Yeh Jeevan Hai..

Over heard in the Boston Metro..

I woman on crutches, with her right leg heavily plastered, gingerly hops onto the subway train. Due to office hour rush, she is not able to find a place to sit. She somehow manages to balance herself and stands next to a vertical support.

An old man standing nearby, moved by the situation, speaks to her. “It must be difficult travelling in the subway in this state. You should have stayed home.”

“I need to go to work every day.” the woman replied with a smile.

“Oh! Going to work everyday must be a challenge. I guess you must be happy that the day is over and you are going home to take some rest.”

“Not really. With this broken leg, I find it harder to do the household chores as compared to my office duties, especially with 2 young kids at home.”

“Ya, I guess so. Hope your husband shares some of your burden at home.”

“I am a single mother”.

The old man pats her on the back. The conversation ends.

The incident highlights a couple of things for me. One, how tough and lonely life can be in extremely individualistic societies of the West; where the concept of family life as we know it in the East, simply does not exist. And two, no matter how tough your life is personally, you can always find someone else who is going through worse times. Hence, we should always be thankful for what God has given us.

Favorite Star Trek Episodes

As a big Star Trek fan (of The Original Series, not The Next Generation) since my childhood, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most episodes of The Original Series up on Youtube a couple of months back. Since then, I have seen most of them again on weekends. Here is my list of favorite episodes.

1. Space Seed (Sci-fi at it's best)

2. The City on the Edge of Forever (Most critically acclaimed)

3. Tomorrow is Yesterday (Sheer time travel fun)

4. Amok Time (Spock's "human" side)

5. The Trouble with Tribbles (Funniest)

6. The Enemy Within (Great concept of good and evil)

7. The Devil in the Dark (Moral tale)

8. Spectre of the Gun (Shades of Matrix philosophy)

9. The Corbomite Maneuver (Core Star Trek concept)

10. The Way to Eden (Hippies in the Star Trek universe)

Salt Lake City Airport

When I recently happened to make a stop over at Salt Lake City Airport, I was quite dazzled by the natural beauty surrounding it. The airport is flanked by picturesque mountains on several sides, and the view before landing is something to behold. I understand that all of Salt Lake City is flanked by such wonderful mountains, as if they are guarding the city against enemies.

Here are some pictures. (Sources - I, II). More pictures from Salt lake City are here.

Darr ke aage jeet hai..

I have had a fear of heights right from my childhood. I always tend to avoid peeping from high rises and mountainous cliffs. The same goes for roller coasters and thrill rides as well. One incident 5 years back, when I was coaxed into jumping onto a roller coaster by a few friends and felt horribly giddy afterwards, further increased by reluctance towards taking up any activity involving high G-forces. I decided never again to undertake any such ride in my life.

Hence, when a friend of mine invited me to join him on visit to an adventure park that had many high intensity thrill rides earlier this year, I was naturally very apprehensive. As I reluctantly joined him on the trip, I kept telling myself that I would not take any of mind-numbing thrill rides on offer under any circumstances. Yet, I finally bowed down to my friend's repeated requests and took one of the rides on offer.

To say that it was a petrifying experience would be an understatement. My head was swiveling like a top. But once done, I felt a strange feeling of accomplishment within me. I felt I had overcome an internal demon. I had "survived" a roller coaster ride!

So, when my friend asked me to join him on the next thrill ride that promised even greater G-forces, I said yes. Even though I knew my heart would be in my mouth again during the ride, I wanted to take that experience to see how I cope with it. Surprisingly, though the second ride scared me as well, it did so much less than the first one.

Ride after ride followed next. Though I felt an element of fear in all of them, it slowly ceased being a mortal one. By the end of the day, as I gingerly walked away from the amusement park with my head still feeling the aftereffects of all the twisting, turning and falling, I almost felt that I had overcome my fear of heights to a great extent.

I few weeks back, when I visited Las Vegas, I wanted to re-test the extent to which I had overcome Acrophobia. Hence I decided to take pay a visit to Stratosphere Tower, the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States and the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere, and take the Big Shot and X-Scream rides, which are the world's highest amusement rides.

Big Shot

X-Scream

I was surprised at the relative lack of fear these rides were able to induce in me as compared to the previous ones I had taken. It reinforced my belief that it is possible to overcome one's deepest fears and insecurities, provided one is willing to take the first step.

Almighty Encounter

Prologue:-

Long and controversial post ahead. Read when you have time to spare. Do leave a comment after reading. Would love to know your reaction to these ideas.

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Does God exist? Why was the concept of God created? What practical purpose does God serve in our lives? Probably the most commonly asked questions by mankind. Whether one believes in God or not, there is a high probability that at some point in one’s life, each one of us have asked this question, either to ourselves or someone else.

Let us try to look at these questions from a logical point of view.

