Comrade Chakra

Now we have all heard, read or been told about Adam and Eve and how they were made an offer they could have refused! We are living in historical times as far as the global economy is concerned. We are re-learning the ills of high risk finance deals, outcome of wrong valuations and the ills of greed. Now who causes such crisis? If you do a root-cause analysis , this is what you’ll get (assuming ofcourse, that you have the same twisted logic as I do): Financial crisis (loan defaults, credit crisis, asset bubbles, market collapse) – are possible because we have these glamorously named entities called Financial Institutions. In the ancient days when these institutions did not exist in such scale, such crisis would not have extended beyond the one village. Financial institutions act as intermediary between people who have excess money and hence want to invest and people who need money, hence want to borrow. People who have excess money – the want to invest only because they know there a...

Now I am not exactly pro-US or pro-Arab , but I certainly consider George Bush’s Iraq policy all wrong. When one undertakes a noble act (deposing a despot like Saddam ) for the wrong reasons (control of Iraq’s oil reserves)…the outcome….is what the US is facing in Iraq today. I also agree that decorum and protocol is important especially in the world of global politics. However, I cannot but find comrade reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi's action of throwing a shoe at the US President most entertaining. The fact that it is Bush Jr at whom he aimed his shoe somehow makes it appear ok. Read full report. Even as Bush learns where the shoe pinches, the Arab world…in their usual distorted sense of priorities, hails the attack. That is so wrong! These acts give your country a bad name, don’t you know. Bombs, bullets and now shoes!!! What next, smelly socks? Incidentally, lest people think this was a spontaneous outburst the reporter made it amply clear that he had been planning it for a ...

I vividly remember a conversation I had with one of my long time friends when I was 27 years old. Me -“Imagine J, it seems like we were in school in just a few years back, and now we are 27” J – “True. Somehow 27 does not seem so old, but 30….man that will really mean death!!” Well, much water has flown since that conversation….30 has come and gone and it has not yet been a disaster. Yet, the other day when I spent sometime in café Coffee Day with some colleagues from a former employer, I could not but feel old looking at the milieu around me. So here’s a truly depressing game you may want to play….. list 5 things that you have noticed of late that tells you that you are growing old ….do not mention your age, it is for the reader to guess , within a range of 5 years ( eg : 15-20, 21-25, 26-30 years etc). No matter which age range you are in, the truth is, you are growing older….can you guess my age from the list below:- My top five: 1. You go to café Coffee Day and feel out of plac...

[UPDATE] Self-help is the best help, as I learnt to my glee in college....I have managed to get rid of the ads on top. Thanks to those who would have helped otherwise!!! =========================================================== As you can see I have tried to give my blog a makeover. I went about it in the truly original way. Downloaded a free template, then with my scant knowledge of HTML (or is it XTML?) tried to delete what Idid not want..... However, I just could not get rid of those ads on top....I would not have bothered if they were on the side bar....but where they are now...those boys need to move. Any geeks who can help?

I came across this article in The Economist - Britain has a proposal to make buying sex liable to criminal charges if it subsequently emerges that the prostitute was controlled for another person’s gain. Read full report. C’mon, give the guy a break…engaging an escort is fraught with so many risks already – from STD to harassment by thugs to embarrassment to fear of getting caught by your wife, getting secretly videotaped or the usual fear for all men during any act of copulation – inability to measure up or rise to the occassion…and now this!! Also, I wonder if the Brits have really thought this through. Just how does a person, seeking gratification of the horizontal kind find out whether the professional before him is in employment or in proprietary business? Does he just ask and expect an honest answer from a lady of the night . Is the defence “She lied your Lordship” going to hold up in court? Does he sign a certificate for himself and keeps it in his pocket before commencing t...

[update on 30 th Nov'08] - It is now clear that the terrorists were not taking any hostages, they were only intent on killing. So the innocents inside were more trapped than taken hostages. So the NSG is not really to be faulted it appears. This is probably the first time that terrorists have actually aimed at foreigners and the creme of society rather than leave a few bombs in a market place visited by commoners. The choice of targets including a Rabbi (probably the first time a Jew has been attacked in India by terrorists) seem to be the outcome of a consolidation of Jehadi forces under a common Arab/Afghan umbrella. ================================================= The Mumbai terror crisis continues third day running. Like so many I am also hurt and enraged. In the newspapers and the news channels there are many a things being written and said. But even in such a crisis we are missing a few important perspectives, the following is an attempt: The NSG has not done a good job...

