The Other Side of Life

I love this time of the year! Because, it's time for a round up! Yay! I don't know about you, but I had a happening year. Between Graduation, Sherlock's knee surgery, living alone in Singapore, Sherlock moving to Singapore, me trying to find my footing at work and tonnes of resolutions to keep up, I had my hands full. I can look back at the year and say, I am glad we went through what we did, because believe it or not, as cliches go, we came out stronger. But, what made me the happiest this year was how hard I worked at my non-work related resolutions. I wanted to read 50 books and I completed my 50th book yesterday. It was hard, but I cannot put it in words, how much it was worth the effort. One of my complaints to myself was always that I didn't read enough non-fiction. This year, I read 15. I just cannot get over that. Here are the 50 books I read: I wanted to write a lot this year. I did it in spurts, but I did write. I did a blogatho...

Don't get me wrong.  I am one of those who would happily describe myself as a "Digital Native" on social media profiles.  I am as addicted to my phone as any other person. I get notification vibrations on my wrist. I scroll aimlessly when I am bored. I like single-click purchase experiences. If a cab takes more than 6 minutes, I cancel it. In other words, I am in all ways spoilt by the luxuries of technology. And yet, I am willing to make a strong case against the conveniences offered by technology. Here's why. In an ideal world, we add conveniences to our lives, so that we save on time. Time that can be used to pursue other valuable activities. Or to just relax. So, technically this explains it - additional valuable time gained increases as convenience increases. Maybe when the wheel was invented, this graph worked. Caveman 1 said to the other, "Hey, I can now reach your place faster now. We can hunt more and keep our families safe. Yay!" H...

I laughed when I saw the horror movie Scream 2. And it seems, I now have a good reason why. Back when television content was not available at a click of a button, at your whims and fancies, when there was no Google to answer all your questions, the biggest change in our lives was the introduction of cable television. And t he cable TV guide, of course. Every month, when the cable guy came for the cheque, he would drop a cable guide, with reams of pages full of lists of television programs, sorted by time, in a really small print. It required skill to get through that. And I thought I had it. One fine afternoon in March, right after school exams got over and we got the only vacation in the year, when there was no homework, tests or things to do, I decided to watch a movie. I poured over the TV Guide for an hour, trying to decide what to watch.  I pushed my pudgy finger along rows of data, trying to find just the right thing to watch. After much mental debate, I lan...

My day has been made. With this news: http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/247390/ A startup called Crow-ded Cities from Netherlands  won the Dutch Accenture Innovation Award this year. Their objective? To train crows to pick up cigarette butts in return for food. This is amazing, at so many levels. That we thought it would be easier to train crows to pick up what we throw, than train people not to throw in the first place, speaks so much about us as a society. I am beginning to think, the cows that sit in the middle of the busiest roads in Bangalore are actually some intelligent startup's highly advanced way of making speeding cars slow down.  Or the monkey that entered someone's house in my society last week and stole a box full of cookies (this is true, not making it up), was  merely helping the residents stick to their diet and not cheat. But, more seriously, when and why did we give up on humans? Is that how hopeless we have become at following rules? ...

My grandmother is quite the storyteller. She often regales us with stories from her childhood. My favorite is the one about earrings.  It seems, my grandfather had lovingly gifted her a pair of earrings, which were, undoubtedly, very pretty and she loved them. She wore them everyday. For five years. Then, she got bored. But this was way before humanity became a victim of materialism. So, my grandfather told her, in as many words, that because the rings were still in good condition and not broken, there didn't seem to be any good reason to buy new ones. My grandmother, being *MY* grandmother, of course wanted new earrings. She tried all ways to convince him, to no avail. And then, opportunity presented itself. She had to travel by the train to their village. Just after she had boarded the train, when she was sitting on the window seat, clutching her bag, saying her goodbyes, my grandfather whispered ominously to her from the platform where he was standing, "Don't ...

Many experts are of the opinion that very soon machines will be taking over our jobs. I am happy to report that as per my calculations, these experts are quite precisely wrong. At least as far as India is concerned. Take the self-driving cars that the tech world is so pumped about. I am willing to bet my car's never used 5th gear on this, that these over-hyped machines will not even survive the 3 km stretch from Silk Board to Koramangala in Bangalore. Here it is, cruising along at a glorious 6 kmph, with all its sensors showing a safe cruise ahead because the traffic light says green, when all of a sudden a hand pops out bang in front of the dashboard. It is, of course, the royal pedestrian (and 17 more people who decide to follow this man, as he leads them to freedom into the other side of the road), whose need to cross the road is so paramount a requirement, that the world must come to a grinding halt and watch the procession, led by "the hand", cross the road int...