Why was the concept of God being created?

The concept of God was probably created many thousands of years back, when early man had just differentiated himself from other animals by virtue of his intelligence. At that stage, though man was intelligent enough to cultivate food, use primitive mechanics etc., he was not intelligent enough yet to be able to understand the real reasons behind natural phenomena like floods, droughts, fire, earthquakes, disease etc. Due to this lack of understanding, he ended up attributing these phenomena to an omnipotent Supreme Being he could not see, touch or hear. Someone up there must be pulling the strings that made these things happen, he must have thought. The concept of God must have been created right then.

It was again due to this lack of understanding of natural events, that man must have begun worshiping God. Man did so in order to please Him so that man does not incur His wrath. Man feared God. Man did not want natural calamities to befall on him; instead wanted “divine” help in carrying out his worldly activities in the easier and better way.

As the process of human evolution moved forward, man became ever more intelligent, and hence more powerful. With this, man became more arrogant as well. Groups of men started fighting with each other over land, wealth and women. The weak began being suppressed by the strong. Primitive dictatorships were established.

It was probably then that a few enlightened souls began to reflect on the degeneration of humanity. They began to realize what was happening was not correct, and needed corrective action. What is the use of man’s superior intelligence, if he continues to behave like a wild animal? Someone needed to reign in mankind; else man would lead to his own downfall.

But how could they make ordinary men follow the right path, and make sure that they do not get carried away by their primitive instincts? If they had tried to instill the righteous way of life to others by themselves, they would have been rejected outright. The enlightened souls might have then realized that, in order to show man the right path, they must feed on man’s most primitive emotion: fear.

They must then have merged the notions of the omnipotent and omnipresent Supreme Being that people had at that time, with teachings about morality and duty. They used concept of God to guide less awakened men and women through their lives. They preached moral principles as the word of the Supreme Being that controls the world; the word of God. If you fear God, you got to obey his word. The word of God was to live in peace and harmony, to take care of the weak and underprivileged, and to work together for a greater good of humanity. If you do not obey Him, you will incur God’s wrath. Perhaps this was how world’s earliest religions were invented.

Every religion in the world teaches the same things, as the word of God. The vehicle is different, but the destination is always the same.

Does God exist?

Whether God has said these things or not, we cannot prove or disprove scientifically. But we do know that what has been preached as the word of God is the correct way of life for all of humanity.

What practical purpose does God serve in our lives?

One, the word of God, as conveyed by each and every religion in the world, shows us the right way of leading our lives. Do not oppress the weak, but help them. Do not resort to anger and violence. Do not cheat. Man’s natural tendency is to go against all these things. But the fear that God always keeps account of your moral credit history, is what keeps most of us from going astray.

Two, God is supposed to help us in our troubled times. We pray to God when we are in distress, and God supposedly provides divine intervention to help us.

Have you ever scientifically thought how praying helps? Is the world any different before and after you have prayed? Has the obstacle you were about to face become less severe? Have the problems you were trying to solve become easier? No, right? Then what has changed after praying? It is your self belief. After prayer, you begin to believe that God is on your side. You believe that He will guide you through rough waters. You are now ready to take the challenges that life throws at you head on. That is the power of belief in God.

Do we need God?

Why does a shepherd tie the cows with a rope, or surround them in a fence? Because he does not want them to wander away aimlessly towards danger. God is the “imaginary” shepherd. And the word of God is the rope or fence that ties us ordinary mortals to our morals. Else we would have wandered away to our downfalls centuries ago.

If a cow is wise enough to realize that she is not supposed to wander away and stay at the location the shepherd has assigned for her, she does not need to be tied to any rope or fence. Similarly, the really enlightened ones among us do not need the concept of God to guide them through their lives. They know the right path without any fear.

BUT the other 99.99999999999 percent of the world DOES need God.

Chronicals of a chronic cricket fan..

31st Jan 1999 -

I was preparing for my pre-engineering test. I had a mock exam that day. But my heart was not in studies. I was more interested in the dramatic India vs. Pakistan Test Match going on in Chennai. Yet studies always came first. I turned up for the mock exam on time. As soon as the final bell rang, I rushed back to my friend's home to catch the final moments of the match. The match was over by then. But the highlights were still playing. Sachin Tendulkar and Nayan Mongia were in the process of digging India out of a hole and taking them to a memorable win. We jumped and rejoiced as the highlights moved as a frantic pace; as Tendulkar battled back spasms to hit one boundary after another, taking India closer and closer to victory. Just when we thought the match was in the bag, disaster struck. Tendulkar hold out to Saqlain Mushtaq for 136. Within minutes, the Indian innings was over. Pakistan had secured a famous win and were doing a lap of honour in front of the Chennai crowd.

