clog

I am convinced that I look really gullible after being attacked by folks from amway thrice in my life. I have nothing against them and I think they are doing good for themselves but its funny that they are so easy to spot and predictable. After the first encounter, I almost felt like asking if the person is from Amway the moment he asked for my phone number, but I stopped short. He almost proved me wrong by never reaching out to me again until one day after three years I get a call from him (yes I did save all their numbers and I remembered them). The third time, I did the rude thing, the next day as soon as I got a call from the friendly guy I asked him if he is by any chance associated with bww and it ended abruptly.

They are all trained by Britt World wide and use a template based approach to (s)talking

- They will always stalk you in a mall in the checkout queue or a book shop or on a road on the pretext of asking for directions.
- They will find a way to complement you - your job or your clothes(?) or anything at all.
- Then they will ask for your phone number and promise you to keep in touch.
- Then wait for x amount of time before they will call you with a business plan for which they are looking out for ambitious young people like you. This x varies from one day to up to 3 years based on my experience

They tend to oversell their idea to the point that they make rudeness the easiest alternative, which I haven't tried.

Also, there is a flaw in their basic advice that it is easy to sell stuff to friends and family. In fact it is the worst thing you can do for your relations. The moment you exchange money with your relatives or friends you start on a journey to screw your relations.

While dealing with your relatives in the domain of lending/borrowing, here is the sequence of events in increasing order of disastrous-ness.

- Lend without charging interest and never ask it back. Not even a possible time line
- Lend without interest and ask it back
- Not lend any money
- Lend and charge interest (doesn't matter less than the market rate)

These experiences have made me really suspicious of any stranger trying to make small talk with me any more.

So many times has Sachin been accused of not playing when required and most of the times the exercise of determining whether his playing well was required or not happens at the end of the match when all is done and dusted. I don't think today was the day when he was required to play given its not a final/qualifier/do_or_die situation. In any case, Ind - SA match is going on and our current captain and potential future captain are playing against a tough target. Let's see what comes out of it. Hope my cynicism is proved wrong.

It is a self sustaining nuclear reaction now and things can only get bigger in years to come. When IPL came in the first year, it kind of caught me unawares and by the time I could predict or analyze what will happen to it or whether I will like it or not, I got sucked in the whirlpool of DLF maximas, cheer leaders and KKR's mysterious ways.

This time, I got hooked to the auction even though I missed the meaty part due to my uber-lazy Saturday routine. All these years we have seen people changing. We have seen Mandira Bedi turning from a bimbette asking cute questions about cricket to an 'expert' talking about all rounders, consistency and conditions. Gaurav Kapoor and Sameer Kochhar are joining the rank of Arun Lal in doling out bullshit. It was so lame when they would comment for 20 seconds after every auction saying the same things in different words. They were surprised that Ganguly and Lara had no takers even though post auction analysis they shamelessly said that was as they had predicted. They can actually be hired to run some of the corporate meetings, press conferences where they have to talk about the great works of the team and the long way to go and some such.

Neeta Ambani came in her corporate avtaar in her black rimmed padaku glasses to give you an impression that she was the one who developed models to decide on the players to bid for. Siddhartha Mallya was pretty animated in his expressions and was showing surprises at Vijay Mallya's actions as if he was really getting what was going on.

One of the other things I like about IPL is that it puts India at a place it should be, a place of might and power. No longer are Indians at a disadvantage just for being Indian. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, most of us attribute our job to the currency arbitrage or at least that is the perception, but not in IPL. All are paid in the same denomination and yet being an Indian places you at an advantageous position.

The auction numbers reek of a valuation bubble, even more than Facebook :) Not sure when people will make the money they are hoping for. More on that later, maybe. Few interesting numbers that came out of the auctions were for Angelo Mathews and Saurabh Tiwary, who went for more than 60 times their previous prices and Gambhir went for a whopping 11 crores, highest ever in IPL and there are a few more. I am waiting for cricinfo to do some stats pieces on the auction. However, none of this means that Gambhir is a greater player than every other, hell, he is not even in the top 3 in his own team. It's just a matter of chance and reasserts what Warren Buffet has always said -"Tide is always more important than the swimmer"

It is still some time before it actually starts, but it definitely is off to an excellent start, yet again.

