and in as many languages as possible. I hope eventually all major points of views will be represented here.
Note: This is a running post.

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Epitaph to a dog

It is ironical that the most glowing epitaph known to man is that of a dog. It is perhaps because the dog in question was Lord Byron's. But I prefer to read it as an expression of Man's disappointment with himself, his follies and weaknesses. And a desire to reclaim those qualities which are so dear to him and yet so hard to acquire.

Extract from Epitaph to a Dog by Lord Byron

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,

The full text of the poem can be found in Wikipedia.

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…so tell me something about yourself

I have never been comfortable talking about myself. That is one (of many) of my problems. It is very inconvenient really. Every where I go - parties, dates, job interviews, chat rooms, social networking sites - everyone seems to want to hear me speak about myself. It has become standard filler in any conversation these days. I will be chatting merrily with someone I have recently met when suddenly there is a pause in the conversation and I know its coming. And sure enough, the other person will come up with some variation of “…so tell me something about yourself”. What do I tell anybody about myself? Which parts of my personality should I present? I have been in this planet for almost three decades now. There are a lot of parts to me. Which parts would interest you? Are you even interested? And above all, why on earth would I want to discuss myself with you? It used to be a lot easier when I was a kid. Back then they used to ask very specific questions like “what is your name beta?” followed by “how old are you?” followed by “which school do you go to?” and so on and so forth. At the end of the Q&A session I used to get a pat on the back. Now, people - polite and well-mannered as they are - will not even think about interrogating me like that. Its far easier for them to ask the vaguest question possible and let me handle the details. Believe me, I would take the interrogation any day over this. The opening sentence is the biggest stumbling block. How do I start talking about yourself? I can’t start off with “My name is…” because, obviously, the guy already knows that. After many missteps, I have come up with some strategies for the most common situations. Here are some openings:

Job Interview: "I am currently working on...". Start of with what you are doing now (proffesionally). Present the major points in your career in reverse chronological order, i.e., latest first. Stick to dates and numbers. Don't try analyze or explain anything. If the other person wants to know details, he/she will ask. Stick to your professional life only. You personal life is irrelevant here.

Social occasions: "I am from...". If you have already told him/her your name, this might be a good opener. You can then go on to mention you profession, etc. Stick to basics. If the other person is really interested, he/she will help you along with specific questions or comments. If not, you can throw the ball right back at him/her by returning him/her the same question. But in social occasions, it all really depends on the mood. I went to a meeting of car enthusiasts once. Everyone was introducing himself with the his car details - "Hi, one Honda, model xxx, yyy years old". It was funny.

Online chats: "Hi, I am xxx, from yyy". Always use your username, not your real name. Never offer anymore details. Don't even mention the area of the city you live in. You never know who is at the other end.

Most importantly, don't ever ramble. This is true for all situations. The person asking you this question does not know you. He/She probably wants a glimpse of specific aspects of you. Rambling will kill all interest he/she has in you.

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Obama, Clinton, McCain

Looks like Hillary Clinton is finally out of the presidential race. Good. Never liked her. Pundits say that President Clinton will be better for India than President Obama but I don't care. Political alliances are driven by need. If America needs us and we need America, any president will fall in line. I would rather choose the guy who I feel has greater personal integrity. Clinton totally compromised hers when she condoned her husband for Monicagate. I can't help feeling she has a "you scratch my back, I will scratch yours" kind of a relationship with her husband. That she supported him in his presidency so that she could use him to get into the senate and then the president's chair. I just don't understand why women go ga-ga over her. I mean, this is the woman who humiliated every self-respecting woman by her conduct during her husband's scandals. Now she is using his name to get what she wants. How is she an inspiration to anybody? A feminist is someone who earns what she deserves by her own merit, not by using her father's or husband's name. Thats why neither Indira Gandhi nor Sonia Gandhi are celebrated as feminists in India, even though both of them were/are the most powerful persons in the country in their own times. I have heard a few of her speeches. They are so rhetorical and jaded. Her favourite line seems to be "It took one Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, it will take another Clinton to clean up after the second" or some such variation. That one sentence tells us all that is wrong with her. It's witty but it says nothing and it proves nothing. All it does is invoke her husband. Compare her with Obama. The first thing that struck me about him was how fresh he seems. The answers he gives to questions are well thought out and consistent. True, he seems a little long winded sometimes but thats because elaborating on some issue takes more time than simply coming up with a witty quip. And more than anything else, the stands he has taken on various issues have been consistent with what he has said and done in his entire political career and not changed with swings in public opinion. For example, he has been against the Iraq war from day one. Thats more than can be said about Mrs. Clinton. Now all I hope is that Clinton stops waiting for him to be struck down by lightening (cause that's the only way she is going to win) and gets out of his way as soons as possible. Let him and the party focus on taking on John McCain and the Republicans.