5th Nov 2009 -

I was in office, away from India, busy with work. While browsing the net, I suddenly realized that Tendulkar was leading a heroic solo effort against Australia, in an ODI in Hyderabad. I immediately logged into Cricinfo and started checking the latest score updates. Forgetting all work, I kept pressing the refresh button endlessly, as the scoreboard motored along with each Tendulkar boundary. Trying to recall the thousands of runs I have seen him score on TV over 2 decades, I tried to visualize each shot from the commentary I read on the webpage. This time, Tendulkar was determined not to let Chennai 1999 be repeated. But with 19 required of 18 balls, Tendulkar hold out for an epic 175. The Indian innings was soon wrapped up. History repeated itself.

P.S. -

1. Other similarities between the 2 games.

2. Previous post on a similar event.

Should newspapers charge for online content?

As I work in the Media vertical in my organization, I am constantly bombarded with information about how newspapers are struggling as more and more readers turn to online modes of news consumption. The web is abuzz with articles on the biggest problem newspapers are facing today - online revenue is growing, but not fast enough to make up for falling print advertising. This got me thinking about what could be the real reason behind this.

In an ideal world, the amount of revenue generated by one medium should be somewhat proportional to the readership of that medium. Example, if 30% of NYT’s readership comes from NYT.com and 70% from the offline newspaper, around 20-30% of ad revenue for NYT should also be generated from NYT.com. This is clearly not the case; otherwise the above problem might not have arisen.

One factor that comes to mind is that the effectiveness of online advertising can be measured much more easily and accurately than offline advertising. For example, it is very easy to find out how many people clicked on your ads on a news website, but very difficult to measure how many readers paid attention to an ad posted on page 5 of a newspaper. The only measure of effectiveness advertisers probably went by over the years was the sales volume, which may or may not have been impacted solely by the ads they published in newspapers.

Hence, for all the decades that companies had been posting ads on offline newspapers, they may never have been able to guess the value (eyeballs) generated by their ads with a great deal of accuracy. So they continued to pump in a lot more money than it was probably necessary, into newspaper ads.

But advertisers today are no longer constrained by limited amounts of information about online ads. Hence they are now perhaps not going over-board with their online ad spending. The amount of online ad spend is being driven by more precise information about the value obtained. Thus, advertisers are perhaps not being as profligate with their online ads spending today, as they had been with offline ads all these years.

The rise of targeted online advertising might also be a reason for the dip in proportional revenue. While in an offline newspaper, targeted advertising would only be limited to placing a sports equipment ad on the sports page, or placing a home furniture ad in a special home improvement supplement, online ads can be targeted based on the reader’s demographic and historical browsing data.

This factor is making advertisers smarter; helping them place ads with more accuracy, and spend more wisely. They are now paying for ads to be displayed to only a subset of readers accessing the news website that belong to their target segment, and not for the entire population. Thus, advertisers are perhaps spending less on online ads for a new campaign as compared to what they might have done in an offline counterpart in yesteryears.

The above factors, along with other drivers like higher number of avenues for advertising available today (mobile, TV, non-news websites etc.) as compared to the past, might be key reasons why online ad revenues are not being able to reach the same heights as offline revenues of the past.

Charging users for online content seems to be the favorite line of thought pursued by most media houses today, for increasing online revenues. I beg to differ with this strategy. Free content is the very DNA of the internet. All great internet innovations, from e-mail to social networking, have thrived on being free to the end user (How many takers did we see for the paid 20 MB e-mail accounts that that Yahoo and Hotmail used to offer to users when the free accounts had 2 MB space, in the pre-Gmail era?). Hence, charging for online content might not be the wisest thing to do. Especially since one is always likely to find relatively equivalent quality of free content somewhere else on the web.

The problem caused by data can perhaps also be solved with more data. It might be a good idea for news websites to invest more heavily into web analytics and obtain greater degrees of information about their readers and their reading behavior. This could help them broaden the gamut of options they provide advertisers for targeted advertising; and even explore options that advertisers have never done before. This can drive newer and more diverse ways for posting targeted ads; and consequently earn them more revenue.

The utopian aim should be to reach a stage where they have enough information so that all the ads shown to no two readers on the same webpage are exactly the same. After all, one of the key advantages the web has over offline mediums is that it is not constrained by size and shape. While one can only stuff in so many ads in a copy of an offline newspaper, the avenues for customizing content on a web-page are limitless.

Challenges of customization of online news

Warning:- Technical post ahead.

When I came across this article sometime back, I was specially intrigued by one particular portion –

Everyone can publish, and everyone will - This is a problem, but since online journalism is still in its relative infancy it’s one that can be solved (we’re technology optimists, remember?). The experience of consuming news on the web today fails to take full advantage of the power of technology. It doesn’t understand what users want in order to give them what they need. When I go to a site like the New York Times or the San Jose Mercury, it should know what I am interested in and what has changed since my last visit. If I read the story on the US stimulus package only six hours ago, then just show me the updates the reporter has filed since then (and the most interesting responses from readers, bloggers, or other sources). If Thomas Friedman has filed a column since I last checked, tell me that on the front page. Beyond that, present to me a front page rich with interesting content selected by smart editors, customized based on my reading habits (tracked with my permission).