My dhaba has different menus for eating in and take away. Now, conventional wisdom would suggest if you are ordering a take away it should cost less unless you are giving away containers which cost. My dhaba does no such thing yet the cost of eating in is less than the takeaways. The only explanation I could think of was that having more people on the dhaba is good for business. Strange as it is, I am still stuck given that it is the most convenient.

Here comes another customary new year post as cliched as the phrase "Time flies by so fast".  For those who say time flies very fast, I would ask what is their benchmark. Would you like a year to last two or what?

So, in an attempt to break the cliche, I don't have any new year resolutions like every other year. I am not a big fan. However, it is nice to have things like new year. They are like commas in an endless sentence called life. It will be really hard to make sense had it not been for these breaks.

For me 2010 will be known as an year of insignificance, which isn't bad even though it does sound so. Saving more details on this for my autobiography ;) so in a way you are lucky having escaped the boring details for now.

Lets see what I have in the next year, like every other year Bejan Daruwala says this will be my year. Had it been him writing my destiny, I would be Barack Obama or Siddharth Mallya. Since I am neither of the two, I hope to go about my business as usual enjoying the little break on the pretext of new year. For, tomorrow is another day.

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. - The Shawshank Redemption

This is one of the most memorable quotes from one of the most memorable Hollywood movies. The movie is long and the pace is slow; signifying the pace of time in a prison. Things don't move fast, yet over a period of time, the small things done by Andy created a whole new world for himself outside and a way to get to it.

Rich or poor, we all live with the hope of something, looking forward to something. And I think to be able to do that is the right of everyone and to be able to enable that for someone else is our privilege. There are a lot of children in our country who don't know hope so well, because it is hard when you are hungry. What they need is, a sign, a ray of hope, that things can get better and that hope lies with people like us. And trust me it won't be hard to do.

What I am trying to tell you here is basically two things - hope and the power of small contributions done by many over time.

When trying to do something you feel right about, don't go by how big or significant it is, but how soon you can do it. I am sure there were times in life when you promised to do something for underprivileged. Here is a chance for you to feed a child for one full year and all it will cost you is a little over 500 bucks. I am sure most of you will be able to make that contribution without changing any significant digit in your bank balance. "Akshay Patra" is trying to ensure that no child goes hungry. You can make your contribution by clicking this (And believe me this is not going to my account, not this time :)

Make sure you don't belittle your contribution by weighing it in terms of the amount of money. Its not just the money, what you are giving is - Hope.

There is a lot of uproar about wikileaks and I don't think I have taken a side yet, or at least clearly so. If I have to lean, I will follow the diktat, when in doubt more is good and support the leaks over censorship. However, what struck me while reading one of the articles was the following excerpt (courtesy rediff)


A group of hackers took down the sites of Internet payment service Paypal and Mastercard and Visa after they froze the flow of funds to Assange's accounts


Looking at the tone of the comment, it looks (and I am sure they did) as if they could do it at will without a long process of planning and execution. And that is the scary part given so much of business and life is moving online. If there is a group of people around us capable enough to cause severe damage, and the scarier part, without jeopardizing their identity (mostly) and with possibly nothing but their moral rectitude stopping them from doing it.

These are the two most common places from where I order food and I like both of them. However, I noticed the huge difference in the time taken to order stuff from these places. To be fair to both, I never get into any long discussions during ordering. It is always a fixed directive order and that will be all kind of message. For pizza hut, it used to be less than a minute but now it has gone somewhere close to 2 minutes with all the questions and promotions thrown in. And for my dhaba, I timed it and found out that it took an incredible 6 seconds!

This is not a movie review because I am not sure how I felt about "the social network" as a movie. It in fact didn't seem a lot like movie to me. While watching it, I was reminded of the documentary "The pirates of silicon valley" and a book I read on Steve Jobs (iCon). I always thought Steve Jobs as the (relatively) non technical guy (Wozniak being the tech muscle) who by virtue of his other qualities got to run the company as his own. I am talking of the beginnings and not about his eventual departure before he was called back again. Facebook had the tech guy holding the reins whereas the business guy was sidelined neatly though with help from dubious avenues. So, it seems, the tables are turned for better or worse.

