The English ain't that English either!

This one's a classic - taken in London. The English don't have their English right after all! Let the poor zebra cross, it's having a rough day :)

Advertising at its best!

This one from Jayanagar 4th Block. It incorporates everything you learn in B-school marketing - product differentiation (Excluzive), customer choice (virty) and a catchy brand name to go with it (Melange). I bet this guy was an IIM grad :P

A thousand words... and more!

After a long time missing, here I am again! I am starting a series of pictures taken in various locations, showcasing the vast reach of the English language. If you think English hasn't penetrated to the common man in India, think again! Of course, the usage of the language is open to interpretation. Do I see the grammar mafia starting a movement soon?



Good Intentions: I am sure they meant "Plastic Free Zone" :)
Seen in Kailash Hill, Vizag

Charity

Yesterday I did something I never thought myself capable of doing. I donated half of my first month’s salary as charity. I’ve been thinking of a good place and a good way to make a contribution, and this happened unexpectedly. I know I’m not a philanthropist, and I must say I did feel a tinge of pain when I saw the receipt for the donation. It wasn’t entirely unselfish, since the international lifetime membership that I received in return for my donation was indeed an appealing prospect.

Still, in the end, I feel it is an investment well made. I have seen the organization working to feed poor school children and have often felt that I haven’t been doing anything to help out in such a noble cause. I even have a chance as a member to serve the children for a day in a year as a volunteer and I look forward to the experience. I hope the money is well utilized.

Apples and tapeworms

Routine, it creeps into life like a worm in an apple or a tapeworm in the intestines, completely undetected until you realize it is too late. Let me elaborate. Here’s a description of my daily routine.

I wake up every morning and do the same thing. Get the same milk, light the same stove and boil it. Then I drink the same coffee, do the same morning chores and let the same maid in to clean the same house. Then I get into the same thing and drive to the same place where I get to meet the same people and do the same stuff as asked to. Then I eat the same thing for lunch, and do the same thing in the afternoon as I did in the morning. Come evening time, I get back into the same thing and go back to the same place I came from in the morning. Occasionally, just for kicks, I crash into auto-rickshaw drivers and damage my car bumper a little more. Evenings and weekends represent a "break" from routine, when I meet the same person I met last week or month, instead of yesterday. Then I return home to cook and eat the same stuff and get back into the same bed at the same time every night.

And we say we lead interesting lives. That’s modesty.

Ring-a-ling-ding!

So we were in his office, sitting down and having a serious discussion. Then he got a phone call. Without hesitation, he picked up the phone and answered it. It turned out to be a telemarketing call from a credit card company, so he hung up promptly. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. This time it was the Vice President of the company asking him for a favor. The teleconversation lasted 15 minutes until he finally hung up again.

All this time, there was one subject who wasn’t part of the picture. Me. I was in the room before the telephone calls came. During the first call, I wondered if it would take long. Then the second call came, and I knew it was all over. I was sitting in the room for 15 minutes, trying my best not to lose my train of thought that had been the conversation with him before it was interrupted time and time again. All the while I wore a stupid expression on my face, hoping no one would peer into his cubicle and notice an utterly jobless person sitting for 15 minutes with nothing at all to do.

All of you have encountered such a situation numerous times. And you have been on the other side, receiving calls when in the middle of a conversation. Who is supposed to be given priority? The person in front of you, or the unknown caller? I believe that the person in front of you is more important, and the phone should be ignored unless you are expecting an important call at that time. If the phone is picked up multiple times during the conversation, it becomes a nuisance and gives an impression that the meeting is not worth the personal attention; I’d rather talk to this stranger because he seems to be of more interest at the moment.

Of course, there is always the call-back feature in every telephone which can be used when the personal meeting is over. Any thoughts and suggestions on this topic welcome.

By the way, did anybody want to issue a death warrant against telemarketers who call at the office? I'll be the first one to sign the bill.

Bangalore - metro or bust?

Bangalore - a city known for its lush gardens, scenic beauty and great weather all year round. Bangaloreans claim that the city is an Indian metropolis with a modern outlook. It is supposed to be the heart of the booming Indian software and electronics industry.

Sure, the illusion lasts for a week. But let me tell you what Bangalore is really like when the smokescreen clears. For the metropolitan city that it is, embracing people from all over the country, how about having a street sign in English or Hindi, for God’s sake! All road signs are in the local language, Kannada. Even the public transportation has signs in Kannada alone. I thought Chennai was bad when they insisted on putting up anti-Hindi protests everywhere. But at least they compensate for it by writing the bus destinations in English as well as Tamil!

Now to the root cause of the problem, the people of Bangalore. The state has been aptly named "Kar-natak" (make a scene). They have imposed a seven-week moratorium on all non-Kannada movies here, meaning that movies in all other languages will be released only seven weeks after they have released in the rest of the country. This is supposed to uplift the sagging Kannada film industry, since nobody, not even a Kannadiga, watches their lousy movies otherwise. Has anybody heard of anything more preposterous than this? Maybe Thackeray’s plan of driving all non-Maharashtrians out of Mumbai came close. That’s the way to say welcome to all the money-makers in Bangalore, who don’t belong to the state at all, much less speak the language.

How about the booming electronics and software industries here? Well, here’s the truth behind that affair. The incentive they had to set up shop in Bangalore was massive tax benefits. The spawning of these IT Parks and Electronics Cities has resulted in massive traffic problems since the small city is not built to handle such expansive growth in such a short time. It has also led to some of the worst roads possible - remember what Mumbai was like in the monsoon? Since the industries that started the problem barely pay anything as city taxes for improving the infrastructure, the condition just gets worse by the day.