This got me thinking about the way presentation of news is expected to evolve in news websites, and how it would differ from offline newspapers. Most news websites these days do support “Guided navigation” features, suggesting articles to readers though links like “You might also be interested in..”, “People who read this also read..” etc. While “guided navigation” does have its obvious benefits, I have a difference of opinion with the suggestion that news websites of the future can completely replace the reading pleasure of offline newspapers. Anyone suggesting that content on a news website should ONLY be tailored to the interests and reading patterns of the reader, forgets that one of the key benefits of reading an offline newspaper is the ability to BROWSE through all topics all the time, and figure out what is interesting to you at that moment. For example, Mr. X may never have read the Finance section of the news website in the past, but if he sees an article about lay-offs or pay-cuts in the Finance section one day, he would definitely read it. Similarly, Mr. X might never read the Science and Health section, but might be interested in an article on an ailment which he suffers from. If the content of presented to Mr. X by the news website is tailored only on what Mr. X have been reading since the time he started using the service, such articles would never show up for him. Such algorithms would only narrow down a reader’s vision and knowledge acquisition to fields he or she has been 'historically' interested in (historically here means the history carried by the service provider), which might be biased by the previous set of articles and news items accessed on that service. Hence, an attempt of this kind, narrows the reader’s interest and intellectual growth in the direction defined by the interest he or she had from the time the reader started using the service. I do understand that such algorithms do get more “intelligent” as the duration of use increases. But there is a limit to which an algorithm can guess what a person wants to read.

A hybrid approach might be the way to go in the future. Front pages of news websites can have 2 sections, one presenting the latest headlines and editorial articles belonging to various topics (that is same for all readers), and one that presents articles based on historical data about the reader’s reading habits (stored with the reader’s permission). Going forward, algorithms of the future, apart from a person’s reading habits, must also consider other attributes like a person’s background (educational, professional, personal, demographic) while coming up with customized articles of the reader’s interest. This approach might help counter the two scenarios mentioned above. In this aspect, integration with social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc. might be an option worth considering.

Mythological Mystery

Yesterday, someone at work forwarded me this joke -

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In some remote village of India , a Masterji was teaching Mahabharat Katha to class 6 students. He was at the 'Krishnajanma' chapter.

Masterji: Kansa heard an akashwani that, his sister's 8th child would kill him. He was furious. He ordered to put Vasudev and Devaki behind bars.

First son is born, and Kansa kills him by poisoning...

Second one is born and Kansa throws him off the mountain peak...

Third one is born....

Now Ramu, who is smartest of the lot, raises his hand.

Ramu: Masterji, I have a doubt (sounding nervous and confused)

Masterji: Ramu bete, whole of India does not have doubt in Mahabharata then how come you have one?"

Ramu: Masterji, if Kansa knew that, Devaki's 8th child was going to kill him, why the hell did he put Vasudev and Devaki in the same cell???

Masterji fainted.......

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Though the joke was good, I began thinking about the real reason for this. After some research, I chanced upon a plausible reason -

Kans was a doting brother. He loved his sister Devaki very much. Vasudev was Kans’ friend and his choice as the husband for Devaki. When Kans heard the Akashvani about Devaki’s 8th son killing him, he imprisoned Vasudev and Devaki together. His plan was to release Devaki and Vasudev after he had killed first 8 children. Though Kans was a cruel man, he loved his sister, and did not want to keep her imprisoned for life. Moreover, he had complete confidence on the security system of his jail and could never imagine that someone could escape. He thought, that after killing the 8th child, he will be out of danger.

The next question that came to my mind was -

If Kansa knew that Devaki's 8th child would kill him, why did he kill the first 6 (remember that the 7th child Balrama was not killed either)?

After some more research, the answer to this question was also found -

The first 6 sons of Devaki were sons of Marichi. They once laughed at Sage Devala, as he was very ricketee. He cursed them. They were born as the sons of Kalanemi. They became known as Sadgarbha. They used to remain in the water at Patala loka performing penance to obtain immortality. Brahma granted them immortality. However Hiranyakashipu became angry at this. He did not like his brother's grandsons obtaining a boon from Brahma (Kalanemi was the son of Hiranyakashipu's brother Hiranyaksha).

Therefore, he cursed them to be born again and be killed by their own father. Accordingly, they were born as Devaki's children and were killed by their own father. Kamsa as Kalanemi was their father in their earlier birth. The boon given by Brahma to be immortal and the curse given by Hiranyakashipu to be killed by their father were reconciled by Durga.