The Mexicans got it right: "MEXICO CITY - Mexico City is giving out free Viagra and other impotence drugs to men 70 and older. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says the city is implementing the plan because sexuality "has a lot to do with quality of life and our happiness." Read full report. While I whole heartedly congratulate Comrade Mayor Marcelo for taking a hard stand , several questions spring to mind. Why only to men over 70 and older, does it mean that Mexico City has one of the most virile populations, so much so that only men over 70 have any use for the V drug to spruce up their horizontal adventures!! Well, we only hear about Italian men being pretty….excitable, but it appears the Mexicans are way ahead in the game. Also, how are the better halves of the 70 year old men taking this government drive? Will the ladies be able to take it when their men folk rise to the occasion thanks in no small measure, to the Mayor’s munificence? Sure the Mayor does not expect the 7...

Given the well known popularity level of this blog I guess an explanation for my long absence (my last post was some six month’s back) will not be in order. So I will get down to brass- tacks right away. A couple of week’s back I completed a three week holiday, the longest holiday since I left school. I visited Calcutta (so sue me for not using the new name!), my home town for three weeks, made a short trip to Jamshedpur and well…that’s about it. Talk about anticlimax! Actually it was a lot better than it sounds. Calcutta in Durga Puja is always a handful and in Jamshedpur I was able to catch up with one of my bosses (and this is person from whom I have learnt the most in my life) and also one of my Prof’s in XLRI – Professor EM Rao . Prof Rao teaches Industrial Relations in XL would easily figure among one of the most loved and respected Profs on the campus, and believe me, the competition is tough out there. Among other things we started talking about impact of the present finan...

The wrong message:- “Police identified the arrested as Venkatesa Prasad (25), a native of Perambalur, who is pursuing a master's course in business administration.” ”Prasad was nabbed after the police spotted a media advertisement placed by Amir and Prasad to get clients when they shifted base from Mannady to Triplicane recently. They had released an advertisement that they are offering massage to customers, especially women.” Read full report. So often you find the media going gaga about the smart MBA types coming up with innovative business ideas. Can one get any more innovative than this? The young Venkatesa Prasad , bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, hit upon this brilliant idea. He decides to get paid for stuff that most of his fellow male students would be ready to pay for…massaging women. If you read the full report (no pictures alas), you’ll find that they actually started small and became popular by work of mouth sorry, make that word of mouth . As with any start-up th...

The car I drive is registerd in Jamshedpur (JH registration for the uninitiated). Needless to say in Bangalore I am a little wary of the traffic police and have been mostly lucky in escaping scrutiny. However, in the last 6 months I have been stopped thrice on the roads and asked to show registration certificate and road tax receipt. Now here’s the interesting part, on all three occasions I have been stopped by the same cop. This guy is in his early fifties, grey-walrus moustache, salt and pepper hair part hidden by a helmet, wears the Khaki uniform and rides a Hero Honda CD 100. His modus operandi :- Picking out a non-KA registration vehicle, he asks it to stop. "Show road tax receipt… come with me to Police Station, ….RTO’s car is coming just behind me… you have to pay Road Tax of INR 30,000/-" is his opening pitch in staccato English. He closes with " Ok. This is last time. Give something quickly" …palm outstretched. First time he made me stop at Inner-rin...

I was in Melbourne the past couple of weeks. The highlight of the trip was not the work I did there (well…..it never is honestly). It was more like the people I met, the things I did and offcourse the food I ate. Sample this:- Everything has a beginning, middle (a big one if it’s me) and an end. It was no different for Mr Lobster. It began with being pulled away from a siesta with its friends in the aquarium…(see picture) finding its way into my hand and surprise, surprise….in less than 15 minutes it comes before me in peices....looking very different but in a somewhat similar hue. In one of my rare moments of decency I decided against photographing my plate after I had the lobster. You can well imagine it was not a pretty sight. Incidentally I could only have half of it and dutifully asked the rest to be packed for take-away. After a couple of days, as dutifully I took the packet out of the fridge and threw it into the dustbin. What is interesting is the photograph of the tools with...