The whole charade is led by a dysfunctional State Government with a Chief Minister who has effectively stopped all the infrastructure work that was in progress before he came to power. He couldn’t even form a cabinet of ministers for a month after he took office! And despite direct orders (requests were ignored a long time ago) from the Prime Minister of India himself, this guy has yet to fill a single pothole in the city’s most congested and despicable road.

Even with the "modern and broad" outlook the Bangaloreans have, companies still prefer to recruit only from local colleges, preferably Kannada speaking populace. During official meetings, they speak almost exclusively in Kannada, so a non-speaker (like me) is absolutely flabbergasted in all weekly meetings and conferences. And to think that the French are snobbish!!

Still, one learns to get around. For all the deriding remarks I made about the people here, I must say this: they are very helpful in every way possible. Some of them even go out of their normal routine to help a stranger out, which is unheard of elsewhere in the country. They are also very conscious of their image and communicate very well beyond the language barriers that exist. Even though Bangalore is a sleepy little town, people sure are active during the hours that the city is awake. Not too many lazing around, it’s a nice thing to see. Take in the good and filter out the bad, that’s what I am here to do. While in Bangalore… "Namma ooru, Bangalooru!"

A Letter from the Editor

Mr Anonymous commenter,

You've got issues. Real issues. Your critique is indeed an interesting insight into your psychology. To say that your one comment made me stop blogging, how self-engrossed and egocentric are you? There have been a bunch of things - like not having internet connectivity for 3 weeks when I moved to my new apartment in Bangalore, for instance - that stopped me from blogging all these days. Its not nothing to do with some insignificant character's urge to lecture me on what a blog is.

Mr. walking-talking-Merriam-Webster, if you really need someone to listen to your lectures, go teach some Minnesota school kids who might even be ready to listen to you. And FYI, a blog can be whatever the creator wants it to be, and if you keep it as a Princess Diary that you write into every night, that's your problem.

Oh, and Mr. Khalid Mohammed, do you have something better than the lousy critiques you generate to show for your talents at blogging? Lets see it!

The next blog is directed at Bangaloreans in general and people like you in particular, have fun reading.

Indian Roads - Getting Better?!

Today I learnt something good about the previous Indian government. Our ex-Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had a vision about improving the infrastructure of the country. He proposed the construction of an extensive four-lane highway called the Golden Quadrilateral. It would connect the four metros, New Delhi in the North, Mumbai in the West, Chennai in the South and Kolkata in the East. Phase two would be a North-South and East-West Highway, completing the connectivity of the four metros. Phase three would connect all cities in each state to the nearest metro. Phase four would connect all rural areas to the nearest city.

It’s about time somebody had the vision of improving the country’s road system. The main issue would be funding for this project, which is touted to be the biggest in the world currently. Again, Vajpayee had a stroke of genius. He levied a tax on fuel: Re.1 per liter of petrol and diesel. This guaranteed a constant flow of income to the project. I am impressed with the foresight of this man, who I always held in low regard until now, because of all the communal violence that he appears to condone or even inculcate.

The project has brought our country’s economy to a new boom. Core industries have been given a shot in the arm. Steel, construction, road machinery and numerous other industries have been given a lease of life. Employment is on the rise; money is flowing and will continue to do so. The new highways should result in better traffic regulation, better fuel economy, higher capacity trucks and reduced travel times. The project is expected to rapidly pay off the capital investment.

Kudos to the country’s leaders who had the foresight to sanction such a project, and I hope that the project will be guided to completion by the present government as well as the next ones to come. I look forward to the day when I can drive my own car and see all that this wonderful country has to offer, instead of planning 60 days in advance for want of railway tickets. My dream of an enjoyable road trip from Manali to Trivandrum, and from the Konkan to the Sunderbans may become a reality after all!

Religion and Violence

Ok, that last cliché was a really bad way to end the last blog. Now for some serious musings.

I’ve often wondered why there are people in this world who indulge in violence and terrorism as part of their lives. Isn’t a peaceful existence the desire of every intelligent being? If not, is the destruction of life such a head rush, that people are willing to sacrifice their own life to do it? Why do people join terrorist groups, what would be the driving force behind such a life-altering decision?

I found a very convincing explanation in an author’s writings, which I quote below, ad verbatim.

"The psyche of the broad masses is accessible only to what is strong and uncompromising. Like a woman whose inner sensibilities are not so much under the sway of abstract reasoning but are always subject to the influence of a vague emotional longing for the strength that completes her being, and who would rather bow to the strong man than dominate the weakling – in like manner the masses of the people prefer the ruler to the suppliant and are filled with a stronger sense of mental security by a teaching that brooks no rival than by a teaching which offers them a liberal choice. They have very little idea of how to make such a choice and thus they are prone to feel that they have been abandoned. They feel very little shame at being terrorized intellectually and they are scarcely conscious of the fact that their freedom as human beings is impudently abused; and thus they have not the slightest suspicion of the intrinsic fallacy of the whole doctrine. They only see the ruthless force and brutality of its determined utterances, to which they always submit."

How true! And what better doctrine to capture the ruthlessness than religion! What essentially exists as a guiding principle and philosophy for life becomes a weapon to be manipulated and twisted to suit one’s own destructive intentions. We see it everywhere: Children being recruited into Madraasas to become suicide bombers; communal riots destroying India; Israel (enough said?); hate crimes across the globe. That’s all it takes, a firm and unyielding principle. The author of the above piece was Hitler, a master of manipulation, one who recognized this and used it to his utmost advantage.

Can man’s intelligence see through any of this meaningless carnage perpetrated around the world? Someday, I hope, every individual will see the light. Until then, we wait and watch. What else can we do?

Don’t know if I offended anybody by this blog. The only reason I write this is because I believe the day will come when the world will rise above the predicament it is hurtling towards. Some revolution will break the mould, and it will be soon enough. Maybe in my lifetime, I sit and wonder…