To make this happen Narad muni went to Kansa after akashvani and feed this idea of “killing all” into his head. To trick Kansa - Narad drew a circle with eight dots and asked Kansa to identify the 8th dot, which was impossible and he obliged to kill all approach.

Here is another line of thought as a possible explanation -

Kansa knew that Gods had a history of deceiving Asuras. He may have thought that Vishnu may take birth as any one of Devaki's sons, and not necessarily her 8th. 

Kansa's belief came from various examples in Hindu mythology where Gods deceived Rakshasas. 

Few examples being, Hiranyakashyap (bhakt prahlad’s father) had a boon, that he cannot be killed by a man or animal. So Vishnu adopted the Narsinha Avtar to kill him. And then there is the story of Bakasur. He got a boon from Shanker, that anyone placing a hand on his head would die immediately. He went on a killing spree of devtaas. Devtas cried foul and asked Vishnu for help. Vishnu took a roop of a beautiful apsara and attracted Bakasur. Bakasur proposed her and she (Vishnu) kept a bet for agreeing to her proposal that Bakasur would have to do few steps of dance like her. Bakasur agreed, and after few steps the apsara kept her own hand in her head, so did the foolish Bakasur and died. There are many other stories like these in Hindu mythology. 

Now for a possible scientific reason -

In case Devaki had a mis-carriage by chance, Kansa may not come to know about it. In that case, the count of her offspings would be wrong. Hence he may not have wanted to take any chances.

The more you study this great epic, the more interesting things you learn.

6 Online Vices

This tag from Nikhil has forced me to come out of my online slumber.

I agree with all the vices mentioned by Nikhil, hence I will start my list from no.6. But I will go one step further and list 6 vices from my side. :-)

6. Sending mails with "Hi" or other such meaningless subject lines

In these days when an average person's mailbox consists of hundreds and thousands of mails, and searching for the right mail is a time consuming and often irritating activity, the least one can expect is the sender to use proper subject lines in mails (indicating the content of the mail), so that the recipient can easily figure out what the mail is all about.

7. Sending mails with no subject line

This is not an out-an-out wise as it were. It might sometimes make sense to send mails without subject lines. But one should try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary, for the same reasons as mentioned in point no. 6.

8. Typing entire mails in CAPITAL letters

This is a universally accepted vice. Not only does a mail in ALL CAPS indicate that the composer is try to shout aloud at the top of his voice, but it also makes it very difficult to read.

9. Using multiple font colors in one mail

While it might be necessary to use more than one font color in a mail (for highlighting a particular portion), extravagant use of multiple font colors various sentences / words in the same e-mail a big turn-off.

10. Not being able to find mails in one's mailbox and asking people to re-send mails frequently

Mailboxes of today have ceased to be tools of leisure and become the single most important repository of personal information. Hence, it is imperative that people manage their mails properly, and not loose or misplace them frequently. Given the extremely high number of mails received by everyone these days, it is natural to misplace an odd mail or two at times. But this should definitely not be a chronic problem.

11. Using "Read Receipt" and / or "High Priority" in all mails

Excessive use / abuse of anything makes it loose its value.

The Vote

I did something momentous the other day. I voted for the 1st time in my life!!

Although I have been an adult for quite some time now, this is the first time I have exercised my franchise. The main reason for me being not voting all these years was the fact that I had never been in my hometown at the time of polls. I am happy to have finally broken the jinx. :-)

Similarities between IPL and Elections

Both will begin and end together..

Both will be highly entertaining..

Both will contain many controversies..

Both will cause a Media frenzy..

Both will result in record TV ratings..

Both have obscene amounts of money at stake..

Both involve Corporate funding..

Both involve buying and selling of people..

Both have number games..

Both have Bollywood Celebs involved..

Both involve heavy Marketing and Propaganda..

Both their key players will make millions..

Both feed on strong regional allegiances..

Both involve many weird acronyms (KKR, NCP, BJD etc.)..

Both have "foreign" participation..

Both will capture the imagination of the nation..

Both will not change the life of the common man..

My Favorite Subjects

I watched Taare Zammen Par the other day. The movie made me think back to my school days, the subjects I studied and how I fared in them. Thankfully, I did not have any learning difficulty like the protagonist in the film. In fact, I was more like his elder brother who used to do well in class. Watching the film took me back to a variety of thoughts that floated in my mind as a student. 