I am a transit passenger in Bangkok today. The city celebrated Songkran - the Thai new year today. The date on the banner in the picture shows yesterday, but the celebration was really today. Songkran sounds so similar to Sangkranti . Also the new year seems to co-incide very much with the Bengalis' "Nabo Borsho" (meaning new year) as also the Baisakhi in Punjab . I guess some of this can be explained by the ancient influence of Indian culture on Thailand . But here's the funniest part - Bangkok celebrates Songkran on the streets by splashing water mixed with white powder on passersby. Not exactly the same as our Holi , but the resemblance is too close to be just a co-incidence. Should I google this up or leave it to our imagination how the Holi became Songkran in Thailand? is there a massage, sorry message there somewhere (more pictures coming).

Originally intended to publish the following post from the Bangalore Airport itself....but like so many of my intentions this too failed .... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For those who do not know, A Quantum of Solace is the name of the new James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig . But this post is not about Mr Bond , nor is it about the pouting, irreverent Mr Craig . This post is about a certain Mr Shivaram (name changed), Customs Inspector at Bangalore International Airport . Yesterday, on my way out of the country, I wanted to declare a laptop and a camera I was carrying (I have never done this declaration bit before and so was pretty excited thinking how I will demolish yet another item from my …heard-of-it-but-do-not-know-what-it-is list). The well situated and prominent Customs Desk behind the immigration counter was... vacant . Looking around, I found no one, but noticed a small piece of paper stuck on the customs board. It gave the na...

'Thomas Beatie, a resident of Oregon, told The Advocate that carrying a girl for his wife, Nancy, and himself was an 'incredible' experience. Beatie was born as a woman but later he had a chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy, but decided to keep his female reproductive organs. ' Read full report here. Now I know how irritating it is to hear someone say “I told you so” . I also know how much pleasure one derives given the chance to say the same words. So, without apologies, let me tell you, I told you so. You’ll find several posts in the label “Making life simple” where I did allude to major changes coming ….read here and here and here . Here’s an extract from what I posted earlier… "Think about it, you can morph into the opposite sex, and you can give birth without the act of sex. The possibilities are humongous.With asexual reproduction, the higher reason for sex, that of giving birth, will no longer apply. Now when you consider the risks of sex...

There is a lot happening in the roof of the world. And other than a few pseudo sympathetic tsk tsk from the “world community” there seems to be very little going around for the Tibetans. Here are a few facts – Tibet is a poor nation. It’s economy is primarily subsistence farming. The region is mostly dry with little or no mineral reserves and other than being the home of Tibetan Buddhism which is practised in various countries, does not really have much to boast of. Tibet has been under Chinese rule during various stages in history. The present day Dalai Lama evaded arrest by the Chinese escaping Tibet in 1959 when he was 24 and successfully sought asylum in India . The present unrest, which was sparked off on Mar 10 to commemorate a similar show of dissent in 1959 seems to have outdone the earlier event. It is a little ridiculous to hear people initially speculate whether the Chinese will use brute force to quell the uprising. Of course they will. This is the Chinese we a...

I have been away for a while. And in a self-flattering kind of way, my apologies to those who noticed. A few things have been happening around the world. A Marriage Mr Al Zahrani from Taif, near Mecca “A 100-year-old Saudi widower has married for the third time — to a 26-year-old woman”. Read full report. As in most marriages it was a family affair with Mr Al Zahrani’s descendants numbering, hold your breath!! - 120 all trooped in to check out their new Mom/Grand Mom/Great Grandmom. My heart goes out to Comrade Zahrani who has found it in him to touch base with the young lady a fourth of his age. May the almighty give him all strength so that he may rise to the occasion when push comes to the shove (pun intended). Considering his wife is only 26, I wouldn’t wish him god-speed though, as it may be doing his wife a disservice. I get the feeling that the wise Al Zahrani has really thought this thing throught. The propaganda of some terror groups suggest you get 72 virgins in heav...

At the outset, if you are a tennis fan and you are reading this post hoping to know more about Serena William’s Bangalore trip, my apologies. This post is not about the tennis star but about Serena, the now famous Japanese mode l. “The bikini model, who goes by her professional name Serena Kozakura, was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole.” “In her appeal, the defense counsel held up a plate showing the size of the hole and said that she could not squeeze through with her 110cm bust.” Read full report . How unimaginative of the defense counsel. He should have held up a plate showing young Miss Kozukura’s twin assets alongside a plate of the hole. Also let me try to visualize the court scene. Defense Counsel: My Lord, Counsel shall prove to the court that the defendant is wrongly accused. Counsel requests permission to present exhibit 1. Judge (drooling): Ahem….is exhibit one really the dual wonders on display? Press photog...