If you have never taken a real hit on your self-worth, may I suggest you to try giving your car for service?  The service person's diagnosis of your car will make you want to go home and tear into shreds that precious Engineering degree certificate that your parents have saved so proudly, along with a picture of you in the black graduation robes, and go join whatever course the chap in the blue uniform took, that gave him the ability to give such an astute diagnosis with such intellectual sounding words. Like today, my service technician told me that, "There is an urgent requirement for me to get a zinc oxide coating on the Silencer because the existing anti rust treatment of the underbody was not sufficient for the silencer, since the special alloy based chemical composition of its exterior makes it immune to the anti rust coating and hence, is susceptible to damage from water and hence, the need for me to spend a holy Rs 4500 on getting this absolutely essential zi...

The other day, I was getting my daily dose of depressing news from the newspaper, when my maid pointed to a picture of Sasikala on the paper and asked me if I support her or OPS.  I shrugged and said, noone really, I don't have an opinion on this matter. I could literally see her image of me in her head come crashing down and her dusting the remains of my broken shattered self image into her dust pan. She was disappointed in me for not having an opinion! I don't blame her. We have become an opinion hungry society. If you are not a card carrying opinionated bigot today, you are an uninformed person, living in a cave, trying to light a fire with two stones. You are expected to have an opinion on everything. On topics related to our lives - Apple or Android? Beach or Hills? Eat pizza crust or leave it? Dogs or Cats? Books or Kindle? Books or Books converted to Movies?  On topics not related to our lives directly - Trump or Obama? Right or Left? Amma or...

Some part of me believes that inanimate objects have life and feelings. Psychologists apparently took time out to actually name this phenomenon - "Animistic Thinking", it seems. But I go a step forward. Somehow, I believe that inanimate objects don't just have feelings, they are probably far more sensitive than us humans. If vehicles in traffic jams could talk, I am sure this is what they are discussing: Bike to car: "I am sorry, I didn't mean to scratch you. My boss is on an ego trip. Someone needs to break this to him - he won't fit in this tiny gap." Truck to Scooter being driven by a lady: "Oops. Oops. Oops. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I scared you, didn't I? I am so embarrassed. This half educated nit driving me thinks it's fun to act intimidating on road. I am so sorry." Autorickshaw to everyone on the road:  "Watch out! My boss is on a roll.  Sorry Ma'am! Sorry boss! Arrey, I said sorry. ...

When I was younger, December holidays meant eating peanuts in the sun, while the mother knit a sweater. It meant snuggling in a razai and slipping into a vegetative state reading and re-reading books, or watching Disney cartoons in the one hour of TV that was allowed. It meant assisting in the annual ritual of making gajar halwa, and being designated the head taster. It meant somehow flexing your cold-numbed fingers to make greeting cards for the new year. It meant hugging a hot water bag and fighting for your space in front of the room heater. And the big new year's eve meant hoarding chips and snacks for the glorious party night and then depositing oneself right in front of the TV at 10 pm to watch Doordarshan's exciting countdown - "Coming Up - Two Hour Entertainment Programme". Sharp at 12, when the good folks at DD would announce the arrival of New year with the exact same graphics every year, of crackers on a black screen and the words "Happy New ...

If I had to pick a low point in Indian advertising, I would pick Radio ads. I spend 2 hours listening to radio everyday and this is the split of the listening content: 3% - Good songs 17% - Songs that are so bad, you would rather scratch your nails on a blackboard and wince in irritation than listen to these songs 10% - RJs talking, most of whom I don't mind at all 70% - Ads. So many ads. Random ads. Bad ads. Ads. Ads. And Ads. In fact, the ads are so bad, that I didn't even want to add my sarcastic comments to them. They are funny in themselves. (But of course, I just had to add my comments too). I collected the best samples from Bangalore radio ads. Have a look: Ad 1: Husband: Honey, do you realize how much time we spend indoors? I wake up in the bedroom - indoors, sit in a car and go to office - indoors, attend meetings - indoors, work - indoors and come home to... Wife: ..Indoors. Oh my god, yes! It's the same with the kids! Husband: An...

In case you are wondering, I did not ignore the blog for 2 months for no reason. I spent this time doing detailed analysis on mundane things in life. For instance, Traffic. When you spend as much time as I do, driving around in traffic, you know that this research is a fruit of painful laborious hours of intense thinking and introspection, most of which happened during traffic jams, while honking at someone and wondering in no less words, why, god, why. And then the answer dawns. After 60 days of day in, day out jams, 130 hours spent waiting for the red to turn green, the answer dawns. It's all because of us. Only we are to blame for the jams. And hence, this research. See, my logic is simple. Sure, our infrastructure sucks. Sure, the roads are bad. Sure, traffic police is incompetent. But are we sure, the entire problem is them? And not those 4 fingers pointing towards us? Hence, I present to you 5 small things, which I believe, each of us should diligently...