Every student has a different approach to learning. Some like to understand each and every concept in depth. Such students score very well in some areas (in topics they understood completely) and very poorly in other areas (where they could not grasp the topic completely). Some others like to cram the content in each subject till they memorize it by heart. Such students usually score highly in exams, since they can reproduce pages after pages of content as it is from textbooks to exam answer sheets. My method of learning was based on maximizing the return of investment. Based on the analysis of several factors like type of questions to be asked in the exams (descriptive or objective), the likely examiner, the amount of content to be covered for the particular exam, I used to formulate what and how much to study. Instead of spending hours trying to understand each and every concept, or trying to memorize pages after pages of content, I preferred to develop a deep enough understanding of the subject matter that was sufficient enough to write a good answer in the exam; nothing more or nothing less. I also placed a great emphasis on revision of studied matter. I made it a point to revise the content at least twice before the exam, preferably once on the morning of the exam, in order to ensure that all ideas are fresh in my mind. This approach helped ensure that I had countered the two most basic pitfalls in learning for an exam, not covering the entire course and forgetting what one has studied.  And when it came to actually writing the exam, I followed another simple strategy to overcome one of the most common mistakes students make in an exam, i.e. taking too much time to finish the initial answers and ending up short of time to answer all questions. I divided the time alloted for the exam into the number of sections in the question paper, leaving some buffer at the end for revision. For example, in a 3 hour exam with a question paper having 5 sections, I allocated 30 minutes to each section, leaving the last 30 minutes as buffer. I tried to complete answering each section within 30 minutes. If I took longer in one section, I tried to make it up in the next. And the last 30 minutes where used up in either finishing up on some incomplete sections and / or reading through the answers to avoid any silly mistakes like wrong numbering, attaching supplements in wrong order etc. These approaches served me well all through my student life. But each student has his own way of learning, and one size does not fit all.

The protagonist in "Taare Zammen Par" had great difficulty in remembering spellings, but was exceptionally good in arts. This made me think back to the subjects I liked in school. Though I did well in almost all subjects, like every student, I had a few favorites. Here is a list of my favorite subjects in school (and college subsequently), starting from the most favorite to the least.

1. Mathematics - No surprises here. Given the fact that I ultimately ended up being an engineer indicates by preference for logic, and hence for Math. Though I loved all disciplines within Math, I had a greater affinity towards topics like Geometry (2D and 3D), Trigonometry and Calculus, as compared to others like Algebra, Probability etc. In fact, I could never figure out the intricacies of Probability till the last day. I can still remember the joy I derived from solving sums in school (and college subsequently). Perhaps one day, when I am retired and have plenty to spare time, I would open some school books and solve a few sums again, just to bring all my school memories back. 
2. Sanskrit - A surprise at the number 2 position. What is a language doing at the second place in the favorite subjects list of a person who turned out to be an engineer? Well the answer lies in the question itself. I found Sanskrit to be the most logical language I studied. Words, phrases and sentences followed a more logical structure in Sanskrit than in any other language. The only tough part was memorizing some of the tongue twisting words. But as I used to have a pretty good memory in my childhood, I never faced any problems on that front.Plus the decent handle I had on Hindi spellings (refer point 4) helped out in making fewer mistakes in writing Sanskrit words.
3. Physics - This one is a bit tricky. Physics (along with Chemistry) branched out to be a separate subject from 11th standard onwards. I was not too font of some of the initial topics that I studied in 11th and 12th standard like Oscillations, Gravity, Fluid Motion etc. But by the time I reached the higher topics like Relativity in college, I was truly fascinated. This was perhaps due to 2 reasons. One, I had always had a fascination for topics like Relativity, Space, Time etc from an early age, due to some of the scientific concepts my father had embedded in me as bed time stories. And I just could not wait to have the opportunity to learn these topics in class. Two, I was fascinated by how complex mathematical equations came together to explain some of the most intricate laws in Physics.
4. Hindi- Another strange entry. Hindi was not a subject that I particularly liked; it is just one that I was quite good at. The story of my proficiency in Hindi is an interesting one. In primary school, I started off being very very poor in the subject. I could some how never get all the "maatraas" right. Till date, I have never been able to remember all alphabets in the Hindi language in their defined order. Then one fine day, my mother decided to subscribe the Hindi children's magazine "Paraag" for me. And that did wonders for my knowledge of the language. Soon, I got rid of all the spelling errors I used to make and began scoring consistently high marks in Hindi. In fact, I still remember that my marks in Hindi used to be almost at par with subjects like Math and Science, which was a surprise since people generally do not score as highly in Language as they do in Math and Science. One of the reasons for my scoring highly in Hindi was also the fact that the same teacher (Madam Tiwari) taught us Hindi for 7 years in school (6th to 12th standard). And as I have written before, one of the keys to getting good marks is being able to figure out the type of answers your teacher likes. I got so used to her way of teaching and examining papers, that I began to understand the way in which she liked answers to be composed. She had a preference for a particular logical ordering of content. I began to tailor my answers in order to match the same year after year, and reaped the benefits handsomely.
5. Social Studies (History, Civics, Geography) - I was quite ambivalent towards this subject. I neither liked or disliked it. It did not provide me with any specific point of interest like Math or Physics. Since I used to have a sharp memory in those days, I did not find it too difficult to memorize the long pieces of content that were required. Perhaps my lack of interest in this subject was also due to the fact that it was taught be one of the most soporific teacher in school, and that the textbooks in those days used to be very bland, unlike ones today that contain a lot of pictures and other interesting tit bits of information.
6. English - Another ambivalent subject for me. Though I performed above average in this one too, but it never captured my imagination. One of the reasons could be that the English curriculum in our Board was pretty rudimentary. Hence the subject matter did not arouse much interest in students. But the logical mind in me did like English Grammar, much like Sanskrit Grammar.
7. Chemistry - Now to the category of subjects that I disliked. I somehow never got the hand of Chemistry. I have no idea why. Ideally, a person who liked Math and Physics should like Chemistry too, after all it is quite a logical and interesting subject. Our school Chemistry teacher was a good lady was pretty good as well, but I somehow never got to liking the subject. As a result, my Chemistry grades usually lagged behind other subjects.
8. Biology - I disliked biology because one had to remember everything. There was no way of logically deducing anything. That too when most of the stuff was pretty cryptic. Chloroplast, Epidermis, Protozoa, Hermaphrodites were not for me. And what's more, unlike Social Studies where you could memorize the crux of the content and then right it in your own words, one needed to remember each and every detail in Biology. My dislike for the extensive amount of cramming one had to do in Biology was one of the core reasons why I decided to pursue Engineering as against Medicine.