The day is still to end, but I will stick my neck out and consider this a good budget day. Every year around February there is much brouhaha and balderdash about the budget presentation by the Finance Minister (FM) in the Indian Parliament . This is telecast live on TV and being a finance professional, it is obligatory for me to join my professional colleagues and watch the event. In the initial years of my career I would sit with my colleagues and try to learn as much as I could from the Finance Minister’s speech. In later years, my efforts would be focussed on hiding my ignorance during the FM’s speech and trying to sound intelligent in the half-baked discussions that would inevitably follow. Now a days, I do not feel it obligatory to sound aware or intelligent when it comes to the budget. If you ask me something about the budget and I do not know, I’ll tell you exactly that- “I do not know”, the most cathartic response to any embarrassing question. I have finally arrived. Prior...

Luke Skywalker: I'm not afraid. Master Yoda: Oh. You will be. You will be. ---- The Empire Strikes Back =================================== It was late in the night. The city, variously known as the Garden City, Silicon Valley, IT Capital was eerily quiet and dark. There was no moon out that night, and the few street lights that were on, threw long shadows, much like sentinels guarding an ancient city. A steady stream of vehicles could be seen making their way quietly towards a ramshackle building. It was dark. No faces could be seen inside the helmets or the tinted window panes of the cars. Had the faces been visible it would have stunned the onlooker. Stern faces with fixed unblinking stares looking straight ahead. Not looking to their right or left, it was as if these people were driving by instinct towards the building which bore its name on a broken, much weathered wooden plate " M’soft ". A solitary owl followed one of the cars and let out a gurgling hoot as the...

Well, Australia is in the news once again. No, I am not talking cricket. Australia has my vote for having the Best Church in the World . “Riverside Church pastor Andrew Newbold and his wife Megan have launched a four-week series on sex, marriage, adultery and pornography. They have in fact gone ahead with advertising about this seminar on a flyer that reads: "the best sex you'll ever have." Read full report. Now I have, in the past been in disagreement with the action of a certain church in England. Read blog here . However this time I have no reservations in doffing my hat to M/s Newbolds from the Riverside Church . They have hit a pot of gold. Sex up religion, yes dudes go for it. The last guy who did that real well was our own Osho and we know the limitless success he achieved in his lifetime. Other assorted Gurus sprouted in the Hippi era of 60’s and early 70’s in the US propagating sex as the way to salvation (especially when laced with LSD ). And who better to...

Here’s a quick wrap-up of some of the more interesting happenings in the recent past. The Chinese New Year is the Year of the Rat and Malaysian women developed a taste in a particular type of linen. "Malaysian Chinese women are snapping up red panties with mouse motifs for good luck as they prepare to usher in the Year of the Rat, a news report said on Sunday." Read full report . First things first, what’s with the Chinese new years……last year they had the year of the Pig, this year the year of the Rat!!! Are there no better animals? I mean a pig in any language would serve as a fairly all embracing abusive word, and rat….that certainly cannot be flattery whether you are a Chinese or an English man. Should we not expect a year of the Tiger or at least Dragon!! Ofcourse with my usual objectvity and broad-mindedness, I find nothing worng in Ganesha’s vahana (consort) ….now is that a rat or a mouse? And let’s move on to these Malaysian women. A mouse motif on your inner-ware?...

Last Tuesday (15th January’08) I spent an interesting evening. Why interesting? Well, not because I got a chance to rub shoulders with some of Bangalore’s (and some not of Bangalore's) social elite, not because, for the first time I attended a televised debate getting recorded, not because I got free food and drinks, honestly the only thing good about the food was that it was free, but because I had my 10 seconds of fame. Ok, and the free food and drinks as well. The occasion was CNN-IBN’s Indian of the year award 2007 and the Bangalore road show to promote the same. To read more about it, click here . The venue was Taj West End , among the more spacious 5 star properties in Bangalore, with an entrance so well tucked away that it took me three passes to actually find it. How well I put the blame on anything but me. The debate started well after its scheduled time, so there was plenty of opportunity to gulp down a few drinks (Champagne, cool!) and unobtrusively (or so I thought) ...