A little more clarification on Jobs vs. the business guy comparison. Honestly there is none. I think Jobs was way too hands on to be compared with Saverin who in all earnestness said he didn't know how to change his relationship status. Also, Jobs has far redeemed his image in last decade or so and needs no more justification to his value add.

Now, I don't intend to pass any judgment on any of the guys as I am a believer in Karma and I think "over a period of time" you will get what you deserve. I don't deny the presence of outliers to this rule, but like I have many times said earlier, if you are out of luck, you are just fucked. So no rules apply to you any more.

One thing is for sure, the aura of Mark Z will grow enormously with the movie, possibly an almost facebook-like expansion. It might actually give a big boost to the eventual IPO if it happens soon. On that front, I am of the opinion that they should do that within next one year. With the rapidly changing world of internet, it doesn't take a lot of time for things to go downhill and faster will the reaction of investors who tend to anticipate these things. It is the time that they en-cash their "equity" literally. It is already valued at $25b and I am not sure if their growth trajectory is steep enough to make the risk worth it. I can come back a year later and check on how my analysis fared. I have a terrible record at it, but thankfully most of it is undocumented.

(relatively long post)

As promised earlier, I am going to talk about my fascination with trashy reality shows. I will start with my lack of fascination for reality shows dealing with talent. I tried watching KBC, but failed to continue for long because I thought I was trying to see a quiz show. However, KBC tries and is actually a lot more than that. It is supposed to be about thrills, emotions, travails and what not. I get a feeling that most of the folks who watch it, don't even care about the question, except whether the contestant got it right or wrong. Whether the contestant, who is  a farmer, looking to repay his loan with the 25 lac he might win, will win or not. That's the start of my disconnect with talent based reality shows. Whenever I watch them, I end up watching for the talent part, but realize there is way too much dilution of the talent part due to emotions, drama and all the circus around. It just seems too much for me to look at these disparate aspects.

I would like to focus on a few things at a time rather than looking at too many things superficially. Most of the reality shows try to cover so many dimensions that they lose my interest. In fact, more than the talent, most of them focus on drama. All they want to show is drama, a peak into how people behave in different situations. The key is situations. They amplify and accelerate their reactions by virtue of making the stakes higher and platform bigger. To enable that, they need a backdrop, 3 months of house arrest, or a life in wild.

My point is, why dilute the backdrop by having a talent layer in it. If I watch a talent show, I would like the most talented one to win and not someone else for reasons other than his/her talent. And I am not sure if that always happens. So, if we are in for drama, then let there be drama, totally undiluted.

In talent less reality show, the winner like in real life doesn't have to be the best one. It is a combination of chance, talent, personality and so many other factors contributing in equal measures. It is so damn uncertain, just like real life. The two reality shows that came closest to achieve total undiluted life like simulation were "iss jungle se mujhe bachao" and big boss. Jungle.. not so much because winning a task also played its part in elimination unlike big boss which is totally unadulterated. The show also works at creating those situations, but a lot of times that isn’t even required.

The trashy part of every one's behavior goes on to show what Joker said and I always believed (the cynic in me :)). It couldn't have been put better, so reproducing his quote here verbatim:

Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other

This may be true of each one of us yet we don't see enough of this simply because life is kind. And a lot of people pretty much go through all the life without many situations that threaten to tear off their mask. Reality TV does everything in its capacity to force that mask off.

I have been an avid follower of reality TV, but it seems even from my standards it has gone to new levels of depravity and somehow what Rakhi Sawant does in front of camera has a very direct correlation to it. She is the sensex of deparvity of reality TV in India. Fresh off the press is the death of a poor guy who came looking for justice (really? Dear justice seeker, I think your destiny was decided the moment you thought of this) in Rakhi's show where she plays judge and doles out verdicts like "arre tum to namarad ho" (Translation: you are impotent).

One other show which I found repulsive was Emotional Atyachar which I couldn't see more than one episode. Looking at the trend, not sure how long will I be able to enjoy these shows. But till the point I can, I am eagerly waiting for Pamela Anderson to enter the Bigg Boss house :)