Comrade Chakra

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...