The Obama vs. McCain battle will have a far more serious impact on the world than Obama vs. Clinton. McCain seems like an older version of Bush, just more pig-headed. He reminds me of the war mongering general from Mars Attacks ("we must nuke 'em, nuke 'em, nuke 'em"). He plans to send in more troops to Iraq. Honestly, you would think that after Vietnam, Afganistan and now a decade in Iraq, Americans have learnt that you cannot crush ideologies. No matter how sick or pervert it is. Force is not the answer. People like John McCain do not understand it. They do not have the balls to stand up and say that what they did was a mistake and it will go no further. And when someone like him becomes the president of the most powerful nation in the world, it can only mean trouble for everybody. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

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The survival value of a brain

Why did Nature give us more brains than is absolutely necessary for our survival? All She had to do was give us enough brains to be able to invent a few stone tools to make up for not giving us claws. That would have been enough to ensure our survival. What makes it more amazing is that Nature generally is very stingy with her gifts. Chimps have just enough brains to survive and procreate. On a good day, the deer can only run fast enough to out run the tiger. So why indulge humans?
A chap named Snell proposed a standard called encephalization quotient (EQ) to compare the brain to body weight ratios among various species. I found the following chart showing the EQ for a few mamals:

Man	7.44
Dolphin	5.31
Chimpanzee	2.09
Dog	1.17ut
Horse	0.86

It basically means that man's brain to body weight ratio is 7.44 times the average ratio for mamals. This really is over kill. 3 would have been sufficient. Look at the state Nature is in today. There is not a single part of her that is not fighting for survival today. And it is all due to the "extra" few ounces of brain matter she granted Man all those milenia ago. The first things man discovered that were more than just survival tools were fire and wheel. That was around 40,000 years ago. Since that day, Man has not done a single thing which has not upset Nature's equations in some way. He has made a mess of whatever he has touched. He is the only species to have single handedly brought the threat of total extinction upon himself. And not just himself, but all of Nature. None of this would have happened if Nature had stuck to her policy of giving just enough resources to enable a species to survive. That one mistake has effectively sealed her fate.

I found a nice article called What is intelligence, anyway? Its discusses the definition of intelligence and explores the relationship between brain and intelligence. The Wikipedia entry for human evolution is here.

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When aliens do attack

Disclaimer: Any offence to any alien who might be reading this post is completely intentional. I just didn’t think you would read it. Any offence to any human reading this post does not matter. You are going to be dead when it happens any way.

What will really happen if we are actually visited by aliens? Last weekend three different alien invasion movies were aired on three different channels at the same time. That was probably a coincidence, but it set me pondering on the issue of alien visits and their likely fallouts. What will these aliens be like? I don’t mean their looks. That’s impossible to guess. It would be great though, if they are not green and full of tentacles – just to spite Hollywood. I am talking about their psychology. What will have motivated them to come to earth? Will they even want to destroy us? Or will they just be curious about us? I would assume that any race that comes to visit us from across space will be technologically superior to us. After all, if we were superior, we would have found them first. Assuming that they are technologically superior, we come to three possible scenarios. First, a very superior race might turn out to be a very benevolent one too. They could be so enlightened that have all become Buddhas. In that case we don’t have to worry. Such a visit will be the best thing to happen to us. But, I don’t think that is possible. For one, philosophers do not make great space travelers. Secondly, any enlightened species will know that meddling in a foreign ecosystem can only harm it. If they are enlightened they will act on the knowledge and stay away from earth. The second scenario is that they will be actively malevolent. In that case we will all be annihilated and earth will be conquered and there is nothing we can do about it. This is the scenario, Mars Attacks presents (somehow, I don’t believe we will live up to the standards Independence Day set for us). It’s possible, but I do not believe it is the most probable scenario. Why would any race travel all the way across space just to destroy an alien world it has had no previous contact with for no reason? The third scenario, and my favourite, is that the aliens will be neither benevolent nor malevolent. I believe that any alien race that finds us would have evolved in their attitude towards space very like our early explorers who set out to discover new lands. They will have set out, at least initially, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, eager to explore the universe. That motive may or may not have been replaced by a less altruistic one (search for new lands to settle in, perhaps). Their attitude towards us will not be very different from our attitude towards, say, the burying beetle. When they find us, some of them will want to destroy us for whatever little profit it will get them, a small minority will want to preserve us and a staggeringly vast majority will be totally indifferent. Our survival will be decided by the fight between the first two groups and not by us. The pessimist in me believes that the outcome will be no different than it has been for the burying beetles. I am inclined to believe that if an alien race does find us and comes to visit us on our own planet, we will eventually come into conflict with it and when we do, we will lose. And the real tragedy will be that they will probably not even realize it.

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On finally having a single blog

I used to have three different blogs. But that was proving to be difficult to maintain. So, I have finally decided to delete all of them and move to this one. I wanted to use a custom domain name I had registered some time ago. But unfortunately, to do so I either have to use my own FTP server or pay the guys I registered my domain with to make it point to this blog. I don't want to do either. Well, www.rajorshighosh.blogspot.com will have to do for now.
The reason I had separate blogs for each of my interests was that I wanted to organize all my posts by topic and not by date. A bit like a website where you have one page for one topic, another page for a second topic and can navigate between topics using hyper links. Blogger, then, did not have supports for tags and so all that was not possible. Now that it does, I have found a neat trick to do the same. This is how it works:

• Label each post according to its topic.
• Create a linked list page element in the side-bar for links.
• For each topic you are interested in, create a link with the url http://blog_url/search/label/label_name. This is the query Blogger creates when you search on a label.
  
• Click on the link to view all posts on that topic.

I have created a section called LINKS on my side-bar. It contains links to my favourite blogs, etc. I have added three links called BookMarks, Cuisine and Movies. Clicking on any one of them will give you all posts on that topic. It works like quick search!

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