Quote Hanger

Here are some of the good quotes I have encountered in the recent past. Some funny, some thought provoking, some both at the same time :-)

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What do you call a beautiful woman on the arm of an ugly man? A tattoo.

It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

When a man holds a woman's hand before marriage, it is love; after marriage, it is self-defense.

The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.

You can tell what a man is by what he does when he hasn't anything to do.

You can also tell a man by what he does first when he has a lot to do.

Cricket quote:- Good captaincy is like pornography - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it.

The financial situation at the moment is so bad that women are now marrying for love.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise ,makes your Girl go for another Guy.

Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

In order to conserve energy, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.

वक़्त मिलने पे मै तेरी जुल्फ को सुलझा दूंगा, आज उलझा हूँ वक़्त को सुलझाने में!

There are some things man was never meant to know. For everything else, there's Google !!

Life is like a taxi meter. It keeps ticking whether you are getting anywhere or not.

End of an era..

All Indian Crickets fans in their 20s, like me, will identify with this amazing article in Cricinfo.

La Loo !!

The following photographs were taken inside an AC 2 Tier compartment of an Indian Train.

In case you are wondering what the gadgets above are, these are Toilet Occcupancy Indicators, giving passengers inside the compartment an idea about whether the toilets are occupied or not. Trust the Indian Railways to come up with such ingenious innovations.

Needless to say, the indicators always showed the "Vacant" sign irrespective of whether the toilet was occupied or not.

My favorite TV shows

Off late, I have been thinking about some TV shows that I have loved watching over the years. These are shows I can watch again and again, whenever they are telecast on TV.

1. Yes Minister (and it's later Indian version "Ji Mantri Ji")- Classic British humor. For all you fans of "Friends" and other American sitcoms, I believe nothing comes anywhere close to the instantaneous bureaucracy bashing wit of this legendary British show. I loved the Indian version as well, but was disappointed that it turned out to be an exact copy of the original, whereas introduction of a few nuances of Indian politics into the script would have made it many times more relevant and interesting. Alas, the Indian version had too few episodes.

2. B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat - It was this epic TV series that kick-started my fascination with the story of Mahabharat. The production values and manner of story telling in this serial were far superior than the other mythological epic telecast on Doordarshan in the 1980's, Ramanant Sagar's Ramayan (Particularly infuriating were the repetative scenes where opponents used to hurl arrows at each other in war, and the arrows took almost the entire length of the episode to hit each other.). My fondness for the show also stems from the inherent beauty of the multi-leyered story line of this epic. Ekta Kapoor's recent Kahani Hamarey Mahabharat Ki is just a gaudy remake of the original.

3. Flop Show - This is unquestionably the best satirical comedy telecast on Indian television. No show before or after this, has been able to expose the idiosyncrasies of Indian society and the inefficiencies of Indian bureaucracy in the same laugh-out-laud way as this show. Office-Office is the only other show that comes close, but is not in the same league. Even Jaspal Bhatti has not been able to re-create the same magic in any other show since. The amount of humor packed into each episode o the show was truly incredible. Each episode which dealt with a different problem in the life of a common man, consisted of a small joke in the beginning, the main storyline in the middle, and a parody song in the end. Sheer genius!!

4. Star Trek - As a child with a fascination for sci-fi and space, Star Trek had to be one of my favorites. Apart from the sci-fi elements, I loved Captain Kirk's at times arrogant personality and Spock's funnily shaped ears!! "Beam Me Up, Scotty" is my all time favorite TV dialogue.

Worst movies I have seen..

I am not a great movie buff. I watch very few hindi movies. Hence, I am perhaps not the best person to write a blog post on this topic, as I have not seen a lot of gems like Love Story 2050, Bichchu, Oh Darling Yeh Hai India, Safari, Apne etc.

Yet, I have been lucky enough to watch a few landmark movies that will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst in the history of Indian cinema. I call myself lucky since I am sure the number of people who have seen the following films can be counted on fingertips. The idea was not to list poor movies, but the absolute worst of the lot.

1. RGV ki Aag (2007) - This film will almost certainly go down as the biggest disaster in Bollywood history, the greatest damp squib of all times. What strikes you most is the mockery it made of exceptional actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Mohan Lal. Absolutely none of the elements of the original Sholey, like the bond between Jai and Veeru, Thakur's internal angst, Gabbar's menace etc. get depicted anywhere near as well as the original. RGV might have been better off projecting his movie as a comic spoof of Sholey rather than a serious remake, as a majority of the audience came out laughing from the theater at this utterly ridiculous attempt at mimicking a classic.

2. Gajagamini (2000) - To call this movie "bad" is an injustice to it. "Incomprehensible" is a more apt description. Watching this movie was like staring at a Modern Art painting, trying to figure our the hidden meanings behind the abstract expressions. I am sure not many apart from Mr. M.F. Hussain have been able to figure them out. Even Hussain's muse Madhuri was so embarrassed that she did not turn up for the film's premier !!

3. Badhti Ka Naam Daadhi (1974) - This movie, which must have been conceived by Kishore Kumar during of of his eccentric fits, was an attempt to recreate the magic of the 50's hit "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi". The horrendous nature of the movie is aptly illustrated by the absurd premise of the story. A rich old man mentions in his will that he would give away his fortune to the person with the longest beard. The lucky man turns out to be Kishore Kumar, whose beard it longer than his height itself. the rest of the film has a few goons chasing him with scissors, and the Kishore Kumar dodging them successfully. The least one expected from a Kishore Kumar movie was some good music, but this film was a monumental let down on that front too.

4. Jaani Dushman - Ek Anokhi Kahaani (2002) - Raj Kumar Kohli's suicidal attempt to remake his 1976 hit Nagin and launch the acting career of his son Armaan Kohli. The saying "Money can't buy everything" is apt for this hopeless film. It is very apparent that the makers spent a fortune in trying to re-create special effects of major Hollywood blockbusters, but it seems that they completely forgot to make any attention to the storyline itself. How else can you justify the hero of the movie just having a couple of lines to speak, inspite of being present in almost half of the scenes. Anyone watching this film should not forget to catch Sonu Nigam doing some of the worst acting ever seen on the silver screen. No wonder no one has heard of Raj Kumar and Armaan Kohli ever since.

Note:- I have confined my selection to A list (big budget and leading star cast) films. I have not looked at B grade movies like countless Mithun-da flicks (Truck Driver Suraj, Kaliya, Chandaal to name a few) for my selection, since such movies are meant to be poor by definition.

I am sure readers of this post would recall many other equally horrible movies they have seen. Comments invited.

Arbit Choudhury turns 4 !!

Today is a very special day for me. Today Arbit Choudhury celebrates his 4th Birthday!!

The last 4 years have been an incredible journey for us. When we first conceived the idea way back in 2004 - it started as an attempt to create humor out of our B-school lifestyles, textbooks, syllabi and jargon. Today, the flavor of Arbit humor has expanded to cover corporate life, business lingo, management concepts, and occasionally even social happenings.

Comments, criticisms, encouraging mails and most importantly unwritten and unspoken support that fans have given Arbit over the last 4 years have kept us going.

To mark this special occasion, we have released a new version of the Arbit Choudhury website www.arbitmba.com today, replete with cool features like Tag Clouds, Rating Widgets etc.

This is in fact the 3rd version of the Arbit website. Today, let me go down memory lane and display the various versions of the Arbit Choudhury Website over the years..

Arbit Choudhury Website V1.0 (launched on 16th January 2005)

Arbit Choudhury Website V2.0 (launched on 5th September 2006)

Arbit Choudhury Website V3.0 (launched on 5th September 2008)

I Bowled at Geoffrey Boycott :-)

Readers of this blog know that I am a big Cricinfo fan, and visit the site quite regularly to get my dose of Cricket news, articles and stats. A few days back, I had posted a question in the "Bowl at Boycs" section. Mr. Boycott has replied to the same here. (My question is the 4th in the list.)